#we need a lot of setup and a lot of character

[abronzeagegod]

WIP: Eldritch Tech Support Chapter 1: Helping a Spider Aspect

[Author's Note: this is the first chapter of a long, multi-chapter story that is likely going to be longer than all the other eldritch tech support stories combined, probably north of 20,000 words. As of writing, I'm just under 8,000 words and I haven't even hit the main plot yet. This is also being written in third person because it feels very necessary for story and scenes, I do plan on redoing some select parts in the traditional second person to see how it flows. Please enjoy and thank you to everyone who has read and supported me so far!]

Tech support is hard, this is a known fact, not a secret.

To be good at tech support you really need to have intelligence, charisma, and lots of faith.

Luckily Aeth knew that they had intelligence, well as much as they could know that about themself. They knew how to code and use some of the languages of computers, including the notoriously complex and silly C++- (C Plus Plus Minus). They had a degree from a local university attesting to that effect. Intelligence also governs knowing how computers interact with each other, and how the hardware within a computer interacts with the computer as a whole.

They're also fairly certain they have charisma. At least that's what their best friend Lyta keeps telling them.

"You have such an easy charisma about you. You're nice, easy to talk to. It's why I like you so much," she says at least once a week.

Charisma for tech support is a must because people can be weirdly cagey with their personal electronics, and they often refuse to tell the whole story from some combination of shame, self interest, and ignorance. The people themselves are a puzzle that require trust to solve and get them to reveal what insane, stupid, nonsensical things that they did to the whole system to get it to function this way.

However, the most crucial skill to have in tech support is faith.

Faith is key to figuring out exactly what the hell is going on and why the client believes that this whole thing is working, and why the working thing suddenly stopped working. Why the things that should work, do work.

They all have to be something of a priest with no god. They become a priest with every job, a priest that believes in this specific code, a priest of servers and computers and cold dead things imbued with the power of lightning and math.

Every job is a little bit different, a little bit stranger than the one before it. Every role of a priest ever so slightly different.

And Aeth has been accused of having too much faith at times. Faith that has to go somewhere, so it goes into the job.

Aeth was out in the field today. Luckily their rotation was pretty easy, they had two days out in the field, two days in the call center. Not that bad, all things considered. This was their last day before their thankfully long weekend which couldn't come soon enough.

It had been a busy day, crisscrossing their district in the northeast of the city, bouncing between several different tech support calls. Mostly internet related things, lots of outages and router trouble, at least one person was having their router haunted by his mother-in-law.

If they were lucky they'd only have two more calls to do before they called it a day and finally went home.

But that's the thing about their luck, it was always bad.

The penultimate job was for an underearth spider aspect god. They couldn't remember the exact religious denomination they belonged to, but it mattered little.

It is the nature of priests and tech support personnel to be superstitious.

They changed in the work van before heading to the third floor walk up the spider aspect lived in.

The rules for spider aspects were to wear colors, but not super bright, anything that attracted too much attention was either predator or prey. A nice pastel blue to signify that they weren't aggressive but also that they weren't something to be consumed.

There were plenty of rules and restrictions on the entities that lived in the city, and they knew that their job would never willingly send a tech support person into the lair of a giant person-eating spider, but they still had that fear, and that fear fed the superstitions.

Thus they changed in the van and before they went into the den of the spider, they grabbed a small vial of an anise solution, something that was supposed to be abhorrent to all spiders.

It was just in case, they told themselves.

They reached the door and knocked a few times, calling out to announce themselves.

"It's Tech Support," Aeth called out.

A few moments later the door cracked open and out spilled some darkness.

"We called for you," the entity just beyond the door said in a raspy voice with several clicks as they spoke.

"My name is Aeth," they say as they hold up their work ID to verify that they are there to help.

"Come in," the spider aspect said.

The door creaked open, and Aeth stepped beyond it to the apartment. It was dark and dry in there, it smelled faintly of some kind of incense, but they couldn't place exactly what kind. The darkness felt almost like a blanket draped over everything.

"You've had some issues installing some hardware?" they say as the spider god closes the door.

The spider was tall, almost seven feet but that was with all the hunching over and keeping their many limbs tucked in close. If they were to straighten up and spread out they would be almost oppressive. They were dressed simply, with a t-shirt that had a very detailed train on it that said, "My One True Love The A57-19 Commuter".

The spider nods it's great, large head.

"New keyboard, won't work," the spider said as it led Aeth towards the area where the desktop sat. "Requires new drivers, very frustrating." They can't help but notice the awkward way the spider can't quite pronounce the s's in their sentences, and how they have been deliberately avoiding them.

"Should be an easy fix," Aeth said as they sat at the computer and took out their own equipment.

The second they said it, they knew that they shouldn't have.

---

Fifteen minutes into the job, they knew that things were much much dumber than they should have been.

The new mechanical keyboard need some kind of new driver installed but it wouldn't give any indication into what driver it needed. Aeth spent a decent amount of time looking up the exact make and model of the keyboard on their own equipment, but it seemed that the company that made it flamed out very hard a few months ago.

("Found keyboard preowned, very cheap, in great condition, am on budget," the spider explained.)

The company wasn't the best or the most trustworthy, thus their sudden and total collapse.

As they were very close to locating the problem suddenly a small train that they didn't notice on a track hidden in the darkness of the apartment all but thundered in. The track was elevated near the ceiling, and the small model train was bright and loud in the dark and quiet room. It looked like some kind of Immortal Dancer party train with bright, flashing neon attached to all the train cars.

The entrance came as a shock to Aeth, but it really shouldn't have. They had a look at the computer and saw the icons on the desktop.

The spider aspect had three different train simulation games and they might have peaked and saw that they had logged close to 800 hours on one of them.

They tried to apologize to Aeth for the interruption and the train was on a timer that they had forgotten about, but honestly, whatever brings people joy, even if they are an underearth spider god aspect that would give some humans nightmares.

"I'm not here to judge," Aeth assured them and returned to the problem.

Eventually, they found the fix when they took the keyboard apart and found the little add-on that shouldn't have been there.

After examining it closely, and double checking their work, Aeth turned to the spider. "I think I found the problem. NDIVISION, the company that made this keyboard went out of business a few months back under a lot of customer complaints and bad business practices. They had, apparently, installed a keylogger in their keyboards to nominally track the use of their keyboards and when things needed to be replaced but was a massive security and privacy risk, so the complain exploded essentially so that suing them would be very hard to do. The keylogger is trying to reach a server that doesn't exist anymore."

The spider looked incredibly disheartened. Aeth privately congratulated themself on recognizing the body language of a spider god aspect.

"I can, probably, fix it. But the trick is that this will 100% void any warranty that you got with the keyboard, but since the company that would fulfill the warranty doesn't exist anymore."

"What can be done?"

"I can fix it, if you tell me I can violate the warranty. It might break later down the line, but this will work for all your day-to-day needs."

"Streaming?" The spider looked eager. Aeth had recognized the setup of a new streamer, trying to get their thing off the ground.

"Absolutely."

"Go ahead."

Aeth nodded and in a few short moments, removed the keylogger, then quickly wrote some code into the driver for the keyboard to bypass the keyboard trying to call the server of a defunct, terrible company.

The whole job took an hour.

Before they left, Aeth left the name of a very good company that made excellent keyboards when the spider was ready to upgrade to something new.

The spider thanked Aeth profusely, and almost didn't let them leave to get to their next job.

It was still early enough to make it to their last job of the day.

Hopefully this one would be much easier than the previous one.

Hopefully Aeth's luck would hold out.

if you like this check out my kofi page where you can read subsequent chapters early and find a bunch of my other stuff

[egophiliac]

Do you think this is the Finale of book 7? qwq

at this point I'm not going to believe it's actually over until we get the Diasomnia dorm reruns! those will be the portent I cling to in these times of uncertain anime character drama. 😰

honestly I'd been pretty convinced that 13 would be the end -- or that there might be, like, an epilogue chapter or something, but this would at least be the end of the main plot of 7. but now it looks like the Armor of Dawn Silver card is actually going to be for the second half next week, so...now I'm right back in "WHAT IS HAPPENING" camp! like, I can see a couple of possibilities of how that might still work out, but...well. I guess we'll find out tonight. :')

[mantisgodsdomain]

Fun note of the specific pronoun situation with the translation errors between Wasp and Bugnish: under normal circumstances, Jayde would get automatically assigned he/him in Bugnish, since she uses the standard "non-queen social bug" pronouns that roughly 95% of the Wasp Hive do, which get translated to drone pronouns in Bugnish due to a roughly century-old miscommunication. She gets assigned worker pronouns in Bugnish specifically because those are what Kabbu defaults to with social bugs, and other people picked it up from him during introductions. This Will Be A Point Of Confusion For Her Whenever She Asks About It.

[odysseys-blood]

idk why some ppl think otherwise but its like. normal to not be 100% comfortable with everything in an adult game that doesnt make you less "worthy" or w/e of being there its not like some edgy prove that you can handle reading about xyz fringe kink competition. however you do have to be respectful in both directions. if thats what you want to read, fine but everyone doesn't have to and everyones preferences and their comfort zones are very different. can it be annoying reading the same takes over and over? sure but if its something that like. a majority of normal ass people would be uncomfortable with then it makes sense! the main thing is getting used to saying this is not for me, lets put it down for now and maybe we can come back when theres something i enjoy.

[kianamaiart]

Do you think “Moon Sailor” was a bit, on the nose?

it was intended to be! i made the pilot while keeping in mind that the magical girl genre is actually somewhat niche

i wanted to make sure people like my parents or my girlfriend's law school peers or people who don't watch anime at all could easily follow and understand what's going on. if i asked my parents to name a magical girl anime, they'd be like "what is that" but if i asked them what sailor moon was, they'd be like "oh yeah i've seen those characters before!" sailor moon undoubtedly iconic and people IMMEDIATELY know what it is upon hearing it. "moon sailor" is VERY OBVIOUSLY a parody of that so it's easy to get in that one second of time i have before moving on.

the tricky thing about doing a pilot is the setup and the trickier thing about doing a SUBVERSIVE pilot is that you have to set up what you're subverting on top of everything else. that's why zira's dialogue and language is also a bit expository and on the nose during the "gasp" part. there are people watching who don't know the magical girl genre and its tropes! like how is someone supposed to know that aika anticlimactically poofing into her magical form was a joke if they didn't even know that a magical girl transformation was SUPPOSED to happen? i thought i spelled out hoshi's whole thing pretty well or didn't really need to go that into it but i saw a lot of people confused about what they were and why they were there at all (until zira tells us that they're a magical mascot).

back to "moon sailor," it's a silly one off joke meant to quickly signal to the audience that zira likes manga/anime and the magical girl genre specifically as well as circumvent copyright. i also personally just like on the nose bits hahaha. like on big city greens whenever we parody a brand we usually just put a "B" in front of it. one of my favorite being "blego blocks"

this turned into unsolicited writing advice and definitely more than what you asked for but i hope its helpful to anyone out there looking to make their own shows!! clarity, spelling stuff out and sometimes handholding is important especially in a pilot. even though it can feel stilted sometimes, it's better than completely losing your audience or leaving them with questions. but now that the pilot's done it's job, any following episodes i might make will be unburdened by too much expository language haha

[writers-potion]

Scenes: The Basics🏕️

The Four Chords of a Scene

The scene is a fictional unit that comprises of the following:

Two major chords: Action + Reaction

Two minor chords: Setup + Deepening (be kept to minimum)

A "beat" is a smaller unit within a scene. You can think of this as a paragraph.

1. Action

Action happens when a character does something in order to attain his main objective. In a given scene, he has a scene purpose.

This can include: yelling, shutting the door, fighting, crying, pulling someone back, hugging....basically when your character does something or the other to alleviate the pain or take part in conflict.

2. Reaction

A reaction scene is how a Lead character feels emotionally when something happens to him.

A literary novel may feel like a lot of reaction scens because they are generally more about the interior life of a character.

Reaction is often done in "beats" where the character moves from (1) questioning himself, then (2) providing self-justification to (3) being angry beyond reason, etc.

You can put a "reaction beat" (not a whole scene!) in the middle of action so we know how the character is feeling.

3. Setup

These are things that must occur in order for subsequent scenes to make sense.

All novels need a certain amount of setup to show who the Lead is, what he does and why.

Build in some problem, however slight, to the setup scene. It can be just an alarm ringing or door suddenly opening - something that brings immediacy.

4. Deepening

Deepening is to novel as spice is to food.

This is what you mix to deepen the reader's understanding of character or setting. Make it fresh, drop it in strategically.

Deepening chords are interesting/shocking/fun and kind of in line with the overall theme, but they don't serve a particular purpose.

If you like my blog, buy me a coffee☕ and find me on instagram! 📸

[youkaiyume]

I am back from Moana 2. Spoiler free initial thoughts:

While I don't think it was as bad as I thought it would be it also was not what I would call good? It was okay. I think the setup/lore is not very well thought out and it just expects us to accept a lot of it cuz things are happening. They really needed to spend more time worldbuilding. The songs aren't as memorable, but there were one or two that I think are solid. I think there are too many characters and literally Moana's crew is just a copy and paste of Buzz Lightyear's crew from Lightyear. Just as I predicted.

You could really tell though that this was meant to be a series. The narrative flow of it was not as smooth for a movie and I can break up each part as if it was "ah and now this is an episode and this is an episode." At some point I also felt like 'this feels like a video game level and I am meeting an NPC that just directs me to the next section.' So that wasn't great. I'm ngl there were some parts where I was bored or felt like it dragged on too long.

But what we ARE eating GOOD though is all that DELICIOUS Moana and Maui content. Their relationship and interactions are so sweet and when they're reunited again it's literally like seeing two puzzle pieces fit back together and they are well oiled machine. They worked so well together that it kind of makes painfully obvious that we didn't really need the other characters at all. Seeing them and their maturing dynamic was worth it alone.

Overall it was. Okay. I am still kind of nervous where they plan to take this franchise now cuz it's clear they want to do more. And why wouldn't they, Moana is probably the only few things keeping Disney afloat from their mediocrity streak. Did this break the streak? I can't really say it did, but it wasn't a bad time. Not like Wish or Frozen 2 was a bad time. But the possibility of seeing more Moana and Maui adventures is still a bit exciting.

7/10.

[lustlovehart]

Hi hi hi I love your blog I love how you coordinate the characters you like it makes it way easy to see if we have any similar faves! For twst do you have any Yan!Rollo thoughts to spare? Any crumbs at all? 🎤

I'm happy the setup for my character list actually worked! I'm willing to write for a lot of characters, but I do have preferences (not to say I hate writing for characters that aren't my favs, sometimes you js get a spark of inspo and NEED to write) so I wanted people to easily know who I enjoyed to write/draw for more!

Warnings: [Yandere], Obsession, Idealization, Delusions, Kisses, He's a freak (Literally)

Yandere Rollo who's the type to not bask in your glory, but rather simply, linger, in it. Oh, but don't be fooled, if he had the opportunity to he would swallow you and your entirety like fine wine.

But he doesn't, because despite his wicked need to be your one and only, he knows the only way you'll ever be his, is to trap all your affections in a bottle and keep it close to his heart.

This doesn't mean he can't find someway to bypass his own rules. It may be a misdemeanor in his morals, but he isn't truly hurting you.

Rollo, who is the type to try and be realistic with his affections, yet a deeper part of him pushes past all rational thought and imagines you as his light. An even more suppressed part of him wishes for himself to be your light.

"Do you really only eat grapes and croissants? I'm not sure if that's a very nutritional meal..." Rollo's tired eyes glance up from his plate at you, poor table manners having you lean on the surface as you stab at a piece of cake.

"You speak like that and eat different variations of dessert at least once a week." his expression doesn't change, but his point of focus does, trained at the piece of frosting on the corner of your lip.

"Well i'm sorry for not wanting to eat the same thing over and over again." You point down at his plate, 14 grapes and half a croissant left on the dish. He's ready to say something, but then a hint of defiance glints in your eyes, your hand quickly taking the croissant from him. "Well, you can get something else or trek back to town for another one." You place the pastry on your lips, opening your mouth to engulf the rest of the bread, but before you have the chance to eat any of it, you blink at Rollo's face on the other end. With each bite of the other half letting him close in on you. "Rollo-"

In the last consumption, he steals your end from your lips. It has you tense at the proximity, and he's leaning in, and he's coming closer to your lips...

And his hand is quickly turning your chin to allow his thumb to swipe the piece of frosting away. You stare at him wide-eyed at the act, questioning what just occurred. But before you can ask him what the hell that was about, he leaves.

Because he knows, he would tell you if you ask.

Rollo who keeps this obsession compressed in public, but the moment he's alone, he smiles to himself, thoughts of you racing through his mind.

Throughout the day, Rollo avoids you lest he jump to his desires. But he will notice the way he sticks out his tongue to lick his lips, savoring you from your half of the croissant. Secretly, he wishes to have left the bread longer in your mouth so more of you would sog its flavor.

He even notices the way he bites his thumb, tongue peaking out to strip clean the flavor of icing. Even after its essence is wiped clean, he continues. He imagines himself indulging in sin. Rather than swiping the frosting he should've cleaned it with his own mouth.

Or maybe even, continued going after the entirety of the bread was gone, taste you rather than a pastry.

Oh, but you might be sweet, too sweet for even him. The thought though, has him clench his fist...

Rollo who keeps a secret journal filled to the brim of you.

Pictures you had taken, items you left in his room when you were sleeping over, even more personals no one other than you should have. It's truly horrific. There's an entire page sprayed with your perfume (That he personally hunted down himself.), that he lays next to him at night to imagine you're there.

There are also words scribbled in neat handwriting, detailing the love he wishes to spill for you.

Rollo who, despite how hard he wishes to keep you far from harm and the outside cruel influence, will wait until your heart is for him.

Because, you are his light, one that must continue to shine in order to light the horrible life he has lived. He will harbor you growth for as long as he can, until the moment your candle burns for him, and you're all his.

Once that happens, he will never have to worry about his delusions, being delusions any longer.

[anthurak]

Something I think is very much worth considering when analyzing the oppressive, classist societal system we’re seeing in Helluva Boss, most notably in the latest episode:

Satan is not really a ‘tyrant’ in the way I think a lot of people have started viewing him as. At least, he’s NOT some ‘usurper’ who has ‘seized power’ in Lucifer’s absence and now ‘rules with an iron fist’ with no one powerful enough to stand against him. For one, I think it’s pretty clear that this position as the ‘Lawman of Hell’ is a role that Satan has always held, even before Lucifer left.

Rather, let’s consider the fact that while Satan might be the one enforcing this oppressive system, he is FAR from the only one supporting or BENEFITING from it.

We have Mammon, possibly Leviathan, and basically the ENTIRE Goetia royalty who are clearly in FULL, enthusiastic support of this system.

Meanwhile Leviathan and Belphagor (assuming the former isn’t in full support of this system like Mammon) seem to be either too apathetic or too blissed out to really care, which likely also applies to pretty much any ‘not enthusiastically classist/racist’ Goetia as well.

Which just leaves Asmodeous and Beelezbub and MAYBE a handful of Goetia like Vassago who actually DO care and want to do something to help.

Really, I think the ‘vote’ we saw this episode is a clear demonstration of why there is only so much Ozzie and Bee can actually do. They are outnumbered, even among their fellow Sins.

I think it’s not so much that Satan ‘seized’ power in Lucifer’s absence. Rather, without Lucifer there is no one to truly CHECK the power that Satan already has. Sure, maybe a majority of the other Sins might be able to do that as well, but as we see, THAT isn’t happening either.

Satan is not some all-powerful tyrant running an oppressive system. While he may be considered the ‘face’ of that system, he is simply the enforcer of an oppressive system run by many powerful people who benefit from it. With any in power who might want to change things being too few to really do anything about it.

This is why I feel like what we are seeing here is not so much setup for conflict in Helluva Boss, but rather setup for a future plotline in Hazbin Hotel.

Because unlike Blitzo, Stolas or even Ozzie and Bee, CHARLIE is in fact someone who COULD do something about all this.

Even without Lucifer’s help (who I imagine will be indisposed due to other factors for the sake of not making all this TOO easy), Charlie DOES have the influence, charisma and if all else fails the raw strength to actually change things.

Whether by giving Asmodeus and Beelzebub the support they need, snapping/slapping Belphagor and Leviathan out of whatever detached apathy they’re in or maybe just giving Satan, Mammon and the entire Goetia court a brutal ass-kicking.

Probably all of the above.

All in all, I think Satan is a really great example of an antagonistic character who is very much A 'bad guy', but at the same time is not THE 'Bad Guy'. In the thematic sense that Satan is very much part of the oppressive system yet is very much NOT the root cause of it.

And in the narrative sense; both short-term in the fact that Andrealphus is very much the actual 'main bad guy' of this episode, and in the long-term of Satan likely being much more of an antagonist for Charlie in Hazbin Hotel, rather than anyone in Helluva Boss.

[tackykachowch]

Silco was set up to be Fishbones from the start

Disclaimer: I won't take season 2 into account At All, because it can't work with setups and payoffs even if its life depends on it.

Alrighty. As we've seen Season 1 paid a lot of attention to set up canon things from LoL into the show as naturally and logically as possible, and at least from my point of view, it handled the job with flying colors. Jayce's hammer, Vi's gauntlets, Vander/Warwick etc, nothing felt out of place. But how does Silco fit into this at all? Let's get down to business to defeat the huns

First of all, what even is Fishbones? In the canon of LoL, it's one of if not the most iconic weapon Jinx has. And it is not only a weapon to her, but a loyal and "beloved" companion, as it's described in one of her skins. She constantly talks to it, and in contrast to her chaotic and impulsive nature, Fishbones is very pragmatic and calm. Sounds like a certain someone, doesn't it? But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

But how does Silco go from being Jinx's father to one of her weapons? There are a lot of points that support that actually, I was surprised myself ngl.

- Silco is the only character in the entire series who is directly and tightly connected to water and underwater creatures. Silco was "reborn" in the water when Vander tried to kill him, the first office he had was placed under the water, with a huge observational window. Silco is also fond of underwater creatures, and while other people call and see them as monsters, Silco pays no attention to it, as he thinks that there's "a monster inside all of us". And here's Fishbones, who is designed after a shark, arguably the most famous "underwater monster". But what is more interesting is that it debuted is the finale of season 1, which is titled "The monster you created". Quite a throughline there.

- Silco was the reason behind Fishbones' creation in the first place. While it does seem that it all started with Jinx, who stole the hex gemstone on the Progress Day, we also need to remember WHY she did it. She did it to impress Silco specifically, to make him to be proud of her. This want was triggered by her screwing up the smuggling mission earlier that day, and while Silco didn't scold her for it much and only advised her to rest for a bit, she saw this as him thinking that she's weak. So, after all of this Silco asks Jinx to make a weapon with the use of gemstone. Not necessarily to use it against Piltover, but to have it as a wild card if his plans go wrong. Jinx agrees and attempts to reverse engineer it, but it triggers her memories when she killed Mylo and Claggor with her bomb, so she tells Silco that she can't do it. He then goes to the river he was nearly killed in with her, and "baptises" her to help her let go of her fear of pain. This seemed to have worked, at least for a little while, because she managed to finish the weapon. So, in conclusion: Fishbones' creation was triggered by Jinx's want to impress Silco, and he helped her with its creation on every step of the way.

- this point is somewhat meta, but I'll use it anyway. In previously mentioned episode 9 Silco tells Jinx that everybody around them betrays them, and they have only each other to love and lean on. He says, quote: "Everyone betrays us, Jinx. Vander, her. It's only us". At the same time, in LoL Jinx says this line to Fishbones: "It's just you and me, Fishbones!". Well.....it's certainly a callback if I've seen one. Like- it's not even funny. They couldn't have written this line on accident.

- now onto the most interesting part for me personally. We all now that there are no accidents in animation, like. At all. Even if there are this is extremely rare, as every frame is created intentionally. Now, we do now that there are quite. A few discrepancies between writers and animators of arcane, but I don't think this applies in this particular case. Now onto the actual point. So, in the finale of season 1 Jinx kills Silco, and it's shown to us like this.

He's turned with right side ("human") of his face to the camera, while the left side ("monster") side is hidden.

As Jinx fires Fishbones at the council

It's positioned with its right side to the camera, which alignes with Silco's "monster eye". Also, Fishbone's eye has a black scar pattern around its eye, which again, resembles Silco's damadged eye. That could mean that Silco is once again "reborn", and now continues to live on in the monster Jinx created.

And here comes the most awesome part in all of this. When Silco adopts Powder, he hugs her and tells her

Do you see how the frame is positioned? Exactly. It is exactly the same framing scene with Jinx and Fishbones has. And, most importantly, when Jinx pulls the trigger, we hear the exactly same line on the background: "We will show them all". It simultaneously shows: that Jinx's attack on the council is her way of dealing with grief of killing Silco; her way of honoring Silco's fight against Piltover; and a direct transition of Silco into Fishbones. Although he's dead in body, but Jinx's memories of him and his voice now continue to live in Fishbones, her new eternal companion.

I am at awe with the fundamental work that's been done with this setup, and although s2 never followed up on this, I still can get enjoyment from the clear intent creators put here originally.

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Dune: Prophecy episode 1 thoughts, tried to keep it vague to avoid major spoilers:

Wow there is a lot of exposition. Like a LOT of exposition, especially in the first 10-15 minutes when we're not invested in any of the characters yet. I hope this is a first episode problem.

Ah they went the coward's route and used "Great Machine War" instead of "Butlerian Jihad."

There's an interesting "history is written by the victors" thread there right from the beginning that I hope they pull on some more.

I love how they did the Voice, which appears early in the episode, because both the actor's performance and the sound design of it are slightly different from the films. It really feels/sounds like the character using it is straining to access a new and unfamiliar power, in contrast to the effortless, overwhelming assertion of control it comes across as in the films.

Salusa Secundus looks so green and lush in comparison to how it looks at the time of the films.

I realize this is probably an unfair complaint for something made on a TV budget (even an HBO TV budget), but imo the production design doesn't quite measure up to the films. I think the best work is on the props. The key to the genetic index room, the little slides that Valya and Tula are looking at with students' info on them, the Emperor's projection table--those all look great and have that feeling of "future filtered through the past" that I think is key to the Dune aesthetic. Many of the location exteriors are gorgeous, too. Some of the interior sets are quite striking and others are underwhelming. The costumes are...mid imo; there are some beautiful elements and others that look too identifiably modern. Including Princess Ynez's red gown unfortunately which looks like a department store prom dress. I realize it's a high bar--the films were really really good at making everything look both futuristic and ancient, layered and textured--but you do notice the difference.

So! Many! Women! Pretty racially diverse casting too. But also omg so many characters and I already forget half their names. I'm gonna need Dune: Facebook for the next episode.

Emily Watson and Olivia Williams are already very compelling, even if you don't quite know their characters' full agendas yet. Heckin ready for some Machiavellian women scheming.

Love some of the more fucked up shit that just slides by and the information it gives you about the world. Adult (? idk maybe she's supposed to be in her late teens) woman getting engaged to a 9-year-old. Practicing Truthsaying on prisoners, some of whom have fresh bruises on their faces.

Arrakis is...the same. This one is honestly fucking me up. I know time scales in Dune are absurd and really kind of incomprehensible in comparison to real Earth history but can you imagine your home being passed around various imperialist powers for resource extraction for ten thousand years?? FOUR HUNDRED GENERATIONS. 80 years of Harkonnen rule seems like nothing. We're talking about whole eras of colonial control and resistance here. Like damn. No wonder so many Fremen have come to believe that only a messiah can save them. Imagine being someone like Chani and feeling the legacy of not decades or even centuries but millennia of struggle on your shoulders. It is gonna take me a while to fully absorb this one. Holy fuck.

Travis Fimmel's character has an...ability that we haven't seen in the Dune universe before and I'm super curious to see where they're gonna go with that.

Overall it feels like this episode was mostly setup but there's a lot of potential? Like there are a lot of potential threads that could develop into something cool and twisty and interesting. I'm not sure where any of it is going yet but I'm ready to find out.

[jovial-thunder]

Lancer on a physical tabletop with Lego minis!

We finally did the thing! I roped my siblings into playtesting a game of Lancer using Legos and a physical tabletop. The sitrep was to destroy five buildings, marked in red, because the Karrakins were using the installation to track their mobile hidden base (our home campaign is a blatant ripoff of Deserts of Kharak).

Things that need improvement:

better way to measure tiles. We were doing 4cm/space and had to do a lot of multiplication. Going to try wood dowels with tiles marked + get some kind of grid underlay.

similarly, we need aoe templates

I used too much terrain, it got messy

should get status rings/tokens to mark lock-on, etc

Things that worked well:

it was sick as hell to be able to physically destroy Lego terrain and mechs as they fell

we used physical dice? For lancer?? And it turns out clicky clack math rocks continue to be inherently great.

witchdice works well on mobile devices for character sheets so not every PC had to have a full laptop

different height-terrain was fun, though it made movement costs tricky to calculate

I'm excited to keep trying out different setups. All the terrain and stuff I've collected is pretty modular (lego makes that easy) so it'll be fun to see how wide a range of map types is possible.

[bringthekaos]

I'm excited for your thoughts on the new season if/when you share them

It has legit taken me 3 days to come to terms with Act 1. Enough to be able to speak about it. Gunna apologize in advance for the wall of text, and I’m hiding it under a break for spoiler reasons. Also prefacing with these are all just my opinions. All are free to disagree with me and RB with discussions/theories etc. just don’t be a dick about it, I’m not engaging in any discourse.

Ok. So. I have mixed feelings, and I’m aware that this is because I don’t have the whole story yet. So this is all contingent on how the rest of the season plays out.

First and foremost, I’m… wildly swinging back and forth between love and disappointment for Viktor’s arc. So first the negative, and I’ll try to keep it brief because a lot of people have already expressed this and I don’t need to be beating that particular dead horse.

Viktor has had his agency, his bodily autonomy, his original ideas and nearly everything that made him Viktor stripped away. Nothing so far has been his choice. And while this could have worked just fine for an original character, he wasn’t. So there is a massive disconnect between what this character was/should have been. In League, it was all his choice (albeit with a healthy dose of mental illness thrown in, but still). AND it was very heavily suggested that many of the augmentations he performed weren’t as extensive as he lead everyone to believe (namely the controlling/dousing of his emotions). But it appears that whatever the Hexcore did to him, it’s real. He is clearly having a difficult time accessing his emotions, and if he can feel anything, it is limited to the point of him being completely stoic. And the thing with stoic characters is that you obliterate any emotional payoff for the audience. It’s very hard to make an audience feel an emotional connection to a character’s story arc when they themselves don’t feel anything (I have a theory about this though, but I’ll address it a little later in this post). And then there is the issue of Blitzcrank. Blitz was Viktor’s whole world, after his exile. How are they going to swing that? Like, I’m not even asking for Blitz to be in Arcane (that would be great, but I really don’t think they have time). But I stg if they take Blitz away from Viktor, make them someone else’s invention (my suspicion is Heimer or he finds the idea in Sky’s journal)… I’m sorry but no. This was Viktor’s idea, Viktor’s genius. I will genuinely be extremely upset if they take that from him too.

Then there is the whole situation with Sky. First, this girl was fridged. She was nothing but a plot device and continues to be just that. It feels hollow and forced, especially now that he’s hallucinating her as some sort of penance for what he did. (I have seen the prevalent theory that it’s the Hexcore using her image and his guilt to manipulate him, given that it “ate” her, and we have seen it “manipulate” him before when it punished him for trying to destroy it). But back to Sky—he barely acknowledged that poor girl. The reason for that can be argued, whether it’s because he’s gay or because he was just so wrapped up in his one-track minded research. But regardless, there just wasn’t enough setup between those two for this whole thing to have as much weight and meaning as I think it’s supposed to. Honestly to me (TO ME) it reeks of comphet. It feels like that random woman they threw at Poe Dameron to No Homo him. I’m not even asking for Jayvik canon. But the creators were well aware of this ship, after all it’s the second most popular ship in this show and it’s been around since 2012 when Jayce was literally created for Viktor. I’m asking for the bare minimum here—that it’s left open-ended as it was in League, open for interpretation.

Last negative I have is the whole Viktor Jesus thing. The first problem is I am pretty violently agnostic, and messiah narratives have never spoken to me. I don’t enjoy them, they feel weak. The whole “ordained by a higher power” thing is just… stale. Especially when this character originally had no higher power, he gave it to himself through his own hard work and ingenuity. Honestly, Viktor’s original arc is about as far from a Jesus allegory as you can possibly get. And I am absolutely terrified that they’re going to end said Jesus arc the way you’d expect—with him dying for it. Which leaves the moral of his story “disabled man should have just accepted that he was going to die despite the fact that it was the oppression and xenophobia of Piltover that left him out to dry, without proper health care, accessibility, equality, or equity that lead to his terminal diagnosis to begin with.” Which is a very oppressor-centric narrative and we do not need another one of those.

Sorry, I know I said I’d keep the negatives brief, and that was… not. My bad. But moving on!

I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it, I did. I am working to embrace this new Viktor narrative and work it into my brain in a way that doesn’t ruin the ship for me. So without further ado, the positives.

Jayce.

Jayce.

Jayce.

I’d have to go back and time it, but it feels like he got more screen time in this first act than the entirety of the first season combined, and his character shined for it. It humanized him in ways season one never did. He’s caring, he’s devoted, and he loved Viktor! No matter what kind of love you think it is, it proves he loved Viktor without a doubt. He carried Viktor several city blocks to the lab to save him, and then YES, he broke his promise about the Hexcore because he couldn’t stand the thought of losing him!

And he’s funny! (The scene where he picks up the regular sized hammer in the fight against Renni and made that “this is ironic” face?? And then basically the entire interaction with Ekko? The hand me a tome thing, and then when he basically pulled this when Ekko suggested “so this is all your fault cuz you pissed off the Arcane”:

GOD that shit was great. Jayce’s personality just shined, and maybe it’s too much to hope, but maybe this will douse a little of the hate. Because instead of being a subtle hint at all of those things being true about him, it’s now overt. And when people lack media literacy, the hints have to be overt.

And th-the. The h. The HUG SCENE. I don’t think I will ever emotionally recover from that scene. Starting with Viktor who, despite being clearly emotionally—I dunno, vacant I guess—sounded so lost and scared when he said “what am I?” For me, it was whispers of that scene from The Last Unicorn: “what have you done to me?” And my poor sweet Jayce, who clearly hasn’t left this damn lab except to go to Cassandra’s memorial. Sleeping on the desk and bleeding through his bandages because he doesn’t want to spend a moment away from Viktor while he “recovers.” And his euphoric response when he finds Viktor alive, when he realizes he hasn’t lost him. And I OWE HIM AN APOLOGY, goddamn. I said in a post that “Jayce will not understand.” I thought that was how Arcane was gunna start the divorce. But Jayce genuinely did not care, as long as his lover friend was alive. And just… Jayce being so affectionate through this entire scene. The hug obviously, but also blurting things he thought he’d never get to say to Viktor—“I’m resigning from the council, my place was always here in the lab with you.”

And… the hug itself. I know we’re all analyzing it frame by goddamn frame, but I see exactly what everyone else sees—there is a moment where Viktor very subtly smiles. But it’s gone in an instant, and it turns bittersweet. LOOK AT HIM.

There is something there, it’s just buried. Deep beneath the surface. It seems to say “I want this, I have wanted this for so long.” But then he realizes something, something I don’t think we’re meant to understand yet. Maybe that he doesn’t feel anything about it anymore, and he recognizes that this should upset him and it doesn’t. Or perhaps it’s something more along the lines of “it’s too late.” Whatever it is, I think this is the exact moment he knows he has to walk away. Because he knows he’ll cave to the affection, he said it himself. (Which is another thing entirely. His voice changes when he says that. Something in him is reacting to that word. Maybe he’s fighting against it, or maybe he’s fighting to get it back. But something made him almost growl that word.)

Which leads me to my final thought (for this post anyway, cuz it’s turning into a novel); Viktor is still in there. He can still feel things, I just think they’re extremely muted by whatever the Hexcore did/continues to do to him, or he has to fight to express them. Because he also smiled at the hallucination of Sky after he “cured” Huck. And if he feels nothing, he wouldn’t have been “joyous” at the thought of her being proud of him, approving of the good things he’s trying to do in her memory. He wouldn’t crave that validation, that vindication from her. So I’m hopeful that we start to see this shell crack a little, especially if those visions of Sky are the Hexcore manipulating him through guilt. It will start to erode him, no matter how stoic he has become. And literally the only thing I’m clinging to is that Jayce will see this and try to pull him out. “He’s still in there and I have to save him.” And that maybe it’ll start to work.

[sirfrogsworth]

Meeting my longtime artist and good friend, Chris, IN REAL LIFE!

So, I hadn't been to a restaurant in over a decade. I can't even remember which restaurant since it was so long ago. But in the past few weeks I've now been to TWO restaurants.

I am becoming a social butterfly. 

And it is exhausting.

But also good.

First I reconnected with my high school best friend, John.

And that went great.

But then the opportunity to see my friend Chris (a.k.a @whosthewhatnow ) came up only a few days later. And this close proximity of social events scared me a bit, but I have been feeling much better since they figured out my heart thing, so I decided to try and do both things even though they were only a few days apart. 

The key to this was strategic resting. As soon as I got home from seeing John, I got in bed and I didn't get out of it until it was time to see Chris. And that was just enough recovery time to pull this off. Typically a short outing requires 2-3 days of rest after. 

I had never met Chris in real life. He has done nearly all of the artwork for my website and comics over the past decade. And he was a main character in my CRAPPRnauts series.

We know each other so well and it is crazy that we've never seen each other with our very own eyeballs.

He is such an amazing artist. He works fast and he adds so many cool extra details that you can stare at his comic panels multiple times and catch a new joke or easter egg each time. He is a dream to work with and my Corg Life series was only successful because he did such a wonderful job bringing Otis to life in comic form. 

So we decided to meet up at a restaurant with his friend Michael and then I was going to take a nice portrait of him after dinner. Chris had never had a professional photo taken of himself and I decided to fix that.

I told him I had a mobile photography setup. Which, in reality, is a trunk full of lights and stands and other various camera gear that I definitely won't need, but bring anyway. It's "mobile" in that it all fits in my car if you are good at Tetris (which I am).

The restaurant was downtown and I had visions of St. Louis's famous Gateway Arch in the background of Chris's portrait. I thought that would be such a cool shot. I could see it in my head and I even dreamed about it.

So I got in my car and headed downtown and my GPS told me to exit at 249B. But I kept looking and I couldn't see the sign for 249B.

This is how much road I had left when I finally was able to see the exit for 249B.

So I ended up taking 249A and going straight to East St. Louis.

Which, if you believe the headlines, is not a place you ever want to be.

Google Maps and I have been having issues lately. They also tried to get me to take the spooky way home that night, but thankfully I actually knew the non-spooky way back from when I used to go to Cardinal games with my parents as a kid.

My short term memory was trashed by shock therapy. And so was a lot of my long term memory. But it finally came through in a pinch and remembered something useful.

I only had to loop around and cross a bridge so I didn't really do anything but touch the edge of East St. Louis. I was mostly concerned about being late for dinner more than its scary reputation. Usually those news stories about a place being "dangerous" are actually just racist and hurtful to people stuck in poverty. I mean, technically my house is in a "dangerous" neighborhood, and we do have trouble with petty crime in some spots, but aside from a few dinged-up mailboxes, I've never felt unsafe in my home.

On the way back to regular St. Louis I could see the Arch on the horizon at sunset and it was kind of magical. And I wasn't able to get a good shot of it, but it sure looked pretty from my point of view. 

My photos kind of remind me of the beginning of movies like Training Day where they are trying to show you gritty, dutch angle shots of the city out of the car window to give you a sense of the location.

As I approached the restaurant I invented a new genre I call "stoplight photography." The sky was orange and the streets of St. Louis were just asking to be photographed. But I wasn't willing to die to get neat photos, so I just took them at every red light.

The big trick was trying to edit the dark area at the top of my windshield out of the photos to make it look like I didn't take these pictures from my car.

After a 15 minute detour through Illinois I arrived at my destination—a Mexican place called Rosalita's. It had a beautiful sign, so I took that literal sign as a metaphorical sign it was a nice place to get a quesadilla. 

Dinner was great. Both signs were right and their quesadilla was very tasty. Chris and I both got one, so we are quesadilla twins. The waitress was one of those "I can remember your order without writing anything down" types. And I am one of those, "I get anxiety when things aren't written down" types. And, to her credit, she did not forget our orders. But she did forget to give us silverware and napkins. So I still feel like my anxiety was valid. 

We told sad stories of the pups we lost. But we also had a lot of fun and laughed and I got to meet Michael who turned out to be an absolute mensch. I sometimes have trouble meeting new people with my social anxiety, but he was very affable and made me feel comfortable with his presence almost right away. He was a fan of Otis and mentioned he still has a Super Otis shirt. I always get choked up hearing that Otis is still loved. Hopefully we get to meet again. 

Dinner ended and it was picture time.

I asked Chris if he wanted the high effort photo or the low effort photo. Either we figure out how to get to the Arch or we find a spot near the restaurant and just take his portrait there. Chris and Michael had a driver because they were coming from a big conference and getting to the Arch would have been complicated. So we decided to go with the low effort option. 

I found a cool shop nearby that had an LED wall that changed to all sorts of different colors. And I thought that would make a neat background and give a colorful edge light on Chris's face. I pulled my car near that spot and started unloading my trunk full of photo gear.

I think Chris and Michael were a little overwhelmed when I started pulling camera gear out of my trunk like a clown pulling an endless handkerchief out of his mouth. But as far as photo setups go, it was actually pretty minimal. 

Light, giant battery, light stand, umbrella, tripod, camera, rolling walker with seat.

My dad's old rollator came in clutch because I wanted to shoot from a low angle and it is hard for me to bend down. In fact, I think I'm going to look into getting an all terrain version so I can do more outdoor photoshoots.

I started shooting in the middle of a downtown sidewalk. And I was super anxious. I could not focus (my brain, not my camera). I was very distracted with all of the people walking by and staring. I was not sure if any of the photos were turning out. I wasn't even sure if they were in focus (my camera, not my brain) because I had not yet had my lens calibrated. But down the street there was a guy with an old school boombox playing random music. His music helped to drown out the ambient noise and gave me some comfort.

I had no clue if the photos were any good, but when I got home and checked them on my computer, I realized I have 12 years of experience and muscle memory built up. I probably should have just trusted myself because the photos all turned out great.

I think Chris can now officially say he has had a professional portrait taken of himself.

This photo has been officially loved by Chris's girlfriend and mother.

There is no greater seal of approval and I am honored.

I was able to comp in any of the colors the wall displayed from other shots in case Chris is feeling a little more green in the future.

A literal rainbow of options.

I also liked this one, though it is a little more "environmental portrait" than regular portrait.

And I got some nice photos of our little group to help us remember the night. 

And I got a bunch of photos of Chris making silly faces like Calvin at his school photoshoot. 

I love this woman's reaction to our little impromptu sidewalk photo shenanigans.

After we said our goodbyes and I gave my friend a hug, I was a little bummed I didn't get to photograph him at the Arch like I had dreamed.

But then I realized I had my own car and it was capable of taking me places. (I actually haven't gotten used to that after not driving for nearly 15 years.)

So I decided to drive a few blocks over to Kiener Plaza—a park with a view of the Arch. 

TO BE CONTINUED...

[kianamaiart]

can i ask what the process was like for hiring voice actors for your project was like? i have my own animated project i'm working on and that seems like a big, scary step as an indie creator

I'm lucky in that a lot of the VAs I cast are friends/mutuals of mine so I just DMd them and asked for their rates/if they'd be open to working on my pilot. When I posted the character bios initially, Shara commented on DeVoid saying "I wanna voice the baddie" and I said "bet". For everyone else, I'd just send them the character bios and script to read over to make sure they were down. I was even luckier that a lot of them were just down to help me out despite me trying to pay them (i made sure to at the very least offer my services as an artist if they ever needed prints for cons in the future)

More under the cut

Of the 7 VAs, I didn't know 2 of them personally and was planning on cold emailing their agent (they both have the same one) to ask if they'd be available for something like this. I was definitely nervous and was drafting up emails for such a long time wondering how to pitch the project and make it seem appealing without tooting my own horn too much.

During this time, I'd DMd Marieve, who's my friend and coworker on Big City Greens (voice of Tilly and our voice director), and asked if she'd be open to giving me voice directing tips since I'd be working with professional VAs on my own. She was gracious enough to just work alongside me on the project which was SO helpful, I owe her my life. I mentioned to her that I was still casting and was gonna email Atlas Talent to see if I could book the two other actors. What I didn't realize is that Marieve was also with Atlas and had the same agent and is also friends with said agent. She connected us and they got back to me right away!

That was my in, and from here on is what the booking process is actually like. This is what I feel like will be the most useful to you!

I told them who I was looking to book and they asked if they could get more info on the project. I sent them all my pitch materials so they knew this was a legitimate thing that was happening. I'd had pretty much the whole board and all the scripts done at this time. I feel like having actual, tangible work to show will really help your chances. The talent will know what they're getting into and if they're open to doing the project. Oh and also, if you have some VAs cast and are going to cast more, mentioning who you have already can also give you leverage and make you seem more legitimate. Ooh and also also, I let them know I was massively open to improv which I feel a lot of actors enjoy. A big selling point for this project.

They passed this along to the actors and I also made sure to tell them my budget. I was told by another VA friend that VO rates usually range from $200-300 an hour (you can shoot lower for indie projects). I told them I could do $200/hr but since they're pretty high profile, I was willing to negotiate.

The agent got back to me saying that the actors really liked the script and were willing to do it for free/at a discounted rate which meant the absolute world to me. Both of them are sweethearts and I also owe them my life. From there we scheduled zoom sessions and also studio times (we recorded one of them in person which was so sick). I'd say zoom's the way to go so you don't have to pay to rent a studio out and most VAs, due to the pandemic, have at home setups. There was a lot of scheduling back and forth involved with the agents and the studio but it all worked out and boom! Had em recorded in the next couple weeks.

I will say, it's ALWAYS worth asking and reaching for the stars. VAs are artists too and generally like being on fun, creatively fulfilling projects. You never know who'd be willing to be on your project if you never ask~

[writingquestionsanswered]

Someone mentioned that main characters can get overdeveloped. I'm familiar with characters being underdeveloped, but how do you tell if they are overdeveloped?

5 Signs Your Character is Overdeveloped

#1 - You spend time illustrating personality traits that aren't important to the story. Your character's personality traits should have some bearing on how they move through the story. Don't take the time to illustrate your character's stubbornness if being stubborn won't have some impact on the story.

#2 - You excessively describe their physical appearance and what they're wearing. While it's a good idea to give the reader a sense of what the character looks like and to describe what they're wearing when it shows something important about the character, world, or situation, the reader doesn't need an in-depth physical description--or even reminders--every time the character appears on the page.

#3 - You spend a lot of time illustrating their interactions and relationships with minor characters even though they have no bearing on the story. We like our characters to feel real and three-dimensional, which means giving the reader a sense of who they are, what their normal life is like, and who is important to them. However, we don't want to spend a lot of time on characters/relationships that don't really do anything for the story. For example, it's nice that your character has a good relationship with their elderly neighbor, but if the relationship isn't necessary to show us who the character is, set up or execute a plot point, or fulfill a thematic/symbolic role, it probably shouldn't be there.

#4 - Your character is a "jack of all trades." It's great for your character to have hobbies, skills, and experience in various things, but we don't want our characters to look like a walking, talking, padded resume. For the most part, any hobby, skill, or experience highlighted should play an important role in the story. If being proficient at roller skating doesn't tell us something about the character we can't learn another way, allow for the setup or execution of a plot point, or fulfill a thematic/symbolic role, it's probably not important to highlight that hobby, skill, or experience--or any other that doesn't contribute to the story.

#5 - You spend a lot of time on unnecessary backstory - Backstory plays an important role in helping us to understand who the character is, how they got to where they are in life, what things led up to their internal conflict and emotional wound/s, etc. However, we don't want to spend time on things that aren't ultimately important to the story in some way. For example, there's no point in flashing back to your character's week at surfing camp if nothing happened that week that is important to who they are or anything else that happens in the story.

A good rule of thumb for really any detail in a story is to ask yourself, "What is lost if I remove this detail?" If the answer is "nothing," you can probably go ahead and remove it. :)

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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