#(I'm afraid the plot is deteriorating though.) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

asjjohnson · 1 year

Text

Part 6 of my poll adventure fic. Links: the beginning, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5.

It's mid-day Wednesday (at least for my time), which means a new part of my poll adventure fic, because I've been here for over a year and still don't know how to use this site effectively. :D (Oh wait, here, I made a poll about tumblr timing.)

---

Valerie walked toward Vlad through the rubble, hugging a hissing and clawing Maddie against her armor. "Found him," she said proudly, smiling up at Vlad. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Actually, there is. There's a malevolent ghost loose in Amity Park, posing a serious risk to my health, as well as to the city. I need him contained and brought to me."

Oh, cheese sticks with marinara dipping sauce! He had meant to do the responsible thing here—not ask a fourteen-year-old child who couldn't even hold a cat properly to risk her life in his stead.

...He really had become too accustomed to avoiding anything unpleasant.

"Sure thing, Mayor Masters!"

Maddie squirmed out of Valerie's hold with an angry yowl and ran off.

Well, he could still work with Valerie. ...If he truly wanted to. He was unlikely to succeed on his own, anyhow, if this older version of Daniel actually was as powerful as he'd heard.

But did he truly want to be a part of this endeavor? He was already dreading it, with only the thought.

He recalled what the older Daniel had said—that he let his emotions hold too much sway, and that in turn caused his plans to fail.

Which had been exactly the case when he'd felt some level of compassion for that ghost.

Thinking purely objectively, Vlad could still use the ghost if he could get him back under his control. And if Vlad were to have some part in the ghost's capture—in saving Amity Park—it would boost his ratings. He did need to keep his position as mayor of Amity Park for his contingency plans.

"Valerie, dear. Why don't we work together? I'm sure it's just misplaced guilt, but I can't help but feel somehow responsible for this situation. Ridiculous, I know. However, working with you on his capture would ease my poor conscience."

"Oh... uh, you've never suggested this before," Valerie said uncertainly, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, as though she was trying to think of some way that poor old 'Mayor Masters' could work with her. "But if that's what you want."

'Cheerleader' isn't, ah, a literal cheerleader. (Don't make me dress him up in a skirt.) It just means... like, advertising and cheering her on. More of a cheer-leader (...which is probably an even more literal meaning actually).

---

"Alert me when there's an update" list:

@charlietheepic7, @chrysanthemum9484, @mymadmedleyw, @dp-marvel94, @aikoiya, @whydouwantmyname, @cinturon-cadena, @freakofyournature, @satanicrutialspecialist, @danphantom80

(if you want on the list, specifically ask to be alerted for updates in a tag or comment. Ask again if I forget! If I can't tag you, I'll send a Message.)

#danny phantom #vlad plasmius #valerie gray #poll fic #poll adventure #asj post #asj writing #Don't worry Maddie's fine. She(?) is just startled from the collapse and doesn't like strangers much.#We know Valerie's not a dog person but who said she was a cat person either?#Vlad will probably run into Danny in the next part.#(...you guys voting for Vlad to ask two young children to help him catch a very dangerous ghost.)#actually I probably should've thought to add an 'everyone he can' option. In Reign Storm against Pariah Dark he'd talked to several people #Hmm... if this works out good enough to later post on AO3 I'll need to remember to add that option.#(I'm afraid the plot is deteriorating though.)#(And I can't figure out how to End a path. This could go on forever. ...Especially if you guys keep shifting the plot.)#It's kind of fun though. You guys sometimes come up with such weird ideas.#...I'm not sure how long s post can be before I should add a Keep Reading/Read More break.

25 notes · View notes

blueepink07 · 4 months

Text

Some of my Milgram trial 3 predictions!

First off, I will start with a little introduction with my thoughts of the newest conversation between Haruka and Kotoko!

I was surprised that they decided to drop this conversation so early considering that it is very important in order to move the plot forward, despite trial 2 not even being finished... Untill I realized that it is the perfect time for Haruka to proceed with his plan. If he waits for the trial to end, there is a high chance for him to be restrained immediately. We don't know how the restraints during third trial will look like, but there is a high chance for them to look similar with those from Undercover, where their hands are fully restrained.

If that's the case, then Haruka wouldn't be able to hold a weapon at all and to harm himself.

He knows that he was voted guilty. It makes sense considering that since his birthday, he started to think about a plan in order to protect Muu.

23/06/22 (Haruka’s Birthday)

Mu: Haruka-kun, I brought your food. Are you still alive? Has any mould started growing?

Haruka: ……ah, thank you very much. Mu-san. Sorry, um… I…

Mu: You shouldn’t just lock yourself in your room all day. You have to eat your food properly. Hm, well…… I do understand why you’re feeling down. It feels bad. The atmosphere recently

Haruka: Um, I’m totally fine…Just a bit, I’m thinking, about how to do it. What to do, what to do, to… fulfil my promise. For Mu-san’s sake…

Moreover, Mahiru and Fuuta, during first trial, started to feel judged by people who told them they were in the wrong, not long after their guilty verdicts. It was also before Kotoko's voting period...

Kotoko's MV will be released on 17 January (also Mahiru's birthday) and her voting period should end around May... Unless we will get another portal timeline conversation which is not for a birthday, we have two more timeline portal timeline conversations for this trial Mahiru's and Fuuta's birthday (19 April) .

We will just have to see when Haruka will actually go along with his plan... Since on Mahiru's birthday it will be released Kotoko's MV, I kind of doubt that Haruka will do something at that time... I feel like it would be too much content and it would be hard to catch up with everything... So my prediction would be that something will happen on Fuuta's birthday or around that time. I feel like it would also end in a very dramatic way the second trial.

Now that this part is done, I will begin explaining some predictions for Haruka and a few other prisoners (Yuno, Fuuta, Mahiru)

Haruka -> I think that he will go along with his plan before the end of the second trial. This will give him enough mobility to hold a weapon and actually cause himself harm. What Haruka asks from Kotoko is simple: to let him harm himself and to stay away, letting him go along with his plan.

Haruka: ...Please, be quiet about this. And you, please don't get involved. All I can do is ask this of you...

Kotoko: Fufufu, fufufufufu. You're thinking some outrageous things. To be frank, it's abnormal. But I don't dislike it. If only all sinners were like you.

Haruka: No... That's not it... I don't mean it that way... This isn't for me... it's to protect... so, Kotoko-san... please...

Kotoko: Eh? Yes, yes. Well, I promise not to interfere with your plans. Even though I'd like to do it myself, I'll leave it to you. What happens after that... depends on Es, doesn't it?

Other prisoners will sure try to stop him, thinking about Kazui, Mikoto, since they seem the most able, physically speaking. However, I'm afraid that Kotoko will interfere and slow down Kazui or any prisoner who is trying to help Haruka. I'm imagining that it will be a big mess... It's possible that even other prisoners, except Haruka, will get injuried somehow, trying to interfere...

Yuno -> Not very fond of social interactions. Her mental health will deteriorate even more, but she will not show it. Will find more information about Milgram (the only one who starts to question her own existence)

I really think that it will be revealed that she is in fact dead.

Let me explain, how it would work!

The second Milgram novel, (for the sake of not giving much spoilers, I will not say the name of who I'm talking about!), introduces us with something new! Three of the characters are aware that they are dead. Why? Because they remember killing themselves. They died with this memory...

Yuno, on the other hand, states that she had many abortions... It's true that the stairs should be taken as symbolism for the stages of her pregnancy, however Japan is known for it's expensive abortions!

Moreover, it is usually required the partner's consent in order to have an abortion..

Not only Yuno would never want her family to struggle with money after such a big payment, but I also don't think she would manage to gain the signature of one of her clients.

So what option she would have? It seems that falling down the stairs might have been a good option...

Going back, imagine being in Yuno's shoes. A legal, medical abortion is not possible, so she decides that harming herself might help her escape from this situation. It worked before, so why it wouldn't now? However, something happens, she falls dangerously and suddenly everything goes black and she wokes up in Milgram. Now, falling down the stairs can cause instant death if the head is hit or the neck snaps.

"By hitting your head, or breaking your neck, either of which could easily occur in a staircase fall. You can hit your neck at an angle where it would snap due to the pressure of falling and cause instant death."

This means that her brain will stop working shortly after death, so she will not process the fact that she died. Remember what I said before? That the three characters from the novel were aware that they were dying, so their brains processed that and had this memory in Milgram.

Yuno doesn't have this privilege, however she could suspect her death, if her last thing she remembers is her falling down the stairs.

Fuuta -> it's so hard to imagine something for him... But I truly think he will give more assistance to the younger ones. He already expresses concern for Haruka, despite saying in the interrogation questions that he can't bother, considering his mental health and injuries.

I've made a post a while ago talking about how passage of time in Milgram is really weird and that their bodies don't seem to grow at all. Their injuries which should have been better after a few months, during trial 2, also didn't get better at all, especially considering Mahiru's case and Shidou spending most of his time with her.

At that time, I've been thinking that once somebody has an injury, their body will be unable to heal. So I think that Fuuta's physical condition will not change much.

Moreover, I believe that Fuuta and Amane will get closer... I'm expecting a timeline conversation which would explain better what is happening right now. No, I don't think he will be fully indoctrinated, I think he will be given just that hope that there is somebody there who loves him and appreciates him. (I think he will be really distrustful of the voices that he will hear, even if they are positive) To believe all that Amane has been taught, means to stop receiving medical care. And if his body doesn't heal, he will still be in constant pain.

I doubt he will refuse medications, considering that he is very desperate to relieve the pain. Also, forgot to mention, but there are a few religious aspects that Fuuta has in his MV or VD, even before his interactions with Amane...

Mahiru -> what I'm going to write are my thoughts after I've been asked what romantic pairing I think would become canon. (for this, I'm not really sure, but I thought it will be interesting to share!)

Trial 3 is stated that will be worse than this trial, which as well, had lots of conflicts between prisoners and prisoners experiencing mental torture and physical injuries. If there will be any romantic ship canon, I really think that it would be something that makes the characters to be even more absorbed by their beliefs.

Any romantic relationship between Amane(obviously), Kotoko, Fuuta, Yuno, Muu, Haruka, Kazui, Mikoto (John and Mikoto, I doubt that an inno vote will have them in better terms, Milgram will sure make the situation worse somehow 😭) seems unlikely for me.

Yuno, because she wishes more and more to escape from Milgram and she will sure be more distant with the others, especially if Mahiru heals.

Fuuta, he was distant before, even if his condition gets better I can't picture him having as a priority to be in a romantic relationship.

Kotoko, she is too absorbed in her ideals to deliver justice, also no one is really approaching her.

Muu and Haruka, their relationship dynamic is not balanced at all. One sees the other as a friend, the other as a parental figure... The guilty vote will just strenghten this condepency and they will need eachother more, but that's it.

The only relationship that I can possibly see is one between Mahiru and Shidou, but it would most probably be one sided (Mahiru will express some attachment to Shidou). It is stated that Shidou spends most of his time with Mahiru.

Especially the last timeline conversation seems to hint that they will still spend lots of time together, at least until the beginning of the third trial.

Mahiru: Shidou-san, you have a family...right? Having family, having children, how does it feel...?

Shidou: ...Yes, it's a wonderful thing. Children are... Well, they're hope itself. When you have children, growing older becomes enjoyable. The more you age, the more your children grow.

Mahiru: Ah...how wonderful. It was my dream to become a bride. It may be a little old-fashioned but, I wanted to make it come true...

Shidou: It's not too late. I will keep you alive, Shiina-kun. Let's get out of here and make that dream come true. ...You still have your whole life ahead of you.

Moreover, Mahiru states that she doesn't want to change her ideals, because she can't live without love in the second voice drama.

That's why I'm thinking... In what way they could possibly show the characters getting worse, if they don't let the prisoners to overindulge in their own desires and ideals? To Kotoko this already happened, so what would stop a romantic relationship between Mahiru and someone else, most probably Shidou (as he seems the best choice so far) ? We, as voters, wouldn’t be so impacted by the way prisoners could change outside Milgram (if they will ever get out) than inside, with the characters we love so much.

To finish off, I would say that this will most probably be the only romantic relationship that I can think of happening, but even so, more from Mahiru's part.

I personally don't really ship Milgram characters, so here is me just thinking about the worst possible outcome that it comes to my mind right now!

Trial 3 will sure be awful, so I'm expecting the worst. 😭

#milgram #milgram theory #thoughts #haruka sakurai #yuno kashiki #fuuta kajiyama #amane momose #kotoko yuzuriha #mahiru shiina #shidou kirisaki

31 notes · View notes

tcookies777 · 1 year

Note

I’ve been reading your posts and reblogs.

Are you okay?

I'm getting flooded with Asks and messages atm so I'm sorry to say that I don't know when you submitted this Ask!

If by okay, you mean the reblogs from yesterday - I'm pretty fine actually. I'm at that age now where you kind of... to be blunt, don't give a fuck because you learn not to take the words of strangers to heart.

The reason why I still do speak up for myself though (instead of staying quiet) is because I want to nip these conflicts and issues in the bud even if it means being strict. I don't want the problem to grow out of hand. I've been writing for over 10 years now and this is not my first rodeo.

With my 1st rodeo though, I was that young and naive writer who stayed quiet. I tried to please every single reader. I bowed down and apologized to the readers who complained I wasn't updating fast enough. I begged for patience and forgiveness whenever I had to put the fic on hiatus. I tried to fulfill every request and demand that every reader threw at me.

And the abuse and entitlement grew. Because I was stupid enough to feed it. Because I had wanted to keep everyone pleased 24/7. I didn't want to piss anyone off and I was afraid of losing readers. And when I decided to put my foot down because I couldn't handle being treated like I was less than human, I was harassed for it. And when I fought back against the harassment, I was portrayed as the villain.

"People are going to say negative things about your story anyway, and if you can't handle that then you shouldn't write. You do that, or you shut up and write," a reader had once told me.

And because I was young and stupid, I believed her.

And that belief became my principle in real life.

And one day, when I was in school, I saw a boy getting bullied. The bullies were throwing milk and condiments to stain his clothes, and the boy looked unhappy but remained silent. It was 1 against 3, after all. And I watched the bullying happening literally 3 feet away in front of me, and even though I wanted to step in and speak up for that boy, all I could think of was that reader's words. All I could think of was: People are going to bully others regardless, and if the victim can't handle it then they're weak.

So I stayed quiet.

Around that time, I was reading a fic and I noticed a writer was being harassed. Readers were demanding quicker updates, they were demanding that she reveal her sexual orientation, they spread rumors that she was lying about her ethnicity, they were ""criticizing" her story when actually they were just trying to manipulate her into writing the story they want, they were complaining about the plot when actually they just had a gross misunderstanding of the story's direction, etc etc. Literally, none of the criticism she received was actual, genuine criticism. It was just insults and pointless complaints with the "criticism" label slapped on top. Some readers even befriended her but only because they wanted to have her write a fic for them (they thought a friendship with her would give them an advantage).

She tried to appease them at first. Tried to laugh off their snide remarks and respond to their disrespect with kindness.

And because she stayed quiet against the abuse and entitlement, these readers figured they could keep it up. So they continued, and her mental health deteriorated until one day that writer snapped and quit the fic and quit writing for good.

And the whole time I watched this drama unfold as one of her readers, I never spoke up for her. Just as I never spoke up for that kid who was being bullied.

It's been 10 years since then. To this day, I deeply regret not speaking up for those people. I deeply regret being too afraid of conflict. I deeply regret being a bystander back then.

But a few years ago, an older writer enlightened me with some advice. He said, "Yes, there will always be people who are going to be jackasses to you. It's the Internet, duh! But that doesn't mean you need to put up with that shit. The reader has the power to curate their fanfic reading experience... and so does the writer too. "

And that was the moment I realized I am sick of being a bystander. I am sick of staying quiet. I am sick of enabling people and/or trying to please them all the time. I am sick of bending over backwards out of fear of disappointment or conflict.

That was the moment I decided I am going to speak up from now on. I will not tolerate this any longer.

So yes, I am fine for the most part. Many of you guys have been incredibly kind and supportive. But I will continue to stand my ground when I need to and if I need to be harsh when doing it then so be it. I've seen firsthand how being too kind and a people pleaser all the time sometimes just welcomes more abuse, more insults, more entitlement. Because it's from behind the screen, some people don't care that the fanfic writer providing them free entertainment is a real human being.

#cookie answers #a cookie for me

5 notes · View notes

beggingwolf · 3 years

Text

hi so I've just eaten too much ice cream, feel vaguely ill, and I'm here to tell you All About How I Failed At Outlining for SGKF this year!

that's partially just a fun tagline, but it's also a bit true. I told my friends I'd be trying to use several different outlining methods to try and knock out a plotty piece for the fest, and things did not go to plan!

important to begin with: I am what is referred to as a "pantser." I tend to just start writing. this is strangely contradictory to my personality, which deeply loves plans. unfortunately, what often happens is plans and outlines ruin my excitement and drive while working on a project (it tricks me into thinking I've done all the work and resolved the plot), leading me to abandon it.

and though I can throw together pretty words and made a decent fic, my fics never turned out as good as they could have been. I kept telling myself that if I planned in advanced and worked out what I was doing BEFORE I did it, I'd be able to craft a fic with such care and attention as to make it really SHINE.

so, uh, kinkfest rolls around, and since I was a mod I could see all the prompts before they even got released to the public, so I basically had a WHOLE EXTRA two-ish weeks to start planning and writing.

did I? NO.

so, despite the fact that I collect writing advice like a magpie , I'm not the greatest at implementing it. if you go into my SGKF google folder, you'll find a few instances of me TRYING to implement writing advice like metawriting:

(and you'll see some fics that didn't get finished/make it into the fest!)

my issue was (and still is) that I think I value every little word too much. this is a bad thing: I'm an overwriter by nature. when I get words down, I want to keep them because I feel like I worked hard for them, even if they're not great or don't actually serve the story in the way they should. that's not to say all my metawriting was bad; it wasn't. I tried it out for A Drowning in California as well [which will henceforth just be referred to as "California").

I had a whole subfolder for California. what kind of amazed me is how different my initial notes for the prompt are from what the story actually ended up being. here, take a look:

literally almost none of this is in california. the WWE and UFC stuff made it in, and so did sid wrestling with horny, but that was it. I was going to start this fic in the locker room, with sid wrestling someone, and it was seriously going to be a story about sex—about sid wanting to hold geno down in bed. that was the premise.

and instead, we got a really emotional story about familial rejection and the isolation it can make people feel. SO! something happened along the way, right?

when I started getting into the plot that would support this supposed sexfest, this is where I went at first:

geno wants the relationship to get serious, sid is like mentally still a 12 year old who just wants to wrestle people and doesn't want to talk about his emotions, and prefers to use physicality to communicate. this doesn't work for geno, who wants ... more

we can start to see the actual emotions come through, the things I was interested in: sid using touch to talk, and geno desperately wanting more

what did the most good for me, in the end, was "doing" the metawriting by talking with my friends.

I told them what i thought this story was about ("I'm thinking about making this a story about relationship-defining, maybe? and the communication needed for a lasting adult relationship? I think I'm going to set it in california/LA, where Sid has invited Geno along for the first time for his California Summer Fun/Training/Escape, whatever, and Geno's going to be emotionally preoccupied with Defining The Relationship—maybe they've been on-again-off-again? maybe they're just new to this, like almost a year deep, and they're not getting younger—and thinking this trip is about that [or hoping this trip is about that, and realizing it isn't, and being disappointed].") and they told me what jumped out at them.

Jes told me what would ramp up the tension would be a deadline of some sort; "Geno’s going to break up with Sid or make some decision or something, or there’s something approaching where they have to make a will they or won’t they decision of some kind related to the core ‘defining the relationship’ issue. Geno’s going back to russia and in previous summers they’ve always slept with other people while apart? or Sid has a wedding coming up and he’s offhandedly mentioned taking someone else as his plus one?"

I liked her thoughts. it made sense to add an external pressure to all this, and that wedding idea stuck out to me the most.

Lis said I should add a jealousy angle, so you can largely credit her for the club scene: "one thing i like to sort of headcanon/imply about sid's california trips is he uses them to hook up anonymously. so you could have, like, sid and geno seeing sid's friends, but also accidentally running into some of sid's friends. and geno's like oh, great, so here i am doing this horrible summertime training that i hate because i don't need to train in the offseason actually, and i'm learning what exactly sid gets up to when we're apart."

My magical solution these days is GOING FOR WALKS. do it if you're able. it clears out your brain. so on my walks I ended up deciding that I wanted a taylor crosby wedding. I like taylor as a character, and as a person with sisters I just like writing her in. best of all, she and sid are close and I like writing "I'd do anything for my family" sid.

and then I was like. oh. what if it's not that sid is afraid/nervous to bring geno, it's that he can't.

I... wasn't as conflicted as I thought I'd be about writing sid's parents as homophobic. I prefer to write them as supportive; I think troy crosby's been eviscerated more than he should have been in older fanworks, and though I respect their right to make fictional!troy whatever they want, I've been a little skeptical of outlandish takes on him ("he doesn't say I love you to his son because a camera caught them mid-interaction once!") ever since I read how the media has found him a convenient narrative villain while he tried to keep his underage son safe from the media as a child and while they needed to cook up Spicy Stories about squeaky-clean sid.

uh, tangent aside, I always thought I'd never write a "parents are the villains" story, but I did here. it felt right. it was easier, too, because they're not PRESENT in the story. I didn't have to write trina actually being horrible to her son. I just had to skirt the edges of the wound.

which works well on two fronts: I don't have to actively write the crosbys being horrible to sid, and I also leave more to the imagination of the reader, and that almost never fails to make the work better. whatever the reader imagines them saying to sid, it's going to be 10x more hurtful than anything I'd write.

I dug really deep on some personal emotions and fears I experience as a gay person for a lot of sid's arc here. sid is deeply imperfect in this story, and he's internalizing his pain and the horrible thing that's happened to him, which is making him pull away from his partner, and sid is not responding how geno wants, nor is he responding well, period, though he's trying in his own wounded, stilted way.

and beloved geno, whose tender heart is so hidden away for fear of someone hurting it. I really like writing geno; he's huffy and emotional and sometimes bitchy and feels things SO deeply.

once I had more of an idea, I was already working on a more detailed outline. this is where I seriously took Jes's advice and WROTE EVERYTHING OUT! it made it so much less daunting, because I didn't have to be figuring out my next steps AND crafting sentences at the same time. also this is where I tell you that the title of this post is mostly a lie, it was metawriting I failed at.

This outline also meant I avoided writing large swaths of things that should've been cut. Another beta told me I should delete three scenes and condense a bunch of emotions into the club scene, and she was SO right. Cutting events out of an outline is WAY easier than cutting out pages of text.

Ironically my outline kind of deteriorated after the club scene, but that's alright: after I wrote the club scene, I actually had a clear vision of what I wanted the end to be. I just had to trust myself. I CAN do this, I CAN still just write intuitively sometimes!

I think California did what I wanted it to do. I'd love to try something out that's longer and has more story arcs in it (jes has a post for that too!) but I think that's best saved for another, longer project, though 18k isn't short.

next up is maggie stief's writing seminar that I bought a month back. I'm going to start working on that this month and see how I like it. I have a few halloween fic ideas, plus spookfest, so these next two months we should be cooking in the kitchen!

#on writing

9 notes · View notes