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genericpuff · 7 months

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The Extended Mishandling of LO's S3 Midseason Finale Premiere

Alright, so I had mentioned leading up to the release of the newest LO episode that my feelings regarding LO returning were pretty "meh". Not hyped, but not completely back of mind either. Just sort of a weird calm before the storm type feeling that could go either way.

I'm glad I got to have that moment of calmness because good god, this episode was an absolute shitshow. And honestly, I'm not surprised, for several reasons:

Rachel has never been good at maintaining a buffer, even back at the start of the series she only ever had 2-3 episodes ready ahead of her schedule which is NOT an ideal buffer for an originals series.

Rachel has never been good at writing, she's very "draw first write later" and has stated as such in interviews that when she gets 'stuck' on what she's writing, she'll just start drawing and fit the pieces in later.

Four months is NOT enough time to both rest, attend massive conventions, and work on improving a project while also getting buffer episodes ready.

Because of the FP episodes remaining locked over the hiatus, technically Rachel only needed to have ONE episode ready upon return for the newest FP release, not multiple like she'd usually need like in the past during the S2 midseason hiatus or the season finale episodes which would unlock those FP releases like normal - so for all we know, she could have drawn this episode literally last week, especially when the promo material was so last minute. Frankly I think it was REALLY stupid for whoever it was who decided to keep these FP episodes locked (whether it was her or WT, it was more likely WT) but you can read all I have to say about that in my review of the midseason finale episodes.

All that's to say, no, there was never any guarantee Rachel was going to somehow "turn around" the ride we're currently on. I know that many of the critics were hoping for that to happen, but with the circumstances of the hiatus mixed with Rachel's bad habits of putting her best efforts into the procrastination projects that aren't her actual comic (ex. the few original pieces and LO sketches she put out during the hiatus) it just wasn't in the cards. This is where the comic is at and this is where it will remain until it's over.

I want to also point something out about this episode that was... really glaring to me.

As with all of these hiatus returns, LO got priority advertising in the first two banner slots and push notifications AND a popup ad within the app. This is unsurprising, Webtoons is still trying to milk this thing for what it's worth.

I know a lot of people are gonna focus on the art, or the fact that WT is continuing to shill LO, but I wanna point out the part that WT implemented specifically - "NEW SEASON".

This is literally just false. At best I'd like to think some intern just messed up and thought this was a new season, but it's literally not, the episode designation still says "S3". Note that the creators only design the banner art, the actual labels on top are put there by Webtoons.

But at worst, this feels like blatant lying to continue to hide the fact that LO is ending. Mind you, Rachel and Webtoons have still not put out official posts stating that this is the final arc. There is NOTHING from either of them to communicate to the audience that the comic is ending next year. It feels like they're trying to avoid the topic altogether out of fear of losing the fanbase they still have, rather than hyping up the comic's end for those who have stuck around to see how it all wraps up. And honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case, considering they're now trying to funnel the fanbase into Penguin/Inklore with new marketing deals and the whole Rachel Smythe Presents thing. They're trying to make this seem like the beginning of something "new" when it's really just a quiet shifting of management (Penguin House).

But all that aside, let's actually get into the episode. It's one episode after 4 months, which is not standard for LO's hiatuses, typically FP episodes release on schedule (meaning free readers start hiatuses 3 weeks after FP readers do), the only time this has been an exception has been with the 2 week breaks because the whole point of those was to build a buffer (which you can't do if you're going ahead and releasing the FP episodes anyways). For extended hiatuses like these, usually free readers still get their FP episodes, but that wasn't the case here. That means Rachel technically only needed one episode ready for the comic's return, and it shows. It really fucking shows.

FROM HERE ON OUT THERE WILL BE FASTPASS SPOILERS REGARDING EPISODE 254. DO NOT CONTINUE IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED !!!

As per tradition, we get a title that means nothing at all. It just says what we already know.

Our collective husband Zeus is dying, no thanks to the poison cupcake fed to him by Apollo. For those who don't remember, Apollo had tricked Zeus into eating the cupcake by making him believe it was from Hebe. We are fully aware that it was Apollo who poisoned him. Remember that for later in this review.

Right off the bat we're off to a hilarious start, both with a cryptid appearance from Apollo in the background (lmao) who is, for some reason, ALREADY returning to the scene of the crime he just committed because... who knows at this point. Apollo and Psyche know it was Apollo at this point, I might add, but I have no clue why Apollo is actually returning to the scene of the crime when he has no idea Eros and Psyche know.

Moving on from that, can we talk about this hilarious dialogue?

"We have to call a doctor! Let's call Asclepius!"

"No, we can't trust him! Gosh darn it, why are we only bothering to think of ONE doctor in this universe where we've seen more than one doctor?? Guess Zeus is just gonna die! What a horribly contrived situation this is!"

And that's literally how I can best describe most of this episode. Contrived. There is a LOT of manufactured drama in this that makes ZERO sense even on a surface level.

And what do you mean exactly, Eros? "What a terrible system!" Is this supposed to be a joke? Lampshading? We've seen Persephone go to the gynecologist. There are non-god doctors who tend to gods all the time here.

Eros just doesn't seem to be that pressed over this, he sounds like Ned Flanders and that's NOT a good way to open up a scene like this... let alone an episode people have been waiting four months for.

Anyways, after a few pointless reaction panels (again remember I have to cut a lot of what I show here for Tumblr image limitations but I promise you, I'm keeping as much important stuff as I can in this, there's just THAT MUCH filler at this point), Eros and Psyche confront Apollo and he is... good god.

There is... so much to unpack here.

First of all, remember those theories about how Rachel was clearly trying to write Apollo as this "secret twist villain" the whole time but it doesn't work because Apollo is simultaneously written as both a 'conniving villain' and a massive dumbass at the same time?

Well, I finally have a more appropriate term for him. He's your average red pill redditor - someone who thinks he's smarter than everyone else when really all he does is sit on reddit all day using big words incorrectly in arguments he gets himself into with a bunch of equally-air-headed dumbasses.

"You can't possibly understand the nuances of the Olympian political system," Apollo said proudly, a man who had, ironically and obliviously, run for president in a monarchy. The union of kettle and pot is eternal.

He's the Slappable Jerk but instead of it being a painfully hilarious impression, it's just painful and hilarious for all the wrong reasons.

this is so stupid because it's 1.) Eros pointing out how obvious Apollo's plan was, despite Apollo acting smart two seconds ago with a goddess who, mind you, has been a goddess for ten years, and 2.) patricide isn't even intrinsically linked to politics, there's nothing 'political' about a guy trying to kill his dad except in, idk, a monarchy, which again, Apollo has spent ten years trying to rise to power in as a president which is a completely different form of government.

If I wanted to be really granular with this, I'd like to think Apollo is making some kind of point about the critics who call out LO's whack as fuck political system (especially in the trial arc) - as if he's saying "well you're just a stupid reader and this is fantasy where you don't understand exactly what political system we're using, so shut the fuck up you stupid twig" - but I don't think it's meant to be that deep. I think it's just Rachel trying to write a smart character and then failing at it because she, herself, is not a smart writer. And I'm really inclined to believe that more than the theory about this being some kind of meta-narrative about the critics because this entire plotline is contrived and stupid down to its core.

I did not cut anything out here, that's the pacing. Leto literally just appears out of nowhere and uh oh spaghettio's, she has Kassandra! Remember Leto? The character we were led to believe was truly "pulling the strings" until she disappeared from the story completely after she realized that Apollo and Persephone weren't a thing, even going so far as to call out her own son for being a fucking dumbass? Well, she's back and once again she's being involved as some kind of "double agent" in this whole thing, even though we literally haven't seen her since halfway through S2.

"Mm yes, you're so stupid, falling into my trap! Even though you had no reason to remember Kassandra anyways because she's literally a mortal woman you just met and you yourself have committed acts of violence against mortals without a shred of care! I'm so smart! My plan is all coming together!"

We've never seen Apollo do anything except cry and poop his pants, the closest he got to being "powerful" was his attempts to murder Daphne (who he seems to have forgotten about in this "master plan" of his) but ultimately he's literally just a piss ant baby and there's no reason to believe that he could somehow outmatch the God of Love who can literally manipulate people's emotions and states of mind with his arrows. But yeah sure go off, you're so powerful and smart.

The worst part is, I can't even buy this as the narrative trying to be like "see how manipulative and conniving he is?" because it's just silly. We've SEEN this man cry with his victim complex, we've seen him say and do the DUMBEST things that don't lend to any amount of "intelligence" he may have, it comes across less as him being "smart the whole time" and more as him trying to sound smart but ultimately sounding incredibly stupid. And I can't even immerse myself into it and buy that maybe that's the point, because it doesn't feel like the point, it just feels like inconsistent writing, he doesn't feel like a 'threat', he's just monologuing.

Bad art and Apollo literally just repeating what Leto already implied so this is a waste of the audience's time.

This is the funniest panel in the whole episode because I can't tell if Apollo is supposed to be in the background (for some reason, despite him literally being in front of Eros and Psyche two seconds ago) or if he's in the foreground and just REALLY small for some reason. This is so off-putting. And of course, it's just Apollo explaining what we're ALREADY SEEING ONSCREEN.

You see, in addition to this episode being contrived, it also talks down to its audience a LOT by explaining exactly what we're seeing onscreen. It's like Rachel saw the criticisms about her not including enough to depict what's actually going on in her head and so she thought the solution was to spoon feed information over pictures that are already doing the job of explaining what's going on. Rachel really doesn't know how to write and even when she tries to implement changes that reflect criticisms that have been made of her writing, she somehow makes things worse because she completely misses the point of what those criticisms are trying to get across.

Anyways, without even trying to resist (for some reason) Eros and Psyche get sentenced to horny jail.

They're now trapped in a basement that Leto somehow has in her home. How do we know that?

HAHAHA FUNNY LAMPSHADING SO FUNNNYYYYYYY

Leto claims that they shouldn't try to escape because the dungeon is "enchanted", but she doesn't even bother to explain what that means. So they literally don't bother trying. They don't try to call her bluff, they don't try to teleport out of there, they literally just go "well shoot", shrug their shoulders, and accept their fate. Just like with the whole "we can't trust the only doctor we bothered to think of" situation, Eros and Psyche are turning out to be some of the stupidest, lowest-effort characters in this comic who literally can't be bothered to try because that would require too much brain power.

Notice how much time we've spent on this and we haven't gotten back to where the cliffhanger of the last episode left off? Well buckle up because there's still more to cover.

So it turns out Hebe was still inside with her dad, in FULL VIEW of what was going on through glass which is somehow COMPLETELY soundproof, and when Apollo steps inside, she just has no idea what happened. She never bothered to even look outside to see what was going on with Eros and Psyche, she's just been sitting on the floor staring at Zeus' dead face for what was likely several minutes, unless Rachel is seriously trying to convince us that conversation and hostage negotiation from earlier only took 2 seconds. The timeline is such a mess at this point that characters basically freeze in place as soon as they're not the focus of the scene.

Apollo rushes inside, acting shocked over the situation, and when Hebe asks where Eros and Psyche are (again, she could have just looked out the window at any time), he's just like "dur idk they just left lol" which Hebe just... buys, I guess.

That's just Persephone but yellow. She's even missing her beauty mark.

See how Apollo put his hand on Zeus' chest/shoulder by the way?

Apparently, despite Mr. Smarter Than Everyone Else trying to pretend it wasn't him, he's able to discern that Zeus is dying from a toxic and rare poison just from touching him. He doesn't even really seem to use his powers, he just touches him and goes "welp he's dead i guess lol don't bother asking me how I know that".

But oh nooo remember that note from before? Well gasp Apollo's gonna use it to frame Hebe! In front of no one else at all!

Hebe of course says she didn't write it, but Apollo continues to try and frame her anyways, even though, again, there's no one else present here, and so it effectively just becomes the most absurd form of gaslighting I've ever seen.

Again, THERE IS NO ONE ELSE HERE IN THE SCENE. He's just trying to claim she did it to absolutely no one at all, in the hopes of... what exactly? That she'll just take the fall for something she knows she didn't do? That she'll somehow be convinced? It's not like Hebe has the same thing going on as Persephone where she has a 'wrathful dark side' he could pin it on, this is just a criminal who just robbed a building pointing at the first person they see and yelling "YOU DID IT!"

All I'm saying is that Apollo would be really bad at Among Us. He'd be the type of player to kill someone, hit the report button, then claim yellow did it which, even if he DID convince the rest of the team, would still get kicked anyways as soon as yellow was proven through the eject to not be the imp and everyone would go "okay cool so yellow wasn't the imp, that means obviously it's purple self-reporting." It's a trick that doesn't even work anymore because of how old it is. Hebe isn't a child here, she's an 18 year old woman who should be fully capable of raising an eyebrow and wondering why Apollo is this quick to accuse her - almost like he's trying to hide the fact that he did it.

But Hebe can't catch onto this, just like Eros and Psyche, she has to act stupid for the sake of the plot.

At first I thought maybe Rachel was trying to do some "whodunit" scenario, but that doesn't work here because we already know who did it. And while there are stories that exist like that that pull it off (ex. Knives Out) the problem with trying to do this the way Rachel did is that the person being framed has to have this thing called motive. The reason why Knives Out and Glass Onion work so well is because the person who was murdered (or conspired against) is someone who is being targeted by multiple people who could all be the murderer. It's quite literally called out in Glass Onion as a form of smart lampshading. "It's like putting a loaded gun on the table, and turning off the lights."

But it doesn't work here because Hebe does not have motive. If you're going to attempt to frame a murder on someone, it has to be someone who would have reasonable motive to commit that murder, even if they didn't actually commit it.

And who among Zeus' children has motive?

What about the war-mongering bloodthirsty god of war who has been regularly sentenced to time in the Mortal Realm to fight in wars in which he's been regularly injured?

What about the chaos-seeking wrathful goddess who would do it to get revenge on the parental figure who cast her aside, or even just for the fun of saying she did it?

Why try and pin it on Hebe, the doting daughter of Zeus who's only had a collective of maybe 20 panels in the entire comic?

But then I realized... it's not Knives Out, it's the fucking Lion King.

Which is just as contrived - if not more - than the assumption this was gonna be some attempt to frame Hebe. It's not. He's literally just trying to keep her from assuming it was him. He could have just as easily played dumb without calling attention to the note but he intentionally went out of his way to try and be Scar from The Lion King , while completely missing the point of why that scene worked in the original movie.

Scar wasn't trying to 'frame' Simba for Mufasa's murder. He was trying to hide the murder, while also attempting to get the only heir to the throne out of the picture, so he passed the guilt of the death onto Simba - a child who, unlike Hebe, wouldn't have the ability to rationalize or realize his uncle his a scumbag - who then ran away from home because he was too terrified to face his family for what happened, assuming that it was all his fault when it wasn't.

That's not how this is panning out here. Hebe is the now 18 year old daughter of Zeus, and not one of his only children. She doesn't even fit into the whole "sons overthrowing their fathers" prophecy like Aries would. Apollo is literally just being a big idiot here by saying "well I'm gonna give you a headstart to run away, because if you stay, I might hurt you" (which btw, should be MORE of a smoking gun that Apollo did it??)

And again, it's all so contrived so that the plot can move forward. "Well I'm going to frame you for this murder, but y'know, you should just leave, I'm not gonna try and press it further lmao"

Again, Apollo is a fucking idiot here, because he just attempted to frame someone who has NO MOTIVE to harm Zeus, to absolutely NO ONE at all who would side with him, only to let her go which would leave her to question why Apollo would try to accuse and harm her in the first place before considering other options. And through ALL this he claims he's the smart one, which I can't even be bothered to "love to hate" because it's written so poorly.

And really it all comes down to how everyone else behaves in relation to Apollo that makes it so stupid and unbelievable. Apollo, you're not smart just because all the characters around you are intentionally being written to be as stupid and non-confrontation as possible. If you can only write a smart villain by making everyone else stupid, you haven't written a smart villain, you've written a dumbass whose victory only happens due to contrived plot convenience. It's not even done well like in Glass Onion, it's just bad writing, full stop.

And who does he call to report this emergency? The satyr police? His son the doctor?

No.

The media. Literally just "hello, the media?? I need your best journalist here stat!"

I need you to understand, even if he were calling a tabloid magazine like The Weekly Nark, you don't just... call a journalist to report a murder. These are not the actions of someone who's trying to absolve himself of guilt, these are the actions of a complete dumbass trying to get news coverage of his trophy kill who would be better off just playing dumb instead of trying to play smart. Even Walter White wasn't this fucking stupid despite all the times he fell on his own sword, Apollo is literally just instigating suspicion towards himself for no reason at all. He's self-reporting so hard and worst of all, you can't even take any of this seriously because of how corny it is. There's no dramatic tension, no stakes, it's just a bunch of characters performing in a really bad stage play and reducing every conflict to "well I guess Zeus is just dead now because no one's bothering to make an effort to stop Apollo or ask questions lmao"

It's truly the epitome of "this plot wouldn't exist if characters would just talk to each other."

But finally, FINALLY we mention the thing this episode is named after, the transition point to Persephone.

Just like with the midseason finale episode, there's a lot to cover here, so I'm gonna get more into it in a part two post.

That said, you can see already this is the messiest, most contrived bullshit to ever wind up in LO. It's trying so hard to be smart and it just comes across as a bunch of toddlers in the world's worst stage play rendition of Clue. None of what was done here was in any way dramatic or tense, it's just a bunch of characters infodumping shit we already know, trying to set up new plot threads that don't make any sense, and allowing one another to get away with what they're doing because they don't bother to even try.

It's completely manufactured, contrived nonsense. It's not "smart", it's not "so dumb it's brilliant", it's just dumb.

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#lore olympus critical #lo critical #anti lore olympus #this is the comic that bought two eisners #uh i mean *won* two eisners #... no wait i had it right the first time lmao

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 3 months

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WIBTA for reporting my previous place of employment for shady work practices?

Disclaimer: this would be strictly petty revenge for firing me - while illegal, technically, the malpractice doesn't harm anyone.

This might get a little long.

Backstory:

I worked a receptionist position at a family-owned funeral home (in the US) where recently, the managing funeral director was replaced from a highly respected individual by a couple from a different state that had come out of retirement and were completely changing everything - some for the better, most to their liking... and some that while legal in their home state isn't allowed in the current state we are.

I had a strong feeling out the gate that the person out of the two that would end up becoming my direct supervisor didn't like any of the current staff, which got solidified when during a meeting she pretty much stated it would be her way or the highway.

Sometimes when we're slammed, we all work through our lunch and don't get a break for 8+ hours at all, so instead of forgoing eating altogether the entire staff got used to just scarfing down their food super fast at their desks.

We also don't have company cellphones, we only have landlines, and the way we dispatch our team to go pick someone up after they pass is to call the person to make sure they're available, and then text them the needed info (we also don't get a stipend to offset our cell bills).

Dilemma:

Tuesday morning, I got fired due to "gross insubordination" for a. eating at my desk and b. using my cellphone to call the dispatch team. The owner himself fired me, and was pretty rude and, imo, pretty heartless about it (due to some events that occurred on Sunday, I had to call out of work Monday, and when I asked if I should prep myself for the meeting since I had a rough weekend, he responded with "well, it's about to get worse").

He already had my final check in hand (which had a copy of my timesheet with the days that I skipped lunch marked as "busy" or "no lunch cover") along with a termination letter, so he didn't even care to hear my side of the story.

Since I was the receptionist, I've got receipts on some, if not most, of the slightly shady things that they were doing (i.e. selling insurance without a license, selling insurance under a different identity, breaking some state statutes from false advertising, etc etc), and was thinking about reporting them to the necessary agencies.

Its possible that this could lead to the place getting shut down (i dont doubt that the fines would definitely add up) and leave people without work (which is my main deterrent but out of everyone that works there, only a few of the original staff is still there - the rest have either quit or are actively looking), but at the same time, if they continue unchecked they're gonna keep getting away with it, keep making bank, and with the state we're in being a right to work state, as long as they can frame it a certain way, they can use anything at all to fire someone.

So... WIBTA if I went through the proper channels to report them for their malpractice and have them audited?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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dragonpyre · 5 months

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Fic author intervieeeeeeew. Thanks for the tag @nyelung

If you want to, @llisona @sishal01 @wrencatte

How many works do you have on Ao3?

Thirty. Four of those are art pieces.

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

441,611. A quarter of that is one fic

3. What are you top fics by kudos?

Time Travel? What the fuck? 13,327

Prodigal 3,284

A Song of a Sweet Rose 3,009

Forget Me Nots 1,349

Winchesters in Beacon Hills 993

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

No. I feel like it artificially inflates the comments to kudos ratio and I don't wanna give false advertising

5. What's the fic you've written with the angtiest ending?

I don't like angsty endings. I need happy endings! However, for a gift exchange I ended the piece on a rather... unsavory note :3

6. What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Prodigal! Everyone gets reunited at the end and becomes a happy family! Also the only fic I've ever completed...

7. Do you write crossovers?

Totally. I've written like four.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Allllllllllllll the time. But mostly on my big fic. Apparently people have opinions on how you should write your own au. And get mad when it's not done their way

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Nah. not my jam. The most I've written is kissing.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes. Into Spanish via podfic (sort of. it was on youtube with my permission).

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Technically yes. I drew art for a fic that was posted in the fic itself (did sort of collab with the author on the plot itself).

13. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Gonna get real 2014 on you when I say this. Destiel. I was obsessed with SPN in high school and that shit show of a ship still remains #1.

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Like. All my BNHA and SPN fics. I'd like to finish my BNHA fics but like. I don't think it's gonna happen

15. What are your writing strengths?

I'm told I write angst well. I think I write emotional scenes/dialogue well, but I can't be sure. I'm my own worst critique.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

I want to say fight scenes but I think a few of my friends would fight me on that.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Gonna be honest, never really thought of it. If it's non important dialogue, I write it in the og language. If it's important, italicized in English.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter. It was a self insert oc (but not really).

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

Non, I think. I write what I want to when I want to. The only things I haven't written are ideas I'm too scared to flesh out (for fandoms I have already written for).

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written

Time Travel? What The Fuck? hands down. It's my special little guy. Fucking huge fic. Need to finish it so I can get to that ONE SCENE that inspired the whole thing

#text post #author interview #fanfiction #fanfic #fan fic #ask game #ao3

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whimsyswastry · 7 months

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AO3 Asks

Tagged by @quietborderline 💛 (I'm still working on the last writing asks you sent me! But this one looks like is much easier than picking out specific lines from my writing, so hopefully it won't take two months plus to publish lol)

Tagging: All you writers out there. I'll tag a couple of you directly, but please don't feel pressured to answer. And if I didn't tag you, it's my lizard brain. Please answer them and tag me so I can read your wonderful answers 💛

@flamehairedsiren @pigeontheoneandonly @greypetrel @destiel-wings

How many works do you have on AO3? 39 (Mostly one shots)

What's your total AO3 words count? 105,481

What fandoms do you write for? The last year has been Mass Effect only, but I have a few Dragon Age and Greedfall pieces as well. And there might be an Anthem ficlet? I can't remember.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? (1) Masquerade & Mysteries (Greedfall) (2) 31 Days of Kurtober (Greedfall) (3) The Hot Zone (Mass Effect: Andromeda) (4) Unharrowed (Dragon Age) (5) Operation Leviathan (Mass Effect)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Almost always. I really enjoy getting comments and even though I get incredibly anxious to respond because even though I feel like an imposter to be like "OMG THANKS!!!" I am truly thankful for the time they took to not only read, but to reach out, too.

What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Unharrowed; but only because it's plotted out to be a trilogy. So the first book ends with a high level of angst. Unfortunately, the one that's currently published to AO3 is not only unfinished, but also COMPLETELY different from the re-write I'm working on.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Masquerades & Mysteries, but technically it's not done yet. Because...I feel way too intimidated to finish the story, because in truly 10K story fashion, it ends with a smut chapter. And I don't really do that.

Do you get hate on fics? I've gotten some...disappointing comments that paraded under the false pretenses of "constructive criticism" but as they were from strangers, it mostly just felt like criticism. But only on Unharrowed which makes sense because Unharrowed (the version that's published on AO3) is very weak. It was my first story coming back from a 15 year hiatus of writing fiction (I'd been too busy writing academic research papers). And...you can tell.

Do you write smut. If so what kind? I do, but usually fade-to-black scenarios before it gets explicit. I have one story that I wasn't planning on fading to black, and it has been sitting in limbo for like 3 years because I'm too intimidated to try and write it.

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? I don't do DIRECT crossovers, but I will definitely take pieces of other fandoms and just apply them to my own. I haven't written it yet, but I do have a pretty wild pseudo-crossover planned. It's the plot of House of Ashes by Supermassive, but instead of the HOA characters, they're all the characters from Mass Effect.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of, but that's probably because every single fic I have published so far is only half done. And also because I have a couple dedicated readers, but I don't advertise my writing very often (not advertise, but things like blogging the links)

Have you ever had a fic translated? Not that I'm aware of.

Have you ever cowritten a fic before? I've never co-written, but I've had the opportunity to give my input while beta-ing my best friends Dragon Age fic.

What's your all-time favourite ship? I can choose favorites in each fandom, but probably not all time. Kaidan and Shepard have been reining supreme lately though.

What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? I am uncertain I'll ever finish Unharrowed. I had planned on writing 50k of it this year for NaNo, but due to health issues, I have chosen to not participate in NaNo this November. Hopefully I can still crank out 50K in April during camp.

What are your writing strengths? Plot. My plots are banger. Dialogue sounds pretty natural, I think.

What are your writing weaknesses? CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Which sucks, because you can have a weak story, that people will still love if your characters are strong. And my character aren't weak, but they are not dynamic. They don't tend to grow. Hopefully, realizing that about myself over the last year, maybe I can change that.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I don't mind if it makes sense storywise, or if it's a nickname for another character. But in general, I think it just creates more work for the reader, which isn't always a good decision.

First fandom you wrote for? Ever? Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place way back in 2002. It still gets a few likes every couple years and it startles me lol but it's on FF.Net, not AO3. The first for AO3 was Dragon Age.

Favourite fic you've ever written? It's not done, but The Hot Zone is definitely one of my favorites.

Answering these made me realize I really need to finish a story. Like..badly. Lmao they're all half drafted or half edited or just pseudo-abandoned.

#about whimsy #tag games

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indefatigablepaths · 5 months

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I 100 percent in complete sanity assure you that for starters, hmm the census is a fabrication of what I look at and can not understand or comprehend. You see because I was always asked to be sleepy. I thought that was healthy, being absent in hell. So not being present. No one asked me. Moving on. I can't. See do the simple math. I can't afford the vehicles on the road. That's a good indicator something is not right. I know I know. You start thinking these pyramid schemes exist, with outside influence and such. Well, they don't there's no group of organized car drivers. That's ridiculous. I promise you I vow to reason. These vehicles go nowhere. Technically we are blind. We believe they should be there, but they are not actually there. Don't even get me started on gas stations. That's interesting though. I openly support myself losing. Ok. It is like a handicap. Maybe we can create oil from carbon sequestration, I don't exactly know I can't plant an oil. Anyways. Before you get into this, see. These businesses that you think make money. They don't. Total cave painting. For one. No one in their right mind asks a handyman into their home. It's kind of frowned upon. If you know what I'm tryin to get at you feel. No. So. Ok. Car. Car. Car. Business. For example. That wood semi is not making a hypothetical profit or environmental effort outside of the sea port. Maybe the maps wrong, you believe it. The cement truck. No. No one needs a cement truck. Explain to me why you believe someone pays for advertising a business no one uses. Yeah I think of bored scum too. Actually, that's not even real. How do you know it's real? You don't see the gas receipt. Interesting. What is a carbon footprint? Is Carbonite a dinosaur memory? Something you should clean for your sanity. Watch these people religiously go nowhere. It's best to not get involved. See there's kind of an echo chamber. The chamber believes what you see is real, if you are running for your life for example. So yes, it is surreal because it must be accepted falsely. The train is worse. Begging to be let go. That system harasses people it is so dark. No one is moving product. No one is chasing product. No one is supporting product. No one is building a product. Transportation vehicles have no investment in even state wide economy. Better yet, no one knows what are in the vehicles. Like, see this is crazy but you can't steal something that isn't there. If you try to steal something then people will believe something was there. The problem is the idea that something is happening when it's not. Everything is distracting. So the census. No. No. Families did not inherit basic homes built over 1 million years even. That makes no sense. There was never a time when a local economy could afford to support its own building projects. That's not a conspiracy. Look at the available work. This work does not support house. You will not back date this conversation to a time period that did not exist. The 1950s is a horror show. There would be no survivors. Technically you also wouldn't know no one could never survive this. So we're in a void. An abyss. An illusion. Well, the money system keeps pretending it is viewing its own progress. Car, house. This is not the result of human progress. No one went anywhere, and had success to come back here to have less. There is no rinse and repeat cycle going on. Reality does not function this way. No one has a family away from the job. No one supports someone for no reason. All that has happened here is you have believed you compiled statistical data that resets and aggregate to always failing. Use your common sense. The system always fails. Except you look outside and you think that works.

#planets #programming #space

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brucearcherwiki · 1 year

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What skills should a copywriter have? | BeKonstructive Marketing

One of the most common content marketing misconceptions that I see all the time is the idea that anyone can write copy. This is false.

Anyone can write.

But not everyone can write copy.

And anyone who thinks that writing and copywriting are the same thing… well, they’re wrong.

In this article I’m going to share some of the skills that a great copywriter needs. Skills that are required to turn ‘writing’ into ‘copy’, and skills that set a human copywriter apart from an AI copywriter — because these are the skills that an AI writing tool is never going to be able to emulate.

Skills Every Copywriting Needs:

A copywriter should have a diverse skill set. Obviously, they should be a good writer and an excellent communicator.

But they should also be a storyteller. They should be able to take the reader on a journey, subtly addressing their pain points while leading them towards purchasing a product or making an enquiry — all without the audience even knowing it.

A digital copywriter (someone who writes copy for digital formats like blog articles, social media, email marketing etc.) should also have a solid understanding of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). While their SEO knowledge should be well-rounded, they should be very good with on-page SEO techniques. They should also know how to do keyword research to ensure that they are targeting search terms that have good levels of search traffic.

As a copywriter is creating text and content for marketing purposes, they should also have some background knowledge of marketing. While they don’t need to be able to write a marketing strategy from start to finish, they should be comfortable with concepts like:

target audiences

buyer personas

market and competitor research

user/customer behaviour

calls to action

consumer psychology

and more

This background knowledge in marketing is what turns ‘writing’ into ‘copy’. More than just writing factual information about a product, they are directly addressing the reader’s wants and needs. They are writing persuasively, to convince the reader that they want or need the product.

They want to make the reader feel emotion — be that joy, anger, sadness, frustration, happiness or even just FOMO — and then use that emotion as motivation to purchase the product or service that they are writing about.

The final skill set that a great copywriter will possess is the ability to write in a brand’s ‘tone’. Whether the brand they are working for is professional, casual, technical, bright and bubbly, cheeky, impactful or organic — the writer needs to know how to use language and sentence structures that align with the characteristics of those tone of voice requirements.

…What exactly does a copywriter do?

We’ve discussed the skillset that a good copywriter should possess, and we’ve also discussed what differentiates ‘copy’ from ‘writing’. But what exactly does a copywriter do? What is their role, and how do they differ from other writers like journalists or authors?

A copywriter is a writer who specialises in writing content, tag lines, hooks, and advertising materials for marketing purposes. In the marketing world, any words that are written for marketing purposes are referred to as ‘copy’. So therefore, a copywriter is someone who writes marketing materials.

They differ from a creative writer in that they usually have a background in marketing, media, or a related field. A lot of copywriters have journalism or public relations experience or qualifications. It takes a special skill set to be able to write ‘copy’ that is both interesting/engaging and which sells.

Want a skilled copywriter for your next project?

Our team of Brisbane copywriters are all skilled in storytelling, SEO, marketing, and creative writing. We pair our background in marketing with our talent for writing to create engaging copy that sells. Get in touch or request a copywriting quote for more information.

Read the full article to know more about the copywriter

#Copywriter #Copywriting #Brisbanecopywriting #BeKonstructive

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chaotic-kitty · 2 years

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So because I enjoy my own suffering apparently, I’ve decided to see how many characters nix hydra as a whole has come up with from both fictif & the arcana (it obviously is an approximation, I tried to find every main character/side character I could. Though I’m definitely sure I missed a few)

Fictif + The Arcana Total Characters:

Female- 50 Male- 53 Non-binary- 8

And of those characters these are the Love Interests:

Female- 10 Male- 20 Non-binary- 3

Technically, there is 12 female love interests (Nahara & Adra) BUT!! Nahara you could only romance in one story & Adra you couldn’t actually romance at all.

(Edit: that’s also not including the major arcana characters)

And going through the character designs & profiles for these characters, while it seems diverse, it also feels like they stick heavily to stereotypes.

For one, all of their characters seems to be weirdly tall. Out of the females the shortest are Volta & Portia, with Portia standing at roughly 5’0 (Volta I’m not quite sure, but I’d say even shorter than that) the majority of the other women are 5’7 and taller. And I know that that isn’t that tall but still. Then the male characters, Felix from what I can find is the shortest standing at 5’6 and Muriel is the tallest at 6’10, all of the other men fall at roughly around the 6’0 mark. And our lovely enby characters fall more on the taller side from what I can find.

As for body types, there isn’t much diversity there either, especially for the LIs. Most of the woman are thinner, with a more hourglass shape and average-bigger breasts. The men are pretty much tall, buff/muscular and really chiseled in their appearances. The non-binary characters seems a little more relaxed to a degree in their physical appearances and seems to be covered up a lot compared to the other characters. (Though they tend to follow the stereotype bodies as well. Like the amab characters having more “masculine features” ect.)

While the characters have a wide range of skin tones,ethnicities, ect. I’ve seen people talk about how a lot of poc characters have features that they wouldn’t necessarily have (e.g. eye colour) and how that they don’t necessarily properly represent POC individuals and going through all of the characters…..all of these characters all seem to be very similar in appearance as well.

So with all of this in mind, it really makes me further doubt nix hydra when it comes to their arguments about being inclusive/diverse and a being all for lgbt+ and women empowerment ect. The way I see it, they use those arguments as nothing but an advertising tool to lure in players who are being promised proper representation, just to constantly let those same people down. How are we as a fandom supposed to believe and support them when they constantly queer-bait and give false representation? What makes it worse though, is that nix hydra is a company run by women and they should know better than anyone what it’s like to grow up with no good representation, what it feels like to constantly have characters that are the stereotype and nothing close to the real thing. And then going as far as to blame us for not showing enough interest? We do show interest! Everyday on Tumblr, Instagram I see people expressing their love for these beautiful female and non-binary characters saying how much they would love stories with them. The beautiful artwork and stories they make for them (…coz you won’t). If you actually took a minute to look past what you want to see, you would find a community full of beautiful people wanting these stories & characters.

Nix Hydra ( @fictifgames) ,you had a great opportunity to break the mould and to be a company/storyteller to give actual proper representation. But time after time you have failed in that. I get that making these stories takes time and effort and I applaud every single writer/artist/developer ect for their work but come on! You need to stop targeting the lgbt community, women & poc individuals if you’re only gonna use us. We are not a marketing tool for you to exploit!! Especially as so many of your fans are younger people who are figuring out their identity, what kind of message are you sending them? And covering all this up with posts about women empowerment and whatnot isn’t gonna change anything. You guys need to learn that it’s okay to try different things! Make smaller characters! Make bigger & curvy characters! Make male characters with realistic body types! Make wlw stories! Give us the representation we deserve and you’ve been promising! It’s really not that hard. I’m sure there are plenty of good people who can give you pointers if you’re struggling to write certain characters properly. Stop buying into outdated stereotypes and concepts! Stop writing women the way we’ve wanted people to stop writing us for decades! You may think it’s nothing but it is harmful especially when we still live in a world we’re we don’t get proper, realistic characters.

Edit: And furthermore, while it’s upsetting not getting proper lgbt, women & poc representation, you’re not necessarily giving your male audience much representation either. You’re writing your male characters through your own fantasies and ideals and what society as a whole has deemed to be the male standard by making them buff and tall and “classically handsome”. That’s not proper representation either.

But anyways, rant over! Sorry for any mistakes ect.

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dehydratedpercy · 3 years

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Rating different versions of the SoN cover out of 10

A classic. Honestly gorgeous, some of John Rocco's finest work. The color scheme? Spectacular. The ice/water/glaciers? Incredible. Sopping wet and angsty Percy? Hell yeah. I also appreciate that you can't really see Percy's face, which is ideal because it means that the art really doesn't do much to influence a readers perception of what Percy looks like in their mind, which is actually really nice. 10/10.

So like... the questers go to Alaska on their quest, so I don't really get why the artist of this decided that the coolest setting for this cover would be the golden gate Bridge?? Like yeah, sure. They technically are near there. But it's a weird vibe anyways. Also, I don't love seeing the characters faces, especially when they aren't portrayed as super intense powerful demigods... so yeah, not a great vibe. Everything else is pretty, tho. 7/10.

If I could find an HD version of this I think it'd be super cool. Right now my biggest issue is with the image quality, so I'm trying to ignore that and pass judgement. The font feels weird, and the border is kinda strange, plus the colors are mehhhhh, but it is kinda neat. I like that it takes place in Alaska, and has Percy's silhouette with the eagle. 7/10.

No offense but where the fuck did this come from??? This one loses a point because the scene depicted never actually happened in the books (unless I'm hallucinating and forgot), but otherwise, it's super cool, super sexy cover design. 9/10

Im sure it'd look better with better image quality. But like... not that much better. 3/10

Percy and Frank look like twins, and I don't love any depiction of Hazel that has her be super skinny with wavy hair instead of curly/kinky. Also, I'm pretty sure Arion is a different color?? But aside from that, its really cool. I like the mix of colors with the blues/reds/purples (though I don't love the mix of yellow/white text, and would prefer them being traded for a gold), I like the dynamic pose, I like the semi-accurste scene from the book (some artistic liberty is never a bad thing). Overall, really not all that bad. 8/10

Again with seeing Percy's face. At least he's better than the original character design, but still. I would've liked if this was a little less realistic bc it gets into uncanny valley territory for me, and I'd like more vibrant colors and maybe a different font/color pallette for the text. But I do love seeing Percy with the eagle, and it's really really cool to see the undead warriors bc I never really got a good impression of what they looked like/how scary they were/how many their were. This really gives some good imagery. I don't like a lot of the other choices about color/realism stuff, but the portrayal of this scene is really cool. 8/10

Ahhhh, i am a slut for high quality images. Mmmmmmmmm. Give me a moment.

Okay, anyways. This is a little weird bc why is Percy standing in the middle of the ocean while he punches some gorgons? I'm cool with some artistic interpretation, but this just doesn't make a ton of sense. I do like seeing the water fists though (there something for you to think about-- water fisting. I'll wait for the fic), and I like that you can't see Percy's face, and I like the armor. It's weird that the title is so small when the series title is so big. It also looks like the cover of a book that was turned into a movie, which I personally find triggering, so that lost it a point. 6/10

1) what's wrong with his arms

2) what's wrong with his shirt

3) why is he ten years old

4) why does he have that haircut

5) thats... so much green

6) is he hugging the gorgons?

7) is he... HALLUCINATING the gorgons??

8) omg look at the difference between the gorgons hair and their skin TAKE IT BACK

I don't mean to be rude or anything. But

-2/10. I would not read this book and I'm upset i had to look at this cover.

Portraying Daddy Thanatos on the cover feels like false advertising. Its not baddddd... but it is weird. I'll give it a confused 5/10 with room to grow.

#son of neptune #covers #cover art #art #rick riordan #percy jackson #thanatos #frank zhang #hazel levesque #rating

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averykedavra · 3 years

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“don’t overthink it” stfu and watch me: an analysis

this card, in the beginning of the episode, sets the tone for this episode. and it makes sense! such an unofficial video, which was very last-minute, doesn’t necessarily need a ton of context. “wherever it would hypothetically make sense” is the place of this episode in the timeline.

thomas told us that, so if we take that at face value, this could possibly take place at any time in the timeline. he also told us not to overthink this. but uh. shut your fuck.

now, of course, this episode couldn’t possibly take place before the crofters episode. and since logan is shown still eating his jam, most people have reasonably assumed that this episode is chronologically right after crofters the musical. it may have been months in real life, but the tss timeline is separate, so it’s reasonable that this could be a post-crofters video.

and what would that mean? crofters the musical was released in april of 2018. deceit had been revealed two episodes prior, but lntao and the svs debacle was far yet to come. at first, this matches the video. it’s just the core four being friends! and they seem to get along a bit better than they would after pof.

but. “whenever it would make sense for this to happen,” as thomas said. does immediately post-crofters the musical really make sense? the more i looked, the more i found that it could be more complicated than that. in fact, i found some evidence that didn’t match up at all.

it’s likely that this all anecdotal evidence that doesn’t matter, and that i’m overanalyzing this and incorrect, but fuck it. it’s not that deep, but i can convince myself it is. here’s why i think this episode wasn’t that early on in the timeline, and my theory on what really happened.

my first hint was the whiteboard. patton doodles on the whiteboard while logan is talking, and it’s adorable, and i made a post listing all the things he draws. lots of puppies, hearts, and cute little smiley faces. and janus, peeking out from the side and saying “boo.”

which does make sense, technically? deceit did exist by crofters the musical. and he’s shown in a very sneaky, negative way, at least to some extent. he’s definitely not holding hands with the others. so that seems to line up. but then:

in one corner is remus, labeled “smelly.”

and that doesn’t add up. because remus hadn’t been introduced yet. remus was not canonically part of tss at this point. so how did patton know about him?

obvious answer is obvious, of course, and it’s that patton could easily know about remus before dwit. all the sides recognize him when he shows up for the first time.

logan: ah. it’s the duke.

of course, it does the beg the question why patton would include two dark sides but not the third, if there is a third, but that’s a realm of pure speculation. things still kinda seem to add up.

but they’re off just enough for me to dig deeper. why would patton, who barely knows janus canonically and long before dwit, include them on the board?

and then i saw this:

that’s a video game controller, drawn in green.

and again. could be a coincidence. but to me, it felt like a nod to the events of pof, with the video game theme and the green marker, a la his frog transformation. add that to remus and janus’ presence on the board? it’s beginning to look a bit more possible that patton knows more than he’s supposed to.

“whenever it would make sense for this to happen.” but it’s making less and less sense for this to happen when i thought it did.

could this video reasonably be after pof? it seems ridiculous, because the sides get along way better than they should after pof. shouldn’t roman and patton be feuding? shouldn’t virgil and patton be more snappish?

except this video, despite the lack of arguing, is extremely confrontational in other ways. they end up yelling by the end! all four of them! and their ideas, while not outright hostile, are still in contrast. more so than it appears at first.

virgil jokingly includes roman in his ad, while roman chooses logan, and logan chooses patton, and patton chooses virgil. virgil isn’t hostile to roman, besides calling him a nerd, and roman genuinely seems interested in talking to logan. but virgil is extremely on edge with patton, especially at the “kid” comparison, and bristles during the whole scene.

and that lines up with their current dynamic! virgil and patton are currently super tense, which started in embarrassing phases after virgil became uncomfortable with patton babying him. patton stopped calling him kiddo after that. embarrassing phases is after crofters the musical.

return of the jam? no use of the word kiddo, and tension when patton treats virgil like his son.

and! and yes, roman and patton don’t argue, but they don’t talk, either. roman doesn’t put patton in his ad. he chooses logan instead. virgil--who is on good terms with roman after pof--talks with roman, and logan works with patton but barely acknowledges him, acting like he wants to impress patton. these dynamics fit easily into the post-pof situation, or at least, a reasonable imagined consequence.

and.

roman: how does it feel to want?

a joke, maybe, a throwaway line. but it makes me think.

janus: everything has a purpose. and you're denying yours. you want that callback so bad, and it will crush you if we miss it.

selfishness versus selflessness.

thomas: i want to go to the callback... and now i want to lie to my friends, so they don't hate me for not supporting them. i’m a liar.

selfishness versus selflessness again.

thomas: i don’t know when i’m going to know what i want again.

flirting with social anxiety.

roman: i so, so badly want this. i’m desperate for it.

flirting with social anxiety.

roman: you wanted to go to that callback more than you wanted to support your friends. the blame falls to me. if you are missing that do-gooder drive, i think it's because i'm in the driver's seat. and i'm an awful driver.

putting others first.

and, uh, i’m pretty sure i see a common thread. roman mentioning “wanting” like that? roman being so focused, in the jam episode, on “giving the people what they want?” roman consumed by this narrative of give and take? roman in a car?

okay, the last one’s a stretch, but my point still stands! this fits into roman’s characterization! this episode could have been after putting others first!

and then that begs the question: where’s janus? if him and patton are friends in-timeline, why isn’t he here? well, i made a post awhile back about the sunflowers and quote in patton’s house, which i chose to believe meant it was janus’ house.

and yeah, it’s a ridiculous theory, but also? if this is post-pof, it would actually make sense for patton to be in janus’ room. or to subconsciously put reminders of janus around him. the ads are about what they want, right? what they’re comfortable with? if patton and janus are friends now, or at least on better terms, it makes sense that patton would include a hint or two of janus in his ideal scenario.

oh, and there’s one more drawing on the whiteboard i want to point out. as patton is rushing to scribble down logan’s words, more doodles are added to the whiteboard. including this:

of course, it’s hard to tell, but to me that looks like a face with swirling eyes. drawn in yellow. and maybe it’s just representing patton’s overwhelmed feelings--but maybe it references something else entirely.

my first thought? it reminds me of hypnosis or mind control. and if it’s referring to janus controlling patton, why would patton draw that? except: this is the imagination. maybe patton doesn’t control everything. maybe roman does.

roman, who after the events of pof, could reasonably believe that janus manipulated or controlled patton.

and the yellow eyes aren’t the only hint at janus! an interesting thing throughout the whole video? everyone’s extremely blunt. i can’t name a single time someone blatantly lied in the whole video. and yes, it’s super short and fluffy, but that’s still notable! the closest thing to a lie? logan’s line near the end.

patton: we have to say the thing!

thomas: oh! yes, we do! Logan?

logan: i don’t even know what you’re talking--crofters. the only jelly i will put in my belly.

cute moment, right? but logan starts to lie, then cuts himself off before he finishes the lie. like he doesn’t want someone to hear, or he isn’t allowed to lie. throughout the whole video, no one ever completes a lie.

“but,” i hear you cry, “isn’t the whole thing technically a lie? since they’re creating false realities?” well, yes, and also no. to use the series’ definition, acting is not lying, because everyone involved knows that it is a false story. this episode mirrored the am i original episode, in which creating scenarios fell under the realm of “brainstorming.”

which, again, was canonically roman’s idea. and roman’s power to do.

roman: i ask you this, thomas: allow me the chance to really prove myself! grant me full creative control!

thomas: you're my creativity. you have all the creative control.

virgil: no, he’s talking about full-on daydream mode.

the crofters episode is extremely similar to daydream mode. @limitededitionsanderssidesblog even pointed out that roman is the only side who has no animated transition between his ad and the others, showing that he is in more control of the imagination than the others are.

except logan begins the daydream sequence, not roman.

roman even acts upset about this later on, when he takes control of the brainstorm to try his own advertisement. “i’ll show you how it’s done,” he tells virgil, “like i was meant to from the start.” why was he meant to create an advertisement from the start? and then, why didn’t he? why didn’t roman start the imagination sequence?

or maybe he did, and we just didn’t realize.

every conversation the sides have with thomas is, in actuality, imaginary. thomas is sitting on his couch with his eyes closed, like janus pointed out. so there’s a certain level of suspension of disbelief that every episode starts out with. they conjure stuff, create scenarios, interject in the shape of text boxes--you just have to get used to it.

but there are these small details, if you look closely and discount the imagination factor, that don’t add up.

logan starts out the episode eating a jar of crofters jam. (disgustingly, i might add. my man cannot eat jam correctly.) he eats almost the whole thing, then shows up in the next frame with another jar of jam, uneaten.

as logan talks, patton scribbles on the board and tries to write things down. the whiteboard, like i said earlier, gains a few doodles as he continues. we don’t see him pause to doodle at all. we barely see most of the colored markers that he’s used. and he starts with a doodle-covered whiteboard, despite the ad only just starting, but seems to write everything by hand.

nobody is driving roman’s car. it backs up when roman wants it to, and accelerates when he wants it to, but he isn’t the driver.

virgil is relaxed, but he has deep, deep eyeshadow.

logan is excited when there will be more logansberry, but he just finished eating some, and he can summon more. it’s reasonable for him to be excited, but the chronology falls apart if this is close to crofters the musical.

everyone knows what everyone else did in their ad. thomas is aware of everything, but is able to call crofters and negotiate with them while not paying attention. all the sides change the scene at will. in am i original, they all participated at once, and only roman could change it back.

thomas calls crofters in like three minutes and confirms the offer. he doesn’t show up in the imaginary ads. he doesn’t try to stop them from arguing. it almost feels like he doesn’t exist at all.

and on their own, each of these can be easily explained. together, well, they probably can still be explained. but. these little inconsistencies fueled my growing theory.

this episode takes place “whenever it would make sense for it to happen.” it’s after crofters the musical, except it might not be. it’s an am-i-original-style brainstorm, except it doesn’t work the same. all the sides are friends, except they aren’t.

“whenever it would make sense for it to happen”? well, what if it didn’t happen at all?

there are so many little inconsistencies in the timeline. there are so many odd background details. there are so many questions, because if we don’t take this fluffy unimportant video at face value, it becomes harder and harder to understand it. it’s a short ad for jam. and in-universe, it makes no sense.

except it’s an exploration of imagination. it’s roman’s world. and roman, the brainstormer, the creative side, can make anything look like it really happened.

patton: you try to come up with a perfect commercial when you’ve got an extreme teen to deal with.

virgil: pat, none of that was real.

what if roman made the scenario up from the start? what if roman never had to start or end the imaginary segments because all of it was imaginary? because he was in control the whole time?

this episode makes the most sense after pof. roman may have placed swirly eyes on patton’s whiteboard. roman wanted his own jam. roman wanted a comforting, happy scenario, where all his friends got along and liked him. roman has control over the imagination.

but why would roman drag the other sides into it? they aren’t all fake, since they interact without roman there--right?

characterization is a tricky, tricky thing. and to me, none of the sides acted extremely out of character. but patton disagrees vocally with logan, logan is dorky and excited, and virgil is so confident that he reminds me of roman in points. none of those are ooc necessarily. but they’re interesting.

and this entire episode is wish fulfillment for roman, in a way. it’s all about putting up appearances. it’s about doing what the people want and making them like you. it’s about an almost too perfect video where everything ends up fine even when things slip out of control in the middle.

don’t you think that would be roman’s perfect refuge? his own jam, his own ad, and even when the sides irritate him, it all comes back to him in the end. no consequences. just roman, on his own.

because fuck it. what if roman imagined the whole fucking thing?

“whenever it would hypothetically make sense for what’s about to happen, to happen.” the episode itself comes with a justification. it isn’t really canon compliant. it doesn’t fit with the timeline. but it has echoes, echoes of the world and the universe it’s trying to forget about.

roman gets so frustrated when the other sides mess things up. he was meant to take control from the start, he says. the episode ends suddenly. the episode is short and sweet and, in a way, too good to be true.

it’s not hard to imagine roman retreating to a fake scenario after pof. going full brainstorm mode with imitations of his friends and giving himself everything he’s wanted. and i think it’s sweet and sad that he didn’t just give himself a jam. he gave all of them a jam. he made a world where all his friends were happy.

a world where all his friends were happy with him.

and i know this is basically the plot of all i want is serenity. but shut your fuck. i make canon and canon is mine for the taking.

it’s a wild theory. it’s probably not true. but given all the strange contradictions and deeper implications of this episode, it’s at least a theory i can back up with evidence. i can convince myself of it, and that’s good enough for me.

the return of the jam doesn’t take place in canon, in or out of the tss universe. it’s a fluffy side adventure in roman’s head, where he keeps everyone from lying and tones down the fighting and makes up a video where he gets what he wants. roman doesn’t need to start or end each scene. he’s directing the whole fucking play.

and where does he end up at the end of the episode? unconscious on the floor, smiling to himself, saying that he’s got his own jam.

it’s almost an identical position to dwit, when remus knocked him out. and based on roman’s sleep-talking, we know while he was unconscious, he dreamed. he can make things up in his own head. he can indulge in a fantasy or two. he can create detailed, personal brainstorms that nonetheless fall flat in important, logical ways.

i’m not saying that roman did make this whole episode as a comfort after pof. i’m not saying that he did imagine a scenario where he finally got his own jam. i’m not saying that he did imagine his friends happy, joking, and supportive. and i’m not saying that he did fail to fully imagine that, because he lost control, because he couldn’t convince himself.

i’m not saying any of that.

but i’m saying it’s a pretty fun possibility.

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flyingcookierambles · 3 years

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sadness over a3! eng i guess

oof just on my 700th day.....

kinda sad because of the announcement about A3! ENG server shutting down soon due to financial difficulties at LIBER/CYBIRD in the past two years (covid-19 related, etc.). according to a rather in depth reddit comment that had links to LIBER's publicly available financial reports + some financial reports from LIBER's parent company, Aeria, in english, covid-19 really hit LIBER hard since they had to cancel many money making events, from pop-up shops for the typical anime merch trinkets (keychains, plushes, pins, etc.) to the huge in-person events (voice actor meetups, the stage plays of MANKAI LIVE, etc.). due to shrinking player base on the ENG server + major loss of profits on both JPN and ENG servers, LIBER had to choose one or the other and they chose the JPN one, which i totally understand since it's way bigger there and the JPN fanbase will continue to give the franchise money more often. also, another person found a financial report/estimate from the google play store or something, and A3! ENG only made ~$20K to ~$10K in the past few months, which i guess is not enough to keep a server and localization company afloat.

i got pretty attached to the characters and it was a great game to help get by during college. and honestly, while i am very sad about this, again, i understand why LIBER did this, looking at their financial report from 2020. I would LIBER save the entire franchise rather than shut all the servers down, making us all unable to see our favorite actors ever again, even if it means that we ENG fans will have to go thru the extra steps of finding/reading fan translations, wikis, etc., to read any further stories from where A3! ENG left off. still, A3! ENG's localization was something special. i'm saying this as a TKRB JPN player who read the wiki for all the character voice lines and then had to see the official TKRB ENG localization make Yamabushi Kunihiro a rapper for some reason? lol. it was....weird.... meanwhile, all the memes and slang in A3! ENG didn't seem out of place and all fit their personalities because 3/4 of the troupes were all high school to college age and 3 of them were ~Gamers~. Out of all the gachas i've played, i feel like the only other F2P gacha game that had this incredibly smooth, all cultural jokes/puns translated in a way that still makes sense/fits the character/doesn't require a galaxy brain and some TL note to understand, is probably dragalia lost and that's only because it has frickin Nintendo localizing/publishing it globally for CyGames. Nintendo. i'll eventually read the fan translations of A3!'s Act 3 on the wiki, but it won't be the same without Kazunari's super high-energy influencer slang of "'whoa fam! that's totes 'blammable, gotta take a pic!" or Itaru's gremlin Gamer speak of "lol get rekt noobs" or Tsuzuru's tired dying breath of "that ain't it chief." the appropriate slang and relatable meme speak of the localization really helped humanize these characters as people of their respective ages, rather than just a typical formal speak or some directly translated JPN slang -> ENG that turns out super awkward that can be found in bad localizations.

going back to the reddit comment too, the death of A3! ENG servers could have bad repercussions in the future for other joseimuke games. josei, if you for some reason have been in the anime fandom but still don't know this term, is basically the genre of stories/video games/media/etc aimed at women. it's the mature adult counterpart to seinen, media aimed at adult men. basically shoujo/shonen = elementary/middle school/high school aimed while josei/seinen = high school/college/adult aimed if that helps. Joseimuke is a part of josei that is not specifically romance. while some josei/joseimuke can overlap with otome, aka female aimed dating sims/romance media, they have many things about them that make these all separate genres. one of the official A3! ENG translators and a known fan translator of another joseimuke gacha, Mahou Yaku/Wizard’s Promise, minami, goes more in depth with this in a twitter thread.

A3! was an actor raising game, and a big part of it was found family and relationships that were platonic. yet it got advertised as an otome, which has more connotations with dating sims and brings to mind other shoujo/otome games and anime where the cast is all high schoolers and the setting is most often in a high school. but, other than some characters making flirty jokes or implied to have crushes on Izumi/player character, many character relationships with Izumi are platonic and not romantic at all. Spring Troupe in the game also jokingly calls themself a family. the entire Mankai Company is basically found family. plus, since the game actually has time passing in story and the characters age with each year, half of the characters aren’t even in high school anymore. a large majority of them are in college or are graduated by now, with only a few still in high school. i’m not surprised if a reason that some people left the game was due to feeling bored with the slice of life/not romantic story, feeling that they were lied to about it being an otome, which was falsely advertised since it is a game meant for the older teens/adults demographic of josei/joseimuke.

i’m worried that other japanese companies will look at this shut down as a “josei/joseimuke doesn’t work well in the west” and never localize other josei/joseimuke gacha games like Mahou Yaku, EnStars, Twisted Wonderland, Helios, etc.

while i like otome and shoujo, i, as a 23/soon to be 24 year old college graduate and now tax paying adult, want more stories that have more mature themes and characters that are more my age so i don’t have to feel awkward when i’m playing some dating sim and i, a literal 23 year old adult, and trying to woo a 16 year old. it’s...a little awkward to say the least. i would gladly welcome more mature media that is categorized as josei/joseimuke.

sorry if this is all over the place, but overall im just sad that A3! ENG is shutting down. i don’t know if i’ll join the JPN server yet. i’m def going to read the Act 3 story via fan translators on the wiki, but A3! gameplay was...boring lmao. as much as i love A3!, im sure that the constant event grind/burnout and boring rng gameplay turned people off too and i dont blame them. i felt the burnout bad since i participated in basically every event since day 1. it. is. rough. i’m not joining the hellish thunderdome that is the JPN server and im not ranking anymore as a F2P player lmao. literally had to play almost every waking free moment to get into the 30%-20% bracket as a F2P person and i never got to top 20%-10%, much less top 1% lmao. i’m don’t whale enough lol.

i feel like i should probably just. crack open my genki 2 textbook and uhhh totally legal pdf copy of tobira. so i can just. get the JPN version of games in the first place so i don’t have to worry about getting shafted since overseas fans are often considered expendable.

i wish that, when any games that are online end, gacha or mmo or anything, anything online, companies will let fans archive things. or like. release a book that is just the story text or something. like. CYBIRD is letting us still technically play the game and have the story and all, but what if they eventually later shut everything down? why not just release a pdf/ebook that’s just the text of the eng localization for some money? i’d buy it. for nostalgia and rereads and all and also archiving purposes. i think i’ll try to help with any english localization archive projects if i can so that the hilarious and incredible localization that was a work of love from the translation team doesn’t just disappear forever.

well.

that’s it for now. as i said, guess i’ll head to the app for one of the last times to read the last unread stories and mini stories i have left, then the wiki for Act 3, and then i guess i’ll crack open genki 2 and bunpo.....

some fun random links for you to think about!

random ffxi article that came to mind (if ffxiv ever shuts down in the next 20 years or whatever i’d be cool to get a statue of my character at the end)

and death of a game playlist by NerdSlayer Studios on Youtube that has me thinking a lot about game preservation and losing MMOs and games

the lost media wiki and blameitonjorge’s lost media iceberg

other gacha games i’ve played that have shut down that i think about sometimes because the loss of A3! ENG isn’t my first rodeo:

terra battle & terra battle 2 (1)

AFTERL!FE

(related kitsu post link for archive reasons)

#rambles #games n junk #sad over a3! eng loss #a3!

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quartzturtlecosplay · 3 years

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Plus Size Cosplaying and an Industry that fails us [Long post]

In late 2020, I purchased a cosplay from a popular online store, EZCosplay. This was before more recent accusations of false advertising and poor craftsmanship came out. I knew the store had some issues (I’ve purchased from them before and I knew first hand), but it was my only option for this specific cosplay.

I could go into detail about the many controversies of the store itself, but for now I’m going to talk about the main problem many of these online cosplay stores seem to have: working with non-standard sizes.

The struggle of finding good, plus size cosplays can be really difficult and almost heartbreaking. Most “plus size” cosplay listings still follow Asian sizing (where American 2XL is an Asian 5/6XL and still may not be big enough). Even if a costume can meet certain measurements, there’s no guarantee that it will fit or be flattering.

I’ve often had to find myself emailing specific stores, asking if their custom sizes go up to my measurements (I am B: 52, W: 46, H: 53, for reference). For my most recent attempt, I was looking for Asami Sato’s outfit from the first couple seasons of Legend of Korra [outfit reference]. Nothing too complicated, just a pair of wide fitting pants and a jacket. I was either met by emails saying “no, that’s too big for us” (despite their size guides saying they can make men’s cosplays in that size) or those that basically said “put in the order, and we’ll see what we could do” with no definitive answer. At the end of my search, I had only one option: EZCosplay.

The cosplay itself ended up being fine, a couple of details missing here or there and the gloves were practically worthless. But hey, at the end of the day I found something that fit, I should be happy right? Yes and No.

I’m not going to defend this store. I’ve bought a total of 3 cosplays from them, only 1 of which I’m actually alright with. And there are countless other stories from buyers who have suffered the same disappointment, ranging from all sizes. It’s the lack of care for customers that drive these companies to neglect their plus size markets. Although I was happy with the outcome this time, it was only because I’ve seen how bad things can get if you try finding something more fitted and structed.

Looking back to my first time working with EZCosplay, its easier to see the problem here. Back in 2018, I ordered a Love Live! Flower Bouquet Nozomi dress [pictured below]. For those who are unfamiliar with the design, Nozomi is a larger chested HS Idol. With this outfit, the white is supposed to go completely under the bust and the skirt should begin right above the hips [link to the reference].

Technically speaking, it did fit around me. They were able to make it in my measurements and it fit all the information I gave them. HOWEVER. as we can see, the white hits about halfway down my chest before stopping, not at all as pictured in her design. As larger people already know, when you translate smaller patters into bigger sizes without accounting for actual forms and shapes, you’re left with something like this. Needless to say, I didn’t enjoy wearing this cosplay.

As someone who is more used to making their own costumes, this is not how you make plus size clothes. Simply making a pattern bigger doesn’t automatically make it fit plus size bodies. If you’ve ever had to take standard patterns and upscale them to fit, you understand what I mean. Alterations must be made, otherwise you feel like you’re in a potato sack. This is the problem that most people have with EZCosplay. While their costumes do technically fit up to larger sizes and they offer custom measurements, they lack any suitable structure or fitting. I’m sure the Love Live! cosplay would look great on a smaller size, however that’s not what we’re working with (and no way in hell I’m changing myself to wear it).

Now, there are some ways to get around this. If you need less complicated and less structured cosplays, you’ll probably be fine. Or if you find one that allows you to customize the waist line yourself (like how a lot of Toph Beifong cosplays are or maid costumes with aprons, for example). You could easily get a My Hero Academia uniform or a Ouran High School Host Club jacket. Those would be no sweat for larger sizes. Again, bringing up my Asami cosplay, it doesn’t have much structure to it and it fits relatively okay.

But as plus size/larger cosplayers, we should be allowed to be WHOEVER we want and we should be able to find costumes that fit us that aren’t just suit coats and robes. I’m not saying we can’t wear these kinds of cosplays, I’m just saying we shouldn’t have to limit ourselves in what we wear just because that’s all they have for us. America’s standard size is 14/16 for woman. Just like in the regular fashion world, anything above those sizes are either incredibly expensive or they just straight up don’t exist.

As cosplaying becomes more popular, we need to push for more size inclusivity. There have already been so many changes in the last 10 years, with more online stores becoming readily available with larger size options, but we’re not there yet. We need to keep working and demanding big cosplay companies to expand sizes for more inclusivity. Not just plus size cosplayers, but those who are also in the body-positivity movement who actually want to see change.

Both the cosplay community and cosplay industry have a lot of problems. But it’s by talking about these problems that we can work to fix them. We don’t need to change ourselves to fit our fandom spaces, fandom spaces and the costume industry needs to change to accept us, regardless of size, age, race and gender.

If you are looking for sites that offer plus size options, check out:

Note - These are places I’ve found that fit my measurements of 52/46/53, I’ve stared (**) the ones that go beyond that

MicCostumes - Anime and Video Games (I’ve worked with them before, may review at a later time if anyone is interested)

Cosrea ** - Superheros, Disney, and Some Games (Free custom sizing)

HalloweenCostumes.com ** - General Pop Culture, US/UK based

FortuneHouse on Amazon - Large Anime selection

WoShow on Amazon - Large Anime selection

Angel Secret ** - Disney Princess (custom sizing)

And of course, EZCosplay with custom sizing and good discernment .

If you have any questions or would like a full review for how it was working with EZCosplay or MicCostumes, please let me know. As mentioned, I usually make cosplays myself but I’ve been trying to branch out with cosplay sites and closet cosplays, as they can be an easier and more affordable option.

#plus size cosplay #cosplay #cosplay community #cosplay review #pnw cosplay #ezcosplay #body positivity #plus size resources #plus size acceptance

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t-underneaththeradardancing · 3 years

Video

youtube

Sacred Art (Hidden Track)

something different from Salvation Day

when we did our digital distribution - a youtube channel generated by ai part of package lol - a little to b desired - bots think we r also 2 other bands called salvation - and a movie soundtrack - witch share the channel - eventually soon come dedicated youtube channel - so we wuz gonna only “advertise “ itunes until vinyl out cuz money is bleeding badly lol - luxury prob

so i ax “ do we want people to listen or do we want $ ? “ sigh - but u know the answer

this is technically all vita and orchestration by niko

last song on album - last song recorded for as well

btw most of u can skip the rest prolly didnt need the above verbiage either

we were both - bleeding literally and psychotic - earlier in the day for instance - i get a call on vita phone - its her therapist - across town - he wants me to come pick up vita - she is delusional - her book - title alone - u see it in every vid - i set up a ride share even tho i dont know cuz vita duz that shit - tek hate t - after getting back to my hood - im sleepless for daze - hallucinating - trip and fall badly - theres a scar lol

i prolly couldnt have played guitar that night regardless - vita makeshift bandage - blood staunched mostly - she has practice -we sorta eat pick and off to studio like its everyday normal - engineer already tired of t - cant figure my purpose - to bee fare - i am pretty psycho - amplified by pissed at feel dissed by ppl im paying small fortune - recording going badly - its the last night - theres pressure cuz 3 songs have not been worked on at all yet

vita and i find a minnit - alone - wordless cuz there aint - we put up a psychic barrier - each others shield - we been freekin ppl out cuz in a certain zone - we respond eye lock - laughter out of nowhere cuz someone has said / done exactly wat we knew and

“I’m shedding all my skin...”

vita in vocal isolation a capella - between takes we hand hold like she wuz in prison thru glass - im singing - loud along - dancing in place - its like we r partly remote viewing ourselves together - again - a harmony - a false note deleted - do we have everything needed recorded - r we gonna - a break - i am either gonna start screaming and b a total dick or cu

i go buy a pack of cigarettes

shake it off - back to studio - eye lock - blur - its over

almost a year later

here and now

we are

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unintentionalgenius · 3 years

Text

ok @ongreenergrasses tagged me to do this and that's how I know we're made for each other bc tagging me in things is my love language

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 20, but 13 of those shouldn't count because they're Sherlock and I am not that person anymore

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? ok I had hopes that there was some way to do this besides doing, you know, math. but. it's 169,674

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? shockingly, #1 is Death and John Watson; or, Five Times John Watson Met Death and the One Time He Died at 615 kudos. If you'd asked me what was going to top this list I never in a million years would have said this one. I might have to re-read this now.

What I would have said actually comes in at #2, the (almost complete, dear g-d I'm so close) Come then, and be broken at 376 kudos.

#3 my beloved, my eldest daughter of a fic, Put Away Childish Things at 223.

#4 is astoundingly another Sherlock fic, this one creatively titled Five Times John Woke Up to Sherlock and One Time He Didn't (it's not bullying if it's past me I'm making fun of, right?).

#5 is a tie, with 60 kudos each, but they're part of the same series: A Great Man and Something Like Beginning, from my Sherlock kidfic (and incidentally how i met Hayls in the first place!).

I'm really committed to preserving my ~journey~ as a writer, but the outsized prevalence of Sherlock fic on my profile is making me question that decision. I feel like it's false advertising for who I am as a person now. 😅

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I try to! It might not be in a timely fashion, and honestly sometimes I feel weird about it, but I do go through and answer a few at a time when I have a few minutes.

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? I refuse to re-read the Sherlock fic just to confirm, but I think Childish Things wins by a landslide anyway. Fic where John or Sherlock died was a dime a dozen back in the day whereas "[a genderswapped] stiles helps peter kill her best friend" is still a very particular, unique twist of the knife.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending? this is probably going to be that Sherlock kidfic verse!

7. Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written? I absolutely do not write crossovers. No offense to anyone who does, but I simply do not understand the appeal.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic? It was less about the fic and more about the fact that I pointed out 911 has some copaganda elements via a fic's tags, but yes.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind? I now, as of literally the most recent chapter of the most recent work I posted, have to admit that I do technically write smut. It's super cerebral, feely smut, but you do read two people having sex, so like. guilty.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen? I don't think I have written any fics worth stealing but if it's happened I don't know about it

11. Have you ever had a fic translated? nope!

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before? nope! I have co-written things in Real Life and I honestly don't think I have anyone that I would want to write fic with like that. HOWEVER I do have a beloved sounding board in @ragequilt

13. What’s your all time favorite ship? i literally cannot answer this, there is no way I can say decisively

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? I had this fic from when the first of the new star wars movies came out where everyone thinks poe is dead, so finn has to become a person on his own, essentially, rather than being taught/hand-held by poe which I felt like I was seeing a lot in fic. The whole thing was epistolary, a diary that finn's therapist had him start keeping, which he then started writing to Poe. That's pretty firmly abandoned at this point, but it still haunts me and I wish I had finished it.

15. What are your writing strengths? Hayls once told me I'm really good at dialogue, and I actually think that's true. I'm also pretty good at atmosphere, I think, though no one has ever said exactly that. I do think I'm good at characterization, and that for me is really tied to how I do dialogue. I would honestly accept any commentary anyone wants to offer on the subject, though

16. What are your writing weaknesses? PLOT. not like, emotional arcs or a character's journey or whatever but. the ticky little nuts and bolts of how we get from a to z, especially when it requires a tight plot of external action. I always think about myself as (to quote @ragequilt here) someone who writes hurt/comfort, not casefic, and this is why. I'm rarely interested in writing the finer details of a mystery or an extravagant plot full of courtly intrigue. I'm probably bad at other things, too, but this is the one that stands out like a glaring neon sign to me.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? I think in almost every case it's not necessary UNLESS it's being done for effect - that is, if I intentionally want the reader not to know what's said. Otherwise, I'm just going to put the switch to french/spanish/hebrew/arabic/mandarin in the narration. One exception to this for me, which is really just a sub-clause under the "only for effect" rule, is when I'm writing canonically bilingual characters who would employ words or phrases in both their languages in the same sentence. Some of this is characterization - Eddie Diaz speaks Spanish or Spanglish around his family; someone writing me wouldn't be writing me properly if they didn't write the Hebrew/Yiddish/English patois that I speak in Jewish spaces. I don't want my writing to read like the over-translated subtitles you sometimes see where loan words are translated, thereby rendering the subtitles actually less intelligible. It's a delicate balance and I wouldn't guarantee I get it write all the time, especially when it comes to not othering a character I'm writing. (also @ hayls I am one of those people who always/almost always says Hashem instead of g-d 😂 for me it's a way of making sure people don't think I'm talking about Christian God™️) You will notice, though, that I do have a tipping point implicitly delineated here - if someone is speaking another language for whole sentences, I'm just going to put that in the narration; single words or phrases will be written as spoken.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for? Sherlock (womp womp)

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to? I've never written Destiel fic, and while at this point you might be wondering what on earth there is left to say via fic about that pairing, I have a lil thing bubbling around in my brain about bodily autonomy vs. trauma vs. helping someone not suffer from their trauma while violating whatever the brain equivalent is of bodily autonomy.

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? whyyyy would you ask someone this, it's like asking someone to pick a favorite child. the answer will change tomorrow, but right now I think it's the still-WIP sequel to Childish Things, A Twisted Thing Cannot Be Made Straight. It's got fun witchy!Stiles, buckets of angst but also lots of fun pack shenanigans in flashbacks, lots of me working out my own feelings about childbirth and raising children, ambiguous relationships, belated grappling with trauma, and also a satisfyingly bloody climax. There are some scenes there that still give me chills to read, and I wrote them.

@ragequilt I want to see yours!

#fic #AO3 #mine #tagged

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saymecw · 3 years

Text

Fuck it shortened/summarised enstars verses while I work on the page:

Che’nya: He takes on the ‘playful’ cat trope, but isn’t a cat himself in this verse because I don’t think we should have genuine cat boys. He takes off his headband in class to resounding gasps of “They were fake??” and he’s like “OF COURSE THEY WERE FAKE???” His acts have more comedy to them that most and he tends to focus on electropop but he will come out with random songs from different genres because he doesn’t like to keep himself limited. He’s a third year but his pranks and attitude tend to make people think otherwise. He’s in 3-A.

Drake: Part time marketing teacher, Part time streamer- but technically he’s being paid as a full time teacher and does streaming on the side, he’s well aware of how to present your best self to fans and make them relate and like you more- he also provides warnings as to what not to share with people on livestreams and how to make advertising products come across more naturally- he still live streams himself but refuses to allow any of them to watch his own, given he isn’t an idol and isn’t to be used for an example of one.

Natalie: A costume designer who came to work in the school due to her older brother’s insistence, rather than Natalie being an idol herself, she requested to be in the producer course ‘officially’ however, she does solely work on costumes and helps Anzu and the other producer with ideas if they’re ever stuck there. She keeps to herself mainly, as she does view it as a job and the boys can be a bit odd.

Henry: I wrote his up on his old blog so i’m gonna copy and paste it there-

Mistel: He’ll be aged down so he can attend and he’ll be a more classical music based idol because he canonically owns an antique shop- he’ll be more classy and refined looking to most, and he’ll be in the same group as Xingqiu, as he’s also considered more classy, however- he enjoys pranking and teasing others which often surprises his classmates. He’ll be in 2-A.

Iris: A famous author who often has fans hiding near her home or following her around, she represses her distaste and fears on the subject matter so much that Mistel worries for his older sister and decides to become an idol to take the attention off of her to allow her some rest. She often feels concerned for Mistel and attends all his shows to make sure nobody is following him and is also his biggest supporter as she was told he did it for his own enjoyment.

Xingqiu: A young boy from a famous family who wanted to be an author but wasn’t allowed to due to his godawful handwriting ( not even the teachers could understand it at first- and he struggles to read it himself ) and his families reputation, Xingqiu decided to become an idol due to Mistel who found out about his creative love of story telling and figured due to both of them having the same sort of appeal- they could have a story to their songs and a way to keep attention of his sister. Xingqiu had no real need for money or fame, but it did give him a chance to flex his creativity that he gladly took. He enjoys pranking people, giving false information and teasing them- but unlike Mistel, he holds no possessiveness to his friends and cares greatly for chivalry.

Scaramouche: An ex idol who hated his job entirely due to being sold as a cute and hyperactive idol despite his true personality being quite the opposite and soon became the math teacher for the idols in Yumenosaki. He’s snappy and quick to correct people on their failures, as a teacher, he’s considered scary and strict, having no issues telling people they’re in over their heads...but he cares about his students a little, maybe. He just wants them to know how harsh the industry can be. He occasionally gets visited by members of his old group who often try to coax him back, so students have grown used to him dragging a red headed man off of campus.

Albedo: The art teacher of Yumenosaki, most have assumed his prior job to be as a model or idol overseas, but they’re quite wrong, he used to be a scientist but found it lacking, as he could no longer spend as much time with his younger sister Klee and his dear friend Sucrose, given he has many connections in the idol world with Aether, Xiao, Venti and Kazuha being in a famous group- they managed to pull some strings to allow him in the academy. The students don’t dislike him, but find his mutters about experiments rather confusing.

Gorou: 4Anemo’s manager, Gorou often gets in contact with all the idol schools to discuss business as Venti and Aether always want to work with more and more idols to meet them and hopefully form friendships with- he’s usually more likely to discuss business with producers, but gladly talks to the idols themselves. They’re often surprised by his deep voice given he looks around their age given his height.

#i'm gonna write them all eventually but this is all i got so far-#ooc. ( out of chaos...for now! )

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soundofseventeen · 4 years

Text

How Would You Feel (Chwe Hansol)

It’s still technically your birthday, so I’m not late!!!!!! Happy birthday, @dvoz-writes!!! Never forget how much we love you!!!! And this also works (a little) for our 2/18 birthday boys!!!!

Word count: 3000

Inspo: How Would You Feel

The first time Hansol almost said he loved you, he had bumped into you on a busy Saturday night. He remembered walking backwards as he admired the bright lights illuminating one of the movie theaters and straight into you, which made you lose the perfect shot of the town clock striking midnight. He turned around the moment he made contact with you and in a split second, his vocabulary flew out the window and something jolted inside his brain. It processed “Sorry,” in English but it crossed with his Korean, and the “Sar-” was already ready to fly out his mouth and he caught it, finally stumbling out his apology.

Luckily for him, you didn’t notice the slip up, but you were trying not to fall captive to his brown eyes and the lights making them sparkle didn’t really help your case. Instead, you assured him that accidents happened and when you saw his shirt and recognized the group. You asked him a question, followed by another, and then ten minutes later, he invited you to a small coffee shop to further discuss the group.

“Yeah, I’ve seen them a lot of times,” he admitted shyly, sipping on his hot chocolate, “they’re really good live and it’s always worth the money. How about you?”

“I try to go to as many shows as possible. They’re my favorite outside of kpop.” You stirred your own coffee pensively, unsure whether to tell this stranger your deepest regret. Well, he wasn’t a stranger; you would’ve been a fool not to recognize Hansol Vernon Chwe, but he was still someone you didn’t know. “One of their shows I missed, this most recent one I couldn’t afford to go because work hates me and I need the money, but they said it was their best one yet.”

“Oh yeah, I went to that one. They added a song that wasn’t normally on the set, and I recorded it.” He pulled out his phone and began scrolling through it as if his life depended on it. “There it is.” He debated whether to show you. He was aware you knew him, but he appreciated the way you treated him like a normal person. He hadn’t felt this way around anyone in awhile, so he handed it to you.

“No way,” you gasped when you pressed play. “This is my favorite song. I mean, I saw it on YouTube and everything but-” you didn’t finish your sentence, you hand covering your mouth in awe and shock. You could feel the tears coming but you wouldn’t cry. Not tonight in front of an idol.

Hansol cocked his head, processing all your emotions, feeling the smile coming on and he didn’t fight it. His heart did a thing, and for a moment, he regretted not telling you he loved you, but then he remembered he didn’t know you or your name, and he wanted to know you. The moment the song finished and he locked eyes with you, he knew he had fallen in love with you.

The second time he almost told you he loved you, it was after he invited you to come with him to see his family. Sofia had a thing to do and after countless hours of begging him that he needed to see this, he relented and you crossed his mind, and he said he’d go on the condition that he could bring a friend and she agreed. So he called you, and he left you a voicemail when you didn’t pick up, when he forgot that you worked that day. You called him a couple hours later on your break (leaving your own voicemail because he had idol duties to attend to) and let him know that you cleared a few days off the ones in question.

The look on Sofia’s face when she had opened the door and saw you instead of one of the members was amusing, to say the least, but she warmed up to you really quickly. She still had a few hours until she had to go to a school graduation, one that had asked her to sing the Korean national anthem so she was doing everything she could to keep her nerves under control. You were currently on the floor, playing a board game and they were both yelling at you and accusing you of cheating. Even through everyone's fit of giggles, Sofia couldn’t miss the way your competitive streak came out and how Hansol just egged your annoyance on. A few rounds later, you called it quits by throwing your cards on the board, mostly because it was time for the little sister to start getting ready and because when it was siblings against the one person, they usually won. You reached over and mussed Sofia’s hair and she jumped up quickly, claiming she needed to shower before everyone was late. You helped Vernon pick up the game, joining in his sing-along and him telling you about how he grew up and pointing to the various juice stains on the ceiling and showing you all his favorite books.

Sofia found you both in the kitchen about 20 minutes later, huddled over bowls of cereal and arguing over which was the best one and she announced it was time to go.

Although you only stayed at the graduation for a few minutes, everyone treated Sofia as if she had performed a full concert and everyone was now celebrating it, not that there were any complaints. Everyone was having a good time; the parents were drinking and he saw you and Sofia squeezing your eyes shut from the pain that brain freeze brought. He looked at the milkshake cups, his sister having drunk more than you did and he decided to help you out by eating as much as he could before his own brain freeze followed. He placed his palms on his temples, exhaling deeply, his breath cold and he still laughed along with you.

Later that night, once everyone was sound asleep, he snuck to the kitchen to get a glass of water and stopped at seeing you still up. He watched the way you turned the page intently and how you struggled to keep the flashlight on your phone steady. He smiled, the thirst no longer a problem to him and instead thumped the couch cushion to get your attention.

You jumped, the light blinding you momentarily as you heard Hansol laughing. “I’m gonna kill you,” you whispered.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?”

��Sofia gave me this book and I wanna finish it before we go home.”

He liked the way you said we; it seemed like you were on the same team. Home too. It was like he pictured his future with you looking at him the way you were if he ever accidentally dropped your favorite mug on a night like this. Again, the “Sa-” was on the tip of his tongue but he didn’t know how you’d react, so he had to switch tactics asap. “Sofia has good taste. She’s the reason I grew to like books. Even if we have to stay a little longer, we will. Or I can just buy you a copy...but we have to have joint custody.”

“Sounds like a deal, Chwe.”

The third time he almost said it, you had managed to pull off a surprise birthday party for not one but two boys....with the help of the ‘95 line helping you decorate the place, the ‘96 line going out and buying the ingredients you needed to make the birthday boys a cake for each of them; Mingyu and Minghao taking Seokmin to go to a carnival in the next town, and Seungkwan and Chan taking Hansol to a record store and buying some stuff. Hansol had wanted to spend the day with you but he had been under the impression that you had to work that day and that his respective brothers had some recording to attend to.

(It wasn’t easy to pull it off, considering Hansol kept bugging Seungcheol every few minutes, asking when the maknae line was due to arrive to the studio and Minghao asking Jeonghan how else to distract Seokmin. Your efforts were almost blown when the front door slammed open and you dropped the frosting, and you couldn’t help but beat Chan (he was alone) with the dishrag you used to pick up the mess.

“When you marry Vernon hyung, you still better be spoiling him like this because it’d be false advertising as my future in-law,” he said eyeing the sink and pulling out a dirty spoon you used to make the frosting. He didn’t think twice as he licked the chocolate.

“I have no intentions of marrying Vernon.”

“Your loss,” he shrugged and turned to the oldest boy. “Hyung, are you almost done here? I’m tired of hearing Kwannie hyung sing all the songs on his phone.”

“Almost. Just be patient.” And with that, Chan left satisfied, and Seungcheol looked at you trying to focus on the last of Seokmin’s cake. “So is it okay if I ask you what’s going on with you and Nonie? Or is that too personal?”

You shook your head. “Nothing’s going on. We’re just friends.” The blush on your cheeks and your trembling hands didn’t exactly help your case but Cheol was kind enough to drop the subject.)

You weren't exactly sure how you managed to balance Vernon’s chocolate cake and Seokmin’s red velvet one but you did, even singing the birthday song when the boys in question processed what you were doing some few hours later when they walked in the front door. Once they made their wish and blew out the candles, Seokmin gleefully grabbed his cake and skipped to the table, sticking his finger into the frosting and licking it clean. He paraded across the room, showing it off to everyone and gloating that he had the bestest friend in the whole world. Hansol, merely took the cake with one hand and gave you a side hug as tightly as he could manage before Soonyoung intervened and grabbed the dessert so he could hug you with both.

“Happy birthday Hansol,” you whispered. “I hope this was okay.”

“Wait, this was you?”

“Well, I had help. I couldn’t have done this without your group mates.” You pulled away with a gasp. “Oh crap! I forgot your gift! I’m so sorry!”

“Why would you get me a gift after doing all this?”

“Because it’s your birthday.”

“Did you get something for DK?”

The horrified look on your face told him everything he needed to know and he marched right up to his birthday twin who had somehow been able to find somewhere to sit and was currently stuffing his face with Junhui and you couldn’t tell who looked more like a chipmunk and you hoped someone would get a picture of these two looking like that because your heart multiplied.

“Hey hyung?”

“Mmm?” He looked up at you, face full of frosting and he swallowed loudly. He scrambled for a napkin and wiped at the spots frantically. “Yeah?”

“So would you be bummed if we didn’t get gifts from our friend here?”

“The surprise party wasn’t a gift?” You had yet to get used to Seokmin’s naïtivty and his knack for being easily surprised.

Hansol shook his head. “Never mind. Enjoy your cake hyungdeul.” He turned back to you. “See? You don’t need to give us more than this.”

“So you like it?”

“I love y-” He froze the moment the words almost slipped out and just started coughing to thwart his speech, and didn’t speak again until you had given him some water. “Sorry...I meant to say that I love it. Thank you Y/N. I have the greatest friend in the world.”

Various offended “heys” sounded throughout and he reiterated slightly. “Besides you guys.”

The fourth time he almost told you he loved you, you were in his car in your front yard after coming back from your first date together. You kept leaning over to the driver’s side and stealing kisses from him and all he could do was relish in them and kiss you back.

“So has anyone ever made you this happy?” you asked him.

He shook his head. “I can’t remember the last time I was like this.” He welcomed the warm feeling of your hand caressing his cheek gently. “Have you ever had this much fun?”

“Once,” you admitted. “I went to visit some friends and somehow we all stayed up past our normal bedtime just looking at the sky and feeling at peace. It wasn’t a big thing or anything, but it was just us, all the stars and all the wishes we made. A lot of them have come true since then.” You looked over at him, not saying more. “What’s the dumbest thing you ever wished for?”

He covered your hand with his before bringing it to his lips to kiss them repeatedly. “It wasn’t dumb but I remember putting it on my Christmas list every year. I just wanted to go back to New York. At least there, no one gave a shit if you were black, white, mixed, missing an eye or tooth or whatever.” He brought you close to him to kiss you again. “Why did you agree to go on a date with me?”

“I figured it was about time to be real with my feelings and you.” You smiled at him. “I’d been wanting to tell you for awhile, but you beat me to it.”

He nodded slowly, liking the answer. He leaned in for another kiss, but his phone ringing disturbed the moment, and just for that he ignored it. “I should get going. Can I walk you inside?”

When you nodded, he quickly removed his seatbelt and ran to the passenger side to open the door for you. As soon as you were out, he wrapped his arms around you, back hugging you and kissing your cheek. He finally felt like a rebellious teenager to be doing this with you. It was a little past curfew, you had to be up early and so did he, but he didn’t want this moment to end. He was even more in love with you than ever before.

“Hansol, you have to go,” you whined after you realized he didn’t plan on moving from that spot.

“A few more minutes,” he sighed. “I don’t wanna let you go just yet.”

“Either you do now, or Seungcheol will pry you away from me if you're not home in the next ten minutes.”

“I’m not scared of that grandpa.”

“You hear that Cheol?”

And with that, his head snapped up, looking in all directions for the leader, already looking for words to excuse his actions. “You liar.”

“I thought you weren’t scared.”

“I’m not,” he pouted, but then he sighed. “Do we really have to say goodbye?”

“I don’t want you to go either.” You reached for his hand so he could finally walk you to your front door. “Hansol, thank you for tonight.”

“Anytime. Thank you for agreeing. I’ll call you soon, okay?”

You nodded. “Okay.”

He waited for you to unlock the door so you could go in and just as you were about to close the door, he called you.

“Yeah?”

“Sa-” The saranghae didn’t go past his throat; neither could the I love you, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “Sleep well.”

The fifth time he almost told you he loved you, he had convinced you to sit on the roof with him at his house. You had long ago admitted to him that you had never seen a sunrise, so he vowed that the next time neither of you had plans, he was gonna invite you to Seventeen’s dorm to make you watch it. Two months later, it happened, and he spent the day making sure he had everything to spend the night up on the roof with you, and despite the chilly air, it was worth it.

You sat in between his legs and he had his arms wrapped around you, often tightening around you every time he felt overcome with emotion. He would take your hand and trace a pattern in the sky with your finger and then tell you the name of the constellation. You offered him your earbuds sometime during the night, and you took turns listening to your favorite songs, singing along to all the words.

Every time you could feel yourself nodding off, Hansol would gently shake you awake and offer you something to snack on so you could stay awake. “We’re almost there Jagi,” his hoarse voice would encourage you. “Just a little longer.” And then he would kiss your cheek and cuddle you a little more.

You were both blissfully unaware of the 12 other boys spying on you and seeing what you were currently doing. More often than not, someone had to stop Soonyoung from barging in and interrupting, but they quietly left out extra blankets and water bottles and other snacks by the window so neither of you would have to move much.

Finally, the first few rays of sunlight came peeking through over the horizon. It wasn’t much at first, but then suddenly, the whole world seemed to wake up along with it. You could hear the birds chirping and the insects buzzing, and everything warming up.

“What do you think?”

You nodded, finally closing your eyes and resting against his chest. “It’s beautiful,” you managed to mumble sleepily. Can we do this again?”

“As many times as you want,” he promised.

“Okay, good.”

He waited a little longer in case you had more to add, but the only thing he could feel was you breathing in and out deeply and evenly, finally fast asleep. “Hey Jagi, how would you feel if I told you I loved you?”

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arcticdementor · 3 years

Link

The news business just can’t stop clowning itself. The latest indignity is an international fact-checking debacle originating, of all places, at a “festival of fact-checking.”

The Poynter Institute is perhaps the most respected think tank in our business, an organization seeking to “fortify journalism’s role in a free society,” among other things through its sponsorship of the fact-checking outlet PolitiFact. A few weeks back, it held a virtual convention called the “United Facts of America: A Festival of Fact-Checking.”

The three-day event featured special guests Christiane Amanpour, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Brian Stelter, and Senator Mark Warner — a lineup of fact “stars” whose ironic energy recalled the USO’s telethon-execution of Terrance and Phillip before the invasion of Canada in South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. Tickets were $50, but if you wanted a “private virtual happy hour” with Stelter, you needed to pay $100 for the “VIP Experience.”

…

However, the public is regularly misinformed about what fact-checkers do. In most settings — especially at daily newspapers — fact-checking, if used at all, is the equivalent of the bare-minimum collision insurance your average penny-pinching car renter buys. There’s usually just enough time to flag a few potential dangers for litigation and/or major, obvious mistakes about things like dates, spellings of names, wording of quotes, whether a certain event a reporter describes even happened, etc.

For anything more involved than that, which is most things, fact-checkers have to scramble to make tough judgment calls. The best ones tend to vote for killing anything that might blow up in the face of the organization later on. Good checkers are there to help perpetuate the illusion of competence. They’re professional ass-coverers, whose job is to keep it from being obvious that Wolf Blitzer or Matt Taibbi or whoever else you’re following on the critical story of the day only just learned the term hanging chad or spike protein or herd immunity. In my experience they’re usually pretty great at it, but their jobs are less about determining fact than about preventing the vast seas of ignorance underlying most professional news operations from seeping into public view.

Unfortunately, over the course of the last five years in particular, as the commercial media has experienced a precipitous drop in the public trust levels, many organizations have chosen to trumpet fact-checking programs as a way of advertising a dedication to “truth.” Fact-checking has furthermore become part of the “moral clarity” argument, which claims a phony objectivity standard once forced news companies to always include gestures to a perpetually wrong other side, making “truth” a casualty to false “fairness.”

…

But objectivity was never about giving equal time and weight to “both sides.” It’s just an admission that the news business is a high-speed operation whose top decision-makers are working from a knowledge level of near-zero about most things, at best just making an honest effort at hitting the moving target of truth.

Like fact-checking itself, the “on the one hand and on the other hand” format is just a defense mechanism. These people say X, these people say Y, and because the jabbering mannequins we have reading off our teleprompters actually know jack, we’ll let the passage of time sort out the difficult bits.

The public used to appreciate the humility of that approach, but what they get from us more often now are sanctimonious speeches about how reporters are intrepid seekers of truth who sit next to God and gobble amphetamines so they can stay awake all night defending democracy from “misinformation.” But once you get past names, dates, and whether the sky that day was blue or cloudy, the worst kind of misinformation in journalism is to be too sure about anything. That’s especially when dealing with complex technical issues, and even more especially when official sources seem invested in eliminating discussion of alternative scenarios of those issues.

From the start, the press mostly mishandled Covid-19 reporting. Part of this was because nearly all of the critical issues — mask use, lockdowns, viability of vaccine programs, and so on — were marketed by news companies as culture-war narratives. A related problem had to do with news companies using the misguided notion that the news is an exact science to promote the worse misconception that science is an exact science. This led to absurd spectacles like news agencies trying to cover up or denounce as falsehood the natural reality that officials had evolving views on things like the efficacy of ventilators or mask use.

When CNN did a fact-check on the question, “Did Fauci change his mind on the effectiveness of masks?” they seemed worried about the glee Trump followers would feel if they simply wrote yes, so the answer instead became, “Yes, but Trump is also an asshole” (because he implied the need to wear masks is still up for debate). By labeling whatever the current scientific consensus happened to be an immutable “fact,” media outlets made the normal evolution of scientific debates look dishonest, and pointlessly heightened mistrust of both scientists and media.

#matt taibbi #substack #journalism in action #fact checking

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