hey jess!!! before i ask, pls know this is an absolute no pressure question bc i am naught but a faceless collection of 1s and 0s on your device, and i am in no way entitled to your time nor labour,,,
are you still writing bite marks or have you gone off it?
(reminder: this praise is not intended to guilt you) i love the concept of that fic and though my imagination is great it's got nothing on the way you write!!
all love and hope your day features many fluffy cows
<3333
hi anon!! welcome welcome to the inbox. i will say, I very much appreciate the tone of this ask, it's very sweet!! I appreciate it a lot <3
as for BM, yeah I'm still writing it!! I know it's been a long time since the last update and I am sorry abt that! I just keep getting side tracked along the way. If you want some behind the scenes info on Jess Fics, I have a little "schedule" of sorts I've made for myself this year and this month is a Busy fic month for me. So I've been prioritizing other stuff before BM. But that doesn't mean I've completely forgotten about it! It just means she's been left on the back burner longer than I would have liked.
I appreciate the praise!! And I would also love to know what your imagination is filling in if you ever want to tell me <3
Thank you very much for asking and being so polite! I hope I can give you an update soon.
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I loved your ranking of Jane! She gets way too much hat. Tbh I like her way more than Kenny
Thanks anon, glad you enjoyed the post!
But yes, I agree. I think Jane gets too much hate and I believe it comes from a misunderstanding of her character, as well as a lot of bias set in Kenny's favor.
Believe me, I understand a lot of the criticism with her character and I don't fault anyone for disliking her. To each their own, y'know?
I find her compelling and way more likeable than Kenny, and while I stand by the Wellington ending being the best outcome for Clementine and AJ, I loathe that you only get it by going with Kenny. Personally, if forced to throw out the Wellington ending, Jane is Clementine's best option as far as S2's ending goes...
...We don't talk about ANF Jane. ANF is forever on my shitlist for what it did to Jane. You ever want to study a great example of writers fully misunderstanding a character then writing a total character assassination? Then look at Jane in ANF.
But anyway, Jane isn't heartless and she actually listens to Clementine when she chews her out and tries to improve, something Kenny just... doesn't do, no matter how many times he says he will be better. Actions speak louder than words, my guy.
One example I can give comes with Arvo. Jane will threaten him with a gun and suggest they take his stuff, that she doesn't care about his supposed sick sister, all that... no matter the outcome, Jane shows remorse for her actions and questions how she got to the point of threatening a kid like Arvo, someone clearly powerless against her and in a position to be taken advantage of.
Then you have Kenny who treats Arvo as a personal punching bag and never once does he feel remorse. Kenny just treats him as an outlet for his rage, nothing more. Arvo isn't even a person to him. Hell, he cares more about going after Arvo and beating his ass than he does if Clementine falls through the ice while trying to save Luke.
You know who pulls Clementine out of the icy water? Not Kenny. Jane does, and she's the only one in a huge panic about her freezing to death, running around looking for a way to start a fire and what is Kenny doing? Right, beating Arvo again.
That's just one example. Also, to touch on the topic of Sarah, because I know that's a big thing for people who dislike Jane which fair enough, I get that. I don't have time to give a full analysis, but Jane's backstory is a huge part of why she tells Clementine that Sarah's going to bring her down. Sarah isn't in good shape after Carlos is killed, and you can't just pretend that she didn't endanger them when she refused to move. It makes sense why she doesn't, and it's incredibly tragic, but Jane can see as an outside observer with no attachment to Sarah that if they stay here, they're all going to die. So, either Clementine forces her to move, abandons her, or dies with her.
There are plenty of flaws with how Sarah is portrayed and handled in S2, again I don't have the time to give a full analysis, but Jane is gentle no matter what Clementine decides to do, save her or leave her. She doesn't chew Clementine out, she doesn't say, "I told you so." Jane explains her story with her sister, and the Sarah situation clearly triggered that trauma for her.
Again, soooo easy for people who hate Jane to be like "see?? she left her sister to die?? Jane bad, she want Sarah dead too," but that's just purposely ignoring the nuance and grey of the situation so you can think easy. And no, Jane doesn't want Sarah to die, that's just a straight up lie.
When Sarah is trapped, Jane will put aside her beliefs and safety to help Sarah when Clementine asks her to. It's not Jane's fault Sarah died. Maybe if she hadn't been hit with that plank of wood, she could've gotten to her faster. Maybe she would've died because Sarah was such in a state of panic that she would've brought her down, too. Y'know that drowning metaphor-- a drowning person will almost always pull you down, is it worth sinking with them? all that.
I want to make it clear that this isn't Sarah's fault. She's a victim here, both in the situation and in the games writing. Jane knows this, too. She's sincere in her apology to Clementine, and seeing Sarah die is yet another trigger that causes her to leave.
There's so much about Jane's character that I could get into, and I plan on it at some point. Like I said in my tier list, Jane is a great character and I'm tired of pretending she's not.
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jesus Pia that sounds fucking rough.. I've been following you and reading your stories from 2015, and I never knew about this. I'm so sorry you had to go through that. Sending you all the best <3
I didn't speak about it openly at the time because I had a policy of not shit-talking on my Tumblr, and I knew at the time if I mentioned what was happening specifically re: the self-harm photos, everyone would know who I was talking about, and I worried it might create backlash for this person. And while I felt manipulated and abused by her, I was genuinely worried for her mental health, and I didn't want her getting hate from people who saw what was happening to me. (Because like, I did carry some influence in that fandom, and that would have been fucking terrible).
The person who sent me most of the hate messages actually emailed me to apologise months later, which was bizarre, but... it didn't surprise me to know she was good friends with this other person. Because she always sent them under anon, I had no idea who she was until she apologised.
But yeah the reason a lot of people don't know is because I just...was only talking about it behind closed doors to cope, and trying to keep it away from anywhere other people could see it. I wasn't always successful, and I think I did mention I was having a tough time because of some of the people in the fandom, but that was the extent of what I tried to say.
Now that a lot of time has gone by, no one really knows who that person is anymore (though I think a very few people who were super active in the tags at the time might have some suspicions), and so I don't have to worry about her getting any hate, and she's a lot harder to identify. I don't even know if she's on Tumblr anymore.
I have a general policy of keeping that stuff off my blog, so I turned off anon sometimes, and I deleted (and tried to block) a lot of anon messages, I responded to very few. I have a general 'delete anything that I can't turn into something useful' policy. Sometimes messages from antis I can turn into a teaching/education moment, but if it's just repeated 'KYS' messages, there's nothing for that except the bin.
I do have a lot of screenshotted receipts though, lol. I got in the habit of screenshotting things, because I became quite paranoid at the time (esp because I didn't know how many people were sending me all the anons, so it felt for a while like it was a LOT of people vs. I think just a few very disturbed dedicated people lol), so I have a folder in my RotG writing folder literally of just...Tumblr drama, lol. It's sad to think about. I think it's one of the reasons I don't really go as deep into fandoms anymore like I used to. :( But that might change with time. :)
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WIP Challenge - whatever's left that you wanna talk about?
WIP Challenge
6. The Otherlands
This is probably the only one left that's interesting to explain...
There was a moment where I was really into RPGmaker. I wasn't any good with it, but I sure did try! After my first attempt at a project fell apart, I downloaded a demo of the latest version at the time (VX Ace, I think?) and decided to see what I could make with that. Since it was the demo, there were a lot of limits, like I don't think you were able to make your own custom art and character sprites.
None of the default sprites were really speaking to me, so I thought it'd be fun to make a story where you played as the object sprites.
The plot is that, in a Dungeons and Dragonesque fantasy world called Clarus, a portal to another world opens up. That world (called The Otherlands because I'm uncreative) is inhabited by sentient objects (tables, chairs, boulders) that roll around like people do. The people from Clarus took the spell for sealing people into objects, and now uses that to punish their criminals and attack other nations. The player characters are a group of said criminals trying to overthrow the government, since their seals were faulty and allowed movement when they normally don't.
I later adapted this into a D&D campaign guide, where all the different types of objects would be character classes with new rules. It never got off the ground because you need friends for that, and I moved away from the group I was going to do it with years ago. I still have the campaign book and I think it's horribly unbalanced. But that's what happens when someone who's played maybe ten sessions of Pathfinder tries to design their own campaign from scratch.
I actually still really like this idea though. You can probably tell from how I'm talking about it, I just dunno what to do with it now. XD
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Hey so you've posted a bit about replaying DA and I wanted to know if you have a canon run through
I do! I'm currently replaying through my canon run right now [with a few deviations here and there] because every time I finish a run, some time passes before I'm like, ".........I miss them." It makes doing an alternate run harder, too.
For DAO, I play as a rogue lady Tabris named Rosalie, or Rose. Dual-wielding ranger and dualist. Her most used party dynamic is Alistair/Morrigan/Zevran. She named the mabari Griffon after the tales of Grey Wardens and their griffons. Rose romanced Alistair, kept him a warden and made Anora queen. She considers Morrigan one of her closest friends until Morrigan reveals her true intentions for coming with them. I've written about that whole thing before. Honestly, as far as companions go, Rose becomes close friends with most of them... except Wynne, they tend to butt heads in a lot of ways.
Rose didn't want to become a warden and thinks most of their rules and secrets are bullshit. Duncan's excuse for not coming to help her and the other elven women Vaughan took is a driving force for her to defy that "we can't get involved" rule as much as she can during and post-blight. She sided with the mages in Kinloch and with their help saved Connor, made Bhelen king of Orzammar, and settled things between the Dalish and the werewolves peacefully by convincing Zathrian to end the curse. She executed Loghain at the Landsmeet since, y'know... he sold city elves, nearly including her father, to Tevinter slavers to fund his war so... in her eyes, he doesn't get to live after that.
This playthrough I did make a save to reject Morrigan's dark ritual to see what happens when the warden makes the ultimate sacrifice and it's the most unsatisfying ending. It's such a, "No no noooo we didn't deserve this! After everything we went through! Just for it to end like that??" hopeless feeling... which was then fixed when I went back and made my canon choice of begrudgingly accepting the deal [even though it mostly goes against Rose's character but I'm weak and selfish and want her and Alistair to live].
In DA2, I play as a male mage Hawke named Edgar, or Ed. Force mage and blood mage. His most used party dynamic is Carver/Merrill/Anders until Carver goes to the Grey Wardens, then it's Isabela/Merrill/Anders. He's mostly purple in personality, but occasionally dips into blue, and I can count the number of times he's gone red on one hand. He named his mabari Fleabag after Malcolm bought the pup from a traveling merchant who failed to mention he was flea ridden. Several baths later, the mabari was finally flea free but Ed decided he should never live it down and named him Fleabag.
Ed maxes out the friendships with everyone [yes, including Carver, Ed tries so damn hard with him] except Aveline, he maxes out her rivalry. They all side with him and the mages in the end. He romanced Anders. I once did a run where I romanced Fenris with Ed and even though I liked it, the whole playthrough felt wrong because romancing Anders is, like... a fundamental part of Ed's story now... Even though they break up in the end.
I've done all three options across different playthroughs when it comes to Anders; I've spared him, I've killed him, and I've told him to leave. My canon choice is to tell him to leave, and then let him join my party later after we've sided with the mages. It's hard to explain without writing a full essay, but Ed and Anders are pretty much life partners at this point. Even if it's no longer romantic because a huge amount of trust was broken, even if they never get back together in that regard, even if Anders will now be on the run for the rest of his life, whether or not Ed agrees with him [he does and he doesn't, it's complicated] like... Ed loves him and he'll always love him, y'know? He won't abandon him even when everyone tells him he should.....but then DAI happened uhhh
Finally for DAI, I play a lady mage Lavellan named Ashalle, or Ashlaen, or just Ash. She's a knight-enchanter who mostly does storm magic. I'd say DAI is the game where I have a pretty even party use that I rotate between; Cassandra/Varric/Vivienne, Solas/Sera/Blackwall, The Iron Bull/Dorian/Cole. She sides with the mages in Redcliffe and left Hawke in the fade [sorry Ed, and sorry Anders... and sorry Carver... and Varric]. When it came to picking a ruler for Orlais, she figured all options sucked but went with Celene and Briala. Ash drank from the well, and then disbanded the inquisition in Trespasser.
I dislike how DAI just kinda plops your inquisitor into existence with only a small paragraph explaining why they were at the conclave; I wish it had a DAO approach so that's what I did for my inquisitor. Before I start the DAI playthrough, I boot up DAO. Before she was Ashalle Lavellan, she was a circle mage named Ashlaen Surana who escaped with Jowan after he lied to her about being a blood mage. In the ten years pre-DAI, she lost Jowan. In her grief, joined the Dalish, changed her name, and eventually ended up at the conclave. It just adds a lot more meat and spice to the choices and interactions with companions and advisors since she keeps that part of her backstory a secret. After all, she helped a blood mage and then was accused of being one herself before fleeing; she doesn't want the inquisition to know that. All of her crafted staves are named after Jowan while her crafted robes are usually named after her conflicting identities and pieces of her past, too..... Oh, speaking of past, she romanced Cullen. Because of course.
With the context of all this, it becomes them reuniting after they may or may not have had a thing going on in the circle, but then she escaped and he believed she was actually a blood mage for ten years. Cullen sees her like "Ah. Yes. You. Whom I haven't met. Hope they're right about you. We've lost a lot of people to get you here. Glad you survived." when internally he's screaming "I know who you are, those tattoos fool me not! Why are you here?? To torment ME specifically??" Then there's Ash who takes a little longer to recognize him, and when she does, it solidifies that she needs to run after this because he knows who she is and why she fled, that's not good, she's not going back to the circle after all this is done.
But y'know... they work it out. Eventually.
That's my canon run through of all three games. I keep trying to talk myself into doing a full alternate canon run, but the only game I've successfully done a different route in is DAI with my male rogue Tristan Trevelyan whose backstory was that he's a pro-mage ex-templar. That was fun to see how different things play out, but I haven't managed it for the other two.
I'd like to play DAO as a more cutthroat warden who, unlike Rose, won't go out of their way to do kind things; they'll do what they deem necessary. I'd like to do a lady warrior Hawke run with Bethany as the surviving sibling, and I've tried before but every time I hit a point where I'm like ".....I miss Carver so much" and abandon the run. Like there's always something that makes me abandon the run. I almost abandoned Tristan's run, too, but somehow I pushed through and got invested. I dunno. One day I'll put on my big girl pants and just do it.
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