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vigilantethot · 6 months

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DRIVING ME CRAZY

Pairing: Miguel O’Hara x villain!reader

Summary: You’re a villain who steals and hops dimensions. Miguel is irritated.

A/N: I had this concept in my head and I just had to write it. Maybe I'll make it a fic one day. I say reader is a villain but she's mostly good tbh. Just a lil selfish and a crybaby lol

Becoming a villain was the best career choice you ever made. The moral satisfaction of being a hero was great, but it wasn’t paying the bills. Sure, helping the world become a better place was cool and all- but it wasn’t enough. You liked having nice things. Cute designer shoes, nice furniture for your apartment, and 26’ bundles weren’t cheap, and you were not going to live the life you deserve by saving kittens and stopping small drug dealers. You’re a powerful superhuman, and you knew that monetizing your powers would get you everything you deserved. So, you did some digging, made some connections, and started doing “jobs” for unsavory people. You refused to be a hitman, having all that on your conscience was not worth it, so you settled on doing theft, trespassing, and other unscrupulous things for cash. Not long after that, the cash started rolling in and you were finally living the life you wanted to.

You discovered your powers at age 10 after accidentally cloning yourself at a sleepover out of fear, while watching a horror movie. Over time, you discovered that you had more powers than just Bio-Fission. You had the power of energy projection, possession, telekinesis, resurrection, and teleportation. You were basically a very powerful witch. Your parents pulled you out of school as your powers grew in your teenage years, as your powers were very hard to control at first, and often your powers only came out when you were in emotional distress. You didn't mind being homeschooled, as your friends started to avoid you out of fear, and you were tired of eating lunch at a table by yourself. You used these years to learn as much as possible about your abilities and learn how to wield them. When you reached 18, you moved out of your parents house and started a new life in New York City. You kept a low profile, making a few friends but you never divulged the information about your powers to them.

About two years into your stay in NYC, you heard about a Spiderman. A man with superhuman strength and a red and black costume, fighting crime in Brooklyn. You were inspired, it WAS possible to use your powers and be accepted and loved! You made a makeshift costume, a simple black long sleeve shirt and black leggings. You put a masquerade mask on your face, not knowing how to sew and contract a mask like Spiderman. You started fighting crime in Manhattan, making the city a better place one day at a time.

Then, at 24 years old, you’d had enough of trying to save the city. It wasn’t paying the bills, and you didn't want to depend on your parents your whole life. So you made the switch.

FIRST MEETING

Finding out you could teleport through dimensions exponentially increased your salary. You weren’t just doing jobs for disgustingly rich people on your Earth, you could go anywhere! You made a name for yourself on your Earth, many rich and powerful people sought you out to steal a priceless art piece or artifact for them. Business was booming, and you started to be on Spiderman and other heroes radars. With heroes on your ass, you thought it would be best to travel to other dimensions and do jobs, until the heat was off you.

That’s how you found yourself on Earth-928B. Some greedy CEO hired you to take something for him, a rare Diamond located in a highly secured safe. This diamond was not for sale, but the CEO insisted he needed it for his collection, so when the $200k check cleared, you made your way to the safe and started to execute your plan. Your game plan was simple, teleport into the safe, grab the diamond, and teleport out. You were then to call your boss for the evening and make your way to the drop off location, in the Four Seasons parking lot, where you were staying for the “job”.

Unbeknownst to you, Miguel O’Hara, this dimension’s Spiderman, was on your heels. He didn't really care about the crime you committed, but you were an anomaly and your presence in his universe was a threat. He got Lyla to track what hotel room you were staying in at the Four Seasons, and he knew you would be back right after the job. So he waited. He examined your room, looking for nothing in particular. You took very little with you. He found a small bag next to the bed, filled with some clothes and various toiletries. Yes, he knew he was invading your privacy, but he was intrigued by you for some reason. How were you able to just hop through dimensions? Lyla informed him about your various warrants throughout the multiverse, as well as your secret identity. He looked at your drivers license picture a bit too long, enchanted by your brown skin and bright smile. You were beautiful, and he admired your picture for a few more seconds before going back to rummaging through your bag. Your scent was very appetizing, the smell of lavender and shea butter filling his nostrils and calling to him. He came across a sexy black and red lace thong, and shamelessly held up up and nodded his head in approval. You were clearly a very stylish, sexy woman with expensive taste, just his type. Too bad he had to arrest you and forcefully send you home.

He heard a key card go into the door, and he quickly stuffed the panties back in the bag and scrambled to a hiding spot behind the door in the dark en suite bathroom. He watched through the crack in the door and waited until you took your shoes off and moved toward the bed. You plopped on the bed, pulling out your phone and scrolled mindlessly.

God, she really should work on her situational awareness.

Miguel quietly made his way from behind the open door, and moved to stand in the dark bathroom doorway. You were facing away from him, playing some water sorting game on your phone as he silently made his way to the bed to grab and restrain you.

Until his watch made a beeping sound.

You moved impossibly fast, and he found himself impressed with you as you quickly stood up and projected an energy ball at him, causing the spot in his suit where you hit him to glitch.

The masked intruder in your room stood completely still. He slowly raised his massive gloved hands, and you took in his appearance with wide eyes as you started to feel fear for the first time in a while. Fuck, he was huge. His stature was intimidating, and as you looked at the emblem on his chest, you started to breath harder. This colossal Spiderman is in your hotel room, and although you were very powerful, you didn't know what he was capable of. Your earths Spiderman had almost caught you once, and if he was as strong as that one, you knew you wouldn’t win this fight.

“Relax, I’m not going to hurt you.”

You noticed a slight accent to his words, and if you weren’t so scared you would think his voice was sexy.

“What do you want then?”

You spoke in a whisper, too frightened to raise your voice. He had super hearing anyway.

“Im here to take you back to Earth 1610. Its dangerous for you to be here.”

Fuck, he knew who you were.

He was definitely going to take you back to your Earth and give you to your earths Spiderman. You would rather die then spend your life in that prison they stick all the villains in. You tried to will yourself to teleport the fuck out of there but your powers never worked how you wanted when you were this upset. Of course.

You made a split decision and bolted to the door, very fast, but not fast enough. Spiderman grabbed your arms from behind and you knew you couldn’t fight him off. So you cloned yourself.

You didn't look back to see his reaction, not that you could see any expression on that mask. You bolted out of the door and made your way to the stairwell. You couldn’t just leave your clone behind, if she were to be harmed or taken you wouldn’t be able to leave without suffering. Your clone was an extension of you, a perfect mirror of yourself and if you were to leave her behind it could fracture your mind beyond repair. You would also rather die than live your days as an insane witch.

If you were calm enough, you could will your clone to come back into your mind. You took a few deep breaths and closed your eyes. You weren’t far from your room in this stairwell, so you were quickly able to find that invisible rope that connects your minds and yanked her back. You’re attempt was successful, and feeling whole again, you teleported to a random dimension in order the get the hell away from there. You made a mental note to never do a job on that Earth again.

Meanwhile, back in the hotel room, Miguel cursed loudly at his failure. He then made a promise to find you, before you end up traveling universes again and possibly destroying them for your own selfish gain.

SECOND MEETING

After almost being caught by the Behemoth Spiderman, you decided not to take any jobs for a while and lay low. You chose a random Earth again, and bought a room in a luxury resort on the beach in the Maldives. You spent your days drinking daiquiris and being served Caviar by the pool. You had been working so much that you had to spare no expenses, you had more than enough money to live lavishly for a while at least. Your mind often wondered towards that Spiderman you encountered. Your Earths Spider man was a young kid, the only one alive after the death of the older Spiderman. Neither Spiderman was as big as the one you encountered, and you wondered how many other variations of Spiderman there were. And how many of them knew who you were? Shit, how many variations of you were there? The mere thought of this was overwhelming, and you quickly got up to from the Pool chair you were lounging in and made your way to the bar to get another drink, hoping a buzz would kill your existential dread.

When that didn't work, you decided to just go back to your room and watch some reality TV and relax. You had been living this lifestyle for almost a year, and you were starting to get tired of no romantic or even platonic relationships. You had lovers in the past, but due to your lifestyle they never lasted long. You longed for a stable life now, the villain life was getting old. But you were in too deep to go back now.

You finally made it to your room, taking your shoes off and plopping on the couch in the living room of your spacious suite. You kicked your feet up and turned on the TV, ready to watch some petty arguments and pointless drama.

“What did I tell you about being in universes that you don’t belong in?”

You froze as you heard that familiar deep voice with that accent behind you. Behemoth Spiderman made his way from behind you and stood in front of you on the couch with closed fists, caging you in. He must’ve been in the bedroom waiting for you.

Your mind was racing, as you looked at him with wide eyes and furrowed brows.

“How the fuck did you find me??”

My voice was shaky, laced with fear.

“You need to go back to Earth 1610. You are putting this whole universe at risk with your selfishness.”

Spiderman spoke calmly, ignoring your question, chin up and shoulders wide with confidence. He finally found you.

Miguel obsessively searched for you for weeks, you had somehow fallen off his radar, and because you don't travel through any portals, he couldn’t track you. He alerted the spider society of your existence, and told them to tell him if they have any tips. He strongly insisted that they didn't engage with you if they found you. He wanted to catch you himself, and he needed you to understand that you couldn’t just hop in other dimensions just because you want money. He finally got a tip when the Spiderman on the Earth you were currently on informed him that you were at this resort, your cover was blown on a drunken night when you teleported into a bodega late at night because you were craving a chopped cheese. You didn’t even think anyone would notice, but the owner alerted Spiderman about your appearance after checking the security camera. He then knew that you didn't have some evil “I will destroy all universes” plan, you were just trying to find happiness and live your life the way you wanted to. He didn’t know how you would react to him finding you again, but he was prepared to lock you in Spider HQ forever if you didn't abide by his rules.

Miguel ignored his urge to get closer to you just to smell that sweet lavender and shea butter scent that he had in the back of his mind for weeks. He ignored the urge to ogle you as you were dressed in a skimpy bikini and a sheer coverup. You were breathtaking, he was definitely attracted to you and Miguel struggled to find any more words as you looked up at him with tears in your eyes and lip wobbling. He didn't want to make you cry, he didn't want to hurt you at all. He just wanted you to listen to him and stop making dumb, selfish decisions.

“Im sorry!! Please don’t kill me! Ill do whatever you say, please, just don’t kill me!”

You wailed, you knew you were in big trouble and you knew this Spiderman was deadass about catching you, especially if he was able to track you to a whole different universe.

“Just come with me.”

He quickly grabbed your arm and opened a portal to Spider Society HQ. You looked around at the huge building, crawling with tons of spidermen. You felt your cheeks warm up in embarrassment and you felt them staring at you.

Holy shit, you were fucked. Behemoth Spiderman led you throughout the lobby and building by your arm, presumably to your death. You were surprised when he threw you in a red prismatic cage. You stumbled and fell to the ground in the cage, looking up at Behemoth Spiderman. You were planning to beg for your life as he took his mask off, and whatever plea you were going to say completely disappeared as you took him in for the first time.

“I didn't know Spiderman was so hot.”

The words just fell out of your mouth without thinking, and you quickly shut your mouth in embarrassment. Miguels face was stone cold and unreadable, and his red eyes pinned you in place with his stare. He didn't acknowledge your statement. He just stared at you.

You quickly lowered your gaze, his stare was way too intense and his demeanor was unsettling.

“Someone will bring you food shortly. Im taking you home tomorrow.”

His statement made you snap your head back up and shake your head vigorously. You stood up, still shaking your head, tears filling your eyes.

“NO! I can’t go home! They’ll put me in prison forever! I haven’t killed anyone, just let me go and I’ll do whatever you want.”

You tried to use your puppy dog eyes that worked on so many men before, but your attempt at trying to guilt him didn't work at all. He didn't even respond as he turned away and walked away from the little prison you were in.

“Asshole!”

You screamed. He stopped in his tracks for a few seconds, and you waited to see if he would turn around and let you out. He just kept walking after about 15 seconds of standing like a statue.

You banged on the glass with your hands, and tried to use your energy balls to break the cage to no avail. You slumped to the ground in defeat, tears falling.

You were so fucked.

Miguel watched you cry in the cage from his office, feeling guilty. Sure, you were a villain and a criminal, but you have never harmed anyone, and you truly seemed to think you weren’t putting anyone in danger with your dimension hopping. You genuinely seemed like a good person who makes bad choices.

He hated this feeling. He hated feeling at all, he worked tirelessly just to not feel anything. This was very unlike him, he knew he could be a bit obsessive but he wanted nothing more than to wipe your tears and comfort you.

He watched you sob for a few more minutes before deciding to do something he thought he would never do. He was going to let you out. Based on your emotional state right now, he felt confident that you wouldn’t go outside your dimension again. For now at least.

He went back to your cage, and you stood up to look at him with teary eyes.

“You can go back home. I won’t hand you over to Spiderman but promise me you won’t go dimension hopping again.”

“I promise! I promise! Thank you!”

He barely got his words out before you made your promises. He slightly shook his head, amused with how much of a crybaby you were.

He opened your cage and opened a portal to your earth, and watched you as you walked through. He fought a smile as you turned around and thanked him one last time. The portal closed, and he turned to go back to his office as he ignored the protests of the other prisoners to let them out too.

THIRD MEETING

You knew this was bad. You knew you weren’t supposed to come back to Nueva York but after 3 months of laying low and avoiding Spiderman on your Earth, you were bored. You only took this job because of the ridiculous amount of money that was offered to you. And also to maybe get a glimpse of the sexy Spiderman again. You just couldn’t refuse. Besides, it would take only a few minutes to steal this artifact anyway. He couldn’t possibly know you were even here, right?

The job went smoothly, the client got the artifact and you were paid handsomely. This could last you a whole year! You were so high on your success that you made the decision to quickly stop at a bar here and celebrate. Behemoth Spiderman was far from your mind as you wandered the beautiful futuristic city. You settled on a nice bar with a patio and had a drink. And another. And about 3 more. You couldn’t resist a good smoky tequila.

You stubbed around Nueva York for God knows how long, taking in the city. This place was nice, and it didn't even smell like pee unlike your Earths New York. Your drunken haze was interrupted when you heard commotion in an alleyway ahead. You heard fighting, and some type of weapons being fired. You slowly crept up to the alleyway, determined to stop this. You might be a thief, but you won’t just let someone die like this.

You prepared to use your powers and ran into the alleyway, right into the action. If you were sober, you would’ve had a game plan. But the tequila took over and you were ready to save the day.

You were shocked to find Behemoth Spiderman being beaten by three large men. They seemed to have supernatural abilities, as their movement were too fast to be human.

Wasting no time, you attacked. You summoned your power from deep inside and threw the most powerful, brutal ball of energy towards the men. Two were knocked down and wheezing, and you quickly sent another powerful ball of energy towards the last one, incapacitating him.

Behemoth Spiderman looked at you, eyes narrowing on his suit. He stormed towards you, enraged that you were here.

“What the fuck are you-

His rant was cut off by a shot, and you looked in terror as a huge arrow pierced through his suit and chest, poking out of both sides.

“Oh shit!”

You immediately sent another energy ball up to the assailant behind Behemoth Spiderman, and used your telekinesis to take the gun away from him.

Spiderman fell to his knees, losing blood and feeling dizzy. You looked on in disbelief. You can’t just let Spiderman die.

He reaches a shaky hand forward, and tries to say something to you before choking on his blood.

You had to save him. You knew that he would die. You pulled the arrow out of his chest, and he collapses on the ground. He’s not breathing, and he has no pulse. You had no choice but to resurrect him.

You put your hand on his chest, and summoned your power once again. You would need a lot to pull this off. You had resurrected things before, like cats and your house plants, but never a human.

Guess its never too late to start, right?

You feel your power coursing through you, fingers turning black as your power grows. You put your hands on his chest, silently appreciation the pure muscle of this man. You surge your power into him, and you blackout for a few seconds while the resurrection begins. You feel his wound close and his heart starts faintly beating again. You give him your power until you feel his heart beat strongly and his breaths are even. He will be asleep for some time, as he finishes healing, so you have enough time to escape. You press his watch, trying to see if there’s a button to press of help. You touch random things until a tiny holographic woman pops up. The AI woman scans Spiderman, probably searching for injuries.

You don’t wait for it to say anything. You let out a quick “Get him help.”

You don’t wait for help to come. You teleport back to your dimension, in your parents house. You hadn’t talked to them in a while, afraid that they might not accept your lifestyle but you know they would protect you with their life. You pass out in the living room where you teleported into, resurrections always drained your energy, but this was another level. You let sleep take you as your father lifted you and put you in your childhood bed.

Miguel woke up confused. He was sure he died, because of you. So why was he in the medical sector of the Spider Society? He called on LYLA, and she told him what happened. He was livid that you didn't listen to his demands, but he was eternally grateful that you saved him. He knew you were a good person. Truthfully, he had thought about you all the time, wishing he could talk to you and get to know you.

He felt incredible gratitude towards you for saving him, and he was determined to find you again, this time to thank you.

FOURTH MEETING

After making a full recovery, Miguel started to think of ways to pay you back for what you did for him. He weighed all options in his head, before finally deciding on making you a upgraded suit with the best tech, after hearing that you were back to being a hero, this time in your hometown. He was proud of you, and he couldn’t wait to see you and tell you that. LYLA commented on his affection for you, which he very unconvincingly brushed off.

You seemed happy, Miguel admittedly stalked your social media from fake pages to track you down. And to also admire your pictures. He really wished you had a picture in that thong he saw in your hotel room.

The suit was finally finished, it was black with hot pink detailing. It hugged all the right places, and the gear was basically indestructible. The face mask was in the masquerade style that you always wore. He really hoped you liked it.

He came on a Sunday. He came with no suit on, just casual clothes. He waited outside your house until your parents left before knocking at the door, anxiety at an all time high.

You opened the door without looking who it was, thinking one of your parents forgot something. You were shocked to see the beautiful face of the man that had tracked you and imprisoned you for a few hours.

“Lo siento, I don’t mean to bother you. I just wanted to come here and thank you for what you did for me.”

You immediately calmed down, relived that he hadn’t come to lock you up. You had been on your best behavior, after all. You gave him a smile, which he quickly returned. He looked hot in that white tee he was wearing, it hugged all of his muscles in the best way possible.

“Come in.”

He followed you inside, sitting with you on the couch. You were watching that same show in the Maldives. You two sat in silence for a while, staring at each other. The silence wasn’t awkward at all, his presence calmed you and you felt safe. He was distracted by you so much he forgot why he came in the first place.

“So what’s in that box?”

You pointed to the gift in his hand, rising an eyebrow.

“Oh- yeah,” he cleared his throat, embarrassed that he was staring at you in silence like a creep “This is for you. I know you’ve been helping the people here and I thought that you might appreciate a new suit.”

Your eyes widen in surprise, not only did he come to thank you but he bought a gift too? Could he get any hotter?

You snatched the gift with a huge smile and he laughed, your happiness made him happy.

You ripped the box open, and your jaw dropped at your gift. The suit was beautiful, and it looks like it had some seriously fancy tech. You often opted just for a black jumpsuit, but this was such an upgrade.

You couldn’t control your excitement, and you squealed. Spiderman thought it was the cutest sound he’d ever heard. You pulled him in for a hug, which he quickly returned, melting into your embrace.

You pulled away and ran to your room.

“I gotta try this on! Stay put.”

He couldn’t even leave if he tried. He wanted to be here with you forever.

When you came out, his chest tightened at how well the suit fit you. He couldn’t take his eyes off of you. He watched as you admired your new gear in the mirror, clearly pleased with it.

“What do you think?”

He shook his head in disbelief, not understanding how someone could be so beautiful.

“You look phenomenal.”

You looked over to him, cheeks warming as you catch his gaze. You walk towards him on the couch, and he stands up. His eyes never leave your face and body as you come closer and closer. You stop when you’re chest to chest looking up at him with your beautiful eyes.

“You know, you never told me your name.”

Spiderman looked down shyly.

“It’s Miguel.”

You nod, smiling.

“Thank you, Miguel.”

He takes off your mask, putting it on the couch.

“You’re welcome, hermosa.”

Miguel grabs your face, leaning down and meets your lips, barely touching them, as if he’s teasing to see if you’ll pull away. When you don’t, he pulls you in for a slow, romantic kiss that takes your breath away. You don’t stop kissing, lips intertwining like you’ll pass away if you part. You don’t know much about Miguel, but you do know you could have your lips on his forever.

#miguel o'hara x black reader #miguel o'hara #miguel spiderverse #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel x reader #black reader

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turtle-bun · 9 months

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My problem with TMNT crossovers and thier potrayle of the 1987 Turtles!

As much as I have a special place in my hear for the Turtles Forever movie and the crossover special in the 2012 version, I will be forever bitter about the execution of how they were done. Specifically, the portrayal of the 1987 turtles and the relationship they have with their more current counterparts.

The 87 Turtles seem to always be portrayed as very silly and nonsensical, which yes they are but the point has always been, in ALL Turtles’ media, is that they are silly but still capable! Like the whole point of the Ninja Turtles is that it is a silly concept with silly characters but the punchline is that they are still trained warriors that can kick your ass. I don’t like that they made the 87 Turtles the butt of every joke compared to their more “serious” counterparts, when they are just as capable as the rest of them.

Personally, I think it would have been more interesting (as well as a lot funnier) if the 87 Turtles were just really, really good at their jobs. Not because they’re better or more skilled but just the fact that they have more experience and have been doing this whole vigilant thing for way longer than the rest of them. Like I honestly think that should be a “thing” amongst the entire Turtleverse, like the previous generation is always going to be “better skilled” just do to the fact that they’ve been doing it for longer.

Most times experience will always triumph over raw strength and power, which to elaborate that DOES NOT MEAN that the next generation is “weaker” it just means that they need more experience to get to the level of skill that the previous generation is at. For example, when you go into a new job the person that has been there the longest is usually better at the job than you are NOT because you are incapable but because you need more experience to learn and gain the skills to do the job properly.

But anyways, I think it would be funnier if the 87 Turtles were like super OP just cuz they’ve been doing this longer. That’s not even counting their Mirage counterparts, because if 87 Turtles are OP than comparatively the Mirage Turtles (AKA the very first!) are absolutely fucking insane. And not just the Turtles, I want the 87 villains to be fucking OP too!

Like every other villain in the Tutleverse are convinced these guys, especially Kraang and Shredder, are a fucking joke. Then when they “team up” together to defeat the Turtles the other villains go to backstab them only for 87 Shredder and Kraang to go “Uno reverse, bitch! We were letting you do all the work for us, stupid mother fucker!”. Like the concept of the 87 villains being a red herring pretending that they’re just bumbling idiot when in fact they are manipulative psychopaths is so fucking interesting to me, and could have played out so well in their respective crossovers. Because again: they’ve been in this game for WAY longer than their other counterparts have.

I also think it would be really cool (and funny, because first and foremost I’m always going to chose the funnier option) if the 87 Turtles, as well as being the smallest, are the most physically strongest out of all their counterparts. This is partially cannon in actuality because I have SEEN these mother fuckers rip metal sheets off the walls of cars, lift heavy machinery/vehicles in the air with ease, break through brick walls, and toss around Bebop and Rocksteady plus other mutants twice their size like beach balls! These fuckers are probably just walking muscles! I wanna see them lift the Bayverse Turtles up in the air like it was nothing! (Please someone make fanart of this and tag me! I beg you!)

Anyway, the whole point of this rant is that I think the TMNT writers would have better success in writing better crossover specials if they just lean into the fact that the 87 Turtles are the oldest of the bunch with far more experience and skill under their belt AND the fact that they rely a lot on 80s cartoon logic which makes everything so much more chaotic than it needs to be.

#tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt 1987 #tmnt 87 #turtles forever #tmnt 2012 #bunny talks #rant #rant post #tmnt crossover #please give my 87 bois the recognition they deserve!

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physalian · 6 months

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Writing with Executive Dysfunction (or how to lower the barrier of entry)

So you want to write a book, but all you have is a cool one-liner, a niche super power you want to explore, and the blurry image of a love interest with a two-syllable kind of name. You don’t know where to start, what to tackle first, how to jump in the deep end.

Can you write the ending first? What if you want this really cool gimmick in a fight scene but can’t write action to save your life? Do you start in media res or with a prologue, or with the character starting their daily routine? Do you write the villain’s POV first?

Or do you start with an outline, character sheets, a title, summary, your themes and motifs? How many pages and pages of worldbuilding notes should you have built up before you’re good to tackle the first page? You’ve heard time and again the critical importance of the first three sentences. The first chapter if your audience is generous.

The pressure mounts to be unique, but not try-hard, descriptive but not flowery, intriguing, but not confusing, all in the first hundred or so words. You sit there staring at the little blinking black line on your blank page… and the idea gets shelved for another day. It collects virtual dust in the backlogs of your computer, forgotten until you have to clear out space on your hard drive and stumble across unspent potential.

Everyone and their dog has their own bits of writing advice and I’m sure I’m about to echo tips that have been around the block once or twice, but there are a few I don’t see talked about enough.

Whether you suffer from severe procrastination, fear of failure before you even begin, the overwhelming limitlessness of choice, or just can’t sit down and dedicate any time to see what happens, this list might be for you.

1. Write Every Day

This is nothing new, but I’m going to tackle the implementation of such a habit over why it’s important. You already know why it’s important. Writing every day doesn’t demand a full page of a Word doc, or 200 words before you can get up and do something else. Sometime a witty dialogue exchange comes to mind while you’re doing dishes – write that down.

Or you saw a cool name for a character in a commercial – write that down.

Or you had a dream about your characters in a high-octane street chase – write down the synopsis.

Personally, I use Apple Notes. It’s free, I can log-in to iCloud through a browser and keep writing, and my phone is always with me. I have dedicated folders to sort which notes belong to which concepts.

Disclaimer: Apple Notes is meant for exactly that: Note taking. I take it to the extremes, but it’s not a word processer. It’s not meant for anything more strenuous than putting virtual pen to virtual paper.

I build up so many variations of scene ideas and concepts for character arcs that my ‘notes’ for any given book can be as long as a full-length novel. Most of the time, admittedly, those ideas get outdated fast as I move on to bigger and better things, but the point is this: I never would move on to better things if I didn’t have somewhere to start.

I have a personal grudge against OneDrive for a sync failure losing 20k words of a WIP, so most of my writing is done through Google Docs and saved to Google Drive. It’s not the most powerful word processor, but you don’t have to worry about formatting until the very end and can export later. It’s free, like Apple Notes (assuming you have an iPhone), and the smart phone app for Google programs works phenomenally better than the MS Word app – so once again, the barrier for being within reach of places to jot down ideas is lowered. My phone is always with me.

It doesn’t have to be digital – carry around a journal or a notebook or a legal pad if you want. Whatever gets your creative juices flowing. The point is to have somewhere to take all the ideas you have in your head and get them onto paper the moment inspiration strikes.

2. Writing is Supposed to be Fun

The dreaded writer’s block, scourge of authors everywhere. You’ve reached the point in your manuscript where you’ve caught up to the epic adventure you’ve written in your head. The little writer in your brain has gone on strike and you’re left in the doldrums of how to transition from one chapter to the next. One idea to the next. One scene, one line of dialogue.

Answer: Skip it.

Unless you have a hard deadline to make, writing is supposed to be fun. Your best work comes when you’re passionate about doing it, not when you’re holding your fingers hostage to put something on the page or else.

When you start getting frustrated, walk away. When you get stressed, walk away. The manuscript will still be there once you’ve slept on it for a day or two and you’ll be glad for it. Or, write a different scene. Write a hypothetical scene (more on this point later). Write anything you want and come back to the hard parts later. The gaps will fill eventually, and if they don’t—consider what about that transition or scene is so hard and consider axing it entirely. If it’s frustrating for you, it’s probably boring or unimportant to the reader.

3. Script it

My favorite writer’s crutch is to make a skeleton of the scene I want to have, fill it with dialogue, and move on. The pretty thematic narrative can come later. It’s halfway between an outline and a first draft and, for me, someone to whom dialogue comes easier than narrative, this is another barrier removed to letting creativity flow.

I don’t have to think about dialogue tags or movement of a scene or how exactly I want to structure a sentence or describe the setting. Scripting lets me sus out the pacing of a given scene, test run a conversation I have in my head to see if it might really work before investing all the time and effort of a fully fleshed out first draft, only to erase it all later.

You can do this mid-narrative, too. If you just want to skip over a couple lines that aren’t coming naturally to you, script a vague sense of stage directions until you get to easier narrative and come back later.

When I say scripting, mine look something like this:

Character A (ChA): [position within the setting, tone of voice, any notable gesture or action that enhances the dialogue] “Dialogue.” [specific dialogue tag, if necessary] … (often a paragraph break) … “Dialogue.” Character B (ChB): “Dialogue.” [emotion, reaction, details about the setting that are now important, new revelations by the narrating POV] … “Dialogue,” [action. Tonal shift. Movement] ChA: “Dialogue.” [action] … (scene continues)

In practice:

… ChA: [kicks back against the wall of the room, arms crossed. Annoyed, waiting for ChB to speak first, but they don’t] “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to leave?” [head tilts, still waiting on an answer ChB isn’t giving] “All you had to do was ask.” ChB: “You were having fun,” [quiet, wringing their hands in their lap on the edge of the bed] “You wanted me there. So I was there.” [huffs, flips their hair back. Not sure how many times they’ve had this conversation. Will always hate parties, not going to suddenly like them just because ChA is there] “You can either have me there, or make sure I’m comfortable. You can’t have both.” ChA: “So now I’m the bad guy.” [foot thumps on the floor like a judge’s gavel] …

Scripting also lets you fill a scene with multiple new characters before you figure out their names or descriptions, tagging their lines with the bare minimum. I often test out entire action scenes (which I loathe writing) in script form, so I know I’m satisfied with the pacing, blocking, and amount of movement before I lock it in and write the first draft of actual narrative. It also forces you to make sure your characters are taking actions and not just sitting at a table like talking mannequins.

Transitioning from script to narrative can be mighty tedious sometimes if you try to fit in chunks of narrative in the exact places you left on your initial pass. Fictional prose is organic, so let it breathe.

Maybe you let a character monologue for too long, or they have too much movement in a scene that becomes unnatural and clunky. Or the entire scene ran away from you because the conversation was just that good. Whatever the case, a script, bare minimum, gets your foot in the door.

4. Write Fanfic

I like sci-fi and fantasy. I also like taking my sci-fi and fantasy characters and throwing them into ‘fanfics’ to test out relationships and start to get a feel for what makes them unique from the rest of the cast.

Sometimes the setting changes to something mundane, sometimes it’s a hypothetical scene that the current pacing of the narrative just doesn’t have room for, or it’s a flashback you’ll never include but want to have written so it’s concrete when you reference it in the present.

It also helps you fall in love with your characters when you can write them without consequence, doing whatever, doing whoever, saying whatever, going wherever. In fanfic, their personalities can start to write themselves and you discover them as you write them. And, hey, sometimes you come up with a concept so good, you change the entire real narrative around to fit it.

All your attention doesn’t have to be on the story you’re actually writing.

5. Keep All of Your Deleted Scenes

I keep so many of mine, the ‘deleted scenes’ doc of one book is 40k words longer than the actual manuscript, filled with numerous variations of the same scene written over and over again in vain trying to keep something that no longer works.

Keep them for several reasons:

It reminds you of how far you’ve come.

You can pick through the bones for bits of dialogue and setting descriptors even if the majority is trashed.

You remind yourself of what didn’t work before, so you don’t fall in that same trap again.

If you change your mind, all you have to do is copy-paste it back in.

6. Remember First Drafts are First Drafts

Let the word spew flow forth from your fingers and don’t look back and start questioning every decision and all its flaws until your creativity tank starts sputtering on empty. It’s supposed to be messy, it’s supposed to have plot holes and typos and inconsistencies and things to fact-check. If you start hyper-fixating on making sure your manuscript has absolutely no errors before moving on to the next chapter, it will never get written, and you’ll convince yourself you’re a terrible writer.

Writing is easy. Revisions are hard. Just as storytelling doesn’t have to be linear, neither does the writing process. If that critical first line just won’t come to you, stuff a mediocre one in its place and move on. Write the ending first. Write all the romantic entanglements first. Write the big climactic argument first and figure out how the rest falls into place around your beautiful centerpiece.

But remember: You do, at some point, have to write the hard stuff. Hopefully, when the time comes, you look at all the rest you’ve written and are proud enough of your progress that those daunting scenes that looked impossible before become much more approachable now. Do it for your future readers who want to know how it ends. Do it for your characters. Do it for you.

#writing advice #writing a book

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danikamariewrites · 10 months

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Rockstar!Lucien Headcanons

A/n: thank you to @cursebrkr for coming up with this beautiful concept for Lucien. Please go check out their art it’s amazing! These r totally random and all over the place

Warnings: some nsfw concepts so minors dni (18+ please)

Rockstar Lucien is hot and he knows it. He's tall, muscular, and 100% covered in tattoos

He used to be self conscious about his face scar but then he adopted the “chicks dig scars” mentality and never looked back

that long red hair is just beautiful, he blow drys and styles it for sure!!!! He uses the best shampoo/conditioner so it’s always smooth and silky

He plays the guitar and loves whipping his hair around during his solos

His favorite is an electric guitar but will occasionally play acoustic if you ask him

Definitely has nose a piercing (changes from a stud or hoop depending on his mood) and definitely a tongue piercing too. There's also one that only you and him know about 😉

You guys met at a party after one of his bigger shows. You’re the friend of a daughter of some executive for his record label and you immediately caught his eye. He knew he had to talk to you

When Lucien loves, he loves hard and is very loyal and he just wants the same in return

He’s very cautious about getting close to people because he’s been hurt before and used for his fame. He didn’t want that to happen with you but after talking to you for a few days he knew you weren’t like that

Once he has you, he’s absolutely infatuated with you

On your first date he tries so hard to impress you but it goes terribly. He makes a complete dork of himself and his ‘cool rockstar’ facade slips. You thought it was so cute and endearing, he was surprised he got another date with you

You become Lucien’s muse when writing songs

You go to all the shows you can and even go on tour with him. If it’s a world tour he takes you to all the romantic spots in different countries and always takes you on fun adventures when he’s not busy rehearsing

You never get bored watching him on stage

Lucien makes sure you’re always sitting close to the stage so he can see you while performing. Whenever he sees you he always winks at you and starts dancing very suggestively on stage knowing it turns you on

Lucien is very protective of you

One time he stopped a show when he saw some guy harassing you. He was furious, he almost jumped off the stage but security escorted the guy from the venue before anything else happened

You watched the rest of the show from backstage that night. As soon as he was done Lucien took you straight home. He held you and apologized all night even though you told him over and over that it wasn't his fault

His fans absolutely adore you! If they recognize you at shows they always say hi and some even ask for a picture

You love watching him on stage and going out to parties together but your favorite times with him are when you guys can just relax at home alone

You love lazy days in bed together eating nothing but junk food and watching cartoons

Lucien is a child at heart and will insist you watch 2000s Disney shows (Suite Life of Zack and Cody is his fav)

Lucien has two nice cars and one really beautiful, expensive black motorcycle

When he bought it you weren’t crazy about it at first but when he handed you your own helmet and took you for a ride it changed your mind

You loved when he’d go super fast, it gave you an adrenaline rush

He's not a huge social media person, he only posts if he likes a picture of him from a show or event, or if new music is coming out

He doesn't like the media attention that comes with his job but he sucks it up

Lucien feels bad that you get wrapped up in it since you're a private person as well

He always has ways to bypass the paparazzi when you guys go out, he hates the way they shove cameras in your faces and the stupid questions they ask

He has punched a pap before for almost pushing you into traffic in the city

Some NSFW stuff (18+ from here on!)

Lucien plays guitar so he’s a god with his fingers. He knows exactly what he’s doing down there and can make you cum in seconds

His tongue piercing is also a plus when he goes down on you

It’s one of the metal balls and when he licks your clit the pressure is perfect

His favorite position is when your on top

Lucien loves when you ride him because he can see all of you and after your orgasm hits he pulls you into his chest

His other preferred position is taking you from behind

He loves running his hand down your arched back to squeeze the back of your neck

And he loves how deep he can get from that angle

When he’s in charge sex is usually rough and passionate. Love making is set aside for special occasions though, like if you haven’t seen each other in a long time

He’s always down to try anything unless it’s a no for you, he’d never want to make you uncomfortable

One of his band mates did walk in on you guys once in his dressing room and he never lived it down

#acotar fanfiction #acotar reader imagine #acotar #acotar reader fic #acotar imagine #lucien vanserra #Lucien vanserra headcanon #lucien x you #lucien x reader #lucien vanserra x reader

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violet-moonstone · 9 months

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favourite character animation styles

Hiccup: Literally any of his character models (except RoB/DoB, oof) are great, but I wish he was equally as freckled through the whole franchise (this goes for all the characters tbh).

Astrid: First movie Astrid is my favourite and RTTE Astrid is a close second - just wish she had more freckles and scars. Movie 2 and 3 Astrid look way too different and airbrushed. Also, I would have quite liked to see Astrid gain more muscle over time. You can't tell me that girl's an axe-weilding warrior with tiny little arms.

Snotlout: RTTE Snotlout is so goddamn cute, I love him.

Fishlegs: Movie 1 Fishlegs is my favourite look for him. REALLY don't like his look in the 3rd movie.

Ruffnut: Looks good in everything, no notes.

Tuffnut: Literally anything except THW. Can't do the head hair/beard thing, sorry.

Dagur: I prefer his character model (and character in general) in RTTE, but I liked his outfit way more RoB/DoB. The skrill armor is cool but looks out of place to me. Not very Viking-y, even in a costumey way.

Heather: tie between RoB and RTTE. Definitely prefer her outfit in RoB.

Gustav: RTTE

Valka: THW - love her outfit and graying hair

Stoick: HTTYD 2 - again, love graying hair. The sunlight shining on his beard looks so good in the opening scene. Also prefer his outfit here.

Gobber: His outfits are pretty consistent throughout the series, so no notes there. Generally prefer his look in movie 1 before things got all shiny.

I cannot overstate how much I dislike the way the dragon armor looks in movie 3. Love the concept, hate the execution.

#httyd #how to train your dragon #violet-moongem

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elbdot · 1 year

Note

Jesus christ so hey congratulations on completing tha dubs! Excited to experience them later this month 😄

I do want to take this opportunity tho to ask about your overall thoughts on S&V? Like what you think of the stories, characters, and....Paldea's possible inclusion in these comics 👀?

Excited to hear your thoughts!

OKAY I've gotten a bunch of Pokemon S&V Questions since November and now that I FINALLY played through the game I can FINALLY answer them HERE WE GO

POKEMON SCARLET AND VIOLET IS... GOOD

IS REALLY GOOD

It has some really nice storylines, some weaker, some stronger, I REALLY liked the characterization of all the Team Star Admins (even though the team's backstory is a bit all over the place), Arven was my favorite, followed by Nemona and Penny is- Penny is certainly there 😶

Geeta is not really a memorable champion...I don't really care much for her, but I do find it interesting that she's apparently quite unpopular amongst the Gym leader for her strict management. I don't think we ever had an in-universe unpopular Champion before.

My favorite part of the game was undoubtedly exploring the region with my Pokemon! Taking on the Gyms was more of a chore I had to do to be able to catch and train higher leveled Pokemon but I gotta say, the Gym challenges were always really fun and sometimes I reseted my game just to play the mini-games again :D

But I THINK I spent the most time trying to take selfies and pictures of me and my Pokemon whenever something fun happened or I found a really nice location or the sun was about to set. Taking photos is a HUGE hobby of mine and games that give me this kind of freedom with the photo-option are a HUGE plus in my book (You have NO idea how much time I spent in the USUM Photo Club Mini game)

I gotta say tho the Pokemon of this Region...?

BIGGEST weak point in my opinion. WEIRDEST bunch I've ever seen. Weird doesn't always have to mean BAD but in this case...yeah no there were a lot of weird AND bad ones in there, sometimes great concepts but VERY STRANGE execution that left a lot to be desired for me personally.

I was very open to what kind of Pokemon I would catch in this game. I ended up having only ONE new Paldean Pokemon on my team. And it wasn't even an all new Pokemon, it was Paldean TAUROS :'D Gotta say tho, I never cared THIS much about Tauros before. REALLY love my big black bull (ye I have the regular one, the rare ones are cool but I fell in love with this big fella)

I had a Kilowattrel and Amarouge on my team for a bit, but I switched them out after a while, I was really hoping I'd click with Amarouge more, but in the end I gave space for old and familiar faces instead. Kilowattrel I really like tho! But the fact I could walk around and interact with some of my favorite Pokemon overworld made me SO obsessed with adding them onto my team, THIS is the kind of Pokemon experience I've been waiting for for quite a while :DD

I haven't played through post game yet and I haven't finished all of the school classes yet, but I'm looking forward to complete them, as the cast of this game is really vast and fun!

In case of the comics however, just like with Galar I don't think we'll see an inclusion of this region within the story. Given the narrative of Scarlet and Violet, it would also be difficult to tie in its story with those of EAA and to be honest - I know you guys want to see El and her friends in other regions, which is very sweet, I'm happy you care so much about her that you want to see them travel around the world! But...I NEVER felt the desire to make this comic a world travel tour and I don't really understand where this idea came from that so many people expect El to leave Alola any time soon :'D

"El's Alolan Adventures" will continue to be about El's Adventures in Alola :'D I still love Alola and since El is currently Alolas Champion, she doesn't have any plans to leave the region any time soon and there are still SO many stories to tell with the cast of the Alola region! DON'T FORGET Gladion's Arc I still need to finish!!

HOWEVER

I THINK it's a fair assumption that you'll definitely see SOME fanart from me for this region :D In fact, you can already see my first (ANIMATED) piece on patreon! ☺️

AND I'll show a few more of my "travel pictures" as I've taken...A LOT of them... BUT YEAH Pokemon Scarlet, best main-line game since Sun and Moon for me!! OH and Legends of Arceus was REALLY FUN too of course

#pokemon scarlet and violet #pokemon scarvio #pokemon #mod #reply

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popculturebuffet · 2 months

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Here Comes Garfield: The Fantastic Funnies (A Comission For Emma Fici)

Hello all you happy people! And welcome one and all to Here Comes Garfield, my look at all things garfield. For the rest of the year this feature will mostly be a look at the 11 garfield specials, minus babes and bullets which I covered previously, as well as his appearence in Cartoon All Stars to the Rescue for last 420.

So for those just joining us: I'm a lifelong comic strip nerd, ever since my dear Aunt Paula gave me her spare copy of the Indespensible Calvin and Hobbes in the 3rd grade. From there I slowly glommed on to other strips over the years: From FoxTrot, to Doonesbury, to Get Fuzzy to Zits to Cul De Sac, to recent faviorites like Pheobe and Her Unicorn, Crabgrass, the Steenz version of Heart and the City, and Breaking Cat News, which i'm wrapping a huge retrospective of soon, and whose place this retrospective is taking on my friend Emma's Patreon slot.

I love talking about this fine art, fitting your best work in just 4 panels, all the wonderful characters many simply don't know exist, all the weird shit that happens.. it's good stuff. So naturally I also gained a love for specials based on them. And while I loved the Peanuts ones and will climb THAT massive mountain someday, as a tween.. my faviorites were Garfield's and it's how I fell in love with the fat cat, the cool cat the nobody's cool cat.

While younger me did like garfield as a strip, especially that one arc where Garfield gets caught in a window blind and it conttinues to suck in an escalating number of people

Truly the "Snoopy's Awkward Nephew" of Garifield comics. Pure art. But while I liked it, it was watching the specials on the DVD garfield as himself that sucked me into the character. The DVD"s were released around the time of the first movie and releases of Garfiled and Friends to cash in and they certainly got my money. 12 specials, all ranging from excellent to watchable, and all wil lbe covered this year.

However before I can tell you that story, I have to tell you this story: See while Here Comes Garfield was Garfield's first SPECIAL.. it wasn't his first apperance in animation. Two years before that Garfield lept onto screens and into the inky depths of animation with a short but scene stealing apperance in the 1980 special the Fantastic Funnies, an apperance I honestly didn't even know existed till recently, but is such a weird and important piece of garfield history I had to cover it and Emma was on board to comission it.

So what exactly IS the fantastic funnies you may ask. Well i'll tell you.. you may ask. The Fantastic Funnies was a sequel to the earlier special The Fabulous Funnies, a celebration of comic strips interviewing various creators and including a live action on animated bit with Rob Reiner. I haven't seen it but if there's enough intrest I might cover it. The special was a hit for NBC, with CBS regretting having passed over the idea when animation maestro and peantus producer Lee Mendelson suggested it. After they remembered he'd pitched it and they'd been stupid at all of course, as is the executive way. They called dibs on the next time.

The next time was 12 years and an animated series that didn't do so good later, and CBS was front and center for the Fantastic Funnies, taking the concept but spiffing it up: this time the interviews were, with two exceptions, each accompanied by an animated short, there was an animated bit to start it off, and we also got a few musical numbers and live performances from the broadway cast of annie.. well two of the broadway cast of annie bu tthat's still more of the broadway cast of annie than has been on this blog so touche Fabulous Funnies, touche. It's the most 70's thing to come out of 1980 and i'll be covering the whole thing under the cut.

Fantastic Funnies is hosted by Loni Anderson, who at the time was on CBS' hit WKRP in Cincinatti.. and what i've seen of it is excellent. She hasn't really done anything else i've seen, but she seems nice enough.

This makes it awkward as hosting wise she feels shoved into the special. The script she's given feels awkward, with her only genuine enthuasim coming from Barney Google. I honestly wish I could be as jazzed about Barney Google and his go go gooogly eyes as Loni Anderson apparently was in 1980. I AM that jazzed about Snoopy's awkard teenage nephew

But it's not the same alas.

I can't even blame her as anderson was already frustrated with her pay for the series she did do and would demand more from the network leading to a brief exit from WKRP. I can't be too hard on her for not giving a fuck about an extra gig they saddled her with she didn't ask for with a script written by a block of wood on several pounds of qualudes. She did her best under the circumstances.

The circumstances also include getting animated as a cartoon, lucky, and getting to introduce a panel of various comic strip all stars of the time.

Okay so going row by row, with the strips self titled unless otherwise stated.

Front Row: Charlie Brown and Lucy (Peanuts), Nipper (Wee Pals), Dennis the Menace (US Comic), Nancy and Sluggo and Little Orphan Annie. Second Row: Blondie and Dagwood, Dick Tracey, Barney Google (Snuffy Smith), Alley Oop and Prince Valiant

Third Row: Pogo, Tumbleweeds, miss Peach, B.C., Beetle Bailey

Back row: Michael Doonesbury (Doonesbury), Broom Hilda, Drabble, Cathy and Hagar the Horrible

And in their own section because dogs apparently don't get bleacher seats at Walden, where I assume this is taking place as the only college out of these strips, we also get the dogs and one very special cat in their own section.

So Snoopy, Daisy (Blondie), Fred Basset and Garfield who are all about to throw down when Lonnie announces they have to get back to the human world for the show. But before that a song they all prepared, and it was at this point in the special I had to ask myself the tough question:

I still don't know. But yes the song is like living in a living nightmare and I don't care for it. It's thankfully short and Broomhilda takes them all to the real world. But that's a story for another day

Sadly not that day.

For now the special settles int' it's formula: Lonnie introduces a cartoonist, they talk about how their strip came to be, we get an animated segment about it. The only exceptions to the last part are Wee Pals, which instead has it's creator voice over one of his strips directly and Prince Valliant, who gets jack shit.

It was at this point I also realized a bit of an issue. While I mentioned my love of comic strips.. most of the ones I adore come from the late 70's onward, with Doonesbury and Peanuts being the big exceptions. I don't have anything against strips from before that time, I've read what I could of Pogo and want to read more and Krazy Kat is still well loved for a reason. I've also recently gained an appreceation of popeye thanks to Randy Millholand's take on the franchise.

The thing is I started devouring every comic strip I coudl in the 2000's. It was a great time for that as every strip got at least ONE collection, so even if you didn't read the newspapers, you could get a sample of a wide range of strips in book form. Boondocks even got a hilarious title out of it for it's first book.

So I got to sample a wide range of strips, many of which I still read today: Get Fuzzy, Zits Pooch Cafe, For Better or For Worse, Baldo, La Cucaracha, Cul De Sac, Lio, Luann, Rudy Park, Adam@Home. Many strips I first found in collection and binged later. Sadly this went down in the 2010's but thankfully the kids comics boom has meant many newer strips have gotten collections. It's why I have collections for heart of the city and crabgrass on my shelf.

But as you may of noticed... most of those either started in the 2000's or in the 90's. Most of the kings features based strips simply didn't get collections and thus I didnt' notice them.. and by the time I could i'd mostly heard of them by reputation as dinosaurs that would go on till the heat death of the universe via various legacy artists who wouldn't really change a thing.

And I do GET why: a lot of these legacy strips.. are ran by family members who want to honor the legacy and may simply not feel comfortable altering the strip too much. I'm not asking that dagwood suddenly become a t-rex... i'd love that, but I get i'm not everyone's target audience. Not every strip can be Pooch Cafe and go entirley off the rails AND still be every bit the strip it always was AND be good

It's hard. So I do have some sympathy. It's not limitless: while I get not doing so say in the 2000's when handing your strip off to another cartoonist, let alone your DAD'S strip wasn't a thing unless they were going to stay the course, in the 2020's and late 2010's we've had a bunch of great reboots and soft reboots of legacy strips: Randy Millholand of Something Positive fame did such a fantastic job on popeye sundays he got a weekly slot with olive and popeye, giving other creators the chance to do their own olive oyl strip basically alongside his. Mark Tatulli got tired of doing heart of the city (Lio both continues and slaps hard) and rather than phone it in or end it, handed it over to the talented Steenz, whose work on the strip is both something entirley diffrent but something entirely fresh and fun with some tight continuity. Olivia James made people care about Nancy for the first time in decades and has a nice dry wit. And while Henry Barjas keeps the soapy stylings of gil thorpe and hasn't changed as much as his contemporaries he still isn't afraid to shake things up having Gil go through a divorce, get two new assitant coaches, a third assitant coach who was once his arch nemisis and making the teen cast far more diverse including trans and non binary characters, being one of the few creators to do so in comic stripery.

While I don't want you going after these old men, and please for the love of god DO NOT GO AFTER THESE MEN. I do not want that. I may gripe, but these seem like decent guys just ones who won't evolve and have no reason to. I'm just outlining why maybe i'd rather read strips that keep growing with age or have fresh new voices rather than "Dagwood still hasn't left the 1950's and when theyt ry to it's embarassing for everyone involved. "

I.. didn't mean for this to turn into a screed on legacy comics that never really changed but it makes it all the more special tha ta lot of these creation stories for these comics still fascinated me.

The big standout was Wee Pals, a strip I hadn't heard of as it ended in 2002. Wee Pals was created by Morrie Turner, a cartoonist and protege of Charles Schultz who bemoaned the lack of black characters in the newspapers. Charles told him why not make one, and Wee Pals came about, with Turner diversifying the cast to drum up intrest creating one of the more diverse casts in earlier comic strips as a result. Nowadays it's a tad quaint, but I can't fault the man for trying to make comic strips less white and i'm glad I know this pioneer exist. I'm also mildly annoyed his strip wasn't animated, as it was one of the funneist present, with our heroes talking about one's pet chameleon.

There were other intresting stories too: Cathy Guthwise based Cathy on her own life, just changing Cathy's job from cartoonist to "whatervers funnier". Broom Hilda, a strip about a wtich, was something his creator tried pitching as an add character first. IT's small stuff but it always fascinates me how a strip comes about.

The only outright hilarous one is Johnny Hart, who kept trying to sell a caveman character, his friends asked him to put up or shut up so in his words "He drank 4 beers and the caveman slowly came into focus." He just.. outright got hammered to fuck because that was a normal thing in 1980 and created a classic comic strip out of it that later became obessed with jesus. Amazing.

The interviews are neat and while I may not like these strips I respect their creators.. and the creator of Hagar for putting on a viking helmet. Good stuff.

As for the animated segmets.. their eh. Like I said most of these strips are pretty gag a day and it seems like the shorts just flat out animated a strip. Which can work as it does for the raeson we're all here, garfield will come soon I promise, but for the most part it just dosen't land for me

In two cases they just flat out take bits from pre existing specails: For Doonesbury they take a bit of Joanie at the daycare.

For those less drenched in the deep and complex lore of doonesbury as the werido who has a ton of print books and bought digitals of strips he already had and books he already bought years ago just to have a copy on kindle: Joanie Caucuss was once a house wife, who got tired of it and her husband clinton and hitched the first ride she could away from his sexist ass. That ride happened to be with strip lead Mike and his best friend and revolutinary Mark on a motorcycle trip to find america. They took her back with them, she joined them at their commune, and soon got a job in daycare while trying to become a law student, which is the status quo the special used. Soon after she'd become a law student, head to berkley, find the love of her life and a long LONG list of other stuff up to present day where she works as a campaign manager on occasion during her alleged retirement.

It's not a bad bhit, but I get the sense they wanted to pick the least political thing they could.. yet weirdly DIDN'T go with the musical number or the dinner the group have. Or you know just accept doonesbury is political and include frank discussions of the 60's in this special.

For Peanuts, they just include an animated bit of snoopy singing suppertime from your a good man charlie brown. It's new animation far as I can tell, as the bit wasn't in any of the specials and they woudlnt' adapt the musical till the mid 80s. It's fine I just question why they didn't recycle anything from the specials.

Finally Cathy is from it's special, but fits, with her "wanting to have it all". A very cathy joke and frankly had I not found out she has three specails, i would not have been able to tell.

As for the other material either recycled from the fabulous funnies or made for this special, i'm going in no paticular order.

Beetle Bailey: Beetle runs away from sarge to try and get out of doing the obstacle course

Hagar the horrible has a trite bit about his wife telling him to take out the garbage VIKINGS DON'T DO THAT. YOU SO SILLY HAGAR.

Dennis the Menace keeps drawing out bed time because kids do that, even immortal children who aren't all that menacing.

By now your starting to get what a mountain it was to climb this special: short interview, unfunny skit, short interview unfunny skit, rinse repeat, toss away my sanity. I TRY to be positive on this blog, try not to be a dickhead.. but this special is so damn boring half the time. The interviews are kinda neat but the animated bits are just.. so lame.

So as a break let's talk what else the special did to fill time. Loni Anderson sang the radio themes to Popeye and Little Orphan Annie. IN the former's case.. that's all you gets. No adventure, no high seas just her singing the popeye theme. We dont' even get a musical number from the popeye movie because it hadn't happene dyet. I want to hear bluto say i'm mean over and ove rand over again. I"m that desperate.

Annie DOES get the cast of the broadway show, a huge hit then and forever, to do two numbers, both iconic and both well performed: The first is I dont' Need Anything But YOu, the cute duet between Annie and Warbucks, and then of course Tommorow best sung by bill the cat.

But the kid they use here does pretty good herself. They have it sung at the only playground in budget for some reason, but they did their best.

We also get a truly batshit bumber about peopl eneeding their funnies, from reading them as they go down the fire pole to IN A MOVING CAR. Yes even serial murderers need their funnies as they mow down pedestrians. It's nature's way. I do relate to tha tboost you get from reading them every day, I do so and I have to use three diffrent sites: one for andrews mcmeel, one for king features, and one for the webbcomic kevin and kell. So I get it. Three's also a closing number I ran away form.

The final non torture bit is Johnny Fever from WKRP. Due to a news strike he's tasked iwth reading the comics and drmatically reads flash gordon. Howard Hessman is hilarous as always, the bit is fucking great, and it woke me up after several strip adaptions put me to sleep. good stuff.

Back to my cycle of torment, and we have a Blondie cartoon and one of the few animated bits in the specail that was intresting. And unintetionally hilarous as Blondie gets dagwood THIS haircrime done to him.

What makes it funny is that not only is this haircut too much even for the 70's, but Blondie LOVES it, as do the kids.. despite all three of them having never updated their styles. Granted Blondie's hair game is timeless, so I get her point but it's just a .. weird plot to pick for blondie.

Naturallyt his being blondie instead of forcusing on the problem of "his wife wants him to try a hair cut that makes him not feel himself" it's in part him worried tha this friends and co workers will laugh. I mean they will, it's as if Luke Skywalkers hair started to eat into his brain, but that shoudln't be your takeaway and him washing it out while Blondie's alseep solves nothing and isn't funny. "Haha he can't be honest with his wife and she's going to later cite this incident to thier marriage counclier". Granted I would ENTIRELY read Dagwood's hair causing a divorce between them, but i'm not sure that's an arc Blondie readers want. I do wnat reprints of golden age blondie as it apparently involved Dagwood having to get disinherited to marry blondie, getting drunk, and other soap opera stuff more intresting than Dagwood trying to single white female mark hamill. Huh now THAT'S a Disney + series i'd watch. get on it disney

The other really fun one is Marmaduke. This one's just kidna fucked up. Marmaduke want sto go sleep in the same bed with the kids, which can somehow fit all three and is adorable so I don't get why not, but the dad tries to make him go outside because that was the thing with dogs. It hasn't aged terribly with charlie brown because snoopy clearly likes having his own pad and the inside is larger than most mansions, let alone the brown house

And when the whole thing burned down in one of the more sobering strips in the series run

Charlie Brown dutifully helped him plan his new house

Honestly I could talk about Snoopy's house burning down all day but it's not what you came for. You came to hear me tell you how it relates to Marmaduke. My point is Marmaduke just has a regular ass Dog House, and just wants to sleep in bed. I get this was normal at the time, it used to be the norm that dogs woudln't sleep in bed.. but my Dog YOshi curls up on my mom' sbed every night and maddie, my other dog , only dosen't when she's not on her own bed restfully asleep as she is as I type this. what i'm saying is maybe just maybe forcing dogs to live outside at night was cruel jackassery and maybe letting the big old dog curl up at the foot of the bed or, if he prefers tucked in while old man bastard can sleep outside and think about his life choices. Also i'm shocked this wasn't the plot of either marmaduke movie. It's so perfect. One man's journey to be a better dog owner .. or Marmaduke repeadely hitting him in the nuts with a tennis ball machine and other various objects. I"m not picky. Also i'm not touching either of those films unless someone pays me the 15 dollars it'd take to comissoin it. I'll review plenty of garbage on my own time, but I have limits. Pete Davidson is very much a hard and fast one. Owen Wilson is fine though. We love owen in this house.. but even he can' save cgi marmaduke and we all know that.

Pogo also takes a bit from the then upcoming film I go Pogo.. a guy I don't know tries to take two passing critters for a ride using the old shell game.. only to have put something under every one. i'ts a nice joke and it works well, and the gorgeous claymation. Given it's both election based and based on a comic i'd like to know better, me reviewing that .. would still be 15 if anyone wants it but far less of my own personal hell. But i'm more likely to do that one on my own. Fun fact: pogo's election storyline's inspired bloom counties, which I will be covering this year or at the very least the 1984 one.

BC has some bit with a turtle. It sure does exist

Broom Hilda asks who the fairest in the land is and her mirror calls her second. She responds by breaking it. This bit.. was actually funny. I'm not sure Broom Hilda would be for me as it's main gag seems to be "Gee isn't a woman chasing men against their will funny" which

Same other way around or with non binary folks. But I did like this and her horning in on mike's close up

She looks like she's about to hit on him but adorably so and he looks just.. so done with it as he always is. I mean.. I can't have turned out worse than Mike's actual first marriage. his second is pretty ballin though.

Mama has her Son say that life is a song.. onlyf or her to sing about him neglecting him. Get it because guilt tripping is funny! This is apparently most of what Mama is.

Finally before our main event we have tumbleweeds with sexual harassment as some lady refuses to let tumbleweeds go. And that's not me being lazy that's his actual name. Though to it's creator's credit he retired rather than let it become "a zombie strip", so good on him.

Okay now for what you all came to see

Also garfield

Garfield's first aniamted special was MOSTLY worth the pilgramage here. While ti's only a few strips repeated, it's fascinating for just how diffrent it is from Here comes Garfield a few years later.

For starters the Fantastic Funnies used an early design for our faviorite cat, not the iconic entirely weird by this point earliest garfield but one more in between, not quite upright yet, but not nearly as realistic as day 1 garfield.

To the classic peanuts team of Mendelson and Mendez's credit they did a wondreful job, likely why they were chosen to produce the specials till the companies backing peanuts asked them to stop helping out rival specails, and this version of garfield heavily resembles what he was like in the strip this frame is based on

It's also telling how fast Jim Davis was evolving the special that by the time it aired Garfield had already changed his look up a bit, if still not fully to his more classic 80s look.

It's not a HUGE change, just a little thinner, with the bigger change being in how he sit's/stands

It's just a testament to how slowly but surely the character evolved in apperance over his first decade or so and part of what makes this intreresting: while the specials help chart this evolution, and helped cause it as Jim needed to draw Garfield with SKinnier legs for the opening dance number of here comes garfield, it's nice to have this bit of his evolution frozen in amber.

The voices behind the characters are intresting: to my shock Thom Huge ALWASY voiced john and basically only stopped doing it when he retired. Thom did voices for commericals and was an old frat brother of Jim Davis who Davis asked for help with this special. While the producers would recast huge for Here Comes Garfield, he sent them a tape and became THE voice of john in the same way Lorenzo Music became THE voice of garfield.

WHile that's weird enough... what makes this special stand out besides the earlier designs... is Garfield's Voice. It's not Lorenzo Music, who would DEFINE the character in my eyes and is THE garfield, no question, though Frank Welker and Bill Murray are admirable.. but Radio DJ and voice guy Scott Beach.

Beach is take is intresting as both Murray and Welker clearly take from Music, while Beach largely does his own thing. Instead of the dry, sarcastic bored tone Lorenzo perfected, Beach has that but it sounds more like Jean Shepard'ss narration in a christmas story. Shepard isn't bad but his voice for Garfield is less relaxed, mor ebooming and confident. It dosen't COMPLETELY fit and makes the short feel a tad weird.. but it's also hard to judge the voice as, like I said EVERY voice after took cues from Music. he left the perfect blueprint. The fact Chris Pratt isn't that dry, sarcastic , laid back voice the character has been defined by hasn't helped his case voicing the character at the time of this review. Beach does a good job, but he just didn't quite fit and it's hard to compare a 2 minute performance with dozens of hours worth of material from Music. Beach did a decent job, but he just wasn't the right guy for the part, simple as that. his voice just didn't fit Garfield's give no fuck nature that well.

Finally we have the specific strips adapted. nd the garfield wiki was a huge help here. Seriously fan wikis can have a bad rap but many are done by dedicated people who save me a LOT of work and do a lot of through research> Kudos guys, thanks for your help. So the wiki has each strip adapted. Excluding the "I have feet? " one we have

Not bad choices: they get all the garfiled bases: he dosen't like catching mice, likes food and Jon weight shames him a lot. Simple, quick and well done.

Overall the garfield shorts for this special are excellent. It's a short bit but it gets the character down and it's easy to see why, despite being the new kid on the block at only two years old at the time, garfield's the one who go ta specail out of the deal.

Now does he make the specail worth watching?

I mean if you like comic strip history like me, you'll get something out of it. There's a bit on the inductees into the hall of fame, but even then it's a long slog of interviews that are fairly short and shorts that are both short and tedious. The good bit here or there cannot save this.

Other than Garfield .. there really isn't much to write home about for the casual viewer or if your a fan of Peanuts and Doonesbury like I am, as both bits can be found elswhere. It's easier to either fast forward to the bit with a comic you like or find the garfield bits in their own little video, of which there are plenty. I'm glad I reviewed the special.. but it just hasn't aged well and probably wasn't that fun to begin with. Even as much as I ranted about how much I didn't know the strips.. i'ts still presented so dryly even if it had strips I liked more in it, it'd still be a bit of a slog. There's just not enough genuinely good stuff or loveable nonsense to keep this afloat. Skip the special but DO check out the early garfield stuff. It's brilliant.

Next Time: The first proper special as Garfield must save Odie from the pound.. after he grooves to Lou Rawls a bit. As is nature's way. Thanks for reading.

#garfield #peanuts #doonesbury #comic strips #comics #wkrp in cincinnati #doonebury #charles schulz #charlie brown #lucy van pelt #snoopy #hagar the horrible #blondie #wee pals #marmaduke #broom hilda #cathy

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tea-earl-grey · 1 month

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Re: your Disco S4 review:

but there was just a bit too much Therapy Talk for my liking. and to be clear, i don't mean too much Actual Therapy. i really respect the show for portraying therapy and trauma recovery in depth and just having cool main characters go to therapy because it's good and healthy is Very Cool. but i do think there are definitely scenes (particularly in the beginning of the show) that has dialogue fall into Therapy Talk where all the characters go around in a circle and coherently state their thoughts and emotions and then resolve their conflict.

I also have the same issue, I know the crew were heavily traumatized in season 1 and I love that we’re finally getting a Trek have Starfleet take mental health seriously.

But it’s how the writers execute the scene that’s the problem. I think you’re right on the money about them needing another pass at scenes like that.

I also think, most of the time the show literally stops the action for the characters to just talk. And I adore characters being in a room, just talking. But I think it’s because most of the time it’s because those scenes do two things at the same time. Or they usually have characters talk around it and be difficult.

In season 4, it seems the characters start their scene and they just over indulge too much, maybe a tighter edit would also work.

But also I think most modern shows have that problem where they use Therapy talk as a crutch for character development and relationships.

And again, I preface this that I do love having mental health taken seriously but I think there’s a way to do it where writer’s integrate it organically— one of the new shows I like from AppleTV— Shrinking, is literally all about it but it’s funny and heartbreaking and sweet. I think maybe it’s because the writers are also new to the concepts and think they have to fit everything to be relevant.

Hopefully, they worked out the kinks for season 5!

Yeah exactly. I love Disco but sometimes it feels like the writers just need to read their dialogue aloud to make some last revisions (and also put some nuance/unspoken things into the dialogue).

This!!!! I know fiction is never meant to accurately reflect reality and that there are always going to be weirdly timed conversations for the sake of narrative but Discovery in particular has SO MANY "stop and talk" scenes during Big Action and it drives me crazy when the plot just establishes a strict time limit to do something and then we spend three minutes for characters to have a heart to heart instead of just. Doing The Thing. I know the 90s era "walk and talks" were annoying to film but those downbeats of characters chatting while going from point A to point B is a great place to add small bits of characterization (and movement!) instead of standing still and monologuing.

Thanks for the rec, I've never heard of Shrinking but will have to check it out!

(putting a big tangential ramble about Disco's portrayal of mental health/therapy under a cut because yeesh it got long)

As someone who has been in therapy, has a psychology degree, and has written fiction that uses therapy sessions as a setting/framing device, I can say with a decent amount of confidence that the way therapy/mental health is utilized in Disco is neither super realistic nor using its full narrative potential. Imo we skipped a very interesting part of everyone's healing journeys between s3 and s4 where characters are actually struggling to articulate their problems or denying their issues. Particularly with Detmer who went from having severe PTSD flashbacks in s3 to talking about her feelings with total clarity in s4 when actual trauma recovery is nowhere near as quick or linear and usually requires making major lifestyle changes to actually heal and maintain that healing.

And also I take issue with the fact that all of the characters are growing and facing similar issues at the same time and pace. It ends up making a lot of awkward and redundant conversations between characters who aren't in conflict and are self-actualized enough that they state everything they mean. And when there is meaningful conflict, the characters seem to very quickly overcome their flaws and make up. It's like the opposite problem that a lot of sitcoms and soap operas run into when characters are so driven to conflict and secret-keeping. It is refreshing to have a show where everyone is committed to being their best selves (which is quite similar to tng in that regard) but it doesn't easily mesh with the sort of drama that Discovery seems interested in telling stories about. All of this is also probably why Book's narrative (and his relationship with Michael) was one of the best parts of s4 because it felt like the writers actually committed to realistic season-long conflict born out of trauma and loss that wasn't written off. And as a result I think David Ajala's acting was some of the best of the show because he was given so much depth. I really just wish that the other characters had something similar but Disco's style of hyper-serialization, shorter season orders, and a large cast of recurring characters just doesn't lend to realistically telling stories about trauma and recovery because we almost only see the action and not the characters living their ordinary lives.

And while 90s Trek certainly wasn't The Best at portraying mental health (the therapy it shows in tng is just. Wrong. And so many characters like B'Elanna and Janeway have their issues with depression forgotten about after an episode or two), portrayals of PTSD with characters like Kira, Seven, Neelix, Picard, and Sisko tend to be more interesting to me because those characters' journeys through healing aren't linear. And as always, more episodes and episodic television in general makes it so emotional moments really hit (like Picard's breakdown in Family after Best of Both Worlds, seeing Kira's trauma around her father's death in Ties of Blood and Water, or whenever Neelix, the usual comedic relief and lighthearted character, has to confront how his family was killed in a brutal genocide) whereas with a show like Discovery – there's constant character drama and confrontations and big emotional moments so the catharsis of someone having a breakthrough in their treatment is a bit undercut. For something like that to be memorable, there have to be unmemorable moments too which just isn't Disco's style. It's not inherently a bad thing, but it's not really to my tastes.

Even the other new Treks tend to be a bit more grounded with character dialogue and addressing mental health. My enjoyment of Lower Decks shot way up in s4 because her admitting that Sito's death drove her away from wanting to be an officer was such a huge moment of catharsis when Mariner usually avoids talking about her feelings with a six foot poll. SNW has both La'an, M'Benga, and Chapel dealing with PTSD and their moments of vulnerability and pain are better because SNW tries to balance the silliness and seriousness of Trek. Picard is probably the most similar in content/tone to Discovery and even there despite the serialization and awkward characterization moments, the characters all have consistent issues with trauma that affect them at different times and affect them despite self-improvement. And I think Picard sometimes dips into heavy-handed emotional conversations but it's not quite as much as Disco because oh boy these characters are good at avoiding their feelings.

To be clear, I do love Discovery and people blow the awkward writing/Therapy Talk problem WAY out of proportion to cover for the bigoted reasons some people vocally hate the show. Like this problem does annoy me but it is just one aspect of the show and I hope one that will be fixed (or at least less noticeable) for season 5.

#discovery #my posts #asks #i need to drag my “Seven goes to therapy” fic out of my convoluted AU because therapy sessions are such a good framing device to get into a #character's head but you have to use it right! nuance! show don't tell!#therapy is a good way to jump start growth and unpacking trauma but irl you have to be an active participant #and in fiction your character has to actively confront their issues instead of just time skipping to a month later when they're fine becaus #of one conversation they had #this is a pet peeve of mine

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absolutebl · 2 years

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10 BL Scenes I Wish We Had Translator Notes On

Inspired by a discussion in this post. Here are some BL scenes I really wish we had extensive notes from translators to read. Or that a language coach or linguistics professor would analyze.

(Note: I don’t always have a picture of the scene in question.)

1. Daisy & Touch’s Date in Secret Crush On You

I did this one myself but I am nothing but a dilettante, I’d love someone more experienced with Thai nuance and the queer community do a full on analysis of the language use.

2. Phun coming out to his dad in Love Sick 2

I haven’t rewatched in a while and I would probubly understand more now, but at the time this scene was SO confusing. The translated pronouns are all over the place and I wasn’t at all sure whether he even was actually coming out or not.

3. Thun talking to his mom on the phone in He’s Coming to Me

There a whole subtle thing that goes on when Mes overhears Thun on the phone, to do with “ter.” I think I got it, but also, I think I missed a bit of the nuances that’s insightful to their mother/son relationship.

4. The ex-girlfriend, the boys, and the balcony in Precise Shot

A VERY odd choice as this is a Chinese censored bromance but I am pretty darn sure there is a whole subtextual dig at Taiwan and Taiwanese spoken Mandarin in this scene that went WAY over my head. I think it’s so rich for China to take a dig at Taiwan in an CENSORED BL. I want to know more about what’s going on.

5. The gendered(?) register code switch in the office kitchen in Old Fashion Cupcake

Honestly the translations are just really really bad for this one (on Viki for Japanese in general) and I am super grateful I have at least some ear for Japanese because I can tell when they mess up (which they keep doing). It’s a marker of how good this show is that I adored it despite this. Still, I would like the nuance of this scene explained a bit more. I get that he switched into a feminine register but how exactly? To what degree? What are the additional implications of this? How rare is that for a man of his age? How mocking was it? Or does mockery not come into it? Is there a queer of gay coded implication to this behavior? I HAVE QUESTIONS.

6. Nuch’s speech in Not Me

We don’t get speeches in BL very often, especially not subversive ones from a queer person addressing a crowd. The language is by necessity completely different under these circumstances and I really really like to know how and why certain choices were made.

7. Paitong’s speech of protection in La Cuisine

I love the way this one is translated but I am not entirely sure that translation was accurate. The supportive way Pai talks about his sisters (including Kitty in that) made me so happy, I want to believe it is honestly translated but I am not 100% certain that the queer implications of that translation were thought through (in English).

8. The frozen register usage from Prince’s mom in Sky in Your Heart.

I did not like this BL but the language use going on when Sky visits Prince’s house mansion is CRAZY cool. There is a dialectic switch but also a register switch and I am pretty sure they are speaking in frozen (which no one really does IRL unless they are/are with royalty). I’ve never heard anyone speak Thai the way she does.

* Note: Anytime you see Thai script subbed it means the characters are probubly speaking in a heavy dialect. So there are a few shows set in the north, like Siew Sum Noi that I would have liked a lot more linguistic info on, but the fact that I managed to find them translated at all, is kinda a miracle.

9. Yaja time in Semantic Error

I think I fully understand the concept and I got the implications of the drunk conversation before the kiss. But I’d like to know, in that particular version of yaja time, if there’s anything else more subtly queer going in with these two. I mean we all known and could hear that JaeYoung executes the sluttiest “hyung” on the goddamn planet but is there something else happening linguistically?

Often with KBL the culture around queer is so coded and so subtle I feel like I am missing a lot of the linguistic hints. Or maybe it just really is that repressed.

10. Mr Cinderella and the pronoun negotiations

I can’t pick a specific scene off the top of my head, although I am sure there is one. I understand from @squeakygeeky that Vietnamese I/you pronouns are pretty gender and power dynamic coded. This makes Mr Cinderella (the least Seme/uke of all VBLs) one of the most challenging on the actors and translations. I’d love it if they, and me, were given more information about this. Not just translation, but script choice, why those pronouns at that point in the narrative? Why the switch? Why NO switching? That kinda thing.

(source)

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egg-emperor · 4 months

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What's your opinion on the Sonic Prime Eggmans? /gen

Do I get to talk about regular Eggman too? At first I thought this was asking about him and I really wanna gush about him again but now I realize you probably mean the council more lol

I really loved the Prime version of regular Eggman! It was literally only five minutes worth but a very beautiful five minutes at that. Deem Bristow and Mike Pollock play huge parts of why I love Eggman and find him so entertaining so I didn't know how I was gonna feel about the change but Brian Drummond doesn't do a bad job, he could easily become my next favorite voice after them if he worked on it a little more.

I enjoyed how simplistically enjoyable Eggman was. Funny and silly and getting up to evil to find and steal the paradox prism and use it in his schemes. His ambition and motivation to take over the world there strong as ever and talking about wanting a world that's more him in neon was cute, I like and am fascinated by bright colors and pretty lights and want everything to be about you too Ivo dhfisbgjsbgkdh

I love the classic bickering and scolding Orbot and Cubot. I love how he tricked Sonic and went the route of taunting him then targeting his best friend Tails to piss him off enough to bait and make him snap for his plan to work, being a real bastard and calling him "stupid as Tails is ugly" lol. I loved how happy he was for it to work and how he laughed maniacally and looked like such an adorable evil bastard doing it!

Everything I love about Eggman was intact there and I was looking forward to seeing more. I expected it was gonna have the vibe of my favorite parts of X as that's what that five minutes felt like and that's exactly what I've been wanting for years, for modern Eggman to come back in a show and be just like that. I really miss Prime Egg and I wish he would come back but they threw him out in the first ep :(

He was so beautiful and charming and entertaining 🥰

I miss hiiim but I'm gonna bet that he won't return in any form beyond the prismatic titan until the very end of the show or something

As for the Chaos Council, I unfortunately have much less to say as I'm personally not a fan of them. The concept certainly had the potential but the execution is lacking. They just don't have a lot going for them, they're kind of just generic character archetypes such as Baby, Teenager, Hipster, Old Man, Not Eggman, etc. They don't have regular Eggman's personality and charm and are just like strangers in his skin.

I really wish I could like them more but both their designs and personalities don't grab me. For that I only watched the first eight episodes and never watched the second batch besides the prismatic titan Eggman parts. I'd at least have been happier if they had kept regular Eggman with them, as depicted in the concept art as he was going to be a part of the council but they decided to rid of him completely.

The most cool and interesting part of Prime to me outside of regular Eggman to me is New Yoke City. I always love seeing a world taken over by Eggman and I'm a huge sucker for the dark controlled industrialized polluted dystopian hellscape where there's propaganda everywhere on the walls, orders and rules constantly being enforced through the robot patrol saying stuff like and over PAs blasting through speakers

It's an "Eggman" ruled and controlled place, a dark shitty oppressive place and people are just mindless zombies and slaves to the harsh system because they feel hopeless to break out with no freedom, controlled, restricted, and watched. The way it's spelled New YOKE city so it sounds like "yolk" like egg but is potentially a reference to a "yoke", a type of leash to control cattle, fits how they're oppressed and controlled was right up my alley.

Seeing the real Eggman in a place like that leading the Chaos Council would've been so cool. Then it could've looked like the concept as the version that I liked a lot more than the look of the final for all the regular Eggman designed inspired assets, it even has the beautiful neon and cool lights like he wants! And I just love how much it looks like Eggmanland hehe. I really wish they'd tapped into that potential.

#dr eggman #eggman #dr robotnik #dr. eggman #sonic prime #asks #my post

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inventors-fair · 3 months

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The Number After Zero: The Origin Runners-Up

Our runners-up this week are @izzet-always-r-versus-u, @reaperfromtheabyss, and @sombramainexe!

@izzet-always-r-versus-u — Indulgence

We've certainly come a long way since the days of Maro, haven't we? There's been plenty of variations on the effect over the years, but few quite this weird. It's so inherently paradoxical, in fact, that I wouldn't have batted an eye if you had just made this a Weird! But I digress. This fella's got a bone to pick with all things Reliquary Tower, and stubbornly insists you keep your hand reasonably sized at all times. In fact, it revels in an empty hand, which is normally the bane of any Maro. I wouldn't really be able to judge without actually playing it, but it's hard to tell how often you'll be happy to get the draw three rather than just keeping a large hand and therefore a large creature. Maybe just swing early when you still have cards, and let it naturally shrink as you burn through resources? Again, I really don't know, but these are the kind of questions that make me like the card more. The big problem, though...I'm not entirely sure I see the black here? The Maro effect has rather decisively shifted to blue, and both the draw on an empty hand and discarding your hand as a punishment both feel pretty squarely red. Not a huge issue, though, so take it under advisement.

@reaperfromtheabyss — Phantasmal Panther

Hey, remember fading? Well, you clearly do, but I can't imagine many other people would. This fits right in with the rest of the Phantasmal illusions, although it goes about expressing ephemerality in in a very different way than its predecessors. More than that, we've seen a similar concept for creatures before, but usually the creature starts out above-rate and shrivels over time. Not so here, and in fact it's at its strongest right before it's gone. It's weird, but in a way that just makes sense in a way I really can't explain. Just a cool concept, well executed. Although, as much as I love the gumption to bring back fading, part of me thinks that it would be better off with vanishing and requiring one or fewer time counters to be active. That way, some clever counter manipulation could allow you to keep it in its empowered state over multiple turns, rather than being hard locked to a single turn of power. It wouldn't exactly be valid for the contest in that case, but food for thought.

@sombramainexe — Thick // Thin

Oh, this is just adorable! I just want to pinch this card's cheeks, it's such a darling. Shrinking toughness is already a tried-and-true part of black's arsenal, so this feels like such a natural variant. It's hilarious, too, the idea of just slashing the number down to a big ol' goose egg and watching the creature abruptly cease to be. Indestructible who? Could maybe use some reminder text to spell out exactly what it's doing to the target, though, because it might not be obvious to some. Thick makes for a good companion piece, as well. A pure toughness increase feels a bit out of place in green, but doing it by way of doubling feels like the most reasonable of doing it. Great name, too, and one that I'm actually kind of surprised they haven't used on a split card yet. On that subject, though, I'm not sure I like this as a Fuse card. It runs into the issue that one half is mostly reactive while the other is mostly proactive, so you wouldn't want to cast the halves together much. Like, I could see maybe protecting a creature with Thick and throwing in a Thin to remove something threating, or casting Thick to remove an attacker and using Thin to shore up a blocker while you're at it, but that's not a spectacularly long list.

I'm hard at work penning the rest of the commentary, which hopefully won't take too much longer.

@spooky-bard

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventor's fair #commentary #runners up #zero contest

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mhaynoot · 1 year

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[ joongdok - canon compliant - pure fluff ]

post epilogue, established couple joongdok having a vacation all to themselves for a week or two because they're the only two jobless adults who can get two weeks off in the middle of the year and the rest of the kim dokja's company nebulae can take a hint.

the hint is that they're hopeless and completely garbage at planing vacations. the two idiots are still "hmm"-ing and "mmm"-ing a week after yoo sangah had eagerly suggested they take a trip to relax.

"has either of them ever even had a vacation?" someone finally asks.

someone else asks, "do they, like, even know the concept of relaxing?"

not looking away from her console and executing a perfect combo, yoo mia says, "oppa never took a vacation, not even once."

"what about kim dokja?"

then they remember kim dokja and kim dokja's past and they sigh.

after arguing about romantic cliches and plans for a whole night before finally reaching a tentative accord, han sooyoung and yoo sangah intervene and slap down two tickets on the dining room table.

"you are going to jeju island," han sooyoung says.

"hmm, are we?" kim dokja says even as yoo joonghyuk swipes the tickets to examine the dates.

"yes," everyone replies and he only laughs.

lee hunsung becomes in charge of activities and he rounds all the kids to band up together into a brain storming session that rattles the roof with how loud and excited they become. they come up with a bunch of whacky romantic/fun/cool/badass ideas and activities to do. having come back from her recent trip and feeling extremely gleeful at having thats right up her expertise, jang hayoung compiles all their suggestions into a neat activity book and then makes the mistake of actually researching. hours and hours later, she's still trying to find all the best places and fun spots. she's interviewed four people already and they all give insane responses.

for example, jung heewon lists out all cool bars she went to during her college years but then strokes her chin and says, "they're probably all destroyed or gone now though. ah, just add it all anyways, im sure they'll find at least one of them or it'll give them a good goose chase."

by the end of it and the entire living room turned into a jeju guide collection dump. even han sooyoung reaches out to help format all the information into a giant printed travel guide. by the time its printed and bound, it's thick enough to break bone.

"would we even be able to do all of this?" kim dokja asks, tracing the list of activities and sights and vacation things to do. its a very long list.

"we can always go again," yoo joonghyuk points out.

kim dokja's eyes crinkles. they share a look over the word 'again'.

"oi," han sooyoung cuts in. "we're all going next time, you bastards. there's no way i would have helped make this stupid travel guide just for you two."

yoo joonghyuk and him share another look but he smiles when says, "if you say so, han sooyoung."

bumbling in with all the grace of a particularly snappy grand turtle, gong pildu huffs and finds them a lodge in the middle of nowhere so they don't destroy perfectly good land. even han myungoh comes by with his daughter to talk excitedly about all the places he'd visited and how they could totally hook them up with perfect deals. kim dokja's mothers come by as well, getting him travel bags and fancy dinner clothes.

uriel wails that she cant watch them on their honeymoon over video call. there's about a billion stage crew bustling and frantically speed walking around and behind her and kim dokja remembers she's on a world tour and probably about to head up on stage considering her pretty outfit. glancing over her shoulder on the screen, kim dokja can almost spy out abyssal black flame dragon and sun wukong fighting in the background using a thumb machine.

"how about you send me your schedule and we can go watch your next concert after my vacation," he says and she immediately lights up.

and, because he's pressed against his chest and tucked under his chin, kim dokja can feel it as yoo joonghyuk shakes his head. but he still writes it down in the little black journal he keeps on hand.

in the end, the only two who dont actually contribue to the vacation is kim dokja and yoo joonghyuk themselves who spend most of the week arguing over luggage and bickering over if bringing an entire spice rack is over kill (kdj: yes, yjh vehemently: i can bring the knives too, kim dokja give me the spices).

on the day of departure, they wake up predawn to the whole house bustling and three people already yelling, and loading up way more luggage than kim dokja remembers packing. making sure to fill up yoo mia's plate first, yoo joonghyuk eventually reveals a giant breakfast spread for the rest to eat and they all gobble up ten differently cooked eggs, kimchi yoo joonghyuk had been expertly fermenting like an elderly ahjumma, fluffy fried rice, kimchi, four pots of soup, perfectly cooked fish, more kimchi, and a whole table filled with a hundred different banchan.

as he closes his eyes around the heavenly flavour of yoo joonghyuk's hobakjuk, he quietly conceeds that bringing the spice rack wouldn't be too bad even if it ruined the authenticity of trying touristy food trap.

after inhaling the food and the grand procession of getting everyone into one vehicle, jung hewoon drives them to the airport in the gigantic wagon car they all loving call the company car. in kim dokja's opinion, its more bus than car.

the kids all cry as he rubs their head and kisses their forehead goodbye even though theyre all too old for that anymore but he does it anyway when they crowd around him like puppies about to be dropped off at puppycare. he can't begrudge them when even the adults are huddling around him too, holding onto him like he'd disappear. inside, he knows they're all acting like this why but only a soft tug pulls his heart into a gentle dance of indulgence.

kim dokja waves goodbye from the terminal, smiling widely. yoo joonghyuk gives a nod to the group, flipping through the Kim Dokja Company Approved Travel Guide for the sixth time since they got it. but even he smiles in the end when they all call out their last goodbye and rush into a giant hug.

"you better come back in one piece. yoo joonghyuk, look after him or else. you too kim dokja, you better not let this guy do anything stupid."

"dokja-ssi make sure not to get lost."

"ahjussi, have fun and remember us!"

"hyung! don't forget us! ugh, you sooty bastard, you better look after hyung."

"look after master, ahjussi, and get us souvenirs!"

holding onto his hand, yoo sangah says "make sure to have fun."

jung heewon pulls him close and says into his shoulder, "come home soon."

kim dokja clings onto them for a moment longer. just a little longer. indulges in each second that ticks by. but the announcer says its time to depart and, as he pulls back, he watches as they gather around him, like planetary orbits, never leaving his solar system. refusing to leave his previously lonely starry world. after all, they were forever intertwinned in the gravity of each other. forever, they'll be here for him, to pull him back, and he'll be there too, reaching back to meet their open arms. even if they separated just for a little bit. they'll rotate back together. always.

"i promise, I'll be back," he says, a little watery, and swings an arm around yoo joonghyuk. he holds him steadily.

kim dokja thinks for a long moment. "you know, i dont think ive ever been in a plane."

silently, yoo joonghyuk holds out his hand. after all that he has gone through, after using wings to fly, a carriage through space, a car that rides on cosmic roads and after having thrown himself through the cosmos, kim dokja thinks wearily that something as mundane as a plane ride should definitely not even stir up even a sliver of fear but he grips onto yoo joonghyuk's large, warm hand as tight as possible as the plane shakes and rattles and the white tube bleeds around the edges of his eyes.

then they get the kdrama special montage of jeju island.

there had been plenty of bizarre, otherworldly and breathtaking sights of skies and cosmos, of death and destruction, of the haunting beauty in yoo joonghyuk's features during the scenarios. devastating but beautiful. something as mundane as jeju island and the wind in yoo joonghyuk's hair and a casual black turtleneck shouldn't take his breath away but it does.

the first day, they had decided not to do much. first, check into their lodge. a tiny cabin that looks about ready to collapse in the middle of nowhere. but its surprisingly cosy and cleaned up on the inside when they step in. yoo joonghyuk sets up his spice rack and the whole kitchen to his liking and kim dokja lounges around with a book. after putting things away and the sun still high in the afternoon, they go sightseeing.

kim dokja oohs and ahhs and takes thousands of dumb photos to send to the kkt. most of it is landscapes, and bad selfies, and a picture perfect yoo joonghyuk looking handsomely over the distance.

"so unfair," he says and then makes the photo his lockscreen.

they go to a cute cafe jang hayoung had circled several times for the pretty floral aesthetic and view overlooking the ocean. kim dokja admits it does look pretty nice and sends photos of it to jang hayoung with a thumbs up.

"hi, what would you like to order? by the way, our chef's special today is fish and chips!"

initially, he had been only about to order an ice americano (decaf because he was old) but kim dokja can't ever resist and orders lunch there too. loves watching as yoo joonghyuk makes a grouchy face at all the 'low quality' food he tries. it is pretty tasteless but kim dokja savours each bite.

the sun lazily winds through the sky, not a cloud in sight and its too perfect beach weather to pass up. using the extremely detailed map in the travel guide, they find the beach although kim dokja was pretty sure they would have found it easily even without it. just follow the sea salt.

at the edge before the sand, yoo joonghyuk quickly crouches down to take off his shoes and, before kim dokja could follow suit, he reaches out and takes hold of kim dokja's foot. his fingers quickly unlaces the sneaker and then he slips the shoe and sock off. his hands now cradling the bare sole into a gentle squeeze and half massage.

kim dokja laughs and reaches out to card a hand through the thick hair. the silver strands are shining in the golden jeju sunlight. they flutter in the sea wind they can feel from here. something in his stomach was fluttering too.

look at them, 30-something and over hundreds and thousands of years old. a bunch of old men they are to still get butterflies.

"you're so cute today, joonhyuk-ah."

"shut up and give me your other foot."

kim dokja does and yoo joonghyuk sets their shoes to the side. he also rolls up their pants and then gets up with a smooth rise.

they walk along the beach, hand in hand. kim dokja playfully kicks wet sand into yoo joonghyuk's legs and, without hesitation, yoo joonghyuk throws him into the ocean. or, at least tries to. immediately, having had the foresight, kim dokja latches onto him tightly, he twists, and they both tumble down into the sand.

kim dokja laughs, a little breathless from the fall but mostly because of the sight of yoo joonghyuk hovering over him and the ocean breeze stuck up his throat. he had even slipped a hand beneath kim dokja's head before it hit the sand. a small fall like that wouldn't have even hurt at all.

"so unfair," he says again, reaching up to trace the ocean drop kissing down yoo joonghyuk's devastating cheeks.

they're still mostly on the sandy area so the warm water only reaches about a finger width high. it pulls back kim dokja's hair just the slightest bit and the sand is already getting everywhere on him. the sunlight plays along the water's glittering surface.

kim dokja smiles and yoo joonghyuk watches as his eyes curl up into little crescents. as the world sparkles around him.

'unfair you say,' yoo joonghyuk thinks and leans down to kiss him.

they're both smiling too much. the gentle waves washes them close, again and again. it's salty.

#joongdok #hawrites #pure fluff for once?#orv

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poisedpen · 5 months

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✒ Planning...for the Neurodivergent!

I think that for most people the term "planning" conjures pictures of perfectly executed layouts and neat, tidy handwriting. While these things are certainly impressive, sometimes it feels like it prioritizes style over function. Journaling, and by extension, planning, does NOT have to be expensive, time consuming, or perfect.

When I first started dipping my toes into the community a few years ago, I got probably two weeks into a proper “bullet journal” before I gave up. My ink smudged, my stickers peeled, and I found that spending hours making the perfect layout was sucking away my limited time.

As a newly diagnosed and treated ADHD-er, I have found some success in a printed planner. All the months, weeks, and days are already laid out for me, and I have the time at work to fill out everything I need.

But what about someone who doesn’t have the luxury of down time at work? What about someone who gets overwhelmed just THINKING about all of the long-term projects and obligations they have on a day-to-day basis? A chronic procrastinator? Someone whose phone’s to-do list is just BURSTING with tasks, but there’s no prioritization?

Introducing…the pocket notebook!

The main objective of this is to find a pocket notebook that is portable, slim, and enjoyable to write on. Field Notes are quite popular among the stationery crowd, but they’re also on the pricey side for only 48 pages. If you have the money and you enjoy them, go for it! But there could very well be something just as perfect for you waiting at the dollar store.

Yeah, it’s small, and therefore may not be the most comfortable thing to write in. However, it’s not truly meant to be a full-blown journal. No– instead of shoving it into an endless to-do list or note on your phone…you are making your idea tangible.

Your phone, and by extension all of its notifications and applications and features, is designed to distract you. By removing all of that and placing a simple, analog tool in front of you…it is, in theory, easier to focus on what matters.

Think of a cool story idea at work? Jot it down. Remember something you need to do on the way home? Birthdays? Events? Goals? Jot it down. There are no rules. If it's important to you, keep it.

The pocket notebook isn’t really intended to be a super-organized or coherent space for your thoughts. It’s a catch-all for things that might slip your mind later. Then, when you get a chance to rest at the end of your day, you can look back and transfer that idea to something a little more organized. This can be a more structured planner, a journal, a story document, a discord chat, etc.

But hey…maybe that’s still not your cup of tea. You don’t have the time to sit down and reflect on your day. You don’t want to have to organize everything into neat little boxes. It’s just a concept at this point, but…I might have something for you.

✒ MY PSEUDO-PLANNER METHOD

This is in part adapted from other methods I’ve seen people use, but specifically made with my partner’s struggles in mind. He has been using his phone’s default to-do list to write down tasks, but by doing so other things get pushed to the bottom. There’s no real way to “prioritize” them, and after years of using this system there were simply so many that he didn’t know where to start.

So, after a little bit of nudging, I had my partner write down every single thing in his phone’s notes and to-do list in the front of his pocket notebook. Since he struggles with prioritization, I went ahead and did the following steps for him. (If you struggle with this and have a friend, partner, or family member willing to do the same thing, definitely use them as a resource!)

✒ STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS

I chose three things my partner NEEDED to get done before a certain deadline (In this case, seeing his parents for Thanksgiving).

I transferred them to a clean page and wrote the due date at the top.

I crossed those tasks off of the task masterlist.

I “sealed” his task masterlist with a piece of washi tape (masking/painters tape also works great!)

I left space at the bottom of the page for additional notes he may think of throughout the week.

For many neurodivergent people, seeing a HUGE LIST OF THINGS YOU NEED TO DO is the single most discouraging thing ever. By removing the list of things from normal view, I’m relying on the theory of “out of sight, out of mind”. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t still get those things done! It’s more about tricking your brain into only thinking about the most important things you have to do in that time period. And then...getting the satisfaction of crossing them out once they're complete.

I have actually been using a method quite similar to this for my full planner. I tape folded half-pages full of long term goals, purchases, and other lists to my monthly page so that I can go back and reference them when I feel up for a new task. By keeping them hidden from my regular view it helps me feel less anxious about ALL THE THINGS I WANT TO ACHIEVE and I can instead focus on the short-term necessities.

(Please excuse my mess...I'm moving into a Hobonichi Cousin for 2024, and figuring out my process in this cheap planner in the meantime!)

✒ OTHER TIPS

Pick a notebook you like! Paper smoothness, paper thickness, size, lined, dotted, gridded, etc.

Use a writing utensil you enjoy! Rollerball, fountain pen, sharpies, pencil, whatever!

Think of it as a sensory experience when it comes to the above. If you enjoy the act of it, you’re more likely to do it!

If you are able to carry around two differently-colored pens, use one to underline/add contrast for readability.

Use a paperclip to keep your place.

If you have it available, use sticky notes for tentative plans that aren’t set in stone yet.

You ARE allowed to tear pages out, cut them, modify the cover, etc. NO RULES! It's your spce.

You can prevent bleedthrough to other pages by keeping a thin, paper-sized object behind your page. (Like shitajiki/pencil boards)

✒ CONCLUSION

The main point behind EVERYTHING I’ve written here is that digital tools aren’t for everyone. Notion, Obsidian, Trello, etc. are great resources, and there are many people who have great success when using them. However, I am sure there are many other people like my partner and I who have developed a kind of “clutter blindness” to things that aren’t immediately in front of them.

You aren’t stupid for needing things broken down into exact, detailed steps. You aren’t inherently irresponsible because you miss deadlines or misplace important information. You need accessibility. The world may not be built for people like us, but there are so many ways you can learn to help yourself achieve your goals

(Please feel free to add your ideas and modifications to this post! I'd love to see what your methods are-- perhaps they might help me, as well!)

#accessibility #journaling #planning #studyblr #stationery

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bluebudgie · 8 months

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So, initial SotO thoughts.

tl;dr: Liked it, not my favourite release.

More details below.

It's a little hard to compare to anything we had before since it's not quite an expansion but also a bit bigger than a regular LS release. Somewhere in between.

I liked it overall. I had fun (I don't think I ever didn't have fun with any release in this game). I do however have many smaller gripes that add up a little. Let's actually start with the biggest one:

The new maps

Well, obviously I loved the inclusion of chak on the new maps and seeing the little critters in a new shiny form was very exciting, but let's take the rose-tinted chak glasses off for a moment.

I like the fractal concept of the first map. It's interesting as an idea but I feel like it fell a little flat in execution. Rata Novus is probably the place that differs the most from the actual-Tyria version, and all the other fractals are just kinda... barely different? Like the Crystal Desert taken over by forged is just..... well, it's desert with forged in it. Like it already is in PoF anyway. And the Kaineng section kinda feels like that too, we have enough hostile jade bots in EoD anyway so... yea I don't know. Didn't do super much for me.

I wish NPCs were a bit more interactive. You can't really talk to many people at all. Core maps had so many random guys just standing around giving you little tidbits of dialogue. Especially the first map just feels very... barren.

Visually a great map nonetheless. Same goes for the second (non-hub) map we got, which is really unique in terms of architecture. We haven't really seen anything quite like it in the game before, so that's cool.

Exploration wise... ...yeah. I mean. Basically exactly what I had feared became true, no real exploration depth and at the very least on the first map you're pretty much expected to just skyscale to every point. Which goes really fast too, despite the whopping 50(or so?) POIs. I wish they had at least made some of the new masteries mandatory for reaching certain spots, but nope. Completed entirely without a single mastery leveled. Feels kinda pointless to introduce movement masteries if they aren't at the very least obligatory for certain events or map exploration. The second map makes the updrafts a little more useful since reaching some of the higher places can be a bit more tricky without it, but... yea I don't know.

I'm not exactly disappointed since that's pretty much what I expected to happen, but still I wish there were a few more interesting ways to get around places other than just straight up flying there. I guess I want more hidden stuff. Secrets. A jumping puzzle that spans half the map like in Draconis Mons. Well, for all I know they are there and I just haven't found them yet.

So yea, overall... visually beautiful; I'm glad about Rata Novus being a clownfest of snobs; I think if chak weren't in this I'd feel extremely lukewarm about those maps. That said, Amnytas has some of the highest quality grass I've ever seen in this game. Seriously what the hell is that grass.

Story and characters

I was worried about this for a bit while playing but the ending thankfully took the immediate worries from me for now.

It felt very... prologue-y. Which, in the end, it was. And I'm glad about that. I was so scared we were in another Gyala Delve situation of "here's an entire story that has absolutely no time to unfold and we'll abruptly end it pretending there was a conclusion". But thank god the epilogue made it clear that this was just the beginning to the storyline. (unless anet is preparing some clown make up)

So now that we had this introduction to the setting and first look into a new cast of characters I'm intrigued to see where all of this is going. I hope everyone we've met gets more screentime in the future and maybe some of them will tag along with us for the next adventures? The whole cast felt like it had a lot of potential. I want to see more of Gladium and Galrath. Isgarren seems interesting, I liked his dialogue. Sad about Mabon. Hoped Peitha would be a non-humanoid creature. Narcisse is cute. I like how they handled Zojja so far.

Didn't care much for the whole wizard tower story before SotO released, I'm decently interested now at least.

Gameplay-wise the player 2 experience was pretty miserable once again (Why exactly did I have to be a blue orb during the entire first flesh fortress instance? Why can I pick up and carry keys in the wizard's tower but then can't interact with the object they need to be used on? Seriously.) but that's nothing new.

As mentioned in another post, the German translation was a trainwreck of contextually wrong mistranslations, English sayings/proverbs translated literally into German when that is absolutely not how that works, misgendering (Zojja wasn't the only one with male pronouns - Yao was also back to that again) and entire chunks of voice lines randomly missing on several occasions. Seriously I don't know what went wrong here but please pay your localization team better. Or at least give them more context to work with.

Music

The few new songs I heard were nice. Lacking a bit in identity, but I guess it would be delusional to expect an EoD, HoT or IBS soundtrack here. GW2 music tends to be extremely high quality so I'm nitpicking on a high level with this one.

There is one battle theme that was really cool, though severely overused. I think it's the one that plays during rift events. Or like, during most of the release in general.

I can't quite explain why but I had several instances that made me think "this is what the PoF combat themes should have sounded like". The music as a whole somehow is very reminiscent of PoF. Like if someone took PoF battle music and went "chill a bit, please."

Was also nice to hear that one new ambient track that echoes the TD main theme and the Rata Novus theme.

Metas

They're okay. First map's meta drags on a little. Though I like collecting the essences. That one phase with the coloured bars is severely stressful. Second map meta is pretty neat. Was a little overwhelmed by it since it started literally 2 minutes after I got onto the map for the first time and I had no idea where anything was and just frantically followed the squad to find a giant squid bug demon on top of a huge tower. Seriously man give me a break. Fun experience though. Did it again on another day on an overflow map without a comm and we managed, though barely. Difficulty seems appropriate.

All in all...

Didn't completely blow me away. I liked it as a setup to something larger. Doesn't compare to any of the big expansions (though I do think the storyline in itself is at least more interesting than PoF, though it obviously lacks the polish of the expansion). If compared to LS seasons I'd say I had a better time with most of LS3 and LS4, and also large chunks of the Icebrood Saga.

I think how well SotO does in the long run largely depends on what gets added to it next. I'm excited to see more, and especially to get more context to all the new characters. Don't pull another Gyala Delve on me. Please.

And also.

Finally rid of the Commander title. Wayfinder is so much better.

#vague spoilers?#nothing super detailed #budgie plays gw2

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