kept remembering this retweet from a few weeks ago which also had me like “hey yeah let me check in on that podcast” as one does, as it was a Sensible Chuckle(tm) to me then & now & i’m filing away the [the fun stephen king short story “the jaunt” ending] Bit of “[comparative adjective] than you think!” x2

“They’re more spacious than you think! They’re more spacious than you think!”

— kevinbiegel (@kbiegel)

August 25, 2022

Hope this isn't an ask you get all the time, but how do you track your progress when you're doing editing?

Everyone talks about word goals, and that seems fine for a first draft, but doesn't make sense to me when it comes to revisions. Do you have any kind of system for setting daily goals for your revisions?

Actually, I don't think anyone's ever asked me about this. :) So no sweat.

Briefly: I think you're wise in not attempting wordcounting in this phase of dealing with an MS—or trying to push yourself into a structure so rigid. ...There's this, too: there's a whole lot too much emphasis out there at the moment on trying to force yourself into other people's writing and editing paradigms—so many of them riddled with bar graphs and "demonstrable" daily progress. You need to find what works for you. More words dealt with in a day, sure, that's encouraging in its way. But are they the right words?

Today’s Writer Take that will probably strike some as Hot (and ask me if I care): Some kinds of writing progress are just neither graphically nor numerically quantifiable. And damned to the least TripAdvisorally-acceptable regions of [insert your preferred underworld here] be those who’ve tried to sell people the idea that they are.

(sigh)

Now, for what it's worth: here's how I do it. Which may be useful to other people, or not so much so. And that's fine, because I'm not editing their novels. :)

(Adding a break here. Under the cut: advice + advice = advice, and some images of text I shouldn't be letting y'all see just yet... but WTF.)

Revision for me is a fairly relaxed business—unless my editor has told me WE NEED THIS ON TUESDAY, which thank sweet Thoth on his e-bike is very rare.

It also helps that I like revising. (When I was a kid, I liked liver, too. And spinach. Just call me Miss Outlier and let's move on.) I really enjoy the feeling of the work’s rough edges being filed down and the sparse places being filled out.

And also: second draft/first revision draft is nowhere near as tense for me as first draft. Because, thank God, at least there's a book.

First draft is where I sweat blood and otherwise suffer. While I can see the story just fine in my head, it's not really real for me until the first draft, whole in narrative and action, is complete on paper/in the machine. And till it's achieved at least that level of reality, I can't relax.

But by the time I hit my second/revision draft, I can be confident that any really serious problems in the novel have already been solved—because I'm an outliner. In the outline stage, potential thematic or structural troubles will routinely have revealed themselves way long ago: before drafting even got started, as I first wired the story's bones together. The successfully-executed first draft acts as proof-of-concept for that structural wiring. By the time that draft’s done, it’s immediately apparent whether the skeleton can successfully stand up by itself. And gods is that a relief when it does! You’re tempted to jump around yelling “It's aliiiiiive!" as the lightning strikes around you.*

However, if after submitting that draft my editor's found something structurally or thematically troublesome in it that I've completely missed until this point, my first order of business becomes to fix whatever their notes involve and submit the fixes. Nothing further happens until the editor sees what I've done about those problems, and until I get agreement that whatever intervention I've enacted has now sorted the problems out.

After that, everything happens in bed.

(...casually noting that for a line to use somewhere else...) :)

But seriously: I do my best revision and editing before getting up in the morning.

Some of this is because, for me, the mind's nice and quiet and (theoretically) at least moderately well rested, right after sleep. I might take the briefest glance at my email first to make sure nothing urgent needs attention... but once that’s done, I refuse to let myself go any further down that hole. That early-morning calm is a mental state I'm glad to exploit, and one I jealously guard. On days when I'm forced to do without the working lie-in**, I use a different approach: when there's a pause, sit down and do nothing—no reading, no video, no music, no phone, nothing—for half an hour: then start editing. Routinely, the quiet I need will once more have fallen.

The in-bed-editing approach also works for me because (since I'm working in Scrivener) it's absolutely no big deal to finish a day's editing on a file by exporting a version of the file containing the day's edits to ebook format, and into my Dropbox. From there, in the morning, without ever getting out from under the covers, I can pull that .epub file into my tablet and read it as an ebook, making corrections and notes there.

This is what it looks like (on a page without too many corrections) if the app you're using is "Books" in an iPad. The second image is what you get when you touch on the marginal yellow square of the note to examine it.

Then, when I'm finished looking over the previous day's/evening's writing and adding notes to it, I go downstairs, get some caffeine in me, and make the changes in the main Scrivener file. (If I was running the project in question on the iPad version of Scrivener, I'd just make the change right there. But who knows when I'd actually get up, then? Better to do it this way.) :)

In the normal flow of things I'll attempt to deal with a chapter or two a day in this mode. (Always bearing in mind that my chapters in early drafts typically run long—often 10K or so—and I'm likely enough to rebreak them later.) This first level of revision is the easy one: catching typos and bad or clumsy phrasings, reworking character interactions that need smoothing out; adding better descriptive passages (with particular emphasis on staying in the visual, audio and tactile senses), etc., etc.

So again: no way I'd ever bother worrying about word counts, with these. What seems to count for more is giving yourself time to recognize, gradually, at a reader's pace, what's working in the prose and what isn't. Rush—or try to force the pace to a given number of words per day—and you run the risk of missing something vital. To me, at the tracking level, it seems sufficient to note which chapters have been dealt with, and which are still hanging fire. (I can change the chapters' color labels in Scrivener to make this status visible at a glance, if I need to.)

When everything's dealt with on this pass—which if I'm lucky will take no more than a couple/few weeks—I try to take a couple weeks off before dealing with the MS again. Sometimes that's possible: sometimes not. The longer you can leave the book alone to let your perceptions of it rest and reset themselves, the better. Distance—mental or temporal—seems to lend clarity.

In any case, for me, next comes another pass, tougher to describe. Casually, I refer to it as the "Missed Opportunities/Complications" pass. This is a thing that one of the very best writers I know, John M. Ford, used to do. One of his editors (I think it was) came across him working on an MS one time, and asked him what he was doing. "Complications," Mike muttered. "Removing them?" said his editor. Mike shook his head. "Adding them," he said.

In this pass you look for in-novel connections you've previously missed making. Some dramatic moments have their impact significantly increased if you've found a way to connect them, even casually, with previous events, situations, character thoughts, or dialogue. (The cheap and easy mnemonic for this kind of thing: "Say a thing twice, and it echoes. Say it three times, and it resonates.")

Equally, events (and people) may turn out to require more complex backstory than you've given them in your first draft; so this is where you take care of that. And of course there are almost certainly character and emotional interactions that can use attention; fewer words, more depth, more complexity. What things do these people, in this situation, need to say to one another that they haven't? And also, what drama got scamped or passed up on because you were just too damn tired in the last draft? —Because you too, poor baby, are human; and that state can, entirely logically, make you want not to deal with any more damn drama just now. Even though drama is the lifeblood of your narrative, usually, and tying a tourniquet around it really doesn't help. You are the conduit of power into your narrative, and your varying ability to conduct it is always an issue… so you need to keep an eye open for places where the flow may have temporarily failed.

This pass, ideally, might take no more than another few weeks or a month. And again, I'm not sure any attempt at wordcount tracking would do this work any good. Because, again... are they the right words? And to make the narrative more effective, you may wind up removing as many words as you added in previous passes.

Finally, with all things taken together, I usually reach a point where (by myself, anyway) I can't think of anything to do that'll make this book any better. That's where there then comes—and again, impossible to assign a word count to it—a time when you know you're as Done As You Can Be. If you've been doing this long enough, you may even hear a strange kind of sigh in the back of your head, as the book gives up and lets go...

...into the next stage of production. But even then you keep an eye on it… because in my experience it’s rare that any book's ever that easily just finished. Even in page proofs, something may happen to surprise you.

Anyway, that's when I throw the book the hell out of the house—because no matter how much I've loved it previously, by that time I'm usually seriously tired of it—and wait to see whether the editor feels it needs one more draft. (Disclosure: this has never happened. There might be a few notes that need to be handled. But another full draft? Never yet.)

Anyway: hope this is of help to you.

But the heart of it all? Find your own way, and screw the bar graphs.

*That line, too, is an indicator of trouble to come. "It's?" Not "he's"? Tsk tsk.

**Usually sort of 7-9 AM. Sometimes way earlier, depending on the time of year. Dawn comes real early in the summertime in Ireland…

Ok this idea is so funny to me so I just had to write it lmaooo

Eris strolled the rich forest air behind his father's house. He despised everything about this place. It reeked of blood. Blood from Beron's torture of each of his sons, blood from the executions that had occurred here, including Eris's brother's lover. Every time he was forced to be here, he desired to leave. Unfortunately, he had to be prepared for a meeting in twenty minutes.

Just then, he noticed a shadow moving on the ground not twenty paces from him; the shadows were unaccompanied by any visible being and were too large to be a little critter. Eris chuckled to himself. He had been wondering when the Night Court thugs would be coming to melt his brain for what he'd seen the cursebreaker do. Perhaps they'd gone to all his brothers first; arrogant fools that most of them were, they had probably not even expected the attack. Or perhaps even they had seen him coming; it is not as if he is subtle.

Did he truly believe no one could see him? Despite his magic rendering him perfect for such a position, he was one of the most pathetic spies he had ever seen. Nearly everyone knew he was a shadowsinger, so nearly everyone knew to look for him.

Eris decided to have some fun with the poor bastard. He wandered across his gardens, and sure enough, the shadows followed him. Come on, little bat. At least try to be subtle. Such a concept was foreign to Illyrians, alas. Well, bad for them. Good for Eris.

He rounded the corner before he winnowed a few feet forward, ducking in the bushes and biding his time for the shadow to approach. He noticed the shadows pivot this way and that, as though they were looking for something. Swallowing his laugh, Eris winnowed behind the shadows, wrapping an arm securely around where he guessed his waist was. There was a grunt and a curse as the shadows fought, but Eris only squeezed him tighter, letting the heat that lay beneath his veins rise to the surface, burning him ever so slightly. The male yelped, and his true form appeared. Eris whipped out his dagger and pressed it to his throat.

"Hello, Shadowsinger," Eris purred.

The prince of Autumn held Azriel against his surprisingly well-built chest, blade pressing into his neck, heat curling off his body. Warm- these gods-damned Autumn Court males were so fucking warm. Lucien had been the same way when Azriel had carried him from Winter to Night. That ember smell stuck to him like natural fucking cologne too. And their dressing style-effortless.

Azriel had been invisible, hidden by his shadows. He had no idea how Eris had caught him, but his breaths were shallow as Eris's lips came close to his ear. "Now, what could you possibly be doing here, shadowsinger? Come to see if the rumors about Autumn Court males are true, hm?"

Not expecting the innuendo, Azriel couldn't control the blush that spread across his face. Eris laughed against his neck. "So easily flustered, little bat. Worry not, I know exactly why you're here. But you see, I'm rather attached to my memories, so I think I'll be keeping them."

Azriel couldn't even speak with the knife at his throat. "No words, shadowsinger?" Eris's tone was somehow mocking and seductive at the same time. He dug his knife in a little bit deeper, drawing blood. Then he lightly ran a finger through the line of blood he'd made. Goosebumps traveled down Azriel's body.

Then Eris pulled away the knife. "Speak."

Azriel snarled and tried to break away again, and Eris tsked, returning the blade to his throat. "Tut tut, little bat. This only works if you cooperate with me. Now I need you to swear that you will not come and try to wipe my memory again, nor will you attempt to murder me, else maim me in any capacity. You will lie to your High Lord and anyone else you associate with that you successfully wiped my memory. Do you understand me?" He pulled the knife away just so. "Yes," Azriel muttered reluctantly. "Swear it," Eris murmured. Azriel's mouth didn't move.

"Swear it," Eris repeated, his voice radiating with authority. Azriel found his mouth opening subconsciously, and before he knew it, he had replied, "Yes. I swear it." Azriel and Eris both watched as new whorls of deepest blue grew on his cheek. A matching pale gold one formed on Eris's cheek, just visible upon his pale skin.

Abruptly, Eris shoved Azriel to the ground before him, and just as Azriel got to his knees, Eris pointed a sword at him. Azriel longed to punch the smirk off of his arrogant face. "No violence for you today, Illyrian brute," Eris crooned. "I know that must be so upsetting to you."

"Bastard," Azriel snapped. "Wife-abusing bastard."

Eris snorted. "Are you talking about Mor, little bat? Surely you have brain enough to understand why I left Mor outside of Autumn rather than risk saving her?"

"Because you're a coward," Azriel growled. Eris only let out a musical laugh. "Says you, shadowsinger, who lurks in the dark, hiding behind your own dark reflection. I have not come here to explain myself to Rhysand's dogs; no, I'm keeping you around for one purpose: to send a message." Azriel glared at him. "No."

Eris bent towards Azriel, and Azriel could not breathe as his warm fingers traced the new tattoo upon his cheek. "You don't have a choice, little bat. My territory, my rules. And you're bound to me by a bargain forever. Besides, I think your lord will be interested in what I have to offer."

This close to Beron's eldest son, he could see the resemblance to Lucien: the flaming red hair, naturally, but also the shape of their eyes, their lips. The dimples when they smirk. Their eyebrows. While Lucien was a handsome man with some ruggedness to him, Eris was...well he was unbelievably pretty. There was no other way to describe it. And he hated that he found Eris so attractive.

"What do you want?" Azriel hissed, letting loathing simmer in his eyes. Azriel could feel the heat of Eris's mouth against his lips as he replied, "The same thing I've wanted for the past four centuries, shadowsinger. I want my crown."

Right. Pinch-Out Experimental Operation.

I think it suffers from pretty much the same problem as Contingency Contract, and that, in turn, means that they either didn't really get what made CC become a drag as the game got older, or it means that, in their eyes, that was never a flaw, it was instead a feature, because it feels like they doubled down on it: Absolutely mind-numbing amounts of bulk.

I personally think the concept of Pinch-Out is good, it's just, the execution was really bad, because the main map is really, really boring, and they insist on adding a lot of HP%+ to enemies. More or less the same as late CC: A lot of combinations end up defaulting to doing the regular map for 2-3 minutes and then you have 8+ minutes of just stalling while chipping away until the map is clear. I'm not going to account for the 6+ hours stall strategies because, quite frankly, you did that to yourself. Still, the same old principle of "stall HP sponges for hours" is the exact opposite of what Arknights does good: Short, intense maps.

The only time Arknights, in my opinion, has succeeded in making fun long bosses are in Stultifera Navis (Endspeaker) and the challenge boss fights in Lone Trail (Kristen, or some say, Kirsten). Other attempts have always felt really boring because they are grabbing old bosses and concepts that were never meant to be fought for an eternity, and then making them be fought for an eternity, whereas Endspeaker and Krikirsten were designed from the get go to be long fights, and thus, to have maps, mechanics, and characteristics that make them fun long fights.

Dorothy and the ZZ Gundams Brothers, however, aren't fun to have roaming forever. They are challenging, but they aren't fun, because there is no dynamism to the fight, especially when you give them 1500% extra HP. It's just a long map that you either prepare for right or wrong in the space of 1-2 minutes, and then have to see play out for the next 10, and if you got something wrong, then it immediately explodes and you need to re-do those 1-2 minutes to see if it works out in the next 10. Not thrilling! Not too good!

Pinch-Out's contract model is nice and fine! I like the way you have to connect things either straight up or by doing little challenges that let you connect to certain contracts without having to pass through the usual route. In fact, it's great that 600 Score (the Risk 18 equivalent in terms of rewards) is perfectly manageable without making enemies God, it just so happens that the Pinch-Out debut map is absolute horrid ass, and so the system gets caught in the drive-by. It's a nice idea, just, please, PLEASE, stop 1) making so many bulk-enhancing contracts for enemies, please, and 2) make a good, fun map, you guys do this all the time, and if it NEEDS to be super long, 3) use bosses apt for it, or outright just design a new damn boss that makes sense within the system and the length of the fight. You do it for SSS, you can do it for this as well.

But yeah, I think Pinch-Out has nice ideas and possibly the worst execution it could've come out with.

Okay so I am literally so obsessed with the idea of brat taming alhaitham + a little bit of exhibitionism mixed in there

He says a particularly snarky comment - one which rubs you the wrong way in all the good ways - and what better thing to do than to bend him over his desk and slam into his pretty ass? That should teach him a lesson he'd be sure to not forget (although, it may lead him to make more sarcastic comments....) Constantly reminding him about how the door to his office is unlocked, how if he becomes too loud he may attract unwanted attention - a fact which both scares him and turns him on further. Peg his ass until he's whining, begging in a quiet, breathless voice to let him finish already....

I have more but idk lol

god, that is such a concept.

the thing is that as the scribe, alhaitham must know the importance of words. such is the reason why he intentionally uses language that he already knows will get on your nerves. this is also precisely why it is all planned, meticulously so, to a point that you inevitably realise it is all designed for you. each word he bites out, each teasing motion, all of it was done with you in mind. he wants to see you break.

but most importantly, he wants you to break him.

he acts as if he's embarrassed, but his whines and whimpers and moans only keep getting louder and louder because he's well aware of your possessive streak. the sounds you make are just for me, that's what you told him once and that's what alhaitham bears in mind as he executes his plan. the louder he gets, the higher the chances for you to stuff his mouth full with your fingers. and only when you do will he finally settle and quiet down.

"slut," you whisper in his ear at the realisation, and he only hums in agreement.

as for when you edge him— well, it's not his favourite punishment but since it's you, he'll do it for you. he likes it when it's you. you tell him to hold himself back so he does. you tell him to tell you when he's close so he does. he's a fucking brat, yeah, but it's only because he wants you to destroy him. he's actually just mush in your hands what you want, goes.

so fuck him, ruin him, make him beg for you until he's a damn disaster. he's only ever yours to take apart anyway.

YAN! REINCARNATING LOVE INTEREST x READER ( ft. YAN! REINCARNATING LOVE RIVAL + YAN! SECOND LEAD BRAINROT / CONCEPT )

I legitimately could not stomach waking up and separating from this wild dream I had about this so…

These ocs have already been posted about before I just haven’t given them appearances and tbh I didn’t like Yan! Love Interest that much before but seeing as how HOT he is in my dreams I’m just like 🙇🏻‍♂️ my apologies have this post dedicated to you king

warnings: mentions of prostitution, classicism, elitism, aliens, mentions of seggs.

this post is for readers 16 and above, otherwise dni

In this scenario we have YAN! LOVE INTEREST. He’s loved you since time immemorial. He has lost all sense of affection for the world and everything in it since he was trapped in this wicked cycle. That is, everything but you.

You held no memories of your past lives and thus changed quite a lot in the ones that followed but even then he fell hard each time.

The lives I remember from my dreams are as follows:

LIFE NUMERO UNO

YAN ! LOVE INTEREST is head over heels for you. It’s been a few lives since he started remembering everything that happened before as such he’s still not as yan as he currently is.

This is set around “ancient japan” but like anime/genshin ancient japan cause he has pink hair and the prettiest ruby eyes I’m-

Anyways he’s arranged to marry his cousin who happens to be YAN! LOVE RIVAL. She’s also super pretty but unfortunately does not retain her memories like he does.

In my dreams he gets drunk, flirts with her and ends up biting her lips while he has her underneath him. YAN! LOVE RIVAL is just relieved he’s starting to move on from you but oop what does he whisper in her ears? Your name.

(Note: After this incident, YAN! LOVE INTEREST now never gets drunk without your or trusty YAN! SECOND LEAD presence around to anchor him. That and he doesn’t drink that often anymore since stalking you has become a much more uh- fulfilling vice)

Furious she goes over to your residence and you come from a new money sort of family which impressed her since she thought you’d be some pretty peasant or ‘hostess’ from a ditch somewhere.

And when she sees you she’s just like “God damn.” (for some reason her exchange with you went down in Korean in my dream-)

In that life you were a refined lady. Literally everything she idolized in YAN! LOVE INTEREST, but better. You carried yourself with such elegance and had a such an entrancing temperament that she immediate forgets what she was angry about. Also YAN! LOVE RIVAL is a bit of a face con so you bet she thought you were beautiful af.

…

You two end up fucking like animals that it alerts the entire noble world. Eventually leading to your execution.

From that life onward YAN! LOVE INTEREST swore to enact vengeance on all of YAN! LOVE RIVAL’s lives for your sake. Not knowing his family is the reason you died in the first place ( and. yan! love rival did her best to save you )

LIFE NUMERO DOS

This life is set in highschool (ish) where you and YAN! LOVE INTEREST have recently broken up due to rumors of him cheating on you arising. At least that’s what you told him. The truth was that you learnt he was getting married to YAN! LOVE RIVAL and decided you weren’t going to be part of this drama like at all.

In this life you don’t interact much with the YANs because oh shit aliens have invaded and now you’re in a survival game.

Told ya this dream was wild.

Anyways this life follows the typical Infinite Flow/Quick Transmigration format and has you traveling different universes to accrue points and well, survive.

While you’re out here suffering, YAN! LOVE INTEREST just immediately gets an S-rank due to his reincarnations and memories. You learn to hug the golden thigh and got back with him solely for the sake of staying alive.

Once you got to the same ranking as him you dump him to get with SECOND LEAD.

You underestimated how petty this man could be so in a last ditch attempt to have you in the end, YAN! LOVE INTEREST turns back time with the help of YAN! LOVE RIVAL to make you pay.

BUT THE PLOT THICKENS AS YOU DONT LOSE YOUR MEMORIES AFTER THE TIME REVERSAL.

AND IT’S JUST MIND GAMES AFTER MIND GAMES.

Anyways to HEAD-CANNONS !

Each character could look vastly different in each life but have identifiers you can point out from em. YAN! LOVE INTEREST always has red eyes that glow when he has menacing plans. They’re also unlike my other yan! oc eve are hella blank. super flat, reminiscent of kafka’s eyes in the opening of HSR. Also he’s usually a short king.

YAN! LOVE RIVAL always has purple/pink eyes. Is usually femme and has wavy hair. In comparison to LOVE INTEREST’s eyes, hers are always sparkly and full of life.

YAN! SECOND LEAD has blue eyes reminiscent of the sky. Fashion icon. You’ll never see him in crappy drip.

You can also pretty much identify them from their personalities. YAN! LOVE INTEREST is super flirty, often hypersexual and horny. He’s the most sadistic bitch I’ve ever written. He yearns for blood as much as he yearns to fuck you.

YAN! LOVE RIVAL is prissy, entitled and deliciously cruel. Somehow is always rich in every life, whether it’s new, old or lucky money.

YAN! SECOND LEAD is a clean freak. He usually either hates you at first or is indifferent. There’s actually a life where YAN! LOVE INTEREST confused him for you, and this led to YAN! LOVE INTEREST literally selling you to prostitution. SECOND LEAD saved your ass and you end up living happily together for the rest of that life as LOVE INTEREST was too busy dying out of guilt.

YAN! SECOND LEAD’s danger as a yandere mostly stems from how subtle it is. Manipulation king. Sometimes he doesn’t even know it, but he’s already making you hate the other two and come to him for comfort.

Have I mentioned how cute YAN! LOVE INTEREST is? He genuinely loves you to the moon and beyond, but because of the reincarnations he’d slowly gone insane. Your early lives together were diabetes inducingly cute. Mostly of him shirking his responsibility to be with you. If this post goes well I’m definitely drawing these three god im horknee for this man.

But for some reason despite literally having lives of experience fucking you (and him) as every gender/sex somehow YAN! LOVE RIVAL is the most physically compatible with you.

Honestly, if these three set aside their differences they’d make a great poly relationship with you. Unfortunately they hate each other too much for that to happen 😭

Dark aemond/dark aegon x oc reader snippet PLEASE BE PATIENT IM SORRY I WONT LEAVE AGIAN

Aegon's pov though.

Aegon married you and aemond is ...aemond, xD

Aegon's pov

Headaches plague me, visions of Maella dance around in that likely empty casket I call my head, as I sit the comfiest chair out of them all, yet I might as well sit on a chair, made of bones and skulls. Isn’t that all a throne is, in truth? A structure, a prison, made out of blood, bones, and skulls. We tell ourselves we do it for our families, for our loved ones, for our House, for duty, for love, for everything you can possibly think of. But we don’t do it for the reason we should be sitting there in the first place. We don’t do it for the people. No Targaryen ever cared about the smallfolk. No Targaryen ever will. 

A voice raspy, ghostly almost and most certainly haunting in a way, reminds me I am not alone, not even in my head. Not even in my own damn castle. ‘’Cheer up, brother. It is your wedding day.’’ My head snaps to the direction of a smirking brother who raises his cup at me in mockery and spite. 

He may act as ignorant and dutiful as he wishes, I know the true reason he is acting as if his lady troubles came two months earlier: He craved Maella. He didn’t love her, no. He wanted her for his own sick twisted fantasies, fantasies he claims he didn’t have, as he was the better brother. Love, we don’t know that concept. Neither of us truly do. Aemond lured her in his trap, Aemond killed her brother, slew a dragon, imprisoned the little lizard Maella owns as well and he brought her here. I should be thankful, shouldn’t I? He brought a traitor to me.

Yet the imbeciles on the council, they married me to this, bastard princess. She is not a true Targaryen, not fully. I suppose neither of us are, if we are being truthful. But at least me and my siblings aren’t bastards. She is. She is a spawn from Rhaenyra and Harwin and now my wife. My lady. 

I instantly reach for my own cup, throwing back as much wine as my throat can swallow, but it almost does nothing to dull the pain. I can only pretend it takes away my suffering, as the wine has become useless to dull my senses. Aemond has approached, now standing in front of me, wearing the ghost of a smile and his black still bloodied clothing. I raise my eyebrows at him, challenging him to speak, to make this snoozefest of a wedding entertaining. He is good at that. 

But my brother pretends to be modest, he rather plays tricks, toys with words, and deceives than he would ever dare speak his true mind. Gods save us all for when he does. ‘’You look like a man who is facing his execution. Not a man who is soon to lay with  arguably the most beautiful creature the gods have ever created.’’ He avoids my eyes at all costs, folding his hands on his back and keeps his eyes scanning the crowd. Maella is beautiful, yes. But I never cared for her.

When we were fourteen and six, she chased me around, declaring her foolish love for me. I believe I was drunk and yet somehow hungover too, so I threw her doll in the river, and promised her she’d be thrown in next if she didn’t leave me. Oddly, we never talked after that. I mean, why would we? She, the Princess of the Kingdoms, the Delight of the realms, truly. And me…

A man who will never truly live up to his famous namesake.

I have two wives now, his crown, his throne, his sword, his blood and his hair. But nothing will change the fact that I feel unworthy of it all. I feel as a forgery playing a masterpiece, and that someone can pull the curtain any time now. 

Aemond doesn’t see it, the fool. He sees that I sit a throne he aspires to have, have two beautiful women to lay with whenever I tell them to and more power and status than any of us deserve. The gods are cruel where they put their power, I suppose. ‘’I don’t enjoy being forced into marriages.’’ I comment, playing with my cup and watching the wine dance at the bottom of the cup. 

My younger brother snorts. ‘’You don’t know how much effort I put into capturing her, bringing her here and breaking her will for you so you have a good, obedient wife. At least pretend you are happy.’’

‘’For me?’’ I scoff. ‘’You didn’t do shit for me. You did it for yourself. Grandfather told me, you wanted her to become your wife, you even told him you'd happily breed, and fuck her until she is with child-''

''Someone has to. You won't do it.'' Aemond comments. ''You only see her as a helpless little girl. She is not the helpless little girl anymore. She has become a woman.''

''Don't talk that way about my wife-''

‘’She is not your wife-’’ Aemond hisses through his teeth, glaring in my direction. I slam my cup down on the table next to me, and the guests around us all fall silent.

I warn him. ‘’She is. You do well to remember that.’’

Aemond lowers his head, but his good eye is burning with fire unlike anything I ever saw before. Maella is not his love, it his obesession. I am sure he'd kill her, or she will kill him, if I let them come too close. ''Ýour grace.''

----

snippet ends here.

Hi, hi! I've been a longtime follower of your blog, but this is my first time sending in an ask because of anxiety. You're the most consistent blog that keeps up to date with Viv and her work. As someone who first saw Viv through the Die Young animation, and watched the HH pilot when it was first released, I grew disillusioned as s1 of Helluva Boss slowly aired. It was mostly because I didn't really enjoy the Stolitz ship and I believe the Erin Frost drama had come out (god bless Erin - she, Ken and everyone else deserved so much better). Plus the world-building and character development was just so off.

I know people have said this before: the concept Viv has is good, but the execution sucks. There's a vision but the product is so damn juvenile. I'm ace, and I became attached to Alastor due to him being ace as well, but we all know how Viv responded when the ship wars were happening. I couldn't stand the constant sex jokes or swearing in HB since when was it required for an "adult" show to have that?

Thank you for the episode leaks. Only got to see ep 1 before they were removed. The only thing that made me laugh out loud was the Niffty gag where she stared dead into the camera. I also liked Adam a bit? Sure the "original dick" thing went on way too long, but he was funny too. I surprising enjoyed his song - the lil fist bump he did with Lute was cute, and I like Lute but knowing Viv's record... eh. There was this cool shot where Adam flew up and Lute and those golden angels go behind him and spread their wings making Adam look like the biblically accurate angel. Except Adam himself ruins the effect because what the ever-loving heck is he wearing? I hate it.

In terms of shipping, I wasn't into the Huskerdust interactions. Angel wasn't flirting, that was sexual harassment. In the pilot it was okay because their interaction was brief and Husk pushed Angel off. Chaggie was... something. I genuinely feel that Chaggie could've worked had they not been established as a couple in the first place. The reason why Charlastor (and I guess Charlentious?) happened is because they had chemistry and their interactions could be read as a romantic interest. Since Chaggie was already established, there was an expectation for them to have those, but they weren't delivered and we know well that they weren't supposed to be a thing in the first place. Have Vaggie still be her bff and bodyguard, but show those moments where she genuinely cares for Charlie's well-being that indicates she's in love with her, yet Charlie is completely oblivious to everything. Actually, reverse harem Charlie sounds pretty funny to me.

Btw, armchair psychology anon, as a person studying psychology in my final year of college, dw about people taking issues with your speculations. NPD and other personality disorders are ego-syntonic, which means that the individual's behaviours line up with their beliefs, hence why PDs are only diagnosed during adulthood once brain maturation and personality development is reached. The only exception to this is ASPD (which NPD shares a category with called Cluster B along with histrionic and BPD) as you can diagnose a child with conduct disorder that can become ASPD when they're adults. Cluster B PDs are terribly demonised by media and the public despite the volume of research (I blame misunderstanding and ignorance). Viv could have it or could not; it's just that she shows signs of having it, and that's it. Even if she doesn't, she's still an awful person. Idk what happened in her childhood or some point in her life for her to become like this, but it doesn't excuse treating people like crap - oh wait, ain't this her characters in a nutshell?

That's all I gotta say for now. I hope it's okay to send more like this in the future; I'd love to be a specific anon but idk what's already taken lol. Take care, Chai, and I hope you have a good day/evening.

By all means, send as many as you've got! Because this was a delight to read.

Let me know when you come up with a name. I'll give you a placeholder one for now.

random question but if you were to change ONE thing about the naruto universe (naruto, naruto shippuden, baruto), what would it be? i love reading your opinions. they're so well-put but feel free to ignore if you don't want to answer or if you've answered something similar before :)

Oh, thank you! *-* And I have before maybe? But my answer might’ve changed by now!

I’m such an idiot though, I read over the ‘Universe’ part and wrote a whole answer about what I would’ve changed about the story itself :’)!! I changed it~

Do you mean the Setting? Politics? The System? Powers? It’s hard to say what I would change because any necessary changes had to be discovered by the characters themselves. For most questions we already have answers. (Though not all are executed.) The Setting was a platform for problems and the characters caused a plot to happen which purpose was to find answers, right? On towards the great aha-moments~

To me anything ‘boruto’ isn’t included in the Narutoverse though, because it really has nothing to do with ‘Naruto’ and it’s an entirely different world where a lot of things contradicts what we knew about it and the issues about the world are forgotten and blamed on aliens because that’s easier I guess and we can keep pretending to all be happy besties because Sasuke was right and we have a common enemy 🙄

But introducing that concept in Part 2 with Kaguya and her sons is definitely something I would change. Everyone can start reading/watching 'Naruto' and understand that using Jutsu through energy from within the body is more than enough. A little exposition here and there to see how that works with the body or whenever anything new came up, was all that is needed. But even then, it wasn’t really necessary to understand the physics of it all and I bet rarely anyone really remembered the first time as I rarely see 'stamina' mentioned. Literally no one. No one ever. Not a single soul needed an explanation about some magical fruit hanging from the 'god tree' that one alien lady one day decided to eat. (I'm getting scared for Sasuke now ngl.)

It’s like watching horror movies. The ‘horror’ literally gets destroyed when they show what the mysterious and invisible antagonistic demon/ghost/killer ACTUALLY is. Give it an appearance or over-explain and you ruin all the fun. Have you seen Paranormal? That's why the first one worked despite the low rating and why the ones where they gave the ghosts a shape/body didn't. And this sorta happened with ‘Naruto’ as well. We didn't need it, nor Kaguya's sob-backstory, or the excruciatingly drawn-out Shinobi war because of it. I guess one thing that really has always annoyed me about it as well is that it made people believe that Naruto and Sasuke’s bond solely relied on fate/destiny even if that wasn't said specifically. That their feelings all of a sudden were presupposed and had nothing to do with.... the entirety of their journeys like wth! The whole point for them was to find their individuality only to say in the end that SIKE the only reason they even interacted was because they had ancient chakra clinging to them. As if all they have done didn’t matter because it wasn’t even them, it was influenced by Hagoromo's alien children. Come on now. 

So, I would remove the entire explanation about the origin of Chakra. It is perfectly fine to create a world where that just is. We don’t need to know why and neither do the characters. Shinobi are all born in a world where that is normal and no one cares about finding it out either because it doesn't even matter, IT WASN'T THE ISSUE. I would keep the real issues in the world and have them fix, acknowledge and face them all because it is the world that they’ve always known and to their knowledge always has been. Rabbit aliens be damned. 

Jen Tortures Herself With Every Dreamworks Animated Movie Ever: Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken

So uuuuuhhhhh yeah. I don't know what I was expecting with this movie. Wasn't expecting it to be good, and it wasn't. Nobody is fucking surprised.

Ruby Gillman is, well, a teenage kraken, who lives with her family on land and tries to blend in as a human while being Omg Quirky Relatable Shy Nerd (seriously this movie doesn't have an original bone in its body, we'll get into that more in a bit). She eventually discovers she can turn into a giant kraken and that she comes from kraken royalty. Throw in the breakdown of trust between her and her mother, a new "friendship" she strikes up with a mermaid named Chelsea, and OMG THE PROM IS TOMORROW and you have a whole mess of cliches that didn't come to an end nearly quick enough for me.

So yeah this plot is... extremely derrivitive, on two very specific Pixar movies in particular. It's like... a weird crossover between Luca (fish people trying to blend in on land) and Turning Red (puberty metaphor, mommy issues, etc) and it does none of what those movies did well anywhere near as close to good as they did. Like this movie tries so hard to be surprising and have twists and turns and like... literally none of those surprises landed. None of the emotions landed. None of the jokes landed. Nothing in this boring ass movie landed.

The characters are all pretty one-note. Ruby is your traditional nerdy, awkward girl with a crush on a guy who is also just as bland as stale bread. Her family is pretty uninteresting, her mom is... somewhat better, I guess, and I did like her grandma, but she was about the only character I found some level of enjoyment out of. We also have Chelsea, who big surprise, is our twist villain, as if I didn't see that coming from the second I saw her show up on screen. The way she so easily manipulates and plays Ruby is just... god it makes you wannt scream "DON'T TRUST HER YOU DIPSHIT" the entire time, like girl, I get you're an anxious 15 year old but you should know better jfc.

This movie tries to have lore and be epic, but like... idk it just isn't. The climactic fight scene at the end was so slow-paced and dull, there wasn't really anything about it at all, which for what's essentially a giant kaiju fight, is a damn shame. The jokes were honestly non-existant, and the script itself is already hella dated with so much social media references and modern teen lingo (bestie, bae, etc) despite only coming out last year.

It also doesn't help that, at least in my opinion, this movie is ugly. Like the animation itself is fine, but these goddamn character designs, christ I think they are some of the WORST to ever come out of a Dreamworks movie. The humans all have weird proportions that don't make sense, the krakens don't look like krakens at all and instead look like... humans with long tentacles, which is weird, and the set design... was admittedly ok to look at, but that's about it. Pair that with an utterly forgettable, but servicable score and plenty of equally forgettable pop songs and there's just not much going on here.

I think, at the end of the day, Ruby Gillman is just... lame. Like the concept itself... isn't awful, but the execution, man, they just floundered (get it, fish) on all fronts here. No wonder this thing tanked at the box office. I wouldn't have gone to see it either.

Overall Rating: 4/10

Verdict: Harpoon these lame-ass krakens

Previous Review (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish)

Next Review (Trolls Band Together)

cait! cait! do you read op fanfics? cause i need some recommendations i don’t really have any preferences romantic, platonic, ship, non-ship, all fine by me i guess the only thing would be no heavy angst i can’t handle that - op anon

i do read op fics! ive read a bit of everything so im gonna rec a bit of everything that i really love to reread

Older Brother's Duties (and also i recommend reading the second fic in the series as well but the first is my favourite of the two). au where luffy is the older sibling and ace just joined the whitebeard pirates and luffy comes to check up on him. i find it very cute (gen fic)

Who We Were Meant to Be, au where luffy joined the marines for reasons and now ace is about to be executed and im not gonna say more because even though me telling you the plot wouldn't really spoil anything cause it's obvious i think you should just experience it all for the first time with no huge primer on it (gen fic)

Watashitachi wa Roger kaizoku desu (we still stand proud), au where the remaining roger pirates come to save their captain's son from execution, also heavy on the shanks and buggy friendship and their not so good past with their former crew members (like in terms of the au not canon stuff) (gen fic)

Shanties for the Weary Voyager okay so this is a series not a singular fic but i have to rec the whole series cause god damn. shanks/makino fics, the first few in the series all follow the main story and then after that are au's of the og fanfic or are one shots connected to the og fanfic. overall summary is it's just shanks and makino falling in love when he first is in foosha and then her waiting for him to come back after he has to leave and then them living happily ever after. first fic in the series is all fade to black but a lot of the ones after are explicit, like straight smut just to warn you so yeah big nsfw warning on this one

You, Drowning Between My Arms usosan fic, interesting concept where sanji keeps reliving the day after he turned down usopp's confession and is trying to fix it EXCEPT it's told from usopp's pov which i really enjoyed it. its like. kinda angsty obviously cause usopp got turned down and sanji is suffering cause he's trying to fix it but it's not heavy heart breaking angst

the demon perched upon the sun zosan pokemon au, another interesting concept, as the fic is told through an oc character. their goal is to beat the pokemon world champion but the world champion, zoro, has disappeared from society so they have to become the world champion and then find zoro where ever the fuck he is to reach their ultimate goal. sanji tags along on oc's quest. you meet the other strawhats every so often. so really its just zosan from outsider pov but done really really well imo. again, kinda angsty, but not heavy i promise

the thing that remains lawlu fic, its just law falling in love with luffy over the course of them meeting until wano. really, thats it. well written. nsfw stuff, though i believe its only right near the end and its not plot relevant so you can skip if you want (iirc i havent reread it in a bit). the rest of the series it's in i also enjoy, though the sanji/katakuri ones are just straight smut so. yeah lmao

Wine and Dine and... Guns? zolusan (is that their correct ship name????) mafia/gang au, the strawhats (excluding sanji) are a gang, and due to certain actions sanji has to join them. nothing much else to say

A Split Thread zolu fic, luffy and zoro get sent back in time after their journey and have a chance to make everything right. zoro goes off on his own to kill blackbeard while luffy gathers the crew. i also quite enjoy the sequel that is zoro's pov

and yeah thats all of them i hope you enjoy !!!!!!!

Top five best and worst doppels!

Narrowing down only 5 of my favorites is hard, but I'll give it a shot!

5 Best Doppels:

5. Halifax (Kasane Ao):

[slaps roof of doppel] this baby can pack SO much symbolism into it. Really, all of the doppels are full of symbolism, but something about Ao's always gets me. The resigned, exhausted look on her face, rusted shackles binding her to her guilt, the black blood around the guillotine, the way it literally decapitates Ao when she summons it (you can see her head on the ground after the blade drops)... oouuughhh. I might have to dig into this one in another post later before I go off on a Monzenbashi tangent, haha.

Design-wise, the black/blue/glowing cyan combo is pretty, so there's that too!

4. Cuauhtitlan (Kimochi Rabi):

One of my favorite doppel designs in the game for sure. The dull, washed-out colours are very pleasing to look at (and a nice nod to Rabi's fading hope), and there's something poignant about the massive stone wings framing the bodies of the Kimochi, with Rabi hanging as a sacrifice in the middle. I also like the way it operates and interacts with its master-- Rabi believes that the only salvation for magical girls is death, so Cuauhtitlan vaporizes its targets in an attempt to free them from suffering... but because Rabi (though she tries to ignore it) still has the tiniest scrap of hope in the back of her mind, she can't help but fear that this isn't what she wants after all.

3. Merkava (Kirari Hikaru):

Hikaru is solidly under "characters I'd love to see a doppel ver. alt for" because of how good Merkava is. One, it's got an awesome design (which would transfer very well to a suit of armor), and two, there's a lot of potential in how it's basically the embodiment of executive dysfunction. A lot of characters have mixed feelings about their doppels, but Merkava is particularly hard for Hikaru to accept because of how it represents her inability to Do Things (even the things she wants to do) without a proper external motivator.

side note hikaru must be one strong draft horse if she can not only haul this thing along behind her, but pick up enough momentum to be able to grab it by the ropes and throw it over her shoulders. my girl has been eating her veggies, god damn

2. 9daime Nue (Kagura San):

I love 9daime Nue's colours and cool antique style, but the way its gangly arms move reminds me so much of this gif that I laugh whenever I see it in-game:

Still, it's an awesome doppel! I also like how it can be either very gentle or very brutal, depending on the circumstances-- if a natural cause displaces something in its environment, it will carefully sort things back to how they were before, which is kinda cute for how large it is. But if someone intentionally changes something, it will immediately hunt down the offender to beat them senseless. Doppel of Keep Your Hands To Yourself. (More seriously, it's interesting how it takes San's fear of change to an extreme degree.)

1. Catacombe (Izumi Kanagi):

Still my favorite doppel in the game after all of these years. :') It's a four-armed lion with gold teeth, ancient bronze swords, a skull necklace, and a mane of billowing smoke; what's not to like? And according to Magia Archive, it's blindfolded by two masks over each of its eyes, so that's cool too. (i wonder what its eyes look like......)

Catacombe was one of the earliest doppels released, so it has a bit in its description about how overusing it may cause Kanagi to become similarly unforgiving. I love notes like that; I think the concept of doppels influencing their masters is fascinating, even if it's only a temporary issue.

5 Worst Doppels:

5. Victoria (Kaharu Yuuna):

Very good from a symbolism perspective; very unpleasant to look at. I suppose that's part of the point- it's meant to be gaudy and self-absorbed- but... still...

4. Elsie (Shinobu Akira):

Does anyone remember how goo candy, blue raspberry, and blue raspberry goo candy were all the rage in the early 2000s? Like Juicy Drop Pops and those Ooze Tube things? I can TASTE this doppel. My mouth feels bad just looking at it.

3. Gosirsa (Natsu Ryouko):

I love Ryouko! I love what Gosirsa represents! The horns on the cart are awesome! But EEUFGJHJFGHH something about the cluster of wheels looks too much like tendrils or something and totally wigs me out ;_;

2. Hund Balou (Sarasa Hanna):

Props to Hund Balou's designer for making a doppel so viscerally uncomfortable to look at that I can't even bring myself to include a picture of it in this post. Its arms...

1. Poker Alice (Nanase Yukika):

I can only fit one more image in this post (mobile limit) and I'm not using it on Poker Alice. Why does it have teeth around its eyes??? Why is it so fleshy

(CW: suicide)

The ending of the PS1 Serial Experiments Lain game is something that sat with me for a while in how it relates to the TV show ending. In the game - oh btw Lain got a PS1 alt-history visual novel retelling in 1998, produced coterminously with the anime, you can play it here - Lain commits suicide in order to ‘ascend’ into The Wired, as opposed to kinda-maybe-never really existing to begin with as she does in the anime. The story leading up to this ending is completely different, primarily involving Lain in therapy, but the themes are all there in both at their core, so these endings do speak to the same concepts.

I think I bounced off it a bit at first because it does not stand out in its execution. The PS1 game is not well-made, with a god-awful interface and clunky progression, and a tiny budget that can barely squeak out a few animations to sell its key moments. Some of them work but their quality is a few tiers below anything the anime had. It has its good parts as a game, don’t get me wrong, just that on selling individual ‘moments’ its not gonna shine.

Also Lain kills herself with a gun?

Its...jarring, its not the kind of thing Lain seems like she would do. Its so analog and brute-force, connecting to an entire world of violence and power that Lain never had anything to do with. I can see why its done this way - as I have mentioned before, Lain is ‘secretly’ a member of the horror genre and is pulling from a lot of that genre’s tropes. The visual novel has a lot more elements of gore and body horror, leaning into that identity harder, so its fits better here. Additionally in Japan guns are a lot more rare as a thing a child would have, they are Advanced Technology out of reach, a bit more similar to a computer (in 1998) than in the west. Hell, Lain came out before the Columbine High School Shooting happened (1999!), kids-with-a-gun just had a different meaning *everywhere*. It is still offputting though, a method chosen for omg-shock that drops your jaw when you are 14 but falls flat as an adult.

Once the execution wore off though its implications for the narrative really started to claw at me. The “Lain of the Wired” concept is bound up in the common cybernetic idea of the ‘upload’, porting yourself over to live on the internet. The anime has that in spades of course, Lain eventually lives only as a ghost in the machine; but its in the end a happy ending, one she chooses to protect her friend and where she gets to look out over them as essentially a caring spirit as they live their lives. It buys into, fundamentally, the possibility of the upload to preserve the self.

The PS1 game sets up a similar premise through its buildup - Lain grows digitally powerful but emotionally distant from everyone in her own life, each of her relationships falls apart one by one, her attempts to compensate for that within reality fail, and so she rejects reality. She chooses to ‘upload’, but through doing so she turns away from the idea of preserving the ‘human’ self at all, as becomes apparent as she builds up to her suicide via her conversations with her “Lain of the Wired” alter-ego:

This is a far harsher view on that process - “the rest is just data” hot damn. Throughout the game you see this ‘data’; the game is structured as you, the player, diving into a computer system pulling up archived logs, often out-of-order, to tease out her story.

In between the logs you find these little audio-visual clips of fragmentary & disconnected sentences with no connection to the ‘story’. She likes cake, she is getting bored of her ‘outfit’, she shares philosophical musings on various topics.

And some, particularly the later ones, are stained with a desperation to connect with others. “Do you want to find me?” “Only play with me” “Stay with me”,

But this is *all* Lain is. There is that “Lain UI”, but its mechanical, it never engages or responds, an abandoned prototype. Everything else you read is a log of past Lain, things that happened before, when she was alive. In those logs she even explicitly rejects the idea of making a “backup” of herself, referring to her past life as “useless”. The fragmentary data files you find are what is left. The way they combines facts, trivialities, and desires gives them a semblance of life, but only a semblance, just the embers of a ghost still clinging to the machine. That is what the vaunted “Lain of the Wired” amounted to.

Which is way more accurate to what we are all going to be, on this internet on our earth. “Uploading” isn’t real, concepts like these are used in stories as literary devices to analogize to the audience, and to that audience “living on the internet” looks exactly like the fragments Lain left behind. Its social media posts, art, websites, publications, a web of data. Yet its a web that all ties back to the living person. Of course “your posts don’t have consciousness”, that is trivial to say, but it goes beyond that, to how the things on here lose their relevance so quickly once separated from the ‘consciousness’ that made them and drives them. “Your posts don’t have meaning absent the creator behind them” is perhaps a bit bolder statement, and while not logically true it is emotionally true, true in important ways, for the audience to see in Lain’s ending a version of their own end. That hits.

This ending is I believe a case of medium-is-the-message, anime just aren’t in the business of having finales with that level of bleak nihilism. But an experimental horror game aimed at the niche obsessive fans, the ‘franchise’ isn’t riding on that, it can afford to roll the dice. Which is why, despite all its technical flubs, its the ending I still get sparked into thinking about in odd moments months after playing - like today it seems, if I am writing this. 

Throwing a bit more kindling onto the embers I guess.

For Dying Light 2 ask

If u can change one the aspect of the story, what would it be?

Ty :3

Sorry this is talking forever but I really wanted to write a personal take on this. So below is my essay of an opinion and why I think Aiden should’ve been Waltz’s biological son

To start off, I think “Mia isn’t even his sister” is a god awful twits on Aiden’s behalf. Imagine spending the entire story finding some family member of yours and she’s not even related to you. I get the concept of found it adopted family but this is…how do it even put it, anticlimactic. It’s a twist but it was at the expense of logic and satisfaction and hence in my humble opinion a very bad decision. Twists made for only shock factors are usually considered bad and frankly this is a case of just that. Some twists should have buildups and foreshadowing and while I acknowledge that “Aiden has memory issues” is somewhat hinting towards him being an unreliable source of info, it was not made explicitly clear that, he would’ve misremembered something this crucial…while family is such an important factor to his character. His entire arc and personality was built on him finding his sister. And Hakon even asked what his plan was after finding his so called sister while Aiden outwardly admitted, he doesn’t know. His goal in life had very little foresight and his sole purpose is no more than just that. I understand Mia was no more than a macguffing and severs little to no purpose as a character, it’s still incredibly dismissive of a player’s effort as they worked towards a goal that perishes within five minutes of meeting.

I think it’s no less than obvious that I hated this ending, but this also ties into my next point of god damn it, a cliche twist doesn’t mean it’s a bad twist. I get the “I’m your father” shit had been done to death, yet when it’s effective, it really is. Imagine the shock we could’ve gotten, this paired with Aiden’s discovery of holy shit the mad scientist isn’t even a bad person would double the dramatic factor.

Also this completely deprived me of a universe where Aiden was raised by Waltz. We could’ve gotten a fucking Dr. Caldwell doing mad science shit but no Techland was a coward for this.

This is something that’s been on my thoughts for a good fucking while and I just can’t shake the idea of a mad scientist Aiden equally as brutal as Waltz but with a little sense of playfulness and sadistic tendencies. Meanwhile I feel so isolated with my evil Aiden ideas besides the few cool people actively supporting it.

And can we talk about how much, Waltz’s facial structure is similar to Aiden’s.

(Image taken from Techland’s website lol)

I’m not sure how to explain it but the bone structure, the nose and lips just…well you know? And I can actually see them being semi related. This is only a small part of fake evidences that supports my argument but nevertheless fun. I know it’s not completely valid but it’s not a bad opinion right.

Also off topic but look at this Waltz art he’s just so

I think Mia and Aiden would make for a fucking cute family and wether Aiden gets poisoned by Waltz and becomes completely evil is up for debate. Either way I think it’s just a concept that could be executed better. And in my personal opinion makes for a good twist. Sorry for the rant, but I just have so much to say around this topic. I think if this was implemented by the fandom it could make things a bit more fun and we have a new variety of au to play with. This is just a theory, a game theory. But if you find even a little entertainment in reading this, we’ll I’m satisfied.

Thank you so much for asking!

Herrscher of Origin 2.0: The Purposeless of Mei’s Growth

Spoilers for 6.3 and 6.4. Talks of Anti-Elysium Everlasting & (anti) Elymei.

Well, here we are I guess. Welcome to the culmination of the disappointment and decline of the Honkai universe’s writing and execution.

Mei’s Growth Pre-Flamechaser - Was the most “grown” and self-sustaining in terms of maturity and power (because of HoT persona and their bond). However, she put restraints on herself, thereby making her weaker as time went by. She was unable to do anything because of the shackles she tied to herself. Eventually, this led to a break in her character (Lament of the Fallen) where she in turn sacrificed herself to save the light of her life. She became the concept she hated, and she full fucking sent that shit! That’s our girl! When it became too much, she had to make that decision, and she took it by the throat and made it her personality. It was even better because it made sense for her to finally, finally let go of her own conviction because the ends justified the means to her, for Kiana.

The Flamechaser Arc - Mei: *angry about girlfriend dying to terminal radiation and her sacrificing herself* Flamechasers: Okay but have you heard about our lord and savior Elysia? Elysia (EE version): 🌸 👼🏻 ✨ 🌈 “by the way, I’m god” - Elymei. Uhhhh-

Moon Arc - Can we all just agree that this arc so far has been a complete flop (besides Seele, because I’m biased)? Seriously. Why do I need to become a PhD in astrophysics and electromagnetism to understand this chapter. Why dump exposition sentence after sentence that amounts to nothing but “I know you are but what am I?” It takes so much momentum out of this chapter that I scratch my head and think, “maybe I should just wait for all the chapter to be done”. It feels so padded out with philosophical nonsense pushed into a package already ready to burst. All we (at least here on Tumblr) wanted to see we’re our trio back together and kick Kevin’s ass. We’re simple people, I think. We don’t need our brains melted out with these lectures to enjoy a good, compelling story.

- Also, thanks for the retcon of Bronya no longer being a child soldier/assassin. No reason for that, so thanks for making the lore even more complicated for no reason.

- A shoutout to the translation team making me want to work for them instead because why do they not do quality assurance anymore.

- Open World is getting old. My phone shrieks in binary every time I have to load in to that stupid fucking god damn dog shit ass moon map. :)

Herrscher of Origin 2.0 - I said in an earlier post that this is a rare battlesuit that I highly dislike. Where do I even begin with this development for Mei? While I do love that Mei is the new HoO, as HI3 started with her, that’s really the only thing I actively enjoy with this development.

- Anything else about the battlesuit? I dislike. The “heavenly” theme of her suit, the lighter colors, the emphasis on Elysia, I actually hate it.

- And I hate to say I hate it, but I do. Elysia is supposed to be ka-put, gone, her and her comrades stories are O V E R. Let them rest for once.

- It feels like they’re trying to override Mei with Elysia, and it just doesn’t work. This entire shift in her personality, especially with the leaks of Mei saying she basically does not care if Kiana sacrifices herself, goes against the entire reason for her growth in the first fucking place!

- Why does Mei now have flower themes when it was never entirely relevant to her character? Bronya has technology and “coldness”, with a focus on blues, whites, and grays. This continues in her HoTr battlesuit. Kiana has her outgoing, tempered liveliness and hope, symbolized by whites, oranges, and blacks. Her symbol being the stars and fire actively fits her suits in at least some capacity through all of them. This has been her theme up to Flamescion. Now why I’m sitting here wondering why the hell Mei got this “heavenly angel” looking schtick that makes no sense. Her themes were red, black, purple, and white. And of course, lightning. This about-face turn around of punting these themes into the stratosphere isn’t growth, it’s a complete erasure of her journey and efforts to become stronger. What’s with the light blues and golds? The pinks of her eyes? Why flowers. Again? Also, the parallel between HoO Mei and Raiden Ei… how similar their battlesuits are. 🫠 end me. Mihoyo stop introducing Genshin to Honkai pleASE.

- Mei isn’t Elysia and she never will be. I need everyone to read this again. And another time. Mei might be the inheritor of the title, but Mei will not and can never be Elysia. To make Mei seem closer to Elysia is to erase everything Mei is and has done. Removing Mei’s autonomy in exchange for an Elysia cameo is downright ridiculous. Why can’t her bond with Kiana and Bronya be the trigger? Why does it have to lie in people long gone? Why can’t it be love? Love for humanity was the inspiration for Elysia, so why can’t it be love for her friends (and girlfriend)? Why, why, why does it have to always be Elysia?

- Mei’s growth has and will always be focused around learning from others. From Kiana saving her life at the very beginning of HI3, to learning the beauty and importance of life and sacrificing it with the FCs, Mei is always the mirror of another’s actions. To make Mei this… almost lassiez-faire to Kiana sacrificing herself is actually infuriating. They just got back together after half a year apart, where their parting almost meant killing each other, to now Kiana waving sacrificial-offering flags like a Naval officer, and Mei suddenly not caring anymore?! Just because you grow doesn’t mean you suddenly don’t care about things anymore! The beauty and anguish from Lament of the Fallen is due to the circumstance that Mei had no other choice but to leave to find a way to help Kiana. If she had to be the bad guy, she would be. So where the fuck does this “yeah I might’ve just reunited with my girlfriend after she tried to shoulder everything by herself, but now I couldn’t care less what she does” attitude come from.

A Little Ending Blurb I’m just, I’m so tired. After the Everlasting Flames Arc, I feel that the writing team is just blasting us to the end of this saga and not caring unless it’s a cool animation or battle scene. As someone who has been playing since global launch in 2018, it is more than just disappointing to see the quality nosedive to the level it’s at now. It’s, in my opinion, heartbreaking (as cringey/cheesy as it might sound). I’ve loved this game with so much passion and intrigue, it’s become a large point in my life. “Protect all that is beautiful in this world.��� It’s served as a way to reflect on myself and my growth, especially compared to the girls who all have their threads of relatability and genuineness. I cherish these characters. I’ve laughed and I’ve most certainly cried at the art Mihoyo has created in the past that ripped out my heartstrings and played them like a harp. Honkai has really, truly touched my heart. It’s not something that a lot of media is able to do, but this one has, and it’s magical. It’s beautiful in its anguish and its sacrifices. It’s maddening in the way that it crawls underneath your skin with how human these characters are. But I hate how much it seems like this past year, that feeling has been pushed behind a curtain. Nothing seems earned or deserved or meaningful. Characters just do because they do, particularly in Mei’s case. She’s constantly ham-fisting her recollections of the Flamechasers, telling her memories to characters who’ve never heard, let alone cared, of simulations of a bygone era. Everyone’s just like, “Oh? Yeah? Mhm, sure.” And move about their next dialogue. There’s no real significance to her exposition, there’s no drive to explain what’s been happening on her end. And it sucks to see.

Sorry I’m ending it like this, but I’m frustrated. I’ll try and make another addition to this in a more eloquent way, but I just needed to get these thoughts out there.

So Maria is the granddaughter of Dr.Gerald robotnik, who is also the grandfather of eggman. Maria and eggman are cousins I believe, unless it's been changed as of like 2018+. Maria has N.I.D.S, an illness that causes the affected person to get weaker and weaker and need constant medical attention as it progresses, and so her and her grandfather are in space, due to the anti gravity helping the symptoms to not progress as fast. While up there, her grandfather, who was actually the opposite of eggman, a kind caring person who wanted to use science for good and help cure his granddaughter was put on a task to create the ultimate life form by the government. So he created shadow, Gerald gave Shadow a soul so that humanity would not abuse his power for monstrous acts. Little did Gerald know that in the end, he himself was still only human. the plan was called off while still being worked on, and he was taken away and executed by the govfor creating shadow and 'putting humanity in danger' despite building its best protector. They interrogated him, before asking "is that all?" And it cuts to black, them prolly shooting him off screen. He didn't get a trial either, so it was straight up murder. While all this was happening, it's seen in the cutscenes of both the games and anime, that Maria was standing above a control panel weakly, before it cuts to a scene of shadow in the tube thing, in shadows flashback it showing maria saying how she wanted revenge on humanity. this is seen altered a lot though And YKNOW WHAT REALLY FUCKS ME UP? The fact that Gerald altered shadows memory so he wouldn't feel as pained, only the true meaning and stuff coming out when Amy says something that triggers it. And because of eggman being related, imagine if that's the reason he's so fucked up now This actually would explain why Eggman has so many childish characteristics despite being a grown man - since people who have experienced severe trauma as children often carry on childlike traits well into their adulthood to cope with the fact that the innocence of their childhood was cut short. It makes the concept of his "Eggmanland" amusement park SO much more tragic when you think about how it's probably a manifestation of the final drops of a traumatized childs innocence seeping through the cracks of an angry, bitter and broken old man's rampage of revenge against a world that wronged him and his loved ones so brutally, suddenly and pointlessly that he lost his goddamn mind That might also be why he hates sonic so much, due to him striking a resemblance to shadow. Oh and btw Shadow's design is based on the Prophecy of Super Sonic. In otherwords, Shadow almost owes his existence to Sonic in every way. but also due to Gerald coming into contact with Black Doom during his experimental processes, who offered up his immortal alien DNA in order to create Shadow. That's why Shadow looks like Black Doom and its why he's immortal while being able to channel the power of the Chaos Emeralds. Black doom is also why they shut down the project AND HIS FUCKING LAST SPEACH FUCKS ME ALL THE WAY UP! YOU DONT EXPEVT LINES LIKE "You ungrateful humans who took everything away from me will feel my loss and despair…" FROM A GOD DAMN SONIC GAME WHERE SOMEBODY IS CHAINED UP AND ABOUT TO BE KILLED Oh and Shadow tried to retcon certain details; such as wanting to remember Gerald fondly. The same man that nearly destroyed the entire planet from beyond the grave due to being driven mad with grief. This entire story line (not including silvers, knuckles backstory, blaze's lore ect) is why I'm still so into sonic.

infodump on shadow the hedgehog lore ehe

I saw Maria and thought both "SPLATOON⁉️⁉️⁉️" AND "OMORI⁉️⁉️⁉️" at the same time I need help

anyways BUT YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO CUUUT ME OFFFF /ref