tumblr did eat this but as a wise poet once said “honey i rose up from the dead i do it all the time”
so i feel like i have been slowly entertaining in the back of my head for a year or two now the idea of writing again. it started with like, writing bad poetry in journals. i’ve been consuming media, but in a lot more of a disconnected way. engagement was like, reading reddit and twitter threads for a day and putting it back down. then episode 8 happened, and i was like FUCK i’m unglued.
to put in perspective what kind of shit i was up to in high school: i wrote half a million words of like...once upon a time fanfiction. and in that i found lots of lovely connections to people but amidst a sea of other factors: being a literal teenager who still thought i could be the smartest person in the room (spoiler: never), having no real social net outside of the internet (and i will say my internet friends -- many of whom i still love and talk to today -- got me through some of the WORST times of my life), and having a very fragile ego. probably related to points a and b. everything felt like the biggest thing in the world because my world did not feel very big.
now i look back at it like...holy shit you wrote a goddamn novel. who cares if it was like, literature or not?
to be honest one of the things that got through to me was this cj the x video, especially their point which i’ll recap here:
“We are under the impression that art is something special people do, and to do it well makes you a genius, and to do it poorly is embarrassing. This sectioning off of the art world for artists from regular life and regular people is completely artificial and it is bad for the soul of your society.”
and they talk a bti about the Terrifying Ordeal of Being Known and perfectionism and just the amount of fuccccckin mental blocks we put around what’s good art and bad art and we spend so much time agonizing over what’s good and what’s cringe and you know what? embrace cringe! who cares! none of us will live forever!!! sharing art is the way we sustain ourselves in the long run.
i always have an internal voice saying something’s not good enough. i’m Always like “damn, these metrics ain’t metricing like they were earlier...” and then i’m like fuck...am i doing this for the Idea of Fandom Success or because of my fun silly lil hobby? my fun silly lil hobby? aight guess i ought to just embrace the Terrifying Ordeal of Being Known and accept that silly lil numbers ain’t what’s fufilling, it’s the practice of writing and sharing and going at the end of the day “at least one person liked this, and being known isn’t the Most Horrific Thing Ever”.
another thing i Never did when i was a teenager is tell anyone i wrote fic in real life. now my husband and friend and sister-in-law know (the latter involved either alcohol or being confined to a plane, which is a lot like alcohol) and you know how much they think i’m embarassing? they don’t. oh and actually a co-worker. they just go “lol, this is My thing” and it’s a novel they tried to write in college or fanart they post on a secret instagram or a monsters inc page they ran in high school (all real examples) because everyone has some kind of thing they care about, some artistic expression, and we’ve conditioned people to think trying is embarassing. trying is vulnerable and the point, i think! no matter how cringe!
and vulnerability is this awfully stingy thing because sometimes when you think about it for too long it’s not unlike putting your hand on a hot coal. like, fuck, laying awake at night knowing that people know You Tried and what if they still didn’t like it? humiliating. awful. please schedule me with the goddamn firing squad. you didn’t get the metrics you wanted. or worse, you did and now people don’t think you deserve it. they’re gonna find out you’re just a big fanfiction writing fraud.
but maybe that’s the point! i don’t know! vulnerability is hard and painful and growth and sincerety is almost WORSE. but there’s also something lovely and cathartic about it and at the end of the day knowing that other people feel that, too. can never get too lost in either sauces of thinking you’re the worst thing ever or the best and the only one who gets it. just gotta accept the vulnerability of it all~
i’m back in my daydreaming era, i think fic gave that back to me. i shut her off for a little while, but she’s still there! and it’s not the worst thing, having overwhelming creative ideas on the treadmill or in a hotel lobby or furiously writing in a google doc in the middle of the night even if it does feel Silly. sometimes it does make the world a little more magical, framing in a narrative.
(my therapist at some point has made comments about my narrative framing skills in the context of my life and getting out of a shitty family situation with a lot of embedded generational cyclical fun stuff to a point i have a lot of the things now i used to dream about despite it, my pathological need to write my way out also applying to my life and maybe it’s not the worst way of moving a locus of control inwards. i used to dream about feeling safe and being respected interpersonally and professionally because it’s something no woman in my family ever really got and i get that now. anyway, as i said, radical vulnerability!)
narratives are powerful and meaningful and art is too, i don’t care if it’s fanfiction at the end of the day! we’ve all felt something or gptten something or felt community and that’s meaningful enough.
this is a very long-winded and frankly chaotic way of saying sure, i’m a writer enough!
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it's giving 2009
they need to shut up
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if dorian didn't show up, do you think louis would have shot minnie?
I do. I know some people think either he wouldn't have or he would've missed so that's why the writers had him shoot Dorian instead, but mmmmmm no, I don't personally think so. I like to think that if he had taken the shot, his shaky hands would've caused him to shoot her fatally.
Mostly because I'm already so normal about the fact that of the Ericson crew, Marlon and Louis are the only ones with a body count. Well, that we know of, but shown to us in the game, at least. Plus, we know it's Louis' first kill.
Like yeah, Clementine and AJ become part of the crew and they have bigger body counts, and if we're counting indirect kills caused by actions, then Tenn has a count... and I guess everyone has blood on their hands for blowing up the boat... but I'm talking about killed directly with a weapon like....... I lied, I'm not normal about that at all, Louis and Marlon are the ones who have killed someone in Louis' route. I'm also not normal about the fact that Louis kills Dorian and then even as he's clearly in shock, he tries to go with Clementine to get AJ, and then later on when they talk about it, he says it feels like bile but not quite and he's glad he has it in him to do it.... listen, listen, listen... I'm obsessed with that.
Anyway, so if Louis shot Minerva, I think he would've accidentally killed her and can you imagine? He's already enough of a mess after killing the woman who pinned him down and tried to cut his finger off [or succeeded] but he knew Minerva, they were friends before the twins were taken. Even Violet couldn't kill her even though that would've been the smarter thing to do, and we know thanks to meta knowledge that killing her would've saved lives, but Violet couldn't, and I don't think Louis would intentionally either.
Speaking of Violet, if Louis killed Minerva, I hate to think about what that would've done to Vi. I think she might've actually left at that point, like what was planned before it got changed to her being burned. I don't think she would've attacked Louis over it, though, like yeah she attacked Clementine in the cell but Louis? I don't know, but I don't think so just because it's Louis and he'd be a mess about it anyway.
Though if he did kill her, it would be a neat parallel to draw... y'know, because Louis forgave AJ for killing Marlon even though he was pissed and heartbroken, and Violet was annoyed with him the entire time... but could she ever forgive Louis for killing Minerva? Y'know? We already have a similar parallel with AJ shooting Tenn, but still.
If Clementine killed Minerva in that moment, though, then I could see Violet attacking her since in her eyes, Clem proved her right.
So yeah, I get why they added the Dorian kill to his route. It adds another compelling element to Louis as a character, but we also need Minerva alive for episode 4; Louis can't kill her, he can't miss, and he's not going to stay with her because we need Violet to stay on the boat and him to be on shore for all routes.
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on today's episode of Hashing Out Concepts Theatre, i spent a while today while waiting for my new fridge/freezer to be installed after my previous one died and i lost all my food hashing out a bunch of concepts for another game idea i have. (rest assured i'm not actually working on it as a game yet i just like to bash out a framework for things every now and then to make my brain do happy chemicals lmao)
putting all of this stuff under a cut since it's a bunch of images and also in case people aren't interested XD
i am regrettably a huge fan of comic books (mostly DC) and i've seen a couple of comic book inspired IFs popping up lately, though when it comes to my own interest, i'm definitely more into a straight interpretation of a comic book universe than a more. the boys-style universe - i'm into the camp lol, not so much the grim and gritty stuff. (though that's just my own personal preference)
anyway the idea behind That's Just Super is something that i really like about certain comics - giving the villains more of a purpose and rounded existence than just existing to be in somebody's rogue's gallery. the joker's angry defence of the batfamily from various other DC evil forces, lex luthor's furious resistance against brainiac alongside superman because it's His planet, damn it, DOOM throwing in with the heroes in every second marvel event comic... i really like stories where villains and evil characters don't always make the Most Evil choice just Because, but have clear and explainable motivations that sometimes bring them into what we'd consider a 'good' alignment because unlike in d&d, there's no real such thing as a concrete moral alignment.
(this is my banner design for it)
the basic idea is that an inexplicable cosmic event removes all of the superheroes from the planet, leaving it vulnerable to attack by evil mindflayer style aliens - unless the supervillains who remain are able to band together despite their more unpredictable, less cooperative natures and save the planet in the heroes' absence. after all... if aliens take over the earth, the villains can't take it over themselves.
here's my fun little UI design idea lmao...
the other major thing about That's Just Super that i've been hashing out is the pc. the basic idea is that you pick your villain identity from a list but you get to customise their like. birth name and secret identity, while the villain identity comes with its own name, costume, and set history (including occasionally past romantic encounters). i like playing around with the way that IF works with the idea of mcs and customisable mcs so i just thought it'd be a fun twist... it also allows me to create nice drama by having set occurrences in the past lol.
so i did some profiles for the nine villain options - three each of the DC triad of tech/metahuman/magic origin. they're all based on a specific kind of villain archetype, and i really tried to limit myself to ones where i could definitely pin down more than one specific influence so it didn't end up like me just making too many analogues haha... even if some of the influences are probably pretty obvious.
weirdly i haven't even Thought about ROs yet since i've been so focussed on the pc... maybe i'll play around with the partially set background idea even more and only have 1 possible RO for each villain choice or something. maybe a couple that you can romance as anybody... not sure. (talionis could definitely have a messy broken romance with his superhero for example)
apologies that readability isn't great but these are mostly just made for me lmao
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8. but i wore his jacket for the longest time.
As the nuisance who had one been a King's Wit faded away, Nomad drew his jacket more around himself. Though the long cut the planet and it's former Threnodites seemed to favor was better for the weather, he found himself wishing for a moment for something shorter, stiffer, and blue.
Foolish. He'd thought of Kal, a moment ago, and now that crack was growing in the rain.
Kaladin Stormblessed. But the storms on Roshar brought no good fortune, and Nomad doubted it would be different here. Still... In the rain, it was easier to slip back. Think of the early mornings in the war camps. Nomad was so very old, and had been so very young then, but his memory of that had never faded.
He remembered, before Auxiliary. Before any fifth ideals. The fourth one. The fourth bridge. Kaladin had been there, had shouted just as Ishtar moved behind Nomad. Then he'd been wrapped in Kaladin's living armor and realized what to do. Then she'd accepted his words, formed his own armor.
He'd given that up. Along with his second set. And still now, in the rain, Nomad had thought of wanting a blue jacket instead of invested plate. So foolish.
So tired.
But then, when things had started going wrong- if Nomad didn't start tracing that from leaving his home after the failed exams, of course- when things had started going wrong, he'd lost sight of Kal and fallen and then he awoke to Renarin's light and the captain's coat tucked around him.
Nomad should have returned that jacket. To the quartermaster, if not to Kal. Instead it stayed with his things, carefully washed and mended, but never worn.
He hadn't put it on again until his former teacher had shoved him into the seas of Shadesmar and warned him to run and never stop. It had just been the first, the only, jacket he'd been able to grab.
But once he put it on, he hadn't really been able to take it off. It was like thinking of Kal, in that way. He'd worn out on dozens of planets, for dozens of years.
And then it had been destroyed. Nomad had recently had a particularly bad string of his clothes being destroyed in the last day, but even without that, clothes didn't last forever.
Neither did men, yet here Nomad was.
Standing in the rain in a city he couldn't save, on a planet he couldn't escape from.
He glanced up at the sky. Clouds kept him from seeing the ones who chased him. But they were there.
Nomad shook his head and wiped the rain from his face, moving back inside. No time to stop and think. No time to wish for an old jacket. Kaladin would have told him to get moving, anyway.
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Me: *Has written plenty of great opening scenes that I'm actually quite fond of*
Also me when trying to write a new opening scene for a new project: I have never written an opening scene in my life, what's an opening scene any more, has there ever truly been an opening scene to anything, there is no beginning, so there is no end, there is no one out there watching over this monstrosity, I am in the void, my mind is adrift, how do I open this scene without a key, where did I leave my keys??
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the distractions aren't distracting man..
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there's something specifically inside my head that is closing up that makes trusting anything so hard. i have to manually keep my mind open to the potential of anything being significant. i am so used to things being bad and things hurting and things not working and being powerless that it takes an exorbitant amount of mental energy to make sure I don't let myself shut down possibility. and I do it because I never want a certainty inside of me besides love to rule anything. but I want my brain elastic again. i want it open like breathing. it doesn't erase the unfairness or the critique or any of the bitter-built philosophy.
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really was feeling soo bad about not being able to write shit these past few days then bam. 2000 words of doomed yuri
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this paper isn't done but i sure am
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offering my hand out very slowly going pspspsps and slow blinking trying to become mutuals with all the munch enjoyers
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marcille being a traditionalist republican who is so repressed she doesn't even know she's gay is my favorite interpretation of her. "i sure wish falin was a guy so i could marry her! too bad girls can't marry other girls it's wrong! if girls COULD marry other girls i would totally marry falin but oh well!"
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Watch out: I have it on good authority that I'm slaying rn
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