terabient

so with the EP6 Keywords mostly complete, I've been thinking about how some of the things mentioned there are in play in NGS...

- I'm not sure if this is clearer in the JP version, but it seems obvious that Zephetto was looking to make a Vessel of the World/Ultimate Vessel. Pure fighting ability appears to be less of a concern than 909's photon sensitivity (which, at the end of the current story, is 100%, whatever that means.) Which would also imply that the rest of ARKS is unnecessary; he only needs one. Not sure if we'll ever get to know what Zephetto's "third phase" was meant to be, but I feel like the sudden DOLLS invasion across the regions (which afaik has yet to be explained) is just Zephetto trying to wipe out the not-ultimate vessels.

- The scene where the protagonist is infused with photons as the NPCs cheer them on is probably meant to be the Great Light on a small scale (the hopes of everyone on Halpha are channeled through the protagonist). Garoa giving the protag encouragement from beyond the grave makes more sense when you consider that the Great Light at the end of PSO2 was made up of the hopes of everything that had ever lived.

- I don't buy Zephetto's version of history--that ARKS had grown so soft that when a powerful enemy showed up for no apparent reason they just rolled over and died, and once the Starless wiped out 7 star systems they were like "okay that's enough lol" and just--went away???? The Starless, notably, wipe out the ARKS research ships first. My theory (that I came up with in the last two hours lol) is that the ARKS of 500 years ago were attempting to create a new ultimate vessel for whatever reason, and the Starless arose in response to that. I also think it's pretty notable that the Starless only discovered Zephetto's 300 years old Galactic Thunderdome after a being achieved 100% photon sensitivity.

tl;dr: The Starless are out to destroy ultimate vessels specifically, and not mindlessly wiping out the universe as Zephetto asserts.

I've been replaying parts of Episode 5 (for my silly gay Casra joining the Guardian's EP5 party AU ) and came across this bit of dialog i'd completely forgotten. What a "Florenberg black hole analysis" actually entails is, of course, never explained, but I enjoy seeing this kind of consistency applied to minor details.

Florenberg is the name of Casra's Cosmogenic Arm and its design (the spiral nautilus shell supporting the spiral galaxy) and unique ability (transferring matter across short distances) suggest that the Photoner Florenberg studied cosmic mathematics. Aurora also mentions their name as one of the Photoner gods, so I imagine their research and importance to the Photoner's universal dominance was significant.

I just think it's really neat when serial storytelling creates a character in this manner--a distinct person whose entire existence is built exclusively through asides like this. Because it leads me to indulgent moments of overthinking like this:

Luther's research is mostly biological in nature. I like the idea of say...Florenberg (the physics researcher and Photoner god) clashing with Luther the biology researcher. With that in mind, consider: Luther giving Casra Florenberg as a weapon becomes loaded with subtext...is Luther delivering a belated, final "fuck u dude" by putting Florenberg into the hands of his pawn and future vessel? Do the remnants of Floren's soul pick up on Casra's unspoken desire to be free of Luther's influence and influence his mastery over the weapon?? Would Casra feel some kind of connection to this person who he knows nothing about, but whose existence touches upon his own in unexpected but meaningful ways??? some Fun Things to think about!

just me free associating from a single line of dialog until i invent new PSO2 lore on a Sunday, very Normal behavior

I've decided to repost some of my fandom rambling from twitter on here. Partly as a record and partly because even short threads quickly become unreadable there (imo) so while the short format requirements (with likes serving as passive feedback/incentive to continue) it's easier to expand and refine things else where, like DW, which has an edit feature. :p

in short: twitter is for the first draft and DW is a combination archive/editing platform, depending on how much--if any--time i want to put into any given thought. anyway,

( Japanese number superstitions and symbolism in PSO2: Episode Oracle )

Some PSO2 things i think about a lot.

( Varuna's origins & the Photoner gods )

( Luther/Casra I/Casra II stuff )

there were more things i wanted to add, but this took a lot longer to type out than I thought it would ~_~ I may make these kinds of headcanon posts semi-regularly if i can keep up with my regular fic writing.

Some weeks ago, a prominent Overwatch streamer, Seagull, released a video titled The State of Overwatch. This video touched upon several topics that had--and continue to be--discussed frequently by the player base over the past year, such as:

-Game balance after the introduction of Brigitte and the increasing dominance of tank/support heavy compositions;
-The ultimate "meta" essentially boiling down to "have more than the other team"
-General feeling of the matchmaker being inadequate, leading to games where teams have multiple players with identical/overlapping hero pools;
-The team nature of the game means that when your team is working well together you feel great, but if you're not you feel helpless and this contributes to toxicity and the urge to blame those around you;
-All of the above combining so that actually playing Overwatch becomes frustrating and unpleasant and ends with players leaving the game altogether

The reaction to the video has been mixed; there's widespread agreement that Overwatch isn't all that fun to play anymore, but no real consensus as to why these issues exist, or on what to do to address them. I'm no different; there are a lot of aspects of Overwatch design, balance, and approach to matchmaking/social features that have bugged me for a long time, some for years at this point, and now seems as good a time as any to voice them.

Sorry, this is going to get...whiny.

( Hero balance, why triple tank/triple support is strong, and why supports keep getting nerfed )

So a few days ago I got the Accomplice ending in P4G (super late to the party, I know) and I just do not know how to process all these feelings I am having.

word vomit about video game feels under the cut, major spoilers for Persona 4 Golden.

( fuck you, Adachi )

I FINALLY GOT AROUND TO DOING THIS. I hope it is not too confusing and/or unconvincing.

Cut for Magica Madoka spoilers, long-windedness

( Why Madoka is not a deconstruction of the Magical Girl genre )

You know what really dills my pickle?

Fanfiction writing guides.

What is it that possesses people to write these exercises in futility and uselessness? I swear, every single fic archive I've visited (with the exception of very large, multi-fan archives like ff.net and AO3) feels the need to provide a 'Fanfiction tips' page, usually written by the archive admin or one of its mods, usually with a focus on ideas that just don't work and some simple grammatical guidelines.

This bothers me to no end.

For one thing, nearly all of the grammar rules are listed are limited to the good ol' "Using the wrong your/you're" or "Using the the wrong they're/their/there" which, while helpful, is certainly not the end all of common grammatical errors commonly found in fanfic. I almost never see sections about proper subject/object pronoun use, even though it's just as common an error as the your/you're/they're/their/there confusion. Or there will be a part where the guide writer complains about comma abuse, but will only offer 'don't be afraid of using periods! :Db' as advice. Why not discuss other forms of punctuation, like semi-colons, colons, dashes, and so on? Or the different ways in which a sentence can be structured?

I suspect many of the guide writers don't have a particularly deep grasp on grammar rules in the first place, and harp on the obvious, easy to pick out and easy to correct mistakes because they are not confident about their own knowledge of other rules - or they are not aware of other rules in the first place, so they do not discuss them.

Most annoying of all, sometimes guide writers don't even mention how to correct a mistake. I have read at least two 'guides' that essentially said "Make sure you're using the right form of your/you're/they're/their/there" and THAT WAS IT. No follow up on methods writers can use to determine if they are using the correct word or not. HOW VERY HELPFUL.

Grammar fail aside, what really bothers me about these guides is the oh-so-useful 'how and what to write' sections. Oh, they're never titled 'How and What to Write,' and any guide of this sort is littered with "...but anything can be great if it's written well!" caveats, but let's be honest: for the most part, guide writers aren't writing a guide so much as an extended rant about genres or ideas they don't like.

(Kind of like this post. GO HYPOCRISY!)

Nearly every guide of this sort will 'warn' ficcers away from certain genres, namely crossovers and Mary Sues/Gary Stus/whatthefuckever they're calling poorly written original characters these days. This will be followed by an exhaustive list of why crossover suck (too absurd! confusing! nonsensical! too many plots at once!) and how to tell if your character is a Mary Sue. (purple-hued body parts that have no business being purple! names that sound like a bunch of gemstones scrambled together with fairy dust! can slice, dice and make julienne fries!)

Which...misses the point, somewhat. Knowing what aspects of a genre/character type people find most annoying can be useful, but a 'list of annoying things' is not particularly enlightening. Yes, crossovers are often absurd, confusing, and have too much going on at once, but so do a lot of other fics, in all genres - saying you should avoid the crossover genre completely isn't encouraging or helpful to someone who really, really wants to write a crossover.

As for original characters - frankly, making a list of superficial character traits and declaring that, if your character has none of these traits they are 'good' and some/all of these traits they are 'bad' is not helpful either. PROTIP: people don't like Mary Sues because they're boring and they make the characters around them boring - it's not because they are usually sparkly and lovely. It's not the purple eyes that are the problem, it's the fact that purple eyes are used as the equivalent of painting I'M SPECIAL!!! on your character's forehead. The Mary Sue guides treat the symptoms and not the causes, to make a clumsy metaphor.

These guides end up being counterproductive - they're generally too vague to be helpful, and their tendency to focus on what goes wrong with little attention to what one can do to improve leads people to second-guess themselves without giving them a way to fix their problems. It encourages people to stop writing what they want and what interests them, or to write fearfully. NOT COOL, INTERNETS.

TL;DR: If you are going to write a guide, people of the internets, take the time to write something truly useful, encouraging, and helpful, instead of writing a rant about common fanfic/amateur writing mistakes and labeling it a guide.

Have seen this being mentioned elsewhere, but:

There is a new fanfiction archive site, Archive of Our Own. Currently it's invitation only but right now, the site's in open beta so you can easily apply for an invite.

The site is run by fans for fans, and as a result there are not many restrictions on what sort of content can be posted. The management is also very communicative so if you come across problems or have questions about what you ought to be allowed to post you can speak with the people in charge directly.

It also allows users to import their work from other sites (as in, you can import stuff you've already posted to LJ to AO3, without having to reformat anything) and...actually there are lots of features that look really cool but i have no idea how they work yet because i've only been a user for an hour XD

BASICALLY: AO3 seems like a pretty neat fic site, and I encourage anyone who posts fic regularly (or irregularly...or at all...) to check it out and join if you like it!

plus i don't want to be all alone in posting fic about vaguely obscure/small video game fandoms... ^^;

my profile is here. I don't have anything up there yet, though. XD

i went to work this week! I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO GLAD TO CHANGE A CATHETER BAG.

but that's not what this post is about. it is about the WRITING PROCESS, mine, specifically, and as such it's probably WAY BORING for anyone who is not me. so, disregard, unless you really enjoy reading other people's thoughts on their silly fic writing...?

( judging your own writing )

ANYWAY. after that WAAAAAAMbulance ride, an old but still fun link as a cookie: Every Fanfic Ever Written

my favorite is the songfic. "I hurt people with my perceived depth." GOLD.

(also fun: finding out which fanfic you are writing OVER AND OVER. i am pretty sure everything i've done qualifies as "angstfest.")