When should we start to worry if we didn't get our gift?
When we make the official announcement asking any who hasn’t gotten their present to let us know (this is not that announcement, we’ve more gifts queued to be posted). We’ve received many requests for extensions and have a couple pinch hits in the works- so not everyone will be getting a gift posted by today, but it will come within this month.
Don’t forget to check our Twitter also, there’s some twitter-only postings. Ditto for our AO3.
Just wanted to say thank you for the picture guide for the DAI ardent blossom crown. I couldn't find it for the life of me. Deeply appreciated.
Glad the guide was helpful! I remember back at DAI's launch, I discovered rumors of the quest and had to look up Youtube videos (since its second half gives you NO marker or clues). I figured logging y progress into steps would make for a handy guide- and heck, that STILL gets likes so hopefully maintains use. Thanks for letting me know! :D
10. What's your least favorite part about posting?
Well, as far as posting on SM/AO3, its definitely how quickly your brand new update, which you've been working on for days/weeks/who knows how long, quickly gets buried by other works' updates... and that feels bad for your hard work to disappear from the front page so fast. (but thems the breaks when a lil fandom becomes big/popular)
The other would be an absolute dearth of reaction, usually in the form of no comments, after a fresh post. That one always makes me just back away from the keyboard and recontemplate timesinks.
Hmm, I just saw you already answered that one ^^; the rule you refuse to break? If someone already asked this, you can pick the question you want to ask most ^^;
What aspect of writing have you had the most growth in?
Definitely in containing my wordiness/purple prose tendencies. I'm rather long winded when I get to writing, so I have to make an effort to, well, not be. Bridging The Sky was actually a really great exercise for this, because I limited myself to 3 scenes per chapter, thus it forced me to just time-skip/move-locations without GOING INTO the details of the characters doing whatever in-between. Forced me to trim a lot of fat and focus on the important/relevant beats.
Honestly, as a student who struggled with 'rules' when learning how to read (what is phonetics? I just brute-force memorize every word I know) I'm not sure if I really do adhere much to 'em. I've been told my writing is poetic, but unless I go out of my way to write spartanly (as leanly as possible) it's just how my thoughts operate.
for the meme
ALTHOUGH I've found one recent trend that's driving me up the wall!
Games, books, movies- they're all starting to apply male-oriented position titles to explicitly female characters, for seemingly no reason beyond editorial style. I notice it most with ruler positions: in FE3Houses Edelgard being "Emperor" in FE3Hopes Ingrid mentioning female Counts (rather than Countesses), A Thousand Steps Into Night introducing a trans!woman only to proceed to misgender her with every use of "priest", the live-action remake of Aladdin having Jasmin proclaim herself "Sultan" when the term Sultana exists.
I'm legitimately torn because on one hand gender and its expectations are a social construct, and they could be trying to break down assigned roles. ON THE OTHER- if you're going to get fucky with gendered terms, get FUCKY with it. Would Aladdin be the Sultana to Jasmin's Sultan? No? THEN WHY'RE YOU ASSUMING A FEMALE ORIENTED TITLE IS SUBSERVIENT TO THE POINT YOU REFUSE TO USE IT FOR THE ACTIVE RULER!? Like, fuck, treating Queens like they're lesser than Kings- down to assumptions for the titles -is some true bullshit!
Same baked in BS could be to assuming the one 'not' in control of a relationship is the 'wife' (and y'know, assuming there's not equality to both titles/gendered positions). What kind of half-assed patriarchal logic is this new editorial style operating under? Gender neutral titles exist, but defaulting to non-group application of the male term ain't it.
3. Something you wish a commenter had called attention to, but got ignored.
Hm, what comes immediately to mind is a trend I've noticed, that a lot of times commenters will comment on the action/scene at the end of a chapter. Aaaaaaand not much else, which if you put in anything meaty/significant earlier than that, can make you wonder if it was missed entirely.
I think all the lords have something good to offer, but it did always kinda bother me that AM's route was definitely the one that got the most time spent on it compared to the others, ESPECIALLY CF. I liked CF a lot, but you're right about it being ham-fisted; it was definitely underdeveloped. That route probably needed the most attention, considering it was tackling more morally gray topics than we see in the others. I wish they'd just cut out SS and focused on expanding VW and CF
With all the Faerghus content in White Clouds, it’d be hard for any of the other routes to match it in breadth of content. Because of it, flowing into AM’s post-war conflict feels natural and like an extension, rather than an abrupt shift. Whereas with the other two it is pretty abrupt, and the world of Fodlan itself feels like both the Adrestia and Leicester plain didn’t have as many battle maps laid out in them... despite VW taking the crown for most animated cutscenes.
Honestly I wish CF’s order of events wasn’t so Alt Universe. I wanted to see a Lorenz whose family sides with Adrestia and what he’d say if stuck on that side. Similarly why not go into that Kingdom canonically screwed over and divided by Cordelia? Edel can still kill her, but the way she’ll never have to reckon over the fact the Faerghus Dukedom is Adrestian imperialism is so ho-hum. I suppose I’d be more entertained if they’d knuckled down and made it a true villains route, they could even still spin facts to try and get me to sympathize, but having a bizarro alt verse where the war’s been at a stalemate cause BYLETH isn’t there is the dullest choice.
CF as a situation and the info it offers, I’m rather split on. Mostly because of the unreliable narrator and how the game seems to refuse to have an impartial narrator lay out facts beyond a handful or times. So it’s done things like make Rhea a controversial figure, and furthered Edelgard’s controversy. Which might’ve been interesting, except the way I’ve seen fans attack each other over stuff isn’t fun at all.
Memes and quotes, when they get inserting into setting that plain shouldn't know/have them, I get knocked out of the reading/world. It's also why I get highkey frustrated when game localization incorporates either, like it doesn't BELONG HERE!
Y: What are your thoughts on your personal satisfaction with something you’ve written vs. the popularity of your stories? Do you tend to be most satisfied with your most popular stories?
It can really depend, even if I just wait a little while to look back I'll see my writing rather fondly even with the lingering weaknesses. Where while writing it, it's hard to ignore the flaws. Popularity generally means more eyeballs on it, but it's a bit of a double-edged sword. Like I love getting comments/responses- it's so nice... but them on the flipside if I see that hit count's huge and get NOTHING, that's a bit demoralizing.
Z: Is there a story you’ve written that doesn’t seem to get much love?
I mean, I've written for some older games which seems to definitely impact the readerships, aka obscurity. Some of the hit counts are very dang low...but I admit, part of the reason (other than general writer's block) my motivation for updating Into A Walled Garden on a schedule was the shrinking response pool. It was a lot of work for what felt like diminishing returns. So that and IRL circumstance just sorta ground my progress for that story to a halt. It's weird to say this about what might've one time been my most popular fic, but maybe getting all that attention and losing it was detrimental. Kinda in part why I don’t hold myself to hard deadlines with fic these days, too much stress without enough reward.
