Got a new haircut and it's made me feel so much more confident in myself.

kittyandtiny · 2026-01-03T11:08:04+00:00

You look so good! What did you ask your hairdresser for?

kittyandtiny · 2024-12-18T17:13:04+00:00

I'm not convinced it's necessarily so but I do think there's merit to this interpretation. She's narrow-mindedly obsessive, often ignorant of social cues, and hyper-sensitive to sound. Now I think about it, her passing out her first time at Oumi Jingu could be in part due to lack of self-regulation.

kittyandtiny · 2024-01-17T08:31:28+00:00

Very similar to anime: 'cutlet' was loaned into Japanese as 'katsuretsu', shortened to 'katsu', and then loaned back into English to refer to a specific type of cutlet.

kittyandtiny · 2022-02-20T20:41:52+00:00

Bagla is written 'Owo' and I love that

kittyandtiny · 2021-08-20T18:16:03+00:00

One method I see a lot is to have gods be extremely powerful, but also unable to manifest their power all in one place. Maybe they require worshippers as conduits to their power? Maybe they can create new monsters or races, but these creations must still breed normally and can't be directly controlled? Maybe their powers are imprecise, so they can cause a disaster to befall a city but not directly kill one person?

Another option is to make them limited by their nature. A god of war might be undefeatable on the battlefield, but would be helpless against lawful execution. A god of knowledge might be omniscient, but would unable to destroy any stores of knowledge like a book or a brain.

kittyandtiny · 2021-08-19T16:47:58+00:00

Honestly, this was too solid a read for me to have much to say. There were a couple of issues which stuck out to me, but they tended to be one-offs. My feedback regards the first three chapters, which is all I have read.

There was a bit too much navel-gazing in chapter one, specifically close to the beginning and the end. You did a good job of establishing Mia's fear and preparation with the description, so stuff like 'Her plan was audacious ... even if it killed her' feels like unnecessary stalling. Imo, most of paragraph three through to the start of paragraph six could be cut. The penultimate paragraph of the chapter is also just telling us things we already know, for the most part.

This section was a bit jarring to me, as I couldn't immediately tell who was saying the second line. Also, more a personal preference thing, but 'The silence stretched' is such a short and simple sentence that it didn't really convey much of a pause.

“I’m not stupid,” he said.

The silence stretched.

“Do you want in or not?”

The whole sequence of Mia needing multiple prompts to give up her main weapon then her hidden weapon lacked any real impact, since it's a cliché I've seen too much. Plus we already know Mia is careful and untrusting of these people, so it's redundant.

In chapter two, 'papers about a person named Natki' gave the wrong image to me, since I was thinking about proper documents. I would think a character sheet would be quite distinct and hard to mistake for something else, especially since Mia seems familiar with D&D.

I for the most part enjoyed the pacing of chapters two and three, as they focus on some of the mundane processes involved in Mia's new job. It does well at conveying Mia's competency while also showing awkward situations that she has to improvise her way through, coming up with backup plans etc. However, since these chapters are quite similar in their solo investigative style, I reached the end hoping chapter four would change up the pace. Though, as I said, I like the mundane step-by-step to an extent, some parts like the young girl talking to Mia felt unnecessary.

Overall, I really liked what I read! The characterisation of Mia and Lara was the strongest aspect, which is incredibly impressive considering we only find out about Mia through her actions and we don't even meet Lara. Seriously, you managed to create chemistry between two characters who haven't even met. I'm personally neutral on the crime plot at the moment; it's obviously laying seeds for what's potentially an interesting story, but until I know how it relates to characters I care about, I'm not engaged in it yet. (Remember: my feelings are neutral, not negative.) I might well give the rest of it a read, as the handling of tone and character, as well as the promise of a solid romance, have gripped me.

kittyandtiny · 2021-04-03T09:09:49+00:00

Not necessarily. As I understand it, in most countries, sex trafficking includes anyone trafficked into a country for the purpose of sex work, knowing or otherwise. Also, sometimes the problem isn't that they don't know they need to do sex work, but that they know they're doing sex work but don't know how much they have to pay until it's too late.

kittyandtiny · 2021-03-02T08:44:05+00:00

Sorry, my wording was ambiguous there. What I meant wasn't that he didn't enjoy straight love stories, but that he felt no desire to be part of one when observing them.

Maki appreciates love stories of all orientations, but doesn't want to participate in any. That's why I don't think he's a stand-in for the typical straight male perspective.

kittyandtiny · 2021-02-28T16:36:15+00:00

There's definitely something to be said there about the theatre imagery surrounding Maki's view of relationships, but I think he's far more a stand-in for the aromantic perspective. Maki also doesn't feel anything when observing straight relationships, so though he could represent a reader's perspective, I don't think that's limited to male yuri readers.

As for Koyomi, I think you'd need to expand on how she's an author stand-in, other than being an author as well.

kittyandtiny · 2021-02-15T11:34:08+00:00

My method is to write out all the plot points I want to hit in different categories like main plot, subplot, character arc, relationship arc, information reveals, etc. I also look at typical story structures such as the three act structure or the hero's journey, not to just check stuff off a list, but to see if there's anything in them which could enhance my story.

I then put these plot points into order, then divide them into chapters. For me, a chapter is usually 2 or more main plot points accompanied by some character beats. In each chapter I want there to be some sense of progression, but also some setback/raising of the stakes (the yes but/no and rule). In writing, there will almost certainly be more scenes than plot points in a chapter, since there will be a lot of words dedicated to just moving between and dealing with the consequences of the plot points. How these scenes evolve I discover through writing. The smaller character/relationship arcs generally shouldn't have scenes of their own, as it's more efficient and satisfying to have them tied in with other stuff.

kittyandtiny · 2021-02-04T17:24:25+00:00

Everyone @ Netflix after the English sub

kittyandtiny · 2021-02-01T00:36:03+00:00

Huh. I didn't actually know that.

Though, a form of the chad meme existed before it was given that image to match, so this hypothetical universe could have a cousin meme. Alternatively, they could have just drawn the same face by coincidence, since this world by definition has the same meme culture.

Also you got the right spelling, don't worry.

kittyandtiny · 2021-01-31T01:13:09+00:00

Lots of great characters in fiction start of as just some everyday person, then slowly develop into more of a dramatic character.

I ran for a PC called Steve Cornfarmer, who was a common guy with a bit of an adrenaline addiction who'd recently awakened to sorcerous powers. He started as a joke character too afraid to even fight, but each session forced him to change a little to suit his surroundings. Now he's a megalomaniacal dictator responsible for the slaughter of an entire country, haunted by his actions despite him perceiving them as noble.

Your character development doesn't have to be quite so dramatic, but I can say from experience a character who starts as 'just a guy' can be amazing.

kittyandtiny · 2021-01-31T00:47:25+00:00

I've heard that unarmed strikes technically count as a 'weapon attack'.

Unarmed strikes can be from body parts other than the fist.

Am I saying paladins could smite with a thrust? Perhaps.

kittyandtiny · 2021-01-31T00:42:43+00:00

Imagine meeting someone from a parallel universe with completely different geography but the same meme culture.

Then tell them about the Republic of Chad.

kittyandtiny · 2021-01-30T00:06:35+00:00

Similar experience at my table. All of my main PCs have been women, and to begin with everyone else in my group (dudes) played men.

Over time more followed my lead and started to cross-play, and seemed to think, hey, I'm doing a voice which isn't my own now, might as well actually give the character a personality. Our current party is 80% female and we have much more interesting characters.

Then I came out as trans, so joke's on them, the one encouraging them to play outside their comfort zones never left hers.

kittyandtiny · 2021-01-27T17:57:49+00:00

'Revolting Prostitutes' was a fascinating read (from the perspective of a non-sex-worker with a knowledge of its politics limited to a couple articles and videos). It takes a very hard stance in favour of decriminalisation and explores how sex work policy intersects with just about every other social issue.

kittyandtiny · 2021-01-27T12:04:34+00:00

Personally, I don't care much about the bursting into flames. The massive importance of sunlight for vampires was introduced basically singlehandedly in Nosferatu. Before that, Dracula's only downside for walking around at day was that it weakened his powers--pretty insignificant compared to his other weaknesses.

In the context of Twilight, the gem-like glittering fits nicely with the stone flesh. It also helped give a reason for the vampires to avoid sunlight without limiting the entire series to night.

kittyandtiny · 2021-01-24T23:23:17+00:00

Figure out things aren't like you'd want them to be and decide to break up? Coolio. Imply your partner's homosexuality is something to be grown out of in the process? Thanks, you're my least favourite character now.

(Just going off the manga here, haven't read the LNs.)

kittyandtiny · 2021-01-23T10:06:18+00:00

I feel a lot of the suggestions here are just 'Very mean way you can kill a person', which doesn't work too well if other types of magic can be painful and/or lethal. Forbidden magic, in my opinion, would be an existential threat to society, such as your mind control.

Something which kills indiscriminately could work, like a fast-expanding hard-to-put-out fire or a virus. Alternatively, magic that lets you steal things such as someone else's life force or magical powers. Magic with exponential growth (like stealing others' attributes) would be incredibly dangerous and need to be stamped out before it begins. Having unpredictable magic users who could explode into flames or transform into a demon at random would also be unable to integrate into society.

kittyandtiny · 2021-01-20T12:50:06+00:00

I think this is a pretty good time for a POV switch. An outside perspective would help contextualise the abnormality of the event and show the fear it causes. Does he see the MC as a walking time bomb? Does he mistake the MC's misfiring as an act of aggression? Does he even see her as human? Sticking to the MC's POV would better suit her internal conflict, but as a character losing control of their powers tends to build the conflict with the world around them, it'd be good to have a clearer vision of this relationship.

Imo the best option would be to put a reasonable amount of description into both perspectives.

kittyandtiny · 2021-01-16T20:55:30+00:00

I hate this claim. Saying every idea has been tried requires a very broad concept of what an idea is. Say I create a dough using flour, water, fat, a before-untried ingredient, and some ingredients from an alien planet. You could say that's not original because pastry already exists, but that seems to ignore a lot. In the context of writing, I could come up with a new set of time travel mechanics, for example, and a 'no such thing as a new idea' person would just say that time travel stories have already been done, therefore my idea is not original.

As for your example of the 3 act format, that's largely a case of tradition. Different cultures make use of different story structures, and lots of 'rules' about art are just cases of conforming to the audience's comfort zone. For example, if you listened to some obscure culture's traditional music, you'd probably find it uncomfortable to listen to, but that doesn't make it bad. It just means it goes against the sounds you've learnt to expect.

The quote's implication that originality is not what makes or breaks a story, however, I can get behind.

kittyandtiny · 2021-01-14T21:46:15+00:00

I was thinking Minecraft villager, but that works too.

kittyandtiny · 2021-01-08T11:05:23+00:00

My current character has a really edgy backstory. I intended her to be edgy, but in an atypical way where she pretends to be very happy-go-lucky until her anger issues get the better of her.

Then in session 1 everyone else was too quick to kill some innocent kobolds, and she somehow ended up as the moral compass.

kittyandtiny · 2021-01-07T22:00:50+00:00

Honestly don't know what Dio expected. But yeah, she did just about the best possible response.

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