The Cracked Mug v 2.0

[erikavonkaiser]

furiously Googling "is there an Elden Ring ending that doesn't involve supporting someone who is an absolute motherfucker"

[erikavonkaiser]

furiously Googling "is there an Elden Ring ending that doesn't involve supporting someone who is an absolute motherfucker"

I was down with Fia's ending until she started fuckin' with my boy D for no reason

[erikavonkaiser]

putting D and Fia in this

68e2af9fdb521ab854cb89ab17b8b726-1.jpg

[erikavonkaiser]

It's my Friday equivalent!

Every three months my "weekend" at work changes, so right now I'm swapping to Wed/Thurs for a bit. I actually don't mind it; it's good for getting errands and whatnot done, and for going to the dog beach when it's not as busy, etc. Plus the Uptown farmer's market is actually open Wednesday afternoon/evening, so the timing works out well for that. And thankfully my friend group was willing to move D&D night to what is, for all of them, a weeknight, so that's exciting!

Tomorrow I have some time scheduled to spend long distance with Sophie and then the day after is my Errands Day (I put off doing them last weekend since I remembered I would have a more convenient weekend right around the corner). Aside from that I'm hoping for a chill time! Gonna try to enjoy the weather, play some more Elden Ring, and work on some writing. I'd like to work on some kind of art, too, since it's been a bit. I hit a wall again where I was frustrated at my skill level, so I need to get back at it because those sorts of walls do not go away otherwise.

I think that's it, for now. Yesterday at work was busy, today as soon as I get to work I immediately have to drive an hour in heavy traffic to pick up histo slides from Lutheran General Hospital. Cool, love that. Non-sarcastically do love the new offices so much, though, it's been heaps nicer on my brain to have more physical space between me and these level five trauma-dumping clingers my coworkers.

Okay I've just been letting this tab sit open while I space out and refresh internet feeds so let me break the brain static loop and go clean the kitchen

[erikavonkaiser]

I'm seeing the outskirts of discourse about genre terminology and specifically about [thing]punk on my feed, which means outside my feed there must be excruciating terminally online 17 part twitter threads going on about it and,

1) thank god I'm not seeing the latter

2) I do wanna muse about this one a bit

For starters I'm gonna be old man yelling at cloud hours and I do think a lot of [thing]punk is just kinda dumb (sorry, hopepunk, I definitely mean you). This isn't a crime! This part actually isn't even a criticism, it's just like, my opinion, man. Call your aesthetics whatever buzzwords you want. Back in my day we just had Pinterest mood boards but, you know. Go ham.

But!

I have been frustrated in seeing more and more people describe books (& other media) not by genre, but by aesthetic. "Hopepunk" doesn't really tell me anything valuable. It tells me what the media is not, I suppose. It's not, uh, "grimdark," but that doesn't actually define any themes or lay out any expectation of tropes. And normally I'd argue aesthetic vs genre vs vibes vs whatever is semantics and arguing semantics is for cowards, but in this case losing the distinction is frankly making it fucking annoying to have any form of media recommended or described to me. "It's found family dark academia" what the FUCK does that mean???? "It's queer solarpunk" that is word salad what is your story ABOUT???

I need more than the aesthetic! Tell me it's a solarpunk romance about a prince and his knight, or a hopepunk western about revenge and found family, and I might cringe a little but like, I'll get it, you know? That tells me what I'm in for and what it is you're trying to get across.

Y'all need to use your words.

[knightofcups]

"It's found family dark academia" what the FUCK does that mean???? "It's queer solarpunk" that is word salad what is your story ABOUT???

I need more than the aesthetic! Tell me it's a solarpunk romance about a prince and his knight, or a hopepunk western about revenge and found family, and I might cringe a little but like, I'll get it, you know?

YES. Oh my god. This. Yes.

I feel a lot get-off-my-lawn, but I hate the adding of -punk or -core to... EVERYfuckingthing. But I can deal in general, have fun. But tell me what your damn story is about.

[erikavonkaiser]

This complaint brought to you by struggles I am too lazy to detail, but: bluetooth keyboards are the devil

[erikavonkaiser]

YES. Oh my god. This. Yes.

I feel a lot get-off-my-lawn, but I hate the adding of -punk or -core to... EVERYfuckingthing. But I can deal in general, have fun. But tell me what your damn story is about.

I had that thought a lot when I helped go through BSFF pitches, actually! I even saw where there was some pushback from people feeling anxiety/pressure/bad brain/etc to do an "elevator pitch" and I get not wanting to condense your darling into palatable capitalism soup but,

idk I do kind of expect you to be able to tell me at least what kind of story you want to tell, I feel like 80% of my feedback on those pitches was "this sounds very interesting and cool but what is your story ABOUT"

[knightofcups]

Yeah.

Being able to write a good elevator pitch is a skill, and not necessarily one everyone who can write a good ep have, so I wouldn't cut someone from something just because they couldn't.

BUT

You need to be able to give me a concise "this is basically what the story is about" or I will think you don't know what you want to write.

I tried really hard for the BSFF pitches to make it clear we didn't need something that was GENIUS as a pitch, but we /did/ need a basic summary, and yeah, I /did/ tend to downvote people who couldn't give at least something approaching a summary.

I don't know if this is something related to how content creation is done now? Or... I honestly don't know. But I want to know about your story, and if you (general you) can't give me a good taste of it, I'm going to doubt your ability to execute a coherent, cohesive narrative.

[erikavonkaiser]

I don't know if this is something related to how content creation is done now?

I've wondered this! If maybe it's looking at it as creating content vs. storytelling in the first place?