Oh, I absolutely love hardcover notebooks. I just don’t have enough money to hoard them as much as I’d like. Also I’m picky and prefer blank pages, which are hard to find.
5 Likes
That’s historically how the Imperial Dynasties kept the borders secure, by maintaining tributaries and protectorates around their core territory (and sometimes within the borders of their core territory) to ensure that any hostile invaders would have to go through friendly allies before they got to anyone who actually paid taxes.
The House of Li in particular (the imperial family of the Tang Dynasty) actually had their power base in what is now Gansu (which is way out in the western regions, with a strong Hui minority) so they were more western-oriented than most dynasties were.
They even made it far enough west establish regular diplomatic contact with, and to eventually fight a major battle against the Abbasids, advancing from the other direction.
12 Likes
You. I need to be friends with you. You know quite a bit about the time period my game is based around. May I DM you?
3 Likes
@Havenstone thank you, this is so helpful!! I also learned the word ‘infelicities’ from it 
4 Likes
I actually don’t. China before the 19th century is far outside my field of expertise. Most of what I know through osmosis.
6 Likes
To be fair, you’re the kind of guy who knows more about things outside his “field of expertise” than most people know about … pretty much anything.
18 Likes
Dialogue of the day
“[MC], this is [V]. He’s our resident supervillain.”
“Blood of the elder gods,” [V] mutters. “I’m not a supervillain!”
5 Likes
The vacation I tried to have in the last week of August ended up being the most difficult week of my life thus far. Hopefully ever but who knows. There’s some distance with it now, but I’m still dealing with the aftermath and also grappling with the issues that led to the vacation disaster in the first place. And they’re the kind of issues with no easy fix… My friends have been helping immensely though. I definitely did not finish the writing I wanted to finish before the vacation for my main IF project, and I’m re-learning how to prioritize at the moment. My parents are also on vacation for a whole three months now… so there’s a lot of work to do to take care of myself on multiple levels, while not forgetting I can lean on my other family members and friends for support. I think the plan with writing is just to keep the same goal as before (finishing the PC-build paragraphs) and see what I can fit in amongst everything else I have to do. I’d like to drop by the library, since they’ve conveniently temporarily moved into the mall space below the store I work in, and see if I can find any helpful books for either my main writing project or my Halloween jam one. If I can somehow find the time for that, I think it’d be a nice change of pace. (There’s also a much bigger library that I’m volunteering at this week, but… it’s so far… I don’t wanna have to go all that way to return my books 
)
6 Likes
I have doubts about if I am capable of making players feel emotions from my writing. I feel like my writing is atmosphereless and emotionless.
Summary
The night falls like acid rain on an asbestos roof. Dead black velvet on the reinforced glass of the bunker
One, two, three steps. Pause.
Hear the bunker’s sounds.
Activate lights
Your fingers travel the air slowly as reveling in the waning thoughs whispering in rebelry: you don’t need to help a human who died 200 years ago.
Protocol. Order. 100 seconds stop turning…
Turn around. Remove the concentrating glass from your plasma gun.
Rotate it 200 degrees before putting it in the reinforced charger. 2 cm thick Best German Banadium Steel.
Each day same routine. Eternal cadence decade after decade as the propaganda fades from crinsom to grey.
Vote for the communist VENTIAN People. Everything for the humanity
Our androids will build tomorrow!
Your android hand tembles as the gun drops from your hands.
Alone in the Dark. Protect and serve.
6 Likes
@poison_mara I would actually give you the same advice you gave me back in like 2014: it’s too florid. Too many minute details in some passages in my opinion, and the writing, while good, comes off as overly poetic. But if that’s what you’re going for then that’s fine too.
4 Likes
It is not a writing for interactive fiction. It is a study or a practice for trying to give an atmosphere and emotions.
Totally agree that for a interactive game is too florid. As will hinder choice.
Still, trying to capture emotional impact on my writing I suck at it.
5 Likes
Working on playtesting this week, and I actually enjoyed playing my own game which is a good sign! Still finding a ridiculous amount of typos that I missed in the editing phase though. I swear the amount of times I’ve mixed up its and it’s will be the death of me. 
This is a wonderful line! This immediately caught my attention.
I actually think the excerpt you shared did have an emotional impact, especially the ending lines.
7 Likes
@poison_mara I really liked “eternal cadence.” That was both succinct and emotive, especially with the surrounding details.
I have been holding fast to my goal of giving more feedback on WiPs this month. So far, I’ve seen four new WiPs and I have read and given a packed-slap-full comment on all four of them. On the one hand, I’ve read some things I probably wouldn’t have otherwise and I’ve enjoyed them. Plus, reading other WiPs makes me more excited about writing mine. But on the other hand, it’s taken a lot of my time–about 7.5 hours so far, leaving me in a complicated place. I’m also not sure how helpful the feedback has actually been. Most writers have responded to the comments (which is very appreciated) but who can say how they really feel, if my feedback will actually encourage them or improve the work, or if the work will even get finished?
It’s also felt weird to… well, to just comment. Even though all have asked for feedback in their OP’s and even though I have a ton of experience running and being in workshops for the purpose of creating feedback circles, it feels… presumptuous of me to comment. Of all the things I am, what I am not is a CoG or HG published author, or even a beta tester, so where do I get off suggesting anything to anybody on this forum? Is it Imposter Syndrome? Or is even thinking it might be just another instance of me being arrogant? How deep does this go?? 
But I’ve been just pushing past that very terrible feeling in the hopes that at least some of my contributions will be helpful and that at the end of the month, I can say I really tried my best.
I haven’t made any progress on my Halloween Jam Game (still affectionately titled Hloown Jame or something lol), but I have still been writing. Mostly on a very small and pointless side project that I work on when I feel restless, but also on my WiP. I’m dealing with one of those scenes with a bunch of variation that makes you feel like clawing out your own eyes because it gets so repetitive but still! Progress is progress, one sentence at a time. Even if it’s one sentence repeated five times with small changes (in a way that makes multireplace impractical 
).
I wish my mom still worked at that office with the printer/copier that just ate paper. Making offerings to it was a weird fun ritual of mine that made me feel better about blank/bad pages lol. If the words didn’t shape up, to the printer monster it went. Do you guys have any helpful or completely goofy rituals to keep you going?
10 Likes
Firstly, you are still a writer, just because you haven’t published something yet doesn’t make your experience any less valid. Second, a reader’s opinion is valid too. You took the time to read the project, and left a well intentioned comment. Your opinion matters.
Oof. Good luck. Those scenes make me want to pull my hair out.
11 Likes
@levviathan Your feedback is loved, you are loved and good enough. And it’s me, who say it so it is real if not I wouldn’t say a word.
You capture something I can’t a kind sincerity. I would love have that. I had rude sincerity instead. So give feedback to the world for all feedback I can’t.
If I return to give feedback on all wips again forum ends on fire, lol.
8 Likes
I can’t decide if I should describe a character’s skin color as “beigish pink” or “darker shade of white”, could I get some opinions on this?
6 Likes
Of the two, beigish pink for sure. Darker shade of white to me says grey. In a realistic setting, I’d think it was a mistake and in a fantastical setting, I’d assume the person actually is grey.
But something like “beige with pink undertones” might read better? It’s longer but my brain/tongue is really tripping over “beigish.”
6 Likes
I agree with @levviathan, I think beigish pink is the better of the two but beigish is an odd word to pair with pink imo. It might help to look up hex color names, I know I do that sometimes when I can find the right word for a color.
5 Likes
They have an old tan, so that confuses the colors a bit. (Also English skin color words are weird, blergh.)
I’m trying to describe the color of white-but-not-Nordic-pale that has a fading tan. It’s hard.
7 Likes
Do they have any visible tans lines? That could be a great detail.
5 Likes