Do or Do Not

Although there were a good deal of things I enjoyed about the new Avatar movie, the biggest reason I didn't love it as much as I wanted to because it passed up so many opportunities to develop its characters, and Sokka is the one I think who got done the dirtiest.

Like, come on, people! One of the main antagonists is a RADICAL GROUP OF NON-BENDERS! You don't think the only non-bender member of the Gaang (excluding Suki) would have something to say about what they're doing and how he feels about their cause?! Wouldn't he perhaps be at odds with the benders in the Gaang, probably because he feels more sympathetic about them due to being a nonbender himself and due to how he's been treated, like in the scene above?

And on top of that, wouldn't it have made for compelling conflict if Tagah offered to give him airbending with the staff and his friends and family debated what to do with Tagah's offer? And wouldn't it have made for a very heartwarming message if he chose not to give up being a non-bender because he's proud of it (just as I wouldn't want to give up being autistic)?

The world is oftentimes such an ugly place, but sometimes it can be so beautiful.

Like, when two choirs, one from Croatia and the other from Zimbabwe, met on the opposite sides of a Lisbon subway station and both sang to each other.

I unfortunately do not know what the Zimbabwe children choir sang to them (although it was so beautiful), but the Croatian klapa Kastav sang 'Kuća puna naroda' (a house full of people).

And let my reward be a house full of people, my life, give me a voice, so I can embrace you with songs.

Deannach Reference Sheet Wanted to redo the ref of my oldest sylvari character and whoops I made him more complex.

Super busy this week, and it’ll be a busy weekend too! Now we’re getting so close to the end, it always gets hectic!

I did edits this week for the previous chapter. But one of the love interest scenes wasn’t quite right. It just didn’t have the romantic vibe I wanted and was a bit too…intensely serious, lol! :D

I really loved the scene though, so I cut it and saved it for use somewhere else, or at least use the choice set or bits of it in other later scenes.

Then that meant I had to rewrite half of this scene I thought was complete, including a bunch of choice sets in it.

…Then I completely changed my mind, deleted the rewrite and put the first scene back in.

Then, you’ll never guess what…but I changed my mind again, cut out the serious scene, and rewrote it again, lol!

But it’s definitely better now! The vibe really hits just as I want it to for this moment, and the scene flows perfectly! I’m definitely leaving it alone, hehe! :D

After the fun of going back and forth on that, I also caught up with tester feedback, adding in their edits as well as adjusting and adding in choices where things felt needed, etc.

The next chunk of chapters are with them now for testing. My nervousness is really abating after their wonderful feedback too!

Once edits overall were done, I started working on the ending section. I wanted to go over them fully before starting to write, in case anything needed adjusting now the full story has been done, but amazingly no much needed to be changed! Which will make for smooth sailing there—well, except I realise I did need to add an extra ending into it to account for a certain variation during the story I hadn’t accounted for, lol.

But that now means I can make a start on the endings proper, which feels sooooo good!

Also, my editor’s hand has also been healing really well, so they’re back to editing!

It really is full steam ahead!! Phew! :D

Next week, I’ll be pushing on with writing!

Hope everyone has an amazing weekend! We’ll be offline as usual, so I’ll update you all again next week! <3

Super busy this week, and it’ll be a busy weekend too! Now we’re getting so close to the end, it always gets hectic!

I did edits this week for the previous chapter. But one of the love interest scenes wasn’t quite right. It just didn’t have the romantic vibe I wanted and was a bit too…intensely serious, lol! :D

I really loved the scene though, so I cut it and saved it for use somewhere else, or at least use the choice set or bits of it in other later scenes.

Then that meant I had to rewrite half of this scene I thought was complete, including a bunch of choice sets in it.

…Then I completely changed my mind, deleted the rewrite and put the first scene back in.

Then, you’ll never guess what…but I changed my mind again, cut out the serious scene, and rewrote it again, lol!

But it’s definitely better now! The vibe really hits just as I want it to for this moment, and the scene flows perfectly! I’m definitely leaving it alone, hehe! :D

After the fun of going back and forth on that, I also caught up with tester feedback, adding in their edits as well as adjusting and adding in choices where things felt needed, etc.

The next chunk of chapters are with them now for testing. My nervousness is really abating after their wonderful feedback too!

Once edits overall were done, I started working on the ending section. I wanted to go over them fully before starting to write, in case anything needed adjusting now the full story has been done, but amazingly no much needed to be changed! Which will make for smooth sailing there—well, except I realise I did need to add an extra ending into it to account for a certain variation during the story I hadn’t accounted for, lol.

But that now means I can make a start on the endings proper, which feels sooooo good!

Also, my editor’s hand has also been healing really well, so they’re back to editing!

It really is full steam ahead!! Phew! :D

Next week, I’ll be pushing on with writing!

Hope everyone has an amazing weekend! We’ll be offline as usual, so I’ll update you all again next week! <3