#salmonking

This is Manny.

The day someone finally figures out what the neon lines that run the length of Manny’s body actually are and what they do will be more memorable to me than any birthday I’ve ever had.

Hmm, well I've mentioned this before I think but my unpopular ishgard opinion is that the firmament is such a tonal shift from everything in ARR and HW about ishgard and I really didn't like it when the restoration stuff was going on. It's since grown on me because I do be crafting 24/7 when I'm on this game lmao and because of all the extra screen time we get of the Haillenarte kids and Charlemend, but it was really disappointing at the time just due to how different it is.

In ARR and HW, ishgard is portrayed as this really bleak, miserable city, where even the people doing good have blood on their hands-- Aymeric remarking about the things he had to do to become Lord Commander, and about how helping the Scions was advantageous for shielding Ishgard from the garlean invasion, or the way the false Guillaume throws all of his own murders back in Drillemont's face about how murderous the inquisition and ishgardian church are in the first place and people like Drillemont support that so unquestioningly. It's very much the sort of writing I love in fantasy stuff, like the ivalice FF games are rife with it as is asoiaf which former lead story writer Banri Oda has said was an inspiration for writing HW in the first place.

I know perhaps the point of the firmament is to show that these two (really three, I would count the heretics as their own faction) embittered groups have been able to move past centuries of war to rebuild and have a happier life, but given all that was going on in msq at the time too it just... didn't really feel appropriate? I mean there's dialog in the firmament quests about characters returning from the front line at Ghimlyt, the msq of that time is like.. we are facing a calamity and another large threat! But there's quests in the firmament like, let's turn our canons into fireworks makers because we don't need them for war anymore 🙃

Sounds like a combo of shitty recipe and overbaking. You may have overmixed the dough as well if the cookies are tough – really once you add the flour you should stir until the ingredients are just combined. I’d try a new recipe and bake at a lower temperature for a longer time, pulling the cookies out when the outside edges have just set and the middles are still gooey (if you enjoy doughy cookies like the average redblooded American bakery patron).

salmonking replied to your post: GIVE ME ADVICE ABOUT HOW TO BAKE COOKIES PLS

PS: cakey consistency can mean too much raising agent or not enough butter/fat! Like I said, recipe would be my first culprit there. Sometimes they just aren’t as good as they look on the blog.

From this ask game. 💜

🍐 Do you listen to music when you write? If yes, what kind? If no, why not?

I listen to music pretty much 24/7 to be honest so it'd be weirder if I wasn't listening to music while I write, lmao. I wish I could say that I have dozens of carefully-curated playlists to set certain moods and aid my creativity but I don't; what I have is one enormous 285-hour playlist that contains every track on my harddrive rated 4 stars or above, a collection that's been accumulating since MP3s became widely available and internet connections were good enough to make downloading them feasibly possible without bankrupting yourself.

You might imagine how this collection, when shuffled as it usually is when I'm playing music, can cause intense emotional whiplash if my computer is feeling malicious. :')

🍇 What’s something that you struggle with as a writer?

I feel like I'm not creative enough, or original enough, really. I see the ideas that other people come up with and wonder where the fuck they get them from constantly, or how they can churn stuff out in response to prompts so quickly and easily, or how they can come up with such compelling shit that it garners hundreds of thousands of notes on this poxy fucking website while I can pour my heart and soul into my original works and barely get three people to look at them.

I mean, not that I'm bitter or anything, obviously.

A lot of it is the ADHD, I think. People have this stupid idea, probably from seeing how many Popular Content Creators™ have ADHD, that having ADHD makes you more creative or something, but it really doesn't. All it does is fill your head with irrelevant shit and make it so much harder for you to sit down and think of anything that doesn't fall into your lap by accident. I wish I could just sit down and think of a new idea or a new story or something, but I can't, and it's miserable.