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fountainpenguin · 1 year

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FOP Fic News

Overview

I’ve always had table of contents docs for projects like Origin and Knots, and since I’m returning from hiatus, I recently moved them to a spreadsheet and mapped out what dates I should plan to upload chapters on and how long it will take me to finish these stories. I went through lots of docs with a critical eye and combined or cut chapters to get a better idea of how things are looking.

Posting at my current schedule of one chapter every other week, it looks like Origin and Knots will come to an end in 2025 (if I stay on top of my buffer) and although that feels so far away, there’s a certain relief in it since my combining and cutting helped me bring that down from 2026.

That schedule doesn’t leave wiggle room for other projects like Come What May, the 130 Prompts, and work for my other fandoms that I’ve been drafting over the years. I don’t really like the idea that if I wrap up Origin and Knots in 2.5 years, I’ll still have another several years of Prompts left to go. I always knew these were big projects and working on them made the long years of school more fun, but it’s always been my intention to finish them, and I’d rather do that sooner than later. After all, I’m still sitting on pieces I wrote in 2016 about Cavatina, and 2026 isn’t as far away as it seems... The idea that the 10-year anniversary of his arc might hit before I actually post it leaves me shook, my dude.

I’ve given it some thought and realized that if I post 130 Prompts on the weeks between Origin and Knots chapters, I can wrap the series up in 2026, maybe 2027. I can live with that a lot more than I can live with the idea of working on this project past 2030, ha ha.

In other words, I’m setting a goal of a ‘fic update every Friday, starting soon (I’ve got the next Prompt done, but I’m sitting on it for a sec to build the buffer out farther). There might be some Fridays where there’s nothing, but keep your eyes out for things that interest you. I hope you enjoy :)

130 Prompt Details

So, many of you are probably familiar with my FOP one-shot series, 130 Reasons Why I’m Fairy Trash. I've had all the 130 Prompts planned out for years, but I lost interest in some of those plans as time went on (Not the big plot stuff, that's still the same, but some minor standalones).

I recently went through my docs to refresh my memory on what’s to come. I had some vague ideas that I never fleshed out and realized that I never will, so I’ve scrapped those. I also had stuff I scrapped years ago, but fell in love with the drafts all over again and am eager to see them finished off.

In 2022, I took an FOP and Tumblr hiatus to focus on other things like my IRL job and personal projects, and I couldn’t maintain the spark of inspiration for FOP at the same time. Mostly, the reason for that was just that I was busy and was putting my time and creative energy into other projects, and I simply didn’t have time for both. I didn’t realize until now, but I think I also felt pressure to create something big and meaningful with what I submitted, and I became paralyzed with thoughts of putting out something “boring” or “weird” and facing critique that my work was confusing or unenjoyable.

Anyway, while recently looking through my WIPs, I remembered the 130 Prompts were always meant to be a series of short side stories and that there’s nothing wrong with dorky little one-offs. I don’t need to put pressure on myself to turn everything into a polished 10k+ story when just a few thousand words will do, or overthink the humor and flow to the point I talk myself out of doing something.

I spent some time a bit ago looking over my stuff and making a new plan for the order I want to post things in, and it feels much more achievable to me now. I’m excited to get back to it. Hoping to post some dumb and silly things more often because “I had an idea and it made me laugh” is valid.

Stuff Getting Scrapped / Kept

I’ve realized that I’m not going to write Identity Theft and Acacia Arcadia as standalone ‘fics. I scrapped some scenes and the rest will be recycled into 130 Prompts to replace the ones I cut. I’ve set my plan up so that the next Prompts in line are ones that have solid drafts and I’m excited to work on, so I’m hoping to get on a regular posting schedule with those soon, alternating weeks with Origin and Knots.

Hawthorn Haven and Devil’s Backbone will prrrobably still exist as their own ‘fics someday when the time is right, as when I first made their outlines, I was already prepared to work on them “when I’m older.” I don’t feel the same pressure to finish them. I’m still looking forward to them, but they’re in “Can’t talk about these things until we’re in that point of the timeline” jail. I’ve always intended for Devil’s Backbone to be the end of my FOP writing days, so it’s on the backburner for obvious reasons, but when the time does come to close out all the stories and wonderful worldbuilding, I hope it’ll be a blast.

I do still have a draft for a ‘fic called Along the Cherry Lane which focuses on Timmy and his friends growing up, marrying, having kids, etc. but that’s on the backburner for now too. I’m not sure if I want to keep it, but also not ready to let it go. If I do let it go, I’ll find a place for the scenes I liked within the Prompts or I’ll post one or two one-shots instead of the whole ‘fic. I do intend to get back to Come What May once I get the spark back for it and I might even return to Snips and Snails... who knows.

Tl;dr

I still have several years of FOP content that I plan to release, as I’ve never wanted to abandon these stories I love. I knew I was starting big projects and I knew they would take me years to finish, but as my 10-year anniversary of writing FOP ‘fics creeps nearer and nearer... Yeah, there’s a certain part of me that's ready to jump back into a schedule and see if I can wrap up all three of these big projects by the time I hit that mark. Crazy how it’s been so long.

Currently I have an Origin / Knots ‘fic buffer through the end of June. We’re entering the phase of the story where the drafts are pretty solid, which means they hopefully won’t take long to polish. Exciting!

The Schedule

Throughout 2023, you can expect Origin and Knots to alternate weeks. These two ‘fics are main priority in my ‘fic-writing life, so they get buffer priority and I intend to keep up with this goal as best I can. If all goes according to plan, we should be wrapping up towards the end of 2025. I hope to see y’all there :)

I’ll be sprinkling in updates to other projects throughout the “off” weeks. Sometimes there might be no update at all, and I’m okay with that because the “off” weeks are simply meant to be “If there is something, it can be shared” weeks. I’m not holding myself to posting at those times in the same way I’m holding myself to keeping Origin and Knots on schedule, but I look forward to getting to share some fun things like 130 Prompts, more Come What May chapters, miscellaneous one-shots, and content for other fandoms.

Even if I stay consistent, I definitely don’t expect to wrap up the 130 Prompts until 2026 or 2027, and that’s okay. These next few years will be busy, but I’m looking forward to forming a healthy work-life balance- there’s a certain value that a scheduled writing system has in helping you look forward to the next creation you get to share... It makes the work week a little bit nicer.

Closing

As a reader, your interest in silly fairy fanfics might come and go, but thank you so much to those who’ve loved my work over the years, reblogged posts, left reviews, sent Asks, chatted with me, and so much more.

Also, thank you to those who’ve left me kudos on AO3. I still get emails every time there are kudos, and while I don’t track how many kudos my little stories receive in this old, quiet fandom, it is really cool to see how much love has been given to some of the short pieces I wrote 6 or 7 years ago.

As the years have gone by, it’s been a good reminder that people have really liked some of those pieces that I don’t think about as often as my longer stuff. I don’t need to psych myself out worrying that my quick one-shots aren’t good enough... I’m looking forward to posting some short things again soon.

Thank you for the love and support! I hope you enjoy what’s next <3

#ridwriting #FAIRIES!#130 Prompts #Origin of the Pixies #Frayed Knots #99% true as far as we remember #Come What May

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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New pet peeve: "You can't criticize the story of an episode, because a later unreleased episode might justify it. But you can still praise the story of an episode even though, by the same metric, a later unreleased episode could retroactively make it worse."

Oh yeah, that one has been a pet peeve of mine for RWBY going on three years now lol. And it's not an entirely baseless stance. Audiences aren't wrong for picking up on cues (deliberate or otherwise), recognizing that this is an ongoing series, and concluding that this will be developed further — potentially for the better. Don't slam the show for not doing X when X needs the rest of the season (or even multiple seasons) to come about/develop. The problem is that a) the fans pushing this perspective likewise tend to ignore RWBY's history of dropping plot threads rather than just slowly unfurling them — making that perspective appear less and less reasonable the longer time goes on — and b) they're applying it to situations that have already messed things up.

Let's take two examples. Example #1 is Penny getting her human body. Putting aside for the moment the thematic issues with that, fans weren't wrong to say, "Wait and see." At the time of "Creation" none of us had any idea what might come of this change. Whether this would lead to a new and exciting arc for her, whether all our questions would be answered... or whether this potential would get dropped along with so much else. Though there's still plenty else to criticize in the episode, specifically criticizing RWBY for not doing more with Penny's change is silly because then and there the story only had 20 minutes we had no idea what might happen in the following episodes. The fact that they didn't do anything with Penny, just killing her off again, is beside the point. The potential did exist and fans aren't wrong to praise potential for being potential. A well-written story doesn't smooth every edge, answer every question, and wrap up every arc in the span of a single episode. It wouldn't be a long-form story if it did.

However, Example #2 is Emerald joining the group, wherein fans say "Wait and see" regarding her redemption. Problem is... that arc is done. We saw it. The group had a brief argument about trusting Emerald, Oscar stopped Ruby from attacking her, there was another few lines of annoyance in the dining room, the group accepted her via laughter, and then Emerald got to smile about how "weird" it felt to be doing good. Badly done as it was, that functioned as an arc! We saw a conflict, a resolution, and growth. It was terrible, but it existed. Which means that all these claims about how the group is going to struggle more in the future, or Emerald will prove herself more in the future, or whatever is currently getting said under the assumption that it will be Good Writing doesn't hold up. Even if RWBY backtracked and gave us that, it's too late. It would read as ridiculous to have the group go from laughing happily at her 'lol remember how I used to try and kill you guys a few hours ago?' speech to suddenly treating her with the reservations her actions always deserved. This isn't potential, this is the RWBY writers backing themselves into a corner. Either we're left with a "redemption" that was never a redemption to begin with, or the story tries to do that work in Volume 9, making the Volume 8 material look like even more of a mess in the process. There is no way to fix this now.

Too much of RWBY is read through the lens of what fans assume is going to happen, to the point where some in the fandom actively ignore what is happening on screen in order to maintain that presumed potential in their minds. Those who put faith in Penny getting a fantastic arc as a human may have been a bit too optimistic given RWBY's history (and I do include myself in that), but they're not wrong to point out that such potential existed for a time. Those who put their faith in Emerald getting a better redemption are actively ignoring the canon in order to preserve the better written version of RWBY they've got in their heads. And then yeah, we have the hundreds of cases in which "Wait and see" is used simultaneously as a way to dismiss criticism while also praising the current canon. Up until we know, say, what happens with grimm!Summer, "Wait and see" allows fans to say that the Volume 8 Hound material was incredibly well written AND that critics are fools for doubting what will come next because they've already jumped ahead and written RWBY to their own standards. They've already imagined a version of RWBY one, two, three years from now where grimm!Summer is handled in a spectacular fashion (whatever that means for each individual fan), thereby validating both the writing we currently have and throwing a metaphorical middle finger up at the critics. Never mind that this version doesn't exist and that a bad version is equally possible, it's treated as fact. Thus, we're left with a community where potential is, so often, assumed to be leading to good things... despite how often RWBY has proven otherwise. Because whenever we do get to that future writing — when it's clear we're done with Oscar's outing, or forgiving Ozpin, when Penny is dead and Raven never showed up in Volume 8 and a ton else — when it's clear that "Wait and see" didn't actually lead to anything good like so many claimed... the fans who made those claims suddenly no longer want to engage with that. They ignore it rather than going, "Huh, yeah. That didn't turn out like we'd hope. I can see now why you'd be hesitant to put your emotional investment in this new question the show has raised. If they dropped the ball before, they can definitely do so again..." Instead, it's this round robin of "Wait and see" applying to the newest plot point, ignoring the dropped plot points behind us, a catch-all response to praise the current canon and shrug off anyone who would doubt the brilliance of the writers... not matter how much evidence they can point to in order to say, "Hey, this doesn't appear brilliant to me." I mean, it certainly makes for happier viewing, but if you're at all interested in discussing the canon as it stands and what, based on history, is possible, if not likely to happen... that's not a good perspective to take. And that catch all "Wait and see" response will continue all the way up until RWBY ends. Potentially even longer if the other publications — Chibi, novels, etc. — continue beyond it. I can easily imagine a community where one half is frustrated with how the RWBY series finale ended and the other half is going, "Well, we haven't see the next novel yet that's definitely going to make all this better, so your criticisms mean nothing."

#rwby #rwde #mymetas

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ultrahpfan5blog · 4 years

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Rewatching the HP and FB movies

I have a tradition of rewatching HP movies at least once a year. This year, I added the two FB movies as well. I know lots of people have well deserved issues with a lot of thing with the franchise and I do too, but I still thoroughly enjoy the movies. All of them. Certainly there are some big issues I have, like how Kloves treated Ron starting from GOF onwards, and how Hermione kind of became a mary sue, and definitely some of the things that were added or removed, like the removal of some of the Riddle memories in HBP, removing the pretty fascinating Dumbledore backstory in Deathly Hallows, the silly inconsistencies like polyjuice not changing the voice of the characters etc... But in general, I still think the movies did a great job capturing the spirit of the books and the casting was just incredible. Especially the adult casting. I know we have only seen one version of Harry Potter on the big screen, but I envision these actors, especially the adults, when I’m reading the books now. Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltraine, Mark Williams, Julie Walters etc... are now the faces I see when I think of those characters. Richard Harris was a terrific Dumbledore for the first two movies, where he had more of grandfatherly, twinkling, vibe. I know people are critical of Gambon in GOF and he admittedly did get the characterization wrong, but I feel he was excellent in POA, OOTP, and especially HBP. Alan Rickman was just so outstanding in the role of Snape. I genuinely feel he should have gotten some Oscar consideration for his performance in DH2. But he was incredible even when he had only a few scenes and had to be super dry in his dialogue delivery. Maggie Smith was similarly wonderful. But these were just the adult regulars, but equally incredible were the phenomenal actors who came for just a few films. There are so many. Gary Oldman, David Thewlis, Imelda Staunton, Helena Bonham Carter, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes, Jason Isaacs, Emma Thompson, Jim Broadbent etc... among many others. A lot of these actors only had a film or two where they had a significant presence, but they showed up in cameos in other films, particularly in DH2. I have a lot of respect for the casting directors for this franchise since they cast basically half of all of British’s well respected acting thespians. Even someone like Bill Nighy appeared, just for two scenes in DH1. Rhys Ifans came in DH1 and was terrific in the two scenes he was in. Ciaran Hinds also was in just one or two scenes and he was also very good. And all these actors felt like they gave it their all and that it wasn’t just a paycheck role.

When it comes to child casting, what strikes me is the amazing continuity the series kept. Its one thing to be able to keep the core child actors like Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, and Tom Felton, but one of the most satisfying aspects of the series is that a lot of the core group of side characters were continuously played by the same actors. Not just Matthew Lewis and Bonnie Wright and the Phelps brothers, but also Alfred Enoch as Dean, Devon Murray as Seamus, and Joshua Herdman as Goyle. It would be very easy to replace some of these side characters over time and no one would notice, but the continuity makes it so much more enjoyable when in DH2 Seamus helps Neville blow up a bridge based on the fact that we know Seamus from the first movie was known for blowing stuff up. Its the small things that make it so great. Possibly the most accurate bit of casting was Evana Lynch as Luna. I honestly can’t think of a single actor more perfectly cast in the series than her. The core quartet were all lovely. Not always consistent, but more than good enough. I actually think Dan was the weakest actor when the series started, but he made remarkable improvement in the back half of the series, especially OOTP onwards. He is outstanding in DH2 I thought. Tom Felton didn’t always have to do much until HBP, but he was excellent in HBP. He does seem to have been stereotyped a little in the other roles I’ve seen him in but it still means he was great. Emma Watson’s performance fluctuated a bit. She was very good as a kid, then she was kind of bad in GOF and in parts of OOTP, but she found her footing again in HBP and especially in DH1, which I still consider to be her best acting performance to date. I think Rupert was always the most natural actor of the lot. He was probably the most hard done by the Kloves because they kind of typecast him as the comedic sidekick, but I can’t fault Rupert because he was a pretty gifted comic. Like Emma, when he got more scope in DH1, he did an incredible job. I would say Bonnie Wright is maybe the only one who didn’t fully grow into the role for me. It probably has a lot to do with writing, but she also really didn’t share any chemistry with Dan which made that relationship feel pretty flat and forced. But all in all the casting really made these movies and they elevate the movies significantly. But I admit all the craft behind it. Also, some of these movies are close to two decades old and the effects hold up quite well. I think there are scenes in the first movie that look a little dated, particularly the flying scenes, but subsequent movies seemed to find the right blend of practical and visual effects to make the movies look pretty timeless.

I think all the directors did their job really well. Columbus did a good job of bringing the childlike wonder of the initial books to life, Cuaron brought his more adult quality as the kids grew up, Newell ramped up the scale and the scope, and Yates managed to bring home the darkness. Definitely the films weren’t flawless. Like I mentioned before, there were times when some characterizations were off, some key subplots were eliminated or not handled well, some things added which were not needed etc... but the spirit of the books remains. I have a deep fondness for the movies as I feel I grew up with them as I am basically the same age as all the main child actors in the movie so I grew up and watched them grow up. So while they aren’t in the league of greatest films of all time, but its a remarkably consistent and enjoyable franchise that lasted an entire decade.

When it comes to Fantastic Beasts series, I was excited that Yates and Rowling were developing something new but I also feared what would happen given they didn’t have the structure of a book series to guide them. The fears ended up being fairly valid. The first FB is a pretty enjoyable film. I do think they did a good job creating a likable quartet of main characters and the actors all did a pretty remarkable job. It was also a refreshing change to watch Magical World from an adult POV as well as experiencing a new location and time period as well. The issue with the first film is that the film has two separate storylines which don’t really merge well together. The story of Newt, Jacob, Tina, and Queenie finding and recapturing the suitcase of magical creatures is actually very charming. The film does a nice job of creating some unique magical creatures and adding something new to the Magical World, but then there is a dark and gloomy second plot which doesn’t work as well because it essentially isn’t much of a story other than just showing Credence being abused and manipulated time and time again until the climax. It neither merges well tonally, nor plot wise. The way they try to put Newt at the center of the climax felt very clumsy and unearned. Overall, the first film still has sufficient enjoyable charm and I certainly like Redmayne, Waterston, Fogol, and Sudol. Farrell was a damn good villain. Miller was a little too mannered for my taste but I understand what he was going for. Voight is there for no reason at all in a perplexing subplot that goes nowhere. But still, more positives than negatives. FB2 is where the franchise really dropped the ball for the first time and Rowling’s inexperience as a movie screenplay writer became very obvious. The film is literally a setup for future movie, designed to get characters into certain places where the real story can start. the film essentially has no plot other than a bunch of wizards across Europe are looking for Credence and Credence is searching for his identity. There is really nothing else in the movie. The movie is overpopulated with characters, and Newt ends up even more incidental in this movie since he has no interest in going after Credence himself at all for 2/3 of the movie. All the things that were good about the first movie are lost as Jacob and Queenie only share two scenes together, Tina and Newt only share the last act or so together, Newt and Jacob end up only have a couple of scenes together. Its all rather boring and dull. The performances are fine. Depp was a good enough Grindelwald but I don’t think he was given any more to do other than just be surface level evil. One of the most inspired casting decisions was Jude Law as Dumbledore. While he doesn’t ape Gambon or Harris, he does capture the twinkling spirit of Dumbledore and his scenes are the best. The film also has a rather odd plot concerning Leta Lestrange. It is simultaneously important and completely pointless at the same time. I felt that the character had a compelling backstory and interesting potential but the film barely has time to address it any sort of depth before she gets pointlessly killed off at the end. The film also does a pretty bizarre character assassination of Queenie who makes decision that I really don’t understand. I guess this all boils down to the fact that this story may have worked in Rowling’s head as a book where each character’s internal thought could have been given more depth but what happens is that pretty much every sub story is pretty unsatisfying. Its certainly not an unwatchable disaster, just rather dull and devoid of the spark that the wizarding world movies should have. I hope they can turn things around because the film leaves things at a very peculiar juncture which doesn’t make much sense based on what we know of the HP canon.

#Harry Potter #fantastic beasts #ron weasley #hermione granger #newt scamander #fantastic beats the crimes of grindelwald #fantastic beats and where to find them #harry potter films

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magicofthepen · 4 years

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Gallifrey Relisten: Spirit

This reaction post is almost 4,000 words long, which, given the episode in question.....is very on brand for me. So here have a whole lot of ramblings, in which I go back and forth between “I love this so much” and “hmm yes I do think Spirit is overhyped by virtue of being The Romana/Leela Episode,” and back and forth between “I will be objective and not get overtly shippy about this” and “I’m definitely getting overtly shippy about this.”

(Includes discussion of The Apocalypse Element, the rest of Series 2, Intervention Earth and Enemy Lines, also a bit about Time War 3, but only in the last section.)

Things that are absolutely not overrated and deserve every bit of the hype:

1. The premise

Like, hold on. Hold on. Here we have an entire episode resting on the premise of “Romana wants Leela to stay on Gallifrey so badly that in spite of being y’know, the President of a planet, and specifically a planet currently undergoing major social changes and dealing with evil eldritch beings, the #1 most important thing for her to do with her time is take Leela on a private vacation off world to convince Leela why she should stay on Gallifrey.” (Hint: it’s. it’s for Romana.)

She also then proceeds to be very bad at using her words when it comes to this premise because Romana is all into grand gesture and very little into actually talking about her feelings. Of course. But in an episode that rests on the idea of Romana as the Rational, Logic-Driven One, and Leela as the Instinctive, Emotion-Driven One, it is very good that the premise of the episode is entirely driven by Romana’s emotions. (Wait. Am I going to talk myself out of the idea that Spirit creates these overly simplistic contrasts between Romana and Leela by arguing that it also muddies them at the same time? .....I still think the “overly simplistic” thing is true to an extent. But stay tuned.)

2. The core emotional story

I’m deeply into Gallifrey for the relationships between the main characters, so Spirit is vastly appealing on that front.

The central question of Spirit is: can Leela trust Romana? Leela’s been deeply betrayed by her husband, she feels lost and adrift and she’s doubting her own ability to judge people. (“He stood before me as Torvald, and I did not know him. I had thought myself to have a keener eye.” / “But is his the only trust I may have given in error?”) Leela’s doubting her own instincts specifically, which is why it’s so important that this episode has Romana move from being more dismissive of Leela’s instinctive, emotional approach to the world, to understanding where Leela’s coming from and appreciating her instincts and worldview. Leela needs to trust not just Romana, but also herself.

And it is 1. important to explore this! Shoutout to Gallifrey for not brushing aside the emotional repercussions of Andred’s betrayal on Leela’s close relationships in general and her own image of herself! and 2. intersects in super fascinating ways with Romana’s trust issues.

Romana gets a hard time for the “valuable asset” thing, which. Fair. But I think it is important to acknowledge the premise here — the whole vacation, everything Romana is actually doing screams “I care about you very much on a personal level,” and just because she isn’t saying that doesn’t mean she isn’t showing that. Because she has her own baggage when it comes to friendship and trust, and a lot of that does loop back around to “being imprisoned for twenty years and having no one come to save you really messes you up. on so many levels.”

(Also I have to mention the end of The Apocalypse Element because that last scene with the Doctor and Romana really established how I looked at Romana and her close personal relationships moving forward. Because yeahhhh maybe having the one (1) person who is specifically your Friend (and not your colleague, or advisor, or anything related to The Presidency) go “yeah you can clean up this mess right! cool bye!” after you’ve gone through decades of trauma immediately followed by needing to repel an invasion of your planet....maybe that might make you distrust that anyone in the universe is actually going to care about you as a person anymore, and not see you as The President of Gallifrey first and foremost).

Bottom line: Romana really, really likes Leela (.....we all can decide in what way....), but also has a whole lot of doubt that other people could care about her as a person, doubt that it’s even worth letting herself be that emotionally vulnerable with someone else, because what if they throw her trust and care back in her face? And so this whole episode, there’s this undercurrent of wanting to trust each other and wanting to care about each other simmering under the surface for the both of them, but they’re both having trouble really seeing and believing what each other is feeling and I love it. I love this kind of interesting, complicated relationship struggle so much, and I love how Spirit has a positive ending, where they both manage to convey to each other in one way or another that they really do want to be around each other. ( “I was so alone in the world of dreams when you left. The wildlands were dark and so quiet. I do not wish to be alone.” / “There will be a place for you with me, for always. Whatever face I wear.” ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh)

(Sure, the later episodes of the season fuck everything up again, but we are Not Talking about Insurgency/Imperiatrix here.)

(We are also Not Talking about Intervention Earth/Enemy Lines....okay I’ll talk a little about IE/EL, but only because when relistening to Spirit there’s this sort of elephant in the room with “There will be a place for you with me, for always. Whatever face I wear.” And that elephant is the writers deciding that when Romana regenerated, she would abandon Leela, which...hmmm. To be fair, I have lots of more complex, specific thoughts about what might have happened emotionally and literally in that thankfully jettisoned timeline, but the bottom line is that I was and still am very *side eyes* at that writing choice.)

3. The chair scene

Oh my god. Oh my god. This scene is actually brilliant and delightful on every relisten, I want it framed please??

I think it’s probably iconic because it’s just so happy, and it is so so wonderful to have a moment like that, with the two of them making up a silly story to Hallan about what happened to the window and laughing about it. And it is good! It’s so good! (A side note: Romana in particular in this episode has that “audibly smiling” tone of voice so so much more than usual, in addition to her overall tone having very clearly shifted away from “presidential” for the majority of the episode and y’all.....it’s so excellent to hear, that is such a rare thing.)

Also specifically, it’s the fact that Leela is like ugh this room is too stuffy :( and Romana immediately is like “I must fix this, I need to make her happy” and does something so ridiculous and impulsive just to please Leela.......again, this episode is pulling a Romana Has Too Many Feelings and is acting on her emotional instincts thing......yes.

“You’re a breath of it yourself in the Capital.” “Oh Romana, nice words will not make me stay.” I’m sorry but Romana’s delivery of this line is so flirtatious? (And Leela going ah no, you can’t flirt your way out of this.)

Things that are......not good:

1. The science vs. spirituality dichotomy (and how it makes the characters look)

The whole evolution vs. creation discussion thing not only feels too simplistic for the characters, but it also feels like it’s deliberately painting Leela in a negative light? To have Leela specifically going I don’t believe in evolution when the audience is going to disagree with her and bounce off of that....yeah. It also feels like the whole exaggerated ~super in tune with nature, doesn’t know or believe things about science~ thing is leaning into the racist indigenous stereotypes her character is too often linked to.

And on top of that, it doesn’t feel in character? Classic Who episodes don’t stick in my brain that well so my memory isn’t super clear on the details, but Leela was banished from her tribe for questioning their beliefs. Plus she learned that her society’s social divisions were based on misinformation and forgotten history (having more information was important, it changed things for her world). And she was the one who wanted to leave and travel, and also has always showed a lot of interest in learning new things. To have Leela so deeply clinging to the beliefs she learned when she was young, without any of that questioning or the nuance of weaving in new things she’s learned with the old......it feels reductive. (There could be so much more nuance here re: how living so long away from the Sevateem and having to defend her background so much on Gallifrey has affected her relationship with the culture and beliefs she grew up in, but Spirit has none of that.)

2. The mindswap’s lack of nuance

There’s a similar issue here with the mindswap, where Leela especially comes off as over-simplified. I don’t know if this was an acting choice or a directing choice, but the over-the-topness of Lalla’s performance during the mindswap really feeds that (the way Romana’s voice sounds so different when she’s “acting like Leela”, while Leela still sounds fundamentally like herself when she’s acting more like Romana — why the difference?). Also, Romana is a lot more helpless and distressed when she has part of Leela in her mind, which again, does not make Leela come off as especially competent (even though she is). There are times when this episode feels like it’s trying harder to put Romana and Leela into these boxes than it is at trying to break down those boxes and yeah, all around I wish there was more nuance.

3. The interrupting of the vacation date, damn it, do you think I care about a “plot”?

Alright, alright this one is not in the same category as the other two. It is absolutely not a valid criticism, it is purely the “I want this audio to cater to me, personally” part of my brain getting disappointed every time I relisten when Wynter crashes the vacation. Specifically, when they’re all alone in the woods together having important personal conversations and Leela’s decided that they’re camping out for the night....maybe I just wanted to hear the overnight camping trip, y’know. Maybe I just wanted them to cuddle beneath the stars. (Also this will come back big time next episode, but I very much back away from horror of Wynter’s mutilation, I am a squeamish person and the Wynter thing is not my favorite plot.)

Misc liveblogging things:

“I’m sorry I had to have you dragged here to my quarters. I have requested an audience with you several times on a matter of security but have received no answer.” — It’s unclear exactly how much time has passed between Lies and Spirit, but not too long(?) and Leela’s been trying to track down Andred a lot during this time (which means that once again, Romana’s specifically taking Leela away from looking for Andred....).

Leela scathingly calling Romana “Madam President” oof. (I think this moment may have been what I was thinking of re: Leela only uses Romana’s title when she’s annoyed or angry, will have to note if/when it happens again.)

“It is your world and not mine. Although I have lived here for many years it has never been my home. And I am unhappy.” I know I’ve said this before, but Leela’s concept of home is very much the people she cares about and hhhhh so many feelings about this throughout the series.

Oof Darkel’s got Romana pegged with the “how far will she go” thing.

Is Narvin......being nice re: Romana having a trying time? Or sarcastic? Or is he just like oh thank god she’s off the planet for a hot sec I can take a breath.

Brax saying it was him that recommended Romana leave and insisting they don’t talk about it — he’s sooo covering for her, but also I want to know how that convo went....how exactly did Romana explain the “I’m going to take Leela on a private vacation off-world for.....personal reasons.....please cover for me slash be my emergency contact” thing?

“So I can only conclude from your recent behavior that you’re experiencing a considerable amount of pain.” — I mean, Leela did explicitly say earlier that she was unhappy. Still, it is a really good moment here — Romana saying I see that you’re hurting and I want to help.

.......and that’s right before “valuable asset” line. You were doing so good, Romana. (She does say friend though! I mean, she says it like it’s an ordeal, but she does immediately course correct to admit that Leela’s her friend.) Also....I’m having some kinda thought here about the “asset” line — how she compliments Leela in terms of her usefulness is icky, but I think Romana often judges her own worth based off of how useful she is to Gallifrey? I think there are several moments throughout the series that point to Romana basing her worth as a person off of her work and how successful she is at protecting her world and making it better, which is just an overall unhealthy mindset to be in (and this says something about the toxicity of Gallifreyan culture possibly but also something about the lingering trauma of Etra Prime and living for decades in a place where her life itself (whether she survived) was directly tied to her usefulness...going to mull this over more, but I think there’s something here).

Hallan is so awful about Leela, and he goes on for a bit about how he should be watching the president at all times — aka there is definitely resentment within the Chancellery Guard towards Leela for taking the role of bodyguard to the president. And this is mixed in with nasty comments about Andred, former member of the Chancellery Guard, for marrying an alien.

“A marriage is about maintaining the power of the chapters, strengthening alliances between houses” — it is interesting how more than once in the audios they talk about marriage as primarily a political thing in Time Lord culture (at least among the elite), with love being an exception and something disapproved of.

The “Leela’s been on Gallifrey for twenty-five years” math......does not work. Between The Invasion of Time and the Gallifrey audios, Romana left Gallifrey, ended up traveling with the Doctor for a while, stayed behind in E-space for a while, returned from E-space to Gallifrey, became President, got captured by the Daleks and held prisoner for twenty years, and according to Square One I believe it’s been “years” since The Apocalypse Element.......and apparently only twenty-five years have passed on Gallifrey? Even if we pretend that no time passed on Gallifrey during Romana’s adventures with the Doctor and in E-space, that timeline is still questionable. Leela has to be on Gallifrey for a lot longer than that.

“I’ve searched for [my purpose] in many places.” — It’s interesting that Romana lists off the places she’s tried to find purpose, but doesn’t say anything at all about Gallifrey — Leela is the one to say that Romana has found her purpose on Gallifrey, Romana never actually says that. (I have...lot of feelings about Romana’s very complicated relationship to Gallifrey.)

Romana mentions Pandora predicting that she would rule over Gallifrey, and predicting that Romana would let that happen — Romana is worried about Pandora in particular, and also there’s the implication that she wants Leela to stay to help her hold onto herself and prevent that future.

Just ahhhh the scene by the fire where Leela decides, after avoiding too much discussion about what she’s feeling, to be emotionally honest: “It frightens me to think that I have spent so much of my life with another in a trust that I believed was true and strong, one that could not sicken, and that I was wrong.”; “You are my friend. I know that, for all we disagree on. And yet, if tomorrow you grew sick, you could throw off your form like an old sheet and be a person I would no longer recognize, not with my eyes nor with my heart.” It’s a good scene!!

The whole “who is the broken man?” mystery is good on first listen I suppose, but I’ve never quite bought that they can’t ID him. Can the Time Lords not do a quick DNA test or something? (To be fair, these are the same people who missed that Andred was impersonating someone else for months, but at least here they actively know that they need to be figuring out who he is.)

The herbal remedy — “The outsiders use it when in pain or distress.” Confirmation that Leela does hang out with the outsiders on Gallifrey.

“I’ve been inside these things I don’t know how many times and I assure you nothing could go wrong.” Post-Etra Prime Romana trying to get some sleep for once tbh (also okay she does have some healthy coping mechanisms apparently).

“It speaks to your innermost wishes and wonders and indulges them while you dream” “There is a wild woman inside me” I’m so sorry but did they really not intend to making the sensory tanks and mindswap sound incredibly erotic because

“It is winter here.” *eyebrow waggle*

I do not like hearing stabbing sounds! (Also apparently this season has a thing for Romana kinda sorta killing people with knives.)

Leela wakes up a bit later than Romana (she stays in the dream space longer), and she says she heard Pandora’s voice — Romana dismisses that, but I do wonder what exactly happened in the dreamspace after Romana woke and what additional things Leela might have heard/seen??

Hallan is so shitty, kick his ass Leela.

I do wonder why the subplot with Melyin and Hallan was included? Was it to introduce Hallan as a character and flesh out the side characters so we know them a bit better when they’re around with the Wynter subplot? (Personally, I don’t enjoy how earlier in the episode they keep cutting away from Romana and Leela’s really important and interesting conversation to those two sides characters, so I’m not sure they needed that storyline?) But there is this sort of interesting moment where Melyin talks about freeing herself from this place where she’s isolated and Leela sympathizes — and yet at the same time is choosing to go back to Gallifrey. There is potentially an interesting parallel here, but I’m not exactly sure what the parallel is supposed to be saying about Leela.

“And what about you? Back to Gallifrey and your husband?” “I am returning to Gallifrey, yes. It is not yet time for me to leave.” Leela expertly dodging mentioning Andred in her response or referring to him as her husband. Actually I kinda want to pay more attention to when she does or doesn’t refer to Andred as her husband. I’m pretty sure she calls him her husband after he dies because that is who she’s grieving, but in this episode she talks about wanting to confront him and hurt him or make peace with him, and in A Blind Eye she was all “my husband is dead” (and I think there are some things in Insurgency about this) —there is a question here about whether or not she still considers herself married to Andred at this point.

How did the knowledge of events get out on Gallifrey? Brax says if people were watching his movements closely it wouldn’t be hard to put things together — but also he probably knows that Romana needs to return for Gallifrey for events to play out, so it seems quite possible that he essentially leaked the info himself (knowing that the events of Pandora are coming....oof).

Leela talks about returning to Gallifrey avenge the broken man — in series 2 and 3, she frequently turns to vengeance as something to give her motivation and purpose when she’s unhappy and grieving, but I forgot it came up as early as Spirit ahhh yikes.

The (shippy) elephant in the room:

(Includes vague mentions of Time War 3.)

As a final thing, I do want to mention that while this episode has a reputation of being really gay (because yep it so so subtextually gay)....I do always remember that it is only subtext. Specifically in a “isn’t it interesting that other ships between main characters get clearly teased as romantic possibility, but when it’s the core relationship of the show that just so happens to be between two characters played by women, they would never explicitly hint that there might be anything romantic going on there” way. (For a long time, I tried to convince myself this didn’t bother me. It does.)

Like don’t get me wrong, I adore their friendship and I am very cool with their relationship being entirely platonic in the audios. However, my feelings are also very context-dependent, and the context is an audio drama series in which the only explicitly queer characters are side/minor characters who die horribly (and also only exist in the very recent releases). There are no canon f/f relationships or canonically queer women in the entire series (no, Leela/Veega doesn’t count, they were pretty explicit on that being not canon), in contrast with plenty of canon m/f relationships. This is also why I say that I’d be 100% unbothered if Gallifrey really was equal-opportunity devoid of romance (I really genuinely enjoy the friendship-centric narrative of this series, it’s so good) or even had significant canonically queer side characters, but when there’s such a pointed ignoring of any queer subtext and a general ‘would never ever make any main character canonically queer’ vibe throughout the whole series (I am looking at you Unity) it’s.....hmmm. It just doesn’t feel good, you know?

To end on a lighter (ish) note, going to talk about shippy things for a sec — so I have many headcanon universes that float around in my brain, but generally speaking when I’m writing Romana/Leela fic or thinking about the possibility of their relationship being romantic at some point, I tend to go for things happening between them later in the audios (ideally post-Enemy Lines), with the early series just being endless unresolved tension. But gosh there is a part of me that’s interested in the disaster universe where they do get romantically involved with each other post-Spirit (because as far as the early series go, it does feel like it has to be post-Spirit, when Leela does make the choice to stay with Romana/for Romana on Gallifrey) because oh god that’s so emotionally messy. (It’s only been six months and change since Leela’s husband first disappeared! We’re only two episodes away from Andred’s death! She’s not in a healthy emotional space to be doing this right now, and neither is Romana, frankly! Especially given what’s going to happen in the next several episodes.....but oof wow there’s certainly a story to explore there).

This was not a lighter note, I’m so sorry. Anyways, friendly reminder that I’m always down to go on and on about Romana/Leela, I have....so many feelings about them. Also if you’ve actually read through this entire post, wow and thank you??

Previous Episode Reaction: Lies

#gallifrey audios #romana #leela #(i will be honest i had large chunks of this written even before i relistened)#(what can i say i will take any and all opportunity to ramble on about these two)#also i think this reaction post deserves the #romana x leela #tag #the relisten of rassilon #ramblings #emily listens to big finish

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noonmutter · 4 years

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Mun Dash Game

Rules: Name your top 10 favorite characters from 10 different fandoms and then tag 10 people.

Editor’s note: These are in no ranked order or anything like that, they’re just ten favorites as I could think of them.

Bismuth - Steven Universe. You may notice a theme here; I like my characters complex, their motivations valid, their decisions misguided, and their actions questioned by everyone, often including themselves. I loved Bismuth’s entire concept and I’m sad that she hasn’t had more time front and center to develop beyond her introduction as both a plot device and as a catalyst for Steven’s advancement. Same story with Jasper, though she got a few more appearances. I want to see these people grow and for the people they hurt to grow with them, damn it. Even if that growth is downward into an even worse state, I want to see it because positive or negative, emotional fallout is awesome.

Demona - Gargoyles. There was going to be a Gargoyles character here and I am basically legally obligated to pick either Demona or Thailog because I am a sucker for great voices and tragic villains. Demona’s story wins out by a decent margin because her suffering was entirely borne of her own poor decisions, many of which she felt were right at the time. She just refused to accept that she was wrong or that she could try to make things better at any time, and I was fascinated by that from the first time I saw it. This shit was in a kids’ show that predates Steven Universe by 19 years.

Baby Doll - Batman: TAS. She only showed up once (in the original animation style, anyway) but good god damn did it count. She was angry, hurt, belittled, and so unbearably lonely that when everything fell apart and the dust settled and she couldn’t kill all her problems away, she just broke down. “Why couldn’t you just let me make believe?!” is still crystallized in my head, and it still gives me little pangs when I think of it. And at the end of it all, she sobbed “I didn’t mean to” as she hugged Batman’s leg. And he comforted her. Also in a kids’ show that predates Steven Universe by 21 years.

Scanlan Shorthalt - Critical Role, Campaign 1. I bet you thought after those first three it’d probably be Vax or Percy, but... Look, the character was fantastic and the player made him that way and frankly made that campaign. He’s my go-to for when I need a good cry, and he’s why I learned to build a bard. The same man who started the campaign by asking his bestie what the worst race/class combo was and saying “Okay I’ll play that,” at the end of the campaign made the word “Nine” hit his fellow players and viewers in the chest like a sledgehammer, and nobody has topped that since. His second campaign character, Nott, has also got one of the most poignant backstories I’ve heard in a while, and man will it twist yer gut. Meanwhile both of those characters provide some of the best goddamn comic relief you’re liable to find. Emmy Winner Sam Riegel, ladies and gentlemen.

Francis - Left 4 Dead. I love this grumpy asshole biker. I love that Steam took his “I hate everything” (except vests) schtick and ran with it. I love that the trailers for the second game included him and Rochelle meeting up and commiserating on their hatred of everything, up until Rochelle says she hates his vest and he short-circuits. I miss Francis and I miss playing Left 4 Dead all the time and I yearn for a remaster or rerelease that works better with current setups cuz the original one has uh... not aged well, technologically. Francis and Zoey made life worth livin’ in that game.

Jogurt - Shining Force. This is probably the most obscure one on my list but that’s because Shining Force is an old-ass Genesis game/franchise that is, I admit, pretty generic as far as the plot goes. I love it to pieces regardless because it had some fun with it, and the character designs were wierd and some of the interactions were downright silly. Jogurt was the easter egg secret character in this game, and he’s a little hamster thing with a football helmet on. At the time you get him, most of your fighters have stats in the 20s or potentially 30s and their level is 9, 10, or they’ve been promoted to a new class; every single one of his stats is one and he had not been promoted. If you are able to keep him alive long enough to get him the XP necessary to level up just once, which takes some doing since an enemy can be unarmed and as long as they don’t miss, they kill him, you’ll get a ring called the Yogurt Ring.

When worn, it makes a character look like Jogurt. In the remake for Game Boy Advance, the image for the character shows that it’s a costume with a huge visible zipper up the back. That’s all it does. That’s the joke. And I adore it.

Freddy Krueger - A Nightmare on Elm Street series. I have a love-hate relationship with Freddy. On the one hand, creativity in horror movies--especially in the kills--is something to be embraced, and no matter what else you think of them the Elm Street movies got real fuckin’ creative most of the time. On the other...there have been nine (official) movies with Krueger in them, and only the first three were good. The remake in 2010 was disappointing because it tried to both play to nostalgia and ignore it at the same time and also made Freddy darker, which made him less fun to watch.

Still, I enjoyed the hell outta Freddy’s concept, for much the same reason that I love Chucky the Good Guy Doll so much: they’re both snarky monsters who really enjoy the horrors they’re inflicting and they have incredible presence because of the actors who brought them to life. (Mark Hammill worked with what they gave him for Chucky but uh...what they gave him sucked).

Lorewalker Cho/Margeaux - World of Warcraft. The first, because he’s voiced by Jim Cummings and he’s a knowledge-hungry panda who Blizzard has not been stupid enough to kill off thus far. In the middle of an attack by what is basically Cthulhu, he wants to you bring him research notes on Cthulhu’s fishmen. I love him and I would commit war crimes for him.

The second, because she was a bit character that had me fully invested in her and her story within ten minutes. And then Blizzard ripped my fucking heart out. And I yelled at Questifer about it. Aaaaaaaa.

Granny Weatherwax/Sam Vimes - Discworld. They’re both staggering badasses who have neither time nor tolerance for the bullshit trappings of men, while at the same time harboring a deep and abiding love for their fellow beings. They also approach that from completely different ends. They are also both unquestionably the most noble characters I’ve ever read. They are the sum of their principles and their refusal to budge. Steve Rogers could learn from them. In D&D, they’d be paladins to their core, and they’d absolutely hate that.

Spawn - Image Comics. I have, admittedly, read exactly one Spawn comic book, and mostly love him because of his design, his backstory, and the fact that he’s voiced by Keith David in all animated iterations including video game appearances (and only the animated ones were ever good--the 90s movie was fucking horrible). I am hoping the rumored new movie will make things a bit better for the live-action version, but until that actually comes out, I’m not holding my breath.

Tagged by: @safrona-shadowsun and @ourcollectivefantasy

Tagging: Have you done it? Then you’re it.

#prompty things #stuff about me

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mannatea · 5 years

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Not That Deep: A Psycho Pass Critique

This post is not spoiler-free, and is the result of multiple rewatches over the span of five years. If you remember any of my old Psycho Pass meta, please toss it straight into the garbage. I swear I’m better at conveying my thoughts now. (Joke’s on you if you think I’ve learned to condense my posts, though.)

Disclaimer: all opinions expressed within this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts and opinions of my followers or friends. I welcome discussion/debate.

Psycho Pass (abbreviated to PP for simplicity’s sake from this point forward) is an anime in that very specific genre that belongs to societies that are portrayed as Utopian but aren’t. For the record, the setting can’t really be described as ‘dystopian’ or ‘futuristic hellscape’ either. The series calls itself “cyberpunk.”

In the year 2112, Japan has closed itself off from the world and implemented the Sibyl System: a judgment oracle. Citizens of the country are monitored by the system and have a “psycho-pass” assigned to them. This “psycho-pass” measures their stress levels, brain activity, and potential to commit a crime. When a person’s crime coefficient (CC) exceeds 100, they are considered a latent criminal and put into isolation to receive mandatory therapy. If they do not recover, they remain in isolation. The story follows the main character, Tsunemori Akane, as she joins the series’ version of a police force.

Trigger warnings for this series include gore, violence (sexual, emotional, physical), and an obscene amount of philosophy.

Again, below the readmore/cut will be spoilers.

Worldbuilding/Craft

I feel like it’s important to get into the meat of the discussion as quickly as possible with this series, especially considering the title of this post: Not That Deep.

I’m not going to bother ‘rating’ the different facets/aspects of the show because I don’t think it’s necessary, and this isn’t really a review so much as a discussion/critique. Either you liked the series or you didn’t. If you’re reading this you either have an open mind or you want to get angry, and both reasons are at least a little valid.

PP is a series that REALLY wants to be deep, but falls flat in almost every conceivable way. I’m saying this as someone who enjoyed it enough to write fanfiction about it the last time I watched it, and who not only recommended it to multiple friends, but screenshared the entire series with one recently so that she could see it.

I think the general concept of Sibyl and Akane’s futuristic society is presented in a digestible way. I appreciate the attempts to integrate cool future tech into the show, but I’m especially impressed by the way they go about it. It’s all stuff that your average person living right now would adopt and use regularly if given a chance (auto driven cars, drones, AI secretaries, holo clothes/outfits). Without those specific scenes, I feel like the worldbuilding would almost collapse in on itself; these little details made it easy to imagine living in the world, and gave a little personality to the characters as they made use of them—like little glimpses into their personal taste.

It also helped to take the focus and pressure off of the less-nice aspects of the Sibyl System. No wonder people are generally pretty happy/content in this world: they can wear sweatpants and just holo something else over it! (Sign me up!)

Unfortunately the worldbuilding beyond that isn’t great, but I also don’t think it’s fair to say that it’s bad. It’s just...kind of mediocre...while still managing, at least for the first season, to feel coherent.

We have hues and crime-coefficients. They are not the same thing, but they might as well be because one isn’t bad without the other being bad: EVER. Ginoza’s CC rises as his hue darkens throughout S1. Togane’s hue is black and he has the highest CC on record. Makishima’s hue is clear and his CC is 0 (when he wills it to be). What’s the point of having both, then? Is it just for a fun color-coding system? It’s never explained in any way that makes sense. The one character likely to have a high CC and a clear hue is Makishima (a sociopath), but he has both a clear hue and a low CC. (Kamui is another anomaly, but he can’t be measured at all, so he doesn’t really fit into this specific discussion.) Basically, having hues and CCs both exist just feels a little bit too much like “it sounded cool so we included it” instead of: “These both serve serious purposes in the world.” They want really bad to fling philosophy at the viewers, but seem to neglect this really large aspect of the world where it would be perfect to latch on.

Technology is advanced to the point of having cybernetic arms that function effortlessly and people can almost achieve full cybernization if they have the money/will to. Kamui was 184 people stitched together lol... And yet Akane has just one living grandparent (who apparently can’t even move on her own). I’m not really put off by this, but you’d think the technology/health debate would be a much bigger part of the story beyond the news broadcast that was shown.

I think the biggest niggling little worldbuilding issue is the fact that the implementation of Sibyl happened ~20 years ago. I like the detail for what it gives us for some characters (Masaoka and Ginoza specifically), but I find it mostly implausible. Maybe it was fully implemented 20 years ago, but the framework was another 20 years in the making. It just doesn’t work otherwise. The second it was implemented families would have been shattered and that shattering would have put even more people into isolation due to their CC rising. I mean, if someone took my 5-year-old away from me, I’d be in isolation REAL QUICK, ‘cause that’s the kind of trauma you don’t just Get Over or Move Past.

Speaking of five-year-olds, in the boarding school episodes, they mention a law that protected minors, which feels out of place because Kagari was not protected by that law...which means it couldn’t have been around very long in the first place. If the scanners can flag a 5-year-old child and take him away from his parents, high school students aren’t exempt either. The mention of the law would have been a nice touch if it had only recently been appealed/removed, but it was only around for a few years ~20 years ago, so it feels awkwardly placed/silly.

Again, not everything worldbuilding/craft-related is bad. Like I said earlier, the world in general feels pretty cohesive and the characters belong there. The issues mostly sit with the fact that they tried to include a lot of ‘neat’ or ‘dramatic’ (or even ‘dark’) things...without stopping to consider if they actually fit within the narrative they were trying to construct.

Plot/Storylines

This is where the series shines. Or at least, this is probably the strongest point in PP’s favor.

The biggest criticism I have: it doesn’t actually do anything new and exciting.

That said, I don’t think every bit of media out there needs to flip the script to be enjoyed, and I liked PP just fine for what it was.

Season One was definitely stronger in this department than later material. What made S1 feel strong was having enough time to actually move the plot along while also developing the characters. S2 was comparatively rushed and had a lot of really unnecessary plotlines and gore. The movie was...eh, but I think it was an improvement over S2. (I haven’t seen Sinners of the System yet, so I can’t comment on those installments.)

I can find fault with a lot of S1 stuff, but for the most part I think it did a pretty good job and any faults I’d bother to point out would just be me nitpicking. The storylines melded into one another, everything was connected, et cetera. Unfortunately this comes at the cost of character relationships/development, but I’ll talk about that later. Besides, I’d rather have a cohesive series than not, so this isn’t exactly a criticism so much as an observation. The production team(s) did an excellent job of making the most of the screentime they had to work with.

S2 feels flawed almost from the start. Rather than build off of what we already learned in S1 and further develop the characters, it chose to rush headlong into a half-assed plot featuring an unbelievable antagonist. Yikes. I think it brought up an interesting question in “WC?” but instead of striking a believable balance they really just made an antagonist who was 184 people’s bodies stitched together. I can’t get over how stupid that was. Honestly, it was straight-up foolish of the writers to go through with that concept. Makishima might have been a pretentious pile of shit, but at least he felt like a human being. Kamui as a concept was just too overblown to work.

Also working against S2 was Togane. That whole plotline was completely unnecessary and throwing Akane’s grandmother under a bus on top of that was just the icing on the idiot cake. S2 was the Break the Cutie trope tenfold, but there was no danger and therefore no sense of urgency or fear. It was just gross for the sake of being gross, which was disappointing. I’m not saying that Togane isn’t the type of person to beat a crippled old lady to death, because he is, but I also never thought he was an idiot, and the progression of his attempts to blacken her hue jumped straight to the moon instead of progressing at a pace that felt more natural/reasonable. If the guy hasn’t been eliminated by an inspector after blackening many of their hues, he’s not the kind of dope to take silly risks. He could have tried any number of things to ruin Akane that didn’t involve her poor old granny (who had no real screentime and whom the audience had no connection with anyway).

S2 also gave us Ginoza doubting Akane’s sanity early on (acting like she might have written WC on her own wall), which not only feels incredibly out of character for S2 Ginoza, but never amounts to anything/goes anywhere anyway.

Hungry Chicken was an interesting touch, but SO MANY PEOPLE DIED that its impact was diminished. Division 3 had such a non-appearance in the series anyway that them being there at all just felt stupid without more lead-up.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think S2 is irredeemable, but I feel like it missed the mark consistently from start to finish. A shame, because the concept of a ‘plural’ psycho-pass might have been nifty if, say, Kamui was made up of 5 or 6 people’s bodies. Then the holos would feel meaningful. Then each ‘part’ of him would feel like a different person with different feelings and motives and skills.

Anyway, I think S2 muddied the waters too much with Kamui and the body doubles and Shisui all that nonsense, too. At a certain point if your plot gets too complex, especially with overblown concepts thrown into the mix, it just feels silly. That’s basically what happened to S2.

Again, S1 wasn’t perfect. Makishima was exhaustingly boring. Cool, so you can quote a bunch of crap you’ve read. Great. So can I. Who are you as a person, though? That Guy in my Philosophy 101 class who argued with the professor? Yeah, I could picture that!

People love waxing poetic about how amazing an antagonist Makishima was, but the dude was a hollow shell quoting things other people said 100+ years ago. It felt like he didn’t even have his own thoughts, and as far as I saw, there weren’t even any fake philosophers mixed in with the rest to make us feel a little extra immersed in the world (and/or give us another philosophical spin on the situation).

Hey, maybe that was the point, but I’ve never seen that criticism leveled fully at the character/plot in general, so here we are.

It was just too heavy-handed. By the end of the series I wanted him dead just so I could stop listening to his mini-lectures.

Still, it may as well have been amazing compared to 184-People-Stitched-Together being the main antagonist.

I think the movie jumped in face-first and was perhaps a little too...all over the place? But I didn’t have to endure 184 people as a single person, or ears in boxes, so... I consider it a win.

The bitter reality when it comes to Psycho Pass and the plot is that...the plot is its greatest strength, but it’s Not That Deep...even though you can tell that it’s consistently trying to be. Oof.

I think if they’d shot for something less complex, especially in S2, they’d have at least met their goals of depth/consistency. Instead what we ended up with was having a fairly decent plot devolve into one of the worst second seasons I’ve seen.

Characters & Character Development

For such a small cast, I think PP did a pretty piss-poor job with most of their characters, but the series as a general rule is so plot-heavy that it’s not really surprising.

I can’t help but expect a lot from a series that only has a few ‘main’ characters. In this case, Akane is the Big Main Character, and is flanked by Kogami and Ginoza. In S1, there was a decent balance (with Masaoka and Kagari thrown in). In S2, it was mostly just Akane and The Bad Guys, which would be fine if the plot was incredible, or The Bad Guys were super duper interesting, but as discussed previously, the plot was akin to liquid cat barf and the characters weren’t treated much better. It was a little insulting to be handed characters who could be really fun in the right hands (literally everyone) only to see them used as plot vehicles/hallucinations/memory thoughts. Kogami randomly appearing for long boring scenes wasn’t fun or cool; it was uninspired. It’d be way cooler if it was for five seconds and felt like a...memory, almost...a passing thought. For more screentime, it could even happen more often. But no, it’s gotta be like two minutes long.

How about the scene where Saiga talks to Koichi who just keeps turning into Kamui and he talks for like five straight minutes? UGH. Is this supposed to feel deep and meaningful? It doesn’t.

Shion sleeps with Yayoi so she can monologue plot things while Yayoi is getting dressed. Can I add that Yayoi doesn’t matter at all at any point, and Shion conveniently can do anything that needs to be done because Reasons?

Togane isn’t around long enough to feel like a worthwhile villain. Nobody cares about Shisui because we honestly don’t even know who she is! Oh, were we supposed to feel bad for Division 3? We’re supposed to feel gross about Akane’s grandmother but the writers took one line in S1 and used that to try and break the character (while also knowing full well it wouldn’t have any effect on her). Let’s not forget Mika, who is remembered as being incredibly annoying...while everyone forgets/doesn’t notice that she’s the student from the boarding school who didn’t die (and we never see her outside of work doing her own thing, which adds to her just being a pain).

Ginoza seems a little like he’s supposed to fill a spot his father left, but he doesn’t, and he’s pushed to the background to...not really do anything of import. Hinakawa is a worthless character who exists just for one plot-specific purpose. Saiga exists so that more dialogue can happen and not seem too out of place.

I’m not saying the character writing overall is trash, but it definitely ain’t good, and I think S2 is where it really struggled. S1 gave us a really interesting character in Kogami. Akane was learning and struggling to fit in at work and do things well, which was somewhat relatable. Ginoza was struggling with his mental health throughout the entire first season and had a lot of character development. But then S2 happens and the development kind of...stopped? Akane didn’t seem to really learn much because she was too busy always being right? Kogami noped out of Japan so I didn’t expect anything with him specifically, but why couldn’t Yayoi have moved into the limelight? Shion? One of the new guys? ANYONE?

Don’t get me wrong. I still have characters I like, and I can see potential in the others. I just wish I was seeing more than potential is all, especially with characters like Yayoi that have been around from Day1 and still haven’t really done anything noteworthy.

General Criticisms/Other Thoughts

There’s a lot of shock-value violence (SVV). I guess you could say I ‘get’ the purpose of it, but there’s literally no reason that helmeted person couldn’t have beat a man to death with a hammer instead of a woman, especially considering that we have to see Spooky Boogie’s corpse looking grotesque and plenty of other crimes against women.

I feel like S2 was especially guilty of SVV, but it existed in S1, too, pretty much to the point that it started to anger me. It might not have bothered me as much if some of the violent acts were cases that stood alone, but they were all linked to the main plot and that somehow seemed to make it worse.

I also wasn’t a fan of Akane constantly being naked/near naked, of Yuki being in her underwear/negligée, of every crime against a woman ending up with a woman’s clothes being removed, and (the list goes on). One of these things? I might be able to overlook. All of them? Come on. Don’t pretend these creators weren’t doing this for their own purpose.

(I know the scene with Aoyanagi gave us the men getting undressed too [This is your natural self!], but then they showed her with all these action scenes, legs spread wide open, coordinated lacy undies/bra... C’MON. All the butt-shots of Professor Saiga and Kogami don’t make up for this or cancel it out. I KNOW WHAT YOU GUYS ARE DOING AND I DO NOT LIKE IT.)

The music was mediocre but acceptable/fitting.

The animation is nice.

Overall

This isn’t a series I’d recommend to just anyone. It has a lot of issues, and they range from being petty annoyances to straight up offensive. If you can ignore the misogynistic undertones and general lack of consistent attention to the characters, there’s a decently interesting plot waiting for you.

Unfortunately the series just feels...lacking, in the end. There is a S3 coming out (apparently featuring other characters), so the creators aren’t done playing in this world. Maybe S3 will fix some of the consistency issues?

I’ve seen a lot of people make comments about Psycho Pass being a ‘genius’ work, ignored by the general public despite its godliness. I agree that it doesn’t get the attention you’d expect a series of this caliber (nice animation, decent soundtrack, likable main female character who isn’t some moeblob) to have, but I think I hit upon all the reasons it’s not everyone’s cuppa in the first place...and while it is open for fanfiction and so on, the lack of attention to the characters by the series itself makes it less likely to appeal to the sort of people who write fanfiction. So there you have it: a pretty decent, mostly coherent series that’s terribly violent and misogynistic. Definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, but worth a watch if you can get past those pesky negatives.

#psycho pass #psycho pass meta #don't sleep on this title yall

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safflowerseason · 5 years

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Since you’re an LM Montgomery fan, what are your thoughts on The Blue Castle? And regarding Emily Starr, do you have an opinion on Dean vs Teddy? (As an adult, I feel like Perry was very unappreciated by the narrative - I quite like his and Ilse’s romance).

I haven’t read The Blue Castle in years…I read it around the time I read Pat of Silver Bush and I kind of remember just being like whatever about it, in a very foolish and youthful sort of manner. (I was young and silly.) Anne and Emily’s stories were a lot more accessible to me then, partly because they are also young girls at the beginning of their stories.

So, I went and found a copy of it online and reread it…quickly, it must be admitted, but I wanted to be able to give an updated impression!

I enjoyed it a lot more as a single, adult woman. Valancy’s family was hysterical. Montgomery definitely taught me how to write double-edged family banter, that’s for sure. The heart thing was a bit melodramatic and unsubtle, but I thought the ending was so sweet and heartwarming…I definitely teared up a few times (I’m a sucker for how Montgomery describes love.) Anyway, I don’t have as many “critical” thoughts on it yet as I do about Anne and Emily, having only read it twice as opposed to at least thirty times, but I would love to hear your take!

Now, Dean vs. Teddy…

Of course I was all for Teddy and Emily’s romance, and as a preteen/teenager obviously was weirded out by thirty-something Dean hanging all over twelve-year old Emily. As an adult, I understand what’s going on with their relationship a lot better than I did when I was eleven, but also…he’s so much older than her!

I think Montgomery lays out all the fundamental problems with Dean as a romantic partner for Emily pretty early in the story, and those problems never go away. And the context of their romance, when it becomes an official romance, is also very telling, considering Emily’s mental state. The intellectual control Dean exerts over Emily makes me very uncomfortable, and the age gap has a lot to do that. I would argue that another part of their arc is Emily learning how to face Dean as a thinking adult in her own right. And he’s extremely possessive of her and very jealous of her time in a way that Teddy is not. And he’s mean about her writing! Get over yourself, Dean.

Certain dimensions of the Dean/Emily relationship always felt a bit transplanted from a different novel, like some sort of late-Victorian gothic “Beauty and the Beast” trope…because Dean is physically “disfigured” in a way, and Emily is constantly presented with this star-like, otherworldly beauty (of a kind), but I have no sense of how valid that impression is, I’m not a literary scholar by any means.

Ultimately, Montgomery does a good job of showing why Emily is so drawn to Dean, and what his friendship represents to her, but also how his love for her is a kind of fundamentally frightening thing to Emily. I think she also nails her presentation of the fundamental difference between a very mature friendship (upon which you could base a successful marriage, if you wanted to or had to) and a romance. If Dean were not so possessive of Emily as a person, and if Teddy never existed, she and Dean might have been very happy together, in spite of the age difference.

As a character, though, we get to know Dean more than we get to know Teddy, and at the end of day, their relationship is a lot more layered and complex than Emily and Teddy’s. Teddy suffers from Montgomery’s tendency to back-burner her male characters once they become full-blown romantic prospects, as part of her own ambivalency about those dimensions of her novels (see: Gilbert Blythe practically disappearing from the Anne novels after Anne of the Island…ugh). Their friendship is fleshed out decently well in Emily of New Moon, and there is that lovely, evocative, infuriating scene in the churchyard in Emily Climbs, which I think actually does a good job at giving us a glimpse into Teddy’s mindset. After that, his feelings about Emily, his career, their relationship, all of that isn’t really communicated to the reader. His whole side of the Teddy/Ilse relationship is infuriatingly opaque while it’s actually happening, and we only get a really brief explanation of it at the very end of Emily’s Quest. Whither Teddy? I think he’s a much better partner for Emily than Dean would be, but there’s so much more Montgomery could have done to turn it into a more multi-dimensional romantic relationship.

And I’m with you—I would absolutely read an entire series about Perry’s adventures in politics, and particularly his and Ilse’s relationship. We get a pretty good sense of how Ilse feels about him, but nothing really from Perry’s viewpoint! What’s their backstory?! What about all the moments when Perry forgot about Emily and thought Ilse was the best person he’d ever met? What happened on their moonlit car ride?! Ahhhhhh. Someone needs to give Perry and Ilse the Pride and Prejudice spin-off treatment (which is published fanfiction, y’all, it’s a legitimate literary endeavor) and publish a novel about their side of the story.

To close, one of my favorite quotes from Emily’s Quest (that I think also has some Dan/Amy overtones.)

“And Emily was thinking—could not help thinking—of the time that she and Teddy had sat there. The odd part was that she did not think of him lovingly or longingly. She just thought of him. Would she, she asked herself, in mingled exasperation and dread, find herself thinking of Teddy when she was standing up to be married to Dean?”

So good.

#lm montgomery #emily of new moon

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sillyfudgemonkeys · 5 years

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My stance on P5 (cause apparently I need to explain myself :/)

So someone just told me someone was vagueing about me on the confessions blog (can’t say my name cause it’s against the rules but they’ll try to get as specific as they can 🙃 if you have issues just be a real anon hater and send to my inbox directly you coward). And I’m not going to do a reblog to that post, because I’m pretty sure that person must be on my blog. Because the post they were vagueing me about was......not tagged.....in the P5 tagged (I did not tag it as P5 nor Persona 5), it was just a post that was on my blog (now if it showed up in the tag or search I dunno why but I didn’t tag it for P5 for a gd reason cause I keep it to my blog). The post was me pointing out how P5 when they first enter Futaba’s dungeon they didn’t have shoes on, but after the cutscene they DID. The post was more comical (with me getting salty in the tags, but then you’d have to go out of your way to read my tags). And tbh, I’m half and half, yeah I know it’s a nitpick, and I’d just chalk it up to an animation error and let it go usually, but it’s P5 and that game is already inconsistent with it’s plot/world building/characters/anything important that I’m like “nah I’mma rag on it cause it’s just one more thing they screwed up” so I’m like half let it go and half rag on it (fun fact, when I saw they didn’t have shoes on I was gonna make a post saying “hey look this is cool, nice attention to detail” and then they messed it up literally 2 seconds later so dklsjf;afa yeah). (oh and btw, it wasn’t just “one” character, it was the whole PT cast at the time 8U” at least get it right 8U)

But the thing is......that was just a post on my blog, I’m not me berating the P5 tag. So that means you, person who vagued me, tend to go on my PERSONAL BLOG. So like....why are you on here? No, don’t ask me about me and P5, I will answer that, but you answer why are you bothering looking at my personal blog? Is it cause of certain content I post? Then just blacklist certain tags (like my “silly plays” tag cause nothing really interesting happens in that tag, or my more negative “persona problems” type tags), I know I need to be better at tagging my asks, but if you like my original content then just.....go to the OG content tags (aka videos/pictures/edits/coloring)? That way you avoid anything not made by me? Or if you don’t have a reason and you’re just here to be mad cause someone doesn’t like your game, then block me. You don’t seem to like me, so just....why are you here? You seem to want to ask why I’m here with P5, and I have my reasons, but if you don’t have a reason to be on my blog then why are you on it?

I’m not saying this to be mean, but I don’t want to be policed, esp if someone is going to be hypocritical about it. And it’s annoying to see vaguing (cause imo you are as bad as someone who sends anon hate, but you don’t have the balls to just send it to me directly XP)

Ok now where’s my stance on P5? I don’t like it, but it’s a part of a larger series and lore which I do LOVE! Which means, considering I’m a LORE WHORE, it doesn’t feel right to just skip a game esp if it could contain info about the MegaTen/Persona lore (or even Character lore) I want to know. In fact, I really hate it when I’m talking lore with someone and if expanded info is brought up from a side game they are like “Oh I didn’t play that game so it’s not canon” No Bethany, just because YOU didn’t play a game doesn’t mean it’s not canon. And no, no one is bullying you over the fact you didn’t play it, you just don’t like being wrong and the person was like “Ok well it IS canon and it’s in the game, you don’t have to play it but you.....can’t ignore this fact, also why are you arguing this part of the lore when it’s heavily established in said game you ignored???? I mean you do you but don’t get mad when someone corrects you. No one’s forcing you to do anything.” Ahhhhrrrrgggh so many convos I’ve seen happen, I’m not going to be on the end that I hate. DX<

Also, P5 is not the entire Persona fandom, so while I put up with it and indulge in it by association, it doesn’t have the ownership of the fandom (like with all the original games+ spinoffs+all remakes/ports and P5S/P5R included, but not mobile games, it’s only 23% of all of Persona in terms of game entries, and that’s overlapping with crossover games, and if we included other stuff P5 is def a minor aspect in terms of entries). It’s not that hard, I’m just a bigger all around Persona fan than I am a Persona 5 critic (I don’t want to say hater, because it feels like it sounds like I’m hating it just to hate it, when really it was a game I was excited for and loved and then it just burned me bad and I’m just dealing with the scorn). Always keep in mind, I loved P5 before I hated it, it’s probably why I’m as salty about it as I am, because I love P5′s potential and....I was just let down (it wasn’t unrealistic expectations, like I said earlier, P5 contradicts itself.....all over the place, it’s hard to ignore and it’s not something that was as big of an issue, or even an issue at all, in other games).

Why do I still post P5 stuff when I don’t like P5 (by which I mean...posting about the OG manga raws, or wanting to do a partial game to anime dub or even would be willing to help with editing a fandub for the anime)? Because I remember being a newbie Persona/Megaten fan, getting into the series, and wanting to know more about it and it’s side materials but then not being able to have access it any of it (because it was still prettty niche when I first joined and I had no money at the time). I want to give people access to it! Sure it’s harder for me to now to devote time to it (than it was a few years ago), but I want to help with giving access to this Persona/Megaten stuff now that I have some ability! And it also means P5 as well gets some of that love. 8U

As for why I was replaying P5, so this is one thing that’s making me wonder if you are a regular on my blog or not because I’ve been talking about playing the Korean version (but in my one post I forgot to type “silly plays P5/Persona 5 KOREAN” so yeah I forgot to specify Korean at the end). So tbh....I’m actually ignoring P5′s writing while I play (cause I’m just going through the gameplay motions), cause I don’t know korean. 8U And I’m mostly using that tag as a means to point out different things in the korean ver (no that much, but yes Ryu’s shoes ARE censored 8U). But why? Well.....I talk about it here and there but anon/person....1) I’m a trophy whore, I love plat trophies and P5′s is super easy I can get it (and I’m not above playing bad games, oh yeah burn, I’ve played a lot of bad games for plats, and I’ve also played the same games multiple times for plats, I do this to myself but really I don’t mind replaying P5 4+ times for 4+ plats esp since I don’t really have to pay attention). 2) I’m a big MegaTen/Persona collector, I want all the plats I can have (I plan on platting the other versions of the all the dancing games on Vita and PS4, P4G, and the versions of Catherine I don’t have, like I legit have a gd excel sheet keeping track of the versions of Megaten games I don’t have yet....I’m just doing P5 cause it’s 1) one of the easiest to do and 2) it was easier to get my hands on them atm). I don’t talk about my trophy hunting on here that much tbh, but that’s.....really a big reason why I’m doing it (plus with the Korean/CHinese ver I don’t have to pay attention to any story so it’s all good! :D) Yeah I do it to myself, but I don’t really mind. 8U And I mean I tend to keep most of my P5 issue on my blog too. I think the only two posts that I put in the P5 tag were 1) a few consistency issues I wanted to meme about (aka the I’m about to head out post, which was actually the 2nd post I made on that topic but I decided to just meme that one, so I thought it was better than me just bitching, at least I tried to make it a bit funny yet informational 8U), and 2) something that I tbh had an issue since I back when I liked P5 (aka wishing they worked on speeding up the loading times and the fast forward feature), so since I was playing the game I was like “That reminds me, man I hope they fix this in the re-release!”. As for english P5, the only reason I’ll be playing P5 OG in english is for either archiving reasons or research reasons (probably both at once so I don’t have to play through it more than once again).

As for P5R, uhhhhh I’m excited for Kasumi (Jose is cool too, and the new dungeon has me interested too, and all the P2 demons coming back to it makes me wonder what else is/if anything is coming back), she’s my main draw. Yeah it’s connected to P5R, but she looks so much like Hamuko I JUST HAVE TO KNOW WHAT’S UP WITH HER! Hamuko’s my girl, and I need to know if Atlus is going to do something with that, or if I need to be pissed for them literally lifting Hamu’s face! Am I gonna get pissy about P5R’s new add-ons (aka, I’m aware that P5R is probably going to keep the issues from OG P5, so I’mma just judge P5R based on it’s new content)? Yeah, if they kept up the same writing P5 OG had. So yeah, I’m probably going to get pissy if they eff it up, but I’m not going in pissy, going in with really low expectations tbh, but I’m giving it a chance. But if they don’t eff up the new stuff then......that’s good! It means they did something right. So far Kasumi is not Marie so we’re off to a good start. I’m hoping the keep that momentum. 8U

So yeah, I think I have valid reasons for staying, maybe you don’t like it anon/person, but they are there.

tldr; someone feels like the need to police me despite the fact they could just ignore me (even tho it seems like they specifically came to my blog to get mad, rather than me clogging up the tag, like I post there maybe once or twice every 2 months). My stance on P5 is that I deal with it cause it’s part of a bigger fandom I’m a part of and the fact I love the lore of that bigger fandom so it’s not like I can ignore it. I also have a Playstation trophy problem. 8U And I’m excited for Kasumi is that so bad???? (also I didn’t mention it, but Anne/Haru are enough to keep me around 8U)

#silly talks #i'm actually on my last 3 trophies for korean so after that i"m going to chinese #I don't mind the new teacher #not my main draw but I'll give him a shot #also mementos mission is a good manga to read #not canon and still perpetuates issues with mako's character #and the fact that those guys totally gave that one shadow a mental shutdown i'm not letting that go (esp since if they did that'd be so #INTERESTING please dont' let that go to waste mangaka ;w;)#but the mystery is really fun and I like it #i really need to post those raws tho #fdklsajf;lakjfl;a i just....oh man......it's a lot #it's easy to find me and look at my trophies #i have 151 plats yeah I have issues #getting plats is fun ok???? :w;#but yeah I'll try to get working on the P5 OG raws #i love anne and haru ok????#sure I have issues with their writing but I just really like them still

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wehelddarkness · 6 years

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Annual Writing Self-Evaluation 2018

The lovely @1diamondinthesun tagged me to do the annual writing self-evaluation! 2018 wasn’t my strongest year in writing, but let’s do this!

All answers should be about works published in 2018. (Skip any questions you don’t want to answer, but please leave them on the list so that others can answer them if they want.)

1. Number of stories (including drabbles) posted to AO3:

Eleven (two long fics and nine drabbles)

2. Word count posted for the year: 154.876

3. List of works published this year:

Tell The World We Finally Got It All Right

Belting out sunlight, shimmering love - The Spring Drabbles series

Joy and fresh days of love accompany your hearts - The Summer Drabbles series

The leaves are ready to begin falling again, as I am for you - The Autumn Drabbles series

Make Your Heart Remember Me

4. Fandoms I wrote for: One Direction

5. Pairings: Harry/Louis

(putting the rest of the questions under the cut because it became a long post lol)

6. Story with the most…

Kudos / Bookmarks: Make Your Heart Remember Me

Comments: Make Your Heart Remember Me & Tell The World We Finally Got It All Right (both have 27 comment threads)

7. Work I’m most proud of (and why): Although MYHRM is my longest fic this year and even though I’ve envisioned it for two years before finally getting a start on it and spending months working on it, I have to say I’m proudest of TTWWFGIAR. This fic is part of a series that I love with all my heart as if it was a child. @regulusarcblack and I have created such a wonderful world for Muggle!Louis and Wizard!Harry that just getting to write more of their story, no matter if it’s something small and silly, and no matter if people don’t even pay attention to it anymore, it will always have a special place in my heart. I’m very proud of how MYHRM turned out and for the amount of attention it got as well, but TTWWFGIAR owns my heart.

8. Work I’m least proud of (and why): It’s not that I’m least proud of them, but I don’t precisely have much emotional connection with the drabbles series. I’m proud of myself for managing to condense three stories the way I did, but as for the stories, they don’t hold a lot of meaning for me.

9. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

I have two.

One from TTWWFGIAR:

Louis fixed his still wet fringe over his forehead and closed his eyes for a second before he answered her back. “That’s a funny story, actually,” he laughed again, “I… we came back here.”

“We? Who’s we, Louis? I’m sure it’s not Lottie because she came back yesterday morning and she was just as lost on where you’d be as I was.”

“It’s Harry.” He decided to cut to the chase and just spill it out. As soon as he spoke he opened his eyes again to see Harry walking inside the room, a white towel around his middle just like the one Louis had on himself, and a smirk on his lips.

It took a moment for his mother to speak again. “Harry? Is… he there now? With you?”

“Yeah, he is.” Louis watched as Harry got the sweatpants and jumper he had conjured for himself the day before and started getting dressed.

“And are you going to explain to me how and why he’s there with you?” Jay wasn’t demanding anything and Louis could sense she was feeling more relaxed to know that new piece of information. “I mean, I’m not mad that you’re there with him. I’m just confused, love, that’s what. What happened?”

Harry looked back at Louis when he finished dressing himself and was putting his hair up in a bun. “Is that your mother?” There was a small frown on his brows as he walked closer to where Louis was sat on the bed.

Louis nodded, mouthing a “yeah” and quirking his lips into a smile.

“Do you want the short or long story?” He talked back to his mother as Harry approached him, his eyes not leaving Louis’ as he softly ran his fingers through Louis’ hair.

“I’m gonna go make breakfast while you talk to her, okay?” He moved his hand down to Louis’ face, caressing his cheek with his thumb.

“Okay,” Louis murmured before turning his face a bit to leave a gentle kiss on the inside of Harry’s palm.

He saw Harry’s eyes soften with the gesture and scrunching up his nose as he leaned down to kiss Louis on the cheek before he turned around to leave.

And from MYHRM:

“Dad?”

Harry hears Lily’s voice very low before he can focus his vision on his daughter in front of him. It’s still dark but he can see her sleepy face yawning as she looks at him.

He startles himself a bit, forgetting for a moment where he is. Then, it hits him as he feels an arm around his middle and the press of Louis’ body behind him as they’re lying on the couch. He doesn’t remember when they decided to move from their sitting positions and sleep right there.

Louis’ breath is serene on Harry’s neck and he smiles at himself before he speaks to Lily.

“Yes, petal?”

“I woke up to go to the bathroom and you weren’t in the bedroom with me.” He sees her rubbing her eyes with one hand. “Can I sleep with you and Louis here?”

Harry wants to laugh because Lily could’ve asked him to go back to the bedroom with her, but the fact that she wants to sleep there, on a sofa that barely fits Harry and Louis together, only warms his heart.

He’s too sleepy to say no or to reason that he should really get up and move to the room and also wake up Louis, or even to think about what Lily has made of him and Louis sleeping together like that. So he simply squirms a little closer to Louis to give Lily some space, opening one of his arms so she can lie there and snuggle up to him.

“Goodnight, dad,” she says against his neck and Harry kisses the top of her head as he tries to get comfortable again to sleep.

“Night, petal.” He closes his eyes and just before he can allow himself to rest again, he feels Louis kissing the back of his neck and moving his arm from Harry’s waist to hold not only him, but also Lily in one embrace, intertwining his fingers with Harry’s over Lily’s middle.

This is the happiest he’s been in a long time, and it doesn’t matter that they are all cramped on Louis’ couch or that he and Louis haven’t actually talked about them and their future. But if the future involves more nights like this, with the two people he loves so much, then he truly can’t wish for anything better.

10. Share or describe a favorite review you received:

I didn’t get many reviews on my works this year, but I have to say @derekhaleace’s thorough comments on MYHRM really lifted my mood! @doctorrainbows’ comments on TTWWFGIAR too (Rosie I miss you <3)

And I want to add one that was not my favorite, but it gave me a lot of perspective on MYHRM:

“Good story idea but written with too much decriptions and info ended up skipping a lot of the story.”

This comment really made me laugh out loud, not in a bad way though, but because this was exactly how I was feeling and why I struggled so much with that fic. I wasn’t content on how I was writing it because it felt like I was dragging the story. I was writing and writing and the number of words only kept growing and I felt like I wasn’t advancing on the plot. I took this as a constructive criticism and I know some people have validated me saying that for them the story didn’t feel like that, or others saying that the amount of description was just enough... So, yeah, I know it’s matter of like, but it helped me to be more critic about my own writing.

11. A time when writing was really, really hard: This whole past year tbh? first it started with the fact that I got a serious pain on my right hand, I didn’t know if it was tendinitis or what, so I went to the doctor, did physiotherapy for about 2 months? and in the end the end the only thing that helped the pain was arthritis medicine lol so for MONTHS I couldn’t write properly because if I forced my hand, it would be worse, that’s why I kept doing the drabbles challenge, because 100 words each was easier than trying a full fic. Then in august I finally started writing MYHRM, but it took me longer than I planned because of writer’s block and lack of motivation and a lot of self-doubt about my writing, so it wasn’t easy either :/

12. A scene or character that you wrote that surprised you: That’s a hard question, but probably Lily from MYHRM. I had already written a kid fic before, but it hadn’t been like this, because this whole fic focused on the interaction of Harry and Louis with Lily and I wasn’t sure how I would write her, and I needed to remind myself not to forget about her haha In the end, I think I did a pretty good job, her personality is so precious and I love her.

13. How did you grow as a writer this year: I think I stopped caring too much about people paying attention to my fics? It was something that always bugged me, expecting more people to read them, finding them in fics recs and so on. Obviously, I still want people to read them, but if only a few people read notice the and enjoy them, that’s what matters, and mostly, that I’m happy with how my fics turned out.

14. How do you hope to grow next year: I hope to keep writing more for myself, keep thinking of stories that I have fun writing and reading and care less about making it to the famous author’s niche in the fandom. Maybe also try to have some of other ideas I’ve had for other fandoms come to life, who knows.

15. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer: As always, @regulusarcblack who has to listen to my ramblings, even if she’s already sick of them lmao but she’s the one I seek when I’m writing and she always helps me put my idea in place. But I also have t give a HUGE shout out to @britpickerhl for sticking with me for another year, for dealing with my dumb mistakes, for having so much patience with gdocs and me, but mainly for helping me improve my writing and being my cheerleader!

16. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year: I never know, because I’m not a person with much experiences, so there isn’t much to include in my fics lol I think I reflect some of my personality when I write Harry, but that’s it. And I’m a hopeless romantic and sap and fluff hoe, so that’s what my fics end up looking like hahaha

17. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers: Keep writing for yourself and for the people you know who enjoy your work and try not to feel down if you are overlooked by the fandom. If you are happy with your story, that’s what matters. Also, try venturing to other pairings and fandoms, don’t stick to only what you are familiar with (not only regarding writing but also reading), it will give you a broader perspective of how readers and fandoms work.

18. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting or finishing in the new year: I’m writing a wip, which I can’t talk much about yet, but I’m quite excited about it because it’s been incredibly easy for me to write and I’m having so much fun with it, so I hope to kick off 2019 with this one in a good place about my writing!

19. Tag writers whose answers you’d like to read: I don’t know who has already done it lol so I’ll tag @mediawhorefics @emperorstyles @louisalbumnow @hrrytomlinson @hogwartzlou @tofiveohfive if you haven’t and want to do it!

#i read last years evaluation and i have to laugh lmao #anyway #here's to a better 2019 in writing #my writing #writing evaluation

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restlessmaknae · 6 years

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50 questions tag

Thank you so much @yeongwonhi-nuna for tagging me! ❤️

1. what takes up too much of your time? Studying hehe. But it needs to be done, so it’s okay. Plus, I think I’m managing my time well, I finally got the hang of my uni schedule, so I study a lot but I also have enough time for myself.

2. what makes your day better? Definitely spending time and/or messaging these cuties: @dat-town, @lily-blue, @binkygee. Watching Where Stars Land with my dearest golden unnie; watching kpop videos (yesterday we watched Weekly Idol with iKON and it was HILARIOUS XD); listening to music; writing; writing roleplay posts; cooking.

3. what’s the best thing that happened to you today? I got a cute comment on one of my stories. ❤️

4. what fictional place would you like to go? Camp Half-Blood.

5. are you good at giving advice? I don’t know.

6. do you have any mental illness? I suffer from anxiety and I was diagnosed with anorexia more than a year ago.

7. have you ever experienced sleep paralysis? No.

8. what musician inspired you the most? I can’t really choose one single person; there are so many that I respect for various reasons. Lately, I would say it’s Hanbin (B.I) from iKON, Jin from BTS, Mark from NCT and Jisung (Han) from Stray Kids. Apart from kpop, it has to be Cher Lloyd, The Score and Oh Honey.

9. have you ever fallen in love? No, only with fictional characters, let it be my own fictional characters or others’. 😁

10. what’s your dream date? I love cozy things such as staying at home and watching an animated movie or maybe cooking together. Also, I adore tea, so a tea house date would be fun. Yet, as long as I’m with someone I like, it doesn’t really matter what kind of date it is. (Just look at my bf!AUs, I’m such a softie. 😁 )

11. what do others notice about you? My eyes. I get that a lot when I meet new people.

12. what is the annoying habit you have? Perfectionism.

13. do you still talk to you first love? I haven’t had my first love yet, so obviously no.

14. how many ex’s do you have? Again, I haven’t had exes. 😁

15. how many songs are on your playlist? Well, on my pendrive, there are about 900 songs but on my phone usually around 200.

16. what instruments can you play? I used to play the children’s flute.

17. who do you have the most pictures of? My family.

18. where would you like to go before you die? I would like to see something in Asia, Eastern Europe countries sound nice too and maybe Australia. 😁

19. what is your zodiac? Virgo.

20. do you relate to it? Yep, definitely. Look at this:

“Strengths: Loyal, analytical, kind, hardworking, practical. Weaknesses: Shyness, worry, overly critical of self and others, all work and no play. Virgo likes: Animals, healthy food, books, nature, cleanliness. Virgo dislikes: Rudeness, asking for help, taking center stage. Virgos are always paying attention to the smallest details and their deep sense of humanity makes them one of the most careful signs of the zodiac. Their methodical approach to life ensures that nothing is left to chance, and although they are often tender, their heart might be closed for the outer world. This is a sign often misunderstood, not because they lack the ability to express, but because they won’t accept their feelings as valid, true, or even relevant when opposed to reason. The symbolism behind the name speaks well of their nature, born with a feeling they are experiencing everything for the first time.”

21. what is happiness to you? I think just the feeling of being at ease, knowing that everything will be alright. Spending time with people you love with all your heart and people you know love you back. Laughing, sometimes even at your silly mistakes. Jumping up and down in front of your computer because of a confession scene. Smiling widely at the finished story on your laptop’s screen. Listening to cheerful songs. Cooking something that you and also others around you enjoy. Happiness is going to bed with a content sigh and a smile on your face, so even if you are tired, you know you’ve had a good day.

22. are you going through anything right now? Of course, we’re always going through something.

23. what’s the worst decision you’ve ever made? Giving second and third chances to the wrong people.

24. what’s your favourite store? For clothes, it has to be either New Yorker or Takko Fashion. For others, it’s DM, CBA and ALDI.

25. what’s your opinion on abortion? I think I can’t say anything about this topic as long as I’m not in the exact person’s shoes. Everyone’s case in different, so I don’t think there’s a good or a bad answer concerning abortion.

26. do you keep a bucket list? Yes.

27. do you have a favorite album at the moment? Bobby - Love and Fall.

28. what do you want for your birthday? Haha don’t know. I still have time until my next birthday. 😁

29. what are most peoples first impression of you? I have nice eyes. 😁

30. what age do you seem according to most people according to most people? I think maybe 17-19. Though I’m not sure.

31. where do you keep your phone while you’re sleeping? On a table in my bedroom.

32. what word do you say the most? Probably fancy.

33. what’s the oldest age you would date? Don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.

34. what’s the youngest age you would date? The same as before.

35. what job/career do most people say would suit you? I actually haven’t heard anything like that from others.

36. what’s your favourite music genre? I don’t have a concrete music genre I like, I love a bit of everything.

37. if you could live in any country in the world, where would it be? That’s a tough one. Maybe somewhere in the UK or in Korea. 😁

38. what is your current favourite song? Don’t Forget by iKON, Runaway by Bobby, Woman by BoA, Siren by Sunmi.

39. how long have you had this blog for? Around two years.

40. what are you excited for? Finishing my soft bf!iKON series. ^^

41. are you a better talker or listener? Listener.

42. what is the last productive thing you did? Wrote down my daily schedule, worked on assignments and studied Korean.

43. what do you want for christmas? A handbag. 😁

44. what class do you get the best grades in? In high school, it was English, but in uni I don’t really know for the time being. 😁

45. on a scale from 1-10, how are you feeling right now? Oh gosh, I’m so nervous about my Microeconomics midterm results but other than that I’m doing pretty okay, so maybe 7?

46. what can you see yourself doing in 10 years? Pfff... what a question. 😁

47. when did you get your first heartbreak? Only friends broke my heart and not boys.

48. at what age do you want to get married? It’s not my life goal to get married but you know whenever both of us are ready.

49. what career did you want to have as a child? Oh I wanted to be so many things; teacher, handball player, singer, actress, songwriter, restaurant owner, pilates instructor... So yeah quite a long list. 😁

50. what do you crave right now? Toast with strawberry jam. (Thanks to Yunhyeong’s eating show that I started watching yesterday. 😁)

I would like to tag @dat-town, @lily-blue, @binkygee, @lthyl, @snakescript, @fornarniaandforthefandom, @baektoyoo, @parkjaeins, @velvetjjks, @llynnfics, @seokwooinspace, @wonjays and I think that’s it for now. ^^ No pressure though. <3

#50 questions tag #thank you for tagging me #<3

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nealdanderson · 6 years

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I actually really liked Samus Returns. What were your issues with it? Also, there's always AM2R to fall back on. It's on the Internet forever, whether Nintendo likes it or not

I’m glad you liked it!I have a lot of issues with it, so prepare for a lengthy answer, haha. And just a disclaimer to everyone- I played through the entire game and beat it 100%, so no one can say I didn’t give it a fair shot. Since it is a remake, it can’t be judged as entirely separate from the original, so here goes. Spoilers ahead.1. It largely misses the point of the original. Metroid 2 for the GB is far from a perfect or even great game, but it is an ambitious sequel as far as tone goes. M2 is easily the most ‘horror’ feeling entry in the franchise, and it directly correlates to how to the game treats your objective and how the map is laid out. Metroid 2 doesn’t feel like a heroic quest- you’re playing a character committing mass genocide of a species incapable of intergalactic travel and as she travels increasingly downward through the planet, the more desolate, lifeless and lonely it gets. Upon killing the Queen and finding the Baby Metroid, it is a somber moment and retroactively, the most unique ending in the franchise(no thrilling escape sequence, no enemies…etc.). Samus Returns abandons most of these unique aspects and paints your quest in a generically heroic light, the darker atmosphere is completely done away with, and the ending is totally botched. These tonal problems may only be a problem to a few people, and may come across as nitpicks to many, but I think it’s worth mentioning. 2. The map and item placement doesn’t make for an enjoyable experience. The original Metroid/Zero Mission, Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion have maps that are designed in a clustered fashion, meaning that traversing from one major area to another and backtracking to get previously unobtainable items feels organic and convenient. Metroid 2 on the other hand has a directly linear path descending through SR388. Due to this linearity, the designers didn’t implement the backtracking for items that the series would go on to be known for. I know this is a criticism Metroid 2 often receives, but this approach makes sense given the game’s map design. Samus Returns instead tries to encourage more backtracking, but due to the map not being designed for it, it always feels tedious to go back and find these items(usually normal missile packs that are extremely useless so late in the game). The teleporters only further illustrate the lack of organic interconnectivity the map has and feel like a lazy solution(this is something AM2R handles much much better). Basically, Samus Returns tries to make the original Metroid 2′s map do something it was not designed to accommodate.

3. The enemies and bosses are extremely repetitive, boring and/or tedious to fight. This is definitely a valid complaint and massive oversight on Nintendo’s part–Samus Returns’ enemy variety straight up sucks, which is made more pathetic due to the fact that its 25 year old gameboy predecessor and even the NES original have way more. The parry mechanic is cool to start out with, but after a while, it really becomes the only way to dispatch of enemies, and it is used the exact same way every single time- wait for tell, parry, kill enemy in one hit. The Metroids, well, let me say that they’ve always been the weakest aspect of Metroid 2- they’re boring, silly looking and really only serve to be an irritation. Samus Returns gives them a much needed visual facelift, but doubles down on how much of a chore they are to fight. Meeting a new Metroid form for the first time was pretty neat, but after fighting your 20th gamma, each fight taking longer than it should, it isn’t any fun. Each encounter is basically a tedious game of waiting for the Metroid to be parried, but if you miss that parry window, it makes the fight drag on way too long. And then to ‘mix up’ the experience a bit, the designers decided to have Gammas run away like cowards mid fight, only for you to play a very irritating game of hide and seek with the damn thing. The few bosses Samus Returns has aren’t that memorable or enjoyable, the robot in particular spends most of the time in a state that can’t be hit(like the Metroids), reducing the fight to being 90% running away and dodging. Ultimately, these boss fights and Metroid encounters don’t feel challenging and feel more like a test of patience. 4. The graphics are rather subpar or inconsistent and the overall aesthetic feels rather uninspired. Some rooms look really cool, while others are just ugly. Samus’ Redesign looks too edgy, haha. I love Super Metroid, it’s my favorite game ever made, but lately, most Metroid games just try to recycle moments, areas and music from it, and it really annoys me. Metroid 2 has a very unique soundtrack, but inevitably, they replace its tunes with more upbeat or heroic remixes, and and its worst, replace tunes with Super Metroid themes.

5. Ridley. Why.

—-

So yeah, I’m not saying I don’t like Samus Returns just to be a contrarian, I genuinely found the entire game to be a rather tedious and unenjoyable experience. I will commend the few things it does well- actually implementing different abilities in boss fights(like the spider ball), implemtning new uses for old abilities(spider ball+power bomb), the DS being a perfect fit for Metroid with its map and inventory screens, and the overall engine having a very solid and fluid feel.AM2R handled everything better, and the few things it misses the point of regarding the original Metroid 2, it still handles much better than Samus Returns. Just because AM2R exists and will continue to do so doesn’t make Samus Returns exempt from critique. Even if I thought that Samus Returns’ announcement was badly timed after Nintendo’s DMCA on AM2R(which was completely unnecessary, learn the difference between trademark and copyright), I was still excited that Nintendo, after 13 years, was finally making another 2D Metroid game. I’m more just disappointed that the company who created this genre, a genre that may be more popular than ever, generally refuse to capitalize on it, and when they do, it’s a sub standard effort. I may be harsh to Nintendo, but they’ve objectively treated this franchise like crap over the past decade, and I have a very hard time trusting them anymore. To those telling me to ‘lol, calm down dude’, like, I’m perfectly calm, I was never planning on ever buying a switch anyway, but Nintendo should seize on the opportunity to mend fences with the gaming community outside of their devoted fanbase(I’m a Metroid fan, but I’ve never been what you’d call a Nintendo fan). Since I’ve never been a Nintendo fan, E3 is really the only gaming event I’m fully aware of, and I felt it was a wasted opportunity for them to even merely mention that Prime 4(which isn’t even it’s final title, lol) was still being worked on. I highly recommend watching The Gamer’s Toolkit and Gamingbrit’s videos on Samus Returns, they illustrate the gripes I had with the game in ways more eloquent than I could.

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liskantope · 6 years

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (AU version) -- Chapter 1: McGonagall and the Muggles

This is the first chapter of a Harry Potter fanfic I wrote in college, back in spring and early summer of 2007. It contains 8 chapters and an epilogue which I finished just prior to the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, which was 11 years ago today. I believe I rewrote chapter 8 in the weeks afterwards (and maybe changed the epilogue accordingly?) in response to a (valid) criticism that its dramatic tone didn’t fit with the rest of the chapters, but I tried not to let that rewrite be influenced by my knowledge of what happened in book 7.

I call this Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows (AU version). I don’t mean “AU version” in the sense that this is an AU fic but in the sense that this is the final book in the Harry Potter series that could have come out in an alternate universe where Rowling for some reason abruptly stopped taking her work seriously.

My idea was that in the months preceding the release of book 7, I wanted to write a sort of silly parody version of what could follow from the first six books (I was inspired by such a fanfic that had come out preceding book 6, don’t know where to find this now), one which technically satisfied every bit of information we knew about the upcoming book 7 and which sort of lampooned a lot of the hype over the mysteries that would presumably be resolved in book 7. I was deliberately trying to imitate the narration style of the actual Harry Potter books (turns out I’m pretty decent at imitating other people’s styles, just not as good as I’d like to be at cultivating my own style of fiction prose.) To the best of my memory of pre-July-21st-2007, here were some things on many HP fans’ minds:

The title would be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, but what the heck could “deathly hollows” be?!

There would be an epilogue, and the very last word of it (hence of the whole Harry Potter series) would be “scar”. (This turned out not to quite be the case, but I can’t remember if we found out that she had changed this prior to the book actually coming out.)

There was “more to Aunt Petunia than meets the eye” (or JKR said something to that effect in some interview), and we would be finding out what it was.

Of course the biggest question on everyone’s mind was on the true nature of Snape. I remember signs and posters going around that blared, “SEVERUS SNAPE: GOOD OR EVIL?”

Fan theories were rampant that Dumbledore wasn’t really dead at the end of book 6; some of them were pretty wild and didn’t die even after JKR said “Dumbledore is definitely dead.”

We were finally going to be introduced properly to Aberforth Dumbledore.

We were all pretty sure that the initials RAB on the fake locket referred to Sirius’ brother Regulus Black, but who knew, JKR might surprise us.

Many relentless Harry-Hermione shippers were still holding out hopes for the Harry/Ginny and Hermione/Ron pairings that seemed pretty established by the end of book 6 to not work out, still trying to argue that JKR herself dropped hints that Harry and Hermione actually belonged together.

So without further ado, here’s chapter 1 (I’ll post the rest of the chapters one by one over the next few hours).

The menacing form of Lord Voldemort was standing over the thin, bespectacled boy, aiming a long, threatening wand at him. Harry Potter, whose muscles were aching fit to burst, once again pointed his own wand at Voldemort and shouted the only spell he could think of.

“Expelliarmus!”

Voldemort’s wand went flying out of his long, thin hand. Voldemort himself, however, didn’t flinch. He merely reached into the pocket of his robes and pulled out another identical wand.

“Bet you didn’t realize how many tail feathers that phoenix gave away, did you?” sneered Voldemort in his high, icy voice. “You shouldn’t have believed what Ollivander said about there being only two, you silly, naïve child.”

Harry, much as his arm muscles were screaming in pain, raised his wand again and shouted, “Expelliarmus!”

Once again – it seemed like for the hundredth time – Voldemort’s wand went flying. And once again, Voldemort calmly pulled a new one out of his pocket.

Harry feebly raised his own wand and croaked, “Expelliarmus!”

A second later, Voldemort’s latest wand was long gone, and Voldemort grabbed his next wand out of his pocket. “You cannot defeat me, Potter!” he shrieked gleefully. “There is not even any need for the Avada Kedavra curse! I have exactly twelve thousand five hundred and nine wands with me here, and long before I get to the last one, you will have died a slow, agonizing death of pure boredom, and I will be able to rule the world!”

Harry raised his wand, struggling to draw the breath to disarm Voldemort again, and woke up screaming. “AAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!”

He tried to calm down, take deep breaths, and let his eyes adjust to the dark. It was just one of the usual nightmares. A few seconds later, his eyes focused on his Uncle Vernon’s nose, which was inches from his own.

“What the ruddy hell are you screaming about?!” whispered Uncle Vernon. Harry could actually feel his bushy moustache bristling with rage. “This had better be something good! You woke me up from my favorite golfing dream again!”

“Just another nightmare,” Harry muttered. “Get out of my personal space, will you?”

“Don’t you dare talk to me that way!” growled Uncle Vernon. “I’m not the one who keeps waking up at night shouting for no reason.”

“I’ve got a lot of pent-up stress at the moment,” Harry said exasperatedly. He knew it was unlikely to do any good, but it seemed that he might as well try once again to reason with his uncle. “You see, I know that one of these days, maybe very soon, I’ll have to meet up with Voldemort again. And seeing as neither of us can live while the other survives, there seems to be a good chance that I’ll die. After all, normally there are four possibilities: that we both live, that he lives and I die, that I die and he lives, or that we both die. As I’ve explained to you before, the possibility that we both live is eliminated. So only one out of the three remaining possibilities involves – “

“DON’T YOU GET SMART WITH ME, BOY!” Uncle Vernon shouted. “You spend all your time sitting around feeling so damn sorry for yourself! Last summer it was that axe-murderer godfather of yours that you were moping over, and this year it’s one of your paranoid ideas about some guy you think is going to kill you! Doesn’t it occur to you that I might be under pressure as well? Last night I dreamt that I didn’t get the pay rise I wanted, and did I wake up the entire household because of it? One more nighttime scream out of you, boy, and you’ll be scrubbing the bathrooms twice a day for the rest of the summer! And I’ll know that you won’t use that… that thing of yours to help you, because you keep getting expelled every time you do use it!”

“I guess my only hope for cleaning the bathrooms will be that you don’t overeat at that drill thingy anniversary buffet again,” said Harry coolly.

“That does it,” said Uncle Vernon silkily, although the veins in his forehead looked ready to burst more violently than a mimbulus mimbultonia. “I’m locking you up again!” He was getting more excited now, breathing more heavily, and talking more and more rapidly. “I’m hiring someone to watch your window this time so that no Weasley loonies can come up with some freakish flying car! And I’m taking your… thing! So that even if you do decide to use you-know-what again and risk getting in trouble with your people’s wretched, incompetent government, at least I won’t have to deal with a peck, I mean a pack of owls nearly flying straight into my eyeballs!” He took a tissue out of his pocket and, holding it in his right hand, gingerly picked up Harry’s wand from his nightstand. Harry saw no way to resist.

Aunt Petunia came in. “What’s going on here?” she snapped.

“Oh, I’m just trying to teach the boy a lesson about getting clever with me,” said Uncle Vernon smugly. “Aren’t you impressed by my assertiveness, Petunia?”

“Actually, I’m not sure that punishing the boy is such a good idea, Vernon,” said Aunt Petunia, her thin, horsy face looking nervous. “Remember those people who threatened us when we picked Harry up last summer? If they come marching into the house, I’ll die of shame, especially if we haven’t had a chance to repaint the porch yet.”

“I’ll hire a guard to watch over the front door, too!” said Uncle Vernon. “I don’t care what it takes! Nobody makes fun of Vernon Dursley!” And with that, he walked out of the room with Harry’s wand, locked Harry in, and proceeded to barricade his room so that there was no way he could get out.

Harry could see no way out of his imprisonment this time without getting in trouble once again with the Ministry of Magic. He knew that members of the Order of the Phoenix would try to come for him sooner or later, but he had no way of knowing when, or how. He didn’t even have his owl Hedwig, as she was out hunting and now could not get back in. He lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling, alternating between fantasies of wringing the necks of his aunt and uncle, then of Severus Snape, then of Dolores Umbridge, and occasionally of Voldemort.

Then, halfway through the second day of this confinement, Harry had an idea. There was a way of getting himself out of this situation without resorting to magic or even using a wand. He sat up in bed and whispered, “Kreacher? Dobby?”

There were two simultaneous cracks.

“Harry Potter, sir!” squeaked Dobby, his eyes staring up at Harry in admiration.

“Harry Potter, sir!” croaked Kreacher, his eyes staring up at Harry in revultion.

“I have a job for the two of you,” said Harry.

“Dobby will be glad to do anything for Harry Potter!” cried Dobby enthusiastically.

“Kreacher will also do anything for Harry Potter,” said Kreacher, not so enthusiastically, “but Kreacher really does not know what the world is coming to. Everywhere he goes is still full of mudbloods and half-breeds and other random pieces of filth. What is the point in living any longer?”

“If I don’t get out of here soon and get to work, there really won’t be any point in living any longer,” said Harry briskly, “so I want you two to help me get out of here. I want you to inform the Order of where I am and how impatient I am to destroy the Horcruxes and rid the world of the darkest wizard who ever existed. Well, don’t say anything about Horcruxes. And don’t make too big of a point of how impatient I am, or they won’t trust me. And don’t mention defeating the darkest wizard who ever existed, or they’ll think I’m full of myself. Just tell them that I really need to get out, because I’m slowly starving to death!”

“Right you are, Harry Potter sir!” squeaked Dobby, and he vanished with a loud crack.

Kreacher was not so prompt at disappearing. “Hmm, to whom from the Order shall Kreacher speak first, he wonders… perhaps Severus?”

“Don’t you dare even think about it!” shouted Harry, suddenly angry. “You know perfectly well that Snape isn’t part of the Order anymore, you numbskull! From now on, I forbid you to mention his name without putting a four-letter word in the same sentence! Now clear off!”

“Most unfortunately, Kreacher must do as he is told,” muttered the filthy house-elf, and with another loud crack, he disappeared.

Harry sat fuming. Any mention of Snape nowadays was likely to make his blood pressure rise, even more violently than it had ever done before. He decided to mentally play through his favorite fantasy of cursing Snape so that his greasy, hooked nose swelled exponentially. He was just getting to the part where his entire body was weighed down by the nose, which was scraping along a hot sidewalk baking in the July sun, when his thoughts were interrupted by Minerva McGonogall abruptly appearing in the room.

“Hello, Professor,” he said, grateful to finally see a wizard or witch again.

“Good afternoon, Potter,” said Professor McGonogall curtly, as she peered around the disorganized mess in the room through her square spectacles. “Don’t you ever clean up in here?”

“Could you skip the lecture please, Professor?” said Harry politely.

“Oh, very well,” sighed McGonogall. “Let’s see what I can do about getting you out of here.” She raised her wand and pointed it at the door. It swung open so quickly and easily that it looked like it might fly off its hinges. There was a stifled cry of pain from behind it, and Dudley’s porky face came into view. Dudley rubbed a rapidly swelling bruise on his head and let out a swear word.

“You go and wash your mouth out with soap, young Dursley,” said Professor McGonogall sternly. Dudley took one look at her and ran downstairs, shouting for his parents. A minute later, he came shuffling back upstairs with Aunt Petunia half-carrying him and Uncle Vernon bringing up the rear.

“What did she do to you, Diddy?” crooned Aunt Petunia. “Poor diddy Duddikins! Poor duddy Diddikins! Poor little dinky doddle Dookidins!”

“Have you hurt my son?” roared Uncle Vernon. “I’ll tear you limb from limb! I warn you, I’ve been trained in wrestling, and my son here is a Junior Inter-School Boxing Champion! You don’t want to go around messing with us!”

“I have no time for any funny business, Mr. Dursley,” said McGonogall coldly, over Dudley’s soft sobs as he leaned his head on his mother’s bosom. “The evil wizard He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is at large, wreaking havoc upon both our world and the Muggle world. His especial target is Mr. Potter here, but not even such uber-Muggles as yourselves are safe in these dark times.”

Dudley wailed even more loudly. “I don’t want some evil you-know-what to attack us! I d-don’t want to d-d-die! I h-haven’t even g-gotten to try out my new Nintendo game y-y-yet!”

“Don’t worry, my darling diddle Dudderfus!” cried Aunt Petunia tearfully. “Mummy won’t let him destroy you!”

“I’m not really supposed to use magic on you,” said McGonogall, who was clearly becoming more and more impatient, “and I’m not as good at side-along Apparition as Dumbledore was, and Harry can’t legally Apparate by himself yet. So it would be most considerate of you to cooperate. Kindly step aside and allow myself and Mr. Potter to pass.”

Aunt Petunia and Dudley stepped aside, but Uncle Vernon stood his ground. “I will not let that boy get away so easily!” he barked. “I’m afraid it is time that he paid the consequences for his actions!”

Just then, there was a crack like a whip, and an anxious-looking Mrs. Weasley Apparated into the room, wearing an apron. “What’s keeping you two?” she said. “Supper is getting stone cold, you know.”

“Sorry, Molly,” sighed McGonogall, looking over at her. “It’s just that these Muggles are having trouble with the concept of common courtesy. They’re just as Albus described them. I bet they wouldn’t invite me in or offer me refreshments if I surprised them at eleven in the evening, either.”

“What a sloppy room,” remarked Mrs. Weasley.

“Will you all give it a rest about the room!” cried Harry in exasperation as he started to pack.

“Come on, Vernon,” wheedled Aunt Petunia to Uncle Vernon, who was still standing in the way of McGonogall and Harry, swelled up indignantly. “Wouldn’t it be better to let him go? After all, we’ll never have to see him again. He turns seventeen in a week or two, remember? And think on the bright side. At least these people haven’t wrecked our fireplace or blown up any members of our family this time.”

Harry could see the usual inner conflict within Uncle Vernon, who was clearly fighting between the desire to oppose whatever Harry wanted and the desire to be rid of him forever at last. Finally, Uncle Vernon began to say, in a rather choked voice, “True, they haven’t even so much as exploded a pudding.” Just as he said it, however, there was a huge crunching sound, and the window shattered.

“Uh-oh,” said Harry to himself, although he couldn’t help grinning at the same time.

“What’s takin’ yeh so long?” grunted the voice of Rubeus Hagrid, the half-giant Hogwarts gamekeeper from outside the window. “Come on, let me carry yeh outta here!”

Uncle Vernon muttered, “Mimblewimble!” and ran out of the room. Aunt Petunia and Dudley followed suit. McGonogall and Mrs. Weasley both glared at Hagrid, looked at each other with raised eyebrows, and Disapparated. Harry jumped out of the window and didn’t fall far before landing in Hagrid’s arms. A second later, Harry’s wand went flying out the window, thrown out, no doubt, in disgust by Uncle Vernon, and Harry caught it.

“There, take your thing!” came Uncle Vernon’s voice from out of the broken window. “And don’t ever show your disorderly-looking head at our doorstep again!”

“I’ll miss you too, Uncle Vernon,” said Harry gleefully, waving up at him.

Hagrid started walking briskly down Privet Drive, trampling a few squirrels in the process.

“How’ve yeh bin, Harry?” said Hagrid. “Seriously, yeh should talk to Grawp, yeh wouldn’ believe how smart he’s gettin’ nowadays. He’s studyin’ second-year calculus now, although he still has a little trouble remembering the dif’rence between sines and cosines.”

“Thanks for everything, Hagrid,” said Harry gratefully as Hagrid bore him across the street to where a grouchy-looking Auror stood waiting to escort him back to the Burrow at last.

#Harry Potter #harry potter and the deathly hollows #harry potter and the deathly hollows (my fanfic version)#not sure what to tag for in content #blast from the past #Might delete this

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thesimplyluxuriouslife · 4 years

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291: 6 Ways To Dance with Life (and Have An Amazing Experience)

“Your inner purpose is to awaken.” —Eckhart Tolle, from A New Earth

To observe the seamless fluidity of a dancing pair with years of professional dancing experience float across the floor no matter what type of dance is asked of them is to observe a deep awareness and skill of their craft. Foxtrot. No problem. Viennese Waltz. Got it. Tango. Oh my, yes. Swing. Yep!

In 2017, in episode #143, the skill of self-awareness was explored in-depth here on the podcast/blog. For a quick refresher, to be self-aware is to be able to observe ourselves, accept and recognize what we discover and be honest about how we feel, why we act certain ways in particular situations, and the change that we may need to take. It is being able to pay attention and be honest about our strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivations, and emotions.

When we are fully self-aware, we gain the instructions of how to live well even though we do not know what the next minute will reveal, the next week, month, year, and so on, will reveal.

When we become self-aware, we are awake and capable of noticing when we need to grow and in what way will help us navigate through whatever life may present.

I chose today's topic because no matter where you find yourself in the mix of stress, loss, pain, and confusion regarding our current situation, many readers have shared with me they are presented with new situations of questions, confusion, doubt, [fill-in-the-blank of an unwanted and somewhat or significantly new emotion] from time to time in a manner that perhaps was not present pre-pandemic.

"Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment." —Eckhart Tolle, from A New Earth

Borrowing Tolle's advice from the quote above, seize these unanticipated and initially unwanted moments and feelings and let them be your guide to deeper self-awareness and an improved everyday life. Assuage any grief, quandary, angst, by reassuring yourself that you have been presented with this moment for a reason. Don't toss it. Don't avoid it. Explore it.

Today I would like to look at six unwanted examples that may be happening in your life and how to step forward and do the latter to each in order to improve the quality of your life moving forward and through our current situation

1.You wake up in the middle of the night, your mind reeling, doubt swirling, fear temporarily winning

Course of action: As a matter of fact, take a pre-action prior to going to bed or whenever you feel most confident - write yourself a note and remind yourself of the truth of how capable you are, words of truth and strength. Place this note by your bed. Okay, back to the moment you wake up.

Take a drink of water, hydrate and wake your mind up so that it is in your control and not the other way around. Read your pre-written note. Read it again. Journal if you need to - what is causing you worry, what are you fearful about. Don't necessarily answer anything. Save the answering and analyzing for a time during the day when you are fully awake so that you can be a good judge of whether or not what you wrote is valid as well as to accurately determine if what you are worried about is within your control. Hint, if it is not, let it go. Turn the lights off, count your breath in a steady beat - in and out. Let yourself fall back to sleep. Whatever you do, do not pick up your technology.

2. You are exhausted from work stress and trying to balance all that you think you have to do

Martyrs die. On the other hand, workers with awareness of the larger picture of why they work, live well. While putting and acknowledging work as important, the latter do not make work the top priority. I have worked with both types of people in the handful of school districts I have worked in over my 19 years. Martyrs tend to be different people in the classroom than they are away from their students or staff (if they are administrators). People who live to live well are the same in the moment of teaching as they are in their everyday life. People who live well are more content, more enjoyable to be around and know how to put work in its place and do so with clarity and a love for not only their own life but for the people who look up to them - in this case their students.

Course of action: Be honest with yourself. What are you aching for? Nobody needs to know your honest answer but you, but be honest with yourself. Do you crave at the most fundamental, sleep? Do you crave a social life? Do you crave to be more comfortable in your body but do not have the time to exercise consistently nor prepare and enjoy healthy, satiating meals? Write it down. This is when your life begins to change for the better.

Whether when given the opportunity or simply taking it, try out living the life you want to live - the schedule you'd like to have - even if temporarily. Stick to it long enough to experience potential benefits - one month, a quarter, etc.. Don't ask for approval from anyone else as to whether what you crave is valid. Honor your own feelings, and give the new temporary schedule a try. You will come back with some answers, maybe not all of the answers, but enough, if you are being honest with yourself, to know whether what you thought what you needed was actually indeed what was lacking.

Upon choosing to make permanent changes to your schedule, if the changes involve others or require others to be involved, communicate clearly and refrain from complaining. While it is okay to vent to a friend or your partner or your journal, doing so is a means to release stress, iradicating faulty thinking if it exists due to past grievances being triggered and to ensure you move forward with a rational mind. Sometimes what we are venting about has more to do with built up stress from a variety of sectors in our lives and not just the one thing we are "cursing" at the moment.

Let me end by saying, be honest with yourself. If you are overwhelmed and exhausted, how could you have prevented the situation if at all possible? Could you have raised your voice when decisions were being made? Could you have made the smarter decision, not the easier decision? Be honest and improvement can be made.

3. Tension in relationships - personal or professional

Course of action: Answer this question for yourself (not for the people in the relationship that is in a state of tension) - what behaviors and feelings are unwanted or undesired, but seem to be a default or at the very least, unhelpful? Use your answers as a guide to what skills you need to explore and better understand. Seek out an expert (i.g. a counselor) or a book from a respected source on the subject.

4. Financial Stress not related to job loss

Course of action: Turn off the advertisements, stop or significantly reduce your scrolling on social media and start living in the present with the world, the real-world, not the virtual world, that surrounds you. If the influences for buying more, or "keeping up" are not coming unconsciously from media (and I know, you might be saying - if they are unconscious, how will you know where they are coming from? But take this moment to take a closer examination of what you feel you 'need' and where that idea is being presented or shown), look to your social circle - chosen or not - and start to tailor who you spend time with and if you can't eradicate entirely unhelpful influences, reduce or limit your time with them.

5. State of the world

Course of action: Choose to educate yourself on topics that are grabbing your attention. Choose to look to experts, credible in the field you are exploring, that you may not have looked to before to deepen your clarity on an issue before you jump to conclusion. However, do not overwhelm your mind. Seek out bits of information and then go about your life, adjusting your choices, actions in which you do have control that will make a difference, no matter how seemingly small. The words you choose, letting go of assumptions and fixations, keeping an open-mind and refraining from group-think, but rather practicing critical thinking regularly so that eventually it becomes your default.

6. A feeling of agitation or lack of purpose

Course of action: find something, no matter how seemingly small which allows you to see an immediate finished, improved, completed outcome. The act of productivity need not be anything to do with your job or career, but simply needs to be something in which you can see a "finished" outcome.

For me, my garden has provided many moments of productivity - weeding, pruning, dead-heading - as soon as I tend to it, I see results. Ahhhh. It sounds silly but as Sue Stuart-Smith shares in The Well-Gardened Mind, "Two essential sources of grounding and balance . . . proximity to nature and fulfilling work" (the author is referring to the lack of nourishment to the psyche prompted by the industrialization in the 19th and early 20th century).

Each one of these life moments of challenge offers an opportunity to course correct, to grow, to evolve as Eckhart Tolle expresses in his quote above. It has been my experience that if I choose to not acknowledge that something within me needs to change - to communicate better, to ground myself in self-confidence, to be brave, the same stress, the same worry, the same event perhaps in a different form, keeps rearing its head.

The pandemic is presenting each one of us with unique opportunities to evolve forward and live a better life. Choose to find the growth opportunity that exists inside of you, and your life will change for the better.

Petit Plaisir

—Borgen, on Netflix

Tune into the audio version of today's episode to find out more about this Danish Government television drama series, what Borgen means in English and why I am thoroughly enjoying it and highly recommend it.

https://youtu.be/Nw41sTh2mds

Tune in to the latest episode of The Simple Sophisticate podcast

#tsllpodcast thesimplesophisticate

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