#actually my favorite part might be the premise of the entire plot

[humming-fly]

as expected the fma mobile game event side story that inexplicably features og greed and ling as high schoolers is just as wildly batshit as you'd expect - all these shitposts are all taken nearly Verbatim from the translation shit really was just that funny i still laugh when i think about it

(also in case ya'lld like to see it for yourself i saved all the screenshots and google translations to a zip file here though fair warning they may or may not be in order good luck o7)

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - Korea drops my favorite cameo ever & gives KISSES

Entirely subjective yadda yadda. Organized sorta by favs in each category.

Sept 2023 Wk 1

Ongoing Series - Thai

I Feel You Linger in the Air (Fri grey) ep 4 of 12 - Well that’s one way to find out if he’s gay, see how he reacts to reading a het sex scene out loud. Yai is flirting so hard it’s like he knows everything. 

Dangerous Romance (Fri YT) ep 4 of 12 - Oh no! I love them. Also cohabitation trope! Also ALL the other ones: hair dry, meet in childhood... GMMTV going no frills with this one.

Hidden Agenda (Sun YT) ep 9 of 12 - Zo’s drama over Pat helping Joke flirt seems awfully manufactured. I’m losing faith in this show. Could GMMTV PLEASE hand JoongDunk a decent script? 

Only Friends (Sat YT) ep 5 of 10 - Sand & Ray are the only interesting couple, and I’m pretty much only watching for them. They gonna go south fast, tho, and they're already ruined by persistent singing. Ooo. When Sand said Top "stole his ex" did he mean Boston? How gay. 

Naughty Babe (Sat YT) ep 2 of 8 - The pronoun conversation had a bonkers translation but I enjoyed the actuality of it. The reasons for Yi's trickery are very convoluted soap opera. But I suppose that is the amnesia trope for you. 

Be Mine Super Star (Mon Viki) ep 10 of 12 - Boys. We discussed this already. No sex in onsens! I found this one dull, until the end when LLS showed up. Happy to just have him in everything. Thank you Thailand. Looks like it is a classic ep 11 DOOM next week. Who cares? 

Venus in the Sky (Tues iQIYI) 1-2 of 10 eps - The usual Thai pulp claptrap this time a reunion romances in and around a convenience store between a boy who recently quit his job and his former bestie who is now a doctor. Mostly not great acting, plot, or production but the sound is okay and no bad effects or singing (so far), so that’s something. The gay brothers have a fun relationship. It’s vampy and campy but fun. I like it but not sure anyone else would.

Love in Translation (Sat iQIYI) ep 4 of 10 - The date was cute but I still don’t like the lead or the premise (we moved into Cyrano de Bergerac territory). It’s moving slowly but it seems like we might be over the crush/stalker part of the narrative, so that’s a relief. 

Crazy Handsome Rich (Sun Gaga) ep 2 of 10 - I just can’t. The sound is too weird. With punch down humor and other issues incoming I may DNF this. You’ve been warned. This ep we got to see LLS with his shirt off. Did anything else happen? 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Jun & Jun (Korea Thur Viki) ep 8fin - No wonder he is everyone’s favorite hyung, boy can read the room like no one else. I love that we got to see exactly how clingy and demanding Choi Jun was always going to be. Only Lee Jun is easy-going enough to put up with him. Also I’ve never watched a KBL with more innuendo. For Korea this was… raunchy. I gotta say had Laws of Attraction not come along, Simon might have been my favorite character of 2023.

Final thoughts on Jun and Jun:

A delightful office romance about an ex-idol who joins cubical life only to find his new boss is his first love. Others boys are sniffing around too. Operative word being "sniffing" as much of this romance involves smell. With a snappy script, enjoyable sides, a pretty as peaches cast, and descent chemistry this show made up for in style what it lacked in substance. I like fluff. I loved this. I smiled every moment I was watching. With tons of rewatch potential (especially the last few eps), my only caution is this is for fans of the BL genre only, I don’t think it’ll work for anyone else. A solid 9/10 from me. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I like that Korea is trying high heat, but Taiwan and Thailand are leaps and bounds better at it.

Love Class Season 2 (Korea Fri Viki) eps 9-10fin -

Omg they so cute as flirty bf. Eeeeeeee! CAMEO!!!!! My fav guest couple ever! So exciting!!!! I love that they intersected with MY Strongberry couple (Private Lessons). I’m not used to this but Holy innuendo Korea, what with Jun & Jun and now this show? It’s a bit much for my gay little heart. The final episode was entirely unnecessary, but it was fun to see them being all domestic and stuff. Maru with his dumb lettuce leaves was hilarious. I feel like I need to rewatch this one to really understand it properly, so I will likely do that soon.

Summary of Love Class 2:

3 couples form within a semester of university: 1. a hyung romance reunion of exes, one of whom has a dangerous past, 2. a friends to lovers romance, and 3. a mature student and TA one night stand + complexities (many aspects of which had me laughing). I enjoyed the characters and dialogue of this show immensely. It was a little bit more breezy and friendly than I was expecting after the first installment, Love Class. I’m not entirely sure Korea can handle multiple couples like this because it definitely felt disjointed, especially the 3rd more mature couple (also my favorite) who probably should’ve had their own series. But it was definitely fun and something different from Korea. 8/10 RECOMMENDED

Also, Korea tried to give us higher heat... that was... interesting. I mean, you tried hon...?

Kisseki: Dear to Me (Taiwan Tues Viki & iQIYI) ep 4 of 13(?) - Everyone is a sad sack this ep. Ooooo. Teach/student my favorite. We never get this one. It’s messy. I’m not sure if there is a plot. I’m not sure they’re sure if there is a plot. But I am still enjoying it.

Why R U? (Korea Wed iQIYI) eps 5-6 of 8 - Why is the Fighter character always so frustrating regardless of name or country? Ji Oh stalking his crush via IG is so relatable. He’s very first crush awkward, unsure, and sweet. They also gave a nice kiss - I love the backpack drop (kiss version of a mic drop?) I still hold that if you haven’t seen the original this might not make much sense. But I am enjoying it. 

My Personal Weatherman AKA Taikan Yoho (Japan Sat Gaga) ep 4 of 8 - Oh goody, another JBL where we have to pay attention solely to what they do and not what they say. 

Minato's Laundromat Season 2 AKA Minato Shouji Coin Laundry Season 2 (Japan Thu Gaga) ep 9 of 12 - Big fat sigh. 

It's Airing But...

My Universe (Sun iQIYI) ep 3 of 24 eps - I couldn't get hold of it and I'm not mad. I'm putting it on hold until distribution gets sorted, or icky get their shizz in order (like that'll happen).

Next Week Looks Like This:

Starting

9/15 You Are Mine (Taiwan Gaga) Secretary has to deal with grumpy boss.

9/15 Bump Up Business AKA Bump Up Project (Korea movie) suspected cinema release? I don't know much about what's going on. Last status update. Love story between a trainee who is about to debut and a celebrity from the same agency. Kpop boy group OnlyOneOf has signed up to star in this idol-based BL (based on a webtoon). They’ve been auditioning for this since Libido IMHO. You can watch me chronicle their BL MV series in this post. It’s from Idol Romance who will do sad but can do good kisses (Wish You, Nobleman Ryu, Once Again, Kissable Lips, Poongduck 304, Tasty Florida, Tinted With You).

Still To Come In September

9/26 I Cannot Reach You AKA I Can't Reach You AKA Kimi ni wa Todokanai (Japan ????) - Adapted from the manga, childhood best friends: The cool, smart one who’s good at everything, and his average, dorky friend who struggles. Always by the other’s side, but not together in the way they truly want to be. No matter how hard they try, their hearts cannot reach each other.

9/27 Absolute Zero (Thai iQIYI) - from 2021, Studio Wabi Sabi and New Siwaj finally bring us this “time loop to prevent tragedy” romance. We don’t always get HEAs from them, so I'm on my guard.

9/27 Bon Appetit (Korea iQIYI) - from 2022, 8 eps from GoGo Studio, romance between an office worker who lives off junk food and the man next door who cooks well.

9/? Mr Cinderella 2 (Vietnam YouTube?)

2023 forthcoming BL master post (see comments, some are inaccurate, NOT KEPT UPDATED).

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

I love him. And I love his version of this character better than Jimmy's.

I also love it when a show gets meta. (Both Why R U? Korea) Why they didn't just go for YRU? the world may never know.)

(Last week) 

[theonceandfuturequeenoftarts]

Thank you for the tag, @mosiva! ♡♡♡

"Self-rec time! What are your favorite five fics that you've written and why? After replying to this ask, feel free to pass on to five other writers to spread the love. 💗"

Four of these were easy choices and one was trickier, but in no particular order...

thrown into the nest (T, 10,565 words, WIP)

This fic possessed me. The first chapter took over my entire life for ten hours during which I came up with and wrote the whole thing -- I couldn't stop until it was done and posted. Two or three days later, the same thing happened with the second chapter. It's like I was exorcising demons into a doc file. It's also notable because maybe a week or two before I wrote it, I told a friend I would never write ABO fic. More fool me.

I love this fic because it drew together so many ace people -- I've never felt a greater sense of community than I did in the hours after this fic was posted, seeing the comments of people who saw themselves in Harry and Tom's experiences. It blew me away, and I felt so happy to have done justice to some small part of the ace experience. It was a different type of joy, and a bit more cathartic, to write compared to other fics of mine.

VII (M, 2,609 words)

I think I've said it before, but I honestly thought this would be one of those weird little fics that I wrote for myself and maybe five other people would like. It's grown beyond what I originally meant it to be, and while I really, really love the sequel too, this one holds my heart. It's disjointed and dark (for me), and it's one of the few that I've written that actually has Harry and Voldemort start out hating each other and move through it. (What can I say, I mainly write crack and fluff.) They're both feral and damaged and violent and cling to each other all the tighter for it by the end. I also like making the Unspeakables ethically (and morally) dubious and research-obsessed, and this was my first foray into that.

naïve melody (G, 2,904 words)

The Ferris wheel fic; another fic that I thought maybe five other people would enjoy. I'm still proud of the wistful tone it has, and some of the turns of phrase, despite the crack-tastic premise. It's sweet and silly and it makes me feel warm to re-read it. It might also be my favourite Voldemort characterisation of all the fics I've written.

engrave the silhouette of you (M, 10,480 words, WIP)

Look... I just like hurting them, okay? I used the "angst with a happy ending" tag because I need everyone (myself included) to know it's gonna be alright in the end. I have made myself a crying mess multiple times in the course of writing or plotting out this fic. This is very much a "how would the characters react in this situation if X happened?" fic that has grown legs. It's fun (and painful) to put myself in Harry and Voldemort's headspaces and then put us all through the emotional meat-grinder. But it's going to be fine. Eventually.

Capsized (M, 948 words)

Fun, not-previously-shared fact: this fic started out as a way for me to process my maladaptive daydreams and suicidal ideations through Harry. All of the things he imagines or considers are things that I have, as well. (This makes the one comment that says "MAKE HIM SUFFER YASSSS" really, really funny to me.) I wasn't sure if I would ever post it -- it took me five months to decide to do it, because it's extremely personal. But it felt good to put it all into words and make it... "pretty," I guess? It's probably as raw as I can make it while also trying to fit it into the HP world and have it be enjoyable to read.

(Honourable mention goes to Prompt-ober 2023, because it almost killed me to do it, but it was so much fun to write everyday for a month and have the same folks comment each day and chat with them throughout the month (I love you all ♡♡♡). However, that's like twenty-five different fics in one, so it doesn't count.)

Tagging @liquidluckandstuff, @i-dream-of-libraries, @toast-ranger-to-a-stranger, @aglassroseneverfades, and @hikarimeroperiddle

No pressure, do it if it will be a fun distraction! ♡♡♡

(Note: I recently locked my account to registered users only because of an AI scraper targetting Ao3. If you don't have an account and would like to read any of the above, just send me a message and I'll provide a file ♡)

[now-that-i-saw-you]

Short reviews of everything I read this year:

Trials of Apollo ☆☆☆☆

Fantastic!!! Revived my PJO obsession. I enjoyed Apollo's narration. The 3rd-4th book were a little tedious though.

The Picture of Dorian Gray ☆☆☆☆☆

Flawless. So, so gay, weird and dramatic. I wish I could read it for the first time again.

Seasparrow ☆☆☆

I was disappointed. I didn't like the first POV, it made the book feel juvenile. It was too long and nothing happened. An unnecessary addition to the Graceling Realm universe because all the themes in this book were already presented in Bitterblue and Winterkeep. I might have liked this a lot more if it was not part of the Graceling Realm series.

All For The Game ☆☆☆☆☆

I'M OBSESSED. Nothing else to say.

One Last Stop ☆☆☆☆

It was cute and fun. I like it when you can feel that a book/show was planned. Every detail is carefully crafted to fit the narrative. I like how the author uses historical events to enrich the plot. Middle part of the book was a little flat.

The Cruel Prince ☆☆☆

It's...cute. I liked Jude a lot, didn't care for Cardan. Good enough to make me read the entire thing, bad enough that I might never read another book by that author.

Conversations With Friends ☆☆☆☆☆

Do you ever come across a book that's exactly what you needed? This was it for me. One of the only books I got from BookTok and actually loved. It was like being hugged and punched in the gut at the same time.

This Is How You Lose The Time War ☆☆☆☆☆

This book is poetry. It's a fairytale. It's the saddest, most romantic story I've ever read. It's so weird and confusing, I understood everything. It's a tragedy. It's so full of hope. It's perfect.

The Hellheim Propechy ☆☆☆ 1/2☆

It's a lovely series and I can't wait for the 3rd book. It has one of the healthiest relationship I've ever seen in books (and it's wlw!!!!). The villians are a little flat imo.

She Who Became The Sun ☆☆☆☆☆

I don't understand how people find the courage to write anymore books after Shelley Parker-Chan dropped this marvel. I want to eat this book.

The Catcher In The Rye (reread) ☆☆☆☆☆

I love this book idc. I love the metaphors, I love Holden, I love the way the plot develops.

Jane, Unlimited ☆☆☆☆☆

SO GOOD!! Such a unique and engaging book it had me pulling out a notebook and a pen and try to decipher all the clues like a goddamn detective.

Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious ☆☆☆

It's was nice! Idk what else to say.

Pride & Prejudice ☆☆☆

Reading this felt like sitting at a 19th century tea party and gossiping.

More Than This ☆☆☆☆☆

I've wanted to reas this for a while and it exceeded my expectation. This book is so captivating, unique, heartbreaking and hopeful.

The Trial ☆☆☆

This book was a fever dream.

The Rest of Us Just Live Here ☆☆☆☆

I think Patrick Ness is my favorite author. He did a great job with the premise of the book cause it's a lovely coming of age story and the fantastic elements are woven so well into the story.

Evvie Drake Starts Over ☆☆☆

It's cute and I love the fact that the main conflict is between the FMC and her Male Best Friend and the way this book talks about DV but it also felt a little dull sometimes.

The Lottery ☆☆☆☆

This was a mindfuck.

The Rocking Horse Winner ☆☆☆

....what?

The Scorpio Races ☆☆☆☆

HOW DOES MAGGIE STIEFVATER KEEP COMING UP WITH THOSE WEIRD FUCKING PLOTS??

A Man Called Ove ☆☆☆☆

Really sweet. This book healed something in me.

The Broken Earth (1+2) ☆☆

Yeah....I was not in the right headspace when I read this. I just didn't understand anything. I wanna give this another chance next year if I can.

Lord of The Flies ☆☆☆☆

I want to reread it cause I definitely didn't fully appreciate it but I think it's a great allegory and it's so dark. I get the hype.

The Sun and The Star ☆☆☆☆

I don't think you understand how long I've waited for this book, how long I've waited for Solangelo content. This was so cute. So lovely. I love Nico, I love Will. I wish there was a 3rd character in this (like, idk, Reyna?)

[ardnin]

My thoughts on Splatoon 3′s Hero Mode

Since I haven’t really talked about it too much I started wrting down my thoughts on the story of the new Hero Mode and oops it got quite long lol

So click keep reading if you’re interested in my thoughts!

In many aspects the Hero Mode was really great and I absolutely loved most things like the actual levels, the music and especially Alterna as a setting and the lore around it. The detailed lore on humanity's downfall and construction of Alterna blew me away and they didn’t lie when they said we’d get to know where Inklings came from because they described the cause for the evolution of these species in surprising detail. I always especially love lore about humanity in Splatoon, so to have this much about it and also stuff like actual “human music” with the background music on the Alterna sites was easily my favorite part of it. However, lore and story are different things, and while the lore was great the story was really disappointing.

I think the main story just feels really flawed, which is frustrating since it might steer the lore into an uninteresting direction, at least for my taste, but it also leaves behind plot holes and kinda ruins how sensible Splatoon lore has been up until this point. The entire Mr Grizz plot is just extremely bad and it’s not even the fact that he’s a bear. I know this is the thing people are memeing about lore fans malding because he’s a bear but that’s not even the problem. I think having a sentient bear that was once on the humans Ark Polaris and then came crashing down to earth to grow mad at the lack of mammals is a premise that could work, since we have a similar deal with how the Judds also are mammals from human times that possess human level intelligence, probably through human experimentation. I can even excuse the lame justification for the insane plans of Mr Grizz since he may have just grown mad over time.

My problem is the amount of unnecessary plot points and unthoughtful explanations for Mr Grizz and Grizzco. What is this nonsense with Grizz needing Cuttlefish’s “brain”? Is it the crystals inside that he needs to make the ooze? But at that point Grizz should already be done with producing all of it right? All this talk about “needing a representative for earth” and then Grizz just launches the Rocket without any explanations.

I do have some ideas why he might’ve needed Cuttlefish, but with the rest of this story I don’t have high hopes there will be any sensible official explanation for this. To me it just feels like they did it only to create a fake dramatic moment and they wanted to “kill” Cuttlefish without knowing a better way to do it.

It just doesn’t feel fleshed out and you also notice this with stuff like ORCA and its test chambers. They don’t even explain why ORCA has these Inkling weapon optimized tests for the player character when the computer was meant to provide testing for humans in these facilities. In the Octo Expansion, there was a clear reason why Agent 8 was going through these tests, because Tartar actually was looking for people from the current societies in Splatoon, that’s why these test chambers existed. But here there is no clear reason for it. It just feels like “oh people liked Octo Expansion so let’s do the same thing again” without putting the effort into the reasoning behind these tests ORCA does.

The biggest problem for me though is the connection between Mr Grizz and Grizzco. Because the connection is absolutely unnecessary. They destroyed all the depth Grizzco had as a company by saying that Mr Grizz founded the company. How would this work? They said power eggs are an important energy source for the Inkling world, but now the whole company is just a vehicle for Grizz to produce Fuzzy Ooze? Where the game itself doesn’t explain why he even needs the eggs? Does Grizzco not contribute to the world's energy needs after all? The entire plot of Return of the Mammalians could’ve worked without Grizzco’s involvement and the power eggs at all, they lifted the mystery behind Grizzco in the most boring way possible. I was hoping for Grizzco to be this dubious company led by actual people in the Inkling world with an interest in money and power by being an important pillar in the security of the cities as well by fending off Salmonids, entangled in many shady networks the company would have real ambitions for power within the Inkling world, and not be a hollow plot vehicle only existing for Grizz to realize his plan. And this could’ve been easily avoided if they said that Mr Grizz only took over an existing company and basically ordered the eggs from them, while the actual people running the company still had their own interests. But they had to do it in the most mundane and boring way possible by saying he “made” the company, without giving any thought about maintaining this sense of depth Grizzco had if it had actual people from the Inkling world running it with their own shady ambitions. And the worst part is that after the Hero Mode, it is implied Lil Judd is now “running” the company. Why can’t they just let Grizzco be an actual interesting company ran by shady people? Why do they set up another dumb mammal related thing with Lil Judd? My biggest fear is they double down on the evil mammal plot and make another similar thing with Lil Judd. I was hoping the thing with him being “evil” was just a joke plot and not relevant to the main lore and story of the game, but now this is a real possibility. It would just be the exact direction I was hoping the game’s story would not take.

But please don’t take this criticism too heavily. Overall this is still the most impressive Hero Mode they ever made and I appreciate the ambition they had with it. The criticism is purely about the story and not the entire experience.

Here’s some additional bonus-thoughts I had that I cut from the main write up since it’s more like smaller disappointments than anything else since it’s partly things that would’ve been unrealistic to expect anyways:

“Another thing that slightly disappointed me was that the Crater segment was seemingly building up something huge - they literally mocked the previous game’s Hero Modes with it -  only to send us to Alterna and use the exact same formula as the older Hero Modes. The Octavio bossfight was so fucking cool and I was really hoping that after that, Octavio and Cuttlefish would accompany us together, and there would be some more interactions between the two with some actual story segments that would happen as the game went along. Instead they just made the two vanish and saving Cuttlefish became the ultimate goal for 90% of the story and it was basically the same as ever with no story content during the middle of the game aside from the Deep Cut encounters. And Octavio literally only shows up at the very finale out of nowhere and there is absolutely no character development for him or Octavio. He doesn’t even show up at the camp in the end and the only mention of Cuttlefish about all this is “Who would’ve thought Octavio isn’t that bad”.

In parts it feels like to me the devs bit off more they could chew with this because there definitely is a lot of ambition since there’s even more cutscenes than in Octo Expansion, but with moments like the revival of Cuttlefish that feel like it was supposed to be an emotional moment, the timing and pacing of the scene was so bad and everything happened so fast it felt funny and silly more than anything else, which is sad because this could’ve been a nice emotional moment. But even that isn’t that bad since it’s their first time doing cutscenes at this scope and they will probably improve in the future.”

[destiny-in-the-universe]

An Unabridged Guide to Project Zero

Alright, so- this is what I've been itching to write for the past couple days, and honestly it's got to be my favorite post for the superhero collaborator project!

I'm going to be explaining the plot with a little more depth since I was almost running against the clock;

Project Zero Plots

So, to cover some of the old lore again- basically the whole premise is that certain hero districts will be working together in order to handle new threats and dangers to their cities. Though an organization known as the Order is determined to create an elite team of heroes to handle these, well, problems. Now, to cover what is happening in current times- from what I understood, three of the districts will have already met before the blogs kickstart, which includes Generator Rex and Ben 10 - courtesy of @oceandirtcountry

In context of what is actually happening, the heroes are catching wind of a new, unknown threat though the Order has yet to contact them. Now of course, in the main hub of the districts is a smaller law enforcement group which handles smaller concerns and the like, occasionally offering assistance- this force doesn't have a name yet and I am very much open to suggestions!

Now, with Amity Park (in other words, the home city of Phantom) and Norrisville (the Ninja's known residence), they're meant to be the newest recruits- and there's a reason for this, but we'll be getting to that later. I can't reveal all the fun just yet.

I have to leave some things vague for obvious reasons and we'll be covering the rest once I know what characters everyone's taking. Though something I will say: hero districts aren't commonly known by non-districts.

Additional Commentary/Thoughts

The Order is a government-run organization to the surprise of probably no one- it's uncertain where they originated from or how they came to learn about the hero districts, but their interest remains present. Prior to the existence of Project Zero, the Order was known for its involvement in creating soldiers for their own uses.

To keep things from getting too complicated with dates, I am not going to decide which hero district was around the longest; although technically, that falls to Norrisville but it likely isn't the only one. An honorary mention to the Dragon Council falls into this category, but they might never show- just keep in mind that the Council of Dragons has also been around for a while.

Do keep in mind that most of their series finales had yet to happen- well, most at least. Phantom Planet isn't canon to this crossover, not because I think it sucked but in context of the lore, it wouldn't make sense. The season two/series finale for RC9GN likely also hasn't happened for ahems reasons.

Amity Park has some level of ecto-contamination as a result of all the ghosts; nothing too horror-y but enough where there are... changes to the city as a result. It's a bit more on the down low.

Ho boy, okay- another thing: magical artifacts are common across a lot of the districts. I am too lazy to go in full detail right now, but just know it's a thing-

I was originally going to cover terminology in this post but then decided against it- since the post is already incredibly long, but well, for now you get my wild ramblings.

I've already claimed my characters, but I will be covering that later because again- I've been yapping nonstop. That being said, I am now going to cover one of my favorite parts of this entire AU.

The alliances; not necessarily who's allied with who, but let's get right to it, shall we? Honestly the way I see it, at first- there's going to be clear tension and it might be hard for them to adjust as a result of a situation they have no control over. Also, I need a reason to explain why they'll be absent from their respective districts- my best idea is this takes place over the summer and the Order creates the excuse it's a summer camp program but I can't think of anything else beyond that.

I like to think they eventually learn to get along, but there's a lot of trial and error at first-

I do hope you come to enjoy this as much as I will! I'll be covering the terminology shortly, and then I'm going to finish working on the blog, as well as covering official rules!

That's all for now!

~ Mod Destiny (They/Them)

[juniperhillpatient]

Supernatural - 3, 9, 13, 22

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr?

what you need to know is that supernatural was genuinely the singular autistic focus of my entire existence to an extreme most people can’t actually understand like. I didn’t just “like it an annoying amount.” It WAS my life for… several of my teen years.

so…. coming up with one specific bad take I remember clearly is not as easy as you might think

also. I’m probably romanticizing it in my head but I feel like the supernatural fandom is mostly chill? the show itself is insane but I don’t remember getting upset by the fandom so much as… the actual downward spiral of the show itself?

I think the worst take I can think of is people who think the later seasons are the best or that you can skip any part of the early seasons lol

9. worst part of canon?

the thing is that this question deserves a 10 hour deep dive video essay to explore it 💀 & I could probably be the one to do it but… I don’t feel like it

So I’ll just say this - the first 5 seasons were connected in a meaningful way & all Going Somewhere.

the ultimate premise of the show? 2 brothers on a road trip to hunt supernatural creatures? It DID have the promise to go on longer even if it was never going to always match the quality of that beautifully written original story.

but making it bigger & bigger & leaning harder & harder into the Christianity of it all was the opposite of the direction to go if the intention was to push for as many seasons as possible.

I would’ve happily watched the brothers hunt random cryptids & obscure myths in random backwoods American towns for 30+ years but they lost the thread. it’s the marvelification & Christianity taking over. everything must be bigger & brighter & Christianity must be at the center of it all.

13. worst blorboficiation?

No because you don’t understand I was JUST thinking about this. Sam, Dean & YES Castiel (I complain about the Angel demon focus in later seasons but if they were gonna continue post season 5 they def could’ve still found ways to include Castiel without letting the god stuff take over entirely. side note I actually like the leviathan plot. I didn’t say I hated ALL things from the later seasons. I did watch it all obsessively after all) were SUCH beautifully written characters.

I’m referencing what I see as the 3 leads but also, Meg, Lucifer, Gabriel, Ruby, Ellen, Jo, Charlie, Crowley, Rowena, Bobby & plenty of others (I just typed some of my beloved off the top of my head) —- Supernatural has AMAZING & compelling characters. The entire thing that drew me in initially was how very real the cast felt.

But unfortunately a combination of fandom & canon made these characters into more ideas than complex beloved characters. They became icons & gods instead of beloved relatable flawed characters I could imagine myself as. I’m not sure if that makes any sense to anyone else but that’s where Supernatural started losing its appeal for me personally.

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores?

I’m seeing a resurgence in early fans lately especially since I’ve been posting about it but literally I fucking LOVE just Sam & Dean on the road dealing with their daddy issues finding random classic myths & legends doing research & dealing with personal conflict as they hunt ghosts 👻

thank you SO Much for playing along 🫶

(Choose violence)

[woodswolf]

14 and 23 fic asks!

end of year fic asks

14. a fic you didn't expect to write

UM. definitely my current wip that i've been working on since like the last week of august or something. 37k and counting and it's still only about half done. like okay! literally the longest fic i've written since high school and everything of comparable length i've written is shit!

23. fics you wanted to write but didn't

uhhhhhh do the multiple planned sequels to my current wip that i cannot physically justify writing before i finish it count

otherwise there's like 4 other things, in order of likelihood that i'd actually work on them:

another pikmin fic entirely unrelated to my current wip. i actually have some of this written but i haven't touched it in like 2 months for no particular reason. basic premise started out as "Hm what if there were long-term consequences to The Events of p4" and then turned into midsommar lmao.

Manhattan, a tribute one- or two-shot to one of my favorite fic series of all time, The Station Sequence (Wells Street Station / The Ellipse / Promenade / Narodnaya) by Marquis Carabas. Fucking INCREDIBLE takes on Coraline and the kind of trauma that would naturally arise from her circumstances, but also an excellent example of She Who Fights Monsters and the impact that that has on herself and other people. I have a lot of very specific headcanons regarding parts of this series that I would have wanted to turn into a ten-year-anniversary tribute or whatever but unfortunately I didn't think of that until both the "series start" and "series end" anniversaries had long passed. But I'm absolutely going to write this anyway at some point - there are just too many specific ideas and some of them are already partially written.

the ninjago AU longfic that i've been planning... definitely since i finished crystallized, possibly since the s15 finale (but i don't think so, i remember the early concept was much more "this is an AU of crystallized" than "this is an AU of ninjago in general" so it was probably when i finished crystallized). the concept has Evolved a lot since then, but the basic premise is that sea!nya and a weird version of zane that i invented whole-cloth out of implications... they don't really "team up" as much as "orbit around each other for a billion years" in a way. julien is heavily involved, because you KNOW i can't resist that shit, and so are echo and harumi. i've already done a lot of Figuring Out with this universe or whatever but it'd take a Lot More and frankly DLD has much higher priority.

a few miscellaneous sciadv fics that i wrote a little bit of but which unfortunately did not go anywhere, and then amadeus wasn't nearly as important in A;C as i was hoping she'd be RIP. these are probably dead unfortunately the motivation is basically gone. ironically i might circle back to writing something for O;9 at some point instead - going in i thought it'd be horrible from what little i knew about it (unfinished VN/light novels and Breasting Boobily: The Anime), but actually i watched the anime back in september. aside from the pacing in the first few episodes feeling like i got infected with radical-6 and then started watching a normal show, it was LITERALLY fantastic and i am still fucking thinking about it. but! no plot bunny, fic needs a plot bunny. maybe something would come to me on a rewatch though.

thanks for the ask! :D

[ben-talks-art]

You know what's a big shame about Star vs the forces of evil?

There were actually a lot of really good messages being talked about in this series, and it's unfortunate that nobody ever brings them up.

I know it's mostly been associated with how much of a letdown its finale and management of the constant shipping and switching was, but... There were a lot of other things that were really good and well-handled in this series

I like how in the season 1 finale Star loses half of her wand and needs to re-learn how to control her powers, in fact, every season basically ends with her losing something and having to learn how to deal with it.

She loses her magic, her mom, her home, her best friend, her throne... She's always dealing with the consequences of the challenges she faces and the choices she makes, and that's very important to note cause the entire premise of episode one is her needing to learn responsibility and about the weight her power holds.

I also like how Star seems to form actual friendships with her cast of characters. In many series the main lead will just bond with a character in one episode and then we will only see them again in the background until the finale when we need everyone to come together for some big epic battle or something... But here, she's constantly hanging out with Buff Frog, Janna, Tom, Eclipsa, her parents, and the members of the magic council.

And a lot of these friendships start off so weird that it makes you think they wouldn't work, but they somehow always do.

There also tons of episodes with some really good lines where characters throw some concepts that I don't see often in other series, even today.

Like there is one episode where they play some weird magic version of Truth or Dare and Star mentions how the things they say aren't really lies cause sometimes people just don't know how they feel. That's such a great line!

There is another where Star tells Tom she doesn't even know what teens her age do anymore cause she's been spending so much time just working on trying to fix her kingdom for the last two or three seasons.

It's actually crazy to hear that and realize how much this girl changed from episode 1 to who she becomes in season 4. Star from episode 1 would NEVER say a line like that.

One of my favorites though is at the finale of season 1 when Star's parents just exchange a worried look and go "I don't know if we're doing the right thing." once they let Star go after losing half her wand. It sets a nice tone of "Where are we going with this...?" that carries through the rest of the show.

The show also tries to subvert a lot of old tired tropes by throwing some very interesting ideas like making Star's love interests become actual friends early in the story, have the weird bird bad guy from season 1 go through a self-discovery journey where he has to start from scratch after losing everything, and while they do pair up Star and Marco in the end in a very underwhelming way, I like how both of them go through their own series of love interests before arriving there.

It wasn't just "Oh, he/she is the one!" They actually try out things with other people before realizing what they really want.

And a lot of the plot twists are legit fascinating.

The story behind Meteora is my favorite part of the entire show. Again, they take this joke villain from season 1 and turn it into this massive conspiracy where the people in charge strip a mother from her child in order to keep the power in the hands of those they want.

I don't even know what might go through a kid's head while watching this.

There also lots of other cool twists like Toffe's plan to end magic, the identity of Eclipsa's husband, the meaning behind Star's butterfly form and how they handle it by just allowing it to run free and observe where it goes.

I don't know, this show just had a ton of fun ideas, and they handled them, most of the time, in fun ways.

A lot of other times they were handled in super clunky ways, yes, and sometimes the build-up to certain events could be way too slow, the shipping teasing got annoying after a while, and some resolutions were a tad anti-climatic...

There definitely are a lot of problems in Star vs. Foe, but at times it feels like when people talk about it, they treat it like there's nothing good, like they wish this never existed, like the Marco and Star endgame is the only thing worth talking about and... no there are tons of things worth talking about in here.

It had low lows, but also some really good highs, and I'm glad I saw it and glad it existed.

[catwings-writes-things]

If you still take questions from the Tree writer ask game: Gingko: What part of your story is the oldest, has stuck around from that original idea?

Paper Birch: Which character has the most layers peeled back?

I am indeed still taking asks! I am always taking asks from any ask game I’ve ever reblogged, by the way. Just tell me which one and preferably include the questions, especially if it’s from a while back. You did this exactly right 💚

Gingko: A World of His Own has actually changed shockingly little from the original idea. From the first “hey, what if” series of texts about the concept I sent to @thethistlegirlwrites, the basic premise and who was involved were set. I had the basic plot sketched out in its entirety within a few days. So to answer this question, I’m going to have to go back to a few days before the actual germ of the idea, when I read this fic by @mikecrewsteacup and started thinking about Mike a lot more than I previously had. One of the things I noticed was that Jude said Mike “hangs around with the Fairchilds sometimes,” so he clearly knows and gets on with them but isn’t one himself, and I started wondering if they hadn’t invited him to join or if they had but he’d declined, and if so why. I did eventually decide it makes total sense with his character that he would prefer to remain as unaffiliated as possible with anything and anyone except the Vast, and especially that he’d be uncomfortable with the idea of a family of any sort, but it led to wondering what, if anything, might have been different if he had been a Fairchild. That led to me thinking more about the Fairchilds in general, which led to me going back over Freefall and wondering who Harriet was (besides the only Fairchild besides Simon we get a name for. We get the names of more Lukases, for crying out loud) and what the deal was with Robert Kelly and Open Skydiving (more on that in chapter 11), and that led to me writing a ficlet where she gets sent to invite Mike to join the Fairchild family a year or two after his Becoming. Even then, when they both suspected that the other might start trying to kill them at any moment, I could tell within a few minutes of them interacting with each other that their dynamic had, pun intended, vast potential. So, probably the oldest part of this story is the relationship between Mike and Harriet. (My interest in Jon and Helen’s dynamic is even older, but the way I think about it has evolved enough over time that I think the above answer still stands.)

Paper Birch: surprising no one, I’m gonna have to say Helen. Not just because she’s been a thousand different people over the past who-knows-how-many centuries, not just because she’s often a mystery even to herself, but because one of the many consequences of the fact that this fic is being told entirely from Jon’s point of view is that what gets conveyed to the readers is limited by what he knows and thinks and believes, and even though Jon is hands-down Helen’s favorite person and (by this point in the story) the person who loves her most, he’s also fundamentally unable to understand her (for practical reasons and for her safety), not to mention just. Kind of shit at actually understanding other people in general. However, he’s also inclined to keep trying to work around that, partly because it’s hard for him to grasp any other way to love someone. He’s definitely getting better at that, but in the meantime, the upshot of all that is that he will keep forming new misconceptions about Helen only slightly more slowly than he learns better. Sooner or later they’ll both realize that that’s not a bad thing, but for now… yeah.

Thank you for the ask, friend! Best!

[rachelbethhines]

60 Years of Doctor Who Anniversary Marathon - Davison 12th Review

Worlds of Big Finish - Spin-off

Does anyone remember that Disney Afternoon magazine that ran in the 90s?

In it, they would feature articles on upcoming movies and shows, and regularly print comics featuring the current Disney Afternoon properties.

Well during the magazine’s early run Disney attempted a five part crossover with all of it’s main series. Despite the fact none of the shows, save for two, had any connection to one another, took place in different locations and time periods, and had wildly different tones and premises. 

They’re solution? 

Have the heroes face a reoccurring enemy by having them all come into contact with a particular plot MacGuffin one by one.

The story was called The Legend of the Chaos God.

Worlds of Big Finish is basically that, but done with Big Finish characters instead of Disney.

Each part is a mini-adventure highlighting one of the company’s numerous audio spin-offs; some Doctor Who related, some not.

Each hero faces off against an over arching enemy, the Magog in this case, on their own, until the next person in line comes across the crossover’s plot MacGuffin. Only instead of a evil ruby that possesses people, we get a book of prophecies that makes people go insane.

First up to bat is Graceless, and it’s also the most relevant part for this section of the marathon.

Graceless is about two sisters who can teleport themselves anywhere in time or space. They are two humanoid tracers created by the White and Black Guardians to find the key to time. 

The ‘white’ sister, Abby, was assigned to assist the Fifth Doctor during Big Finish’s Key to Time squeal “Key 2 Time”. While the ‘black’ sister, Zara, was their main opponent in the race to find the key. 

Zara, however, grew tired of her objective as she became ever more human. Eventually she and Abby reunited and form an alliance against the Guardians with the Fifth Doctor’s help.

Now while I have heard their introduction story, I myself have never listened to Graceless before now. According to people who have listened to it, it’s a very serialized story with a lot of slow burn character development.

With that in mind, this might be the weakest entry in the crossover.

The episode is supposed to take place between seasons two and three of the Graceless series, as such we get an opening that somewhat ties into that ongoing story line, which is arguably not the best way to kick off a crossover that’s supposed to be a sampling of various series to newcomers.

None of that continuity winds up mattering that much to the actual plot, but because this backstory is the inciting incident that kicks off the entire crossover, it can leave the viewer feeling a little lost.

There’s also the added problem of the fact that because this episode is what establishes the premise of the crossover, setting up the plot MacGuffin and where it comes from, the story has little identity. 

You don’t get a good idea of who Abby and Zara are, nor what their ongoing series is about. The plot has a supernatural investigator vibe to it, what with the sisters’ precognition and physic abilities... and the fact that they are solving a murder mystery, but I get the feeling from other reviewers this isn’t the norm for the main series.

With that, the Sherlock Holmes entry was probably my favorite story of the box set.

There’s no tangible connection to Doctor Who here besides being a Big Finish project and being in this particular crossover, it’s just a straight up Sherlock Holmes adaption.  

Now I can’t speak for the main series, but this particular story did something very interesting with the character. It made Sherlock old. 

Not so old that he can’t do the job anymore if asked, but he is nearing retirement and Watson himself has already stepped away from the job due to illness.

Instead it’s Sherlock’s brother, Mycroft, whom he is working with here, which is a delightful dynamic that probably doesn’t get explored enough in Holmes adaptations.  

After Sherlock Holmes we get Dorian Gray. 

Like with Holmes, I mainly know about Dorian Gray from pop-culture osmosis. I’ve seen the black and white film staring Angela Lansbury and that adaptation of Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and that’s it.

Also like Holmes, Gray has nothing to due with Doctor Who outside of this one crossover.

Which is more the pity.

From what I can tell from this singular sample the series explores the premise of an immortal being who made a devil’s pact for eternal youth, and pushes it beyond what the original novel could explore. 

That jumping off point actually would make for brilliant genuine Doctor Who crossover. Two immortals; one a morally gray anti-hero at best, the other an seemingly upright hero who often fails to live up to his lofty ideals, who are forced to work together to save the day..... Yes, Please!

But enough fantasies, the actual story is a tight little Gothic horror tale just as you would expect from a series based off of a classic Gothic horror novel.

Then for the fourth episode we meet Iris Wildthyme and Captain Turner again, bringing us back to the world of Doctor Who.

Funny enough this story is supposed to be the one that comes right before Comeback of the Scorchies, which we covered earlier in the marathon.

This arguably works better as an introduction for the series than that audio did, and is probably my second favorite story of the boxset. A perfect screwball comedy that really sells Iris Wildthyme as the Doctor Who parody that she is.

Vienna was the spin-off that I was the least familiar with coming into this crossover.

In fact I didn’t even know that it existed until I listened to this story. 

From what I can gather, Vienna is a bounty hunter and an antagonist of the Seventh Doctor.

Not that this sample conveys that.

I mean we get she’s a bounty hunter, but there’s no mention of the Doctor at any point in the entire crossover so lucky google exists.

It was okay... a very middle of the road space noir pastiche.

Then there is Bernice Summerfield.

She’s a companion of the Seventh Doctor from the novels; an archaeologist from the 26th century. She proven so popular that she’s gotten spinoff novels, comics, audios, and even an animated web-series!

I’m guessing Bernice was the big draw for this crossover, hence why she’s the one to end things off.

And it’s actually my least favorite story here.

True the Graceless entry might fail to tell me what Graceless is about, but it’s still at least interesting.

This is just generic sci-fi plot 101 condensed down to 30 mins. There’s no time to build tension or make me care about the characters as the all die one by one. 

The most interesting thing was the villain’s motivations but he gets ‘redeemed’ too quickly to make much of an impact. 

However I will grant that the ending twist with the plot MacGuffin is really clever circular storytelling.

So is Worlds of Big Finish worth getting?

It depends on how invested you are with any of the spin-offs featured here.

None of the stories are necessarily bad, not even the Bernice Summerfield one... it’s just unless you already have a personal connection to any of the series featured you might find it hard to justify the cost of buying the whole set.

[kitkatt0430]

🧍‍♀️😨 👁

🧍‍♀️what fic is begging for your attention right now but you refuse to give it?

Timeless Nonesense. And I might just wind up giving in a bit so that I can get the part of it nagging me out of the way.

It's the story where Barry wakes up in the pilot episode, but with memories from multiple timelines and realities due to how the Speed Force sent him back in time to prevent a future disaster in the Speed Force's personal timeline. It's intended to be a crack fic, at times parodying the show and at times taking the premise seriously.

I've got three story arcs lined up in my head thus far. The first is where Barry wakes up and is very much not the Barry that Eobard was expecting. Despite himself, Eobard comes to trust that this version of Barry really is telling the truth and genuinely wants to be allies with him.

The second arc is set in the future where Eobard is from where Barry proves Eobard is actually Malcolm Thawne's descendant, not Eddie Thawne (reusing an explanation I've used/am using in other places) and convinces him to destroy the Negative Speed Force before it can become a threat to the real Speed Force. It's not what Barry came back in time to do, but not having to worry about the NSF is one less problem to deal with later.

Third arc is when the Eobarry finally starts. They return to the past to start setting up the reputation of the Flash in order to start attracting more Speedsters notice as part of the long game to protect the Speed Force. They take advantage of events Barry knows are coming to plausibly 'pass' on Barry's abilities to Eobard to make it look like Harrison Wells is now a Speedster too.

It's the first arc that's nagging at me. And I do see this as being a really fun series to work on. But of my Eobarry fic ideas, the one with Herobard is the one I like better. So I'm determined to get part 3 done before I start posting this series. (We'll see how that goes, though.)

😨 describe in FULL detail the first fic you wrote (yes I'm talking the wattpad shit we all did it).

Well, if we're talking the first ever fanfic I wrote, not the first I posted, then... I was... ten? maybe? And my parents had just okayed putting the old Windows 3.1 computer in my room as long as I was responsible and didn't stay up late playing The Black Cauldron or the Kings Quest games.

I started writing Star Trek Voyager fanfic pretty much immediately. I don't remember the plot details, but I know it was about Seven of Nine and Captain Janeway because they were my favorites and Seven in particular was just so cool.

TBH, I basically wanted to be Naomi Wildman. (Captain's Assistant and friends with Seven of Nine? Sign me up, please.)

It was not a self-insert or use an OC for the main character - though I did toy around with those later on. I do remember that much. It was something of a bad things happen and the crew reacts to save the day type plot.

Much as I wish I still had the story I was working on back then just for nostalgia reasons, the computer crashed after only a few months and my parents decided it wasn't worth the price to repair. My fanfic was lost and I started using the hall computer for games instead. I was a bit devastated by the loss of my fanfic, so I didn't start over in a notebook and instead tried my hand at an original mystery that was very Nancy Drew and A Wrinkle in Time inspired, though I don't think that made it past the first chapter. It was a few years later when i was... fourteen? that I was introduced to fanfiction.net, however, and my fanfic obsession truly began.

👁 have you ever accidentally foreshadowed something you fully didn't intend to happen?

I'm pretty sure I did that in an old Harry Potter fic I wrote back in high school. It was a Draco/Harry fic that I took down when I got concerned by the idea of my parents looking up my ffnet account and finding it... and it's since been lost entirely. It was a pretty innocent fic, but between some of the nastier comments that had started heading my way (ffnet was going through a wave of people leaving flames, or very rude reviews) and not really knowing how my mom in particular would react to me writing two boys kissing and holding hands... *shrugs* it was easier to just take down the fic entirely.

It was among the first fics I'd ever posted and my first attempt at a long fic. So it's not really surprising that sometimes I'd write things intending to indicate the fic was going in one direction without realizing that it was actually meandering into the weeds in a different direction. The whole thing was a fun learning experience and ffnet had a very critique friendly atmosphere at the time, so getting feedback was helpful in fixing some of the more egregious errors and foreshadowing failures. I do wish I could have finished it, but... I don't regret losing it the way I do the Voyager fic because stopping work on it was my choice. And I think it helps that while Star Trek continues to grow in new directions and promote inclusive narratives, JKR has since gone off the terf deep end. So losing a fanfic based off her writing is more relief than bother at this point.

[billconrad]

Translating Books to Film

    There are many outstanding books and a precious few gets made into movies. When the conversion takes place, the plot must be trimmed, which can be as little as a few scenes or axe many chapters.

    Why is the reduction necessary? When an author writes a book, they have unlimited freedom to develop characters, location, story, and reality. Movies must be actually filmed and this has major limitations. For example, in a book, a character can be in New York one day to fly to Antarctica. Moving a full movie crew from a big city to Antarctica is a huge undertaking. Meaning that it is not practical to fulfil every aspect of the plot and we must change it to accommodate the reality of filming. Another major restraint is the length of a movie and the number of words that an actor can say per minute. Authors have no such restraints.

    Movie audiences have a vastly distinct set of expectations and needs. They require fast action, a more universal story, and not be offended. Movie studios also have to advertise, build actor’s egos, take filmmaking to the next level, please the lawyers, and include a music score.

    Movies are visual, exciting and they have real people (or animated characters). A book might contain, “Bob had flowing red hair, with his trademark yellow hat, never smiles and is 17 years old.” In the movie, the dashing Tom Cruise dramatically portrays the character. He wears many outfits, has many expressions, provides his trademark smile, and obviously does not have red hair. However, Tom Cruise is a popular actor that brings a character to life and butts into theater seats.

    The resulting film is ultimately a compromise regarding fulfilling what an author created. I thought examining a few books I have read and the resulting movie would be interesting.

    Great movies and outstanding books that only shared the title: City of Ember, The Shawshank Redemption, The Princess Bride, Ready Player One and A Wrinkle in Time.

    These books were outstanding, with strong plots, good dialog, and terrific characters. The movies had great plots, talented actors, superb cinematography, and memorable dialog. However, the underlying plots did not match.

    Why? The parts that made the book great were the attention to detail. The parts that made the movies great were the exciting plot additions, added humor, and character insight. Plus, they corrected plot issues. Was there an improvement over the original work? Is it ethical to alter the plot to make an exciting movie? In my opinion, yes, because I like good movies.

    Bad book, great movie: How to Train Your Dragon and Drive.

    These are two of my favorite moves, and after watching, I immediately read the book. Both had a slow, wishy-washy story, underdeveloped characters, lousy descriptions, ineffective drama, and ZERO character chemistry. The screenwriter did a complete teardown of the entire plot. What they left was some of the basic premise, the title, and the character names.

    The movies, of course, were astounding. Both are in my top 20, and I cannot say enough about them. I want to meet the screenwriters and directors. And the book? The authors were REALLY lucky to have their work translated into a film.

    Great book, bad movie: Dune (1984) and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

    I have read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy at least three times. Dune was a fantastic read; so completely epic; such an original plot; unequiled in many areas.

    However, these books came with a catch. It isn’t easy to turn them into a successful movie. The only way to capture a story like Dune is in a ten-part mini-series. The complex plot will doom any attempt to make a single movie to failure. Ha, get the pun.

    (And yes, they recently made another Dune movie. It is in multiple parts, and they made major compromises.)

    Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was the funniest book I read. It is also one of the most creative science fiction books ever, with a nearly infinite number of subtle elements. The problem was that the story was too big to fit into a film. The result was an imperfect compromise that disappointed audiences on many levels.

    Great movie that matched the outstanding book: Firefox.

    The screenwriter 100% mirrored every chapter. How did they do this? My only guess is that the author had a movie deal in mind when he wrote his book. (The script came first, and the book filled out the story.)

    What will the future hold for movies based on books? More of the same. Authors will release good and bad books. Talented screenwriters will take books and turn them into gems or flops. Movie audiences will expect more and want to pay less. Directors will continue to push the envelope and continue to dazzle moviegoers.

    I will continue to read books and watch many movies. Perhaps someday, one of my books will make it onto the big screen. Will it win an Oscar? I hope so.

    You’re the best -Bill

    November 11, 2023

    Hey book lovers, I published four. Please check them out:

    Interviewing Immortality. A dramatic first-person psychological thriller that weaves a tale of intrigue, suspense, and self-confrontation.

    Pushed to the Edge of Survival. A drama, romance, and science fiction story about two unlikely people surviving a shipwreck and living with the consequences.

    Cable Ties. A slow-burn political thriller that reflects the realities of modern intelligence, law enforcement, department cooperation, and international politics.

    Saving Immortality. Continuing in the first-person psychological thriller genre, James Kimble searches for his former captor to answer his life’s questions.     These books are available in soft-cover on Amazon and eBook format everywhere.

[jacquelinemerritt]

Star Wars – Exploring the Canon: The Clone Wars Saga – Part 2

An incomplete piece, never published before.

In which we look at the second half of the canonical works set in the Clone Wars: the final three seasons of the TV show, a comic following Darth Maul, and the novel that brings Asajj Ventress’.

This review is part of a series of pieces on the entirety of the Star Wars canon. See them all here!

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Season 4)

The fourth season of The Clone Wars wisely takes a step back from the rapid expansion of the mythos that defined the third season, and instead takes smaller steps forward with interesting, character focused stories that take the show in some unique directions. “A Friend in Need” for example, takes Ahsoka on an adventure with her previously established love interest, Lux Bonteri, posing as his “betrothed” as they infiltrate Deathwatch, a violent group of Mandalorian traditionalists, and it ends up being a fun action romp through a snowy planet (that also has Ahsoka casually decapitate four Mandalorians at once). There is also an entire arc dedicated to forcing Anakin to grapple with his history with slavery and face off against a people who still own and use slaves, and it’s not even one of the best arcs in the show!1  

Like before though, I’m just going to focus on the best two arcs of the season, and I am actually going to completely skip an arc here that I absolutely adore because as good as those episodes are, it doesn’t really add all that much to the overall story of Star Wars. If you’ve seen the show though, you might have guessed that the saga of General Krell would be one of my favorite parts of the season, and you would be entirely right. I don’t feel it would be right to spoil these episodes for anyone who hasn’t seen them however, and so once again, I am going to leave you with a Jacqueline Merritt guarantee that if you go and watch the four episodes of Season 4 starting with “Darkness on Umbara,” (so, Episodes 7-10 of Season 4), that you will not be disappointed. Well, unless you simply don’t care for Star Wars, in which case, why are you reading this?

The first arc we’re going to be focusing on here is the big one. The arc that if you have heard anything about The Clone Wars, you’ve heard about. Yes, that’s right everybody, we are finally going to talk about an arc that brings one of the most beloved Star Wars characters of all time back from the dead.

We’re going to talk about…

The arc where Obi-Wan fakes his own death and pretends to be a bounty hunter!

Wait, you thought I was gonna talk about Darth Maul, didn’t you?

Patience, young Padawan. We will speak of him soon.

The arc covered by “Deception,” “Friends and Enemies,” “The Box,” and “Crisis on Naboo” is really one of the most interesting things done in the show. The premise is pretty simple and straightforward: the Jedi Council learns of a threat to kidnap Chancellor Palpatine that they believe a bounty hunter named Moralo Eval (we get it Filoni, you like being on the nose) is orchestrating for the Separatists, and they decide that they need to send a Jedi Master undercover to try and stop this plot from the inside. Now, I’ll admit, it is really why the Council decides that it would be better of them to fake Obi-Wan’s death and send him rather than sending one of their less prominent Masters who is actually experienced in undercover work, like, say, I don’t know, Quinlan Vos, but given that the writers were never really able to develop Vos the way they would’ve liked in the show itself, I understand wanting to stick with a familiar character for this.

Where this arc gets fun though is in how they plan for Obi-Wan to actually go undercover. See, Obi-Wan is pretty well recognized across the galaxy as a general of the Clone Army and a Jedi Master, so there is no feasible way for him to go undercover without being recognized. That is, until he and Mace Windu steal the identity of the bounty hunter they hire to fake Obi-Wan’s death, put a voice modifying droid into Obi-Wan’s throat, and use a drug that radically alters Obi-Wan’s appearance, right down to changing the bone structure of his face. This sequence is presented with a wonderful dose of straight-up body horror, and it also serves to greatly expand the scope of the Jedi’s involvement in the galaxy, showing that they are not only diplomats and warriors, but also spies who are capable of deeply infiltrating their enemies if needed.

The rest of this arc plays out in a fairly straight-forward manner. Obi-Wan works to gain the trust of Moralo Eval and Cad Bane, and after helping them break out of a Republic prison,2 he, Cad Bane, and many other bounty hunters are put through a gauntlet of video game style challenges to prove themselves worthy to take part in the mission to capture Palpatine. “The Box” is about as fun and delightful an episode of this show as they come, as while the challenges posed to our characters are pretty ridiculous, they are still very fair and very compelling to watch as these anti-heroes are drawn to work together to conquer them thanks to Obi-Wan’s influence. This episode also confirms that the Selkath, an aquatic race of aliens introduced in the Knights of the Old Republic game, are a canonical race, with a nice little nod to their origins as pacifists that makes it just that little bit easier to view KotOR as canon (or at least canon-adjacent), and that is something I will never complain about.

Once we get to “Crisis on Naboo,” things proceed on basically as you might expect; Obi-Wan works to try and stop the kidnapping in the nick of time, and he manages to save Palpatine and place a couple of the other bounty hunters under arrest. There is a neat little twist near the end that spices things up a bit, but I won’t spoil that, mostly because as fun as it is, it’s just there to keep things lively, and doesn’t really change the story too significantly. The only thing I have left to say about this arc, actually, is that it is so weird to me that attempting to kidnap Palpatine is a thing that the Separatists do twice, and that they actually succeed and do better with their second attempt in Revenge of the Sith than they do here! It’s like, fine, I guess; the Separatists’ plan in Sith is definitely a much better plan and generally fits their desperation at the end of a long war, but the fact that we can pretty safely assume that the kidnapping won’t succeed until the Separatists actually try it in Sith really undercuts some of the tension in these episodes, and I am still disappointed that these episodes aren’t actually used as direct connective tissue to Sith, because that would actually be incredible.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Season 5)

I spent a lot of time in the last article hurling exclamations of praise at the third season of The Clone Wars, and while I certainly still stand by everything I said, one thing I very intentionally did not say was that the third season of Clone Wars was the best season of the entire show. Even though the third season does more to expand the Star Wars mythos than anything created by Lucas, the strongest season of Clone Wars is easily Season 5. Like Season 3, there isn’t a bad episode to be found, and the show, continuing to take inspiration from old serialized dramas and adventure films, now begins to draw upon classic noire to elevate the final arc of the series’ best character.

[This is where the draft of this article ends.]

Critical Eye Criticism is the work of Jacqueline Merritt, a trans woman, filmmaker, and critic. You can support her continued film criticism addiction on Patreon.

1For the curious, this arc is the episodes “Kidnapped,” “Slaves of the Republic,” and “Escape from Kadavo,” and I definitely recommend them, even if they aren’t quite as good as their premise might lead you to expect.

2There is also a throughline in these episodes of showing how Obi-Wan’s commitment to the Jedi Code puts him at risk and makes staying undercover quite difficult, but it doesn’t really go anywhere. Still definitely neat that they considered how Obi-Wan would actually fare as a spy though.

[secretariatess]

Dragon, orc, and the lost language?

Dragon: What kind of magical creatures do you have in your world?

I have some rather basic magical creatures, like dragons. But I also have lesser known creatures from folklore, such as dobharchus and kelpies. Some of the ones that I've created are the miolay, which is a lion like creature with transparent wings (like a fly) and the malamala, which is a kind of sea serpent/salamander.

Orc: What is your favorite type of conflict?

I mean, looking through the plots I have, it would appear to be man vs. authority. I have a thing for the conflicts where the tension builds (or has built) to the point of overflowing. That point where it becomes too much, and there's the straw that breaks the camel's back.

The Lost Language: What are some ideas that you had to reject?

I'm gonna do my best pulling the up from memory, because I don't think I have a rejection document somewhere. I also have a habit of recycling rejected ideas into a different story.

My oldest rejected idea is that of the story of a horse named Silver Star (I think? It's been decades). It was going to be a horse autobiography, but fantasy. It would chronicle the life of a horse living on Earth, but she and her horse friends were actually part of another world, and were kidnapped when they were foals. There were going to be books upon books from this idea. It was from this story that the country known as Lishea was created.

The next rejected idea was the original story of Sapphire Ash, at the time known as Sapphire Birch (until I read a book where there already was a character named that, grrrrr. . . ). Her story was built off the Silver Star series, where instead of the foals being kidnapped and brought to Earth, it was Sapphire and a couple of her friends. The horses made an appearance by being watchful allies who helped them run away and get home, where Sapphire would find out she was the missing heir. It was from this story where the opposing country of Lishea, Catam, was created. And as the Sapphire Birch story grew and changed, the rest of my world, known as Kaotack, was created.

Sapphire being the missing heir actually became a rejected idea in and of itself. Sapphire the character still exists, and the basic premise of her story still exists, but it is practically unrecognizable from how it first started.

The Dhrake Jaysquer trilogy was also based on a rejected idea, though the rejected idea was more . . . abstract? The story now is that he's an eraser for a shadow government, but originally his story started out as him being a rich guy who lost his sister to a deadly disease, and I think I was either planning for him to be sent to find the cure, or to start following clues that she still might alive. Like I said, the concept was rather abstract, as at the time I wasn't entirely clear of what I wanted to do. I had scraps of ideas that were starting to form into a plot. (Also, originally his name was Jaysquer. But the name Dhrake, pronounced thrake, came along and that became his last name instead.

Some random scraps of rejected ideas included the story of an established character's assassin mother, a dystopian story that had something to do with identification, and a story of a girl uncovering the history of tension between two races. I believe I have other rejected scraps, but again, there's quite a bit and some got recycled into other stories.

Thanks for asking! ^_^

[daikon1]

What advice would you give for writing a slow burn romance?

Hi Anon! Thank you for the ask! Slow burn is one of my favorite tropes and I can talk about it all day, so I apologize if this is a little lengthy 😂

First, a definition: Slow Burn is (most often) a story about overcoming a series of obstacles keeping apart a couple who want to be together. These obstacles may be internal (e.g., A doesn’t think they’re good enough for B), external (e.g., B’s family expect them to be with C, even though B wants to be with A), or a combination therein.

The most important thing to remember when writing a slow burn is that, despite these obstacles, your couple should always be inching closer to each other. It’s okay (and likely expected!) if a new obstacle pops up once they resolve an existing one, so long as the setbacks never exceed the progress. One step forward, a half a step back. Two steps forward, one step back. If you take one step forward and two steps back, you’re out of balance and risk throwing off the vibe of your story and upsetting the people consuming your content.

You may have heard of the “slow burn that burned too long” and personally, I would like to posit that this doesn’t exist (See: Skip Beat!, probably the most glorious slowest-burn shoujo manga out there, which let a couple dance around each other for over two decades). Instead, slow burn stories that feel “too long” are ones that mishandled the concept and let the couple get so close to getting together that the setbacks ceased to stay in proportion to and ultimately overwhelmed the progress, making the relationship start to feel tedious instead of compelling. The farther away your couple is from forming at the start of the story (and the more infinitesimal your progress), the longer you can make the slow burn last.

That said, if your progress towards the relationship is very very slow, you need a lot of other plot to carry the narrative. The relationship forming cannot be the entire focal point of the story if it is going to take ten chapters for A and B to even realize they might like each other; you need other stuff going on or it will feel stale (think: The Office. There were plenty of other shenanigans carrying us through the seasons besides just “Will Pam and Jim ever get together?”)

Some people might tell you the longer your slow burn goes, the more dramatic the resolution needs to be to be satisfying. I think this WILDLY depends on the story itself and the logic/stakes of the universe you’ve created. While all slow burns deserve a grand romantic gesture and confession (though this may or may not actually resolve the slow burn!), your resolution needs to be consistent with the tone and themes of the story you’ve written. Though dramatic, a race through the airport or B diving in front of a speeding car to save A might not make sense in the universe and conflict you’ve built. Sometimes A finally letting B go but then coming home to find B waiting on their doorstep with a pizza and an “I love you” is all the story needs. Use your best judgment here.

Also of note and speaking of endings, you cannot put out the fire once it starts. Let me repeat that, because it is critical to avoiding upsetting the folks consuming your content: You cannot put out the fire once it starts. Once the couple actually gets together, breaking them up is not part of a slow burn, and in fact will likely upset anyone consuming your content. The point of a slow burn is to watch and enjoy the torture of these two people trying to overcome all obstacles and figure out how they can be together, and it is not satisfying to let them get together just to break them up again to try to drag out the tension longer. This is a case of your setbacks exceeding your progress and is a betrayal of the slow burn premise, as well as of the expectations of those people consuming your content. Do not do it. Once your couple forms, either your story is done (if that was the primary action of the story) or you get into established relationship drama (if your slow burn was B-plot in a grander narrative).

Aside from this general advice, I highly recommend seeking out slow burn stories and doing your own research! Consume as much slow burn content as you can, and for each one, ask yourself:

What did I like about this story? What didn’t work for me?

What was done well? What was not so great?

Did anything in the relationship development feel contrived, frustrating, or unsatisfying? What and why?

Were there points where I felt bored with or uninvested in the relationship development? If so, was there anything that would have made it more interesting?

Once you’ve figured out what works for you and what you enjoy, you can apply that to your own writing!!

Good luck 😘