#also this whole journaling subplot

[indestinatus]

writing ziva's diaries and I thought I'd never do that

[angelsdean]

DEAN IS TWELVE ! DEAN IS TWELVE ! DEAN IS TWELVE !

[savedbythedrafts]

I have many thoughts about Bridgerton.

Was it the perfect season? Absolutely no.

But it quite honestly is my favorite season so far because it made me realise how the enemies-to-lovers trope has rotten my brain when this is what I want to see. Gentle love, best friends becoming partners.

Things that I absolutely loved this season:

-Pen's arc: In the book she gives up whistledown to become a romance author which is nice, but now we have a legitimate journalist in the house who has proved her accuracy at such a young age. People who are worried about how she's gonna get her info now that people are guarded? Um her main sources were always the maids and footmen and she is observant enough to run a column. Plus now that everyone knows who she is, people might anonymously send her reports (as happens in journalism) which gives her SO MUCH POWER. I am a journalist and I can't stress enough how incredible that is. I know book fans expected the last speech by Colin but imo her taking full control of her decisions and willingness to face the consequences makes it so much better.

-Eloise and Pen patch up: Both of them going to each other for comfort and support when the shit hit the fan made my heart warm. When Eloise comes back, I hope she knows herself a bit better and actually brings her grand ideas to reality.

-Benedict going about his viscount duties in absence of Anthony without the rage of responsibility whilst discovering his sexuality 10/10. Man was also fully involved in all of his siblings feuds, mainly whatever the fuck Gregory and Hyacinth were upto. CUTE. Actually shoutout to all the Bridgertons, they were so perfectly chaotic.

-THe FEATHERINGTONS OMG: I am the youngest daughter of my family as well as the black sheep- so unpredictable, unconventional that no one in my family gets me. That's why I relate to Pen so much and I'll defend her to death. To see the sisters and Portia realise Pen's worth made me sob. Phillipa saying I hope my daughter becomes a writer? Cherry on cake. But Portia opening up to Pen and being vulnerable and proud at the same time was so bloody well done.

-Polin: Fans being livid about the lack of spice in part 2 (minus the incredible sex scene in ep 5) is understandable but I blame the marketing for it, not the showrunners. Over the course of part 1, we saw Colin's relationship with intimacy change drastically. His want for connection becomes a necessity and if they just jumped into angry sex without actually resolving anything, it would have ruined his character development. I think it's the incredible chemistry between Nic and Luke in general and the heavy emphasis on the horniness during the press tour left the fans understandably wanting for more. But in general, their romance felt quite authentic. The Pride and Prejudice 'dancing in the room alone' callback, goofing around in the church, Colin coming to terms with what Whistledown meant to the ton and himself, Penelope's newfound confidence thanks to Colin's frequent words of affirmation, it was all good.

Things I would change to make this season better (this is turning into a full article now but read ahead if you have been here so far):

-The bloody editing: Pardon my french but why the fuck Benedict's prolonged threesome scenes not edited out? He has a whole season coming up so I don't understand so much focus on that weirdly edited scene amidst the drama. Just one shot of establishing his pansexuality (or bi but I am hoping it's pan) would have been enough? I love Ben, he is my favorite brother but this gave me the ick. To think these 3-4 minutes could have been used to extend the last Polin intimate scene. We could have had a good 5 minutes of Pen topping Colin after the BIG REVEAL but noooo. Even the subplots should have been kept short and sweet. Unlike some fans, I am not completely against the inclusion of the Mondrich family, Cressida's back story, the build up to Benedict's and Fran's actual stories, and more. But I believe too much footage was given to these even though the show clearly focuses on one couple per season. Get your shit together Shonda, this is not 20 episode Grey's anatomy, we can't focus on EVERYONE.

-Colin's anger after the wedding: Now I understand why he didn't want to have the wedding night given the stressful circumstances but him being angry till Francesca's wedding made no sense. How I would have written the resolution would have been something like this- In the hours before Rae leaves the house at night, Colin would have been reading the letters, figuring out how Pen is so whistledown at core (like he actually does the very next day but in absence of Pen). And instead of coming into the room to get a blanket, he could have brought in his own manuscript, asking her to read it as promised and taking up her offer to let her edit. This scene was literally in the book and was so easy to adapt. I would give my left kidney to see Colin sitting near Penelope, watching her powerful writing in action. Again, no spice required, just this. This would have made Pen's 'just love me' speech to Colin so good, but alas!

-Cressida: This is the arc I am most pissed off about. Eloise's reconciliation with Pen was great but completely abandoning Cressida to misery was so outta pocket. I realise Eloise is still not a fully realised character and is barely 20 (she's just a girl) but she was always kind. If I was writing Cressida's arc, I would have had Eloise come to her rescue at the end by borrowing some money from Pen and helping Cressida escape to Vienna or better Scotland. I highly doubt Pen would have minded if she knew how similar both of their circumstances were. I detested Cressida in the books because I'll be honest the books were pretty two dimensional with no real character development and just grand gestures (I'll understand if you come for me but this is how I feel, sorry). But the show made me care for her and I wished she could have found some happiness in life.

Overall, I'll rewatch it because the tiny details were so good this season I believe I can relish those till the next season. And I'll miss Polin immensely. But Shonda please, you can do better.

[olderthannetfic]

Large chunks of the TUA fandom have always been pretty puritanical in my opinion, and a lot of them also have shit taste and shit reading comprehension.

I remember people being against Vanya/Sissy because it's cheating (Sissy is a 1950s housewife with an abusive husband who may or may not be a repressed lesbian and is exploring a romance with a woman while considering whether she should abandon her husband or stick it out for her disabled child).

Lately I've been seeing loads of people randomly calling the showrunners pedophiles because they wanted to give a character in his 70s, who spent his whole life tragically alone to the point that he hallucinated a romance with an inanimate object, a romantic subplot but were waiting for the actor to turn 18 before doing so to avoid icky implications. They say that the character ought to be happy with the inanimate object.

They also fail to understand that this has always been a vibes-based show and that there's no point in nitpicking the time travel logic or whatnot.

Was season 4 bad? YES. I cannot even begin to enumerate the ways in which it was bad - subplots that go nowhere, random character assassination moments that have no point (Five hiding the journal from Lila for 5 months when nothing would have changed had he told her right away), incoherent plotting, weird pacing, etc.

But calling it similar to GOT season 8 and flinging around paedophilia accusations and just bitching and moaning to this extent just freaks me the fuck out.

--

[justoneofthoseghosts]

Back from the dead to scream into the void about Bridgerton because the Polin brain rot is real. I've watched the episodes twice now and have some thoughts nobody asked for:

Colin with all that new found swagger after his hot boy summer just makes me cringe. That whole montage with the ladies - er, no, thanks. Give me back my sensitive Colin please.

Nicola Coughlan is amazing, truly a superstar. She embodies the role so well, in all the bits - comedy, romance, intimate scenes. Ugh. I hope she gets more leading roles!!

Love that Colin drops all pretenses when he senses Penelope's distress at the first ball - sensitive Colin is still there folks!

Also, I think we moved on too quickly from his apology. "There is nothing more I want than to earn back the favor of the one person who has always truly made me feel appreciated." Luke said in an interview that the best version of Colin was the one when he was with Penelope (or something like that) and it does ring true in the first half of the season even if he comes up with this disastrous and misguided plan to help her find a husband. He's always himself when he's with her - there's no postering, no swagger.

I am a huge rom com nerd so I truly appreciated all the rom com elements in this. Nicola just ate that all up. She was amazing in all the awkward moments in the second and third episodes and Luke did a good job too. You could really see their chemistry and how they fed off each other!

They talk about how they first met. Please 🥺 it's the same meeting as in the book and the way they reminisce about it while walking in the market was so cute, straight out of a rom com!

Kinda cringed at Colin's journals because they were about girls 🤡 should have kept them as they were in the book where they were more about his travels.

"We shall gallop along" is this season's "I oiled my way right in" 😂

The first kiss scene was incredible. I think I prefer it to the book because there is much more emotional connection between them - they've been lifelong friends as opposed to acquittances in the book (even if Colin was starting to see Pen in a new light by then). The connection between them is undeniable but they each get something different from it. To Pen, it's the ending. The last thing she would ask from him before she let him go. To Colin, it's the awakening, the shift of his feelings, the beginning of its growth.

Pining, yearning Colin is not as unhinged and chaotic as in the book but I think he might get there in the second half. At least I hope because chaotic, unhinged Colin in the book was pretty great. I mean, interrupting a dance was kind of unhinged of him to do.

But I do like how down bad he becomes after that one kiss 😂 Luke really portrayed it well in the first few minutes of the third episode.

I quite like Francesca and John even though I know how that will end. Curious to see if they'll take front and center in season 4 or if the show is renewed, it'll be in season 5.

I know it is an ensemble show but there seems to be a lot more subplots this season?

lol at Portia trying to get her daughters pregnant when one of them hasn't even done it yet since getting married 💀

Penelope and Eloise ❤️‍🩹 they miss each other ☹️ also, I do not care for Cressida.

I've always liked Violet's talks with her children and how in tuned she is with each of them.

Can't lie, I loved the carriage scene - Colin's confession, the momentary disappointment that he was getting friend zoned, the intimacy but most especially towards the end where they could just laugh together because at the heart of it, they were very, very good friends first.

Also, that look Colin gets when he realizes he's going to marry Penelope? Chef's kiss, 10/10, no notes. Luke really delivered and I think it helps that a lot of the Bridgerton actors are theater actors because they have a distinct way of showcasing little nuisances in their facial expressions.

Needless to say, I enjoyed it. Even if there were some key departures from the book, I think it was a fairly good job. I can't fault them for bringing in an external force (another suitor) to help Colin realize his feelings even more. In the book, a lot of it happens in his head, which can be hard to translate to a show. At least we got rid of the suitor early and it didn't become a legitimate love triangle.

I do need a Lady Danbury and Penelope alliance though. I loved that in the book and I hope they don't drop it!

[mattlvr03]

Something, Somehow, Someday

Matt Sturniolo

Genre: Soft angst / slow-burn romance

Chapter 20: The Shift

(One Month After the Ring)

You hadn’t expected the ring to change anything. Not really.

It wasn’t an engagement. There was no sweeping announcement. No captions with double meanings or pictures of your hands clasped just so.

But still… something shifted.

It was in the way Matt looked at you — not more in love, but steadier. Like his heart had finally sat down and unpacked its suitcase. Like he knew he was home.

And it was in the way you moved through the world with him now. Less hesitance. More grounding.

But the shift didn’t go unnoticed.

Especially not online.

The soft photo he posted — your hands intertwined, the silver ring catching a glint of sunset — had been subtle. A whisper instead of a shout. But the internet didn’t whisper back.

The comments started flooding in before the post hit an hour.

> “IS THAT A RING???”

> “girl you better tell me this is a promise ring and not an engagement or i’m gonna scream”

> “I want this. I want THEM.”

> “lowkey jealous but also obsessed.”

> “what if they break up omg now I’m scared.”

You weren’t scared.

Not really.

But the pressure? That part was real.

You found yourself wondering if people saw you as a person or a subplot. If they loved you for you or just because you were his. If something this intimate could stay sacred when a million eyes tried to make it content.

There were days where it got to you.

Like the morning you opened Twitter and saw someone had zoomed in on the ring from a pap shot and made a whole thread dissecting what it “meant” for Matt’s career.

Or the time a video went viral analyzing your body language beside him — deciding, without knowing a thing about you, that you looked “less into it than before.”

You hadn’t even realized how quiet you’d gotten until Matt turned off your phone one night and pulled you into his lap.

“They don’t know you,” he said softly, brushing your hair behind your ear. “And they definitely don’t know us.”

You nodded, but something in your chest still pinched. “I didn’t think it would be this hard to just be happy out loud.”

He kissed your temple. “We don’t have to be loud. We just have to be real.”

So, you started drawing new lines.

You pulled back from posting every tiny moment. You took real days off from your screen. You journaled more. You gave yourself permission to protect your joy without apologizing for it.

And Matt — he kept showing up.

Not in grand, dramatic gestures, but in the little things:

He stopped you from doom-scrolling and handed you a book.

He reminded you to go outside when the world felt too big inside your head.

He kissed the ring on your hand sometimes, absentmindedly, like it helped him breathe too.

And maybe that’s what love looked like, now.

Not just a ring. Not just a promise.

But the quiet decision to keep choosing each other — through noise, through pressure, through the mess of being known by people who don’t actually know you at all.

It wasn’t perfect.

But it was real.

And that was more than enough.

A/N: just one tdy cause the next two correlate again!!

@mattspillowprincess 🤓

[nellie-elizabeth]

Bob's Burgers: Advice Things Are Ad-Nice (15x10)

Going to rapid-fire this one, I'm on a bit of a time crunch today.

Cons:

I wasn't particularly interested in the Teddy subplot this week, it felt very paint by numbers to me... Teddy gets in too deep with some shenanigans, and then succeeds at the last second but only kinda sorta? I guess I wanted to see more of this secret society and maybe meet some fun and wild side characters that populate that world. Maybe we'll circle back to this concept another time and get some of that.

Pros:

The core plot this week involves Tina being volun-told to run an advice column in the school paper. She immediately tells her siblings that she's the anonymous advice-giver, but her big secret doesn't really lead to much at first, because nobody writes in. Then Louise, feeling bad for her sister, steals Tina's journal and uses it to fabricate messages from an insecure eighth grader. Linda gets roped in to making the messages sound more authentic.

I just thought the central conceit of this one was delightfully insane. We get a scenario where Tina is writing heart-felt messages with sincere advice to a person who ends up being, not only her sister and her mother, but actually a fictionalized version of herself, because it's her own insecurities being parroted back to her. And the loving and charming dialogue between them ends up capturing the hearts of the whole school, as people hear their insecurities aired out in the open and responded to with kindness. And then Tammy claims that the anonymous advice-seeker is herself, wanting to ride high on the attention of the moment, but then immediately doesn't want to lay claim to all of the gross things this anonymous person was confessing.

I love episodes that allow Tina to be the winner, and this one totally qualified, as she not only got to be the secret star of the school for a while, but also got to stand up to Tammy and take back the credit for something that's rightfully hers. I love the "I am Spartacus" thing that starts up, saving the Belchers from humiliation. Such silly fun!

That's all I've got for now on this one, see ya for the next!

8/10

[deepautumncolors]

Book Review

I love epistolary novels and books that are written in any kind of format with journal entries, emails, or text messages, so @ohmyg0sh recommended this to me and I got it from the library. This one is composed entirely of conversations within the Slack instant messaging system. It takes place during January and February, which I didn't know ahead of time, so it turned out to be the perfect time of year to read it. It's a quick read because the messages don't take up much room and there's a lot of empty space on each page, so it only took me a few days. I could have finished it even faster and you could easily read the whole thing in one sitting, but I took my time with it on purpose in order to make it last. This book is a satire about a small group of people who work together at a PR firm in New York City.

One day when a man named Gerald tries to upload a spreadsheet, somehow his mind accidentally gets uploaded along with it. His consciousness becomes trapped in the internal channels of the Slack app while his lifeless body is stuck sitting at his computer in his apartment. He tries to ask the Slackbot for help getting back into his body, but it doesn’t provide him with any support and keeps repeating the same several phrases over and over. Meanwhile back in the real world, the characters are dealing with a crisis regarding some poisoned dog food that has killed a bunch of Pomeranians across the country. A few of them start working from home due to a snowstorm and various other reasons, so they communicate via Slack in different chat rooms based on certain topics. Their conversations include typical workplace drama, emojis and gifs, inside jokes, information about their personal lives, and a secret office romance. The Slackbot’s messages gradually become more unusual and sentient as Gerald chats with it, since he has nothing else to do while he’s online all the time. Eventually, they somehow swap places where Gerald becomes the Slackbot, and the Slackbot ends up possessing Gerald’s body and causing glitches in the Slack chats. Will Gerald be able to escape from the void and return to his body?

Although I've never used Slack before, I'm definitely familiar with the office environment. I worked in my company’s building for eight years until Covid started in 2020, and I’ve been working from home since then. My department has a group text and we also have a virtual meeting every morning. So I found this book to be extremely relatable, but not everyone will.

Something very odd happens towards the end, and I thought the ending was a little abrupt. A couple of the subplots could have been explained better because I’m still not clear on what was going on with Lydia, for example.

This book is very quirky and there is definitely a creepy sci-fi element to it. It’s a dark humored parody of corporate life in the modern world, especially when it comes to the way we communicate online. I haven't read a lot of satires so I'm not really used to them, but I interpreted this as a metaphor for spending so much time at work that it can literally suck the life out of you. Maybe the author didn't intend for it to be about burnout and mental health, but that's how I took it. And maybe it means that if we spend too much time looking at computer screens and corresponding over the internet, we might forget how to interact in person? Or maybe it means that if we keep creating AI products, the robots will start to become more lifelike? Perhaps what he's trying to portray is simply that technology is taking over our lives. Those are my guesses but even if I'm wrong, I still really enjoyed it and I wish it had been longer!

[capcollector]

You asked for OC questions, and it seems like that's what I'm doing these days, so here are a couple: If they could give their past selves one piece of advice , what would it be? If they could have one thing from before the bombs, what would it be? If they could change someone else's life, who would the change be for, and what would it be?

these are really interesting questions, thank you!

If they could give their past selves one piece of advice, what would it be?

bunny i think goes back and forth on this bc her gut instinct would be to tell her past self to not marry nate, but on the other hand she does wonder if that marriage is what led to her ultimate survival 200+ years later? but would she not have been able to just buy a place in a different vault? she’s really not sure, but she’s not one to dwell on the past either. if anything she just wishes she could’ve been able to appreciate the last moments she saw certain people in her life. knowing those goodbyes were really Goodbye, she just wishes she could’ve lingered a little longer. been able to tell them she loved them.

leon would tell his younger self that he can’t save everyone. it’s something he still struggles with even in his 30s, even after a decade of wandering the wastes. but his 19 y/o self felt so strongly about seeing the good in everyone and trying to save everyone that it led to him putting a lot of undue stress on himself. many breakdowns, many dark thoughts. he’s learned over time that the only way out is through, and he just has to keep going forward even if he’s scared. also to stick up for himself more.

god. alfredo. if anyone’s still thinking about the past it’s him. tell himself he messed up when it came to his wife. he should’ve been there for her and she (rightfully) left him for it. he wonders if there was a point, somewhere, where he could’ve done better. but wherever that point was, if it ever existed, he missed it. he’s very much Aware there’s no use living in the past but he just can’t stop himself from staying there. maybe just tell himself if he does get a second chance, don’t waste it. or maybe move a little to the right so benny kills him this time.

If they could have one thing from before the bombs, what would it be?

assuming we can’t bring back any people in this context and we’re talking purely physical items, i do think bunny really misses a lot of her old clothes. not that expensive dresses and ensembles would have much use in the wastes, but it is something she thinks about. she had some fabulous outfits from her photoshoots and TV/film appearances, not to mention old family heirlooms. her wedding dress had been in the family for several generations. on a more practical level tho she’d do anything for a nice hot and fully functional shower. i think most anyone would.

leon would do anything for more surviving medical journals and clean, fully-working equipment. actual prewar medicine would be nice too. on a less(?) practical level tho i think there’s a lot of prewar foods he’s always been curious about trying. curious about several now-extinct fruits in particular. wants to try real lemonade.

alfredo is interesting bc really and truly he does not think much about prewar life. the wasteland is all he’s ever known. i think he kinda scoffs at the idea of prewar life bc whatever they were doing led to where things are now. why would he waste his time on learning what they had and how they threw it all away? that said tho. he’s seen old motorcycles and he wants to ride one so bad. he’d kill to drive one.

If they could change someone else's life, who would the change be for, and what would it be?

ok this is interesting bc truthfully i don’t think any of them are really the type to like. want to pry so deeply into someone’s life that they’d wanna forcefully make a change in it. there’s definitely instances where they want someone to do or be better; i think leon and danse’s whole subplot post-fo4 is at least partially themed around leon wanting to see danse make up for things (with leon still trying to work through his own guilt). bunny wants the best for her friends but she’s not gonna act like it’s her choice how they do things. if anything i’d say that’s part of why she cares so deeply about so many of them—she loves them faults and all. alfredo is more self-centered than they are and also just has a more apparent and harder time w making/keeping meaningful connection, so i can’t say this is something he’d really do either. even if there are people he’s met that he’s grown to care about in his own way, it’s also not unlike him to run away from it all if things get too real. it’s your life and he doesn’t want to be at fault if things go wrong. type of guy to end all advice like “but i dunno. who’s to say.” etc etc

[hughjidiot]

Regarding anne not telling Sasha and Marcy’s parents: i didn’t have a issue with her not telling the truth(i figured it was because she was afraid they’d tell the fbi) but i do have an issue with Anne not facing consequences for lying. Especially when Sasha and Marcy are punished for there lies, it seemed like the narrative was letting Anne off the hook.

Marcy's Journal confirms that during the events of The New Normal Anne sat down with her parents and agreed not to tell Sasha and Marcy's parents everything until they could get their daughters home safe. That's exactly the problem though: it occurs in the book, when a scene like that absolutely should have been in the cartoon itself. As it stands, the show barely mentioning Sasha and Marcy at all in season 3A makes it feel like the narrative as a whole forgot about them.

As to your comment about Anne getting off easy for lying, I both agree and disagree. I feel like the narrative did punish her a bit for lying in Anne-sterminator, when her not being honest about what happened in Amphibia left them completely unprepared when the Cloak-bot attacked them in their home. I can also see what they were going for with Anne continuing to lie: after all the betrayal she suffered in True Colors she had a hard time trusting anyone and had to learn to overcome that because she would need other's help to get back to Amphibia.

What I agree with though is that when it comes to lying about what happened with Sasha and Marcy, Anne gets off scott-free because it felt like the narrative itself didn't care about Sasha and Marcy. Presumably Anne telling the truth about Amphibia to her parents included what happened with Sasha and Marcy (barring the stabbing, since we later see Mrs. Boonchuy unknowingly recreating the stabbing at the toy store), but we never got to see how her parents reacted to that. Even when they brought in characters who logically should care that Anne came back but Sasha and Marcy are still missing, like Anne's classmate from the mall as well as the freaking FBI (who irl keep a database of missing persons with priority given to minors), none of them were shown to care at all.

Oh and side note about Sasha and Marcy's parents, another reason it may feel like Anne didn't get severely punished for lying by omission about what happened to her friends is the fridge horror aspect. Sasha and Marcy's families basically spent months living every parent's worst nightmare of not knowing if their daughters are dead or worse, and by not telling them what happened Anne and her parents basically come off as heartless sociopaths. Yes there did turn out to be an in-universe reason but I repeat: it was delegated to the book when it should have been given in the show itself.

So yeah, combine the fridge horror with the fact that literally no one else seemed to care that Sasha and Marcy were still missing, and it does indeed come across as Anne getting off easy for not telling the truth about them.

It's easily the second biggest flaw in the show after Endgame Villain Darcy. They spent two whole seasons crafting interesting subplots with Sasha and especially Marcy, have it all masterfully come to a head in True Colors... Only to then basically forget about both girls for 95% of season 3A. Even if the censors got on the crew about not making things too serious following the True Colors debacle, that was no reason to practically ignore Sasha and Marcy's existence the way that they did.

[nebulousfishgills]

Behind the scenes for Necrosis please!

1, 6, 7, 11, 17, and 21

Okay let's see here, one essay coming up :)

1) How long did it take you to write this fic?

According to AO3, I published the first chapter on April 20th, 2023 and finished it on October 5th, 2023, so theoretically that's just about 5 and a half months. Of course that doesn't include writing that first chapter and planning it out.

Although, I have planning messages (I wrote my outline on Discord like a Normal Person) that I first wrote on March 29th of that year. So... like six and a half months or so? Give or take?

Damn, when I do the math I'm kind of insane for that.

6) What do you need to write? Is there anything special you need to do/have to help your creative flow?

I have to have some kind of background noise, but that's just a general necessity for me. I can't do complete silence or I can't function. My headphones are going like 70% of the day playing music or whatever.

Writing specifically though, and for Necrosis specifically since that's the focus of the ask, typically it was like, rain/castle/fireplace ambiance. This one was my go-to:

Sometimes I'd also use instrumental tracks/playlists depending on the vibes, or even my Emily playlist (the Twilight one, ofc... god the fact that I need to fucking specify...).

7) What inspired the idea for the plot?

Okay so honestly, with Necrosis I just kinda found the plot along the way.

I knew I wanted to do a sequel to Diplopia of some kind to really give myself a sandbox to play in and see where this story could potentially go. But, eventually I found what I would consider to be my three main plot points, what I would later consider to be the three main arcs or "acts" of the story: Mele and Emily's "unwitting motherhood" arc, the ball and the disaster that befell that, and what I like to call "The People vs. Aro Volturi."

Mele just kind of came to me in a flash of inspiration after scrolling through wikis and looking into Life and Death (genderbent Twilight) and to be honest, all of it kind of stems from that idea. Life and Death has a lot of similar beats in the backstory for the Volturi presented. Sulpicia witnessing Didyme's murder, reporting it, having Mele steal Aro's gift to give it to her before he's executed. Regency ends up two-thirds female, you get the idea. Shipping her with Jane was just me having some fun.

One of my HUGE big brain moments was me deciding to have Athenodora's murder be orchestrated by Aro because he knew that she knew about his sister. In the original story of Diplopia (the full thing, not the very original one shot), I had Athenodora be dead just to cut down on the chaos of the whole situation, but I actually took inspiration from Caius' canon backstory for it. He hates werewolves in canon because he was almost killed by one and is utterly terrified of them. In my version, he hates them because werewolves killed his wife.

The subplot of Necrosis with Emily finding Athenodora's journal and putting the pieces together about what actually happened is still something I'm very proud of because that wasn't the original intention of Athenodora being absent, and I'm also proud that I had Thena's knowledge be somewhat of a mystery as well, so the reader only realizes it once Emily points it out when she's delivering her litigation.

Anyways, that was a tangent for only one plot point.

I chose to have a ball in the middle because I feel like it can be a staple in Volturi fics, and also because I wanted to include some more traditional vampire-type tropes. I wouldn't go as far to call it like a "red herring" part of the fic since it seems like a weird distraction from the main plot...

And this is where I admit that the HARDEST part of planning this fic was figuring out the conflict, and ultimately I landed on another Twilight fic staple: Newborn army conspiracy.

I knew that whatever this conflict was, it was only meant to be a plot device/distraction from the actual conflict of the fic, which was Emily dealing with this forbidden knowledge about what happened to Didyme. But this plot also couldn't be entirely pointless because it had to lead to some type of explosion that lead Emily to announcing this information. It was a lot of complex pinboarding in my head. So, I kinda just landed on Newborn Vampire Army and let that do what it will.

Fun fact about that, if in that first group of newborns caught in chapter 2, one of those vampires seemed a liiiiittle personal (the one Emily executes herself), it's because I based him on my ex. So.

Anyways, naturally the last plot point was the main reason I wrote the whole fic. Didyme and all that backstory is an aspect of the Twilight lore that fascinates me because it's genuinely interesting, yet never mentioned or expanded upon and I LOVE fics that deal with it.

I had to leave little breadcrumbs leading up to it, and I even foreshadowed it in Diplopia when I had Emily tell Sulpicia that she was sure "someone [t]here has sororicide on their conscience." Which seems like a highly specific and odd detail unless You Know.

Necrosis was all about showing some growth for Emily. She's been in Survival Mode for most of her life, and now that she's comfortable, she can enter that Growth Stage of living. Diplopia wasn't about character development, at its core it was about me being silly. Necrosis' entire thesis is basically me flipping a fat bird to Stephenie Meyer's dumb and hypocritical tidbit about vampires being static beings incapable of developing. Emily has the ability to care about others and for the greater good, she just was never in a position to try.

Those three plot points kind of showcase those developmental phases. Caring for and helping Mele learn and grow (theoretically this parallels Eleven), letting herself be frivolous and enjoy herself for the hell of it (dressing up all fancy, dancing, this arc even opens with Emily in bed with Heidi to explore her sexuality), and then choosing to act in the interest of the greater good because it was the right thing to do.

So, tl;dr, Necrosis' plot was very complicated to map out because I had the different destinations I wanted, but had to do some work to chart the courses.

11) Was there a scene you hadn't originally planned to include? Why did you decide to fit it in?

To be honest, most of Necrosis happened as I planned it, convoluted as it was. There weren't many outtakes, if any that I can remember. I suppose there were tidbits that I'd debated about including or not before ultimately deciding to add them in anyways. Emily and Heidi being intimate springs to mind as one of these elements because I always had assumed that they had some type of physical relationship, but only really implied or mentioned in passing. I felt bold, though, and just decided "fuck it."

I did this silly doodle a while back using that lesbian eyeshadow meme as a template (it's not very good, be warned) and I've made memes about them having some type of intimate relationship.

Something else that I never did explicitly state but I've headcanoned since basically the veeeeeerry beginning was some type of similar relationship between Emily and Sulpicia, even if it was only like once or twice. Maybe in my mind I think the way it goes is that Heidi was very obviously some type of awakening for Emily and when she's confused by this, she asked Sulpicia what the fuck is going on and Emily basically has to get the "gay urges" talk from Picia. Then, perhaps similar to that bit in Game of Thrones with Daenerys and her handmaiden in the first season, Emily has Picia show her what to do with a woman before she tries to work her almost nonexistent charm on Heidi... tbh this might make for a good one shot.

Emily's the embodiment of repression, and she fell into a coven of actual slut vampires that do whatever they want is what I'm saying.

17) What was the hardest scene to write?

"Hard" can have multiple definitions. If we were to say scenes I was dragging my feet to get through, I'd probably say some of the ball scenes because they just weren't as meaty as I would have liked and I was itching to get to the chaos of the After.

Smut actually got easier overtime because I was practicing in private for little personal projects, but the hard part eventually became a wording issue. I've learned how to get nastier with it, but I know I need to hold myself back in certain regards because a) it's not the focus of the fic and b) not everyone is into hardcore smut. It's a balance that must be hit, but as one of my friends put it, "having to be eloquent about it is like pulling teeth."

Hard emotionally, I'd say that the bit in the last chapter when Emily and Caius are talking about outliving everything and everyone they knew. It was my last chapter and I hadn't intended for it to get that deep at all, but it was 2 AM and my brain just kind of led me down that angst ramble unplanned. Finishing Necrosis was always gonna be emotional for me and that just really hit a certain way. I actually had to stop and finish it in the morning because I had started crying over it.

It was the existentialism and my chronic "Emily Leaving Henry" guilt flaring up with a vengeance.

21) What was something you didn't expect people to notice or gravitate towards in this fic?

Something that was funny to me was how you in particular seemed suspicious of Mele and her actions lmao. I can totally see why, but honestly her quick acceptance of vampirism can be boiled down to three things:

1) In some ways she felt like some type of caricature of people who want to be vampires and would be like "yeah sure fuck it."

2) Plot Reasons/Mating Bond with Jane. Mating bonds/pulls aren't technically even a canon thing, but like eeeeeevery fic uses it to the point that it basically is canon. Another example of this is Caius being a painter. Not technically canon per se, but it's a pretty universally accepted headcanon.

3) I'm lazy. Somethings are just easier to handwave.

Although admittedly Mele being some type of twist villain would 100% be some type of shit I'd pull, so I don't blame people for thinking about it. It honestly hadn't ever crossed my mind because my lizard brain was focused on getting to Emily exposing Aro's secret.

And honestly, Emily trying "Caring for a Supernatural Child 2: Electric Boogaloo" was just such a fun concept.

I wonder if Eleven will ever know that she has several non biological/they're emotionally Emily's children siblings. One of them's also named Jane, how funny.

[angelsdean]

john saying he's known abt sam and the other special children for "awhile" in 2x01

and the demon calling him out saying he's been "playing dumb" like uhh, how he got mad at dean for not calling him (they did) to tell him that all this psychic stuff was happening with sam when john was literally at missouri's house when they were visiting and she directly told john abt sam's abilities.

but also, he's definitely known for much longer imo, and if you take the john journal companion book as canon / semi-canon then it definitely supports the idea that john Knew to some extent about sam's abilities:

these are just two passages from '91 but there are others about how demons are after sam, how sam is special. and if john was hearing this stuff abt sam in '91, there's no way he didn't start digging into things more over the years.

other people have spoken abt headcanons that john was even hunting other special children over the years. which brings me to the crunchy, tastey, AU that i've been rotating around in my mind this morning where john's not only been hunting the thing that killed mary all these years, but also been busy unraveling the sam-psychic-children plot by hunting, kidnapping, and studying other Special Children.

In this AU john isn't as incompetent as he is in canon lmao. In the 20+ years since mary's death he's discovered a whole lot, including his Men of Letters roots. In fact, he discovered the bunker and that's been his "home base" and Special Children Experimentation Lab for years. He's been studying all sorts of things. Watching footage of old MoL experiments. He connected the dots: mothers died in fires at 6 months, kids grew up to develop psychic abilities. He knows the same fate is waiting for sam and john thinks he can fix sam. He has to! That's his son. He won't let his son become some kind of supernatural thing, some kind of monster. In true john fashion he justifies all his actions as an act of love. He's trying to protect sam. Because demons are after these special children. Because these children have been corrupted. He's helping them, actually.

So john conducts experiments to try to draw out the demon blood, to purify them. Similar to how sam later tries to turn crowley human and also forcefully purifies demon dean. It's a very juicy parallel. And it draws on how sam and john hold many similar black-and-white views abt good and bad + what makes someone a monster, and how sam internalized a lot of these ideas re: becoming a monster and how the demon blood led to an obsession with "becoming pure."

John spends more and more time away from the boys, spends so much time tracking down these special children and studying them. Why does his revenge quest take over 20 yrs? Why does it seem like he's nowhere near close to tracking down Azazel until s1 rolls around? Because he's been spending so many years on this subplot. Because in his mind this is him being a good father, this is him looking out for his kids, particularly sam. He's doing all this for sam.

But then, John's never able to find a cure. And then he catches Azazel's trail again and he's off on that hunt. He "goes missing." Sam starts developing psychic powers, just as john always feared. John's aware of all this happening but still projects onto dean, still blames dean for not informing him of something he's known abt for years at this point. John's terrified because he's failed. He hasn't been able to save sam, and now sam might turn into a monster. He might go "dark side" and john can't let that happen. But he also can't kill him. He doesn't have the guts, so he puts that burden on Dean. And he trades his life for Dean's to ensure that someone will be there to carry out John's mission. Either find a way to save Sam, or kill the monster he becomes.

Edit to add two more excerpts from John's journal:

in the canon that includes this journal, john definitely was aware to some extent of sam being Special (or other people insisting he is) and he has been keeping an eye out for any strangeness manifesting in sam and worrying about sam's strange dreams and his bottled up emotions becoming dangerous

[rickie-the-storyteller]

hi!! i come with a question for the wip title tag!! i'm curious about the "life without b" chapter from "steph's crew" - could you say something more about it?

Sure!

"Life without B" is the second chapter of Steph's Crew that I wrote, and I started writing this story about a year ago lol. So it's pretty old, and it could use some editing. But I'm rather fond of it for a couple of reasons...

When I first wrote Steph's Crew, I intended it to only focus on Stephanie's perspective (as she's the main character). It was supposed to be her journal. But I changed my mind after a while because it was hard to really flesh out the other characters in her friend group and go into their personal lives in depth if I only focused on Stephanie's perspective. So now, each chapter is in a different character's POV. And what's really fun about all the chapter titles is that you can kind of guess which character the chapter is going to focus on based on the title... like based on their individual senses of humour, or the vibes they give off, or a thing that they commonly say. This chapter that you chose for example is an Elise chapter - and that is shown by the way it mentions a character named "B" ("B" is Bret lol. That's Elise's occasional nickname for him!) and it directly mirrors a previous Elise chapter title (Life With B).

I've posted this old series of dialogue plans that I like to write for my characters sometimes (I'm still going with it, since I haven't posted all of them yet... pretty sure I have about 10 left of these). And the one for this chapter is one of the earliest ones I've posted. It was when I was doing this series that I realised that all of my characters are actually super interesting and they all deserve more attention and focus than what they currently get. So this chapter was kind of a turning point for this story - it was the moment that I started to write chapters from the perspectives of the other members of the crew. Starting with Elise!

I'll leave a link to the dialogue plan so you can see it for yourself, but I'll also give a brief summary of what happens in the chapter - basically, Bret is kind of a troubled child lol. He's always getting in trouble at school, he's struggling with a lot of things, and at this point, his friends are beginning to notice that, and they want to do something about it. I mean, it's hard NOT to notice that something's going on with him - he's been suspended, and he hasn't been going to school lol. But yeah. They try to come up with a plan to do something to show their friend that they care about him, and that he's not alone. And it's a pretty terrible plan (leads to arguments/disagreements within the group)... but they do it. It leads to them all getting detention. Yeah.

I mainly focused on Elise's POV for this chapter because she's the closest to Bret (she's been a friend of his since childhood, and she also has a crush on him... which is a whole other thing lol. Them two have a romantic subplot in the story), and also she's kind of the odd one out in the sense that she is the only one with common sense haha. Like, she disagrees with Stephanie's terrible plan even though everyone else in the group is willing to go along with it. It showcases Elise's main personality of being introverted and soft-spoken, but not being a pushover... like, she's willing to stand up for her beliefs and push back against ideas she doesn't agree with, even if she stands alone. With El, I really wanted to present the idea that just because a person is an introvert, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are shy or "weak" lol... since I feel like some people may sometimes see the two things as synonymous.

Thank you so much for the ask, @rbbess110! This was so much fun <3

Here's the link to the dialogue plan for this chapter (hope you enjoy it!):

[calamitaswrath]

Lucia plays Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn: Part 4 Chapter 3

Been putting off continuing these for way too long, so it's high time I get back to them. Thankfully part 4 doesn't really get that story-intense until the endgame, so I should be able to keep these journals at a reasonable length until I get to that.

Ah shit, here we go again. A desert map. . .

Micaiah and Sanaki having a bit of a conversation - I already knew before I even played the game that these two are sisters, and even without that knowledge, it's pretty obvious by this point. But I guess it's not the right time to reveal it yet? Idk, it still feels a bit needlessly drawn out to not have that out in the open yet.

Base conversations! First there's the one with Sanaki and Sigrun. Pretty fun stuff! It's actually pretty funny to see Sanaki somewhat act her age by talking about digging around in the dirt for hidden items. And Sigrun just in full mom-mode. Also, Bolganone! That's definitely gonna be on Sanaki.

The conversation between Micaiah and Naesala. . . ohh, now that's a good one. Again going all hint-hint that Micaiah's abilities are just like those of the herons, which totally doesn't mean anything. But I love how Micaiah manages to catch Naesala completely off-guard, and call him out on actually caring for somebody. That guy really doesn't want others to know that he can have any kind of positive emotion for somebody else, eh?

Since I mentioned Sanaki and Micaiah being sisters earlier though: Lekain dropping the little bomb that the former has a sister now. I still feel this whole subplot is going a bit slowly, but fair enough.

Oho, we fighting Numida! Good thing then that this is the task for Micaiah's group, considering how that guy's governing of Daien looked like.

. . .Ah, right. The Black Knight drops in as an ally. But, uh. . . he really couldn't have picked a better map for that, could he? Clanking all over the place with his like. . . what was it, one movement in the sand? At least he doesn't steal any kills.

But if there ever was a map for my 10 movement Micaiah to go brrrr, then it was this one. Had her zipping all over the place like a flying unit, and even getting to the point where I could recruit Stefan relatively easily. Speaking of which:

Well, sure took him some time to get back! But considering that he was a super hidden unit in the first game as well, I guess it stands to reason. I didn't really want to use him, but since my name buddy also is a swordmaster, his Vague Katti is much appreciated.

Oh, looking at the chapter's script on the Fire Emblem Wiki - I did get the Black Knights conversations with Micaiah and Sothe, but I didn't realize that he also has one with Leanne! Not much there, but it's cool to see it getting acknowledged that he kidnapped here that one time in Path of Radiance.

So, battle conversations with Numida. Neat to see Micaiah call back to Jarod, cause yeah: even if the guy was an asshole, he was at least an honest asshole.

Conversation between Skrimir and Numida is short and sweet. Also, funny!

And the one he has with Naesala, about spies. . . inch resting stuff. Naesala's really starting to feel like he's at least comparable to Havelock Vetinari Discworld, which is a good thing in my book.

Oh yeah, almost forgot - since I had Marcia in my team in addition to Tanith and Sigrun, I got to try out a triangle attack this map! It was sadly a bit underwhelming that it didn't have a special animation, but oh well. At least the magic, skill and crit ones go hard in this game.

In the end I missed one item on this map, but it wasn't a super important one, so. . . eh.

The post battle conversation between Sanaki, Sigrun and Tanith. . . these two really just talk like a couple of proud parents do about their daughter, huh? Nice.

[chromatophorium]

wow. Great. My latest dream resulted in fuckin depersonalization or something. Having trouble telling apart what thoughts are real and what I express verbally and what not and how to change my situation and what my thoughts did and what they didn't. It's getting better, yes, but there's like a whole half hour of being awake that I spent unable to really do anything but maybe snooze my alarm.

Yeah, I'm probably fine now. Actual dream journal under the cut.

(the dream started as a text based adventure game of sorts about being a witch and building your character and going through randomized events while not getting discovered by the famous witch hunter.

Then it turned into a tower renovation game where you played a grizzled old man learning how to do roofing and other carpentry. But also his love interest was forcefully married to the Lord owning the tower/castle next door and there were subplots about that. Also zombies came at night and insta killed you when they touched you so you also needed to balance the decorative and functional carpeting with defensive carpentry to deploy at sunset.

THEN it turned into an exploration/stealth/combat game about the past of the grizzled old man protagonist from the last dream. You went back in time and explored his traumas by finding significant items or places in this weird ruin that reminded him of stuff. Then you replayed the significant scenario as a like spirit and needed to move a statue to a specific place to survive/progress. Turns out the guy killed some people in his youth as an assassin/spy. His specialty was killing people on ships.

Then it turned into an advertisement about a disguised horror Game about an in game VR experience that was supposed to take the characters to a cool tropical vacation, but then they actually physically got trapped in the tropical VR world and everything turned to chaos and they had to defeat the police guarding the border between VR and the real world to escape the chaos that the police were trying to contain to the VR world.

And that was the last dream I think.

Oh and before those dreams I woke up in the middle of the night. And I had crazy dreams before that which I won't go into cuz it'd take too much time.)

[reliquiaen]

Adding on to a few points:

Subplots. Are excellent, yes, we love them. Consider that all the subplots don't have to be about your main cast. Give the parents something to do, have the barista be doing something that develops whenever they appear. You'll have a main, core cast, and then the b-cast that supports them and it really REALLY helps to flesh them out juuuust a bit so they don't feel like props. It doesnt have to be super detailed, job drama, family drama, bad breakup, whatever. But giving them a subplot makes them feel stronger and also takes a load off the main cast.

Speaking of cast: don't be afraid to drop some names even if the characters never actually appear. Keeping your cast at just the right number to prevent the story from getting out of control is hard. And it'll depend on you personally (and I mean, if it's fanfic, it'll depend on how many characters the source material has so... grain of salt etc) and how many you're comfortable handling. I find the trick to be something along the lines of 'screentime'. Who are your core cast? Focus there, and allow for interactions with others outside that as necessary. You might find some random you threw in for a one off conversation actually serves a purpose in more than one situation, and it's better to reuse side characters where possible instead of constantly adding new faces.

This idea about word count and chapters and all that. Like yeah okay, use them if it helps, but it's also totally valid to not care at all about any of it. Don't set a limit, don't set a minimum bar, don't write with chapters. I'm admittedly a much more flexible writer when it comes to long fics, but I... Don't use chapters. I open up my doc and I write one scene at a time, not always in order, and when all the scenes that matter are down I'll go back and check the transitions make sense. It's only once I'm done that I think 'where do I make the chapter cuts'. This won't work for everyone, obvs, but I find it helps my writing feel more cohesive overall. Doing it by chapter feels like a monster of the week style show for me and we don't get on.

Don't be afraid to cut stuff out, also. When I'm doing long fics I keep a whole folder for cut content specifically so the story doesn't balloon wildly. You don't have to delete it, post out-takes or use it to springboard a separate stand alone fic. But try and keep the main story focused.

Re: world building. Keep a journal, physical or digital doesn't matter, and ask questions. If you've got friends who'll listen, talk to them (or rubber ducky can help sometimes). All that matters in the story itself is that it will make sense to the reader. But keep track of all those cool little details and answers to plot holes or mentioned-in-passing factoids because you never know. It might be useful later, or it might make for a nice lil one shot.

Do you have any advice and how to write a long fic?

I'll encourage long fic writers to add on in the notes, but as someone who tends to prefer short and medium-length fic, I'll tell you how I go about it.

Get a premise that you just absolutely love. You're going to be writing this thing for months, if not longer, so you want it to be something you're willing to spend a lot of time thinking about.

Embrace subplots. You'll have your main plotline that you want to see through from beginning to end, but you can also weave in some subplots here or there. The way I do this so that I don't get lost down a rabbit hole is that I always make sure that every chapter has at least 1 thing that moves the main plot forward and then if I want to spend 1-2K with some side characters doing something fun I can do that as well. Subplots can extend for the length of the full narrative, but they can also just last a chapter or three. If you're used to writing short fic, these might give you that familiar feeling of "completion"

A chapter is only as long as it needs to be. Don't get hung up on having a consistent chapter length. Don't get hung up on hitting some arbitrary number every time. Instead, figure out what the next part of your story needs to include and write however many words it takes to get that chunk across. Varying your chapter lengths is a normal thing to do and not something to stress about.

The next thing that I find important personally may or may not be relevant to you, but I find that I can't plot anything in much detail. If I get too into the nitty gritty with my plotting, it just feels like I've already written it. I need to keep it at the level of "And then A and B meet C and hijinks ensue." I can figure out the particular hijinks later. It's the characters meeting up that's the next important thing for me to figure out. Getting too far ahead of myself is a death knell for me in writing long fics, but there are other writers who swear by it. Test out different ways of approaching it and see what works for you.

As someone who tends to write more briefly, another feature that's common to longer fics is more extensive descriptions. People spend time painting visual pictures of the setting or the characters or the actions that are happening. Write the more bare-bones style that focuses more on dialogue (if you're like me) and then go back and read through what you've just written and see if there are opportunities to add in more detail. This can lead to some really interesting characterization choices and also help you out with worldbuilding.

When it comes to worldbuilding, you don't have to get it all on the page. You just need to share what's relevant for the reader in that moment and what is useful to lay out now so that it's already there in a future chapter. You can have an encyclopedic knowledge of how your world works in your head, but it's not actually necessary. No one is going to be quizzing you later - and if they do, you can always figure it out at that point.

Most important for me when I'm trying to get myself to the end of a longer fic, have a friend or a group of friends who are also into what you're writing - or at least willing to hear you get excited about it. Being able to get excited about your work is so important. It's like a bottle of water being handed to you on mile 10 of a marathon.