#and not to mention *I* basically invented the ship myself and have written by far the most of it

[kyluxtrashpit]

Dude if you wanna write het porn then write het porn but stop putting piv, the straightest possible sexual act, into gay ship tags. Homophobic as fuck

Trans men are men and therefore trans men having sex with other men is, in fact, gay sex, hope this helps ✌️

(And same goes for women, in case there was any doubt)

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

I’m guessing all Vmins were right Sweet night is about the past. I guess it’s why Tae give it for the movie instead of for his mixtape. I’m guessing JM gave him the ok to do so and why he’s been silent about it cause it’s over between them. TK are making it too obvious. jk treating JM like they aren’t friends suddenly. jk in purple/green all the time. v not shutting up about jk suddenly. JM is not handling it well. I guess it’s why v said he likes JM the most (guess as friend) cause he feels bad

Admin 1: “Sure, go and release a song easily identified as being about us and your hope of me giving you a second chance with a hopeful ending seeing as we aren’t together anymore, sounds like a nice idea to me. Go, Taehyungie, do it. Then also let me hold your hand on national TV and show it to the cameras happily, smile sweetly at you while we stand next to the president, talk about our song and memories and how much they mean to me, perform this song that's essentially a love letter to our bond in a live-streamed concert for almost 800k people, and when you tell me you like me the most, I’ll say I like you a lot as well. Because we’re over and not even friends anymore.” Sounds like some sound logic to me, and I mean that in the most sarcastic way possible to humans.

Honestly, either I’ve just been around too long and all these asks are starting to sound the same and impossibly uncreative, or they are just getting more farfetched and bizarre. If you want a proper answer, I told you, bring something to the table that hasn’t been talked to dust yet, or leave it be.

To quote Tae, the man who knows best what he feels: 95z is love.

Until he (and Jimin) changes his mind, this is the answer I have for any and all Xkooker ask, as well as any other ship involving Tae or Jimin.

Also yes, I did see the hate against Jimin that exploded yesterday, we even have an ask about it in our inbox, and honestly these types of questions, anon? Yeah, you're not helping, in fact, you are part of the problem, just saying.

Admin 2: Man, man, man!

We didn't really want to answer these types of questions anymore, but this ask takes the trophy when it comes to delulu/nonsensical questions, so I decided to answer it after all. Because it’s hot and I need a distraction.

Also, this question basically confirms most of our suspicions we’ve had so far. Let me explain.

Folks, who is behind these kinds of stories which are being presented and preached as truth on various sns?

I don't believe this is any single persons invention (in this case, that anon came up with this idea “without help”), if anything it’s the result of delulu, and often times toxic, scenarios and stories created by a group of people intended to further a narrative and actively disrupt the “peace” within ARMY (or at least that’s what it feels like since all these things do is ignite hate and toxicity). Where is the origin of it all? Ship centric YouTube channels.

It is very evident that these "imaginative creators/shippers" behind those videos have no consideration of the consequences and harm their content does because, in my opinion, the more controversial and clickbait-y, the better. You know why? More views means more money, which is the goal of it all. We’ve spoken about this before, I believe, how these videos on “ship evidence” and “ship drama” for Xkookers are the most beloved topics of these videos and thus make up one of the easiest means of generating income, in some cases even something upward of $80k a year depending on the channels CPM, sub and view count.

The average person has to work hard all year round to make this amount of money, if they even have a job that brings in that much. So, it is not surprising that these content creators go very far in their fantasies to support their claims and keep their viewers/costumers engaged and coming back.

I wouldn't be surprised if the creators (or rather the whole lot of them) of both Xkook camps are basically the same people, because their ideas, conclusions and explanations all sound the same and follow the same nonsensical patters. Which is why we’ve already told you many times that the best thing you can do is stay away from this type of content altogether.

So! Let's analyze this ask a little more:

"…Vmins were right Sweet Night is about the past. I guess it’s why Tae give it for the movie instead of for his mixtape."

Ok, let's say Tae wrote "Sweet Night" for Jimin, but in the meantime he has changed his feelings (that's how I understand the question) so he gave the song to the Itaewon Class OST instead of putting it on his mixtape. I wanted to note that Taehyung's mixtape isn't finished yet and we will probably wait many more months for it.

It seems to me that Taehyung really wanted to show his feelings to the world, so he saw an opportunity with the OST, and therefore a quicker release for SN, and took it. The fact is that SN is about the past, but there is also hope for the future, hope for the fulfillment of wishes, which likely did come true judging by how Tae said he wrote SN during tour abroad (so sometimes summer/early autumn 2019 perhaps) and we saw vmin holding hands at the airport on Tae’s birthday in 2019 when they thought no one would see, just three months before SN was released (and likely long schedules for said release since these types of things don’t just happen overnight) and many, many other such things.

“I suspect that JM gave him his consent and why he kept silent about it because it was over between them, TK makes it too obvious. "

And I suspect that Jimin was very touched by Sweet Night and ultimately wrote Friends in which him and Tae sing: “Many promises and memories / and more to come / Someday, when these cheers die down, stay hey / You are my soulmate”

The fact is that BTS didn't say much about SN, but it was the same with many of their other SC releases as well, so it wasn’t unusual, especially since SN came out while they were promoting MOTS7. Also, in my opinion, the content of this song is too personal to be able to describe/discuss the song in detail beyond the bit that was mentioned during Tae’s vlive with Namjoon. During a Japanese interview, the members basically confirmed/pointed out how romantic Tae is and when SN came up, Namjoon “coincidentally” turned around toward Jimin who has a similar facial expression of pressed lips as he did during Let’s BTS.

"JK treats JM as if they suddenly weren't friends"

And here I have caught you, dear anon. I think you're not even looking at the original BH content, but that instead you are basing your conclusions and opinions on manipulative YT ship videos instead because if you would’ve watched the original content like RUN, the recent SOWOOZOO concerts, and interviews, you wouldn’t arrive anywhere near such thoughts and conclusions.

Jimin and JK are still close, also Jimin calls JK his little brother (dongsaeng) and JK describes Jimin (or associates these words with him) as charm and cute. Does there seem to be any kind of conflict between Jimin and Jungkook? Certainly not, no.

„JK always in purple / green. v not shutting up about jk suddenly."

You mean their microphone colors? I wanted to point out how Tae wore a yellow shirt during the concert, which is the same color as the chick emoji ARMY associates with Jimin as well as his mic color. LOL.

As far as I know, when Tae has something to say, he will say it, and if he is praising JKs songs, and especially You Eyes Tell which we know is a song Tae liked a lot, that is a good thing. It simply means Tae appreciates the song JK created, appreciates and values his talents and hard work. If the entire band praises Namjoon and his lyrics/contributions on their songs, does that automatically also mean all six are “not shutting up about him” and therefore must be in love and in a relationship with him, or it’s an indicator of it? If anything, it’s merely an indicator that Tae is an honest person and JK did a good job on those songs. Easy as that.

That's my favorite part of the question: "JM doesn't handle it that well. I think that's why I said he likes JM best (as a friend, I guess) because he feels bad."

Personally, I consider myself a person with a great imagination, but I wouldn't really come up with a scenario like that.

How cruel of a person do you think Tae is? Imagine they aren’t together anymore or close anymore, or whatever else you tried to insinuate anon, and then Tae would go on national TV and do this whole thing of asking for the card in his letter to Jimin to be blurred and then said “Jimin-ah I like you the most”? To do something as hurtful as that you either have to be a sadist or an asshole and I’d like to believe even you, anon, don’t think in such a way about Tae, of all people.

Perhaps that’s something dumb teenagers or kids would do, but not adult men in their mid-twenties who see each other every single day, are part of the same team and have to work with each other. This is real life, not a soap opera. If these types of dramas really would be happening within BTS, they would’ve stopped existing as a band a long time ago because no one would be able to live with such actions and people for a prolonged amount of time. BTS are grown men, best friends, even found family, and not actors on a badly written TV show for our entertainment where they act out increasingly stupid relationship drama in which JK somehow ended up being the toy going from hand to hand like he’s not even an actual person anymore.

In summary, this question was written by a child, teenager, or an emotionally immature person naïve enough to buy into outlandish ship narratives.

Anon, hear what the members had to say during FESTA 2021. Make your own conclusions and stop watching and believing the nonsense on YouTube. As Tae said: Get out of your imagination. It’s not good in there.

[letteredlettered]

Hello! This is a broad question so it's fine you don't feel like answering. Do you ever get tired of fandom and its culture? I feel like sometimes there's nothing but discourse and arguments and just... it can be quite draining. Just wondered I'd ask you since you've been in a number of fandoms for a long time! I'm sure you've seen it all. Thank you for your time!!!

I think the last time I got tired of fandom was over 12 years ago. At that time, two things were true: 1) I was having some personal problems that meant I didn’t have a job, didn’t feel good about it, and didn’t have a lot of friends that could talk about things I wanted to talk about. 2) Fandom felt a lot more centered; it was easy to build communities and become a part of them. As a result, at that time, fandom was my main support network. Therefore, when certain aspects of fandom became unpleasant, I felt I had very few places to turn to. I eventually got a job, a lot more stable relationships, and several types of community. Fandom also dispersed onto many platforms, making it very hard to rely on fandom for social interaction. I still do get annoyed by some things in fandom, but when that happens, it’s very easy to dip into another corner of fandom that isn’t toxic or to walk away completely.

I will say that having participated in fandom for a long time has also given me a different perspective. Conversations about social justice--racism, misogyny, homophobia, ableism--as well as conversations about porn--what gets written, with which characters, what age and sex those characters are, how they’re treated, how this porn is posted and consumed--are conversations that have cycled through fandom since long before I was in it. I’ve learned a lot from these conversations, but after participating in them for years and listening to them for even longer, there’s not much more I can learn from random people on the internet. The same is true for issues with less of a social justice vibe--feedback culture, ship wars, fest etiquette, anonymous behavior, etc--I’ve seen it all before, and while I think these can be worthwhile conversations, I no longer feel a strong urge to participate all the time. Generally I feel like arguing on the internet has a smaller value for someone like me than listening, having compassion, modifying my behavior when necessary, and doing what I can irl and with my friends.

I have more to say about fandom cliques.

The other aspect of fandom that can grow wearisome, besides the cyclical debates, is the cliquish nature of fandom communities, and the way typical group behavior is exacerbated by the very fact of being online. Who is popular, who they like, what they say, who likes whom, who did what to whom, how everyone reacted to it--all of this can feel super important online in a way it doesn’t to me irl. I’d like to pretend I’m very classy and stay above all this, but that would be a lie. I have often wanted, in my fandom life, to be someone who has hordes of fandom friends, who leaves comments on everything they read, someone who recs with abandon, someone who runs fests, someone who replies to everyone and makes new people feel welcome and develops starter kits and makes memes everyone loves and invents all the fanon everyone uses etc etc.

Alas, my own social reticence prevents me from being that fan. I have tremendous problems with routine or anything that needs to be done regularly. This includes but is not limited to communicating with friends or people that interest me or people whose work I like. Basically, all the people who love me are people who are willing to keep reaching out to me even when I don’t always respond. I try to warn people about this and communicate clearly that it’s something I really struggle with, but it is not conducive to making friends.

Additionally, I have found that I struggle to feel a part of communities--partly because maintaining your status in a community means regularly being a part of it, but partly I have trouble identifying with most people. Fannish people share more of my interests than most people in the world, but even among fans, I often feel left out and excluded, an extra thumb on a hand that does beautiful things without me. These social difficulties isolate me, but they do have the benefit of insulating me. The one time I was almost in the middle of a fight about who wanted to be my fandom friend, I had the fortune to be so far out of the loop that I didn’t really know what the fuck was going on.

Anyways, the result of my personality is such that I mostly tend to look at fandom on the outside. I get pretty sad about this from time to time, but the times I have gotten deep into fandom have not gone particularly well for me. Either I’ve felt that feeling of exclusion I’ve mentioned before, or I noticed that others were being excluded--ie, I was for some reason included in The Popular Clique. This makes me intensely uncomfortable, and I’ve extricated myself in situations where I’ve felt that way. Unfortunately, fandom spaces that allow for cliques are also the places where you really get to know people and build community. As such, I really don’t make fandom friends easily. The few I do have are pretty much lifelong friends that I share a lot with besides fandom. My best friend is from fandom. My girlfriend is from fandom. Most of the friends I go to when I need to talk irl are from fandom. My original novel-writing partner is from fandom. These are the people I tend to talk to when I need to talk about fandom, though it can feel very lonely when I have a new fandom and no friends fall into it with me.

This is a long answer to say--fandom is exhausting if you’re really participating to the hilt, but given that I really mostly just write fics and answer asks, most of the time it’s chill. When I get deep into something I might join a discord or do a twitter, but I burn out of that pretty fast--though I sometimes do make friends that I keep forever after.

[zosonils]

A, E, F, I, K, N, P, T, X, and Z for the fandom prompts? Sorry if it’s too many

a - ships that you currently like a lot - every day my brain is filled with queerplatonic phinabella and bu[ferb]jeet, and i’ve also been thinking about canderemy quite a bit lately because it’s genuinely really sweet?? like They Care Each Other and it’s nice to have a canonically established pairing that’s really healthy and supportive and if nobody else is going to think about jeremy i will fucking do it all myself

e - have you added anything hilarious to your fandom? - i’ve definitely contributed my fair share of shitposts but i don’t think i’ve made any significant widespread impact yet lmao. maybe there’s another timeline out there where catu sparked a phineas and ferb fandom renaissance and my post about ferb and buford texting british recipes to each other has 47,000 notes [1200 of which are a violent in-character debate between two sans roleplay blogs] and haunts me every day and night

f - what’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom? - i’ve been into sonic since i was 7 and i’m nearly an adult now and it terrifies me

i - has tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms? - answered here

k - what character has your favourite development arc? - to be honest basically every character development arc i like is one that i made up myself in my many extensive fuck canon timelines, but i really love how whisper’s been developing in idw sonic so far :) it’s really really good to see her making friends and coming out of her shell in contrast to her first appearances while still having extremely clear boundaries, and as more of her previous trauma is revealed it’s really interesting to see how that recontextualises her actions - she’s such an amazingly written character and i love how respectfully she’s handled without the writing around her ever getting more serious than anything else in idw sonic [which is on the grim side for sonic media, literally the third arc was a zombie apocalypse and it lasted like 2 years, but it’s still pretty full of ye olde goofy sonic the heck hijinks and handles all but the darkest of moments pretty lightheartedly]

n - name three things you wish you saw more of in your main fandom - i already answered this one but i’m doin it again! i’m cheating and naming six babey! god may judge me but his sins outnumber my own, as they say

aro phineas [with queerplatonic phinabella optional but recommended] please please please please please please please plea

i want early flynn-fletcher family shenanigans!! ferb meeting his new siblings, the kids all getting used to having two parents, baby perry?? has anyone written this? i’ll write it damn it! i might not because writing is hard but also if nobody else is gonna do it then i will!!!!! give me shape babies god fucking damn it!

i wish more people acknowledged the fact that doof is canonically a double amputee like. i know it only comes up in one episode and is never mentioned again and was probably intended as a bit of dark-ish comedy but it’s a really cool fact about him that’s got so much potential for art and fics alike [and even if it didn’t, acknowledging canonically disabled characters even if it’s only canon on a technicality and as a probable joke is still always important!]

p - invent a random au for any fandom - i think i made exactly one post about this and then forgot about it but fuck it phineas and ferb sonic adventure 2 au. phineas goes fast. perry is a chao and he does something really cool, probably. vanessa is contractually obligated to die unfortunately because she’s the best stand-in for maria. ferb might also die but also i could decide he doesn’t if i want to because i sure as hell did that with shadow [i know he comes back but it’s bad so i’m re-killing him and re-reviving him and making an alternate timeline fuck you sega shadow wouldn’t be a cop]. baljeet causes immeasurable damage to government property while upbeat synth music plays

t - any hard and fast headcanons you’ll die defending - [SLAMS BINDER THE SIZE OF A SMALL TO MEDIUM COUNTRY ON TABLE] i literally could not name all of them if i TRIED. i have so many it’s genuinely hard just to pick a handful to showcase as example. in most cases i’m genuinely fine with other interpretations even though i like mine better but there are a select few that i refuse to budge a goddamn planck length on and that automatically make me kinda suspicious of anyone who adamantly disagrees; mostly these are autistic headcanons because what kind of a MANIAC thinks ferb ‘nonverbal no eye contact hyperfocusing king’ fletcher is neurotypical

x - a trope which you’re almost certain to love in any fandom - FOUND FUCKING FAMILY BABEY!!!!! it’s so fucking good even when some or all of the characters already have pretty good relationships with their biological/legal family, there’s a flavour of it to suit basically any group of characters and it makes my heart go bkngjbn hsbvhfnvhjf hsnvjwnvjkfn hjfvnksjvnf hfnvfjk every time :’)

z - ramble about anything fan related - i can’t fuckin do this without a prompt because my brain turns into soup when i’m put on the spot hfnvkfgnj sorry but uhhhhh autistic ferb good and i’m genuinely so so so so glad that it’s received some level of acknowledgement/approval from dan. honestly if you want an answer for this question just scroll through my blog for any length of time hjndfvkfnkbn

[by-mana]

Commissions Redux

Hi Folks!

This has been copied from my main blog and cleaned up a bit, since I’m trying to separate the fan stuff from the main to keep something like a semblance of an order. Commissions are therefore moved from Mana-chan’s Corner to here. They are still open and perfectly free, just read the rules, please. In case you wish to support me, you can do either of these things:

» Leave a Tip

» Buy Me a Coffee

As I am currently jobless (thank you Corona) every bit is appreciated. 

» Full Update

For a long time I didn’t take any commissions because the fandoms and pairings I have inspiration for is a limited fraction of my active fandoms (i.e. the fandoms I engage with via reading fic, commenting, enjoying content, reblogging, etc.) and I didn’t want to disappoint. 

Recently, in an unexpected strike of utter genius (which only took me like... 5 years to work out), I had the epiphany to compile a list of fandoms+pairings I’d be more than happy to write as you desire.

» Commission Rules/FAQ. Please read before commissioning.

» For full list of available fandoms/genres click below.

» Fandoms

» The Untamed | Mo Dao Zu Shi

The most recent fandom, also the one that currently dominates my mind. 

Including: CQL, Novel, Movies. I haven’t read a lot of the source material, but I’m intending to and I already did some research. For now I think I prefer a mix of canons. 

» Pairings

» Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian

» Jiang Cheng & Wei Wuxian (mostly gen, but I believe I could do something sexual/romantic as well, but please ask first if you have any specific ideas)

» Jiang Cheng/Wen Qing (please read the rules)

» Jiang Cheng/Wen Ning (tentative)

» Nie Mingjue/Wei Wuxian

» Nie Mingjue/Lan Xichen (tentative, though I mostly see myself as writing them on the side)

» Any version of the 3zun (same as above)

» Lan Xichen/Wei Wuxian

» Jin Zixuan/Wei Wuxian

» Specific Canons / Prompts

The Untamed basically exploded over my head and didn’t leave me alone. In the past few months a few plotbunnies developed which I’d all love to write at one point. You can chose to prompt me either of these or pick any general prompt, or anything you’d like to read, as long as it aligns with what I can write.

» The First Witness

Genre: Case Fic, Modern AU, Canon retell, Drama, Tragedy, Romance, M/M

Pairings: WWX/LWJ

Includes: Forensic Medical Examiner Wei Wuxian, Inspector Lan Wangji, Single Dad Wei Wuxian, Wei Sizhui / Wen Yuan, the dead ones are dead, Badass Grandmother Baoshan Sanren, Yunmeng Bros Reconciliation, Businessman Jiang Cheng, Murder Mystery, Pining, Getting Together, HIV positive character, past off-screen rape (mentioned only). It’s basically what it says, a canon retell wrapped in a modern day case fic. It was the first thing that I had inspiration for.

» Nurse Wei Wuxian slice of life Modern AU

Genre: Modern AU, slice of life, recovery, drama, tragedy, adoption, M/M, hurt & comfort, getting together, romance, fluff

Pairings: WWX/LWJ

Includes: pediatric nurse Wei Wuxian, pediatric nurse MianMian, elementary school teacher Lan Wangji, pediatrician Lan Xichen, intense care nurse Jiang Yanli, intense care doctor Wen Qing, teacher’s aide Wen Ning, Yunmeng reconciliation, only some are dead, Wen family+WWX living together. 

Premise: Former convict Wei Wuxian, fresh out of nursing school, applies for a job at Dr. Lan Xichen’s pediatric practice. Lan Xichen (who sometimes takes pro bono foster children abuse cases) isn’t quite sold on the idea of a former felon turned nurse attending to already traumatized children, but upon interview decides to give WWX a chance. Not only does he never regret it, it turns out it’s to be the best decision he’s ever made, not only in regards to his practice. Meddling ensues, love blossoms, truths are revealed, happy end. Probably the fluffiest story on the list.

» ABO Yunmeng Shuanjie Fake Marriage AU

Not what you think. Does not involve pseudo-incest (at least not for a long time, haven’t decided on the end results yet). First ABO I’ve ever considered writing, but all the more exciting, since I know now what I want of it.

Pairing: WWX/LWJ (temporal, non-endgame - so far, platonic), WWX & JC (gen, ruling partners)

Includes: fake marriage, extra marital affair, male pregnancy, abo (mostly non-traditional, I think?), not actual pseudo incest, adoption, canon divergence, not everybody dies, Wen Chao being a monster, sexual assault (interrupted), golden core loss, NO golden core transfer, misunderstandings, complicated political situations, the Wens are saved and live in Lotus Pier, a-Yuan is still adopted, “sometimes love is not enough”

Premise: shortly after concluding the studies at Cloud Recesses LWJ starts courting WWX. Engagement is discussed between the two clans, but the Wen indoctrination and the burning of the Cloud Recesses gets in between. When LWJ refuses to lie in order to save WWX from Wen Chao’s assault, JC steps in and pretends to be the one engaged to WWX to save his brother from a forced bond. To prevent this from being debunked and to ensure a future marriage (which will now be more challenging to achieve, given the state of Cloud Recesses), LWJ and WWX mate and bond in the Xuanwu cave. Then Lotus Pier is sacked, JC loses his golden core, the Jiangs are dead and the Yunmeng siblings flee for their lives, find refuge in Yiling, etc. Plays out as in canon except they find out WWX is pregnant and transferring the golden core would cause an abortion. WWX still says do it, but changes his mind in the last minute, leading to JC finding out about his plan upon waking up and remaining coreless. They flee to Meishan and marry to protect WWX’s reputation (since a marriage would now be impossible for a long time on both sides - Gusu and Yunmeng, AND JC needs WWX more than ever and WWX is not abandoning his little brother) Sunshot happens, WWX invents the control tower & still saves the Sunshot campaign. The sixteen years that follow are utter chaos.

» Nie Mingjue/Wei Wuxian arranged marriage AU

You know what this is inspired by. 

Pairing: Nie Mingjue/Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian (unfullfilled, for a long time)

Includes: arranged marriage, some characters die, Nie Mingjue dies but later, revenge, wwx adopts a-yuan, canon divergence, slow burn, learning to love, the Wens live, political intrigues, wwx and nhs teaming up against jgy

Premise: To save the Wens and himself from qi deviation Wei Wuxian marries Nie Mingjue (in spite of being in love with LWJ). Slowly some truths are revealed and feelings blossom but some tragedies cannot be prevented. NMJ realizes the feelings that are between WWX and LWJ, but they both marry regardless. Later WWX realizes that NMJ is similarly in love with Lan Xichen. With time they learn to love and respect each other, NMJ learns about what WWX did for JC, WWX learns clarity to play for NMJ when JGY nearly succeeds killing him (WWX suspects but he has no proof). NMJ still dies (disappears) and widower WWX spends the next decade or so seeking revenge and searching for his husband’s body so that he can rest in peace. It’s all very bittersweet, but there’s a happy ending.

» Hakuouki + Extended Universe 

The longest active and steadiest fandom. I know exactly what I’ll write and what not.

Including characters from: Urakata, Toki no Kizuna, the most recent overhauls (Kyoto Winds, Edo Blossoms). I’ve seen all three anime seasons, played a few routes of Kyoto Winds and read some walkthroughs. I’m not completely done with all of them, but I’ll take the time to research if the commission demands it.

» Pairings

» Harada Sanosuke/Nagakura Shinpachi (I lovingly refer to them as my naval battle cruiser)

» Harada Sanosuke/Shiranui Kyou

» Shiranui Kyou/Takasugi Shinsaku

» Kondou Isami/Hijikata Toushizou (tentative)

» Hijikata Toushizou/Saitou Hajime (tentative)

» Nagakura Shinpachi/Saitou Hajime

» Saitou Hajime/Toudou Heisuke

» Yukimura Chizuru/Sen-hime

» Ibuki Ryuunosuke/Kosuzu (please read the rules)

» Specific Canons / Prompts:

I’ve had a number of inspirations for this, which I’ve never written, but would love to delve into. You can chose to prompt me either of these or, of course, pick a general prompt.

» Fabulous Family Series

The one in progress, you can check it out on AO3. You can prompt me in this, if there’s something you’d like to read.

Pairings (current and planned): Harada/Nagakura, Kondou/Hijikata, Okita/Chizuru (casual), Heisuke/Saitou, Takasugi/Shiranui, Chizuru/Sen-chan, Ibuki/Kosuzu, Ibuki->Saitou (one-sided crush), Saitou/Chizuru (temporal)

Tags: adoption, modern AU, lgbtq+ issues, M/M, genderfluid character, disabled character (future), teenage pregnancy (future), slice of life, sexual assault (future), child abuse (future reveal), romance, ace/aro character, casual sex, underage sex, 

» Gender Swap AU

Main Ship: Harada/Nagakura

Side Ship: Ibuki/Kosuzu

Summary: Sannan secretly tests a version of his experimental Ochimizu on a few of the captains. The result is that the new day dawns with some drastic changes to their bodies that have nothing to do with white hair, glowing eyes or bloodthirst, but with a whole other set of complications. 

Premise: Original story was supposed to be about Shinpachi developing and unexpected attraction to Sano, them “experimenting” together and Sano falling pregnant. While the others manage to turn back to their original bodies, Sano doesn’t and it is all very complicated. Eventually he does (after giving birth), but instead of it being a good thing it just makes things more complicated. In the end, he choses to live in a female body instead of death and marries Shinpachi. Would include trans issues, gender dysphoria, friendship vs. love, the nature of attraction, respect, feminism and female issues. I wanted to write it as a multi-chapter, but never got around to it. But I’d love to put it out there in any form I can.

» Prince of Tennis

Tentatively putting this down as one of my oldest fandoms. I never wrote for it as cosistently as with other fandoms, but a few years back I rp-ed it for quite a while and could probably still write for it, if the pairing’s right. 

Including: ShinTeniPuri characters up to Pirates and Black Holes (I haven’t read much further, but I’ll probably catch up at one point? I always do.)

» Pairings / Characters (mostly Shitenhouji and Higa centric)

» Oshitari Kenya/Shiraishi Kuranosuke

» Oshitari Kenya/Chitose Senri

» Oshitari Kenya & Oshitari Yuushi (gen, ask me about cest)

» Shishido Ryou/Oishi Shuuichirou

» Oshitari Yuushi/Kikumaru Eiji

» Oshitari Yuushi/Hirakoba Rin (this relates to that rp)

» Kai Yuujirou & Hirakoba Rin (both gen and slash)

» Kite Eishirou/Hirakoba Rin

» Watanabe Osamu/Sakaki Tarou

» Higa gen

» Shitenhouji gen and casual relationships (ask me about specific ones)

» Hara Tetsuya/Taira Yoshiyuki

» Mori Juuzaburou & Hara Tetsuya (mostly gen, but I probs could do casual slash as well)

» Ochi Tsukimitsu/Mori Juuzaburou

» Marui Bunta/Hara Tetsuya (you will never get this, but it derives from that rp I did and would still def write it if people are interested)

» Tango Pair (Sanada Genichirou/Atobe Keigo)

» Specific Canons / Prompts

Most of what I had in my head has faded but a few things remained. Of course you can also come with your own prompt at me.

» College AU, future fic

Premise: Everyone has grown up and moved on. The Oshitari cousins are now rooming together, both studying medicine at Tokyo University. They’re upper neighbors with Shishido Ryou (paedagogy) and Oishi Shuuichirou (medicine), who both miss their doubles partners, but have seemingly moved on from their middle school days and broken hearts. No such thing can be said about Kenya, who can’t get over his break up with Shiraishi following their graduation, or Yuushi, who seems to hold secrets of his own.

I haven’t developed much for this, most of it are scattered ideas, but I’d love to explore it. I’ve thought of some pairings for it, but none of them final. It would also leave a lot of room for casual stuff or one-night stands. It’s actually an ideal prompt premise, from that standpoint.

Pairings (at start, no necessarily final): Oshitari Kenya/Shiraishi Kuranosuke (past), Oishi Shuuichirou/Shishido Ryou (current), Oishi Shuuichirou/Kikumaru Eiji (past), Shishido Ryou/Ootori Choutarou (past), Oshitari Yuushi/Kikumaru Eiji (current, secret), 

» It takes two to Tango / Tango towards Destruction

An old fic that was supposed to be a series which I never finished, but could pick it up and remaster it. It’d be a nostalgia project. 

Pairing: Tango Pair

Premise: Atobe’s father finds out about him and Sanada dating and threatens to disown him if they don’t break up. In the original Atobe runs away, but I’m thinking now he simply might not take it seriously enough and then it would escalate. He ends up moving in with the Sanada family. Your typical rich boy loses everything and struggles through poverty, finding meaning, building a life for himself, coming off age. 

» One Piece

A fandom older than even TeniPuri it’s been with me the longest. Unfortunately it doesn’t inspire me anymore the way it used to, but I’d still be able to write some things for it, if the right muse struck me. I kinda want to. Nostalgia, you know.

» Pairings

» Zoro/Sanji

» Ace/Zoro

» Ace/Sanji

» Luffy/Law (tentative, like, I ship them hard but I don’t know if I’d be able to write something for them? Oh but I’d like to try)

» Mihawk/Shanks

» Mihawk & Zoro & Perona family dynamics

» Zeff & Sanji adopted family dynamics

» Usopp & Yasopp gen

» Izo? I’d like to try an Izo.

» Canons

» Canonverse

Set in the original canon of the fandom.

Including (not limited to): backstory - past canon, present canon, future fic (please specify), canon divergence

» Modern AU

Including (not limited to): no powers, modern with magic (potential, please ask), slice of life, mystery, case fic, ‘job AU’ (coffee shop, doctors, idols, etc., please specify/ask)

» Sci-fi AU

Including: original sci-fi canon, Star Trek, Star Wars, Firefly, Cowboy Bebop, Dune (tentative), Hyperion (tentative), for everything else ask. I know a lot of sci-fi, but not enough lore for each of them to set a story in. I might be interested but it'd necessitate research.

» High Fantasy AU

Including (not limited to): original fantasy canon, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Witcher, but overall I’d prefer if you ask about this. I haven’t read/seen a lot of the most recent and popular franchises (mostly because I’m writing my own high fantasy and don’t want it to be too influenced by other things, and someone already told me it sounds like Game of Thrones, so that one’s a big no. Sorry...)

» No Powers, other than modern AU

Including (not limited to): everything that doesn’t fall under the modern AU list, but has no powers in it, i.e. historical AU (specify time & culture), future AU (near & far), cyberpunk dystopia (possibly), post-apocalyptic (possibly). I don’t write zombies.

» Superpowers / Hero AU

Including (not limited to): X-Men, Avengers, Wildstorm Universe, original superhero canon

» Genres

I do mostly serious stuff, like drama, tragedy, intrigues, arranged marriage, tragic backstory, etc. I like to put my characters through a lot of suffering. I always joke that it’s very easy to spot my favorite character by the amount of torture I put them through. I feel that it makes the happy ending weigh even more. Sometimes I even prefer a bad ending, if it gives the story more meaning (I mean, imagine LotR trilogy have a happy ending. It would totally take away all the development and the lessons the characters went through.) I wish I could write light stuff but so far I have not succeeded. I use a lot of sarcasm and irony though? 

My shorter fics tend to be fluffy and sweet rather than funny, if full of playful banter and teasing. Relationships are usually depicted in a naturalistic rather than romantic way (I’m ace/aro myself, and I have lots of opinions about the nature of love and attraction, and how a functioning relationship ideally looks like and it tends to seep into my writing). Instead of traditional romance I like to write a non-traditional one. Slow burn, instead of love on first sight. Learning to love instead of falling hard. But it also depends on the pairing. I can write most things if I put my mind to it, so don’t hesitate to prompt me and I’ll let you know whether it works for me or not.

I’m not shy of dealing with child abuse, assault, suicidal ideation, trauma, disability and other difficult topics in my writing, so if you wanna request any of these or something similar I’m a-okay with it, as long as you discuss it with me. I’m not knowledgeable in everything so it’s likely I’ll need to do research, but I’m more than alright with it. Honestly, it’s very probable that I’d love to try. 

» Kinks

I’m okay with most stuff. Where I draw the line is the really hardcore stuff like scat and kinks involving feces, some forms of humiliation, zoophilia, necrophilia, mutilation, stuff like that. 

I’m alright with both dub-con & non-con (although I refuse to depict is as normalized, or glorified), bondage, s&m, dom/sub, light bdsm (ask me about the harder stuff. I’m not against it, I’m just not always in the mood or right mindset for writing it), omorashi (tentative, ask me), daddy kink, breath play, age play, spanking, verbal humiliation, dirty talk, edging, come eating, orgasm denial,... all the good stuff. 

[florida3exclamationpoints]

Hey fam here's a deep dive of AoS 7x04 including justification of the time travel by a branching timelines believer and lots of Peggy Carter love & appreciation

I definitely feel better about this whole situation now that we've seen 7x04 than I did when we just had the preview. But still. Ughhhhhh I'm just. Conflicted.

They're not sticking to Endgame's time travel rules at all and ik some people didn't like Endgame's time travel but I don't really have issues with it. And even still there's the debate of whether or not Steve (does this debate expand outside Steve arguments? Idk but you get it) is in a branched timeline. Personally, I think he is. For people who think he's not, Shield's time travel, especially with Sousa, is probably easier to take. But for a while I was willing to go with the theory, my own theory idk if it's been mentioned here or not, that since they're using a different time travel method in AoS, and one that was invented by space robots Chronicoms, then they have different rules that limit them to a looped timeline. But now, idk does bringing Sousa into it disprove that?

So he was supposed to die. That's in the history books. They saved him. Which means we're in a loop that can be altered. Ok fine, but that's only because we're using Chronicom time travel. Tony Stark time travel still created branches. So what branch are we in? We have two choices right? Timeline A, which we see throughout the entire MCU, and timeline '49 B, the one Steve created when he went back to Peggy. If it's in the history books that Coulson and the team read that Sousa died, I would assume we're in timeline A. But where's Peggy? Personally I'm not the biggest peggysous stan (basically I ship steggy and in timeline A where she can't get him back, as long as she's happy I'm happy. If that means Daniel, great.) but I'm sure those who are aren't super happy with Shield basically confirming that they didn't make it. I'm sure the only reason they did that was to be able to pull him out of 1955 so I'm not really mad at it. If they had just had him pop in real quick in the 50s and left him there I would have rathered they leave it ambiguous but since that's not what they did I'm not too bitter.

Anyway, I saw a close up of the fake id they made for Jemma when she was undercover as Peggy. It listed her rank as 'agent.' You could say that's a prop mistake but I also noticed that no one has referred to her as 'director.' But she absolutely should be. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Peggy was the first director right? That's always what me, my brother, and my dad, aka everyone in my household who are Marvel fans, thought and we're pretty sure they said it at some point somewhere. And in the Agent Carter one shot (which admittedly has a lot of continuity issues anyway but i think the principle of it stands) Howard said about Peggy "tell her she'll be running Shield." I've always gotten the impression that she was director from the time Shield launched. If someone could give me solid proof that she was or wasn't I'd appreciate it. But as long as there's no proof I'm assuming that she was. That's what I'm going with in the rest of this post anyway lol.

Overall im just confused as to what the writers think they're doing lol. From what I've seen, they started shooting season 7 two months before Endgame premiered so it was written even further before. That sucks because at the time of the writing they didn't know they had all of this to deal with. At least I assume they didn't know bc it seems like there's no communication behind the scenes since no one got dusted before and now we're messing around with time travel. But I also wonder if Endgame hadn't premiered by the time they were shooting the 50s episodes. I have no idea though. If it had, were there changes? Did they have to take out mentions of Peggy, or did Enver maybe act it with the Steggy ending in mind? Because I personally don't want the writers or anyone thinking that Steve was always in a loop therefore this season is jumping around in the same loop and Daniel was left by Peggy for Steve. I can deal with a looped timeline in AoS bc of the Chronicoms and them being in a loop of timeline A but I'm gonna be annoyed if they try to imply that that's not what's happening. But again it was written before Endgame came out so I don't think they'll really go that far.

This is what's really annoying me. Do they seriously think Peggy's not director? Are they saying Peggy's not director? Because they want me to believe that Daniel noticed that Shield had been infiltrated by Hydra and Peggy didn't and then one of three things happened. 1. He told the CIA but not Peggy, 2. He told Peggy but she didn't believe him, or 3. He told Peggy and she looked into it but didn't find anything. I take issue with like all of that. In scenario 1. Daniel Sousa personally knows the Director of Shield and, regardless of any awkward breakup they may of had, doesn't tell her that her government organization may be hijacked by freaking HYDRA? In scenario 2. The Director of Shield is told by the Chief of her LA branch and an agent that she worked alongside for a considerable amount of time that her government organization may be hijacked by Hydra and she doesn't listen to him, because, what, they had a messy breakup? In scenario 3. The Director of Shield, Margaret Elizabeth Carter, has reason to believe that Shield is infiltrated by Hydra, she investigates, and finds absolutely nothing out of the ordinary? None of those sound even almost reasonable. So are they not mentioning that Peggy is director because it makes Daniel's storyline more believable and convenient or am I missing something? I've lost hope that she might make an appearance but I'd appreciate some Director Carter content even in passing mentions or at least tell me who the Director is if it's not her.

Also, Daniel's death, real or not, is gonna hurt her really bad and I'm not a fan of that. I'm glad I didn't have to watch him die and I'm excited to see more of him but it's really gonna mess with Peggy. We've already seen her struggle with feeling like everyone she gets close to dies and even though at this point she's married and maybe has kids, that doesn't take away from what they had in Agent Carter, that goes beyond the romantic and into the fact that he was one of the few men who showed her even the smallest amount of respect. It's gonna hurt her and I don't like when she's hurt. Also also, I don't care about whatever Coulson said about his death being ruled an accident, Peggy is a critical thinker and 100% would have looked into it. Especially as the Director of Shield if I keep saying that maybe AoS will hear me or it'll become canon lol she wouldn't let that slide.

Basically what I'm saying is: I can talk myself into the time travel making sense, I just did lol, but while I love Daniel and getting to see him again and continue to see him in the coming episodes, it stretches the imagination a bit too far concerning Peggy and his dynamic with her. Either that or I have to be to ticked off at the writers for not knowing that Peggy is director in 1955. Or I have to be ticked at the entirety of Marvel for not making Peggy director as soon as the thing was up and running. But. That doesn't mean that this hasn't been a good season so far, it's been pretty great. And I'm very excited to see them in the 70s. And to see Daniel in the 70s. And to see my man Enoch make another appearance. I have my issues but I'm still highly enjoying all of this absolute tomfoolery sldjskdjksksjk that is all

[celinamarniss]

Time for me to ramble about my fic about an obscure character that doesn’t even exist in the books and literally no one else cares about! 

Pour Away the Ocean. 

Does anyone even read the X-Wing books anymore? I assume there’s still a fandom, but it’s very tiny. 

As stated in the notes for the fic, Jysella Terrik is pretty much a non-existent character. I think she may only be named in supplementary material. She’s a minor love interest’s dead mom! They didn’t even bother to give her a last name. 

Having a child is basically the most dangerous thing a woman can do in a Star War. Unless you’re Leia, you’ve pretty much signed your death certificate. I know, there are exceptions! But it’s a shockingly persistent trope. There are far far more dead mothers than living ones, and when your list of female characters is already limited, it’s a bad look. it’s real bad. 

And that’s one of the main reasons I wrote this fic. I want to resurrect those dead mothers. I want to give them their own stories. 

I was well aware that a fic about a character who isn't even in the books was never going to get very much attention, but sometimes I still feel a little bummed when I look at the low hit/kudos count. It’s too bad! I’m very proud of this fic. 

I had the idea of writing a “five things” fic about Jysella at the back of my head for years, but it was seeing Solo that really made me want to write about a ride-or-die smuggler couple. But I didn’t write about Val and Beckett, I wrote about Jysella (and Booster).

I found writing essentially an OC in an original setting very freeing, and allowed myself to take risks that I don't usually take with style and character building. I felt free to make Jysella kind of dick, because I wasn't worrying about any pre-conceived ideas about her character. I gave myself a little more permission to write lush descriptions and focus on building a mood rather than plot construction, and I think it helped me stretch as a writer. Pour is one of the few fics I've written in present tense, which is very hip right now but not a style I'm used to using. 

Lots of Star Wars characters are orphans or come from small families. So I gave Jysella a family with living parents, siblings, and tons of relatives. I decided she was Corellian, like her husband, but unlike a lot of the other Corellians we know, she comes from one of the other planets in the system. 

It amuses me to think of Corran discovering that he married into a whole family—a large family!—of disreputable petty criminals. 

I didn’t want Jysella to be an innocent, stay-at-home wife/mother who isn’t involved in her husband’s illegal business (she does become a stay-at-home mom for a while in the story, but it doesn’t suit her). I had already established that Jysella was an active player in the piracy business in Two Smugglers Walk into a Bar, but in this story I established that piracy was in Jysella’s blood long before she met Booster. I wanted to weave an ocean theme through the story, so her family became planet-based sea pirates. 

A family friend once told me that he used to sneak into the big cruise ship launch parties on the docks of New York. It was a great cheap date!

I have no idea how piracy would work in Star Wars. I made everything up. I’m not convinced I did a great job with the whole sequence where they actually hijack a Republic ship, and I think it’s the weakest part of the story. 

It was kind of interesting to write from the POV of characters sympathetic to the Separatists, and not the Republic. This story is very much from the POV of normal people in the GFFA, who have never met a princess or a Jedi or been part of any great destiny. 

I feel like I write a lot of struggling-with-our-feelings getting-together-stories, and it was nice to write a couple who just like each other and decided to get married. 

Mirax was a biter! Of course she was! 

The story of the little kid screaming with laughter as she watches bears swim at the zoo was me! I was that little kid! My dad loves telling that story. 

Booster (and later Mirax) inheriting the Pulsar Skate from Jysella was my invention. 

The “new mining operation opening in the Anoat sector” is Bespin. I found conflicting info on when it was built and how long it was in operation before ESB, but for the sake of this fic, it’s at least partially a “new” mining operation. 

I made a photoset/banner for this fic that I still like a lot! 

I would cast an Asian-American actress to play Jysella (and a hapa actress to play Mirax). I wasn’t sure how to signal that in the text without falling into racist tropes so I’m not sure if it comes across in the text, or if it even needs to. I picked Hettiene Park for the photoset because I liked her in Hannibal. 

The title comes from the W. H. Auden poem “Funeral Blues,” which as I mention in my notes is a little maudlin for my taste as a whole, but I wanted to use a line from a funeral poem, and the final verse fit so well with the theme. 

Here’s the final verse: 

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

[merryfortune]

Day 3 – Fire / Happiness

Ship: Flame/Takeru

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! Vrains

Word Count: 1.8k

Tags:  Fluff, Interspecies Relationship, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash

  Life was all about the little pleasures. That was Takeru’s more optimistic philosophy. He had some other ones, but they tended to be dour and pessimistic but when he could bring himself out of that gloomy headspace, he had to agree. Life was all about the little pleasures.

  He was pretty sure that Flame agreed.

  Observing Flame was fun, Takeru decided. He had never interacted so closely with the human world before so it was, and Takeru wants to be forgiven for this since he has no doubt in his mind that Flame would get very indignant and huffy over this comparison, but it was like watching a kitten interact with its new home for the first time. He was full of life, no matter what airs of sophistication that he put on. He was quick on the uptake but strangely clumsy about it; nearly tripping over himself as he investigated what little technology that Takeru kept around and trying to stay out of sight from Takeru’s grandparents. Takeru was certain that if his Oba-chan or Oji-chan saw Flame, they would have a heart attack and then another one after it was explained what Flame was.

  Takeru couldn’t really wrap his mind around it. Sci-fi had never been his genre and it seemed that old adage that reality was stranger than fiction really did ring true. He would never have envisioned in a million years that artificial intelligence with free will would ever come to exist. He certainly didn’t think that he would have had a hand in helping it as Flame was one such impossibility and he was based off how Takeru had duelled in those six months in captivity.

  It made him shiver. And shiver again but for a different reason. Flame made a good case for himself. Flame might have been created from the worst torture imaginable but his relationship, one on one, with Takeru didn’t have to be contingent on that. They could find a new way. That’s what Flame wanted with bright and sparkling eyes. And now, that’s what Takeru wanted. He wanted a new future and he was more than willing to let Flame spur him onto such a wild ride. It was better than wasting away in his room with nothing but his thoughts and anger.

  “I’m gonna miss this place but I think this is a good time to reinvent myself.” Takeru said as he filled out the application for Den City High School’s entrance exam.

  Flame nodded. “Good, I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Like, Kiku’s always bugging me that I’m gonna get into trouble one day and that business with that Ryu fella and his gang is a pretty close shave for it, all things considered.” Takeru said and then laughed embarrassedly.

  Not really, he thought. After all, he had been scrapes physically far worse: him against tens of other blokes of varying ages and physiques. But, emotionally, that had been something else. It had been beyond terrifying. So, Takeru was glad that Flame had been there.

  He put his pen down and stretched out his back. Flame looked up at him and there was a glow of pride emanating off him. Takeru returned it with a smile.

  “When I finish this part of my essay,” Takeru began, “let’s go get ice-cream. I know a nice little place down by my favourite pier. Lemme take you there.”

  Flame’s whole body perked up at the mere suggestion of ice-cream. Ice-cream was not something that they had in the Cyberse World. After all, they didn’t need to consume food like humans did. They could subsist purely off light and off the data of the world. Eating was an option which was, admittedly, seen as hedonistic as only the Dark Ignis really talked about human food outside of its cultural context. So, admittedly, Flame was curious to taste it since ice-cream in particular had caught his attention as he was a creature which burned hot rather than blistered freezingly cold. He found the invention of ice-cream novel and charming.

  “Yes, that sounds good.” Flame replied.

  “Excellent. Well, just a few more sentences…” Takeru said.

  Flame’s supervision turned eager as he sank into Takeru’s Duel Disc, not wanting him to feel pressured. So far, Flame thought he had done remarkably well for himself. From the parts that Takeru had read aloud to him or asked for advice over, Flame thought everything was quite deft but well written. Of course, it helped that Flame was here, and Flame thought he had plenty of good ideas for Takeru to utilise.

  Half an hour or so passed and Takeru then exclaimed, brightly, that he was finished. Editing be damned, that could be done later. They were burning sunlight at this point so Takeru got up and grabbed his wallet. He strapped his Duel Disc to his wrist and Flame’s eyeball appeared on the surface, more ecstatic than he wanted to make out.

  Takeru bade his grandparents farewell and was out the door before either of them could protest his mid-afternoon snack of choice; something he neglected to mention in his haste. He hit the streets as swiftly as he could, revelling in how his blood was pumping as he did so. He ran past a line of trees and followed the road into town. From there, he slowed down a little bit, but he liked how sweaty and hot that he was. Holing up in his room writing an essay wasn’t his style.

  He and Flame passed a few shops as they made their way to the pier which was basically on the other side of town from Takeru’s grandparents’ house. He didn’t mind though. It was a small town and he was plenty fit. He just hoped that he didn’t run into Kiku or any of his classmates. He wasn’t ready to break the news to them just yet; he wanted to get accepted into Den City High School first. He was worried that Kiku would, with good intentions in her heart, try to convince him to stay and he was worried that the others, without such good intentions, would make him feel bad for leaving; implying he was too stupid or rash to live by himself in the big smoke.

  Takeru hadn’t told Flame that yet. He didn’t want Flame to worry about him and the rough relations that he had with too many of the kids in this town.

  “What flavour of ice-cream do you want?” Takeru asked; he was squinting off into the distance and was pretty sure he could see the pink roof of the place that he wanted to take Flame to.

  Flame hummed to himself; his eyeball squishing in on itself in great thought. Takeru could have laughed. He could easily imagine Flame’s little habit of putting his hands on his face when he was in deep thinking because of that little bit of movement atop his wrist.

  “I hear good things about chocolate.” Flame said. “But I am familiar with fruit so there is a comfort in familiarity as well.”

  Takeru laughed.

  “Pardon?” Flame said.

  “Who says “I am familiar with fruit”? It’s just weird.” Takeru explained. “Never mind, I’ll pick for us.”

  “I trust your choice then.” Flame said.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll pick a good one.” Takeru snickered.

  He drew in closer to the building and came inside. The air conditioner over the door blasted them but only Takeru bore brunt of it. He smiled at the cashier and as he was the only one inside, standing, there was a family of four in a booth and a young couple at a table, he was allowed to order.

  “Can I get one waffle cone with vanilla soft serve with strawberries on top and can I get one waffle cone with two scoops; one chocolate and the other honeycomb, please?” he asked.

  Flame smiled to himself, risking being seen but as Takeru paid the cashier, he doubted that he was. Still, it smelt nice to be up close with all the different ice-cream flavours. Flame was certain that he could identify the different flavours despite never having smelt them before. Though, it didn’t really matter, they all smelt delicious to him.

  “Thank you muchly.” Takeru said as he took the two cones that he had ordered.

  He nodded and was then off. With one step outside, he was blasted with the smell of the sea breeze. He smiled to himself and wandered closer to the edge. He drifted along past and found a spot in which he and Flame could interact freely. He rested, partially, atop a wooden barrier which was clustered with barnacles.

  “Flame?” he prompted.

  “Thank you for the treat.” Flame said.

  “I hope you like them. That two-scoop cone was a little pricier than I thought it would be.” Takeru pouted.

  “I appreciate it.” Flame said.

  Takeru held up the cones a little higher. “Well?”

  “I would like to try vanilla first; it is the staple flavour, correct?” Flame said.

  “Yep.” Takeru said.

  He blinked. He was interested in seeing how Flame was going to eat the ice-cream. He assumed that he was going to smear it on his face and then be done with it, not unlike a toddler but Takeru was very quickly proven wrong. His tiny companion transformed into a much larger – and scarier – companion with tentacles and a bulbous head and teeth.

  Takeru screamed, genuinely, as Flame licked at the ice-cream. He reared back and his sole eye blinked. He stared, dumbfounded, at Takeru.

  “Is something the matter, Takeru?” Flame asked, running his tongue over his lips. “I did inform you that I, as an Ignis, have other forms. This is one of them; I would show you the other one, but it is too blinding for the human eye to withstand. But, don’t worry, there are no humans around to witness this. We are completely alone.”

  “R-Right.” Takeru stuttered.

  Flame leaned in and had a taste test of the other ice-cream that Takeru was very stiffly holding onto.

  “Hm, I think I like this honeycomb flavour best, but I can understand the appeal of vanilla and chocolate, too.” Flame said.

  “G-Glad to hear it.” Takeru murmured as Flame reverted to his normal self.

  Takeru stared down at his companion once more. He could feel prickles on his skin in response to that. Flame stared up at him with a friendly demeanour.

  “Thank you for the ice-cream, Takeru. I enjoyed it. I recommend you finish them both up, though. You wouldn’t want them to melt.” Flame advised him.

  “No problem.” Takeru said. “But, at the very least, eat the strawberry slices off the vanilla cone.” He flushed and averted his gaze from Flame. “I think strawberries suit you…”

  “How so?” Flame asked, making a face.

  Takeru hummed. He thought of the cute little crest upon Flame’s head. The plume reminded him of the leafage a strawberry possessed. He shrugged.

  “It just does.” he said, fondly.

  “I shall take your word on it then.” Flame said and he slipped into his more monstrous form again and his tongue raked up the strawberries.

  This time, Takeru wasn’t scared. In fact, he was endeared to it. Noting that made Flame happy but noticing the flavour of the strawberries made him happier. They were sweet. He thought strawberries suited Takeru, too.

[vinodiriso]

Kou/cha. [HANMEI]

@mita-rashi requested a HanMei drabble, something like two weeks ago. This is my headcanon of how they first met. Enjoy.

NOTES:

1: Mei in Chinese can be written with either the character 美 (meaning ‘beautiful’) or the character 梅 (meaning ‘plum’, Japanese: ‘ume’).

Hanzo had already done something for that woman in the handful of months he had spent in the Overwatch base, after the night he faced Genji in combat. Most of the times, it was heavy lifting... literally. He was used to carry around boxes of stuff from his sea days, and he always managed to come across the lab when there was some weighty science machines to move. He never actually cared about it, it was just some minor chores and nothing was ever so hefty to trouble him.

The archer didn’t give much thought to the white-coat-wearing people that needed his help, the only thing that stroke him as odd was how nice one of them was to him. It was not like she was baking him cookies, that be written down, but at least she didn’t shoot him those sour looks he got from various other agents, like that cowboy wannabe or the punk hairdo.

That afternoon, Hanzo was coming fresh out of the shower after an entire morning of shooting practice. He made his way into the base’s small kitchen and started looking for his secret stash, until he heard a voice from behind him: “please, can you take the box on the second from top shelf?”

Hanzo complied without further questioning and grabbed it. He turned to give it to the person requesting it, only to be met by one of the scientists he had helped various times. He didn’t remember her name… not like it was news. He was bad with names, with memories, everything was always a blurry fog.

“There you go,” he mumbled, his words were gentle but his tone wasn’t. She didn’t seem to mind.

“Thank you. Can you make a little room for me too?”

Hanzo stepped to the side and the woman entered the small kitchen. Hanzo returned to his activity of retrieving his belongings. Finally he found the box he was looking for, behind a can of coffee (ugh, he hated coffee). He uncorked it and the amazing, full scent of tea leaves invaded his nostrils.

It was really hard in their days to find actual tea leaves and not extracts, or flavoured tea bags. Agriculture was on the brink of collapse after ways to create synthetic food with cheap processes were invented. Real food costed a hell of a lot money nowadays, and those tea leaves were a most expensive treasure for Hanzo; he rarely shared it with anyone.

“Bai Jiguan, right?” the woman commented with a giggle. “You have a good taste for tea.”

“Huh,” Hanzo commented. “You recognized it by smell alone?”

“My family was in tea shipping when I was little,” she explained, “I was basically raised drinking tea. A habit that stuck. You?”

“My mother,” he said, simply. Why was he even replying to that? It was a personal question.

“I see. And what teas do you enjoy?”

“Huh,” Hanzo was really not used to speak that much. “Oolong tea and… black tea.”

“Oh, so you gonna love this one!” the woman chirped as she opened her own box. Hanzo inhaled the beautiful scent in a deep breath.

“Golden Monkey.”

“That’s right. I’ve never met someone that could guess by scent and not taste, haha!”

Hanzo nodded. He didn’t know what to reply to that, so he didn’t.

“By the way, I haven’t introduced myself. I am Mei-Ling Zhou, nice to meet you, Hanzo,” she didn’t actually say ‘Hanzo’, in her mouth it sounded something like ‘Bhanshoo’. Still, Hanzo could pick up his name even if it had been butchered by a person that clearly couldn’t pronounce it.

“How do you know my name?” Hanzo’s eyebrows furrowed.

“You are Genji’s brother, right? I have never seen him under the mask but I have always imagined he would look something like you do. And McCree said that Genji’s brother always has this… very… troubled face. You fit the description.”

Hanzo doubted someone like McCree would ever say ‘troubled face’, let alone when referring to him. Still, as much as he was irked (for no reason in particular, really, he should have expected to be a juicy piece of gossips for Overwatch agents after his arrival), she tried to soften the blow. She didn’t call him ‘asshole’ face-to-face; Hanzo appreciated tact, even if affected, even if Hanzo himself wasn’t the most tactful person around.

“Mh,” he replied. He rummaged his mind in search for something to say only to be met with failure.  Without anything else to add, he just stuck to filling the boiler. Mei was measuring her serving of dried leaves: she dropped three teaspoons of Golden Monkey in a small porcelain teapot. It looked extremely frail and extremely precious. Hanzo did not have to wander off with imagination to guess it was a real Chinese handcraft. After all, her name was Zhou, was it not?

“It’s a family heirloom,” Mei stated, looking back at him. She didn’t mention the fact she had perceived Hanzo’s gaze or his interest in that tiny object, but still it was worth of praise to be that keen-minded. It took him by surprise. “I always have it with me, wherever I go. My father had it made for me when I was born.”

She showed him the Chinese characters painted on the side.

“Oh, so it’s ‘Mei’ as in ‘beautiful’. I thought it was ‘plum’.” 1

She widened her eyes at his reply, regardless of how stoic. “You can read Chinese?”

“Yes, I picked it up… on the road,” he didn’t mention his life in Taiwan. Too personal.

“How do you read this in Japanese?”

“Uh… ‘bi’. It means ‘beauty’ in Japanese.”

“How do you say ‘beautiful’?”

Hanzo puckered his lips as he recalled the word. It had been such a long time since he had spoken his native language. “Mh… ‘utsukushii’. But it’s the same kanji. It’s… complicated.”

Mei giggled. It was a surprisingly wholesome sound. Hanzo was confused. “I guessed so. Careful, I think the water is ready.”

Hanzo resumed from his deep thoughts of how weird her laugh had him feeling. He grabbed his own tea box, ready to just drop a spoonful in his cup, but Mei stopped him. “Huh-huh. If you are having tea with a Chinese person, I will have you follow the rules. Here.”

She gave him another teapot she recovered from one of the lower cabinets. It was much less fancier than her one, it was a faux terracotta-looking steel thing, but it would have served its purpose. “Do you know how to do it?”

Hanzo nodded. Yes, his mother had taught him many years ago. On top of that, he had seen many people do it. Three teaspoons inside the pot, then fill it with hot water, not boiling. Wait 5 seconds, pour, and throw the water away (the taste is too strong and, at the same time, not rich enough, it’s a bad batch). Refill the teapot, wait 20 seconds (or 40, if one likes a very strong flavour) and eventually pour the serving.

They completed the process in utter silence, without saying a word, almost in symbiosis, so coordinated were the two as they performed each action. It looked very mechanical, on Hanzo’s part, Mei on the other hand was more relaxed and her gestures were a display of an ancient art. Sure, that wasn’t the sophisticated tea ceremony Kung-fu masters invented millennia before, but it was still core to their countries’ traditions. A waste to let it go forgotten, as far as Hanzo was concerned.

“I love this smell,” Mei eventually broke the silence. “Isn’t it… gorgeous?”

Hanzo had to agree. It was one of the few things he enjoyed the most, a moment for relaxation he was used to consume alone, but Mei’s company was strangely… not-unnerving. It wasn’t as peaceful as the solitude of his home, solitary and companionless, but it was a little warmer than his despondency. Soon, Hanzo abandoned that road of thoughts: Mei was a little too perceptive and he didn’t want her to get inside his mind that far.

They sat at one of the table in the dining hall, facing one another. Hanzo wasn’t looking at her, he was quietly sipping his tea. She was squirming a little, as if she was trying really hard to find something to say. It was annoying, how some people couldn’t appreciate a moment of silence. It was rare for that room to be soundless, empty. The mere grazing of their mugs on the table and the soft drinking sounds were a balm for a… troubled mind. He used her word. So he did have a troubled face, after all, if those were the thoughts springing behind it.

Yet, despite of Hanzo’s unappreciative judgement, Mei did not speak a word for long. However, he could feel her gaze on him, studying him, curious as everyone of the freak that killed his own brother. That’s why he preferred staying alone. It wasn’t as annoying when he was the one to despise himself.

“Is it good?” Mei asked.

“What?”

“The tea. You’re glowering.”

“I always look like this,” was his reply. Quite impolite.

Mei gave him a little scorned smile. “I am sorry. I shouldn’t have pried. It’s just that… it seems a little counterproductive to drink tea only to be sour, no?”

Hanzo wasn’t pleased by her statement. Maybe because she was right? “The way I drink tea is none of your business.”

The woman did not answer at his rude shutdown. Hanzo looked at her. She was so normal. Brown eyes, brown hair. She wore glasses. She had dainty little fingers wrapped around her cup, tapping on it so gently. Her hairpin was fashionable and elaborate, with a dangling little snowflake charm. The way she blew on steaming tea was cute.

She raised her eyes only to encounter his, staring. She smiled again. “You really like the teapot, don’t you?”

“Huh?” right next to her cup, there it laid her teapot. She probably misinterpreted the direction of Hanzo’s look, which was a blessing: too many things to explain if she had guessed the archer was indeed observing her. “It’s a fine piece of art.”

The smile on her lips grew a little larger. “Yeah, it’s very cute.”

Mei looked up, her brow creasing as she was trying to recall something… “kawaii?”

Hanzo huffed instinctively in a diverted manner. That was so random it amused him, even if it was really not that cultured humour; her pronunciation and the nonsense of the situation turned it comical. And that expression too, he admitted, was funny.

“Oh, so you can laugh,” Mei teased him. “I thought you were paralysed with that grimace. You should laugh more often. There is a glitter in your eyes when you do. You look… less troubled.”

“You can see people right through, can’t you?” Hanzo was sarcastic.

“I guess it’s what happens when you don’t stop at the surface and bother trying and understand the person you are talking to,” Mei was serious. “Do you ever try, Hanzo? To understand others?”

Oh, that sting. He was immediately thrown back at how he thought it would be hard for her to stay quiet, but she did, then even earlier, how he assumed she knew about him because she had gossiped about him. Maybe, just maybe, she remembered his name from when he had helped the other scientists.

All of a sudden, it became harder to look back at her. Coward.

“Mei!” a panting white coat came in running. “Jackson…!”

She sighed. “Got it. I am coming.”

She took one long sip, then she came to her feet. She looked back at him, biting her lower lip, as if she wanted to add something else. Hanzo prayed she didn’t, he couldn’t bear more humiliation, even if it was unintended as hers.

“See you around?” Mei murmured, giving him yet one soft grin.

“Ha,” Hanzo replied. And, for once, he really meant it.

[garden-ghoul]

I finally remembered DURING the weekend to record my notes on Sourcery! In this one you can hear me: enjoying doing a Rincewind voice. Clocks in at 19:26 (I’m going to start putting in episode length because it seems like the kind of thing people will like to know.) Transcript under the cut.

HELLO and welcome to episode 4 of what I am now calling “It’s Yelling All the Way Down.” Because it just seemed a bit egotistical to ascribe critical analysis to myself. This week* I’ve drawn the number 5, which means we’re reading Sourcery. With a U. Before reading this book I did not remember a single thing about it except that the main character is perhaps… a sorcerer? And is named Coin. Also according to the summary this is a Rincewind book, the first one since The Light Fantastic. I think he might have died in that one. But no matter, he’s back!

A bit about wizards, before we begin:

We’ve already seen witches, who are my favorites. Pratchett was fond of saying “if men were witches, they would be wizards,” which I think is supposed to be a comment on how men are socialized to be self-important and relatively useless and ask for more credit than they deserve? Although it could just be gender essentialism. Anyway, that’s what wizards do. We very briefly met some in Jingo, where as you might recall they were extorting money from the city-state under threat of magical mayhem. We’ll see more of exactly that in this book! Let’s get right to it.

Now, on Earth (or Roundworld, as it is sometimes called), specifically in England, seven is considered to be a magical number. So much so that whoever perpetrated ROY G BIV (Newton, maybe?) invented several colors just so a rainbow would have seven of them. On the Disc there is an eighth color, inspired by the extra little echoey bit on the inside of a rainbow that is both green AND purple; this color is called octarine. That’s not what the introduction is about, it’s about the eighth son of an eighth son, who of course has become a wizard. But I’m sure it will come up, and then we’ll be prepared, won’t we?

Now this eighth son of an eighth son, he had seven sons, each one from the cradle at least as powerful as any wizard in the world.

And then he had an eighth son...

A wizard squared. A source of magic.

A sourcerer.

We join this double-eight wizard with his young eighth son on the shingle, where he’s having a chat with DEATH. DEATH is a friendly sort. Likes cats. Very little patience with wizards who are trying to create a magical destiny for babies. Because all prophecies require loopholes, the double-eight wizard prophesies that his son will become the mightiest and everyone will bow before him, et cetera et cetera, UNLESS… he throws his staff away. And then the wizard gets struck by lightning and as he dies he puts his soul into the staff. The kid also got struck by lightning but he’s fine. As you may have guessed, this kid is our protagonist, Coin, the sourcerer.

Cut to Unseen University, on the eve of the appointment of a new arch-chancellor. The books in the library are uneasy. The university seems to be sinking. The rats, mice, ants, and even the gargoyles off the roof are abandoning ship. Rincewind and the Librarian seem to be the only wizards who have noticed, although as we are told Rincewind is so bad at wizardry that he’s actually worse than non-wizards. One wonders how he was admitted to the university, because he doesn’t seem rich. Is it just that EVERY eighth son gets in because it makes them A Wizard? Anyway, he’s an assistant librarian (honorary) so he invites the Librarian out for drinks just to get him out of the University.

This means they’re going to miss the arch-chancellor accession feast, which is probably for the best because Coin is going to be there, and you can bet his dad’s been whispering in his ear about what ought to be done to the rest of the wizards who kicked him out. Indeed, he walks right in and challenges the most powerful immediately available wizard to a magical duel, lets him do a party trick, and then vaporizes him. He’s ten, and is set up as a Creepy Child: he stares through people rather than looking at them, talks a bit like an encyclopedia, and clearly hasn’t heard of ethics. The wizards immediately accept him as their arch-chancellor, realizing that it will be incredibly easy to manipulate this kid into doing whatever they want by making him think he has the sort of power that matters.

Lots of good mentions here of how wizards instinctively distrust each other; wizard politics; assassinations; mind games. Nevertheless, two wizards have made a cautious alliance to deal with the threat Coin represents. Spelter, the Bursar and a fifth level wizard; and Carding, an eighth-level wizard (that’s the highest level).

Let us leave them there for a moment to follow the thief who has stolen the arch-chancellor’s hat, which seems to be a talking hat and actually quite keen to be stolen. This thief has tracked down Rincewind, the only readily apparent wizard outside of the university, and is trying to kidnap him for some kind of dangerous wizard mission, under threat of death. The mission is to bring the arch-chancellor’s hat to Klatch, where “there is someone fit to wear us.” There’s a brief misadventure where the hat is stolen, apparently to show off that it can kill people on its own just fine. It’s pretty clear that the hat is full of wizards in the same way Coin’s staff is full of his awful dad, setting us up for a battle of evil and evil: there are plenty of battles in which neither side is correct.

A bit about the thief: her name is Conina, and in my opinion far too much is being made of her looks. She has an apparently hereditary urge to murder, basically a hair trigger with throwing knives, which is unfortunate for her because she wants to be a hairdresser. She can’t see the tools of the trade without imagining doing a murder with them. I was pretty into this whole high fantasy parody thing Pratchett was doing until he started parodying sexist tropes by, uh, just straight up putting sexist tropes in his book. Not his finest hour.

At the university, most of the wizards are enjoying all the extra magic pouring out of Coin. They can do exciting spells now! As soon as Coin starts doing exciting spells, though, they remember they’re afraid of him. He appearifies the Patrician—good old Vetinari, who hasn’t yet been characterized beyond being the sort of person who says “what is the meaning of this?”—and turns him into a lizard. Because wizards should rule the city, you see? Not people who understand politics. Coin has a very ten-year-old understanding of what it means to rule. One imagines him ruling so thoroughly that all he has left is a bunch of lizards and then I’m sure he’d feel rather foolish.

The wizards take their cues from Coin and go out to terrorize the city, and they seem to have a great time. But wizards, like everyone else, fundamentally want certainty and familiarity in their lives. And Coin is scaring them. At this point we start to wonder to what extent Coin’s mind actually is his own, because he’s saying incredibly ominous grown-up things like “who among you has been into your dark library these past few days? The magic is inside you now, not imprisoned between covers. Is that not a joyous thing?” You know, sort of cognitively, one doesn’t expect a ten-year-old either to speak like this or to be this single-minded. It’s worrying. Is he okay? What thoughts does he think?

In the oppressively quiet darkness of night in a university under new rule, Spelter hears someone quietly crying. When he looks into the room Coin is on the bed sobbing while his staff whispers to him. The next day “Coin” announces that they’re going to burn down the library, 90,000 books, many of them sentient. Spelter barely manages to tell the librarian, who’s barricaded in, before he comes across the staff and it vaporizes him.

Let’s see what Conina and Rincewind are up to. Oh, getting attacked by pirates! Conina murders a whole bunch of them but some do make off with the hat, so when they land she decides they ought to go somewhere in port they can get attacked by The Criminal Element. This will allow them to get information or something. Look, Conina just wants to get in a fight, and I can respect that.

I also want to check in with Rincewind because I think the way he’s written is pretty interesting. His psyche seems very uncomplicated: at most times he’s just thinking about how he can avoid getting attacked and get as far away from danger as possible. And being racist about how they don’t do things proper in Al Khali. But we get occasional interjections from his conscience and, now, his libido, which gives the feeling that he works hard to suppress any thoughts he feels are foreign to his lifestyle. Pratchett reinforces this foreignness by portraying them as voices Rincewind doesn’t recognize. He has a suspicion that he’s falling in love, but doesn’t like it. He only has physiological symptoms, as far as I can tell. So we get this picture of a person completely out of tune not only with his body but with his mind as well, who has worn such a deep psychological groove of habit that he can’t conceive of climbing out of it.

Anyway, Conina and Rincewind are kidnapped by the ruler of the city, who is called a Seriph because heaven forbid Sir Terry let any small detail go un-pastiched. The Seriph’s grand vizier has possession of the arch-chancellor’s hat and is aware that it’s dangerous, because it told him. Also he’s evil, because a grand vizier’s got to be evil. He imprisons our heroes I guess, but very shortly afterward the amount of ambient magic skyrockets and there are a ton of wizards from Unseen University there! Halfway across the Disc! The vizier turns up, having had his mind taken over by the arch-chancellor’s hat and declaring that wizards are taking back what’s theirs from sourcerers. I like this, we have two opposing magical forces, both figureheaded by humas but in fact ruled by inanimate objects with echoes of dead minds inside.

And, yes, just a few pages later Rincewind states one of the major themes of the book! 

“That’s what you people never understand,” said Rincewind, wearily. “You think magic is just something you can pick up and use, but the truth is, magic uses people.  It affects you as much as you affect it, sort of thing. You can���t mess around with magical things without it affecting you.”

After hearing so much about the thousand-year, horrifyingly destructive Mage Wars, it’s pretty clear that magic isn’t just magic here. Any kind of power corrupts, and if in this book it happens to corrupt not because of human nature but because of its own malice—well, that’s metaphors for you. Anyway Rincewind and company escape on a magic flying carpet, which is using him as a conduit to fly itself, per usual.

Then we get this honestly really cool scene where the fleeing heroes are camped out on a beach watching spells streaking across the sky like meteors over the Circle Sea: the hat’s tower in Al Khali doing battle with Coin’s tower in Ankh. Shockwaves ripple across them, and in his sleep Rincewind is trying to build a tower, which seems to be some kind of wizardly instinct. As soon as he can he steals the flying carpet and absent-mindedly heads for Ankh-Morpork because he thinks of it as his home base. Over the ocean we see other wizards’ towers springing up everywhere: they’re all joining in the war. I love this sort of distant apocalypse imagery, the contrast between the peace of a totally uninhabited area and the massive devastation that from far away looks kind of pretty. Here at the end of all things.

Rincewind returns to a city totally unlike the one he left: gleaming white marble, fountains, and not a single soul. Smoke boils up from the university’s tower, which is slagged and melted but still firing off terrifying magic at the tower in the next city-state over. And the library, where Rincewind spent a lot of very happily boring time as an assistant librarian, lies in ashes. Rincewind goes  into the tower. The flashes of magic illuminate the librarian and many of his 90,000 books, which flew in to take shelter when the library burned. He tells Rincewind to put a stop to all this sourcery, seeing as Rincewind seems to be the only other wizard who hasn’t gone mad with power (the reason being, he hasn’t got any). And obviously the librarian has his books to tend to. So Rincewind puts a half-brick in a sock and starts up the tower.

In the top of the tower the Ankh wizards defeat Quirm, and then when the hat is momentarily distracted, they defeat Al Khali too. But Coin is still an open doorway through which magic pours into the world. “Can you hear them?” asks Carding. “You’re pouring sourcery into the world and other things are coming with it.” I have always liked this image, of a great number of terrible things just barely compelled to stay outside of the circle of the universe, and being invited in when too much magic is used. For a moment the staff is indisposed horribly murdering Carding and Coin is uncertain, upset that a man is dead. Then it returns to his hands and he says: let’s fight the gods. I was expecting it to be a bit more of a thing but he settles it in about a paragraph: we’ll just put them inside this bubble, there we are. Just then Rincewind staggers up over the edge of the tower, swinging his half-brick. His exchange with Coin is… absolutely delightful. They’re at exact opposite ends of the wizard spectrum.

“I have come,” said Rincewind thickly, “to challenge the sourcerer. Which one is he?” He surveyed the prostrate wizardry, hefting the half-brick in one hand. 

One of the wizards risked a glance upwards and made frantic eyebrow movements at Rincewind who, even at the best of times, wasn’t much good at interpreting non-verbal communication. This wasn’t the best of times.

“With a sock?” said Coin. “What good is a sock?” 

The arm holding the staff rose. Coin looked down at it in mild astonishment. “No, stop,” he said. “I want to talk to this man.” He stared at Rincewind, who was swaying back and forth under the influence of sleeplessness, horror and the after-effects of an adrenaline overdose. “Is it magical?” he said, curiously. “Perhaps it is the sock of an Archchancellor? A sock of force?”

Rincewind focused on it. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think I bought it in a shop or something. Um. I’ve got another one somewhere.”

“But in the end it has something heavy?”

“Um. Yes,” said Rincewind. He added, “It’s a half-brick.”

“But it has great power.”

“Er. You can hold things up with it. If you had another one, you’d have a brick.” Rincewind spoke slowly. He was assimilating the situation by a kind of awful osmosis, and watching the staff turn ominously in the boy’s hand.

“So. It is a brick of ordinariness, within a sock. The whole becoming a weapon.”

“Um. Yes.”

“How does it work?”

“Um. You swing it, and then you. Hit something with it.”

The staff tells Coin to kill Rincewind, but Coin is hesitant, because Rincewind looks like “an angry rabbit,” and is probably harmless. “Why should I do everything you tell me?” says Coin to the staff. “I always do everything you tell me, and it doesn’t help people at all.” Basically it’s like asking a kid to murder a clown. He’s so funny! Why should I kill him!

The staff tortures him a bit. Might I remind you: his ten-year-old son. Rincewind thinks this is a bit much and whacks the staff out of his hand with the half-brick-in-sock. He actually steps in front of Coin to defend him from the staff, even though bravery and altruism are really not his thing. And Coin catches the staff, and throws it away. It comes back, of course, and they do battle. All the wizards are terrified, and Rincewind looks around accusingly at the wizards who won’t help this ten-year-old fighting for his life and the fate of reality itself. All we see of Rincewind’s intervention is his seared hat floating gently to the ground.

He and Coin wake up on the cold black sand of the Dungeon Dimension, staring at the backs of the Things that are trying to break into the universe. The staff has been melted and Rincewind decides to be a real hero one more time and attack the Things with a sock full of sand as a distraction so Coin can get out of there. Which he does. And then the door closes, and Rincewind is stuck in the Dungeon Dimension. We’ll see him again later, don’t worry.

As a minor footnote, the apocalypse is happening out there. It’s a Norse-style apocalypse: the gods have vanished, so ice giants are taking over the world. The librarian gets the pearl full of all the gods and sort of throws it and they come out and reverse the apocalypse, I guess. And then Coin undoes everything he did, and I THINK he also erases everyone’s memory of the very brief Mage War. And because he’s lost and alone and doesn’t know what he wants at all… he steps out of the universe, into a simpler, nicer one. A small universe with a garden. And the door closes behind him.

The book ends in the library, where the books have come back to roost and it’s warm and quiet. The librarian has put Rincewind’s hat in a minor ceremonial niche, because “a wizard will ALWAYS come back for his hat.” Listen, I think the librarian might be a bit sweet on Rincewind. It’s very cute.

So, thus ends the book! This one doesn’t have a whole lot of themes since the main purpose of it is to be a fun fantasy adventure with an absolutely kicking climax. I’d say the main one is that Sir Terry vastly prefers consistency to excitement and that war is bad. Oh, hey, that’s a lot like the last one, isn’t it? And there’s also a bit of a warning about how allowing yourself to have power is always a very dangerous balancing game. Humans always have to be careful not to forget how dangerous it is to have power, and how the only way to use it even a little bit well is to think scrupulously of the masses of normal people your actions affect. I feel like he’d agree with my (rather unwilling) stance on Ethical Anxiety. Which is to say, he might understand why I am constantly extremely anxious about taking ethical actions. 

Today’s thought, Shabbat shalom, is to ask yourself how you are using the power you have, and ask yourself where you get your ethics: your parents? Your friends? The news? Which news? That’s all for now. This has been It’s Yelling All the Way Down, intro and end music is TOKiMONSTA’s “Hungry Stomach.” Bye!

[waywardanchorgladiator]

PARRHESIA

.

.

ELISABETH MURDOCH IS AFRAID.

ELISABETH MURDOCH IS AFRAID OF LOSING HER EMPIRE.

THREE RELATED THREATS

ONE PARRHESIASTES

In ancient Greek parrhesia meant "to speak everything" and in ancient Hebrew the word evolved to mean "in face of the public.“ [1] The Parrhesiastes is the person who says everything. [2] (…) The speaker uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of falsehood or silence, the risk of death instead of life and security, criticism instead of flattery, and moral duty instead of self-interest and moral apathy. [3] So you see, the parrhesiastes is someone who takes a risk. [4] This is the parrhesiastic discourse and standpoint in philosophy: it is the discourse of the irreducibility of truth, power, and ethos, and at the same time the discourse of their necessary relationship, of the impossibility of thinking aletheia, politeia, and ethos without their essential, fundamental relationship to each other. [5]

“I am afraid, Father. [6] I want to confess myself to you, have mercy, a devil is devouring my bowels! [7] I see your cell as no more than a frightful sepulchre where, instead of worms, remorse and despair come to gnaw at you and to turn your existence into a hell in anticipation. [8] In madness, (…) I myself am no longer normal, I lose my reason. [9]

Since the moment when I first came to feel what grandeur and perfection are, I find myself admitted to an advantage which may well bring one to despair: that of measuring the extent of these qualities. [10] This other world of knowledge, beauty, love or despair, I will only enter this true world, more real than real, guided by the happenstance of my wanderings in the wide open, between the mad laughs or the more frequent mad tears. [11] I never thought I had found a human ship going down in an ocean of despair, in a Sargasso of impotence. [12]

I am afraid, Father. [13] 

We rule over the entire globe by means of words; with easy effort we acquire for ourselves through trade all the treasures of the earth by means of words. [14] We keep our nature, which obeys and remains silent, on a leash. From time to time it barks and growls, but language, technology and knowledge flog it, bring it into subjection, calm it down. NOT ALWAYS. Just as a written advertising poster erases the landscape’s muteness, a meaningful word annihilates millions of carnal years. [15] But they don’t want us anymore. They want to bring down what you’ve built. Ever after, people would say: 

Murdochs, liars all. [16]“

ALETHEIA

This notion has a long history in the ancient wisdom and legal practices of Greece. [17] Yet today we translate aletheia as truth, even though it only used to express that renown sung of by Homer, whose narratives staged the sailor’s ruses and the warrior’s courage. [18] The new truth was set in opposition there to the ancient aletheia, that is to say, to collective glory, to the publics belief in the exploits of this person or that person, exploits sustained by dramatic facts, dense with sensationalism, terror and pity. [19] In other words, unconcealment or aletheia—this trinity of being present, being something, and omniscience—is not a matter of Platonic philosophy, but rather the bequest of the vocalic alphabet; although invented after the Iliad, it preceded the Odyssey. [20] To lead a “true life” will thus mean: to lead an entirely public and exposed life (the unhidden), an existence of destitution and complete poverty (the pure), a radically wild and animal life (the straight \droit\), and manifesting an unlimited sovereignty (the immutable). [21] And the value of truth in general, which always implies the presence of the signified (aletheia or adequatio), far from dominating this movement and allowing it to be thought, is only one of its epochs, however privileged. [22]

POLITEIA

The rule of law, of course, presupposes complete legality, but this is not enough: if a law gave the government unlimited power to act as it pleased, all its actions would be legal, but it would certainly not be under the rule of law. [23] When a tribunal or authority acquits or sentences a defendant, two fundamental things change: time and truth. [24] For more than social movements the question of justice is a question of temporality: justice is now, justice is against deferral; the space of deferral is the space of destructive violence. [25] Justice is founded on prescription. [26] And justice makes no inquiries. [27] What has to be arranged and calculated are the return effects of punishment on the punishing authority and the power that it claims to exercise. [28] Unfortunately it doesn’t do justice to the beauty and elegance of this extraordinary mechanism that fuels most of life. [29] Over time, all opposites will be destroyed through the work of justice, leading to a final state devoid of opposites. [30] Unlike physical reality, all mental reality is aimed at some object: to see is to see something; to judge is to judge some object; to love is to love someone or something. [31] Continuous adaptation, not equilibrium, is the rule. [32]

ETHOS

We set out from real, active human beings, and on the basis of their real life process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life process. The phantoms formed in the human brain are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material life process, which is empirically verifiable and bound to material premises. Morality religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain their semblance of independence. [33] The bourgeoisie is constantly absorbing into its ideology a whole section of humanity which does not have its basic status and cannot live up to it except in imagination, that is, at the cost of an immobilization and an impoverishment of consciousness. [34] Consciousness is no longer special, but just a special case of the relation between part and whole. [35] Temporality simply refers to the simultaneously concealed (or “past”) character of entities and their revealed (or “future”) aspect combining into a single ambiguous present. [36] One can always say that it is just a matter of foggy talk and ideology, nothing but ideology. [37] This means neither that we can do without ideology nor that science is more valuable than ideology. [38] Ideology is not just in your head. [39] It is neither a history of mentality, nor of behaviour. [40]

“Let’s invite them to my new palace in Paris. I want to hear them sing and make them dance. [41] And if everyone finds it as authoritative as I do, I am confident it will convince any adversary that I may have. [42]“

Paris is the synonym of Cosmos, Paris is Athens, Sybaris, Jerusalem, Pantin. [43] The taste of Paris has shown itself concordant with that of Athens.’ Given this normative cohesion of rational and emotive values over two thousand years, the writer, the architect, the painter of public scenes can imitate originally. [44] For nothing must be flattered, not even a great people; where there is everything there is also ignominy by the side of sublimity; and, if Paris contains Athens, the city of light, Tyre, the city of might, Sparta, the city of virtue, Nineveh, the city of marvels, it also contains Lutetia, the city of mud. [45] The same Homer, who pleased at Athens and Rome two thousand years ago, is still admired at Paris (…). [46] And in that sense, it could be a universal substitute (…), [47] a new place for the parrhesiates. The best words to express these requirements are those of the French Revolution: Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite. [48] The face of the French Revolution is the contemporary face of parrhesia. As Liberte corresponds to aletheia and Egalite to politeia, Fraternite does so to ethos.

It is Notre Dame the people are besieging. [49] An Egyptian temple does not belong in Athens or a Greek one in Memphis or, for that matter, in Paris: "One may build very elegant, very well lighted Greek temples for the purpose of assembling the good people of Saint Louis and causing them to worship a metaphysical God, but they will always long for these Notre Dame (…) of Paris (…). [50]

“How (...) can I describe that palace (…)? [51] This palace must be the work of the gods, was my first thought. [52]“

Since it is expected of a royal household that it should differ from a fortress in almost every respect, and certainly in the most important ones, the palace must be linked to a fortress, so that in emergencies a king will not be without a fortress, nor a tyrant without a palace for his entertainment. [53] But this is how they differ: A royal palace should be sited in the city center, should be of easy access, and should be gracefully decorated, elegant, and refined, rather than ostentatious. [54] The Rarity and Beauty of the Stone itself will also add greatly to the Ornament; as for Instance, if it is that sort of Marble, with which we are told Nero built a Temple to Fortune in his golden Palace, which was so white, so clear and transparent, that even when all the Doors were shut the Light seemed to be enclose within the Temple. [55] Neither is it foreign to our present Purpose just to mention, that Octavianus, the Emperor, adorned his Palace with the huge Bones of some extraordinary Animals. [56] It should also have beams, capitals, and other such ornaments. [57] Next, it will be of advantage if they take pleasure in poets and orators, for these have many ornaments in common with the painter. [58] Other ornaments done by artificers that are added to painting, such as sculpted columns, bases and pediments, I would not censure if they were in real silver and solid or pure gold, for a perfect and finished painting is worthy to be ornamented even with precious stones. [59] The columns here should be freestanding, their lineaments taken from the basilica. [60]

We shall now describe compartition, which contributes more to the delight and splendor of a building than to its utility and strength; although these qualities are so closely related that if one is found wanting in anything, the rest will not meet with approval. [61] (…) Every building must have a locality, area, compartition, wall, roof, and opening. [62] According to the first quantity, and then to the measures. Such is order. According to the correspondence of the measures. Such is compartition, or to use. Such is distribution. [63] It will therefore be a just and proper Compartition, if it is neither confused nor interrupted, neither too rambling nor composed of unsuitable Parts, and if the Members be neither too many nor too few, neither too small nor too large, nor mis matcht nor unsightly, nor as it were separate and divided from the Rest of the Body. [64] Compartition, therefore, will be seemly when it is neither jumpy, nor confused, nor disorganized, nor disconnected, nor composed of incongruous elements; it should be made up of members neither too numerous, nor too small, nor too large, nor too dissonant or ungraceful, nor too disjointed or distant from the rest of the body, as it were. [65]

“Father, I hope I will hear them sing and make them dance. [66]“

[1] Forensic Architecture, Forensis The Architecture of Public Truth. [2] Michael Foucault, The Courage of the Truth. [3] Michael Foucault, Fearless Speech. [4] Michael Foucault, Fearless Speech. [5] Michael Foucault, The Courage of the Truth. [6] Eco, The Name of the Rose. [7] Eco, The Name of the Rose. [8] Foucault, Discipline and Punish. [9] Zizek, Less Than Nothing. [10] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815. [11] Serres, Biogea. [12] Deleuze Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus. [13] Eco, The Name of the Rose. [14] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815. [15] Serres, The Incandescent. [16] Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony. [17] Henaff, The Price of Truth. [18] Serres, Hominescence. [19] Serres, Hominescence. [20] Kittler, The Truth of the Technological World. [21] Foucault, The Courage of the Truth. [22] Derrida, Of Grammatology. [23] Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty. [24] Serres, History of Scientific Thought. [25] Braidotti Hlavajova, Posthuman Glossary. [26] Buehlmann, Mathematics and Information in the Philosophy of Michel Serres. [27] Hugo, Les Miserables. [28] Foucault, Discipline and Punish. [29] West, Scale The Universal Laws of Growth. [30] Harman, Bells and Whistles. [31] Harman, Bells and Whistles. [32] West, Scale The Universal Laws of Growth. [33] Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968. [34] Barthes, Mythologies. [35] Harman, Towards Speculative Realism. [36] Harman, Bells and Whistles. [37] Deleuze Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus. [38] Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968. [39] Morton, Hyperobjects. [40] Deleuze, Foucault. [41] Hugo, Les Miserables. [42] Mallgrave, Architectural Theory. [43] Hugo, Les Miserables. [44] Steiner, After Babel Aspects of Language and Translation. [45] Hugo, Les Miserables. [46] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815. [47] Foucault, History of Madness. [48] Wiener, The Human Use Of Human Beings. [49] Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris. [50] Frankl, The Gothic. [51] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815. [52] Borges, Collected Fictions. [53] Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books 1988. [54] Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books 1988. [55] Alberti, 10 books of architecture 1755. [56] Alberti, 10 books of architecture 1755. [57] Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books 1988. [58] Alberti, On Painting. [59] Alberti, On Painting. [60] Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books 1988. [61] Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books 1988. [62] Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books 1988. [63] Williams, Daniele Barbaros Vitruvius of 1567. [64] Alberti, 10 books of architecture 1755. [65] Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books 1988. [66] Hugo, Les Miserables.

[ouathinktank-metacommentary]

One big issue with tv shows is that unlike with books, the message is incomplete. So they might temporarily put out the opposite message of what they will be saying in the end. Or not. Which is the issue. We don't know. What does your tv Utopia look like in regards to this issue? How do we combine accountability with artistic integrity and freedom? What framing should there be? What would it look like for Once Upon a Time?

Oo-kay. Forstarters, there’s a world of difference between message being incomplete (whichcan indicate less than adequate narrative development, to put it mildly) or if itis left to interpretation (which can vary between being clever, thoughtprovoking–even subversive) so I guess we can approach appraisal of OUaTfrom radically different angles–depending on our individual assessment of that starting point? So, I assume youalready know ours. It just cannot not start from the need to rationalizetheir ‘origins’ into the continuity, and it being–the accolades (or criticism,depending who you ask) they got for Lost. Because as we know, they have been praisedfor it–for all those explorations of that notion of multiplicity(alternative timeline/versions, etc) so we must take into account thepossibility of that affecting theirarrogance to start with–and that we have (possibly? probably? maybe?) giventhem undeserved ‘headstart’ so they took themselves too seriously–and approachedtheir new project (and their attitude/response to audience feedback, or lack thereof) in suchway? Also, more importantly–that they have naturally attracted the ‘intelligent’ followingfor it to begin with (because participatory culture surpasses basic passiveconsumerism, offers enriched dynamic, more lifelike experience–all thatjazz) thus ‘burdening’ themselves with a significantly more demanding audience, andit–affecting a more resounding feeling of our general discontent now?

Eitherway, that could explain the game of one-upmanship, of them striving to (andaround S3 starting to fail miserably, IMO) to stay two steps ahead of the audience.Hence the tactics of opposite message of what they will probably be saying in the end that you mention–so yes of course, false clues, red herrings, logicalfallacies or any other devices that lead audiences towards misleadingconclusions. Because it’s really hard to know anything in the middle? Andwhich now reminds me, I remember reading when someone was talking about Lost (perhapsJenkins, I think I also talked about it here, or somewhere–but just can’t go around diggingfor references, the archives became overwhelming, so–I just might repeatmyself, for which I apologise in advance :) and them trying to account for the things they invented in earlierseasons without too much thought of what they actually might mean and/or wherethey might lead (which sounds WAY too familiar now?) Dickens was mentioned. As in, how his works are nowseen as really well-structured novels because we read them in a bounded form,but in fact–he sometimes radically rewrote his ‘vision’ (which, retconning?) ofthe characters. So if the middle point is supposedly the most ‘productive’ space(because universally, fans also generate alternative versions of the narrativeas they theorize about what’s going on, versions which are very generative,very rich and interesting–like say, what you have been doing?) and while theyare exploring all the alternatives (which alas, usually manifest as randomness/retconningin their writing, these days?) shouldn’t it be, well–the most productive part?Instead of this… disastrous mash of pacing/contrivance, riddled with alarminglyhorrible messages–basically a pile of stinking heterosexist, racist, misogynistand homophobic shite? And all after that beginning that was so staggeringlypromising–and/or dangerously misleading?

Which brings me to, yes, fundamentally–the media industry (broadly defined) and the TV entertainmentindustry in particular, need to be far more accountable when it comes to themessage they create, both in the content itself, and the ways in which it is distributed.But if we try to combine accountability and artistic integrity and freedom–wecannot but question what IS Brothers Dim’s primary drive here? Free expression,pursuit of a vision, consistent and brilliant narrative (the ‘modern’re-envisioning of fairytales, subverting the old dogmatic tropes and all that)or are they driven purely by commerce, designed to build a brand that will multiplyrevenue streams or drive eyes toward a central moneymaking mothership? Because that’s the crux of the problem here.

And sinceyou asked, yes–my personal TV Utopia is of course all about the former. I do believe infree expression and I do believe that the showrunners have the right to createwhatever content they want–no creative limits or boundaries whatsoever. Hell,at one point I did believe that theory, that they were actually giving us twoparallel narratives, an obvious/direct one for the casual/superficialviewership (showing the cautionary tale of what’s not supposed to bea well-accepted normative) and the ‘hidden’ and yet obvious multi-layered onethat challenged the hegemony–and developed that ‘subversive’modern fairtytale about two mothers sharing a son, sense of understanding, acceptanceand ultimately, love. But as a rule, the issue becomes problematic when the show is aired–how it’s distributed and to which audiences. Because while the industry shouldbe far more vigilant, oftentimes they aren’t–because they go for pandering, asit is what (they think) sells. So inevitably the question arises,where does the ‘vision’ start being altered, twisted and is eventuallycompletely forgone–in favour of a product served/tailored by market target (whose age was drastically reduced in S4 with Frozen, in this case)audience? Inthe end leaving it to us, the more demanding crowds–tobelieve that we’ve either been misled (they tried, tested, enticed, and well–queerbaiting’s all we got left with?) or it was where they wereheading, but–they got yanked back by the PTB? And now basically giving way tothe biggest disagreement we might have here now: have we given WAY too much depthand meaning to this product than it really deserves (or was originally meant tohave, anyway) and thus credit to its authors, or are they (or well, were they–before PTBs trimmed theirwings) really intrepid and brave show runners with a brilliant vision?

You can guess what we here believe. Because sixyears later, the result is schizophrenic to say the least. For instance,sure–Hood might be a ‘prop’ for Regina but it looks like they keep hiring the idiot back (andthe story goes on and on and on?) and sure, Hook might just be a commentary oneverything that is screwed up about fairytale sexist dogma… but again, they’redragging it all way past the point of logic, no? So as a result we have here now is anintense, even toxic part of the audience (online fandom) while a whole other partof it is just as immersed in the story–but the story they think is being toldis far less subversive and actually far more dangerous. And the real problem has been the marketing of that kindof story–the story that tells you that Hook is your dream lad, 50 Shades of Rapecultureis the best romance ever written, and lesbians are mean and angry people whoshould just go away. Because bottom line: to go there by sacrificing your twostrongest female characters when the context you’re writing stories within–neithernecessitates nor justifies the undermining (or defiling) of these ‘strong women’, and… well. Onetruth is being told at the expense of the other?

Sooo… purelytextual analysis whilst ignoring all other factors including basic marketing issuesjust isn’t how television works. Because them writing all the negative and harmfulthings is something they SHOULDas showrunners be accounted for, and on a much larger scale. And they should, you know, either justify it or face the consequences far more seriousthan just dwindling ratings of the product they’re now having difficulties tosell. While in the meantime, the ‘mixed’ result of their struggle to balance and pander (they know it can’t be about just Hook, but nothing they wrote about him made people as disgusted as Regina’s stomach-churning shagging scene did–which was a crime against those of us who wantedto see that shirt unbuttoned for any bloody reason–what we can’t stop reiterating) leaves the ultimatequestion, not related to ships/shipping/endgames but rather aboutcharacter journeys–if we as large chunk of theaudience cannot ‘enjoy the ride’ (some of the stuff they wrote was/isdecidedly vile, even more than their collective treatment of an incrediblypersistent/masochistic fanbase that still have hope for Reginaand Emma, who despite what’s been shoved down our throats–stillare the core of this show) then someone please tell me…

What ISthe point? Because I seem to be… missing it.

[mobilenamic]

DRY in the 21st Century

It seems that nowadays, the “Don’t Repeat Yourself”(DRY) principle is one of the foundations of programming that is criticized the most. You can find tweets and blog posts questioning it. Also, it seems that critical voices are increasing.

But why is this happening right now? DRY, amongst other principles, is often used when distinguishing good from bad code. To me it was taught at university as an extension of SOLID (making it SOLIDD basically). The principle itself is easy to understand and apply. Examples showing the importance of the principle can be found all over the Internet. Still, there is some rejection.

I would like to offer my opinion here and state why I do not agree with the critics completely. But first, let’s start by looking at where and when the DRY principle was formulated.

The Pragmatic Programmer

As Wikipedia tells us, DRY was firstly formulated in “The Pragmatic Programmer” [1]. In chapter 7 “The evils of duplication” (pp. 26-33) the DRY principle is formulated as

“Every piece of knowledge must have a single unambiguous, authorative representation within a system.”

The authors also mention that

“[…] it is one of the most important tools in the Pragmatic Programmer’s tool box.”

As pointed out by several people, the principle is about “knowledge” – not code, not classes, not methods, not functions,… The principle is basically agnostic of code. But if we keep on reading the book we see that for the authors code is also a form of knowledge; next to comments and documentation. So, whoever points out that DRY is not about code at all did not read the complete chapter. Or, as programmers like to say:

The truth is in the code.

And therefore the knowledge is in the code.

Following reasons for duplications and their explanations, the authors point out that we should “Make it easy to reuse” our code. Regarding the structure of the book, this tip (all of the advice in the book is presented as tips) is as important as DRY, it just did not receive such a nice abbreviation (MIETR is hard to pronounce I guess). So, for the following discussion, I want to look at DRY and MIETR.

Historical Context

Talking about the Pragmatic Programmer, it is helpful to take a look at the time when it was written. Published in 1999, it will see its twentieth birthday next year. Regarding the rapid development in Computer Science 1999 might not be the Stone Age, but something like the Renaissance. Since I was more interested in my PlayStation back then, I asked my older colleagues what some of the hot topics those days were:

OOP

JavaScript

PHP

J2EE

CVS

Next to the technological aspects, there are also some other things worth mentioning:

Java 1.2 was the most recent Java version.

The Internet Bubble was still rising.

Netscape lost the Browser Wars.

The Apache Foundation was founded.

Apache Ant and Maven were not invented yet.

So what can we say about this time? The majority of applications were monolithic. Vertical scaling dominated over horizontal scaling. OOP was probably seen as the solution for all problems (which lead to huge class hierarchies, which we try to solve now by favoring delegates over inheritance). Building/packaging applications was most probably a bigger issue than it is nowadays.

All in all, I would say that reusing code, either within a project/company or outside of it, was a much bigger problem in 1999 than today. No Apache, no GitHub, SourceForge just started. I do not want to imagine having the problems of unreliable dependencies that you cannot look into because some closed-source library was bought from some vendor. Copying everything into big /lib directories is also an issue from the past. In this context, having code that is easy (and fun) to reuse might have been a rare occasion. Therefore, raising developers’ awareness of MIETR seems more important than advising them to follow the DRY principle.

Having seen the past, let us go back to today.

Microservices, DDD, Serverless…

What we can easily agree on is that times have changed since 1999. Nowadays, we have Microservices or even Pico- and Nanoservices. Using a serverless approach for an application is also rising to the top on the Gartner Hype Cycle. Splitting your application into its domains and bounded contexts is also more mainstream these days.

From my point of view, as Microservices rose up, skepticism about DRY increased, too. Sharing code between different Microservices is considered bad (not without reason, of course). But still, extracting code into a shared library also encounters resistance, even within a project. So, the solution is obvious: code has to be copied. And this violates the DRY principle. One could argue that by trying to make DRY irrelevant, developers only try to retrospectively justify their code duplication, since they were either too lazy or too ignorant to create a shared library. But I think this argumentation falls short.

Philosophically put, the problem might be within our education as developers. Everything is binary, DRY is either ON or OFF. There is no 30 % DRY. MIETR is not (easily) measurable, and what we cannot measure, we cannot control and therefore is ignored.

Having the current context and a philosophical thought, let’s take a look at some concrete examples.

Examples

In this section we will take a look at two examples to see how DRY helps us keep our code clean. Hopefully, I can convince you that the application of DRY, at least in those examples, is advantageous.

UriComponentsBuilder

A class that I have used a lot recently is the UriComponentsBuilder. This class helps us transform a URL with placeholders like http://{host}:{port}/{username} into its expanded form http://localhost:8080/admin. Additionally, it can add query parameters to the request.

If I was not using this class, I would have to implement my own string replacement logic. And this replacement logic would have to be copied across all places where I would need a URL with placeholders. Changing e.g. the markers of a placeholder to something different than braces would require a lot of changes in the code. Of course I could create my own Helper/Util/… class that contains the replacement, but this would be DRY, nearly as DRY as using the Spring class.

But why would I want to violate DRY here? This class serves me very well. MIETR is also “high” because the API is well documented and I can use the class without looking into its internals.

Table Name

Another example would be a table name that I need in my code. Following the recommendations from The Pragmatic Programmer, I would create a constant somewhere in my code (or even extract it from the SQL file that creates it) that contains the table name. Whenever I have to access the table, I use the constant. If the table name changes, there is only a single place where the code has to be changed. Again, simply following DRY. Without this constant, several files would need to change in case of a renaming. This would be quite error-prone because I could easily forget a place to change it (and according to Murphy’s Law, I would). Importing a constant somewhere in my code is also quite easy to do, so MIETR is taken into account, too.

Putting DRY into Context

I hope that you agree with me so far on the DRY principle.

Of course you might argue now that those are only technical examples. The UriComponentsBuilder is a helper regarding my HTTP communication and a table name is also technical, nothing businessy. But still, they represent knowledge. The knowledge about what placeholders in my URLs look like and the knowledge about the table name.

So, to put it in a more abstract way, within the context of URLs, the UriComponentsBuilder is my single source of truth for replacements. And within the context of my database, the constant with the table name is the single source of truth for that name. I got to admit that my knowledge in this area is rather limited but this sounds like a Bounded Context to me.

So, what if – and only if – we should no longer apply DRY “globally”, but rather within a Bounded Context?

Why DRY is still relevant

In my opinion we will return to darker times if we start praising the rejection of DRY as being a trait of experienced programmers. The principle is still relevant and should be taken into account when writing code.

What I also think is that we should adjust DRY to the current times. If your shopping application needs to represent a customer in the context of purchase and in the context of shipping – go on, copy it. Create two customer representations. As the DRY opponents state, those two representations will differ more and more over time and forcing it into the same class for the sake of DRY would cause more harm than good. Or, as the author of “Domain Driven Design” [2] stated (p. 344):

“Code reuse between Bounded Contexts is a hazard to be avoided.”

Also, if I have to instantiate an object with parameters I only use in half of my application or which I set to null just because something has to be passed into the constructor, it is no convenient reuse. It is rather a burden and a possible source of errors.

Blindly applying DRY is as false as ignoring it. I personally like the rule of thumb that if something occurs identically three times or more, then it should be refactored and stored in a common place.

To summarize, apply DRY within your context or unit of deployment. Don’t DRY out everything up front but rather look for reccurring patterns. And if you extract and abstract something, keep MIETR in mind.

Lastly, to repeat myself: Don’t repeat yourself within your context.

References

[1] Andrew Hunt and David Thomas. 2010. The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master. 25th Edition. Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, USA. [2] Evans. 2004. Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software. Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, USA.

The post DRY in the 21st Century appeared first on codecentric AG Blog.

DRY in the 21st Century published first on https://medium.com/@TheTruthSpy

[iyarpage]

DRY in the 21st Century

It seems that nowadays, the “Don’t Repeat Yourself”(DRY)-principle is the one of the foundations of programming that is criticized the most. You can find tweets and blog posts questioning it. Also, it seems that critical voices are increasing.

But why is this happening right now? DRY, amongst other principles, is often used when distinguishing good and bad code. To me it was taught in university as an extension of SOLID (making it SOLIDD basically). The principle itself is easy to understand and apply. Examples showing the importance of the principle can be found all over the Internet. Still, there is some rejection.

I would like to offer my opinion here and state why I do not agree with the critics completely. But first, let’s start by looking at where and when the DRY principle was formulated.

The Pragmatic Programmer

As Wikipedia tells us, DRY was firstly formulated in “The Pragmatic Programmer” [1]. In chapter 7 “The Evils of duplication” (pp. 26-33) the DRY principle is formulated as

“Every piece of knowledge must have a single unambiguous, authorative representation within a system.”

The authors also mention that

“[…] it is one of the most important tools in the Pragmatic Programmer’s tool box.”

As pointed out by several people, the principle is about “knowledge” – not code, not classes, not methods, not functions,… The principle is basically agnostic of code. But if we keep on reading the book we see that for the authors code is also a form of knowledge; next to comments and documentation. So, whoever points out that DRY is not about code at all did not read the complete chapter. Or, as programmers like to say:

The truth is in the code.

And therefore the knowledge is in the code.

Following reasons for duplications and their explanations, the authors point out that we should “Make it easy to reuse” our code. Regarding the structure of the book, this tip (all of the advices in the book are presented as tips) is as important as DRY, it just did not receive such a nice abbreviation (MIETR is hard to pronounce I guess). So, for the following discussion, I want to look at DRY and MIETR.

Historical Context

Talking about the Pragmatic Programmer it is helpful to take a look at the time when it was written. Published in 1999 it will celebrate its twentieth birthday next year. Regarding the rapid development in Computer Science 1999 might not be the Stone Age, but something like the Renaissance. Since I was more interested in my PlayStation back then, I asked my older colleagues what some of the hot topics those days were:

OOP

JavaScript

PHP

J2EE

CVS

Next to the technological aspects, there are also some other things worth mentioning:

Java 1.2 was the most recent Java version.

The Internet Bubble was still rising.

Netscape lost the Browser Wars.

The Apache Foundation was founded.

Apache Ant and Maven were not invented yet.

So what can we say about this time? The majority of applications were monolithic. Vertical scaling dominated over horizontal scaling. OOP was probably seen as the solution for all problems (which lead to huge class hierarchies, which we try to solve now by favoring delegates over inheritance). Building/packaging applications was most probably a bigger issue than it is nowadays.

All in all, I would say that reusing code, either within a project/company or outside of it, was a much bigger problem in 1999 than today. No Apache, no GitHub, SourceForge just started. I do not want to imagine having the problems of unreliable dependencies that you cannot look into because some closed-source library was bought from some vendor. Copying everything into big /lib directories is also an issue from the past. In this context, having code that is easy (and fun) to reuse might have been a rare occasion. Therefore, raising developers’ awareness of MIETR seems more important than advising them to follow the DRY principle.

Having seen the past, let us get back to today.

Microservices, DDD, Serverless…

What we can easily agree on is that times have changed since 1999. Nowadays, we have Microservices or even Pico- and Nanoservices. Using a serverless approach for an application is also rising to the top on the Gartner Hype Cycle. Splitting your application into its domains and bounded contexts is also more mainstream these days.

From my point of view, as Microservices rose up, scepticism about DRY increased, too. Sharing code between different Microservices is considered bad (not without reason, of course). But still, extracting code into a shared library also encounters resistance, even within a project. So, the solution is obvious: code has to be copied. And this violates the DRY principle. One could argue that by trying to make DRY irrelevant developers only try to backwards justify their code duplication, since they were either too lazy or too ignorant to create a shared library. But I think this argumentation falls short.

Philosophically put, the problem might be within our education as developers. Everything is binary, DRY is either ON or OFF. There is no 30% DRY. MIETR is not (easily) measurable, and what we cannot measure, we cannot control and therefore is ignored.

Having the current context and a philosophical thought, let’s take a look at some concrete examples.

Examples

In this section we will take a look at two examples to see how DRY helps us keeping our code clean. Hopefully, I can convince you that the application of DRY, at least in those examples, is advantageous.

UriComponentsBuilder

A class that I have used a lot recently is the UriComponentsBuilder. This class helps us to transform a URL with placeholders like http://{host}:{port}/{username} into its expanded form http://localhost:8080/admin. Additionally, it can add query parameters to the request.

If I was not using this class, I would have to implement my own string replacement logic. And this replacement logic would have to be copied across all places where I would need a URL with placeholders. Changing e.g. the markers of a placeholder to something different than braces would require a lot of changes in the code. Of course I could create my own Helper/Util/… class that contains the replacement but this would be DRY, nearly as DRY as using the Spring class.

But why would I want to violate DRY here? This class serves me very well. MIETR is also “high” because the API is well documented and I can use the class without looking into its internals.

Table Name

Another example would be a table name that I need in my code. Following the recommendations from The Pragmatic Programmer, I would create a constant somewhere in my code (or even extract it from the SQL file that creates it) that contains the table name. Whenever I have to access the table, I use the constant. If the table name changes, there is only a single place where the code has to be changed. Again, simply following DRY. Without this constant several files would need to change in case of a renaming. This would be quite error prone because I could easily forget a place to change it (and according to Murphy’s Law, I would). Importing a constant somewhere in my code is also quite easy to do, so MIETR is taken into account, too.

Putting DRY into Context

I hope that you agree with me so far on the DRY principle.

Of course you might argue now, that those are only technical examples. The UriComponentsBuilder is a helper regarding my HTTP communication and a table name is also technical, nothing businessy. But still, they represent knowledge. The knowledge about how placeholders in my URLs look like and the knowledge about the table name.

So, to put it in a more abstract way, within the context of URLs, the UriComponentsBuilder is my single source of truth for replacements. And within the context of my database, the constant with the table name is the single source of truth for that name. I got to admit that my knowledge in this area is rather limited but this sounds like a Bounded Context to me.

So, what if – and only if- we should no longer apply DRY “globally”, but rather within a Bounded Context?

Why DRY is still relevant

In my opinion we will return to darker times if we start praising the rejection of DRY as being a trait of experienced programmers. The principle is still relevant and should be taken into account when writing code.

What I also think is that we should adjust DRY to the current times. If your shopping application needs to represent a customer in the context of purchase and in the context of shipping – go on, copy it. Create two customer representations. As the DRY opponents state, those two representations will differ more and more over time and forcing it into the same class for the sake of DRY would cause more harm than good. Or, as the author of “Domain Driven Design” [2] stated (p. 344):

“Code reuse between Bounded Contexts is a hazard to be avoided.”

Also, if I have to instantiate an object with parameters I only use in half of my application or which I set to null just because something has to be passed into the constructor, it is no convenient reuse. It is rather a burden and a possible source of errors.

Blindly applying DRY is as false as ignoring it. I personally like the rule of thumb that if something occurs identically three times or more, then it should be refactored and stored in a common place.

To summarize, apply DRY within your context or unit of deployment. Don’t DRY out everything up front but rather look for reoccurring patterns. And if you extract and abstract something keep MIETR in mind.

Lastly, to repeat myself: Don’t repeat yourself within your context.

References

[1] Andrew Hunt and David Thomas. 2010. The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master. 25th Edition. Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, USA. [2] Evans. 2004. Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software. Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, USA.

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