#any writers in the small hive we have

[wandacallsbucky-james]

I need someone to take one for the team and write heathdaisy fanfiction! I keep rewatching their scenes and imagining scenarios😭

[loverhymeswith]

Let's Be Alone Together || Part Three

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x F!Reader

Summary: After being rejected by Tommy, your attempt at avoiding him fails miserably

Word Count: 1.5k

Warnings: Mentions of death, smoking, angst, Tommy being Tommy

A/N: When I originally planned this chapter, it was going to be much longer, but I ran out of time before going on vacation and I didn’t want to leave you all hanging. Thank you so much for all the love and support for this story. There are at least 2 more chapters on the way. Shout out to @a-reader-and-a-writer for the beta-read and invaluable suggestions as always 💖

Masterlist

The bookmakers on Watery Lane is eerily quiet. Silent in fact, which is a rare occasion indeed. The building is usually a hive of activity, the air full of cigarette smoke and testosterone, of quick tempers and over-inflated egos. 

But today, it’s just you.

Today, the Shelbys are at the races. 

Despite invitations from both Polly and Arthur, you had been firm in your decision to stay behind after taking the morning’s bets. As far as the family is concerned, you have a migraine. However, the truth is that after Tommy’s behaviour the other night, you have been mindful to stay out of his way. 

Spending the afternoon taking stock in the betting shop seemed like a far safer option than being in the vicinity of Tommy Shelby and his expensive suit on race day. The longer you go without seeing him, the easier it is to convince yourself that his rejection - his dismissal - doesn’t hurt. That you’re not ashamed and embarrassed for suggesting that you might have wanted him to come home with you. Even if at the time it had been true.

The longer you go without seeing Tommy Shelby, the easier it is to convince yourself that you don’t want him.

Hearing the telltale sound of the front door unlocking, you look up from your desk, a jolt of panic nudging you out of boredom. With the exception of Finn and the handful of loyal foot soldiers tasked with keeping watch over the Shelby empire, everyone else is at Cheltenham.

“Speak of the devil and he shall appear”, you mutter under your breath when a pair of piercing blue eyes meet yours across the room.

Missing either the irritation in your voice or the comment altogether, Tommy strides into the room, a cigarette resting between his plump lips as he surveys his surroundings. “Any trouble this morning?” he asks around the cigarette.

You shake your head. As far as race days go, today has been particularly quiet. By now, the local gambling men know better than to cause trouble on Shelby soil.

Tommy hums under his breath, starting to remove his dark woollen coat and jacket. You ignore the lump forming in your throat as you realise this isn’t a flying visit. Something or someone has brought him back to Small Heath. 

It proves a struggle to return your attention to the ledger before you. Your eyes are unwillingly drawn away from the small handwritten numbers, focusing instead on Tommy as he sinks into the chair opposite. An expensive suit indeed, judging by how perfectly the clothes are cut to his powerful body. 

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Tommy observes, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray between you. When you don’t reply, he adds, “And now you’re ignoring me, eh?”

Rising to the bait, you level him with your best attempt at a Shelby glare. “What do you want, Tommy? Haven’t you got someplace better to be? I thought your horse was racing today.”

As usual, Tommy doesn’t respond immediately. A heavy silence stretches out as he watches you intently, his lips ever so slightly parted as he carefully considers his next words. 

Slowly, he blinks. “We need to have a talk.”

“Sounds serious,” you scoff. But the humour is a front. In reality, your heart is pounding, your fingers clenching the folds of your skirt beneath the desk as you wait for him to continue.

After another beat of silence, Tommy reaches into the pocket of his coat and pulls out a roll of notes. You follow his hands, calloused and scar-flecked, as he stretches across the table, placing the money in front of you.

“What’s this?” You raise a brow, discomfort rapidly spreading through your stomach as you try to make sense of the gesture. “You know I’m not one of your whores. The other night…”

You trail off when a burst of white-hot anger flashes through Tommy’s blue eyes. Then it’s gone just as quickly and he clears his throat. “That’s why I want you to take the money.” When it becomes obvious he’s not making any sense, he elaborates. “You don’t belong here.”

Your heart sinks as his words register, recognising this for the familiar Tommy Shelby ploy that it is: throw money at a problem until it goes away.

“You’re trying to get rid of me.” 

Tommy blinks again, his mouth a thin line neither confirming nor denying the accusation.  It’s a struggle, but you manage to temper down the hurt, matching his stoic expression. “Why?” 

Tommy lights another cigarette before replying. It gives you time to run through the myriad of reasons why he wouldn’t want you around. Eventually, you settle on the most obvious explanation: the other night, you overstepped the mark. He simply doesn’t want you.

A cloud of smoke escapes his parted lips as he leans forward in his seat, his eyes never leaving yours. “Birmingham isn’t safe.”

“Oh come on, you think I don’t know that?” You shake your head, fighting the sting of angry tears. “It’s been two years since you brought me here. For my safety, if I recall. A promise to a dying man… Do you intend to break that promise now?”

A muscle in Tommy’s jaw ticks, the only indication your words have any effect on him. “Times are changing. We have more enemies now. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“You’ve always had enemies, Tommy. So why now? Who are you really trying to protect me from?”

Yourself?

The unspoken answer hangs in the air between you, the heaviness an indication of its truth. Tommy blinks rapidly, his mouth closing firmly as he inclines his head. You’ve hit a nerve. “I hear Sheffield is nice.”

“Sheffield?” You laugh bitterly. “You’re not even going to give me a choice, are you? Let me guess, you have a family lined up for me to go and stay with. People - friends - who will keep an eye on me and report back when the guilt becomes too much for you to bear. You’ve probably arranged a husband for me while you’re at it.”

“You’ve got me all figured out, eh?” He leans back in his chair and takes a long drag of the cigarette. 

The haze of white smoke obscures him from view just long enough for you to compose yourself. “You really are a piece of work, Thomas. Did it ever cross your mind to consider what I might want?”

As his tongue darts out, wetting his lips, you force yourself to maintain eye contact. Looking away would be a sign of weakness and you can’t afford to let your guard down around him. Not again. 

“And what is it that you want?” he asks, too patiently.

At the end of your tether, you push back your chair and rise to your feet, fists clenched. “You want to know what I want?”

Tommy nods slowly, his sharp gaze following you as you round the table and come to stand before him. 

“I want to know what’s really going on inside your head. I want to know what changed since we left the restaurant the other night. I want to know why you-”

“You deserve someone better.”

His abrupt admission startles you into silence and you stagger backwards, desperately trying to make sense of his words. You heard them the other night when he was referring to Lewis Powell, but now…

You wanted the truth but you hadn’t really expected him to offer it so willingly. And now that you have it, you’re not sure what to do with it.

Tommy stubs out his cigarette and rises smoothly. He’s standing before you, mere inches separating the two of you as his eyes rapidly dart across your face. Whatever semblance of control he had earlier is quickly slipping away. “You talk of being alone. Well, I feel the same way. And sometimes, I think that maybe we could be alone together.”

You let out a quiet breath, your head continuing to spin with every new revelation. “So what’s the problem?”

“You know what the problem is.” Tommy's eyes shutter, as if the thought alone causes him pain. “I made a promise to your husband.”

“Who is dead,” you snap, despising the harsh words even as they rush from your mouth. “He left me. And now you’re going to do the same thing. Don’t think for one minute that you’re being an honorable man by sending me away, Thomas Shelby. You’re just a coward. You’re a -”

Before you can finish, Tommy reaches out, cupping your jaw with his large, warm hands. Firm but gentle, he forces you to look into his eyes, the action so intimate, so unlike the Tommy you have come to know. 

“You’re right.” He smooths his thumbs over the tears now freely running down your cheeks. “You're right. But only when it comes to you.”

Taglist: @a-reader-and-a-writer @crysxtal @butterfly-lover @sunshineyourethebesttime @iwantmyredvelvetcupcake @breezy2and2freezy

[sparrowrye]

A Little Something….

Update + Snippet

Greetings my little devils. Thank you, as always, for being so persistent in your patience with me! I’m hitting quite the writer’s block as I start the transition between DEMI DEMON and a new Alastor x Reader story.

It’s a late Spring cleaning for us! Expect pinned posts to be rewritten, new pinned ones to come out (super excited about some of these), and a few polls about the current or new story.

Part 15: boiling blood is half written and boy is it spicy 🌶️ I’ll update you when I’m close to posting it

As a little gift for your patience, here’s a snippet I wrote awhile back. It was the first part of a random story I had and the inspiration came from these images (at the bottom) on Pinterest - my unhealthy addiction

Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My hands gripped the edges of the stone sink as I sucked in a shaky breath. My legs were ready to give out at any moment. My recent patient nearly died and it had taken nearly all my energy to bring him back from the land of the dead. He was a fighter and his memories alone were enough of suck the very life out of my lungs; memories that were familiar to me.

I splashed my face with the ice cold water before I could trail down that dark path. My bones ached, a migraine pressed at the front of my head, and my throat was horribly dry. I gulped down several mouthfuls of water before looking at myself in the mirror.

My eyes were red and chronic dark circles under my eyes dragged my skin down. I looked half dead, which to be fair, wasn't really far from the truth. I grabbed the small towel and dried my face. I kept it pressed against my eyes, enjoying the only clean and sand-free thing I owned.

When I looked back in the mirror, hoping to see a slight improvement in my features, I noticed a dark figure in the doorway.

I spun, hand extended. A silver blade flew from my sleeve and buried its tip in the stone. I instantly recognized the tall ears, skinny cane, and red coat. His lips pulled back to reveal a yellow-teeth smile. His head remained still as his eyes glanced over at the knife a few inches from his face.

"Was that out of respect or inaccuracy?" he asked.

"What do you think?" I lowered my hand and took two steps back.

"Good to see you haven't lost your touch." His sharp claws tapped his cane one at a time. He brought a hand up to examine the knife still buried three-quarters of the way in the stone. He recognized the art of the handle. "Or my gift."

"Weapons aren't allowed in this settlement," I justified. "It's the only one I have." I mentally kicked myself. I had just admitted to being defenseless.

He grabbed the handle and pried it out of the wall with one swift pull. He examined the blade in his hand, glancing up to look at me briefly through his red hair. Had it gotten darker? "Come, dear," he curled the knife in his hand and turned away, "we have much to discuss."

I clenched my hands into fists at my side. "I'm not going anywhere with you."

"We're not going anywhere," he said over his shoulder so nonchalantly, "but it's rude not to entertain a guest. Especially at such a late hour." I followed to the entrance of my room and watched him lean against the wall closest to the stove. "You remember how I like my coffee."

"At such a late hour?" I mocked, taking only a few steps from my room.

"I have business to attend to at the Hive. Traveling at all hours of the day gets us there sooner." His eyes glanced briefly at the stove as an incentive.

I swallowed on nothing. "I'm not going to entertain you after you nearly killed me and Creo when we escaped." The memory of my brother and I trying to make our escape had always burned in the back of my mind.

Alastor gave a fake gasp, still sporting his stupid smile, and put a hand on his chest. "I did not try to kill you..." His smile molded into a smirk. "That was the attempt before your successful one."

"We almost died on that cliff!" I took a daring step forward.

He shrugged and put both hands on his cane, swiveling it around in front of him. He cocked his head to the side. "It did what I wanted. You broke your foot and couldn't attempt it again for weeks."

My voice dropped an octave. "You did more than just break my foot while I was stuck with you."

"May we have this conversation over coffee? I am so very tired and we have much to discuss." He lifted the knife from his cane and spun it once in his fingers, eyes glancing sideways at me. I knew what he was implying.

I pulled in a deep breath then I crossed the room to start the coffee. The embers in the stove were enough for the dry weeds to catch flame. I closed the metal door and brought out the coffee pot. I dropped the powder in and put it on the stone plate over the fire.

"What do you want?" I asked, turning to lean against the adjacent wall so I could have him in my full sights. My arms crossed my chest protectively.

"Tell me about this life of yours." He gestured to the small cave.

"It's simple and perfect. Wouldn't want to ever leave it."

"Why's that? Surely you're bored here."

My heart was beating in my ears now. "I'm not leaving. And neither is Creo."

"Quit being so defensive, my dear." He pushed off the wall and swung his arms dramatically. "We are merely two acquaintances catching up after a seven year parting."

I couldn't abate the nausea that was creeping into my throat. I was so nervous it was making me sick. "Is that we are?"

"You don't believe so?"

"'I am the master and you the servant. Heed my words carefully,'" I repeated the phrase that had haunted me for years.

"I recall saying that within the first year of you joining me," he sounded unfazed. "Our dynamic changed as the years went on."

"Careful, Alastor," I dared to say his name in such a casual manner, "someone might think we're lovers."

He closed his eyes with a soft chuckle. Being lovers had been insinuated by the warriors after my first two years with him. He had always kept me at his side and put aside time to find ways to enhance my magic or my vision seeking. It had never been anything more than rumors. Eventually they were silenced when Husker, the captain, earned enough credit among the ranks for them to believe him when he said Alastor and I were master and student, not lovers.

When Alastor opened his eyes again they were already looking at me. "I must say, I do enjoy seeing this new you. Not as timid and afraid as you once were." It took him three steps to cross the small kitchen and stand an inch from me. He towered above me like he always had, making me shrink under his daunting shadow.

"W-well, I've grown," I replied. "Seven years can do a lot for someone." I leaned against the poorly melded counter, nails scraping the stone on either side of my hip. His familiar, overpowering scent of smoke and incest filled my nose. It made the world kilter to one side.

"Indeed it does. Perhaps you will hear me out then." He leaned down so our faces were inches apart. My back was hurting from bending it so far over the counter in an attempt to keep the distance. I casted my eyes down at my hands on the edge of the counter, at my shirt, at anything other than him.

A blade snapped up in my vision. I let out a gasp as the edge barely caught my nose. Cold claws grabbed my wrist and wrenched it off the counter. His red, beady eyes stared back at me, focusing less on the knife and more on my eyes. It was hard to breathe.

The knife dropped into the palm of my hand and I flinched. My eyes darted down to the weapon as he gradually moved closer, red hair brushing against my cheek. What was he going to do? I've seen him rip someone's ear off before. Nothing but red filled my vision as he pressed me further into the counter. His breath was hot on my ear.

"The coffee is boiling."

He abruptly straightened up and took a single step back. I sucked in fresh air, eyes jumping from him to the kettle. The sight of the brown liquid spilling on the hot stone pulled me out of my daze. I grabbed the pot and put it on a single plate full of cold sand to keep it from toppling over. I slipped the knife into my sleeve holster and brushed past him to grab a mug, careful not to actually touch him. I drew in another deep breath.

The kitchenware was stored in a cabinet further from the stove, also dug into the rock. We had only two mugs - for two people. They were probably the finest, straightest thing we owned. They were a cool, maroon color and had a wide base.

I grabbed the two mugs and poured a full cup in one and half in the other. I made sure to use the non-chipped mug for him. When I turned to hand it to him, he had already seated himself at the living room table. His legs were folded neatly under him and his staff resting not too far. I hated when he moved silently - it was unsettling.

Biting the inside of my lip, I passed over to the carpeted area and placed the mug in front of him. His eyes examined the simple mug before bringing it to his lips, taking a long inhale of the steam. His eyes flicked up to mine as I pretended to take a sip of my own cup.

"Your taste in coffee has sweetened," he remarked into the mug, finally tasting it.

"Creo doesn't like the dark brand you drink."

"But you do."

"Not anymore." I placed the warm mug on the table and leaned on my elbows. I pressed my hands against the hog mug in an effort to keep myself from fidgeting.

"Your elbows, dear," he corrected.

I had half the mind to ignore him but the last thing I needed was to give him a reason to be angry or annoyed. The uneasy feeling in my stomach grew as I pulled my elbows off the table and tapped a finger against the clay cup.

"Why are you here?"

"I told you," he glanced at me briefly over the rim of the mug, "I have an audience with Lucifer in the Hive."

"No. Why are you here? It's not like you to be away from the front lines and when you do you're quick to get back. So why bother stopping in a small, unimportant village?"

His smile quirked to the side. He placed the mug down, using his pinky finger to keep it from hitting the table too hard, mostly out of sheer habit since the table was covered in rugs and wool.

"Perceptive, as always." He placed his hands in his lap, back straight and manners reigned in perfectly. "Well, my dear, I had a vision of this very conversation. I planned my route to the Hive and stopped only at the nearest villages that I knew had their residents living in stone."

A vision. How developed was that skill, now? He had them quite often when I was with him but now it's been seven years. Surely he developed that skill exponentially. Is that why he hadn't flinched when I threw my knife?

"Most villages live in stone," I said, unsure of what to say.

"Not anymore, my dear. They have no need to be with the Humans securely behind Sharptooth's pass."

"Then why look for me? Why waste your time going to villages to find me? Surely you've already found a replacement healer for your army. That wouldn't be very smart of you if you hadn't."

"Indeed I did." He lifted the mug to drink again. He must be pretty tired if he's drinking sweet coffee.

"So then why are you here talking to me?" I asked again. He took his time, eyes closed as he drank the thick coffee, and let the silence hold over our heads. I could remember how uncomfortable it once made me when he created prolonged silence. I felt it creeping back into my bones, struggling to shove it down and stare at him until he was ready to speak again.

Finally he lowered the mug. His claws stayed wrapped around the handle as he placed it on the table. "I had not intended for you to stay away for so long. My spy's past caught up to him and died on his mission to follow you. I intend to bring you back."

There it is. I knew what he wanted but hearing him say it still hit me like a train. My hands pressed into the mug so hard that I worried it might crack and shatter. Fear gripped my shoulders and held my spine in place. His eyes stayed firmly locked with mine as I struggled to find my words. I had to pry my eyes away from his and stare down at the dark liquid.

But did he say...

He had let me stay away? Did that mean he had let me escape on purpose? How long was he planning to let me try to make a life on my own before roping me back in? Who had been the spy?

"I will not be going back with you," I said slowly. It felt like I was standing in the center of a metal rabbit trap, the claws ready to snap up and decapitate me. "I fought tooth and nail for this life, for Creo. You won't take it from us."

He let out a sigh, his smile still pressed in his cheeks. "Is it really one you wish to risk your safety, your brother's safety, over?"

"Yes."

"Why?" He tilted his head so his ears waved. He lifted the mug to his lips again, eyes never once leaving mine. He sounded genuinely interested in my answer.

My palms turned up to the ceiling, mouth moving but no words coming out. How could he be serious? My life was hell with him and his army. He knew how to twist my thoughts around so I went the other route. "Creo's life isn't being threatened. He's not at risk for dying from a Human attack. And he's not being influenced by the tough, respect-less army lifestyle.”

"You view it as respect-less?" He sounded surprised, curious even, at the term.

"Among each other," I revised, "I don't want him adopting their behavior." My back was starting to hurt.

"He is not six years old anymore," he lowered the mug just enough to say his part, "he's now, what, fourteen?”

"Sixteen," I answered. "Still an impressionable age."

"Most people his age have their occupation or are married. It appears he has found his occupation." He glanced around at the various gadgets and inventions littering the place.

"He's finishing his childhood since he didn't have one."

"He's a man, my dear, no longer a boy."

"My answer is no. We are not coming with you."

He placed the mug down. "Then leave him. I only need you."

"We don't separate."

He broke his manners by placing his elbow on the table and leaning his chin on the back of his hand.  "You realize you are the one who makes these things difficult? I am not to blame anymore."

"We are not going with you," I punctuated each word. "You will have to drag me by my teeth." Even as I said it, I wish I hadn't. I knew he would do it if it came to that. He wasn't above anything.

"How unfortunate." He grabbed his staff and stood. I was faster, on my feet in an instant and ready for him to do something dangerous. "You've lost your good manners in my absence."

He looked to the front door as two men burst through it, dragging Creo's hissing form. They were dressed in red and both held a struggling arm. One of them had a tight grip on the back of his neck. Creo dug his feet into the ground and tried to wrench himself free.

The men forced him onto his knees and the one man pulled on his hair so he was forced to look up at Alastor. The Demon took a single stride to stand above him. "My my, you've grown quite a lot," he crossed his arms and leaned heavily on his red cane, "You were barely past my knees last I saw you. Do you remember me?"

"Should I?" Creo hissed when the man pulled tighter on his hair.

"Indeed. That burn mark on the back of your neck is my crest." He reached a single claw around to press on the spot under his long hair. Creo's eyes fell to me. "You belong to me."

"He doesn't know how to fight like your warriors," I said, voice echoing too loudly off the walls. Alastor straightened up and turned his head just enough to look at me out the corner of his eye. "He has no use for your army."

"No use? I see a bright mind eager to explore his skills and limitations." He looked at the random metal objects and inventions lying around the cave. "I could easily provide materials and guidance to a gifted inventor."

"Neither of us are going with you." It didn't sound as firm as I wanted.

His eyes found mine. "I am gracing you with one more opportunity, meerkat," he used the condescending nickname. "Return with me willingly and I ensure Creo stays out of my ranks and out of harm's way. If I have to...drag you back by your teeth...he will remain on the front lines." He leaned his cane sideways and watched, waited, for my answer.

Why hadn't I received a vision about this? I had lost touch with that skill since leaving Alastor but surely my mind would've predicted this? Would've saved me? Yet I had no vision. I was standing before Alastor and about to determine how my life, and Creo's, would go. Why could I never keep either of us safe? Why was it so hard to keep our lives secure? To give us a normal life?

Alastor was uprooting us. We had found a place to let our roots grow but he was pulling us up as if the soil had been sand this whole time. He was taking us away from a shady, moist area and placing us in a plant pot in the middle of the desert.

I didn't know how to feel. I was at a complete loss. My heart felt like it had been wrenched out. I had believed wholeheartedly that I had managed to evade him, to finally outsmart him and hide away. Our city was far from the front lines and he had no reason to be so far back into Duner territory. It was thanks to his audience with the King that he had found me.

"What do you say, my dear?" He stepped closer and the sound of his cane tapping the stone sounded like a key locking the cage door.

There was no debate. Alastor had spent half his life fighting, meaning I wouldn't be able to beat him in a one on one fight. Even if I had a chance, I didn't want to bank Creo's safety on it. If I fought Alastor and lost, he would put Creo on the front lines. I may never see him again. I lowered my head, staring at the tip of his black boots.

"Okay."

"What was that?" He took another step forward. It felt like the corners of the room were darkening.

"I will go with you."

He stepped closer still, claw coming up to push my chin up. His red face was clouding my entire vision and his canine teeth poked out of his lips in an ugly smirk.

"Willingly?" he pressed.

"Yes," I clenched my teeth in a snarl but it was far from one. He raised his eyebrows and examined my face with half lidded, knowing eyes. My lips closed over my teeth. "Yes, Alastor."

He hummed in satisfaction. "Come dear, show me that lovely smile. You know you're never fully dressed without one!"

[kcrabb88]

Not to vent on main, but I do want to talk about this because I think it speaks to a bigger issue in fandom recently. So, there's been a small but noticeable trend recently of people coming onto Quinlan/Obi-Wan content that I make and either saying "I liked this except for the QuinObi and/or Quinlan himself" or commenting on something as to why it was QuinObi and not another more popular ship. This happened recently in a comment I got on a fic and also on a piece of QuinObi art that I paid for, among other things. First, that's a shitty thing to do. You don't come into comments and complain that it's not what you like. Second, I gotta say, I have not experienced having people who like super popular ships coming to me, whose ship is a rowboat, and complaining that my content, or content I paid to have created, isn't their ship in any fandom I've ever been in. You're right! It's my ship. I love them and will continue to write about them. If a few people have written QuinObi because of me (and they have! Which is so nice!) I'm still not rocking the fandom boat. I am not making a dent in the behemoth ships that are out there. I ran a QuinObi week which was so wonderful and I will do it again, but it's not going to suddenly steal writers away from other popular ships (also, multi-shipping exists!) I'm not a threat. Not that we should think of things that way, but it does start to come across like that when stuff like this happens, like I'm getting in the way of an agenda.

I've been in fandoms where I shipped a big ship and got complained to by someone shipping idk, I hesitate to call it a rival ship, but that's the only word I can think of. Still not nice, but coming to me about my SMALL SHIP is much more unexpected and much more unkind as far as fandom power dynamics go.

People have gotten truly aggressive about both fanon and popular ships. No one, whatever the fandom, is obligated to ship the popular ship you like. Not everyone is going to fit the mold of popular fandom trends, and they don't have to. They should be able to create what they like without being bothered about it. People seem to believe now that if you ship a pairing that you also hold an Approved slate of beliefs about every other character in fandom. That you follow what I've been calling a Fandom Map. Well, some people like to mix it up. Fandom isn't a hive mind and diversity of characters and pairings should be encouraged. I think it's ironic that I have to be extremely nervous to make a post critiquing a popular fandom trope but people can come to me and be rude about my way less popular shipping preferences. I’m not a fandom vending machine. If you don’t like one thing but enjoyed others tell me what you did like and leave the rest out. Or don’t read it. Crits like this aren’t even dislikes about story elements (and even those are more for Goodreads than Ao3) they’re crits about my personal taste.

(As to Star Wars fandom in particular, I continue to think it's really off that people are so weird about Quinlan generally, and dumb him down, among other crimes. You have to start to wonder why and when you wonder, the results of that wondering aren't great).

tl ; dr don't be a jerk. We're all here because we enjoy something.

[gretchensinister]

Dark Crystal Vampire AU Part 1: HERE WE GO

I alluded to two different Dark Crystal AUs I probably wouldn’t write, but I figure, I can still talk about them, put them into the hive mind for consideration. It was in conversation with @tejoxys where he brought up the idea of the skeksis being vampires in a “human” AU. I thought that idea was really cool and an opportunity for weird vampires.

So, in this AU, there aren’t any real “regular” vampires; they’re still in folklore and fiction, but if anyone was like “hey I think that guy’s a vampire” everyone else would be like, “stop being a weirdo.”

Therefore, in the grand old tradition of Our Vampires Our Different, here we go:

The UrSkeks: In the 900s there was a small, secretive, mystical/esoteric cult who believed a) they once had been bodiless spirits, fully mature and aware (not like a baby soul waiting to be installed), b) one of their purposes on Earth was to spread the wisdom/knowledge they had due to once being bodiless spirits, and c) the other purpose they had was to become pure immortal spirit again, without dying, and remain ever-living on the Earth.

If I did this I think I’d spell it URSKEK and have it be a relevant acronym for mystic/occult/esoteric terms.

Some problems: a lot of their wisdom and knowledge was like...just utterly wack, or impossible to say if it was or wasn’t true. But some of it was good, and some of it was surprisingly ahead of its time, even when considering the whole world (if I wrote this I would set it somewhere in what is now modern-day Italy). Another problem is that they had a secret 1-7 ranking system for all other people based on how worthy the URSKEKs thought they were to receive URSKEK wisdom.

Anyway, (and here I had to stop myself from going down a rabbit hole of find out what interesting astronomical events were happening in the middle ages) at a certain point all 18 members of the inner circle of the cult have been excommunicated because the cult shit is getting too obvious. (Hmm, wait, there was a solar eclipse visible in some parts of Europe on July 20, 966, maybe that would be a good date for the Big Event. BTW it still troubles me that 2020 ended with what is called a great conjunction on Earth.) Anyway, things are getting hot, even though all the inner circle is pretty wealthy/privileged, there’s talk of heresy trials because WTF are you even talking about. This big astronomical event is going to occur, and the URSKEKs are like, we’re ready, we have everything ready to cast off mortal flesh and become immortal beings of pure spirit.

The aesthetic is very alchemy. (Another significant research hole hindering this project.)

So the URSKEKs prepare this complex ritual to cut their spirits free from their bodies during the eclipse (maybe the thing is that their flesh is “eclipsing” their spirits and as the moon moves away from the sun their radiant spirits can be free).

Now as a writer I’m always up for taking aim at the concept of the body vs. mind/spirit. They’re not really separate! So there’s that issue with the ceremony, along with the fact that the URSKEKs are not as pure and wise as they’d like to believe. Also, most of them are at least a little bit afraid of this ceremony, which, if one has any doubts at all, sounds like an elaborate suicide pact. But they can’t stop now, it needs 18 people to work because 2x3x3 and other math and geometry reasons, and no one else is enlightened enough. So the ceremony starts, and it gets underway, and whoa it seems to actually be working, or at least something’s happening that’s not just bleeding out and dying when you cut your body down the center line with a quartz dagger. But they also feel like they’re losing themselves and they don’t really want to do that (too late).

When totality ends there are now 36 bodies in the ceremony location, with fractured memories and appearances that are now somewhat off from human.

All of them immediately feel that there’s something very wrong about this situation, but it’s hard to think in the confusion.

And then a lower-ranking cult member that they’d arranged to check on them after the ceremony (an honor, to see their new spirit forms and maybe deal with their bodies if they were still there after the transformation) opens the door to the room. And for all of the new skeksis AND urRu, a couple of things become very clear: 1) one of the ways in which they’re different from humans is their fangs, and 2) they need that guy’s blood. Basically a feeding frenzy ensues, and this is when they all learn about paired injuries and paired deaths, and those two pairs whose names I forget die. Exsanguinated by their former cult fellows. Kind of fucked but this is a vampire AU babey.

Now, after this whole shitshow, the 32 remaining vampires are a lot calmer and they’re able to figure out that they’re halves of the URSKEKs. One set of halves (the urRu) is of the opinion that they all represent a horrible failure of the ceremony (they were compelled to tear into that guy like wild animals), while the skeksis halves immediately start insisting that it went right or even better than planned (they’re now above humans and can consume them like any other meat animal). The difference of opinion corresponds to some subtle physical differences between the two as well.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

[swashbucklery]

I didn't want to ask something you've already answered before, so I searched your blog but only found one brief mention about why you didn't watch it. Cool :) But i'm just curious, have you seen some of the avatrice gifs from Warrior Nun? Do they seem like a ship that might appeal to you if you had been able to finish the show? I had resisted them for awhile but finally decided to check out some of their scenes and yea, i definitely understand it now

Anon, trust me when I say I have been made fully aware of a) the existence of Warrior Nun, b) the existence of Avatrice, and c) the fact that it is full of Complicated Pseudoreligious Gay Yearning and d) that there are gifs.

I have lots of mutuals that are having a really nice time liking Warrior Nun, and I wish them all the best? It is just super not my thing, for no real reason that I can pinpoint, it's just - blah to me.

(Actually this is not true, I have a hair trigger for fake gore and there is a shot early in the pilot where like a magic thing just fucking shreds through someone's torso in visceral CGI blood spraying everywhere detail and to be honest no lesbians are worth that to me.)

I'm not sure if I'd like them outside of the context of the show, because for me those are the same thing. I don't ever get into ships just through cut scenes, I have to dive into the world those characters are in to connect.

I am still deep in the Willow hole (wocka, wocka) and will be for quite a while, because the writer's strike isn't getting any overer and it ticks literally every one of my narrative boxes as though a five year old mashed all the buttons on the elevator to my heart.

The things that are doing it for me for Willow are:

the total lack of a modern setting, so I don't have to figure out how to reconcile the new media trend of pretending all things are set in a COVID Never Happened AU despite the fact that it is the crushing shadow looming behind all of our realities, the cognitive dissonance gives me hives

(do i want dumb tv shows to tackle COVID absolutely not but it's weird that we're just like yeah in this show it's 2023 and the past 3 years were exactly like 2019 was don't uhhh worry about it)

like it's just so fucking weird IT'S SO FUCKING WEIRD and i know some of this is production cycles but we were watching the last movie in the To All The Boys series and she graduates in 2020 and I could not get it out of my head the choice!!! Like that year and date will not be indelibly linked to A Time and yet I also see how you can't change that story to include COVID and also I know how media timelines work but it is so fucked up WHY

::What A Time To Be Alive by Fall Out Boy plays softly in the background::

anyway

uh

SWORDS

the ability to have both a Canon WLW Ship as well as Several Other Fun Non-Canon WLW Ships

not one but three main characters that i have imprinted upon like the most impressionable of baby geese

complex narratives about growth and hope and fighting adversity and the way that all of those struggles are secretly love

balls to the wall dumb fantasy tropes used without a whiff of self-referential irony

the actors touch objects in the world

room to have 80 million intricate textile headcanons and play with frilly bits of worldbuilding like a 19th century dandy constructing ships in bottles

a fandom that hits the sweet spot of large enough to have steady content and community, yet small enough that i can fully curate ship drama out of my habitat

[zeroducks-2]

That scene where Slade is about to beat Grant with his belt, in the night, in middle of some forest, nonchalantly smoking a cigarette was horrible and broke something in me tbh. It wasn't about 'discipline' more like Slade wanted to beat him to a bloody pulp because he was annoyed that Grant lives and exists in the first place. It ruined the whole 2016 run for me and also made other scenes completely invalid. Why did Slade wanted to avenge Grant later on? Why did he go back in time and hugged Grant like he's Slade's most precious person in the world??? Where. did. it. come. from???? There was this family photo of Slade with his sons, where Slade looks very pissed off that he has to even be there. And then I was thinking "okay, there has to be some sort of explanation. Surely there will be at least some hint why Slade has such negative emotions towards them. Maybe Addie did want children and Slade just,, went with it?? or something??" Nah. There was no explanation. Slade goes from despising his sons to absolutely loving them in a milisecond. There is no character arc. Just one big mess. In conclusion: fanfics>>>>>>>canon. fuck Priest 0/10

Again I think this problem stems from a lack of depth the character suffers from in Priest's run, because as you say, we see one thing and then a completely different one and they feel irreconcilable.

Now - and I don't want to make any moral judgement of Slade or his actions and I'm talking from a purely logical, narrative standpoint, just to be completely clear - I do think that if we had some sort of explanation (like why Slade has negative emotions towards his kids), and also if we could see how he went from point A (being wildly abusive, not giving a shit) to point B (grieving Grant, hugging him like that, clearly crying under the mask while calling him son as he's dead in his arms) we'd be able to contextualize Slade's actions.

I'll make you an example. Slade didn't want kids and neither did Adeline, they were born just because they didn't use precautions and it happened. Slade went from mildly annoyed when they were small to full on using them like recipients of his own issues, and therefore we get that scene in the forest.

Then the incident with Joseph happened, when he got his throat sliced because Slade called the bluff, and almost died. AT THAT POINT Slade understands that this kid is important to him - not just a nuisance, a fastidious presence in his life, but someone he truly cares about. And same goes for Grant, even if he's already ran away at this point.

Slade came from an abusive household, enrolled in the military where he learned to kill people and to employ physical violence, and he's only ever loved only two people (Billy and Addie) his whole life. The idea of having kids and LOVING them might have been simply unacceptable to him; it made him feel weak, reminded him of his own abusive father, made him feel trapped in a situation that he hated (that of The Good Husband™), which is why he turned so violent in the inability to deal with his own emotions. But then Joseph almost dies, and it's HIS FAULT, and he gets a cold shower and realizes that he does care but it's too late - Grant has already been brainwashed by HIVE and the next thing that happens is that he dies between Slade's arms, underlining just how much Slade failed and caused his own sons' death and muteness.

I came up with this from the very top of my head and might still be not enough, but I hope you get what I mean when I say that it's the lack of care these writers use when handling the characters that causes the major issues. I too don't buy Slade's genuine and human grief about Grant's death if the last thing I saw was that Slade was about to beat him to a bloody pulp, looking like it was an average Tuesday night.

We're just supposed to accept everything that happens and every choice the characters make, despite there's very little sense of continuity (or sense at all) to them, and that's very frustrating.

[bookwyrmshoard]

The Lantern’s Dance, by Laurie R. King

A dizzying, delightful kaleidoscope of a novel

I was very excited to read The Lantern’s Dance, the first new Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes mystery since 2021’s Castle Shade. Once started, I could hardly put it down, staying up until 2:30 in the morning to reach the denouement. Like The Murder of Mary Russell, the novel alternates between past and present narratives, slowly revealing hidden connections that surprised and enchanted me.

Readers familiar with the Sherlock Holmes canon may recall that in “The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter,” Holmes divulges that his grandmother was “the sister of Vernet, the French artist”—probably Horace Vernert (though the Vernet family produced a number of artists through the generations.) From this single quotation and a few other tidbits about Holmes’s origins, Laurie R. King has woven an adventure involving an antique zoetrope, a coded journal, family secrets, missing jewels, and a thirst for revenge several generations in the making. Told from three points of view (Mary Russell, Holmes, and the journal’s author), The Lantern’s Dance is a dizzying, delightful kaleidoscope of a novel, where each new revelation paints the known facts in a different light.

The book begins with Russell and Holmes arriving at Holmes’s son Damian’s home in France, only to discover that the Adlers (Damian, his fiancée Dr. Aileen Hemmings, and his young daughter Estelle) have fled. On questioning the neighbors, Holmes and Mary learn that several foreign men, possibly Indians, have been seeking Damian for several weeks—around the same time that he received a trio of crates and a trunk once belonging to the artist Vernet. A break-in the previous night by a man dressed as a lascar (an Indian sailor) has sent the Adler family into hiding. Holmes immediately sets out to find and protect them, while Russell, hobbled by a sprained ankle, remains at the Adler home to explore the crates and see what can be learned locally. Discovering an old journal written in an obscure and fiendishly difficult code, she sets about decoding it. As she reads, Mary begins to suspect the journal is connected not only to the Vernet family, but to the present-day mystery and perhaps even to Holmes himself.

If I have any small quibble about the book, it’s that I would have liked to see more of the present-day Adlers, particularly the child. The short glimpses of her are as charming as her appearances in The God of the Hive, but far too few. I also would have enjoyed more interactions between Damian and Aileen, and between Damian and his father… though their few interchanges are handled well, and I appreciate the hints of growth in their relationship with one another. Still, this is first and foremost a Mary Russell novel; while we do spend time with Holmes, the focus leans toward both Mary and the journal.

The chapters rotate between the three points of view, with the journal chapters often followed by Mary’s thoughts on what she has translated thus far, and her own attempts to find out more about the men seeking Damian. This sometimes makes for slightly uneven pacing, but on the whole, King build the tension well. My only other quibble is that in one of the plotlines, the danger is overcome a little too easily and the tension fizzles out. But this is not, strictly speaking, a murder mystery; it’s more a series of puzzles both past and present, and the reader has all the fun of figuring out not only the solutions (who are the men seeking Damian, and why? Who is the mysterious journal writer?) but also how they may be connected. I did in fact manage to solve the majority of the interlocking puzzles myself, but I missed a few crucial pieces here and there, and therefore I thoroughly enjoyed the final denouement.

I recommend The Lantern’s Dance to all of Mary Russell’s many fans—you won’t be disappointed! But if you’ve never met Russell or Laurie King’s iteration of Holmes before, you should really start with the first book in the series, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, and follow that up with (at a minimum) the short story “The Marriage of Mary Russell” and the two-part mystery contained in The Language of Bees and The God of the Hive; the last two give necessary background on Damian, Estelle (also known as Stella), and Aileen. But honestly, I urge you to read the entire series in order; it’s one of my favorite mystery series of all time, and the order actually does matter.

Challenges: NetGalley & Edelweiss Challenge 2024; COYER Unwind (2024), Chapter 1; COYER Readathon (Read a book from a friend’s list)

Review originally published on my blog, The Bookwyrm's Hoard.

FTC disclosure: I received a review copy from the publisher.  All opinions are entirely my own.

[bakersstreetirregulars]

Battle the B.A.D 4 Part 4 - Mikrokosmos

⚙️ These guys won’t just leave already! It’s like they brought in a beehive to swarm the place! And someone needs to find that master power breaker!

Stage 1

Wave 1: 5 Jelly Bees (single file)

Wave 2: 6 Jelly Bees

Bonus 3rd Wave: 3 Frogg-o’s

Bonus 4th Wave: 3 Queen Jelly Bees, 5 Jelly Bees

🍪 You were saying something about a beehive?!

⚙️ Shush it, Ordinary! This is the first time we’ve crossed the path of eleven Jelly Bees in this stadium! The second time we went around this area, there was an influx of Frogg-o’s and the hive’s queens!

Stage 2

Wave 1: 2 + 1 + 2 + 1 Cake Hounds (total of 6, spread across small rows)

Wave 2: 2 Roll Cake Hoglets, 2 + 2 Choco Cake Wolves

Wave 3: Roll Cake Hog, 2 Roll Cake Hoglets

⚙️ Another round without facing the band?! Come on out and play, cowards! Or do you want to get backhand slapped by my magichanical Crepe Arms?!

Stage 3

✨ It all comes down to one last dance.

⚙️ And let’s make it count! Us and the B.A.D 4?! We’ll bring the pain-

💀 -to the Producer!

🍪 Huh?!

💀 She never recognizes TRUE talent like MY vocals!

🍰 Plus she has NOT lived up to the proper standards of Cake Hound treatment!

⚙️ Then why not just stay together as a band?! Those BTS Cookies do have a point when they say to believe in yourself and sing it from the bottom of your heart. Stand up to the man and resign from D.K.E.C. and do what you wanna do! That’s what I did just so I could keep doing what I wanted to do back then and stay with my Wafflebots.

🍫🔨 And be a hero?! Nuh-uh! Pass me that mic, small fry, because I’m BORN TO BE BAD, VILLAIN 4 LIFE! WE ARE THE B.A.D 4!

🌰 Now that the problem’s solved and the BTS Cookies are COOL with having B.A.D 4 on stage, now we can bring the pyrotechnics and jam to their debut hit, “Bad and Dark” on the Rhythm Stage!

⚙️ You HAVE TO complete all 12 stages of the battle campaign and play “Dynamite”, “Butter”, and “Permission to Dance” before you can play this song. Whether you play “Mikrokosmos” is optional.

⚙️ You HAVE TO complete all 12 stages of the battle campaign and play “Dynamite”, “Butter”, and “Permission to Dance” before you can play this song. Whether you play “Mikrokosmos” is optional.

Editor’s Note: This is actually my first time doing this one, that’s how much I’ve been off this event since my internship got so involved. Quality’s just low because I had to compress it from ~702 MB because Tumblr has a hard time processing large files like a 3 minute music video in HD.

This song can be played over and over again WITHOUT using BTS Concert Tickets, but you can’t get ARMY Bombs or any other rewards from it directly. Shroomies worth more points will replace any ARMY Bombs you find on the trail. You CAN, however, apply your score to the Bad and Dark progression event and get rewards based on your overall cumulative score according to this rewards track and your score in millions:

3 million - 3 Magic Cookie Cutters

7 million - 20 Level 7 EXP Star Jellies

12 million- 50 Chaos Cake Pieces

15 million- 100 Topping Pieces

20 million- 30 Epic Soul Essences

25 million- 2 Medium Searing Raspberries

30 million- 100 Chaos Cake pieces

35 million - “Bad and Dark” Title

40 million - 5 Special Cookie Cutters

50 million - 2 Medium Swift Chocolates

60 million - 100 Chaos Cake Pieces

70 million - 5 Legendary Soul Essences

80 million - 1,000 Rainbow Cubes

90 million - 2,000 Crystals

120 million - “Rise up from the flames” title AND 10 Epic Soulstones of Choice chest (containing Cookies released through October 13th, basically anything before Schwarzwälder)

Shoutout to @/crktravelzine (whose notification appeared during the recording) and the work they’re doing. Even though I didn’t get the position on their team as a writer (because they only had two spaces open this time), I look forward to what they’ve got in the end.

[aplaceofstone]

AO3: faceofstone

(with treats enabled!)

Dear Yuletide Writer,

thank you for offering one of the small surreal-ish fandoms of my heart and I hope you will have fun writing for it. Anything can happen! Symbols! Meaningful non sequiturs! Things! Stuff!

All prompts and ideas are just suggestions, if you are the kind of Yuletide writer who likes to follow them. If not, cool, they are certainly not the end-all of what I love about these fandoms and characters.

If you like visual prompts, this entire blog is 20% recipes and 80% aesthetics that mostly fit my requested fandoms…

I like found families, oddball friendships, sympathy toward outcasts, characters who fully embrace being outcasts, melancholy, a sense of place, bittersweet accomplishments, and a stubborn flicker of hope in an overall bleak world. Dreamlike atmospheres that aren’t necessarily scary, some sort of reassurance that can be found in the weird and the profoundly unnatural.

Myst - worldbuilding (badum tsssssss)

This went too well last year not to ask for it again ç^ç Worldbuilding as an expansion of any of the Ages we don't know too much about - Eder Gira's huts in the distance, Tay stuff inside the hive a/o above the cliffs, Myst's underground rooms, strange sightings on Todelmer, you name 'em. But also world-building as in good old-fashioned focus on the Art, whether it's about a canon Age (anyone else think about instancing too much and get a headache, for one? I think Relto and the instanced Cavern itself are fertile ground for dreamy-weird-spooky fic...) or a made-up Age.

I love the whole cast, so feel free to pin that worldbuilding to any era of canon, following pretty much anyone. I nominated Atrus, Catherine and Yeesha because I love them so much and they all have interesting approaches to Writing, but if your idea works better with, idk, Ri'neref or the Watcher or Gehn or Esher or Zandi or Nelah or some schmuck on Releeshahn or whatever, go for it! I am not particularly well-versed in pre-Fall D'ni shenanigans - I'd be interested in reading something set anywhere in those millennia, just please write it assuming that your reader may not be already up to speed on what was going on historically at the time.

Twin Peaks - Tammy Preston

I see a Twin Peaks character, I want to see them face the unknown, cross a threshold, tread into a different world, have a terrifying epiphany. You know, as they do. Tammy, though, more so than Albert, has a way of being down to earth as we see in the books, and she's got some breathing space between herself and the trauma that keeps propagating itself through Blue Rose on one side (the loss of Phil, of Chet, Sam, Coop) and the town of Twin Peaks on the other (Laura, Maddie, Annie, Audrey, gonna go out on a limb and say Donna and Harry too). Does shooting Diane shift something in her? Or does she remain a potential anchor for others who are adrift? Cynthia could be a fun partner for supernatural casefic, shippy or not. She's the Air Force side of Blue Rose to Tammy's FBI, like Milford and Gordon in The Secret History, and later Garland and Cooper... we don't know much about her but I love her attitude, I think they'd be a formidable team. ...or they could simply go out one night in Buckhorn before Cynthia flies back. And find a ghost or something. There was an old interview where CB was asked whether she felt that Tammy was “the new Cooper” and she said no but Tammy is trying her best!!! And that Coop is more open to the unknown, and Tammy is only just starting. As I think that Cooper's failures are a big part of the narrative, I'm not sure anyone should aspire to be the new Cooper, but anyway, I've been wondering about these two characters interacting (in dreams?) ever since. Reaching out to her as the new Blue Rose agent and/or as someone who is just starting to peek 'between two worlds', warning her, teaching her, getting to know her and even seeing shades of Albert and Gordon in her. And what would she think of him? And maybe Laura is with him, or maybe it's just Laura and Tammy, secrets whispered to her ear, a world just for them. Maybe Laura could be a better teacher. She knows the darkness. Or maybe she would be too intense.

Codex Seraphinianus - worldbuilding

Take a page, any page, and tell me more about it! The rainbows thing, the potted deer, the swimming trees, the literally any illustration in here, look at them, they're great. Translate the text! Connect... things? Are there narrative paths through this copious amount of nonsense? Go fake academia on this - considering the text a total cipher or pretending we can read it? If you want to get philosophical, metaphysical and/or high concept in any other way, go for it! As long as it's all weird.

I have the recent edition with the extra pages; it's easy to find low-res pdfs around the internet or random pages via image search! Here’s a few:

[dduane]

When the writer freaks herself out

I’ve been working on an entry for Food and Cooking of the Middle Kingdoms this afternoon. It’s a recipe for honey-candied apples (which appear as a sweet on a farmhouse dinner table in Tales of the Five 2: The Landlady). (With cream, and an imported apple-based spirit.)

So this is part of what I wrote:

On our Earth there are only a few species of bees that make honey—or more accurately, enough honey for humans to safely harvest without harming the colonies from which it’s obtained. One of these, and the one most kept for commercial uses both here and in the Four Realms, is Apis mellifera: what we call the Western or European honey bee. However, the Kingdoms’ continent is shared with their version of A. mellifera by two other honey-making species.

Widespread in the cooler southern regions is a larger variant of the eastern- and southeast-Asian giant honey bee, Apis dorsata, which builds tremendous comb-filled nests in trees of the southern Darthene and Arlene mountain-cedar forests, and on cliffs in the Steldene Southpeak foothills. (Apis dorsata medioregnis, fortunately, does not entirely share the blindly vicious temperament of its Earth-based congener.) Meanwhile, in the semitropical northern regions, a variant of the stingless bee Tetragonula mellipes is widespread from the mouths of the Darst and the northern shorelands of the eastern Waste, right along the Darthene northern Seaboard to the North Arlene peninsula. Because of its higher water content and low glycemic index, this bee’s honey is runnier and less sweet-tasting than that of A. mellifera and A. dorsata, but also has a unique tangy/citrus flavor that’s much prized.

So there we go, thinks the writer. That’s enough worldbuilding for the moment. Now we can get on to the recipe.

...Or not. As without warning, things go a bit green and dark in the writer’s head, and she suddenly sees what she’s just installed in her unsuspecting world:

...Forests. Mountain forests. In this one, unnumbered broad-canopied cedars are the uprearing deep-ribbed pillars of a high, shadowy-roofed cathedral a league and more wide. And suspended from the branches, almost completely hiding the upper reaches of the trunks, hanging pendulous and tremendous from the branches, in swags and curtains an arm’s-length thick... the hives.

There may be twenty or fifty of these in a single tree... maybe a hundred or more, in the oldest and tallest of the forest monarchs. And the hives are as social among themselves as the bees who live in them. The queens of a tree’s many hives make up their own small self-aware swarm. They have ways of communicating without ever leaving their hives. Some say their souls speak together, and with the queens of other trees’ hives... soundless, wordless, needing no words to discuss what matters to them: the prosperity and the safety of their colonies and their kind.

The naked hives themselves, and the brood-combs and honeycombs inside them, are not easy to see. This is because each hive is covered a handspan thick by a hundred thousand warrior-workers or more, endlessly alert for danger. Even the average worker giant bee is the length of the top joint of your thumb; the warriors can be twice that size. These too have obscure modes of communication that bind them together. If an enemy approaches, all the warrior bees of a whole tree’s hives will rise together to defend their homes. All together, they will fall on the marauder and cloak it as thickly in their furious bodies as any hive... and then will come the stings.

Fortunately you will hear the hives singing long before you see them. If you hurry, you will still have time to turn back before the scout-bees find you.

If you are hunting their honey, though, your only chance of escaping unharmed is to make the bees understand that that you have not come to harm their brood, but only to harvest and share some of the honey they do not need. You cannot lie to them. If you do, they will know.

So when you meet them, speak to the bees. Tell them what you desire... and pray that you speak truly.

...

And meanwhile, a long way away from the forests in the foothills of the Southpeaks, a writer sits staring at the computer screen and thinking:

WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM?!

...And then goes off to get some tea.

With SUGAR.

[queenofmalkier]

The Ongoing Egwene Exploration

If I’m gonna kick the hive, I might as well cite the books and clarify my meaning.

I’m going to preface this with, while Egwene is not my personal favorite character that doesn’t make her a bad character, a bad person, etc. I do stand by my statement that I find her to be arrogant to the point of being dangerous, and her motivations at time are not as pure as she suggests from her own POV chapters, but ultimately she is who needed to be in the role she played, and she is a vital part of the series.

This is going to be a multiple parter, because I truly wish to be fair about my perceptions. The rest will probably be in September because I’m going to be away on a trip. But who knows I might get squirrelly.

Basically, I’m going to skim through the books and only review mentions of Egwene that give insight to her character/how she is perceived by those who personally know her or her own POV chapters.

As an aside, I would argue that unlikable female characters are important. More important than the Moiraine’s (who also had her fair share of arrogance), more important than the stern-yet-soft-hearted Nynaeve’s. They’re the most important in fiction because we so often don’t get to see them.

Female characters are forced to be likeable or be Amy Dunne. Even their grey areas are carefully negotiated so they aren’t written off as a bitch.

They don’t get to be heroes that you sincerely hope you never have to be stuck in an elevator with.

They don’t get the depth and variety because it makes people uncomfortable.

I find that annoying on a good day, on a bad day it makes me want to burn half my library. Modern writers have developed much more nuanced characters, and we’re beginning to see “new” types of female characters that really are just based on living, breathing, real people, but the backlash and fear of it is often there too.

It’s very easy for people to hate a female character. Just look at any popular series and go to reddit. If by some miracle there’s more than one female character in the main cast, chances are there are individuals complaining about her.

Hell, they’ll complain even if she’s the only female character.

(The phrase Mary Sue will appear often. If it does not make you want to boil with rage at the outright hypocrisy when compared with every mainstream male character I invite you to walk into the ocean.)

Lastly, before we begin, this is solely about Egwene. I can just as easily get into every single character in the series and how they also display negative characteristics but then we’re going to be here for ten years. I specifically said Egwene when I kicked the hive and I’m going to see how well my argument is supported by the source material.

So, Egwene.

Why does she get under my skin? How is she any more arrogant than the other characters in the series? What about her do I find troubling and ultimately dangerous? Am I biased because she was mean to my poor little meow meow trash son Gawyn?

Let us start with our first introduction to Egwene, through the eyes of a very, very smitten Rand. (To be fair, I would also be smitten. Just because I don’t particularly like her doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be half in love with her in ten minutes.) We know through later POV’s that Egwene has admitted that he is easy to manipulate so it is difficult not to allow that to color this transaction now, but let us try.

She begins by mimicking Nynaeve, a figure of authority, perhaps to see the effect it has. This is a trait she carries on throughout the series until she no longer needs to mimic and instead becomes the one who is mimicked.

But she soon shifts focus to staring at Rand, unsettling him because he has a crush the size of a solar system and it’s so obvious Perrin and Mat leave him to his fate. They flirt a little before Egwene reveals her now braided hair.

This is a very calculated move, and it feels planned, on her part. A test. But what is she testing?

Being a young, unmarried man in a small village that definitely pushes traditional values, Rand senses a trap here but it’s not what he’s expecting. I think this gives us a very key piece of information about Egwene early on. We think this is her Hint Hint moment, only for her to pull the rug out and mention not only does she want to become a Wisdom, a woman who seldom marries, but that she’ll likely have to travel to a different village in order to do so because Nynaeve isn’t going to retire any time soon. Egwene is telling us that she wants more.

Queue Belle song.

We also see some of her arrogance here. “She says I have a talent, that I can learn to listen to the wind. Nynaeve says not all Wisdoms can, even if they say they do.” When Rand fails to be suitably impressed, we get the very word used that I have mentioned already: dangerous.

Again, we’re seeing character traits I originally brought up: manipulative, arrogant, dangerous. She strikes me very much as the type of person who plans encounters in her head before they happen. That isn’t a bad thing - as the most socially anxious person ever I do this as well as a way to ease my anxiety and plan for everything I can think of - I am simply making an observation. This does not feel like a casual, unplanned conversation on Egwene’s part.

(Manipulative behavior in and of itself also isn’t inherently negative, most human interaction is based on it.)

Yet this moment isn’t Egwene gently letting Rand down either is it? Because Rand - puppy that he is - mentions he’d never see her again and she’s back to vaguely suggesting it’s not like he cares. Because we only see it from his perspective, it’s hard to know if she shuts down ultimately because the conversation didn’t go how she’d planned, or if her temper really did get the better of her.

Was she angry he didn’t demand they wed? That didn’t demand she not become a Wisdom? What was her ultimate goal here? Did she have one? Because of her age, I highly doubt Egwene is some crazy, master manipulator of Hannibal Lecter proportions. She’s not even on level 1 of that crazy train; I doubt she even knows where the station is. Not yet.

My perception here is she’s likely conflicted and confused about what she wants, and angry that Rand isn’t giving her anything to act on. He isn’t saying no, so she can’t dig her heels in. He isn’t offering to marry her so she can’t react to that either. He’s simply saying he’d never see her again, and what’s she to do with that? Egwene very much is a character who wants to act, and right now she has nothing to fuel her to action.

We do get the idea that Egwene is sensitive, perhaps overly so. Does she feel the limitations of the Two Rivers? How small their world is? Do their recent visitors make her feel equally small and therefore her fuse is shorter than normal?

I do want to mention here that I do not want to dismiss Egwene’s cleverness, or her own abilities when it comes to gleaning information from others. Yes, she’s eavesdropping in this moment, but even before she was reading Rand and the others like braille, which is a skill that should not be undervalued.

Overall, I think for our initial introduction to Egwene, she’s very much a baby version of the woman she will become, and the chapter meets my memory and expectation of what I was going to find. (I’ve re-read The Eye of the World more than any of the other books for a variety of reasons so it’s the one I remember the best.)

[anamatics]

Your opinion on old fandom forums vs, fandom today?

I didn't answer this one last night as I wanted to be able to type out a proper response, and one that's partly adapted from an essay I wrote back in 2016.

As a fandom old, I’ve spent a long time in fandom spaces. I did my time with writing slash and het ships, but I always loved writing stories for me about people like me. I have witnessed first-hand the rise and fall of listservs and live journal as places where people who liked femslash gathered to discuss their favorite shows. I know a lot of fandom history. When I comment on the events in fandom, it still comes from my position as a fan, not as a creative. I want to preface all of these thoughts with this.

Fandom used to be something that you didn't talk about. It was secret, never mentioned in public, zines and stories mailed back and forth across the country. The internet changed that, people's attitudes toward things like queer and trans identity changed that, people's want to see diversity on their screens changed that. Yet, at the same time, there is a whole new generation of young queer creatives emerging onto the writing scene who have grown up witnessing the rise and fall of these great, monolithic fandoms that exist beyond the space of shows themselves. More and more, networks, writers, and producers are paying attention to what the fandom says and to what they react to.

This is why I don't really like fandom these days, because I've seen both sides. I struggled with this working on Carmilla as someone who had been, and in may ways still was, a fan. I know fans have power, I've done things because I know fans have power. And yet, I felt like I'd lost my place in a community - in old fandom - because of this realization. And I myself asking questions about my place in new fandom. Questions that, most of the time, had no answers.

Is it valid to be both grateful for the acknowledgement of fan desires within the creative side of television and web writing and a little horrified by the amount of entitlement that any capitulation by those productions seems to engender within fans? Am I valid in feeling trapped by this feeling of wanting to be the best possible arbiter of representation and knowing that I can never be perfect because the perfection demanded by the queer community isn’t achievable? Does my voice even matter in fandom circles anymore because I’ve “crossed over” to the other side? Am I allowed to continue to speak critically about representation in shows that are not my own because I haven’t “fixed mine yet”?

I struggled with this when Carmilla was airing. I still struggle with it now, too, because I see how trolls on Twitter and Tumblr have reacted to folks like me speaking out about problems we see in our communities or within fandom. People like me aren’t allowed to criticize fandom, or fandom culture, because we’re no longer seen as truly a part of it: by being creators who can’t always live up to fandom’s sometimes unreasonable standards, we’re now considered just part of the problem. We can’t critique behaviors and call things out within this fandom community that should also represent us because when we do we’re hurting the fandom community.

Every queer creative out there has shouldered some of this hurt, I know I have. I stand by what I’ve said despite the backlash. If you cannot believe in the truth you speak, what good are you to a community looking to you for change?

Those who speak to the internal problems of fandom culture are shouted down. People with years of fandom experience, who are far more knowledgeable of the history of fandom (and especially the femslash corners of it) and presence in media than the present-day narrative setters, are shouted down and told that we are part of the problem. Creatives who speak out and criticize other works are treated equally poorly. The problem is that in refusing to look at the problems within our fandom spaces, and saying that everyone outside the group is to blame for the problems of poor representation, we are sticking our fingers in our ears and refusing to look at what’s wrong with us. We eat our own.

The queer community – and by extension the queer fandom community – functions like an ouroboros as far as I can tell. That’s the snake from Norse mythology that eats its tail, representing infinity but also representing the inevitable crush of our own bullshit as it comes down around us with the hopes of becoming a better community. There should be a place within this community for everyone, and yet it’s this same space that is preoccupied with gatekeeping characterized by constant infighting, identity policing, and silencing or invalidating opinions that don’t perfectly align with this vision of what is considered acceptable in the eyes of the thinking of the day.

Queerness is messy. There’s a lot of nuance to it. And there will always be people who want their own community within that umbrella of queerness. That’s a valid want. You want to be around people who are homogenous, because it’s when variety is introduced that feelings get hurt. But the existence of a community for marginalized people should not come at the detriment and degradation of other vulnerable people, nor should it come at the expanse of dismissing intersectionality within our community.

But instead, we eat our own. We dismiss trans headcanons like people in old fandom used to dismiss queer headcanons. We're doing the same bullshit, just rinsed and repeated, directed at a new set of people whose voices are smaller than the small specks of power new fandom has granted (cis, white) queer people.

We fight ourselves amongst because we feel as though we cannot fight the forces of our own oppression. We censor ourselves to make sure that we don’t say anything to upend the proverbial apple cart. We do this not because we’re afraid of the problematic elements outside of the community that could come into our community, but rather because we’re afraid of those within our own community who have the power to kick us out from under our own umbrella and back into the rain.

So when I think about fandom these days, I imagine this moment of losing community. I imagine the hurtful message sent, the dismissive post on the forum, the hateful tweet, actions that cost nothing when they are directed at creators, fan writers, fan artists. These people exist to create content that is to be consumed. They aren't human. They aren't even real. They're just the producers of content that fandom sucks up like a vacuum cleaner without bothering to engage with the creators except to demand more or demand better. Nothing makes you feel alienated from your community like realizing you only exist to produce for it and when you don't produce to standards, you are attacked.

What's worse is that a lot of folks in fandom don't even think about this these days. There's no risk in blasting off a message or a tweet. But social media is an echo chamber. It’s a hive mind, and it’s a place where people can get hurt, very badly, and very quickly. Social media should not be used as a weapon to badger the people trying to get into positions where they can create change, which is what I feel new fandom has done. But at the same time, new fandom has also become a space where voices can be uplifted, where people can be seen and heard who maybe weren't before.

So TL;DR, I think social media ruined fandom, I have a lot of baggage/trauma from working on a show as fandom was transitioning from old fandom to new fandom, and like... we have to be better to each other.

[sindri42]

What do you think the Reapers were supposed to be all about before the writer got replaced and the ending of ME3 threw out the lore?

There's not a lot that we have that's solid, just a lot of hints and suppositions. So there's no way to really conclusively determine what was supposed to be going on, but we can definitely come up with theories that match the evidence, which the "canon" absolutely does not. So here's what we know:

Harbinger refers to themself as our "salvation through destruction" and the "Harbinger of your perfection". "We will bring your species into harmony with our own" they say, and "Your species will be raised to a new existence. We are the beginning, you will be the end," but also "You will surrender your potential against the growing void."

Sovereign claims they are each a nation unto themselves, that they are the pinnacle of evolution, and when asked who created them or for what purpose insists that they have no beginning nor end

Mass Effect technology plays upon dark energy in a way that is poorly understood by the young races despite their reliance on it for almost every aspect of life

A small but significant number of stars are destabilizing for unknown reasons, aging at a massively accelerated rate.

The mass relays were built for the young races, partly so civilized planets would be laid out upon predictable paths and easily accessible via the "back door" in the Citadel, but also so that the new civilizations would develop along the lines the Reapers had planned for them

it's very rare to have more than a single major race in each cycle; most often the other spacefaring civilizations are either wiped out or made subservient to the rulers of the galaxy

The greatest race of each cycle is used in the creation of a single new Reaper, while lesser races or those with major flaws are discarded or turned into servitors like the Keepers (per the end of ME2; obviously this got retconned in 3).

Between "harvests" the Reapers retreat beyond the galactic rim, sitting quietly in the dark using as little energy as possible for tens of thousands of years at a time.

So, first and simplest assumption, the Cycle is effectively the Reapers' reproductive system. Like all life forms, they have a drive to produce more of themselves, but for some reason they can't or won't simply make a new chassis out of raw metal, and they're unwilling to use "flawed" people as components, which means the people put into it are extremely important. If the larval reaper that Shepherd killed had been allowed to grow up, it would not simply have been a machine with some random DNA inside, it would have been humanity, an entire nation and species flying through space for eternity.

Second assumption, slightly stretchy but with several weak points of support? Mass Effect technology is slowly killing the galaxy. As more people use it in more ways every year, more stars start to die. This isn't an issue that would affect any normal person alive today, the changes are observed over the course of millennia rather than even centuries, but unless something big changes everyone is eventually doomed. And sure, any given individual or small group could simply refuse to use the mass effect, but it's so easy to figure out that you could never suppress the knowledge of how to use it in any meaningful way, and it's so useful and people are so greedy and short-sighted that you could never persuade everybody to stop. And if you tried to do it by force, well, a nation making free use of eezo in their engines and their guns and their shields would wipe the floor with a nation determined to stick to mundane technology.

So, my theory of how things went down? The first race to figure out the mass effect knew they had a problem. Maybe they had already made themselves immortal, so they were more concerned with the long term than most people. Maybe they just had more foresight than most. Either way, they put themselves into a form where they could still think and communicate, likely on a deeper and more intimate level than ever before, but they would use as little energy as possible to preserve their billions of lives. The "pinnacle of evolution" if you will, a machine which had no creator besides itself, a life form which could last forever with minimal resource consumption. And they sat quietly Thinking about how to fix this, for tens of thousands of years.

But while they researched and experimented and contemplated, other life forms kept evolving. And eventually they also figured out the secret to using the mass effect, but either didn't know about the dangers or chose to ignore them. So the ancient... okay let's just call them Harbinger for convenience, had to do something to stop this. Maybe they were too soft-hearted to wipe out an entire species for an honest mistake. Or maybe their research had hit a dead end, and they needed an outside perspective to apply new ideas to the problem. Or maybe they were simply lonely, or the instinctual drive to be fruitful and multiply reared up after being suppressed for so long. Either way, they converted the young fools into another nation-ship hive-mind like themself, convinced them of the seriousness of the situation (to "surrender your potential against the growing void" as it were), and resumed Thinking out in the black.

And when it happened again, and again, they refined their approach over time. The eezo drives on the individual ships of the young races are not only slower, but also massively less efficient than the technology the Reapers have developed, so they gave the Relays away as a gift to minimize the damage each new race would do. They couldn't allow young races to become too powerful to stop, but they wanted to allow them as much opportunity to develop scientific research and understanding as possible in order to be more useful to the ongoing project to save the galaxy, so they learned how to insert observers and infiltrators throughout alien societies to observe things and ensure the Harvest was delayed for as long as it was safe to do so but no longer (and I think you can agree that they were cutting their deadlines really close given how an extra three years brought the council races from 'utterly unprepared, basically a walkover' to 'giving you a serious fight').

So, how would the game end, after you learned all of this? Maybe Shepherd simply accepts the inevitable fate of the young races, like Saren once did, and helps the Reapers to end the Cycle with a minimum of suffering so that they can join the endless search for a real solution. The ultimate 'sacrifice for the greater good', killing thousands of entire species of people in order to preserve life in the galaxy as a whole. Maybe Shepherd rejects the idea that it's worth killing billions of innocents now in order to head off some distant nebulous threat later, and fights back with everything they have... and if you managed to unify everybody you possibly could, this would certainly be more power than the Reapers ever had to deal with before in any past cycle. Or maybe you use a display of that power to force the Reapers to the negotiating table, and then use all the "impossible" things you've achieved and all the scientific progress made over the past few short years, plus a heavy dose of raw charisma and Paragon ideology, to persuade them that if everybody works together they can finally solve the impossible problem, the one that has been stumping every Reaper for millions of years, within the time span of this one final Cycle if they just share the data they have so far and allow the young races to work freely.

[badapricot]

Lovely Writer—1x10

This episode felt a bit slow and oddly paced compared to the last one, and I think it’s because it’s obviously a builder episode or the calm before the storm.

I loved the scene with Gene and his Mom making tea. He looked really small and young in his robe and I think that was the point. It was a really good metaphor for the fact that Gene needs to take care of himself now if he’s going to make the adult choice of entering a gay relationship in public. Because his Mom and his Dad can’t protect him from it, and they know that he’s fragile and anxious in comparison to Nubsib, despite being older.

Teep made me cry when he cried in Run’s arms and it really made me curious about Pop. I wish we got even one flashback showing them or even showing how Teep met Run. He confirmed that he loves her but I don’t know if he loves her as much as Pop, and that’s pretty interesting because it shows how understanding Run is.

I was touched that Teep was still worried about Gene not eating and wanted him to have a better life than the one he did, even when Gene thinks he hates him.

Nubsib’s scene with his parents was great because it showed the adult dynamic with his family which we haven’t seen before. Nubsib closes business deals for his father and his father recognizes his own hereditary stubbornness in Nubsib, which is why he doesn’t try to push the Gene issue. He knew that if he kept denying Nubsib, he would work even harder to go against him, and he also loves his son, despite how much he cares about the family’s image.

Teep asking Gene if he really loved Nubsib and then talking about his own lost love was a beautiful scene. Besides being a father-son moment it was also the first time Gene could relate to his father as a queer person, and not feel so alone. I highly doubt his father ever told him about the man he loved before that moment.

Nubsib trying to get some from Gene right in front of Gene’s Dad made me scream. Time and place sir.

Nubsib telling Gene that he was worth far more than any land deed he could give his father, and that his father would never trade him anyway, was a sweet moment. I like that the difference between Nubsib and Gene’s fathers is highlighted too because we see these differences in Nubsib’s and Gene’s personalities. Nubsib’s father loves him but at the end of the day he’s a business man who cares about image and what he can get from people. The deciding factor for allowing Nubsib to date Gene? Nubsib getting him the deed for a valued piece of land. Gene’s father would never “give” Gene to Nubsib in exchange for anything, or allow Gene to bribe him. The only reason he lets Gene be with Nubsib is because he loves Gene and he trusts that Nubsib will take care of him. That’s it. And that’s why Neung and Nubsib are prepped to take over their family business while Jap and Gene are living at home and working as a fantasy writer.

Something I noticed as an undercurrent throughout the episode was Gene caring more about Nubsib’s approval and treating Nubsib like a bit of an authority figure even when Nubsib is being bratty. Like when Nubsib asks him why he didn’t dry his hair well and if he was looking at his TV or the phone. Before, Gene didn’t care about those comments or he brushed them off, but now he mostly obeys. This was also shown when Gene texted Nubsib his cake to let him know where he was, and when he didn’t go into the sea just because Nubsib asked. He even complains to Tum but he doesn’t repeat himself when Tum asks what he said, because he’s too shy to admit that he’s allowing Nubsib to bar him from anything. It feels like the dominant-submissive power balance in their relationship has flipped now, where Nubsib isn’t working hard to get Gene’s approval because he’s more comfortable being himself, while Gene really wants to please Nubsib so he’s become more submissive to him.

The Tum-Tiffy subplot is cute but I don’t think it makes sense or that it’s a lesson that we all need to be taught, because it’s so unrealistic. Tiffy is bisexual herself. It makes no sense for her to not believe Tum to the point where he needs to rap to prove his sexuality.

I loved the sensual sunscreen application and Nubsib scooping Gene into his arms and taking him into the sea. The whole scene was lush and pink and it was so nice seeing Gene being doted on by Sib. Also to see him so giddy and in love without the usual holding back that he does because he’s embarrassed.

I have no idea who the woman who snapped their picture is. The female producer and Tiffy were in the room in the promo scene where Gene is brought inside. Bua wouldn’t sabotage her own author or show. The only other woman under the age of forty who’s a main character would be Earn, and that’s a long shot unless Aey is making her run around for him to repent for what she did to him. So it’s most likely a random fan.

Aey fake crying on camera in reaction to SibGene getting outed gave me hives. I don’t see redemption in his future unless he clarifies that he was lying to the press and the fans and I can’t see him doing that for Nubsib or Gene, unless Gene is harmed by this.

[dangermousie]

2020 End of Year Post - kdrama edition

You can find my 2020 cdrama post here: dangermousie.tumblr.com/post/638449659546845184/2020-end-of-year-post-cdrama-edition

This is only going to cover kdramas that aired in 2020; if it originally aired another year, it’s not on this list.

It’s been a pretty lackluster kdrama year. There are probably only 5 kdramas I truly loved and only three of them I was really obsessed over. Better luck in 2021!

DRAMAS WATCHED

(In order of liking from least to most as opposed to pure quality; I am including if I’ve seen enough to make up my mind; yes I realize that’s inaccurate, but that’s my list)

42 Born Again - so bad, so incoherent, so insane, I have no idea why the leads signed up for it (and unlike some of the other watchers, I think it was awful from the very start.) There is literally nothing about this drama that makes sense.

41 Love with Flaws - a bunch of people who should be tried under the Geneva Convention.

40 Sweet Munchies - Jung Il Woo proves his inability to pick a functional script.

39 Meow the Secret Boy - if you ever wanted to bang a cat, this drama is for you. Not being a furry, however...

38 Do Do Sol Sol La Sol - I lost braincells just typing out this title.

37 When I Was the Most Beautiful - the only way it’s not the dumbest, most pointless melo of 2020 is because Born Again considerately came out the same year.

36 Woman of 9.9 Billion - if you want to watch an artsy French movie about miserable people, but only badly made, boy do I have a drama for you.

35 Lies after Lies - screams after screams.

34 Backstreet Rookie - people were up in arms about various problematic plots. I am a survivor of many plots much more problematic but even I couldn’t survive how utterly boring and annoying this drama was and how utterly irritating the leads were. This has taken Ji Chang Wook off my top favorites into “should I even check his latest Lovestruck in the City? Probably not” territory almost single-handedly (Melt Me helped, to be fair.)

33 Men Are Men - boring is boring.

32 Dinner Mate - two beautiful boring people eat out a lot.

31 Was It Love - no it wasn’t.

30 Alice - Joo Won in the shower can make up for a multitude of sins but not plot nonsense of such magnitude. When you find yourself thinking it would be better if he hooked up with the alternate universe version of his mother because at least then something entertaining would happen, you know it’s bad.

29 More than Friends - started out OK, then made me hate basically everyone and kept going.

28 Start-Up - honestly, it’s probably more decent than its place here, but the toxic and batshit fandom for it (the worst this year) made me feel like breaking out in hives any time it’s even mentioned.

27 The Spies who Loved Me - how to take a good cast and waste it.

26 Private Lives - it was good but it never took off with its concept and spent more time on the incoherent plot than the OTP which was its one strength. It’s a decent drama but coming after Heartless City and My Beautiful Bride from the same writer, it’s a disappointment.

25 Record of Youth - as high as it is due to Park Bo Gum hard carrying this entire awful drama on his shoulders and doing it so well I finished it. Alas, while he is in one drama (and that drama is great), the rest of the characters and the entirety of the script are a pointless useless mess.

24 Do You Like Brahms - excellent first third, mediocre middle, and terrible last third. I don’t know what musical term applies to this? Diminuendo, I think.

23 I’ll Go to You When the Weather is Nice - nice and mellow but nothing much happens.

22 Forest - mainly for Park Hae Jin’s excellent and frequently naked bod.

21 The Ballot - I didn’t love it as much as everyone did but it was well-made.

20 Hyena - more romance and less weird law stuff would make it better.

19 365 Repeat the Year - surprisingly solid.

18 The Game Towards Zero - see 365.

17 When My Love Blooms - very old fashioned, very lovely.

16 Chocolate - also very old fashioned and very lovely but also with Yoon Kye Sang performing medical procedures bleeding and shirtless. MMM.

15 (tie) Secret Royal Inspector - a fun if run of the mill sageuk.

15 Find Me In Your Memory - best melo this year.

14 Mystic Pop Up Bar - surprisingly good even though I wasn’t planning to check it out.

13 Where Your Eyes Linger - came out of nowhere but was tender and hopeful and lovely.

12 Itaewon Class - Park Seo Joon hard carries a drama that is already excellent. Love it.

11 Psychopath Diary - Yoon Shi Yoon is such a treat in a hilarious, cynical, dark comedy.

10 Kairos - more like ouroboros.

9 Queen Love and War - in a year where sageuks are very rare, this was solid and surprisingly moving and shippy.

8 The King Eternal Monarch - people didn’t like it but I did. It’s no masterpiece and both the leads and the writers have better dramas, but it was a lovely romantic fairy tale for me.

7 Mr. Queen - sharp, hilarious, and some of my favorite actors.

6 Psycho But It’s OK - healing, sharp cinematography and even sharper chemistry.

5 Crash Landing on You - the last ep pissed me off so much this drama is dead to me but I loved it so much until then I can’t place it lower in good conscience.

4 Train - who knew I would go this hard for an OCN drama or that OCN would do romance so well? But this time-travel mystery romance is just incredible and I shipped the OTP and rooted for the characters and loved every last bit of it.

3 Run On - this is the drama Record of Youth wanted to be but failed. Smart and lived in, you feel like you are peeking at real people, but also even four episodes in, I am so invested in the main characters separately and together, and care for them so much, it’s a little frightening.

1 (tie) Tale of the Nine Tailed - my perfect fantasy romance. I liked it better than Goblin, yeah I said it.

1 Flower of Evil - all the tropes I love in one incredible package. I would rewatch episodes waiting for new ones trying to puzzle the story and to stay withdrawal but it works just as well on rewatch. Lee Jun Ki brings his trademark tortured intensity and for once, both his leading lady and his script back him up and are worthy of that. It’s perfect.

FAVORITE DRAMA

It’s a tie between Tale of the Nine Tailed and Flower of Evil but if I had to pick just one, FoE, because it had me seriously obsessed and guessing about the protagonist and gave me the narrative tropes I love so much and an OTP that statisfied all my hurt/comfort kinks and then some.

WORST DRAMA

Born Again - honestly, this is so bonkers it almost becomes good but alas...

FAVORITE MALE CHARACTER

Do Hyun Soo/Baek Hee Sung, Flower of Evil - he is so messed up, so on edge, so traumatized. Yet capable of so much warmth and caring even as he himself doesn’t realize his humanity. FoE is basically a story of a man pushed and punished by the world for his entire life who, because of one woman, finds a safe place and peace and slowly comes to life without realizing it, and watching his desperation to keep this small bit of normalcy is so heartbreaking and exciting all at once. Plus, you start the drama thinking he’s a psychopathic serial killer and end it (if you are me) thinking he must be protected at all costs and if anyone even looks at him wrong they must suffer, and that’s quite a change!

FAVORITE FEMALE CHARACTER

Nam Ji Ah, Tale of the Nine Tailed - she is so funny and tough and smart and loving and amazing that I will totally buy that a literal demi-god will do anything and everything for her and love her for literal eternity.

NEEDS TO BE MURDERED

Dad in Record of Youth - yes in a year with serial killers and supernatural demons, I picked a normal character from a mediocre drama. It’s his everyday awfulness to his family that hits so hard and I am sad he never got his comeuppance.

FAVORITE SHIP

Ji Ah x Yeon - a fearless reporter and an immortal demi-god who’s been hoping for his human beloved to reincarnate. A really rare set-up where the OTP is equally ride or die, so compatible and completely BAMF. I got why he waited for her for that long and then fell in love with her all over again. Perfection.

Runner up: Flower of Evil - he is so messed up he literally does not believe he is capable of love or empathy, but he falls in love with her anyway and so utterly she permeates his entire life. She is tough as nails and only believes what she sees and is the sole person who believes in him against the world. She loves him but he needs her. She needs him but he loves her. They are amazing.

FAVORITE SECONDARY OTP

Seo Dan x Gu Seung Jun, Crash Landing on You, North Korean x Conman were so good I shipped them harder than the main OTP and the end of that storyline pissed me off so much I dumped the drama and didn’t finish it for months (and it’s still dead to me.)

NOTP

Record of Youth - it started out and they didn’t have much chemistry but the dialogues were interesting and I thought the chemistry would grow. It didn’t and deteriorated, their dialogues became boring and relationship had zero development (about as much as the supposed female lead.) I think we were supposed to feel bad they broke up and they were going for a bittersweet open ending, instead I found myself happy about the break up of two incompatible, chemistry-less people and hoping for the love of God they never get back together.

FAVORITE SCENE

Yeon and the bridge of knives, Tale of the Nine Tailed - Yeon choosing to undergo the creeptastic bridge of knives for a chance to save Ji Ah, who at that point he is not aware is the reincarnation of his Joseon love because, as he says, he doesn’t care if she is or isn’t, it just would be more horrible to have her die than to undergo the horrific torture he is undergoing, and then the sequence with his catching her, her weeping over him and the fact that she is the original Joseon girl revealed and all the bandaging and his watching her sleep and all that loveliness, is everything for yours truly.

Runner up: Hyun Soo having that break-down at the cliff at the end of ep 15 of Flower of Evil as Ji Won desperately tries to convince him she is alive and he finally stumbles to her.

Runner runner up (it’s my list, I will do what I want): Do Won preparing to blow his brains out to give a chance to Seo Kyung to live in Train.

BIGGEST CRUSH

Seon-Gyeom, Run On. Yeah, I know. Im Siwan is tiny, delicate featured and has a runner’s build, none of which are things that normally appeal to me. But his character is so odd, so honest, so unflinching in pursuing what he thinks is right, so incapable of self-pity despite plenty of reasons for it, and so ridiculously attractive when he smiles, I don’t even care.

BEST SCENE STEALER CHARACTER

Kim Bum, TotNT - I started out being annoyed by him and ended up looking forward to his scenes and being distraught by his ending.

NEEDS A SEQUEL

Honestly, none. I was fine with all the endings. I wouldn’t mind seeing post-end life of Tale of the Nine Tailed characters or the OTP settling into their literal new world in Train, but I am good.

TROPE THAT NEEDS TO DIE

Time jump that solves all the problems off screen or alternatively years pass and everyone is frozen - something that kdramas need to learn and need to learn badly. See Record of Youth, Brahms and Start Up.

FAVORITE TROPE WE’VE SEEN A LOT OF

Men who are ride or die for their OTP - this was a great year for this - the male leads of four of my five dramas were beyond anything on that scale (only exception is Run On because it’s still too early to tell there.) Yes PLEASE.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

This was a banner year for that what with Start Up, Do You Like Brahms, Record of Youth, and Private Lives all starting out well and nosediving off the cliff but winner is Crash Landing on You. I loved it so much for bulk of its run but the last episode pissed me off so much I deleted all my files and called it a day.

BIGGEST GOOD SURPRISE

Flower of Evil - I had no expectations of this drama and wasn’t even planning on watching it despite liking both the lead actors because yet another “look at evil serial killer be evil” drama with no romance was not my thing. Luckily someone convinced me there might be some romance and I peeked curiously. Honestly, their promo campaign was the most misleading and dumbest thing ever.

Runner up Psycho but it’s OK - I have never liked Kim Soo Hyun in anything before and the drama premise seemed WTF but it was shockingly good and KSH totally blew me away.

Hardest Working Lead

Yoon Shi Yoon - he starred in two (!!!) dramas in 2020 playing three characters and not only were both these dramas awesome in a lackluster year, but if it wasn’t for the fact that I knew it was the same actor and the fact that the characters shared a face, I would have never believed that they were played by the same actor. So good!

2020 DRAMAS I HAVEN’T SEEN THAT I MOST WANT TO WATCH

None. Covid Year gave me PLENTY of time

BEST NON-2020 DRAMA I’VE WATCHED IN 2020

My Beautiful Bride and Deserving of the Name - I was obsessed with both of them and honestly, they were much better than the bulk of 2020 kdramas I watched.

MOST ANTICIPATED IN 2021

The Moon That Rises in the Day, Hong Chun Gi, Joseon Exorcist, Island,  Frightening Cohabitation, Snowdrop.