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iraprince · 10 months

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I adore all your art with cookie and was interested in Sapphicworld- but I’m curious (so plz don’t take this as a negative-) what exactly in your opinion sets it apart from other Queer PBTA hacks like Thirsty Sword Lesbians?

I’d just really like to hear your thoughts about it as a system and world especially given you are a indie developer yourself?

hi!! thank you!!

so, a few caveats before i start off — one, i actually haven't played many other pbta games (like for example i know Of thirsty sword lesbians + own a copy that i've poked around in but im not very familiar w it), so i honestly can't provide much in the way of comparing/contrasting it w other pbta stuff in the same vein, and my impressions of sapphicworld are pretty much just contained to the game as its own thing, not so much sapphicworld as a Type Of Game

and two, while i am a dev myself, i'm a huge novice! like, i'm proud of the stuff i put out and i love doing it, but i personally feel like my lack of experience is such that like, i don't think my opinions in this case are particularly informed by my own work as a dev or anything. all this to say im happy to answer this question, i think i just gotta tackle it from a different frame than what ur specifically asking!

BUT ANYWAY. i can still talk abt why im so excited abt sapphicworld in a way that has kind of outstripped other stuff in general, and for me it's about the world 100%. like i honestly spend close to no time thinking abt the fact that sw is even pbta to be honest. not that the mechanics + gameplay aren't important, bc they are thoughtfully crafted and well done and fun, and i'm saying that from the perspective of someone who playtested earlier versions that have now been reworked! it's just like, not what comes to mind first for me — what's exciting and fresh and irreplaceable abt the game in my mind is like. it is fully committed to immersing you in an extremely lush, strange, richly fleshed out world, one with a long history and folklore/mythology and a TON of really fun npcs who all have different subcultures and its own calendar with seasonal holidays and regional terrain with specific fleshed out dungeons/towns/etc to discover and even like, specific FOODS typical to each different region and and and and —

and maybe at first that seems kind of overwhelming, and tbh it is. when i first got into it and i was going thru the playtest document (which if im remembering right was like. ~300 pages shorter at the time than the current playtest doc) i DO remember anxiously thinking to myself "god this is a LOT and idk if i'll be able to retain enough of this to rp convincingly" etc etc. but like... it's just really compelling, and it does an incredible job of mixing humor and gravity and horniness in a perfect ratio that always comes across as intensely earnest and makes it equally easy to have a fun goofy time or a really emotional time, which i think is REALLY hard to do.

and while normally it's hard for me to get thru something that dense and long all i can really say is that i just straight up like it enough and was charmed by it enough to pick away at it until i grasped it and felt like i understood a bunch about the world, which also has a curve to it bc in structure and tone its very different from any of your... idk more Standard fantasy or sci fi worldbuilding, so it's not like u can immediately slot in ur expectations from other settings and just learn some new vocab words, it's a world that from my perspective also Functions differently than a lot of other fictional settings in a way that's a little hard to describe succinctly. (none of this is succinct to begin with but ykwim). it makes me want to gm my own campaign, really really bad, when usually i have always been absolutely Terrified of the idea of gming! idk man. it has a Flavor. it's full of Vapors. u get transported somewhere else reading it and playing it in a way i haven't experienced in a while and a lot of times after a playtest session i felt like my brain stayed behind in sapphicworld for a pretty long time.

i feel like i am sounding a little melodramatic and incoherent but like. genuinely sapphicworld is just a fictional world that i am really bone-deep charmed by and interested in and when i WAS reading thru the rulebook for those first days it did not take me long at all to find myself constantly thinking "i want to play in this world, i want to play in this world, i can't wait to play in this world," and i just think that's really special. and like — just as your curiosity abt comparing sw to tsl was not intended as a diss or a negative, what im abt to say is similarly neutral — im a person who sometimes finds it a little difficult to click with or feel excited abt a lot of the Queer Indie Stuff that i see get popular with other people, bc it just doesn't connect w my specific lesbian + trans experience; not that it feels inauthentic but that im like, oh, idk, i think these guys are just. not My Zone, ykwim. on the flip side so much of the humor and heart and transness and sex in sapphicworld is something that really resonates w me and just Clicks in a way that i have also found really special.

rounding myself off before i ramble for like five more paragraphs but just as one more morsel of something i like abt sapphicworld that is a little more concrete than me spinning around the room yelling "I JUST LIKE IT OKAY": one of the most fun parts of character creation is getting to mix and match your kind (sort of like ancestry/species, the form ur physical body takes) with a subculture. so u get things like a werewolf babe (cookie! babe being a subculture that focuses on being Like, Totally Hot), or a centaur knight, or a minotaur debaucher, or a vampire cowboy, or an organist (cthulu-y tentacle guy) scenester, or a skeleton wizard, etc etc etc etc — there are SO MANY to pick from that when i was trying to bait my friends into playing w me i couldn't find a convenient way to list them all so ppl could start thinking abt their characters. and every possible combination basically is interesting and amusing and fun and practically THROWS a great oc into your lap and i literally think i could amuse myself endlessly just Making Characters in sapphicworld and never actually playing w them.

[panting, disheveled] so tldr. i like it. uh. what sets sapphicworld apart from other ttrpgs to me is that i have fallen balls to the wall in love with the very soul of it to the point where i don't even really think about it in comparison to other games at all and it has just become an Experience to me and i suppose i cannot guarantee anyone else will fall into insane homosexual hysteria in the same way but here we are. HOPE THAT HELPS

(ALSO PSSST. idk if this is just perfect timing or if ur curiosity was specifically prompted by this but the @sapphicworldttrpg patreon DID just launch and if any of this has been intriguing u should check it out. okay mwah bye)

#anyway thank u bc ive been so busy these past few weeks/months ive had no time to rotate it in my brain #and im not caught up on the most current versions etc #so this was a nice opportunity to slow down and take a breath and geek out abt something i like a lot. :D #sapphicworld #ttrpgs #also hi eclipse i am a little embarrassed to have tagged u onto a post of me just like. Gushing-#-but i want ppl to be able to find the game account lol. [waves sheepishly] i like ur art. as u know.

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breakfastteatime · 1 year

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hope you don't mind the rant but argh i finally realised why i feel so disconnected to survivor in comparison to how close jfo is to me

spoilers for those who haven't played survivor

but i really dislike major decisions made and i'm gonna babble on a little (i've had like eight panadol and two sleeping meds as of the last hour n a half so if this doesn't make sense that's why)

one that's been swirling around my head ever since i played us that it really felt like they brought cordova back JUST to kill him off. this also ties into my next point that i find bode's betrayal hard to believe as well. every role he had in the story could easily be replaced by someone such as cere, and i felt like the only reason he was there was to have someone for bode to kill to show how really evil he was but respawn didn't want to kill any of the main cast off. he's such a useless character in the plot that killing him off didnt effect anything LMAO

my next major dislike is, understandably, about bode :,) yes i know this can come off as making excuses for a character i was attached to since the trailers dropped but the more i think about it the more i really cannot understand both the timeline and the motive that was behind bode's betrayal. i kind of get the idea he was lax about betraying them UNTIL cal mentioned using tanalorr for the hidden path but according to the echoes you get after the game bodenis plotting and scheming the whole time... plus, you think that his whole motive relies on creating a safe place for kata on tanalorr where no one can find them but also like. you have two (technically three) jedi, a nightsister, and a whole clan of anchorites that kick the empire's ass every day. "will you be able to protect her when the empire comes?" fuckass have you SEEN cal use a lightsaber?? kata is safer with cal then she is bode

dagan was hella underwhelming too which disappointed me tbh i was excited for this high republic jedi to show us all this cool stuff only for him to die in like three seconds 😔

ANYWAY i hope this ain't too long but i'd love to hear your thoughts/criticisms on js bc i love the game and all the little bits are amazing but some of the decisions made have me a bit hrghh

Okay, friend, you asked for it ;)

The decision to bring back Cordova was an unexpected one, but the sight of him makes me cry happy tears every damn time, so it doesn't bother me at all. I take your point re: Cere being able to do everything he does, but part of Bode’s betrayal also hinges on him betraying Cere to Vader, who clearly wants vengeance after Nur (which is SO IN CHARACTER for Vader I can only lol. Petty bitch.), so Bode killing her wouldn't have had quite the same impact.

Because I was so convinced he was dead that him *actually* being dead didn’t strike me as ‘brought back only to die’. I would argue that killing him off did put them at risk of not being able to reach Tanalorr and defintely drove Cal to Nova Garon, but yes… Cordova's character probably lacks development and definitive purpose compared to the others… Although even as I say that, I find myself thinking of the logs he left behind in the various ruins on Jedha and the words of advice and I just can’t get mad. Plus there's that teeny hint that he's been unwell when Merrin asks how he's feeling. I see your points, yes, but I'm not too fussed by any of it.

Moving onto Bode...

So, here’s my interpretation of Bode, based on the post-game echoes and the little nuances that take on a totally new light on a replay. Bode is playing Cal from the very beginning. They are never friends from Bode’s perspective, and he is a master manipulator. He’s a textbook abuser – he lovebombs Cal with compliments and praise to cement their relationship, and does the same with everyone in his family. Plus, he used his knowledge of Cere’s location to further his cause with the Empire.

There’s also a power dynamic at play here because Bode was a Jedi Knight during the war while Cal was still a Padawan. Bode is older and more experienced with the world than Cal. He knows Cal longs for friendship, and he wields that against him more effectively than any weapon. Every action, every word, every choice Bode makes is solely to dig in deeper with Cal so he can and Kata can escape the Empire. Had Cal agreed that Tanalorr would just be for them, *maybe* Bode wouldn’t have betrayed him the way he did, but Bode is well on his way to the dark side because of his attachment to Kata. And Cal very nearly follows him because of his attachments to his family.

To me, this is what the Jedi Order meant by 'no attachments'. Jedi are allowed to love, but when that love becomes all consuming, when it becomes an obsession, that’s when the attachment becomes dangerous. Bode’s story is very similar to Anakin’s, he’s just not as powerful. Hasn’t got those Skywalker genes 😉

Bode’s motive to me is clear – he *thinks* everything is about Kata, but actually it’s all about him. It’s about his grief and rage and fear because of his wife's death the terrible choices he made. Denvik promises that if Bode gives him what he wants (Cal and Cere), he will reveal which Inquistor murdered his wife. Bode is already in it for revenge, not his daughter's wellbeing. His choices are very pre-meditated. He is a parent, yes, and I can understand that overriding love of a child, but he is also a grieving husband who is so broken by his loss that his love for Kata has become too possessive. He is terrified of losing his daughter, and it eclipses his love for her. Kata is aware of this, and her love is also turning to fear. Bode is neglectful (he's always leaving Kata behind) and bordering on abusive at the end. He trusts no one but himself, and he even asks Cal at the very end if he can protect Kata. Cal says nothing because he knows he can’t – he’s tried protecting so many people, and he’s lost nearly all of them. He won’t make a promise he can’t keep, and that’s what completely breaks Bode. Bode doesn’t believe anyone *but him* can protect Kata because he has become completely consumed with fear and anger. Cal gave him a chance to make a better choice when he disarmed him. In fact, Bode had *so many chances* to make a better choice, and he didn’t. So, when Bode responded by choosing to try and kill Cal, Merrin *and* very nearly his own daughter, Cal had no choice but to put him down – hard. That second shot took my breath away both times I played the game because Cal knows he cannot save Bode and protect the people who matter, and by showing Bode mercy, more people will die. It's also about control - Bode tries to control everyone. Cal knows he can't, so he takes the only option left - killing Bode. Honestly, the more I think about that finale, the more intense it becomes. It's an astonishing moment.

I do wonder if the reason people struggle with Bode is because he is so nice, and he fits in so well, but it’s all fake and it’s all an act. Whether you saw it coming or not, that hurts. Cal – and the player – want so badly for Bode to be better than he is, and that’s the tragedy. Bode’s not capable of that. He has suffered losses just like Cal, but he couldn’t overcome them. It’s a lot to deal with emotionally!

And as for Dagan, I quite like him! Mostly because that final battle with him incorporates my favourite Star Wars thing – WEIRD FORCE SHIT. He’s also a mirror held up to Cal – this is what you could become if your obsession takes over you. I also think his relationship with Santari Khri is meant to show Cal the potential pitfalls of his relationship with Merrin if his attachment overcomes him… but we’ll have to see what happens next…

Gosh this got long. It's always fun to see other people's perspectives and share my own! Hope you've got some rest and feel better soon :)

#jedi survivor spoilers #star wars jedi: survivor #jedi survivor meta #answered asks #bode akuna #cal kestis #dagan gera #eno cordova #long post #breakfast tea has THOUGHTS and FEELINGS #times like this I wish i had a youtube channel el oh el

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t-allyitup · 3 months

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i read chap 1 of your fic and i really enjoyed it! i appreciate that you went over some background for most of the other characters. i just love hearing other people's ideas about what everyone would be up to at various points in their lives. i'm so intrigued by your take on eddy as a football player who spends a lot of time working on his car. i've always low-key thought he'd be somewhat of a car guy, since it's pretty much agreed upon in the fandom that his dad sells cars. so i imagine he'd learn a lot about them whether he wanted to or not lol. anyway just wanted to share some positive feedback! love your art as well of course. your style is super cool 😁

this just MADE my DAY omg 🥹 THANK YOU SO MUCH! i appreciate the positive feedback sosososo much, im so glad you've enjoyed it so far!!! and thank you for the kind words abt my art also, it means a lot :))

i am SO excited to dive more into football player eddy, i know it's such a massive cliche but it's definitely not something he's super excited about ... in my head, his dad def pushed him to learn car stuff (totally agree with you on that one!) and do a bunch of other stuff he didn't want to do, football included. i think eddy is the type of guy who takes a lot of pride in his work and his accomplishments, so i feel like his car is something that is REALLY dear to him and he actually does enjoy working on it. football for him (and this will def be more detailed later) isn't something that feels rewarding to him exactly, it's more of a responsibility from the pressure being put on him, which i think is ultimately making him dislike it. it feels more like a matienece (i can't spell that word it's killing me) thing to him now rather than something he can actually steadily work on AND continue to achieve and take pride in. i'm definitely projecting a bunch of my own brain stew on these guys but i like to think that eddy would really enjoy doing something more creative, imo i think he would love doing jazz dance classes or electric guitar or something like that.

sorry for the rambling, you deffff got me thinkin about him and im super grateful for your feedback and hearing about your hcs/interpretations, its so interesting and helpful as a writer and just generally great to hear perspective from friends 🫶🏼 thank you again so so so much, love seeing you pop up on my dash and in my notifs always !!!!!!!!!

#ask

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toothpastecanyon · 6 months

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Hi! I’d like to start with the fact that your writing is PHENOMENAL, the way every first chapter is designed to grab the readers attention, with a mystery or a cozy little opening, establishing where the character is in life and their motives, or a sneak peek at the problem the characters must overcome.

I’m really bad at articulating my thoughts, but ur characters are really well written and I’d like to make more fanart of them, but I’m not quite sure what they look like.

(The only fics of your la that i KNOW you wrote are Unto Dust, and The Comfort of Agony (both of which are really good btw, I also love how you write existing characters, and your portrayal of them(especially Lucy Ann))

Anyway, because there are so many interpretations of species used in TAU, I got a little mixed up on what the non-human characters look like.

Darceus- in Lucy Ann and the Lunch Bunch, there is a Kitsune named Felicity, who is described as “looking a kind of like a human, and kind of like a fox” which my interpretation of is shown below. I forgot that that isn’t typical for kitsune characters in tau (even though she’s the only one since yours) and drew her in a similar way. ( also, are there any distinctive features on her nieces?) btw the LION idea is phenomenal, also do you think she has a mane? They’re fun to draw.

June- how big is she? I assumed she was the size of a human based on her interactions, but then I realized she might be looking down of people because she can fly. But then I remembered that it says she walks around. So then I confused myself. Also, skin tone, hair color/texture, eyes?

Beatrice- SHE IS SO WELL WRITTEN I felt genuinely angry while reading her meeting with Lucy Ann (in a good way) and she seems like someone you would meet in real life, totally obnoxious! Also, I don’t really know how TAU elves usually look so, idk anything about her skin tone or hair or eyes.

Here are pictures of my doodles in case you want to take a look, try to ignore the paper texture please.

Also, an old picture of Felicity:

Sorry if any of this is worded weird, im not that good at talking, but could you please give a solid description of the major/cool characters in Unto Dust?

(And in case I didn’t say it before, the Comfort of Agony is SO WELL WRITTEN there is too much for me to say about it!)

Oh wow, this is all so kind of you to say! Thank you so much - I'm so glad to hear you enjoy my writing, and I love the sketches you've done! You already have a lot of great designs and the characters look super expressive!

It's really exciting to be asked more of what my characters look like and I'll give you the best description I can, but I do want to note I often don't have a clear idea of what my characters look like - I like that writing lets a reader come up with their own spins on what a character looks like! So while I'm adding my own interpretation of my characters here, if you have a different idea you think works better or just looks cooler to you, I say go for it!

I'll organise my thoughts by each character:

Darceus: I was definitely inspired by @feferipeixes' character Felicity to make a kitsune character! I really like the mane idea you have going in your sketches, and female lions do occasionally grow manes! I like the way you've drawn her formal attire, with the nine tails spread out behind her like a sort of cape! You really brought her to life!

I probably still imagine her with a fox's colouration - I liked the lion imagery to evoke the broader facial features and just overall stockier build than an average kitsune.

The nieces: They're probably both young adults of average height. I don't have a clear idea of what they look like, but it might be fun to draw them as a different type or species of fox - silver foxes look really pretty with distinctive markings! They probably have less tails than Darceus, maybe three or so.

June: I definitely had the idea of her being average sized - I think writing it from Lucy Ann's perspective makes her seem taller as a lot of characters have to look down on her (sorry Lucy Ann!). I really like the wings you drew for her! She's a middle-aged lady with a little grey in her red hair, and probably likes wearing a lot of running gear - gotta train for that 10K!

Beatrice: I really like the long ears you've given her, that looks super distinctive! The loose t-shirt is really good. I probably imagine her with more of a pear shaped build with dark brown eyes and hair. If she does magic like in her appearances with Noie I like to think it'd look a lot how Mod V's elf OC Florian does it.

Also I definitely am looking for Lucy Ann to start wearing a glove! I'm not sure whether it would be fun to have it be a red glove to match the rest of her outfit, or if it's black or some other clashing colour to illustrate how she sees it as something unwanted and forced upon her.

That's all I can think of, but if you'd like anything more specific I'd be more than happy to help! Thank you again for this ask and your awesome sketches - if you end up drawing anything else I'd really love to see it!

Have a great day! :D

#transcendence au #lucy ann #this made my day!#toothasks #beatrice delion #worldbuilding #Dinner Crew

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sameschmidtdiffname · 4 months

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I'm actually desperate to hear your thoughts on the new hunger games book.

What characters do you wanna see? You think there will be a romance aspect? Who's POV should it be in?

Do you think this is Suzanne's final attempt to make it as clear as possible that the games are NOT cool and snow is NOT a misunderstood good guy?

And the movie too!!!! You have any fan-casting ideas?? Think young haymitch is gonna be hot?

Idk no pressure man I luv u :3

I'm excited! I'll actually be completely honest, I seriously didn't think that we were going to get any media about Haymitch's games since we already went over the events in 'Catching Fire.' I would like to apologize to the prophets, clearly I was wrong. Sorry for silently judging your requests by thinking y'all missed the point, I'm sittin' down now.

So, tackling POV first, I personally think it's definitely possible that we're working with a multiple POV situation due to the fact we did already go over the events of the Games in CF. Or, if not multiple POVs, I actually think it'll be retrospective.

Remember how Katniss and Peeta end 'Mockingjay' by creating the book of memories? I think it's possible that Sunrise is meant to be Haymitch looking back on his Games. How he survived, maybe who he mentored after. Honestly, this is what I'm hoping for because I admittedly am a desperate whore for canon post-Mockingjay material. (Please, Suzanne. Just a crumb. A CRUMB!!)

I think we're done with Snow's POV. I may be wrong on that, but I'm admittedly hopeful on it. 😭

LISTENNNN I liked Ballad and I think it was WONDERFUL writing, but Jesus fucking Christ was I happy to be away from Snow by the time it was over. He was an asshole, that was the point, I respect it and love it as media but reading it was/is hard, and honestly? That's praise. But besides personal preference, there's also just a straight 'The End' at the end of Ballad. Maybe that's subject to change, but with Suzanne's masochistic level of detail? Probably not. Or maybe I'm stupid and will eat this post in nine months, find out soon!

ANYWAYS. I so want to see Mrs. & Mr. Everdeen in this, as well as Peeta's parents. Give me their fucking names, Suzie. NAMES.

Haymitch's girlfriend is probably gonna be my favorite character. Imma be honest. I know nothing of her, nada, zip, zilch. But I can sense it in the air. There will be kinship, and I will kill myself when she dies.

(Suzanne, please don't make me eat that last statement.)

Romance aspect? Yes. Between Haymitch, his girl, and the Everdeens? Plus if we get Peeta's parents? I think one of the main points of The Hunger Games is love and the different ways it exists, so I think there will 100% be romance.

Hell, maybe Suzanne will throw us a curveball and the POV will be one of Everlarks parents. If so, probably Mrs. Everdeen as that'll give us insight to the merchant part of District 12, Madge's family and what it was like to be of Reaping age in the thick of Snow's reign.

I want Mr. Everdeen confirmed as Covey. This is a demand. I have hostages. (My lawyer wants me to clarify I don't.)

Now, in terms of the books real world meaning, I'm interested to see. I think the safest guess is 100% a commentary on Palestine, Congo, etc. But I am interested to see what else there is to say.

Personally, I think there really is a possibility this book will be centered around healing. Especially if this is Haymitch looking back at his life, it could offer commentary on his recovery from his Games, the war, as well as everyone else's. This perspective is 100% the one I would love to see the most, but we all know imma be a fiend for whatever happens.

And to wrap this up, fancasting? Stanley Tucci. If Caeser comes back and he doesn't, I have fucking hostages. (Again, I don't.)

Imma be honest, to add to your question, yes young Haymitch is supposed to be hot, but I want him to be a kid. I want a teenager cast and I want him to obviously look like a teenager, even if he is handsome. I think that's an important point of the Games people miss.

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fieldsofview · 4 months

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Tell me about SMH!

SMH!! SMH!! SMH is my magnum opus. It's my baby. It's my pride and joy. It's my feral hyper-fixation. It's my project that proves that I can actually finish something of this scale and I'm not in fact doomed to never cross the 20k word mark (I say "finish" loosely, at 145k and counting, it's so fucking close to being done aslk;djfhas;dkj)

SMH is a story about loneliness. About repression. About sacrifice. About grief. About guilt and self-sabotage and forgiveness and mistakes and learning to let go and accepting love and taking ownership over one's life.

SMH is about how one person's choices spider-web (ha! pun intended) across the lives of everyone around them.

Spider-Man: Homesickness

Plot wise: SMH is set in July of 2029, nearly 5 years after the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home. It follows our beloved Peter Parker as he has spent nearly every waking moment, during the last 5 years, either defending his city as Spider-Man or just struggling to get by, not as Peter Parker anymore, but as Peter Strakar. New name. New identity. New life. A life where he won't let himself get too close to anyone, for fear of making the same mistakes again and getting another person he loves killed.

Through a series of choices, a series of mistakes, and a series of happenstance accidents, he's thrown into a network of people who are also, in many ways, just a little broken. He doesn't want to join them, but he's sort of forced too, anyway. Oh, and of course, he's saving his city again, as he always does.

I wanted to write the sequel I don't think the MCU will ever write for Spidey, but that had the emotional weight he deserves. The idea that he has been entirely forgotten by everyone is such a weird little area to play in and I took it to the extreme for this fic.

There are heavy mentions of The Blip and how it affected our cast of characters, as well as grief and power and responsibility. It's told from Peter's perspective, and while he tries to always do what he thinks is best, he's not perfect and he doesn't know everything. And, to top it off, he's pretty heavily in denial about several things that unfold over the story. There are a lot of moving parts amongst the background characters that he's not always privy to, but the echoes bounce around the walls of the story (I'm already considering a sequel or three from other POVs so I can explore those bits more tbh).

The supporting cast is extensive, but it primarily includes Michelle Jones-Watson, Ned Leeds, Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson, Harry Osborn, Miles Morales, Eddie Brock, and Venom.

With that, I leave you with this little snippet from Chapter 3: Adrift

Gwen pushes through the partially opened door into some sort of office/breakroom combination. There’s a desk to the right, piled high with paperwork in front of an outdated computer. To the left, there’s a small table with a few mismatched chairs scattered about.

Leaning against the table is a beautiful redhead. Her hair is braided and fluffy down the center of her head like some kind of faux mohawk, and her makeup is a striking combination of dark and glittery. Sitting on a rusty barstool next to her is a slender, dark-haired man. His shirt seems to have once had sleeves, though they’re absent now, frayed edges accenting his broad shoulders.

If Gwen hears any of the conversation, she doesn’t acknowledge it. Instead, she gives a dramatic bow, bending so low that her nose nearly touches her knees. “I present to you, Peter. He’s our new friend.” She straightens, looking at the two in the room. Peter can’t see her face, but it seems as though something unspoken passes between the three of them.

“Hey,” he says lamely. “I’m, uh, excited to see you play tonight.”

“Peter, hello. Any friend of Gwen’s is a friend of ours.” The redhead walks towards him with her arms outstretched, and by the time he realizes what’s happening, she’s hugging him.

He tries really hard not to think about the fact that this is the first time anyone has hugged him, as Peter, in nearly 5 years. Sure, some people have hugged Spider-Man, especially after some tight rescues, but this is different.

An ache settles in his chest unrelated to this afternoon’s injuries.

“Thank you for coming tonight.” She pulls away from him, looking over his face in a way that makes Peter uncomfortable, though he can’t place why. “My name is Mary-Jane. You can call me Mary or MJ, whichever you prefer.”

MJ.

Nope, not doing that.

“Uh, nice to meet you, Mary.”

She gestures to the man behind her, “This brooding bastard is Harry. He’ll pretend to hate you, but insults are his love language.”

Harry stands and slings a lazy arm around Mary. “Quit giving away my secrets, MJ. And it’s nice to meet you, Pete. Gwen has told us surprisingly little about you, so I’m glad you’re here.” He holds his hand out for Peter to shake.

Gwen looks a bit sheepish at that, pulling at the cuff of her sleeve as she says, “Oh, well, you know…”

Ah. Well, no sense in embarrassing her. “We’re still getting to know each other, but I’m happy to be here. Jiji over here gave me a pretty good sales pitch.” He reaches out a hand and ruffles between the cat ears on Gwen’s hood.

She bats his hands away playfully and smiles at him. “Hey, mind the hair, Deku, I still have a crowd to impress.”

#Thank you so much for asking sarah!!#<3 #it's very romance light - though there is technically a romance subplot with Michelle #and yeah Michelle and Mary Jane are two different characters - you'll see when you read it #I love this fic so much it hurts me #I hadn't written in years and then this fic grabbed me by the throat and reignited my love for it #so even though it's not perfect I will be forever grateful for that #Now I just need to finish this final damn chapter #spider-man: homesickness #foviewpoint #spiderman fic #ao3 #fic writing #writer rambles #wip ask game

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xsturniellax · 1 year

Text

my small heart, for big love.

Feminine reader x matt sturniolo

Warnings: anxiety, fluff, kissing, 1st person.

Summary: you and Matt have been dating for 3 months, it's coming up to be your 4 month anniversary. Something happens between you and Chris, will it change your perspective of you and Matt?

A/n: please dm me if you have any ideas you want me to write, and I enjoyed writing this! :)

I woke up, the sun shining on my face. My head was layed on Matt's head; I could hear his heart beat going smoothly and steady. He was awake before me like always. I look up at him and smiled, as I snuggle into him more, wrapping us in the warm duvet.

"I never want to leave." Matt says, rubbing my head and playing with my hair. He would always say this in the morning, and it would still make me blush.

"Do you want my hoodie again y/n?" Matt asks, blushing and laughing. I laugh along with him and nod my head. He gets up slowly and grabs a black and green dinosaur printed one. I put it on over my pajamas and we hold hands and go downstairs.

"Morning guys." Nick smiles at us whilst ording our breakfast from McDonald's.

"Goodmorning." I say to Nick, giving him a thank you afterwards. Yet again, I'd try to pay but he'd always reply with 'no way, this is my treat'.

Down comes Chris, he looks like he had a rough night.

"Did you get any sleep Chris?" I ask his, whilst hugging onto Matt. He'd answer with a groan. Definitely not.

"So, y/n, still up for today?" Matt asks me, booping my nose. I give him a smile and a nod as he kisses me on the cheek.

"Single lonely people over here! Take it to somewhere we both can't get jealous!" Nick laughs and so does Chris. I can hear Matt giggling in my ear as he twirls my hair.

"I'm gonna go get ready, okay?" I go up the stairs, putting my hands out like I'm going to miss him, even though I'll probably see him in a minute.

I get dressed in a pink, floral dress. I pair it with some white sandals and a cute white bag. Then I do my hair; curl it, put a hair band in it, and a matching bow to the dress. Then I hear a knock.

"It's me, Chris." Chris says, still sounding like he's been awake for a year.

"Come in!" I say, packing away my hair pins and the straightners.

"Woah... I meant to say Matt went out for a bit, something to do with Madi." Chris scratches his head still admiring me.

"I'm dating your brother Chris, no need to stare." I say, rolling my eyes. He gives an awkward laugh, as he walks closer to me.

"Matt said he'll be 2 ish hours... " he looked at me sad. I look at him a frown.

"Oh, so im guessing we aren't going out then... " I sit down, looking at myself in the vanity mirror, packing away some makeup.

"Well maybe you and me can go out... As friends?" He asks, trying to reassure me that my hard work didn't go in for nothing.

"Sure, I'd like that." I say, turning back to look at him and giving him a smile.

*1 hour later*

Messages:

Matt: hey y/n I'm so sorry, madi needs me to stay the night, she needs help with this stupid science assignment. we can definitely do something tomorrow.

Y/n: oh okay, me and chris are going out anyways to make this day a bit more exciting, have fun with stupid science!

Matt: i mean we'll try, and have fun with chris!

Y/n: i will :)

Another knock again. I put my phone down and open the door. There stands Chris. He's actually done something with his hair for once. It looks nice...

"Ready to go out?" Chris asks, still admiring me.

"Yeah, and remember, I have a boyfriend who's your brother, and it isn't the gay one!" I say, laughing again. He does his little head scratch and gives a nervous laugh. I grab my bag and we go.

I have no clue where he's taking me, or for how long.

"We're here!" Chris looks impressed with himself. He's brought me to a secret part of the beach, you could see the sunset perfectly.

"Wow..." I say, admiring the sunset like Chris once admired me. Our hands brush past each other. His pinky, interlocked with mine, causing us to end up holding hands. He then spins me round and I turn to face him, holding his other hand. We look deeply into eachothers eyes. I completely forget about Matt.

*ting*

It's my phone. I let go of Chris and go to my phone.

Messages:

Matt: hey gorgeous, coming home now since we've finished it already, meet at the beach? x

Y/n: yay! yeah, I'll wait there. x

"That was Matt. He's coming back home now, he wants to meet me at the beach as well... Just me." I look down, trying not to maintain any eye contact from what just have happened.

"Okay, thanks for a nice time..." I can tell Chris is hurt by the tone of his voice. I have to tell Matt what happened.

*30 minutes later*

"Y/n!" Matt come running up behind me, hugging me from behind and spinning me in the air. I gave a huge smile, but my eyes caught something. Chris, he was looking at us through the window with a worried face.

"How was your little friend date with chris?" Matt asks, looking at me all cute.

"It was... Good!" Dammit. I need to tell him somehow.

A few minutes go by and were sat on the beach.

"Matt... I need to talk to you about something." I say, anxiety filling my body, causing my hands to shake with fear.

"Yeah?" He looks at me like he knows something is wrong.

"When me and Chris had our little walk on the beach together... We, well. We almost kissed." I say, looking away.

"Oh?" Oh? Is that it? There's no defensiveness in oh. I nod at him, my eyes filling with tears.

"Hey it's okay y/n, mistakes happen. It's not like you meant it. And you know how my brother is, he can get jealous sometimes. And I don't have to talk to him if you don't want me to." Matt pulls me in and hugs me tight, tears flowing from my face. I let a very stuttered 'are you sure' and he nods silently.

"I love you." Matt hasn't said that yet. Like ever before. I stop crying and get out of hugging. We look at each other, deeply in each other's eyes.

"I love you too..." I say, smiling at him, still shaking from what's just happened. He leans in and wipes my tears away, then he gently pushed my hair behind my ear. We share a kiss under the moonlight. But still in the corner of my eye, I see Chris in his window still watching...

Thank you for reading! Let me know if you want a part 2 to the story, and please dm me if you have any ideas for another upcoming story!! 💗

#sturniolo #matt sturniolo #chris sturniolo #sturniolo triplets #nick sturniolo #romance #love #lovers #beach #sunset #texts #1st person #kissing #anxietyyyyyy #fluff #female #female reader

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librathefangirl · 10 months

Note

i need to know about all of these fics NOW (no pressure take your time ofc ofc)

Wrath of a Captain

Moment of Rest (a Decade Too Late)

Hitmen!Demon bros AU

Galand exposes Meliodas' demon secret

How to Demon (Yes, Captain, This is Really Necessary)

Meliodas and the Kids AU #1

also never realized how silly i name my documents till now 😭😭😭‼️‼️‼️

Ahh hearing you excited about all these is making me excited to write them again (hoping to get back to writing more soon - october was a mess and a half :( but I have 2 whumptober fics that I almost finished that should maybe might be posted soon?)

Okay so...

Wrath of a Captain

Fun fact about this one is that it was one of (possibly the) first nnt fic ideas I wrote down when I first got into the fandom. Tho in what - 1-1,5 years? - I've still barely started writing it (oops). But not for lack of interest! I'm still excited about this one, I just haven't been able to specify the scenario enough to start writing (I keep getting distracted by other fic ideas lol).

To summarize the idea in three words: Protective Captain Meliodas.

And here's a rough summary I wrote for myself:

The Seven Deadly sins were a well-known force only fools would take lightly. Though faced with a captain that was small and short, and seemed the complete opposite of wrath itself, it was easy to underestimate him. But just because the captain didn't get angry, didn't mean he never got close. Especially if one were foolish enough to dare attack his team.

A Moment of Rest (a Decade Too Late)

This is a fic I started this summer and then kinda forgot about (oh the art of finishing a fic before moving on to the next one). It takes place after the Capital of the Dead arc and deals with the aftermath of Sins being split-up for 10 years from King's perspective. Now, I can't remember, if it originally was supposed to be "Meliodas was alone for 10 years" angst or "Meliodas was alone for 10 years and demons don't do well in isolation" angst, but it's probably gonna end up being the second one now. Which means the rest of the Sins, while not knowing Meliodas' full story, knows he is a demon and how these past 10 years would have affected him because of it.

Here's a little sneak peek:

The princess had already retired into the Boar Hat, while Ban had simply settled for grabbing Meliodas and sprawling out on the ground. He wasn’t sleeping. His ease was a facade at best. King knew that he too was plagued by these past ten years, and the guilt they brought. It had never been supposed to go this far… Meliodas seemed dazed. A state hopefully only brought forth by the lull of sleep slowly claiming him. He wasn’t quite asleep yet though. To an outsider he might have seemed to be, but King knew him better. His guard was still firmly up, although slowly but surely being picked apart by Ban’s hand repeatedly running through his hair. Meliodas was curled up tighter than he normally would, yet at the same time more relaxed than King had seen him since before they were framed. His head was neatly tucked on top of Ban’s chest. Ear over his heart, no doubt. He’d always had a particular fondness of that, their captain. Easily soothed by the beat of a heart – by the beat of their hearts at least.

Hitmen!Demon bros AU

Oooh this one. thiiiis one! I'm still mostly in the planning stage for this one, but I can't wait until I get to share the full thing with you all. Like the name suggests, it's a modern (possibly slight futuristic) AU where the DK raised his sons as hitmen. It's gonna be a multichapter fic (probably my longest wip yet) and there will be lots of demon bros angst!

Fun fact, while the I had thought about this AU a bit, I wasn't necessarily planning on writing it at first. Then my mind provided me with this super angsty demon bros scene and an awful chapter cliffhanger, and well, now I'm invested. I need to know how this story ends. (If this sounds familiar, I did mention this once before).

Anyway, I have written the first 300-something words, setting up the angst before a jump back in time, so here's a sneak peek:

Perhaps one of the most defining moments in Meliodas’ life happened on January 29th the year he was turning 26. The day Meliodas found himself on a rooftop staring down his own little brother, a raised gun in both their hands aimed at each other. The only sound was the falling rain as the world itself seemed to hold its breath waiting for who would make the first move. At that moment, Meliodas had thought he had known exactly how the day would end. He had known it in the calculating part of his mind that he never could quite shut off, and had felt it in his heart that seemed to break every time he saw his little brother. He had thought he knew what would happen. He had been wrong. Everybody has a choice, but sometimes it doesn’t matter what you chose.

Galand exposes Meliodas' demon secret

Now this one I've shared a bit about before - partly to complain about my (still going strong) habit of stopping my writing in the middle of a sentence. Sadly, I haven't really made any progress since then. Mostly because I can't remember where tf the story was supposed to go (did I even have a plan?? I found the story aka the snippet of writing in a school notebook I hadn't used for months, so who knows).

Anyway! What I do know is that Galand fucks everything up on purpose, and is the one to reveal Meliodas' demon secret to the rest of the Sins. How the story continues from there, well, I'll figure that out eventually. For now, the last part of the fic looks like this:

It had all started with a confrontation with one of the Ten Commandments. Galand of Truth. He hadn’t even seemed to be looking for a fight – not in that moment anyway – King had noticed. He’d just been there to stir up trouble. Always playing games as usual¸ Meliodas had said. Well, games or not, Galand really had caused trouble. The demon had been quick to pick up on the rest of the Seven Deadly Sins’ surprise that Meliodas seemed to know him personally, and then deduced...DEDUCED WHAT??

How to Demon (Yes, Captain, This is Really Necessary)

This is actually a request/fic idea I got from a reader on ao3. It's also mostly still in the planning stage, having taken a backseat to my Febuwhump fic. But the idea is basically Melin giving a lesson on demons to the Sins with the (reluctant) aid of Meliodas. Or in other words, Merlin is sick of being (almost) the only one who knows how to keep Mel alive and will make it everybody's probably whether they want to or not. It'll also take place in the same AU as The Heat of the Storm (which means more of my demon thermoregulation, yay! - oh, actually, sidenote: I'm working on a post about that hc).

So, we'll have random demon lore/headcanons/stuff, some humor, and, of course, angst (probably more angst than should come from this otherwise humorous idea).

Meliodas and the Kids AU #1

The first of (at least) three fics taking place in the Meliodas and the Kids AU (aka Meliodas Adopts the Sins). In this AU, instead of the Sins becoming knights together way down the line, Meliodas ends up adopting/taking them in as kids* over the years.

Now, I use the term kids loosely here since neither King nor Gowther will actually be kids in the normal sense. But Gowther will be on his own for the first time and also still new to the world, and King, well, I still got some ideas for his relationship with Mel (and also, he is still significantly younger than Mel, so I say he still counts as his kid).

This first fic will consist of six chapters (one for each "kid"), exploring how Meliodas ended up taking them all in, and the dynamics of this mismatched little family (mostly the kids relationships' with Mel).

(Also Elizabeth is probably gonna be dead-dead in this AU).

Here's a sneak peek from the first (Merlin's) chapter:

When you find yourself stuck in time, it’s good to set up some rules for yourself, unless you want to lose yourself to madness. Meliodas didn’t have the luxury for madness. Madness was not going to solve anything. He would still be stuck here, unaging and undying, without an end in sight. Submitting to madness would also be admitting that the only purpose his life had left was suffering. An eternity alone in the human realm as a punishment for his crimes against the Demon King. His father was a huge asshole, okay? Meliodas was not about to give him the satisfaction of watching him break. So, he made some rules. The most important one was: do not get attached. [some other stuff not included in this sneak peek] Do not get attached. It was simple and important – and Meliodas had broken the rule before he had even made it.

(also I love your wip titles XD and will definitely send an ask for some ramblings of your own - but that will have to wait, I've got an 8am lecture in less than 7 hours and need to get some sleep, so Imma put a to be continued on the wip talk for now)

WIP Tag/Ask Game!

#thanks for the ask!#libra answers #gh0stofyesterday #wip tag game #wip ask game #libra talks about her writing #my wips #wrath of a captain #a moment of rest (a decade too late)#hitmen demon bros au #galand exposes meliodas' demon secret fic #how to demon fic #meliodas and the kids au #nanatsu no taizai #seven deadly sins

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oblivions-dawn · 1 year

Note

As a fellow fan of Serana, I’d love to hear a bit more about your headcanons about her opinion of Skyrim’s guilds and factions 🙂

OOOOOO!! You've come to the right place uwu

The most obvious one to start with is the College of Winterhold. I imagine that Serana went there in her youth/before her transformation with her mother, hence her shock in Petrichor when she sees it again for the first time since the town of Winterhold was once a city, and got reduced to shambles. She likes the college well enough--it has books upon books and reminds her of her time as a human, even if those memories are. Very fuzzy.

Serana still has no idea the Bards College exists at this point, as it was founded after the establishment of the First Empire [and it's implied she doesn't know what that is when she first wakes, therefore, she wouldn't know about this college--only about the Solitude she knew in her youth]. When she does hear about it, she would probably try to go see it, as curiosity always gets the better of her. I think she would like it, too.

Assassins have been around for a very long time, and even if Serana wasn't aware of them back then, she certainly is now. Although she's technically only met one member of the Dark Brotherhood in Petrichor thus far, I think she would find them amusing . . . or really, really strange. And, of course, she always found them intriguing in the stories she read before she was locked up.

Serana will actually get to visit the Thieves Guild in the sequel I'm working on, which I'm very excited to write about. I think she'll be curious, and also amused and wary of some of the members she meets. She won't be sure what to make of them living underground in the sewers, but Serana herself is familiar with that kind of territory anyway, so she'd respect it on some level.

Serana will also get to meet the Companions in the sequel, and will be able to tell who's a werewolf from a mile away just from smell alone. I could go into detail about everyone she would/wouldn't get along with, but I think overall she'd find them okay. They seem like a noble bunch, all things considered.

I don't think Serana cares for either the Imperials or Stormcloaks in the civil war, as she has nothing to do with either party. She also picks up this opinion largely because the companion she travels with, Vigdis, doesn't care about them either, and sees them both as enemies in a 'you're just exploiting Skyrim's resource for your own gains and killing each other for greed' kind of perspective.

OH AND OF COURSE! There's the Dawnguard! She has lots of opinions when it comes to them. In the end I think she warmed up to them? Kind of?? At least, she doesn't blame them for taking up the cause that they've chosen. Everyone still hates Isran, but Florentius and Agmaer are nice enough. Vigdis is. A different story that I won't get into here hehe.

Then, y'know, her own vampire clan, which at this point she feels so removed from it doesn't feel like it's her clan or home anymore, save for her mother Valerica. It's tainted beyond recognition, and that hurts her more than anything else.

#Senu Responds #plaidsquid41030 #Serana #Serana Volkihar #I hope I did this right?? I tried to not go on super long tangents but also answer your question dlfjgls #All in all Serana is a curious vampire about everything and I love her for it c:

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 1 year

Text

Here's a compilation I made of six different comedians (two per podcast) on three different podcasts saying something about different types of comedy, specially how it's different in Britain and American. Tumblr won't let me embed it even though I compressed it down to be under the max file size, so I'm using a Google Drive. It's just audio, but I made it a video instead of an audio file so I could add text to show what people and podcasts are playing at a given time.

I put those together and then I wrote down a bunch of thoughts about it, which I think start out somewhat coherent but get less so as I go along. It's a whole bunch of stuff I've been thinking about all shoehorned into one post just because they're all on a vaguely similar topic, like a hastily thrown-together Edinburgh show. The point is that I'm going to listen to Mike Birbiglia's albums. That's... that's the upshot. That's how all this started.

I found the chat with Hari Kondabolu especially fascinating, having heard a few of Hari’s comedy specials and albums, and heard him on The Bugle a lot over a bunch of years (also I saw his Problem with Apu documentary, everyone should watch that, and should know that he says all the time on The Bugle he doesn’t get royalties for it anymore so doesn’t mind how people find it, just watch it).

He’s an interesting presence on The Bugle, an outsider as an American, who was there from the very beginning of their reboot in 2016, so you can kind of watch him figure out what this is in real time. At first he audibly has no fucking idea what he’s signed up for, and as it goes along, you can hear him settle into an area of “Well I still don’t really understand why you’re doing this, but I see what it is now and have found a way to do my thing beside your thing and that’s fine.” That’s partly a reaction to Andy Zaltzman, because no one really knows what to do with Andy Zaltzman unless they’ve had a long time to get used to it (except for John Oliver, I’m pretty sure they just met at a student comedy gig in about 1999 and instantly said “Oh look, my comedy soulmate”). But some of it is also a reaction to the British stuff. The references to British politics and history that you get on a topical and political comedy show, and the way they approach all their material. I like hearing Hari Kondabolu on there, an outsider perspective who can pick it apart a bit.

So I found his Comedian’s Comedian podcast interview interesting – honestly the whole thing is worth a listen, even if you don’t really know Hari Kondabolu’s work, as a good analysis of political comedy and the mechanics of good comedy bits and British vs. American comedy and the comedy industry more generally. But for this post, my interest is the British vs. American stuff.

I cut out a big chunk of their Brit vs. American discussion on that episode, and put it in the video above. I debated how long to make the clip, to create what was meant to be a compilation of people discussing British vs. American comedy, and ended up leaving in some stuff that’s a bit off topic where they fawn over Daniel Kitson. I realize comedians fawning over Daniel Kitson is hardly such a rare and exciting event that it needs to be preserved, but I particularly enjoyed hearing Stuart Goldsmith and Hari Kondabolu do it, so I left it in when cutting out the clip. I’ve heard Hari bring up on a couple of other occasions, as well, that he’s wildly impressed and amazed by the Hotmail address.

Anyway though, the Kitson stuff aside, the clip from the Comedian’s Comedian podcast is mostly Hari Kondabolu and Stuart Goldsmith discussing how the Edinburgh Fringe Festival shapes British comedians’ careers into something different from what they are in America. They have to write a new hour every year, because there will be reviewers there who saw last year’s hour and will catch them out if they try to recycle material. Also because it’s a smaller country, so they can only tour one show in so many places before everyone’s heard it and they have to do a new thing. Hari Kondabolu is impressed with the work ethic but mildly horrified by the whole thing, and can point out some aspects of the system that people who are used to it just wouldn’t notice because they seem normal.

I think there are two major factors that mark out the Edinburgh-influenced British model of comedy careering building as being different from, say, American stuff: the new hour every year and the way each hour has to be themed and coherent and structured and preferably built around some story or message. In Hari Kondabolu’s podcast episode he mainly talked about the new hour every year thing, but also briefly touched on the concept of themes. Stuart Goldsmith mentioned that tides seemed to be changing, as it used to be that themes would make you different and interesting, but not anymore, so they’ll become less common soon. I’ve just spent three weeks listening to 38 shows performed at Edinburgh 2023, and I can say, I’m pretty sure that prediction was inaccurate. Themes and throughlines abound, and I’m happy about that. I like a good theme.

I do think there are pros and cons to it, though, and Hari Kondabolu points out some significant cons. If you look at the list of shows by any British comedy who's been doing Edinburgh for a long time, there are going to be some filler years. Some years when they did a show just because it's a new year and Edinburgh is up there so they'd better write a show, even if they don't have much to say. Hari is right to say that British comedians work fucking hard to turn over a new hour every year, but that doesn't mean the quality will always be top-notch.

Also, themes can be limiting. I'm sure there are some themed shows out there that would be better if they were just freestyle, if the comedian let themselves say all their best stuff, rather than cutting good material due to not being on theme. Or adding weaker material because it is on theme.

So that’s an American going on a British person’s podcast to tell them how fucked up the British comedy system is. I’ve made this compilation to compare it to a British person going on an American’s podcast, in which the American thinks the British system is great and in fact what he wants to do as well. Nish Kumar on Mike Birbiglia’s podcast, from just a couple of years ago. It’s an interesting contrast. A couple of people have told me before that Mike Birbiglia is like a British comedian but in the form of an American person. Including @my-excellent-bicycle, who told me ages ago that he's very good, and I said I'd watch him, and then I didn't, so sorry about that. Absolutely no offence to any of the people who'd already told me about him, but I have to admit, when the "Mike Birbiglia is so cool, he's like an American who does British comedy" endorsement comes from Nish Kumar, that does mean a little extra. Enough so I have now downloaded Mike Birbiglia's stuff, will listen to it next.

I can't really speak to the accuracy of what Nish Kumar said in that clip, since I haven't yet actually heard Mike Birbiglia’s shows. But I see what Nish means. He means shows that are built around one topic and/or narrative and/or theme and/or message, and stay on that, or at least around it and vaguely adjacent to it, for an hour.

Later in the 2021 podcast episode from which I took that Kumar/Birbiglia clip, Nish mentioned that actually, even though this is a generally British thing to do, he personally doesn’t tend to do it much, and he’d like to do it more. That was true, as of then. I’ve heard Nish’s 2014 (might have been originally his 2013 show, actually, whichever one got recorded for the Soho Live thing on Amazon Prime), 2016, and 2019 shows, and none of them were all that structured. They were coherent, particularly the latter two, which stayed on the topic of politics. Even that earlier one had some throughlines and underlying bits that kept coming back. But he didn’t do a really carefully constructed narrative show until 2022, the one that just had a video come out, Your Power Your Control.

So I found it interesting to hear Nish Kumar in 2021, just before he wrote Your Power Your Control, say he’d like to do more narrative-type stuff. And then the next year, he did it. Good for him. Nish Kumar just did a new episode of the Comedian’s Comedian podcast as well – it was recorded very recently, to go with the release of his latest special – and in that one, he mentioned that he was pleased with the way he managed to Birbiglia-fy this show in a way he hadn’t done with previous ones, making it a structured narrative the way Mike Birbiglia does. But actually, the way most British comedians do, and apparently this one American guy that it’s time for me to check out.

Then I added a clip of David O’Doherty from a very recent podcast, in which he talks about getting backlash from Americans for not being what they expect, which is just a bunch of unconnected jokes. I added that clip to the conversation because he brings up Hannah Gadsby and Nannette, and I think that’s an interesting point.

Hannah Gadsby got a huge amount of backlash for Nannette, and most of it was misogynistic. Not all of it, I guess. I guess it’s technically possible for someone to just really not like Hannah Gadsby’s style of humour, and they hated Nannette for perfectly legitimate reasons. Just like probably, some of those people on those cesspits of toxicity that were those Josie Long-related comedy message board threads in 2007, just legitimately did not share her sense of humour. Maybe one or two of them. But mainly, it’s the misogyny.

However, DO’D makes an interesting point about Hannah Gadsby’s show. Most “Edinburgh hour”-style shows do not get as massively world famous as Nannette did. So they got hit with misogynistic backlash, but it was fueled by the fact that it was being seen by a lot of Americans who are not used to that type of comedy, and just don’t understand. They thought Hannah was taking the respectable genre of doing 50 punchlines in 20 minutes, and making a mockery of it. Just because it was the first time they’d seen a comedy show with some sad bits. They thought Hannah Gadsby was doing comedy wrong.

So many people – mostly American people – who saw Nannette didn’t realize that ending a show with 10-15 minutes of sad bits is so commonplace in certain comedy circles that it’s also common to make fun of it. You hear comedians all the time, make jokes about the standard hour that’s funny for a while and then has a sad bit. There’s even a term for it: dead dad show. A dead dad show isn’t just a show about a dead dad. It’s any show that’s funny for a while but also poignant and touching and sentimental and has sad bits at the end and wants to make you cry as well as laugh. People joke about it because it’s been done a lot, it’s been done in some hack ways and some bad ways, it’s also been done in some brilliant ways, it runs the gauntlet like anything else.

It’s fine for people to say they’re not into that kind of thing. But Nannette got so big that people who’d never heard of that genre started seeing it, and they had no idea what they were seeing. So that’s how they ended up saying Hannah is not a comedian, this isn’t comedy, Hannah tricked a comedy-expecting audience into seeing a one-woman show! How dare you bring trauma into a comedy show? As though comedians talking about trauma aren’t a dime a dozen in Britain and Australia.

And I think that has pros and cons too. I like a show that works some serious stuff in, that has some deep personal or political message. But also, sometimes, people have a point when they say a comedy show has focused so much on the personal or political messages/trauma dumping that it forgot to also be funny (not with Nanette, though, people forget that Nanette had lots of good jokes in the first 45 minutes, it was a funny show, people just watch clips that have been cut from the last little bit and are then say this so-called comedy show isn't funny). And I guess it's up to each individual comedy audience member how much humour they'll allow a show to sacrifice for other stuff before they get sick of it. How much sad stuff or angry stuff or introspective stuff or educational stuff or heartwarming stuff or philosophical stuff or narrative stuff a show can have at the expense of funny stuff, before they'll say, "Okay, I need more comedy than this in my comedy shows." But I think it's a pretty shallow view of what comedy can be if you're not okay with a show that has any of that other stuff.

I am conflating Britain/Ireland and Australia/NZ quite a bit in this post, and that’s because I think when it comes to this sort of thing, they’re very similar. I’m also conflating Canada and the US, because I think they’re similar, in that neither of have this tradition that I’m pretty sure developed at Edinburgh and MICF. And I’m not talking about any other countries because as far as my comedy knowledge goes, those may as well be the only ones that exist (sorry Anuvab Pal and Aditi Mittal, I do know a couple from India too, but as far as I can tell, the special type of comedy they do in India is “say some stuff and hope you don’t get arrested for it”).

There is an obvious reason for that: Australia has a festival that’s similar to Edinburgh. British and Irish (and Irish, sorry for having forgotten to add “and Irish” in the earlier bits of this post, I just saw Dara O’Briain’s newest special – called So Where Were We, just released by the BBC, by the way, I recommend it – and it’s chock full of trauma, proving the Irish can do dead dad/never met my dad shows with the best of them) comedians develop their careers around Edinburgh, and Australian/NZ comedians develop their careers around the Melbourne Comedy Festival. North America doesn’t have anything like that.

Obviously North America has yearly festivals too, but not ones that are so big that every single comedian in the area wraps their whole career around it. I think the only one big enough to do that around here would be Just For Laughs, but Just For Laughs isn’t nearly the same thing, since people have to audition for it. You can’t just set up a show and show up. People can’t start writing a show in September with the assumption that they’ll take it to JFL next summer, because unless they’re already very famous, they can’t be sure they’ll be accepted into JFL’s lineup.

I found the David O’Doherty clip interesting, as he lists storytelling shows as just one of the many things that are, in fact, comedy, but get called “this isn’t comedy” by mostly Americans on the internet. But also, it’s not like all Americans just do 50 punchlines in 20 minutes and that’s it. They do lots of stuff! They have alternative comedy there, and at this point I’m getting out of my depth, because I have a sort of idea in my head of what American alternative comedy means – the vague idea involves things like Eugene Mirman and Fred Armisen and Kristen Schaal and improv shows in New York – but I don’t really know what I’m talking about. This post would be better if I knew what I was talking about more.

I guess the basic rule I’m working with is: British/Irish/Aussie/NZ do a new hour every year and it has themes and throughlines and narratives and coherent structure and they workshop it all year and then take it to Edinburgh and then scrap all that material and do a new one. And American comedians just write one joke(/bit/funny story, not just the classic type of one-liner “joke”) at a time, and at any given time are performing the combination of their best crop of jokes, and whenever they write a new joke it replaces the worst one in their set, so they evolve that way. I’m trying to understand why that difference exists, and part of the problem with my efforts to understand that is I don’t really know what I’m talking about, and the other part of the problem is that stating the difference that way is a massive oversimplification. It’s difficult to understand why a phenomenon exists if that phenomenon doesn’t really exist in nearly as simple a way as I’ve stated it here.

I know there are exceptions to that rule I just stated, even though I’ve not listened to any Mike Birbiglia yet. For a really famous example, I watched John Mulaney’s new show Baby J earlier this year (fuck him for the Dave Chapelle thing, the divorce and addiction are his own business and people who don’t know him shouldn’t have tried to get involved in his personal life, but fuck him for the Dave Chapelle thing, I didn’t watch his new show in any way that could translate to view count/profit for him – but I did love all his previous shows and was curious about what’s in the new one so I watched it), and that was pretty much all around one story. Even Hari Kondabolu’s new-ish special has a little bit of a theme, about being political while having a kid. And there are plenty of others, so it’s not like this stuff doesn’t happen in America. And there are plenty of British comedians who just do one joke at a time.

I don’t know – I’m not completely making this dichotomy up, right? That’s why I made that compilation in the video at the top of this post. Other people talking about that thing I’m talking about and proving that it is somewhat based in reality. It would help if I knew more about American comedy. You can’t really compare British and American comedy unless you know quite a bit about both, and I don’t know nearly enough about American to really understand this.

That’s why I asked my brother about it the other night, because he’s been doing comedy in Canada for a long time and most of the comedy he watches/likes is American. I asked him if he knows what I mean when I talk about this dichotomy, and why it may or may not exist. And he didn’t really know what I’m talking about, which means 1) the difference is so significant that someone who mainly follows North American comedy doesn’t even know about the dead dad Edinburgh show so can’t compare anything to it, and/or 2) I didn’t explain it very well. Because we had a whole conversation where at some point I realized we were talking past each other. He was using the word “alt” a lot, and it meant one thing to him and a different thing to me, so neither of us really knew what the other was talking about.

That in itself is interesting to me, because it shows that comedy is too big to really make these generalizations. You can’t talk about “alt comedy” as a coherent thing, because it means wildly different things in wildly different places. You can’t talk about “British comedy” or “American comedy” because Britain and America both have a lot of people in them who all do wildly different things.

At some point in my conversation with my brother, I said that when I say storytelling comedy I mean “like the thing Mike Birbiglia does”, and he has seen some Mike Birbiglia but says he doesn’t think what he does is particularly different from what most American comedians do, and I couldn’t refute that because I haven’t actually heard Mike Birbiglia yet. All I could say on that was… well one time I heard Nish Kumar say Birbiglia is like a British comedian, so that’s probably true, right?

So I really don’t know what I’m talking about well enough to understand this, or even explain it. Then again, my brother told me that he thinks British comedians write regular jokes in a way that American comedians don’t, and I said no, I think of the opposite as being true, and when I asked him for examples of why he thinks British comedians are like that, he said Jimmy Carr and Ricky Gervais. So he may not know enough about British comedy to know what he’s talking about. Is it possible that no one knows what they’re talking about? That’s kind of interesting to me too, I assume anyone who actually does comedy must know everything about it. I mean, I try really hard to know about comedy, but I don’t know nearly enough about it to properly do it. So the people who do do it know way more than I do and understand everything. But my brother’s been doing it 13 years, had traveled to perform in the States and nearby cities somewhat often, never made enough money from it to quit his day job but has made quite a lot of money from it over the years, and he may also not know what he’s talking about.

At some point we got talking about recorded comedy, and he said when he listens to audio-only comedy, and then watches a video of those people, he’s often surprised because he was picturing someone young and hot but it turns out to be a balding man in his fifties. I said that often, I can hear hours and hours of audio-only comedy by someone, and have an image of them in my head, and then see a picture of them, and I’m always surprised by how different the picture looks. Because I’m always picturing a person in their forties or fifties, maybe a bit overweight, slightly balding if it’s a cis man, and then I’m often surprised to learn they’re actually around my age or younger (many exceptions there too, Kitson is currently mid-40s and balding but I tend to picture him the way he looked in 2003, though I’m sort of updating my mental image of him now). Which I’m pretty sure says something about the difference between the comedy I watch and the comedy my brother watches, that we have such different images in our head of the “default comedian”, what we picture when we don’t know how someone really looks.

This may or may not be related to the fact that my brother recently started putting clips of his own comedy on Tik-Tok, and has things to say about how the engagement is going that make me despair at the soullessness of humanity. So what does he know? At some point I worked out that when he talks about writing jokes in a classic way, he doesn’t just mean one-liners, he means anyone who actually writes their material instead of just doing crowd work and “comedian destroys heckler” videos for social media. Apparently doing anything besides that is old school now, and he thinks British comedians do more old school stuff than American comedians, and again, I despair at the soullessness of humanity. But to be fair to America, I’m sure there are plenty of soulless British comedians on Tik-Tok too.

That’s part of it though, isn’t it? That my brother thinks of Tik-Tok-type comedy as American and British comedy as stuff that doesn’t do that. You can’t cut out a clip of a good dead dad show and put those 90 seconds on social media. I mean, you could, and I guess some people do, but that’ll ruin it. The British Edinburgh hours need their context, the good ones aren’t nearly as good without it. But maybe American comedy can be clipped more easily, since it’s not written to all flow together. But also, British comedians cut bits of their show out all the time to shoehorn into their twenty seconds of screentime on a panel show. Stewart Lee had a whole thing about that like 15 years ago, how no comedian can be that funny if their set can be cut up for a panel show. But, you know, we can’t all be Stewart Lee (though it’s my understanding that many people have tried). I’m pretty sure this is the sort of thing Stewart Lee knows about, and has strong opinions about. That was my mistake, asking the wrong comedian. I asked my brother, I should have been asking Stewart Lee.

So I still don't have an answer to who invented the dead dad show. I mean, I think I might know that one, Russell Kane may have invented the shows about dead dads specifically. But I don't know how the storytelling comedy with sad bits and themes started, or why it took off in Britain/Australia and not in North America, or if it's even true to say that happened. I feel like Kitson invented it, because it feels a bit like Kitson invented everything, but I know he didn't. I feel like Stewart Lee knows who invented it - I don't feel like he invented it, because he's constantly talking about the alt-comedy godfathers (gendered term there, but they were mostly fathers and not mothers at that time, that is an issue) from the 70s and 80s on whose shoulders he stands. And I don't really know anything about those people, so that doesn't help.

There's a guy named Oliver Double and I think he knows. I just got paid again, my bank account is looking a bit more stable than it did a little while ago, I think I'm going to buy his books. I'm also going to listen to Mike Birbiglia, I'll let you all know if he knows anything. Maybe most people don't know anything. Maybe everything has a smaller cause than I assume and we'd all be living in a radically different comedy world if Russell Kane's dad were still alive. Maybe it's fine to think the British comedy style is to write classic jokes because Jimmy Carr tours arenas and therefore gets to be their representative. Maybe the storytelling/pure joke telling comedy dichotomy doesn't even matter anymore, it's all about the dichotomy between improvised stuff on Tik-Tok and anyone who actually writes material now. Maybe improv just means crowd work now? But I hope not.

...This was going to be a post about how Hari Kondabolu thinks British comedians should scrap the concept of "recycling material" being bad, and just tell their best jokes even if they don't all fit a theme. Then I had a conversation with my brother the confused me and now I don't know. Does anyone else know anything that they want to share?

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