#believe it or not this is the shorter version of what i originally wrote

[synonymroll648]

opinion: ro’s character might be a lot more useful narrative-wise if her being a microbiologist wasn’t just acknowledged, but explored. 

in the books, we see her show the characters (and consequently, the reader) that she knows what she’s doing, and that ogres pride themselves on having a lot of knowledge when it comes to microbiology. particularly using that knowledge to make effective weapons, both almost harmless and lethal. 

but there’s so much more potential w/ ogre microbiology than just them having good weapons because of it. ogres (authorities, at least, like ro) being interested enough in expanding their microbiology knowledge that they’d be willing to collaborate more with other species? like how they cooperated with lady cadence on figuring out how soporidine works? it could open so many doors! 

we could have ro branching out to make ‘trial run’ alliances with other species (like elves, goblins, and most importantly, gnomes) to do joint studies of how certain things work on a microscopic and ‘normal’ scale. we could see that her being a princess doesn’t just mean she’s a good fighter and that she’s got connections, but she can also be a diplomat. it’d make her being in the lost cities a lot more important, plus, it’d be a great chance for shannon to flex some worldbuilding. ro could also flesh out connections she’s made in the lost cities (like with sophie’s bodyguards [i’m thinking of flori and sandor in particular] and elvin authorities she’s had to deal w/ like mr. forkle and the council) through sharing or gaining knowledge as a microbiologist. 

using ro as a character-driven plot device, ogres could add ‘willing to cooperate even with creatures we have negative history with for science’ to their reputation among other enlightened species. it’d make ogres more nuanced, and maybe, if shannon decided to go this route, cause problems for elves who claim their interspecies role is being peacekeepers. 

[aroacehanzawa]

mary h.how many bsd novels are there i thought it was just the agency aku one and the dazai one but theres more apparently?? how many different bsd spin offs are there i am so confused

OHHHH BOYS. BESTIE YOU ARE NOT READY. THERE ARE SO MANY. and i know this because i own every single novel that has an english release (i'm linking all the ones that do):

Osamu Dazai's Entrance Exam - this is the one with the Azure Messenger, infamously adapted into the present day in the middle of season 1 when it's actually set 2 years in the past as Dazai's entrance exam into the ADA.

The Untold Origins of the Detective Agency - what the title says, currently being adapted in the beginning of season 4. The novel also includes a short story set the day before Atsushi's entrance exam about the ADA planning what his exam should be.

Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era - this is one of the Dazai ones, about his time in the mafia with Ango and Oda, adapted in the beginning of season 2.

Dazai, Chuuya, Age Fifteen - another Dazai one, the one (poorly) adapted at the beginning of season 3, about how Chuuya joined the mafia. Has a currently ongoing manga adaptation.

Storm Bringer - sequel to Fifteen, longest of all the novels by far, set when Dazai and Chuuya are 16 and we find out more about Chuuya's origin story. And so much more, it really is a thicc novel.

55 Minutes - the second longest novel after Storm Bringer yet the least talked about (despite how much it elaborates on skill singularities and the nature of abilities). It's a self-contained story of the ADA going to solve a case on an artificial island off the coast of Yokohama, featuring two new ability users H. G. Wells and Jules Verne (hence a relatively sci-fi heavy novel and i wrote a 2k+ word essay analysing all the science behind it lmao)

Dead Apple - novelisation of the movie with some extra scenes and more elaboration on some details in the movie. Also has an ongoing manga adaptation with official english release.

BEAST - this is the Akutagawa in the ADA and Atsushi in the PM one, with a completed manga adaptation (also released in english) as well as a live-action movie that came out last year.

Gaiden (Another Story): Ayatsuji Yukito vs. Kyogoku Natsuhiko - the novel has no english release yet, but it's a spin-off about different ability users and i think Ango is the only recurring character from the main series there. There is an ongoing manga adaptation which does have an official english release.

The Day I Picked Up Dazai - i don't think this one is formally released yet as it was a bonus novel given out at the screening of the BEAST movie. It's divided into Side A and Side B and i haven't read this one yet but i believe it's about how Dazai and Oda first met, where each side follows the other's perspective. There's a completed fan-translation of both sides by @popopretty.

Kunikida and Katai's Magnificent Days - this is a really sweet short story about Kunikida and Katai's friendship and i have no idea where the official version is from but there is a fan-translation of it you can read here.

In addition to BEAST and Gaiden there is also Wan! which is the super cute casual chibi spin-off manga with no stakes and no angst and only vibes, it is still ongoing and has an official english release. Some of the chapters were adapted into the Wan! anime series with 12 episodes (they are shorter episodes of 10 min each) and it is literally free therapy and will give you a year's worth of serotonin!!

There is also the bsd anthology series, which are side stories written and illustrated by different mangakas, there is no official english release that i know of but you can find fan-translations of some of the side stories here and there online.

We also have bsd mayoi or Tales of the Lost, the mobile gacha game which also includes a high school AU storyline (bsd gakuen)!

Other than these, there are also several stage plays, although it's harder to find content on these in english since they are only performed in Japan.

Bsd fans are truly the most well-fed fans of all time sometimes i forget how much content we have and still we keep getting more, it's unreal

[tenpintsof-sundrop]

Nisha, did you know I would step on some legos barefooted for you? Anyways can’t wait to read for another fandom I have never stepped foot in and would probably never engage with the canon in just because you decided that’s what to make, and I’ve decided to read it anyways. Home cooked meal. -Rotten Anon

The opening line of this message made literal cartoon anime hearts appear above my head, just so you know <3

Also you have inspired me to post a rundown of my WIPs because I am really excited about what I have been working on. And for two of these fandoms, I know you have said you know nothing about the canon, but for the third, I am not sure, so we'll see.

My Current WIPs April/May 2024

Heaven's Gate (for The Walking Dead) - Daryl Dixon x GN!Reader. Strangers to Lovers/Soulmates/Lovers Reunited. Angst, Fluff, Hurt and Comfort. Set during Season 1 to Season 5. 17k in counting (will be a oneshot). You can find a preview here. In this fic, you and Daryl get separated when the Governor attacks the prison, and though you both believe the other person is dead (or long gone) you find each other at the most unlikely time, in the most unlikely place.

I am super excited about this fic, and the themes of hope that I have woven into it. Because yes, I unironically love writing about hope and how the human spirit can persevere - which is something that my favourite moments in The Walking Dead show. This is first draft complete and just needs to be edited.

The Jaws of Life (for DC Titans) - Jason Todd x GN!Reader. Sequel to Emergency Contact. Lovers Reunited. Extreme Angst, Smut, Hurt and (some) Comfort. Set during Season 3. 21k in counting (will probably be a oneshot - if it needs to be split up, it will be put in two parts, but I hope I can get away with a oneshot). (I highly recommend that everyone go read the original in the meantime, because it is one of my best fics ever.) In this fic, you and Jason struggle with the new meaning of your relationship after what happened with Deathstroke - only for this tentative change to be harshly disrupted by the Joker. And you're still heavily mourning when a red hooded stranger breaks into your apartment one night, seeking medical care because apparently - you owe him one.

Everyone give Jaycen @nctzenkane a big fucking round of applause for this one, because he was randomly talking to me about Jason Todd today (we were having the 'some characters are only fuckable in costume' discussion) - and I got talking about how this version of Jason from Titans makes me so passionate to write about the character. And it is solely because of him that I opened up this fic and took a good look at it - I have been thinking about this fic for months, wanting to finish it because I know I am gonna be proud of it, but I kept hesitating because I thought I had a way bigger mountain to conquer with it. But the conversation I had with Jaycen really inspired me and I wrote 5k on the fic just today, and I realized that with this momentum, I could have the first draft done by the end of this month. So I am promising myself that this is gonna be done soon.

Speaking of which - when The Jaws of Life is first draft done, I wanna host a poll so you guys can decide which of those two ^^ fics goes through the editing process to be posted first. Both will be posted (hopefully) by the end of May, but I do wanna know which one you guys wanna see posted first. Which leads me to:

Nasty (for Stranger Things) - Sub!Eddie Munson x Dom!Fem!Reader. Established Relationship. Smut/PWP. 3k (this is gonna be a shorter fic lmao). In this fic, you and Eddie have been dating for a while, but you don't like that all of his attempts to have sex with you have him taking on a (seemingly fake) dom persona. When you finally tell him that you prefer to be more dominant in bed, he isn't disgusted like you thought he might be - he loves it.

This is one I have been sitting on for a while, and right before it was ready to be posted - my brain lost interest in it like tiktok does micro trends. But I think this is gonna be really great to post while the poll for those other fics is cooking because it's short and sweet and for the past few days, whenever I have seen the cover for this in my drafts, I have gotten excited about it again. So I am excited to finish it and show it off to everyone!!

[beanghostprincess]

Okay so, I came up with this One Piece theory that I think no one else has come up with yet and I need to know what you think. So, one of the biggest mysteries in One Pice are the 3 ancient weapons: Poseidon, Pluthon, and Uranus. Poseidon was an ancestor of the Neptun royal family who could communicate with the Sea Kings, and her current incarnatio is Shirahoshi. Pluthon was a physically reproducible warship whoose blueprints were owned by Iceburg and Franky before being destroyed. But Uranus is a much bigger mystery, as we know nothing about it yet.

So I looked up what the names mean and Poseidon is the roman God of the sea, Uranus means sky of heaven, and Pluthon is the roman version of Hades, the greek god of hell. So Poseidon is the sea, Pluthon is the underworld, and Uranus is the sky. The meaning seem to go with the look of tge weapons: a mermaid is a sea creature, a warship is related to war, which many people describe to be hell on Earth, so Uranus must be sky themed, or at least it's theme is a creature that can fly and it's also somewhat godlike.

Now, after Robin develoeped her Demonio Fluer during her fight against Black Maria many people started theorising that her devil fruit was actually not a paramisha, but a mytical Zoan. Like how Luffy's Gum-Gum fruit was actually the Nika fruit. I really like this theory and it would explain why Robin seems to be much stronger than any average paramecia user, ever pre-timeskip. So it dawned on me: what if Robin (or rather the previous owner of her fruit) is Uranus?

Think about it: a theme in One Piece is reincarnation, or ratger the spirits of the previous generation coming back in the newst ones, almost binded by destiny. And Luffy, this generation's Joyboy, was unknowingly tied to Shirahoshi (the reincarnation of Poseidon) Franky and Iceburg (the owners of the blueprints for Pluthon) and Robin (possibly Uranus?) Long before he knew anything about the weapons or his fruit's true identity, almost as if faith was guiding him thowards them.

So I firmly believe that in the Final war against the world Goverment and the Celestial Dragons Shirahoshi will learn to controll her powers, Franky will rebuild Pluthon (also sidenote, some people also theorise that Noah and Pluthon were originally built by the same person and that Noah was like a less refinied/incomplete version of it) and Robin will awaken her devil fruit fully becoming Uranus: a flying sky monster of another world that's connected to the gods, since demons are fallen angels in almost all mythology.

And in the frontlines of Joyboy's army alonside her allies and friends, the Demon Child Queen will finally take revenge, having learned the truth about tye world, her heritage, and keeping her homeland's legacy alive, fully using the potential inside of her that she was made feel worthless and sinfull about.

Do what do you think? Did I got something wrong? Is it a strech? Would it fit with the themes and story or would it ruin Robin's development? I need to get an opinion from a One Pice fan

Oh, damn, okay- I just woke up so this is probably way shorter than what you probably deserve for this text, but, yeah. I consider it a good theory! It makes sense if you think about it that Luffy was tied to them from the start and it's true that Robin is the one to end the mystery and also become greater than she already is, especially since, as you said, her powers seem stronger than usual. However, I always leave theories like these to theorists because I am just awful at these things (I'm way better at analyzing characters when it comes to reading canon stuff). But if you want my honest opinion, I think it could work out if they wrote it well. I don't think it would ruin her character, I'm just thinking about how Oda (if this theory ends up being true) will pull the whole "Well, actually, Robn's fruit isn't what you think! hA!" because he already did that with Luffy and it has to be a huge build-up to be interesting and shocking again.

[insectsinsects]

Winnie, I owe you a post, but what you mean to me often transcends words. They fail me, which frustrates me because they are all we have. Your novel is brilliant. I remember when it was merely a thought. Pieces of the synopsis conjure memories of a younger, more naïve version of me. It's come so far...! I'm very proud of you. You have returned love at ten times its original value and I've always admired how you get back up despite everything. We're alike in that way. It's funny that we were merely two ships in the night all those years ago. When our paths diverged, your face was among hazy freshmen crowds in my 2020 dreams. It's hard to believe our friendship ever had an intermission like that. The string that connects us is older than some sidewalks in New York. Maybe I couldn't sense it under the concrete and tar. When you came back into my life two years later, I was surprised you could remember me because I was unremarkable back then. I was plain, I hadn't left my house in three months, and I was doomed. Honestly doomed. I wrote about things that used to feel like stellar masses on my mind. Now I think they're frivolous. But maybe we were all 18 and writing about things that became very small over time. I was honored to have made any impression on you. My hair was short. Yours was even shorter. I had only recently emerged from my chrysalis an interesting specimen. You were born cool.

I am esteemed to be a confidant to you. I do feel like a trusted sous-chef or lieutenant to you, and I'm always happy to share your joys or strategize or mourn or eat something yummy or watch a movie. I think we have a funny visual dynamic, from the way you tower over to me to our stylistic juxtaposition, I am proud when I walk next to you. One Christmas you cut your bangs and I waited until I was way out of frame and in my hometown to haphazardly chop bangs in your shadow. We have miraculous clogs from a thrift store in Virginia, because we prayed for them together in the hour-long train journey. We experience small instances of happiness because we pray for each other. You're one of 3 reasons I'd ever come back to New York, even though it smells like somebody else's house nowadays.

I'm sorry I didn't open up more before. You've given me so much of your life. When we called last week you saw my open, pulsating wounds. You probably, unknowingly heard my heart beat its loudest in warm alleyways last spring. You've seen me experience pure bliss and happiness, because a lot of those bright moments happen with you. I want to share every beautiful thing in my life with you, and I wish I could take half of your pain and bear it together. I can't wait to be wiser in 2030 or even a day from now.

Everything is so big because we're young, but I have a feeling we'll always exist as we are in the amber of my mind.

[runawaycarouselhorse]

(I’m getting better at copics! Treating them like brushes a bit more than markers helps!) Me before BW!: Haha, I’m so lucky to be a TRio fan (even if most TR fans bash Jessie), I never have to worry about my favourites leaving the show before it ends, they’re staples like Ash and Pikachu! Imagine being a fan of a single saga character… sure, I loved and will miss Harley, Paul, and Dawn, but I can keep watching for TR like I always do! Me during BW!: perhaps as punishment, I get attached to the morally grey rival character who’s only in 17 episodes, with two of my favourite creepy Ghost types that feed off life force/spiritual energy, a royal theme, a superiority complex to mask hidden insecurities (when defeated by Alder, he blames the loss on some mistake he’s made or some deficiency/lacking in himself, rather than a difference in experience…), and whose entire reason for his journey is proving his strength to his beloved childhood hero, who disappoints him by forgetting their promise (for all the fuss Trip makes about being called a kid and how he tries to prove how grown-up he is, he sincerely believed that Alder was defending his title and waiting for Trip to defeat him—it was encouragement he likely gave many trainers, but Trip believed it), who was disappointed by Alder forgetting his name and having flaws like an ordinary person and not the idealized figure in his head…

He was such a sweet and expressive but very shy little kid (even when he stopped rejecting Ash’s friendship, after receiving the answers he wanted from Alder, he was hesitant to take his hand…), now he’s withdrawn, cold, not a genuine smile in sight (usually such a dramatic change in personality indicates trauma hi, Lillie, whose mother failed to question her daughter’s fear of touching Pokemon and was called out by her son—even repressed traumatic memories affect daily life), but he could just be trying his best to fit the image of what an adult is like and his constantly shutting everyone else out has him a bit socially stunted. Still very, very timid.

He also grew cynical just three years later (“a little too grown-up” as Iwane put it), with an ends-justifies-the-means approach to conflict (a morally grey Pokemon character who is NOT a villain, also, a child character at that! He’s very unique that way and full of potential to go take either path, fortunately, Ash showed him it wasn’t naive to try and aim for a peaceful resolution… the path he was on, as Burgh said, would have led to “great losses on both sides.”) And then, most pokeani fans bashed BW! and even most BW! fans bashed Trip & Iris. :D;;; He was easily ignored among the more comedic, colourful, and bright rivals, being both too mean and too lowkey to be popular… and then, staff wrote him out too quickly in the preliminaries and later treated him as an old shame, giving him no voiced return, excluding him from promotional material (either substituting with Kenyan/Stephan or doubling up Kalos rivals instead of including any Unova ones…)

Never caught a break with my favourites outside of super popular Lillie (Koharu later gained a fair following, as did Iris in PM19/JN, and Liko is very promising!!!).

The original, longer, ramblier version of this post (the above is based on the shorter, for instagram version):

Me during BW!: TRio’s schemes are interesting, but they’re rarely given focus as individuals outside of villainy… I LOVE Iris, though, and Wishfulshipping! I can easily watch for the BW! trio and all these rivals!

Hey, wait, the smug rival character I and nearly everyone else initially wrote off as Paul Lite’s actually pretty interesting, he was such a sweet and expressive but very shy little kid, now he’s aloof and cold, not a smile in sight (usually such a dramatic change in personality indicates trauma hi, Lillie, whose mother failed to notice that and was called out by Gladion), cynical and pragmatic, he used violent force against Pokemon to save people (yet he’s NOT a villain, a morally grey rival character, and he’s such a versatile character, especially as he’s still a young rookie trainer, coming into his own!! He can go either way!!! I mostly loved villains, so this is really unique, even more so for Pokemon)… so much potential!

He’s still learning! Aside from his idol Alder and his studies before his journey, he even mimics Ash’s battling style once, he also learns strength in battles and violent force isn’t everything after the Venipede episode, he’s a photographer and takes pictures to record even bad memories to try and use negative feelings to push him forward…

It’s cute how he tries SO hard to convince people’s he’s an adult and hates being called a kid… Iris uses it to rope him into battling Ash twice and he still falls for it!! It’s so funny. But his idea of what being an adult is is very cruel and he thinks peaceful resolutions to conflict is naivete (between that and looking down on Ash’s rural background, I wonder how he was raised, will we find out? Spoilers: we won’t)

… oh, all that arrogance is a front, he thinks a loss has to be due to something inherently lacking in him or something he’s done wrong rather than a difference in skill… it’s a superiority complex! He acts like he’s better than everyone because he actually has low self-esteem! Even though he’s a child prodigy… he must’ve been under a lot of pressure.

Oh, his entire reason for fighting is to prove his strength to Alder. Alder is his goal. Even when he was disappointed by seeing Alder’s flaws and the change in his priorities and the fact that Alder can never remember his name or that cherished childhood promise (which Trip was too naive, ironically, to realize was something Alder likely tells lots of kids, he thought he was special and Alder was waiting for him to defeat him!), he still wants only to battle him, be acknowledged by him, and loves and admires him! (I once again think he must not have a very good relationship with his family, if he’s doing all of this because he wants Alder’s acknowledgment more than anyone else’s…)

He’s so much nicer after Alder reassured him and guided him to focus on returning his Pokemon’s loyalty and trust.

He isn’t abusive to them like Paul was with Chimchar, and they all love and are protective of him, despite how aloof he was… he’s starting to be friendlier. He isn’t insulting Ash anymore or rejecting his friendship and he’s even interacting with Serperior more!

Moreover, he’s a cocky little upperclass brat with a royal/noble theme, from his design (pageboy haircut, princely!) to his team (after Serperior, the Regal Pokemon), he also has two of the creepiest Ghost types (I LOVE Ghost types!!!) that feed off of life force / spiritual energy (typically human), how creepy and cool, what a unique character—

Oh. He’s only in like 17 episodes. Most fans hate Best Wishes! and never watched it, or never got to season 2 to see his battle against Alder or his motivations and hidden insecurity… he’s quickly written out, losing in the first round of the league… he’s overshadowed by all of the other more colourful, comedic, and loud rivals… even staff are treating him as an old shame at this point and replace him with either friendly rival Stephan from the same series as Ash’s main Unova rival or just double up on Kalos rivals and put Sawyer and Alain instead of including any Unova rivals…

(Oh, and most BW! fans bash[ed] Trip. And Iris. Just my luck! Lillie’s my only popular favourite, sob.)

[horizon-verizon]

Why are there many radfems/terfs who like Alicent? Does it has anything to do with the childbride thing?

Basically, since both (some) RadFems and (all) TradCaths wish to regress women to this status of "thing that is helpless or diminutive against male aggression/authority" (and not say or believe it is possible for a woman to have power), then Alicent is their goddess and representation of what they think is the "reality" of a woman, what she is and looks like.

A)

I and @rhaenyragendereuphoria wrote/reblogged about why some people liked the ship Rhaenicent HERE. Many of the points we bring up still apply to just Alicent, since this ship is really about Alicent and her using Rhaenyra's "cool" to further her own (how the shippers feel if not admit). 

To make this shorter, let’s apply a trope to Alicent. rhaenyragendereuphoria mentions how Alicent fits under and is written towards the Proper Lady trope which:

is a gentle yet strong being, incorruptible and pure as the driven snow, as unlike The Vamp as she comes, and Madonna-like in her virtues. She sacrifices herself for the good of her family, religion, and country. She is intelligent enough to smoothly run a household, and wisely spends her husband's money for the good of her family, never guilty of negligence or selfish frivolity. She possesses the wit, taste, and esprit necessary to be a star of Society, and never crosses the border of good taste and civility. She is devoted and loyal, never treacherous or scheming. Her manners are never less than impeccable, and her good will and charity are a beacon to those lucky enough to live around her.

And even the Team Mom trope (episode 2 where she “guides” Rhaenyra). 

Now Alicent doesn’t fit totally into Proper Lady trope because she actually  schemes and is treacherous against Rhaenyra, her supposed friend. But the fact she tries to uphold the conservative priorities of “sacrifice” (sacrificing oneself for the supposed “greater good” of the conservative social order/feudal class and gender hierarchy by dutifully following the rules). 

Basically Alicent is the perfect “good girl” -- the feudal version -- because she pushes for people to obey the hierarchal social order and its rules, but Alicent’s character on HotD also is very contradictory and changed drastically so that her motivations are confounding. I basically pinned two-three different and related options: 

feel she “deserves” to gain the rewards of having her sons inherit the throne

make all Rhaenyra subordinate to her (psychologically making up for her “sacrifice” in gving up her body) and have this one girl/former recognize her superior authority

make Rhaenyra and women also have to follow the rules so she doesn’t have to feel as miserable and jilted as she does

So Alicent comes across as this victim of both the patriarchal system in place and a victim of not getting what she deserves for “playing her part” and obeying that very system. She is “relatable”, as @la-pheacienne says:

People don’t relate to these exceptional heroines because they are not looking for exceptional characters. They are looking for a more successful or a more glamourous version of themselves.  

 Does this sound counterintuitive, since such hierarchies don’t “care” about how you feel and actually prioritizes the will of the ruler/clan-or-house head? Yes. Just don’t tell that to a green stan and not expect to get a bunch of ad hominem “arguments”.

B)

Though they hypocritically bleat about how the patriarchy in Westeros is their culture or something that no one then could escape, they, yes, use the idea that Alicent was a child bride (15 when married) in HotD (even if you tried to say the same of her original character she wasn’t since she was 18 when she married Viserys in the book), they don’t care about history and how environment and/or know that Westerosi nobles have been marrying their young girls from the time they got their first period. 

Ancient and medieval people -- even going into the early-mid 1800s -- died a lot sooner than they do now in Western societies due to lack of knowledge and tech, so everyone married much sooner. Plus, as la-pheacienne says in another POST, where they say:

The problem with the word “grooming” is that it’s not a neutral word. It’s a word with a very heavy meaning, that frames an individual who has a perverse, unnatural sexual desire for children whereas the society this individual lives in has decided (fortunately) that these children are not to be considered in a sexual way. So this individual breaks a fundamental moral code of the society they live in, and they do it so skillfully that they go the extra mile as to manipulate their way into basically, committing the crime that constitutes child sex abuse. It is a crime punished by law. You go to prison for it. Everybody knows it is perverse, unnatural behaviour, everybody tries to protect their children from it, and children themselves have a certain knowledge that it is NOT ok for an adult to approach them that way.

Grooming cannot be applicable to Alicent and Viserys, Rhaenrya and Viserys. grooming can’t be used as a serious criticism when the persons involved expect to get married this way and actually can find/use power through such unions. The problem with Alicent marrying Viserys, as presented in HotD, should have been how Otto pressures her into it, not how Viserys chooses her. Because Viserys doing that is actually him choosing not to go for a girl even younger, a 12 year old.

Child-brides work in the context of a world where such marriages intentionally flout rules/laws/ against them in the larger context where the idea of youth vs childhood itself becomes totally realized. And it wasn’t in the ancient/medieval ages. We’d have to wait until the 19th century when people focused more on instructing children and the Romantics for that one, and even then the idea of childhood came from the Romantics wanting to isolate themselves from the sociopolitical demands and smog of the then industrial age. a “return” to the “innocence” of early life. Some wrote works that emphasized:

childhood came to be seen as especially close to God and a force for good [...] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose Émile, or On Education (1762) not only rejects the doctrine of Original Sin, but maintains that children are innately innocent, only becoming corrupted through experience of the world.

But they use “child bride” with ignorance and the intent to prove how Alicent is the “real” and only victim aside from Aemond. The actual protagonist/the story’s central interest. And it certainly doesn’t help when the actual show and its writers refuse to frame Alicent as anything but a deluded misogynist in no uncertain terms more than they display her as helpless time and time again: Olivia Cooke plays her as frantic and beset by here fear that Rhaenyra would kill her kids and she looks very pathetic and helpless when she protests against Aemond’s eyes lost. there is her with Larys.

All of these come across as Alicent being beleaguered by disobedient, “over”- privileged royals (meanwhile, her father is Hand and she comes from the richest, one of the most influential houses in Westeros).

Finally, if Alicent is a child bride, their “sympathy” should extend to Rhaenyra, who was canonically forced to marry Laenor when she was 17 and he was 20. It should extend towards Daenerys Targaryen, who not only marries Drogo at 13, she is actually sold into sexual slavery to the same man who becomes her first husband. But it doesn't, because Valyrian/Targ girls are all evil for being Targaryen.

That in of itself tells you that Alicent being a child bride is not the real reason why many of the stan her or think she is "right". They stan her because many of them think she is more relatable and deserves a reward for her obedience to the patriarchal system in place that victimizes her in the first place. They love her because she is the "good girl" who should have found success. Nothing more, nothing less.

[spnhunter4life]

So Long Version 2 Chapter 3

Word Count: 3.6k

A/N: A little bit of a shorter one this time. This is the first thing I wrote for this story. Here's the day Jenna turned 16. Enjoy!

Series Masterlist

Ages 16 and 17 June 25, 1996

I woke up, not exactly expecting to feel different, but maybe hoping. Today I would find out who my soulmate was. At least, I’d get a first name. Even though I knew it was stupid to get my hopes up, I couldn’t help but secretly want it to be Dean’s name. I was also nervous. Did I really want to know? If it wasn’t Dean, how would I deal with the disappointment? But if it was Dean, how could I possibly approach a subject like that? And even then, it wouldn’t mean it was Dean Winchester I was meant to be with. There were other Deans in the world. And wouldn’t he have said something by now if my name was tattooed on him somewhere?

Taking a deep breath, I looked over all of the skin currently exposed by my pajamas. Nothing on my arms or legs from the knees down. I looked at the clock and saw that it was already 9:30. I couldn’t believe I’d slept that long, that my dad had let me!

I jumped out of bed, grabbing my towel and clothes for the day, heading straight for the shower. I’d made one friend in this small Louisiana town, a very outgoing girl I’d bumped into while getting groceries with Sam and Dean. She’d been excited to meet someone new, saying all of her friends were on vacation for the summer, and she and I were supposed to meet up soon to spend the day together.

I started the shower to let the temperature adjust and then started the process of removing my clothes, checking each inch of revealed skin for a name. Nothing yet, then. Supposedly, the name showed up around the time of day you were born. I had no idea what time that was, so I would let Alyssa distract me for the day and check again tonight.

When I came out of the bathroom wearing shorts and a t-shirt with my hair in a ponytail to combat some of the summer heat, my dad, Ben, was just closing the door, chocolate chip muffins, my favorite breakfast food, in his hand.

“Happy birthday,” he smiled. “How does it feel to be 16?” He asked this question every year, but this was the big year, and it held a little more weight behind it. 

“It feels… pretty much the same as every other year I guess,” I told him honestly. Other than my nerves being slightly on edge with the upcoming soulmate reveal, it felt like any other day. “What are you still doing here? I thought you and John would’ve left by now.”

“That was the original plan, but I couldn’t leave without seeing my daughter on her birthday. I wanted to have the chance to eat breakfast together. The case can wait a couple hours,” he told me, sitting down at the table.

“Where are those two shadows of yours?” He teased as I took a seat across from him and grabbed a muffin. I knew he wouldn’t ask about my tattoo. He didn’t like people prying into his life and he didn’t pry into mine. He knew I’d tell him if I wanted to.

“I have no idea,” I replied as I peeled the wrapper off my muffin. “I haven’t seen either of them, but I just got up. Thanks for letting me sleep in by the way.”

“I figured one day can’t hurt. But don’t think you can go slacking off. It’s back to morning runs and training after this,” he said before taking a bite of his own muffin. “I still don’t understand why those boys aren’t here. You three make such a big deal out of each other’s birthdays, I half expected them to break down the door,” he mused.

“Maybe they forgot. And we don’t make ‘such a big deal’. One present and a movie night isn’t too much to ask. Besides, it’s mostly Sam. Dean always made a big deal about his birthdays growing up and so Sam learned to do the same for us,” I told him.

“Yeah but a bunch of kids scrounging up enough money to get those presents for each other is a big deal,” he said with a fond smile. Taking the last bite of his muffin, he stood and grabbed something off of the counter. “Speaking of presents,” he said as he handed it to me.

“Dad, you didn’t have to,” I told him as I grabbed it. 

“I know I didn’t, but it’s not every day your baby girl turns 16. It’s not much, but I thought you would enjoy it,” he replied a little awkwardly.

I grinned and wrapped my arms around him, Backstreet Boys CD clutched in my hand. I had found them on accident really. It was all Alyssa’s fault. I generally enjoyed the same music as Dean, but she had showed me one of their songs and I couldn’t get it out of my head. Dad had heard me humming it one day which led to an embarrassing confession.

“Don’t tell Dean,” I pleaded, knowing the endless teasing and likely judgment I would be on the receiving end of if he found out. “Oh, I wouldn’t dare,” Dad laughed, pulling away from the hug.

“I should probably go find him though,” I said, glancing at the clock. “I’m supposed to meet Alyssa soon and he said he’d drive me.”

“Have fun!” I heard him shout as I left our motel room. I saw the Impala parked by the room next door, so I knew he was here at least. Since Dean has legally been able to drive, John gave it to Dean and the two of them take either my dad’s truck or the one John had purchased after gifting Dean the Impala. As I raised my hand to knock, the door flew open.

“Oh!” John said, startled. “I was just going to tell your dad we need to get going. I’m glad you’re up.” Then he was in the motel room I’d just abandoned, not waiting for my response.

“Hi to you too.” I mumbled under my breath as I walked through the door John had left open to see Dean sprawled out on the couch. He turned to me when I closed the door and grinned.

“Hey, there’s the birthday girl!” He exclaimed, prompting Sam to run out of the bathroom, dressed and looking fresh from the shower, toothbrush in his mouth.

“Jenna! You’re here! I wanted to go to your room a while ago, but Dean told me to let you sleep. Were you sleeping?” Before I could answer him, he rushed on. “He told me you’re going to spend the day with your friend, but we’re still going to have our movie night, right? We have to have our movie night. It’s our tradition!”

“Breathe, Sam." I chuckled. “Of course we’re having movie night. It wouldn’t be a birthday without it. Now how about you go finish brushing your teeth before you start drooling on the floor.” Content with my answer, he hurried back to the bathroom, hand cupped under his chin where toothpaste bubbles were trying to drip down.

“So,” Dean drawled, getting up off the couch. “The big 16. How’s it feel?” He walked over to stand next to me and, not for the first time, I was struck with how effortlessly gorgeous he was. His hair was tousled and still slightly damp from the shower he must have taken this morning. He wore his usual jeans, t-shirt, flannel, and boots, the amulet Sam had given him hanging around his neck, but somehow, he was the most attractive guy I had ever seen. I knew it wasn’t a biased opinion, every girl in every school always drooled after him.

“I assume it feels the same as you felt a year ago.” I replied once my brain started functioning again. “You still good to take me to meet Alyssa?” I asked.

“Sweetheart, have I ever bailed on you?” He asked, mock offended.

“Well…” I trailed off, remembering the handful of times Sam and I had been left to fend for ourselves while he was off with a girl. When I saw him looking at me expectantly, I sighed. “Not when it really counted, no.” I relented.

“Did you ask her yet?” Sam questioned, reappearing from the bathroom and heading for Dean. Dean sighed and looked at me. “Is it ok with you if Sam comes with to drop you off? I don’t know why he’s even asking. I know you don’t care, but he wouldn’t leave me alone about it this morning.”

“That’s not true!” Sam denied. “He told me I could come if you said yes, and I know you usually don’t care, but since you’re 16 today I thought you might want to talk.” He stated matter-of-factly.

“Talk about what?” I asked, brow wrinkled in confusion. There’s not much Dean and I didn’t talk about in front of the kid. I don’t know why he thought there was suddenly a need for privacy or what being 16 had to do with it. “About-” he started, but then cut himself off. “I don’t know.” He continued, head down and shuffling his feet. “Just… being 16?”

I looked to Dean, hoping for some kind of explanation, but he just shrugged his shoulders, although he seemed a little annoyed. I wasn’t in the mood to press the issue though.

“Ok…. Well I don’t have any super-secret conversations that need to be had with your brother, so if you want to come along, that’s fine.” I assured Sam. 

“Good! When are we leaving?” He asked excitedly.

“If Dean’s ready, then right now would be good.” I replied, looking to Dean. He answered by shrugging on his leather jacket, plucking the keys off the table and holding the door open for me.

With everyone piled in the car, Dean started toward the mall where I was supposed to meet Alyssa. It was a typical car ride, Sam chattering away in the back, and Dean humming along to Led Zeppelin. I told Dean where to park. Alyssa wasn’t there yet, but I was content to sit and wait with the boys.

“I thought we might have to wait until tonight to give this to you, but I’m glad we don’t have to.” Sam said excitedly, pulling a box out of his jacket pocket. “It was my idea to get this kind of present for you, but Dean helped me pick it out.” He looked to his brother with a proud smile before handing the box to me.

I was a little nervous to open it. Sam was so excited that I really wanted to like whatever it was. Although he’d never say anything, I could tell Dean was a little nervous too by the way he tensed his shoulders and bit his lip. I carefully opened the box and gasped.

Inside was a bracelet made from ribbons of silk. It was twisted around so that it looked like four different strands. The top and bottom of each ribbon was an olive green while the middle was mulberry. One of the ribbons wrapped through a gold button that was used to adjust the size. I couldn’t believe something so beautiful was for me.

“I love it!” I told them as I took it out of the box to place on my left wrist. I noticed Dean’s quiet, relieved exhale and turned to hug him. “Thank you.” I whispered. He wrapped his arms around me before mumbling a quiet “You’re welcome,” into my hair.

“And thank you too!” I said, pulling away from Dean to face a fidgety, giddy looking Sam in the back. He flung his upper body over the seat to get a hug of his own. “You’re gonna have a pretty hard time topping this one.” I informed him as I sat back. Sam just grinned.

“My friend at the last school had a bracelet that she wore all the time and I asked her if that was a good idea for a 16th birthday present for you,” he explained. “She said if you like jewelry it was a good idea, and I know you like Dean's amulet, so I told him about my idea and he said we’d keep an eye out for anything you might like. There was a lot of stuff I thought you would like, but Dean kept saying they weren’t right.” I glanced at Dean and saw a slight blush gracing his freckled cheeks.

“He liked that one as soon as he saw it. I didn’t know why you’d like it any better than any of the ones I pointed out, but I know you guys know each other really well so I just told him to make sure you knew getting a bracelet was my idea,” he finished, slightly out of breath.

Before I could say anything to assure Sam I appreciated his efforts and relieve Dean of his embarrassment, there was a knock on my window. Startled, I jumped a little before facing the window where Alyssa stood waiting. Turning to look at the boys, I thanked them again for the amazing present and then opened the door to get out of the car and say hi to her. As I was closing the door, I heard Dean say my name.

“Just a second.” I said to Alyssa before opening the door again and sticking my head in. “What’s up?” I asked.

“I was just wondering when and where I should be picking you up,” he replied. “Oh, right. I didn’t even think about that.” I said, turning to Alyssa to figure out the details. “Clearly.” He teased. I looked back at him, sarcastic comment at the ready, but I saw the twinkle in his eye and knew he was just joking. I shushed him and closed the door, turning to once again face Alyssa.

“I can drive you back, it’s no problem,” she assured me. 

“Are you sure? Dean doesn’t have anything else he needs to be doing, and I know he likes to do it anyway. He’s a bit protective like that. The first time we dropped Sam off at a friend’s I thought he was going to sit outside the house the whole time.” I told her, smiling at the memory.

“It’s really no problem. I don’t have any definite plans for the day so I wouldn’t know what to tell him anyway,” she said. 

“Ok…” I trailed off, giving her one last chance to change her mind. She gave me a look, clearly stating that she wouldn’t so I passed the information on to Dean.

“You don’t even have a guess about when you’ll be done?” He asked. I knew he liked to have a timeline so if someone wasn’t back when they were expected he would know something was wrong. If he didn’t have any schedule to follow, he’d spend the whole time worrying, unsure if something had happened or we just weren’t done yet. 

“Well I have to be back in time for movie night,” I reminded him with a wink in Sam’s direction, “so I won’t be gone any later than… say 8:30? That should give us time to watch a couple of movies before Sam passes out.”

“Yeah, ok.” Dean relented, slightly less on edge. “Have fun,” he smiled. I closed the door and watched them drive off.

“Are you ready to do some shopping?” Alyssa asked with a grin.

~~~~~

“You have to have a swimsuit!” Alyssa insisted as we walked by racks of them at Kohl’s. 

“Not if you never go swimming, you don’t.” I countered.

“But what if you do go swimming? What are you going to wear then?” She argued. 

“I don’t know. I’m sure if the opportunity came up, I’d just go buy one.” I told her. 

“Then why not buy one now?” She asked.

“Because,” I sighed. “We move around a lot. We’re not exactly hitting up five-star hotels with pools or renting homes that have one. I think the last time I went swimming was when I was 12 and the house we were renting had a pond.”

“Ok, well I have a pool, it’s the middle of summer in Louisiana, and I might invite you over to swim sometime. Besides, I’m buying so you can’t really argue that much.” She said, flipping her strawberry blonde hair as she turned and pulled me towards the swimwear.

“That’s a nice bracelet,” she commented, looking at my wrist where I was half-heartedly searching through a rack of one-piece swimsuits. 

“Yeah,” I smiled. “Sam and Dean gave it to me for my birthday.”

“It’s pretty. I didn’t think boys were any good at finding decent jewelry.” She said as she moved on to the next rack. She didn’t like the one-pieces anyway and had only been humoring me, ironic since I was only humoring her about the swimsuits in general. 

“I swear Dean has some sort of sixth sense for what people will like. Well,” I corrected, “not people. But me and Sam.”

“This one! You have to try this one!” Alyssa said excitedly, breaking me out of my thoughts. I looked to where she was holding a white and blue two-piece. “I know you didn’t want a two-piece, but this isn’t a bikini. It doesn’t show much more than a one-piece would.” Seeing my hesitation, she continued. “Just try it on. If you hate it, we’ll put it back.”

“Yes!” She cheered, seeing my resignation. She handed the suit to me and led the way to the changing rooms.

It was definitely a nice-looking suit, I’d give her that much. The top piece was thick enough all the way through that there was no danger of anything showing. It had a clasp in the back and three strings to tie around my neck, two white and one robin’s egg blue. The bottom piece started like a normal bikini bottom, but thicker. Above the hips it cut in to cover only the front of my torso, leaving my back and sides exposed, and went up to the bottom of my ribs. There were three strings encircling my back, keeping the material up. It was decorated with flowers in shades of blue, and as much as I liked it – although I’d never admit it to Alyssa – I didn’t think I would be comfortable wearing it in public.

“Are you ready yet?” I heard her ask through the door.

“Kind of. I have it on, but I don’t know if I want to come out,” I admitted. 

“Come on, you can’t look that bad,” she said.

“It’s not that.” I told her. “I’m just not comfortable showing this much skin. I live in jeans, you know. The only reason I’m wearing shorts is because I might actually die from this heat.”

“Just come out. No one’s going to see you. I promise there’s no one else around,” she encouraged.

I sighed before opening the door and peering my head around. I was met with an unimpressed look. “Alright, I’m coming.” I relented. I stepped out of the changing stall and was greeted with a wolf whistle from Alyssa. “Cut it out!” I blushed.

“Why? You look great!” she exclaimed. “As much as I like that bracelet, it really doesn’t match the-” she cut off. 

“What?” I asked nervously.

“Umm… did you find your tattoo yet?”

I was a little shocked. It was an awfully personal question to be asking someone you’d only known for a couple of weeks. “No. Why?” I asked a little defensively. She nodded toward my left side where my hand was hanging by my hip. I impulsively lifted it to my face, scanning for the name. 

“Not your hand," she said.

I slowly looked down to my left side just above my hip where, just as she said, I could see the top of thick black letters peeking over the swimsuit.

~~~~~

“Alright, what’s wrong?” Dean asked, pausing the movie. We were halfway through our second movie of the night, Mission Impossible, and while I was enjoying it, I couldn’t seem to sit still. I was sat between the two boys, Dean’s arm resting on the back of the couch behind my head, our usual seating situation on movie nights. Sam was slouched over, starting to drift off. He could never seem to stay awake for more than one movie.

“What? Nothing’s wrong. Why do you think something’s wrong?” I asked him. 

“Well, you haven’t sat still for more than five minutes at a time and I can see the wheels spinning in your head. You know you can talk to me about anything right?” He sounded genuinely concerned. 

“I know,” I sighed.

“Nothing happened, right? You’ve seemed a little off since you got back.” He pushed, not for the information he knew I wasn’t ready to give, but for assurance that I was alright. 

“I’m fine,” I told him honestly. “It’s just… I found my tattoo while we were trying on clothes. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it, figure out how I feel,” I confessed.

“Oh.” Was his only response. I could tell he wanted to press for more information, but he stayed quiet.

~~~~~

“I can’t look at it. I don’t want to know what it says. What do I do?” I asked. My breath was coming faster and I was starting to panic.

“Hey. Hey! Jenna! Look at me. Deep breath.” Alyssa calmly instructed, demonstrating and breathing with me until my breathing was back to normal. “You’re going to have to see it sometime. It’s unavoidable. Right now, it doesn’t change anything. It just gives you a name. You can do whatever you want with that name once you have it. It doesn’t decide anything for you.”

I knew she was right and steeled myself to look at it, Alyssa waiting patiently. Carefully, I pushed the swimsuit strap down just enough to reveal the name underneath.

DEAN

Chapter 4

[heavencasteel420]

The second chapter of the current version of Tonight, Tonight was originally going to be longer and include some school scenes, before I decided to make it a one-scene affair like the first chapter. Here’s a scene with Jonathan and his sort-of friend Brett:

“Shit,” said Brett Ackerman, as he slid into the desk next to Jonathan’s in homeroom. “That was due today?”

Jonathan glanced at the spiral notebook and paperback copy of The Bluest Eye on his desk.

“Tomorrow,” he assured Brett, after swallowing a mouthful of Oatmeal Creme Pie. “Don’t worry, I’ve barely started writing it.”

Brett ran a hand through his curly black hair and inhaled sharply. He was a short, skinny boy—almost a head shorter than Jonathan, who was five-foot-eight in combat boots—and he drummed his fingers and tapped his feet even more than Jonathan did.

“I forgot we had to read a book,” he said, dropping his voice to a whisper. Then he opened up a spiral notebook and resumed working on a drawing of a busty, bikini-clad woman firing a machine gun at a man-sized lobster. Jonathan was familiar with this work; he’d been watching Brett labor away at it for a week.

“All right,” he said. “Have you read anything on the list?”

If it had been someone else, he would have rolled his eyes at their laziness. Ms. Lafitte, a twenty-something bohemian-looking lady, was neither a boring nor a tough teacher. They had to write analyses of three books during the semester, and they could pick any they wanted from a substantial list that she’d provided. Most of the books weren’t even that long, which Jonathan appreciated, considering his work schedule. (He also had a soft spot for Ms. Lafitte because she’d given him the rosemary plant, but that was neither here nor there.) Brett wasn’t lazy, though, or stupid. He just forgot shit, no matter how often he wrote things down. He also couldn’t concentrate on anything but his drawings or seem to keep his mouth shut. He was always in trouble, with teachers and with other students, and Jonathan hated the idea of piling any more on him.

“You know I haven’t,” Brett said miserably. He started drawing an American flag pattern on the woman’s bikini. “They’re all boring.”

Jonathan didn’t try to convince him that books were interesting, even though he couldn’t imagine thinking otherwise; from what he gathered, Brett found the act of reading a book to be almost physically painful.

“I’ve read some of them,” he said. “Listen, I’ll write down what happens in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. You just have to write it in your own words, okay?”

“Thanks,” Brett said, perking up. Then he wrinkled his nose in disgust at the Oatmeal Creme Pie. “I can’t believe you eat that shit for breakfast. It’s not even food.”

(This was from a version where Gloria has already left when Jonathan wakes up, so he has a slightly less harrowing conversation with Lonnie in the parking lot and eats a Little Debbie for breakfast because nobody is there to tell him “don’t eat a cookie for breakfast.” He’s also reading Toni Morrison instead of Maya Angelou, for reasons that escape me now. Brett is Brett Ackerman instead of Brett Mason, for the reason that I hadn’t yet decided that Miri would be Miri Ackerman. Miri was going to appear in the chapter, too, but she was going to be more hostile to Jonathan then she is currently, partly because Gloria is genuinely unpleasant to the teenage girls who work for her and Miri’s like “who would sleep with such an asshole” but also because—having gotten pregnant by an older guy—she sees the situation in a grim light and is frustrated by what she sees as his hopeless stupidity. Also the diner was still a Hardee’s.)

[common-grackle]

hello so my school announced today that next year's musical is freaky friday & i do tech so my job's kind of the same either way but i'm still a little worried because. why is there a freaky friday musical and what possessed my director to pick it?? anyways i looked at the freaky friday musical tag and the only recent post was from you! SO could you possibly reassure me that my director is not entirely insane and-slash-or tell me what you know about the musical since i am a little scared to look it up?

(also i accidentally unfollowed you trying to send this ask lmao)

:(((( i accidentally deleted everything i had written :((( its ok i will type it up again mostly!!

ok so freaky friday the musical is .. surprisingly a LOT better than it sounds. and my theory for this is that the music is actually incredible. the plot is pretty basic, ellie (the kid) and katherine (the mom) switch bodies and shenanigans ensue, but like.. musically it's just !! so fun!!

it's based very very loosely on 2003 freaky friday (which i believe is the most popular version ?? but yeah it's not really related at all to the original movie or the book)

the musical was written by tom kitt and brian yorkey, who also wrote one of my favorite musicals, if/then !! i don't know anything about them as people but i think they did a Good Job

coincidentally my theater is also doing freaky friday next semester!! that's why i listened to the music in the first place lol. anyway ! i think in some capacity i willed myself to like it because i already decided i was going to do the show (whatever show it ended up being) but . you know how it is

if you would like to listen to any of the music, there is an official cast recording !! my favorites are "I Got This", "Busted", "Go", and "Watch Your Back" :D

as for why your director decided to pick freaky friday - well, my mom and i put in guesses for which shows my theater would do this season, and our reasoning for this one (which we were right about !!) was -

there's only 2 principal roles that need to be played by tenors or basses ! afaik every other guy in the show either only sings like 2 lines or is a soprano (fletcher, the little kid, sings soprano i'm pretty sure)

which means YAY for lots of fun girl roles !!!

it's a disney show which is pretty convenient in terms of like. acquiring rights as far as i've heard

like i said, the music!! the music is so fun!!

the ensemble is there in like. almost every scene.

the potential for choreography is huge

it is funny and silly!

there's 2 versions of freaky friday that you can do - one is 90 minutes and the other is 2 hours, and the main difference is that the shorter one takes out any of the bad language or inappropriate jokes (of which there are ... not many) and cuts some songs. so they're not marketed that way, but essentially there's a teen version and a full version

there is also technically a movie version of the musical that disney channel did a few years ago! it's terrible. i enjoyed it greatly. however i would recommend listening to the soundtrack or watching one of the youtube recordings BEFORE watching the movie adaptation because like i said it's terrible

anyway !!! freaky friday !! yes !!! it is a very fun and silly show !! i enjoy it a lot :3

[dkniade]

Translating Albedo’s Line About the Fleeting Joy of Discovery

WHOEVER WROTE THIS LINE, I LOVE THEM. GOD SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS. THIS YEARNING FOR AND THE EFFORT SPEND ALL ON THE FLEETING DAZE OF DISCOVERY, AND THE EMPTINESS OF THE AFTERMATH WHEN THE UNKNOWN BECOMES YET ANOTHER COMMON, KNOWN FACT. AAAAA

Hi. This is Albedo’s quote from the quest “The Third Experiment: Life” in his Story Quest. I will show the Chinese text, my translation, the official English translation, some comments on the official translation’s word choice and Albedo’s character, translation notes on some words, and closing thoughts.

Let’s transform the unknown into the known.

——

阿贝多：探究本质的过程令人着迷。可惜，这种着迷的时光，注定只是须臾。

阿贝多：我宁愿将我一切的精力都倾注其中，然而样本终究是有限的，当未知逐渐变为已知，那种趣味也就会逐渐消失。

阿贝多：最终它们都会变为日落果，甜甜花这样平淡无奇的存在，不再值得花时间去关注了。

Albedo: The process of exploring something’s essence is mesmerizing. It’s a shame that such mesmerizing times are destined to be but fleeting moments.

Albedo: I’d rather dedicate all my energy towards it, yet the sample size is finite in the end. When the unknown is gradually transformed into the known, so too would that interest gradually disappear.

Albedo: In the end they would all become like Sunsettias and Sweet Flowers: ordinary existences that are no longer worth spending one’s time observing.

——

(Official English Translation)

Albedo: The essence of the investigative process is enthralling, but such feelings are inevitably fleeting in nature.

Albedo: I'm willing to pour all my energy into research, and yet specimens are finite. As the unknown transitions into the realm of scientific understanding, the feeling of enlightenment is lost.

Albedo: All these things that start out as objects of fascination end up possessing the prosaic mundanity of a Sunsettia or a Sweet Flower. They cease to be noteworthy.

———

Comment: Official Translation’s Word Choice

Why is the official English translation so… complicated…? I had to look up the definitions of a couple of Chinese words (because it’s really uncommon to use them in everyday speech), but it feels like the translation team is using a thesaurus to make those words just as complicated as they originally were is in Chinese. For example 趣味 can mean fun, or interest, but I doubt enlightenment is the word that comes to mind first to any native speaker.

I try to match the sentence structure in Chinese whenever I can, only rewriting the structure when it would otherwise sound extremely awkward in English. (The placement of conjunctions is a big difference between English and Chinese, and is a dead giveaway as to whether someone is writing from their second language or not. I know this because I’ve been told my Chinese sentences have English sentence structure, haha.) But it seems the official English translation is trying to make things precise by making them shorter. It almost feels like they’re trying to cram a lot of information into a short sentence simply because the Chinese sentence seems short in terms of character count…?

——

Albedo’s Character and Communication

The thing about Albedo is that you have to understand what he means in Chinese beneath all those theory talk first, which is often very abstract, and then you put it into a way that’d make sense in English, or else the meaning would be lost very easily. It’s delicate… and difficult.

I guess there lies the question of Albedo’s character: Is he the type to use big words and short sentences, or is he the type to explain himself in a formal manner that’s easy to understand?

I believe his speaking style in Chinese is simply a result of HoYoverse’s general writing style (if each version’s naming scheme is anything to go by), and not him purposely using complicated words, as opposed to Fischl, who’s really deliberate in her formal word choice. Even Sucrose explains that Albedo speaks in a manner that’s easy to understand no matter how complex the matter is. I myself use formal a sentence structure but simple words so as to carry an air of formality while still making myself understandable. I will continue to take this approach with Albedo, as well.

——

Translation Notes

时光：time

(As in “I had a good time” or “wasting one’s time”)

注定: destined

须臾: instant

(This is a very literary noun.)

倾注: pour into

Refers to pouring water/liquid when used literally, but pouring emotions/efforts into something when used metaphorically.

“Pour one’s energy into something” and “dedicate one’s energy towards something” means essentially the same thing in English but the latter sounds more natural to me. I don’t follow the literal translation here.

平淡无奇: ordinary, mundane

存在: existence (noun), or exist (verb)

However, in the context of “甜甜花这样平淡无奇的存在”, if it’s a noun, “ordinary existences such as Sweet Flowers” would sound odd. I feel that saying “organisms” brings it onto an overtly biological level, though… Ah, although, using existence as a noun to mean being or entity would simply be archaic, so it makes sense that Albedo might use it.

逐渐: gradually

未知: unknown

已知: known

—

Closing Thoughts

Thank you for reading. It was a slight challenge to see past his formal wording into what he really means, but because it’s Albedo, I was glad to do it, and I hope it sheds some light onto his way of speaking in Chinese. I enjoy this Albedo quote a lot for the way he articulates the feeling which I can relate to very much as someone who loves to analyze things he is interested in yet struggles with finding joy in it afterwards.

The truth of “this world”… I will keep on searching.

.

.

.

[baejax-the-great]

I have genuinely spent countless hours with nothing but All That Glitters on the brain since like mid December. As it comes to a close I just wanted to thank you for your writing. I’ve gotten so much happiness from it. (And also sadness but in a good, escapism-y way). I don’t think i’ve ever been so attached to a fic before. So sad to see this story end but grateful to have been blessed with ever encountering it in the first place. ❤️❤️

🎽👟🥇🐕

Thank you for this lovely message, Nonnie. I'm going to use it as an excuse to ramble way too long instead of writing the epilogue.

When I wrote even if it's a lie, I played around with a lot of tragic backstories for Achilles, though mostly non-seriously. I didn't really plan on including it--his relationship with Pat was basically comic relief. I wasn't even going to have it in eiial other than allusions to his fame and his clear fall from whatever fame that was, but a couple people asked, so I decided to have him give the abridged version to Zag.

Someone said they would read it if I ever elaborated on that story, and I remember thinking, lol I'm never writing that. Partly because at the time I assumed that painting Achilles in such a negative light just wouldn't go over well. But I also didn't really have an angle for how I wanted to tell that story, so it didn't interest me.

I don't totally remember how/when I came up with the plot for Gold, but I know @johaerys-writes was the one who really encouraged me to write it and I think @juliafied helped me with it a lot. I believe I posted the first chapter the day before I went out of town on what would be the first of many trips this autumn/winter. It's one of very few fics I wrote on google docs, mostly on my ipad because I don't own a laptop.

I think I was only a chapter or two into Gold when I started writing what is still titled in my docs as "Post-Gold." This fic ended up being such an interesting challenge because I had written what happens before and what happens after, and now I had over 20 years to cover to explain it all.

Here's what I knew at the start.

1. Patroclus got thrown out of his house the minute he got home from Seoul.

2. Achilles sets his own life on fire and Patroclus takes the blame for it, resulting in Achilles moving to Tartarus in shame and not returning until 2022 with Zagreus.

3. Because I'd already written it in eiial, the first time Patroclus sees Achilles in years, the first thing he does is make out with him. (I regretted this one a lot, but hopefully I made it work 🤣)

4. A 39yo got a silver medal in the javelin at the 2020 Olympics. As a result, one of the first lines I wrote was "Take me to Paris, Achilles." That entire scene changed, but I kept the line.

So then it was a game of filling in what actually happened (so much math to figure out the years and their ages lmao), and figuring out how to show the journey of two men growing up, growing apart, and then putting their lives back together. All the years were written out of order, which is why the different sections start the way they do-- originally it was just a system to help me keep track of what year it was and make sure I covered each one.

And with all of that, I thought this fic was going to be shorter than Gold. I figured each year would just be a snapshot--maybe 500-800 words to get a sense of it. Short and sweet.

I'm an idiot, of course. Just the reconciliation that took all of three sentences in eiial required over 15k words for this fic, and it could have been longer.

It was so fun to imagine all these eras of their life. I went from writing about guys who were much younger than me to men who were older than me. The way the world has changed between the year 2000 and the year 2022 is kind of astounding. Someone asked me why the boys couldn't just text each other in Gold and it's because it hadn't really been invented yet. We barely had wifi. They would have had an answering machine at their first apartment they shared with a goofy message recorded together.

To make a long, unnecessary essay short, this fic went from something I had no enthusiasm for and was certain I wouldn't write, to something I'm really proud of. I'm going to miss it.

I was talking recently with someone about this fic from Achilles' perspective-- over the 22 years, which moments would he pick as important in their lives for better or worse, and how many of them would match up with Pat's. I have no intention of writing that story, but it certainly would be a way to sit in this universe a little longer.

[sflow-er]

1, 5, and 50!

- hillerskaroyals

Hi, friend!! Thank you so much for the ask <3 I'm sure you know by now that I'm going to ramble but buckle in for the ride anyway, haha.

1. What fic of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read any of your work? (In other words, what do you think is the best introduction to your fics?)

Hands-down 'Other people's secrets.' It's the first creative thing I've written in over a decade. I dare say it will probably remain my magnum opus, unless of course I rewrite it into something original one day, haha. I get that it's really long though, so the answer might change if I manage to finish any of the shorter ideas I've got!

5. What do you wish someone would ask you about [Other people’s secrets]? Answer it now!

My readers asked the most amazing questions about OPS, so I can't think of one I haven't answered yet, but here's one a more recent reader did ask that really got me thinking: Did I ever consider keeping Henry and Walter's relationship completely platonic, and why did I decide against it?

The answer is yes, I did. I firmly believe boys should be allowed to be affectionate without people thinking they're 'gay for each other.' That's why I took so long to establish their platonic bond first, and they would have stayed that way if I decided I wasn't brave enough to write about asexuality for the first time after all. (My Henry was ace whether I spelled it out or not, and I didn't want people to read sexual attraction into it.)

I had two sets of reasons for writing a romance. Firstly, it was more compelling from a storytelling perspective: I could sort of contrast them with Wilmon (two very different but equally valid and loving dynamics), and it also gave me a chance to explore Henry's character further in the post-canon part instead of him just being there for Wille and Simon (he was the protagonist, after all).

Secondly, I wanted and needed to write the kind of comforting aspec story I could have used more of, once upon a time. That was why I wrote Henry as a romantic ace instead of aroace (although he’s very different from me in many other respects), and giving him a love interest was the most satisfying way of letting him discover that he was capable of romantic attraction. My version of him needed to feel extremely safe and accepted to allow himself to grow such feelings, so his best friend was really the only plausible option.

50. Answer any question of your choice, or talk about anything you want to talk about!

Oh wow, you really went for the tough ones! Hmm - here's a random one: how do I write good kissing scenes, because those used to be really difficult once upon a time.

So basically what I do is, I avoid the verb 'kiss' or the phrase 'they kissed' if at all possible. I just write everything else, i.e. what is actually happening (the sensory and emotional side). I never have an issue with the word in others' work, but for some reason, my own scenes just work so much better and feel more 'present' without it. Maybe it's a style thing, I don't know. I also have no idea if my readers have ever noticed this but now you know!

Thank you again, these were so much fun! <3

Ask list for reference.

[magnus-sm-writes]

My Writing Journey: The Driving Years

When I was fifteen, I watched the movie ParaNorman all the way through for the first time and realized that being an asshole just because you’d been hurt in the past wasn’t fair to everyone else. I think that shows in my writing. Things began to get a little more optimistic as I had a complete character change.

So, I had gone through quite a bit of character growth myself. I was rapidly changing into a (somewhat) better and more interesting person. My life was becoming more complicated, and so was my work. It was very difficult for me to remember what exactly I did in these two years, since all of it sort of blends together. I was in an incredibly toxic friend group for a lot of these years, and writing was my escape, my way to criticize what was happening.

I believe this was when I came up with the ideas for my novella He’s Like an Ocean and the original germination of Hamish. 

HLAO holds a special place in my heart as being the first story that came from a dream. It is (recent) historical fiction following two blind boys, Lester and Guy, falling in love. HLAO was my first complete romance novel(la). 

Part of the reason HLAO is so important to me is that, for some time, it was my refresher between projects. I would finish something and then rewrite a draft of HLAO. It was my transitional work. Quick and easy to write. Much shorter than all the novels I was working on at the time. 

When it came to Hamish, I had decided that Hamlet would get the same treatment as R&J. I was more passionate about Hamlet, and had more knowledge on it. But I wouldn’t begin to write Hamish until I was seventeen, I believe. 

I also began to get an interest in short stories. My first complete short story was written sometime during an August, I just have difficulty remembering which one. It was a reflection of my (very bad) mental state at the time regarding said toxic friend group, and an outpouring of violence borne from watching way too much NBC Hannibal for my own good. 

(And the first instance of a trope that has become very common in my works: arson!)

“Phoenix in a Bear Trap” is a revenge/metamorphosis story. Originally, it was quite melodramatic and disjointed, but I am pleased to say that it did win me a small scholarship in my university. I’m planning on revising it someday soon. (Which, of course, means any time between now and when I die.)

I also wrote a piece of flash fiction called “Fish Toes” that dealt with my (still very real) fear of drowning. It is… not good and definitely needs reworked before I drag it back up.

I was also at my most feminine (and repressed) at this point in time. While I thought I was happy, I was lying to myself. It reflected rather heavily in my writing, which dealt with mental illness and this overwhelming feeling of isolation. Not knowing what was wrong with me (so many things, like holy shit), I thought I was the biggest freak in the world. 

In 2018 (when I was fifteen going on sixteen), I made some hardcore revisions to WADAA. It was no longer a teenage angst story; it was a college angst story. By putting Kam in college (and making him best friends with Zach Amsel), I could make a far more compelling narrative and give him a lot more freedom. This was the first time that I realized that WADAA had been stuck because it hadn’t happened at the right point in the timeline. It was not a story about death; it was a story about healing. 

To make Kam feel like less of a self-insert, I made him trans and autistic. This, of course, is laughable now. I just made him more like me (when I would be in college) without knowing it. Life reflects art, huh?

This new version of WADAA needed a new name, though. It couldn’t be the same book when everything had changed. In 2019, I finally came up with a new name: Lessons in Humanity from a Future Physicist. Wordy, yes, but it fit the book perfectly. It was about Kam learning how to be human, something I have yet to learn how to do. 

Lessons in Humanity is kind of my baby. I’ll talk more about it in the section on being eighteen, but it really was a project that grew with me. It still is. I think about it often, and when I’m in need, I fall back on it. It’s been my baby for about ten years now.

From 2018 to 2019, I was pumping out novels left and right. I wrote Hamish, Lessons in Humanity, Jeez Take the Wheel, and various versions of He’s Like An Ocean. I was in a constant state of rewriting that continued on into 2020. 

Each time I finished a project, I would start a fresh rewrite of HLAO (again, I cannot overstate how many times I rewrote that thing), and upon finishing that, I would move on to the next task. It wasn’t particularly sustainable, or healthy. I didn’t give myself a lot of time to decompress or germinate ideas.

And then I got sick.

What happened was: I developed bronchitis in summer of 2019. It was made worse by a forty hour band camp week, followed by lots of marching band practices (where I was the low brass section leader), community college, high school, and my job at McDonald’s. I got super stressed out super fast, and my health kept declining. I developed an ulcer. I lost about fifteen pounds, which made me underweight for my height. It was not good for me. The marching band environment was absolutely toxic that year, as was McDonald’s. I was burning myself out trying to write as much as possible just to stay sane.

Basically, I hard rebooted in November. I quit McDonald’s, and marching band was over. I gave myself some time to heal. By spring, I felt like a brand new person, ready to tackle the world!

That was, until the world tackled me back again, because that was spring of 2020.

[cosettepontmercys]

Hi! I'm sorry if my last ask came off kinda dramatic. Thank you for your kind words, and your dog is really cute! I wanted to give a quick version summary of a few things and maybe my replies will be shorter from now on anyway. But first, how are you? What have you been listening to lately? I hope your arm is okay and you're feeling better! 🩷

So I was able to sign into my old goodreads and my name is kvreads and it's just a coincidence if it's similar to yours lol. I just didn't want to add you randomly without telling you I guess. I started the Starless Sea and it's a little weirder than I thought but maybe cuz I didn't know what it was about. I still like it but prefer the Night Circus more. I also just started a book called Pink Mountain Nights and I noticed it was the same author of summer of bitter and sweet that you read, so I'm curious what you thought of it. I've only read one chapter but like it so far but don't know when I will finish it either since I start books without finishing all the time. Most of the books on my goodreads were books I started or in the middle of that I forgot about lol. Hopefully I will read more next month though!

I can't believe you've never read or watched Wonka! It was seriously one of my favorite books as a kid. I remember that I said I was in my schools version of it and you didn't say anything haha. I like every version of the story and all the movies. Are you familiar with the musical at all? I also like it I guess and I think Christian Borle made a pretty good Wonka. I spent this week listening to the Wonka and Mean Girls soundtracks again and enjoyed them a lot more. For Wonka, my sister compared the movie kinda similar to the Greatest Showman..where the songs could be on their own without the movie in a way but I still enjoy both. It was just pretty family friendly and I don't feel like I need to watch the movie again but I enjoyed the songs. I hope this makes sense. I wonder how it would be if you watched Wonka before the others, since you don't really have to know Charlie to watch Wonka. That's kinda fun to think about actually. If anything, I liked that it was different than anything before, and the songs were still original cuz it wasn't based on anything

For Mean Girls, I went back to the original cast recording and it was a lot better than the movie, especially with more Cady songs but I also didn't mind the movie as much as others did. I just accept it for what it is and I guess I'm still glad it was made. It was never gonna be as good as the original movie or musical anyway. Listening to the original, I think they made the right choices of what songs to cut or leave in mostly but maybe you're right that watching the movie is better than just listening to it. I also listened to the new Color Purple soundtrack too and they also made a lot of cuts or changes to make it more likable for non musical fans I guess. They wrote a lot of new songs to replace the songs from the musical for some reason. It was weird and idk why they did that but I'll have to see how it is in the movie. I was kinda shocked Wonka or Color Purple didn't get Oscar original song nominations

Apparently Erika Henningsen is in a new animated musical show called Hazbin Hotel if you wanna hear her singing..since the Cady in the movie wasn't good. I haven't watched the show yet but I will eventually cuz I always like new original songs and musicals. Schmicago got cancelled which made me sad so maybe this can be a replacement..idk. the only other thing I know about it is that Jeremy Jordan is also supposed to be singing in a few episodes too! I hope Gatsby can be good and hopefully they have made a few changes to make it better. But I saw someone say the only good thing about it is the two leads, which is probably true. I will probably somewhat enjoy it if there is a bootleg unless it's really bad though, but I do not love Gatsby a lot, so I'm keeping expectations low for this too. I honestly don't know much about the other shows this season or how it would compare to them. The only song I heard Lola sing was from Tangled and Hadestown music is very different than that but I would be interested in hearing her sing a song from it.

Your choices are so good and some I didn't think of. I have heard Maggie's version of Tim McGraw and liked it. I just think i always prefer the original usually over covers but mostly they're fine. I'm sorry if you didn't know some of the artists I named lol. I'm sorry if I forgot anything but do you think Taylor will win any Grammys on Sunday? I hope Antihero will win song of the year and I wonder what color she will wear. I haven't really thought about other wins yet, but I think Billie could win something too. I still might not have time to reply but I hope you have a great week!!!

hi friend!! you're totally fine; nothing to apologize for or anything 🤍 just know i'm always rooting for you!

i'm okay!! i am doing much better! i'm listening to all sorts of things — if you're on airbuds, you're more than welcome to add me!! i've been listening to a lot of noah kahan, laufey, and maisie lately, but in terms of new (to me) music, i've just finished fall out boy's discography! i listened to a jimmy eats world album, the maine, sam fender's debut album, the last dinner party's debut, and digital heartifacts by l devine this week! it's been a good music week/month, and i'm really glad i started my albums experiment thing!

i sent you a goodreads invite! i definitely will not be finishing the starless sea this month (i actually barely touched it), but i'm hoping to read it in february! it probably won't make a lot of sense until maybe the 80% mark, but once you get there, it's amazing (or so i personally think). the night circus is a little more straightforward, and also has a stronger romance plotline which i do enjoy, whereas the starless sea is a lot more convoluted! i really liked the summer of bitter and sweet, but hadn't heard of pink mountain nights! i'm looking the plot up right now and putting a library hold on it!

i am not familiar with the musical either! the only things i know about the musical are that christian borle shaved his head and that michael wartella pissed off the entire city of fresno during the wicked tour — but i think he was also in wonka? or maybe i'm just thinking of things? do you care about the grammys? do you have any thoughts on the musical theatre grammy noms/win for this year? i don't have any strong opinions but i'm hoping a specific album does not win. anything else i'll be happy with!

i thought of you when i heard schmicago was cancelled :( i still have to watch it ... i've been in and out of a musical mood lately; i listened to the waitress obcr today and was reminded of how much i love it :") ugh i miss seeing shows, hopefully something good will come to seattle soonish and i can go see that :( i do tend to prefer originals over covers, but 9/10 times i'll prefer an acoustic/stripped down version over the regular one? not sure why! and with the grammys, i wish she'd won for cardigan, i feel like cardigan is a much stronger song than anti-hero, but i'll be happy either way! i think she'll probably wear green or black, as is the trend with her lately! and i hope olivia wins something for guts — and i'd love it if noah could win for best new artist! 🤍

hope you're having a good weekend!! sending u lots of love and a hug!

[kelyon]

If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why?

The obvious answer would be my first major fic, Golden Cuffs. But I'm actually of two minds on the matter.

On the one hand, I have fantasized about what it would be like to file the serial numbers off of Golden Cuffs and try to get it written as a real erotica book. I think it'd be fun to change some things that are Rumbelle specific and decouple this love story from the weird world of OUAT canon.

Like, instead of the cuffs being made from golden thread, they'd be some kind of magical fire, because in this version the evil wizard lover would be some kind of fire mage. And I'd like to have the not-Belle character be a little older, maybe already married and not impressed by the sex she's had with her husband. A slight problem I have with Golden Cuffs as a kinkster is the way love and sex and kink and control are all entwined in this relationship. So when Rumple decides that he can't keep controlling Belle, his solution is to try to stop loving her--which just makes everyone miserable.

And of course I'd change the controversial plot development in Golden Cuffs, when Rumple gives Belle to Regina without her consent. I think it'd be an easy(ish) fix. I'd just have the heroine get a little overconfident with how much punishment she's capable of taking, so she ends up volunteering to play with the nemesis, unaware of just how vicious this character is. Not-Rumple is dubious, but wants to give Not-Belle the choice. That scene would probably be a lot shorter too, so it wouldn't be so jarring for readers who are here for kink, not torture porn.

You live and learn.

ON THE OTHER HAND, I'm a big believer in Neil Gaiman's advice of "write the next thing." I look at fanfiction like it's live tv, like Golden Cuffs was an episode of Saturday Night Live. I planned it, I wrote the sketch, I rehearsed it as much as I could--but at 11:30 on Saturday night, the show had to go on air as it was. That was my ethos with Golden Cuffs (and with all of my fanfic) it is more important that it exists than that it is perfect.

Because it'll never be perfect. And you have to be okay with that. All of my fics are preserved specimens of what kind of a writer I was at the moment of publication. That's the Neil Gaiman truism I mentioned earlier: You write the story, finish it, and then write the next one.

That's one of the reasons why I'm thrilled and terrified at the idea of writing an original novel: I'll be a different writer when I'm done with the last chapter than I was when I finished the first chapter. I'd have to rewrite and rethink the whole thing several times to make it entertaining for someone who might read the book all in one sitting as opposed to week-by-week. I feel like that's a situation where I might care more about making a story perfect than making it happen at all.

And besides all that, I'm pretty proud of Golden Cuffs. I've been rereading chapters lately and they hold up. I had a very intentional goal of doing as much Dark Castle BDSM as would fit into a finish-able narrative. By that metric, I succeeded. It's smutty, it's well-written, and it's done. On to the next story.

What more can I ask for?