#but apparently i do love overly complicated backstories

[grimm-the-tiger]

My FL main went through some really weird, organic development over the...oh god, I think it's been five years since I started playing now.

So my main is named Skadi Larkin. They are a little bastard. They started out extremely 2D; I named them after my favorite Norse goddess and the protagonist of the book I was reading at the time. I originally wanted to make them female like both of their namesakes, but the second I saw the third-gender option, I thought it was too good to pass up. This is where they got their primary base characterization as a mad scientist who wanted to Cause Problems.

Then I started the Nemesis ambition and forgot which option I'd chosen for who I was trying to avenge, so they lost both their lover and their older brother under tragic circumstances (only the lover was killed by Nemesis's antagonist, though).

Then I got an Exceptional Friendship and had to give my tragic backstory in order to gain entry to the House of Chimes. Skadi pulled said tragic backstory (orphaned in a hansom accident) more or less out of their ass, but it did establish that their parents are dead.

Somewhere down the line, I realized that technically Skadi is a linguist, since the Correspondence is a language, and I made that their profession on the Surface as well.

Around this time, I started working on character designs for my fan comic. I got really into messing around with skin tone, and somewhere along the line thought it would be fun to draw Skadi (who was originally white) with darker skin, and it stuck.

Then I abruptly realized I was taking a lot of options that increased my Melancholy, and almost all of them were based on the Surface. So now Skadi has a longing for the Surface.

I left the game for a few years, but somewhere during this stretch of time, and I don't know how this happened, but I decided Skadi was now Native American; specifically, Metis. I changed their design to incorporate a sash woven in a style characteristic of the Metis, which also added a bit of color to their design (which was mostly black or grey at this point).

During this time, I started incorporating Skadi into my fan comic. This would eventually lead me to actually flesh out their backstory in greater detail. When I started playing the game again, I also created my first alt by total accident (long story), and I decided to weave her backstory with Skadi's.

So Skadi is in the interesting position of being an Indigenous person who is what we'd probably consider Two-Spirit today but they'd just call "Bollocks to that gender crap". They never belonged on the Surface, since the Metis are in a bit of a liminal space compared to other tribes due to their interesting background (the Metis are the descendants of French settlers and Indigenous inhabitants, mostly Cree), and Skadi exists in a liminal space within that liminal space due to only being half-Metis and raised primarily in white culture, although they still maintained a connection to it through their late mother. They also never belonged because no one else on the Surface outside of the communities they already felt isolated from would ever accept them for their gender. London gave them a chance to express one of those, but not both, and despite knowing that the Surface hates them just for existing, they still long to return.

[greyias]

Oooh can we get the backstory to the dualsaber thing? Sorry if I've just missed the story before </3

Certainly! If you prefer backstory in fic form, it's delved into a little bit here and here, buuuut the simpler version is:

The out-of-game explanation is I'd had these items equipped for a while when I started seeing connections between them and the story, especially as I was going through Shadow of Revan and the first half of KotFE.

Items in question: Twin Satel Shan dualing sabers paired with purple-black striated crystals

In-universe expalnation, I kind of have a thing for weird connections in the Force and them weaving their way into characters' lives in subtle ways. And there's two explanations that sort of go together.

First off, the hilts (which is why I have such a mighty need for the dualsaber version)!

We see Satele's original dualsaber broken in the "Hope" trailer when she and Jace face off with Malgus during the Battle of Alderaan. This battle is what leads Satele and Jace to having the affair that produces Theron. In my headcanon, she keeps the ruins of the hilt*. Vague handwavey “the Force said so” (or the fact that she does seem to be a bit of a packrat when you poke around her camp on Odessen. Her mother’s journals, mementos of Ngani Zho, mysterious childrens’ toys, pictures of beautiful mountains, a locket with a picture of teenage Theron she in theory shouldn’t have, etc)

* -- this may actually be quasi-canon(ish)? If you're a Force Sensitive character and run through Chapter 12 of KotFE, look very closely at the hilt that Satele gives you in the cutscene. While there's a bit of a gilded color to part of the hilt, the swirls are the exact same on the above. Ergo, Satele does give you her hilts at some point... (at least as force sensitive baby, I'm sure the gun/cannon/etc you get are equally pretty. But obviously that kind of throws the "gives you her old lightsaber" bit out of the water if you're not actually building a lightsaber)

When Grey is forced into being a thrall for Vitiate at the end of Chapter 2, it’s implied by the game that the Knight, or rather, the Knight’s body was forced to do something very bad, as indicated by Orgus’s dialogue when he helps breaks Vitiate’s hold over them. (Not to mention the whole Orgus sidequest on Rishi). After escaping the fortress, Grey keeps trying to clean her original lightsabers, but she can never seem to get the bloodstains out (even though they’ve been scrubbed clean).

She can’t even wear them or look at them anymore, something that Satele picks up on during the debriefing with Scourge and the Council regarding Vitaite’s “NomNom the Galaxy” Plan**.  Before Grey and company depart for Belsavis, Voss, and beyond, Satele takes her aside and helps her craft new blades, helping providing the hilts as well as offering some calm/meditation help. The idea being that what was once broken can still be mended into something new, something stronger.

(** - That’s the canon name for it, I’m sure. No need to look it up on Wookieepedia).

And because I’m a bit of a sap, it has this roundabout way of connecting her to Theron, as the action of the blade being broken led Jace to make his mad dash, suicidal charge with a grenade to save the woman he loved, and ultimately led to Theron being born. And Grey’s love for Theron is part of what leads her into darkness, but also what pulls her out of it again and again.

SO.

If Grey is to have a dualsaber when the game lets me add a secondary combat style (which is definitely going to be Shadow, because I need stealth like burning on her when running dailies. Seriously it would make my life so much easier) -- then she needs to be able to attach her current two lightsabers back into the original dualsaber form. It just makes sense, yannow?

Now the crystals... that’s a bit more complicated and I haven’t quite explained it in full. But it’s a mix of a bunch of headcanon and lightsaber crystal lore from old and new canon. 300 years prior, perhaps riiiight about the time a certain Pureblood Sith literally stabs Meetra Surik in the back and turns on Revan, a twin pair of lightsaber crystals begin to grow on Ilum, facet by facet. Huh. Weird.

A few years prior to the Treaty of Coruscant, a little baby, pre-Padawan Grey starts having nightmares and visions of something calling to her in the dark. The Force being, well, the Force, is murky and not super clear in all of this, and eventually her guardian figures out that the Force is calling her to Ilum to claim her lightsaber crystals. This opens up a can of worms for him unrelated to this story, but she enters the crystal caves and follows the crystal’s songs to what look like ordinary, clear crystals.

The moment she touches them and pulls them from their resting place, they turn a deep, dark purple hue with black streaks running through it. Naturally, as a child that’s already been a bit traumatized by an encounter with the Sith, she freaks out and begs her guardian to hide them away, as she thinks it means she’s somehow tainted and dark. She puts them to the back of her mind, and almost forgets about them. And I mean, Orgus Din gifts her all of the components she needs to make the pair of sabers on Tython, so no one has to know about those dark crystals she’s got hidden away.

Until years later, she’s put under the thrall of the SIth Emperor. And those colors the crystals took on seem almost familiar:

Almost fated to be. Don’t they?

But yeah, not sure if the devs meant for the purple-striated crystals to resemble ValkyVitiateTenepants creepy dark-side power so much, but since they do (especially if you use his teleport ability in Chapter 9 of KOTET, the smoke is almost the exact same color), but since it does? In a way, for my little headcanon verse anyway, the crystals sort of represent that connection between Grey and Vitiate in the Force. That future that Scourge forced by grabbing onto one vision in a thousand and deciding to make it happen.

It’s not all him of course, she has her own issues, beyond him and even Theron, the color is also a reflection of her own inner demons. She still has lingering issues from losing her parents and with her family. At some point, I’m thinking possibly after whatever Legacy of the Sith throws at her (I haz fears after that Dantooine Flashpoint), she is reunited with both of her brothers, and all three of them eventually wind up confronting the man that murdered their parents. It’s all very dramatic, in typical Highwind fashion.

When Grey killed Vinn Atrius after he stabs Theron, the guilt almost drove her to the breaking point, and it took her a very long time to work her way through it. When the confrontation with their parents’ murderer happens, the man is unarmed, and she sees that Draike is about to drive himself off that same edge, she basically steps in to deliver the killing blow on Draike’s behalf, intending to spare him from that. It’s what finally breaks through her brother’s bloodlust, and other than Draike maybe, er, kneecapping the guy, he decides that his love for his estranged sister is stronger than his need for revenge.

(Meanwhile, this is like the second or third time their poor baby brother Ben has met his older siblings and he’s just all “?????” over the whole ordeal. )

TL;DR -- this incident is what finally mends the fence between Grey and Draike, and they develop a much healthier sibling relationship after it. It also allows them both to close the door on what happened to their parents and move on. The next time Grey is taking apart/maintaining her sabers, she meditates on the crystals, and the change from the deep, dark purple hue to a soft, purpleish gray that is almost white***.

*** - This is similar to what happens to the crystals that Ahsoka obtains from the Inquisitors hunting her. Meditating and healing the crystals that had reflected the darkness of their owner.

So uh... that might have been a more in-depth explanation than you were hoping for? 😅 Apparently even when I’m trying to write short, I can’t help but create super lengthy explanations.

[nottonyharrison]

A bullet pointed summary of all my Star Wars fics

*note* this hasn’t been updated in months I might consider it one day but right now nah too many it’s unweildy

Of Duty (Rexsoka, Codex, Codexsoka, Blyla, Queerplatonic Codywan, WIP @ 12/25 68k, E)

Everything is pain

No seriously this is the misery AU

Extremely bad life choices

Dead doves everywhere

The writer did not go into this intending to write poly

Of Duty: Sacrifice (Foxiyo, WIP @ 7/20 15k, M)

Politics, Politics Politics

Fishbowl Fox

Riyo Chuchi and the Horrifying Morality Crisis

Knock Yourself Out (Sev/Fi/Parja, 5.5k, E)

The endless frustration of Sev’s internal monologue

A very specific type of L O N G I N G

Buddy you’re so close to figuring out your sexuality and it’s driving everyone nuts

Kal Skirata and the vaguely hostile  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Idle Tether (Cody/Ahsoka, unrequited Cody/Rex and Rex/Ahsoka, 1.3k, E)

Do not read this if you can’t handle it rough

No seriously

This fic not safe for...

Just trust me on this

At Least Something’s Stayed the Same (Fox/Rex, 3k, T)

Oh no did I write more FoxLives? What a shame

Rex is Not Happy About This

Crying.

Anatomy Study (Ahsoka/Rex, 4k, E)

Old Rex Can Get It™

Age related body dysphoria is absolutely a great premise for a fic don’t @ me

Blink and you’ll miss it repcomm reference

SO MUCH blathering on for such a short fic

Different Toned Flecks (Fox/Vos, 3k, M)

Frenemies to lovers oooh yeah that’s the good stuff

Gratuitous setup gratuitous grime

Fox says my job sucks please and thank you

Off the Books (Besany/Ordo, under 1k, M)

Rated M for Mukdek

Ordo likes to learn new things including sexy things

Besany Wennen is (almost) unflappable

Equilibrium (Howzer/Ahsoka/Rex, ~13k, E)

Overly complicated Howzer backstory that nobody asked for

You didn’t have an OT3? WELL YOU DO NOW

Not really unrequited love I prommy

COINCIDENCES GALORE

Kinky.

Everything Turned Out Fine (Eleni/Cham/Howzer, under 1k, T)

Create OC, kill OC moving on...

Reunions! Yay!

Extremely canon divergent because fuck canon, that’s why

Clones in the Rebellion! Yay!

Five Sentence Ficlets (Multi, Ongoing series now with accompanying art, various ratings)

What it says on the tin

Send me a headcanon or prompt in my askbox to get your heart broken and feelings dismantled quickly and painfully

Stop, Reset (KixRex, 1.5k, T)

Emotional isolation

Rex and his absolutely truly really not a martyr complex honestly it’s just being pragmatic

Kix is the prettiest clone no write ins

Possibly the best kiss I’ve ever written but maybe that’s because it’s still new and shiny

Yeah, I'm fine (Echo, Ahsoka, Rex, eventual OT3, WIP, T + E final chapter)

Five times they comfort one another and one time they fuck

Rex can be a real prick sometimes

Did someone say character development?

Echo my beloved

Ahsoka, Echo, Rex, and the No Good Terrible Very Bad Days

More Than a Maybe (Rexsoka, 3.5k, E)

Xeno tentacles

Snark

Too much emotional weight for a Tuesday night

Hidden in Plain Sight (EchoFives, 1.8k, T)

FiveLives

Implied strap-ons

Please congratulate me for keeping this T rated

Many many ellipsis and em-dashes

Good People (CodyFox, 1.5k, M)

Hatefucking

Roundabout ways to explain why 79s is called 79s without actually saying the bar is 79s

Basically just worldbuilding with some clone romance thrown in the mix don’t @ me about it

Apparently a killer of a closing line but IDK you decide

Debrief at Oh Nine Hundred (Fives/Ahsoka, pre Fives/Rex/Ahsoka OT3, heavily referenced one sided Fives/Rex, 2k, E)

Long promised sequel to Pick Your Moments

No worldbuilding just horny

Fives’ head is a mess don’t come at me about it

Calling out accidental voyeurism is an aphrodisiac k?

Thirty Levels Up, Due East  (Blyla, 5.5k, E)

Bly is a sub no write-ins

Pr0n

Ripping off my own shit

That one time Bly and Aayla went to a strip joint

Discretionary Alternative (Un-fun Codywan, 3k, M)

Oof

10 years of Imperial indoctrination will do things to a guy

Obi-Wan is a kriffing asshole

M Rated but no fucking

Intermediate (Rexsoka, 4.5k, E)

Thirty-Somethings finally getting their shit together

Awkward fucking

That’s phosphorescent and I was not expecting that

Weird-ass metaphors

Pick Your Moments (FIvesoka, 6k, E)

Dipping out after important truth bombs

More plot than required to facilitate zero-G porn

Oops, I had An Emotion

Trying to rip a droid’s head off with your thighs is an aphrodisiac just trust me on this

Hope, Perhaps (Codysoka, 4k, E)

Even more Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

No seriously this is some fucked up self flagellatory identity porn (credit goes to the comments)

Existential MCD

Ugly grieving of the worst kind

Counting the Beat (Codex, 2.5k, E)

Inappropriate boners

That’s it, that’s the fic

It Doesn't Work Like That (Rexsoka, 2.5k, M)

I really need to stop writing DDDNE fics this is a problem

HIGHLY inappropriate fraternization

More ugly grieving

Fuck off, Fives

The Merits of Fleshglue (and Other Flirting Techniques) (Padmaayla, 1k, T)

Make the most of being alone on a spaceship with a hot lady or u dumb

Bly has a nice ass no more questions Your Honour

Commentary on That Dress because what is going on with the state of the women’s clothing industry in this galaxy, honestly

Fuck subtle

REXSOKA WEEK 2021

Gravitational Potential Energy | M For day 1: Boredom/Hurry up and wait

Everyone’s favourite, UST

That very specific form of exhibitionism where you’re trying to get someone’s attention while working out

Rex’s beard is hot no write-ins

Fifteen Hundred by Fifteen Hundred | E For day 2: Some like it hot(t)

Friends with benefits with big stupid feelings

Remember team, if you’re gonna do it in a shower make sure you have something to grab on to

The Twits | T For day 3: Bitter, not so sweet

They’re idiots, your honour

Besany Wennen is hot and will steal your girl (and Ordo can share too, I guess)

Fuck Kal Skirata, he dead

Scratchy Blanket | T For day 4: It happened once in a dream/AU day

Rex dies you’ve been warned

Existential horror mixed with a bunch of force visions is a great way to realise you fucked up

Dead Dove: Do not eat

Playthings | E For day 5: Show me your dark side

Rex is a sub and finally admits it.

Ahsoka’s unconvinced

Pegging with a Side of Power Play™

Seriously read the tags my kinks are showing

Convoluted and Ridiculous | M For day 6: Truth or dare

Repcomm adjacent

Rex in Lingerie, you’re welcome

Apparently I wrote comedy as an apology for Scratchy Blanket

Made You Look | E For day 7: FUBAR

Look away Cody, you horndog

When you’re desperate to escape the empire you’ll sometimes push things a bit too far

Only a bit of semi-consensual voyeurism

Pre-OT3 because I had to chuck a bit of that in this week who the heck do you think I am?

[deltaengineering]

Summer Anime 2021: we take those

As delta awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into Anthony Fantano.

Magia Record S2

I wasn't a fan of Magia Record, but surmised that S1 wasn't entirely worthless, so I gave S2 a shot. And early on, S2 is definitely the best version of Magireco - while it still struggled to justify its existence, at least it focused on plots that didn't point out the fundamental flaws such as the lore being both overly complicated yet fairly uninteresting, having far too many shallow characters, not to mention being an insult to PMMM. It also looked amazing, so I was ready to say that this time we got consistently entertaining pointless fanservice if nothing else. But in the back half all of the issues came back with a vengeance and the production chops evaporated. It's just a mess: The Magius story is still as bland as ever, and I still only barely care about the new main characters of Magireco, nevermind the extended cast (when I even remember them) - which is a deadly issue when that's all the content, the storytelling is borderline incoherent and even the storyboarding doesn't hold up. I suppose the PMMM cast appears more, but since this show is so all over the place they end up seeming like decoration at best. So yeah, S2 isn't actually any better than S1, even though it arguably has higher highs. 5/10

D4DJ Petit Mix

I gave this a shot because I do like Bang Dream Pico a lot, and Petit Mix is uh... fine? The main issues are that it's not nearly as absurd as Garupico, and D4DJ itself being far more absurd and goofy to begin with. So Puchimiku ends up not providing much of a meaningful contrast to the main show, apart from being (more) slight and (more) random. It's still fairly enjoyable because it's more of an okay thing, but entirely forgettable - in fact, I have already forgotten about it. I guess it's just Pastel Life then. 6/10

IDOLiSH7 S3

So I've been standing up for Idolshi7 for a long time, pointing out that it's probably my favorite idol franchise show overall. But I have to say, as of S3 it seems to be starting to collapse under its own weight. It's just running out of new places to go, and it can't truly escalate because the franchise concept is immutable. This is very apparent in the beginning, when we get to Yamato's story. Not because it's bad, but in a way because it's too good; it goes far harder and cranks up the drama to absurd degrees, which would be great if it didn't end with the most disappointing plot reset I've seen in a long time, when all of this "getting hallucinations and choking a bitch" business is resolved with a group hug and an offscreen phone call. After that, the spell was essentially broken. We get super detailed backstories on Re:Vale, I guess? I thought that whole business was better off as an unexplained twist, but we have to fill airtime here so we get a lot of Yuki being a dick in the past. We get yet another delightfully villanous executive, but that's nothing new and in the end it's just in service to introduce yet another band, this time consisting entirely of edgelords, and it will be interesting to see how the next sequel will attempt to make the audience like these assholes. And we get the rest of the cast just sort of sticking around doing their thing again. Now this all sounds very negative, but i7 still has extremely solid fundamentals and production chops (and it was never great at storytelling to begin with, so you take the highs where you can get them), and it's not that it doesn't try (it's honestly a miracle it even held together as long as it did), it's just increasingly turning into a case study on why Love Live's model of not sticking with a cast too long is probably the smarter way to go after all. Barely a 7/10

Shiroi Suna no Aquatope

So you might be saying "hang on a minute, that show didn't end yet, what are you doing", to which I say "you clearly haven't watched it then". Aquatope's first half most definitely has an ending, and the fact that it continues for another cour is immaterial to that. The second half is basically a sequel, and since we're a fair bit into it now I can also say that it's more different than most sequels are as well - though we'll get to that when it's over. Looked at on its own, this show started as the usual P.A. Works FEEL Team Six jam, maybe just that tiny bit more interesting that made me actually watch it - The beginning is a very standard and very middle of the road "visit the countryside to get healed with magical realism" yarn, but over time it shifts from Fuuka to Kukuru and becomes more of a very concrete coming-of-age story that's actually well thought out and less predictable than expected. It also may or may not be hella gay (early signs point to hahaha yes, later signs point to hahaha no). So yeah, that ending is not only present but also very good and if the show ended right there I would not complain (if I didn't know the second half would be the true sequel to Shirobako, of course, and I'm not even joking). Still, it takes a fair bit to get there - While that path isn't exactly bad, it's also not nearly as interesting as the later stuff, relies a lot on vague sentimentality, and while the hacky fantasy aspect is always less important than you'd think, it's still there. 7/10

Vanitas no Carte

Let's get straight to the point: Vanitas has one major upside and that is that it's intensely sexual. It's not only horny as fuck, but outright erotic at points, and that's not something I see often in anime. Of course sexual vampires is nothing new, but Vanitas shuffles the concept around just enough to drive the point home even harder (for starters, casual necksex among vampires is a thing here). So that's great, but what about the rest? Well... most of the time it's pretty good, with a bombastic presentation that gets a lot of humor out of absurd hamminess. But on the other hand, it also has a tendency to indulge in rote shounen plotlines, and when it does that, it just becomes a weaker Fire Force (a show that's already not great at shounen template nonsense), and its very anime humor is not always on point, an issue it also shares with Fire Force. I do like the characters (in particular Vanitas and Jeanne), but not enough to make them bickering while walking down a hallway of midbosses entirely worth it, if you know what I mean. And just in general, it tends to work better in single scenes than it does as a whole. Vanitas is wacky, wild, sensual and generally a good time, but it has structural issues that hold it back and may or may not doom it in the long run. 7/10

Sonny Boy

So. How about some capital-A Arthouse? The astute reader might remember that while I approve of headier stuff in principle, in practice it seems to not work out most of the time and I was particularly dissatisfied with the recent works of Messrs. Ikuhara and Yuasa, who embody this type of work ca. 2021. Now Shingo Natsume is throwing his hat in the chinstroking ring and he definitely takes no prisoners. I will say that the list of adjectives one could apply to Sonny Boy is very impressive: I'd call it clever, visually stunning, bold, unique, creative, artistically consistent, unpredictable and confident without any hesitation. But here's the thing, despite all of that I don't think I actually like it very much. I certainly don't dislike it, which is already a massive step up from what I think about the aforementioned clowns, but I never felt a close connection to the material. This is pretty funny, because for all the coming-of-age sentimentality Natsume packs into this, it still comes across as a pretty austere and intellectual exercise to me. Of course, that's not an accident; the storytelling is intentionally vague and at points wilfully obtuse to the breaking point - Which has a surprising amount of charm by its own, but it still prevents me from relating to the characters on a more personal level, and the other avenue of appreciation (writing kiloword-length analyses of the deepest deepities at display here) is also not something I'm into. In fact I think that the latter would be outright detrimental, because Sonny Boy works far better as an abstract mood piece than any truly profound statement, which is easy to see at the occasional instance where the meaning is eyerollingly obvious. In the end, Sonny Boy actually comes with a strong recommendation from me, especially for something that could so easily have gone very wrong given the first impressions of a bunch of highschoolers Living In A Society - Though I respect it more than I like it, even if I do respect it a whole lot... so make of that what you will. It's all in your head, maaaaaaan. 7/10

Kageki Shoujo

And again with the shows that only really have one selling point, but what a selling point it is. The main character of Kageki Shoujo, Sarasa, is such a fluffy, lovable and T A L L (like, so tall) goof that nothing else in the show hardly even matters. Well, she's not on screen 100% of the time, so I'll have to look further anyway. So incredible lead (and her sidekick Ai, an almost-Adachi whose dork tendencies are also adorable most of the time) aside, what is there to Kageki Shoujo? Eh, it's alright. A Marimite-lite mixed with a generic competition slash doing ur best storyline that's perfectly functional but pretty shallow and held back by tonal missteps. In particular, early on the show goes to a couple of fairly grim places - which I don't necessarily have an issue with, but it treats them so superficially that all it achieves is needlessly harshing the buzz. It also curiously insists that the school is a cutthroat hive of scum and villainy which isn't really borne out by much of what we get to see. Plus, it also has a spectacular non-ending (the least ending of any show this season, especially compared to Aquatope's dark horse "most ending" title), which may be fixed in a potential sequel but doesn't help at all right now. But hey. Sarasa. SARASA. (And also Ai). 7/10

Love Live Superstar

Heyyyyy, it's Love Live. Yeah, it's the winner by default. Who'da thunk it? The focus on a smaller cast, general disregard for the mobile game roots and focus on the "core" appeal of Love Live as a narrative may make Superstar the best iteration of Love Live yet, but make no mistake: Even if it is, the difference is negligible. This is exactly what I said about Nijigaku, because Superstar deviates from "baseline" Love Live just as much (or rather, little) - just in the opposite direction. But again, this is all minutiae that only people who already watched this would ever care about. The characters are still really nice (and the smaller cast leads to more interplay, which is even nicer, especially when it's Keke and Sumire antagonizing each other), the comedy antics are still fun as hell, and the big sappy drama is still impossible to dislike. But there's also still a number of curious plot dead ends like the school being in danger of closing after all (which is anticlimatically resolved by Dad Ex Machina, making the whole subplot a distraction at best), and none of this is anything remotely new. The one thing that's not opposed from Nijigaku is sadly the production value, since Superstar is also surprisingly cheap for an allegedly premium product (apart from the CG music videos, which still continue to get better and better). I will say that Superstar is probably the best starting point for someone new to the franchise, because it just looks the most respectable on paper and seems somewhat easier to get aboard with, even if that doesn't make much of a difference to the end result. The ultimate question is: Can Love Live ever exceed the 7? I think it's possible, but not this time. 7/10

[sugarcarnation]

May I ask your opinion on Brittany S Pierce?

yes you may

the short answer is it’s complicated

but i’m gonna give you the long answer because i like to hear myself talk

fair warning most of this is kinda negative even if its mostly just me being mad at the writing of her character

there are a lot of things i enjoy about brittany as a character. i think she’s hilarious in the first two seasons (and occasionally she’s pretty funny in the later ones as well), she is an amazing dancer and i love her performances and even if brittana isn’t my favorite ship i still enjoy her relationship with santana a lot. it also doesn’t hurt that she’s incredibly good looking. and have you seen her clothes? she’s a fashion icon

but yeah i do have a lot of problems with her which ultimately all boil down to bad writing lmao

i think my biggest issue is that her character is all over the place. we barely have any backstory on her, she doesn’t seem to have any actual aspirations in life and she never really developed in any way. she barely got to be her own character while she continually got more and more screentime.

and i think thats what i most dislike about the writing of her. i think she either needed to be a background character like she was in season 1 or she needed some actual character development

because if we look at brittany in the beginning of the show and compare her to the version of herself in the finale what actually changed about her? sure she’s married to santana now but it’s not like we really saw that relationship develop from brittanys point of view. we also don’t know how brittany realized that she’s bisexual. and sure maybe she’s known this entire time but seriously having brittany talk about her sexuality would have been really nice

but yeah other than that nothing really changed. she’s basically still the embodiment of the lovable idiot trope and she dances. and i guess she’s also a math genius now but it’s not like the show ever explored that

but still somehow even though she didn’t get any character development her personality changed a lot between season 2 and 3 and not especially in a way i enjoy

i thought that brittanys humor in the later seasons was mostly just mean and not funny. it felt like she oftentimes went out of her way to make her friends feel bad and insecure (like kurt in i am unicorn and blaine in prom-o-saurus) and even if that wasn’t actually her intention it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth

and a lot of her jokes were just blatantly racist and transphobic. and i know that every glee character has said something incredible offensive at one point but with brittany it happened at a frequency that made it pretty impossible for me to look past it

i also didn’t like how brittany was never called out on anything bad she did. she did some truly horrible things like leaking a sex tape without permission and it’s fine? because she taught santana a lesson like that? yeah sorry i don’t think so lmao

and i don’t mind blaming this specific event on the writers but it isn’t even the only time she got away with stuff like this. like she pressured santana into coming out and even outed her multiple times and it’s never addressed in any way

and remember when she was cheating on artie for half a season but it’s fine because he called her stupid and that erases every bad thing she did?

and again every glee character did something bad at some point. but at least other characters at least occasionally got called out for the things they did

but brittany apparently can do no wrong. and i believe is the case because of the weird way the writing infantilized her. which is already weird and honestly kinda gross enough but it gets even worse because at the same time she’s also overly sexualized? i need the writers to stop

i think if the writing of her character was better i would enjoy brittany a lot more. but i am also petty and have decided to not let bad writing ruin female characters for me

so fanon brittany is where it’s at. because here people genuinely appreciate her and don’t just reduce her character to hot dumb cheerleader

[sarunohadaki]

DQXI/Octopath Traveler Crossover

Crossover week: Home | 1 | 2 | 3| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |

Anyone call for a story idea with just character roles planned but no plot? Oh boy do I have the post for you! I’ve only played through chapter 2 of Octopath but from how things are going I have a few ideas for plotlines… on the whole, however, this post outlines each of the characters and their backstories.

Character descriptions under the cut because it’s long! Mentions of a character who's deaf, another character who's trans, and another character with DID.

I’ve been loving Octopath Traveler, but if there’s one thing I had to nitpick, it’s that there’s not enough moments woven in between all the characters! There’s a “travel banter” feature that covers the thinnest bases, where at some points in the game, the option for travel banter will appear on your screen and you can select it to see two characters have a short conversation. You have no choice in which characters talk to which, and you can’t go to that chat feature whenever. Also, let’s say you’re doing someone’s storyline. The other characters don’t talk in other’s cutscenes!

It sort of feels like there are eight games in one when you format the game that way. It's a little… disjointed.

Premise: Another fusion fic where the eight characters in Octopath are swapped for the team in DQXI (plus Gemma). Each character can still have their own backstories and subplots, but I am hankering hard for an overarching plot and antagonist. Maybe there’s, like, an evil League of Villains or some cult. Shouldn’t be too hard to find a place to slot that in, right?

Just like in the game, you stick to one character’s perspective and travel around to pick up the rest of your team, only in this fic, there’s varying dynamics between all the characters and oh boy it’d be prominent.

Characters

H’aanit ➡ Elimelech (El)

The Hunter

Born deaf, Elimelech hunts with his wolf companion and a quiver on his back. Despite appearances, El is not one to be underestimated; he is the pride of his village, which has recently celebrated his rite to adulthood. However, with adulthood comes an unexpected discovery, one which spurs him to leave the village in search of answers to his true heritage.

A literal strong, silent type. But has his shy moments, too. I can imagine you having to tap his shoulder to get him to see you talking to him sometimes, and he has this cute, brief look of curiosity on his face… 🥺

Similar to how H’aanit spoke in Middle and Old English, I think sign language would be interpreted the same way in this world. So everyone’s comprehension of SL is good, signing back… maybe not so good.

Animal companion (Sandy but beefed up into a wolf) would help him interact with the world, or at least keep him out of trouble.

Therion ➡ Erik

The Thief

Like the muck wiped off someone’s shoe, Erik’s not much wanted in most places, but luckily not thought about, either, which helps when he’s stealing coin purses. After a heist goes wrong, he’s tasked with retrieving priceless heirlooms to get back something important.

Does Derk fit well as replacement for Therion’s best buddy? (Sure?)

Therion was apparently well-known despite no one knowing what he looked like. Maybe I can make the opposite work for Erik.

The whole thing with Therion was getting a silver band off his wrist but I still like Erik’s canon plot more, so I’d find a way to shove that in.

Tressa ➡ Gemma

The Merchant

An ambitious and overly friendly adventure wannabe, Gemma uses an anonymous journal as her guide to the wonderful — and perilous — world beneath her feet.

Original plot for Tressa tracks fine, although wouldn’t it be cool if Gemma’s journal were written by Sudo Nim??

Old Dragon Quest had merchant classes, too. Wonder if there’s anything in those mechanics I could add to this fic.

Gemma and El hit it off right away and converse excitedly about everything from cuisine to cute boys. Though… no one tells Erik, who thinks they’re crushing on each other. (love triangle that really isn’t, haha!)

Cyrus ➡ Rab

The Scholar

Newly retired and looking for a new purpose in life, Rab decides to answer a decade-old mystery. While scholarly work has always been a hobby for him, he’s prepared to get to the bottom of this puzzle and hone his analytical skills in the process.

Definitely NOT following Cyrus’s plotline here

I could still have fired Rab (similar to Cyrus) and claimed workplace discrimination, but I like my alternative: “Rab was the head of a royal estate but got bored and ‘quit,’ putting someone else in charge so he could go fart off elsewhere.”

Is Rab related to El in this??? He could be. (Sercretly.)

Alfyn ➡ Sylvia

The Performer

A talented performer with an elusive path, Sylvia has called many places home. Following in the path of a traveler who once changed her life, she sets out to bring smiles to people’s faces and avoid the roots of a past that refuses to leave her alone.

Alfyn was last on the list when I was doing matching so sorry Sylv that you got matched with this backstory. But I can adjust it to make it work

Sylvia and Alfyn both have the goal of cheering up sick kids and ya know I think Sylv could learn some healing stuff along the way! She’s much more than just a pretty face, you know.

Someone from Sylvia’s path definitely shows up again and that will be trouble for her

Primrose ➡ Jade

The Dancer

Jade’s patience and sharp mind have sustained her through years of hard living, although it is all worth it when she finds her chance to exact revenge upon those who killed her father.

— Pretty straightforward, can take a lot from Octopath’s plot for this one.

— Hard decision of whether to somehow incorporate this into Hendrik’s storyline or make Jade’s father and the king Hendrik serves two completely different people

Olberic ➡ Hendrik

The Warrior

An erstwhile knight of a fallen kingdom, Hendrik melts into life in a quiet mountain village until word comes of a former comrade who’d turned traitor and killed their liege.

Jasper is the traitor, obviously!

As for their slain liege… can it really be Carnelian again when that’s Jade’s storyline? Like a plot twist that they were both following the same guy this whole time? Probably not. Probably needs to be someone different. Or Carny can just be twice as dead.

Ophilia ➡ Serenica (Serena and Veronica)

The Cleric

A level-headed cleric, Serenica serves the faith alongside her adoptive family. She takes up the torch to fulfil a traditional pilgrimage to rekindle light across the realm.

This one is complicated and I’m not sure how I’m going to do it yet

I wanted Veronica and Serena to both inhabit the same body and considered them having Dissociative Identity Disorder. I am very not sure about this. If I do it that way, I’d want to do it properly, with a sensitivity reader, research, etc. Because being respectful is Cool.

(P.s. There was fanart but someone (me) misplaced the art and never took photos of it???)

[beevean]

How was Infinite better than Mephiles in your opinion? I think Infinite had a bit of potential but Pontiff ruined what little there was.

Is Forces a Pontaff game? It doesn’t look like one, and I think they just translated/collaborated? No seriously, I remember reading the credits and being confused. Anyway.

Let’s get out of the way the most shallow reason I prefer Infinite: design. Infinite’s design is damn cool, he’s so edgy that it’s obvious he’s meant to be a caricature, with his clawed gloves and boots with his own friggin’ symbol on it, but he’s still appealing to the eyes. Before you finish the game, the mask also adds intrigue: why is he wearing it, and why is he blind in one eye? It motivates you to get to know more about him. It also helps that he’s a canid, a family that is quite rare in the series - I can only think of Tails and Chip - and it makes him unique but not in a special OC way. (this also means he even has some cute features like big ears and a fluffy tail, which add delicious contrast to his “I'm the toughest of terrors I am the darkest of days” design)

On the contrary, Mephiles has two designs: Multiplayer-Mode Shadow...

And Nightmare Shadow.

And sure, the crystallized form is pretty cool to look at, but he still Shadow. I get that he was reborn from Shadow’s shadow (some writer felt very clever that day), but I kinda would have preferred to see him take other forms. Well, it’s not like the devs had the time to add a third model...

(also, both of them have awesome voices so I can’t put one above the other)

As for the rest, here’s a rundown:

- Mephiles, along with Iblis to a lesser extent, overshadows Eggman. He’s yet another villain that takes the stage and reduces the good ol’ doc to a miniboss, more preoccupied with stealing the McGuffin... I mean, Princess Elise, than to do some interesting villaining - this has the ripple effect of making Sonic the Hedgehog, in a game called Sonic the Hedgehog, nearly useless to the main plot until he’s killed. I have little tolerance for villains who want to be more “dangerous” than Eggman at this point, and Mephiles was only one of the last ones that played this overused trope seriously (wish he was the last one, but Dark Gaia is a smear on an otherwise beautiful game... but that’s another story). By contrast, Infinite is always Eggman’s weapon, and the game never implies you’re supposed to think less of the scientist - Infinite may be an arrogant buffoon, but he never leaves Eggman’s side. The two work on a tandem, and basically Infinite is terrifying raw strength combined with Eggman’s superior intellect. Took him long enough, but Eggman has essentially tamed a powerful beast like he’s been planning to do since Chaos.

- Mephiles is meant to be this master manipulator, a 4D chessmaster moving pieces across time and space to get to his goal. I love the idea, really: he’s the raw intellect of a god without any of the strength of a god, so he has to play dirty and play on mortals’ emotions. The problem is that the game isn’t competent enough to pull such a feat, so everyone basically has the IQ of a brick - everyone who has even watched some videos points out at least two things:

1) how can Silver, even if he grew up in a destroyed city, trust some random guy without a mouth and reptilian eyes who suddenly tells him “here’s the cause of your problems, now go back in time and kill him” and Silver is just like “okie dokie” without even asking “excuse me, and whomst the fuck are you”

2) Mephiles can travel in time anywhere he wishes AND he can apparently conjure the Emeralds at his side. There is literally nothing stopping him to go to Silver’s future and rejoin Iblis there, or even prevent the incident that split them. The game set no limitations to his powers, and so we’re free to think about the most obvious solutions, and so his overly complicated plan that hinges on a boy killing another boy 200 years in the past after he bonded with the Iblis seal to make her cry in grief, plus triggering Shadow’s trauma on the side... even more hard to follow, because it’s all useless.

Infinite, to be fair, has a similar problem with his powers: the Phantom Ruby’s potential has never been specificed, but it seems to be a strong reality warper that can even teleport people (Mania) - and yet we only see Infinite conjure clones and spikes with it, which is boring. However, one thing he has over Mephiles is that the guy’s blatantly an idiot. Like, the story doesn’t shy away from showing how his arrogant, sadistic mistakes like “lol i’ll leave you alive because you’re not worth my time” have serious repercussions to Eggman’s plans, to the point that the guy at the end is like “you know what, I’m sick of your shit” and kills him. And you may be like “how does that make him better than Mephiles” - well he’s more believable, and more human (relatively speaking), and Forces’ story was written with feet but no one got their IQ divided by itself so there’s that.

I get the feeling Infinite is meant to be both intimidating and a parody of overly edgy and cool villains like Mephiles himself, and for me it works. Mephiles... he’s kinda like ShTH: he takes himself way too seriously. Except ShTH is funny, at least.

To be kind to Mephiles, his backstory is at least more precise, and definitely more interesting: as I mentioned, I love the idea of a god that was split into powerless intellect and mindless strength. In a better game, Mephiles would have been an interesting villain, completely ineffectual in a physical battle and maybe in constant pain, but omniscent and with a streak of sadism.

Infinite, on the other hand, clearly went through a shift in backstory: the main game hints at the fact that he was made in a lab, but then Episode Shadow comes in and he’s just some guy who was bullied too hard. I... okay.

Anyway, Infinite is more appealing to me and he doesn’t break Forces’ already fragile plot like Mephiles does. also he cute. there :V

[mrfunnybone]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; MUN & MUSE - MEME.

FILL OUT & REPOST ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm. TAGGED BY: Stolen from @battleshell TAGGING: @ladydreemurr @wdvoided @puzzlebones @flametendingbartender, @the-judge-of-bones @witchandateashop, and @bravest

MY MUSE IS:   CANON / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless / complicated

Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO. [Some would say overly so.]

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. [ somehow...yes? Apparently?]

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. [ Yes. Most players agree that Sans fight is one of the toughest in the game, and the Gaster Blasters do pack a punch.]

Are they underrated?  YES / NO / IDK. [ Underrated? Certainly not. Overrated? Hmm..]

Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO [Hot take, but as of now, there are no CANON facts 100% supporting the idea that Sans was tied to main story plot elements. If you took him out, the actual story wouldn’t change much, you would just go straight to Asgore’s fight. ]

Were they relevant for the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG. [ Sans is one of the main monsters that the MC interacts with, and acts as the Judge near the end of the game, which reveals a lot of unknown information to the MC.]

Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO. [ The scene in Grillby’s seems to suggest that, at least in Snowdin, Sans is well-known and well-liked.]

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL. [ While fellow Grillby customers and a few other Snowdin residents seem to like him, he’s also seen to irritate other characters with his laziness, bad jokes, or shenanigans. Even Undyne admits that she’d fire him, but he always manages to do the bare minimum to avoid it being justified.]

HOW STRICTLY DO YOU FOLLOW CANON?  — I do! Though I also offer my own spin on San’s backstory and my own interpretation of canon hints. 

SELL YOUR MUSE! AKA TRY TO LIST EVERYTHING, WHICH MAKES YOUR MUSE INTERESTING IN YOUR OPINION TO MAKE THEM SPICY FOR YOUR MUTUALS.  —  Jokes in the face of nihilism and a juxtaposition to the field of science, Sans is full of contradictions in a fairly entertaining and interesting way. He appears to be incredibly intelligent, but talks and dresses like he’s any ol’ joe. He appears to have symptoms of depression but still acts fairly chummy. He is both one of the hardest fights you’ll apparently face and yet only needs one hit to be defeated. Sans apparently cares for nothing and yet also holds his brother in very high esteem. He appears difficult to get close to, yet he bonded with a stranger over bad jokes and kept a promise to her even though he never even knew her name. Sans can be defined by both what he is and what he appears to be. 

NOW THE OPPOSITE, LIST EVERYTHING WHY YOUR MUSE COULD NOT BE SO INTERESTING (EVEN IF YOU MAY NOT AGREE, WHAT DOES THE FANDOM PERHAPS THINK?).  —  Sans is credited with far more than he’s actually due by the fandom. He doesn’t seem to really care for you, the player, like Toriel or other monsters do. He’s not a hero, past or present, like Gerson or Undyne. He doesn’t really help avoid the player getting hurt or captured like Papyrus does. He doesn’t push the plot forward and he doesn’t take action; as a character, Sans is purely reactive, and if he were the Main Character, that would be a huge flaw. 

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO RP YOUR MUSE?  —  I first joined the Tumblr RPC as a Frisk RP Blog, way back in the day, and that was because I stumbled across a Sans RP blog that I found very interesting. This character that I had largely not put too much thought in during the game suddenly had a very complex narrative and I loved reading his dialogue (it didn’t hurt that the mun was clearly a talented writer). Eventually, I realized I wanted to try my hand at writing him too, and so I started my own Sans RP blog.

WHAT KEEPS YOUR INSPIRATION GOING?  —  you guys. The fandom, the artists, the other Sans/Undertale RP blogs, the fanfiction authors— when I start getting bored or stale, you suddenly present this indie game, and by extension Sans, in a new angle that draws me back in. Thank you. 

SOME MORE PERSONAL QUESTIONS FOR THE MUN.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO / I SINCERELY HOPE I DO? [ Some of my old favorites in the Sans RP game, I think, did a bit better job of consistently getting his character right. Still, I hope I give him justice too.]

Do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO / SORT OF? 

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES / NO 

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES / NO [ Often! When I’m actively writing him, anyway.]

Are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO / SORT OF? [ I am! Like I said, I think there have been others who did it better, but I wouldn’t say my portrayal is bad.]

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO. [ Most of the time! Sometimes I get writer's anxiety, and it doesn’t help that Tumblr gets me at my rawest. I have no editor, my posts normally receive just a brief proof-reading, and I’m sometimes experimenting for the first time with a particular genre/scene/style. I wouldn’t point to all of my writing here as my best or strongest work, but I can write solid stuff.]

Are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO. / SORTA. [ I wouldn’t say I’m sensitive in terms of people criticizing me, personally, but I am sensitive to other people. When something bad or unfair happens to someone, I usually feel upset for them. It can get very emotionally exhausting.] 

DO YOU ACCEPT CRITICISM WELL ABOUT YOUR PORTRAYAL?  —  I would say so! In general, I’m used to critiques for both writing and art, as I’ve taken courses that incorporated both heavily. 

DO YOU LIKE QUESTIONS, WHICH HELP YOU EXPLORE YOUR CHARACTER?  —  Absolutely!

IF SOMEONE DISAGREES TO A HEADCANON OF YOURS, DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY?  —  Not necessarily! I’m always interested in hearing different takes, but if someone said, “I don’t agree,” and didn’t follow up with an explanation on their own, I wouldn’t ask for one. 

IF SOMEONE DISAGREES WITH YOUR PORTRAYAL, HOW WOULD YOU TAKE IT?  —  Kind of the same as above. I would be interested in hearing why if they offered up why, but otherwise, I’m not really going to ask because they don’t OWE ME an explanation. For example, I like a lot of books, and I don’t like a lot of books, and that’s not really a judge of their quality as much as it is my own personal taste. Number one rule as a writer, you have to learn and accept that your stuff won’t appeal to everyone. 

IF SOMEONE REALLY HATES YOUR CHARACTER, HOW DO YOU TAKE IT?  —  I get it, haha. Characters that are hyped up like Sans are easy to get annoyed by. Even if he wasn’t hyped up, though, again, it makes sense that someone wouldn’t like him. Just like a book, a character can’t appeal to everyone. 

ARE YOU OKAY WITH PEOPLE POINTING OUT YOUR GRAMMATICAL ERRORS?  —  Please do! It’s embarrassing when I catch them later, hahaha. 

DO YOU THINK YOU ARE EASY GOING AS A MUN?   —  I think so! I try to be, anyway. Sometimes I worry I’m too casual with slipping into IM’s or commenting on posts, but so far I don’t think I’ve scared anyone off, so that’s good. 

[problemon]

give us the trans lore bro...

Earl and lana in unison: down with cis

Also having read through this to spell check… I now realise that me writing these characters is just a combination of “this is me” and “I WISH this was me”. I decided to leave in my commentary purely because I think the art and the author is always interesting to see but for the love of god…. @ cis ppl me being somewhat open about my trans experience doesn’t give you the right the ask invasive questions. 

Anyway

Earl came out when he was 6. For the first four years of his life his dad was around, Gumbald was still around, Bonnibel was still a closeted lesbian, and so it was very much expected that Earl and Liam would be cishets.

Why yes… Both Liam AND Earl are trans. I mean… None of the Lemongrabs have “male” psychical characteristics and they all identity as male so… ALL human Lemongrabs should be trans. Fella cannonically has no junk. Translate that to a human context: epic transgenderisms.

Anyway (2!)

But after bio dad left Earl and Liam started doing various… Early (ha) onset dysphoria things and showing a clear preference for male clothing and such. By this point Bonnibel was out and started engaging with her local lgbt+ community, (which is how she met Marceline) and started befriending adult trans people who’d come over and see Earl being like:

Earl: I am playing my favourite game. I am re enacting the war of the roses with my brother. I am playing the Earl of Leicester who is also my favourite historical figure. You have to use his title and he for me or I bite you.

Bonnie’s friends and Earl’s whole family who know what being trans is and that this kind of other gender role playing is typical of trans children: 🤔hm…

(I also used to do this lol)

So Aunt Lolly took them to see a doctor as Bonnibel was way too busy and also had complicated feelings about the whole thing. Doctor asked them a bunch of questions, interviewed lolly and was like “I diagnose them with boy”.

Earl’s mothers kinda grieved for a while and were like “we don’t have daughters anymore 😔” so Lolly kinda… Took over as their main caregiver for a while while Bonnie buried herself in work. So Lolly was the one who chose their names and they’ve always had a close relationship. Earl’s name comes from his fave historical figure and he loves his name a lot (me too fam) while Liam belongs to that group of trans people who just… Saw a name on a box and were like “lol that’s me now.” Liam’s name comes from a fucking doll advert he saw aged 5 in a newspaper. (You laugh but my name backstory is no better. I also know a trans girl who named herself after a pun like a true icon. YES I’m trans YES my name backstory is fucking funny as fuck. WE EXIST)

Anyway Bonnie snapped out of her cis grieving, Earl and Liam moved schools and as teens were put on blockers and hormones with no problems and now we’re here!

The one family member who doesn’t know about his trans status is Earl’s biological father, who sends him letters every few years asking for money like “my dear daughter I am once again asking for your financial support as I have lost all my money on the stock market” which Earl finds really funny.

Earl hasn’t had a hysterectomy so he still has hormone injections and Dr Minerva provides his needles (our boy self injects) so… Finn and his family know he’s trans and they’re fine with it.

As Earl + Liam never went through “female” puberty they haven’t needed to undergo top surgery and such. Though I imagine Liam underwent bottom surgery at 16 due to extreme dysphoria while Earlie never does.

Anyway that’s them. On the whole they’ve had a pretty good time.

…Lana did NOT have a good time.

Lana came out age 14 when she wasn’t ready to. She clocked she was trans age 13 and went through a very difficult questioning phase but eventually decided she was a girl.

Bit of background: The advtime episode “The Eyes” shows LSP celebrating a Quinceañera party. In particular she seems to be celebrating a Mexican Quinceañera as she has a bouquet of white flowers (these are apparently left on the altar as an offering to Mary), a tiara, and is dancing with her father- which my albeit brief research tells me are typical features of a Mexican Quinceañera, and as LSP is thus implied to be a Mexican girl I think human LSP should similarly be Mexican. Now a Quinceañera is a rite of passage ceremony and party girls have when they turn 15, and you can imagine what it feels like to know you’re a girl but that you’re never going to have one of these, and that you’re going to be denied this affirmation of your womanhood. And as Lana really really really wanted to have a Quinceañera she forced herself to come out so she could have one.

Her family were initially quite upset. Her parents were supportive but how best to put this… I mean like “supportive”. Like LGBT people know what I mean when your family is fine with you being queer until you talk about it too much or correct them too much and they… Just don’t. Anyway Lana has a solid case of that going on. So her parents are nice enough but also… Could be a lil better. And having that experience of very conditional and flimsy support was uck traumatic.

Moving on:

She transitioned a lot later in life so poor girl lived with bad dysphoria for a long while and still has low self esteem about herself bcos of it. She has very bad voice dysphoria so she overly emphasises her speech (me me I do this! This is also why I would rather die than record myself speaking lmao) so she also has a kind of… Valley girl way of speaking, though she slips into a more comfortable voice when she’s around people she feels safe with.

And thanks to trans healthcare™️ she didn’t get on E till like… 16. (Wish this was me lol…) But she’s a lot more comfortable and happy now so it’s all good.  Lana’s probably… on the fence about genital surgery. I know this is a taboo topic but anyway, binary trans people who don’t get srs for whatever reason are so so valid and powerful and it’s funny how “are you gonna get the surgery” is the one thing people want to know about trans people until we start talking about it on our own terms lol. 

In terms of other stuff, Earl’s more or less private about his trans status. Very few people know and that’s just what he’s comfortable with. Plus he’s been living as male from a very early age and BARELY remembers anything before it, so for most of his life being trans didn’t form a huge part of his identity. But I imagine that changes as he grows older and starts dating Lana and has kids and is generally… Put in more situations where Not Being Cis changes things quite significantly. For Lana it’s a much bigger part of her identity and always has been. Like she includes trans themes in her literary work and would go to pride and meetings. 

Cis ppl can interact but please stay in your lane…

[tuxedo-rabbit]

Some Hawke drabbles

I found these in my drabbles folder and I’d completely forgotten I’d written them. I was trying to develop my first Hawke’s backstory at the time, based on the fact that it must be weird to grow up traveling from place to place and then suddenly being told you have to settle into one town. They aren’t quite at Lothering yet, probably one of the other little towns they stayed at before settling down for the long haul. Like most of my drabbles....these just kinda start in the middle and end nowhere lol. But I felt like posting them ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

________

Marian's toe itched. 

So did a specific spot behind her ear. 

Unfortunately, the rhythmic tugging on her head told her that she was still required to sit still. Her mother hummed behind her as she braided Marian's hair into some sort of overly complicated half-bun, and Marian was sure that if she didn't move this very second, she was going to die. Well, maybe that was a bit dramatic, but still. 

Marian scanned the table she was sitting in front of, hoping to find a coin or a bit of string she could fidget with. She must have moved her head without realizing, however, because her mother made a little tutting noise and tugged harder.

"Just a little longer, I'm almost done." her mother promised, "honestly with the way you've been sighing you'd think this was some sort of punishment."

Marian couldn't help but scrunch her nose up. Since they had decided to settle near a town, her mother had been intent on making sure Marian looked "presentable." Ponytail's apparently didn't count, which was ridiculous. Ponytails were practical. They were easy, and they didn't make her head feel like it was being stretched apart. Marian had tried to point this out on several occasions, but her mother's only response had been that look.  The judgey one. With the sad eyes. Maybe Bethany would end up liking ribbons and intricate hair-dos and then their mother would stop pestering her so much. 

 "There, done," her mother smiled, holding out a small mirror to show Marian the results, "You look lovely, dear." Deciding it would be easier to get away if she agreed, Marian simply smiled back.

_____________ Marian unwrapped the newest addition to her treasure pile: a pair of old hunting knives. They were simple things, plain wooden handles with short blades. No intricate carvings or anything--but that didn't matter to Marian. There was something intriguing about the knives. 

There was a book her father liked to read to her sometimes, an adventure story about a swash-buckling pirate and a rogue that fought with daggers. The sea was surely different than the hills and forests of Fereldan, but when her father read of the pirate and the rogue, Marian could smell campfires and dirt, could remember counting the stars from her bedroll and remember running around without a care for her hair or clothes. 

Knives suited her much more nicely than hair ribbons, she decided.

[multsicorn]

What are your top three favorite ships (relationships or friendships) at the moment?

At the moment! That’s a good question (thank you)....

Number one has definitely gotta be Jack/Parse, from Check Please. I can’t believe I’ve been obsessed with this ship for almost three years now! ... and I’ve got a discord where I talk about it more days than not. As to why, ugh, there’s an essay that I keep writing in my head about that... maybe tomorrow I’ll take a break from being almost done (any day) finishing my writing tools and actually write it instead. That’d be fun. Cause the thing about Failing At Life, you see....

Number two as of this week is Flint/Silver (though I believe the usual order is SilverFlint? but anyway) from Black Sails. Friendship? Relationship? Neither really applies to these two, exactly, but I’m very much a fan of something that in many ways resembles a relationship while keeping the shifting balance of power struggle and uncertainty of trust that they have in canon. Which is after all, what I find appealing. Everything from ‘in my head, you are not welcome’ to Flint shooting his own protection... jesus, it’s a lot. I love ships dancing on that thin line between enemies and everything else. (This is the other ship, btw, that I’ve been reading on ao3).

Third!... I don’t have a single good answer, so I’m going to cheat. (Don’t I always tend to do that? Ask me for three things, you’ll get seven. Or none. Cause I got overwhelmed by the seven. But, um, anyway.)

A couple of ships from things I’ve watched now/recently.

Third, cause I do spend more time thinking about it, cause I watched the series over a longer period of time (I do not like the current trend for binge tv... but that’s another post), and cause it has SONGS to listen to/watch forever, is Pearl/Rose from Steven Universe. (Rose/Pearl? idk.) “do it for her! that’s how you know you can win -“... I could quote every line of that song and write an essay just on it too but I will Not. (uh. maybe later. if anyone wants). Anyway - yeah - sure - the Pink Diamond reveal changed a lot of stuff - I really was into the original knight-and-lady dynamic, along with all the added great queerness/weirdness of how gems do things, and the complications of ‘I’ve got to be there for her son’ (also a wonderful! song!!! lol I love musicals). But I’m never gonna say no to adding fucked-up power dynamics in an angsty backstory. Who do you think I am.

And, fourth... Allison & Vanya (or possibly Allison/Vanya? I’m not definitively opposed) from The Umbrella Academy. ... The thing with the ordering here is that while I spend more time, I am sure, thinking about Rose/Pearl, I am more likely to read, and to read about, Vanya and Allison. So. ~shrug emoji~? And - the thing there - this is exactly what I said when liveblogging the show, I’m not sure I can be more specific - is “he made me his accomplice,” is “you left” - “I didn’t want to leave *you*”. I. just. okay. I did not grow up in an academy for superheroes, obviously, because those don’t real, but the way this show depicted a group of people dealing with their shared fucked-up childhood and family, was very extremely excessively #relateable to me, and Vanya and Allison most of all. That book! All those deliberate (and sometimes overly much) attempts at friendship! The near final confrontation and the actually final confrontation!!! I am making so much sense!!! ... but, anyway. When I first dug through the ao3 tags they were dire; I hope there may be something better now. And I want to do Something... I don’t know what... but Allison is not, I’d imagine, going to be sanguine about having her throat cut! for fucking ever. And Vanya’s not going to be quite as apologetic as she probably should. And I’m okay with incest - if someone else goes there - it’s not a hard no for me, generally, but since my feelings about this show are so very much, personally, about family... I don’t know if I’ll want to go there myself. Then again, the actresses are *damn* pretty, so maybe, lol.

(Honestly, I just? Don’t have the same ‘as long as it’s porn or angst or ideally both give it to me’ um, lack of standards at least at the start for f/f ships I love as for m/m. And I need material to fan the flames of fannishness. Hence, 1, 2, 3, 4... but I love these things, so I’d like to figure out how it can work for me.)

Anyway! I promised you seven, didn’t I? I can’t count. I meant six. Because, after, I love my old ships just as much, I think about them just as much, as newer ones. (No, not Glee. That’s just on my blog cause it’s still on my dash after all this time).

Fifth... I still think about my John Laurens (not anyone else’s, really, but mine), just about every fucking day. I left Hamilton fandom quite decisively, several years ago, for several reasons.. (oh, the ship is Hamilton/Laurens of course), but I can never shake that story I was gonna write and will never write. Apparently. - It goes like this.

John Laurens was trying to die in the war. For good reasons - his apparent utter inability to change anything in the world - (I know that’s not a good reason! don’t talk to me!) - and for worse ones (being gay, his lover married, feeling so guilty about the former that he wanted the latter, oh, John). He almost succeeded, at the very last minute - in history he did succeed. But in my AU, he wakes up - the war’s over - and he’s gotta figure out What To Do Next. “Dying is easy, living is harder,” yeah? One of the (many many many) things I loved about Hamilton is how it went in on that, only not for Laurens, of course, cause he died... and that’s the story that keeps singing in my brain; there are, fractally, lots of details, of course, but that’s the outline, the story of this ship.

Six! I need to finish this post. It is 1:24 am. So the fact that Roy/Ed from Fullmetal Alchemist (it is really a very great show - ships aside, when I rewatch, I just love it) is still enough of a favorite that I wanna count it will. Lol. Stand mostly on its own. I have been rereading rainjoys’ corpus of fic for them continually for a dozen years now. And just a few days ago I was talking irl about this great idea I had for a roleswap AU... even though it was inspired by shippynes, the AU itself isn’t shippy. It’ll, also, be a different post! And I love magic science and geniuses who disobey their commanders and it is 1:30 am goodnight <3.

[tangomango2017]

Thoughts on the Chinese DotA Animated Series, The Tower Will Go On, and its two main characters

It’s been five years since this animated series based on Warcraft 3 Dota was made. The fan forum is still alive, and it’s amazing to witness the fan dedication to this work, in the form of essays, debates and even a ridiculously detailed second-by-second analysis of the opening theme.

But I barely got a glimpse of those essays before they were removed, apparently to be scrutinized by their internet police for objectionable content. The series itself has also been taken off all China websites, such that China’s fans themselves can’t watch them even if they wanted to revisit. Which makes me so glad that I have all the episodes in HD.

Anyway, on to the show itself. It’s divided into two parts:

Season One is about Crystal Maiden forming her rag-tag team of Radiant/Sentinel heroes. It’s light-hearted and full of jokes. The heroes die a lot and revive at the fountain every time. Sniper’s death count reaches above 300 at one point.

Season Two (titled Death for the Reborn) is darker as the team clashes with the Dire/Scourge and the war intensifies. The plot gets more complicated with internal factions, spying and conspiracies. The rules change: the river that revives dead heroes gets corrupted, so deaths are permanent.

One’s reaction to this show would likely be: “No! This isn’t Dota. This isn’t Invoker at all! What travesty is this?!”

But first, let’s consider these two things:

Firstly, the story is set in the game map. All hero skills and items stay faithful to the game. There is no ‘lore’ to speak of, as this series came out before Valve took over Dota. During that period, ownership of Dota was attributed to Ice Frog, who’s referenced in episode 2.

Eul’s Scepter in the show

Old Eul’s Scepter in Dota 1

Secondly, it’s fan-made. And as with all fan creations, anything’s possible.

For example,

It’s possible for Bloodseeker to be gay with a jungle creep(centaur) and foster a baby centaur.

Bloodseeker X Jungle Centaur in the show

Old Strygwyr in Dota 1

It’s possible for a carry to be so fed, he’s ten times the size of another:

Daddy Doom and his Little QuoP

Love it or hate it, this fan tribute to Dota is in a class of its own. It’s entertained me for hours, made me laugh, sigh, cringe, think; it was one hell of a nostalgic ride back to Warcraft Dota days. And it will always have a special place in my heart.

And now, on to the main characters…

The protagonist - a tribute to Support Heroes

‘Little Ice’ (China’s pet name for Crystal Maiden) is a fan-service kind of character whose appeal is mostly sexual and emotional. I won’t talk much about her but I won’t write her off completely either.

So Little Ice starts off with a dream to rise above her destiny as a position 5 support. She’s left her team carry (Dragon Knight) as she resents him for being overbearing and overly task-oriented. (It’s unclear what’s the relationship between the two, though they hug a couple of times). She tries to carve a career for herself, forming her own rag-tag team. But reality is a wet blanket, and like her role in the game, her impact on the story is limited and she ends up having her heart broken several times.

Old Crystal Maiden from Warcraft 3 Dota

In the show, she is depicted as a klutz with a bad sense of direction and is sometimes impulsive, casting Freezing Field at the most ridiculous, anti-climactic moment and generally doing stuff that would be considered ‘bad decision making’ in the game.

But despite her limitations, the girl has a mind of her own. She stands firm in her beliefs and is courageous enough to try to protect her male teammates. Even when said teammate is the Dragon Knight being bashed up by Roshan.

She is also fiercely loyal, refusing to abandon the dying Bristleback and instead managing to persuade DK to risk a Roshan fight to get the Aegis.

Overall, I’d say her character serves two purposes here: as a shoutout to under-appreciated Support players, and as a symbol of innocence. This trait of hers is seen as a weakness and is used to comical effect, yet, at the same time it is also something to be prized and guarded. The Queen of Pain (portrayed as a man-hater with lesbian tendencies) mocks her several times for her naivety, yet she admits that CM represents the innocence that she’s lost and that she needs to protect.

From Zero to (Anti) Hero

The central character, Kael (pronounced Ka-er, I’ll refer to him as Carl since it matches the Chinese pronunciation) appears in the second episode and drives the entire story with his zero to anti-hero arc. The title of Season Two refers to him being reborn from the ashes (he was Doomed and almost killed in a fire). He is the only one besides QoP to have a backstory (both underwent the trauma of having their entire homeland and families destroyed).

Invoker from Warcraft 3 Dota

Invoker from Season One of the show

Invoker from Season Two

While this Invoker is as OOC as he can get, there’s no denying the detail that has been put into his design. For example, in Season 2 his orbs are actually faces, perhaps representing the connection of Invoker’s volatile temperament to his elemental powers.

Just as the two parts of the show are divided into a dichotomy of light and dark, there are two different depictions of Invoker in each part.

Season One Invoker

If you’ve ever played this hero, Season One will remind you of how it felt the very first time you tried him in a game. Clueless, powerless, the butt of your teammates’ jokes perhaps.

Carl first appears in episode two quoting that famous line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It sounds really pretentious (not that surprising for Carl), but considering that Hamlet killed someone by accident in the play, it’s also a kind of foreshadowing of what will happen later on.

So Carl is introduced as a depressed guy trying to hang himself. In a comically tragic manner, he tells his story as a former prince who lost his home, sought refuge with the Dire/Scourge but is constantly scorned for being useless as he hasn’t figured out his spells.

With a background like that, who wouldn’t be damaged for life? But CM sees him as even more vulnerable than her, and he brings out the encouraging and protective side of her. Of course, the naive part of her ignores the fact that he is a defector from the enemy side.

Carl is of course extremely grateful, having found the acceptance he’s always longed for, and one can see the beginning of a pure, somewhat platonic love between the two.

In China, Invoker/CM are almost regarded as canon pairing, with roots going back to Kael’thas/Jaina from Warcraft.

Initially, she brings out the good qualities in him, such as courage and self-sacrifice. Noob Carl is actually quite lovable, even willing to take one for the team by ‘donating’ blood to the Bloodseeker. He forges a strong friendship with the gang and they have a lot of fun fending off their one enemy in Season One.

Although he’s harmless at this point, his uselessness repeatedly emphasized by all characters, there are glimpses of his more complicated self, such as when he uses his knowledge and cunning to get the team out of trouble. More foreshadowing of who he is to become is given by the Queen of Pain, who tries in vain to warn CM about his potential for evil.

Meteoric Rise to Power

Two events serve as catalysts to the awakening of his powers. First there’s the excessively bloody whipping that Queen of Pain gives him, just because she feels like it. This happens in the middle of a team fight and in his state of desperation, it is his thoughts of CM (whose nickname is literally, Little Ice Ice) that unlocks his first skill, Ghostwalk. At the same time, the sinister side of him awakens as he turns the tables on the Queen and blinds her in one eye before burying her alive.

And then he gets punished by Doom, who’s rather high up in the hierarchy here. Doom (whom everyone calls ‘Daddy’) is furious to find out that his beloved god-daughter, his Little QuoP has been hurt. He finds out about this in an interesting manner - by devouring the jungle centaur that witnessed the incident.

Doom: WHO ATE THE COOKIES?

Tiny, CM, etc: (keeps quiet)

Doom: Very well, I shall find out the truth (devours jungle creep).

(everyone watches on nervously)

Doom: …CARL!

Carl: Yes Daddy?

Doom: How dare you eat my cookies!

Carl: I don’t get what you’re talking about, Daddy

Doom: You’ll get THIS, you little shit.

Season Two Invoker

After being doomed and running into the forest in agony, Carl goes missing for a while. A flashback later shows Dazzle’s saved him and bandaged him up like a mummy. By chance, Windranger finds him when her Powershot arrow accidentally hits him. Probably out of guilt, she brings him home and cares for him for three months. When Ogre Magi harasses WR and sets her house on fire, Carl rises from the ashes with a complete makeover, a costume change, full mastery of magic and a marked change in personality. The change feels really abrupt and I’d have preferred something more gradual. But the writers probably wanted a striking contrast between the two seasons.

So he helps her fend off the Ogre and she falls in love with him. But he stays true to CM.

Despite what this shot in the opening theme suggests, WR doesn’t force herself on him. She’s really cool.

In Season Two, Carl’s personality becomes much more conflicted, longing to return to CM yet afraid to endanger her with Doom hot on his heels. While she thinks about him in her quiet moments, he watches over her in invisible form. The next triggering event is when the Dragon Knight beats him to rushing to CM’s rescue. He is consumed by jealousy and the fire element comes to the forefront. From then on, his emotional instability deteriorates further, and with some goading from Dazzle, he forms a plan to destroy DK with Ancient Apparition’s Ice Blast dealing the killing blow.

However that plan goes tragically wrong when his old friend Bristleback walks into the Sunstrike spot. One mistake leads to another, and he ends up killing QuoP as well. That confrontation between the two is one of the most dramatic scenes I’ve ever seen. When the Queen threatens to reveal his bad deeds to CM, he starts grovelling and begging her for forgiveness, but it turns out it’s all an act allowing him to get close to her for a tornado. Despite the cringeyness there is a special kind of satisfaction in seeing one’s favourite video game character display the whole range of emotions, just as it’s satisfying seeing him perform the whole shebang of spells after being abused for the first ten episodes.

Carl’s final move is one that completely breaks CM’s heart. He steals the Aegis meant for saving Bristleback’s life. However, his motivation isn’t very clear and was the topic of much debate and speculation among the Chinese fans at that time. But going by his character’s trajectory, it’s highly likely he’s doing it for self-preservation. After all, Doom’s absolutely livid that he’s killed QuoP and the Aegis is his only chance at standing against Big Daddy Doom. But the ending leaves questions unanswered. Now that he’s pissed off both sides, what’s to become of him? Is his character totally irredeemable? How will the war end? Season Three was supposed to be in the works, but never materialized. 

[frasier-crane-style]

Tomb Raider (2018)

Spoilers.

This is probably the weirdest adaptation I’ve ever watched. It’s not that I’m overly fond of the 2013 game, which struck me as wrong-headed and cack-handed, a bunch of generic “grim and gritty” clichés paired with “origin story” tropes, but there was at least a baseline competence. TR18 adapts maybe fifty percent of that plot—albeit in a much less economical, yet also less complicated way that still manages to offer less spectacle—and then…

Well, that would be telling.

Okay, so we start off with what feels like a ton of backstory. The video game started with everyone already on the Endurance, the player was quickly brought up to speed on what they were doing, and then the shipwreck happened and we’re off to the races.

The movie spends thirty minutes or so on Lara being a hip young millennial with attractive multiethnic friends (hi Dutch from Killjoys!) who never show up again. They’ve apparently decided that Lara being a millionaire heiress is unrelatable, so now she’s a penniless delivery girl, all because she refuses to sign a document stating that her father was dead.

I had no idea that declaring someone dead was entirely up to a relative of theirs. Wouldn’t, I don’t know, the cops or some other authority do that?

You’re really telling me the financial situation is set up so Lara doesn’t get one red cent unless her dad’s declared dead? And it’s not a case of her being frozen out, since she was raised by apparently a high-ranking executive in the company. You’d think there would be a huge trust fund, or that she’d have stock in the company, or even that she’d get some do-nothing position there, since it really seems like bad publicity for the person your company is named after to be basically living on the streets.

Isn’t she still just a slumming rich girl? It’s been seven years. She could be responsibly using all that money to run charities and such, or at least spring for her friends’ groceries, but instead she pleads poverty to actual poor people, when she isn’t cheating them at bets (yeah, I consider her concealing her paint trail in the biking game to be against the spirit of the competition, and thus cheating. Also, why is there a bike race in a Tomb Raider movie?)

But still, so far so good. It’s providing backstory to the basic plot of the TR13 story, it’s taking elements that Rise of the Tomb Raider retconned in and inserting them here from the very beginning—although oddly they take Anna, who in the game was basically a surrogate mother to her, and here make her this bitch Lara seems to outright resent, which makes her betrayal… pointless?

Oh, and for some reason (padding), we’ll effectively get shown the same scene twice. Like, at the very beginning of the movie, we hear about this legend that the plot will revolve around. Makes sense, right? Then, not fifteen minutes later, Lara hears the exact same narration with a few added details. Why? Did they think we forgot?

We also get the standard scene where Lara is sitting on a rooftop, thinking of the last time she saw her dear departed father as a child, him saying he has to go, but he’ll come back, giving her a token to remember him by. Standard stuff, right? Only later, we get pretty much the exact same scene with Lara as a teenager saying goodbye to her dad again. So I guess he came back the first time and then left again and that’s the last time she ever saw him. Okay, why did you need to show us the first scene? Why not combine them into one scene? Did we need the second go-around to establish that she’s a great archer?

(Also, I find the whole “she’s not a superhero! She’s just an average woman!” thing hella amusing when they also establish that, oh, right, she also happens to have found time to exercise herself into an eight-pack, train in kickboxing, and learn to be a champion markswoman. It’s like, I don’t know, a version of Die Hard where Jet Li gets invited to Nakatomi Plaza. Sure, he’s never beaten up a dozen terrorists before, but it’s not like he doesn’t know how. Why not just have her be an outright badass from the get-go and tell the damn story?)

But okay, she finds a clue to her missing father’s whereabouts and goes to Hong Kong, where we meet her supporting cast: Lu Wen. Just… Lu Wen.

This character is like a Lovecraftian pox on my mind, because I cannot understand anything about him. Sure, we can assume the studio wants China Bucks, but surely, that can’t be the only reason he’s there… right?

See, because we get an elaborate introduction to Lu Wen, he and Lara have several lengthy dialogues, so you assume that this character is important, that he’s going to be a big deal. Maybe him and Lara will fall in love, maybe he’ll betray her and turn out to be the bad guy, Who knows? But they set up this character so thoroughly and then he basically disappears from the movie and gets replaced as male lead by Lara’s daddy, who isn’t dead. Until he does die, but this time he gets a big death scene where he tells Lara he’s proud of her, so he’s really dead.

Lu Wen could’ve been killed in the shipwreck, or Lara could’ve sailed to the island herself, and it wouldn’t have changed the movie’s plot one iota. So why is he there? Is it just because they want the movie to have a male lead? Well, they have Daddy Croft, so why do they need him? Are they trying to be socially conscious and have an Asian romantic lead? But he isn’t really in the movie much and he and Lara really don’t fall for each other, since in the part of the movie where they’d usually be developing feelings for each other, she’s with her dad and he’s probably in another studio. So is he just there to show that there isn’t a love story and Lara doesn’t need a man? Like, ‘hey, a man, look how much Lara doesn’t need him and isn’t in love with him!’ That seems pretty thankless.

Plus, for an action movie, they hired Daniel Wu and then never had him bust out the kung-fu. I mean, c’mon. It’s a fucking video game movie. Are they really trying to be high-minded with this “not all Asians know martial arts!” stuff when they hired a guy who does know martial arts and could easily perform an impressive fight scene? It’s like casting Taye Diggs in a musical and then not having him sing.

Also, I thought it was weird that they introduce Lu as this falling-down drunk guy, and then that never comes up again. I guess he’s addicted to alcohol but then he just… stopped? Or maybe it was supposed to set him up as some experienced, world-weary adventurer who would contrast with Lara’s naïve ingénue and he’d be gruff and roguish, she’d be a little prim and serious, they’d have a Han/Leia sort of dynamic… only not really, he’s just kind of a guy for the rest of the movie.

I guess they thought “we need a scene where the heroine meets a boat captain and hires him to take her where she needs to go” and decided to script that scene to be as clichéd as humanly possible for no reason. Seriously, they could’ve introduced this character making wind chimes, it at least would’ve given him a little personality. What does Lara having to sober him up by throwing him into the shower tell us about this character that isn’t immediately contradicted by how he acts from thereon out?

But never mind all that, they finally reach the island, Lara meets the evil Vogel, who works for Trinity, the vaguely defined villainous organization that will provide generic conflict for the next umpteen movies—seriously, say what you will about Quantum of Solace, but at least there was a bit more to QUANTUM than just Judi Dench saying “there’s an organization out to take over the world! Stop them!”

Lara manages to escape and makes her first kill with one of Vogel’s henchman, who is not rapey because art shouldn’t be challenging or provoke negative emotional responses, and then she finds her father, who, as I said, pretty much takes over as male lead with the movie halfway over.

This is also where the adaptation gets bizarre to me, because sometimes it’s almost a shot-for-shot remake of sequences from the game, then it has huge deviations from that plot involving the nature of the villain, the threat, Lara, Lara’s allies—pretty much everything. And then it’ll go and make a big deal of Lara using a climbing pick as a melee weapon.

I’m used to adaptations taking ‘moments’ from the source material and recreating them in original stories, or doing broad strokes adaptations of existing storylines, but this is such an odd Frankensteining of plots, like they squished several stories together to make one refurbished plot. It’s really distracting to me, and it seems like they should’ve just made a wholly original plot instead of bolting a bunch of new stuff onto the TR13 storyline.

This is also where I’m sympathetic to people complaining that they gave a gender-swap to Sam Nishimura, who in the game was an Asian woman of critical importance to the Himiko plotline whose friendship with Lara was widely interpreted as having lesbian subtext. So it looks like they freaked out about having any gay stuff in their shiny new franchise and made it as straight as possible.

Like, there’s no reason this boat captain character couldn’t be Sam. It’s not like Lara and Lu Wen have any real romance except for him kinda sorta making a pass at her and her kinda sorta rejecting him. And if they wanted to avoid the uneasy comparison of even a potential love interest having to be straight, it seems like it would be easy enough to make movie!Himiko into a completely different creature, since all you really need is an exotic and inaccessible location for Lord Croft to go missing in, with an ancient civilization advanced enough to semi-plausibly build a big trappy tomb. So why it has to be Japan and Himiko doesn’t make any sense to me, besides unthinking laziness.

The fact that Sam was so important to the villain’s endgame and, in the game, Lara’s father was long dead of suicide at this point makes a marked difference from the movie, where Lara’s quest to find her dad takes center stage and her ability to enter the tomb makes her pretty much the Chosen One. Again, more generic, more clichéd.

Oh, but they do kinda go back to being a super-faithful adaptation with Lara making extensive use of a bow and arrow instead of picking up one of the numerous guns her enemies drop. Which is weird, since it’s not like Lara is Hawkeye. In the game, she picks up more advanced weapons as she gets them. It’s like they keep that fanservice, but then they don’t really preserve anything else about the source material.

Anyway, Lara and company—pointedly not including Lu Wen, who is pretty much absent from the third act of this big Asian romantic lead movie—enter the tomb. To its credit, the movie now has more tomb raiding than the game ever did (like I said, I was lukewarm on it; give me Angelina Jolie in shorts any day). And we find another story has been smushed into this one, because now there’s a faith versus science plotline where Lara doesn’t believe Himiko is real, and Vogel doesn’t believe she’s real, but Daddy Croft is all about that. Really, this is a theme that’s only coming up now? The movie’s almost over!

Well, this movie’s Himiko turns out to be mundane, but such an exotic variety of mundanity as to pretty much be as implausible as anything supernatural. And, again, more clichéd, as the McGuffin turns out to be a creation kit for rage zombies. I didn’t like when Rise of the Tomb Raider ripped off the Uncharted games that way, and it’s even more embarrassing when the last two Uncharted games have shied away from that trope. Yet the big damn movie can’t think of anything better to do, and gives us one measly rage zombie that’s easily dispatched? Not a horde of eternally undead Nipponese for our heroine to battle through? Not a Japanese Jason Voorhees she has to take out? Just a monster of the week from Supernatural, and not even a good episode at that?

How disappointing. The game had a better final boss. It really speaks to the movie having a low budget, especially when heroes and villains start having gunfights on a dinky set, with their cover seemingly inches away from each other because the place was built so small.

I continue to report on this only because I made a note to myself to mention this stupidity. Lara is tasked with stopping Vogel from getting away with a sample of this zombie apocalypse. She gets into a fistfight with the injured, limping Vogel and seems to be doing well for herself, but midway through she decides to cut the bridge that would’ve allowed either her or him to get out. This despite knowing that Vogel has called for a helicopter to pick him up and that if he kills her, Vogel can just wait for those guys to find him, rig up a way for him to get out, and blah blah rule the world.

So Lara destroying the bridge accomplishes nothing but guaranteeing her demise if she does happen to win.

But, she’s the hero, so she gets a mulligan on that and escapes to reunite with Lu Wen, who then disappears from the movie for the last time. Seriously, they don’t say goodbye, they don’t have a big kiss, he doesn’t show up in the epilogue. What happens to this character? What’s his arc been? Who knows! He was in the movie and now he’s not.

Lara goes back home, declares her father dead, takes over the company and hands it over to Anna, who she has just started to like, but then immediately realizes is evil, so I guess there was no point to that. Stay tuned for when we do Rise of the Tomb Raider and it turns out that the Deathless Ones are all Ewoks, I guess.

[autumnleavescoffeedreams]

Things You’d Never Know Without Fanfics...

(WARNING: Strongly advise you not to read/comment/reply if you’re easily offended as this is full of heavy sarcasm. If you do not get sarcasm, DO NOT READ.)

(Updated: 7/27/17... starts at #36)

1. Eyes are not called eyes. They are orbs. And usually the color of chocolate.

2. A woman will begin experiencing pregnancy symptoms less than 24 hours after sex. In some cases, there will even be a small bump.

3. It doesn’t matter if you’re a minor, you can still miss 12 days of school without any repercussions.

4. All female protagonists must have ridiculously complicated names or names that generally are associated with boys because they’re “not like all the other girls”.

5. Love triangles are completely original ideas.

6. When a male love interest says, “I’ll never hurt you” the chapter after he’s caused injury to his significant other, it’s sweet and romantic.

7. “Age is just a number” is a valid excuse, even when one person is 13 while the other is 21.

8. Parents don’t exist... and if they do exist, they are either extreme abusers or extreme pushovers.

9. All female protagonists can do no wrong. In fact, the only flaws they may possess are being “too clumsy” or “too stubborn”.

10. “His tongue begged for entrance” is a totally original line that has never been used before.

11. Polyvore is crucial to every story as it shows what the female protagonist is wearing.

12. No one skips over song lyrics, especially when the entire song is written out.

13. Every story should start off with an alarm clock going off. Bonus points if the main character groans and says how much they don’t want to go to school.

14. Mysterious people do not need to have any other traits except being mysterious.

15. People with glasses become 110% sexier when they take them off. Apparently I’m the only exception to this rule.

16. Readers love reading about every single item that’s in a girl’s bedroom, even though none of it will be mentioned again the rest of the story.

17. If the male love interest is attractive, it’s important to mention this in every chapter so the readers don’t forget.

18. Female protagonists must either be extremely wimpy or extremely badass. Having characters in between those two traits is overly complicated.

19. After writing a very well-written chapter, the author must always apologize if the chapter “sucks”.

20. The story will not be the same if the author forgets to list every single step of makeup application done by the female protagonist.

21. It’s okay to rip-off other movie/books/etc. by taking direct quotes from them while pretending they’re your own... just don’t give credit to the sources and no one will know!

22. Canon characters will spontaneously conjure siblings out of nowhere.

23. It’s not childish to have your characters’ dialogues look like the following: “OOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMGGGGGGGG YOOOOOOOUUUUU GUUUUYYYYYS!!!!!! ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?!?! UGHHHHH”

24. Even though the female protagonist is most likely a tomboy and therefore “not into girly things”, it’s perfectly normal for her to describe an entire shopping trip in great detail.

25. The protagonist is almost always an orphan whose parents died in some tragic way. This backstory has never been used and will gain instant sympathy from the readers.

26. All children have the wisdom of a 93-year-old world-weary man.

27. Amnesia can happen anytime, anywhere... usually right before the romantic interests get together.

28. Protagonists never die... but when they do, it’s always sacrificial (saving hundreds of lives in the process) which makes it okay and necessary.

29. Someone always ends up in a coma.

30. Modern day people getting sucked into anime shows is a common occurrence.

31. Also getting kidnapped by famous bands is quite common too.

32. Smoking instantly makes a person sexy as long as you can get past the yellow teeth, dry oddly-colored skin, brittle hair, horrible breath, coughing, gross nails, & the sexiest of all... lung cancer.

33. All females speak like valley girls when hanging out together.

34. Person 1: “I HATE YOU!” + Person 2: “I HATE YOU TOO!” = Romance

35. The main protagonist is basically Mary Poppins: practically perfect in every way.

36. When two people kiss, tongues engage in vicious dueling to exert dominance over the other. They can also perform “dances” together like tango, the waltz, and the jive.

37. Additionally, kisses are always “hot” and “searing”... it’s a wonder the people don’t suffer from second-degree burns in their mouths. (credit to @primarilytom for this one!)

38. A man must carry a woman bridal style and bridal style only.

39. No one likes heroes with flaws. That might make some people dislike your character... and they should be loved by everyone!

40. Beautiful people = good. Ugly people = evil.

41. Waking up from a nightmare always makes a person bolt upright in their bed while panting heavily.

42. Male characters that are cool and tough are not allowed to give a real smile. They can only smirk.

43. Sex always ends with the people involved climaxing at the exact same time.

44. The main protagonists should have an extremely tragic backstory (abuse, depression, torture, family deaths) in order to gain more sympathy from the readers and for their romantic interest to save them from their inner demons.

45. Bullies have no other personality traits other than being assholes.

46. Villain must give a long-winded speech revealing their backstory, why they became evil, and what evil plot they’ll execute next... all right before they try to kill the protagonist. This either ends with A) the hero escaping, or B) someone else coming in to save the hero just in time.

47. “That’s not canon!” is a valid argument that should be taken seriously... despite the fact that the story is fanfiction for a reason.

48. When two characters of the opposite sex hate each other, don’t be surprised if they randomly swap bodies. It happens all the time.

49. Hotels/motels only ever have one room available. Inevitably, this room will only have one bed so the two characters who kind of hate each other will be forced to share it.

50. Additionally, when the same characters wake up the next morning, they will find that they are cuddling and suddenly they question if they really hate the other person or not.

(Should I add more? Yes? No?)

[stardancereivor]

NEVER-ENDING SURVEY: EIVØR

RULES: Repost, do not reblog. Tag 10 blogs!

Not tagged by anyone! Just saw some people doing this and thought why not!

Tagging @miqojak​ @miqo-vynnie​ @miqo-masha​ @mai-takeda​ @vylette-elakha​ @teknicat​ @faeriesandberries​ @gildedandgolden​ @sagolii-snowflake​

BASICS.

FULL  NAME :  Eivør Viras

NICKNAME : The Star Dancer

AGE :  Ninety years

BIRTHDAY :   The 8th Sun of the Sixth Astral Moon

ETHNIC GROUP : Viera (Rava)

NATIONALITY : Ivalice

LANGUAGE / S : Vieran, very loose Doman and Hingan (enough to ask for directions), and Eorzean Common

SEXUAL ORIENTATION : She prefers not to label herself, but if nothing else bisexual is acceptable.

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION : Panromantic

RELATIONSHIP STATUS :  It’s complicated?

HOME TOWN / AREA :  The village Viras in Golmore Jungle

CURRENT HOME :  An apartment in the Lavender Beds of the Black Shroud

PROFESSION : Dancer, Astrologian, Huntress, Tracker, member of the Meridian Arrow Adventuring Company

PHYSICAL.

HAIR : Black, with loose curls, just past hip length.

EYES : A black right eye and a white left eye.

FACE : Bright and cheerful, dappled with freckles across her nose and cheeks.

LIPS : Soft and plush.

COMPLEXION : A warm brown.

BLEMISHES : Do freckles count as blemishes? If so. Freckles on her face, over her shoulders, down the back of her neck, and down her back in varying sizes. Some of her freckles look more like small splotchy spots than freckles.

SCARS : None.

TATTOOS :  None, but she’s open-minded to one.

HEIGHT :  6′7″.

WEIGHT : Average.

BUILD : Lithe, long, curved.

FEATURES :  Long limbs, warm skin, sparkling eyes. Sharp fangs, sharp claws. Long ears, long hair. Lots of movement, glittering jewelry, bells in her hair.

ALLERGIES :  None.

USUAL HAIR  STYLE :  Normally it’s left long and free in its natural black mane, but on occasion it will be braided and pulled back out of her face and out of the way if she has something she needs to focus on.

USUAL FACE  LOOK :  Colorful eye makeup and lips. Bright, cheerful, and happy to see you.

USUAL CLOTHING :   Bright colors, form fitting but also free and loose to offer room for movement and flare when she dances.

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR / S : Failure, insignificance, being forgotten, being a disappointment.

ASPIRATION / S :  To have a family, preferably by having at least one child of her own. To become known for her dancing and her worship of the stars and moon. Just enough fame to be known, but not enough to becomes a hindrance on her life. And to just be happy overall, honestly.

POSITIVE TRAITS : Friendly, cheerful, warm. Confident. Open-minded. Optimistic, yet with a healthy amount of realistic. Caring, motherly.

NEGATIVE TRAITS : Stubborn, recovering narcissist, somewhat uncultured and ignorant at times, overly confident.

MBTI : ENFP-A (Campaigner)

ZODIAC : Nophica (Sorpio)

TEMPERAMENT :  Affectionate

SOUL TYPE / S :  

ANIMALS :  Rabbits/bunnies, cats

VICE HABIT / S :   Social drinker. Sex. Mild hedonism. Can eat so many sweets and baked goods.

FAITH : Not necessarily religious but certainly spiritual. Her ‘faith’ is her worship of the stars and moon.

GHOSTS ? : Believe in them? Yes. Have them? .. No?

AFTERLIFE ? : Why not?

REINCARNATION ? :  Why not?

ALIENS ? :  What?

POLITICAL ALIGNMENT : Eivør doesn’t pretend to understand or care about politics. What little she does know doesn’t impress her.

EDUCATION LEVEL :  Educated by the Viera and by Sharlayan and Ishgardian Astrologians.

FAMILY.

FATHER : Name unknown to her, but she has seen him in passing.

MOTHER :  Her mother, Salma.

SIBLINGS : One elder brother fifty years her senior, by the name of Erolvur.

EXTENDED FAMILY : Not really. A few nieces and nephews, technically, that her brother has sired.

NAME MEANING / S : Salma means ‘peace’ in Arabic, but ‘sweetheart’ in Persian. I always saw her mother as someone very warm and welcoming. Erolvur is a Faroese name which doesn’t have a specific meaning on its own, but if you continue to follow it to its routes it’s a combination of two Old Norse names that essentially translate to Warrior Wolf, or Wolf Warrior.

HISTORICAL CONNECTION ? : What?

FAVORITES.

BOOK :  Romance, fairy tales, star charts.

DEITY : None.

HOLIDAY :  Hatching-tide.

MONTH : Fourth Astral Moon

SEASON :  Summer

PLACE : A quiet clearing with an unobstructed view of the sky.

WEATHER : Comfortably cool evenings.

SOUND / S: Crickets, quiet humming.

SCENT / S :  Sugar, fresh laundry, fruit.

TASTE / S :  Sweets, berries.

FEEL / S :  Warm fur, sharp teeth and claws harmlessly biting and scratching.

ANIMAL / S :  Cats.

NUMBER : 3

COLORS : Blue, silver, white, gold.

EXTRA.

TALENTS : Dancing, hunting, tracking, calling you on your shit.

BAD  AT :  Failing, losing a fight, always remembering to think of others, Eorzean grammar.

TURN ONS : Sweet voices, melodious voices, soft hands, sharp claws, sharp teeth. Beautiful eyes. A nice figure. Someone who clearly takes care of themselves. The right touches to her ears.

TURN OFFS : Rudeness, not taking care of oneself, ignoring consent, bodily odors and fluids.

HOBBIES : Reading a good book, dancing, stargazing, meditating, going for walks in the rain, going for walks through the forest.

TROPES : Dance Battler, Hair Decorations, Classical Hunter, Like a Duck Takes to Water, Nature Lover. There’s more, I’m sure, but tropes aren’t something I’m good at.

QUOTES : “Hello, beautiful.” “Just keep an open mind!” Literally any time she mentions stars..

MUN QUESTIONS.

Q1 : If you could write your character your way in their own movie,  what would it be called, what style would it be filmed in, and what would it be about?          

A1 :  I’m... not good at this kind of question. Uhhh, I don’t have an answer for that, because I have no idea.

Q2 : What would their soundtrack/score sound like?          

A2 : Bouncy fun Celtic/folk music. Something you can dance to, something that brings a smile to your face. The kind of music that implies a sense of wonder. I also really like the word whimsical with Eivør.

Q3 :  Why did you start writing this character?          

A3 :  I have spent the last five or so years writing very dark and political characters. Some of which were very evil and cruel. I wanted someone friendly and sociable, someone people wouldn’t hate.

Q4 :  What first attracted you to this character?          

A4 : I’ve wanted Viera to be a playable race in FF14 for the longest time. 12 is the only Final Fantasy game I actually have, and Fran was my favorite character in that game, and I adored the Viera. So being able to make one was obviously the first thing I loved. Secondly, I kind of just put her together in the benchmark and found I liked her design. It was pretty, but simplistic. Something I could work off of.

Q5 : Describe the biggest thing you dislike about your muse.

A5 : I think it’s less Eivør in specific and more I wish there was more concrete 14-lore for the Viera. I’ve gleaned things in-game, but what little I have is based off the 12 lore and interactions through NPCs and quests in Shadowbringers on the First.

Q6 :  What do you have in common with your muse?          

A6 :  I also love the stars and moon, and I love hanging out in the woods at night (though it’s been a very long time since I could). I also am apparently pretty friendly or something.

Q7 :  How does your muse feel about  you?          

A7 :   I’m not sure. She’d be okay, I guess? Other than a recent plotline she’s had it pretty good.

Q8 :  What characters does your muse have interesting interactions with?        

A8 :  At the moment her most interesting interactions are with her FWB/Partner/Best Friend/Boyfriend?????? Dragomir which is hilarious in and out of character. They have really great conversations, and it gives me a character that I can build Eivør’s backstory with because they’re still in the ‘getting to know you’ phase of their friendship.

Q9 :  What gives you inspiration to write your muse?        

A9 : Dance gifs/videos, certain music that suits her aesthetic, forest vibes, it doesn’t take a lot to put me in the mood to write for her.

Q10 : How long did this take you to complete?          

A10 : Oh shit I didn’t know this was going to be a question I didn’t keep track. Not accounting for when my internet died for like over two hours and I couldn’t really do any kind of research to get some of the answers, maybe.. a little over an hour? I even took the time to take the Myers-Briggs test for her. The tropes thing took me the longest, to be honest. I know nothing about tropes.

[plotlinehotline]

How do I reveal large amounts of backstory without resorting to massive paragraphs of exposition dump? I have two characters who hold a grudge based on something convoluted that happened a year before the start of the book, and their ongoing feud fuels much of the character conflict in the story, but I can't figure out how to show readers what happened without a massive exposition wall and/or cheesy flashback...

[ Warning: Extremely long post and explicit language/themes ahead! ]

You’d be surprised at how much impact even the smallest hints can carry. Audiences are typically a lot more receptive than most media gives them credit for these days, and can pick up on a lot of things, even when they’re not stated explicitly.

“You’ll like it here,” Sarah said, nodding her head toward one of the tables in the back. Abigail followed her. “It’s not the best school in the county, but at least it’s better than Griggs. I heard that three of their teachers had to be put on house arrest last year because of some—”She was cut off when she collided with the girl in front of her, who had stopped abruptly in the middle of the aisle to talk to someone at the table next to them. The girl turned around, and her expression soured when she saw who had bumped into her.

“Sarah,” she said curtly.

“Hannah,” Sarah replied, shoving past her without meeting her eyes.

Even without either of the characters explaining it, you can tell that Sarah and Hannah have a history that Abigail (and the reader) are as yet unaware of. There’s an implication that there’s a mutual dislike there, but we’re not totally sure why, nor how deep it goes. This sets the stage for reading into future actions to try to gain further context clues.

Another option is offering summaries of the event or emotions in question. These obviously won’t do justice to the full story, especially if the characters’ relationship is complicated, but they can give us the stripped-bare, oversimplified version that allows for further understanding of the ongoing grudge.

Sarah watched the assembly with apparent disinterest, staring unconcerned at the handful of students laying on the gym floor in garbage sacks that made a poor substitute for body bags.

“Y’know,” Abigail said, leaning over, “it’s not that I don’t respect the message or anything. I just think it might be a little more impactful if the guy playing the grim reaper weren’t wearing white Adidas.”

Sarah snorted, turning her face away so as to avoid grinning down at all of the ‘dead’ students. Hannah was looking their way, and Sarah made eye contact with her briefly before turning back and glaring down at her shoes.

“What’s the deal with you?” Abigail asked, unable to keep it to herself any longer.

“Nothing, it’s stupid,” Sarah replied, her gaze still burning holes in her shoes. “Actually, it’s not stupid. She started a really awful rumor that got me and someone else into a lot of trouble, and she did it just because she was mad.”

Her voice had gotten considerably louder and higher pitched, and Abigail decided to drop the subject until they were out of the crowded gym.

With this, you have a bit more understanding of what happened between the characters, but not quite enough to connect all the dots. This provides the biggest context clue of all, and allows readers to add in any other details they’ve picked up from the rest of the story in an attempt to be on more even footing when the reveal finally comes.

Finally, you can get away with some actual exposition. By this point, you’ll have given enough clues that your primary explanation won’t feel so much like a big wall of new information or a tacky flashback, and you can use it as more of a tool for filling in the blanks that your readers don’t quite understand yet.

Putting characters like Abigail into the reader’s position can help to even some of this out. At this point, the audience knows just as much about Sarah and Hannah’s falling out as Abigail does, and they don’t feel quite as much isolated from the story and in need of characters to break things down specifically for their sake. It makes the story feel more empathetic, and can draw your readers in as they get to see Abigail reacting in real time, as well.

Interrupting the massive dialogue dump/internal monologue with actions, interactions, and reactions from the surrounding characters and environments can also help to soften the blow of a big bunch of exposition. Real life doesn’t frequently offer you the opportunity to sit and think or listen to someone else speak uninterrupted for however long it takes them to finish their story, and showing the dynamic movement occurring at the same time can help to break down the pieces that seem a little too big to swallow all at once.

“She turned me into the school slut,” Sarah sobbed from behind the stall door. “I’ve had sex with one boy in my whole life, how was I supposed to know it was the one she liked? She never fucking said anything!”

Abigail leaned against the door and tapped it absently with her fingernail. “Is that what the rumor was about?” she asked, and there was a pause in which she wondered if Sarah had nodded before realizing she couldn’t see her.

“I was a TA for Mr. Lockland,” she said, no longer crying, but still in a weak and wavery voice. “He was the music teacher before you came. He’d leave the door unlocked during lunch periods so that I could go in and set up before class started, since he liked to go home and have lunch with his wife. I knew nobody was going to be in there for a while, so we went —Jason and I, I mean— we went in so we could be alone. I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal.”

“Did you get caught?”

“No,” Sarah said, and Abigail could hear the tears start up again. “I got pregnant.”

“What?” Abigail jumped out of the way as Sarah stormed out of the stall and crossed over to the sinks. She turned on the water, but left it running untouched while she stared at her swollen, red face in the mirror.

“Yeah,” she said finally. “And I guess Hannah figured out it was Jason’s, and got mad. She decided to embarrass me and try to get me in trouble by starting a rumor that it was Mr. Lockland’s. And it worked, y’know, people believed her. I told them that he wasn’t even at the school, and they didn’t listen. People like a stupid, made-up story about a whore TA more than they like hearing what makes sense. The rumor got up to the school board, and he got fired.”

She splashed her face and turned around to face Abigail, nose dripping as much as her makeup, and shrugged. “He was a really great teacher, and he’ll probably never get a job again. And I’m the horny slut who likes to fuck married teachers.”

The story gets revealed, but not all in a single go. We see the vulnerability of the character in question through their actions, and the story is spurred on by reactions of the surrounding characters that may not have spoken otherwise.

I hope this answers your question, anon! Thank you for indulging me in my overly long examples.

I wish you the best of luck with this! Backstory and exposition can be really difficult, but I believe in you~

Love,Penney