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theballadoffinchesandsaints · 3 years

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Let’s talk about the Vaincre trade:

(As I am writing this, only the first full chapter, July, has been published)

I’ve said before that I’m fairly certain it’s going to be Leo, but I want to walk through the thought process that got me there (this is long and unedited. You’ve been warned).

First, since this is going to be such a major plot point, I think it’s going to be a character who’s inner circle had at least a minor spotlight in the first chapter. These were Coops, O’knutzy, O’darwin, Thomas & Noelle (do they have a ship name???), Regulus (tho he’s obviously disqualified for not being a pro player rn), and Cole (with a bit of Dumo).

Additionally, I think a key component of this plotline will be developing characters so that they can stand on their own once separated from a crucial relationship (thematically, it makes the most sense to me).

With that in mind, let’s do some quick (yeah lol prob not quick) disqualifications from the list:

Remus: I know this is a more common theory (and god would it hurt) but Remus’ storyline is already jampacked with living up to the standards of the league, team, and public, as well as adjust to a new relationship dynamic with Sirius. On a more heavy note, Remus will have to navigate how playing hockey will interact with the trauma of Greyback’s attack and the resulting injury. I’m sure most of us inferred that this would be a plot point, but the idea was solidified in a snippet of Remus and the team discussing predictions for the top teams of the season.

Sirius: while narratively, I actually think it would be fascinating to see the lions learn to be a team without their leader and to see Sirius have to learn that there are other parts of the world he can trust, this one falls apart in both logistics and clues Hazel has already given us. Truly, I cannot imagine a trade in which it would make sense for the Lions to give up their beloved, talented, effective captain and first line center, especially after he just led them to Stanley Cup. And when someone asked Hazel about (I believe) what relationships would be highlighted in Vaincre, Coops made the list with the qualification that their storyline would largely center around Remus’s adjustment to the team. A Sirius trade requires long-distance Coops angst which, while possible, would be both difficult and against the spirit of the statement.

O’Darwin and Thomas & Noelle already have long-distance angst happening in July, so trading either Kasey or Thomas would miss some of the emotional punch we know Hazel is going to give us.

Cole: I mean, the kid’s a rookie. It doesn’t really make sense. Threads seem to be being set up with the Dumais’ baby sitter and maybe one of the new PTs? (I don’t remember exactly where I’m getting this from, but I’m near certain it was from Hazel’s tumblr). It seems like physical encounters are going to be a big thing with both of these relationships, plus all the obvious great storylines of a new rookie getting comfortable in the team, make it unlikely Cole will be the trade. Not to mention, there are no guts to punch with Cole. We love him already, but he isn’t close with anyone on the team yet. We’d feel disappointed, not devastated, if he got traded. We all know Hazel’s going for devastation.

Dumo: this one approaches probability for me. Dumo would be heartbreaking for every member of the team, but especially Sirius and Logan. It would also sort of follow through on a previous idea from a rough draft of SW where Dumo has a career-ending injury. All the players would have to learn to navigate life without a father figure, and it would break down the system of where many Lions rookies live. But this one’s all speculation, at least as far as I know. It’s not hinted at in July, and I can’t think of any snippets that suggest Dumo. Plus, it feels like all of the main POVs have been set up in July, and we know from the dreaded “of being a lion” snippet (in which said player gets called about the trade) that we do get POV chapters from the player who’s traded.

We’ll get back to O’knutzy later. First, some people who aren’t on the list that I feel are worth discussing briefly (tho these are unlikely for the reasons at the end of Dumo’s):

Kuny & Nado: Now, I remember Kuny’s “no trades, no trades” thing from Hazel’s tumblr. It hurts. It feels like foreshadowing. But, remember, Hazel has also said that these boys will both play a more secondary role in Vaincre. They’re both safe.

James: I go back and forth on this one all the time. Thematically, separating Sirius and James would be both heartbreaking and deeply interesting. James was a major force in bringing Sirius out of his shell, and Sirius would have to learn to maintain that without his best friend always by his side. James and Lily are also suspiciously absent from July. I know Hazel said they’re on their honeymoon, and I’m not disputing that in any way, shape, or form. However, it does provide ample excuse to become a new POV in August. However, I can’t find any snippets to really support it. And, just, in general, James as a character in Hazel’s fics (or at least in Solntse and SW) provides a stable backbone for the other characters. He’a developed as a character but stable and happy. This could be the thing that changes that, but, at the very least, it doesn’t fit the narrative role he serves in SW, and I think it would change the feel and character dynamic of the fic as a whole (not just of the team) too much for that to be the choice.

And then there’s O’knutzy:

Going into Vaincre, I asked myself: what are everyone’s plotlines going to be? Remus will adjust to the team and playing Greyback. Sirius will largely be his support system, tho some stuff may be done with his relationship with Regulus and/or moving on from any semblance of his parents’ influence. Dumo will welcome rookie Cole onto the team. James will be a new father. Thomas and Noelle will have long-distance relationship feels. Kasey will adjust to O’darwin, and probably also deal with his reoccurring injury.

And the cubs? Are in a happy, stable relationship with everything they’ve ever wanted. The seeds to a storyline regarding whether or not they choose to come out was definitely hinted at in July, but I don’t think it will be their sole focus. Thankfully, there is nothing pressuring them to come out currently. They think about it. They long to do it. But nothing has changed since the end of SW/CtC. If one of them was long-distance, that would change the dynamic. When you can always go home to your two loving boyfriends, it doesn’t hurt quite as bad when you can’t be affectionate when out with them in public. When you’re only in the same city for a day or two roughly every month (depending on which team the trade is with), every second you could spend holding them and don’t hurts more and more. Whether I think they choose to come out or not, I really don’t know. I think so, but I’m definitely not sure. But the real question is, which cub goes away and prompts this?

If it’s a cub, it’s definitely Leo. Hazel posted a snippet that just...says so much.

Do I even need to explain? She practically told us. I’ve spent over an hour analyzing nearly every prominent Lion when Hazel practically told us Leo was going to be the trade with this right here.

But I do have more to say. I don’t think either Finn or Logan would work well as the trade. The plot of them being separated was well explored in CtC, and I honestly just don’t think it needs more examination. They learned to cherish each other, talk to each other, love each other freely and honestly. Them being separated again would just hurt. It wouldn’t serve a narrative purpose.

On the other hand, I do think Leo’s character could actually benefit from some time alone. He had barely a few months as a full-blown adult, working in the NHL, before he entered a committed relationship with his two lovely boyfriends, both of whom had had years more time to live with and explore themselves (tho it’s not as if they were doing that freely). A couple of months or even years dating long-distance could force Leo to have some more adventures on his own and come into himself more. Then, he can fully return to his boys, his “long-lost lover[s],” and be more stable in his love.

In a similar vein, Logan and Finn have only had short amounts of time to make their leg of the relationship stable and happy in comparison to the time they spent yearning or heartbroken. Even in CtC, their reflex is to go to Leo first, which is, of course, perfectly fine and lovely and adorable, but I think they need to spend some time unlearning that knee jerk reaction.

Then, when Leo comes back (because one way or another, in canon or in my head, he will), all three are confident in themselves as individuals and in each leg of the relationship as well as the three of them as group. No one and no couple n e e d s anything, but they come back together because they all love each other, more than anything.

That’s what I think will see in Vaincre. At the very least, it’s what I want.

Vaincre is by the one and only @lumosinlove

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galaxy98 · 3 years

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With the recent confirmation that we'll get to see more of Yunan and Olivia in season 3, I thought it would be nice to give a little rundown of a certain idea I had for a story prior to the trailer. Will I ever go through it, maybe not. For one thing, I have so many ideas that I want to do on AO3 so some things may have to be sacrificed. Not only that, but despite the episodes having a limited runtime, thus having less depth, it's likely going to turn out better than what I put out. That and it would be less convoluted. So here's a bullet list of the idea:

The working title for the fanfic is called Lady and the Newt. I wanted to go with Lady and the Merc or Lady and the General, though the former didn't made sense since Yunan is not a Mercenary. Also since it's a Disney show, I thought it would be funny to make the title a tongue-and-cheek reference to Lady and the Tramp.

The best way to describe this story is 2 lesbians on the run. There's also a butch and her daughter but we're not there yet.

Obviously, this would take place after True Colors, but based on the clips I've seen, it would've been drastically different.

For starters, it would begin with Olivia and Yunan trying to find a way to escape Newtopia. While Yunan is more concerned about finding a way out, Olivia didn't want to leave Marcy behind. At the same time, Yunan is also reluctant, albeit in denial, of wanting to go back there since she felt betrayed by both Andrias and Marcy, despite the latter being a child who was just being manipulated.

However, Olivia feels like she's complacent in letting this all happened, so she wanted to back there for the sake of ridding herself of that guilt. In other words, the both are still shooken up about the whole revelation.

They would eventually escape, but it will be a hollow victory.

This would be the first time we get to see Yunan without her armor. She took most of it off when trying to save an unconscious Olivia from drowning. By the time they set up camp, she will chuck her medals into the river in anger. She does keep the claws since they might come in handy, but other than that, she's completely vulnerable.

The fanfic would explore on the aspect about the expectations and pressure that Newtopia places on its society and how Yunan and Olivia were both affected by this mentality. Yunan ran away from home when she was in her teens because of her strained relationship with her family (Something that I will get into later on) and how due to being found by Andrias was she able to show off her skills that would work her way up to the ranks and then eventually the youngest general in the army, Scourge of the Sand Wars, Defeater of Ragnar the Wretched, yada yada yada. However, you would see why her family relationship was dysfunctional due to the infighting with her sister and mother who just happened to be a famous artisan (hint hint). Prior to becoming general, she felt like she had nothing to show for and that being a part of the court made her felt like she was special. But the problem is that she feels like she's nothing without the rank. So while Yunan constantly introduces herself because it's effective, it's also because that's all she has.

Olivia, on the other hand, didn't want to be a part of the court. The only reason she has that title in the first place was because her family already had connections to Andrias's so she was basically forced into the role. Royalty never particularly interest her but because she was so ingrained into the role, she ended up living a very isolated life. It's why she has a very stoic demeanor. Only when there's nothing else to do does she masks off the whole facade after keeping appearances for a whole day. During the night after they escape, she would lament about where it all went wrong.

There would be a retcon where Olivia originally planned on running away from Newtopia and she wanted Yunan to come with her. But with the combination of Yunan's commitment to the general rank, taking care of Marcy Wu, and then the events that soon follow, it never came to be. Olivia wondered if going through with that decision would've only make things worse.

There would be flashback chapters where we get to see the dynamics between the newts and the 13 year old girl. Any one of them involving Yunan would be an explanation as to why she initially felt betrayed by Marcy's actions. It's only later on in the story did she reconcile with those feelings.

Most of the story consist of them trying to get far away from Newtopia as possible, all while the fear of Marcy's fate lingers. In tale of dramatic irony, they assume that she may have escaped along with the others. But once they found refuge at Wartwood, they notice that Sasha was the only that's still here. That's when they figured the out news. Again, dramatic irony.

So that thing I mention about how there's also a butch and her daughter in this story, well here's what I mean. Priscilla and Pearl are the additional characters in this journey. The reason for their inclusion is because I had a particular subplot in mind. I loved the headcanon of Priscilla being Yunan's older sister because the potential dynamic makes so much sense. During their childhood, they were both competing for their mother's love, despite the fact that she didn't want them to fight. So due to jealously and the strained sibling relationship, it prompted Yunan to run away.

On an unrelated note, you can check out my poem fanfic on AO3 called O' Sister Of Mine. It explores the dynamic between Priscilla and Yunan as siblings.

The entire subplot would be about Yunan and Priscilla trying to repair their sibling relationship after years of fighting and not seeing each other. When her and Olivia cross paths with the two of them, Priscilla initially rejected their offer of going together. Because of Yunan and Olivia's status, she was worried that it was not only going to put a target on her back, but also her daughter's, which is the last thing she wants. But since they can't stay in one spot, they have no choice but to go together.

I think by looking at the pattern of where this story is going, the entire lesson is about not taking things for granted and being the change you want to be. The three girls may be the main focus of the show, but this fanfic explores on the side characters who were affected by the events.

Well there you have it. This is mostly just a rough draft of ideas but it does get the main gist across. Like I said before, this likely isn't going to see the light of day, especially when Matt Braly's crew is going to come up with something better than I can. This is one of those big AO3 projects that I'll have to keep on the shelf, at least temporarily when I don't have a lot on my plate right now.

But if you want to express any interest in me doing this in the future, feel free to reblog or leave a comment in the notes.

#amphibia #general yunnan #lady olivia #fandom discussion #writing

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venus-laufeyson · 3 years

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I Want (Loki x Fem!Reader)

A/N: I don’t really know if I’m in love with this, but I’ve worked too hard on it to leave it sitting in my drafts! I hope you like it and if you have any suggestions I would love to hear them!

Summary: Y/N and Loki both have feelings for each other. Loki is too scared to get attached, but can’t stay away from you, so you just sleep with each other instead of committing

Warnings: Smut (18+), swearing, fluff

Word Count: 2260

Loki pushes you against the wall, you catch yourself and press your cheek against the cold brick that surrounds your studio apartment. His hands travel from your shoulders down to your hips and pull you closer to him, pressing his erection into your ass. He groans into your ear before his lips attach to your neck, biting and sucking it ferociously

“You’re going to leave a mark!” You gasp, you feel him smirk against your skin

“That’s the point, my pet.” His hand reaches down and grabs your ass with one hand and your throat with the other “Are you scared your friends are going to find out you’re a whore for me?” He growls, sending chills down your spine

“They’re not my friends.” You shake your head and he rips you from the wall, still holding a tight grip on your throat as he pushes you over to the bed, tossing you on it roughly. You land with a yelp and with a wave of his hand you’re both naked. He grabs your thighs and pulls them open, revealing your soaking wet quim.

“You’ve been thinking about this all day, haven’t you?” He runs one of his fingers between your folds and you gasp, grabbing a hold of the sheets and bucking your hips up, craving more of his touch. “Have you been thinking about me fucking you like the whore you are all day? Pretending to listen to Stark rambling on about teamwork while you were picturing me bending you over a table and taking what’s mine?” He tilts his head, staring into your eyes “Answer me.” He demands and you gulp, nodding quickly

“Yes! I’ve been craving you all day, please, I need you to fuck me!” You beg and buck your hips up again

“Good girl.” He smiles before going down on you, placing his mouth exactly where you wanted it. You throw your head back and grab fistfuls of his hair. His tongue works miracles on your clit as he inserts two fingers inside of you, pumping and curling them in all the right ways. His name came pouring out of your mouth before you could even register your mouth was moving. This, of course only made him more determined to make you cum all over his fingers, his pace picking up. You feel heat building up in your core and you know you won’t last much longer

“Loki…” You breathe out in pure ecstasy “I’m almost…” you couldn’t even finish your sentence. He uses the hand that wasn’t currently pumping inside of you to push your legs open more. You look down at him and make eye contact, which was all you needed for the coil to snap, sending your body to its release. You pull his hair gently as he lets you ride out your first orgasm. He stands up, leaning forward and putting the fingers that just made you cum into your mouth. You suck them dry, staring into his eyes through your lashes,

“You’re such a good pet.” He purrs before grabbing our arm and pulling you off the bed, guiding you over to your desk and bending you over it, pushing your face into the wood. He uses his seidr to tie your hands behind your back. He leans over you so his whole body was flush with yours, his cock pressing into your tailbone “Now, take me good and maybe I’ll let you cum again. Okay?” He whispers into your ear

“Yes, sir.” You choke out before he slaps your ass, causing you to jump and whimper. He kicks your legs farther apart so they are spread wide open. You feel him rub the tip of his cock up and down your pussy, causing you to whimper from the overstimulation when he hit your clit. He pushes himself in you, not giving you a chance to adjust to his size. One of his hands grabs your hip tightly as the other one grabs a fistful of your hair. His cock fills and stretches you perfectly, hitting spots you didn’t even know you had. Your eyes flutter closed as moans and profanities come from your mouth

“I love watching you take my cock so well.” He growls, slapping your ass again “You’re taking it so well…” he takes his hand off your hip and wraps his arm around you, his fingers finding your clit. You gasp as he rubs circles into your clit while slamming into you.

“Fuck, Loki!” You cry out, seconds away from orgasm

“Cum for me, Pet.” His thrusts get faster as you reach your second orgasm, your walls tightening around him. He pulls out of you, unties your hands and brings you back to the bed. He sits on the edge and you climb into his lap, straddling him before grabbing his cock and guiding it back inside of you. Even though you’re on top, he never gives you full control. His hands find your hips and he determines the rhythm. Once you have the rhythm he wants he loosens his grip, letting you guide yourself as he looks up at you. You tangle your fingers in his hair while his lips find your jaw, trailing kisses all the way down to your collarbone before he grabs your face, squishing your cheeks together and forcing you to look at him. He crashes his lips to yours, attacking your lips. He bites down on your bottom lip and pulls back slowly before letting it spring back to your teeth. You pull him back to your lips, his tongue enters your mouth without permission, not that he needed it. He knows that you are his to use, when and how he sees fit. “Pet…” He groans into your mouth, signaling that he was close. You nod and pick up your pace, your own orgasm moments away.

“Loki…” You gasp, dropping your head onto his shoulder, unable to hold yourself up any longer. His hands grip your hips tightly, using you to guide you both to a shared orgasm. You tighten around him, crying out his name while he spills his seed into you.

“You did so good, you’re so good.” He praises you quietly as your hips slow to a stop. Neither of you make any attempt to move. Both of you enjoyed the feeling of him inside of you. “I have to go.” He whispers into your ear and you nod slowly, still not moving as your head sits on his shoulder. You were still trying to catch your breath when he picks you up, pulls out of you which earns him a whine from you, before laying you on the bed. With a wave of his hand he cleans you up and dresses you both.

“I wish you would stay.” You whimper, cuddling into your pillow. He sighs and strokes your hair.

“I know, my Pet, but you know I can’t.”

“One night, please.” You grab his arm and try to pull him down into bed. He gives you a firm look and you quickly let go. Loki didn’t want to get attached. He would outlive you by thousands of years, so he usually leaves right after you both finish “I don’t see the harm in one night…”

“If I do it once you’ll be asking me to every night. I can’t.” He stands up off the bed. Tears begin to prick at your eyes, wanting nothing more than for him to climb into bed with you, wrap his arms around you and fall asleep. “I will see you tomorrow.” With that, he was gone. You sigh and wipe your tears, turning over in your bed and after what feels like forever, you drift to sleep.

***

You run into Stark Tower the next morning. You forgot to set your alarm so you woke up late. You push the buttons on the elevator rapidly

“Come on…” You groan under your breath before the doors open. You step into the elevator and after a very long ride, the doors open and you run down to the conference room. You stumble in the door and everyone’s eyes turn to you. You gulp and Tony raises an eyebrow

“You look like shit, rough night?” He asks as you sit in your chair next to Loki. You try not to look at him before nodding to Tony

“Yeah, I’m so sorry! My uh… my sister came over last night. We had a couple drinks and I forgot to set my alarm.” You lie and you notice Loki smirking

“Oh really? That’s so nice, what did you drink?” He asks

“Red wine.”

“What kind?”

“Merlot.”

“Liar.” His eyes trail down to your neck “Your hickeys are showing.” He points to your neck and your face turns bright red, covering your neck with your hand

“Oh! Y/N had someone over last night!” Natasha teases you and you roll your eyes

“No, let me guess, burnt your neck on your curling iron?” Tony points to you and you groan

“You’re such an ass.” You hit Loki’s arm “Can we get back to the meeting now? Some bad guy, stealing…” You look at the man's face on the board, trying to guess “artifacts…?” You knit your eyebrows and smile while everyone laughs. Tony shakes his head

“Close, but you’re actually totally wrong. This is the victim, and our suspect is a woman, who we are suspecting is actually Skrull…” You zone out again and rest your chin on your hand. Your eyes keep flicking from Tony to Loki, who is looking at his hands resting on the table. Your eyes trail down to his hands and your breathing becomes shaky, unable to think of anything over than his hands touching every inch of your skin...

***

Later that night you got home and toss your stuff on the couch before falling onto your bed face first. You hear something move behind you.

“Don’t even fucking think about it.” You mumble into the bed.

“How did you know I was here?” Loki’s voice says from behind you. You sit up and give him a look

“Other than the fact that you’ve been coming to my apartment almost every night for the past two years to fuck me, you aren’t the quietest person.” You stand up off your bed and walk over to your kitchen. “I’m really not in the mood tonight, Loki.”

“Is this about last night?” He sighs, sitting on the barstool

“No, well, yes kind of. This isn’t fair. It was fun at first and it felt good to just fuck. You helped me get over Patrick and I’m really grateful for that, but in doing that I’ve developed feelings for you. I crave more than just sex. I want you to wrap your arms around me and stroke my hair. I want you to kiss my forehead. I want to hold your hand. I want you to come over while the sun is still up. I want to cook with you. I want to lay on the couch with you and play with your hair while we watch a movie. I want to kiss your lips softly and stare into your eyes. I want so much more with you.” Your voice cracks as tears fill your eyes. You try to blink them away but it just causes them to spill onto your cheeks.

“You think I don’t want any of that?” He snaps at you “You think it doesn’t hurt when I have to leave you in bed crying just to go back to my chambers in Stark Tower, where no one wants me? Where everyone just puts up with me for the sake of Thor?” He stands up and walks over to you, towering over you “I want nothing more than to climb into bed with you and run my fingers through your hair until you fall asleep, but you will die. You will grow old and die before I even grow a grey hair. I don’t want the pain of losing you for eternity.” He wipes the tears from your cheeks and you swallow hard

“Wouldn’t the time we do have be perfect though? Wouldn’t it be worth it? I understand where you’re coming from and that’s why I’ve dealt with this for so long, but...isn’t it better to love and have lost, than to never have loved at all?” He rolls his eyes

“You and your Midgardian quotations.” He shakes his head as you reach your hand up to the back of his neck, pulling him down to your lips. Your lips dance together before he picks you up and sits you on the island. His hand cups your face while the other sits on your thigh. He pulls away after a moment, resting his forehead on yours and looking down into your eyes. Your stomach flips and you bite your bottom lip, refusing to take your eyes from his

“I love you more than there are words to describe how much I love you.” He whispers softly

“I love you too.” Was all your brain could think to say, causing him to chuckle softly. The smile on his face makes your stomach do another flip and you can’t help but smile too, looking down at your hand that was sitting on his chest. He grabs your hair and yanks it back roughly, causing you to gasp and look up at him

“You are still my pet in bed, understood?” He growls at you and you nod vigorously

“I want nothing more.”

#loki #mcu loki #loki smut #loki fluff #loki laufeyson #loki x reader #tom hiddleston #loki fanfic #loki fanfiction #loki odinson #loki of asgard #loki marvel

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the413joint · 2 years

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A Conversation with MacWay

The 413 Joint speaks to MacWay, a multi-talented force taking over New England with his distinct approach to hip-hop. Read more for conversations on his ambitions, advice for emerging artists, and his plans for the year.

Talk to me about the Elevated Growth, the name behind your recent album and the brand.

“It’s bigger than music. It’s bigger than everything, like everyday you wake up, you can do more. You can be better. Every night you go to sleep, you can understand what you did wrong, you know what I mean?”

The name MacWay comes from ‘Making A Change’, what are some changes you hope to see?

“First and foremost, I wanna really create a scene for Western Mass, and Massachusetts in general. Through music and arts and things of that nature; really shed a little light to the people before us. And make way and pave the way for the people to come after us. Beyond that, I want to teach, you know what I mean? I want young men to be able to learn more through music. And gravitate towards artists who may be in a sense showcasing the same thing that your favorite artist may be but not in a negative way. I ain’t in the streets, shooting up shit, none of that. I’m settling for a GD but in the same breath right, I’ve never committed no crimes. I’ve never been behind bars, like it’s a misconception to what you have to be as a man in the streets to survive. Especially as a Black man. I want to make a change on that. That thought process and the way of thinking, what we can do and how we can get out of here. Especially through music.”

Talk to me a bit about your relationship with Alpha Male Productions.

“Alpha Male is my brother, you know what I mean? I met him a couple years back, doing a challenge on social media. And from there, I mean, from there we locked and locked in. We both Virgos, both parents, both fathers, both homeowners, so a lot of things were in common. And we just built on that, and the passion for music. We got an album coming called ‘The Alternative’, and it’s just showcasing that as an artist, you don’t have to be in any lane. Like as a producer, he’s gon’ send me beats from EDM to country to pop and of course, hip-hop and R&B. And I got tracks on all of ‘em, there’s not a pocket I’m not filling in. There’s not a pocket he can’t hit.”

What are some of your early musical influences? What did you grow up listening to?

“Generally, I’ve been having this conversation a lot about a lot of people saying why Massachusetts doesn’t have a sound in a sense. And I feel, to the same way I grew up with an eclectic ear, it’s the same way everybody else around me grew up with an eclectic ear. I was raised in a neighborhood where I had neighbors who were Asians, neighbors who were Africans, neighbors that were Hispanic, and neighbors that were African-American. You know what I mean, I graduated Central High School which is a fucking melting pot. So it’s like the music I was raised to is everything. Like literally everything from hard rock to alternative rock to hip-hop, soul, jazz, blues. Like it was no boundary to what we were exposed to and what you gravitate towards. I love music, it’s no genre. It’s no artists, I love music.”

Talk to me a bit about the group Solid MULA and your most recent project.

“Solid MULA is headed by my cousin Travi Makem. We’re a team but obviously we’re solo artists, so when we come together we’re ‘Solid MULA’. We’ve been working on things for Solid MULA for years and just not really putting anything out. And still working as solo artists, until we understood like, ‘Alright, let’s start doing something.’ You know what I mean, the first mixtape we put out was just a mixtape [of] rough drafts, really no mixes, nothing. But we got such a good feedback. We already been working on album stuff for Solid MULA. Shit, it’s about to get spooky.”

Do you have plans for the podcast for this year?

“The podcast, we’re definitely going up, Torch has been getting deeper into his film degree. He’s studying in film, so our visuals are stepping up. The audio is starting to sound better. The quality of guests, different people that we’re trying to interview separately, which obviously leads to a bunch of spin-offs and different things like that. I have a spin-off that I’ve been sitting on for probably a year. I just, I’d rather do it with a team. You know what I mean? Like it’s different, it’s different. Obviously, Spliffield is coming up. Spliffield is coming up like that’s gonna be bananas. Eastern plus Western Massachusetts artists on the same dock. I got a couple of things in Brooklyn lined up, my manager out in Brooklyn definitely keeps me out there, active. So it’s a lot of stuff.”

Talk to me a little bit about traveling, it seems to be a big part of your life.

“I’m a road warrior, so we drive a lot of places. Like I said, I got my manager in New York. I’m in New York probably three times a week, I’m in Boston probably twice a week. I try to stay in those two places because that’s where I have markets. And that’s where I get booked and different things of that nature. I try to stay there mostly but I mean I go everywhere. I got a trip to Detroit coming up next month, two, three podcasts that I’m supposed to be on out there. I got like a system and I gave this to artists. I really gave this to artists on the podcast before. I feel like to take over any area, or at least get notarized in the area, you go to the area. You get videos with the videographers. You go to the studios in that area, you do music with the artists in that area. You buy clothing from the clothing designers of that area. And you put your goddamn billboard up in that area. Point-blank period. Then you go to the next city. And you do the same thing. And the next city. Like this is the method I’m trying to do when I drop ‘The Alternative’ album. And it's for New England. I feel like any artist adjacent or below the level I’m at can feed off of literally the same exact process. You can’t stay in your backyard. If you literally just go and fuck with the creatives in that area. [If] you got quality shit, fuck with the creatives in that area, promote them, put on for them, the love is going to come back. So many doors opened for me by just doing that, showing love.”

With the amount of conversation With the major labels and the rappers heading them we have today, is there a label you could see yourself fitting in?

“I don’t want to be overconfident and say like, damn near anybody. But in reality, damn near everybody. Especially the newer labels because they’re not headed by the old, white guys anymore, who just wanted music to sound one way and wanted to force artists in a pocket. You know what I mean, if you can create your brand to the same shit you was saying with Cole. Like everybody ain’t got number-ones on Dreamville but he allows everybody to do what they want to do; that freedom and [to] build their fanbase. Same shit with TDE, same shit with Lil Baby and all them, QC. Everybody got their little hits but he allows everyone to spread their wings and do what they gotta do. Truthfully, I’ll sign with anybody. Anybody as long as you give me freedom and I own my music.”

Talk to us a little bit about your relationship with your photographer, Jon Ramirez, and the importance of having a consistent shooter.

“Jon Ramirez is my motherfucking brother. That’s my brother, I met him initially as a producer. And I started rocking with him through beats and all of that shit. But then, he picked up a camera. So after he picked up a camera, I was like alright, ‘Bro you trying to do something?’ We ended up looking at specs and different things like that, just me and him we ended up investing in a Sony a7 III. Got a fucking $1,500 lens for it, got the gimbal for it, I mean we spent like nine, ten bands altogether in that store just for that camera. You know what I mean, it was just, he’s my best friend. Like at the end of the day, I grew up where all the rappers wanted to be around other rappers. And at a point in time, it did something positive, because the rappers respected you. But now we’re in a social media day where it’s like you need someone around who can capture that you were places. Capture that you were doing shit, capture in high-quality. Your photographer slash videographer, or either or, should be your best friend. Literally.”

What are your ambitions as an actor?

“Before Will Smith went on the stage and did all that wild shit, I literally was trying to be the next Will Smith. Like I feel Will Smith is the greatest African-American actor of this generation. Of this generation, not of all time but of this generation. And the amount of movies that he’s been in and the things he’s been able to do, so many people forget it started with rap. It literally started with rap, he got his foot in the damn door with rap. There’s so much music can do, so many doors it can open. Look at the way he changed his generations after him, his kids are gonna be straight forever; the freedom that they have to create and different things of that nature. It’s always going to be more than music to me, whether it's writing, acting, shit anything. Anything creative, I love to draw, anything creative it attracts me. Just being able to utilize this outlet and get money is the goal. Because I fully understand [that] it’s such a part of me, I won’t be able to let it go. You know how people battle with, especially music or any type of art, and it’s like, ‘Oh I don’t want to do this no more, the investments, the time, the losses.’ I can’t let go of the creative part of me, it’s too much of me. So now it’s like shit, work your way up until you can make money off of it. Solidify yourself and make yourself a legend in this shit.”

Favorite film or top three if you can’t do one?

“The movie I’ve probably watched the most in my life, if it’s not ‘The Wood’. If it’s not ‘The Wood’... nah, I’mma go with the ‘The Wood’. I’mma put ‘The Wood’ up there. ‘The Wood’ , I watched that movie three hundred, seventy-nine thousand times. That and fucking ‘Battleline’ because that’s my sister’s favorite.”

If you could choose any actor to play you in a biopic who would it be?

“If any one of my kids, but let me see, they’d have to get Denzel but he’s too old. Who else could they get to play me? Gotta be somebody dope. Nah, they could get [A$AP] Rocky. On God, they could get Rocky. It ain’t even about the acting, it’s about the straight creative. They could get Rocky, my hair is growing out now. They gonna get A$AP Rocky and he gon’ play me and that shit gon’ be a hit. On God, I already see it.”

#new england #new england hip hop #rap culture #hip hop culture #music blog #macway #the413joint #the413archive #western mass #massachusetts music #new england music scene #diy blogger #artist interview

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dweemeister · 3 years

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The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953)

Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, remains best-known for his children’s books. The Cat in the Hat; Green Eggs and Ham; and Oh, the Places You’ll Go! are household names in English-language literature. Seuss’ bibliography overshadows his work in films, beginning with the adapted screenplay of his own book, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1943) – directed by George Pal as part of the Puppetoons series. During WWII, Seuss was heavily involved in propaganda films and the Private Snafu (1943-1946) military training films. After the war’s end, Seuss returned to writing children’s books, but also continued to write for movies. The Academy Award-winning animated short film Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950) benefitted from Seuss’ story work, and Seuss’ success there inspired him to write a screenplay for a live-action fantasy film. That screenplay – the unwieldy rough draft coming in at over 1,200 pages – was The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. The eventual movie, produced by Stanley Kramer (1960’s Inherit the Wind, 1961’s Judgment at Nuremberg) and directed by Roy Rowland (1945’s Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, 1956’s Meet Me in Las Vegas) for Columbia Pictures, would be Seuss’ only involvement in a non-documentary feature film.

Like many who speak English as their first language, Dr. Seuss’ books graced my early childhood. So integral to numerous children’s youth is Seuss that his whimsy, wordplay, and authorial stamps are easily recognizable. In that spirit, the cinematic record of live-action Seuss adaptations consists of the scatological Jim Carrey in How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) and the visual nightmare that is Mike Myers as The Cat in the Hat (2003). Compared to the original works, both films are ungainly, casually cruel, and overcomplicated. Not promising company for Dr. T. But even taking into account the three animated feature adaptations of Seuss – Horton Hears a Who! (2008), The Lorax (2012), and The Grinch (2018) – and the fact that Columbia forced wholesale deletions from the rough draft script of Dr. T to achieve a feasible runtime, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T is arguably the most faithful feature adaptation to Dr. Seuss’ authorial intent and signature aesthetic.

In other words, this is one of the strangest films you may ever encounter. No synopsis I could write in one paragraph will ever capture the film’s bizarreries.

Little Bart Collins (Tommy Rettig) is asleep during piano practice and his teacher, Dr. Terwilliker (Hans Conried), is furious. His overworked, widowed mother Heloise (Mary Healey) intuits Terwilliker’s unrealistic expectations (Terwilliker wants to teach the next Paderewski) towards Bart’s piano skills and inability to concentrate. Heloise also appears to be quietly eyeing the plumber August Zabladowski (Peter Lind Hayes) and his wrench. With the lesson done for the day, Bart falls asleep again. This time, he dreams that Terwilliker is now the leader of the Terwilliker Institute, a pianist supremacy mini-state which is built upon five hundred young pianist slave boys (hence, 5,000 fingers) forcibly playing Terwilliker’s latest compositions. His mother is Terwilliker’s unwilling, hypnotized assistant and plumber August Zabladowski (Hayes is essentially playing the same character, but in a different world) is Bart’s only ally around. Together, Bart and Mr. Zabladowski must evade the Institute’s guards as they attempt to undermine Terwilliker’s plans for his next concert.

In its final form, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T is a muddled mess of a story. The analogues between Bart’s reality and his dreams are inconsistent, several would-be subplots never resolve (or at the very least develop beyond a basic idea), and the film’s initial lightness is subject to rapid mood swings that make this picture feel disjointed. Indeed, Seuss’ sprawling social commentary in his first draft – including allegories and themes of post-WWII totalitarianism, anti-communism, and atomic annihilation – is in tatters in this final product. The viewer will witness brief fragments of those ideas, remaining in this movie as the barest of hints of the contents of the original screenplay’s rough draft. Even now, Dr. T inspires psychiatric analyses and accusations that Bart’s relationship with his mother reveals signs of an Oedipal complex (to yours truly, the latter is too much of a reach). The grim nature of Terwilliker Institute renders Dr. T unsuitable for the youngest children. For older children and adults, try going into this movie without expectations of narrative logic and embrace the grotesque aspects that only Seuss could imagine.

If my attempts to describe this movie’s preposterousness through its narrative and screenwriting approach have failed, perhaps I can capture that for you by writing on its technical features.

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For its sheer narrative inventiveness – inconsistencies, abrupt tonal shifts, nonsense, and Rowland’s uninspired direction aside – The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T is nevertheless an ambitious film, and Columbia bequeathed a hefty budget to match that ambition. Much of that budget went to the film’s visuals. This is an extravagantly-staged motion picture, as nothing could do Dr. Seuss’ illustrations justice without fully committing to his geometric impossibilities: skyward ladders and improbable connections between rooms, an eschewal of right angles and straight lines, and architecture bound to raise the ire of physics teachers. One could compare this to German Expressionism, but Dr. T’s sets tend not to dictate the film’s mood nor are they subject to high-contrast lighting. Seuss went uncredited as the concept artist on Dr. T, and it was up to Clem Beauchamp (1935’s The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, 1952’s High Noon) and the uncredited matte artists to commit those visuals to the real world. Outside of animated film, Beauchamp and the matte artists succeed in creating twisted sets that seem to leap off the pages of Seuss’ most artistically interesting books. Some of the sets appear too stagebound, but the production design accomplishes its need to resemble a world borne from a fever dream (or, at least, a young pianist’s nightmare).

This movie’s outrageous costume design (other than Jean Louis’ gowns for Mary Healey, the costume designer/s for this film are uncredited) comprises absurd uniforms and two of the most ludicrous hats – the “happy fingers” cap (see photo at the top of this write-up) and whatever the hell Terwilliker dons in the film’s climax – one might ever see in a film. Most of the costumes are laughably impractical and ridiculous to even those without fashion sense. In what might be the tamest example, while working under Terwilliker, Bart’s mother wears a suit that is all business formal on the left-hand side and bare-shouldered, sleeveless, and nightclub-y on the right. The delineation of real life – which barely features in the film’s eighty-nine minutes – and this world of Bart’s dreams could not be any more unambiguous thanks to the combination of the production and costume design work.

The disappointing musical score by Fredrich Hollaender (1930’s The Blue Angel, 1948’s A Foreign Affair) and song lyrics by Seuss rarely connects to the larger narrative unfolding. Seven songs make the final print, with nine (yikes!) Hollaender-Seuss songs ending up on the cutting room floor. Seuss’ wordplay is evident, as are Hollaender’s melodic flourishes. Columbia, a studio not known for its musicals, assembled a 98-piece orchestra – the largest musical ensemble to work on a Columbia film at the time – for The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T alone. That lush sound is apparent throughout for the numerous nonsense songs that color the score in addition to the incidental score. It is unusual to listen to a collection of novelty songs orchestrated so fully. Listen to “Dressing Song: Do-Mi-Do Duds” and its complicated, seeming unsingable lines:

Come on and dress me, dress me, dress me In my peek-a-boo blouse With the lovely inner lining made of Chesapeake mouse! I want my polka-dotted dickie with the crinoline fringe For I'm going doe-me-doe-ing on a doe-me-doe binge!

The rich orchestration seems to hail from a more lavish film. But too many of these songs are scene-specific, and rarely does Hollaender utilize musical quotations from these songs into his score. “Get Together Weather” is delightful, but it seems so isolated from the rest of the film; elsewhere, “The Dungeon Song” exemplifies a macabre side to Seuss seldom appearing in his books. Nevertheless, Hollaender is able to demonstrate his playfulness across the entire film, none moreso during any scene with the bearded, roller-skating twins and the “Dungeon Ballet”, in which the music complements stunning choreography and fascinating props that recall the jingtinglers, floofloovers, tartookas, whohoopers, slooslunkas, and whowonkas from the Christmas television special How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966). Yet, Hollaender’s film score and the soundtrack with Seuss seems to demand something – anything – to tie the entire compositional effort together. Perhaps a song or some cue like that was cut from the film, which is ultimately to its detriment.

Hans Conried (who starred as Captain Hook in Disney’s Peter Pan several months prior to Dr. T’s release) stands out from a decidedly average Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healey – Hayes and Healey, in a sort of in-joke, were married. Conried’s performance as the sadistic, torture- and imprisonment-happy music teacher can be considered camp, but this is anything but “bad” camp. He throws himself completely into this cartoonish role, sans shame, complete with mid-Atlantic accent, and topped off with exaggerated facial and physical acting that fits this fantasy. As Bart, child actor Tommy Rettig (best known as Jeff Miller on the CBS television series Lassie) seems more assured in his performance than most child performers his age during the 1950s. His fourth wall-breaking asides seem more appropriate in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but Rettig makes it work, and inhabits Bart’s flaws wonderfully.

Columbia demanded numerous reworkings of Seuss’ script, leading to several reshoots – most notably the opening scene (Seuss opposed the conceit of Bart’s dream framing the film) – and a ballooning budget. Upon its release in the summer of 1953, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T bombed at the box office and was assailed by critics. A crestfallen Seuss, who could not stand the production difficulties that beset the film from the start of shooting, would never work in feature films again. He would dedicate himself almost entirely to writing and illustrating children’s books, with many of his most popular titles (including The Cat in the Hat, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, and Green Eggs and Ham) published within a decade of Dr. T’s critical and commercial failure. His hesitance to participate in filmmaking informed his reluctance to allow Chuck Jones to adapt How the Grinch Stole Christmas! thirteen years later. Animation suited his books, Seuss thought, and he would never again pay any consideration to live-action filmmaking.

The reevaluation of The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T has seen a rehabilitation of the film’s image in recent decades. Home media releases and television showings have introduced the film to viewers not influenced by the hyperbolic negativity of the film critics working in 1953. This is not a sterling example of Old Hollywood fantasy filmmaking, due to a heavily gutted screenplay, scattershot thematic development, and incongruent musical score. Yet, the movie’s surrealistic charms and Seussian chaos know no peers, even in the present day.

My rating: 7/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

#The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T #The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T.#Dr. Seuss #Roy Rowland #Peter Lind Hayes #Mary Healy #Hans Conried #Tommy Rettig #Allan Scott #Stanley Kramer #Frederick Hollander #Rudolph Sternad #Cary Odell #William Kiernan #TCM #My Movie Odyssey

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blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years

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Treat Your S(h)elf: Imperial Boredom: Monotony and the British Empire by Jeffrey A. Auerbach (2018)

The British Empire has had a huge impact on the world in which we live. A brief look at an atlas from before World War One will show over hundred colonies that were then part of the Empire but now are part of or wholly sovereign states. Within these states much remains of the commercial, industrial, legal, political and cultural apparatus set up by the British. In many former colonial areas, political issues remain to be solved that had their genesis during the British era.

The legacy of the British has been varied and complex but in recent years much attention has been on making value judgements about whether the Empire was a good or bad thing. Of course the British Empire was built on the use of and the continual threat of state violence and there were appalling examples of the use of force. As well as the slave trade, there was the Amritsar Massacre in 1919, the 1831 Jamaican Christmas Uprising, the Boer War concentration camps (1899-1902) and the bloody response to the Indian Mutiny of 1857. However, we must not just focus on these events but examine the Empire in all of its complexities.

In the current moment of our times, it would seem that as a nation we are more concerned about beating ourselves up and making the nation feel guilty than understanding how and why the British came to exist, and setting the growth of the British Empire into historical context to be wise about the good, the bad, and the ugly. History has to be scrupulously honest if it’s not to fall prey to propaganda on either side of the extreme political spectrum.

Truth be told I find these questions about the British Empire being good or bad either boring or unhelpful. It doesn’t really bring us closer to the complexity and the reality of what the British Empire was and how it was really run and experienced by everyone.

For myself personally the British Empire was part of the fabric of our family history. The Far East, the Middle East and Africa figured prominently and at the centre of which - the jewel in the crown so to speak - was India. In my wider family clan I’ve come to learn about - through handed down family tales, personal diaries, private papers, and photos etc - the diverse experiences of what certain eccentric characters got up to and they ranged from missionaries in India and Africa to military men strewn across the Empire, from titans of commerce in the Far East to tea farmers in East Africa, from senior colonial civil servants in Delhi to soldier-spies on the North West Frontier (now northern Pakistan).

My own experience of being raised in India, Pakistan as well as parts of the Far East was an adventure before being carted off to boarding school back in Britain and then fortunate in later life to be able to travel forth to these memorable childhood places because of the nature of my work. Having learned the local languages and respectful of customs I have always loved to travel and explore deeper into these profound non-Western cultures. Despite the shadow of the empire of the past I am always received with such down to earth kindness and we share a good laugh. So I always assumed that the British Empire played a central role in the life of Britain has it had in our family history just because it was there. But historians are more concerned with much more interesting questions that challenge our assumptions.

So when I was at university it was a great surprise to me to first read a fascinating history of the British Empire by Bernard Porter called ‘The Absent Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society and Culture in Britain’ (2004). Porter was, in his own words, “mainly a response to certain scholars (and some others) who, I felt, had hitherto simplified and exaggerated the impact of ‘imperialism’ on Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, after years in which, except by empire specialists like myself, it had been rather ignored and underplayed. […] the main argument of the book was this: that the ordinary Briton’s relationship to the Empire in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was complex and ambivalent, less soaked in or affected by imperialism than these other scholars claimed – to the extent that many English people, at any rate, possibly even a majority, were almost entirely ignorant of it for most of the nineteenth century.” It became a controversial book but a welcome one because it was well researched and no doubt made some imperial historians choke on their tea dipped biscuits (and that’s not even counting the historically illiterate post-colonial studies crowd in their English faculties who often got their knickers in a twist).

Years later I read another fascinating collection of scholarly chapters by different historians called ‘Anxieties, Fears, and Panic in Colonial Settings: Empires on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’ (2016) edited Harald Fischer-Tiné which challenged a rosy vision of Britain’s imperial past by tracing British imperial emotions: the feelings of fear, anxiety, and panic that gripped many Britons as they moved to foreign lands. To be fair both Robert Peckham’s Empires of Panic: Epidemics and Colonial Anxieties (2015) got there before him but Tiné’s history set the trend for others to follow such as Marc Condos’s The Insecurity State: Punjab and the Making of Colonial Power in British India (2018) and Kim Wagner’s Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear and the Making of a Massacre (2019).

They all set out their stall by highlighting the sense of vulnerability felt by the British in the colonies. Fisher-Tiné’s edited book in particular highlights the pervasiveness of feelings of fear, anxiety, and panic in many colonial sites. He acknowledges that: “the history of colonial empires has been shaped to a considerable extent by negative emotions such as anxiety, fear and embarrassment, as well as by the regular occurrence of panics.”

The book suggests that these excessive emotional states were triggered by three main causes. First, the European population in British India was heavily dependent on Indian servants and subordinates who might retaliate against unfair masters or whose access to European dwellings could be used by malevolent others to poison the white elite. Second, anxieties about the assumed toxic effects of the Indian climate fuelled also poisoning panics. Diseases such as malaria and cholera were considered to be the ultimate outcome of an “atmospheric poison”. Third, Indian therapeutics and the system of medicine were also identified as a potential cause of poisoning European communities. These poisoning panics only helped reinforce the racial categorisations of Indians, the moral supremacy of the white population, and the legitimacy of colonial rule. Overall the book expanded the understanding of how a sense of fragility rather than strength shaped colonial policies.

Now comes another noteworthy book which again sound a little quirky but is no less meticulous in its research and judicious in its observations. Many books about the British Empire focus on what happened; this book concentrates on how people felt. When I was first given it I was predisposed to be negative because here was a book about ‘feelings’ - the current disease of our decaying western culture. But I was pleasantly surprised.

Was the British Empire boring? So asks Jeffrey Auerbach in his irreverent tome, ‘Imperial Boredom: Monotony and the British Empire’ (2018).

It’s an unexpected question, largely because imperial culture was so conspicuously saturated with a sense of adventure. The exploits of explorers, soldiers and proconsuls – dramatised in Boys’ Own-style narratives – captured the imagination of contemporaries and coloured views of Empire for a long time after its end. Even latter-day historians committed to Marxist or postcolonial critiques of Empire tend to assume that the imperialists themselves mostly had a good time. Along with material opportunities for upward mobility, Empire offered what the Pan-Africanist W.E.B. DuBois called ‘the wages of whiteness’ – the psychological satisfactions of membership in a privileged caste – and an escape from the tedium of everyday life in a crowded, urbanised, ever less picturesque Britain.

The British Empire has been firmly tied to myth, adventure, and victory. For many Britons, “the empire was the mythic landscape of romance and adventure. It was that quarter of the globe that was coloured and included darkest Africa and the mysterious East.” Cultural artifacts such as music, films, cigarette cards, and fiction have long constructed and reflected this rosy vision of the empire as a place of adventure and excitement.

Against this widely held view of the empire, As Auerbach argues here, however, the idea of Empire-as-adventure-story is a misleading one. For contemporaries, the promise of exotic thrills in distant lands built up expectations which inevitably collided with reality.

In a well-researched and enjoyable book, the author argues “that despite the many and famous tales of glory and adventure, a significant and overlooked feature of the nineteenth-century British imperial experience was boredom and disappointment.” In other words, instead of focusing on the exploits of imperial luminaries such as Walter Raleigh, James Cook, Robert Clive, David Livingstone, Cecil Rhodes and others, Auerbach says pay attention to the moments when many travellers, colonial officers, governors, soldiers, and settlers who were gripped by an intense sense of boredom in India, Australia, and southern Africa.

For historians, the challenge is to look past the artifice of texts which conceal and compensate for long stretches of boredom to unravel the truth. Turning away from published memoirs and famous images, therefore, Auerbach trains his eye on the rough drafts of imperial culture: letters, diaries, drawings. He finds that Britons’ quests for novelty, variety and sensory delight in the embrace of 19th-century Empire very often ended in tears. Indeed Auerbach identifies an overwhelming emotion that filled the psyche of many Britons as they moved to new lands: imperial boredom.

Precision in language and terminology is essential and Auerbach begins by setting out what he means by boredom. Adopting Patricia Meyer Spacks’ approach, he points out that the term first came into use in the mid-18th century. Auerbach identifies then the feeling as a “modern construct” closely associated with the mid-18th century where the spread of industrial capitalism and the Enlightenment emphasis on individual rights and happiness that the concept came to the fore. This does not mean that nobody previously suffered from boredom, but that, with the Enlightenment’s emphasis on the individual, this was when the feeling first became conceptualised. Like Spacks, he distinguishes boredom from 19th-century ‘ennui’ or existential world-weariness and also from monotony, which has a much longer history. Whilst a monotonous activity or experience may generate a feeling of boredom, it will not necessarily do so. The two terms must, therefore, not be equated.

Significantly, in a footnote, Auerbach cites a passage from 19th Century English satirical novelist, Fanny Burney, in which an individual is described as ‘monotonous and tiresome’ but, as he emphasises, ‘not boring’. To prevent confusion, the term ‘boring’ is best avoided when describing an activity or experience because this is to beg the question as to whether it does in fact generate feelings of boredom in a particular person.

How then should this state of mind be assessed and what should be seen as the symptoms of imperial boredom? As Auerbach acknowledges, boredom ‘is not a simple emotion, but rather a complex constellation of reactions’. Building on that approach, he says ‘imperial boredom’ reflected ‘a sense of dissatisfaction and disenchantment with the immediate and the particular, and at times with the enterprise of empire more broadly’. If this tends to mix cause and effect, the idea of dissatisfaction and disenchantment essentially mirrors Spacks’ definition of the symptoms of boredom, namely, ‘the incapacity to engage fully: with people, with action, with one’s own ideas’. ‘Imperial boredom’, therefore, was more than a fleeting moment of irritation with a particular situation or person and reflected a mind-set that derived from, and in turn, further contributed to, a sense of disillusionment with the overall project.

It stemmed, so Auerbach argues, from the marked contrast between how empire was represented and how it turned out to be, between ‘the fantasy and the reality’. ‘Empire was constructed as a place of adventure, excitement and picturesque beauty’ but too often lacked these features. Nowhere is this better described than in George Orwell’s Burmese Days, in which the promising young John Flory has become ‘yellow, thin, drunken almost middle-aged’. Beginning with this illustration, Auerbach argues that historians have too often overlooked this essential aspect of empire and sets out to discover the extent to which it was characteristic of what Flory called the ‘Pox Britannica’ more generally.

During the 17th century the British Empire sustained itself on the story that the colonial experience was both righteous and unbelievably exciting. Sea voyages were difficult, and when one eventually did reach landfall there was a good chance of violence, but the exotic foreign cultures, the landscapes, and the wildlife made the trip worthwhile. The British colonialist was meant to be swashbuckling. Advertisements for even the most banal household goods offered colourful and robust propaganda for life in the colonies. Travelogues and illustrated accounts of colonial exploration were wildly lucrative for London publishing houses. All of this attracted a crowd of young Brits eager to escape the drudgery of life in the metropole.

By the 19th century, expectations were catching up. As Auerbach makes it clear, from the beginning, the sense of boredom experienced by many Britons in new colonial settings was much more profound during the nineteenth century. Indeed, the latter was marked by a series of bewildering social, cultural, and technological changes that stripped the empire of its sense of novelty. The development of new means of transport such as steamships, the rise of tourism, and the proliferation of guidebooks jeopardised the sense of risk, newness, enthusiasm that had long been associated with the British imperial experience. Consequently, while “the early empire may have been about wonder and marvel, the nineteenth century was far less exciting and satisfying project.

Auerbach spent 20 years gathering evidence spanning the late 18th century to the turn of the 20th, which records feelings of being bored, miserable and deflated. It’s a captivating history of imperial tedium drawn from memoirs, diaries, private letters and official correspondence. In “reading against the grain”, as Auerbach puts it, he has focused on recorded events normally skimmed over by historians, precisely for being boring – multiple entries repeated over and over again about the weather, train times, shipping forecasts, deliveries, lists and marching; or about nothing ever happening.

In five thematic chapters, “Voyages”, Landscapes,” Governors,” Soldiers”, and “Settlers,” Auerbach shines new light on the experience of traversing, viewing, governing, defending and settling the empire from the mid-eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. The monotonous nature of the sea voyage, dreary and uninteresting imperial lands, daily routine, depressingly dull dispatches, mind-numbing meetings are some of the sources of an utter sense of imperial boredom.

Whilst the first chapter, Voyages, may be the logical starting-point, it presents particular problems. They may have been monotonous, but it is unlikely that they would have engendered feelings of disenchantment and disillusion at the outset of an empire life or career. Auerbach begins with the somewhat surprising assertion that ‘not until the first half of the 19th century did long-distance ocean travel become truly monotonous’, arguing that this was because, until then, the weather had been ‘a source of danger and discomfort’ whereas, by the mid-19th century, ‘it was barely worth mentioning’. Leaving aside the obvious difficulties with that approach – many 19th-century travellers, assuming they survived, described enduring terrifying typhoons in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea – voyages certainly could be monotonous, particularly, when steam replaced sail.

However, his assertion that this ‘helped to produce feelings of boredom that had never been felt before’ is more questionable. For example, whilst Sir Edmund Fremantle (1836–1929) wrote in his memoirs that, although the sea passages were ‘monotonous’, ‘it never occurred to [him] to be bored’, Auerbach suggests that, ‘in several places his memories [sic] belie his claims’, in that they refer to the ‘the monotony’ of various experiences, including cruising out of harbour under steam rather than under sail, which ‘always possessed some interest’. But, this not only contradicts what Fremantle wrote but also equates boredom with monotony and, thus, deprives it of any proper meaning.

Similarly, because the Royal Naval Surgeon, Edward Cree (1814–1901) recorded his passing the time ‘reading, drawing, walking on deck, eating drinking and sleeping’, Auerbach concludes that ‘almost every leg of his 1839 journey to the East was boring or disappointing’. However, he omits the opening words of this journal entry which reads, ‘making but slow progress towards China. Weather intolerably hot … The time passes pleasantly enough on board’, which suggests he was certainly not bored. Much of this chapter is not concerned with monotony but with how ‘dreadful’ sea voyages could be, particularly, for travellers to Australia, most of all transported convicts, who, as he shows, had to endure the most brutal conditions. But they had no expectations of empire and this seems to add little to the understanding of imperial boredom.

It may well be that, because voyages were so unpleasant, travellers became all the more expectant and thus disappointed, when, on arriving, they found, as Auerbach argues in the next chapter, that much of the landscape was dreary and uninteresting. Moreover, many could not decide whether they were in search of a landscape that was picturesque and exotic or ‘normalised’ by reproducing English architecture, gardens and surroundings. This dichotomy generated further disenchantment.

If Auerbach dwells too long on obscure painters who often had little success in making these imperial landscapes picturesque, there is no doubt that many of them were monotonous, not least the vast tracts of Australian out- back. Consequently, whilst ‘the early empire may have been about wonder and marvel, the 19th century was a far less exciting and satisfying project’ and this contributed to feelings of boredom.

In the chapter, ‘Governors’, Auerbach essentially covers the administration of the empire. Here, there was also a lot of monotony, although Auerbach wavers between whether this was caused by having too much or too little work to do. Either way, it leads to the assertion that ‘throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, British imperial administrators at all levels were bored by their experience, serving king or queen and country’. However, this is qualified in the next paragraph, in which he cites the Marquess of Hastings, who served in India in the early 1800s, and Lord Curzon, who served as Viceroy at the end of the century, neither of whom, he says, suffered from boredom. It was ‘during the middle decades, that imperial service was far less stimulating’ but he does not explain why it should have been limited to this particular phase.

Indeed, in terms of the staggering quantity of paper generated by the ICS, the problem stretched back to the early 18th century. Records were copied and recopied, and months were spent waiting on instruction from London. The few encounters with colonised subjects came in the form of long, drawn-out formal events. Lord Lytton as Viceroy of India between 1876-1880 was required to bow 1230 times during one particularly ceremonial reception with the Viceroy.

Whilst it is ultimately fruitless to exchange examples of officials who did and did not find government service boring, some of those chosen by Auerbach are not convincing. James Pope Hennessy, for example, the eccentric Irishman who delighted in antagonising the colonials and endearing himself to the indigenous people with his unconventional views on racial equality, certainly found the European life-style monotonous but, as a result, made sure he kept ceaselessly active. In the words of his biographer, ‘the chief impression [he] made on British and Orientals alike was one of superlative vitality. “He would do better”, wrote Sir Harry Parkes “if he had less life”’, Coming from Parkes, that arch- imperialist, who allegedly died from over-work and could never have been bored, the comment is telling.

While idleness certainly contributed to boredom, it was often the labour of maintaining colonial control that proved to be the most dull. Increasingly professionalised, the management of the colonies became characterised by strict report-making, bookkeeping and low-stakes decision-making related to staff. Whilst these officials may have become disenchanted, it is unclear what sort of mind-set they had when they started out: according to Auerbach, ‘they may well have entered imperial service out of a sense of duty, or perhaps looking forward to a colonial sinecure that offered status and adventure as well as a generous salary, but instead found themselves inundated by a volume of paperwork and official obligations that they had never anticipated, and which they found to be, quite frankly boring’. As a result, they were ‘eager to escape the tedium of the empire they had built’.

Whilst this suggests that, as a result, they threw up their empire careers, the example of Sir Frank Swettenham does not seem to fit the picture. He may have found life from time to time ‘extraordinarily dull’, but he continued as a government official in the Malay States for thirty years, before retiring in 1901. His belief in the imperial cause seems to have overcome the dullness and trumped any possible disenchantment.

In the chapter entitled, Soldiers, Auerbach concedes that ‘the link between military service and boredom can be traced at least to the mid-eighteenth century’. However, he argues, what was different in the 19th century was that boredom was no longer simply ‘incidental or ‘peripheral;’ it was ‘omnipresent’ and this was ‘a function of unmet expectations’, namely, the unsatisfied thirst for action and bloody combat as the ‘small wars’ of the Victorian age became shorter and fewer. However, citing Maeland and Brunstad’s Enduring Military Boredom, he concedes that this omnipresent boredom is a ‘condition that persists to the present day, especially among enlisted men’. This, therefore, divests it of any imperial character and suggests that it was, and remains a feature of modern military service.

Nonetheless, it would have been interesting to know how this boredom affected the performance of the military in the context of empire. Certainly, it gave rise to some of its more unsavoury aspects, with drunken soldiers brawling and beating up the locals and spending much of their time in the local brothels.

According to Richard Holmes, by 1899, there was ‘a real crisis’ in the infection rates of venereal disease of British soldiers in the Indian Army: ‘for every genteel bungalow on the cantonment … there were a dozen young men, denizens of a wholly different world, crossing the cultural divide every night’. Here was imperial boredom in the raw and urgent measures had to be taken to abate its consequences.

Although the final chapter is entitled ‘Settlers’, it encompasses a much broader category of imperial agents, including women, who until this point have been little- mentioned, and, in particular, women in India ‘most of whom went there in their early twenties to work (or to accompany their husbands who were working) and then typically left by the time they reached their fifties to retire in Britain’. It is unclear why these women and, indeed the whole topic of women in empire, should be subsumed under this chapter heading, given their importance in the empire project and the attention given to them in post-colonial scholarship.

In recent scholarship, empire white women have been frequently misrepresented and lampooned in the literature, including the novels of E. M. Forster, George Orwell, and Paul Scott and all too often reincarnated as representing the worst side of the ruling group – its racism, petty snobbishness and pervading aura of superiority and shown as shallow, self-centred and pre-occupied with maintaining the hierarchy of their narrow social worlds. They have invariably been portrayed as both bored and boring.

The wives of these officials were encouraged to run their households in a similar way, managing a large domestic staff and keeping a meticulous watch on financial expenditures. Socially, they were faced with constant garden parties and dinners with whatever small group of colonial families lived nearby. It’s difficult to imagine just how dull the existence of these administrators must have been, yet in reading these colonial accounts, the temporality and the totalising effects of boredom feel undeniably similar to the way that we describe the monotony of work today.

Auerbach effectively reiterates the trope as a clichéd illustration of a female, reclining aimlessly on a chaise longue, conjuring up the familiar image of ‘the same women [who] met day after day to eat the same meals and exchange the same banal pleasantries’ and concluding that ‘it was not only in India that women were bored, which suggests that the phenomenon was not a localised one, but a broader imperial one’.

Of course many western women did find life in empire monotonous and suffered from boredom, if not depression, and no doubt many were insufferable, as were their husbands, but there is an alternative image and the analysis is so generalised that their contribution is, once again, in danger of being dismissed out of hand.

A more nuanced approach would have examined ways in which women overcame their boredom by pursuing activities in which they were anything but bored, including, most obviously, the missions, a category which, despite its importance, does not feature, save for one cursory comment to the effect that, ‘even missionary women, whose sense of purpose presumably kept them inspired, could find themselves bored’. The example given is that of Elizabeth Lees Price, who, at one point during her eventful life, had to help run three schools for 30,000 pupils. But, just because her diary recorded ‘with increasing frequency’ the comment ‘nothing has happened’, it seems a stretch to infer, as Auerbach does, that ‘not even missionary work was enough to stave off the boredom that afflicted women all across the empire’.

For Auerbach, recuperating boredom means reframing the experience of empire as one of failure and disappointment. In the context of colonial scholarship, which tends to focus on the violence of colonialism and the myth-making that went along with it, Auerbach’s book is rather counter-intuitive. He drains the power of these myths, looking instead at the accounts of those responsible for building empire from the ground up: “What if they were not heroes or villains, builders or destroyers,” he writes, “but merely unexceptional men and women, young and old, rich and poor, struggling, often without success, to find happiness and economic security in an increasingly alienating world?” The agents of colonialism struggled to find any semblance of agency in the work that they were doing. Imperial time stretched out, deadened over decades of appointment in far off islands and desert outposts: a sort of watered down version of Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil” in paradise.

Whilst Auerbach demonstrates that much of empire life was monotonous, to my mind, he is too quick to infer that this monotony necessarily gave rise to feelings of ‘imperial boredom’, properly so-called. He also too easily assumes that, where people were bored, this could only operate in a negative way and, whilst he may be right in concluding that, ultimately, ‘the British were, quite simply bored by their empire’, he fails to draw the evidence together to explore what impact imperial boredom had on the development of empire, for better or worse, during the long 19th century.

If not quite an invention of the 19th century, boredom was a particular preoccupation of the period: the product of new assumptions about the separation of work and leisure and a prominent theme of fin-de-siècle literature. Less clear is whether Auerbach is right to treat boredom separately from other emotional states – anxiety, loneliness, anger, fear – which afflicted the imperialist psyche. After all, a long literary tradition – from Conrad to Maugham, Orwell, Lessing and Greene – describes precisely how those varied shades of neurosis blended into one another.

Besides, a more capacious history of discontent and Empire might help to connect the frustrations of the imperialist experience to the suffering of imperial subjects. When, for instance, did boredom turn to aggression and violence? One danger of Auerbach’s approach in Imperial Boredom is to portray an enervated and under-stimulated, yet still extraordinarily powerful, elite as more or less passive.

As imperial rivalry intensified towards the end of the century, so did the quest for new ways of staving off boredom, not only for men in the British Empire but also for those in the other European empires, and war was one of the most obvious solutions.

As other imperial historians have argued, what Europeans were seeking was everything the nineteenth century, in its drawn-out tedium, had denied them. War as Cambridge historian Christopher Clark has argued, “was going to empower them and restore a sense of agency to their limbs and lives.” Auerbach refers to what Clark called ‘the pleasure culture of war’, citing the example of Adrian de Wiart who, serving in the Boer War, knew ‘once and for all, that war was in my blood. I was determined to fight and I didn’t mind who or what’. But he does not explore the consequences of this mood further, other than to say that these adventurers also ‘ended up bored … and disillusioned’. But, the implications were, arguably, much more far-reaching.

Even if it was not directly causative, this mood was ‘permissive’ of the more direct causes and certainly formed part of the background against which Europe went to war in 1914. It may be thought that it did so in a fit of imperial boredom.

I admire the audacity of Auerbach’s writing and as a revisionist piece of history it has the dash and dare of British imperialism and colonialism. But after reading the book I came away thinking that sweeping statements such as that the empire developed “in a fit of boredom” are a tad unconvincing.

Although he spent about 20 years collecting materials, Auerbach seems not to have visited Africa or India during his research. Had he done so, I doubt if he would all too easily accepted that colonial accounts of being bored represented the full experience. Absent are deeper discussions of how expressions of being bored are linked to racism, arrogance and the need to assert power in exotic, challenging and unstable environments. Emotional detachment, disdain and a demand to be entertained were also part of a well-rehearsed repertoire of domination.

But where Auerbach does succeed is in admirably capturing the texture of everyday imperialist life as few historians have. Most of these examples are compellingly relevant and illustrative of some of the colonial circumstances that drove Britons mad with boredom, challenging one of the enduring myths about the British Empire as a site of exciting adventure.

If you are a lover of histories of white imperial rulers and thumbnail portraits, this book is for you. It’s full of excellent quotes. Lord Lytton, for example, fourth choice to be governor-general of India in 1875 (and appalled by the prospect), later summed up the British Raj as “a despotism of office-boxes tempered by the occasional loss of keys”. It was certainly the case that propaganda about empire and the populist books written about it to make money created false expectations, leading to bitter disillusionment. Nostalgists for the age of pith helmets and pukka sahibs will find little comfort here.

In mining the gap between public bombast and private disillusionment, Auerbach demonstrates that – even for its most privileged beneficiaries – Empire was almost never a place where fantasy became reality. I would suggest that rather than the British Empire being mostly boring, more accurate would be David Livingstone’s verdict on exploratory travel while battling dysentery: “it’s not all fun you know.”

The concept of imperial boredom provides a novel and illuminating lens through which to examine the mind-set of men and women working and living in empire, how it was that, despite the crushing monotony, so many persisted in the endeavour and what this tells us about the empire project more generally. There are all states of mind familiar to historians of empire (in the lives of their subjects, of course). It has long been argued that strategies to relieve moments of white boredom in the empire included cheating and adultery, husband hunting, trophy wife hunting, massive consumption of alcohol, gambling, copious diary and letter writing, taxidermy, berating the servants, prostitution, bird-watching, game hunting, high tea on the verandah, fine pearls and ball gowns, all were par for course in the every day lives for those bored British colonisers.

Auerbach’s book reminds me of a not so nice female character bemoans James Fox’s scandalous but true to life colonial novel White Mischief (1982), as she looked out over the Rift Valley in 1940s colonial Kenya, she declares, “Oh God! Not another fucking beautiful day.”

An earnest post-colonialist studies reader might might feel triggered by such a flippant remark as evidence of all that was wrong with the imperial project but at heart it’s a pitiful lament disguised as boredom at the gilded cage the British built for themselves to capture the enchantment and disenchantment of every day life in the British Empire.

#treat your s(h)elf #books #book review #bookgasm #reading #imperialism #british empire #boredom #british #history #colonialism #imperial boredom #jeffrey auerbach #empire #personal #bio #childhood

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baegarrick · 4 years

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ZUKKA ADVICE COLUMNIST AU! EITHER sokka as the columnist with a large readership/listenership bc of his elaborate plans to address typical relationship/work problems & zuko asking questions about social situations/making new friends when you've had a troubled childhood & your best friend is your uncle. OR: zuko as the thoroughly unqualified advice columnist (THAT'S ROUGH BUDDY)

yes 👏🏻

idk if it was inspired by this post or not, but if you haven’t seen it you should

finally got this done I'm the slowest actually

as much as I love “thoroughly unqualified zuko” (he’s my favorite dummy), I’m kinda so here for a “sokka’s elaborate plans” au

I’m thinking a little “you’ve got mail” and that post mixed in

so: Sokka is an advice columnist in the college paper. (this is a college au now sorry)

Zuko is one of his roommates (with like, Aang and Haru or something)

Sokka’s column is one of those “ask auntie” anonymous columns, and the name he’s forced to pen under is.... Aunt Wu. Katara and Aang both know he writes for the paper in the column, bc Katara’s his sister and Aang is their oldest friend and he figured it out (the kid is smart), but most of their friends don’t know, mostly bc the paper wants to keep it as anonymous as possible, and also he really didn't plan on staying this long. it was supposed to be one of those easy jobs for a semester until he got an internship in the robotics department, but it’s three semesters and one robotics internship later and he still!! has a job!! (partially because they told him if he quit they would do something unspeakably horrible to him, and also bc he’s..... popular??)

it started out as just a job, but Sokka’s an overthinker. he’s bright as hell, and maybe it’s his engineering brain, but he sometimes misses the obvious sometimes. Half his plans for “how do I deal with this guy who I’m dating who says either the fish goes or he does?” start out “dump him!!!” and then end with “.... actually wait, first of all it’s really shitty he wants you to get rid of a fish??? its a FISH???? it doesn’t even do anything????” and then three paragraphs of both a personal experience (sokka surprisingly has a lot of personal stories that Relate) and an elaborate plan for dumping this guy and then signing him up for like 12 free fish magazines.

He gets really popular, and while some of the questions he gets are weird and kinda over the top (”aunt wu, I’m blind but want to join the wrestling team, how do i tell my parents I’m both gay and stronger than them?”) some are just kinda sad (”aunt wu, my uncle is my best friend, how do I make friends?”). They’re all asked anonymously, sometimes with funny names attached. The latter is from a guy calling himself, “Blue Spirit.”

Anyway. Three semesters into writing this column, he lives with Aang, Zuko, and Haru. He picked Aang, the other two just came with the place (Suki, Katara, Yue, and Toph said “under absolutely no circumstances will we be splitting up so good LUCK boys we’re out.”)

He starts getting questions like, “How do I break the ice with my roommates?”, from the “Blue Spirit” guy, which prompts Sokka to get his roommates involved. He’s not against crowdsourcing. (only aang knows about the job, he tells the others its for school.) Sokka doesn’t really know Haru and Zuko, but like, this is a great way to get to know them, right?

Haru’s chill off the bat, but Zuko’s awkward and fumbling, and a little shy (though Sokka has heard him getting in a shouting match with the TV on more than one occasion), but after they get into it, throwing out ideas, Sokka thinks, you know, this was a good way to make friends with roommates. (he doesn’t write that, exactly, he’s got a reputation to uphold, but he includes “tricking them into hanging out with you by asking about a homework assignment” in the article) Zuko’s in the living room a lot more often after that, and even asked for Sokka’s help on a physics assignment once (ya know, bc Sokka’s super smart), so he thinks the method is tried and true.

A couple weeks of other mundane questions, he gets one that makes him pause. “What do I do if I have a crush on my roommate?” (Blue Spirit). and he thinks, “oh no, the ice breaker worked TOO WELL.” (but, of course, he doesn’t know what to do about this. He’s never had a crush on a roommate before. Aang’s like his little brother, Jet was a creep, and Hahn was the WORST. So he outsources again.)

[”Hey Aang,” Sokka says, hanging half upside down off the couch, “would you date your roommate?”

“Sorry Sokka, I’m flattered, but you know that Katara has captured my heart-- hey!” Sokka throws the remote at him.

“Not me! Just like, in general. Would you date someone you’re living with?”

“Oh, is this advice for your...... thing?” His eyes twinkle, “Or.... do you have a crush on someone I should know about????” (Aang is wildly unhelpful. He says he would date his roommate, no questions asked, but Sokka thinks he’s just thinking about Katara.)

He asks Zuko, next, the first person to come through the door.

“Would you date your roommate, Zuko?” Sokka asks. Zuko looks like he’s a deer caught in the headlights. “I’m asking for a friend,” Sokka says, whenever they ask. This was what had gotten him in trouble with Aang, but so far no one else had noticed Aunt Wu answering the same questions in the paper a week later.

Zuko relaxes, but he doesn’t look much better. “Uhhhh.”

“I mean, not like, us,” Sokka said, “I don’t know if you’re into dudes--”

“Definitely into dudes,” Zuko rushes to say, his cheeks pink all over again, and it’s cute. Sokka can see why dating him might be appealing. Oh no. That’s a thought for later. “Definitely gay.” And then, “I mean.... would you?”

“I don’t know,” Sokka says thoughtfully, looking Zuko over. Before he can think over it, Haru comes out of the bathroom, freshly showered.

Haru just shrugs. “I mean, isn’t your spouse just like your permanent roommate? It’s just like making a commitment really really early.”]

He publishes this in the paper: “What do you want to do about it?”

When he’s typing it up, he thinks about it. There are really two options for having a crush on your roommate. One, you can tell them you like them, or two, suffer in silence. He thinks about it. If he had a crush on someone-- his thoughts wandering to Zuko far more often than he likes-- he would probably do something about it. That’s what he did with Yue, that’s what Suki did with him. He details an elaborate plan with anecdotes about what he did with Yue, leaving out the part that they broke up. Giving her gifts, making her laugh, showing up at her workplace just to hang out for a little while. He details a 12-step plan that involves defeating your rival in hand-to-hand combat.

Of course, none of that would work with Zuko. They once got into an argument over how loud the TV was when neither of them were watching it, so he definitely wouldn’t want Sokka fighting his battles for him.

And then, oh no.

(He publishes the article. He tries not to feel like a hypocrite when he doesn’t immediately ask Zuko out, thinking about what Haru says. It’s a lot of commitment for an early relationship. He’s always the responsible one. For once in his life, he doesn’t go after what he wants.)

A couple months of this, living with these dudes, one of whim he now has a crush on!! thanks ANONYMOUS BLUE SPIRIT, the girl running the horoscopes segment of the paper quits and leaves that segment without an author. cue Sokka, reluctant horoscope writer. (He doesn’t even believe in this stuff!! but does he really believe half the stuff he writes in Aunt Wu?)

He half-asses it the first week. He looks up some bullshit guide to what everything means, listens to Toph describe what she thinks they mean over drinks at the tea place, and then sends it off to be published. He finds Zuko sulking in the living room two days later.

[”My horoscope said I’m going to make everyone around me miserable this week!” Zuko falls back on the couch, dramatically, like it’s a fainting sofa. “With my physics exam next week, I know it’s because I’m going to fail and drag you all down with me!”

“Oh,” Sokka says, stopping in the doorway. “You read those? ...and believe them?”

“Yes?” Zuko says, face a flushed red.

“Oh,” Sokka says, mind going a million miles per hour. “I have to, uh, go do my homework now.”]

The next week, Scorpio gets a nice horoscope about how everything is going to go right in the world and all that other sappy bullshit. Zuko looks better before his exam, and he’s happier. Sokka keeps that in mind whenever he seems Zuko looking a little down.

It’s not until the week before Winter Break that Sokka is forced to confront his feelings, in the dumbest of ways. His laptop breaks, and he asks Zuko to borrow his so he can finish the second-to-final Aunt Wu column. Zuko tosses his laptop over without thinking, from the other side of the couch, and he goes to open a document when he sees one already open.

It’s an early draft of a letter addressed to Aunt Wu, and it’s signed off with, “Blue Spirit.” He looks over at Zuko, who seems to realize what he left open at the same time, and suddenly--

[Zuko pounces, practically leaping into Sokka’s lap to slam the laptop shut. Sokka looks down at him, surprised. The only thing he can think of saying is, “You’re the Blue Spirit?”

Zuko looks more like he’s ready to die than ever, cheeks a furious red, “You read Aunt Wu?”

“Of course not,” Sokka says without thinking. “I write it.”

“Oh,” Zuko says, “that’s so much worse.”

Finally the implication catches up to Sokka, and this time, he feels his face heat, Zuko still sprawled across his lap. “You.... have a crush on your roommate?” Zuko doesn’t say anything. For once, Sokka’s mouth works properly. “Dude, I really hope your crush is on me because otherwise this is gonna be really awkward.”

“Wha--” Zuko tries to say, but Sokka’s leaning down to kiss him. When he pulls back, Zuko looks a little starstruck. “Oh. Yeah. It was definitely on you.”]

(Sokka doesn’t tell him about the horoscopes. He’ll tell him when he graduates, but for now, he likes making Zuko smile.)

#zukka #zukka au

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zigtheeortega · 4 years

Text

to hell and back

✿ pairing: logan x mc

✿ word count: 4174

✿ warnings: mentions of violence from book one & angst

✿ tags: @diamondsless ; @agentsewell ; @violinet ; @messofakind ; @hudush ; @roguemal ; @troublemakerinspace ; @choicesarehard ; @litgpop ; @auroraemery

✿ author’s note: i’m incredibly nervous to post this, as this is my first ever logan fic so please be gentle! i got the idea for this fic after watching portrait of a lady on fire, after being reminded of the myth of orpheus and eurydice, which if you haven’t ever heard of it, read up here! the idea of a forbidden love always breaks me but i’m a sucker for punishment, so i thought i’d apply that myth to future logan x mc (my mc’s name is raquel). i hit a follower milestone, too, so i thought i’d celebrate by pushing myself out of my comfort zone! woo![disclaimer: i’d never want to accidentally upset anyone by writing him ooc, so if you have any pointers, please dm me]

•─────────✦✿✦────────•

He was the last person she’d expected to hear from. It’d been years. Her life was finally getting back on track, and she was moving on.

She white-knuckled the steering wheel, her hands slick with sweat, and peeled out of the parking lot of her dorm, leaving her world to enter his again.

Some days, her time with the Mercy Park Crew felt like a distant dream, a day dream she’d conjured while bored at school. Other times, she’d reminisce on his specific features to make sure she’d never forget what he sounded like, how he looked, how he felt.

Some days, she’d zero in on his eyes, the way the brown tones were multidimensional, layered, and how dark and full his lashes were, shading his dilated pupils when he’d stare at her lips before leaning in for a kiss.

Other days, she’d focus specifically on his hair; the strong coconut smell of his deep conditioning mask, which he unabashedly used, a secret she swore to keep, and the silky feeling of his thick waves beneath the pads of her fingers.

She’d spent years mulling over her time with the Mercy Park Crew, spilling tears every time she came across her prom photo with Logan, so often that she had to lock it up in a journal she’d filled long before. She was used to the feeling of a choked sob, the tension in her lungs and the soreness that came after a good cry: a comfort so familiar to her that it was one of the only things that reminded her she was alive – that she was human.

She’d spent so much time grappling with her morality, the guilt of her involvement weighing heavily on her for her entire freshman year. The depression that came with it was unrelenting, the loneliness of moving across state lines settling in almost immediately. The nightmares were worse.

They came as quickly as they went – in short blips, interwoven with her worst memories. It wasn’t unusual for her to wake up in cold sweats, vivid details of bullets ripping through flesh, the metallic smell of blood burned into her memory.

She often woke up trembling, panting, always quick to muffle her cries with her pillow as to not wake her roommate.

She spent the majority of her first year in isolation, a self-inflicted punishment for the people she’d harmed in such a short span of time. Thankfully, her roommate was rarely there.

She was homesick, but not for Los Angeles.

No matter how much she wanted to go back, she wouldn’t allow herself to go. Not for holiday breaks or summer.

For the first year, her chest felt like a gaping wound, and she struggled with aimlessness, the thoughts of her purposelessness a constant mental burden. She toed the ledge, always close to jumping but never committed.

It took intense therapy to get her to a safe distance.

She slammed on the brakes, the red hue of the brake light in front of her the only thing warning her to stop. The burst of adrenaline she got from almost rear-ending another car was the most she’d felt in a long time.

She had chased the high relentlessly, either isolating herself completely during depressive episodes or throwing herself into high risk situations to feel something – anything.

Driving had become a utility to her, transportation and nothing more.

She associated the exhilarating sensation of pressing the gas pedal until her foot was nearly pointed, the smell of burning rubber, her tangled, windswept hair caught in her lip gloss – with Logan. It was wrong to try to recreate it without him.

When she’d left for Langston, she’d never looked back. Partially because she felt like she had nearly nothing anchoring her to L.A., but also because her last semester had a sense of finality to it. The crew vanished without a trace, and her inhibitions returned.

It took her five days of driving and stopping to make it to the campus. Her once intimidating, tightly packed car barely filled her half of the shared dorm room. And once she was on campus, she rarely drove anywhere, unless absolutely necessary.

She clung to the hope that she’d be able to find a crew of her own in undergrad, and that she’d hear his voice again. Envisioning Logan’s lips enunciating her nickname gave her a rush close to adrenaline, but not quite.

The soft pattering of rain on her windshield drew her out of her reminiscent thoughts. She blinked, glancing around the pitch black road, searching for a road marker. She flicked her high beams on, bouncing off of a distance marker. “Greenwood – 13 miles”.

He’d called at nearly midnight, his voice trembling, quiet, the bass of his voice keeping him from a true whisper. “Raquel, I need you.”

His tone was pure fear, the four words dripping with the subtext of a flubbed deal, a job gone wrong.

She kept the same phone number, clinging to the belief that maybe, just maybe, she’d hear her name roll off his tongue one more time.

It took three years for her to hear his voice again. And he was terrified.

She’d spent three long years dealing with the aftermath of the spring of her senior year of high school. A couple months of living in a new world had left a lifetime of damage, and she’d come out of it changed. The damage had festered, so much so that she had to seek help.

She’d promised herself that if she ever saw him again, she’d stand her ground, and try to pull him out of the deep end. She was strong willed, and well intentioned, that much she was sure. She learned so much about herself during that last semester, and she was grateful for it.

And all of that was abandoned the second he spoke her name.

She turned off the highway, and after a long stretch of backroads framed with gravel driveways, the bar came into focus. The open sign flickered, overshadowed by the numerous draft beer logos shining brightly around it.

The parking lot was nearly empty, a couple of reverse-parked pickup trucks scattered across the gravel. The muffled music met her ears, barely audible over the electric bug zapper near the entrance.

She still couldn’t get used to the muggy, swampy weather of the east coast, much less the mosquitoes and the irritating itchiness of a fresh bite.

The chill of the air conditioning hit her before her nerves did. With nothing but a few bills, her driver’s license, phone, and determination, she’d set out to save him. She hadn’t even prepared.

What was she supposed to say to the one person who burrowed his way into her subconscious and never left? The one that she was forced to live without, even though she craved daily him like the sweet bitterness of nicotine, the fleeting high enough to keep her coming back, no matter if it’d eventually kill her.

In the back booth of the dingy bar, she saw him.

She noticed the stubble first, so foreign from the smooth tanned skin she remembered running her fingers across. The dark circles under his eyes aged him, the years of trauma finally catching up to him. It’s like his light was dimmed; she thought he was broken before, but whatever healing journey she’d had, he’d endured the opposite over the years.

His cheeks looked hollow, like he hadn’t eaten in days. From the look of his greasy hair and dirt stained white tee, he’d been on the run nonstop.

“Logan?” She called out, just loud enough for him to hear.

He met her eyes, and for a brief second, they were empty, devoid of emotion, just long enough for her to notice, before they filled with tears. He jumped up from the tattered booth seat: grabbing her in a crushing hug, burying his face in her neck.

He murmured her name into her neck over and over, like he couldn’t believe she was real. She wrapped her arms around him, his familiar warmth bringing her to tears.

And they stayed like that, enveloped in each other, not a single thing around them mattering, except the feeling of being in each others’ arms after years apart.

When she pulled back to look at him, he stared at her lips, and ran his thumb across her chin. “Hey.”

“Hi,” she breathed, her arms snaking around to his front, and she grazed the tight muscles of his torso.

A drunken man shoved past them towards the restrooms, taking her out of the moment.

“Should we sit?”

He nodded, sliding onto his side of the table. “Do you… want a drink, or?” He asked, a bit nervously.

“No, I’m driving.” She fiddled with the braided keychain attached to her car keys, pulling at the frayed edges.

“That’s the responsible Raquel I missed,” he chuckled, breaking the tension a bit. He took a deep gulp from the beer bottle in front of him.

“I missed you so much,” she sighed, watching his face intently, committing every new detail to memory, tucking it away for later.

“I missed you, too.”

It was a hard conversation to initiate, much less navigate. She was still deciding if he was real – she’d dreamt of the moment she’d see him again, and it wasn’t anything close to what was happening.

She’d daydreamed of him pulling up to her dorm, parked out front like he did when they first met, as cliche as it sounded. Donned with the same white tee and jeans, he was leaning against the car (in her dream she pictured a convertible, so she could watch how beautifully the wind’s rough caress styled his hair, able to tousle it in a way a pair of hands never could), a smirk on his face, his arms folded, but his body language was never uninviting. He was relaxed, untroubled, as she kissed him, and they drove off into the sunset. A cliche, but at least they were both happy.

“So…” she started.

“I know you have a lot of questions, but I don’t know if I can answer all of them right now,” he finished, apologetic.

“Why not?”

“Let’s just say that… subter-fudge doesn’t always work to get you out of sticky situations.”

“You mean subterfuge?”

“Okay, truth be told I’ve never used that word in my life, but it was the word of the day on this dictionary app I have. And I was saving it for a good time, but I think I fucked it up,” he smiled, shaking his head.

She reached across the table, covering his hand with her own. “Let me get this straight. You not only learned a new word to use on me, but you have a dictionary app? You know you can just Google words, right?”

He shrugged. “I try to learn a new word as often as I can. It’s not much, but I feel smarter, even if I never use the word.”

“I thought it was cute.”

He chuckled, tracing his thumb across her knuckles. “You’re just trying to flatter me because I messed up.”

“No, I’m flattering you because you tried… and I missed you,” she said, squeezing his hand, the roughness of his skin comforting to her.

“God, I missed you more,” he whispered, eyes roaming over her face. “You really answered after all that time?”

“Yeah, of course. I knew you’d come back for me, eventually,” she smiled, burying the years of grief underneath the momentary gratification.

Her life since meeting and leaving Logan had been a probability. The numbers were infinite, the outcomes varied. She thought her psychology class would’ve been more rough on her mentally, but numbers didn’t lie.

Her calculus and statistics classes had been terrible – not just because she had to work twice as hard for a good grade in math classes, but because the problems so well translated to her life.

There were so many times that she could’ve died – so many times that she could’ve gone to prison for working with “criminals.” So many times that she jeopardized her future. And she was offered a way out, to start fresh.

But as many times as she tried to scare herself into feeling lucky and grateful for being steered back onto her path to success, she felt hollow. She had a one in a million chance of getting out of that life alive, but she had a one in a million chance of meeting Logan, too.

There were millions of people in Los Angeles County – she could’ve gone her whole life without knowing him, blissfully ignorant to the rough underbelly of the city she’d grown up in.

He changed her from the second he met her. Her probability split down the middle, branching into paths and subpaths, and multiple more until each move she made was critical. And the moment he left, she clung to him, despite the probabilities of them ever meeting again slimming more and more with each passing day.

He squirmed a bit, looking uncomfortable. She could tell that he was holding back. “Look, Raquel, I have to be completely honest with you, or it wouldn’t sit right with me. I know you haven’t seen me since you left for college, but… I’ve seen you.”

Her breath hitched in her throat. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, all of the jobs I’ve taken since leaving L.A. have been on the east coast, so I could stay close to you. To protect you.”

It shouldn’t have been music to her ears, but witnessing those words fall from his lips filled her soul with a sensation she could only describe as tranquility.

Her first year of college was riddled with depressive episodes, but the ensuing paranoia that came after she was reminded of The Brotherhood was even heavy, even more suffocating. She watched her back so much that her body was covered with bruises from the times she’d run into door frames, trash cans, people, sometimes causing her to trip and fall.

She was so unhealthily fixated on all of the possibilities and outcomes that she withdrew, not wanting to be the reason anyone close to her was harmed. She spent so long worrying that it nearly ruined her.

But hearing that he was always there, close enough to keep her safe, alleviated her, renewed her, replenished her. It nearly undid the hurt, minus a critical detail.

“Why didn’t you reach out to me?”

“I couldn’t… hurt you. The crews I ran with… it would’ve –” he cut himself off with a shake of his head, throwing back the bottle to finish it off.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, Logan,” she whispered, watching his labored breathing, like he was so close to crumbling before her eyes.

“No, I can handle it. It just might take me a few tries to get it out,” he smiled weakly, gripping her hand, and she held firm, grounding him.

“Truthfully, I wanted to call you. You don’t know how many times I typed your number out and deleted it. I know your number by memory now.

“I was already here by the time you moved in. I’d been recruited by one of Teppei’s old friends, if you could call him that. He seemed like a great guy at first, but…” he trailed off, pained.

“It got really bad. This guy said he never worked with the same crew twice, and I thought since he kept calling me back that I was special.” He laughed curtly, the familiar look of brewing rage bubbling beneath the surface. “It was stupid, but each time he kept pushing me into doing more than I bargained for. I did a lot of things I couldn’t stomach, but by the time I realized what I was doing, I was already getting orders for the next job.”

He watched her hand on his, refusing to meet her eye.

“I always thought I’d dip when things got too rough, but I couldn’t give up being so close to you.”

“You didn’t run?”

“I told you I was tired of running,” he grinned, and it seemed alien on his gaunt face – like it’d been so long since he smiled he’d forgotten how to do it.

“So, what are you doing now, then?”

“Running.”

He said it so matter-of-factly, so deadpan, so pragmatic, that she knew not to pry. He was at rock bottom, and she was his only way out.

“What can I do?” she asked, no hesitation, ready to throw herself in the line of fire for him.

“I just need a ride to the used car lot on the other side of town. I have cash and someone there waiting to sell me one, so all I need is a ride.”

“You could’ve just called a cab or something, though. Why do you need me?” She prodded.

“I don’t know if you’re gonna like what I’m gonna say,” he hesitated, clearly torn.

“I can’t like or dislike it if you don’t tell me.”

He sighed. “Well, this might be the last time I can see you… for a while.”

“Can’t you just hide out and wait out till it’s safe? You can’t leave now, I just… I just got you back,” she choked, panicking and grieving all over again.

“I have to. There’s a pretty hefty warrant out for me. And I’ve got people looking for me. I can’t drag you into that,” he said, solemn.

“No, you can get out, Logan, we just have to plan it out. We can beat this, we just have to try,” she whispered, vision blurring with tears.

“Hey, hey, Raquel, it’s okay, I’ve accepted it,” he soothed her, reaching out to stroke her face, swiping his thumb across the streaks of water the teardrops left behind. “I just wanted to see you before I left.”

“Logan, I can’t say goodbye again. I just got you back,” she repeated, the familiar sense of dread creeping in, her chest tight.

“I can’t. I’m in too deep.” And he left it at that.

He left a tip, and they walked to the car, hands intertwined. She wanted so badly to just talk – to catch up on the years he’d missed, to make him proud, but it wasn’t the time. There’d never be a time. Being together in that moment was precious, every minute counting.

She’d have to memorize every second; they would have to last her a lifetime.

“Do you want to drive?”

He chuckled in response, a spark of his old self coming back. “Nah, I’ll be doing enough of that. I really missed seeing you behind the wheel.”

They slipped onto the warm leather seats – the moist air left over from the rain had seeped into the atmosphere of the car. She cranked up the AC, sweat beading on the back of her neck.

She peeled out onto the gravel backroad, not knowing what to say next. Thankfully, he leaned forward to tap the volume knob, turning on the radio, but the soft hum of the engine drowned it out, white noise in their silence.

He slipped the dog tag from around his neck, ruffling his hair, and placed it on the neck of the rearview mirror. It dangled, catching the occasional light of the passing streetlight.

“Is that a new necklace?” she asked, watching it sway as she turned onto the ramp to merge onto the highway.

“I hope you don’t think it’s weird.”

“I think we’re past that.”

“After I gave you my last necklace, I wanted something of my own to remember you by, so I got this done,” he rotated the piece towards her.

“Troublemaker” and her phone number was carved into the metal, scratched and slightly rusty.

“Oh, Logan,” she breathed, gripping the steering wheel harder. She couldn’t tell him bye. She’d just gotten him back.

“I want you to keep it.”

“No, you need it to remember me by, like you said,” she forced through a sob, the composure she’d thought she’d had a grasp on crumbling with each syllable that fell from his lips.

“I don’t need it, Raquel.”

“If I take it it means that…” she couldn’t say it.

“That it could get ugly. And I might not ever come back for you.”

“I want you to, though, Logan. I’m so close to finishing college, and I’m going to start med school soon, and I’m gonna have a great job, and I can take care of us and I–” she cut herself off, crying, her body heaving.

“I’m so proud of you,” he whispered, and was met with the calloused pads of his fingers on her jaw.

“I can’t do this without you.”

“You can. You’re way stronger than you think. I know you made it through some hard ass classes without anyone’s help,” he joked.

“You are too.”

“This isn’t about me anymore. It was never really about me,” he said, tracing a hand down her shoulder to rub the nape of her neck lovingly. “I know you never moved on. Hell, I didn’t really let you move on since I was secretly playing bodyguard for years. But this time I’m serious. You’ve gotta let me go, Troublemaker.”

“You know I’ll never do that,” she laughed feebly.

“You have to at least try. For me.”

She didn’t answer him. She pulled off of the highway, begging for the car to break down, for some divine intervention to happen to prove that they deserved to be together.

When she parked in the empty lot, the only light coming from her headlights and the flashing streetlight, he turned to her, a softness in his haggard appearance.

They stared at each other, drinking in every inch of their bodies. She wanted to remember him as bright, more vigorous, more alive.

And before she knew it, their lips were on one another’s, fervent and hungry. He smelled exactly the same, and she breathed him in, lacing her fingers in his hair, taking full advantage of their brief moment of solitude.

He parted his mouth, tasting her, groaning. They kissed over and over, reacquainting themselves. It morphed into her breaking down, yet again, kissing and embracing him over and over, trying desperately to reclaim the moment as healing. But she couldn’t see it that way, even as he whispered affirmations in her ear, reminding her of all of the things he loved about her.

The rain picked up again, tapping insistently against the windshield, setting a much more soothing ambiance than the situation called for.

Finally, she leaned back, so unwilling to part from the warmth of his arms. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he breathed, wiping his cheeks with the back of his hand. “I need to hit the road so I can make it over the state border by sunrise.”

“Logan…” she whispered, begging. “I know we can make this work.” She sounded like a broken record, proposing empty ideas with no solutions. She knew there wasn’t a solution, but she preferred empty words to the stinging slap of the truth.

“I’m a fugitive. You’re going to be a doctor. I can’t compromise that. It’s selfish.”

“But I want you to be selfish,” she clasped his hands in hers, holding it to her chest. “You know I’d do anything for you.”

“That’s the problem, Troublemaker. I can’t let you do that,” he brought her hands to his mouth, kissing her knuckles once, twice, before unlocking his door, and stepping out. “You were always too good for me, Raquel.”

He circled to the front of the car and smiled at her one last time, the tears in his eyes glimmering, reflecting the headlights. She watched the rain dot blotches all over his ratty tee, clinging to his form, and it made her wish she’d been able to see all of him.

Then he turned, and walked further and further into the lot of cars, his form becoming hazy before disappearing completely.

And she couldn’t stop him.

Probability always won in the end – the numbers didn’t lie. She could’ve seen it coming from a mile away, but she didn’t want to see it.

She was paralyzed in fear, knowing that there was no way she could save him from the hell that’d engulfed him, but refusing to believe it.

#playchoices #rod logan #choices rod #logan x mc #my fic #jade writes choices fics

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tcheschirewrites · 4 years

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Hey, are you participating in NaNoWriMo? Have you ever? And what was your experience like? I'm considering it but I feel so intimidated because I know I won't be able to commit to it wholeheartedly. Lowering my expectations and pacing myself would seem like the perfect solution but work kills my creative brain cells by the seconds. I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of November I've only written half of page of alien language. Any advice? Also does Nano have to be a new project?

Oh man, Nano. I’m well familiar with Nano, and I’ve participated a few times (to varying degrees of success). This got very long, so I’m putting a cut.

The first time I attempted Nano was in 2006 for my novel Seerking. I had heard about it from a friend who was in an LJRP I was in, and she encouraged me to try it. I was still in high school at the time, and very frankly I did not have the dedication necessary to complete it. I got a lot of worldbuilding complete, but very little writing. I got about two pages of prose, and three notebooks of character and setting history, as well as a fairly detailed outline. I still have all of this.

The second time I attempted was in 2009, for a story that is based heavily on the Iron&Wine song ‘Boy With a Coin’. I got a little bit further, but I got stuck in a few places. I think it’s because my idea was bigger than my life experience, and I also got stuck in a lot of small details. Additionally, my first Word document (where I got about two chapters in?) was destroyed when my laptop’s hard drive just straight gave up on life - I did buck up and rewrite quite a bit, though it didn’t sing quite the same notes, and I have this handwritten copy still. (It’s possible I tried again with this same project the year after? I don’t remember tbvh)

My third attempt was in 2011, about a goverment operative and a faun. This one I got the furthest, and I still have the original handwritten draft and the typed copy. I pantsed this one, 100%. To this day, I still don’t know how this story ends, but I’d love to attempt a rewrite someday.

Then, unfortunately, from around 2012 until Fall of last year, I stopped writing period. I was in a real bad situation, and just didn’t have the energy for anything, let alone a novel. My most recent experience with Nano as an organization was Camp Nano, which is a much looser structure, and it is in May and July. Rather than the hard and fast 50k, you set your own goal when you announce your project.

I can understand your hesitance to participate, honestly. Nano is a beast of a project – to reach the minimum goal of 50k in the 30 allotted days, you have to produce 1667 words of new content every single day. This is approximately 3 pages, maybe a little more – which is a lot when you’re already stressed! And if you miss a day you have to adjust your daily totals for every following day, and the pressure starts to mount! It’s a lot, even if it is only meant to be a neat little challenge (mostly, I’ll cover benefits a bit later).

Now, my recommendations are going to follow two paths: planning, and pantsing. If you are naturally a planner – that is, you like having rough outlines, refined outlines, you like having character data, history, etc – then I recommend you have as much of your novel planned ahead of time before November 1st hits. Whatever notes or files you need to have set aside before you begin writing those first words, have them ready – read over them, refine them, and have them memorized front to back so that you know what your story is meant to be. If you are a natural planner, and you have not done this by today’s date (it’s 30 October where I am), then I do not recommend participating this year because it will stress you the fuck out and you might even make yourself sick.

The other popular option is called pantsing – essentially, you have a rough idea, and you’re flying by the seat of your pants. (This is literally what it is called on the Nano website, by the by – there are badges for it and everything.) If you are a pantser, then I still recommend a little preparation, but of a wildly different degree and type: find your story’s ambiance. If you are a pantser, think about what sparked the idea for your story? Try to put yourself back in the place (emotionally or physically) where you had the most intense version of the idea, and hang onto that feeling with both hands. This is incredibly important, because it will allow you to harken back to that feeling without chasing the high of first being hit by that feeling. If you are a pantser, focus heavily on the feelings you want to evoke with your story, and let your heart guide you.

Now the third option (I know what I said, I lied all right) is if you are a combination planner-pantser; you don’t want to have the rigidity of the outline, but you also like having a little bit of structure, or at least a direction to go in. If you are a combination planner-pantser, I recommend doing very soft preparation for yourself in the week leading up to Nano. So things like building yourself a playlist, maybe doodle what your main looks like in your head, or small details like character names and short dossiers. If you’re able, I recommend coming up with an ending, so you know what the end-goal looks like and you are able to track your story’s completion in your head.

For all three, I would recommend deciding ahead of time how you want to write your novel – are you going to type it up in a word processor (please make so many backups, do not live the heartache that I had to)? Are you going old school and hand writing it? Are you feeling like a boss that day and maybe want to dictate it into an app on your phone? Pick one, and make a dedicated space for your novel. You can mix them up, certainly, but make sure that you are able to consolidate effectively or you’re going to stress yourself out.

Now, you asked whether or not it has to be a “new” project. There are actually a few answers to this, depending on what you mean. Now, if we are to assume that “new” strictly means a brand new, fresh idea that you have just come up with specifically for National Novel Writer’s Month 2020, then the answer is no; it does not. Back in the day, there were a few purists that insisted you had to have a designated project every year, but like most purists, they’re just being assholes about it.

As a matter of fact, it does not even have to be a brand new project that you have not written any words for at all – however, if you do have an idea that you have already written for, you are not permitted to use any of your previous word count toward your goal. This is definitely a no-no. Personally, I’ve tried this, and I found it rough – I liked having the designated project, and I liked the buildup to it.

If you have, though, an idea that you’ve worked over and you are simply ready to start putting words on a page, this, I think, is Nano’s sweet spot.

Now, I know most of this 1000+ answer has been cautioning and reminders that Nano is tough – because, well, it is. It is a huge undertaking, and I feel like every participant has their horror stories to tell about their experience. But I want to reassure you that it isn’t 100% a hard slog to a dreary end; there are so many tools that Nano themselves provide you, as well as user-run communities and workshops, and even some benefits after the fact. These are the things I want to wrap this post up with.

Firstly, no matter how tired or stressed you are, if you register for nanowrimo.org, you’ll begin receiving daily emails from published authors and past participants. These range from silly and tedious, to incredibly comforting. My favorite one, which I cannot remember a lot of specifics from, was from a man who detailed his experience and reassured everyone that the work doesn’t have to be good – it just has to be 50k words. That’s it. You can have typos and errors all over the place, plot holes of all shapes and sizes, and a main character who doesn’t make any sense at all; it doesn’t matter, because the point of the event is simply to finish. Neil Gaiman has also said a time or two that your first draft’s only purpose is to exist. Just get the words out; you can fix them later.

Additionally, when you are completing your profile, you can enter in your location and there are designated forums for participants in your area. In the past, there have been meetups for group-writes and workshops as well, though I imagine they will be more along the lines of Discord calls this year. If you are a social person who needs a pair of eyes to help you work through a scene, Nano’s got your back. They will also send you statistics for your area for the average word count, daily word count, past winners, etcetera. It can sometimes feel like you are very alone during this difficult project, but a lot of these things bring a very human element to the event.

Finally, what comes after you have completed. A lot of these benefits are newer than my time, but I browsed through them when I did my Camp Project. When you complete the goal in the allotted time, you get a neat little badge for your webpage and a printable certificate for the immediate boost of dopamine. But you will also get discounts to some neat shit, like different word processing applications (I got 50% off of Scrivener when I finished Camp), as well as things like The Great Courses, discounts in the swag store, etc. But more than that, there are partnering websites who want to help you on the road to being published. Wattpad is in this group, but I believe also big name publishers (I might have seen Penguin on there at one point) are willing to work with winners to get their works distributed.

All that said, I recommend every writer attempt Nano at least once in their writing career. Even if I personally have not done so stellar in the past, it is a fantastic learning experience for all of the work that goes into producing a novel from start to finish – it forces you to know your limits, and sometimes to overcome them. I don’t think I will be participating this year – I have so many side projects that I want to get done, but I will very likely drop everything to do it next year. I have two novels that are real roughly built up that I could do for this, though, and I would love the dedicated time to spend on them.

#asked and answered jim #red-write-district #writeblr #writing advice #nanowrimo #i'm actually really fond of every nano project i've ever done #even if i didn't finish any of them #i still go back and read them sometimes #and i still have a lot of like plot details in my head for them

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matrixaffiliate · 4 years

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Endeavor

Chapter Update! FFN and AO3

Chapters 8-14 are Vic's POV, and I promise these chapters are where the fun Tedoire scenes are going to come. Fluff is in sight friends! Our next chapter goes up on September 12th. =)

Chapter 8

Victoire sat on her bed with her knees up against her chest. She didn't know what else to do.

"Vicky," Dominique stuck her head in. "Maman says it's time for dinner."

"I'll be there in a minute," Vic nodded.

"For someone who just got engaged, you're not as happy as I thought you'd be." Dom leant against the door frame.

"I'm having a rough day is all."

"More like a rough two weeks," Dom flipped her braid over her shoulder. "I still don't understand why you quit working with Uncle Ron."

"I just wanted something more in line with what I want to do." Vic pulled her knees closer to her.

"And what is that?"

Vic dropped her head to her knees. "Nevermind, tell Maman I'm not hungry."

Dom shrugged, "She'll probably come up here then, just warning you."

"Thanks, Dom, I'll take my chances," Vic muttered into her knees.

Vic heard her sister walking down the stairs but surprisingly, she didn't hear her mum coming up.

It was just as well, how would she ever explain to her mum that she'd kissed Ted when she'd just agreed to marry Sean a month earlier? And how would she say how hard it had been not to kiss Ted again? How she'd melted into him? How she still thought about kissing him? How tempting it was to call off her engagement and go running after him?

Vic hoped she would never need to explain it all, but once dinner was done, Fleur wasted no time confronting her daughter.

"Two weeks, ma chérie, two weeks," Vic felt her mum sit down at the foot of her bed. "Pourquoi?"

Vic shook her head against her knees, "I'm just having a rough go of it."

"No," Vic felt her mum shift on the bed, and then her mum's arms were around her shoulders, "No, there is something more, Je le sais."

Vic swallowed hard against the tears that she'd been fighting since Ted had walked away from her for the last time.

"Dîtes-Moi, ma chérie, you'll see, it will all feel a bit better if you do."

"Oh, Maman," Vic felt the tears press through her closed eyes.

"Je t'ai eu, ma chérie," Her mum pulled her closer.

Vic clung to her mum and gave in to the tears. She'd managed to keep them at bay for two weeks. She'd distracted herself by pretending to plan her wedding and pretending to look for a new job. But she couldn't hold them back any longer, and her heartache over everything was suffocating.

"I'm a terrible person!" Vic finally managed to get something other than her hiccuped breathing out.

"No, no, you are not," Fleur brushed Vic's hair back from her forehead. "Why do you say such things?"

"I, I kissed," the words were lodged in her throat and she didn't think she could push past them.

"You kissed?"

Vic felt her chest trying to cave in on itself, trying to create a black hole to suck her into.

"I kissed him, I kissed Ted."

"Ah," Fleur squeezed her arms a little tighter around Vic. "And this is why you turned down Ron when he wanted to make you a part of the new business?"

Vic nodded as the tears returned full force.

"Have you told Sean?"

Vic shook her head violently, "I can't! He'll be so mad!"

Vic felt her mum draw in a long breath and let it out slowly. "Do you know why you kissed Ted?"

"He," Vic bit her lip, "He told me that he loved me, that he'd fallen in love with me over the six months of working together. And I just, when he leant in, Maman I wanted him to kiss me."

She started sobbing again. What was wrong with her? She was in love with Sean...wasn't she?

"What did you say when he said he loved you?" Fleur ran her fingers through Vic's hair, trying to soothe her.

"I didn't know what to say!" Vic cried. "I just kept telling him he was my best friend!"

"Sean is not your best friend?"

Vic shook her head.

Fleur pursed her lips, "Vicky, you know I love you, but if Sean is not your best friend, why are you marrying him?"

"Because, because, I, I guess, I mean, I said yes when he asked..."

"And the boy can't be bothered to set a date to marry you," Fleur's voice had gone hard.

"I, I," Vic's voice cracked and she gave in to the sobs again; because her mum was asking questions she didn't have answers to.

"I am going to write a few things down," Her mum stood and collected a notebook and pen from Vic's desk. "I want you to take some time to think about them."

Vic wiped her eyes on her jumper sleeve, "Maman…"

"Non, ma chérie, first you must find yourself, then the answers will come. I can not give them to you."

Fleur set the pen and notebook at the foot of the bed. "If you get hungry, come down and I'll heat up a plate for you."

Then she kissed Vic on the forehead and slipped out of the room. Vic closed her pen in the notebook before she could look at her mum's writings. She already had a pretty good idea of what it said, and she didn't think she could handle those questions right now.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Vic waited until everyone was off at work and school before she left her room the next day. It was easier to not have everyone trying to cheer her up, or asking about a wedding she didn't even know if she wanted now, or why she wasn't wearing her engagement ring all the time.

She'd taken it off on her drive home that Friday and every time she'd tried to put it back on she felt sick. She didn't deserve to wear it. She didn't deserve to wear something that signified love and commitment.

Vic tried to distract herself from that train of thought with making breakfast, but fate had other plans. Sean's picture lit up her phone screen as his call came through.

"Hi," She tried to animate her voice to sound happier than she felt.

"Hey, Vic, I need a favor. Mike is tricking out the Datsun for me today and I need a lift to my flat after work."

"Oh, yeah, sure," Vic forced a smile. "What time do you need me there?"

"I'm thinking of skiving off early and heading out at three."

"Ok," Vic took a deep breath, "Do you want to get dinner together?"

"Why don't we make something at my place?" Sean's voice was warm, and Vic felt her guilt trying to eat her from the inside out.

"That sounds wonderful. I'll see you at three."

"Thanks," Sean disconnected the call.

Vic looked down at the screen as she gripped her phone tightly. Should she tell him tonight? At least he wouldn't have a car to go anywhere if he was angry. Which meant he wouldn't end up with another speeding citation. That would be good. And he'd have to take an Uber if he wanted to go to a pub. That would also be good. But these good things didn't seem to do anything to ease the anxiety and dread that filled her like bile pushing at the back of her throat.

Breakfast now seemed like an unwise decision.

Vic settled for a cup of tea and retreated to her room again. Her notebook caught her eye and Vic decided there was no way she could feel worse right now, she might as well see what her mum had written down.

Her mum's crisp penmanship was daunting as Vic read the few lines.

You and your desires are important. You are a good person. You are brave. You must decide your life's story.

Vic blinked. None of that was what she'd expected.

Vic had expected more of the questions that she had no answers to. The same questions that ran through her brain constantly. The ones that she could hear distant echoes of the answers, and they were terrifying. And even more terrifying were the questions she wouldn't even allow herself to start to ask, because they held answers that made her lungs collapse and her eyes see stars.

But these four lines were strange. Firstly, because they weren't all true, Vic didn't think a cheating person could also be a good person. And secondly, because they weren't what Vic would have found helpful right now. Right now, she needed to know what to do, not have a list of things her mum thought about her.

Vic tried to put it from her mind and opened up her draft of her book again. If only she really could escape to this world she'd built. She could function there better than she could here, at least she liked to think she could. But who knew, maybe she'd find that she was as much a failure in her own world as she was in the real one. The fact that she could tell something was off with her story only reinforced that feeling. Vic spent the next several hours digging through her notes in her manuscript trying to find what was wrong to no avail. She'd done this a few dozen times before already, and like those previous failed attempts, this time around came up with no improvement.

She'd been planning to see if Ted wanted to read through it for her and try to help her get to the bottom of the story's problem, but that plan was obviously out the window.

When it was time to go, she put the manuscript on the back burner again, took a deep breath as she slid her engagement ring back on her hand, and jumped in her car to collect Sean.

Seeing him waiting by the curb made her stomach hurt.

"Hey," Vic smiled as he climbed in. "Do we need to stop at the market on the way?"

"Change of plans," Sean grinned. "Mike finished early, we need to go grab the Datsun, and then I'm taking her to the track."

Vic blinked.

"Oh, alright, where is Mike's? You've never taken me there."

"You know what, it's hard to get to. Why don't you let me drive?"

Vic gripped the steering wheel.

"I'm sure if you just tell me where to go, I can get us there without any problem."

Sean traced her chin and tipped his sunglasses down this nose. "Come on, don't be that girl."

Vic could feel her guilt trying to eat her stomach while her anger tried to burn through her chest. But rather than let either emotion vent out, she undid her seatbelt.

"There's my girl," Sean kissed her, but Vic pulled back and opened the car door.

"We better hurry so we can get your car to the track. Do you want to get dinner after?"

"That's a good idea, you should grab something and bring it to the track."

Vic stared at him after she climbed in the passenger seat.

"Aren't we going to make dinner at your flat?"

Sean pulled out of the car park.

"I'm going to need to be working out how these upgrades are working out, Vic. This is going to take the rest of the afternoon and most of tonight. Not everyone can work on a '78 510 Coupe and I only let Mike do it because he's a friend. I'm going to have to figure out everything that he's screwed up so I can fix it all this weekend."

"Dinner tonight was your idea," Vic felt her voice going shrill and tried to breathe.

"Yeah, but things changed. I still want to do dinner; I just want to do it at the track now."

Vic tried to ignore how angry she was. She tried to ignore how hurt she was. She tried to tell herself that this was her being selfish, and she needed to take an interest in Sean's interests.

She tried.

But by the time they made it to Mike's garage, she was fuming.

Sean undid his seatbelt and Vic locked the doors before he could get out.

"Why won't you pick a date to marry me?"

"Come on, let's not rehash this again." Sean unlocked his door but Vic hit the power lock button again.

"No! Do you even want to marry me? Why did you ask if you won't set a date?!"

"Vic, I love you," Sean tried to unlock the door again but Vic was faster.

"Then why won't you set a date?" Vic felt her volume increasing but she didn't bother to monitor it.

"Why is this so important to you? What's wrong with being engaged for a few years?"

Vic felt the air sucked out of her lungs.

Sean took advantage of her shock and escaped the car. Vic watched him walk into the garage, her driver's side door still open from where her fiancé had run.

A few years.

Those three words echoed in her mind. Sean wanted to be engaged for a few years before they set a date. Vic was sure there was someone out there who thought that was a good idea, but she was not that someone.

Slowly, she stepped out of the car. Her feet carried her inside where Sean was talking with Mike. She slid the engagement ring off her finger and grabbed his hand.

"I'll leave your key in your flat." She set the ring in his palm and turned on her heels before marching out the door.

"Vic! Wait!"

She didn't wait. And when she got into her car, she saw that Sean wasn't running after her. Just as well, he obviously didn't want to marry her, why would he actually work for this relationship?

Vic felt numb as she drove to Sean's flat. She didn't cry as she loaded all of her things into grocery sacks she'd found. She didn't flinch as she left her key on his bedside table. She didn't bemoan when she closed his door for the last time.

It wasn't until she was driving home that Vic realized she hadn't told Sean that she'd kissed Ted.

The numbness made her brash and she popped in her headset and called him.

He sent her straight to voicemail, which seemed to solidify Vic's resolve. If he couldn't be bothered with her call then she wouldn't be bothered to tell him this properly.

"Hey, I was going to tell you tonight that I kissed someone that wasn't you a couple of weeks ago. I don't think that matters much now since you didn't want to marry me, but I felt like you should know."

She hung up and suddenly hot angry tears started falling down her face. Her sobbing came in short gasps and Vic had to pull the car to the side of the road because she couldn't see through her tears.

It was all so messed up!

Why had she even been with Sean? Why had she put up with all the things that drove her mad for so long? Why hadn't she been brave enough to get out of the relationship when she'd first realized she was unhappy? Why had she tried to convince herself she was happy?

But what hurt worse than anything else was that in all of this mess, she'd lost Ted, she'd lost her best friend.

When she'd finally cried herself out, Vic drove home. First, she went through and slowly removed all traces of her and Sean together. She deleted every picture of them together. She pulled down every mention of him in every post. She unfollowed, unfriended, and blocked him on every platform. Then she took her wedding binder, pictures of her and Sean that she'd printed off, and everything that reminded her of him and threw it all into the fireplace. She sat on the floor with her knees against her chest and watched the flames slowly smolder everything she'd wanted to destroy.

"Vicky?"

Vic looked up at her dad's concerned face.

"It's over," she sniffed, "and you were right."

Bill was instantly on the floor next to Vic, his strong arms holding her close.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart."

"Why am I so stupid?" Vic curled into her dad's embrace and let the tears fall again.

"You aren't stupid. We all have moments like these."

"You don't," Vic sniffed. "You do everything right."

Bill laughed. "Victoire, look at my face and my arms. That motorcycle accident before I married your mum was me being brash. I went for a ride on the beach without my helmet, and I over judged a corner. I'm lucky I only ended up with the scars. Trust me, Vic, I'm far from perfect."

"You didn't get engaged to someone you had been trying to convince yourself you loved."

"No, but you figured it out and called it off," Bill squeezed her shoulders.

"Did Maman tell you what I said last night?" Vic figured her dad would be disappointed in her for what she'd done. She had been avoiding him for fear of what he'd think.

"She did, and I can see where you were coming from."

Vic's head shot up, "What?"

"Well, when someone isn't loved by the person kissing them, it makes sense that when a different person comes along who does love them and does treat them the way they deserve, that they'd be inclined to kiss that new person."

Vic curled further in on herself, "It wasn't fair to Ted, though."

"No," Bill stroked her back, "but I would take some time to figure out how you really feel before you go running back to Ted."

"Ted's great!" Vic defended.

Bill chuckled, "He may be, but you just called off your engagement, Vicky, and you quit your job. Take some time to sort out what you want your life to look like before you go jumping into anything, especially a relationship."

Vic rested her head against her dad's chest and nodded.

"Alright," Vic sighed as the flames turned the last of the items in the fireplace into black charcoal. "I'll take some time to figure myself out."

Bill kissed the top of her head.

"You've got this, Vicky, I know you do."

And for the first time in months, Vic thought maybe she might be able to at least do one or two things right.

#Endeavor #tedoire #tedoire fanfiction #tedoire au #tedoire muggle au #teddy x vic #teddy x victoire #teddy lupin x victoire weasley #teddy lupin #victoire weasley #muggle au #next gen au #next gen fanfic #next generation #next generation muggle au #romance #fluff #coworkers romance #harry potter fanfiction

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iturbide · 4 years

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I think I remember seeing somewhere that Edwlgard was the smartest of the three lords for a) wanting to tear down the Crest system and b) taking out TWSITD, and to that I say: the ends do not justify the mand because holy F uck man this route is hHHHHH-

HAHAHA

HA HA

yeah no sorry I do not buy that Edelgard is the smartest of the Lords. Not by a long shot. She does the stupidest thing possible in the stupidest way possible -- throwing her own personal forces into the conquest of Fodlan, substantially weakening her armies in the process of these hard fights and effectively leaving the now subjugated nation as easy pickings for the Twisted. If she expects that she’s going to have forces from the Kingdom and Alliance to bolster her weakened forces, let’s not forget that she subjugated those nations: they’re not going to fight out of loyalty to her, and I wouldn’t be surprised if forced drafts lead to mass desertions. I honestly think it’s outrageous to think she managed to take out the Twisted at all, considering how little forethought she seemed to put into the long game (and the fact that it’s just a footnote in end cards instead of actually showing how she did it is highly suspect to me personally).

[[MORE]]

Also, who in their right mind thinks that Edelgard is the ONLY one that wants to tear down the Crest system? It might not be Dimitri’s top stated priority, but he very clearly wants system reform, and the system is based on Crests. Changing the system requires dismantling the Crest bias -- and not only that, he himself and more than a few of his childhood friends have been negatively impacted by that bias (Sylvain and Ingrid in particular, but it’s not hard to see how Mercedes has been harmed by it), so he knows intimately how harmful it is. The only reason Claude doesn’t have Crests on his top priority list is because the Alliance doesn’t operate the same way the Empire and the Kingdom do, and their reliance on Crests is different -- on top of that, the Eastern Church is considered the weakest branch with the least authority in its embedded region. The system might be uncomfortable in the Alliance, but it doesn’t have the same stranglehold on governmental operations.

Also, who takes down the Twisted? Black Eagles end cards make only the briefest mentions of it, but we never see her do the thing: the game literally ends after she murders Rhea. Meanwhile, Claude not only infiltrates the Twisted home base and forces them to destroy it, he also helps murder Nemesis, who even Seiros couldn’t kill. And this is a man who was completely in the dark about them, unlike Edelgard, who’s been intimately aware of them and their operations for most of her life: Claude takes the new information that Hubert’s note provides, generates a cautious plan, and then completely uproots them. That’s incredibly badass and I feel goes to show just how effective he is as a tactician (and while Silver Snow goes the same route, don’t forget that Seteth is there, and he had first-hand experience with them -- Claude is flying blind, so his success is notable.

Also, just taking a step back to get a broad view of Edelgard’s plan and the long-term consequences shows how unfeasible it really is. Besides how ill-advised it was to take her own forces to war with only Twisted ‘support’ against the Church, the Alliance, and the Kingdom, her entire plan seemed to rely on bolstering her numbers through conquest, since she doesn’t hesitate to send her own people through the meat grinder known as war and would likely be hurting for soldiers and support when the whole campaign is done. Beyond unrest in her own nation after five years of war they never asked for and that has likely left the Empire in a rough spot, conquered peoples generally aren’t all that willing to line up and fight for the people who subjugated them: she will likely be dealing with rebellions and unrest for years if not decades to come from that move alone, both within the Empire’s original borders and without in the territories she claimed by the sword. Not only that, she kills the King of Faerghus, effectively making him a martyr for the Kingdom loyalists; add onto that the cryptic and completely unexplained line from one of his talks with Rhea before the Tailtean battle -- something about how ‘the Blaiddyd bloodline lives on’ -- and either he has a child on the way himself or possibly young relative with a Crest who’s been sent off into hiding. So that’s probably gonna come back to bite her if that kid starts rallying Kingdom forces.

And then there’s Almyra. Whether you kill Claude or not (and let’s be real, Edelgard probably would prefer to kill him and it’s only Byleth that can potentially stay her hand), Almyra’s probably going to become a major threat in the not so distant future. Spare him and he goes home, but his father is still king and could easily mount an invasion whenever he so desired; kill him and now the Almyrans have a blood vendetta because she murdered their prince. Add to that the fact that Hilda very likely died in the battle, meaning the Gonerils have lost family to the Empire’s invasion and aren’t terribly likely to play nice, and they might even be willing to ally with the Almyrans and let them in through the Locket, perhaps even rallying scattered Alliance resistances and rebellions to swell the Almyran forces as they go. On top of that, there’s even the fact that the Twisted city is literally in Goneril territory: even if Almyra took their sweet time preparing for an invasion force, what’s to stop the Twisted from reaching out to Holst -- the man who has been leading Fodlan’s whole defense against Almyra -- and trying to draw him to their side with the promise of revenge against Edelgard? They make frequent use of pawns, so there’s nothing stopping them from finding a new one even before Edelgard turns on them (since she very unwisely telegraphed her intent at Arianrhod when she took out Cornelia: the fortress’ destruction was meant as a warning, but the Twisted group isn’t the type to sit idle either).

Beyond all that, let’s not forget exactly how Edelgard intended to do away with the Crest system: tear it down completely. But she had no plan in place for what to replace it with, which is painfully obvious from her A support with Ferdinand where she hadn’t considered the option of public schooling as a place to foster growth. Her plan is literally ‘I want to make a world where merit is rewarded,’ but she has no plan for how to do that, and what counts as merit is a vague and intangible thing...until it’s taken in the context of her wider words and actions. She praises Miklan as a man who could have been a great asset to the world had the Crest system not undermined him -- and remember, this is a man who tried to kill his younger brother and eventually rebelled against his family by taking charge of a bandit group that murdered and pillaged its way through the Kingdom. Is the Crest system fair? No, not in the least -- but the system didn’t make Miklan commit assault and murder: he made that choice for himself. Edelgard seems to value combat prowess and potential military application far more than anything else -- even in her supports with Linhardt she berates him as wasting his talent by doing things for his own personal enjoyment, rather than to further magic theory -- so her ‘meritocracy’ is likely going to favor scientists working on combat magic and technology...and soldiers: obedient and unquestioningly loyal. Which, in all likelihood, she’ll need given the environment she cultivates for herself in CF.

So no, I don’t think that Edelgard is the smartest lord. I think she’s the most stubborn and bullheaded of them, instead.

#answered #anonymous #fire emblem: three houses #fe:3h spoilers #headcanon #look there's a lot in here and it's edelgard critical to the extreme #please read at your own risk if you support edelgard #but frankly what she does and how she does it is so poorly planned #it's verging on outright stupidity #but she refuses to believe that she could be wrong or tha there could be other options #and it's one of the things i dislike most about her character #how she actively resists change #that doesn't foster any kind of good results #edelcourse

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kinosternon · 3 years

Text

State of the turtle

Hey!

So it may go without saying, but I haven't been around very much since November/December. There's a few reasons for this, the major practical ones being that I'm doing grad school and also moved and, y'know, the world existing as it is at the moment. But a big part of it was also that I got really burnt out and have been struggling to figure out how to go about fixing that.

Details below (nothing too intense, but some mental health talk comes up). TL;DR, I'm quiet but still around <3

The experience of writing CSCG was fantastic, but it was A Lot. I was staying up late a few nights a week, almost every week, just finishing chapters—on top of work, school, another side project or two, and general life stuff. I can't say I fully regret doing things the way that I did them, because without weekly deadlines it probably would've taken me years to finish, if I managed it at all. It was a whole huge rush, and that left it sloppy in places, but it also added a lot of energy to the process. I think it had a good effect on the story's tone as well, in a way that would've been hard to maintain otherwise. (If anyone here followed me because of my Undertale longfic, that's what happened there. I have not given up on it yet, but I'm not quite ready to get back to it yet, either.)

I just made sure I posted Every Week No Matter What, because I was scared of stopping if I slowed down, and because there didn't seem to be any real consequences to pushing myself that way, and because I figured that stretching yourself to the limit is how you grow.*

But when CSCG ended, I hit upon a few problems all at once. I'd pushed myself to the very edge on writing, right before throwing myself into another huge writing event, NaNoWriMo. I'd been doing it for so long that I didn't really want to skip it, and stopping cold turkey after writing (what ended up being) 6k-10k a week, almost every week, would've probably messed with me too, like an athlete who just suddenly stops training altogether. I had fun, even if most of the words I produced were pretty much unusable.

I'd also pushed...honestly well beyond anything I thought I was ready to accomplish in my writing by actually posting and finishing a longform story. At the outset, I hadn't expected anything but relief and/or pride at the end. That...wasn't what happened. There was definitely relief, and a whole ton of gratitude, and some pride in the abstract, but mostly I just felt exhausted. And annoyed with myself for not feeling happier about it, because the joy about reviews was part of what helped keep me going through writing, and yet something about finishing the story cut off a lot of my positive feelings related to that.

It also hurt a bit because I'd thought of myself (in part) as a person who was unsatisfied with myself because I couldn't finish stories. When it turned out I could, it meant that the uncomfortable feelings that came along about my writing couldn't be blamed on the fact that I'd left something unfinished.

But I think the worst part of finishing the story was how hard those final chapters were—not because of plot considerations (though tying off loose ends was definitely a challenge at times!), but because of how hard the emotional notes were to hit. I spent a year—a really rough year, that I'd known going into it would be rough but that quickly got more worse than I could've imagined at the outset—writing an angsty story about exhaustion, breakdown, and recovery. And then, when I hit the happy ending, I was still far away from any happy ending to the challenges I'd been facing in my own life, and I realized it was hard to write the characters being happy.

I felt terrible about that. I still do, to be honest. These were characters who spoke to my soul, who I fond points of resonance in closer than just about any other form of media that I'd ever experienced. And yet, after literal hundreds of thousands of words explaining their dynamic and finding ways to repair it, I could barely find it in me to write their happy ending. I could barely believe in it long enough to write it, much less imagine what might come after.

I know that plot comes from characters facing challenges, which usually involves a certain amount of distress, but not being able to find the emotion of peace of happiness for them still really distressed me. And I hit the end of the story while still feeling that guilt, and still feeling the pressure to find more within me, to write happy sequels to keep balancing out the trouble I'd put the characters through. And I hadn't even begun to account for the grief that comes up when a story ends, which a post I saw today describes very well.

Basically, I hit some huge walls in the writing process, and blasted through them through sheer force of will. I'd been living that way in general for a year or two even before the pandemic hit, weathering every setback that came my way. The commitments I'd made only slowed down a little when lockdowns started, and some of their consequencess all came together in some nasty combinations a few different times over the ensuing months, which led to me finding out what starts to happen after I push past enough limits, which is: Not Very Good things, mainly of the depression variety.

And so I've spent the last few months (from mid-November on, really) trying to figure out how to deal with said Not-Very-Good-ness. I've persevered through a combination of stubbornness, inertia, and just sheer ignorance of other options, but putting things up on the Internet is one of the hardest things for me to do confidence-wise, so that was one of the first things to go. I'm making progress, but I'm still as intimidated by the idea of putting myself out there as ever.

I've made some changes to my living situation, and gotten therapy and medication, and all of those things have helped a lot. Unfortunately, because of my studies, writing can't be a top priority for me this year, and it probably won't be next year, either. I haven't even had it in me to write many rough drafts lately, which I'm trying to think of a fallow period rather than letting it discourage me too badly. Still, I'd like to find ways to talk with people online more. You're very nice and I'm very happy to get to meet you!

As I figure things out, there will probably be times I'll just vanish for a month or two (or several or more, honestly). But I'm still around; I just withdraw into my shell to rest every once in a while.

* What these past few years have taught me is: yes, pushing yourself can be great for you in small doses! But it's important to do it while valuing your safety, treating yourself and your efforts as kindly as possible, and prioritizing getting plenty of rest afterward. I do okay at parts of that, but I still have (ironically) a lot of work to do on the rest.

#posting this before I get too scared to lol XP #about the writer #cscg #ramblepost #depression mention cw

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sandalaris · 4 years

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For the writer asks: 5, 10, 17, 22, 23, 30, 45, & 54!! :D

Finally getting around to answering these XD

5. Books or authors that influenced your style the most.

I read so much I feel like I can’t narrow it down. My favorite author is Ilona Andrews but they write almost exclusively in first person and have their fair share of action in their novels that I don’t think they’re that much of an influence on me. I’m trying to think of who I read that did the whole “people usually feel a mix of emotions over just one” thing that I know I’ve adopted, but I can’t think of who it is. (I can think of an author, who I do love the books of, who did the opposite and I found myself always confused about a character was supposed to be feeling/thinking and they probably influenced me to not do that, but I do like their books and that seems too much like I’m trying to be negative about them.)

10. Pick a writer to co-write a book with and tell us what you’d write about.

If I got to pick anyone, it’d be Marissa Meyer who wrote the Lunar Chronicles. It would be for one novel/novella, because I feel like the Lunar Chronicles has one more sort of side story in it and would want so badly for it to fit what the author has already written. If you haven’t read the series, it’s basically a retelling of various fairy tales just set in the future, like Cinderella has a metal prosthetic foot that keeps falling off and Rapunzel is a hacker living in a satellite orbiting earth. Everything is set up to perfectly fit a Beauty and the Beast side-story. Genetically altered super soldiers who are big and hairy and given animal aggression and had all their teeth surgically replaced with fangs for failing to pass a test as a child? Check! Now all we need is to write a story about the bookish daughter of a geneticist who gets blackmailed into staying with the “beast” and slowly learns that there’s a man inside of the monster and ends up figuring out how to reverse some of the alterations (because we already got the “I love him just as he is, fangs and all” thing from Scarlet and Wolf so we can have a little “curse breaking” this time around.) It can be set post-series, when some of the wolf-soldiers ran off and disappeared into various countries.

I once co-write a novel with my best friend about an evil warlock who fell in insta-love with a ditzy elf and spent the rest of the novel trying to avoid her so he could dodge his fate of retiring from villainy like his father and grandfather before him. He was determined to be the one villain in his family who actually went through with his evil master plan, dammit! It was a comedy, and kind of a spoof since we were at that age where romance novels were the thing to make fun of, but it still ended with him deciding he could do evil masterminding later and running off with the elf. What can I say, we were like twelve.

17. On average, how much writing do you get done in a day?

Eek, the problem with averages is that any sort of outlier knocks everything else off, and I have a lot of outliers, lol. I go through writing spurts, sitting down and all but knocking out an entire chapter/one-shot in one sitting followed by days where I won’t even open a word document. And then there’s sort of my inbetween times where I’m usually typing away on something, but it’s more editing than actual writing, so maybe 100 or so new words might get written, but what I’ve previously written looks better by the end, lol. This has been the norm especially lately with school and work taking up the majority of my time. And then it hits me and I just need to let the story flow out of me? Between 2k-5k a sit down session.

22. How many drafts do you need until you’re satisfied and a project is ultimately done for you?

I don’t really do true drafts. I write, I edit, I post, and then I suddenly see all my typos. On the rare occasion editing doesn’t fix the issue, I might cut the scene into chunks and sort of look for the line(s) that don’t fit and start branching off from there (like maybe someone’s acting out of character *glares at current chapter* and I just needed to look at it in smaller incriments to see where they started to veer off). Only once have I ever just completely reworked the extremely extremely rough draft I had written, but that was an original work I did for Nano and so was more concern with getting words on a page than editing as I go.

I suppose editing could count as a second draft, so two? Maybe three? What is considered One Editing? If I leave off and come back, is it an all new edit/draft, or am I picking up where I left off?

23. Single or multi POV, and why?

Nine times out of ten I seem to veer towards single, although I’ve had some fun with multiple POVs before.

Not really sure why. Maybe I just find it easier to burrow into one person’s headspace and go from there? I know there are times when I want to jump to another character for one specific scene, but I always feel like I’m already committed to telling things from the one character’s POV. Or maybe I just like the limited narrator thing.

30. Favorite line you’ve ever written.

Err.. I don’t know that I have one. How about a line I rather like? This is from a kind of Amaru/Brasa fic (kinda sorta. He’s got that whole mix of love and hate and resentment and worship thing going on, and she has her own twisted attachment to him) set in those six months between seasons. These lines are from a moment where Kate surfaces and Brasa fantasizes about taking out some of his resentment of Amaru on Kate. (He never actually physically harms her, Amaru would never allow someone to mark her vessel simply because its hers, but he likes to imagine.)

He thinks about wide green eyes looking up at him with fear, filling with tears as she whimpers out a “Please.” Imagines pressing a hand to her shoulder, pressing down down down until she’s kneeling before him, trembling as he cups her jaw, forcing her head back. He wants to press his thumb to the plump swell of her bottom lip, dig his nail in until the blood, her soul, comes to the surface. Filling the flesh with color until it spill across her chin in a vibrant slash.

and to give you an idea of how Kate is handling Brasa’s attempts to take his issues out on her...

He can see the muscle at the hinge of her jaw tighten, hear the harsh edge of every exhale, as she turns to look up at him mere inches away.

“My name,” she clips, “is Kate.” She bites off the last, harsh sound, almost snapping her teeth at him.

45. Worst piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten.

I’m trying to think of actual feedback and not just like angry comments/reviews from people who didn’t like my fics (which tbh I haven’t gotten that much of because people aren’t generally that big of a dick to leave flames on fics these days.)

Someone tried to tell me that a character dropping the f-bomb was unnecessary and jarring and I should remove it from one of my fics. And hey, to each their own, but I personally felt it fit both the character (who cursed in canon) and the story and so kept it in. People certainly can write great literature without every putting down a single curse word, but there’s also great stories that wouldn’t be the same without a bit of foul language. What bugged me most about it was their insistence I should remove it.

Besides that the only other bad feedback I’ve gotten (besides obvious flames and people not liking the direction I’m going/have gone with a story), was someone who said that my clearly labeled unhealthy relationship fic was romanticizing abuse and they didn’t appreciate the one character manipulating the other character like that. They were actually fairly nice about it (if a bit of an anti about the whole thing), I just remember being a little bugged at the time because I had already tagged it as unhealthy/manipulative.

54. Any writing advice you want to share?

Don’t be afraid to experiment! And in that same vein, try out writing rules and discard them just as quickly if they aren’t for you, because there’s no set in stone way to doing things. Break all the rules if you want, the point is just to write. XD

Thanks!!

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