#but when i first played the ME trilogy i wasn't a writer

[chronostachyon]

Back when I first started the Mass Effect trilogy at the behest of my friend James, who was in the room watching me play through the series, I was immediately struck by the change in tone when ME2 started, and it never stopped unsettling me throughout the game.

In fact, it only got worse.

I visited the ME2 Citadel for the first time, turned to James, and told him: "this game is post-9/11 in a way that the first game wasn't". He didn't understand what I was talking about, but I couldn't grasp how he didn't notice it when it was obvious.

That first time to Zakera Ward, going through the new security screening process, is clearly there to mimic the sudden creation of the TSA and DHS, and that overheard conversation Bailey is having about torturing people for information is... well, yeah, I knew a lot of people who had the same damn justifications, who thought Jack Bauer from 24 was the world's greatest role model, and Bailey was their sort of guy. This game contained a commentary on 9/11 and the subsequent George W Bush "War on Terror" in Iraq and Afghanistan, complete with the "debate" on waterboarding, and that commentary had been absent from the first game.

...

I wonder sometimes if one or more of the writers of Mass Effect 2 thought the US were the good guys in Iraq, and that Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib were justified. I mean, I definitely understand that depiction is not the same thing as endorsement, and I've always held out hope that it was just for verisimilitude and/or letting the player make up their own mind. But in all my years enjoying these games and the world created for them, I've never been able to shake that vibe about the second game: that it thinks the Renegade path, the Jack Bauer path, is the right path, or just as right as the Paragon path.

[david-talks-sw]

An argument I hear from time to time is the following:

"I don't care that this novel is considered Legends, if it was canon when George Lucas was in charge of Lucasfilm, it's still canon to me now. Whatever George says is what counts, I don't care what Disney says."

Putting the Expanded Universe's Star Wars and George Lucas' Star Wars in the same basket. And that's, uh... inaccurate.

So without further ado, let's explore:

George Lucas’ involvement in the Expanded Universe

Early years of the EU...

When the first bit of EU content came out in the form of the novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye, Lucas was too busy working on the films, so Alan Dean Foster wrote it by himself (which explains why Luke and Leia's relationship plays out romantically).

After the movies came out, when new material was going to be created, George told Lucas Licensing and other authors that the Prequel era was off-limits to write about, because he might tell that story one day.

Beyond that, they could go to town and write sequels, for instance. After all, part of why Star Wars was created was to let people's imagination run wild and George was happy to let other artists play in the sandbox he created.

That said, things were very clear from the get-go.

These weren't his stories.

The Thrawn books, Dark Empire, all this material was explicitly just Tom Veitch and Timothy Zahn and whoever else's creation. Not George's, who was described by Lucas Licensing's Lucy Autrey Wilson as "not very involved".

The most he did was answers "OK/Not OK" questionnaires about what the EU writers could or couldn't write.

Telling Yoda's backstory? Not OK.

Telling Han's backstory, between the Prequel and Ep. 4? OK.

Having someone wear Vader's suit after his death? Not OK.

The Emperor returning in a clone body? OK.

So that's it. That was his involvement in the 90s.

Him saying "don't write something set during this/that period".

"OK/Not OK" questionnaires.

It's also worth mentioning he didn't approve of Mara Jade, Luke's wife in the EU. In his mind, "Jedi don't marry".

Rather, the character herself wasn't an issue... until she married Luke. When Timothy Zahn asked for Luke and Mara to be married or engaged, back in 1993, Lucasfilm initially vetoed the idea.

According to Brian Jay Jones (author of "A Life", George Lucas' biography), in 1995 George convened a 'Star Wars Summit' wherein he gathered licensees and international agents to Skywalker Ranch to reinforce "the need for him to maintain quality control, especially in the areas of publishing, where some characters—such as Luke Skywalker, who’d been given a love interest in a fiery smuggler named Mara Jade—were living lives far beyond the ones he had written for them in the original trilogy".

Sources:

During the Prequels...

George Lucas was writing and directing three movies with large themes, shot almost back-to-back, commuting between Australia and California. That's hard enough as it is.

Also, in the 90s, most movies were still shot on film. During the making of Phantom Menace, Lucas shot parts of the film by combining prototype digital Sony cameras and using them in combination with videotapes, rather than shooting on film.

For Attack of the Clones, George worked with Panavision and Sony to develop fully digital cameras, which eventually became the standard.

As if that wasn't enough, by making the Prequels, Lucas and ILM were also creating fully-digitized worlds (Coruscant, Geonosis) and characters (Jar Jar, Yoda) and laying the groundwork for the CGI technology that has now become essential for today's blockbusters.

Having established all this...

Do you really think he had the time or the patience to read through a bunch of novels and guidebooks?!

Simply put: George Lucas was too busy revolutionizing cinema to be involved in the development of the EU.

So if you ask George who Tahl or Vitiate are, or what the Stark Hyperspace War or a vapor manifold are, if you ask him to recite you the Sith Code... he'll grumble and say "heck if I know".

He outright admitted that fans know more Star Wars lore than him.

Because SOMEBODY ELSE wrote that stuff.

And he let them do it because:

It made money. A lot of money, especially after TPM came out. Money that could fund his next films. You don't mess with licensing. Hell, it's why he was so cool with there being all those Star Wars parodies.

He didn't see those stories as canon anyway, so it couldn't hurt. He saw them as a separate universe, an alternate timeline wherein the films happened ALONG with all these other tales.

So associating the EU content with Lucas is unreasonable. He was too busy, so he just let Howard Roffman, Lucy Autrey Wilson, Sue Rostoni and Lucas Licensing do their thing and crank out new stories and transmedia content for the fans.

It was a one-way relationship. The licensing parallel universe needed to have some internal consistency AND adhere to what Lucas established in the new films movies (which was difficult because they weren't involved in the production process), but he didn't need to be in line or consistent with anything they established.

Now, George did set some guidelines/boundaries and there were obviously do's and don'ts. But once those boundaries were set and the brief was established, the authors had a lot of freedom and, like, 99% of their interaction was with their editors from the respective publishing houses (Scholastic, Del Rey, Dark Horse) and the folks at Lucas Licensing.

George was only really brought in to sign off on, like, some of the major plot points only once in a blue moon. Stuff like:

"Let's make a Maul novel". George would go "fine, just keep him mysterious."

"What species should Plagueis be?" George: "he could be a Muun, here's concept art."

Nothing more than that. Again: the Expanded Universe was other storyteller's interpretation of what Lucas had created.

Sometimes, it was spot on and it aligned with George's vision.

Other times, this additional lore was created by writers who didn't know what he was doing with the Prequels, so they were in the dark regarding certain plot points.

And then you have the authors who absolutely disagreed with George's vision of the Prequels, or of Star Wars, in general, but wanted to engage with the material nonetheless.

Which is why, whilst sometimes the EU fixed some plot-holes, sometimes the EU had inconsistencies.

Inconsistencies such as Ki-Adi Mundi being a Knight on the Council, who is married and has kids (when the Jedi being prohibited from marrying is a major plot point in the Prequels)...

… or the Jedi being essentially superhuman (when one of the narrative reasons Qui-Gon is killed is to show that the Jedi are mortals, not supermen)…

... or other stuff like Mace having a blue lightsaber for a period (because who the hell knew purple was an option?!) or some Jedi having red lightsabers, or Sith Lords being able to become ghosts after death, when that's a feat you can only achieve by being selfless.

It's also why you get conflicting definitions of what the Jedi call "attachment" or conflicting narratives trying to reframe midi-chlorians as a cold, intentionally-flawed way of seeing the Force (when they're meant to be a beautiful metaphor for symbiosis and how the Force works).

And it makes sense that some of this stuff wouldn't track, considering how Lucas stated multiple times that he didn't have anything to do with it, that it was a separate universe from his own...

Safe to say that if George had any involvement in the EU, it was so minimal that he, himself, didn't count it as "involvement".

Additional sources:

Later years of the EU...

After the Prequels were over and done with, Lucas created The Clone Wars with Dave Filoni. At first, he'd just suggest a few storylines, but he quickly got VERY involved in the whole process. Far more involved than he ever was with EU content.

And y'know... Dave Filoni is a massive Star Wars fan and an avid EU reader. So, from time to time, Filoni would bring up EU material for Lucas to consider during the story conferences, and they'd look at what was out there together.

But it's important to note that George's stance toward the EU didn't change and became a rule for everyone on the writing staff: the EU content was nothing more than a pool of "fun what-if ideas" that they could draw inspiration from.

If they could, they'd try to not mess with continuity... but if the story called for it, they could retcon anything without batting an eye. Because it wasn't canon to them.

It's why author Karen Traviss quit working with Lucasfilm after the Mandalorians were retconned into pacifists in The Clone Wars.

The only things that were truly canon were:

George Lucas' own word.

The movies.

Previously established The Clone Wars lore.

And that's it.

Everything else was somebody's else's concern. Not George's.

Sources:

This way of seeing the EU continued all the way to the time shortly before George sold the company to Disney as his drafts for the Sequels featured:

no Jacen, Jaina or Anakin Solo (Han and Leia's kids from the EU),

a still-alive Chewbacca (who died, later in the EU),

no "New Jedi Order".

Every version of George's Sequels ignored the EU.

Which would explain why the EU reboot was planned in the summer of 2012 (when Lucas was in charge)!

I'll repeat: the EU reboot was planned months BEFORE George Lucas sold the company to Disney.

Because of course it was! It's a natural result of 30 years' worth of content that's so intermeshed that it would stop future artists - namely George himself - from creating anything else.

Sources:

Exceptions to the rule:

1. Comics (kinda)

He did read the comics. Or at least, he gave them a glance.

Aside from the fact that he grew up reading comics, understand that George Lucas is a visual artist, first and foremost.

That's what he's about and that's what he loves, that's what speaks to him. There's a reason his upcoming Museum of Narrative Art will feature comic panels and pages of all kind.

During pre-production on Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, Lucas had the art team draw concept art before a script had ever been written so he'd have ideas for set-pieces.

Later on, J.W. Rinzler pitched him the idea of adapting his early drafts for Star Wars into comic form. Lucas' initial reaction was going "hell no". Rinzler had concept art made…

… and George took one look and was on board.

So it's not a stretch to assume that a book telling a story through beautiful drawings would catch his attention more than a novel.

Case in point: He knew who Quinlan Vos was and was enamored with the character. He knew Aayla enough to put her in Attack of the Clones after seeing a cover of Republic by John Forster featuring her (below, left).

(although, it's worth pointing out that he doesn't call her out by name a single time, in the director's commentary of the Attack of the Clones, she's just the "Twi'Lek Jedi" and her inclusion was done mainly to add more diversity to the Jedi fighting in the arena)

Over a decade later, when the comic Star Wars #7 came out in 2015, Lucasfilm acquired artist Simone Bianchi's original 20 pages and cover art for George, so he could feature it in his the Museum of Narrative Art:

So at the very least, he looked at the comics and admired the visuals.

Whether he actually read the comics in detail or just skimmed through most of them because he liked the pretty pictures (likelier, imo) is an entirely different matter.

Sources:

2. Video-Games (kinda)

Lucas would periodically check in on the status of LucasArts games, lending creative input and advice.

Sometimes, his advice ranged from "weird" to "he's gotta be fucking with us, right?"

Apparently, he advised the team developing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed that they dub Starkiller "Darth Insanius" or "Darth Icky".

And you know what? I have no trouble believing it.

Firstly because if you're going by the idea that he gave no fucks about the EU, then of course he'll come up with "meh" names. But also, this is the same guy who created "Winkie" in 2012/2013, the character who'd go on to be named "Rey".

He also told the team creating Star Wars: 1313 that he wanted a fresh face as the main character, then only weeks before the game was announced he went "let's make it Boba Fett".

Finally... the cancelled Darth Maul game by Red Fly.

Codenamed “Damage”, then “Battle of the Sith Lords”. Think Batman: Arkham City meets Star Wars.

Red Fly pitched it as a coming of age story where we see Maul be kidnapped, tortured, eventually joining the Dark Side, and ending in TPM. Then they had interactions with LucasArts and found out Maul survived his fight with Obi-Wan.

The game went through several iterations, partly because the people at Red Fly were kept in the dark about the developments in The Clone Wars (Season 4 wasn't out yet), and even when some tidbits came out and they knew characters like Savage Oppress and Death Watch would be included, they didn't get more details.

Whatever. They do their best to make something from what they're told. Then they have a meeting with George. As this GameInformer article explains:

“A friendly George Lucas entered the room and was eager to hear the pitch from Red Fly’s creatives. “Before they could finish their spiel, Lucas cut them off, stood up, walked over to [two Sideshow Collectibles statues of Darth Maul and Darth Talon], rotated them to be facing the same direction, pushed them together, and said ‘They’re friends!’” adds the source. “He wanted these characters to be friends, and to play off of each other. […] The problem with the idea of Maul and Talon teaming up for a buddy cop-like experience was that they were separated by over 170 years […] When this vast time divide was brought up to Lucas’ attention, he brushed off the notion of it not working, and said that it could instead be a descendant of Darth Maul or a clone of him.”

So now the game is about a descendant of Maul, guided by his ancestor and fighting a redesigned Darth Krayt, etc?

The game was eventually cancelled when George sold the company.

Worth pointing out that this was circa 2010/2011... around the time that George started working on his Sequels, according to Jett Lucas. And we know that the treatment for the Sequels that Lucas presented to Bob Iger featured old man Maul and Darth Talon as the villains of the trilogy... take from that what you will.

3. The Prequel novelizations (kinda)

They were all given a copy of Lucas' screenplay.

While most of their work was with Sue Rostoni, Lucy Autrey Wilson, and Howard Roffman on the Lucasfilm team (like some of the other authors), Terry Brooks, R.A. Salvatore and Matthew Stover all spent a bit of time with George before writing their respective novels.

George told Terry Brooks to write some additional material for Anakin Skywalker because there wasn't enough of that in the movie. He was shown rushes from the set, they "opened the safe" for him. When Terry had further questions re: midi-chlorians and the history of the Sith, George goes on a 30-minute monologue about all that.

R.A. Salvatore had a 45-minute interview with him that turned into a 3-hour chat. He was able to go back to the Ranch a few times during the writing process, and one of those times George chatted with him and his wife during lunch. He was shown various cuts of the film and concept art.

Matthew Stover and George talked for a whole afternoon (I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume he was also shown the other stuff like some cuts/deleted scenes, concept art, etc etc).

Was there a line-edit of the ROTS novel from Lucas? Regarding the Revenge of the Sith novelization, some people bring up the idea that George Lucas did a line-edit on the book because Stover wrote this statement on theforce.net:

That said...

Stover, also stated that Lucas told him to write whatever he wanted as long as it was good,

he also said he didn't actually see Lucas type the edits,

an anonymous Del Rey editor stated on theforce.net that the notion that George edited the novel himself is "extremely incorrect".

There's enough "reasonable doubt" for the argument to be made that the Revenge of the Sith novelization was edited the same way as any other Star Wars novel, rather than by George himself.

The fact remains, though, that it was a novel written by someone who understood the source material, as it was explained to him in detail by George Lucas himself (a luxury many SW authors never got).

Lucas' backstory for the Sith in the TPM novel: If Pablo Hidalgo is to be believed, the backstory of the Sith, as detailed in the Phantom Menace novelization, came from Lucas.

(Obviously, I'd allow for the very likely possibility that there was some embellishment by Terry Brooks)

20 years later, however, it seems George decided to stick to the idea that there was no war between the Jedi and the Sith.

Final thought:

A lot of people will insist that George was involved in spite of all the above-posted evidence. Saying stuff like:

"But [X person] said that it was canon..."

Sometimes, they’ll link you to this whole website collecting quotes of other people saying "the EU was canon" (never George Lucas except for, like, one/two quotes where he acknowledges the existence of Sequel books which MUST mean he saw them as canon, right?) and...

On the one hand... of course they'll all vaguely say he's "involved" and tip-toe around the subject; it's technically true and, again, they're trying to make money. It's a business, folks.

On the other... yeah? Duh. Of course it was canon to Lucas Licensing and the authors who wrote for the EU. But it wasn't canon to George. And I just gave you a whole bunch of quotes directly from him and/or the same people quoted on that website, all confirming that he didn't see them as canon and he wasn't involved (or barely was).

Other times, we're straight-up approaching "burying head in the sand/lalalala I'm not listening!" levels of justifications.

Like, we just talked about the Sith's origins, right?

I remember a while ago, this Star Wars YouTuber was reviewing this quote from Lucas, in The Star Wars Archives: 1999-1995:

The YouTuber's reaction the second after reading the quote is saying:

"And of course, what George is referring to, here, is the Battle of Ruusan and the Brotherhood of Darkness using the Thought Bomb created by Lord Khan to kill the Jedi Lord Hoth and…"

My guy! You read a whole excerpt that started with "there was never a war between the Jedi and the Sith" and the words "Ruusan" or "Thought Bomb" never being mentioned once in the passage (or in the TPM novelization)... and concluded that George was referring to the Jedi/Sith Battle of Ruusan? And all that other EU stuff?

See what I mean, folks?

Now, look, I grew up with these stories (heck, I grew up with these stories in three different languages). So I get it. I know they're awesome.

And, yes, there is a difference between the kind of content we used to get and the content we're getting now (for one, lightsabers used to be lightsabers, in video-games, not baseball bats).

But if you're trying to prop up the EU, the facts show that the "George Lucas signed off on them" authority argument isn't a valid one. Because he clearly wasn't very interested or involved in it.

And why would you want to use this authority argument, anyway?

You shouldn't need to say "this came from Lucas" to like those stories. They don't need to be George Lucas Approved™ to matter and to be validated as "worthy of appreciation". They're valid on their own, they're great stories. And if you like them better than the Sequels, go to town. I know I do.

The only thing you can't do (with a straight face, at least) is hold them up as "the True Lucas-Approved Canon™ as opposed to the Disney Trash" in a rant, because you'd be wrong and/or lying. Neither had Lucas' hand in them in any meaningful way.

Finally... I was devastated when the EU was officially made non-canon, in 2014. And for a few years, I saw the new Star Wars continuity through this lens:

"Any EU content is still canon unless it's directly retconned...!"

Trust me, when I say that only pain lies that way. Because that's not how a lot of Star Wars creators, including the Flanelled One himself, see it. The way they saw/see it is:

"Unless it's been shown in a movie or TCW... it's a legend, it might have happened."

This line of thought seems to be increasingly applied to the new Disney canon too, by the way. "If it's not shown on a screen, then it's probably canon yet also up for grabs to be retconned."

And the sooner you accept that this is how it's being treated, the sooner you accept that the EU was never canon to Lucas or Filoni...

... the less painful it'll be when, I dunno, you watch The Acolyte and it's nothing like the Darth Plagueis novel or Plagueis himself is absent, or he's there, but as an Ithorian instead of a Muun.

(note how I didn't use the word "painless")

[myheartalivewrites]

10 questions for fic writers

Thank you for tagging me in this @cha-melodius @firenati0n @porcelainmortal @rmd-writes @piratefalls

@kiwiana-writes @14carrotghoul

I feel like it wasn't that long ago I did this, so apologies if you're bored of the same answers. Hopefully not!

How many works do you have on AO3? 24

What’s your total AO3 word count? 380,818. I'm comparing this with other people's numbers and I feel like I'm wordy

What fandoms do you write for? RWRB and I've done a couple for A Marvellous Light (The Last Binding trilogy) by Freya Marske

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Yes! Getting reactions from the people who are enjoying my work is the best thing about putting my writing online and as far as I'm concerned the main reason to do it. I'd feel like a dick if I didn't reply. Plus, talking to people over comments is a good way to meet new friends :)

Have you ever had a fic stolen? I don't think so!

Have you ever co-written a fic before? No, but I think this might be cool, especially if like, ok: I do vibes, you do plot, I do words 😂 I hate coming up with plot beats, but once it's done I love the writing bit

What’s your all-time favourite ship? FirstPrince bbs but I love them all, this is mean

What are your writing strengths? Uh... I like writing smut, and I like how it comes out, so that. Emotions? Tension, pining, that kind of thing? Who knows, these are things I like and I try hard to get right in my writing. I like the results anyway, and that's the main thing!

What are your writing weaknesses? The aforementioned nemesis that is plot. I'm just not interested in external obstacles, all I want to do is the emotional ones. Why is this emotionally damaged character sabotaging this relationship, yes, more, let's talk about that. Also I get a bit bored of banter so sometimes I avoid it, but I do like the results most of the time so it's worth pushing through.

First fandom you wrote for? RWRB! I am new to this (or I was nearly two years ago when I started)

Ok, here are some tags if people want to play: @thesleepyskipper @blueeyedgrlwrites @welcometololaland @tintagel-or-cockleshells @onetwistedmiracle

@onthewaytosomewhere @alasse9 @maxbegone @tailsbeth-writes @cultofsappho

@faketrex @ninzied @indestructibleheart @stereopticons @inexplicablymine

@duchessdepolignaca03 @sherryvalli @whimsymanaged @happiness-of-the-pursuit @historicallysam

and open tag as always if you'd like to join in!

[writing-for-soup]

✍ writer interview

tagged by @luvwich, read her interview for insight into how an evil genius works, and for insight into how an evil moron works, check out my answers below the cut 💕

When did you start writing?

I've written basically my entire life, like when I first learned to write I used to just copy fairytales word-for-word in my own notebooks. Then I always liked English the most at school, did my undergrad in English Literature and Creative Writing, and then did an MA in Creative Writing right after because I Wasn't Ready to be in the real world yet.

I used to write fanfic as a teen, then more or less forgot all about it until I played Cyberpunk 2077 in late 2023, had a mental breakdown (only partially related), and then couldn't get River fucking Ward out of my mind. Since then, it's kind of blossomed into it's own thing and this year I've written 138k+ words and it feels great.

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

I love a classic murder-mystery thriller, but I'm currently writing one of those and I have almost a full outline for another, and I think both will stand as original stories I might even seek to publish, so does that count?

I love a good sci-fi or fantasy series and I've never written anything like that, the level of world-building involved is so intimidating but when you read it done well it's sooooo good (see Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy or Chaos Walking by Patrick Ness).

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

I feel like my style is distinguished, but I do always think about writers who hugely influence me when I'm writing. Margaret Atwood is the first to come to mind because I feel like her writing is so unique and compelling for me.

I'd be lying if I said I don't also regularly think: would @luvwich do this? Especially in the early days of my longfic. Reading her fic, Arpeggio, was so influential to me. My own fic has very much grown into its own creature now, but at the start, it was Arpeggio's voice I was listening to when writing.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

It's called my living room sofa, sometimes with a dog included. Usually in my pjs, with a cup of chai, and ideally some chocolate. If it's raining outside, I am completely in The Zone.

What's your most effective way to muster up a muse?

Seeing a handsome brown man. I'm not kidding, that's usually how it starts for me. If he's a secondary character who's kind of out of the way and also has a rock solid moral compass? It's already over for me.

If I'm ever lacking, talking to my friends @lily-alphonse and @totallyhumanexe is the easiest way to clear the block and get creative juices flowing. It's good to have such juicy, juicy friends ❤

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

Is rampant horniness a theme? Is pure desperation a theme? I like writing couples who are so in love and crazy for each other because I think overwhelmingly eager consent is very sexy. This doesn't surprise me at all.

If sometimes my characters are bossy power bottoms or whimpering messes or incredibly blunt and mean...that also does not surprise me.

What is your reason for writing?

Ideas grow and bloom in my brain and if I don't get them out they'll take up all the space and leave no room for things like my PIN number and my partner's birthday etc.

Plus writing fuels so much joy in my life. It's good for my soul.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

Like anyone, I post my writing partially because I want the gratification of a comment from someone. I'm always grateful to readers for their comments, no matter what they are.

The best comments though, the ones that are the most impactful for me, usually reference specific lines in my work and elaborate on what it was about that part that they loved or that moved them.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

World's most brilliant, evil, stupid, amazing, lovable and intensely attractive person. A Woman For The People. A Girl's Girl. Soup.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

I feel confident overall about my writing abilities. I think my dialogue is strong, and I think I'm good at getting into the psyche of my characters. I hope my greatest strength is making my writing consistently interesting.

How do you feel about your own writing?

I like it, I read it. I can feel how much it's improved in this last year alone and I can't wait to reflect again in another year and hopefully see greater strength and distinction 💪

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely for yourself, or a mix of both?

To be totally honest, I mostly just think about me. Often, when I write, I'm filling the void of what I wanted to read that simply didn't exist yet.

I do sometimes include moments that I've noticed are popular in fics that have influenced mine, but even that is largely because I enjoyed those moments just as much as other readers, and so I wanted to see them in my own work as well.

[xisco-lozdob]

What do we know of Dark Gallifrey?

So, yesterday Big finish finally announced a new range titled Dark Gallifrey. The initial reveal left me underwhelmed because it didn't look as Gallifrey-oriented as I'd at first thought, but some of the comments the creators have posted afterwards are making me warm up to the idea.

So, first of all, it's going to be "a brand-new series showcasing the most chaotic, mischievous and evil Time Lords the planet has ever produced" and it consists of 8 different trilogies, each focusing on one these dark children of Gallifrey. The fact that three of those were given to three different incarnations of the Master who all already have their own ranges gave me pause, but it could be alright if the themes and focus is distinct enough.

However, the Monk and the Nun and, more importantly, Morbius (the incarnation played by Samuel West from the 8DAs 16 years ago) also have their own trilogies. Morbius' one is actually the opening act of the series, though we don't know exactly when it's set. But Morbius is always a great character to delve into Gallifreyan lore.

First thing I want to point out is that they chose to use the same Gallifrey logo as the Gallifrey series, so at the very least they think it should be branded the same way. So we don't only have a link through the title choice but also the same visual identity.

Now, even if John Dorney, writer and script editor for the Morbius trilogy, said this:

It’s completely disconnected from regular Gallifrey.

It doesn't have to mean it's disconnected from Gallifrey the planet, and its history, which, for me, is the most important part, just that it's disconnected from the main cast of the series: Romana, Leela, Narvin and Braxiatel.

So let's see what the other creatives are saying. Rob Valentine, who serves as producer for the series, had this to say:

Dark Gallifrey is a sprawling, multi-story event in which all the most dastardly Time Lords are being let out of the box in various unexpected ways. [...] ...and, behind it all, something massive is brewing.

That means there's some overarching theme or threat in the shadows, probably to be resolved in the last trilogy. What I think is that, more likely than not, it's not going to be a big crossover kind of deal. Maybe some characters and even a couple of the trilogy protagonists are going to be there, but, from what is know, I surmise that we'll be looking at a... Rassilon? trilogy which ties together things that have been set up during the others, but we won't know they have been until we have all the pieces. Let me explain.

Firstly, and something which I really like the sound of, from the Big Finish Talk Back panel at Gally1, they want to do more experimental stories and Dark Gallifrey is part of that.

Dorney, again, said that these are:

Writer led concept albums full of bold creativity. [...] these are not your standard stories.

Whereas Scott Handcock, director and script editor for the War Master trilogy, teased that there are "baffling surprises" and that he doesn't know how his trilogy pieces together with the other ones.

I do like that this range seems to be based on allowing the creators freedom to tell the story they want to tell, so they can experiment with the storylelling and the format. Valentine also says there are all sorts of stories, from darker ones to some that are more comic. But, while Handcock seems to confirm he wasn't privy to all the plans for the range, I read that as implying he did know there was something that linked the trilogies together, but that due to his involvement being with just this trilogy in particular, he didn't need to know every detail.

Still, one last piece of information from Dorney, tells me it's particularly not necessary for the individual creators to know how it all pieces together (if the producers did a good job in keeping tabs):

Just to repeat what I said on the panel this series is influenced by things like Alan Ayckbourn’s Norman Conquests, the old Transformers comic strip Aspects of Evil and Chris Ware’s magnificent Building Stories. [...] it inspired the entire series.

All of these have one particularity in common: they're stories that build a bigger tapestry if put together, with multiple layers of storytelling. But they still work as your basic anthology.

But why do I think it'll all come together with a Rassilon story? Well, for that let's go to writer Tim Foley's blogpost with some visual clues. All the pictures are really interesting, but two in particular piqued my interest. (Btw, Foley seems to have worked at least on the Morbius trilogy with Dorney.)

The first illustration comes from the DWM story The Tides of Time. This story features Rassilon (actually his first appearance in any medium) and the Matrix, as well as the Higher Evolutionaries, a group of ancient and powerful time-aware beings. Basically, they're to Gallifrey's Temporal Powers what Division sorta is to the CIA.

The other image is a rendition by Daryl Joyce of Ancient Gallifrey, from the Lungbarrow ebook. You all know what kinds of implications this has. I really hope we take a long overdue trip to other episodes in Gallifrey's History. This is what I'm expecting (hoping) from this series and, in a way, the Fugitive Doctor's one.

Will we have references and nods to other stories that built on the mythology and history of Gallifrey (and not just those two, Morbius being a main character has the potential to link with some more obscure things)? I don't know but I hope so.

I think that's all the information we have. I don't even really know what I want to say with this post, just wanted to collect all this somewhere, and I guess speculate a bit there at the end.

I really hope this series ends up being as special as it promises.

[bookofmirth]

I feel like Sarah’s latest projects Acosf Hosab and Hofas have felt kinda different from the og acotar books and the throne of glass series, tho i don’t know if it’s maybe just me connecting them less. I was entertained with all three. Especially with acosf which I don’t think it suffered as much as the cc books. But in all three Sarah’s writing feels off.

Now I’m no specialist in criticising English books in depth but I think you said once you’ve studied literature and that’s why you make mostly analyses of the text.

So I was wondering what’s your take on this, if you’ve noticed it too or not and if yes why or how you believe the writing is off

I've been having a lot of conversations about this with people and we had different ideas, though none of them are certain.

I think that the crossover played to Sarah's weaknesses and took away from her time to write to her strengths. I think that she's at her best when she is delving into characters and emotions, and at her least effective when she's trying to do all this big plot and world stuff.

The points in her series where you can see people starting to wonder what the hell is going on, is where you can see her trying to manipulate the plot in order to set up other stories she wants to tell. The best examples of this are acowar and the acosf/hofas arc. acotar was originally going to be a trilogy and then she manipulated acowar to set up more stories. CC was going to be a trilogy until she came up with the crossover and decided to set up more stories. If she could just stick with her original plans, everything would go much better. The points at which she decides to expand the world or plot or characters, those are the places where she begins to falter. (Some people I think would include HoF in this, but I do not.)

Sarah's writing style is to not outline - she is on record saying that she does not do extensive world building, that she isn't good at it, that she doesn't outline, that she let's the story take her where it will. All of those are fine, valid ways to write! However, they make it nearly impossible for her to pull this crossover off successfully. You absolutely cannot go about such a massive undertaking and just bang out 100k words in a week, or whatever ridiculous pace she worked at this time, and have it make sense.

She is also on record saying that the crossover came to her while she was writing hosab. That means she was thousands of pages into acotar and hundreds of pages into CC before she decided to do this huge, series-altering thing. That's... not just poor planning, it's a recipe for disaster. This is why there are inconsistencies, the weird pacing, and dropped plots from hosab. It was too much and she's not the kind of writer who can take on those sorts of tasks and make it still compelling and cohesive. She just isn't.

One of my big concerns about the crossover was the genre shift - CC being urban fantasy and ACOTAR being high fantasy meant that it wasn't going to fit together. There was going to be some friction, no matter how good a writer took it on (and imo a better writer would have known that and not done it in the first place). It's not that it can't be done, it's just that both series need to have an equally strong foundation to work from. The world building in CC was much more intense than it was in acotar, and so trying to fit those two together was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

ToG never suffers from this because Sarah never tried to make it something it wasn't. She always had a clear vision of what kind of person Aelin was and why, and even though she doesn't outline, I would bet a lot of money that when she started writing ToG, she knew that at the end, Aelin was going to end up happy and on the throne of her own kingdom.

Also - and I'm sorry, I know that I am babbling haha but since your question was about acosf/hosab/hofas specifically, I do think that urban fantasy is not Sarah's genre. She clearly reads it, but... it's not the genre for displaying her strengths as a writer. All of the swearing and sex and drug use had me rolling my eyes constantly because she was just beating us over the head with how hardcore and adult the characters are.

So there are a couple of things, really, that made those three books feel off in comparison to the rest of them:

urban fantasy is not Sarah's genre,

the crossover took her energy and attention away from her strengths (emotion, character) and made her emphasize her weaknesses (plot, world)

It feels like we are watching her become a worse writer, and not better. I'm going to chalk it up to her experimenting a little bit with hofas and it not panning out. Optimistic!Lele says that now that this is out of sjm's system, we can go back to our regularly-scheduled emotional journeys with some magic stuff sprinkled in. Pessimistic!Lele doesn't trust sjm farther than she can throw her.

All of this has made me really nervous to read anything ToG-related that she might come up with in the future. I would love more ToG content from 2016 Sarah. 2024 Sarah? I'm honestly not that interested in more canon ToG stuff from her.

Sorry this got long, and I'm not even sure how cohesive all of this is, it's just been on my mind since I finished hofas!

[historyandmyth]

Please get started on lightning returns lmao

[sputters and laughs] This is the funniest ask I've ever gotten, partially because I don't think you know what you're uncorking here, anon. I do try to keep negativity off this blog nowadays, but I'll oblige you this one time.

Salt beneath the cut, click at your own risk, dead dove: do not eat, etc etc.

Naturally, given how central Lightning is to this game, most of my grievances are with how she was treated and written, though I'll quickly note my other problems with the game:

The fanservice obvs. :U

The combat. Why did we do things like replace the fully functional stagger gauge with the weird audio waveform readout? Seems like a strange choice when XIII-2 had actually made noticeable improvements in terms of accessibility during combat (larger health bars, more readable text, etc).

The incredibly discordant and hard-on-the-ears soundtrack.

I don't usually harp on graphics because I don't really care about how pretty or "realistic" a game looks, but when the dev company boasts that this game is the "most complete and polished" in the Final Fantasy series (not the trilogy, the entire series), and then we get... copy-pasted trees... well, let's just say that that's objectively not the case.

The fact that all of the previous main protagonists don't play more prominent roles in this final installment of the trilogy is abysmal, and this goes twice for Sazh whose "character arc" has been recycled twice now.

The fact that we lose this wonderful world we've spent the past two games exploring and growing attached to is also abysmal! I hate stories where we lose magic at the end, separate the found family, etc etc. and LR is guilty of all of that. It's such a kick in the teeth.

Here's what I did enjoy about this game:

Masculine outfits. They all look great on her. And even better is when you run by NPCs and half the time they can't figure out her gender! (Really furthers the enby!Lightning headcanon I have for this game in particular.)

The fact that you can have Lightning take a jab at Etro during Noel's main quest lmao.

The guy in Luxerion that sings the New Bodhum theme.

You get to pal around with Fang in the Dead Dunes.

...And that's it, that's all I enjoyed.

And now, what I really hate about LR and how they wrote Lightning in general is... Lumina.

Do not get me wrong. I don't hate Lumina for superficial reasons like her personality or aesthetics. If she wasn't inherently tied to Lightning, I think I'd find her rather interesting. Her voice actor did a stellar job with her!

Instead, to me, Lumina's existence is a really hilarious admission from the writers they didn't know what to do with Lightning's character post-XIII. Lightning—who was shown in the first game to be incredibly self-aware, genre-savvy, and emotionally mature—gets reduced to a character that needs to have her "emotions" trot out in front of her as a little girl that harps on and harasses her for things like, I don't know, allegedly pushing her friends away?

Friends that never offer to help her in the first place, I might add. If they really wanted to drive home the idea that Lightning was being aloof, they had ample opportunities to do so. But instead all we ever have is Lumina telling us what Lightning's intentions supposedly are. Lazy writing at its finest!

Lumina also accuses Lightning of trying to be "as cold as the steel in [her] sword," which is a notion later tied to Lightning "locking away" her heart as a child which is just... a really funny retcon when you once again consider how emotionally mature she becomes in XIII.

We did this character arc before. And we did it to much better effect! The whole Lumina/Claire fiasco is one of the biggest walk-backs I've ever seen for a character's development, it's insane.

(I've already spoken at length about how Lightning's character is not the self-sacrificial type, either; you can search my blog for the word 'sentinel' if you want those posts.)

It's just sad, because there are ways they could've played with Lightning's character that would have made sense and been in line with the things she'd gone through up until this point. If you wanted to mess with her emotions, you could've written her as bitter, exhausted, and traumatized after her extended stint in Valhalla. This could have been a natural and compelling consequence of her time as Etro's guardian. It wouldn't have resulted in a terrible rehash of her first game's character arc either lmao.

Anyway there's a lot more I could say but I'm just gonna end it here. LR bad but could have been pretty good with a little effort, the end!

[theimaginatrix27]

Actually, no, I am going to talk about this

I have long known that Juliet Marillier disapproved of fanfiction. She wasn't going to stop people from writing it, but she didn't approve of it.

I recently looked at her FAQs on her website, which she's updated and refined since I was last able to read any of them. And what she says about Fanfiction is more than a little upsetting to me, and in some ways may explain why fics based on her works are so sparse on the ground.

"I understand that fan fiction is a sort of tribute – it means readers like my books enough to want to create new stories about the characters. But I would much rather people invented their own characters, settings and story ideas. I know a whole lot more about my characters’ lives than I ever put on the page, and I believe their stories should be exclusively mine to tell."

This hit me like a freight train. It's been a long time since I saw any of this, and I understand the author is in her seventies now, so she's from a generation where this opinion was commonplace.

But this is the attitude that is a big contributing factor to why my writing stalled.

When I was in High School, I tried to put aside all fanfiction ideas and focus on original ones. I was fourteen and thought the story of my most complex fanfics at the time could have the fandom stuff stripped out and I could still have a complete story.

It never got past the first book of what I thought might be a trilogy of stories about fairies. I wrote two incomplete drafts and then abandoned it.

My Sisterlands story, on the other hand, has grown alongside a fanfiction story (the fic now known as the Maginite Chronicles). Some aspects of both came about because of the other. The stories share characters. They have grown with one another and with me.

In the 2010s, I got my own computer and was able to explore the internet at my leisure. I discovered fanfiction websites and fell down a rabbit hole of truly wonderful stories. And suddenly my brain was teeming with new story ideas! I was inspired!

And yet, I felt guilty for focusing any of my attention on these fanfic ideas, because I was still under the misguided belief that my original ideas were superior to my fanfiction ones, that fanfiction was frivolous and pointless and unoriginal, and I should be concentrating on stories that could make me money and not crib off other authors' works.

And it stifled my creativity. It stifled my motivation. It made it so much harder for me to write fic, but also my originals.

There were other factors to why I didn't write as much as I wanted to over the past decade. Some of it was self-inflicted. Lack of ideas has never been one of my problems, though prioritising which story to write at any given time is very difficult for me when I have so many in me.

But I fundamentally disagree with Juliet on this here. Others have said it better, but once you've released a story into the world, unless you plan to write sequels, you don't get to decide you're the only one allowed to tell stories about these characters forever.

Maybe I know more about my characters than others do. Maybe I know more about my setting than others do. Maybe there's going to be stuff that gets cut from the books before they're published because it's the best thing for the story told in those books.

But do you think I'm going to tell people they can't play with the dolls I donated to the public library because they're mine! Nobody else can play with them! You're only allowed to watch me play with them!

No! Of course not! That's ridiculous! I already donated them! They were paid for, they're meant to be shared! Like any story is published to be shared!

"That means I don’t encourage readers to write fan fiction based on my work. I don’t like readers to share those stories online, though I can’t stop them from doing it. However, writers of fan fiction should note that if they infringe my copyright they could find themselves in trouble with my agent and the publisher. I love the fact that my readers are writing and I encourage them to continue. Just be original, folks."

I know there are legal restrictions on published authors, so they can't read fic. I also know I wouldn't be the storyteller I am without fanfiction. The Sisterlands wouldn't exist without fanfiction.

Juliet you write fairy tale retellings! That's fanfic! That's not original! Your books are based on fairy tales and folklore, you don't get to sit on your stack of fairy tale retellings and tell us to create your own original characters and settings. My fairy tale retelling series is fanfic of my favourite fairy tales, told in a way I like, with characters I put names to and fleshed out, but that began as fairy tale set pieces! And they also wouldn't exist without books like yours!

I don't know when she posted this version of her views. The website doesn't make that clear. And she's got some progressive messaging in her novels if you know where to look.

But if she can't see nothing is original, including her own work for the reasons outlined above, I don't think I'd be able to convince her now, even if I hadn't annoyed her when I was freshly online and eager and sent her a dozen emails full of enthusiasm and questions. And a few requests I didn't know would be quite beyond her at the time, but I hadn't found all the writing resource websites I have since then.

Also look at the series you've abandoned for financial reasons and then try to justify why people who want more shouldn't write the continuations you can't because publishers won't take them.

[darklordgorblax]

Why does Mass Effect hate Gay Men?

So, I know I'm pretty late to the party, and plenty of people have said it better, but I've finally been getting around to playing the Mass Effect games, and I can't sleep until I get this out there. Also, apologies that I'm all over the place. It all just adds up, you know?

Disclaimer: There is a lot to really like about Mass Effect. This isn't a review, just an attempt to voice a frustration.

Where to start? I first played Mass Effect in ~2010. I was in college, and still very repressed pretending that homosexuality is totally a choice. Like most people, I imagine, I really appreciated the way that I could tailor Shepherd to my vision. He wasn't a blank slate self-insert, but had just enough flexibility that it was really easy to slip into that skin and imagine I was a badass commander out saving the galaxy.

Then the end happened and Ashley raped me. Obviously with Shepherd it was consensual, but for me identifying and connecting with Shepherd it felt deeply violating. I was leaning heavily into Paragon, and genuinely thought I was just being a good nice person. I had hardly ever spoken with Ashley, and I didn't think I had said anything particularly suggestive that was the direction I wanted to go. As a result I swore off everything Mass Effect for over a decade.

I've grown a lot since then. It's finally time to give it a fair shake. I still don't want any unpleasant surprises, so I did a bunch of research to figure out what I want to do about romance. Of course I ran into the same problem that every gay man playing Mass Effect runs into. Where are the m/m romance options? It's fine though. I decide I'm going to save myself for Gay Kaiden, and honestly it's very poignant. It's frustrating that it took 3 entire games to pay off, but even that worked into the character arc nicely.

So I played through the trilogy, hated the ending, but overall really appreciated the moments I got with Kaiden. It was pretty emotional for me too, just because it made me realize how much I needed that kind of representation. It was a catharsis to the trauma of being pushed into sleeping with Ashley a decade ago.

Moving on to Andromeda, there's still not nearly enough gay representation, but it's ok. I'm down with Gil. Then there was the scene that set off this spiral. Gil casually mentions that his only friend Jill gives him crap for being a gay genetic dead end. I tell him that's not cool, and he brushes it off. This is deeply uncomfortable, but maybe they salvage it. I have to know more.

End preamble, begin rant: Why does Mass Effect hate Gay Men?

What the ever living fuck. Gil's *entire* character ark is his "best friend" pressuring him into being her baby daddy. The first thing I had to know is who wrote this and are they gay. If they're gay themself, then maybe they're just speaking to personal experience that I happen to find distasteful and unrelatable. I couldn't find out much about the guy, but I suspect not.

So first - To straight writers writing gay characters: Just write them straight. Kaiden was written in such a way that it works either way, and it *works*. Yes, I want gay characters that deal with uniquely gay issues, but I don't trust you. To explore something as deeply personal and fraught as a gay man choosing whether or not to have children and how is not a plotline you just slap together. Just write them straight and then flip the pronouns and descriptors when appropriate.

But now I'm just gah! We've already established they're extremely lacking in the m/m romance options, but let's take a look. Gil and Cortez, the two exclusively gay men. Why are there no gay men party members? For fuck's sake! Every single exclusively gay (and lesbian?) romance option is confined to the ship. Just... I think you already know how fucked up that is, so I'm going to stop.

To move on to character arcs. I've seen people defend this, but frankly shove off. It's like these narratives' primary purpose is to make sure that everyone knows they're gay. It's show don't tell gone horribly, horribly wrong. You want to know how you show that a gay man is gay? Show them flirting with men. You don't need to consume the entire character arc showing how Cortez has a dead husband and Gil might not have children. I can cut Cortez some slack since dead spouse isn't a specifically gay arc, but even the way it's presented just puts way too much emphasis on the "husband" part.

But speaking of specifically gay character arcs... Maybe whether or not to have children isn't specifically to highlight that Gil is gay... Oh wait it totally is. This game is *loaded* with interspecies romances that will never have children. Why is the only relationship where this "problem" is highlighted the one for which it might be deeply traumatic?

I can't talk about interspecies romance without talking about the Asari. Perhaps it's the first problem, but for me it will have to be the last. I know it's been beaten to death, and scrutinized from every angle, but it's just so bad. In many ways the Asari are at the heart of the "Why does Mass Effect hate gay men" problem. A mono-gendered, naturally bisexual species that exists to fetishize lesbians for the benefit of a straight male audience. (Anyone who says they aren't technically female deserves to be punched in the face)

So with that I'll conclude: Bioware owes gay men big time for this travesty. Make a mono-gendered, naturally bisexual species that's coded as male. I dare you.

[mcu-vanity-blog]

GOTG 3 Review (done by the characters I care about)

Disclaimer: I didn't watch the Christmas special

Peter: Has a complete alcoholism arc in the first ten minutes for some reason? It's implied he's been drinking a lot since Endgame and then, like 15 minutes in, he says out loud "This wouldn't've happened if I hadn't been drinking" and then that's just the end of it? My brother in Christ, this movie is 2 and a half hours long, maybe cut that bit aye?

He is very much just another character in this entry. Most of his lines could easily be given to Mantis or Nebula and nothing would really change. Chris Pratt looks visibly unenthused to be here most of the time.

(New) Gamora: Honestly, could've been left out of the MCU entirely since her death in Infinity War. Zoe Saldana is the best part of every MCU film she's been in.

In this film though, she starts off with the Ravagers >> maybe learns that she's a slightly better person than she thought >> goes back to the Ravagers.

She's basically just sort of "also there" for the whole film, and is often just acting as a foil for Peter's arc (which, btw, is realising that this woman who looks like his dead girlfriend isn't actually his dead girlfriend; a fact he already knows).

Idk man, it's weird. I think Zoe just contractually had to be in this one?

Rocket: Is very much the main character of this film, but spends a good two-thirds of it asleep. You mainly see him in flashbacks where he's being abused/experimented on by the film's villain.

It's a very classic James Gunn thing I think; take a small and helpless guy and make the audience empathise with him because of how small and helpless he is. I guess it's not super nuanced in that way, but it's not necessarily an unenjoyable story for him.

It was weird that they decided to give us his origin in what is apparently the final entry of this trilogy though?

Like, "you've loved this character for 9 years now and this might be the last chance you get to see him and his friends all together again! How about we have sleep the entire time and, instead, explain exactly how he became who he was when you met him 5 movies ago!". It's kind of just silly (Dan Harmon articulates this idea really well here at 0:35-0:51).

Nebula: Gets more screen-time and characterization in this film, still not the most interesting character tho :/.

I also don't think that Karen Gillian can act :(. Would much rather have OG Gamora over her

Drax: Still just relegated to unfunny comic relief. His thing in the first movie was that his culture didn't have metaphors and he was a little careless/happy-go-lucky; he wasn't an idiot.

Ever since then? He has exclusively been an idiot.

Don't care, but feel sorry that Dave Bautista still has to play this role, even though he does very well in it <3

Groot: Again, hasn't been interesting since the first movie. He used to be this sort of mysterious, ancient, gentle giant type of character, but he's basically been just a type of sci-fi set dressing in all the movies since then.

I know James Gunn has said he's a brand new Groot from the one we see in that movie, but it's like... why? Compare the scenes of OG Groot to literally any scene of Gunn-written Groot and tell me which one is the more interesting character.

Adam Warlock: Surprisingly good. Unfortunately, he's that same James Gunn character of grown-up person with the mind of a child (think Killer Sharl in Suicide Squad), but it kinda works in this? I like that they let Will Poulter keep his accent and I look forward to seeing him written by more competent writers.

[bg-sparrow]

7,8,15,18 for fanfiction writer ask!

The wonderful @mangotortoise always indulges me on these FanFiction Writer Asks 🥰 Thank you for being an enabler (and curious about my process lol)!

7. When is your preferred time to write?

I don't really have one! Because I'm so scatterbrained, I write the moment an idea strikes if I can, even if it's just texting myself a few lines of dialogue I don't want to forget. Being a working mom doesn't leave much time aside from evenings/ late nights/ weekends, but when I get those Saturdays that I can wake up, park myself at my computer, and just go all day between switching laundry and loading the dishwasher, I love those days. I'm also really excited to write after I write loose scenes/ notes in my notebook because I end up expanding on them so much in the Word document effortlessly!

8. Where do you take your inspiration from?

Obviously, as fanfic writers, we're inspired by the source material, but my motivations beyond that vary by story. I'll stick to my BttF ones here.

For the Time Circuits Series, it wasn't born out of "I want to make a quality MartyOC across the trilogy" (even though that was ultimately my goal). I watched these films growing up with my dad a lot, and the idea of giving Doc a daughter and exploring that father-daughter relationship was my initial motivation before I even realized I wanted to rewrite the series years later.

Once Upon a Time in the West was at first a "stuck in 1885" AU for Cowboyvember, but after years of working on the T-rated trilogy rewrite, I wanted to try my hand at branching out into topics I'd never written about (depression, sexuality, etc). I was motivated to get a little grittier, and as someone who you could easily call modest, I wanted to see what I was capable of beyond the T rating. And I feel like I finally have enough life experience to give an accurate voice to these topics.

15. If you write OCs, how do you decide on their names?

Well, that depends! I enjoy the repetition and echoing in the BttF trilogy a lot, so it made sense that Doc's daughter is Emma (since he's Emmett). She just never had another name to me. Her middle name is "Jean", and at the time I decided that, I think I'd just reread Harry Potter, and "Jean" is Hermione's middle name. It's also an 80s nod to "Billie Jean".

Emma's mother is Dolores - because "DeLorean". And I think that plays a bit of a personal role in Doc choosing the DeLorean aside from all the science hoo-ha.

Clarence Livingston in There Are No Roads was the son of the cabinet maker in 1885. The cabinet maker's sign says "T. Livingston", and as Clarence was sort of the love interest in that story for Emma, his name became the male version of "Clara." So we have "Emmett and Clara" and "Emma and Clarence", and it makes me happy lol.

Other OCs I've created, it's a matter of making sure they're period-appropriate and a lot of "screen testing" -- saying the name out loud in dialogue, seeing how it fits against the canon names, etc. It's just like naming a child, honestly! It has to sound right and feel right. How do the canon characters feel meeting someone with this name? What nicknames/ pet names come out of it? Does the OC LIKE their name?

18. Do you have any abandoned WIPs? What made you abandon them?

Boy, I'm glad I'm being asked this now as opposed to two years ago! For the last ten years, I always wanted to come back and finish my stories, and I'm happy to say that I've completed two since I returned to writing in 2021: Principles of Compromise I left hanging for eight years, and Where You're Going (Time Circuits #1) I left hanging for three years.

I still have one I know I want to finish for the National Treasure fandom. I wrote a successful RileyOC story there in high school titled Another Clue, and I burned out halfway through writing the sequel to it titled One More Clue (but I still have all the notes to continue and finish it)! Perhaps now, with the new National Treasure TV show coming out on Disney+, it's a good time to hunker down and finish One More Clue (even though I'm totally going to have to spruce up Another Clue first because I've grown too much as a writer to leave it as-is before posting it to AO3).

I loathe getting so invested in an unfinished story, so I've tried to make it my mission to have the story finished/ an ending decided when I commit to posting a story. I don't want to make people disappointed like that. It's frustrating. So I'm trying to make good on it by finishing all my WIPs now!

Thanks again for the ask! I'm always open to more!! Have a great day!

[captainderyn]

10 and/or 19 for the writer/artist asks <3

Thank you for the asks!

--

10. OC you most struggled to make?

Your definitely not going to believe me when I say it was Ryn. She took awhile to take shape. I played the first two Mass Effect games and was like "that was neat" *puts aside to move back to school* and this was peak Covid time, December 2020, when I was on a semi-tumblr hiatus, not writing, not creating, just total nothing-ness.

Then I started to play ME3. And I don't really know what switch flipped, but I know that after finishing ME3, Ryn started to whisper. Which led to me writing The Choices She Makes (rewritten into The Stages of Nearly Losing You later), but even then she wasn't all that much of a standout to me.

Summer 2021 I replayed the ME trilogy...which turned into me re-replaying it as a way to cope fall of 2021 annnnnd now here Ryn is. Living completely rent free in my brain always lol.

I'd say she really really didn't start to take shape for me until I used her for Fictober 2021, when she really took on her own life outside of what the trilogy directed.

19. What are some things that inspired your stories? Real events? Maybe a dream?

A little bit of this, little bit of that lol. A lot of emotion is what drives the ideas I get, or gestures, like sometimes the idea of one character caressing the other character's cheek will inspire a story. I don't often get plot inspiration, which is kicking my ass for writing original stuff, its usually heavily character driven.

Music really inspires my stuff, like songs that'll weave into scenes.

The other day I was playing Cyberpunk and got inspired by my shitty driving skills for a oneshot between V and Five (Era and Five) about how much of a Bad Time she's having so whatever that counts as lol. I guess expanding on the scenes/implications that the media its linked too gives me? Usually its to add more emotional depth to it. A lot of my stuff with Ryn is adding this fury, this breaking down, that ME couldn't really dig into.

[musingsofabookworm1]

My Last Five Reads of Summer 2024

Last day of summer. One of the saddest days on the calendar. But at least I snuck in two books this weekend.

*By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult I pre-ordered this ages ago. I avoided reading anything about it until it arrived on my doorstep. And as if I wasn't excited enough, Shakespeare was a huge part of the plot! Most people who know enough about Shakespeare know that it is widely accepted that he didn't write his works. There are various reasonings which all make sense, and there are a number of people at the time who are pointed to as potential authors of his plays and his poems. Picoult's novel sets out to show how Emilia Bassano - the first woman in England who declared herself a professional poet - could be the writer of Shakespeare's work.

The book is written in two timelines. Obviously Bassano's is one of them. The other is one of her ancestors in, for the most part, present day: Melissa Green. Melissa, too, is playwright. Years prior to the plot, in college, a critic ripped one of her plays to shreds and told her what to write instead. So ten years later, she wrote it. And her friend, unbeknownst to Melissa, sent it in to a contest. If her play wins, it'd be performed.

I liked that part of the book. A lot. But Emilia's part dominated much more of the almost 500 pages. And her part got long. And, at times, boring. And I am someone that read a lot of Shakespeare in college and enjoyed it.

*Sigh* to three stars. Here's hoping her next effort is better.

*Small Game by Blair Braverman I had this one on hold as an ebook for a long time as the library didn't have it. Which is odd because it's by a Wisconsin author and takes place in Northern Wisconsin.

Protagonist Mara is one of four strangers chosen to be dropped into the wilderness of northern Wisconsin for a survival-themed reality show. If she survives for six weeks, she wins a big chunk of change.

That's all I knew going in, and I think that made for a solid reading experience. Until the end. Being totally up front and honest, this was one of the most disappointing endings I've ever read it. It was like the author had reached a quota or decided she didn't want to write anymore. She tried to bring the whole novel together in a page and a half. And it deserved more.

4 stars only because of the ending.

The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett I loved this book! There was no prose. None! It was all written in texts and emails and dialogs. This is definitely not for everyone, but it was definitely for me. I haven't felt this sucked into a book in awhile!

The title group is cult who tricked a teenaged girl into thinking her baby was the anti-Christ. When they wanted to kill the baby, the girl called the police. The cult committed suicide, and the underage mother and baby disappeared.

18 years later, as the baby is coming of age, author Amanda Bailey wants to write a true crime book about the Alperton Angels. That's what this book is about. She wants to find the girl and the baby as well as the baby's father to get the real info about what went down.

The plot works with being written this way as texts and emails are exchanged between Amanda and people who are related to the case. When she meets up with some, the dialogs come to light. The plot does get a bit convoluted at the end but not in a confusing way.

5 stars for this one!

In the Study with the Wrench and In the Ballroom with the Candlestick by Diana Peterfreund

The second two books of a young-adult trilogy based on the board game. So nothing to report here. But I did actually like them better than the first. Oddly, I liked the second book most of all, and those are usually the worst of trilogies! 4 stars each

[fortbooks]

The City We Became, by N. K. Jemisin

Two things right off the bat: I love this book so it's going on my keep forever shelf, and I have a major gripe in how the story in this book unfolded. It might not make sense, but they are both true for me.

But let's start with a bit of background first;

The City We Became is an urban fantasy novel that follows the avatars of New York City, people who become imbued with the identities of the different boroughs that make New York New York. They are ripped from their ordinary lives to fend of an evil that was supposed to already be defeated--but it wasn't. And it's here. And they're here. And a battle will happen whether they want it to or not.

Now: I saw a recommendation for this book online. It wasn't recommended to me, but I got hooked by the urban fantasy description. So I looked into the book, bought it, read it, and here we are now with me about to complain about it.

Here's the thing-- My problem with the book is coming from a place of love. Because I really did enjoy reading the book. I liked the story, the characters… All the parts of the book, really. My issue is the fact that a huge chunk of the middle felt like it was setting up a second book before this novel is even done. Things just kept escalating and rising and getting more complicated (but still quite easy to follow)…and yet the pages left kept dwindling.

The ending is good. It makes sense and there's no big unwieldy loose thread left by the time the novel ends. Yes, it is also open-ended to leave room for a sequel. No, it did not need all the escalation bits. All of that could've been left for the sequel. When the writer and the publishers would be more aware if whether or not the series is going to have a built-in audience. Not when they're still in the middle of starting a possible saga/trilogy.

Other than that, I think the book is very solid. It has a really good point of view, and I want to see where the story takes us.

If you're a fan of Dimension 20's The Unsleeping City seasons…this book is for you. The characters from the actual-play show will not feel out of place in this book, and vice-versa.

[thethirdromana]

Every book I read for the first time this year

(Is this of interest to anyone but me? Putting it under a cut in case it's not).

The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey I was trying to figure out what I spent the first few months of the year reading, then I remembered I just binge-read all of the Expanse through to about March. I love the TV series, I love the books, I love the characters and - thank goodness! - they nailed the ending.

The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison The Goblin Emperor is a go-to comfort read for me (and would be on this list if I were doing re-reads as well). The spin-off detective novels are a delight too. To find published Sherlock wingfic by the same author was... unexpected, but I enjoy her writing style enough that it worked for me.

The Unburied by Charles Palliser Beautifully written, but the resolution to the mystery is obvious from miles off in 2023 in a way that it probably wasn't in 1999.

The Daevabad Trilogy by S. A. Chakraborty Lovely worldbuilding, great characters, well-plotted... the only thing that made these fall down for me is SA Chakraborty's tendency to kill off masses of characters like she's knocking down skittles.

Conspiracy by Tom Phillips and Jonn Elledge A readable history of conspiracy theories that does what it says on the tin. Useful as reference for how antisemitism lurks under most of them.

An Act of Foul Play by TE Kinsey Lady Hardcastle and her maid, Florence Armstrong, live a life of Edwardian tweeness and occasionally fight crime. I read these mostly because I'm convinced if I stick with them long enough, Lady Hardcastle and Flo might kiss.

The Deadly Mystery of the Missing Diamonds by TE Kinsey This spin-off of the Lady Hardcastle novels only has Lady Hardcastle and Flo as bit characters. It turns out that yep, I'm much less interested when the femslash ship is off the table.

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro They picked the right winner for the 1989 Booker Prize. I think this story might haunt me forever.

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone Everyone recommended this and it's as good as they said it was, part 1.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin Everyone recommended this and it's as good as they said it was, part 2.

Carmageddon by Daniel Knowles This appealed to all of my existing biases, and equipped me with evidence to defend them. Build more trams!

For Richer, For Poorer by Victoria Coren Mitchell From Only Connect to Taskmaster, I think I've enjoyed everything that Victoria Coren Mitchell has ever done, and this was no exception. I'd always assumed that her career as a poker player was kind of glamorous, and it was fascinating to learn that it was actually deeply seedy.

How Westminster Works and Why It Doesn't by Ian Dunt Interesting, but about 90% of it was about why Westminster fails and about 10% on how to fix it. I think I would have preferred a bit less on the former and a bit more on the latter.

Imperial Island by Charlotte Lydia Riley A solid overview of Britain's relationship with its empire in the 20th century, but I don't think I learned anything I didn't already know.

The Places In Between by Rory Stewart Rory Stewart is an incredible writer who deeply loves Afghanistan, which rescues this from just being what it otherwise would be, the story of a highly privileged man deciding to do something very dangerous for no good reason.

The Wheel of Time, Books 1-3 by Robert Jordan Robert Jordan is not an incredible writer but I enjoyed the TV series enough to persevere with these. Just about. Tell me how Nynaeve tugged her braid again, Robert, I dare you.

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson Which I haven't quite finished yet, seeing as I'm reading it by substack, but I suspect it may be done before the year is out. A delightful Scottish romp in lovely company.

[nanuk-dain]

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers

A huge thank you to @ableedingpen for tagging me. It's my very first time doing something like this, and it's so much fun ^_^

How many works do you have on ao3?

301. Although I have some fics posted as a series and additionally as a chaptered fic, so it's probably three or four works less than that.

What's your total ao3 word count?

2,478,092. But again, some fics are posted twice in a different format, so it's less.

What fandoms do you write for?

More than I can count... The big ones are Generation Kill, Band of Brothers, Pacific Rim, Lord of the Rings, The Mummy, RED, Bourne Trilogy, Rambo (yes, really, you read that correctly XD), Avengers, NUMA, Oregon Files, The Sinking of the Laconia...

But I also have tons of really small and rare fandoms and if I name them all, we'll be here a while ;D

For the past three years I've been mostly active in Generation Kill, though.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Primal Instinct (9-1-1): 2.132

A Never-Ending Dance (The Mummy): 1.110

Marks (The Mummy): 910

More Than A Thousand Words (Avengers): 637

Claim (Fast and Furious): 473

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! Or at least I try. I'm not always as good at it as I wish I was... I always feel terrible when I haven't replied to a comment, because somebody took the time to write me and I want to honour that because it means the world to me. I love comments so much, and I think that the least I can do is to tell that to the person who left me a wee word.

What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Of Losses and Promises, no doubt. Although it's not necessarily the ending, but the fic itself.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Too many to count, I guess? But I think that In An Ideal Word, Things Would Have Been Different qualifies, especially given the WWII setting and the stuff I put the poor guys through.

Do you get hate on fics?

I never did - until I got some really strange comments on an Avengers fic by an anonymous commenter (no AO3 account) a few weeks ago. I was really bewildered, because it wasn't really blind hate or something. I think they just got really upset, but they took the time to write long and detailed comments that said not one single good thing about the fic. Since it was a fic of almost 32k and the first comment was on chapter 3, I just wondered why the heck they kept reading it if they found it so horrible... Don't like, don't read. It's that easy. Just walk away for your own sanity.

I still haven't decided how to proceed with those comments. On one hand I don't want that under my fic, but deleting it feels wrong too, because it wasn't pure hate just to be spiteful, but somebody who felt really triggered in a way I still don't get... Replying to it is probably pointless, but maybe I will sit down done day and write an objective, reasonable reply. I don't know.

Do you write smut?

*cackles* Oh, you could say that. I think my longest smut scene to date (yes, just one scene) is about 17k... I tend to go into detail and then include the mushy feelings and all the sensations that the five senses feed into the brain and boom, you get a really long juicy scene. Happens to me all the time ^_^V

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Rarely, because I'm not a big fan of crossovers. They need to be really well done in order to work (for me, at least), and the only occasion where I really really really had to write a crossover is Touched, which is Generation Kill and Band of Brothers, where I get Doc Bryan and Doc Roe to meet, but without changing the canon timelines or playing with time travel or something like that - so old medic meets and mentors young corpsman, with some extra plot thrown in. Well, who doesn't love the HBO War medics...? ;D

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No. Not that I know of, anyway. So I hope not? My art gets reposted without permission quite a lot, though. Even had some of my manips manipped over by somebody and they cut out my signature. That sucked.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Several. I think there's Chinese, German, Russian and Spanish among the languages some fics got translated into.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not before a few weeks ago, when @mac-and-geese and I started a wee pet project. It's still in the works, but it will be awesome!

What's your all-time favourite ship?

Oh dear, how am I supposed to answer that? There are so many fantastic pairings out there...

If I look at it from a reader's perspective, then it's Fraser/RayK from dueSouth. In the fandoms I write for, I would have to say Ray Person/Doc Bryan from Generation Kill.

What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Actually, I don't have one that I doubt I will ever finish. It may take time (because damn my busy RL, and why do I have to work to pay rent?!?), but I will finish all of them (to be fair, I only have four wips that I have posted). I'm tenacious like that. I simply can't bear leaving things unfinished. It eats me up inside, so I finish my fics for the sake of my inner peace alone XD

What are you writing strengths?

I think I'm quite good at crawling into many different character's minds, getting comfy there, absorb their personality and then write from their POV. Even for characters I don't actually like.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm too wordy. I just can't keep it short. I don't think I'll ever be able to write a drabble, not even if my life depended on it...

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

If it's one of my languages, okay, but if it's one I'm not able to speak, it's bound to end up being very wrong and cringy (yes, google translate, I'm looking at you). Especially if it's longer sections of dialogue I prefer to mark it in some way that there's a language switch, like italics or something like that, and still write it in English. It's easier to read for people, and not everybody will know the respective language, so it'll screw up the flow. I personally hate having to search for the translation at the end of the fic, so I don't do that to my readers. I have no issues with using words/nicknames etc in another language, though, especially when they're easily understandable or I can include the meaning/translation in the story.

First fandom you wrote for?

Lord of the Rings, Éomer/Haldir. No, wait, before that there was a Pirates of the Caribbean fic that was so bad that I don't even have it anymore and I'm glad that the archive where I posted it doesn't exist anymore XD

Favourite fic you've written?

Oh my, that's difficult... I think I'd have to say Like A Kitten On Truth Serum because it's the funniest fic writing experience I've had so far. If we go for the other end of the spectrum, then Of Losses and Promises is probably my favourite sad/angsty fic I've written so far.

All right, so my turn to tag (I hope I'm doing it right): @anthrobrat @mac-and-geese @jenkil @bookishdea