#cheery writes

[cheeryknots]

still thinking about how evan fucked barty so good that barty accidentally proposed in the middle of sex.

[witchofthesouls]

I wish the Lost Colonies' cultures and biological quirkw had been delved deeper, especially how they would viciously clash with modern Cybertron, both pre- and post-War.

I mean, I think it's really interesting juxtaposition between the deep scars of Functionism versus the other worlds' sources of prejudice and discrimination. Camien devotion and deification of Solus versus a Cybertron with no femmes with Megatron's and Optimus' cult of personality as well as atheism and agnosticism, especially among their respective inner circles. Cybertron's complete desolation and Eukaris' lush and lively greenery. The meritocracy of racing-obsessed Velocitron. Prion had minicons with multiple alts, and Devisiun yielded split-spark twins. The people of Carcer are those of wardens living in a prison.

Do the Camiens think of their Titan's homeworld as cold and lonely? Would they think of those from Cybertron suffering from disorders from the lack of close, intimate connections and no true community?

Velocritron descended from the scientists of Navitas, and they utilized the scorching heat to derive alternative sources of fuel. Do they scorn the deprived worlds for not searching for solutions?

How do the Eukarians view the others that cyberformed their planets? Do they see Cybertron and the others as sterile and lifeless; their civility is a cheap, hollow mimicry that hides their teeth and claws?

The Carcerians developed an austere culture that prioritized keeping their Titan on complete lockdown to the point sacrificing themselves to achieve that goal. How do they view Caminus' offering to dismantle himself so his own children can thrive in such a harsh environment?

How do diplomacy and common courtesy differ from each planet? The language and food? The behaviors? The relations with nearby neighbors, both mechanical and organic?

[non-un-topo]

Young adults kaysanova?

[mxsoyo]

[p4nishers]

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Tumblr isn't letting me find again @fictionadventurer's and my own posts on epistolary novels, but I have been thinking about it again, because I fell down a Goodreads review rabbit hall and I have thoughts again.

So many people dislike the style, and honestly, I don't blame them, because it's so often done... not well. It is in some aspects, a deceptively easy one, and in others, deceptively hard. And because I'm trying to write a novel with this format myself, I have been thinking about what makes or breaks an epistolary novel.

I talked yesterday about TGLPPS, because it is an interesting case to analyze. I have thought many times about it, and cannot think of a single non-merely-aesthetic reason for it to be told in an epistolary style. A lot of it depends on -British- people who have survived some terrible war conditions willingly opening up to a stranger about their experiences, and that's made... even more difficult if the medium is letters? typically writers will appeal to tropes like making the reserved character drunk, or have them share an extreme experience in isolation with the stranger to create sudden intimacy. None of this is possible in writing; if anything, one is much more self-conscious about the things one writes than the things one says; verba volant, scripta manent.

It seems to me the story would have flowed much more naturally if Juliet had been stranded on Guernsey for some reason -like the first author herself!- suddenly Dawsey commenting that he got a book from her library makes so much more sense! Yes, certainly, if you met a stranger out there, and they introduce themselves and you realize you have a book that once belonged to them, you would tell them so! And it is in this way that the epistolary format does violence to a story that would otherwise sound much less contrived.

Another problem is the large cast of characters and multiple settings. For all I complain about Dracula, Stoker manages this pretty well (of course he has the model of The Woman in White, but TWiW has fewer povs), at least on the first half, because structurally the storylines of the characters are converging, and that does a lot to guide the reader in the understanding of the character's relationships. TGLPPS's relationship structure is more of a multidirectional flow chart, and that becomes confusing really fast.

Another novel I read reviews for recently is one set in WWI, composed of back and forth letters between two lovers torn apart by war, and one common complaint was... that the climactic scenes, the times they meet, etc all happen... off-camera. It is a fair complaint, but also one I cannot really blame the author for, because that's what usually happens with real life compilations of letters of that kind. Sure, usually the editor/compiler will fill in the blanks sometimes and add an epilogue of sorts explaining what happened afterwards, and that is possible if you are writing it fictionally too, but some may think it spoils the effect of immediacy and whatnot, which, fair too.

But it makes me think of how aware Jean Webster was of these difficulties, and how deftly she managed them in both Daddy Long-Legs and Dear Enemy. Both novels have aged badly in terms of content and message, but they are very interesting stylistically.

DLL is a bildungsroman with a dash of romance; through Judy's letters to daddy long-legs we can see how she grows as a person, gaining independence intellectually and economically, and as a writer, as her grammar and vocabulary change and grow. Between making Judy an orphan who hates the orphanage where she has lived her whole life, and one where she lived past the usual age of being thrown into the world, Webster does away with the need for letters between Judy and her friends and family: all her friends and family are her college roommates and her benefactor, who is the person she writes to. The benefactor scheme also makes it so that she doesn't have to write dll's replies, which in turns makes it much more natural and acceptable for the reader when Judy writes him the ending's love letter describing the feelings and impressions of their finally meeting in person and in truth; Judy has become a writer, and she is so used to write to him as another person all the time, that it just makes sense for her to write to him one more letter at the point where her benefactor and her lover become one and the same person. She has written a novel where the core is the correspondence between lovers AND managed to include as well all the moments of their meetings that we would otherwise miss.

Dear Enemy is a similar, but longer and more ambitious story. Instead of one relationship-connection (Judy and Daddy's), we have Sallie as a nod of connections: she's Judy's friend, Jarvis' "employee", the boss of several characters, has a tense colleague-boss relationship with the visiting doctor, a boyfriend of sorts in Washington, and a family we have met before. It is, in that way, a similar setup to TGLPPS: a urban girl of means becomes a fish out of water in a different setting till she ends up assimilating to it, and settling definitely through marriage. But Webster does a few things differently to make it click.

For starters, it is clear to her that this is the story of Sallie's maturation -I have sometimes talked of Dear Enemy as a novel where a Mary Crawford-like character undergoes a transformation arc. The happenings and stories she meets and tells Judy about along the way serve this arc, besides standing on their own as case studies to illustrate the problems, ideology and solutions proposed to the secondary themes of the story (education and social reform). I feel like TGLPPS is much more interested in Guernsey's survival through the war, in which case Juliet's story is already a frame, which, again, makes the epistolary format cumbersome rather than complementary.

Dear Enemy adds more correspondents, but it is very austere/economical with them, and narrows the letters we see to only those Sallie sends. YMMV regarding if it was too much cutting or not, but the undeniable effect is structural soundness; you are never confused by what is happening or who is writing to whom. We can guess the Honorable Cyrus Wykoff probably wrote some indignant letters to Jervis, and those would be funny to read, but... would they be worth the break in the flow of the narrative? I don't think so. To this effect, just having Sallie write a line to the effect of "I expect at this point you have at hand an irate letter from the Hon. Cyrus" is enough to paint a picture for the reader. Perhaps a letter or two from Dr. MacRae would have helped develop his character more -definitely a first read of the story obscures how much misdirection there is in Sallie's narration to Judy, which in turns tends to create an impression of suddenness to the closing letter that doesn't come across well to the reader.

The choice of Sallie mainly writing to Judy is, IMO, a really good one too. It not only establishes a connection with DLL, but it also allows for the intimacy that makes disclosure believable (something TGLPPS struggles with, as I mentioned above). When you add a few letters to the doctor and Gordon and Jervis, you also get a better perspective of Sallie's personality, how she deals not only with a friend, but with acquaintances, romantic partners and coworkers.

From all this it is pretty evident that for Webster the main function of epistolarity as format is aiding in showing psychological and moral development. But that's not the only thing the format can be really good for: perspective is another, and Austen uses it to great effect in both Lady Susan and Lesley Castle.

Both stories deal with mainly static characters, but who have very strong perspectives of the same situation, and it is this singularity of setting and story that anchors the narrative to avoid confusion, while the variety of perspective brings interest. In Lady Susan, we are dealing mainly with the marrying off of Frederica and seduction of Mrs. Vernon's brother, Reginald. There where Lady Susan paints Frederica as an undisciplined, irrational and ungrateful daughter, her sister in law, Mrs. Vernon, paints her as a sweet girl and a victim of her mother's ruthlessness and lack of love. Both agree that Reginald is being seduced, but, of course, with opposite goals: Lady Susan wants him to succumb, Mrs. Vernon, to escape, and this is a delicious struggle for the reader to follow!*

Lesley Castle being an earlier effort, and unfinished, does show some of the defects I have mentioned before (mainly, the relative confusion of having several correspondents in separate storylines), but illustrates well this same perspective effect: Margaret writes to Charlotte about the new Lady Lesley, and the new Lady Lesley writes to Charlotte about about Margaret and her sister... and in these contrasts lies the main interest of the narrative.

Some conclusions to these musings, then:

Not every story is suited to the epistolary format.

The epistolary format seems to work the best when it is used for either A) showcase psychological and moral development B) to play with perspective on people and/or events.

One of the main difficulties of the format is finding a narrative element to anchor and structure the letters around.

It must have a core couple of correspondents, or at most, two. More than that will make it confusing (unless, perhaps, the story is very short and about a single event or two).

A delicate balance must be found so that the secondary correspondence doesn't cut the flow of the main one, and if possible it must feed into it.

*It is interesting how Love and Friendship, being such a delightful -and I sustain one of the best ever- Austen adaptation, is by force of the perspective switch towards a more impersonal third person, more about a love story between Frederica and Reginald than a struggle between Lady Susan and Mrs. Vernon. Which isn't dissimilar to how adaptations of DLL end up being more about the romance between the leads than Judy's coming of age in college; tropes aside, I feel like if the epistolary format is well embedded in the story, it's going to be nearly impossible to reproduce the effect in adaptation.

[mochasucculent]

Yea idk how I haven't shared them here yet but here's some doodles of Tabitha and "Apathy" (she ain't got a name yet), the two protags of my ghost story!

Grieving after the sudden loss of her grandmother, Apathy accidentally becomes bound to the spirit of Tabitha, a young girl who was murdered in the 1870s. Stuck together in unfamiliar circumstances, the two must discover how to send Tabitha on to the afterlife, and if they even can.

UPDATEEEEEEEEE Apathy's name is Naomi :)

[long-song-a]

the eleventh doctor's arc truly comes so full circle! it’s the story of a mad gods hard, angry conflict between responsibility and fantasy. from the moment he crashes into amelia’s backyard, he’s like something of a fairy tale; a phantom, a wise man, a hero. a mad man who can disappear just as quickly whence he came. and when he returns, has the ability to turn one’s entire world around— without a single thought for any damage he may have caused along the way. he didn’t just forget his part in the time war: he’s quick to forget a lot, to go too far, to never look back. to never question himself. he hurries on to the next place, becomes a legacy within a few hours on some planet, in some time, and calls it a day. until he begins again. he is the dreamer of improbable dreams, because he requires that divide from reality.

he is “the man who forgets” because he needs to seperate himself from who he was, he needs this new perspective, he needs the worship, someone relying on him, and only him. “i took you with me because i was vain. because i needed to be adored.” eleven began his life as a goofy, kind soul who would happily spend his first moments eating fish fingers and custard with a child, and promise her adventure. the fantasy. yet he’s also a man who would disappear for fifteen years and never provide a legitimate apology. the avoidance of responsibility. (until the god complex, of course.) he calls the atraxi back to earth because it allows him to fulfil the role of a hero in some fantasy, to show off in front of amy, to be that whimsical, magical figure she saw him as when she was a child. to uphold that image. he wants to be a story, he doesn’t want commitments. not to mention the fact that amy literally dreams him back into existence, that her belief in him made him whole again.

the doctor hates endings. he rips the final page out of his books because he can’t stand the thought, the concept. he doesn’t want the adventure to conclude, he doesn’t want the reality to seep through. he doesn’t want the stories to ever end, because in his mind, he is the greatest story of them all. (i’m not even going to go into his arc in season six because i need a whole separate post for that. season six is the consequences of all these actions. and hoo boy. it is brilliant.)

the day of the doctor, i believe, is really the turning point for eleven. the man who forgets arc forcing him to face the consequences of his actions, to step down from the mad man in a box pedestal he’s reigned on for this entire incarnation. he finally takes full responsibility on trenzalore, by sending the TARDIS, and clara away so he can stand and fight for the remaining centuries of his life. he wants to run, to flee, the idea of staying in one place so very terrible (but he takes responsibility, sees the reality, sees he can't just help out for a bit, then saunter back into his box) and he stays. he sends away the TARDIS because he knows he’ll take the easy way out, and step safely inside her doors.

not to mention the hard, in your face symbolism of the christmas town in trenzalore quite literally looking like it came right out of a fairy tale. visually, this is how the doctor wants to live, he wants the whimsical, to live like a storybook. he wants only the middle of the book, before the conflict, before the hero has to make a hard choice. but when he does achieve it, when he arrives in that fairy tale-esque town, it becomes the reality he’s chosen to live, with more responsibility, more bravery than this incarnation has ever shown. he’s rewarded for his nine centuries of responsibility because he’s no longer running towards the fantasy. he can separate the difference, and can find happiness in staying put. he ultimately becomes the heroic raggedy man amy idolised far too long, he’s earned the title, he’s become the doctor.

[vyuntspakhkite-l-darling]

Listening to Abstract (Psychopomp) and it's fucking me up actually. Goddamn. Anyway time to write a scene that would totally have that song playing over it if it were a movie

[protect-namine]

I was thinking the other day that man, kokuto neji is such a character and I haven't liked a writer character like this since... shang qinghua?

which naturally led me to this thought: jj fic with svsss-style au where neji transmigrates/gets isekai'd into the world of havenna. as domina, of course.

it's extra fucked up imo because at least when sqh transmigrated in his book, he made up all of those characters and they mostly stayed in the realm of fantasy. like, sure, lbh was kinda based on himself in some ways and mbj was his ideal fantasy, but they still mostly stayed fictional, you know? sqq (sy) had to fix his plots because the characters sqh wrote strayed too far from their original plotlines

but theater makes a fictional world a bit too real and personal, especially when you use real people as inspirations for your writing. with neji, he'd be looking at rukiora and see three different people (mitsuki acting as rukiora; rukiora who was written based on a younger version of neji; rukiora who is her own person in this weirdly real world of havenna). neji would see fugio and to him that is both sou acting as fugio and the fugio who grew up with poison flowers. miguel is both fumi and the guy who ran away from his neshiromi fields. the only constant would probably be chicchi. she is too much like kisa in that... well. neji didn't really have a backstory for chicchi. chicchi is a blank canvas just like kisa is as an actor.

anyway. yeah, very sv-style character arc where neji, much like shen yuan in sv, is forced to humanize the villain. except this villain was his creation and is also tied to a bunch of personal issues for neji that he Doesn't Want To Think About and also he doesn't? really understand the character he wrote tbh?

isn't art supposed to process your emotions for you!! why must he process these himself!!

can you imagine neji, who always casts himself as a seer of some sort (fortune teller, ushinoko) or someone who generally has some control over his future or his "creation" (who is mary if not just another side of neji anyway; she's takihime redux, and takihime is also. neji). imagine this dude being transported inside the play he wrote but he doesn't understand it and he has no control over it and everyone's acting both in character and out of character. he both knows and doesn't know these people. they're fictional but also... real? does he treat them as real people? is domina real? he wanted his actors to imbue parts of themselves into his characters. are these people really just characters from a script? are they his quartz classmates? is he allowed to even hope that that's the case?

it's both THE improv exercise of his dreams and also. a nightmare

[cheeryknots]

awe hell yea here we go bitches

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

5, 18 & 19 for the fanfic ask!

Hello and thank you for the questions!!

5. first sentence of the fifth paragraph of an unpublished WIP

“I have to say, Blanche,” Rose says, settling back against Blanche’s side, “I know you explained it to me, but I still don’t get it.”

18. if you keep them, share a deleted sentence or paragraph from a published fic

I don't really keep deleted sentences/paragraphs, unless they're full concepts for a scene that I might want to use in another WIP, but I did find a couple of sentences from an early draft of i would have said impossible [...] that got heavily edited by the final cut. I'll bold the parts that got kept in the final work:

"She likes to think she hid it well. She tried to, at least; bit back the most acidic jokes, tried to keep a hold on her sarcasm. It's not her roommates' fault if she's had a bad day, is it? So she tries. She listens, and she's patient, and she's affectionate -- and they seem happy. That must count as a success.

And yet, when she's finally alone in her room and ready to call it a night -- then Rose comes, carrying tea and cookies on a tray.

It's strange. She told Ma earlier that she'd like to be alone tonight, and before the door opened she only wanted to get into bed and forget everything until tomorrow morning. Then Rose came in, and she'd be lying if she said a single hint of her perfume and a single glance at her reassuring smile aren't enough to calm her nerves."

The gist of the passage remained more or less the same, but I hope it counts anyway!

19. the most interesting topic you’ve researched for a fic

I'm not sure I can choose the most interesting one -- I love learning and I've had a lot of fun with every rabbit hole I've found myself in for a fic! The most charming one, though, was definitely the little ornithology detour I went on while I was writing sonata for trio, which was a classic case of 'I only needed to find the right simile to add in this sentence, how the hell did I end up on the Wikipedia page for the American Robin?'. I learned a lot, and birds are so cute -- especially robins!! I had a great time reading about them :)

(I'm not counting my research on karst and sinkholes as a valid answer for this questions, because I already knew the topic well enough, but I did spend a lot of time fact-checking what I wrote. I don't want to spread misinformation!)

[✍️ more fic writer asks!]

[taluvi-does-stupid-things]

You're worth more than what they say, dear

Taluvi_does_stupid_things

Summary:

“Do you want to talk about it?” Miss Cheery asked attentively. Morrigan nodded, fidgeting with her pen: “I don’t know, Jupiter says not all Wundersmiths were evil,” Her voice shook. “But Onstalds book describes all these terrible things they did, and- and I can’t find a way any of these things could be good.” “That’s the key word. They did all of those terrible things. You’re not them Morrigan Crow. You weren’t born evil, and you sure won’t turn out to be!”   or: Morrigan is upset and frustrated wih herself and Onstald. Miss Cheery helps her with her homework and they talk.

Notes:

Thank you so much @pxme-granate for letting me write one of your ideas!

Rating:

General Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Fandom:

Nevermoor Series - Jessica Townsend

Relationship:

Marina Cheery & Morrigan Crow

Characters:

Morrigan Crow

Marina Cheery

Ezra Squall (mentioned)

professor Onstald (mentioned)

Additional Tags:

Hurt/Comfort

Teacher-Student Relationship

Hawthorne is kinda ooc in this

i had to for ansgt' sake

Words: 871

Chapters: 1/1

[kemendin]

So I essentially keep to my own little sandbox when it comes to SWTOR, my own characters and stories. BUT, sometimes @certified-anakinfucker's Darrash comes over to play with Khel and Quinn. Thoughts happened, talks happened, sobs happened, and while the background circumstances are my fault, this scene is very much to be blamed on Cheeri!

Anyway, no polish here, just feels and word vomit. CW for mention of character death.

Darrash Nealev. The name dredges something out of the tangled mess that’s been steadily replacing Quinn’s once-orderly brain over the last few days. Muddied memories of a small, slouched figure, a cocky grin made wider by scars that split across warm brown cheeks. Green eyes flicking around, a gaze both distracting and distracted. Never keeping still, constant jittering, fingers fiddling with the settings of a sniper rifle long enough that it must threaten to trip him up - No. Not Darrash. Cipher Nine. An agent. An assassin. The thought catches in Quinn’s roiling brain, latches on, digging, twisting, so that almost before the door has closed again behind his unexpected visitor, Malavai has already moved - ramming the other man bodily into the nearest wall, pinning him there, as the business end of his blaster pushes hard into the hollow place beneath Cipher Nine’s chin.

For once, there’s no easy roll of a neck or shoulder, no cocksure remark dropped casually from the space between flashing teeth. There’s almost no reaction at all, and for some reason Quinn finds this infuriating, and his blaster bites harder, forcing the agent’s head back - the only movement Nine has made, save for the barely perceptible trembling of his lithe body against the wall.

Their eyes meet, furious blue boring into now-muted green, and Quinn actually sees it, for the first time - true fear fluttering in the other man’s gaze. And hell, he should be afraid, because the stubble is thick on Quinn’s too-pale jaw and the hollows of his eyes are burning with unsummoned tears and his teeth are bared as though he’s only a moment away from tossing aside the blaster and using his jaws instead to rend the life from Nine’s throat.

But then words croak from that throat, thin and terrified:

“You - you think I did it.”

And in these last few moments, in the wild rampage of his grief, that’s exactly what Quinn has thought. Because who better than the infamous yet unknowable Cipher Nine to carry out such an act - to peer through the scope of a prototype sniper rifle and drive a Force-rending bolt into the unsuspecting back of the Empire’s Hand?

A tremor runs through his own hand as the memory grips him again; he shoves it aside by jamming the blaster even harder against the underside of Nine’s chin, till the man’s head is clamped in the vise formed by Quinn’s need for retribution and the unyielding wall behind him. He should say something, he needs to say something, but it’s lodged in his throat as though he’s the one trying to swallow and breathe beneath a blasterpoint. So instead it’s Nine who speaks again, soft, scared, not quite a plea, but an entreaty nonetheless:

“Quinn, please think about this. If I killed Khel, would I be standing here unarmed?”

Rationality, logic - these things have not been heeded or welcomed in Malavai’s broken brain. All semblance of reason has given way to the tidal wave of heartbreak, rushing in to fill the terrible hollow left behind by Khel’s death. 

But now they nudge gently at him, circling, coaxing him to stop, and breathe, and think. Quinn stares at the agent, sucking in harsh breaths that tinge his tongue with the mud he can smell hanging on the other man. He searches the Cipher’s still stiffened face for any hint of deception, of guilt, but there’s nothing, nothing but fear and a fragmented pain, and slowly, wretchedly, realisation finally takes hold.

It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Darrash.

And yet, even as he feels the fury draining from his limbs, Quinn remains there for another moment, the blaster still pressed tight to Darrash’s tilted chin, because if it wasn’t Darrash he doesn’t know who, and now he has no outlet for the anguish still building unbearably inside him.

But then the moment passes. Quinn withdraws the blaster, steps back, pivots away from the terrified agent; a second later he hurls his weapon into a corner of the room, letting out a sound more akin to a wounded nexu than a decorated officer of the Imperial military; and then he buries his face in his hands, as though skin and flesh and bone might somehow be strong enough to hold the magnitude of the grief once more retching from his mouth.

[shoezuki]

Hello I am eating the Doctor The Problem's fic so much. I. have looked at every single fic with the character tag sampo on ao3 and I am so so starved for good old fashioned Beating Up My Silly Bastard Man. Estatic to see him in pain I can only be happier when there is emotional resolution and communication (fingers crossed lol). Thank you for your contributions, your fics are some of the most well-written ones I've found since I started being obsessed with this bastard almost a year ago.

!!!! I am so glad u love it holyfuck???? God hfkdb. I Too enjoy puttin the blorbo through the horrors and also i Promise this Will absolutely have a happy ending. Like i love angst but i Need it to have a positive resolution to it. They Will suffer and may be irrevocably changed in the end but i swear to god they will have at the very least a 'bittersweet' ending if not a happy one.

[teleportationmagic]

read batgirl 2009

I have read Batgirl 2009. I have reread Batgirl 2009. I am currently on my third reread of Batgirl 2009. It's very dear to me as the book that essentially got me to actually check out comics more broadly, and it occupies wayyyyyy too much of my brainspace at any given moment - hell I've written fic about it!

However, while it makes motions towards being a coming of age story - the biggest way probably being in settling Steph's relationships with the Batfamily more broadly and Tim and Bruce more specifically, there's not really as much exploration of Steph as I'd like - for example, where does she go after this? What does she want now? Who does she want to be? Batgirl for her is well, seeing something through. It's a promise she can't leave unfulfilled, and a chance to be more than what she was, but that's not... that's not an identity. That's a chance to explore what her identity could be, unhindered by other's expectations of her failure and her own desperation. And I think while it was going in that direction and might have gotten there if it had more time, it just... couldn't, cause the universe went boom. So we get to see threads of it, like her lean into hope as a part of her motivation, but there's just not enough.

(Every day I weep that we couldn't get to the angstier year 3. Ah well)