#even if they've historically wrote a lot of things people like

[sarahreadstoomanycomics]

I must admit sometimes it gets tiring week after week reading comics and thinking to myself “Man people are going to get mad/fight about this”. Only to be proven right every single time. 

[hms-no-fun]

I know you said you're cautiously optimistic about HS2, but the newest blog post has me kinda worried. The talk of "fixing the fans broken trust" and how even the new writers don't like a lot of story decisions that were made by the old team seem really off to me, like it's throwing the old team under the bus. I want to expect good things from HS2 but when the people working on it don't seem to like the story as it stands right now it really just seems like they might bend over backwards to appease the shitty side of the fandom. What do you think about this whole thing?

this is in reference to the october 30th 2023 news update on the hs:bc website. i give the date because the news posts don't seem to have individual links atm, so if you're reading this in the future you might have to scroll back.

to your worry that the new team might bend over backwards to appease the shitty side of the fandom, i wrote at length in my prior hs:bc post about why i don't think that's gonna be a problem. i'd also caution against reading too much into what james says about the attitude of the hs:bc team at large, for reasons that should be apparent by the end of this post.

i think it's perfectly reasonable to take a diplomatic position towards a fandom that is historically very hostile to this continuation. a lot of people haven't read the epilogues/hs2 and hate on them anyway because of what they've been told they contain, and refuse to question those received opinions on principle. many who did read them seem to have been inattentive or otherwise needlessly aggressive, sometimes owing to a baffling refusal to accept the premise of postcanon. plenty of others maybe just need a reason to think that homestuck is for them again. for this project to succeed, the fandom at large needs to be given a reason to revisit the epilogues/hs2 from a position of safety and critical distance. i have my own barbed opinions about this state of affairs, but it is what it is.

i understand and to an extent share your misgivings over that Q&A post, but it simply is not james roach's job to relitigate the conduct of the hs2 team. to even broach the subject in more than a general sense would constitute the opening of a massive can of worms, because the truth is muddy. mistakes were made on all sides, some worse than others, and to really contextualize where the hs2 team were coming from you'd need to explain the history of the hs fandom, the leadership of the reddit/discord, the overall tenor of twitter post-2016 and especially leading into/during 2020, the history of pgen and the homestuck renaissance, the lack of PR training or oversight or guidance from anyone at WP, the history of audience hostility in homestuck, and on, and on. for what it's worth, i think that context is essential-- but i don't know that anyone working on this project ought to be the ones to tell it (nor do i think they want that responsibility), and a brief casual Q&A post as a halloween treat is certainly not the place to publish it.

and ultimately, none of that has much at all to do with hs:bc. they are not beholden to or responsible for the choices made by the hs2 team. they have been entrusted with the reins of this story, and with that trust comes their own admitted desire to take it in different directions than what was initially planned. the hs2 team did this to the outline andrew hussie gave them; it's only fair that the hs:bc team has the same leeway over the outline they inherited. acknowledging fault in prior leadership, admitting disagreement over past creative decisions, is an olive branch to a largely skeptical fandom. i bristle at some of this because the hs2 team were my friends and i'm very protective of their work and that moment in history, but that isn't james roach's (nor the hs:bc team's) cross to bear. his choice, as the new public face of homestuck, is to move forward rather than linger on the past. it's good that he's burying the hatchet, frankly. i'm sick of that fucking thing.

love it or hate it, agree or disagree, the hs:bc crew has to exercise diplomacy right now. they've reopened the patreon and want to sustain this project for the foreseeable future, ideally without subjecting the workers to intensely traumatic levels of scrutiny and harassment. this involves clearing up miscommunications, admitting fault, gesturing at shared disagreements over story direction, and otherwise putting on a friendly face for strangers. and let's be clear, i know for a fact that plenty on the original hs2 team had a panoply of disagreements with the choices made in the epilogues! the operative condition here is not unquestioning devotion to / hatred of prior material, but a willingness to build upon that prior material constructively regardless. that's what matters most to me, and i have every reason to believe they're taking the constructive route.

i'll end this saying what i've been saying from the start. the measure of this project's success or failure should be taken in the work itself. if james roach blanket dismissed the prior team, but hs:bc constructively evolved in a way that didn't invalidate or undercut prior material, i'd still consider us oldschool hs2 fans the winners. i wouldn't be HAPPY about it, but the art is what we're all here for, and it's the art that people will remember. i think often about how the showrunners of the tv series LOST insisted from day one until the very end that everything in the show had a scientific explanation, despite the fact that they *always knew* this was a bald-faced lie. they told this lie because ABC did not want to fund a fantasy show and would've canceled it otherwise. some fans to this day decry the lack of scientific explanations in the text of the show, even when you point out that the promise of such explanations was false from the start.

point is, there are material realities to leading a creative enterprise. james roach has put himself in a genuinely dangerous and scary position, a fact that's easy to forget with how casual and welcoming his posts have been thus far. but this is perhaps the single most mismanaged property of the internet age, and there's no walking that back without stepping on some toes. over-correction is expected and probably necessary. if it ruffles your feathers, that's fine-- but let the work speak for itself, and judge it on its own merits. all this other stuff is ancillary and will inevitably fade into the distant fog of time.

[cherrylng]

My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade final US tour live report [ROCKIN'ON (July 2008)]

MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE

The Black Parade's ‘final’ US tour. 3 West Coast shows & finale in New York follow-up report!

Text & text photo : Yukiko Amida

13th Feb. A newsletter arrived informing us that My Chemical Romance would be touring the US from the end of March. "Before trying to make a new album, we decided to take another turn", it said, "When we started this band, we could feel you guys right in front of us. It's time to give that another go. See you soon," they wrote. I knew they would probably play one last show in the US to close it out, but I was surprised to find out that they would be travelling around the country for over a month. They had started touring the world just before the album release, starting with Summer Sonic in 2006, and had been touring without a break, with a schedule that would leave you breathless just by watching them. In the meantime, they've grown into an arena-class band thanks to the huge success of their album, and now they've dared to choose a smaller venue for the real ‘end’ of The Black Parade….. I want to see this at all costs! I want to see it too much!!! So I decided to fly to the West Coast. I decided to go to the West Coast at the beginning of April because Eddie Vedder had announced that he was going on his first solo tour around the same time, limited to 10 shows. I made the strongest dream travel plan in my history: to see Eddie twice in Vancouver, then see My Chemical Romance in San Francisco, stay at a friend's house in Bend, Oregon for a few days, see My Chemical Romance twice in Portland and return to Japan. Remembering that the Philadelphia show I was supposed to go to last May was cancelled due to food poisoning among the members, I was praying that they wouldn't eat chicken…

4th Apr. From Vancouver to San Francisco after Eddie's dense stage performance, where I had to check several times to make sure my nose wasn't bleeding. I was at the airport early in the morning at 5.30am, eating a lot of Burger King to prepare for My Chemical Romance, which was 15 hours away. I arrived at the hotel around noon and went to the front of the venue to see fans who had slept in the night before (this was the second day in San Francisco) wrapped in blankets and about 30 people already lined up. I had a reserved seat ticket that day, so I went back to the hotel and took a nap, and when I came back at the opening time, there was a long queue that surrounded the venue for one block. Every time I go to a My Chemical Romance show, especially overseas, I always think that the fans are young. And I feel they are getting younger and younger every year. While we were shivering with body warmers on, most of them were enjoying themselves in short sleeves, saying things like "Oh no, it's a bit cold…". There were a lot of kids with their parents, and I thought I must be the oldest fan who wasn't with a child, so I finally entered the venue, stood in another long queue, bought a bunch of T-shirts and took my seat. The Warfield is a historic venue where the Grateful Dead played their 15th anniversary show in 1980, and has a large theatre-like balcony with reserved seating above the standing floor. Even at the top, the steep incline gives a good view of the stage, and for a capacity of 2,000 people, it feels quite intimate. The first support act, Drive By, is already well known amongst My Chemical Romance fans (vocalist & guitarist Todd [Price]* filled in for Frank on the Japan tour last January when he had to return home to the US after a sudden illness!), and the floor was hot from early on. Billy Talent, who followed, had interrupted work on his new album to rush in and gave a performance that made you feel he was at the top of his game, with his creativity on the rise. The girls in the back were screaming so loudly that even using torn toilet paper as ear plugs hardly helped, and the double punch of Benjamin's super high-pitched vocals was already crushing my ears…….. But the next time the lights went down, I had taken out my earplugs, and when My Chemical Romance appeared on stage, the volume increased by a factor of 100 and I was surrounded by screams, but then the intro and start of ‘Thank You For The Venom’ and the huge sing-along from the start blew it all away, and I forgot about my ears.

Considering that Mikey was not present at last year's Budokan concert, I was first of all moved just by the fact that all the members were there, and furthermore, they were now brimming with energy generated by the sense of accomplishment and liberation they felt after having performed The Black Parade as their second ego and shedding that, they looked dazzlingly bright. The aggressive ‘This is How I Disappear’ was like a shower of super-high water pressure, with every single note coming down from the stage with such force that it shook the entire venue with laughable catharsis, and ‘Dead!’ was the third song to bring the crowd to a climax, and I nearly fell off the balcony when I heard the guitars that started next. Hey, this is ‘Hang 'Em High'!! This song, which continues to be the most played song on my now antique iPod mini, was finally available to me live!! It's impossible, it's even cooler than the album, the guitar is so far forward and the vocals aren't muffled at all, I want to listen to it at home with this much volume… I kept thinking about it, almost letting myself go and then rushing back to consciousness, and as I kept repeating it, I realised that it was only 2 minutes and 45 seconds long to begin with. It's a short song, so it was over in no time at all.

And then, before I could even think about it, I heard the keyboards for ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’ and suddenly my head was clear. Seeing Gerard, who had mic'd the audience several times since the start of the show, listening intently to everyone's singing, I felt I understood why My Chemical Romance had decided to do this tour one last time. They are making sure. The band has grown through the experience of making this album and living through their own fears and what "The Black Parade" was for them, for their fans, and the fans who have taken in their image and message have also grown to the point where they can sing in their own voices, "We'll carry on"—I felt that they were confirming this with their own eyes and ears. This feeling was reinforced towards the end of ‘Famous Last Words’, which Gerard began by saying, "It's still the hardest song I've ever sung". Gerard seemed relieved to hear the audience singing in a firm voice, "I am not afraid to keep on living / I am not afraid to walk this world alone", as he had stated publicly that "I'll be taking a break for the next two years, so this will be my last tour for now". Another emotional moment of the day was when Gerard returned to the dark stage after the end of ‘Cancer’ and a quiet keyboard solo, and sang (just a little bit) a slow version of their first song, 'Vampires Will Never Hurt You'. From there, the band rolled into ‘Give 'Em Hell, Kid’, followed by a vertical cover of Bob Dylan's 'Desolation Row', and closed with the classic 'Helena'. The band must have been pushing forward almost non-stop for nearly seven years since they started, but the band's uncanny energy, with not the slightest hint of fatigue or weariness, left me in awe.

8th April. We took a bus from Bend to Portland early in the morning, but to our surprise, it was completely covered in snow from late at night. But we arrived not too late, about three and a half hours, and there was no snow in Portland, but a light rain. I heard that Gerard was signing copies of “The Umbrella Academy”, a comic book he wrote himself, so I stood in line at the comic book store in the occasional sleet shower. After three freezing hours, I finally made it to Mr Way's** table and was about to have him sign my copy of the March issue of Rockin'On, which featured an interview with Mikey, when he seemed to take a liking to a full-page shot of his brother and a photo of him at the Budokan in Japan. He asked me repeatedly if he could have it, so I reluctantly, but with great pleasure, gave it to him. While I was still excited, I hit it off with a girl I met on the bus back downtown (I later discovered we were close in age and felt even closer to her……), and we decided to go to the show together. The Crystal Ballroom, the venue for the show, also has a long history, and is a popular venue for its dance floor that sways as if it were floating, and the beautiful and funky interior designed by McMenamins, which operates microbrew pubs all over Oregon and beyond. The front of the stage was packed, but the side partitioned bar area, which is only open to over-20s, was relatively empty and cosy. The day started with the dramatic ‘Sleep’, which took the audience by surprise. I had no idea that this song, which is so painful on the album, could sound so powerful in their current hands. The amazing power of the band grew with each song, with Ray's dynamic guitar playing, with his afro and physique looking even stronger, Bob's acrobatic drumming, which I have never seen before, with his hair longer and (for some reason) wearing a red flannel shirt, and Mikey, also with longer hair and more beautiful features, moving around and unleashing the bass. Frank's guitar seemed not to be in good shape that day, but his passion for playing was as strong as anyone else's. Confidence could be felt from every faint note of each sound. And speaking of confidence, Gerard, who had been persistently wearing long sleeves, was proudly showing off his upper arms as he wore sleeveless for the first time in a long time (since the hot Warped Tour, I think). The confidence that they had overcome something so huge, as if they were trying to repel the demons that had possessed them, made them look one or two sizes bigger than they were on stage. The last song of the second album, ‘I Never Told You What I Do For a Living’, was a joy to hear on this day! James, now an indispensable keyboard player, sang the Motley Crue classic ‘Home Sweet Home’ and the flow to ‘Cancer’ also made me cry.

9th Apr. Day 2 in Portland is Gerard's birthday! The mood was even more festive than usual, with a cake-shaped balloon raised by a fan at the edge of the stage. After the second song, ‘Dead!’, Gerard himself led the rendition of Happy Birthday, and even after the song, ‘This is How I Disappear’, the audience got excited with a huge chorus of “I want to listen to it one more time!” In the past two days, I've heard all three songs from "Live and Rare" that are not on the album. I was especially happy to hear ‘Kill All Your Friends’, which I had always wanted to hear live. This song was supposed to be the sixth song on The Black Parade, but was cut from the final version and released as the B-side of ‘Famous Last Words’, and when I first heard it, I thought it sounded simpler than the other songs, and I was convinced that the reason was to avoid making the album too long, but later I could see what Gerard meant when he said later, "I wish we had put it on the album". Behind the disturbing title of the song, ‘Kill All Your Friends’, there is the reality that ‘I’ am stuck in the town where I grew up, and the only time I can see ‘you’, my classmate who has left my hometown, is at someone's funeral. With the disappointment and fear that "you will leave again, and I will die here", I decided that, "I should kill my friend, because then I will see you again". It is an ironic expression of twisted feelings. And when they sing the part where they repeat "You'll never take me alive / Do what it takes to survive, 'cause I'm still here" in a live setting, they are giving each and every one of us who feels the same way the courage to stand up for ourselves. So the flow of this song and ‘I'm Not Okay’ is the strongest, and it is burned into my mind as an explosive climax that releases all the kids who are about to be torn apart by their pent-up feelings at once. I'm really glad I came to see it, thank you! I desperately suppressed the urge to get on a plane to Salt Lake City, the next venue, instead of Tokyo the next day.

Then 8th May. I was unsure about the last New York show when it was announced after I got my West Coast tickets, but after seeing this tour I became more and more determined not to miss this finale, so I flew to New York as well. Luckily, the Honda Civic Tour, headlined by Panic at the Disco, had just arrived in New York and I was able to catch the second day of the show. The stage was cute, with flower-decorated microphones and a papier-mâché set that looked like a school play, and they played their new album "Pretty. Odd." The new album's dreamy world was recreated, and it was a pleasant surprise to see the old and new songs complementing each other better than expected at the show. Can't wait to see them again at Summer Sonic!

Finally, 9th May. It has rained heavily since this morning. Passing by the entrance to the standing area of Madison Square Garden, plastic sheets, raincoats, chairs, and bags of snacks were strewn about, a testament to the large number of people queuing in the rain. In addition to being the finale of the tour, there was another reason why this show was so special, as Mikey wrote in his 25th February newsletter. 'About a year ago now, my brother brought me here to see Smashing Pumpkins. So I looked at my brother's face and said, "This is what I want to be…… We have to do this…… Someday we're going to be on that stage." We both felt exactly the same thing. And now we can announce the realisation of that dream performance.' After warming up with Drive By and Taking Back Sunday, which Adam [Lazzara] happily said was his dad's birthday, the bass line begins as if to give Mikey the leading role. When the dream performance started with 'Give 'Em Hell, Kid,' my heart was so hot that I was almost overcome with emotion. Surrounded by fans in the arena and in the stands next to the stage, the five of them looked more nervous than ever before, but this was soon swept away by the joy of having made their dream come true, and the air was filled with a sense of celebration and thanksgiving. Midway through the show, when Gerard wanted to sit everyone [the band] down to watch the Wave, Ray apparently whispered to him that they could do it standing up, but Gerard just laughed and shook his head and said, "No, we'll make it more dramatic!" and they ended up sitting down, and it was amazing to see a really dramatic huge wave of excitement rise up and flow throughout the stands. I'll never forget the smiling faces of the audience raising their hands and the members just smiling and looking on in disbelief.

Before the final song, ‘Famous Last Words’, Gerard told us an anecdote about seeing Smashing Pumpkins at this venue, and he said that Mikey brought him there. During the interlude, Gerard picked up Mikey from behind (he was still playing the bass!) and looked so happy. The song, played with such brotherly love, was filled with more joy and hope than I could ever have imagined. Countless mobile phone lights flashed during ‘Desert Song’, and a huge chorus echoed through the last song, ‘Helena’, as if they were regretting every second that passed. The final "goodbye, goodnight" turned into a scream, and amidst truly head-splitting applause and cheers, Gerard said. "Even if we never do another show, we'll keep on living—" These last words have caused a stir, with some people thinking it means the end of the band, but when I heard them there, and now that I've written them down, I can't help but feel a little more pleased to have made it this far, and less anxious about it. It was The Black Parade that opened with the song ‘The End’ and showed me that the end is the beginning. And the end of the tour, when we see where it has led us, shows us that the place is so beautiful and that we are so much stronger for going there. When My Chemical Romance comes back to us again, we want to be able to make them proud. As one of the fans from all over the world who has been given more strength than I can take, that's all I can wish for now.

Getting pumped up at Burger King in the morning

The Warfield before the storm

From Portland to Bend by prop plane

Return trip by bus through snowy landscape

A stylish sign at the Crystal Ballroom

Bought a T-shirt without thinking

A flyer for Frank's Skeleton Crew / advertisement for the Portland show

A poster for a book signing with cartoonist Way-sensei (pics by Mycki)

A very personal New York specialty pancake that was treated to our correspondent Akemi Nakamura.

The brilliant stage of PATD decorated with flowers

The poster of the fateful Smashing Pumpkins concert was found at the venue!

Translator’s Note: Sooooo I bet some of you didn't see me coming in with this translation of a MCR live report, eh? 👀

Fun fact: In Japan, My Chemical Romance’s short name isn’t called ‘MCR’, but rather shortened down as “マイケミ / Mykemi”. Just like in the western world, it’s not unusual that Japanese fans will shorten band names to make it easier to pronounce, but in this case, it was shortened based on their writing system. You can see this with Red Hot Chili Peppers / Redochiri and Smashing Pumpkins / Sumapan, for example.

*I’ve checked on who Todd Price of Drive By is and, uhhhh, yeah… other than the frankly brief Wikipedia article about the band, it turns out he had just passed away earlier this year in March. Didn’t expect that when I Googled for more information, but here we are.

**In the original text, in this particular sentence, the journalist actually referred to Gerard as ‘Way-sensei’, an honorific term of respect towards him. But this sentence was the only instance that the word ‘sensei’ was conferred onto him, so most likely this was used while he’s Gerard Way the comic book artist, not as Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance. I used ‘Mr Way’ in that sentence instead as it still conveyed a form of respect towards him.

[khaire-traveler]

This is not an invitation for discourse. I am just stating my personal opinions.

I've been seeing some posts going around lately about myth retellings and wanted to give my opinion on something: I think the helpol community (maybe other polytheistic and pagan communities, too) is honestly too critical and intense about modern retellings (and even some historical ones as well somehow).

I know what it's like coming from that critical point of view. I used to be highly critical of certain retellings and stories that used Greek mythology. They used to deeply bother me, actually, but overtime, I realized that staying mad and fuming about these things I can't change - that will always be created - is really exhausting and even causes me to miss out on some truly interesting stories.

Also, seeing how intense some people can be about retellings has actively discouraged people in the community from writing them. How do I know this? I am one of those people, and I happen to know several others in the same predicament. Some people in the community will rip and tear and claw at retellings as if the retelling murdered everyone they loved. People talk about these retellings as if they're literally destroying the earth itself sometimes - like, seriously, y'all, it's wild.

Once, I saw someone post a short story they wrote - a retelling of a myth that I won't name, as I don't want to give the identity of this person away. This person posted this story with good intentions and was a worshipper of the figures depicted within the story, but still, they got absolutely dragged by larger Tumblr blogs and were torn into and literally chased off of Tumblr. This kind of behavior is not ok for multiple reasons, but the main point I'm trying to make is that we are actively making it harder for people within the community to write retellings. You want retellings from people who actually worship the gods? Then maybe make the community a much less judgmental place because sharing creative works takes a lot of courage as it is. Imagine building up the courage to create and share a retelling just to be ripped into by the very community you are a part of. I'm not saying you can't mention to someone when they've gotten something wrong or have written something potentially problematic, but I am saying that you shouldn't ruthlessly dissect someone's work and rip them a part if they seem to be well-meaning but misinformed (assume the best; not everyone is out to get us; easier said than done, I know). You can give criticism while still being respectful to the original author.

For many of these other authors, however, they likely don't even know that worship of these gods exists in the modern day, and even if they do know, acknowledging it may not be relevant to their story, or even their point. Sure, in a perfect world, these authors would acknowledge our little community and pay homage to actual ancient traditions/culture/etc, but we don't live in a perfect world, and that's ok. It is ok, y'all. Not every author writing a retelling is going to be a literal classics major or historian. Not every author writing a retelling is going to be educated on the actual ancient -or modern - worship of these gods. Not every author writing a retelling is going to pay homage to original source material. Do those things suck sometimes? Yes, absolutely. Do we need to lose our heads over it? No, not really. We can choose to focus on other things - on material and media that we actually enjoy and that do depict things how we'd like them to be depicted.

Now, none of this is to say that there are no problematic retellings or that speaking out on problematic retellings is wrong because hoo, boy, there are quite a lot of those. Some retellings claim to be historically accurate and are, in fact, not; some retellings are written by authors with less than ideal values and ideologies; some retellings are even based entirely on misinformation which can be frustrating to hear about. All of these things are true, but it's also true that not every retelling is out to get us. Not every retelling is trying to attack our small community and the gods we worship. As alarming and offensive as it can feel sometimes, it's important that we take a minute and realize that honestly, authors write stories, and sometimes a story is truly just meant to be a story. It's nothing personal. It feels like we, or our gods, are being attacked, but at the end of the day, we still have our own practices, and we are still allowed to engage with those practices. We are still allowed to worship our gods respectfully, even if others do not. And it is important to acknowledge here that others do not worship our gods. These authors are most likely not worshippers of the Theoi. They most likely do not have relationships with these gods as we do, and unfortunately, they may not have respect for these gods either. It would be ideal if they did, but they just might not, and there's no controlling that.

Honestly, most authors are trying their best. They're trying their best to write an interesting, authentic story that will capture the attention of their intended audience. They want to tell a story based on a mythology that inspired them so deeply, so carnally, that they felt the need to write a whole ass book or create a whole ass game about it. They see stories of tragic heroes, powerful gods, and all those caught in-between, and they think, "This is fucking epic; I'm gonna do something with this." Greek mythology is fucking cool. There's absolutely no denying that, and the fact that so many creators of all kinds continue to create retellings based on the love and passion of a mythology from over 2,000 years ago is pretty damn awesome, actually.

[skywalking-through-life]

🍄❄️📚

Loving that y'all have so many things that you'd like to ask me 🥹

🍄 - share a headcanon for one of your favorite ships or pairings

Y'all know I've gotta do percabeth, lol. Honestly though, it's hard to pick something I haven't already shared here, or written about in fic! A lot of my headcanons for them make their way, subtly and/or overtly, into my writing. 🤷‍♀️ But here's one I maybe haven't gone into yet: I think that once they settle somewhere, they both kind of become homebodies. They've done SO MUCH traveling as a result of terrifying, life-threatening quests over the years that I think it's lost some of its luster, and that staying home usually sounds infinitely more appealing to them! I don't mean to say that they don't even go on vacations, but I would imagine they are typically pretty chill vacations, with only a few bigger or more significant trips - they'd rather go to Montauk with Percy's family, visit Annabeth's in San Fran, see friends across the country, rent a cabin in the mountains to have a little more privacy, etc. I think international travel in particular makes them wary and a little anxious, and they probably only go if their kids/other friends and family want to go somewhere. I think they view travel as a means to an end - seeing loved ones, relaxing, etc - and don't find the idea of travel JUST for travels sake very exciting. Too many bad memories, too many times when a fun trip has been co-opted by monsters and peril and world-ending nonsense.

❄️ - what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

Hmm, this is such an interesting question! Like anybody and everybody I have favorite tropes, but I'm not sure I've ever had one particular dream theme/plot that I've held above all the others that I haven't been willing to try writing myself? I love love love historical AUs as a general category, and often wish there were more of them, but because I wish that, I'm trying to write one! 💀 I'm a big believer in people writing what makes them excited and happy, so I feel a little odd about asking someone to write what I want them to write, rather than what they want to write? That being said, I think @campercabeth could write a damn good LotR×PJO percabeth as Arwen and Aragorn crossover AU. 👀

📚 - what's the last thing you wrote down in your notes app?

Hilariously, this poll. Not going to give context, but vote for whatever you like best! 💀

[yellowocaballero]

Anyway.

How many works do you have on AO3? 54. Hm. I don't remember writing 54 fics. That's weird. But I've been posting since 2017 so when you THINK about it 54 fics over 7 years isn't weird at all.

What’s your total AO3 word count? 2.4 million. What's your point.

What fandoms do you write for? A fuckton. I write both things I'm hyperfixated on and for random shit that comes in my head. I was into TMA for like two years so I have the most TMA fic (16), but most of my fandoms are 3-5 fics maximum. There's also a lot of random-ass fics for random-ass fandoms that just jumped in my head. Artemis Fowl, Beetlejuice, Animorphs...demons that overtook me for two weeks or so and never bothered me again.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? The Great Gender Heist (Artemis Fowl, no surprise there.), stay out of trouble (Detroit: Become Human, I reliably forget that one exists and I'm still mystefied as to why so many people read it), meek shall inherit (I'm constantly attempting to forget the Be More Chill phase ever happened), someone will remember us (Batman, fic's not great, am still very fond of that au) and dead or alive (DBH, mediocre). Why the hell are the two Detroit: Become Human fics so popular? I hate DBH so much. I was so angry while writing those.

Do you respond to comments? I am absolutely terrible about responding to comments. I am sorry. I do read and appreciate all of them. It's because I always need to give a dialectical so comments take ages to write. If you do want to hear my thoughts on something, my inbox is your best bet for a way too lengthy response.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Hope, Etc for certain. I try really hard to write bittersweet at worst endings, and even the sad endings in my fics have hope in them. Hope, Etc definitely ends in a better place than where it began. But it's still very sad. I was thinking about a lot of lost loved ones while writing it. Fishhooks and reel to reel also have downer endings but that is because they are LITERALLY Star Wars.

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Uhhhh. The ending of Solitaire (and the MLM/WLW hostility series in general) is very sweet. It's meaningful because it demonstrates so much growth from everybody with very little cost. I almost said Go Straight At The Cul De Sac, because it showcases a happier world where horrible historical events were averted, but the ending will always be a little bittersweet because we understand how much Protag sacrificed to create that better world.

Do you get hate on fics? Sometimes people are kind of weird. The worst of it is usually just useless comments, though. I had somebody get pedantic about how briefly mentioning an SUV would be historically inaccurate, and how I should have mentioned a minivan instead - like, did you read that fic and think I was from the suburbs? Do I look like I know what a minivan is? Lol? If I've received any actual more severe stuff I have no idea, since I delete the comment and delete it from my memory. I've never gotten anything too bad. I've been called ablest like three times, which is objectively hilarious.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? If I could write smut I'd be making bank on Kindle Unlimited right now.

Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Probably the FE3H/BNHA one I'm writing right now that will never see the light of day. Just kidding. I don't actually think I've posted any real crossovers - I DO write them, I just kind of feel like they're cringe so I never post them. I write a lot of cringe shit that never sees the light of day.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not nearly popular enough for that.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Several people have mentioned wanting to do that, but nope.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Not technically. But I do want to give due honors to all of the friends who are SO instrumental in the building of the AUs, stories, characters, etc, that they've had a huge impact on the story itself. I try to recognize them by name in the fics themselves but my stories would look completely different if it wasn't for my friends. Definitely much worse.

What’s your all time favorite ship? I'll differentiate favorite ships and favorite fictional romances. For ships, it's much less about the ship and more about the role in the story. I tend not to pay a lot of attention to that while writing, but sometimes I get lost in my own sauce and I drive myself a bit nuts. I am very fond of Hanyookim, especially in my own ORV story. For romances? My top ten list of fictional romances is as follows: number one: naturally, Sasunaru -

What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? If it's up on AO3, it's done (with one or two very small exceptions - The Ending of Han Sooyoung epilogue I'll get to you I PROMISE). There's plenty of unfinished docs on my drive that I'll never finish, but that's because I decided that they weren't worth finishing.

What are your writing strengths? Dialogue and characterization. That's always been the case. I'm also pretty funny.

What are your writing weaknesses? Plotting. Action. Having stories that are not entirely dialogue. Where things happen and it's more than just people walking around talking. You know. Real stories -

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? Always valid. I remember reading one Hispanic author talking about how he doesn't like italicizing the Spanish in his stories because it's otherizing, and I agreed enough with him that I don't tend to italicize other languages either. Sometimes I do. I try to do it purposefully, and to convey something that can only be conveyed through the extra language. I'll also only do it if I can have a friend who speaks that language write it out for me, since gtranslate sucks and I want to ask the friend how such a thing would actually be said and colloquialize it. I like using ASL in fics, and I am just in general begging people to a) write it like any other language, and b) understand that it's different from other languages and can't be written exactly the same. If your Star Wars fanfiction has so much gratuitous Mando'a that I can't understand anything the clones or Mandos are saying I hate you.

First fandom you wrote for? Batman Beyond. Yes, I have a FFN account somewhere. Yes, I was eleven. Yes, it was Batman Beyond.

Favorite fic you’ve written? The best thing I've written is Twilight on Owl Creek Bridge. Favorite is New Wave. That sucker took two years to write (INSANELY long for me) and it is exactly the story I wanted to write. Stephanie's a character I've been writing since I was 15, and the feeling of writing Stephanie and NAILING her for the very first time was so satisfying.

Tagging @usaigi and uh any other writer mutuals you all know who you are.

[yonpote]

i think an interesting opposition to rpf that ive heard quite often over the years is people claiming that they've had friends who were a bit too invested in their relationships and had fanfiction written about them which they found weird or invasive. in that specific case, it makes a lot of sense to feel uncomfortable with any art or stories of real living people in sexual or romantic situations that they didn't consent to being in and then being shown said art and fic. rpf (at least before youtube) was always incredibly niche and considered generally weird, all the way back in star trek fandom days, but it's also kinda always existed. the 1960s mclennon fics dan joked about in his now deleted video about shipping culture WERE A REAL THING! one could argue shakespeare participated in rpf! (its on the wikipedia page about real people fanfiction i am not joking go check) or perhaps even the bible!!!!

but obviously with more historical tales, people don't really find a problem with that because they were all written so long ago and we've greatly mythologized a lot of the kings shakespeare wrote about for example where they may as well be fictional characters since we dont have any way of knowing their true personalities anymore, and with kings in the 15-1600s there was definitely no direct line of communication between royalty and the common people the way a modern day celebrity can easily just tweet to their fans about their everyday life.

i think the dawn of youtubers and internet fame and social media was the first time that the people being written about were actively discussing the stories that were being told, and the first time that people were directly sending them links to fics or art of them making out. (but correct me if im wrong! maybe paul mccartney has an interview out there where talks about having to sign a girl's beatles fanfic zine lmao.) but thats the first time anyone was actively talking about it outside of "oh, thats just a weird thing that some people do, lets just leave them in the corner" and it was the first time that this was being brought to people's attention at a much larger scale. even just in the phandom, a lot of comments under the reupload of dan's shipping video were like "this is the video that actually taught me what shipping was" (lmao @ dan accidentally creating his own beast of burden)

so it's just this unprecedented moment of this (being fully honest as a fic writer myself) Pretty Weird Thing That We Do coming into light. but it didn't just start with pretty boy youtubers or even boy bands.

and i could probably somehow tie this in with my whole thing about yaoi/slash as a genre created primarily by and for women not really being about gay men necessarily but rather a way for women to express parts of themselves that are generally repressed by using characters they can't project onto so they don't have to imagine themselves in more taboo scenarios that they secretly want to explore. but i think thats enough yap from me today lmao

[digitaldoeslmk]

This a little too complicated for a ask but, how do Chinese demons work, how do they come into being, how do their powers work, how do they get their powers, what types exist, what is the general feel about them since it not totally extermination, what type of civilization they have, what can they make like how do they get there weapons and armor, how strong are they physically, and for a joke you think the Armstrong canon is a mortal weapon that a author might not have thought of they wrote a demon is immune to all mortal weapons. (This why you don’t power scale historic mythical figures DEATHBATTLE.)

welcome back, bud! and, hoo boy that's a lot of questions ajhdadbjawdw

i'm assuming you mean in my au, but for most of them, i gotta point towards actual folk religion beliefs, since that is what i'm leaning on. and as most thing with real mythology, it's Complicated xvx

so, Chinese demons come in many shapes and sizes and have multiple origins and power levels, sometimes (but not always) related to their origins. i'd have to direct you to my own sources, aka the ever wonderful @journeytothewestresearch and his articles!

this one explains some of the basics and a few nuances of JTTW demons while also offering the book from which the information was acquired, and the one below is a wonderful compilation of a myriad deities in folk religion, as well as some info on how worship and the pantheon functions.

but for the sake of convenience, i'll do a quick run down under the read more uwu

to make a very complicated and deep topic veeery short, though. demons (Yao) are simply one class of being, like mortals and immortals. some demons (Yaoguai) are animals who cultivated (either through the Dao or Buddhist merit) themselves into demonhood. some become cultivated enough to shed their animal form and assume human form, which is generally considered pretty advanced. sometimes, they are just animals that for some reason grew to be Very Old, grew very large, and became demons. sometimes, they are restless spirits who lingered and cultivated into Yaojing. some even, are celestials and immortals who committed some misdeed or crimes, and were punished into being demons, either for a set time or until they've redeemed themselves somehow.

overall they don't have a specific "civilization", they are also part of the Middle Kingdom (the mortal realm) and exist within it or on the skirts of it. most of them are not unlike highwaymen or a very dangerous animal; they attack people on roads, they have mountain lairs and call themselves "mountain kings" over the region they control, etc. as demons, they often are on a bad path, killing and stealing and causing grief wherever they are, and so the locals learn to avoid them as much as possible and call on exorcists if the demons become too much of an issue. but there are demons who seek a better path, cultivate on their own without causing mischief, and those may even gain an appointment in the heavenly bureaucracy.

in very short terms, you were reborn in a lesser tier of the reincarnation realms and thus you have to work your way back into the human path by doing good deeds, or you dig yourself a deeper grave by causing chaos. generally, humans fear demons because they more often than not cause chaos, illnesses, bad luck, etc. and if uncovered, they'll likely be expelled from wherever they are.

as for weapons, some of them are let's say signature weapons. in Esoteric Buddhism and folk religion, how a deity is depicted is imperative to asking for their blessing or summoning them; their pose, colors, clothes, mudras, chants, and indeed even weapons, are very clearly detailed so that you won't be fooled by a masquerading demon impersonating them. therefore some deities are assigned weapons as the signifier of who they are. for example, Sun Wukong has had many forms and depictions over the years, but you Know it's him by the Ruyi Jingu Bang. same for Bajie and his rake.

however, some are weapons that were stolen in some way or another from higher beings. a common trope in JTTW is that demons were acolytes or underlings from higher deities, and left service with a few trinkets from their masters, which are then returned once the demons are defeated.

as for what they can do, a few are depicted as being able to produce pills of immortality for instance, from their own merit as cultivators, so again depending on their level of cultivation, they can accomplish quite a lot.

and if i remember right, Wukong himself is a demon (sorta) who is impervious to mortal weapons. he cultivated to reach Copper Head Iron Arms, a skill that makes him impervious of any attack. he also has his warding circle, in which he draws a circle on the ground with him staff, and everything and everyone within the circle is protected.

EDIT: depending on the region and myth, you might also see yaksha and rakshasa being mentioned. they are imports from India thanks to Esoteric Buddhism, but like demons, there are good and bad individuals among them. i don't know enough about Hinduism and Esoteric Buddhism to go in-depth on the topic, but know that they are Different But Similar xvx

[mermaidsirennikita]

Hey I just read your answer about bad writing in dark romance ! Do you have some well-written dark romance to recommend to us ?

Yes!

I'll add a caveat: like I said lol, I'm really not into torture porn dark romances, so Haunting Adeline-type books aren't my thing. But I feel like they've become considered dark romances? Whereas my understanding is more along the lines of how the Fated Mates episode explained it. It's not just the hero or heroine's morality--it's also the world in which they live, the comfort of sitting in amorality, etc.

Soooo I'd recommend--

King's Captive by Amber Bardan. I really need to read more of Amber, tbh. This one begins with the heroine at her birthday party, at which point the hero has killed practically everyone there, her father included. He then sweeps her off to his private island, and we have a years-long time jump. It's got a very eerie atmosphere. Super intense and verrry sexy (he notably gives her a mixtape that she masturbates to and stands on the other side of the door KNOWING she's masturbating lmao). Insane twist, very violent, a lot of weirdly sensual descriptions of how he cooks steak?

Kresley Cole's Gamemaker series I'd recommend in general. The first two books are very Russian mafia-angled (especially the first) and the third is like... affiliated, but it's not mafia. The heroes are intensely possessive, the heroines actually fight back, etc. I've compared The Master to Kresley's PNR Lothaire, which... I'd argue that several IAD books overlap with dark romance, lmao (Dreams of a Dark Warrior, Lothaire, and MacRieve come to mind). But because The Master doesn't have the vampiric element, instead you have a guy keeping a woman captive because he thinks she's trying to baby trap him, chastity belt included.

Mila Finelli's Kings of Italy series. Italian mafia. The third book especially is on the darker side to me, as it probably has the highest amount of dubcon. The heroes are all murderers, there's a good bit of torture, defiant heroines (and an m/m assassin/target romance).

Run, Posy Run by Cate C. Wells. Italian-American mafia. The hero is in this situationship with the heroine that honestly isn't even good for her at all lmao, and is sent a video of her cheating on him. She assumes he's going to murder her and goes on the run... and then he finds out that the video was doctored. I mean, it's a softer touch, but still pretty dark.

Anne Stuart wrote dark historical romances--A Rose at Midnight is honestly one of the darkest books I've read. Intensely horrific Reign of Terror content. A really, really horrible (in a good way) hero. Tons of trauma. TW TW TW TW for like, murder, dubcon, noncon, near-suicide, violence on and off the page... It's dark.

Then of course... Sierra Simone. Some people categorize New Camelot as dark; I'd say it's very VERY high stakes, but I wouldn't necessarily call anyone involved horrible enough in the main trio to be dark. It has a lot of dark points, but I don't know if it's dark romance.

However, her Ivy Leavold series and her Molly O'Flaherty books skirt towards dark historicals, and I would say that Thornchapel is definitely dark, on the Gothic side. It's basically like... a pseudo-magical (light magic) series that feels a lot like Donna Tartt's The Secret History, but with orgies, and rituals, and that One Taboo That Romance Very Rarely Crosses. (Yes. THAT one.) Nobody's truly evil, but a lot of people are very fucked up, and it has some scenes that are downright Midsommar-y.

I would also say that while Salt Kiss didn't feel like a dark romance to me, Honey Cut definitely put us in that space lmao. She ramped up in a BIIIIIG way. Like. That book had one of the darkest consensual sex scenes I've ever read (and I LOOOOOOOOOOOOVED it). Just some really twisted relationships and high stakes. Which again. LOVE. Everyone read Sierra Simone!

[zannolin]

20 questions for fic writers

tagged by @beautyofsorrow, tagging @lordgrimwing @faebriel and anyone else who wants to do it!!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

publicly associated with my account, 45. in total, including a couple i orphaned before i knew you could put them on anon, 84 i believe. 85 if you count the two chapters of that leakira zine i wrote that are up there somewhere. i could be off. but i forgot how to get to where it shows me the total number and i can't be bothered lol.

2. What's your total A03 word count?

438,464 baby. maybe 500k in 2024? who knows.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

ones 90% of you have never heard of, at this point. it fluctuates depending on whatever i'm getting ideas for, but actively at the moment, the mullverse (mostly beyonders), resident evil, and lockwood & co, national treasure (might be done with that tho, i've exhausted my must-writes). i have other stuff knocking around, like life is strange, mona lisa smile, mlp, some more shazam, bendy and the ink machine, a tlou fic...but who knows.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

ugh. 1. in this fearful fallen place (i will be your home) 2. welcome home, theseus 3. sanctuary 4. i'll carry the weight of you, i swear 5. eat you alive. it says a lot that only one of those is still publicly listed on my profile. even then i'm tempted to put it on anon. they're only my top kudos'd by virtue of being from a big fandom. definitely not my best. at all. even within that fandom. free me and my stats page.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

not all of them, but i make an effort when comments are thoughtful or especially brighten my day. it's easier now because writing for smaller very niche fandoms you don't tend to get a lot so i don't feel overwhelmed or anything, but man responding is hard sometimes. i want people to know they made me happy, though, when they do. so i try.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i mean there's that tododeku one where they both die brutally and were supposed to get married next week. there's also the batcat fic that i wrote solely for the purpose of killing bruce wayne (sorry). there's um. also the klance titanic (historical not titanic the movie) au i wrote ages ago. haha. yeah. anyway.

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

all of them. hfdsjkhfs no i honestly couldn't tell you. i have a mike flanagan-ass idea of a happy ending these days. maybe three's a crowd? hell if i know.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

i've had a couple instances of people harassing me over them but never like. "your fic is so bad i hate it die". so maybe?? i'm too obscure to be getting hate at this point lol. who out here is gonna read beyonders fic just to comment mean things.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

i do not. i did try years ago. that notebook has since been put through the shredder and dumped into the recycling bin for good measure. (yes, it was that bad.)

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

technically no but i've thought about it sometimes. they've all promptly fled my head though so just trust me on this one.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

gee i hope not. there's been a lot of suspicious similarities in some old cases but like. that literally does not matter to me anymore idc. it's not straight up theft in any case so not to my knowledge ig?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

again not to my knowledge but i do have blanket permissions for that if anyone ever wanted to. it's cool.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

back in the 2010s my friend and i were writing a warriors fic together. she did one chapter, i did one, etc. i've had collaborative aus as well (cat's cradle and whatnot) but not a collaboratively written fic for any of them. me and tam were writing the coma au together but we're no longer in the fandom for that anymore, rest in peace coma au you were genuinely wonderful. i'm not opposed to the idea of collab fics but they always feel like a lot of work and i'm way way way too anxious to approach anyone about them.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

ah hell. i dunno. do i have to pick one?? like right in this moment i'd say locklyle and they've been here a hot minute (like. ten years almost) but i don't really have A Favorite I'd Choose Over Anyone Else.

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

mm. penumbra anastasia au haunts me. i want it out of my wips folder. also wild geese is probably never getting finished ever. i do think i'll get split ends done eventually but that one's taking forever. as for ones not posted, well, rip the gospel tent au. i might try to convert it to a short story but lord. i don't know. and don't get me started on the final girl au or the empty grave possession au. throwing myself out a window. they'll never be done i'll never be free.

16. What are your writing strengths?

uh. i honestly don't know anymore. knowing exceedingly tedious canon details to the point where i can make all sorts of metaphors and allusions relevant to said canon? i really couldn't say. introspection i guess.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

yes. next question

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i have an overbearing anxiety that i will fuck it up somehow since i am a monolingual american loser. if i ever did need to i would definitely see if there's any native speakers willing to help translate or whatever bc i am not relying on google translate for that.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

like liv, lord of the rings. i still have my first fanfic btw. it's written on tinkerbell notebook paper.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

it changes. if i were to be completely objective (or as close as i can get), completely removing my emotions on fandom from the equation, prob without anesthetic. because i think i constructed it just right. being a dirty little subjective, right now i think it's three's a crowd or swallowing jupiter or the swing of things. they're all wonderfully unhinged.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

https://youtube.com/shorts/aZ6fiBbRfeQ?feature=share

Theitsa they are doing it again! Now they depict Andromeda as black African princess and people again in the comments are trying to debate it and make it again about color instead of ethnicity...😅

Literally no one is even questioning how problematic and rude it is to take a character from GREEK mythology and erasing it from it's ethnicity.

oooooof.......

Disclaimers:

>> No skintone is superior or "better" than others. This blog doesn't stand for that

>> Greek culture has space for all people

>> It would be equally inaccurate to present Andromeda with the appearance of a North European, like blue eyes and blonde

To the video:

>> The video misrepresented the location of Aethiopia (Andromeda was middle eastern, not South African! Andromeda is the mother of Persians, according to our mythology, who are... Asian!)

>> The video disregards all ancient Greek texts and depictions of Andromeda. I don't know how to say this but.... if you are speaking about myths from another culture, better respect the texts and the depictions of the culture. Regarding Greek culture, it is a cultural convention to follow our depictions.

>> The video creators probably based her depiction off Ovid's description which was 1) the only one of its kind saying Andromeda had dark skin 2) Racist af the way he wrote it 3) Ovid is a hack and misrepresented Greek myths a lot (people seriously discourage having Ovid as a source. He pulled many things out of his ass and ignored the actual Greek myths)

>> The channel that produced the video is Afrocentric in the negative sense of the word. The viewers themselves write blanket statements that are historically inaccurate, like "people forgot that all Egyptian dynasties were black except for the last dynasty which is the Ptelomaic dynasty", "The original Greeks are the Estruscians and Minoans who are Nubian Cushites" and "Greek mythology is full of Black people and they want to erase us from it", "The Greeks and black Africa were tight. They clearly got along without racism. They lived during a time when Africans were highly respected while Europeans ( other than Greeks) were feared and rejected as barbarians. Greek and Roman descriptions of other Europeans were frightening. Their descriptions of black Africans were filled with awe and respect."

I would be extremely happy if these statements were factually true - if our people had very close ties with African nations, if ancient Greeks spoke highly of Africans and didn't represent them stereotypically, etc - but it's not supported by archaeological evidence. To ignore the evidence is to spit to the effort and intelligence of generations of Greeks and xenoi who have gathered and continue to gather this evidence.

Let's not stand a lot to the more voyeuristic and fetishizing comments about "Black"* women. They speak for themselves. But may I stand on a while on other comments that reek of conspiracy theorist logic... "it's sad how blind people can be to Truth." and "That's why the jealousy to destroy and re-educate is so great. The Envy of the ancestors", "No wonder I was obsessed with so called Greek mythology because it’s our people not theirs."

Bro

ΜΠΡΟ

ΜΠΡΟΟΟ

Stop calling all historians and archaeologists worldwide hacks! Please, for the love of whatever you hold dear. They've been trying to uncover as much as they can! Greeks, Egyptians, and all sorts of people with all sorts of appearances are in this domain! It's not to their advantage to hide anything! Not worldwide! Not even in the US, to be honest. (The research there is exhaustive too, and biases don't stay covered for long)

The results not fitting your ideal image doesn't mean they are fake. Do I really need to explain how much, constant work archaeologists do, and how most of them strive to reach the truth as much as possible?? If there were depictions of Andromed as "Black"* and ancient Greek texts that supported it, and people were hiding them or destroying them, yes, then I would agree that something bad was going on. But that's just not the case!

Systemic oppression, racism, and biases in scientific domains are very real, don't get me wrong. But Andromeda's depiction has little to do with it. We have overwhelming archaeological evidence of how she looked, and it would be wrong to ignore them. Not only out of respect for the culture one is entertained by, but also because that's the objective reality.

Here you can find a huge detailed, exhaustive essay about the appearance and ethnicity of Andromeda, with sources and depictions. It is more empowering to have your facts straight than to believe appealing falsehoods.

* In quotation marks cause it's a slur in my language

[jayahult]

1!

💡 What inspired you to want to write it?

💭 Is there a line or scene you can see clearly already?

Ooh, this is a good question. For the first one, it's kinda... difficult. A few of the characters in it were things that I always wanted to write; Edam, Ana, Korel and Sol both in my head for a long, long time and they've gone through a lot of iterations. If you want to get an idea of how far back this is, Sol was at one point a Russian arms dealer. I think they would have shown up even if I never wrote Heresiarch. The flagellation element with Edam also was a long time coming, but it came out of something entirely different - a setting involving some biopunk swords-and-sorcery shenanigans - but I realized that it would slot in with her quite well.

Besides that, in... 2021ish I started getting interested in witch hunting and found myself reading a digitized copy of the Malleus Maleficarum. If you're unfamiliar, that was a historical witch-hunting document that detailed the "proper procedure" for having a legal witch hunt. To my surprise it was relatively well-organized and not even all that irrational. A lot of it was justifying the idea of a witch in a general sense, since there was clearly some debate, the core of which was "God wouldn't permit someone to get magic powers" vs. "But the Bible says that we should persecute witches, so obviously they have to exist." There was also a hilariously detailed section on acquiring reliable witnesses and evidence which I'm pretty sure literally everyone else ignored but was clearly important for someone to include. All of that procedure really inspired the bureaucracy and religious dogma of the Sepulcherites and the Inquisition. Other aspects were strongly influenced by my research into Mormonism and dispensationalism - the idea of a living Sepulcherite prophet came out of the fact that the Mormon president is essentially a prophet (officially, the title is First Elder of the church, Presiding High Priest, President of the High Priesthood, Trustee-in-Trust for the church, Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and Translator.)

I was also strongly inspired by some of the art of Mike Franchina, though it's clearly a bit of a different era than Heresiarch.

There were a lot of other inspirations, maybe too many to count... you could probably ask me about any setting element and I could point to how it was inspired by something slightly unoriginal, and I'd love to hear people's questions about all of them. The old monarchist Kolet regime, for instance, was inspired by a lot of things ranging from historical authoritarian movements to Nicolae Ceaușescu's rule in Romania and his infamous Decree 770 which banned abortion in an attempt to raise flagging Romanian birth-rates. The result was an orphan crisis - two words that are already pretty bad when apart and very bad when put together.

(The scene with the ticks and the vampires came to me in a dream. I reverse engineered the world-building around that one.)

As for lines and scenes... I've actually got a few comedic scenes coming up down the line, in spite of how grim things are. I don't like giving too much away, but I can give this extremely stupid etymology joke: “'It could be. It very well could be. But stranger things have happened - it could be that one of them was provoked by something the lieutenant said; or else we’re looking at a rogue element in the group. Or just sadism, as I said before...'

'Sadism: a word referring to a fixation upon the act of inflicting pain. Derived from the Kolet Warlord Sadi, who ruled along the River Teper sometime before the reign of the Horned Lords and killed over a million of his subjects.'”

[loregoddess]

I'm curious, what would your ideal FE be?

And do you have any particular FE concepts in mind?

Hmmm, I've been thinking this over since you sent it to me, and it's hard to say because there's a lot of things I like that I dunno if they'd actually work together, if that makes sense? Mostly I just have a lot of thoughts about things I'd like to see in a FE game, which I can write out. Under the cut bc, length (it is Very Long, I'm so sorry). Also fair warning that I'm kind of rambling with some direction and organization, but this was all very train-of-thought while I wrote.

Like, ideally, my first thing would to be to get rid of all gender-locked classes. They're absurd. Fates got the idea right by getting rid of them, honestly (although I think women should be allowed to be butlers and men maids, as a treat, even though I know those two classes were literally the same class w/ different aesthetics). I don't have any specific wants for which classes should appear, be added, or be dropped really, just so long as the classes make sense for the overall story (Fates once more takes the prize for having the most narratively-appropriate and creative classes). I would like to see some really weird classes though, like the wolf riders in Engage are Very Cool bc wolves, and I want more weird stuff like that. Give me people riding skeleton animals, or giant bugs, as well as bears and moose and all manner of creatures that actually exist. I mean heck, historically camels and elephants were used as mounts, and we've yet to see either in FE. I also want more diversity and creativity in the infantry classes. Again, whatever fits the aesthetic and themes of the story, but I feel like we only get a handful of really weird infantry classes every now and then if we're lucky. Mounting/dismounting should be a permanent mechanic as well, there's nothing more satisfying that sticking a flier in archer range and then having them get off their flying beast.

Also weapon durability should stay gone, I hate weapon durability so much. Although I do like how combat arts and spells worked in Echoes and Three Houses, but like, the mechanics need to be tweaked. The easiest solution would be to simply have like, an attack power meter or something similar that characters could draw on to use combat arts and spells. Also, rather than locking combat arts to specific weapons a la Echoes, have is so that each character either has unique combat arts (and spells), or that they can learn combat arts and spells from specific weapons that they've "mastered" by using a certain number of times in combat, which they can then carry-over to a different weapon.

I also liked how 3H allowed any class to use any weapon, but I think this also needs to extend to magic, so that magic can be used with any class as well. This would open up a lot of opportunity for the player to really experiment mixing and matching classes, weapons, and magic with different units, which I think would be a lot of fun to play (based on how much fun I had with similar mechanics in 3H), and offer a lot of replayability for the sheer madness of trying new things with new characters. This will also do away with a lot of "I love this character, but their stats suck and they're nigh unusable" that sometimes occurs, since the player could theoretically just try out different combinations until they got something that worked (RIP to all the people who said Ignatz wasn't a good unit, I ran him through the thief/assassin line and gave him some magic, and he was a crit machine by the time I landed him in mortal savant, I want more madness like that honestly).

Obviously, having an AP pool would also require mechanics that replenish the pool during battle, which could be any variation or combination of skills, specific actions taken on the map (resting on a specific tile, attacking normally, etc.), or even adding in a special staff. Speaking of, staff durability has to go too, I'm so tired of needing to buy staffs. Also, I know a lot of magic in FE is either "a single spell stored in a tome" (most games) or "spell that character can personally gain access to" (i.e. Echoes, 3H), and like, cool beans, but I think, ideally, I'd want like, actual grimoires or other sorts of magical foci (crystal balls, wands, scepters, magic cards, the possibilities are literally endless). Either the magic weapon allows units more powerful magic attacks (if units had magic specific to them), or "taught" the unit specific types of magic (i.e. a Fire Grimoire might teach a unit fire, elfire, and bolganone, or something along those lines). Also, I want there to be a magic triangle the same way weapons get a triangle, although how that should be arranged (for both) would vary based on what types of weapons and magic the game actually contained.

Aside from what I'd like to see out of classes and battle mechanics, I don't have too many other things to wish for. I really am one of those rare "actually I really do play the game for the mechanics" FE fans. I'd want an interesting, and consistently written, story, mostly. Engage actually hit the story notes perfectly in my opinion, all the characters were about equal in their characterization--even the women were as diverse and interesting as the men--unlike the rampant sexism in Echoes or the uneven characterization depth of 3H, or the unrealized potential due to :too many characters" in Fates; Awakening was fine too, but Engage really polishes the support-based characterization to a shine. So I'd want more of that, like, even if a character is a side character, they should have interesting supports that build their characterization, and I want every character to be about equal in their writing (I know protags obviously get more attention, and that's fine).

Generally I feel like the model for supports is fine, although I think it'd be interesting to have group supports of 3+ characters to contrast the one-on-one of the current support model, just to really add more depth to the characters outside of what they get from the story. Also, while I liked that there was a lot more platonic supports in Engage, I really do miss seeing different paired endings, so I'd honestly bring back S-ranks between non-protag characters, but like, maybe not too many, if that makes sense? Awakening and Fates' supports suffered a bit from the "every man and woman can S-rank every other unit of the opposite gender bc of the child units", whereas I feel that limiting character supports per character really helps to focus the writing in a stronger way (Echoes and Engage did this the best, although I will give kudos to 3H for its unique take on supports, although the roulette of paired endings was...not well-implemented at all). But I also want there to still be a lot of platonic supports, I dunno. Mostly I just want well-written and interesting supports.

Supports aside, the only thing I'd want from the main story--aside from "well-written, consistently written", would be to Not Do whatever the writers were trying to do in 3H. It's my unpopular opinion, but (for as much as I love the characters and gameplay) the story writing just isn't that good or consistent in 3H. Fates, even with it's shitty localization, is more consistently written, and more strongly written, than 3H. FE has never actually been about war a critique of war (go to MGS or like, Triangle Strategy for that). FE flourishes narratively when it's a little goofy, and completely earnest, and focused on a few key narrative themes. I dunno what I'd want to see specifically for those themes, because I enjoy all sorts of stories, but yeah...(although to be fair, FE would probably fail as a cosmic horror story--or as any type of true horror--so I wouldn't want that I suppose, despite loving cosmic horror). Also, no split-timelines, multiple routes, etc. Just one storyline. I don't hate how Fates and 3H use multiple storylines, but...I prefer a singular story arc.

The music has been really good for basically every game, so I'd be fine with the current composers being allowed to do whatever they please. Now the art direction...I have a lot of conflicting thoughts because, on one hand, I know why a lot of the things I have personal beef with exist from a production standpoint (almost everyone has one of like, four body model types in Engage and it drives me insane bc there is NO body type diversity, but also for the modelers, it was probably more cost-effective to just have a handful of models for each class to swap out character heads and palettes for class changes, but I still hate the lack of body diversity, but I also understand why it would be easier, but...and so on).

That said, if we are talking what my absolute ideal would be, I just, really, really want diverse character designs. I want many different body shapes and sizes, I want lots of different skin tones (and please enough with the nigh grey-skinned characters), I want people to have actual noses and more than one or two nose shapes, I want crooked teeth and wrinkles and other "allegedly unflattering" physical appearances for characters who aren't evil, and just, I want the character design to really push beyond the whole "aesthetically pleasing based on the current sense of what is considered aesthetically pleasing" that I've seen in...too many media. Also enough with making all villains "ugly" (or the weird "big tiddy evil lady" trope, we've moved beyond demonizing women by making them sexy femme fatales), like, as much as I love the cartoonishly evil villains, sometimes the caricatures are just, tiring and uninspired. Honestly, Heroes is pulling more weight in the "interesting villain designs" department (as well as Kozaki just pulling all the weight in trying to have more diverse designs for women for Heroes), and just, we need more of that in the mainline games.

Also, for as far as like, animations and cutscenes and stuff, I feel like Engage made a lot of progress with it's pre-rendered cutscenes (they're back to being on par with the animations for Awakening and Fates, which had the best pre-rendered animated cutscenes of the games I've been using as examples, in my opinion), but the in-game cutscenes reverted back to the characters standing around in a circle talking a la 3H. We'd never get something like Sumia punching Chrom on the screen in either 3H or Engage, and that's a real shame bc the 3D models do look a lot more complex and pretty than the little polygon people of Awakening, Fates, or Echoes, and yet the in-game cutscenes don't do anything with them. Again, I get that from a production standpoint, having a handful of stock animations for body language and then setting the characters in a circle in a skybox to talk is easier and less-intensive cost-wise, but damn does it really suck the life out of the story at that moment. If it wasn't for the stellar voice acting, then scenes would really fall flat I think. So yeah, more character design diversity all around, better utilization of 3D assets.

And that's...where I think I'm gonna call this a post. I don't have any particular concepts for a hypothetical FE game, partly bc any time I think, "I wish this narrative device or type of story existed" I just end up taking it and turning it into one of my many personal original project ideas instead. Which is...probably why I don't have a lot of AU ideas ever, bc part of me figures if I'm gonna change that much from canon, I might as well just make up my own thing entirely and be bound by no rules except my own. But since I can't see myself getting into game coding and trying to make my own game anytime soon, I can at least think about the types of things I'd like to see in a FE game, though they may never come to be.

[ufohio]

Local Boy Prepares for Charity Bike Ride to the Moon

Earth, Ohio—If you asked any other eleven-year-old boy of Earth what he's been up to lately, he might tell you he's focused on hoverball or rocket hockey, stellagaming, or perhaps even math homework. But if you asked Buster Martianberg, local sixth grader at Sally Ride Middle School, he would tell you a different story.

“I'm preparing to ride my bike to the moon,” says Martianberg matter-of-factly. “I've been working on it since fourth grade, and I'm almost ready now.”

Martianberg first came up with the idea in Deanna Dukes's fourth-grade class. “We had to do a project on Solar System records and come up with something no one had ever done before. Most things have been done? So it was, like, kind of hard?

“I wrote my paper on a bike ride to the moon. And later I started thinking, well, why can't I ride a bike there? My uncle runs a hover- and rocket-cycle shop, and he says in old times, people would ride across the county on antique bikes—with wheels. It would take months.” When Martianberg pitched the idea to his family, they were excited to see him so motivated.

“He came to us with all these blueprints he'd done himself,” say Cosmo and Dan Martianberg, Buster's fathers. “We couldn't believe this was our son! We'd never seen him like this before.” The Martianbergs say they were a bit shocked and initially nervous about the idea, but now, they couldn't be more proud of their rocket cyclist pioneer. “My brother gave him a custom rocketcycle from his shop—and the two of them have been practicing ever since,” says Cosmo.

But that wasn't the end of Buster's journey. In fact, according to Buster, it wasn't even the beginning.

“After we installed the rockets, we had to calculate for distance and rest, figure out how much food and supplies we'd need, fit the bikes with bubble tops and room to sleep, eat, and, well, you know…” In fact, the revolutionary waste disposal system the Martianbergs installed ended up being one of the most costly inventions.

It was Dan Martianberg who then suggested getting sponsorships from local businesses and donating any extra proceeds to a charity that provides children all over the solar system with their very own bikes.

“But I was his first supporter,” says the boy's Uncle Astro of Astro's Hobby & Cycle Shop.

Buster and his uncle expect to be done with preparations for their historical ride by this upcoming summer, just in time to launch toward perigee. They've estimated that the trip will take them two months—that's two months of biking, camping, and laughing … and it's practically all of Buster's summer vacation. “I can't wait,” says Buster. “My uncle’s been everywhere and has the best stories. We're gonna cook on open rocket flames and stuff. It's going to be cool.”

And back on Earth, the Martianbergs will eagerly await their return. “I'm glad,” says Dan Martianberg. “I was nervous about letting him go at first—I love Astro, but he needed a lot of second chances before he got that shop running and settled down. But I'm glad they're spending time together. Buster has really come out of his shell since he started hanging out with his uncle, and you know, Astro has been a lot more responsible, too… I think I was wrong to ever doubt them.”

[the-firebird69]

Is actually BG

Zues Hera

It is me and I am here and I did do what he said but on my own fruition of course I wrote a book that book details what happened to my people my particular people and race and kind and it shows throughout history what's been going on to us and it does include other people's of very similar race and those who are very oppressed due to being genetically different and it is an anthology a history and a novel at the same time. It is not a historical document but it references a lot of historical documents and it's nonfiction meaning that it's real and the data is real and the people are real their names may be changed to protect their identities but what has happened is an actual real story and all of the stories in there a real and factual. And I have denoted all of the references at the bottom of each page when there is some kind of historical reference made be it a year of an occurrence or somebody in the office there's a reference there it is a huge book and it's a huge idea it came from my friend and me and it's for our people I've been using it to try and motivate me to go back to the places where I put them like the mansion in Westchester and the mansion in Los Angeles a lot of people call Grey skull. Even in mansions little not so big but they all has sizeable libraries like Kat von d in her mansion I put about 5,000 books out and I've been going around trying to get the data and it's difficult but it's very rich their intense notes on our friend they're very very rich and intense this is full of love for practically anybody who gives it to him then he has to be careful with it and he's very very huge everybody knows who he is but as a result everyone knows who we are and we have to use it wisely it's dangerous too he's a beautiful little boy but he's got super powers that are real and people are mentioning it he's not even aware of it tons of studies on him and on us too and on the max in this very important information there. These are the founders of the X-Men and alpha flight and the avengers and the Justice League and many more organizations you'll find them as the founders of agents of shield and you'll see that they've made secret societies to try and keep themselves alive and us and it failed at the end and they're entombed and Mac plans on retrieving the information and the goods this will help us get it and help us get there. The book has a lot of you in it especially you Trump and it's how we do the movie fast and furious and a lot of people see our viewpoint when the same team doing the same thing when you turn into crazy people that's blowback and you're following us and we do sometimes too the fall on people it details that too and the reaction and how it happens this is amazing book I wrote it's pretty big it's like 800 pages it has pictures of important events and people to our kind and race and all the races of ours morlock and it also has some excerpts about that and why he's doing that it makes sense to me it's risky and dangerous it did isolate us a little but we've been around for a long time and people are treating us this way because of next plan not necessarily because someone mentions us and it was one of the things we're getting over but now it's gone terminal and it is part of Max plan and it is detailed by his clans in these places

Have more to say but I feel the last sentence is extremely important

Bg rey

[ashdumpsterpile]

who was right in civil war enlightened one what was justified and what wasn’t

(Note: I wrote this in 40 minutes after getting out of urgentcare because I am a madlad. If there are any misspellings, discrepancies, or plot errors, I apologize in advance.)

So the biggest problem with identifying who is actually wrong in Civil War is that the script is kinda...bad.

Okay, listen.

The dialogue is pretty fantastic and everyone is in character. (For the most part.) But the conflict is mediocre at best and there are like five different storylines going at once that are supposed to parallel each other but do a really shoddy job of it.

I can't really say who was right, but I can for sure say who's side I would have been on.

Tony Stark's.

(I promise this isn't just because he's my favorite.)

So there are two main storylines that involve Tony Stark. Plot A) the Accords, and B) Bucky's whole thing. These two plotlines intertwine at certain intervals, especially the ending, but let's put a pin in that. Let's talk about the Accords first.

This is where a lot of the bad writing comes in. If you go to the MCU Wiki, it cites regulations such as wearing tracking bracelets and being thrown into prison without a trial. Here's the thing though...in CA:CW they don't mention any of these regulations even once. There is half the Avengers being thrown into the raft (which Tony breaks them out of), but the movie doesn't once cite a single regulation beyond the fact that 117 countries are trying to keep superheroes with potentially dangerous powers in check.

If they really wanted me to side with Steve on this one, they would have at least thrown something in there. At most, they just bring Thaddus Ross on screen as a kind of shorthand to prove that the Accords are corrupt, but this doesn't really hold any weight for someone who hasn't seen The Hulk or read the comics.

So the only argument they've got going is government bad=Accords bad, which...fair enough. But this movie is placed literally directly after Age of Ultron (which is another nightmare of a movie script), where it is firmly established that the Avengers making decisions on their own, without input from any higher officials, is historically a bad move.

Actually, let's back up, let's talk about the Avengers.

I don't really understand why they're still a thing after S.H.I.E.L.D. was disbanded. They aren't owned by any organization, they don't work for any organization, and they're not affiliated with any official government. Which means they can be viewed as vigilantes or terrorists, depending on how badly they botch up a mission. And considering how amazingly well Age of Ultron goes, I'm honestly not surprised that the United Nations wanted to put restrictions on them.

So -much to my chagrin-I'm actually on the government's side here.

What about the Avengers as a team?

Okay, so you have a Billionaire supergenius, a soldier from WWII with superpowers, two ex-S.H.E.I.L.D. agents, an Alien who sometimes shows up, and a scientist who turns into an uncontrollable rage creature. Adding onto that, they recruit two military veterans, a sentient robot, and the ex-nazi responsible for their last fuck-up.

If we take a look at their actual team dynamics, we have a group of people who are already split down the middle. Half the team is looking to Steve Rogers for leadership and the other half is trusting Tony Stark. These two men not only do not get along, but they don't get along to the extent that it affects how they work in a crisis. On top of this, said ex-nazi hates Tony Stark so hard that it- again- destroys an entire city and they decide to put her on the same team.

The Avengers have only had one successful onscreen mission (Avengers 2012) and that was more down to sheer luck than actually being capable of working together and carrying out a mission. They mention other missions they've been on at the beginning of Age of Ultron, but it's also noted that the collateral damage they've left in their wake was what spurred the UN into creating the Accords.

Not a great team.

So when people chalk Steve's entire argument down to the safest hands are our own, are they actually right? Should the world be entrusting their lives unquestionably in a team whose members should have been in therapy 6 movies ago (except for Rhodey and Sam, they get a pass).

Yeah hard pass, to be honest, I would have retired the team and restarted from scratch even before putting the Accords on the table. Which is why I am entirely on Tony's side because he is the more accountable between him and Steve. He tried it Steve's way in Age of Ultron, and it ultimately failed (that's another meta post for a different time). So now he's trying to keep the team together within the parameters that 117 different governments are clamoring for.

So my opinion on who was right? I lean more onto Tony's side.

Now what was justified?

Steve was justified in helping Bucky. I absolutely do not condone some of the things he did to protect him, but I can understand trying to help your best friend. It's a choice that I would make. I'm not one for saying the end justifies the means, but it's clear that Bucky was in trouble and that turning him in was a bad move. This is the one choice Steve made in Civil War that I absolutely approve of.

Tony was justified in his anger at Steve and Bucky and Bucky was not at fault for the death of Tony's parents. These two statements can and should coexist. I see a lot of people flipping out over Tony's reaction, but honestly? He's 100% justified. He just watched an incredibly traumatic tape of his mother dying with her murderer standing next to him. But that ain't what it was all about.

That's what this is about. Steve was the last person Tony could have even comprehended lying to him about something like this. It wasn't about whether or not Bucky was the killer (although that had to be upsetting). It was about Steve breaking his trust. His reaction is absolutely understandable and completely justified with this in mind.

Now what wasn't justified?

Every scene with Wanda in it, Sam putting blame on Tony for the raft situation (edit: I think it actually may have been Barton who did this, but it's been a while since I've seen the film), and Steve's worst apology ever letter. I could literally write separate metas on each of these, so all I'm gonna say is the narrative used Tony as a cope out to cause problems for other people. All of Wanda's problems (sans her parents' death, which actually wasn't Tony's fault) are caused by her own doing. All of Sam's problems were caused by his own doing. And Steve's letter was the shittiest apology I've ever read and makes me turn into a rage monster every time I think about it.

None of those things we're justified and I sigh every time I think about them.

Anyway, long story short, this movie is a dumpster fire trainwreck that either needed to go through several more drafts or should've just been tossed in the bin. Tony's motivations are far more reasonable and sympathetic, and I'm still mad at them for putting him and Bucky on opposite sides.

(Please feel free to shoot me more questions or to disagree. I love talking meta/analysis with others, and would be thrilled to hear y'all's opinions.)