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sicksadgames · 8 months ago

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As the Sun Forever Sets - Terror in the time of the Telegraph

It’s nuts I’ve been working on this game for over 4 years at this point. As the Sun Forever Sets is for sure my biggest and most capital G Game. It even has a publisher and everything. It’s also my first game! Wow! It's been tough, though. We'll get into it!

Britain, 1899

As the Sun Forever Sets is a survival horror sandbox based on the War of the Worlds, utilises the Forged in the Dark ruleset, and is about ordinary people surviving a Martian invasion of Victorian era Britain. We play to find out how they rise to meet the storm of destruction, the ways in which it shapes them, and if they survive to see a new world emerge, or die amidst the rubble of the old.

In the last years of Queen Victoria’s reign, the British Empire stretches across a quarter of the globe, and under the guise of genteel progress and civilisation, it commits theft and murder on a global scale. Britain itself is on the verge of the modern era, the Second Industrial Revolution pushing people into the cities to drive the factories and forges owned by the greedy industrialist class. But beyond the common causes of humanity and unbeknownst to the men who impose their rule over it, vast wheels have begun their inexorable turning. Across 40 million miles of void, the Martian invasion hurtles Earthward. Screaming across the stars, instruments of annihilation unlike anything believed possible lie ready for assembly, alongside the Martians themselves. They are truly inscrutable beings, but their intent is as clear as it is terrible – they will suck the literal and figurative blood from the Earth, and nothing less than the complete and utter subjugation of humanity will be enough.

If this sounds cool to you... well, you gotta wait, it’s not done yet. Sorry! But you can come and hang out in the Sick Sad Games discord, where I post excerpts and occasionally organise playtests.

The Hard Times of (Old) England

Be warned, this is a long one - over 4000 words (if you don't have a Tumblr account, you won't get to the end before it starts bugging you to register one, so go read this on Medium instead.) It turns out when you work on a game for a long time, you have a lot to say about it. Strap in, grab your gin and laudanum, and let’s destroy an evil empire just by existing.

Thanks to the wonderful @hendrik-ten-napel for taking a look over my disorganised thoughts.

(Potential) Spoilers for: The Bear, The War of the Worlds, The Last of Us, Children of Men, Threads, When the Wind Blows, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, The Thing.

Roleplay in the Pre-Post-Apocalypse

TTRPGs love a good post apocalypse. It's understandable - gas up and ride glorious on the legally distinct fury road, run a commune of like minded weirdos in the ashes of the old world, go digging through retro-futuristic ruins to find retro-futuristic treasures. Who wouldn't want to do any of these? But As the Sun Forever Sets is about an apocalypse as it begins, not after it’s over.

There's a lot of crossover, of course. There’s a focus on similar things - disaster and spectacle, relationships and trust, scavenging and survival. But the bonus of the world not yet being over, is that we get to roleplay out dealing with that terrible, inexorable reality.

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HG Wells wrote a book about blowing up all the places he used to live, and it's a banger. I was surprised to find there wasn't a TTRPG based on the War of the Worlds, being the tantalisingly public domain ur-alien invasion story it is. As the Sun Forever Sets is very explicitly an adaption of it, to the point that before I came up with the name it almost got released as The War of the Worlds: The Roleplaying Game (lol). I'm glad I didn't, doing my own thing has meant both me and the people playing are way more free to fuck around without the expectation that it must adhere to a canon.

The book is good, strikingly modern feeling in parts, and obviously massively influential - so much science fiction can be traced back to our nameless Narrators tormentuous trek across the south of England. But Wells’ prose is typical Victorian - overly wordy and florid (any book that contains the word “ejaculating” meaning “to shout” might be difficult for readers who aren’t used to the style), so when it comes to recommending an actual adaptation, there’s only one true king. Whenever I bring up Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds, the usual reaction from anyone outside of the UK is to say "... they made a what?"

My mom was very keen to get me into musicals, but nothing really stuck until she tried this, the secret best War of the Worlds adaption (sorry Steven Spielberg, but you were doomed from the start.) It's the bombast and drama you'd expect from a disaster film, the horror and pathos of Wells’ classic, all expressed through vivid narration and sick nasty prog rock - wailing guitar and crunchy 70's synths operating at full effect. It's not completely faithful to the book, it doesn't matter. It’s the best.

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Ah yes, the film bro's favourite mid 2000's film. Did you see that sick oner? That’s six minutes without a cut, that means the film’s good right? Children of Men is a slow burn apocalypse, dressed up like a world that’s already ended. Plenty has been written about all the little ways the film is prescient about the state of the UK - the slow belly-crawl into facism and nationalist fervour, the particularly British decay and class divide exacerbated by the desperate times, even the willful ignorance and the explicit sense that everyone’s just given up, it’s all here.

All that thematic stuff seems like it’d be really relevant to As the Sun Forever Sets, right?

Unfortunately, we are in fact here to talk about the long takes. The unbroken moment-to-moment action scenes evoke The War of the Worlds to a tee. Theo navigates danger with the same fraught tactical tension as War of the World's Narrator - dashing between doorways, groping for an axe handle in the darkness, desperately trying to start a car as assailants sprint towards him. What’s the best way out of this situation? How do I get from here to where I need to be? He lives his life in rolling, fleeting 5 second intervals, because he’s forgotten what it means to think in the long term - about the future, and what it might hold.

I was always fascinated and terrified by the idea of nuclear war. I guess it comes from watching a lot of 90’s disaster movies, but those are often ultimately fun romps where the day gets saved at the end, or at least the main characters find themselves alive and well at the end of the saga of destruction. Instead, As the Sun Forever Sets asks you to reflect on the horror and sadness present at the end of the world. Things are going to change forever, and change is always hard.

There’s not many clips of Threads and When the Wind Blows online, so it’s a little hard to demonstrate their particular nuclear inflected pitch black darkness. They’re grim - Grave of the Fireflies grim - differing in focus but united in their horrible impact.

When the Wind Blows is a story of an elderly couple living in rural England when the bombs drop, based on the comic by Raymond Briggs. Yes, The Snowman’s Raymond Briggs made a film about 2 lovely grandparents dying of acute radiation poisoning. Jim and Hilda are completely unprepared for what’s to come, their only reference is the Blitz - terrible in its own way, but not a patch on the scale of death they’re about to experience.

They survive the blast and wait for the good old British Government to arrive to save them, as it did in the 40’s. Slowly liquifying in the nuclear fallout, they hold onto each other and keep their spirits up, eventually making the decision to clamber into the paper sacks they mistakenly believed might protect them from the blast. Clutching their medical cards and birth certificates (for the ambulance, sure to be along any minute now), Jim mumbles painfully through a final prayer that morphs into a misremembered Charge of the Light Brigade, and they slip into a perpetual slumber together.

The most tragic part is Jim and Hilda’s unshakeable faith that their government is there for them - ready to catch them when they fall - borne out of Britain’s post WW2 renewal but absent in the 1980’s of the film’s plot, and the Britain of today. It’s a masterful film, shockingly sad, but the shock is the point.

Instead of aiming for your heart, Threads aims for the head. It’s a drama that aims to be as accurate as possible to government research into what a nuclear war might look like, plainly and forensically setting it out without any thought of softening these hard facts for its audience. Rather than focusing on a personal story, Threads flits around several groups of characters - minor government figures and ordinary families. Like Jim and Hilda, they too are woefully unprepared for the end of the world, and those in charge know there’s no way the UK could ever be ready for such a thing.

As mundane life is quietly intruded upon by news updates detailing far off geopolitics and the subsequent escalation that leads to war, the tension rises subtly then suddenly, like a spacecraft on the launchpad. People we’ve seen pottering about their normal lives are maimed and evaporated in the subsequent shocking nuclear exchange, whilst stark statistics flash on the screen - the hundreds of thousands instantly killed, how long the millions more fatally irradiated have left to live, the woefully inadequate tonnage of stockpiled food to feed those who survive. Each zero hits like a gutpunch.

And when you think the film must nearly be over, it keeps going. 1 week later. 1 year later. Threads grinds to an excruciating halt 13 years after the bombs fall, after year upon year of failed harvests from a destroyed earth barely able to support a population level equivalent to medieval Britain. At one point, mute children watch a warped and scratchy VHS of classic kids educational programme Words and Pictures on a TV powered by a steam generator.

The friendly presenter spells out the word “cat” through the thick veil of static, accompanied by a picture of one - an animal the children watching will likely never see. As they watch with blank, emotionless faces, the image of the cat fades to one of its skeletal form. “A cat’s skeleton” the presenter enthusiastically intones. The unrelenting bleakness might feel like a punishment, but Threads doesn’t mean it to be. This is just what would happen, after all.

Love in the time of the Heat-ray

In fact, someone in a Reddit thread said As the Sun Forever Sets “wasn’t just endless misery” and I’m glad that comes across. I wanted there to be moments of tenderness, quiet joy, anger, frustration, love and loss to punctuate the action and the horror.

People are messy and complicated even at the best of times. Under pressure, this is amplified a thousandfold - a little crush becomes a whirlwind romance, small disagreements become full blown fights, and not fully understanding someone might transform them into an enemy in your head.

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The little town Bill conspires to be left alone in ends up comparatively untouched by the horrors going on elsewhere, as untouched as anywhere can be in The Last of Us. He hated the world anyways - so he isolates himself as he prepares for it to end, and it makes sense that his life only really begins as the show does. When Frank arrives, Bill is forced not to just engage with the broader world outside of his little enclave, but in the act of truly living in it.

There’s no prepper’s guide to romance. A human heart can’t be field stripped for maintenance. By choosing to exist as a vulnerable, emotional being, Bill opens himself up to a different kind of apocalypse. Frank becomes the flowering vines that slowly crack the flat concrete wall of a world that Bill created, and when those vines die, the wall can only crumble. It’s so fraught and lovely, delicately yet absolutely gut wrenching. At least their apocalypse was one they decided to have together.

“I’m old. I’m satisfied. And you… were my purpose.” - "Long Long Time”, The Last of Us

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While several of my TTRPG writing friends were gushing about how great The Bear is, Em Acosta, author of the wonderfully inspirational Exile pointed out something super interesting - a lot of the show is about how you deal with people you’ve found yourself stuck with. No matter how much they piss you off, or whatever they do wrong, there’s something that means you can’t ever let them truly exit your life. They’re there, like it or not, until the bitter end.

Turns out this is very similar to how As the Sun Forever Sets handles Player Character relationships. In both it and The Bear, nothing’s ever truly resolved between characters - every relationship is like a cooking pot perpetually simmering. You might’ve apologised, made a truce, or just ignored your issues for so long that they seem to disappear, but no matter what, you’ve got to keep your eye on that pot.

Because suddenly a crisis will hit, and someone says something, or a diceroll comes up bad and all of a sudden the pot boils over and things are once again fucked. You storm out, start screaming, throw a fork. Even in the worst case scenario where a Character leaves because they’re absolutely sick of the rest of the group, they might show up at the end of the game for one last scene. Who knows how you’ll all feel at the end - nothing is ever truly fixed, and only the dead are truly broken.

“I quit, chef, is what’s going on. You are an excellent chef. You are also a piece of shit. This isn’t on me. Goodbye." - “The Review”, The Bear

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I’ve talked about The Thing a little before, John Carpenters sweaty, paranoid antarctic masterpiece. Along with the incredible effects and the (mostly) restrained use of action and bombast, the thing that makes... The Thing work is that the staff of the stricken research base lack any and all emotional intelligence.

It’s sort of the ultimate reverse Dudes Rock movie. Nobody knows anything about each other, so when their bodies and minds are colonised by the titular chameleon from outer space, they’re just another stranger to the rest of the crew. I’d ask you a question only you would know the answer to, but uh.. I don’t know anything about you. Whoops!

Over the course of the film, the whole operation falls apart as they try their best to work together to deal with the alien interloper, but their complete lack of ability to trust or relate to each other - present even before the crisis they find themselves in - is their ultimate downfall.

That final excellent shot of MacReady and Childs sat in the snow at the end of the film as their compound burns around them is the subject of a lot of unnecessary theorycrafting youtube videos, which kind of misses the point. Each suspects the other, but ultimately it doesn’t matter if one of them’s a Thing. One stranger is the same as another. Why bother getting to know each other now?

“Well...What do we do?” “Why don't we just... wait here for a little while? See what happens.” - Childs and Macready, The Thing

Science Fiction Revenge Fantasy

I’m not a historian, but the parallels between 1899 and now are pretty plain to see. Increasing class disparity, a lack of political will to help those in need, rampant cronyism and profiteering. As long as you’re in the place for it, roleplaying in a fictionalised version of the past to air out the issues of the present can be super fun and cathartic. You’re not expected to get a degree in British history to make it work, either.

The title is a play on the phrase “The Sun Never Set on the British Empire”, and it’s plainly stated in the book that Britains Empire acted as a mechanism of genocidal oppression, and that the Martians are here to end it - intentionally or not. It’s appealing as a premise on the face of it, but it goes a little deeper. Memories of Empire echo across time in Britain like the ringing of a malevolent bell, a cause celebre for braying Tories and fascistic right wing cunts (two very close circles in the venn diagram.)

We used to be a great country before this woke nonsense. Things were better back in the old days. The DEI contingent is trying to destroy our noble past. Yada yada yada, fuck offff. I’m sure someone somewhere will accuse me of “wokewashing” the past for including explicitly trans and queer characters as part of the book, along with the historical facts around how we fit into the oppressive Victorian conception of sex and gender. Unfortunately for them, we’ve always been here.

To be a little pretentious about it, every game of As the Sun Forever Sets reaches back into the past and cuts the myth of a glorious and benevolent Empire, and the good old days enjoyed within it off at the neck, purely in the act of beginning one. That sparks a little joy for me. Destroying a racists dream is fun, even if it’s only in the abstract.

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A horror game about the most literalist Victorian industrialist imaginable hearing the phrase “Eat the rich” and getting right on that. I’ve not played Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs despite fond (??) memories of playing The Dark Descent in a room full of jumpy friends, and seeing Dear Esther played live on stage, with a live orchestra and narrator - an exquisite way to experience that game.

The mechanical chops of Frictional Games mixed with the narrative verve of The Chinese Room, how could this game be anything less than incredible?

After The Dark Descent I fell off’ve the “scary guy chases you around” genre of game until Alien: Isolation revitalised it, and the reviews of A Machine for Pigs were mixed - kind of boring, middling gameplay, too dark - so I never went back. I was planning on writing a little about its vibe - dark, gothic Victoriana that rhymes nicely with As the Sun Forever Sets - but after a bit of research, Mandus’ quest for his missing sons strikes an unexpectedly resonant and terrible chord.

The writing and voice acting is phenomenal, Mandus’ split consciousness - the self you play and the other half of him that’s seen the horrors of the forthcoming 20th Century and is compelled to act, imbued into the myopic machine he built - is extremely compelling. He feels compassion for the poor and wants to save them, but they fill him with fear and disgust. He knows the industrialist class is killing the world, but feels a deep shame in the fact that he counts himself amongst them. So his machine grinds the rich into meat for the poor, who it distorts into grotesque pig homunculi and forces them to operate the machine’s inscrutable workings.

It’s Mandus’ twisted way of saving the world - kill the rich for their crimes, enslave the poor for their own good, all hail the new machine/god/manager of the 20th century. It’s a neat reflection of the way modern politicians contort themselves to the whims of big business and AI snake oil salesmen to avoid doing the simple and obvious things that’d better the world. It’s a nightmarish refutation of Victorian Liberalism, that only the upper class know how to fix the problems of the lower class. It’s brilliant, and we should play it.

"Do you hear me Mandus? This is what you planned! This world is a machine! A Machine for Pigs! Fit only for the slaughtering of pigs! Whores, beggars, orphans, filthy degenerates. Pigs all. But I will purify the streets, cleanse this city, set the great industry free. I will clean the world, make it pure." - The Machine, A Machine for Pigs

Song of the Year, of the Century

Not long after I came out as trans, I was asked what (in an ideal world) would make transition easier. I replied - never having to leave the house. One day I'd shut the front door as a man and another day, months or years later, I'd open it again as a woman, neatly sidestepping the terror of being perceived in a notoriously transphobic Britain.

In 2020 I shut that door and didn't open it for 4 months. At work, I remember calling the nearby shelter to donate our excess hand sanitizer and toilet roll, figuring out at the last second how support workers could take calls from their already isolated clients via their mobile phones, and fixating on the steady stream of scared coworkers leaving early. Tearfully, I felt the urge to hug those that remained as we locked up, before we remembered we probably shouldn't.

I've never been more aware of the minutia of moving through a space on the way home - How many people had their hands on this handrail? Have I touched my mouth or eyes without realising? Is anyone in the office already sick? Or on this train? How many more people are going to die? - My heart was in my chest, I heard the blood whoosh through my head to the beat of my steps on the pavement. At home, I realised my boyfriend had to go into work the next day. After he went to sleep, terrified he might die, I cried.

"I remember I felt an extraordinary persuasion that I was being played with, that presently, when I was upon the very verge of safety, this mysterious death—as swift as the passage of light—would leap after me from the pit about the cylinder, and strike me down." - "The Heat Ray", The War of the Worlds

Writing As the Sun Forever Sets was my way of coping with the disconnect with the world I felt, the fear of both Covid and the rising transphobia kept me inside even as the lockdowns eased. That feeling of throbbing death creeping at the window took a long time to wrestle under control, and getting deeply obsessed with a big project became part of that process. It seems incredibly maudlin to make a TTRPG dealing with darkness and death during a pandemic that killed (and continues to kill) millions of people, but I suppose I’m kind of a maudlin person.

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“I haven't written a song in a month, So I'm playing the same chords again. I know I need to get lost in the moment, But I get lost before it begins. Fingers stretching out into space. Reaching as a thought slips away.”

It also burnt me the fuck out. After years of constant work and testing (beginning long before Evil Hat picked up the game), I ran out of steam. I spent the months after Evil Hat’s public playtest ended not really able to write anything ATSFS related at all. The game kind of froze - I knew what I wanted to change or fix or add, but the moment the google doc opened I couldn’t make myself start typing. It was incredibly frustrating to have the switch flip from endless obsessive writing to constant nothing, and I don’t think I truly recognised the burnout I was feeling until recently. It turns out spending years staying up past midnight writing is bad, who know!

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A lot of Forged in the Dark games don’t get finished (or more accurately, get stuck in perpetual development), something that the excellent and dearly missed +1 Forward podcast recognised in their episode collecting their thoughts on the FITD games they looked at back in 2021. I think that’s because, at least to me, writing a Forged in the Dark game is like trying to hold a plate of spaghetti without the plate. It’s deceptively simple at its heart, but the system squirms when you poke at it - write one thing and it affects 3 other things. Tug one piece of pasta out and you lose a meatball without realising it.

When I listened to that episode, I took it as a challenge. Part of me now wonders if it was a curse. I'm being hyperbolic, of course. But a little part of me did think it might be better to give the game up.

That’s not going to be As the Sun Forever Sets' fate, thankfully. Evil Hat has been there to support me when I’ve felt guilty about shifting another deadline or replying to a check-in email with another late “Not much progress this month, sorry!” The frozen writers block is thawing, and I’m so tantalisingly close to finishing the final text. This blog is part of that process, another chip in the icy dam.

The wheels of dread Martian terror turn once again, and it feels good. Part of that is down to not beating myself up about a lack of progress. The more important part came when I realised I felt able to return to the world again - living in it, not hiding from it. Staying connected to it, even when there's times I'm not able to inhabit it physically. Covid, Britains particular brand of transphobic brainworms, and the shadow of Empire all continue to exist, and so do I - a weird maudlin transsexual woman - in spite of them all.

“The day seemed, by contrast with my recent confinement, dazzlingly bright, the sky a glowing blue. A gentle breeze kept the red weed that covered every scrap of unoccupied ground gently swaying. And oh! the sweetness of the air!” - “The Stillness”, The War of the Worlds

You made it!

Thanks for sticking with my messy thoughts. If what I talked about here sounds cool to you, please stop by the Discord, we'd love to have you. Look forward to seeing As the Sun Forever Sets come to a crowdfunding platform of Evil Hat's choice (I assume backerkit) at some point in the future ♥.

#ttrpg #indie ttrpg #forged in the dark #horror #war of the worlds #ttrpg design #science fiction #incredible self indulgence #as the sun forever sets

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saffron-words · 11 months ago

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Introduction and UtsuKare Translations Master Post

Some of you might recognize me as that Russian translator of Utsukushii Kare books from Wattpad. I decided to revive my tumblr to compile all the links and explanations here for those of you, My Beautiful Man fans, who can't wait for official English releases of the books.

I could never keep a blog, so for now here I'll just tell how it all came about, and you can find links to all my MBM translations at the end (feel free to just skip the wall of text).

So a couple of years ago I finally bowed down and decided to read Utsukushii Kare series in Japanese for language practice, even though I found the summary unappealing and I'm generally suspicious of overhyped media (as far as BL novels go, these books seemed to be The most hyped-up series in Japan). Much to my surprise, I loved it so much it was hard to move on. And while I waited for a chance to buy book 3 and Interlude, I gobbled up everything else related to the series that I could. The manga was only just starting, I didn't like dramaCDs (but I'm in the minority), and the drama somehow revived my love for watching Jdramas, even though I thought that this part of my fandom life has been over for years. When the second season started airing, I made a new friend in the Russian-speaking parts of the Internet who was even more obsessed with MBM than I am, and we fangirled to our hearts' content. At some point I promised her to translate the big sex scene from the end of book 3 as a gift for all the talks. I did, and since back then there was nothing for book 3 in any European language, as far as I know, I decided to post it online and give a link to English-speaking UtsuKare fans too. And since Wattpad doesn't allow copying text, and the browser translator feature from Google Translate was really inadequate, I also put up a link to the translation made with Deepl. As far as machine translators go, it is noticeably more comprehensible, and I didn't have the time (or skills to do the book justice, really) to translate it to English myself. Anyway, after this excerpt I thought I could manage one more important scene from book 3, then one more, and then I finally gave up and started translating it properly from the beginning. I also started correcting mistranslations in Deepl-versions that I kept doing for English readers, so some parts of the book are now much more readable than others. Now the third and the second book are done and I started to work on book 4, Mamanaranai Kare that was published in Japan at the end of October 2024. I also translated several stories from Interlude and plan to do at least one more, and maybe some others for some holidays.

So here are the links to everything I've translated from My Beautiful Man book series:

Book 3 "Nayamashii Kare" which continues the story past the movie (completed). The text is in Russian, but there are links to decent machine translations to English at the beginning of each part (I've also run through most of them and corrected the mistranslations). Or you can use the in-browser translation feature, but the results would be less readable.

Book 2 "Nikurashii Kare" which was technically turned into season 2 of the drama and the movie, but the script has deviated so much from the book, at times it's like a completely different story (completed). I don't make Deepl translations for this since the official English release finally came out in December.

Stories from the Interlude. A number of stand-alone stories from the collection of them called "Interlude". The book has a total of 15 stories, and I probably won't translate it in its entirety, but I've dones the ones that I personally liked. One of them had also been translated to English by Mauli before, but I didn't use her version when working on mine. The rest of the stories have never been translated by anyone else, as far as I know. These, too, have links to Deepl-versions at the beginning.

Book 4 "Mamanaranai Kare" continues where book 3 left off. Ongoing. Usually I can manage at least one update per month, sometimes more, and I plan to divide the whole book into 12 parts. Each part will have a link to an English version which is machine-translated but with all mistranslations corrected by me.

Disclaimer: my Japanese is not yet really on a level good enough to translate fiction, and there are bound to be mistranslations even if you read the original Russian versions. But I'm cross-checking myself on everything to try and keep those mistakes to minor things. I also know how to translate so I made sure that the text flows well, doesn't feel choppy and retains the same vibe that I get from reading the original.

#utsukushii kare #my beautiful man #utsukare #japanese bl #美しい彼

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girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 5 months ago

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tuesday again 2/11/2025

the bon mot slot goes to the Witcher comics, bc after i inhaled all of the 2014-present series i realized they scratch the same sad goth detective itch batman does

oops! all books!

adding another axis to the "depressive cycles" graph, where x is "how many minutes of mother mother have i listened to in the past two weeks" and y is "how many books have i read and bounced off in the past two weeks" and brother we're at the extreme upper right hand corner

what was supposed to be last week's gay and/or lesbian romance and/or erotica

Desire by Starlight, by Radclyffe, is a 261p softcover published in 2010 by Bold Strokes Books. two unrelated facts about this physical object: VERY glossy cover, and smells faintly of mildew despite having a perfect text block with no water damage. radclyffe has written over a hundred books and this is somewhere in the middle. this is sitting at a solid 4 on goodreads with some complaints that she tends to be a little formulaic. i am going to be very honest and say that when i read this two weeks ago, i did not take very good notes bc i didn't love this one. the structure and pacing were mostly fine and there were only a few strange phrases in the sex scenes, i simply did not find it particularly memorable. we have for sure read worse during this project.

i wish the local love interest did not go by Gard, short for Gardner. is it a stupid old money new york name? sure. is it hard to take the book seriously? yes.

i also found it amusing that radclyffe does not follow her own novel-writing rule outlined in this very meta novel: rarely if ever does a scene open close to the heart of a chapter.

the secret our dear gard is hiding kind of fizzles out in the literal last ten pages. i think she should have had a better or more interesting secret instead of one that could be comfortably resolved through a singular therapy session. i also feel that this teetered on will-they-won't-they-let-each-other-through-a-hardened-outer-shell a little bit too long, and the breakthrough was perhaps not as cathartic as i would have liked. this excerpt, nearly halfway through the book, they are still not together. while it's very funny to watch them seethe in poorly concealed jealousy, i am tapping my watch. do something.

i cannot immediately find the weird wording that threw me a little during the sex scenes. the sex scenes are kind of widely scattered.

i think the thing that annoys me most about this book is that there's no real benefit for either of them in this relationship. jenna has broken down from not eating or sleeping well on a national book tour, not because she's psychically suffering from not letting see her feelings she keeps in a tightly locked box. there's no real benefit for gard either, who is lonely but not cripplingly so. it starts off as a casual-only thing and then both of them (and me) are startled they catch real feelings.

there are some gestures made toward It's Nice To Have Another Woman Around In Case of Physical Injuries Due To Mishap but i would have loved to see more of how gard was won over by being taken care of. gard princess carries jenna into her vet clinic bc of a fucked up ankle and jenna is annoyed, flustered, and doubly annoyed she's flustered.

i think this one was so forgettable bc i genuinely had trouble remembering what the conflict (if any) was. both of them are stable adults with real jobs and other friends. inheriting a farm in vermont doesn't really add any new or exciting problems for either of them. neither of them are very spontaneous and neither can manic pixie dream girl the other out of her shell, and when they finally do emotionally let their walls down it doesn't feel very organic.

the like technical putting words one after another is there, this is her zillionth book and everyone has dialogue that sounds like things real people would say out loud with their mouths and everyone's physical actions map onto my real-world understanding of how bodies in 3D space work. this one did not grab me.

this week's gay and/or lesbian romance and/or erotica

title drops in this book: 3.

Heart on Fire is a 167p softcover published in 1996 by our old friend Naiad Press. a slightly water-damaged paperback i felt okay dragging down to the gulf when i was dragged down to the gulf last weekend for my health. this was Diana Simmonds' first solo book and first fiction book, and a lot of older lesbians seem to have a great deal of fondness for it. while i was trying to find any press or interviews, most of the hits were from other lesbian authors citing her as an inspiration. naiad really banked a lot on it being the hit novel of their publishing season and were sure it would eclipse their previous bestseller from nearly a decade ago, Katherine Forrest's Curious Wine. i don't own a paper copy but have placed a libby hold so we will make a detour from physical books in the near future.

overall, a rare book where the third act breakup does actually make a lot of sense: being the partner of a globetrotting traveling musician would put a strain on any relationship whether you choose to stay on the road or wait at home. however! it really did stick the landing! and for that i can forgive it a great deal! the sort of not quite reality of their respective third act depression sojourns and then the incredibly sensory descriptions of the finale concert…very good. very nineties movie about a musician ending if that makes any sense.

while i think the structure is fine, i think the actual craft of the narrative is more variable. we'll go into the style in the next paragraph, but part of the dedication goes "to CCC, without whom it would be full of people thinking to themselves." i wish CCC had dialed their feedback back a little bc i would have loved some more interiority, particularly from jody. i must commend our stuck-in-one-place half of the couple, grace, who makes SUCH fascinating decisions. the traveling musician jody looks like she could be the sister of her abusive ex-husband, grace's brief rebound from jody is her goddamn college advisor… bonkers. what ARE you doing???

stylistically, it feels like sitting on the patio of a lesbian bar for three hours and listening to a friend telling you a very long story about how two absent friends you don't know got together with a lot of elaborations and asides. i occasionally found this style tiresome. there are some charming turns of phrase, like "She wrote the address of the roadhouse on the package, sealed it with a kiss, said "What the hell," to neutralize the sentimental gesture, and dropped it into the mailbox." i also cackled out loud at "I don't know, I-- I really really want you, so much, and I am not very good at being cool about it." did nearly tear up at this paragraph:

some things have aged a little strangely since 1996. grace is briefly forcibly kissed by a very drunk bandmate before jody rescues her, but there are further instances of someone not immediately stopping a kiss or an embrace or what have you when someone else says no, that i think could not be written in a modern day romance novel. there are some very frank discussions of marital abuse right after a literally soul-healing sex scene.

this is a book that could never be rewritten as a straight romance with light serial numbers filed off. no one is in physical danger just because they're gay, but there's a lot of internal homophobia and readjustment on grace's part, and overall people are fairly accepting in theory but not always in practice. jody outs herself to the aussie press, and early on/right after her bus breaks down, grace and her mother discuss this news and her mother tells her off for being prejudiced, but connives to throw them together to distract grace from her recent divorce. her mother is then is very sad about the thought of her daughter who would have a very difficult life as a publicly out lesbian, and I can’t really blame her, but it’s such a switch from the vehement Fix Your Heart Or Die!!! discussion in the second chapter. there are some fraught familial reactions to grace's bisexuality-- her mom basically bullies her dad into remembering he loves his daughter-- but they all do come around.

this was fine and a good beach read, i'm not sure that i'll ever reread it. almost forgot about the sex. i think the current fashion for queer romance novels is not quite as purple, but the whole book is like this and i must respect an author's full commitment in this manner. here are some sex examples on non-consecutive pages.

did not finish, or finished with severe annoyance

i have become a libby power user in my old age bc texas is remarkably free with its library cards. i don't THINK i'm meant to have five of them but there seems to be no law against it and no one's told me to fuck off? this is good bc i have (at the moment) 44 holds and 56 "notify me if any of my libraries purchase this book" books tagged.

the flipside of being willing to give anything vaguely intriguing a try is that most books aren't very good or they aren't quite what i want. i will DNF anything, anytime, for no good reason. i know that statistically most novels are debut novels but i am so fucking tired of reading debut novels.

Hammajang Luck, by Makana Yamamoto, debut novel published last month. comps include ocean's 8, blade runner, and gideon the ninth. much as i love a heist novel, a heist is extremely ambitious for a debut and i didn't quite vibe with the style. i DNF'd at around the end of chapter seven, it has a very strange issue where we get from location to location pretty snappily but overexplain setting and clothing too much within individual scenes. i think it wants to be a screenplay a little too bad. a great deal of the dialogue is hawaiian pidgin (what the author grew up speaking). very much a me problem, i didn't have any experience with this language coming into this book and it was hard to turn off the kneejerk "this is racist and making fun of black people" response i had. again, very much a me problem.

Yamamoto uses Hawaiian pidgin—“an amalgamation of Hawaiian, English, Japanese, Chinese and Portuguese”—in much of the novel’s dialogue, particularly between Edie and their crew members. It is the “primary language” spoken on Kepler and speaks to the kinship between the characters. However, the decision to include pidgin occurred by happenstance. When writing the first line of dialogue between Edie and Cy, fellow crew member and friend, “it just came out in pidgin spontaneously”. Yamamoto “tried to rewrite it in standard English”, but it “sounded wrong”. Notably, the pidgin and Hawaiian words in the novel are not italicised or translated, nor does the novel include a glossary of terms. Yamamoto felt that these practices were “othering” and so asks the reader to do the work.

i think this is a reasonable thing to ask a reader, and i think i might have to take a crack at it some other time.

The Rainfall Market, by You Yeong-Gwang, a debut novel from last year freshly translated from Korean. a young woman wins a lottery ticket to enter the Rainfall Market on the first day of the rainy season, where she can completely change her life. DNF at two chapters. this seems to be generally marketed as general fiction (which is what my library had it under) but it feels very middle-grade, both as far as sentence structure and vocabulary and the general maturity-- the protagonist is about to graduate high school but her concerns and goals feel more like she's about twelve. not sure if it's an unfortunate series of translation and marketing decisions? rough!

Water Moon, by Samantha Sotto Yambao, the author's fifth book and published last month. the premise of this book is so charming: liminal-space pawnshop where you can exchange your regrets for tea, woman taking this family business over from her father, physicist who stumbles in, oh no! the physicist is playing the scully to her mulder but does not have a physicist Vibe. i think he’s too personable and not tiresome and mansplainy enough to be a particle physicist. he's too nice. she falls in love with him near-instantly. DNF partly because i have never met a particle physicist i could stand to be around for more than fifteen minutes, mostly a DNF bc at about a quarter of the way through this very slow to start book, when the girl turned to the boy after they fell through a pond into a perfect recreation of a edo-era tokyo street and said "this is the other world, you can call it isekai" i did not throw my elderly ailing phone across the room and i did not get up and stomp around bc phil was on my lap but i did vehemently return the library ebook thirteen days early.

Lucky Red, Claudia Cravens, a debut novel published summer 2023. this thoroughly fucking annoyed me. published by the literary group that also ran...basically a budget MFA? they called it a "novel generator in 12 months", they have since closed, and i cannot find how much AI was involved. i do not think this book was marketed well:

A thrilling, raucous, and gloriously queer debut about a scrappy orphan bent on making her own luck in the American West—and finding friendship, romance, and her true calling along the way, now in paperback.

this book is about an older teen in 1877 dodge city who turns to survival sex work. terrible thing after terrible thing happens to this girl whenever she makes a connection outside living just in her own head and for what? it felt like the author was setting up to deliver some moral lesson or theme other than "never question your boss" but never quite followed through. it felt like the author was punishing the protagonist for being a whore even though that’s the book the author chose to write and the author can't quite decide if it's empowering or not. again, it's very strange to read a book where the protagonist is punished for almost every decision she makes and very few parts of sex work are idealized, but then she turns to the camera and reassures the reader with a chipper "but it wasn't all bad!". i wish the protagonist got to mature or grow as a character a little more. i think this could have used more time in the oven and an ending that doesn't feel like a very ill-earned end of every american western ever. thank fucking god this is a real ensemble cast and not found family or i would be much more impatient with this book than i already am.

good at getting me to finish a book bc it's very effective at hustling you from chapter to chapter. great technical skill on that front. bad at any sort of emotional throughline.

things i DNF'd after less than two chapters

Thornfruit by Felicia Davin, published in 2018 and her seventh or eighth book. i am a little annoyed bc this was on hold for over two months but i really do appreciate the AO3-style list of tags and warnings in the front bc now i know there is stuff in this book that is not for me!

Passing Strange, by Ellen Klages, a 2017 novella and her...twentieth? work. a prolific woman. urban fantasy gay historical fiction of 1940s magical san francisco. while i do love a magical painting, i did not have it in me this week to read about a woman struggling with her legacy in the face of a terminal diagnosis.

Nevernight, Jay Kristoff, 2016 first book of a trilogy and his third trilogy overall. he keeps fucking getting me with fun vampire premises but he's very much in the same bucket as paolo bacigalupi in my brain. far more brutal and visceral things happen than you really are prepared for. do not love an opening chapter with disassociation to a past sexual assault in the middle of an assassination, as movie-crisp as the match shot transitions from present day to disassociation were.

plus a nice half dozen varied romances im not going to individually name, bc the last time i seriously used the "tag for later" feature in libby was the summer of 2019 and my tastes have changed. for example i rarely put myself through heterosexual vampire romance books these days.

yeah these were all right

Red Harvest, by Dashiell Hammett, his first full novel in 1929 after literally dozens of shorts and novellas. this detective noir was like watching a car crash. brutal little book. im positive this is not the earliest example of turning both ends of a town against the middle for your own profit, but it was the one cited for yojimbo so its the one that gets brought up a lot. i think the cast is slightly too large for what hammett is trying to do. sometimes reading noir as something woman-shaped feels like an elaborate act of self-harm.

Unnatural Magic, by CM Waggoner, a debut novel from late 2019. thoroughly charmed by this one! one of the most well thought out country/species/religion/immigration systems and how any and all of those can impact any one specific wizard’s magic. it's like a beautiful clockwork orrery ticking along in the background. very prachett-esque approach to troll gender. the baddie is Not doing good things but the ultimate motivations are really understandable! I get why that happened even if it was a really bad reaction! a line i keep turning over in my head is "worry like a third person in the room." i have put their second book on hold on the strength of this one.

The Firebird’s Tale, Anya Ow, a debut novel from 2016. charming retelling of the fairytale element of a royal having to marry the one who makes him smile. the lead up to and the third act separation itself were kind of stupid, and felt like it wanted to be a duology but wrapped up very fast. has a lot of thoughts about choice and putting the end of things to bed quietly and with dignity on your own terms. also has a lot of thoughts about meanings of stories. the non-magical and non-immortal half of the couple is a possessive prince who falls so hard so fast and is mad about it. they fuck so many times while thinking "well surely this doesn’t mean anything, we're just married for the convenience". they're both so dryly exasperated.

there's an additional hardboiled noir that was fun but i have nothing particular to say about, and a stack of physical comics from a new library that i mostly hated, but we are almost at the image limit and it is 1030 PM. i can't see why we wouldn't be back to the usual format next week but no promises bc there are no rules

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem

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autumnmobile12 · 7 months ago

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My Hero Academia: The one thing I actually liked about the ending.

I've already made my post breaking down why I thought the finale wasn't good. I've seen other posts breaking down the flaws and I expect I'll see more points of view explored.

But in the interest of promoting positivity because I think it's important to remember the positives, even if they're few, I do want to bring up one thing I did like about the end.

I like where Spinner ends up. Here's why:

This is an edited excerpt from the above link.

Spinner might be the only one of the LoV whose fate fit the crime. His reasons were an echo of Stain, but advocating for change to a flawed government system is a worthy cause. Where he went wrong is it wasn't a cause worth killing for. The Commission and hero society would have to be much worse canonically for that to happen. Like blatantly totalitarian policies.

But we didn't really see that happen in canon.

The PLF was put down because they were enacting a violent uprising, not necessarily because of their views.

Destro's book wasn't a banned text and people were free to read it. When Hawks gave it to Endeavor, he wasn't scolded for carrying a banned book around. If the government placed those kinds of restrictions (imprisoning anyone who published it, owned a copy, quoted its teachings, etc.), that would be the worrying signs of censorship.

News stations throughout the series freely criticize hero society to the point of brutal and cutting remarks. In a true fascist government, that wouldn't happen.

The video of Stain's last stand being deleted over and over could be considered censorship, but one could also argue it was deleted in the interest of not causing a panic rather than blocking his message from reaching the public.

Now I'm not ignoring Nagant's story where corrupt heroes were being quietly dealt with because that is some shady cover-up bs, but it's also a brief blip in the series and not explored all that much, which really more so highlights Horikoshi's inconsistencies in just how corrupt the Commission actually was. (I mean, maybe they really were chewing their nails nervously when they found out what Hawks was doing with the Destro books. "We can't kill him! You have any idea how expensive training another one would be?")

So no, while Spinner's cause was right, the way he tried to achieve it within the environment presented by the series wasn't the answer. All the headcanons and fanworks worldbuilding aside, nothing of what the Commission was canonically doing was worth the level of violence reached. If Spinner was writing articles that outed problematic heroes and flaws in the system and then was shut down/imprisoned for that, then we can revisit the violent uprising because if you can't solve a solution with words because those words are being forcefully silenced, then you have no choice but to either accept it or resort to other methods.

And Spinner lives in the end. He's probably in prison for the rest of his life, but he lives and his closing message to the series is, "We lost our war, but I will tell our story. We won't be forgotten."

Notice I said at the beginning of his how his 'fate' fit the crime. Imprisoned, he can no longer fight his war with violence. But he can still fight his war, and possibly still win, with words. Since we can see it available for purchase, his book is not a banned text even though he is a convicted criminal.

...

Even though Spinner lost pretty much everything--his friends, his freedom, possibly his health with his Quirk being tampered with by AFO--he also defies the mold of 'history is written by the victors,' and I think that is something to appreciate in its own way.

Do I think this solves all the problems about the finale? No, absolutely not. If you want my full thoughts, follow the link above, but the short version is I think the ending of MHA is actually pretty sad and the final line 'that's how we became the world's greatest heroes' is a tacky closing against that sadness. Yeah...you all became the world's greatest heroes after a harrowing fight in which you ultimately upheld the status quo in a system that created the villains you faced, and by preserving that status quo, you've basically ensured this is gonna happen again.

But I don't think we should let the greater flaws completely overshadow what Spinner represents. In their strategy meeting, the heroes didn't consider him much of a threat, but ironically as he writes his book, he potentially becomes the greatest threat in the LoV. Does it suck this is where the story ends and we don't get to see where it goes? Sure. Do I love the implication of where it could go?

Yes.

Don't forget Spinner.

#my hero academia #spinner #shuichi iguchi #the mha finale's only salvation #boku no hero academia #bnha #mha #my hero academia ending #analysis

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hooked-on-elvis · 2 years ago

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[FAN STORY] "Those five or six minutes that will stay in my heart forever" — Excerpt: "ELVIS: Live at the International" by Kieran Davis (2011)

February 18, 1970: Elvis backstage with fan, Judy Cherry. Judy is an England "super fan" of Elvis, who met him in 1970, at the International Hotel in Las Vegas, NV.

Here's Judy's recollections of that moment:

"... The first thing I said when he came out was just a whispered 'Elvis!' He put his arms around me and gave me a nice warm hug. I told him I had waited fourteen years for this and he said 'Have you? That's a long time to wait, isn't it honey?' Then gave Jamie (the girl with me) a nice hug and said, 'Did you come all the way from England?' She said, 'Yes' He said, 'Thank you, hon.'

I said, 'Elvis, do you have time for a couple of pictures?' His answer was a warm, 'Sure.' So while Jamie was getting my camera out, I showed him a copy of the Elvis Presley story, that I had brought with me, and told him I had had it since 1957. He seemed genuinely amazed. He came across this one real old picture and said, 'This really is old, man. I was 21 years old here!'

Note: Possibly, Judy is refereeing to a magazine called "ELVIS PRESLEY: THE INTIMATE STORY MAGAZINE" (Published in 1957)

IMPORTANT UPDATE -- March 2024: I won't erase what I published orignally because there are friends who reblogged it already and I feel this can look confusing, but one minor correction is needed. This magazine above is definitely NOT the one Judy Cherry was holding for Elvis to sign. @whositmcwhatsit posted the actual book on her blog which is "The Elvis Presley Story edited by James Gregory, introduction by Dick Clark". I apologize for the wrong assumption I made, friends. I had never saw the actual book cover (until now), thus when researching the name "the Elvis Presley story", as Judy mentioned in her recollection, it only got me to think the magazine I shared on my original post [the one above] could be a the one she was referring to. My bad. Well, it's corrected thanks to our wonderful Jade. ♥ I hope you don't mind, dear, if I use the picture of your copy to illustrate this post.

Photo by the copy our friend Jade [@whositmcwhatsit] bought. Lucky girl! Precious!🥹🩷

[Continuing the story...]

"In between these dribbles of conversation we had taken one picture (shown at the beginning of this post), had some trouble with the flashcube and now we're taking another picture... then he turned to Jamie and said, 'Now we are gonna get one with you, aren't we honey?' I got the picture, he said goodbye to Jamie and came over and gave me a hug. I said, 'Goodbye, Elvis, I'll see you tomorrow night... whether you see me or not: cause I'll be going to the show every night for the rest of the time.' He seemed really surprised at this and said 'Eleven times! Thank you so much, sweetheart. I just wish I could meet everyone of you!'

"He kissed me goodbye and he was gone but the 5 or 6 minutes will stay in my heart forever."

♥

One of the things I love the most about EP (and what turned me into a passionate fan of his) is how loving he was with his fans, he really listened to them. He treated them like people, not numbers or simply "admirers". He cared about giving them the time of their lives once they were there to watch him performing or even if they were just around to ask for his autograph or pictures. Elvis was truly genuine when interacting with them — actually this word "genuine" is used by many of the fortunate fans who got to meet and talk to him, to describe EP's interactions with them.

He cared so much about his fans that it's said he could remember the frequent ones by their names, all of them, the die hard fans, and even asked about some of them to his other fans whenever they were uncommonly not around for a few days (specifically talking about the fans that hanged around at his homes gates now).

EP was a great guy. He deserved all the success he conquered. The best performer ever! It's always said the good ones are always taken from us too soon. Well, that seems to be the truth, tragically. How we wish we could see and talk to him today, having such great memories like Judy's, while EP would be at his 88 year-young of a well-lived life. Imagine the conversations with this guy! The stories he could share with us. Anyway, we'll forever cherish you, EP.⚡♥

#elvis presley #elvis the king #elvis fans #elvis #elvis fandom #elvis history #70s elvis #elvis was so attentive

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xarrixii · 6 months ago

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arri, writer in progress

cisgender, white, and pansexual/ace, though figure out what gender i am yourself cause i will use any pronouns (chaos)

flash/burn masterlist | pinned introduction post

i classify myself as a writer in the sorts that i am an aspiring author, and in progress in the sorts that i'm currently writing what i hope to be a published book someday.

most of it is available on tumblr in first-draft form. its name is FLASH/BURN, and i love it. (some of it is second-draft.)

name someone i talk to a lot and they'll probably agree i likely have some level of undiagnosed ADHD. i'm usually incredibly irregular, sporadic, and it's random whether i'm organized or in complete disorder.

i like to stay up super late (is this relevant?). i'm an adult citizen of the united states.

what kinds of books are you interested in?

genre-wise, i'm willing to read a lot as long as it's fiction. sci-fi, fantasy, lack of and presence of magic, action, adventure, thriller.

i think my favorite books fall along the lines of following characters more than they follow plots.

do you have any hobbies or interests outside of writing?

i had very long rhythm game and gacha phases, but i also enjoy a good SCP game or relaxed Minecraft server.

what font do you like to write in?

lora, point twelve. i started using it years ago and now it's hard to use anything else. it looks like this:

(excerpt from FLASH/BURN Chapter 45: "Operative")

where can i find your writing?

you can find anything i've wanted to post in public here, on my tumblr. i set up a wattpad for FLASH/BURN, but i haven't gotten around to uploading more than the first arc (chapter 1-22)

can i see some of your older writing?

sure! there's actually older versions of most of my WIPs in my Google Drive, and if you ever want to see some of what i consider my cringiest part of life, just ask. i'm open to messages and more open to my ask box (which you are allowed to remain anonymous in).

what's your music taste?

it's mostly a jumble of alternative rock music. Citizen Soldier and STARSET got me through the pandemic, and now i've begun listening to a few more better-known artists in roughly the same genre. (listen—rule number one is that it's all over the place.)

i have an entire playlist named after one character's music taste. i don't have to bother with another because it's one artist. the rest is vibes.

what themes are prevalent in your writing?

you're very likely to find a lot of found family, i think. possibly a ton of moral grey. lots of non-romance.

if you're looking more into FLASH/BURN's themes, both of the above apply. my good friend clove's attributed "coping mechanisms that no longer become useful." heavy trigger warnings for child abuse, extreme bigotry, suicide, and general mental health issues. Harlow goes through some shit.

what are some things you won't write?

you won't be finding NSFW-in-the-sexual-way content on this blog. i'm not really interested in it and frankly i don't want to write it because of that. i'm more than comfortable with torture, blood, gore, and horror, though i can't guarantee it'll be any good.

if you think i'm afraid to kill a major character, you're wrong, by the way. sorry.

can i send you a writing prompt?

oh fuck yeah. especially some hero/villain shit. let me experiment.

who are you inclusive of?

transgender people are welcome here. intersex people are welcome here. systems are welcome here. otherkin are welcome here. mental disabilities are welcome here. physical disabilities are welcome here. queer people are welcome here. aspec people are welcome here. fat people are welcome here. poc are welcome here. something something about you who is welcome here. women and men. everything fuckin' in between. just don't be an asshole and we're cool does that make sense??

i do not allow hate in this home, and let that include myself. hold me accountable.

something something about further questions, relate them to my secretary, of whom is myself and my tumblr askbox or private messages.

onwards with the WIP descriptions!

FLASH/BURN—

Harlow "Urban" Collins experienced the pyrokinetic rehabilitation and misuse clinics firsthand since he was seven. Since he awakened, it's been nothing but a constant stream of hatred. Alph "Raiden" Roy managed to build a trustworthy reputation despite their pyrokinesis and was about to begin police academy when an incident that could kill their best friend and implicate them in a felony upends their plans. A favor too many spirals both into the underground enforcement organization founded by Alph's family to pay it off—Cinder. Bad timing forces them into the clutches of a jump-started scramble to stop Storm's plans before Cinder's legal counterpart catches wind of its existence, even while life has to appear to resume like normal. Shit hits the fan.

#flash/burn #flash/burn shitposting

MONOALCHEMICAL

Vaughn Gray was accused of high treason and is one of the longest-running wanted criminals in the Kingdom of Graheathe. Heir to the Harkon Dukedom, Leon Brullen-Harkon is the first knight to successfully deliver the alchemist-sorcerer a permanent blow—and also the first one to need his help.

#monoalchemical:xarrixii

YELLOW IS FEAR

Fear was gifted the ability to wield an unruly piece of the magic plane and handed the trust of WKPD Captain Barrow McGlently. Fare Freundlichkeit thought that would be the biggest case her alter ego would ever need to go down, but that was before a strange, beak-masked “vigilante” kept pushing her away from the biggest slave trade Krusing had ever seen; and then swore his life to her.

#yellow is fear:xarrixii

HOLDING ANCHOR

Earwyn Sol wants nothing more than to be remembered, so when Captain Haze of Dead Water let him on board all those years ago, he finally thought he had the chance. After becoming the feared Second Lieutenant Cardinal, however, his chances hadn’t changed. Soren Auer is the sleepless Uchorian Sparrow translating fluently between the five common tongues and several ship communication encryptions just to keep the rest of his nine fingers, and also the inventor that offers himself hostage when Dead Water comes knocking.

#holding anchor:xarrixii

deadrail_

Atlas is the multi-skilled persona of tired code optimizer Sawyer Greene whose rules to meet with are very simple: no weapons, no murder, and he decides what jobs he'll take. Business as usual quickly turns into the unique job of somehow getting spoiled and dishonored Fujinaga Eiji to return to the Fujinaga succession line. To varying degrees of success.

#deadrail_xarrixii

Writemas

a writing game hosted by another tumblr user in december 2024 (@agirlandherquill). contains non-canon but adjacent content for Monoalchemical, Yellow is Fear, and Holding Anchor

looking for more? again i encourage you to ask me. i'll tell you all about the time i moderated for a roblox group or made some shitty play named "Melody" or whatever it was. the height of my gacha phase. who am i if not embarrassing the shit out of myself?

also if you want to see my gl2 rendition of flash/burn characters it either exists or can within like three hours

#introduction post #pinned post #queer writers #introductory post #pinned intro #blog intro #writers #writers on tumblr #writer #writeblr #how does one describe themselves #will likely be updated over time

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queer-reader-07 · 6 months ago

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favorite books

congratulations! you've unlocked the special interest!

since you said books (plural) who knows when this list will end!

my forever number ones:

Dune by Frank Herbert - this is like my one fav i can never quite articulate because it's just. so perfect to me. it changed my life though and i love it with my whole heart.

The Feeling of Falling in Love by Mason Deaver - this is the book i'm known for. this is the book i've gotten enough people to read that i've lost count. this is the book i've gained friendships because of. it's a t4t YA romcom that is equal parts tender, loving, emotional growth and absolute tomfoolery. i love it so dearly i genuinely cannot express to you how much i love this book it is my main special interest outside of chemistry i am being so serious.

sci fi & fantasy favs:

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler - ok it's more spec fic than anything but you get the point. this book is about radical hope and its importance in the face of despair and oppression. set in 2024, written in the 90s, required reading if you haven't already. also "god is change" fundamentally altered my approach to deconstruction so there's that too.

Masters of Death by Olivie Blake - like a gaiman novel but written by a good person! very gay, very messy, literal games of the gods. your main character is a vampire real estate agent and she wants to sell this haunted house but the ghost haunting it won't leave. the godson of Death is like a cunty asshole but you also kind of love him? god it's an insane premise and i LOVE it.

The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams - this is what epic fantasy should be. the MC is like what if indiana jones was a Black lesbian and it absolutely rocks. empires on the brink of collapse, potential incoming apocalypse, running from the authorities, all the good stuff.

contemporary and litfic favs:

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong - i read this for the first time as a newly discovered queer 15 year old in my gender in lit and film class and my one memory from that experience is hearing my teacher read the line "do you think we'll be fags forever?" out loud and me immediately crying. i've since reread it and that line still ruins me, but it's also just a phenomenal exploration of queerness in the midst of being raised by and being an immigrant in White america. vuong writes this novel as a letter to a mother who the author knows cannot read english, which is art if i ever saw it. vuong is a poet writing prose and it shows in the most beautiful way.

If You Still Recognize Me by Cynthia So - this is for the fandom girlies (gn)!!! there's a bit where our MC says something to the effect of "i can't wait to read her fic and type out a comment saying 'i hate you for ruining my life!!' when really i mean 'i love you i love you i love you'" AND IT GOT ME IN MY FEELS. anyway this book had me like that one spider-man meme.

Old Enough by Haley Jakobson - i bring you an excerpt from my review: This novel is for the cringefail queers. It's for the young queers. It's for the queers who tried a little too hard when they came out. It's for the queers who tried to hold onto their closeted life in one way or another for a little too long. It's for the queers who feel that they never really came of age; the ones who maybe still are. What I'm saying is, this book is for me. It's about me in many ways.

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin - a queer classic for a reason. this novel explores masculinity through repressed queerness and self loathing and i think it altered my brain chemistry in the process. such a poignant and tragic piece of literature.

nonfic favs:

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin - this book unironically changed my life, baldwin is a genius. my copy is marked up to shit and i'm sure when i inevitably reread it i will mark it up even more. i immediately described this book as "timeless and thought provoking" upon finishing and i stand by that. this book was published over 60 years ago but so much of it still rings true. it's largely memoir, told through letters. it touches on race, masculinity, religion, and in many ways, radical hope.

Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y Davis - required reading for any leftist in my opinion. this emphasizes the important of collectivities and community care when organizing and fighting injustice. genuinely this novel reshaped the way i view community care (what it means, how to do it, etc etc). a foundational text on abolition and organizing as well. it emphasizes how freedom movements and fights for liberation are inherently connected. this book's thesis is "freedom for all or freedom for none" and by god it does a damn good job of communicating that.

“Whenever you conceptualize social justice struggles, you will always defeat your own purposes if you cannot imagine the people around whom you are struggling as equal partners.”

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green - this book is part memoir, part love letter to the human story and i loved every moment of it. i think of how john reminds you in this novel that while not being able to see your future may mean not foreseeing the horrors, it also means not foreseeing the joy and wonder that awaits you. i think of how he describes hope as a "prerequisite for my survival" and how that has grown into the core of my politic. i think of how this book taught me that cynicism is unsustainable and we do a disservice to ourselves and each other when we give into it

special categories of favs specifically for the books about being mixed race that made me feel seen and real:

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliot - i wrote a whole essay about this one chapter out of this book because of how much it resonated but, in short: this is a sobering memoir to say the least. elliot tells the story of her life as a mixed race, First Nations indigenous woman through a collection of essays. she covers topics such as colonialism, racism and racialization, and misogyny. there's this one essay in particular that will always stick out to me personally as a mixed person, Half-Breed: A Racial Biography in Five Parts. it explores this specific grief around being mixed, around having privilege your non mixed family doesn't, around having to use that privilege to protect them. it's the best literary explanation i have ever found for the feelings i've held for so long. overall though, this novel is a great example for what i mean when i say the person is political. just, really good all around if you're looking for memoir.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett - i read this book for the first time when i was like 15 and i really ought to revisit it but i remember being stopped dead in my tracks by how accurate the exploration of race in America was. how it explores the way that race is oftentimes less about your personal identity and more about how others perceive you (what does it mean to pass as white? how can and do some mixed people use that ability? what does that say about our society and our history?).

This Place is Still Beautiful by Xixi Tian - many of the same themes as The Vanishing Half but YA and more accessible! this one resonated particularly well with me as it follows two sisters, both White & Chinese, and their experiences with their racial identity. one sister looks "more Asian" and the other looks "more White" and the way that played out felt like a mirror to my life, i saw in them the same feelings i've felt every time someone told me my brother "just looks so much more Japanese" than me. and to see those struggles in a teen, to know that my experience wasn't isolated? it was so meaningful, revolutionary even.

ok that's all for now, i'm almost certainly forgetting some but these are all favs of mine <3

#books #book recs #asks #my asks

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early-october-snow · 1 month ago

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i find it funny how things i wrote years ago have echos of memories attached and yet i also relate to them in an entirely new way in this new moment of time. hurt has transformed into a new hurt, from a new person, a new perspective.

writing just never loses value i suppose. as much as i cringe at how i used to write.

i am undone by how much i am understood by a version of me from the past who understood nothing.

#writing #books #poetry #excerpts from a book that won't be published #poems #love poem #original poem #writers and poets

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historicity-was-already-taken · 2 years ago

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i have this excerpt from Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto: The Journal of Emmanuel Ringelblum printed and framed

Like, I paid an etsy seller to print it for me on the nicest cardstock with the best ink, and then I waited in line and paid a stupid amount of money to have it framed at the Michael's custom framing counter. And I have zero regrets. I've probably posted this excerpt here before but I don't care. It is everything.

The heroic girls, Chajke and Frumke—they are a theme that calls for the pen of a great writer. Boldly they travel back and forth through the cities and towns of Poland. They carry “Aryan” papers identifying them as Poles or Ukrainians. One of them even wears a cross, which she never parts with except when in the Ghetto. They are in mortal danger every day. They rely entirely on their “Aryan” faces and on the peasant kerchiefs that cover their heads. Without a murmur, without a second’s hesitation, they accept and carry out the most dangerous missions. Is someone needed to travel to Vilna, Bialystok, Lemberg, Kowel, Lublin, Czestochowa, or Radom to smuggle in contraband such as illegal publications, goods, money? The girls volunteer as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Are there comrades who have to be rescued from Vilna, Lublin, or some other city?— They undertake the mission. Nothing stands in their way, nothing deters them. Is it necessary to become friendly with engineers of German trains, so as to be able to travel beyond the frontiers of the Government General of Poland, where people can move about with special papers? They are the ones to do it, simply, without fuss, as though it was their profession. They have traveled from city to city, to places no delegate or Jewish institution had ever reached, such as Wolhynia, Lithuania. They were the first to bring back the tidings about the tragedy of Vilna. They were the first to offer words of encouragement and moral support to the surviving remnant of that city. How many times have they looked death in the eyes? How many times have they been arrested and searched? Fortune has smiled on them. They are, in the classic idiom, “emissaries of the community to whom no harm can come.” With what simplicity and modesty have they reported what they accomplished on their journeys, on the trains bearing Polish Christians who have been pressed to work in Germany! The story of the Jewish woman will be a glorious page in the history of Jewry during the present war. And the Chajkes and Frumkes will be the leading figures in this story. For these girls are indefatigable. Just back from Czestochowa, where they imported contraband, in a few hours they’ll be on the move again. And they’re off without a moment’s hesitation, without a minute of rest.

He only namechecks Chaike Grossman and Frumka Plotnicka here, but I can tell you for a fact that he's also referring to Tossia Atlman, Tema Schneiderman, and Lonka Kozybrodska. At least.

So far the count of Jewish women (that I'm aware of) who have responded to "They are a theme that calls for the pen of a great writer" with a book (or long-planned book) are three: me, Dr. Lenore Weitzman (who won't return any of my emails) and Judith Batalion (who did return my emails, had lunch with me, and told me that Dr. Weitzman wouldn't respond to her emails either). I hope more Jewish women--in and out of the academe--continue to take up this call, and I hope they keep getting published and aren't rejected because it's "too similar" to mine and Batalion's. No like seriously like two months after I signed with my agent, and one month after I got my book deal, I received a rejection from a lit agent saying that my book was "too similar" to Batalion's. Ok first of all it's not. I read Batalion's the day it came out, and they're very different books with very different focuses, goals, and approaches; the only thing they have in common is that they're both about this underserved, underappreciated group of amazing women. There SHOULD be multiple books about each and every one of them. There SHOULD be multiple books about one day Tossia spent in Vilna. Every white man who looked sideways at WW2 and the American Civil War have like, 87 terrible books dedicated to them, and I DEMAND at least 3 for each of these women. And 17 for Queen Zivia. (Who does have a biography, written by Bella Gutterman). Plus a biopic. So this post went in a direction.

tl;dr:

#epica's cover of the pirates of the caribbean theme came on shuffle while i was writing this #it was awesome

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phannibal · 5 months ago

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finished the fight the future novelization!! overall it was an extremely mid adaptation that did not take advantage of the change in medium to do anything interesting, but it was still a fun read and honestly some plot points were clearer than in the movie. liveblog and standout moments under the cut :3

immediately the narration feels like someone is describing something that’s happening on screen. this is not a good thing; a good adaptation is able to use the strengths of its medium to tell the story in a way that is compelling in and of itself (day of the doctor perfect example) (this is why screen -> book adaptations fall flat when using a different author, the book author has a lot of guesswork to do wrt POVs, motivations, and other internal character stuff) (but do I really want to read a book by chris carter)

wait this is awesome face blindness can’t affect me in the written word. wow turns out that one guy was two guys all along

y’know it’s almost not fair to criticize this book for being a clunky adaptation bc fight the future leans so hard into its own cinematography in a way that makes it irreplicable in text. god I want to write a dissertation comparing this to the dotd novelization with references to the other x files and target novelizations and comparing franchises and impact of same vs. different author of the same story. waves sadly at my nonexistent media studies degree

he comes into the initial hearing and her heart LIFTS. this is what i’m talking about use the medium to give us character insight!!!

oh no fucking way. author just used “who’s” when the correct word was “whose.” probably worst mistake I have ever seen in a published book

the dialogue in particular does not translate well to text. maybe there’s a way to make m&s’ opening back and forth just as iconic and characteristic in print, or mulder’s drunken exposition slash tagline just as comedic yet foreboding, but as is, they (and other standout lines) just fall so flat

they don’t even say that he’s peeing on the independence day poster 😑

did this author come from fanfiction or something bc the amount of “the younger man” I’m having to roll my eyes at is obscene

this is the biggest glimpse we get into any character’s thoughts so i’m holding it to my chest forever and ever

god so the 3am “what are you implying” “is that what you’d like me to do” feel WAY more loaded in text

also “she had been thinking exactly that” 🥺

TWICE. yeah i bet

I’m like 90% sure some lines of dialogue are slightly different like just meaningless word order choices but I’m not putting on the movie to confirm

no okay the above is definitely true. “the one thing in the world he can’t live without” is NOT the original line but goes just as hard

have to include this bc it is absolutely the most changed dialogue in the whole book. wish i could see into this author’s head

realizing for the first time that the guy that planted the bomb = the guy eavesdropping on mulder in the bar = the guy driving the ambulance because in a book you have to spell that type of thing out

i DID actually pull up the movie upon reading these lines bc i was like i knowww i would remember this. i wonder if the author was working off of the original script or something and this was part of that? or if she was really just allowed to freestyle

god so we know in the movie he just kind of jumps down a random ice hole after he initially falls through. here it’s specifically and clearly a vent because ig this author could not rationalize him choosing to jump down a random hole

long af image so click to read but INSANE insane emphasis on the cpr scene for no reason. like that lasts 2 seconds in the movie but is fully a page and a half here, thanks for that at least ms elizabeth hand

protectively :')

why is this exchange so neutered?? where is the passion? where is "some hollow personal cause of mine" and "i can't. i won't"?

that's all i got! i think these excerpts really demonstrate the shortcomings of a direct, no-frills screen-to-text translation. i can't help thinking that this book was meant to be just another thing to put on shelves and sell, as opposed to being born of a genuine desire to retell the story in a new way. like i said, still fun though, and enough new tidbits to make it worthwhile!

#txf lb #the x files #txf #i keep going back to the dotd novelization. like sorry that's just the exemplar of show to book adaptations that's what everyone should #be trying to do #i'm even more interested in reading the other x files episode novelizations now though. i think they're like. middle school level books?#which is weird bc the episodes are not middle school level tv #but this experience has reminded me how obsessed i am w the concept of adaptations especially show->book so i want to seek them out #txf lit

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sunniedesi · 1 year ago

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Sakae Esuno's Old Blogs (Author of Future Diary)

If there is one thing Sakae Esuno is known for, besides being the creator of Future Diary and three other manga series, is his privacy. He’s never had a very active presence online like other mangakas, given that he doesn’t post much on Twitter and he’s also not given many interviews. That being said, Esuno did have a few blogs back in the day with interesting content to look into. While not active anymore, the blogs can still be accessed through the Wayback Machine, albeit lacking some of its images.

Esuno’s official blog was originally hosted on the site Sakura. The page went through many changes throughout the years, to update the blog whenever a new project or volume of his current manga was on sale.

This is what the page looked like during 2005 - 2006, dedicated to his first manga “Hanako and the Terror of Allegory.” All the page shows are the history of changes to the site (top right of the page) and his schedule for publishing the volumes of the manga (bottom right).

Snapshot from April 2005

Snapshot from December 2005.

The top of the page says “As previously announced, a new series titled "Future Diary" will begin its publication in next month's issue of Monthly Shonen Ace. Since I'm busy with work, there won't be any major updates to the homepage. Please be patient and wait for next month's issue.” The other two changes in this snapshot were the addition of Amazon links for each volume of “Hanako and the Terror of Allegory” and changing the schedule to feature Future Diary’s release in January 2006.

When Future Diary came out in 2006, the page went through a major overhaul to center on this project.

Snapshot of June 2006

The text here features a synopsis of Future Diary

Snapshot from February 2007

The text here is announcing the sale of volume three, and at the bottom requesting for assistants.

The updated blog also featured three new subpages:

The character vote, where people could vote for their favorite characters and leave their opinions in the comments.

The webstore for all of Esuno’s mangas.

And the official picture section, where Esuno displayed different pictures and banners free to use for people’s personal blogs, as long as Esuno was credited. While this page is saved on the Wayback Machine, none of the pictures load. It’s possible some of these were illustrations from the manga, but it’s also possible that a few of these were unique drawings from Esuno, meaning we might have some lost media here, unfortunately.

In 2009, Esuno moved his blog to a different domain, though still powered by Sakura. This new version of the blog brought about more personal posts from Esuno, such as updates on his work progress for both Future Diary and Big Order, sales announcements, his thoughts on the series and its many iterations, etc. This blog was active until June 2018.

Most of his blog entries are visible through the Wayback Machine, with the exception of 13 entries from 2009 and two from 2011. Many of the pictures are also inaccessible through the Wayback Machine. While I won’t translate every blog entry (since they’re mostly updates on sale dates), I decided to translate a few excerpts that I felt were interesting enough to look at in this post, particularly those about Redial and Esuno’s interviews.

Excerpt from entry of December 26th, 2012:

* About Future Diary: Redial It’s already been announced in the Big Order Obi (note: Obi is a strip of paper wrapped around manga that usually displays information about the product, special announcements or ads), but both the anime and manga of Future Diary will receive an OVA in July of next year. Both the comic and anime will feature new content (the book will not be sold as a standalone piece.) Both stories take place in the third world, and follow Yuno’s journey to meet Yukiteru again. They’re a sort of sequel to the manga and anime. I’m in charge of the plot, while Takayama-san (FD’s screenwriter) is in charge of the screenplay. (I’m very thankful for the fun script he’s provided.) It wouldn’t be fun to write the exact same story for the manga, so I’m planning to go in a different direction. Lots of characters will make an appearance in the anime (Akise included). Please look forward to it!

Now, onto an entry from March 12th, 2013:

* About Future Diary: Redial I sent the manuscript for Redial a few days ago. I’ve been taking a break from Big Order since last month to work on Redial’s manuscript. I apologize to the readers of Big order for this short wait, the series will resume publication on April’s issue of Ace. (Photo unavailable) (Here’s a drawing of Yuno trying her hardest to reach a candy that’s high up… lol) I asked my assistant to read the manuscript, and she pointed out that some of the pages were quite dense in content, so I should provide some explanations for the plot. Hence, today I’d like to explain Redial’s plot a little. As I mentioned earlier, Redial is a story of how third-world Yuno regained her memories of Yukiteru. The anime will be sold in bookstores with the manga attached. Please preorder it through Kadokawa’s website or your local bookstore. I wrote the plot for the anime, and participated in the script meetings. The manga is a little different from the anime, but they both share the storyline of “third-world Yuno recovering her memories of Yukiteru.” I’m sure that the anime will turn out well because Takayama-san’s script and Hosoda-san’s storyboards are very fun. It seems like it’s still in the works, though. Now, about the manga. You could say the Redial anime and manga are in competition with one another. The anime production team may not think so, but I do (lol). The anime and manga productions each took their own approach to the theme of “third-world Yuno regaining her memories.” Of course, I participated in the creation of the anime, so the basic premise for both is the same. (questions like “what happened to Yuno’s body after she died?” or “what happened to first-world MurMur?” will be answered in both.) Both the anime and manga have their merits, I didn’t try to make any weird adjustments to the manga; I just had fun while making it. So, I think it will be interesting to watch and compare the differences between style and media. ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー A side note. I started considering them competing projects after “Next Project” was announced (we still hadn’t decided how to go about it). Kadokawa: “Let’s do another book store release.” Esuno: “Uh, there isn’t much to draw from the third world.” (in terms of story for the manga.) Production: “Please write us a premise, and we’ll decide what to do from it.” (hopefully, we’ll get material for the anime from there.) Esuno: (Huh? I was supposed to be making the manga, but now I got dragged into this…?) (Now I have to write a plot with the anime in mind.) ~ After many meetings, the script was finished (a good one, of course). Esuno: “Well, I’ll take the more favorable aspects and write the manga on my own.” Esuno: (Ehehe, I’ll just do what I want, I’ll change the plot to suit the manga…) … That’s kind of how it went. ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー Well, the first part of the manga version will be published in this month’s issue of Ace. (It’s about 15 pages). I hope it will give you a feel for the rest. Though, please remember that for the reasons mentioned before, the content will differ from the anime. Redial feels like killing two birds with one stone.

I’m adding these excerpts in because it explains a lot of things about Redial. If you’ve seen the anime and manga versions of Redial, you know that they’re substantially different. Finding out that not only were they purposely written to be different, but that the anime script was made before the manga, is also very interesting to me. I was always under the impression that the manga came first, and then they based the anime off that, but it’s the other way around. Though it’s very easy to tell they were written by different people; the anime went for a more fan-service/slice of life approach, while the manga centered more on Yuno’s mental dilemmas. Maybe I’m biased towards Esuno, but I always preferred the manga version of Redial for its more serious approach.

Entry from March 21st, 2013:

I came across a lot of things while working out the manuscript.

This is Minene’s Mosaic cover. In the end, we only used the top part of the illustration, even though the bottom part was fully drawn. There’s more stuff, but I’ll only upload it if I find the patience…

Excerpt from June 25th, 2013:

Incidentally, when I was interviewed in Italy, a reader asked me: “which is your favorite character?” (I often get asked this in interviews.) My answer was something like this: “If your kids asked you which of them is your favorite, you wouldn’t be able to rank them. So, in that sense, when I talk about my favorite characters, I’m referring to the ones I had the most fun drawing.” You might think my favorites are Akise, Minene or Reisuke (of course, I like them all), but there are no characters that I dislike. If that were the case, I wouldn't have drawn them in the first place. For example, my assistants really disliked Funatsu, but I still enjoyed drawing him… (lol) (As a side note, when I first heard Maruyama-san playing Funatsu in the anime, I was so impressed. I thought to myself: “he’s the real Funatsu!”)

I also remember reading that Esuno had a picture of a limited edition shirt in his blog. I’m not sure if this is true, but it might be on one of the 13 missing entries. I’m bringing this up because I’ve been meaning to obtain a better picture of the shirt’s graphic (I want to recreate it lol), or at least figure out what the circle surrounding Yuno is. I can make out what it says on the inside, which is Yukki (ユッキー) written over and over again, but I have no idea what the outer rings say since it's not Japanese.

Before ending this post, I want to add that Esuno had at least two other side blogs before his official site, which are also accessible through the Wayback Machine. This is a personal blog that dates back to 2003 and a Bulletin Board Site, which is sort of like 4chan, where several people can comment on a forum dedicated to a specific topic. BBS sites were very popular back in the day, particularly in Japan, and Esuno seemed to be quite keen on them since it is a topic that’s often brought up in his first manga: Hanako and the Terror of Allegory.

These sites are more focused on the release schedule for Hanako, so they don’t contain anything Future Diary related (since they predate the manga), but I think it’s relevant enough to add for anyone interested. I assume Esuno must’ve been active on other board sites, but these are the two only ones linked on his official website, hence they’re the only ones I’m aware of.

Lastly, here are all the recoverable images from the Wayback Machine:

#future diary #mirai nikki #the future diary #anime #sakae esuno

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bandedbulbussnarfblat · 11 months ago

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Hi again.😊 I've run into something... odd? when trying to figure out how to fit all twelve years of Devil's Minion into the show timeline. I'd really like your input.

So I'm trying to make sense of Daniel's "kids-and-marriage" timeline. Alice being his first wife and the car seat thing muddies it up for me.

According to gaypiratedivorce's Chronological timeline on Ao3, (found it through your bookmarks, so thank you❤), car seats became mandatory in America in 1986. The excerpt that Louis reads aloud from Daniel's memoir states: "I am in my Buick, staring in the rearview mirror at my daughter in the car seat, (...). My editor reminds me, it's seven years before car seats are mandatory. My ex-wife reminds me, I never owned a Buick." This means his first daughter was born before 1979. Based on Daniel's comment in 01x06, he was 20 years old in 1973, so he must have been a father by the age of 26.

We don't know whether the ex-wife referenced here is Alice or his unnamed second wife, but we do know that one of them must have been around already to remember what cars he owned (and didn't) at this time.

We also aren't given any indication if he was in any relationship with the mother of his eldest child at this time, or ever.

In 02x02 we learn that Alice told Daniel she was pregnant in 1985. From my understanding this was immediately after she had turned down his marriage proposal, so he and Alice are not married at this point. We are told that Alice was his first wife, so the second marriage happens sometime after this.

This makes the minimum age difference between Daniel's two daughters 6 years. His daughters don't appear to have the same mother, since when talking about Alice telling him she was pregnant in 1985, there was no indication that this would be their second child.

By June 2022, when the second interview takes place, he's twice divorced, with two daughters. His oldest daughter would have to be at least 43 years old when he goes to Dubai, and his youngest would be 37-38.

From 1979 to 1985 the only information we have about Daniel is: 1) he was working, (02x05: "I was never so messed up I couldn't hold down a job"); 2) he is not married; 3) timing of irl. law that might not be the one used in the show indicates that he already has a child, but we know nothing about them or their upbringing. Seems unlikely that he was a single father, but we know nothing about the mother.

Thoughts?

Ok, so I have thoughts on this.

Like, first off, I think Armand was full of shit when he said Louis asked him to make him forget what happened in San Francisco. He said Louis asked three days later, after getting out of the shower. And there is no way he was healed up enough to take a shower in three days, even if he was slurping up Armand's blood often. he was only a vampire for 62 years. less than a century. the sun would burn the shit out of him. I think Louis had to do that thing vampires do in the book, and take a power nap for a few years.

Cue Armand being all alone. And he hates that. Plus, he still has to find out what makes Daniel fascinating. He literally said to Daniel in 2x05 'teach me how to be fascinating'. like that may not be the exact wording, but you know what i mean. so he starts to stalk daniel.

daniel, of course, does not remember him bc Armand literally mind-wiped him. all Daniel has is vague memories about being bitten. so maybe Armand goes on his whole 'i won't kill you as long as i find you interesting' bit. or maybe he says something else entirely different or nothing at all. until eventually they start to talk, and debate, and fight, and fall in love.

i think the chase timeline from the books was shortened, and Daniel and Armand were probably in a relationship by like, somewhere in the back half of 74 or the first half of 75. And I think it probably went from zero to sixty pretty fast.

based on what we know so far, we have no info on Daniel publishing anything from 1974-1978. So I think Daniel and Armand could have had a relationship those four years.

then something happens, and they break-up for awhile. (daniel had this thing about leaving then coming back in the books) so maybe during that time he meets Alice. Maybe even gets genuine feelings for her. And then he gets her pregnant sometime in 78, bc the kid is born by 79.

Daniel remembers a car seat. And while car seats weren't required, General Motors did make one in 1969. Here is a picture of what one looked like in 1977:

And most people didn't really start using them to around the late 70s, when different states started making laws. So Daniel could have a car seat in his car in 79. Likely Alice's idea, not his, since he is literally buying drugs from some guy with his daughter in the car with him. Not dad of the year material.

Here's what I think, at some point Daniel's relationships with Alice and Armand overlapped. He remembers being in a Buick with his daughter in the back seat bc he was with Armand in a Buick at some point. Probably not with his daughter, but it could be possible. (There could be some scenario where he's taking care of the baby alone and Armand shows up and they go on a wacky adventure together. But that scenario probably only exists in my imagination.)

I don't believe Louis was aware of their relationship, bc he showed no real signs of remembering something like that. That means that Armand either hid it from him, or made him forget it. Maybe Louis was asleep through the whole thing, and Armand never told him about it.

Or maybe Louis did wake up. And his waking up put pressure on Armand and Daniel's relationship. Bc Armand would have to divide his time between them. Daniel isn't stupid, he probably figures out there's someone else. And maybe he demands that Armand make a choice. And Armand chooses Louis. But he wants to choose Daniel, only Daniel hasn't given him reason to trust him. Like, Daniel having a kid with someone else may have been enough to end the relationship.

I think the relationship with Alice comes after they break-up some time in 78. In the books, when Daniel becomes a vampire, he's 32 and has left Armand for six months. (It's also 1985 there, but roll with it) The longest he ever had. Some maybe he leaves Armand for an extended amount of time. It doesn't have to be six months, but it's probably at least two or three. And during that time he could have met Alice, been having his rebound fling with her. Then she gets knocked up. So you know, he sticks around for the kid. Kinda sorta. Bc he's still seeing Armand. I think that he would have to know about Louis, to bother starting a relationship with someone else. Bc the book says that him leaving is a thing that happens more than once. So maybe the first time he leaves is bc he finds out about Louis, and he meets Alice and knocks her up. Who knows? I think it's been left vague on purpose so they can tweak things as they need to. Or maybe he just takes up with Alice after leaving Armand 'for good'

I'm not entirely clear on the timeline. But I do believe something happened between Armand and Daniel sometime 1974-1978/79. At that point they either break up and Armand erases his memories.

Or their relationship shifts into an affair on both their ends. Like that line about them being secret lovers from the book is taken literally. Daniel has Alice and Armand has Louis. But they can't quit each other, and keep seeing each other secretly. Daniel proposes to Alice in 85 and she says no. Probably bc Daniel was a shitty boyfriend. As one tends to be when they are in love with someone else.

But he likely does propose bc she's pregnant. After he's 'gotten his shit together' I can imagine his not marrying Alice after getting her pregnant the first time is something that could have caused resentment from Alice. Maybe she implied she wanted Daniel to propose before this. Maybe she didn't trust him bc she suspected he was cheating. But I do think that Daniel didn't propose until after he lost his memories of Armand.

So like, somewhere between 78-85 Daniel and Armand break up for the final time. But exactly when I'm not sure.

But I am 100% sure that Armand is going to fuck that old man. They are going to get together. And I will feel that comes from seeing something I've shipped over two decades kiss on screen. Or like, bite each other.

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