#genuinely i think this kind of story gets to me in the same way magical girl stories get to some people

[we-stan-cale]

I talked about Choi Han and Cale, let me talk about Alberu and Cale.

As usual, I'm going to warn about spoilers and put the rest below the cut.

When Cale and Alberu first meet, there's not a lot of trust going on.

Cale is wondering about all the secrets Raon let slip, notes that Alberu had a healing power he didn't use for a random citizen (though he indicated it was okay in the next sentence. Before commenting that if Choi Han had such a power he would have), and on Alberu's side we have a royal prince who had to claw his way to power while hiding his dark elf heritage. In an environment where he could only trust the dark elves.

Despite all that, Cale seemed quite willing to work with Alberu. (If he'd started in the Empire I imagine Cale would have been overthrowing Adin even earlier).

I think that's partly because Cale is always willing to work with people who have their priorities straight - and even some that don't. He's very focused on his goals and as long as you're not betraying the trust of the people you're responsible for he's generally okay with you. Murdering citizens and abandoning foot soldiers? Not okay. Valentino? Okay, with reservations. Toonka? Same, before Toonka's own rather amazing growth arc.

Like Park Jin Tae, who Cale worked with despite their issues. Because when push came to shove, that guy was there.

I'm digressing though.

Cale letting Alberu know he'd figured out about his dark elf heritage was, naturally, scary for Alberu. At first.

He was vulnerable.

But it came in handy (as Cale showed he could be trusted with that) when Alberu needed someone to retrieve that magic thingy from the dark elves.

Plus Cale kept doing crazy shit that always benefited Roan.

So they started growing closer, kind of slowly.

I think the real turning point, for Alberu at least, was when they went to the Empire together, and Cale used his shield to protect everyone from that attack.

Cale, we now know, has lived through crisis after crisis and no longer reacts to deadly danger like a normal person.

Alberu, for all his political skill, hasn't really been in a situation like that. Poison and underhanded political moves? Sure. And he was there for the plaza incident too.

But what was interesting here was Alberu wasn't thinking about the politics.

He was concerned about Cale.

Cale is the one who reminded him how he should play the situation.

After that we really start to see Alberu open up.

He keeps showing signs of genuine care.

Tries to protect Cale's slacker goals (even as he sees it gets harder and harder), comes up with the sworn brother idea. And really, by the time we get to part 2 he's rather a mother hen.

We see him learn about the curse, grow confident in himself, and then...

Becomes the Dark Tiger.

Which is hilarious, but also puts him almost as close as Choi Han to Cale.

Oh, and he has some absolutely amazing scenes where he's schooling the White Star on his terrible leadership.

We also see how much he's grown when he encounters his other younger self, in that 'game' in the temple. His understanding of where he was then also illustrated how much he'd changed, as he found a group of honest-to-god friends.

Anyways.

Which makes rereading the story especially fun, because it's such a contrast.

I absolutely adore how their relationship developed over the course of the story.

[writingquestionsanswered]

How to write a fantasy when you're an extremely logical person?

I have this problem where I try to figure out how everything in my world works as “scientifically” as I possibly can even though, as a fantasy, I can't expect it to be 100% rational/logical. I can't seem to write just from imagination or approach my story as a creative. I'm always overthinking and complicating things as I come up with explanations for why things are the way they are, and it's stressing me out. I could, of course, see where this logic takes me. But honestly, I’d prefer if I could just stop getting hung up over tiny details

Logical Writer Struggling with Overthinking Fantasy

I have the exact same problem, and TBH, I'm still trying to figure it out for myself. One thing thats... kind of (?) helping is recognizing that fleshing it out for myself doesn't mean I have to flesh it out for the reader. In other words, sometimes (for me, at least) it seems to be enough to logic it all out to my own satisfaction, but then give myself permission to leave it off the page. What I'm finding, most of the time, is that if it genuinely needs to be there it will work its way in naturally. So, as an example, I had spent an obscene amount of time trying to come up with a plausible scientific explanation for something that is scientifically implausible, and then I had worked it into my plotting--which only cluttered things and created problems--so I scrapped my plotting and started again without the attempt at scientific logic. The result was something that felt infinitely more magical and fantastical, and what ended up happening was there was a brief exchange between two characters in which I came up with an off-the-cuff quip that summed up all that scientific-hoop-jumping in a way that made it the buttress I wanted it to be, but without all the clutter and shenanigans of actually working it into the story. It was enough that I felt like it would be enough to pacify a skeptical reader, but it didn't dampen the magic or clutter things up.

So, that's my best, personal experience advice... if you have the time, energy, and ability, let yourself go to town with shoring up the logic of your story's world, but give yourself permission to leave it out of the story except and unless it works its way in naturally, which it probably will. I think, on some level, having the "math" all worked out in your head makes it easier for your brain to see where it fits into the story naturally rather than trying to shoehorn it in where it doesn't belong.

I hope that helps!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[oh-allie]

shakespeare and swooning

alhaitham x g/n reader

synopsis; you read one shakespeare play and now you want to impress your "buddy" alhaitham with your newfound knowledge !! what could go wrong?

fluff, g/n reader, TOTAL CRACKFIC, OOC alhaitham, SWEARING, kind of a modern au ???? i mention "ringing tighnari" but that could just be imagined as using the akasha terminal !!!! didnt write this with a modern au in mind

warning ‼️ PLEASE dont expect this to be accurate, if youre a big classic literature fan then dont attack me for not being a NERD ☹️ just imagine a poser using their fancy words (because they think its cool)

you know how libraries are supposed to be a place of study and tranquility? no the fuck you don't, or at least you don't care, because running through the house of daena with shakespeares, "romeo and juliet," in your hands is NOT very tranquil.

multiple poor akademiya students look at you, PISSED OFF because your shoes are going clu-clonk on the marble floors, which wouldn't be an issue if you weren't scurrying through the library.

is that kaveh ?? he's giving you the same look he gives alhaitham every day ..

... but this is IMPORTANT !! you're on a MISSION right now !! you just finished reading the first act of "romeo and juliet," and you're convinced your brain has expanded tenfold in size.

you're now rushing to your good pal haitham to share your knowledge! how kind and gracious!

you're stopped before his house, you've known him for long enough and gotten close enough for him to let you come in whenever. you know kaveh isn't home, and haitham would never purposefully work overtime, so you're certain you can get his attention and show off in peace.

why are you so adamant about showing off to alhaitham? is it REALLY showing off, or are you trying to, heehee, impress him?? its too late to be flustered at this thought because you already unlocked the door with the spare key kaveh leaves behind one of haithams ugly ass decorative plants and you've taken off your shoes and oh god hes right there and the sunlight from the door is lighting up his face in that way that only happens to him and hes looking at you with a suprised, slightly annoyed, but incredibly fond look and oh no what was your plan again?

"greetings, alhaitham! ☝️🤓" you say, finding a surge of confidence remembering the story you read.

"... hey. what are you doing here?" his response is quick but before you respond he continues, "did you just say greetings?"

"indubidibdibdly! hath you be surprised?" you pretentious hipster. you think youre SO cool, but unfortunately your little crush doesn't seem very impressed either.

"okay, what are you doing? you're being weird." he's not even looking at you, and he's back in his chair before you can rush over and sit on the couch. "is something wrong? should i get tighnari to give you a checkup?"

you'd be touched by the care of the suggestion if he wasn't so cheeky in his tone.

"wha, what, no?! no what the hell- stop ringing tighnari."

"are thou o'er wrought with admiration?" you grin, somehow still under the impression that you sound cool.

he gives an eyebrow raise to that. not bothering to mark his place in his book, he stands up.

"i lie testy in why you act so unpregnant, my dear."

"what"

HUH ? what did bro just say ? testy ???? unpregnant ?? MY DEAR ??? backtrack again, UN-WHAT ??

"be still my beating heart, thou hast taken mine with absolute cunning." is he making fun of you i genuinely can't tell ... its like hes speaking in moon runes right now.

"haitham, heheh, WHAT are you DOING ??" you can't help but laugh at his funny little words, magic man. even if you're clueless to what he just said to you.

"whatever doth thou mean?" he's totally making fun of you !! after ALL your effort to impress him too?

"well, usually i do all the ranting and you sit pretty and listen, so it's weird that you're talking so much, especially like THAT?" fym sit pretty ....

"when words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain." that sounds familiar, but you can't think about it longer before he continues, "shall i compare thee to a summers day?"

"ALRIGHT, i recognize that one, dummy." you laugh, "were you really not impressed by me?" you whisper, the rush of embarrassment you shouldve felt in that library is finally catching up with you.

he stares at you for a second. you just wish you could find out what hes thinking up there, if you could even understand it.

and then he lets you into his mind, with a simple "i love you." as if alhaitham, renowned scribe of the akademiya, top student, couldn't find the words to describe how he felt for you.

or maybe that was what he felt for you. he loved you.

"... you called me unpregnant."

a/n; i read romeo and juliet like... 3 years ago.... so.. uam... 😇😇 totally accurate! hope this crackfic style of writing isnt too niche so this doesnt flop because EMBARRASSING....... do people even like al haitham anymore like guys lets go back to the good old days before the FRENCH came in..... (this is just me projecting cause i havent played genshin in a while and i still lovelove sumeru)

[sgiandubh]

This is a thank you, not an ask. I guess I would be classified as a lurker in the Tumbler world since I primarily only read what others write.  But I did make a comment to you once and you responded so you made me feel comfortable enough that I could send this to you.  Shippers have unknowingly been helping me stay sane these past few years.  My husband has Alzheimer’s with Aphasia and I have been his sole caretaker for a long time.  Having this responsibility is not for the faint of heart. One day in early 2019 I stumbled across Outlander and like a lot of others, was in, hook, line and sinker and Jamie & Claire and Sam & Cait became part of my daily life.  Last week I had to place my husband in a memory care facility.  It was an agonizing decision and I prayed for a sign that this was the right move.  As stupid as this may sound, I think my prayer was answered.  On the second day he made a friend.  His name is Jamie.  Only in the Outlander world would this have any meaning, but we've now got a sweet Jamie in our lives.  You may officially call me crazy.  Thank you to you and all the other shippers for all the smiles and happiness you've brought to me and many others. It kept me going.

Dear @jovialchaoslover,

By all means, do not thank me, even if I felt incredibly moved and honored by your submission, on behalf of the entire OL Shipper community. In fact, I should thank you, because for all those name calling and finger pointing Anons, you get to read something as genuine, moving and personal. These moments are rare and precious (and should remain so). They make you feel useful, in a very unexpected way.

You are one of those daily life unsung heroes and I want you to know that you are probably way stronger than you would ever think. I can only imagine the kind of experience you are now going through, even if I am (like many daughters, all around the world) only too aware of the cruelty with which old age sometimes disfigures beloved family members. I have only a remote idea of my own grandmother's quick descent into dementia and death, but I do have a very direct experience of the grueling toll it took on our family. Especially on my own mother, who let everything go and cared for her until the very last moment.

With the proper care solution in place, you will find yourself with a lot of time on your hands. A spare time you perhaps forgot existed. Please (I urge you) use it wisely and never forget this is all about you. You more than deserve it and the moment is now. I may know a thing or two about emptiness and void. They are incredibly enticing and treacherous. Please try and do something for you every single day. It does not matter if it is important or completely futile: it is about YOU and changing the angle will change everything. Remember the wonderful woman I am sure you are and try to reconnect with her. I can promise you she is not very far and I bet she misses you, too.

Last but not least, let me tell you that I will never call you crazy for having shared that Jamie story with us. I think it was very brave of you and I can confidently tell you it even has a name. What you experienced is called synchronicity and it is part of the tiny and personal magic of daily life. People as serious as Carl Gustav Jung dedicated their life to try and make some sense of this. And it all started with one of his patients (he was a shrink) describing a very vivid, recurrent dream of hers, that featured a scarab beetle. At the very same time, they both saw a scarab beetle (uncharacteristically) tapping on the window. The woman was not instantly cured (psychoanalysis does not exactly work like this), but it helped both of them overcome a very frustrating communication barrier.

That Jamie story is a real synchronicity, too, because it is meaningful for you and nobody else. It happened for a reason you are the only one to understand, in time. I could talk about it for hours and link it (as Jung did) with my beloved I Ching or with a couple of dead(ly) serious German philosophers, for some extra gravitas. But I am not going to over-complicate things. You got this. You are strong and brave and believe it or not, I am sure you are also loved by many.

I also think Caitriona Mary Balfe and Sam Roland Heughan should read your ask, finally understand their magic brought solace to many, many people around the world and get their damn act together for Season 8. But that is a different story altogether.

For the rest, if you want, we will be here for you. Me and probably other kind people on this side of the fence. Anytime you want, here or in DM. It may not be much, but it is something.

PS: that may or may not have brought a #silly tear, you know.

[pajamas-lipstick]

The last 4 episodes have been such a rollercoaster and full of so many great moments - comedic and beautiful and heartbreaking.

The thing i can't get over in both the original version of events around Sol's attack and the current one she's working to prevent is how damn brave Sun Jae is. In both scenarios he has an unrequited crush on someone who barely notices him and yet he fiercely and courageously not only saves Sol but is determined to bring the perpetrator to justice. His witness statement was so clear and just and calm - he was unflinching in the face of danger. We see this echoed in his statement to Sol that he's ok with getting hurt if he can protect her - he loves her yes, but he's also a fundamentally brave and heroic person, who trusts his heart - just as Sol is. As so many others have said, they are both reaching out through time, space and fate to rescue each other. Sol also trusts her heart and is similarly unflinching in her pursuit of a happy ending for Sun Jae, no matter what it costs her. I would bet on her too, if I were in Sun Jae's place. I believe our cute little bulldozer can do anything!

Going backwards, episode 8 was a blinder in so many ways - the meeting on the bridge after so many near misses the previous episode, the echoes from the beginning of their story, the umbrella! Then watching Sun Jae slowly morph from a cool, unruffled superstar to his sweet, awkward teen self the longer he was around Sol was just lovely. Her presence allowed him to be himself, truly.

I haven't even got to Im Sol's confession in the present - my goodness, what a breathtaking declaration of love. The acting from both was just gorgeous here - you could feel the release and relief of all that pain and longing. And after Sun Jae repeatedly made himself vulnerable it was time for her to do the same. I especially loved Kim Hye Yoon's startled reaction in the lift after actually telling him how she felt and Byeon Woo Seok's delirious, overwhelmed delight in his car after. And that kiss!! One for the ages and I love so much that she initiated it and crossed the last divide between them. I think I saw that was Woo Seok's suggestion when they were blocking the scene? which...makes me swoon even more, honestly (as if that was possible).

I love Detective Kim's doggedness in pursuit - he feels like a man who can get the bad guy. Indeed, all the 'adult' characters here are reassuring in the best ways and I agree with all the theories about a bit of magic around Halmeoni, too. Taesung was Ep 10's MVP for me and he's definitely got more of a role to play in changing fate. There's still six episodes to go after all (how on earth am i going to cope with the stress?!?!)

I am absolutely convinced it will be a happy ending. The lightness of touch and genuine laugh out loud moments every episode are setting the tone for a happy conclusion. Plus, there's no pre-determined feeling here (looking at you, Moon in the Day), rather the opposite. We are being shown over and over that a kind and unselfish heart can work miracles. They're not going through it for nothing, i just know it.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

it genuinely baffles me how both Charles and Diana always ran to William whenever they wanted reassurance, comfort and help all while they both pampered the shit out of Harry. AND INSPITE OF THIS WILLAIM IS THE SANE ONE! THE MATURE AND KIND ONE! WTF??? I'm convinced William is magic.

The fact that William showed so much grace and affection to two people who are (as I'm seeing and learning more of) frankly shite parents, its baffling that Charles refuses to show the same unwavering support to William. I'm very sure Diana (if she were around) wld be the same, making stupid excuses for Harry and probably will be those reddit parents who harp on and on about how "he's family!". I swear if they weren't royals William would've cut Charles and Diana off as soon as he turned 18.

Harry and William seem to (more and more) fit the dynamic of "golden child" and "scrapegoat" child. Poor William! Thank god he has Catherine. She's honestly his greatest blessing.

William also had a much bigger support network at the time. Yes, Diana and Charles were both treating him like the third person in their marriage but William was also being looked after by his grandparents and his great-grandmother. I suspect the way they treated him counterbalanced the chaos in the Waleses' household.

There were also the Straubenzees and the Cutsems too, who seemed to encourage more "kids will be kids"-type play (from the few stories that have trickled out) and I think the time William spent with those families also really helped level him out to become the person he is today. Sometimes I think that because William experienced this "normal" family household with the Straubenzees and the Cutsems, and it did a lot of good settling him, I think that's why he's so eager to let his kids have the more "kids will be kids" kind of childhood. So it's not just Kate with a desire to give her kids the same kind of idyllic childhood/close-knit family dynamics she had growing up, it's also William remembering some of the more stabler, calmer parts of his childhood and wanting that for his kids too.

And a quick clarification - this isn't a golden child/scapegoat dynamic. In a golden child/scapegoat family, the golden child gets spoiled, given all the opportunity, and can do no wrong where the scapegoat child gets blamed for everything, gets nothing, can't do anything right.

That's not what was happening here. What was happening here is emotional parentification; the parents using William for their emotional support (which probably is ultimately caused Harry to parentify William in their childhoods too) while being indulgent parents to Harry. And Harry, unfortunately, did not get the same kind of...intervention, if you will from The Queen Mother, The Queen, and Prince Philip so he didn't really have a counterbalance in the family the way William did. He got the Yorkies, who had their own kind of chaos. (But what's interesting about the Yorkies is that yes, even though Sarah and Andrew had their own kind of chaos, they were also probably a much more stable relationship than Charles and Diana ever were - considering how close they remain today and the fact that neither one seemed to have other relationships/partners - and that had a particular kind of influence on Harry.)

[goodluckclove]

Hey. Stop scrolling for a second.

You scroll through writeblr a lot, don't you? I get why. Lots of fun people, interesting concepts and prompts. But maybe you haven't taken that jump from collecting resources on writing to actually writing.

Once again, I get it. It's daunting if you've never done it before. I've been doing it for a while and I genuinely can't think too hard about the act itself as it happens or else I get all sweaty and confused. I flopped spectacularly at a game of Scrabble tonight because I just ran out of words to think of and I'm in the middle of my 13th novel. Writing to me is like side-eyeing the sun - but that's besides the point.

What I mean is that you should do it. That idea that you think could be, might be, maybe has potential. More than that, I think you should do it right now. Right now.

Ooh but Clove, it's one AM and I have to do open heart surgery tomorrow. Cool. Write three sentences and go to sleep, then see if you want to do more after you get your license revoked.

But what if it's not good? Okay. What if it isn't? But what if it isn't, and it GETS good later? Or what if it isn't, but then later in the story you find a way to make those three initial sentences make sense? Three sentences isn't a story, unless you're Ernest Hemingway or a Haiku Man. Moving on.

Clove, where do I start? Honestly if you've never finished a project, or really never wrote anything at all, maybe just start at the point that sounds the most interesting in your head. To find the process that works for you takes work and experience so maybe for now you get dessert for dinner.

But I don't have an outline/character sheet/world map/mood board/playlist/ECT! Cool. Maybe that's an issue. Maybe it isn't. There's only one way to find out.

But it's hard! It's hard at first and then it gets easier. It's a muscle. You work at it consistently and you'll get to a point where you struggle to remember what it was like to not know how to write.

But it's painful! Hah yeah. That's kind of the more honest issue, isn't it. It's easier to think that your idea WOULD BE GREAT rather than face the fact that you might not be able to MAKE IT GREAT. That fear isn't based in reality, though. People like different things. You might write a work that you're displeased with in one aspect and find that it's changed someone else's life for a completely different reason.

What if I'm not a good writer? I struggle with this a lot and I've been published. It doesn't really go away even when people cry at your work and heap praise on it. But if you like to do it, if you would still be doing it even if there was no end promise of fame and success, you should do it.

What if I'm not a writer at all? I used to ask myself that. There are lots of answers to this question so I can only give my own: you are a writer if you write - past, present or future. If you haven't written in a long time but you're trying to get back to the craft, you are still a writer. You just have to keep trying.

What we do is half-trade, half-religious act, and because of that it is easily one of the weirder passions. I don't really get why people romanticize the field but at the same time I guess it seems pretty magical at times. As a writer, though, our job is to be the proverbial Man Behind the Curtain. You have to know how the magic trick works enough to do it successfully, but you also still have to be amazed. It's weird. I don't know why I do it.

I still do it though.

Write three sentences. Right now. Why not, right? If you send them to me in an ask I'll read them, or you can send them to me at my email address that I posted a few posts back because I'm old enough to know online safety and choose to ignore it. Or just do it for yourself.

Make something. You deserve to be a source of creation.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I don’t know if you’ve been asked this but I wanted to ask your opinion on something regarding Fellow Honest and Gidel.

So, we know that at the end of the “Stage in Playful Land” event, Kalim pretty much offers Fellow a spot as a student in NRC, but Fellow declines citing that he doesn’t want to go to a school with a bunch of brats AND he wants to make his own school that admits low magic users and non magic users.

I think this fits him perfectly and I won’t say that it’s dissatisfying for Fellow and Gidel’s story to end this way, but do you think that - had the events been more intertwined with the main story - Fellow could’ve potentially started going to NRC at some point? Like do you think it would make sense for him to both want to create this school AND prepare himself via getting a proper education?

The ending was so fitting for the type of person Fellow is and what he dreams of accomplishing. He’s trying to carve out his own path in the world with Gidel at his side! There’s both a bittersweetness and hope in that kind of a finale.

Now, to the question. This may sound a little cynical (please stick with me for a moment!!) 💦 but I don’t think studying at Night Raven College would help Fellow in opening his own school. Of course, getting an education is important—however, I firmly believe that NRC is not the right place for Fellow to get that education. (This won’t stop TWST from probably making a playable Fellow card for Halloween 2024 though, I suspect that it’ll be a temporary or non-main story canon situation like Rollo.)

The first hurdle to overcome is actually convincing Fellow to enroll. I don’t believe him turning down Kalim’s invite was just for convenience or to keep event characters separate from the main story; it genuinely makes more sense for his character to not want to go right back into the system he despises, the system that tossed him out to begin with. He has not only distrust in the elite (and literally just came out of a hard situation where the elite controlled him), but too much pride in himself to allow for that. Another issue is that even if it is Kalim extending the offer, he actually has little say in whether or not Crowley will let Fellow in. (I’m not counting monetary bribes here yet because that’s an unfair advantage for Kalim to get literally anyone in.) If we’re being pragmatic, Kalim is oversimplifying the solution to Fellow’s issues, just the same as Kalim offering an overly simple solution for Jamil’s woes in book 4. We have no idea how realistic this enrollment would be for Fellow.

Assuming Fellow is convinced to give it a shot and does get into NRC courtesy of a large donation from the Asims… then what? Sure, Fellow does stand to gain from an affiliation with NRC but that's pretty much ONLY if he manages to earn that coveted diploma and formally graduates. Many of the classes beyond year 1 demand a substantial amount of magic in order to complete the coursework. Fellow canonically does not have a ton of magic to spare, so it's doubtful whether or not he would be able to pass those classes or make it to fourth year internships (which is when you can really take advantage of NRC's connections in various industries). It's a similar situation as Yuu, who has no magic at all and wouldn't be able to even participate in the higher level courses without Grim doing all the magical tasks for them. We know it's very possible to drop out of these magic schools (as Riddle references that no student has dropped out since he took on the role of dorm leader + a NPC in book 5 is stated to be a magic school dropout). Who's to say this wouldn't be Fellow's fate if he can't handle the magic curriculum? Yes, he can certainly give it a try if he wants to and his efforts shouldn't be insulted. However, the fact of the matter is that he most likely would not be able to physically keep up with his peers (through admittedly no fault of his own, it's not like he can control his genetic makeup).

Another thing is, what exactly does NRC have to offer Fellow that would actually help him with getting the knowledge to set up his own school? NRC is meant to specifically train mages (and mainly for jobs which demand magical capabilities). Fellow wants to establish his own school, which in of itself does not require a magic degree or any sort of magic education. Furthermore, he details that his school would admit non and low magic users, and will focus on teaching "true life lessons". None of this inherently requires any knowledge or training in magic, which, again, is NRC's specialty. The only practical skills classes that NRC offers seem to be electives like Culinary Crucibles/Master Chef (which, conveniently, do not require magic), and those can be learned anywhere, not exclusively at NRC. I guess my question would be... What is the point of Fellow studying at NRC if he 1) would have a hard time with the magic demands of several classes, 2) most of what NRC teaches is not applicable to his long-term goals, and 3) he could easily learn the practical skills he values so much elsewhere? It's a time sink that doesn't benefit him as much as he needs it to.

If Fellow wants to attend school or to get the knowledge he needs to set up his own learning institution, I think he should ideally pick a mixed public school that does not have a focus on magic. Plenty of those must exist to accommodate the 90% human population without magic. NRC is a restrictive environment mainly composed of the upper echelon and the gifted, and is thus the antithesis of what Fellow seeks to create. Public schools are overall more accessible and offer a more diverse population which Fellow can for sure learn from. It would also be useful as there may be low magic users (that aren't strong enough to qualify for magic schools) mixed in with non-magic users. Fellow could hit up his exact target demographic and mingle with them, get to familiarize himself with their wants and needs, etc. At the same time, he would be theoretically pursuing a specialized degree in education or whatever it is he would need to establish his own school and become an educator himself. That route makes a lot more sense to me than just lumping Fellow in at NRC because that happens to be where all the other major characters go.

Again, it's definitely possible for Fellow to get an education while having his dream. (That's also the case for lots of us fans that go to school while also having our own hobbies and personal goals on the side!) The issue is that I don't see Fellow "fitting in" or learning well at any magic school, especially not one as privatized as NRC is.

[joysmercer]

okay I’m so curious about the short fic you posted yesterday

can I ask how in this universe nina dies? And does eddie too?

(it’s mask of anubis on main btw)

ooh fun questions!! i was hoping someone would ask cuz i couldn't figure out how to work it in. also i added way too much info that you didnt ask for so now it's under the cut :D

first of all, this au is a much darker take on how i think nina's life "actually" played out – I think she'll always have random spirits coming up to her etc, but in this au, it's pretty constant and can get very dangerous very quickly. on the flip side, she sees a lot more fame for her "irl" work than she does "in canon" (see below).

somewhat ironically (given how guarded nina becomes from the constant barrage of gods forcing her to do things), she makes her living off of writing movies about her experiences. i think she does this in canon too, but here she really throws herself into it, almost like a form of therapy since there isn't really any professional she can process things with, you know? she eats, sleeps, breathes her craft – whenever she has downtime, she's writing, editing, networking to get her words out there. she's so fast and so talented with it that she graduates university in three years with honors, by which time the chosen one (season 1) has already been picked up by a major company and has started filming; she wins her first oscar two years later, and the next two each year after that.

(actually, all four scripts got picked up at the same time, which is why the turnaround was so quick – but they didn't announce the sequels until after the oscars because at that point she was a relatively unknown person)

(also i know this isn't how these things work irl but just work with me here. maybe she called in a favor from a random god and had things sped along idk)

anyway, the point im trying to make is that she spends her whole life balancing what she wants to do (her work) with what she has to do (paragon shit) and has a weird sense of self-worth as a result (she knows she's good at what she does, but wants to hide it from the world at the same time (out of fear). she hates that she needs others to keep her safe and refuses to believe they're doing it out of kindness, even though she also knows that they genuinely love her. it's weird) (also she and fabian make up sometime during their uni years so all is good there)

anyway, they (amber + KT) set up a rota of all ex-sibuna members (+ willow as she learns about it pretty quickly post-grad) to spend time in the states for a couple months out of the year each. this essentially made sure there was always 1 other person on the mission with her and 2 people nearby who knew where they were going, should things go wrong and they need rescuing or something. but for small/random tasks, nina would just do those alone.

her last mission (that fabian alludes to) had taken months to complete: three formerly-benign ghosts had been "turned" by a magician up in canada, released from the underworld, and, driven mad by the magic (and confusion of being back in the real world), had started a series of freak thunderstorms across the american midwest. together with jerome, she had to figure out how they got released, stop the magician, construct the device necessary to trap the spirits and send them back, and use said device to stop the storms. the effort had completely exhausted her (so much so that she – making headlines – decided to take a step back on touchstone production, instead of hanging out on set like she did for the other three)

(that's why tor is the way it is. with her dropping off of the face of the earth, someone decided – while she couldn't argue against it – to absolutely slash the budget, which lead to a mess of a story (screenplay is the only oscar it wins)

nina's death (as alluded to in the article) really seemed out-of-the-blue. basically, she was on a mission – alone – that suddenly and very unexpectedly turned dangerous. but when she was found (by KT and amber together) it looked like she just collapsed at home – there was no indication of any foul play or anything, really, of how she died.

also alluded to in the article, but a lot (but not all) of KT's "investigative journaling" was her covering up the consequences of nina's missions with theories that would make sense to the general public. nina's last request of her was to halt any investigation into her death prematurely as she knew things would unravel pretty quickly otherwise

joy's role in nina's life was mainly to book her for enough public-facing events/etc so that people wouldn't question where she was when she "disappeared" for a month or two, as well as act as her social media manager/"source close to her" to tabloids during extended absences so people continue to think she's okay. this was especially important given nina's monumental rise to fame (and as a screenplay writer, at that! usually it's the actors/directors who get most of it!) and her relatively young age, which meant she got herself a fandom very quickly…and we all know what the rumor-spreading capabilities of stan twitter are like. there were quite a few times nina came back from a mission to find several "new" pics on her instagram or that shes going viral for something she doesn't "remember" saying lskdjf

amber's role was to media-train the hell out of nina so she never gives any indication that a) there's an element of truth in her work; b) she lives a double life; and c) weird things keep happening in the cities she happens to frequent (eg random buildings falling, artifacts disappearing, etc). we all know this girl can't lie to save her life…amber is nothing but a miracle-worker in that regard lol

as for eddie – his death is basically the reason things are so awful, now. he actually dies at the end of tor, and not only does osiris himself blame nina for it (using "logic" that can rival senkhara's in s2), but it also leaves nina terrified since she no longer has a protector – something all the other gods/spirits quickly take advantage of (threats/blackmail/etc) for the first few years, by which time word of her willingness to do anything spreads and she can't get rid of the constant requests. it doesn't help that his death also proved to them that nina (like her counterpart) can, and will, sacrifice herself to save the world, if it came down to it, making her the perfect pawn in a lot of schemes.

[ateez-himari]

LXST; RECORD ONE

[NEW UPLOAD FROM ATEEZ]

LISTEN TO 'ADDICT' NOW ON YOUTUBE

Liked by dovecameron and 2,038,019 others

ateez_official_ LXST; solo project

#ATEEZ #애이티즈 #HIMARI #히마리

View all 1,339,371 comments

donatella_versace Never in my lifetime have I seen someone this hypnotizing 💛You are truly one of a kind, the diamond of this generation

no1likehim hear me out, she could very well be a real life siren because personally if I was out at sea and seeing her out in the water like THIS...idc I'm jumping in 💅🏾

mitosglass.es Wait omg she was saying she'd perform a new song later in the tour and that the outfit was dangerous 😰If she comes out in this in Toronto I'm actually gonna lose it, I'll be in shock, you'll never see me again

mochimochimari stop because LUST is the title of this project?! (don't try to hide it, we know) she has insane musical duality bc wdym she's written the most heart wrenching songs but then is gonna sing about wanting to get freaky-

sansatori is this the ATEEZ naked era 🫣first the sleeves magically disappear from their shirts, then the shirts start disappearing on stage, now we have MIN HIMARI coming out of the water like this?? pls i would do anything for this woman to even look at me

himarry.me Mingi pls give me a chance with your girlfriend...he literally stole the most beautiful woman from us how are we supposed to cope now 😭also we won guys, we had to beg her to release her solo project and it was so worth it, we blessed humanity💪

31 July 2024 • See Original

Industry Reactions

When asked about the industry's current aces in a live broadcast, second generation artist Taeyang responded with this statement; 'The first one that comes to mind is Himari from ATEEZ, people call her the second Hand of Midas for a reason. 'Addict' was created using her voice in various ways instead of relying on instrumentals and it came out like an angel call. It's almost entrancing whenever she sings, almost like a siren song.'

Taemin obviously had to boast about his protegee and posted this on his story; 'From creative direction of this music video to having only her name in the credits, there really is nothing she can't do!❤️I'm so honored to have such a talented artist by my side, go stream this song everyone, quickly!'

Former B.A.P leader Bang Yongguk posted the music video link with this comment underneath; 'i've been listening to this on repeat ever since she sent it to me and it feels like I'm being transported to heaven (even though the lyrics are far from holy ㅋㅋ) her voice really is on a whole other level, it could lead sailors into the water'

Twice leader Jihyo could not seem to stop praising their former trainee; 'I can't believe ATEEZ took this angelic artist from us 🥺The dancing is as mesmerizing as watching a ribbon flow in the wind, the vocals sink deep into the soul, the visuals make you fall in love...I could go on. I'm so proud of you Himie, we all are!'

Netizens Reactions

@/himaswife on X 'If i was a six foot tall rapper with a deep voice hearing this song that was definitely made about me...imagine such a stunning woman singing about how infatuated she is with you 😳 I would kiss and marry her on the spot (i'm not jealous at all why would you think that-)'

@/yeosangiecookie on X 'she definitely chose to do it in English for a reason and she was right, it's so sensual but innocent at the same time that you just can't stop listening to it. i thought it would be provocative from the project title but the lyrics were just suggestive enough to make you think about the possibilities but not picture anything, truly a masterpiece from our maknae as always 🙌'

@/ateenypresent on X 'the way you can tell these lyrics are genuine because it's things we point out every time, especially the "These things I'm thinking when you're looking in my eyes". if you don't notice the way her and Mingi make eye contact you must be blind...look i'm delusional and reaching but yk how in Work he says "ride [with] me"?? and how she said "fuck it i'm still riding"?? 😳'

@/yunhosbuckethat on X 'i NEED to see her performing this live, I don't even care if I have to watch it through tiktoks or a low resolution youtube video. the choreography was so beautiful, i love when she incorporates classic and contemporary stiles into her dance, it just suits her so well. plus imagine how good it would sound echoing in a stadium 🫠'

Min Siblings Updates

Hanzo on Instagram 'My wife woke me up this morning telling me that my sister's new song was so good that she'd been playing on loop for ten minutes now...first of all I'm mad that I didn't get to hear it first. More than anything though I'm so proud of her, 7.3 MILLION views in not even 24 hours for a SOLO project that was announced the day of release is genuinely insane🥹I LOVE YOU MY LITTLE TIGER 💕(I'm so playing this to the whole team before practice, the rest of you GO STREAM IT WHAT ARE YOU DOING'

Yoongi on Weverse 'There are no words to accurately describe how divine my sister's song sounds, it's so delicate yet powerful, I wouldn't be surprised if every speaker in the country starts playing it. Without a doubt I can say that she's one of if not the most talented producer of this generation, who else can manipulate vocals and instrumentals so perfectly as to transport you to another world? Our Hima, you did well, I love you ❤️'

Translated from Korean by Google

[butchtwinkimp]

MINORS DNI!!!

im not marking this post as nsfw, but I will be talking about sex and orgasms in relation to transness in this post. Minors DNI, you will be blocked. Anyone else reading this keep in mind I will be using language that my sexual partners and I use to describe our own personal sexual activities. If anything in this post is phrased weirdly or in a way you deem offensive- remember that this post is not about you or your experiences (I would still like to hear about your experiences if you think it would contribute to the conversation). Thank you. ———————————

Are there any other transmascs out there that have had problems with orgasms pre and post transition?? Just came across a post from a transfem talking about how different orgasms are for them now, with many other trans fems agreeing in the replies/reblogs. My fiancé is a trans woman and she has shared with me (as well as me just being there to witness it lol) how different and powerful her “girl orgasms” are. And like,,, im so happy for you all but damn 😭 im so fucking jealous.

In the post i am referring to the OP also talked about how her orgasms feel very similar to how cis lesbians describe”the female orgasm”, kind of an all over the body feeling that leaves you wanting more. Ive now listened to both cis and trans women (&fems) alike describe the earth shattering experience of having an orgasm, and im honestly kind of upset that I will probably never know what that feels like 😔

Before I started T, it was incredibly hard for me to ever come, for a very long time I was convinced I just couldn’t. I had managed to do it a few times, either from masturbation or from veeeerrryyy specific sex positions (me on top) and everytime it required clitoral stimulation. But even when I could reach an orgasm, its was never that same magical experience I had heard so many women describe. It was like i could only feel the pressure building up, with no pleasurable release. “Coming” for me was just going until my clit was too sensitive to continue, but it never felt like a wave of release washing over my body, just sudden overstimulation.

When my gf started medically transitioning and she first started having “girl orgasms”, i remember her crying and going “holy shit is this what its like?! I never wanna stop!!” And while of course im very happy for her and its fun to get her in that state, I cant help but feel jealous and betrayed by my own body lmao.

i was hoping going on T would “fix” me, and dont get me wrong T has genuinely changed so much about my sex life (as an example I no longer identify as someone on the asexual spectrum! I am constantly horny as fuck!!) but im starting to think my body is just broken. I can come a lot easier now, and ive had maybe one or two orgasms in the 7 months ive been on T that genuinely left me satisfied. Mostly its just… the same. Its a little bit easier for me to orgasm now but they still arent particularly mind blowing, mostly just overstimulating. And i cant help but feel… cheated? By my own body?

Ive listened to so many trans people go on about how hormones drastically improved their sex life, and while it did somewhat improve mine, I feel like I got robbed of a greater experience. Im so happy for everyone finally feeling right and comfortable in their sex lives but damn it really feels like I got left behind sometimes 😔

I am friends with more trans fem people than trans mascs, so usually Im hearing the same story of how much better orgasms have become, so I am curious of how HRT has affected other trans mascs and mens sex lives. Am I the only one perpetually disappointed in my own body or is this a somewhat common experience for people with vaginas? Please dont be afraid to tell me about your own experiences in the replies/reblogs, I am open to hearing from everyone, not just other transmascs :)

[eerna]

Ok Ok so I've been thinking this for. quite a while like even before Stolen Heir was released. it's kind of controversial because I might be making mountain out of a molehill but -

I think Jurdan fans border on being disrespectful to Holly Black at times... the problem isn't what one chooses to focus on even though that annoys me too, like it's not like people can control the fact that they focus more/love a character more than the other. But I'm starting to see this especially on Instagram and Goodreads, and I think I have good reason to believe HB is more active on insta and Goodreads is like, the book reviewing site, if there's any place she may look for comments or critique it's that.

and my problem lies with the language used . HB can announce she's working on something and can give hints about it and I've seen soo many people just outright tell her "I don't care about [x] and [y] just give me JURDAN!!" or anything along that vein , there's also "I'm only reading this for Jurdan lol I kind of couldn't care less about []".

It genuinely annoys me a lot !! And I wish I could say to each their own but ykw? At some point it starts to feel like if these two characters aren't involved people don't even try to make an effort to connect with the other characters, the new protagonist, etc. To be honest your page was a breath of fresh air because I don't even see a lot of folks focus on ANYTHING in TFOTA other than this ship.

There's also the irony that so many people pride themselves on loving Jude, their morally grey female rage character, but refuse to discuss Taryn with nuance. Or Vivi, sometimes. It's weird how so many people love Madoc (justified, I like him too) then refuse to think that hey, maybe Taryn's way of coping with faerie is different than Jude and that affects her actions! something something fandom misogyny

The above unrelated paragraph is just to say that a Nicasia focused book is something many people just absolutely will not be able to handle lmao and I so dearly wish Jude and Cardan's 'screentime' is few and far in between just so that it's less palatable. But oh well.

(And after Prisoner's Throne it worries me because with the implication that the Nicasia focused book might have Jude and Cardan POVs I feel like she's catering more to these people now.

If that's how things turn out that would genuinely make me really sad because I didn't pick up her books after reading TCP, I started with Spiderwick Chronicles, then Modern Faerie Tales, and I love the way she creates atmosphere, her worldbuilding, her depiction of the weird and creepy and magical. I especially think that's her strongest suit, more than characterization, so something like this that hinges more on specific characters genuinely turns me off.)

AGREED SO MUCH WITH ALL OF ITTT I too noticed the really dumb people in her comments crapping on everything that isn't a new Jurdan book... Like, the woman was writing books and enjoyed fame 15 years before Jurdan happened. She obviously has a lot to say about her world. Why the hell would you want her to stop developing it and only focus on 2 characters??? I was a big Spiderwick fan as a kid, and when I read TFOTA I had no idea it was by the same writer but I could TELL the vibes were all there. I too think that is her specialty and I'd rather get 10 stories on different characters than 5 on Jurdan.

I want the Undersea book to be about Nicasia and part of it is because I agree, I think most of the fandom would HATE it and it would fry their brains, and I want to see it. It is dumb and petty of me, but it would be sweet vindication for all the clowns screaming into my ear that Taryn is problematic actually in case I didn't notice. Ultimately I know it is a fruitless endeavor. TFOTA has the misfortune of being too good and complicated for its main audience of tiktok book fans, but also too bad and simplified to spread into more general, unspecified fantasy circles where its themes could catch the attention of people who would know how to appreciate them. That means there is only a small portion of fans who both like the books AND have the critical thinking skills to appreciate all the things they do right outside of romance/basic female wish fulfilment.

In the end, judging by TPT, we are gonna have to take the L and accept we bet on the wrong horse and minority does not make the money. But at least we will be there together to make a mountain out of a molehill!

[notori]

On a more genuine note from my previous post though: I do not think Imodna will go the same way as Vaxleth for a few reasons.

Vax's story was very personal to Liam. It always frustrates me when people act like the Raven Queen 'took Vax away' (and thus she is a bad goddess) when in fact she answered his prayer and granted his wish. Vax's story is about "Take me instead!" - not some kind of "Don't let Vex die!", and certainly not someone who was raised from the dead without their consent and bound like a puppet. Unless such an ending is expressly what Marisha wants for her character, I don't see it being narratively satisfying. Even if Laudna dies in sacrifice to save the others, because of the breadth of Delilah's power, it would be more of a general "I'm dying to save everyone" and less personal (and impactful) than Vax's trading his life for Vex's.

I joked about how this is Delilah Briarwood vs Laura Bailey again, so don't sweat it, but it's true! The players play their characters differently. Liam loves tragedy and plays it well; Laura loves romance and plays it well. Percy also had a dark streak with a hunger for power, and Vex would not let him go. I see more parallels with themes like: "I feel cruel, but in control." and "Take the mask off." Meanwhile, Imogen and Keyleth are different characters and their love interests have different relationships with death. In the end, the reason Keyleth could not do anything against the Raven Queen isn't because she's a god and Keyleth is not, but because Vax - as a paladin - chose to honour his faith and uphold his end of the deal. Imogen is not in that position because Laudna is not in that position. Laudna may see herself as just a puppet, or a risk, or a dead end - but we the audience, and Imogen, know that she is not (maybe a bit of a calculated risk). If anything, I see us on the precipice of an arc of Imogen inspiring Laudna to fight for her independence again and figuring out a way to do that (this is a world of magic after all).

And that theme of fighting for independence is something that has been there since the beginning. We have seen it both in analysis and confirmed on 4SD that Laudna's relationship with Delilah is in many ways similar to struggling with addiction. And now, into year three of C3, we are really seeing that take form when things get rough. When things get out of control, when you get desperate, that's when you grasp at anything to make it easier. It would be a real kick in the teeth to have her not overcome that struggle. Of course, there's the possibility that she does overcome that struggle by getting rid of Delilah and dying as a result. But out of game it has been referred to more in line with addiction that is constantly managed rather than addiction that is ended cold turkey - which for some people is the only way. I'll admit this one is more a personal preference but I do see it overall leaving a bad taste if Laudna were to die from Delilah in some way (again). Presuming they resolve issues with the solstice and resurrection spells, True Resurrection does exist and I'm certain the Hells would work off a 25k GP debt to bring Laudna back for good (which I see as more of a final episode/epilogue/post-game situation).

Regardless, it's a beautiful story and I'm sure that whatever happens will be what the players want. However, in this case I genuinely don't see them repeating something they have done before. Although we saw many parallels last night, there is still much which sets Imodna and Vaxleth apart narratively.

[doctornolonger]

People are sometimes surprised when I mention that the unproduced story I regret the most isn't any of the many cancelled FP projects but Steven Hall's Fifty-Fifty, which would have wrapped up some of Big Finish's best character arcs with a conflict between the Seventh and Eighth Doctors at "the moment where 7 went bad".

It would have been the retroactive pinnacle of Wilderness Years, taking its two Doctors with such different characterizations and pitting them against each other. It also … doesn't make a ton of sense. Even taking into account the timey-wimey memory effects of a multi-Doctor event, how could such a dramatic character arc for the Seventh Doctor possibly come and go without the Eighth Doctor – his future self – having any idea?

This question keeps coming up in Doctor Who, and every time the answer feels contrived. Steven Hall would have solved it for Fifty-Fifty by introducing a "Temporal Wish" that allows parts of history to be rewritten without timeline damage. Elsewhere, Big Finish has resorted to hand-waving: every story where characters meet out-of-order has to involve an ad hoc disguise, a memory wipe, or a promise from one of the characters that next time they'll pretend not to have met (🥴). And don't even get me started on "season 6b"!

In what Ingiga cleverly calls Doctor Who: The Return, RTD faced the same question. What if we had more Tenth Doctor stories, not squeezed into any of the well-trodden gaps in his timeline but set after The End of Time – genuinely new stories, taking the character places that it never would've made sense for him to go (such as therapy)?

RTD answered this question twice. Once the regular way, the ad hoc way: David Tennant's contrived return at the end of The Power of the Doctor. And then, emboldened by the Power of the Showrunner, he solved it again – and he solved it for every story, now and forever.

I think down the timeline, they all separated. They all went like that. All the Doctors came back to life with their individual TARDISes. The gift of the Toymaker. And they're all out there traveling around in what I'm calling the Doctorverse. It's the Doctorverse. And I want to create a future in which Sylvester McCoy, he can survive and have an adventure. Because one of the things about The Star Beast is, to get you back and Catherine, we had to jump through so many hoops. Which is great story, but it's like, why can't you just arrive and step out the TARDIS? […] Because this is exactly what Big Finish does. It's exactly what everyone does in their imagination. […] It's time to just kind of open it up and say, they're all out there now.

Or as he put it a different time,

Doctors galore, with infinite possibilities. All Doctors exist. All stories are true.

Gig's latest piece rightly dismisses the "Flowchart" theory of bigeneration, but frankly, I think the fiddly stuff about "fix" vs "fixed" etc. is a red herring. The simple fact is that if Fourteen's post-Giggle memories flow backwards into Fifteen – if Seven's post-TV Movie memories flow backwards into Eight – bigeneration wouldn't solve the Fifty-Fifty problem.

Yes, RTD tries to have his cake and eat it too. In the dream logic of The Giggle, "emotional healing" is a mysterious essence that can be transferred through time independently of memories, just as incinerated roads can magically heal themselves in The Star Beast. But in terms of what RTD's trying to accomplish, in terms of what bigeneration is, I think it's okay to take him at his word.

Speaking of words, the leak called it "bi-regeneration", and even after the episode aired, much of the internet followed suit. But that's not what it's called. It's just bigeneration: not a type of regeneration, an alternative. And indeed, now we have this option – now we have Fourteen, not just Ten – why would we ever go back to playing the timeline-squeezing game? If Big Finish officially untethered itself from the past Doctors' timelines and, say, freed Eight from his interminable death march – would anyone miss it?

Lawrence Miles certainly didn't think so when he advocated a similar untethering 24 years ago.

When you watched Doctor Who as a kid, it kind of lost some of its edge from the start, because you knew for a fact how things were going to turn out. […] I've always felt that the Missing Adventures… or PDAs, or whatever you want to call them… have got a similar problem. The Doctor can't die [or go to therapy – n8.] We know the future, it's not even an issue. That was why I did what I did in Interference. Even if they don't like it, I hope people realize there's a purpose behind it all. It's suppose to justify the existence of the PDAs. From that point on, you can never be sure what the outcome's going to be.

Nobody picked up his suggestion back then, but then again, Miles lacked the Power of the Showrunner. If Tales of the TARDIS' therapeutic dreamscapes are any indication, it won't be long before other writers adopt RTD's in-vision musings as gospel.

So what will happen when Fourteen dies? Will he regenerate? Will he dissolve into sparkles, his ✨emotional healing✨ shooting back in time to become Fifteen? Or like the prior iteration of the "Tenth Doctor happy ending offshoot" idea, is he simply mortal now? The frank answer is that we'll probably never find out: that's simply not the kind of story that bigeneration is meant to tell.

Or maybe RTD's already told us. The quote earlier about "Doctors galore" came from the note accompanying his "Doctor Who and the Time War". That story shows us an Eighth Doctor who survived to the very last days of the Time War, with no War Doctor to be found; it's easy to imagine a bigeneration on Karn not unlike RTD's speculation that "Peter Davison once was left behind on the surface of Androzani and woke up and there was a TARDIS and he carried on having those adventures."

And in the story – released almost seven years after The Night of the Doctor showed us the birth of the War Doctor – Eight struggles, and he succumbs, and he regenerates … into Christopher Eccleston's Nine. Now there's a flowchart that I could get behind.

[some-teeth-in-a-trench-coat]

please tell us more about moth wizard

With pleasure!!! (Although I have to keep it short because I need to sleep pretty soon BUT I can add more tomorrow)

Moth Wizard is one of my OCs and also the (temporary) name of the setting in which he is the main character.

Moth Wizard the character is a Jewish trans man who has learned magic and specializes exclusively in controlling moths. He is likely autistic and loves lepidopterans (moths and butterflies) and struggles with social cues and understanding what other people are thinking or able to infer from a situation. My boyfriend has recently been reading me the Discworld books (focusing on the Watch recently finishing Feet of Clay, which was amazing btw but I think my favorite scene was Dorfl's last one... reminds me of a certain story from the Talmud teehee) so if you're familiar, I find that Moth Wizard is a lot like Carrot Ironfoundersson. He's kind and humble and just wants to help, but can sometimes be totally oblivious to how others interpret a situation. The main difference being that Moth Wizard is not quite so charismatic, both in his social awkwardness and in his humble appearance.

The idea is that he's only the main character in the sense that we take his point of view and that he is in every "episode" (I think of the story in terms of a TV show, I'll probably never get that far but the IDEA is that I'm gonna do it all in Blender), but every story is actually about someone else, it's like he just walks in and becomes a side character to someone else's adventure, with a different adventure each episode.

Moth Wizard the setting is a post apocalyptic fantasy world. Essentially, although humans and most of the Earth survived, war and climate change and the hunger of capitalism escalated until most established power structures crumbled, and then on top of all that, suddenly humans could do magic! Basically, chaos. But not the end of humanity. And the survivors built new communities and generally speaking there is peace, or at least no group is large or organized or armed enough to engage in anything that can be called "war" and still seeing the smoke from the last time war happened, few are eager to change it. But that's politics, not what I meant to talk about.

People who decide to pursue magic are called wizards, and generally they will specialize around some concept, because it's just a lot more convenient. It was originally teenagers who discovered magic, because the way magic works is that you need to do it on purpose. You need to focus and genuinely try, in that special way that you stop doing as you grow older, because you learn that all you'll achieve is making yourself look stupid. To use magic in the world of Moth Wizard, you need to be vulnerable and put your faith in what you're doing, enough that you might cry if it doesn't work because of disappointment and/or embarrassment. And teens are great at that. Children have imagination, yes, but they're not vulnerable in the same way (and also I need some way to make sure children aren't going around summoning dragons or raising the dead), and usually they're not as desperately hopeless as someone experiencing puberty and all the horrors that come with it. Teens are perfect because (generally) they have pride to hurt and hopes to crush, but still haven't "grown up" to the point where they don't believe in magic enough to be truly vulnerable about it.

That's all I've got time to say right now, but if you want more Right Now, here's a link to a list of my most developed characters, each with a brief description!

And you can also join the "Moth Wizard fandom" community if you'd like, where I will occasionally post bonus content, and I'm hoping if more people join we can have discussions about it! Totally optional but here's the invite link for anyone interested!

Thank you so much for the ask, anon!!!

[andbrokenmemories]

So it's weird how like. The Kennet girls are good at everything, aren't they? [pale spoilers ahead]

Like that's obvious, it's textual -- it's very textual, other characters being in something like awe over it over and over and over across the story. The girls are very good at this, and they have a deep well of power. This comes up continuously.

what's weird is thaaat a lot of the fanbase seem to like, enjoy that. Enjoy having protagonists who can play around with magic in a way Blake never ever could have. I kind of get that, I won't like shit-talk it too hard. (I do like Verona, y'know?)

But it's an interesting fact. Because Wildbow's the underdog protagonist guy! At least in action scenes, that's his whole thing! Taylor and Blake have to eat shit and die to claw their way to victory, and often those scenes work for me. And it's one of the things I think WB gets the most praise for? Like, from his established base. It's a conscious choice to not do that for Pale. He like, introduced the idea that this kind of wild practitioner would be especially powerful. He made that up for this book.

I wonder what that decision looks like -- after Ward, and Ward's issues, especially, since that seemed to be the first break from this. Underdog protagonists seem to be the default, for him; the thing he has most experience with. I've seen posts from him describing his process -- put characters against the wall without having a pre-planned out for them, so WB himself has to puzzle out exactly what they can use to make it out alive -- and he seemed to derive like... An actual enjoyment, out of it?

Yeah, there are fights in Pale where they're up against the wall... even one where, with Dire Consequences for us all, Wildbow had them lose because he couldn't see a way for them to win!

But it's not the same. I'd honestly say they usually lose because of their like, lack of full maturity -- their child soldier-y emotional rawness and uncertainty -- their lack of cohesion, as the book usually plays it. Lucy cannot stop John from joining the Contest because she can't hold her nerve against him. The girls cannot stop the murder plot from coming to fruition because they lack unity, aren't working together as a team. Emotional stuff. The girls have more tools in their box than any Wildbow protagonist before them, by far, but they can't always use them properly to get the W, for emotional reasons, for character reasons.

In theory, that's an interesting direction (maybe, possibly), and I should be relieved that Wildbow is trying something fresh. In practice... I've said I don't like Pale's fight scenes. I think Wildbow is plainly worse at this than the content of his previous works.

Part of this is seen in the Contest. Or, at least, how Wildbow Posts about it. If you can't tell, a specific WoG lives in my brain: Wildbow said once that he kept the story going past Break because he genuinely did not believe the trio could beat Maricica. I can imagine him doing his typical calculus for this, and what led him to that conclusion, maybe. For example, we've heard a lot about the ability of the Fae to manipulate stuff, aaaand to have the girls come along and undo all of that with minimal information to begin with wouuld sort of. Damage our belief in Faerie significance. Still, though -- cards on the table, here -- I think this was a Dumb and Bad choice. (It's a sidenote to this post, but I think it's very strange that, in-story the straw that breaks the camel's back is shown to be the Alabaster allowing shit to go on rather than throwing in with John, effectively a betrayer revealed moment -- a thing that, even if sorta his intention from the start, he could simply say 'aw beans i never really planned this out far enough' and just drop. for the sake of wrapping up a better story. and naturally i believe this would have been better also because it means we never would have fucking gotten White Woman Animus!! i digress. i digress.)

Maricica had weaknesses the story gave us to nibble on, and those weaknesses... are just kind of dangling threads, now? As of where I hopped off? like, guess she can't be that inexperienced with people if she became a goddess and started a cult and helped with all that red heron shit lol

So it's that thing I said, about fight scenes being more character driven. But then also, he's clearly thinking about this the same way as ever! As shown by his weird logic with framing the story going past Break as a thing he Had To Do, for Logical Reasons, or at least that weighing on the decision. a thing that is silly and i disagree with on it's face. right?

And then this shows in the sheer quantity of fight scenes -- if the girl's main limiter is internal emotional context and stuff........... uh... why are there so many fights? Why wouldnt the story naturally curve towards. having fewer fight scenes when theres no other way to square things away. that progress character arcs. whyyy do i care about fight scene 129 when i know how strong these girls are. whyyy are we fighting so many random others, and dedicating genuinely long segments of story to them, rather than montaging that shit? Getting it over with? If it has to be there at all? (for reference -- I just tried to think of a Random Pale Fight i fully don't think mattered. i selected the random like. angel summoner guy? with the fortnite constructor angel. that's a part of the musser invasion or whatever. this is a character with literally no substance, just a musser-side goon. From him entering the ongoing! fight to Lucy getting out of dodge is 4.6k words. Plague 12.7, the Mannequin fight, up to Mannequin leaving -- that's almost the entire chapter -- is 6.9k words. on the worm wiki, i saw there's a brief 'major events' summary of that chapter. i couldnt tell you the major events of the Pale chapter, of which that section of fight is like a third, maybe. lucy gets a bit more upset. lucy gets in a few quips against musser-side characters that actually matter but actually dont matter much to how that broader conflict is resolved. i guess.)

Wildbow writes any random fight the girls get into as being worth as many words as his fights in the past! the scrappy, pay-offy ones. bleh. My point in all this: you cannot simply set your protags up in the way I'm positing, here, and then continue to use the same vocabulary of every other serial anyway. it straight up doesn't work. it's exhausting. The Future is An Eternal Slaughterhouse 9000 Arc. Look, thats a criticism that boils down to 'web serials are too long'. And I'm not sure I care too much about web serials being too long! I have read longer web serials with longer fight scenes! I have written fiction with a longer average word count per chapter than Wildbow, at least during Worm! its a real criticism, but its not one im amazingly interested in personally. But the Kennet three could've had weaknesses to play around -- or at least, more weaknesses. We are in a Post-Pact world, and in this Post-Pact world, the magic in Pale really barely feels like it, uh, relies on discourse and presentation. like at all. And that seems like an option to give these characters obstacles! An option Wildbow gestures at during the Musser meta-arc!

but what struck me getting that word count comparison earlier, skimming that fight? The girls just aren't operating in that world. There's never a thought for presentation -- maybe sometimes, for a slight edge. But it never really matters, certainly not after the blue heron. They're using glamour as a workhorse tool, covering goblins in it for brief misdirects to get an edge in a fight; they're calling on the same shrine spirits over and over. They don't build up tools over a portion of story then cash them out for a satisfying win, they're just... strong. They have more items in their bags than Wildbow probably knows what to do with. Strong enough for just Lucy to dunk on any random set of practitioners, but not strong enough for the story to just skip that part, and not strong enough to just solve the plot until it's time to go fuck up Charles and end the story.

I know you could argue that I'm making this up, or that it's what some people prefer to what Pact was doing. But I just think it's not even what wildbow is good at! (and i always theorize that when wildbow is writing kind of bad, it's probably because he's not actually engaged or happy with what he's putting himself through. did he read a specific thing that made him personally excited to make the girls so versatile? I don't really know, but I don't get that vibe.)

And I have a couple of specific things I want to point out to try and prove this is like. a thing at all, to wrap up on: First, Glamour is used as this very, uh, soft magic thing, this very basic narrative tool. A pure mechanic of, like, mental states. If you're shaken, if you're uncertain, your glamour gives out on you -- if you shake your opponents, make them skittish, your glamour is better at misdirecting them. This is fiiine? But too vague for what Glamour is. Wildbow simply failed to properly present tradeoffs to one of his character's main action verbs, one that literally had those tradeoffs in Pact. And one last example to try and prove this: they dont even wear the hats and cloaks anymore duuude. Like, in my eyes: there was a very simple to read gambit being made, with the hats and masks and cloaks? You are awakening early, you will always have awoken early: You accepted an early shield against what that meant. A constructed image in place of the image of a fully-fledged adult, masking that youth; Whimsical and inherently magical, inherently wild. It's a very basic tradeoff, and one the story promises you it knows: even if they really would rather not have to go through the whole song and dance of suiting up, if it's tactically suboptimal or else they mature out of it and realise it's not for them, they will never be able to escape it -- not without giving up power. A mark accepted that cannot be given up. A mechanical restriction on their powersets to make up for some of their advantages, that also has some character relevancy. The Good Stuff.

except yeah it can. be taken off. it doesn't super matter. not really. they do plenty of magic without all the stuff on or even any of the stuff on -- it's rarely presented as an obstacle. it doesnt really matter. Because then, you see, they couldnt mature out of it and do cool stuff! it'd be. annoying. frustrating. they'd have to like. deal with changing past the natures they made for themselves. they'd have to. be characters. with character issues. that present themselves in fight scenes. you know?? what are we doing.