#i also want to talk to people and get human perspectives on how certain events start

[hungee-boy]

journalism? am i wanting to be a journalist

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

i for once want to get the opinion of a "rational" jikooker who knows how to take a step back and take certain things for what they are and i wanna know your opinion or interpretation of jikook in chap2 and them not meeting and also that conversation they had in the car about that please.

And you thought I'm that rational person? Funny.

You know, there's something I always disliked about being in this fandom space. I mean, there's plenty of other things, don't get me wrong, but this one in particular really irks me. It's the need for approval, for confirmation of one's thoughts. There's a severe lack of independent thought. It might be hidden under apparent strong opinions, but when you look at how those opinions are spread to anon messaging to bloggers everyday, that's a sign that the complete opposite happens.

Jikook as a kpop ship always has to be questioned. At this point, I think it's part of its narrative as a ship. But what's curious (and stupid) is that the hardest line of questioning comes from the ones who consider themselves interested/curious. But make no mistake, this is not done for the sake of not becoming delusional and discard any rational thought. It happens because of the need for approval.

You sent me this ask because you hope for me to agree with your own thoughts about jikook and what that conversation in the car means. Not for them actually, but for you. And you're not the only person. A sure sign of fandom insanity is debating for over 2 weeks now a conversation that is not only heavily editated, it is mediated as well. It takes place in the context of a show for fans in which participants are two people who will never reveal everything about their lives. And on top of that, there's an intentional need to ignore that people can speak in hyperbole, that people can ommit or say one thing that actually means more or another that only the other person is capable of understanding the nuances of that.

Communication is complex. We do know that because we engage with it everyday. Except we forget all that the moment we have to talk about this specific ship. We forget a lot of things about human behavior, relationships, etc. It is an intentional act. So we start writing fanfictions. We start making relationship timelines. We start taking about temporary or definitive break ups of a ship that hasn't even been confirmed as a couple. At this point, shippers operate into this alternative universe sphere, canon adjacent but instead of doing it on ao3, they use their blogs and anon messages for that. But hey, fanfics on ao3 are a lot of the times the work of talented writers, while 500-1000 words essays on tumblr are simply a complete waste of time after the first paragraph.

Is this what you would consider a rational perspective? Or should I start writing down a timeline of all the times in which JM and JK have met in "Chapter 2" up until NY in July? (As if in reality their lives are actually separated that clearly, as if a break in band work completely defines their personal lives, jesus christ!). So, should I note down all the public events that they've been to? And to draw a conclusion from it to prove or disprove that the amount of times they've seen each other is reflective or not of what they said in the car when they left for their trip? Of course, we should ignore that there's an entire life outside of what we see.

And that's the thing, you know? We all supposedly agree that they actually share little of their lives with their fans, but practically? The fandom doesn't really give a shit. Because of the classic parasocial relationship we have developed that makes us believe we know everything there is to know.

What we are allowed to see and what we hear from whispers here and there should allow us to realize that no theory over a supposed relationship is better than the other. Believing they are just friends, that they have broken up, that they are fwb and so on is in no way more rational that believing they are together.

What does this mean? If none of us are wiser? It means we have a choice. Some are choosing to be losers or little bitches crying in anon asks about their "insecurities" over a ship. Some are choosing to look at this ship as a duo that includes two people who have really good chemistry and who match each other's freak.

I've always been in the latter category, I thought that was obvious and I've said it before. If one day Jimin makes a public statement that he's marrying the love of his life, a sweet girl that is also the mother of his 5 secret children, then so be it. And if one day, Jungkook shows up one day after he decided to run away and join a bike gang where he met his boyfriend, then so be it. If somehow that next day, a jikook clip would turn up on my tl in which Jimin is brushing his teeth while straddling Jungkook, my reaction would be "well, jikook fuck. Often". You know why? Because for me, the public life of stars and what they choose to share is entertainment. A travel show, a wlive, concerts, these are all forms of entertainment. I do not consume my entertainment by being a loser on the internet, pondering if my assessment over two people might be fucking is real or not or is approved by other people.

[cerastes]

'stultifera navis' is a reference? I mean, when I saw people going "oh it means stupid boat" figured that that wasn't *quite* the whole story but no one's explained what else it means.

You know how we are intimately familiar with Plato's Allegory of the Cave?

This thing? Alright, so Plato didn't make just one allegory. Plato's Allegory of the Cave comes from Plato's "Republic", specifically Book VII. In Book VI, one can find the Allegory of the Ship of Fools. Long story short, the allegory's intent is to represent the problems of leadership and governance in a political system where the key figures aren't chosen based on expert knowledge, but rather, other things altogether ('divine right' is a good example).

Now, with this in mind, we talk about Stultifera Navis, a satirical allegory from 1494 by one Sebastian Brant, a German humanist. It's other title is Daß Narrenschyff ad Narragoniam, in medieval German, all meaning the same: "Ship of Fools". It's worth noting that the Ship of Fools was a popular concept in this era, much like the internet really likes the Allegory of the Cave! Humanity has always been the same in some regards.

Brant's Stultifera Navis was about a fleet, the Fleet of Fools, bound for the Paradise of Fools and, without getting too into it, because it's a decently long read consisting of over one hundred brief satires, it serves as a criticism towards the Christian Church and how it was, largely, a mangle of underqualified fools not only having WAY too much agency in the lives of WAY too many people, but also, it was driving itself in such a hilariously self-destructive manner that it eventually sinking was practically inevitable. Brant creates a character, the Saint Grobian, whom Brant made into the patron saint of vulgar and crass people, so not only was he making a whole book with over 100 little stories about how much a dumbass collective the Church was, he also got spicy and threw in his own OC, Grobian the Hedgehog, the worst and shittiest of them all, and the one that codified the Church most closely.

Now, you may be thinking, "Hey, did Brant get fucking burned at the cross for this or something? Wasn't criticism of the Church the leading cause of death back in those days right after being invaded by Church for no reason?". Well, there was a SPECIAL JUTSU you could use back in the day, one that rendered you naught but a little birthday guy that couldn't be killed for criticism: Employing the voice of the fool. Y'see, Court Fools were allowed to say whatever they wanted, because they were court fools, and this little loophole allowed certain figures of the time, like Desiderius Erasmus, to criticize the Church openly, as he did in "The Praise of Folly", and when the Churchboyz came to his house with pikes and broadswords, demanding he step right out to they could eviscerate him for the SIN of speaking ill against Our Most Righteous, Loving, And Considerate Of Institutions, The Holy Church Itself, Erasmus threw his arms up in mock surrender and yelled "I'm just a little fool! The work was written from the voice and perspective of but a fool! I'm just a birthday fool! Come on, man, don't get so mad!" and then the Churchboyz, smoldering in white blistering ire, sheathed their arsenal and walked away FUMING because he was now impervious to Christblasts.

Well, Brant used the same jutsu, as the book is Entirely about Fools, he claimed it was just the fools talking, ergo, it's not what he REALLY thought, ok? Just some food for thought, a little what if, no need to get so spicy over a WORK OF FICTION. So the Church harrumphed and hmppphroomed their way home, stomping their feet all the way through because AGAIN they couldn't execute someone for their (alleged) opinion.

Now, moving to the Arknights' Stultifera Navis, given how much the event shows the longing for the Iberian Golden Age, and very much states how impossible it is to go back to those days, simply because, one, the world has changed to something that would never again sustain this Iberian Golden Age, and two, the 'Golden Age' in itself was built upon the systematic oppression and suffering of others, ranging from the Aegir persecuted within the Iberian lands to the Victorians and Bolivars raided and pillaged outside the Iberian borders, and it was the selfsame greed, close-mindedness and ignorance of Iberia that led to its natural end. The Inquisition is very much a Ship of Fools: Guided by old relics, fueled by archaic and obsolete beliefs, it's bound to collapse under its own weight. Saint Carmen himself is the perfect representation of the Inquisition: Tired, old, full of regrets, putting a strong front, yet completely ravaged and exhausted, his life artificially prolonged well past the natural lifespan of a Liberi, guided by ostensibly good intentions and yet adhering to principles that necessarily involve the oppression of certain people in order to exist. I wouldn't say Saint Carmen and Saint Grobian are one and the same, but you can't help but see some similarity. Patron saint of the vulgar and crass indeed.

The allegory also extends to Aegir to some degree as well, but we don't have the full picture just yet. Stultifera Navis does suggest that Aegir Beefed It to some degree as well, and not a minor beef, either.

Notably, Laurentina defies the trope: Her recovery stems in part to having let go of her "Golden Age": The times when she could have pursued her passions as a sculptor, the times when she happily hunted away with her fellow Hunters in the 2nd Company, the times when she didn't have a country's worth of Super Death Rock Cancer Juice in her spine, the entire swath of time she lost due to having been replaced by 'Specter', the time when she was blissfully unaware of her Seaborn blood, she makes it clear to Amaia: She's fully aware that all of these things are irrevocably lost, and that that's fine, she's got the present and the future still. She misses that Golden Age of her life, but doesn't agonize over it, she simply has to make a new Golden Age, comprised of other, unknown, exciting things, in the future.

Sometimes, you don't need to think too hard about it. Just tear apart what's in front of you, and move forward. She is not a crewmember of the Ship of Fools.

There's a few more comparisons and connections you can draw between the Allegory of the Ship of Fools and Arknights' Stultifera Navis, but I think the point has been made!

[possumsinpeoplesuits]

So, every once in a while, I have to rant about something online before I just start blabbing to some poor unfortunate Wendy's employee about niche internet pornography. Sometimes in the middle of that rant I realize I might be onto something, and have to share it with others who might benefit.

Today, that subject is the Omegaverse, and the squandered potential for worldbuilding therein.

Now, this post is gonna have some very broad generalizations about the genre, because while I'm certain there's plenty of authors who do put a lot of thought into the pedantic details I'm about to have a Category 5 Autism Event about, it's been difficult to find them amongst a sea of painfully mediocre fics.

For every stellar Locked Tomb Omegaverse fic set in a modern day Taco Bell (Seriously, I want to engrave Double the Meat onto a satellite and launch it into space so that extraterrestrials can see the peak of human civilization) there's like... a million and one Alpha Male/Omega Female pairings written by Conservative Mormon housewives that dare to ask such questions as "What if a man and a woman could have a baby?" and "What the hell is consent?"

But I'm not here to be mentally ill about yet another space being drowned in heteronormativity. Nor am I gonna be a dick about the first fics written by teenagers who're just dipping into fan communities, because my terminally online since the age of 11 ass would be a huge hypocrite for that.

No, instead I'm here to talk about genitals, and deliver just enough sciencey technobabble to justify my passionate opinions about the potential of what is, ostensibly, werewolf porn.

So, for those who've somehow gotten through all these paragraphs but have zero idea what the Omegaverse is, the basic gist is that there are three sex categories that're separate and occur within the usual sexes that humans already have. Effectively, this means that male, female, and intersex individuals can also be Alphas, Betas, or Omegas.

So, to understand these categories, there's a pretty simple rule. Alphas can get Omegas pregnant, regardless of physical sex. Sometimes Alphas are bigger than normal, and Omegas are more petite, but that's not quite as much of a core "rule" to follow, and more just dependent on people's tastes. Betas usually follow standard human dimorphism, though I have seen some people headcanon them as a sort of halfway point between Alpha and Omega.

There's some more details, too, like the presence of knotting (where the base of the penis swells and prevents pulling out during orgasm), heat cycles and rut (where the mating instinct goes into fucking overdrive in the most literal sense), pheromones, bite marking, and sometimes that whole... imprinting thing from Twilight.

So, taking this all into account... Omegaverse fiction has the potential for a BARE MINIMUM of 6-9 SEXES before even taking the vast spectrum of gender identities and presentations into account.

Do you see what I'm on about now? When our society is still struggling with the concept of being nonbinary, and barely ever even acknowledges intersexuality as existing, any Omegaverse setting would be radically different on a biological, psychological, and sociological level.

Can ya see now why I get frustrated when it gets stripped down to compulsive heterosexuality with wolf dicks?

Now, with all the standard tropes laid out like this, we get back to the question that started this all, the question that should be a no brainer when it comes to smut... What them genitals look like? What does a female Alpha, or a male Omega have down there? I have three concepts in mind, and explanations on how they could work from a scientific perspective that's just barely not bullshit enough to overcome suspension of disbelief!

So, the first thought, and the one that initially appeals to me as a nonbinary person... they just look trans. This concept is really simple to work with, because we can just look at real life trans people and just tweak things a little bit. Maybe primary and secondary sexual characteristics operate independently naturally, or maybe there's HRT for it. It's a pretty common method, too, and I enjoy seeing it... but it feels like it needs something more?

Don't get me wrong, this one's basically my personal gold standard for shorter Omegaverse stories, especially fanfiction, but it's also just... swapping parts around. Great for ease of access, but hard to differentiate from the trans experience. Definitely a go-to if you want to play with transition in an alternate society, though.

For the other two, I have to explain a bit about fetal development and reproductive organ equivalents. Also a bit of genetics, too, because it's where we're gonna fuck around and build a lot of theoretical bullshit around a little bit of real knowledge.

So! Some of you may have heard that every fetus starts as female, but might not know some of the mechanisms at work when that changes, and how finicky they can be. This is also fun to throw at TERFs, because ambiguity throws a wrench in the simplistic arguments of reactionary bigots. :)

So, the usual arrangement of sex determining genes is often simplified to XX=female and XY=male. This leaves out other variations like Klinefelter syndrome (XXY) which affects 1 in 500 people under the AMAB umbrella, causing some degree of infertility, autism symptoms, and a somewhat androgynous body shape. (I've been checked for this one! It came up negative, but reading about it was enlightening.)

Now, the presence of a Y chromosome (usually) causes the proto-organs to change function, and develop into the male-aligned reproductive systems at roughly, say... 6-8 weeks? (Unless, of course, there a deficiency in the 5α-Reductase enzyme, which causes a delay in some of this process, resulting in a child that appears female, then just... grows a dick during puberty when the higher levels of testosterone overcome the deficiency and finish off the primary sexual trait development.)

Hey, wanna know the fun thing? Even that is an oversimplification. The whole Y chromosome doesn't mean shit unless the sex-determining region Y gene is in the right place. It can just... fuck off and attach to the X chromosome. If this mutation occurs in XY individuals, it causes Swyer's syndrome, resulting in a female aligned reproductive system that just doesn't include functioning ovaries, just purposeless ambiguous gonads. Pair that fucky X chromosome with another X chromosome, and you get a male with XX chromosomes.

Plus, if someone has a faulty androgen receptor? Well, partial androgen insensitivity can leave things ambiguous, but if it just doesn't work at all? Yeah, everything will develop along the female blueprint, despite the fact that the gonads are testes.

I swear this is still about the porn.

So, with the information we have about these real, existent conditions, we have a good idea of reproductive development, and the mechanisms at play. Now, there's still some theory that's not been definitively proven yet, but the current consensus on the primary sexual equivalents are as follows:

The clitoris forms into the penis, while the vaginal canal doesn't form.

The ovaries become testes, or stay as undefined gonads.

The salpinx become the vas deferens (these are the tubes that transfer eggs or seminal fluids, respectively. More on this later.)

And finally, and the most theoretical, the uterus is believed to become the prostate. (There's sometimes a little pocket, or divot in the prostate, and the arrangement makes sense, but it's still up for debate.)

But how do we use this for our fuck fics, you ask? How do we take your failed medical career, and translate it into Destiel's babies ever after? Well, it's quite simple! We just have to add the bullshit!

So, most alterations to the SRY gene or the androgen receptor tends to just wholesale alter the whole array, and the midway point usually results in infertility and difficulty with sexual function, but what if we could change this? What if, for the purpose of our fiction, we can mix and match everything, and somehow make it all functional and neat? Well, fasten your fuckin' seatbelts, because we're finally at the theories I made while delirious due to a combination of sleep deprivation and the after effects of eating an entire ice cream cake to myself over the weekend.

So, the firmest idea, and the idea I'll be using because I am WAY too deep into this to not write Omegaverse unironically, is what I've dubbed the Primary/vestigal system for f!A and m!O characters.

So, this theory would require that we shove two things into suspension of disbelief. One, we have to completely fuck with androgen and estrogen receptors to mix and match the development of primary and secondary sexual characteristics. Two, I have absolutely no idea how you'd be able to tell when this is going to occur. Maybe genetic testing, or maybe it's just a surprise? Depends on your style of story.

Effectively, we'd base this off the delayed primary sexual characteristic development mentioned above. Alpha Females would operate similar to the real thing, being born looking typically female, before puberty hits and the Alpha genes take over for the genital development, while secondary characteristics still follow a feminine shape. Maybe the gonads stay inside, but function as testes? Sure, sperm production is more effective around 1-2 degrees lower than normal body temperature, but it doesn't stop entirely.

For Omega Males, the process would occur in reverse. Maybe the testes just change course and go back into the abdomen to become ovaries, or maybe they don't descend at all and the first clue this is happening would just be finding a vaginal canal forming?

I like this one primarily because it feels like a less 1 to 1 allegory for being queer, but still feels kind of relatable? You can, of course, still have the end result resemble the first method mentioned waaaaay up past the sciencey bits, but I kind of like the idea of there being a vestigial remnant of the birth parts left behind. I like the ambiguity, and the chance to explore how this would affect someone appeals to me.

Now, my last theory is mostly for the lulz, but this must be DOCUMENTED for POSTERITY'S SAKE.

So, Omegaverse started with m/m shipping with mpreg, right? Well, a lot of the earlier fiction just... describes typical cis male anatomy, with zero explanation for exactly how this is all occurring. There's just... anal sex, and then that somehow forms babby.

Well, what if I told you that I've figured it out? See, remember how I mentioned that the prostate is theoretically what became of the fetal uterine tissue? Guess where the prostate is? Guess. GUESS.

THE ASS IS WHERE!

So, we just have to bullshit the prostate back into a functioning uterus, but leave the placement in close proximity to the anus. Now, the other problem is that that would mean that there's an opening leading to the colon, which... look, I have no idea how birds and lizards keep their cloaca from getting infected, but connecting other tracts to the asshole doesn't usually end well.

So, we have to find a way to seal it up when not in use. Now, the cervix serves this purpose in the real world, opening to let in fluids, or let out discharge or, y'know... a baby, but that's really expensive so most of us settle for having a breeding kink that we never act on, and instead impose on our favorite blorbos who don't have to pay for health insurance.

But still, even with a butt-cervix, bacteria's still likely to get in, so we need a firmer block. I've suggested a little flap like the epiglottis in the throat as a second line of defense. If it can protect your trachea from wayward chicken nuggets, then hey! It might not be terrible for keeping sepsis at bay!

Unfortunately, layering extra protection over the bussy business zone ain't gonna cut it. Hell, as self cleaning as the vagina is, infections happen all the damn time, even if your hygiene is good. So, we need to take that self cleaning nature, apply it to the bussy business zone, and crank it up to eleven. Just constant mucousal discharge, pushing all the bad back out.

So, yeah. Your favorite Omega Man'll have a rectal womb covered with a secondary internal assflap that's constantly discharging a steady stream of slime (just consider it free lube!), but if you can make it past that, you can live your dreams of gettin' that bussy mpregged by cumming in they gay ass. Then they'd just kinda... poop out the baby, presumably.

So there you have it! Three in-depth explorations of how Omegaverse genitals can work! I'm gonna go take my psych meds and fucking SLEEP.

[ravenadottir]

writing as a producer, not as a writer

to explain that title i need to talk about writing as a writer first. i promise everything will make sense in a bit.

as a writer you have a few steps to follow when writing fiction, whatever genre that might be. one of those steps is characterization. building a solid foundation over a trope so you have a well constructed person. it's called a person because there must be a personality attached to them, and not all writers follow this step... which can result in all those main characters syndromes known as "everybody loves her but she has the charisma of a bag of flour".

now, writing drama requires you to understand people and motivation. if you don't comprehend those concepts, all you have is isolated events and no connections or links to your characters.

let me give you an example using season 2 of litg.

if you trade hannah and chelsea's lines after day 24, will the characters make sense? would you say they're exchangeable? exactly, NO! because both of them have very defined personalities and individual traits. they might share an interest, sure, but they're not the same person.

now that we got these steps out of the way, let's write as a producer, which is what writers of seasons 1 and 2 were doing.

i've always hated seasons 3 and 4, but for one of them i couldn't quite put my finger on why.

season 3 is honestly a rainbow festival where kitties lick your face and shit bombons, i hate it. nothing exciting happens, and when something slightly more filled with energy comes along it's accompanied by your li forgetting your name... it's a laughable attempt on drama, and to me personally, no. it's a fuck off from me dog.

season 4, however, seemed to be coming strong for the drama because so many players asked for it. we badgered them asking for something, and um... the delivery was absolutely, for lack of better word, shit. and now that i've replayed a few episodes i understood why: producing.

seasons 1 and 2 were written from producers' perspective. once you have defined traits and characteristics, you have real people. now, if you want to instigate drama, how do you push those people's buttons?

by introducing raunchy challenges that make sense, bombshells that are irresistible to them, intriguing games that will plant a seed of doubt in their minds about certain people... contests, casa amor, more bombshells right after a brutal dumping, returning islanders.

for the most part the drama in those first two seasons was pretty realistic, and that is the reason! mason and levi getting angry, squaring up because the other is hitting on mc, mc not taking shit from anyone, lucy trying to sabotage her ex's current relationship mostly because she wasn't over them, erikah being mad and jealous and acting out of impulse... and that's to mention only a few of the feuds on season 1.

season 2 had so many classics: roccogate, lottie's explosions, every single fight about loyalty but the one instigating was also a flawed person (sitting on their own ass and talking about someone else). clandestine kisses, clandestine plans, doubt about loyalty through producers' doing, such as the tweet challenge. this season was built so well because the writers were thinking as producers!

it was a powerful combination of producing-writing and realistic characterization.

and after you introduce things or people that will cause the drama, one thing you need to do is to give your characters some development, whether positive or negative, BECAUSE PEOPLE REACT TO THINGS, and depending on who that person is, they'll react DIFFERENTLY.

did we have that on season 4? 3? ex-in-the-villa? did we have anything remotely human such as emotions or people? yeah, didn't think so.

the reason why i was put off from replaying season 3 is because they act like a bunch of pixels, and not like people. the writing is so weak and so convoluted, tired and lazy, i can't bring myself to play those seasons repeatedly. it takes me out of the story because there's nothing serious or entertaining happening.

individually, the characters might be hot, or cute, or both. together, as a group, MOST BORING SHIT I'VE EVER READ.

take the rahim-jo kiss as an example of how to pull your reader in. elisa told chelsea about the kiss because she knew the girl would blab, since she'd done it before (lottie and gary's event). that single piece of gossip goes to show almost everyone's expectations and reactions, consequentially showing us, the players, new things about the ones involved and it worked so well from a writing perspective. this is what it caused:

elisa blaming chelsea even though she was the one who gossiped. we get a pretty good idea of how elisa deals when in crisis, specifically when she's trying to get rid of the guilt.

shannon being sexist and aggressive towards jo instead of bringing rahim to the ordeal, which also reinforces the fact that she didn't want to let rahim go because he was her safe bet to the finale.

chelsea crying out about not wanting to hurt anyone, and dealing with her problems by drinking and trying to pretend nothing is happening, or that it's not that serious (even though she yells about gary in a challenge right after face-sucking elijah).

jo lying about the whole thing, clearly scared of shannon's reaction, and throwing insults around because she doesn't know how to deal with being caught.

ibrahim hiding because he can be such a pussy, and honestly doesn't really care for shannon.

the boys walking out because they don't think this is worth the drama

lottie provoking people by ignoring the questions about the kiss and asking about the towel.

hope trying to minimize the damage, always the mother.

and mc can do pretty much nothing about anything, it's our choice.

finally, the pool dialogue we have with bobby, and how emotionally drained he is despite this not being about him. it shows that he cares about the group.

just by introducing someone that rahim would surely like, the "producers" hit jackpot. they brought a girl that is an athlete, awkward, tattooed, and sent that girl on a date along with the guy that has a taste for girls like that, to a fucking spa. GUESS WHAT? they didn't have to push their lips together, they just knew rahim, and they knew he was frustrated with shannon.

by the way, introducing a strong-minded girl who knows what she wants, and doesn't fiddle in casa amor, is how they managed to make rahim choose her, because at that point, priya was history due to her pass at noah.

there you go, two dramatic events just by introducing people that would turn his head. drama that can last for days, and generate so many meme's, so many gif's, so many quotable pearls and classics to push the show on social media further more.

season 4's drama was like elisa telling chelsea the secret, and then chelsea blabbing about it but never once hinting she was dramatic as hell. on season 2 we have multiple instances of chelsea doing that, and not just with other characters, with us too, so it makes sense elisa would seek her to get the word out.

so when lexi pulled and threatened mc, i was like "yesss, finally, some drama!!" but then the next day she was like "ah yes, i was the little bobeep of the fucking i don't care tv show-shire" and i was so... confused ???? because why would the girl that was so passive-aggressive with me yesterday join me in the kitchen and tell me an anecdote??? one that is not relevant to anything and doesn't tell me how she was affected by my presence there ???

it was SO FUCKING RANDOM.

did we have random chats in the villa on seasons 1 and 2? ABSOLUTELY. but who started those? the crackheads! tim, gary, bobby. it was never hope or lottie who tried to diffuse drama by talking about random things, no! that was always the boys, mostly because they were either bored or uncomfortable, which falls into place with their personalities!

i sincerely can't bring myself to play season 4 because all the drama was apparently fabricated for shock value, and wasn't rooted in a true concise storyline or plot.

again, i'll use lexi and "YOU WILL NOT TAKE MY MAN" ordeal. what did she do after we picked kobi? ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY NOTHING. i was ready for her to pull a butterfly knife and start swinging, mortal kombat style... maybe even try to pull our mc's spine right out of our noses, but instead... she was just there, not saying or doing anything.

the repercussion of our choice doesn't match the promise, or the characterization that was given before. if lexi had drowned my mc i would be like, "ok, work, that makes sense." but she didn't do anything about it.

bobby had to hold lottie back when we chose gary on day 10, and she's incredibly creepy and cryptic the next morning. even takes a few jabs at pissing mc off until the very end, because she doesn't give up on gary and thinks she's entitled to have him. her actions match her personality, and lottie walked so lexi would trip, fall and crack her skull.

the producing worked in so many instances, more than times that didn't, so explain to me, WHY DIDN'T THEY REPEAT THIS FORMULA IN UPCOMING SEASONS.

for instance, boat party. instead of having an episode or two with your li, and building up for them to leave after a serious fallout, and that being the climax in your storyline, NO! that was the setup for the boat fucking party. it happened in 50 taps or less. WHAT WAS THE REASON?

i hate everything fusebox produced after season 2 but like... for different reasons.

everything feels like riverdale, it's a bunch of absurd and over-the-top shit happening, cringe dialogue, only to have zero any impact on the people involved, no consequences, not even vestigial feelings. it's for the shock value and shock value alone.

it seems the writers and writing directors are thinking episode by episode, instead of making an outline for the season, so we're left with a lot of isolated incidents that overall don't make any sense, and don't foreshadow or create any repercussions.

you cannot draw a timeline with any season beyond season 2. and i hate that lazy shit. i truly do.

i was going through the litg s5, the ex-in-the villa tag here, and... so many complaints about the toxicity of the characters! it's giving after saga. no real motivation behind the drama, no real repercussions, over-the-top scenes for no reason, obnoxious and unlikable people. it's a slap on the face of the players, it truly is.

but still, i was pushing myself to persevere and try to play season 5, and then i saw the design.

YOU CAN'T BE BAD AT THE WRITING AND THE DESIGN, PICK A STRUGGLE.

so... to sum it all up, writers were successful on early seasons because characterization and situations walked hand-in-hand. one caused the other and we were able to witness the consequences, and whether positive or negative, they EXISTED. they PRODUCED the show after coming up with characters that felt human, then just wrote the consequences for whatever it was.

anyway, just wanted to talk about this because it had been a while since i last touched an litg season, and when i realized why i hate recent ones, i had to write about it.

[dearreader]

hello! welcome back to my FMA Characters as Taylor Swift albums!!! please note this was written before ttpd dropped. previous albums are here:

debut, fearless (taylor’s version), speak now (taylor’s version), RED (taylor’s version), 1989 (taylor’s version), 𝔯𝔢𝔭𝔲𝔱𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫, 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓇, 𝒇𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒍𝒐𝒓𝒆, 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆

now, let’s discuss the 13 20 21 22 sleepless nights from taylor’s past:

Midnights

Roy Mustang

- this isn’t a surprise is you follow me considering how often i’ve gone crazy over how roy coded antihero is

- the concept of the album is 13 midnights from taylor’s past that she’s revisiting. though the album feels more like a conversation between taylor’s relationship to fame and her personal life AND from very recent events of finding out when certain songs were written (jack antonoff you petty as bitch i love you) the album has a deeper meaning. while still about 13 nights from taylor’s past it also feels like it’s her trying to find a way to save her current relationship and she’s doing that by looking back at old relationships and how’s those failed/ended or started to understand what is going wrong now.

- it also feels like a threat at times to yogurt boy (ex boyfriend i won’t name) that she can leave though it’s clear she doesn’t want to leave. she wants to make this work because of all he did to help at her lowest of lows and helped show her a different aspect of life she could have. but her partner isn’t giving anything. and she is slowly dying.

- …

- alright now that i’m done with my rant, that very well be edited later because we’re getting new taylore by the fucking day and it’s changing perspectives on EVERYTHING, we can move on

- this album has been criticized for not having as deep of lyrics as her previous two albums (cause people are fucking idiots and can’t read anything past a pop beat ((STARES AT AYHTDWS))) but the album is still full of great lines and songs that show us different sides of taylor.

- i do however think that based off how the album is presented and shown it feels very roy coded. with the album showing different sides of taylor and her past regrets and knowing just how different her life could be if she did just one thing differently (john mayer i am in your fucking walls). this resonates a lot with roy’s character and what we know about his life

- most notably the song anti-hero is roy coded as hell. a monster of your own making and the deep fear of driving the person you love away because of your own hands… that’s roy baby!

- but that theme carry’s over into several other songs such as midnight rain or you’re on your own kid. and while those songs are different stories and from a female perspective, there is still a voice of loneliness in them and your past decisions haunting you and being unable to escape it. that you had wanted of this one thing for so long but now that you got it you fully see the damage it has done not only to you but others and now have to live with the decision. this comes through for taylor as her wanting to be famous and her disliking of celebrity life as she doesn’t see herself as human anymore, while for roy he views himself as a monster for his previous actions and is doing everything he can to try and right his wrongs

- both have a similar view of themselves but also feel like this is their own fault. they both made their bed now they must lie in it.

- so i wander through these nights/i prefer hiding in plain sight/this fourth drink in my hand/these DESPERATE PRAYERS OF A CURSED MAN!/spilling out to you for free…/but darling darling please you wouldn’t take me word for it if you knew who was talking…/if you knew where i was walking…/to a house, not a home, all alone cause nobody’s there…/where i pace in my pen and my friends found people who care…/no one sees you lose when you’re playing solitaire

- (of course user dearreader assigns sad little meow meow as dear reader)

- everything i touch becomes sick with sadness…

- all of me changed like midnight rain/he wanted it comfortable i wanted that pain

- i have this thing where i get older but just never wiser

- sometimes i feel like everyone’s a sexy baby and i’m a monster on the hill/to big to hang out slowly lurching toward your favorite city/pierced through the heart but never killed/did you hear my cover narcissism i disguise as altruism like some kind of congressman?

- do you see the difference? i love how riza walked several steps behind roy while still protected him. riza doesn't put roy in the basement. she’s not afraid of his shine. she lets him bejeweled.

- there are love songs on here that i’ve already talked about being royai coded in their own posts and or me feral posting about royai (labyrinth, sotb, sweet nothing, lavender haze, etc.) and like… yeah that’s there.

- also, while i don’t view the song in this way, it has been pointed out to me how you’re losing me is very Roy vs. Envy coded and i have to acknowledge that here but not in my own heart cause if i do that then ill lose my mind over the song even more than i already do.

- but, that’s my ted talk. thank you all for coming and reading these posts! and remember:

[italeean]

HIHI ELLE!! AAAAAAAA CONGRATS ON 350 FOLLOWERS!! YOURE SO COOOL!! Remember me when you’re famous 😞✊ I know I’m not rly in the t community but I hope it’s okay I send an ask for the event?? My hobbies are reading, writing, drawing, painting, sculpting, video editing, and video games. I love psychology and literature, both classic and more recent. I also like webtoons and manwhas. I don’t like parties or big groups of people, or watching sports. I prefer one on one interaction or small groups of people, and going outdoors and exploring rather than going to a crowded place in a city. I hope it’s ok I participate in this event if I’m not too much into the t community, but I’m very much so a ler. For the fandom I’ll go with Haikyuu, platonic relationship, and I have no gender preference. Tysm in advance if you accept!! 😻😻💙💙

Waaaahh hello my dear ❤️❤️ It was such a pleasant surprise to see you participate 🥹 Thank you so so much... you're so kind and sweet and cool!!! I hope you'll enjoy your match-up ❤️🍡 *some dango for you*

🔮 For this event, I match you up with... ASAHI

🔮 Why did I choose him for you?

• First of all, Asahi is not the biggest social butterfly out there (no offense obviously) so I think you'd enjoy hanging out with one another • He's also very athletic, which means you'd be able to go out and explore all you'd like • He's also a very good listener, so you could tell him about psychology theories or interpretations of classic and modern literature • I also see him as the kind of guy who'd get invested in the books you tell him about to understand you better • You could also join the third-years during the visit to the temple for New Year's, or just hang out with them!! • I can totally see you sneaking a few pokes to Asahi's sides when he gets too anxious... it's a little subtle thing you do to make him snap out of his spiral of negative thoughts • You could also help him with his designs, since he becomes a designer and you like drawing • He'd totally use your art pieces, may it be drawings, sculptures or video edits, for his fashion lines • 6 words for you: VIDEOGAME. NIGHTS. WITH. HIM. AND. NOYA. • You could probably tickle him also when he gets too invested in his work and basically forgets he's a human being with physiological needs... you know, just to "kindly invite" him to take care of himself • I also have the feeling that Asahi would be a little more talkative with you because he'd be more comfortable with hanging out alone with you and his anxiety would be much more bearable • I see your friendship as a quiet one, full of mutual listening and quality time... both you and Asahi are the kind of friends everyone needs

🔮 Tickle scenario

The sun, the chirping birds, the fresh air, the quiet swish of a nearby torrent, the sound of your steps... this was your ideal afternoon. Just you and your best friend Asahi.

It was refreshing both for you and for Asahi. Even if he was Karasuno's ace and had gained poularity after the sudden rising of the volleyball team, he didn't exactly like the popularity or the fangirls that constantly tried to be around him. Obviously he was always respected with everyone who approached him, but sometimes he felt the need to get away and just spend some time in total peace and quiet, and when he needed that peace and quiet, you were the only person he wanted to be with.

You weren't boyfriend and girlfriend, and you've never even had a crush on one another. You were best friends, and from a certain perspective you even had a deeper bond compared to a couple who has recently started dating.

Asahi was a very quiet and reserved person, who sometimes had difficulties with expressing how he felt, but you could always tell what was going through his mind without him saying anything. The ideal afternoon for both of you was being together just the two of you reading, talking or taking a walk in the nature, just like you were doing today.

You had just reached your usual spot near the torrent, where you usually took a break before going back home. "Ah... I really needed that, thanks Asahi." You smiled thankfully at the ace, who sheepishly smiled right back at you.

"Anytime, and honestly I needed that, too." The tall guy replied, "So, how's school going? Are you doing something interesting in literature class?" He sat down on the grass and patted the spot right next to him, inviting you to sit next to him.

"Oh yeah, I really like both the author we're analyzing and how the teacher explains it!" You took your seat next to your friend, "What about you? I hope that the last year of high school isn't too brutal." "Well..." he began, "I won't deny that it's very difficult, but I'm managing!"

"I'm sure you're taking care of yourself though, right?" You inquired while raising your eyebrow in an inquisitive way. "Well..." He scratched the back of his head, and that was all you needed to hear.

"How. Many. Times. Did. I. Tell. You. That. You. Gotta. Take. Care. Of. Yourself?!" You scolded him, emphasizing every word with a poke to his torso. "Ah! He-heyyy..!" Asahi tried in vain to escape your pokes, "I-i knohow... but- no wait!"

You didn't even let him finish his excuses, you just went for his stomach and scribbled your fingers all over the soft skin, protected by the thin fabric of the shirt.

It didn't take him long to give up. Despite his menacing aspect, he was quite weak to tickling, which you obviously knew as his best friend. "AAAHAHAHAHAHA okaHAhay Ihihi gihihiveHEHEhe..!" He pleaded, and you stopped. You were feeling quite merciful. "Fine, but you better take care of yourself from now on!" You pouted.

Asahi chuckled and gave you some headpats. "Fine, fine... you win..." He laid in the grass and glanced at the clear blue sky. You did the same, but before that, you grabbed your backpack, took out a packet of nikuman and gave it to the tall guy.

"Eat this, I imagined you weren't taking care of yourself so I grabbed something from Ukai-san's shop." Asahi thanked you and stared eating immediately. "So," he said "tell me about that book you're reading..."

[karouvas]

Hi it's me again having thoughts about the fic you haven't even begun writing, the comes back wrong au. You mentioned that Gansey's being more manipulative with the Gangsey but that certain things he's doing (ie, no glasses) are just him messing things up for himself. So, and this is a roundabout way of asking, what do you think would work for the people around him? What would make him excel in Manipulation 101?

Like I told you in a message I keep on partially writing this in notes app then not liking how it’s going and starting over so just typing it all out now and posting before I can reassess. Update on this concept is that I now have an official doc and have started outlining although not very far. Context: this is referring to my fic idea I have labeled as No Humanity Gansey, essentially a Gansey Comes Back Wrong au canon divergent from TRK where he comes back without emotions think NH arcs on the tvdu or shadeless arcs on the magicians or any of the many fantasy/paranormal storylines that utilize this trope. The basic idea is to remove a chars empathy and see what they do / who they are when uninhibited and the perspective that adds to their char and dynamics normally. I am planning to move up Gansey’s death in the sequence of events to pre toga party because I want there to be a sort of Chengsey v Blue Adam Ronan Noah (since Noah hasn’t been erased due to a different price being paid) set up and that works best if say, Blue and Henry haven’t bonded yet and I also want this to be before the Pynch gets together / Gansey learns about Pynch / shovel talk section because that also changes the dynamics. So I spoke in our initial convo about it on Gansey’s being so tuned into social hierarchies and how to charm and please according to them because of his upbringing, but also being afraid to sort of abuse power including social ones because he is a kind person in general, and also his obliviousness to a lot of more interpersonal social interactions and the opportunity with this premise to explore how much of that obliviousness is genuine (some of it def is) and how much is really compartmentalization / plausible deniability when Gansey wants to prioritize the quest for Glendower / not deal with something himself / wants to not hurt someone with a perception. And generally he would be a lot more emotionally manipulative and would be attempting to manipulate the gangsey. But also some of his incorrect perceptions of his dynamics and how others view him would interfere with this conceit the example I brought up was a sillier one but he doesn’t know Blue is most attracted to him with glasses / at his nerdiest so if he was trying to say, present his most appealing self to persuade her of something contacts wouldn’t be the way to go lol. But this question is less about what Gansey thinks / would do and much more about what Would actually work in manipulating or swaying each gangsey member in some way if he could pull it off. So I might reference the former when it feels relevant but will focus on the latter. And again have not actually started out writing this fic proper so all subject to change my thoughts on once I’m in the thick of the actual process.

Ronan — I think Gansey should not underestimate Ronan which I feel like he is likely to do in some ways? Like Gansey probably would expect Ronan to be the least challenging to sway (I haven’t 100% nailed down his end goal but I do know Cabeswater still exists after his death unlike in canon and he’d want to establish himself as more closely linked with the mystical like I mentioned before. So the manipulation goals are like preferably persuading them to join him but if not at least distracting / disarming them so they won’t interfere too much) because he’s so devoted / they’re so inseparable / the dog motif Gansey, especially this version of Gansey who is more callous in his view of his friends, wouldn’t expect to have a lot of trouble managing / controlling Ronan the way he would with Adam or even Blue who clash with him far more often and care more about being independent outside of him as a concept. So I think Gansey would need to check that blind spot and recognize Ronan as someone who cares about the other Gangsey members too much to just leave them at Gansey’s request (especially since again he doesn’t know about Pynch yet if he did I think he would be a little smarter about this) I do think he’s not wrong that Ronan responds really well to Authoratative Gansey and that would be appealing to him, and also knows that Ronan has his jealousy complex and so would spin Henry being around to Ronan in a way to make Ronan the official second in command over Henry even if that wasn’t true, or a Henry is just temporary and we’ll stop needing him but I’ll always need you! Thing I think that all could be effective although the combination could only be effective with really deliberate … maneuverings and said maneuverings would have to be done in a way that doesn’t trigger Ronan’s distaste for lying/falsehood although for someone who feels that way he sure does go for men who are maskers/pretenders in some way doesn’t he… so those are my basic ideas for Ronan but I need to develop them more.

Adam — Conversely I think Gansey is going to assume Adam will be the most challenging to sway / manipulate, since they clash the most and have the most natural tension in their relationship when Gansey is his normal self. So I think that puts Adam at a disadvantage in the way it puts Ronan at an advantage. I actually think if Gansey kind of weaponized his touch with the gangsey it would be most effective in throwing Adam off his game, because of Adam being the most tactile and the most touch starved combined with how he’s always felt about Gansey combined with I hc that Gansey actually is the least tactile with Adam in general (he doesn’t touch people in canon as much as the other three do I think largely because of socialization. the times he does casually touch Adam are their fist bumps which are so intricate rituals and then a couple moments in DC otherwise he doesn’t I think, less spontaneous than some of his moments with Blue where they’re flirtily touching/holding hands or like Ronan smacking his thigh) largely because he doesn’t want to trigger Adam since he knows touch can be hard for him due to abuse associations, one of the ways Gansey tip toeing around Adam actually has the opposite effect of the one he’s going for. So yeah, I think touch and like sexual manipulation wise (although Gansey not knowing about Pynch yet would still factor his manipulations negatively in certain ways) Adam would actually be most vulnerable imo so that’s something to consider. I think Gansey might try to appeal to Adam’s ambition which isn’t a Bad strategy but Adam has developed enough as a char by TRK he wouldn’t be as solely swayed by that as he would be in earlier books, I think in a lot of ways how Gansey can succeed is just in recognizing these people and how they have changed and how they are different from his original assumptions and that’s not always very easy for him especially with Pynch I think Blue and Henry is a bit different. This is kind of something that would work to manipulate everyone but I like the idea of him accidentally stumbling into it with Adam and then purposefully using it against all of them from then on: Gansey weaponizing his own safety and mortality and pain. I think especially since Adam is so afraid of killing / hurting Gansey and also just the idea of becoming like his father through hurting someone he loves weaponizing that fear would be really fucked up but really really effective. Another big thing Gansey could utilize here is how their conflicts sometimes had to do with their differing moralities and Adam being comparatively more gray when Gansey has a more black and white view, so I think the part of Adam that really wants Gansey to understand him could be appealed to because this Gansey does understand that and wouldn’t view him reproachfully for making tough callous calls. But then also ultimately Adam loves that Gansey is kind and good, so it would be a real battle between his two impulses there and I think the latter would win out eventually but it could. Get ROUGH. Adam will really go through it in this.

Blue — I think one factor that would be influencing Gansey where Blue is concerned is that this version of Gansey doesn’t have a death wish / doesn’t find death inherently appealing which is an element in his relationship with Blue, him falling for her more the more that he accepts his own death. So this version is less reckless with her but still wants her badly and also is most vulnerable to her in a lot of ways as she understands him better than Adam and Ronan do, so a lot of these things make it harder to manipulate her but do succeed in putting Gansey on edge to be constantly angling for new ways to attempt. I also think he is more aware of her level of understanding of him than he is with other chars but I still think there are areas where he has blind spots to her, because of his blind spots towards himself (the glasses like you said). I also think there’s an element of Blue being a mirror confusing him more and bringing his true self more to the surface, so just trying to not give that away would be a step in the right direction. But in terms of manipulation I think leveraging things that can help or hurt Blue’s family (he could also do this with Mathew for Ronan) would be a good strategy, I also think him being more willing to disrupt to group dynamic to be with her would be appealing to her despite herself but then that goes against his opposite impulse to be a bit more wary of her and she’s also pretty traumatized post killing him with her lips, like with Adam think there’s something to be said about weaponizing her fear or hurting/killing him but it would function differently as Blue has a different outlook / type of fear of that than. Also if Gansey figured out on his own that the kiss curse isn’t a thing anymore that could simple things up in terms of his reservations and that could lead to more success maybe but then there’s still Blue’s complicated feelings to consider and not assuming her knows what those are.

•Noah — I don’t think manipulation is really possible here from a combination of his being a ghost and a mirror, I think Gansey’s best bet would probably be getting rid of or containing him in some way so he can’t help the others.

Ty! And like I said this is just my thinking in abstract once I get to properly writing I know some of my thoughts will change / evolve.

[wondereads]

Personal Review (03/26/23)

Blood Debts by Terry J. Benton-Walker

Summary

In a version of New Orleans where magic is as common as cellphones, Clement and Cristina, twins, try to unravel an old conspiracy to protect their family. Clement has always admired generational magic, but his own attempts to practice it always seem to fall short. Compared to his sister, Cristina, who excels, he seems completely inept, but Cristina has stopped practicing magic due to a spell gone wrong that she's told no one about. When the twins discover a hex doll in their sick mother's bed, they are pulled into a mystery that spans generations and could change New Orleans for good.

TW: racism, homophobia (light), child abuse, blood, institutionalization, lynching

(Sorry I’ve been gone so long! You’ve no idea how busy I’ve been!)

Plot 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10

This was a great combination between magical realism and mystery, bringing in healthy elements of each. The magic played a real and necessary role in the story, but it never overshadowed how important unraveling the mystery was. It was also a little unique in that the question wasn't who but how and why. Clement and Cristina know from the get-go who committed the murder, they just need to prove it to the public.

I also really like the magic of this story. It felt just more down-to-earth than the sweeping, dramatic spells that typically come with fantasy. There's a lot of detail about how certain spells work and how components contribute to that, and it feels like the author is familiar with the practice, or at least did a lot of research. The take on gods and their interactions with humans is also quite refreshing. The gods are involved in human life in a way I don't often seen in fantasy, with them appearing in bars and on people's doorsteps. Still, they don't lose the power and otherworldliness that would typically be associated with a deity.

One thing that I found difficult about this book was a general lack of urgency. While there are many great scenes with good tension, the moments were Clem and Cris are just researching or talking or anything, the momentum stalls. This is mostly because while this is a very important thing to the twins, there is ultimately no time limit. They aren't trying to get ready for an event or beat the clock on a spell or anything like that. As such, the tension, which is quite good in individual scenes, is lost in the in-between moments.

Characters 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10

Cristina and Clement are twins and share most of the narration, but they're pretty distinct in terms of personality. They have different ideologies concerning a lot of things, such as magic and morality, which generates a lot of conflict. Cristina was my personal favorite, just because I found her guilt and flexible morality quite interesting, and her arc felt complete. Not that I didn't like Clem, I just prefer my protagonists willing to commit murder, though he seems on his way by the end of the book. The way this book deals with grief is quite good, and Clem bears the brunt of it.

My favorite side character was probably Valentina. Don't get me wrong, I despised her, but I found her to be a great character with a lot of insight into the other side of things. I'm really interested to see how she develops in the next book considering what she's going through at the moment. Jean-Louise, who gets one chapter from his perspective, is incredibly complex, but it doesn't seem like we'll be getting more of him, which sucks. The other perspective side character, Zachary, can rot in hell, I don't want to see anything about him.

While I appreciated how complicated things were in Cris and Clem's family, I feel like it isn't addressed enough. Their mother and aunts have been estranged for quite a while, and while this is only the first book, Mama and Aunt Ursula have a reconciliation that seems rushed. I also feel like the only aunt I really know is Ursula—the rest are barely there.

Writing Style 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10

The writing itself didn't particularly stand out to me. There was nothing bad about it, but nothing took my breath away either. I think there's a good balance between the more archaic, flowery writing associated with magic and fantasy and the modern, casual speech of today. There are very few pop culture references, and they are kept vague enough that it won't date the material. I think the pacing was good; other than those stalls I mentioned earlier, the build is steady and feels like a natural progression.

My major gripe is probably the style of narration, in that it has little variation. While Cris and Clem are very distinct in terms of personality, their narration is very similar. I often found myself flipping back to the chapter title to check who was speaking or checking which twin was actually getting called by their name since it was in first person. My final issue is with the texting. There is no indication as to who is sending which text, and sometimes people were double- or triple-texting, and I basically had to make educated guesses as to who was speaking.

Meaning 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10

This book isn't as focused on modern issues as other contemporary stories are, but it by no means ignores it. Cris and Clem are Black, which affects their day-to-day lives significantly, and the backdrop of the story is filled with 'Redeemers', those who advocate for regulating magic. Gen (generational) magic is specifically a Black practice, born from necessity during American slavery. White people have their own magic, light and shadow magic, but the desire of certain white characters to be involved in gen magic plays a huge role in the story, especially how gen magic is targeted more than light or shadow.

My one issue is that I can't really pinpoint how the author wants us to feel about the Redeemers. It is an obvious issue that their efforts are the result of a long-ago murder of a white woman (that ended in a lynching) and inordinately targets gen magic. However, direct comparisons are drawn between it and gun control, which makes me inclined to support at least some restrictions, especially considering how magic is utilized for truly horrible means in this book. The characters never outright say how they feel about the Redeemers, but it seems to be mostly negative, which I am hesitant to side with.

Overall 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10

I think this is a good book. The plot is interesting with a unique take on magical realism, the main characters are complex, and it addresses some important issues with magic as a stand-in for all kinds of cultural practices. I have my issues, mostly with the lack of urgency, narration, and unclear message, but they are by no means dealbreakers. The cliffhanger is attention-grabbing, definitely enough to get a reader to want to read the next book, and I just love Cristina so much. This book comes out on April 4th, so be sure to give it a shot!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital advanced reader copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The Author

Terry J. Benton-Walker: American, also wrote Alex Wise vs the End of the World and The White Guy Dies First

The Reviewer

My name is Wonderose; I try to post a review every week, and I do themed recommendations every once in a while. I take suggestions! Check out my about me post for more!

[gardevoir-official]

The Narrator: An Analysis

I have recently decided to check out The Stanley Parable and it's DLC since related videos have been popping up in my recommended, and it was a very entertaining game! One thing that caught my attention was the Narrator, and I've caught up on some things from his dialogue. I've analyzed those things, and decided "Hey, why not share this? I've always wanted to talk about the stuff I like in public posts!"

I must give a warning. I have not interacted with any information outside of the game. I have not seen any fans, their posts, I haven't even checked the wiki. Please take everything I say with a grain of salt, this is all my interpretation and perspective on his character. I could be wrong or be missing some things. Without further ado, let's get on with the analysis!

Who is the Narrator?

Ever since the game begins, the Narrator voices over the current events taking place and says what Stanley does (which is also a way to give the player instructions on what to do). While this is expected of a narrator, there is evidence that he is more than just that. For example, if you were to disobey his every order, you end up at a part of the map that the Narrator says he "couldn't finish because you weren't supposed to be here", along with many instances with him saying that this is his story. He is not only the narrator, but also the in-universe game developer and author. Although, in the DLC, the Narrator mentions "game developers" other than himself, this could be because that, in-universe, there were multiple developers working on the DLC, not just the Narrator. It is also implied that the Narrator is not just a disembodied voice, but instead a human, with there being instances of him making noises such as clapping or shuffling papers.

The Narrator's personality.

The Narrator is a very colorful character, from his emotional voice to how he reacts to things, he is far from bland when it comes to his personality. As shown throughout the entire game and it's DLC, the Narrator is very passionate about his creative work. He doesn't usually narrate in a simpleartistIfnstead he uses descriptive, long, and even unfamiliar words to describe the current situation, even sometimes using said words to push a certain mood. Because of this, he is very antsy whenever the player doesn't follow his orders. One very good example of this is the "Broom Closet Ending", where if you stay in the closet long enough, the Narrator starts insulting Stanley by saying things such as "Stanley is very fat and ugly." Another example of him being passionate about his work even to the point of anger is in the DLC. The Narrator is shown to have a "secret place" which contains elements from the base game, including reviews from all over the web. When he sees that some people have left negative reviews (most importantly commenting on how they didn't like the Narrator), he decides to create a skip button to appease to these negative reviews. After enough skips, the player can listen to the Narrator angrily ranting about how his distaste towards the negative reviews. The Narrator is surprisingly sadistic, having said on more than one occasion that he finds joy out of the player's/Stanley's suffering. An example being when the player manages to noclip out of the window, the Narrator asks if Stanley is "tired of the gag". When answered yes, the Narrator purposefully attempts to make the experience "as painful as possible" while also saying that he's going to enjoy it. Another great example is shown in the "Countdown Ending", where pressing the "On" button actually activates a self-destruction sequence. During the countdown, the Narrator says that he's enjoying the player's futile attempts to stop the detonation, so much that he adds extra time. The Narrator cares about what people think of his work, at least to an extent. On multiple instances he seems to be affected by the feedback given to him. One example is when the player continually disobeys the Narrator and goes through the blue doors, where the Narrator tries to change the game to the player's wants by adding a third door and a leaderboard, and asking their thoughts on the additions -- even asking for honest and critical opinions --. While he doesn't pay much mind about the rating on the leaderboard, his reaction differs depending on the rating given to the third door. If given a rating of 1, the Narrator is insulted by the low rating, saying that while he would understand that if there were some criticisms, he is shocked that it was given the lowest possible rating. Although, on the same ending, the Narrator soon grows tired of trying to make the player happy, showing that (especially when it comes to individual people rather than the masses) he wouldn't want to spend all his energy on people who are dissatisfied with his work. The Narrator is shown to be cocksure and conceited on multiple occasions. One example is when the player continually disobeys the Narrator and he tries to make the game "more enjoyable", he says that when he makes these additions to the game, he says that he thinks that "[he's] knocked it out of the park". On the same path, the Narrator shows you another game he's been working on, where you have to press a button multiple times to keep a baby alive. Despite the game being unenjoyable, the Narrator says that the game is a thoughtful and creative commentary on how hard parenthood can be. There are many other examples of him believing that his efforts are of high quality, even when that isn't the case. There are many other instances where the Narrator views himself highly, and is surprised when people do not see him or his work the same way he does. If the player attempts to use cheat codes, it is revealed by the Narrator himself that he "generally doesn't understand human emotion", which explains quite a bit.

The Narrator's relationship with Stanley.

You might have noticed that I was mainly saying "the player" instead of "Stanley", and there's a reason for that! Although the Narrator usually refers to you as Stanley, it's implied it's because he didn't know that you aren't really Stanley in a certain ending (other than the Broom Closet one). When you unplug the telephone, the Narrator is surprised that Stanley was able to do that. When going through the script, he soon finds out that the reason Stanley has been disobeying him is because it wasn't Stanley he was talking to, it was a real person, you. In this ending, the Narrator describes Stanley as obedient and responsible, as opposed to the rebellious player. In the "Escape Ending", a female takes over when Stanley is first crushed to death. After exploring the area talking about the game development, the voice then talks about how the Narrator and Stanley need each other. I see where she's coming from. The Narrator is Stanley's creator, he himself has stated that Stanley needs him because "he needs someone to make sense of the chaos and the fear and the confusion", and he has also said that the game was all the Narrator had. The creator needs the creation just as much the creation needs the creator. Depending on how the player behaves, the Narrator could have a more negative or positive opinion on Stanley, but I think overall, as his creator, the Narrator needs him to tell his story. That's what I think the female voice meant.

Closing thoughts.

Personally, I really like the Narrator! He's a very amusing character and a fundamental part of The Stanley Parable. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I find the Narrator's sadism and anger charming, as it led to scenes that I loved, and he's surprisingly relatable as a creative soul and an artist. While this is more of a headcanon more than anything, I like to think he's a bit of a shut-in with the way he behaves. I have to say that he's a huge reason why I loved The Stanley Parable so much. This was my personal take on the Narrator.

Thank you so much for reading! Wow that was pretty long. This was my first analysis, so it may not be the best, but I had a lot of fun writing it! Hopefully I wasn't TOO off the mark. I hope you have a great day.

[estrellami-1]

That is a very cute fic (though all of yours are💜) it’s adorable that you based that off of how you feel I really like the line about not being the first to discover it but getting it to discover it for myself, I’ve been to slam poetry events they are very fun I feel like I read so many beautiful lines in poetry online and they stick with me to the point I think about them often and it kind of puts the author on a pedestal a bit but seeing someone speaking their poetry to you and a crowd of people in person is so vulnerable that it allows you to see them as just a person in a really beautiful way, like yes their work is brilliant but they’re also dealing with things the same way you are and trying their best and filled with emotions it’s a privilege to be able to know them as more than their writing, like it’s a privilege to get to know you like this. I also backpacked around Italy a few years ago and it was the most magical experience, the Acosta valley is so beautiful and I hiked gran paradiso national park which was stunning highly recommend but you’re right the cost of living is already crazy 😅

I write poetry sometimes mostly just as a way to get my feelings out of my head I post them to my tumblr but they don’t do numbers or anything, like probably 8 years ago or so I posted some of them to an old ao3 account but i can’t remember what i had called it for the life of me, I have an idea for a book that I would really like to write one day, it started out as an after Cinderella kind of thing where people expect you to be happy and perfectly fine when you find something good and get out of a bad situation but you’re still going to carry the pain from that bad situation so it was going to be from her perspective and recovering from the trauma she experienced growing up anf learning to live with ptsd but I’ve written bits and pieces of it nothing major but along the way it kind of lost the Cinderella princess aspect of it and just became kind of a combo my story/original character story kind of thing if that makes sense 💜💜💜💜💜

Thank you darling ❤️ I have some poetry on here, I believe… I think it’s the links in the last paragraph on my pinned post. I’ll try and go through them in a moment and make sure 😂

Slam poetry events are SO fun, I love them!!! There’s a book I read in college called “The Poet X” and I HIGHLY recommend it especially if you like spoken word poetry!!! It very very quickly became a favorite of mine, partially just because it’s good (and partially bc it’s a Latina girl lmao) but also partially because I wasn’t aware that type of writing could become a book. I would absolutely LOVE to do something like that one day!

And I know what you mean, about authors and pedestals. I did the same thing too, a few times, with certain authors on here… but then we got to talking and it turns out they’re literally just people?? Which was honestly so fun to find out 😂 there’s a line I wrote for a fic a while ago (Marvel, if you are/were into that) that I think honestly applies perfectly here. “Put those stars in your eyes back in the sky where they belong. I’m not worth all that.” And honestly… it’s true. Putting someone on a pedestal only makes it hurt that much more when they inevitably fall, because we’re all only human and we’re gonna do dumb crap sometimes.

I have… a lot of feelings about that apparently 😂

Can I have your life???? Please???? 😂 Italy sounds SO fun… I was able to go to Hawaii once and that was nice but I don’t even like the beach/ocean! I got stung by a jellyfish!! My favorite memory there was going on a hike!!! 😂 take me to Colorado I swear. My family’s trying to decide where to go on vacation this year (if it actually happens, that is) and my sister LOVES the beach and wants to go, but we’ve gone SO MUCH and my family KNOWS I don’t like the beach and just. Don’t seem to care? Idk. At this point it’s kinda whatever. But I did suggest skiing this winter since we’ve never been 😂

Ooh honestly I’d love to read all of that!!! I LOVE poetry (like honestly it confused the hell out of me how some people just… don’t understand poetry? What??? 😂)(my favorite is Langston Hughes… how about you?) and I would LOVE to read that Cinderella-ish story, that sounds SO interesting!!! And yes lmao I’ve definitely started a story before, added OCs, and it turned into 6 parts (literally, in the case of my Solangelo series “This Love” on ao3 😂)

Two questions this time, if you don’t mind, darling: how old are you? Where do you live?

It’s more than fine if you’re not comfortable sharing either, or if you want to just share a general range; I understand wanting privacy, I’m mostly just trying to ensure you’re above 18, and as for where you live, I’m strictly curious as to the time difference; I’m in Texas, so it’s currently 12:24am. I just know last night (was it last night? 😂) I answered one at like 10 and you were mentioning how tired you were… so either you’re on one of the coasts (I can’t for the life of me figure out which one that would be at the moment 😂) or you’d had an early morning… or you have a decent sleep schedule, unlike me! 😂 my bedtime is routinely around 12-2am, which is why I’m constantly answering these at all hours of the night. 😂 ❤️

[onewomancitadel]

Pretty much the guiding ethos of writing The Distance Which Fools the Skimming Eye has been that I'm not writing canon, I'm just writing an epic romance that is the plot. The ensemble cast and the actual broader consequences of the romance reflect what I think may happen in canon, but the romance itself IS the plot, and however certain events progress in the story is directly inverse to the romance. If it's constrained to Jaune and Cinder's perspective, then everything is through their eyes; I do enjoy tapping into that element of 'stories that would break hearts if we knew them' which is one of my favourite themes that this is their story but there's still plenty going on in the background (which tbf is partly a conceit of R/WBY already). It's just about what's relevant to them that's relevant to us. It's not R/WBY because R/WBY is not the Jaune-and-Cinder show.

This has been on my mind since I started writing and I have written a post before specifically about my Vacuo (I can't find it): even if V9 - well, it will definitely happen - changes the characterisation of a setting like Vacuo, you can pretty much read the setting of Vacuo in the story more like a magical place of many places that serves a particular thematic role in the fanfic which can co-exist with canon!Vacuo. If anything I kind of like the fantastic room for mixed interpretation. My Vacuo can only be what it is in the story on the story's terms and can be a kingdom of romance.

Obviously I'm picky about my canon and I wanted to take the opportunity where I could conceivably write this fic and incorporate my interpretation and predictions but I also realise that with V9 around the corner that opportunity is sort of coming to an end - at the very least I'm glad I am where I am with the current romance in this fic lol. It's very hard for me to take that canon hat off because that motivates my enthusiasm to write.

Although it has been funny that some things I have theorised people have asked if they are canon facts. The thing about the alchemical use of magical eyes in the story are my thing. They might be implicit in canon in some way but it may not be literally treated like a witch's potion or directly described as something explicitly needed to create human-Grimm abominations. But I think it's terrifying body horror and neat and very witchy.

Although although more prominently I think it's interesting when what I feel to be are canonical elements are taken as noncanonical interpretation, and I would say this is true of the story in many ways just by nature of Jaune and Cinder being polarising and overall dismissed characters. So, if anything, my concern about canon scrutiny, canon Jossing, etc., is sort of unfounded, because I'm already in a fandom-precarious position.

But my own personal principles and interests matter to me the most in writing the fanfic because there is no reason to write it otherwise. I like to think that no matter how bad my fic is, I at least care about it very much, and try very hard. Even when I'm up late editing and crying I still want to keep writing it lol. Well, I want to keep writing everything hahahah.

I thought I'd get those thoughts out because yes, I didn't hit my goal of finishing before Volume 9, but I can't control my illness or my specialist appointment taking over six months to come to fruition. I am glad that I haven't given up though and that I went in with intentions that have supported ongoing writing and meant I didn't end up feeling as demoralised as I otherwise could have.

Overall it's a very weird fic to write, because I am very dedicated to it but obviously so much of it runs contrary to the fandom (I mean just the fact that so many people think it's a crackship/people have tried to talk to me about competing Jaune ships as if I want to do that on a Jaune/Cinder fic etc.) and there's a weird relationship between fanon and canon in this fandom it means I'm in an even more weird position because I care about canon... on and on it goes. No I don't think I'm special, I'm just a rando loser writing Jaune/Cinder fic who's weirdly obsessed with it and I want to be very intentional about the way I craft my story especially without running into too much scope creep. I don't 'want' to write canon, I want to write a canonical possibility of Jaune and Cinder's romance... and hopefully that means it can hold up in some small way lol.

I don't mean to sound up myself discussing my fanfic, I just enjoy getting the opportunity to talk about mechanical considerations when it's something I derive a lot of pleasure from doing so about other media (and R/WBY especially) - especially from the interaction of romance with plot, romance as plot.

[kokoskwark]

hi evy!!! how are you??

6, 9, 13 (skz), 18, 26, 38, and 40 for the writing asks! <3

hi morgan! <333 I'm not doing the greatest but with time it'll get better <3

6. how did writing change you? answered for honey, but I'll copy it here: It made me think about other perspectives more, it made me try to put myself in other people's shoes more, it caused me to make more friends! It caused me to think of more stories, push outside of my comfort zone and explore different genres and dynamics and think about relationships and humans <3

9. do you set yourself deadlines? usually I don't set myself any deadlines, only if I'm participating in a bingo or prompt fest I do it, but then it's just the deadline of the fest itself! I just try to write every day and I often don't even know how long my fics will be, so I just go with the flow <3

13. hardest character to write for skz it's definitely felix imo! I somehow struggle deciphering the way he thinks and the way his brain works, so I find it difficult to predict what he would do in certain situations

18. favorite pairing to write it's probably obvious, but seungjin! I just love love their dynamic and I've gotten so used to writing them now that it just comes almost naturally! I love their trust in each other and the way they love having deep conversations and the way they're opposites but they never fought and yeah I can talk about it for hours <3

26. story you’re most proud of the story I'm most proud of is "Through everything, I will stay with you", because I really loved writing it and it was a challenge because 1) it was Felix's POV 2) I had to write life after an abusive relationship but I think I conveyed the emotions and difficulties and growth really well and I love rereading it myself so :D

38. do you reread your own stories? as hinted at in the prev question: yes! I write mostly for myself (I started that way and I still do that even when I participate in events) so why not reread my own stories? I also like to see how far I've come or even do inspiration from previous stories so yes I love rereading my own stories :D

40. which one of your stories would you most like to see as a movie/series Difficult question because I want to answer "all", but I vividly remember nadja commenting on "Strayville" that she'd love to see that fic as a movie/series so I will pick that one :D

thank you for the questions morgan!!! <3333 this cheered me up :D hope you're well too!

[cafeleningrad]

morally gray character... apart from many younger target demographic spheres watering the complication of recognizing the right choice and struggle along the way, if not following the ethical way to the the right decision, from a conflicted Boromir to Han Solo, guy who's a bit rude but charming rogue with a heart of gold who's just a bit too cool to state out right that he's there fore the right reasons....

once out of a simple didactic territory, every more fleshed out character will get entwined with the complications of morality, either with own principles, expectations of others, choice, lack of information or maturity, social expectation, being down on luck or also shaking up the reader's preconception if things they consider "right" are actually "right". Yes sure, in a "will you save the world form the big Spaghetti monster scenario", choices are easy. Either the world end or not. Once it gets beyond such simplified conflicts, simple "X good, Y bad" morality itself might not be the biggest friction of a plot anymore if the story wants to be honest about all the variety of human experiences. Such can't be reduced by two labels. Maybe some people are in life situations in which choices aren't easy, at some point losses have to be dealt with, and life isn't a zero sum game of karma points.

Even take a simple sitcom like the Office. None is a particular scummy person but even in a very dramatized way very close to people you would find in the office. Nice girl who's so insecure she gets engaged to a not so great guy and breaks off the engagement way too late to out without appearing like a coward or with a bit of little spine but for her it's step for growth. Or a narcissistic boss who crosses way too many boundaries to appear or liked but does by time make the right calls to protect his employees. Or the usually nice and harmless costumer service employee who talks way too much much about sopas and celebrities - she means no harm, she will help you no questions asked, but it can be annoying. In the end they aren't bad people but they're not always great either. The measurement isn't morality here but how to best deal with different personalities. I think the show was this successful because it hit close to reality in the experience that some coworkers are all living their own little lives, and they aren't well meaning yet not always easy to compromise with out own life style.

Going into more deeper territory in literature you won't often have grand heroes who go after a big bad one, and all conflict is ended. Even though many copycats of Tolkien's retraced the outlines of Middle Earth - legendary swords, three main species (elves, dwarves, humans) living in conflict but fighting against one Dark Lord, and like a central intelligence, all evil dies immediately with him - Tolkien himself might have had one big bad but the harm Sauron caused lives on after him. The Shire is damaged, Theoden fell into depression with or without Sauron's help, Grima just aided the process, and the relationship within Denethor's family is complicated by favouritism before the Ring surfaces as source of conflict. Even with a central bad guy, Tolkien did not overlook how pre-affected characters can be entering a central situation, and how certain events aren't easy to deal with.

Or even without big impacts, I think good romances are the most honest when it comes to complicated relationships. Recently I read Miss Smilla's fine sense for Snow. The central bad guys enact Danish colonialsm in Greenland for their own purposes. The story is told from the central perspective of protagonist Smilla Jaspersen. Although a deeply layered protagonist hiding their vulnerability under multiple defensive layers, like sarcasm, trying to do everything alone, resourcefulness, she does also sabotage herself for deeper connections, treating people who wish to help and support her coldly. The judgement if the reader likes her is left to each reader themselves but without her character being marked by trauma of being uprooted, colonial pressure, not so healthy coping mechanisms, and a certain comfort in misery, the motives of inability of communication, ice, snow, and the quiet but kind relationship to the murder victim would not work at all. In fact, if Smilla wasn't oen to dissect everything around her, even human connections, her scientific conclusions driving the plot wouldn't be believable. Maybe an even quieter, calm story would the movie Past Lives. It's a simple romance that two characters held affection for each other but they never get together. It's a simple story. One character is more invested in the other, than the other character in them but that's a situation without much blame. That's how it is, it hurts, sometimes do find each other in situations which are not as simple as expected. The potential for a deeper romance hangs in the air, perhaps it would be terrible if she left her husband but that moral dilemma never arises. The story isn't about adultery and the reasons behind it but letting desires and visions go.

All in all, the way that current fiction discussions are held overlook the potential to tell stories which aren't didactic. Yeah, of courses stories can have a stance on dark themes of adultery, abuse, breaking free of bad sitautions etc. . But already at step 1 people are arguing if such topics should even exist in fiction. In my opinion, if stories pass step 1 and directly tap into the complications of certain issues, the story can create be cathartic about confronting maybe not the greatest points in life but also understanding for people who don't do well, if not the chance to do better. Or simply telling about stories which don't want to tell me that "thing X is bad actually". Even strories for adults tend to treat their target demographic as if they were 5 years old.

[popculturebuffet]

Breaking Cat News Retrospective: Year 8: Flashbacks Ahoy-hoy (Patreon Review for Emma Fici

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to my long look at Breaking Cat News, the best comic strip currently running. And to my shock this retrospective, that's lasted almost a year and through two homes... is almost done. Just two more entries after this covering 2022 (Minus a few strips here as the last arc of 2021 bleeds into 2022 this time), and 2023 and this retrospective will take a yearlong slumber worry of the fluffiest of good kitties, coming back each year from now until doomsday. I just wanted to thank Emma for sponsoring these reviews allowing me to do this. While this has been far from my most popular series, it's one of the ones i'm most proud of and I woudln't have it any other way.

After a packed year of the people dealing with Covid, Goldie settling in, and some good old fashion wrasslin, 2021 is a chill year for BCN. I noticed as I re-read it that 2021's arcs lean more to the slice of life side of the strip with a blackout, a camp out in the living room, and ending (and beggining the next year) with the cats freaking out over new food. This isn't a bad thing either: after the lockdown, I can't blame Georgia for just wanting to have some fun shenanigans. The pandemic didn't go away (and still hasn't sadly), but with the Woman and Man getting their vaccines and having guests for the first time, there's less stress in the air, something I visably felt as 2021 went on and that comes through in this strips.

As a result of this chiller tone the bigger stories this year come not from big events in the present, as the cats and humans get some time off from being put through it, and more from the past: We get THREE flashback stories this year, all nice character pieces: A look into Baba's past career as a reporter, the origin of Puck's neverending battle against the leaves, and a spooky halloween tale about how Violet and Natasha met Alice and Agnes.

While i'll have less to talk about as a result.. 2021 is still a great year of the strip, with some truly outstanding gags and great character work. So join me under the cut won't you as we look into the highs, the lows and the food protests of 2021 of Breaking Cat News

For a fairly chill year 2021 naturally has a pretty cozy start: Elvis and Puck fight for a bit after Puck accidently wakes Elvis up

THough as you'd expect they make up quickly. The woman enters a blanket cocoon, and a certain little lady gets her very own newsdesk, While puck learns a valuable lesson on groundhog day in one of my faviorite short arcs of the series.

That last line really hits me. It's all about perspective and explains why Groundhog day exists: to give us hope or to unite us all in getting through the next 6 weeks.

The cats also deal with a blackout for a bit, new england winters and all. All great arcs by the way. Nothing for me to dig into character wise, just solid relatable comedy and warm fuzzies, the stuff the comic accels at.

It isn't till march a true crisis hits our heroes. And while it's true this is one of the more chill years of the strip, if not the chilliest... it dosen't stop it from having the single most bonkers storyline georgia's ever crafted.

We Got Leprechauns

I'm going to let the next few strips speak for themselves.. just really.. let ya'll soak it all in.

Yup, there's a lep in the hood come to do no good. This.. this is happening. And the series HAS had ghosts so Leprechauns existing isn't out of question.. it's just a bit of a leap to go from "the spirits of cats that once lived in the house and one old woman who loved them all" , something pretty easy to swallow and that fits with the idea pets often see thigns we don't to "one of those things we see are tiny feral irishmen who bite people". It's not BAD honestly, we get good gags out of it and the idea of a leprechaun being mad the kids set their harmless leprechaun traps is hilarious as it is terrifying to see these poor kids stalked by this little creature. It could only be creepier if it were warwick davis playing the part but alas , he's retired. I love how bonkers this is too, I just can't ignore that even for a weirdo like me, this is a lot to take in and has only come back about once so far, so ti feels like this really weird if really fun and unique chapter in the strips history.

Thankfully for our poor babies, help's on the way..

I love all of this, from Natasha bringing back her spiky fighting leather jacket, to Natasha blowing this jerk out of the room. HOW she got the hair dryer into the room we'll never know, but considering she just blew a vengeful leprechaun out a window now's probably not the time to question logic.

And if that wasn't enoguh for you, a familiar face happens to know this bog monster's mom, so his humilation isn't over yet

All in all one of the funnest storylines in the strip, and defintely the weirdest thus far.

So with the Leprechaun sucessfuly blown out of the house and forced to apologize... We can get back to normal things, like Lupin getting some unfortunate news about cars

This is one of my faviorites too. It both fits lupin well and makes really good use of Goldie's life experince.

We get some more REALLY fun arcs as the people have a wrestling watch party And the man buying kebble. That was not a typo

Another faviorite short arc of mine, a simple premise, hilariously executed. I also love the fact Burt loves it: it fits his character and it's just adorable to see him with his mug and plate full of rocks that's also somehow cat food. Side note, starting to get why Elvis hates the man so much.

And finally we have "Elvis gets himself stuck on a curtain and is too old and stubborn to accept help to get down unless it's his mommy. Enjoy the nightmare fuel!

So with that we enter our next major arc

Heads Up: Most People News is Terrible: So it's early 2021, so that mean's it's time for SHOTSSSSSSS BABBYYYY. And for our human cast that means heading for the vet clinic.. which naturally confuses the heck out of our protaganists

Dang! .... also yeah our cats have questions.. and while our boys are usually great parents.. they sent the wrong kitten to get answers.

I wanted to put this one in isolation.. because that last panel is so dang impactful. Poor bea's thousand yard stare.. and Baba's just mournful look. She gets the guys didn't mean anything by this but also gets that this was a LOT for a poor little kitten to process. I mean I barely made it through 2020, I can't imagine what reading through all that would be like.

It's also a clever way to finally have the cats learn the awful truth and a bitter bit of irony: Their finally using Beatrix to do her job.. and it's the one time they REALLY shoudln't have. Thankfully Baba subs for her.

I love this arc a lot... it really sums up just how trying the pandemic was, what we all went though.. and how important and brave it was to take the precautions responsible people did to protect others. Also the "Montage in my head of the woman baking bread and crying" "big same" punchline is a classic. It's also a bit of a button on writing about COVID. The Impact of it isn't gone, but like with most of us with the immense mental pressure of having to hide inside gone and vaccines allowing people to get out again, there's less emphasis on the woman and man being there. Granted like when the pandemic happened, this dosen't change much: the Woman is a stay at home mom since Georgia herself works from home and the kids are still toddlers at this point, but the clear spectre of it looming over most human scenes is gone.

Robot Rodeo

We go right from the vaccine arc to another one as the woman is warn out having to vaccum every day since ya know, 4 cats and 2 small children. The nana thankfully comes to her rescue though with the solution of the future: A ROBOT. Specifically a robot vacum, to help keep the cat hair down.

I love that The Nana, and impliclity Georgia's mom, is a giant sci fi nerd and the nice kind of person who sends their daughter a bunch of robots.

Yeah she didn't stop at JUST the robot vacuum to help with the work load: she also sent a Destry Hearth (think alexa) and a drone for the kids to play with. And Cats, who soona djust to their new robot roomies

Not that the new roomies don't have their trouble: Destry is SUPPOSED to set Tortimer to vacum but the kid's obessesion with Love shack makes that a tall order, as does Lupin's cowboy antics, but thankfully the poor vacuum eventually finds a friend.. as does Lupin so he'll leave poor tortimer alone.

So a lot to unpack. First, sir, I was also a kid in the 90's. And in the 2000's when the Gorillaz were first about.The point is I do remember love shack being a thing. Also man was it awesome when all the best bands were cartoons. Cherished Days.

Second i'll never not love "I"ve learned nothing and you know it" or "So lonsome he could cry" two of my faviorite jokes in the strip. Such great Lupin stuff.

After this we get a wholesome adventure where, after a tropical storm rains on their camping plans, the family have a camp out in the living room, allowing our heroes to join in.

So.. many great jokes this year. What it lacks in character stuff it makes up for in character humor and i'm here for it. I also love "everyone's answer is burt" Though I DON'T think Elvis' would be.. or at least it won't be by next year but we'll get to my ship next time.

Now in the 90's

Our next arc spins out of this one: while our heroes were camping, our other heroes, specifically Tommy, Burt and Beatrix, are looking up old footage. Like the audience Bea wants to follow up on that juicy reveal that Baba was a reporter once and with some help from an old Friend/Fiend/Annoyance, they find what their looking for

I love the idea of this arc, really peeling back the backstory we've seen hints of, but really havne't gotten to see, while also using it to set up a LOT of stuff for down the road. This arc already came off important when I read it the first time, as it shades in Baba's past pre-Wicket and explains a lot about mag.. and a certain someone else we'll get to. But it also leaves a LOT of story nuggets that were frozen to be warmed up with 2023's big storyline, which we'll get to in january. It's also nice to see Angus alive and well and I love the roll reversal of MOUSE being the young one with an older mentor.

Speaking of that certain someone else, their the reason Mag's here on the big pink lawn

Said war will be important later. Seriously props to georgia for setting up an arc two years down the line here without anyone noticing. Anyways yup, Jules REALLY is immortal and while it was already hilarious enough the same bug somehow came back every year, Georgia decided to take it up a notch with this arc, as finding out he's an old friend of Angus is just the START of how old this guy really is.

Some other nice touches before we move on: Clover was mentioned before, I just missed it the first time around as a historic scribe, the mole here implies all moles int he BCN world have beautiful mustaches Viltrumite styles, and finally you might notice a small golden mouse whose exactly who you thinks he is in the corner.. something I missed on re-reading this till gathering the'se strips for this review.

So with that the trial begins.. and given the charges are parnoid nonsense to begin with Jules easily beats them with no real effort. That said even if he hadn't a certain chekovs gunwoman makes sure he gets his freedom

Having the golden mouse show up was a stroke of genius, not only allowing us, and the mice who idolize her, to actually SEE her, but it makes sense: She WOULD have been around at this time as it would've been just before her battle with wicket. IT's also neat to see she lives up to the legends: you'd THINK the mice exagerated but outside of making her out to be some form of god. I also love the reveal Clover's the one who drew the tapestry the mice had back int he Wicket arc. Brilliant stuff. We have a bit more to wrap up with this arc... just in time for one of my faviorites as the girl plays dress up with our poor kitties.

That "O Mag" hits me EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. and i'm here for it. Such a touching little moment that shows some humanity in our usually grouchy trash god empress. The dress up arc, as short as it is.. is just pure gold. I mean I feel bad the real and strip cats got put through this, but the image of Goldie yowling "This is an outrage" in a bonet" will never not make me smile.

WE get some other short arcs I once again really can't cover in full, but are all comedy gold so we have a lightning round baby: the cats get a cabniet litterbox and Elvis takes it with as much dignity as he can manage, the cats get into hostile sandwitch negotations with the man who dosen't get how small his bargining power is, Elvis falls in love with the new crinkle tunnel, and some Jasons outside have a domestic dispute our heroes can't help turning away from car crash stylez. All some of Georgia' sbes tcomedy writing.. especailly the jasons.

That jason bit will never not be the best stupidiest thing. Though the phantom of the crinkle tunnel comes close.

Pucky Year One

So with that fall has set in and the leaves are changing.. and have to be swatted away by a certain good boy to save the world. Goldie however asks not whyt hat's happening, she wants to know why PUCK took it up. So prepare for concentrated adorable as we see puck as a kitten.. and i'ts HEAVILY implied he shares the real pucks origin, having been left outside, got his leg infected and nearly died before a good samaratian rescued the poor puff. He's also the middle child, hence why Lupin's absent for these flashbacks. Though thankfully not Elvis.

Teen elvis and baby puck are the best thing. I hope we get to see Baby Lupin at some point. You know, complete the trifecta. IT's a nice tender arc that adds some unexpected WEight to Pucky's weird yearly quest and I love it. I mean it also has golden past elvis, so how would I not like that. Look at him lift his child son up. Such a good teenage dad.

We then IMMIDETLY loop into our last longterm arc for the year. The rest are, like most of the year shorter arcs, nothing wrong with them but it's clear after a four years packed dense with story, two and a half of them having to recap her entire career up to this point, and the rest mostly focusing on bringing in a new main character, that it was nice to just take a year to sit back, relax, unwind and do some more character focus stuff and fun slice of life shenanigans before doing another huge arc. And as such this last arc, while a touch bonkers, is more backstory. Like the Baba thing this next arc builds on a small thread from earlier, a throwaway line. Unlike the baba thing this was from quite a ways back, all the way back to the wicket saga.

The Incredibly Strange Bunnies Who Kept Living But Became Mixed-Up Zombies

So our story begins with Bea deciding to follow in her sort of mom's footsteps: inspired by Goldie's report on puck, she asks to get into investigative reporting and told it's mostly about finding someone intresting to interview, Bea decides to talk to her buddy natasha... and like I said this arc is mostly here to elaborate on something she said a WHILLLLEEEE back

So with that intriguging setup we begin our tale: Violet and Natasha started out as lab mice, born and bread in a lab and solving various mazes while slingshoting their mysterious pills out the cage because they were born here, but not born YESTERDAY. Thankfully their monotonus existiance is broken up when they meet someone who'll change their life.

Okay a few things. First is I didn't notice till the re-read how much of a love story this is. I'm not sure it was intentional, but the way Natasha and Alice interact here is so damn cute and so damn gay and as always i'm here for it. I never even picked up a snifter of a relationship between them but this whole origin story reconteculaizes the hell of it. It also explains why she pairs up with Violet: while their not related by blood, their as much sisters as Agnes and Alice.

It's also clear a natasha centric arc was coming at some point as out of all the robber mice she gets the most focus as the strip goes on. Agnes is a close second being their reporter, but if one of them's going to show up solo, it's most likely Natasha and given her snarky personality and fight anyone attitude it's easy to see why.

As for the zombunnies... i'm okay with this. It's bonkers sure but with ghosts and LEPRECHAUNS, it's somehow the most grounded of the three as "weird test animal shit" done to innocent animals isn't that farfetched. Making them green and lick stuff? Not really a huge stretch.

So our heroines have an out, they just need a plan before their cruel overlords notice they've been hiding the zombie pills. Thankfully the scientests testing the drug accidnetly give them a way: they bring up that the bunnies are REALLY strong.. so if they were to say, all be released at once, our heroes could easily break out. Thus the ball is in motion on the breakout of the century.

No real notes, it's just an excellently done action sequence. Love the blurry motion of the bunneis and doctors behind them in the fourth strip shown here in paticular. That had to take a LOT of work to pull off, with georgia likely having to draw the blurry pick then edit or outright draw the girls on top of it. So damn cool looking.

There is no straight explination for every shot of Natsha and Alice here and i'm perfectly happy with that. All in all a great arc and a fun genre break for the strip and i'ts nice to see the mice pull a break out. Gott alove those robber mice.. especially now I can keep their names straight.

So with that we get some shorter arcs to close us out. The heroes deal with Lupin's naked water cooler stalking.

One of my faviorite lines. Also accurate. I mean even for lupin this is messed up.

The girl are a squirrel for thanksgiving

Trees are inspected, Santa makes a return and I forgot the strip already confirmed he existed in this universe. Still not as weird as Leprechauns.

And we end the year and begin the next with one of my faviorite arcs. To make the cats healthier the woman replaces their kibble. Rage insues.

It's probably the funniest arc in the entire strip. I mean compettition is stiff but it's proof that while Georgia's biggest talents are character and worldbuildling.. she's no slouch at making great jokes out of everyday scenarios. Goldie and PUck as you can see steal the show with Puck swearing on air, and come on Elvis you already owe the Cat FCC for Lupin getting naked constantly, and Goldie at a level of salt we haven't seen before or since. Even LUPIN didn't make her tha tmad

And on that note that closes out 2021. Next time...

[rainbowsky]

I was not sure if this was something you would talk about on your blog but since I am on an SDC binge wanted to ask you.

Is it fanfic that DD was being wooed by someone on the SDC set and that’s why GG came to the shoot to subtly let people know that he was taken ?

It's impossible for anyone to know for sure, but...

Fake, fan fiction, CPN.

TW/CW: general discussion of abusive relationships (with no details mentioned)

My answer is 100% yes, of course it's fanfic, just like every other ridiculous rumor about jealous flights to filming sets, etc. I find the idea that GG and DD are jealous and possessive incredibly toxic.

Only people who've never been in a jealous relationship could ever find such notions romantic or exciting. Take it from someone who has been in a relationship with that level of jealousy, what starts out feeling flattering and cute/sweet/devoted often ends up being extremely traumatic.

Let's be real: GG is a DISH. Who on Earth is going to have that man to go home to and look at anyone else? Same with DD. A total catch. The idea that either of their eyes are wandering is completely absurd.

And GG and DD are so devoted to each other - that's something we can see clearly in the Untamed BTS - there's no planet on which anyone could turn either of their heads.

Jealousy isn't cute, it isn't romantic, it isn't a sign of devotion. It's toxic, possessive and abusive.

GG and DD go to each other's filming sets for the same reason you or I would: TO SEE THEM. Not to police their activity or the activity of people around them. Not to lift their leg around and mark their territory. Not to chastise each other or tighten the leash. What a totally - frankly - a totally offensive perspective on their lives.

I normally try to keep an open mind and 'live and let live' and give people space to experience fandom in whatever way they choose, but this is one of those areas that I can't help but say: stop, just stop. It's so, so toxic.

I urge everyone to please educate yourself on the dangers of jealousy and the warning signs that you are in an abusive relationship (spoiler alert: the possessive behaviors that are always seen as cute in fan fiction and fake rumors).

GG and DD love each other, they want to be with each other as much as they can. When they're working that can be difficult, but they try to make time to visit even if it has to be at a filming set. It's really that simple.

They probably also enjoy meeting the cast and crew and getting a behind the scenes look at what the other has been up to/talking about regarding their project. GG and DD are human beings. They're probably just as curious as anyone else about how certain things are being filmed. Particularly since they're in the same industry.

Anyway, like I said, we can't possibly know events we weren't present for, but that's my perspective. I just really can't stand that trope and I think it's a dangerous one to get invested in. It sets the stage for fans to end up in abusive relationships.

Please always remember, people, someone being jealous and possessive isn't romantic or cute. It's a terrible thing often signalling the beginning of a really painful, scary ride with someone who will hurt you and tragically, sometimes even kill.