#i guess this is my opera arc

[gior-gio]

Just randomly went to a casting for some extras in next month Opera's "Nabucco".

I had been previously told (by choir singer friend) that showing up was all i had to do for pretty much a garanteed enlistment.

I have pretty much no theater experience. I only know one of the choir singers that invited me to come. I've been to this part of town only once in my life

40+ people show up and my friend desappears right after taking me to the entrance.

Everyone else groups up, most people here know each other and seem to be good friends.

I am trying as much as I can to suppress my perceivability for tism reasons but try to stand out at the same time for casting reasons.

Voices around say that they're looking for only EIGHT people. ouch-

Other voices add that they're looking for 4 males and 4 females. Uh-oh

We get on in the theater and on stage.

We get instructed to Act 10 actions that come around in a loop (last one precedes the first),

they will later instruct emotions to infuse the actions with.

We get 5 minutes to think of actions.

I'm currently peeing myself. Literally. I akwardly ask where the bathroom is.

Spent 3 minutes in said bathroom frantically trying to come up with enough distinct actions.

Get back on stage, do actions

Waiting.exe

Friend comes back, has not seen my performance, so has no feedback to give

(oh fuck mode activated)

More people get on stage to do more actions.

Waiting gets more intense because they keep asking for info that doesn't actually pin down who you were (just names and phone numbers)

They take a picture (which still doesn't tell you who's who)

They call back all of us.

"YOU" - director grabs my hand and one other girl's, before picking up the rest of the casted

They ask for my IBAN

[kiss2012]

ummmmm ok.

[mari-lair]

Akane is a popular kid, arguably the most popular student outside Aoi and Teru, at least in his own class, so let's talk about it!

In his introduction, we are told the basics: how Akane is a childhood friend of Aoi, dutiful, obsessed with her, and so on. During this exposition, we get this small panel of two guys looking at him with a positive opinion of him:

It's important that the stripped shirt guy is the one who says "Akane is so nice" cause it is implied he has a crush on Aoi, or at the very least, that he considers her really cute, blushing when she is just living her life.

So even people who should consider him one hell of a romantic rival don't think badly of him. I would go as far as to say that they are invested in his obvious crush on Aoi because of the amount of attention he gets after being enchanted by the confession tree.

In an arc where everyone starts to get together, is hard to notice or even care about new couples.

But the whole class stops when Akane and Lemon claim to be dating. They surround the boys and talk about it, openly staring at them. (shout out to @bpzau-d-r-a-w-s for pointing out this crowd)

Which I would have assumed is homophobia if it wasn't for how many guys confess to Teru on the daily without being spared a single thought, or the way no one is trying to comfort Aoi.

If he was only known as 'that dude that follows Aoi' the class reaction should be "Great! Her bodyguard is not in the picture anymore! That's my chance!" but they don't spare Aoi a glance. No one cares that "our calm and composed popular queen is crying in the middle of class." right now. They are just... focused on Akane, too shocked by his change of heart to care about much else.

I know is Akane getting this attention instead of Lemon because the class reacted the same way once Akane started studying like crazy to win 'Teru's challenge' in chapter 59.

People don't dismiss his behavior as "hum, weird, well whatever" like when Nene talks to 'herself '(talk to Hanako) in class, they keep crowding and talking about Akane, they are invested, aware of the context of the situation (so they asked him) and familiar enough to take a guess that his behavior is related to Aoi.

So they care about what this weirdo is doing, he is a soap opera to the class! Just look at how invested people get when he says no to Aoi, even the background crew are open-mouthed or confused.

This idea Akane is a boy people pay attention to is everywhere in the manga.

Even for a class representative/council guy, it is ridiculous the number of people who want his help. He is always surrounded by people wanting his help.

I personally can't see that many people approach someone just to take advantage of them, he makes others go "Oh it's Aoi! I can trust Aoi to be of help :D" but I acknowledge that can be seen as a sign of how incompetent his class is or just people wanting to take advantage of him, so I'll talk about the cases people run to him that are nonrelated to his duties, is just his vibes:

Tiara gets super attached to Akane in no time, literally clinging to him out of everyone in the room, running to his side whenever there is an opportunity for it.

Hanako, who is apathetic towards most humans and supernaturals alike, loves his guts. Even if the admiration is not mutual.

Teru and Aoi are prideful people who have the whole school paying attention to them. They look at Akane the most.

Girls especially seem to like him.

We don't see him interact with many girls considering Aoi's jealous nature, but enough to tell the boys in his class call him 'Aoi', and the girls call him 'Akane-kun.' (shout out to @iamhereinthebg for pointing that out)

I am convinced the reason he doesn't get many confessions is because he brutally shuts down anyone who tries.

He isn't like Teru and Aoi, he does not believe in "I'll let them down gently, give them a cute smile to soothe the pain of rejection" he just crushes their hopes without hesitation and makes it clear they have no chance.

The one girl we explicitly see confess to him only ever hoped Akane would accept her chocolate, having no hopes her feelings would be returned but caring enough to let him know anyway.

And Akane still rejected her chocolates.

He seems to be relatively used to confessions, to the point he panicked when Nene said "I've meant to talk to you for ages" and immediately assumed she wanted to confess to him.

His answer is so quick, almost scripted "My heart belongs to another. I'm sorry." it makes no sense if he isn't at least somewhat used to getting love confessions.

Considering how... Unpleasant confessing to a guy who everyone knows has been madly in love with someone else for more than a decade must be, I am not surprised almost no one is brave enough to even try to pursue him. His blunt, borderline rude, way of expressing that his suitors are not welcome probably doesn't help either.

Bonus:

He is no idol, people do not trip over themselves when they see him like with Aoi and teru, but I do think he is considered a 'pretty boy' in canon.

Maybe I am reaching cause I am biased af, but I do find it wild that he is drawn super pretty in other's people pov when he is being playful or flirty, and the person always blushes about it.

EDIT: In a Twitter Valentine event that takes place in the canon world, Akane is described as having admirers.

[okkos-ferrum]

gray and sharing screentime with himself

in my current brainrot over a singular character, i decided to compile all the distinctions between gray and graham

looking at a very rough approximation of the screen time gray has throughout the show, the weird thing is that he is himself at the beginning and at the end.

graham takes many actions during s1 and s2 that differ from the gray we meet in the train in s1

Name: from found cut content from the original pilot of cs before netflix, it is carmen who suggests gray as graham's nickname. gray takes it without much care. graham, on the other hand, insists on his full name. seen in s2 ep7, both when carmen meets him up at the cafe and after FALLING FROM A PARAGLIDER. when asked his name during s4 ep3, his va emphasizes graham -- though i could be reading into things. guess brainwashing came along with a hatred with nicknames lol (probably to prevent carmen ever triggering gray's memories)

Life goal: we get gray's interview tape that showed his interest in vile, revealing not only was he a criminal before vile but he primarily "[wants] to be successful". (In cut content, during the detention scene where they all discuss code names, gray refuses sheena's suggestion of power failure because he didn't want to be thought of as a failure). gray joined vile because he didn't want to play within the system, believing he's deserving of success more than others due to his own skills so he's better off cheating the system. in contrast, graham in s1 ep6 declines being carmen's guide due to having to go to work early to fix something. He even declines carmen's payment for his work during s2 ep7, only stopped cuz carmen is good at dramatically disappearing. he is so diligent that within eight months, he was able to work up to be a lighting tech from just starting out as an electrician. meanwhile, he gave up being a junior electrican at the Sydney opera house as a teen due to disatisfaction (idk anything abt australia but isnt being a junior electrcian at the sydney opera house a big deal??)

Morality: most blatantly in his line "but we are the good guys" in s2 ep7 (i think he repeats this again during his interrogation with acme in s4), graham has a sense of morality that gray obviously would lack since he joined vile willingly. gray has no issues with stealing and has had a clear arrogance in his abilities ever since he was a teen. killing doesn't seem to be off the table for him, but he only does so if that compromises his mission. (for example, he gives chase a chance to leave during s4 ep 7, so he def isn't taking any excuse to take a life). graham's main act of "goodness" is risking his own life to save a kid in s4 ep3. while im sure gray is heartless enough to watch a kid die, i dont think he would be as ready to risk himself for a stranger. he likely would be more apathetic and would do so if it has some benefit to him or look the other way -- right after saving the kid, "crackle" steals the nameless kid's wallet with a smile. from his confrontation with carmen in the himalyas, he responds to carmen using his old words as him being an "innocent fool", dimissing whatever he believed then as not his own

crackle is another semi identity we get from gray during the fugue state he enters following regaining his memories from acme. it seems to be just due to how drastic the memories are for graham's mind to handle, the split is very direct, with "crackle" - all of gray's training and criminal instincts - being pretty non verbal (he does i think talk on the phone with vile once) and expresionless (he does have an evil little smile after stealing nameless kid's wallet but thats abt it). it honestly is dropped fast once gray is arrested (had to bolt the moment it faced consequences or whatever lol) but it def was entertaining to watch

overall it is just so odd how gray himself is barely in show and if u were to cut out the graham stuff, gray's arc of reconciling his relationship with carmen is largely unchanged. goes to show how wasted the cool amnesia plot stuff was (tho i like brainwashing angst, but i dont blame anyone for not enjoying it. it takes away a lot of the autonomy gray could've had in actually making his morally gray decisions). it honestly feels like they pumped the break of the brainwashing angst we were getting from gray and give it to carmen for the final arc tbh

[h-didanart]

So Nexus

I have been thinking a bit about my aus and decided to try and see how Nexus and their arc could potentially fit in them, as an experiment. And these results were actually pretty interesting! I like a few of these ideas and think I’m going to actively incorporate them into the aus, tho I’ll let y’all guess which ones those are :)

Man, Aus are fun

Your eyes are not deceiving you, those are indeed the Bloodmoons in Nexus and Moon’s place, not the weirdest swap in that au surprisingly.

Anyways, the first twins would be absolutely merciless in their taunts to the newer ones, just ruthless, utterly unforgiving. New BM would kinda get a bit self conscious and offended, tho I can see them taking up that suggestion and fully leaning into the plague thematic (this only came to be because I ironically called them The Plague after I drew this… it isn’t ironic anymore), might also be because of that obedience code they have though , honestly I’m not sure yet to be honest :P

(I have to talk about this au at some point lol)

This one was extra fun cuz I already had a concept for the Evil!Sun of the au and it actually kinda fits really well for a ‘Morningstar villain arc’!

In short, Dawn is a Moon that kidnaps adopts other Suns cuz he killed his and has lived with the guilt ever since, he wants to keep them safe and away from any sort of danger, Solar fucking hates him for trying to kidnap their Sun (yes Solar as in Nice!Eclipse is in the au, I’ll explain later) Morningstar would leave to team up with him to find a way to fix their little sibling who was affected by the multidimensional thing but didn’t die

Ok, now we have the not so silly stuff

I was struck with quite an idea for Get in Losers, since Old Moon didn’t die there’d be no need for a New Moon… unless someone else was counting on New Moon’s existence and decided to take things into his own hands.

So there’s an extra moon in the daycare, one “raised” by the Creator, and he’s treated well and all but is he really wanted there? It certainly doesn’t feel like it. At a point after the multidimensional event happens they’d have a breakdown over their identity, they aren’t needed, they aren’t Moon, then who are they?

One thing I feel the need to share with y’all about this is that Dusk would be watching all the drama in the dimension go down like the soap opera it is, and at the point of Nexus’s breakdown he’d just be staring at the lunar model while eating fries. It’s all entertainment for him

[Nexus’s blurry dialogue reads: You know nothing of what I’m trying to do, of what I’m going through. So stop acting as if you cared about him, we both know you didn’t. Now you’re going to stay put in your cell until I’ve got this all ready. And then you’ll finally do some good with that pathetic life of yours]

And, of course, the longest one is for Bloody and Harvest, why wouldn’t it?

Solar’s death was not only extremely unexpected, but it was also extremely hard hitting for everyone. Bloodmoon kinda just “accepted” it after a while. Solar is gone, they will never see him again, there’s nothing to do about it. They avoid the subject as much as they can besides that. Until Nexus kidnaps them. He has a plan to bring Solar back using them as a sacrifice. And this greatly upsets them. They see no point to it, moreover they reason that Nexus is just blinded by grief, so they attempt to talk to the bot.

It does not go well.

They still managed to escape the situation however, carrying weapons around turning out to be useful for once. Bloody is lowkey kinda mad they actually had to use the taser gun though. They leave Nexus locked up in that place and go tell the Daycare idiots what just happened, and then they take a really long vacation far away from that place, maybe go to some mountains or something. Would Nexus track them again? I’d like to think not.

Tho the saddest thing about this that I thought of was the fact that had Nexus not kidnapped them and actually explained the plan, Bloodmoon might have considered it.

I had a lot of fun with this ngl, feel free to leave your thoughts, I’d love to hear y’all screaming at me over the emotional heartache I’m causing :D

[mysticstarlightduck]

WIP Questionnaire Tag

Thanks for the tag @diabolical-blue (here)!

I'll go with Supernova Initiative for this one!

1. What’s the first part of your WIP that you created?

I had wanted to write a science fiction/space opera story for years now! I've always been a huge fan of Star Wars and similar series, and I've always wanted to write something similar! I guess that the actual first part of this WIP I've ever created was the setting - it has remained the same/similar from the first iteration of an idea of this story, while the main characters, title, and plot underwent many, many changes until it all got to the version I'm currently writing!

2. If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

Curiously enough, the Supernova Initiative book series is going to be more akin to a "TV Show" format - like Clone Wars, The Last of Us, or Game of Thrones - than a traditional novel format. That's a bit complicated to explain further, but the gist of it is - the chapters are going to be the "episodes", which in turn will be divided into acts/seasons that take place in specific time frames, with the first (5 episode/chapter) taking place 10 years before the main story!

If I had to choose, I would say that the theme song would be a rather energetic rock/pop song! With a similar vibe to these:

(Check out the full WIP playlist)

I'm Dangerous - The Everlove

Shame! Shame! Shame! - Reinaeiry

Let's Do This - Outskrts

El Dorado - Stellar

Anti-Gravity - Runaground

I think that the song would need to have this rebellious/badass energy, mixed with a generally fun beat and good lyrics that touch on the overall theme/plot of the series! Plus a generally youthful vibe!

3. What are your favorite characters that you made? Why?

I really love most of the main cast from this WIP!!!! But my Top 3 definitely are Jack Tithus, Gabi Ophyria, and Deimos Soll!

Jack is a really sweet, kind, and slightly reckless guy, who is at the same time outgoing, extroverted, and funny when he wants to be. He is defiant towards authority and fiercely protective of those he loves, to a dangerously selfless degree, all of which are tropes/traits I really enjoy in characters.

(Plus, in a way, Jack is one of the characters that kind of holds a condensation of some of my own personality traits, in good and bad ways - which was something accidental at first, but which I then embraced. )

Gabi Ophyria was one of the characters that came to me a bit later during the plotting of this book, which was surprisingly clear to me from the get-go. She's a brash, loud, fierce girl who lets no one talk her down and who believes in fighting for what she believes in. She also has anger issues - which is something she struggles with and eventually overcomes as her arc progresses, especially as she learns to let herself be vulnerable and trust others rather than try to be unbreakable all the time.

Deimos Soll is one of the most badass characters in this WIP and I just adore him. In a superficial, bad summarization, lol he's basically a young adult, alien version of John Wick and honestly is one of my all-time favorite characters I've ever written. He starts out in the backstory chapters as an awkward, fearful teenager lost in a moon he knew nothing about, but eventually grows into the deadliest and most efficient sniper this galaxy has ever seen, and one of the biggest threats to the Junction. I just adore writing introverted badass/morally grey characters who have a heart of gold. One of my favorite tropes!

4. What other pieces of media do you think your fanbase would share?

Definitely other space opera/sci-fi adventures like Star Wars, Star Trek, or Voltron! Those stories introduced me to the space opera science fiction genre which I love so dearly, so I think that pretty much anyone who likes that genre will probably like one of those movies lol. I also think that my future fanbase might also like Six of Crows or the Bad Guys (the DreamWorks movie), as the "found family of misfits working on a heist" trope is a pretty big trope in the first acts of this WIP as well!

5. What has been your biggest struggle with your WIP?

I think the hardest part about this WIP is that its structure is something I haven't seen before - as in, it's essentially a "TV Show but make it a Book Series" at its core. That means I have to improvise a lot with how I structure the story's chapters and how I structure all the events of the story. One good thing about this format I'm trying to recreate is that it is really visual, and I'm a really visual writer/person, so that means I get to make a really vivid world and characters!

6. Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

There are! A lot of them actually. Since this is a science fiction/spare opera adventure, a lot of the story involves the main characters traveling from planet to planet, especially during their heist mission and after the plot progresses.

They visit all kinds of planets and thus all kinds of biomes - the dusty mining moons like Cethea III, giant winter desert planets like Ivion, or flourishing forest dwarf planets like Stryxus. Cethea III - the homeworld of the MCs in the backstory chapters - is known for giant elk-like oxen that roams the dusty wasteland, as well as smaller lizard creatures and a few strange, venomous mammals. They also have giant birds, known as Harpies, which have a powerful screech capable of blowing out one's eardrums when too close.

Ivion is a gigantic winter desert, home to equally gigantic winter creatures, ranging from two-headed mountain lynx to absolutely enormous dragon-like creatures that burrow underneath the blanket of ice. It is also known for famously adorable, three-eyed, surprisingly big rodents similar to lemmings, which live in packs.

Stryxus has a biome akin to that of a tropical rainforest, which means the wildlife within it is incredibly varied despite the planet's small size, and that it has a vast variety of insects, mammals, lizards, and all kinds of animals you would expect from that environment. And even some you wouldn't expect.

The oceanic depths of Thallassen, in the heart of the Khosmonian galaxies, host especially gargantuan creatures, from pacific whale-like creatures with four, giant glowing eyes, to monstrous predatory lamprey-like creatures that lurk in the water.

7. How do your characters travel/get around?

The main form of transportation between planets, settlements and galaxies are starships/spaceships of varying shapes, sizes and fuel capabilities. Each planet has its own varied form of in-land transportation, but ranging from different animal mounts, hoverbikes, bullet trains, specialized boats/ships, submarines, and/or especially flying cars in the big cities.

8. What part of your WIP are you working on right now?

I'm currently writing the first draft of this WIP, and am around the third or fourth chapter of the Prologue Act (which consists of five chapters, or episodes). I already have an alpha reader (@sarandipitywrites) who is helping me a lot with ironing out the details of this story! I'm really happy about the progress I'm finally being able to make!

9. What aspects (tropes, maybe?) You think will draw your audience in?

General tropes: Found Family, Heists, Space Exploration, Whump (especially Lab Whump), rebelling against the system, Dystopian Utopia, Secret bioengineering scheme (as the main threat from the villains), loveable cyborgs/robots, etc!

For romance: Friends to Lovers, Rivals/Enemies to Lovers, Grumpy/Sunshine, etc

Familial/Friendship Tropes: Wholesome father-daughter duo (who are a former assassin and his feisty adoptive daughter), Protective Older Brother & Willful Younger Sister, Adoptive Siblings, general group of misfits fighting against an oppressive government, etc.

For more tropes & details, check out the WIP Intro!

10. What are your hopes for your WIP?

I hope I'll be able to finally finish the first draft of this story this year and that I'll publish it (probably self-publishing or something similar!) in the near future! I generally also hope to have a lot of fun writing it, and that other people will have fun reading this too (especially my friends)!

Tagging (gently) @your-absent-father @ray-writes-n-shit @drchenquill, @saltysupercomputer @agirlandherquill

@sleepy-night-child, @kaylinalexanderbooks, @smol-feralgremlin, @oh-no-another-idea, @littleladymab,

@winterandwords, @cowboybrunch, @eccaiia, @sarahlizziewrites, @illarian-rambling

@agirlandherquill, @anoelleart @sm-writes-chaos

@leave-her-a-tome, @writernopal, @anyablackwood, @unstablewifiaccess, @forthesanityofstorytellers

@i-can-even-burn-salad, @cakeinthevoid

@lassiesandiego, @thepeculiarbird, @clairelsonao3, @memento-morri-writes, @starlit-hopes-and-dreams

@the-golden-comet, @elshells

And OPEN TAG

[glassprism]

Do you have some least favorite final lair kisses or least favorite return of the ring scenes?

I don't think I have any least favorites because, for me, I don't think there's many ways to play this scene "wrong". Well, maybe during the kiss Christine could slobber her tongue all over the Phantom's face or something, but even then I wouldn't make it my least favorite, because it's entertaining! Heck, it'd probably be my ultimate favorite for the sheer hilarity.

The same goes for the returning of the ring scene; I'm pretty open to any and all interpretations, so short of Christine, I don't know, hurling the ring back at the Phantom's face whilst singing, "Sayonara, sucker!" I don't have any individual least favorites that I've seen. At worst, they're unmemorable, but that's also the majority of kiss and ring returning scenes.

No, I think my least favorite ring returning scene is from a specific production, and that is the scene from the restaged tours (the kiss scene is fine). If you don't know, in that version, after chasing Raoul and Christine out, the Phantom cries over his torn up music sheets (clearly the most important thing in his life) and sings, "Christine, I love you" to the audience. Unbeknownst to him, Christine has returned to his lair to return the ring, but the Phantom does not see her as his back is to her. Rather than facing him, Christine simply places the ring down on his table and leaves. The Phantom then turns around and sees the ring and cries some more, I guess, before diving under the bed to hide from the incoming mob.

And man, I just don't like this interpretation. First, it deprives us of that emotional, final face-to-face moment between the Phantom and Christine. Second, we lose out on the endpoint of the Phantom's arc from seemingly mystical, manipulative being to a sad, broken man; he's no longer the Angel of Music, no longer the Opera Ghost, no longer trying to force Christine's hand, entrance her into loving him, or manipulate her feelings, he's just a lonely man, telling her that he loves her. (Though the restaged tour overly humanizes the Phantom so much that it probably doesn't even matter much.) And third, Christine loses out on that final moment of choice, of agency. She doesn't get to look at the Phantom and decide, once and for all, "No, I can't stay with him, whatever I feel." Instead she avoids the entire moment, dropping the ring and fleeing. Her arc is all about seeing behind the Phantom's many masks and personas and finding the strength to face him, but then at this moment, maybe the most important moment of all, she's robbed of it. Blargh.

Anyway this turned into yet another "I hate the restaged tour" post so I'm going to stop. I actually do enjoy some aspects of it, I swear! But boy do I not like how they blocked some scenes.

[barbielore]

I have never seen any of the Barbie animated films before. But it’s Christmas, and even though I don’t really celebrate the holiday, I love the book A Christmas Carol; and I love A Muppet Christmas Carol. So Barbie in A Christmas Carol seemed like the obvious way to dip my toe in.

My notes from watching are below!

In the framing device scenes of Barbie telling the story to Kelly, Barbie is wearing a silver dress that looks like pretty much the same dress as 2008 Holiday Barbie, even though that wasn’t an official tie in doll for the film.

Instead of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly businessman, we have Eden Starling, an opera singing diva. Her childhood friend Catherine seems to play the role of Scrooge’s nephew but given she also works for the theatre there’s a dash of Cratchitt in there too?

Eden tells everyone not to bother coming back if they don’t come in to rehearse for the new show on Christmas. Even Scrooge only told Cratchitt to be there all the earlier the next morning. 

Aunt Marie (the stand in for Marley) is draped in chains - but these chains have mirrors on the ends instead of cash boxes and ledgers. I presume to represent her sins of vanity instead of financial greed.

The spirit of Christmas past is really cute, like an excitable little elf. 

Little Eden wants to spend time with friends but Aunt Marie makes her rehearse all Christmas instead of seeing other people. Eden sneaks out to go to a party instead of practicing. 

I’m sure it’s in the interests of streamlining the story for Barbie audiences, but I’m a little disappointed the spirit of Christmas past only takes Eden to one place. 

Christmas Present shows the theatre workers throwing tomatoes at a picture of Eden. That’s pretty funny but it’s not much of a lesson. That’s okay - Christmas Present takes her to a second location, presumably so we can meet our Tiny Tim. In this case it’s the reveal that Catherine is working for another theatre as well; or so Eden thinks. Actually it’s an orphanage putting on a Christmas pageant, and our Tiny Tim is a little girl who walks with a crutch and idealises Eden. Catherine lies to her and says Eden is very sorry she can’t come in person but is so proud of all of them. I don’t know why but I got a little emotional about that!

Anyway the orphanage is about to close due to lack of funds. This doesn’t strike me as quite as resonant because Eden is a diva and selfish but none of her sins we’ve seen so far are related to finances.

Alright, time for Christmas Future. The show is a shambles because she fires all her staff for coming in late and their replacements are rubbish so the show is an embarrassment. This means Eden lives in squalor because she lost her career. Her best friend Catherine is now a famous fashion designer, but has got there by being as selfish as Eden is. The orphanage closed down because Catherine had to go out of town to find new work and she never found out what happened to the children.

Catherine indicates she would have adopted Tammy if she had known, but didn't get the chance. The other kids can just miss out I guess?

We the audience don’t find out what became of Tammy, so we don’t know if she died like Tiny Tim. We can assume it wasn’t a great outcome for her, but it’s left to our imagination. 

The red dress Eden is wearing at the end is the one from the tie in dolls! 

Eden adopts (by which I assume she means financially support) the whole orphanage which doesn’t seem really like it suits the arc but sure I’ll allow it. 

At the end of the movie I finally realise that Catherine was supposed to be Barbie’s friend Nikki. Apparently there was a doll prototype for Catherine, but I don't think she ever got released.

That doll I shared above wasn't the only tie-in doll though! There was also a giftset with Kelly dolls dressed as the spirits. Missed opportunity because the spirits were of different ages. I would have liked to see a doll of the Spirit of Christmas Present as seen in the movie!

I looked up some reviews of the novelisation to see if there were any changes, and only then did I realise I missed something -- Catherine isn't supposed to represent nephew Fred at all. The magician who has a crush on Catherine is Fred, leaving Catherine in just the Cratchitt role. That in hindsight makes a little more sense.

I'm not sure if I'll watch any more of the Barbie movies, but that was a good start. (If you think I should watch more, by all means tell me so, and recommend some!)

[astralphobia]

I have some questions for hellfire :DD

1: where's Mable in all this?? Is she still in the bubble, even though she didn't break it this time?? If not is she with anyone in particular?? Is she alone?? Does she know what happened to her brother?? Same questions goes for everyone else, but mainly for Mabel.

2: what about Gideon?? He played a fairly important role in The weirdmageddon arc. Being an obstacle in defeating bill. Did anyone happen to take his role in this AU??? Or does he still have his role?? If someone did take it who???

3: did Bill take over Dipper's body completely?? Do they share it to an extent??? Is Dipper a ghost similar to in Sock Opera?? Or did both of their consciousness combine some how???? Is Dipper gone completely??? Or something else entirely??

4: is there any differences in the way weirdmageddon looks in terms of scenery and weirdness??? Considering this time Bill's possessing someone, does the consciousness of that person (Dipper) effect weirdmageddon in anyway???

That's all I have for now. But I'll probably ask more questions later on :]

- 🕊 Anon

1 - Mabel's not in the bubble, no. Since she wasn't the one who broke the Rift in the first place, she never got trapped in Mabeland. To me, Mabeland was a direct consequence of her breaking the Rift. She's not alone. She has Stan, Ford, and Wendy I think (Their hideout is the Shack, but they had to hunt for unicorn hair since in this au weirdmageddon happens before it does in the actual show)?? Maybe Soos later on (he's still the handyman of the apocalypse, but he meets her and the others later)?? Although this is one of my more developed AUs, it's near impossible to think about every little aspect.

2 - I forgot about Gideon... He might still have his role, though I'm pretty sure it's been taken... He's likely free and with his fellow prisonmates, but not quite on Bill's side. Bill already has a little mascot!

3 - I won't say anything specifically, but I'll just say that all of those guesses are incorrect- This is something else entirely, not possession. :)

4 - (Again, this isn't possession, but) That's actually a great idea! I didn't think of that earlier, but perhaps I'll use it!

@fishy--friend @cryptic-platypus (You guys seemed interested in this au so I thought i'd tag you)

[floatingcatacombs]

Bandai Taketh Away

12 Days of Aniblogging 2023, Day 1

Last year I wrote a post extolling the virtues of Birdie Wing, 2022’s breakthrough “how the fuck did this get made” mafia golf campfest. It’s the little show that could, animated on a shoestring budget to an audience of maybe two dozen extremely online yuri fans who tried their hardest to get literally anyone else to watch it.

It was almost certainly a financial failure for Bandai Namco, whose hopes for kicking off a VR-focused franchise fizzled in real time during season 1. But the resulting anime was a blast, a shoujo sports melodrama where literally anything could happen.

Birdie Wing took a few seasons off between its cours, during which Bandai Namco’s second lesbian anime of the year began airing: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury. My jaw dropped as I watched the first episode recreate Utena’s setup beat for beat, including the female main character taking another girl as her fiancé. It’s a gutsy move which set my expectations high. G-Witch was my introduction to Gundam, and the highs of the first season were amazing. Even if I had some occasional complaints with the pacing, the cliffhanger ending and narrative ambition left me very excited for more.  

Season 2 of Birdie Wing was set to fill the gap between cours of G-Witch, but ~something~ happened behind the scenes. It ended up being delayed to Spring 2023, where the two shows would air together. Great! That means double the lesbians. Or…zero?

Fair warning: From here on out I will be both a hater, and a spoiler.

Both seasons start without a hitch. G-Witch finally pops the safety bubble of its setting, with a terrorist attack on the academy followed up by an episode from the viewpoint of Dawn of Fold soldiers trying to survive a retaliatory crackdown from the Spacians. It pulled no punches with its violence and war orphans and trauma, a good sign for the struggles that awaited the main cast. Meanwhile, Birdie Wing continued to pay tribute to old-school Class S after its boarding school arc by involving its cast in a nightmare incest soap opera concerning Eve and Aoi’s parentage and the sins of the previous generation. Both are great developments for their respective shows, suggesting plenty of good stuff ahead.

Unfortunately, this is when both of these shows begin to fall apart. Eve and Aoi manage to beat the incest allegations, but afterwards their relationship just…stops. Their chemistry all but dissipates, the homoerotic rivalry giving way to their personal relationships with golf instead of with each other. The plot keeps the two of them apart as much as possible, devoid of the angsty longing from season 1, as the girls each succumb to a different form of golf cancer (even without the gay-baiting, at least Birdie Wing is still insane).

For G-Witch, a much more ambitious anime, this decline manifests as a creeping realization that they’re simply going to drop most of the open plot threads. The show takes its sweet time, even as it becomes clear that it’s barreling towards a finale at 24 episodes. The long-awaited plot twists are handled fine, I guess. But any sense that the show is aiming for greatness fades away, as it simply tries to drag itself to the finish line, buckling under its own weight. What we see on screen is what we get, and you’ll have to fill in the blanks yourself to really be happy. The Earthian-Spacian conflict ends up as mere set-dressing, and characters who clearly had intertwined backstories never even get the chance to interact. The obvious examples are the man who killed Suletta’s dad in the prologue resurfacing and that never really coming up, and everything to do with Chuchu and Nika’s backstories. I’m not here to nitpick, but it’s a shame that everyone’s characterization is left so thin. G-Witch really feels like it was meant to be a full 50-episode series, and I’m led to believe that this trimming down happened during production, as there’s just no other reason to set so much up without resolving it.

At last we reach each show's conclusion. Birdie Wing is saddled with a final arc full of professional tournaments, which is always going to be weaker than the dirty mafia golf on a conceptual level. The timeline begins to rapidly accelerate and suddenly we’re skipping ahead months, and then entire years. We don’t get to see most of Eve and Aoi’s final game, or even the period of time where they reconcile. An enduring friendship and rivalry is implied at the end, but it’s nowhere near the mutual obsession that the prior season depicted. Not an ounce of queerbait remains, even for the terminally yurigoggled such as myself.

Meanwhile, G-Witch dedicates some of its precious final minutes to a fight with Lauda (Jesus Christ is the Schwartzette is wasted on him), and just like Birdie Wing the two girls at the heart of the show barely get any time together as the end draws near. They ultimately opt for a Macross-Symphogear ending in which Suletta pilots a Gundam that shoots gay rainbow lasers and defeats her mom with the power of love and friendship. That’s fine! But that’s the ending for a show that didn’t happen! In its last act G-Witch retreats into its shell, unable to commit to the moral weight of the world it had built up. Laughably, the epilogue time-skips to a neoliberal utopia where Miorine solves the earth-space conflict through her sheer girlboss acumen. Suletta and Miorine’s gay wedding is implied at best, and an after-credits message states that this is the conclusion of The Witch from Mercury as a story, prematurely killing any potential follow-up.

The rest is history. Kadokawa redacts an interview to remove references to Suletta and Miorine being married, Bandai releases a statement that their status at the end of the show should be left up to interpretation, and everyone is mad forever.

What happened? Both of these shows fell apart at the same time, and both in a manner that defused their implicit queerness. Birdie Wing was always a bit of a trainwreck even at its best, so in a vacuum I would have just concluded that the production ran out of steam, unable to live up to its earlier writing. But the timing of Season 2’s delay, combined with the corporate meddling that affected G-Witch, makes me downright conspiratorial. Something went down at Bandai Namco, and it led to them ordering their productions be revised halfway through to scrub out all the gay shit and play things safe. I wouldn’t be surprised if this occurred at the same time as G-Witch was trimmed down from its initial 50 to 24 episodes with no chance of a continuation. It’s also not too much of a stretch to imagine Birdie Wing receiving a “stick to sports" mandate and Yosuke Kuroda subsequently phoning it in. I don't know how else to say it: there's no reason to do an incest fakeout if you're not even going to follow up on it afterwards once you've gone through the difficult work of exonerating them.

Witch from Mercury was a commercial success (it sold a shitton of gunpla, at least!) so it seems like a surprise that Bandai Namco would clamp down creatively in such a destructive way. Or maybe not. This may be the first female-led Gundam, but in a lot of other ways it’s fairly restrained as far as Gundams go. Perhaps BN decided that G-Witch had to be a balancing act to please everyone, preventing the creative staff from truly swinging for the fences in the end. Of course, that backfired horribly and they ended up pissing off himejoshis and regular mecha fans alike. I know it’s something of a fool’s errand to expect undeniable LGBT representation from anime, but when you begin with an explicit Utena homage, I expect better.

This has all been a bit of a downer, so I wanted to end things by sharing the anime I watched this year that actually gave me what I wanted out of those two shows.

Watching through the original Mobile Suit Gundam made me realize just how conservative G-Witch is in a lot of its storytelling. 0079 is a deeply radical show for its time, and still would be if you made it today. The unhesitating depiction of war and death through the aesthetics of a 70’s children’s show is particularly bold, and even the parts of the anime notorious for being overlong successfully reinforce the overall mood of the work. Amuro’s transformation from innocent child to unrelenting psychic soldier is as inevitable and upsetting as it should be, and even with all the “filler” the script feels much tighter than the G-Witch, which ambles around with side stories that don’t resolve and characters that don’t go anywhere. Imminently watchable. I love that the mommy issues in Gundam go all the way back, and I'm also starting to understand why you fuckers have been arguing about Char Aznable for 40 years.

you.

I also watched Kakegurui this year, which served as a great alternative to Birdie Wing. It doubles down on the best parts of that show – mostly-female cast, high stakes gambling, dubious lesbian rep – with an all-consuming sleaze to it. Grab some friends who aren't easily scandalized and try not to worry too hard about gaze or the intended audience, and it will be a hoot. The production values are great, even if most of it inevitably goes to girls making upsetting faces. The first opening in particular is an animation highlight. Of course, this is a MAPPA production, so they’re far too busy flaying their workers alive in the pits of hell to ever get around to another season. May their company unionize or perish.

[hms-no-fun]

I hope this ask doesn't come off as rude at all-- and I apologize if it does!-- but as an aspiring writer, I'm honestly really confused by some of the early choices in Godfeels, and I'm curious if I'm just not "getting it". I saw some posts about it pop up in the tag (and they WERE very shitty and rude about it :/), but I'd love to hear your explanation/take on June's big character change immediately post-realization, and especially the... "Trickster Arc", I guess it could be called? The former I get to some extent, but I'm really curious about the choice to do all THAT so early in the story with the trickster candy.

Seriously love your work, your narration is honestly a big inspiration to me in terms of how meta it gets and how close it gets to communicating directly with both the main character AND the audience!

no rudeness detected at all! this is a great question, in fact it’s one i’ve been kinda hoping someone would ask because i’ve been thinking about this stuff a lot these last few months. but i get the sense that you’re at least a little new here, so uh, yeah, hello, when people ask me interesting questions i tend to answer at great length. so strap in for that after the break lmao. also as a note, there will be some spoilers for all of godfeels here but please don’t let that scare you away, they’re all contextless and, if anything, might honestly make the rest of the story *more* enjoyable as a result.

as far as "getting it" goes, i've talked at length about the how & why of the violence in godfeels in multiple places so i'll try to avoid rehashing that too much here. but one thing i want to emphasize right off the bat is that i never intended godfeels to be an ongoing thing. you talk about the trickster arc happening “so early in the story” but when i wrote godfeels 1 i didn’t plan on writing more. i didn’t even plan on making john trans! my idea of what the sum total of godfeels 2 would be when i started writing it wound up being completely different from the finished work. i didn’t plan to make this thing so long. i didn’t plan for june to accidentally on purpose kill her friends while drunk and then retcon it. i didn’t plan on turning the whole thing into a space opera. it all just happened to me, man. i kept writing because i kept finding more interesting things to say. and it’s important to specify that when i started gf1 i hadn’t written fiction in years. i think if you jumped ahead to godfeels 3 part 1 chapter 8, no matter how you feel about the content we’d at least be able to agree that in the years since 2019 i’ve become a much much better writer. if you want more insight into how my process has evolved, i’ve written so so so much about it, too much maybe even, in the #sarahposts tag.

anyway, now i want to talk about june's "big character change." the extent to which her trickster arc makes sense or feels in character seems to vary wildly from person to person. what always bugs me about "ooc" as a criticism is that godfeels starts six years and change after the end of homestuck. let's remember that the protagonists of homestuck were sixteen when the comic ended. now i want you to ask yourself if you as you were at 16 would think that you as you are now was "in character." or vice versa! probably not, right? it doesn’t even have to have been six years. i was STILL sixteen when i started to get embarrassed of who i was at sixteen!

that should be all i need to say, but it isn’t. and it doesn't really get to the core of the issue anyway. i am not nor have i ever been interested in writing "a sequel to homestuck,” even though it has kind of just become that anyway. godfeels has always been about the meaty existential drama you can tease out through the complicated character dynamics of these fucked up traumatized gods. godfeels has always been my way of analyzing the themes and ideas of homestuck, the existential ramifications of the mechanics of SBURB and the classpects and retcon (let’s remember that i wrote godfeels around the same time that i took over hosting duties on the perfectly generic podcast). godfeels has also always been about me and my trauma. i even used to joke that june was my self-insert character, though i've seen that line repeated unironically by enough people who haven't read godfeels that i've stopped saying it. because it's not true! june is very, very different from me... i just happen to see my life reflected in her eyes.

to immediately rehash what i said i wouldn't, june eg8ert arose out of my frustration with most versions of the june egbert headcanon particularly in the summer of 2019. let's call her "hairclips june." hairclips june is always smiling, usually with smiling friends, she's wearing hairclips and has nonzero tit and is A Woman Now. as i said in my video, while i don't begrudge anyone their comfort food, this simply was not my experience with coming out as a trans woman. and of all the characters, i’d always identified most with john. also i thought, you know, these kids are SERIOUSLY messed up, every single one of them has died multiple times, they've seen things and done things no one should ever have to. and retcon! god, what a mindfuck retcon is.

those are the primal ingredients of godfeels. what if june came out and everyone wasn't chill about it? some folks say that's out of character and, idk, i guess that's arguably true. but i had friends who were very vocal trans allies who’d been in queer relationships who still stopped talking to me after i came out. let me tell you i spent a lot of time fucked up in the head over how "out of character" that was for them, to the extent that i blamed myself for their reaction because surely they couldn't be so out of character. to which one might respond, well, why do this as a homestuck fic then? why not just do my own original thing instead?

and i guess the answer is that i didn't want to and i still don't, really. it's not just about the characters for me. i like the rules of the homestuck universe. i find it interesting how it mechanically reflects being a fictional narrative. and, you know, maybe it's easier for me to process violent intrusive thoughts through a character who is capable of acting on those thoughts and then immediately undoing them consequence-free. retcon is, in fact, sort of the perfect mechanism for exploring violent intrusive thoughts because it lets us play out the fantasy without lasting diegetic harm, such that we can just focus on the existential and moral questions of the phenomenon itself. and like, yeah, that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. but isn’t it still just as valid a topic to explore in fiction as anything else?

like em or not, people have intrusive thoughts. people have violent impulses. sometimes they even act on them. the unpleasantness of a phenomenon shouldn’t dictate whether it is acceptable to depict in fiction-- if anything, we ought to take our instinctive desire to look away as an urgent invitation to look closer instead. as i’ve been wont to say for years and years now, “problematic” implies a problem to be solved. that which is human is inherently complicated. to pretend it’s all good or bad excises humanity from the equation, or at least flattens the range of acceptable humanity. all of which is my extremely soapboxy way of saying (as i’ve said a million times by now), yes, godfeels june is problematic. that is in fact what godfeels is about.

there's an extent to which i think this can be blamed on how rooted we are IN june's perspective in gf1 and 2. i don't think people really appreciate the fact that godfeels 1 is john threatening to commit suicide and almost going through with it. that's the context in which her friends react poorly to her coming out; i mean, she's literally sleeping on rose's couch because everyone's so worried about her! i think that, by being completely within june's perspective for all of these events, we don't really get a good sense of the interpersonal dynamics at play (probably because i didn't even really understand them myself until later). instead we just see people who should know better acting like dicks.

i think whether or not june’s trickster arc is canonically palatable to you depends very much on whether or not you've had a dear friend disappoint you so much that you're no longer on speaking terms.

but if we want to reel this back from the abstract philosophical, maybe it’s enough to say that we just have different interpretations of these characters? they’re not monoliths, you know. different people see different things in different characters. some folks get a lot out of hairclips june and that’s okay. maybe i was a bitch about other people’s headcanons back in 2019 when redditors were calling me and my friends abusive pedophiles for liking vriska, but i gave up that fight when the redditors got what they wanted (to harass a group of queer creators offline and out of their jobs). if someone wants to woobify gamzee, whatever man, go right ahead. that ain’t my cup of tea and i personally don’t think that’s very in character either, but that’s why i don’t read it. it ain’t for me and that’s fine. i like homestuck BECAUSE these characters can mean so many things to so many people. is this variability not precisely the thing that makes the postcanon era so interesting?

i have my idea of who these characters are based on who they were in the comic and i work very hard to keep them in character, but i also don't want them to be trapped in amber. i want them to grow and change and become different people, because homestuck itself is obsessed with inescapable absolute archetypes (ie the ultimate self, or the captchalogue system) and i enjoy troubling that. i enjoy swimming in a sea of weird problematic dilemmas. that’s what’s fun about fiction for me, you can think about and write about all the most difficult and even fucked up things you like, and it definitionally cannot cause real material nonconsensual harm to another human being. and yet we get so tied up in the question of harm anyway! maybe that makes sense when talking about marvel movies, but this is fanfiction we’re talking about. this is HOMESTUCK fanfiction. if i were to go on twitter right now and post “homestuck is good” i’d end the day with at least five comments saying “lol no it’s not.” SOME OF THOSE PEOPLE WILL HAVE HOMESTUCK AVATARS. there are few things as cringe as liking homestuck even among people who like homestuck, so who cares? i like homestuck, i like the epilogues, i like hs2, and i think a pretty gargantuan majority of this fandom are subliterate babies. that’s why i don’t engage with them or make much of an attempt to bridge the gap. i think godfeels and its cool little fandom is all the better for how much work it requires of the reader to “get it” as it were. i wish more people would give it a chance, or at the very least not immediately throw me and a lot of my friends under the bus at every possible opportunity, but what can you do? i just write. people will react how they will react. what matters to me is that it stays true to itself as a work, and that it grows with me and my audience and my collaborators. trying to backpedal or soften the edges would just ruin the whole thing, likely alienate my current readers and inevitably invite even more bad faith readings. no thanks!

some folks stop reading godfeels after june's trickster arc, and i can respect that. if you get to that part of the story and don't like it, chances are you're not gonna like the rest of it! and in that sense, i guess you could say i “chose” to have june’s trickster arc happen so “early on” as a litmus test for the reader. as annoying as it can be feeling like i’m constantly having to address this exact issue, i vastly prefer it to a bunch of people hate-reading something that wasn’t made for them. but again, i didn’t know this was “early on” when i wrote it, because i didn’t plan it to happen. i didn’t intend for june to go on a killing spree, she just did it and i as writer decided, you know what? this is way more interesting than what i had planned. and then dirk became the antagonist because, oops, june coming out fucked up all the schemes he has that play out in the homestuck epilogues. and i guess in THAT sense, the palatability of godfeels depends on whether or not you liked and/or tolerated the homestuck epilogues and homestuck^2. these, too, are not for everyone. but godfeels is not a replacement for them, as some folks like to claim (god bless them). i’m not interested in rewriting homestuck or fixing its sequels. ok well that’s not entirely true, i think the epilogues did jake REAL dirty and that’s become a big focus of mine going forward. but even then, i don’t pretend the epilogues didn’t happen. in fact if you’ve read all of 3.1, you know just how cosmically important they end up being.

but this is, i guess, kind of the crux of the issue for me. june’s trickster arc happens very early on in the story, yes, and that’s deliberately challenging on a lot of levels. june spends a great deal of time being challenged by it herself! but folks who stop there (if they even make it that far) often act like the whole story is grimdark wish-fulfillment violence or me airing out my irrational hatred of Boys (????), and that's just not true. i don’t give a shit about that. we get to june's trickster arc at around the 25,000 word mark, out of the current grand total of over 400,000 words. her violence is functionally the prologue, and she spends the entire rest of this story suffering the consequences of those actions. so if i am frustrated with this line of questioning, a lot of it comes down to the fact that if you just read the rest of the story you’d see that i have in fact had all of the same thoughts you’ve likely had. i know people who think i did dirk dirty in gf2, and i actually kind of agree! which is why dirk comes back and has a difficult, complicated relationship with his past self. people complain about certain characters being ooc, which i can certainly understand because when i started godfeels i really did not have a great grasp on them! but also, if you kept reading godfeels you’d know that the tension of whether or not someone is cosmically “in character” is a huge running theme of this story. june’s friends react poorly to her coming out in part because it seems out of character for her! hell, phenomenologically how *could* june be in character after coming out when she barely even knows who she is yet? her whole thing in gf1 is that she doesn’t know who she is anymore! just realizing that you’re trans changes you, changes how you see the world, how you relate to other people. or it did for me, anyway. risk, dare, X, angel dirk, and silverbark are all sorts of caught up in this question. and if you’ve gotten to the end of 3.1 you’ll know about the concept of denexustic radiation:

and that’s just the tip of the metaphysical iceberg. all of which is to say that this is a feature, not a bug. so it’s always very funny to me when people drop out so early on only to complain about the very same problematics that i’ve spent three years and 400,000 words exploring.

BUT. but. yeah godfeels 1 and 2 are messy. the gf3 prologue is very messy. it’s a serial narrative that has changed shape multiple times over the years, and barring a bit of polish on gf1 around when i started writing gf3 i generally refuse to go back and rewrite things. there’s a lot i would do differently today, but if i had done it differently then the story as it is today would not exist. and i love this story! i might look back on gf2 and feel like it’s rushed and messy, but i know that it was the best i could do at the time. it’s a reflection of who i was as a writer then. i live with the ramifications of that for the same reason i don’t delete the old videos on my channel from before i came out/learned what communism was: because i don’t like to pretend that the present was always present. i’m a different person now, a different writer. i made mistakes, i learned, and i changed. i will continue this process for the rest of my natural life, as will you.

ultimately i guess my answer here is that godfeels is a flawed work written by a flawed person, and the extent to which readers relate to it seems to have a lot to do with how much their flaws overlap with mine. i get lots of people telling me my characters are in character. i get people telling me they’re more in character than some canon! and it’s not that i weigh those comments as more valuable, i just see it as an indication of who my audience is. i’m not writing for people who want more hiveswap, and i’m certainly not writing for people who dismissed hs^2 out of hand. i’m just writing for myself and my friends, and it just so happens that some people seem to get a lot out of it.

i’m gonna close out here by actually finally directly addressing your question with what i think you were ultimately hoping for: some writing advice.

the rules don’t exist. there are things that can make some art better or some art worse but they are not universal. the rules are fake and if you hold every story you touch to those rules, you’re gonna have a bad time. a story is not static and it is never truly yours. you discover it. sometimes you can expand it or alter it in ways but, at least in my experience, doing so more often than not just kills the whole thing-- or at least demands a complete reconceptualization. all of which takes time, and we live in a world where taking time to get in touch with and hone your craft is considered sort of a bad economic decision. but art is what it is and it does what it does and we can either play with it or we can put it in a cage.

what i like about making art is that i am not entirely in control. i have my plans, my schemes, my ideas, but the fun of writing is just putting a bunch of characters in a room together and seeing what they do. quite often they do things i would never expect, that are far truer to their character than i anticipated. my experience has always been that the more you outline a story before you write it, the harder it is to actually write that story. when i know everything that’s gonna happen on a moment to moment level, the whole thing falls dead on the page. but obviously you need to know SOME things! and i’ll say that from the inception of gf3 back in december 2019 to now, very very few of the broad strokes of my plans have changed. if you’ve read all of 3.1 you know there’s a very specific timeline at play in the backstory of a group of characters we’ll be spending a lot of time with in 3.2. there are no questions or mysteries or whatever else i’ve introduced to this story that i did not have at least the sense of an explanation for. but these are simply bullet points that dictate the endpoint of a path and suggest something of the moral/philosophical/emotional arc that needs to occur in order to get there. the real meat of it comes out in the act of writing itself, and that’s what i’m here for. it’s a gamble that doesn’t always pay off, and it does mean that i have almost 80,000 words of material i ended up rewriting or cutting sitting in a doc somewhere, but that’s worth it for me.

if art is to be relevant, it must have the capacity to make an audience uncomfortable. if art is to be essential, it must have the capacity to demand a strong reaction (positive or negative) from everyone who sees it. if art is to be true, it must have the capacity to reflect the disquiet contradictions of simple existence that we desperately wish to ignore in our daily lives. that doesn’t mean everyone has to or should read difficult art, or like it, or make it. but it has always existed and it will always exist, and i think it is essential for writers and critics alike to learn to stop themselves from mistaking a common storytelling method for THE storytelling method. and frankly, most of the art i love most in this world is art that i didn’t particularly like the first time we crossed paths.

and lastly, never forget the inarguable truth that the audience bears quite a lot of responsibility in this equation. you are never, as a writer, inflicting anything on your reader, because your reader can always opt out at any moment they wish. if something doesn’t work, yeah, that’s a problem you can fix. art is a conversation in that way, or at least ought to be. but at the same time, art has no obligation to be perfect, or smooth, or easy to consume. the rules are fake. they exist to be broken. the pursuit of perfection is a dead end. just make shit

okay this one has gone on QUITE long enough lmao i hope there’s something useful in there for you somewhere and uhhhh i hope you enjoy the rest of godfeels if you haven’t already read it!

[magicaldogtoto]

I think a reason why a lot of "post-Madoka" magical girl shows don't appeal to me isn't just the usual answers you get (they're darker, they have gore/rape, etc.). All of those are alarming and things I find gratuitous, but thinking about it, there's another thing that resonates with me specifically: They focus/take inspiration from aspects of Madoka that I don't particularly think much about/find interesting.

This isn't a universal thing, but a lot of post-Madoka shows I watch really like to play up the fighting between magical girls. That was a component of the original 12-episode PMMM--and for this post, I'm thinking specifically about those original twelve episodes, not the spin-offs or anything--but a lot of later shows I watch (Magical Girl Raising Project, Granbelm, etc.) really lean into that aspect. And it's... not really the aspect of Madoka I liked. Like yes, we are told that Magical Girls in PMMM fight each other, but look at the actually events of the original show: it's just Sayaka and Kyouko, and their beef lasts only an episode and a half. They never become friends, but they do stop fighting once they learn that Kyubey has played them both.

If you talk to me long enough, read any of the things I write, any of the RPs I write with other people, you'll know that I really like folkloric/occult/mythical tropes and ideas. I've been reading a lot of Norse mythology lately (partly out of interest, partly for research for something...) and I liked all the vague fairy tale imagery in Madoka. All the Faust stuff in the background, and the Hans Christian Andersen parallels to Sayaka's arc, that's what I'm into. The action/scenes and fighting... those are fun, but they aren't enough to get me interested. I kind of need to also like the context surrounding those actions scenes to get into things. You can see this is other magical girl works that I'm really into--I liked all the fairy tale lore in Sailor Moon, the opera/ballet/fairy tale stuff in Princess Tutu, and others like that.

(The fact that all these ideas are most likely Inu Curry just messing around and not original to Urobuchi's writing also makes this funny in hindsight. My favorite element of the show and it isn't even intended to be there. This might also be partly why pointing out that Madoka takes cues from Kamen Rider Ryuki kind of falls flat to me, though I did like Ryuki--every person who points this out just likes bringing up the "people with powers fighting each other" aspect and like, that's not really something I get excited about.)

It took a while for me to figure this out. I never really noticed it, but I think my brain kind of did. I guess if I ever write an original magical girl story, it would lean more into that kind of imagery than the action (though there would still be action, don't get me wrong), or even the "dark" tone.

[hello-vampire-kitty]

Servamp chapter 129 translation "August 30th"

READ HERE ON MANGADEX.

NOTES

In this chapter we are given the name of the technique that Misono used in the Lust arc when he confronted Mikado. Misono mentioned how it was the first technique he and Lily created after they made their contract.

The name of the technique is Turandot, an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini. I have read the plot to see how it could relate to Misono and Lily, so if you want, go and read it for yourselves first and then come back and look over my opinion. Basically, there's a prince named Calaf who correctly guessed the answers of Turandot's riddles and thus he could marry her, yet the princess was reluctant so he proposed a challenge to her. If she can find out his name by dawn, he will give up his life. The prince reveals his name to her but when asked to reveal his name in front of the Turandot's father, the princess declared that his name is "Love." So, yeah I think the connection with the Lust pair is about the theme of love in the story. Regarding the other reading of the technique, "The king is also absent today", it's most likely just about how we have seen that the king pieces were not on the board.

Oh man, I had some trouble with Gear's line because I had to write using a verb although he said a noun. The verb 巻く (to roll, to wind up, to wrap around), aside from the mentioned meanings it can also mean "to move ahead" (of schedule for example). But Gear used the noun 巻き which even in the dictionary it says "speeding up". I ultimately translated based on the verb 巻き込む that means "to be involved", "dragged into" because that's what happened, the gang got "wrapped up" in the ritual that started early.

So yeah, I hope these notes helped! :)

[lumiereandcogsworth]

belle saying “you’ve taken me as your prisoner and now you want to have dinner with me? ARE YOU INSANE?” is genuinely soooo funny.

like imagine you wake up in the morning expecting to have another normal, kind of boring day. and then you spend all morning overhearing people gossiping about how weird you are. and then your beloved father LEAVES. and then you get harassed for attempting to teach a child to read. and then the town dickhead follows you home and insinuates he wants to have children with you, nearly follows you into your house while pulling on the skirt of your dress, and essentially proposes in the process. and then when you manage to escape him, your horse, whom your father Took On The Journey, comes back without your father, so now you gotta hop on the poor exhausted horse and go looking for him. and then you end up at some abandoned castle where it’s somehow snowing?? and you find your father locked up in a tower dungeon. and then you meet the guy who imprisoned him — turns out he’s like, some kind of BEAST — and then you decide hey, my day couldn’t possibly get any worse, why don’t i just wrap it up here and let my dad go home and get some rest. so you TRICK him into taking his place in the dungeon. then you have to watch as the beast guy drags him out. and then a talking candelabra and his mantel clock friend release you and take you to your own bedroom (but are being super sus about the other rooms in the castle). and then there’s a feather duster who’s apparently in love with the candelabra, and then your wardrobe turns out to be an opera singer who just wants to dress you in fine attire. and you’re like “well, i guess i’ll use all this fabric to try and joan of arc myself outta this place!” and then when you’re FINALLY making progress on this whole ridiculous situation, SO close to getting back home and completing THEE weirdest day of your life, that beast guy comes by and knocks on your door and asks if you want to have dinner with him.

LIKE I’D BE AT MY BREAKING POINT TOO! ARE YOU INSANE?? I’D STARVE BEFORE I EVER ATE WITH YOU!!!!! FUCKING MEN.

[jennamoran]

Far Roofs

Playtesters haven't really dug that deep into the first complete draft of Nobilis yet. It's ... a large book, and most of the newer stuff isn't actually needed in playtest games. So I've mostly been waiting there and letting the project sit a bit.

In the meantime, I've been laying out the Far Roofs, which has been basically done for a few years. Also holy heck is it cool.

I just kind of forgot about it because I got distracted by Nobilis and then neck issues meant Nobilis took an extra year it really shouldn't have needed to finish (plus a lot of time that it did need) and everything has been terrible but geez

It's a diced game with my standard 5d6 system and a river, an order-of-magnitude upgrade to the CMWGE/Glitch quest system (a bit too experimental and casual to flow forward into Nobilis, probably, but still), and I should be fitting the loose equivalent of 16 CMWGE Arcs/Glitch traits/Nobilis traits, a setting book, and a Glass-Maker's Dragon length campaign into a ~230 page book.

(It may be obvious that small books are not always my goal, or at least do not always win the scrimmage of goals, but it's my priority here. It bugged me that I could ultimately only give digital, ephemeral goods to the people who needed the hardship tier on the Glitch crowdfund.)

Oh! It also has talking rats. Lots of my games do these days tbh at least in the background somewhere but this one heavily features them. You do not play them (usually at least) but you do usually have one for each PC archetype you don't take.

(My last playtest had the grandmother rat Sascha De Rosa, the bard DIY “Dee” Smirnov, the warden Thalia Opera Minerva Alphabet Primorsky III, the reckless prinxe Utena Borgias, and a bunch of miscellaneous shieldbearer Kimuras as its mischief.)

Anyway more soon? I guess?

[jianghushenanigans]

A sequel to the ‘most annoying guy TM in the Jianghu’ and ‘most annoying guy TM in the cdrama capital’ poll because I was specifically asked to include Ming Tai and honestly he deserves it

Propaganda of a sort under cut - also feel free to provide your own

Ming Tai: as a teenager (early 20s? unclear: Hu Ge is blatantly in his mid 30s but we're ignoring this because he's a good actor) and a baby brother raised by significantly older siblings, Ming Tai is the spoiled brat. He's also very good at being a competent spy when he needs to be, but that doesn't make him less annoying when he wants to be, which is always

Shang Xirui: of all the characters on here he's the only one I actually personally cannot stand, but that's partly because he sings opera and I have discovered through watching Winter Begonia that I do not like opera of any kind. But also he's insufferable and needs to get a grip on reality. Some things are more important than the show! Like FOOD! And the WAR!

Zhao Yunlan: SUCKING TOO HARD ON YOUR LOLLIPOP OH LOVE'S GONNA GET YA DOWN. Guardian was the first CDrama I saw and I actually don't remember what he did but I do remember that he liked to cause problems

Wen Kexing: Winner of the 'most annoying guy in the jianghu' poll, I don't think I really need to write propaganda about him but like. Has he considered a method of flirting that does not consist of stalking a random homeless man?

Wei Wuxian: 2nd in the jianghu poll. Everyone knows why he's annoying, I won't go into this any more than to say in the Cloud Recesses arc he distinctly reminds me of one of the most annoying people I have ever met in real life

Lin Chen: 3rd in the jianghu poll and my personal Favourite Guy. To paraphrase @nemainofthewater: 'if he was in it for any longer I wouldn't be able to stand him, but he's only there for long enough that it's actually charming'. Enjoys the fact that he's smarter than (almost) everyone else and likes to be obnoxious about it

Mei Changsu: came joint 1st in the 'most annoying guy in the cdrama capital' poll. Professional party ruiner, but he does try to only enjoy it when his political enemies are suffering. Gets to tag team with Lin Chen bc I don’t want them to split votes and also because between them they manage to annoy literally every character in the whole show

Fan Xian: joint 1st in the capital poll AND 4th in the jianghu poll because he is annoying all the time and everywhere. As a transmigrator he is (unfortunately) aware that he is the main character, causes problems on purpose

Zhao Yujin: 3rd the capital poll. I won't lie that this surprised me because I have seen one gifset total for this show on tumblr (the one that persuaded us to watch), but I guess for those who have seen it it is a legal requirement to vote for him because of literally everything he does ever. In his defence he fell in a pond as a child and then his overbearing mother babied him. That being said, he is an adult now

Huang Yaoshi: included because of @tavina-writes's extensive propaganda in the jianghu poll: my favourite part of it was "the OG torture flute soloist; his flute solo canonically sounds like sex, x-rated porn sounds"

Wu Xin: I missed him off the original jianghu poll, and also the whole point of the polls is for me to try and get people to watch my shows so there’s more fic and I’m not just here crying on my own. An overpowered gremlin boy. 'Would you like to get kidnapped?' 'no??' 'ok that's cool I'm kidnapping you anyway!'