#i thought I'd have down time with it done but noooooooo

[raventhekittycat]

For the Writer's Ask game:

#6 and #15

6. Do you have any repetitive tropes or themes in your story?

I don't think I have any repetitive tropes in my stories that I'm aware of, but I certainly have some themes. It's definitely noticable in my Detective Conan works, but I tend to write about characters struggling with grief and/or depression. Heck, depression even pops up in one of my BSD fics. And genre wise I definitely tend towards angst, unless I'm trying to evoke another emotional response im readers, such as during DCMKEmogust.

15. Which WIP is your comfort WIP? (Like your comfort food, y'know?)

I actually don't have one! I usually don't have too many WIPs at one time, and right now I think I only have two, one of which, since it was for BSD, I've ended up abandoning, and the other I'm not certain where I've misplaced (too many documents!). Partly, I don't write long fic or plan on writing multi-chaps (the one I have I wrote as one thing, and divided it for publishing), so that helps prevent me from having too many (that and being burned out by school and/or commuting these last two years). The WIP I had the longest though was If I Only Could which I'd started writing all the way back in 2019 and only just published this year. Not certain I would call that one a comfort WIP tho, since it was so hard to write, but finishing it was good catharsis for me. Oh but while I was working on BB,RR which took a while, that might've been considered one I enjoyed returning too. The one that mostly closely resembles a comfort WIP tho can't be called a WIP since it's only an idea I toss around in my head at times, which is if I were to write a sequel for Foolish Man, but of late, I haven't had any ideas for it.

Thanks for the ask!

Writer's Ask Game questions

[prettyflyshyguy]

Ok place your bets how angry am I going to get at spn for their handling of S4 Sam because Dean's right.

"So far all you've told me about is a manipulative bitch who uh, screwed you, played mind games with you and did everything in the book to get you to go bad."

Yeah babey I'm tired, it's my day off, and I've braved myself up to tackle the tumultuous S4 because it's giving mixed feelings!!!!

You know the drill. Unhinged thoughts, commentary and screaming under the cut. I've been in full media analysis mode for the last week so it might get a little academic too, who knows.

A warning - I'm not enjoying the Heaven x Hell sub plot. I know, I'm sorry (not really.) I will persist as long as I can but you can't rip seasons 1-3 out of my cold dead hands because I'm clinging to them too strongly. They just hit the spot near perfectly. World's biggest fandom member disappointment, and proud, over here.

Anyway commentary bellow!

S4E9/10 - I Know What You Did Last Summer & Heaven and Hell

Ok so, this is a real topic, and I'm going to tread lightly here, but I appreciate the sinister undertones of Ruby coming onto Sam and him actively pushing back - he's vulnerable, abusing a substance, and she's actively taking advantage of that and doesn't stop after he makes it clear he's uncomfortable the first time. A boundary is broken and pushed through. Very icky. I have seen spoilers for Ruby's character (unfortunately!) and like, have to say, she got me. But I think I'd start to really clue in with this episode that something is deeply not ok - based on that one scene alone.

I am however, deeply worried, that the emotional manipulation is not going to be handled with the consideration it needs (especially with regards to a woman coming onto a man and being too pushy) and it'll be played off lightly. I guess we'll find out. But I'm getting defensive already. Appreciate that Dean clocks it immediately however.

On a lighter note - go psychic boy go

Anytime Dean makes this face I go mental. He looks like a concerned version of the Eyes emoji. Top 10 expressions I have too much fun trying to replicate in art. Buddy being dead for 6 months must've sucked you've missed so much Oh No.

Supremely embarrassed that it ONLY JUST CLICKED that they're doing a whole Sam's with the Demons, Dean's with the Angels thing.

I'll focus in on the most specific shit and then something so blunt will fly over my big idiot head. Amazing.

Ironic of course, and clearly intentional that its cause Sam was always appointed the 'better one' but that's only cause Dean purposefully inserted himself as the moral-fall character as a way to try and protect Sam. Obsessed with that concept, not so much with the heaven v hell stuff.

REGARDLESS, two angels rocking up and Ruby's immediate response being to turn on the demon eyes makes me wonder - is this intentional - did she choose to do this, was an otherworldly force compelling her to do it?

No I'm not just asking these cause I'm cooking up ideas for Sam to get more demonic nooooooo what're you talking about noooooooo

Hilarious that Cas and his mate rock up like "Hello we are literal fucking angels, we want this human woman please we're going to kill her now, please hand her over"

like they can't just yoink her regardless.

And this is starting to stray into "Why Shy really isn't enjoying the heaven-hell stuff in spn" - which I should save for an entirely separate post, but most of it boils down to the stakes don't feel serious anymore, the comparative power levels of character's feels unbalanced, it takes away ANY weight to Sam's personal faith as a character trait, and--

I'm sorry I just cannot get behind any of it. Really dislike it. Unfortunate. Oh well. Sozzles.

Heaven and Hell was a real hard episode for me to watch for a number of reasons and overall, I deeply disliked it, but the ending scene of Dean breaking down was extremely well done so huge props for that. Fantastic writing and acting all through. Much to consider!!

S4E11 - Family remains

The summary for this one looks. Fun.

"And what am I running from?"

"What you told me. Or are we pretending that never happened?"

OUGH. OUGH. AUGH. OOMF. ACK. AUGH.

I appreciate that unlike every ghost hunter I've watched on youtube, this show recognises that EMF readers cannot be completely trusted. 10/10 thank you supernatural. One small little line about the needle being wacky, and Dean noting that there's power lines right next to the house. Love it.

Nice.

I can sense I'm going to enjoy this episode.

I LOVE A GOOD GHOST-HUNTING EPISODE!!

Also love that this episode forcibly made the boys reconcile with the confliction of killing humans vs killing creatures, but the humans were in a way like the creatures (monsters), the same way the monsters can be like humans.

Anyway, tonal whiplash, yet again with this show:

S4E12 - Chris Angel Is a Douche Bag

The Winchesters need worksafe inspector fake ID because It'd be perfect for this episode specifically

I LOVE the three older magician characters. These guys are great.

WHAT

Anyway this is a good bit. This is a really good bit.

Yeah Sammy what kind of kool aid are you drinking?????

That was.... A weird one but a fun one.

Anyway I'm really starting to feel like I want to cherry pick eps but I'm going to hold off. Till I hit S5 at least.

Like I rabidly consumed seasons 1-3 like a starving animal and now I'm reluctant to watch episodes cause I know there's good shit in here, and each episode has some important development moments for characters, or relevant plot that I want to know about so I don't feel like I can start picking and choosing episodes based on descriptions yet. But damn. Lot more misses than hits for me this season. Seriously considering buying a dvds of just S1-3 cause GODDAMN. Loved almost everything about the first three.

[fandomsandfairytales]

So tonight I watched my first ever Rings of Power episode.

Some brief background on my thoughts on/experiences with TROP: I haven't actually watched any of it, though I have read occasional articles on it and I've been in online spaces that are pro-TROP and anti-TROP. I'm kinda....neutral-TROP, leaning a little more negative, but I'm interested enough to read up on what's going on in the current season.

I've kept going back and forth on wanting to watch the show at all, mainly because I don't feel like dedicating the time to it. But tonight I was like "I kinda wanna watch something while eating dinner. Maybe TROP?" I didn't really want to watch the very first episode in season 1, because I'd been semi-keeping up with season 2 stuff, so I decided, why not watch the newest episode that literally came out today? So that's what I did. Here's my thoughts on 2x07—non-spoiler-y above the cut, and spoiler-y below.

Non-spoiler-y things:

My reactions were mainly lots and lots of tearing up and yelling at my TV screen. Not even in a "I dislike this" way, but a "I get easily emotional about media sometimes" way, lol.

Celebrimbor and Annatar's interactions were fantastically done. I kept yelling at Annatar XD it definitely gave me ideas for & validated stuff I was already thinking about for "but for the look in his eyes". Mwahahaha.

I enjoyed getting to see Elrond—he feels very young and it was cool to see him before the time of LOTR, when he is not yet seen as the wise lord of Rivendell.

General feelings about the episode: I liked it and was annoyed by it in turns. I think it was the best first episode I could've watched, because I already knew a fair amount of what was happening and it wasn't hard to pick up on.

Spoiler-y things (these are all over the place and really not in chronological order, lol):

Celebrimbor cutting off his thumb to get out of the chains!!! For a moment I really thought he was going to pull a Maedhros (really, a Fingon) and cut off his whole wrist. But then he only put his thumb under the metal cutter thingy and I also noticed it was his left hand

The soldiers and Mirdania had major "sure Grandpa, let's get you back to the nursing home" vibes when interacting with him

I really enjoyed watching Annatar and Celebrimbor's interactions. I'm sure some people read their relationship as Silvergifting, and I don't, but I still enjoyed it. Annatar's condescension to Celebrimbor! Annatar telling the people that Celebrimbor had gone insane when in actuality Celebrimbor didn't know anything was happening bc Annatar was hiding it from him! Annatar pulling the victim-blaming move of "you made me do this to you" and Celebrimbor going "no. nope. you're the Great Deceiver"! Celebrimbor breaking down over his city in flames and realizing he's been betrayed!!! So so good. I had fun yelling at Annatar (things like "SHUSH," "HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT," "STOP IT" etc.)

Celebrimbor and Galadriel finding solace and understanding in each other getting manipulated by Sauron was sweet. Even though of course all of Galadriel's interactions with Halbrand in season 1 didn't happen in canon, I liked that it gave Galadriel and Celebrimbor something in common.

I hated/was genuinely upset at Annatar making those guys kill each other. Not on a basis of whether he could actually do that or not, but because there was a book I read with an evil villain who did mind control and that specific thing really reminded me of that.

The parallels to Helm's Deep, like with all the archers on the wall and the orcs breaching the wall and then the light coming over the hill, were kinda cheesy. I wanted to be more awe-inspired, but I just really....wasn't.

THE. KISS. I yelled at my TV for that. I was literally screaming "NO!!! THAT IS SO WRONG!!!!! THAT SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING NO NO NO NOOOOOOOO UGH THAT IS SO WRONG"

And I was pretty sure it was for a specific reason, so Elrond could give Galadriel something to escape, and it was, but STILL. HE COULD HAVE JUST HUGGED HER AND SLIPPED HER THE PIN. SERIOUSLY. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE, SHOW WRITERS

Celebrimbor said something along the lines of "I knew he would bring trouble" and I immediately started singing "I knew you were trouble when you walked in..." XD

And then when he said "I built this city," I sang, "We built this city on rock and roll"

It was cool getting to see the footage of Elrond fighting, because I remembered those clips from the trailer and being kinda excited over them

Durin's speech to the dwarves was pretty great. I enjoyed it

I also enjoyed his and Elrond's interactions!!! The way Durin called Elrond a flagpole made me laugh but also made me think of Celebrimbor's fate, being strung up on a pole like a banner

I liked the sort-of parallel to the Nirnaeth with the dwarves not coming (or not appearing to anyway) to help

All of The Silm name-drops and mentions!!!! I got excited over those. Melian as Elrond's ancestress (I squealed), Fëanor's hammer (loved that honestly), Morgoth, the Valar, Rúmil. Like, these names are being spoken on TV in the year of our Lord 2024 and yes this show is not canon-compliant but there's references to The Silm and I am eating them up

Galadriel looked younger than Elrond, which I thought could be a possibility because Morfydd Clark and Robert Aramayo appear roughly the same age, though it kinda irked me because she's his (future) mother-in-law. But somehow, when Galadriel was with Celebrimbor, even though he definitely looked older than her, she managed to convey a sense of wisdom and care that made sense as an aunt to his character.

I decided at the start of the episode that I'm not going to be upset about how old Celebrimbor looked compared to Elrond and Galadriel, because that ship has sailed, we are firmly in season 2, complaining about how anyone looks now is completely pointless. And also if I kind of...separate him from the younger cast, the comparison doesn't distract me. Charles Edwards is a good actor and he plays Celebrimbor well, so yeah.

Gil-Galad's voice was deeper than I expected. However, the good thing was that I didn't really have a picture in my head of him before TROP season 1 came out, so he kinda got established as "that's how he looked," and his voice was the only somewhat surprising thing about him to me.

I liked Gil-Galad and Elrond's armor.

I was rooting for Arondir.

Elrond: "You should not be here!" Me: "Yeah, why are you only showing up now? Lol"

Gil-Galad's following line about how a king should not stay back in a fight or whatever totally made me think of "A king is he who can hold his own" (Maedhros)

Adar's character still drives me crazy because who the heck is he??? this man (elf, orc, whatever) is not in canon unless he has a different name but UGH

The battles and CGI and stuff all felt....not fake exactly. But it felt very modern-day and somewhat cheap in the making, whereas the LOTR movies and even The Hobbit feel like there's so much more poured into it all. The design, the pacing/story beats, the depth. Even though there was a battle, and characters' lives were on the line, I didn't...feel a whole lot about that. (To be fair, I am jumping in after not seeing any of the rest of this show, and also I know Galadriel and Elrond are going to live. So there's that. But I've read reviews that have a similar perspective, so idk.)

I loved that Elrond got so upset about his horse being killed and fought harder bc of it. I thought there might actually be backstory about him and his horse that I'm not aware of, but even if it's just that he simply cares about animals and his horse was killed, I'm all for it.

The "put your backs into it, maggots!" or whatever the orc commander guys were yelling was VERY Lord of the Rings-movie esque. Also I kinda liked the parallel to the orcs expressing concerns to Saruman about the trees and stuff (with the orc guy questioning Adar about sacrificing orc lives to reach Sauron)

I don't remember who said this, but it was probably Adar: "Leave Sauron to me" made me remark "yeah, we've heard that before. From Saruman" (in The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies)

I didn't think about this until later, but the episode didn't have any advancements in the Harfoots or Numenoreans plotlines, and I'm perfectly fine with that

All in all: I'd say the episode was a 7/10. Maybe a 6.5/10 because of the kiss. As I mentioned at the start, I think it was the best first episode I could watch—yes, because I already had some context for most things, but also because there were pivotal points in this episode for plotlines that I liked. Annatar's corruption of Celebrimbor was realized, the war for Eregion fully under way, Elrond and Gil-Galad fought in the battle, Elrond and Durin talked, Celebrimbor and Galadriel talked. I got to see the characters and plotlines I was most interested in, and I genuinely enjoyed that. I might actually watch the next episode when it comes out, we'll see!