hindsight
[ID: A two-panel comic with crudely drawn stick figures.
Panel 1: The lime green person is talking to the leaf green person and the moss green person.
Lime: "I... have a confession to make."
Leaf: "Go ahead."
Lime: "I want to rewatch the Wizard Child movies."
Leaf: "Didn't the wizard author get incredibly chromophobic?"
Lime: "Yeah I just... It's nostalgia you know? They meant a lot to me when I was a kid."
Panel 2: The three are on the couch.
Lime: "All right, let's go."
Leaf: "It's so weird how the wizard author just turned chromophobic though. Like I remember this series being pretty good for its time. It'll be weird seeing their work contrasting with their views now."
Moss: "I'm just glad we got the movies for free through normal and legal means. Heh."
End ID.]
[ID 2: Scenes from three Wizard Child movies.
Wizard Child and the Simplistic Morality: A slightly round child with a propeller hat is talking to a child with no hat.
Round child: "I am so fucking fat and greedy I am textually shown to be fat because I am greedy and also evil."
Hatless child: "You are to infer my moral purity from juxtaposition with this fat child. Woe is me for our shared parent has deprived me of a propeller hat."
Wizard Child and the Goodness of Wealth: An adult wizard is talking to the child, who now has a wizard hat.
Wizard Adult: "Wizard child you are secretly extremely rich."
Wizard Child: "I will form biases regarding the bankers all being triangular for some reason!"
Wizard Adult: "Your wealth is deserved because your true parent was Good and therefore you are also Good."
Wizard Child: "Now we should acquire consumer goods. Buy consumer goods!"
Wizard Child and the Dark Family History: A blue-grey horse person is talking to the wizard child.
Blue-grey: "No, wizard child. You don't understand. I am one of the good ones, because unlike the bad ones I don't try to spread my curse that makes you a blue-grey horselike creature to others!"
Wizard child: "Wow uncle blue-grey you are one of the good ones! I forgive you for being a horse because I am so good I would even forgive horses. I sure hope you don't conspicuously get killed off later in this movie!"
End ID 2.]
[ID 3: Oh hell no there are even more of these.
Wizard Youth and the Tokenistic Relationship Dynamics: A square headed wizard youth is talking to the former wizard child, now a wizard youth.
Square Wizard Youth: "Wizard child, as the only person with a square head in this entire series it is my duty to inform you that you are the savior of all people with square heads, too. Let us build a one-sided relationship that only furthers your character development, after which I will immediately lose all plot relevance."
Wizard Youth: "I will do this because I am a maturing wizard youth and need disposable relationships that don't threaten the endgame!"
Wizard Youth and the Escalation of Stakes: The Dark Wizard, a sort of grey-green person with a cloak, is pointing at Wizard Youth.
Dark Wizard: "Wizard Youth, I have returned!"
Wizard Youth: "Dark Wizard! Why are you green now?"
Dark Wizard: "Evil magic made me green! I am green with envy towards all who are good!"
Wizard Youth: "I will not engage with how you are clearly based on fascist ideologies and yet this narrative plays into fascist aesthetic sensibilities!"
Wizard Youth and the Post-Hoc Revelations: The Wizard Youth is leaning over their Wizard Mentor, who is laying in a pool of blood.
Wizard Youth: "Wizard Mentor no! You can't die!"
Wizard Mentor: "It is fine, wizard youth. My death will further your character development into a wizard adult. Also, I was secretly a very very dark purple this entire time. I never brought it up so I could retain narrative approval.
End ID 3.]
[ID 4: Wizard Adult and the Overdue Conclusion. Three panels. I am sorry.
Panel 1: The dark wizard is dueling the Wizard Adult with magic beams.
Dark Wizard: "Evil green beam!"
Wizard Adult: "Good red beam! Despite the enormous variety of magic in this series this is what our final battle looks like!"
Panel 2: Wizard Adult stands victorious over the dark wizard, who is dying on the ground.
Wizard Adult: "In the end, dark wizard, you were defeated because I am morally superior to you."
Dark Wizard: "I was a product of systemic failures. There will be someone like me again someday!"
Panel 3: Zoom in on wizard adult, who says:
"Not if I can help it. Because I am going to be a wizard cop now. The moral of this story is that all systemic issues can be solved by finding a bad guy to beat."
End ID 4.]
[ID 5: Four panels.
Panel 1: Return to the green trio on their couch, watching the TV say "The End." All are are silent.
Panel 2: They are sitting on the couch. Moss is looking at their phone.
Lime: "Yeah so there were maybe a few signs we missed because we were children."
Leaf: "Yeah. A few. Some."
Panel 3: Continue conversation.
Lime: "So what did you think, Moss?"
Panel 4: Zoom in on Moss, who says: "I've been zoned out on my phone since the second movie. They lost me at the magic stuff. Wizards aren't real."
End ID 5.]
Start - Previous - Next
18K notes
·
View notes
probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.
we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."
at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.
the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.
the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.
what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.
here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.
61K notes
·
View notes
Sorry but Kabru is so fascinating to me as a character, in a pure mechanical sense, because of what Ryoko Kui does with him. Everything about him is a red herring. He's deliberately introduced as some kind of rival for Laios, a party leader who is hopeless against monsters but absolutely brilliant with people both in and out of combat, and who has good reason to oppose him.
By the end of chapter 31, you might even think Kabru's going to end up as some sort of anti-villain, an antagonist with the best of intentions who nevertheless tries to foil our hero's plans. He wants to defeat the Mad Mage himself, he suspects Laios of being too irresponsible to be trusted with control of the dungeon, and his crew even thinks that Laios's party stole from them (and they're kind of right!). All signs point towards an inevitable showdown.
And then ... none of that happens.
Confrontation over the stolen treasure? Kabru is literally too smart to fall for the classic miscommunication trope and correctly decides it's not worth making a big deal of.
Kabru's deadly PVP skills? Aside from trying to take down Falin, he never fights another human again.
Wanting to be the one who defeats the dungeon? Turns out he was only doing that because he didn't think any other adventurer would have people's best interests at heart, and he's more than willing to play a support role in the whole affair.
Thinking Laios is up to no good? He really did just want to get to know the guy more. He has his misgivings, but ultimately ends up trusting Laios with his life.
Is Kabru going to get some sort of comeuppance for hating monsters and not appreciating their ecosystem? Well no, he has good reasons for hating monsters. He ends up wanting to learn about them through Laios's eyes, but he's never forced into any "Wow, guess I was wrong about them!" revelation.
Hell, even his implied ladykiller ways, which might lead you to think he'll end up being the stock "chivalrous lech" type of character, don't really manifest. He has a lot of opportunities to act flirtatiously around women, but doesn't. He's just a guy whose natural charisma makes him into human catnip.
And that's all hysterical to me, to pull it off. It's a fascinating way to tell a story. To introduce a character explicitly as a rival, potentially even a villain, and instead make them a deuteragonist. It's like a magician making a coin disappear, then slowing down their trick to show you the misdirection. "Did you see what I did there?" they ask with a wink. "The coin was in my other hand the entire time."
5K notes
·
View notes
I am incredibly serious right now when I beg you all, please, and if you have Twitter or Tiktok or whatever to please spread the word: click on an author's profile on Ao3.
You want to know if an author has written more? Want to know if they're still writing? Want to see more from them? Want to know if they've written a trope or kink or sex scenario you enjoy?
Click on their name. And look at their profile.
I cannot tell you how many times in the last six months someone has read a new or newer fic of mine and said they (a new reader who has read nothing else I've done) "can't wait to see what you do next!" I've written 50+ fics and over a million words already.
"I don't know if you're still writing..." click on my profile. I am. I literally wrote a 128k+ fic for that ship last month.
"Would you ever do X?" "Please do Y!" I already did. Click on my name and look at my works.
Archive of our Own is a library. It's an archive. Not social media. It is your responsibility to fight back against the laziness that corporate algorithms have trained into you.
Click my author name. Just click it. Just click it.
Before you demand more, or ask if a writer will do XYZ, or wonder if the author still writing, or anything - click on their profile. Click on the author's profile.
I'm not trying to be mean or condescending or anything like that. I'm just exhausted. It's disheartening and frustrating to repeat myself ad nauseam, because someone couldn't take thirty seconds to do the tiniest bit of work to see if I've written lately, if I've written more for their ship, or scan my works to see if I've written what they're asking for. Please. Please. I'm begging.
Click the author's name, and explore before you ask.
3K notes
·
View notes