#it was well written for the most part i think!!!!! some parts needed suspension of disbelief but whatever yk

[chooey]

just finished breaking bad

[sagesolsticewrites]

Dear...

A series of letters from one Lt. Harry Crosby to his wife 🤍 (a sort-of continuation of Just Say Yes, but can be read as a standalone!)

My darling wife,

‘Wife.’ I’ll never get tired of saying that.

How are you, darling? I hope you’re not worrying about me too much; I promise, I’m staying as safe as I can, and someday soon this war will end and I’ll have you back in my arms once more.

I miss you more than words can say, sweetheart. You occupy my every waking thought, and all of my dreams at night. Some of the things I dream can’t be written (you know what I mean), but I hope to be back with you soon so I can make them a reality.

All my love, and a thousand kisses,

Your Harry

My most darling husband, I know you didn’t just try to tell your wife not to worry about you! I know how capable you are, but there will always be a part of me that worries.  I’m keeping as busy as I can. I’ve found a job as a typist at the factory here! It’s not quite the job I’ve always dreamed of, but anything I can do to help you boys! Violet from two doors down works there as well, and I’ve made friends with a few of the other girls there, so you don’t need to worry about me being lonely over here. Be safe, my love, and I’ll be counting down the days until I see you again. The swell of joy I feel when I get your letters will surely be nothing compared to being in your arms again. With my deepest love, Mrs. Y/N Crosby P.S. Say ‘Hi!’ to Bubbles for me! P.P.S. I admit I’m intrigued by these dreams you claim you can’t write about… I don’t even get a hint?

Sweetheart,

‘Mrs. Y/N Crosby’ I don’t think a prettier sequence of letters has ever existed…

A job! Darling, I’m so proud of you.

Though now I can’t help but wonder at every piece of paper arriving on base here— did you type those words? Perhaps it’s just me wishing you were closer, but I like to think every piece of paper coming in with the supplies came from your hand.

Speaking of paper, was that a hint of your perfume I detected on your last letter? It was a wonderful reminder of you, my love. 

There are flowers blooming in the fields here. I’m not sure what kind they are, but they’re beautiful so of course they made me think of you. I’ve enclosed a few that I’ve pressed, and I can only hope they make the journey to you in one piece. If not, well… I send my apologies and a promise that I’ll make up for it with all the fresh flowers you could want when I’m home.

Bubbles says ‘hi’ back, and wants me to tell you that he’s making sure I’m safe (though I’m sure you know it’s clearly the other way around— no, I’m only joking, honey. We keep each other safe.)

As for your question regarding certain dreams… I’m afraid I’ll have to keep you in suspense, my dear, at least for now.

Your unspeakably proud husband,

Harry

[enclosed: a variety of small pressed wildflowers]

Honey,

It’s been a while since I’ve heard from you. Are you getting my letters? I hope so.

How are things going at work? I hope they’re not working my girl too hard. 

You’ll never guess what happened with Bubbles, sweetheart. He was off on pass visiting his girl over in Norwich, and the poor guy caught a stomach bug! He won’t be flying anytime soon, so I’m taking his place for a bit. Frankly I’m not sure how flying with me will be any different from flying with Bubbles with a stomach bug…

I miss you with all my heart, honey. I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you

Goodbye for now, angel. I hope I hear from you soon.

Love,

H

My brave Bing, Poor Bubbles! Hopefully he’s recovered by now. Tell him hello for me! And I hope your missions went well, darling, and that you’re taking the time to rest when you can. Take care of yourself, my love. Work has been fine, for the most part. Violet and Carol had a bit of a falling out— over what I’m not sure, but it’s made the office fairly awkward. The prevailing theory among the girls is a spat over a boy, though Ruthie’s making a very convincing case for it being an argument over a lost lipstick. I’ll be sure to keep you updated on these riveting (ha) events, as I’m sure you’re as curious about it as we are. Your gifts did make it to me in one piece for the most part, and I’m keeping them safe next to my picture of you. They’re beautiful, darling. In return, I’ve enclosed some pressed roses from our garden. You know I don’t quite have your green thumb, but I’m doing my best (though I am looking forward to the day you’re back home and can take over the gardening duties— the flowers miss you almost as much as I do.) All my love, Mrs. Y/N Crosby

[enclosed: two pressed red roses]

My darling,

Would it surprise you to know the boys now have a bet going as to the reason for your colleagues’ falling out?

I told Bubbles about it, then word apparently spread, and now nearly the entire 100th seems to know the story! (For the record, most of the boys are leaning towards the cause being a boy, though Bubbles is still holding out for Ruthie’s lipstick theory)

Do let us know if the cause for the argument is ever discovered: I’ve got $10 riding on this, sweetheart!

I managed to get a moment to myself yesterday, and found myself walking in the field near where the ground crews were working on the forts. And do you know what happened, honey?

A butterfly landed on my hand.

It was a little orange and black thing, and it only stayed for a moment before flying off, but having that pretty thing choose me as a resting place on its journey to wherever it was off to… it made me miss you more than ever. I wish you could’ve been here to see it.

I love and miss you so much, sweetheart, I couldn’t possibly love you more, and yet every day, my love for you grows. I’m just existing until the day I can take you in my arms again and never let you go.

Millions of hugs, thousands of kisses, and all my love,

Your Harry

My most darling beloved Bing, Ha! I’m glad I could provide some entertainment from so far away, honey. Tell Bubbles to rejoice: Mary found a lipstick tube that had rolled into a corner behind her desk, and Vi and Carol have agreed to be friends again, imagine that! You didn’t tell me which side of the bet you were on, sweetheart, but knowing you I imagine you sided with Bubbles as always. Do spend your winnings on something sensible— perhaps more paper to write to your poor wife? Oh, my love. You’ll never believe what happened as I was reading your latest letter out in the garden (the weather’s been lovely lately!) A butterfly— black and orange, similar to the one you described seeing all the way over there — landed on the chair next to me. Your chair, darling. Did you send that pretty thing all the way over to me to say hello? I’ll imagine you did.  I love you more than words can say, darling, and so the millions of kisses I’ve enclosed will have to suffice. Stay safe, and I’ll see you when you come home to me. All my love, and then some more, Mrs. Y/N Crosby

[enclosed: in a departure from her usual singular lip print on the page next to her signature, Mrs. Crosby chose instead to enclose an entire extra page covered in its entirety in lip prints 👀💋]

[mi-dori]

❦𝑷𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒚 𝑷𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒕❦

Game: Honkai Star Rail

Prompt: In which reader gets in trouble just to see the pretty student council president.

Warnings: jealous reader!

High School Au

Belobog high has a reputation for being one of the most prestigious institutions in the world; aside from that, its also known as the school hosts students that causes alot of trouble which wasn't a lie.

Sitting in the Student Council room, Bronya looked through the tons of report that the students wrote about a particular someone who she didn't expect that from. "Everything alright, Bronya?" Himeko, the assisting teacher of the student council, noticed the subtle frown upon her face.

"Miss Himeko, what are your thoughts on Y/n?"

Himeko looker puzzled but nonetheless answered. "I think y/n is a great student. She always gets her work done on time, never disrespects a teacher and she's very kind."

"... I see."

Bronya held her head in her hands and sighed. Suddenly, a commotion was heard in the hall and both Bronya and Himeko rushed towards it. Many students flocked around an area where the sound of grunts and groans came from. As they pushed through, they saw you on top of Stelle, punching and kicking as she groaned. "Y/n! Stop this!"Bronya shouted and made an attempt to pull you off which was successful.

Himeko quickly rushed Stelle to the nurse while stared at you with the meanest glare ever. "Come with me," she said through gritted teeth. She grabbed your shirt collar and dragged you away; the other students looking at you with a grin that said, 'go get some!' While you smirked back knowing full well you ain't getting anything.

Upon arriving at the Student council's office, you were greeted by Seele waiting in the office. "Seele, could you give us a minute?" Seele nodded and left. That was the source of your problem.

Lately, Bronya has been hanging out with Seele and you know full well of the crush Seele has on her. You've hardly talked to Bronya and you felt like the only way for her to notice you was getting in trouble, which you never did. So your good friend Stelle helped you with your plan which had led to the prior event. "Why did you beat Stelle up? What were you thinking?!" Bronya started shouting. "This isn't like you to get in trouble."

When she saw how you turned away and didn't want to look her in the eyes, she then knew that something was wrong. "Y/n, talk to me. What's going on?" She knelt down infront of you and turned your head to look at her.

"... I'm sorry..."

"Go on. This isn't like you so I'm sure there's some reason behind this, right?"

"Yeah. Stelle and I didn't actually fight. We're good friends... it's just...," you sighed. You didn't know how to explain it as it was eating you on the inside. "I see you've been hanging out with Seele lately and we haven't been talking... I know Seele likes you and it kinda got to my head. So the only way you'd notice me was if I got into trouble."

Bronya was left astonished by your explanation. "So all of that was to just get my attention?" You embarrassingly nodded. Bronya couldn't help but start to giggle. She never imagined the lengths you would go to just to get her attention. "Oh my. I'm truly sorry I've been neglecting you y/n, it's just that I've been busy and Seele needed tutoring so the teachers recommended," she held you hand in hers, "I do know of the crush she has but that doesn't mean I'll leave you for her okay?"

"Promise?"

"I promise. Now... I think you might be suspended for getting into a fight." Fear took over your face. You didn't think through the suspension part and it was written clearly on your face. "But... since this is your first time...I'll pull some strings and let you off," she winked before pressing a kiss to your forehead. "Just promise me you won't do it again?"

"I promise."

"Good, tonight I'm coming over and we'll have pizza and movie night." Your eyes lit up like a little kid seeing candy.

Despite making Stelle bleed, you still had what you wanted at the cost of Stelle's blood.

[directdogman]

In my own writing I struggle with giving each character their own voice (speech patterns, phrases they use) and in Dialtown each character is super specific. Are there certain things you had to remember for each character, other than Oliver using his fucked up slang lmao.

When I write my characters, I can usually hear them in my head to some extent. Like, I can picture how it would feel to talk to them, or if I tuned out while one of my characters was chattering away about something, I can kinda hear the unintelligible static.

If you want me to write a lil essay pointing out differences in how the characters in the main cast are written, alright, I'll bite:

Verbal ticks help differentiate characters for me. We all know about Randy's stuttering, but there's more than just that in how the characters' sentence structures affect how we see their speech.

Karen's sentences tend to end in periods, if they aren't questions or if her voice isn't raised. Almost all of Randy's sentences, meanwhile, end with ellipses (…) or hyphens to indicate he trailed off/stuttered his way through the ending. Oliver does occasionally end sentences with ellipses or hyphens, but defaults to periods and often exclamation marks, as he's pretty excitable. This alone shows the difference in tone/confidence that the main 3 have without changing any words.

The characters all use slightly different terminology when they speak. Oliver's fucked up slang is only a part of it, he also uses theatrical language, often framing sentences creatively and in a way that absurdly beefs up the word count of his dialogue. He uses fairly atypical adjectives, surrealist language. He refers to himself in the third person sometimes. He uses imperfect tenses in order to make his sentences longer/less uniform. I'll give an example, from when Gingi asks Oliver if film reel movie projection is magic:

"I consider myself a sorcerer of FILTH, perhaps (an apt conjurer of muck/grime), but this artform isn't QUITE witchcraft NOR warlockery, I'm 'fraid."

Okay, putting aside the bizarre content of the sentence itself, one curious thing to note is that the whole sentence is full of words that don't convey any additional information. Conjurer is a synonym of sorcerer and he uses two synonyms for dirty AFTER already using filth. Guy loves theatrical language and will structure his sentence to make sentences much longer, so he can fit more of it in. But, then ends the sentence by taking a whole syllable away from the word 'afraid' and abbreviation it, like speaking with an accent. Oliver's sentence pacing is completely different to other people because of the volume of odd language he uses. In the context of the game, he's also drawing the player in by creating a pause, as the next line is:

"No, the actual "beaming" work comes from our dear old movie projector, and possibly my greatest love: Big Bertha!"

He likes Big Bertha and enjoys talking about her, and he tries to draw Gingi in and get Gingi invested in this thing by drawing out the introduction and forcing Gingi to wait for him to introduce Bertha in suspense. Randy volunteers info as if he thinks you're gonna hit him, unable to stand silence and hence, the sound of his own thoughts.

To contrast, Karen uses direct language, mainly. I wouldn't call her speech robotic, as most of the time she can retract language, she does (I am->I'm, I would->I'd, etc) but usually she uses direct tenses, and takes fewer words to say what she needs to compared to, say, Oliver. Generally, the words she uses tonally matches what she says. Weirder, less usual words come out when Karen is reacting to something she finds weird/illogical.

Norm's speech could be described as someone with a heavy accent who's well read, but is slightly insecure about being well-read. He uses words like 'y'all', 'ain't', 'reckon', retracts words like 'to' as 't'', but if you pay attention, he occasionally uses technical, academic language that doesn't match the aesthetics of the rest of his language. You can take the boy away from book learnin', but ya can't take the book learning outta the boy.

Billy is aggressive and generally, his language is designed to make the player feel bad in some way. Generally speaking, he's either insulting you, mocking your knowledge of the world, pointing out something you said as stupid, or is using words like 'lmayo'. Billy doesn't care much about the player, but is interested enough to talk to the player as a means to offend/demean them until you run out of things to say or leave, frustrated, which is Billy's goal. If you view what he says in this lens, you'll see this accurately describes how he speaks to you.

Billy uses surrealist language occasionally to seem more hellish and inhuman, but often, uses fewer words than other main characters. Subconsciously, it's to convey that Billy doesn't respect you enough to use more words. When Billy DOES use big words, it's exclusively on purpose and exclusively to subconsciously belittle Gingi, like when he refers to Gingi as a 'amphibian moron'.

God, similar to Billy, tends to use fewer words than most other characters. He often gives formulaic dialogue responses. There's no psychological play here, God just genuinely doesn't care how Gingi or anyone else sees him or if his tone/phrasing is improper because he knows how little respect people in Dialtown have for him anyway and embraces it.

Sometimes though, he does use uncommon synonyms for words, a byproduct of having lived so long through other times/eras. The references he makes are much the same. Fucker occasionally references ancient Greek figures and expects the references to land, as if everyone present somehow would've once somehow met these ancient fellows.

Mingus uses formal, impersonal language, and tends to use uncommon synonyms for words. The purpose of this is to subconsciously belittle the person she's speaking to and affirm her social class.

While she'll skirt past a commonly used word for a rare synonym in order to make her speech sound more dignified, she rarely leaves out pronouns in sentences. The reason for this is because most of her speech has an indignant tone. She's complaining about some shoddily done action or what she feels is a lack of service. So, the last thing she'd want to do is miss the opportunity to rant directly about her grievances in direct terms. Creative phrasing isn't used to replace pronouns but used to more elaborately phrase the error someone has committed to further emphasize her dismay. EG:

"You created the entire universe, and yet, the ability to perform a simple CARTWHEEL eludes you?"

Instead of saying "can", she says "the ability", instead of 'can't do', it's 'elude'. Hell, instead of 'do', it's 'perform'. But, both at the beginning and end of the sentence, she doesn't think to phrase the sentence in a way to avoid repeating the word 'you'. Like I said, the flourishes are just to drive the point home that she sees herself as above the person she's speaking to and to reaffirm how absurd she sees the limitations of others.

How Jerry talks is basically the conflict within a well educated but defeated man whose brain is decaying from years of substandard life. His speech, like his brain, is in conflict. His job dictates that he should always use terms of respect, like sir/ma'am, but he curses too. When he raises his voice, his sentences are often short and abrupt, but the words he uses tend to be elaborate and rarely used. Jerry is educated, has opinions on stuff. His mind is wasted at his job, and even through his defeated cynicism, you can subtly see that Jerry wants a better life through the words he uses.

Jerry's speech patterns are actually quite close to the narrator, and this is intentional, actually. The two characters share a few things in common that affect how they speak. Namely: Having to deal with Gingi's antics. There's almost a tired parental tone to both.

I could ramble for hours (please don't let me do this), but those are some examples of core character writing differences, namely in how I try to use language. Incorporating subtleties into the dialogue is good for separating characters and when you plan these out so that these placed differences are specific to traits that the characters have, your work'll feel more alive and be more satisfying to analyze later. Overthink. Overthink overthink overthink. It works, at least for me.

[theerurishipper]

I think the Batman's sidekicks equal child soldiers comes from them being called soldiers. Bat books seem to embrace the 'war on crime' narrative more as they are more gritty. On top of this Batman is emotionally incompetent meaning he treats his kids more like soldiers than children sometimes.

It's also quantity of sidekicks. Like, Barry had Wally. He didn't have any other kid sidekicks at the same time. Batman has a solid army and it often feels like one. They often feel more militarized than other 'fams'. Also, he is too controlling and doesn't treat this solid army of children well. So obviously when a character mistreats everyone around them, people are more likely to see the flaws. A kid cheerfully fighting aside their adult mentor isn't going to get called a child soldier but a kid written with a more gritty undertone is (especially because of the war on crime stuff).

He also had the whole 'good soldier' memorial which says he kinda viewed Jason, a dead 15 year old he adopted, as a soldier. Even though they were portrayed as a father son relationship so this immediately damages the perception of his relationships with his other children.

Also, the Under the Red Hood Movie is an entry level media for Bat fandom. It starred Mr Ackles of Supernatural fame. There is a huge child soldier narrative in the treatment of Sam and Dean by their father so Supernatural fans are more likely to see these themes. So Ackles fans watching the movie and then getting into the Batfam stuff will obviously latch onto this.

Also, this is not the only incident in superhero fandom where certain characters are singled out as child soldiers for other characters. This narrative is also present in some parts of the X-Men fandom, especially regarding the relationship of Professor X and Cyclops. As it is another incident of an adult character 'rescuing' a child in need and (I can't think of a better word) indoctrinating them to their cause.

I think another thing is the fact the Bats do not have powers. So narrative of 'with great power, comes great responsibility' only actually applies to Batman himself with his obscene wealth. So the classic narrative of you have power so you have to help people with them doesn't apply here. Most of the kids he recruits could have relatively normal lives. Jason, whose fans propagate this take heavily, did not ask to be Robin. Batman gave it to him. I also feel that Starlin was trying to have an arc about why having a child sidekick was bad in the Jason's Robin run so Jason's fans are more likely to be critical of the child sidekick thing. It basically goes 'maybe I should not have had this child fight crime' (while Jason is still alive) to 'it's Jason's own fault he got himself killed' which looks really bad.

So it just feels like a lot of factors give more and more people these kind of takes in a way that doesn't apply to other characters. Wonder Woman mostly fights alongside adults. The Flash is also adult heavy (Barry, Jay, Max as in adults that started as adults). Shazamily is all near is age (argument for Wizard perhaps). Lanterns, adults. Arrow family are usually a bit older than the bats and get less attention. Ect.

For me the thing is that... this is fiction. Not a one-to-one direct reflection of reality. In real life, we would frown upon vigilantism as a concept, but enjoying characters like Batman and Superman requires some suspension of disbelief. The same idea should be applied to the idea of sidekicks in general, something that would be very wrong in reality, but is acceptable within the fictional world of DC. Admittedly Batman is usually more grounded than the other books, but it still is within the fictional world of DC, where having child sidekicks in okay. Where letting children fight crime is not inherently wrong, and what defines whether it's good or bad is the intent of the person training/raising them (Bruce or Barry or Oliver as opposed to David Cain or Slade Wilson). We need to view it through that lens, otherwise it's kinda just bad faith criticism.

Another thing to consider is that Batman is an emotionally withdrawn character. It's pretty clear that he did not consider Jason a simple soldier for the cause, or his death wouldn't have ruined him the way it did. And honestly, for every Jason is a soldier case in the Batcave (something he got yelled at for btw), there is a Bruce giving Damian a heartfelt speech about how his kids aren't soldiers. For every moment Bruce treats his kids like soldiers, there is a moment where he openly admits to how much he loves them. I suppose after a point of time it's all up to interpretations, especially since the latter are far and few between, but canon has been pretty clear that Bruce loves his children above all else, and that he doesn't see them as soldiers. That's actually been a plot point a few times, so I think it shouldn't be a question that he sees them as sons and daughter and not soldiers. After all, the whole reason he does what he does for them is so that they don't turn out like him. Him coming off as seeing them like soldiers is not because it's the truth of what he thinks, it's because he can't express himself.

I did say there are plenty of other reasons to criticize Bruce as a character, one of them being the fact that he behaves abusively to his kids. But that's not a symptom of them being child soldiers. My post mostly stemmed from me seeing a lot of criticism of Batman "throwing kids into tights and a cape instead of getting them therapy," and it's like, nooooo. He very explicitly did not do that. They chose the life. Most of them would have done it whether or not Bruce was there. The kids being crimefighters isn't the problem.

If the cheerful thing is what differentiates them from others, the Robins have had that with Batman. Dick and Bruce actually had great fun as Batman and Robin, for instance, before things went sour. Jason may have been given Robin by Bruce, but he also loved being Robin and said it gave him magic. The inherent idea of kids fighting crime is not the issue in a fictional world. Robin in itself is something of a child empowerment kind of thing, a genre staple, at least in the beginning. We don't go around calling every child protagonist a child soldier, do we? It would be an inherently unethical thing in real life, but this is fiction. We have to have some amount of suspension of disbelief when it comes to that, just like we do for the idea of vigilantism itself. Otherwise, we wouldn't have a story.

My take on it is this: there are no child soldiers in DC (when it comes to the sidekicks). Because it's fiction. Within the conventions of the genre, it's well and good for Bruce or anyone to let kids fight crime. Bruce being an abuser is a different conversation entirely, one that should not be derailed with accusations of him raising child soldiers. Those are not a thing in DC, and we would all be happier if we accepted that. My post was specifically about that, that Bruce letting kids fight crime is not inherently a bad thing within the context on the world they operate in. I made the OG post because I saw a lot of criticism towards Bruce for the very act of letting kids fight crime, not because of how he treats them but because he apparently indoctrinated and manipulated them into his war on crime, just criticism for the very act of him letting them do so.

I've also seen talk about how awful it is for Bruce to continue to let kids be Robins after one died, and I just have to say, do you not want Tim Drake and Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain and Damian Wayne and Duke Thomas and every other kid hero in the Batfam to exist? Because if Batman were to do the right thing, they shouldn't exist. But, again, this is fiction. It's a story about superheroes. As per the rules of the story, Batman needs a Robin. Someone was going to be created to fill the void, and it was Tim Drake.

And if we go down that route, what does this say about Conner Kent and Bart Allen and Cassie Sandsmark and the other heroes like them? Because if Bruce is in the wrong for letting kids fight after Jason died, so are the other heroes who allow kids to keep fighting after one sidekick died on the job. Was Clark Kent raising a child soldier when he allowed Jon to fight crime? And it's also funny to me cause again, Tim Drake practically forced Bruce to take him on as Robin, with the explicit blessing of former Robin Dick Grayson, and Alfred Pennyworth. Everyone else was already in the life, and Bruce just helped them out. They would have done it regardless of him. So, to frame it in a manner as though he forced them into it, or he didn't care that Jason died and that it could happen to them too is wrong.

Perhaps it's because Batman is the most popular DC hero, perhaps it's because he's had the most sidekicks, perhaps it's because one of them died, but it's still not a correct argument. Again, there are very legitimate criticisms to be made of Bruce, ones I can agree with wholeheartedly, but this is not one of them. He is toxic and controlling and abusive to his kids, but they are not child soldiers. It is that very specific thing that I am objecting to. And that's what I think a lot of replies to my post misunderstand, because they're conflating Bruce being abusive with Bruce raising child soldiers, and I while I agree with their general point, I disagree with the framing and the inferences made from it. And then there are the people who inspired me to make the post, who are just wrong.

So, I do agree with a lot of the criticisms of Bruce and a lot of your points! I can see where the idea comes from considering how Bruce treats his kids, but I don't think the correct takeaway is that they are child soldiers specifically. Victims of abuse from Bruce? Sure. Not child soldiers. I hope this makes sense.

Thank you for your ask!

Just... gonna leave this here...

[codename-adler]

My niche aftg take is I think the most unrealistic part of the series is exy’s rise in popularity, like you’re not gonna make me believe that enough colleges were willing to bankroll a brand new co-ed sport (especially USC) that they were able to set up multiple NCAA divisions for it

is it really though? that unrealistic? look at us. literary wolves and escapism artists. caring about a book about a sport. i mean, we don’t even get to watch it! and still we fall. still we read. nora’s action scenes are written so fluidly and are such captivating parts of the story, it’s like waterfalls of gold cascading into the most neck-breaking riverbeds.

i do, however, understand that i have no mf clue about how sports league get birthed and how the NCAA works. i’m not even from the U.S. so perhaps you do have some ground to stand on…

what i’ll give you though, is that Exy’s creation seems a bit too quick to be plausible. but again that’s where suspension of disbelief needs to come in, and nora does the job well. she’s developed the sport enough to explain it and divide it very clearly, and to illustrate it, but the thing with Kayleigh and Tetsuji was shady as hell and murky at best. why to Japan? why wasn’t lacrosse enough? what was the study? how did Kayleigh Day, a woman in sports, convince the world? how many years did it take? when was Exy introduced in the Olympics? how did Kayleigh manage to make Exy mixed? how much involvement with the Moriyamas did she have? keep in mind that i have never and will never read the EC. the answers may be there but i’ve never known someone to speak about it…

my conclusion is that if we could really see a game, we’d get it. immediately. i don’t think we all fully realize how much skills, precision and smarts it takes to play Exy. it’s probably one of the most demanding sports out there, intellectually. there are so many factors to keep in mind, so much coordination to keep up.

also it’s fucking violent. with a wide, wide range of players, thus sizes. if you don’t stay for the refinery and superb techniques, you stay for the bloody, epic brawls. it’s a good show. lots of drama. it’s got everything, really.

anywhoo, anon, thank you for the ask. it was exactly what i wanted to know more about! it got me thinking, and i like that you stopped to imagine how exy would actually establish itself in the world, realistically. would love to catch a game with you.

[allylikethecat]

hellooooo ally!! i have officially read it’s christmas (so this is gonna be a nightmare) twice lucky me!!! what a treat!!! i have so many thoughts and feelings about the fic you don’t understand how much i love the trope/concept of fic!matty not being liked or accepted by people outside the band because of his “quirks” (serious and personal mental health/ addiction issues) because it’s just so unfair. perfect angst and also very realistic???? being written off as Bad News because he experiences hardships that are more scary and extreme than most people?? so wonderfully devastating and very real.

you aren’t allowed to apologise for the fic not being finished. you’ve done it to every other ask but i’m putting my foot down. no apology please!!! releasing it in parts just builds suspense anyways i love it.

now for the clumsy partner prompts!!! thankyou sooooo much for reblogging the list i feel very blessed. i’d like to request gatty 15, 16, 17 and 18 (they are all pretty similar so you could maybe combine some in one blurb? but obviously im not telling you how to write do whatever calls to you i just feel bad for requesting so many at once😅)

as always have a lovely rest of your day and i’m really looking forward to whatever you post next!!! love ya😇🩷

Hello! Thank you so, so, so much for reading the first bit of the Christmas fic not only once but TWICE! I hope it's lived up to the hype even if it's not finished yet. Poor Fictional!Matty just wants his future in laws to like him, because he's not the same person he was when he was in his early twenties, he's worked on himself and deserves to be given a chance! Also I will not apologize for the fic not being finished by Christmas as requested even though I am sorry that I didn't finish it - it will hopefully be finished by the end of January at the latest!

Also!! thank you so much for not only suggesting the clumsy partner prompts to me, but also sending in this prompt request! I wanted to challenge myself a little bit, so I actually (I think!) managed to weave all four of them into one fill! Let me know what you think! If this wasn't what you were looking for, let me know and I will rewrite them! (If anyone else wants to send in any prompts, the list can be found HERE)

Thank you so much for reading and sending in this ask and for always just being so lovely and wonderful and supportive! I'm so sorry that it's taken me a minute to get to some of your other prompt requests as well! I hope you enjoy this one though and I look forward to hearing your thoughts! Thank you again!!

❤️Ally

15. “I’m sorry I’m so much trouble, really.”

“Shhh, stop it. You're no trouble at all, zero.”

16. Their partner sometimes feeling that their clumsy tendencies ruin everything and them, actually finding it endearing. They are sure to let their partner know they love it.

17.  “Oh, I don’t want to mess it up.”

“You won’t mess it up, go on and give it a try.”

18. Makes it clear to their partner and anyone on the outside that just because they’re worried, doesn’t mean that their partner needs them or depends on them. It’s simply their partner allowing them to do the things that make them comfortable because they’re always worrying.

Matty knew he wasn’t the most coordinated person on the face of the Earth. He was always tripping over his feet, his head in the clouds as he bumped into things and other people, stumbling over curbs and spilling cups of coffee. George always had bandages in his backpack, and an extra Matty-sized shirt for when an inevitable incident occurred. His knees were permanently bruised and his palms forever scrapped. Despite George’s endless patience, and “I’ll kiss it betters” Matty wanted to die each time they were late for a meeting because Matty ate it in the parking lot. 

He had been horrible at sports as a child, his limbs never seeming to want to move the way he directed them, despite not being very large he felt like he had never properly grown into his body and developed the spacial awareness and grace that George seemed to carry. He had tried yoga but just grew frustrated at the disconnect he felt from his physical form and had quickly given up, citing some bullshit about not subscribing to George’s crunchy granola agenda. They both knew he was spouting nonsense. 

Thanks to Matty, they were going to be twenty minutes late to their first fully staged rehearsal for the new tour. Matty was so careful focusing on his footfalls, holding his Starbucks cup away from his body so it wouldn’t splash onto his white tee shirt. He wasn’t even wearing his airpods, he was making sure he was aware of his surroundings George until he tripped on a crack in the sidewalk. He managed to not only spill his coffee down his entire front, but bang his elbow on the cement so that it was now bleeding sluggishly. Matty sat on his ass in a puddle of coffee trying to comprehend what just happened while George looked on in mild horror.

“Are you alright?” George asked softly, voice thick with concern as he helped pull Matty to his feet, careful of his bleeding elbow, scarlet splatter bright against the white coffee stained fabric of his shirt. 

“I’m fine,” Matty said, his lower lip wobbling in frustration. He wanted to pull away from George’s grasp but wasn’t sure his shaking knees would support him on his own. His elbow stung and he wanted to cry in frustration. If he couldn’t walk down the street, how was he ever supposed to handle thirty nine North American tour dates? 

Today was supposed to be a good day, Matty thought hysterically, an important day, and as per usual not only were they late, it was his fault.

“Hey,” said George, tugging Matty into his arms, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “It’s okay, you’re okay. Let’s go get you patched up, I think I have an extra shirt in my bag.”

Because of course he had an extra shirt, because he knew that Matty couldn’t be expected to walk normally like an adult without spilling something. Matty should have woken up earlier and drank his coffee at home, sitting safely at the kitchen table. George led him through the doors of  the venue they were renting for rehearsal space, flashing their credentials to the security guard and following the signs in the hallway to lead him straight to the bathroom. 

“I’m sorry,” said Matty, his voice wet, fuck he really was about to start crying, as George helped him sit up on the lip of the sink so that he could clean his elbow with a damp brown paper towel. “I’m sorry I’m so much trouble, really.”

“Shhh, stop it.” said George, pulling away so that he could look Matty in the eyes. “You're no trouble at all, zero.” 

“But I’m always tripping over myself and ruining things,” Matty said with a sniffle. 

George threw the paper towel away and pulled a box of bandages and a small tube of antibiotic ointment out of his backpack. He dabbed the ointment gently against Matty’s scraped skin with a careful kindness that made Matty’s heart hurt. He didn’t deserve George. 

“It’s kind of cute,” George said quietly, after a moment, Matty swallowing a hiss of pain as the scrap stung. “Like obviously, I don’t like it when you get hurt, it makes me quite nervous actually, but you’re cute, like a baby deer discovering they have legs for the first time.” 

“A baby deer?” Matty asked, raising his eyebrow amongst the pain, his eyes still wet even as he tried to force a smile. 

“The cutest baby deer,” said George with a small grin, smoothing the bandage over Matty’s elbow before leaning down to press a kiss to the plaster. 

Matty just snorted in response, and hopped off the counter, pretending he didn’t notice the way George was hovering at his side, ready to reach out and grab him in case something went wrong. 

“Thanks,” he said, taking the offered black tee shirt from George and pulling off the now stained white one he was wearing. He pretended not to notice the way George was blatantly checking out his chest and stomach as if he didn’t see him naked on a daily basis. 

“It’s nice of you to join us,” said Ross smirking, “Even if you’re never beating the diva allegations, Healy.”  Matty sighed dramatically when they finally joined the group in front of the stage, his eyes going wide as he took in his vision come to life.

“I had a little mishap in the parking lot,” he admitted sheepishly, holding out his now bandaged elbow for Ross and Adam to see. 

“You’ve got to be more careful mate,” said Adam, ruffling Matty’s hair as they sat down on the sofa that had been brought into the space, and went over the stage show with Tobias. 

“I want to cut the song on the roof,” Matty said quietly after a moment, when the time came in the first run through for him to put on a harness and climb up onto the roof portion of their set. The music stopped as Matty chewed on his lower lip nervously. 

George blinked, that was a segment that Matty had been dead set on, and excited to perform, having chattered about the visual implications of doing so and how it furthered the story for weeks. 

“What?” George asked his expression of concern and confusion mirrored on Ross and Adam’s faces as well.

“Oh, I don’t want to mess it up.” Matty said softly with a shrug, “I’m so clumsy I’ll probably fall off the roof and traumatize our fan base or something.” 

“You won’t mess it up,” George assured him even if Ross and Adam looked skeptical.  “Go on and give it a try.”

Matty opened his mouth as if to argue but George just shook his head. “No, go on, try it out, there is a whole team of people that are going to make sure you’re okay, and you’ll have the harness so even if you do slip, you won’t fall far.” 

Matty swallowed hard but nodded, having needed the extra push from George, to disappear into the makeshift backstage. 

“You sure this is a good idea?” Ross asked quietly, stepping away from his microphone to make sure Matty didn’t hear him. “I was worried about it when he was all excited about it, but now if he’s even having second thoughts...” 

George shrugged, fiddling with one of the drum sticks. “I’m worried, obviously,” George said, “but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t support him, he wanted to do the song on the roof, so we should at least try the song on the roof, there are foot holes, and handles up there, plus he has a harness on to make sure even if he does fall he won’t fall far.” 

“You’re a better man than me,” said Adam, “I’d have Carly wrapped in bubble wrap if she was as accident prone as Matty.”

George shrugged, smiling when he looked up and saw Matty waving from the roof, before flashing a thumbs up. 

“We’re partners,” George reminded him, “and that means working together as a team.” 

[gothhabiba]

Can you talk about your opinions/understanding of Northanger Abbey? I've read it in class (and outside of it) and I do think the satire of the Gothic is a part of the novel, it's not necessarily critical of the Gothic imo but rather a re-imagining of how it appears in reality. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts if you're willing to share! :)

Northanger Abbey does undoubtedly reference the Gothic—in ways which are probably too well-known for me to need to chronicle them here—in fact a lot of my annoyance with this take is just how widespread and entry-level it is. So part of this is probably just weariness with hearing the same thing over and over again, lol. But mostly, my problem is that this is an (at best) partially-informed take that has very misogynistic implications if its logic is followed through.

To say (as some people in the fandom do) that NA was written with the sole intention of parodying the Gothic is a reduction of a commonly-made scholarly argument that was itself already reductive, and I’m irritated with how it’s become a truism on here. In order for NA to be nothing but a parody of the Gothic, the Gothic must therefore itself be unilateral, simple, ridiculous, consummately parodiable—and Jane Austen’s attitude towards it must be unilaterally hostile. And I don't believe that either of these things is true.

Firstly--the Gothic (insofar as you'll allow me to make such an abstraction) often does not itself participate in the modality that the incidents in NA (Catherine finding a shopping list instead of some kind of ancient incriminating document, for example) could be held to satirise. I doubt that a lot of the people parroting this talking point have actually read a Gothic novel! Sure, ancient documents and diaries are found and made use of in Gothic literature. But it is not true that Gothic literature always teaches that suspicion of dark deeds will bear fruit, that a paranoid and credulous modality is justified or unproblematic or will be rewarded with an object. The pattern of "heroine (or someone else) suspects something terrible, the reader is dragged along through spine-chilling suspense, both ultimately discover that there is a plausible non-horrible and non-supernatural explanation for the suspicious thing" already occurs in Gothic literature.

Large chunks of The Mysteries of Udolpho [spoilers maybe] are given over to providing reasonable explanations for things that were thought to be ghosts or corpses or extramarital affairs. At one point Emily falsely believes that her uncle-in-law Montoni (in whose power she remains for most of the narrative) is guilty of murdering a woman whom he did not murder. In fact Gothic novels often contain a lot of text that reads like writing in a conduct novel! There are mysteries and suspense and violence and the threat of violence and talk of ghosts and ancient diaries and murder and imprisonment--in between writing about the virtues of temperance and patience and the folly of being superstitious and paranoid, of believing anything too soon and with too little evidence. Superstitious characters (often servants) in Gothic novels are treated with amused contempt. And this tension within the Gothic has been frequently written about, with a common argument holding that all the conduct literature stuff provides plausible deniability about or ties a bow of respectability around what is nevertheless the proffered pleasure and titillation of fear, suspense, and violence. But, insofar as this tension does exist, it is too simple to say that a criticism of credulousness in NA makes it a satire of the Gothic, as though the Gothic were an unrestrained celebration of the pleasures of suspense and suspicion.

Secondly--NA's attitude towards this kind of credulousness is not wholly hostile, nor is Catherine wholly wrong, nor is the "picturesque" modality that is held up as an alternative to the Gothic exempt from the novel's parody. William Galperin writes about how the "picturesque" creates "theories" that are "at once aesthetic and political," and which influence the strictures of realist narrative as much as they influence landscape painting. In the picturesque mode, the supposedly unusual must be carefully removed from view and from narration (or, if it cannot be removed, must be included in a circumscribed way that denies it power to actually influence the narrative--the picturesque aestheticises the "roughness" of racial and economic "others" as part of a strategy of "containment"). And what a community accepts as 'realistic' versus what it rejects as 'improbable' does not necessarily line up with things as they 'really' are, but may represent a political determination to see or not to see certain things, to place certain things within or without a society's potential to imagine or admit. I get the sense that Henry's overreliance on--his credulous faith in--the picturesque is mocked throughout the novel: for instance, when he gives Catherine "a lecture on the picturesque" followed by a "short disquisition on the state of the nation" (ch. 14), or when he insists that it is completely impossible for a man to murder his wife in modern England (ch. 25).

Catherine's suspicions about General Tilney, on the contrary, follow a Gothic modality that does not automatically foreclose anything (except perhaps the supernatural) from the realm of possibility. General Tilney proves to be violent in a completely different way than Catherine had suspected, true--but again, this also occurs in The Mysteries of Udolpho, in which a man is suspected of murder but is in fact 'only' guilty of assuming patriarchal control of a young woman and dictating her movements. Insofar as the Gothic is a tool for working out feminine feelings and realities of powerlessness in the face of patriarchal control and violence, it is present in NA. I suppose we could call this a parody of the Gothic, but it is subtler, gentler, and more complex than many people understand. It incorporates and partially vindicates some Gothic modalities in an implicit but accessible counter-strain against that satire.

Claudia Johnson and Clara Tuite, in 30 Great Myths About Jane Austen, take on the "myth" that "Northanger Abbey is a spoof on Gothic fiction". They write:

[...] [T]he problem with believing Northanger Abbey to be a “spoof” is that it assumes the novel has only this single gag: to set Catherine up and watch her fall for one ridiculous Gothic exaggeration after another. But, if Northanger Abbey were an anti‐Gothic novel, establishing its norms of sanity, moderation, and good sense by invoking, ridiculing, and reversing the excesses of books such as Radcliffe’s, then the novel would end here, and it does not. Within three chapters, the General throws Catherine out of his house, because (we later learn) she is discovered not to be as rich as he had imagined. This act falls short of the grandeur of murder, to be sure, but it is actually quite an homage to Radcliffe, in whose novels the quest for wealth and status is the general mainspring of the drama. To underrate the seriousness of the General’s behavior toward Catherine is to imply that gentlemen are not to be judged on the basis of their callous violence to vulnerable girls, which Gothic novels emphatically insist on doing. General Tilney’s expulsion of Catherine is grossly uncivil in the deepest sense, exhibiting insolence toward inferiors, indifference to the good opinion of neighbors, and contempt for the rules of hospitality and gentlemanliness, all the decencies Henry Tilney had associated with the safeguards of English authority at its most benign. By the novel’s end, Catherine concludes that Gothic novels actually taught her what no one and nothing else could: “in suspecting General Tilney of either murdering or shutting up his wife, she had scarcely sinned against his character, or magnified his cruelty” (NA, 256). The terms of Catherine’s conclusion deserve our attention, for Austen has turned the table on us: having found herself, like all good Gothic heroines, obliged to endure a villain’s wrath alone, Catherine vindicates Gothic hyperbole, and it is Henry rather than Catherine who looks like the naive, credulous one. (pp. 45-6)

All in all, to pick up on, repeat, and exaggerate the ways in which the narrative (gently) mocks its heroine for her credulity while missing, ignoring, and burying the ways in which the narrative (gently) mocks its hero for his ignorance and unearned sense of intellectual superiority--to take Henry's dialogue as the voice of the narrator, to read into Henry's dialogue the 'moral' of the narrative itself--is a shallow reading, and it hints at a lot of misogynist bias in the people peddling it imo. It is always a mistake in Austen to take any character's dialogue as the voice of the narrator or author, but somehow it's mostly Henry and Mr. Knightley (characters who scold their female love interests) who are valorised this way. This whole take is very much "dude professor writing in 1967 who loves scolding female characters for being stupid and wants Henry Tilney to fuck him." I would really, really, love to move beyond this take!!

Galperin, William. “The Picturesque, the Real, and the Consumption of Jane Austen.” The Wordsworth Circle 28.1 (Winter 1997), pp. 19–27.

Johnson, Claudia, and Clara Tuite. 30 Great Myths About Jane Austen. John Wiley & Sons, 2020.

[rusakkowrites]

For the alphabet asks:

A, B, C, O, W, X

(Reducedv to the most important because I'm on my phone and can't look at the questions while typing...and I can't just say all 26 ;)

Yay, thanks for the ask! <3

A - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.

There are many, but my current particular favourites are Emma Woodhouse/George Knightley and Aral Vorkosigan/Cordelia Naismith.

B - A pairing–platonic, romantic or sexual–that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.

Caroline Bingley/Colonel Fitzwilliam. I ended up writing it as part of a gift exchange because it was one of my recipient's requests. While I initially treated it more as a fun writing exercise, I gradually grew genuinely invested in the ship.

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

Mary Bennet/Colonel Fitzwilliam. I just can't see it happening based on their book characterisation, and I don't really enjoy out-of-character portrayals in fic. The Colonel likes lively, charming, pretty girls and needs to marry money. Mary is not lively or charming, she is less pretty than her sisters, and she has a very small dowry. And Mary doesn't seem to share her younger sisters' fondness for men in uniform (though admittedly I suspect that she wouldn't be too picky if a respectable man took an interest in her). Putting Mary and the Colonel together feels like pairing the spares with little regard for the characters' canon personalities. No hate for anyone who likes this ship, but it feels a bit too unlikely and contrived to me.

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

I used a random song generator for this, and it gave me Adventure of a Lifetime by Coldplay. I wasn't previously familiar with the song and didn't immediately get an "omg, it's so this character" feeling from it. After thinking about it a bit, though, I feel like it's actually a pretty good fit for Dag Redwing and Fawn Bluefield from Lois McMaster Bujold's Sharing Knife series. The themes of finding your will to live again and choosing your own path in life certainly fit, as do the mentions of adventures and magic.

W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

This is a tough one, because I feel like almost all tropes can be written in a way that I enjoy, though some very rarely are. But if I have to pick one, I'd say the Moustache-Twirling Villain trope, because I find these kinds of one-dimensional, evil-for-the-sake-of-evil villains really boring. I much prefer mundane villains who have realistic motivations (like selfishness, greed or the like).

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

Does dramatic irony count as a trope? Well, I'm counting it anyway. I love when the reader knows more than the characters and can enjoy watching the events unfold (or suffer from the unbearable suspense of knowing that the characters are about to royally mess up).

[thenerdyindividual]

Merlin Week Day 3 -- Favorite Dynamic + Quote

Also Cross Posted to AO3

It was difficult to pick my favorite dynamic. There is not a single dynamic in Merlin that I don’t like, even ones that makes me angry such as Arthur and his relationship to Uther. The writing and casting was done so well that everyone’s chemistry strengthened the story. I’ve written so much about how Merlin and Arthur’s relationship makes me go feral, but I decided to change it up. While the narrative implications of Arthur and Gwen don’t make me as wild as the narrative implications of Merlin and Arthur, I do think that Arwen (gwenthur?) was the right choice for the show. BBC Merlin really earned the romance between Arthur and Gwen.

Part of what makes them work so well for me, other than the fantastic chemistry between Angel Colby and Bradley James, is that we get a sense of their characters before the show introduces them as romantic pairing. They didn’t have to do that. Arthur and Guinevere have been a couple since the Arthurian Era, they are perhaps the most well-known couple in western story telling. The only couple I can think of that might be more well-known is Romeo and Juliet. As such, the writers could have easily fallen back on that collective knowledge and copped out of developing Gwen and Arthur’s relationship, relying on the audience to buy into it because we know that it’s meant to happen. However, they spent more time developing that relationship than I’ve seen in some actual romances.

We get to know Gwen outside of her relationship to Arthur. She hardly interacts with him in season 1, instead primarily interacting with Morgana and Merlin. We learn that she is kind, helpful, and a bit anxious, but has a spine of steel that comes out when she needs it. She gives Merlin a flower because she thinks it will suit him, babbles nervously when she thinks she might have offended someone, tries to cheer Morgana up when she experiences nightmares, helps Merlin whip up a knight’s regalia for Lancelot, and teaches Merlin how to properly armor people. On the flip side, she stands up to Arthur in Ealdor both to argue for the inclusion of the women in the fighting force and to tell him not to turn his nose up at food, and she risks herself to get the morteus flower out of the dungeons to get it to Gaius. She is not a main character, but we know her well by the end of season 1. Enough that we love her on her own, for her own merits.

We get to know Arthur too. We learn that how he is perceived is important to him; both when he refuses to pull out of the fight against Valiant for fear of being perceived as weak, and when he reacts badly to being taunted by Anhora’s illusion in the Labyrinth of Gedref. We also learn that most of his behavior is performative, and that at his heart he is kind and loyal. He defies Uther to get the Morteus Flower and to aid Ealdor even though it lies in an enemy kingdom, and he smuggles Mordred out of Camelot. He also argues on Gwen’s behalf when she is accused of sorcery, for no other reason than he thinks it the right thing to do. He doesn’t expect any reward, and given Uther’s hatred of sorcery, it is reasonable to think speaking up could have caused Arthur to be punished by Uther.

They are complete characters before they ever strike up a romance. I think that is vital to making their romance (or any romance) work. It’s difficult to invest in a relationship between two characters when you’re not invested properly in both characters. By giving the audience time to bond with Gwen and Arthur both, we now care deeply about what happens to them.

Another thing they did well was to slow play their feelings. A lot of romances end up straining the willing suspension of disbelief because they will fall into the trap of making characters who only just realized their feelings for each other be willing to give up the entire world for each other. In the case of Arthur and Gwen, not only did we have an entire season to get to know them as individual characters, but their romantic feelings also aren’t introduced immediately in season 2. Arthur doesn’t recognize his feelings as romantic until he spends a week couch surfing at Gwen’s house during season 2 episode 2. Even then, when he does recognize his feelings, Gwen is surprised by it, and he doesn’t start proclaiming he wants to defy Uther and run off with her. We also get the introduction of Gwen’s feelings for Lancelot, which works well to make the romance feel earned. It would have been easy for the writers to have Arthur and Gwen kiss, and then keep referring to that to make the audience buy into the relationship. By including Lancelot, someone who is equally as noble as Arthur and has an easier time being kind, it prevents Gwen from being shoehorned into choosing Arthur. There are other options out there that would have been good for her, so when she does inevitably choose Arthur, it’s a lot easier for us to accept she is entering this relationship with an understanding of herself and the man she chooses.

Then, even after all that, the barriers to their relationship don’t magically dissolve under the power of love. We then get walked through a slow burn that isn’t placed there for the drama, but for reasons that have been well-established already. We already know that Uther won’t accept commoners in court because of the way he treated Lancelot, and by extension we know he won’t stand for Gwen being his daughter in law for that reason alone. However, it is also not as simple as waiting for Arthur to be king before going public with their relationship. We already know that Camelot’s relative peace with other kingdoms is only upheld by honoring treaties, and that insult can bring them crashing down. Camelot and Bayard’s Kingdom almost go to war during a treaty meeting where Merlin accuses Bayard of Poisoning the goblet, and when Alined tires to disrupt peace treaty negotiations between his kingdom, Olaf’s Kingdom, and Camelot by making Arthur and Vivian fall in love. Knowing this, we understand that Arthur will need to make peace connections of his own, so it comes as no surprise when Uther tries to marry him to Elena. It further explains the odds set against Arthur and Gwen’s romance, and makes us feel for their struggle. Despite the odds set against them, however, they still yearn. Every lingering look in the halls, every time they joke about something in the course of their daily duties and stand together a bit too long, heightens both how much they feel for each other, and how impossible it seems for them to get together.

It is heartbreaking in the way that their affection for each other is so obvious, but they can’t say it out loud. Arthur’s first proper love confession makes my heart hurt every time I rewatch the show. He can’t acknowledge his feelings about Gwen without risking their forbidden romance from being discovered, and he’s so used to it that even when he explicitly states his feelings, he does it in a round about way. After rescuing Elyan, Gwen thanks him for his help, and his response is a wistful look and “That’s what you do when love someone.” He tells her exactly how he feels, but is still unable to say “I love you” and there is something so deeply Romantic about it.

On top of how well paced their arc is, Gwen and Arthur are just wonderful together. By season 4 they have been teasing and joking with each other for years. They also get into so many shenanigans. Their relationship started because Gwen aided Arthur’s hairbrained scheme to anonymously compete in a tournament, but earlier than that they both snuck away to help Ealdor. Arthur lies to Uther in order to rescue Elyan, and Gwen brings two silk dresses to Arthur after so he has proof for his lie. They are so often in cahoots with each other, that it sets a framework for what kind of partnership they will have when they can be open about their relationship. Not only that, but Gwen and Arthur reenforce the hidden good in one another. Gwen’s humble beginnings remind Arthur of his core kindness, and she is responsible for much of the gentling of Arthur over the seasons. Arthur’s gratitude for Gwen’s help remind Gwen that she can and should stand up for herself and others, it takes her from a young woman who babbles helplessly when Uther sentences he to death, to a young woman who can look that same king in the face and sneer, “I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand.”

Gwen and Arthur fit so well together, and the writers never underutilized their chemistry or circumstances.  Every moment between them serves to support the tone and themes of the show.

[wack-ashimself]

Odd, off-skelter, dark humor, gore.

That is 'Psycho Goreman.' 2020.

Before I dive I want to say the lead kid was the single most easy to hate kid I think I've ever seen in anything. YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO HATE HER AND YOU FUCKING DO. I was seriously, deep in thought thinking 'what starring kid has ever fucking annoyed me this much?' And all I could come up with was Home Alone (he's kinda a prick).

Movie is about a little girl, who is a sociopathatic, narcissistic, bullying, annoying, loud, judgemental little fuck head who (I don't care: spoilers) is still the same piece of shit at the end of the movie. She learns fuck all.

HOWEVER, she was written that way, and acted perfectly. Like, the casting of this movie worked so well, I wouldn't replace a single actor even with a-list stars. Serious. PERFECT CASTING FOR EVERY ROLE. Can't say that about even some of your fav movies, ya know?

See-weird/odd/stupid humor is hard to do. You tread that line of suspension of belief SO-GOD-DAMN-HARD, that if you tread over it too much, you lose the audience. Cuz it's what I like to call 'weird for weird's sake.' You try to be weird to be weird; not make a point or even be artistic. It's like art for art's sake; are you making a point by not making a point?

ANYWAYS, they do that AND make it a GOREY (not in a really believable way) goofy playful dark comedy? AND IT ALL WORKS? That takes...one big team effort. Kudos. Like could you imagine if they fucked up one special effect, and it took HOURS to reset?

So the little fucker I was talking about gets a gem that controls an evil demon alien god. And cuz she's a little fucker, she hurts a lot of people, intentionally and unintentionally. The whole movie is 'I wonder if a kid who DEFINITELY needs therapy and military school got the powers to control a god?' And it goes to shit as fast as you would think.

I ain't gonna say anything else plot wise. Because it is equal parts semi unpredictable, and TOTALLY BONKERS RANDOM at some points; it's worth the whole ride.

I just wanted to end before I gave the verdict that the special effects, ESPECIALLY on the budget they had, were some of the best I have ever seen. Cuz they're almost all practical; and that's a lot of fucking hands on work. It was FUN to watch the special effects. The alien council alone was so detailed when, for how little scenes they had, they didn't have to be. I respect that extra effort. And I am not into gore or horror at all. Only thing is it sometimes sucked cuz they edited so fast, you didn't get to truly soak it in.

So if you want a fucking weird, surreal, dark, playful (I say that cuz the kids invent their own fucking game. That's creative), gory horror comedy, this is for you. Closest I could say it's like? 'Dale & Tucker vs Evil' meets 'John Dies at the End.' So if you liked those two, I almost promise this is up your alley.

Psycho Goreman: 8/10. Solid movie, worth multiple watches. Just some of the best comedy was at the beginning, so a few scenes drag at the end.

ps-fav part? I was gonna say how everyone swears without swearing (frig), but I would say...the ending. Not gonna tell you why, but...it's so over the top, it works. IT WORKS. Remember above how I said it drags past mid way? The ending makes it worth it.

[seeingteacupsindragons]

What, in you opinion, makes a good prequel to a story or series?

I think there's three very important factors to remember in making a prequel, that are often not considered as well as they should be.

The audience knows, ultimately, how things turn out afterward. No one is there for the suspense of figuring out what happens. You have to invest them in the how it happens.

Choosing the beginning of a story is very important, and the beginning of the story was already chosen. Therefore, a different story needs to be told--this cannot become the new "beginning" of the story.

It cannot simply exist to explain things that didn't need explaining in the original: they didn't need explaining! It needs to tell its own story as its own narrative as part of a larger whole. Relying on the audience's excitement about a different story is never going to invest someone in a different one.

I don't think most people would call the Star Wars prequel trilogy particularly "good" as a whole, but I do think it actually managed this, mostly:

The end to a tragedy is already forgone. Therefore, telling a tragic villain origin can really work as a prequel. The end is already determined, no matter how they struggle and fight against it. You can also sort of see bits of this in Rogue One.

While other Star Wars prequels do mess this part up, the Prequel Trilogy really didn't try to tell the same story of Luke and the rebellion. It told another story, of how the empire came to be. Luke's story begins when two new droids come into his life. Period.

It tells the story of a tragic hero and a villain origin. It's not simply an extension of the other story. There are some moments in there that "explain" the original--how R2-D2 and C-3P0 got involved, or example, but there are others...but frankly, those are some of the weaker moments of the story anyhow.

So I think, if the story and writing of the prequel trilogy were stronger, it could've help up, narratively. It has some good opening choices, but frankly the tragedy didn't draw a lot of people in because it didn't feel compelling to them, what story was being told wasn't quite clear from the beginning, etc. Those are just story issues in general and not really related to it being a prequel.

Let's consider a prequel I liked more. The Magician's Nephew, the 6th written of the 7 Narnia books, yet set first (and intended by Lewis to be ordered first chronologically).

The story ends with the formation of Narnia and the set up to what it will be come by the time Lucy discovers it.

It focuses on Digory's story, not the Pevensie kids, and instead shows how the Pevensie kids' story could even happen and set up the pieces to start it.

While it does choose to explain the wardrobe and Narnia's existence, those explanations are still completely rooted in, "IDK it's magic," so it doesn't really take away from the magic of the wardrobe or the magic of Narnia or the magic of the Witch. It doesn't spend any time trying to explain how people world hop: they just do, and the method changed a little. So there's maybe some small excitement at seeing Digory as a child or what eventually turns into the wardrobe, but these are minor parts of a story that aren't really what the story hinges on for investment.

Or, let's try Wicked, which isn't written by the original author but is still a prequel of sorts.

Another tragic villain origin.

Tells a completely different story from Dorothy's. This story is set in Oz from start to finish and barely has any of the same characters--and the characters that are the same are there to show a different perspective and depth to them, too.

There are very few cameos of anything but characters, and the characters are less cameos and more them doing something else to extend them as characters.

Now let's go over some prequels that mess one of these.

I feel like Rogue One actually screws up two and three: it tries to restart Star Wars: A New Hope. It extends the beginning further into not just Leia being confronted, not Luke setting off on a path of self discovery, but how Leia even got to be in the position to be confronted at all. It tries to tell the story of how they got the plans. The end of Rogue One is just the beginning of A New Hope, so it doesn't feel like a distinct story. It tries to explain things that, ultimately, never needed to be explained for the story to work: why the Death Star had a flaw (who cares, it does, sometimes that happens, nothing can be perfect, etc.), how Leia got the plans (who cares; she does, people died to get them to her, there were spies, that's all that matters to Star Wars, because what matters is what happens because she has them).

The Dawn of Amber books. Literally even looking at the Goodreads summary of the series is just a list of "Readers will discover (answer to question no one needed)!" The story doesn't need to have an explanation for what Amber "is" or what forces create it or why it was created. It simply is. It's literally a metaphor, stop.

So, I think you should consider when writing a prequel: What is this story?

[weepingnightmarenaruto]

I think a lot Of Naruto fans makes things a lot harder than it needs to be. Explaining why things in Naruto are the way they are is actually pretty easy.

If it’s female character related-> Kishimoto is a misogynist

“This relationship was badly written” (platonic ones) -> 1. Kishimoto, like many shounen authors, does not know what friendship is. 2. Probably didn’t have time for it. 3. If it’s about Team 7 Kishimoto was pressured by his editors to get to the chunnin exams faster. 4. It involves at least 1 side character and Kishimoto doesn’t care about those.

If it’s about the romantic relationships -> 1. Kishimoto doesn’t like to write it. 2. If it involves a female character, then that’s why. 3. Naruto is about friendship, not romance. 4. Kishimoto is a huge troll and liked to hold the ships that involves team 7 members ambiguous. (He didn’t want to pick a side until the end because of the suspense that came with it.) 5. The shipping wars were probably good advertisement or something. Kishimoto (and shounen jump) also probably thought it was a little bit funny.

“This thing doesn’t make any sense” -> 1. Kishimoto is a shit writer. 2. He made things up as he wrote the story. 3. He also wrote and drew 700 chapters in the span of 15 years, that’s like almost 50 chapters a year. 4. Mangakas have very hectic schedules and have very little opportunity to go back and review what they have already written. This is going to cause inconsistencies.

“This plot point in shippuden contradicts something that was said in part 1/earlier in Shippuden” -> 1. Kishimoto didn’t plan out the story and he wrote things as he went. 2. He had to do it because it was necessary to explain this plot point he just came up with. 3. He probably also forgot.

“Why is the power scaling so bad in the later half of shippuden” -> 1. The Uchihas 2. Mangekyo Sharingan and Rinnegan 3. Tailed beast bomb 4. Needed for the war arc to work 5. Kishimoto made the antagonists to strong and needed to make Sasuke and Naruto stronger to counter it.

“Why wasn’t this plot resolved/ resolved better” -> 1. Kishimoto doesn’t care about it. 2. War arc.

“Why didn’t this character get the attention I wanted them to get” -> 1. It’s a side character 2. Kishimoto doesn’t care about them 3. If they are a woman, that’s why.

“Why was the systemic critique part of the plot handled so poorly towards the end” -> 1. It was never handled well to begin with 2. Kishimoto gave up on it after the Wave arc (this was the only time it was actually handled well. 3. Kishimoto usually stays in this weird middle ground for most of the story where he chooses to criticise some aspects of the system, while he ignores others (the chunnin exams are a perfect example of this). 4. The characters that criticise the system are always the antagonists, and this never changes. Which means you should have seen it coming. 5. Kishimoto probably didn’t know how to develope/write it properly, and found the thought of resolving it hard. 6. You give it more thought than Kishimoto probably did. 7. Kishimoto does not think through the implications of what he wrote 8. Also, Kishimoto is not a leftist.

[sflow-er]

Hi Sflow! Hope your having a good writing day :)

May I ask you 14, 30 and 39? (If you don't like or don't feel comfortable with any of these feel free to skip/ignore them).

Thank you!

Hi!! <3 I am, thank you. Lost a bit of time on a couple of unexpected things but most of it has been productive. And these are really interesting questions, thank you so much for the ask! :)

14. Are there any tropes you would only read if written by a trusted friend or writer?

Honestly? Anything too dark (e.g. abusive relationships), or even just super explicit smut. I generally steer clear of such content, but I might make an exception for a writer who I know is really excellent and/or a close friend. There's also other stuff I don't particularly enjoy, such as love triangles and cheating, so those can sometimes fall into this category too.

30. Have you ever written something that was out of your comfort zone? If so, what was it, and how did it affect your approach to writing fic thereafter?

God yeah. I think everyone who's read 'Other people's secrets' or seen me rambling about it here knows all the stuff about asexuality was extremely personal to me and putting it out there was therefore well out of my comfort zone. It profoundly changed my writing, as I'm no longer afraid of writing about it (or other personal stuff), and I will probably keep doing that in some form.

But I'm sure you'd like to learn something new that was out of my comfort zone to even write, so... I can also reveal that I once wrote kind of graphic smut. I was 18/19 and it felt like the story I was writing needed it and the readers probably expected it - so I went ahead and wrote some, basically just emulating stories I'd seen and read. At the time, I still thought the parts I felt disconnected from would make sense to me one day, and in a way, writing it was fine. It really did fit the story, and the feedback was extremely positive. But I also knew I never wanted to do it again, so all my stories since then have either faded to black or just not included sex at all.

Right now, I'm at a place where I'm open to including sex in some form if the story demands it, but I don't think I'll ever write anything even remotely explicit again.

39. Is any aspect of your writing process inspired by other writers or people? If so, who?

Wow, what an interesting question! Maybe my compulsive planning, research and obsession with detail. It's partly inspired by my work as a translator, but I'd say part of it has definitely been affected by authors I've read. I'm sure there are many, but only two come to mind right now.

One of them was an author I don't want to name because she's an awful, toxic, dangerous person. She doesn't deserve the credit, but her ability to hide hints about future events in the series in the early books really impressed me when I was young (it seemed to demonstrate some serious planning). I must stress that I had no idea what she was like, and I was completely blind to all the problematic aspects of the books at the time. I'm sorry to even allude to her now.

On a more positive note, I'd say Don Rosa has also been a pretty big influence! Not sure if you know him, but he's a now-retired comic book artist whose history/adventure stories are some of the most meticulously researched and detailed I've ever enjoyed in any medium. Through that realism, he manages to create levels of suspense, drama, and sometimes even emotional tension that are simply incredible (for example, I get goosebumps just thinking about this one scene set in a burning saloon). This is all particularly impressive because Rosa's protagonist is none other than (a young version of) Disney's Scrooge McDuck! So in a way he's actually a pretty good idol for fanfic writers, haha.

Thank you so, so much for the ask! I hope you're having a lovely night. <3

Ask list for reference.

[genuflectx]

Terato Book Review: The Mabon Feast (Wheel of the Year #1)

The first novel I reviewed was a sci-fi story I didn’t care much for, so this time I thought I’d go with more fantasy!  The first half has vague spoilers, such as descriptions of sex and if there was a happy end or not. Under the cut you’ll find a longer review with detailed spoilers. Here we go!

The Mabon Feast (Wheel of the Year #1) by C.M. Nascosta. The premise is that a witch, Elizabeth “Ladybug,” has lost all her family and has been cast out of her coven. As a result her income dwindles and she takes on a tenate into her huge house, who happens to be of a mysterious arachnid species (i.e. a drider) named Anzan. He’s quiet and keeps to himself, but over the course of a few months, and as Ladybug prepares to celebrate a religious holiday alone, things between them change.

Let’s get out our pros and cons list!!

PROS

- This is a short novella, possibly no longer than 35,000 words, that you can read in one sitting. This makes it a perfect little read for something that’s short, full of heart, and steamy.

- The prose is really well written and imagery is very vivid. I was never left confused.

- The plot itself is not incredibly difficult to follow. Plot simplicity may be a pro for some and con for others- but for me the easy plot works well for its length and is a pro. 

- I found all the characters empathetic and engaging- which is really just Ladybug and Anzan. They both have interesting personalities and unique character traits (which should be the bare minimum, but after the last novel I read you’d be surprised). 

- Anzan is very much a big spider, like the cover art! He has unique genitals.

- This is explicit erotica, so it’s not a spoiler they have sex. There’s a lot of build up to it, and then it doesn’t disappoint. The suspense was one of my favorite parts.

CONS

- It’s short. I finished it in about two hours and a half. For me this isn’t a big deal; it’s the length of a novella and does what it needs to do, and does it well. But I understand for others short length may be a con so I’m adding it.

- Yes, prose is vividly descriptive. But it’s also incredibly flowery and I sometimes felt overwhelmed by scenes that didn’t really need that amount of flowery detail. Some paragraphs would get awkwardly packed full of information. I think Nascosta could have done well to find a middle ground.

- A little about Anzan’s past is revealed closer to then end, but I think I would have liked to know a little more about him as a person. He’s elusive and mysterious for most of the story, and that nugget was all we got about him. 

- Though the sex scene was pretty fun and hot, its pacing did come off as a bit rushed once they got into it.

- Anzan’s appearance changes over a few months, and I have thoughts about that best left under the cut due to spoilers. In general I just don’t think the change was explained well.

★    ★    ★  FINAL RATINGS:

Monstrousness: 7/10 Eroticism: 9/10 Story: 7/10 Characters: 8/10

MY FINAL SCORE: 8/10 (Awesome!)

SPOILERS

I really did enjoy this short little novella! It reads like the erotic monster stories you see other’s share for free on Tumblr. The descriptions were great but sometimes they were so wordy that the main point of the paragraph got lost. One particularly long paragraph had Ladybug getting her hair done- and she goes on this looooong as balls train of thought about... I can’t even remember because it was so wordy and generally not plot relevant. Parts of it lead into the coming paragraphs, yes, but most of it could be cut down and the story would lose nothing. That was really my only gripe with the writing style, otherwise  Nascosta really paints pictures in your mind!

Anzan was a really fun character. Something about this strange willowy arachnid man showing up and then just... not seeing him for months. You know he’s there, you can hear him, he pays rent. But you never see him leave. I really do wish we learned more about his personality and past. However, the way Nascosta implies why he showed up at Ladybug’s door at all was brilliantly done. She never directly has him say “I was cast out.” She has him explain how his species casts out the 2nd unmarried son- implying that’s why he appeared out of nowhere and why so far from home. Just awesome.

I don’t know how I feel about him going from sickly to jacked af though. Being in the terato community I can assume this was related to being in heat, but sometimes Ladybug’s thoughts made it seem like she tried to reason it off as Anzan eating well and... exercising? However, the idea of guy going from so weak that his spider legs don’t look like they can hold his weight to guy looking like a bodybuilder was almost humorously goofy. I think if she explained in more detail that maybe this was a result of really hyped up hormones (like natural steroids) from being in heat it would have been a bit more believable. But maybe Ladybug just didn’t think of that, so thus the author didn’t write it in.

I really enjoyed wondering wtf Ladybug did to get cast out of her coven. The whole story she’s so sad, crying under the moon, feeling like she shamed her family. Then she accepts that no matter that she was cast out- she’s still a witch and her reasons were sound. Finally near the end Nascosta tells us she was cast out for refusing to kill babies in a ritual. That sentence alone tells you a LOT about Ladybug vs. the society of witches she’d grown up in. Great world building in just a short piece of information.

Overall this novella was really well put together! It has a compelling, emotional plot, intense build up to the sex scenes, and characters that you can’t help but feel invested in. Only book #1 is out (as of 6/14/2022) but I could see myself reading the next iteration if these two are a part of it. The only reason I don’t rate it higher than 8 is, honestly, personal preference. But it’s still a great read! I’d say give this novella a try if you haven’t already.

This marks the 5th book I’ve read for my terato reading list! I’ll be looking for more works to add to the list so I can publish it here on Tumblr soon owo

[misty-wisp]

For you what is the criteria to making a Fic Correctly?

For me, it really depends on the fic, so I think I'll focus on some more basic ideas for general writing tips.

If you're looking to write a solid, good fic to read, I'd say you'll want to know what kind of story you're going for more than anything. Give it an interesting premise, and a solid outline with a clear idea of how you want it to begin and end. Along the way, you're bound to come up with scenes you'll really want to write because you think they'd be perfect for the story, and that's a good thing! All your favorite scenes to write will be sprinkled throughout the story, and all you really need to do is tie them all together with the story's flow.

Another good idea to take in is to learn and practice proper grammar and formatting, since it's an essential life skill and also something you can play around with to make your story more enjoyable! I personally like to mess with formatting to give my writing more suspense at times.

As for characters, I think a good idea would be to analyze them in the source material before anything, so that you'll be able to grasp how to write them more easily. It's also helpful for when you want to write them the slightest bit out of character in, say, an AU while still making them recognizable as the same character from their source!

Honestly though, if you're looking to write a fic the "correct" way, all you really need to do is write whatever you want! Fanfic is supposed to be something we do for fun, y'know? There shouldn't be any stress to making sure your fic's good or well-written. Sure, everyone's got their preferences for their stories, but the most important part of fanfic is that you're writing for yourself :]