#like it was engagingly terrible

[beatricebidelaire]

from the link

This dazzling memoir from the writer better known as Lemony Snicket (a nom de plume whose origins he hilariously explains here) delves deeply into every aspect of his life. Each section effortlessly shifts from the sublime—such as his literary and cultural influences, particularly the poetry of Baudelaire—to the banal, then the deeply silly, and then back to another immensely readable description of the writers and artists he loves (he includes a short reading list at the end of the most notable works he mentions since he discusses so many). In stupendously written, engagingly conversational prose, Handler candidly covers a wide range of topics and experiences—his mental health struggles, his sexuality, his terrible early attempts at writing, and some shocking trauma. Handler also thoughtfully probes what to include and not include in a memoir, and throughout there are a lot of laugh-out-loud moments. Handler’s army of devoted fans will be delighted with this imitable memoir, while his fascinating experiences and approaches to writing will engage all readers interested in how writers write and why. Thought-provoking, deeply personal, and like few other memoirs in the range of topics covered, Handler’s mix of the personal and the literary is as compelling as his gloriously off-beat fiction.— Alexander Moran

[tigerballoons]

🌧️ August books 🌧️

Yeah so I have no excuse this month, and actually the boat problem is worse than we thought...

🔹 The Island of the Day Before - 3⭐

A seventeenth century nobleman is shipwrecked on the date line. I don't know about anyone else, but I find that with Eco's books you need to already know something about the subject in order to appreciate them. While this one does touch on the search for a method to reliably establish longitude, it's also about seventeenth century mysticism. There's lots of long descriptive passages which go over the same thing over and over again. I've had it for years, so at least I can now say I've read it...

🔹 The Lieutenant - 3⭐

To set the scene here: my friend wants to tour the little free libraries of Mildura. I'm going along, but have no intention of picking anything up this early in the trip. Then I see this title... 🤦 It tells the story of the establishment of Sydney, NSW, and how one of the settlers becomes disillusioned with his own culture after making friends with the native people. Based on true events!

🔹 Out of the Ice - 3⭐

Laura is a scientist working in Antarctica, sent to do a survey of an abandoned village near a secretive base. Terrible secrets are uncovered. It's engagingly written which gets it an extra star, but the rest of it isn't up to it. The abandoned whaling station is a great setting, although the plot turns on it being built on the ice. Not on land like they actually were. The mystery is extremely OTT and not even remotely plausible. It's very Modern Fear ™️. Disappointing because the setting has such promise.

🔹Phaedrus - 3⭐

Do I actually have to rate this? I have no opinions on this as a translation and we know I'm not really here for the philosophy either... 😂 It has been useful though. I have a lot more context for some of the things Ralph is saying in The Charioteer, especially the line about "trying to turn it into a religion". I'm even more convinced the poor boys are doomed to fail when they take this as their model.

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Color of Night (Rush, 1994)

Two things I learned about this movie's reception:

Reviews at the time of release were not kind, and awards it received include a Worst Picture Razzie and a Worst Actor award for Bruce Willis at the Stinkers Bad Movie Awards.

A less dubious honour earned by the movie is the #1 ranking on a Maxim Magazine list of the best sex scenes of all time.

If I can try to address the first point, I imagine in an era where tacky erotic thrillers were in abundant supply in cinemas, it might have been easy to dismiss the movie's level of exaggeration as unintentional or miscalculated. I'm approaching this movie in 2023 as part of an erotic thriller retrospective on the Criterion Channel (this is the first one I went to, although a few of the other movies I'd seen before), but also with knowledge of and ready access to the giallo movies which this movie seems to echo, so that level of exaggeration reads to me more readily as conscious influence. Had this been released a decade earlier, when Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill, with its Americanized giallo stylings, was fresher in the collective memory, would it have been better received?

As for the second point, I don't know if this is the "best" sex scene I've seen in a non-pornographic movie, but it might be the "most", transporting from a pool to a bed through elaborate choreography and the magic of editing. The heroine is so cartoonish a sexpot, dramatically dropping her clothes at the earliest opportunity and later cooking with nothing on but an apron, that little of what transpires in the movie plays with any real sexual tension or eroticism, although I should disclose that as a straight man I did not find the sight of Jane March in the nude to be entirely unpleasant. But this portrayal can also be chalked up to narrative developments, which are sold by the cheerful illogic of the movie. Without spoiling too much (although a close enough look at certain characters' faces will reveal many of the movie's mysteries), like its inspirations, this does not present a terribly sensitive portrayal of mental illness, positing that it can be resolved by the power of good dick. (Alas, the version of the Criterion Channel is not the international cut, which I understand shows Bruce's Willie.)

All of these references to inspirations would be for moot were the movie not engagingly executed, but Richard Rush cranks up the style to match the story's daffiness, shooting this in DePalmaVision, with split diopters, aggressive rack focus, reflections and refractions, fracturing the images into the weird collective headspace in which it resides. We even get some of the De Palma touches in the characters, with Ruben Blades playing a cantankerous cop in the mold of Dennis Franz with the added character trait of being Hispanic (this isn't a Dennis Franz character, what are you talking about bro, check out all the Spanish he's dropping mid-sentence). Add to that a stalk and slash sequence in the form of a car chase, fun supporting roles by Lesley Ann Warren, Brad Dourif, Lance Henriksen and Kevin J. O'Connor, some gruesome kills and a climax involving a nailgun and thunderbolts and lightning, and I had a blast with this. As for Willis, he brings a lot of Marky Mark in The Happening energy, in which a normally very masculine presence is left stranded and confused in a movie totally at odds with his usual strengths. But Willis is a much more sympathetic (and better) actor than Wahlberg, and I think he acquits himself well enough here. Worst Actor of 1994? Fuck off.

[pastedpast]

I found this film, 'Nancy Mitford: A Portrait by Her Sisters' (director Julian Jebb, made in 1980), absolutely fascinating. It is a tribute to the eldest Mitford sibling, Nancy "the Novelist", by her four surviving sisters: Diana ("the Fascist"), Jessica ("the Communist"), Deborah ("the Duchess") and Pamela ("the Farmer") discussing events of her life (she was born in 1904, died 1973) in their own words. Their accents are "terribly posh", very upper class, aristocratic English accents, and it's quite a surprise when (around 38 minutes in) they declare how much they themselves loathe what they call "the Mitford voice". It made me cringe at first, but I started to quite like it after a while.

Even more fascinating is this clip of an interview by Mavis Nicholson with Diana, who talks so articulately and engagingly about her husband, Sir Oswald Mosley, who was the leader of the British Union of Fascists, her friendship with Adolf Hitler, and her time spent [with her husband in a house within the grounds] at Holloway Prison for the majority of the Second World War.

Unfortunately, I didn't either catch or properly understand what she said about the reason her husband was interned (around 10 mins 20 secs in). I thought she made it sound as though he had said he would fight for Britain? Indeed, he was never formally charged with a crime; what he had done, I think, was pose a threat to the British government who wanted to go to war with Germany, because he may have garnered more support amongst the public for his view that Britain should accept Hitler's offer of peace (this is my assumption and I don't know any more details than that).

The couple were undoubtedly on very close terms with the Führer and his cohorts. They married in secret in 1936 at the home of Germany's Minister of Public Enlightenment & Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, with Hitler as their guest of honour. Diana makes the point, however, notwithstanding the antisemitic ideology they espoused, at the time they were friends Hitler and the Nazis had not yet carried out the atrocities they went on to commit. Essentially, what she is saying is that she and her husband were not privy to the plans for mass extermination of Jews and other peoples in concentration camps. She appears so charming in this interview it is difficult to believe she was aware of Hitler's intentions, but I need to investigate further the claims that many of the Mitfords were indeed antisemitic.

[ardn631-isobelchilberto-2024]

Self Portrait Ideas - Week 1

This week we were tasked to take 36 photos of 3 ideas (12 per idea). Taking photos of myself in portrait mode is completely new to me. It's quite frustrating as I struggle to be photogenic and not take terrible angles of myself. I'm hoping through doing these tasks I can get better at taking flattering photos of myself and then other people.

3 Ideas:

Go visit a nearby reserve and take photos using natural light. Play with angles, shadows, etc. Playing with available light from what I have been seeing from examples from my SDL. I really liked this series of photos as I like the natural lighting and the mysticism from the clouds in the sky. I would be tempted to continue with this idea. The idea of fairies and goddesses as well.

Photograph while studying from different perspectives and angles. Adjust manual settings and angles to less available natural light. This ended up being a bit mediocre, but it did make me think of ways I could portray the mundane, such as me going about my day-to-day life engagingly. I didn't have any particular inspiration just wanted to try out a conceptual idea of the mundane.

For my final idea, I decided to get up close to my face. I focused on taking photos of myself, looking at the camera, away etc. My main focus is on using a sunlit room at golden hour. I ended up using the shadow of the blinds across my face. I really liked how this looked, especially the photos where I leaned into the feeling of the sun on my face. I want to further my use of natural lighting on the face to illuminate facial shapes and expressions. I was inspired by Lee Friedlander's photo, where he casts a square of light onto his face, which creates a cool illumination effect. In this case, I used the blinds to cast shapes onto my face.

Favorite photos:

Putting all the photos side by side makes me put into perspective how bad the lighting was in the second photo. I really love how I've played the other two with shadows and highlights. The first used the sky to frame my face as well as the highlight, blending my face slightly into it. I like how contemplative it is as well; my head is literally in the clouds! The third is my favourite I love how my face is surrounded by shadow. Which brings forth the light on my face and my face into the foreground. I find it shows how I felt with the sun on my face, which is calm.

Contact Sheet:

[ava-of-shenanigans]

POV: you are watching as 2020 Dracula and the Coppola movie slowly breaks my brain

[the-iron-orchid]

Opinion bingo: valdemar

Oh, Valdemar! Honestly I see them as a relatively simple being, deep down:

They are an endless curiosity trapped in stagnation (Death reversed), which is their own hell, but they don't actually realize this.

They want to know everything... but they can never actually learn from it or change.

They're so old that conventional morality no longer applies to them, the classic Blue and Orange Morality trope.

True Chaotic Evil: they’re doing exactly what they want, for entirely selfish reasons.

I like to write them as engagingly, hilariously terrible. “Oh, are you claustrophobic? I don’t actually care.” *crams themself into the tiny lift with Jinana*

Their character design is really fun, though!

[headspace-hotel]

opinion: infodumps aren’t bad, worldbuilding is just often boring

to explain...

I’m reading Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett right now and the magic system is just. AMAZING. there are a bunch of sections where the book just straight explains the nuances of the magic system for a couple pages and I suppose you could call it “infodumpy” but. I LOVE it. And I remember feeling this way about many other books—Discworld’s use of footnotes is just great (this was done in Nevernight as well and is JUST as awesome) and Cressida Cowell’s How to Train Your Dragon series provides SO much information on all the dragon species and yet it’s never tiring.

Which is making me think—is there, perhaps, simply a good and a bad way to execute “infodumps?” What is the difference between Good Infodump and Bad Infodump?

The one thing clear to me is that when worldbuilding is interesting and unique? I eat that shit up. When it’s illuminating to the world and makes me want to know more? When it introduces ideas I haven’t seen before? When I’m being given fascinating tidbits of history or details on the creatures and dragons and stuff that live in the environment? I LOVE being infodumped at because it’s like reading about any fascinating subject when done well and engagingly.

The theory I have is that there’s a distinction between “worldbuilding” and “world-clarifying” and the latter is what makes for boring infodumps.

Worldbuilding introduces the unique concepts and ideas of your world. Giant moths and their biology. Inbreeding in the royal family and the terrible consequences it caused. How the god of sex, drugs and partying is worshipped by his dedicated followers. How telepathy with plants works. It elaborates upon and illuminates these things with a good bit of detail and leaves you feeling more immersed.

World-clarifying, on the other hand, is essentially introducing what your world, or something in it, is and is not. This would include discussing a king or the kind of government your world has. Bringing up factories being built and talking about how and why. How many wizards were left at the end of the wizard wars. The colonization of the continent and how it happened. These things tend to be boring because they aren’t really building the world, but instead making the kind of world it is clearer. Monarchy, wizards, factory work, and colonization aren’t unique or new ideas, they’re just...fairly well-worn concepts that exist and can be a fundamental building block of a world, and a lot of boring worldbuilding consists of showing the reader if and how such archetypes exist in the world. Wars? Yeah. They happened. Kings? Yeah. We’ve got them. Horses? Yes or no? It’s necessary housekeeping, but it’s not what people think of when they say “good worldbuilding.”

This means that “cut things down” isn’t, actually, a blanket solution to solving “infodumping,” because it’s not an issue of amount, but of kind. In fact, shortening worldbuilding can make things worse.

“The clans of the north breed excellent, fast horses, for use in warfare and to deliver mail at unparalleled speeds. The use of horses in warfare became famed back in the time of the first War of the Clans, when Ederic Storm-Beard adopted his favorite horse as his own son, which infuriated his human son, Erkik Fish-Fingers. Erkik broke away from his father’s clan and waged a war against him which ended rather abruptly when Ederic died and was succeeded by the horse, who proved a poor military strategist,”

That paragraph, in my opinion, is interesting worldbuilding. It goes into details and it’s funny and a little absurd. I think I would I like it if I read this paragraph in a book, and I would appreciate it even more if it was used to set up a running gag about horse-delivered junk mail.

On the other hand:

“The clans of the north are known for breeding horses, which are exceptional both for their speed and their prowess in warfare. They have been famed since the time of the War of the Clans,”

is something I would have turned that longer paragraph into when I was still learning how to write, and dozens of writing articles would have validated me because it’s shorter, but it’s also boring as shit. Trying to eliminate “infodumping” as much as possible often corners you into making your worldbuilding facts less and less detailed.

Another common strategy to kill infodumping is to work in worldbuilding through events that are directly relevant to the plot, but this has its own problems. For one thing, it’s limiting. I might want to know something about what the world is like outside of immediate relevance to the events happening to the characters. As a writer, I might want to share something without taking the plot that direction. And furthermore, sometimes worldbuilding is good because it is irrelevant. Trying to make worldbuilding relevant to the story means your readers have to remember more shit to understand the plot. It also means the details are less eccentric and fun and more pragmatic.

Worldbuilding that has direct plot relevancy tends to fall into the “world-clarifying” category, since “a war happened here ten years ago” is functionally useful information to understand the story and world mechanically, and “the war happened because a chieftain of them clans adopted a horse as his son and then started to treat him better than his actual human son” is not. But the thing is...mechanical/functional worldbuilding often sucks. Readers come to a fantasy or spec-fic book to be immersed in a world, and breaking down the worldbuilding to mechanical components of the plot seems like a betrayal of what the story is supposed to be and do. Fun, deep-diving, irrelevant worldbuilding is enjoyable, and it’s not something you have to memorize. It builds up your sense of being immersed rather than your understanding.

Tl;dr weird and overly specific shit that is detailed enough for no one to have ever thought of it and to be new and engaging is much better worldbuilding than concise facts about your world’s functioning, even if it is much longer and rather “infodumpy”

[galadhir]

In which Poe continues to visit Hux, who is in jail, and fails to appreciate the important progress he is making at finding a place to fit in.

Chapter 2 below the cut if you want to read it here. I would link the previous episode, but tumblr is currently not letting me into my tags, so if you want to start at part 1, you'll have to do it at Ao3

~*~*~*~

Next month, when Poe was ushered into the plexiglass room there was a palpable difference in both Hux and his guards. This time, Hux looked healthy, rested. He’d done something to his hair and it flopped engagingly over his forehead as he smiled at Poe as if they were old friends.

Poe would have taken this for good news if he hadn’t remembered that this was how Hux looked at the end, when he was under suspicion for treason, and being ground under the boot-heels of two superior officers at once.

He placed the allowed gifts on the table—cigarras and chocolate—and caught the contemptuous sniff of the guard behind Hux. Both guards seemed oddly relaxed, in comparison to last visit, as though they had forgotten their prisoner had the highest kill-count of any war criminal in history.

“You’re looking better,” Poe observed, all the surplus anxiety on his own part, because a Hux who seemed innocent, his lips pink and his eyes clear and eager to please, was a Hux he trusted even less than normal.

Hux smiled and leaned forward confidingly. “These things take time,” he said, low voiced and a little smug. “The climb from victim to bitch is a useful step.”

This time Poe did rear back, scraping his chair across the floor and feeling the guards’ gazes snap to him like an automated targeting system. He... there had been jokes. Of course there had. There were always prison jokes—dropping soap in the showers, that sort of thing. And Hux was young and slender and pretty. And the galaxy hated him enough to wish for terrible things. But to know? To just come out and say it? Was there something he could do to stop it? A rescue he could make?

“Oh, tell me you’re not shocked!” Hux laughed, and there was nothing in his face or voice that indicated distress.

He’s always been in prison, Poe thought, with a well of horror opening in his chest so far down it reached the underdwellers who lived in Coruscant’s core. He has a different idea of normal from yours.

Which didn’t honestly make it better. “Can I… can I do anything to help you?” he asked. Like reform the entire prison system? Scrap it maybe. Poe didn’t have the power for that. But he thought he would try, if not for this prisoner then for others.

The saccharine smile did not reach the hard calculation in Hux’s eyes, blue as the flame of a laser cutter. “I don’t like to ask, but perhaps your com? So I could call you, in an emergency?”

Poe didn’t see how the wafer of metal and crystals could be used to do harm. He pushed it into the cigarra packet between the cardboard and the silver paper, where he had sometimes hidden messages in his days undercover with the smugglers.

A sliver of genuine vulnerability was visible for a moment amongst Hux’s creepy charm as he tucked the gifts into his shirt. “Thank you. You don’t have to come, you know, if it distresses you. I don’t blame you for a failure that was outside your control. And you saved my life too. We’re even, in that regard.”

Poe had figured he was visiting because he was a good guy, because—having rescued Hux from his broken huddle in the wreck of the Finalizer—he had a responsibility. But the prospect of being dismissed as unnecessary, of being let off, made him realize that he was here because he wanted to be. He wouldn’t have felt hurt at being dismissed, otherwise. “No, it’s not that. I want to help you. You need a—”

“A protector?” Hux’s sneer was bitter as three day caf. “Oh, but I’m on my second already. The first,” he shrugged one shoulder, dismissively, “was… unsatisfactory. Remarkably short lived.”

The double meaning hit Poe in two separate waves. He began to understand what Finn had meant. “What happened?”

“He tripped,” Hux said, with a resurgence of his puppyish innocence. “On the second floor landing. Just where the guard-rail was weak. It was a terrible accident.” A smile. “Fortunately, he was a killer of children, whose faction was ruled merely by fear. Rather a happy day for many people, when his brains splashed the wall.”

“Um,” Poe said, and again found himself scrambling to leave before his hour was up. He couldn’t understand why he wanted to keep coming back. What was he hoping for here? “Why are you telling me these things? Aren’t you afraid that--”

“What are they going to do to me?” Hux laughed again. “Add another life sentence? I am as free here as I have ever been, Poe. And there is still so much to do.”

[keep-it-i-resign]

Fic Writer Asks

tagged by the lovely @vampcoffeegyrl23 I am soooo sorry this has taken over a week! I promise I was just busy away from my computer and using mobile is not the way to go about answering these! 😅

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

6 on AO3 and 6 on ffn.net. I haven't used the ffn.net account in years, i.e 2013 (and therefore my user name isn't even the same) so those 6 stories are different from my AO3 ones. I don't post most of what I write and now that I'm in my mid-20s with a few published papers behind me - I'm much more confident in my ability to write a cohesive and interesting story so expect more posted!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

17,425 words which isn't bad for only 6 fics with two of those stories having additional chapters coming soon.

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

On AO3? Just 1, which is The Flash and by extension Stargate SG-1 for the crossover I did for Snowells Week this year. Counting ffn.net that's 3 more with Castle, Doctor Who, and Firefly. Over my lifetime of writing fic for myself? I think only 7 more. Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Sanctuary, Harry Potter, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: TNG, and Left 4 Dead. Left 4 Dead isn't much of a fanfic but I did use the zombie types as place holders in an original story until I developed my own.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

I'll Be Waiting (The Flash - Caitlin/Harry)

Well... This is Awkward (The Flash - Caitlin/Harry, Frost/Nash, Caitlin/Nash, and Frost/Harry)

Rewind Time (The Flash - Caitlin/Harry)

Through the Gate (The Flash/Stargate SG-1 - Caitlin/Eowells)

Harvest Season (The Flash - Caitlin/Harry)

5. What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

I don't write angst much and I haven't posted many stories yet but of the ones posted I guess "I'll Be Waiting" is the angstiest.

6. What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

"Well...This is Awkward" has a pretty happy ending with everyone alive and together. Or maybe "Twilight of the Gods" because ReverseSnow/ReverseFrost happens and there is hope of bringing everything lost back and balance the universe again. I guess it depends on your definition of what constitutes as a happy ending. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you've written?

I've only written one - The Flash/Stargate SG-1 crossover. I don't normally think about crossovers just because the shows I watch are so vastly different they can't really work or they are already in the same universe with the canon crossovers. I'm also not always a fan of reading them because they can get chaotic quick and characterization takes a dive in order to fit characters into other universes/situations. I admire anyone who can write it well though!

As a side note: I did have a thought about a Snowells into the Arkham universe fic just because I have been replaying the Batman Arkham video games which I might give a shot at.

8. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

👀I wrote one smutty story years ago and it's terrible because I was young and naïve. I haven't tried recently but I'm not opposed to giving it a shot now. I have a few ideas on a prompt list I have for Snowells already so it's really a matter of when will I get to it!

9. Do you respond to comments. why or why not?

I do when I can! I like to get feedback from my readers and having an open dialogue of what they liked or disliked is important for me! I want to know what my audience enjoyed and what to improve on! Responding to them also shows them I saw that they said and appreciate what they had to say! 🥰

10. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Surprisingly - no, even on my old and terribly written stuff. I'm perfectly open to criticism but hate? If you don't like it, you don't like it but others might. Why spend the time spreading negativity when the world has enough of it?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

As far as I know - no.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No but given enough time I could probably translate mine. It would be grammatically atrocious because I rarely translate from English into any of the languages I know. It's normally the other way around! I'd definitely need a Beta who is fluent to correct my mistakes.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No but it's definitely something I'd try! I co-wrote an original story with a few friends of mine years ago in high school and enjoyed it. I like the idea of getting to talk and bounce ideas off of someone who enjoys the same fandoms and character as me! I haven't really done that since I grew apart from one of my friends from high school who I did that with.

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

What kind of question is this? Do people actually have an ultimate ship? Is that even possible? I have ships from several fandoms and sometimes multiple ships within a fandom. Most of the time I have a main ship from a fandom but that doesn't mean I discount any of the other ones that I or others enjoy as well. I'll throw out a few that I still got out and read for in order of what I read most often (either new stuff or re-reads) to what I read occasionally, at least according to my AO3 favorite tags.

Snowells (all variations) - The Flash

Jack O'Neill/Sam Carter - Stargate SG-1

Helen Magnus/Nikola Tesla - Sanctuary

Harry/Hermione - Harry Potter

William Murdoch/Julia Ogden - Murdoch Mysteries

Phil/ Melinda - Agents of SHIELD

Kathryn Janeway/Tom Paris - Star Trek: Voyager

Kate Fleming/Steve Arnott - Line of Duty

I will occasionally go check what kind of fics the fandom writes when I start a show just out of curiosity. Sometimes you can tell if there is fandom hate between ships by doing so and I know to steer clear, especially if I ship a lesser ship/non-canon ship. Also - the number of canon-divergence or rewrites will tell you if the shows writers start being ridiculous *cough* The Flash *cough* and whether it's worth getting attached at all.

15. What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

Hoo boy. I have a drive full of them. Most of which aren't even close to being posted. My biggest one right now is a complete re-write of The Flash dealing with a what if scenario of Earth-1 Tess Morgan being pregnant the night that Thawne kills them both and he chooses to birth the kid rather than let it die with her. It's set a few years earlier (so 18/19 years stuck in the past rather than the original 15 that the show has it) so the kid isn't Jesse but it changes how season 1 plays out and definitely how season 2 plays out when Harry finds out about the kid while dealing with the Jesse/Zoom issue. Plus it's Snowells too and I want to deal with Barry's mistakes and the consequences of them better than the show did since the show just kind of brushes them off? For some reason? I wanted things to have a little more consequence because some of the mistakes made are egregious and then they acted like it never happened which bothers me. It's a beast of a project and I'm - unfortunately- a perfectionist and a completionist. I'm thinking an episode per chapter rewrite but right now it's in bits and pieces and a lot of notes on how episodes would play out differently with an added character and dynamic.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue and scene positioning. I can write out the dialogue for a story quickly with the bare bones of the scene and movements playing out. After that, it takes me ages to expand the scene and fill in the bits between speaking lines because I can see the piece play out in my head and putting that to paper accurately and engagingly without being overwhelming is a multi-layered process.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Some of this is normal, you know, like grammar and spelling. My brain moves faster than I type so words or bit of phrases end up missing and I later have to fix it. I'm also a Southerner who grew up watching a ton of British shows so a lot of the way I phrase things isn't commonly used anywhere. I have to spend a lot of time double checking things like that. I think my biggest one is not knowing how to end stories satisfactorily. I haven't posted many fics because it's hard to post them when you don't know how to wrap everything up.

18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

It depends on whether it's an established part of a character or story and whether or not I'm comfortable with the language. Like with Sherloque - it's established he'll say something in French and then repeat it in English. I took 3 years of French so I'm comfortable writing it and it fits the character and situation. But take Cisco, we know he speaks Spanish, but it's never really shown in the show. So fics that I've read where he breaks into Spanish can be distracting as we've never seen him do it - even in dire circumstances. I also never took Spanish in school and I only know rudimentary pieces (I took Mandarin and Latin instead), so I'm unlikely to use it in any fic I write unless the circumstances warrant it (say - Cisco is talking to a grandparent or a meta struggling with English).

But again, it depends on the situation, what we know of the character, and how comfortable I am with the language enough to get it correct and in character. Any fic writer who can get the situation and character down while using a secondary language, and not make it distracting deserves applause!

19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Hit me with a hard one why don't you? 🤣 I think it was Stargate SG-1 or maybe it was Stargate Atlantis. You're asking me to think back over a decade and a half ago to when I started reading and writing fic at the tender age of 7 or 8. I'm fairly certain it was one of those two fandoms and it might've been a crossover. I do remember writing part of it on an old Gateway computer running Windows '98 with a glass monitor that was mine and my sisters. The other half was written on an electric type-writer that I owned because this was before laptops were widely available and affordable.

20. What's your favorite fic you've written?

It's a tie between "Twilight of the Gods" and "I'll Be Waiting". "Twilight of the Gods" because I got to show off a few of my degrees (History and Classics, I couldn't shoehorn in my others but they are science related and that doesn't quite fit that story). "I'll Be Waiting" is a favorite because it's a big middle finger to whoever / collective group wrote The Flash season 7. I'm still pissed off at how the Wells plotline was dealt with and let's not get started on the whole Chillblaine/Kramer/Forces as kids of WA plots (ewwwwwww 🤢). I'd need a whole new post to talk about how tired I am of the WA kids showing up (because screw how that'll effect the timeline, right?) and the reliance on the future to drive what decisions are made (because, again, screw how bad that would be for the timeline - it's not like we have seen how much that effects things before right?) 😒

Phew.....That was longer than I expected, honestly, but a lot of fun!

Tagging whoever wants to talk about their works because you are all wonderful people who should get a chance to share!

[alitheamateur]

A Taste of Home

Chapter 3

(giphy credit for gif)

The welcomed flow of conversation, and booze tickled like velvety ribbon over your creaking, rickety heart that night. Between the yelps of protest at his television during the game, Chris would often find you. Whether it be just the simple pairing of an assured smile and concerned glance, or a walk across the room to offer you a refill. His awareness to your presence was elating, whether it’s intensions be romantic, or not.

When you’d had all the reminiscing your scrambled mind could take, and all the wine you would allow yourself, you readied your coat and searched the rack for your purse. Apparently being watched surreptitiously from the shadows.

“Leaving? Not already, Millie. You haven’t even had the tour yet.” Chris appeared, his hair a bit settled and ruffled from his muddling hands during the Red Sox game.

Tour? No, tour, my painfully pretty friend. I’ll be stripped naked before we get to the laundry room if you take me anywhere but the safely crowded space of this kitchen.

“As much as I would love to drool enviously over your beautiful home, Chris, I have an early morning. I’ve got to scrounge up some sort of buzz for my blog, and hungover, reeking of booze and throw-up won’t exactly snag me the publicity I’m looking for.”

He pulled at your jacket that dangled over your forearm, and offered up its opened sleeves to you. As you slid into it, both arms in unison, he settled it atop your shoulders, pulling your wild hair loose from the collar. The way his hands felt latched onto the knot of your golden waves curled your core with pangs of white-hot heat. His exhales, unexpectedly hitching, at the back of your momentarily exposed neck made your eyes close secretly in a bitten back mewl of desire.

“Another time then? We didn’t get to talk nearly enough.”

Your heart leaped, and you didn’t hear anything else he had said after ‘another time.’

“I don’t know, Evans. I’m a terribly busy, successful woman with quite the demanding schedule. I’m certain you don’t have any idea what the lifestyle entails.” You winked.

Your words could play coy, and cool. But, between your legs, you begged for him unremittingly.

Slinging the petite satchel of your purse over your shoulder, you swiped your keys from the very bottom, and huffed before exchanging goodbyes.

“Well, I have your number and if you don’t answer, Calvert…..” He pointed a warning finger to your face, his eyes narrowing with the charade of villainous caution. “I know where to find you.”

Let’s hope he doesn’t know to find you in your parents’ attic, and he’s simply referring to the coffee shop.

You nodded your head, mocking him with dramatic heed of his little threat, and pat him on the bicep. The bowling ball trapped beneath his freckled skin there taking you by surprise.

“Goodnight, Chris. Thanks so much for the invitation. I enjoyed myself! I was super happy to see Tucker, and I even made plans with Colby’s wife for lunch next week. So, I owe you.” 

Ready to tiptoe around him towards to doorway, he scooped you up into a bear hug, smothering you between both of his solid arms. Falling into place like it’s where they were meant to be, your wobbly limbs wrapped around his torso. Only halfway, seeing as his body was nearly as broad, and equally as stout as the trunk of a tree. He smelled…. hot. Like the sun sweltering over an acre of freshly cut grass, stained with a spill of whiskey.

“You’re welcome here anytime, you hear me? Besides, Dodger likes you too much for you to never come back for a visit.”

……………..

Only 48 hours of sunrise and sunset since your journey to Chris’ house, and you were already sweating profusely that he hadn’t reached out. You battled firmly with your mind that even if this million-times-out-of-your-league-man was interested in you, it would not be the typical courtship. He was a celebrity, a literal Hollywood big-wig filming blockbuster after blockbuster. Time was definitely not to spare in his world, and you were lucky to have even ran into him by happen stance less than a week ago.

As if the universe was harshly toying with your teetering, raise and fall of emotions, your cell buzzed in the pocket of your rain jacket and your heels clapped over the concrete of the city sidewalk.

C: check your email.

If there was one perk of the job he played off to his advantage with no shame, it was somehow digging up your every form of contact information.

You stepped to the side, tucking away under the dry cover or a storefront awning, and fiddled with the screen of your device to locate your unread folder of e-mails.

You didn’t know who, or why in the hell, or how he had done it, but as you scanned engagingly over every word of the message, you cursed with confused glee under your breath.

Amongst his plethora of resources, and maybe spying of some sort, Chris had managed to acquire the help of someone in his circle of the fashion world, who now wanted a piece of you blog. The details were a bit foggy, and you barely understood English in the blissful moment for God sakes, but you were already scheduled to meet with the individual to co-conduct a photo shoot for a half-page spread in a magazine for an overseas publication.

A: You’re too much, Chris. Truly, it wasn’t necessary.

A weird conflict suddenly ate through your joy like a warm to a ripe apple. If you accepted Chris and his overly generous assistance in your work field, were you taking the easy way out? Riding the coat tails of a well-equipped friend? And did you want that to be how you made a name?

C: We all need help getting on our feet sometimes, Mills. The blog is fantastic, you work hard, and I wanna help. So let me.

You began your pursuit back towards your car in the drizzling mist of a Spring season rain shower, careful not to slip and faceplant on the slick lumps on the brick walkway of the café parking lot. Your unruly mane had already yielded to the damp assault of the humid forecast for the day, and you needed nothing but to rush home and study for your meeting. Study what, you weren’t entirely sure since you knew nothing about the shoot, or the magazine. But, you were certain reading at least 10 issues from the last 5 years of Harper’s Bizarre would do the trick.

As you checked the directions of your right and left before galloping across the lanes of traffic to your car, something wrapped over the handle of your drivers’ side door puzzled you from a distance.

The closer your eager heels drug you towards the evidence, you could make out the thorny stem of the fullest white rose you had ever seen.

As you pulled up the hood of your soaking jacket when the rain slightly began to persist into a heavy downfall just as you were about to sink in the dry confines of your vehicle, you heard the clearing throat of a man who only gave you his back to look at. Under an umbrella, the lean legs of the mystery man turned towards you, and it was none other than the generous man of the hour. Smiling, fully, but hiding his teeth behind pink lips.

Suddenly, you connected trace of his appearance to the rose safely help in your hand, and you let yourself outwardly laugh as your natural blush lit up your dimples.

“Don’t look at me.” He held up a hand to protest his innocence. “It was all Dodger here’s idea. He’s quite the ladies’ man, if I may say.”

Whether it was the torrential pour of aromatic storm clouds that sent you running to the awaiting cover of amply sized umbrella, or simply the need to be close to his side, is unclear. But, wheels up, you dug in, and your heart already wept inside with begging dispute as you ran for him with unyielding, giddy cheer.

“I was going to grab some ice cream around the corner if you’re interested. And judging by the way you nearly ate the paper bag just to get to those cupcakes from Celia’s Cakes the other night, I think you may have a raging sweet tooth to tend to.”

“Lead the way. But, you’re buying.”

Chris offered up his ushering arm, and you tucked yourself inside it, altogether clueless of the tow truck rounding the corner sent by the order of your marvelous adulterous ex-husband.

TAGS: @miidailyinspiration @eap1935 @mollybegger-blog

[scrapironflotilla]

Do you have any favorite books about the ANZACs/AIF on the Western Front?

Oh man yes. So many. So in no particular order:

General:

Broken Nation - Joan Beaumont  - The best single volume history of Australia at war. Covers the AIF and its campaigns, the home front and modern memory of particular events. If you read any book from this list, read this one.

The Broken Years - Bill Gammage. The published version of Gammage’s PhD thesis, this is a superb book that tells the story of the AIF mostly through diary entries and letters of soldiers. For an understanding of life lived in the AIF during the war nothing beats it.

The Great War - Les Carlyon. A tome of a book, but a very engagingly written account of the AIF on the Western Front. Features a lot of down in the trenches detail about the battles from diary and letter accounts.

Australia and the Empire:

The Anzac Illusion - Eric Andrews. A fantastic look at the AIF and how it fit into the broader British Army during the war. Looks at some of the myths about Australian superiority and how similar Australians of 1914-18 were to their British counterparts.

The Anzac Experience - Chris Pugsley. Despite the name actually covers Australia, New Zealand and Canada, comparing the commanders and formations of each Dominion and seeing how their wartime experiences were both similar and different in all sorts of interesting ways.

Anzac and Empire - John Connor. Technically a biography of wartime Australian Defence Minister George Foster Pearce, this book mostly covers his work during the war. Fantastic look at the political side of the AIF and how it had to juggle public and political sentiment at home with the needs of the military and the British government.

Operational:

To Win the Battle & The War with Germany - Both by Rob Stevenson. To Win the Battle is an in depth study of the 1st Australian Division during the war and shows how an Australian formation lived, worked and fought during the war and what it took to produce a successful fighting formation. The War with Germany provides great coverage of the Australian campaigns on the Western Front, explaining the fighting they took part in as well. Covers how the battles were fought and where they fit into the larger picture.

Attack on the Somme & The Battle of Pozieres - Meleah Hampton. These are two deep operational analyses of Australian battles of 1916. Full of great research they’re probably not for the casual reader, but if you want to know how operations in 1916 were imagined, planned and carried out, these are where to look.

Monash as Military Commander - Peter Pedersen. A great study of Monash the general that clearly lays out his strengths and weaknesses from his time at Gallipoli through the Hundred Days. Puts Monash firmly in his place as a good, but not genius, general who used skills gained as a civilian to effective use on the Western Front.

Biographies:

Pompey Elliot - Ross McMullin. Another tome of a book but a truly great biography of one of the most colourful characters of the AIF. A charismatic leader and fiercely Australian, Elliot split opinion both in the AIF and the British military. A smart commander he was passed over for promotion due to his explosive temper and clashes with his superiors. Details how deeply affected he was by the events of Fromelles and how his life ended in suicide after the war.

John Monash - Geoffrey Serle. The biography of Monash. There’s been a spate of them in the last decade and none come close to this one.

The Soul of Anzac: William Birdwood - John Dermot Millar. It’s tough to understand the AIF and it’s peculiar brand of Australian Britishness, but it helps to know the man who led the AIF.

Misc:

Bad Characters  - Peter Stanley. Looks at the dark side of the men of the AIF looking at topics of criminality, discipline, sex and disease and the like. A good counter to a lot of the Anzac mythology.

Anzac’s Dirty Dozen - Craig Stockings. Despite the terrible name this is a very good look at some of the most enduring myths about Australia during the war and shows that the reality is much more interesting.

What’s Wrong With Anzac? - Marilyn Lake, Henry Reynolds, Joy Damousi, Mark Mckenna. Not strictly about the war itself but a good look at where we are now with commemoration and the raising of Anzac to a secular religion in Australia. Not actually an attack on Australian history, but more on the culture and politics that have twisted it.

[watching-pictures-move]

Put On Your Raincoats #24 | Midnight Heat (Watkins, 1983)

This review contains spoilers.

Roger Watkins' Midnight Heat opens with slow motion shots of Times Square in the winter. It's a drab, dismal sight, and the ominous music that plays over the footage sets the tone. A caption flashes onscreen. "Sex can become a weapon." It's a quote credited to Henry Miller. (Upon further Googling I suspect this might not be a real quote, but the movie had me fooled at the time.) We see Jamie Gillis, alone in a high rise apartment, looking contemplatively out the window. He receives a call about a job, which he accepts, albeit a little indignantly. There's a POV shot going down a corridor, bathed in atmospheric blue lighting, with occasional glimpses of a man in an office reading a newspaper. Gillis comes in through the door and pulls out of a gun. Freeze frame. The title flashes on the screen while a thunderous gunshot noise erupts on the soundtrack.

With these opening moments, Watkins introduces a level of violence and accompanying dread that hangs over the rest of the movie, wherein Gillis hides out in a seedy hotel, meditating over what led him to this moment. You see, Gillis is a hitman, and in his own image a pretty good one, but not one immune to making bad decisions. One of these bad decisions would be sleeping with the boss's wife. (In true mafia fashion, when the boss catches him, he plants a kiss firmly on his lips. "I'll be seeing you in the streets") Another bad decision would be porking the boss' daughter (with whom he was casually discussing T.S. Eliot) and then making a mid-coital phone call to let the boss know. But the OG of these bad decisions was what got him into his line of work in the first place, taking an ill-advised job after blowing a sizable amount of money at the track. You see, like the name of a certain Charles Bronson film series, Gillis both wishes death upon others (as part of his work) and has a death wish himself. "The more dangerous something is, the more we forget about everything else. Danger motivates people. Otherwise why bother."

But Gillis doesn't do this thinking all by himself. He has the company of a hooker, who perhaps is moved by Gillis, having encountered this form of professional violence in her personal life. And while there are genre expectations to be met, Gillis seems more interested in her company over anything else, perhaps to fill a void in his own life. They eventually reach a meeting of minds, even if it isn't terribly comforting to either one.

"You're afraid of dying aren't you."

"I haven't learned very much but I have learned on thing. Only someone in constant terror of of annihilation can experience life as it was meant to be experienced."

"And you're one of those men."

"Yes."

Watkins directed this the same year as Corruption, with which this shares Gillis in the starring role, cinematography by Larry Revene and a similarly fatalistic tone. I enjoyed the other movie quite a bit more, but I must admit at least some of that is due to the technical disparity of the versions I watched for each one. That one was on a snazzy Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray, this one was on a blurry video-sourced transfer. In the other film, Revene does very precise things with underlighting and other techniques to create an oppressively chilly tone. Here I could grasp the impact of certain lighting and framing choices, but the low quality video image had a flattening effect on any precise flourishes present in the work. (One unintentional boon however was the way the dilapidated grey walls of the hotel room looked almost like fog thanks to the blurry transfer.) Even worse was the fact that the audio was just a bit out of sync, meaning that Watkins' more aggressive editing choices (switching between classical and porno-funk as he cuts between the street scenes and the sex) were thoroughly undermined.

Putting aside viewing conditions, I do think the other film is structured more engagingly so that the dread builds, although this one's inertia seems intentional, with the final moments driving home the purgatorial nature of the story. I think the other movie also bounces Gillis more effectively off of other characters (in particular, an almost demonic Bobby Astyr), whereas he only really has one person to play off here (Champagne, who I believe only has a few other credits, and whose IMDb page helpfully notes is not the same person as Phil Prince regular Cheri Champagne), although I did find her to be an intriguing screen presence. As for the sex scenes, Watkins had been frustrated that the ones in his earlier movies, which he delegated to producer Dave Darby, were too enjoyable for the raincoat brigade (despite making some very good films in the genre, he apparently didn't like it very much). I believe at this point (and certainly in Corruption), he'd taken over directing these scenes himself, although the effect is less consistent overall compared to the other movie. The flashback scenes are what I'd call conventionally enjoyable, despite the attempts to subvert them with cross-cutting, but the ones in the present are more potent, framed to have an isolating effect on the performers so that the sense of fatalism overrides any erotic impact. As for the climactic image, with Gillis' face contorted mid-thrust while the frame is flooded with red lighting, I appreciate the intention more than the end result. Anyway, I liked this less than the other films I've seen from Watkins and would like to see it in a better copy eventually, but it still has plenty of the qualities I enjoy about Watkins' work and is worth checking out if the idea of a hardcore mood piece tickles your fancy. And at less than seventy minutes, you can't lose.

[ninja-muse]

Say Nothing - Patrick Radden Keefe

In brief: A portrait of the IRA and the Troubles in Northern Ireland, with a focus on trauma, revenge, and fear—and on one particular woman who was disappeared.

Thoughts: This was everything I like in true crime and a good piece of narrative non-fiction to boot. It’s well-written, impeccably researched and cited, and manages to portray a very difficult and complicated subject even-handedly and with compassion for all sides. It also deals a lot with morality and ethics and generational pain and anger, carries the story up to a couple years ago, and asks questions about repercussions and statutes of limitations and reconciliation without answering them.

I didn’t know a lot about the Troubles going into this, just that it was a brutal and bloody and traumatic period of Northern Irish history, fought between Catholics/Republicans, Protestants/Unionists, and the British Army, and that there was a lot of distrust and paranoia that caused tensions to flare up again and again. I have a much better sense of the climate now, and the causes, and the ways of thinking in both the IRA and the Army, and have a whole new appreciation for how bad everything got.

Keefe focuses on a few key figures in the IRA, and to a lesser extent, on Jean McConville, who was disappeared, a handful of journalists and academics, and a man in the Army. You get a really good sense of these people as the story evolves, and he does that thing I love where you don’t get information until just the right time and yet the time jumps and digressions work with the story and not against it. This is also very much not a sensationalist or particularly biased piece of journalism. There are no heroes, no villains, no titillating facts, and no heavy foreshadowing.

I really liked that the story didn’t swing straight to solving the Jean McConville case once the Good Friday Agreement went into effect. Keefe continues to track the IRA people as they go their separate ways and try to deal (or not) with the terrible things they did and had done to them, as well as going into other court cases and academic attempts to document the era. McConville’s still there, as a sort of focus and example case, but really, he’s digging into the a much wider and more convoluted situation than just one crime and its resolution.

And as you can tell from me reading this in four days, it’s engagingly written and mildly addictive on top of everything! (Also my commute has sucked this week.) It hit exactly the right mix of grim and historical for me and is going to be the narrative non-fiction to beat for the year.

To bear in mind: If you don’t know what the Troubles involved, it was essentially a brutal guerilla war. Expect discussion of murder, torture, bombings, hunger strikes, jail sentences, dehumanization of the opposing side(s), and disappeared people, with a side of racism, religious bigotry, anti-colonial anger, and radical politics, among other things. There are also orphanages with systemic sexual abuse, one other glancing mention of molestation, and Margaret Thatcher.

9/10

[peccolias]

I saw you were asking about gen self-inserts, and I wanted to recommend a few Naruto ones that might be less well known, maybe there’ll be something there that you’ll find interesting! These are all without romance and pretty long, but since a lot are still unfinished there’s a possibility for romantic content in their future, though none of them are romance stories.

Of Bonds and Hugs like Chokeholds by rosestopaint is complete and set pre-canon; heavy OC focus. It has an on-going sequel set during canon. ff&ao3

Shadowed Sun by Darkpetal16 is complete and at some point in the middle the SI goes “actually I realized I’m not interested in romance at all”. ff

Sanitize by Sage Thrasher is ongoing, ~60k words. It’s set in the warring clans era and the SI is a civilian. The author has explicitly said there’ll be no romantic content for the protag during the main story.  ff

Project Hana by Sublimey is ongoing, ~200k words. It’s pre-canon, the SI is reincarnated as Hana Inuzuka. Big focus on friendships and does a great job of bringing female characters neglected by canon to life. ff

Clockwork and a Teacup by Artsome is ongoing, ~200k words. Updates are slow but reliable. The SI is reincarnated as Sakura. I really love how the author’s written the SI, a big favorite. ff

Addendum by Shanatical is ongoing, ~100k words. The SI replaces Sasuke. Heavy focus on friendships, lots of heartwarming Team 7 moments. ao3

Spider Thread by the-word-builder is ongoing, ~300k words. There’s about a teaspoon’s worth of romantic content (in the chapter before the current newest one, the OC agrees to try out dating one of her friends). The OC-insert is around Itachi’s age and she’s a terrible, horrible, no-good child who very frequently has me going “oh no” while reading. She makes a lot of questionable life choices. ff

This Transient, Floating World also by the-word-builder is ongoing, ~100k words. A lot lighter in general than Spider Thread. The OC-insert is in Kakashi’s generation but has no knowledge of Naruto canon. ff

Rising With The Breaking Dawn by fleeting . white . feathers (fw_feathers on ao3) is ongoing, ~70k words. Sometimes goes a long time without updates. Explicitly Gen. SI as Naruto’s twin, everyone is still little kiddies right now. The recent chapters have been giving me so many Uchiha feels. ff&ao3, but ff currently has more chapters

Hear the Silence by EmptySurface is ongoing, ~300k words. Pre-canon, the SI is close in age to the parent generation. Heavy OC focus and friendship focus. Will probably break your heart at least twice. ff&ao3, but is only being updated on ao3 anymore

(Don’t) Forget by Swissed Toast is ongoing, around 80k words. Updates are slow. Set pre-canon, with the SI being two years older than Naruto & co. Heavy OC and friendship focus. ff

Satoko by YourIdiotWriter is ongoing, ~130k words. SI replaces Naruto. Humor is on point, and the first major arc of the first C-Rank mission (not Wave) was extremely well crafted and very engagingly written. ff&ao3

Welcome to Tomorrow by Izaranna is ongoing, ~250k words. SI is reincarnated as the older sister of Itachi and Sasuke. Takes turns with lighthearted fluff and heavy content. ff

For a Chance at Happiness by Eiron is ongoing, ~200k words. Pre-canon, SI is Shisui’s age. Focus on OCs and friendships. ff

Joyous Children by UnderneathXtheXunderneath (whatcolor on ao3) is ongoing, ~170k words. Pre-canon, SI is Obito’s older sister. Heavy focus on friendships, will repeatedly punch you in the gut. ff&ao3

oooh, such a long list! i know of some of these but there are a lot i haven’t heard of, too! thank you so much for recommending so many and with ffn and ao3 info!! ❤