#my plans are all coming to fruition

[stellar-secrecy]

yo the ao3 tag wranglers got ahold of Murders on the Yangtze River and now there are canonical character and relationship tags! they're synned across the English and Chinese versions! a glorious day for anyone who likes functional fandom tags

[happybunnykat]

So I am a firm believer that Elias put Martin in the Archives to die first. He was like "Okay Martin's pretty much completely useless and Jon doesn't like him. This is perfect, he'll be the first person to die, so Jon will learn the stakes of this job but won't be too upset about it!"

And then Martin didn't die. And kept not dying. And Jon started to actually like him. A lot. This is a problem because Jon is getting distracted and sentimental and focused o

So Elias is like "Damn okay Jon now wants me dead (passive) but if I do anything to Martin directly Jon will want me dead (active) and might actually try to kill me and/or do other things that will ruin my plans."

So, he's tries to pass him off to Peter to get rid of him that way.

And then Jon kills Peter, confirming what Elias thought would happen if he did something to Martin, but none of that matters now because Jon is right where Elias wants him.

And then the Eyepocalypse happens, and Martin is the one who helps Jon stay as they travel across the broken world and to the Panopitcon, where Jon killed Elias anyway.

And all of this could have been avoided on Jonah's end if he had just not put Martin in the Archives.

[commandertartarsmoocher]

When those 12,000 years of isolation start to hit

[tritoch]

wild to me to see posts like "wow everything in the tempest is named after shakespeare...emet you melodramatic bitch you sure loved theater". because the prospero-emet thing gets played up so hard in the english script and you can carry it so far!

like prospero is an asshole magician who, after being deposed by his brother as duke of milan, settles himself and his daughter on a remote island, enslaves the local spirits using his magic, and bitterly plots to reclaim his past glories. he rules through violence and deceit, and only survives and is reconciled when his plots reach their fruition and his brother is taken to his remote island and plots ensue and everyone decides he was totally right all along and they were huge dicks to him and they're sooooo sorry and he gets to go back and be duke again wow! and it's okay because he's like "i was only doing mean magic to get my rightful spot back and now i'm giving it up because magic is evil. :)"

the tempest is what emet wants his life to be. prospero is not a villain in the text of the tempest. he is barely treated as antagonistic by the text and framing of the play itself. all his abuses, his neglect and control of his daughter, his enslavement of caliban and ariel (local spirits/monsters/people of the island), his deception and plots against his brother, his abuse of magical powers (not awesome, from the pov of the contemporary audience), all that ultimately gets swept aside in the rightness of his return to milan and the warm feeling of the world being set to rights. prospero can't undo the years he spent on the island but they are ultimately a blip in his life before he returns to the rightful state of affairs. his abuse and enslavement of caliban, easily the worst thing he does in the play, is totally set aside when caliban goes "wow now i see how truly benevolent my master is. i love him and see the ways of christian good and i'm so, so appreciative he chose not to kill or beat me even though he totally could have and would have been in the right. he's so just and intelligent." everyone loves and forgives him and they all agree both his management of the island and his ultimate return are so good and so wise and so right.

emet comparing himself to the tempest (or being compared to it, depending on how you want to read the diegetic status of the place names) is absolute wishcasting. it is an attempt to manifest the happy ending he will never, ever get because his sins cannot and would not be forgiven in the way he wants. he wants to imagine himself as the righteous returned duke whose crimes, including the enslavement, abuse, and exploitation of those he saw as his rightful inferiors, were totally worth it, i promise. and if emet is prospero, the warrior of light is his caliban.

[holocene-sims]

next // previous

september 1, 2021 6:15 p.m. basil's restaurant

ten minutes ago

[ktmurphy86] i might be a few minutes late, but i'm almost there.

grant scrolls through the metric ton of messages piling up in his notifications until he reaches the very end, and with a lump in his throat, opens it to respond. or like it. or send a thumbs up like a cool cucumber.

baby steps, he tells himself. one task at a time. the responses to all the messages from family, friends, and former co-workers inquiring about his exam results will come later.

just meet your sister first and–

“you seem different.”

he nearly jumps out of his skin as kelly’s high-pitched voice supersedes his thoughts.

“hopefully in a good way,” grant replies, looking up as he slides his phone off the table and into his back pocket.

it’s been nearly a decade since their last encounter, and he’d still recognize her from a mile away.

kelly’s hair is dyed platinum blonde like always, but now it’s twice as long, and her natural brunette locks–peeking through at the root–are streaked through with shocks of silver. her ice blue eyes are just as piercing, only underlined with tiny wrinkles. she’s still thin, too, but rather rail thin; her sweater dress seems to wear her more than she wears it.

“yes, in a good way.” kelly pulls out the chair opposite him and sits down with her arms wrapped across her waist. the candle between them casts a strange yellow glow over her wiry features. “you look better, much healthier.”

“uh, thank you. you look great as well.”

she half-smiles. “it’s just hair dye and botox. i look old. i didn’t inherit the ageless ó súilleabháin genes, so i'm going grey very early like all the callahans. by the way, you weren’t waiting long, were you?”

“oh, no, no, not at all. i have my car, but i didn’t want to deal with traffic, so i took the subway, but then that also kind of took a while. i pretty much just got here.”

“okay, good.” kelly pauses for a moment, her lips pursed. “well. i thought about what i'd say to you the whole ride over here, and now it’s all gone.”

for a moment, they exchange no other words. they drown in the silence, staring into each other’s eyes and into the past.

she’s surprisingly warm, all things considered. the last time they’d been in the same room–

grant is distracted again from his thoughts, watching as a strange sadness falls across her face. she reaches up at the collar of her dress and tug at it like it’s choking her, and her eyes then drift away to stare at an indistinct point on the table between them.

“it’s weird to see you again,” she admits suddenly, her gaze still fixated far away from him, “i didn’t think you’d message me back a few months ago.”

“to be honest, i didn’t mean to. i replied by accident one night and then just decided to follow through with talking to you. and now i'm here. yeah. um, anyway, why’d you reach out to me?”

“i was on facebook a couple months ago, and one of those ‘look at what you posted this day years ago’ things came up. it was a picture aunt bridget tagged us all in. it was the whole family at one of your high school hockey games, i think your freshman year state championship game.” kelly shrugs. “i didn’t even know any of those pictures were still there. that was a real surprise, given i unfriended and blocked everyone i'm related to on there when i left home after high school.”

grant nods. “a picture of me probably very sweaty and gross with helmet hair made you want to reach out to me?”

“not quite. my kids were with me at the time. we were in an airport coming back from vacation, so they were bored and nosy. ‘is that you? who are all these people?’ i was then immediately caught in my lie; i'd been telling them their whole lives i had no family left, and their only extended family was their dad’s parents.”

“yikes. i'm sure that was awkward.”

“it was,” kelly says plainly, “my oldest kids weren’t happy with the news. they’ve been, um, a little jealous of their friends for having lots of cousins and big family events for the holidays, and it didn’t go over well when they figured out they do have a big family. besides, they rightfully did see it as a betrayal of their trust. if mom lied once, what else might mom be lying about? the tooth fairy? santa claus? the easter bunny? yes, those, too. sorry. also, if you didn’t already guess based on my new last name, i married jack, and…”

“i figured you married him. you’d already been together a really long time even when i last saw you. we all grew up together, and you guys were middle school and high school sweethearts and all.”

“he’s a good guy. as i was about to say, though, jack is very partial to you. he always liked you. he thought you were a sweet kid, and he won’t let me forget what happened between us. so, after the facebook incident, he encouraged me to contact you, if only for the kids’ sake. after living in a huge family, i don’t think it’s all that fantastic, but he has a bit of a chip on his shoulder being an only child, and he doesn’t want the kids to have no one besides his parents in their lives. don’t get me wrong; i will never ever get involved in callahan or ó súilleabháin bullshit again, but i will consider reconnecting with you and letting you meet the kids.”

grant bites into his lip as that nagging anxious lump returns to his throat. “well, why me? why bother getting involved with any of us again after everything? even if it is for your kids, what's your motivation?"

kelly outright ignores his question. “tell me what you’ve been up to for the last, what, eight years? nine years? i don’t remember how long it’s been. you're at least talking to our dad, i hear.”

"how do you know that?"

"my in-laws may not know anything else about you these days, but they've seen you with him around our hometown."

[softpine]

I was just thinking about it almost being valentines day and what that'd look like for your characters where they are right now in your story 😬

rip......... no one is having a good valentine's day this year 😭 even the couples that are still together & generally happy are in no position to be celebrating... but hey there's always room for toxic jada/alisa yuri

[sillyguy03]

Who up feeling unlikable this Saturday turned Sunday

[spookythesillyfella]

chat you'll never believe who bought MORE PINS !!!!! »_< ¥_^

[ancientrimer]

i can't believe this keeps happening to me. i figure out a theory i think i might want to apply in my thesis, go look at the text that has the theory, and find that that text already mentions jane eyre

[orcelito]

Just days away from my HOPEFULLY last fall semester in college

Gonna make this year fucking count

[troublcmakcrs]

//if i had a sp multi, it would consist entirely of characters nobody gives a shit about, like ned, thomas (le petit tourette), and GOD HIMSELF.

[bubooo]

you guys aren’t ready for part three

[squipa]

“i guess i’m stuck forever by the glue, oh, and you”

aka— how jason loves you (acts of service) ⭒

———

jason todd doesn’t know how to love you. he’s been constantly cast aside, beaten down, grown up seeing how the only real parental figures in his life stare at romantic interests with lust and not purest love. he never learned where to press tender kisses or when to whisper sweet nothings, so the unfettered affection that overwhelms him presses so hard against his chest he can feel an aching heart bulging painfully against his skin.

yet, in the center of his being, nestled right under his left ventricle and between the most delicate of his ribs, there is a little boy terrified of losing the only woman he’s ever been capable of loving, the only person capable of loving him.

so he works— day and night, doing all that he can to ensure that this overwhelming fear, a horror that shakes him body and soul, can never come to fruition. before you could even realize you liked him, he never left your apartment, fixing things you hadn’t even realized were broken. your sink, your fridge, your heater— you threw out the little magnets with the numbers of plumbers and electricians, because jason took care of your crumbling home like it was his.

there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for you. not a line he would fail to cross if you looked up at him with those tired doe eyes that pierce his once unbreachable walls and bewitch him entirely.

he can’t quite say he loves you. it’s the most difficult thing he’s ever done and he doesn’t know why. he’s said it twice under normal circumstances, six times if you count intoxication and near death experiences— which he does not. he does love you, without question or doubt, he’s so in love with you it hurts him. he just fails at every attempt to articulate it. he wishes he could tell you every day when you wake up, every night before you fall asleep, and every moment in between— but he just can’t. he’s scared that real ‘i love you’s’ will sour into fake ones and tender goodnight kisses will rot into resentment, so he avoids them entirely.

but he shows you. maybe he doesn’t know that he’s supposed to open every door or cover bare shoulders with his jacket, but he knows how to make himself indispensable. he knows you hate coming home to an empty fridge so he makes sure you won’t. he takes care of your car before you were even aware of an issue— oil changes, flat tires, and anything beyond the norm and he makes sure you never have to pay a penny of it.

and the dates you go on— they’re perfectly planned, itineraries crafted with doting hands and warm intentions. he doesn’t go all out very often, he’s more inclined to spend his evenings at home with you in his arms, but on anniversaries, or your birthday? it’s elaborate and enchanting— fantastic really is the only word proper enough in grandeur to describe it. candlelit homemade dinners and gifts that, while never expensive or over the top, are so thoughtful you tear up every time.

yes, while he is an undeniably clumsy lover, a man who was never given the tools to show just how much he is capable of, jason todd loves you too much to ever let go. it is in no way malicious the way he traps you in a rose colored box, making sure you feel loved and cared for and safer in his arms than anywhere else.

———

1. trying out new things with formatting!! i’d love feedback on it if you like this style more than my previous one!!

2. soooo sorry i haven’t posted in awhile. this week has been HELL. ap testing. graduation around the corner. hours at the vet. flat tire. fanfic writer curse is REAL. i meant to post this like a year ago & i just could not finish it. sorry it’s so short too i’m just exhausted :( hope y’all enjoyed!!!!!!

[dumbbitchgalore]

Old Man!Price craves a pretty little housewife to waiting for him at home 🎀

As John gets older, he has this visceral urge to domesticate you that it also seems obsessive of him.

Hand in hand, John'll bring you back home to his cottage in the Cotswolds causing your eyes to widen at the home in front of you. As if your pinterest board has come to life, stained glass windows and a garden full of peonies. 

“God, this is exactly how I imagine my dream home to be like,” You say in awe before shrugging your shoulders, “Well that is if money wasn’t an issue.”

Your words earn a chuckle from John as he ushers you inside, giving you a tour of his home while you such over every little detail. 

‘Oh, that backsplash is literally my dream!’

‘Oh my god, a reading nook?!’

‘No way, you have a bloody walk in the pantry?!’

The smirk ever leaves John’s face as you continue to gush over his house well into dinner.

John is a very committed and detail-oriented man and that is why he needed to get everything perfect according to your Pinterest boards. He never leaves anything up to chance so all he did was look through your phone, browse your inspiration boards getting an idea of what you’d call home. 

His plan was coming into fruition. John had the house and now he had you inside of the house now all he has to do is to ‘accidentally’ get you pregnant. But there was a nagging fear at the back of his mind, a fear of potentially ruining an unborn child’s life with his obsession. As much as he wanted you to be at home taking care of his kids and tending to his house, John did not want to be a bad father. 

Every time he’d fuck you raw, John would try with all his might to cum deep inside of you over and over again until your pretty cunt could no longer hold his cum in anymore as it seeps out of you causing John to plug you up with his fingers. But every single time, John would back out at the last minute opting to cum on your back or something. 

He wanted to baby trap you but at the same time, he didn’t want you to blame him for everything that might go wrong in his life. The guilt will weigh too heavy for him to think that he ruined your chances of a better life without him. 

So when tonight you suggest for John to wear a condom because you forgot to pick up your birth control, John doesn’t hold back. He on longer has that stupid harpy of a voice in the back of his mind telling him not to ruin you and to ‘fucking not destory the one good thing in your bloody life, John!’

Rutting into you like a teenage boy who stuck his cock for the first time into an actual cunt, John thrusts were quick and deep bringing you to the brink of an orgasm over and over again only to stop his hips for a few seconds to once again pummeling into you, his cock bully your sweet, sweet insides. 

For once John is grateful for a condom, cumming inside you without a guilty conscience knowing that the condom didn’t let his cum paint your insides. He slumps against you, rolling onto his side as he holds your body flushed against his own, kissing your forehead and muttering words of thanks for ‘putting up with his old arse.’

It came to a shock when John sees the positive pregnancy test in your hands, the two blue lines mocking his efforts to not get you pregnant. A day later, he takes you ring shopping and proposes that same night. 

Now who’s gonna tell John that you were the one who poked holes in his condom?

[inthelittlewood]

Questions about Eyes And Ears AU

I had somebody ask for a brief interview regarding my storytelling for their university project and thought I'd lend a hand.

I thought those of you that follow the story might like the insight too, so here ya go:

When you first introduced the Listeners in Evo SMP, did you have a broader narrative or concept in mind, or were they more of an atmospheric element at that point?

The honest answer is that I didn't want to write too much about somebody else's character(s), that being Grian's Watchers. If I could write the conflict from the side of the Listeners then we could continue the narrative with a pre-designed opposing force but have them be relatively mute for the most part. Partly to build anticipation of when they might act or retaliate but it also worked for behind the scenes purposes too. If the series hadn't slowed/stopped as suddenly as it did, I definitely would have poked Grian to pick his brain about what story elements fit his original imagining of the Watchers. So it was mostly narrative reasoning but they also served a mechanical behind the scenes purpose of transporting us to a new area which was necessary due to bugs we'd encountered with world gen etc.

What inspired you to flesh out the Eyes and Ears AU more in recent years? Was that mostly a personal creative decision, or was it influenced by fan interest?

Honestly I hadn't premeditated too much their reintroduction into anything that I was working on. Sure I'd seen a little chattering here and there about the Watchers but I honestly just wanted to write an individual story beat (albeit a tropey one) of c!Martyn snapping and turning on Ren but that never came to fruition due to Scar taking us out. The plan was always to backstab Ren then say a cool line like "Red Winter is over, Red Spring has begun" or something else punny. Seeing the fevered reaction of the audience though gave me some confidence that I could try my hand at some layered or entirely post-production storytelling, so heading into Last Life I was all guns blazing.

The Eyes and Ears AU is quite open-ended — do you intentionally approach it with the idea of leaving narrative space for fan interpretation?

It really is right? Yes, it's a very mindful decision to leave it open-ended but not so much for the audience's benefit or interpretations, but to give myself creative freedom to take the story wherever I'd like to. Committing to too many power scale, multiverse or narrative shackles early can really strangle stories I've noticed (from reading comics and manga) meaning back pedalling or aggressive retcons are required to explore certain paths, which is rarely a good experience for the reader. I do enjoy their versatility and capability to be applied to any Minecraft or adjacent story too. Some might call it too broad, I call it malleable.

How do you feel about fans expanding the lore through headcanons and theories? Have any fan interpretations stood out or surprised you?

I think it's brilliant! People inundate my inbox on Tumblr seeking permission to write stories or create characters / AUs but I've literally no authority on that. I suppose it might be a different conversation if they were profiting off of those works, but 99% of people simply want to write for fun which I highly encourage!! I'll be honest that I haven't read a great deal of AUs or headcanons, my exposure to them is mostly via chat messages during lore talk streams or questions that come through regarding the Eyes And Ears AU. As a general rule I try to avoid reading too much of other people's works on the topic because I worry I'll accidentally regurgitate it in some way then stumble into plagiarism, you know? It's why I focus more on digesting stories outside the fandom whether it's manga, Sanderson books, reading old Japanese folk tales and the like. I can source inspiration from those on how to weave narrative and execute plot twists without having to glance in my front yard.

Has fan content (art, theories, animatics, etc.) ever influenced how you think about or approach the AU?

Oh for sure they have. It's literally why after every season we'll do a sit down stream and talk about the lore in detail. Figure out the puzzle and potential trip wires of plot points from the episodes and how we can neatly pack them into the pre-existing story. A lot of people wouldn't do that as they'd be precious about their work and believe their opinion is th only correct one, but I looooove soundboarding with the audience on it. I also take that mindset in game and sometimes think about the scenery of an impactful moment whenever I'm able to control / design it. I'll have little quips or quotes cooked in my mind for how I'd ideally deliver a blow or plot twist, buuuuut given the nature of the Life series you very rarely get to execute things how you'd like haha! I definitely wouldn't have done as many of the poems had their not been such a positive reaction to those. I often see individual lines or entire passages make their way into art pieces as typography or highlighted in animatics which is really gratifying. It's why I also put such an emphasis and priority on audio production in my editing. If I can craft something that feels atmospheric, driving and punctuating with music, staggering vocals or sound effects then the auditory portion is already done, they can focus solely on the visual aspect of things. I try and be as cinematic / TV like as my skillset allows for that reason.

You’ve mentioned trying not to fully canonise the AU, but still referencing it consistently — how do you balance telling your own story effectively, while trying not to involve other creators, particularly on the Life Series, when a lot of your time is spent in a group?

The easiest way to do this, is to not do it. For the most part the only storytelling done with the AU is done in post-production. I never name drop the Watchers or Listeners in world (believe me, I was as surprised as all of you when I saw that Secret Keeper statue in Secret Life!!) and in recent seasons they haven't even reared their head as an influence whatsoever. They're on holiday, they deserve it. But when they do whisper in my ear, they're motivated decisions that I would likely make as a player/character anyway because the win objective is always the thing I'm striving towards. I can just pepper angst around it to make things seem more manipulated rather than selfish ha. I think that's why the open ended nature of the Watchers has served me well because as much as they have a singular motive which is to feed on negative emotions, that can be achieved in so many ways ranging from bloodlust to deception, heartbreak to panic. It's versatile for storytelling. It can be in your face, or a slow burn.

What do the Watchers and Listeners represent to you, symbolically or narratively? Do they serve a specific function in the stories you tell?

The Watchers used to represent the audience when Grian first introduced them, but after departing EVO I've definitely breathed more of an egotistical and sinister air into them. They're very much a unique entity / faction now, they in some ways represent gluttony, selfishness and neglect in achieving their goals. The Listeners on the other hand, are a lot of the opposite traits, but I'm still wanting to explore how being the hard end of most conflicts can be dangerous. I want to explore that at some point, whether it be with infighting or failures. They shouldn't be seen as simply bad/good, they're just, different. It shouldn't be too hard navigating that nuance but I want it to reflect elements and motives that we find in our own lives.

[vamptastic]

i do all my best "coming up with weird probably wrong but theoretically viable medical theories" when severely sleep deprived. unfortunately this makes it hard to explain once i am properly awake.