#not from the book itself or anything like whatever but finishing the series just feels soooooo

[cinnamontoads]

finally read the last warm bodies book nobody fucking move

[jo-harrington]

Freaky Friday - A Stranger Things Story (Part 1)

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

Word Count: 3.5k

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader, Steve Harrington x Fem!Reader, Eddie and Steve (Enemies to Friends)

Summary: Eddie thinks that Steve has everything in life handed to him on a silver platter (including his new girlfriend who Eddie has a crush on). And Steve just can't believe that the kids look up to Eddie the Freak, or that he lives his life without giving a single fuck.

Must be nice. But you know what they say, the grass is always greener.

Warnings/Themes: AU with no Upside Down. Body swapping, dark magic/alchemy, unrequited love--some crushes at least, Babysitter Steve, No Upside Down means slightly still King Steve, unresolved feelings, manipulation/deception, Reader gets a nickname (Honey), no Y/N if I can help it, no smut in Part 1 but liable to be in other chapters

Note: After a very hot and fast suggestion by @shiftingtherain, this mini-series was born. And instead of working on Store Manager Verse like I wanted to, here we are. This part is a little shorter...it's the intro, sue me. Next few parts will be a tad longer.

Credit for the header partially goes to me for the design and the logistics but I was tired, so I may have borrowed gifs from @emziess and Netflix itself as a jumping off point (with permission from Emzies and Netflix is a corporation so they can rot). I can only do so much guys, I also had to write this thing too.

You can find my masterlist here.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

If Eddie never saw Steve Harrington again in his life, it would still be too soon.

He didn't always indulge in rentals from Family Video—if it was too cold and wet to have band practice in Gareth's garage, or if he was having an especially bad week at school, or if he needed something a little more realistic than the illustrations of Heavy Metal magazine to help him satisfy his needs—but today just had that special feel to it.

He'd gotten a B on his math test, Rick had been feeling a little under the weather and let Eddie make the rounds to his usuals for a sweet little cut, and he had found a dusty old book about alchemy and occultism at the library that was going to help him put the finishing touches on tomorrow night's Hellfire session.

For all of that, Eddie thought a little reward was in order.

A little Dark Crystal, a little pizza from Lou's, a little weed...he'd be having the best Thursday night.

Except...

For the past twenty minutes, he'd pretended to hem and haw over the selection of movies just so he could glare across the store at the counter, where Steve stood, flirting and making grandiose promises, with you.

He burned with jealousy, and God, it took almost everything in him not to gag as Steve reached across the counter to slyly hold your hand. And everything else for his heart not to break as you just let it happen.

Eddie didn't know how or when or why this started—when Harrington had gotten his claws into you and how he had managed to charm his way into your heart—when it should have been Eddie instead.

Eddie'd had a crush on you for years but had always been too nervous to do anything about it.

You were a year younger than him, and friends with his pal Mickey's younger sister, so he'd seen you around quite a bit. Smart and funny and pretty; maybe not as unpopular as Eddie was, but certainly not in the running for homecoming court or whatever other social hierarchies were in place at Hawkins High either. He figured...you know, maybe once he got to senior year he'd get the courage. Maybe take you to prom or something; who wouldn't want to go out with a senior?

But he'd gotten the notice from Higgins that he wouldn't be graduating with the rest of the Class of '84 and it really put a damper on his plans.

He had been hopeful again the following year, actually had a few classes with you and sat with you for partner work when no one else wanted to work with him, when they laughed at him. You weren't even afraid to go up to him in the cafeteria to ask a question, or walk with him in the hall if you had to go in the same direction for your next class. You'd talk about assignments mostly, but he savored every little fact he could learn about you. What books you'd been reading, the fact that you watched Svengoolie on Saturday nights—just like he did—or that you'd had some squabble with Mickey's sister over a scrunchie of all things and were no longer speaking.

But Eddie knew how bad his grades were—somehow even worse than the year before—and aside from the work you did with him, he knew it wasn't gonna be enough for him to graduate. So he wasn't gonna put himself in the position for you to laugh in his face—not that you would but...just in case you did—by asking you out.

He thought you would disappear from his life after you graduated. Get the hell out of Hawkins the way everyone else wanted to. But no. You took a few classes at the community college and worked the dinner shift at Benny's a few nights a week. You'd been there every Tuesday night, when he and the guys grabbed food after their gig at the Hideout. The usual booth reserved, drinks already poured by the time they sat down, and their usual orders already written in your little order pad.

You usually gave him extra whipped cream on his slice of cherry pie too.

The guys always urged him to ask for your number...but he never did. How could he? Even if you were stuck in this town the same way he was...he just couldn't bring himself to do it.

And now...here you were, listening to Harrington talk about some great surprise he had planned for your third date the next day.

Eddie wondered why you hadn't screamed in outrage when Steve mentioned how much Nancy Wheeler had liked it when he took her to this mystery place. He would have definitely expected you to at least flinch at the mention of his ex-girlfriend's name.

"It sounds really great," you said instead, smiling and nodding. "I get out of class at 3 on Fridays...should I be here around 4?"

"4 is perfect, honey," Steve grinned.

Eddie couldn't stand to hear whatever sickeningly sweet goodbye you both would come up with so he just grabbed whatever tape was in front of him and approached the counter. You and Steve both flinched when Eddie slammed his selections down on the counter to be checked out.

“Uh…I’ll see you tomorrow then. Bye Steve,” you muttered, eyeing Eddie with a half-smile that felt a bit sad. “Bye Eddie.”

"Bye honey."

“Bye honey,” Eddie mocked once you were out the door, then turned back to Steve. “You gonna try and make goo goo eyes at me next Harrington? I don’t have all day.”

“Jesus Munson. What’s up your ass?” Steve scoffed, grabbing the tapes.

“I’m just trying to get my videos and go.” Eddie rapped his knuckles on the counter. “Not really interested in the kind of customer service you're trying to provide."

Steve wondered what the likelihood of getting fired would be, if he just punched that smug look right off of Munson's face.

Keith hated the guy too, he always left the Adult section looking like a mess. Maybe Steve would get a promotion instead.

For years Eddie roamed around Hawkins being a general menace with his gaggle of friends. Causing trouble, shouting at people, making faces at old ladies. He’d gotten “taken in” to the police station one too many times but always seemed to make it out without actually being arrested. Which baffled Steve; Eddie was a drug dealer for crying out loud.

And yeah, Steve had even asked him to come and deal at a party or two but…people like that were bad. Simple as that.

Even after all of that, after you got past the “bad boy” persona….he was a fucking nerd. He wasn’t even cool like the bad boys in movies were. Steve felt like someone was tricking him the first time he had walked past the Hellfire Club’s table in the cafeteria. For all the leather and chains and band tees—all the talk of satanic rituals and blood sacrifices—there was sure a lot of talk about elves and…and bards and Star Wars.

So it shouldn’t have been a surprise to Steve that the kids would flock to Eddie by the time they made it to Hawkins High.

But it had been. A huge shock.

His unexpected little gaggle of morons…weren’t really his anymore.

Steve had dropped Dustin off on the first day of school and said “don’t get into any trouble.” Even made Robin promise to keep an eye out for him. He expected the kid to…join the mathletes or something. Get roped in with the science nerds.

But by the end of the week, the kids were all clamoring about how they would need to reschedule movie nights with Steve so they could go to Hellfire club with Eddie.

Steve couldn’t understand it. Eddie was a freak, a punk, some good for nothing…and now the kids were suddenly following him like he was some sort of prophet. Spreading the word of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

See? Steve could do the nerd talk too when he wanted...thanks to Dustin.

Who, much to Steve's annoyance, was apparently Eddie's biggest fan. The guy could do no wrong in Dustin's eyes, and it really irked Steve.

Will and Lucas were spending Saturdays at the library—not for homework, but for research because apparently Eddie really liked incorporating mythology into his campaigns. (Whatever that meant.) Mike was growing his hair out because "Eddie's hair was cool.” What about Steve, whose literal nickname was The Hair? Shit, he'd even seen Eddie give Max a ride to school on a few occasions when he was late dropping Robin off. And he knew Max and her mom had been having a hard time since her step-dad skipped town and Billy...

Steve knew some of the town gossip about Eddie was just a bunch of bullshit...but if Max Mayfield was cool with him?

Yeah, he just couldn't help but be suspicious of the guy.

Regardless, the sooner Steve could get him out of the store, the better his night was gonna get.

...actually...

"That's gonna be $10." Steve announced dryly.

"Woah, $10?!" Eddie scoffed. "I have a membership."

"Since when?" Steve asked, hands immediately landing on his hips.

"I use one every time I'm in here."

"Yeah you use Reefer Rick's."

"So?"

"New policy," Steve lied, hoping it would get Eddie out of his hair for a good while. "No sharing memberships outside of your family. Last I checked, your last name isn't Lipton. So you either cough up the $25 for a new membership Munson, or the $10 for your rental. What's it gonna be?"

Eddie grumbled and dug his wallet out of his pocket, slamming the money on the counter.

"Any candy?" Steve asked mockingly before grabbing the cash.

Eddie grabbed the tape and grumbled under his breath as he exited the store.

Yeah, Steve wasn't gonna be dealing with him any time soon.

For a second though, as he went to start processing returns, he wondered...

If Eddie was in some ritualistic cult...what kind of curse could he possibly put on me?

But that was a dumb thought to have.

Eddie's night just went down hill from the minute he left Family Video.

He didn't notice that they'd given him the wrong pizza at Lou's so now he was stuck with some specialty veggie pie with broccoli on it, the tape he had grabbed indiscriminately had been some artsy foreign romance crap, and just now he'd just spilled Dr. Pepper all over his Hellfire notebook.

"Fuck," he shouted as it spilled over the side of the coffee table and onto his sock-clad feet. He couldn't give a shit about the carpet, he could even ignore his wet socks, but his notebook. Weeks of work, planning and toiling over the most sadistic campaign.

He liked to keep all of the notes of Hellfire's completed campaigns, a sort of...record for future kids to look back on and reference. And now this specific masterpiece would be lost to memory.

He cleaned everything up as best he could before making a quick trip back to his room for an extra notebook or something he could use to salvage his plans for tomorrow's session. He had always been really bad at...keeping spare notebooks on hand. Even the ones he'd used for class always ended up covered in his drawings or notes, little bits and ideas of dialogue he could use for speeches or NPCs.

The best he could find was his math notebook from last year which, surprisingly, sat relatively untouched.

Eddie knew why: that was a class he shared with you. And as he opened to some random mostly-empty page, he saw his little scribbles in the margins surrounding half-faded, penciled-in algebraic equations. Daggers and hearts and his and your initials intertwined together.

It was the one class where he would never encounter partner work with you, so he felt compelled to fill the pages with his daydreams instead of fantasies and lore. You would never see it.

"Well," he huffed as he dropped back down onto the floor and slapped the notebook onto the coffee table. He grabbed his pen and scribbled over the drawings on the page. "Now that she's with Harrington, no use living in this fantasy. Fuck, I was stupid, so stupid to ever think she would want anything to do with me."

He grabbed the dusty old alchemical book from the library and found his place, staring at old sigils and runes and text indiscriminately until he came upon one that looked too perfect for the campaign. Concentric circles, arcane lettering, angular lines...

While Eddie would usually use a clean page for something like this—something he would hand off to his players—he drew a copy of the sigil onto the page and planned to rip the edges off, maybe singe them with his lighter to make it look more authentic.

He kept staring at the still-noticeable doodles beneath the pen scribbles and his heart ached a little in his chest.

Yeah, he would definitely want to burn those too.

By the time he was done copying the sigil, a wave of exhaustion overtook him and he glanced down at his watch.

It wasn't much later than he usually went to bed on a weeknight...

He stared at the half-ruined notes for tomorrow's session that he still needed to rewrite and sighed.

"Fuck it, I'll just redo them in the morning." He got up and stretched his arms over his head. "I can just sleep in tomorrow. Skip class. Show up for Hellfire. Who cares anymore.”

He put the rest of the pizza in the fridge for Wayne and then headed to bed, only to be plagued with dreams of scribbled out love hearts, movie theater candy, guitar solos, and big red gum.

When Eddie woke up the next morning, he felt...honestly felt like he was floating on a cloud. Every muscle in his body felt looser, yet somehow tighter at the same time. His skin felt tighter, like it wasn't right, like it didn't fit somehow, it was suffocating him.

He must have died but he wasn't quite sure if this was heaven or hell.

His eyes burned and blurred slightly as he opened them and what he saw was...unexpected.

Gone were the off-white walls, his posters, the piles of his crap, and that concerning patch of probably-mold in the corner of the ceiling. Instead there was a sturdy ceiling, plaid-papered walls, and matching curtains?

Eddie groaned and rolled over.

What the fuck was this place?

There was a slam of a door somewhere that practically shook the walls surrounding Eddie and as he sat up, he found himself only wearing...briefs? He didn't wear briefs.

This wasn’t his bed, wasn’t his room…wasn’t his… body?

He looked down at his chest, his arms, his hands…his fingers weren’t right, he didn’t have this many freckles and moles, he didn’t have…abs, if that’s what you could call the slight definition on his torso. Still it was more than his body had ever had. His skin…was itchy and mostly hairless.

Eddie reached up and touches his hair—shorter than he was used to, not curly…at all—then his face, as if that was any indicator to what he—

“A mirror!” He exclaimed. His voice…sounded familiar, but different. Fuck what kind of dream was this?

Because it had to be a dream right? It had to be. How else did he wake up in someone else’s body?

He pushed himself out of the bed, walking slightly off-cadence, which…yeah probably came with the territory of your brain needing to get used to a new body. Fuck…was his brain even his brain or did his mind just get transported what was happening?

Ugh it was too early to think about that.

Eddie slowly cracked the bedroom door open and peaked into the rest of the house. He spotted a bathroom just across the way, otherwise…shit, this place actually looked a little familiar. Where the fuck was he? Who the fuck was he?

He quickly crossed the landing into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him. He heaved a breath and leaned back against the door for a moment to calm himself; his hands were shaking and felt cold. Could he even feel his fingers? Nice to know the occasional nervousness that snuck up on him at his lowest moments hadn’t been left behind in his old body, that they’d followed him to this one.

His body…would it still be in his bed? What if he really had died and…had jumped into his new body? Was this reincarnation?

Fuck, if he was dead…Wayne would find him. Could he even…see his uncle again? How could he ever explain who he was?

Eddie felt the tears prick his eyes and his throat tighten and he slapped his face a few times.

“Come on man, come on,” he muttered. “It’s not that bad. It’s only…mildly awful. Fuck, ok. Just go, just look, just…rip it off like a bandaid.”

Eddie took a deep breath and nodded, then crossed the short distance to stand in front of the sink. He stared at his new feet, wiggled his new toes. You never…appreciated the toes you had until you have new ones.

That was awful and you’re an idiot. Just look.

Eddie closed his eyes again and turned his face up towards the mirror. He could do it. He would do it.

He opened his eyes.

“Jesus H. Christ!”

Steve woke up feeling like absolute shit. Everything ached—like he had pulled a muscle or something by sleeping crookedly—he had awful cottonmouth, and he had inhaled…some yarn or something because he woke up coughing and gagging until he got the intrusive strands out of his mouth.

“Gahh, shit, shit,” he said and scratched at his throat. He sounded hoarse. Ugh was he getting sick? He’d have to ask his mom to bring home some soup or something.

Could he call out of work? Shit he had to take Robin to school. She could walk today, he felt awful.

Steve blinked his eyes open and took in the unfamiliar popcorn ceiling with growing concern.

He looked around at the…piles of garbage and the cracks in the plaster walls partially covered by band posters...and felt the rise of panic grow within him. He tried to recall the night before.

He’d wrapped up his shift at Family Video, gone home and had a rare dinner with both of his parents, then…felt extremely tired and went to bed.

So how did he end up here…wherever here was?

This was a kidnapping; it had to be. He was…drugged—explained the cottonmouth—and kidnapped. And now someone was holding him for ransom or something to…blackmail his father? Thomas Harrington was kind of a dick sometimes, sure, but still…he was a pretty decent guy. Who would want to blackmail him?

“H-hello?” Steve called out. “Anyone there? C-can anyone hear me?”

There was some shuffling outside of the door of the room.

Thankfully Steve wasn’t tied up or anything. God, what kind of kidnappers were these? He quickly glanced around the room for a weapon of some sort and he immediately spotted...

A guitar? A few guitars actually. Man these kidnappers really liked music huh?

One was a weird shape--he'd seen some hair metal bands use guitars like that in magazines, but he'd never seen one in person--and was a mottled red color. One was just what you'd expect when someone said "electric guitar." And one was acoustic and looked like it could pack a real wallop.

Bingo.

Steve pushed himself out of the bed and immediately jumped because whatever had been in his mouth was on his shoulders now. He reached up to grab it: hair. Long, wavy, messy...knotty and frizzy. Like it hadn't been brushed for days, maybe weeks?

And his arm, sticking out from whatever t-shirt he'd been put in...was lithe and weak and there were tattoos. On both arms. A creepy claw hand and a bunch of bats.

What was this? How long had they held him hostage for? No wonder they didn't feel the need to tie him up! He'd been knocked out cold.

He needed to get out of here. Now. He needed to get home.

Steve crossed the room to grab the guitar when he noticed it. At first he thought it was another person. But no, it was just a mirror...and in the mirror...his reflection.

Only it wasn't...his reflection.

It had startled him and he had jumped. Then he moved his arms a little and watched the figure in the mirror mimic him. Over and over.

A wave, a turn, a funny face.

He couldn’t believe it. This had to be a joke. A dream. A nightmare.

Because it was him, his reflection. But it was not his—Steve Harrington’s—reflection.

It was Eddie Munson's.

[dragonsdendoodles]

Dunno if this has been mentioned, but can we talk about (in A Map of Days) Enoch teasing Horace about gaining weight when he complains about the sodium content in pizza?? 😭

So that scene is... weird. To me. Because that part specifically I don't particularly know how to feel about, but the scene itself is my favorite scene in the whole series.

Talk of whatever the fuck was going on in this bit below the cut. Trigger warnings in the tags. (This one is long. There's a TLDR at the bottom.)

This is also a pretty tricky subject, so if I say something stupid, please please please correct me.

Before anything else: a very common interpretation of this scene is that it's hinting at Horace having an eating disorder. I am not here to tell you that interpretation is invalid, because it's not. It was not my interpretation, but it makes complete sense to me. I am not the right person to talk about that interpretation because while I do experience body dysmorphia and dysphoria, I have never had an eating disorder. So I'm not gonna do that.

My personal interpretation of this scene was that Horace is a picky eater and also has body issues and/or body dysmorphia, because those are both things I can relate to. That has always been my interpretation, and after several rereads that's what makes the most sense to me personally. I could be wrong. This is entirely my own interpretation and opinion.

Completely literally, this is what the full conversation tells the reader, before it's brought around to Millard being sent out for the second half of what we want to joke about:

Claire likes pizza.

Horace does not. He picks at it, commenting on the sodium content.

Enoch jokes that Horace doesn't want to get fat and laughs at the mental image.

Horace corrects him, claiming it's more about his clothes, then insults what Enoch's wearing, comparing his clothes to flour sacks.

Enoch specifies where he got his clothes in an effort to dispute Horace's point.

Claire further specifies Enoch's clothes came from a corpse.

Enoch makes a joke about getting clothes at funeral parlors.

Horace loses his appetite at Enoch's comment.

Miss Peregrine scolds Horace for not finishing his food. Horace reluctantly complies.

Horace expresses jealousy over Millard's peculiarity, stating that he could gain as much weight as he wanted without anyone noticing.

Millard clarifies that he's actually decently skinny.

The conversation moves on to Millard's lack of clothes.

If we go over it point by point and dig a little more into it, we get a few more details, which I think are relevant for the most part, so that's what I'm gonna do.

Claire likes pizza. Not particularly important to the scene other than starting it, but a cute detail nonetheless. We love cute details about Claire.

Horace does not. He picks at it, commenting on the sodium content. Horace does not like pizza and Horace does not like olives. (Agreed on the pizza point, but I will gladly take those olives if you don't want them, Horace.) The big thing here is that "There's more sodium in this than in the whole Dead Sea" comment, which isn't a concern someone his age should be having.

Enoch jokes that Horace doesn't want to get fat and laughs at the mental image. The problem child of the scene, because that's a really mean joke to make about someone, Enoch. Thus far the sodium comment makes it debatable how affected Horace would be about it, but still, not cool, man.

Horace corrects him, claiming it's more about his clothes, then insults what Enoch's wearing, comparing his clothes to flour sacks. This is the interesting part to me, because in seemingly trying to return Enoch's rude joke, Horace somewhat confirms that Enoch hit close enough to home to get under his skin. The specific line in question is, "That I'll bloat. My clothes are tailored just so, unlike the flour sacks you wear," which brings up another thing--these books have a habit of finding ways to call Enoch fat. Occasionally it'll be through deliberately calling something about him pudgy, and more often than not it's through stereotyping (you have twelve important characters and you picked the one established fat kid to be the one constantly talking about and stealing food? Really? Olive or Horace would've worked just as well, but whatever,) but this is the only time it comes from another character's mouth. This isn't just a comment, this is deflection. Horace is hurt by Enoch's comment, so he takes the first opportunity he gets to turn it back on him. This is deliberate. (We'll touch on this and the last point again later.)

Enoch specifies where he got his clothes in an effort to dispute Horace's point. He's focusing on the "flour sack" comment, not the implications of it or anything else about what Horace just said. It's just Enoch being Enoch and responding to Horace taking his bait. It reminds me of the scene in MPHFPC where Horace and Enoch suggest gross things for dinner to tease Olive and Claire. (Which I can confirm was them, but that's a different post.)

Claire further specifies Enoch's clothes came from a corpse. Again not super relevant, but not uncommon, fun fact. During the French Revolution when someone died they would immediately start taking the clothes off of them because I mean they're dead, they don't need it anymore. Just something I think is cool.

Enoch makes a joke about getting clothes at funeral parlors. Back to my MPHFPC point, Enoch has been established to be willing to say things just to freak people out. Just because Horace did it with him does not make him immune to it.

Horace loses his appetite at Enoch's comment. Reasonable reaction. I don't want to hear about leaking corpses when I'm already being forced to eat something I don't particularly enjoy. Like pizza.

Miss Peregrine scolds Horace for not finishing his food. Horace reluctantly complies. Classic parent move. It does suggest that the previous conversation isn't very concerning to her, because if it was she'd have said something during it, and she isn't someone who would hear that about one of her kids and just not care if it was something bad. Personally this lowers my concern level a bit, but I also like Miss Peregrine a lot more than other people I've talked to about this, so take that with what you will.

Horace expresses jealousy over Millard's peculiarity, stating that he could gain as much weight as he wanted without anyone noticing. The other concerning comment Horace makes. It all but confirms he is struggling with body image issues of some kind, though we don't know how severe they are. It confirms that Horace's reply to Enoch wasn't just about his clothes, and that if Enoch didn't hit the nail on the head he came pretty close.

Millard clarifies that he's actually decently skinny. This is something we kind of already knew, it just clarifies Millard's body type a bit more. In MPHFPC when he faints Enoch says it's because he "ain't as fit as he pretends to be," so now we have a little bit of detail on that. Regardless, I don't think it particularly helped the situation, but that's unfortunately a theme for Millard in this book.

The conversation moves on to Millard's lack of clothes.

Essentially, the big things we learn from this conversation are that Horace is insecure about his body and that he will tolerate Enoch poking fun at him about it.

The whole conversation, at least Enoch and Horace's contributions to it, revolve around their insecurities or lack thereof. Horace all but confirms he has body issues, and Enoch could honestly go either way: he doesn't react at all to Horace's jab back at him, he only focuses on the insult about his clothes. Enoch could not care how his body looks at all, or he could have avoided responding because Horace's comment had the same effect that his had. We can't tell from that alone, but I'm leaning towards the first option, because in the same book Horace comments on Olive eating a lot and Enoch jokes about her gaining weight as well. (Olive doesn't respond, Olive doesn't care.) His comment to Olive is more lighthearted than this, which I don't think it would be if it were also an insecurity of his.

The reason my feelings are conflicted about this scene is the way Horace and Enoch talk during it. This is played as a joke, it's very obviously meant to be comedic banter between two characters who are known to take shots at each other for the sake of comedy. That's all well and good, but this scene also proves that Enoch touched a decently sensitive nerve here, and Horace doesn't respond particularly uncomfortably. Yes, he deflects, but it reads as if they can only have this conversation because of how comfortable they are with each other. Horace avoids situations that make him uncomfortable, so if he was hurt too badly by Enoch joking about his body issues he'd have shut the conversation down instead of biting back. Enoch is also established in nearly all of the books to care very deeply about his loopmates and their feelings--if he genuinely hurt Horace, he'd have stopped completely, as shown with Bronwyn about Victor in MPHFPC. They've also known each other for what is implied to be nearly if not the whole time the initial Cairnholm loop was open, after seventy years being as close as they are shown to be they would know each others' insecurities. Enoch's significantly more likely to test Horace's limits, but he's absolutely smart enough to know what buttons he can and cannot push: look at the fight he has with Jacob at the end of AMOD. He cuts pretty deep at the end there, but had he not known (or cared) about Jacob's issues with Abe, he'd have said a lot more than, "You're not Abe, so stop trying to be," and he'd have said it a lot sooner.

It's a conversation that flows somewhat naturally and is portrayed a lot lighter than most people would take it, and arguably lighter than it probably should be. The way it reads to me is similar to how my boyfriend and I would talk and joke about our own insecurities, which leads me to believe they can only do this because they know they both know the boundaries. No boundaries appear to have been crossed here from both of their reactions, and this scene is all but forgotten when it's over. If anything this solidifies to me that the narrative wants us to interpret them as very close if not best friends, because a conversation like this wouldn't have happened otherwise. Horace doesn't let random people bully him. He threatened to bite someone, remember. He threatened to hit Jacob once too.

Personally, their exchange is far from a normal conversation, but I think that's the point. Narratively speaking, Enoch and Horace's friendship is fucking weird--you tell me why the nervous yet arrogant neat freak spends most of his time with the jerkwad who probably doesn't shower unless he's forced to and frequently bullies him. Their entire dynamic revolves around lovingly picking on your best friend. The whole point of this conversation is to strengthen that idea in the reader's mind, that they're close enough to be able to take these shots at each other without worrying they're going to hurt the other. Yes, Horace is implied to have gotten hurt, but at most it's only slightly. He doesn't react too much to it other than making a couple of concerning comments about his own image, which are pretty much immediately moved on from because at the end of the day it's really not all that important.

TLDR: It's a weird conversation about a touchy subject that is promptly forgotten about afterwards, which implies neither Horace nor Enoch think it's too big of a deal. Ultimately, it doesn't matter to anything other than giving us insight into Horace's character and Enoch and Horace's weird-ass friendship. It's not a comfortable conversation for anyone except them, and I'm pretty sure that's the whole point. The whole scene overall is still my favorite in the series, because I think it sets up what AMOD's going to be pretty nicely and my juvenile sense of humor means Enoch's singular allotted dick joke was a lot funnier than it probably should've been to me. (Sorry, Millard.)

[crowandmoonwriting]

Writing tip: Explorer Mode!

(Loosely based on Assassin's Creed's Discovery Mode)

Starting off a first draft? Not quite happy with your wording or the starting scene? Inclined to jump around the plot? No idea what the plot is, or who the characters are yet, but still determined to write?

Use Explorer Mode! Your story is an adventure in and of itself, and you are Indiana Jones in the Temple of your Creativity. Write notes, scenes, memes, character motivations, bits of poetry or prose from books or media that inspire you, doodle in the margins, but write. Draw a map from one scene to another. Document your journey, even where you fall into a plot hole full of snakes. You are here to find the story, not make a finished project. It's not so much a first draft as it is a draft zero.

How to switch into Explorer Mode:

It's best to have a dedicated journal to wreck, but you can use whatever writing software you like. Some recommendations: Obsidian, Notion, Campfire Writing, and World Anvil.

At the top of the page, write Explorer Mode, and use it as a header or footer for each page if you have to, to remind you.

Keep it loose. You don't have to keep anything you write in here, but try not to discard anything. Whatever you have might be useful for writing the first draft later, or laughing at with friends.

Make it multimedia! If it's a physical journal, decorate it, draw on it, paint on it, add stickes and fancy scrapbooking paper, pretty washi tape, whatever you like. Cut out pictures from magazines, or tear out pages from old books. Don't be afraid to get messy with it.

Music, music, music! Definitely write down some playlists, or put in some links if you're using a digital journal. Write down the actual names and artists of the songs, however, and when you listen to each one, take notes. What character or scene might this relate to? Who would sing it? What lyrics inspire you? When you close your eyes and just listen, what do you picture in your mind's eye?

Involve the senses! There is nothing so evocative for the memory as scent. Scent your journal, or your pages. Add in a perfume, a fragrance oil, and lightly dab a page. Make a small envelope for a sachet of spices or a scented bit of gauze. What does the scene you're writing smell like? If you're working digitally, write down the notes of fragrances, or which candle you'd like to burn while writing this scene. You can do this with taste, too. Have a few dedicated recipes, if you like to cook, or places to eat that remind you of characters, settings, or plot points. What are your characters' favourite foods? Their comfort foods? For more on food and worldbuilding see my post here.

Get crafty! Make artefacts from your world or story. Embrace other art forms to realise it in your own world. Once when I was taking a ceramics class, I made a series of cups, goblets, and tea pots in the style of one of the countries from my high fantasy world. I love to see them and hold them, and imagine my characters having items just like these (or pretend that these are the real items they used). Sculpt, sketch, make delicate jewellery, sew clothes or a quilt, look up some fun DIY projects on YouTube that might relate to your story or character's interests and give it a go! Remember this is an exploration, so these crafts don't have to be perfect. It's a good idea to have something physical to do, something that you can do while listening to your story playlists, something you can accomplish while you daydream.

And that's about it! Take breaks from Explorer Mode whenever you like, to either actually start work on the first draft because you now feel more confident and comfortable with it, or just to chill and not think of anything for a while. That's important too. Most importantly, have fun! This is art we're making here, and we are artists, but we are also archaeologists, anthropologists, scientists, historians, and explorers of every kind.

Now go out there and have an adventure!

[the-savage-garden]

The Grossness of ACOTAR

One of the many things I hate about ACOTAR is that it uses the terms “male” and “female” for the Fae, I just strongly dislike seeing those terms used on sentient beings.

I’m sure if an elf was referred to as a “man” or “woman” no one would even bat an eye at it. At least I don’t. I don’t really see those terms as only associated with humans but as gender expression. It’s a nitpick, I know, but seeing sentient beings just called “male” or “female” feels unsettling to me.

It’s like... with the “worldbuilding” of ACOTAR combined with the “male” and “female” terms makes it come across that Fae have less sentience and are no different than cattle. The series goes out of it’s way to say Fae are better than humans, that humans are trash, but it reads more like Fae are lesser than humanity. It makes it even more confusing that humans are treated as awful and evil but have it that Fae are their betters. There’s no reason to make these contradictions, they don’t mean anything to the overall story. This series has a focus on romance there’s no reason for this.

The 2nd book (and I’m sure the 3rd one if I finish it) keeps bringing up the fact that female Fae like Mor are only thought to be used for “breeding” (God I hated this being brought up) even though in the 1st book you had Amarantha, even if she was a villain, as a general and no mention if she had to deal with that. With the fact that Fae are treated like they’re animals in the story, I’m sure SJM just gets off to the fact that she’s able to make her Fae centered on “breeding” when it wasn’t brought up in the 1st book. Gross.

There’s also the fact that in the 2nd book, Feyre is treated like she’s just a “prize mare” and even though the narrative puts it down I get the impression SJM loves the idea of writing Feyre being treated like this. At this point I’m realizing that SJM has a breeding kink. I honestly find this to be as unromantic as it possibly can get, it’s rock bottom to me.

Does anyone even associate “breeding” with romance? If you do I have words with you. Romance and sex are two different things.

The writing in this series lends itself more to erotica and I’m confused why it’s not. Was it the original plan? Did her publisher (or whatever) discourage her from writing an erotica series but SJM wanted to keep her idea anyway?

I feel the series cares more about sex than the characters and their relationships.

Hopefully this rambling makes sense, I’ve been thinking about this and wanted to put it into words.

[djservo]

HI CAS!!! you beat me to it for real i also completely forgot about the month ending oopsie <3 but i'm here to ask about your july reading/watching and what's on the list for august??

FEELS SO GOOD TO FINALLY WIN ONE <3 here's july's (vaguely red-themed) shelf:

I have no idea how i read 7 books this month like they were mostly all under 200 pages but that still averages to almost 2 books a week which does not sound right when I reflect on my month but Ok sure we'll go with it

Loaded by Christos Tsiolkas

it didn't really click as I read it but then I watched the film adaptation (Head On '98) and let it all marinate throughout the month I think the distance has made me appreciate the story much more! reminded me a little of Camus's The Stranger (<- girl who has only ever read The Stranger LOL 🫥) in that cold disaffected "why even bother" way, but infused with that self-destructive 90s gay angst + Greek-Australian culture clashes. the film was better to me at constructing the differences of the worlds Ari (the protag) inhabited - the visuals and sounds of Greek language + spaces juxtaposed with 90s electronica + seedy alley hook-ups whereas the written form seemed more focused on illustrating Ari's disillusionment/attitude. there's another book by Tsiolkas I'm curious in (The Slap) but it's like 450 pages and IDK if his style of writing will grip me that long / if it'll feel Worth It by the time I finish ykwim... TBD

Pageboy by Elliot Page

I wanted to like this so bad but it was kinda a mess to get thru :-( nonlinear form so it was hard to follow along as it hopped back and forth from childhood to adulthood and I know that's probably an intentional/artistic choice but there wasn't really a clear thread pulling these drastically different parts of his life together where it justified this random shuffle - mostly just took me out of each stage of life he constructed. it feels unfair to criticize a memoir for content because ofc there's no right/wrong way to reflect and write about your own life experiences but I mostly agree with Nin's review on goodreads re: lack of introspection, especially since this memoir touted itself as an interrogation (as the book description puts it) of his inner journey. there was this one part where he brings up his second-ever experience at a gay bar (with Alia Shawkat!!) but abruptly stops himself and is like "but that's a story for another book" and I was like WHY THO!! this is 10000% a story for THIS book WDYM 'another book'!! sighhhh sigh whatever I still love him and will probs pick up this taunted "other book" when it comes out bc i'm a cuck

Try / Guide / Period by Dennis Cooper

the final 3 of the George Miles Cycle, read obsessively within the span of 2 weeks bc I couldn't bring myself to escape his world!! feels wrong to lump them all in one but I'll be here all day if I talk about them individually, so As A Whole I'm just really in awe of Cooper's style and characters and world-building and blurring of lines of surreal horror and violence + occasional earnest smatterings of autofiction + humanity stripped to its core. one review said the last book read as if it was collapsing into itself, and I think that translates to the series as a whole because his form seems to get more experimental as the series goes on. and while each book felt so distinct in their own tone/form, they all ultimately dissolve into like a singular bare naked truth amidst bleak depravity at the very end, which I really liked. since finishing the cycle I've immersed myself completely in interviews + videos + just about anything i can find about Cooper and realized it's been a minute since I've been this bewitched by an author — so fun!

Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker

in the same realm of Cooper with dark/taboo themes + sexual transgression + teen angst. I feel like I might have been put off by this if I hadn't read Cooper first because things get so blunt and nasty at times, but I feel like I'm better at kind of poking through the rubble of like graphic depictions of moralistic decay to read between the lines/understand the bigger picture of inner-adolescent-torment. I remember watching Welcome to the Dollhouse ('95) when I was like 11 and it just seemed cool and punky and kinda funny kinda weird but then I rewatched it in my 20s and was stunned with how bleak and heavy it was and I feel like there's something there with my feelings towards these angsty teenage requiems, like there's a sort of shock value that doesn't really click when you're younger and in the thick of it because you aren't fully privvy to the extent of how harmful power dynamics work or something .. IDK much 2 think about....

Desire/Love by Lauren Berlant

not too long or dense to make your brain fog, but Freud/Lacan-packed enough to make you feel a little stupid for not reading more Freud/Lacan. I love when I read a nonfiction book and end up adding 458349 of its references to my TBR, it's truly the gift that keeps giving! kinda enlightening, kinda disheartening. made me think of when I read Venus in Furs in college and it rocked my world and put me into a crisis about love + desire + fantasies + the projections we place onto people + whether or not anyone can truly See and Love a person for who they are or if we're all just doomed to subconsciously inject our own imagination of who they can be in our lives ...... light summer reading!

viewing-wise I've taken on the thankless task of watching all 48534 Friday the 13th movies so once I finish I'm sure I'll need a slasher break. a friend and i are also summer buddy reading starting with A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf (my first Woolf!), then pivoting to a sorta dark boyhood in classic lit theme with Quarry by Jane White, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, and Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. I'll probably read other books on the side myself (I'm in the middle of Looking For Mr. Goodbar right now) but I'm excited at the thought of a themed plan + discussions for the month(s) ahead! i forget sometimes how rewarding it feels to experience and unpack a book with someone else <3

[acourtofthought]

Hi! Do you think Sarah will be starting a new series after she wraps up CC? Since it was mentioned (I think in ACOSF) that there may be 25 alternate worlds and we only know of 3. I feel like I’m one of the few who’s actually excited about the crossover, haha.

But I really hope she’ll release ACOTAR 5 and 6 back to back.

After CC, I think SJM will pick back up with the ACOTAR series, releasing 5/6 back to back and this is why:

We know she's currently working on the next ACOTAR book but SJM has never made a formal announcement on IG or her website and there has not been a formal announcement made by Bloomsbury claiming that in order for us to understand the next ACOTAR book, you should begin reading the CC series.

She mentioned reading ACOTAR before CC3 as an offhand comment in a paid interview but it came across as more of a "why wouldn't you want to read acotar now that you met those characters in CC, I think you should!?" rather than a "you definitely need to read the ACOTAR series to understand. The release of CC3 is months away. Had reading ACOTAR truly been a requirement, she wouldn't have left people three months to finish 4.5 books before purchasing the next CC.

There's many of us in the fandom. However, there are just as many people who simply browse their E-Reader book selections or walk through a bookstore and pick up books that way. The fandom is large but I'm not sure we make up the majority percentage of her book sales (maybe someone has a way of figuring that out?). Even if we do though, there is still a good number of people who have never looked at SJM's website or the FB fangroups or Twitter / Tumblr / Tik Tok, etc. Some people have no interest in putting in the effort to do anything more than enjoy a book, put it down and move on to the next. They don't go wild like we do for any and all information and really just read books based off their Amazon recommendations or the NY Times Bestseller list.

If we try and forget what we know of the fandom and act like we're an ACOTAR only reader because Urban Fantasy isn't a preferred genre (I know someone personally who hasn't read CC), the crossover doesn't exist in our world. Bryce doesn't exist. Our SJM reading experience ended with SF and we're anxiously awaiting the next ACOTAR book having no clue what she said in an interview that we didn't pay to watch.

For readers like that, can SJM truly pick up the next ACOTAR book after Bryce's arrival? Can it start with the characters talking about what they learned in CC3?

That would make zero sense to anyone who finished Nesta's story wondering what's going on with Tamlin, Koschei, the other queens, Beron, etc. There are definitely crumbs in SF hinting at the possibility of other worlds, the hints that people may have once been trapped in the Stone, but I think it's jumping a bit to much to start off ACOTAR 5 talking about a modern fae female who had entered Prythian through a portal they didn't know existed and swapped history's with, things that occurred off page in a series they never read.

Therefore, if (as we in the fandom know) the crossover will eventually affect future ACOTAR books, SJM has to build up to the events of the crossover within the ACOTAR series itself. Whatever we learn in CC3 has to also be presented as new information for the reader in ACOTAR 5/6. Because again, ACOTAR readers who buy books at bookstores alone are going to be clueless that an outerspace traveler from a different series landed in the NC and clueless as to whatever secrets were revealed in CC.

Reading all the series will create a more complete picture however, it's impossible for that to be a requirement for the next ACOTAR book since it's never been marketed as such. From a publishing standpoint, if SJM has written three different series, the series do still need to stand on their own and any information from a crossover that occurred in series #3 that's important to the future of series #2 will have to be delivered independently in series #2, without having to know what happened in series #3. Starting ACOTAR 5 with the characters having knowledge of Bryce's visit just doesn't work without causing massive confusion to a large portion of readers and it's not cohesive to where things ended in SF.

To smoothly integrate everything I imagine she'll start the next one, picking up shortly after the events of SF and use the next two books to buildup to what happened in the crossover and possibly the events that follow after, leading in to whatever connected plot the two share.

After that, I do think SJM will be writing another CC book (since she signed that new 4 book deal) dealing with House of Many Waters as well as another ACOTAR book(s) where she builds to a major battle in Prythian that involves characters from Midgard (and possible TOG) entering portals and joining together to fight the remaining Asteri.

I'm not sure I see her starting a new series yet, I think there are too many stories she's still looking to tell with the characters from her current ones.

[aquillis-main]

Prime fan: Prime is canon to the game.

Me: Ok, where the proof of it?

Prime fan: The producer said that it is but Sonic picking up rings as a means to reduce damage infliction. How the chaos emeralds work. Both Sonic and Shadow are within game specific rules.Tails workshop, being the one from Lost World 3DS.

Me: That's just adaptation but there no timelines of the show

Prime fan: Take after force. SEGA made all the designs and models and came up with the story they wanted to tell.

Me: Well the show didn't mention of Force or any other previous sonic game which that didn't.

Prime fan: As it was designed and pre-produced pre-Forces...They got what was needed to then go into an original direction while still feeling like Sonic or could be it's own side game to the main series.

Me: Didn't answer my question. They show didn't mention any references of force or previous sonic game you just keep deflecting of it and don't wanna see fact that you just making up excuses of it. Plus if SEGA was involved they would have save Prime can finished of season 1 and animator clarified of it.

Prime fan: A typical season is 6-12 episodes. They've gone for eight so they all seamlessly connect. Despite hiatus. Arcane did Book's as their separator. Like walking dead.

Me: Walking dead got can.

Prime fan: Netflix claims it to be a season then it is a season. Netflix are the holders of the show, they claim how they want. Exec Producer doesn't say in his interviews that season 2 was "next batch of season 1" that sounds ridiculousThe way they've set up the narrative and pacing is not built in the same way as a show with 26-30 episodes.

Me: But the animator work on the show and knows what going on and if they said this without bringing NDA which is true.

Prime fan: But she's not the exec producer

Me: Then why exec producer say anything?

Prime fan: Why take the side of an animator over the guy who runs the whole show. Sure you can call it all just season 1 but Netflix and the producer go by what was agreed on. And the show itself acts in part to a season 1-2-3 Sonic Boom season 1 was 50+ episodes. Season 2 was slightly more than season 1.

Me: Huh.

Prime fan: Reminder that that is the same person that also said the IDW cast was in the show.And tons of people believed it.They also used NDA there as well

Me: Yeah, but they took it down and they break NDA. And? They're recently post is still up that didn't took it down. It sounds like you same thing as IDW sonic fan.

Prime fan: Not even close. You can do that with IDW, there's zero place for that with Prime.

Me: In same category. They don't give proof, making up excuses and deflecting that when people is proven them wrong.

Prime fan: Whatever.

Prime is same as IDW sonic fan there no different.

I know. They just want to pretend the whole 'This thing that doesn't fit Sonic Canon is tots Canon!!!! The people who worked on it said so!!!!' means a lot more than it actually does.

[littleladymab]

[Star Wars: Rebels] with sparks of what i used to know

despite all the time i've been spending on tumblr lately i had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA that @skybridgerweek was even a thing but between that and reading heir to the empire for book club i was struck by the sudden need to work on the ezra and luke sequel to "far from the world that i made" aka my Rebels S5/Search for Ezra fic I wrote for the SWBB this year.

We're going to pretend this is for "Day 6 - The Force".

Please enjoy 10k of Ezra and Luke meeting for the first time, and if you want more of them, (unofficial) sequels are a first kiss here and some snuggles/cuddles here

(you can now follow the series on AO3 if you're interested in learning when the final (planned) fic is uploaded)

There is a flower that Ezra keeps with him, tucked safely away into whatever pouch or pocket he can slip it into. It is still just as blue as the day it was given to him — months ago now, on an alien ship as they left the orbit of a planet that tried to devour him. 

Ezra has not heard from Un’hee or Vah’nya since then. Which is fine. He thinks it's fine. It’s hard to tell if it’s fine, because sometimes he still has nightmares of an endless swirling blue tunnel of an endless gray landscape of a flash of glowing red eyes that he has spent so long fearing that he jerks awake covered in sweat and a scream jammed in his throat. 

What are the things around him that he can use to ground himself? 

Bed. Pillows. Sheets that smell like the detergent that Hera uses and fills him with a sense of home. 

A toy of Jacen’s, misshapen in the shadows, that resolves itself into an X-wing as Ezra swings his legs out of bed. 

His clothes from the day before, tossed haphazardly over the back of a chair instead of being put away properly. 

His lightsaber on the table beside his bed. 

The pale blue flower beside his lightsaber. 

Ezra dresses in the clothes from the day before instead of putting them away and finishes the ritual of getting ready by tucking the flower away into a pocket and clipping his lightsaber to his belt. 

The chrono by his door says that it’s still an hour before dawn which means it's a 50/50 chance that Hera will be away. Her sleep habits are almost as bad as his, but she’s had a war and a child to mess up that schedule. 

He just has the things that aren’t real haunting him if he lets himself drift too far. 

Instead of running the risk of crossing paths with Hera and having to answer questions or, worse still, given space and a cup of caf in the silence of the pre-dawn kitchen as she looks at him and understands without him having to say anything, Ezra goes out the window. 

He’ll send her a message to let her know where he is. Once he gets to the city, the white spires of it gleaming like a third moon risen from the ocean and plains. From the heart of Lothal itself. 

Ezra ignores the speeders tucked against the side of the porch and instead takes off at a light jog. They’re not that far from the edges of the city anyway, and Ezra feels brittle with starlight and filled with electricity that won’t let him sit still. 

This isn’t the first time that this has happened, and it won’t be the last. At least he feels pulled towards the city this time. He can remember who he is in the city, surrounded by all the bits and pieces of his childhood and his life and his after life. Everything that made him who he is worked into the dirt of this place under boots and claws. The blood sweat and tears used to bind the buildings together. 

Sometimes, Ezra doesn’t know who he is. A boy lost to time, parents gone Master gone future gone. But he will come to the city and lose himself in front of the painting Sabine made and try to remember where he ends and where he begins. 

Home is not just a place, he thinks, remembering what he told that planet that doesn’t exist. Not really, despite the flower in his pocket. Home is the people I have made it with. 

The first hints of pale pink-blue dawn caress the upper spires as Ezra wends his way through the city streets. He won’t stay that long, he tells himself. He will wait for the city to fully wake, then he’ll message Sabine — see if she wants to get caf. Or maybe Jai. 

Or maybe he would call Hera, ask her what was on the grocery list and he would buy the groceries as an apology for leaving without telling her he felt like he was breaking because she would know, more than most people she would know. They share that loss. 

But first he will take a moment to wake with the city. He will stand in the ruins of the old assembly hall, just as empty and hollowed out; and as the sun rises, he will feel himself fill with the warmth of who he is, who he is supposed to be, the person people remember. 

The person he remembers. 

It is there, with the early morning light spilling in through the mouth of the hall, it is then, not quite sure if he will ever be himself again, that Ezra Bridger meets Luke Skywalker and his lightsaber remembers how to sing. 

[[read the rest on ao3]]

[ooops-i-arted]

I'm relieved to see that at least some other Star Wars fans are as sick of Ahsoka Tano as I am. Do you think there'll ever be a point where Dave Filoni will ever get rid of the annoying orange for good? With him literally breaking the space contiuum to save her from what would have been a fitting end for her character, I think it's doubtful.

No, not as long as he's in charge of Star Wars and as long as the majority keeps eating up his version of Star Wars. Everything he touches has to be part of his Ahsoka & TCW Extended Universe. (I'll spare you an essay on how much anxiety I have over Mandalorian season 3 just being another season of Din being pingponged between Filoni's favorite plot arcs instead of the story being about him and Grogu. I miss the freshness of season 1 so much, with all its new planets and characters I fell in love with, just being consumed by TCW plots/characters. Bo-Katan & the potential of the Mandalore storyline excite me but I am just so worried it'll be about what Filoni cares about rather than what's best for the story and Din's arc.)

Ahsoka won't die unless Filoni comes up with what, to him, is an epic and worthy death (probably where she saves the galaxy, stops Order 66, and can live happily ever after in an alternate universe with Anakin forever; Padme and her importance to Anakin are completely ignored, of course) and even then he'll just go back and write EVEN MORE fanfic about her life like more Tales of the Jedi stuff about her past, or a whole What If series focused on her, or something else equally ridiculous. Imo he's basically a fanfic writer promoted to canon and he's gonna make all of us look at his sooper speshul awesome OC until the end of time.

Not intended as a diss on fanfic writers or anything, just that his attitude is the same I had when working on my super amazing powerful perfect Jedi OC when I was eleven. Which was great! I loved it! I had so much fun! But I was eleven. I have higher quality writing now. Like, No Prison Can Hold was just the adult version of me playing with my action figures, but I still wanted to tell a story with a beginning/middle/end, have a character arc for Din, and keep all characters aligned with canon once I decided it was a story that should be that way (and in fanfic you don't have to do that! in canon you do!). If I wrote like Filoni, Din would be rescued by my super amazing Jedi OC from childhood, she would hold his hand and lead him through the whole rescue and always be right, and the climax would be how SHE felt about Din and Grogu's reunion. It would be a much less satisfying and well-written story if I sacrificed the story itself at the altar of my favorite OC.

Tl;dr I have Concerns about the writing quality and I see Ahsoka as the canary in the coal mine for it. Especially after Book of Boba Fett, where Din was the Super Special OC taking over the show (Din is just a more balanced character, he has flaws and doubts and a more realistic skill level; 14 year old Din wasn't beating General Grievous for example), but of course we had to shove Ahsoka in there too, and Cad Bane to finish an arc THAT WAS NEVER EVEN IN TCW AND I NEVER WOULD HAVE KNOWN ABOUT WITHOUT TUMBLR, so I'm guessing the average audience member didn't know about it, and DIN AND GROGU ARE REUNITED IN NOT EVEN THEIR OWN SHOW, a HUGE moment and like ten minutes after being separated which was a big deal so it doesn't even feel earned, like this was a travesty of writing. Ahsoka is just one of the more obvious symptoms of writing whatever you want instead of planning a coherent arc and caring more about connecting your show to another show instead of focusing on your main character and making the story actually about them.

....I guess you got an essay after all. Oops. Like I said I have strong feelings on this. If I, a fanfic writer with a full time job on my hands (being paid WAY less than Filoni, I assume), can make the time to write with consistency and character arcs and focusing on the main character and all that, surely Filoni should be able to when it is literally his job.

[vinguist]

Yk I just realized why I have such a hard time watching/reading and finishing series even when I really want to get into them. I veiw watching the things I get interested in as a task- not as a casual activity. Like for some bigger series I make spreadsheets of what episodes I need to watch & for most I also will look up reviews and podcast episodes about whatever episode I watch.

Like generally my tv watching experience is something I can only pull of once a while because It goes;

-look up order of all episodes/movies/books/spinoffs/etc in RELEASE order. With very rare exceptions I NEED to start a series from the very start & cannot skip anything. Example; I cannot get into final fantasy 16 because I would have to play through all of ff 1-15 + spinoffs & remakes first & that's really fucking annoying. No i cannot skip episodes. Spinoffs I can put off though

-I need to be actively paying attention to the episode. I cannot just put something in the background.

-good portion of the time is also spent trying to calculate how long I have left and constantly checking the spreadsheet to prepare myself for the next episode as soon as I finish the one I am on.

-if its a series not in English I will usually spend a good portion of the time learning some of the phrases used. Making flashcards n lists of common words used

-every time I finish an episode or chunk of epiodes I will watch n read reviews, watchalong podcasts, some reaction vidoes (they have to actually be contributing interesting/good discussion) & for games lets plays all up to the part Im at. Sometimes I have a specific spreadsheet of what podcasts or lets plays n reviews in order along with the spreadsheet of episode release order.

*Because I am trying to get through things in a reasonable time most "additional media" will be played in 3x speed, along with occasionally the show itself being played in 2x speed.

-& then I will usually pace about my room thinking through major plot points I like, characters, etc. this can take an hour or few. Maybe write blog posts, if so it will take another hour of typing & making sure I have said all the words correctly (there will still be spelling mistakes and I will get upset.)

Idk if this is like some neurodivegent thing but like watching a new tv show is like a full time job where 80% of the time is spent not actually watching the series. I wish I could just have a tv on in the background or mildly pay attention to a story- how the hell are y'all not just constantly worried about missing things though???? I always feel so miserable being in fandoms wanting to get to the characters & stories I hear about and literally not being able to get to the part of the story that introduces them.

[staringdownabarrel]

I've just finished Jimmy the Hand by Raymond E. Feist and Steve Sirling.

Of the three books in the Legends of the Riftwar trilogy, this is the one that really hits on my biggest pet peeve in prequels, especially when it's prequels to long running series like these. That's that it brings back an old character and basically sends them on an adventure set during a period they were off page/off screen.

I don't really think that was really necessary for Jimmy the Hand. It would have been fine for the story to be that after Arutha and company left to go back to Crydee in Magician, he stayed in Krondor and went back to being a thief until he had his "real" hero's journey in Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon.

To me, a story like this comes off as being the kind of thing you'd write to retrospectively set a character up as being the specialest little guy ever. From this perspective, it was also unnecessary. It was already canon that Jimmy was an exceptional thief, and that he was also exceptionally lucky that Arutha chose to let him rise into the nobility.

There also wasn't really anything about this book that really needed him to be there to begin with. Had Jimmy the Hand just been about a particularly difficult heist in Krondor during Guy du Bas-Tyra's administration, it would have made sense. I think that'd even be a good story to tell because most of Jimmy's arc was focused on him as a noble, so having that kind of story where he did go do some heist stuff would have been a fun side story to have.

As it is, it just feels forced. Like, if most of the story was going to be set in Land's End, it would have made more sense to just focus on people who already lived there than to exile a previously established one there. The story itself would have been fine without introducing a legacy character into it.

I feel like this book did do a good job at showing why magicians had a negative reputation on Midkemia. This is very much the sort of thing you'd expect people to have heard about, and it would drown out all the stories about local magicians being nice and whatever. Unfortunately, I feel like the authors just never had the confidence in this aspect of the story and wanted to focus on literally everything else instead.

The other thing here is that it's a little more apparent what parts of the prose were Steve Sirling's contribution and which parts were Feist's. In previous books that Feist has cowritten with other authors, the two authors' writing styles were similar enough that it wasn't always apparent which elements of the prose were provided by which author. It was a bit more readily apparent here.

I think this element was interesting. I think this could have easily become a detriment to the novel, but it never really becomes that. I think it manages to still feel like a coherent writing style.

[wowitscoldoutpt2]

I've just finished the fourth book of acotar, here's what I think of it. Spoilers obviously

Acotar as a series reads like a fanfic imo. feyre, which is a funny name because like most of the characters are fae, and feyre becomes fae so. It's a lil on the nose lmao. Anyway feyre is 19 at the start of this which I feel like is not nearly old enough.

She's real special, she gets a lil bit of every power of all the courts so she's like the avatar (atla not blue ppl). This irks me the wrong way because like, of course she'd be the avatar and she's married to the strongest man ever and she's super duper powerful and yadda yadda. I don't like her character arc. Like the first book sets her up as a girl who taught herself to hunt to survive and she's very strong and she's super swag, and then I feel like she just becomes like a Mary Sue. Like her figuring everything out under the mountain vs her just like, water bending and shit is such a contrast. She used to have to use her brain and now she can just "magic go" and it's over. She doesn't feel super complex once the whole mating business gets going.

Oh yeah, the mating business.

The most uncomfortable and awkward part of this whole series, the mating business. It's not quite omegaverse but good gods it's close. Everyone is now "males" and "females" which is just. Why?? I get they're not human but like "boy" and "girl" or "man" and "woman" is just. Idk, "male" and "female" is very Alpha Male Speak if u know what I mean.

So feyre is the mate of Rhysand (? these names are a nightmare) who is the aforementioned Most Powerful Man Ever, and they do sex like way more than they need to. And it's even worse because of the whole mating thing, gods I hate this whole concept so much.

The sex is not even that good, it's not very well written and for some reason the author doesn't say things like penis or vagina or pussy or dick or whatever, no no. It's, and I quote, "the length of him" and "the center of me" it's so silly. I'm violently asexual so maybe that's why I think the sex is so poorly written, but I've read better sex in fanfic I didn't read all the tags for, yk?

Anyway, moving on from the whole, mating sex thing, which is hard because feyre being Rhysand's mate is like a major plot point all of the time and I think that's silly, but anyway, the final battle was like, ok.

It was fine, it had like 8 climaxes, like what with the bone carver and his fam and the whatever was at the bottom of the library and the human ships and the other kingdoms and unleashing armen and going to the cauldron and ???? Idk it was not a very concise battle is all I'm saying.

Her sisters also become Powerful Fae which I suppose makes sense because of the whole dunking in the cauldron thing but it just feels cheap. Like they didn't earn that! At least feyre earned her avatar state, kinda, cause of under the mountain but these gals were a wrong place wrong time and now you're op situation which is just, so unsatisfying.

And the killing of the dad was odd too, cause like he was barely a character, he had like 4 lines I don't know why he had to die. I don't miss him is all I'm saying.

And then they all live happily ever after, or maybe not idk I don't have the fifth book yet.

It feels like a self insert story, like, "this is my character and she's so cool and powerful and all the boys love her and she's the only thing that can save the world"

It's a fine series, it's like a 5/10 for me. Too much sex, too much rape as a normalized thing that happens because "that's how it be idk what to tell u" and far too much like, just, yucky yucky stuff. Anything to do with mates just seems rapey to me, like the entitlement of it all, which is referenced and touched on in the book so I'm not making that up. And by the end of the fourth book feyre is 21, she can legally have a drink in the us, and she's fucking this guy who's like 500 years old which is GROSS!!!

It's Gross ok I said it.

The romance itself is sweet, I suppose, it was fine. I like Lucian as a character, I like Armen and Az and Cassian, Mor is fun too, and I like how Nesta keeps being an asshole, that's good, but at the end of the day, I suppose it's not my cup of tea.

I'll read the rest of the books when they're available to me but I'm not gonna be thinking about this story or it's characters much at all.

[voiceless-story-nights]

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Fear of the Unknown  WIP Progress Blog #2

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I’m back. Been a while but I’m back. And I’m back to putting this story as a Gacha series. Why? Because I feel like it. How do I know I won’t turn back to whatever media I think would fit? Because it actually falls under a series, not a novel or anything else. 

Lemme explain. 

Like I said in my first blog update, FotU first started as a “visual” story, meaning it was basically a story that was made to be a series. Even if I want to make it into a novel or a comic, I won’t be able to just because I divided the story up in a specific way made for a series. 

The way I was writing episode one was similar to how I used to write a series back then (not a Gacha series, it was for something else). I planned the episodes by making it as if it was a mini story within an arc that builds up to the main storyline. 

Complicated, I get it. 

It was the best way for me to write the series since I don’t plan to have any of those “filler” episodes. Those annoy me. And with how FotU was a series that depended on that style, it didn’t make sense if I were to transform it into a novel or a comic. 

Because when I read any of those, I don’t see a clear divide of where the episode starts and finishes. Everything is paced specifically for that book’s medium. And if I wrote FotU as a comic or novel, that divide would be extremely clear. 

It’s too short to be an arc, but it’s too long to be a single chapter. 

I just realized this when I was writing FotU’s first episode. How I got to the decision of making it into a series, I don’t remember. I just ended up making it into a series. 

As for why Gacha instead of drawing the series........... I don’t wanna draw... It takes too long, I’m not good at it, art is annoying to do... I don’t wanna draw. Good enough reason. 

Anyways. 

There’s been a lot of changes made to FotU. First thing’s first, the story itself. 

The synopsis in the first blog is super old. Because I didn’t have a clear vision of the story, and the plot was all over the place. 

At first, I wanted to just concentrate on Lenard being in the drama department and having the time of his life before it spirals downhill. But that wasn’t a good set up to the next season, which was where the drama department would be enrolled to an acting camp with a famous actress with the story being darker and more dramatic. 

That was unintended. 

Then I was like give Lenard an angsty backstory but came out “alright”! But then it just made him fade into the background, he wasn’t aggressive enough to be a main character, he was bland and boring... Ugh, I can’t win with this brat! 

Not to mention, I was having a lot of trouble with the main antagonist of the series. Because this damn series’ antagonist was either someone who shouldn’t be seen or it’s something that is being highlighted for awareness in the universe! Whichever it was, I don’t fucking know because I never finished my damn saga!!!! 

So I had to start over from scratch. 

And after replanning, rewriting, remaking that saga so the outcome would have a universal antagonist, I finally got the story I wanted for Lenard... Finally... 

They never had one to begin with...!!! 

All that work... Not for nothing but... just to figure out my antagonist was just the same thing as before... 

Well, at least, I got a better foundation at what the antagonist was. That’s a plus. Sorted that out. Now it was just... What was the main focus of the story? 

Like I said, I didn’t have a clear vision for the story. It was turning this way, then pivot left! It went up, then it drop-kicked down! I thought it was turning slow, but it turned too fast! I was writing draft after draft, but I still couldn’t understand what the story was about. 

It wasn’t until I was scrolling around on the internet that a writing tip from an author got me: Don’t overcomplicate your story. 

Oh... Duh!!! 

(Fun fact, it was a writing tip video that I watched years ago!) 

Since I wanted to include so much into my story, I found it difficult to understand the characters, the plot, and the moral of it. Plus, when I was trying to explain to my sister what the story was about, I couldn’t cuz there were so many missing and unexplained events. Even though the story was simple enough, I was trying to put so much into it. 

In the end, I decided to delete a ton of plot points that didn’t resonate with the story. As much as I wanted to include it, I had to remind myself... this wasn’t the continuation of the saga. 

Yeah... I never wrote the beginning of the saga yet I was trying to continue it somehow... 

Don’t ask. 

But after simplifying the story, I couldn’t decide who my main character was. Was it Lenard, the original main character who was a happy-go-lucky go-getter with a dark past and a simple purpose of joining the drama department? Or was it Annie, the other main character who was a complicated elf with a strong desire to tear down her critics and find her sister’s killer? 

At a glance, it looks like Annie would claim the throne. However, there are certain facts about her I want to remain a secret. Plus, to start the story out with her reason for transferring to Lenard’s hometown felt... too dark? Too empty? Too strange? 

...too perfect? 

Whatever it was, I didn’t like starting things out that way, so I had Lenard being late with Annie’s journey to transfer as a secondary scene! 

But it still felt off. 

And Lenard also has a certain fact that should be kept a secret until later on in the series. If he were to be the main character, I’d rather have that revealed since he has such a side-character-like personality... 

Ah... 

I realized Lenard’s secret is better as a “top secret” thing while Annie’s are more important to the story since the story revolves around it. And, in terms of a personality the readers/viewers want to follow, Annie would suit it best. 

Oh, dumb-dumb, duh! 

Welp, Lenard’s not the main character. And here I thought I could have a green-haired boy be the main character... Oh well. It’s the fate of all green-haired characters, apparently... 

Now it’s a matter of rewriting my draft again... 

Gosh, so many things have changed for FotU. From redeeming delinquents to creating a historical event to destroying criticism... It’s gone a long way... 

Anyways, now that I got things settled at this point, I think it’s about time I stop writing this blog and start writing the first episode again. I’ve got another mile to go with it, although it looks like I figured things out now. 

Ah, but before I leave, I should rewrite the synopsis, huh? At least, the current FotU’s synopsis. 

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After her sister’s untimely death, newly debuted actress, Anhelina Kellen, travels to the small town of Selcho, where she would spend the rest of her time rehabilitating and recollecting herself from the constant ridicule and criticisms of the incident. She encounters Lenard Hartmann, a stubborn elf who had lived with their caretaker, Kay, for more than six Ellaguerian sols, who wants to become an actor despite his terrible skill in acting with his countless auditions to his school’s newly formed drama department as proof of it. 

With Lenard’s practices until late nights, it annoyed Annie to no end until she finally understood why he was trying so hard: the ridicule and eventually threats he had to put up with from the drama department presidents, the lack of expectation everyone had of him simply because of their poor town’s wealth, and his unwavering resolve to be the greatest actor so his deceased parents could be proud of him sparked an innate desire in Annie to help the elf achieve his dreams and to achieve hers as well. 

Annie just hopes Lenard doesn’t turn out to be like her sister again. 

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That’s a little dark... Eh, it’s a work in progress for a reason. Anyways, that’s it. Bye~ 

[soul-dwelling]

I dunno Vigilantes, atleast at the beggining had such a lowkey vibe that it in a weird way just feels better as a manga. Maybe its just the way I experienced it - on lazy Sundays when a few chapter had amased during my college days, just staying inside or finishing just in time for some church gathering or other student event

Oh, jeez, do I have conflicting feelings about Vigilantes. 

I’m kind of irritated right now, so maybe I’ll recant some complaints later--but I’ll give my thoughts on Vigilantes. 

Spoilers below. 

Content warning about representations of mind control, brainwashing, and coded implications of rape. 

So, short version: yeah, it works better as a manga (although it drags way too much in the final arc); if I sat through this as an anime and got _that_ ending, I’d be pissed, whereas skimming 126 chapters is a faster way of doing it; and if this was an anime, it would frustrate fans who would ask, “You mean you could’ve just adapted the Aizawa and Oboro story from Vigilantes into the main MHA anime instead of shoe-horning Oboro out of nowhere and saving him for a subpar Vigilantes anime storyline?”

I enjoyed Vigilantes--initially. 

Then the last fight dragged on. (On a monthly schedule, it felt even worse, and that pretty much broke me when it just wouldn’t end already.) 

And we again reduce a girl/woman character to be the victim that the leading man has to save. 

And almost nothing significant changes after that final arc wraps up: our lead is still a foul-up. Any indication of character progression is sapped amongst our main trio. Crawler still sucks at superheroics despite his incredible saves. (No one pulled this kid away from reporters until he could be trained in marketing, public persona, and speaking one of the major languages where he was now working?) Pop is still a sad sack in love with a man who will not return that love. And Knuckleduster is again trying to get someone young killed by his training regiment. (I do love his Midnighter aesthetic.)

…And somehow Makoto is one of the most tiresome characters I have seen lately in fiction. 

How can one character like Makoto feel like a giant walking deus ex machina? It’d work if there was more of a wink to the camera at how easy everything comes to her and how easily she solves everyone’s problems--but it isn’t there. She’s not an Izuku where his solutions for others more or less come naturally to him. She’s not a Momo where the joke is how much access to privilege she has, thus that it helps her put into action her genius. 

No, it’s just Makoto is here whenever the story needs her to be here, for whatever purpose, whether to advance someone else’s characterization, or to solve the problem that is the plot itself by her mere presence and collection of qualities (police detective’s sibling, college student, practically in charge of Captain Celebrity’s entire hero agency and corporation, best-selling author). 

And all just to set up the awful gag of, “She is in love with our dumbass protagonist.” Ugh. 

She’s here to barely advance her brother’s characterization--by just making him the typical cop (obstinate, ignorant, foolish) that runs counter to anything we saw between him and All Might in the main manga, before she gets to work solving Captain Celebrity’s problems, the department store’s problems, creating a career for Pop (so that Makoto’s exit speeds up how Pop’s rise falls apart, putting her into the position where she will get kidnapped, tortured, mind-raped and based on visual clues probably literally raped--because why not have your fucking comic just get gross). 

(I know this is a superhero story where you don’t need things to be realistic--but the idea that someone in her position can publish her dissertation and turn it into a common-parlance coffee table book to get herself interviews on late night talk shows isn’t just unrealistic, it’s not believable, even in a series that up to now has made superheroics so mainstream that I should think, “Of course her academic book would find a wide audience.” Based on my experiences working in academia, even the most popular research-based non-fiction academic book doesn’t get as wide an audience or this many sales. It’s not even like Makoto’s book is novel in some way: see Nick Sousanis's Unflattening, his dissertation told through the form of a comic book/graphic novel, which he then got published. I would stop nitpicking Makoto’s publication success if the story gave her one more untapped talent, that being that she is an excellent illustrator and comic book artist, if it turned out her dissertation-turned-book was also a comic--which would be a genius ploy by the story to emphasize that, you know, this is a freaking comic book that you’re reading.)

And I complained about the ending, and the lack of character progression--but, again, when your ending is just showing that nothing changes for your main characters because they remain the same even after all they went through, I don’t care. I mean, does Pop change at all? We can see she is devastated by what happened--and then we time skip away from that and still have her thinking about Crawler. We barely get to see the aftermath because heaven forbid you confront more directly that trauma is fucking hard to live with. We even repeat the same gag from the first chapter, so nothing changes with Knuckleduster (and how the fuck did he survive repeated deaths--I know I just said this has to be believable, not realistic, but when you have his daughter seeing the shooting star and then, “LOL, no, he isn’t really dead”). 

I know there are enough fans who didn’t like how Vigilantes handled All For One, and I can only guess there are probably complaints how some MHA characters differ in characterization or design--but I honestly liked most of that. 

I mean, I hate the Aizawa story (“here is a long story to tell you why Aizawa is what he’s like”...as if you couldn’t figure out enough of that without that story--and then finding out that story exists just to add drama for him and Kurogiri and, fuck, I don’t care). 

And, yeah, Midnight’s behavior is…problematic. 

But seeing what Mirko, Rappa, and Fatgum were up to was fun. 

I did enjoy most of Crawler’s progression--until that final arc, where suddenly it’s more stupid love triangle shit and mind-raping (literally raping?) Pop to up the stakes when Six’s antics are already enough to up the stakes because of course a good guy like Crawler would stop the villain, so why are we again going for “rape makes this more dramatic” and “(almost) killing the girl lead makes this more dramatic”? 

*sigh* 

So, yeah, I don’t know how to wrap this up, beyond looking to what comes after Vigilantes in two parts. 

First, I hope the best for the Vigilantes creative team on their latest project: an official Marvel comic where Dr. Octopus is reincarnated as a young girl. On the one hand, they figured out enough of Peter Parker’s life and skill set with the Crawler, so they’ll probably nail that (and just how pathetic and annoying Parker can be). On the other hand…I mean, this manga could somehow have a worse ending than Vigilantes--hard to pull off, but given how badly Vigilantes ended, not impossible. 

Second, as I said before, I really would rather not have BONES animate this. Give it to Trigger. Yeah, I’m not a big Trigger fan. But given how cartoony, action-packed, and problematic Vigilantes can be, all of that seems to fit the style and tropes Trigger keeps using. (It’s almost like Court and Furahashi designed Midnight’s outfit as if to beg that studio to animate the series.)

[allisonreader]

I'm already onto the third book in the Ender's Game series; Xenocide, and I just need a short break.

It's a book that's made to make you think and gets into some deeper thoughts. Philosophy is heavy throughout these books, this one so far is among the strongest. Religious beliefs are strongly shown. As is fighting for the right of those who seem alien to us and don't think the same way that we do.

It's not something that I had been unaware of when I first read the books, but that was many years ago. When I knew and understood less than I do now. I have a different appreciation for it now than I did.

I can remember when I first read them, the criticism that was being discussed was Card's Catholicism being placed into the books, mainly about the fact that having children is good. That it shouldn't be governed over how many you should be allowed to have by governments. And that I just for the first book.

I do appreciate that he does mention and include all sorts of Christianity within the books, at least in passing. The other notable ones being at least mentioned that I have picked up on in these books so far, is Mormonism and Lutherans.

I don't know if I have anything more to say about this, or even if this has more of a purpose than to give me a bit of a break from the book and just semi work through some of what I'm thinking about, even if whatever point I'm trying to articulate isn't making itself clear. It's not clear to me. I'm not even sure what I'm trying to make a point of or articulate. Maybe that in and of itself is what I'm trying to figure out by writing this.

Anyways now I feel like I'm rambling on about nothing again. Which I feel like I'm good at doing. Talking about nothing. Wrapping my thoughts around going over the same point over and over again, without adding anything new to it.

(Okay I really need to stop now. Because this is starting to become like the journals I start but rarely finish. And yet, now that I am writing this, I do not want to stop. Though what I had started about has now run it's course. If I want to continue to ramble like this, I should probably finish this post and make a new one to ramble about nothing on. I am highly impressed if anyone actually continues to read through all my ramblings to this end point, and I am going to end it here.)