#oh the point of the thread was like ‘bad writing is still writing’ which is true but it was just weird idk

[scionshtola]

i was just reading a thread that was technically defending fan fiction but that also said it was all bad and annoying and i think maybe i’d rather they did not defend it

[aziraphale-rights]

So, what is the deal with the world’s most conspicuously uneaten Eccles cakes? (A meta)

Well, I wouldn’t say it’s bad writing, not even the on-purpose-as-a-secret-message kind. I agree there is a visual ‘loose thread’ here that the creators wanted us to notice, but I don’t think the meaning has anything to do with Metatron or the eventual plan for S3. I think the eccles cakes are all about what’s going on in this episode with Crowley and Aziraphale, and they’re unsettling in exactly the way they’re meant to be, even if we might not register the full implications consciously on first watch.

On the most straightforward level, this shot is the punchline to a joke set up by Aziraphale and Nina in the coffee shop. Crowley orders six shots of espresso, bound to get him all worked up and stressy. Aziraphale, who desperately wants Crowley to be thinking clearly when he learns about the Gabriel situation, says to Nina: ‘What do you sell that calms people down?’ And she replies: ‘Eccles cakes.’ From this moment on the cakes are a visual symbol of what Aziraphale needs from Crowley right now.

That’s why they get so much screentime as we cross the road and go into the shop. Aziraphale won't leave those eccles cakes behind because he’s still hoping that Crowley will respond to the request they represent: Please stay calm, please be patient and listen to me with empathy.

But Crowley never does respond, and as he storms out we get that close-focus shot of the abandoned plate to make sure the subtext hits home. The cakes are framed sitting in front of the horse statue, brilliantly dressed up in Crowley's sunglasses, to remind us that they were brought there for him and he's dismissing them. (Crowley is the frantic horse who can't be managed!)

There’s another level to it, though, which doesn’t fully become clear until episode 6. The episode 1 meeting in Nina’s café is the first time that Aziraphale and Crowley share a scene in the present-day in S2, which means that the last time we saw them together was when they were dining at the Ritz. As viewers, we quickly recognise the visual language of their partnership: a table for two, a drink, a dessert. It feels familiar. But the food gets delivered and then nobody eats it. On that level, it is a set-up without a pay-off and it really niggles as you watch. S1 closed out their relationship with a happy toast after a resplendent dinner; S2 opens it with a snack that gets ignored. The dynamics of who offers food to whom are also off, atypical. It’s a sign of how things are going to go later on, hinting at the fact their dynamic is dysfunctional right now, even though it might seem OK on the surface.

Which brings me, finally, on to the other thing I’ve wanted to point out…

The punchline is that Crowley doesn’t eat the eccles cakes, but the really subconsciously disconcerting thing is that Aziraphale doesn’t. That he seemingly never planned to, and never orders anything for himself. In fact, we don’t see Aziraphale eat anything substantial in any of the present-day scenes in S2. The only things he consumes onscreen are sherry, tea, and a travel sweet. (Oh, and Manipulation Coffee, which is definitely a callback to Crowley’s disastrous sextuple-espresso.) We see him with food, yes, but primarily he wants to give it to other people.

For me this little detail of S2 – not something you even fully notice until you think about it – is a very telling understated cue in terms of Aziraphale’s post-Heaven state of mind. It's about what amuseoffyre puts so well in another meta: 'the whole series looks like he’s having so much fun doing silly human things, but there’s this brittleness to it.' At first glance, we see Aziraphale interacting with food and assume he is now living the happy Earthly life we wanted for him, but on closer inspection he's not engaging much in the pleasure of eating for his own sake. He gets a quick sweet pick-me-up on his way somewhere else in the Bentley - all alone - and that's it. He's too anxious, too busy, he doesn't have time. Crowley doesn't have time to invite him for lunch.

I find it fascinating that Gabriel gets a squillion cups of cocoa in this season, waxing all lyrical about them, and Aziraphale gets none. Aziraphale's mug becomes Jim's mug, even. And he mostly makes the tea to show Muriel how to blend in. In short, S2 Aziraphale is terribly preoccupied with looking after/managing others, and not taking the time to look after himself. Like the Maggie and Nina match-making, all that kindly treat-offering is displacement, displacement, displacement.

No wonder it all goes wrong.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I the asshole in this situation??

First of all I'm so sorry for bringing t/b discourse here but this has been so gd annoying I need help. And all this is is on twitter-retro etc.

I'm 100% here for switch please keep in mind. Idc what anyone else likes it's food I'll eat all of it. But this fandom. Oh this fandom. So here's the context, it's a anime show with a really popular almost canon mlm ship, one of them is crazy beautiful and the other one is a big muscular man. Naturally the fandom like the pretty man as bottom and the muscular man as top. Let's call this DC. Not all people tho and it's the problem.

See, there are some creators who hate the above dynamics so much they make the muscular man a woman, sometimes trans which is fine but they always babygirl him, call him wifey, use she/her pronouns, go all out to make the pretty man over the top masculine so he can be top while making the canon masculine man demure little wife. Note that they're both really tall but D has long hair so they always make him wear accessories to feminize him. I made friends with some authors who used to like switch, they wrote DC back then and they were so good. They were all into switch too. Over the years they became really hateful of DC dynamics and started to exclusively write CD, talk about CD only, rt CD art exclusively.

This is still fine, they're like 10 people out of thousands who don't care, and most people don't care. Until one day recently when I said it was better to ship switch. Those people started clowning me, saying it's their right to exclusively like whatever, write whatever, started ignoring how the show portrays them. They wrote literal threads detailing how to how use tags as if no one knows, shaded people who said they didn't care and would use whatever tags they liked. It got to a point I had to ask them to stop, they started saying I was harassing them and accused the fandom of harassing them on anon and ao3. When I said it Doesn't Matter they said it was racist to suggest that, telling me to block if I didn't like their posts. I could not make them understand how fetishistic it was, just because Japanese fans do this doesn't mean it's good or we have to follow? They somehow figured out who I was and blocked me, kicked me out of a server we were in together, so I lost mutuals and some followers too.

Then they started answering my asks unseriously like "I write CD to piss YOU off" "can't project on the twink like yall" and started insulting switch fans calling us hypocrits. There isn't much CD content to begin with how can I share more of those? Whatever is available they make it heteronormative like that. One of them deadass called me an asshole for "harassing" them just because I said it's rude to block people over t/b dynamics when no one is bothering anyone, because these people are always blocking anyone posting DC and making a bubble of CD only fans. This is bound to make them lose track of canon but who cares anymore. They keep complaining about being harassed for liking CD and yes some fans probably send anon hate but that doesn't mean any critic of CD is harassment?

Tell me how I'm the asshole here for suggesting they stop obsessing over t/b this much? How am I the asshole when I'm the one they all blocked and apparently I'm a bad guy because I followed some popular accounts who post DC and said some weird things about D which I didn't even know about.

What are these acronyms?

[landhoesnorris]

Through the Phone - Lando Norris

Pairing: Lando Norris x Reader

Warnings: 18+, Smut, Phone Sex

A/N: This is set at the beginning of the 2022 season after Lando just moved to Monaco. This was my inspiration

You heard your phone vibrate from the coffee table as you sat, glass of wine in hand, scrolling endlessly through netflix trying to find something to watch to cure your boredom. You leant forward to grab your phone seeing that you’d received a message from Lando. Yours and Lando’s relationship was, for lack of a better word, complicated. From the outside looking in everyone would have thought you were a couple, a very in love couple at that. Anytime you were even so much as in the same room as one another you would gravitate towards each other unknowingly,  And once you were beside each other that was never enough. Hands would come to leave gentle touches, arms would find themselves holding the other closer, just anything to feel the comfort of the other. And once alcohol was added into the mix everything would be escalated. Subtle touches turned into kisses and holding one another as close as possible, hands leaving no area untouched, no care in the world at who would see. However, you and Lando would adamantly deny that anything was going on, claiming to just be “best friends who fuck”. And you did that. A lot. Anytime he would come home after a race it would be your place he would be headed to rather than his own, it had become almost routine at this point. He would show up, debrief you about the weekend, all the while the pair of you would get closer and closer on the sofa until you were straddled over his lap making a comment about either congratulating him for a good weekend or comforting him for a bad one.

And it worked for the pair of you, the arrangement you had in place was perfect. That was until he decided to move to Monaco. 3 races into the season and you were missing your post race debriefs more than you ever would have thought. Sure the pair of you had still seen each other when he’d came to the UK for McLaren related work but it wasn’t the same.  Mostly when you’d seen him it had been in a group surrounding, him wanting to make the most of his limited time back by seeing everyone he could, which meant there was only rare occasions when you would see each other one on one. Even when he did spend the night at yours he was often gone before you even woke up the next morning. It wasn’t only the sex you missed but also the comfort of your best friend, you even strangely missed the smoke alarm waking you up in the morning because he was trying to be sweet and make you breakfast in bed.

You slid open the message from Lando.

I miss you :(

…

As soon as you opened the message you noticed the three dots at the bottom indicating that he was still typing. After waiting a couple minutes for him to type his next message to no avail you decided to reply to him, opening the thread still seeing the typing dots.

if this is you writing to confess your undying love for me could you speed it up a bit i’m getting bored over here.

oh and i guess i SLIGHTLY miss you too

You loved winding him up and how easily you could do it. You just knew he was currently sitting in his apartment getting all huffy over your response to him missing you.

Wasn’t going to confess my love was going to invite you to the race next weekend but now I’m not.

so you admit it you do love me you’re just not confessing your love for me? thanks so sweet

fine guess i’ll just hit up daniel for tickets then

You’re so annoying, don’t even pretend like you’d rather go with him than me

thought you uninvited me huh?

maybe i could be persuade to come with you instead, show me why i’d have a better time with you, what can you give me that danny can’t?

You knew the exact way to work him to where you wanted him to be. Anytime you would even mention another guys name to him he would instantly become jealous and possessive over you in the hottest way possible. And you wanted to have your fun. At some point during your exchange you had subconsciously made your way to your bedroom and you were now laid on your bed.

I think you know exactly what I can give you that Danny can’t.

told you to show me, it’s been too long i need a reminder

As soon as Lando received your message he knew exactly what you were getting at, the thought of you being so needy to see him was enough to start making him hard. He discarded his joggers and boxers in a pile on the floor, stroking himself a few times making to get himself fully hard before clicking on his camera app. He quickly put the camera in video mode and hit record, stroking himself up and down, gathering his precum to help ease his strokes. Behind the camera he was letting moans fall from his lips. “Think Danny could give you this?” He give himself a squeeze as he spoke, drops of cum spilling from his tip as he did so “Think he’d know how to please you like I do? Know how to get you screaming and keep going for hours?” He was back to working his hand up and down, keeping his movements steady not wanting to go to fast in fears of finishing before you could watch and respond to the video. He stopped his recording and immediately sent it to you without even adding any additional text along with it.

As soon as you saw that Lando had sent you a video you knew that you were going to be in for a treat. You didn’t even hesitate before opening it, the image that filled your screen causing a light “fuck” to fall from your lips. Everything about the site made you grow instantly wet from his dick out on full display, showing you just how needy he was for you to join him, to the veins running prominently up his hand in arm getting more visible as he continued to stroke himself. Absentmindedly your hand wandered down your body and into the shorts you were wearing. Your fingers started to rub over your folds before you even had a chance to consider recording it and sending it back to Lando. However you wanted more from him and you knew to get it you would have to send something his way. You swiftly removed your shorts quickly bringing your fingers back to where you needed them most. You picked up your phone with your free hand quickly setting up the camera and hitting record. “Shit, Lan, you’ve got me so wet.” You let out breathily. You were rubbing your fingers through your folds covering your fingers in your juices before you slid one in. As you inserted it you leaned forward making sure to give the camera a good show. You were quick to add another finger pumping them in and out of you at the same pace Lando had been stroking himself. “Fucking listen to it.” You moved the camera closer to your centre so it would pick up the audio that your fingers were creating from pushing in and out of you. You stopped recording and sent over the video. Within minutes of him receiving the video you got a face time request.  

You picked up his cheeky grin filling the screen before he quickly turned the camera round. “Fuck babe, tell me again why I moved away from you. Wish you were here right now, not the same getting off alone.” His hand was stroking up and down his hard penis, his thumb brushing the tip to collect his precum before rubbing it over his member. Your heavy breaths were all that filled his ears, the sound encouraging him to move faster. You still had your camera facing you and from the look on your face Lando could tell you were getting closer to your climax. Your fingers were still working behind the camera. You bit your lip before bringing your fingers up to your mouth and sucking on the middle and index, making a show off it. A loud moan escaped Lando at the sight of it. “Ugh I wanna taste you babe, bet you taste so sweet.” You slowly dragged your fingers from your mouth. “You know I always do. Can’t wait to be back with you and get to suck my juices of your dick instead of my fingers.” That caused Lando’s hips to buck up at a faster pace.

You slowly trailed your fingers down your body, following along with your camera before leaning forward and propping your phone up at the end of your bed so that Lando could get a view of your entire body. You brought your hands back to where you wanted them most, slowly you slipped your fingers in making sure to give the camera a good view, bringing your other hand to rub circles on your clit. You moved your fingers in and out slowly curling them to hit your sweet spot, moans slipping past your lips and filling the room. Every time you looked to see Lando’s hand moving quickly bringing him closer to his release you got more turned on, knowing the effect you had on him even from miles away. “Gonna fuck you so good when we’re together again.” His breathy voice was broken up my moans. “Can’t wait to feel you squeezing me, gonna fill you up. Getting so close baby, gonna cum.” You were close to your release too, his low moans were now all you could hear spurring you on.

“Fuck.” You looked up and saw the white spurts releasing from his tip and falling on his lower torso and that was enough to push you over the edge. Your head fell back as you reached your own release, your fingers working you through. After you came down and regained your breath you reached for your phone. “So I guess I’ll see you next weekend then.” He said  flipping the camera so it was now on his face. You both lay discussing your plans to go visit him and before you knew it you had flights booked to be with him when he arrived on the Wednesday, both of you knowing neither would able to last till the weekend. 

[chaifootsteps]

So Raph finally, once again, straight up admitted he's not an SA victim.

I have to give him credit for being honest. Lying about SA (which sadly does happen and I know people don't want to think about it, but it does happen) is a very disgusting thing to do. Like Viv lying about Raph being an SA victim!

What I can't him credit for, is putting his fetish material in a fucking show made for millions on Amazon Prime with no trigger warning.

Raph said that he could practice his kink safely and privately with other people. That would be totally fine and cool, if he didn't put his fetish material in a fucking show made for millions on Amazon Prime with no trigger warning.

He boarded Poison. He choreographed for it. His dialogue from his fucking Valangel rape comic was used in the scene. Viv clearly has a noncon/rape kink. She wrote and directed it. Which, again, would be fine if she didn't put their fetish material in a fucking show made for millions on Amazon Prime with no trigger warning.

It's extremely disgusting to have 2 people who have not been SA'd (Viv has not publicly come forward about supposedly being SA'd herself, and is now straight up liking posts saying you don't need to have trauma to like certain fetishes. Hmmm.) write and board a scene and plot like this. I know Sam Haft said he was a victim (and if that's the case then I am truly sorry) but he also said he wanted Raph, who clearly has issues and has a fetish for this (and also sexually harassed a 15 year old child) to come back to twitter. Also, what the fuck was that tweet about Fizz being a "baby slut"? I've seen Viv like particularly cutesy art of Fizz that's um... pretty gross and borders on fetishistic a lot of the time (mainly wearing children-esque clothing and acting cutesy). You can't have someone who clearly has issues to work in a professional environment.

I'm into noncon and have read hundreds of fanfics like ep4. It's clearly a noncon fanfic with a massive budget. Jesus Christ, I write fanfics like this, but I at least tag and rate everything and always state in my notes that I don't condone the actions of SA. And when I saw ep4... it's clear to me what it was.

Amazon needs to get this show pulled. It's insensitive and frankly sickening to a CSA victim like me, who also happens to be into noncon.

There's nothing wrong with practicing kinks with partners and keeping what you like behind closed doors, but it's another thing to disregard victims and survivors all for the sake of your wank off material that's being broadcasted to millions of people (with no trigger warning).

Oh, and then singing an extremely insensitive song about how if you're SA'd, that you're not unique and to continue to be a "coked up dick sucking ho!" That's right, you're a loser baby! A whiny fucking loser for being raped and abused! It's all your fault, you fucking moron! But hey, I have a gambling problem so we're both losers and we can eat shit together!

Seriously... how the fuck aren't people pissed about that song??

Also, Raph sexually harrassed a 15 year old child and Viv victim blamed the child.

How is this woman still a professional showrunner? Why hasn't she fired Raph? (Oh wait because she said she wouldn't on Threads lmao) Why aren't more people outraged?

The rose colored glasses need to come off at some point, people. Your objectively shitty demon shows aren't worth it.

This.

Viv and her cronies are bad news from a professional standpoint, a marketing one, a decency one. They sprung a rape fetish scene on their entire audience and then laughed in the faces of the survivors who criticized it. They don't deserve a platform, and never did.

[chaosmagicss]

little white lies (wanda maximoff x reader)

synopsis: wanda, the prettiest girl to ever walk into your work and order a coffee, is a terrible liar. you don’t have the heart to tell her.

warnings: wanda’s a bad liar but it’s okay bc she’s cute, mentions of bruising, basically just fluff, a teeny bit of hurt/comfort bc i can’t resist

words: 5.2k

a/n: sometimes you just need to write a cute little borderline-coffee-shop-au to feel something.

You meet Wanda Maximoff when she walks into your work at 2pm on a Wednesday and orders an iced latte.

Unsurprisingly, you make a fool of yourself, but who can blame you when she looks like that? You read the name on the cup, thinking pretty name when you call it out. As you approach the counter, you look up, and stupidly, the first thing to come out of your mouth when your eyes lock onto bright green eyes is, “Pretty face.”

The girl, Wanda, blushes and smiles - and wow - and your own face is warm as she says a soft, “Thank you.” You blink rapidly, eyes stuck on hers because dear lord even her voice is pretty. Your fingers clench around the plastic cup, and when the last thirty seconds finally catch up to you, you shake your head, eyes closing.

“I’m - I’m sorry,” you fumble, “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

Wanda’s smile grows, eyes twinkling with amusement. “It’s alright,” she says, and god, that accent… Russian? Something Eastern European, definitely. “It’s flattering.”

You open your mouth to respond, say anything to keep this conversation going, when an excited little boy holding onto his mother’s hand points to the television in the corner and exclaims, “Look, Mom! Avengers!”

Immediately, everyone’s attention is drawn to the television. Even most adults - including yourself - aren’t immune to it. There’s a blurry video playing on screen, showing what looks like a woman flinging around bits of rubble all covered in a red sort of glow. The video steadies for a second as the girl turns around, seemingly to check on whatever group of bystanders she was protecting, and the face you can just make out looks suspiciously like…

You turn back to Wanda, and find an empty space.

She’s gone, her coffee still in your hand. You do a quick scan of the coffeehouse and as much of the street as you can see, and you find nothing. Damn it. You sigh softly, putting the coffee aside just in case she comes back before turning to the next customer.

Once you get back to your dorm, mind racing, you find yourself crawling into a hole on the Internet of videos and reddit threads on the Avengers’ newest recruits, of which two have been announced – James Rhodes, War Machine, army colonel; Sam Wilson, the Falcon, ex-pilot – and two who have yet to even be figured out by the general public. One of them, a young man, is lightning-fast, and the other is the young woman seen on the news earlier.

The deeper you dive, the more sure you become that the woman is Wanda, the prettiest girl you’ve ever served coffee.

Miraculously, she comes back to the coffeehouse two days later. Your heart skips when the middle-aged man steps away after paying and you see her there, a shy little smile on her face and, worryingly, a bruise on her cheek. You manage to get through this order without embarrassing yourself, but when she tries to pay for her coffee, you deny her.

“You left your last one here,” you reason, “this one’s on the house.”

“Oh,” she stammers, cheeks flushing again. “I - I couldn’t—”

“Really, it’s fine,” you insist. “It’s, like, 5 bucks outta my paycheck. I’ll live.”

She tilts her head a little. “I thought you said it was on the house.”

You frown, leaning both hands against the counter as you feign thoughtfulness, and Wanda smiles. “No, I’m not sure I did,” you say, looking back to her. “Definitely said it was on me.”

Wanda huffs a laugh. “Well, in that case, I definitely can’t accept it.”

You click your tongue, taking her card from her when she holds it out to you. Your eyes flick to the bruise again, and curiosity gets the better of you. “What happened?” you ask, waving a hand towards your own cheek.

Wanda blinks, confused for a moment, before, “Oh, Nat—” She stops, eyes widening just a fraction, and you smother a smile. One of the Avenger’s newest recruits is a terrible liar, so it seems. “—alie… Natalie. My boxing instructor. Personal trainer. She - I didn’t duck in time. Total accident.”

You nod, choosing not to comment on the deep flush on her cheeks or the way she’s looking anywhere but you, rocking anxiously on the heels of her feet. You take the chance to pay for her coffee while she’s not paying attention; what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

“Well, you might wanna tell Natalie to start pulling her punches,” you say, bringing your eyes back to hers as you slide her latte across the counter. “Can’t have her messing up a pretty face like yours.”

The comment earns you something similar to a squeak. You don't blame her; you honestly can’t believe the words came out of your mouth, let alone that steadily. Wanda - not the Avenger - nods, reaching out to swipe her coffee from the bench. “I’ll - I’ll let her know,” she says, not meeting your eyes. “I - uh, bye.”

You smile. “See ya.”

She’s back again the next day. The coffeehouse is mulling with only a handful of patrons; the ones that usually stick around until closing, and you’re so focused on watching the news that clearly shows that the new woman on the Avengers’ line-up is Wanda that you fail to notice she’s approaching the counter.

“Hey.”

You almost jump out of your skin. An amused smile tugs at her lips, and it takes a moment for you to pull yourself together. “Hey. Hi. Sorry. I, uh—” You throw the washrag out of sight, wipe your hands on your apron, and give her a winning smile. “What can I do ya for?”

She twists her lips, nails drumming against the countertop. “Uh, actually, I’m not here for coffee.” You frown, and she smiles just a little. “I was wondering, would you like to hang out? If you’re free, that is. Tonight, I mean. It’s fine if you’re not. I just - I’m new to the city and I kinda… need a friend. That isn’t my brother. That’s what Steve said, anyway.”

Ah, yes. Steve. Another person that Wanda knows who, miraculously, has the same name as one of the world’s most famous superheroes but isn’t at all involved with the Avengers, because Wanda isn’t. Clearly.

You smile at her, heart fluttering in your chest.

“I’d love to,” you confirm. “Hang out tonight, that is.” Wanda blushes, but lets out a relieved little chuckle, the tension visibly draining from her shoulders. “I finish up in about 15. Wait for me?”

“Yeah,” Wanda says. “Yeah, sure.”

-

For the next two months, hanging out with Wanda becomes at least a weekly thing. She meets you at your work after your shift to accompany you back to your dorm or she just meets you there, and the two of you hang out for hours. You show Wanda your favourite movies and have nights where you binge old sitcoms that Wanda adores. You go for walks through the closest park or find some diner to have dinner in after you see a movie. It quickly becomes your favourite part of the week, and if you aren’t together, you’re talking to her by some means. Ellie, your roommate, has taken to calling her your girlfriend, and the comment makes you blush every time, which is probably the reason she’s so keen on making it.

Wanda’s excuses and poor attempts at a cover up just get worse and worse as it goes on, but she never bites the bullet and just tells you that she’s actually a superhero, always finding some workaround whenever you make a leading comment. Maybe it should annoy you, but it really just… doesn’t.

Wanda is Wanda; it doesn’t matter to you that she’s an Avenger, or that she’s so adamant about hiding it. What worries you is the scrapes and bruises she has almost every time you see her, ones that she brushes off whenever you ask about them. The thought of someone hurting her twists your insides up despite the fact that she can very clearly take care of herself, if the shaky footage circling Twitter is any indication.

Your first ever real panic over it is the week that she just stops responding to your texts. It isn’t rare for her to take a day or so to respond to you, but when you text her asking if she wants to come over that weekend and the message goes unanswered for three days, you sort of start to freak out.

Even Ellie seems sort of worried, even though she does what she can to convince you that Wanda’s fine.

It’s the fifth day of no contact, and you’re trying to study in the library, distracted by the TV mutely playing a news coverage of the Avengers’ latest public escapade in Brazil, when your phone rings. You glance at it, prepared to just hang up and wait until later to call whoever it is back, but when Wanda’s caller ID is what you see, you practically leap for your phone.

“Hello?”

A few people around you lift their heads to give you a dirty look, but you pay them no mind, your heart pounding with an overwhelming emotion that you don’t really have a name for.

“Hi,” Wanda says, and your breath leaves you in a relieved rush, because she’s there and she’s okay. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t ignoring you, not on purpose, I just got caught up with a family emergency and there wasn’t any reception where we were and I feel like an asshole—”

“No, it’s fine,” you cut in. “It’s okay. As long as you’re safe. You’re okay, right? You aren’t hurt?”

“I—” There’s a pause, a sharp little intake of breath. “Yeah, no,” she fumbles out, and suddenly she sounds exhausted. “I’m fine. Of course I’m fine. No one’s hurt.”

“Okay,” you mutter, mostly to yourself. You close your eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. “Okay. That’s good.”

A few seconds of silence, and then, “Do you, uh, still want to do something this weekend? It’s - it’s fine, if not.”

“Yeah,” you say quietly. “‘Course I do. Wanna come ‘round on Sunday? Just after midday?”

“Sounds good,” Wanda says softly.

“You sound tired,” you tell her. She hums softly, but says nothing. “You should get some sleep.”

She breathes in, out. “I like listening to your voice. Can you talk, or are you busy?”

You look at your desk, at the notebook and your laptop, and you know you should probably get this done now so you don’t have to worry about it later, but you also know you won’t get a drop of work done if you know talking with Wanda until she falls asleep was the alternative. So, still ignoring the annoyed looks being sent your way, you press your phone to your ear with your shoulder and scramble to pack your things away.

“I can talk,” you say. “What d’you wanna talk about?”

“Anything,” she replies. “Tell me a story from when you were growing up.”

She’s asleep by the time you get back to your dorm, after you’ve switched the call to a FaceTime, and you only hang up the phone once you’re getting into bed yourself.

The next day, when you walk into your dorm room after an evening-run, Ellie practically jumps you, shooting off the small couch. “Dude, have you seen what’s trending on Twitter?”

You frown, sitting on the small stool by the door so you can pull off your shoes. “Uh, no? Why, what is it?”

“Your girlfriend’s an Avenger!”

You’re on your feet in an instant, pulling her away from the doorway so you can shut the door, because she’s talking so loud. “What? What are you talking about?”

She shoves her phone in your face, and sure enough, the Daily Bugle’s latest tweet shows a photo of Wanda, headline reading “EXCLUSIVE: The two previously unnamed Avengers are Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, Sokovian orphans.”

You blow out a breath, pushing down Ellie’s phone. Your heart is pounding. “Daily Bugle reported it. You know half their shit isn’t true.”

“It’s been up for, like, an hour. The New York Times posted it too. And CNN. It’s her, dude.” You clench your jaw, watch as Ellie starts to scroll through whatever article she’s reading. “Jesus. A Stark bomb blew up her apartment in Sokovia when she was a kid. Killed her parents. She and her brother volunteered for human experimentation a few years ago… HYDRA operating as SHIELD until Captain America blew it all to shit—”

“Okay, that’s enough,” you say sharply, snatching her phone out of her hand. Ellie lets out an affronted Hey! but you barely pay her any mind, pushing a hand back through your hair as you throw her phone onto the couch.

There’s a few seconds of silence before, “You already knew, didn’t you?”

“She didn’t tell me, but I - I had my suspicions. But she didn’t - it didn’t seem like it was something she wanted to talk about, so I never brought it up. She’s been through a lot of shit, Ellie, it’s awful that it’s just - out there, for everyone to read.”

“Okay,” Ellie relents, sitting on her bed. “Okay. Alright. I won’t read anymore. It’s probably gonna be taken down in like, a minute, anyway.” You nod, unable to meet her eyes. “Are you gonna… maybe you should call her.”

You blink, snapping yourself out of your head. “I, uh, yeah, I’ll text her. Just gonna have a quick shower, ‘cause I stink.”

You do as much, sending her a quick, call me when you can? hope you’re okay before stepping into the shower. You check your phone as you dry yourself off, heart twisting strangely when you don’t see any notifications from her. You sigh, pulling on your comfy clothes before stepping back into the main room.

“It got taken down,” Ellie says immediately. “Stark’s people are on it, dude. It’s literally disappearing as quickly as it comes up.”

Before you can respond, three knocks come to the door, rapid and almost panicked. You pull the door open the second you reach it, and your heart drops when you see Wanda on the other side of it.

And Jesus, she looks - she looks like a mess. Her eyes are brimming with tears, her whole body trembling. There’s a nasty bruise decorating the curve of her jaw and her left eyebrow is stitched up. Her face is blotchy from crying, her lips pulled into a pout as she tries to fight off another onslaught of tears.

She sucks in an uneven breath, and the sound snaps you out of your shock.

“Hey,” you fumble out, reaching for her wrist to pull her inside, and she all but falls into you, arms wrapping tight around your waist as sobs escape her, making her shoulders jolt. “Hey. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“Sorry,” she gasps. “I’m sorry. I just - someone found out and spread it around and now everybody knows and, and, it’s all over the news. They know about mama and papa and the bomb, and I just - I don’t know—”

“It’s alright,” you ease, closing the door before smoothing a hand over her back. “It’s fine. Just breathe, alright? Match my breathing. Can you do that?”

She nods, fingers tightening in the back of your shirt as she hides against your shoulder, taking slow, deep breaths against you. Your eyes catch Ellie’s from where she’s sitting on her bed, her face pulled together in concern. Wanda takes her first steady breath, and leans further into you.

“I’m sorry,” she says again. “I’m sorry for lying. I’m sorry.”

You shake your head. “Don’t worry about that,” you tell her, leaning back. Wanda lets you go, albeit reluctantly, wiping at her face with her sleeves.

“Can I - I mean - is it okay if… if I stay the night?” she asks, watery green eyes peering up into yours. You couldn’t say no even if you wanted to.

You nod gently, tucking an escaped strand of dark hair behind her ear. “Yeah,” you say softly. “Of course. Do… does someone know where you are?” She nods. “Okay.” You turn to face your roommate to find she’s already packing a bag. “Oh, Ellie, you don’t have to—”

“No, dude, it’s fine,” she says. “I’ll go stay in Harry’s room. Don’t stress. And I won’t - I won’t tell anyone. Obviously.”

Wanda swallows thickly. “Ellie, I’m - I’m sorry.”

Ellie flashes her a smile. “Really, it’s no biggie. I’ll be back in the morning, yeah? Lemme know if you need anything. Either of you.”

Wanda nods, and Ellie gives you the both of you a quick thumbs up before slipping out into the hall. Wanda exhales heavily, leaning back against your shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

You shake your head, gently urging her back so you can lift your hands to her face, closely assessing the stitch on her brow. Worry makes your heart pound again; you know that bruises and bumps are apart of her job description, but knowing that doesn’t make seeing it any easier.

Wanda bites her lip, lifts a hand to grab yours, gentle fingers curling around your wrist. “It’s okay,” she whispers, “it’s not as bad as it looks. Doctor Cho stitched it up so I didn’t accidentally open it again. That’s all.”

You nod softly, pressing under her chin and angling her face so you can see the colourful bruise painting her jaw. Carefully, you brush your fingers over the skin, and Wanda shivers a little at the touch.

“That one feels as bad as it looks,” she whispers, and suddenly, with your fingers running feather-light over the bruise again, you’re smacked in the face with the urge to kiss it better. Wanda jolts a little in place, eyes snapping to yours with flushed cheeks, a barely audible, “Oh,” slipping past her lips.

Quickly, you drop your hand, thinking you must have hurt her. “Sorry,” you murmur.

Wanda shakes her head. “It’s okay.”

You swallow thickly, eyes dropping back to hers, and Wanda blinks slowly up at you. Your heart starts to pound for a whole different reason. You lick at your bottom lip, shake away the inappropriate thought and avert your eyes as you take her hand in yours and start to lead her towards your side of the room.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, as she’s sitting on the bed. “I didn’t - Ellie didn’t have to go.”

“Don’t be sorry,” you say, stepping over to your closet to find a pair of shorts for her. “If she minded, she would’ve said so. It’s fine. Promise.” Wanda works her jaw, catching your eyes as you hand her the clothes. “Go on. Get changed. I’ll put on a sitcom.”

She swallows thickly, then nods, quietly ducking into the bathroom. You grab the blanket off Ellie’s bed to steal for the night, turning off the lights and setting up The Dick Van Dyke Show on your laptop. Wanda comes out of the bathroom a minute or two after you’ve finished, fingers twisting together anxiously as she hesitates. Your eyes drag over her, briefly appreciating the sight of her in your clothes before giving her a small smile, lifting the blanket invitingly with a quiet, “C’mere.”

Wanda takes a breath before scooting into bed, and you push back against the wall to give her as much space as the twin sized bed allows. Wanda, however, has other plans. You’re only a few minutes into the episode when she rolls to face you, grabbing your waist to urge you closer until she can hide against you. You slip an arm under her head, her hair tickling your arm as she tangles your legs. The closeness takes your breath away, and you struggle to keep your heart beating regularly as Wanda settles with a small sigh.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers for what must be the hundredth time.

You swallow hard. “What for?”

“Everything,” she says. “Not telling you who I was, mostly.”

“It’s okay,” you say softly. “If… if I’m being honest, I sort’ve already knew.”

Wanda pulls back to look at you, brow furrowed in confusion, and god your faces are so close. “What d’you mean?”

“I mean, like, I knew you were an Avenger.”

Her furrowed brow deepens. “How?”

You smile a little. “Well, first off, you’re a pretty terrible liar.” Wanda scoffs, fingers digging into your side until you squirm away from her. She gives up almost immediately, grabbing you to keep her close to her. “And second, there were way too many coincidences - you being from Sokovia, you always having some sort of minor injury, the fact that you know people named Nat and Steve and Sam, and I just… I dunno. I had a feeling.” She hums, hiding her face again, and that’s the only reason you have the courage to let the next words slip out of your mouth. “Plus, you’re, like, the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. A few grainy Twitter videos can’t hide that.”

She doesn’t say anything in response to that, just burrows further into you, holds you a little tighter, and your heart thumps solidly enough in your chest that you're sure she can feel it. You fall into an easy silence for a little while, Wanda just breathing against you while you watch the sitcom playing quietly on your laptop screen.

“So, you’re not…” She shifts, tilts her face so her voice isn’t as muffled. “You’re not scared of me?”

The question catches you off guard. You frown, pulling back and looking at her once you can. She bites into her lip, eyes skirting your face. “Scared of you?” you echo. “Why would I be scared of you?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know,” she whispers. “I just… I’ve got all these powers that I don’t understand. I feel like a walking timebomb. If I feel anything too strongly, I lose control. I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t be scared of me.”

You smile, albeit a little sadly. “Well, I’m not. At all.”

Wanda frowns a little, brow creasing. “And you’re not upset I lied? Or, I guess, tried to?”

“Nope.” She blinks, lips pulling down into a curious little pout, and you have the urge to kiss it away. After a few moments of watching you like she’s trying to decipher if you’re being honest or not, she sighs and tucks her head back under your chin, her fingers curling into the back of your shirt. You swallow thickly, smooth a hand over her back as she takes a breath. “You wanna sleep?”

She hums an affirmative. “Can we keep the show on? Have it on while we sleep?”

You nod, and without even really thinking, tilt your head down to press a kiss to the top of her head. She sighs again, almost in relief, and the sound of the show's laugh track fills the silence that falls between you. “I like this episode,” she whispers.

You breathe a tiny laugh, arm tightening around her waist. “You’re so weird,” you murmur affectionately. Wanda giggles, and the sound warms your chest, glad that you’ve pulled one out of her.

She falls quiet, then, and you find yourself getting pulled into the old sitcom. You play absentmindedly with her hair, despite the slightly awkward angle that the action puts your wrist at, and you don’t even realise she’s asleep until you’ve watched three episodes and you go to ask her if she wants to turn it off. You go still when you notice, heart leaping when Wanda lets out a disgruntled grunt against you, burrowing further into your shoulder to close the small distance you’d created when you tried to get her attention.

You blink, freezing momentarily. And then, with a soft grunt of effort, you close the laptop and manage to shift it onto the windowsill behind your bed. Wanda grumbles again at the movement, half asleep as she mumbles something under her breath, something you’re not sure was in English.

You swallow dryly as you settle again, smooth a hand over her shoulders, and whisper a barely audible, “Sorry.” Wanda lets out another small hum, still asleep, and sighs.

As she nuzzles into you, her body relaxing against you, you know you love her.

The realisation hits you all at once, and surprisingly, all you feel is a sense of contentment.

You love Wanda Maximoff.

You take a deep breath, breathe in the smell of her shampoo, and let your eyes fall shut.

-

When you wake the next morning, it’s only because Wanda is slipping out of your hold. You grumble tiredly at the disruption, missing the warmth of her against you, and Wanda freezes on the edge of the bed, turning over her shoulder to look at you. You hum, manage a tired smile. “G’mornin’,” you mumble.

“Hi,” Wanda says, voice raspy with sleep, cheeks flushing. “Sorry. I tried not to wake you.”

“‘S okay,” you dismiss, rolling onto your back and rubbing at your eyes. “I’m a light sleeper.” Wanda hums again, stretching her arms above her head, and you have to force yourself not to look at the skin that shows as the shirt rides up. You swallow dryly, watch as she starts to pull her sneakers on. “What time is it?”

“10,” she says softly. “I was just leaving.”

“Leaving?” Wanda nods. “How…?”

“Nat’s downstairs.” You blink, rub some of the sleep out of your eyes as you push to sit up and crawl out of bed.

“I’ll walk you down,” you mutter, “just gimme a sec.”

Ten minutes later, you’re approaching a sleek black corvette, holding the hand of one Avenger while another waits in the driver’s seat of said black corvette. A tinted window slides down, and your legs almost give out. Wanda’s fingers tighten around yours at the shaky breath you let out.

Natasha fucking Romanoff pushes her sunglasses atop of her head and addresses Wanda with an unreadable look. “You know, it took me two hours to convince Steve not to send the whole compound on a city-wide search for you.”

Wanda sighs softly. “I told you—”

“You were at a friend’s dorm, I know.” Her eyes dart to you. “I take it you’re said friend?”

Your tongue feels heavy in your mouth as you fumble for a response. “Y-yes, ma’am. Sorry.”

Natasha grins, then, gaze shifting back to Wanda. “Cute,” she says, and then she pulls her sunglasses back down. “Alright. Let’s go; we gotta stop for groceries on the way home.”

Wanda nods, and turns to face you, thumb stroking over your knuckles. “Thank you,” she says softly. “For, well, everything.”

You shrug, give her a tiny smile. “You don’t have to thank me,” you reply. Wanda gives you a look, and your smile widens. Your eyes drift back down to her bruise; it’s only gotten worse overnight, more purple and you’re certain, more painful. You click your tongue a little, lifting your hand to so, so delicately, tip her chin up so you can get a proper look at it. “That looks sore.”

“It’s not my first bruise, believe it or not,” she says jokingly, but a little breathless. Her cheeks are flushed, you realise, pupils dilated as she looks at you. You swallow dryly, shift your hand up to push a loose strand behind her ear.

“Well, if it’s any consolation, you make the whole beat-up look work.”

Wanda huffs, and you drop your hand, grinning along with her. She twists her lips thoughtfully after a moment, blinking slowly, and then she leans in close and, in what you’re sure was an attempt at stopping your heart, presses a kiss dangerously close to the corner of your mouth. She leans back just enough to look at you, eyes shifting between your eyes and your mouth, squeezes your fingers. “I’ll talk to you later?”

You clear your throat and manage a nod, brain spinning, that thought ever so persistent in your mind again: Kiss her.

Wanda’s face shifts, then, brows pulling together in seriousness. “Y/N,” she says, voice hardly a whisper. You hum in acknowledgement, willing the thought away, but unable to tear your eyes away from the soft pink flesh of her mouth as her teeth sink into her bottom lip. Her hand slides from yours only so she can cup your face, and your heart skips as she blinks up at you, a nervous little grin tugging up one corner of her mouth. “You know I can read minds, right?”

Your jaw drops. “You - you what?”

She huffs a laugh. “I can read minds,” she says again, stepping in so close you’re practically pressed flush together. “It’s not always on purpose; if the thought is loud enough and you aren’t hiding it, I can’t really help it.” Your cheeks are burning, but Wanda’s smile isn’t teasing, just adoring. “And if I have to hear you think about kissing me without you doing anything about it one more time, I’m gonna lose it.”

“Oh,” you say, and Wanda hums, hands sliding down to rest lazily against the sides of your neck, her thumbs stroking your jaw. You swallow hard, looking down at her mouth when her tongue darts out to dampen it. “I—” You clear your throat, eyes darting briefly to the car. “The Black Widow is right there.”

Wanda grins, shakes her head a little and leans in so close you can feel her breath on your lips, practically taunting you. “It’s not like she’s gonna ground me,” she whispers.

Your desire to not embarrass yourself in front of every 20-something girl’s childhood hero has nothing on your desire to kiss Wanda Maximoff, so you throw your nerves to the curb and lean in to kiss her.

It’s soft and sweet; your hands find her waist, and you know only a second into the kiss that the feeling of Wanda’s mouth on yours is the only thing you’re going to be thinking about for the rest of your life. Wanda breaks away all too soon for your liking, a blush on her cheeks and a flustered little grin on her lips. You can’t imagine you look much different.

You drop your hands as Wanda does, stuffing them instead into your pocket. Wanda giggles, and takes a few steps towards the car. “Okay. Okay, I’ve gotta…”

You nod. “Yeah. I’ll call you later.”

She bites her lip to try and hide her grin, but it just makes you want to kiss her again. Just as it looks like she’s about to turn around and get into the car, she bounds up to you and grabs your face, presses another quick kiss to your mouth.

“Okay,” she says again, dropping a kiss to your cheek, still looking at you with that wide grin. “I’m going now.”

You laugh, giddy as you watch her open the door to the passenger seat. “Bye.”

She grins. “Bye.”

She gets in the car, and almost immediately, Natasha is pulling away. You watch the car disappear, and the second it’s out of sight, it takes all of your willpower not to do a happy dance. Instead, you settle for a giddy little jump, head tipping up to the sky before you spin on your heel and start to make your way back towards your dorm.

[kitsunefyuu]

I got in an argument with two bkdk shippers AT THE SAME TIME on a thread on twitter and it was just.... DELUSINAL

Sorry if this bothers you, I just need to share this with someone else cuz I'm so shocked after that.... If you don't want to post this then don't.

I thought that I knew how they can be but having a direct confrontation made left me literally SHOCKED because I've never encountered & talked with people so onto something to the point that they misunderstand what they read with their own eyes.

They claimed that Bakugo and Izuku's character developement only happeneds when they are together wich is just SO WRONG. For Bakugo you could argue that it is like that because he learns to calm down and accept other ppl but with Izuku it is clear as hell that it's not the case. Take vigilante deku arc as an exampre, take those last chapters as an example of Izuku's developement that is not done alongside Bakugo's.

But what actually shocked me the most was the "Bakugo saw All Might's vestige so he must be inside ofa" but it didn't go in the direction you might think it went.

Instead of saying that he still has ofa embers left or something the guy who started the thread with their bkdk ramblings said that it was confirmed by Hori that Bakugo has no embers left and that the reason why he can join the vestige realm is because his "feeligs of love" broke the rules of ofa. Wdym broke the rules of ofa you ask? Well he was bringing up the panel in which it was explained Afo's plan to steal ofa by using Tomuras hatred. Yeah. That is how Bkg "broke" ofa's rules. Bc if Afo is "enhanced" by hatred, whatever this means, it has NEVER happened nor implied, then ofa's rule for new users to be passed on/someone to exist in the realm can be affected by love. This was never even implied to be able to happen. It's just bullshit. HE AIN'T COMING BACK THIS ARC LET HIM STAY PASSED OUT WHAT DO U HAVE WITH HIM AND LET IZUKU HAVE CHARACTER DEVELOPEMENT WITH TENKO

I SHOULD'VE SAID THIS TO THEM BUT I DIDN'T CUZ I COULDN'T CONTINUE WRITING TO TWO FRIKIN ANNOYING, DELULU PPL AT THE SAME TIME.

They ended up telling me that I didn't read the manga. Yeah, sure, I didn't read.

Oh and the guy that rambled about bkdk had 'proshipper' in his bio so, yeah, he was already disgusting.

And it seems that the other bkdk's also think the same delusions bc this is what I found on another unrelated post: "Soooo Izuku going to share Explosion Quirk with Kacchan. This really have sense, he losing every Quirk he have but Kacchan went to OFA alive, since Deku will not lose OFA but only OFA quirk he can share Explosion Quirk since Kacchan break OFA rules."

Frickin delusional

Sorry if I bothered you.

And this is why I just avoid talking to BkDk shippers or interacting with anyone on twitter in general. Sorry twitter users I know you need to rely on it but I draw the line at interacting with insane people. You should just block them there no reason to debate them.

On another note, Proshipper was originally meant to just say for shipping. As in leave people alone and let them ship, it other people who turned it into problematic ship. Just wanted to clear that up since it feels like Anti's have took something meant to be about being inclusive into something disgusting, and people with bad intentions ran with it. It sad.

Now back to BkDk, don't worry most of these delusional people aren't going to stay long. With how shallow and delusional their love for the series is they will eventually run out of steam once the series in. That's my hope anyway, love or hate the DFO theory but at the least the people in the fandom are actually talking about the plot and story.

While BkDk are only hyperfocused on their ship to the point of obsession. Ignoring everything that contradicts it like you can enjoy a ship and not be insane about it. I like TdDk but you don't see me trying to twist canon into something unrecognizable for it. As I know it not end game nor is romance even important.

It's a shonen manga first. Romance is not it main goal or purpose, again it's twitter. Just ignore them or block them. They aren't worth your time at ALL, your mental health will thank you for it.

[professorspork]

director's commentary sdau emerald scene

You know, I really should have seen this coming but I didn't.

Let's put it under a cut bc moderate spice and considerable length:

This scene went through more iterations and re-writes than the vast majority of its brethren.

I dug around in our chat history to find the exact moment we generated the idea, because this one wouldn't have happened without you. and you know what I learned?

it dates to mid-January 2023, which is literally before I started posting newsbees. this idea is OLD. it is some of the EARLIEST MATERIAL of sdau.

I told you I was reading this for fic research in the middle of an unrelated discussion about Emerald; you then joked that all you could think about was Emerald at the sex club giving vytal fic vibes, just bored out of her skull while people throw themselves at her, and I said I hadn't come up with a role for her yet.

you: emerald would try to go to the sex club after getting out of a toxic relationship the way blake did and then she'd be there for 15 minutes and nope the fuck out and run away me: which, actually-- she could be one of blake's one-off partners where after about 5 minutes blake's like "you are allowed to leave we really don't have to do this" and em's like OHTHANKGOD

I briefly considered a much crueler idea in which Blake witnessed Emerald and Cinder doing a scene together, but we quickly agreed that the original idea was the better one.

I haven't been able to find chat history about it, so I'm moderately certain that I didn't tell you about the fact that I'd decided to read poor Emerald for filth and give her the Mommy kink until I started showing you the scene in its original incarnation, in mid-July of 2023 (which has the benefit of showing just how long this project has taken me, lmao).

me: emerald. sweetheart. when you say mommy kink most people assume that means you wanna be coddled and not that you want to be negged. just. just saying me: emerald do you know what mothers are me: emerald

That first version of the scene differed in several keys ways from the final product, but the most crucial of those was that in the first go-around, Blake actually agreed to give Emerald her number. Em asked for it, and Blake said "Sure, I'd like that," and then the scene ended.

I sat on that for *checks time stamps* approximately 29 hours before I broke the news to you that, upon reflection, I didn't buy it; I just couldn't believe that Blake would be in a healthy enough place mentally to do that. the better and more accurate thing for the story would be for Blake to chicken out and then regret it, because she couldn't be for Em what Sun had been for her.

you: oh no why are you doing that it makes me sad me: because if blake is in a cool enough place to do that with em her actually exchanging numbers with yang doesn't hit as hard you: but now I'm so sad me: i mean it's still ME i'm sure i'll find a way for her to encounter em again before the end

(hmmm. Did I do that in the end? I SUPPOSE WE'LL HAVE TO WAIT AND FIND OUT, DEAR READERS.)

from there, once I'd figured out what the scene was truly for, it was still a lot of effort and tweaking before I got it to read how I wanted to: threading the simultaneous needles of being lowkey arousing but also inarguably unsettling from the jump, so that you're seeing those red flags but maybe, like Blake, thinking they can be overcome until it's very obvious they Can't. I struggled with how to frame it so that it came through that Blake was being... mmm, let's say reckless without crossing the line into Blake being irresponsible, and I wasn't happy with my first stabs at it. in the very first draft, after Em says says she doesn't want to discuss her burn scar and adds "There, that's a boundary, since you wanted one so bad," the prose goes 'There is absolutely no way they are fucking at this point, given Emerald's attitude, and… Blake doesn't know why she stays.'

Which: why would I tell the reader that? It's way too on the nose, and drains the scene of all tension! it also made the spanking moment read as overtly didactic in a way that I didn't like and hadn't intended, so. I tried to drill down into what I thought it was about.

adding the flashback moments to Blake's encounter with Trifa helped considerably; that wasn't in the first draft at all, though the fact that she'd had that encounter was already canon. taking a look at it again, I realized weaving those two together was an opportunity to show why Blake "lets" Emerald make this mistake and indulges her, because it's the same thing Blake went through and she understands it. massaging the tempo and timbre of my vocab took some doing so Blake wasn't in full-on panic attack mode and thus making it all seem WORSE than it already was.

and the final thing I changed was just... twisting that knife more and adding to their rapport. the original draft was brief; it went right from Emerald giving the Cinder backstory to Blake being like "congrats on past tense" and then it was the phone number ask. it was important to me to elaborate on why these two had chemistry, on how they were parallel, and on just how much they liked each other and vibed-- on just how much of an opportunity Blake was missing out on. so Blake laughing more at Em's jokes, and getting the Mercury context, that all came later.

in total, I think this scene had like five or six discrete iterations before reaching its final form.

[multitrackdrifting]

Well I didn't write my thoughts on the last ep cause I was playing FF16 but I'll explain why I didn't like the ending (despite loving a lot of the episode) under the cut

There's a lot of ways you can end a political sci-fi story (which Mobile Suit Gundam tends to be) and some of the worst ways it can end is a bleak "and nothing got better" and that often is the resolution for a lot of them, but it's not that bad when it's clear that the isolated conflict would just be covered up and whatever amidst the conclusion of that story. The very grounded and "realistic" stories in UC might fall into this kind of area.

I am of the opinion that more often than not it's bad practice to criticise what isn't there, that is unless you have a legitimate reason to feel that way. In this case, I feel that they brought up the earth subplots and kind of just used to thrust the story forward without actually having anything meaningful to say about Earthian emancipation or even validate that the companies in the story made that place a fucking hell hole in any meaningful fashion. You hear about a lot of the going-ons from people from Earth for sure, but you barely have it in your periphery for the majority of the season except for about 3-ish episodes.

My greatest fear as I've expressed to many friends and other people I talk to about G-Witch is that they would hand-wave all the problems away with a time skip and sadly we got literally this exact thing.

The spectacle and wonder of the family conflict tying up nicely & the canon lesbian relationship is pretty heavily overshadowed for me by the complete dismissal of the very subplot threads they opened in order to describe just how bonkers the Benerit group is/was.

OF course, I am labouring under the assumption that there is no season 3, and IBO didn't even announce theirs till like 4 months after Season 1 ended on a massive cliffhanger but this story did not end on one.

There's no seething and spiteful earth orphan in the epilogue, or any inclination that the story will in-fact continue and that leaves me feeling all the way wrong about how they handled this especially since I have to wait half a year potentially to find out if they plan to make more (which I imagine they will if not specifically to sell more Gunpla).

Of course, you might say that "oh this is a more personal Gundam story" and I don't even really feel like that's a good explanation of why the ending almost feels antithetical to the story itself like, yeah Benerit got dissolved and all was well and eveyrone became friends which is acceptable in your average shounen story but this pretty much felt like an ass-pull in some ways especially when you take in that they neglected to do anything with Earth except => guel gets kidnapped and goes to earth and briefly helps orphans and guerillas => miorine accidentally helps stage a false flag attack and pretty much nothing else?

Like that kind of irks me in the same way that playing FF14 Stormblood and there being almost nothing about Ala Mhigo irks me.

Of course, I am happy that SuleMio is a happy family not just with Prospera, but all of her daughers including Eri.

It's just... way too neat? I seldom call something an ass-pull but hand-waving that Earth is still in strife and barely any consequences were faced by the broader corporations outside of the dissolution of Benerit would be a compelling point if, like Hathaway, it had something to stand on top of (which is that in UC, fucking nothing ever changes, Unicorn happens and Hathaway's Mafty Uprising still happens in spite of Banagher's wager on possibility lmao)

I dunno, I feel happy that they're happy but really upset that they really just dumpstered everything to do with Earth and it just swept so many of the real questions that the very story we watched each week implied it would even try to answer.

I'm really hard to annoy, I love meathead shounen, I love serious and nuanced political writing in anime (e.g. MSG UC & Eighty-Six) but it's not the space magic that annoys me, I'd be a hypocrite to love Gundam Unicorn and hate it here - it's how they just time-skipped everything to a neat and tidy conclusion.

Of course, maybe a S3 announcement (which I have firmly held is probably coming) would change my mind, but yeah this was a great episode but a terrible finale.

Honestly, I even felt irked by the fact that Suletta accepts her mothers choice so plainly and I get it - the parental bonds thing is somehting I don't take for granted, anyone who has had complicated feelings about their own parents understands how a person can come to be like "you've hurt me and the people around me, and yet I still care for you" - I get it! But I really do not like how inconsistent it feels to be cleaning up the bodies of her classmates one episode and kinda shrugging everything she did off in a time-skip but this critique specifically is down to the jarring pacing that others had been complaining to this point - I suppose I am guilty of getting caught up in the spectacle but I almost snapped my neck at how hard this ending veered off

Of course, the natural commentary for this will be "selling off Benerit's assets and aiding Earth is a functional and practical way to help Earth" except that it almost feels like it comes out of nowhere due to the lightspeed pacing of this finale.

They really fumbled writing Earth in this story - yeah, there are nice subtleties in the ending but it still feels way too rushed and jarring for me to like actually find it enjoyable. Bodies don't make a good gundam ending (see: Gundam Unicorn), and space magic doesn't make it bad either (also Gundam UC lol), they just brushed off way too much.

The "incremental change" argument holds decent weight if there was any explicit inclination to continue the story from the time-skip (which I would like to see, preferrably with an Earthian protagonist at the centre of their emancipation struggles).

It was indeed nice to see the Earth girls integrated into Miorine's company, and Sabina does comment that they're not sure if it will amount to what they want - and Mio, far more mature than her younger self, steps towards that future bravely and that's cool.

I like the characterisation of the ending - but yeah, how they kinda just blitz the Earth stuff does not sit right with me.

I did like seeing all the kids being friends & being together after all they've been through, and that is a nice way to tie-up the story, but the way they kinda just use that to justify why they barely explain the rest is wild.

Course, I know I'm probably in the minority here - but pacing doomposters were right - this was a pretty abysmal ending because of how little time they had to work with.

I loved every single episode of this season, except the ending. Loved the first half of the episode, but the latter half is just way too neat and that's not because it needs bodies or something - it really does just feel like "and then it got marginally better".

I know the ending itself explicitly acknowledges that nothing may change, but as I said previously, that only works if you have something to lean on which this story does not since it's unclear if it's even going to get another season.

Systemic change, in reality, is quite incrimental and often feels infinitismally small - and that notion might be more compelling in this bittersweet epilogue if the story had taken more pains to actually explore the earthian-spacian conflict.

Yes, they discuss conflict-sharing/war-partitioning on the different segments of Earth, but they do nothing with it at all other than laud it around as a talking point without making the viewer ever face it except when Prospera attacks Earth. I feel like so much of the Earth-side of the story is left in the abstract, and do not argue to me that it's in the subtleties of Earth house and the things that they say.

I felt like the fella in Plato's cave hearing about something and the only time I actually felt the human side of that story from the people that live on Earth was when Guel was a prisoner of war for an episode and when Miorine has to face the disappointed people who realise they're being attacked.

I had faith the ending would not go "and then it got better", and I know many people will hate that I choose to take that interpretation, but that is pretty much the summation of my feelings about how rapidly they pushed this aside. I love this series, I ahve been gassing this series every single week since like episode 3 - but this ending was unsatisfying - it's not enough to make me hate the series but yeah, I wish we had something more substantive to look toward with future stories or more time spent stressing the "other side" of this conflict.

Yeah, the Benerit group at large is on trial on TV, and there's signs that the world will change & we see future generations of kids on Earth, but I don't think it hit quite right for me. It's not a lack of grit, it's just like, you're enjoying the payoff without the adequate build-up and I feel like I'm possibly not alone in thinking this.

Earth was just a bargaining chip and an elusive idea in this season, and I really do not like that so much was left in the abstract. You can "subtext" anything into existence, but no amount of referential dialogue is going to make up for the lack of a grounded and meaningful representation of their struggle since Sophie and Norea got axed (I did not mind this at the time), and they portrayed every other Earth character outside of Gund-arm as a villain.

I really feel like this aspect of how the story was structured was ultimately quite disappointing and thus, I am annoyed at the resulting payoff.

The romance side of things was cute, and I thoroughly enjoy how thing were tied up with them - especially that Suletta loved her family despite everything (this does not boggle my mind).

But yeah my gripes with the lack of idk time to talk about Earth actually boggles my mind beyond belief.

It's incredibly difficult to feel the actual weight of "yeah Benerit was dissolved and assets redistributed lol" while being presented with next to zero context for what that means and what it could mean. Way too much is left to the imagination and while that's fine in certain kinds of stories, in one wherey ou barely even grapple with the Earth context that you've described to this point it's kind of bonkers.

Yes, I get a lot of people will feel catharsis with this ending because what they're watching for and what I am watching for may be different - that's perfectly okay, but I'm not gonna act like ti didn't disappoint me that we got the most explicit form of a hand-wave (a time skip) to end out an otherwise fantastically written series.

I do not like that one bit and I do not apologise for believing that either.

Here's another scorching take: the next season should focus on Earth, not how the Samayas heal as a family - there might be room for both, but with how neglected Earth felt maybe it's time for a POV change in this world bc they really did FA with that.

In conclusion, I sitll like the show, but this ending was really unfulfilling. I know that winning a battle is not winning the war, but the story took pretty much no pains to eloquently depict the struggles of Earth properly this season despite me thinking that the vast majority of episodes were absolutely fantastic in spite of that.

I think Suletta, Mio and Guel were quite well-written and most of the supporting cast too, but this flaw in the narrative structure is insanely glaring for me and call that pretentious if you want but I genuinely believe what I said here

Edit: I guess, the ending just doesn't say anything super daring that that's pretty disappointing.

Edit 2: I completely forgot to go on a rant but, that the use of a WMD (space laser) was not even a point of intrigue for a future conflict is also wild.

[switch]

Hi Switch! You're the Moriarty Expert I trust the most, so I thought I'd ask. Can you explain the reason you dislike Ruler Moriarty as if I'm an idiot/have little FGO knowledge? I play the game, but I barely know anything about meta, writers, or any sort of controversies and I figured you'd be able to give an objective rundown of why the character is bad for someone who might not get any out-of-game context. If you don't want to that's okay too!!! Have a good day either way

uhh to put it in the simplest possible terms, and with an immediate clarification that this is not about ‘he’s cringe’ or ‘i don’t think he’s hot’, there were three different ingame side-stories which all happened about 2 years before ruler ever released, and these side stories set up that there was going to be a Plot Event involving two different characters (sherlock and enkidu, we don’t know if these plots were planned to intersect or not), and moriarty was heavily involved in both. the basic setup was:

1. moriarty wanting the main character to trust him over sherlock if anything happens, being concerned that sherlock would be willing to do something extreme to save humanity that moriarty doesn’t want him to do (to clarify moriarty isn’t good in this situation and sherlock isn’t necessarily evil it’s just a whole thing i won’t get into here), suppressing the protagonist’s memories of this conversation so sherlock doesn’t get suspicious, and then he has a very vague and open-ended speech at the end about what’s gonna happen next.

2. moriarty outright saying he’s planning to turn enkidu into some kind of weapon and isn’t going to give the main character a say in the matter, and having a vague open-ended speech about what’s gonna happen next

these side stories are still in the game. they can still be read. but at some point, the culmination to the sherlock plot was pushed to happen much earlier in the writing process because the original chapter it was slated for got bloated, and some rewrites happened…

so after 2 years of being excited to see those stories play out, what we actually got was, uh, just ruler. all of a sudden. this new cooler younger moriarty who is an extremely different character just showed up with no foreshadowing because they did not have time to foreshadow him, made holmes kill himself, and… that was it. moriarty himself did not factor into this chapter at all. him being worried what sherlock was gonna do that he didn’t want him to? erasing the protag’s memories? enkidu? not relevant at all. moriarty’s side story i mentioned up there, which was supposed to be a prelude to this plot event, wasn’t even made universally available to players who don’t have him for this chapter (they usually do this for side stories relevant to main chapters), it was suddenly so irrelevant.

moriarty got a followup side story after this that… still didn’t address any of the still hanging plot threads. it’s just him talking about how he’s sad that sherlock is dead, but also sherlock is definitely going to come back since he killed himself at a recreation of reichenbach so obviously that didn’t kill him (okay). no open-endedness. a lot of moriarty fans felt like it read like a character retirement. and also kind of just like a commercial for whatever new sherlock unit we’re probably going to get down the line. absolutely nothing like his previous ones. the only acknowledgement of how weird this all is was just him going “oh, it just happened sooner than i expected” which frankly feels like the writers just looking directly at the audience to wave it away.

and, more infuriatingly, an interview with the writers shortly after (the same one that confirmed the rewrites/early sherlock plot happened) outright said that yeah, ruler wasn’t originally part of the plan, they kinda just made him because they wanted to see a young moriarty and decided to use him. they also stated that young moriarty still had a role to play in the story (he also blew up at the end of that chapter), which they never do for characters? which, like, okay, what about moriarty?? the guy whose dropped plots you can still access in the game??

so yeah anyway it’s been 2 years and moriarty is still in hell. i mean they still use him in marketing once in a while given he was one of the most recognizable fgo originals, but he never gets to show up in any events without being attached to ruler, despite everyone insisting at the time that he definitely wasn’t functionally being replaced, and all the relevancy is on ruler as the Real Main Story Character, so you can maybe understand why moriarty fans who actually read those side stories and that interview feel like we got shafted just so they could sell a new, coincidentally more conventionally marketable unit. so naturally we’re gonna be kind of pissed off by the character they did said shafting with.

also as more of an aside, moriarty is a really bad unit gameplay wise who hasn’t been buffed in like four years (and his only two buffs were actually kind of bad but that’s getting picky), and ruler is a lot better than he is. moriarty didn’t even get a pity buff or anything, so that’s salt in the wound. a bit more subjectively, ruler enjoyers are also chronically really bad at tagging him distinctly from moriarty so if you want to look up fanart of moriarty but not ruler you basically go to hell forever. moriarty even has a nickname thats contextually unique to him (shincha) but it gets used for ruler so much against all sense you can’t even use that to avoid him, it’s so bad. i filtered everything i could think of and i still just had to stop going into moriarty’s tags on here after ruler happened, which just makes me sad.

[laprimera]

ABOUT THE MUN - ooo I got tagged ooOooo

what made you pick up the current muse(s) you have?

fixation as soon as the second trailer with her reveal came? Like the little snippets that was known about the game already weaved a pretty intricate (and disproven lol) plot and personality.

Even after everything got debunked I still kept my original lore + now I live and love the idea her ideal, picturesque self is actually a front for how clutzy and forgetful she really is as a super busy champion who's passionate about her region.

is there anything you don’t like to write?

bad/sad unnecessary endings or forks in the road?? I know it's silly in context like "well stories arent all happy-" BUT THIS IS POKEMON AR PEE AND I PARTIALLY CONTROL THE NARATIVE AND I WANT MY PROTAGS TO GO THROUGH IT BUT COME OUT AT THE END GETTING EVERYTHING THEY WANT. IS IT SO BAD I DONT WANT TO PARTICIPATE IN BITTER SADNESS EVEN IN A FANTASY MADE-UP SCENARIO? REALITY IS HELL AS IS I DONT WANNA BE SAD ALL DAY OVER INTERNET BARBIES, I HAVE BILLS AND TAXES TO DO.

so I make sure to plot with long term plot partners so we all get that character growth and exciting story with something good they can all take away in the end. No, the character doesnt have to die to prove a macab point. No the loving couple doesnt have to break up for some story twist. And thats what AU's are for if we're looking to explore something else so it's easy to separate from 👍

is there anything you really enjoy writing?

plot novellas 👀 I see a partner reply instantly to a plot thread and I jive for days on end until the next reply for real-- each one is a really juicy cliffhanger and a lot of them still haunt the back of my mind.

how do you come up with headcanons? 

most come with interactions or thoughts stemming from the game or story itself. Eventually they branch out and more ideas happen and a lot comes from looking at dash and bringing up some really interesting points!

do you write in silence or do you play music? 

Ambiance and music helps esp when silence is actually really distracting (thoughts wandering and what not-adhd be like that). The mood even influences the reply.

do you plan your replies or wing them?

planned for plot driven replies but ic bouts and simple replies are winged!

do you enjoy shipping? 

YES YES YES YES, though recently I have to be a little more careful about saying Im completely open to shipping on whim. At some points the plot involves the other person too much and it gets hard to move a story along esp with the nature of the rpc and the lifespan of interest in the muse/rpc (which is natural ofc!).

You're okay to show and express interest in shipping so we can take a direction with our muses interaction wise but I say it's not for certain until they develop some more long term. Who knows, maybe it was just a crush or a fling sort of thought :' 0

what’s your alias/name? 

Leche leche leche leche leche milk

age?

30

birthday? 

may!

favorite color?

red and greens

favorite song? 

Sugar, You by the Oh Honey has taken a lot of real-estate in my head lately--

last movie you watched?

I,,,havent watched a movie in a really long time Ill be honest OTL,, I dont have the attention span to sit down for more then twenty minutes if that.

last show you watched?

Aggretsuko final season! That,,,was awhile ago. See above oop--

last song you listened to?

Dont know the last song that played on my car radio 🤔

favorite food? 

spaghetti and meatballs and cereal < 3

favorite season?

spring 🌼

do you have a tumblr best friend?

ooh I dont want to make anyone feel left behind. My moots have a special place regardless of hobby or not <3

tagging: uh...

[meraki-yao]

Oh people have been racist towards Taylor for a very long time. They can't even hide it well. On Twitter they also complain when he does something dedicated to the film because he looks obsessed and will not do anything else in his career after this film while Nick will have many projects. What I hate most is that they use Nick to bring him down every single time when he wouldn't approve of any of this crap towards Taylor. I'm not making anything up unfortunately. Who knows why T protects himself by staying completely away from that place, right? It's been full of shit towards him since TKB not to mention the details of his private life put all over the place in various threads. It's horrible I don't know how he can stand it.

...Oh God.

That's what I hate most about this shit show too: comparing Taylor to Nick and bringing him down. I have a lot of experience being compared to my own friends, and it's an awful, awful feeling that took me a long time and a lot of growing up to navigate and cope with healthily. And while I believe the boys are mature enough and truly love and respect each other to not do this, things like these do tend to put a rift in relationships and I never want to see that for them.

And exactly. Nick has repeatedly praised Taylor both on his performance and him as a person, colleague and friend. Nick (and Matthew) would be the first to defend Taylor if he saw people saying Taylor was bad (which I hope he didn't, as naive as it may be I just really want the boys to stay away from the negativity)

The film has a special and personal place for Taylor, with the weight of the story itself, how much he connects to Alex, his first leading role, the missed premiere and press because of the timing and the unfortunate passing of his sister. Of course he wants to do something about it. We, as humans, will carry things this important to us for a long, long time, possibly for the rest of our lives. He's gonna carry RWRB with him for a long, long time, rightfully so. Plus it's just been two months, and we're all still freaking hyped about the movie, of course he can do stuff about it. It's already a lot less than what he, what they could have had and done because of the strike. On top of that, signing books and talking a bit about the film with fans is more for us, the fans than himself. And he has been doing other stuff! He can't do anything acting related because of the strike, but he pretty much spent the entirety of last month attending fashion events, which, mind you, is also his job.

I literally can't say anything more about racism other than it's just objectively wrong, racists are shit people, and he doesn't deserve it. (no one does, really.)

Unfortunately, we're not them so we can't protect the boys from seeing things, only they can. And we need to trust them to do so.

But I will say this.

The comments that spawn from things like racism and hatred, there is no actual value. Yes, it hurts to see and hear, but there isn't anything backing it up, there is no evidence to back up these claims. There are, ultimately, empty.

The love and support we have for him/them? Spawn from our reaction to seeing them. Their performances, their interviews, their photoshoots. We write countless essays here explaining and analysing them. Everything we say, every praise we have, didn't come from nowhere. It came from the boys themselves. There's a reason we adore their performance, their relationship, their personality, and we can point to it.

And because of that, our support and love are far more substantial than the hate and hurtful comments, and therefore infinitely more meaningful and worthwhile. We need to remember this, and show the boys our love. That's the only practical and constructive way to combat the stupid hate. We ignore the comments, because their "opinions" are baseless and ultimately meaningless, and we show the boys the support and love that they rightfully deserve.

[ofliterarynature]

DECEMBER 2023 WRAP UP

[loved liked ok no thanks (reread) book club*]

Mixed Magics • Chalice • To Shape a Dragon's Breath • The Haunting Season • Hither Page • The Henchmen of Zenda • System Collapse • The Phantom of the Opera • An Unexpected Peril • A Minor Chorus* • The September House • (The Dream Thieves) • The Fragile Threads of Power • The Pinhoe Egg • (Network Effect) • Some Desperate Glory

total: 16 (audiobook: 12 / ebook: 4)

Happy New Year booklr! Here's to actually getting my last monthly wrap-up post of 2023 out in decent time for once.

Some Desperate Glory - I'm getting myself off to a bad start here because I don't actually remember much from the book and I didn't write a review at the time. oops. But I do remember that once things got going I was hooked, and I couldn't wait to pick the audiobook back up. Definitely some content warnings to look out for, but an incredible read. I definitely need to go back and check out the author's other work.

Network Effect - the last book of my Murderbot reread, still great, glad to have finally read this in a text format! Also better suited to be read *after* Fugitive Telemetry, I wish I'd known to read them in chronological order the first time.

The Pinhoe Egg - a nice wrap up to the main Chrestomanci series! Though if anyone can tell me why on eARTH the 'recommended' reading order is like *that*, please explain it to me. I'd forgotten so many things by the time we got back to Cat, if I ever reread I'm going chronologically.

The Fragile Threads of Power - lord help me, I could do a whole rant. A quick summary of my relationship to this series: loved Shades of Magic when it first came out, did not love/was very annoyed by most of it when I reread them in 2023. Also have not really liked any of Schwab's other work. BUT. I was under the impression that this spinoff would have new main characters, and the old ones would be present but not in the center. If I didn't just make this up, it was LIES. The original MC's still dominate probably at least 60% of the book, and you'd think 7 years in-book and more experience on behalf of the writer would mature them, but a) no, and b) so many goddamn flashbacks. And Kel's assasin-sona was so cringe I wanted to cry. I did actually like the new main character which really is the biggest shame of all. If you see me contemplating the next book please stop me.

The Dream Thieves - I don't know that I have much to add yet to my thoughts about TRB in my Nov post, but I've been having a very strange experience where when I'm actively reading these, I'm having an incredibly good time; when I'm not I completely forget I was reading it. lol?

The September House - this is possibly the closest to my ideal horror book that I've ever found??!!? I have a weird relationship with horror, wherein I am not uninterested, but I almost never enjoy the ones I read (I think it has to do with my irl anxiety, idk). But THIS one. It's such an INCREDIBLE blend of like, mundane horrors and dark humor? I loved it. The "you can live with the horrors if you just follow the rules" is very much my vibe, and the way the author chose to have it integrate with the main character's experiences of domestic abuse was very smart. Deeply enjoyed, but probably won't be a favorite.

A Minor Chorus - this month's book club pick! I really really wish I'd liked this, and I'm torn between "thank god it was short," and "oh I wish this was longer." It's about a queer Indigenous doctoral student in Canada who's somewhat lost his way on his dissertation and is instead writing a novel (maybe), inspired by the stories of people in his community. On one hand, the writing was sometimes very beautiful and the different stories were interesting! On the other, my academic-speak abilities are limited, and the narrator did not hold back. He even explicitly states at one point, oh I can't describe my book this way to [character] because he won't understand my academic language. And...yeah. My brain got a little overwhelmed and I skimmed a lot of those parts. The hopeful part of me thinks if that if the book had been longer maybe I would have had time to "get it," but idk.

An Unexpected Peril - Veronica Speedwell is as Veronica Speedwell does. Had a good time with this even though it's proving to not be the most memorable. Mostly I remember intensely panicking over whether or not V had practiced forging the princess's signature, lol.

The Phantom of the Opera - this was a last minute sub for my classics challenge; I've never seen any of the adaptations, but I happened to see the book on tumblr when I was scrambling for a replacement and thought it might be fun. And it was! Quite ridiculous and dramatic, and I had a good time reading it. I was surprised by the outsider POV on the story, but it was good, just a shame that it didn't allow Christine to tell her own story. If anyone has a Christine-centered retelling I should read, let me know! And are there any adaptations I should watch?

System Collapse - new Murderbot! I was so excited for this, I'm irritated that my brain and work schedule didn't want to cooperate and let me read my nice pretty hardcover; I ended up getting the audiobook from the library instead. I had an incredible time, because it's Murderbot, how could I not? But it's also interesting, because Network Effect felt quite cohesive and contained on its own, but this feels very much like an in-between story (almost like Fugitive Telemetry), rather than a continuation of the same thread. I'll be interested to see where Martha takes us from here.

The Henchmen of Zenda - my last KJ Charles of the year! I did mean to get through all of her books, but things slipped by me these last few months so I still have a couple, but managed to fit this standalone in! It's not the only time she's pulled characters from works of classic fiction, and I admit, I'm now very curious and kind of want to read the original Prisoner of Zenda? Definitely this version had an exciting plot that was fun to read, though I don't think it'll be my favorite of her works (yay for a non-traditional relationship structure tho :)

Hither, Page - I don't think I've read Cat Sebastian before, but I've had this one recommended and it sounds right up my ally - historical/cozy myster/spy shenanigans/gay romance! And it was an incredibly pleasant read, would recommend, but I do think it could have been better as both a mystery and a romance.

The Haunting Season - I almost picked this up in October for spooky season, but put if off for Dec since it's meant to be wintery ghost stories - and only just remembered it in time! I almost wish I hadn't. The first two stories were so meh for me that I almost DNF'd it, I just didn't want the fuss of having to find a new audiobook for work the last day before Christmas break. Luckily Natasha Pulley showed up next with a good story (I really ought to read her books) and there was a good run of 4 stories with another 2 meh to round things out. It wasn't a total loss, but I wouldn't really recommend.

To Shape a Dragon's Breath - If you've seen people singing the praises of this book, they're not wrong! It's a very good if sometimes heavy read, and this is definitely the closest I've gotten to liking a boarding school story since Protector of the Small (I got burned out on them very quickly, lol). It does sometimes read like the debut it is, it's not perfect (lots of infodump speeches, lord save me from the technicalities of alchemy/chemistry, and I would have liked to see more done in her relationship with her dragon), but it's also doing some incredible and unique things that really make me want to see more books in this series and whatever else the author writes.

Chalice - I've read Robin Mckinley before and I've found her work ok, but this one has been repeatedly recommended in the HOTE discord server - I figured it would be a good one to wrap up the year with! And surprise surprise, the fealty-coded discord loves a book about... fealty XD and good stewardship, and magic bees, etc. It's incredibly on brand, and I had a lovely time with this fairy-tale of a book.

Mixed Magics - a collection of Chrestomanci short stories; I actually read one of the stories a few months ago due to the recommended reading order (bleh), and thought it would be fairly simple to finish it off before the end of the year, now that I'd finished the rest of the series. All fun, if not equally interesting, and a nice end to the year. Now I just need to find a new Diana Wynne Jones series to try (not on audiobook, alas, my library is all out of those).

(I did almost consider then binging the Hither, Page sequel on new year's eve, just so I wouldn't split the series, but decided against it :D)

[tairona-is-taken]

A review of Truce at Bakura

(Originally posted to my RL Goodreads account a few years ago.)

Unevenly written, but super fun. This book picks up 24 hours after Return of the Jedi ends, and it’s billed as the book that wraps up the loose threads from ROTJ. I would say it only 50% delivers on that. It does do a good job of portraying Imperial/Rebel relations now that the Emperor is dead and the two sides have to work together to defend Bakura (an Imperial world) from whoever the aliens are who are invading from outside the galaxy (the Ssiruuk?). There’s a great scene in particular where the Imperial governor of Bakura doesn’t believe the Emperor is dead at first, but when Leia tells him Vader killed the Emperor, the governor is like, “Oh never mind, I take it back—that jerk? I TOTALLY believe he killed the Emperor.”

But the book only does a mediocre job of wrapping up the emotional threads after ROTJ, which is what I was really looking forward to. Luke is struggling with the health effects of the Emperor’s Force lightning, which is interesting, but apparently he’s 100% over the emotional trauma of what happened on the 2nd Death Star. Han has zero thoughts on the revelation that Luke and Leia are siblings (one day was apparently all it took for that truth bomb to sink in). I will give Tyers credit that Leia does struggle a lot with the revelation that Darth Vader is her father, and there’s even a scene where she meets Anakin’s Force ghost, BUT unfortunately Tyers just isn’t great at writing emotions/interiority, and so all of Leia’s angsting over this just comes off as predictable and lacking in true depth.

With that said, the story is still a fun romp that feels reminiscent of Star Trek: The Original Series, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Things that I liked, in no particular order:

- Leia is a total boss in this story. It’s clear she’s been coaching Luke and Han on diplomatic protocol now that they’re trying to form an alliance with the Bakuran Imperials—and in one scene it’s even clear that she told the guys to let her do the talking because they don’t know what they’re doing. LOL. This was a relief after The Thrawn Trilogy, where she gets talked over by other characters a lot.

- Luke gets promoted to fleet commander in this book and he kind of sucks at first. He gets better at being a leader as the book goes on, but in the first battle, he ends up leaning heavily on his flagship captain, Tessa Manchisco. Tessa is pretty amused by his inexperience, but is chill enough that she doesn’t rub it in, while Luke recognizes that she’s more competent than him, and is fine with following her lead. I loved their dynamic.

- Han at one point tries to romance Leia aboard the Falcon and asks Chewie to set up a romantic nook on the ship for a date. Chewie instead just puts together a bed where Han and Leia can get it on. Hahaha, at least Leia takes it in stride.

- At the end of the book, Luke pulls rank so that he can fly a TIE fighter, which he’s apparently always wanted to try—it’s one of the most gleefully in-character moments he has in the book.

- The Imperial characters are pretty nuanced. Gaeriel (Luke’s love interest) in particular is super ordinary—which is refreshing in the Star Wars universe. She supports the Empire in the way that most real people support the countries we live in—because we’re stuck here, so even when our home countries do bad things, it’s instinctual to try to move past it and look for the good.

- At one point, Luke Force heals this senile old lady who Gaeriel is taking care of and who Luke suspects got her mind kriffed up by the Empire. At the end of the book, this old lady turns out to be a complete badass who helps save the day with Gaeriel as her side kick. I just loved seeing an old person use their wisdom and experience to kick ass for once, instead of it always being the youngsters!

Things to file under “so bad it’s good”:

- At one point, Luke is despairing over his love life, so he calls to the Force ghosts—all three of them; Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Anakin!—because he basically wants dating advice from them. Man, that’s some Anakin-in-the-prequels level of romance fail right there. I guess it’s genetic?

- To be fair, this scene leads to a genuinely moving one where the Force ghosts don’t show up (wisely), but Leia does, and she and Luke have a touching moment of sibling bonding. What I particularly loved is that Leia doesn’t make fun of Luke’s crush on Gaeriel, but is actually relieved because he’s acting like a human being again instead of being super detached like he was in much of ROTJ. This is really the one nod we get to the emotional trauma Luke went through after Empire Strikes Back, and it’s a good one.

Things that were just plain bad:

- Luke keeps mind tricking people left and right in this book, oftentimes for frivolous reasons, and Tyers seems to have no awareness of the ethical implications of this.

- Han gets weirdly jealous in the middle of the book of both Luke’s (totally innocent) interactions with Leia and also this one random Alderaanian officer who kisses Leia’s hand. It makes no sense and it’s like Tyers is trying to just check off the “romantic tension” box.

- In the final battle, Tessa dies—and in fact, Luke’s entire flagship gets vaporized—but neither Luke nor any of the other characters spare a second thought for these deaths. I blame this on bad writing, not on the characters themselves, but it leaves a bad taste in your mouth regardless.

[macgyvertape]

Venture Bros series finale thoughts (spoilers)

Watching the final work in a long running series (I started watching around 2012) is always a bit bitter-sweet, especially as a Venture Bros fans where there have been two or three year gaps between seasons, and after season 7 there was a lot of uncertainty of whether there would be another season or movie special. It was also extremely frustrating that hours after the movie came out, before most people had gotten to watch it, it was announced that Warner Bros who owns the rights would be delisting the show, WITHOUT telling the creators beforehand.

I reframed a lot of my initial thoughts after reading the Mashable interviews with the creators. “'The Venture Bros.' creators on saying goodbye to their show: 'It sucks'” where they discuss “kill you darlings” editing, and why some characters like Brock had less screen time and others like Sirena didn’t appear at all:

“"We put on our list — these are the things we want to include," Hammer recalled of the process. "These are the things that aren't important. These are the things that are funny. These are the things we care about. And we wrote out [a] way too long script and did a few rewrites."

"We wrote our most detailed outline ever," Publick said. "And we started writing the script. And when we got to the halfway point of the outline, we were already at the, like, seven-eighths point of what our page count should be. So we went, 'Oh, we gotta cut five scenes we wrote already and pare down the second act — like, way down.'" …

But it wasn't all bad news. Hammer found some joy in the process of paring down, telling Mashable, "It was also a treat because when we get to that point where we've overwritten, we can read it and go, 'Well, now I understand you.' We're good at looking at something and going, 'I know why this is broken. And I can fix it.' Jackson and I are both real good at repairing things."

And “Doc Hammer reveals the 'Venture Bros.' scene he regrets losing” which discusses Sirena specifically:

“Hammer began to explain, "I don't want people walking away going —"

"She's [Sirena] a bitch," Publick said, finishing the thought.

"Yeah," Hammer continued. "She's not a bad person. And we understood what happened (between her and Dean). And we wanted to tell people like, 'This is just a part of growing up. These terrible things just happen.'”

"The Monarch is a jackass, and he says terrible things," Hammer continued. "And Doc is a horrible narcissist, raised by toxic masculinity. I recognize this pantheon because they're in my life as well. But, I love all of them — as flawed as they are. And [Publick and I, in making the series] constantly walk that line of going, 'This is terrible. But look at the love in here.'"

The Sirena cut scene was meant to walk that line as well. The duo declined to reveal what would have happened in the scrapped Sirena scene. (Maybe they go into it on the DVD's commentary track?) But Hammer did share what he hopes fans realize about Sirena.

"We wanted people to walk away understanding her and understanding what happened," Hammer said. "Obviously, she's not in love with Dean. And hers is a very complicated relationship with Hank because it's his first relationship. And that's the age where we mess up."

I think the series finale is excellent within the way it works in that very strict time limit; it balances some fun new plots and characters with wrapping up a bunch of plot threads and speculation. Sure I would have loved to see more of Mantilla/Debra’s “stalker with a crush” interest in Dr. Mrs. The Monarch as the resolution was very quick but it still was my favorite plotline in the movie. It’s been amazing watching the quality of the animation increase over the course of 20 years, and I’m grateful the show got a high movie budget send off. There were a number of scenes like the Ven-tech tower liftoff where the animators really got to flex and make the moment spectacular and it was great to see.

It felt nice to end the series getting answers to some of the long running show mysteries and fan speculation; how are The Monarch and Rusty Venture related, what’s the deal with Hank and Dean’s parentage. This show has never done the sudden twist because fans figure things out and it wanted to “subvert expectations”, it instead rewards careful watching, and it was fun spotting old callbacks or visual Easter eggs (Dermott has a Deathklok poster). There were also a lot of emotional moments that landed for me, such as the rescue of Ven-Tech tower, just seeing these characters work together and succeed after all these years watching them.

This finale does one of my favorite things for a series finale to do, show a world where the characters have grown and changed but the world live on in a positive way, akin to riding off into the sunset where a new adventure is always possible. Things like Ven-tech tower settling in the old Venture Compound, the Monarch finds out the truth of his biological relationship to Rusty Venture but just adds a layer in the in the way he’ll continue to arch.

[incognitajones]

PWP prompt: wounded, salt water swimming

Pairing: rebelcaptain or han x leia

Delete if this doesn’t inspire happiness Marie Kondo style!

Hey, remember when I said I wanted to write some short prompts and then disappeared for three months? Me neither 🤣

There isn't much of either type of P in this, but I hope it brings joy anyways!

*

Leia missed the sea. 

Oh, there were oceans—not only of water—on hundreds or thousands of worlds across the galaxy, and she’d seen many of them. But she’d never walk on the shores of Alderaan’s seas again, never smell that exact scent of salt air and kelp, never feel its waves lift her up. That sea had boiled into vapour with the rest of her home. 

This planet’s water was lighter, a milky turquoise instead of the pure clear sapphire she’d grown up with, and the beaches were tilted sheets of slippery shale instead of dark red sand. She could still walk along the shore, though, and the wind felt nearly the same. Its strong push counterbalanced her as she stood just past the point where the waves’ hissing momentum failed and retreated.

The square-prowed silhouette of a fishing boat passed slowly across the horizon. Leia pulled off her boots and stuffed her socks into them, wading into the shallows with gritty rocks shifting under her bare feet. She twisted most of her long skirt up and tucked it into her belt to keep it out of the way. 

She heard the scrape of footsteps approaching over stone behind her and sighed internally. 

“Everything okay?” A thread of worry was laced through Han’s normally insouciant tone. 

“I’m fine.” Which was only partly a lie. Leia wasn’t physically wounded, just tired: so tired of having to be a figurehead, strong for all the Rebellion to see with just a hint of vulnerability to keep her relatable. She could show her grief and her anger, but only in carefully calculated amounts. Sometimes she felt it like a tangled, writhing ball in her chest that could only be released by a massive explosion of fury.

As much as she wanted to let it out, Han didn’t deserve that. She drew in a deep breath, concentrating on the briny scent of the air. 

He waded up slowly behind her and she felt his broad form block the wind, a bulwark of solid warmth at her back. She leaned into his chest and his arms wrapped around her. 

“You’re bleeding.” His voice rumbled against her back.

She looked down and saw he was right: a scrape on her bare foot was oozing blood slowly, drifting into the water like red smoke. The water had numbed her to it. 

“Leia. Are you sure you’re okay?” Han cupped her shoulders in his big, warm hands. “No one else is around. You can tell me whatever it is.”

“Kaltiss died yesterday.” Leia’s weak whisper voice was torn away by the wind. She cleared her throat and spoke louder. “She was the last survivor from Calabrida. We used to talk about the port there, where my parents had a summer home.” She looked for the faraway boat, but it had dissolved into the haze on the horizon. “Her family were fishers, and they were always buried at sea. I couldn’t give her that.”

“No one could,” Han said, flat and final. “And she knew that. She wouldn’t have joined up with the Rebellion and fought in space without thinking about it. You can’t carry everyone’s burdens, Leia.” 

He turned her around in the circle of his arms. She looked up at him, braced for a bad joke about her height, but his face was uncharacteristically serious. “You’ll break yourself trying.”

Even if he was right, Leia didn’t want to hear anyone worry about her right now. She scowled half-heartedly at him. “Shut up and kiss me.”

For once, Han did as he was told. His mouth was hot on her cold lips and she needed that, needed him to make her feel less frozen. She wound her arms around his neck and clung to him.

A wave smacked into them, soaking Leia to the waist. Han lifted her up against him and she gasped, her fingers digging into the back of his neck. He kept kissing her, his fingers gripping her thighs hard, biting into her flesh. Leia could barely breathe. The wet fabric of her skirt soaked through his pants as she wrapped her legs tight around him, yanking at his shirt, trying to get her hands on the warmth of his bare skin as he mouthed at her neck... 

“Wait a sec—” He lifted his head to scan the deserted beach around them. “Any chance we’re gonna be interrupted?”

Leia shook her head. “There’s a security drone within call, but that’s it.”

His slow grin made her shiver like the thin trickle of icy water down her spine. “Guess you better not scream, then.”