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halfelven · 2 years

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ALL of the fic writer asks, if you’re willing ! If that’s too much, first 5 + 7

this took awhile to write out but here you go~

😅 What's a story or scene you've created that you're a smidge embarrassed exists?

Hmm I’ve orphaned a couple of stories I wrote that were requests, but that was more because they didn’t fit with my other ideas. I don’t embarrass easily, and I use it for evil.

🤡 What's a line, scene, or exchange you've written that made you laugh?

Elrond leaned back against the wall. The cloudy light illuminated him. ‘You’re staring again.’

‘I’m sorry!’ Gil-galad blurted. ‘You’re just so so beautiful!’

‘Mm,’ Elrond said. He shook his head.

‘Like you should have birds flying around your head and flowers blooming at your feet.’ Gil-galad waved his hands.

Elrond smiled. ‘And you look like you stole stars for your eyes.’

‘See?’ Gil-galad said. ‘I am in my truest of hearts, a thief.’

Elrond tilted his head back and watched the rain fall on the ceiling.

‘Then be a pirate, and I’ll be with you, and we’ll attack the ships of Númenor.’

Gil-galad shook his head.

‘You’re not going to let this go, are you?’

Elrond lifted the wine to his lips. ‘Stubbornness is my greatest flaw.’

'Noted.'

'But not my only one.'

'Duly noted,' Gil-galad said.

😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

Just ‘playfully’ mean? I’ve put in a couple cliff hangers that I didn’t need to.

✍️ Do you have a beta reader?

🎢 Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

Announcing High King Whatever because I never know what will happen next

✨ Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉

I make it sound ~pretty~ (poeticish)

💋 First kiss fics. Love em or hate em?

Um. They’re okay? I wouldn’t write an entire story around a first kiss for myself

🎶 Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

Yes, usually. Right now I’ve been looping That Unwanted Animal by The Amazing Devil and Guest Room by the National

🛠What tools/programs/apps do you use to write?

Libre office when I’m on my laptop and usually I just write in the saved messages of telegram if I’m on my phone. Sometimes I’ll use google docs but I don’t like it

⛔️ Do you have a fic you started, but scrapped?

A few but I don’t think anything posted. I have a bunch from 2020 that I still can’t touch though due to associations with that time, but they’re on hiatus not abandoned

🙋‍♀️ Do any irl people know you write fanfic?

I met one of my friends who I now see sometimes irl through Silmarillion fanfic (we’ve been to Italy, Greece, Estonia, Sweden, and Norway together and she’s visited me in Finland, and I’ve visited her in Egypt, which has been really fun!) We were discussing our stories on the train in Italy, and she decided then and there that she had to catch up with it so then we both read my story so that I could see where she was when she wanted to talk about it, and it’s one of my treasured memories

🍦 What's the sweetest fic you've created so far?

I don’t know who else considers it sweet but for me it’s ‘with the sun’ and I think about it a lot.

🍷 Do you drink and write?

Occasionally, but I don’t drink a lot so not often

🍆 Do you write the spicy stuffs? If so, what's your most popular nsfw fic?

through realm of shadow

🌞 Do you have a preferred time of day to write?

Late at night~ I also like to write down my dreams after I wake up and I write on and off throughout the day (and ideas to write later) but I like writing on the tram anytime

💖 What made you start writing?

In general? I have been in love with stories forever and I have an immense imagination and taught myself to read and write to read more stories and share mine. Fic? Grand imagination and I used this very detailed self-insert universe in Middle-earth to distract me from my terrible life and told myself all sorts of other canon divergent stories. I started posting fic after stealing my neighbour’s internet because I was exploring the world (a little) and was writing about the Fellowship navigating the modern world (because I also felt like a time traveller)

💌 How do you feel about comments and feedback?

I save my favourite comments and read them back for inspiration 💜

🧐 Do you spend much time researching for your stories?

Yes. And I also just study everything constantly anyway so I put information I gleaned from that in them

🏆 What's your most popular fic?

Selfish (deserved and might be my favourite I’ve written)

🎯 Have any of your readers accurately guessed major plot points? Care to share which?

Not yet (that they’ve commented)

🎨 How do you feel about fan art of your stories?

I love it! ‘with the sun’ has the most beautiful fan art and I think about it constantly too

📈 How many fics do you have?

108 right now that are published

🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

Usually outline them and then change my mind because I can’t write if I already know exactly what will happen, because if I can’t find out as it goes along, I get bored of the writing, since it’s more vivid just to play it in my head. (also I don’t understand ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ and looking up the origin is not helping??? like if you are flying without instruments how is it by the ‘seat of your pants’???)

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

don’t have any at the moment that I’m invested in. currently obsessed with an original work. (not 100% true i want to write a phantom troupe road trip fic)

🤗 What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?

- Write little stories/scenes that are like 100 – 300 words long. Helps you find your voice + the characters’ voices. I had a fic where I was writing one of those little stories everyday for I think about 100 days.

- Ignore fanon if you hate it or even just mildly dislike it.

- I used to write scenarios on little scraps of paper and then characters on other scraps of papers and mix them up (separately) and then I’d have to write the scenario, like: Boromir and Legolas have to change a flat tire, are separated from the others in Moria, or w/e

- Stick characters in a broken elevator and see if they kill each other.

- Mix all the names up, pair them up, put them into aliens-forced-them-to-do-it marriages and see if they kill each other. I did this too see how characters work together when they’re forced to be around each other. I also do this and the elevator/other tight scenario with my ocs all the time. I also force them to go grocery shopping.

- Write a scene centred around an emotion but you’re not allowed to write down the names of any emotions in the scene.

- Write ‘I hate this’ when you’re stuck 49 times until you have 147 words and then write why you hate this until you have at least 300. (If you hate it because you think you’ll fail then write the scene badly and see what the worst could even be.)

- Write things so self-indulgent and specifically suited to your tastes that if someone else falls madly in love with it you might wind up finding a best friend.

💞 Who's your comfort character?

oh no (though Elrond is the original)

🧠 Pick a character, and I'll tell you my favorite headcanon for them.

I’m picking the character now and it is Boromir and he is gay and aromantic

🤩 Who is your favorite character to write?

Probably Killua. I like writing deeply disturbed characters. This says nothing about me.

🤲 Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

Killua came in with a half eaten apple in his hand.

'They're baking Kalluto into a pie in the kitchen,' he said to Illumi. 'Might wanna stop it.' He sat down on the arm rest of the chair and bit into the apple. 'He might get minced!'

As if on cue, Kalluto let out a high scream in the kitchen.

'There he goes,' Killua said. 'Gettin’ minced.’

😬 Which of your fics would you be most horrified for friends, family, or coworkers to stumble upon?

Probably ‘the face of god’ bc I don’t really have an explanation for it or ‘playing house’ but I’m not particularly concerned about that

🎉 What leads you to consider a fic a success?

I like it when I read it again two months later

📚 Would you ever want to turn writing into a career?

Trying!

⌛️ How long does it take you to write a fic, or a chapter?

I honestly don’t know for sure? I think around 800 – 1000 words per hour is pretty normal for a first draft

🤯 What's a genre you struggle with as a writer (ex. romance, action, etc.)?

Romance and I’m not particularly invested in it so I don’t really care to practice that often

💔 Is there a fic of yours that broke your heart?

‘selfish’ and ‘winter bird’ both have parts that are hard to read back sometimes. and ‘with the sun’

💥 How do you feel about criticism?

I don’t want it. This is for fun. It’s not professional writing. And I mean this in the nicest way possible but I have gotten quite a few comments for how to ‘better’ my writing that would make it worse and the ‘don’t use said/says’ all the time use ‘whined, hissed, roared, screamed, snarled’ instead is the ‘advice’ I’m talking about. Don’t do it. Also the other one is ‘don’t use their names so much.’ I am never writing ‘the black haired man’ unless the pov character doesn’t know the character’s name.

🤭 Do you have a favorite tag to use when posting your works?

I don’t know I feel I use angst the most. But I like tagging torture and psychological torture because I like writing them

#txt #asks #anonymous #ask games #fic related

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sneezemonster15 · 3 years

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Ok but if you think Kishi intentionally made sns romantic… what do you think is the reasoning behind that? I absolutely don’t want to speculate on his sexuality but I think that it was mostly unintentional and it came up as something so intense because he thinks women are significally inferior than men and my guess is he had some very intense friendships when he was growing up.. the ones that mark your entire adolescence in a positive and negative way. But I really don’t think it was intentional

.........

But.....

How is SNS coming off as intense related to his thinking women are inferior to men? And how do you compute the speculation about his sexuality with it being unintentional?

So much dissonance...

Like....your question makes no logical sense whatsoever. Is there a precedent that is guiding your very befuddled beliefs, if yes, I would like to know.

So it's not the first time I have heard about fans correlating SNS being intense with Kishi's female characters having no depth. And that is just...so absurd...

Okay. I will try and make sense of your ask.

Yes Kishi intentionally made SNS romantic. I have no clue where this belief stems from, and especially in Naruto fandom (man this fandom is so weird....), that writers have no idea what they are doing. Like have you ever sat and watched a roundtable with writers? Do you have any idea, like any idea, how much thought and meditation and emotion and hard work goes behind writing a good script? Do you have any clue about how scripts are chosen by producers? Have you ever wondered what it takes to adapt a written or drawn piece of work into a screenplay? The sheer amount of work, the weeks of story boarding, brain storming sessions, shot breakdown, do you think all this happens in a vaccum, without thought? Do you think those people who work in this industry, who make you feel a dozen heavy duty emotions with a twenty page comic book or twenty minutes episodes are fucking idiots? They don't know what they are doing? Do you have any fucking idea about how much it takes to write a story that touches a zillion hearts the world over, can you even imagine the pressure? What you think it is accidental? Kishi is a fucking amazing story writer but it's not like he doesn't use the typical tools any good writer knows how to play with.

Do you have any idea about the number of people associated with a project like this, who all need to be on the same fucking page to be able to deliver something like this?

How can you even think it is unintentional? What the fuck even is unintentional? That Kishi's hand slipped and he 'accidentally' drew Sasuke's mouth on Naruto's crotch? Like what are you high on??

This supremely popular series consciously designed to wring the most amazing range of emotion from viewers and readers world-freaking-wide is accidental? I am sorry, what? Like what a supremely sad thing to see that people are ready to embrace delusions like this but can't accept a love story between two boys. Like how surreal is this shit? Naruto fandom is unbelievable.

And yes, I see the temptation to question Kishi's apparently dormant sexuality and I have thought about it in the past. Now I don't care. It's something that can only encourage more lurid speculations, without any claims to their veracity and so I feel it's a fruitless attempt at pointless regurgitation. I find it's best to avoid it.

What is do care about is the story itself. I shouldn't have to or need to go outside of that for my reasoning. That is the mark of a good story. And I really don't need to, not with Naruto. Like far from it.. Everything I need to answer my questions is in the story itself. It also helps that I try not to be biased or prejudiced. Or blind...

All writers, literally all writers draw from their personal experience to write. What is so special about Kishi having done it too? And he did, he has talked about it in his interviews, his fear of abandonment and him having known orphans as a kid. Maybe he liked someone, perhaps he was channeling some latent homoerotic feelings through his work, how does that translate into SNS being unintentional? Shouldn't it mean that it was intentional? Like seriously, if Kishi had some boy he loved as a kid that he used as his muse for Sasuke, wouldn't he ideally construct an idea before putting it on paper??? Isn't that how muses work? By thinking about it so deeply that you create art out of a subjective impression of an abstract idea? How do You think it works exactly?

Man, where's your logic for God's sake?? What are your parameters of deduction, where's your premise? Rules of basic deduction : work with what you have. Facts before motive. Make sense of the facts and the motive will present itself to you.

It's so corny that you talk about reasoning with me when you can't even construct a question that makes sense.

And for the last time, the fact that Kishi gives such a miniscule amount of deliberate thought to his female characters only underlines the fact that he doesn't consider them that important. He is not that well versed in writing or getting women. But you thinking of it as the reason for SNS's intensity is like a such a fuckall reasoning to me. Sorry, for the crass language. But are you telling me that the absence of women in the equation of Naruto and Sasuke is the reason for their homosexual intensity despite Kishi's relentless insistence on their special and unique bond that literally doesn't leave any space for anyone or anything else? How does that make sense? Are you hearing yourself? You are basically telling me that the heteronormative force in society is so fucking strong that you would rather believe that its absence is the reason for the existence of homosexual content than believing the actual homosexual content itself? Like it cannot exist on its own? Like it has no agency or capacity to stand in its own right?? Do you realize what an offensive thing that is to say?? It is deeply rooted in homophobia and it defies logic. The proof of something cannot depend on the absence of that thing from the situation itself. It's a logical fallacy. What the suffragette movement happened because the needs of men were missing from their manifesto? The apartheid happened because the whites just couldn't get into the black ghettos?

So, everything that happens in the story of Sasuke and Naruto where they reject basically everyone and everything including men women titles positions life etc Only shines through because the two otherwise irrelevant female characters who married them in the end weren't in it?

Wow. You know what this is called? A bad attempt at sophistry. Conmen and bigots have historically used it a lot in their trade. Except they were exponentially better than this...

For your own sake, whenever you are on the verge of thinking that a person who earns his livelihood from drawing make believe stories to affect you to an extent that makes you willingly interact with crabby bloggers who so caustically disagree with you, is doing it 'accidentally' (which basically means without premeditation), just pull yourself back. They know what they are doing. Everything is intentional. It's written to make you feel a certain way. That's the talent of the writer. How to manipulate audience's minds. You can now look at Stanley Kubrick's work and marvel at how fucking beautiful his shot looks and forget it the next day, but don't forget he made the entire crew and cast of 200 people do 127 long freaking takes to get it right and even suffered a few lawsuits for it. For one freaking shot!

Hopefully this answers your question because I am so done with it. Smh.

#who are these people #where is the common sense?#anon #reply #naruto fandom is exhausting #naruto #sasuke #uzumaki naruto #uchiha sasuke #sns #sasunaru #narusasu

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helena-thessaloniki · 3 years

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Hi Helena! Big fan of your writing here🥺♥️ Your rivamika fics are my safe space 😭 (if you have time to answer) i’d love to know when you first started shipping them, why, and what made you continue to love this ship (or anything else to do with your journey as an RM shipper)? i love your characterisation of both levi and mikasa individually, but even more so, your portrayal of their dynamic as a couple, which is why i wanted to ask so badly ☺️ x

Hey anon! Oh woah, first of all, thank you so much. Second of all, oh god, you probably shouldn't have handed me the mic. heh 😅

I’m afraid to look at the word count of this response, I’m sure it’s much more than you bargained for, but I appreciate the question and enjoyed thinking through my response (: Most importantly, I’m so glad you find my stories as a safe space. It’s really an honor. Thank you for sharing with me 🖤🖤

TL; DR As a longtime reader, writer and lover of stories and story-telling, by being someone who pays attention to how stories are crafted and deliberately developed from beginning to end, I sincerely thought Isayama was setting up rivamika as an endgame relationship. So, I read into and interpreted meaning out of ALL their interactions and became deeply invested.

I don’t necessarily ship them cause of the parallels, age gap, enemies to lover trope, height difference, or some of those common reasons and/or kinks. I’m more basic and boring than that. I love the concept of them coming together as though it’s inevitable.

They both are unbelievably strong, selfless, and have suffered so much loss— so, no one else could truly understand them as well as they can understand each other. They both probably would have always settled for a stable, simple life, and been alone and lonely even without realizing it— instead, they find each other, and realize what it means to actually no longer be alone, to do more than just survive. It’s this understated bond, as opposed to a dramatic and passionate romance, that I envision in them and that I love so much.

Then, the passion, heat, the romantic "spark"— I think that’s an added bonus, the cherry on top, the perfect final puzzle piece. They’re both so physically capable, can speak through their actions, and don’t show much need or capacity for emotional/ verbal communication, so the ability to connect with each other through physical intimacy and mind-blowing sex seems like another given.

Still, at the end of the day, for me it comes back to their ability to fully depend on each other, to the inevitability. Not like some soulmate trope where they 'have no choice' in it, but like the stars aligned to prove it's right. How each of them have only one other person on the whole planet who could see and understand them, to be on par with them, to make them realize there’s more to life than settling and surviving, and they happen to find it in each other.

You asked, I rambled 😅 Here’s a breakdown of my thought process in my rivamika journey. For those who make it to the end or want to skip to the end, I'll finish with the excerpt of the very first rivamika scene I felt compelled to to write.

I've tried before to re-watch and remember the exact scenes, exact moments, that initially captured my full attention, but I guess it was all of them, the gradual and cumulative compilation of their earliest interactions.

Mikasa always appearing cool and indifferent, and paying no attention whatsoever to others fawning over, like Jean initially falling for her, but then her strongly reacting over Levi in the courtroom showed how uniquely capable he was at getting under her skin.

Of course, the scene in the forest chasing the Female Titan was a critical one. I think of that as the first time both Levi and Mikasa were truly able to see the other's strength, mental and physical. And for them, orphans and trauma survivors who have suffered extensive loss, I think that seeing strength in another person made them feel less alone. Less alone in a deep, quiet but cataclysm, life-altering sort of way, even if not a romantic one. Like they didn't know it was something they didn't have, something they didn't expect to get from life, but then found it with each other.

(Even when we found out Levi was an Ackerman, I was disappointed if it meant they were immediate relatives, but willing to accept it wouldn't be a romantic end to loneliness, it would be a familial end to loneliness. But... the author never explored that. Not once.)

In that forest scene, manga and anime, the way that Levi pauses to really look and see Mikasa and think about who she is, what she’s gone through, and how strong and dedicated she is now— that was a defining moment. It was also a visual demonstration of Levi breaking character, from aloof and ruthless, to considering and curious. I thought Yams was showing both of them do that on purpose.

Then, Levi getting hurt because of Mikasa in that scene felt like another clue. Sure, it was while saving Eren, and sure, it could have been meant to humanize super-soldier Levi, or sure, it could have been another aspect of how Mikasa rushing into things over Eren ends up hurting other people that later changes in her character development, but it felt like a very pointed statement about Mikasa being a vulnerability for Levi. And that's swoon-worthy, right? Most of us have been exposed to and conditioned by stories about how special and romantic it is to be the one and only girl who can make an otherwise disinterested or unattainable guy actually pay attention to her, and so admittedly I fall right for it.

I’m sure I’m forgetting plenty, but the opening of season 3 felt like confirmation. When Levi figures out Kenny's behind things and entrusts Mikasa with instructions to share with the others, instructions about fighting people instead of titans that ultimately everyone else besides her struggles with, and when Mikasa lets Levi hold her back from chasing after Eren, her most important way of trusting and having faith in Levi, I honestly took that as cues from the author that rivamika was endgame. I let myself get truly invested from then on. That’s that understated bond I was referring to. To me, that unspoken but undeniable trust is the most important dynamic.

Seeing them fight together or fight similarly has always been fun and powerful and fulfilling.

I'm newer to the snk club. I was originally an anime-only fan and started watching in fall 2019, I think. I wasn't on tumblr, twitter, or anything else to see fandom discourse. So, I didn't know that the rooftop scene of Mikasa fighting Levi over the serum was such a staple for our ship until much later. I love the scene just like many do for all the reasons we do, but I don't think the actual scene was pivotal for me, so much as it's aftermath. I thought it represented two things.

One, it was an important marker in Levi's characterization. Hands-down one of the most striking scenes to me is the one where Levi is in the alley, somber and alone, listening in on Eren, Armin, and Mikasa talking together. It artfully shows his longing for hope and connection. So, when Levi chose Armin for the serum, that represented Levi choosing hope. And when Mikasa ultimately gave up fighting Levi and didn't choose Armin, which Armin finds out about later on, I see that as an important marker in Mikasa's development. It puts a wedge between her and Armin/Eren [Armin, because he knows she would have let him die, and Eren, because Armin is too special to him and he couldn't look at her the same way after realizing she would have let him die]. That distance between her and her childhood friends is one I don't think could ever be healed completely, one of those painful lessons in growing up. By doing that, it then also puts a distance in Mikasa's own childhood self to her current self. I thought that matured her and separated her out in a way that was another clue toward eventual rivamika developments.

That's a whole other conversation on Mikasa, but I’ll stay on track. Her love for Armin was absolutely authentic and fierce, but at the end of the day, at the core of her being, she chose survival over hope. Meanwhile, Levi chose hope over survival. To me, that was soft, fertile ground for the reasons why eventually, if/when Mikasa found hope and chose hope, that could directly tie together with her inevitably in coming together with Levi. Again, less butterflies and fireworks, but more natural and in a way that was just a given.

I wrote Beyond the Walls before reading the manga from the Marley Arc and on, so that's why most of that story is her journey into embracing that hope. *manga spoilers* There's a lot of meta, criticism and talk about Mikasa's silent, off-screen and subtle style of character development in the Marley Arc and afterward. I won't go down that road, I'm still processing the end of the manga to be honest, but I think it's fair to say she does eventually end up choosing hope over survival when she lets go of Eren and saves humanity instead. I love the “Stay with Me” line and think it’s perfect; a simple but profound display of trust and their deep-rooted bond in a really understated way. *end manga spoilers*

Here's something I always wanted to talk about in full but haven't. It honestly reads to me like Yams was building toward rivamika, and didn’t do anything to stop that until too late. There are tools authors can use to ensure we stop shipping a pair or start shipping a new one; love triangles are commonly used in every artistic medium and we’ve all been persuaded by these tools. But Yams didn’t use these tools to make sure readers didn’t feel convinced by rivamika. For all the reasons I listed above, more I'm forgetting, and for the following:

If he wanted us to think they were family and it would be incest, he should have added in a conversation between them realizing they were (close) family and that they weren't the only ones left in their biological family like they thought. But he didn't.

If he wanted us to think it was completely inappropriate between a child-and-adult and student-and-teacher, then he could have done something to ensure Mikasa looked childish or Levi looked older, but no. They barely look ten years apart. I do think it's unacceptable and that there's a power imbalance between a child-and-adult relationship regardless of that, and that there can't be true consent when one is a superior and another a subordinate, so I personally age-up Mikasa in my head and try to handle his position of power responsibly in my writings... but the point being, by the end of canon, there's no inappropriate or non-consensual romance between them, yet there's a lot of history and chemistry that could naturally lead to an age-appropriate and consensual relationship. If Yams didn't want us to think so, he could have made it more clear that there were reasons it wouldn't happen.

The only thing that makes sense to me is the author planned on rivamika endgame but was shamed/pressured out of it (either internally or due to others) OR that the author somehow accidentally created such vibrant chemistry and an incredible dynamic between them. Like, he didn't put enough convincing substance of eremika in, didn't make Levi look old enough, didn’t have one of them do something unforgivable in the other’s eyes, etc. Those are some of those tools he could have used. Romance was never a key component in snk. And since we now know Yams planned or needed eremika endgame for sake of plot and the conclusion of the manga, I personally think he didn't know what to do with the riveting rivamika substance and chemistry being much more convincing to readers. Once he had them so well built-up, maybe the only option he felt he had was to just stop putting the characters together. We get little-to-no rivamika interaction, platonic or practical, after season 3 all the way up until the very end. But there was so much of it beforehand ?? So, it simply doesn't make sense. I think the author just straight-up cut any and all interactions out between them because it was too convincing and moving, more convincing and substantial than eremika. But, as the end of canon shows, we needed to have some eremika buy-in. It's messy writing and unskilled in the romance department, but considering for how long and how complicated snk has been in a creative process and how lackluster the eremika romance (the main and apparently pivotal romance) is developed, I think it’s plausible to say the author effed up.

As far as writing fanfiction goes, there's just so much room to explore them. In canon, we aren't given enough insight into their individual perspectives, let alone their dynamic together, so it feels like a blank canvas to work from. I think that's part of why I love to write them, and also why I don't necessarily read much of them. When I first started shipping them while watching the anime, I read a few of the classics that were canon-verse, but I haven’t really read much since. For me, exploring and discovering them as a writer is the most fun. (It's one of the reasons Naruto and Harry Potter have such large fanfiction collections. There's so much world-building and so many characters, but there's also so much left to the imagination.)

In general, I'm drawn to strong characters, especially women, who are multidimensional enough to be real, vulnerable and soft. Mikasa is the pinnacle of that. I don’t necessarily like to write about her love or infatuation with Eren, but I do respect and admire and consider it integral to her character and her amazing capacity to love. We can have strong, kickass women who falter when it comes to love but are still considered strong for it. The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive and Mikasa is a beautiful example of that.

And Levi is strong, but real and vulnerable too; he’s honestly a fantastically developed character, from Petra explaining to Eren in the beginning how he’s not the amazing hero he’s painted to be to the public, to how Levi genuinely cares for Erwin and others and chooses hope despite all he’s suffered.

The end of the manga wrecked me a bit. Kind of like Games of Thrones. You have something that was so epic and well-done for so long, a rushed ending that isn't immediately sensical and isn't fulfilling is hard to stomach. Eventually, I'll move on from the denial of that and process what I think and feel about it. The whole reason we have fanfiction is to expand on canon, but it's made me put rivamika on the back burner until I figure it out. So I'm a little less hyper-fixated on the pairing right now even though interacting with you all and asks like this remind me what brought me here in the first place. 😊

To conclude, I’ll share that the very first rivamika content I wrote was a compilation of moments I thought could be inserted into season 3. These are still moments I plan to edit and publish one day. For anyone that actually read this far, I’ll put a rough and unedited excerpt of the first scene I ever wrote about them.

Thank you again anon 🖤😊

BEGIN EXCERPT [after the rooftop fight for the serum, immediately following the ceremony where Eren touched Historia by kissing her hand]:

Part of her was embarrassed at such a flagrant act of disobedience to a superior, especially to one who saved her and countless others' lives in the past. But mostly, she was anguished by the situation Captain Levi put her in once he revoked the serum meant to save Armin and planned to use it on Commander Erwin instead. Her current ostracization and self-loathing was not entirely her own fault. Anger she felt toward herself was just as easy to wield against him.

It must have shown in the grit of her teeth or defiant tone, because he turned to look at her, more aloof than curious.

Like a flint struck to steel, it ignited the fury she felt toward him.

“I shouldn’t have hesitated. I should have just killed you,” she answered him at last, piercing him with eyes darker than the night.

He wasn’t concerned. “You’re good, but not that good.”

Her hands fell to her side, fists clenched as she stood with a single, fluid movement. Before she could let loose a threat, he sighed.

“What’s the problem, Ackerman?” He was dismissive, his shoulders relaxed and posture loose.

The fire too furious to contain, she went sailing for him with the same speed from the battlefield. Her fingers already curled, she tightened her grasp as she swung her fist into his gods-damned apathetic face.

Levi wasn’t unprepared. He easily side-stepped her, then snatched her wrist to steal her momentum. Though he tried to toss her aside, she was no less fast; Mikasa dug her heel in and spun, her other arm shoving hard into his chest.

Too graceful to stumble, Levi used the chance to hook her second arm too. He caged both her wrists in a grip so strong, she was sure it bruised her bones. Still, he only looked at her warily, almost bored.

“Shouldn’t you be grateful? I chose Armin.” If his reminder was meant to ease her anger, it had the opposite effect.

Fury and desperation gifted her additional strength. She shoved into his chest hard. Levi shifted backward, nearly forced into loosening his grip; within that split second of an opening, Mikasa slammed her elbow into his chin, rocking his head backward.

“You did,” she seethed, but as fast as the fire inside her exploded, it was doused. Her next words came out broken and damp. “But I didn’t.”

Levi remained stern and otherwise unmoving as he attempted to flex his jaw through the spasm of pain. As the momentum of the fight died down, he loosened his hold on her wrists and evaluated her distraught frame.

Mikasa immediately released her own hands and turned away from him, eyes stinging from tears she refused to shed as she focused on the stars ahead. Admitting the harsh words aloud hurt her far more than any injury she could inflict onto him.

Not only was Armin one of the only friends she had, but he’d been a steadfast one throughout almost all she could remember of her life. After the trauma of her childhood, it was Eren and Armin who embraced her, whom she learned to love. Now, though, there was a wedge between her and Armin she was not sure could ever be removed. What was worse, as deplorable and selfish as she knew it proved her to be, was the painful wedge it now put between her and Eren too.

Once again, she found Levi standing at the peripheral of her sight, close enough to see but far enough to be a blur at the edge of her watery vision.

“You almost killed me.” Levi repeated his earlier words, but he said them with an odd bite, torn between frustration and patience. “You would have killed me to save him.”

Too late, Mikasa realized he hadn’t meant these words as an accusation, but an odd form of validation. She bit her bottom lip, teeth puncturing too hard; the tang of metal was sharp on her tongue when she swallowed blood.

“You thought about letting your closest friend die,” Levi said quietly, tiredly. “But I did let mine die. I left him for dead, when I could have saved him.”

Mikasa was startled from her selfish reverie, for the first time acknowledging the sacrifice he made on that fateful afternoon. She’d been too absorbed in her own relief, and then, her own regrets to consider what the decision had done to him.

For a brief moment, she considered turning to face him, but the stark reality of the matter made her refrain. How could she feel pity for his loss, when his loss enabled her gain? An uncomfortable knot tightened in her stomach.

“Tch,” Levi sighed. He was only one notch less taciturn, but for him, that was soft. “You’ll live with your guilt, and I’ll live with mine.”

His words granted Mikasa’s tears the permission to spill. She buried her face further into her scarf, both hands trembling at the worn threads. As quietly as he arrived onto the roof, Levi disappeared from it.

It was rare for him to indulge in alcohol or celebrations, but Erwin’s absence felt more tangible than his presence ever did. Levi distracted himself with the chaos of the few remaining Scouts that Erwin had died entrusting his legacy to, and attempted to drown the pain with whatever drink Connie Springer shoved into his hands.

He found Hanji with their ale long-forgotten about on the table as they half-stood from their seat, frantic while explaining some morbid experiment in great, vivid detail to an unsuspecting and slightly horrified MP officer.

Though Levi wordlessly took the seat beside them, Hanji paused their rant to slap him hard on the back, an enthusiastic greeting flying from their drunken lips. The MP took this chance to excuse himself, a pathetic attempt at politeness, but Hanji either didn’t care or didn’t notice.

“Ah, Levi,” they smiled at his drink, though it didn’t entirely reach their one eye. “Where you been?”

Levi didn’t answer. “You know, shitty-glasses, you’re even more unbearable about your experiments when you’re drunk.”

Hanji waved dismissively and reached for their ale. Years spent in battle and command together had gifted both of them with an eased familiarity, and sometimes, genuine friendship. In the same manner he ignored their question, Hanji ignored his lack of response and went on with their original inquiry.

“Careful, Captain,” Hanji warned lightly. “Now that there’s far fewer Scouts, you having a favorite might cause some division.”

Even though Hanji meant the words, there was a glint of mischief that twinkled in their remaining eye.

“It’s not favoritism,” Levi countered bluntly, turning his vision toward the young man on the far side of the room. “Eren is simply the best chance that we have in this war.”

Hanji laughed as if he’d made a joke and Levi looked back to stare at them, unable to be surprised at their quirks or oddities any longer, but still a touch curious about what spurned this current demonstration.

“I wasn’t talking about Eren,” Hanji said at last, a pointed nod toward his injured chin.

Levi blinked. He didn’t realize he was nursing his injury with the hand not on his drink. As though it were too hot to touch, Levi dropped his hand.

Hanji was not judgmental, nor inquisitive. In a war-torn life of losing too many cadets entrusted to him, the fact that Levi found a soldier with the strength and skill to remain safe was not only rare, but worth special attention. Still, it made him too lenient.

“Sometimes I think you’d let her get away with murder,” Hanji chided halfheartedly.

When he thought of Erwin dead in his grasp, sometimes he wasn’t sure if he already had.

#my asks #my thoughts #rivamika #rivamika fanfic #lena writes

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downthefandomholewithaya · 3 years

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Fic Writer Review

@inkedroplets, Thank you for tagging me for this and sorry for taking so long.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

-8

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

- 79,319

3. How many fandoms have you written for?

-1

4. Top 5 fics by kudos?

-A Fine Frenzy- An ABO crack fic that I wrote from a prompt where Lena is a high priced escort who gets hired to be Kara's date to her sisters wedding. Think Hitch meets The Wedding Date.

-Women of Steel- An ABO random one shots of Lena and Kara's life together raising a special needs child that I have not touched it in a while. But need to get back to.

-And Dawn Shall Break- ABO loosely medieval fic where both Kara and Lena are princess. While out with a group of orphans one of them trespasses into Krypton and Lena offers herself to be taken prisoner instead. Enemies to lovers.

-It's a Fine Frenzy- Part 2 of A Fine Frenzy. ABO Basically it's the story of them as an actual couple building a relationship.

-Can I Spend the Rest of My Life with You?- Gold-K AU. Story chronicles Kara and Lena life together as an older couple with three older children. 2 young adults and one still in high school. Slice of Life maybe... There is also a prequel of sorts (that has just been updated) that deals with their life raising those 3 kids. Read it HERE.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

-Yes, I do. It's fun engaging with readers and sharing a moment with them. And if someone took the time to write something, than effort that should be appreciated. Even if it is just a thank you.

6. A fic you've written with the angstiest ending.

-None of the fics so far, but there is always a possibility and I just haven't written it yet.

7. Do you write cross overs?

- Not like straight up cross overs, but I'm not opposed to using characters from other fandoms I have a passing knowledge of. Canon, imo, is just a tool to build better fan fictions.

8. Ever received hate on a fic?

-Yep, but its part of writing, especially, imo, using characters who already have an established fan base.

9. Do you write smut?

- Not alot, but I do have some smut heavy fics in the WIP list atm.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

- Not that I'm aware of.

11. Ever had a fic translated?

- You know, I feel like possibly, someone could have used google translate to read something I've written. I've had comments in other languages so I feel like the possibility is there. 🤷‍♀️

12. Have you ever co written a fic?

-Not yet, but I am down for it. Anyone want to write a fic together?

13. All time Fav ship.

- Elizabeth and Henry McCord from Madam Secretary. I don't know if they counts as a ship, but their onscreen relationship was probably the healthiest I've ever seen.

14. WIP you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

- Until I'm dead... none.

15. Writing strengths?

- When I'm in the zone, I think comedy and tender moments. But I could be wrong.

16. Writing weakness?

-Grammar, and pacing.

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

-Fun and should always have the translation somewhere either in parentheses (preferred) or at the end.

18. First Fandom you wrote for?

-Supercorp. Love those two women.

19. What's your fav fic you've written so far?

-I love all my children equally. 😜

Tagging @emiliarowan, @argoslight, @a-biochemist-not-a-bird, @mysteriousinvalue, @scandalcabbage, @theredcapeofk, @theevangelion, @trixicbean, @wolfsong02

#Let's play #Have fun #Fun asks

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abanomath · 4 years

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DC’s Tone Deafness

So I don’t really like ranting or being negative, but DC Universe recently released an article to celebrate pride month about the Top 5 canon and non-canon LGBTQA+ relationships in Young Justice.

And the tone deafness is just off the charts. Like most of the world, I’m not American so I needed someone to screen-cap the actual article for me. I’m going to organize my thoughts and go down below.

General

For one, its pretty obvious the writer didn’t look at the source material. This article sounds like it was written by someone filled in on the basics and told to write a good PR article for DC.

There are a lot of little details in the story, such as when the writer claims that they “showcased even more LGBTQA+ protagonists in season 3″ implying they had previously, which they hadn’t. One character was implied to be bisexual in the comics, never on screen, but more on that below. Season 3 was the first LGBTQA+ rep for the show.

Also its always a bit tone deaf when in an article celebrating LGBTQA+ and diversity in your show, that you have a list of 5 “ships”, of which only ONE is actually a couple in canon. Not only did they need to resort to non-canon ones, they included people that can’t be called a “ship” or couple.

1. Kaldur/Wyynde

This is the only actual LGBTQA+ couple on the list that is canon in the show, and I liked them. But I can’t deny that Kaldur who was a main cast member for the past two season’s had a vastly reduced role (compared to straight cis white characters like Dick and Conner). He was basically written out of the first half of the season, and then his relationship was really present for 1.5 - 2 episodes max. This in a season that was marked with excessive attention given to heterosexual relationships (like seriously, basically every character was in some form of relationship on-screen). The one healthy LGBTQA relationship got less attention than Black Lightning and Dr. Jace’s romance, something that ultimately went nowhere, Dick/Barbara, even Megan/Conner when Megan was also essentially written out of the season.

2. Marie Logan and Rita Farr

They really dug deep for this “ship”. Ironically, they start this by talking about the scene in Young Justice #25, when Queen B’s powers work on Garfield’s mother. This was the first implication her being bisexual. And of course, she also dies in this scene, so starting off with a “Bury your gays” trope where Marie’s queerness literally got her killed and orphaned her son.

There isn’t much more to say about this ship, because it literally doesn’t exist. The shipping community for this is so small you have to go digging deep into tags to find even hints of it. The article even basically says this, posing the ship as a question. As being interesting. (Does it count as Bury Your Gays when both woman are dead before their relationship is even hinted at?)

In other words this article about celebrating LGBTQA ships literally had to try and CREATE A SHIP to reach 5 ships. Despite the fact there are plenty of LGBTQ fanon ships (Birdflash being the most prominent one left off the list). It really hits at the thing I said above, this is a “write us a good PR article with the barest amount of effort put into it” situation.

3. Harper Row and Halo

Oh boy don’t get me started on this. There are so many problems with how they did Halo this season, she is basically tone deaf personified. (For the purpose of this rant, I’ll be using the “she” pronouns for Halo, because I have no choice but to assume they are her preference, unless the show purposely spent the entire season mis-gendering her, but I don’t think her characterization really supports that she prefers “her/she”).

I’ve had a problem with Halo from the start, because she is basically an attempt for the writers to shallowly include representation without having to actually deal with it. She is Muslim representation, but not actually Muslim (as she confirms on the show). She wears the Hijab because she feels like it. She is genderqueer, but they never once talk about her pronouns. She refers to herself as “not feeling like a boy or a girl” and constantly refers to herself in the third person, but everyone uses “she/her” pronouns without asking her. They even have a scene where she informs them she is genderqueer, and its never brought up again without asking any actual follow up questions or awareness. They also infantalize and treat her as a little girl.

Additionally, she falls into one of my greatest pet peeves - she is genderqueer but for fantasy-scifi reasons. For those that follow genderqueer or transgender characters in media, this is a very common trope. Essentially, the trope is when someones gender identity is caused by/determined from otherworldly experiences.

This trope bugs me because it completely undermines the point of representation. Representation in media is supposed to show the audience that these are natural human experiences and that people like this exist and are normal. But the trope ensures that the experiences are not normal human experiences.

(and don’t even get me started on the fact that this show has made New Genesis tech gendered before, with Sphere. And even gender the bioship in the same season they pull this for Halo).

Lastly, she also falls within the “promiscuous bisexual” trope, with the very kiss this article praises as THE FIRST LGBT KISS ON SCREEN for the show. This is a problematic trope that DC seems to love. Basically, this scene has Halo cheating on her boyfriend with another young classmate, engaging in two kisses with her.

Now I’m not going to say that all LGBTQA+ relationships need to be wholesome one true loves. Problematic behaviour like Halo and Harper’s is a story telling tool. But the fact that the LGBTQA+ was told going into the season there would be LGBT rep so they should watch, and this was the first rep we got 18 episodes into the season? It felt a bit like a slap in the face. They could’ve had her break up with Brion beforehand, or any number of different ways that would even keep the scene in tact.

And the relationship doesn’t really go anywhere anyways. Harper doesn’t really remain part of the season going forward, Halo and her boyfriend continue their relationship after it was revealed until the end of the season.

This is ultimately my problem with Halo. There are a few tropes that basically are summed up as “writers put all their diversity into one character” which is basically what Halo is. Each of these qualities, from faith to gender identity to sexual orientation could’ve been a fleshed out character arc (oh! I forgot to mention she also falls into the “My gender identity isn’t cis, so my sexual orientation is also bi/pan/gay” trope). Instead all the diverse qualities of Halo are addressed shallowly as the show-runners pat themselves on the back.

4. Bluepulse

I’ve ranted a lot so I’m not going to go crazy on this point. You can probably find tons of posts about the drama between Bluepulse Shippers and the show, which again makes their inclusion kind of tone-deaf. Bluepulse shippers have been called disgusting by the fandom for the three year age gap, an age gap that was never confirmed on screen and you had to go digging in Greg’s personal message board to know (resulting in many people shipping them not knowing their ages at all).

In addition, the showrunners made it clear they did not like this ship over the several years the show has been off the air. And in Season 3 they give Jaime a girlfriend….who is a lesbian in the comics. Now Traci and Jaime did date in the comics before she came out, and this is another Earth. But when the sole purpose of their relationship being on screen was to tell the audience that bluepulse wasn’t happening, choosing a lesbian character to play the cis straight girlfriend is a bit of a slap in the face. again.

5. Bart Allen and Eduardo

Queerbaiting, nuff said.

For those not in the know, Ed is a character introduced as a runaway in Season 2, but he doesn’t really interact with Bart until mid-season 3. There is an episode where a group of heroes go to a carnival, and Ed and Bart appear to be on a date. They are in a group with all couples, except for Virgil. Virgil laments being the only person there without a significant other, implying that Bart and Ed are together. Additionally, Bart and Ed do everything that the other couples do together. It was pretty heavy-handed that the couples were there on dates.

And fans liked this! Even if Bluepulse wasn’t happening, Bart may still be bisexual or gay. This was made worse by Greg retweeting and liking Ed/Bart content, and not giving a straight answer on whether they were dating.

Which obviously, creates the expectation among LGBTQA+ fans that they will get together. They don’t. And later at a convention, one of the main writers (not Greg) said something like “its funny how the fans see relationships between characters differently from our intent” when asked a question about them. Essentially confirming that yeah, they didn’t have any actual content for them planned anyway. Though they did have an addendum that they may build on the fan reception/view of the relationship in the future (basically saying, maybe they’ll be canon).

As much as I’d like to be optimistic that they actually will get together and we’ll get a LGBTQ relationship that is in the spotlight for once, I’m not. I’ll be happy to be proved wrong on this point.

And that was my TEDtalk about how tone-deaf DC patting themselves on the back for LGBTQA+ content in Young Justice is. Especially when other animated shows do so much better with fewer episodes and screen time.

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aelaer · 4 years

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☕ The extended Avengers. Aka Rhodey, Wanda, Vision, Bucky, NOT PETER (already done), Captain Marvel and Ant Man. I think that's it? The others are outsiders that occasionally come into the fight and will be asked about later. 👀

Bucky you can find here.

So there’s a fun history to this post. The first draft I wrote when I was in a ranty mood, and in a rare moment of wisdom, I held off posting until I was calm and ready to revisit it. So that happened this summer, and the original draft was heavily edited. … and then Tumblr saved *none* of my edits. None of them. Ohhh, I was fuming. So I left it be, and then I had another break in the fall. Now as I play catch-up, I revisit this post once more withhh draft #3.

Rhodey: Not given nearly enough credit by most. First point: Tony wouldn’t be alive for y’all to ship (with literally everyone) without Rhodey being a motherfucking boss and saving him from everything. What I really like about Rhodey is his independence and agency. They make it a huge point in the films to show how independent Rhodey is from Tony Stark while still being his best friend. The best fan fiction with Rhodey is when the writer remembers Rhodey’s agency and keep him his own independent person rather than a Tony yes-man. The wonderful thing about Rhodey is that he supports his best friend when he agrees with him, and he lets his own opinion be known when he doesn’t, and on occasion, he sets Tony back in his place when it’s needed. He has a strong, strong character and strong personality which is why I love him so much.

With Tony’s strong personality, it would have been easy to have Tony walk all over him, but that doesn’t happen. He stands his ground when it matters, and he has his own strong opinions for his own reasons, and best of all, none of his opinions have anything to do with his friendship with Tony Stark. He’s his own man. He’s such an amazing character on his own, so why wouldn’t a writer explore the interesting dynamics between these two and make Rhodey stand on his own? I Don’t Get It.

Wanda: Not fleshed out nearly enough compared to other side Avengers in the MCU, and done outright dirty by a large segment of the MCU fandom (which was the start of my enormous distaste of anti-culture). I do think that she has a lot of potential for an expansion of character in canon, and I really hope we see more of her personality and what makes her her in her TV show. I hope we get some sort of flashbacks from her difficult childhood after she was made an orphan in a civil war, some sort of acknowledgement of her grief and healing from her brother’s death, and Vision’s as well. That is what I am looking for most in her show - more growth as a character and further acknowledgements of the grief and tragedy that shaped the woman she became. She’s never been near my favorite Avenger, but a large reason she hasn’t is because she hasn’t had the chance on the screen to really become a fully fleshed character. And that’s a crime.

Vision: Ah yeah, this was a large part as to why I didn’t post the first draft of this. A small segment of the fanbase upset me with their hypocrisy in mocking Vision’s and Wanda’s love as not real because of his android-ness, while understanding Tony’s care for his robots and his true grief for JARVIS’s loss. The inability to understand Wanda’s grief for Vision’s loss, while claiming to understand Tony’s loss for JARVIS, is simply willful ignorance. I remember I got especially angry about this at the time because some person somewhere was mocking Wanda for loving “a toaster”. The type of folks who make such comments just seem really… ignorant. Unless they’re mocking Tony in the same way for loving JARVIS. If they are, then it’s like– you’re just being more ignorant. I have stronger words, but– not worth the effort.

I don’t remember being so angry at fandom as often when I was active in the Tolkien fandom. Annoyed, but actively angry? Nah, but no one ever treated the characters so poorly and actively made fun of people for liking other characters. It might be part of why I pulled away so fully for the exhausting year 2020 was. (The ‘reset’ time did help.)

Anyway, Vision himself is absolutely fascinating. He definitely had a very interesting birth process, and I adore how the presence of the Mind Stone helps “evolve” him into something alive, which really makes sense: the mind and the evolved ability to reason and “think” is what has really separated humanity from the rest of all living creatures. While we’ve seen evidence of other animals using tools and higher emotion, and some recognizing their own form in a mirror, there’s no species that does it with a complexity and consistency that humanity does (and in the MCU, other creatures that are distinguished between “animals” and “people”). With the mind evolving, he becomes as complex as a human or another alien form. And that’s really amazing. I’ve really, really enjoyed writing him as well and people don’t understand what they’re missing by dismissing him.

Carol: I was wondering when this would come up, but no one’s asked before now. This is my least favorite Avenger. I found her movie really underwhelming and out of all the characters in it, the side characters were 10 times more compelling than her. And I really liked Brie Larson in Community, so it’s not the actress herself. I think it may be just that I don’t think she really connected with me as a person, at least with what we saw with her in her intro movie. She just felt flat, humor, emotions, everything. I also really dislike overpowered characters with no obvious weaknesses. Stephen can run out of magic, for instance, or certain tech can take him out. Carol feels too much like Superman, and I really don’t like Superman either. That’s one reason I have to write her in any fighting role or in any “heroes are in trouble” role because she just seems to be able to get out of every hero-in-trouble situation fairly easily. I’m open for future films to change my mind, but at the moment she has nothing substantial for me as a character, especially with the other Avengers competing for “most interesting” and her powers make her too OP. But I’m rooting for her (and Goose). I could try writing her with Stephen in something involving demons, so that might prove more of a challenge and help me explore her character further. I’m certainly open to metas that dig further into what makes her tick, too.

Scott: Not given nearly enough credit for his own heroics in Endgame, for one thing. Tony wouldn’t have been able to do his Famous Uno Reverse Card without Scott’s optimism and hope. I love his sense of humor, I love that he’s both smart and funny, I LOVE how good of a dad he is, I adore adore adore that he’s on good standing with his ex and her fiance by the end of the first Ant Man, and I love how he so clearly has a clear, individual personality. Kudos to Paul Rudd and the writers/directors of the first two films for helping convey that so clearly. I’d love him to meet Doctor Strange so much, properly. Yeah, he’s not appreciated as much as he should be by fandom.

And this post is finally done.

#mdcbd #james rhodes #vision #wanda maximoff #carol danvers #scott lang #mcu #another my opinions post #ask #answered #meta

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ask-de-writer · 4 years

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SEA DRAGON’S GIFT : Part 82 of 83 : World of Sea

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to World of Sea

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT

Part 82 of 83

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

140406 words

written 2007

Reproduction in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the express consent of the author.

//////////////

Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights. They may reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information remains intact. They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions.

All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

///////////////////////

New to the story? Read from the beginning. PART 1 is here

///////////////////////

Sarfin nodded and began writing swiftly and neatly on a fresh sheet of parchment. He paused for a moment and conferred with Sula briefly. Her eyes went wide and she nodded vigorously. He wrote for a few more moments. The parchment was given to a clerk who took it and disappeared in the direction of the scriptorium.

When the clerk returned, he gave the parchment back to Sarfin along with several copies. Sarfin handed one copy to Kotance who began to read and then snarled, “This is insane! Attempted Piracy? Mutiny? Murder? Attempted murder? Theft? Falsification of Council documents? Rape? Violation of the Second Great Law? Who am I supposed to have stolen from? These witnesses are children like her!” He ended by pointing dramatically at Kurin.

Kurin pounced on his statement at once. “You just qualified them as witnesses! You know very well that I am a legal adult since I got my journeyman’s certificate. If they are like me, then they are viable witnesses by your own testimony.” Sarfin nodded and wrote quietly and quickly on another parchment. Sula looked surprised and then stifled a guffaw. Some of the audience laughed outright.

Sarfin raised his hands for silence and after a few moments, got it. “Mister Kotance, You have now been formally charged with crimes. Some of these are capital charges. Included with the charges are a list of witnesses who will testify in your case.

“You may speak to these witnesses under supervision. You may seek any other witnesses that you need and the fleet will produce them for you, if possible. Other than as needed to prepare your case, you will be held in custody until your trial at the next Spring Gathering of the Naral fleet. If you need an advocate, you may obtain one of your choice or the fleet can provide you with one. Your choice or changes in your choice of advocate will not be allowed to delay your trial. Exercise both care and wisdom in this matter.”

Soaring Bird crewmen appeared at Kotance’s arms and each took one, bending it behind the now struggling man. They bound his wrists and forced him back onto his bench. The sheet of charges and witnesses was neatly folded and placed into a pouch on his sash-belt.

Kurin wanted to hide instead of say what had to be said next. “Your Honor, the matter of the attempted piracy of the Grandalor by the Longin has not been fully settled. One charge of murder remains from that attempt. Many, at least the boarding party, followed the Captain-pretender Kotance voluntarily. They hoped for illegal promotions based on his false promises. If he’d won the engagement and succeeded in his piracy, he’d have been able to deliver on at least some of those promises. Others, like the promise to make Cron an officer were completely false. We need to know how many followed him voluntarily.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “The Longin may need to be partially or wholly Scattered.” She sat face in her hands, small shoulders shaking. High Cloud, on her shoulder, was trying to preen the hair around her ear, and alternately stroking along her jaw with his beak.

Tanlin put arms about Kurin and held her, stroking her white hair comfortingly as she said, “Shush, child, t’ere’s a way oot o’ t’is net, i’ t’ey’ll take ‘t. Remember t’at Arrakan law t’at I told ye o’?” Turning her head to Barad, she added, “Luve o’ m’ ‘eart, tell t’e Court o’ t’e Arrakan Wergeld law.”

Barad stood and faced the still appalled Sarfin, Sula and audience. “Your Honor, as my most able advocate said earlier, the Grandalor does not ask so much. In my wife’s home fleet, there is a unique form of settlement for both civil and criminal complaints. They call it a Wergeld.

A Wergeld takes this form. All the parties involved in the dispute get together before the fleet, at a Gathering, usually. There, they agree to a mutually satisfactory penalty, often monetary, but not always, for the wrong. As part of the agreement, all grudges and feuds between all the parties must be laid aside forever. Failure to abide by that last part of the Wergeld voids the settlement and regular Law must take its often harsh course.

“If the Court and the Longin will agree, the Grandalor and the Longin can try to reach a Wergeld agreement before you. You have the proxies of the fleet as a whole and the Longin’s Councils are present. If all parties agree to this, it will be binding under the Third Great Law.”

Master Juris stood, hands raised for recognition, suspicion plain to see on his face. “I speak for the Longin’s combined Councils. I was elected head of the combined Councils by the Articles.” Here he shot a dark look at Barad. “I cannot believe that the journeyman that I am proudest of has done to her home ship what she has just done.”

Tanlin cut in hotly, “Dinnae ye blame ‘er! She ‘as a duty t’ be our advocate an’ ‘ard as some o’ the job is, she’s doin’ ‘t! Be proud o’ ‘er t’at she doesnae shirk t’e ‘ard parts o’ t’e task. We’re tryin’ t’ save bot’ ye!

“Wen Barad an’ Oi were married in yer food boot’, WE forgave all feuds between you and us! T’at is Arrakan Law and Custom. We claimed it an’ ye accepted, makin’ it bindin’ under t’e T’ird Groit Law. We’re nae forsworn.”

Barad interrupted her calmly, “Peace, my love. Setting aside a lifetime of suspicion is not easily done. Some cannot do it. If they will not accept, they will not accept. We cannot force them to save themselves. We can only throw them the line. They must be the ones to take it.”

Abashed, Tanlin continued to hold and rock the weeping Kurin in her arms. High Cloud had flown off. “Ye’re right, Barad. Seems a shame t’ let t’em go down, t’ough. Only met t’em a little but t’ey appeared t’ be a decent ship. Good folk.”

“They are,” said Barad simply.

High Cloud returned with a still flopping fish in his claws. Tanlin made him space and he landed in Kurin’s lap. He tried to poke the fish inexpertly into Kurin’s mouth. The bird’s antics brought a small smile to Tanlin’s lips. “Ye know t’e drill, sailor,” she said to Kurin. “Let ‘im ‘elp. T’at’s ‘is first catch ‘e’s givin’ t’ ye.”

Kurin took the fish in shaking hands and took a bite. She said in a quivering voice, “Thanks, High Cloud. I do need help just now.” The young Wide Wing climbed back to her shoulder and settled down to some serious preening of Kurin’s hair.

Master Juris glared at Kurin. The threat to his ship had him in a fury. “Kurin, as head of the combined Councils of the Longin, I could propose you be voted off the ship for your treachery. How would you like that?”

Tanlin said, with a mildness that belied the fury clear to see in the set of her whole body, “From all t’at Oi‘ve ‘eard o’ ‘ow ye deal wit’ orphans on yer ship, an’ Kurin tried t’ say naught but praise for ye, t’at would be just w’at Oi wad expect.”

A grim faced Captain Sarfin was beginning to write on a new sheet of parchment.

Kurin looked up, almost dry eyed, and saw what was happening. She knew the penalty for threatening or bribing an officer of the Court. Most folk did. She had to divert Captain Sarfin before he finished writing the death warrant for Master Juris.

A decision now clear in her mind, she said woodenly, “Go ahead. It’s not like I don’t have a ship to go to. Besides the Grandalor that I own, I can think of a few other ships that would have me as well. I have accounts, tools of my own in your shop, my booth and other goods along with clothing that all have to be transferred. Bring everything here before the Court to be verified as complete.”

Master Juris stopped as if he had just been punched in the stomach. Wide-eyed, appalled that his bluff had been called, he said shakily, “You can’t be serious. You can’t leave us! You — — you’re just a child.”

Barad interjected angrily, “But you can bully her with the threat of being cast off her ship?”

Instead of answering Master Juris, Kurin asked Captain Sarfin, “Your Honor, are you done with that adoption registry? I may need it in a few minutes. It seems that this is one time that the Longin is not happy that I have done well. Please send officers appointed by your Court to get my things.” Sula detailed several crewmen from the Dark Dragon to go to the Longin and get Kurin’s property.

Sarfin struggled to retain his composure as he produced the book. He said gently, “Are you sure that you want to do this, Kurin? They have a contract with the fleet that they cannot fulfill without you. This will cost them both the mapping contract and the school. The default penalties will bankrupt them and force a total Scattering.”

In a voice carefully controlled but still a little shaky, Kurin replied, “If they remove me from their ship, how is that my problem?”

As she spoke, her voice began to steady down. “Your Honor, as an advocate before the Court, am I allowed know of a crime and keep it from the Court?”

“No,” said Sarfin, “the smallest penalty would be a fine. The least that you can do is exactly what you have done. Ask for an investigation.”

Kurin chewed a little more of High Cloud’s fish and began to do what she did best. Think. The change was obvious and immediate as she separated her feelings from her words and actions. Evenly she asked, “Tell me, all of you Masters and Officers of the Longin, how many guards were put on each of your shops to keep you penned in during the piracy attempt against the Grandalor?”

TO BE CONTINUED

<==PREVIOUS NEXT==>

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to World of Sea

#SEA DRAGON’S GIFT #Part 82 of 83 #World of Sea #Written by De Writer

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campfiretechnology · 4 years

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A Practical Guide to Actually Writing Your Rough Draft

So you want to write a book.

Welcome to the club. In this guide, I’m going to do my best to define a concrete, executable plan to actually write a fiction novel. If you follow this guide to the T, you will produce an 80,000- to 100,000-word rough draft in 4 months.

If that sounds appealing to you, then you’re in the right place. Let’s get started.

Phase 1: Get Organized (1 Week)

Writing a book is not an easy task. You’re looking at 80,000 to 100,000 words – for simplicity let’s assume 80,000. If you write 1,000 words per day, that’s an 80-day undertaking. And that doesn’t allocate any time for planning.

What all this actually means is that if you’re serious about producing a novel efficiently, you need to get organized. Specifically, you need to organize your story information – characters, plot outlines, worldbuilding notes, etc – and your manuscript – the actual document that contains your novel.

You should spend your first week getting comfortable with a system to organize this information.

Story Information

You may be tempted to dive right into the writing part. This a bad idea unless you really know what you’re doing. To start, you’ll want to establish a system of keeping track of little bits of information about your story. This can be everything from character traits and backstories to extensive lore about the story’s setting.

Luckily, there are a variety of tools available to help you with this sort of organization, both free and paid. Here are a few, sorted from least structured to most structured:

A Plain Old Document – This could be in the form of a Google Doc, Microsoft Word document, etc. If you go this route, I’d suggest organizing it under the following headers: characters, world, and plot. However, this method isn’t quite as organized as the options below, so read on.

Spreadsheets – This involves using Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, or smarter spreadsheets like AirTable to store information. This method is a little more structured. For example, you could have a spreadsheet for your characters, with each row corresponding to one character, and each column corresponding to an attribute like “eye color”, “height”, or “backstory”. Then, whenever you need one of those details, you can just search for the character in the spreadsheet and navigate to the correct column.

Story Planning Software – There are software programs designed specifically for keeping track of story information. We suggest Campfire Pro, the writing software that we make here at Campfire Technology. It’s certainly not necessary to follow along with this guide and write your first book, but it’s worth checking out if you want to get organized!

Campfire Pro’s Timeline View

The particular system you choose isn’t all that important – what matters is that you find one that works for you and you stick to it throughout the writing process. You’ll want to continually update it as you write so it’s always there as an aid when you get stuck or forget a key detail.

Manuscript

You’ll need somewhere to actually write your manuscript. There are a lot of options in this area as well, also ranging from free to paid.

For the simplest free manuscript editor, check out Google Docs. It has everything you need to write your novel, though people do say it can struggle a bit on slower computers with really long documents. For a more robust solution, check out Microsoft Word. Both of these options include a sidebar in the document that can show all your chapter titles so you can easily navigate between them.

Scrivener’s manuscript editor

Finally, I’d be remiss to ignore Scrivener, a desktop application for writing books that offers the ability to reorganize entire chapters by just dragging and dropping – something that neither Word nor Google Docs can do. It’s a very common choice for organizing manuscripts.

Once you’ve chosen your system of organizing the story information and manuscript, you’re ready to move on to the next step.

Phase 2: Plan (1-3 Weeks)

Writers differ immensely in how much they plan before sitting down to actually write the manuscript. Some, like Stephen King, prefer to do very little planning. These folks are affectionately referred to as Pantsers – they like to fly by the seat of their pants with their writing. Others, like Brandon Sanderson, are architects who plan out in great detail how the story will unfold. These writers are called Plotters.

There have been brilliant writers of both kinds. However, we strongly recommend that every writer do at least a little bit of planning. Specifically, you should develop the story seed.

The story seed consists of three elements: a character, a place, and a predicament.

The character is the main character of your story. You don’t need a ton of detail here, but you should aim to have a rough idea of who your main character is. If you’re stuck, try to establish some backstory, a few personality traits, and some physical attributes.

The place is where your story takes place (or for Pantsers, where it begins). Again, aim for at a minimum a rough understanding of the setting – is it the modern United States, a medieval village, a galaxy far far away, or somewhere else entirely?

Finally, the predicament is what happens to the character in the place. If you’re a Pantser, then this predicament should probably occur at the beginning of the book – what happens to the character that kicks off the action? If you’re a Plotter, it should be the more overarching conflict that the entire book is about.

Here’s an example of a story seed for a Pantser:

A 10-year-old orphan in London discovers that he is a wizard.

Here’s the same story seed but for a Plotter:

A 10-year-old orphan in London must stop the return of the most powerful Dark Wizard of all time.

You should be able to develop this story seed in one week. Then, if you’re a hardcore Panster and you’re about to explode because of how much you hate planning, you can move on to Phase Three. That basic story seed is all you need to get started. If you’re a Plotter like me, you might want to spend as much as another two weeks planning. Read on.

Detailed Plotting

For a Plotter, the story seed does not represent a snapshot of the beginning of the story, but rather a summary of the story as a whole. As such, your predicament should refer to the major conflict that your character overcomes in the story. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the predicament is Lord Voldemort’s attempted return to power.

Once you have that predicament, you have a lot of plot to fill in. There are a few different structures you can use to help with this. The three-act structure provides a set of scenes or “story beats” that should occur on the way to the final conflict. The Hero’s Journey and Save the Cat provide similar frameworks. Learn about these, and then either choose one, merge them into your own framework, or ignore them all!

The Hero’s Journey in Campfire Pro

With any luck, the characters, plot, and world of your story will develop in parallel as you plan. For example, a decision about a character trait should influence what that character does (the plot). Similarly, a decision about the world could inspire part of a character’s backstory. If you feel stuck, just pick one aspect of the story and start adding detail – the rest will flow from there. Just make sure you’re keeping track of all the decisions you make using your organizational system. Fill in those spreadsheets!

As a Plotter, the end goal of all this planning is a book outline. If you’re writing an 80,000-word book, that means you need perhaps 10-25 chapters with word counts varying from 3,000 to 8,000 words. How you decide to break it up will depend on your writing style and your story – but you should aim to have an outline containing what happens in each chapter and an estimated word count.

Now, Pantsers and Plotters, is the moment you’ve all been waiting for.

Phase 3: Write (12-14 Weeks)

Finally, you think to yourself. I can finally do what I’ve been wanting to do all along. Pat yourself on the back, and start writing. But make sure you stick to a schedule and stay organized.

Stick to a Schedule

Create a schedule and stick to it. Google Sheets can help with this!

Perhaps the most important thing to do if you want to actually finish your book is establishing a schedule and keeping to it. Set a minimum daily word count and number of days per week that you plan to write. It’s best to start low here – say, 500 words per day, 5 days per week – and then increase these amounts over time as writing becomes a habit.

If you like using Google Sheets, you’re in luck. We’ve put together a writing schedule template where you input the total target word count, the number of weeks you want to spend writing, the number of days per week you expect to write, and the date you start writing. The template computes your daily target word counts and will show you a progress bar as you get closer and closer to finishing the book! Just make sure you’re signed in with a Google account, and you can use File -> Make a Copy to copy the template to your own account and start making edits.

If you’re dedicated to getting your book done within the 4 month timeframe defined in this guide, make sure your daily goal eventually gets high enough. For example, if your target word count is 80,000 words and you have 12 weeks to write, you need to produce just over 6,650 words per week. With a five-day workweek, that’s 1,330 words per day on average. If you start at a lower goal than that, you’ll eventually need to compensate by going over if you want to reach your goal.

Your mileage may vary. Find a daily word count that works for you!

Just make sure you never go more than three days without working on your book, even if you only write a few hundred words. You’ll find that the story fades in your mind quite quickly if you don’t work on it for days on end. Keep the momentum going, and write as often as you can.

We have a lot more tips and tricks about this in our blog post Start Writing Strategically.

Stay Organized

Remember the organizational system we said you should make sure to have? Make sure you keep it up to date as you write. For Pantsers, you’ll thank yourself later when you’re writing chapter 38 and don’t have to sift through pages and pages just to find a character’s last name. Plotters, though you may have a lot of that information already nicely organized, your manuscript will almost certainly change course at least a little bit from the original plan. When it does, update your plan, or you’ll find yourself having the same issue of losing track of all those little details.

Keep your manuscript organized as you write.

When it comes to your manuscript, make sure you use headings or sections to break up the document into its chapters. That will allow for easy navigation between the different chapters, and will keep you grounded. Never get lost in your own book!

Conclusion

Hopefully this post has done its job, and you’re now a confident writer with a concrete plan to write a book from scratch. You’re about to open a new tab in your browser and search for the organizational system that’s right for you. Then you’ll pick the right manuscript editor and develop your story seed. If you’re a Plotter, you’ll add more detail to your characters, plot, and world until the story is broken up neatly into chapters, with each one moving the story along.

Finally, you’ll write the darn thing, and with some luck – publish it.

See you in four months.

Weekly TL;DR: Get organized, plan, and write your rough draft in four months using this practical guide. Don’t forget to use our writing schedule template.

If you have any questions or comments, join the discussion on our Discord!

#writing #writeblr #writingtips #writingadvice #writers #writblr #CampfireTechnology #campfirepro #campfireblaze #writingcommunity #howtowrite #writeabook #nanowrimo

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ohayohimawari · 5 years

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Kakashi Asks-Answer

Q: (From @thetoxicstrawberry) What are your thoughts on Sukea? Do you think this disguise existed prior to him messing with Team 7?

A: I know that you and I have congratulated each other on having the same brain before Berry, and this is another of those priceless occasions, haha! I’ve been hoping that someone would ask me about Sukea so that I could have an excuse opportunity to geek all over my favorite ninja dork’s alter ego. Thank you for reading my thoughts (your thoughts? Our thoughts?)!

*Cracks knuckles* My study of the development of Kakashi’s photogenic photographer not-so-secret identity starts below the cut.

It’s a beautiful coincidence that I answer this question so close to my first anniversary as an outed writer in the Naruto fanfiction community. I wrote my headcanon of the origin of Sukea in my very first (and very naughty) fic! Seriously, I can forgive Kishi for almost everything simply because he removed the mask from my favorite character and put a camera in his hands (for those that don’t know, I’m a photographer).

In my story Supplemental Training, I portray Kakashi just as I imagine him when he’s nearing the end of his ANBU career. While he claims to be a man of many hobbies, he is first and foremost a ninja. He goes to sleep and wakes up a shinobi. His ability to form plans and strategies makes him both a powerful ally and a formidable enemy, but beyond the scope of missions, I don’t believe him to be an especially imaginative person. At the very least, I mean to say that he doesn’t put much stock in his own latent creative ability, and that prevents him from attempting such. Further, at that stage in his life and career, Kakashi is wound tighter than a two-dollar watch.

In my fic, he is reluctantly thrust into a situation that he is suspicious of, and is determined to control. He plays along with another character when she asks what he would like to call her, and Kakashi dubs her with a name that is obvious and unimaginative. She, in turn, christens him with a name that is equally obvious and unimaginative: Sukea.

(Side note: sukea is the Japanese pronunciation of the English word scare. Kakashi means scarecrow in Japanese, so, his alter ego’s name is a play on his own.)

In the story, Kakashi accepts the offered moniker, and it’s not long before he realizes that he stands to gain new skills if he manages to successfully navigate his situation. I’d written that my quick-thinking bean likens this experience to being an actor that is assuming a role. In scrambling for a costume, he tugs his mask down; effectively removing the face that most have come to recognize as his. Then, he’s nervous af.

This leads to the pivotal moment of my story, and in the creation of Sukea. Konoha’s prodigy, for all of his brilliance, doesn’t shine in the social interactions arena. Kakashi, bless his heart, wants so badly to be in control of the situation. However, it’s only when he lets himself go in favor of becoming Sukea, that he finally does gain control of it.

Near the end of my story, I write that Kakashi considers, “… what he had gained, who he had escaped, what he had beaten back, and who he became.” It’s from this moment on that I believe Sukea is an important part of this character’s life.

This transition doesn’t have to play out the way I’d written it in that fic, but I think Kakashi would have to be pushed into stepping outside of himself. We don’t see him assuming different identities in his career. He’s not a role-playing kind of dude in his downtime. He lives in a mask and wears an additional one when he clocks in for his shifts. He insulates himself during missions and isolates himself between them. I sometimes wonder if, by this stage in his life, he’d hidden his identity so well that Kakashi had lost sight of himself.

So, the experience of being Sukea-however it comes about and for whatever reason-would be something between refreshing and liberating for the Copy Nin.

Now I’m going to pull a Kishi tactic and employ a time jump with minimal backstory. A couple of years go by in which bad things happen to the Uchiha clan, Konoha adopts yet another orphan, and Kakashi is released from ANBU.

I imagine that this is one of the most difficult stages of Kakashi’s life. Nothing could be more unsettling for this dork than idleness after the familiar, strict, comfortable routine of the decade he spent in ANBU. I honestly think Kakashi wouldn’t know what to do with himself in the years between Black Ops and Team Seven. As a result, he begins to have a greater appreciation of Gai and his challenges. Also, this is when Kakashi would flesh out his secret identity as Sukea.

Because escapism.

Kakashi can’t stand himself in the years between Team Minato and Team Seven, and after he’s out of ANBU, he’s got too much time on his hands to ruminate on it.

There’s no way in hell that he would just wake up one day and decide to skip along the streets of Konoha without his mask on though. Kakashi would approach this consciously and meticulously. It helps to occupy the extra time. It postpones the moment between deciding to go out as Sukea and actually doing it. He would need time to prepare for this, mentally and physically.

There’s more to my headcanon than loathing himself though. The Third Hokage decided that this traumatized soldier was grade A teacher material, and Kakashi takes his orders seriously. While I don’t think he would view his eccentric nature as odd, I think he would be aware that he is socially awkward (at least, he would be aware that he feels awkward in social situations). I think he would strive to improve at this, if only for the sake of being a sensei.

This is why Sukea is a photographer.

Being a photographer is similar to being a fly on the wall. In order to capture candid moments or gather pictorial evidence, a photographer needs to melt into the background. Kakashi, being a ninja, would know how to succeed at that. He’d come to terms with the fact that the mask that hides his face makes him stand out. He’d know to cover his luscious, outrageous silver cowlicks, his famous scar and borrowed eye.

I can almost hear a couple of you piping up in the back asking, “But Hima, he’s a ninja! He can just don a henge!” The answer to that is no, unfortunately. As long as that sharingan is in Kakashi’s eye socket, that shit never shuts off. Even though he’s wearing a contact lens, as long as both of his eyes are open, it’s a constant drain on this poor knucklehead’s chakra reserve. Also? I think he doesn’t want to.

Choosing photography as Sukea’s schtick was brilliant. Photographers are expected to focus on their subjects, affording Kakashi plenty of time and opportunity to study others. He would definitely learn a great deal about people this way. Relationships and their dynamics are captured by his lens. He gains some new social skills by watching and catches up on the lives of the folks of the Hidden Leaf at the same time. One of his many hobbies is born. The best photographers are careful in their observations, quick in their actions, and Kakashi is already carrying those tools around in his fanny pack.

Unrelated, but, only Kakashi could make a fanny pack look asjkfsd hot. Another trivial detail, but you know how I love those: I’m thinking of one of Berry’s delightful headcanons about his mask and drawing from it now in my imagination. I wonder if Sukea carries Kakashi’s mask in his coat pocket the first few times he goes out in public.

Whether he does or not, after a few field trips around Konoha, I think Kakashi would genuinely enjoy stepping out as Sukea. He would have to if he’s still doing it during his sensei days, and again in the next-gen era.

He delights in trolling Team Seven, that’s for sure. Sukea is his own private joke, and who among us tires of laughing at our own jokes? Kakashi’s no different, and that’s why we catch him smirking at his reflection when we finally got to see the goods in that special manga chapter and anime episode. It felt so good to have my anime crush validated, btw.

Every time Kakashi drifts undetected around the Leaf Village, there is one other jōnin that Sukea’s camera avoids. As much as he enjoys his joke, he wouldn’t push his luck when it comes to the possibility of Maito Gai recognizing him. I think it speaks volumes about their friendship when we see Sukea sweating it out as Gai’s eyebrows invade his personal space and he stares the other man down. I’m convinced that this is how Kakashi learns his eternal rival is hopelessly face blind, but that’s a headcanon for another day.

Sukea is still stalking the inhabitants of the Hidden Leaf when Boruto’s generation of ninja are preparing to graduate. However, we see Kakashi tugging his mask back up and pulling the wig off, transitioning in front of Iruka. In so doing, he proves how much he’s grown throughout his life. I imagine that being Sukea had a lot to do with that.

This alter ego of Kakashi’s-like so much about him-is enigmatic. It seems to me that he’s revealing himself rather than hiding himself; giving others a chance to get to know him underneath the underneath. The person aside from the elite ninja that he is.

I said earlier that I wondered if Kakashi had hidden his identity so well, that he had lost sight of himself. I like to think that in being Sukea, Kakashi reconnected with himself.

XOXO

#kakashi asks #ohayohimawari answer #Kakashi #Kakashi Hatake #Character Study #sukea #Berry asks

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jenjenpup · 5 years

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So I wasn't gonna write anything about this movie, move on and forget I watched it but I need to say a few things just because. Some people really loved the movie and by all means no one is stopping you. This is my own opinion, feelings and thoughts and I'm entitled to say them. Obviously spoiler warning for anyone whos not seen the movie.

This will be a list of every problem I had with the film.

I'll firstly talk about the writing.

Carol is used as a deus ex machina, a mere plot device whenever the writers have run out of ideas. Tony and Nebula are dying in space, guess who coincidently happened to fly by their ship and fly them down on earth. Then she disappears for the most part of the movie only to have her appear at the end of it toooo destroy a ship? Don’t get me wrong I love Captain Marvel and the whole women empowerment message they supposedly tried to pass but in the end Thanos just slaps her away and she stays down. Like. She was just a tool?

There are so many plot holes in the whole time traveling sequence I don’t even know where to begin. Loki is somewhere in some parallel timeline with the tesseract and we completely ignore that. Did this affect our timeline? Did his whole arc with Thor get deleted? Is he dead at the end or alive? Same thing with Gamora. She's dead. But is she? What about her timeline. She got snatched from her time toooo do what exactly. Her relationship with Peter is reduced to a joke, and we don’t even see her with the rest of the crew at the end. What about Nebula? She shot her past self, very lovely too, but shouldn’t she be dead? I have no clue how the time travel works. Im just basing this of off the grandfather paradox. If past Nebula is dead then so should present Nebula. But it may just be that shes dead on a different universe. Very open to interpretation.

Lets quickly mention the Ancient One cause it's bugging me. She has the time stone so she could see the future, as she said "You came 5 years too early" to Bruce when he was looking for Strange, meaning she can read into the future. Yet she somehow doesn't know about this whole apocalypse? Can she only see into a limited period of time, coincidentally right when Strange appears? Isn't she around for quite some time? I'm pretty sure she's 500 years old.

I'll move on to characters, which was one of the worst executed features of the film.

Natasha ends up sacrificing her life to give Clint the chance to live his with his family. We spent the whole film being shown how Clint changed to a vigilante who kills several people, criminals yes but still, and somehow ends up getting to live a happy life and not atone for any of this? Natasha spent her whole life trying to make up for the wrongdoings of her past. Not once has she lived a happy life, Clint got to have a family, he lived happy for several years with them, Nat did not. She shouldn't be the one to die.

Banner, as many others, got reduced to a mere comedy stan and was not explained how the two personalities just merged together. I have the least problems with his character cause "he found peace with himself" but it could've been executed better. In the end he was no fighter as Hulk was nor a genius as Banner.

Thor. I'm. Wtf. So. How do I explain this. When the first Thor movie came out I wasn't a big fan of his character. He was a spoiled prince, doing whatever he wanted, not taking into consideration to anything or anyone. Loki was a much better written character at the time. You could sympathize with him. As the movie progressed though Thor grew into a symbol of strength. He was the God of Thunder. Taikas film didn’t reduce him to a joke, the whole film was a comedy. It worked. His character progressed so much throughout the films. And it is so fucked up to see him like this now. All his scenes in the films are for comedic purposes or out of date pop culture references. I get what they were aiming for. A person mourning can vastly change. But not like this. He should've become secluded, easily angered, pessimistic even. His character arc shouldn’t end on him being an overweight alcoholic just for the shake of adding fortnite to the movie.

Steve. Again. His whole arc got snapped. Steve had found peace with his decision to leave his relationship with Peggy in the past the moment he crashed that plane in the first movie. He even got a new romantic interest along the lines, Sharon Carter. Erased. He ends up going back to be with Peggy. What about her timeline? Who cares right. I can't really explain how this isn't something the Steve I know would do. It's just tying up loose ends.

Lastly. Tony. I'm the most affected by his character fate. He spent his whole life miserable, orphaned at a young age, miserable with his own name as it had brought death upon others through his company, had PTSD, anxiety, panic attacks, couldn’t sleep because of his past, being suddenly given a daughter from the writers to give him a mid-happy time, while he was still blaming himself for everything that happened, and in the end he gave up his life. We were, explicitly shown, in the first avengers film, that Tony Stark, wasn’t selfish. He had taken that bomb and flew into that portal to save billions, fully prepared to die. He was sure he was going to die. He proved he had a heart. Multiple times. He did not need to die to prove it again. Personally, I was really invested in his character. I have a similar relationship with my father, my major is the same, I get anxiety like him, and generally I'm not Tony Stark but I had really seen myself in him. And life is full of suffering. It's so, so so wrong of a message to show that one can truly find peace when dead. What I want from a movie is to give me hope. Not this.

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sunlitroom · 6 years

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Gotham – s5e02 – Trespassers

As I watched it, and some random observations here and there.

Previously on Gotham:

Did you miss the finale of season 4 and only now tune in? For anyone who somehow forgot, Jeremiah’s bid to get Bruce to notice him helpfully coincided with Ra’s need to speed Bruce’s destiny along by destroying the city. Jim helpfully tells us that the city is now up for grabs. Tabitha made an absolute mess of attempting to get revenge for Butch – going out not only irritating and unsympathetic, but really, really dumb. Barbara wailed. Jim shot Oswald in the leg, for which he has put a bounty on his head. We are reminded that Jeremiah shot Selina – and a nurse with very distinctive eyebrows recommended that Bruce go find the witch. A lisping big-eyed orphan child pleaded with Jim for help.

As always, long post will be long. There are likely to be rambling digressions. Gobblepot might appear (although I welcome all shippers and non-shippers alike :)). There will be naked favouritism and naked not-favouritism. Broader comments at the end on plotlines and parallels and general direction.

We open on the boy, Will, from the last episode. Jim and Harvey watch from the doorway as he is examined, and fill us in on his situation. His parents were killed in a home invasion and he was taken to a factory, to be a slave alongside lots of other children. The people responsible are known as the Soothsayers.

Harvey’s never heard of them before – but can hazard a guess as to the location of the tunnel they’re building near the docks.

Winsome orphan boy begs Detective Gordon to save his friends, because they’ll be punished for his escape.

Jim and Harvey leave – Jim resolved to go rescue the children. Harvey reminds him, though, that Oswald has a bounty on his head and he can’t safely leave the station. Someone appears and tells Jim that there’s a call for him from the mainland

Jim goes to take the call. The voice on the other end tells him that confrontations must be avoided. Jim tells him to please think of the children. The voice says that his dedication is admirable but he lacks perspective – he runs the risk of sacrificing many to save a few. He’s told that it’s the ‘collective opinion’ that he stand down and keep the green zone safe.

Jim protests – and says they need supplies. The voice says they cannot risk any more pilots. Jim snaps that they can preserve the lives of a few over many, but he can’t. The conversation is seemingly over and Jim stares consideringly into the distance.

Harvey enters with Lucius. Jim immediately starts to plan a rescue mission. They need to go through the Dark Zone. Harvey reminds Jim of the ammo situation. Jim says he’ll talk to Barbara. Harvey reminds Jim that she might not be amenable. Turning to Lucius, Jim asks him to sort out some sort of housing for the children they’ll rescue. Harvey makes an unhappy face about the general risk of it all.

(An aside – in a desperate bid to extract something of interest from an episode that was pretty turgid.

I know we’re probably not supposed to complicate matters to this extent– but anything this straightforward is boring, so I feel like some over-analytical meta is needed to problematise everything.

It occurs to me that this desperate time of suffering is maybe the happiest Jim has ever been in Gotham.

St Jim of Gotham. They love their Jim Gordon. Detective Gordon can save us.

He constantly gets to be heroic – Jim Gordon keeping everyone safe, bringing them supplies. His word is law – Harvey and Lucius might pull faces, but they do what they’re told. He has no boss, no troublesome politics to play. There’s no awkward shades of grey – just good guys and bad guys. The voice of authority is just that – a voice – and so perfectly unreasonable and hateable and removed – so absolutely in the wrong. Hell – Jim should send Jeremiah a bouquet for this.

It’s telling, I think, that when Harvey later spots the candle burning in the abandoned building Jim’s head goes straight to the Wild West. If you want to sell me that Oswald is enjoying playing benevolent leader over in City Hall, then it must also be accepted that Jim’s equally loving playing Gary Cooper at GCPD)

We hear night time noises and see Bruce at the gates of an abandoned mansion. He’s looking for the witch. As he enters the house, we see ivy climbing over the walls. As he progresses, we see it weapped around statues, and – more alarmingly – twisted around various corpses.

We see movement behind him. Someone has sneaked up on him – but Bruce had spotted them, and easily disarms him.

Are you with her?

What? I’m not sure why Gotham went with characters from a Hammer Horror - but, whatever. It’s all corduroy waistcoats, flat caps, and English accents.

Basically – they’ve decided Ivy is a witch who can talk to plants and knows magic and can take souls. They’ve trapped her in a windowless room with no food or water, and salted the floor. Eventually, they’re going to burn her. A few months of isolation and apparently parts of Gotham have turned into small superstitious English hamlets from the eighteenth century. There’s terrible doings up at the manor! His Lordship’s up to no good!

Bruce quickly makes up a story about a missing brother. Credulous villager from another film says he’ll let Bruce talk to Ivy. Bruce shines a torch into the room – and we see a sleeping Ivy. She’s wearing a sequinned jumper that also impressively manages to look like slimy moss.

Hello Ivy

At Sirens, where people are eating and drinking and generally having a good time. Barbara, meantime, swigs from a bottle at the bar.

Jim enters. We see there are lots of other men there. Jim tries to make small talk about how busy the bar is. Barbara points at his head and reminds him of Oswald’s bounty. She asks if he’s out for one last hurrah. Jim says he wants a favour.

Barbara laughs

A favour? That’s why you stood back and did nothing while my best friend on this earth was stabbed through the heart?

(Best friend. Best friend. Wow.)

Jim protests weakly that he put Oswald down – but Barbara shrieks, eyes bulging with rage.

You restored his limp - he should be dead!

Jim takes what I think the Marquise de Mertueil described as ‘a marital tone’, and delivers an admonishing

Barbara

On this – Barbara starts shrieking

Everybody out!

Jim asks if she’s planning revenge. Barbara retorts that

Someone has to do something about that freak

(An aside - Again with the ‘freak’ word. It really does nothing to make her more likeable. Also – the only things she could pair with it in the warehouse were the fact that Oswald has a beaky nose and a limp. That’s all it takes for Barbara to decide you’re a freak. Writers - if you want to cultivate any sympathy whatsoever for Barbara and her lost ‘best friend’ – it’s perhaps best not to remind the audience that they’re both beautiful entitled rich girls who looked right down their noses at almost everyone else who failed to fit that description.)

Jim tells her he has an army – it would be suicide. Barbara angsts it up and tells him to look around – they’re all slowly dying. Some get to choose how. I think this is meant to be about how she’d choose to die killing Oswald – but all it does is remind you that Tabitha most definitely opted for her fate – and renders it all less than sympathetic again

Jim tells her he’s sorry about Tabitha, and that things got out of control. What things? When she ran into a warehouse filled with Oswald’s men and a bunch of ammunition?

He goes on to say he’s trying to keep the city from falling apart. Barbara stares back at him and tells him he’s too late. Jim frowns.

She goes on – though, and asks him about the favour. He asks for trucks. She asks what for – and Jim stodgily replies that it’s a police matter. Barbara laughs at the absurdity of it – catapulted back to the compartmentalising days of their engagement – and says they could write that on his tombstone.

She caves, though, and gives him the trucks. She then bizarrely screams after him, though

Knock yourself out - drive into the nightmare you created. Here he comes, Gotham – your judge, gaoler, most hated son. Have at him - rip him to shreds. No-one deserves to die more than he!

So don’t give him the trucks, then. Make your mind up, Barbara.

Her lip wobbles and she drinks again. I’d give it a rest, Barbara – that was mental. You’re one drink away from a self-indulgent karaoke song.

Jim and Harvey drive through the city – specifically under a bridge, where we can see bodies hanging. Apparently, this area was a cesspool before – but is now even worse. People dressed in gothy, skull-heavy outfits suddenly appear alongside them, flinging Molotov cocktails and firing arrows.

Welcome to the Badlands.

We’re at the location the place Will mentioned, where there’s child slave labour overseen by some tools in gasmasks. One complains that the oldest boy we see – Gabriel – allowed Will to escape. He thought Gabriel had promise – and offers a chance to inhale whatever is in his mask for energy or to see the future.

He then witters on about the tunnel they’re building that will give them exclusive access to the mainland for trade. Until the situation is resolved. Or, you know, someone just comes in and takes it from them.

Gabriel points out that the tunnel is too narrow. Progress is slow, the roof is leaking, and it’ll collapse when they hit the river.

Beardy gasmask guy gets cross at this. He had high hopes for Gabriel. He points his gun at him, but is disturbed by one of his minions telling him to get out front.

Outside – we see trucks parked. Beardy irritably asks who was on watch. One of your tedious stoner mates?

Put your weapons down

Is that the James Gordon?

We get western-style music

Beardy comments that if they kill him they’ll get bullets and be in Oswald’s good graces. They draw guns – but are surrounded by GCPD. There’s a bit of back and forth – but Jim takes his keys, and goes into the building, telling Harvey to kill him if he moves.

The children all stare adoringly at Jim. He gives the keys to Gabriel, who starts to release all the other children’s manacles/cuffs/whatever. It was a pretty tooth-rotting moment.

Outside, leader man asks Harvey why he’d be a cop in this town. Harvey says the costume shop was out of gas masks – so it was either this or sexy nurse.

As they talk – the leader’s eye flits to one of his men, creeping up. There’s a disagreement that quickly turns into a full rammy. Most of the children escape in the trucks – but Jim, Harvey, Gabriel and two little girls are left fleeing on foot.

Back at the mansion, Bruce approaches Ivy. She seems relieved – asking for his help. She says she didn’t kill the men in the vines – it’s the park. The trees, plants, roots – speaking to one another. The men came to kill her – but the plants saved her

Bruce tells her that he needs help for a friend who was shot – not naming Selina. The nurse directed him to The Witch – and here he is. Ivy said she would usually help – but this park is behaving so oddly.

We hear a knock at the door – jaunty waistcoat villager. Bruce asks him to wait. Ivy says there’s a magical seed under the oak – she’ll help him find it if he protects her.

Back at the Library, Ed wakes up. He's chained himself down – and is exultant that it seems to have stopped his sleep walking.

Doesn’t he…. have the key? Jfc, Ed.

He unlocks the padlock and gets up, heading to the bathroom

Why am I seeing this?

I don't need Ed peeing

As he relieves himself – he talks to himself in the mirror about how the sleepwalking was likely just stress.

We hear grunting from somewhere else in the room. Ed pulls back the shower curtain, and finds a burly biker man tied up in the bath.

Ed looks away, back into the mirror and tells himself there’s nothing there – laughing hysterically. His laughing fades and he closes his eyes.

He pulls back the shower curtain again – this time wielding a plunger. Without washing his hands.

He asks the biker who the hell he is. The biker is massively disgruntled.

Are you serious?

Ed admits he doesn’t remember. The man’s name is apparently Tank. He’s part of the Street Demons gang.Ed asks if he hit him, etc. Tank is still sullen – and says Ed wanted information, but he wouldn’t give it. Ed eyes him

I’m gonna guess you gave it to me

Oo-er, missus.

Ed says he can't remember the info – so they’ll have to do it all again, and hauls him out of the bath.

Jim and co running through the streets, hunted. Shooting Oswald was dumb, Jim. I know he’ll forgive you shortly – but it’s inconvenient in the meantime.

They run into a nearby building. Harvey points to the candle burning, and warns that someone else is there. Jim’s all caught up in the romance of his sheriff fantasy, and says that settlers in the Old West would sometimes leave a candle burning as a sign of sanctuary. Maybe there’s still good people left in Gotham

Harvey raises an eyebrow at this romanticism, and then complains when Jim sends him to search the basement in this creepy hotel. Jim meanwhile heads upstairs. The children are left behind – and we see a shadowy figure pass behind them, looking sort of Victorian.

(An aside because this episode is boring – it’s odd how our collective imagination heads straight to Victorian stuff when it comes to ghosts)

Jim walks along the upper floor. It’s a nice, creepy atmosphere. There’s a room with a flickering bulb. Jim offers a very tentative GCPD. A small boy dressed in a school uniform runs out. Jim reassures him.

Harvey in the basement, which is actually a proper kitchen like you would get in a big old house. Less traditional are the containers on the table containing jewellery, glasses, teeth, and fingers.

Harvey starts to quietly panic. He’s then accosted by the masked Victorian woman wielding a razor, and starts to loudly panic.

Jimmmm!

Back at the library, Ed hits the biker in the face. Am I expected to believe Ed was able to overpower this guy?

He caves and passes the info – which is pretty pedestrian: Ed wanted to know where the Street Demon base was and whether their boss, Emmanuel Vazquez, would be there.

Ed asks the man what his demeanour was like last night. Was he confident, flamboyant, charismatic? Or a little repressed? Conservative? Nerdy?

The man says he seemed stiff – in a daze. Ed digests this, and then they leave.

Back at Ivy's impromptu 60s horror film. Bruce leaves the room with a faux terrified Ivy. Bruce tells the villagers to stay calm – he’ll take responsibility for her. Ivy promptly kills them all.

She turns to him – a hand on his throat – and tells him he’s utterly naïve. Bruce says she didn’t have to kill them, but she replies that she wanted to.

Bruce stares balefully at her. He tells her the friend he’s here for is Selina – she’s paralysed and has lost the will to live. Ivy glares back at him.

Good. That bitch destroyed the last drop of Lazarus water. Let her suffer

Bruce says he doesn’t believe her. Ivy avoids answering him like Jim has avoided awkward discussions about killing Oswald. She tells him she wasn’t lying about the park. She’s been feeding it corpses. It consumes them then flourishes. She says she’ll plant Bruce. What will grow, she wonders.

He tells her those men she killed were right. She’s a murderous, callous witch. She smiles

Trying to bait me, boy?

Bruce says he wouldn’t waste his breath. There’s no good left in her. The park isn’t beautiful and colourful and flourishing. It smells of death.

Ivy doesn’t like this. She purses her lips and tells him it’s a work in progress. Bruce says it’s a nightmare. She looks at him, and says if she helps him, he’s to leave her alone. They leave for the garden.

Back with Jim and the kid from the room

(An aside – it struck me here that the pacing in this episode felt really off. This should have been tense – but we spent too long with Ed and Bruce, and now we’ve lost a lot of tension.)

The boy tells Jim that his parents are dead – the woman here found him – the ghost. She was kind at first.

They’re interrupted by Harvey. He says that there’s a crazy woman here. Jim tells the boy that they’ll protect him. As they start to run, the boy says she makes him call her mother.

They head into a room off the corridor, but the boy slips out and shuts Jim and Harvey in. We see the lights in the room flicker and strobe. The boy, stone-faced on the other side of the door tells them

The lights will make you dizzy. Then fall asleep. You won't feel a thing

Harvey starts to fold. Jim kicks at the door. The boy calls that he should give into it. As he does, we see the woman behind him, and she slashes out at him with her razor.

There’s a scuffle. Harvey smashes the window – allowing light into the room. Her mask falls off, and the ghostliness is all gone. She screeches at Jim – she’s the only mother the boy knows. Harvey tells her she’s a crazy bitch – but she protests that she’s protecting him: she taught him how to survive.

She also manages to kick and slash Jim, and makes her escape.

At the biker hideout, which is apparently deserted. As we look round, though, we see lots of stabbed bikers – including the boss. Tank asks if Ed does this, to which Ed honestly responds that he can’t remember

Turning, we see a really boringly painted message on the wall

Penguin was here.

The biker growls: Penguin did this

Ed looks dubious. I think not

Tank replies that whoever it was, someone started a war

Back at Ivy’s park. She reaches into the earth as Bruce watches and extracts a seed. It looks incredibly gross.

She hands it to Bruce. He asks her if that’s human blood that it’s coated in. She tells him that if Selina ingests it, it will find the way to the wound. Bruce asks if it will cure her. Ivy shrugs. Everyone responds differently. The only thing that’s sure is that she’ll be altered forever – the darker angels of her nature unlocked and set free. You very rarely see that one listed in the side-effect section of the information pamphlet.

She asks if Selina can live with it, then eyes him shrewdly and asks if he can. Bruce tells her he doesn’t know any other way. Ivy smiles – and tells him to go then, give her the seed. She adds that he still doesn’t know if he can trust her. Bruce agrees and she replies.

Good – you’re finally becoming a man

Bruce asks where she’ll go, and she says that’s none of his business. He needs to hurry: the seed will die if exposed to the air for too long.

(An aside - if I desperately scrabble to get more fro this episode - I could say that there’s maybe a Jim and Bruce parallel. Jim’s doing good - but he’s definitely getting something from what he’s doing now. Bruce’s actions are to save Selina - but also to salve his own guilt at how she ended up shot in the first place)

Back at the haunted hotel, Harvey and Jim run downstairs and usher the children out. As they do, Harvey turns to Jim

Not everyone wants help, Jim Gordon

They run out into the street. We get a slightly too loud bit of dialogue between Harvey and Jim to let us know that Jim only has two bullets left. It had a real look out for snakes! quality.

The soothsayers and the goths show up. There’s a standoff where they both have guns pointed at Jim – both keen to collect the bounty.

Bruce is back in the ward. Alfred tells her that Selina’s not great – hasn’t uttered a word since he left. Bruce tells him the witch is actually Ivy. Alfred looks dubiously at the seed – which does look really nasty.

Bruce says it might help. Alfred says Ivy is a maniacal cold-hearted killer

Selina suddenly pipes up

Give it to me

Bruce says he has doubts. Selina says that she’s suicidal anyway – so if Ivy wants to kill her, she can have at it. Bruce hands her the pill. She asks if she’s just to swallow it, and then does so without hesitation. Bravo, Selina. That seed looked gross.

They watch. She exhales

Still here

Alfred laughs.

Selina says she knows Ivy has lost her mind – but Selina found her when she was first on the street, after her parents died. It was a cold winter – and Ivy got really sick. Selina took her under her wing: showed her how to find food, a roof. Eventually she got colour in her face – and Selina kept checking in with her every day.

I know she looks old now – but she'll always be that little girl to me

Alfred and Bruce look fondly at her – but as they do, she starts to sweat and convulse. Doctors and nurses rush in, and Alfred holds Bruce back

My God. What have I done?

Back at the standoff. This is really unforgiveably boring.

Blah blah - Jim has two bullets. Basically, Barbara arrives before things can go very wrong. She’s had a change of mind since their chat. Beardy guy takes aim at her from the ground, but Jim shoots him. Barbara comments that it must be love, since it was his last bullet.

She steps closer and tells him to

Help me do what needs doing - kill Penguin

(An aside -I’m so very done with this stupid notion that Oswald is the big problem in town. It makes absolutely no sense. If anything, the only reason we don’t have all-out gang warfare is because there’s not enough ammunition to go round, because Oswald has a grip on it. As for the notion that Barbara is somehow better – she’s hoarding food and drink to run a brothel while there’s not enough to go round. If they show doesn’t make clear later that Barbara’s stance is entirely personal and irrational, I’m going to be very grumpy.)

Jim says they’ll table this discussion for later.

(An aside. Barbara. Harvey. Jim is not going to kill Oswald. If you don’t know this by now, then you haven’t been paying attention. He didn’t do it to placate Falcone. He didn’t do it to string Theo Galavan along and get a conviction. He didn’t do it to guarantee silence after Theo’s murder. He didn’t do it when Oswald’s actions threatened to disrupt his work with the Court of Owls. He didn’t do it when he was apparently all darkness and rage with the Tetch virus. He didn’t do it at the bequest of Sofia Falcone, and he didn’t do it most recently, when the city is a wasteland and Oswald controls virtually all the weaponry. It’s a no, guys. If he changes his mind on this, then it’s an ooc swizz.)

In the Green Zone - where the lighting is all idyllic. Lucius shows off the new lodgings he’s found/created. It’s not ideal – but it’s better than anywhere else. Citizens are gathering, and it’ll be full by lunchtime.

A woman approaches with her children to thank Jim for delivering them. Barbara rolls her eyes and leaves – calling over her shoulder:

See you around, killer. We have unfinished business

I have to ask – is anyone invested in this? Anyone?

Back with Selina. The doc says whatever she took put her into shock – but she’s now stabilised. Bruce looks solemn. There’s a statue of Jesus behind him. Hi Jesus!

Alfred says they should go. He walks on, but Bruce lingers to peek in, and is shocked to see Selina’s bed empty and the window open. He rushes in and looks out the window. Selina walks up behind him

Bruce says it's a miracle. Selina’s eyes are closed, and she smiles beatifically. She says she feels no no pain. Bruce says he thought he’d killed her, but Seline says she’s even better than before.

They hug, and over Bruce’s shoulder, we see Selina open her eyes – which momentarily look just like a cat’s eyes.

General Observations

Ugh. With a couple of exceptions, that was a slog.

No Oswald at all. I’m not sure why this would be the case – but the episode palled badly without him. If it’s to try and easily paint him as a flat villain in his absence, it failed. Life in Gotham is mind-bendingly boring without him.

It’s not that I’m not interested in Ed, but there’s not really much need for interpretation or further examination for what’s going on. It’s either part of his own subconscious (we’ve seen that this can happen with Ed), or something to do with Hugo’s tinkering. I’m not quite sure why I feel a sort of weird lack of tension with this plotline, but there it is.

Barbara

Likewise – Barbara’s revenge plot is really just tiresome. I will admit to being nakedly biased towards Oswald, but even if that weren’t the case - it’s hard to feel real sympathy here. Babs – Oswald didn’t invade Sirens, seek Tabitha out and then stab her in the heart. She went looking for him, and then left him with no other options. Not only that – but she was fully aware that getting revenge for Butch meant leaving you alone. Last, but not least: She. Murdered. His. Mother. I know the big female solidarity thing really only extends to women 18-40 who can turn a profit for you – but still. Take a moment to think this over.

Look I get that it’s easier for her to be angry at Oswald than it is to be angry at Tabitha – but it’s still a bit tedious. A lot tedious.

Jim

As previously discussed, there’s more meat to Jim’s story right now – but I’ve no idea whether it’s intentional. I’m sure Jim does genuinely care about the citizens who need help. However, Jim is also loving this. All that murky stuff from the past is gone. Here, he’s Big Jim Gordon, the heroic sheriff in a Wild West town. His deputies do what he says, and Miss Kitty who runs the brothel can help out when needed. Big-eyed children rush to him for help, mothers thank him, and he gets to rush headfirst into fights outgunned whenever he wants.

I’m not sure where that fancy-dressed guy with the European name and the limp fits in to his story, but maybe Jim’s watched more Westerns than I have.

Hopefully this might head in a more complicated direction. A couple of the scenes with Jim and the children seemed deliberately too saccharine. Harvey warned him that not everyone wants his help. Let’s see where things go.

Jim and Barbara

I remember, way back when, commenting that the lack of real closure between Jim and Barbara felt unrealistic. Jim’s serious-minded and quite traditional (or seemed so at that point, anyway). He and Barbara were engaged to be married – church booked and dress bought, as Barbara told us. The relationship did have had its problems: Barbara was depressed and day drinking, while Jim was busily emulating his father and compartmentalising like crazy – but it always felt like they would have more definitively closed the chapter, as opposed to just moving on like it was a short-term relationship. I think what we’re seeing here is basically unfinished business being played out. Probably better for it to play out with the help of contraceptives, but hey, we know where they’ve decided to go with this.

Again - if you want to make it more problematic in a desperate bid to make things more interesting - killing Tabitha, having Barbara trade in ‘information’ instead of all out violence, masking what goes on in Sirens, putting a nice white coat on her: it’s all to ‘purify’ her character to make her suitable for the pregnancy storyline later. Not too, pure, though. My guess is she’ll die nobly at some point, and Lee will wind up raising the baby with Jim.

Recaps are a lot faster and easier when there’s no Oswald and the episode is a bit lacklustre.

Thoughts?

#gotham commentary #gotham s5e02 #trespassers

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renerdliam · 2 years

Text

How Writers Can Improve their Productivity and Earn More

This is going to be short and straight to the point.

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The break

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#writers block #writerslife #writerscommunity #make money online #writers #business

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abanomath · 4 years

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Rant time: DC’s Tone Deafness

So I don’t really like ranting or being negative, but DC Universe recently released an article to celebrate pride month about the Top 5 canon and non-canon LGBTQA+ relationships in Young Justice.

And the tone deafness is just off the charts. Like most of the world, I’m not American so I needed someone to screen-cap the actual article for me. I’m going to organize my thoughts and go down.

General

For one, its pretty obvious the writer didn’t look at the source material. This article sounds like it was written by someone filled in on the basics and told to write a good PR article for DC.

1. Kaldur/Wyynde

2. Marie Logan and Rita Farr

3. Harper Row and Halo

(and don’t even get me started on the fact that this show has made New Genesis tech gendered before, with Sphere. And even gender the bioship in the same season they pull this for Halo).

4. Bluepulse

In addition, the showrunners made it clear they did not like this ship over the several years the show has been off the air. And in Season 3 they give Jaime a girlfriend....who is a lesbian in the comics. Now Traci and Jaime did date in the comics before she came out, and this is another Earth. But when the sole purpose of their relationship being on screen was to tell the audience that bluepulse wasn’t happening, choosing a lesbian character to play the cis straight girlfriend is a bit of a slap in the face. again.

5. Bart Allen and Eduardo

Queerbaiting, nuff said.

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keepingupwithlinmanuel · 7 years

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Lin-Manuel Miranda tells a Salt Lake City crowd about the creativity and challenges behind writing ‘Hamilton’

The musical, he says, “is just a love letter to everything I love,” from contemporary hip-hop lyrics by Tupac or Biggie to great musical theater characters, such as Fanny Brice and Mama Rose.

“It’s that need to communicate and make your mark,” said Miranda, as he received a rock star reception from a crowd of some 7,000 at Qualtrics’ X4 Experience Management Summit at the Salt Palace Convention Center. Other keynote speakers at this week’s conference include basketball legend Magic Johnson, skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, and journalism legend Arianna Huffington.

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His career as a performer was launched when he was cast as Conrad Birdie in “Bye Bye Birdie” and all the other kids had to give him a rock-star reception. Why would you want to do anything else, Miranda says he learned as a sixth-grader.

“Hamilton” tells the story of two Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, whose fates became intricately entwined. “Dramaturgically speaking, ‘Hamilton’ is tricky,” Miranda says. Their rivalry didn’t fit into the theatrical templates ranging from Jesus and Judas from “Jesus Christ Superstar,” or Javert and Jean Valjean from “Les Misérables,” or even Salieri and Mozart from “Amadeus.”

It wasn’t until he discovered the different temperaments of Hamilton and Burr that Miranda was able to unfold the story of their rivalry. Hamilton, who became orphaned at a young age, threw himself forward recklessly. He didn’t want to run out of time. Burr, also orphaned at a young age, became cautious. He didn’t want to make a mistake. “It’s messed up, man, and it’s also fascinating,” Miranda says of his characters.

Miranda’s choice to perform a new song, then known as “The Hamilton Mixtape,” at the Obama White House in 2009 was a “very Hamiltonian” move, he says now. At the time, only his wife and the shower had heard the first bars. He figured “if it doesn’t work in this room, where is it going to work?” And if it didn’t work, he figured he’d stick the new material “in a drawer.”

When Miranda received the White House invitation to perform, the early draft of the song was told by the character of Hamilton’s wife, Eliza. She was singing about how “there are no monuments for you, my love.” Miranda said he realized there are many monuments for Alexander Hamilton and the lyrics didn’t make sense, so he rewrote the song.

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At the end of Miranda’s appearance, Smith presented the writer with a $50,000 check for Puerto Rico post-hurricane relief efforts.

Miranda also recounted how he became obsessed with Hamilton, “the ten-dollar founding father without a father,” when he grabbed Ron Chernow’s biography off a bookstore shelf to read on vacation. Two chapters in, Miranda was already envisioning the distinctive lyrical hip-hop flow of each character. He worried that someone had already made a musical from the material.

“I burst into tears when I got to the last chapter of Ron Chernow’s book, and that’s baked into the recipe so you can cry at the end of my show,” Miranda says.

He was stumped as he attempted to write Hamilton’s last speech. The show was heading into tech, and the song wasn’t written. Then, in a moment at home, Miranda was holding his newborn son on his chest. “And it was really quiet, and I realized: ‘Oh, quiet. That’s the one thing we haven’t done in the show.’ ” And he went on to write a soliloquy that served as a scan of Hamilton’s thoughts as he was dying.

Writing parts for talented actors of color is like throwing a rock in the water, Broadway legend Priscilla Lopez told Miranda on the Broadway opening night of his first Tony Award-winning musical, “In the Heights.” (That show is also coming to Salt Lake City soon, in a concert version at Pioneer Theatre Company later this month.) “You have no idea the ripples that are going to come back to you,” said Lopez, who created the role of Diana in “A Chorus Line.”

Miranda says he’s seen those ripples in the stories of talented actors of color who are receiving regional theater jobs because of ”In the Heights” and in the form of high school productions of the show. “There was just ‘West Side Story’ before,” he says.

Miranda described ”Hamilton’s” two Cabinet rap battles as fights Americans are still having, about state and federal rights, as well as the question of how much aid the country owes its allies.

And every death in the musical, with the exception of George Washington, is a result of gun violence. “The past isn’t even past,” Miranda says. “That was my insight in writing this.”

Miranda spoke about the beginning of his career and how he began as a writer. He said he always loved the idea of writing a play because he could play any of the parts he wanted.

"Writing is a heightened form of acting,” he said.

When he was developing as a writer, Miranda said his mom gave him the advice that you can learn from every experience — whether it's chores or heartbreak or losing friends.

His mother told him to remember when you're feeling sad, when you're feeling heartbroken, when you're at your lowest, because you can use it as a writer, according to Miranda.

"She was training me, without even knowing it, how to be an artist."

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Miranda said that the play is as much about Alexander’s wife, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton.

Even though Hamilton died from a duel and his political rivals all became president, his wife lived a lot longer. She even met Abraham Lincoln.

“We live our life, we do what we can … but we don’t get really a say in what people say about us when we die,” he said.

“She outlives everybody,” he said, of Hamilton’s wife Eliza. “She’s a hero.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda had written just 16 bars of the first song from “Hamilton” when the White House asked him to come perform. The only ones who had heard them before were his wife and his shower.

“But what I learned from writing ‘Hamilton’ is meeting the moment and being ready for it when it arrives,” Miranda told hundreds of conference-goers who filled the Salt Palace Convention Center Thursday for Qualtrics’ annual user conference.

“Now, the only way I know how to write is to do lots of research, … put myself in the shoes of that character and act. And when it feels honest, when it feels true, I write it down,” Miranda said. “The biggest tools in your toolbox are research and empathy.”

Some videos:

When @RyanQualtrics asked @Lin_Manuel to give us examples of the "Easter eggs" he hid in Hamilton | @Qualtrics #X4summit18 pic.twitter.com/tKGYWT0U6C

— +TimAulph (@neoprime33) March 8, 2018

Just some Lin-Manuel Miranda rapping #X4summit18 pic.twitter.com/Yi6IoFXbdo

— Liesl Nielsen (@liesl_nielsen) March 8, 2018

Oh, and this happened:

#lin manuel miranda #hamilton #in the heights #twitterico #articles #local news #thanks to all the good good tweeters at this conference #tony hawk

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elementarypolitics · 6 years

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The Joke of Phoenix Comicfest...

Phoenix Comic Fest* has decided to up the ante from last year and just blatantly say “fuck you fans, we don’t care about you.” So, a quick recap of last year’s insanity. Some lunatic came in with a slew of weapons with the goal of killing the actor who played the Green Power Ranger. Because even at its most lax, Phoenix PD and convention security aren’t unspeakably incompetent, the lunatic didn’t make it very far…but while the powers that be aren’t unspeakably incompetent, they are incompetent. Their genius idea in response to this clearly out of the norm incident was to ban all weapons—real looking, fake looking, wood staffs, plastic blasters, light sabers. That’s really smart because one of them fake plastic lightsabers might be the real physics defying tool of mass destruction and some Sith might decide to just start hacking people apart. It got so bad one of the vendors selling really good collectible lightsabers (still just plexiglass and lights, so not remotely deadly) was escorted off the dealer’s floor. And the company in charge of the event had many contradictory explanations as to why (none of them remotely believable)… because you never know when the plexiglass could magically turn into a stick of deadly plasma hotter than the core of the sun apparently. But it gets better. Every person had to be searched by the woefully understaffed security of the event which meant that people wait in lines…lines that went around the building several times…on Memorial Day…in downtown Phoenix. Yes, more people were harmed from heat stroke last year in line than were harmed by lunatics with weapons in the history of Comicon (I’ll admit I didn’t search every police report, but I did do a search and couldn’t find anything). Also despite the fact that the police requiring this level of security just created a huge mass of stationary targets for any lunatic who did want to hurt people, they also overreacted and instead of realizing the truth that “well we hit the lunatic quota for the decade, probably won’t have any more problems this weekend” as, you know as sane and moderately intelligent person would do, according to several people who spoke off the record, all of SWAT was out on the rooftops ready for action all weekend. As any idiot could have told them before hand, they weren’t needed. Please do remember this is Arizona, where police give contradictory orders and then shoot to kill unarmed people who can’t follow two contradictory orders at the same time…because Arizona police are both stupid and fucking cowards. They also fire gas on people who protest tyranny.** But back to Comicon. In addition to all of this, vendors on the floor also had a lot of trouble breaking even, and I know some aren’t even going this year. So last year was a cluster fuck of epic proportions. But the company in charge thought that they could do better this year!

How you ask? Well in the past most conventions have panels. Lots of panels. They rent huge convention centers and the goal is to fill each and every conference room with as many different panels from open to close to keep the nerds happy. Movies, comics, cosplay, cartoons, games, writing, trivia, dating, blood donation, signups. You name it there was probably a panel for it. Yes, the company running the convention ran through submitted panel ideas, but they accepted anything and everything, let the fans pick the topics, and tried to simply offer as wide a variety of ideas and discussion out there to entertain as many people. It was little more than organized chaos, and it was wonderful because it let the ideas and intellect of geekdom shine in the free flow way the creative process and the love of fandoms relies on. But letting nerds be nerds was apparently not for Phoenix Comic Fest. What do the nerds know, after all? They’re only the people paying the tickets and the ones coming to see all the stuff. Please don’t just take my word for it. Here are the actual words of the Square Egg:

Yes “Themes.” Do they even tell you what those themes are? Nope. They are keeping things so tightly controlled that you need to hold a seance just to know how you goose-step in line with them.

Now I could go off on them…but, the original response to this is so much better than I could ever put it…

My personal favorite was that one of our panels that was turned down because it didn’t meet with the themes/celebrities of the Con was a panel of the political implication of Star Trek…because Star Trek has nothing to do with a convention whose headline celebrity this year is William Shatner. In the 25th Anniversary year of DS9. At a nerd con where Star Trek is always relevant. If that doesn’t leave you going WTF, I don’t know what would. If you want to say the description of our panel wasn’t interesting, that’s fine. That’s a matter of taste. But to say Star Trek isn’t relevant…I have to assume the people who run this shit show have never actually had anything to do with any fandom ever.

Now do they have every right to do this? Yes, yes they have every right to do it. They’re fronting the money for the convention center, they’re booking the guests, they’re the one putting all the risk on the line. So, I’m not going to be a petulant child and scream “censorship” because this is not censorship. They’re not stopping me or anyone else from speaking, they’re only saying the podium they paid for isn’t open to everyone. They have every right. But we as fans have every right to say we don’t like what they’re selling. We liked the free exchange of ideas, not a spoon-fed list of topics. We’d like diversity of thought in what to choose from in terms of what panels to go see. We’d like to see our fandoms have a panel even if you couldn’t get a celebrity from that particular show or movie to make it out to the city which is hotter than seventh circle of Hell. So, this is not censorship, censorship only applies when it’s done by the government…this is the free market, and they have the ability to profit or fail (given their incompetence I would bet against profit, but who knows).

So, if this isn’t censorship, why is any of this important? If you believe that politics isn’t downstream from culture then this isn’t important. I am just a nerd bitching into the darkness because only one of his panels was approved. But if you believe that politics is downstream from culture, then it really matters because it means that culture is becoming more controlled than any time I can think of. Science Fiction, Fantasy, Comics and all the other genres that traditionally go along with conventions of this sort were once the bastion of free thinking ideas, of politically unpopular statements, of the voices on the fringes for good and bad. Star Trek is the first place to show a woman of color in a position of power—it may seem all too trite now where mass media slobbers all over itself to put out one formulaic piece after another with all the main minority and interest group boxes checked—but in its time it was a powerful message. Robert Heinlein and Margaret Atwood’s works warned of the dangers of religiously driven populism. The Twilight Zone and Star Trek offered hope in the future. The science fiction stories of even more traditionally serious writers like E.M. Forester, Kurt Vonnegut, and George Orwell offered us warnings about technology and what government can do with it. This has always been some of the richest ground for the seeds of social change and intellectual freedom. But now Disney through Marvel and Star Wars offers formulaic tripe in the form of explosion joke explosion joke explosion joke tied together with a paper-thin plot…and with Justice League DC jumped on that mindless bandwagon. Star Trek has become a poor imitator of Star Trek on the big screen and a teen dystopian novel on the small screen. And speaking of teen novels, the genre that once gave us Wrinkle in Time gave is now spewing mindless YA novels with characterless protagonists that aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on and would be an insult to kindling to use as fire starter (and the less said about that Wrinkle movie from a writer and director who clearly never read the book the better). The only visions of the future exist somewhere between the Thunderdome and Battle Royale. The optimism in the human spirit in The Twilight Zone and Babylon 5 has been replaced by the bleak pessimism of Orphan Black and Black Mirror. Hell, even The Doctor has become a bitter and cynical shell of its former self. And while the written has fared a little better, the fact that Martin—with his message that humans are all vile disgusting things—has seen major success, doesn’t say much either. And now the conventions are ensuring that this single line of argument continues by ensuring only the topics they want are the ones discussed.

Now I’m not saying that all these new visions of science fiction and fantasy are bad. There has always and SHOULD always be that strain in the deeper levels of these genres. The problem is that there is yin to the yang. The DCEU under Snyder and Nolan with its philosophical richness was the perfect counterpoint to the mindless entertainment of Marvel. If you didn’t like one you had the other. Now they’re both mindless. The thoughtful science fiction of Star Trek which had a vague understanding of science and powerful social commentary was the perfect balance to the fun space opera of Star Wars. Now you just have mindless fun from both. The Twilight Zone countered the Outer Limits, Babylon 5 balanced Stargate, Buffy was not Xena, Dollhouse was for people who wanted more thought than Dark Angel. There used to be balance between hope and cynicism, fun and thoughtfulness, utopian and dystopian visions, substance and style. As there should be. But now we’re just being fed the same cynical, stylistic, fun, and dystopian vision from the content makers and being told by even the fan conventions to march lockstep to their tune. The people selling this crap will respond it’s what the people will buy…but Dennis Miller had a response to this for two decades, it’s for the same reason Eskimos eat whale blubber: it’s the only thing we’re being offered. And the fact is that the Snyder vision of Superman made money, that Whedon pile of trash barely broke even. If you don’t think this both reflects society’s problems and creates those problems, you’re deluded. Phoenix Comic Fest is a symptom, but it’s a big one. Because if you don’t think this is a trend that will continue if not protested that it won’t spread out almost every convention (because if they can control controversy, you know they will because corporations will almost always fall into playing it safe after being in existence long enough). I would of course encourage dealers to boycott (you didn’t make much money last year anyway and you’ll make less this year), fans to boycott, and if you agree with argument, maybe encourage the celebrities you were hoping to see to also cancel. It’s a small thing but so is the start of an avalanche. We need to keep the diversity of thought going. We need to not give into people telling us what to think, read, and enjoy. Because if it starts with what we find entertaining…it will work into what rules we are ruled by. Politics is downstream of culture. This has been true since a Sumerian king embellished tales of his ancestor Gilgamesh to help his own position. It is no less true now. Either we control culture and ensure diversity, or we will deal with all the problem of political conformity (oh wait, we already are).

*It has been renamed from the more traditional Phoenix Comicon because San Diego Comic-con has gone batshit crazy and decided to sue conventions for things that sound like them, as if they have even the slightest shred of intellectual ownership over the word comic or the all too common shortening of convention to con…but how stupid abuse of IP law is getting is a discussion for another time.

**I would really love to support police…but honestly you guys are making the gestapo comparisons just a little too easy. Be the adults in the room, like I pay you to be—grow the fuck up and stop acting worse than the criminals you’re supposed to protect me from. And you good cops out there, your silence in the face of your vile colleagues is not loyalty, it’s to betray to your sworn duty.

#Phoenix Comic Fest #Phoenix Comicon #Pop Culture

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