#probably one of the more cohesive things i will ever write here lol

[sneezypeasy]

Why I Deliberately Avoided the "Colonizer" Argument in my Zutara Thesis - and Why I'll Continue to Avoid it Forever

This is a question that occasionally comes up under my Zutara video essay, because somehow in 2 hours worth of content I still didn't manage to address everything (lol.) But this argument specifically is one I made a point of avoiding entirely, and there are some slightly complicated reasons behind that. I figure I'll write them all out here.

From a surface-level perspective, Zuko's whole arc, his raison d'etre, is to be a de-colonizer. Zuko's redemption arc is kinda all about being a de-colonizer, and his redemption arc is probably like the most talked about plot point of ATLA, so from a basic media literacy standpoint, the whole argument is unsound in the first place, and on that basis alone I find it childish to even entertain as an argument worth engaging with, to be honest.

(At least one person in my comments pointed out that if any ship's "political implications" are problematic in some way, it really ought to be Maiko, as Mai herself is never shown or suggested to be a strong candidate for being a de-colonizing co-ruler alongside Zuko. If anything her attitudes towards lording over servants/underlings would make her… a less than suitable choice for this role, but I digress.)

But the reason I avoided rebutting this particular argument in my video goes deeper than that. From what I've observed of fandom discourse, I find that the colonizer argument is usually an attempt to smear the ship as "problematic" - i.e., this ship is an immoral dynamic, which would make it problematic to depict as canon (and by extension, if you ship it regardless, you're probably problematic yourself.)

And here is where I end up taking a stand that differentiates me from the more authoritarian sectors of fandom.

I'm not here to be the fandom morality police. When it comes to lit crit, I'm really just here to talk about good vs. bad writing. (And when I say "good", I mean structurally sound, thematically cohesive, etc; works that are well-written - I don't mean works that are morally virtuous. More on this in a minute.) So the whole colonizer angle isn't something I'm interested in discussing, for the same reason that I actually avoided discussing Katara "mothering" Aang or the "problematic" aspects of the Kataang ship (such as how he kissed her twice without her consent). My whole entire sections on "Kataang bad" or "Maiko bad" in my 2 hour video was specifically, "how are they written in a way that did a disservice to the story", and "how making them false leads would have created valuable meaning". I deliberately avoided making an argument that consisted purely of, "here's how Kataang/Maiko toxic and Zutara wholesome, hence Zutara superiority, the end".

Why am I not willing to be the fandom morality police? Two reasons:

I don't really have a refined take on these subjects anyway. Unless a piece of literature or art happens to touch on a particular issue that resonates with me personally, the moral value of art is something that doesn't usually spark my interest, so I rarely have much to say on it to begin with. On the whole "colonizer ship" subject specifically, other people who have more passion and knowledge than me on the topic can (and have) put their arguments into words far better than I ever could. I'm more than happy to defer to their take(s), because honestly, they can do these subjects justice in a way I can't. Passing the mic over to someone else is the most responsible thing I can do here, lol. But more importantly:

I reject the conflation of literary merit with moral virtue. It is my opinion that a good story well-told is not always, and does not have to be, a story free from moral vices/questionable themes. In my opinion, there are good problematic stories and bad "pure" stories and literally everything in between. To go one step further, I believe that there are ways that a romance can come off "icky", and then there are ways that it might actually be bad for the story, and meming/shitposting aside, the fact that these two things don't always neatly align is not only a truth I recognise about art but also one of those truths that makes art incredibly interesting to me! So on the one hand, I don't think it is either fair or accurate to conflate literary "goodness" with moral "goodness". On a more serious note, I not only find this type of conflation unfair/inaccurate, I also find it potentially dangerous - and this is why I am really critical of this mindset beyond just disagreeing with it factually. What I see is that people who espouse this rhetoric tend to encourage (or even personally engage in) wilful blindness one way or the other, because ultimately, viewing art through these lens ends up boxing all art into either "morally permissible" or "morally impermissible" categories, and shames anyone enjoying art in the "morally impermissible" box. Unfortunately, I see a lot of people responding to this by A) making excuses for art that they guiltily love despite its problematic elements and/or B) denying the value of any art that they are unable to defend as free from moral wickedness.

Now, I'm not saying that media shouldn't be critiqued on its moral virtue. I actually think morally critiquing art has its place, and assuming it's being done in good faith, it absolutely should be done, and probably even more often than it is now.

Because here's the truth: Sometimes, a story can be really good. Sometimes, you can have a genuinely amazing story with well developed characters and powerful themes that resonate deeply with anyone who reads it. Sometimes, a story can be all of these things - and still be problematic.*

(Or, sometimes a story can be all of those things, and still be written by a problematic author.)

That's why I say, when people conflate moral art with good art, they become blind to the possibility that the art they like being potentially immoral (or vice versa). If only "bad art" is immoral, how can the art that tells the story hitting all the right beats and with perfect rhythm and emotional depth, be ever problematic?

(And how can the art I love, be ever problematic?)

This is why I reject the idea that literary merit = moral virtue (or vice versa) - because I do care about holding art accountable. Even the art that is "good art". Actually, especially the art that is "good art". Especially the art that is well loved and respected and appreciated. The failure to distinguish literary critique from moral critique bothers me on a personal level because I think that conflating the two results in the detriment of both - the latter being the most concerning to me, actually.

So while I respect the inherent value of moral criticism, I'm really not a fan of any argument that presents moral criticism as equivalent to literary criticism, and I will call that out when I see it. And from what I've observed, a lot of the "but Zutara is a colonizer ship" tries to do exactly that, which is why I find it a dishonest and frankly harmful media analysis framework to begin with.

But even when it is done in good faith, moral criticism of art is also just something I personally am neither interested nor good at talking about, and I prefer to talk about the things that I am interested and good at talking about.

(And some people are genuinely good at tackling the moral side of things! I mean, I for one really enjoyed Lindsay Ellis's take on Rent contextualising it within the broader political landscape at the time to show how it's not the progressive queer story it might otherwise appear to be. Moral critique has value, and has its place, and there are definitely circumstances where it can lead to societal progress. Just because I'm not personally interested in addressing it doesn't mean nobody else can do it let alone that nobody else should do it, but also, just because it can and should be done, doesn't mean that it's the only "one true way" to approach lit crit by anyone ever. You know, sometimes... two things… can be true… at once?)

Anyway, if anyone reading this far has recognised that this is basically a variant of the proship vs. antiship debate, you're right, it is. And on that note, I'm just going to leave some links here. I've said about as much as I'm willing/able to say on this subject, but in case anyone is interested in delving deeper into the philosophy behind my convictions, including why I believe leftist authoritarian rhetoric is harmful, and why the whole "but it would be problematic in real life" is an anti-ship argument that doesn't always hold up to scrutiny, I highly recommend these posts/threads:

In general this blog is pretty solid; I agree with almost all of their takes - though they focus more specifically on fanfic/fanart than mainstream media, and I think quite a lot of their arguments are at least somewhat appropriate to extrapolate to mainstream media as well.

I also strongly recommend Bob Altemeyer's book "The Authoritarians" which the author, a verified giga chad, actually made free to download as a pdf, here. His work focuses primarily on right-wing authoritarians, but a lot of his research and conclusions are, you guessed it, applicable to left-wing authoritarians also.

And if you're an anti yourself, welp, you won't find support from me here. This is not an anti-ship safe space, sorrynotsorry 👆

In conclusion, honestly any "but Zutara is problematic" argument is one I'm likely to consider unsound to begin with, let alone the "Zutara is a colonizer ship" argument - but even if it wasn't, it's not something I'm interested in discussing, even if I recognise there are contexts where these discussions have value. I resent the idea that just because I have refined opinions on one aspect of a discussion means I must have (and be willing to preach) refined opinions on all aspects of said discussion. (I don't mean to sound reproachful here - actually the vast majority of the comments I get on my video/tumblr are really sweet and respectful, but I do get a handful of silly comments here and there and I'm at the point where I do feel like this is something worth saying.) Anyway, I'm quite happy to defer to other analysts who have the passion and knowledge to give complicated topics the justice they deserve. All I request is that care is taken not to conflate literary criticism with moral criticism to the detriment of both - and I think it's important to acknowledge when that is indeed happening. And respectfully, don't expect me to give my own take on the matter when other people are already willing and able to put their thoughts into words so much better than me. Peace ✌

*P.S. This works for real life too, by the way. There are people out there who are genuinely not only charming and likeable, but also generous, charitable and warm to the vast majority of the people they know. They may also be amazing at their work, and if they have a job that involves saving lives like firefighting or surgery or w.e, they may even be the reason dozens of people are still alive today. They may honestly do a lot of things you'd have to concede are "good" deeds.

They may be all of these things, and still be someone's abuser. 🙃

Two things can be true at once. It's important never to forget that.

[blade-that-was-broken]

Ahora realmente quiero leer la reacción de John a la popularidad de Brozone y que sean algo que la gente estudia y a algunas cosas locas que dicen de ellos.

Ask: Now I really want to read John's reaction to Brozone's popularity and have them be something that people study and some crazy things that they say about them.

This is definitely something I'd like to think about or even write about if I can get back into the I'm Still Here au mindset. I do have aus of aus... in my thoughts and have a mini-series vaguely planned sooooooo maybeeeee something... I'm not sure yet. But I think it would be crazy funny though.

In I'm Still Here, JD has less of the blunt/obnoxiousness that he seems to have in canon (although honestly, I feel like once things calm down, he's slept for a bit and stuff, JD would chill out too because of reasons but idk since he's the butt of the jokes in canon, I doubt they'd go that route) and more of the tired awkwardness a bit? Like, he's got some social interaction in the last few years but before then? A lot of it was just him and Branch. And although he's good with making friends and stuff, he is NOT used to being around so many trolls consistently.

JD kind of expects Pop Trolls to know and even like Brozone - after all they were probably Pop's most popular band. He quickly comes to the realization that other types of trolls don't know Brozone, he may or may not introduce them. He's very proud of his brother's accomplishments and talents in the band, even if things went wrong.

However, I don't think he'd have a super easy time realizing/thinking that other beings outside of trolls know about Brozone, much less listen to them. But he would be happy about it because of course he would. He loves that people love Brozone.

It's the classes that study them that would surprise him. Don't get him wrong, he absolutely thinks Brozone was great and they did a good job with good music, but he would not expect anyone to be studying or even spending so much time discussing and analyzing his work.

JD wrote all of their songs and since it was a boyband, it's kind of impressive. He not only was IN the boyband, but he wrote all the songs, lyrics and parts for each specific brother, who had different skill sets and ranges, something he would have to keep in mind. A lot of work goes into something like that - with parts that can work cohesively together.

So when Floyd tells him his college spent a week talking about and analyzing Brozone songs and performances - JD thinks it's kind of a joke. Not in a haha, don't be mean Floyd kind of way but a LOL that's a good joke Floyd kind of way.

It takes him even longer to believe that these college professors found HIS writing work impressive. I'm Still Here JD writes because that's one of the few things he knows how to do and although he might not innately realize it, it's kind of a way that he expresses his feelings and stuff. It's more so after the band breaks up, obviously, because he's no longer writing for entertainment songs.

When the band breaks up and he goes into the wilderness with Branch, he actually starts just writing lullabies and funny songs to help teach Branch things or get him to do things. Since he's a baby/child and Trolls are very music-oriented. And then is kind of grows into other feelings and thoughts that JD has. He's SO used to writing, that's kind of how it ends up being expressive for him.

He writes a whole album + of sad songs solely because Clay yelled he was in a sad book club. JD had both very sharp and also very fuzzy memories of the fight. He remembers a lot of words and specific phrases but movements and images are kind of fuzzy to him. This is kind of a side effect of almost dying the first time he left.

If I am ever able to really write down a good scenario of JD finding out about Brozone's popularity - and his esteem - in colleges and stuff, I absolutely will.

[stellarspecter]

20 questions for writers

i was tagged by @devondespresso and @spicysix! thanks guys!!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

68! oh shit my next fic is my 69th i gotta finish that smut fic STAT

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

191,966. crazy

3. What fandoms do you write for?

most recently, stranger things, but i've also written a lot for julie and the phantoms and be more chill. and then various other oneshots for random stuff

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Befriend the Bully - Nerdy Prudes Must Die, 868 kudos (and 3rd most kudos'ed fic in the hatchetfield fandom???)

Saint Frost - Rise of the Guardians, 593 kudos

Me Too - Percy Jackson & the Olympians, 392 kudos

Hopefully - Be More Chill, 286 kudos

All This Feeling Second Best, It's Got Me by the Throat - Julie and the Phantoms, 249 kudos

most of those are pretty old so it makes sense that they've had the time to accumulate kudos, but that means they were also written when i was in high school so it's kind of like 😬

5. Do you respond to comments?

i used to more, now i don't really unless they said something that i specifically want to comment on. i just kind of forget or don't have anything to say lmao

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

probably my troped round 1 fic, you look like you've just seen a monster (is that what i look like to you?). usually i like to have a happy ending but i wrote this in like two days the week of my first breakup. so uh yeah couldn't really think of happy ending for that one.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

pretty much anything else lmao. i love to write fluff and cuddles and shit like that so just go read any other of my fics

8. Do you get hate on fics?

the only hate on fics i can remember ever getting was back in my bmc days when i wrote meremine and someone was mad bc michael is gay and didn't like that i put him in a throuple with a woman. but like other than that clown behavior no not really lmao

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

i have one (1) smut fic published and it is on a different account because i was so scared of jatp fandom being mean lmao. luckily i only got nice comments on it so i will share that you can go read it here. i mean it was probably kind of obvious that it was me because there are only so many ppl into that rarepair? but idk jatp mutuals lmk who you thought it was lsdfksjf

i have been trying to write steddie smut recently, i have a wip that i'm working on that i will hopefully finish soon. if anyone would like to beta that lmk lol 👀 it is pretty kinky i will say lol but like. that's steddie for ya

10. Do you write crossovers?

not really. i'm more likely to just make an au of something for whichever fandom i'm currently obsessed with

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not to my knowledge

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

i don't think so? ppl would be welcome to do so tho

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

no. co-brainstormed and went crazy in the dms about it tho? oh yeah

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

evidence shows it to be steddie, at least for now. i'm a big multishipper so a better question would more be "what do i find myself most often in the mood for?" and the answer would still be steddie sldkfjs

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will?

vampire chrissy fic i want to do right by you i fear i may not.... i signed it up for the wip big bang tho so hopefully i do actually get it done

16. What are your writing strengths?

dialogue! i love writing dialogue. screenwriting is awesome because it's just dialogue.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

hrmm action scenes. repetitive prose. actually sitting down and plotting something cohesively

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

nothing against it but i'm only fluent in english so i'd consult someone else who actually speaks that language

19. First fandom you wrote for?

doctor who in middle school :) i wrote my fics in my little writing notebook and some of them are even on ao3 lol

20. Favorite fic you've written?

like i said earlier with the favorite ship question, this is tough to answer because i feel like it comes down to more what am i in the mood for most often. i'm pretty proud of my trans steve fic as well as aro bi reggie, both of them because i spent a long time trying to make sure i doing the representation right and i think i did a good job. also that sad bobby polycurve fic from the kudos question, i put a lot of myself in it and i feel very proud of how it came out.

no-pressure tagging: @wr0temyway0ut @zazujoy @sunsetcurvecuddles @chickwiththepurpleguitar @weneedglitter

@queenofthequillandink @jughead-is-canonically-aroace @innytoes @floating-in-the-blue @invisibleraven

and anyone else who wants to do it!

[supersoakerfullofblood]

so. this can come across as more of a ramble than an ask; still, i genuinely wanna hear ur take on it.

why is it 'normalized' that female characters in fiction never get their periods or have to shave or do like the mundane crap 'females' do?

Like.. yes, in some novels the writer could mention the woman shaving/being shaved.. but only when the context allows for it. Same thing with periods. We'd only ever bring it up if it pertains to the story, otherwise... what? is it just a given, sth the reader should simply know?

By extension, what happens in scenarios when say, the woman is kidnapped or kept in a dungeon. If the writer chooses to ignore that she gets her period/hasn't shaved (not wanting to deal with how her kidnapper would deal with that, for ex., or maybe they felt it's not necessary to the story), wouldn't that be a plothole? wouldn't smb ask: uh, she's been there for like 3 months, what about her period?

The same concept I'm bringing up here can be said about other human functions, like peeing, pooping, morning wood (just as normal and common as periods) ... etc.

So what is this? Is this willing suspension of belief or sth else? Is there a consensus on how we approach this fiction idk about?

P. S. Sorry for the awfully long ask. I appreciate the time you put into answering it and helping us out (surely I'm not the only one to bring this up lol)

You hit the nail on the head—it really is just a matter of only including things that are relavant to the text and letting the reader suspend their disbelief about everything else. It's the same reason you don't talk about what characters eat for every meal, and it's the same reason you don't write about all of your character's thoughts, feeings, passions, and desires. You can't include everything, because that book would have infinite pages, so you have to carefully choose elements that build a narrative: the series of events A -> B -> C -> etc. wherein one or a few aspects of a character change. For most narratives, something like shaving or periods wouldn't constitute meaningful character change. But if, say, in your narrative, your character changes by wrestling with their sex/gender identity, then yes, shaving and periods would be a great place to build the narrative!

So I don't think this is an issue at all, and I'm not sure this phenomenon is as gendered as it might appear. I don't really read about men going through mundane routines/morning rituals either, though that is kind of a trope in television (the man shaving at the mirror). It'd be interesting to take a wide survey and see how gendered this phenomenon actually is. I don't doubt there's something there, just that when you're writing, it really is just a matter of narrative cohesion and not bias.

Would be interesting to write a hyper-realist text that tries to include as many of these bodily functions and daily rituals as possible. Don't know what that'd look like, but there's probably something there in the right hands!

As for plot holes, they're kinda not real, especially with something this minor. A good rule of thumb is that if you're gotten your reader to suspend their disbelief enough to where they don't notice something (and in the case of bodily functions, the reader is already starting the text with those suspended), then it doesn't damage the text. It's fiction! The whole point is that it's a lie and we're tricking the reader!!

[bambiraptorx]

1 11 21 31 41 51 61 71

this one's been answered here

11. Link your three favorite fics right now

Okay honestly favorites are hard and I'm bad at remembering the ones I actually like, but some that I really like:

But First They Must Catch You series

creation, haunted and holy

vigilantism for fun and profit

21. Would you ever collaborate with another writer for a story?

Yeah, I'd be down for it! I love getting to interact with other creatives, it's part of what makes fandom fun for me. I'd probably want it to be fairly short though, just because I already have so many stories lol. Maybe like a crossover fic? Or just helping someone figure out the lore and details and plot and whatnot for their story, which is a little less involvement but still fun.

31. Do you start with the characters or the plot when writing?

For fanfiction, I start with "here's these characters in this situation". And then ask stuff like: how did they get there? what needs to happen for them to be in that situation or act like that? The characters already exist, so I don't have to build up their characterization so much as understand it.

For original stories, I tend to start more with the characters and their world, and then figure out what might be an interesting conflict to follow within that situation. I actually do want to get into sharing some original stuff here at some point, but I need to decide on which story and how to do it lol. The one I've been thinking about the most recently is also kind of the oldest, so I need to reboot it a fair bit before I shared any of it.

41. Do you tend to reread fics or are you a one-and-done kind of person?

Oh, I absolutely reread my fics. If I actually put the effort into writing it it's because I think other people would like it too, sure, but I totally reread my stuff a few times.

51. What’s your total AO3 word count?

152,868 words. About two thirds of that is Minor Interference, which is far and away the longest thing I've ever written.

61. Why do you continue writing fics?

Because I enjoy it, and because sharing my writing with other people is fun. Honestly, if it weren't for the component of "other people might like this too", I think I would write and draw a lot less. Something about having an audience makes me more likely to actually get stuff out of my brain lol.

71. When it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

Poorly. (/j)

In all seriousness, a lot of this stuff is in my head, which isn't the best option but whatever lol. I have a bunch of planning and outlines and whatnot written down in various places, sometimes actual notebooks, but that doesn't mean that I end up using it lol. My original outline for Minor Interference is literally defunct at this point. Honestly, a lot of it is just that I go back and re-read stuff when I'm writing to make sure it's at least somewhat cohesive, and even then I don't always succeed.

For example, at one point in Minor Interference I forgot about Raph learning to use his ninpo in ways beyond the constructs around his body, and logically that should have showed up in the fight in chapter 19. Also, for whatever reason I never pictured a table in Draxum's kitchen? (It's fine, I've decided it's just the one in the training room lol.) And there's a couple other things, but I work on the logic that if no one's bothered to point it out, it must not have been that disbelief-breaking.

[filthforfriends]

Hello :) I am an avid reader and big admirer of your fics and I have a little question. I have noticed you mostly (maybe even exclusively) write from the reader’s pov. And I really like it that way. I’m curious if you would ever write a bonus chapter or a passage from Damiano’s pov - for example in GA. Maybe that might help you with your writer’s block with chapter 14? Also I’m generally interested if you ever considered something similar or what you think about it. I’d love learning more about the process and thought behind your writing.

Actually the reason I write in second person is because I noticed that was the most common perspective fan fiction is written from. It was actually difficult to get used to. I think a chapter in Alpha!Damiano's perspective could be cool, I think thats been suggested once before. tbh I'd probably do the chapter half in y/n's perspective and half in his. It's not gonna help my writers block though because I'd have to intentionally choose a plot that I feel sorta confident writing about in his perspective, which would mean scraping what I do have. Y/n is a character I make up all on my own, but Damiano, while a fictional character in my stories, does need to share enough traits with the real person for people to recognize him. Whatever they like about him, I want them to like that same thing in my character. So that means I can't just do what I feels right to the story and wing it

Winging it is always how I write here. I've never sat down and drawn a plot out before hand, but I spend a lot of time in my own head. When I imagine a story that feels so compelling I can't not write it, I force myself to stay there and flush it out. With smut I try to find something thats a little gross or weird or intense or not sexy and then make that sexy. Because all the times I've done that and been nervous about the how its received, those are the fics or chapters that do best. When you push things just slightly past the comfort zone its exciting and honest and raw in a way I believe people crave. I try to find a couple points where it isn't ideal but that humanness actually ends up making things more passionate, more intimate. My experience as a smut writer hasn't been that people desire an ideal portrayed in media or porn. Based on reactions I think that, at least in this little corner of the internet people desire sex and connections with other flawed, quirky, and real people.

Sometimes as soon as I come up with a story, I come up with another one based on that, and I really get into the idea of the characters. So without trying, I have a few ideas that are 4k-12k words long with those characters If I can find a thread that attaches them and flush it out, sometimes it turns into a series with those stories being the chapters. Of course, writing this way you have to lay seeds so theres plot points you can circle back to so the whole thing is cohesive. Eventually, like I'm doing right now, I have to go through a whole fic and all my notes on it to list all the possible plot points and make sure I'm coming back to those. Because I think in collections of stories like this, I write my chapters our of order.

honestly my writers block is a combination of can't focus, too depressed to do anything, and a fear of failure so poisonous that it makes me freeze up. Like right now I'm currently writing chapter 19 for TSITCOE which makes my brain go "No point in posting this fic if you can't even finish it. You're never gonna make it in time. Better just pause the upload schedule now." Meanwhile I have the next two week's worth of chapters totally done and another two weeks after that 90% done. My brain is just really fucking mean as hell and lol. My confidence in my own intellect was very much based in external validations and meeting criteria society told me I should be proud to achieve. Being disabled these past few years as really taken a toll and now I have a voice that always insists I'm going to fail.

anyways thank you for reading and being so supportive! I hope some of this was interesting writery inside scoop type stuff

[bleue-flora]

Okay, so I heard you wanted to answer some questions so...How about 2, 4, 7, 16, 23, 56, and 73?

(Sorry if it's a lot, you don't have to answer them all if you don't want)

2. Do you plan each chapter ahead or write as you go?

Most of the time I write chapters and then determine the order and/or if I have to break it into multiple chapters. Sometimes I play scrapbook with random bits of writing I have and put those into a more cohesive chapter. Frequently, I’ll have a plan for like a set of chapters as far as what I want them to be. So a bit of both I guess.

4. Where do you find inspiration for new ideas?

Everything?… I mean for starters I have a list that’s made up of words I come across and think I can use later. Sometimes I’ll experience something and it’ll spur a writing section like tasting iron and writing a whole segment on blood. The most random things may inspire me to use as a description or metaphor like watching grass on the side of the road get pushed by the wind. Sometimes quotes from movies I’m watching or elsewhere inspire me. Sometimes an idea comes directly from a person intentionally or unintentionally. Comments can often spark something. Watching old dsmp streams for research is when I’ll sometimes catch a detail I didn’t before. Reading other fics can fuel new ideas. And sometimes I’m just delirious at 3am and decide that Quackity should crucify Dream… XD

7. How do you choose which POV to write from?

It’s usually framed by the story or idea and often because I have specific thoughts I want the character to have.

16. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?

Good question, which I answered here. It seems great minds think alike.

23. Best writing advice for other writers?

Not sure I have any business giving advice since I’ve only been writing fanfics for about a year now. But I’ll say this, don’t push yourself into writing if you can’t. Writers block happens and inspiration or creativity aren’t always available, which is ok. Those skills aren’t concrete like being able to pull out your calculator and do math or drive a car or brush your teeth. It’s a process and it comes and goes. I think everyone goes through it in one sense or another, but that doesn’t mean you have to let it beat you. Understand it is inevitable so no need to panic or apologize or give up. Instead, read other people’s works, talk to other writers for ideas, go enjoy life or any of the things I mentioned in 4. Inspiration will come again.

56. What’s something about your writing that you pride yourself on?

I’d say it’s hard for me to pride myself in general. I write because I enjoy it not because I necessarily think it’s good (that requires confidence, which I don’t have XD) I’ve been told that my descriptions are very captivating and help the reader feel and see it in their mind, so probably that. People also tend to appreciate my dialogue which I try to make as real and accurate as possible even if that means lots of stuttering and filler words.

73. What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works?

My insanity?…. Lol I mean, come on who else is writing hopscotch torture or making nutrition labels for their works? XD… For real though, I think my more flowery poetic style of writing isn’t standard. Someone once accused my chapter of being written by AI which I thought was both highly insulting and hilarious, because honestly my writing doesn’t follow the laws of grammar or story telling, like what do you mean you think a robot wrote this nonsense lol. ;)

[caterpillarinacave]

Agh! I'm so glad you liked it! I had a ton of fun writing it and you were great to work with! I really enjoyed developing this idea further, I hadn't put as much thought into it originally in the first ask, lol. I enjoyed diverting from the idea that only one person could wield the power to save the day or that doing something important had to mean it came at both a great risk and cost to the person. I liked presenting a relatively low stakes but interesting issue. Like, yeah, it's kind of a problem, freak weather changes and breaks in reality aren't technically awesome, but ultimately whatever this is existed long before you found out about it and will continue on after you. The world isn't going to end if you don't help, you're just repairing it a little faster, helping things along. You're right, no need for a kidney over here, your response honestly has been more than enough! Thank you for playing along! <3

Signed,

Yes/No Anon :)

Of course! I’m so happy you had fun, I had a great time. You had me grinning like a baby in the middle of the library. Seriously though anon, you are a very talented writer. You would probably be a good DND dungeon master, or something of the like. I’m thoroughly impressed with how quickly you built a cohesive story, that takes serious work and skill!

I had a great time playing! This is the sort of thing I really love to do. Verbal story telling (which I’m counting this as, since it was made up on the spit) make me incredibly happy; whether I’m telling them or listening to them and I think the world should appreciate it more. If you’ve ever got any thoughts or hypotheticals you would like to share again I would love to hear them! Wishing you the best<3

[orangefroze]

lol I tried making Manten translyrics

I have never posted translyrics online but idk I had some ideas for this song for awhile that I had to get down. The rest was a struggle. My main goal (other than acting like I don't know nobody etc) was to write something reasonably sing-able that matched the meter of the song. So here's what I've done so far:

Manten (The Whole Sky)

Original Japanese Lyrics by Yuki Kajiura

Song originally performed by Kalafina

All the stars in heaven above Who scatter their light as lamps ever-gleaming Never hear my cries, so must I Beseige the whole sky And earth with my prayers

Can you see Though aglow on a withered branch Our budding future forgot to bloom And now, With reluctance the branch drops its Never-born blossom to the ground

All time With that golden fruit finally Ripened, can now reach its destined end So with your hands Begin now the reaping of all of this world Its every breath

As with all things unblemished I know That the chasteness of new falling snow With one touch of warmth will melt away into oblivion Dreams so beautiful, pure hope alone Frozen eyes staring, piercing your soul All their kindness, all their truth Broke your heart to pieces

All the stars in fury above, Who blaze in the night, betray all of heaven So with vengeance, louder, one cry Will shatter the sky Cast every star down

I don't desire A bouquet of lilies adorning an altar, don't mourn for me But hear my prayer, and let it be manifest Before my heart fragments at last

One day it will come That fated moment my own eyes will see Blinding as the sun When the heavens cast away all tears

Every voice throughout ages below Begs for wings to escape earth's sorrow So the whole sky, every life Ring aloud their chorus Of pain [sic]

When that day comes and I look above Watching my burnt prayer tearing open the sky Far away where my heart still remains Summer's kiss will cover my homeland in blooms

When my dream fades long before dawn The stars will remain Burning far above

Far beyond the silver moonglow Where earth fades away There peace is eternal Take my hand and show me the path To where every soul Says all can find rest

All the stars in heaven above Who silently sleep as lamps one day fading Wait until your prayers ring aloud And shatter this dream Before the new dawn

Known issues:

I do not speak Japanese, so I was drawing from multiple translations for this. One of the issues I ran into was critical disagreements between the translations, after a certain point I just had to combine meanings or pick one I thought suited the song (probably very bad). Because I don't know anything about Japanese sayings, phrases, wordplay, etc., my lyrics may be a mistranslation of the core meaning of this work. Sorry guys.

I have. Trouble with rhyming. Any kind of rhyming scheme is inconsistent and messy.

The song probably has lots of glaring lyrical contradictions. I unfortunately know too much about the source material of this song so that is definitely impairing my judgement as to whether this is a cohesive whole.

Repetitive words and phrases.

Stuff that doesn't grammatically make any sense and probably sounds like cringey nonsense.

There are some weird consonant combinations that are tricky to sing a tempo.

Here are the translations I drew from. I used the third one a lot less because it seemed a bit more iffy to me.

If you know anything about writing translyrics, translations, and/or singing please let me know if you have any critiques!! Sorry if these lyrics gave you an ulcer!!

[did-i-do-this-write]

Oh cool!!! I feel like I should maybe read about your characters if Imma keep doing this, but honestly I like consuming this content by just slowly building a story based on this ask game. Character development is my favourite part of writing personally <3

Anyways, I'm now at 17% if you wanna answer it (I should probably plug this thing in lol)!

And I forgot if this is similar to a question already on there or not, but if your character made a playlist, what would it be called and what are the first three songs on it (If they're the type of person to make 500 billion playlists which one would they listen to the most often)? This is very random, but I always will hear songs and be like "oh so-and-so would so listen to this" and I have learned the hard way that your music taste tells a lot about you (if you ever get mysterious kind messages from your friends for no apparent reason there is a 63% chance that they found your Spotify or whatever and are concerned for your mental health)

Don't feel pressured to read back or anything! I have a lot of posts on this blog and it can be hard to find what you're really looking for. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about them or provide links to old posts with more specific info if you are interested 🤗

As for your next percentage question!

17%. Does your character ever put someone else's needs in front of their own? And If there are only rare exceptions, why is that the case?

Nic has lost so much in her life, she tries very hard to look after herself first. She had to adapt, especially after she lost her parents. She does grow very close to the team throughout the story, though, and by the end, they are literally the only six people on Earth that she would put before herself. They are the first people who looked after her, helped her, and genuinely didn't want anything in return when she had nowhere else to go. It took some time, but they won her over eventually.

And I love music headcanons! So for your second question:

What would the title of your character's playlist be? First three songs on it?

I think that Kay would have 8 million playlists for all of her different moods and obsessions. Her most listened to one would be something like "I have no idea what I want to listen to, but everything on here is a bop"

Demons by Imagine Dragons

Mr. Brightside by the Killers

Long Road to Ruin by the Foo Fighters

There is absolutely no genre cohesion on this playlist.

This ask motivated me to write 176 words for Home is Where Your Light Shines Brightest.

Experiment Total: 59,191

[isabellehemlock]

@fandomtrumpshate made a post about the amazingness of fan labor and encouraged content creators to share a bit about how fantastic it is, so here we go 😎

Beta reading

I tend to edit my fics several times over before ever posting them, and have been blessed to offer beta help for others, because sometimes no matter the genuine effort - you just miss things, especially if you've read the same thing over and over again. A beta can really lend a fresh pair of eyes on things and catch something small, or big, and really help shape a story into something more cohesive that can reach even more people - because what's lovelier for a writer than to know their fic made its way to someone who felt seen/validated? The message becomes more clear if people aren't distracted by repeated grammar errors (one little caveat though, do not fret if you've edited something five times and a mistake still slips through, it happens to all of us and I can personally attest I have never hit backspace over a misspelling on someone's fic over that lol).

Culture-picking

I joined The Old Guard fandom in August 2020, and have been blessed and amazed by all the resources shared to try to remain as culturally sensitive as possible to the international characters 🙏🏻❤ Reading various posts, and the links shared within, allows me to add more depth to the characters outside of the cultures I myself was raised in, both with my writing and my art. Between these, and my own theological studies, I really felt honored by opportunities to chat one on one with people and exchanging information to broaden each other's views and hopefully that is reflected in my fandom engagement (second caveat, there is no way to make everyone happy and offend no one - we are simply too varied person to person - but by knowing you invested time and energy in an effort to be culturally sensitive, you at least can be assured that your intents were pure, and that counts for something).

Sensitivity reading

This probably goes hand in hand with the above as well, but my personal experience was having people I could further discuss various aspects of the day to day life with both Muslims and LGBTQ+ folks. I myself am aspec, but my lens is framed differently in that I'm a Christian CIS gendered heteroromantic woman - and though again, there is no way to satisfy everyone, I wanted to at least strive not to be woefully ignorant and inadvertently feed stereotypes. Being able to discuss with multiple people about day to day things - beyond what you might try to gleam from say, an academic article about the theological aspects of Islam, or statistics around a study about LGBTQ+ issues - has only helped me grow further as a person, as well as (hopefully) add to the content I create (third caveat, there is a difference between telling a story that is not yours to share, and writing about characters finding acceptance and safety with the people around them which can resonate with readers. Always be humble first, and accept that we all bring biases that we must unpack at any given time, and be open to growth and learning. Again, there's no way to satisfy everyone, but it is our responsibility to learn along the way, and I for one am grateful for the people who were willing to share with me).

So there ya go, some of my personal experiences with the lovely fan labor that people bring into fandom ❤

These, and more, options will be available within the auction itself - which opens on the 23rd, but browsing period starts tomorrow! There will be ~100 plus fan labors of various needs featured, so if you've been debating tapping into this vital resource, please do consider this as a gentle sign that also benefits so many lovely causes 🥰

[mittensmorgul]

As Above, So Below

I’m still trying to pinpoint exactly why the focus on “heaven is fixed and actually a paradise now!” is just so deeply unsatisfying to me. And I think I need to preface this with a bit of backstory about me, because I think that gives the rest of this essay some relevant context.

I know this isn’t relevant to my main point here, but this is a metatextual and thematically identical example of the exact thing I’m gonna lay out, because context is always helpful. So please forgive this seemingly irrelevant detour, because I promise it will be relevant by the end.

(plus, would it really be an Essay By Mittens™ without at least one baffling tangent? no, it would not!)

Tangent time!

I think everyone that follows me knows how skeptical I was... or should I say how WARY I was of the way Eileen was returned to the narrative this season. We were warned in the PREVIOUS EPISODE how much Chuck was attempting to interfere in their lives. I was accused of some very nasty things, of hating the ship, or hating the character of Eileen, or of hating Sam and not wanting them to be happy. No amount of pointing at obvious warning signs in the text, no amount of yelling about Sam’s God Wound or the absolute klaxon warning that the wound had become “quiet” and his Chuck-O-Vision Nightmares had apparently stopped seemed to matter. I was declared “wrong” and told to shut up.

And then 15.09 happened, and basically everything I’d been wary of was shown to be what actually happened, but there were still unresolved issues. Eileen doubted her own feelings and walked away. She doubted what was actually real. And at the time, I said many times that I would be thrilled to see those issues resolved by the end of the season, and for her to truly know that what she’d felt growing between her and Sam was real. And by the end of the season, despite my personal horror at her previous situation (and having that personal horror compounded by the fandom literally gaslighting me and attempting to bully me into ignoring this basic actual plot detail of this specific growth process which... in the context of what my personal objection was to accepting her return at face value in the first place having been personal trauma associated with gaslighting and manipulation...) by the time 15.18 aired, I was 100% convinced that Sam and Eileen had fully chosen each other, and felt the traumatic pain Sam suffered during that text conversation with her during the snap. She NEEDED to come back, because she had been set up to be part of Sam’s Win. They were clearly each other’s future.

The show literally put in all the work to make even *me* feel this to be True and Right and Good. And then after that point we never even hear Eileen’s name again. We never were told that she was even returned at the end of 15.19. Sam, who had been so entirely devastated by her disappearance in the previous episode that he couldn’t even process it was apparently hit with an amnesia hammer and just... never even thought about her again through a long greyscale life with a blurry baby Dean factory vaguely in the background of a single scene of his life. I can’t credit or justify how after an entire year invested in making us all truly care about Sam and Eileen and the happiness they found in each other if only the cosmos would allow them to choose each other in the end would just... erase all of that in the series finale.

Which brings me to the second tangent, which is specifically about *me,* and how I feel about the cosmic order in the television show Supernatural. Because I feel a lot about it. Probably more than most people ever did. And this is also important to understanding the main underlying point I need to make here.

Something I’ve been most looking forward to, for YEARS, about Supernatural eventually ending someday was writing a book, or a thesis, or even just organizing and compiling all my observations into a cohesive narrative specifically about the cosmology of the Supernatural universe. I’ve been cobbling together my observations and realizations about the nature of heaven, hell, purgatory, the empty, the alternate universes we’ve seen, and yes, even the cosmic function of the mundane level of the story as told by events that transpired on Earth. So of everyone watching this dumb show for the last 15 years, I don’t actually know anyone who cared more that I did about finding a satisfactory resolution and transformation of every plane of existence-- the mortal world AND the “afterlife realms” we’ve experienced on this show. And in the wake of the finale, I feel cheated out of that. Because in the end, it wasn’t about the triumph of free will and a flip of the script, it was just more of the same.

And now that I have those two preliminaries out of the way, I’ll finally get to the point. :’D

(hooray, it didn’t even take 1k words to get there for once!)

The “main stage” of Supernatural has always been Earth. It’s always been “Humanity.” At the very start, we meet two men whose lives had always been dictated to them by higher powers. At first, that “higher power” was their father who raised them in his vengeance mission, who trained them to hunt the supernatural. It was the inciting incident of the entire series, after all, their realization that forces outside of their control had irrevocably altered the course of their lives. It had forever torn down what they’d trusted in family, in personal safety, and would become something they couldn’t outrun or fight back against for long before another wave of cosmic discord would settle over them once more.

We watched this story play out in ever increasing spheres of cosmic significance, until Gabriel laid it out on the table for them in the simplest possible terms (in 5.08).

GABRIEL: You do not know my family. What you guys call the apocalypse, I used to call Sunday dinner. That's why there's no stopping this, because this isn't about a war. It's about two brothers that loved each other and betrayed each other. You'd think you'd be able to relate. SAM: What are you talking about? GABRIEL: You sorry sons of bitches. Why do you think you two are the vessels? Think about it. Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father, and Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan. You were born to this, boys. It's your destiny! It was always you! As it is in heaven, so it must be on earth. One brother has to kill the other. DEAN: What the hell are you saying? GABRIEL: Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you? Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always. A long pause. SAM and DEAN look down, then at each other. DEAN: No. That's not gonna happen. GABRIEL: I'm sorry. But it is. GABRIEL sighs. GABRIEL: Guys. I wish this were a TV show. Easy answers, endings wrapped up in a bow...but this is real, and it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be. ***

And isn’t that all even 1000x more painfully ironic that it all still happened even 10 years later? It was always going to end with them. And lol, “I wish this were a TV show” because if it was then it wouldn’t have to end bloody.

But this… was a Major Acknowledgement that the meta level of this story was consistent, and was telling us something important. It demonstrated that the Cosmic Structure Itself was the cause for Sam and Dean’s “destiny” in this story. But that’s not what the point of this story has ever been.

Nobody (including me, who is literally obsessed with this aspect of the story) has ever invested themselves in the narrative of Supernatural because they cared about the fate of the cosmic order over and above the fate of the characters who had committed to overthrowing it all, to “tearing up the pages” and writing their own destinies. I mean, we became invested because Sam, Dean, and Cas as characters took us by the hand and invited us to come along with them as they battled against fate for the good of EARTH and HUMANITY.

And certainly, Heaven being a horrific sort of eternal replay of the “highlights” of individual souls greatest hits, where free will didn’t apply as everyone was just boxed away into their individual holodecks to serve as some sort of giant Heaven Battery powering the furtherance of this narrative, this “cosmic order” that had become so powerful it dictated the events and manipulated the lives of people who still existed in the ostensible realm of free will and human life on Earth… that couldn’t stand in the end. But what the narrative (and people I’ve seen attempting to justify the finale as narratively sensible) seems to have forgotten was that all of that was Chuck’s construct to begin with. That without Chuck holding his kingdom in Heaven together, the walls of all those soul cubicles ceased to even be relevant.

After spending their entire lives to this point constantly fighting their way to the absolute pinnacle of the As Above, So Below narrative and pulling the plug on the original creator himself, Humanity should’ve triumphed. And I’d argue that it DID, through Jack restoring the missing essential “humanity” to the divine condition. And, silly me, I thought they’d achieved the promise of “paradise” heralded by Jack’s birth at last, and truly “flipped the entire script of the narrative.”

Ever since they thwarted the original apocalypse, I had hope that they would continue to achieve the same result right up the ladder. Metatron trying to fill the role of Chuck Junior hit his own narrative wall in TFW, while Dean’s battle with the Mark of Cain, and Cain telling him he was “living my life in reverse” and would succumb to destiny by killing his loved ones in the “reverse order” to Cain’s own path to downfall cemented this for me. Dean not only failed to kill any of his loved ones (you didn’t kill your own brother. why?), he SAVED them. He didn’t fulfil the prophecy in reverse, he subverted it. He UNMADE it.

Perhaps I was thinking on too grand a scale, that the ultimate inversion wouldn’t be “God is overthrown and replaced by more of the same,” but “God is overthrown and the entire order of the universe is restructured from the bottom up rather than the top down.

I’d hoped against hope that the conclusion of the narrative would be “As below, so above,” with the fundamental power of human love becoming the new foundation of the cosmic order. It never even occurred to me that “taking back the narrative to rewrite it for ourselves” was not the ultimate goal of Team Free Will, or the ultimate expression of their biggest win.

This whole “well heaven really needed to be rebuilt, there was still work to be done!” seems… irrelevant to me if they’d truly won free of the cosmic narrative. The entire structure of the universe-- including Heaven and Hell-- should’ve defaulted to the paradise state that Jack was literally born to bring to fruition. Wasn’t that the point of his entire role in the story, ultimately?

And if that wasn’t the case in the end, why did we never learn the fate of Hell? Was it just… irrelevant and unchanged after this? Or just… abandoned as a concept entirely? It’s just strange to me to put such a focus on heaven being the sole sphere of import in the end that it undercuts the essential humanity of the narrative for me.

The story itself had kept Heaven on a back burner for years, only occasionally mentioning that the structure of the place was falling further and further into disrepair with a dwindling force of angels struggling to keep the walls in place at all, that it seems like it could’ve been an afterthought at the end of the series rather than a focus so large it required the death of both main characters to make sure we all understood that Heaven Had Changed Now. Because TFW had never been fighting to make Heaven right. They’d been fighting to save the world itself, for humanity to all have a chance to live their lives as their own.

And we didn’t need to see that in the final hope they might get their own lives on Earth to explore. In the end, the fundamental narrative that Life On Earth was dictated by the cosmic structure of creation was never fully subverted. And for me, that’s the main reason I just… can’t accept the finale. It wasn’t a victory of free will and humanity, in the end it was just more of the same.

I appreciate the attempts to take the essential bones of the story we did get and apply a different polish to the surface of the skeleton, but to me it still feels like we’re looking at completely different beasts in the end. Like… to me this was as jarring a revelation as those drawing of modern animals reimagined as dinosaurs entirely based on their skeletons. Like, all along the narrative told me I was looking at a swan. They told me this skeleton they’re building out from is definitely a swan, without a doubt.  I know what a swan looks like-- a graceful feather-covered bird with magnificent wings. I trusted that in the end it would be at least remotely swan-looking. And then the finale ended up looking like this

and I just don’t even know where everything went so wrong. Or maybe all along I just assumed they actually knew what a swan looked like, but weren’t sure they could actually pull it off and settled for whatever the heck this is instead. Either way, I’m actually kinda grateful to the finale for being so entirely disappointing on every level, because otherwise I probably would’ve tried to adopt the monstrosity of it anyway. And I’m really, really glad I don’t have to.

[the-ghostlight]

Okay but

Everyone out here saying ‘dragon age always has a new protagonist, you should have expected a new protagonist lol you’re an idiot for thinking it would be the Inquisitor’

First, excuse me for wanting a cohesive story.

Second, just because something ‘should have been expected’ or ‘is always done this way’ doesn’t make it good writing.

It still feels disjointed and, narratively, makes no sense. It feels like a complete invalidation of Trespasser and Inquisiton’s plot.

The problem is BioWare think in terms of singular, isolated plots, not overarching, long term ones. Trespasser was written with the intent to ‘give all the feels’ and in doing so undermined the purpose of the whole DLC, which was to ‘tie off the Inquisitor’s story.’

They probably went ‘Oh this will really make them cry’ without realising that they consequently solidified an emotional attachment (granted not for all, but for many) in which a new protagonist cannot match.

It’s so frustrating seeing previous hero’s baggage being passed onto the next, with the previous hero being tossed to the side like old news. It happened with Hawke, and it’s happening with the Inquisitor. It just felt so wrong in DAI, having Hawke there, as this detached unreachable bystander to their problems and their mistakes, and it will feel even worse this time because Solas is a hugely more personal threat.

He is the Inquisitor’s villain, just like Corypheus was Hawke’s villain.

DA4 is the Inquisitor’s story.

Nothing will ever change that. You cannot undo the story you’ve built, BioWare, and you cannot rely on the player’s knowledge and emotional attachment to and of a character in achieving an impact without cheapening your narrative.

The idea of a new protagonist, a literal nobody, deciding Solas’ fate makes me feel sick, and it’s sad that I already resent this new protagonist without even knowing anything about them.

Can they make a new protagonist work? Sure. But it won’t ever come close to the emotional pay-off of playing the Inquisitor. That’s a whole games worth of character building and emotional attachment that we as players have cultivated between Solas and the Inquisitor, and that cannot be accomplished in 1-2 hours of gameplay with a new protagonist. Even if it could, it would undermine the value of that previous relationship, and make it feel pointless. It’s like Bioware trying to force Varric onto us as the Inquisitor’s new BFF, even though that place will always be reserved for Hawke.

Third, not everyone agrees or feels this way, and that’s fine. But a lot of others do, so don’t make them feel stupid about it. People can still love things, and not agree with the direction that’s been taken.

Does that mean the story will 100% be bad? No, of course not, but don’t shit on people and make them feel like idiots because ‘they should have seen this coming.’ Nobody is obligated to mindlessly agree with everything BioWare does, because ‘oh well, at at least we’re getting something.’ It doesn’t mean we’re shitting on all the developers hard work, it just means, some, politely, don’t agree with it.

[sl-walker]

Thoughts on The Unwilling Apprentice

Okay, so the resplendent @xiamei-sami -- bringer of excellent gifs -- brought forth another treasure, which is ostensibly ‘new’ backstory for Maul.  You can find it linked in this post here.  I read it myself a couple weeks ago and have thought about it and, of course, developed opinions about it, but thanks to the whole work thing, haven’t been able to put those down yet.

So, spoilers ahead!  Beware!  If those bug you, anyway.

Okay, so.  There are a few things I liked about it and then some that I was scratching my head about, and then there were some that were just stupid and the author should be ashamed of accepting money for.  But since I’m in a reasonably charitable mood, I’ll start with what I liked.

1.) Maul was not born evil.  And, in fact, was portrayed here as a perfectly darling kid who did chores and liked hanging around in nature like the actual Disney princess he is.  For people who prefer canon over Legends -- though, this story’s relationship with canon is tenuous at best -- it’s nice to have something to point to and go, “Hey, he wasn’t actually inherently evil!”  I mean, Legends proved that with Wrath, but now we have two sources for it.

2.) He was shown as being very much in tune with the Living Force.  Frankly, the reason I liked this was because I wrote that years ago, dude, and I did it better than you lol, but still, it’s nice when something quasi-canonish does the same thing years after you and with less skill. XD  It just is.

Anyway, those were really the only things I actually liked liked.

Now onto the headscratchers:

Where the fuck is canon?  For real.  Suddenly, we have Nightbrothers living with Nightsisters and there’s no mention whatsoever of their marginalization which is ???  It sort of loosely follows Son of Dathomir, in terms of Talzin being Mother of the Year by kicking her son out and ignoring him being abused by other people, because supposedly Sids offered to make her his apprentice and ??? Profit!

Like, I do seriously LOL anytime anyone tries to portray Talzin as some kind of decent person.  I mean, we did watch her feeling Savage up and being complicit in making him murder her other son, and then there’s the fuckery she pulled on Maul, too, and yet somehow there are still people out there who act like she was a great mother.  Boy, have I got a bridge for you!

But anyway.  This had, at its very best, a very fucking cursory relationship to current recognizable canon.  Maul had a brother in this story, but then all those years later just forgot??  What??

So, have that headscratcher.  Now, let’s go into why the author should feel bad about accepting money for this:

1.) The canon thing.  The lack of canon connection.  Completely ignoring that the Nightbrothers are actual canon slaves holy shit.  How do you ignore that?  Like, how do you not acknowledge that??  Even current Disney canon does!  Admittedly, I do believe this story is meant for school kids, but like-- my dude. So was TCW, and they’re the ones who explicitly stated it. There are ways to make this canon without ignoring swathes of it for supposedly school-age readers.

2.) The motivation for Maul ‘going dark’ makes-- exactly no fucking sense.  It’s basically just a literal adoptive-parent abuse story, which is lazy as fuck, btw.  He basically gets beat up a lot.  There is not, as there is in Legends, a very notable and concerted effort to twist his perceptions and manipulate him.  His mom kicks him out (Mother of the Year!), he gets beat up by the adopting family, he learns how to use the Force and fights back.

One of the reasons this annoys me is that it’s lacking all of the clever work Ryder Windham did in Wrath to not only portray Maul as an inherently sweet kid trapped in truly horrific circumstances, but draw an absolutely credible mental roadmap of how you would take that inherently sweet kid and twist him into a Sith assassin.  And in case anyone’s wondering?  Wrath of Darth Maul was meant to be a YA book.

Like, I hate to tell this guy this, but most people who are abused do not, in fact, turn into villains.  Most people also don’t turn into abusers themselves.  So without the manipulation that Ryder depicts, and that Luceno and the others touch on, it just seems kind of like-- he needed an excuse and went with the cheapest, laziest version of Disney he could.

But this brings me to the next point, which is the most egregious point for me:

3.) The author puts the responsibility for Maul being taken and abused by Sidious on Maul himself.

If there was one thing that made Legends absolutely spectacular, re: Maul, it was that never once did Ryder Windham imply, even a little bit, that little Maul had ever asked for or deserved what happened to him at Sid’s hands.  At no point did any of the authors who handled Maul pre-Disney imply that he would choose what was done to him if he’d ever actually been given a choice.  And to me -- and to a lot of other abuse survivors -- this kind of thing is a Big Deal.  It’s a really damned important distinction to make.

But no, in this story, Maul actually chooses to be Sidious’s apprentice.

W. T. F., dude.  What the actual fuck, dude.

I guess I should write this out for anyone who might not know it, but taking a character who in canon was stated to have no choice in it and suddenly giving them responsibility for their own victimization is highly fucked up.

Anyway, that there is some lousy writing.  Just sayin’.

So, there is my opinion and thoughts.  There are some things I liked, there are some things that were just confusing and then there was shit like the immediate above that means the author should be slapped around a parking lot a few times.  I probably would not kick if people did adopt it as their canon backstory, because it’s still better than the crazy shit people currently assume, like that Maul was somehow born dark.

But please, for the love of god, I am not even kidding about this: If you really want to understand and write a genuinely interesting, nuanced version of Maul, and have a pretty damned cohesive, tragic and psychologically more realistic backstory to build on, stick to his Legends materials.  Those guys who did it first actually did do it best, and this latest offering is very milquetoast by comparison, when it’s not a turd wrapped in paper.

[allsassnoclass]

hi hazel! for the prompts how about "67. When One Stops The Kiss To Whisper “I’m Sorry, Are You Sure You-” And They Answer By Kissing Them More", i wanna say for mashton but if you want to write some muke that works as well i think! -taylor<3

@squishmichael I looooooooooooove mashton. just in case anyone forgot lol

mashton: when one stops the kiss to whisper "I'm sorry, are you sure you-" and they answer by kissing them more

"Michael?"

Michael blinks, then forces himself to look up from his computer and the seemingly endless code on displayed onscreen. Ashton is standing in the doorway, dressed for bed with boxers, a big t-shirt, and his glasses perched on his nose.

The only thing Michael needs less than the mistake in this program is the sight of Ashton in his glasses with his legs on display.

"Hey, Ash. What's up?"

"How long have you been working?" he asks rather than answering. "I called your name a few times before you looked up."

Michael sighs and rubs at his eyes. His own contacts should probably come out soon, but he knows that if he gets up now he's not going to want to sit down and do more work.

"I can't figure out where the error is," he says. "The client wanted the website done by Monday and I really didn't want to have to work this weekend."

Ashton hums and comes to stand behind him, putting his hands on Michael's shoulders and beginning to rub out some of the tension there. He's probably looking at the computer in an attempt to help even though he knows nothing about programming. Michael doesn't know how he got such a great roommate, but in his current state he might cry about it if he thinks on it too long.

Michael exhales, submitting himself to a brief break to let Ashton work his magic.

"You know," Ashton says, voice low and gentle, "you'll be more likely to catch the problem tomorrow when you're awake and rested verses now when you should be asleep. It's past midnight and you've been at it for hours."

He digs his thumb into a knot in Michael's shoulder. Michael lets out a sound before he can stop himself, leaning into the touch, feeling his muscles unravel under Ashton's hands.

"I don't want to," he groans. "I was going to sleep in tomorrow, then we have that thing with Calum later, and I need to do laundry. I'm running out of acceptable clothes."

"Don't worry about that," Ashton says. "I can throw your stuff in tomorrow."

"Thanks."

"And we're not meeting Calum until mid-afternoon. You can sleep in, then work a bit after lunch. If you still don't manage to find the problem, you have all of Sunday."

Michael hums. He doesn't want to admit that Ashton is right, but it's getting harder and harder to argue with him the longer this massage goes on. He feels like he could melt into a puddle right here in his chair, but he'd much rather do so in his bed, possibly while curled around Ashton.

"Come on, Michael," Ashton coaxes, leaning more into Michael's space. If Michael didn't know better, he'd say that Ashton is fully aware of the affect he has on him and using it for evil, but there's no way he would continue their easy-going intimacy if he was aware of Michael's true feelings.

Well, maybe he would. Ashton's cool, so he probably wouldn't ruin their friendship if he found out. Sometimes, Michael even lets himself read a little too far into things and consider the possibility that Ashton feels the same.

"Michael?" Ashton asks, hands stilling and jarring him out of his thoughts.

"Sorry," he says automatically. "Just thinking."

"Yeah, I think it's time for bed," Ashton says. "You weren't thinking, you were zoned out. I could feel you drifting off under me."

Michael fights down a blush, thankful at least that Ashton can't fully see his face.

"It's your fault for giving me a massage," he tries to protest. "You know how relaxing your massages are."

"All part of my evil plan to get you to stop working and come to bed," Ashton says, rubbing his thumbs in hypnotic circles on the back of Michael's shoulders. "It's for your own good."

Michael sighs again. He really should keep working, but Ashton's right. At this point he's probably overlooked the mistake five times without realizing, and he's not in the best mindset to continue now. The most effective use of his time would be going to bed, even if that means losing Ashton's attention until he wakes up tomorrow.

"I don't want to move," he says in a pitiful attempt to elongate this moment. Ashton snorts, leaning down to wrap his arms around Michael's shoulders in a hug. Michael hopes Ashton can't feel the way his heart speeds up with him draped over his back.

"Come on, Michael," he says, gently rocking them back and forth. "Moving is good for you! Moving means you get to go to sleep in an actual bed!"

"I can't," he says. "You'll have to carry me."

Ashton hums like he's actually considering it.

"I could try to fireman carry you, but honestly I don't think it'd go over well," he says. "Besides, I doubt it'd be very comfortable for you."

"Damn," Michael sighs.

Ashton releases him, pulling out Michael's chair and offering both his hands to tug him up. If Michael spends a bit longer than necessary drinking in the sight of him up close, he can blame it on being tired and a little out of it.

"Why do you hate me?" he groans dramatically, taking Ashton's hands and allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. Ashton doesn't release his hands immediately nor back away, so they're standing really close, closer than is properly acceptable for two roommates. It takes everything in Michael's willpower not to take one more half-step forward and lean against him.

"I don't hate you, Michael," Ashton says. "Not even close."

Ashton smiles, a gentle and private thing between the two of them. His eyes are soft, an emotion in them that Michael thinks he recognizes, one that takes his breath away.

Ashton's eyes flicker down to his lips, then back up to meet his gaze. Michael inhales, because he didn't hallucinate that. He knows that he's tired, but he's not that tired.

"Are-- did you just--"

He doesn't know what he's trying to ask, but thankfully he doesn't have to complete the thought, because Ashton is kissing him.

Michael has thought a lot about what it would be like to be kissed by Ashton. Would his lips be chapped or smooth? What would he taste like? Where does he like to put his hands? Would he be gentle or rough? Does he like to lead the kiss or does he prefer to follow his partner? Would Michael enjoy it because Ashton is particularly good, or just because it's Ashton?

Michael doesn't think about any of those things when he feels that first press of lips against his. His first immediate thought is holy shit, then his mind goes completely blank and he kisses back. There's no space for him to form cohesive thoughts because everything inside him kicks into overdrive. He might have been dead on his feet a second ago, but now his whole body is lit up like a live-wire, right down to the nerve endings in his fingers, which have somehow tangled themselves in Ashton's hair. It's beautiful and wonderful and he can't get enough, which is why he doesn't understand why Ashton is leaning back.

"Wait," Ashton says, breathless in a way that definitely makes Michael's heart skip a beat. "Sorry, are you sure you--"

He doesn't even dignify that with an eye-roll, just kisses Ashton again, letting out a pleased noise when Ashton pulls him closer by his waist. When they eventually have to take a breath neither of them go very far, foreheads almost touching.

"So," Ashton says, then clears his throat. "I don't hate you. Obviously."

"Yeah," Michael says. "I kind of got that."

Ashton giggles, genuinely giggles, and Michael can't resist kissing him again.

"You're supposed to be going to bed," Ashton says when they part again.

"I don't want to," he says. "I want to keep kissing you."

"Okay, what about this: you go take out your contacts and brush your teeth, then meet me back in my room. We can keep kissing right up until you fall asleep, then if you're still into it we can continue in the morning."

"I'll still be into it," Michael says. He leans back a bit more, waiting until he's fully caught Ashton's eye again to continue. "I've liked you for a long time, Ashton. I don't think I'm ever going to get sick of kissing you, but I definitely won't after only one night."

Ashton's smile leaves him just as breathless as the kisses did.

"Go get ready for bed," he says. "I'll wait for you."

Michael smiles and takes one more kiss with him for the road.

[firelxdykatara]

Reader anon here with a thought!

Do you like love triangles? I personally don't, there is something about them that is incredibly frustrating lol. Same thing for harems, though there are some that do it tastefully 😌 so I can't be too upset by them.

It honestly depends on the love triangle and the way the author writes all three relationships (and, for any genuine love triangle, there should be three relationships--they don't all need to be romantic, but there needs to be an existing and strong relationship between all three points on the triangle, otherwise I'm almost certain not to be at all invested), how they are presented, and what the narrative purpose of the love triangle is.

Ironically, one of the best examples of a love triangle done well (at least... to a certain point in the story, which I'll explain in a bit) happened in a television show that is fairly notorious for turning to utter shit in the latter four seasons and alienating pretty much the entire fanbase, to the point where most of us dipped well before the end and everyone celebrated news of the show's cancellation.

I'm talking about The Vampire Diaries.

(under a cut because i went on a LOOOONG ramble about tvd and why that love triangle worked initially and then why it failed, and then i talked a bit about another love triangle that was pretty weak and failed almost from the outset in OUAT but was ultimately axed in favor of the stronger relationship and character being given focus, and what all of this means for how i feel about love triangles in general)

While this is still very much a case where I only shipped one side of the triangle, hated the other, and couldn't wait for it to be resolved so that I wouldn't have to deal with the side I disliked any longer (the writing was on the wall as far back as season 1, no matter how in denial a certain portion of the fandom remained right up until the series finale) the development of the triangle itself and how it affected all three characters and their relationships with one another was done very well for most of the first four seasons. Damon and Stefan were brothers, with a bloody and complicated history and relationship, and they both fell in love with this human girl--Stefan almost instantly, because she looked just like Katherine and he found himself... (and here I'm going to be as fair as I possibly can to him, but if you want my full anti stelena rant I have many of them prepped and ready to go) following her, at first to make sure she wasn't Katherine, and then inserting himself into her life to protect her. Damon, on the other hand, took much longer, because he was still in love with (and trying to rescue) Katherine, and so when he did fall in love with Elena, it was because of who she was, not because of some idealized 'Not Katherine' pedestal he placed her on the instant he met her.

(I swear, I swear I'm trying to be fair to Stefan, it's just very hard.)

The thing is, Elena was in love with Stefan almost from the jump. (And one of the reasons I never really shipped stelena is because that kind of insta-love with very little conflict that isn't manufactured by the plot just isn't compelling for me, and I fully jumped ship about halfway through s1 when Damon and Elena took a road trip together. It's a long story, but that remains one of my favorite episodes in the entire show and it marks the beginning of their actual journey together.) Stefan showed up at a time when she desperately needed someone, and to his credit he did help her through her early depressive spiral--in large part because Elena's recent trauma (survivor's guilt due to her parents dying in a car crash from which she was the only survivor) meant that finding out Stefan was immortal and could not die and would not leave her resulted in her getting fiercely attached.

He was safe, he was stable, she could rely on him. But she could not grow with him, because for him, she was essentially a morality pet/the anchor to his humanity, and that meant that he could not accept when she began to grow out of her need for him. The fact that this coincided with her becoming a vampire only made things worse--because she settled into being a vampire much more easily with far less strife than he'd ever managed, and an Elena who enjoyed being a vampire in ways Stefan simply couldn't could no longer function as the idealized reminder of humanity he was desperate to cling to.

Damon, on the other hand, was the one who fell in love with Elena--not Not Katherine. He never put her on a pedestal, he never asked more of her than she could give him--when he realized how deep his feelings for her ran, he made her forget his confession because he knew he did not deserve her and he didn't want her burdened with his feelings when she was still in love with his brother and was always going to be. Elena's growing feelings for Damon coincided with her growth from a depressed and suicidal teenage girl into a young woman who began to realize that it was ok to want things for herself--to be a little selfish, to take what she wanted, to admit what she wanted. And, again, the fact that this coincided with her transformation into a vampire (although her growth within her relationship with Damon began well before that), meant that Damon's reaction to Elena-as-a-vampire was thrown into sharp relief against Stefan's--because he accepted her where his brother couldn't.

Ultimately, this led to Elena fully outgrowing her feelings for Stefan, and accepting, nurturing, and reveling in her feelings for Damon. The triangle was resolved, all three characters had growth separately and in their different relationships, and they could then move on from there along their different paths. Stefan could have had some truly excellent character growth involving moving on and finally living for himself rather than trying so hard to be this perfect brooding tortured vampire because he was the Good Brother, since there was no longer any need for that Good Brother/Bad Brother dichotomy. They'd both grown past it, as characters individually and as brothers together.

Unfortunately, where TVD ultimately failed (and this coincided with the way the show utterly lost the plot in terms of storylines, character arcs and cohesiveness and became an unsalvageable mess) is in refusing to let the love triangle die.

What should have happened is that once the love triangle was resolved--Elena growing as a character and moving on from her immature first love and fully embracing her feelings, as an adult, for her much more adult relationship with Damon--they abandoned the love triangle premise and let all three characters continue to grow outside of it. Damon and Elena should have been allowed to grow together and explore their relationship, Stefan to figure out where he still fit in their lives--as Damon’s brother, and one of Elena’s closest friends who she still loved dearly even though she was no longer in love with him--and then explore relationships of his own outside their family unit as he finally began to fully move on and grow out of his own overly idealized feelings for Elena.

Instead, what wound up happening is that the stelena side of the love triangle kept being teased--probably to keep the avid stelena shipping contingent invested in the story, hoping for ‘another brother swap’ as was lampshaded in one of Nina’s final episodes before she left the show (and, indeed, many of them remained utterly convinced that stelena would be endgame, right up until the series finale)--and rather than growing together, delena fans were constantly hit over the head with how ‘toxic’ Damon and Elena were for each other (even though this ran contrary to everything we’d seen in the show to that point, including having Damon regress repeatedly for, presumably, no reason other than to never let fans forget he was the Bad Brother and always would be, and Elena just couldn’t help but love him anyway), and all three characters and their relationships wound up suffering horribly for it.

That is an example of a love triangle that had a very promising foundation and development, right up through what should have been a resolution, and the reason it is generally looked on so unfavorably in fandom circles is because the show refused to move on from the triangle organically when the story needed it to, because it had already served its purpose.

For an example of a love triangle that, in my mind, simply didn’t work from the very beginning, I’d say my go-to example is from Once Upon a Time--the short-lived love triangle between Emma, Killian, and Neal. I think the first stumbling block there was that there weren’t really three relationships that mattered. Technically, Killian did have a connection to Neal--because they’d met in Neverland, prior to Neal remaining in the Land Without magic--but it functioned more as a backdrop to explain why Killian knew him when they got to Neverland again in the story, and why Neal didn’t trust him. It wasn’t actually developed as anything outside of that brief flashback, and they didn’t have any connection in the present outside of one episode where they essentially fought over Emma and she (rightly) got angry at them for it. There was no real exploration of who they were to each other outside of the fact that both of them had feelings for Emma, so it really was just one woman torn between her feelings for two different men, and with no real stakes attached to her choice.

The other problem with this particular triangle is that one side of it was... conspicuously weak. While Emma’d had a full season and a half worth of interactions and development with Killian--where they went from enemies, to grudging allies, to Killian openly acknowledging that he hadn’t ever believed he would be able to love again until he met Emma--she had... very little to support her potential relationship with Neal outside of their history. History which consisted of then-young-adult Neal knocking up underage Emma (she was 17 at the oldest because she was still in Juvie when Henry was born, and he was already ten years old the day she turned 28; so she was either 16 or very newly 17 when she got pregnant) and ensuring that she got sent to prison for his own crime, at which point he didn’t see her again until she was nearly 30. When he did see her again, he treated her incredibly poorly, up to and including getting angry at her about the fact that she didn’t tell him that Henry was his son--even though he had no right to that information, because Emma was in prison because of him at the time she found out, and she had no clue that he was in any way connected to the Fairy Tale world until she was helping Mr. Gold track down his son and it turned out to be Neal.

A big point is made, throughout the early seasons especially, about Emma’s walls and how much difficulty she has trusting people--and a great deal of that stemmed from Neal’s betrayal. This could have been the foundation for a story of healing and growth and two people coming back together--however, with the way Neal treats Emma in the present and how little closure she actually gets for what he did to her in the past, it comes across more as ‘well, she never did get over her feelings for him, so maybe he still has a shot even though she has no real reason to want to be with him now’.

Killian, on the other hand, never doubted Emma’s abilities and always had the utmost trust in and respect for her (after they became allies), and it was obvious that this is something Emma experienced very little of in her life. It’s notable that the first episode where they really interacted is the one in which Emma’s history with Neal is revealed, and it very deliberately paralleled and contrasted with her interactions with Killian. This already presented him with a leg up on the love triangle once Neal did show up, because Neal was the reason for a lot of the walls Emma had built around her heart, and it wasn’t until meeting Killian that she finally began to let some of them down.

I think that the show recognized this, and it pulled something that is actually a very frustrating pet peeve of mine--rather than write out the story that makes sense and have the main point of the love triangle make a choice and stick to it, the third point of the triad was simply written out. In this case, Neal essentially killed himself via his own stupidity, allowing Emma to angst about losing him without actually having to tell him she wasn’t in love with him and wasn’t going to choose him. (Veronica Mars pulled something very similar with the Logan/Veronica/Duncian triangle in season 2--rather than admit within the narrative that her relationship with Duncan was built on flimsy feelings of infatuation bc of their history, and a ‘stability’ that didn’t really work for who Veronica was at her core, he simply got written out of the story, running away for Plot Reasons and never forcing Veronica to confront the fact that she wasn’t actually in love with him and hadn’t been for quite some time.)

I think that in OUaT, the love triangle could have worked if a relationship between Killian and Neal was not only established in the past but developed in the present--Killian was in love with Neal’s mother centuries earlier, and something I’m actually really upset we never got is the two of them talking about Milah and maybe Neal getting some closure for his mother’s abandonment and someone apologizing to him for what they put Baelfire through as a child--giving stakes to Emma’s choice beyond ‘one of them will be all uwu sad that he wasn’t picked’. It also would have worked much better if we were given any reason for Emma to still have feelings for Neal in the present beyond the history they shared, which caused Emma nothing but pain for the last decade and change. If Neal had treated her more fairly--if he’d treated her like someone he actually cared about and even still loved, rather than blaming her for things that were his own fault and undermining her belief in her own abilities, among other things--then their relationship might have been strong enough to stand on its own opposite Emma’s relationship with Killian. I don’t think it ever would’ve been a relationship that appealed to me, personally, but then I could have at least enjoyed watching the three of them grow together and seeing all of their relationships grow and change.

So, ultimately, TL;DR: I do like love triangles, conceptually, but there are a few requirements they must meet for me to feel anything other than irritated at the inclusion. One: there must be at least three equally important relationships between the three characters. If it’s just one character torn between her (or his, but it’s usually a woman) feelings for two unrelated people, that can be compelling for a short time but ultimately I’m going to be left feeling frustrated by her refusal to just make a damn choice and put me out of my misery. Two: there should be some sort of development in each relationship which makes the presence of the triangle narratively significant. Why is it important for one character to have conflicting romantic feelings for these two other people at the same time? What purpose does it serve either their character arcs or the story as a whole? While I am both a Bangel and a Spuffy shipper, I’ve never considered Angel/Buffy/Spike to be a love triangle--they are very different relationships that she had at very different points in her life, and while her feelings for Angel never really went away (and do cause some angst for Spike near the end of btvs) they are never really competing for her affections in any meaningful sense. If that competition does exist, there needs to be a compelling reason why. And, as a further addendum to this point, I need to at least understand why the main point of the triangle is invested in each relationship, even if I don’t ship it and actively dislike or even outright hate one side of the triangle. (I loathe stelena, but I’ve always understood why Elena was in love with him in the beginning of the show, for example. And before s5/s6, I was really pleased with how the show handled her feelings for him and finally allowed her to grow and move on from them.)

And finally, three: the triangle needs to be resolved at some point--and, when it is, it needs to stay that way. Where TVD ultimately lost me (aside from the ridiculous plot contrivances and rampant character assassination) was the refusal to let the love triangle die a natural death when it is what the story called for, and all three of their characters, their relationships, and the show as a whole suffered massively for it. So, when the primary point of the triangle makes a choice--particularly if she had made one choice in the beginning of the story, but it was clear that she was ultimately moving towards choosing the other side as she grew and her feelings and relationships grew and changed with her--let that be the end of it. Move on to exploring what that choice means for the main pair and the party not chosen, sure--maybe explore their feelings about not being chosen and how that affects their relationships with both of the others afterwards--but don’t constantly tease the possibility of the ‘losing side’ getting back together just to keep shippers invested. It’s only going to hurt your show and make everyone look callous and stupid.

Alternately, a final possibility: make it an ot3 instead. But again, if the other three conditions aren’t met (particularly number two, and its addendum; if I don’t understand why the main point of the triangle is in love with both other points, an ot3 is unlikely to resolve that issue and I’m only going to wind up resenting it), then this won’t work, because it’s just going to wind up a lopsided and stilted mess of a relationship that leaves me wishing the offending point of the triangle had been killed off just so I wouldn’t have to keep hearing about them.