#that i think a lot of guest writers misunderstand

[dennisboobs]

one day i will properly compare dee made a smut film and ptsdee and the differences in the way they handle their very similar subject material but i have shit to do early tomorrow morning so. for now.

do you ever think about how RCG-written episodes, no matter how bad (both character morality-wise and writing-wise) they get, will always have a degree of humanity to them. like. 11x04 has dee doing something that is So incredibly wrong and horrible to dennis. but the reactions to it don't match its intensity. 12x07 again has dee doing something absolutely fucking deranged, and the gang tells her how fucked up it was. there's actually an acknowledgement both from her and from the others that what she did was awful, but her motivation, charlie, dennis, frank and mac's motivations throughout the episode make sense. dee's insecurity is the root of it, she can't handle being someone's "rock bottom", and she needs to prove that it can get worse. 11x04 dee just decides she's going to be a bastard and tell everyone that dennis was raped at 14. we don't know why she does this, and she really has no reason to, other than to be an asshole.

[iamprchung]

The Spider and the FBI: Part 8 "They didn't teach that at Arthur Murray"

Synopsis by guest writer Jose Chung:

Ah, the Fourth of July, a time for fireworks, patriotism, and apparently, romantic entanglements amidst the chaos. Picture this: a bustling square, teeming with folks eager for the grand spectacle, but beneath the surface lies a whirlwind of emotions fit for a daytime soap opera. Enter Scully, a woman consumed by turmoil, and Skinner, a man with a penchant for authority and perhaps a dash of jealousy.

Their heated exchange, set against the backdrop of exploding fireworks, is a symphony of passion and misunderstanding, punctuated by the crackle of gunfire—a plot twist that even I couldn't have scripted better myself. But wait, amidst the chaos, a moment of unexpected tenderness unfolds, proving that love, like fireworks, can ignite in the most unlikely of places. So, grab your popcorn and buckle up, folks, because this Fourth of July just got a whole lot more intriguing!

Preface:

If anyone is wondering about the reference to Arthur Murray, it’s an old school of dance that is still, unbelievably, still in operation. Actually, there’s one not far from me, and each time I drive past it, I grin.

Note the employment of a flashback in this part that I was really, really thinking about taking out, however, it serves as part of the narrative, and I set decided to visually set it apart with a varying font that I hope I can emulate in the different platforms I post this in.

“They didn’t teach that at Arthur Murray”

Part 8 ‘The Spider and the FBI’

By PR Chung

It was nearly dark when Walter Skinner stepped inside the Elmo Sheriff's station. He pushed through the double glass doors and was greeted by the striking sight of a statuesque woman who promptly stood. She gave him a cautious once over before recognition registered in her eyes.

"You must be Walter Skinner," she said as he approached the desk.

"Yes," he answered, reluctantly accepting the fact she had noticed the resemblance between himself and Lawrence because he had not met her before when they brought Bernstein in for holding. The fact that he was actually wearing some of Lawrence's clothing probably helped her identify him as well.

"Sheriff Durokoff and your partner just left a few moments ago, sir." She explained as Skinner took note of her nametag pinned immediately above her left breast: S. GREENBOW.

"She's n-" Skinner broke off his explanation that she wasn't his partner and just nodded. "I know," he said having been wakened by Scully's call only a half an hour before. He knew there were materials being sent from the Albany Sheriff's office, better Gryzwac's mug shots he hoped; the first batch sent then successive copies had only been grotesque blotches of toner. Anything would be good right now considering there was still no word from the agents that were coming from Casper. "We were expecting faxes, have they been sent yet?"

"Better yet, Mr. Skinner," she announced turning to pick up a folder lying on the desk behind her. She was poetically no-nonsense in manner, efficient and courteously respectful. "Scanned and e-mailed just before you came in." She explained handing him the folder.

Why hadn't they done this earlier, damn it? He wondered, opening the folder immediately to check the information sent.

"Apparently, the holiday schedule left Albany without someone who fully understood the resources available to them."

Skinner glanced at her feeling surprised by her answering his thoughts precisely.

Up close like this he realized how extraordinarily pretty she was- most men might have said even drop dead gorgeous, but he was not one to hand out such ample endorsements. Her hair looked incredibly thick although she had it pulled back into a single smart braid, her brows were dark with a perfect siren arch over almond eyes, and her creamy complexion was laid over high cheekbones that suggested a Native American heritage.

"I'm glad Lawrence didn't have that problem today." He remarked returning to his study of the papers before him.

"If you don't mind me saying so," she began to say drawing his attention upward again. "Your resemblance to Sheriff Durokoff is... remarkable."

She smiled and it was delicately flirtatious.

After a moment, not knowing how to respond, Skinner averted his eyes, biting the inside of his lower lip before speaking. "How's Bernstein doing?" he asked briskly, closing the folder. "Been giving you any trouble?"

Her smile withered. "No, sir."

"Good. You're not here alone are you?" He wondered first then glanced toward the hall that led down to the holding cells located at the center of the building.

"No, sir," she answered again, her tone stilted. "There are two other deputies here."

Gesturing with the folder as he took a step back, he nodded and offered a crisp half smile, saying, "thanks for the help."

“Enjoy the show tonight.” Greenbow said as Skinner started to leave.

“Sorry?”

She smiled. “The fireworks show.”

He hesitated a moment, thinking of all the activity in town. “Right. Thanks again.”

Outside the Sheriff's station, the air was filled by the smell of tasty food and the sound of music tirelessly playing in the square. The streets were lined with parked cars, windows draped in blankets as their owners camped out atop the vehicles, ready for the coming fireworks display.

Skinner heard people cheering for a crowd-pleasing number the band was just beginning when he strolled across the street to begin his search of the square for signs of Scully and Lawrence.

Repetitive guitar strumming filtered over the sound system set up in the park, the crowd hooting and hollering as it stopped and then started along a completely different chord, a little musician's trick to throw a crowd.

Hackneyed, Skinner thought as he passed the buzzing lighted sign board with one bulb out and a 't' dangling off the word celebration in the announcement: Elmo, See fireworks here, 2nd Annual 4th of July celebration. Why just the second? He wondered, picking his way around the thick blanket of people camped out on the grass waiting for the Oooohs and Ahhhhs to begin.

The closer he got to the band stand he encountered fewer people sitting, more and more were pressing their way toward the band and the meager dance floor that had been laid out for the occasion.

* "You've got your little ways to hurt me. You know just how to tear me up and leave me in small pieces on the ground."*

Skinner heard the singer begin to holler into the microphone, the band filling in behind his voice with a bawdy sound that wasn't half-bad. The crowd surged with applause and pressed closer to the sound pushing him back out to the fringes of the masses. It was just as well, he thought skirting the back end of the crowd, searching as he went for a single red head he'd lost track of for almost the entire day.

It was no one’s fault but his own she'd been in Lawrence's company most of the day. He tried to believe the fact that he was too tired to join them for lunch, but in all honesty he had only wanted to avoid as much contact with Lawrence as possible, and an excellent job he'd apparently done. He really had been pretty hungry, he could remember being hungrier though, he'd live. But good lord the food smelled good... Maybe, he thought, he could have suffered Lawrence's company just little while— and if only he had...

Well, then this wouldn't have been going on—

* "You've got your little ways to hurt me, They're not too big but they're real tough Just one cold look from you can knock me down..." *

Skinner froze, glaring at the sight of Scully and Lawrence on the dance floor. They were nearly standing still next to the other dancers who appeared to be moving on skates they were gliding through a two-step so gracefully. Scully was laughing, hand in hand with Lawrence who was apparently trying to show her a dance step that she was just not getting.

* "To look at you and me, no one would ever know the pain that I've endured 'cause I won't let it show..." *

Adding to his dismay, Skinner realized it wasn't just the band, but the crowd was cheering for but the antics of their courageous Sheriff and his dance partner.

His eyes grew narrow and dark. What the hell happened to keeping a low profile? He scrutinized the scene, bracing himself against some invisible wall as memories trembled through his mind. This wasn't wait he had expected to find. But what then? She had spent the whole damn day with him. You knew, he told himself. You knew and you didn't do a damn thing about it.

* "My friends would laugh out loud if they only knew The truth about how I am just your lovesick fool..." *

Something in him told him to turn away, but another part- perhaps an older, wiser, braver part of him stopped the retreat. This was inappropriate behavior for an agent, drawing needless attention to her presence—this needed to stop. He started through the throng of spectators as the chorus began to roll out of the overhead speakers...

* "You've got your little ways to hurt me, They're not too big but they're real tough..." *

*************************

"Here you go, hon."

"Well, thank you kindly, darlin." The man said taking his plate away with a huge grin across his face. "Could you be a sweetheart n'tell me when the fir'works r'gonna' be startin'?"

"Uh, well, soon as it gets dark."

He tipped his chin. "Much obliged. Much obliged"

Marie frown as she watched him go, wondering why he was dressed so warm for the weather- it just wasn't cool enough for that jacket, she thought and then wondered why his voice had sounded so odd, almost like he'd been trying to sound like he had an accent.

She watched him disappear through the crowd seeing how he was hobbling a little in boots that looked too small for a man his size.

She leaned closer to the woman working the serving line with her. "Wanda, did you hear how he talked?"

"Who?" Wanda said glancing around briefly not having much time or interest in anything except not sloshing hot barbecue sauce all over her hand.

"That fella I just waited on. Did you hear how he sounded?"

"No, why?"

"I think he was making fun of us."

Wanda handed the plate of ribs off to one man who disappeared allowing yet another to step up to the counter then looked at Marie. "Us? How'd I git' involved in this?"

"No, not just you and me, us, as in us- the town, country folk."

Wanda just looked at her. "I don't know what the hell you're talkin'bout."

******************************

Red faced and laughing breathlessly Scully finally came to a rest on a bench she'd vacated just in time. Durokoff followed, plopping down next to her. He blew out a great breath and laughed again, shaking his head.

"I have never been so embarrassed in all my life," she declared between spasms of laughter.

"Oh, sure you have..." he said. "I'm the one who’s never been so embarrassed in my life."

Scully's laughter stopped abruptly as she jerked her startled eyes up at him.

He looked at her, trying to be very serious but didn't manage it for long. He laughed and patted her on the back. "I'm only teasing."

She smiled shaking her head. "How could you drag me out there in the middle of all that?"

"Moi," he placed his open hand on his chest, mocking offense. "All I did was ask you to dance. They did the rest," he gestured toward the crowd surrounding the dance floor. "I didn't think that was gonna' happen for one minute. Geez."

He could be so countrified, and she believed it was conscious at times, but Scully found it endearing, much like everything about him. She realized she had really become quite taken with this man, and she also recognized the reason she had been so easily, in such a brief period of time.

The answer was only so obvious before it became trite. He was, for all reasons and purposes, the next best thing to a man she foresaw no future with. A man who showed only marginal interest and could show no more, too respectful of proper place and appropriate behavior. In no way was that a terrible thing, it only made him that much more desirable.

"I have a confession to make," she said and saw the wariness pinch at the corners of his eyes. "I was really shocked when I saw you this morning."

"Really, why's that? Hadn't Walter mentioned..."

She was already shaking her head. "I know very little about your cousin's... my superior's life. He's a very private man."

Durokoff's brow creased. "So, there isn't anything between the two of you?"

Scully all but spun on the seat, looking at him, utterly shocked.

"Oh," he said in response to her reaction, pulling his head back in surprise. "I guess not, then."

"No," she laughed, mildly astonished.

"Well, I thought..." he paused looking thoughtfully at the ground, then said, "Well, I don't know what I thought, actually."

Scully tilted her head, cocking a brow. "Yeah, well..."

Durokoff sighed and brushed at something invisible on his thigh. "I was pretty surprised to see you- I mean all of you, that is, this morning," he seemed to be stammering a bit. "I haven't seen Walter in quite some time. I wasn't even really sure it was him at first." He reached up and pulled his hat off fully for the first time since they had met. "Not since before this apparently happened to both of us," he said and grinned.

"Why has it been so long?"

Durokoff shrugged resting the hat over his knee. "A lot of different reasons. We just drifted apart the way family drifts apart over the years. After his mom died, mine and the other sisters tried to keep everyone together, keep Walter within the family celebrations and holiday events but I think after he came back from Viet Nam things really changed. His father died and after that he didn't seem very interested in gatherings or any of the traditions they were trying to keep alive in the family."

He shrugged again. "But he just kept to himself." A ponderous moment passed between them and then Durokoff shook his head, saying, "anyway, now that I've completed my geography slash philosophy lesson for the day... Do you wish to know more about genealogy? Perhaps a slide show or home movies- A sample of DNA to take back to your laboratory.?"

Scully chuckled and touched his arm. "I don’t' have a lab. I hardly have a desk."

"Huh?" He frowned.

She shook head. "That's all right. I feel like I've just snuck through your cousin's closet or drawers as it is."

"His drawers, huh?"

She nodded her head, laughing harder. "Yes, his drawers."

Durokoff joined in her laughter, managing to a few words in between chortles. "I'll be sure to mention this to him."

"No, ho, ho..." she said giggling and gripping his arm harder as if to support herself.

He laid his hand over hers and she looked up in surprise at his touch.

Their laughter drifted, replaced by wondering as they met one another's gaze.

"I really like this," he said with a gentle smile and touched her upper lip with the tip of his thumb, lightly brushing the small beauty mark there.

***********************

Norwalk Senior High School Stary Night Dance Friday, March 22, 1968

*”Drop your silver in my tambourine, Help a poor man fill a pretty dream”*

"Hey, Cubby, where's Ruby?" Skinner recalled Fred Huggins calling to him at high school dance. The guy had materialized out of nowhere at his side. Great, he thought ruefully, this was just the last person he needed to see right now.

"She's here..." a sixteen-year-old Walter Skinner answered, feeling the condensation on the two cups of punch he was holding threatening his grip. Feeling like a real simp.

"I don't see her," Huggins said, craning his head to scan the dance floor.

"She's here." Walter growled trying to adjust his grip on the cups, hearing the least befitting song he could have thought of begin to play throughout the gymnasium- ‘My Green Tambourine.’ "Who the hell decided to play this?" He grunted jerking his gaze around at more couples swarming to the dance floor. "When the hell did this become a slow dance-"

*”Now listen while I playyyyyyyyyy….”*

"Where's Lawrence?" Huggins briskly asked.

"I don't know." Walter began to glower at the rotund, pimply-faced boy beside him. He knew what he was getting at, and he didn't like it. "He's here, too, I guess."

"You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure-" Walter blurted at him jerking his hands with irritation, sloshing the punch from the cups, barely missing his beige tuxedo pants. "Damn it," he yelped taking a quick step back.

"Better be careful," Huggins cautioned. "That stuff is like acid. I think that red color does some bad stuff to your insides."

"What?" Walter looked at him with frank bewilderment.

"Do you think that color is natural? Have you ever seen that color in nature-?"

Walter shook his head hard, trying to clear it of this nonsense. "Here," he said shoving one of cups of punch into Huggins chubby fingers. "Just hold this for me and be quiet."

"Isn't that Ruby over there?" Huggins suddenly said stretching his neck like a giraffe.

Walter looked, ducking, and weaving to see through the ocean of stumblebums. "Where-?"

"Right there..." Huggins pointed and Walter froze.

There she was, his date, across the crowded room and draped over Lawrence like a finely woven piece of silk.

Walter just stared at the two of them dancing, rooted in place, and feeling like a dumbass all over again until he realized...

Elmo, Wyoming July 4th, 1999

Skinner stared across the square, spotting them. They weren't dancing at all but sitting on a secluded bench just beyond a field of blankets and happy faces, just the other side of cavorting children. And it wasn’t his date Ruby anymore that Lawrence was leaning toward...

This is absolutely inappropriate! The mind of the Assistant Director trumpeted while Walter "Cubby" Skinner's first instinct was to go grab his cousin by the scruff of his neck and shake him around like a rag doll.

************************

Dana Scully was enchanted.

Durokoff's touch was soothing, and his voice was filled with earnest emotion. She didn't resist or withdraw when he pressed his lips to hers. For just an instant, a moment when he had hesitated to look in her eyes, perhaps searching for some argument or permission from her, she wasn't looking into a stranger’s eyes. She didn't see Lawrence Durokoff...

"Agent Scully!"

The sound startled her. She jerked back and turned around to see Skinner glaring at her, at both of them. "Sir-?" She exclaimed, immediately standing, shame faced, and guilt ridden.

"Scully, what are you doing, have you lost all sense of duty?"

"I-" she hesitated; her voice seized by humiliation.

"Walter..." Durokoff started, making a helpless sort of placating gesture as he stood. “Don’t, this is my fault.”

Skinner snapped his attention at him, directing a glare of glacial proportions at him. "What kind of a department can you possibly be running in this town while you're out fraternizing?"

"Fraternizing—?"

"No, sir," Scully suddenly said, responding to the last question he had spat at her. Her voice was suddenly succinct, ridged and evenly formal. "I assure you that my sense of duty and obligation is solidly in place."

Skinner looked at her, pissed on all fronts. Their gazes locked in silent battle- cold persecution and blistering resentment passing between them. "Excuse me." she said tightly.

He watched her go, his feelings and thoughts a boiling tumult of agony and yearning, disillusion, and regret.

"You know, Walter," Durokoff said as he slapped his hat back down over his head, annoyed and disgusted. "You're just like your father."

He looked at him, scrutinizing him for a second, before telling his cousin, “Why don't you go climb a tree, Lawrence."

Durokoff seemed confused for instance before his eyes widened, realizing what Skinner had just referenced. Before the man could react, Skinner turned to leave, to find Scully.

*************************

Only a hint of iridescence was left in the western sky- faint bluish lavender caressing the mountain crests. It was dark now for all intents and purposes and the fireworks would begin soon with great booms, shrieking whistles and popping crackles, the air filling with the smell of nitrates and sulfur, drifting smoke, and clamorous cheers.

Overkill perhaps, Gryzwac considered as he screwed the silencer onto the muzzle of his gun. He did this in complete darkness, below the narrow stream of streetlight cascading through the windshield of the truck, working with the components of his labor by feel rather than sight. How often had he done this in the dark, pitch-blackness covering his approach, his intent?

He laid the gun beside him on the seat, slipping it under a paper sack, waiting and watching the hurried activity of the locals before him.

The truck windshield had a crack in it, running the width and splintering off into a web-like pattern on the passenger’s side, still he had an excellent view of the Sheriff's station. Just three deputies, he had counted inside, then counted himself lucky for the premium view again.

He'd managed to find a parking spot for the beat and rusted ford pickup he'd taken in Devil Speak (he loved the names of these towns, they had real style and creativeness), between cars parked on either side of an alley way. Sure, he knew he took the risk of catching attention for the illegal parking job, blocking an entrance and all that jazz, but so far so good.

He was confident there was just too much going on for any of the yokel cops to be inspecting the parking situations along side streets. Although, there sure the hell weren't very many side streets in this town. Just as well, fewer streets between him and the highway once this was done...

**************************

Amidst the bustling activity in the square, with people scurrying to their makeshift seating arrangements for the upcoming show, Scully felt a storm of reactions. The initial hum of nighttime insects was drowned out by the flurry of movement. Even the band on stage was in constant motion, preparing for the fireworks.

Scully's mind, however, was far from the music. She was consumed by turmoil, grappling with feelings of bitterness, indignation, and embarrassment. She yearned for a moment of solitude to collect her thoughts yet feared that overthinking would only worsen her state.

As she sought refuge under a gazebo, she surprised herself by accepting a cigarette from a passing stranger. Once a rebellious act against her father, it now symbolized a desperate attempt to soothe her nerves in adulthood.

Seated on the bench, Scully reflected on her recent actions with a mix of disbelief and regret. How had she allowed herself to become so infatuated and blind to reality? Her fixation on Durokoff, mistaking him for someone he wasn't, allowing herself to forsake her principles and lose sight of her true self.

She puffed on the cigarette, growing angrier at herself, and Skinner

And damn him! How could he have berated her like that?

She knew full well there was a pre-existing problem between him and Durokoff, common differences or some feud caused by a stolen marble during childhood- who knew, but damned if she would be the new crux of their contest.

Durokoff had been genuine in his attentiveness, she wanted to believe this yet couldn't help but feel he'd been vying for her, seducing her on some low-key level- was she to be another trophy, another victory? Another marble in the sack?

Skinner, blustering and masking personal emotion- and that's all it was- spouting policy and etiquette— How could he allow himself to accuse her of personal indulgence?

She drew on the cigarette, blowing out a furious puff of smoke.

Damn that hypocrite!

If she wasn't so mad she thought she might have cried. She was quivering, a mass of vexation, confusion- humiliation, and that was the real issue to draw tears about. Mortification that her weakness had been exposed, that her insensibility to let Durokoff kiss her had been splayed out before Walter Skinner.

Another angry puff, “damn it.”

"What the hell are you doing? Put that damn thing out!"

The boom of Skinner’s voice caused her to jump. She turned her eyes up to him, tiny daggers flying at him as she exhaled and stood. "Yes, sir,” she contemptuously reacted.

Skinner was on the gazebo stairs, hovering one step away from entering, watching as she tossed the cigarette away, promptly sending it into a birdbath just outside the gazebo with a hiss.

"What the hell has gotten into you, Scully?" He questioned her, his brow drawn with emphatic confusion. “What was going on back there? Allowing yourself to be distracted like that? Completely off-guard at a critical time like this? There’s no luxury to explore options here, Scully.”

“Options?” She repeated, stunned arrogance and the implication of her intentions. The begging sounds of crackling and popping fireworks punctuated her statement.

“Come on, you’re smarter than this,” he disparaged her, “a guy like Lawrence has one thing in mind. I’m disappointed you’d fall for his tactics.”

“And you are the last person I thought I’d hear such arrogance from, not to mention petty jealousy to the point of insulting my discretion, both professionally and personally.”

“I don’t know what you’re suggesting—”

“I’m not suggesting anything— I’m stating the obvious.”

“It’s like you’re deliberately trying to piss me off.”

“And why would I do that?”

“I don’t know!”

Fireworks boomed above them outside of the shelter of the gazebo, flashes of sparkling light flickered and danced, illuminating the crowd of people just feet away, entirely enthralled by the spectacle above and totally ignorant of the heated argument behind them.

“I think you do— you think I was trying to get a reaction from you—”

“You’re imagining things,” he scoffed.

“You know, Bernstein was right,” she declared, “he warned me that I was going to end up in some puerile tug of war between the two of you.”

“Is that what you think? That’s there’s some competition going on here?” he was incensed.

“Isn’t there? Really? It’s so obvious, it’s glaring!” she exclaimed, “you’re so absorbed by some protracted dispute between the two of you, whether it be those dance classes you had to take alone, or that he stole all your marbles in a rigged game, or your date at the Clodhopper’s Ball in the school gym— Regardless, I— I got sucked into the middle, and became the prize marble.”

He just stared at her.

The sound of the fireworks display was increasing, building in intensity, the finale soon to come, delighting all spectators.

Scully watched him for a moment, her mouth pulling into a pout. “I’m not a marble.”

He looked back at her and appeared to be mulling over her statement.

Then, his expression unreadable, he nodded, and explicitly said, “it wasn’t the Clodhopper’s Ball.”

“Wha—?”  Her confusion was broken by his suddenness, a motion so abrupt and criminal it took her breath.

In that very moment Skinner took her into his embrace and placed his mouth on hers the world outside erupted, massive bursts of fireworks exploded simultaneously, filling the air with thunderous booms and crackles that reverberate through the night. In a breathtaking climax, the entire sky was lit with an array of colors, creating a mesmerizing tapestry of light and sound. The crowd cheered and applauded, their hearts full of joy and appreciation for the spectacle unfolding.

And every boom, every crackle, and every burst of cheers was a mere hush. All the flashes, all the brilliance of light unnoticed. The only thing Scully was aware of was the soft sigh when their lips touched, a shared breath of release in that pinnacle moment. Their kiss, this first touch, began abruptly only to slow as they treasured the moment becoming lost between right and wrong.

Her senses in a whirl, Scully needed a moment and tried to draw away. They merely watched one another, the dwindling display of fireworks casting shadows across their silent faces.

Scully’s mouth drew into a pleased smile, an entertaining thought occurring to her. "They didn't teach that at Arthur Murray, did they?" she teased him gently.

He shook his head, flicking his brow with diluted amusement. "Nope."

They didn't need the weight of words to burden their decision to continue what had taken so much of them to start. Skinner closed his mouth over hers with an earnestness that conveyed promises and desires in this kiss, that she return with an equaled response.

They were vaguely aware of the end of the fireworks display, and the crowd beginning to shuffle around them, readying to go, to enjoy more music and food. The world entirely on the periphery of a moment of enduring bliss, their lips carefully exploring the others, the entire world was tuned out—

Until they heard it, breaking through their reverie, an all too recognizable and surprising sound.

They parted quickly. "That was gun fire." Scully said, and the crowd began to murmur.

Again, rolling over the square like a whip snap, gunfire sounded just beneath the blast of rockets. Panic swept the crowd, breaking out from the far edges and moving inward, people began to scream and dash in aimless directions. Staggered the band faltered in mid song and soon were evacuating the stage.

"It's coming from the Sheriff's station," Skinner declared and rushed from the gazebo, pushing, and fighting his way through the mass of frantic people swarming in the square, Scully on his heels.

"Stay back, Scully," he called to her, "you don't have a weapon."

**************************

Continue in part 9 the finale of ‘The Spider and the FBI’

[aajjks]

WHAAAAT?! lol i feel more like the reader than writer for this role play. it’s your choice if you want him to ask just know i have a habit of making unexpected twists 😏

mommy issues!JK

you never thought you would be in this position. here you are eating with the father of one of your students and you hate to admit it but you’re enjoying his company. jungkook is very polite and knows how to keep the flow of a conversation. a lot of questions about the “hot parent in ms. y/n’s class” were answered and you’re quite impressed too.

you’re also impressed with yourself because you’re knowledge for cooking is pretty vague jungkook seems to think otherwise, even saying the meal is better than his own mother’s.

you roll your eyes at his compliment, not because you’re annoyed, rather, you think he’s exaggerating. your cooking can’t be THAT good but when jungkook unveils that seol isn’t a big fan of meat, it makes sense why it probably tastes so good.

“i doubt that i can cook better than your mother but thank you” you say as you take another bite of the food but onto the “dinner date,” “parting dinner” or whatever it’s called. you tilt your head a little and look at jungkook as he explains what the dinner is for.

the owner sold the company to the jangs and although you have no idea who those people are, you still listen to what jungkook is telling you until he reveals another jarring secret.

“she’s…wait wait wait, so the new owner is your ex fiancee?”

basically, you’re going to a dinner to make this ‘nara’ woman jealous and if you aren’t, it’s hard for you to see it as anything but that. you don’t jump to conclusions right away because you don’t really know jungkook. what he and jang nara isn’t any of your business either but how can he swear there won’t be any drama when she is his ex fiancee? it’s all a recipe for disaster.

“listen, i’m…i’m flattered you asked me but i’m not sure i can go and you know why. i’m not sure if you’re trying to marry her again but if you want to, just ask? a cheap thrill like this isn’t my cup of tea” you say with hopes you don’t offend your guest but you’re only being honest; this is messy but on a lighter note:

“but, uh, congratulations though! getting the company sold must mean the company is worth a lot of money right? and banking is a good paying job, so maybe one you might be the owner of it, haha”

~🫧

What are you talking about?

He would rather die single and marry someone like her? And he’s ruined it all, hasn’t he.. “w-woah Ms yn I’m not trying to marry her or trying to make her jealous?!” he immediately defends himself, but he remembers to keep his tone in because he cannot get angry at you.

This Reaction from you isn’t shocking because he was expecting this and you probably think that this is some kind of a cheap trick to get her back but why would he want to get her back when he was the one who broke things off with her?

“Uh… please don’t misunderstand… I… don’t want anything to do with her- she’s nothing but my boss… and it’s not like I wanted her to purchase the company…” he sighs, he’s panicking right now because you’re slipping away.

This cannot happen.

“I.. don’t know what to say that will assure you that that’s not really my intention and why would I use you to make my ex jealous? You are out of my league and it would be very obvious know that we’re not really a couple because you’re just too perfect..” he says, looking into your eyes.

Please just agree.

Because he really doesn’t want to lose you, and he doesn’t have any intentions to get her back when he wants to have you. He just genuinely wants to take you out to dinner and he knows that he wouldn’t really agree to go on a real date with him so maybe a formal occasion will do its trick.

“Listen! Alina will be there with her husband, who is my best friend and my coworker… I don’t know… please.” He almost begs, and now he’s getting sad because he cannot force you against your will and he never plans to but what can he do in the situation right now?

“I can assure you that you will have no drama- no crazy ex, and I’m sure she moved on so you won’t have to deal with her being jealous or whatever.” Jungkook stops eating because he feels so panicked right now.

If you don’t want to go, he cannot really force you because you’re not really his girlfriend and he cannot afford to show you his real side.

“ well, I understand if you want to not go because yeah I get it… umm thanks for the meal I guess? I really appreciate you inviting me over and feeding me delicious food…. I hope you don’t hate me.” He says, sadly, “before I go, I have to tell you something.”

He gets up, fixing his shirt. “Ms Chaeyoung? I want to tell you that you should be aware of her… she said some disgusting stuff about you and me… uh.. I just… she doesn’t give me a good vibe.. I don’t want to tell you what she said to me and told me but.. be aware of her, yn.”

“She’s into you.”

[fozmeadows]

race & culture in fandom

For the past decade, English language fanwriting culture post the days of LiveJournal and Strikethrough has been hugely shaped by a handful of megafandoms that exploded across AO3 and tumblr – I’m talking Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Dr Who, the MCU, Harry Potter, Star Wars, BBC Sherlock – which have all been overwhelmingly white. I don’t mean in terms of the fans themselves, although whiteness also figures prominently in said fandoms: I mean that the source materials themselves feature very few POC, and the ones who are there tended to be done dirty by the creators.

Periodically, this has led POC in fandom to point out, extremely reasonably, that even where non-white characters do get central roles in various media properties, they’re often overlooked by fandom at large, such that the popular focus stays primarily on the white characters. Sometimes this happened (it was argued) because the POC characters were secondary to begin with and as such attracted less fan devotion (although this has never stopped fandoms from picking a random white gremlin from the background cast and elevating them to the status of Fave); at other times, however, there has been a clear trend of sidelining POC leads in favour of white alternatives (as per Finn, Poe and Rose Tico being edged out in Star Wars shipping by Hux, Kylo and Rey). I mention this, not to demonize individuals whose preferred ships happen to involve white characters, but to point out the collective impact these trends can have on POC in fandom spaces: it’s not bad to ship what you ship, but that doesn’t mean there’s no utility in analysing what’s popular and why through a racial lens.

All this being so, it feels increasingly salient that fanwriting culture as exists right now developed under the influence and in the shadow of these white-dominated fandoms – specifically, the taboo against criticizing or critiquing fics for any reason. Certainly, there’s a hell of a lot of value to Don’t Like, Don’t Read as a general policy, especially when it comes to the darker, kinkier side of ficwriting, and whether the context is professional or recreational, offering someone direct, unsolicited feedback on their writing style is a dick move. But on the flipside, the anti-criticism culture in fanwriting has consistently worked against fans of colour who speak out about racist tropes, fan ignorance and hurtful portrayals of living cultures. Voicing anything negative about works created for free is seen as violating a core rule of ficwriting culture – but as that culture has been foundationally shaped by white fandoms, white characters and, overwhelmingly, white ideas about what’s allowed and what isn’t, we ought to consider that all critical contexts are not created equal.

Right now, the rise of C-drama (and K-drama, and J-drama) fandoms is seeing a surge of white creators – myself included – writing fics for fandoms in which no white people exist, and where the cultural context which informs the canon is different to western norms. Which isn’t to say that no popular fandoms focused on POC have existed before now – K-pop RPF and anime fandoms, for example, have been big for a while. But with the success of The Untamed, more western fans are investing in stories whose plots, references, characterization and settings are so fundamentally rooted in real Chinese history and living Chinese culture that it’s not really possible to write around it. And yet, inevitably, too many in fandom are trying to do just that, treating respect for Chinese culture or an attempt to understand it as optional extras – because surely, fandom shouldn’t feel like work. If you’re writing something for free, on your own time, for your own pleasure, why should anyone else get to demand that you research the subject matter first?

Because it matters, is the short answer. Because race and culture are not made-up things like lightsabers and werewolves that you can alter, mock or misunderstand without the risk of hurting or marginalizing actual real people – and because, quite frankly, we already know that fandom is capable of drawing lines in the sand where it chooses. When Brony culture first reared its head (hah), the online fandom for My Little Pony – which, like the other fandoms we’re discussing here, is overwhelmingly female – was initially welcoming. It felt like progress, that so many straight men could identify with such a feminine show; a potential sign that maybe, we were finally leaving the era of mainstream hypermasculine fandom bullshit behind, at least in this one arena. And then, in pretty much the blink of an eye, things got overwhelmingly bad. Artists drawing hardcorn porn didn’t tag their works as adult, leading to those images flooding the public search results for a children’s show. Women were edged out of their own spaces. Bronies got aggressive, posting harsh, ugly criticism of artists whose gijinka interpretations of the Mane Six as humans were deemed insufficiently fuckable.

The resulting fandom conflict was deeply unpleasant, but in the end, the verdict was laid down loud and clear: if you cannot comport yourself like a decent fucking person – if your base mode of engagement within a fandom is to coopt it from the original audience and declare it newly cool only because you’re into it now; if you do not, at the very least, attempt to understand and respect the original context so as to engage appropriately (in this case, by acknowledging that the media you’re consuming was foundational to many women who were there before you and is still consumed by minors, and tagging your goddamn porn) – then the rest of fandom will treat you like a social biohazard, and rightly so.

Here’s the thing, fellow white people: when it comes to C-drama fandoms and other non-white, non-western properties? We are the Bronies.

Not, I hasten to add, in terms of toxic fuckery – though if we don’t get our collective shit together, I’m not taking that darkest timeline off the table. What I mean is that, by virtue of the whiteminding which, both consciously and unconsciously, has shaped current fan culture, particularly in terms of ficwriting conventions, we’re collectively acting as though we’re the primary audience for narratives that weren’t actually made with us in mind, being hostile dicks to Chinese and Chinese diaspora fans when they take the time to point out what we’re getting wrong. We’re bristling because we’ve conceived of ficwriting as a place wherein No Criticism Occurs without questioning how this culture, while valuable in some respects, also serves to uphold, excuse and perpetuate microaggresions and other forms of racism, lashing out or falling back on passive aggression when POC, quite understandably, talk about how they’re sick and tired of our bullshit.

An analogy: one of the most helpful and important tags on AO3 is the one for homophobia, not just because it allows readers to brace for or opt out of reading content they might find distressing, but because it lets the reader know that the writer knows what homophobia is, and is employing it deliberately. When this concept is tagged, I – like many others – often feel more able to read about it than I do when it crops up in untagged works of commercial fiction, film or TV, because I don’t have to worry that the author thinks what they’re depicting is okay. I can say definitively, “yes, the author knows this is messed up, but has elected to tell a messed up story, a fact that will be obvious to anyone who reads this,” instead of worrying that someone will see a fucked up story blind and think “oh, I guess that’s fine.” The contextual framing matters, is the point – which is why it’s so jarring and unpleasant on those rare occasions when I do stumble on a fic whose author has legitimately mistaken homophobic microaggressions for cute banter. This is why, in a ficwriting culture that otherwise aggressively dislikes criticism, the request to tag for a certain thing – while still sometimes fraught – is generally permitted: it helps everyone to have a good time and to curate their fan experience appropriately.

But when white and/or western fans fail to educate ourselves about race, culture and the history of other countries and proceed to deploy that ignorance in our writing, we’re not tagging for racism as a thing we’ve explored deliberately; we’re just being ignorant at best and hateful at worst, which means fans of colour don’t know to avoid or brace for the content of those works until they get hit in the face with microaggresions and/or outright racism. Instead, the burden is placed on them to navigate a minefield not of their creation: which fans can be trusted to write respectfully? Who, if they make an error, will listen and apologise if the error is explained? Who, if lived experience, personal translations or cultural insights are shared, can be counted on to acknowledge those contributions rather than taking sole credit? Too often, fans of colour are being made to feel like guests in their own house, while white fans act like a tone-policing HOA.

Point being: fandom and ficwriting cultures as they currently exist badly need to confront the implicit acceptance of racism and cultural bias that underlies a lot of community rules about engagement and criticism, and that needs to start with white and western fans. We don’t want to be the new Bronies, guys. We need to do better.  

[breaking-shadows]

A writer’s perspective...

I’m an Elriel shipper and an avid reader but I’m also a writer, so I wanted to add a writer’s perspective. This wasn’t intended to provide clarity on Elriel or otherwise, just a few thoughts. I apologise in advance for the long ramble.

When we start to get the first interactions between Elain and Azriel in ACOMAF, the stakes are simply not high enough, or there at all. It would have been so easy to have the “quiet” sister paired with the “quiet” brother. But who would have really cared and what impact would it have had on the reader? Very little, I imagine. Graysen wasn’t an established character that anyone cared about so if Elain discarded him for a beautiful, brooding Illyrian, then who’d blame her.

Personally, I would not spend three books dropping breadcrumbs to hint at a build-up between characters if I had no intention of making them end-game. But would I make them suffer to get their happily ever after? Absolutely! Would I put them through the ringer to make them deserve it? Of course, my readers would expect nothing less.

Even if I first intended the two characters to be together and then changed my mind, I would have fizzled it out and drawn a line under it asap.  This hasn’t happened with Elain and Azriel, if anything we’ve had the opposite, and we’re at the stage now where this is a love they’re going to have to fight for, and as a writer and a reader, they’re the best kind.

 Obstacle 1 – Mor

While Mor was never really a barrier for Elriel to overcome, Azriel’s feelings for her are still something that needs to be addressed. We’ve had hints of it in ACOSF, Azriel’s gazes of pining and longing towards her are less, but this is an issue that still needs resolving in the upcoming books. For their well-being if nothing else. Plot wise, it adds very little tension because as readers we know it will never be, as a writer, it needs an honest conversation between these characters.

Obstacle 2 – Lucien

We’ve had the set-up of mates and all the importance that comes with it with Feyre and Rhys, and now Nesta and Cassian.

Lucien, a beloved character, who deserves the world, is introduced as Elain’s mate during a highly charged, fraught ending in ACOMAF. Now as a reader, my reaction was: Oh! I thought she’d end up with the quiet one. And as a writer it was: Oh! What of she ends up with the quiet one? Suddenly, the stakes are a little higher, we have a barrier, there is something in the way of an easy get-together. Especially when we learn more about mating and the Blood Duel which is still legal in the Autumn Court.

At first, when Lucien goes to the Night Court with Feyre, it is because his mate is there, and he is nothing more than a guest in their court. Elain isn’t interested in the mating bond with Lucien, so fine. Reject the bond and move on with Azriel, very little to overcome. Except, fast-forward to ACOSF and Lucien’s dynamic has changed with the Night Court. Court politics come in to play. He is no longer a guest, but an ally that ties several of the courts together. They cannot afford to lose the support of the other courts. Which leads me on to:

Obstacle 3 – Rhys

I have read lots of posts with people furious with Rhys saying he was OOC etc. For him and Feyre, the dynamic changed in ACOSF, therefore, he had to change with it. He has a pregnant mate; which instinct tells him to protect at all costs. They have just faced a brutal war that affected them all and can’t put his people through that again, can’t put the ones he loves through that again and there is a shadow of one on the horizon.

All great plot points aside, that one scene in Azriel’s POV and we’re hit with the forbidden love trope. We have longing, we have tension, we have a barrier in the form of someone Azriel loves and respects deeply. The stakes are not suddenly high, they’re astronomical. What a mountain to overcome!

Obstacle 4 – Azriel and Elain

Elain needs to become something to be reckoned with. I loved the glimpses we got of her on ACOSF, she was beginning to fight back, she had bite, but now we know there is more to come – and I for one cannot wait. And as character development – oh the places she could go. She has feelings for Azriel, that is established, so no qualms there.

Azriel – this boy is a mess. Personally, he needs to love himself before he can offer anyone anything, but what a beautiful journey that could be. I didn’t lose my shit at his POV, it was a snap-shot of a moment. No, it didn’t scream of love for Elain, but previous actions have shown feelings that go beyond sexual, sitting, talking with her until the early hours etc. The scene was designed to tell us how much he wanted her. A trait often described with SJM’s males. He needs to get his shit together.

Obstacle 5 – Gwyn

Now, let’s look at the addition of Gwyn (who I adore btw). This one seems to have the ability to make or break Elriel. From a writer’s POV she has amazing potential. Azriel already has feelings for Elain so she isn’t really something to overcome, but she has already caused tension. I don’t see her as a distraction, given her background, (poor girl has been through enough) I wouldn’t want her treated like that and nothing in Azriel’s POV indicated that. She could be a friend, a different type of friend he so badly needs, a confidante, someone to help him heal. Could be.

We also have the potential of misunderstandings, which can add immense tension to a relationship. Will Elain see Az and Gwyn together and have her heart broken because she thinks he has feelings for her when really he’s confiding in his love for Elain? Maybe. (Not even touching on that necklace!) At this stage, for SJM all things are possible, and that is incredibly exciting.

Let’s say SMJ does indeed intend Gwyn and Azriel to be end-game. We’ve had sprinklings of interactions between them ranging from polite to sweet to a little flirty.

The moment with Gwyn in Azriel’s POV, I’ll have to admit, knocked me for six. I can see it; I can see them together and how she would be good for him. But for it to negate four books worth of build-up, I don’t see it happening, from a writer’s POV, and as a reader, I’d wonder what the point was. But I’m not SJM and there is a possibility she could go down this route. For me, for this to be worthwhile in the eyes of the reader, their story is going to have to be EPIC, otherwise the pay-off isn’t worth it. But as a writer, what a journey that would be.

In compense, Elain would have to do something magnificent, would have to step into her own. She herself could become something to fear, the Persephone to Koschei’s Hades. (I hope not but look at the potential). The only thing here is the relationship between Az and Gwyn. His feelings for Elain are the only source of conflict. It’s possible Azriel has had enough conflict and just wants to love and be loved in return. Gywn could offer than, but I think it’s missing something.

 I think my main point, though poorly executed, is writing is a rollercoaster, and the readers are the ones in the carriages with white-tipped knuckles, gripping on tight. If it consisted of a 2-metre straight track, you’d wonder why the hell you bothered. So, however this ends, sit back and enjoy the ride and be kind to each other, whoever you ship. It will be heart-breaking and gut-wrenching, and emotional. It will hurt like hell, but by god it will be worth it.

 Didn’t expect this post to be so long – forgive me!

[felassan]

Zero To Play podcast episode: John Epler, Narrative Director at BioWare

In the most recent episode of Zero To Play podcast the guest was John Epler, Narrative Director on DA4. He talked about narrative games, how they fit inside an industry leaning towards games as a service, his experience being at BioWare for almost 14 years, and advice that he has for aspiring devs who want to create memorable, impactful and transformative moments in games.

The episode summary read as follows:

In this episode John brings his 13+ year experience being at BioWare and working on titles like Mass Effect & Dragon Age: Inquisition to explain how he believes storytelling will evolve and develop through the medium of games.

He shares some of his favorite moments and why he thinks games are the most powerful and interesting medium to be exploring in this generation.

It’s a good and interesting interview, so worth checking out if you can! You can listen to it here or on Spotify.

This post contains some notes on what was talked about in the episode, in case a text format is better for anyone (for example folks that can’t listen to it due to accessibility reasons). It’s under a cut due to length.

A bit of paraphrasing.

The average dev stays with a game company/studio for about 5 years. John joined BioWare right after the EA acquisition happened.

[on going into Trespasser] “Myself and the Lead Writer Patrick Weekes both knew that we needed to wrap up at least this part of the Inquisitor’s story, and set up where we want to go next with the franchise, with the IP. We learned a lot of lessons from DAI itself. DAI was a game with a lot of exploration and open-world content, and while we stand by that (I still think it was the right call for the game), one of the pieces of feedback we got from the fans was that they really wanted some more directed storytelling. Jaws of Hakkon was more of a continuation of open-world, more free-from exploration and free-form design. Trespasser was our opportunity to tell a story in a much more linear and focused way. [this way of telling stories] really does help to be able to create that sense of pacing and emotional escalation. It’s a lot harder to do that when you’re mixing up storybeats with big, wide open-worlds. Trespasser was a project where everyone was kind of in sync, we were all building [towards] the same thing.” 

-

“There were [story]beats [in Trespasser] that I don't think we would have been able to get away with in basegame DAI, one of those being the - quite frankly - incredibly lengthy conversation you have with Solas at the end. Because by this point we knew that if someone is playing this DLC then they are in it - they’ve been in it for the last two DLCs, they’ve played through the entire game, they want something incredibly story-focused. And we were able to really dive deep into that, some of the deep lore, some of the narrative. This was one of the only conversations that I’d worked on which, due to limitations of the engine, we actually had to break into two different conversation styles because it was so massive. We also got opportunities to do some fun callbacks. One of my favorite ones was one Patrick suggested which was, ‘What if I [didn’t like Solas much and] spent the entire basegame telling Solas I didn't want to hear anything he had to say?’ So we had the option that if you never chose ‘Investigate’ or a dialogue option that implied that you wanted to hear him blather on, there was one dialogue option that you could pick which was basically ‘Solas, when have I ever wanted to hear any of the shit you have to say?’ And it just kind of wrapped up the conversation super quickly, and Solas looked exasperated. It was fun because it’s not the kind of thing you can necessarily do in the main game, but in a DLC which is entirely for those core fans, you have a lot more options as to what you can do.”

John has an understanding of games as an interactive medium.

“Choice of combat, choice of mechanics, all of that does have an impact on the storytelling and on the narrative that you’re trying to put through. A lot of storytelling in games is trying to make sure that the - there’s a phrase, ludonarrative dissonance - [for example, say] I’m making a game where I’m trying to make the player feel powerful. How do you [do that?] [...] In games, this is kind of the challenge. Interactivity is so key to it. [...] It’s a lot harder [compared to characters in film] to put the player in a situation that they are going to lose, because as soon as you take away that autonomy, you’re taking away some of that interactivity. [...] If as a player I'm making you feel strong and powerful, and then I pull you into a cutscene and suddenly you’re losing the fight, you’re losing what’s going. That is a much different sensation, that is something movies can get away with that games can’t.”

-

“What are [players/our audience] actually meaning when they say that they ‘want choice’? I think that in a lot of cases we conflate that with ‘Oh, they want to make a big decision that changes the world’. But in a lot of cases what players want is the game to react to what they’re doing and the choices that they’re making in a way that feels organic and natural. I think this is something CD Projekt Red and the Telltale games did really well - of making it clear when the game is actually going to pay attention to what you said or did, so that when you see it later you’re like ‘Oh right yeah, I made that choice, the game said it was going to remember it, and it remembered, this is cool’.

And it doesn't always mean completely changing the course of events. The Telltale writers, as they got on through the games, they realized that the better way to address choice - and something we’ve done too - is, if we make the game have three endings, four or five - like DAO had an absolute massive amount of ways that it could turn out. How do you pay that off if you want to do a sequel? There's basically two choices. One is that you make an incredibly short game because you have to account for these very different branches, OR you collapse them and say ‘Sorry, this is what we’re going with’. And I don't think either of those are necessarily satisfying. For me it’s about making the players feel like their time and the choices they made have been respected. More than anything else that's the key, it comes down to understanding your fanbase, what it is they’re looking for, what it is they’re asking for, because there is that desire for choice, reactivity, consequences. And it’s something that BioWare, that we’re especially sensitive to because it’s always been a big pillar of the games we make. It’s just about understanding what this actually means from a practical standpoint and how you execute on that in a way that makes your fans feel satisfied, while still not writing yourself an impossible check to cash, because, you know, you can react to anything, but if you have a game that ends in three separate ways, you have to go with one of those two options and neither of them is going to be intensely satisfying to the player.”

-

“A phrase I’ve been using is, what I'm describing as - the half life of quantum. ‘Quantum’ is what we say when it could be like, one of six different things. The half life of this is how long before you actually resolve that down to a single point. Like, provide the player with that reactivity, but collapse those into a way that you can proceed forward. This is 100% a lesson learned from Dragon Age, for all the games. ‘Ok, what do we do with this? Holy shit, that is huge, how are we actually going to pay that off?’ Reactivity, but without putting yourself in an impossible-to-win situation [from a story/writing standpoint].”

-

“More than anything else, the advice I would give [to aspiring devs] is, come up with some fundamental pillars of your story and of your design. There's a misunderstanding that we plan out the exact story for years in advance. We know what we want to get to, we kinda know how we’re going to get there, and a lot of it is just making sure that you have those pillars and those razors. So as you go through development and find, ‘Oh this piece is not working, this piece is clunking’, you’ll always have principles that you can go back to. What is important about this story? Does the piece that isn't working satisfy any of those things? If no, then we have to change it or get rid of it.”

-

[more advice] “Don’t be afraid to fail (I say fail here as a good thing). Don't be afraid to put something out there and have it absolutely torn to shreds. Feedback is your best friend, having people that you trust to provide that feedback. If I were building a big epic narrative, a big epic franchise, [I’d advise that you] start with your principles and the core of what you want to do, and then just start putting out ideas. ‘Here’s my idea for this story’. It’s easier for me, I'm inheriting a lot of work that's already been done, a lot of ground that's already laid - I have a Lead Writer that has been doing this longer than I have, PW is fantastic. But for myself, it’s just been a lot of like, okay, taking this stuff that's already been built, and making sure that I know what we want to do with whatever the next project is. It sounds overly reductive and overly simplistic, but it really is about just having a really strong sense of what is important to your franchise, what’s important to your brand. If you’re coming up with a new IP, it’s a little trickier. You need to spend some time thinking: what’s the tone, what’s the setting, what kind of story do we want to tell.”

-

[more advice] Don’t be afraid to heavily reference existing media [as actual razors, internally]. But that's not something you ever want to have go out to the public, because people go like ‘Oh, you’re just being derivative’. It’s like no, we’re just leaning on cultural touchstones that people know, so that when you’re communicating with people outside your discipline, or with people above you like executives, they can at least get a sense like, ‘Oh I kinda get what you’re doing, okay that makes sense’, versus ‘Let me first of all explain the entire history of the world’. My experience with executives is that they don't have time for that and justifiably so. But if I tell them we’re doing X but with Y and Z it’s like, ‘Ok cool, we get that’. [...] It’s a tiered approach. You have levels of detail that you provide to different people based on what they need to know. You yourself may need to know the history of these characters and how they relate to each other and the thousands of years of history for that, but the person building combat probably doesn't need all that detail and just needs to know ‘What am I working with, how do these characters fight.”

-

“A razor is a statement that you use to slice away what doesn't fit. The narrative razor for Trespasser was, I can’t remember exactly, we were basically trying to go for the Avengers meets Indiana Jones, Winter Soldier. Avengers meets Winter Soldier. [a razor is] a statement that you take all the content [by], ‘Okay, does this actually fit this statement? No? Okay, get rid of it’. It’s about focusing your game. Cutting away the ideas that don't really fit is how you avoid scope-loading and people crunching, and how you keep your project focused.

Trespasser was an intensely-focused DLC, in that it focused on basically two main core things, Solas and the fate of the Inquisition. Everything kind of wrapped into those two razors. As we were going through content, we had stuff like - I said this at a GDC presentation in 2016 - the Qunari are farming lyrium to make Qunari templars. And then we looked at it like, how does that apply to either razor? It doesn't, it doesn't fit either one of them. So we simplified it to, ‘Okay, what actually makes this work in the context of what we’re building?’. [a razor is] a statement that you use to slice off what doesn't fit into the game that you’re building. It can be painful, but having strong razors means that it never comes across as a personal thing.”

Narrative does not mean story.

Two of his least favorite mechanics in games [not including Stalker and DayZ] are weight limits and weapon degradation.

On games as a service:

Interviewer/host: “Talking about games as a service, it’s definitely something that is talked about a lot in gaming in terms of the most successful games. With Dragon Age, putting DLCs out is kind of maybe that same influence, but games that are launched and then iterated on and updated and pushed with content every month, like Fortnite, Riot Games, League of Legends, Valorant etc, that's kind of I feel where the trend of games are trying to go and make the most of those interactions between other people, to make replayability possible and easier. How do you see narrative, do you see it being forgotten with this increase of games as a service? [...] Do you see that as a positive part of narrative in games or do you think there’s still work to be done in that space?”

John: “[...] The place we start to see some confusion, a lot of people think it’s one or the other, but to me, it’s another way, another option for telling stories that by their nature have to be different. I think that's where you need to be, again, very cognizant of what you’re building and of the genre you’re working in, because a story that works for a more traditional box product is not necessarily the kind of story that would work for a games as a service product. [...] Games as a service, understanding what the cadence is that you’re planning to deliver to and what kinds of stories best fit that cadence - some games are better at it than others.

One game that did a pretty decent job of it is Destiny 2, through patches. Final Fantasy 14 is another example, they do a lot of their storytelling between the big expansion releases as part of their free patches. They always know that they have - I think, five big patches? - between each expansion, and they’ve structured their stories to fit into that very specific five-act structure. If they tried to do it weekly or bi-weekly it would be a very different experience. I think there’s always room for narrative. It’s about knowing that there are different lessons to learn and not being afraid to learn those lessons, as opposed to trying to fit the traditional box product square-peg narrative into a live service round hole. And that’s why you need to have a strong vision and why you need to have somebody at the Director level who understands and plays the kinds of games that you’re building, so they kind of understand what works and what doesn't - ‘This type of story worked really well for this game, and I'm not saying you should copy it, but you should at least be willing to learn those lessons and not reinvent the wheel every time.’

We’ve been making games for a long time now, there’s lots of lessons to learn, we should be trying to learn from them and not trying to like, change everything every single time.”

-

[on length of narrative] “In a lot of cases you know how long your game should be and the hardest part is sticking to that. [...] There is always a worry that fans are going to see a number and be like ‘That’s not big enough or that’s not long enough.’ I do think that there is sometimes a lack of confidence in what you're building, and a desire to make it shorter or longer, but I think at the core, the people building [a] game know how long it’s going to take to tell this story that they want to tell. I say this specifically for narrative, but even stuff like progression, you know how long you want it to take. For myself, I will always take a short but well-executed game over a long game that feels that it has a lot of [useless/boring] padding. It’s about identifying the kind of game you’re building. Open-world games are always going to be bigger and longer than more linear games. Being confident in that number and recognizing when you’re adding time and space for no other purpose than just to make that number on the back of the box longer [is important]. Fans don’t love that, they can see right through that.”

-

“It was nice to see the amount of hard work that went into DAI rewarded by the press [with the Game of the Year award]. There are definitely parts of it that didn't land that we wish we could have done differently, but it was a project that felt like we were all pulling in the same direction and when we started getting that positive feedback, it was definitely a sense of relief. Especially because a lot of us had been on DA2, and while we were proud of that project, it obviously didn't get the reception that we wanted at that time.

[when they were watching DAI’s release and tracking its reception] We’re keeping a running tally, like ‘Okay, this is really looking like we did something special here’. I’m proud of every project that I’ve worked on but DAI is definitely one that I’m especially proud of.” 

-

“Part of the advantage to being at a company for as long as I have, I've worked with a lot of the other people [responsible for things in other departments like art, writing, audio etc], so while there is that anxiety like ‘I reeeally hope that this works out’, I know it’s going to, because I know that everyone who is doing these roles, like our Animation Director, our Audio Director, Levels, all those other people on the project know what they’re doing and they know their shit better than I could ever hope to. So I’m just kind of standing here like ‘Hey y’all this is what we need’, and it’s coming in. And when it does come in, when you see the pieces together - I think for myself, on DAI, the moment that I first finally started feeling like it was really all coming together was, one of our music designers, going into one of the moments at the end of Redcliffe, doing the music/audio pass, and me finally seeing this scene that I’d been staring at and banging my head against for months - turn into something that actually conveyed emotion, that actually was something that I was excited for our fans to get to see and get to experience. That’s always a special feeling.”

Cinematics is one of the last things to come in, which means that audio is always waiting for them to come in: “They always did an amazing job with very little time, I will never not praise our audio and music designers.”

“Patrick Weekes is the Lead Writer, which means ultimately PW is responsible for the writing side of the game. As Narrative Director, I’m there to offer, to basically take the vision of the project and interpret the part that focuses on narrative and then provide that to my team - because I work with writing, cinematics, level designers and everyone - I’m there to be like ‘Hey this is the narrative we want to achieve’, which sometimes involves getting involved in the story side of things. But a lot of that is PW’s job as Lead Writer, they’ve been doing it for a long time, they’ve been in the industry longer than I have. It’s a really good working relationship. We worked together when I was in cinematics and they were in writing, we worked together on the Iron Bull, then we were both leads on Trespasser, so we have a trust.

I think what’s been really helpful is that they know that if I tell them something’s not working, it’s not coming from ‘I wanna do it my way, you better just do it my way because I’m the boss’, it’s coming from ‘This is something I think we need to do for the project’. And vice versa, if they push back on me about something, I know it’s not coming from ‘Screw you I'm the Lead Writer, I make the decisions’, they’re saying it because this is an actual concern. I do writing, I’m a writer on the project too but I will fully admit PW is a way better writer than I am, so I'm comfortable leaning on them for that stuff, and then I’m the person who can provide that ‘Okay, we know that gameplay is providing this, we know levels is providing this, let’s shift the priorities'.

It’s also about knowing, being able to take that back from any one discipline and say ‘Okay, what is the right decision for the project as a whole’, and sometimes that means telling PW something that they may not think is their favorite thing to do, but they will listen because they trust me and I trust them. I don't know how it works at other studios, there are places where Narrative Director is also the Lead Writer, or where there is Narrative Director and Lead Writer is the highest authority on narrative that exists, but it’s worked for us again because we have that lengthy experience. It would be interesting to see how it would work if we didn’t know each other for a while before this. It’s largely a relationship of trusting each other to know our areas of expertise and also just understanding what’s important to the narrative vision of the project.”

When they did Tevinter Nights it was ‘extracurricular’ work: “It was fun, I got to do some writing, I got published, which was really fun”.

[source]

[☕ found this post or blog interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

[fantastic-nonsense]

Hi, sorry same person who asked where you got your Batman info. I should have been more clear. What I meant was where do you get your comics? Do you buy them at a brick and mortar store, or a place online? I’m asking because you have singlehanded gotten me invested in Batman, and I have no idea where to find comic books.

Ohhhhh okay, it's all clear to me now! Sorry for misunderstanding, lmao.

First of all, welcome to the fandom, and I am both thrilled and distraught that I've dragged you into this nonsense: good luck, honestly, and I'm happy to help answer any questions you might have as you start learning and reading more.

Second, some helpful terminology and discussion before I actually answer your question, since you're (probably???) new to reading comics altogether:

Superhero comics are traditionally written in what's known as runs; an author gets to have an extended period on an ongoing (or limited) title where they (traditionally) write in 4-8 issue story arcs; think of these arcs as chapters in a potentially never-ending book. These individual issues are colloquially known as floppies. Every so often, titles end, the principal author on the titles switch up, or they'll have "guest/interim authors" come in to do single issues or a single story arc.

These story arcs are then collected in what are known as 'trade paperbacks' (generally referred to as trades, occasionally TPBs), which collects the entire story arc in a single paperback/hardback book. Trades are super useful if you want to read an entire story at one time, want to be economical about your comics spending, and/or want to read things in order. Occasionally, if a writer has a particularly long run on a title or a big company event happens, you get published omnibuses that collect an entire event or run (or part of it, if the event is big enough).

So when I talk about "Tom Taylor's run" on the Nightwing title, for example, I'm talking about the current writer, who's been the main author on the Nightwing title since March and just finished his first story arc ('Leaping into the Light', which starts at Nightwing #78 and just concluded last Tuesday with Nightwing #83).

A pull list is a list of comic books that, traditionally, are set aside each week for you at your local comic book store. It's basically like having a subscription/membership to a particular comic book.

Obviously, traditionally this is a very literal 'pull list' that the shop employees literally pull from the shelves for you, but it's become a more unofficial term in recent years as people buy more and more digital comics. For a lot of people, when they refer to their pull list they really just mean "these are the comics I'm actively reading and consciously keeping up with right now" (my current literal pull list is Nightwing, Batman: Urban Legends, and Wonder Girl, but I keep up with a few others-Robin and Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, for example-via occasional buys, social media, and online reading; mostly, I'm waiting for trades to come out).

So that being said, when I buy comics, I get them from a variety of places:

I do, in fact, have a local brick & mortar comic book store that I get floppies and trades from; I don't usually buy floppies, but when I do, I normally get it from them. LCS's are unfortunately dwindling in number, but if you have one in your area, I highly recommend supporting them!

There's also this huge used bookstore run out of an old warehouse where I used to live (and where my parents still live, so I still get to visit it occasionally) that has a large comics/graphic novel section; I've gotten quite a few of my comics for dirt cheap from them.

Amazon and Ebay are super convenient and awesome places to buy trades; I've bought the majority of the comics I own via this route, tbh.

If you're more into digital comics (space issues, you prefer reading digitally, etc), I get mine from Comixology.

And if you’re dirt poor and can’t afford anything, getcomics.info is a safe site where you can download comics for free.

You can also read them for free (without downloading) at https://readcomiconline.li/, otherwise known as ReadComicOnline. When I do meta or post screenshots, I'm usually grabbing panels from RCO (mostly for convenience's sake).......needless to say, a lot of people read their comics using RCO, lmao.

Like I said, welcome, and let me know if you'd like a few digestable, reader-friendly comics to get started with!

[letsbeoutoftouch]

Back in December 2016, during a sleepover, my friends and I decided to watch EXO's Chanyeol's most recent movie, "So I Married an Anti-Fan". It effortlessly became one of my favourite movies, so much so that I rewatch it —at least— once a year.

Therefore, when it was first announced that South Korea was going to produce a drama based on the same story, I was thrilled. The feeling only increased when I found out that the male lead was Choi Tae-Joon, whom I loved because of Suspicious Partner. Later (to be more precise, this year), I discovered that the other lead was the one and only Sooyoung from SNSD!

The drama was filmed back in 2018, and it was supposed to air a loooot sooner, but it had a few problems and it finally came out this year. Since I don't like waiting for episodes to come out each week, I waited until it finished airing to watch it... And, today, I finished it!

So, here's my review, fresh out the oven!

· · ·

So I Married an Anti-Fan is a 2021 South Korean drama, featuring Choi Tae-Joon, Choi Sooyoung, Hwang Chansung and Han Ji-Ahn. It's based on the novel "그래서 나는 안티팬과 결혼했다" (So I Married an Anti-Fan), written by Kim Eun Jun and published in 2010.

· · ·

♡ PLOT:

The story revolves around Hoo Joon (Tae-Joon), a well-known idol, and Geun Young (Sooyoung), a magazine reporter. They meet during an event, where a series of misunderstandings leads them to have a bad impression of each other.

For this reason, when Geun Young loses her job, she's under the impression that it was Hoo Joon's doing and is therefore keen on "reveal" Joon's real character. However, her retaliation backfires, and she attracts a lot of attention as his "anti-fan".

Later, a TV producer approaches them both to star in a reality show. Geun Young and Hoo Joon accept and think to give each other a hard time on set. But, as time goes by, they get to know each other better and better.

· · ·

♡ EPISODES:

It's made up of 16 episodes, running for an hour each (i.e., your typical k-drama).

· · ·

♡ CHARACTERS:

-Geun Young (FL): She's the best character, hands down (I swear I'm not being biased because I love Sooyoung).

For some reason, I've seen a lot of bad comments about this character. I don't truly understand why some people said that she didn't stand up for herself or that she was so-so, when she dealt really well with everything that had happened to her. I'd like to see all those people in her shoes—I bet they'd have cracked up quickly.

Also, she's like the least toxic character I've ever come across in a drama. She waits patiently for Joon to deal with his problems and doesn't jump to conclusions regarding his relationship with In Hyeong and Jae Joon. She lets him do his thing, is an independent woman, and tries to be as little of a burden as she can to the people she cares about. So, props to her!

▫ ▫ ▫

-Hoo Joon (ML): Although I overall liked his character, I admit that if I hadn't previously watched the movie, I'd probably be wary of him at the beginning. But, don't worry: as the story progresses, you get to know him better. He's patient and thinks of other people's feelings and well-being a lot (sometimes, a little too much for his own good, but he's a good boy).

I felt the need to include that there was this one scene where he acts... In a way that I didn't find appealing. Fortunately, he isn't like that all throughout the drama. Also, he isn't toxic like a lot of the male leads in drama-land. If you're wondering which scene I'm referring to, here's a spoiler: *SPOILER ALERT* When he and Geun Young start dating, they are requested to film an advertisement together. In the filming, he acts all "jealous" because the dress she was wearing was too short for his liking. I'm sorry, but she's the only one who has a say on how short a dress she's wearing is—not you, not even if you're her partner *END OF SPOILER ALERT*.

▫ ▫ ▫

-JJ/Jae Joon (SML): Jae Joon is the second male lead, and he was portrayed by 2PM's Chansung.

I'm sorry, but I never could come to terms with this character, not even during the last episodes. If the writers' intention was for me to hate him, they (and Chansung's acting) totally achieved that purpose.

He is incredibly selfish and keeps this attitude up to episode 13/14. Towards the ending, the story tries that the audience feels some sympathy towards him—it is shown why he acted the way he did. Nevertheless, in my opinion, while his past may explain his actions, it doesn't justify any of them. That's why I couldn't bring myself to feel sympathetic or empathetic towards him. *SPOILER ALERT* In fact, I think Hoo Joon was too nice to be there for him in the last two or three episodes. *END OF SPOILER ALERT*

He's also outright abusive. *SPOILER ALERT* I mean, he slapped In Hyeong and broke her laptop ¿?... Even though I didn't like her that much, nothing justifies that kind of violent behaviour. *END OF SPOILER ALERT*

▫ ▫ ▫

-In Hyeong (SFL): She's the second female lead, portrayed by actress Han Ji-Ahn.

Oh, man. I had a hard time trying to wrap my head around this character. I was just going to say that I couldn't stand her because she was always purposely putting a spanner in the works, making everyone's life difficult.

However, as I was drafting this review, I began reflecting on the character and felt sympathy for her. She was in a vulnerable place—leaving aside that she felt abandoned by her first love, she had trouble trying to make her career take off, and she was in a really abusive relationship. It could be argued that JJ and In Hyeon were both toxic to each other, but it was clear that he was the one with the upper hand (he was the CEO of her new agency, which brings a real disbalance of power).

Moreover, it was hinted several times that all she went through took a toll on her mental health (*SPOILER ALERT* she was always taking pills to calm down, and she freaking tried to kill herself!!!!!!! *END OF SPOILER ALERT*). I believe she needed professional help to put herself back together, so she could let go of her past and finally leave that abusive relationship.

· · ·

♡ COUPLES:

Since this drama mostly gravitates towards romantic relationships, I'm including this section.

▫ ▫ ▫

-Geun Young x Hoo Joon: They are your typical enemies to lovers.

In the beginning, their relationship was tainted by a lot of misunderstandings, which led them to hate each other's guts (but, where's the charm in a k-drama that isn't filled with misunderstandings, am I right?). Once they started to spend more time together, they began understanding each other better. In time, they were able to leave their pride aside and got rid of their prejudices (yes, the story gives Jane Austen-ish vibes, so much so that "Pride and Prejudice" is mentioned a few times).

Their chemistry was alright. I would have changed some parts of the script that made a lot of scenes to be super cringey—especially, before some of their kisses (like, what a way to ruin such an awaited moment!).

The thing I liked the most about them was that neither of them was toxic, and they knew how and when to give the other person space. They were sweet, but not unbearable sweet—just the exact amount.

▫ ▫ ▫

-In Hyeong x Jae Joon: I don't know if they can be considered a true couple, but I'm adding them here just to repeat that I HATED THEM TOGETHER.

· · ·

♡ SOME PERSONAL INTERPRETATIONS AND THOUGHTS:

For me, the story tries to show the two sides of the same coin: things that may seem completely different, but are essentially the same. You can see it with Hoo Joon/Geun Young, their friends, and even with Hoo Joon/Jae Joon. Of course, this could be argued—it is just my personal impression.

Also, while the drama condemns some of the toxic fan behaviour, it sometimes romanticises it. *SPOILER ALERT* one fan freaking kidnapped him, and everything was suddenly alright ¿¿ Nuh-uh *END OF SPOILER ALERT*

· · ·

♡ DRAMA VS. MOVIE:

As I mentioned above, there's a prior Chinese movie from 2016 that was based on this novel. It features EXO's Chanyeol, Yuan Shan Shan, SNSD's Seohyun, and Jian Chao.

For obvious reasons, the story is shrunk down in the movie. There are a lot of things that weren't included in the movie, other things were overly simplified, and some stuff was missing and/or changed.

If you want to have a good laugh, then I recommend you to watch the movie. It's filled with non-sensical comedy that, in my opinion, China excels at. However, if you are more inclined towards drama, then the South Korean version is the one for you (you'll laugh, too, don't worry).

· · ·

♡ SUMMARY:

This is, basically, a sweet enemies-to-lovers, famous-person-and-normal-person story. If you like any of those troupes, then you're in for a treat.

It's a really lighthearted story that will make you laugh. Don't expect a complicated plot because there won't be one. It's ideal to have a break from all those dramas where you can't miss a single detail because you'll get lost, or from those dramas which plots are so heavy they end up tiring your mind out.

I loved the cast, and their acting was great (especially Chansung's, because he made me hate his character with a passion, lmao).

ALSO, if you like Sung Hoon (My Secret Romance, Oh My Venus) like me, then WATCH THIS DRAMA, lol. He has a guest role in some episodes!

· · ·

So I Married an Anti-Fan is available on VIKI!

· · ·

If you read the whole review, thank you very much! I hope you liked it.

[bamfdaddio]

X-Men Abridged: 1979

The X-Men, those globe-trotting mutants that have sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, are a cultural juggernaut with a long, tangled history. Want to unravel this tapestry? Then read the Abridged X-Men!

(X-Men 117 - 128, X-Man Annual 3) - by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, Terry Austin, George Perez

See Jean? Dark Phoenix is nothing: this is how you turn evil properly. (X-Men 123)

So, these things have been getting longer. Whoops.

Last year, plotlines tended to bleed over in one another, but this year is a lot more arc-based, jumping from location to location. This is basically X-Men: World Tour. After hitting Antarctica and the Savage Land, our team of merry mutants visits Japan, Canada, Egypt, Scotland and even a theme park! (And really, both Murder World and Disney Land are run by capitalist scumbags who pretend to be in it for the art, the only difference being that Arcade purposefully murders his guests.)

But, before we check in with the X-Men, we return to the Institute. See, there’s a mutual misunderstanding that wouldn’t be out of place in a Shakespearian tragedy: Jean and Charles think Beast and Jean were the only survivors of their fight with Magneto in Antarctica, while the rest of the X-Men believe they were the only survivors and Jean and Beast perished. Since the X-Men have been trapped in the Savage Land, nobody has been able to clear up the confusion.

With their grief driving a wedge between her and Charles, Jean leaves the mansion to deal with her feelings on her own. (She’ll end up on Muir Isle.)

This is adorable! And, if the whole "Empress of the known Universe "-thing blows up in her face, she can always become a barista at Starbucks. (X-Men 117)

Lilandra successfully persuades Xavier to leave Earth as her consort, now that there is nothing left for him. Xavier agrees, but not before having a flashback to the time he met another telepath named Amahl Farouk in Egypt. (The Shadow King isn’t relevant just yet, but he’ll become an important villain later on.)

The X-Men, meanwhile, cross a treacherous ocean on a raft and are picked up by a Japanese vessel. The Japanese do not allow them to call anyone, for some reason. Sure. When they finally dock in Japan - six weeks later - some arms dealer named Magnum Moses has put Agarishima is on fire. Like, literally an inferno of such big proportions that even Storm can’t do much.

What follows is an uninspired, slipshod adventure. For some reason, Misty Knight and Colleen Wing are there too, because the president needed American detectives to investigate Magnum Moses (?) and for some reason, Misty doesn’t know Jean thinks Scott is dead, nor does she mention she just saw Jean to Scott. AUGH. It will take almost a year for Scott to figure out Jean isn’t dead and it becomes increasingly more contrived. I get that Claremont needed to isolate Jean to make her susceptible to, er, a certain someone’s machinations, but holy fuck do I have to suspend my disbelief for all of this bullshit.

The only good things about this little arc are:

Sunfire is still a dick.

Wolverine meets Mariko Yashida, a Japanese girl who actually reciprocates his feelings, as opposed to Jean. I’ve mostly been ignoring his budding feelings for Jean, because I stopped finding love triangles interesting since I was 16 and watched The OC, so I can only applaud this development. Mariko brings out Wolverine’s soft side and it’s very adorable. Later on, she moves to NYC for some reason and they start dating.

There is something sweetly disarming about calling Wolverine ‘beautiful’. (X-Men 120)

Anyway, Magnum is holding Japan hostage: either they give him what he wants - I think that might be money, sorry, wasn't paying attention - or he sinks Japan by activating the fault lines and you guys, I am sooo bored. Unsurprisingly, the X-Men stop him and for once, it’s Banshee who gets to play the most important part.

It’s a good thing I was terrible at science, otherwise I might have to point out that earthquakes and sonic waves don’t work that way! I simply get to be entertained by little rascal Colossus, plugging his ears like a toddler, and Sunfire’s gritty determination to not be impressed by some silly screaming Irishman. (X-Men 119)

Banshee pays a steep price for the victory, however: his vocal chords end up damaged, leaving him effectively powerless for the remainder of the year.

Oh, and here’s interesting fact about the above spread: you may or may not know that Chris Claremont and John Byrne were notoriously terrible at working together; this issue became a particular sore point between the creators. See, Byrne wanted to run the above panel without the sound of ‘Kra-Koom’, believing the art was strong enough to convey the destruction. He was livid when the finished product ended up containing a sound effect after all. I get your frustration, man, but if you want a writer who knows how to say less with more, you should maybe not work with Claremont?

(One of the reasons Claremont liked being so verbose and descriptive in his scripts was because otherwise, the artist would fill in the blanks using his own imagination. It’s no wonder these two found it hard to work together.)

On the flight to the US of A, Colleen Wing hits on Cyclops. It has to be the jawline, right? It can’t be the personality. All of a sudden, a snow storm causes their plane to be diverted to Calgary. The cause of this delay is Alpha Flight, who want their Wolverine back!

When even the narration is all “and they think they’re equal to any team of superheroes”, you know you’re a bunch of C-listers. Ugh. (X-Men 121)

Vindicator, previously known as Captain Alpha. He changed his name after accidentally shooting Moira that one time, which is exactly the kind of hollow gesture this dude would make. Ugh. If you think his new-found remorse won’t let him threaten an airplane chock full of innocent passengers, you would be wrong.

Shaman, doctor by day, magic user by night. Him and his magical little pouch are to blame for the snow storm.

Sasquatch, Canada’s answer to the Hulk. (Hilariously, the theory on why he turns furry instead of green is because he’s closer to the Aurora Borealis and this somehow messes with the radiation?)

Snowbird, a young Arctic goddess. Precious. To be cherished. Barely there for this adventure, sadly.

Northstar, an arrogant, hot-headed speedster, the twin brother of

Aurora, a lover, not a fighter. Together, they have light powers.

Vindicator and Shaman hog most of the spotlight, so Alpha Flight continues to be the ever-loving worst. They’re really wasting Northstar’s first appearance here. Here's why they suck:

Alpha Flight accidentally smashes a plane and keeps threatening to drag Wolverine back to the military against his will.

They push the cover price of the comic to a whoppin’ 40 cents.

Johnny fuckin’ Hudson even provokes Storm into an attack in the middle of a mall.

Shaman lets his blizzard get out of control.

After Storm fixes this mistake for him, Northstar has the gall to knock her out, “because she’s obviously the strongest”. Like, you’re not wrong, but damn, y’all a bunch of unpleasant superheroes.

To stop the fight, Wolverine decides to turn himself in. The X-Men leave, but while flying back, they already make plans to save their teammate. Wolverine saves them the trouble, casually sauntering into the cockpit while claiming that pulling a fast one on them was the easiest thing ever.

To be fair, I understand why you’d want to put a country between yourself and those bozos.

And finally, the X-Men are home! Xavier left them the equivalent of a Post-It saying “off to space”, so they try to pick up their life as best they can. None of them contact Jean’s parents, make an attempt to visit her grave or happen to see Beast on TV and by now, my suspension of disbelief is stretched so far that it could replace Reed Richards on the Fantastic Four.

Ororo, meanwhile, makes a little pilgrimage to Harlem, to the building she grew up in before she moved to Cairo.

I have failed you as a recapper, because I have absolutely no idea how to parse this scene. (X-Men 122)

I think I’d have to write a full-on thesis before I could properly analyse this, because so many things intersect here: poverty and racism, the boundaries of a superhero comic, confronting a (shared) past. I can’t even fully gauge if this is a clumsy, privileged attempt at tackling a serious topic or rather, a valuable moment in a comic that continually tries to expand on its themes of racism, exclusion and prejudice. One thing I will note is:

Luke Cage delivers the sort of trite conclusion that they’re superheroes: they’re better at fighting Galactus than at fixing the human condition. Point is, he kind of has to believe that, doesn’t he? It’s the sort of blind spot we all permit ourselves: you can’t fix everything. None of us have the power to fix the earth, or humanity, or the economy, or whatever: if you’re lucky, you can maybe tend to your own garden and leave it better than you found it, ensuring some happiness for yourself and a few loved ones.

Chasing bank robbers is easy. Superhero stuff. But here? Who do you attack here? These kids, or the system that failed them? You can’t really punch a needle exchange into being. Maybe that’s the appeal of superhero comics: there’s a clear villain, which is so sorely lacking in our day to day lifes. There, we are ruled by systems that are rooted in inequality, patriarchy, gender...

But Storm isn’t like Luke Cage, not in this regard. Before she became an X-Man, she used her powers to help people that came to her. And the whole point of the X-Men - other than beating up villains in colorful spandex - is that they want to change the system. They want to fix things, they want to fix a dark part of human nature, the part that hates which we fear.

Storm doesn’t really respond to Luke Cage here, but we know she’ll keep fighting the good fight, despite insurmountable odds. You can’t fix mankind, I don’t think, but you can sure as hell try.

*coughs*

Anyway!

Black Tom and Juggernaut hire Arcade… to kill the X-Men! I’m not sure why? I thought these two usually attempted to solve things on their own and Arcade’s fee is, like, a million bucks, so…? Maybe Black Tom asked his boyfriend what he wanted for his birthday and Juggernaut clenched his fists and said “I WANT THE X-MEN DEAD” and things escalated from there.

So, Arcade is a subtle villain. While Scott and Colleen Wing are on a date, this happens:

I can’t decide which is funnier: kidnapping people by sneaking up on them with A GARBAGE TRUCK or the fact that Spider-Man deduces this is Arcade’s doing by the noise alone. (X-Men 123)

Spider-Man doesn’t really figure into the rest of the plot, by the way.

Arcade successfully kidnaps all of the X-Men (and their dates: Colleen, Amanda and Betsy). Who is this Arcade? Well, he is an assassin who lets his victims run through a gauntlet of some sort, testing them with potentially deadly results in his Murderworld. He’s like a discount-combo of Saw and the Joker, except a lot less competent and a lot more spoiled rich kid. He barely kills anyone, ever, until maaaybe Avengers Arena, some forty years later.

Arcade veers heavily to the silly side of the silly-to-sinister scale, but he at least commits to a theme. Bonus is that trapping your heroes in a bunch of ricocheting balls fubars them ever-so beautifully. (X-Men 123)

This whole adventure is very silly and has very little bearing on the overarching plot, but it’s a fun enough romp: Cyclops nearly gets squashed by a hydraulic press, Nightcrawler gets attacked by bumper cars with chain saws attached to them, stuff like that. The absolute best part is when Colossus is hypnotized by an illusion of the KGB and becomes THE PROLETARIAN.

His insignia is Vladimir Lenin, y’all.

After various shenanigans, everybody is freed from their respective booby traps, everyone except Colossus. See, Piotr has been feeling down, torn between the exciting new loyalty to the X-Men and the more dutiful loyalty to his family and his motherland. (Also, he’s been feeling like a failure because he came up short a couple a times, aw.) Those feelings are exactly what Arcade has been abusing, but when Colossus comes in for the kill, Storm gives the most heartfelt plea:

I’m not crying, you’re crying. (X-Men 124)

Arcade’s all: “Eh, can’t win ‘em all” and yeets the X-Men out of Murderworld. The story has barely any other repercussions, except we stop seeing Colleen Wing and Betsy (Piotr’s date) after this. To be fair, being kidnapped by a super villain is a good reason to stop seeing someone.

Even more inconsequential is the adventure in the Annual. The only important thing to glean from there is that, when Thor is unavailable, Storm is a suitable substitution. Couldn’t agree more.

The quality of the comic has been steadily ascending throughout the year and ends on a supremely high note: Proteus. Because I think it might be Claremont’s best work so far, I’ll be dedicating a full post to that. (Man, that 10-picture-limit is a real bummer, huh?)

Ugliest Costume: I don’t care, I just want someone to cosplay the Proletarian.

Best new character: There’s actually a few options - Snowbird, Northstar, Proteus - but both Jean-Paul and Narya don’t really show their best sides this year, so I’m going in a different direction. My pick is the Shadow King. He is a very effective foil to Xavier, perhaps even moreso than Magneto. I know I rag on Xavier and his cavalier attitude to bending others to his will a lot, but imagine if you had his powers: wouldn’t you just make people do whatever you want? Just, like, all the time? The Shadow King is an effective reminder of what Charles would have been like, had he been immoral. (Well, more immoral.)

No matter how cool your psychic battle may be, this is what it looks like to the rest of the world. (X-Men 117)

Turns evil: Colossus, for the first time!

What to read: 117, 125 - 129.

[iamanartichoke]

[please blacklist spoiler tags: #loki tv series spoilers, #loki series spoilers, #loki spoilers]

Yes, I did just watch episode 2 at 5:30 in the morning.

No, I am not sorry. Not at the moment, although when I inevitably crash later this afternoon, I will be.

Just some very, very quick - and scattered and messy - thoughts: That is a straight up lie; they’re definitely scattered and messy but not very quick at all.

Under the cut for spoilers and length.

I’m going to start with Loki’s characterization. My honest opinion is that Loki’s overall characterization feels like a fic characterization. He definitely is not Avengers Loki, like, at all. I don't know if Tom just, like, forgot how to play that Loki or ...?? That, or Loki was so much more mind-controlled than we realized and getting hulk-smashed just completely reset him back to zero but also fucked him up a little bit and affected his personality, kind of like how some people completely develop weird new personality quirks after a traumatic brain injury.

… yeah, I think that’s where I’m gonna land for now. TV series!Loki feels like a more-or-less canon version of Loki, but if that Loki got hit in the head really hard and now he’s just a little bit fucked up but overall no worse for the wear. Which - it may be that it’s so early in the morning, but that’s actually really fucking funny to me, lmao. God, I kill me. It’s not funny.

No, but, that’s pretty much how I feel. He’s ooc but he’s also ic, and the reason I’m not particularly bothered by the inconsistency, for lack of a better word, is because that’s what pretty much every fic Loki already feels like to me? (Including my own, so I’m not, like, saying that in a derogatory way.) Which is why I say Loki feels like a fic!Loki and to try to explain it better - there is always, for me, a little suspension of disbelief that I employ when I read fic. The reason for that is because the context, the plot, and the dynamics of the fic are usually pretty different than what we ever get in canon, so it becomes a matter of taking film!Loki and, like, bending him a bit in order to fit him into the perimeters of the fic.

The result ends up being that I don’t see the exact Avengers!Loki or TDW!Loki, and thus by definition the portrayal is ooc, but the version that I do see feels like a genuine extension of the canon version, possessing enough of Loki’s overall traits and characteristics that he feels authentic, albeit a bit pretzeled for the new context.

I honestly think that’s something that’s unavoidable, just due to the fact that in fic - and now, in this series - there are a lot more variables at play than there are in the films, wherein Loki is not just a supporting character but also the villain/antagonist and is therefore very limited in what he does/what the narrative allows him to do. When those limitations are taken away, what are we going to see? Probably a lot of different things, and yeah, a lot of them are going to feel a little ooc. And, like in fic, even if the characterization mostly lands, there are definitely bits and pieces (some fics more than others lean this way) where the author didn’t stick the landing or got carried away or otherwise probably forgot for a while that they were writing Loki, not their own OC.

That’s the point where it strays into cringe territory for me (and where the ‘heh, he’s Loki but with a brain injury’ aspect comes in), but while I had to consciously decide to just ignore those moments, overall the tone in this episode felt a bit more balanced between the new, the old, and the cringe, and less whiplash-y from the beginning of the episode to the end.

… I have no idea if that makes sense, but what I’m basically saying is that while I am enjoying this version of Loki, I do recognize all of the ways he’s ooc but, unlike how I feel about Ragnarok!Loki, the ooc-ness feels genuine and unavoidable rather than just a fundamental and careless misunderstanding of the character altogether. In other words, I feel like any ooc-ness here is happening despite the writers taking care to do their best, and isn’t just a result of Loki being lazily written by a person or persons who just doesn’t want to bother with him at all.

Again, I don’t know if that makes sense, but fuck it, there we are and I’m moving on.

I liked all of the little details, including again, things that felt straight out of fic, like Loki asking Mobius why he has the jetski magazine. (Also, if any of my thorki friends read this, was I the only one who noticed that when we see Loki reading the magazine, it just happens to be open to a page with a picture featuring a jet skier who looks like Thor? l.m.a.o.)

Loki interrupting things to explain the difference between illusions vs the other power (I can’t remember which one, off hand, and if I stop writing to go look it up I will lose my train of thought and not finish this) was great, but his overall input and contributions to the missions inspired very mixed feelings for me. On the one hand, I loved that the narrative, via Loki, is reminding us of all these things that he’s capable of that the films generally left out or brushed aside or ignored - but, every time he spoke, he was met with eye rolls and sighs and just a general feeling of “someone please shut this guy up” and I didn’t like the narrative treating him that way.

But also, it’s understandable bc none of the people on his team are actually on his team. None of them want him there (story of Loki’s fucking life), none of them trust him, and none of them are particularly interested in hearing what he has to say. So it’s like, I understand why they reacted the way they did, and I don’t think their reactions are meant to support an overall narrative undermining of Loki’s skills and input - but, the tone is hard to read for me bc I am very defensive and protective of Loki. I can’t quite determine the line between the TVA agents being unreliable narrators (ie, they’re annoyed by Loki bc of who he is to them, but that doesn’t mean the audience is supposed to feel the same) and the TVA agents validating that Loki is just being a nuisance (and, thus, the audience is supposed to feel the same).

That is, I know how I am consuming the narrative (that they’re unreliable narrators), but I’m not sure if that’s how tptb are intending for me to consume the narrative - and I guess it doesn’t really matter, but it’s worth mentioning.

In general, I really liked, again, Loki existing in his own space and watching the way he carried himself. I especially found it interesting that his hands were almost always in his pockets - for one thing it's a stance I tend to imagine him taking often in fic, but also it’s kind of a weird choice bc pockets don’t seem to be a thing in Asgardian clothing. It makes me feel like Loki is the kind of person who never knows what to do with his hands but is always conscious of them, as is common among anxious and self-conscious people, and I just find that relatable on a weird level.

I am really kinda torn on Mobius in this episode; when not interrogating Loki, he’s much less antagonistic toward Loki and therefore I’m more inclined to take-him-or-leave-him but I’ll go ahead and take him I guess. Yet at the same time, bc he’s not interrogating Loki he’s also not trying to put on a show for Loki and when you take that away, he really doesn’t seem to like Loki at all. It supports that Mobius only wants what Loki can do for him and doesn’t actually particularly care about him as a person, which is fine and more or less what I figured, but it contributes to me not really being able to decide how I feel about him in general. Idk, though, I kinda like their dynamic? Like I want them to end up friends?

Regardless, Tom and Owen have amazing chemistry and it’s really funny to me bc (not to be a jerk) I honestly didn’t know Owen Wilson could act. Like, I’ve never seen him in a role where he wasn’t just playing Owen Wilson. So for him to not only be playing Mobius so well but also having such chemistry and a sense of holding-his-own against Tom Hiddleston is like, color me surprised but pleasantly so.

I like B-15 a lot, even though she obviously hates Loki, so idk why I like her but I do. I like Renslayer less, but meh. (Side note - when I was in undergrad in Syracuse, I took the Amtrak from Syracuse to Boston and back more than a few times, for reasons that aren’t relevant, and that route always had a layover at Albany-Rensselaer and every single time I see Renslayer’s name, I want to call her Rensselaer instead.) Shout out to the guest appearance by Casey, sorry Loki stole your juice lmfao.

The moments from the trailer that were very cringe were less so in context (though still kinda cringe, tbh). I think we’ve seen most of the content from the trailers in the first two episodes now, though, which means going forward, it’s going to be like 95% previously unseen material (aside from the brief apocalyptic shots and so forth).

One thing I fucking loved was how Loki, reading about Ragnarok, was visibly affected and even teared up a bit, and you could tell he was in his feels about it, but then later when Mobius expresses sympathy, Loki is just like, “Uh huh, very sad, but anyway.” It was a subtle (well maybe not that subtle) but effective way to remind us that what Loki presents to other people is more often than not a mask and he keeps his true feelings close to the chest. It makes last week’s breakdown have even more of an impact, I think, bc clearly Loki was at the end of his rope to allow himself to show that much raw emotion and vulnerability, but also - for me - there’s a niggling little doubt there that wasn’t there before, in that there was probably more performance in it than I thought.

By which I mean, I think his reaction to the film of his life when he was alone was genuine but, while I previously thought his admission to Mobius later was also genuine, I now think was probably half genuine and half performative. I know others already figured that out, but I’m a little slow and, also, I don’t mind changing my opinion and interpretation from week to week.

Along the same lines, I wasn’t exactly surprised to see that Loki is “undercover” in the TVA, but it was nice to see it acknowledged fairly quickly. Not sure I buy that Loki wants to overthrow and rule the TVA - it’s still a little too “Loki only wants a throne” for me, but again, just because that’s what he told the variant doesn’t mean that’s actually what he’s after.

And, finally, I like the variant, I love Loki’s reaction to seeing her, and while I realize that the show has acknowledged Loki’s gender fluidity and we’re meant to assume that Lady Loki (I guess? Not sure if we’re going with that or not here) is Loki, I saw a theory somewhere about how this is actually not Loki-Loki, but - I wanna say her name Sophie but that’s the actress, again I can’t go look it up bc I will lose my train of thought - but it’s a character who is similar to Amora and who was created by Loki and models herself as Loki but she’s actually someone else.

Ugh I can’t remember the details of the theory, but I am kinda going with it bc I don’t think that Loki would look so - not surprised but just kind of “oh, well, I wasn’t expecting that” if he were seeing the female version of himself. Like, he doesn’t seem to recognize her the way I assume he would recognize himself, male or female. Not only does that make me feel like she’s actually someone else, but also not recognizing her as the female version of himself doesn’t necessarily mean Loki doesn’t recognize her at all. He may very well recognize her as this other Amora-similar character and, if so, I really want to see how that character fits with MCU Loki (as I think she’s a comic book character but, again, I’d have to go back and find that theory).

Edit: I found a version of it here.

Overall score, B-. Mostly solid, but needs moar Loki breakdowns and tears. (That's just me, don't fucking judge me.) Also, I really hate that we have to wait a week between episodes. I wish they were following Netflix’s method of dropping the entire season at once but, then again, if they did that, I’m not sure any of us would survive.

I gotta get ready for work and I deleted and rewrote so much of this and it still seems nonsensical to me, lmfao fml. Anyway feel free to interact/send me asks/whatever, it’s going to be a long fucking day with all of this on my mind. I’ll be working my way through my dash as best as I can.

Oh, also! Loki is so fucking pretty in this episode! The TVA suit is ugly, but he makes it work, and his hair's combed nicely and he looks like he finally got an opportunity to sleep and shower and eat something and, yknow, it's working for him.

[221bsunsettowers]

The Kingdom Lights Shine Just for Me and You (TK/Carlos Royal AU): Chapter 4: Your Heart is a Beating Drum

TK Strand is a Prince who has given up on true love after having his heart broken.

Carlos Reyes is a Knight who longs for true love but must put his family's needs first.

Carlos just won a jousting tournament hosted by TK's father.

The prize?

An arranged marriage with one Prince TK.

A 9-1-1 Lone Star Royal AU

Previous chapters can be found here 

Chapter 4: Your Heart is a Beating Drum

In which Carlos and TK struggle with the poison revelation, there is a misunderstanding leading to cracks in emotional walls and mutual softness, and Carlos meets his new security detail, Judd and Marjan.

Carlos opened his mouth, but no words came out. He found himself unable to do anything but sit there, staring, gape-mouthed, at Tommy, hands gripping the base of his chair hard enough his knuckles turned white."Are you sure?" he heard TK ask, but the words seemed muffled, making their way towards Carlos as if through water.

"It was in his goblet of wine," Nancy answered, and Carlos' head shot up, his wide-eyed gaze drawn straight to TK, whose face was drained of all color.

"You saved my life," Carlos whispered, the first words he had been able to get out since the news had so abruptly arrived. TK's eyes were immediately on Carlos, and Carlos found he could already easily read the question in TK's gaze. "The wine. I stopped drinking as soon as I saw you were uncomfortable. I only had perhaps two sips, maybe three."

"That would explain why you merely got so ill," Tommy said, nodding in agreement.

"Merely got so ill?" TK's voice was suddenly raised, his face now flushed, tone full of anger. "If he wasn't here-"

"Of course, I understand," Carlos cut in, unsuccessfully attempting to control the tremble in his voice. "I will go pack my things at once, Your Highness. My presence will no longer cause you discontent." He managed to remind his body how to bow, his voice to say, "Thank you all for your kindnesses," before quickly making his way back towards his chambers.

"Was that your goal?" Grace gently chided, and TK could merely shake his head, before sprinting  after Carlos.

"I fear that there has been a misunderstanding," TK burst out, throwing open the door to Carlos' chambers, stopping short as he was met with the sight of a bare chested Carlos, holding in one hand the tunic he had just been wearing in the kitchen, in the other hand the clothes he had arrived in.

"I fear there has not been," Carlos sighed, eyes downcast as he held the tunic out to TK, whose gaze was still frozen on the expanse of Carlos' skin. "I will not take anything I did not arrive with."

"Carlos, stop, please," TK pleaded, gently wrapping his fingers around Carlos' wrist. Carlos twisted away, pulling his own shirt on before reaching for his bag.

"I do not wish you to be harmed!" TK did not register the volume of his voice, or the tremble weaving in around his words, only that Carlos had not yet picked up his bag, that he had not yet moved for the door. "If I am discontented, it is because a villain could have killed you the prior evening!" TK's eyes were wide, and his chest was heaving, and he was almost shouting, and Carlos could not tear his own eyes away. "And I cannot have that. I will not have that."

"TK," Carlos breathed out, soft and surprised, laying his hand gently on TK's shoulder, squeezing once in reassurance. "I am not harmed."

"I know," TK murmured, rubbing his face harshly between his fingers, the air and energy seeming to deflate as he sunk onto the corner of the bed. "But you were in pain. It was mere chance that you are not..." A shudder rippled through TK's shoulders, and he shook his head, refusing to continue.

"It was your example, actually, that ensured my recovery," Carlos said with a smile, crouching down and placing a grounding hand on TK's jittering knee. "I think, TK, I shall be joining you in abstaining from wine from now on."

This startled a wry chuckle from TK, who nodded, a smile beginning to turn up the corners of his mouth again. "My name sounds much better from your lips than Your Highness. I am glad I have earned back the right."

"I am still amenable," Carlos assured him with a smile, and TK's face crinkled into a full grin, before he moved to join Carlos on the floor, sitting cross-legged with his hands clasped in his lap.

"I do not wish you to depart," TK admitted softly, staring down at his hands. "I wish you to be safe. But as this is an arrangement my parents are determined to see through, I am glad it is you by my side."

"I am glad to be by your side," Carlos assured him, reaching over and resting his hand on top of TK's. TK unlatched his own fingers and turned one hand up, interlocking his fingers through Carlos' and squeezing softly.

And then just as suddenly TK was pulling back his hand, cradling it to his chest as he stood up and walked towards the door. "You must be tired still," he said softly, staring at the door, his back to Carlos. "You should get some rest. I will make sure there is someone stationed outside your door to ensure your safety."

"Thank you," Carlos whispered to an already closed door, TK somewhere on the other side.

Carlos had completed returning all garments to their proper places and was just attempting to settle back into the bed, when a knock sounded on his door. "Yes?" Carlos called out, and a tall man with broad shoulders entered the room, a large friendly smile on his face.

"Hello there," the man said. "My name is Judd." He gestured to the woman who had moved up to stand next to him. "This is Marjan. TK has requested that we arrange protection for you given what occurred at the banquet."

"We have been instructed by TK to ignore any protests you may provide," Marjan added, her eyes sparkling mischeviously. This startled a laugh out of Carlos, who shook his head with a rueful smile.

"I am a knight," Carlos said, gesturing towards his sword, now carefully cleaned and returned to its scabbard. "I have been more than capable of protecting myself for many years now."

"We have seen you joust, we fully trust in your capabilities," Marjan promised. "We would welcome you joining our training sessions."

"But TK..." Judd trailed off, leaning back against the wall. "He has endured a lot this past year. More than his share. Finding his own way to keep you safe seems highly important to him. Which brings us here."

"Will he have enough protection still?" Carlos asked anxiously. "I am sure you already have a protocol in place, given TK must order protection such as this for all guests. I would just have assurance he will not be left unguarded."

Judd and Marjan exchanged a knowing smile before answering. "This is the first occurrance, in fact," Marjan replied, a smirk playing across her lips. "Before he has always left all security to his father. Even with Prince A-" She stopped herself short, pinching her lips together, smile falling away. "That is not a name that should ever be mentioned within these walls, or anywhere ever again if I had my say."

"I will not ask or speak of him," Carlos promised, and Marjan gave him a quick nod of respect. "I just wish, I would know more of what occurred so I could understand and help, so I could know if there is ever a chance..." Sighing, Carlos rubbed his hands over his face. "It is not my place and I will not attempt to make it so."

"We are very fond of our little prince here," Judd said with a chuckle, and Marjan snorted with laughter. Carlos raised a surprised eyebrow but found himself unable to stop himself from laughing along. "He is our family. And we have not seen him smile like this in far too long."

"Which may very well be the reason the king wishes a word with you now," Marjan said as she gestured towards the door. "He's waiting in the throne room."

I made the mood board at the top (photo credit to Denny Mueller, Tim Rebkavets, Pawel Furman, Alice Pasqual, and Jonathan Kemper). Please, absolutely feel free if you are inspired by this story to make moodboards, fanart, fics inspired by, headcanons, share your theories with me, stories for side characters, etc. I can’t even tell you the joy that brings me. Honestly, that’s always been my dream as a writer. Just please tag me! @a-l-ias is an amazing artist who is working on fanart for this story and my heart can’t even handle the happiness. 

If you would like to be added to the taglist for this story, please let me know! @laelipoo​ @ravens-words​ @ladytimekiller​ @buddie-buddie​ @morganaspendragonss​ @marceee24​ @a-l-ias​ @bikingthroughhawkins​ @i-had-bucky​ @pragmaticoptimist34​ @highqualitykhakis​ @meloingly​ @borntobewondering​ 

[shit-mcu-stans-write]

submission from anon: essay on rhodey

my apologies that this is so long. i had a lot more to say than i realised and this… just kind of happened.

so… lieutenant colonel james “jim” rupert “rhodey” rhodes… i have a lot of feelings about him and his character development and for once… i actually like what i see from the mcu. i love what the mcu has completely unintentionally done for him and i find it absolutely hilarious because i know it’s 100% unintentional, because they’d never purposefully make rhodey’s character development so anti-tony-stark. but that’s what we’ve been presented with. and i love it. hear me out:

in iron man 1 rhodey starts as tony’s babysitter. rhodey says so himself: “you don’t respect yourself so I know you don’t respect me - i’m just your babysitter” but despite the fact he knows tony doesn’t respect him, he’s still there for tony, still supporting him, still showing him as much love as he can no matter how little tony gives back. he puts it down the the fact tony doesn’t respect himself; he’s reckless and childish and doesn’t take responsibility for his actions. rhodey might be being sarcastic and snarky when he’s saying “when you need your diaper changed let me know and I’ll get you a bottle” but there’s some truth to it: he can’t help but mother-hen tony, because someone has to be responsible for the kid (he sure as hell can’t be responsible for himself!), and rhodey has put himself in that position.

i think a lot of that’s to do with the fact they both met really young in mit, with rhodey being a couple (?) years older than tony at the time. they stuck together because they were both in the unique position of being child prodigies, but because rhodey was the older of the two i think he quickly settled into a caregiving role. but by iron man 1, rhodey has emotionally matured, and tony hasn’t. he hasn’t needed to, being a white billionaire boy and all. so rhodey still sees tony as this kid he’s always been there for, always protecting, always giving and giving and giving to, and putting up with. they’ve been friends for so long that he’s used to it.

by iron man 2, rhodey is fed up. tony is being even more reckless than usual because he’s dying but no one knows, so rhodey is being pushed to his breaking point. there’s a deleted scene where rhodey says something which i feel says everything you need about what their relationship has become by now: “hanging out with you is bad for our friendship”. rhodey is starting to realise just how impossible being an actual friend - not just a yes-man and support staff - for tony is. and all that culminates in the fight scene where, upon seeing tony drunk and endangering his party guests in a WMD supersuit, rhodey reaches that breaking point. protects tony from himself one last time by fighting him, then cuts ties.

only, by the end of iron man 2, rhodey learns that taking the suit to the military and letting hammer get his paws on it was a bad idea, and that tony was literally near death the whole time he was being a dick, and then they have to team up to defeat vanko together. so despite having gone through all the shit tony’s put him through and realising how terrible a friend tony actually is, he chalks this all up to a mistake and a misunderstanding on his part. gives tony a second (or, more realistically, hundredth) chance. which is why in iron man 3 they’re best buds again. im3 is probably the healthiest depiction of their relationship tbh, and that’s on im3 tony being the least assholeish depiction of tony in the whole mcu (imo).

but tony’s character begins to sour massively from AOU onwards (not saying he wasn’t an… abrasive character beforehand, to say the least, but clearly all the guilt from causing ultron and inadvertently causing the mess in sokovia is affecting him and his relationships; pepper, another caregiving character that has put up with tony’s entitled, misogynistic bullshit for years, has left him, and i think that’s a massive sign that he’s spiralling in a similar way he did in im2. after all, the writers refuse to develop him as a character, which means he’ll never get help for his mental health and never learn healthy coping mechanisms. i honestly wonder what happened for pepper to leave - we’ve seen the breaking point for rhodey, so what was hers?)

so yeah, anyway, tony is starting to spiral again from AOU. civil war happens - he blames the team and latches onto the accords as a way to absolve himself of the guilt, bla bla bla, you know the plot. and, just like the others, rhodey is given mere days to read, consider, and sign this life-changing document; not only is his best friend vehemently, vocally, and violently in favour these documents, they’re also coming from a position of power that he, as a military man, respects. so it makes sense he’d initially be on the side of the accords.

and then something even more life-changing than the accords happens for rhodey. sam accidentally shoots him down and he injures his legs so bad that he can’t walk without support. and rhodey’s response to that? i know we don’t get to see much of rhodey’s response and recovery, which is a travesty, but what we do get? really sheds some light on the kind of man rhodey is, and how he develops as a person by the end of endgame. 

for once in his life, rhodey is in the position of needing to be cared for - and on top of that, tony is the one offering. we also see that rhodey wants his recovery to be something he does alone as much as he possibly can, because that’s just the kind of person he is; we see the sheer amount of value he places on his ability to handle things on his own, and the skyrocket-high responsibility he holds himself to. and now all of a sudden tony’s actually trying to reciprocate the attention and care he’s shown him without reward for years (and only because of this guilt spiral he’s been on since AOU)… and that must have been fucking jarring for rhodey.

i think the sudden and strange role reversal probably helped him work out a few things about his relationship with tony a lot. which is why, when infinity war rolls around, they don’t interact. rhodey seems closer to and more in alignment with the “rogues”/“nomads” than tony. where once he agreed with the accords, he’s had some time to actually read them and reconsider them, and he’s against them now! he hates ross and greets steve with a warm hug!

and something i love so fucking much about infinity war (dispite all it’s other faults)? sam and rhodey’s relationship. sam shot rhodey down and disabled him for the rest of his life. and rhodey forgives him. first of all, because that’s the kind of person rhodey is (he’s had plenty of practice forgiving all kinds of shit with tony), and rhodey understands it was a mistake (and probably empathises with how horrible it must have been for sam; he’s military too, he understands that specific kind of guilt). interesting to compare rhodey’s response to the mistake with tony’s. and heartwarming to see that, for once, when rhodey forgives someone for what they’ve done, he is given gratitude and a genuine two-way friendship in response. i live for sam and rhodey’s every interaction in iw.

and then we get to endgame. know how many times rhodey interacts with tony in endgame? twice. first interaction: “okay, you made your point - just sit down, okay?” (read: “stop acting like a child before you hurt yourself”). second interaction: *sadly touches his face as he realises he’s dying before moving aside to let peter and pepper say their goodbyes*. what i love about these interactions - and the lack of any other interactions - is what it clearly means for rhodey:

1) tony still means a lot to rhodey. he’ll always mean a lot to him. they were best friends since they were literally just kids at mit. he’ll always, i think, love tony and want to care for and protect him (from himself, mainly). and tony, in his own way, will always love rhodey. but, 2) rhodey has still, nevertheless, cut ties with tony. i think the time away from action caused by the long recovery process he would’ve went through not only let rhodey reconsider his stance on the accords and his superiors in the military such as ross, but it also gave him time (and a wildly new perspective) to realise how toxic his relationship with tony truly is.

and what’s great to compare the way in which and reasons why he cuts ties with tony after civil war compared to the way in which and reasons why he cut ties with tony during im2, is that rhodey hasn’t been pushed to his breaking point this time. he has way more agency in his choice this time. he’s not leaving because he’s been infuriated one time too many; he’s doing it because he’s actually being given the kind of support he himself has been dishing out all these years… and doesn’t want it. not if it’s coming from the place of convenience and guilt that it is with tony. he cannot be guilt-tripped into forgiving tony anymore because he is making his choice this time with clear-mindedness.

and you know what’s so great about him finally genuinely cutting ties with tony this time around? he’s no longer his yes-man. he gets space to breathe as his own character. he jokes around more. he’s not annoyed all the time. he gets involved with the rest of the team. as i’ve said, he interacts with sam and it’s beautiful. he interacts with nebula and it’s heartwarming and they form a bond so quickly. and in all the new interactions he gets you see he is receiving so much more respect and reciprocation than he’s ever experienced with tony. and it makes me so happy.

also i can’t help but think about how it’s also a pretty big deal for him as a black character to go through all of these revelations and developments; black kids are often encouraged/forced to mature mentally/emotionally a lot quicker than white kits, and take on responsibility that shouldn’t be their burden to bear from a young age (which i think was absolutely something rhodey experienced as a highly intelligent black child), and it’s not uncommon for black characters to be portrayed in these caregiving roles to Hurt White Characters. so for him to break out of that box is just beautiful.

tony, on the other hand, is a white billionaire who never learned how to grow up; he’s never had to handle the kind of daily-grind stress that non-billionaire poc like rhodey have handled since they were a kid. not saying tony hasn’t faced other kinds of stress, but for the most part? everything has been given to him on a shiny golden platter. so when responsibility is thrust upon him - when his faults are actually pointed out - he doesn’t know how to handle it. hasn’t learned. it destroys his mental health. he gets destructive in turn. irreparably damages his relationships. spirals and spirals and refuses. to get. help. (you’re a billionaire, tony - you can afford a therapy. and the idealisation/romanticisation of unhealthy guilt spirals and a mindset of powering through despite everything and without asking for help until you crash and burn is not good mental illness/neurodivergent rep, it’s just the only one the mcu knows how to write.) i despair at the loss of opportunity when it comes to tony’s character and what he could have come to represent, but that’s another essay entirely.

when it comes to rhodey, however, the mcu have accidentally created a wonderful character and a wonderful character arc. that’s not to say they deserve any praise though, because this was likely never their intention and it’s purely accidental (again, they’d never purposefully give rhodey such an anti-tony character arc, just like they’d never intentionally make tony a bad role model, but that’s what they did, completely accidentally).

not only is rhodey a character who is unwaveringly kind and forgiving (and is rewarded for these traits later down the line in his new relationships), but we also get to see him learn how his kindness and forgiveness shouldn’t be taken for granted as it has been for years of his life. we see him step away from harmful relationships. we see him take back his life for himself - refuse to be someone else’s nanny. we see his growth and his development, and it’s wonderful, and i love him.

in conclusion: war machine rox. 

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

What are your view on Slott entire run?

I know you don't like him but what's your opinion. A little bit detailed post.

I also don't like his run either.

Pre-ASM: Mixed. His very first story is atrocious but his Spidey/Torch mini is excellent

BND: Garbage, just like 99% of everything else in BND except he also liked actively trolling the fans and did so on pretty much the very first page of the very first issue of BND

Big Time: Also garbage with occasional bright spots but also with much lower moments too. The Betty Brant assault issue. Dying Wish. Pretty much everything involving Carlie Cooper.

Superior: How the fuck is this not regarded as a nadir in Spider-Man history. The second issue is literally about Doc Ock trying to rape Mary Jane and then masturbating when he can't and it's all framed as a joke. The whole run is pretty much disgusting and damaging to every character involved.

ASM vol 3: More insults to the character of Peter Parker and a ratcheting up of him being undermined by Slott's pet Mary Sue/Gary Stu characters. His spiteful trolling reaches new lows in Spider-Verse, a concept he pretends he pioneered when in reality it'd been done in the 1994 cartoon and done better. It boils down to Maximum Carnage but somehow with even less dignity.

Renew Your Vows: Flawed but ultimately good proving Slott could have written Spider-Man in character if he wanted to but actively chose not to because he's pathetic.

ASM vol 4: How do you just so fundamentally misunderstand Spider-Man's character? How can you be so creatively bankrupt that earlier in your run you make Spider-Man softcore Doctor Who with HORIZON labs, then make Doc Ock Spider-Man, then make Spider-Man into Batman/Iron Man. God forbid you write Spider-Man as Spider-Man. And then he does Clone Conspiracy, which is the One More Day treatment for Ben Reilly basically.

Post-ASM vol 4: He was clearly forced to return to the status quo by the higher ups because his run was winding down and was salty about it. Mockingbird is a disgrace. Venom Inc. is a disgrace. Red Goblin, especially trolling the fans again with MJ and killing off Flash Thompson, is a disgrace.

Ultimately, Slott was a man who had good ideas half the time but only executed them competently 1/8 of the time.*

This was a guy summarily unqualified to write the character.

He boasted he knew his Spidey history but then fucked up basic facts. More poignantly, the stuff he did know factually he did not understand. He knew that MJ closed that door in ASM #122, but he did not understand what it meant because if he did he'd have never written MJ the way he routinely did.

This guy began his career pretending Jean DeWolff loved Spidey as a brother when she didn't then went on to write Ren and Stimpy comics featuring Spider-Man and later did a 5 issue Marvel team up run in the form of his Spidey/Torch mini-series and all of that was the warning signs.

His work rarely went deeper than a Saturday morning cartoon. it frequently featured guest stars who distracted from Peter. It demonstrated a misunderstanding of human nature and of Peter as a person.

If you want to write ASM, you gotta understand a thing or two about human nature and psychology, you have to be willing to write character who's constantly thinking, introspective and flawed but ultimately a good guy and a hero.

J. Michael Straczynski could do that.

J.M. DeMatteis could do that.

Holy shit, could Stan Lee ever do that.

Slott was never capable of doing that. At best he either lucked out occassionaly and wrote Spider-Man correctly or else he parroted better writers and equally wound up in the right spot for a little while.

I've not even read all of Spencer's run, I've gone on a hiatus after ASm #850 for personal reasons.

And yet in under 2 years Spencer wrote overwhelmingly better stories than Slott and more tellingly he spent a lot of time fixing Slott's fuck ups.

*E.g. how he handled 2099 and Stunner.

[tantei-chan-4869]

Chapter 2: Shinichi is Back?!?

Last Chapter..........

"You must've have guessed. Of course, for a brilliant detective like you, I have nowhere to hide. Yes. It is I, the Moonlight Phantom. Kaitou KID." Slowly, a smug begin to form on his face as he put his poker face on. "Looks like we'll have a lot to talk about tonight~" he said seductively as he slowly approached the unguarded detective. She slowly backed away, her heart beating wildly. She was fearful. What does he wanted do to her?

As his steps echoed closer, Shinichi shut her eyes in despair. "Help me..... someone. Anyone. Help me....."

--------------------------------------------------

Suddenly, the panicked detective felt something cold and metallic against her forehead. Immediately, her face paled from nervousness.

"Oh? Who would've thought the detective who had fired a bullet on me a year ago would've been in the same situation." Kaito's voice can be heard, very close in her ear as Shinichi stood frozen in fear. Is this it? Must her life as Shinichi be so short?

With the sound of trigger being heard echoing across the empty alleyway, signaling that the gun had been fired. Shinichi strangely didn't feel any pain. Strange, she thought. The death must've been quite an easy one. But by the time she opened her eyes, she was perfectly fine. Alive and well. No blood gushing out of her forehead and was staring into the indigo eyes of a certain thief.

The detective gasped and immediately was alert and on guard. However Kaito was quite pleased with himself.

"I wasn't going to do anything to you. You seemed to have forgotten my rule that no blood shall be shed when I'm around Meiantei. Never think you'd be so freaked out like that. Quite amusing to mess with you~"

Shinichi glared daggers into Kaito's eyes as he whistles while twirling his card gun around his finger. Frustrated, the detective turned on her heel and stormed off, leaving Kaito behind to catch up.

"Oi, oi Meiantei! Matte yo! (Wait up!)" Kaito called as he ran after her. "Hey, I'm sorry for pranking you like that. It's not everyday you hear the news that the kid you deal with on your heists is actually a high school detective." He chuckled. "I mean, I had guesses that you're not someone ordinary but this was too much, even for KID himself. So, will you forgive me my dearest Tantei-chan?"

But Shinichi's mind was not on Kaito at all. She was afraid that someone from BO was hiding in the dark who happened to hear everything and someday they'll rebuilt and hunt her down again. She vividly remember how her childhood best friend Mouri Ran almost died because of a mortal bullet wound to the stomach. She didn't want anymore innocent people lose their lives for her. Not even KID the master of escape himself.

"Earth to Shin-chan, are you here?" Kaito asked with a cute headtilt as he tried to get her attention. Shinichi was quite annoyed at this point. She stopped abruptly, whipped around and scolded Kaito.

"Go home. It's quite late. Besides, what's a thief doing with a detective so late at night like this? And we're both a guy and a girl. Do you think it's normal for someone to still be friendly after they found out the person had been their rivals the entire time? I don't think so! I regretted meeting you in the park. In fact, I wish I never ran into you in the first place!"

The last of the sentence was shouted out. Each words she said was a dagger being driven into Kaito's heart, wounding him. Sure. He could shrug it off with his poker face, but he would rather not do that in front of his favorite critique. He only listened with silence as his Meiantei lets out her anger on him. Shinichi however, was displeased. "Don't just stand there. Say something for yourself Kuroba Kaito. Why do you steal? Why do you live under the alias 'Kaitou KID'? What are you trying to hide?"

"When I was young...." Kaito hesitated but decided to continue. "My dad died in an accident while performing magic. I always thought his death was not normal, so I decided to look into it. Let's just say..... He was involved with a group of shady men. They were trying to find this jewel called 'Pandora'. It's said to be able to grant anyone's wish for immortality. My dad didn't want that to happen so he took up the job of stealing, hoping to find the jewel before them and to destroy it before they found it. Apparently, the men found out my dad's identity and..... Murdered him. However, I still believe that my dad is still alive. And..... I want to complete what he started. So yeah. Basically why I took up stealing."

There was a hint of sadness in Kaito's voice, as Shinichi noticed. For a minute, she didn't know what to say. The feeling of having to keep 2 identities was too similar and painful to not acknowledge. For a minute, she felt bad for Kaito.

" I...... I'm sorry Kuroba- I mean, Kaito." She apologized. " I just want to let you know, I understand and I'm here for you. Now I understand you're now really stealing. Sorry for misunderstanding you..... "

Kaito only gave the detective a wry smile. "I'm used to being misunderstood. It's nothing new for me. However, like you said, it is getting quite late. I should probably head home anyways. See you next illusion Meiantei."

He turned and was about to go until Shinichi's voice stopped him. "I- I mean, you can stay over for the night if..... If you want. It's not safe to walk alone on the streets so late like this anyways....."

The said thief looked back to see a quite flustered Shinichi offering him hospitality while trying not to sound too awkward. He had to smile, seeing his favorite detective in such a situation. It's quite cute, he thought to himself.

"Are you sure? Who said a guy and a girl can't be alone together? Definitely not me~" he teased while walking back to her. Which flustered the poor detective more as she blushed pink. "You don't have to take up the offer if you're not interested." She pouted as she proceeded to head over to her house's direction. Kaito only grinned as he followed after her.

Once inside the manor, Kaito couldn't help but marvel how big the place was. He whistled as to see how many compartments this house had. "You've been living in here growing up? Sheesh, your parents are filthy rich Shin-chan." He commented as he stood in front of a framed artwork to examine it.

"Eh, it's nothing if your mom is a popular retired actress and your dad is a world renowned novel writer." Shinichi shrugged as she proceeded to hang up her jacket, glove, and scarf on the hanger at the entrance of the house. "Can I get you something? I'm guessing you want both something to eat and something to drink?" She asked as she proceeded into the kitchen. "Just a heads-up, I don't cook a lot. My childhood best friend comes over and cook once in a while for me. But my cooking isn't good so bear with me." She explained as she tied an apron around her waist only for it to be untied by Kaito.

"Oi what are you-" Shinichi was about to protest until Kaito shushed her. "Let me handle it. I usually live alone and I've had to learn to cook quite a few dishes by myself. Don't worry, won't burn your house down if that's what you're worried about." Kaito winked at her, earning a flustered stutter from her.

"No I'm not worried about that- it's just- well, I can't make a guest cook-" She chased after Kaito, trying to get the apron back from him. But Kaito only dodged her.

"Aw, and here I thought you were going to worry about me. How cruel are you Meiantei~ my heart is in pain~~" Kaito teased her in a playful manner. Poor Shinichi was quite red at this point to the point where she seemed like she was going to pass out. Laughing, Kaito was quite pleased with his doing before he waltzed around the room getting ingredients out.

Soon, the Kudo manor was filled with the delicious aroma of something cooking. Shinichi, who was reading a Sherlock Holmes book in the library sniffed the air and immediately felt drolls in her mouth. The female detective followed the smell into the kitchen to see a beaming Kaito coming towards her with plates of food in his hands. Shinichi was quite impressed. "W-we had that many food materials in the house-?" Her gaze followed the plate of food as Kaito moved about the room setting the table.

"Of course. You had quite a lot of left overs that can be made into a table of feast. It's just up to your creativity." Kaito hummed as he set some utensils on the table. "Well, don't just stand over there Tantei-chan." Kaito waved. "Come and have a taste!"

The two enjoyed a quite filling meal. After Kaito had cleared take, Shinichi pushed back her chair quite contently. Kaito only sat across from her with a triumphant smug. The detective only rolled her eyes playfully at him before smiling. His cooking had definitely captured her stomach.

"So, what now?" Kaito asked as he folded his hands together. Shinichi noticed how slender and well-cared for they looked. "Well, I suppose perhaps I should help you on your heists." Shinichi replied as she looked at her nails rather casually while waiting to get a reaction from him.

True to her prediction, Kaito almost fell off of the chair he was sitting on. "Seriously? Meiantei is going to help me-?" He asked in disbelief as he tried to process what Shinichi was telling him.

"Yep." She replied simply. "Your dad was somewhat of a sensei to my mom who taught her how to disguise. So in a way, my family owe you one."

Kaito gave Shinichi a genuine smile. He never thought that this day would come. Who knows your rival would suddenly just stop being your rival and actually side with you?

Shinichi, had a knowing look as she stared at Kaito's idioticly hopeful face, decided to wake him up from his daydreams. "However, we'll still be somewhat of a rival." She smiled mysteriously as Kaito pouted.

"B-but why?" Kaito whined. The smug high school detective mused at how cute he looked. "Well, it wouldn't be fun for me if I can't triumphantly take you down myself, would it?" She smirked. "Isn't it your job to entertain your audience, Mr. Magician?"

Kaito huffed and pouted. Shinichi only laughed it off. "I'm off to bed. You can sleep in my parents' room if you want. I got you a pair of my dad's sleeping wear ready and laid on the bed for you." Then she paused and turned to look at Kaito dead in the eyes. "Do. Not. Try. Anything. Funny. While. I'm. Sleeping. Do you understand?"

The said magician just raised up his hands in surrender. "Never planned to do anything anyways. Please Tantei-chan, I'm not that perverted to the point of not having any self respect. Unless...... " Then, Kaito lowered his voice into a quite deep and seductive tone. "You want me to snuggle next to you while you're asleep~"

"Ew you pervert!" Came Shinichi's flustered voice followed by a slipper flying to his way, to which Kaito easily dodged. He laughed at how easily she reacted to his playful jokes and went to get ready for the night.

Early the next morning, a loud and rapid rapping could be heard outside of the Kudo manor followed by a voice that Shinichi couldn't be more familiar with. "Shinichi! Shinichi are you back? I'm coming in!"

"Hang on I'm coming!" The high school detective jumped out of bed with a messy bedhead rushed to the door, almost knocking over a very confused Kaito who was also not very pleased about his morning sleep being interrupted. He followed Shinichi to the front door to see her childhood best friend Mouri Ran, who was, staring daggers into Kaito's soul as he came face to face with the karate champion.

"Yo, good morning." Kaito yawned and waved.

"Kudo Shinichi, could you explain the meaning of this-?" Ran growled through his gritted teeth.

"Oh crap-" came Shinichi's reply. She's as good as dead.

-----------------------------------------------

Author's Note.........

Oh no! What will happen to Shin-chan!? Sounds like a love triangle/secret crushes compilation! I hope you guys stick around long enough to find out because cliffhangers will be a thing in my fan fics 👀

[olliya]

Hello. I really like the books you've written. It gets me pretty excited whenever you write a book with my favorite ships. Keep up the good work! Sometimes, I contemplate whether or not to leave a comment on your works in Ao3 or in Fanfiction.net, but in the end, I chose not to leave a comment (even though I really want to just to show how I appreciate everything you make). It's because it kinda "traumatized" me cuz I experienced commenting on a particular author's books (which btw, my comment is filled with compliments or nice things), and then that author kinda…… commented back with not so nice things? it hurts and still sticks today. but you're one of my favorite fanfic writer, and i want to say how much i love your work, so as an anon, thank you for writing these amazing stories. it definitely gave me energy as i go along my day.

Hi there,

Thanks a lot for the compliments, I really appreciate, especially as it is a special occasion of sort for you to voice your opinions. It is really great and heart-warming to hear that I can make a positive impact (however tiny it is) on somebody’s life. Really. It’s amazing if you think for a while about it - we‘ve never met and never will, yet my work somehow influences you... Thank you for telling me this.

Since you went into some detail about not-commenting of fics, I would like to take some time here to answer also this part of your ask.

I would like to emphasize that it is very important for consumers to share their impressions with creators! Without the public’s eye all our art is dead! We need to know we don’t create into a vacuum!

So, however awkward and uncomfortable at first it may feel - I encourage you to comment on fics! It gets muuuch easier with time. Commenting is a skill like anything else, and like anything else you can learn it.

As for your ‘traumatizing experience’ (though I have to say that it is a very heavy word and I would advice caution when using it) - well, misunderstandings happen, hitting someone’s bad vein on a bad day happens, people being jerks happen and believe me, those are only words in the screen coming from a total stranger. There are worse things that can happen if you have bad luck of pissing someone off. Save your trauma-batteries for other stuff, because I assure you - they will come, and they will be worse than what you describe.

And also - you can always comment as a ‘Guest’, both on ao3 and ff.net. So, really, nothing stops you to express your opinions anonymously! (But believe me, you will be missing out on opportunity of having conversations with the authors, and those are somethings as fascinating as the fics themselves)

Either the way - thanks for speaking up and please, give commenting another try!

[pointnumbersixteen]

My Personal Ranking of Ghosts Episodes and Why

So, here’s my personal order for all the current Ghosts episodes, from best to worst, with a bit of an explanation as to why I think so. I included who wrote each episode because the writing pairs tend to have consistent strengths and weaknesses that affect my enjoyment. These are, of course, just my opinions, and I recognize that different people have different tastes.  

1) Moonah Ston (Larry and Martha)

This episode is hilarious and it continues to be hilarious through multiple viewings (some of the jokes in other episodes start to wear thin after multiple viewings, but this one remains entirely solid through dozens of rewatches). Barclay and Bunny are my favorite guest characters throughout the show. Also some of my all-time favorite bits are in it: Cap stealing Thomas’s role doing the reading, the shooting of the pheasant with Cap, everything to do with Mary and the cooking of the pheasant, the way Alison yeets the pelaverga as soon as it’s handed to her, the juxtaposition of the eclipse ritual and the dinner party, Bunny’s ‘sobriety test.’ Also, there’s a strong A plot and a strong B plot that tie together, and all of the characters are fit into these two plots well, which is something the creators sometimes struggle with.

2) Getting Out (Mat and Jim)

I love everything about the Captain’s portion of the plot and it’s a nice big portion, too. His scene with Kitty is one of my favorite scenes in the show, brilliantly written, well-acted, and gorgeously shot. I can feel for Mike and Alison in it. Fiona’s another really funny guest character. My only major complaint is that the plot with other ghosts after the Captain’s left the group starts to drag after enough re-watches, particularly Thomas’s bad erotica and the jewel scene. I found both very funny on the first several watches, but the payoff to both is ruined with enough rewatches. With the first, the payoff is with how surprisingly bad for a ‘professional’ writer his story is, but after you’re well aware that Thomas is a bad writer, it’s just listening to bad writing over and over again. And the bit with Fanny’s jewel has such a long lead up, to get to the surprise payoff that the jewel was secretly pawned by George forever ago, but once you know the jewel is gone, the long lead up gets progressively more tedious with every watch. At least for me.

3) Reddy Weddy (Ben and Simon)

I’ve written extensively about this one before, so I won’t include much, but: I love everything having to do with the Captain in this one, particularly the completely wonderful flashbacks with Havers. Mike and Alison were very well done, and I enjoyed Martin as a guest character. But I really didn’t like the whose-turn-is-it-to-pick-the-movie subplot, it just seemed sort of unnecessary to me and detracted from the tone of the rest of it. I assume they just had trouble finding a better integrated role for Pat, Thomas and Julian, which, as I said under Moonah Ston, is an occasional weakness the creators had.

4) Gorilla War (Larry)

I love Cap’s campaign of attrition. And his singing. Everyone had solid, funny bits, all tied into one main plot in it. Mike and Alison are both well done in this episode. It’s the first episode where Alison is able to interact with the ghosts and I think they did a great job capitalizing on her coming to terms with it and Mike’s such a supportive husband in it.  

5) About Last Night (Mat and Jim)

I love the spat between Cap and Pat in this one, because the focus of their subplot is their relationship dynamic and I enjoy their relationship dynamic- even though it’s close to the breaking point in this instance, all is well because they make up in the end. Everything about the state of the house and trying to remember what happened to it-as well as the flashbacks to the party- is pretty funny. The bits with Dante were very funny as well. The Robin-Mary subplot was a bit meh for me, but I didn’t dislike it, I’m just not sold on the idea. I didn’t enjoy Mike being sidelined on the roof for most of the episode when Alison needed his help and all the criticism he got from the other characters for not being around to help Alison, though.

6) Who Do You Think You Are? (Mat and Jim)

This is a really strong introductory episode with some good, funny bits in it, but it doesn’t rank higher since the ghosts can’t interact with Alison yet and Mike and Alison don’t know they’re there, which is where a lot of the fun of the concept of the show comes in to me.

7) Bump in the Night (Larry and Martha)              

The robbers were funny as were the ghosts’ utterly inept attempts (save Robin) in stopping them. I loved music club, particularly the Captain’s performance. I appreciated the return of Barclay and his bitches. Humphrey was actually reasonably included in the plot, which is always a nice change. There weren’t any bits I found particularly outstanding (except maybe Cap’s musical performance) but there weren’t any major bits I disliked, either. Everyone’s included in one main plot and it continues to be just as enjoyable on rewatches.

8) The Thomas Thorne Affair (Mat and Jim)

I greatly enjoy examine-the-story-from-multiple-viewpoints-to-illustrate-unreliable-narration plots, so that went well in this episode. I also really like regency romances, so this ticked another box for me. Humphrey was given an important bit again, which I appreciate. The bit about Francis was a nice twist at the end, because otherwise it would have been a bit too predictable, with Thomas being shot in a duel over a romantic misunderstanding- that was the most obvious solution to his death, after all. It felt a bit contrived, though, that the characters who died after Thomas all went to the group meeting on time, while the characters who witnessed Thomas’s death were all still wandering around upstairs and just happen to wander into Alison’s room in time to contradict the last telling of the story and provide the next. And of course, the fact that half the cast is just sort of sitting downstairs waiting for a significant portion of the episode always seemed a bit lacking to me. Also, Mike starts the episode being unusually stupid (not knowing Elizabeth II is the current queen- at least in the US, not being able to answer who the current President is frequently used as shorthand for ‘having brain damage’) and spends the rest of it being insecure about Alison’s ex (this seems to be a Mat and Jim thing).  

9) Perfect Day (Mat and Jim)

I loved all the Cap bits in this. Pat’s plotline was good, too. Humphrey actually had a substantial role, which I appreciated, and more so since he actually managed to bring Fanny around to the gay wedding. I was of course thrilled that it was a lesbian wedding. But I’m not a fan of ‘miscommunication causes drama’ plots in any medium and I disliked how once again how insecure Mike is in this episode (Mat and Jim again) and how poorly he handles it.

10) Happy Death Day (Ben)

I love all the Pat bits. I liked the interactions between the Captain and Julian, they had a really enjoyable dynamic in this one, although they’re being rather disappointing human beings in their plotline. I like Kitty’s plotline, too, and the garden scene between her and Fanny is very funny and beautifully framed. I don’t think this episode did a particularly good job with either Mike or Alison, though. Mike ditches his probably still concussed wife who is plagued by ghosts to manage the building work he started because he’s spending hours a day out of the house because there are too many people in it and he’s apparently potty-shy and Alison thinks trying to convince people to do probably thousands, if not more, pounds worth of free labor by making them tea is both a plausible idea and an appropriate thing to even try (it’s bad enough when the people asking you to do free work for them are actually your friends, contriving a friendship in order to do this just sort of seems a bit contemptible to me). Some of the jokes get less funny with time- Fanny with the butt cracks, for instance. I considered the Thomas subplot another weak ‘well, something needs to be done with this character’ subplot and I can’t even remember off the top of my head what Mary was doing most of the episode despite having seen it at least a dozen times, besides the bit where Alison throws the teacup at her head (and if I were Terry, I would have called it quits then).  

11) The Ghost of Christmas (Ben and Simon)

Mostly fluff, and a decent amount of it was rather predictable fluff, but I’ve written more on that elsewhere. Mike’s sisters were the worst. I was hoping Ben would write himself a bigger role and he didn’t. In the Bleak Midwinter was gorgeous, though, and there were enough smaller bits that I found endearing to prop it up over the next two.

12) The Grey Lady (Larry and Martha)

I enjoy the ghosts’ routine as shown at the beginning of the episode. I found Pat’s radio show amusing. I liked the basement scene with Nigel. I wasn’t a huge fan of the Captain’s ‘stretching’ subplot (although I do greatly enjoy his  ‘for king and country’ running), it just seemed a bit silly to me, like they couldn’t decide what to do with him for most of the episode, so went with ‘eh, squats, I guess.’ Also, I feel like they had trouble placing Mary and Kitty, too. Mary spends a lot of the episode staring at a wall and Kitty spends all of it just following the group and occasionally wailing about the ‘ghost-ghost.’ Also, I think Alison went a little too far with her simulated haunting when she dressed up as the Grey Lady; it wasn’t smart because there was no way she was going to get away with it after anyone turned on the lights and it seems a bit more like attempting to defraud people than the rest of it did.

13) Free Pass (Mat and Jim)

Alison actively puts people in danger for money, misrepresenting the house as structurally sound in order to get a movie contract, when in fact the floors are held up by hope and happy thoughts and could (and eventually do) cave at any moment. If the floor had fallen through in the letter scene, before Mike braced it, when they were using the heavy equipment, there likely would have been serious injuries. Also: Toby Nightingale is the worst. Also: the solidity and supportive nature of Mike and Alison’s relationship is the best part of it and I dislike the choice (Mat and Jim again) to make him so insecure in this episode (this was the first in the episode order to do so).

To speak on general tendencies, though: I’m not a fan of doing morally questionable things for monetary reasons unless the situation is life or death, so all of the episodes where that’s Alison’s primary purpose get major demerits from me. That’s a matter of personal taste, but there I am. As for the writers (I recognize they all come up with the general story arcs together, but the writing pairs are responsible for execution), everyone struggles a bit sometimes to get solid roles for everyone into the plot, to be expected when the cast is so large, but some instances are worse than others. I think Larry’s (well, Larry/Martha for most of them, but they’ve both joked that mostly she drinks and he writes when they’re working on their episodes) still the strongest writer in terms of having mostly cohesive plots that standup consistently as solid to multiple viewings, but he also has the most experience as a writer, so that’s probably to be expected. Ben and Simon have both stated that they like jig-sawing a bunch of little plots together to make an episode, and while it is a bit impressive that they can make episodes with like, nearly as many plotlines as characters come together to make one reasonably sane episode, I find this strategy detrimental in that to me, when they do this, there’s always one or two plots that are really, really good, a few plots that are pretty good, and then one or two plots that I just don’t enjoy, that to me drag down the rest of the episode (most apparent in Reddy Weddy, but it happens to some degree in all of their episodes). My major criticism of Mat and Jim is with the way they write Mike. I actually really like Mike when he’s well done, but his portrayal seems to vary a lot between episodes, and (with the exception of Ben’s Happy Death Day, but his problems in that one are different) the episodes he’s written the weakest in are all written by Mat and Jim. They’re the only ones who I think write Mike as insecure in his relationship with Alison and his most incompetent and/or useless moments also tend to be written by them. I don’t know if they have a slightly different concept of Mike’s character than the other four or what, but I think Larry/Martha and Ben/Simon’s portrayals of him tend to be significantly more flattering.