#the dialogue is intentionally kind of ambiguous

[kyngsnake]

get emotionally neglected idiot

[racheldrawsthis]

Even if Dead plate wasn’t queerbaiting, it was DEFINITELY shipbaiting. The dialogue option about whether Rody is jealous of Vince’s possible gf, the hair drying scene, the way he stops correcting Rody about not calling him Vince… u guys r tumblr girlies, you knew damn well what you were doing LMAO. There’s nothing wrong w that lol - it makes for a fun dynamic - but don’t claim that queerbaiting never came into it pffft

My co-developer and composer who worked on the game are both men, calling us "tumblr girlies" is a bit condescending and disrespectful.

To queerbait or shipbait, it means we were taking advantage of possible queer characters and relationships as a means to appeal to queer audiences while maintaining ambiguity about the characters' sexualities. We don't believe the game was baiting anyone since again not only the sexualities of the characters aren't ambiguous as it was fully stated they were written as queer the moment they were designed way before the game was even developed, we've expressed multiple times that while the game does have themes of queerness and cannibalism the main plot and intention behind the source game was always intended to heavily focus on exploring the horror that comes from toxic and unhealthy obsessions and mindsets and how far one is willing to go for them (Rody's self-sacrificial and desperate love for Manon, Vince's selfish obsession for perfection, Rody and taste, etc). The game is about a waiter seeking out and realizing what happened to his ex-girlfriend, that's always been the main plot, Dead Plate is a game in the thriller/horror genre and there was not a single mention of the game having any possible romance in it nor the queer identities and interactions of the characters were used to promote the game in any of the official game pages or promotional material to draw in more audiences, so hearing that you're watering the game down just as some kind of shallow bait is a bit disheartening.

Sometimes characters just happen to be queer, and not all media with queer characters are strictly about romance. Their relationship is still up for audience interpretation and people can take them as whatever they like if they want to enjoy them like that as long as they aren't hurting anyone but we never meant to intentionally bait anyone into trying out the game using their queerness, and that as queer writers ourselves we've expressed time and time again how we wished people to check out the game for the overall narrative and message it has rather than for people to only focus and view the game as shipping material since we believe the game offers a lot more than that.

[revelisms]

Was there ever a line that you've put a lot of thought or intention into that ended up being loaded with things you think people might have missed when reading? If there is: what is it, and what's behind it?

Big ramble here because I think this is a fascinating question.

TL;DR - There's definitely a lot of lines that have had more thought/intention behind them, but it's tough to say whether these have been missed or not. With dialogue especially, I think a lot of it boils down to interpretation - and I personally love having a bit of ambiguity there. It's why I tend to be drawn more to characters where there's a potential for self-conflict, because ultimately, I think that should be up to interpretation and what the conflict translates to for the reader.

This is a huge part of why I find Silco to be fun to write. He's deeply complicated, he's a sympathetic villain, he has a cutthroat rationale for how he views the world - and yet, for all of this, he often canonically contradicts himself, and in my view reveals more vulnerability than he perhaps intends.

For instance, there's a line in 'both sides of the moon' where Sevika calls him out for safeguarding Jinx's mistakes above all else, even the crew's safety. It escalates to them getting inches from a fight, but Silco throws out the line: "Are you sure you want to play this game?"

In this context, it's meant to be a final warning: Back down now, or else. But there's a double-edgeness to it, because this scene has an intentional, and intentionally muddy, layer of intimacy and arousal: both in a heightened-anxiety sense and a sexual sense.

While he's threatening her, he's also acknowledging her - because she's able to go head-to-head with him as an equal in ways few others would dare - and while that intrigues him, it's also incredibly frightening, because it means she sees him. She can handle him. (Like Vander could.)

So the question is also trying to force a sort of confirmation out of her, and ultimately does: Do you see this? Do you want this? How dare you, if you do? (Which is still its own threat, because of how guarded he is - he is isn't able to admit that he may want that intimacy, out of his own desire to be seen.)

So there's lots of lines I've written with him specifically that have that kind of layered intention.

This is also why I've really started gravitating to writing Terzo recently. I personally view him as a very messy character with lots of self-contradictions, for all his surface-level wit and ease, e.g.: his desire to modernize the church directly conflicts with his stature in a very archaic, ritualized familial hierarchy; his desire to be understood and accepted directly conflicts with his resistance towards giving others access to him and letting them in; the way he gravitates to (and imo uses) the "performance" of his charm/relationships/sex as a way to foster that sense of intimacy, without being fully vulnerable himself, is rife with conflict.

And all of this is foundationally built on the fact that he is Nihil's son, more-so in personality than perhaps any of them.

There's an opening line in 'creator, brother, son' that is explicitly getting at this: "Don't you want to be [...] mirror to some piece of this: moon-slash of his wretchedness, recklessness, fawning fingers pleasure-peaked sharp-tongued wickedness—"

And it's very flowery, but this is really talking about Terzo being a mirror to Nihil: the face in the moon to his own complications, as a person who can be extremely short-tempered, rash-decisioned, and flirtatious, with a tongue that can bring pleasure as much as say truly vile and hurtful things.

This is something Terzo recognizes in himself and resents. It's also why he and Nihil have had years of rockiness in their own relationship: because having Terzo succeed (as he was expected and desired to do) would also mean having Nihil usurped by his own son, who carries so much of his own traits that are both better and miles worse: a mirror of his own successes and failures.

At the end of the day, though, I'm really more interested in having readers build their own ideas of what characters' emotions and motivations are in a scene. It's great to bring people along on the same page, but I also love hearing what others pull away from it :-)

[lorekeeper-backset]

I miss the days of wild Pokemon speculation. Gen 7 had some of the wildest theories, both pre-release and post-. Stuff like certain characters actually being Ultra Beasts (Lillie is Nihilego, Lusamine is Pherosma, Guzma is Xurkitree, etc) (also this one turned out to be sort of right, since its at least implied if not outright stated that Lusamine intentionally dressed Lillie to resemble Nihilego). The Ultra Beasts destroyed the og timeline with the only evidence being a single line of dialogue that's very ambiguous (Looker mentions that Anabel claimed to be protecting a tower of some kind which could just as easily mean she "protected" it from trainers in the metaphorical sense and in no way implies the Ultra Beasts destroyed that timeline). Absolutely wild shit.

[horizon-verizon]

I hate how GRRM use Nettles’s sexuality to undermine her accomplishments just to shake things up. Here’s a 16 years-old girl who relied on her intelligence instead of a pedigree to tame a dragon and succeeded in becoming a dragonrider, but her taming of Sheepstealer gets prefaced by a statement about how “worse was yet to come with dire consequences for the Seven Kingdoms” to preemptively blame Nettles for Rhaenyra’s own cruelty and Daemon’s subsequent abandonment of her cause (a statement not made any better by talking about how “the power young maidens exert over older men is well-known” when discussing Daemon’s affair with Nettles as if to cast her as a seductress), and that’s when her dragontaming is not getting framed as something she traded sex for as suggested by Gyldayn’s speculation about how she traded sex for the sheep she fed Sheepstealer. He makes sure to treat us to his thoughts on the state of Nettles’ virginity when she began her affair with Daemon while he is at it as well.

Likely responding to this post.

You can take a look at this post and this one for more context.

Answer: GRRM has Gyldayn do all that. Gyldayn is the in-world maester who writes Fire and Blood to be published and stored within the Citadel so the maesters could compile knowledge about the Targaryen dynasty. It is meant to show the consequences of Rhaneyra's paranoia.

How is it that we should look at an invisible character GRRM created to be the book's in-universe writer over GRRM to blame for Nettles when GRRM is the real-life writer of Fire and Blood? Didn't he decide that Nettles should receive said treatment in this story?

Fire and Blood works as a pseudo-frame narrative within the larger world of the main ASoIaF series/narrative and has its own unique unreliable narrator from the main series. An unreliable narrator, is when a/the narrator's credibility is compromised by clear inconsistencies of events, perceptions, and their own biases and/or psychological processes. They are more often found in first-POV or limited third/deep third POV narratives because we are in the actual mind of the protagonist and there is no real 100% unbiased narrator because the fictional character or entity narrating has agendas, desire to lead someone/the reader towards a specific perspective, biases, etc.

That underpins the entire narrative. However, when real-life writer intentionally and consciously uses in-world or a voice that is distinct from their own, they are trying to establish that there is another, overarching entity that tells the story with their own agenda and in-world audience.

GRRM's history book is itself pretty unique for a popular audience. Gyldayn is that unreliable narrator with a kind of "3rd-1st person omniscient POV", where the narrator is a character in the world but is still external from the characters being focused on.

I say "kind of" because the omniscient part of Fire & Blood is really Gyldayn's attempt to be as neutral a histographer or collector of historical accounts as possible while making reasoned conclusions from missing or suggestive but ambiguous material--speculating & trying to solve mysteries. But it is seems 3rd person bc Gyldayn is not a participant in the events and stories he's describing in Fire & Blood--he's writing of times he wasn't even a conception of, writing them either right before or during Robert Baratheon's reign that begun in 283 A.C. He is writing in the perspective of a person who has read multiple accounts of multiple events and generations that have themselves been debated over, parts lost, etc. When Gyrladyn writes of characters/past people's personalities, thoughts, feelings, etc., it's coming from external observations of them, recorded dialogue or other sorts of speech, or their own firsthand recordings (Daemon & Otto's writing in The Rogue Prince).

The book is unreliably narrated not only because of this amalgamation, the anecdoters' own biases or agendas, & narrative holes in some places, but because it's written by a man who comes from an institution that upholds sexist, classist, mores AND one that has been in opposition to the Targs & dragonlords since its dynasty's inception. So he should be also scrutinized in how he writes about the Targs, esp towards its women who do not, in some way, conform perfectly to Andal-FM gender performance in its patriarchal, feudalist system.

The maesters are not septons, but they--like every other Westerosi--come from the Faith and the Citadel itself rests in the exact same town that the High Septon (a sort of pope) and the cultural/religious epicenter of the Faith resides: Oldtown. Where the Hightowers are based, have patronized the Citadel, supplied both the Citadel & Faith institutions with their own members for generations (like Ceryse Hightower's uncle, who was the High Septon in Aegon's & Aenys' times), and have gathered for themselves high prestige in Westeros for centuries for being the ones preserving the Faith and with it, whatever counts for "Westerosi values".

The purpose of an unreliable narrator is to:

LINK ...create a lot of grey areas and blur the lines of reality, allowing us to come to our own conclusions. Fallible storytellers can also create tension by keeping readers on their toes — wondering if there’s more under the surface, and reading between the lines to decipher what that is. Unreliable narrators can make for intriguing, complex characters: depending on the narrator’s motivation for clouding the truth, readers may also feel more compelled to keep reading to figure out why the narrator is hiding things.

Fire & Blood is not really this, but to just sohow that there are layer sof narration...

A frame narrative is a story told through layers of other narratives like a Russian nesting doll's structure. One overarching narrator tells a story, say to another character, and we do not get details about them as much as we do about the characters of their story:

The Framing Device is a narrative technique in which a story is surrounded ("framed") by a secondary story, creating a story within a story, often through Separate Scene Storytelling. The inner story is usually the bulk of the work. The framing device places the inside story within a different context. Framing devices typically involve outer story characters as the audience of the inner story, such as a parent reading a bedtime story to a child. Other times, the outer story character is the author of, or a performer in, the inner story. Occasionally, the inner story is a hallucination or delusion experienced by one of the outer story characters. The inner story does not need to be a work of fiction from a frame-story character's point of view: letters, journals, and memoirs can also be used as framing devices, often in the form of Day in the Life.

There is a reason why Gyldayn is compiling all these accounts, secondary or primary, bound or loose, into this one book. That's a story right there.

So there are GRRM -> Gyldayn/all the maesters who wrote about the Targs' and their interactions/decisions -> the Targs and those around them, whose first POVs we do not often get and must inspect since the masters are the ones collecting accounts of their words and dialogue. Some dialogue had been recorded in the then-declarations, some are reported by individuals, and some by many individuals at the scene of the event.

GRRM is rather "telling" us stuff--implying, showing, and not just telling--about how the Targs are perceived not just by the maesters, but by larger Andal-FM Westerosi society at their time as well as after their end. Intermingled in that are perspectives of Targs themselves, but you'd have to investigate and weigh the context of their actions.

If you clicked on the link to the post I made a long time ago about how Gyldayn writes and relates Nettle's character, it's clear that he's looking at her as more a young brown, low-classed slut, or allows that interpretation, to subsume her impressive brave acts to explain why she would in any way be attractive to Daemon. And the thing is that this is exactly how misogynist men who've enjoyed male privilege (there are no female maesters) often interpret a female person's value in various ways to discredit them and the men, but more often the women/girls. Rhaenyra nor Mysaria get away with his misogyny either. Helaena could have had a stronger personality, but along with her own family likely sidelining her unless it has to do with kids, Gyldayn also merely characterizes her as "pleasant", "would-be good mom" and "less attractive than most Targs" as if these were the primary qualities they are looking for from a royal woman/Targ woman. Motherhood, socially undisruptive, and looks.

Side note: And anyone else who visits the Citadel could read one of the copies of Fire and Blood, but I think most copies would be in the Citadel because I haven't found evidence of books in Westeros spread to many regions in mass production and cheaper paper or if they use paper, what it is made of and how expensive it is. Without said evidence, they'd likely paint words manually into books and that takes time, so you're not going to see as many copies as you'd see in real-life Renaissance countries and later eras. (medieval books and illuminated manuscripts, pic below, were also made of animal skin [often sheep], called "vellum". Are most, if not all, books in Westeros made of vellum, or paper, IDK)

[semper-legens]

21. The Queen of the Damned, by Anne Rice

Owned: No, library Page count: 506 My summary: The Vampire Lestat issued his summons, and oh, the vampires came. And one by one, they fell, at the hands of the Queen of the Damned. Akasha is awake, and the dark powers of the vampire are swirling around the world. But the Vampire Lestat and his loved ones must stop her, before she rules the worlds of the living and the dead... My rating: 3/5 My commentary:

Okay. So. This is probably going to be the last Interview with the Vampire book I read, because this just got batshit in a way that isn’t personally fun for me to read. I did ultimately enjoy the book overall, but I don’t really have an interest in carrying on with them. This doesn’t really have the Gothic horror vibe of the earlier two books, it’s more of a neopagan witchy thing going on. Which is in fairness also my jam, but...eh. Wasn’t really into it. It was a bit of a slog to get through, if I’m entirely honest.

One thing I’m learning about these books is that they’re 90% exposition and backstory. There’s not a whole lot of forward motion - the entire first section is dedicated to what other people were doing when Lestat was at his concert in the last book. Oh yeah, we get other people’s POVs here. Lestat opens this in his usual I-have-no-idea-if-this-is-intentionally-funny way, admits he needs a broader scope for this one, and introduces other third-person narrators. Which is interesting, and honestly felt a bit strange, given the previous books’ first person interview structure. It wasn’t bad, it was just...different.

And then there’s the aforementioned weird neopagan stuff. So, the Big Good of the book, Maharet, is basically a classic Celtic neopagan imagining of a pre-Roman witch. Red hair, green eyes, witchy powers. Except...Maharet is apparently from somewhere in the Middle East? She mentions being near Jericho and Ninevah. But she and her sister are ambiguously described as white, and so it seems are the Ancient Egyptians who become the first vampires - Akasha, Enkil, and Khayman. Who are evil, or at least morally ambiguous. It seems that your skin whitening and becoming more like stone over time is a vampire thing? This whole thing rubbed me up the wrong way, if I’m honest. It had this racial overtone that was uncomfortable, not helped by the fact that there’s like one dark-skinned black vampire mentioned, and one who’s not all that relevant to the plot. It was also a departure from the strictly-vampire mythos of the earlier books, adding spirits and ghosts and magic and psychic dreams. Which...isn’t really what I wanted from my vampire book, if I’m honest.

But yeah, these books are kind of full-on, and I’m getting a little sick of the heightened prose and dialogue prevalent throughout. Everyone speaks in the same flowery, stilted prose that gets kind of boring after a while. It’s very wordy, there’s a lot being said and not strictly a lot happening. I just...zoned out after a while. So, yeah, not carrying on with this. But it’s been a good rice, Anne Rice! I can see why people are insane about these books for sure.

Next up...I am so sorry.

[lzmunch]

On "Starship Troopers" (1997)

I saw Starship Troopers (1997) recently, having heard for many years that it was a satire misunderstood by many audiences, and I had some thoughts on it.

Initial Thoughts

I enjoyed it well enough, both the cheesy action movie elements and the satire, but initially I felt that it did the cheesy action movie too well, so well that the satire is somewhat weak, despite being obvious. It felt like the only satirical elements were some of the lines and costuming and the propaganda commercial interludes. I felt like there needed to be something in the narrative that was satirical as well.

In my opinion, a good movie will have some sort of "emotional satisfaction"--and I use air quotes because a movie having an intentionally ambiguous and unsatisfying ending can also be "emotionally satisfying" in a sense. It's hard to describe, but I would boil it down to the director made you feel something and you trusted that it was intentional.

I think that ultimately, I felt like I needed some "emotional satisfaction" from Starship Troopers at the end of the movie. I wanted to feel like we the audience had won over fascism and its propaganda somehow. I expected that even if fascism had won on the surface level narrative, the "true" narrative of the film would impart the emotional feeling that fascism had ultimately lost.

The gist of it is that, I think it was clear to me that it was satire, but I don't think it was done very artfully, and I can see why it was misinterpreted and taken straight.

Secondary Thoughts

So with these initial thoughts, I took a look at discussion online to get the perspective of people who felt like it was a mostly perfect satire film that was simply misunderstood. I won't go to deeply into it here. Instead, I recommend taking a look at this Reddit thread. I think these are valid interpretations (and what the director intended most likely) and mostly agree with the points.

TLDR: The narrative of the film is supposed to be played straight. You are supposed to pick up on the logical inconsistencies presented and the general metanarrative that you are viewing propaganda from the future, in the future. So stuff like the overconfidence of the Federation leading to thousands of soldier deaths, the contrast between the cheery propaganda and gruesome battle scenes, and the lackluster explanation for how Buenos Aires was destroyed by the bugs, somehow.

Even so, I still feel that the satire falls flat, just for different/slightly more nuanced reasons.

General Audiences are Uneducated

Step 1 of the problem is timeless I think, but maybe we are just more aware of it in 2024. And that is that people are stupid. So fucking stupid and uneducated, both in a film sense (forgivable) and general sense (less forgivable).

I think it's pretty clear that the Federation and our heroes are Nazis due to the fact that they're from Buenos Aires (the capital of Argentina, a state that many Nazis fled to post-WWII), the constant references to propagandistic language, and the literal SS uniform that Neil Patrick Harris wears.

But I would be completely unsurprised to find that all of these details are lost on the average person. I'm sure they find the interludes cringe and the acting and dialogue wooden and strange at times, but they are unable to connect that to a critique of fascism. To them, they just think this is a below average action movie.

The Language of Film (General Audiences are Uneducated II)

While I think the director can be forgiven for thinking the average person was more educated than they are, I think that it is a little less reasonable to expect people to be able to pick up on the fact that the film has a metanarrative (maybe it is my modern internet brain rot bias speaking though too).

We are very susceptible to accepting logical fallacies in media in general due to the kinds of techniques they employ. I think Starship Troopers employs a couple standard film techniques to tell its baseline action movie story, because in the framework of the movie being satirical propaganda itself, the action movie story has to actually be competent. But I think they also muddle the message a bit, because for example, if you specifically intend to endear people to certain characters, they aren't going to question the characters' logic, morals, and decisions, unless you the filmmaker provide them with reasons to do that.

Audiences expect movies to work a certain way, and if your movie relies on your audience ignoring that, a lot of people are going to miss the point. For a lot of them, it probably doesn't even occur to them that movies can work another way.

Another related issue is the tropes of the action genre. People walk into cheesy action movies expecting it to not make sense and have bad acting and poorly written dialogue--they are likely to attribute these signifiers of satire and critique more to the genre and less to an ulterior message.

---

I'm not saying that the director should have dumbed the movie down significantly, just that I think this is why many people misinterpret it (including me at first).

It's a problem in many creative mediums--generally, people are stupid animals, and I think it is a hard fact for creatives or even just media-literate people to remember that. Even something that is very accessible like "Stranger Things", or a literal children's TV show like "Avatar: The Last Airbender", are regularly misinterpreted by grown adults. Speaking from experience, one only has to spend a little time on any fan space for these shows for that to be come apparent.

Granted, I think a reasonably educated and film-literate person should be able to get it on the first or second watch, so it is unfortunate that even critics missed the point when the movie was released.

It is 2024 and Satire is Dead

Ok here's the big one. It is 2024 and Satire is Dead. I think I would have been more inclined to see the movie as obviously satirical to the average person if we had not spent the last 8 years living in this post-modern hellscape where truth is fake and yes, people (conservatives) really are that stupid. I think my threshold for "this is so ridiculous is it must be satire" is just way too high now. So I think there were a lot of moments in the film that did not hit that threshold and make me think, yeah this is obvious to anyone. Because I have seen so much stuff like it just plainly and earnestly said on the internet.

It's kind of stupidly simple that I don't have much more to say about it. We are just so de-sensitized to incoherent nonsense propaganda that satire had better be really satirical to read as such. And while it's not very fair to apply that standard to a movie made in 1997, back when we though Bush was as low as we could go, it is unfortunately the framework I am used to consuming media in now.

[bob-mcbobbinson]

The Whale: "my room is my head"

Hello, and welcome back (or just welcome if you are new to this page) this is my review of Darren Aronofsky's The Whale.

The Whale is a very beautiful movie, you can tell it was done with very much care; from the dialogue to its equally powerful visual language, every single element is intentionally placed and fits with one another really finely. Today I'd like to take you through this movie and why I think it works so well. enjoy :)

The film follows the story of Charlie, an obese, middle-aged man who has lost contact with his family and the rest of the world and lives in almost total isolation in his apartment. Apart from his only friend Liz, nobody enters his house, no one is allowed to. The place crumbles, and folds on itself as it becomes the man’s mind, his inner struggles and thoughts displayed for the viewer. It’s the sad coziness of the living room, the messiness of the kitchen, the stillness of Alan’s room, untouched and crystallized in time.

We're dealing with a character that has been stuck in the same situation for decades; as his body grew larger, his room shredded thinner, encapsulating him completely, as if the flesh and the room were one. He became an inanimate object the day he stopped fighting for himself, for the ones who once loved him, and the ones who still did. The narrow format of the frame contributed to creating this sense of unescapable claustrophobia and helped the viewer get into the protagonist's private existence. You can feel the heavy load of isolation and the weight of the many words unsaid; the light is dim, and the grain of the film falls static in the air, collected like dust.

Before we go on discussing the story and characters I need to clarify that whenever I find myself to particularly like a film on first watch, I always get informed on the criticism it has received, by taking a look at the other extreme of its polarized reception. In this case, I’ve come across many reviews criticizing its confused moralistic messages; the shameful portrayal of “fat people”, in a way that reinforced stereotypes and misconceptions; the uncomfortable abuser/abused relationship of Charlie and Ellie, and how the director seems to have given him way much more kindness and empathy that he actually deserved.

What I’ve noticed throughout the years is that we tend to look at films with merciless scrutiny; we search for the morals and hidden meanings of everything and deem every choice as intentionally thought out to lead to an ultimate purpose. If it’s subtle then it’s ambiguous, if it’s explicit then it’s too preachy, and if it’s preachy it’s either right or wrong, condemned or acclaimed, and to me, that makes little to no sense.

The truth is that we will always find what we set ourselves to look for if we search hard enough and squint our eyes at the minuscule acts that take place on the screen. We tend to look at movies as universal thesis on life, death, and human relationships rather than individual stories, of individual people, examples of humanity in which we may or may not find resonance (or reasoning) with our personal experiences.

In my opinion, this is a story of a man (not the story of a man) whose selfishness and self-hatred lead him to do horrible things to the ones he loved. Selfishness and self-hatred, both of them are necessary to reach a point this low, and I don’t think the author is trying to save him, I don’t think Aronofsky helped him to redeem himself or forced his daughter to forgive him. And as we take our seats at the cinema or in the sad coziness of our living rooms, we are invited to witness the consequences of this man’s actions, we’re not asked to pick a side and root for The Whale, and that’s what makes this film beautiful.

[allisoooon]

The reaction to Allison has been interesting ,(and mildly infuriating) I've seen so many people saying "obviously" this was setting her up as the big bad villian of S4 which I don't see at all.

I think it comes from a few different things:-

1) people saying they want morally ambiguous/dysfunctional characters but in reality don't unless it's 'pretty' or angsty or something people can easily project on to. I assume there has to be a big difference in demographic for TUA Vs say, The Boys which is full of reprehensible people but the audience expect it. We've seen The umbrellas kill people as kids , I don't think their morality is the same of everyone elses.

2) there are two things I think from a writing perspective probably should have been done differently a) the Luther rumour scene -it brings back the romance subplot that people hated and couldn't even accept as an example of how their childhood fucked them all up, and well, it's hard to redeem SA. Probably should have been cut.

b) there's a certain point in S3 where all Allisons dialogue becomes almost entirely angry/snarky which has lead to a large influx of 'omg Allison is such a bitch!!!!!' I wish there was a late in the series convo with someone neutral like Klaus to give the character a moment to breathe.

3) Lack of sympathy for the character bc we've seen very little of Allison's life pre S1 and in childhood. I've seen loads of people say that she has had a basically cushy life due to her powers, and I think sooo many of the audience believe if they had her powers it would be all sunshine and rainbows. We got multiple flashbacks for Klaus this season (which I loved) but I really think Allison would benefit from some.

4) good old racism and misogyny. I reaaaaallly wanna know what the reaction would have been if Klaus killed Harlan for revenge for the moms or some shit.

Whew, this is all very true. People want traumatized/morally grey characters as long as they're sexy about it (see: Spike from Buffy, who took the SA way further and was still probably the most popular character). It's still bizarre for people to have watched the second season and say she's never had to work for anything.

I also think it's the target, though. Being mean to Viktor is kind of treated like the ultimate sin. People act like he's a little kid. So we get an angry black woman (already stigmatized as fuck) screaming at a small white person people essentially see as a child and go "I understand why she's angry, but she's crossing a line by being mean about it." She's talking to someone who destroyed her life twice. Does she owe it to him to be nice about what he has done to her, sometimes intentionally? Don't get me wrong, their fight was fucked up and Allison said some fucked-up shit, but the issue of the audience's reaction to Allison this season is multi-faceted--and it is an issue.

We needed more of her perspective. Fuck, we needed that scene with Klaus or someone where she says she doesn't get why everyone's so keen on dying and letting everyone else die with them. Put that between the vote and Reg killing Luther and Klaus could help her come to terms with death by talking about what awaits them on the other side. She could start looking forward to seeing Ray again when they hear a scream from down the hall...

...Apparently I have a fanfic to write.

But for real, I don't think Allison's arc will feel satisfying until next season. I think there will be big consequences for her, as many as there were benefits for her this season, and I hope they will come after she has calmed down and is ready to make peace with everyone. That's not even getting into what Harlan could have meant when he said her vibration sounded "wrong" (something to do with her self-rumor, maybe?).

[shihalyfie]

02 as a story about relationships, and the value of “guest characters”

02 is, first and foremost, a story about relationships between people; it is not a story about the individual, and it has never been a story about the individual.

I cannot emphasize enough how important understanding this concept is to understanding 02 itself, to the point where I might even say something as extreme as insinuating that not taking this into account means risking having the entire point of 02 go over your head. Not only has it been outright stated by official (multiple times, at that) that this is a point it intentionally was made to contrast with Adventure with, you can also even see it in the evolution gimmick (Jogress) being about people connecting with each other. It’s an important point to make in general, too; as long as we live in a world with other people in it, how we reach out to and connect with others is just as important of a personal character trait as how we deal with ourselves. This is one of 02′s most standout qualities, especially in contrast to other Digimon series; it’s the theme that sets it most apart from everything else.

I’m writing this partially because I felt I should touch on it in general, and partially because lately I’ve been hearing sentiments about how introducing the new upcoming 02-based movie with a “guest character” instead of the 02 group itself is somehow doing said characters a disservice. I touched on this a little earlier, but to be honest, as someone who personally loves 02 very deeply, this take unnerves me a lot (and, predictably, comes very often from people who don’t even care for 02 that much; seriously, it’s a bit unnerving to hear these kinds of sentiments acting like they care about the series’s welfare from people who never cared for it in the first place). So here’s a post about the importance of “relationships” in 02′s narrative overall, and how “guest characters” tend to play into this.

“Relationships” within 02 itself

I admit that this is probably a bit harder to tell if you’ve only seen the American English dub, due to a lot of dialogue changes that make it ambiguous as to how much some of the kids like each other (that each and every member of the 02 group has almost unequivocal adoration and respect for each other at basically all times is not even remotely ambiguous in Japanese), but the intimacy between the members of the 02 group is one of the most notable things about it, to the point that it stands out even among the rest of the franchise. You can even see this trend reflected in official key art and fanart; depictions of the 02 group often reflect physical intimacy between the characters (linked arms, huddling together) and a strong sense of the full group hanging out together in a cluster. The observation that the Adventure group generally is in need of a reason to get together outside Digimon-related incidents whereas the 02 group hangs out with each other simply because they like it has been pointed out by many people around the world for years, and it probably wasn’t until Appmon (all the way in 2016!) when the idea of a cohesive group of this size all hanging out together regularly, purely for social reasons, came up again. Take any two characters from the 02 group and you’ll already be able to say a ton about how they’d likely treat each other; that’s a pretty huge accomplishment for a full group of six!

Because the whole concept of “human relationships” is so important to 02, it’s additionally essential in understanding the question of why the protagonist at the forefront of 02′s narrative isn’t Ken, whom the story can somewhat be said to be mostly “about” (in terms of his fall and recovery being relevant to almost all of the major story beats), but rather Daisuke. Of course, now that we’re all adults, I think most of us have experienced a lot more narratives where the line between “the character central to the narrative” and “the protagonist whose primary viewpoint the story is seen from” is very blurred (the currently running The Case Study of Vanitas is having a ball with this), but, nevertheless, Daisuke is the protagonist primarily because his way of approaching others and his philosophy of action is vital to the story 02 itself wanted to tell. (It’s not because he’s the “leader” of the group, because he isn’t really.) It’s also important to note that the narrative isn’t necessarily endorsing that everyone should be exactly like Daisuke -- after all, part of the reason he’s able to do what he does is because he has the other five kids with very different personalities complementing him -- but rather, it puts focus on the fact he’s able to have such a huge impact on others, and his relationships with the others that move them forward.

02 often gets an accusation of having characters that “don’t change throughout the narrative” or “have little/no character development”, which is an accusation that really isn’t true at all and has been easily turned down by anyone who’s actually bothered to sit down and think about the series in the last few years. Part of the problem likely comes from 02′s unfortunate penchant for subtlety -- its characters are fleshed out over an entire 50 episodes and their behavioral changes not spelled out for you in explicit words, so you have to actually pay attention and note the differences, and a lot of people seem to have just let it go over their heads and claim that it means nothing actually happened. (In fact, I’m about to whip out what may seem like a heathen statement to many: I never personally felt that 02 and Frontier ever lacked much in the way of character writing nuance compared to Adventure and Tamers respectively; it’s just that they didn’t happen to spell it out and hand it on a plate for you. Just because they don’t explicitly say it doesn’t mean it isn’t there!)

The bigger problem, however, is that people keep trying to analyze 02 through a lens built more for Adventure -- that is to say, one that was never meant to fit 02 in the first place, because that’s never what it was meant to be about. It's frustrating to see people go "Daisuke has no depth as a character!" just because they were expecting some kind of Crest-like epiphany mid-series where he speaks about all his individual flaws and how he overcame them, instead of simply just looking at the difference between how Daisuke behaves and interacts with others in episode 1 versus episodes 45-50 (and it’s huge!).

In fact, every single major character arc in 02 is better defined not by “how each character is individually”, but rather “how they interact with and form relationships with others”. Taking it character by character:

Daisuke: Yes, he’s explicitly referred to by official as a character who didn’t change much (...compared to Ken, anyway, which isn’t actually saying all that much). And, to a certain degree, that’s true; his fundamental attitude didn’t change a lot between episodes 1 and 50 of 02. What did change, however, was how he approached others and how he asserted himself; he spent the early episodes of the series running around in circles and deferring to others, and slowly developed into someone who became more assertive about his decisions and confident about supporting others. So it’s not about whether his fundamental view of the world changed; it’s about the fact that he initially started off as someone who, thanks to his abysmal lack of self-awareness, wasn’t able to get much done at all, but eventually accepted the support and validation from his friends to become a pillar supporting everyone and pushing them forward.

Ken: Ken’s shift in “morality”, when he decided to stop being cruel and to try and make up for his mistakes, happened abruptly in 02 episodes 21 and 23. The part about his own fundamental approach to life happened there; it didn’t need any further changes after that point! What did change, however, was that he was drowning in regrets, self-hatred, and keeping distance from others at that time, and, thanks to Daisuke and the others, learned to accept the support of others in order to move forward with his life. In terms of “doing good”, that was already long past him! -- but accepting the others into his heart and getting to the point where he could hang out cheerfully with them without restraint took much longer.

Miyako: Even from the very beginning, Miyako’s character was based on “going out of her way to dote on and help others” (it is very misleading to look at only her profile qualities like “good at computers” and reduce her entire character to that), and on top of having a penchant for panic and causing trouble for others, she also had a complex about panicking and causing trouble for others, often being the first to criticize herself for her own behavior and negatively comparing herself to others like Mimi and Hikari. It’s during the second half of the series when she starts to channel those qualities into being able to reach out to others and check on their emotional needs -- especially Hikari, who was so closed-in by default that Miyako’s aggressive tendencies were vital in reaching out to her -- and thus becomes someone who can properly support others in the way she wants.

Iori: The beginning of the series had him inflexible in thinking to the point others find it difficult to deal with him (although they certainly try) -- and to the point where he blocks out anything he sees as intolerable, most infamously when he’s initially the most cold and unforgiving towards Ken. His interactions with trying to figure out Takeru’s complicated nature help him open his mind towards acknowledging Ken’s position and desire to make things up, and overall, his observations of the complicated nature of the human heart help him understand others like Oikawa better -- something he would not have been able to do at the beginning of the series at all.

Takeru: The seemingly “cheerful” Takeru started off with a lot of horribly repressed emotions he wouldn’t admit and a penchant for being evasive, meaning that it was initially difficult to tell what his real intentions were -- causing Daisuke to get set off by him in the early parts of the series, and causing himself problems when he almost alienated Hikari (02 episode 13), Daisuke (02 episode 11), and Iori (02 episode 19) during some poorly-timed fits of anger. Iori reaching out to him allows him to finally be a little more straightforward and communicative, even about heavier topics, and understand the need to communicate with others in such a way.

Hikari: Her closed-in nature caused her to never truly speak her internal feelings to others nor be willing to ask others for help, giving others a poor scope of how to connect with her and causing her to develop a feeling of resignation that she couldn’t do anything to help herself; thanks to Takeru’s efforts in 02 episode 13 and Miyako’s efforts in 02 episode 31, she became able to more concretely voice calls for help when she needed them, stop resigning herself to her fate, and in general be able to speak her thoughts more assertively.

See the pattern? All of the initial major conflicts have to do with difficulty with connecting to others, or having a hard time accepting others’ support; over the course of the story, the kids end up changing in terms of how they interact with others, how they’re able to support others, or how they communicate with and interact with others. It’s not a development of one’s sheer fundamental qualities, but a development of one’s place in the group and their capacity for forming relationships.

Hence, when you look at Daisuke -- someone who has virtually zero self-awareness and puts all of his energy into supporting others -- thus comes the answer as to why he’s the protagonist of this narrative! This is the philosophy that everyone in the group is guided towards by the end of the story -- becoming people with empathy for others and a desire to support them, working to understand others’ feelings, and helping them get through their troubles. All of them have their own different ways of going at it, but, ultimately, “the importance of being able to connect to others” is one of the core principles of 02 as a series.

The importance of “guest characters”

So, speaking of the concept of “guest characters”, and the accusation that including one in the new movie will supposedly lead to an inevitable shafting of the 02 cast: well, first of all, let’s get on the table that this concept is hardly new to this franchise, nor even Toei series at all. It’s very common for theatrical movies to get these -- namely, Wallace in Hurricane Touchdown, Kai and Minami in the first Tamers movie, Bearmon and Kotemon in the Frontier movie, Rhythm in the Savers movie, and, most recently, Menoa and Imura in Kizuna -- because this is an opportunity to cover territory that would overcomplicate a full series. I have to emphasize that this is the same for Kizuna as well; even though it certainly was a very loaded 95 minutes due to having to establish so much in such little time, in the end, it was only a 95-minute movie. Theatrical movies are short stories, and shouldn’t be seen as anything but short stories; it’s kind of uncomfortable to see people have such high expectations of them in terms of carrying a series-tier narrative. It’s quite the opposite; these kinds of movies are taking advantage of the shorter format in order to cover territory that would be troublesome for a stretched-out one.

So yes, when “guest characters” don’t leave as much impact as the primary series characters, that’s, uh...well, that’s kind of the point. You’re not supposed to be giving them the same weight as the main series characters, because their entire existence comes from exploring possibilities that are only doable in short narratives! Wallace was a character whose whole appeal comes from the fact he’s a chaotic vagrant with unpredictable behavior and not much of an ability to commit to anything, so his character suits a one-off movie (and later drama CD) far better than it would suit being a regular in an ongoing series. Wallace, Kai, Minami, Kotemon, Bearmon, Rhythm, Menoa, and Imura were never, ever intended as characters that you had to put on the same level as the series regulars; they're just there to introduce new backgrounds and concepts to the existing setting, shake things up a bit for the sake of the short story, and show off what the regular characters can do in an unfamiliar situation. (In fact, you could say that Menoa is basically responsible for briefly introducing 02 thematic concepts to the Adventure cast.)

However, to me, the really baffling part about this discourse about how a new character would be “shafting” the characters in a 02 movie is that the 02 group is the exact kind of group that benefits best from the presence of this kind of character.

Let’s put it this way: When you look at Daisuke, what moments brought him closest to his emotional breaking point within 02 canon? Personally, I’d say his top moments are:

Hurricane Touchdown, openly crying over Wallace’s plight and empathizing with his situation even when it wasn’t supposed to be his problem (for those coming only from Digimon: The Movie, please note that this scene was very heavily altered from its original context) -- this is the only time in 02 canon, as of this writing, when we see him openly break down in tears

02 episode 26, when Daisuke agonizes about the fact Ken’s on the verge of suicidally throwing himself into a reactor in an attempt at penance (I don’t know how much this was kept in other dubs, but Kiuchi Reiko’s voice performance makes it pretty obvious Daisuke’s on the verge of tears)

The Door to Summer, when Daisuke is also pushed to the verge of tears seeing Nat-chan suffering and trying to reach out to her

Remember that Daisuke has basically no sense of self-awareness, and said openly in 02 episode 49 that he doesn’t have anything to worry about in his personal life. But that’s in his own personal life! In said episode, he also expressed that he was personally offended by BelialVamdemon trampling on others’ feelings, and if you want to go three years prior to Adventure, Daisuke’s own core motivations were stated in the Adventure novels and Spring 2003 to have been originally based on “frustration over not being able to protect others”. Daisuke may not have too many of his own problems, but when someone else has a problem, he makes that into his own problem -- he cries over them, is pushed to emotional limits empathizing with them, and is frustrated and angry with himself if he fails to help them.

In other words, all of the moments where Daisuke is seen at his best are when he’s interacting with and supporting others. That is where Daisuke’s potential as a character lies -- and it’s also tied into the rest of the group in 02 as well! Look at all of the moments of the most tense drama in 02, and what pushed each character to the limit; it was often to do with empathy for others, in the form of things like pain over hurting others, frustration over being unable to understand others, frustration over being unable to help others...

In fact, when you say “02 was a lot about Ken”, this is technically a correct statement, but it’s not so much about Ken himself as much as Ken in relation to the others. The entire second half of 02 was basically a “test” for the kids in terms of dealing with an “outsider” like him -- having built up a reasonably strong group dynamic already, what would it take for them to understand and reach out to someone who wasn’t from their neighborhood and had spent a whole half a year antagonizing them? Many of the episodes between 02 episodes 25 and 38 are really not about Ken himself to begin with (he spends a lot of time hanging around and being helpful, but not always much more than that), but rather about the rest of the group struggling with their own feelings regarding him and debating over what to do with him. That’s why the order and circumstances behind how they accepted him really say a lot more about them than they do about him (Daisuke is open-minded and forward-thinking, Miyako’s a bit more emotionally sensitive but is roughly just about as much, Hikari and Takeru are overly cautious and hesitant about their approaches, and Iori had to go through a whole journey of self-examination in how he approached others).

So in regards to this movie, we happen to have introduced this movie right off the bat with...none of the actual 02 characters. Daisuke still narrates the trailer and talks about meeting the person in question, so it’s pretty obvious that there’s still some tie to said characters, and V-Jump still uses the words “the 02 group is in a leading role”, so it’s pretty apparent that at least some of our favorite characters are going to be involved...but they’re not put front and center, and instead our very first promotional piece of art has someone else entirely, which is something official outright wants you to pay attention to.

Now, of course, I know as much about this movie as the rest of us do, so I’m not going to necessarily make any hard speculation about it either. I can’t tell you what role the 02 group would play in it, or which characters are even going to be involved beyond (presumably) Daisuke and V-mon. However, the mentality I just can’t get behind at all is the idea that this treatment of them is “shafting” when being in support roles is literally what the 02 group specializes in. And, on top of that, tying into what I said about the disparity between “the protagonist of the narrative” and “what the story is actually about” -- even if this movie decided to go as far as not even making the 02 characters the “protagonists” of their own narrative, it’s in fact possible to show off a lot about them without doing so.

The definition of what the 02 group was aspiring for in 02 itself was, simply, “happiness”. Like, for instance, a Christmas party where even getting to laugh was such a big deal (02 episode 38). Or aspiring to simple dreams even when they don’t involve high expectations (02 episode 50). One of the biggest, most major differences between them and their seniors was that what they lacked in “productive competence” compared to their seniors, they made up for in emotional support. Their major accomplishments and specialized skillsets aren’t really incredible compared to their seniors if we’re just talking about Digimon battling or something, but in terms of being positive and uplifting? Unparalleled.

In other words, if you want to show how far the 02 group has come, and their capacity for emotional support, introducing an external factor like a new character is one of the easiest ways to do it. If all they wanted to do was cash in on the 02 characters’ names and faces, and therefore put them in front as if they’re the only characters driving the story, I’d conversely be really worried, because it would make me wonder: what kind of territory are you trying to cover with them alone? In something like only 95 minutes (or maybe even less, since we don’t even know how long this movie is going to be)? There’s not a lot of good ideas you can come up with if your range is so narrow! 02 itself was a story with the kids contending with a lot of external factors -- the conflict between them and Ken, and later the conflict between them and Oikawa, and the conflict between them and the Dark Seed children who were suffering in their own way. The series even had its own “guest” factors like Michael or the other international Chosen to shake up the status quo every so often! It was never a story about them dealing with things within themselves, but rather trying to figure out their place in a huge world, and dealing with problems both internally and externally. You could get away with a self-contained story that centers almost entirely on introspection and self-improvement if this were about Adventure, where that kind of thing was part of the story itself, but 02 doesn’t work that way at all.

So, again -- the part that eludes me is how this apparently constitutes “shafting”, when an element like this is outright expected, or perhaps even required, if you want to bring the most out of 02′s themes and what these characters best specialize in. I understand that past experiences have tended to make people a bit suspicious of how these characters are treated and whether someone’s secretly out to get them, but reasonable worry is a far cry from the sheer concept of having a focus character outside their group being taken as such an alarming sign of them being sidelined, especially when this is the exact kind of situation that they conversely operate best in. An unfamiliar factor like this is exactly the kind of thing that would put their emotional mettle and supportive capacities to the test, rather than trying to show those off in a context where everyone already has known each other deeply for eight years!

Again, I know as much about the movie as the rest of us do, and as we find out more about it maybe there’ll be things to be worried about, but in terms of this apparently being evidence that the 02 group is in for a bad time: as they say, this just isn’t it, guys.

[drowningbydegrees]

Fanfic Tag Game

Thanks for the tag @lokibus! <3 <3 <3

How many works do you have on Ao3?

54. I've written quite a bit more, but I just can't be bothered to carry over most of the fics from my LJ days. Also, once upon a time I had a super insecure streak and I went on an orphaning spree, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What’s your total Ao3 word count?

Apparently 457,241! Kinda same as above.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Though I Try Not To (The Witcher)

I'm so weirdly pleased about this. I fell into Witcher fandom totally by accident. I don't usually do fixit fics, but I couldn't help myself. This is, I think, the only fic to date where I've started posting as a WIP and actually followed through and finished.

Where All Roads Lead (MCU)

If there is one plot device I'm just eternally a sucker for, it's time travel shenanigans. This was one of the two time travely fics I wrote for Stucky fandom.

For The Space of a Heartbeat (The Witcher)

I'm honestly really surprised by this? This was totally just a self indulgent spur of the moment kinda thing, and it's only a couple thousand words.

Even in the Dark I Know You (The Witcher)

Okay, I lied. There were two WIPs I actually followed through and finished. This started as a random oneshot for a whump week thing, and then the prompt for the next day fit so well with a follow up chapter that this just turned into a whole story. I really enjoy subverting tropes and with witcher biology I see a lot of sensory overload kinds of fics, so I decided to play with the idea in reverse.

Even if it Hurts (Even if it Makes Me Bleed) (The Witcher)

So, most of the time when I settle into a fandom, there's one fic idea that I feel like I cannot leave without writing. For Witcher fandom, this was that fic. I have a lot of complicated thoughts about soulmates as a romantic concept, even more so when you're involving characters like Geralt, for whom fate is so often a double edged sword. This story was very much an excuse to dig into what soulmates mean for personal agency under the guise of a narrative. XD

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Admittedly, I do this with embarrassing inconsistency. Basically, what happens is: * Something gets a good response. * I respond to a few comments and then find myself overwhelmed (mentally, not as in there are a truly overwhelming number of comments). * I step away for a bit. * A month later I realize I still haven't replied. Cue paralyzing indecision about whether it's too late to reply. * Rinse and repeat.

I do want to! And I'm working on it. I've gotten a little better about it, but my apologies to anyone who I haven't responded to. Please know I'm not intentionally ignoring you. ;_;

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Oh hmm. I had a reputation for a really long time as primarily an angst writer, but pretty much all my stories have a happy ending for some given quantity of happy. I guess it kind of depends on how one qualifies that.

Noonwraiths and Other Woodland Forest Creatures maybe. It's got a got a pretty fluffy ending.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

It's a tossup.

I, The Paradox, which is my other time travel fic from my Stucky fandom days, with a paradox (shocking) that lands Steve with two versions of Bucky. For plot purposes even! It's not a particularly smutty story. It ends sort of ambiguously. There's a sequel outlined that was meant to resolve said ambiguity, but alas, it's still sitting in my WIP folder.

Truth in the Periphery. It's a psychological horror story I wrote for an event. I think it's the only fanfic I've ever written that was really intended as a hurt/no comfort kind of story.

Do you write crossovers?

I haven't, but not because I specifically don't. I've just never had an idea that felt compelling enough to follow through on.

have you ever received hate on a fic?

Maaaaybe once or twice a long, long, long time ago, back when FFN was still the best option for posting outside of LiveJournal. I don't think it was even about the writing. I think it was someone was mad that my much younger self tried to sneak smut onto FFN.

Do you write smut? if so, what kind?

I have such a love/hate relationship with smut in my own work. I used to write it a lot because I felt like I had to. It was until I came to terms with being more or less ace irl that it occurred to me why I didn't enjoy writing it. Weirdly, I like reading it just fine.

The thing is, while I don't really care for the physical aspect of it, I like the emotional touchpoints of it, so I do still write smut sometimes. It just tends to be a little cursory in terms of action details and heavy on character dynamics.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No. But I used to RP a lot, and it's always been a lot of fun, so I wouldn't be opposed to the idea!

What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Oh shoot. From a romantic standpoint that varies so much depending on what fandom I'm currently feeling enthusiastic about. It's pretty much always a specific character that draws me to a fandom, so I think the most consistent ship I have is favorite character/unconditional love and support. XD

What’s a wip that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

The sequel to I, The Paradox I mentioned earlier.

What are your writing strengths?

If there's one thing I feel like I have a consistently good handle on, it's emotional impact. I put a lot of thought into why people make the choices they do and how they relate to each other, and I would like to think I'm reasonably adept at leading readers to the emotional response I'm going for.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Descriptions. I'm just forever in awe of people who can just write settings/action naturally. It's a constant effort for me, and it's the thing I always feel like I fall short on. I can write navel gazing in my sleep, but an action scene? Pfftttt.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Very situational. Kind of like in movies and television. I don't have any kind of always x or y opinion on it though.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Inuyasha. It was back when I didn't have a computer of my own and would write at the library, so the only record of it was the site I used to draft and post to that is now defunct. No one is happier about this than I am. 😂

What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

I think I'm genuinely pretty proud of everything I've written in the last couple of years, but if I had to pick right now, it'd be It Doesn't Break But it Bends. It's a time loop fic. Someone left "Recommended but you will sob." as their bookmark note for it and I think that might be my crowning achievement in fandom.

Tagging (if you want!): @mikkeneko @goodheavensgwen @writinglizards @plotdesigner And anyone else who wants to <3

[stargazerdaisy]

Tagged by @abedsmessedupmeta and @vesperass-anuna

How many works do you have on AO3? 40

What’s your total AO3 word count? 200,109

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

I Get The Feelin’ That You Wanna Fall

I Want You to Stay, You Have to Go

Except Your Touch

Couldn’t See You Coming

The Moments In Between

Wow, I didn’t realize my three highest were all Chenford.  Nice!

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I do my absolute best to reply to every comment left on my stories.  Interaction with authors was one of the things that got me more actively involved with fandom and led to me writing my own fic, so I try to pay that back.  

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

It’s a toss up.  The Fuse Is Lit, So Stand Back and Watch It Burn is one of the very few (might even be the only?) fics I’ve written that has a confirmed, definite angsty ending, because it’s basically a canon scene where I added in Ward’s inner thoughts.  And well...that didn’t end well for anyone.  But Don’t Go is probably the angstiest, despite it being an intentionally and very ambigious ending.  I think the ambiguity adds to the angst and I got a much bigger reaction from readers for it.  

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the strangest one you’ve written?

Not really.  I don’t have a lot of personal attraction to crossovers (they’re really, really hard to do well and serve all of the characters properly).  I applaud people who can do them well, I’m just not intrigued enough to try.  I’ve joked around with little headcanons and daydream ideas here and there that I discuss with friends, but nothing that I have sat down to actually write and publish.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Surprisingly no.  I actually haven’t really gotten any hate, either on fic or in anon asks.  Maybe I joined the fandoms too late or maybe I’m too boring to pick on.  Either way, works for me!

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Siiiiiigh.  This is a weird one for me.  No, I do not write smut.  I do however cheer on my co-writers to write the smut for our stories.  And I have definitely helped choreograph and beta’d smut (making sure everyone get their clothes off is harder than you think).  But writing smut myself is one of those lines that I drew for myself, whether it makes sense to anyone else or not.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I am aware of.  But it’s one of the things I’ve always been concerned about when people have asked to translate my fics (which is also incredibly flattering!).  

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Hahahahahahahahha.  Yes. I’ve done headcanon ‘verses with @vesperass-anuna and @agentramsey where we exchanged prompts and wrote stories for each other.  In those, the individual stories were each written by us, but all together, the whole collection was definitely co-written.  And then there’s @evieoh with whom I co-write a TON of stories.  Seriously, all of my best stories are the one we co-wrote.  And we really and truly co-write.  There are scenes that one or the other of us wrote, but there are parts where we literally alternated sentences or even words.  It’s a very enmeshed process.  Bless Google Docs!

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Skyeward.  Chenford is working hard to climb up there, but at the end of the day, Skyeward has my heart, my ass, and my soul.  Just the other day I was listening to random songs and having major feelings about them with Skyeward.  

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Alias AU.  It’s just too big for our brains to handle.  We have SO MUCH of it mapped out, but there’s a lot of mythology that needs to be detailed, and we’re just not gonna get there.  So we scaled it down to Blalias AU, as we nicknamed it.  Hopefully we’ll work our way through that.

What are your writing strengths?

Banter.  For sure.  I love writing dialogue.  

What are your writing weaknesses?

Action. Don’t think I can do it at all.  But then again a lot of my fics are in settings that don’t require a lot.  Also, slow burn is actually hard to write!  I just want them happy and comfortable in a relationship.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I don’t really do it, mostly because I don’t have a good reason to in the stories that I write.  As a reader, I like a little bit, like a sentence or two, where you can guess the meaning from context.  And I really love little terms of endearment (bless Darklina fic for all the Russian endearments) in other languages.  But if there are big blocks of dialogue, I just skip over them.  If there’s a translation, then it takes me out of the story, and if there isn’t, I’m not going to go look it up, so.... yeah.  As a writer, if I had a reason to use another language, 1) I would make sure I got the translation from an actual human that speaks it (i.e. not Google Translate) and 2) it would be just a line or two that wouldn’t need a separate translation to understand.  

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Very very very first, was Hanson.  Yup, that Hanson.  I even turned in a self insert fanfic as a Creative Writing assignment in high school.  I still can’t decide if my teacher knew what it was and died laughing at me or had no clue because he was an old grizzled English teacher who would rather listen to jazz than Mmmbop.  But like, as intentionally writing fic, it was actually Skyeward.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Hmmm.....that’s really really hard.  I loooove Couldn’t See You Coming (Skyeward Soulmate AU I wrote for Evie’s birthday a few years ago).  I think Finders Keepers is my best single fic.  And From My Hands, I Could Give You (Restaurant AU) might be the one I’m the very most attached to.  I haven’t updated it in 2+ years, but I still think about it and daydream plan for it on a near-daily basis.  

Tagging: @universallongings, @firstdegreefangirl, @inthemovingcastle

[meikuree]

fic writer interview

tagged by @lightdescending -- tysm, this was really fun and i enjoy elaborating on things about writing/the writing process!

putting this under a read more because of my trademark verbosity (AGAIN)

name: meikuree

fandoms: actively writing for snk, tempted to write for the locked tomb

two-shot: oh i've not intentionally done these! twenty years of snow accidentally fits the bill, but only because it's on an indefinite hiatus

most popular multi-chapter: of aubades, my pieck-centric ficlet series, by some metrics

actual worst part of writing: when I get stuck in a loop of perfectionism and excessive self-scrutiny and rewrite… and rewrite… and rewrite again. my solution to this is to send it to a friend and ask for them to tell me just one (1) nice thing about it and put me out of my misery, or do freewriting where the point is to write whatever immediately pops into my head. usually then I’ll bump into an epiphany in the middle about how to Make It Work.

alternatively: fic writing is at times such a solitary, obsessively recursive activity and that’s one tension I dislike/have to negotiate with, because part of why I like art is to share it with people or at the very least engage in some kind of reciprocal conversation about it. community in art is very important to me in general, and I try to cultivate it in my online presence in small ways!

how you choose your titles: i'm a fan of grabbing titles from poems and songs/song lyrics (like you!) -- and drawing them from regina spektor songs in particular, bc she’s by some metrics my all-time favourite musician and i’m very familiar with her discography

do you outline: usually, yes. i don’t confine myself to it, but at minimum I outline pivotal moments and turning points. my process tends to start with a compelling scene or character interaction popping into my head and then goes on with me thinking about how i can use it as a vehicle for communicating a certain concept/philosophical idea/insight about XYZ characters' relationships somehow. that becomes the core idea/endpoint I want to reach by the end in a fic, so then i'll outline the main emotional or introspective beats i want to carry across in service of that

ideas I probably won’t get around to but wouldn’t it be nice: wow, um... /gestures vaguely at my unending list of wips/ that said, one idea i'm tickled by is an obnoxious, utterly random M-rated pieck/lady tybur fic involving painplay and knifeplay, the plot for which is literally just… lara tybur stabs pieck with a knife, but make it sexy somehow… with a dash of political intrigue and a complicated ambiguous relationship where two women use each other in a decidedly callous but also self-aware and self-indulgent way. the idea for this just came from me going "ah yes... the inherent homoeroticism of being stabbed by another woman..." and wondering about ~scenarios enabled by being a titan shifter, when you can regenerate your wounds and such! (partial inspiration also came, I will admit, from the locked tomb fandom and its lesbian body horror influences)

callouts @ me: sensory details are one of my biggest weak points. i've been ironing it out through concerted practice, but when i first started out writing fic i tended to be more comfortable dealing with metaphor, introspection, and mental states than... writing about actual, corporeal things happening in corporeal textspace. it can create the impression while reading, I suspect, that the characters are stuck a lot in their own heads. one of my earliest and favourite ao3 comments i've gotten said in passing that i used "very little dialogue and description" and i'm still tickled by... how true it is as an MO. it also amuses me because it seems to parallel the same issue i had with essays i wrote at university, i think (!) -- my professors would tell me, “you have a great grasp on the theory but you need to include more concrete examples." and i'd go "what? i was supposed to use examples?? ?__? isn’t the point self-evident from the theory?” for me, shifts in relationship dynamics and the negotiation of one's worldview underlying an event ARE the plot! -- and everything else tends to become subservient to that when i write

the other thing, which is somewhat related to the above, is just... self-confidence! i can be very insecure about my writing style, as my partner and poor friends I’ve whinged to can attest. mainly because i always fear that reading it feels like wading through a thick, unappealing swampy bog of someone's thoughts. but i think the solution is to just take a grounded, balanced view, like: there are some things i do well, and some things i do not-as-well in writing, and that's fine! that's normal! and in the moment i can be very hard on myself, and wring my hands thinking OH MY GOD THE UTTER CRINGE OF ME WRITING ANY OF THIS but i find that somehow, i always end up enjoying rereading what i write.

best writing traits: the most consistent comment i get, i think, is that my writing is beautiful and poetic (and one time: "this is one of the most poetic things i've ever read." which -- ?!?!). I’ve also been told that i characterise people well or with nuance, and write about them sensitively and with depth. i'm grateful, always, to hear these bc these things constitute the one niche i CAN do, imo!

spicy tangential opinion: hm… from what I’ve observed, many fandoms have a tendency to flatten character motives and complexities into easy, tidy and dare i say, sometimes bizarre, labels and categories. it’s not surprising it happens, but sometimes there’s space for people (a big, vague, nonspecific ‘people’) to go beyond simplistic assumptions about characters and one-dimensional portrayals (and to give writers who achieve it their due! I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen an incredibly well-written fic that was relatively undernoticed and gone, “why, fandom???”) sometimes you write to fix canon, and sometimes you write because it’s fanon that needs fixing instead.

tagging (no pressure): @ebbet @noxcounterspell @leksaa90 @minoan-ophidian @frumpkinspocketdimension @acerinky @rose-gardens @chocochipbiscuit @whiteasy @ochen @kallistoi  anyone else who wants to join in!

[scribeofred]

Thanks to @onereyofstarlight for the tag!

 1. What fandoms have you written for?

This is embarrassing but I actually had to look at both FFnet and AO3 because I couldn’t remember all of them. TRON: Legacy, Assassin’s Creed, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, Sherlock, Final Fantasy VII and XV and Kingsglaive, Voltron: Legendary Defender, Merlin, Skyrim, and, of course, Thunderbirds. I have a couple other fandoms that crop up in various wips, including a Tom Swift/Thunderbirds crossover that I really should finish.

2. How many works do you have on AO3 &/or FFNet?

FFnet has 45, and AO3 has 41. There’s also a couple stories lurking on tumblr, notably a final chapter for Reflection.

3. What are your top 3 fics by kudos on A03 &/or Favs on FFNet?

AO3 dominates in this area, if I can use a word like “dominates” for stories that have less than 125 kudos each haha. Oh well, the numbers don’t matter!

1.     118 kudos on tell the shades apart (my world is black and white)

2.     94 kudos on Reflection

3.     91 kudos on The 43rd Hour

4. Which 3 fics have the least kudos & Favs?

Again on AO3:

1 kudos on I Am You (And You Are Me)

5 kudos on The Dragonborn Chronicles

6 kudos on cynosure

5. Which Fic has the most comments and which has the least?

Reflection has the most at 29 threads, and I Am You (And You Are Me) has the least at zero.

6. Which complete fic do you wish had gotten more attention?

Lodestar, definitely. Sure, it’s for something of a rarepair, but they aren’t that rare, and I just really really like the way the story came together. On the other hand, of course my unfinished Merlin fic has gotten probably the most attention, because that’s just the way it goes, eh?

7. Have you written any crossovers?

None that I’ve published! I have various crossovers lurking in mostly unfinished states, including the aforementioned Tom Swift/Thunderbirds crossover, and an Assassin’s Creed/Thundeerbirds crossover that is very good and I should also finish. There’s an Expanse/Thunderbirds fic lurking in my brain that I may or may not ever commit to paper, who knows. I’ve also very vaguely toyed with a Batman/Thunderbirds crossover, in the sense that “nebulous” is too strong a word for the kind of toying I’ve been doing.

8. What is the craziest fic you’ve written?

I don’t really write crazy or crack or humor in general, so probably the closest thing to “crazy” is On the Lam, which was the result of wanting to throw Scott and Penelope toward an Egyptian stud farm. It ended up being the host for a bad joke about that, courtesy of one @thebaconsandwichofregret, who consistently gives some of the best dialogue advice I’ve ever encountered.

Actually, the true answer is probably a chapter in Glimpses into a Supernova, maybe the one about blood? It seems bonkers when I think back on it now, but I admittedly haven’t read it in many years. Possibly I am misremembering. Glimpses has some weird ones, though.

9. What’s the fic you’ve written with the saddest ending?

It’s a tossup between The Painting and a place where the water touches the sky. The former deals with a prior off-screen death; the latter is (maybe??) an on-screen death. People seemed upset by it, at any rate. I said it was ambiguous!

10. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

“Happy” is probably a matter of perspective? Depends on the overall reading experience and the ending within that context. Either septet or Three Towels and a Tracy, they’re both pretty fluffy overall.

11. What is your smuttiest fic?

protoinstincts, which I completely forgot I wrote and then rediscovered like a year later and realized “hey, this is actually pretty good” and you know what, despite it not being overly spicy, it is pretty good.

12. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not hate, per se, but someone left a review on Less Than Nothing saying they “didn’t like” that I “wrote the story as a series of drabbles.” Cool, I didn’t write the story for you, random guest reader, and the back button exists, friend 😂 It didn’t bother me on a personal level because I wrote the fic for an audience of one (incidentally, not myself and rather the recipient of a secret santa event), but I was mad because the reviewer had no way of knowing where I was at as a writer, and I know from longtime observation how that kind of comment can crush less experienced or confident writers.

Don’t leave flames, kids, you don’t understand the power your words have. Don’t like, don’t read.

13. What is the nicest comment you’ve received?

The nicest? Goodness. Hmm. I’d have to go hunting to find the nicest, but in recent memory, @ayzrules sent me a couple passages from Spanish texts she’s been studying that reminded her of my writing, and I was honestly so touched by the fact that she even thought to make such comparisons, much less mention them to me. Taking the time to familiarize yourself with someone’s style until you can make comparisons between it and someone else’s work is so much more meaningful to me personally than a basic “Nice story!” or “Loved this!” type of comment ever could be. <3 Ayz <3

14. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of, but I’ve never gone looking on any sort of copycat site or whatever either.

15. How many fics do you have marked as incomplete?

Two. First is The Dragonborn Chronicles, which is a retelling of Skyrim from Lydia’s perspective via her journal, to complement the in-game journal. It’s a slog of a style to write, though, even for someone who loves writing first person and doesn’t really want to write a lot of dialogue, and the outline is huge, and the story will be many times more huge, and just. Some day. Some day.

Second is tell the shades apart (my world is black and white), which has always been unfinished because the outline itself is over seven thousand words and the fully written story would undoubtedly land between 100,000 and 200,000 words, and there’s no way I’m writing that. I’ve always meant to upload the outline, but I got kind of self-conscious about the way I formatted it, and ugh I just haven’t bothered. One day, one day, right?

Moral of the story is I’m intensely a short story writer, and I’ve really found myself settling into that role over the last couple years. Better a clipped, punchy short story than a bloated slog of an epic.

16. Which of the WIPS will most likely be finished first?

Literally no one knows that. I wrote 95% of the observable entropy of a closed system over five years ago, and then I proceeded to pull it out roughly once a year and write and rewrite various endings until last month, which was when I finally figured out how I wanted to end the story. septet, too, languished for about five years before I finally remembered it existed and managed to wrangle an ending. Endings are hard, man. So are those third plot points. Terrible creatures, those, bog me down every time.

17. Which WIP are you looking forward to finishing?

Uh... mm. See. If I were looking forward to finishing any of them, I’d be actively working on them. At this moment, writing fic isn’t exactly high on my list of priorities, but I am also coming off a four-day idle game bender, so I still feel like I haven’t quite reengaged with myself as a living person. Give me another few days and I might have an answer.

(I am always most looking forward to finishing this ridiculous Ignis-drives-the-Audi-R8 fic that’s been languishing in my wips for literal years. As mentioned above, third plot points. Killer, man.)

(oh and also the working-titled the art of murder. Scott and Penny attend a private art auction. Things don’t go to plan. It, too, is stuck at the third plot point. I know, I know I have a problem, shush.)

18. Is there a WIP that you’re considering abandoning?

Any wip has the potential to be revived—this year and the old wips I’ve unearthed, dusted off, finished, and posted have been proof of that. I don’t intentionally permanently abandon anything for that reason, some stories just probably will remain dusty old wips forever because I didn’t actually need or want to write the full story for one reason or another.

19. Which complete fic would you consider rewriting?

Now that’s an interesting question. Hmm! Honestly? None of them. Once I finish a story, I’m not inclined toward rereading it again any time soon, to the point of years in some cases, and I feel like I’ve moved on from the stories I wrote one, two, five, eight years ago in the actual writing sense. They’re finished stories, and on top of that are relics of their time, which doesn’t mean the stories don’t have any ongoing significance on a reading level—I just don’t have any interest in rewriting those particular stories. I’ve gotten them out of my head, to the point of not remembering at least a third of them on demand anymore, and I don’t have any desire to “retell” those exact stories. I do tend to tighten the wording and fix perceived errors/weaknesses whenever I do end up rereading an old story, and I usually silently update the AO3 version if I make any significant changes because AO3 makes it a breeze to update a posted fic. I might do FFnet too if I’m feeling up to it or have the time.

20. Which complete fic is your favourite?

Once upon a time I would’ve said Holding On, but I honestly find it kind of unbearably melodramatic now. the observable entropy of a closed system is equally melodramatic, as it was written in the same era, but at least it has the excuse of being told in second person and via a style that is a half step away from being poetry. Possibly I will reread it in a few years and find it equally obnoxious and overly dramatic, but it received some shockingly positive comments, which I wasn’t expecting at ALL, and I’ve been honestly blown away by the amount of praise it’s received. <3 to everyone who’s said anything about it!

21. What’s your total published word count?

141,000 on AO3, 160,000 on FFnet, but technically the light of my life SS wrote fifty thousand words of each. It’s too late for math.

 I tag @velkynkarma, @lurkinglurkerwholurks, @writtenbyrain, @thebaconsandwichofregret, and anyone else who wants to play!

[unintentionalgenius]

ok @ongreenergrasses tagged me to do this and that's how I know we're made for each other bc tagging me in things is my love language

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 20, but 13 of those shouldn't count because they're Sherlock and I am not that person anymore

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? ok I had hopes that there was some way to do this besides doing, you know, math. but. it's 169,674

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?  shockingly, #1 is Death and John Watson; or, Five Times John Watson Met Death and the One Time He Died at 615 kudos. If you'd asked me what was going to top this list I never in a million years would have said this one. I might have to re-read this now.

What I would have said actually comes in at #2, the (almost complete, dear g-d I'm so close) Come then, and be broken at 376 kudos.

#3 my beloved, my eldest daughter of a fic, Put Away Childish Things at 223.

#4 is astoundingly another Sherlock fic, this one creatively titled Five Times John Woke Up to Sherlock and One Time He Didn't (it's not bullying if it's past me I'm making fun of, right?).

#5 is a tie, with 60 kudos each, but they're part of the same series: A Great Man and Something Like Beginning, from my Sherlock kidfic (and incidentally how i met Hayls in the first place!).

I'm really committed to preserving my ~journey~ as a writer, but the outsized prevalence of Sherlock fic on my profile is making me question that decision. I feel like it's false advertising for who I am as a person now. 😅

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I try to! It might not be in a timely fashion, and honestly sometimes I feel weird about it, but I do go through and answer a few at a time when I have a few minutes.

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? I refuse to re-read the Sherlock fic just to confirm, but I think Childish Things wins by a landslide anyway. Fic where John or Sherlock died was a dime a dozen back in the day whereas "[a genderswapped] stiles helps peter kill her best friend" is still a very particular, unique twist of the knife.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending? this is probably going to be that Sherlock kidfic verse!

7. Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written? I absolutely do not write crossovers. No offense to anyone who does, but I simply do not understand the appeal.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic? It was less about the fic and more about the fact that I pointed out 911 has some copaganda elements via a fic's tags, but yes.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind? I now, as of literally the most recent chapter of the most recent work I posted, have to admit that I do technically write smut. It's super cerebral, feely smut, but you do read two people having sex, so like. guilty.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen? I don't think I have written any fics worth stealing but if it's happened I don't know about it

11. Have you ever had a fic translated? nope!

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before? nope! I have co-written things in Real Life and I honestly don't think I have anyone that I would want to write fic with like that. HOWEVER I do have a beloved sounding board in @ragequilt

13. What’s your all time favorite ship? i literally cannot answer this, there is no way I can say decisively

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? I had this fic from when the first of the new star wars movies came out where everyone thinks poe is dead, so finn has to become a person on his own, essentially, rather than being taught/hand-held by poe which I felt like I was seeing a lot in fic. The whole thing was epistolary, a diary that finn's therapist had him start keeping, which he then started writing to Poe. That's pretty firmly abandoned at this point, but it still haunts me and I wish I had finished it.

15. What are your writing strengths? Hayls once told me I'm really good at dialogue, and I actually think that's true. I'm also pretty good at atmosphere, I think, though no one has ever said exactly that. I do think I'm good at characterization, and that for me is really tied to how I do dialogue. I would honestly accept any commentary anyone wants to offer on the subject, though

16. What are your writing weaknesses? PLOT. not like, emotional arcs or a character's journey or whatever but. the ticky little nuts and bolts of how we get from a to z, especially when it requires a tight plot of external action. I always think about myself as (to quote @ragequilt here) someone who writes hurt/comfort, not casefic, and this is why. I'm rarely interested in writing the finer details of a mystery or an extravagant plot full of courtly intrigue. I'm probably bad at other things, too, but this is the one that stands out like a glaring neon sign to me.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? I think in almost every case it's not necessary UNLESS it's being done for effect - that is, if I intentionally want the reader not to know what's said. Otherwise, I'm just going to put the switch to french/spanish/hebrew/arabic/mandarin in the narration. One exception to this for me, which is really just a sub-clause under the "only for effect" rule, is when I'm writing canonically bilingual characters who would employ words or phrases in both their languages in the same sentence. Some of this is characterization - Eddie Diaz speaks Spanish or Spanglish around his family; someone writing me wouldn't be writing me properly if they didn't write the Hebrew/Yiddish/English patois that I speak in Jewish spaces. I don't want my writing to read like the over-translated subtitles you sometimes see where loan words are translated, thereby rendering the subtitles actually less intelligible. It's a delicate balance and I wouldn't guarantee I get it write all the time, especially when it comes to not othering a character I'm writing. (also @ hayls I am one of those people who always/almost always says Hashem instead of g-d 😂 for me it's a way of making sure people don't think I'm talking about Christian God™️) You will notice, though, that I do have a tipping point implicitly delineated here - if someone is speaking another language for whole sentences, I'm just going to put that in the narration; single words or phrases will be written as spoken.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for? Sherlock (womp womp)

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to? I've never written Destiel fic, and while at this point you might be wondering what on earth there is left to say via fic about that pairing, I have a lil thing bubbling around in my brain about bodily autonomy vs. trauma vs. helping someone not suffer from their trauma while violating whatever the brain equivalent is of bodily autonomy.

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? whyyyy would you ask someone this, it's like asking someone to pick a favorite child. the answer will change tomorrow, but right now I think it's the still-WIP sequel to Childish Things, A Twisted Thing Cannot Be Made Straight. It's got fun witchy!Stiles, buckets of angst but also lots of fun pack shenanigans in flashbacks, lots of me working out my own feelings about childbirth and raising children, ambiguous relationships, belated grappling with trauma, and also a satisfyingly bloody climax. There are some scenes there that still give me chills to read, and I wrote them.

@ragequilt I want to see yours!

[unpopularly-opinionated]

Beat the Bounty of Blood, figured I’d give my two cents, ignore it since it was unwarranted :)

Not a bad DLC. I wasn’t here when it came out originally, but I have to imagine it came out relatively close to when the last season of Westworld did, whether intentionally or not I don’t know. I’m not huge into westerns, but coming from a Westworld fan, it definitely scratches that western itch.

It’s very apparent right from the get-go that it’s inspired by Westerns, which in turn were inspired by Japanese samurai films. The planet you go to is called Gehenna which is Japanese for Hell. The characters throughout intersperse miscellaneous Japanese dialogue, but if I’m being honest it’s only ever used for kind of a gimmick. It’s never touched upon, nor addressed. It’s just like they’ll say random Japanese words and you’re just expected to either know them or assume it’s slang for something. I kind of wish they would’ve leaned into it a bit more, I don’t know.

I haven’t done all of the side quests like I’d normally do so this is really like a 50% review. Bad on my part, I agree. I did one side quest though and it wasn’t too bad. I thought it was pretty good. The main quest though is the bread and butter of the DLC and if I’m being honest I think it’s worth the money (course idk if you can actually buy it separately from the season pass).

The world is fairly large, for a DLC, though it’s been a good decade since I last played Borderlands, let alone Borderlands DLC so maybe don’t take my word on that.

The one part that really bothered/confused me was that in the main BL3 campaign it’s kind of implied that the Jakobs Corporation are maybe one of the good ones. Like all of the employees seem to love working there and the CEO is a pretty chill dude but in this DLC, seemingly without explanation it’s shown that the Jakobs Corporation sucks because they basically came to this town, exploited it for it’s resources, and then dipped when it got too inconvenient to continue working there (which is ironic considering Eden-6 seems WAY worse to work IMO). All in all, it just seemed weird. Like I get corps are meant to look like trash in the Borderlands world but the main campaign really made it seem like Jakobs was a good corporation.

Overall though, I’d say maybe 7/10. I liked the story and un ambiguous ending. I hope to see more of Rose in the future.