#there's so many different facets to this character I always wish we had more time to explore

[dent-de-leon]

Lucien is like a fun vampiric archetype kinda character to me. His whole power is about blood and sacrifice. In the Orders, blood hunters would mix their blood together and then literally just drink it. Lucien gifts Cree a vial of his own blood, something that they both consider sacred. He even vows to her, "Blood of mine for blood of yours."

Lucien is both dead and alive--Taliesin mentions he was always certain Mollymauk would've set off Detect Undead. Lucien is among the living once again, and yet, still a ghost forever haunting his own skin--he's felt death sink its claws into him. He's tasted immortality. He sees himself as a god, a king, claims other mortals are beneath him. "I've come to take my reign, long may it be."

(And if we want to talk about Tealeaf as a spirit, Lucien as metaphorically undead--I think it's also worth noting that Mollymauk is also intended to be Taliesin's interpretation of a mermaid. Specifically, because they supposedly have no souls. Soulless? Clawing out of their own grave feeling hollow, empty, forever changed? Sounds very reminiscent of vampires to me, at least thematically--)

Lucien is the ruling lord; inheritance of the whole broken world is his destiny, his birthright. He's an orphan child all alone in the world, curled up in an abandoned cellar for shelter, desperate for an escape.

To the ruling families of Shadycreek and powerful mages of the Cerberus Assembly? Lucien Tavelle is nothing, nobody, another tool to be discarded when he's no longer of use. In another life, he's the exact kind of unfortunate, lonely soul who would've been led to a monster. The kind of person Gustav let Kylre devour--"Those no one would miss." As just a chid, Lucien is forced to feed other desperate souls to a monster himself. Just as much of a victim as the puppets on display in the witch's house.

Something about how Lucien has all these vampiric qualities of a powerful--cursed--undead monster, how he hungers for connection and control over other desperate souls, feeding on the dreams and minds of city trapped for centuries. And yet, the fact that his whole power is about sacrifice, and how that's reflected in Molly.

Someone who will bleed himself dry to save everyone else. Recklessly risking his neck for someone who might never thank him. Unable to bear watching others suffer--willing to stand and fight in their stead. Taliesin taking this premise of someone who's supposed to be hollow and empty and without a soul, someone who's often seen as monstrous, and yet...being so full of love and joy, he gains a soul all his own--

[gaygajeel]

what are some of your honest gripes with Mashima?

this is a large can of worms to open, and i feel if i had the time & energy i could make my own 2 hr long youtube video essay on the topic- but the biggest thing that always comes to mind first is the general treatment & depiction of women, both in the writing itself and the art. while theres certainly other things baked into the writing, art, & character designs- such as repeated instances of racism, transphobia, homophobia- the most in your face issue imo is the misogyny baked into his work. im obvs most familiar with fairy tail, ive only half-heartedly skimmed some of his other works in sheer curiosity. but within fairy tail alone, women never really feel like they get to be truly their own, fully faceted characters. they have to revolve around a man or the men in their life, they have to be sexy & appealing to said mens eye (including young girls)- or, theyre the butt of an "ugly women" joke (the way virgo was introduced comes to mind, for example.) im a trans man whose been presenting as such for all my adult life, so only part of my life i can really see reflected in these issues. but even not being someone wholly, truly impacted by the effects of misogyny anymore, its such a glaring issue to me in his work. i could never recommend work of his without ten million asterisks regarding the issue. beyond issues such as that... something that always irritates me about fairy tail is i think there are cool concepts at hand, and neat character arcs. whenever i revisit ft i always am hit with how much i like grays character arc in the beginning, i like the messy family drama of the dreyars that gets introduced/hinted at, i like the different forms of magic. i genuinely like the concept of the dragon slayers a lot, i think its neat! but many of these concepts and character aspects introduced are hinted either dont get explored, or get beaten into the ground too much. examples of both for the sake of it- gajeel being a spy for ft to get dirt on ivan is never truly explored, when we already had an arc of laxus fucking around with the guild due to family shit. as for concepts being beaten into the ground... even as someone who really likes dragon slayer magic, everything revolving around the dragon slayers in the end gets old. this goes for character traits as well being used to hell and back, causing stagnant characters, such as juvia never becoming someone outside of her love for gray. i love fairy tail and how cheesy it is and so many of its characters, but it truly is one of the bodies of work in my life that has so many glaring issues from the creator that its not smth i often talk to other ppl about. its peak garbage to me. i love the characters, i also hate so much of the writing mashima baked into them. i love the concepts and the ideas, i hate so much of the execution. it is one of those series i hold in my hand like, "i wish you were put in more capable hands."

[docholligay]

Shattered by Lee Winter

Full and fair warning to the pitchers of this book: I did not like it. I did not care for it at all. I am gonna harsh on it. I will never read anything by this author again. If you go further than this, it’s at your peril. 

The pitch: What happens when superheroes don't want to be superheroes? A departure from the conventions of the genre, this book explores the many facets of humanity. Of life. Of loss. Of discrimination and friendship and equality – and how we, as humans, need different people in our lives at different times and in different ways. When your world is shattered, how can you pick up the pieces? (Includes a butch protagonist.)

Nonspoilery: The seductive idea of “A butch superhero” is utterly undone by the fact that everyone in this novel is insanely self-aware and has not only been to therapy, but may currently be sitting in a session now. Pair this with a hilariously heavy-handed look at social justice and axes of oppression, and I think a gay twelve year old would really get a lot out of this. 

I earlier posted little snippets of this book and I think that really sums it up. 

Spoilers

So I thought the major and compelling problem I was going to have with this book is I have very specific and strong emotional surrounds with the name Lena, as I do with only a handful of names in the world. So a character was always going to struggle a little bit for NOT being her. I was worried about this. 

Boy, do I wish that had been the problem! Mostly it offered up funny asides, but it didn’t really affect my feelings about the book. 

Lena is of course an edgy, closed off bad girl with a tragic anime backstory which in and of itself would not cause me a problem, many such characters, a number of whom I like. It’s a trope, and, you know what? It’s a decent trope! Would that an edgy bad girl who is the best at what she does, which is morally suspect, is a little ‘done’ was my biggest criticism. In a good story, it’s not big deal for me. 

BUT OH. Anyway, she goes to bumfuck nowhere to go track down Shattergirl, who doesn’t play the by the rules and goes into hiding, and Lena is all up in trying to figure out how to lure her back, because she’s the best ever at getting superheroes to come back, even though we learn very early on that maybe governments aren’t nice to superheroes. 

So then we go on a magical world tour, in some latter-day, low budget, Christmas Carol interlude where we have to prove to Lena, I guess, that people are bad and capitalism sucks? I honestly felt this was more a problem of Nyah’s imagination and experience than humanity sucking. Of course there are the horrors, but there is joy and beauty, too, and Lena basically takes all of this shit lying down like, “Hm! I, a fully grown adult who engages with a difficult business, never TRULY understood how someone could consider humanity not worth saving.” Really? NEVER? I fucking love the world, I think humanity is capable of immense kindness and beauty, and even I could see how someone who utterly lacked imagination would consider humanity “not worth saving.” 

And of COURSE Nyah’s planet was perfect and valued science and no one chased wealth and blah blah I’m sure she’s actually just high as fuck on the nostalgia of a place she hasn’t actually been in 100 years, but the narrative doesn’t SEEM to challenge this. It seems to be like, “Oh! If only humanity were not so awful! Le sigh!” and then Nyah offers the one concession to the fact that he planet might NOT have been utter perfection is that they weren’t very creative. Good fucking God. 

And we land on Nyah being the new leader of the superheroes, because of course she used to be the old president of the superheroes, but was replaced with a dude that sucks because, And I quote the fucking book directly: “You mean he’s a straight, white male.” The whole book is this embarrassingly heavy handed. God forbid we have a single thought for ourselves, don’t worry, this book will supply it to you like you are a little baby bird who needs it regurgitated into your mouth. 

Anyway, it was all very fucking YA. I wanted it to be the pitch, and I suppose it was the pitch for a 12 year old lesbian, but it was so on rails, so black and white, that I was nearly insulted by it. This was not pitched to me as YA, but the only difference between this and YA is they suck each other’s clits. This is for adults who only read YA.

I was going to go more into this, but as it turns out, I don’t actually want to think about this book anymore. It MIGHT be my least favorite book of the year, and if it isn’t it’s a close second.

[longagoitwastuesday]

So so indebted to u for posting those lovely illustrations from Cyrano <333 & even more so for yr tags!! I'm completely in love w yr analysis, please feel free to ramble as long as u wish! Browsing through yr Cyrano de Bergerac tag has given me glimpses of so many adaptations & translations I'd never heard of before! I'll be watching the Solès version next, which I have only discovered today through u ^_^ As for translations, have u read many/all of them? I've only encountered the Renauld & Burgess translations in the wild, & I was curious to hear yr translation thoughts that they might guide my decision on which one I buy first (not necessarily Renauld or Burgess ofc). Have a splendid day & sorry for the likespam! 💙

Sorry for the delay. Don't mind the likespam, I'm glad you enjoyed my tags about Cyrano, and that they could contribute a bit to a further appreciation of the play. I loved it a lot, I got obsessed with it for months. It's always nice to know other people deeply love too that which is loved haha I hope you enjoy the Solès version, it may well be my favourite one!

About translations, I'm touched you're asking me, but I don't really know whether mine is the best opinion to ask. I have read... four or five English translations iirc, the ones I could find online, and I do (and especially did, back when I was reading them) have a lot of opinions about them. However, nor English nor French are my first languages (they are third and fourth respectively, so not even close). I just read and compare translations because that's one of my favourite things to do.

The fact is that no translation is perfect, of course. I barely remember Renauld's, but I think it was quite literal; that's good for understanding the basics of the text, concepts and characters, but form is subject, and there's always something that escapes too literal translations. Thomas and Guillemard's if I recall correctly is similar to Hooker's in cadence. It had some beautiful fragments, some I preferred over Hooker's, but overall I think to recall I liked Hooker's more. If memory serves, Hooker's was the most traditionally poetic and beautiful in my opinion. Burgess' is a whole different thing, with its perks and drawbacks.

Something noticeable in the other translations is that they are too... "epic". They do well the poetic, sorrowful, grief stricken, crushed by regrets aspects of Cyrano and the play in general, but they fall quite short in the funny and even pathetic aspects, and that too is key in Cyrano, both character and play. Given the characteristics of both languages, following the cadence of the French too literally, with those long verses, makes an English version sound far too solemn at times when the French text isn't. Thus Burgess changes the very cadence of the text, adapting it more to the English language. This translation is the one that best sets the different moods in the play, and as I said before form is subject, and that too is key: after all, the poetic aspect of Cyrano is as much true as his angry facet and his goofy one. If Cyrano isn't funny he isn't Cyrano, just as he wouldn't be Cyrano without his devotion to Roxane or his insecurities; Cyrano is who he is precisely because he has all these facets, because one side covers the other, because one trait is born from another, because one facet is used as weapon to protect the others, like a game of mirrors and smoke. We see them at different points through the play, often converging. Burgess' enhances that. He plays with the language itself in form and musicality, with words and absences, with truths masking other truths, with things stated but untold, much like Cyrano does. And the stage directions, poetic and with literary value in their own right in a way that reminded me of Valle Inclán and Oscar Wilde, interact with the text at times in an almost metatextual dimension that enhances that bond Cyrano has with words, giving them a sort of liminal air and strengthening that constant in the play: that words both conceal and unveil Cyrano, that in words he hides and words give him away.

But not all is good, at all. Unlike Hooker, Burgess reads to me as not entirely understanding every facet of the characters, and as if he didn't even like the play all that much, as if he had a bit of a disdainful attitude towards it, and found it too mushy. Which I can understand, but then why do you translate it? In my opinion the Burgess' translation does well bending English to transmit the different moods the French text does, and does pretty well understanding the more solemn, cool, funny, angry, poetic aspects of Cyrano, but less so his devotion, vulnerability, insecurities and his pathetism. It doesn't seem to get Roxane at all, how similar she is to Cyrano, nor why she has so many admirers. It does a very poor job at understanding Christian and his value, and writes him off as stupid imo. While I enjoyed the language aspect of the Burgess translation, I remember being quite angry at certain points reading it because of what it did to the characters and some changes he introduces. I think he did something very questionable with Le Bret and Castel-Jaloux, and I remember being incensed because of Roxane at times (for instance, she doesn't go to Arras in his version, which is a key scene to show just how much fire Roxane has, and that establishes several parallels with Cyrano, in attitude and words, but even in act since she does a bit what Cyrano later does with the nuns in the last act), and being very angry at several choices about Christian too. While not explicitly stated, I think the McAvoy production and the musical both follow this translation, because they too introduce these changes, and they make Christian as a character, and to an extent the entire play, not make sense.

For instance, once such change is that Christian is afraid that Roxane will be cultured (McAvoy's version has that infamous "shit"/"fuck" that I detest), when in the original French it's literally the opposite. He is not afraid she will be cultured, he is afraid she won't, because he does love and appreciate and admires those aspects of her, as he appreciates and admires them in Cyrano. That's key! Just as Cyrano longs to have what Christian has, Christian wants the same! That words escape him doesn't mean he doesn't understand or appreciate them. The dynamics make no sense without this aspect, and Burgess (and the productions that directly or indirectly follow him) constantly erases this core trait of Christian.

Another key moment of Christian Burgess butchers is the scene in Arras in which Christian discovers the truth. Burgess writes their discussion masterfully in form, it's both funny and poignant, but it falls short in concept: when Cyrano tells him the whole discussion about who does Roxane love and what will happen, what they'll do, is academic because they're both going to die, Christian states that dying is his role now. This destroys entirely the thing with Christian wanting Roxane to have the right to know, and the freedom to choose, or to refuse them both. As much as Cyrano proclaims his love for truth and not mincing words even in the face of authority, Cyrano is constantly drunk on lies and mirages, masks and metaphors. It's Christian who wants it all to end, the one who wants real things, the one who wants to risk his own happiness for the chance of his friend's, as well as for the woman he loves to stop living in a lie. That is a very interesting aspect of Christian, and another aspect in which he is written as both paralleling and contrasting Cyrano. It's interesting from a moral perspective and how that works with the characters, but it's also interesting from a conceptual point of view, both in text and metatextually: what they hold most dear, what they most want, what most fulfills them, what they most fear, their different approaches to life, but also metatextually another instance of that tears/blood motif and its ramifications constant through the whole text. Erasing that climatic decision and making him just simply suicidal erases those aspects of Christian and his place in the Christian/Cyrano/Roxane dynamic, all for plain superficial angst, that perhaps hits more in the moment, but holds less meaning.

Being more literal, and more solemn, Hooker's translation (or any of the others, but Hooker's seems to love the characters and understand them) doesn't make these conceptual mistakes. Now, would I not recommend reading Burgess' translation? I can't also say that. I had a lot of fun reading it, despite the occasional anger and indignation haha Would I recommend buying it? I recommend you give an eye to it first, if you're tempted and can initially only buy one.

You can read Burgess' translation entirely in archive.com. You can also find online the complete translations of Renauld, Hooker and Thomas and Guillemard. I also found a fifth one, iirc, but I can't recall it right now (I could give a look). You could read them before choosing, or read your favourite scenes and fragments in the different translations, and choose the one in which you like them better. That's often what I do.

Edit: I've checked to make sure and Roxane does appear in Arras in the translation. It's in the introduction in which it is stated that she doesn't appear in the production for which the translation was made. The conceptualisation of Roxane I criticise and that in my opinion is constant through the text does stay, though.

[foibles-fables]

I have a question, and I’d love your insight as a fellow wlw who loves Horizon as much as I do!

Why do you think the writers made Avad fall for Aloy in the first place? Ignoring the arguably cringe convo at the start of HFW, did him dirty there after the end of HZD lol, but think about it, we know he’s a bit of a romantic yes, but why make him fall for Aloy at all if the intention wasn’t romance? In HFW there’s even the heart option where you give him hope almost. Do you think it was originally to give him conflict because of the whole Ersa thing, or something else?

I just can’t figure it out. Like, they could have had him be really grateful to Aloy for her assistance in HZD and left it at that so that Aloy has a powerful ally, but they purposefully put the romantic aspect in there and the subsequent rejection of it in HZD. I just hope it isn’t a running joke or something because his character is really interesting outside of the puppy love they keep focusing on. He does some awesome stuff and it’s a shame they’ve reduced him to a one dimensional character.

(And of course I’m removing all “ship” aspects from this discussion, I’m genuinely curious to what you think the writers approach is and I wish we could ask them cause I’m dying to know!)

Thanks for listening, hope you have a fab day <3

Oh, this is a fantastic question. I'm very much an Avad apologist--he's genuinely one of the most compelling and tragic side characters in the series--so I've definitely thought about this a lot myself. You're right that he could/should have more interesting contributions and I do hope that's the case in HZ3.

For their exchanges in HZD, I think the answer is manifold. For one, I think his proposition was intended as a character moment for Aloy--it leads to a moment in which the player can examine her in the context of romance/romantic gestures, perhaps for the first time. Just as Aloy might not have been thinking about it until that point in the game, the player might not have, either. So another facet that considers her contrasting context with her companions, and an opportunity for the player to choose how to express her emotionality surrounding it.

But I also do want to point out that so many of the ally side quests in HZD (Varl/the Nora, Erend, Talanah, Namman, Elida, Nakoa, I can go on) center around the idea of grief and all of the forms it can take. Avad is no different! I think it's compelling to examine his proposition to Aloy through this lens. Especially considering the way he apologizes sincerely for his blunder before the final battle, no matter which option you chose at the flashpoint. So I do think it was deliberate, and not to be treated as a joke!

As far as Proposition 2: Sunshine Boogaloo in HFW...sad to say, but Avad suffered from the same writing issues as the other returning companions. This is especially magnified by the fact that his appearance in the story was so small. I'll forever be salty that his character was reduced to "hey, remember when this guy hit on Aloy?" and also "let's reintroduce the flashpoint mechanic" and "hey players: there's not gonna be romance yet" in early-game. He deserved better.

In the scope of new material, it's definitely interesting that choosing heart is always a "not yet" re: Aloy's character. Certainly something to consider as we move forward to the next game 🤡🤡🤡

[clonerightsagenda]

Author's notes for Sick aka I ramble about my complex Disability Feelings

When you're sick, especially given the dominance of the medical model of disability, it's easy to view your body as a separate adversary, and this scenario takes it to the extreme of completely removing yourself from your body. I've talked before on this blog about my complicated feelings on magic disability cures - I don't like them in fiction; I'd like one myself in real life - and this is me contemplating 'what if'?

I do not like being sick. It is painful, time-consuming, expensive, and frequently embarrassing. I wish it had not happened to me. But being disabled is now a major part of my identity and experience - it's probably the first label I would list when thinking about the different facets that impact my life. Being disabled has made me more aware of disability justice issues and changed the way I relate to and rely on other people. In some ways that sucks - it's progressively taken over what I eat, where I work, where I live (which I also take to the extreme in this story with ambiguously literal possession) - but in other ways, I think the disability community often has a much better worldview than mainstream America. I'm glad I've become more aware of some of those perspectives and issues. And because disability has shaped so much of my life for the past... six? years, for good and for ill, it's hard for me to conceive of what my life would be like without it. How would I think about myself? What would I do? This is my new normal, like it or not. I don't remember what it's like to make a fist painlessly.

An added wrinkle is that autoimmunity is my body Trying Its Best. I make a lot of jokes about my body trying to kill me because that's how it shakes out (please, little guys in my blood, stop eating my bones) but autoimmunity is a trauma response. My body got clobbered by so many outside poisons that it can't recognize what a real threat is anymore. It's trying to protect me and doing a terrible job. It's another place where you can look at your body as an external adversary versus a system that your mind is also a part of. But also no matter how you look at it, I am still sick.

There's also some stuff in the piece about the helplessness that comes from being sick which (surprise!) I also have mixed feelings about. Because it sucks not having control over your body! I want to be supervising that shit. But also... I don't know how common this is, but there is a weird kind of comfort in being tucked in bed with someone else taking care of me. I even find going into surgery oddly relaxing because for a while my life will be someone else's problem.

At the same time I also worry that I'm using disability as an excuse. Am I begging off attending something because I really am tired or worried about exposure/overwork or do I just not want to go?

Finally we have Aro Angst because that's always on my mind. And it's extra on my mind in the context of disability because what if I get to the point where I can't take care of myself anymore? I don't have a romantic partner to help me or to provide health insurance if I can't work. I live near my parents and have passed up job opportunities that would take me further away. Most specifically for this story, even I find myself sometimes falling into the trap of assuming the ultimate endstate of closeness/intimacy would be romantic/sexual bc of cultural conditioning. It's annoying! So the character (Dani, I named her Danielle in a reference to the Daniel/the cooler Daniel meme) is still seeking the community, care, and closeness she experienced as part of the disabled community, and the messier weirder intimacy of feeling connected to her own body, but she's struggling with interpreting that through cultural norms of amatonormativity. Sometimes 'I want to be inside you/I want you inside me' is, shockingly, not a sex thing. Hence, toxic nonhorny clone makeouts. I guess???

Side note: I've mentioned this wrt pieces I've written with aromanticism that follow a similar pattern of taking something I am at least not too consciously dramatic about and making the MC a pathetic wet cat about it. I guess they are serving the purpose of Everyman in a medieval morality play here. They are crash test dummies I am flinging at walls to count the cracks. Not great character writing but that's not what this is about rn.

[dopscratch]

FNAF MOVIE THOUGHTS BECAUSE I CANT SLEEP

non spoiler version: solid 8/10, beautiful animatronics, glorious set, wished for a bit more horror/tension but overall it was entertaining and enjoyable and surreally awesome to see

(spoilers below)

for my rating,

scares were very lacking, the only time i jumped was when i heard matpat, and there werent any moments that made me feel uneasy. i think my standards got sent sky high after watching battington so much though hahah. i feel like making the lighting darker/more desaturated at some points and a few more moments of quiet tension and good ambient sounds could have fixed this, though overall this doesn't bother me TOO much and i still enjoyed the movie immensely, still, point docked.

spring bonnie looked amazing and he did NOT get enough screen time, point docked (this also refers to the lacking buildup for his reveal and the fact that afton doesnt even wear the spring bonnie head most of the time)

no phone guy :(

overall though i loved this movie and there were so many points where i was sitting there pointing at the screen excitedly slamming my armrest. it wasn't perfect, surely not the best movie ever made, but it was a solid and entertaining start that made me happy and i hope to see more.

anyway, now for other thoughts

for most forms of media i hate it when there are lore inaccuracies between adaptations but for fnaf it works so well? like with the games and the books and even the eras of games you have various continuities and they're all different and unique but also contain similar themes and motifs and you can use some to infer things about the others and i absolutley love it

like right now the movies makin me think about if game mike ever had to do some of williams dirty work?? has game mike ever made a misjudgement or rash desicion when confronted with something suggesting child abduction (or maybe to extend it more, bullying/abuse?)

also if movie mike & his family are actually related to the henry emily equivalent?? like we have garrett who like charlotte gets captured and killed by afton at a DIFFERENT point in time than the missing children's incident and afton presumably went out of his way to go get him too- you cant convince me afton came across the schmidts by chance and the way he LOOKED at mike reading his name like he was ANALYZING HIM dang i could feel that stare it was crazy. i feel like there has to be more significance to this. a father who takes a death in the family poorly?? a kid abducted before the missing children's incident? sounds familiar... (also i just really like mike in all of fnaf and the way he was characterized in this movie was so interesting and i am probably just desperately telling myself this because i really dont wanna see him sidelined for vanessa, who i always found as a sort of mid character)

does movie william have multiple kids or just one? if the schmidts are the emily parallels (which is. just my speculation and hopes.) and theres multiple kids maybe movie afton only has 1 child??

parallels parallels galore too!! like how vanessa being aftons daughter rationalizes her appearance in the movie a lot so she's still that reluctant follower without all that crazy ai business! mike's negligence leading to guilt over something bad happening to his lil bro! abby nearly getting stuffed into the possibly circus baby suit!! its just so wild to me

expect more speculation from me because I am goin nuts over this movie. so many unanswered questions and so many ways to take this and apply it to concepts in other facets of the franchise. love all of this new material and how its going back to the roots of just old supernatural stuff, ghosts in grimy old machines business. i just love the simplicity of it and the many ways it can be executed

[briannaswriter]

Tagged by @eva-writes ♥ I’ve missed you! It’s been ages so thank you for tagging me!!

1. How did you begin writing? I was bored in class one day when I was like ten. I scribbled an idea down in a notebook. It was like four pages long maybe, but I’ve been chasing the euphoria of writing for the first time since then.

2. What was your first writing project? Tell us a little about it. The story I scribbled in the notebook was about a girl who found a portal in the basement of her friend’s house (or her school?). She went into the portal out of confusion and ended up in a magical world. It was based off an MMORPG that I was playing at the time. My first *serious* work was probably Fragile Beginnings, a story about a superhero girl who was accused of murder and had to use her long hidden gift to find the real culprit before she was arrested.

3. What is your preferred medium for writing first drafts? I’ve used google docs and word in the past. I’m using scrivener now! Absolutely obsessed with using this for all of my creative writing projects because it has so many organizing options and it’s like a bunch of different files and folders saved into a single program. I use it for creative writing and writing related to dnd. I stress about not having a backup if my computer breaks because scrivener backs-up to your computer (I haven’t gotten the cloud to work yet, I’m dumb). I do manual email backups instead which works!

4. What rituals or habits do you have around writing? Once upon a time, I used the word ELEPHANT if I can’t think of what to type which allows me to go back and edit it. Now I just use < insert brief description of what I’m intending > because this method lets me know what I originally intended. The elephant method was useful for not getting knocked out of the flow, but it was so difficult later when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I also have a specific song I use to start off a story. For my current project, it’s Timeless by Airborne Toxic Event because I’m obsessed with it.

5. We all have a “type”– of character, plot, theme– what is yours? I have a running theme of messy family dynamics and elder siblings with trauma to handle. I come from a big family so I’ve always naturally gravitated to plots that involve the pains and joys of large families. I lean towards fantasy series because I love magic, but I don’t know if that’s a theme so much as an enjoyment.

I like to imagine each character has a facet of me in it, be it a wish or a want or a fear. Like Farrah Noble talks about what happens when you put yourself first. Poppy Vale talks about what happens when you put your family first at the expense of yourself. Kaia Seastone talks about what happens when you have a mix of bitterness and fondness for your family. Fabian de Cardosa talks about responsibility vs Santiago de Cardosa talks about abandoning responsibility. Liadan Sage is about not knowing where you’re going. So my running theme for characters is clearly finding yourself in the circumstances you were given haha!

6. Introduce us to one (or more!) of your OC’s. My absolute obsession is Poppy Vale. She’s one of my earliest OC’s whose story has gone through so many iterations though the core of her has stayed the same. She’s someone who has watched all of her siblings leave the nest and she’s left questioning where she fits into the world after sacrificing so much of herself for them. When I created her, this idea resonated with me. In many ways, it still does. I’ll always think of her with fondness because though our personalities aren’t alike at all, our circumstances are emotionally familiar. I don’t know if I’ll be able to let her go in the end!

My second favorite would be Farrah Noble. In her original story, she was an elder sister who ran away with her youngest sister to protect her. She has superpowers that she’s kept hidden and she’s trying to solve a murder where she’s the main suspect! I axed this story a while ago because I wasn’t feeling the story or side characters much, but Farrah has and will always exist. In this newest iteration, she’s an adventurer who is solving the mystery of an ever-changing forest while trying to protect her sister from danger. Like Poppy, she’s an elder sister responsible for her siblings. In many ways, I consider her a younger version of Poppy Vale! You can see my theme with characters now.

With my third (and final because I go on for ages) character, I wanted something different. I’ve always had protective elder sibling dynamics so I wanted to explore something slightly different. She was an only child whose mother couldn’t take care of her and a very loving but workaholic father. However, I eventually realized she had a younger half sister and half brother whom her mother raises and loves. Arguably, she’s the newest of my characters, but so fascinating because she’s so passionate about responsibility to the world. She doesn’t put family first and she wants to make things better. Like Poppy and Farrah, she’s very self-sacrificing! But I love her ability to take the punches and punch back. She has an emotional strength that’s different than my other two girls. Her story is a lot more about grief than the other two.

7. What’s your favorite genre to read? I mostly read fantasy! I’ve gotten into reading a lot of historical fictions with my classes right now so I’m slowly starting to love them. A lot of them deal with trauma, though, so it can be heavy. I like most books except grimdark ones or overly smutty ones.

8. Your favorite genre to write? Fantasy or science fiction. I love exploring these two possibilities and the very human emotions that accompany them. Romance almost always accompanies them because I’m a sucker for a fun romantic plot, but I’ll take a good plot over anything.

9. How do you conduct your authorial research? I start with wikipedia for a basis and then branch out from there. I try to use scholarly sources where I can or ones where I can verify the information of the author. Tumblr has some good blogs for it, too, which I think I have in a reference tag.

10. What does your editing (gasp) process look like? I haven’t gotten to an editing stage exactly. I finish first drafts and then never return haha! I have a couple just sitting around that I should polish up since they are literally just waiting for my attention. There’s only two stories I’ve technically written a second draft on: Patchwork Souls and The Light You Still Hold. For the former, I pulled up the document next to it and just.... rewrote all of it from scratch using that as a reference until I ran out of reference material. It was a nice way to fine tune things and find new structures to use.

For the second one, I switched fandoms and characters so I only copied some of the beginning portion and adapted it to fit what I wanted to do. I ran out of material for it around 50k but then I added another 60k-ish on top of that. Since it was a fanfiction, I finish writing it and then leave it for a day or two then come back with fresher eyes. This was back when I updated once a week so I wrote a lot in advance.

tl;dr: I pull the document up on half of my screen and then a new document on the other half. Then I just copy it with tweaks as I go. For fanfiction, I let it sit for a day or two then edit it with fresh eyes.

11. What are your favorite tropes? Too many to name, but so picky depending on how they are pulled off. I love enemies to lovers depending on how the enemy is written -- you really have to make sure you don’t pass a threshold on it. I like opposites attract only to discover they have more underlying things in common than they think and just happen to approach them a little different. Like Eva said, yin/yang dynamics are fun. Slow burns! I love seeing characters who slowly develop their feelings for someone else, when you can look back and see the transition from acquaintance to friend to lover. Hate love triangles, dark romances, age differences (depending on the age difference).

12. Show off your writing space. I used two desk to create a half-assed L shaped desk in the corner of my room. I have a pretty moon light on my side, some pinky kitty headphones, and a pink keyboard. Really going all out in girlish stuff because I definitely didn’t spend a lot my youth with the internalized misogyny of rejecting pink lmfao

13. What is the most useful piece of writing advice you’ve ever used? The one that said to use < stuff here > when you weren’t sure what to put. It helped so much with continuing the writing process.

I loved the one where you write 400 words a day. I bumped it up to about 600 because that fit me better, but it was so nice to teach myself to just have the habit of putting down words without stressing about how much I wrote. Baby steps!

14. What is the least useful piece of writing advice you’ve ever ignored? Show, don’t tell. I hate that writing advice because it’s such a simple description for a very complex process. It doesn’t teach someone how to do either. I hate the ones that say you have to use something other than said, too!

15. Your writing beverage/snack of choice? Usually nothing. If I’m feeling particularly difficult, I can use hot chocolate or apple cider.

16. How do you compile your ideas? The notes app on my phone has SO MANY unfinished thoughts and ideas. I use it to jot things down real quick. For longer pieces / thoughts / actual story, I use google docs because it’s something I can access or continue from my desktop. Recently, I started using a discord server with only myself in it to organize things / jot down ideas / share inspirational stuff because it was SO NICE to compile it into one place. I call it dumb bitxh farm so I don’t take it too seriously! Less stress!

17. What are your controversial opinions ™ on the craft of writing? No writing is inherently better than another one. It’s going to resonate with different people at different times. Just because it’s something *you* dislike doesn’t mean it’s something people *should* dislike -- people have different tastes! Take this with a grain of salt, though, because some authors don’t deserve an audience anymore. You know who.

Second, I don’t think an English degree makes you a better writer than someone else. I think people who try to say it makes them better or try to correct others are pretentious. No, I don’t care that you dislike long sentences. No, I don’t care if this breaks a traditional rule. No, I don’t care if it bothers you. No, I won’t accept criticism, I’m sorta done with some English major people. (Yes, I am an English major person, too, so I fall under the same category sometimes).

Third-- I don’t remember what it was. Probably something bitter sounding. Because I’m bitter.

Anyway!

Tagging: whoever wants to do it (no, seriously, please tag me, I want to meet more people? I don’t know many of them on writeblr anymore). @druidcore @writeblrfantasy @emdrabbles @thanhpls @northernrosewritings @enchanted-lightning-aes

[comingyourlugubriousness]

1. Do you have a song that represents your oc? :3c i must know Yumes theme song~

I have a whole playlist for Yume honestly lol. This is hard I have a few top ones like 'Waiting on Miracle" (blame @bunnwich), Dreamy Night by LilyPichu, HomeMade Kazuko "Thank you", there's so many songs that I think can represent Yume in different ways and facets of their journey and personality.

But the first song I ever associated with Yume is "Drawing Days" an opening from an anime called Hitman Reborn. The lyrics I think really resonate with their general mindset/ journey.

Lyrics and explanation under the cut:

Without their wings, a fallen angel spoke these words to me “The map to bring you home again is nowhere to be seen” So powerless, I took my palette and my paintbrush A little water brought my colors back to life

This lyric makes me think of Yume arriving to Twisted Wonderland and being told by Crowley/the mirror that there currently is no way to get them back "home" (where ever that is for Yu). Yume feels helpless and alone and scared; but despite all that they do what they can to make the best of this bad situation. And that if Crowely can't find a way home for them, Yume will try to do it themselves. Create their own map home.

Even if these eyes through which I see should lose their light Know that I will always keep on drawing If this arm which I create with should be drained of all its might Know that I will always keep on drawing

The first chorus, which basically gives the idea that even if things get hard, Yume struggles, and they go through tough times at the end of it all their not going to give up. They're going to keep "drawing", no matter how tough it gets. This makes me think of how in general they struggle with their new life and then pretty soon their dreams and visions.

A cat appeared, a stray that clearly mocked me as I fell He laughed at how, I struggled now just to support myself Upon the palette sitting so narrowly in my hands My colors separated, I feel my passion grow

This line is interesting because it makes me think of two characters. One more obviously is Grim and how at first he and Yume didn't start off on the best foot. But another one being Ace, who mocks Yume and his brothers when they are first working at NRC as janitorial staff (and they aren't officially students). This is really kind of the real start to Yume and his brother's whole journey as Ace is unofficially the first friend they meet. Even if they wouldn't call him that at first.

Through him, they meet Deuce, then Heartslabyul , etc. The colors separate, and the students at NRC are no longer just a blur of people to Yume, slowly they start to become separate and distinct people whom Yu begins to care for.

Even if the world is feeling cold and oh so dark Know that I will always keep on drawing, I’ll create a burning picture as the sun ignites its spark, Know that I will always keep on drawing

A reiteration of the first chorus. The overblots, the history of Twisted wonderland, and all the private research they do to help their brothers get home and find the places they belong. To find the truth of what's happening, with them and their powers? They're going to keep going.

For someone else’s sake is there something I can do yet? Whatever it may take, I will do it from now on

Yume gets to a point where their willing to do whatever it takes to help the people they love, even at harm to themselves. Their circle of friends and family has expanded more than they could imagine. They feel that they don't have much to offer as a person and deal with their own insecurities about that. But as they meet more people in NRC and see the hardships and tragic pasts they had, Yu wants to be there for them, connect with them, and help if they can.

Now everything, is painted brightly and so colorful A prayer that rings, with every wish we want to be fulfilled from now on

This line represents that Twisted Wonderland has become a home of sorts to Yume, which is what they have been seeking all along. A place to belong with people they care for. It's not a bleak world full of strangers and people that don't care about them, like it was at first. Is colorful and bright! Full of their friends and newfound family and even a person they love! They have a home now, and they can now start thinking about what they truly want from the future.

Sorry this got long I have so many thoughts about Yume ^o^!

[scabbardsystem]

Plural Asking 100 Questions: Part 7!

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

61. When did you first discover your System? we're still pretty new to this! we celebrated our 3 month syscovery anniversary just last week! :D (we gotta celebrate the little things, gang, it gives us something to look forward to hkjhg :])

62. How many Members did you know about during your Syscovery? maybe about 19 out of the current 25, more or less? we know jaded and mom came later, at least, and it took us a little to consider core as an actual member. fun fact, Distance was actually part of the original line-up, then (fittingly ->) convinced us Distance didn't exist and removed herself from the fucking list hkjgh like!! i know that's your job but STOP PRETENDING YOU DON'T EXIST HKGJH

63. Was accepting your Plurality a challenge for you? LMAO BUDDY IT STILL IS!! i don't want to jinx it, but i think Harlowe might be coming around? though she definitely still uh. causes the occasional turmoil, she hasn't been as adamant these days. then again, she usually only brings it up in the mornings, and our sleep schedule got re-fucked up so we're usually not awake around that time hkjhg ough we'll see. in the meantime, we've mostly come around to it?

64. How did you learn about Plurality? we've had several system friends before, so we learned a lot of terminology and acceptance from them!! though we think a lot of them were anti-endo so... wishing them well, nevertheless?? hkjhg but we first learned about plurality in 2016 maybe?

65. Where there any signs of your Plurality, if you look back at your past? we've always preferred using we and we tend to think in dialogue! we liked giving ourselves different names and chatting like we do in bullet points (when we were young, we made like, several sonas who all talked to each other to work through our problems hkjhg and then we watched sander s!des and made personal ones for that too. goddamn we sure were comfortable with breaking ourselves into different facets hkjh) also lmao look at this shit:

^ what the fuck bro hkjhg NO SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK BRO HKJHG??? my god we can't even comment on this, like hjkghgk

66. Do you think your Syscovery changed a lot in your life? outwardly, no, since we're still singlet-sona-ing it up in almost all other aspects of our life. but inwardly, its changed a lot about how we think. we chatter a lot more than we used to hkjgh it gets really loud in here. ([personally, it means i need to be stricter on the secrets we keep.] - 🌫️)

67. If you're out to others as plural, have they ever told you later on that they already thought about it before you realized? we're not out to many people as plural, and we have no idea if they thought we were plural before :P

68. What was the biggest struggle during your Syscovery? lmao HEAVY denial, from MANY of us, not even just harlowe. maestro has this whole lack of control thing ("i actually always think like this. all of these thoughts are mine and i'm in perfect control of all of them, so we can't be plural") that still isn't fully resolved. someone thought it felt too much like fiction? like roleplaying with ourselves, controlling characters.

oh lmao we're looking back at our doc we made when we were questioning and it is just a lot of floundering hkjhg we were just. so very unsure of ourselves for a while. but! we got through it! still getting through it hkjghg

69. Was there any big event that led to your Syscovery? lmao 69 nice, anyway, two big ones: 1) we read A Cracked Foundation by UnstableAnatomy which completely changed our brain chemistry lmao. like. kim in denial that he has skills. this will surely say nothing about us hkjgh it kinda set the foundation (heh) before: 2) we tried to make personal disco skills. and by trying to figure out "different parts of my personality to make into skills" we accidentally identified ourselves and gave ourselves names and solidified our presence. whoops, plural time babey!

70. What is something you want questioning plurals to know? WE LOVE YOU AND YOU ARE SO COOL AND EVERYONE'S EXPERIENCES ARE DIFFERENT!! just because you don't fit into the descriptions that everyone says about plurality doesn't mean you're not plural! we're a blurry monoconscious median system with no specific host and a very hazy headspace and we all like talking together because we're hard to separate distinctly! AND WE'RE STILL PLURAL!! a lot of our experiences are rarer in the community, and going into this we thought we weren't valid! BUT WE ARE!! AND SO ARE YOU, no matter how different your experiences may be from the norm, because everyone has their own unique situations!! please take your time figuring it out, you've got time! YOU ARE COOL, YOU ARE LOVED, IF YOU FEEL LIKE PLURALITY FITS YOU, THEN GO FOR IT!!!

[lovecolibri]

SaL anon here friend, overjoyed and obsessed with everything about the RWRB movie!! Obviously there's a lot I wish we'd seen, and this absolutely deserved to be a 4-6 episode mini series because it didn't give us much breathing room, but if I think about what we did see there isn't a single scene I would take out or exchange for another. Like if 2 hours was all they were allowed to show (I know you have an extended version somewhere Matthew Lopez, we are begging) I can't imagine them spending those 2 hours any better than the way they did. And given they couldn't tell every facet of the story in that time I'm glad they chose to just focus on the love story and do that well. The book will always be iconic in its own way but its not a bad thing that the movie struck out on its own to tell the story its way with the medium they had. I even can't be to mad about some of the missing lines since the movie had its own incredible dialogue (which of course includes every Zahra line).

I still think I'll keep Neptune as a song choice for now, but strictly applied to the one shot of Henry just floating in the water because ugh, that combined with his face right before he went in just broke me. But I can see so many other songs for this movie that are much happier and more hopeful because that's really what we got in the end, a fun, sweet, and amazing love story that I will be rewatching 15 more times. Cheers friend, we absolutely won 🪅🎉🪅🎉!!

Hello my friend! I'm back from my Tumblr post limit induced exile, followed by a quick trip out of town to meet my week old nephew (who is absolutely perfect).

I am still, as I re-read the book, mourning moments we missed that I just KNOW this cast would have performed perfectly, HOWEVER, thanks to the movie, it's very easy to hear/picture the cast while reading which was an unexpected delight I discovered (I usually still have "book" versions of characters in my head as I read, even if there is a movie, but this is proving to be an exception). This story and this cast really did deserve to be a mini series but Matthew Lopez did a great job with the 2 hour time limit distilling it down to it's essence: a love story. (But also, LOTR taught us that you can make a 3hr movie and people will still watch it in droves so like, why stop at 2 hours when 20-30 extra minutes would have made a HUGE difference in depth and clarity? ANYWAY)

Zahra was an icon in the book and she was an icon in the movie and every scene she was in was solid gold! TZP and NG sold THE FUCK out of every moment! It was FUN, it was PAINFUL, it was HILARIOUS, it was soft and gentle and intimate and fucking earnest in it's expression of this love story. This is WHY people love romantic books and movies! Because in a world that loves to mock anyone and anything for expressing true emotions outside of Anger and Lust, it's soothing to see people allowed to be earnest about Love, and Fear, and Heartache, and Romance, and Intimacy, and Desire, and Hope, and Joy and, and, and, and.

One of my favorite lines from National Treasure is "People don't really talk that way you know?" "I know, but they think that way." And to me, that's what I love about romantic books and movies! I think that way, with all the earnestness my soul can manage and it's so refreshing to see/read characters being able to do that and not be mocked mercilessly for it by the people around them. Not to soapbox too hard, but the amount of people calling this movie (and the book) "cringe" even in an vaguely affectionate way always rubs me the wrong way because it always seems to be the label put on things that are uninhibitedly joyful, and emotional, and romantic, and FREE to be that way, and also, typically, genres made by and loved by women or seen/derided as "effeminate". And consequently "cringe" and a waste of time, and a "lesser" form of art. This movie isn't perfect and of course there's more from the book that I wanted to see. But it's exactly what it said it would be. It's a romantic comedy! It's fun/funny, light, and enjoyable! There are stakes but you know love is going to win because how could it not? It gets you invested but not *worried* or stressed it's not going to work out or someone isn't going to make it, or will end up miserable because going in, you know the story is, at it's heart, a love story with a happy ending that is trying to make you relax and laugh for a bit. And in that regard, it's done perfectly.

Okay, soapbox done. I didn't sleep much so sorry not sorry if it's an incomprehensible mess. ANYWAY. Since this was more focused on the love story rather than the angst, Neptune doesn't fit as well as we thought it might, though you are ABSOLUTELY correct that it's perfect for the lake scene. I can't wait to hear your thoughts and which song we're going to talk about because there are SO many good options in the happier/hopeful catalog! I can't wait to turn this movie into my new "sick day/comfort watch" fave because it's just so full of heart and fun. Cheers bestie, we got a good one!

[all-thestories-aretrue]

Just read your post about the stunning lack of Caleb/Nott/Yeza content out there and I get you friend!!! I am so wild about the whole dynamic going on between them. I'm on ep 62 right now and I am losing my mind over Beau asking Caleb if he's in love with Nott... Caleb standing quietly outside Nott's bedroom door... The longing, the complex feelings between the three of them... Idk where this was going I just!!! Am so glad I'm not alone with these feelings.

One of us! One of us! Yessss!!! I wish I had something eloquent to say about them but most of it is just incoherant screaming.

I went FERAL over that scene between Beau and Caleb. I think if she had asked if Caleb loved Nott it would have been an entirely different story. I still think he was just denying it though just a little bit. He loves her in all the ways its hard to be just in love with her, you know?

And Caleb standing outside her door. It still hurts my heart. I think about that at least 10 times a day. What was going through his mind? How exactly is he feeling? There are so many moments around all of that I would LOVE to talk to you about!!!

I still cannot believe that the entire fandom slept on them??? And Caleb and Nott in general??? It is mind boggling to me. They are individually and together some of the most interesting characters and dynamic in the nein imo. Im biased but hey. But there is so much POTENTIAL. The longing. The changing relationships and displacement. The healing and trauma. The co-dependency. Nott needing Caleb to change her back. Caleb relying on Nott early on.

And Yeza. Oh Yeza. The sweet halfling who is head over heels for Nott no matter form or her name. I can't with him!!! And I so wish we would get to see a conversation between him and Nott about Caleb and how everything is different. I don't think Nott would ever do that but it's nice to dream. But he has to know how close they are. And how does he feel about it? Is he jealous of Caleb? Does he feel bad for him? Is he understanding? I have questions!!!! In the end, I think he would do anything to make her happy, including inviting Caleb into their lives in whatever capacity she wanted.

Also ngl, I will sort of die on the hill that Nott's feelings toward Caleb are definitely changing, leaning more toward romance and the like than they were at the beginning of the campaign. I definitely won't spoil you. But like c'mon. And i have no idea how much what people said in the replies to that post actually happened, etc. But I hope Sam and Liam didn't drastically change anything about the story they wanted to tell because of people's reactions.

I also don't think its a coincidence that Nott's feelings are evolving as she rescues Yeza and reunites with him and Luc. I think Caleb and Yeza are beginning to represent much more to her than just her loves. They represent different ways of life, different values, different personalities. They have facets of her in both of them, and I think she's putting pressure on herself to choose. Neither Yeza nor Caleb seem too concerned about that or maybe aware of it? I just think there's meaning behind her shifting feelings and the fact she is being faced with this choice (as she sees it) now. Whether intentional on the part of Sam, no idea, and frankly, i don't really care lol.

But please always feel free to come scream at me about these two!! I'm always willing to listen!!! And I love hearing others thoughts about them!!!!

To sort of maybe hopefully quell this void in the fandom, I highly recommend you read this fic my lovely friend @gelatinouscute wrote for me. (If the link doesn't work, I can definitely message it to you). But it's very good!!!!

[twh-news]

We spoke to Tom Hiddleston about Loki, PowerPoint presentations and the nature of free will

Despite a decade of playing Loki in several Marvel movies and now a TV show, Tom Hiddleston isn’t tired of the role. “There is always something new to be found,” he says The edge.

This week is the premiere of Loki on Disney Plus, a six-episode series that marks the character’s first lead role. It is a story of time travel and branched timelines as Loki is captured by an organization called the Time Variance Authority (TVA). It combines action, humor and some old-fashioned detective work, while tackling serious topics such as the nature of free will. There are also some new faces on board as Hiddleston is joined by Marvel newcomers Owen Wilson, who plays a TVA agent named Mobius, and director Kate Herron, best known for her work on the first season of Sex education.

Prior to the show’s premiere, I had the chance to talk to Hiddleston about his time as a character, a presentation that made him feel like an “amateur academic giving a thesis on Loki,” working with Wilson and Herron, and whether our lives are predetermined. Typical Marvel stuff.

The following interview has been edited and abbreviated for clarity.

We are now at a decade where you play Loki. How have your feelings about the character changed or grown over that time?

I’m honestly just thankful that I’m still here. I find that I am always surprised and happy that I get another chance in it. Long before I was cast, Loki was just the most fascinating and complex character with such depth and range, and he’s been in Marvel comics in several iterations for 60 years, and he’s been in our thoughts, in stories we tell as humans, for hundreds, if not thousands of years. I find that even though it has been 10 years, every time I come back, there is always more to discover. There is always more to dig because these impostors are kind of mercurial and shape-shifting. So there is always something new to be found.

"“Loki is out of control. He’s a man on the run.”"

Now that you’ve focused this six-episode series on Loki, what were you looking forward to exploring with this? What were you hoping to dive into?

I think he’s really opening up and bringing out his many different identities and facets. In my preparation to play the character, I’ve always seen him have so many different and seemingly contradictory characteristics. You think, “How can all these characteristics exist in one person, in one being?” And yet they do.

Loki has always been a character in all MCU movies that seems to be very controlled. He seems to know what cards he has in his hand and how he is going to play them. And Loki, in the TVA – this organization that rules time – has gotten out of hand. He’s a man on the run. And he is motivated by a desire to understand. Suddenly he discovers that there is all this information that he does not have, and he has to get his hands on it. And that actually gives the series great momentum. Loki is on the back foot, everyone knows more than him, and seeing how he adapts, seeing how he improvises after that – if improvisation is possible in the TVA. That’s a question we’re trying to raise, whether you have free will.

I read about the Loki school you led to prepare the team for the character’s history. How did you prepare for that? Did you actually know it all, or did you have to do a lot of research?

I wish it wouldn’t be 10 hours long. I knew I had to summarize what I found useful to tell the crew. It came about thanks to Kate Herron, our director who has done an extraordinary job on this whole series, and he thought maybe it would be a good idea to get everyone together because there were so many department heads, different crew members – production design, costume design, cinematography, camera, sound, stunts – and wanting to make sure everyone had the same information about Loki, and it might be helpful to listen to my experience. I was trying to explain how we constructed Loki’s arc across the six movies he’s in the MCU and figure out what was useful in that arc and what we could leave behind.

I suddenly felt extremely nervous, as if I were an amateur academic writing a thesis on Loki. You’ll have to ask the others if it was helpful at all. But at least we synchronized the watches and we started from the same place.

"“If I were tall enough to use PowerPoint, I could retire and become a full-time professor.”"

So is there a PowerPoint file out there somewhere that will leak out one day?

If I was highly skilled enough to use PowerPoint, I could retire and become a full-time professor.

I did have a few clips. I thought there were some clips from the movies that could be helpful. It was interesting, even though it was about how the costume had changed over the years and why. And when does Loki wear the horns? Are the horns a casual thing? Are they a ceremonial thing like a crown? Is it an extension of an inner intention? Do the horns come out if he’s particularly evil? Why is her hair different? Sometimes he wears a cape, sometimes not. Sometimes he uses magic, sometimes he uses his own body to fight in combat. All questions that people were curious about.

I know this was meant for the rest of the crew, but was it helpful for you to go through this again as you prepared to jump back into the role?

Oh yes, absolutely, just to refresh myself about certain decisions we had made and why certain things were changed… sometimes you try to bring very elaborate and beautifully illustrated comic book panels into a physical reality on a movie set and figure out how to merge these two worlds. It was interesting. I got some great questions about how he moves the way he does and where certain things showed up in stunts, especially hair, makeup and wardrobe, how the clothes changed and why we made those choices.

It was interesting to refresh myself on the extraordinary input, because I carry the inspiration of great people with me. [Thor director] Kenneth Branagh and Alexandra Byrne, our costume designer; Bo Welch who designed the first Thor movie; Charlie Wood who was production designer on The dark world; the whole crew of Ragnarok; Mayes Rubeo, the costume designer of Ragnarok; and people like Douglas Noe, who has been doing makeup on Loki for a long time. So there was a lot to unpack.

Both Kate Herron and Owen Wilson are newcomers to the Marvel machine. Is it helpful to have such an external perspective?

Absolutely. Both Kate and Owen came in with so many questions because they hadn’t lived in Loki’s head for 10 years. They have a fresh take on it. Kate was so well prepared and so well researched; she even brought in new Marvel Publishing material that I’d never seen before, about Loki’s inner world. Owen came in and asked me a lot of questions about my experience. I remember him saying, “Tom, why should I?” you do you like to play Loki?” And I found myself saying, “Well, he’s just got this whole range. He can play the light keys, but he can also play the heavy keys in the bass clef. And somehow the character has both.” And he loved that way of thinking about it, he said, “I think I could say that on the show.” And so it was really his very intelligent question that took us elsewhere in the story.

Given the themes of the first two episodes, I have to ask: do you believe in free will?

I hope so. Free will is such an interesting, eternal question. I think people have asked to what extent we have the power of self-determination, self-realization, choice about our actions and whether we can control the course of our lives. It goes back to evolutionary or psychological arguments about nature and nurture and why we are who we are. Maybe it’s the journey of a lifetime to find out, to really take the wheel of your own life. Because we are set on a path in childhood, I think, often by accident – the misfortune of birth, where we were born and when – and we are propelled in many ways by the unconscious.

That’s a complicated answer. It’s a complex question. So I hope so. I hope true free will is possible. But for all of us, I think it can be a long journey of self-discovery.

[nadziejastar]

What are you overall thoughts on the OG incarnation of Organization XIII? What is it about them do you think that made them so popular among fans to the point that they got their own video game? How do you think the "Real" Organization XIII compares to them?

Naminé: Bad or good, I don't know. They're a group of incomplete people who wish to be whole. To that end, they're desperately searching for something.

IMO, this quote from Namine is the reason why the OG Organization was so popular. They weren't good or bad people. They were just incomplete and wished to be whole. They were all desperately searching for something, and it really wasn't even Kingdom Hearts. Each one of them was empty and incomplete, before they even lost their heart. KH2 was subtle about it. We never knew much of what these characters' backstories were. It was largely left to our imagination. But you could tell a lot about them by reading between the lines.

Most of the New Organization are the different forms of Xehanort, plus a lot of the same members from the old Organization. And Xehanort is one of the most complex and multi-faceted characters in the whole series. I LOVE Xehanort. All his forms are interesting. But the OG Organization are more iconic because each one was unique. They each had a different weapon, element, and personality. These are my thoughts on all of them:

Xemnas: Xemnas's final quote in KH3 shows that he thought being human was too painful. He said he felt the loneliness where his companions once stood. And even in KH2, he builds them a little graveyard called "Proof of Existence". It just hints that there was more going on with him than meets the eye. "Every heart returns to the darkness whence it came". I think Xehanort HATED the cycle of life and death. He wanted to build a new, better world.

Xigbar: I loved Xigbar's story. He had no bonds or close relationships with others. He was hoping the Keyblade's power would fill that emptiness. But in the end, he commits suicide because that was never going to fill his void.

Xaldin: He said he wanted to give up his heart to escape the shackles of emotion. IMO, he did something awful during the experiments and the guilt was tearing him apart. It was easier to be heartless than cope with what he felt. He told himself that love and emotions are a weakness to make himself feel strong. But he was running away from what would really make him whole: atonement.

Vexen: Similar to Xaldin. I think he did something terrible during the experiments and this shattered his pride. Having no heart allowed him to be cold enough to enjoy scientific pursuits once again. But he needed to atone and learn how to love again.

Lexaeus: In his Character File story, he seemed to desire tranquility. Ansem the Wise always thought that darkness could consume the world at any time. I think he was an anxious person by nature. Losing his home world to darkness was very traumatic for him, and he was searching for some way to find peace.

Zexion: I don't think he cared about losing his heart because emotions were unpleasant to him. As a kid, he was an orphan who almost never spoke, didn't smile. He had no friends his own age, he wasn't allowed to play outside, he had to study all day. Then, his one mentor who lets him just be a regular kid abandons him.

Saix: He started off as Lea's innocent ice-cream loving best friend and became the most heartless twisted member. KH3 did him dirty. He deserved a MUCH better and more tragic backstory. There were SO many hints that he was a test subject.

Axel: Roxas and Axel had a very interesting relationship in KH2. I ALWAYS got the sense that Axel had a best friend who had died. He was desperately searching for a way to fill his void and was trying to use Roxas to do so. But here's the thing. Roxas was NEVER going to replace his dead best friend. He was NEVER going to fill that void and that's what made Axel so tragic and compelling. I think Axel knew deep down that Roxas was never gonna make him whole again. And that's why he was really crying in that scene in KH2FM.

Demyx: Sad that his spot in the New Organization got stolen. I think he was very interesting. He said he was no good at fighting, and when you fight him in KH2, he acts very afraid. So you'd think he's weak. But the reality is he's very good at fighting. He's so cowardly because he just hates hurting others. His Character File reveals that he only joined the New Organization to be back with his friends. Really makes you wonder what his pre-Nobody life was like. Probably very traumatic.

Luxord: I think Xigbar tricked him into joining the New Organization by telling him about the black box. Luxord thought the world was doomed, but he was searching for hope. That was what he needed to fill his void and be complete. The card he gave Sora is the wild card. The Fool. Empty, yet holds infinite possibilities. IMO, the black box was the same. It was just something for him to project his hopes onto. Xigbar took advantage of his desperation.

Marluxia: He'd been an empty husk ever since Strelitzia died, so being a Nobody made no difference to him. In CoM, I assumed that the lady in his final boss form was dead. He was trying to gain the Replica Program and the Keyblade master under his control to bring her back to life. It was never stated outright. Just something you had to read between the lines.

Larxene: Marluxia's Mystery Gear is "Dainty Bellflowers". A flower that symbolizes "return to happiness". And that was her only goal. She just wanted Lauriam to be happy once again. She couldn't be whole until he was, and she was searching for a way to bring his sister back.

Roxas: Loved his story in KH2. Very interesting character. He was the sole kid in a group filled with broken adults who just wanted to use him them for their own ends. And he longed to just be a normal kid with friends his own age. That was what HE needed to be whole. The data Twilight Town was Roxas's dream world. And he lived an ordinary summer vacation with HAYNER as his best friend. Roxas's Organization "best friend" Axel wasn't even a part of Roxas's ideal life. And that made perfect sense and was completely realistic to me. Roxas longed to be best friends with a normal kid his own age, not a grown man who was a broken shell of a person.

[maxwell-grant]

What are your thoughts on Jekyll/Hyde and his archetype of the human periodically changing into a monster ?

Jekyll & Hyde was the 2nd horror story I read following Frankenstein, I got it off the same library and it always stuck very strongly with me even before I got into horror in general. I even dressed up as Jekyll/Hyde as a kid for a school fair by shredding a lab coat on one side and asking my sister to make-up claw gashes on my exposed arm and paint half of my face, although in hindsight I think I ended up looking more like Doctor Two-Face than Jekyll/Hyde, but I was 12 and didn't have any Victorian clothing to use so I had to make do. The first film project I tried doing at film school was intended to be a modern take on Jekyll & Hyde, and I didn't get much farther than a couple of discarded scripts

Much like Frankenstein, Mr Hyde as a character and a story is something that's kind of baked into everything I do artistically. And it's not just me, as even in pop culture itself, none of us can escape Mr Hyde. I would go so far as to argue Mr Hyde may be the single most significant character created by victorian fiction, if only by the sheer impact and legacy the character's had.

(Fan-art by guilhermefranco)

Part of what makes Mr Hyde such a powerful and lasting icon of pop culture is that the very premise of the book invites a personal reading that's gonna vary from person to person. Because everyone's familiar with the basic twist of the story, that it's a conflict of duality, of the good and evil sides, but everyone has a more personal idea of what those entail. Some people make the story more about class. A lot of readings laser-focus on sex and lust as the driving force, and there's also a lot of readings of Mr Hyde that tackle it to explore a more gendered perspective, and so forth.

I don't particularly take much notice of the Jekyll & Hyde adaptations partially because the novel's premise and themes have become baked so throughly into pop culture and explored in so many different and interesting ways, that I'm not particularly starving for good Jekyll & Hyde adaptations the way I am for Dracula and Frankenstein. The Fredric March film in particular is one that orbits my head less because of the film itself (although I do recommend it), but because of one specific scene, and that's when Jekyll first transforms into Hyde on screen.

Out of all the things they could have shown him doing right that second, they instead took the time to show him enjoying the rain.

Just Hyde taking off his hat and letting it all cascade on his face with this sheer enthusiasm like he's never been to the rain before, never enjoyed it before, and now that he's free from being Jekyll, he gets to enjoy life like he never has before. It's such an oddly humanizing moment to put amidst a horror movie, in the scene where you're ostensibly introducing the monster to the audience, and it makes such a stark contrast to the rest of the film where Hyde is completely irredeemable, but I think it's that contrast that makes the film's take on Hyde work so well even with it's diverging from the source material, even if I don't particularly like in general interpretations of Hyde that are focused on a sexual aspect.

Because one, it understands that Jekyll was fundamentally a self-serving coward and not a paragon of goodness, and two, it also understands one of the things that makes Hyde scary: He wants what all of us want, to live and be happy. He's happy when he leaves the lab and dances around in the rain like a giddy child, he's happy when he goes to places Jekyll couldn't dream of showing up, he's happy as a showgirl-abusing sexual predator. Hyde is all wants, all the time, and there's not that much difference between his wants, his domineering possessiveness, and the likes exhibited by Muriel's father and Jekyll's own within the very same film, which also works to emphasize one of the other ideas of the original story, that Edward Hyde doesn't come from nowhere. That no monster is closer to humanity than Mr Hyde, because he is us. He is the thing that Jekyll refused to take responsability for until it was too late.

(Art by LorenzoMastroianni)

While many of the ideas that defined Mr Hyde had already been explored in pop culture beforehand, Hyde popularized and redefined many of them in particular by modernizing the idea. He was the werewolf, the doppelganger, The Player On The Other Side, except he came from within. He was not transformed by circumstance, he made himself that way, and the elixir merely brought out something already inside his soul. To acknowledge that he's there is to acknowledge that he is you, and to not do that is to either lose to him, or perish. Hyde was there to address both the rot settling in Victorian society as well as grappling concerns over Darwinian heritage, of the realization that man has always had the beast inside of him (it's no accident that Hyde's main method of murder is by clubbing people to death with his cane like a caveman).

I've already argued on my post about Tarzan that the Wild Man archetype, beginning with Enkidu of The Epic of Gilgamesh, is the in-between man and beast, between superhero and monster, and that Mr Hyde is an essential component of the superhero's trajectory, as the creature split in between. That stories about dual personalities, doppelgangers, the duality of the soul, the hero with a day job and an after dark career, you can pinpoint Hyde as a turning point in how all of these solidified gradually in pop culture. And I've argued otherwise that The Punisher, for all that his image and narrative points otherwise, is ultimately just as much of a superhero as the rest of them, even if no one wants to admit it, drawing a parallel between The Punisher and Mr Hyde. And he's far from the only modern character that can invite this kind of parallel.

The idea of a regular person periodically or permanently transforming into, or revealing itself to be, something extraordinary and fantastic and scary, grappling with the divide it causes in their soul, and questions whether it's a new development or merely the truest parts of themselves coming to light at last, and the effects this transformation has for good and bad alike. The idea of a potent, dangerous, unpredictable enemy who ultimately is you, or at least a facet of you and what you can do. That these are bound to destroy each other if not reconciled with or overcome.

You know what are my thoughts on the archetype of "human periodically changing into a monster" are? Look around you and you're gonna see the myriad ways The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde's themes have manifested in the century and a half since the story's release. Why it shouldn't be any surprise whatsoever that Mr Hyde has become such an integral part of pop culture, in it's heroes and monsters alike. Why we can never escape Mr Hyde, just as Jekyll never could.

It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to fear and despise. Our Barbie-doll president, with his Barbie-doll wife and his boxful of Barbie-doll children is also America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde.

He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts on nights when the moon comes too close… - Hunter S. Thompson

There is a scene in the movie Pulp Fiction that explains almost every terrible thing happening in the news today. And it's not the scene where Ving Rhames shoots that guy's dick off. It's the part where the hit man played by John Travolta is talking about how somebody vandalized his car, and says this:

"Boy, I wish I could've caught him doing it. I'd have given anything to catch that asshole doing it. It'd been worth him doing it, just so I could've caught him doing it."

That last sentence is something everyone should understand about mankind. After all, the statement is completely illogical -- revenge is supposed to be about righting a wrong. But he wants to be wronged, specifically so he'll have an excuse to get revenge. We all do.

Why else would we love a good revenge movie? We sit in a theater and watch Liam Neeson's daughter get kidnapped. We're not sad about it, because we know he's a badass and he finally has permission to be awesome. Not a single person in that theater was rooting for it to all be an innocent misunderstanding. We wanted Liam to be wronged, because we wanted to see him kick ass. It's why so many people walk around with vigilante fantasies in their heads.

Long, long ago, the people in charge figured out that the easiest and most reliable way to bind a society together was by controlling and channeling our hate addiction. That's the reason why seeing hurricane wreckage on the news makes us mumble "That's sad" and maybe donate a few bucks to the Red Cross hurricane fund, while 9/11 sends us into a decade-long trillion-dollar rage that leaves the Middle East in flames.

The former was caused by wind; the latter was caused by monsters. The former makes us kind of bummed out; the latter gets us high.

It's easy to blame the news media for pumping us full of stories of mass shootings and kidnapped children, but that's stopping one step short of the answer: The media just gives us what we want. And what we want is to think we're beset on all sides by monsters.

The really popular stories will always feature monsters that are as different from us as possible. Think about Star Wars -- what real shithead has ever referred to himself as being on "the dark side"? In Harry Potter and countless fantasy universes, you have wizards working in "black magic" and the "dark arts." Can you imagine a scientist developing some technology for chemical weapons or invasive advertising openly thinking of what he does as "dark science"? Can you imagine a real world leader naming his headquarters "The Death Star" or "Mount Doom"?

Of course not. But we need to believe that evil people know they're evil, or else that would open the door to the fact that we might be evil without knowing it. I mean, sure, maybe we've bought chocolate that was made using child slaves or driven cars that poisoned the air, but we didn't do it to be evil -- we were simply doing whatever we felt like and ignoring the consequences. Not like Hitler and the bankers who ruined the economy and those people who burned the kittens -- they wake up every day intentionally dreaming up new evils to create. It's not like Hitler actually thought he was saving the world.

So no matter how many times you vote to cut food stamps and then use the money to buy a boat, you could still be way worse. You could, after all, be one of those murdering / lazy / ignorant / greedy / oppressive monsters that you know the world is full of, and that only your awesome moral code prevents you from turning into at any moment. And those monsters are out there.

They have to be. Because otherwise, we're the monsters - 5 Reasons Humanity Desperately Wants Monsters To Be Real, by Jason Pargin

(Two-Face sequence comes from the end of Batman Annual #14: Eye of the Beholder)

For good or bad, Hyde has become omnipresent. He's a part of our superheroes, he's a part of our supervillains, he's in our monsters. He lives and prattles in our ears, sometimes we need him to survive, and sometimes we become Hyde even when we don't need to, because our survival instincts or base cruelties or desperation brings out the worst in us. Sometimes we can beat him, and sometimes he's not that bad. Sometimes we do need to appease him and listen to what he says, about us and the world around us. And sometimes we need to do so specifically to prove him wrong and beat him again.

But he never, ever goes away, as he so accurately declares in the musical

Do you really think That I would ever let you go...

Do you think I'd ever set you free?

If you do, I'm sad to say It simply isn't so

You will never get away FROM MEEEEEE

(Art by Akreon on Artstation)

[kritischetheologie]

A bit confused. Do you like Seb as a person or just as an interesting character as a part of a ship (Sewis, Sico, Sebchal, etc.)?

Thanks for the question!

Somebody, but I don't remember who alas, laid out a 3 way framework for relating to drivers: as a paper doll / blorbo, as an athlete, and as a real person.

I'm going to answer these in that order, which I also think is from most to least important.

Obviously seb is my favorite paper doll except for maybe nico; I find him fascinating as a character as you've pointed out, partly because there are so many facets to him, good and bad, and his character has changed in interesting ways as he's aged, and there's just so much there there.

I root for him as a driver! I think I'll probably cry if I ever see him get another podium, let alone a win, and I wish I could have been there for his winning days. I did a grid draft with my partner before the first race for the season and objectively took him a round or two too early because I knew I would be crushed not to have him since I would be supporting him anyway.

And genuinely part of me is like stop reading here those two are the only ones that matter lol.

I saved as a person for last for two reasons. First, because I don't think who we like as a paper doll and a driver should necessarily depend on their character, though there's things people can do that cut them out of my dollhouse forever. 

Because like... these are all multimillionaire athletes in an extremely corrupt sport that is destroying the environment who all moved to monaco/switzerland for tax evasion purposes and if you look to them for ethical guidance you will always be disappointed.

And also, we have an extremely limited view of who they are as a person. My sense of who Seb is as a person is just another fucking paper doll.

And second, because Seb is an extremely private person, extremely protective in particular of his family, and so I try to keep my feelings about real Seb's real life as far away from him and as quiet as possible to respect that.

But yeah- from what I can tell, he seems wonderful. He seems to genuinely try to live more ethically, he doesn't always use the most woke terminology for things and I don't want to contribute to straight white saviorism but he tries to be an ally and I appreciate that. He's still on his first wife, and only Checo can say that. If you told me in some insane y/n fantasy that I had to actually marry one of them for real not as a paper doll, based solely on the information I currently have, I would probably pick Seb.

But also I love to be a hater so much. So when people start ragging on him for being old and bald and washed and driving a green tractor I'm like, yes that is my (y/n fantasy) husband you're talking about doesn’t his bald head look beautiful on his green tractor?? I don't not think he's balding because I love him. I don't not think he moved to Switzerland to evade taxes because I love him.

And I also think that the ways he's a good person sometimes make him a less interesting paper doll. And I think some of my frustration with the way seb gets written a lot of the time, especially with sewis, is that people write a seb who is single and available to ship with (Lewis, in particular) and ALSO as good and stable and kind a person as he seems to be now, today.

And I get that, because these are our bedtime stories and we can make them as comforting as we like, but...

A seb who is still single at 30 let alone 35 is a fundamentally different person than real life seb. You do have to tweak his character to answer the question of why and how he’s still single. Even if, as in EWTRTW, it’s mostly just a function of writing a Seb who is gay and doesn’t want to bother coming out, the experience of going through those years of his life alone would change him.

I've written two long fics with seb as a romantic lead and I came up with two very different answers. In my head I've joked that everybody wants to rule the world is a love letter to ***** because the whole fic can be read as being about how much seb would suck without her. 

I don’t want to go too far in the opposite direction and fetishize his perfect idyllic swiss farmhouse family life for the reasons listed above, but- I think the things that make him a good person are a lot less separable from having spent his entire adulthood in a serious relationship than people often admit.

Hope that was clarifying and/or interesting!