#there's uh. a whole lot of fantasy and sci-fi in there.

[ask-angel-and-the-other-fandudes]

Hey Angel, do you have any good book recommendations for a quick read over the holiday break? Maybe a favorite of yours, if you have one?

I guess I could recommend "Black Wizards" by Douglas Niles or "Midworld" by Alan Dean Foster, or "The Goblin Reservation" Clifford D. Simak, or "Winds of Gath" by Edwin Charles Tubb, or even "The Lady in the Morgue" by Jonathan Latimer, if fantasy or science fiction isn't your thing! Though I will say that "The Goblin Reservation" is probably my favorite out of the bunch...

[lemon-natalia]

Gideon the Ninth Reaction - Chapter 4

wow why they are so mean about Ortus all the time 😭

Harrow stfu Gideon doesn't owe you anything

i feel like i'm being a little too hard towards Harrow but tbf she's not incredibly likeable right now

'and at the end of the night, the Locked Tomb is me' 🧐🧐

gotta say, some fantasy or sci-fi books have the problem of too much exposition of worldbuilding all at once at the beginning, and uh, this book definitely has the complete opposite of that, i still have no idea whats going on 😂

i can definitely understand why Gideon is so reluctant to agree to anything Harrow is offering, she literally just got tricked kinda this exact way, but this also does feel like her only option to maybe get out

ngl i don't have a whole lot to say about this chapter, other than it seems to end on a vaguely ominous note about just waiting to die. Fun!

[mdhwrites]

Do you think it's a bit odd how muddy the premise of TOH is?

I can sum up the premise of other similar shows I've watched in one sentence to any hypothetical viewer going in blind. SU: A chubby boy struggles to master his own power, identity, and goodness while navigating complex family dynamics, old wounds, and sick sci-fi technomagic. Amphibia: Three girls search for each other, stretch their friendship to its limits, and find a way back home in a wacky land populated by amphibians. She-Ra: An imperialist soldier turned rebel fights to free her homeland from occupation whilst struggling with the unique bond she shares with her frenemy.... etc!

I'm just not sure what I could say for TOH. A girl runs away from home to be mentored by a wild witch? But she doesn't really get mentored, and she didn't exactly run away either (she just... didn't go home until it was too late.) A girl leaves her home dimension to enroll in a magic school - hm, but that wasn't really something she super duper cared about, it was just part of the witch gimmick for her.

What else?? A human enters a land of witches, only to discover sinister scheming from the only other human to genocide - which - he's 400-ish too, so, uh, that proves that... colonialism... um.. religion... Let's restart. A human enters witchland and discovers things are not as they seem - no, things are pretty much as they seem-

A closeted girl is thrust into a new world in which she can be herself, and catches the eye of a popular rich girl? Hey, that's not too bad, except it ignores a whole lot of other shit that went down.

How about: A girl enters a wacky land that fulfills her dream of living a fantasy to a T, including the unpleasant parts of the genre.

...Yeah, I guess that's the closest I'm getting. Anyway, what d'you think about TOH's premise? Is it clear to you?

So when I bring up that TOH has a split personality problem, this is what I'm talking about. It effectively is trying to tell three different stories, with three different tones. Any one would be good on its own. Any two would need some finesse but they had plenty of time. All three? Well, even disregarding time constraints, you would have had to be really smart in mixing all three elements in order to make something cohesive as keeping them all separate for longer would simply create the same problem as keeping them apart for a short time does.

And TOH doesn't even fucking try. The literal only element that consistently ties all three story ideas together is Luz. I'll get into it more in a second but this is part of why when you pitch the show to someone, you kind of just have to focus the entire description on Luz in one way or another. To mention any of the other elements causes you to inherently imply one is more important than the others and TOH never chose anything to prioritize.

But of course, what were the three stories trying to be told and with what tones? And I'll talk about how it handles each of them weaving into one another once I've just established a baseline for each.

Well, first we have the slice of life, comedy, coming of age story that is Luz, Eda, King and Lilith. Especially in S1, most hijinks with them are focused around blunt morality, hijinks and just dealing with a problem of the day. It is the most bluntly kid's show of any of them, adopting a lot of the tone of Amphibia. This is why we get so many B plots with King that are the same thing over and over again. It's why Lilith and Eda are on opposite sides of the law but they don't fight until the end but instead are just nice, silly sisters here for hijinks. It's also part of why Lilith is made into a joke in S2 because that is more keeping in line with the tone of this storyline than if she were to actually what happened to her seriously and mixed in with:

The second is a fantasy epic about the corruption of a world by hate and prejudice. Of one man's corrupted beliefs of religion and want for control ruining a land. It is a much darker toned story, meant to reflect the horrors of the real world and its prejudices. This is the plot of Belos and Hunter. It is also the plot that is the smallest part of TOH but should have been the most omnipresent due to how so much of it is tied strictly into the worldbuilding. A lack of world building easily makes this sort of story, like most dystopians, fall completely apart. It also is the one that requires the most adherence to it as conflicting elements makes this story feel all the weaker each time someone treats this existential threat as nothing to be worried about.

The third is the most obvious: The school drama/romance story. This one is probably the one actually trying to be the most concise due to how almost every element for a season and a half of this plot is dedicated just to the weird girl/serious girl romance. It's a classic and one I've iterated on multiple times myself as it's just a fun concept to handle.

So there you go. Three ideas that are each on their own a good story but have their own complications. Each one of these could have easily taken two seasons to properly explore and tell. With more efficient storytelling, any of them could have taken a single season or less.

But then you get the exponential problem of mixing them together. Because mind you, tonally you have a comedy slice of live, a romantic drama, and a dark epic. Those are VASTLY different genres for each tonally and in narrative intent.

The easiest combo is actually the first and second. This is actually what Amphibia is effectively. The show starts in a somewhat isolated part of the world so its lighter tone can not contrast with the darker epic that is to come, giving it a safe space for character development, relationships, etc. Then with each threat, it gets a little more serious with its tone. There's a reason Hop Pop buries the box in S1 but the confrontation about what that means isn't until S2. There's a reason why S3B of Amphibia is MARKEDLY more serious than anything that came before it. The strength of this combo is that when the darker elements show up, the contrast of what came before makes them hit all the harder and makes you care about the stakes.

So what about how TOH handles it? Well, Lilith and Eda are theoretically a blend of the two but Lilith is never treated quite seriously enough. Also, rather than it being ideological, it comes across more personal with those two and it kind of leaves Belos out of it for the entirety of the first season, especially due to how wishy washy the show is about the covens being a big deal. Then in S2, Lilith absolutely SHOULD be the connective tissue. Her and Luz share a similar anger towards Belos and the two acting on that anger is a way to show that hate in any form is destructive, playing on the grander themes of the epic side of it while bringing in The Owl Family.

Instead, Lilith is just kind of flicked away, rendering any connective tissue from S1 to just evaporate, especially as no one actually seems to have cared about Belos almost murdering Eda. Rather, Raine is the connective tissue for the two plotlines. You know, the character who never gets to meaningfully interact with Luz or King, nor actually has a role in potentially pulling Luz to different ways of learning like Lilith might have, meaning they don't interact with the mentor side either. Even in their first episode, Raine is entirely self contained away from the other two. Eda and King's closest contribution to the plot before S3 is honestly in trying to get info out of Warden Wrath and that's really it. Otherwise, they're entirely divorced from Belos, his philosophy and his machinations.

So next easiest combo: The grand epic mixed with the school setting. This is how you get things like S3 of RWBY, My Hero Academia or Harry Potter (Though HP sucks dick at it too because good old Joanne sucks both at being a good person and actually writing anything serious.) The school setting is used as a kind of safe space for drama, romance and teenage shenanigans while the dark elements allow those things to come to a fever pitch as well as a way to test the bonds made at school versus the grand threat's hate and evil. It's hard to make smooth though, if the fact that I listed two things with... questionable plot writing to put it mildly isn't indicative. It at least has been done before. Oh, Naruto pre-Shippuden could possibly also be counted as this.

And TOH mixes these two by... Hunter? That really is the closest it ever comes to mixing them. The school is easily the part that obliterates taking Belos' regime or themes seriously as it constantly, CONSTANTLY undermines the worldbuilding of the show and struggles to actually feel like a part of the grander society. None of the Hexside Squad members ever properly face what being a wild witch or ditching the coven system actually means after all. Amity literally treats it as something that will mildly disappoint her parents but isn't a big deal.

So all you really have is Sport in a Storm and Labyrinth Runners as at least those episodes are using the school setting to give Hunter a chance to make friends and become a better person, theoretically, and he's important to the epic storyline so that kind of counts. If you REALLY want to stretch it, Eclipse Lake is another point of crossover before all three plotlines are mashed together starting at Clouds on the Horizon but the only justification there is that Amity is from the school stuff, though it's closer to fitting the tone and tropes of the mentor's storytelling than that of the school's.

But that is still three... In almost 38 episodes.

The last one is easily the most awkward and the one I don't have examples for: Mixing the Mentor and School plotlines. It's actually pretty easy to see why this would be hard. Both are about teaching the main character but in different ways. I think you could claim some works have done this by having a specific teacher be the primary teacher/mentor for the main character while the school is just where that mentor is accessed.

So how does TOH mix the-

Error 404.

Huh...

I'm not over exaggerating that much. Besides Teenage Abomination, VERY WEAKLY, the two never actually mix. Eda comes to Hexside once. King interacts with the Hexside kids a couple times but always in episodes or B plots that are much closer to the silly slice of life stuff than anything trying to mix the two tones. Even when it does, you get Really Small Problems where neither story is progressed and it all feels bad. Remember the closest that Eda comes to ever being a part of fixing a school problem is in Understanding Willow where she's just a spell dispenser before then being an idiot for Gus. It doesn't make her look better or play with any of the themes. The next closest is during The First Day where she is isolated entirely in her own plot so it's not actually mixing it besides the fact that Eda is at the school.

And for all three?

Well... I think the best way to point this out is that the best example of all three plots coming together is Edric deciding to expand his knowledge of magic. He actively chooses to reject what society has told him, tries a new method endorsed by the mentor figure but does at least acknowledge that his old schooling didn't prepare him for it. It's not strong and it's still hamstringing the epic storyline because he's already practicing two types of magics and so is mostly just nervous about being any good at this but it's SOMETHING.

But otherwise? The three shall never meet. Even once Clouds on the Horizon happens, they never meet. Eda literally never spends time with the Hexside Squad, especially as a whole. King is barely a part of the mentor stuff by then and is purely in the Epic territory and he's still not interacting much with them. Even in the final episode, the Hexside members are entirely on their own while Luz, Eda and King properly take out Belos, rather than everyone trying to protect Luz or having to fight by her side.

This sequestering of characters, themes, plotlines, etc. causes the show to waste a LOT of time and never have a proper focus. You never know what the point to a scene is because what it's serving is unclear, if it's serving anything at all. The show, by the end, can still have cut Amity and Hexside out entirely and lost literally nothing except much of what made the fandom engage with the show. And a reminder: Disney SUGGESTED Hexside. Dana said yes. It wasn't forced on her.

And that fits the show's entire storytelling ethos. It never feels like it is actually focusing on a single point. Instead, individual episodes will present interesting ideas or statements that immediately conflict or need to be retconned by other episodes because nothing is properly congruent. It is all conflicting against each other because each part is acting entirely independent of the rest.

It is an ever growing leviathan but rather than bringing in more of what is around it to make it stronger, it only ever hurts itself more and more as the details that once shone on its surface are made murky and unclear by all it has piled upon it until there is nothing but a rancid sludge. Unclear, unfocused and hard to describe except in the most blunt way possible. So what is the most blunt way to describe TOH?

The only factor that gets to cross all three storylines: Luz. So the only way to describe the show is "A story of a teenage girl going into a fantasy story." What type of fantasy story? Who knows. The writers didn't seem to after all so why should we?

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[lanaevyssmoved]

do u have any game recommendations that have character creation? besides bg3 ofc

gonna be real i wouldnt recommend bg3 for a character creation game because you can only use preset faces ...... bro but if you mean it in an oc way......

i would recommend.............

heavily modded skyrim, if you don't wanna do it yourself use wabbajack, some of the modlists on there are designed for graphics or high end systems and have very pretty characters. there's also ones not like that with rougher characters or more vanilla characters. lots of choice! do not get into the community though, this is a warning

following on from that, any elder scrolls game - morrowind is the best and one of my all time favourite games

you can follow on from that with fallout if you like the setting. i recommend fallout 1 and 2 the most as i'm not the hugest fan of bethesdas fallout but that is not a common opinion that be a hot take

heavily modded final fantasy xiv, you can fully mod on the free trial version as far as i know - be warned this is an extremely slippery slope because it has a modding community to rival skyrim and many customisation mods are paid for however there are ways around that. anyway you can get mods from here, here and here as well as the nexus

elden ring, dark souls 3 - the other dark souls but those character creations look like dogshit ass but still fun to make ocs in imo.. demon souls if you own a ps5....... i do not

pillars of eternity, tyranny, while visually quite limiting the character creators are still very neat from a roleplay pov - tyrannys has a lil "post character creation" game you get to play where you make "post game" choices and i uh, used to play that all the time for fun without intent to keep playing.....

a good follow up to that would be dragon age, all three of them but specially origins, i used to play the origins and not continue the rest of the game for fun! now be warned all of these games suck terrible dick in terms of modding because it's awkward and annoying and easily broken! i recently replayed dao and dai and so much of that time was spent troubleshooting...... joyous

have to kind of mention mass effect after? but ur kind of always making the same character..... ive always struggled with mass effect personally. maybe its the setting?

you can also look at starfield since that's got actually a pretty decent cc but i did find it quite limiting. but i've not really played it for more than an hour cuz bg3 exists so i can't say much

back to crpgs, the two pathfinder games! again limiting on the character side but roleplay side very very strong. i've not played wotr but i have mutuals who act like it is gods gift to gaming and i believe them. i really liked the first!

the outer worlds could be a good choice, i really like that games aesthetic but it's another space game and i think we're seeing a pattern that i'm just not that into those. hm. it was bethesda style gaming in space before starfield exists with the personality of fallout, kind of ?

this ones going far out there but crusader kings iii has an insane character creation and my favourite ruler ever was this old witch woman cannibal who slowly but surely turned her whole corner of the globe into a witch worshipping cannibal cult. i miss her

age of wonders 4 has a really cool cc, you can even make dragons with the dlc like Actual dragons.... i have made so many characters in there and gave them their funny little lores.. age of wonders has real cool lore and it is Completely ignored by tumblr afaik and that sucks

encased is a really cool rpg it's another sci-fi-y one.. it isn't as polished as you might expect cuz it's a very ambitious game but a small indie studio but i would say if you enjoy fallout 1 + 2 you will enjoy encased

dragons dogma! you get to make two people in this just like in bg3! i made a lil girl and her big brother and i was so fucking emotional over them that i was crying constantly even when nothing was going on. i played dragons dogma to fucking death on the ps3 and i think its interesting and rich enough to sink ur teeth into

i have to mention greedfall as the owner of the greedfall url.... greedfall is very interesting as its a double A title akin to a dragon age game.. it might make one feel a tad uncomfortable because it comes across as colonialism the rpg but it does get very interesting and it has neat as hell characters and magic and big monsters who fuck hard

wasteland 3! kinda again has the fallout type of vibe it is violent and full of dark themes and twisted themes but its also extremely comical its true black humour at times and you get to make two characters again and you can even make TWO MORE CHARACTERS so i had a bunch of custom characters.. u can get really wild in the cc as well and builds are SUPER fun....... v good game

spellforce 3!!!!! i love this game, the cc is again like another crpg one but spellforce 3 has very deep lore spanning many games .. its not typical crpg in that its also like a strategy war game too but i think it does the mixture very well and i LOVEEEEEEEE the lore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

uh i forgot to mention divinity original sin 1/2 because .. bg3 should lead you right there but uh. play them both! the first is so good in coop i feel cuz of the natural banter between the protagonists. if you don't have friend the second is very good single player just. be warned i don't think it has good endings but the ride is worth it!! and divinity lore fucks hard. i also recommend divinity dragon commander because its so much fun

can i say stardew valley? mayhaps sun haven too? if ur crazy like me you can turn these into prime oc generators. also mods

oh, monster hunter world and by extension wild hearts. monster hunter world lets you make a cat and while ur character themselves doesn't get to do much story wise i did get very obsessed with my character and wanting them fight cool monsters. wild hearts is similar though your character does feel a bit more special- be warned this game is known for running like ass on most systems, its pretty good for me but be warned all the same

TEEHEES.... KENSHI!!!!!!!!!!!! i was holding back on mentioning kenshi but i can't. you can make a whole fucked up lil squad if u want. u got weird alien races. u got a billion fucking mods. u can have ur buddies limps removed and give them robot ones. u can make an army of weirdos. bro i got so invested in my kenshi squad i was writing FANFIC. i was dreaming of them. i was unable to sleep about them. i miss them so fucking much dude!! kenshi doesnt really have a story beyond what u make it. that shit is a SANDBOX.. and i love it so much. everyone should play kenshi. its kinda like rimworld if u want a comparison. i think its Perfect. the best game to exist ever (lie) its so wonderful....... man........its also broken as shit cuz its the most ambitious game to exist ever and it was made by 1 dude so

oh if u like anime games i have to mention code vein (souls like) and god eater (monster hunter like ?) they have very good ccs and i know people super into the lore and stuff. i only played code vein and i liked it a lot honestly

uhhh i mentioned 1 mmo so i should probably mention guild wars 2, the cc is very good, the whole games end game is about fashion and looking amazing. the lore is also super duper neat! i haven't played it for a long time now but i did play it on launch and i had a blast for a few years

if you like d&d i would recommend solasta! it has a very good cc i think honestly and it feels the most like this is d&d in a video game out of every game i've ever played, and it translates the system very and faithfully (as opposed to say bg3 who changed things for game reasons). solasta is also best with friends because its so in that vibe of this is a silly lil d&d party. its much fun

lol i got the block text limit popup

kotor 1 and 2, it might be hard to get into the lore and characters if you're not into star wars but i found it pretty ok to as not a huge star wars fan. i also think they deserve to be played despite that as well because they are fantastic rpgs and some of the best bioware ever made

vampire the masquerade bloodlines!!! i am not a vampire fan really, a small one, but this game captivated me.... very easy to get into making a character i feel and ur given enough to make characters that align different ways easily. the combat did not age well..... but the story and roleplay absolutely did

ok.. im gonna stop here.. but i will say give games like icewind dale and arcanum a chance.. look at old as hell crpgs and try them. this includes bg1+2 which i still need to play myself but will be soon! they are classics because their stories are fantastic, and shouldn't be missed out on!!!!!

[nkjemisin]

I just want to thank you for writing The Broken Earth trilogy. I finished The Stone Sky yesterday, and it has quickly become one of my favorite series ever, full stop!! I’ve been having a debate with a friend over whether it’s sci-fi or fantasy (I’m inclined to believe it’s both!), but wondered if you could settle the argument for us.

Sure. It's a book! Well, one story told across 3 books.

Seriously -- I don't care what you call it. Among other reasons, I wrote those books as a way to play with Clarke's Law ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic") and its Girl Genius corollary, "Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science." I was also playing with the whole idea that technological development is linear (it isn't), dependent on certain baseline materials/techniques (like metallurgy; again, it isn't) and can proceed along only one path (it doesn't). Our own world's history puts all those assumptions to lie, though there are reasons -- like scientific racism -- why most of us aren't taught about those other paths. But in antiquity, more than one great thinker concluded that science, art, and philosophy were ultimately all one thing -- all just a framework for how we choose to engage with the world. I wanted to see what happened when you changed parts of that framework. What if a society feared metal, and chose to center its technological development around stone and earth sciences? (Or biology, in the case of Syl Anagist.) What if that society took a different lesson from encountering advanced tech somewhere -- not "can we emulate/exploit that?" but "uh, those people had tech like that and died, so maybe we shouldn't repeat whatever they did." And what if those same people learned to exploit a completely different energy source that our own world hasn't tried? I called it "magic" mostly just to fuck with readers, because I enjoy doing that (authors are liars and sadists). But I could've called it "dark energy" if I'd wanted -- a real, if theoretical, concept in physics -- and probably pulled it off just as well. What's one energetic force we don't understand, versus another?

I just don't see any point to these endless debates about science fiction vs fantasy. Those are marketing terms, simply meant to sell books. I've read plenty of science fiction that was basically just fantasy with a lot of technobabble slathered over it, and plenty of fantasy that could've passed for science if the author had been interested in taking it there. And yet a lot of people have built their entire identities around these marketing terms, and that's batshit to me. Like forming sports teams around "Tastes great!" versus "Less filling!" or going to war because you like chocolate and somebody else likes peanut butter. Just eat a damn Reese's cup and calm down.

tl;dr, If you want to call it science fiction, go ahead. If you want to call it fantasy, that's cool too. I've also seen the Broken Earth books called horror, speculative fiction, literary fiction, "cli fi," and more. I don't care what you call it. If you enjoy it, that's all that matters to me.

[aceofstars16]

1, 3-5, 8-12, & 16-20 for Jade Torch, please?

Finally getting around to answering another one! 😂

1. what got you into this story?

Haha, well I’ve been friends with @dragonanne for…almost 10 years I think??? So I’ve know a little about it/seen art of the characters for a *while* and even read some of the webcomic she started before deciding that a book would work better. So…yeah…and like I mean, dragons, why wouldn’t I want to read about dragons???

3. quickly list 3 things you like about the story!

Interesting and fun characters, beautiful illustrations, a very intriguing plot and world that is so thought out I LOVE IT

4. assign this story a hyper-specific genre name, e.g. "inspirational religious semi-horror sci-fi western"

Uhhhhh…I’m so bad at these…political intrigue/adventure/fantasy with Christian undertones/ DRAGONS

5. do you have a favorite character? who?

Oh man….this is so hard! Ughhh how do I pick?!? It’s hard not to love Gabryl, but I LOVE Lune too, and Kenneth…and so many others pfft 😂 (also this insanely minor character that hasn’t even shown up yet, but I got to help name him so I love him lol)

8. what questions are or were you most excited to learn the answers to while experiencing the story for the first time?

Well…it’s still ongoing so uh…there are a lot of things I still don’t know haha, I genuinely think I just…am curious about the…gosh what are the called, like the forgotten lands? (I’m too lazy to grab my book 😅), I don’t know if they will come up later but they intrigue me 😂 (and just like….how everything ends up too lol)

9. give the most UNHELPFUL and/or SILLY summary possible.

For the first book: A princess goes on a mission and ends up severely traumatized (sorry, not sorry 😂)

10. if you made an amv about this, what song would you set it to?

I was literally blanking but uh….then I remembered “Unpack Your Heart” and yes, it’s a Henry/Jo song for me but I actually love the idea of it for Lune (maybe with a specific person *cough* Kenneth *cough* but….it really could work with a lot of her friends cause they all care for her a lot 😭)

11. if you were put in the main character's position, how well would that go for you on a scale of 1-5?

Nooooo! Please no! 1 maybe, I already have enough trauma…though having a dragon bond would be cool…so that part would be fun at least 😂

12. assuming your loved ones would be there, would you want to live in the world of the story?

Hmmm…if it was post war era then yeah, I want a dragon 😂

16. do you think this story has broad appeal, or is it meant for a very specific audience? if it's more "niche", what kind of person would most enjoy this story?

I mean, I feel like anyone can enjoy it? It’s fantasy but with some political elements and Christian themes, which I feel like isn’t really niche?

17. compare this story to your usual tastes. how does it differ from what you've already enjoyed?

I think the only thing is the politics. Normally I’m not big on those in stories, but they play into the story and it’s not like, as confusing to me as other stories so I don’t mind it and genuinely do enjoy how they add to the plot

18. compare this story to your usual tastes. what parts of it are exactly the kind of thing you've always loved?

Close friendship! Dragons! Adventures! Just the love the characters have for each other makes me 🥹

19. pitch an idea for a sequel or spinoff novel for this story!

Oooo, honestly a prequel about Noein and how the whole Eliesic Corps was founded could be really cool!

20. what's the WORST thing about this story, in your opinion? (feel free to be positive, e.g. "it's not longer", if you want!)

I mean…I just want to read more of it but also like, I knowing writing takes time so, I will wait 😂

[theseventhoffrostfall]

Hi. First, let me butter you up with dumb formal compliments. I think you're one of the smartest individuals i had the luck of gazing upon online. Truly, I wish i could make your acquaintance and have a conversation with you. Hope your ego feels properly buttered.

Second. Do you have any tips for someone that has been reading a lot but mainly trashy low-brow books how to breach towards actually good content? I like reading more than any form of content consumption but i feel like I'm doing the same thing as marvel slop marathons but with paper instead. I know i could read something with actual meaningful content but just like someone who's been eating Chick-fil-A for lunch everyday it's hard to bring oneself to consume actual decent meals at first, y'know?

Well, consider me thoroughly greased up

Anyway, sorry for the wait; saw this earlier just as I was heading to work

So my go-to for high-density brain candy is Gene Wolfe's bibliography, but you did ask for not getting thrown into the deep end. To the best of my recollection, his short story anthologies are a lot more digestible; his novels you should probably work your way up to.

Jack Vance's novels (I've gushed about the Demon Princes before) tend to be pretty fun and engaging without the, uh, proclivities that certain classic Fritz Lieber-esque authors of classic genre fiction tend to indulge in. Lovecraft and Howard likewise, if you don't mind purplier prose and the occasional bout of astounding racism (in Howard's defense, the biggest example was from a rough draft novel he never published in his lifetime).

The Hyperion Cantos does a great job of easing you into a really dense and interesting setting, via a first-book structure built to evoke the Canterbury Tales in space. It's a really fantastic read, the author's evident desire to take 19th-century English poet John Keats to pound-town notwithstanding, but as always I have to advise you to never, ever read the second duology. There are two books in the series, and that is how it should be.

I also think the Spiral Arm series has a good interplay of character building and worldbuilding in a vast, alien setting, and this one I can actually recommend the whole series. Unfortunately I didn't really click with any of the author's other work, but that might not be the case for you.

Dune is a step between, say, Book of the New Sun and a modern work in terms of having a bit more action and more digestible prose and pacing, but it's still a very slow, dense and weird read about alien and somewhat repellent characters in an alien and somewhat repellant setting by most standards. The same is true of what I'd characterize as its fantasy counterpart, the Second Apocalypse series by R Scott Bakker. The Sun Eater series by Christopher Roucchio, in that respect, can be thought of as another step down from the Tower of Weirdness and should go on your "sooner but not immediately" list.

Whom Gods Would Destroy and Bathwater are both trippy Weird Fiction works that I take the chance to shill whenever I can, but the former in particular goes up on your "work your way up to it" list

David Drake's works are more conventional sci-fi and fantasy tales, but there's more to bite into than you can expect from typical pulp or modern works. These might be a good starting point. Likewise for Eric Nylund's (yeah, the guy who wrote the good Halo books) A Game Of Universe, a Grail Quest story in a sprawling sci-fantasy setting starring a mind-stealing assassin.

I'll probably self-reblog a half dozen times as more suggestions spring to mind

[frogmanfae]

Newsies as things that have happened in school (first day edition)

Medda: Yeah when I was in high school orchestra we had very competitive seating so like if you were a fifth chair and you wanted to be a third chair you would have to challenge whoever was in the third chair and you would have a playoff- it was very intense. And then if you won the chair challenge you got the chair closer to the conductor, it was a real thing

Crutchie: What in the high school musical-

Denton: It falls around Thanksgiving-

Mike: *very quietly* gobble gobble...

Denton: ... What was that?

Medda: The sophomores are in a meeting right now so they aren't with us today-

Race: *a sophomore, currently sitting in Medda's class* ...The sophomores are what

Albert: I'm an 11th grader in a freshman class they're gonna know I'm dumb!

Finch: Lie about your grade

Race: Put on a fake accent and say you're from Russia

Albert: Guten tag!

Finch: ...That's the wrong language

Race: This is why you're in a freshman class as a junior

Race: Smell me

Spot: I'll pass

Race: No I smell good

Albert: He smells like cookies

Spot: I... I am not going to smell you

Davey: *walks into a class that's only for juniors to see a bunch of underclassmen but also other juniors (Jack, Mike, Ike, and Oscar)* uhhhh... Is this the right-

Jack: Yeah somethin's fucked up

Davey, Jack, Mike, Ike, and Oscar: *currently supposed to be in a class meeting in another room*

Race: My social Security number is 735. 814-

Davey: STOP YOU'RE GOING TO GET IMPERSONATED IF YOU KEEP DOING THAT!!!

Elmer: I still can't drive

Buttons: his mom lost his social Security card

Crutchie: She what-

Wiesel: Come on, hurry up

Hotshot: We're goin!

Spot: Oh my god you guys are strolling! Aren't you on the football team? You gonna take us to states?? Do you move this slow on the field??

Race: You know they do

Denton: Welcome good morning I know you're all excited to be back- don't answer that

An inspirational video they were forced to watch: "He taught his whole team how to say I love you in sign language!"

Race: *slowly leans forward and makes the I love you sign at Albert*

Albert: *flips him off*

Race: :(

Davey: Oh god the sophomore hallway REEKS of Axe Body Spray

Jack: *joking* I know this is your doing, Elmer

Elmer: :(

Denton: Welcome to creative writing your teacher is crying it's a great first day

Race: damnit I have a scrimmage after school

Denton: What sportsball do you play?

Race: Soccer

Denton: And who are you sportsballing against?

Race: Brooklyn

Denton: Crush em

Romeo: OH MY GOD I JUST SENT THIS GUY STREAKS AND LOOK AT WHAT HE SENT BACK

The message: "I want to choke you with my cock"

Myron: WHAT THE FUCK

*in creative writing class with the gay teacher*

Davey: uh, hi. My name is David, he/him. My favorite book is Salt to the Sea and my favorite author is Ruta Sepetys, who wrote it. My main genres I like to write are realistic fiction and sci fi or fantasy. I write because I have a lot of ideas and if I don't put them somewhere I won't be able to function.

Romeo: wassup, I'm Romeo, he/they but I don't mind the occasional she/her. My favorite book is the Hunger Games and my favorite author is Rick Riordan. My primary genre I like to write is fanfiction and I write because media consumes me and if I like something it's all I can think about for weeks at a time.

Davey, in his head: shit man I mean me too but I'd never have the guts to say that out loud in front of a class-

Jack: Dress code! Dress code violation! Dress code!

Sarah: What does my turtleneck show too much?

Buttons: *GASP* I WANT THE CHAIR WITH THE WHEELS!!! IS THIS FOR THE TEACHER CUZ IT'S FOR ME NOW-

Race: I didn't have my protein shake this morning I am lacking!

Crutchie: Didn't you drink your first one a couple weeks ago- if even??

Race: Actually, Jack's mom gave me like $100 worth of coupons-

Davey: *about Spot* He sings both baritone and tenor.

Jack: He's bivocal

Race: I hate it when he calls me white man because then I can't say anything back or I'll sound unintentionally racist!!!

Jack: Fuckin white man

Race: Stoppp!

Wiesel: We're programmed as human beings to respond with care to things in need. Which is a good thing because otherwise we would probably drown all of our babies-

Crutchie: HUH???

Wiesel: You've programmed your brain to think like that about your phones- *continues like normal*

Crutchie: *20 minutes later* did he not say something about drowning babies???

Race: Fuck I have to take my makeup off before soccer but I don't have any makeup wipes!!

Spot: *jokingly* If you didn't wear makeup to school we wouldn't be having this issue

Albert: Did you just call him an ugly whore??

Spot: Yeah, actually

Romeo: *with nobody paying attention to them* Y'all ready? Y'all ready? *moves backwards and promptly trips over Specs's feet*

Specs: *literally in the middle of a conversation with Finch* ... You good?

Romeo: You tripped me! I was moon walkin!

TW Under the cut jokes about sewerslide and the f slur by someone who can claim it

Race: *jokingly at Smalls* Ewwwww! Freshman!

Smalls: KILL YOURSELF YOU STUPID FAGGOT!!!!

Jack: :0

Race: :0

Jack: did she just-

Race: THERE WAS NO HESITATION???

[tnc-n3cl]

Fic Author Interview

Thanks for the tag @unmaskedcardinal!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Five although one of them is really a rough draft of another fic.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

264,548! (There's way more on the way though...)

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The Amnesiac Hero's Quest (T, BotW AU covering when Link leaves the Great Plateau until just after freeing Vah Ruta (and Mipha), 14 chapters, only finished fic so far) 50 kudos.

Link's Story: Finding Hateno Village (T, BotW AU, pretty much what it says on the tin, Link leaves Kakariko going towards Mt. Lanaryu by mistake and tries to find his way to Hateno Village. This is the one that spawned TAHQ, oneshot, the first thing I posted on AO3.) 21 kudos.

Shifting Tides of Fate (M, BotW AU picking up where TAHQ leaves off, Link and Mipha head to Rito Village to save Revali and free Vah Medoh, 6 chapters posted, WIP) 11 kudos.

The Ballad of Kass (M (originally T), BotW AU starting a week or two before the start of TAHQ, Kass sets out to find Link to fulfil his promise to his teacher, and his sister Kalia tags along. Second thing I posted, kind of the backbone to the whole The Realm Walker saga at this point [cause it intersects with the other stories so I have to time things out carefully], 15 chapters posted, WIP) 8 kudos.

The Tale of the Realm Walker (M, Wind Waker & Twilight Princess sequel with a ton of nods to the rest of the franchise (a LOT of ALttP). Chronologically the first story in TRW Saga, but I'm effectively telling it as an in-universe tale in BotW times, and it's the most recently posted fic of mine on AO3, only 2 chapters posted so far, WIP) 2 kudos.

The first two fics for sure got hit by the kudos bug a while ago. Kudos Georg I guess... Given that they've been up the longest I can see why they've got more than the others.

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! If someone took the time to comment on my fics then I'm going to say something back. I'm am very much here for the community aspect. Even though I may not always comment on something I've read (or art I've looked at).

5. What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Well the only one with an ending so far is TAHQ and it's fairly happy. Hm... How to not spoil plans? If it was finished then The Tale of the Realm Walker would be the answer. I'll uh... leave it at that...

6. What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

See above, The Amnesiac Hero's Quest.

7. Do you write crossovers?

Not anymore, I had some batcrap insane hypothetical video game ideas that were crossovers, but those have all mostly been tossed. Though I did salvage plenty of ideas from them. The Realm Walker Saga itself came from a LoZ/Final Fantasy crossover, "Project 47" as well. Untitled Castelvania Fanfic Project... Untitled Front Mission Fanfic Project...

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

No.

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

No.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but that'd be pretty cool.

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

No, but one of the stories in my Trek fanfic got an editor. Went by the username of USS Da Vinci (IIRC) on Subspace Comms Network (SCN, a now defunct Star Trek and Sci-Fi forum I was on).

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

I guess Revalink. Or Picard/Crusher?

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

At this point I've more or less made my peace with the death of my Trek and Stargate fics. Do I think about them still? Yes. (I'd give my aliens with the space whale ships Discovery style spore drives... Maybe throw in a Kelpian character or two...) (Had a blast rewatching most of the Ori arc of SG-1 not that long ago...)

15. What are your writing strengths?

Action scenes, quirky humor (I make myself laugh at least), describing what characters are doing in a scene.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Scenery porn. I so rarely mention time of day or anything. I have to really sit down and focus on all that, so lately I've just been hammering out an arc and then going back and fluffing all that up in edits. (Although I am particularly proud of a few scenes in The Ballad of Kass and Shifting Tides of Fate.)

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

I actually tried this with a little teaser for my Castlevania fic idea. The scene takes place in Austria so I decided to have the opening few lines be in German then switch to English, cause while I did take a couple classes in college, I don't know nearly enough to write a whole dialog chain. So throughout the little snippet there'd be a German line or two. Used Google translate for things I didn't know, but it was giving me something weird for "My name is..." [Also stared at Google Maps of Graz for HOURS picking locations, even though the fic is set 1,071 years in the future after a society ruining cataclysm... I must have some accuracy!]

I have made up words for fics. I've got 11 whole alphabets for the Avestrens (bird people) in "Project 47" and a handful of words. A handful of Rito words. Back in my Trek fic days I was writing in script format and would just put things like [Cardassian curse] rather than trying to come up with something.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Star Trek, it was script based and set 10 years after Voyager's return from the Delta Quadrant. Multiple spinoffs were planed spanning a period of 50 years. (I had started writing the sequel before finishing the first fic, and wrote a little bit of some of the other spinoffs.)

19. What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

I can't really think of anything. I'd like to do something with my Castlevania or Final Fantasy ideas but I'd need the right mood or inspiration to get anywhere. I'm not much of a shipper to be honest, at least with canon characters I guess? I like making my OC's kiss...

20. What's your favorite fic you've written?

Oh that's hard! The initial version of The Tale of the Realm Walker has a special place in my heart, but gods it's all walls of text! How did I ever keep track of everything?! The Ballad of Kass is a place for me to go nuts with Rito headcanons and have fun with the birbs until I can get the Revali centric fics really going. I'm proud of actually finishing The Amnesiac Hero's Quest (I love moment where Link finally meets Purah and is convinced that there's something in the water in Hateno that makes everyone a weirdo and she put it there. He's getting his red string and nails ready...).

I guess just for semantics sake, since "written" is past tense, I'll go with TAHQ as my final answer (this time around) since it's finished.

No Pressure Tags: @critical-birb, @zeawesomebirdie, @readwritebeawesome

[song-writer-melo-wrath]

Silly Game Time: Who are some of your favorite fighter characters? And what do you like about them?

They can weild any weapon (swords, spears, axes, clubs, knives, bare hands, etc.); they can be of any class or variety of combatant (ones who rely on strength like brawlers or berserkers, ones who use finesse like martial artists or technique masters, ones who balance defensive and offensive equipment like knghts or samurai, etc.); they can be of any race or species (from fantasy or sci-fi); they can even have access to special powers to improve their combat skills (magical, psychic, technological, superpowers, etc.).

What matters is that one of their primary skills, roles in the story, and traits as a character is physical fighting.

“They can wield any weapon-” META KNIGHT META KNIGHT META KNIGHT-

Look at himmmm. He's so goddamn cool. I want to make a 2 hour video explaining the musical motifs of this guy and how they enhance his character arc.

I'll say to put a bit of a limit on things I won't talk about any characters that I've talked about for previous questions of this type. So that said! Karlach, Shadowheart, and Lae'zel!

Karlach being the most classic answer to this sort of question, of course. In my first playthrough I did not fully understand how integral jumping was to the game, so I never got around to recruiting her, and one of my other ongoing playthroughs she has limited presence since I was playing a character who's kinda…well. Anyway. I've been enjoying her in one of my playthroughs, now that I have her.

Shadowheart is a character who could have worked for a previous question, being a cleric and all, but that post felt a bit crowded in terms of magic-users. I still very much love her. She's snarky and goes from goth to cottagecore if you play a certain route. Her arc is beautiful. I feel very gay about her.

Lae'zel. Lae'zelllll. Again, excellent character arc. The way she slowly starts to carve her sense of self, and becomes a more understanding and empathetic person in the process. Or, in another case, the way she's almost unshakingly devoted. She feels very realistic for the environment she grew up in, and I appreciate that she's also a character who gives a lo of lore for the setting.

More fighter Kirby characters who have my whole heart, let's go:

Great personalities for these folks. Great designs too. I am lifting them up to the sunlight like Simba. A lot of fighters in the series have lots of chivalry and loyalty to them. The Meta-Knights take "will go down with the ship" literally. Knuckle Joe is a daddy's boy and full of energy. Sword Knight and Blade Knight are ride-or-die for Meta Knight, and make a great team. Bandanna Dee had a self-sacrifice so moving it brought them from side character to player 2. The three mage sisters are named after their weapons, and I'm glad they're getting a break after being uh…carved out of their religious circle, even after doing all they could to save their cult leader, formerly their kind of father figure? Kirby lore is wild…

Oh, and some Fire Emblem fighters who have my heart and soul:

I love perfectionists who can kick my ass, what can I say.

[sarandipitywrites]

Writeblr Interview Tag

@cowboybrunch tagged me for this - thank you! Go read her responses here

Tagging @breath-of-eternity, @darkangel319, @kingragnarok-writes, @ryns-ramblings, @wildswrites, and an open tag for anyone who wants to answer! Copy/pasteable template's under the cut.

Short stories, novels, or poems?

Novels, both to read and write. I just don't tend to seek out short stories or poetry to read, for whatever reason (legitimately don't know why - I enjoy it when I do read it?), and whenever I try to write something a bit shorter, it quickly becomes... not shorter.

What genre do you prefer reading?

I'll read most genres, but it seems like I usually end up reading speculative fiction/sci fi/fantasy.

Are you a planner or a write as I go kind of person?

Planner - I usually want at least a rough outline of a scene before I start writing. I find that breaking the writing up into two steps takes the pressure off of the actual 'writing' part and lets me focus more on prose/characterization/the fun shit because Past Saran already did the hard part :P

What music do you listen to while writing?

Ambient music/sounds that 'fit' what I'm writing, lately with binauaral beats layered under it. Nothing with words. Words going in ears = no words coming out of fingers

Favorite books/movies?

Books? LOTS. No Gods, No Monsters; Frankenstein; The Heart Principle; Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe; On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous; No Longer Human; etc etc etc Movies? Spirited Away.

Any current WIPs?

Spark Signature (high fantasy sci fi heist thriller; most current WIP; I am presently being very annoying about it) The Art of Empty Space (fantasy/paranormal mystery romance; WIP intro is no longer accurate; on hold because it has mutated beyond my control and I am slightly afraid of it) Dead Roots, Dark Water (dystopian fantasy adventure; Jak & Daxter fanfiction; currently on final draft and being updated weekly) Ambition is a Lonely Tower (paranormal mystery thriler; literally have not worked on this since I started posting writeblr stuff so it doesn't have a WIP intro but I am not giving up on this damn it)

Create a character description of yourself: 

Constantly messing with something (hair, face, nails, the springy cat toy in the pocket of every single one of their jackets); gets anxious when they don't have earbuds or earplugs available; sits like a pretzel; forgets everything within 5 minutes if they don't write it down; avoids wearing "real people clothes" where possible; when forced to go outside, wears a t-shirt, baggy jeans, combat boots, and a jacket

Do you like incorporating actual people you know into your writing?

Technically no? I use pieces from actual people I know, for sure, but there's no one character who's 'basically x.' Now it sounds like I'm over here sewing together chimera characters from people I know, oof

Are you kill happy with your characters?

Depends on the story, I guess. Nobody's died (yet) in AES. Murder's kind of a whole Thing in Spark. And DRDW... uh. Let's not talk about that one (sorry, half of my OCs).

Coffee or Tea while writing?

Coffee in the morning, tea in the evening.

Slow or fast writer?

All or nothing! It really depends on: 1. whether or not I have an outline (scene-level outline = words go fast) 2. my headspace (Sludge Brain day = no words. Fuck your outline)

If you were in a fantasy world, what would you be?

I'd get eaten by a demonic chicken or some shit within like five minutes. Assuming I didn't have a horribly quick and embarrassing death, I'd like to be an alchemist or something like that. Give people those Good Plants

Most fav book cliche:

Enemies to lovers/friends, or friends to enemies, or really any big shift in relationship dynamic. Do that well and I love you and your characters forever

Least favorite cliche:

The 'if only they would talk to each other' thing - if one conversation that the characters are fully capable of having (but won't) is the only reason for the conflict, I'm out. Especially if there's no good reason for them to be avoiding the conversation. I'm not sure if this is even a cliche, but it's what I thought of :D

Favorite scene to write?

I love writing 'calm' scenes with tension just under the surface. And any scene that lets me fuck with perception/senses. Love it when a scene isn't straightforward

Reason for writing?

Lots of reasons! It's by far the thing I get the most satisfaction and enjoyment from; I get to write (and therefore read) the stories I want/need to read; free therapy supplement; I have lots of thoughts and ideas and little guys in my head and giving it all somewhere to go helps my brain be a lot quieter (it's still pretty noisy in there though, not gonna lie)

Short stories, novels, or poems?

What genre do you prefer reading?

Are you a planner or a write as I go kind of person?

What music do you listen to while writing?

Favorite books/movies?

Any current WIPs?

Create a character description of yourself: 

Do you like incorporating actual people you know into your writing?

Are you kill happy with your characters?

Coffee or Tea while writing?

Slow or fast writer?

If you were in a fantasy world, what would you be?

Most fav book cliche:

Least favorite cliche:

Favorite scene to write?

Reason for writing?

[tumbleclub]

Some elaboration on options under cut. Feel free to add more in the comments if you want to propagandize (encouraged, I'm not necessarily the best person to promote other people's submissions lol)

Artificial Condition: seems reasonable to continue the series. also if you read the first one you know if you want to continue and if you didn't uh. idk go back and read the first one and then vote lol

Black Sails: considered by at least a few people following this blog to be one of the best TV series of all time, starts off seeming like a gritty pirate show but quickly dives into themes of social alienation, storytelling, and identity among other things

Ancillary Justice: kind of like Murderbot's cousin series, not similar in tone or scope but similarly follows an AI/human construct sort of character trying to figure out what it means to be herself after being separated from the majority of her other parts (? this is hard to explain lol). Much broader space-opera-ish scifi with some great worldbuilding re: different cultures in space.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet: kind of a cozy-ish queer space story, has a lose overarching plot but is more an episodic look at a very diverse crew of a small spaceship going on a long journey and learning more about each other. also has some very interesting Space Cultures and worldbuilding.

The Bedlam Stacks: @loyalhorror you do this one

Twilight: Twilight.

The Amulet of Samarkand: young adult fantasy book about a kid (Nathaniel) summoning a 5,000 year old djinni (Bartimaeus) to take revenge on a magician who humiliated him. Bartimaeus is a very fun, snarky character who has a lot of the 'ugh i don't care about humans (except for a few maybe)' character trope going on, and Nathaniel is pretty well written as a precocious kid who is nonetheless still a kid. Also has a lot to do with underlying themes of corruption in government

The Echo Wife: near-future sci-fi. the main character is an accomplished scientist in the field of cloning whose husband cheats on her with.......her own clone. but it's not about that, the husband dies and she has to cooperate with her clone to deal with the whole mess. The book goes very deeply into themes about identity and trauma.

How to Do Nothing: a non-fiction book/memoir-ish about slowing down in a busy world and connecting with the life around you. not really a self-help book, really more a loose and gentle philosophical exploration about how to exist in our world.

A Paradise Built in Hell: a non-fiction book going in depth about a handful of real-life disasters (1906 earthquake in San Francisco; 1917 explosion in Halifax, Nova Scotia; 1985 Mexico City earthquake; 9/11; Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans) and how the surrounding community reacted to them. Basically explores how the general public comes together to build extraordinary communities in terrible situations.

The Golden Compass: a fantasy novel about the young Lyra traveling across continents to help rescue her friend Roger from being kidnapped. Famous for the daemon aspect, where every character has an animal-form companion who is another manifestation of their soul (more or less?). A little bit of a straight-forward fantasy book at first but is the lead-up to a philosophically complex dimensional-jumping trilogy.

[thebroccolination]

It's 2:30am and I can't sleep AND I'm bored. So I'm goin around asking some of my fave blogs/writers to play a game of either/or........ready?

(Please don't hate me, this is just for fun 😁)

Reading Fanfic or Writing Fanfic

Boun or Krist

Romance or Sci-Fi Fantasy

UWMA or BUTS

SOTUS or BMF

Reaper Storyline or Time Loop Storyline

WinTeam or KawiPi

Watch the Movie/Series or Read the Book

You don't have to answer if you don't want to but if you do, you can't cheat! You can only choose one or the other NOT both! Okay? GO!

P.S. I love your writing, Key! Thank you for all your lovely fics ❤️❤️❤️

Awwww, first of all: thank you so much. :') This is a really sweet thing to wake up to. :'''')

Also incredibly evil.

-- Reading Fanfic or Writing Fanfic --

Honestly—and this surprises me—writing! I tried to imagine not being able to do one ever again and I'd be more upset if I could never write fic again.

-- Boun or Krist --

:/

Before this year, I would've said Boun, but right now, it's Krist.

I've always thought of BounPrem and KristSingto as the "main pairs" I follow, and even though Krist and Singto aren't officially a branded pair anymore, I still follow them separately. So I'm kind of a, uh, BounPrem, Krist, Singto fan now asdfghkj

When Between Us ended and BounPrem said they wouldn't have another series together for a while, I moved my focus to Krist because he had Be My Favorite coming up, and I'd been excited for BMF since 2021. And now, since I've followed Krist so closely this year, since I've gone back and familiarized myself more with his past work, and since I was fortunate enough to meet him in person last month and see for myself how kind and sincere and good he is, I'm very invested in seeing him happy and succeed the way he deserves. (Like, it's very clear why he's so beloved when you look into who he actually is, so it's been surreal to see how desperately interfans want to hate him. I was in his restaurant with other fans when GMMTV finally released a statement in his defense, and it was such a relief, I teared up. Some interfans are trying the "he used to be a bad person but he's better now" take at the moment, so I'm just waiting for them to take the next step and admit that he was never a monster in the first place and that hundreds of interfans have gleefully tortured him and trashed his reputation for years based on misinformation.)

Like I keep saying: the loudest anti-Krist voices are interfans. If he actually was what they claim, wouldn't his most ardent antis be from his own country? I've spoken to Thai fans of different actors: this is an interfan bandwagon that got blown out of proportion.

Now, of course, Krist and Boun have always been pretty closely tied in my heart, so if you talk to me once the BounPrem vampire series airs, I'll be focused on BounPrem again. I'm not one of those "you have to follow everything someone does or else you're a fake fan" people, so I only watch what I like. BounPrem have been doing a lot of fanmeetings and separate work this year that I wasn't interested in following, so I've just been patiently waiting for the vampire series to air. Even though I don't even like vampires. I just love BounPrem that much. :')

-- Romance or Sci-Fi/Fantasy --

Sci-Fi/Fantasy! I'm writing a fantasy novel right now, and most of my favorite stories are in the sci-fi/fantasy/speculative genres. :D

-- Until We Meet Again or Between Us the Series --

UWMA!

It was my first Thai BL series, and it launched my whole fandom life here. It still has such a strong presence in my memories, and I think it was a true labor of love from every angle.

I think BounPrem were incredible in Between Us, but I don't think Between Us was the series they deserved. In the months since it ended, I've gotten more critical of how Between Us was handled and it's dropped quite a few spaces on my list. I think if they had stuck closer to the novel, removed BeePrince completely, used fewer flashbacks, fewer UWMA clips, and not tried to cram six musical tracks into some scenes to guide viewers' emotions, it would have been a stronger series. I honestly get the impression New did it for BounPrem rather than out of a genuine love for the characters, and that might be why it didn't have the spark UWMA does. I think it was a labor of love for BounPrem, and I think New loves BounPrem, but I don't think he loved WinTeam's story as much as he loved DeanPharm's. Not his fault, but a different director might've been a better choice for the project.

-- SOTUS or Be My Favorite --

Be My Favorite!

From 2020-2022 my top three were 1) UWMA, 2) SOTUS, and 3) DBK, but then I did an honest reevaluation and realized that over time, SOTUS has had just a tiny bit more of an emotional impact on me than UWMA, so it took the top spot. And of course Triage came along and blasted up to take DBK's spot.

As soon as I saw the teaser in 2021, I knew I'd love Be My Favorite, I just never expected it to…Be My Favorite. \:D/

It's time travel, it's Krist, it's Gawin, it's queer as fuck, and it's the closest to perfect I've seen yet. Ever since it ended, I've just been in this bubble of bliss. I can't believe it exists, that we got such a perfect casting, that Gawin and Krist became so close, that they see each other as family now, that that chemistry is so clear in the series. It's just one of those significant series that rearranges your brain chemistry, like SOTUS, UWMA, and DBK before it were for me. <3

-- Reaper Storyline or Time Loop Storyline --

Okay, so with the understanding that most subject material can be great in the hands of a great storyteller, just from a, "Hey, Key, this series/book/TV show has a __ storyline," basis, I'll go with Time Loop. Time shenanigans is one of the fastest way to hook me (Be My Favorite, Triage, I Feel You Linger, etc.).

-- WinTeam or KawiPi --

WinTeam. Always, always WinTeam. :')

They're just the ultimate OTP for me. Of any series, movie, book, anything. I think it'll always be WinTeam for me.

-- Watch the Movie/Series or Read the Book --

Hmm. For Thai BL: series. In general: book. From what I understand, a lot of the novels Thai BL series are based on tend to be very rough. Like, written and uploaded by the author without an editing process or even a beta reader in the middle. LazySheep (Red Thread/UWMA, Hemp Rope/BU) is an indie author, though. She's with Hermit Books, and she's mentioned her editor on Twitter, and I think the extra steps she takes in the process of publishing her novels show in how polished her stories are compared to the average Thai BL novel.

[the-broken-pen]

Alright, I’ve seen this introduction game for writblr bouncing around, started by @iloveyou-writers , and thought I’d give it a go, because I know like. Nobody else on here lol.

Hi! I’m Archangel, or Arch, and I use she/her pronouns. I tend to traverse writing genres pretty freely, but my favorites (and most common) are fantasy, sci-fi, dystopia, heroes and villains, and horror. I’ll write anything though, so be warned. As far as tropes I love, it’s a lot of Hero Villain stuff, that one “Oh. Oh.”, hurt/comfort, anything to do with fae(is that a trope?), and of course, enemies to lovers. Also one bed. Sue me.

I would say I’m SFW, but everyday I am dragged towards NSFW, and it is entirely my friend’s fault. So uh. I may not stay SFW for long? I do tend to write a lot of mental health stuff, (including self harm, but more so healing from it/getting help), kidnapping, and hurt comfort, as of now. I don’t know what tropes I won’t write, but if someone ever asks for one (if one day, I am blessed with an ask 🕊️) and I realize I won’t write it, I’ll let you all know.

In my opinion, the best work I’ve ever written is either my half written, totally not mildly abandoned book The Edge of Truth, or my other book that is slightly close to being done and has no title, the poor thing. The Edge of Truth is entirely serial killer based and I love that the main point is to not only trick the characters, but the audience too, while leaving clues the whole time. Haha, foreshadowing. Also it’s lesbians so like. My no name book is superpowers based and has been a war to write, but I love the character dynamics and also my demon character. On here, though, my favorites are likely my Map of Fae story, or the one with the hero who can steal powers. I will not link them because tumblr hates me and I can’t make it work for the life of me :(

My favorite characters I’ve written are probably Riven, Mercy, Lucy, Melody, and Aletheia(but sometimes she actively fights me as I try to write her, which sounds over dramatic, but of course it does, I’m a writer.) (All of those are book characters that I’ve written so you likely won’t find them on here, at least for a bit)

One last thing is that I go absolutely feral for anything to do with fae, or other supernatural creatures. Also hurt/comfort. I’m lgbtqia+, and my writing is too, so check the homophobia at the door, and if you can’t part with it, then kindly find the nearest exit.

I’m also obsessed with the All For The Game series (It’s rather unhealthy, really), and my friend is relentlessly trying to get me to write megamind fanfiction. Sometimes my writing sounds British, but I’m not British, and I have no explanation.

Thanks for reading that horrifying essay, and I challenge these people to fill this out (I have very few writer friends and I’m very lonely so here are the few I know): @ettawritesnstudies @jtl-fics @save-the-villainous-cat @epiclamer @megreads22 @d-cs @lektricfergus @meadowofbluebells

[abysskeeper]

Trick, mistake, secret and skin

This 100% did not start with me thinking Trick was one of the words

Yeah ok, my secret is that I'm always on my bullshit about Trick too. Another readmore because I uh...always always ramble hard about my girl.

skin: How comfortable is your OC in their skin? Do they grapple with anything that lives inside them—a beast, a curse, a failure, a monster? How do they face the smallest, weakest, most horrible version of themself? Are they able to acknowledge it at all?

So, the key to writing Trick in any way, shape, or form is that she is, 99.9% of the time, never comfortable in her own skin and always contending with some type of monster writhing beneath her skin. Is she confident and capable in her abilities? Yes. Willing to lead and make the tough decisions? Yes. Self-assured and secure in who she is? No, never.

Is it a contradiction in a lot of ways? Yes, but the girl's a mess of martyr complexes and insecurities. She almost always, honestly believes she is the most horrible version of herself (a coward and a monster), and though she would only call herself as such in a conversation where it's directly referenced, she never denies the accusation and does all she can with her actions to try and make up for her perceived shortcomings. In reality, the worst version of herself is the girl who gave up for a time (there's usually some point in her history where she went selectively mute and actively tried to kill herself), and in that regard, Trick often pretends that girl actually succeeded. She rarely acknowledges that time existed, ashamed as she is by it, and on the rare chance it does come up...well, the ensuing conversation isn't pretty.

As for the monsters beneath her skin, it varies by verse, but she's usually contending with some type of darkness or beast that's a thinly veiled allegory for her rage, desperation, and trauma (because I'm like that). A few examples, in no particular order:

Pack-verse: In Trick's original universe (a dystopian urban fantasy/sci-fi mashup), she's a wolf shapeshifter who was experimented on as a kid, which ultimately resulted in the line between human and beast blurring within her. Meaning, she has a tendency to go partial-to-full werewolf when deeply upset, among other differences (improved senses, heightened instincts and reflexes, etc). She's terrified of her capabilities and tries to repress herself as much as possible, which only backfires. The whole character arc there is about her coming to terms with who she is and what happened to her, and accepting that that side of her (the rage, the desperation, the trauma) is not actually a bad thing (and is actually more heightened because of her human choices, not the animalistic ones).

SWTOR: I took the Jedi Consular story and ran with it. The effects of the Force plague linger after chapter 1, even after Morrhage is defeated. I figured that lending out your soul to protect fellow Jedi against a Dark plague probably means you don't get everything back properly, even if you did everything right. She doesn't suffer from corruption so much (I actually believe she's not corruptible because she learned the shielding technique), but she's almost constantly, subconsciously using the shielding technique on herself to battle off the bit of Darkness she inherited from those she shielded. Other parts of her are missing altogether. It causes her a lot of chronic pain, but over time she learns to deal with it...until chapter 3 when she secretly starts shielding the Children and accidentally inherits some of the Emperor's power. KOTFE and KOTET are the worst time of her life, and she never knew so much relief as when the Emperor finally died in EOO.

BG3: My new project and current brainrot. Trick's issues are a little different here, as she's dealing with divinity instead of darkness (her backstory fic I'm working on is literally subtitled "You've Been Touched by Something Holy"). Instead of dealing with darkness, she's dealing with the fact she's literally been touched by the God of Death and bares the scars (both physical and emotional. I'm using this as an excuse to finally make this a valid design and not just metaphorical) that set her apart from her peers. It's still very much a metaphor for her rage and grief, but has a new and exciting flavor that I'm still working out all the kinks of.

secret: What's one secret your OC never wants anyone to know about them?

Again, depends on verse, but Trick always has at least one, world shattering secret she's keeping to herself. Generally, no matter in what iteration, there are deaths in her past she doesn't want anyone knowing about. The numbers and her exact involvement often vary, but she always feels a sense of guilt for people she either directly or indirectly killed through her actions and/or inactions. Otherwise:

Pack-verse: Her primary secret she wishes no one knew is, exactly, the number of people she's been responsible for killing as an agent of the government. However, that isn't a secret she can hide, as most people know and/or remember her committing those crimes. Instead, the secret she's trying most to hide is the aforementioned experimentation and ensuing consequences. She doesn't want anyone to know just how monstrous she really is, and how utterly disgusted she constantly feels about herself.

SWTOR: She tries to take the fact she was born an Imperial slave to the grave, but it does come out eventually to the Republic or Alliance. Instead, the one thing she will take to the grave is what happened to her as a result of the shielding technique. She'll never speak a word about the non-corruption corruption (thus, she'll never ask for help) because she fears how people will view her or treat her if they ever knew. The only exception is Cipher Nine, sometimes, but that man can and will both take a secret to the grave and never once consider betraying her trust.

BG3: The fact she died and was resurrected by a God. It's kind of hard to avoid in full, given the golden scarring is a dead giveaway of something divine happening to her, but she doesn't easily share the full story. And having died and being resurrected stands in direct contrast to being a cleric (and unrealized Chosen) of Kelemvor, nevermind the fact it was Kelemvor who asked her to live and resurrected her in the first place. It's complicated.

mistake: What's the worst mistake your OC ever made? What led to them making it? Have they been able to fix it? How have they moved on?

Trusting Torren, in every verse. The worst mistake she ever made is trusting her...ex? Abuser? Mirror image and narrative foil? All of the above?

Regardless, Torren is always her worst mistake. She tried so hard to fix him, but he was one of those people who couldn't be helped, and did nothing but manipulate and use her further because of her goodwill. People got hurt and died because of it, no matter the verse. She got hurt (usually assaulted), no matter the verse. Torren is always the worst mistake, no matter what, and the only reason she ever trusted him was because she was young and naive and just wanted to help.

Usually Trick rectifies it by, eventually, killing him. It's the only way she feels like she can rectify everything he's done (to her and to others), and it is her burden to bare alone (though sometimes Tav insists on doing the honors). Even after he's dead though, it takes a long time for her to move on from everything that happened. When she has Tav, he usually helps facilitate her moving on quicker, but she can get there on her own with enough time away from the situation and a metric fuckton of painful self-reflection.

[sagesilentfire]

what are the physics behind samatfoe's magic system

hell yeah...

Thank you for asking! A warning that I am a physics major, and I know a lot of physics, but I am also neurodivergent, my specific flavor of which assumes that everyone knows everything I know. I've tried my best to not let this leak into samatfoe itself, but since this is a specific discussion of the physics of samatfoe, I might not be able to adequately explain everything. If you are confused, just know that is another opportunity for me to explain my special interest.

I also allude to this but don't explicitly say a lot of it in samatfoe, because it's really dense and nerdy. You have been warned.

So. Magic, in itself, is energy, specifically moldable low-entropy energy, flowing from a place where there is infinite energy to samatfoe's multiverse. So, what does that mean? Well, we're going to have to define energy.

Uh.

Dictionary.com defines energy as "the capacity or power to do work" which is absolutely worthless to people who don't know what physics-flavored work is. Which is just about everyone, including a lot of people who have a passing familiarity with physics. And physicists ourselves have a really difficult time explaining energy to laymen. Energy is... the ability to move things, to change things, to make things happen. Now, it is not weird luminescent semi-matter like a lot of sci-fi likes to claim, but matter itself is really, really condensed energy, so remember that, 'cause it'll be important later.

As for having low entropy, that's also hard to explain. Entropy is also a common buzzword in sci-fi, usually in a villainous way because, well, if anything's gonna murder the universe, it's gonna be entropy. But what entropy really is is probability. Every bit of energy in the universe has a probability to be somewhere, but it's far more likely to be in a disordered state than an ordered state, simply because there are so many more disordered states. Like, say we have four dots, moving quickly around a box. It's far more likely for the dots to be in a lose, patternless form akin to this:

than it is for them to be squished together in a perfect square:

But since the perfect square seems more orderly to us, the system is said to be low entropy.

Add in countless little dots and continually increase the size of the box, and we get an increasingly disordered system. Add in fun quantum effects, fundamental forces, and other physics, and you've got the universe! But the thing about entropy is that low entropy isn't necessarily a "better" universe – all the interesting things, like life, happen in the gradient as energy transitions from low to high entropy. So magic starts out with low entropy, and then transitions to high entropy when it's used by people to cast spells.

So we've discussed "energy" and "low-entropy," what is "moldable?" Well, that is a fantasy term I invented. It means the energy that is magic can be manipulated by creatures that have it. And how much they can manipulate is determined by how much energy is in a metaphorical and completely fictional storage space within their souls, and how connected they are to the ultimate magical energy storage space, the Realm of Magic.

The energy in the Realm of Magic is stored as the most energy dense thing in the universe: mass. Mass is derived from energy by the most famous equation in physics: E=mc^2, where E is energy, m is mass, and c is the speed of light, squared. (But notice that this equation solves for energy, not mass. If we rearrange to see how much mass we get from an amount of energy, it's m=E/(c^2)). The speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s, or, more simply, 3*10^8 m/s. That's a big number! And imagine it squared! In order to get just 1 kilogram of matter, we need 9*10^16 Joules of energy, or, in the scientific term, a whole heck of a lot of energy. This is why Toffee can't create mass very well: they do not have 10^16 Joules of energy lying around, much less 9 of those. Star, however, can create storms of miniature narwhals, tiaras, and warnicorns, even without the wand (which supplies magic for an entire dimension). All of those are well over a kilogram. Star is really, really magically powerful.

But Toffee is strategic. They don't create mass, they create light. What is light? Well, it's electromagnetic radiation. What's that? Basically just energy, a wavelike, particle-like oscillation of the electromagnetic field. What's the electromagnetic field? Not important, let's move on. Because light is energy, we can quantify how much energy is required to create it. The energy in a photon is E=hf, where E is energy again, f is the frequency of the light, which is the amount of times it oscillates per second, and h is the Planck's constant. The thing about the frequency of light is that it's usually a large number, visible light is 4*-8*10^14 Hz (1/s). But the thing about Planck's constant is that it is an absolutely minuscule size, at 6.626*10^(-34) Joules/second. Teeny-weeny. So that balances out to 2.65*10^(-19)-5.3*10^(-19) Joules, for a single photon, or unit, of light.

Of course a single photon isn't going to do much, but "only" about 10^14 per second are needed to completely account for the vision of one person. So, about 5.3*10^(-5) Joules per second. Much more sustainable than 10^16 Joules per narwhal (if the narwhals are only 1 kilogram, which is generous!).

But that's not the only thing Toffee can do. They don't create matter, but they can mold it into different shapes. This is basically applying force to objects to move them. For basic things like amplifying the force of a hit, you just increase the kinetic energy, which, given that magic is energy, is easy. 200 Joules of energy applied to a human body by blunt force anywhere is more than enough to kill a human and break your fist, and Toffee probably knows enough biology to be able to reduce that number significantly (and enough Septarian healing to heal their fist quickly). So, again less magically costly.

Septarian healing is a different beast. Sílthéy only has around 10^20 Joules of magic (might change that later, but so far this is what I'm going with!), enough for 10,000 1-kg narwhals over 1,000 years, so she doesn't have nearly enough to ensure septarians can heal themselves, even with the near-100% mass recycling they have going on (the matter from any part of them lost, including blood, is reduced to ashes and everything except the ashes is used to heal them. Very accomplished septarians like Toffee leave only a smudge of ashes behind). So instead she used her magic to set up a link between Septarians and the realm of magic that they could use to heal themselves. This "cheat code" is used often by both Glossaryck and Sílthéy, most notably with the wand, which is the hydrogen bomb to the septarian's coughing baby regeneration. (Yes, if the Butterflys were intelligent, they could make themselves heal as fast as the septarians. Thankfully for the monsters, the queens often forget how unfairly powerful they are, and Glossaryck lets them, because the more the queens feel like they're the underdogs somehow, the less likely they are to realize how unfair the system is.) However, even this setup is magically taxing, because you have to maintain it. It's part of why Glossaryck doesn't have as much magic as Sílthéy, even though they both are incredibly irresponsible with it, he is constantly having to expend literal energy keeping Earth's magic well tied to the wand. So, let this be a lesson to you all: it's incredibly taxing to give your side infinite magic. Don't do it!

(well, it isn't actually infinite magic. that would require an infinite universe, which is not the case. Even if Star and Marcie's dimensions were infinite, which I'm not sure they are, they'd repeat themselves eventually. in the place called The Infinite, however, you can keep going for infinity and never find a perfect repetition of a universe!)

(that being said, The Infinite is not the end. At the end of the Infinite, an understandably difficult place to get to, there is 0/0, which is completely undefined and where the concept of numbers break down. this is where Sílthéy is from)

As for the last thing Toffee is known for, reshaping their weapon, that cost is harder to estimate. The way humans shape rocks is either by hitting them with something and breaking them, or melting them down and trying (and most often failing) to shape the lava. But hypothetically one could move the molecules into a new shape if you had perfect control and knowledge of the structure of the rock, since some rocks are just aggregates jammed together by cementing materials. But this is the limit of how wishy-washy I allow magic to be. It's weird that I have a solid understanding of concepts such as making matter out of thin air and healing instantly from any injury, but I'm like "eh, it's *probably* a thing that works" with a concept as simple as shaping stone. I guess I'm just not a geologist. I should ask my friend about that.

But the last point I'd like to talk about is, of course, how is magic purely based in physics when you've explicitly said that magic is also the emotion and complexity in life ("La Campagne") and that it creates intelligences? Well, discerning reader, this is because magic is not only used by flesh-based monsters and humans, but also by spirits. ("Spirits" being the intermediate stage between a mortal, such as a monster, and a Dragon, such as Sílthéy. Spirits are Dragons in training. Glossaryck is a spirit who is willing to do anything to become a Dragon.) And the most prominent spirit to magic is the Realm of Magic, which obviously has a lot of say in what effect magical energy has on the world. They have a very complex mind that can influence a lot of the world around them. And they are such a sap. They're lonely, so they make more spirits. They're fascinated by complexity, so they make things complex – and interesting. They have a substantial positive effect, which makes their absence in s5 a very bad thing. Both intelligence and emotion are, on some level, based in energy, because energy is everything.

But yeah! Please let me know if there's something I glossed over or that you'd want more info on or that you don't understand at all because I gave a terrible explanation! See you soon for s5!