#these would probably also be very short like true snippets

[cold-neon-ocean]

I know there are those "send a [insert emoji] and I'll share a snippet from a fic I'm working on" asks but I can't find one right now so maybe just send an ask if you'd like to see a little something?? I wanna get braver about sharing my writing lol but also know that any snippets will be LoK/Baavira related maybe Bolin somewhere in there too lolol I've never posted fanfic work of mine literally anywhere in my whole life idk why it wracks my nerves so much but I wanna be able to share something when I don't always have art to offer XD

[incognitofox]

In Defense of Charlie x Vaggie:

Hazbin Hotel is far from a perfect show. I quite enjoyed it, of course, but that doesn’t mean that it lacks significant issues (not that I mind, nothing is perfect, and I believe people should be allowed to enjoy flawed media). One such complaint that I see often is that the show’s “main couple,” protagonist Charlie and her girlfriend Vaggie, are “boring,” or that they “lack chemistry.”

Personally, for me, the relationship between these two ended up being one of, if not my favourite part of the show. I’ll admit my bias that as a lesbian myself, I’m always a sucker for any kind of wholesome sapphic relationship that I can get in the media. Even so, though, these two stood out to me particularly well.

And while, yes, I can absolutely see why their dynamic isn’t the most favorable to some people, I don’t think it’s correct to say that the writers “can’t write meaningful relationships” or “don’t understand love” (which are both real comments that I’ve seen whilst I’ve been a part of this fandom).

The first and most blatant criticism that I come across is that the two are rarely affectionate with each other, and while this seems to be the case at first glance, I can’t help but disagree. Though we rarely see the pair actively kissing or engaging in other activities that one would perceive as romantic, it’s clear that they find comfort in each other’s presence, even if it’s subtle.

Throughout season 1, the viewer is shown numerous instances of Charlie especially being comforted by her lover’s touch. For example, while Charlie is on the phone with her father, Lucifer, at the beginning of episode 5, we can observe that she is clearly anxious about the interaction. When it’s clear that Charlie is getting stressed, Vaggie opts to take her hand, and it can be inferred from her expression in the moment that Charlie appreciates this gesture, even if she finds herself preoccupied.

Keen-eyed watchers of the series will notice that the two are frequently seen in contact with each other, or at least in close proximity, implying a love language related to physical touch. However, while frequent, some argue that these little exchanges aren’t enough to sell the idea that the couple are truly involved with each other.

People seem to be disappointed that we don’t get to see any more intimate or outwardly romantic interactions between the pair outside these small snippets or the More than Anything reprise (which in truth was unfortunately very short). But in my personal opinion, I think this dynamic makes them even more compelling. Sure, they may not be the most affectionate of partners while on screen, but I never needed them to be in order to be convinced of their love for each other.

Keep in mind, Charlie and Vaggie have been together for years, they’re out of the honeymoon phase. They’re also both incredibly busy people, especially with the updated, much sooner extermination date introduced in episode 1. As much as it sucks, doing cute stuff with their respective partner probably isn’t their priority.

The beauty of this, though, is that despite it all you can still feel their love. Vaggie would do anything for her girlfriend, and she does. Their relationship is built on such genuine, wholesome trust and support for each other.

You can tell from the way they look at each other, and from the way they talk to each other, that even despite the chaos and despite the time, they are in love. So much so that even a potentially devastating reveal like Vaggie’s true identity is nothing more than a speed bump for them. It’s really quite lovely to see.

That’s why I can excuse the atrociously short run time of their duet, it’s their first moment of peace in months, and possibly their last ever, they don’t have time to do much, and yet they choose to spend this time declaring their love for one another, because they are still the most important things in each other’s lives. It’s so blatantly clear that their love is genuine, in this moment and outside of it.

I personally feel as though, in the world of the show, the relationship between Charlie and Vaggie is very realistic given the situation they’re in, and if I’m being honest, they have the kind of relationship that I myself would love to have.

In short, I understand why some people don’t like this pairing. I can understand liking other things better, and I don’t dislike anyone who does. I can understand wanting more from it, and hey, I’d appreciate it if they sprinkled in a few extra kisses next season just to feed the fans, but that doesn’t mean that what’s there doesn’t already exist. In my opinion, I think Vaggie x Charlie is beautifully written.

There are honestly so many other little things I could bring up about why I love these two so much. You are, of course, welcome to disagree, but I encourage those who do to avoid harassing those who contributed to the writing of Hazbin Hotel, or those who actually do appreciate this aspect of the show.

However, I also insist that people try to look beyond the surface, to see the detail and the beauty of this pairing, as well as other aspects of the show, or other pieces of media.

Because art is beautiful.

[slamdunktheories]

Inoue explains his thinking behind Slam Dunk's ending

There are two revealing articles about this with some interesting insights (parts in bold are mine for emphasis). The first is a chat between Inoue and Fujimaki Tadatoshi (creator of Kuroko no Basuke) which was published in Jump back in 2014.

Some excerpts:

Fujimaki: At what point did you decide that the Sannoh match would be the last match in SD? Inoue: When I drew the IH bracket. Fujimaki: So you'd already decided that there wouldn't be any (match) encounters with Morishige and Tsuchiya? Inoue: "There are these types of people at the national level" was the idea I wanted to convey. In real life, we often have such instances too, where we want to face off with someone but we end up not being able to. Fujimaki: At the time I thought Morishige was the "Final Boss". Inoue: Yeah, it may have created a bit too much anticipation for the readers. But without that type of character, it wouldn't feel like a national tournament, would it? It wasn't depicted in the manga but maybe [Morishige] did make a big splash in his own right. Fujimaki: That's true. That part did feel very realistic. Inoue: The other thing is, I really hate the type of storyline where only the main character gets to win, win, win in order to push the story forward. In the Shoyo match and Sannoh match, I did decide beforehand that Shohoku would win. But when I was actually drawing it out, I became so emotionally invested in the opponents and it felt awful depicting their loss. To think that after the Toyotama match, I'd have to still draw that sort of hardearned win/ heartbreaking loss 5 more times - I just couldn't do it. Apologies about Morishige and Tsuchiya! (smile)

More snippets of this article (in Japanese) here.

The other is a chat between Inoue and his mentor Houjou Tsukasa (creator of City Hunter), which was published in 2016 in Grand Jump. 

Excerpts:

Houjou: When you were working on the final arc of SD you came by my manga studio to hang out. Inoue: I did? Houjou: Well, it was less to hang out and more to work on a draft of some chapters. At the time you were deep in the Sannoh match and you were muttering "how should I continue the story after the Sannoh match..." I just said offhandedly, "Well, if they gave it their all in the Sannoh match, it wouldn't be all that bad if they got slaughtered in the next match." Inoue: Ah, I was probably at your studio looking for some affirmation on that point. Houjou: When I read the final chapter in Jump I was so happy. Jump is all about friendship, hard work, victory yet here the home team lost badly in the end. Inoue: I got the sense that manga is an incredible thing as we reached the final chapter of the story - the people who were depicted in the series still continued living their lives, just that it wasn't depicted. In fact, those characters are still living their lives today.

Source article for the above (in Chinese) here

So in short, it looks like Inoue did have a good sense of when he wanted to end the Slam Dunk story but was still wrestling with the idea when it came time to execute it. After all, having the main characters lose was just not a thing. So he ended up at his mentor's manga studio to mull over it/get a second opinion and turns out his mentor had the same train of thought as he did.

It also stacks up with things he'd said in the Switch interview (published 2012). I personally love that Inoue is always looking to reflect reality/the truth in his manga rather than to go the conventional route of dragging out a popular story for the sake of milking it.

His stories are grounded in reality and he's not going to be persuaded to drag them out for the sake of selling more volumes/making more money if the message he wants to convey gets lost. There's integrity in his stories and for me, that's what makes his stories timeless.

[mifeeey]

during december last year i had... a mental health moment and suffered something psychosis like (not trying to self -diagnose) but let's just say generally i wasn't doing hot. while that was happening i started writing a fic and I want to share a snippet, just to see if there is interest in reading this... thing bc i think the concept is interesting, I'm just very nervous about how it would be received.

I probably won't finish it unless there is sufficient demand but I also think that letting this rot on my google docs would be a waste. But after you read the snippet pls vote

Here it goes:

Prometheus (Kazuscara)

(click keep reading for fic snippet)

[...] Scaramouche's eyes narrow ever so slightly as he studies the aged photograph. A surge of emotions, long suppressed and buried beneath layers of deception, momentarily flickers across his face. The younger version of himself stares back, frozen in time, a ghost of centuries past.

"Well, I'll be damned," Scaramouche mutters, his cool demeanor faltering for just a moment before he catches himself. "Quite the resemblance, I must say. Lucky coincidence, I suppose."

Kaedehara's gaze is intense, unwavering. "It's no coincidence, and you know it."

Scaramouche leans back in his chair, crossing his arms as he reasserts control over his emotions. "Look, kid, I don't know what fantasy world you're living in, but people don't live for centuries. It's just not possible."

“Yes it is!” the young man insists with a slight tremble in his voice, “That’s you in the picture, I know it is! I’ve been looking into this ever since I saw you in class for the first time, you keep popping up in so many pictures over multiple generations!”

Scaramouche leans forward, locking eyes with Kaedehara. The room feels like it's closing in, the air thick with tension. "Let's entertain this little fantasy of yours," he says, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial tone. "Suppose, just for a moment, that I am the person in that photograph. What does that mean to you?"

Kaedehara hesitates, as if choosing his words carefully. "It means you're not just some TA in a college. It means you're something more. Something that defies the natural order of life and death."

Scaramouche sighs, getting frustrated with not being able to stop this questioning. "And why would that matter to you, Mr. Kaedehara?”

Kaedehara takes a shaky breath, attempting to calm himself, “I-It has to be true. No, I need it to be true.”

The determination in Kaedehara's eyes is unsettling. Scaramouche has encountered curious mortals before, but this is different. The fervor in the young man's voice speaks volumes of something deeper than mere curiosity.

"You need it to be true?" Scaramouche repeats, masking his intrigue with a facade of disinterest. "And why is that, pray tell?"

Kaedehara's fingers tremble as he clutches the aged book, his gaze fixed on Scaramouche. "Because if it's true... Y-You might be able to help me.”

Scaramouche finally takes his shades off, raising an eyebrow at Kaedehara, “Help you?”

The young student nods, “There is… something wrong with me. I don’t know when and how this happened but… I don’t think I can die. I-In fact I can’t be permanently damaged at all.”

..............................

Summary I wrote:

Scaramouche has lived for centuries, cursed by his nature and his creator to wander the mortal realm, plagued by a perpetual beast like hunger for the flesh and blood of the humans surrounding him.

There is no sense in getting attached, they are all just short lived sources of sustenance for an immortal like him.

That is until one of Scaramouche’s students cuts off two of his own fingers before his eyes and grows them back immediately.

OR

Two immortals killing each other slowly. This is a love story.

[nientedenada]

Why the Altmeri Commentary on Talos is Important to Lore Discussion (Even if It Isn't the Thalmor's End Goal) 

Originally posted on r/teslore three years ago. To be clear, important in this context means if you're trying to guess where TES might go in the future. And as the years go by, and we now have an almost complete turn-over of developers at Bethesda, it may be less relevant. Still, the new developers will have all these old ideas to rummage through.

This begins with a split among fans, though I don't think it has to be a nasty split. There is a very strong opinion in /r/teslore that Out-of-Game texts are valid if you want them to be, if you find them interesting enough for your Tamriel. And there's another very strong opinion that only official lore is really valid for theorizing. To be completely honest, we all probably dabble in one or the other at different times. Sometimes we are more creative and speculatory about Tamriel, other times we are arguing out the Lowest Common Denominator of agreed-upon lore. (It's never actually agreed upon, but that's part of the fun.)

But there's a third possibility: examining Out of Game texts for the perspective they can give us on In-game lore. A really good example of how this works would be the document: On the Nords' Totem Religion. It was a design document for Skyrim which was not incorporated into the game directly. However, the document gives a lot of insight into the little we do see in Skyrim of the ancient Nord religion. It is useful in interpreting the game itself.

It's also useful for going forward. When ESO returned to Skyrim this year, we could bet that the devs would be taking a closer look at the local religion, as they had in Elsweyr last year. And we could also guess that they might turn to that unofficial Skyrim design document which best explained the original ideas for the Nord religion. As of a few weeks ago, much of the Totem Religion document's lore has been added to the official lore as in-game books in ESO.

The totem religion document is as uncontroversial example of this process as you can find. Most everyone in lore circles has regarded it as a very useful document. You won't find that agreement about all OOG unofficial writings. But I'd like to make the argument for why the Altmeri Commentary on Talos is worth knowing and discussing even if you don't end up thinking it's true.

So, I'll begin with quoting the whole thing. It's pretty short.

What appears to be an Altmeri commentary on Talos To kill Man is to reach Heaven, from where we came before the Doom Drum's iniquity. When we accomplish this, we can escape the mockery and long shame of the Material Prison. To achieve this goal, we must: 1) Erase the Upstart Talos from the mythic. His presence fortifies the Wheel of the Convention, and binds our souls to this plane. 2) Remove Man not just from the world, but from the Pattern of Possibility, so that the very idea of them can be forgotten and thereby never again repeated. 3) With Talos and the Sons of Talos removed, the Dragon will become ours to unbind. The world of mortals will be over. The Dragon will uncoil his hold on the stagnancy of linear time and move as Free Serpent again, moving through the Aether without measure or burden, spilling time along the innumerable roads we once travelled. And with that we will regain the mantle of the imperishable spirit.

What it doesn't say: Nowhere does it say it's a Thalmor document. Nowhere does it mention the Towers. Those two points are pretty well-known in lore circles, but they come up enough to make it worthwhile to point out.

Second thing to notice: its date.

Submitted by Lady N on Sun, 09/19/2010 - 19:53 Obscure texts Author: Michael Kirkbride Librarian Comment: Many of these are in-character snippets taken from various forum posts.

It doesn't have an exact date; the old forums have been deleted. But we do see that it was re-posted on the Imperial Library on 09/19/2010, the year before Skyrim came out. This important detail is glossed over in a lot of the discussion of its relevance. It is not a document written after Skyrim trying to put a creative spin on some details in-game. It's a document published before Skyrim came out, and hence a window on the discussions that were going on in the development of Skyrim. We need to look at the stuff in Skyrim with the question: Does the Altmeri commentary shed any light on what's going on here?

Well, the fact that the Altmeri Commentary suggests that Talos needs to be erased from the mythic makes it very relevant. Maybe this is not the reason for the Thalmor's Talos ban in the game that eventually was released. But it's evidence that during the development of Skyrim, the reason was being kicked around by someone in discussions with the devs. It's that context that finally informs the two lines in-game that might refer back to the Commentary.

The first and most often quoted is Ancano's boast:

You think I can't destroy you? The power to unmake the world at my fingertips, and you think you can do anything about it?

It's pointed out that he can simply be boasting of his power there, without any reference to a supposed greater plan. And yes, that's true. But remember, we aren't interpreting that line in a vacuum. There was a development-related post that brought up a fanatical Altmer idea of unmaking the world before Skyrim, and it's just a coincidence that a fanatic Thalmor member boasts of having the power to do so in the game? These things have nothing to do with each other?

And then there is the other line from Esbern which I think is even more significant.

I don't suppose they want the world to end any more than we do. Or at least, they'd prefer it to end on their terms.

Esbern's statement does not confirm this is the Thalmor's plan. What it does is confirm that the idea this is the Thalmor's plan exists in-universe. And Esbern is not some random conspiracist; he's a lore-master. Dragons were his hobby but we also know from his dossier that the Thalmor consider him responsible for two of the most damaging operations on Dominion soil. He knows his stuff when it comes to the Thalmor. His opinion may be affected by paranoia, he may not even hold the opinion very strongly (suggested by how he corrects himself there), but he is not some random guy in the pub with a conspiracy theory about the Thalmor. If it's a conspiracy theory, it's an important one in-universe.

So, we have a timeline that suggests the Commentary is important, and two references in the game of Skyrim to the idea presented in the Commentary. The references are independent, coming from ideological enemies, Ancano and Esbern. I'd say that makes a very strong case for the Commentary's ideology existing within the universe.

If this concept exists within the universe, the Commentary is important even if it does not represent the Thalmor's ultimate goal accurately.

But where does one go with that? With Michael Kirkbride's historic and ongoing influence on the TES franchise, elements of the Commentary are quite likely to make it into future games. On the other hand, the Commentary may be a window on an idea in development that was tossed around and ultimately abandoned. Maybe it's not Thalmor belief, really. It could even be Blades propaganda. Maybe Ancano believes in it, but he's actually a fanatic who's out of step with the Thalmor in general. etc. etc. etc.

Acknowledging that an Out-of-Game source is relevant does not mean accepting it as the Truth Bound To Be Revealed by TES VI. TES fandom has had enough of that over-certainty already. I think we've all met someone who takes some random developer's post as The Gospel Truth that cannot be questioned. That's frustrating, for sure. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. It doesn't make sense to ignore it completely in discussions about the Thalmor's ultimate goal. There are enough sources to make it worth looking at, both inside and outside the universe.

This post was about the relevance of the Commentary, but if you're interested in how the Commentary's ideology could function within the Thalmor, I can never recommend enough this old /r/teslore post: Analyzing the Altmeri Commentary on Talos.

Additional reply in comments: I thought I'd hedged enough on my statement. I won't claim Esbern as an expert on the Thalmor's ontological goals, although he definitely is more knowledgable about the Thalmor than the random guy at the pub. I do think, however, that his statement confirms that some people within the universe think this is the Thalmor's end goal. I see his statement there as he's not certain himself of it.

In the comments of the original post, a user who has since deleted their account posted a very interesting timeline of the development under discussion. I also recommend this discussion with Misticsan about the post and whether fans give the Commentary undue importance in contrast to other sources on the Thalmor.

This was only the beginning of a very involved journey into the weird fandom status of the Altmeri Commentary and the Towers Theory. It's a lengthy saga, and I've put off formatting it for tumblr but I do mean to eventually copy all the teslore posts over here.

[nicolefirekitty]

putting my thoughts under a cut since my friend who knows nothing about kh will probably see this post:

Thinking lots about Roxas and Xion post Kingdom Hearts 3, though this is more focused on Roxas.

They're both just children who came into the world at (supposedly) fourteen with no memories, and therefore no knowledge or experiences, and now they're thrust into as normal a life a Keyblade Wielder can get after being trapped for so much of their short lives. Xion became almost nonexistent until suddenly becoming two people against her will, only becoming whole when Sora rejoined her minds. Roxas had his ENTIRE LIFE replaced, only to suddenly remember his previous life in a fit of rage.

He clearly remembers both lives at the same time, shown with Sora being sad when leaving Twilight Town and saying goodbye to the real Hayner, Pence, and Olette. As well as appearing in a black coat in the fight in The World That Never Was and the snippets of memories we get to see afterwards. So his mental state must be a disaster, remembering two very conflicting lives and a one of them wasn't even real. But it was real to HIM.

Four kids living in Twilight Town enjoying their summer vacation, but now Hayner, Pence, and Olette don't even personally know who he is. They're willing to befriend him, clearly, but these aren't the people Roxas knew, and so much of his normal, fake life is overlapping his life as an Organization Member, and vice versa.

It's probably also practically impossible for this fifteen year old with one year of TRUE life experience and no real memories to process this to explain the horrors he went through to others. Even his friends. Only Xion would really understand what it feels like to be two people at the same time, surrounded with nothing but reminders of everything he is and isn't. But would she truly?

I headcanon the Days Trio +Saïx/Isa made the abandoned mansion their home, so it must be even more torture to Roxas. Probably to Xion as well, but I doubt as much since she made her choice willingly; though she did kinda force Roxas to kill her but that's neither here nor there. Oh but he definitely remembers her body crystallizing in his arms as she shatters into truly nothing, not even memories remaining, it all being his fault.

Man, can't wait for that Psychology of Roxas video :)

My thoughts on Xion aren't all that organized and I feel I put down the gist of what I have for her so far in my ramblings above. I just really feel bad for her and hope she gets to have a role in Kingdom Hearts 4. I do headcanon she's extremely touch starved and will hold Roxas' or Axel/Lea's hand as much as she can though. Also that she avoids Isa as much as she can, out of fear, anger, and pure spite.

[catboybiologist]

Hello, I've heard from a few trans women that their transition made higher education impossible I wasn't sure if they were talking about college or grad school, but since you're a woman in a PhD program I was wondering if you think transitioning would make getting a higher education harder.

Thanks

Someone who might be trans that wants to pursue a master's

Hm. This is weird to answer. Unfortunately I can't offer TOO much insight here. I'm very much a baby trans (~1.5 months HRT) and I present as a man day to day without issue (seriously, y'all have NO idea how masculine I look outside of my pictures). When I do finally socially transition, I'll probably have more thoughts.

With that out of the way, here's my personal experience so far:

I don't think I would have transitioned if I was NOT in academia/pursuing my PhD. I think most of the issues people run into can be divided into three categories:

1. Financial difficulty with acquiring HRT or other gender affirming care

2. Closer ties (financially and emotionally) to family and being seen less as an independent adult means greater pressure to not transition, and consequences if you do

3. Academic stress and pressure while you're undergoing emotional changes that may make things difficult short term.

Personally I was able to dodge most of those issues.

A huge part of this is because I spent a lot of time meticulously ensuring a lot of aspects of my life are in place before I started HRT. I waited until I was out of undergrad, which has weirder finances, I scoped out options at my student health center vs in the community, established queer community, waited a year to start in a good lab and establish there, scoped that lab out for queer acceptance before I joined, and in general became more financially and emotionally secure. Also, while I'm still in good terms with my parents, I'm not financially or emotionally reliant on them anymore- so if that changes when I come out, it won't affect me as much.

Looking back, it's hard to say whether I would recommend doing things this way. During the time that I was "figuring things out", I was dying. I was depressed and aimless, and I couldn't make happiness or contentment my baseline emotion. Starting an online femboy account was my only outlet for a while. Also, my results are going to be less drastic now that I've waited until I'm 25 to start.

Obviously, I still have the stress of a PhD to worry about while my emotions and body are changing. But to be honest.... My PhD has been kinder to me academically than my undergrad. All of my goals center around two or three long term, overarching projects instead of a million tiny assignment and study snippets from a million directions. I personally think this is easier to manage even if it's more work overall.

In return, the academia environment has been good to me about my queerness. There's a gender care specialist on campus via student health where I can get HRT, queer organizations and events are much easier to come by in a university environment, and people on average are far more educated and open minded towards LGBT issues than the general public. I have a role in the main queer graduate student group here, and it would have been hard for me to find explicitly supportive friends without that.

I'm gonna throw an additional paranoid note your way: a master's degree is hell for everyone. While the exact ways in which this is true vary from program to program, but in general, they feel like the worst of both worlds from undergrad and a PhD. You're locked out of or have less of a chance for the financial stability and employment positions of a PhD position, but you're also locked out of the financial aid and support of undergrads. I'm very biased from a miserable MS experience, though.

So yeah. I think my experience has been different than a lot of people, but I hope there was some small insight there!

[acertainmoshke]

Emerald Outpost snippet—amnesia (sort of)

*Note 1: This is set many books into the series, but screw it I needed to write something fun.

**Note 2: Esther doesn't have true amnesia here, but a brain injury combined with trauma that mess with her ability to keep track of and remember things.

***Note 3: this would NOT post and after redoing it step by step I figured out it doesn't like me indenting it, so I am going to instead bookend it with this nice divider by @/samspenandsword

The street is familiar. She thinks. Maybe there’s a garden near here? Or was it the hospital?  Her heart speeds up. No. No hospital thoughts, that will only make it worse.  She can’t remember what “it” is or how she knows what will make it worse, but she has learned to trust her own nameless instincts the way you trust a partner to watch your back. She pulls her thoughts in a different direction.

Where is she? Why is she here? The pink and green and yellow buildings curve dizzyingly in all directions. There’s a...what’s the word? A...a...a place where trains come. But her head feels stuffed full of fluff and every time she turns her head she veers into a wall, so going near the railing seems like a bad idea, even to look for a sign. A sign probably wouldn’t mean much to her right now anyway.

Case in point: the name of that restaurant is Coral Place, as announced by a very large sign. But that doesn’t tell her where she is.

Or, more importantly, why she came here. Alone. It’s afternoon and hot. When no one goes out—how does she know that?—and she’s alone on the street except for the woman waiting for the train with a couple of children. 

She could ask. The words Where am I? form through the fluff in her brain. Where does this train go? She doesn’t remember where she lives, but she’s pretty sure she’d recognize the neighborhood name. 

Movement on her other side catches her eye, and she turns to see—herself. Probably. Presumably. She raises a hand to her hair and the woman in the window—yes, it’s only her reflection—mirrors her. Her black hair is cut unevenly around her shoulders, and tangles slide under her fingers like beads. Even in the muted color of the one-way window, she can see the thick dark circles under her eyes like bruises, several shades darker than her brown skin. She’s wearing a dirty red tank top she doesn’t think is something she’d buy, with lace trim around the neck that’s been half torn away so it trails down her chest. Twisted, lump scars protrude from her neckline and down her arms. Some of them have shiny metal embedded in them. Their existence doesn’t surprise her. 

She can’t ask for help. She doesn't look like someone to let around your kid. She thinks she remembers holding a little hand, pulling her baby away from someone who swayed and leered in the wrong way.

But also, alone and in leather herself, walking the lowest levels where the sun barely filters. Pulling back the edge of her jacket so they all see her blaster. Laughing. Hand through her short hair. Leaning on the bar and meeting his eyes. She doesn’t know him, but he’s big and angry and drunk and she finds this funny. 

She tries to cling to the memory, but it’s already fading. A train pulls up and the lady boards and is gone. 

When did she sit down? The metal is almost painfully warm through her jeans, even in the shade, but getting up seems...confusing now. 

“Do you need help?” 

She blinks in case she’s imagining him. His legs are right in front of her, but she doesn’t remember him walking up. 

“Ma’am? Are you alright?” 

She didn’t prepare an answer for this, and the words slide away. Is she alright? She shakes her head. 

“Ok,” he bends down. He’s maybe her age, she thinks. Maybe a little older. His heard is 60% silver. “What’s your name?” 

For a terrifying moment, she doesn’t know. But this, at least, slides off her tongue before her brain realizes she does actually remember. “Esther.” Is that how her voice is supposed to sound? 

“Alright, Esther. What do you need? I can call a doctor...” 

That choking, heart-pounding panic fills her again, making the fluff thicker. “No!” Seriously, why does she sound like she’s strangling? “I need...home...!” 

“Alright,” he says again. Did he shift away from her? “Where do you live?” 

This again. “I...I don’t...” She goes to throw up her hands in frustration, then slams them on her knees when the man flinches. But the way the sun glints off her bracelet catches her eye. She doesn’t think she likes bracelets. She doesn’t think people who do wear ones with such big, plain tags hanging off them either... 

Oh. 

There’s an address. A personal message code. And a name. 

She was wrong. She doesn’t recognize the name of her neighborhood. But there’s another name up in the corner, listed as the contact: Phuong. 

Finally, her mind fills with a rush of images. Jumbled, but happy. A wedding chuppah made of green lace. A curving pink apartment wall, from the inside, and the most beautiful woman in the world pressing her against it. Shira—her baby’s name is Shira!—jumping off the back of a couch onto a precarious pile of cushions. A window lined with flowerpots, and Phuong making a face because...because she forgot to water them and one is dead. But the dead plant still has a looping grace to it, silhouetted against the sunset outside. 

She doesn’t know much. But she knows that Phuong means safety and love and home, and is probably worried about her (again, and she doesn’t even bother wondering how she knows this isn’t the first time). 

Wordlessly, Esther holds her wrist out for the stranger to examine. He will message Phuong, who will come get her, and life will make sense again. Right?

Tagging @starsoughtfrost since this seems pertinent to your interests :)

[magicalrocketships]

Are you writing anything else? Can we have a snippet???? Please and thank you heart heart

How about this bit, which is from a fic that I'm PROBABLY not going to write in its entirety, but is absolutely called Surviving to Drive, (fuck you Guenther, I had that title first*)

*okay I did not, but I am willing to share it with him

Anyway, it is about the repercussions of an off-track accident with a long recovery time that basically causes Max to hit rock bottom, and Daniel kind of steps in to help his friend without knowing how badly Max is doing, and they fall in love (ofc) as Max gets himself sorted. All you need to know for this snippet is that all that is in the past, Max is back and healthy, people know he and Daniel are together now.

Alternate subtitles: Max and Daniel's mum are friends now // Reasons why you want Max Verstappen in your book group // Reasons you don't want Max Verstappen in your book group // Journalists wish they had any other job but this one // etc etc

Max/Daniel, 530 words.

"So, Max, what other hobbies did you take up during your recovery?"

"He read a book," Daniel said, nudging Max in the knee under the table, probably because it was clear that Max was thinking 'having sex with Daniel' and it was starting to show. 

"I have read three books now," Max said, nudging Daniel back. "They were not very good."

"Yes," Daniel said. "He told my mum that her favourite book was bad because it didn't have any racing in it."

"It did not have any racing in it, Daniel."

"What book was it?" Caroline asked. 

"Pride and Prejudice," Daniel said. 

"There was no racing in it at all," Max said. "Also they were all very stupid."

"He was very clear about this to my mum," Daniel told the interviewer, pressing his knee back against Max's. 

Caroline made some kind of face that Max didn't bother attempting to parse. This interview was boring, other than the press of Daniel's knee against his under the table. When they were finished maybe he could get Daniel into a locked room for two minutes and put his hand down Daniel's shorts. Daniel always made nice noises when Max did that. 

"What did your mum think about that?" Caroline asked. 

"She told me she wished I could be in her book club," Max said, not waiting for Daniel to jump in. There was a pause, because Daniel was laughing at him, which always made Max's chest feel warm in a good way. He liked that. "If I ever retire, I might join. As long as I do not have to read Pride and Prejudice again. Do you think she would make me read it again?"

"I think you can probably say no," Daniel said. "Plus, you've probably said everything you could possibly say about it. You were on FaceTime for a pretty long time."

Max made a face. "I would not say no if she asked me. That would be rude. But I do not want to read them all be so stupid again."

"You weren't even swayed by Mr Darcy being all let me tell you how ardently I admire and love you?" Caroline asked.

"Oh, you're a fan too," Daniel said. He was still laughing, but Max liked making Daniel laugh so it was worth it, even if they had to talk about Pride and Prejudice to get there.

"I love that book," Caroline said, with a shrug. "Elizabeth Bennet's my favourite heroine."

The noise Max made was not his fault. "Nobody even races a horse," he said, in disgust. "It is not a good book. It is the second book I have read since I was a child. Mr Darcy is a--" He was going to say pussy but he wasn't meant to say that in interviews anymore, even if it was true. "He would come last in a race, even though he is rich."

"Oh my god," Daniel said. 

"But Elizabeth might come eleventh," Max conceded. "She fell in love when she saw Mr Darcy's house. I fell in love when Daniel took me to our house. So. Eleventh."

Daniel made some sort of noise. So did the interviewer. Max beamed. He was doing good. 

[mellicindi]

Hello! I was wondering, how do you plan fics? I remember reading Life is Not a Hallmark Movie and thought the storyline was amazing. So I was wondering if you could explain your process for outlining?

Hi! Thanks for the ask~

I wish I had a more helpful answer, but the truth is that I didn't have an outline for Hallmark fic. I published each chapter as I wrote it, without really knowing what would be coming in the later chapters. (There were a few notable exceptions that I could talk about in more detail in another post, if you're curious.) I've tried tons of methods of outlining before for other stories, and would consistently find that even if I was really excited about the outline, the characters just wouldn't behave according to my plans. If I forced them to, the writing fell dead in the water. Hallmark was sort of an experiment for me, to see what would happen if I tried flying blind. I was honestly shocked at how much easier it was for me to write when I didn't plan ahead. That said, I think there were a couple factors that helped me actually finish it:

I had a very clear intention of the feelings I wanted to evoke. That being, a story about two people who are very lonely in different ways, overcoming their hangups and falling in love. Bittersweet, but ultimately heartwarming.

I was already familiar with the structure of romance novels. So, though I didn't outline, I knew that the general shape of the story would be: meet cute --> characters grow closer --> point of crisis forcing the protagonist to acknowledge his feelings --> getting together --> some sort of betrayal/crisis that tears them apart --> reconciliation and true happy ending.

I had a lot of tropes to work with. Because it was a parody of a Hallmark movie, there were a few scenes I knew I wanted to include, even if I didn't know the details of how/why they would unfold. (ie, a fancy Christmas party, an airport reunion scene, etc.)

I JUST LOVE BINGQIU SO GODDAMN MUCH. Seriously, I just want to dissect Shen Yuan's brain, and I myself am already in love with Luo Binghe, so writing about falling in love with him was natural sldghidfgh

So, I had an emotional core, a general structure, key scenes, and characters I was madly desperately unhealthily obsessed with.

After that, I focused on storytelling principles. The first is always following a chain of causation. Another is the +/- method. These are useful for pacing, and keeping even simple scenes engaging. I love rambling about storytelling principles, so hmu if you're interested in a write up about anything!

I also had a document called 'vague future ideas' that was just that: either potential plot points or snippets of dialogue that were floating in my head. Some made it in, some didn't. I tried to keep it to short bullet points as much as possible, just a collection of vague things that could happen, but not getting too deep into any of them. This was mostly helpful in figuring out which things should not happen, tbh XD Like, at one point, I was thinking LBH would actually succeed at getting on the airplane, and there would be some sort of time gap, and rather than LMY explaining about LBH's past, SY would have to like, go on a sleuthing spree and figure out where LBH ran off to, and... uh, yeah, glad I dropped that in the brainstorming phase lol!

So yeah, sorry if that wasn't super helpful for the question you actually asked. But, as for outlining methods I used in the past, here are a few that helped me the most (keeping in mind that I tend to prefer looser methods, which certainly won't be the case for everyone!):

One Page Plotting, which is quite similar to the Story Circle

Both of these break down the story into 8 major beats. I find thinking about stories in quarters more intuitive than in thirds or fifths, so I prefer these over the 3-act or 5-act structure.

Flashlight Method

A nice middle ground between plotting and discovery writing. Probably best used if you're familiar with the conventions of the genre you're writing in to use as a mental map.

I also want to shout out Ellen Brock's youtube channel. It's a treasure trove of useful writing advice from an editor's perspective. If you're into really intensive outlining, I'd recommend her videos for methodological plotters. Her ongoing series on story structure is also wonderful.

Thanks again for the ask! LMK if there's anything you'd be interested in seeing me go more in-depth about. I'm just a big 'ol storytelling nerd lmaooo

[josefavomjaaga]

@usergreenpixel asked me to spill the tea on Ida Saint-Elme. But frankly, I can’t, as I have mostly ignored these memoirs, like most historians seem to have done, assuming they were completely unreliable and totally made up. I only came across them again when I was looking for something on Grouchy. Whom Ida claims to have known in 1795/6 in the Netherlands (where he allowed her to save two émigrés, with a »smile« from Ida as a recompensation).

Of course, my utter lack of knowledge will not keep me from making an extra long entry about her. 😁

I now see that there actually has been a new edition of Ida’s memoirs a couple of years ago, the editor being well-known French historian Jacques Jourquin. His preface can be read through Amazon, and he estimates that Ida’s memoirs are no more or less reliable than those by Laure Junot, Constant or Mlle Avrillon; as a matter of fact, those were originally published by the same publisher. While there is lots of stuff that Ida (or rather Elselina, as that is her real name) made up about her family and her background, probably to make herself look more interesting and to protect her real relatives, the two main points are undeniably true: Elselina was the quasi-spouse of general Moreau for several years (confirmed by plenty of sources), and she later followed Marshal Ney around from the camp of Boulogne into several campaigns, often dressed as a soldier (confirmed in the memoirs of Ney’s ADCs). She also occasionally worked as a spy and informant to Fouché’s police.

At some point, when I finally have more time, I’ll surely have to get this new edition and read Ida’s memoirs. She seems like a very interesting personality. And from the little that I have seen on Gallica, her memoirs actually seem more enjoyable than the stilted writing style of our beloved Duchess of Abrantes.

But mostly, as I still have problems coming to terms with one Michel Ney, who better to convince me that he was an amiable person than his biggest fan? And that Ida surely was. She seems to have been obsessed with him even before she got together with Moreau, after only hearing about Ney’s exploits, and she claims to have asked colonel Meynier to talk to Ney about her before they ever met. Which apparently did not have the desired effect in the beginning:

Moreover, Ney knew in advance the feelings he had long inspired in me, and nothing was perhaps less likely to sway him in my favour than the irresistible drive which carried me towards him without reflection.

Meynier: Hey, Ney, many heartfelt greetings from some married Dutch chick who has never met you but is totally crazy about you!

Ney: … (runs and hides)

Ida (or rather still Elselina at this point) a short time after the event with Grouchy met Moreau for the first time, whom in the beginning she found way too reasonable and boring, compared to Ney. She actually makes a comparison between her two main lovers immediately before the snippet quoted above:

My affair with Ney bore no resemblance to that which linked me to Moreau. When the latter met me for the first time, my conduct still made me worthy of public esteem [...]. I saw in him my protector rather than my lover: he had never hidden from me his intention of one day restoring to me the rank which belonged to me in the world, and my rights to that public esteem which I had so foolishly sacrificed.

The character of Ney was as fiery as that of Moreau was calm and reflective; but apart from this contrast, between two such remarkable men, I was far from being able to inspire the same interest, when circumstances finally brought me closer to this Ney whom I had known, so to speak, only by his fame. Deprived not only of my claims to consideration, and placed by opinion in the class of women who have only their beauty for all merit and fortune, I still had to struggle in his mind against many malicious insinuations, of which I had, without knowing it, been the object. [...] Moreau would have liked to make me an accomplished woman; he encouraged me to seek the superiority which beauty and the advantages of the spirit give in the world.

Ney, whose tastes and personal habits were far removed from Moreau's gravity, encouraged me to disdain the graces of my sex, and even to seek at times the perils and glory of the stronger sex.

In other words, while Moreau still may have had plans to at one point marry Elselina, for Ney she was one of his occasional affairs, and in addition to that, a sister-in-arms and a prefered drinking buddy. Which probably suited Ida much better.

According to her memoirs, Ida-Elselina only ever had met Ney once (in Moreau’s company) when she wrote him her first passionate love letter:

I must obey my heart; I am therefore not looking for vain excuses. I do not know the art of disguising my feelings: besides, there is something in the depths of my soul which tells me that if my action offends the decorum of the ordinary man, it will perhaps please the noble frankness of your character. Only once did my eyes see you, and your image was engraved in my heart. United with you in thought, I have shuddered at all your perils, rejoiced in all your triumphs, and applauded enthusiastically at the recital of your beautiful deeds. My lot is brilliant; some women find it worthy of envy: I would gladly renounce all this glory, for the right to associate myself with your dangers. Esteem and gratitude unite me with General Moreau. To confess this to you in a letter such as this one, is it not to run the risk of making me contemptible in your eyes? But I cannot fight the irresistible urge of my heart. In confessing to you the feeling that troubles my repose, I have no other thought than to inform you that there is a woman far from you to whom your glory is no less dear than to yourself.

She totally is the type to stand under Ney’s window wearing a »Michel, I want to have your baby!« t-shirt.

Of course, like any good novel heroine, she then – according to herself - got her letters confused and accidentally sent this ardent love letter to – Moreau, instead to Ney. Who apparently didn’t have much trouble to figure out who the real recipient should have been. This then led to a rather painful interview between the couple:

"Elzelina, how has Ney deserved this excessive delirium that has made you forget a woman's dignity?" "Nothing. He hardly knows me; and perhaps he will never love me." "Listen to me," resumed Moreau, "this is the last time I shall touch this subject. Ney will not make you happy. I know him, I admire him; but in his brilliant qualities, in that lofty but ambitious soul, there is no happiness for a woman; for the burning caprice she may expect from him is not the lasting love she should inspire." "Great heavens! What are you telling me! Do you not deceive me."

No bad-mouthing my (not so) secret sweetheart, Moreau!

And at that point, Moreau apparently decided that it was better to let Elselina go, and they broke up. This must have happened before Moreau’s marriage, most likely in 1799. I’ve not yet found the point when Ida finally gets together with Ney.

That’s all the tea I have to spill on Ida right now 😊. All quotes above are from Volume 2 of “Souvenirs d’une contemporaine”, available online at Gallica.

[asha-mage]

When the Day Met the Night [Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney]

I don’t know that much about Ace Attorney but I gotta go for the Panic! At The Disco ref

[Send me in an Ask with one my WIP titles from this post, and I'll post a snippet of it and tell you a bit about it!]

Ah yes! My fake-relationship/co parenting/family drama au! One of my old favorite ideas for AA4, and one I'll probably return to when I get started replaying the game (just as soon as the FE brain rot abates a tiny bit)-

[CW for inaccurate sex ed information? A character believes that being on T acts a kind of contraceptive in this snippet, even though that is in no way true, though it is a common misconception]

[Also like, spoilers for Ace Attorney 4, for anyone that cares about that sort of thing.]

            When he gets back to his shitty one bedroom apartment and vomits immediately into the toilet, he puts it down to the stress of the day- the worst court debut in history. When he wakes up the next day, dizzy, a little feverish, and with a sore chest, he decides he caught something and is half way to calling into work when he remembers that his boss is currently being indicted for murder, so he just goes back to bed.             A week later, his period fails to start, which is weird because he’s always been stupidly regular. A fear takes root in the back of his mind, an irrational thought he refuses to give credence. A few days pass, still he dosen’t bleed.             He gets the tiny plastic stick from the drug store, telling himself it’s just for peace of mind. He’s been on testosterone shots since he got his job, the insurance he had gotten through Gavin and Co Law Offices leaving him with a only slightly outrageous co-pay to worry about, and even then he and Kristoph use condoms. Even if they hadn’t, everyone knows that T drastically diminishes the possibility of conception. The chances of a condom tearing even once and that once just happening to beat the odds to knock him up are astronomically low. Apollo’s unlucky, but no one is that unlucky.             He watches the ceiling, making himself wait for the timer on his phone to go off. When it does, he takes a deep breath, picks up the pregnancy test and sees the tiny pink plus sign that indicates that he is in fact, that unlucky.

Basically the premise is 'Klavier x Apollo fake relationship/co parenting AU'. Apollo had been in a relationship with Kristoph Gavin prior to the events of the game and discovers he is pregnant right after the first case. Knowing what a spectacularly bad idea it would be to tell Kristoph (and that Kristoph couldn't help anyways since he's you know, in jail awaiting a murder charges) Apollo decides to go it alone, and this influences his decision to join Wright and Co Law Offices despite being pissed at Phoenix for the events of 4-1.

Game unfolds as normal, with Apollo meeting Klavier Gavin, who shows a surprising amount of care and respect to Apollo after it comes out that he's pregnant (never acting like it's weird or treating him poorly even as the Judge and other law folks patronize him), but when the baby is eventually born it is impossible not to see the resemblance to Kristoph, and Klavier offers to help Apollo in whatever way he can, both because he likes Apollo and because he wants to take care of his nephew.

Apollo worried about his son (who is named Orestes, Ori for short, because I can't resist a good mythological reference) having to deal with the stigma of being a murderer's son, accepts Klavier's offer, and the two pass off Ori as Klavier's child, rather then his nephew. In order to shield him from the media attention bound to come with having a rock star's out-of-wed-lock baby, Klaiver insists Apollo and Ori move into his penthouse.

Apollo is determined that this arrangement, which he is only participating for Ori's sake (he 100% does not like Klavier Gavin That Way Thank You Very Much and also he does not enjoy the sight of Klavier shirtless just Out of the Shower, he swears), remain strictly platonic (which Klaiver is 100% cool with and not all bummed about he swears, it would be weird to want to date his brother's ex-protege/lover), but of course, the two have to put on a convincing charade lest the truth come out thanks to nosy journalists like Lotta, and play at being the domestic new family.

Romcom/domestic shenanigans ensue, eventually followed by more murder and family drama and Klavier having to wrestle with his feeling of inadequacy compared to Kristoph, and Apollo having to wrestle with his sense of Not Belonging since he was a foster kid from a foreign country and-

Well you get the idea.

[faeriekit]

WIP thingy - I was gonna ask about Dude Who's a Spy and then I read on and I NEED to know about "dude who's a spy WITH POKEMON" because lolol. Please indulge me, i beg of you.

Okay I'm awake now! <3

I think(?) this was shortly after I got my first diagnosis + its accompanying medication, because I have the distinct memory of sitting down on the couch, writing, and then nothing else until it was dark and I had 6,000 words on an untitled document. And by "realizing" I mean my mother walked through the door and went "why are all the lights off-- did you not move while I was gone?"

No. No I did not. And then I did the exact same thing the next day, finishing my first short story about a guy who realizes he's compromised in enemy territory only after abandoning his wife and kid and the life he actually wanted.

And then. After finishing this sad story, which genuinely only ended on a sad note because I the author also couldn't see a way out of it, my brain was like what if....it wasn't so sad and it was also more fun.

Well, how could I do that?

...Add pokémon?

So I started rewriting the entire story with pokémon added to the plot, which, c'mon, everyone having their own emotional support animal added to a plot really lowers the sadness density! So dude who's a spy is complete but dude who's a spy WITH POKEMON is a WIP, but reliant on the first work.

Some snippets:

*(spy)

Andrew Lawrence Lee was an illustrator, husband, and father of one. He spent the majority of his days working on well-enough paid projects with the publishing house he had been hired for, working on oils and watercolors that would wind up on the pages of glossy-print children’s books— books his daughter read every night before bed and took with her to kindergarten to explain what her father did for work. His wife was employed by homeland security and could often be home late, but she was just as happy to finish her day in work shoes and on the edge of Cammie’s bed, flipping through glossy pages as Andrew pointed out the details of his work. Kanon Lee was witty and clever, and if their daughter was half as wise as her mother was, Andrew would be blessed beyond measure.

So, of course, he thought to himself, brushes dipping into pristine cups of tap-poured water, it would be nice if Andrew existed. Still, he liked being Andrew, and anyone paid fat stacks in overseas bank accounts had very few reasons to complain, and, furthermore, Andrew’s wife was an absolute delight. He wanted for nothing. If he had been left to his own devices, he probably would have done his best to pursue her romantically. The fact that he had been paid and encouraged to marry this particular member of national security was just a bonus. Literally. The amount of money he was wired after the wedding would buy a small island.

And a man named Andrew Lawrence Lee spent his time painting—a genuine hobby he had never been able to enjoy as frequently in his home country— spending time with his daughter, who he adored completely, and spent time with his wife, who really did work too hard. Spending time with her was more than just work-oriented. Sure, teasing her for covert tips and hints as to the state of national security was his true intention even when he wrapped her in his arms and pulled her shirt-to-shirt close, but date nights were cute, and when she blushed he felt like he had everything a sleeper agent could want in his whole life.

She had recently switched from mint chapstick to cherry. It was an excuse to kiss her more.

*(With Pokémon)

And it’s Kanon in a college tee and khaki shorts who unloads the boxes from the moving truck, and it’s he who’s coated from head-to-toe in paint splotches as he covers each room with an elegant red he’d fancied at the hardware store. The exception is the empty center room. He can’t resist. He paints it with layers of gold and gold and gold paint. He staples down the softest rug he can find at the discount center, and even, in his softest sentimentality, buys a pet bed for the Pokémon she’s sure to have, if she is anything like her parents. He doesn’t give up his remodeling venture until the Kecleon approves. And by approves, he means that he puts the Kecleon down on the floor and watches to see if it crawls all over the furniture with its tentative, grasping hands.

It does.

It also tries to eat a spot on the wall that he assumes it thinks is a fly? Its tongue pops off the paint with no expression he can discern, but it army-crawls its way back into his arms with what he assumes is disappointment.

He also waits to ensure that the Houndoom feels comfortable patrolling the house before suggesting his idea to Kanon.

She doesn’t approve. His wise and clever Kanon does not disapprove, either. She sits and thinks. He sits beside her and holds her hand while a finger taps on her chin, and she ponders, and she checks her phone for both their finances and her off-hours.

“…It seems reasonably possible,” Kanon decides, a week later, over her breakfast of granola and plain yogurt. He can’t help the kiss he leans over the table for.

And they have Cammie.

****

Camille Hotaru Lee is the smallest, most fragile thing he has ever seen.

He can admit it to himself, if to no one else. He doesn’t have Cammie for a cover. She is a special piece of himself that he wants, desperately, and he is selfish enough to go after this desire that has no other outlet. For him and Kanon to have a family. To have some permanence on her life that cannot be stripped away with the removal of his cover.

His handler, he’s sure, is suspicious of such compromise of his agent, but says nothing of it to his face. The man sends him endless offers to illustrate for children’s books instead. He paints with Camille on his lap. The Kecleon plays with her little grasping hands while he mixes the right shades of green for a moonlit hillside. Cammie burbles and giggles every time the Kecleon picks a new shade to mimic, until it realizes the color-changing makes her laugh. It begins to swap a thousand colors at once just to make Cammie shriek with laughter.

Kanon comes home in the evening to a house full of baby laughter and the faint smell of turpentine, and she sits beside the man who she has no reason to doubt is her husband, and they put serial dramas on the television while she pumps milk for the next day. The Houndoom snores ash at their feet. Camille sleeps to the sound of television sirens and the whirr of the pumping machine, and Kanon and he swap theories on the end of the episode, solving artificial crimes in a box.

Cammie learns how to walk during her persistent attempts to pull his easel down with her. It’s her climbing phase. He tries all types of child-proof locks on the house until another church member just buys him a pack of extra-thick rubber bands. It gets Cammie to stop opening cabinets. It also gets the Kecleon to stop opening cabinets for her in a show of solidarity.

The Kecleon sulks by slowly chewing on his t-shirts. He isn’t sure why. It goes limp as soon as he picks it up, and it’s not as if the thing has any teeth. It’s just…gumming up his laundry.

It is a peaceful, almost surreally so, childhood for Camille. He had grown up in a town house. His father had quartered his small family during the months he was in active service. He doesn’t have many memories but the smell of his mother cooking, the beige pavement crawling down the rue, and the overwhelming fear of his father coming home linger still in the back of his mind.

[practicecourts]

Life's a Beach and then you Dive for the wip game please

Thanks so much for the ask. This story has taken a back seat, because I want to finish the Head over Handlebars story first... But because of your ask I've just reread my last chapter (that's been sitting somewhat finished in a file for a long time... I want to have some more chapters finished before I'll start posting again. But have a (bit of a dramatic snippet ;-) Short summary. this is a Muggle AU where Lily Evans is a marine biologist who works for Riddle. She discovers what his real business is about (not preserving wildlife but more the opposite). She's thinking of fleeing but she doubts it is even possible to escape Riddle's far reaching influence. She meets a tall handsome stranger in a seedy dive bar in the small African town where her crew is waiting for permission to leave port for a very important research mission, that has Riddle joining the crew.

Lily writes her father’s address on the front of an envelope, then fills it with her passport, her necklace and lastly the letter. Drying her face with the back of her hand she takes another piece of paper and starts to write a second letter.

Dear Twelve, You asked me if there was anything you could help me with, well it turns out there is. I have written a letter to my family back in England. You might have guessed, but I am probably just as British as you seem to be. I hope you can put it in the mail whenever you return to England. It’s okay if that’s not any time soon. I’ve left the envelope open, so you can check I am not sending you across borders with contraband. I know this is a bother, so thank you.

I feel I owe you some explanation, but I honestly don’t know where to start. And in the end, I doubt it would change anything. Also, I fear you would try to help me, and I can’t let you, this is my mess, and there is nothing anyone can do to help fix it. I will say that I am glad you came to talk to me in the bar last night. I thought yesterday was going to be one of the worst days of my life and you somehow transfigured it into one of the best. I don’t even care if your head gets bigger from the compliment.

You are a true twelve out of ten to me,

I hope to see you again but I don’t like making promises I can’t keep. So I am just going to leave it at goodbye for now,

Love, Lily (Five)

[nettleshuttle]

Hmm, who to ask about? Decisions, decisions....

*rolls roulette*

Oh, it's Yuugo.

okayy, let’s go with yugo then:

how i feel about this character: one of my definite faves from the arc v cast and the best thing that happened to me throughout the synchro dimension arc! you could say the idea behind his character is simple and rather cliche, but i adore it all the same. i really enjoyed his duels and i rooted for his meeting with rin probably the most out of the dimension counterpart reunions. besides, he’s a terrible simp and i love him for that.

all the people i ship romantically with this character: the list is short, as it starts and ends with rin. they are portrayed as practical soulmates in the canon and i’m very inclined to roll with that. nice dynamic and loads upon loads of mutual devotion and shared memories (it’s great how they were together since childhood, holding out somehow thanks to each other) that really make me disinclined to ship yugo with anyone else

non-romantic OTP: definitely his relationship with yuzu! their initial interactions were quite chaotic, but very cute and i was glad whenever the focus of action shifted to the two of them. i feel like they could be good friends in the post canon; besides, it was really bitter-sweet to have them both mistaking each other for yuya and rin respectively

unpopular opinion: i don’t know how unpopular this is, but i find it ridiculous how he was presented as outperformed so badly by rin, while kurosaki was allowed to win his duel with ruri. the whole emotional twist with rin being controlled by the parasite etc etc also turned out rather cheesy and i could have easily done without it, especially that it finally led to nothing in the ending sequences

one thing i wish would happen/had happened with this character in the canon: a better ending for his character arc. i need it so bad. i could say that for almost every character in arc v, but yuto was among the ones treated especially dirty. with the heart-breaking scenes of his d-wheel being destroyed and his loss against rin leaving him devastated, he got none of the happy end he deserved afterwards either. a true reconcilement scene with rin and a snippet of them rebuilding the d-wheel would have been more than enough.

[adultswim2021]

The Venture Bros. #30: “The Doctor Is Sin” | June 8, 2008 - 11:30PM | S03E02

I love The Venture Bros, but I always dread writing about it. This season, which is very plotty and dense, especially feels like a slog. I might even have to expend MORE EFFORT on this blog in order to deliver more economical blog posts about this show. Hmm (NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: I did not accomplish this for this episode). A rough cut of the first act of this episode originally debuted during Adult Swim’s April Fool’s stunt. And, boy, it would be nice if I had written up that first act back then and only had to write-up the last half of the episode.

This one feels like a TRUE season premiere, even though it leaves the Monarch/Dr. Girlfriend stuff from last season hanging. We join the Venture family waiting for a visit from General Manhowers hoping to cinch a lucrative military contract. He engages in a Sherwood-Schwartz-esque ruse, asking the Orpheus family and others to dress up as multiple characters to give the Venture compound the impression that it’s still the bustling center of innovation it was during his father’s reign. 

The plan fails, even though he creepily writes a scene in which he kisses the teenaged Triana Orpheus, his son’s crush. This part of their script is thankfully never performed because Manhowers is utterly unimpressed with Venture’s affairs and cuts the meeting short. The meeting is also boned by the presence of supervillains who keep showing up to arch Dr. Venture, because the Monarch has supposedly quit in favor of playing ball with the Guild of Calamitous Intent. 

Not wanting to beg his do-gooder brother Jonas Jr. for cash, Dr. Venture takes help from Dr. Killinger, whose making a return appearance from one of my favorite episodes from season two. Dr. Killinger’s guidance winds up being very effective. He even outfits the compound with “Venchmen” (get it?). He also evicts Orpheus, the only person who seemingly understands that Killinger is a consort of evil. Orpheus, the Alchemist (who lets Orpheus crash at his place) and Brock (now being charged rent and bored with his diminished role as bodyguard) decide to storm Venture compound and take back what’s rightfully theirs.

This dramatic clash was not meant to be; when the moment of truth arrives, they find the organization has simply dissolved. That’s because Venture realizes that Killinger has been grooming him to become a villain, and he wants him to arch his brother Jonas. Venture has a bit of an existential crisis; probably because he is a legitimately crappy person. But, COULD HE BE ACTUALLY EVIL?

There’s a great scene where Killinger takes Rusty on a trip into his own psyche, where he flashes back to his youth. His father walks into the kitchen in nothing but his boxers, after having an adult "sleepover". His dong flops out, intimidating Rusty. Killinger tells Rusty that this is the moment his feelings of inadequacy first took hold. This is the moment that his father became his tormentor and rival.

If you’re watching the blu-ray, the dong is uncensored (as are all the swears). On HBOMax, the dong is boxed out. There’s one advantage to the censorship box; when Venture Sr’s penis morphs into Dr. Killinger, the box actually morphs and it’s a fun transition. On the blu-ray, we simply cut to Killinger, already having taken the form of Jonas’ package. I appreciate the uncensored version, but the censored version is a little more fun, animation-wise. 

According to the audio commentary, that scene was meant to have an extra element to it: the woman Jonas was meant to have been rogering was a beautiful actress that Rusty had a crush on. She’s in the middle of making a movie called “Follow That Bikini!” about a woman who turns invisible while wearing a bikini, so she was going to be covered in blue paint for blue-screen effects. It sounds like this scene was cut during the script stage. Years later, we actually see snippets of this movie playing on a TV.

There were plans to have Rusty run into her in the present day, now in her 50s, and attempt to smash. I read somewhere that she was supposed to be Hank and Dean's mother [source?]. Since this wasn’t technically in the episode; it’s still very much in character for Jonas to have done such a thing, and for Rusty to feel as resentful as he does. It would’ve been poetic to have the parallel between him having that done to him as a boy and repeating the same exact mistreatment between him and Dean, with Triana and the creepy kissing scene he writes for them earlier in the episode. 

This one feels more like a classic Venture Bros. episode in that it has a story that’s somewhat self-contained. It still feels like we’re doing a lot of table-setting for the season, though. This episode mostly functions to remind us that Venture is looking for a new arch, who eventually will show up.

There’s also a lot of fan-service when Doc calls his brother Jonas Jr. In the background we see him working with Hector and Swifty, the pirate, and Sally Impossible. The pirate I vaguely remember being established as working for Jonas. We also see Hadji from Jonny Quest overseeing some other division of Jonas’ arm of Venture Industries. Action Jonny is with him. Nearly all of these guys are people who Rusty cruelly cast aside for his own narcissism. The intent here to make longtime fans feel a little warm and fuzzy seeing them find success and thrive with Jonas Jr. 

My criticism of this season still holds true, but I do think this is a big improvement over the previous episode. The commentary track sorta backs up my feelings; Jackson and Doc refer to these episodes as “feverishly getting stuff out of our system”. They also mention that these first two episodes of season three were originally part of the same episode and they realized the Monarch stuff was a much more complicated story than they realized. I still think they should’ve combined both episodes into an hour-long special to kick off the season with. If anyone makes a fan-edit of these two episodes doing that, then... I'd, uh, watch it. I don't know. Probably wouldn't work out; we need something connecting the two episodes.

The post-credits scene is Venture opening up a package from the Monarch with a venomous cobra inside. It crumbles into dust because the package was sent in 2003 and not opened until now. This replaced a deleted scene (which is on the blu-ray) of Sgt. Hatred getting a letter that he’s to be Venture’s new arch, a teaser for what’s to come. He’s a very divisive character; and I will probably be forced to write a pretentious paragraph or two about that. Or, like Brock Sampson putting on brownface, I can simply gloss over that. Brock Sampson puts on brownface in this, everyone. 

MAIL BAG

Hey! Sorry for the late reply about the season 3 premiere (I only check this blog like once a week), but I do have an interesting tidbit to share about the "Monarch, I'm..." bit. As revealed in the venture bros art book, the original plan was for her to answer "Monarch, I'm pregnant", but Doc HATED that twist. Felt that it went against the show, went against what he wanted to write, she's a strong character and the last thing they need is for her to be a mom.

Doc thought it would be Out of Character for her to be a negligent parent, and if she was a GOOD parent, there goes her independence as a character entirely. Jackson ended up cutting it out and later admits that doc was right in hindsight, though he still feels that never answering the "Monarch, I'm..." question directly was one of the biggest failures of the show, he felt like he was just blowing the fans off (though doc thinks it's funny that the answer's "who fucking cares?").

I never did read that art book; I've taken it out from the library and leafed through it a couple times, though. That's interesting! I don't think they really go over that in the commentary. I feel like they could've dragged out the pregnancy and came up with a weird twist. Or they could've made a joke out of it and had the first episode just been them walking out of an abortion clinic.