#this is definitely going to be my villain origin story i have been SO rabid about this game since release

[saltycryptid]

Ghost’s head has always been too wise, but his heart is nothing but fire and ashes.

A page featuring a scene from the fanfic solemn prayer, poppy in my hair by @congee4lunch! Specifically from the fifth chapter because the prose haunts me to no end, genuinely so beautiful.

[unrepentantcheeseaddict]

WIP Questions Tag

I wasn't actually tagged by anyone, but @owlsandwich opened it up to everybody so I'm giving this a try! Open tag, but also no pressure tags to @somethingclevermahogony , @queen-of-the-weenies and @sarandipitywrites !

We're gonna do my main current WIP, God-Touched, and also a couple I've tabled for a bit due to stress, which are called Gods of Steel, and Nico after the name of the MC, respectively. I copy pasted the questions and I may have missed one or two.

What has been your biggest struggle with your wip?

God-Touched: This is more of an overall writing struggle for me, but underwriting/being too concise. I tend to make unnecessary time skips when outlining and not add enough descriptive passages.

Gods of Steel: The world building. I usually enjoy complex world building, but I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this project. I'm taking it slow and building one aspect of it at a time as I'm motivated to do the necessary research, so fingers crossed that works out.

Nico: This one's kinda stupid, but keeping myself from imagining my protagonist as Nico di Angelo. She's completely different in appearance, mannerisms, etc, but I'm a rabid PJO fan and that was my first association with the name.

If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

God-Touched: Definitely something by Imagine Dragons, probably Natural.

Gods of Steel: Probably some kind of epic orchestral thing, I haven't found a specific track yet.

Nico: Song Of Women by the HU and Lzzy Hale. Going purely off of sound and vibes.

What other pieces of media do you think would share a fan base for your story?

God-Touched: Supernatural, Firefly, the King Arthur reincarnated as a space lesbian book (Once and Future) and the book Spellhacker by MK England.

Gods of Steel: This is gonna sound really presumptuous, but I'm trying to make it similar to Dune and the Na'vi Avatar movies.

Nico: Honestly, Tamora Pierce, even though my story is more sci-fi than fantasy. Also slightly the Divergent movie (haven't read the book in years), in that the MC slowly realizes just how much of a dystopia she's actually living in, even though she started out compliant.

What was the first part of your wip that you created?

God-Touched: The general concept of Christian mythology put into a queer science fantasy context.

Gods of Steel: The setting, (humanity's original non-Earth home), and some of its history.

Nico: The idea for the relationship arc between the two main characters. It was the first time I'd ever wanted to write romance, and it was an interesting challenge to come up with how that would play out.

Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

God-Touched: This is a major spoiler, but the main gang ends up adopting an iridescent rainbow baby space dragon. She looks majestic, but is actually a huge derpy goof. She's heavily based on Banana, my little sister's big ginger cat who is not exactly the sharpest crayon in the box

Gods of Steel: The main villains on this story are cyborgs, but some are cyborg animals rather than people. They started out as normal robots, but then got this virus that made them grow flesh, skin and other organic parts, but many of the animal-like ones still have working blades or guns as part of their bodies that they use when hunting humans for food.

Nico: The fauna of the setting for this one is very ice age influenced, the main character has a war mammoth that she's raised from a calf to be her mount and companion.

What part of your wip are you working on rn?

God-Touched: First draft of the first two books, if all goes well it's gonna be a five book series.

Gods of Steel: World Building.

Nico: In my first stage of outlining.

How do your characters get around? (ex: trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

God-Touched: spaceships and hover bikes

Gods of Steel: spaceships, then on foot after all their tech gets infected by the cyborgs.

Nico: Mammoth-back riding.

What are your hopes for your wip?

This is the same for all of them so I'll just do one answer: A devoted fandom that uses my books as inspiration to create their own awesome content. Fanart, fanfic, animatics, those character analysis YouTube videos, anything like that.

[letterboxd]

In Focus: The Truman Show.

Inspired by Letterboxd data that revealed it to be a lockdown favorite, editor-at-large Dominic Corry looks at the ever-evolving importance of contemporary masterpiece The Truman Show.

It has long been apparent that The Truman Show is an unnervingly prescient film. The story of a man who becomes aware that his superficially idyllic life is, in fact, a live-streamed television show has gone from being high-concept to every-day.

Thanks to the three Ps—the prevalence of mass urban surveillance, the proliferation of reality television and the pervasiveness of video in social media—the notion of cameras filming our every move is no longer a paranoid fantasy, but real life. The twist being that, for the most part, we all willingly signed up for it, and did all the filming ourselves. As Yi Jian saliently observes in his review: “Not to get all ‘we live in a society’ on Letterboxd but I know a person or two in real life that would actually give anything to trade lives with Truman, it do be like that sometimes”. It indeed do, Yi Jian.

So it’s something of a cliché at this stage to point out how we are all living in some version of the The Truman Show, and you don’t have to be a member of the royal family to feel that way. Yet, somehow, the film has become even more pertinent over the last eighteen months. And it’s a pertinence reflected in the massive uptick in viewership for the film as seen in Letterboxd activity.

During the month of February 2020, the last moment of the Before Times, The Truman Show had a modest 1,235 diary entries. That number tripled in April of that year, by which time the seriousness of the pandemic had become clear. And by July, deep in the worst of the pandemic, Truman fervor peaked, with a further 178 percent leap over April’s numbers, firmly placing it in the top 200 films watched by our members in a year of lockdown. (By the way, ‘diary entries’ mean activity where the member has added a watched date; many thousands more also marked Truman as ‘watched’ in those dark months, but didn’t specify a date.)

It’s not difficult to imagine why we might become more interested in revisiting this eminently re-visitable film. During lockdown, social media—including Letterboxd—took on a greater presence in terms of how we communicated with each other. We got used to seeing footage of faces more than actual faces. We were all the stars of our own ‘Truman Show’, and simultaneously the audience of everyone else’s ‘Truman Show’.

Christian Torres boiled it down effectively when he wrote: “Now every movie I see seems to be related to my life in quarantine. I am Truman and I want to escape.” And Sonya Sandra eloquently captured the film’s increased contemporary significance in her review: “This is a real-life daylight horror film. The best kind. Even more relevant in 2021 than ever. We are all Truman, we all want to find what is real in our fake lives filled with media, capitalism and ideology. And it’s our job to fight the storm and get to the truth of it all. Nothing is real, everything is for profit, and everyone is selfish. Go out and find what is real, because it’s definitely not here.”

With its deft, dazzling blending of the profound and the humorous, the optimistic and the cynical, it’s difficult to think of anything released since The Truman Show that comes as close as it does to being a modern-day Frank Capra movie. It’s hopeful, but has its eyes wide open. There’s a darkness in the themes of the film that is never replicated in the colors on display.

While everyone involved delivers career-best work, we must principally credit the triumvirate of talent at the center of the film: director Peter Weir, screenwriter Andrew Niccol and star Jim Carrey.

Star Jim Carrey and director Peter Weir on the set of ‘The Truman Show’ (1998).

Weir is a director who inspires much online love whenever his name is mentioned, but he isn’t really mentioned all that often. Or at least as often as he should be. The Australian filmmaker has delivered masterpieces across multiple genres, and it’s extremely sad that he hasn’t directed a movie since 2010’s not-quite-true World War II drama The Way Back, arguably one of his lesser works. That’s also, insanely, one of only two movies he’s made since Truman, the other being Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, the wide and rabid affection for which regularly kicks up on Twitter (not to mention demand for a sequel).

Weir doesn’t do many interviews, and while this 2018 Vanity Fair article marking Truman’s twentieth anniversary has many quotes about the film’s modern relevance, Weir doesn’t offer any commentary to that effect, presumably preferring to let the work speak for itself—though in this 1998 interview he did talk about the relationship between the media, the general public and the people we become fascinated with, as a “complex situation”.

The Vanity Fair article does, however, reveal a fascinating ‘what if’ scenario relating to Christof, the god-like director of the in-movie TV show played by Ed Harris, who offers up a pile of pretentious auteur clichés: mononymous, beret, etc. (beyond the whole god thing, that is). When Dennis Hopper, originally cast in the role, wasn’t working out, Weir considered playing the role himself, which would’ve added yet another meta layer. It brings to mind how George Miller styled Immortan Joe (played by Hugh Keays-Byrne) after himself in Mad Max: Fury Road, or how Christopher Nolan’s haircut shows up in most of his films.

Ed Harris as Christof in ‘The Truman Show’ (1998).

And, at one point, it could have gone mega-meta. Weir, in the 1998 interview, talked about a “crazy idea” he had, a technical impossibility back then but easily achievable with live-streaming now. “I would have loved to have had a video camera installed in every theater the film was to be seen [in]. At one point, the projectionist would … cut to the viewers in the cinema and then back to the movie. But I thought it was best to leave that idea untested.” Imagine.

Weir also played a role in helping to shape the originally much more overtly dark screenplay into the cheerier (on the surface at least) shooting script, which is solely credited to fellow antipodean, New Zealand-born Niccol, also a producer on the film. Both men have done the majority of their work in America, but it’s tempting to credit the film’s tone-perfect sense of heightened Americana to the degree of separation offered by their foreign provenance. In any case, it’s clear that open-air mall designers were paying attention.

Niccol’s original screenplay made his name in Hollywood, and revealed a storyteller excited by big ideas. He moved into directing with the smaller-scale Gattaca, released a year prior to Truman (itself delayed to meet Carrey’s availability). Niccol’s subsequent filmography includes several legit bangers (Lord of War hive step up!), and his endearing dedication to lofty allegories in a genre setting makes him an increasingly rare breed in Hollywood.

Like Weir, he is not the greatest fan of giving interviews, but the Vanity Fair piece quotes him making an interesting point: “When you know there is a camera, there is no reality,” thereby making Truman “the only genuine reality star.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by MusicMoviesMe, who writes that “‘Truman Show’ beats all other reality shows out there like Bachelors, Survivors and Kardashians. Come on, when you know there’s a camera at your tail, there’s no reality. So yes, Truman beats all reality shows out there bar none!”

The role was perfectly suited to Jim Carrey’s affected mannerisms, and his status as one of the world’s biggest stars meant he could relate to Truman more than most people. Then, at least. Nowadays, of course, we are all Truman.

“It is always incredible to see how far The Truman Show was ahead of [its] time,” observes The Closer79. “In a world where celebs are monitored 24/7 and we are showered with unnecessary private information on the web, where talent-free wannabes become famous and where you sometimes [wonder] what kind of surreal show society you are in—Truman and his fake show life cleverly have anticipated all of this. Only Truman knew nothing of his luck and he was granted an escape from his glass prison. We don’t really have this possibility… Aren’t we all Truman? Sometimes even voluntarily…”

Austin Burke concurs: “I have always known that I really enjoyed this film, but I had no clue that it would hold up so well years later… Could this be because the strange world that he finds himself in is far more similar to our world today? Possibly, but the idea and themes are so much more relevant now compared to when this originally released.” And while DallasFrance is conscious of piling on about the film’s prescience, his review highlights how there really is no limit to the film’s meta qualities:

“Instead of writing a review about how this film predicted social media, or how we’re all Truman, or yadda yadda yadda, I’ll instead fixate on the miraculous fact that two absolute legends were cast as primary viewers of the Truman Show:

1. The old lady from The Running Man who starts betting on Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger). ‘He’s one bad motherf*cker!’

2. The villain from The Karate Kid Part II:

‘Live or die, man?!’ ‘Die!’ ‘Wrong!’ *hooooonnnkkk*

I’ve never seen either of these actors in any other roles. With the second one, I felt like I was watching a character from my childhood watch a character from his childhood come to realizations about the characters in his childhood. So actually… the movie’s really about me.”

Never change, LB membership.

We are all generally pretty aware of how ahead of its time The Truman Show was, but that doesn’t lessen its impact. Maddie’s review shows that there’s always some new angle to consider: “Imagine being an extra in this movie… You would be an extra, playing an actor, playing an extra. Think about that long enough and tell me that doesn’t make you want to walk into the ocean.”

Kev goes even further: “Watching other people watch somebody else while also watching that person while also watching the person watching over that person is a great reminder that watching is weird, and to be watched is to not own yourself. Don’t watch, don’t try to be watched. Just live.”

Or perhaps Will encapsulates the film’s ability to present an ever-evolving message best, writing that, “clearly, this is video proof that we live in a simulation.” Beyond mere prescience, The Truman Show is a telling mirror to whatever era it is viewed in. Its message will continue to evolve.

Now that we’re finally (touch wood) emerging from the pandemic, it will be fascinating to see what The Truman Show has to say about its audience and the world they live in, in years to come. Rest assured, it will be well-documented by you, the Letterboxd audience.

Also: can Peter Weir please make another movie? Like, seriously.

Related content

A Meta-Reality: Robert’s list of layers of film in life and life in film

Follow Dom on Letterboxd

[nothingofpracticalgardening]

18 Versions of Sherlock Holmes Ranked from Most to Least Likely to Set a Building on Fire in a Fit of Rage

Updated list here!

1. Jonny Lee Miller — Elementary

This cool modern gent had a Moment™ in the very first episode of this series wherein he crashed Watson’s car into the side of the villain’s for absolutely no reason except the guy had pissed him off. That’s only like half a step down from setting a building on fire, which makes it almost canon, so this fantastic band tee-wearing lunatic gets first place for sure.

2. Yuko Takeuchi — Miss Sherlock

She may look cute, but this girl is fearless and feral. She would set a building on fire on a whim and dance away, leaving her poor Watson holding the matches as a joke. We haven’t really seen her angry, but she for sure would be unstoppable if she was. Sherlock Futaba has a secret heart of gold and a not-so-secret wit of arsenic and she’s not afraid to use either of them to end your ass.

3. Benedict Cumberbatch — Sherlock

He might tie for second place with Miss Sherlock, actually, because we all remember that one American who dared to slap Mrs. Hudson and fell out a window, several times, for it. I don’t need to tell y’all this Sherlock Holmes is vicious as a viper when he wants to be, but he’s also sweet as a newborn kitten deep down. Still, #3 is pretty high on the list and I think this emotion-driven drama queen deserves it.

4. Christopher Plummer — Murder by Decree

For most of this 1970s movie, you would never be able to picture this Holmes with a temper at all, much less one big enough to set anything on fire. He’s empathetic, easygoing, and even downright warm. But then, after discovering how a young woman has been mistreated by people in power, he suddenly goes for a guy’s throat—literally—and then it’s easier to see why he’s #4 on my list.

5. Basil of Baker Street — The Great Mouse Detective

Excuse me, it absolutely counts as a legitimate adaptation. This manic little guy might be cute as a button but he will go absolutely rabid on you if you push him (although he might feel bad about it a second later). I’m not saying it’s super likely, but it’s not super unlikely either. Honestly I wouldn’t take the risk.

6. Peter Cushing — The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)

He might not be #1 on this list, but on a list of sassiest Sherlock Holmeses ever, he would definitely be at the top. More than once this sly gentleman was seconds away from Losing It(TM) in this movie; we might not ever have seen him show his temper completely, but between his impatient (but still affectionate) bickering with Watson and his mumbled sarcasm at every other character at every available opportunity, I wouldn’t doubt his capability of setting a fire in sheer annoyance.

7. Jeremy Brett — Sherlock Holmes

Calm but intense, this Sherlock Holmes is extremely popular, thanks mostly to Brett’s love and passion for the role; with all his self-control, every once in a while there’s a little flash of something much bigger going on underneath–his voice gets louder and his eyes get sharper and for a second you might wonder what he’s going to do. It would just depend on the situation, I think; hurt Watson, for example, and yeah…his fire will get you for sure.

8. Original Books

There’s no Sherlock Holmes like the original. Like Brett above, the Blueprint Holmes is cool, unruffled, and very much in control most of the time, but there are a few moments here and there when he turns into lightning personified, ready to strike someone down in a split second if they stir up his wrath. Nevertheless, he is softer and kinder and more patient than most adaptations give him credit for, so he’s lower on the list.

9. Yekaterina Vasilyeva — My Dearly Beloved Detective

This Russian movie features a rare female Sherlock Holmes. Even though the story is more silly comedy than serious mystery, Shirley as a character stands out for her perfectly in-character intensity, cleverness, and of course deductive powers. But despite her intensity, she handles all the complete idiots in her life with more resigned annoyance than anger, and even when faced with extreme insult she hardly shrugs. When tested, she’s more prone to an irritated stare than anything else, so she’s number nine.

10. Basil Rathbone — Sherlock Holmes

Ever wanted to see Sherlock Holmes take out Nazis? This might be the series for you, then. Despite the ‘40s vintage action vibe, though, this Sherlock Holmes really doesn’t have much in the way of a temper and a lot in the way of cool, observant preplanning. When it comes to high-emotion moments, this Holmes is more urgent action than fiery temper. With all that, he tends to lean more on the non-flammable side of the Sherlock Holmes spectrum.

[themerriweathermage]

Author Interview

I was tagged by @sleepswithvillains . I’ve never been tagged much before so this is kind of new for me, but I love it! Tag me all the time! Also you did it again, where I got the Tumblr notification like right as I went to bed, but my sleep schedule is so wack right now.

Tagging: @guardianofrivendell @moriamithril @sunflower1000 and really whoever wants to do it. Drop me a tag if you decide to do it because I definitely want to see what you have to say!

I have a lot of unfinished fics and not a lot of published works in comparison. 

1. Name: The Merriweather Mage (Tumblr)/ RinzlersGhost (AO3)

2. Fandoms: LOTR/The Hobbit, The Witcher (TV), SWTOR/Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Twilight, Underworld (though I’m not active in most of them unless I’m hyper-fixating)

3. Where you post: AO3, Tumblr, and I have an inactive FF.NET account

4. Most popular oneshot: People seem to have a real affinity for Meleth-nin/My Love. I actually hated writing it, because I was in such a bad place after receiving news that my childhood dog had died, but I don’t hate the fic itself.

5. Most popular multichapter: Every Kitten Has Claws which is a Geralt X Druid Fem!Reader. 25 Kudos, 3 bookmarks, 517 hits. Followed by Turuhalme in the Greenwood which is Thranduil X Fem!Reader. 9 Kudos, 1 bookmark, 270 hits. Both contain 18+ Content.

6. Actual worst part of writing: I legitimately hate writing fight scenes. I’m horrible at them and most of my fics contain some sort of fight scene obnoxiously enough. Although the best advice I ever saw on here was to keep your fight scenes short because not very many people are interested in a long drawn out detailed fight scene. 

7. Favorite story you wrote: Bards & Beans Coffee Co. Elrond X Fem!Reader. Was the first time I’d ever written anything in the second person. I based it off of a dream I had about meeting Elrond in a coffee shop. I planned it, wrote it, and posted it in the span of four days. It’s basically as if Middle Earth exists on the other side of meridian locks, and it’s set during the War of the Ring but with some of the characters from the Hobbit so the timelines are pretty pushed together. Your side of the meridian locks has a Earth that is basically a continuous strip of land that varies from high-tech futuristic ports all the way down to medieval ports. Basically the farther North you go, the more high tech and futuristic the land becomes. Quite a shock for those who would have never been to the other side of the locks. 18+ Content.

8. Story you were nervous to post: Most likely all of them. Any of my Twilight work though, I always hesitate about publishing. Sometimes it’s because the stories are close to my heart, but I also know that the fandom can be rabid. Most of the interactions I’ve ever had with Twilight blogs are fine, but there’s a lot of discourse about Twilight right now, and while I appreciate that most people are in the right (the issue with the Quileute tribe, the Cullen’s as villains, Jasper and the Confederacy, the actual legitimacy of the Volturi as a ruling body, etc), this is actually one of the reasons I left the fandom from a writing/following POV. (There are many, many things that are wrong with Twilight and not from a literature point of view. For example, Meyers took a real life Native American tribe and treated them highly unfairly in the books, to the point of calling them dogs which isn’t very fair at all, and they have received no compensation for being used and they are risk in the place they live in now. If you have some time and money, I would recommend checking out the Quileute Move to Higher Ground project.)

9. How you choose your titles: For story titles, I like to choose the main theme or a main phrase that is used. For chapter titles, I either don’t title or I will chose something that is a main part of the chapter.

10. Complete works: Out of the 21 works I have on AO3, 18 of them are completed, although one is an open ended and may be reopened after I get some of the larger works out of my way. As for fics in general that I haven’t published or have published on other platforms, there is 2 of 5 complete works on FF.NET. Some of those stories I will be pulling and deleting. The two complete works will be migrating to AO3.

11. Incomplete works: Actively: Sadril-nin/My Loyal One, A Hunter’s Circlet, and Beauty in Brokenness (unpublished for now). I have a few other inactive LOTR/The Hobbit based fics that I might try to finish after the main two are finished. Inactive: Literally too many to count. I mean, when I wrote my goodbye to the Twilight fandom, I said that I had been writing for the fandom for nearly nine years. I have so many unfinished Twilight fics, well over 100.

12. Do you outline: Not usually. I’m at the point with Sadril-nin right now where I’m literally following a map of Middle Earth and cataloguing the journey across the map, so I guess that could be considered an outline. Mostly if I’m writing for LOTR/The Hobbit, I want to follow the timeline of progression for the story that’s already been written. I do have a little bit of leeway in that gap between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings though.

13. Coming soon ideas, maybe? I’ve been giving you a taste of Beauty in Brokenness. I do intend to publish it, but it’s a constant struggle to rework it. I have ideas that I want to cement in the story that don’t always come out the way I want them to, so I am consistently reworking parts of it all the time. I will also be rewriting (eventually) Crown of Thorns, which is Pirates of the Caribbean fanfic, Lord Beckett X Siren!OFC. I also appreciate the idea of Nestadion X Centaur Fem!Reader, but instead of being a centaur all the time, you’re actually a shifter who can turn into a centaur. Really confuses a warrior elf to see what amounts to a small human carrying this massive two handed sword around and calling him “princess” all the time.

14. Ask me anything: Is there anything you miss in fanfic? In comparison to the actual book/movie? Not really. I appreciate the original works, but I recognize that they can be flawed and so can their authors/writers. Which is why fanfic is so appealing-- everyone has a different spin on the original; everyone has a different take on the characters, everyone writes differently, and that’s the fascinating part to me. The only downside, of course with any fanfic, is the fandom and it can be hit or miss with people. It is what it is, and the liberty of fanfic is that not everyone is going to like or enjoy your works, and the same goes for your tastes. Are there right or wrong opinions? I don’t know; I’ve both read and written some morally ambiguous fics, and some I would like to forget that I very much haven’t.

15. Best writing traits: Same as the worst writing traits. I’m a sucker for detail. I love it. I want my readers to see it like I do. When I read books or play D&D or play video games, I see it like I’m in a movie. When I write, I want you to see it like you’re on set and the cameras are rolling and you are perfectly prepared. I want you to feel like you are in the story, which is why my oneshots turn into series, and my multi-chapter fics turn into novel length stories. I find it obnoxious at times, because I feel like I can’t ever turn it off, but by the feedback I get, some of y’all really enjoy it, so let’s get this show on the road.

16. Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write: Uhhhh, let me go browse my WIP folder. I’ve put quite a bit of research into rewriting Crown of Thorns and making it slightly more historically accurate. I know that there will be a Part 2 to Sadril-nin, because I’m not going to time skip a seventy/eighty year gap between the timelines of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. And I really don’t want to submit y’all to this absolutely massive story all jam-packed into one fic. Other than that, I’m also sitting on Through Hellfire and High Waters, which is another Elrond X Reader fic that follows the premise of a modern/medieval world all smashed into one. The Queen of Eryn Galen also needs a proper ending and to be published, a Thranduil X OFC fic; this one will also have a Part 2.

17. Spicy Tangential Opinion: I don’t care if my writing makes the characters out of character. I try to tag that if I can, but let’s be real here. Either I’m writing a character that originally has a limited backstory and a very real chance at an open-ended future, or I didn’t like the canon character and I’m rejecting that reality and replacing it with my own. Does it mean that I don’t or am refusing to recognize character flaws? No, and that’s the beauty of fanfic. You can do whatever you want. You might get hate for it or you might not. For example, I am a fan of Severus Snape (RIP Alan Rickman). Does his character have flaws? Yes. Do I like the way he was canonically written? No. Are his actions justifiable? Hell no. Is that going to stop me from being a fan? Again, no. He is arguably one of the most disagreed upon character of that series. I don’t see a need to defend why I write him the way I do. I don’t see a need to defend him in discourse, and I’m certainly not going to be hateful about it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion about it. Yes, there was probably some underlying intent when the character was written. I’m not here (unless you’re specifically asking my opinion on it) I’m not here to read in between the lines with characters like Snape. I do not care enough to lose friends over opinions like that.

[kiwisfics]

Marvel Preference - How You Meet

F/N - First name

L/N - Last name

F/A - Favorite animal (or any animal)

E/C - Eye color

X

Bucky Barnes (MCU)

 (Time frame: Post Winter Soldier, Pre Civil War/reuniting with Steve)

 “Wait a minute!”

 The pounding on your door had shook you from your sleep, worry welling up the moment you glanced at the clock on your bedside table. It was far too late for a visitor to mean anything good. In your hurry to get to the door, you’d tripped, catching your arm on the corner of a table as you had. 

 Finally, after battling your way through the dark of your home, you threw open the front door, one hand clutching an open cut and looking the very definition of a mess.

 Still, even in your state, you couldn’t resist being surprised at the appearance on the man on your doorstep. 

 “I thought I was having a hard night.”

 A rough laugh came from the stranger, “Sorry to prove you wrong.”

 You stepped to the side and motioned him in, though you noticed the way he hid his right arm. He wasn’t as smooth as he seemed to think he was. 

 “So, what exactly is the Winter Soldier doing standing outside my door?” Immediately, he tensed, panic clear on his face, “You can relax, I don’t have any desire to have government agents crawling around. I only just got myself out of SHIELD.”

 “Am I that obvious?”

 “I blame the hair. Try a man bun, no one would expect you to be running around with one of those.”

 “Noted.”

 You laughed as you pointed in the direction of your sofa, “I’m going to get this cut cleaned up. Do you drink tea? If not, I can start a pot a coffee.” 

 “Either’s fine.”

 “Got it. My name’s [F/N] by the way.”

 “You can call me Bucky.”

 “You’ve got it, Buck.” 

 He couldn’t help but smile as you gave him a playful wink.

Clint Barton (MCU) 

 (Time frame: Pre-SHIELD collapse, post Avengers)

 Being a SHIELD agent wasn’t always trouble after trouble, just as—you assumed—being an Avenger allotted some time away from the front line in favor of some much deserved rest. Your job, like any, though it allowed for much more action than most, still had times where paperwork and meetings made for a day that dragged on and on. 

 And this was one of those days. 

 You shared a short lunch break with a few fellow agents, none of which ever spoke to you, spending even their breaks with faces shoved into documents. You often wandered if the paperwork became more interesting the higher your clearance level was, they certainly couldn’t be so focused on paying for yet another building leveled by yet another Avenger incident. 

 After another uneventful lunch, you began the trek back to your office. There was much to be grateful of in your job—your own office included—but every job seemed to suck the life out of you after awhile. 

 As you meandered your way back to your office and the paperwork residing there, you happened to run into someone. 

 Both parties stumbled back a few steps, apologies spilling as you each took in the other. 

 It took only a second for you to realize who you’d bumped into. 

 “Hawkeye! I’m so sorry! I wasn’t paying attention to where I was- I-I’m a big fan! Of you! Not just the Avengers, even though I am a fan of the-” You breathed out a sigh, covering your face as you attempted to regain any of the professionalism that you had once thought you had, “I’m sorry, let me start over. I’m [F/N] [L/N]. And I am an agent, despite acting like a rabid fan.”

 Hawkeye, who had maintained an amused grin throughout your tangent, offered a hand, still smiling as you shook it, “Don’t worry about it. And you can call me Clint.”

 “Clint, right. Pleasure to meet you.”

Johnny Storm (Fantastic 4)

 (Based on the original F4 movies)

 When a flaming anything comes crashing through your bedroom wall, you scream. It’s the natural response. When you realize it’s a man you momentarily question your sanity. And, finally, when said man ends up passed out on your bedroom floor surrounded by destruction, you’d normally call an ambulance—or would you? How often does a flaming man crash through someone’s wall? Unfortunately, whether you wanted to call an ambulance or not, your only phone had been pulverized when he flew through the wall.

 Who had a landline anymore? It wasn’t your fault.

 You dragged the man—who was easy to identify as the Human Torch—onto your bed and began to search his body for injuries. The injury that had knocked him out was quite easy to find, a large laceration on the back of his head, clearly from when he’d flown through the wall. You had expected more, considering the man had flown through a wall, after all.

 You cleaned up his wound with all the skill of a random citizen having a superhero falling into her care. 

 It wasn’t more than an hour or so after that he shot straight up in the bed. His eyes immediately landed on your form, your feet perched on the back of a chair and your head on the footrest. An open book was in your hands, but it was forgotten the moment he awoke. 

 “About time you woke up, I was beginning to get worried.” You gave him a smile. “I’m [F/N] [L/N], the woman you owe a wall.”

 “I’m Johnny Storm.”

 “I’m well aware, Mr. Human Torch.” You motioned to the part of your floor he’d landed on, burn marks standing out against the hardwood. “You owe me floorboards too.”

Logan Howlett (X-Men)  (Time frame: Pretty much any. Post Origins and the first X-Men)

 Your story wasn’t unique in the world of Mutant and human conflict. 

 Your parents had kicked you out the moment they discovered you were a mutant—class A parenting, if they asked you—and that led you to pick-pocketing and stealing to stay alive from day to day. 

 You didn’t like it and realized that you had no more of an excuse than anyone else on the street, but you had to get money somehow and people weren’t exactly fond of your kind. Mutants were given the short end of the stick at every turn and you doubted that would ever change. 

 More often than not people were more than willing to offer you money, at least, after you showed them your fangs.

 You didn’t think twice about who you were stealing from a majority of the time, you got them alone, bared your fangs, and then were on your way. That was that. You also didn’t think twice about your reputation spreading around, but it was, more than you could imagine.

 You were at a bar one night, as usual, waiting for one of the drunkards to go wandering out on his own, the prime opportunity to snatch a wallet with nearly no repercussions. When you were confronted by a man, you hardly flinched. “Are you [F/N]?”

 You looked up at the man without the slightest concern on your face. He was larger than you, but you’d robbed far bigger men than him. “That depends. You a cop?”

 “If I was, don’t you think you’d be in handcuffs by now?”

 “I suppose.” You hummed, before offering a Ganges grin, “Alright, alright, yeah I’m [F/N]. [F/N] [L/N]. And you would be?”

 “Logan Howlett.”

 “Logan? I think I just might remember that.”

Loki Friggason (MCU)

 (Time frame: Fight with Hela in Ragnarok)

 It wasn’t the first time you’d fought alongside Thor. You were an Avenger after all—well, honorary Avenger according to Tony, not that you ever paid much mind to his taunting. 

 You’d been with Bruce when he’d vanished, that much you knew, but you weren’t sure how much time you had lost in between that and regaining your sense of self. 

 You understood Bruce’s struggle better than the others ever could. 

 While you weren’t a “rage monster”, the moment your subconscious perceived a threat, your form was overtaken by that of a giant [F/A]. You and Bruce had bonded over this fact, leading to a duo of giants always ready to have the other’s back. 

 You’d never had the opportunity to meet Thor’s brother, something that your team often forgot, considering your own sibling-esque relationship with the Asguardian. 

 You hadn’t expected your first introduction to the supposed villain brother to be him announcing himself as the Asguardian people’s savior. 

 “You’re Loki?”

 “Yes. And you are?”

 “[F/N]. I’ve got to say, you’re not what I was expecting from the man who tried to enslave Earth.” He didn’t have time for a response, not that you cared to wait for one yourself. 

 Amidst your own fighting, you found yourself aside Thor again, “That brother of yours is a real charmer. Your savior is here! Is he serious?”

 With a loud laugh, he tossed a comeback, “He can be very theatrical.”

 “I think that’s a bit of an understatement.”

Peter Parker (MCU)

 (Time frame: After Ned finds out about Peter being Spiderman)

 Changing schools in the middle of the year always brought with it more turmoil than was necessary. You knew that better than most, after all, this was far from the first time you’d faced a mid-year transfer. 

 Still, it grew easier with each transfer and, you’d begun to realize, the older you got the more other students just began to ignore your presence. It was a lonely existence, but one you had resigned yourself to. 

 Besides, this would be your last move.

 Finally, after years of being tossed from one school to another, you were sent to stay with your [relative]. 

 Still, the first day was like many before it, lonely and awkward as students would offer you fleeting glances before returning to their own groups. With any luck, you wouldn’t paint a target on your head to attract those of the students that would just as well bully you as let you alone. 

 “Um, hey,” you toyed with the straps on your bag as you approached the least occupied table in the lunch room, uncertainty in your voice, “would you mind if I sat here?”

 “Oh, yeah, sure!” You smiled as the two boys scrambled to clear off the spot in front of them. 

 “Thanks, I’m [F/N].”

 “I’m Peter, this is Ned.”

 Hardly a moment after, Ned interjected, “Have you heard about Spiderman?”

 Peter elbowed him, earning a laugh from you. 

 “Yeah, the guy from those youtube videos, right? I figure it’s all in the suit. Unless he’s some alien or something. Why do you ask?” You cocked your head.

 “No reason!”

 “Uh, yeah, just curious.”

 “Whatever you say.”

Pietro Maximoff (MCU)

 (Time frame: Post-AOU au, Civil War; Pietro sides with Cap.)

 (E/C) eyes observed the male intruder traipsing about the warehouse you had adopted as your own. 

 It hadn’t taken much to stake a claim on the property. It had been abandoned for years, nestled in the midst of a tangle of trees, too tightly woven to bring in the vehicles needed for destruction without taking out the trees too. Your particular abilities made it all too easy to convince those who did wander along, that the warehouse was home to a nasty number of woodland creatures. 

 It wasn’t as if there was any concerning individuals out searching for you either. The only people aware of your existence were the Avengers and you were sure that they wouldn’t divulge your location to anyone. 

 Though the recent divergence from friend to foe did make you wander. With all that had happened, any of the team might divulge your secret. 

 Said secret being your existence. 

 Curiosity filled your eyes as the stranger walked further into the darkness of your abode.

 The warehouse wasn’t exactly welcoming. Maybe his friends had dared him? He did look young. Maybe your age.

 You followed him via the old pipes running across the ceiling of the building. 

 “[F/N]!” Your name coming from the mouth of another being surprised you, “Captain America sent me!” You perked up at the title as he yelled into the darkness. Steve had always been more welcoming of your presence than Tony. 

 Knowing Steve sent this stranger also gave you hope that you hadn’t been ratted out by Tony and his Accord. 

 You silently dropped down behind him, “And why is Mister America hunting me down?”

 You couldn’t help but be somewhat disappointed by his lack of surprise. 

 “He’s gathering a team”

 “Well, I have always wanted to experience the superhero shtick. Name’s [F/N].”

 “Pietro.”

Sam Wilson (MCU)

 (Time frame: Beginning of Winter Soldier)

 “C'mon, Cap, you’ve got nothing on me. I’m known for being fast.”

 “Whatever you need to tell yourself to get sleep at night.”

 “Oh, I’m going to get you!” With a playful growl, you launched yourself onto Steve’s back. He didn’t miss a step, continuing his run while you placed yourself atop his shoulders. 

 Your partnership with Steve arose from your interest in him and those he had fought alongside. What was a one time interview for your blog became a strong friendship, one that resulted in even the reveal of your abilities.

 “On your left.”

 You perked up as Steve spoke to a fellow runner, giving the stranger a grin as he fell away. You must have been a strange sight, perched atop Steve’s shoulders.  

 When you next heard Steve’s comment, you were typing away a text, but quickly turned to the stranger again. This time, you offered a wave and gave Steve a tap so he would stop. 

 After hopping down, you fell in step beside the man, “Sorry about Steve. The whole superhero thing makes him hard to beat.” 

 “I figured that out,” he stopped, offer in you a hand, “Sam Wilson.”

 You took his hand, “[F\N] [L/N].”

 An easy conversation arose, him mostly questioning your relationship with Steve and, by extension, the other Avengers. 

 It wasn’t until Steve once again lapped him that he seemed to remember that he had been running. 

 “Don’t say it!”

 “On your left.”

 “Come on!”

 You rolled your eyes as you joined Sam in chasing after Steve, “Boys.”

Steve Rogers (MCU)

 (Time frame: Post SHIELD collapse, pre AOU, references the AOU scene with Thor’s hammer)

 Working for SHIELD hadn’t been among your aspirations upon leaving home. 

 Yet, here you were. 

 Or, more accurately, there you had been. 

 Your work as an assassin had long kept you separate from the golden heroes of the world, but the collapse brought that to an end. With what information had been kept on you being stored the old fashioned way, you’d made an escape, free to abandon all the drama that SHIELD had supplied. 

 So, you found yourself questioning why you now sat aside the heroes that you’d always thought yourself too tainted to friend. But here you were, the part of a bona-fide Tony Stark party, with all of the Avengers in attendance. 

 As the newest member—not that you were an Avenger, far from it—you received the spotlight as the group tossed questions at you from every side. 

 The conversation trailed away from you, for which you were grateful, and turned to Thor’s hammer. The men immediately jumped at the opportunity to prove themselves ‘worthy’ and you couldn’t help but make a snide remark toward their testosterone-fueled pride. 

 You also couldn’t help being impressed when the hummer moved for Steve—and beyond amused at the surprise on Thor’s face, but you’d leave that for later. 

 “I don’t think I properly introduced myself, Captain.” You gave him a grin, one everyone in the room could tell was flirtatious, “I’m [F/N] [L/N].” You held out your hand and he took it a grin matching your own on his face.

 “Steve Rogers.”

 You opened your mouth to speak but Tony quickly cut in, “Do you have to flirt in front of us?”

 “Tony!”

Thor Odinson (MCU)

 (Time Frame: Ragnarok)

 Meeting the heir to the Asguardian throne was the last thing you had expected from your imprisonment on Sakaar, but he was there, imprisoned the same as you. 

 Your time as a contender had brought you more than your fair share of pain, but the look on Thor’s face served to convince you he’d suffered plenty before even being introduced the the Grandmaster’s game. 

 Still, you knew Thor was the greatest chance you had to escape and you wanted your chance, even if it meant weaseling your way into his favor with all the womanly charm you had left after the months of fighting you’d done for the Grandmaster’s enjoyment. 

 “Hello there,” you gave Thor your best attempts at a sexy smile. 

 “Oh, yeah, this is [F/N].” Korg introduced you and you gave him a nod.

 “I’ll answer any questions he has, pal, you can go hang out with Miek, yeah?”

 He hesitated and you couldn’t help but wonder if he had the same plan or if he simply wanted to chat with the newcomer. Either way, he relented without protest.

 “He’s a good guy, great for some laughs too,” you shrugged, “I would have let you be, but I had to chat with you. Never expected to find an Avenger trapped in here with me.”

 “You’re from Midgard?” you gave him an affirmative nod, “How did you end up here?”

 “You’re asking the wrong person. All I remember is Earth and then,” you motioned a poof with your hands, “here I am.”

 “I’ll get us both out of here, you have my word.” 

 Any response you had died in your throat. He hadn’t even gave you a chance to flirt your way into his good graces before offering his help. 

 You decided then, Thor was your favorite Avenger.

[deanky]

Total - C. Martin Croker Q&A

Total TV: I know you were already an animator before you got involved with Space Ghost. But did you also know that you had this great talent for voices?

Clay Croker: I used to work out at the laser show way back when. Ten years ago. It's out at Stone Mountain Park, this giant granite mountain that sticks right up out of the ground, and they project laser shows up against the side of it. That was my first animation job. I created a character right when I started out there, they had this bear character and they wanted a sidekick for the bear. So I came up with a Possum character that they called CW, which stood for Civil War, argh. [mimes vomiting] I didn't come up with that part. But I also wound up doing the voice of that character too. So I was doing voices for laser show characters a decade ago. And I'd always done goofy voices on my answering machine and stuff, and I was always a fan of Zorak from the original Space Ghost.

Oh, really? So this was like a deep-seated desire?

Oh, yeah. They started rerunning Space Ghost in 1978, when I was in high school. And we'd all talk about it at the lunch table and stuff. And there would be friends of mine who'd be like, Brak's my favorite, he's the coolest, he's that Tiki cat kind of guy. And I was going, oh, man, Zorak blows 'em all away. You don't know what you're talking about. So I actually did like a Zorak answering machine message probably while I was still in high school.

God, it'd be great if you still had a copy of that.

I may. I may. I save everything. I have answering machines tapes going back to '80. So when Space Ghost was pitched to Design Effects, where I was working, I had to kind of horn my way in. 'Cause they were just gonna make it a designer job and not have any animators in on it. And I was like, wait a minute! What do you guys know about Space Ghost? You know about any of the villains? And they were like, well, maybe we should have him sit on this. So I wound up actually suggesting that Zorak be on the show, 'cause I was such a big Zorak fan. I was going like, we gotta have some villains on the show! Zorak would be perfect! And [Cartoon Network programming head] Mike Lazzo agreed. He said well, Zorak was always one of my favorites too.

But I was dismayed when I found out they weren't going to use the original voices. 'Cause I thought, Oh boy, we're gonna be working on shows with Gary Owens doing the voice of Space Ghost and Don Messick doing the voice of Zorak Then I find out no, no, no, we're just gonna go with local guys. And I was horrified. I was like, oh, man, here I thought I was giving Zorak a career boost. And there was a point in a meeting where they said, hmm, well we're gonna have so and so do Space Ghost, so that solves the Space Ghost dilemma. Who are we gonna have do Zorak's voice? There's this long silence, and I'm like, well, it's now or never. And I just said, Well I can do that voice. And they were like, do it. So I just spat out one of the old lines I remembered and they were like okay, you're Zorak, that solves that problem.

What about Moltar? Did you have any affinity for him?

No. Zorak I really wanted on the show. And then we started reviewing Space Ghost cartoons at Design Effects, and the first cartoon we looked at was "The Evidence of Moltor." They changed his name between first and second season, I think they probably just couldn't remember what he was called. Originally, they had Andy [Merrill], who does Brak's voice, come in and read for Moltar. He sort of did kind of what wound up being Brak, sort of the same crazy inflections. And they were like, I think that's a bit strong. And then right before the show went to final edit, they said we want you to come in and read for Moltar. Can you do like a Ted Cassidy kind of voice? And I went [switches to sonorous basso] well, sure, I think so. And they said, well, go on in there and do it. So I thought what the hey. But, you know, the rest is history.

Do you ever get confused going back and forth?

At rehearsal. That's the only time I get confused sometimes. LIke I'll have Zorak and Moltar arguing, and sometimes I'll wind up starting to do the other character's voice and inflection. I'll see the word and think, Oh, this is a Zorak line. And it'll wind up being the other way. Sometimes I have to go, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, okay. Start the clock again."

Do you ever get up in the morning and feel like it's a Moltar kind of day? Or a Zorak kind of day? Does the identification ever go that far?

Well, the cool thing about Zorak is the fact that I can pretty much say what I'm thinking if I say it with Zorak's voice. Like at conventions and stuff, when overbearing fans get in our face I'm like, [in dismissive Zorak voice] "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

People love to be insulted by Zorak.

Oh yeah. Well, it definitely makes it easier to deal with some of the fans. We get some pretty rabid fans for Space Ghost. To me it's like, you know, it's just Space Ghost. But we've had some people that are just absolutely, like, crazy for the show. And being able to deal with them as Zorak does make things easier, because you can be like, [in nasty Zorak voice ] "Yeah, well pipe down, sonny, I hear your mother calling you." And they're like [breaks into rabid-fan chortling].

Do people assault you with their version of Zorak's voice?

Usually not. I think, you know, they would be too self-conscious about it. But we always get the guys who come up like with buttons all over their shirts and stuff, and they'll be like, [switches into moronic stoner voice] "Let me be a character on the show, come on, I do good funny voices." OK, we'll get your card and we'll call you. But in answer to your question, the only time I really feel like [a character] . . . I actually feel more like my other alter ego, who's the cartoon series that I've got on the side burner, which is Mr. Angst.

Mr. Angst?

Yeah, and I very often feel like Mr. Angst, a lot of the time.

How does Mr. Angst speak?

Oh, I'm still working on that, but it's somewhere between like Lenny Bruce and someone that has screamed till they're hoarse.

That sounds a little bit like Brak.

Yeah.

At least the screaming end of the spectrum, not the Lenny Bruce end.

Actually the guy that does Bird Man's voice I'm thinking about using as a character. But I think I'm going to use him as Mr. Angst's pal Crude Dan. He was based on a real guy I knew called Crude Dan.

What's Mr. Angst look like?

Let's see, well he's sorta kinda like . . . I don't want to say Danny Kaye because that involves a lot more connotations, but a lot like Danny Kaye gone bad, sort of.

The vessel with the pestle has the pellet with the poison.

So he pretty much just looks like this. [starts to sketch] One of these days . . . I've got some pencil tests done of him already, but with all the animation realism shows that are being worked up now, like King of the Hill and all these more reality-based shows . . . I've been wanting to do that for like . . . I mean I've had this character on the back burner since like '91.

Wow. He looks like a bit of a hipster.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Well I mean he's about like 35 to 38, somewhere in there, and like really into barbecue and bowling and all kinds of stuff like that. Oh, and he's always got to have that un-PC butt hangin' out of his mouth. [sketches it in] So he would be like . .. oh, I forgot all the . . .

The angst lines.

Yeah. [sketches them in]

That's really cool. Mr. Angst. Can I keep that?

Certainly.

Maybe after this big push for the new Space Ghost Coast to Coast episodes you'll have some time.

Well, the thing that's cool is because there's been so much Space Ghost stuff going on I've been able to ramp up my production. I've been able to like get more desks and pencil test machines and all the other equipment that I need when I eventually start doing something other than Space Ghost. But I've also heard rumblings that there's already something besides Space Ghost waiting in the wings, so we shall see.

Beyond Cartoon Planet?

Yeah. Yeah.

I love Cartoon Planet.

Oh yeah, me too.

And Zorak's Horrorscopes.

Yeah, Pete Smith wrote all those, they were a blast. I think we've done like the entire zodiac.

Pete wrote a bunch of, like, wacky stuff, a lot of the songs the Cartoon Planet Band sings on the show. Are we still recording?

Yeah.

I just wanted to like get the process down from the start. We read through the script, we make notes, I come up with a thumbnail story board, I show that to [line producer] Jim Fortier and then I work up the actual first draft of the boards. Then we have a meeting and go through basically all the boards and say, well, we want to use this, we don't want to use that. Then I work up the final boards, they get approved and then they start being animated. So that's how the process gets rolling, as far as like where all the new art comes from.

And that's basically your domain, the new art?

I do all the new animation for the show. I run my own animation company, Big Deal Cartoons. I actually run it out of my house, I have a studio set up in the basement and have freelance animators, all of which have 9­5 jobs in this town, doing animation because there's been such an explosion of the art form in the last year or so I can just get them at night. Right now, we're mostly working on Space Ghost needs.

What exactly do you do here in the Flame Room, Clay?

Tear our hair out? [laughs] This is where we do digital ink and paint. And then composite those new cells into other scenes. Which in this case is all the scenes of Bird Man sitting at the desk, stuff that did not exist in the original Bird Man universe. We do new animation compositing, rotoscoping some of the existing animations from the '60s and take Bird Man and Space Ghost and other characters out of them. We cut 'em out of their original scenes, give ''em new backgrounds, put 'em into a set.

You actually cut them out digitally?

Frame by frame.

That sounds pretty time-consuming.

It is. The show's kind of like a waking hours thing. While I'm awake, I'm thinking about the show. Before, up to this point, we'd been on the air almost three years and put out 33 shows. About a dozen shows a year. This year, we're doing 26 new episodes so it's a big change. As is usual around here, I'm booked in more sessions than just one at once. Right now I'm doing the Fred Flintstone thing at the drive-in and the bowling alley, where I'm like running up and down the hall all day long monitoring what's going on in ink and paint and what's going on in the actual composite, which is in here. So all the cells are brought in, we bring them in under the camera over here and shoot them directly into the paint box room. They digitally ink and paint them, like you're seeing an example of right now. Sometimes we add special effects. Space Ghost blows up Zorak in another scene, we have to paint him to make him look likes he's charred and burned.

Do you use like a stock image of Zorak charred or do you actually create that for every episode? 'Cause Zorak gets zapped a lot.

They have pretty much a standard few scenes where he gets charred, and they just use that over and over. In fact, they just made a new one. But yeah, we try to keep it as standardized as possible. We try to keep all the colors standard.

What about Zorak's boinks? Are the boinks new animation?

Where he bounces?

Yeah.

No, actually that's something that they digitally did. The first time I saw that I went, wow, what was that? They said, "Oh, that's something we were just messing around with." And I was like, okay. I just wondered, you know, 'cause most of the time now if there's new artwork involved in the show, then [senior Flame artist] Butch [Seibert] and I--or whoever is working in here, like putting it together, but most of the time it's Butch--we like put together all the new scenes. But every once in a while they'll come up with something and just go, "Oh, well that's a Tom thing," and they'll have [online editor] Tom Roche come up with something in final edit.

You guys have all these great names: Croker! Roche!

Yeah. [laughs] So I'll see the show and like all of a sudden see something I had nothing to do with and go, "Wow, what was that?" Well, too late to change it now. Watching it on TV.

That must also be kind of fun in a way. You get a little surprise.

Yeah, well, it's like reaching into a bag and getting, like, eeyew, noodles!

[megashadowdragon]

some of the comments in the YouTube comment  section

“So in other words slut shaming is wrong in real life but completely ok in fiction. Kinda shows what these people truly think about themselves and their scantily dressed sisters.” “ Wait a minute an sjw is attacking my girl velvet? Oh boy, I could make a huge thesis paper on why this person's claims just doesn't work but all I'll say is just because velvet is dressed the way she is it doesn't make her in any way weak at all. Moreover it's the fact that she is still a strong woman regardless of her fashion sense. Her journey her struggles and her character development were all the things that bundled up into the reasons why I love her so much as a female lead and as a character “

“ Thanks once again for protecting our waifus form out of control censors and rabid sjw feminists you are the best. All these girls looks beautiful, powerful and unique compared to their boring and outright puritan designs we she in western games. Have you seen the female fighters in MK11 they all wear burqas just with different colors so unimaginative... “

“What kind  of Catch 22 nonsense is this? So if a female character is made by a man then it's shameful because it's appealing to the male gaze. But if it's made by a woman then it's internalized misogyny and still appealing to the male gaze. It would be nice if they pick which is fine and what isn't. So the ideal solution is to just not have female characters and just have male characters, but then it would be seen as sexist to not include female characters. You literally cannot win.Show less” “ "She didn't choose the outfit, the creator did" No shit “

“

Funny story: “High heels” as we call them today where originally designed to be worn by Nobles (mainly MEN) while riding on hose back. They where never meant to be worn as walking shoes by anyone, regardless of gender, even less so as dress shoes. The where never originally designed to support a person’s weight. The long heels where used in the same way as a cowboy would use the spurs on their boots, its one of the reasons they’re so sharp.

“

“ Femininity is in part defined by both what men want from women and what women are willingly to do. Generally speaking women want to be beautiful and men want women that way too. It seems to me that these feminist believe feminine beauty is only for men when it's convenient for them. When it's their clothing it's "sex positive" and empowerering when it's animated characters it's "internalized misogyny". It's a double standard that they use like a weapon. Ps. One that occasionally works. Like when Hi-rez covered up Furia's thighs because of complaints. “

“ Fictional characters having no real-world agency has to be the biggest non-argument I've seen and is definitive proof that these losers know they have nothing to complain about, and are just doing it because they need to complain about something to make themselves feel good, but complaining about real issues is too hard apparently. Going by the logic of fictional character having no real-world agency, it's wrong to make any character anything because the fictional character has no say in the matter. They can't be an orphan, a female, an [insert race here], [insert sexual preference here], etc. Heck, or even existing in the first place!

“ Actually Velvet's clothes kinda reflect her state of mind. The tattered state signifies her broken condition while the red and black colours allude to how she has become a violent daemon who only wants revenge against Artorius. But it's not just her clothing that fits her character but that of the other characters in the game as well. Aside from the obvious main characters, I noticed a theme with the uniform of the Abbey high ups. The less the person values emotions, the less colors he has other than  the standard white and gold. We see Artorius mostly lacking any other colour other than the white and gold while Teresa and Oscar have little more. Laphicet has more blue and a collar (can signify his enslavement) while Eleanor wears clothes that are mostly blue with little white. And finally with Shigure, his colors are a contrast as he merely fights for the Abbey because he feels like it and not because he is committed to its ideals. Coming  back to Velvet, I consider her to be one of the best designed female characters in fictional media. Not only does she possess traits that make her an empowering female character but she also has a decent amount of other likeable traits as well. On top of that, she is not devoid of human flaws  like how she is so obsessed with her revenge that she does not care much about anything else, leading to situations like when Phi was forced to open a portal to the leylines or how Innominat almost made her sink into despair. Overall a good character who is also quite human. And this in turn actually fits the themes of human morality in the story really well. While people criticise the slow starting part of the game, it actually serves the purpose of showing us how circumstances changed Velvet from a sweet top waifu material to someone akin to a genderbent Guts/Edmond Dantes. Then as the story progresses, we see her acting like a villain but still root for her because we know what she has been through. Then because of Phi, we do learn that her human side still remained within her and later Phi is able to help her. In the end, she kills Artorious not out of revenge motivated by pure hatred but because the Shepard had lost sight of his own self and ideals. I  noticed that most of the "maxims" Artorius talks about don't exactly feel like maxims when you compare them with Immanuel Kant's philosophy (someone who Artorius seems to follow quite a bit as Kant considers actions driven by principles to be moral instead of those driven by emotions, which he considers irrational) as they have a definite condition/purpose behind them (such as controlling emotions IN ORDER TO control the tide of battle.). From what I read about the Maxim's Kant Spoke of, those maxims were supposed to be unconditional i.e general truth like do good. So we see that Arthur's maxims have conditions which contradicts Kant's definition. Except one. Don't despair. The same one Velvet reminds Artorius as she stabs him. In the end Arthur actually became more of an act utilitarian in his wish to create a peaceful world by removing emotions. That's some really amazing writing right there. Makes me glad I got this game and made me more interested in the Tales series. Hopefully we can see Velvet and Phi reunited in Crestoria. He deserves to be with her far more than Sieg deserves to be with Jeanne. “

[whimsicallyenchantedrose]

The Fireworks

This story was originally written and posted for my Fluffy Fridays Collection, but I thought I’d bring it back for the holiday.  Enjoy!

Rating: T

Words:  ~2500

CS Genre: Feuding Neighbors AU

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

           “Come on David, you can’t be serious!” Emma growled as her brother, the sheriff, eased her back with a gentle hand to the arm.

           “Yeah, Emma,” he said grimly, “I can.”

           As if to emphasize the point, he slammed the jail cell door closed behind her.

           Behind her and her jackass next door neighbor.

           “Now, mate,” said jackass drawled, stepping forward.  “Are you sure this is the best idea.  You know your sister and I don’t particularly see eye to eye.”

           David smiled humorlessly.  “Understatement of the year after what you two have done over the last few days.  But you’ve been disturbing the peace and driving everyone around you crazy, so yeah.  I think a night in jail is definitely in order.  You two’ll either find a way to work things out or you’ll kill each other.  Either way the rest of us might get a little peace and quiet.”

~~36 Hours Before…~~

           Killian settled into his bed with a contented sigh, reveling in the soft pillow.  The hum of the ceiling fan lulled him until his eyes gently closed.  It had been a long day, and he was in for another one tomorrow.

           Storybrooke had big plans for its 4th of July celebration on Saturday.  There were plans to shoot fireworks from a boat out on the harbor and set the whole thing to patriotic music.  As the town’s harbormaster, Killian had a big role to play in getting everything set up.  It was exhausting, and he wanted nothing more than to get a good night’s sleep before he waded into the madness all over again—ridiculously early tomorrow morning.

           Boom!  Crackle!

           Killian jumped at the sudden noise, and then heard a frightened yelp and the click of paws against his wooden floor, as his 75 pound Rottweiler mix sprinted into his room, jumped on his bed and plopped square on his chest.

           As Killian removed the panting, shaking, terrified canine baby from his person, his eyes narrowed.  He’d bet his last paycheck he knew precisely the cause of the disturbance.

           “Sh, Smee,” he said, stroking his dog’s black and caramel colored coat.  “There’s nothing to worry about.  It’s just…”

           Another boom, this one loud enough to shake his house.  Smee scrambled down and tried to wedge himself under Killian’s bed.

           Killian pushed himself to his feet and strode purposely toward his door, not even bothering to put on a shirt.  There was only one person who could be responsible.

           Swan.

           She’d moved into the house next to him about eight months ago, all long blonde hair and prickly exterior.  Never had he met someone so exquisitely beautiful—or so maddeningly frustrating.  The day after she’d moved in, he’d knocked on her door, friendly smile and “welcome to the neighborhood” bottle of rum at the ready.

           He’d prepared a genial, friendly speech about how he was pleased to meet her and glad the house was finally occupied again and how she shouldn’t hesitate to ask if he could be of any assistance, but then she’d opened the door, and all rational thought had fled.  Nothing could have prepared him for the utter perfection that was Emma Swan.

           So, rather than his careful, well thought out neighborly speech, what came out of his mouth was something along the lines of “Hey beautiful.  I think you and I need to get to know each other much, much better.”

           Needless to say, she’d slammed the door in his face.  Then she’d opened it again, swiped the rum from his hand, gave him a glare that could curdle milk, and slammed the door for the second time that morning.

           Things had only gone downhill from there.

           From that moment on, it would seem they were sworn enemies.  Oh he’d tried to apologize, explain, but approaching her had been like trying to approach a rabid porcupine.

           So he’d stopped trying to apologize and started in to do his best to completely piss her off, flirting outrageously with her whenever they came in contact.  She was utterly glorious when she was angry.

           She’d returned the favor with various acts of bad neighborliness—raking her leaves straight into his yard (he’d retaliated by raking the whole lot up and putting it in a messy pile at her front door) or parking her yellow bug smack dab in front of his mailbox—earning him the ire of Leroy, their bad-tempered postman (he’d retaliated by parking his own car at the end of her driveway), and all manner of other, deliberate acts of aggression.

           And tonight, it would appear she’d decided to shoot off fireworks at 10:30 pm.  Well, he wasn’t going to stand for it anymore.  Enough was enough.

           Righteous indignation intact, he stormed from his front door and marched right up to the exasperating woman who was preparing to apply a lighter to another bottle rocket, a preteen boy looking on with excitement.

           “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” he’d shouted.

           Emma jumped and then glared.  “What does it look like I’m doing?  I’m setting off fireworks.  There’s a little thing called Independence Day coming up, and Henry and I wanted to celebrate.”

           “Yeah?” he’d growled, “well can’t you celebrate at a reasonable hour?  Some of us are trying to get some bloody sleep, so how about you cease and desist immediately.”

           She rolled her eyes.  “Not happening, buddy,” she said in a hard voice.  “So how about you take your un-patriotic ass off my lawn and go get that sleep you’re so desperate for.”

           He’d opened his mouth, preparing for a stinging reply, but then thought better of it as a brilliant, devious plan came to mind.  She wanted to disturb his sleep and scare his dog half to death?  Fine.  Two could play at that game.  Miss patriotic over there was about to find out that payback was a bitch.

~~6 ½ hours later…~~

           Emma was happily fast asleep when it happened.  A canon boomed and suddenly classical music, at roughly the decibel level of a jet, filled her peaceful bedroom.  She shot up in bed, hand going immediately to her heart, and then her eyes narrowed.

           Killian.

           No one else would even think of pulling something like this.

           She got to her feet, threw on some sweats and stormed from the house, prepared to give the son of a bitch a piece of her mind he would never forget.

           Killian Jones was the bane of her existence; had been ever since that first morning he’d knocked on her door and immediately set in to hitting on her.  Obviously thought he was God’s gift to women; that she should just swoon at his feet in ecstasy that he’d deigned to talk to her.

           Yeah, not happening.

She didn’t care how ridiculously hot he was.  And yes, with his piercing blue eyes, messy black hair, and perpetual scruff…well, hot didn’t even begin to cover it.  And when he’d stormed over to her house last night, naked to the waist and she’d gotten her first glimpse of that ripped, hair smattered chest….well, maybe it did things to her.

           Ugh!  What was she doing?  She wasn’t some teenager who couldn’t keep her hormones in check.  She was a full grown woman who was going to give a world-class jerk the verbal beating he so richly deserved!

           Killian Jones sat on his porch swing, cup of coffee in hand, smug grin in place.

           “Morning, Swan,” he said genially.  “Looks like it’s going to be a lovely day, aye?”

           She took his porch steps two at a time, walked over to the stereo system he’d moved to sit beside him—the stereo system who’s speakers were turned conspicuously toward her house—and punched the “stop” button with a viciousness that would have made a fairy tale villain proud.  “Cut the crap, Jones.  What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

           His grin spread maddeningly further.  “Just enjoying the morning,” he drawled.  “After all, as patriotic as you are, I’d assumed you’d enjoy ‘The 1812 Overture’.  Quite a good rendition this.  Did you know they used real canons in the finale?”

           Emma’s hand ached with the need to punch the smug bastard in the face.  “It’s freaking five o’clock in the morning!  I was asleep.”

           Suddenly a glint of temper entered his eyes.  “Aye?  Well darling, now you know how it feels.”

           And that was all it took.  Emma took a deep breath and started in on the long list of all the things she hated about Killian Jones.

~~Present Day~~

           Emma plopped down on one of the prison cell cots and turned resolutely from the man standing on the far side of the cell.  After the cataclysmic shouting match this morning, one of their other neighbors had evidently called the cops.  David had shown up, taken one, assessing look at the situation, and thrown both of their asses in jail.

           And now she was going to be stuck with Killian freaking Jones until tomorrow morning!

           Talk about cruel and unusual punishment!  This was going to be the longest night of her life.

           For long minutes they both sat there, each on their respective bunks, seething and glaring daggers in each other’s general direction.  Finally he let out a deep breath, ran a hand through his hair, and turned suddenly repentant eyes in her direction.

           “Look love,” he began.

           “Not your love, Jones,” she said automatically.

           He charged on, ignoring the interruption.  “Perhaps your brother is right.  Things might be…tumultuous between us, but we are neighbors.  We need to find a way to live together in peace.  I apologize for blaring music at you at an ungodly hour this morning.  Bad form, that.”

           He was apologizing?  Actually apologizing?  Taking responsibility for something he’d done and wishing to make amends?  Of all the things she’d expected to come from his mouth that was not it.

           “Um,” she said in confusion, “thanks for that.”

           He reclined his head in acknowledgement.  “I let my temper get the better of me.  I’ve been under a bit of stress at work lately, and when you set off your fireworks late last night—disturbing my sleep and scaring my dog witless—well, I suppose I snapped.”

           Sudden guilt clawed at Emma.  She supposed if she was being completely honest…she hadn’t handled last night’s altercation as well as she might have.  And, okay, maybe if she was further being honest, he wasn’t a complete pain in the ass all the time.  There was that time last winter when he’d come over and shoveled her driveway after a particularly nasty blizzard….and there was that time she’d been sick and he’d run down to the local diner and bought her some chicken soup.

           And, well, okay, maybe he had some justification for being angry after all the crap she’d done to him.  Maybe he wasn’t the only one who needed to make an apology.

           “Yeah,” she said, picking at a loose string on her cot and refusing to look over at him.  “I guess I should apologize too.  For the fireworks.  I didn’t think about them bothering anyone, but, well, I didn’t exactly handle our conversation last night well.”

           She felt the cot sag beside her, and looked up into the bluest eyes she’d ever seen in her life.  Killian extended one hand, friendly smile firmly in place.  “Apology accepted.  Truce?”

           She hesitated for another moment, and then gripped his offered hand.  A jolt of electricity passed between them at the touch, and Emma gasped, dropped his hand like it was a live wire, and turned startled green eyes his direction.  What she saw in the depths of his eyes was something she’d never expected.  Kindness, understanding, friendship.

           Emma’d had a rough life; always abandoned, always forgotten, always passed over.  It wasn’t until David’s mom, Ruth, adopted her at the age of seventeen that she finally found someone she could really trust.  Still, trust came hard.  Her default position was still to expect the worst.

           So it shocked her to her very core when she suddenly had the urge to confide in the man sitting beside her—the man she’d hated from the very beginning.

           “Look,” she said, once again glancing away from him.  “That boy that was with me last night...”

           He nodded, urging her to go on.  “That’s my…that’s my son.  Got knocked up really young; still a kid really, sixteen-and-a-half.  And when I told the father…well, he freaked out.  Walked out on us, and I’ve never seen him since.”

           Killian took her hand, and to her shock, she had no desire to pull away.

           “I gave Henry up when he was born, trying to give him his best chance, you know? What did I know about being a mother?  I’d never even had one to speak of.”

           “I can’t begin to imagine how difficult that must have been for you,” Killian whispered.  She looked up at him, nodded, and gave his hand a quick squeeze.

           “Yeah,” she admitted.  “Tore me apart.  I’ve been looking for him for years, and finally found him; here in this town.  The adoptive mom didn’t want me to have anything to do with him; almost took out a restraining order on me, and well, last night was the first time she agreed to let me have contact with him.  Real contact.  Henry loves fireworks, so…”  Emma shrugged.

           Killian was silent for a long time, and finally she looked up at him.  The compassion in his eyes was almost her undoing.  “I’m sorry for overreacting, love.”

           She shrugged again.  “Not your fault; not really.  You couldn’t have known.  And...well, I guess my default is to be defensive.  My experience…people don’t stay.  They don’t do nice things for you, at least without expecting things in return.  Their all out to screw you over.”

           “Emma, you deserve far, far better than that.”

           Something about the sincerity of his voice, the emotion behind his simple statement, finally made her snap.  Surging forward, she weaved her hand through the soft hair at the nape of his neck and slammed her lips against his.

           He responded instantly, giving as good as he got, deepening the kiss, making small noises in the back of his throat that drove her wild.  In the history of kisses, she was sure there had never been one quite so potent, so all consuming.

           When they finally pulled apart, she rested her forehead against his and felt his deep chuckle against her hand, resting on his chest.  “Love, that was…”

           “Mind-blowing, explosive,” she finished.  She leaned back and grinned at him.  “Jones, I thought you were against fireworks, but that..”

           He laughed again.  “Well, there are fireworks and then there are fireworks.”

           She laughed with him, and couldn’t resist going in for round two—the kiss far softer and more gentle this time.

           “Killian,” she finally said, breathlessly.  “I think we kind of started out on the wrong foot.  How about we start over and this time try to not, you know, attempt to kill each other every other day?”

           Killian grinned.  “Sounds good to me, love.”  He extended his hand once more.  “Hi, I’m Killian Jones.  Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

[nofearofwaves]

“This Isn't Going to Go the Way You Think”: The Last Jedi as a Deconstruction of the Star Wars Narrative

The Last Jedi is a critical darling, but fan reaction is mixed. When I saw earlier that it stands at a 57% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I was stunned. I had left the movie theater two nights ago devastated, elated, entertained...but certainly not 'meh'. But my experience apparently is not universal.

Why?

There may be many explanations. The push back against female leads that dogged The Force Awakens, perhaps, or purity monitors basing their dislike on the clear Rey/Kylo dynamic that spans the entire film.

But I think it may not appeal to others for another reason.

Because, as I see it, The Last Jedi is plotted to specifically undo the standard Star Wars narrative.

Needless to say, SPOILERS under the cut.

The Force Awakens is well-shot, well-acted, competently-told, and very safe. Almost a beat-for-beat remake of A New Hope, it satisfies that itch to see good guys win and bad guys lose. However, it disappointed those fans that might have been looking for something better. TFA's strength was in its new characters, though even those—from Rey's desert-urchin Force-sensitive heroine, to Poe's devil-may-care pilot, to Kylo's golden-boy-fallen-from-grace villain—were fairly standard.

Finn's character was one of the few that stood out as original, at least in the world of the movies.

I don't envy filmmakers working in the Star Wars universe. Stray from tradition—and basically everything in the original trilogy is so iconic you almost can't help it—and fans go rabid. For examples of this...oh, look at the whole prequel trilogy. Stick with tradition, and your movie ends up satisfying, but nothing special, a la TFA.

On its surface, many of the story beats in The Last Jedi follow previously established standards. Padawan finds mentor, then is tempted by the Dark. Dramatic battle is won at high stakes. Undercover mission behind the First Order's shields. Conflicted villain joins hero and turns against the big bad.

But at every stage, to paraphrase from Luke, nothing goes the way you expect it to.

This happens in TLJ almost constantly. To go through each example is beyond my efforts and energy right now, so I'll pick 4 examples:

Poe's confrontation with General Holdo

Finn and Rose's mission to disable the tracker

The reveal of Rey's parentage

Kylo's murder of Snoke

Poe's confrontation with General Holdo follows a typical narrative. A trusted leader (Leia) is incapacitated. In her absence, another leader is appointed...a leader who is not “one of the people”. Poe's clear, unquestioned assumption that he would be in control of the Resistance fleet is easy for us to follow; he's a talented pilot, trusted, and Leia's protege. Of course this would be his time to take over.

Star Wars itself has taught us this: Obi-Wan steps into Qui-Gon's shoes, even down to training his padawan when he is barely out of training himself; Han and Luke become Commanders straight out of blowing up the Death Star. When the Jedi Order refuses Anakin his Master's rank—despite his seat on the council—we are on Anakin's side because he's powerful and it's not fair.

But Poe isn't ready to be in command. He's hot-headed, focused on grandiose last stands full of glory, and too willing to sacrifice others if he sees an immediate victory. His victory over the Dreadnaught is proof of this. The First Order is flush with weaponry; this machine is not unique or particularly worth destroying. Yet he sacrifices munitions, lives, and time, disobeying General Leia's explicit demands.

Despite all this, we are still on Poe's side. Holdo is “clearly” sketchy. We've been trained to think this way. And when Leia shows up, we almost expect her to take over from Holdo, perhaps order her locked away, because she's let the Resistance down.

Of course, that doesn't happen. Holdo is a capable general, she knows what she's doing, and had Poe's uprising really succeeded, the Resistance would have destroyed itself.

Finn and Rose's mission to disable the tracker is another well-worn story thread. Star Wars is all about secret missions behind enemy lines:

Obi-Wan's mission to disable the tractor beam; the gang's mission to disable the shield generator on Endor; Obi-Wan and Anakin's mission to rescue Palpatine; finally, the most egregious example of this, Rogue One's suicide mission to Scarif to get the Death Star plans.

All of these missions succeed, against odds that are so far stacked against them it's almost laughable.

But, they succeed. So when Rose and Finn set off to find a codebreaker, get him back to Snoke's ship, slide behind the shield, disable the tracking device, and get off again, we expect—if not for complete success—at least that the Resistance will get away while the brave duo remain behind in enemy hands.

This story is knocked from under us in three stages:

They're captured before disabling the tracker.

Their fair-weather ally (Benicio del Toro's codebreaker) betrays them for money and a ship.

And, he has been betraying them all along. He turns over the entire Resistance to them.

Not only is Rose and Finn's mission a failure, it actively damages the Resistance's chances of survival. People die because of their need to be heroes, to take action themselves, without consulting anyone else or trusting their leaders.

The reveal of Rey's parentage was an absolutely brilliant stroke. TFA is peppered with questions about her: “Who's the girl?” “What girl?” “Who are you?”

TLJ answers these questions with a thundering: It doesn't matter. And it doesn't.

The original and prequel trilogies are family epics. The original trilogy was about Luke discovering his heritage, facing his father, redeeming his father, being saved by his father. The prequel trilogy was about the Skywalker progenitor being born by miracle and destroying the entire order of the galaxy by falling to the Dark.

TFA sets us up to expect more of the same. Kylo is Han and Leia's son; he has destroyed the Jedi order falling to the Dark. So when we get Rey, a force-sensitive desert child, what are we supposed to assume but that she has some grand heritage of her own?

She doesn't. She doesn't have to have one; she's powerful in her own right because the Force chooses those it will. Rey has been deluding herself, making herself believe that her parents abandoned her for a reason. I think she sees herself in the crystal cave when asking for her parents because the Force is screaming at her that the truth is already inside her; she just needs to be brave enough to face it.

She's nobody, but that doesn't mean she isn't strong or important or capable of changing the world. Anyone can be strong with the Force, though it definitely runs in families. There's even a clever hammering home of this point when one of the slave children draws a broom to his hand with the Force, then stands with it as the moonlight illuminates it like a lightsaber.

The Force is not a Skywalker family exclusive.

Kylo's murder of Snoke is again, straight from the original stories. We assume that it is either love for Rey or repulsion at the idea of killing her or seeing her die that forces his hand against Snoke. The Skywalker men are nothing if not emotionally driven by love.

But other aspects of this story make us believe Kylo will turn to the light. Rey, stepping into Luke's shoes, goes to him believing she can save him by turning him. She goes, surrenders without a fight, allows herself to be disarmed, is tortured by the new Emperor character, and is saved at the eleventh hour by the one she came to save.

And then the narrative screeches to a halt.

Kylo is not redeemed by love. He cannot go back to the Light with Rey because he believes the entire system—Light, Dark, Jedi, Sith, Empire, Rebellion—needs to end. He almost echoes the codebreaker character earlier: “It's all a machine.” He wants to stop the machine, and in the aftermath of slaughtering Snoke, he sees the throne of the First Order as the most powerful place from which to make those changes.

And Rey the person he sees as most able and willing to change the universe with. They have both been failed by narratives for which they are fundamentally unsuited. Continuing the Star Wars cycle makes no sense for them. They gain more if they change the story.

These are, again, just a few cherry-picked examples of the theme Luke spells out. Nothing in The Last Jedi goes the way we, the audience, expect. Some people thrive on subversion; I'm one of them.

Others want the story to stay the same.

What do you think?

[ihaveanimagine]

You pick the skelebros, please include classic. They find out that their s/o is a writer, and writes amazing stories, full fledged books, but never shows anyone because she thinks they’re shit. She writes mostly romance, and a lot of it is monster x human, and then she also writes fantasy, but usually portrays the humans as the villain, not the monsters. She has one book, that is actually about everything that has happened since they fell into the underground, in extreme detail. Everything.

(I did UT, MT and Gaster!Sans and Papyrus)

Undertale!Sans

Sans found out about your work through Alphys who hadrecently fallen in love with your newest novel involving a “Shape ofWater” vibe and showed it to Sans who instantly recognized the Author’sname. Wanting to reveal he knows of your books in the cheekiest way possible,Sans asks Alphys for the cheesiest romance novel you made, and she hands himthis book called “The Tale of the Underground”.

Sans kinda just snorts at the title, inwardly squealing athow cute the title was and began to read it. He was surprised that this wasBASICALLY your diary dictating your thoughts as you travelled the Undergroundand…ooooohh boy, haha, Sans pulled at the collar on his shirt.

Ho boy was this detailed.

Marking the page, Sans went home and awaited your arrival.The second you walked in the door with a distracted “Hey, Babe!” Sansopened the book and read aloud: “…after sans had licked the red spaghetti sauceoff his teeth, i suddenly had the hugest urge to kiss his teeth until my lipswere numb.“

Silence was the only response he received.

“that offerstill stand, dear?”

Undertale!Papyrus

This sweet cinnamon roll was simply dusting (the dirt kind,not the dead monster kind) the house when he came across an unfinished booksitting on your desk wide open. Papyrus wasn’t one to snoop, he honestly didn’tmean to, but he saw the words “Papyrus” and “Gorgeous” nextto each other and allowed himself to read several one chapter.

Wowie!! Whoever this author is must have VERY good sourcesbecause it sounds like his wonderful S/O wrote this from entirely their persep-OH!! IT WAS!! Papyrus felt a wave of embarrassment and fluster overflow hisemotions. H-HE REALLY SHOULDN’T CONTINUE, BUT…HIS S/O OBVIOUSLY PUT A LOT OFWORK INTO THIS BOOK A-AND HE SHOULD BE ABLE TO GIVE AN ADEQUATE CRITIQUE!!

So he read everything up until the part you stopped writing(which he spent a good 10 minutes mourning over) before rushing back to hischores, waiting for you to get home later tonight.

Once you walked in the door Papyrus scooped you in his arms,twirled you around and planted a big fat kiss to your lips before allowing youto speak.

“Wh-what’s withthe greeting?” You asked, face completely red from blushing, “N-notthat I mind!” Papyrus simply grinned and kissed you again before helpingyou brush off the snow from your clothes.

“OH, NOTHING INPARRICULAR, I JUST WANTED TO HELP OUT MY ADORING SWEETHEART!”

“Aww, that’s awfully sweet of you!”

“WELL OF COURSE!! ALTHOUGH MAY I ASK A QUICK QUESTION?”

“Shoot.”

“HOW EXACTLY AM I A ‘PRECIOUS NOODLEBONES SKELE-BEAN THATCAN MAKE GLOOMY DAYS GO EXTINCT BY SOUNDING LIKE A BABY RATTLE SNAKE WHENEVERMY BONES RATTLE WHEN I’M HAPPY’?”

You just knew thatsentence was going to come back and haunt you….

Mafiatale!Sans (Colt)

He’s supposed to be grabbing a book on “how to wash bloodstains out of white clothes” when he sees your name scrawled across a bookin the “bestseller” section of the bookstore. At first he thinks it’s acoincidence, but then he picks up the book and thumbs through it, when this employee bounces along andasks if he’s interested in the series.

Series???? This should be good. Naturally, he says “yeah, but I dunno where tostart” which allows the employee to gush about how much she loves your work and how it has almost exclusivelyhuman/monster pairings that more often than not revealed the darker side ofhumanity through satirical situations and comedic monster characters.

Colt had to snort a little at that, not that he wasjudging (he was probably the reason you began the monster/human pairingsanyway) but he knew how much you wanted to repeatedly smack the whole ofhumanity with a baseball bat until it gained some sense and hey, the pen ismightier than the sword, right?

So after Colt accidentallybought one of the shorter book series, and a book labelled “Trip Down Under” heleft the store (completely forgetting his original goal) and began devouringthe books whenever you weren’t with him.

Once he got to “Trip Down Under” he nearly had a heart attack.Before this book, he thought your other ones were marvelously written, balancingpure, unadulterated snark with mushy romance (a trait that he was proud toadmit only he was the recipient of irl)but this one was………an extremelydetailed step-by-step walkthrough of your entire trip in the Underground.

Granted, there were different names and places andenvironments used, but this was creepy!!!He specifically remembered having this exactsame conversation with you at 1am about whether or not condiments were anacceptable flavor spice for pet foods that the protag and her romantic interestwere having.

So, what does he do? After his post-mission meeting withDon Asgore ends and he heads home and proceeds to do your normal routine of smothering each otherin relieved affection before placing his hand on your back and the other onyour head, dipping you backwards.

With a feral grin, he leaned in and whispered to you: “Am Iliving up to your expectations as your bone-ified,straight-shooting, suave-talking punster of a soulmate?”

You suddenly regretted every life choice you’ve ever made.

Mafiatale!Papyrus (Sniper)

This guy was most likely gossiping with Bayonet (Undyne)when she offhandedly mentioned this romance novel series she was reading thatwas set in a fantasy world that had a boss fight similar to the one she experienced when you had gone through Waterfall. Shethought it was just a coincidence, after all, the fight became common knowledge after a while but Sniper’s experience taught him nothingwas a coincidence.

So he went and Googled everything he could about thisauthor. 

He found online versions of your books, and read the book that Bayonet said she was reading, and BOY WAS HE SURPRISED. You certainly were detailed in your adventures, but you changed enough facts and names and places so it seemed that every important Family Secret you experienced were all different.

Being the little prankster he was, Sniper wanted to give you a scare. But, in order to do that, he had to pretend he had just heard about your book, and went and Google’d a picture of you.

WOWZA, DOES THIS PERSON LOOK FAMILIAR!!! HEY, S/O! COME LOOK AT THISPERSON!! YOU NEVER TOLD ME YOU HAD A TWIN!!!

You briefly considered lying to him when you felt embarrassment and a bit of fear well up inside you, but that idea wasquickly erased. “Sniper, darling….that’s….that’s me!”

Sniper looked back and forth between you andyour online picture before turning to you with a flirtatious smile: “OH GOOD, FOR A MINUTE I THOUGHT SOMEONE HADSTOLEN MY RECIPE FOR FONDUE! WINK!”

“OH MY GOSH, SNIPER!!!!”

Gaster!Sans (G)

You and G were out on a casual date in the town, arms linked, pulling you close together as you wandered aimlessly, idly chatting abouteverything and anything. Your romantic peace was interrupted by a pair of girlswho spotted you entering the park and ran over to greet you.

They immediately began squealing about your latest bookcalled “Echoes of Home” which set you off into an internal panic, G WASN’TSUPPOSED TO FIND OUT ABOUT THIS BOOK, OH STARS YOU WERE GOING TO DIE OF EMBARRASSMENT!!!

Without any regard for your dwindling dignity, the girlscontinued to fangirl about “Echoes of Home” Going on and on and on about howmuch they fell so hard for the “teeth-grindinglyhot-headed, self-righteous, aloof little jerk of a hunk”.

At one point in the conversation one girl looked over at Gwho had been relatively silent and said with an awe-struck face “Is this him???”She almost screamed with glee. Sensing this was your way out, your shushedloudly and began dragging G away with a quick wink to the girls who giggled andwaved goodbye (you were sure one was about to faint from swooning so hard).

Once you were both out of earshot G threw you a curious look“what was that about?” He asked, your face erupted into color and tried tobrush it off as nothing.

The matter was dropped until you walked past a bookstore with “Echoes of Home”displayed proudly on the window, showcasing the edition of the book with a picture of the main characters in each other’s embrace. “ain’t nuthin, huh?” He asked with anincreasing smirk, you frantically tried to pry G away, but CURSE HIS STRENGTH he was too hard to move!!

“huh, this guy on the cover looks like a weird version ofme. total coincidence, am i right?”

“YEP, ABSOLUTELY, LET’S GO NOW!!”

“ah, darlin’ I’m messing with ya. I’ve known about your bookwriting career for a while.”

“You wHAT!?”

“yeah, your fangirls are rabid.”

Cue an embarrassment-induced faint.

Gaster!Papyrus (Aster)

Aster was out on a grocery runwhen he came across an elderly woman struggling with her bags and decided tohelp her. While he was stuffing the bags inside her car, the old woman hadmentioned that he reminded her of the main protagonist in this book: Tall,suave, drop-dead gorgeous, and the personification of chivalry.

Since there wasn’t aplethora of writers in the Underground, Aster made an inquiry as to who thewriter was, the old woman couldn’t remember for the life of her, but she didgive him the book’s title and recommended he read them as soon as possible.

And so he did.

The book was a romance novel filledwith cheesy fantasies that were definitely made for the hopeless romantics.Scenarios of tall but gentlemanly heroes with a passion for science or artoften guided or encouraged a lost, starry-eyed female to follow her dreams andscrew with the system if it tried to stop her.

After several novels, hefinally read the one the old lady had recommended him, and, oh dear, is that-!!???It is!!!!

This book was a, uh, detailed edition of your travels in theUnderground.

He knows this because he’s the one who taught you thatspecific chemical formula of the carbohydrate strings which would allow foroptimum flavor!!!

And- hey wait, he rememberedthis part!! This was when he took you out on your first official date with him!!He was always so scared he over did it on the pulling out all your chairs,taking your coat, having no physical contact beyond hand holding or arm linkingbut this narrative showed that you-you….oh….didyou really think that?????

Aster felt his face explode incolor and he had to put the book he felt so flustered.

Later, when you came homethat day from a sleepover with Alphys and Undyne, Aster met you at the door likenormal, took your coat, kissed your cheek and asked you how your day was. Onceyou both got the pleasantries out of the way, Pap circled his arms around youand bent down.

“Do I really make you swoonjust by existing, my darling star?”

[the-desolated-quill]

The Hungry Earth - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

The day Steven Moffat announced he was finally going to relieve us of our torment and leave the show for good, my reaction was mixed to say the least. On the one hand, yes that bastard is no longer going to be ruining one of my favourite shows, but on the other hand he’s being replaced by Chris Chibnall. A writer who’s almost as incompetent as Moffat and has written some of the worst episodes of Doctor Who and its god awful spinoff series Torchwood. (And to those who occasionally ask me if I’m going to be reviewing Torchwood at some point, the answer is a definitive no. I have got other things to do, you know. Stop pestering me). While he has earned some of my respect since then by casting Jodie Whitaker as the first female Doctor (and about time too), I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t deeply concerned about the quality of the show moving forward.

I mention this because this two parter, The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood, was written by Chris Chibnall and I feel perfectly demonstrates all of his weaknesses and shortcomings as a writer.

In a small Welsh village in the year 2020, some scientists have drilled deep into the Earth’s crust, further than anyone has ever done before. But something is drilling up to the surface to meet them and has left some bio-programmed dirt (just go with it). Some guy called Mo, upon seeing this suspicious patch of dirt with steam coming out of it, does what any smart, sensible person would do and sticks his hand in it.

So he gets dragged underground, and soon enough Amy joins him in an admittedly tense scene where the Doctor desperately tries to hold on to her.

From there, this giant energy dome thing seals the village off from the outside world and the whole thing becomes a bog standard base under siege story. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with a base under siege story. It’s just the base under siege story has been done so often in Doctor Who now that it’s hard not to let your eyes glaze over while you’re watching it. Of course it’s possible to revitalise the base under siege narrative, like The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit did, but The Hungry Earth most certainly doesn’t. So the whole thing was a bit of a snoozefest for me if I’m honest. Everything you think is going to happen does happen and with an extra dose of stupidity. 

The Doctor tells everyone to set up shop in the church, but wouldn’t the TARDIS be safer? I know you can’t fly it because of the energy dome thing, but surely it’s better than a church. Then he gets everybody to set up a security surveillance network that covers the entire village in 8 minutes flat, which is remarkably daft even by Doctor Who’s standards, and it never goes anywhere. Then he gives Ambrose a strict telling off about her rather sensible decision to stockpile weapons. Sigh. I think I’ve mentioned numerous times before how much I despise New Who’s pacifist bullshit considering that the Doctor has always been pretty violent and has frequently used guns before despite claims to the contrary. I wouldn’t mind except the Doctor then completely contradicts himself a few minutes later. How is knocking the Silurians out with a sonic pulse any less violent than hitting them over the head with a cricket bat? And then, after bonding with the kid Elliot, he stupidly lets the kid run off to fetch his headphones just two minutes before the Silurians are due to arrive. What a pillock! Not that I was upset to see Elliot get taken. He’s a bland, one dimensional kid whose only character trait is he’s got dyslexia. Also I can’t fucking stand children. Especially fictional children. if I was there, not only would I hand Elliot over to the Silurians, I’d offer to gift wrap him for them as well. (Yes I am an arsehole. How did you know?).

Yes The Hungry Earth sees the return of classic series ‘monsters’ the Silurians, and my God do I wish Chris Chibnall wasn’t writing a Silurian story.

The thing is the Silurians have only ever had one good story, Doctor Who And The Silurians, way back in the Jon Pertwee era, and it was phenomenally good. A seven part serial that’s nuanced, morally complex and with a truly shocking ending that cemented the Doctor’s frosty relationship with UNIT. It’s one of my all time favourite Doctor Who stories and I recommend everyone should watch it. In all honesty, I’d have been okay if the Silurians never came back after that because it was a truly brilliant one shot story, but if we must keep bringing them back, they could at least find some way of moving the story forward. Instead all the BBC ever seem to do is just repeat the same story over and over again to diminishing returns. The Sea Devils was basically the same as Doctor Who And The Silurians only without the moral complexity, the reptiles now emerging from underwater rather than underground, and the pantomime villain the Master was in it for virtually no reason. Warriors Of The Deep tried to use the Silurians and Sea Devils to make a Cold War allegorical narrative that really didn’t work. And now here we are with The Hungry Earth. So this is the fourth time they’re telling story now and I’m sure you all know the drill (no pun intended). Reptiles want their planet back. Humans don’t want to give it back. Whatever shall the Doctor do? Been there, done that, got the T shirt.

Now let’s quickly address the elephant in the room. The new look for the Silurains. For the benefit of @captainivyb and others who may not be familiar with the classic series, this is what the original Silurians looked like:

YYYYYYeah. What can I say? It was the 1970s. But Doctor Who And The Silurians is still good, honest!

The new makeup definitely looks more convincing than the original Silurians, but I’m not too fond of it. They just look a bit too human for my liking. Couldn’t they at least have kept the third eye?

A definite highlight for me was seeing the Doctor interrogating Alaya, the Silurian they take hostage. It’s a really good two hander between Matt Smith and Neve McIntosh, who both add a lot of dramatic weight to a scene that, let’s be honest, doesn’t really deserve it. The reason Doctor Who And The Silurians worked so well was because all of the characters, human and Silurian, were well written and complex. It wasn’t a simple case of good vs evil. Both sides had a point and both sides do horrible things to the other, motivated either by fear or self preservation. Chibnall tries to replicate this here, but he’s not doing a very good job so far. While McIntosh gives a good performance with the material she’s been given, the character of Alaya is boringly one note. A rabid zealot with no sympathetic qualities whatsoever. The humans too are drawn with very broad strokes. Most of them aren’t even remotely interesting and despite the Doctor insisting that they can just trade hostages and everything will be okay, they’re still talking about dissecting Alaya. There’s no slow buildup or anything. No nuance or depth. They just jump straight to the most violent option. So much for showing the best of humanity. Frankly I’m amazed the Doctor still thinks a peace can be brokered between the two species considering this is the fourth time he’s tried to do this now and it’s always ended in disaster.

The only character I gravitated towards in any way was Nasreen, played by Meera Syal from The Kumars At No. 42. I enjoyed her open mindedness and scientific curiosity, and right from the off both she and the Doctor seem to have a mutual respect for each other. And Syal is always a ton of fun to watch in everything she’s in. In fact I liked her so much that at the time I may or may not have written Doctor Who fanfic with her as the companion... Well I’d sit down and watch that.

So that was The Hungry Earth. Bit dull and uninspired, but maybe things will get better in Part 2, right?

[thotyssey]

On Point With: BibleGirl666

Arguably the country’s most famous queen who has never been on “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” this entrepreneur and genuine pop scholar has captivated legions of fans the world over with her social media presence, including an especially-devoted Instagram following. She came of age in an era where lowbrow culture was championed by the expansive bombast of MySpace. BibleGIrl666 -- who tellingly drag named herself after her own provocative social media handle from that time (a somewhat misleading one, since this native Floridian and current Brooklynite is actually a Nice Jewish Girl) -- built an entire celebrity persona around the equal-parts celebration and satire of the best of the worst of what pop culture had to offer. Now a more seasoned stage performer at the ripe old age of 24 and the founder of the incredibly successful DragqueenMerch online company, Bible is very much a queen that you need to know. Drag Con, you ain’t ready for this!

Thotyssey: BibleGirl, thank you for talking to us! You were just in London, right?

BibleGirl666: Hello! Thank you for the opportunity to rock out here with you! Yes, I was just in London two weeks ago for DragWorld UK.

Is it surreal to meet fans across the ocean, who only know you from social media?

It transcends surrealism, in all honesty. I go into any kind of convention / travel situation with no expectations because it's like, 'Well, who the fuck am I,' if that makes sense; then once at the event, to be faced with a line of people who just "get" what you do without question is really dope.

It’s always interesting for me to hear from a performer about how much of her drag persona is fully her, and how much is a created character. In your case, BibleGirl is very much a fully-realized character based on those white trashy MySpace girls that came up in the Britney Era: colorful, selfish, messy, fun.  Do you think those traits fascinated you on a personal level, or were you just so exposed to that growing up in in that time that that’s all you knew?

I feel like, more so than ever, the character is at her most fleshed-out point to date. The genesis personality, which was that of the aforementioned trashy girls, took hold because that's what I was super intrigued by at 15 on the internet. 2007 was the era of trainwrecks and unapologetic tabloids! Seeing the public's fascination with the tragic headlines fueled by A-listers really resonated with me.

I sometimes miss MySpace! That network sort of encouraged one’s individualism, whereas social media today tends to streamline you to be like everyone else. You can’t even use your drag name on Facebook! But scrolling through peoples’ MySpaces got ridiculous in the end, with all that music and animation people posted on them. Anyway, do you miss MySpace at all?

LOADED QUESTION! I miss the aspects you described, but I don't miss it entirely for the clunky interface and cesspool breeding ground for the cyberbullying which really took root there, in my opinion.

The best way to follow you on social media today is Instagram. Do you consider yourself to be very picky and choosy about what images you post there, or is it always spontaneous?

I used to be super haphazard with my posts, but realized there is an algorithm and a process of finessing an "aesthetic" if you will. I have found that following my own set rules for my account has allowed me to explore character development on more of a multimedia platform rather than in a club.

I do my best to maintain levels of spontaneity, to show who I am on a more personal level, through the Instagram stories feature nowadays.

Recently, Instagram temporarily took down your account under very mysterious circumstances, during a period when it seemed like social media was maybe cracking down on gay content. 

The experience was really bizarre, and one of the weirder ones I've had this year. I was in Canada for a couple of shows, and was waiting for a flight to Winnipeg for night #2 at 6 AM, and I watched my account get suspended in what was essentially real time. I woke up before heading to the airport, and checked Instagram with no problem. I got through security, found my gate, and grabbed a seat... only to check Instagram and watch an auto-log out happen. I checked my email thinking I was hacked, but instead had a message saying I violated terms and conditions and was indefinitely suspended. I joke that it's the trip that never happened because I virtually couldn't document it. It took an interview with Unicorn Booty after a week of suspension, and two days after the article’s release, for my account to return with zero explanation.

You have kind of a rabid fanbase, based largely on your amazing pics and your relatable personality that comes through. Can you kind of empathize with a young celebrity queen like Drag Race’s Valentina, who might’ve been overwhelmed by her fans aggressively trolling other queens from her season and then got heat for not regulating it? Like, can a single person even regulate a monstrous online movement like that?

I can empathize with Valentina on more of a level of we are both people that know what we want, and stay in our respective lanes when reaching our goals. I think it's fucked up that people use a reality TV villain narrative to scapegoat micro-aggressions, but maybe that's just me. I do think a more immediate condemning of the trolling from her fanbase would have done everybody a little bit more benefit, but I did find it in bad taste when people were going to her meet-and-greets just so they could film whether or not she hugged fans.

You do get into some trouble now and then for “hurting someone’s feelings” online, be it another queen or whomever. But your drag persona kinda dictates that you have to be a Heather once in awhile for authenticity, right? Are there lines that you don’t cross when it’s time to take a bitch down?

After a lot of trial and error, I've learned to not go for the lowest hanging fruits, as they tend to be the most personal and internally damaging.

I've fine-tuned the infamy channels, and have kept a lot of my humor more pop culture-centric since it's what I know best. Anything pop-adjacent are gifts that keep on giving.

My motto to troll by hails from Brazil: Se me atacar eu vou atacar [you attack me, I attack you]. It proves handy!.

Have you had a “favorite” feud with another queen, if that’s possible?

It's impossible. They're all great when you're the one getting booked.

As far as today in Pop Divadom, fans are having wild and polarizing reactions to Taylor Swift’s new music and videos, and Katy Perry’s as well (but we all seem to be on Team Kesha). Where do you stand with these ladies… who are you loving and who are you hating?

First and foremost, always Team Kesha.

Ultimately, I ride and die with Katy if it’s between her and Taylor. Although problematic, I have never seen Katy as somebody with malicious intentions. Her music has always been really fun, well-executed pop, and that's what originally made me love her. I find her recent public reception rather upsetting, considering how on top of the world she was, re: Prism World Tour. She was always just somebody who did her thing and was inclusive of everybody; I feel that it's been a consistent trait of hers since I first discovered her, like, 10 years ago.

I also feel like noting that she was publicly campaigning for Clinton in 2016, and what 2017 yielded was an avalanche/barrage of god awful press majorly hailing from the likes of Page Six & TMZ, -- both of which are backed by CEOs who have vocalized support for Trump. This also happened to coincide with her album promo release cycle, and that created some weirdly fulfilled prophecy of failure. It just all seems strange to me.

I DIGRESS...I really fucking love Katy's most recent album, Witness, amongst all the flack she's gotten.

Circling back to Taylor: she's somebody who at this stage of the game has been nothing but self-gratuitous / indulgent. As a woman, more power to her for living her best goddamn life in what has been a male-dominated industry in terms of those who can make or break you. That said, now is not the time to be rehashing old fights with celebs. Now is not the time to show the world that squeaky jar of mayonnaise TayTay has a bad girl streak "for a reason” now. There's so much going on in the world, and I think her message misses the mark this year. 

That goes without saying that I'm not marginalizing sociopolitical situations via the behaviors of pop stars.

In the past you’ve emphasized that you’re not a “strong” performer -- that you’re like a regular girl feeling her fantasy lip synching into a hairbrush. But I’ve seen clips of you giving very high-energy, fun, splits-and-drops-and-all stage performances recently. Have you become a better stage performer over time, in your opinion, or have you maybe discovered more joy in performing?

In the past I feel like I had been allowing people's opinions to manifest my performance style, and it created a sense of complacency where I thought being bad was all I was capable of. Through growing into myself, and taking some choreo lessons from my friend, Nick Laughlin, I was able to really channel my performance style into being more about exactly what a song makes me feel in that moment, rather than a fully rehearsed number where you can tell I'm counting steps on my face.

After enough time, I've learned drag ain't so serious. If I'm having fun, people vibe off of that. That's the atmosphere I try to bring on stage nowadays, something just bursting at the seams with bright colors, crazy faces, and good-ass time.

What’s your favorite number to do these days?

Kesha's "Let 'Em Talk" of Rainbow is definitely a fave hard-hitter of mine!

One New York venue where you performed in a lot over the years, Easternbloc, has just closed and will be revamped as the much-different Club Cumming very soon. You and Ruby Roo hosted a fondly-remembered party there called Hellfire Club, and most recently there was Bible Study (hosted by Cameron Cole, Cedric Antonio and yourself). Are you quite sad to see Easternbloc go, or do you think Club Cumming will offer something special? 

Easternbloc was the first real gay bar I had been in ever, right after moving to NYC 6 (AHH!) years ago. It was also the first bar to take a chance on me with a reoccurring party. It will forever hold a special place in my heart, where I made so many friends and lost so many memories! I welcome the evolution of the bar; I like being Glass Half Full.

Do you know yet if you’re gonna be involved in Club Cumming after it opens?

I've heard nothing in terms of official return on my end, and that is totally a-okay. That doesn't mean I won't happily be a patron and support a local queer space.

You’ve been hosting / performing at several monthly installments of the “Wallbreaker” benefit shows at Macri Park in Brooklyn, which features a new charity cause and lineup of guest performers each month. 

The experience of working Wallbreaker has been nothing short of amazing. It's less about me, and more for what the party is and stands for. I'm happy to see an entire community come together to help support those facing oppression.

What’s in store for the next one?

The next Wallbreaker is on September 14th, and its the ninth installment! Super wild that we're this deep into 2017, period. This month we are raising money for the benefit of Brooklyn Defense Committee, which is an emergency response network for those facing harassment from ICE, whether it pertains to deportation or unannounced home raids.

Aside from Instagram, you’re best known for the wildly successful and essential company you started, DragQueen Merch. This is basically an Amazon for the t-shirts and other promotional items that drag queens sell to fans, where items are printed and directly shipped to order -- eliminating the need for queens to worry about stock and supplies. How long have you been doing this now, and how much of your time does it consume these days? Do you have a large staff?

The business has been running for nearly three years, which is mind-blowing! A lot of my time during the day (aside from my freelance graphic design job) is invested into the site, whether it's strategizing for what's next or setting up pages for queens. Our staff consists of no more than ten people, as far as infrastructure is concerned!

I recently had a queen tell me that she didn’t want to get on your bad side because she wanted to sell her stuff on your site. Are personal relationships / interactions ever a consideration for putting a queen’s stuff on your site, or is it simply that if they agree to whatever the business arrangement is and have the collateral, then it’s all good? Point blank: it's one thing to have an opinion on me. It's another when you have no problem utilizing a non-expense startup system which was founded on wanting to help our industry on a grand scheme outside of TV, and then marginalize me as just some chick who can't actually do drag makeup or dance. I won't allow a negative opinion to dictate who is or isn't on the site, but I always see everything and note who says what. I like to know who's afraid of the “@” symbol.

Okay, let’s talk about this weekend. First of all, Drag Con! What will you be doing at the convention?

Dragcon NYC is gonna be the fuckin' tits. I will be at Booth 557 w/ Rubber Child, Lisa Limbaugh, Trixie Mattel, Amanda Lepore and the House of Avalon! The entire DQM team is going to be on deck as well. Together, we are meeting-and-greeting, along with selling our respective merch ranging from apparel to enamel pins!

Who are you excited to see there?

Honestly? Rubber and Lisa. We only get to see each other during con seasons, or on the off-chance I get to escape to Florida for a weekend. There isn't ever enough time with them.

And you have a stellar lineup in store for a Drag Con afterparty and show you’re hosting at Stonewall on Saturday night: Super Smash Kweenz!  We’ll see you there with Lisa and Rubber, plus Brooklyn’s own Daphne Sumtimez, Hystée Lauder, and Cameron Cole, in addition to famous out-of-town performers like Lucy Stoole and Soju. 

YES. What gags me the most is that we are throwing the coolest party comprised of local talents of NYC and afar (without an emphasis on drag and TV crossover as the main attraction) at a muthafuckin' gay national monument! All of the performers (including Cameron as DJ) are some of the best and most unique that I have had the pleasure of experiencing shows of and working with!

PS - we don't have a cover or tickets because Drag Con is already corporate enough. If you want a damn good drag show in a rad location, Super Smash Kweenz at Stonewall Inn on Saturday the 9th is where you want to be!

What else is going on with / coming up for you?

At this point in time, I am bound and gagged by contracts until announcements are made! Just note: lots of travel for the next few months, and I couldn't be happier or more excited!

You’re always on many lists as a favorite candidate for a season of Drag Race. Is this something you’re actively pursuing?

It is not something I am currently pursuing. It'll always be a childhood dream, and something I enjoy. I'm a believer in timing, and if my life is circular, I'm not going to try and make it fit within the square hole of reality TV.

Oh, you seem like a good person to ask about this, as an internet-famous and pop-savvy entertainer: what do you think about Lactacia, the 8-year old drag queen? Is she fabulous and wonderful? Is she annoying and demeaning to the art of drag, or a true prodigy? Is she being exploited, or are her parents good role models for what the parents of a drag child should be? Should an extremely underage kid be turning numbers and sass in bars on the stage with Bianca del Rio?   

Ohhhhhhhh, I say let the kid live! I love her and what she represents. It doesn't feel exploitative. If anything, it is celebratory, and should be shown as a class act of how to accept your child for who they are -- no matter what they are or how they represent. I think Lactacia is punk as fuck -- and like every good drag queen, is getting into venues underage. She'll be seasoned well before any of us industry-working heifers are.

Okay, last question: What’s the single best piece of advice you can give to anyone, anywhere, who wants to break into drag in 2017?

Do it for you.

Thank you, Bible!

BibleGirl666 appears monthly at Macri Park for the “Wallbreakers” benefit concert on second Thursdays (10pm). Check the Thotyssey calendar for upcoming area appearances, and follow BIble on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and DragQueen Merch.com.

On Point Archives

[lunaswondrousworld]

Salty fandom questions

Thanks to @darknesshadows @darknessp @malikaesthetics for sending in questions. I’m answering all of them together and putting my answers behind a cut because this turned into a bit of an essay. Because SOMEONE ( *cough* @dnteverdoubtme *cough*) said I should just answer them all (seriously, if I wake up tomorrow with no followers left I will blame this entirely on you). Also, well, salt. Quite a bit of salt.

Anyone following me for longer than 4 weeks shouldn’t be surprised by any of these answers (even though I’ve probably never spelled things out so explicitly), however for those of you who are new around here… beware some highly unpopular, possibly PROBLEMATIC™ opinions. Consider this your only warning and proceed at your own risk (or, you now, just don’t ;- ).

(I’ve done my best to ensure that this doesn’t end up anywhere near any tags, if it does anyway it’s not intentional)

All answers apply to Sh@dowhunters.

Disclaimer: when I talk about “The XY fandom”, this is obviously a generalisation. I know it doesn’t apply to everyone. Some of my mutuals are part of the xy fandom, and all of them are lovely people. /end disclaimer

What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get? While I personally don’t ship any of the canon ships, I do get why people ship them. If we’re talking all the ships in this fandom that anyone could possibly ship, I’d have to say ClaIec. Or Alec/any girls really. Make no mistake, I’m not saying this due to moral or ethical concerns – personally I don’t give a flying fuck what people ship, even if its VaIentine x a Vetis demon, whatever floats your boat – but I just really, fundamentally do not get it. I mean that boy is as gay as they come, take that away and you’ve got an entirely different character. Beats me really.

Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP? All the canon ships, current and future ones.

Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion? More than once. I usually live by “don’t like don’t read”, and I scroll past / blacklist a lot. But there’s a handful of things where my stance is 100% A and if yours is B or C, that’s not something I can ignore. In this fandom, it’s mostly when people post / reblog certain nasty anti opinions/posts.

Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP? *looks at the camera like I’m on The Office* (for those of you reading this who seriously DON’T know, just continue to the next answer)

Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you? (this one was sent in by ALL but one person, I would like to point out. So either you truly don’t know or you’re just here for the wank.*g*) Okay you might want to sit down and grab a bite cause this might take a while. You see (and that’s the part that usually surprises people) I actually started out as a pretty hardcore MaIec shipper in this fandom. Yep, me. Shocking, I know. I sort of migrated from the Teen Wolf fandom and everyone I followed back then was gushing about MaIec, I saw the first gifs on Tumblr (the show was already more than halfway through S1 when I started watching) and I thought hey, they’re cute, and actually canon, whee! So I pretty much fast-forward binged to 1x12 - through a pair of heavily MaIec-tinted glasses. My ideal version of the show back then, I’m ashamed to admit, probably would have been 90% MaIec, 9% Izzy and a little bit of Lydia on top (which was pretty much what a large majority of my dash was on about), I was totally ready to ditch everyone else for a short while. But thankfully, it wasn’t long before my brain remembered that I was capable of independent thinking, and I did a re-watch, and noticed that not everything was as picture perfect as it was made out to be, and I also actually noticed (and started falling for) the OTHER characters and possible pairings, most prominently Jace and JaIec (and honestly it will never cease to baffle me how anyone with a functioning pair of eyes will be able to look at S1 and NOT see that potential. Well, except for the MaIec-tinted glasses, probably). For a very short while, still blissfully oblivious to the nastier parts of this fandom, I happily multi-shipped (which was a first for me, I really am a ONE OTP kind of girl) both JaIec and MaIec pretty much equally, MaIec as far as canon was concerned (despite its many flaws - which where blatantly obvious once I cared to LOOK - but chose to ignore for the sake of happy shipping) and JaIec as a “God look at all that potential, in a different reality where xy had gone differently they totally would have been endgame” sort of way. And then that E!Online Shipping poll happened (the 2016 one where MaIec lost to CIexa) and that’s when got a first inkling of the truly ugly, rabid side of this fandom (back then I shipped both MaIec and CIexa so that’s probably what gave me a bit of a neutral observer’s perspective on these poll shenanigans, cause personally I didn’t care which of the two ships won since I loved them both). Around that time I had also started talking to a couple of JaIec shippers - who were lovely (looking at you fam) and refreshingly NORMAL compared to what I’d started to see in that other corner. Anyhow, from then on I was slowly distancing myself from the MaIec fandom as a whole. I still liked the ship in the sense that I enjoyed watching it in canon, even though, in terms of actual OTP, I quickly gravitated more and more towards JaIec (as I said I am a ONE OTP kind of girl so it was bound to happen). Long story short, during the long hiatus between s1 and 2a, (MaIec) fandom got exponentially nastier until, at some point – I’m still not sure when exactly - it just TIPPED (cause it definitely wasn’t like that back when S1 was airing, not to that extent) – and it suddenly started being “okay” to just outright attack and hate on everyone who dared ship either one of the pairing with someone else. With a level of vitriol and nastiness I have seldom seen (and I’ve actively been in fandoms since BtVS first aired, which was in the late ‘90s). Coupled with such a level of impertinent entitlement where everything has to be about or relate to MaIec, else there’s outrage across the entire fandom. And that, my friends, eventually managed to put me off the pairing for good. To the point where, if I’m entirely, brutally honest, I’d actually prefer to not see any Alec scenes at all to having to watch MaIec scenes, because this godawful fandom will find a way to ruin it one way or the other. If only by constantly whining about how it still wasn’t enough or “how dare that other character breathe while my OTP was about to suck face this is an OUTRAGE!!!”

Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated? I can’t think of one, no. I might end up hating something I started out liking (see above), but I don’t think it ever happened the other way around. What sometimes does happen is that maybe there's something I don't actually care about all that much and then fandom will start hating on it and in the end I'll like the thing out of pure spite. But if I actually hate something, that'll stay that way.

Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now? See #5.

Have you received anon hate? What about? Nope, because I don’t have anon on.

Most disliked character(s)? Why? I don’t actually actively dislike any of the current main characters. I did Simon in S1 but I’ve learned to tolerate his existence (that’s as far as I’m willing to go here). If we expand this a bit to “characters I’m least interested in” I’d have to go with Luke and Simon. I’m just not interested in either of their personal arcs unless they are somehow relevant to my faves’. Also I’m not to keen on Maia or any of the other new characters they’re adding (unless they’re somehow relevant to my faves) for the sole reason that they will take up screen time I’d rather spend on characters I’m actually interested in. I did dislike Jocelyn, but, yeah.

Most disliked arc? Why? My knee-jerk reaction would be to say MaIec (bitter? Me? Naah!) but that’s only part of the truth. Actually it’s more “all the romantic arcs for the sake of romance while not contributing anything else to the greater plot or to individual character development”. Cause MaIec as a general development was an important part of Alec’s character arc in S1, and that whole “the girl who you’re falling in love with is actually your sister” an important factor for Jace’s, so I can appreciate them for that. But beyond that, I’m just not interested in any of the romance plots. At best, they bore me to tears (I’m not actually joking when I say that I signed up for a show where pretty people wearing leather jackets and fingerless leather gloves kill demons and are awesome together, not “the warIock and his shadowhunter and their epic romance”. I’m more of a “The Walking Dead” / “Supernatural” girl than “Friends” or “Gilmore Girls”, you know?). At worst, they make characters I actually like do increasingly stupid things to the point where I’m left wondering if they’re actually the same character I originally fell for.

Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? VaIentine & Sebastian. I usually tend to like villains, and while VaIentine really often leans towards “ridiculous comic book villain”, I just love AIan Van Sprang and what he does with the little that the show gives him. And Sebastian (judging from what we know from the books) is just so deliciously fucked-up badwrongevilPROBLEMATIC™ that he’s inspired the keepers of this fandom’s moral purity to write up entire manifests why Thou Shalt Not Like Him Under Any Circumstances Cause He’s Bad Wrong And Evil™ back before it was even certain that he would be in 2B in the first place. So obviously I’m going to stan the shit out of him. Also, WiIl Tudor’s cute and British and I’m really looking forward to him and Dom having scenes together. :-)

Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? As for what has already happened, I didn’t actually mind Izzy’s Yin Fen plot. I wouldn’t say it was my favourite, but I certainly didn’t hate it as much as the rest of the fandom. I don’t have a particularly sophisticated reason for it though. As for what’s most likely / possibly to come, I hope the show will follow the book plot for Sebastian as closely as possible. (I don’t want to say too much for people who don’t know anything about it and don’t want to be spoiled.) Why? Because I like darkbadwrongnasty shit. Give me “darkbadrwongnasty shit where awful things and horrible people happen to good people” over romance any time. (Also, it would most likely piss large parts of this fandom off, that would be an added bonus.)

Unpopular opinion about XXX character? He’s not as flawless as you all like to believe. That’s okay though, flaws are what make characters interesting.

Unpopular opinion about your fandom? It’s the worst fandom ever? IDK is than an unpopular opinion? Probably, since around 80% ARE the worst people, and they would disagree with me so...

Unpopular opinion about the show? The writing really is rather subpar compared to some of the other shows I watch.

If you could change anything in the show, what would you change? Age it up (have the characters be some of the actor’s actual ages, i.e. around their late twenties), move it to a network like HBO or Starz, and make it push the limits of an R-Rating. Also, put the main focus on the Sh@dowhunters, Sh@dowhunters politics, just all things Sh@dowhunters. Centered around the Lightwoods (including Jace). (And did you notice how none of what I would change would actually include “make JaIec canon”? Cause contrary to what large parts of this fandom seem to think, this is not all I / we think about. Wow what a shocker.)

Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen… Well take a look at my shipping and plot preferences and then you can probably guess my answer.

Does not shipping something ‘popular’ mean you’re in denial and/or biased? I don’t know, does it? If you ask the majority of this fandom, it really means I’m all sorts of –ist and just generally a horrible person. Or something. Do I get bonus points when I act like I care?

What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom? Pretending to do everything for a higher, nobler purpose (shipping for representation and the likes), refusing to accept that not everyone else will or has to adhere to your own standards of what’s right or wrong or PROBLEMATIC(TM), and taking everything that happens on the show too damn seriously. Refusing to grasp that this is primarily a fantasy tv show with a main purpose to entertain its audience, and to earn the network money, not to make the world a better place.

What is the purest ship in the fandom? CIizzy and CIimon, probably. But honestly, nothing in this fandom is even remotely pure.

What are your thoughts on crack ships? Whatever makes you happy, I don’t judge.

Popular character you hate? Nope.

Unpopular character you love? see #11

Would you recommend XXX to a friend? Why or why not? As a piece of trashy popcorn entertainment to pass the time, yes. To someone who actually asks for a rec for quality television, no. Cause it just isn’t quality television. (And yes I know it’s a fantasy show geared towards teenagers, but so was BtVS, and that one still managed consistent writing and character development, over 7 seasons. But anyways.)

How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX? With the Lightwoods / Alec running the NY institute. The very last scene would end like the very first one began: Jace, Alec and Izzy together, just the three of them.

Most shippable character? For me personally? Jace. Generally (though I personally don’t actively ship them with anyone except low-key with each other), I think Izzy and Clary are pretty shippable as well. Simon too.

Least shippable character? Luke? But just because he doesn’t really interest me so I personally wouldn’t know who to ship him with. Except VaIentine (past times, and probably present time also), but I’m sure that’s all sorts of badwrongproblematic. Ah well.

[tlbodine]

20 Character Design Questions

A blend of RP & writing/story characters, as requested (and as applicable). 

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🕸 1. Who’s the oldest character of yours that you still use?

Davin & Co. from the House of Lazarus books are like 13 years old now, which is mind-boggling. A lot of things about them have changed (like making them zombies), but at their core the Davin/Randy/Zoe dynamic hasn’t changed much at all since the first time I ever tried to write a story about them. 

But here’s a fun fact: Davin actually pre-dates that by a couple of years. He was ORIGINALLY designed for a very short-lived RP circa ~2000-ish. When I got a novel idea in college, I snagged the first available semi-fleshed-out-character I had in order to test it, and he just kind of stuck around and grew from there. 

⭐️ 2. Who’s the oldest character of yours, defunct or not?

Does my imaginary friend from childhood count? Because I wrote a (terrible) book about her when I was 9, so I feel like that should count ;) Her name was Tinky and she was a ‘tigercat’ and family members can confirm that I was talking about her (and blaming things on her) by the age of 2. 

💡 3. Has creating a character ever made you realize something about yourself?

Not exactly. It’s more like, sometimes a character will help me understand something that I never thought I would sympathize with - like where certain types of people are coming from, why they do certain things. Character creation has become in some ways an act of empathy. 

🦋 4. Any minor characters that have either taken over or branched off into their own stories?

Frequently. Most memorably, Jetak (from Nezumi’s Children) demands a sequel. There’s a tie-in planned for his story, although it may be a bit delayed because the market for more Nezumi books just isn’t that huge (although the handful of fans I have are rabid, and I love them <3) but it’s definitely going to happen. 

🐲 5. Do you prefer to make human, animal, monster, or _____ characters? Why?

My RP roots are all animal characters (sparkle dogs ftw!) and they come to me pretty naturally. That was another thing that was fun about Nezumi’s Children, it was such a lovely guilty pleasure writing these rat characters - such a callback to my younger years. 

But for purposes of my serious writing, I pretty much have to stick to humans, or at least humanoid variations. 

🎨 6. When creating a character, do you come up with the visual concept or the written concept first?

A little of both, to be honest. Usually I’ll have a vague idea of a concept in mind, and will play around with a dollmaker or look at stock photos or something similar until the idea “clicks” in my head. Until I put some kind of visual to them, they’re not quite real. 

📌 7. Do you have characters that you know you’ll never use, but can’t bear to get rid of/recycle?

Whole stacks of them ;) Mostly they just roam around in the back of my mind, and sometimes I’ll think “Oh man, what if so-and-so did this?” and daydream about it for a bit before getting on with my day. A lot of books-I-probably-will-never-write percolate back there, too, so every so often I’ll get flashes of an idea and it just sort of makes me smile before I go back to doing whatever I need to do with my day. 

💖 8. Is there a character that embodies your good traits, or traits you wish you had?

I like to think that Ulryk, my wolf-guardian, is all the best parts of myself: loyal, patient, self-assured, calm, logical, doesn’t take himself too seriously. He’s an old, old character too. I think I’ve had him around since I was 11, and maybe one day I’ll actually have a story I can properly use him in. 

💔9. Is there a character that embodies your bad traits? Several characters? Which ones and what traits?

I have a tendency to create a certain type of villain - a string-pulling mastermind who works in the shadows and gently manipulates stronger people into doing his bidding. It’s probably my favorite villain trope, and I have several characters who fit the bill. And it is absolutely a personification of many of my, uh, less than savory INTJ mastermind traits. 

♨️ 10. Is there a character that explores your interests or fetishes (orrrr is that just all of you characters)?

In an RP setting, once I’m comfortable with the world and have made the “obvious” characters for the community, I will invariably start making characters because I want to explore something about a particular type of person or situation. I find something to be interesting, and I want to play with it and tease out its themes and explore it. 

✒️ 11. If you have characters that embody certain traits of yours—good or bad—has writing them changed how you view those traits? Has it affected you in any way?

I think I’ve grown more accepting of many parts of myself, by falling in love with characters who reflect some of those things. I think I’ve always felt a little bit of pressure to be a certain way, to do certain things, and having characters who go against that - but who are still lovable, still interesting - has helped make me more comfortable in my skin. That’s kind of a weirdly “feel good” answer from someone who writes seriously dark shit a lot of the time, but it’s the truth. 

💭 12.  Do you fantasize about being any of your characters, or are you more detached?

Nah. I wouldn’t want to be any of these people, especially if some asshole like me were pulling the strings. Bad things happen to my characters. And most of them are pretty broken or dysfunctional or damaged. Which is true, I guess, of most people too. 

🎵 13. Do you create playlists for your characters?

I make playlists for writing projects - specific books/stories will have playlists that represent whole plotlines and aesthetics. Individual characters usually only get one real theme song, sometimes a couple. 

The House of Lazarus playlist can be found here. Davin’s theme song has always been “Walking In My Shoes” by Depeche Mode. 

🎇 14. When writing for specific characters, is there anything you have to do to get into the right mindset?

Not usually. If they’re characters I’m familiar with, I can generally slip into them pretty easily. If I’m writing, I usually have the appropriate playlist up, which helps bring me back to the story. If I haven’t touched a project in a while, reading over old work will help get me back into it. 

Certain characters I have to avoid playing at certain times, though, because they’re emotionally difficult to deal with. Curiously, it’s never that my darker characters bring me into dark places; it’s always that, if I’m in a bad headspace, I just can’t play some of my more happy-go-lucky characters properly. 

🌻 15. Which character is your guilty pleasure?

I don’t think I necessarily feel ‘guilty’ about any of my characters (the entire notion of “guilty pleasure” is kind of weird, imo) but I have a few characters I probably enjoy playing more than I should. Lately my changeling Sluagh Charlotte has been that for me. She is just such a mess, and so psychologically screwed up, in such utterly fascinating and terrible ways. 

🌩 16. Is there a character of yours who’s a real struggle to write/draw? Why do you think that is?

I actually have two RP characters who I have an incredibly hard time writing, which is funny because 1.) they’re favorites of the friends I play them with and 2.) they’re really not particularly complex or psychologically difficult characters. 

One of them is Bee, who is part of a sibling group I play with @leapinghart. Bee is self-confident, utterly lacking in self-awareness, and optimistic to the point of self-delusion. She’s also not that bright. 

The other is Jadin, who I play with @comicreliefmorlock in her World of Darkness-inspired city, Brandenburg. He’s kind of the universe’s butt-monkey, the kind of guy who just keeps landing in shit, and he suffers from a lot of foot-in-mouth disease from saying exactly the wrong thing. 

In both cases, I always struggle with keeping the characters true to themselves without letting them stray too far into joke territory. 

🔑 17. Which character is the easiest to draw/write?

Any of my ‘evil mastermind’ guys, but only if I’m in a position where I actually get to pull strings - a piece of my own fiction, or a pre-plotted RP. They’re incredibly stressful to play in an open-world RP type scenario because you can never count on other players to acknowledge your character’s intelligence, insight, or charisma. 

For an individual character, my girl Lungaia - in any of her myriad forms - is super easy to slip into. We have a lot in common, and I’ve been playing her (a LOT, she’s a “favorite toy”) for like 15 years, so in a lot of ways she’s really kind of my murderous, psychic, tight-lipped alter-ego. It also helps that she has a very easy design, so she’s easy to doodle and commission artwork of as well. 

💎 18. Is there anything you really wish you could do, character-design-wise, that you feel is outside your current skillset? A concept that you wish you could pull off but are uncertain about?

As stupid as it sounds, I’m really jealous of people who can pull off the happy-go-lucky characters. That’s never been my wheel-house. 

🏆 19. What’s more important to you: visual design, unique personality, a trendy character aesthetic, etc? If you’re not sure, then what’s the first thing you usually nail down in a character?

Story arc. Whether I’m RPing or writing a book, if I create a character what I am MOST interested about is understanding who these people are, and where they might end up, and how they could get from A to B. I’m interested in characters who embody natural conflict, whose design is itself conflicted, because of the story potential. 

For example, Lungaia: She’s female, but a physically powerful warrior. She’s literally compelled to violence by the demon that lives inside of her, but also has a tendency to take in strays - she’s surrounded by weak, broken, damaged people whom she cares about deeply. She can read minds but still always says the wrong thing. She’s a mess. and that makes her interesting and full of story potential. 

🎬 20. Do you ever plan to do anything (comic, animation, etc) with your characters? Or are you just happy to have them?

All of my characters pretty much exist either as part of a story idea that will get written (one of these days), or as a creation for a specific RP scenario. Sometimes the forgotten, abandoned RP characters luck out and get dusted off to shine in the novels (*coughs and points at Davin*). 

[maggiemay67]

The person who dared to talk about the elephant in the room-An open letter to Moffat-

“It is infuriating, frankly, to be talking about a serious subject and to have Twitter run around and say, oh, that means Sherlock is gay. Very explicitly it does not. We are taking a serious subject and trivializing it beyond endurance,” Moffat said.

Mr Moffat, I wanted to write directly to you, in order to discuss your above statement, as well as addressing a few other things that have been troubling me recently. I sincerely hope that this finds it’s way to you somehow.With that said then I shall begin.

In regards to your statement above:

It is you ( not the fans) who has taken a serious subject and trivialised it beyond endurance.

What do you really know about the Johnlock/TJLC element of your fan base?A selection of drawings or fan fictions of compromising positions and plotless porn, picked specifically to raise some eyebrows and generate a few smirks on a show like Graham Norton, maybe?Look closer at us please.For the majority of us it is not simply gay sex that fans lust after at any cost to plot line or character development.It is rather the confirmation that (sexual or not) John and Sherlock are in love and are in fact in a deep, meaningful and exclusive relationship with one another.A relationship that is stated, not simply implied, and that transcends friendship to the point of it being the most enduring and important of their respective lives.People can be in love and be absolute soulmates without ever consummating it in a physical sense.The TJLC community is fully aware of that fact and respects it as a lifestyle choice, as equally as they respect any other representation of sexuality.If you think that this passion from the fans for these two characters, simply boils down to a bunch of rabid and hormonal young teenage girls wanting a cheap thrill by seeing Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch shag on a BBC screen,then you really don’t know the fans,the TJLC or the LGBT community tied to this show at all.You really don’t understand a thing about this and why it matters to so many people.Trivialising a serious subject?How can a group of people be trivialising a serious subject, when the entirety of them are either supporters of or LGBT themselves?How are these people therefore trivialising it?Trivialise the subject?How so?By backing your versions of these characters and placing their trust in you because they believed the story you were actually telling ( using credible and talented A list celebrities) could be ground breaking, monumental and would actually give them the representation that they desperately deserve on the scale that they desperately deserve?

Trivialising?

No Moffat, trivialising would be to knowingly involve yourself in queer baiting for seven years in order to exploit an element of the audience that follow your show.The actions of someone dramatically letting down an element of society who are relying on them.

I’m sure you are already clued up on the expression that defines what you are doing but I’ll remind you of the specific definition just in case…

“In a fannish context, queer baiting (or queerbaiting) is a term used to describe the perceived attempt by canon creators (typically of television shows) to woo queer fans and/or slash fans, but with no intention of actually showing a gay relationship being consummated on screen.”

I’m not going into all the examples of your queer baiting in Sherlock. Quite frankly, there are too many embarrassingly BLATANT instances purposefully loaded throughout every one of your episodes.I’m therefore going to ask the TJLC/Johnlock fans that you seem to view with contempt for ‘trivialising homosexuality’, to think of their most obvious example/s and then ask themselves this key question?

Knowing what you know (of the show as it stands), who has really succeeded in trivialising sexuality beyond endurance in this instance?Yourselves or the creator of this show?The one I am currently addressing..

My brother is about as big a fan, and as knowledgable,of the original canon as yourself. he has told me that he is actually slightly uncomfortable with the way you are, ‘including completely unnecessary gay subtext/references in every episode’.He suggests that their wasn’t a need to allude to that in his fav version (Jeremy Brett) in order to make it successful, so why the need now?

Seeds have to be planted in people’s minds for them to grow.Even those non TJLC viewers like my brother are able to see it.

So please feel free to answer the perfectly reasonable question from a non TJLC member.Why exactly have you felt the need to include so many queer references?

Do you need some reminding of these references?Very well…

You began your first episode with a dinner conversation between the two main male leads regarding boyfriends and girlfriends all being fine.You made it sound like John was coming onto Sherlock and Sherlock was rejecting him.You made the land lady believe that they were gay ( time and time again you had her mention it).If you had stopped there and never said another damn word about it after that first episode,or even season, then I ( and others like me) would have likely forgiven you and accepted the mild queerbaiting at the beginning of your show. Accepted it as a way to simply address the notion that some people believed the relationship to be more than what ACD actually imagined it to be.

HOWEVER

You continued it…..you continued it through most ( if not every) episode you’ve ever written.You continued to make the gay jokes/the relationship jokes.You continued to plant the seeds and water them for seven years and now,when the garden is blooming in all the colours of the rainbow, you are complaining about the suffocating landscape!

If what you have said in your interviews turns out to be the truth (platonic bromance and not romantic relationship) then how dare you attack and mock those poor fans (whose only crime in all of this was to actually be tricked into believing your blatant lies through the narrative you presented to them).

You might still be wondering what could possibly have been the catalyst for such a rant from myself.Well read on because there’s an East wind coming….

I just watched a video of the Q and A section at the screening and you completely let yourself down Mr Moffat.So rude and abrupt to a person who clearly has their heart invested in your show. I am Embarrassed and mortified to call you a fellow Scot because that kind of attitude is why people wrongly assume we are miserable c**** at times!

The thing that really made my blood boil ( apart from your condescending tone and borderline sexist remark to that person )was the fact that you actually had the audacity to jump down their throat for daring to mention something which your OWN show members/staff have been tweeting and teasing for months.That damn elephant in the room ehhhh! Always causing problems….however self inflicted it is..

In that screening, I watched you completely cut that person to the bone as you callously talked over and demeaned them. You said something really patronising and sarcastic about Sherlock and John going away to do the dishes now ( because they asked about their relationship).Something about them solving crimes cause that’s what the books say they do ( like the person isn’t fully aware of ACD and his far superior narrative ).

You felt it was a good idea to Mock someone for their ‘lack of knowledge’ of the original canon, whilst you yourself are arsing up your own fan fiction version of the canon by choosing to M Night shamalan it to bits at the final curtain call. It’s now at the point where it’s got that many gaping plot holes,that it resembles Sherlock’s sitting room wall during a particularly complex case! It’s not even remotely clever any more! Has anyone had the balls to actually tell you that to your face?Through all the gushing and fawning has anyone provided a reality check this season?I mean the simplicity and brilliance of series ½ compared to series ¾.Moriarty just being wonderfully Moriarty in those seasons, to what we must endure now…Scooby Doo villain reveals …to name but one… If you are so virtuous and true to your beloved ACD and his books, then why did you have an entire season of Mary and even introduce a baby?Do you honestly think that ACD would ever have enjoyed or wanted the Watson and Sherlock sitcom that we got landed with for a time?Coupled with the ridiculous Mary/Assassin backstory. Don’t even get me started on the secret sister/ evil genius plot.

Jumping the shark much Moffat?

This ain’t lesbian aliens and their assistants from Doctor Who that we are dealing with after all.It’s ACD and we can’t offend him by changing or defining the relationship of his two male protagonists, can we?

You have the cheek to mock that person at the screening for asking about a Johnlock relationship ( specifically where it goes from here) when you yourself cultivated and encouraged fans like them to latch onto and care about that very thing. Perhaps you did do that in the beginning to hook a certain type of audience in order to generate a cult popularity.However the show got massive very quickly and you still continued it. So I ask the question again.Why did you continue to do it? You seem to despise and deny it’s very existence at every opportunity, so why continue it?One mention (by an eager Johnlock fan) about the Johnlock relationship (fuelled by your loaded subtext) made you completely lose your cool in front of an entire room of people on Thursday. A member of an online community who ( on the most part) have done nothing but shower you with admiration,warmth and kindness in the last seven years.You let that person down on Thursday.You let us all down in that instant.They probably went home with red rimmed eyes, a trembling lip, the memory of a partially mocking audience, laughing at them, pitying them,and what’s worse, the memory of someone that they trusted and held in high regard,treating them with contempt, to the point that they probably now feel that they are somehow wrong for thinking the way they do about TJLC.The person who dared to question the elephant in the room was not wrong to do so….and Moffat you stood there and spoke to them like that whilst being fully aware of that fact.That is what is truly disgusting about your actions on Thursday night and why I simply couldn’t stand back this time and let this go without saying something.You are fully aware that all the person was guilty of is picking up on your queer baiting and questioning you about it. You are perhaps embarrassed that they asked you that elephant question because you know you’ve led people right up the garden path.Are you ashamed about that,so your first response (rather than simply own up to it) is to lash out to prevent anyone from calling you out on it?

Trivialising?

You bet your ass you have Moffit…..

Now be prepared because there’s an East wind coming and you’re going to have to face up to it very soon.Maybe you could start that process by apologising to the person who dared to talk about the elephant in the room.

Remember….elephants never forget and we certainly won’t be forgetting this anytime soon…