#this is our show where we refer to the two main characters as a gay couple and actually bring that up multiple times

[pinkeoni]

Stranger Things subverts expectations in that when a character is referred to as gay in the first episode it actually means that that character is gay

[earthstellar]

Brave Bang Bravern!: A Review for Transformers Fans

I've seen so much about this on my dash that I had to give it a try, and I gotta say, as someone who hasn't watched any new anime series since around 2008 at the most recent and I also hate the fucking military, this is a pretty good show.

THERE WILL BE SOME MILD SPOILERS. Nothing major. I'm not gonna spoil anything critical or mention characters that are introduced later etc. At of time of writing, only 6 episodes have been released.

Understanding Genre: The Trailer is A Lie

Now, while there is a trailer here, I want you to largely disregard it.

Why is that? Well, we need to talk about the "big two" robot show genres in Japan, which are as follows:

Real Robot -- This refers to a typically military setting or other serious setting, in which robots are handled as realistically as possible in terms of how they work and how they are applied. There tend to be less individual/sentient robots and more "suit" type mechs right along side human-made, more realistic machinery and mech designs, although that isn't entirely unique to this genre. Usually this stuff is labelled as sci-fi/action outside of Japan.

Super Robot (THIS IS THE SHIT TRANSFORMERS FANS GENERALLY WANT) --Essentially borderline seemingly magical robots with their own rules and in universe backstory for how they work, which isn't necessarily tied to realism. Usually this stuff is labelled as sci-fi/fantasy or space fantasy outside of Japan, since a lot of these tend to be space robots. They can be "driven" by pilots or just straight up sentient robots who are vibing with some human companions, although it's not exclusively that. It can be both, it can be neither, but no matter what, Super Robot shows are less about strict realism and more about really cool shit with robots that are basically their own people and exist according to their own rules.

Now, the trailer for BBBB (the acronym for the show is based on the Japanese title, which is Bang Brave Bang Bravern) is a COMPLETE FUCKING LIE.

It wants you to think this is going to be some dumbass GI Joe shit.

While there are elements of dumbass GI Joe shit, this is largely just to set up the premise for why shit is happening in the first place, and to help introduce the main threat (alien space creatures with fucking light beam lasers) as well as bring in our main characters under the premise of everyone having to work together to address this alien threat to Earth.

What we care about here amongst Transformers freaks is gay space robots, and this show delivers.

Getting Into Bravern: First Episode, Mild Plot Spoiler Summary

It wants you to think this is a Real Robot show.

The first episode sets things up as though it will be a Real Robot show.

There is a threat to Earth, a mystery space alien mechanical enemy, and nobody knows what the fuck to do. A military exercise between multiple nations using Titanostriders (which look very much like Shiro Masamune Appleseed-style mechs, human made in nature) to practice battle drills who are now instructed to swap over to real ammunition and go to fucking town.

Nobody knows how to do that.

They're skilled with the Titanostriders, sure, but it turns into a shit show. The alien mechanical enemies are using fucking space laser shit, it's a disaster---

--And then Bravern drops in from the fucking sky and it IMMEDIATELY TURNS INTO A SUPER ROBOT SHOW.

There's a "get in the robot, Shiji" moment where one of the Titanostrider operators, Isami Ao, is encouraged by Bravern to get inside of him.

He does. And immediately has no idea what the fuck is going on, Bravern is largely in control, and starts to blast his own theme song inside his cockpit as diegetic music while Isami is generally losing his shit, as one might do.

Humanity's reaction to Bravern is Real Robot genre type, where it is handled seriously by all the characters and organisations involved in universe, however Bravern is very much a Super Robot genre character who brings more of a Super Robot energy to the show at large.

The serious elements are mostly balanced by how fucking silly Bravern is, and there are some excellent moments in this show (currently only 6 episodes have been released) which make it entirely worth a watch.

Fun Things About Bravern Himself

Braven is very, very, very gay for his pilot.

Chances are, you've seen the screenshots of some of these moments on Tumblr already, but the delivery of these lines is magnificent.

Bravern sings his own theme song. It's the voice actor for Bravern doing the vocals, and the song itself is reminiscent of 1970s orchestrated big band energy mecha themes. For Transformers fans, it has a very Transformers Victory theme kind of vibe to it.

You gotta hear it, it fucking rules. The album cover shows Bravern holding a giant microphone.

Bravern is generally light hearted, doing his best to motivate his pilot while not hesitating to enter the action and try to defend humanity.

Now, why does Bravern care about humans so much? We don't know, but we'll talk about some mysteries in a later section below.

He is surprisingly insightful at times, while also fucking around and enjoying himself. (You may have seen screenshots going around Tumblr of Bravern with a loop of hot dogs strung around one of his chevron points on his forehead. This follows a scene in which he wants his pilot to take a break and associate with his peers for once, as a way to relieve stress. So they go to a bar, it turns out reception is positive and someone even brings weenies out for Bravern since he's too big to fit inside, lol.)

Generally, he's a very interesting mech, because we have so little information about him. He's fun, and clearly vibing, but he's also borderline if not outright obsessed with his pilot and has unknown origins, which has lead to some darker interpretations and audience discussion.

A lot of people have compared Bravern's energy to Rodimus, and generally I would agree with that. He has his high-energy silly moments, and his more serious personal moments (primarily with Isami, but also with Smith), and I think these aspects of his character work well to create a fun mech with the potential to be deep in a believable and effective way, with an equal capacity for being a doofus.

Bravern is obviously the number one reason to watch the show for most people, and I would say that if you're purely here for a giant gay space robot, then this is going to be a decent watch.

The Military Sucks: There Are Militaries Involved Yet Somehow This Is Still Watchable

I hate the fucking military, so at least the military here is depicted in an acceptable way (so far, at least). In episode 2, they waterboard Isami to interrogate him for information he doesn't have regarding Bravern, which is a realistically shitty and awful thing for the military to do-- They don't sugarcoat how fucked up the military is. These people very much have the capacity to harm their own staff, and they will do so if it means they might get an edge over the enemy.

At the same time, the actual characters in the military are depicted as primarily doing this shit out of a genuine personal desire to defeat these horrendously destructive space entities, which have attacked at least some of their home towns and home countries, so it's more personal rather than purely being a military directive that people are being forced to follow.

In this way, it's not really realistic, but everyone is on board for their own largely humanitarian aid type of reasons (there is a mission which is basically just locating survivors of an attack and then getting the fuck out) which makes the military context feel less oppressive and shitty.

Part of why this is more OK than other military depictions is because the military forces involved here are international (collaborating to defeat a global threat rather than kill each other's civilians) and because the military is clearly losing this war.

Because it's an international effort, this brings more diversity to the show-- There's a surprising amount of English interspersed between dialogue in Japanese here and there, and the military board consists of representatives from multiple nations, including some Germans who at first believe Bravern is some kind of secret American operation, lmao.

Bravern calls the military out on its shit, and essentially tells the military board to stop with the suspicious infighting bullshit and drop the internal tension because otherwise they'll all die to this mechanical nightmare creature threat.

They actually listen, which means this is an unrealistic portrayal of the military, lmao. I think they struck a good balance so far between showing that the military sucks and has problems, while also making sure that you're not really cheering for any given military force, but rather, you cheer for individual characters who just happen to be stuck doing this military shit as a premise for anything to be going on in the show at all.

So it's not the worst when it comes to the military shit; At least so far, it's watchable, which as someone who passionately hates the fucking military, is surprising to me.

It's less GI Joe and more "we just needed a reason for these characters to be involved in this situation".

Of course, your mileage may vary, but personally I found it easy to tune out or just skip through any military shit that got grating and I didn't miss anything important by doing so. At the very least, you can skip around and ignore a lot of this stuff and get right to the gay robot if that's all you want to do. It becomes clear pretty quickly what's going on if you skip around a bit, so no worries there.

Fun Speculation: What is Bravern?

Only 6 episodes are out at the moment, so there's tons of shit we don't know yet.

Bravern has a notable resemblance to a type of enemy in the show, called a Death-Drive.

Death-Drives are mecha who are distinct from the "minion" type enemies (which almost resemble flying saucers with laser gun arms and light shields), and have their own unique character designs and names.

Why these things are here, how they are here, why they are interested in Earth, and everything else is currently unknown.

Bravern looks like he could possibly be of the same mechanical species, although we don't know if that's true (yet). He has abilities that the other mecha don't seem to have, but how far this goes and what it might mean is not yet clear.

Bravern also seems to have knowledge of human media (he references The Abyss at one point and he likes 3D printing figures of sentai show characters lmao), and was immediately able to speak to the humans using language they would understand, so it's unclear if Bravern may have been studying Earth for some time before his arrival or why.

He is obsessed with his pilot and cares for him so much that he extends some care towards others purely based on their relation to Isami as co-workers; Why? What makes Isami special?

How does Bravern know seemingly every human language? How does his piloting system work? How similar is he to the Death-Drives-- Are organic beings critical to them in some way? If so, why are the other mechs killing so many of us? (These are big questions especially by the end of episode 6, due to some spoilers and a spoiler character who shows up later.)

We know little to nothing about a lot of the key elements of the show, including any motivations for the Death-Drives or what they are, what's up with the fucking UFO looking laser things, etc.

There's more to speculate on, but that would be getting into deeper spoiler territory so I'm gonna hold back on that for now.

Summary: It's Gay and Cool and Has Interesting Ideas

Bravern's not the sole source of gay vibes in this show, but it's fun that he is also a source of gay vibes in this show.

The designs are great, the Titanostriders remind me of Appleseed style mechanical suit designs which is nice, the Death-Drives are super interesting, Bravern is fucking fabulous but he's not too goofy to take seriously, and the military is unfortunately present but it's clear that they suck and are generally losing (and since the conflict is not between different groups of humans but rather is about human collaboration to defeat a non-human shared threat to our entire planet, this goes a long way to make the military shit tolerable).

It pretends to be a Real Robot show but has so much Super Robot show sprinkled in that you might as well consider it a little bit of both which the show balances pretty well.

I haven't watched an anime since around 2008 at the very latest, so I don't know how this might compare to any other robot animes since then and I am certainly not an anime expert by any means LOL, but this has been a fun show to watch so far.

It does have its problems, of course, but if you can get past the setup for the first episode (when it's still pretending to be a Real Robot show), from the moment Bravern arrives towards the end of that first episode, the show gains momentum and starts to get interesting very quickly.

It has some issues. But we're only 6 episodes in, so at the moment, they have plenty of time to potentially address those issues and we'll see where things go.

I'd recommend it if you want to give it a try!

I think there's enough here to appeal to the usual Transformers crowd and you might end up liking it, or at least having fun while watching it in the background.

If you end up wanting to to tap out then no worries-- I think it's worth giving it a shot and if it's not your thing, no problem.

Each episode is around 25 - 30 minutes, so while the first episode might feel like a slog to get through because fuck the military, once Bravern shows up the show actually gets started and I wouldn't blame anyone for just skipping to that point in the first episode and going from there, because there's nothing in that opening that you won't be reminded of or be able to figure out. It mostly just sets up the intro to the human characters and the collaboration training session, introduces the Titanostriders as a thing, and you can always go back and watch that part later if you want to.

All in all, pretty decent! Obviously we're Transformers people so we're here for the robots, and the robots are interesting and fun, and that's all I need to have a good time.

Hopefully this was a useful summary if you're interested or have seen Bravern stuff on your dash! :)

Thanks for reading!

BONUS: I forgot to mention this somehow, but there's a lot of overlap between Transformers and other Brave shows involving actual Transformers re-used in Japan for these shows; There's a good video about it here on YouTube which explains some of this, but if anyone's wondering, yes Bravern has a grounder alt-mode and it's pretty cool. Will we get a transforming Bravern figure??? We can hope!

There's another video here which mentions some of the Transformers elements in other Brave shows/Yuusha, which might be interesting for those of you who are unaware. :)

[starrclown]

☆Helluva Boss's human world I fear will cause problems in Hazbin☆

Matey's I feel like there is a issue we don't talk about. Helluva Boss's human world. Obviously the human world is supposed to resemble our world, it's Earth after all. This is the issue. What's the one thing about the people that could cause problems? The humans are insanely stupid.

(I wanna point out Random Game Critics video on Helluva Boss Season 2 episode 5. Bomb YouTube channel by the way, check him out he's funny. He points out that he believes that Helluva Boss's humans are so dumb to mimic Invader Zim. Incase you didn't know Moxxie's voice actor is Richard Horvitz, the voice actor who played Zim. Invader Zim is also Vivziepop's favorite cartoon. This is a theory I can absolutely believe.)

The humans on Earth are insanely stupid. The humans don't relize that demons are among them even though I.M.P does not disguise themselves. Martha was able to recognize I.M.P, the other humans cannot. The two inventors are also insanely goofy and cartoon like. The humans are insanely goofy and stupid. That's where I fear the problems could come in.

5 out of the 6 main casts in Hazbin Hotel were people. Alastor died in 1933, Angel Dust died in 1947, Nifty died in the 50's, Husk died in the 70's, and Vaggie died in 2014. I fear how goofy the human world is could affect the lives of the characters. And you could argue, "Oh, the humans are in OUR time period! 2020 to the modern day! We are pretty silly so it could be making fun of that!" Which yes, that could be it. Which is still a problem considering Vaggie died in 2014 and all the other sinners that died in the 2000's. While Helluva Boss could be making fun of modern day it's still a issue considering more modern day sinners. Also, some of the goofy humans are pretty old. Here, Lyle and Loopy. While we don't know how old they were when they accidentally aged themselves up but they looked to be in early to late 30's to 40's. That would mean they were born in 80's to 90's. That's pretty close to some of the sinners we know in the show died. (Velvette, Valentino, Husk.)

Another issue I have is the concept of what humans can do. If sinners are supposed to be mysterious that could possibly make deals with humans then the humans should be more realistic right? While we dont know if demons can communicate with humans but there always is a possibility. Mind you, Lyle and Loopy made a machine that could reverse your age. That's not realistic at all. And yes I know I know, it's a cartoon, and Helluva Boss and Hazbin won't reference each other but it's still a issue. The reason I have such a issue with this is because you have to remeber some of these characters lived through horrific events.

(Also let me get on record that I don't think that Vivziepop will make fun of horrific events. I'm stating this because if the humans are this goofy, I'm scared of how she'll treat the TIME PERIOD of the horrific event. Get it? Like seriously, Alastor, depending on how dark his skin was, would still go through segragation and racism considering his time period. Angel Dust could also be a person of color, so could Husk. Nifty and Vaggie were confirmed poc, Japanese and Salvadoran respectively. Like Angel and Husk, both are queer in different ways. Both would be HEAVILY discriminated against. Also, Angel's mafia background. Incase you guys don't know, homosexuality in the Italian mob is HEAVILY discriminated against and looked down apon. Recently Italian mobsters are allowed to be gay but they can still get beat up and killed for "flaunting" it. If Angel's family is as mean as Vivzie has described them then there is no way Angel would be able to be feminine in anyway, or show any "gay traits." Seriously this was the 1940's. Thats whne the bible had the bible changed to 'man shall not lay with boy' to 'man shall not lay with man' I hope Vivzie remembers the time period these characters came from because their backgrounds could affect the way they are and how OTHER people treated them.

Like here, Alastor, Angel, Nifty (depending on when she was born.), Husk, and Vox, lived through The Great Depression, 1929- 1939. Hell, Angel, Nifty, Vox, and . lived through World War 2. (There's also a theory that Angel could have been in the war. Same thing with Husk and Vietnam. If they choose to go down that route I hope they treat it with respect. It would also need EXTRA care considering if Angel was in the war he's ya know gay and World War 2 discriminated agaisnt ALOT of people. Jews, gays, trans, poc, disabled people.)

Seriously there is just alot of fucked up stuff that went on during these characters lives and I hope that the human world in Hazbin Hotel is more serious than Helluva Boss.

(Vivzie stans please don't attack me, I just wanted to state my worries. Also! Guess what's next? MY IMAGE of what Hazbin Hotel characters could have looked like as humans. I wanna just teach people alittle but about the time periods these characters feom and a few small headcannons. Look out for that!! Bye Matey's!!)

- ⭐️StarClown⭐️

[thefallenangelsgang]

BALDUR'S GATE 3 x MAMMA MIA! AU

CHARACTERS

[YOU HAVE PERMISSION TO USE MY IDEA FOR ANYTHING YOU WANT, I ONLY ASK YOU CREDIT ME]

(break to save your dash)

Now, not every character is going to fit cleanly into character slots (there are too many characters to fill the main cast) so some of our Baldur's Gate loves will be sharing character traits and plot devices amongst each other.

Let’s start with Donna: She will be played by Tav obviously. I mean there really is no other choice here. We need someone who has gotten romantically entangled with multiple if not all the companions. The one unfortunate snag is that Tav has to carry or otherwise create the child of dubious parentage without the other parent knowing. That does pigeonhole the characterization a bit unless you want to go the magic route with it (which opens a line of ethical questioning beyond not telling the Parent of your child about the existence of said child)

For the purposes of this thought experiment, I'm operating under Tav being AFAB and having a womb to carry the baby. I’m also operating under the idea that all the companions have the reproductive organs of the gender they present as in game. If anyone wants to actually do something with this they are free to do whatever the fuck they want and use whatever headcanons they want. 

Sophie is going to be played by Tav’s kid. This one doesn’t have a hard and fast gender rule (TIL Sophus is the masculine version of Sophie) but they have to want to know who their other sire is and be generally chaotic which is not hard when they’ve grown up with the Tadfools as their role models. It is important that they display mostly Tav’s traits with others that could be any one of their other parent’s. (think Amanda Siefried and Meryl Streep are both blonde and similarly built. Sophie draws like Sam and sings and plays like Harry and has Bill’s adventurous spunk)

For ease of writing Tav’s Kid will be referred to as Soph from here on out.

Speaking of Sires, the Dads:

Sam: I waffled a LOT on who to choose out of the Baldur’s Boys because I wanted to keep it to just the traditional three and to just companions. You can obviously shuffle around people (I'm sure the Rolan girlies (gender neutral) would love putting him in this AU) and expand the possible dad list (though I don’t know how to split the characteristics like the Donna’s Friends). I chose to go with Gale here. I think he fits the very no nonsense and very anxious vibes from Sam in the show/movie. Instead of a business person who “went home to get married” perhaps Gale got called upon by Mystra as her Chosen and left to focus on his Wizardry. He is definitely the kind to break Tav’s heart over duty and be so ashamed he doesn’t really speak to them for 20 years. 

Bill: This one was damn near a no brainer once I was considering it. It’s Halsin. Who better to be the Hippie, fun-loving, sex god and travel writer? He retains all his Baldur’s Gate characteristics. His experience with Tav is truly just a bit of fun before they both go their separate ways. Their relationship is HEAPS less frigid than Gale and Tav’s. 

Now this is where you can go two ways with this. You could give Halsin is canon good ending (Reithwin with the kids) BUT we miss Bill being scared shitless at the prospect of having a child which I always loved as a characterization (Skarsgard plays it like a champ in the film, he looks like he’s gonna have a heart attack lmao). I feel like Clan Dad Halsin after 20 years is way too open to the idea of having something permanent like a kid. Wandering Arch Druid Halsin might be a little more scared shitless at the idea. That one is a personal preference, I think I’d prefer Reithwin Halsin even though I miss the majesty of an internal conflict.

Harry: Now this one also was a no-brainer but needs to be explained with some tact. It’s Astarion. It is not because Astarion is the most effeminate of the group. For those that don’t know, Harry is canonically gay. The companions are all pan. I chose Astarion because there is an opportunity to do something else transformative with Astarion and Tav’s tryst. 

In Mamma Mia, Harry talks about how Donna is the last and only woman he’s loved and their time together helped him accept his sexuality. In the stage show he’s in a committed relationship (his partner's name is fully escaping me atm). It always stuck out to me that Donna changed Harry and that’s why he still loves her after all these years. Sam obviously regrets leaving to do what was expected of him because he didn’t love his first wife. Bill sees the life of adventure and companionship he could have had with Donna but acknowledges that that time is behind them and still loves her anyways. And Harry loves that Donna made him see himself clearly for the first time in his life and loves her for it. You can see why Astarion came to mind I hope. 

Astarion’s night with Tav was him figuring out what intimacy meant to him after finally closing the Cazador Chapter of his life. The encounter was brief but it changed him for the better and allowed him to start healing.

EDIT: I realized I didn’t cover Astarion’s Vampirism at all. For story purposes assume he has some kind of temporary solution to the sun issue because I need his ass to be present when this is set on a fantasy Greek island. The Dhampir issue is… something. I sludged through some further thought experiments. Tav and the kid being Tieflings hides the fang coloration issue. Explaining away that the characteristics haven’t presented yet because the kid is still quite young by nearly all standards (20 is just barely of age for humans, and though they are full grown biologically they are still children in Elven society) and also have been largely sheltered from danger their whole life also works.

But to be honest, despite what the second movie and its director want you to believe, I think Harry is the least likely father of the three. I am comfortable extending this to Astarion. 

Okay now we are into the Dynamos! Fuck yes! Rosie and Tanya are my favorites (it helps that they are PERFECTLY casted in the movie oh my god). I have split their characteristics across the girls. There are some of the companions that are obviously one or the other (Karlach is the most Rosie coded while Minthara SCREAMS Tanya) while others send mixed signals (Shadowheart is the most even, skewing towards Tanya slightly while Lae’zel has Tanya’s bitchy attitude and Rosie’s  “lone wolf” outlook) SO I’m going to make a chart

Like Astarion, for story purposes, assume Karlach’s heart issue has been solved.

Graphic design is my passion

ANYWAYS you may have noticed three of our friends are missing from this line up. Our intrepid Folk Hero Formally Known As The Blade of Frontiers, Wyll, Pack Mother, Jaheria, and her trusty ride or die Rashamen, Minsc (and don’t forget Boo!). 

I had some trouble with these nerds because initially I was playing with making Wyll the second half of Sam, he would have usurped the businessman and maybe the gone home to get married bit while Gale was the heartbreaker and took something from Bill’s characterization, but I was having trouble with losing character motivations. Plus Wyll is canonically not the type for flings. So I am having him be a good family friend invited to the wedding but not involved in the parentage. He essentially is a more involved part of the Greek Chorus. He could take Sam entirely if you are not the type for Gale but you will see why I did this when I get into the songs (yes I am that fucking insane about this.) 

Jaheira does have the countenance to be a Dynamo BUT there is this minor character that I think about way too often that I wanted her to take. She is only mentioned in the first movie and the stage show in one line and seen a little in the second movie (which is a fever dream and convolutes the “lore” but I love it anyways). It’s Bill’s Great Aunt Sophia that left Donna the money to start Villa Donna. OBVIOUSLY she isn’t directly going to be playing Halsin’s Great Aunt or be dead (though she will be ancient by then) but she’s going to fill the mentor role for Tav and help out with Soph. She is the only one who knows that Gale Halsin and Astarion are the possible fathers until the beginning of the shenanigans.

Minsc, like Wyll, doesn’t have a direct parallel. He is also a part of the more involved Greek Chorus. He is Soph’s crazy uncle. He got them into all kinds of trouble and still does to this day. He gives a less emotional and personal version of Sam’s “are you sure you want to do this, you are so young” speech that essentially is offering to run off and be warriors (His plan does not get them away from anyone, he’s unanimously elected that the entire tadfool group is coming with them). But he does it after Gale gives the original speech that severely upsets Soph so it serves as a cheer up speech (“Minsc is unsure if the Wizard should come along seeing as he has upset the little warrior so, but Boo says he is very useful and Minsc agrees. So he can come with, but he does not get to pet Boo’s furry little bottom!”). 

The rest of our Greek Chorus and people like Sky and Sophie’s Friends are filled out by various NPCs. Pepper is played by Mol. Ali and Lisa are open to OCs to be honest but the idea of Yenna and Arabella hearing the saucy details of a story they were partly involved in is really funny to me so they are listed in the song list as the backup singers. Sky is an OC because I wasn’t fully comfortable using any of the child NPCs. He’s referred to as Soph’s partner.

[misscammiedawn]

I wanted to say thanks for that write up on the depiction of DID and Mr. Robot! You said everything that's been burning in my head for years now after watching. Hearing another system's thoughts on it was something we've been looking for.

Part of our inner world is also part of the NHM in London lol.

Truly and sincerely thank you.

First off, I am delighted to know that we're not alone in having the Natural History Museum as host to a segment of inner world. Would love to know which exhibit/area you see when you visit, though no obligation to respond. We know that these things can be deeply personal.

The show may not strike with every system but no two plural folx are going to have the same connections and attachments and comforts and that's 100% okay. For those who share our affection for Mr. Robot I am glad you get to enjoy the show and our ramblings on it.

Wishing you and your system well and thank you again for the ask. You've no idea how much feedback comforts and encourages.

Asks are always open.

-

Post the asker is referring to in the question, btw:

Also... have some random rambles about Mr. Robot in a readmore, because I feel like typing a bunch.

-

Also, because it gives us an opening to talk about it. Have some random Robot thoughts:

Mr. Robot is and remains my favorite show. I had started typing "our" favorite and got a sharp rejection so shall use singular pronouns. It has its issues, the use of the term "real" for instance, but with good faith a lot of it can vanish. Not all. But most.

I've been thinking about things a lot more since writing the essay and there are things I wish I had spent longer discussing. For instance during the portion where I wrote about how Coney Island represents a safety in nostalgia, a fortress for the Alderson siblings to hide in their treasured childhood memories; I didn't mention that both Trenton and Mobley use their own nostalgia as their hacker aliases with Trenton being where she lived when young and DJ Mobley clearly being someone Mobley found joy in at a younger age.

Similarly Hot Carla's name is selected because of a hair dresser who validated her gender identity and sheltered her when her parents were abusive. Whiterose's hacker alias is the last moment her life could have been the "good future" that she envisioned and worked so hard to force into reality.

I do like that pretty much every character who has an alias picks their alias as an identity forged in positive memories. Elliot clearly did with Mr. Robot being the store where he and his dad were friends and his other alias (The Gentleman) is a reference to The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie, a movie he and Darlene watched every year that became the entire iconography for the fsociety movement.

If I were to ever do another Mr. Robot essay I think it would be on the way each character insists on living in the past in order to escape their present and how that relates to the way trauma invades the present. Not going to promise that, though. We're already snowed under with our Loop and Beatrice essays.

I think that can be one of the big failings of the show, actually, especially for those watching it as it aired. The show is deeply ingrained in the perspectives of characters who have critically distorted beliefs on reality and the show doesn't really start laying down objective reality until late season 3 after the cyber bombings.

Someone watching the show for the first time can watch Elliot's edgelord rants about "Fuck Society" and think that the show believes these things rather than its main character and we do not get the show delivering the message that it's small minded and childish (which, given that Elliot is stuck in trauma time and perpetually reliving a horrifically abusive childhood he cannot fully understand because he won't allow himself to remember clearly, is exactly what he is) until Irving and Price each spell it out to Mr. Robot in S3E7/9 or Whiterose outright calls Elliot on it in their final confrontation.

I adore the show for its patience and how it tells such an emotional and complicated story over its 45 hour runtime but I do understand people watching the first hour, getting the wrong idea about where the journey is going and opting out.

Hell I understand a system going in for DID representation and not having the patience to stick around the show's Fight Club pastiche era before starting to get to the meat of things.

But hey. I gave the show a shot and can't go back now. I love it too darned much.

Also because I don't want to start another thread on it, I do want to say that the show is truly frustrating in how it depicts economic collapse for society and yet none of the characters are ever impacted by it.

Darlene is homeless throughout the show, spare her stint living in an FBI safe house and she has no job through the show's run. She is never hurting for money, even when the banking system of the world collapses. She likely is stealing but it's frustrating that we only hear about the financial ruin in the periphery. We learn of the eviction of Elliot's neighbors spare for the kind older man who takes care of Flipper but Elliot himself can buy entire new computers on a whim and go months between jobs or spend a season in prison and not be impacted.

Like the show depicts the world going into a major decline during the economic crisis and it's clear by Season 4 that the show is venting frustration that when the banking system failed in 2008 the ones responsible were not harmed at all and it was the public who suffered and things just went back to how it was in time; it's just... every character is living comfortably in New York and Darlene is the closest we have to a "poor" character.

But that's a rant we have on every show. Poverty doesn't really exist in television. You watch a show like Ted Lasso and everyone is a millionaire. Even the Kit Manager (Nate, not Will) has parents who own a home, sent him to higher education and gave him private violin lessons. Kit Manager salary is about £25-50 per year, even for a Premier League Team.

...but my discomfort with how poverty is never represented on TV is just a random rant and I'm going way off topic.

I'll stop rambling now.

[wheeloffortune-design]

Hmmm ok so I’m from Perú here, but is not necessary for a Latino to have a Hispanic name, my family are immigrants so we have all kind of mash-ups. Like example:

Asian (first name) and second name is María xdd, all that kind of stuff

Or maybe a nickname could work too.

Example

Someone named Enrique can be referred as “Quique” , “Quico”, “Henry”, etc

So I just saw this, and you're totally right, but I'll take the opportunity to talk about how I name characters, if it's alright with you.

This ask refers to a post I made where I complained how hard it was to name your latino gay romantic lead when all the names in baby names lists are people from your family tree (and said family is probably gonna read the book and ask why you pick great uncle's name for your gay porn.)

I know I don't have to give them typically latin names. Myself, I'm named out of something my mom saw in a dream, so it would be pretty hypocritical.

But at some point in my writing process I decided that I would have to make my own representation myself, and vowed to make all my protagonists Chilean-Québécois. And for some diversity, then can be Chilean-Ontarians. And they're all gonna be queer, but that's a given.

I may be slightly exagerating, but you get the intention behind it.

So, parallelly, something our unconscious minds do, when given no information about a character, is to imagine the default. And, where I live, the default is white, male, cisgender, straight, abled, thin, etc. I thought I was spared from that, until I read a novel that only revealed 3/4 in that the protagonist was Black. I had to sit down and rethink about how I perceived the world.

It was certainly a choice from the author, and also the cover art, to not describe or show the protagonist as Black from the start. I'm intrigued with that choice, I think I know where that can come from, but I'm tempted to do the exact opposite. Our goals are the same- more diversity in litterature, I'm just going to take a more direct way, at the surprise of no one.

So, I write a book. Here's the public presented with a new character. Maybe the cover didn't show him, but I have control over the words used to describe him. With the same care I use to describe skin (té con leche), a certain type of hair (curled, thick, strong), a certain kind of body (round face, broad shouldered, strong arms of a baker, soft middle with the strong core of the hardworker). And I'll add in pieces of what I know- great eyebrows, amazing eyelashes, moles everywhere.

And I know the white normativity (is that the word? i should be sleeping, words are already in bed) is so strong that people can even keep imagining a white person despite all that. So I give them no choice. I will give my character a name that sounds latino, so they can't escape it. I will give him three first names and two surnames like any of us.

Now, we arrive at the more technical side of it. I'm on the babynamer lists, on typical latin names for boys, et oh dear. Number 1 was my father's name. Number 2 is my brother's. The followings are all cousins, uncles. I'm also putting a lot of them aside for future kids.

I think I'm gonna go with Mateo. It has all the qualities I look for in a protagonist name: simple, memorable, sounds spanish without having a letter like j that just gets butchered by other people, wouldn't sound weird in a romantic or smutty scene, none of my cousins have it. The sounds are nice, it's different enough from the other main character and pairs well together. Mateo and Darius.

(Darius has been named after the Persian emperor, because I want to write a typical LOTR fantasy but with gay romance, but also my skin crawled at the idea of ther another fantasy book set in medieval white europe. My first book is in ancient Egypt for a reason.)

I have a lot of things I think about when chosing the name of a character, I'll post about it some more later if it interests some people.

[intersexbookclub]

Intersex Book Club reviews The Fortunate Fall

For our June book pick we read *The Fortunate Fall, *a cyberpunk novel from the mid-1990s written by a trans intersex author (Raphael Carter). Intersex author Bogi Takács has argued that the book deserves being read for its intersex themes, which have gone underappreciated. We had a lovely discussion about the book and here are some notes summarizing our reactions. Spoilers ahoy!

INTERSEX THEMES

The book has two characters who self-describe as hermaphrodite in ways that are fairly minor. The intersex-ness of this book does not come from centring on explicitly intersex characters but instead through themes that speak to intersex experiences. (Please note: the h-term is generally considered a slur against intersex people. This is the language used in a mid-1990s book by an intersex author.)

A major theme of the book was coercive medical procedures and the maiming of one’s body. Characters such as the protagonist are described as having literal holes in them. The State requires invasive body modification of queer people to “suppress” their queerness and enforce conformity.

Which gets to the suppressor chips. In the end of the book the main character has her suppressor chip removed which brings back her memories of a previous sapphic relationship and who she was before she became a “camera” (ie. a journalist/influencer). We read the suppressor chips as a metaphor for how so many intersex people have their medical histories hidden from them. We also talked about how this could be read as a metaphor for people who deny their own queerness (e.g. transness, gayness, etc)

This will come up again when we read The Deep by Rivers Solomon but there’s a trend in intersex literature to portray intersex people as sea creatures. One of our hermaphrodite (their term) characters refers to themself as a mermaid and has a mental link with a humpback whale. We talked about how deep sea creatures are a great vehicle for writers to explore both the strangeness and the naturalness of being intersex. The ocean is intensely familiar but also foreign, and features animals whose sex determination schemes are far more fluid (ha) than us humans.

OUR PRIMARY REACTIONS (SPOILER HEAVY) - @ipsogender: “I was not expecting the book to end with honey I need to move in with you because my whale is about to die" - @scifimagpie “this was a darker book, started with a news report on genocide and ended with saddest breakup in gay history”

POSITIVES

OMG THAT ENDING

A uniquely devastating sapphic romance

The viscerality of jacking one’s brain into a digital set up. A lot of modern cyberpunk has paved over the physicality and the grotesqueness of body modification and this book did not shy away from it.

A book that argues for animal rights in a technological society. It got us talking about what an internet that serves other animals would be like.

Some excellent lines such as “The state allows you to hate it but only enough so as not to threaten it.” and “You can’t just show people the evil of the word, people will turn away. You need to show them hope.” which got us talking about activism and how to make political change

NEGATIVES

This book is pessimistic AF

No real denouement. Could be intentional to make the ending weigh on you more but also means less sense of what happens at the end.

The whale is never given a name! 😭

Disability as worse than death trope

Afrofuturism felt kinda weak; Africa is one country and it has surprisingly little effect on other cultures despite supposed superpower status

WHAT WE THOUGHT THE BOOK MIGHT BE TRYING TO SAY

We spent a bunch of time speculating as to authorial intent with the book. Here are some things we brainstormed:

In a totalitarian world where you’re an influencer and people literally tune into your brain, self-preservation comes at all costs including those you love.

Queer romance can be deep and tender, and societal prejudice can cause real hurt (remember: book came out in mid-1990s).

A cautionary tale to not back down from your love or your principles.

Huge leaps in technology won’t change social structure. We can invent technology to experience what other people have experienced and it alone won’t lead to increased acceptance of queers or protection of the environment/animals. (Again, remember: written in mid-1990s, a time of legit optimism about the internet.) From the book: “The Net should be the most democratic form of communication that the world has ever known…. But instead it is being used to enforce an official vision of humanity.”

@scifimagpie: a thesis of this book was "we fucking failed at saving the whales"

HOW IT HELD UP

Predicted: the enshittification of the internet

Predicted: influencer culture

Holds up: the sense of wonder that we can connect people across time and space

Holds up: the need to consider other animals in creating networked technologies

Dated: internet as a physical metaverse

Dated: fixed-location telephones

Dated: presentation of Christianity and its relationship to Russian culture

Disappointing: a future where there are still cars in cities

READ IF YOU LIKED

Idoru by William Gibson

Star Trek IV (the one with the whales)

The Matrix

Animorphs #19

Ancillary Justice

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

Les Trois Mousquetaires, Chapter Five

Athos and d'Artagnan meet up for their duel, and while waiting for Porthos and Aramis, they take a liking to each other. Shame, really, since they're also about to kill each other.

They're so polite, it's hilarious:

Athos, still ailing from his shoulder injury, apologizes to d'Art for having to fight him left-handed and possibly putting d'Art at a disadvantage.

d'Art offers Athos his mother's magical healing balm for his wounded shoulder

Athos: "...j'aime les hommes de votre trempe, et je vois que si nou ne nous tuons pas l'un l'autre, j'auris plus tard un vrai plaisir dans votre conversation." (I like men of your kind, and if we don't kill each other, I can see myself enjoying conversing with you later.)

“Décidément vous êtes un joli garçon”, dit Athos en serrant la main du jeune homme. (‘You really are a pretty boy’, Athos said and seized the young man’s hand.)

Get a room already, you two...! 😆

(And, JFTR, I know that Dumas didn't write them as gay characters, even if many of us take the liberty of reading them that way; Dumas was a romantic, and his heroes simply were very in touch with their feelings and not afraid of showing them. They hugged and kissed and cried, men and women alike. And I love how open to every kind of modern interpretation the stories are. I generally read the Musketeers as the biggest platonic bromance of all time. But anything is possible, and you do you!)

Athos refers to Aramis, Porthos and himself as the "trois inséparables" for the very first time. Little did Dumas know he'd coined an iconic OT4 name for all eternity.🤩

To everyone's surprise (but ours and d'Artagnan's), the Inseparables find out they're all dueling the same mercurial Gascon. Sangbleu! *slapsticky laughter*

More ridiculously heroic politeness from Athos: It's warm, but he's going to keep his doublet on while fighting so d'Art won't be put off by the sight of Athos bleeding through his bandages. (How kind of you, you idiot!)

Just when they're drawing their swords, the Cardinal's Red Guard arrive (great timing), and of course these morons want to arrest our four for illegal dueling.🙄

This is the moment that changes d'Artagnan's life. The moment where he has to chose sides. The moment where our brotherhood of Musketeers is born.

"Vous avez dit que vous n'étiez que trois, mais il me semble, à moi, que nous sommes quatre. [...] je n'ai pas l'habit, mais jai l'âme. Mon coeur es mousquetaire [...]" (You said your were only three, but it seems to me we are four. I may not have the clothes, but the soul. My heart is musketeer.)

"Eh bien, Athos, Porthos, Aramis et d'Artagnan, en avant!" cria Athos.

*goosebumps*

A fine sword fight ensues with our four taking down five Guards and d'Artagnan saving a dramatically faltering Athos from getting skewered before Athos rallies and finishes the last bad guy off himself. Drama! Action! I love it all!🤩

Afterwards, our four triumphantly parade back to Tréville's, arms over shoulders, and d'Artagnan thinks that "si je ne suis pas encore mousquetaire, [...] au moins me voilà reçu apprenti, n'est-ce pas?" (If I'm not a musketeer yet, I'm at least an apprentice now, aren't I?)

*happy sigh*

[arsenicflame]

hi i'm really interested in space lesbians! where are they, who are they? how can i see them? (shows, games, books?) also what are you most excited about in s2 of ofmd?

OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY

soooooo my space lesbian enthusiasm refers to 3 separate medias!! (it used to say gay space vikings bc that was an even more specific niche buuuut im way more into tihylttw these days s o) one day i am going to make a fuckin venn diagram of my girls because they all have so many similarities. (loki/sigyn and angela/sera are basically the same characters change my mind.)

this is about to get real long bc im unhinged about them <3 10/10 would talk about them all day if the communities were there

our first space lesbians are loki + sigyn from the bifrost incident! TBI is an album by the band the mechanisms which you can find wherever you listen to music (youtube here) its a norse mythology inspired rock/steampunk-esque album and it is SO GOOD- it takes place on a train in SPACE in the format of an incident investigation. its a story so you have to listen to the tracks in order :)

--

next up! this is how you lose the time war- our lesbians in this are called red + blue because we have deconstructed this trope to its most basic format at this point :') its a short book, and you may be familiar with it as it went viral from a trigun fan tweet a few months back. (my url (and sewing blog url) are actually references to a quote from this book!) you can get it wherever you get books and id recc the audiobook if youre into that i am also in possession of the pdf if you wantto try before you buy.

tihylttw is a story told through the exchange of letters between two agents on opposite sides of a war- it usually gets described as enemies to lovers but id personally use rivals as i think it describes them better. the book is known for being incredibly poetic and sometimes pretentious in its writing and i just think its the most beautiful thing ever. lesbians do it better

honestly theres nothing i could say for tihylttw better than it could say for itself, i just adore the universe theyve built and i want to KNOW MORE. i love you and i love you and i want to find out what that means together

--

saving the best for last is my girls angela + sera. the most of all time. nobody compares to them for me. they consume me

angela + sera are from marvel comics and you can find my complete reading list here, but if im talking about them positively, im usually talking about one of the titular Angela comics, and more often than not queen of hel.

honestly i love the angela comics so much that im making myself speechless trying to figure out where to start. Angela falls into the asgard side of marvel comics, though she is a lot more fluid in her affiliations, her whole thing being that she deals in deals- nothing for nothing everything has its price. she is at times described as emotionless and is generally quite a stoic character, especially around strangers. the major exception to this is her wife, sera. seras one of marvels few canon trans characters and i think she is just so wonderfully written. shes witty and cheeky and doesnt take shit from anyone, even when it gets her into trouble- and oh boy does sera find herself in some predicaments! the angela comics are often just as poetic as tihylttw for me, theyll drop an 'as long as you are with me, i am not afraid' and ill need to go smother myself in a pillow for a sec. in QOH they adopt a daughter who is Also a lesbian, shes an alternate version of leah of hel and i ALSO adore her.

im desperately trying to avoid plot points but god. the main arc is 21 issues of smooching Shakespearean space angels what more could you want?

(through sera & angela we get a lot of heven lore and honestly that could be its whole own thing for me im SO fascinated.)

my girls are currently in comic hell, i am praying they will get something good soon 🙏🙏

--

and what am i most excited about for season 2? can i just say izzy? can i just say anne + mary? dude im so ready for some lesbians you have no idea actually you probably have a very good idea if you made it this far down. im incredibly excited to be seeing izzy get a favourable arc this season, im really hoping to see him develop relationships with everyone else, see him grapple with feelings around ed (actually im really hoping he chooses not to forgive ed. for growth) im excited to see whats gonna go down with his leg, im excited to see wtf is going on w ed + stede because i have no idea what the continuity is at the moment, im just excited!!!!!! i honestly dont think theres anything im not excited about everything looks so good so far

[theboost]

Can’t bring myself to watch the finale of due south, so for the two people who are interested, here are my thoughts from when I was watching through

Due South insanity moment where vecchio gives a long speech to his sister in which he tells her to stay away from fraser because she’ll only get hurt and guys like fraser won’t even notice and then she responds by telling him that he’s afraid to dream. How am I supposed to take this

Obsessed with Fraser having a sleepover with his childhood hockey bestie. I think they should practice kissing with each other. I’m such a gay fraser truther I’m sorry but id take him and random hockey guy over him and Victoria

I think paul gross just has a resting smirk which is something you don’t see too often but it’s really making this funeral scene unintentionally humorous. Buddy you couldn’t muster a frown. I hate you Paul Gross, you live action Disney prince. That is a term that gets thrown around a lot but it’s true for him

100 percent still a gay fraser truther. Why are they having romantical ten- SORRY LIEUTENANT THATCHER JUST HIT HIM WITH A DAMN BITCH YOU LIVE LIKE THIS- romantical tension between fraser and thatcher. I don’t like it. She’s so mean to him all the time. He needs to get with a real man like Ray. I don’t really think you can put a guy like fraser in a relationship with his superior officer the chain of command would fuck him up. But they just keep mashing them together like Barbie dolls. I don’t get it. Also I kind of don’t like Francesca I’m sorry women…

“Ray, get in the closet” “Benny, get out of the closet” real dialogue. I don’t even need to make the joke. “I was in the closet with detective vecchio” I could end it all

Are we really doing another season finale where they’re getting framed by someone who one of them put in prison who recently go out and now seeks revenge. I guess if it ain’t broke. Okay so it’s not a season finale arc but still. It’s weird that it happened twice

CAN WE STOP PUTTING POOR GAY BOY FRASER - henceforth referred to as gayser when he is into situations wherein I want to emphasize his homosexuality - IN FORCED STRAIGHT SITUATIONS LIKE I KNOW THAT HE DOESNT WANT TO PLAY DOMESTICITY WITH FRANNIE. And she really needs to get with a woman

Girl a clip show for the season 2 finale? Come now. Also this is why starsky and hutch will always be a show made to hatecrime the watcher while due south uplifts you, because starsky and hutch did the amnesia plot line but hutch faked it. Because he’s insane.

“Alone we’re incomplete” truly insane thing to say about your best friend. Season 2 has really solidified by theory that ray is an out gay man to himself and no one else and he performs heterosexuality as a cover and gayser is just really truly deeply closeted because there were no gay people in a 100 kilometer radius growing up in the yukon. Also “benny, I could kiss you” “I thought we were just friends, ray” “we are” hello??? Hello???

Okay what the hell is going on with Ray K. You weren’t lying. 2 episodes in and he’s asking if Fraser thinks he’s attractive.

“All women are our sisters” I LOVE YOU FRASER. FEMINIST LEGEND.

I still gayser truth of course but as far as love interests go I don’t mind this bounty hunter milf

I don’t love that ghost dad was made a main character I liked him more when he would randomly pop up and I think they use him too much but I do love his little office set. And I do love that ghost dad is a character that exists

I don’t really care for the fact that one of kowalski’s defining traits is his love of police brutality. Come on due south. You used to understand that police violence is bad

I’ll be honest this is one of the first American based shows I’ve seen that promotes the idea of Canadian exceptionalism. And like it wasn’t initially like this as, see my last point, due South used to know and show that both the Chicago police and the mounties were corrupt, with Fraser being the worlds most special guy, but later seasons are like “all Mounties are inherently virtuous supermen”

Detective Huey and Fraser narrative foils in that both of them lost their first gay partner and then proceeded to get even gayer with their second partner. I do love Huey. And Dewey’s strange ways bewitch me I think he should hook up with turnbull

Women love to ask Fraser if they can trust him and then kiss him. Non_threatening_boys.jpg

Whenever Scott Bakula sings on quantum leap I cheer and clap like a seal and whenever paul gross sings I shriek and cover my eyes and say kill yourself

Every subplot to Mountie Sings the Blues makes me so happy I love huey and deweys stupid ass country song and I actually think Francesca/Turnbull is cute I’ve actually been hoping they would do it

I’m so sad due south got canceled right after the Fraser sister reveal I want so many more episodes with them hanging out

One thing about Fraser is that his love interest will be a brunette woman. Frannie, Victoria, Thatcher, milf bounty hunter and- sorry I looked up the poker episode to remember if the poker chick was brunette and sure enough

[calechipconecrimes]

ok we begin. btw you dont have a .tumblr.com and thats pretty cringe maybe get that worked out worstie.

anyway we start with the

✨ fabulous killjoys ✨

they're the main characters of the ALBUM danger days. also referred to as the fab four. they are members of the larger group simply called the killjoys, played a key role in the analog wars (we'll get to it) and take care of the girl (we'll get to her) the fab four's whole deal is eloquently described by straengeaeons as "they hate capitalism and blow stuff up about it." they're portrayed by the members of mcr in the music videos so ill go ahead and introduce them to u now since their names are decently important going forward we got

party poison - leader of the fab four, he's the only one to have two different masks (the whole masks thing we'll get to later), both pictured above, the second ones called the mousekat store that in ur brainhole not really sure if i'll mention it later. also definitely the one im going to write the most about because spoiler alert these idiots die in like 10 minutes and they dont have a ton of personality to go off of unless you wanna start theorizing hard and i dont feel like that right now

jet star - helpfully labeled for your convenience

fun ghoul - you can't see it well but his mask is like....a really shitty party city zombie mask.

kobra kid - i think its pretty widely accepted fanon that he and party poison are brothers since they're portrayed by mikey and gerard in the music videos. neat.

alongside the fab four we got some other important people (im also going to start using comic panels for these guys cuz the fab four dont have any great comic pictures)

korse - he works as a s/c/a/r/e/c/r/o/w for BLind (better living industries) who have basically taken over the world or at least north america to our knowledge. their capital in a sense is battery city. dont think i mentioned it but this all takes place in post apocalyptic 2019 (the album came out in 2010 ok) around where la is today. anyway back to korse scarecrows are basically really deadly assassins and hes a bit silly. slightly murderous. its ok though he's gay and gets a redemption arc.

dr. death defying - he shows up a bit in the mvs but the pics arent great so im just using comic. hes a dj and has close ties to the fab four, also is vaguely possibly omnipotent? hes a veteran of the analog wars and all around chill great guy. love dr d.

cherri cola - also a dj, has this like. chill uncle energy that matches dr ds very well. really wants to be a dad like so bad. he was a part of the og killjoys with the fab four but didnt die with them and has a little tiny bit of survivors guilt abt that. just a smidge. i like him hes cool

the girl - she doesnt have a name lmao just the girl. very important small child, she's like 6 at the time when the fab four die. her mom was like the leader of the resistance group the killjoys were part of during the analog wars and party poison at least believes that she's going to save them all someday. also the comic panel is her when shes like 16 hence the fact that she looks violently different

the director - shes the head of BLind so like. very evil. but shes also kinda hot so i forgive the capitalism and the war crimes. uhhh other than that there's draculoids which are these guys with the masks

the masks basically mind control ppl to make them BLinds personal cannon fodder im kinda tired so i might continue this later and actually get into plot but other than stuff i want to talk abt later im pretty sure thats all you'd need to get into the mvs at least

so this is a whole thing huh

[orlissa]

The newest episode* of Getting Published Might Not Be So Hopeless After All

*As if there were earlier episodes

I finished a book the other day--it's a recent publication (came out last month), currently at 3,61 on Goodreads with nearly 6000 ratings

It's titled My Roommate Is a Vampire, and the title just about tells you everything that you need to know :D

But in a nutshell: after spending the last century or so in a magic induced coma, our vampire main guy has a deep seated desire to be able to blend in in the modern world, so he places an ad for an unsuspecting human roommate. Cassie (our main female/POV character) is a down-on-her-luck artist currently being evicted from her apartment, so she jumps on the opportunity. Time goes by, not so much stuff happens, and they fell for each other. The end.

Literally. There isn't much else that happens in the book.

That being said, the novel is not without its virtues. The start off situation is funny, especially since while Cassie doesn't know that she is moving in with a vampire, even with the guy's erratic, but heartfelt behavior, the audience does, so there are a bunch of endearingly hilarious situations. I honestly thought this setup would make a great sitcom. Plus all of the chapters start with either a letter/letters, chat messages, google searches, diary entries, etc., which was a narrative choice I really liked, especially since it allowed a glimpse into other characters' thoughts beyond Cassie.

The rest is under cut, because it got long

But holy crap, everything else in this novel was so underdeveloped I can't even express. It was like that author had this fun idea, but nothing beyond it, but was still determined to make it work. Like the publisher saw the opportunity in the setup, and had an editor work on it with the author, but then accidentally ended up publishing the original manuscript before the edits.

The author never took the effort to properly work on the lore. Basically the whole "presenting the lore" part is the two main characters watching Buffy, and the vampire guy (who is named Fredrick J. Fitzwilliam, btw) saying that yeah, the show got some things wrong, got other things right, and there are like 2 examples. We never actually learn how he, himself got turned (or how vampires get turned, for that matter). Also, there is his "mother" in the story - is she his maker? His actual mother? Both? We never learn!

Not to mention his whole backstory. At the point I have to compare it to All Souls, since we have a guy turned into a vampire hundreds (thousands) of years ago, when he was in his mid-thirties. In All Souls (okay, that's a bit longer story, I know, but still, it would take like, what, 5 pages?) we learn who Matthew was in his life, what he liked, what he did, we learn about his family, his tragedies, how he was turned, and, as a vampire, grew from an artisan into a de-facto nobleman. Fredrick, in contrast, started out from a humble home (we never explore how he ended up with upper class demeanor), and apparently did nothing until he was turned in his mid-thirties. Apparently he had no job, no family... And honestly, why wouldn't a guy in his mid-thirties be married in the 18t century? It's just such a lazy job, such lazy writing.

Also, there a scene (there are a bunch of scenes, really, but let me use this one as a example) where Cassie takes Fredrick to a party hosted by her best friend (she has a gay best friend, of course XD), and he prepares by memorizing a bunch of stuff about Taylor Swift, because he did his research, and apparently she is very popular in this age group.

The problem here is that, once again, the author didn't think it through. Reciting random facts is not just odd, but it's like the guy has zero frame of reference--but it's not just he doesn't have a frame of reference, it's that his frame of reference is drastically different. If I wrote it, it wouldn't be just reciting facts, and haha, it is funny, because Taylor is a big deal and I'm resonating with the audience. Instead, let's have Fredrick compare her to the great singers of his era. Like "I read about this lady, and I'd like to hear her sing--what do you mean it's all recorded? And what about live? In which establishment does she sing? In a stadium?!"

(And, yeah, btw, Frederick is said to have been in a coma for a hundred years, but that would mean that he went to sleep in the roaring twenties, and yet he acts Victorian/Regency period, which is, once again *just lazy, unrefined writing*)

The big conflict is supposed to be that Fredrick mother wants him to marry some vampire chick, and he is against it all. I have some many problems with how this plotline is excuted. Like 1, the vampire chick (called Esmeralda for some reason, which somehow sounds really tacky) is never seen in person. She is literally a non-character. Also, throughout the whole book she is super adamant about wanting to get married, then suddenly has a change of heart off screen in the last chapter. 2, Fredrick pulls himself together at some point to go and tell the families in person that he won't marry her, and... he gets taken hostage. And held for days. Which we never see, because he is not the POV character. There is zero tension, zero stakes (not even, you know, the kind you kill vampires with). Cassie figures out after some time that she is missing, she writes an e-mail to his mother that if they don't release him she'll expose vampires on TikTok (wheezing), and then Fredrick mother just backs down and releases him and HAPPY END! Honestly... that's the whol conflict. The sex scene is written with more details.

Talking about sex (because of course there is a lot of longing, and talk about erections, and then a long ass sex scenes, which I did not enjoy, because by then I was done with both characters): when Fredrick is released, he has wounds on his wrists after being tied up, and he is like "don't worry, it's just my heart doesn'T beat, so my blood doesn't flow *like that* so I heal slower :)

Like... okay, listen to me here... if his heart doesn't beat... and his blood doesn't really flow... you know what is highly unlikely to happen, right? RIGHT?!

So yeah, it could have been a good book, but it's just So Damn Badly Written from a technical point of view that I just can't. Nope. I can't.

But if this can get published, then who says I or you can't?

[violence-as-a-love-language]

I posted 4,378 times in 2022

That's 3,198 more posts than 2021!

96 posts created (2%)

4,282 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@commandrogyne

@eggyleg

@crack--attack

@skullscramblies

@vesper-thejester

I tagged 3,777 of my posts in 2022

Only 14% of my posts had no tags

#wwdits - 986 posts

#our flag means death - 693 posts

#nandermo - 394 posts

#blackstede - 328 posts

#ofmd spoilers - 315 posts

#guillermo de la cruz - 300 posts

#q - 274 posts

#nandor the relentless - 255 posts

#blackbeard - 210 posts

#good omens - 206 posts

Longest Tag: 126 characters

#and he gets so many followers who keep commenting on how cute and sad it is that he's trying to hard to get his ex's attention

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Gotta say, i'm getting real tired of seeing Oluwande drawn skinny in every fan art I see of him

41 notes - Posted March 24, 2022

#4

[I.D. A picture of the book Spitfire by Maya Kern sitting on a desk /end I.D.]

Thank you @mayakern for writing a book so beefy, it should last me through most of my top surgery recovery lol. I just got it yesterday and I'm excited to dive in once I get some sleep.

64 notes - Posted May 18, 2022

#3

Rewatching Dimension Jump and wow, its so fascinating to see Ace's arrival for two reasons now.

1) While Ace is more successful and lusted after, he's still not very secure in his sexuality. He keeps playing up how macho he is and making references to not 'being a sissy.' He's still a repressed version of Rimmer and thats so fascinating to me, since you'd think he would have gotten more secure in his sexuality considering.

2) Rimmer immediately starts insinuating Ace is queer in multiple (obviously degrading) ways because he feels threatened by him. But considering Ace is, well, him, it makes the situation all the more telling. And Kryten confronts him on this, but doesn't get to finish pointing this out to him, which I think is such a shame.

As a bonus, its even more funny to me that Ace immediately becomes best friends with Lister. Like, I want a fic where Lister tries to get with Ace to make Rimmer jealous, only to find Ace is just as repressed as Rimmer.

102 notes - Posted February 26, 2022

#2

Ace and Rimmer are both so similar. Yeah, Rimmer is extremely bitter and insecure, but Ace is just as insecure. He just swung the other direction to complete selflessness.

He has no concept of care for his own well being. Hell, Lister mentions he's fuckin up for 36 hours with a broken arm (which he still hasn't taken care of), fresh off of Cats surgery, and he's teaching Kryten to play the piano.

This man wants so terribly to be liked and loved he will never put his own happiness first. Everyone else comes first. Yeah, he may be a 'hero,' but at what cost?

120 notes - Posted February 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Okay I'm gonna make this it's own post cause it's important.

Good Omens, WWDITS, and OFMD are all queer rep. But I really do think the main reason why ofmd feels the most 'real' for some people is it scratches a particular itch a lot of people on Tumblr have been trying to get for years.

Good Omens has two characters who appear to be men. Both characters spend thousands of years pining after each other and falling in love, but it's not 'explicitly states' not is there a kiss. There is rep for nonbinary folks, AroAce folks, but it's not 'gay.' The rep is purely 'queer.'

What We Do in the Shadows has a romance between two men. Both, while confirmed to be gay/bi, have not kissed or hugged or been 'romantic' on screen. They've been intimate and have had arcs to show care, jealously, and whatnot but nothing very romantic. At least, not from a classic standpoint. The creators are pushing a 'will they/won't they' arc. This is normal in many TV shows, but for many queers who are used to queerbaiting, the expectation is to be let down. Even if all the signs point to 'they will' it still hits that traumatic 'queerbaiting' tone for many.

Our Flag Means Death has a romance between not only two men, but a side romance between two men that has a kiss scene. The two main leads are romantic towards each other. But not only that, the creator has made it explicitly clear this is a romance. He has pushed again and again that this will happen, it's just a slow burn. There is explicit 'gay' rep on screen and promised future 'gay' rep.

The reason ofmd resonates is because of what other posts have pointed out. Supernatural, Merlin, Sherlock; over and over two men have been shipped together with such fervor, it feels like a betrayal when it's ignored. Or teased and then ignored. We don't want to be traumatized again.

But also, they all represent one type of rep. Romantic, gay rep of two cishet men finding love. Even though in the case of Destiel, Cas is rarely viewed as anything but a cis man (even though that's very not true). The expectation that those previous failures are being redeemed by this one show can make the queer rep in other shows seem less desirable.

Good Omens, WWDITS, and OFMD are three different types of queer rep, but ofmd has a specific trauma reaction being healed tied to it. And it's okay to recognize that, but also, it needs to be recognized that does not take the queerness away from other shows.

None of these shows are queerbaiting. Acknowledge your trauma and enjoy them all for what they are, not what you want them to be.

3,016 notes - Posted March 23, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[dgcatanisiri]

Considering how much of the discourse around queer representation tends to forego the basic concept of "nuance is a thing," I feel like it's worth bringing up that part of the very real problem in any discussion of queer rep is that everyone wants contradictory things, not just within the community, but even among individuals.

Because the reality genuinely is no one queer character can be representative of everyone under the queer umbrella - I mean, just look at what people consider the baseline of "queerness," the LGBT acronym. Right there, the first two letters are about dynamics that inherently exclude the other - representation for lesbians inherently is different than representation for gay men. Then you start adding bisexuals, who have a different experience than either, and transgender experiences, which cross AND defy the prior categories a lot of the time.

And then you get to individual experiences - what is each person LOOKING FOR in queer representation? Because that's equally messy and contradictory. We look for and need different things at different points in our lives - sure, for the queer person just accepting their queerness, a coming out story will be meaningful. To the queer person who has been out for years, decades even, it's so baseline a story, it might as well be considered remedial representation, or a representational backslide, because isn't there anything ELSE we could be doing with queer characters?

And yet, in most media, we're still at a point of being lucky to get a queer character and a romantic partner for them. So that character can only hit one of the bullet points of queerness. Even though IRL queer people tend to enter into queer friend groups, media still puts things in the "token queer amongst straights" patterns.

So yeah, queer representation as it is will NEVER be good enough, because it can't cover every aspect of representation that we're all looking for. It's not simply a matter of "is this good representation?" but "is this representation that fits my needs as the audience?" and, if it does not, then asking "do I dislike it because it's bad or because of that lack of fit?"

I mean, I might as well bring up one of my go-to examples. I am often upset with the portrayal of Dorian Pavus in Dragon Age Inquisition. Part of that, yes, is because I don't like that characterization - I find the character as presented obnoxious and not the kind of individual I particularly want to spend time around. However, I also take issue with his storyline in the game, because to me, this is a classic "rememdial representation" instance - take away the references of blood magic, this could have come from any number of queer media centered on the baseline concept "my family does not accept my being gay." It feels very much like this is a story that came from a period so much earlier in queer media portrayals.

And I compare that to what a contemporary media managed - Inquisition was released the same year that the show How to Get Away With Murder premiered, and by the end of the first season, they introduced a gay character, Connor, and then gave him a partner, Oliver, who evolved from a one-off into a main character, and that same season also gave Oliver an HIV diagnosis, in large part to show that one) HIV is actually still a thing in this world, and two) unlike where it was during the height of the AIDS crisis, the time when you would get all this media centered around the pain and horror of the disease, and even the trope of the "too good for this sinful Earth" AIDS victim, the character whose death spurs on the improvement of the lives of all the other characters (usually straight)... Oliver gets to SURVIVE. His HIV diagnosis is not where his story ends, and it also ends up not being the whole and extent of his character as a result, which is a big thing in that kind of portrayal.

So where Inquisition comes across as repeating the stock trope of the last several decades of media, How to Get Away With Murder takes that narrative and flips it around, making sure to emphasize that Oliver's story - his life - doesn't end at the diagnosis, but functionally BEGINS.

That's where I'm coming at when I look at Dorian in Inquisition and say that I don't think he makes for good representation - by the end of Inquisition, what it wants you to take away from is "Dorian is gay, and his father didn't accept that." HTGAWM at least goes to Oliver and says that his HIV diagnosis is not all that he is, and he doesn't have a responsibility to die imparting a lesson to straight people, but to live and find happiness.

And yet, I AM fully aware that there are queer people who resonated with the story Dorian got, and, y'know, genuinely, truly, good for them. But I really did just feel pushed out of things by the fact that I've SEEN Dorian's story before, and so often, I can recite it by heart, and I DESPERATELY need something more - I've said that I could see Dorian and Felix, a character who briefly appears when Dorian is introduced, swapped around, and Felix could have, effectively, had the same story that Oliver had, and, again, Inquisition and HTGAWM released in the same year.

That's how I look at the nuances of this messy situation of queer representation - numeric representation is one thing, sure, but there is genuine discussion to have surrounding what that representation is saying with its story and what impact that story then has on its audience. It is not simply a case of "[media] has [rep] and is therefore good" or "[media] has [rep] and is therefore bad." It's entirely centered in the idea of what is it, and what is it trying to say.

Because matters of representation don't just end in numbers, or in one group being seen (and, with the way so many seem to treat things, one group being seen at the expense of others - whether that's the case or not is ANOTHER nuanced debate, worth its own post). They matter in the stories told and how those stories proceed to impact the audience.

[stressedanime]

the quarry counselors at disneyland - headcanons - inspired by this ask @needsmorewlw got

Kaitlyn

Kaitlyn would be the type that has the day planned out for them, and with her its ALWAYS go go go. But like she needs to be that way in order to corral the group to where they need to be

She has the app downloaded on her phone that says how long the wait times are for the rides, and she would be min/maxing their time in the parks by organizing which rides to go to first

She made everyone buy matching fanny packs so they wouldn’t have to worry about their stuff falling off mid-ride

Hers of course is filled to the brim with everything they could ever need: pain killers, tampons, band-aids, you name it

In terms of rides, Kaitlyn starts us off as our first roller-coaster fiend of the group. Anything that gets her heart pumping is a good ride in her eyes. 

Jacob

Jacob does NOT like roller coasters, but also will not stand down to a challenge (one “pussy you won’t” will make him do just about anything)

When they go to line up for the Incredicoaster he tries to say something like he’s going to sit this one out and watch everyone's bags (even though there's no bags to watch because of Kaitlyn and the fanny packs).

Emma and Kaitlyn won’t let that slide, and after Kaitlyn hits him with the “You scared Jakeyyy?” he gives in. Jacob screams like a little girl the whole time, and there might’ve been a tear or two while he was begging for his life (Emma secretly films it.)

Apart from that though, he unironically loves the “its a small world” ride, and forces everyone to go on it with him. 

It ends up getting stuck in everyone’s head, they have to resort to smacking anyone who starts singing/humming it for the rest of the trip

Abi

I feel like Abi is a Disney girl at heart, and took a lot of inspiration from the older 2D Disney movies as a kid which kind of kickstarted her artistic journey. This means that she likes the classics; her favorite rides being mainly the ones in Fantasyland

Her number one would be the Peter Pan ride

Abi definitely has one of those autograph books and gets every character they meet to sign it. 

She also LOVES finding the hidden Mickey’s. She’s constantly pulling on Emma’s arm, excitedly pointing out the hidden Mickey’s around the park and on the rides (Emma falls in love just a little bit more with her every time).

Dylan

Dude unironically loves the Winnie the Pooh ride. He forces everyone to go on it with him

When Pooh like ascends out of his body into the dream world Dylan yells “Did Pooh just fucking die???” which makes everyone lose their shit for the rest of the ride

Link for reference, go to 1:50

Dylan is also a COMPLETE nerd about Cars Land. As soon as they enter he’s acting like an excited kid, just absolutely gushing about how accurate everything looks

“IT’S LIKE WE LITERALLY STEPPED INTO THE MOVIE”

He would drag Ryan onto every single ride in that area of the park and completely fangirl over meeting Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater (and would probably attempt to flirt with McQueen while getting pictures with him)

Dylan would buy the extremely gay rainbow ears, and would not stop singing “be who you areeeeeee, for your priiiiiiiiide”

Ryan

Ryan feels like the type to get lost on a Youtube deep dive about Disneyland park history, and becomes really invested in the darker history of the parks, but he also gets really invested in the history of the ride making, especially the history of the practical effects

This shows in Ryan’s favorite ride being, of course, the Haunted Mansion, which has a very rich and interesting history just by itself. As they ride it, he points out the effects and info-dumps how they work to Dylan

Not just the Haunted Mansion though, his deep dives taught him so many secrets about the parks, so he’s just constantly pointing out the stuff behind the magic of Disney

For example, he’ll point out the vents on Main Street that pump out sweet smells to drag people into the candy shops

He also loves the Matterhorn ride, simply because of his love for cryptids

Nick

Nick surprisingly, is a HUGE fan of the water rides, Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Jungle Cruise, the Grizzly River Run, all of em

He’s basically addicted to the Disneyland water smell.

His favorite though has got to be the Indiana Jones ride

He grew up absolutely LOVING the movies, so the ride made his inner child so happy 

He wasn’t outwardly joyful, but the group could just tell by the wonder in his eyes and the soft smile he had when they went through queue, that he was having the time of his life

Emma

Emma is a thrill-seeker at heart so she would be our second roller coaster fiend. Will force people to go on the coasters over and over again with her. 

She also loves Tower of Terror, and is extremely offended over the new version of it. 

And of course, as our resident content creator she would be vlogging the whole time; bringing her camera out on rides when she isn’t supposed to, taking pictures and videos of everything they do and what they eat etc. etc.

At some point, she notices Abi checking out the Stitch plushies in one of the shops, who puts it back after looking at the price tag. Later in the day Emma sneaks away from the group and buys it for Abi. 

Max

His problems in Disneyland come from his almost crippling fear of the mascots. He doesn’t know why they make him nervous, maybe because he just doesn’t know how to interact with them? 

Why are they making kissy noises at him??? Is he supposed to do make kissy noises back??? He knows there’s a human in there so why are they making kissy noises at him.

He still gets forced to take pictures with some of the characters by the group, but he stands as far away from the character as he can (He’s still sweating though)

Apart from that though, Max is really into the food. If they lose Max at any point they just need to retrace their steps and look at the food cart lineups

He’s constantly running back to the group like “Laura I bought us churros!” or “Laura I bought us pretzels!” or “Laura I got us Dole Whips!”

Laura

Laura is our final roller coaster fiend, so her, Emma, and Kaitlyn would go on the rides together that the other’s don’t want to go on (especially if they want to go on a coaster over and over)

Max will get dragged onto the roller coasters with Laura too, but she will have to help him walk after because his legs will turn to jelly

Also, Laura and Max are definitely THAT couple in ride lineups. 

Link for reference of what THAT couple means

She also buys her and Max matching Mickey and Minnie ears

[silverskye13]

This is going to be random so you can ignore me if you want lol but do you have any book recommendations? I want to know where the rawness of your writing comes from,,,, it's just idk you write their voices perfectly and describe feelings better than I can feel them, I'm honestly intrigued who are your references tbh lmao

Oh noooo an excuse to talk about my favorite books! I will try really really hard to stay on topic and not gush too much. I've also got a few just, general tips for getting better at description I'll throw under the cut as well, since description and voice are things I'm actively practicing and I've found some things that helped me.

Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames

[CW: Violence, gore, cursing, sexual themes, stereotypical high fantasy racism]

High fantasy novel about a band of heroes called Saga who used to be really cool - about 30 years ago. Now they're old and a bit washed up, and Clay Cooper is honestly pretty happy to be that way, until his old band leader Golden Gabe shows up on his doorstep saying his daughter is in danger and begging for help.

Nicholas Eames is honestly my biggest inspiration. He's stellar at description, and using tropes and stereotypes to his advantage. His books also have an incredible sense of humor. One thing he's really good at is phrases like "The wheat was golden as the Spring Maiden's hair," which is description informative of the world [The wheat field is gold and ready to harvest which gives us the time of year, there is a goddess named the Spring Maiden who is a major deity in this area, she is known for her blonde hair. These are three things we now know about the world that inform us about the setting that he never has to state outright].

Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames

[CW: Violence, gore, sex and general debauchery you'd associate with a rock band going on tour, cursing, stereotypical fantasy racism]

Bloody Rose is Golden Gabe's daughter, the best fighter to have ever lived -- and she has a death wish. Fortunately, or unfortunately, she also needs a bard to chronicle her band's exploits. Thus our main character gets to enter the plot.

I'm gonna be honest, as far as characters go, I didn't like this one as much as Kings of the Wyld, but it's still got his stellar description, works on some of the themes in the first book I thought needed elaboration, and is also very, very gay [MC is a lesbian and flustered surrounded by so many hot women, send help]. This book is very much a character study on how flawed a person can be and still be considered a hero. Also addresses the issue of "Is enslaving sentient monsters to fight in coliseums morally wrong?" that KotW posed but never really answered.

The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher

[CW: horror, some swearing, descriptions of skeletal remains]

Hi I'm a horror nut at heart. The Twisted Ones is a... Hmm... I wouldn't call it cosmic horror per say, but it's definitely got some existential fae-style horror going on. Our protagonist has to go clean out her grandmother's house when she passes away, and learns there's something... Wrong... With the property. There are creatures in the woods, and an insidious thing they're guarding. Thankfully she has a dog to keep her company. [And I'll tell you now, the dog doesn't die, so put that particular fear at ease]. T. Kingfisher also writes fantasy but I've only read her horror. I need to read more of her stuff.

I don't have any descriptions from this book written down [I read it before I made my descriptions doc] but one from The Hollow Places I really liked was "We were standing on the skin of a soap bubble," to talk about how the two characters would snap and go insane if they talked about or thought about their situation any more. Kingfisher is really, really good at writing tension.

The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buelman

[CW: Violence and gore, a lot of innuendos, a lot of calling out certain body parts as swears and insults. This is definitely a more mature read. Also implied sexual assault and cannibalism. This is pretty grimdark for fantasy.]

Not actually one of my favorite books but it had some really good stuff going for it so it makes the list. The Blacktongue Thief is about a thief who tries to rob the wrong woman, and ends up joining her on a mission to save a lost princess. They get caught up in a pretty big conspiracy in the process.

If you want a really good example of description as character voice, this is it. Kinch Na Shannuck is our POV character and his voice is in every description of every person and place. Unfortunately, he also speaks in euphemisms often, and his brain is constantly in the toilet, so for me that voice got grating. Still, you always knew who was telling you about what was going on [and at turns he would actually speak to the audience, which was neat]. Had such prize phrases as "She leaned casually against the counter, like she wasn't aware she was a threat made flesh."

Also there was some really cool worldbuilding in this one? A world where goblin wars have wiped out most of the men and made heroes of most women? How every man Kinch's age is a draft dodger specifically for those reasons? A disease that wiped out all the horses, and how that's actually a pretty major plot point? Also tattoo magic?? Really, really cool tattoo magic.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

I just love this book tbh. It also has good description, really good at talking about haunting loneliness, really relatable main character. But also it's just a comfort read for me. I love it. It's beautiful. I have a running vendetta against authors who've tried to rewrite it "but better" only to churn out filth instead. There’s a longer rant here about how horror treats queer people and women that I’ll keep to myself for now but I could write a 10pg thesis on it. Suffice it to say I’ve yet to find a book that does haunted house horror better than Shirley Jackson, as far as addressing complex topics through haunted houses goes. This is also one of the few books I’d say had a really good TV show adaptation? The Haunting of Hill House TV series on Netflix was really, really good at addressing the sense of terminal loneliness Shirley Jackson was discussing in her original book while also almost completely changing the source material. It’s a good adaptation, just don’t go into it thinking it’s the book. It’s really it’s own story with borrowed names.

--

There’s many many  more but I’ll end the list here. These are at least the most recent books I’ve read that I’ve really picked apart and studied for what I like about description in them. Honorable mentions are The Lord of the Rings, The Child of the Dark Prophesy / The Great Tree of Avalon Trilogy, anything Darcey Coates has ever written, The Ranger’s Apprentice Series, Frank Peretti’s YA books.... I read a lot. I’ve gone through stints of reading so much in the past I didn’t realize a book I’d picked up was one I’d read before until I was a few chapters in and recognized the familiarity.

--

Personal tips on writing description

Start a description document. Seriously this has helped me a ton. It’s a writing tip I’ve heard repeated several places and only recently started doing, but it’s helped immensely. It forces you to catalogue what you like about description and gives you a continued reference for what good description is, so you’re not necessarily trying to describe something from whole-cloth every time. If you own books and don’t mind marking them up, you can even take a highlighter to your personal favs when they throw some good phrases in there.

If anyone is interested in seeing my personal description doc, DM me [or message me on Discord, if we know each other there] and I’ll get a google drive link set up for you. It’s a good resource I swear by now.

Another thing I think is useful is just, when you start to feel big emotions, or you’re standing somewhere you want to describe in a book later, take a few minutes to describe them for yourself. It can be simple things, like driving into the sun and thinking about how that light feels on your face, or feeling happy and giving yourself words you could compare it to. [Coincidentally, if you’re like me and you sometimes have issues with panic attacks and dissociation, this works as a grounding exercise. Describe how your skin feels against fabric, how your breath and heartbeat feel in your chest, the light through the window, the sound of the wind]. But you’d be amazed the things you come up with spur of the moment, when you’re in the middle of feeling something. Wax poetic for the fun of it. Pretend you’re monologing for an audience in a theater somewhere. I have a lot of fun looking at the old factories around here and picking them apart in my head for descriptions.

As for the Hermits specifically, nailing down voices for them, it’s really handy that they have all these videos of them talking. Take some time, listen to one or two of their videos, and chart their speech patterns. You don’t have to take physical notes, but just recognizing little things is helpful.

Tango is an easy example. The man makes intelligable noises and says things like “murder-ificater” and “flee with extra flee!” Peppering in just one or two of his speech-isms sets his voice in your head.

Cub repeats things for emphasis, and speaks in false formality a lot. “Exactly! Exactly.” “Ladies and gentlemen, how are we doing today?”

Gem speaks like she’s trying to live in cottagecore at all times, which makes her feel a little insidious when she’s getting up to mischief. A smiling voice that describes things as “Pretty!” and “Cute!” and intentionally hesitates over unpleasant things “Well that’s... uh... unfortunate.” feels tonally dissonant when she also does things like sniping her friends with a bow from a distance.

To me Joe and Hypno are incredibly hard to write for because of this, because Hypno has a very neutral voice [his most recognizable vocal tick is saying “Mm-hmm!” to conclude sentences] and Joe has a very unpredictable voice, intentionally. He likes subverting expectations, both in sentence ending [random rhymes, turning things suddenly into poetry or song, replacing words with close approximations that mean something different] and in his reactions to things. He’s hard to pin down.

Anyway I’ve been working on this too long. I hope this helps!