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interstyx · 9 months

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A Commentary on Kenosis

Like all good ideas, Kenosis came to me in a nightmare. The very night the subtitles for Episode 5 dropped, I went to sleep with the words “let’s reset these memories, one more time” haunting me as I gave spin after spin to the implications. I dreamed up the events of Ch1 a few hours later, a very close match to what ended up written. It was an unforgivingly clear nightmare, yet somehow it was hazy in that way that you can only experience while under a high fever. Must’ve been some real-time hours of swapping between N and V’s perspectives while living through a torturous loop of physical sensations.

Next day (a Sunday), the first thing I do after my morning coffee is hunt for fanart, and I find this piece – one of my absolute favorites (whose source I neglected to save).

The message couldn’t be any clearer. The world was hammering into my head that I had, needed to write this nightmare.

Writing it was torturous. I’ve never done gore before, and I discovered right here that I have an ill tendency to get too much into the role while picturing a character’s perspective; for the first time in my life, my writing physically affected me, and after each session of writing V’s surgery I’d end up hurting in a vaguely similar way. The nocebo effect was insane, really. I’d heard plenty of stories about the insane ways authors connect with their stories (a favorite one of mine is hearing the voices of their characters narrating the events to them, forcing them to stop when the narrator would break down crying), but I didn’t really buy them before. I guess this is my Special Cursed Power Technique unique to me or something.

What’s worse, each passing day the idea would spiral further and further and develop into an actual plot I couldn’t help but feel enthusiastic about. SIGKILL and The Waves appeared in my head either the same day or one day and the very next, and one too many sessions of listening to ətˈæk 0N tάɪtn (that’s an actual song title, and the phonetic spelling of Attack on Titan) gave me the finisher that The Waves demanded, though the events that’d become I Mak Siccar were always much more fuzzy in my head (which I think is easy to tell on reread), then later a Tumblr post by multiversal-pudding (who’s awesome) made me realize I couldn’t end it in such a shit note and handed me the right way to do it on a silver platter. If it weren’t for them, this story wouldn’t be half as good as it is.

I wasn’t sure if the concept had any life in it, so I posted Ch1 with the idea of it being a one-shot. Much to my dismay, it was pretty widely enjoyed, much more than any of my previous work anywhere. Another of the many special signs from the universe I got while writing this was that a friend DM’d me Ch1 on Discord saying “I think you’ll enjoy this one” and only realizing who wrote it when the AO3 embed with my nickname popped up. Really, I was just bound to writing the full thing now.

The way I wrote V from SIGKILL on is heavily modeled off my mom. This is intentional — V’s mood swings and impulses largely come from how she’d treat me earlier in life. Partly by planning, partly by discovery, Kenosis was supposed to be closure for my relationship with her, an attempt to work through the ways she felt when I lived with her, and when I moved with my dad. Their ways of talking are quite similar, too, so that saved me a good bit of dialogue torture — I wrote a good chunk of V’s dialogue just picturing what my mom would say and MDifying it a bit.

But sometime during writing The Waves, I had to draft out an abstracted hallucination of the real events in Ch1. I don’t recall where that bit ended up, it’s something about a hole opening up in V’s torso, and things pulling stuff out of the hole then shoving new, weirder stuff in. It clicked then, a quarter of the way through writing the chapter, that I was drawing imagery from a real event I’d repressed. I recall that the moment it clicked, my stomach wrenched.

This isn’t to imply that the actual events in the fanfic are an allegory or metaphor — fuck no. That’d have some abhorrent implications that I absolutely repudiate. It does mean, however, that I ended up connecting to V a lot more than I'd ever done with my characters (more than I wanted).

Slowly, Kenosis started growing and growing, occupying more and more of my head. There were stretches where I’d procrastinate through days of uni work because I couldn’t put my mind off it until I’d written enough to tire my fingers (not that much, I have little stamina most days). It even started haunting me in the twilight zone between laying in bed and falling asleep, wrenching my gut at times. It was not long before I finished The Waves that it registered that pouring this much of myself into a fanfic series and suffering that much for it was a wonderfully silly predicament to be caught in. The robot goobers really didn’t need to live through my abstracted deliriums of trauma.

I’m still not happy about it. There were much easier, healthier ways to process this trauma, but hey; what’s done is done. I’ll have to live with “projected deep personal trauma onto fanfiction” in my sin record. A year from now I’ll come back to this and laugh at how self-serious and melodramatic I got about these characters, how desperately I wanted to write V a happy ending, but right now I’m also very proud of how much I managed to achieve here.

It was tough, it was personal, it took a lot out of me, and I’ll never forget that month or so where I categorically refused to work on this stupid project until I’d gotten back on track with uni, right after I Mak Siccar, with V at her absolute worst and the end still an entire chapter’s worth of suffering away.

In our journey past trauma, we find ourselves back there over and over, and the things we find strength in can sometimes hurt us too. There’s definitely wrong ways to overcome it, and it leaves us pained and hobbling for a long time — but with time and friends on our side, healing is always at hand. God, that’s such a cheesy way to put it, but this whole thing’s cheesy as shit. I think that’s just the way I am.

I’d like to think I made it through just like V, and this is a recounting of my journey rather than a fantasy of victory. I don’t know yet. I might never. I just really, really want to hug her.

At first I meant for Kenosis to be just a quick test before moving on to larger projects where I could express myself better. Now I doubt I ever will. I’ll miss writing this dearly. I adore Uzi, N and V deeply and I hope I can keep this connection I’ve built to them for a long time.

Enough sulking. Thanks for reading.

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drowninginredink · 9 months

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WIP List

I always like it when people talk about their WIPs. I live for that. So it's my turn. But I am a one-shot writer at heart with way, way too many ideas, so here is a list of everything I'm toying with. For the record, some of these don't even have a single word written yet, and none are that far along, so don't get your hopes up too high.

Smosh One-Shots

"Feelings are so fragile" — Platonic Shaymien thing where I project really hard onto Damien. (Yes it's for the aro collection)

"Most euphoric I've ever been" — A spetney fic based the fact that yes, they're technically a m/f couple... But like, no. Put them together, you've got nonbinary lesbian vibes. Sorry Spencer, you're getting your gender transed because there's no way you and Courtney are straight.

"But what's a home?" — A Damian QPR fic. Damien/Ian is already such an interesting rarepair and then you make it a QPR and it's like... They end up living together just temporarily because Damien's housing falls through and turns out they both really miss when they used to be living with their best friends and look I know everyone likes romance but do you know how good QPR fics can be? I love the idea of them as a QPR so much?

A thing for @aro-soulmates-fest about Anthony getting all his tattoos to hide the fact that he doesn't have a soulmate one.

A murderverse one shot about Arasha because God I fucking love gang AU!Arasha

A vampire!Spencer fic where Shayne plays the role of Johnathan Harker

"And I lie like the right thing to do" — me taking @generaltrashshecox 's whole "Anthony sleeping with Damien to cope with unrequited feelings for Ian thing that I love so much and just doing my own version of it where I lean into the angst so hard. With permission from bun, don't worry

A (platonic) nintendogs fic where I decide to do a little bit of own voices stuff on the fact that The Chosen is suuuuuuuuper schizo-coded

I bought a new ray and it's time to use it. Let's make Ian aplatonic this time.

"Then it's done." Killing off Spencer. Very one-sided Spommy.

A lil smut based on Anthony asking Tommy to choke him.

Hey @generaltrashshecox infected me again and now aro4aro Antmien needs to exist

This post into a real fic

Smosh not a one shot but also kind of a one shot?

14. "Once in twenty lifetimes" — A no smosh AU that's going to go through all the different ways Ian and Anthony could have ended, choose-your-own-adventure style. And as the title suggests, only one of them is the reunion. Most are things falling apart. And also to fit the title, it's going to be in twenty chapters (although that does not mean 20 endings. I don't hate myself.). So it's multichapter, but also it'll all be posted at once so it'll basically be a one-shot. It's going to end up as kind of an epic and God I hope it turns out as good as it is in my head. Inspiration for the good endings is "Cardigan" by Taylor Swift, and for the bad endings and a lot along the way is "San Cristobal" by Mal Blum.

15. Partners (in crime) — my Changela QPR fic that was supposed to be a one-shot right up until I wrote the thing, and actually wrote a chapter one. Not sure how long that's going to be, but I like it so far.

Smosh Multichapter

(The fact that my very one-shot oriented self has multiple of these is such a problem)

16. "Puppy Love" — I don't need to say anything about this. There are already 5 chapters on AO3. Either it's extremely your shit or you're wondering what the hell I'm doing and why I'm writing this extremely specific concept. If you're wondering why I still haven't posted chapter 6, it's because that has sex in it and I fucking hate writing sex scenes so I'm procrastinating really hard.

17. "I'll use you as a warning sign" (aka the evil fic, so named because chu-tea thinks I'm evil for coming up with the plot) — yeah so what I planned for PL was just a straightforward kind of fluffy ianthony piece. And then a certain friend of mine (*cough* chu *cough*) accidentally inspired me to think of a different ending that is such hardcore angst and hurt that I absolutely needed to make it happen and have been obsessed. It's interesting when you've already made the bad decision to start a long project and then oops, now you just really want the next 6 chapters to be done already so you can write the alternate ending. This one will *really* not be everyone's shit because I will rip your heart out in 6 different ways. But God I'm obsessed. Anyway, if you want details... I'll just say "major character death" and leave it at that. Oh and rarepair.

18. "I've come back changed and I can feel it in my bones" — an AU where "what if Anthony left because he got psychosis." Basically very hardcore projection on my part. This is on the back burner for a while because obviously when I have projects that aren't going to be emotionally gutting to write, I'd much rather work on them.

Non Smosh Stuff

(I'll be honest, I'm so deep in the smosh obsession that you should not get too excited about any of these. I know myself, so I know the smosh flame will eventually burn out but these are based on things I will be obsessed with until I die. So I know they'll happen. But not for a long time)

19. A Phantom of the Opera one-shot for @aro-soulmates-fest. This is the one thing I will actually write within a reasonable amount of time, because it's due March 17.

20. "Baby, please don't bore me" — A Series of Unfortunate Events — Sunny (well, Sorrel in this version because oops I transed their gender) teams up with Olaf to find their siblings after years of separation. I find them to be a very interesting chaotic, morally gray, bantery duo.

21. "Because the same night awaits us all" — ASOUE — A Klaus/Lemony fic that I swear I will write someday. Very morally gray, very much a codependent relationship, very leaning into the age gap. Basically they're together because they do not have anyone else in the world. It's just so delicious a dynamic that I will explore I swear.

22. ASOUE — I'm still not entirely convinced I'll ever be bothered to actually write this one, but I might do a Kit/Fernald FWB thing. I'm not sure where on earth the idea of that came from, but it's been living in my head for a long time now. Long enough that there's an early one-shot version of it that I don't really like anymore on *gasp* fanfiction.net

If anyone actually bothered to read all the way to the end of this long-ass post, you deserve a medal.

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thecatchat · 2 months

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Cue being invited out to this cabin/mansion/place in the woods by some other mob/drink/high society people and instructed to bring Karl and Saponite. These are people he needs to keep in contact with so he agrees, lays down some ground rules for the two, and go.

This chunks fuzzy, cus I don't really have a b plot with the fancy people, Cue, and Karl in mind. All I have is the Saponite plot. He's feeling a bit disconnected from the culture and people here. This isn't a petting party. It's much more like those political balls that he's attended his entire life. There are legitimate stakes for Cue here. But it's so, so different. There's jazz, dancing, drinks are everywhere. He's lost Cue and Karl and he's fumbled every conversation so far and it's all just a little too much.

So he heads outside for a breather. Walks off into the forest that's so similar yet still so different. A little way away from the party, as he's kinda wallowing in shame, he encounters: a bear. A really big bear.

At least, to Prowa, it's a big bear. For Saponite? Eh. It's definitely dangerous, but it's no (like a griffin, but instead of an eagle, it's a bat). If it can't fly or crawl on the ceiling, then it's already 75% less dangerous than most of the stuff he deals with on a regular basis. Plus, it's approaching the party full of drunk people.

What's he supposed to do, not fight it?

He does have to play it very safely, as he doesn't know what exactly to expect and ends up getting pushed back to the edge of the party. Of course, all the Prowans are gobsmacked by Saponite, basically brawling with a bear and not dying. He eventually ends the fight with a stab to the back of the head of the bear. In front of many party goers.

"... who wants a feast?"

So when Cue finally finds him, it's three hours later, Nite has rounded up some not-too-drunk party goers into helping him skin the bear, butcher the bear, and construction of a fire pit to cook the whole thing. He's adding plant spices to the fire and the meat, lots of different combinations to try out, happy as a clam.

He ends up enthralling people by talking about how hunting is such a bonding experience and really it wasn't too much trouble to bring down the bear, it's basically been his job to do stuff like that his entire life. If it tries to kill you, there's a way to cook it. Introducing the concept of the feast: an abundance of food instead of an abundance of drink. How the different parts of the animal can be cooked differently into different recipes. The skin comes off in one piece that he intends to give as a rug to the host of the party as a gift.

Cue being very happy that Nite found a way to be comfortable at the party, even if it did give him a heart attack to learn that his Sap brawled with a bear.

Nobody was expecting to taste bear that night. But everyone agreed that, while Cue's little asonist may not know his drinks, he sure knows how to cook.

Also, Karl probably ended up swinging from a chandelier at some point. Because Karl.

@inky-kaleidascope-dimensions

#kaleidoscope dimensions #if sad check this tag #read again

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mandareeboo · 5 months

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Hello hi! I have been reading ur stuff for awhile, apologies if my tagging u was abrupt! I would love to hear more abt ur thoughts on 1984 as someone else who doesnt like that book

No worries! I'm always happy to meet new people!

Here's a general "1984 is important in history and teaches a vital lesson in dystopian nonsense blah blah blah" starter pack. I first read 1984 for english class in high school. I read it in one sitting (I'm a fast reader) and refused to re-read it to refresh my mind before the final, resulting in my first B in the class. Here's a highlight reel.

Winston almost murks his wife and it's not like. Given any plot importance. I'd understand if it had a plot point to it but he goes on for a paragraph about wanting to yeet her into a pit and then it just. Moves on. He likewise pictures braining Julia on their first meeting outside of work. Again, this is not even a plot point, or used as a discussion piece of paranoia. It just happens.

Winston has a sex-based injury. Winston knows Big Brother is watching constantly. Winston never assumes that Big Brother will notice when his lack of sex ankle wound goes down despite his wife living in a completely other place.

How it handles poor people. Jesus fuck, how it handles poor people. I understand 1984 was written in a time when there was heavy systematic classicism. But it doesn't even have a point in the book? Orwell discusses at length how, of any population, poor people are given the most freedom, but are constrained by smokes and alcohol and sex. How they'll never be smart enough to fight back but they have the best odds to. This isn't relevant to the fucking plot at all? He just yammers on about poor people for a chapter and never brings them up again.

There's probably a lot of race stuff about how Big Brother and Emmanuel Goldstein but I'm even less able to speak coherently about that.

1984 isn’t a cautionary tale. It’s not even a horror novel, because those have some sort of ending. It’s the tale of a victim who is left with Stockholm’s. It betrays the concepts it hopes to push by having the entire love affair, the hidden room, the glass coral. We are left to watch our characters twisted into unknowable hatred by torture and damnation and we learn… what? To NOT rebel? It teaches nothing. It gives us nothing. It feels like we’re just sitting and judging the life of Winston through the metaphors as we watch him suffer. Ants under magnifying glasses, under the sun.

Dystopian novels are supposed to be warnings. Readers are supposed to read these stories and feel that overwhelming sense of dread, and structure, and the act of rebellion is supposed to cement the point of it all. That humans are built to be different, and free, and live our own lives, and hundreds of years of conditioning don’t change that, just repress it.

TLDR: 1984 is an important book. It's not a GOOD book.

#Ask #Question Mandar #frickfrackchickenstack #1984

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kitchfit · 9 months

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Year in Review: Movies Pt 2

No longer promising consistent posts. From now on, these come out "bi-weekly," which means whatever I want it to, and written by your weekly bi. I am the only person to have ever thought of that joke.

Robin Hood (2010)

This is the one with Russell Crowe. I honestly don't know how I finished this one. I guess because my dad wanted to watch it. This is supposed to be a gritty, realistic take on the classic Robin Hood story. Or at least, I think that's what they were going for, it feels like the director can't decide between gritty realism and the goofiness that comes with the concept of the Merry Men. They're constantly cracking off one-liners and stealing from rich people with goofy disguises that feel more like pranks, but there's also an entire bloody battle scene between "Robin of the Hood" and King Richard that I cannot for the life of me remember the context nor conclusion of. I guess you could say it has both elements wrapped in one neat package, but it doesn't do either of those aspects really well.

Two most memorable scenes for me involve a blind man kicking surprising amount of ass in a sword fight, though ultimately unsuccessfully, and Little John clarifying to the bee-keeping Friar Tuck that NO! He does NOT have a "Little John." (as in small penie). The cast is kind of stacked in this movie, (Cate Blanchett as Lady Marianne, Oscar Isaac as King Richard, the Crow-man as The Hood) and they all give great performances, if that's what you're after, but overall it's kind of forgettable.

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero

The rest of this entry's list follows a second movie marathon I had with some friends as we prepared for a showing of "Across the Spider-verse" we were watching the morning after. Why does that mean two anime movies and a classic Eddie Murphy comedy? I don't know! It was fun though. And that's all I can really say about this movie. It was fun! Nothing amazing. The plot follows the tertiary return of the Red Ribbon army, who are once again on that robot shit, and Piccolo trying to get his foster son, Gohan, to stop being a nerd (having a secure, well-paying career as an entomologist? Apparently?) and be a martial artist again. He does this by constantly putting his foster son's daughter (foster granddaughter?) in mortal peril to make Gohan snap and break stuff like he did in the old days. This is, hilariously, played as a uncritically good deed and that Piccolo was right to do this. I love Piccolo though, so he can do whatever he wants, Pan seems like she's having a great time being in peril.

The animation is fantastic, as per usual with high-budget anime movies these days. They opted for a 3D style that blends in nicely with the artstyle they've been using for Super. The fight scenes are choreographed in a way that reminds me of the Dragon Ball games they've put out in recent years, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the Fighterz team worked on this. Oh wait, I have the power of the Internet in my Grasp.

...

WOW! Trying to find a comprehensive list of animators is hard as fuck! Cool! I ended up pausing through a video of the credits for both pieces of media. God I wish I could ctrl+f on a video. There may have been some overlapping names I overlooked, but I guess it wasn't largely the same people, oh well! If anyone knows a better way to find this information, please let me know!

Jujutsu Kaisen Zero

Our second anime movie of the night had a bit more depth to it. My watch through of Jujutsu Kaisen season one was bombastic, beautiful, and well-executed. It felt like a modern, more competent rewrite of the dynamics found in Naruto, though since I haven't read any of the manga that may be presumptuous of me. This movie didn't feel like Naruto. This movie felt more like Uzumaki (okay I haven't read Uzumaki yet, but I could resist the pun lol). A more straight-forward animated horror film that only leans into its shonen side towards the final act. You don't need to have read or watched any of Jujutsu Kaisen to appreciate this. In fact, I guess you could start with it, since it acts somewhat as a prequel.

The plot follows a boy possessed by the ghost of a woman he witnessed die in a car accident when he was a young kid. She was very close to him while he was alive, and in death she is an obsessive, over protective monster who maims anyone who might come close to her liege. It comes to light that her possession was actually (spoilers) the result of the boy's own psychic abilities, who brought her back from the grave on accident while distressing her death. It's an interesting statement on grief. An emotion can be so powerful as to tear open the fabric of the pale, and holding onto the negativity of that emotion for years only serving to hurt oneself and everyone around them. And then making peace with that grief so you can *checks notes* use your dead loved one to kick ass in a cool anime fight sequence. This movie NEEDS to be in schools./j

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse

Modern media has been a bit over-saturated with Multiverse stories as of late. Its a pretty common story trope in science fiction, done to death in Star Trek, DC comics, the comic this movie was based on, the video-game that comic was inspidered by, among other things. Rick and Morty's entire premise is basically built on the back of that concept, but I think we can trace its recent burst in usage to the success of this movie.

I love Spider-Man. I love Peter Parker. I think his story has such a strong foundation that nearly every adaptation I've seen has been compelling in one way or another. I love most of the Avengers super-heroes, but I can't really say their characters are as relatable, funny, or impactful as our arachnid enhanced boy. There's a reason when Sony was offered the entire Marvel ensemble, they opted to just take the wall-crawler at a discounted price. This movie uses the Multiverse to deconstruct the Spider-Hero narrative and show exactly why this character premise is so compelling.

Miles Morales is not Peter Parker, but he is Petersimilar. A nerdy kid who loves science and wants to be liked and most imporantly: wants to help, no, needs to help others. Because great power + conscience = responsibility. The same is consistent with the rest of the cast. It's a cheesy formula at this point, maybe, which is why its so effective when they play it so straight-forward with all six members of the cast. Different backgrounds, different histories, different universes, but all have seen what their inaction can affect, and all of them have the heart to keep going, to help people even when it gets tough. Miles is a particularly effective introduction to this Super-Hero for younger kids, being relatively less known and thus a fresher narrative than Peter, not to mention more black representation in popular media. It makes me smile when I see kids excitedly bring a stack of Miles Morales easy readers to the check-out desk. He's definitely The Spider of the next generation.

The Nutty Professor

This movie is. Definitely something. Still not sure why we ended our marathon on it. For those unaware, this is an Eddie Murphy comedy about an obese biology professor who concocts A Serum that makes him not only thin for short periods of time, but extremely charismatic. The thin version of himself essentially acts as a second personality who's kind of an asshole, and his coworker ends up caught in a love triangle between Fat Murphy and Thin Murphy.

This, naturally, comes with an endless cavalcade of fatphobic jabs typical of the 90s, but ultimately has a somewhat half-hearted message about toxic masculinity and body positivity. A lot of the jokes that aren't aimed at "haha fat people" do land with relative frequency, because well, Eddie Murphy Is Kind Of A Funny Guy, but for the first time I noticed a structural similarity in his comedy and Adam Sandler's. Remember Chuck and Larry, where the writing is extremely homophobic for the majority of its runtime, and ends with Sandler saying, "Don't be a homophobe"? No? No one has thought of that movie in 10,000 years? Well, this movie feels like that but with fat people, to slightly less offensive degree. But a low effort Murphy movie is still better than a mid-effort Sandler flick, I guess.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse

I already ranted about how much I love Spider-Man earlier, and how the original deconstructs him as a concept, so I won't do that again, but I do want to draw attention to the inherent meta-fiction in Multiverse stories. It is, by its very nature, a story discussing storytelling. By showing different universes you are showing the audience how a story could have gone differently, how characterization can fundamentally alter a narrative. Multiverse stories that understand and recognize this principle tend to lead to a more cohesive and engaging plot. AtSV understand this principle, and follows more closely the original Edge of Spider-verse comic run, reintroducing Spider-Staples like Spider-Punk and Pavitr Prabhakar.

I like that Miguel O'Hara takes center-stage as the antagonist in this film, as he is largely left out of the Spider-verse stuff in the comics, and also I love Spider-Man 2099. One of my friends is obsessed with him. It is his recognition of the patterns in the Spider-Man narrative that drives the conflict in the second act, and it is him who decides those patterns are Fundamental to the Structure of All Things, which not only fits with his character, but provides a much better explanation for the existence of Spider-Society compared to the Spider Gods and Fate Totems from the comics. Miles is once again trapped in a typical Spider-Man conflict, but ironically has his status as Spider-Man called into question. All of existence is collapsing, a science experiment gone wrong turned a scientist into a monster, his dad is in peril, and all of it is getting in the way of asking out the girl of his dreams. Can none of the 100,000 Peter Parker's sympathize? Well yes, they can, but most still hold O'Hara's goal as the larger responsibility.

Speaking of the girl of his dreams, I adore Spider-Gwen. She is the comic book character I will follow to the ends of the earth, even though most of her comics lately suck ass. This film does a beautiful job bringing Robbie Rodriguez's artstyle to life in our brief time in Earth 65. The colors... THE COLORS!!! This animation team once again changed the landscape of animated films, but sadly this came at the cost of some pretty gross labor violations. This is extra damning as AtSV is apparently the fourth longest animated movie ever and doesn't even have a conclusion. All that abuse for an incomplete story? They clearly could have taken their time with this, and not every scene needed to make it to the final cut. This is why we have deleted scenes! So a studio doesn't lock a bunch of animators in a box and force them to work an unreasonable amount in record time. I hope the next movie has more union reps and give everyone as much time and space as they need to make something good. I want movies with people paid more to do less, dammit!

Okay, my soap box has been discarded. I've placed it neatly in the drawer with my toothpaste and hairbrush. I have one more list of movies to get through, but rn I'm moving onto the latter half of my reading list, since with my track record I probably won't finish anything else before the end of the year.

#my post #reviews #movie review #robin hood #dragon ball #dragon ball super #dragon ball super: super hero #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen zero #the nutty professor #spider-man #spider man #spiderman #itsv #into the spider verse #atsv #across the spider verse #long post #film

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mbg159 · 3 years

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5 Things That 5Ds Fans Have Claimed Are True About 5Ds’s Production

Inspired by this wonderful post.

- Crow was supposed to be the main villain of the Dark Signer arc, with the smoking-gun evidence being a piece of very early concept art by Takahashi that describes him as a guy who’s tried to steal Yusei’s D-Wheel before and is now his friend, with Rex Godwin's massive Nazca condor shirt emblem being a cleverly-placed red herring.

- Crow was made into a good guy because his cards sold well, in that set that came out a month after he debuted and was shown as a good guy and Yusei's never-mentioned BFF. Rather than the standard anime production cycle of a few months per episode, they created the episode in negative three weeks, paying very close attention to the card game the same way they did when they swapped out Kaiser's Cyber Dragons for the incredibly meta-relevant Cyberdarks.

- Aki Izayoi's role was reduced because her voice actress, Ayumi Kinoshita, was pregnant at the time of the show's run in 2008-2011. She would go on to get married in 2012 and give birth to her first child in 2014, setting the world record for Longest Pregnancy.

- The Roma-Sophie cult scandal, which went public in September 2010, affected the production timeline of the entire second half of 5Ds, which began in mid-2009. Having seen the future, they decided to distance themselves from the cult, and cleverly destroyed the Arcadia Movement building and largely ended its plotline in December 2008. They also excised almost all elements of the occult and shifted the series in the direction of pure sci-fi. Except for that part of the series and the whole-ass DS game, because they figured they could have a little cult stuff.

- The aforementioned cult also caused them to completely revert Carly Nagisa's long-running character arc, as her voice actress, Li-Mei Chiang, was a high-ranking member of Roma-Sophie. To accomplish this, they significantly downplayed her role in the series and turned her into a cheerleader for Jack Atlas. However, she was so nice around the office that they decided to raise her character from the dead, give her a prevalent, irritating running gag, and have her keep showing up and even get a filler recap episode that aired in October 2010, despite her having essentially no role in the ongoing plot and many other characters losing prominence or being written out in the transition to the WRGP Arc. They only recasted her part in that episode, which was near the end of the series, because she was literally under arrest at that point. It came as a complete shock to everyone, despite the fact that they had been planning for the eventuality for over a year.

These facts may have no apparent sources or citations except hoary decade-old internet rumors and fandom gossip one step above a friend’s dad who works at Nintendo, but they are definitely true. Because, as we all know, the idea of Yu-Gi-Oh shows downplaying or sidelining prominent female characters, reverting character development that might alter the status quo (especially when it comes to romance), rejecting cool occult elements that appeal to an older audience in favor of toyetic sci-fi that appeals to kids, and sticking the spotlight on completely unprecedented characters for no reason to the point of sidelining existing characters and plotlines, is utterly inconceivable. There has to be an outside explanation.

In seriousness, friends: sometimes a show just does things you don't want it to do. There's no reason for it. Nobody forced the writers to do it. There was no nasty executive sharpening a knife over their shoulder. The same writers who wrote the things you liked, can write the things you didn't like. This is especially true when you are a nostalgic twentysomething Western adult and the show is aimed at ten-year-old Japanese boys and therefore does things not meant to appeal to you in any way.

And I believed most of these myself at some point. I eagerly jumped on the idea. It let me construct a "true" version of 5Ds that existed in a mental covenant between me and the show's writers, who understood what was really good about the show. I could claim that, really, the last half wasn't bad, because it was just them doing the best with what they could under heavy limitations.

But there were no limitations. They wanted the show to be that way. They did it on purpose. It sucks, but it happens. Some people actually preferred the show that way, you know.

If it's any consolation, it's not new. Just ask a Dragon Ball fan about Gohan sometime.

#yugioh 5ds #aki izayoi #akiza izinski #carly nagisa #carly carmine #jack atlas #crow hogan #debunking

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killian-spey · 3 years

Text

Death Would Be Kinder [Ch. 2]

Prev. Ch.

[Drusilla/Spike/Calendar!Reader]

Words: 2276

Fic Concept: Jenny Calendar’s sister spends some “quality time” with the Season 2 Vampire Squad. This chapter takes place during [BtVS S2:E15]

TW/CW: violence, kidnapping, chains?

AN: Idea came from @prose-for-hire ‘s submission to the fic title game. Taglist is at the bottom, let me know if you want to be added!

You’d been sitting silently, watching Spike wheel himself back and forth across the factory. If you didn’t know better he looked like he was pacing. In reality, he was probably checking behind the pillars and corners of the factory for any sign of your friends. It seems the vampires were expecting Buffy to come looking for you. As the time dragged on, your suspicions became reality; Buffy had prioritized the threat of the Judge over saving you. You had to admit, it stung a little, but it was only logical.

Spike peeked his head into each doorway adjoining the main factory floor. You could tell he was getting restless. You contemplated your odds carefully before you decided on taking a calculated risk.

“You lose a sock?” you yelled.

“Did I what?” Spike wheeled back into the room, an odd expression on his face.

“I asked if you lost a sock.” You paused, his intense glare caught you off-guard. “You know… Because of all the pacing. And popping your head in and out of every room in the place. Somebody’s going to think you lost a sock.”

“Well, I didn’t.” He chuckled a bit before going quiet again and stalking around the factory in his wheelchair. You nodded to yourself, deciding to quit while you were ahead. After that, the only sounds left in the factory were the spinning of wheels and an occasional bumping of door frames and frustrated curses.

It had only been a couple hours of his pseudo-pacing before Angelus and Drusilla stumbled their way into the factory. Spike took one look at the state Angelus was in and hid a smirk under his hand by scratching his nose.

“Well, you’re home early. Slayer hasn’t even tried swiping the girl yet.”

Spike’s good mood vanished as he watched them come down the steps. Drusilla was beside herself, and for a moment you found yourself feeling bad for her. Then Angelus opened his big fat mouth and you remembered who these people were.

“Yeah, well things didn’t go exactly according to plan, Spikey.” He prowled the room, circling like a big cat before he gravitated towards you. Your nerves peaked and you swear you saw a glint of pride behind Angelus’ eyes as he heard your heart pick up. He stepped within arms’ reach of you and sneered.

“What I can’t figure out is, why would she abandon you like this?”

“Where’s your big blue friend?” You swallowed your anxiety and stared up at him in challenge, you weren’t going to tell him a goddamn thing. Might as well give yourself a fighting chance. If he figured it out, you were dead already. You were going to be careful, of course, but that didn’t mean you were going to let him win.

Angelus roared, grabbing your face by the jaw. He was suddenly wearing his game face front and center. ‘Buffy really rattled him, huh?’ You remained stoic, as statuesque as you could muster. If you had misjudged his mood, this might be one of your last moments alive.

Drusilla had floated her way over, leaning into Angelus and hugging his arm to her side. Your staring contest interrupted, Angelus pulled away from you. You took the free moment away from the spotlight to run your fingers against the grain of the armrests, trying to ground yourself in the feeling of the wood underneath you. Your panic was bubbling to the surface, tension and pressure building in your ribcage. You caught Spike’s knowing glance towards you as your eyes flickered between the vampires. You dropped your eyes to the floor, frozen as Drusilla subtly coaxed Angelus away from you. Before long, Angelus had stormed out of the factory again, mumbling about sending Buffy a message.

You were grateful and more than a little stunned. Drusilla saved your life. In her own, subtle way she’d dismantled Angelus’ rage and directed it somewhere else. She’d spun him out of the factory towards Buffy with little more than a subtle flirtatious gesture. You practically gawked at her as she made her way into Spike’s lap. She had these men wrapped around her finger and they didn’t even know it.

Well, maybe Spike knew, but he certainly didn’t mind. He was running his fingers through Drusilla’s hair, comforting her as he spoke.

“If you like the hostage so much, maybe you should have a little fun, Ducks.” He wrapped an arm around Drusilla’s waist to steady her as he wheeled towards you, continuing. “She was supposed to be the distraction for the Slayer, after all. That is what went wrong with the plan, wasn’t it?”

Drusilla lifted her head, gears turning as she looked between Spike and you. Your mind rushed with your fears of what she was contemplating. You didn’t put it past them for ‘playing’ to mean something rather unpleasant for you. Drusilla hummed under her breath excitedly, springing from Spike’s lap and practically skipping out of the room. Spike nodded at you, raising his eyebrows as if to say “Hey look, I fixed it!” and wheeled himself into a good position to watch from, a smug grin on his face.

Drusilla returned with two fistfuls of chains and your heart dropped. She fussed with them somewhere behind you and left the rest in a pile as she ducked off again to the other room. Spike flicked his eyes between the chains and his girl curiously, but said nothing as she flurried about the factory. When she returned, she was holding a long carrying case and a small over-the-shoulder bookbag. She dropped them beside the chains and left again without a word.

“Ducks, what is all this stuff?”

Spike called out to her and wheeled over to the bags. He unzipped one when she didn’t answer. You couldn’t see into the bag from your position and Spike’s exasperated reaction didn’t help you either.

Drusilla returned one final time, holding a large blank canvas in each hand. The left was maybe a 20”x24” and the right was maybe a 24” square. (50cmx60cm or 60cm square).

“Which one does the artist like best?”

You paused, unsure if there was a right answer. After a couple moments you pointed weakly to the left canvas. Drusilla smiled at you and put the square canvas down. Spike scoffed as Drusilla set up an easel from the carrying case and put the bookbag on a table beside it.

She dragged the chains over to your chair and kneeled, carefully untying the knots around your right leg. You studied her face; she bit her tongue lightly as she worked, pulling at the ropes with deft, perfectly manicured fingers. After she’d untied your legs and shackled them, she let your arms off the armrests.

She took your hands in hers and pulled you up to stand for the first time in almost a day. You scanned her expression and glanced backwards towards the easel, then back to her with trepidation. She glided you in front of the daunting white canvas and left you, sinking backwards and sitting in Spike’s lap.

You stood, dumbfounded at the prospect of Drusilla wanting you to paint, of all things. She seemed unimpressed by your inaction after a few moments, and had begun whispering into Spike's ear. He'd leaned into her, pulling her closer and snickered at what must have been a rather amusing comment. He flicked his eyes at you through his lashes, a predatory glint flashing behind his eyes as his smirk grew. He straightened in his seat with satisfaction, head held high.

“Paint for the lady or get eaten. Your choice.”

Drusilla’s eyes wandered back to you and provided no comfort, but then again, why should it? You turned back to the canvas, feeling both their eyes staring at you. A calming breath later, you assessed the materials on the table.

The canvas bag she'd brought had a full set of oil paints- far nicer than you'd ever been able to afford. You didn't dare think of the poor shopkeeper she'd probably killed for them. A person just like your Uncle. He was just another obstacle in these people’s way, and for that he was murdered. You shoved the paints to one side of the small table and began assessing the tools. A somewhat rudimentary selection of spatulas and brushes. You could make do just fine with these.

You set up a palette with some blue, red, white, and black to start. A color palette often was the first thought you gave to a painting. This painting would be mostly blues, purples, and grays. Without turning your head, your eyes flicked towards the vampires just off your left shoulder in the periphery. You had never really let anyone sit and watch you paint. It was hard enough showing a finished piece to someone other than family.

You mixed a deep lilac and raised a palette knife to the canvas. You paused, unsure where to place the landscape. The creeping feeling of being watched was throwing you. The white snow canvas was taunting you, paralyzing you. But you weren't about to let it win. Any of them. You closed your eyes and just swiped the palette knife confidently in a bold first stroke. Now you had a puzzle. How does this fit into a landscape? There was no going back now, it had to work.

It was a mountain slope. The hue you used was suitable for a distant fixture seen from a twilit glade. You could lean into that, thinking on how to keep the morbid whimsy of the piece consistent as a theme. You blocked out the clearing and plotted out the forest behind and around it. It fell silent in the factory as you worked, only the scraping of palette knives and brush strokes echoing in the room. Pieces fell in place as you added gnarled willows at the tree line, white ghost pipes and fungi crawling on the foliage, and sickly green fireflies in the weeping branches and crooked thorn bushes. You didn't like how the overall feel of the piece was so damp and dreary. It felt too muted, too blue for what you'd envisioned. You added nettles to the glade in a redder purple, almost magenta, to tie the piece back into the mystical tone you wanted. A few more touches, a ray of silver moonlight here or there, and you stepped back. You contemplated the piece, for some reason feeling unfinished. The glade felt completely untouched, too alone by itself.

You almost jumped when you heard Drusilla shift off Spike’s lap behind you. You froze, dropping your gaze to the floor, unsure of her intentions. With three clicks of her heels against the concrete flooring, she stopped just behind you. So close you would have felt her breath on your neck if she were human. She leaned forward and pulled your hair behind your ear. She placed one hand on your shoulder and raised your head with a finger under your chin, guiding your eyes back to your work.

“Don’t you like it?”

“It’s not bad, actually.” Spike wheeled forward a pace or so to take a closer look at it. Drusilla still seemed to be waiting for your own answer. You studied it again silently.

It did feel telling, in an odd sort of way. It was invisibly and indescribably alive, despite the darkness and isolation. Could be a good metaphor for vampires... Alive and free only after their own deaths. Sure, they may not exactly live up to society’s expectation of a good neighbor, but you couldn’t say they let being dead keep them from living.

Still, the painting felt unsatisfactory, felt incomplete. You shook your head and pondered. You drew up a couple new colors, a ghostly blue and a red-brown clay. You loaded a palette knife with the clay tone and hovered over the painting, indecisive. The central piece as of now was a large, twisting willow on a small inclined mound of earth. The whole painting felt like background to an invisible subject. Nothing tied the eye to the painting, there was nothing to follow. No movement in a living place.

Drusilla took the palette knife from your hand and set it down. She pulled you lightly to step away from the painting, lightly petting your hair.

“Let it rest, you’ll do more later. With a clear mind,”

You let a heavy sigh escape your lungs. She was right. If you kept going now, at the end of your rope, you’d risk doing something that detracted from the painting entirely. You jerked your head up at a loud scraping sound from above you. Angelus had swung the door open on the mezzanine of the factory. He had a vicious grin and a playful look in his eyes, leaning on the guardrail and looking down at the three of you.

“Did you have fun with the Slayer, then?” Spike called up to him.

“Oh, she makes it so easy!” Angelus threw himself at the spiral staircase and rushed down them with glee.

“I barely had to lift a finger to throw a wrench in her little puppy problem.”

Drusilla twitched her head and glided towards him. She was staring at his face, fixated on something you didn’t pick up on. She swiped her thumb across the corner of his mouth and brought it to her own lips.

“Did you bring any home, Angel? I taste a young one on you.”

“Not today, darlin’. Besides, you have that one.” Angelus gestured to you and sauntered off, calling back as he left. “She wasn’t really any use anyway.”

[Next Chapter Soon!]

Tags: @prose-for-hire @soggy-enchilada @misselsbells06

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lyndiscealin · 3 years

Text

AFTG Collaboration Experiment

The story behind the story

This is highly inspired by this youtube artist collaboration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCpScnyLOh8&list=PLjvuq1J91QkZpevHWcdlMwFqaMX8fuq3L

An artist (ten hundred) started a painting on a canvas and gave this canvas to a fellow artist and that artist added to the original picture and then gave it to another fellow artist and so on. I highly recommend the video series, the picture isn’t finished yet.

As soon as I saw this, I thought I wanted to do this, too, but with writing. I quickly came to the realisation, that I should start smaller than just ‘any story’, because there are too many genres out there and I couldn’t come up with a beginning that was open enough so any author I admire could continue it. Starting a Slice of life romance story and giving it to a horror author just might not work. It could, of course, but it would be far more unlikely to turn out as something that worked.

So I decided to do this inside of a fandom. The AFTG Fandom is crazy creative and the one I am most involved in right now.

The rules are simple:

Look at what the other authors have written so far

Add something of your own

Document your thought process behind what you added and link it at the beginning of your piece (it can be a google doc, a tumblr blog or something else, as long as you can link to it)

Ask another author to continue this

Upload your piece to AO3 and give it to the collection (https://archiveofourown.org/collections/AFTG_Collaboration)

If you don’t have an AO3 account and don’t want to create one, write me on tumblr @lyndiscealin and we will figure something out.

Don’t forget to add the name of the next author at the end of your piece, so I can verify that the addition to the Collection is valid

Be as creative as you like, there are literally no restriction, as long as you don’t ‘overwrite’ things authors before you wrote already

If you write 18+ stuff post a summary, too, so people who are underage don't have a problem continuing the fic

A summary at the end of every piece would be great so the next authors don’t need to spend too much time rereading to search for major plot points

Any author is allowed to finish this, if they feel like it! No reason to hold back!

This should be self explanatory, but I will say it nevertheless: This is supposed to be fun, so no hate, no pressure, nothing that makes anyone uncomfortable. No one has any responsibility for whom he has given this work to. Which means that there is no policing and no asking ‘when will you finish your piece?’ or anything. You give this to the next person and that’s it.

So this was done and I created a Collection on AO3 for this: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/AFTG_Collaboration

This is an experiment. I hope it will work, but the nice thing about experiments is that even if it fails, you get something out of it.

I love to gather experience and even if this gets stuck right after my contribution, at least I tried it.

I’m a tiny bit nervous about this, because I saw too many times how people turned something good into something toxic, but we will see. I have trust in this fandom. We can do this. Let’s show the world what we can create!

But, how to start this?

The thought process

So I wanted something open enough that it was easy for nearly anyone to contribute. But even inside a fandom the diversity is very high. There are so many pairings, so many different interpretations.

I settled on Andreil as the main pairing, because it is by far the most popular and I trust people to not give this to someone who can’t work with it or for people to accept this without being able to contribute. I am a big believer in the concept of being responsible for yourself and trusting that people are able to be responsible for themselves.

So Andreil. But Andreil and then what?

What Scenario? What premise? How can I even give a premise without forcing others to follow that path? How can I keep the beginning open enough so others can be as creative with this as they want? Is there even a concept that allows that?

I was stuck.

The thing with a canvas and artist is that you have a canvas. If the canvas is full the picture is likely finished. Of course you can make more out of it, but in the beginning you have just a canvas. That in itself is hard enough to manage, but it is manageable. A far far universe without any direction is destined to get stuck somehwere. But I wanted this to be as creative and open as possible.

So I was completely stuck there.

Until today!!!

Because the Fandom is amazing and crazy and I love it so so much!

Some of you just presented me the perfect idea: Neil as a fanfiction author who writes about the Foxes.

Done. Perfect.

Why? Because this way you can contribute anything!!!!

You can contribute blog articles from Neil.

You can contribute news articles about the foxes.

You can contribute chat fics about Neil communicating with Andrew or someone else in the fandom.

You can even write a whole piece about Neil being on tumblr and AO3 interacting with his fans.

You can write the fanfiction that Neil is writing, so even if you are a JereJean fan, it is no problem at all to write a fanfiction about them and then let the next author write how the Foxes or Andrew or just fans reacted to it or whatever that author wants to make of it.

It’s really really perfect.

It gives me a canvas where I can outline some restrictions, give a bit of a path so the next author can do something with it, without restricting too much.

So what will I do?

I will write the end of the story and then go back to the beginning. I want to let the end be open enough so people can still contribute to it (if we ever get there). Like develop it in a Kandreil fic for example. Or add cats. Or whatever.

It doesn’t even have to be the end. Everyone is free to contribute anything, even a chapter after my ending. But it is at least some kind of frame. A good starting point.

So, I really am not a planner. Either an idea hits me or I can’t write. My idea is:

Start with the day Neil sees a tumblr post where someone theorizes ‘what if Neil was a fanfiction author and that is how he and Andrew met?’

He finds it very amusing, because it hits bullseye and he starts to drift off to the beginning of it all.

That’s it, that’s the idea. Let’s see how it will go from there.

The next author

I am in contact with some very very good authors. And I kind of want to ask them all to contribute. But there is one of them who had the displeasure of being online when this idea hit me and they got the full extent of me obsessing over an idea. And because they happen to be one of these great authors I asked them first. Additionally they were one of the contributors to the thread I linked above, so this was even more reason to ask them.

They said yes!!!

I am so excited and at the same time a bit sad I couldn’t ask the others. But I think eventually they will be part of the project, too. Hopefully.

I will reveal the next author at the end of the chapter^^

(I will reblog this with the first chapter, I just have to post this here first)

#aftg #all for the game #aftg collaboration

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dangermousie · 4 years

Text

2020 End of Year Post - cdrama edition

This is only going to cover cdramas that aired in 2020; if I had to make a post about all the cdramas I watched this year, I would still be doing it in three months...

Overall it’s been a fairly decent cdrama year (certainly better than the very lacklustre kdrama year.) It’s no miracle that 2019 was (so many excellent dramas!) but overall pretty solid.

DRAMAS WATCHED

(In order of liking from least to most as opposed to pure quality; I am including if I’ve seen enough to make up my mind; yes I realize that’s inaccurate, but that’s my list)

44 The Legend of Jing Yan - the worst cdrama I have seen this year, and possibly the worst drama of 2020, period. The hero and heroine were both uncharismatic, incapable of acting and saddled with such shrilly moronic characters, the only suspense was how they haven’t both perished long since from forgetting to breathe. Nor was anyone in the rest of the cast much better; the screenplay was written by a lower mammal and the cinematography was the best a third-rate wedding cinematographer could offer. Stay the HELL away from this one.

43 Unicorn Girl - the only unicorn about this bland yet irritating piece of pap was the fact that I was supposed to believe the leads are hockey players.

42 Autumn Cicada - I like spy stories, Allen Ren, and Republican Era settings. I can tune out Communist propaganda with the best of them. Yet, the propaganda ate the story to such a degree that there was nothing left; pre magic change Pinocchio was less wooden then this narrative.

41 You Complete Me - no you do not.

40 Skate into Love - the only positive thing I can say about this is that at least it’s better than Unicorn Girl, if for no other reason that only one of them is supposed to be a hockey player.

39 Irreplaceable Love - how do you make a story about fake siblings with a mad mother falling for each other boring? I don’t know, ask the makers of this.

38 Eternal Love Rain - I hate to rain on their parade, but these two actors cannot act, have about as much chemistry as a piece of bread, and are trapped in a story perfect for entertaining the mental abilities of the leads of Jin Yan.

37 For Married Doctoress - ummmm, you could do worse I guess. It only made me break out in mild hives. The sadistic ending did make me laugh though.

36 Dance of the Sky Empire - why you get Xu Kai and waste him in this insipid mess of a story is beyond me.

35 Love Designer - it’s inoffensive except to my sense of entertainment. There is nothing wrong with it but oh God is it bland.

34 Love a Lifetime - It felt like a lifetime watching this, but I didn’t love it. The story is incoherent, the actors have no chemistry and it’s all an epic waste of time.

33 Love is Sweet - so sweet it gave me diabetes. I like Luo Yunxi and Bai Lu, but there is literally no plot. I don’t need to sink into a plotless morass to watch pretty people engage in PG-rated make-outs. I am an adult with access to stronger stuff if I am thus inclined, though to be fair they could get x-rated and I still wouldn’t be able to sit through so many episodes of plotlessness for that.

32 Fake Princess - I love Zhao Yi Qin, but the guy needs to pick better projects. The female lead in this one has the voice and personality that can strip paint but the story is also doing nobody any favors.

31 The Changan Youth - I lost my brain checking this out. I had to go and read a dense treatise on medieval coinage or Mayan farming to try to recover it.

30 My Dear Destiny - kinda cheesy fun. It honestly shouldn’t be as low except it really feels like community theater.

29 Handsome Siblings - why is the Nic Tse version so good and this one so bad? True mystery for the ages. Chen Zhe Yuan is the sole reason this isn’t lower, because that kid tries SO HARD to make this drama bearable and almost succeeds. I can’t wait to see him in Sha Po Lang which actually will give him something to do.

28 In a Class of Her Own - see my comment on The Changan Youth. But at least Song Weilong is gorgeous to look at.

27 General’s Lady - inoffensive, pretty and so utterly pointless.

26 The Blooms at Ruyi Pavilion - those two leading actors are a no go to me but at least they considerately acted with each other instead of ruining two dramas for me. It’s very pretty though.

25 Jiu Liu Overlord - it’s a mess and I bailed, but I placed it this high merely due to the fact that Lai Yi finally gets a leading role and he’s sexy as fuck and I am shallow. Whoever styled Bai Lu should never work again except at a circus, however.

24 Cross Fire - not my genre and Luhan will always look too much like my cousin for comfort, but it’s a surprisingly gripping and dark drama. I liked it!

23 God of Lost Fantasy - if you want to watch a mediocre wuxia/xianxia, this is not a bad choice. Probably better than Legend of Fei actually, because at least it doesn’t have an A-list cast to waste and gives us Sheng Yilun himbo and shirtless.

22 Renascence - the insane cuts (it went from 70 eps to 36!!!) made a fairly cheesy story into a total mess. But I had a good time until I finally bailed mainly because of the male lead (Chen Zhe Yuan yet again carrying a not-good 2020 drama on his shoulders; the guy should be nicknamed Atlas) and the insane but in a fun way story. The female lead (both the character and the actress) were not up to par but oh well.

21 Legend of Fei - only this high because objectively there is nothing I disliked it. But there is nothing I liked either. The most uninspired drama on the list. If you could eat cardboard, this is what it would taste like.

20 Ever Night 2 - compared to EN1, it’s a waste of film. On its own merits, it’s not very good (the cast replacements are uniformly inferior and Dylan Wang is so wrong for Ning Que I cannot even put it into words; the script is useless.) But it had some parts I loved so very VERY much (all the shippy stuff was perfection) so I don’t feel too bitter.

19 Castle in the Sky 2 - a lovely if not too complex fairy tale. It is inferior to its prequel because it doesn’t have Zhang Ruo Yun who elevated it, but it’s still a solid bit of fun.

18 The Great Ruler - it’s very high fantasy, very pretty, and surprisingly involving.

17 (tie) Legend of Two Sisters in the Chaos - the secondary couple steals the show but the rest is not too bad if not too involving.

17 Legend of Awakening - a solid bit of fun with a seriously BDSM streak (theme this year apparently - but come on, the lead’s powers only activate when he’s in extreme pain!) It’s a bit generic and the costuming is done by a blind person, not to mention the OTP is a NOTP, but the rest of relationships (romantic and platonic) are wonderful (I live for the found siblings story in this one) and I like most of the characters.

16 Consummation - a rare modern cdrama I liked; a sweet coming of age story (and love story) even if wrapped in a pretty weird virtual reality concept.

15 Oops the King is in Love - this is how you do a low budget, sweet, silly piece of fluff. Our heroine pretends to be a eunuch and crosses paths with a powerless young king and they are adorable, even more so than the drama.

14 Song of Glory - pretty solid, though draggy and I didn’t love the toothpaste filter. But A+ cast, excellent leading couple chemistry, Li Qin being a BAMF and a leading man (Qin Hao) who is actually an adult.

13 And the Winner is love - objectively kind of a mess (and the heroine has the brainpower of a gnat), but the OTP chemistry is excellent and Luo Yunxi fighting and flirting with a fan as finally a leading man is worth the price of admission.

12 Miss S - snazzy and snappy and stylish and whatever else starts with S.

11 Eternal Love of Dream - I don’t know if it would work for you as well if you weren’t a hardcore shipper for this OTP in Three Lives but I was and this was such a darling, wonderful, shippy delight; plus I love this type of high fantasy.

10 (tie) Maiden Holmes - solid and sweet and a wonderful OTP. Proves that functional doesn’t have to mean boring. If you watch one cross-dressing drama this year make it this one.

10 Qin Dynasty Epic - srs bsns history epic. I am not far into it but it’s so good and smart and visually stunning (if you love battles, this one is for you.)

9 Love Lasts Two Minds - I adored this so much more than I should objectively have, but it’s so beautiful (and no I am not just referring to Alan Yu’s face) and the OTP has wonderful chemistry and the story is solid, and the whole trope of her memory being wiped but falling for him all over again while he’s constantly and utterly devoted is a fave; plus he’s in pain and semi-dyng for most of it so sluuuurp (happy ending, don’t worry)

8 To Love - yes, a modern drama is this high! But it involves intensity, tragedy, genuine adults and sexiness that is Lin Gengxin. And there is an actual plot and darkness OMG!

7 Legend of Xiao Chuo - so beautiful, so fun, so full of gorgeousness of Shawn Dou. Plus, Liao is a rare setting for a cdrama and there are a lot of characters and stories I liked a LOT. Less ship content than I wanted but more than I expected.

6 The Romance of Tiger and Rose - so so delightful. I was literally laughing out loud. I have no idea if it will work as well if one isn’t a seasoned watcher of period cdrama/reader of web novels, with bonus for watching/reading Goodbye My Princess, but it was a complete delight for me (and yes, I shipped for real, as well. Best of both worlds.)

5 Twisted Fate of Love - Jin Han gets a leading period drama role! And he’s enjoying it to the hilt, excellent as a smart, twisty bastard who is also charming and so madly in love with heroine. Sun Yi is beautiful and tough and her chemistry with JH is on fire, the story never drags, and it’s so twisty and fun and just awesome.

4 Love In Between - the most underrated drama on this list. It has no big names or big budget, but it’s wuxia that’s clever, driven, tragic, hopeful and so beautifully shot. Three separate (amazing) OTPs, a leading man who is so not typical (a doctor who cannot fight and who never acquires this ability) and who is intense and smart and damaged, a heroine who puts her quest ahead of her emotions, an unhealthy degree of involvement by yours truly. This is a drama Fei should have been.

3 Love and Redemption - such a lovely, addictive, utterly romantic fairy tale. I was obsessed with it for a reason. All the tropes you love and some you didn’t know you did, a star-crossed OTP to the nth power (and a secondary OTP I hardcore love), a twisty yet coherent plot, some insane chemistry and so much whump and hurt/comfort they must have bought blood packets in bulk.

2 Go Ahead - yes, I can’t believe it either. A contemporary slice of life cdrama made it this high on my list. But the way it feels so real, the found family perfection, the characters I love and loathe, the perfect cherry of a wonderful OTP that hits my narrative kinks on top, and just a perfect storm of loveliness all around with this one.

1 The Wolf - is that any surprise to anyone who’s checked out this tumblr for the last couple of months? Tragic, intense and gorgeous; so romantic and angsty and passionate it made me lose my mind (though some of it was gone the moment the camera panned to Darren Wang) - all my favorite tropes and then some; this is a drama that may not be perfect but it is 100% and then beyond perfect for ME.

FAVORITE DRAMA

The Wolf - I have seen objectively better cdramas; even this year. But it has been literal years since I have been this hardcore obsessed, this utterly pleased, this emotionally catered to and devastated at once. A beautiful dark fairy tale that manages to own me despite the storytelling gaps due to censorship, it took me for one of the biggest emotional roller coaster rides of my drama watching career. Visually gorgeous, poetic, intense, and so romantic it took my breath away, this is not just my favorite cdrama of 2020, it’s my favorite drama this year period, and the one cdrama this year to make it into my permanent Top 10 cdramas list.

WORST DRAMA

Legend of Jin Yan - see my write up for it for why as I refuse to waste more time on this stupid mess.

FAVORITE MALE CHARACTER

Wolfie, The Wolf - he is such a haunted, tormented, complex, dark mess; loving and violent, severely damaged and with a hidden yearning softness, longing and aloof. And the amount of charisma and sheer masculine sex appeal Darren Wang brings to the role is insane and not something I see much of in a cdrama. Plus, that character arc with its rapid fall and slow painful redemption is A++++

Runner Up: Sifeng, Love and Redemption - has a male lead ever loved more utterly and selflessly, suffered more thoroughly and beautifully, and managed to have such chemistry with both his leading lady and his leading man (that his leading lady temporarily turned into) at once? The answer is no.

Almost made the cut - Feng Xi, Twisted Fate of Love, Han Shuo, The Romance of Tiger and Rose, Qing Ci, Love in Between.

FAVORITE FEMALE CHARACTER

Xiao Qian, The Romance of Tiger and Rose - so funny, so much the reason this drama was such a delight. I adore her beyond words.

NEEDS TO BE MURDERED

Murder Daddy, The Wolf - I am sad the censors robbed us of seeing him die on screen. He was fully human but nonetheless managed to be the worst monster in a drama full of literal ones.

Ling Xiao’s Mom, Go Ahead - I hate her so much I don’t want to look up her name. She abused the kid, the disappeared and came back to abuse him some more. I mean she literally gave her child mental health issues. She is the WORST.

FAVORITE SHIP

Xing’er x Wolfie, The Wolf - are you kidding me? Who else could it ever be for me? They destroyed each other and saved each other, sworn enemies and childhood lovers, soulmates and epic messes, they couldn’t live with or without each other. The longing, the passion, the intensity, the angst, the epicness. LIKE THERE ARE NO WORDS!!!!

FAVORITE SECONDARY OTP

Si Yuan, Shen Manqing, Love in Between - I loved them as much and often more than the main OTP. So much angst and passion and a happy ending! She is a seeming sect darling (except the sect is horrible and also sexist so her only worth is as a marriage candidate) and he’s an information broker who is actually one of the members of a destroyed sect that’s blamed for the massacre of her family. That chemistry and yearning is insane. The scene where she touches his face when he’s unconscious was in serious running for my favorite scene of 2020.

NOTP

Legend of Awakening - I have never seen a couple that didn’t just have no chemistry but exhibited actual revulsion towards each other before watching Chen Feiyu and Cheng Xiao try to act as lovers in this one. It was almost entertaining to be honest.

FAVORITE SCENE

It’s a tie and both are from The Wolf. One is a sequence where Wolfie marches to the walls alone, seeking death at Xing’er’s hands and the whole sequence with the battle and rescue follows. The other is the intercut between Xing’er going to her wedding and Wolfie going to his execution, and the auto-da-fe being intercut with her wedding.

BIGGEST CRUSH

Wolfie, The Wolf - Ummm have you seen this tumblr lately, it’s basically a drool shrine to the man.

BEST SCENE STEALER CHARACTER

Yelü Yansage, The Legend of Xiao Chuo - I have loved this actor since The Myth and he continued to competently steal every scene he was in.

NEEDS A SEQUEL

To Love - come out of the coma, dammit!!!!!!!

NEEDS A DIRECTOR’S CUT

The Wolf - duh. It started out as 59 eps and got cut to 49. I reaiize some stuff is never gonna get put in due to censorship, but some of the stuff that got cut got for time reasons because they were deluded and hoping to get a TV broadcast so ep count had to be under 50. I mean I doubt the censors would care if they kept scenes of Wolfie building her a swing or whatever. I really really want a director’s cut the way Goodbye My Princess did even if like with GMP it’s only three extra eps. Hell, I will take extra three minutes, as long as those three minutes are Darren Wang shirtless or with a sword. Ahem.

NEEDS SCISSORS TAKEN TO IT

The Song of Glory - it’s a fairly solid drama but honestly it didn’t need to be as long as it was and kind of got draggy and I got lost interest. (I could have gotten snarky and said all the dramas I didn’t like needed scissors taken to them in their entirety but decided to play nice.)

TOO MANY SCISSORS TAKEN TO IT

There are a number of dramas I could complain about with regard to this (hi there, darling The Wolf!) but this award goes to Renascence - poor Renascence was never going to be a masterpiece, but it had the potential to be a bit of good cheesy fun until it had its run time cut by more than half and became an incoherent piece of insanity.

TROPE THAT NEEDS TO DIE

Dumb shrill innocent heroine who can’t tie her shoes - see basically all the cdramas I didn’t like this year.

FAVORITE TROPE WE’VE SEEN A LOT OF

Male lead torture - I mean it’s always open season on that in cdramas, but between Love and Redemption, The Wolf, Love Lasts Two Minds, Love in Between and so on, it was a banner year!

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

Legend of Fei - what a waste of that cast; what a waste of our finite time on this Earth. What a waste of my intelligence to hope for something better and stick with it for a dozen eps. I have had stale wonderbread that had more personality than this drama.There is absolutely nothing that stands out about this drama in any way, from half-dimensional characters, to actors who are sleepwalking, to a plot that moves at the speed of an arthritic snail, to uninspired cinematography and direction, to lack of any chemistry between anyone in the cast. If paint-by-numbers was done by a group of particularly linear robots, it might come across the same way as this drama.

BIGGEST GOOD SURPRISE

The Wolf - honestly, I did not expect it to come out AT ALL EVER let alone to become my favorite drama of 2020. I was not familiar with the leading man (hahah), I liked Li Qin but wasn’t yet obsessed with her, and Xiao Zhan was excellent in The Untamed but I was hardly going to follow him from drama to drama (and I don’t do SLS any way.) And the trailer was enjoyable but unlike seemingly everyone, I didn’t think it was going to be some epic masterpiece. And then it came out and while it wasn’t objectively an epic masterpiece, it pulled out all the favorite tropes, shippy and narrative kinks from the deepest darkest recesses of my id. And I fell harder than I have in years.

2020 DRAMAS I HAVEN’T SEEN THAT I MOST WANT TO WATCH

None. Covid Year gave me PLENTY of time

BEST NON-2020 DRAMA I’VE WATCHED IN 2020

Novoland Eagle Flag and Joy of Life - they are in my Top 10 dramas from anywhere now. They are quite different except being smart and giving me protagonists to obsess over.

ETA: Also The Untamed because @idlewilds3 pointed out I actually watched it in 2020 even though I didn’t think so because this hellyear has lasted about three decades.

MOST ANTICIPATED IN 2021

I am gonna limit it to dozen and leaving out ones that aren’t necesarily supposed to air next year (Joy of Life 2, Love in Flames of War, Novoland Princess from Plateau.)

Monarch Industry, Novoland Pearl Eclipse, Silk Washing Stream, Dream of Changan, Sword Snow Stride, Wu Xing Shi Jia, Ancient Love Poetry, Immortality, The Long Ballad, Mirror Twin Cities, The Imperial Age, Fall In Love

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docholligay · 4 years

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Please rant/rave (well, we already know which one it will be here) about Harry Potter!

GEE I HOPE THIS WAS WORTH WAITING FOR

OH MY GOD. The level of hatred I have for Harry Fucking Goddamn Potter, the culture around Harry Fucking Potter, extending its poisonous tentacles even to the concept of young adult fiction, fantasy, and the United Kingdom as a country and people.

When you being on this, you may think, “Oh, Doc will explain that Harry Potter sucks because JKR hates trans women” and I will say, oh no, dear reader, that is a fantastic reason to hate the author, and I really suggest we all continue to hate her, and perhaps not purchase the QUEEN’S TONNES of officially licensed merchandise and movies and theme parks that give her stupid little fucking hands all that cash, but no, that is not why I hate the work. There are a number of great works done by terrible people, and the further out the lens of history gets the truer this is.

I hate Harry Potter because it fucking sucks, and mentally stifled an entire fucking generation.

“Well, Doc, Harry Potter was really there for me when--” Oh my god I could not fucking care LESS about your personal emotion connection to “orphan wizard boy turns out to be a rich aristocrat yet somehow less woke than Cinderella though” I have personally emotional connections to hot fucking garbage pails of media properties, and if someone came barreling through talking about the myriad ways in which they were horrible, I would be like, “Oh, you aren’t fucking wrong, pal”

Harry Potter gained wild ass popularity in part due to its magnificent sorting system of Smart, Brave, Evil, and Other, because there’s nothing liberals like more than being able to put everyone’s personality into an easily labeled box, which is why astrology is so popular, or for the intellectuals, Myers-Briggs, which is just as fake but with the veneer of science. This allowed people to give into the tribalism they so desperately liked to pretend they did not possess, and also allow them to write thinkpieces about “The misunderstood Hufflepuff” or “Slytherins aren’t all bad!” or really anything that allows them to write a very real piece about their very imagined oppression for being a part of a totally fake house in a children’s book. Excellent use of your sociology degree, Kai, I thought the addition of phrases like, ‘Content of socialization” and “axes of oppression” really spoke to the struggles you face when wearing a green and silver scarf.

The other reason it became popular is that it’s essentially wallpaper paste formed into characters. I have read all of the books, and I could not tell you even remotely what Harry’s defining personality traits are other than “protagonist”. In American, at least, a large part of it was the fascination with all things British, with the idea of boarding school and prefects and uniforms that aren’t inexplicably chinos and polo shirts for nine year olds. It allowed children to project onto something so bland that it could be anything. And for children, THAT’S FINE. There is a great deal of bland media made for children, but what I’m speaking to is the fandom, which is largely well over the age of 18.

Because if we look at the books, are they...actually good? Was it good, or did I experience it as a child? I mean, honestly, on a literary level, are they, or was it just like we all watched Friends, we did it because everyone else was doing it, because I have a distinct memory of a series that involves such greats as “magical geegaws with poorly defined rules that are quickly forgotten despite being able to solve later problems quickly” or “Everyone loves Harry or is a bad guy, or secretly loved Harry all along”

Oh, speaking of, man, if this was an actual well-written book, wouldn’t it have been wild to have Snape’s whole thing be to teach us that sometimes people do good things for the wrong reasons? Instead of naming your fucking child after the guy who ‘protected you’ because he still wanted to bone your mom? “After all this time” “Always.”

While all this could have been explained, we have Quidditch added into the mix instead because 20 pages of the goddamn Puppy Bowl is exactly what I was looking for while I was waiting for JK to move the goddamn ball on literally any of these actual magical concepts.

Harry Potter is a fucking trust fund baby, star quarterback, who grows up to be a cop and marries his high school sweetheart. (Speaking of, why were we shocked that JKR turned out to be a piece of shit when this was and always has been the conclusion of Harry Potter? Why are liberals so fucking into this series that upholds structures like it ain’t no one’s business? It’s a series that opines that those beneath us “Muggles” should be kept in the dark from us) Literally, he finds out he is a wizard and has a dragon-guarded fucking VAULT OF CASH. At 11. It’s such a series for little tyrants, you are special from birth and need do nothing to prove it, here is a letter certifying as such. Oh, not only are you rich and the greatest seeker and have excellent quips, but also your parents were not only rebels, but the best of rebels, and so deeply involved that your parents were killed by the big bad personally, again, because you are so special. His mother’s love literally saves his ass over and over again, because he was SO SPECIAL. He fought Voldemort FROM THE BEGINNING, and WON. It’s literally the most privilege baby fantasy in the world.

“But Doooooooooooc, it’s for chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiildren”

A) Yeah, and you’re 32, you’re making my fucking point about Harry Potter setting an entire generation up for intellectual failure to launch.

B) Okay, and? I can think of a bunch of kids’ books off the top of my head that in no way require specialness to be given by birth so as to roll out the red carpet for master protagonist. The Hunger Games. Watership Down. A Series of Unfortunate Events. The Chronicles of FUCKING NARNIA, about which I have only a small handful of particularly kind things to say. I’ve never read Percy Jackson, but it’s my understanding that despite his being a literal demigod, the attitudes of the supporting cast are allowed to fall between the extremes of “Appreciates Percy” and “naughty or will learn” Harry does nothing to improve himself even after knowing that he is HUNTED BY THE BIG BAD! “I won’t do this because I don’t like Snape”. So There” which, again, if this series were written with the slightest bit of care or know-how, could be a humbling fucking plot point! BUT NO THAT WOULD BE NAUGHTY.

But the real reason I hate Harry Potter so much has everything to do with the fandom surrounding it, and how it intellectually stunted a generation of adults. The promise of Harry Potter was that it was supposed to make a new generation of readers, and so the popularity of them was pushed, and so there was discussion of teaching them in schools, but I tell you fucking what, I know a whole lot more folks who grew up reading Harry Potter that never advanced beyond reading YA, or even just rereading the entire series every year and that’s pretty much them done and dusted.

In the attempt to recapture whatever it was about Harry Potter that attracted children (A lot of it was your peers doing it. I read them all as they came out, and it was literally the equivalent of watching the game so you could talk at the water cooler. That was never going to be recaptured) people, who by this time were likely in their teens, kept getting recommended stuff at the same and same level. No one ever felt pushed to read things that are challenging, to read things that have some of the concepts or themes of Harry Potter but maybe complicate. I know FAR more adults who read adult books that aren’t into Harry Potter, even if they were as children, than the reverse.

But Doc, why is reading only books meant for 14 year olds a problem??? I mean I suppose I can’t convince you that comfort is not the job of literature or of life, it is the job of an easy chair, because Americans especially are decadent as fuck about being comfy cozy all the time and if anything causes them distress or pain it should be immediately avoided. But Maybe I can convince you that you’re fucking up these books for actual ass children who deserve to have their own writing section without adults bringing their fucking asses into it. They deserve their own spaces. There’s a number of YA editors who have talked about the difficult space YA now occupies because since Potter’s blowup, it’s no longer a niche category, but basically “adult easy reads” and so they have been buying books that are more about the tastes of adult buyers than of literal 14 year olds.

Is that not...sad? To anyone else? Honestly, and this is not part of the essay because it’s a broader reaching problem, but CHILDREN’S MEDIA IS NOT FOR US. CHILDREN’S MEDIA IS NOT FOR US. CHILDREN’S MEDIA IS FOR FUCKING CHILDREN. The fucking 40-23 set really needs to get their shit together and grow up a little bit and engage in some fucking adult media, and maybe, if we support what we’re actually looking for FOR ADULTS, it will come to us. No one is saying you can’t read Harry Potter or watch some Cartoon Network show, but like, search your heart and come the fuck on. Engage in something more complex. If not for yourselves, for the kids getting shoved into simplified adult stories. It should not be about us.

ANYWAY, my larger point is that it was Harry Potter, a badly written series about a magical boy who was chosen and magic and also rich and also a favorite of the headmaster and also more clever than most adults and also spoke the same magical snake language as the big bad and was also star quarterback, but at least there was a system in which you could buy a scarf in block colors and feel like you belonged to a team.

(But not a sports team! lol handegg! I’m cool I don’t get into sports! Except Quidditch.)

#TO say nothing of the fact that I haven't been able to wear gold and burgundy together without some dumbass comment for years #despite being a favored color combination #Anonymous #Eight Days 2020 #Holligay Rants and Raves #I didn't even GET to every point I had but it's been over an hour #GOD I HATE THIS FUCKING SERIES SO MUCH #Doc do you hate me for liking it?#oh sweet thing allow me to reassure you: Yes. Absolutely.#also the prose is god-awful #I've taught teenagers with better rpose

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johannas-motivational-insults · 4 years

Text

Jo’s Top 10 of 2020

I see lots of artists doing that thing where they post a piece from each month of the year... unfortunately my content creation isn’t necessarily consistent and it’s hard to track what month individual fic chapters were posted in, but I figured I’d do something similar and post my Top 10 pieces of content I created in 2020, what they’re about and why I love them. I actually did get a fair amount done this year thanks to the lockdown, but I’ve narrowed it down to these ten that I’d like to reflect on. (To be fair, I’m probably forgetting something huge. Feel free to leave comments if you think I passed over something important lol.)

10. Friendship in the Horde (meta): This is something I’d wanted to write for a while but finally got around to finishing in February. It’s basically a sociology paper lmao, an analysis of the social hierarchies and systems of the Horde. It was also a convenient excuse for me to gush about Catralonnie, an underrated (friend)ship. But honestly this was an important piece for me because I have always identified with the Horde characters way more than any of the rebels (other than Adora, who grew up in the Horde) and part of why is how they are in an unsafe environment and end up forming relationships that are helpful for survival but hinder them psychologically. And I think to understand the Horde characters and really evaluate their motives and choices you need to understand this first.

9. The Sting in My Eyes: On the surface this is just a run of the mill hurt/comfort oneshot, but it was a really important post-canon processing fic for me. I had a lot of feelings about Catra’s relationships with Shadow Weaver and Melog in season 5, particularly about how Catra must have felt really conflicted after Shadow Weaver told her what she wanted to hear all those years but in a way that felt unearned and out of the blue. It was really cathartic for me to write a scene where she struggles with those mixed feelings but has Adora and Melog to help her process them. And I had long associated the song the title is from with Catra and Shadow Weaver’s relationship, and the way she died trying to redeem herself really solidified that connection.

8. Hail Mary, chapter 6: This was supposed to be a short chapter mostly about the backstory between Catra and Scorpia in this au, with some Catradora yearning thrown in. It evolved into a massive, sprawling thing that is very atmospheric in terms of how the setting and vibes are described and how in the moment it feels. Hail Mary is like that sometimes but that type of narration is usually about football games rather than parties, so this chapter was a fun change of pace in many ways. It was really nostaglic for me to write too, the nerves of being a teenager at a party with your crush and how intense everything feels. And the Scorptra stuff really is delicious, it was nice seeing them have that conversation they never got to have in canon and truly make up, and the tiny sliver I added of Catra’s earlier history was heartbreaking in the best way. So this was not what I intended to write, but it turned out way better for it.

7. A Better Son or Daughter (AMV): I’ve done other Adora AMVs, but this one is really my iconic piece. The song is perfect for Adora, so perfect it’s on Noelle’s Adora playlist. The vid itself is a character study about Adora’s mental health struggles and the way she represses them, as well as a tribute to her resiliency and her eventual triumph of getting to a better place in her life. This is a song that gives me a lot of feelings and once I was making it about Adora it gave me even more, so this was a very satisfying piece to complete. I wish Noelle had gotten a chance to see it but oh well, maybe down the line.

6. Hail Mary, chapter 12: This is the chapter that much of the fic had been building to, Catra and Adora in conflict because Catra finally got the chance to be Adora’s hero and Adora shot her down. It’s painfully analogous to canon, both in terms of how (I suspect) Catra felt in Thaymor and Adora’s tendency to victim blame because she’s so pragmatic. There’s definitely some tones of Taking Control in there but Lonnie does a much better job of examining Catra’s psychology and needs than Glimmer did in canon (a writing error imo, Glimmer should have had more insight). Adora just wants to help but sometimes in her quest to do so she disenfranchises others, and this was a much needed look at that aspect of her character. It’s also an excellent illustration of what it’s like to play a peacekeeping role in an abusive household and how stressful it is trying to protect others while also protecting yourself.

5. Unstoppable (AMV): This is not my favorite Catra AMV I’ve ever done, but it might be the cleverest. The soundtrack is a song about mental illness masquerading as a song about being a bad bitch, which is basically Catra in a nutshell. The lyrics are incredibly fitting for her and her arc as it develops over seasons 1-4. The vid itself takes a hard turn in the interpretation of the lyrics, going from talking about how no one can stop Catra to how she can’t stop herself because she’s in such a terrible sunk cost fallacy spiral, and I think I got several death threats over that twist lmao. As someone who primarily deals in angst, there’s hardly a better compliment to be paid.

4. Demons, chapter 31: This one got real dark on me. The concept of this chapter was originally an examination of how comparing abuse can get really dicey but you also have to respect that other people have had different experiences from you and you have to be careful not to equate things or make it sound like you’re talking over someone else. I guess it’s also a bit of a look at how autistic people (like myself) will often explain why they can empathize so others know they understand rather than saying empty platitudes, but that can come off as insensitive or like they’re making things about them. I mean, in this case Adora kinda was making things about her, but she was provoked into it by a parade of comments insinuating she didn’t suffer at all, which was also unfair. Anyway it’s one of the more important Catradora fights in Demons and something I’d written bits of over a year prior, it was that important to the plot, but it also took a turn I was not originally planning. I finished the chapter when I was in a really bad depressive and self-loathing spiral and that bled onto the page, but it worked perfectly for Catra in this scenario... that push and pull of feeling like the world has hurt and victimized you mixed with knowing you’ve done some bad things yourself and feeling like you don’t have a leg to stand on when mourning the ways you’ve been hurt. It’s intense as all fuck but it’s excellent.

3. Hail Mary, chapter 11: Speaking of dark Catra content, this chapter... whew. It was really something else, to read and to write. I have written flashbacks in Demons that are more detailed and even include explicit violence but because those scenes are always in flashback form I never really got the chance to sit in the head of an abuse victim waiting for the other shoe to drop for an entire chapter like I did here. It’s quite different from the rest of Hail Mary stylistically and is both highly sensory and extremely internalized. It took me back to some terrifying moments in my own life so it was difficult but also extremely cathartic to write. It’s important too because it really sets up where Catra was at mentally heading into her big fight with Adora, and that chapter is in Adora POV. This chapter is ranked so high simply because it’s... polished, as @malachi-walker put it. It almost is its own story within the story and really noteworthy as a piece all its own.

2. Demons, chapter 26: This chapter is very similar thematically to Hail Mary 12, just based in the canonverse. It deals with one of the core (but highly neglected by fandom) conflicts between Catra and Adora, where they both need to feel like they can take care of and protect the other but also detest feeling weak or vulnerable themselves. It leads to Adora’s ego making Catra feel disrespected and Catra’s behavior confusing Adora and making her think she’s an ungrateful brat rather than someone who needs so badly to be needed, just like her. There’s definitely some power struggles in this chapter but finally they’re able to get to the heart of it and seeing them talk it out is so satisfying. Getting this chapter published was also important to me on a personal level because, like I said, this aspect of their conflict and relationship is rarely acknowleged for how important it is when really it’s one of the deepest conflicts between them in the series. It’s a scene I started writing pretty much as soon I knew I was extending the fic into something longer because I just needed them to have this conversation, so finishing it was so satisfying.

1. Satisfaction, chapter 3: This chapter took me a really long time to write, both in terms of time to get it published and time I actually spent working on it. It’s the crown jewel of a fic that’s really important to me and I had to get it just right, so I spent more time agonizing over every detail and rewriting things to get them absolutely perfect than I usually do (I’m a perfectionist anyway, but this took it to a whole other level). But in the end it was worth it, because this chapter is damn fine. It’s really hot, as you’d expect from a smut fic, but it’s also an excellent character study of how both Catra and Adora were affected by their abuse and trauma and the issues it raises for them in terms of sex and intimacy. Also, come on, we need more BDSM fics out there that focus on the actual point of it all (the trust involved) and promote communication and do the character work to explain why they might be into it in the first place.

BONUS (from December 31, 2019): One of my favorite pieces of 2020 technically came out in 2019, but I posted it on New Years Eve so most people first saw it in 2020. It’s an absolute banger of an AMV called I’m Not Jesus that’s all about Catra and Adora’s anger towards Shadow Weaver and their refusal to forgive their abuser. Funny enough this came out before Adora’s iconic “I will never forgive you” line, and Shadow Weaver definitely made things more complicated with how she went out, but I think the sentiment still applies.

#2020 recap #happy new year #writing #vidding #fanfic #spop #catradora #demons #hail mary #satisfaction #the sting in my eyes #a better son/daughter #unstoppable #i’m not jesus

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melodyalanaroster · 3 years

Text

To answer some Fanfic Questions...

So, this is my response to @broxklynn‘s post... I decided to make this its own post... So that It can be properly answered.

1. How and why did you start to write? Is there some kind of story behind it?

I started writing in general when I was in elementary school... Back when I just had a Platform 9 3/4 journal, not many friends, recess, and a desire to immerse myself in the world of Harry Potter. I enjoyed writing, and even joined the Writer’s Club in High School (but I eventually left to join Anime Club and Divergent Thinking Society). As for writing MCL fanfiction, I began writing Sam’s and Alana’s stories as early as when I first got into the fandom, back in 2013. Alana’s story started out as “A Fresh Start”, had a one shot called “When I Wake”, then turned into “Let The Dawn Be Broken”, and is now “The Melancholy Of Melody Alana Roster”. The final product barely has any hints of the first 3... In fact, Sam’s story, “Fighting Darkness”, has been completely debunked due to what I’ve decided to canonize in “The Melancholy Of Melody Alana Roster”. Writing MCL fanfiction has been a major help in distracting me from the depression that was caused by family issues, severe abuse, Stockholm Syndrome, my mom’s disease and her death, as well as working at several shitty jobs. Writing has helped me escape reality and keep myself sane enough to not be a black hole of hate, anger, and sadness to my friends and boyfriend.

2. What do you struggle the most with your writing?

There are 2 major things I struggle with... 1 is Timing. I often set deadlines for myself that I never meet and it makes me so frustrated that I miss them... There are currently things in my drafts that were meant to be “Holiday Specials” for Valentine’s Day and Halloween 2020 that are still unfinished... It makes me feel like I’m letting my readers down, when its more of me letting myself down... The other thing is Inspiration. Because I hate my job, I often think about Alana’s story in an effort to not be completely consumed by the fact that I do hate my work... Due to that, I often come up with ideas for my story that I think are FANTASTIC for my story... But, by the time I get home, I’m either in too much pain or too tired to write, or I’ve forgotten the ideas...

3. What is your favorite genre to write?

I love writing Romance with a bit of Slice of Life and a hint of Action/Adventure...

4. Slowburn or “Flame”/PWP?

Slow burn any day.

5. How do you overcome writer’s block?

If I absolutely can’t write... I work on other stuff I need to do... Typically, something around the house, or something online I need to do... I also look for cool stuff to add to wish lists... I’ll occasionally play videogames or read comic books... In an effort to subvert writer’s block, I like having multiple chapters in my drafts at once. If I’m not in the mood to work on one chapter, I can work on a different one.

6. What kind of thing you dislike the most, when reading a fanfiction? (for example: particular plot, grammar mistakes)

One thing that makes me upset (and it makes me madder when I do this) is misspelling... Especially when it looks like its almost blatant... You have autocorrect, USE IT! Or when a fanfic is so awful, yet the author acts like their work is a gift from god... I don’t mind a “bad” fanfiction... Hell, the concept of “My Immortal” is so bad that its hilarious... But Fifty Shades did a lot of damage and E.L. James acts like she’s bigger than Jesus... Seriously, she wrote Twilight fanfiction, changed some minor details and names, people who have no knowledge of BDSM ate it up, and she acts like she’s a “Sex and Relationship Guru”...

7. What’s the biggest issue for you, when writing a Beemoov fanfiction?

The biggest issue for me is finding out when to allow for Beemoov’s writing and placement to take place in my story. I don’t like a lot of the events of UL and LL, so I’m often finding myself in a position where I have to watch video playthroughs and go “Okay, how can I omit this character, but keep this scene?”. I’ve had to do that A LOT with Alexy and Rosalaya.... Although, to a certain extent, I’ll often cut their scenes out altogether. I really hate what Beemoov did to them. They were great characters in HSL, but became utter shit in UL and stayed shit in LL. To make up for Beemoov’s writing style, I’ve created my own characters, added in old characters (like Kentin and Armin), added in bits from the manga (like Viktor, Severina and their fathers), and gone off on my own storyline. The Melancholy Of Melody Alana Roster is close to MCL at times, but often veers off onto its own road.

8. Have you ever created a character based on person in real life? (celebrity, someone that you know, etc)

YES!!! A LOT of characters in my story are based on real people! Alana’s step-father, Nate Films, is closely based on Nathan Fillion. A lot of her family members are based on members of my own family, just changed a bit to fit the story. Lynne Roster, Alana’s mom, is what I had always dreamed my own mom would be... Hell, Alana’s cat, Sylvester, is based on my own childhood cat, Luna.

9. How do you feel about your own characters? Do you think of them as your babies or have rather love-hate relationship with them? (And, do you have favorite one?)

I love most of my characters. I do hate 3 in particular... But, you’re supposed to hate, or at least not respect, them... That’s why I poured my hatred into them... Those 3 are Carol, Kai and Azrael. Carol has aspects of my abuser in her. You’ll see more of her when I finally post the HSL related chapters... And understand what I mean... Kai is based on one of my real life cousins that I’ve not been happy with for years (the one who my bf has deemed “the family failure”). You mainly see him in the Cousin Mels chapters, and in the Christmas Special... Azrael is the one who is seen the most in the UL chapters, and she is a main adversary for Alana. She is the one who broke her the most, the one who ended Alana’s relationship with Nathaniel, the one who truly traumatized her. As for ones I love... The one I love the most is Alana... I know, she’s a reflection of me, so that’s kind of vain... But, she’s a part of me. When I do finish her story and am at the point where I need to say “Goodbye”, it will hurt....

10. Enemies-to-lovers or friends/bestfriends-to lovers?

Definitely friends/best friends to lovers. I also like toying with what happens when best friends turn to lovers, but circumstance parts them and one moves on...

11. Is it easy for you to get inside your character’s head? Can you empathize with them? Is there’s some similarities between you and your main character?

It is VERY easy for me to get into Alana’s head... Like I said in #9, she is a reflection of me. She looks and acts like how I’d like to in a lot of situations... Her life is more interesting, traumatized, and more well off than mine... But, she is still me in major ways...

12. Who has been the biggest supporter of your writing?

Definitely my boyfriend. He doesn’t really understand the game itself... But, he likes how happy it makes me and he respects how much of my heart, soul, blood, sweat and tears that I’ve poured into writing my story. He loves listening to me read passages from it to him while I’m working. He gives me advice and his opinion is highly valued... My family knows I’m writing a large story, and have seen some of the images that I’ve gotten commissioned, but they don’t really know or care about the game. They do respect the fact that I am writing. They love the fact that I’m slightly following in my mom’s footsteps in that regard (she wrote 3 books and several poems). My online friends have been very supportive as well! I’m constantly updating them on what I’ve worked on each day in my Discord Server and the words of encouragement always help.

13. How do you handle criticism?

Not well. Due to the abuse and family issues mentioned in #1, for a good amount of my life, I’ve gotten nothing but harsh criticism... So, now that I’m away from all that, at 26 years old, I’m just now getting to a point where I’m starting to take it better... But, I’ve got a long way to go.

14. Do you like giving your characters trauma? Why/why not?

I hate sounding like a sadist... But, I’m going to anyway, so fuck it... Yes. I have done awful things to Alana over the years. In A Fresh Start, she got sexually assaulted and ostracized. In When I Wake, she gets into a car crash, put into a coma, and in her dream state murdered by Francis in front of Nathaniel. In Let The Dawn Be Broken, the plan was for her to end a war. In “The Melancholy of Melody Alana Roster”, her childhood cat dies, her mom gets sick, she gets abused by Carol, her best friends get ripped away from her for a bit, she gets sent to a country halfway around the world alone, she gets assaulted and ultimately turned into a weapon of mass destruction.... I’ve even thought of killing her mom off at one point... But decided against it...

Now, granted, A Fresh Start and Let The Dawn Be Broken never saw completion, but happy endings were planned for them...

I do this, all while giving Alana happy endings in each story because “If Alana can go through utter hell and make it through, then so can I.”... I know, I’m “god” in that regard and I can control how Alana’s life is.... But, the fact that in my writing, she ends up standing tall, happy, with everything she wants, after everything she goes through does make me feel better....

15. Are you proud of yourself? When you look at first piece you wrote and compare it to the latest one?

Yes. If you look at A Fresh Start, you can tell it was written by someone fresh out of High School. There’s no real depth to it. Let The Dawn Be Broken isn’t much better... But, The Melancholy of Melody Alana Roster has become my magnum opus. It is the largest piece I have EVER written, and will probably remain the largest piece I write. I am very proud of what I have created... And when its last word is written, and I am ready to get it made for it’s place on my shelf, I will feel very bittersweet about it... That being said, my original plan for a sequel involving Nathaniel’s and Alana’s daughter, Aurora, has been discarded. I don’t believe Aurora could ever have as much of my heart that her parents do...

And there you have it! Some insight into my world, writing, and history!

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hopeassassin · 3 years

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Rally’s Scribbles in the Work

So after that lovely anon blew my mind away with their kind words and wonderful support, and because I keep telling you guys about my writing plans without actually giving you even a teensy little detail, I have decided to stop being coy and actually likely get your hopes up a bit by dilvulging small details and bits of plots of what is currently going on in my G-Drive.

This will be a brief recount of what I have currently baking in the AoMomo oven, so let’s dive right into it! Please note that the numbers are in no particular order - I just keep revisiting each of these stories and writing a bit more to them whenever I feel like it. So there’s no ranking and no importance, just a number to keep proper count.

1. “Knight of Renown” Dragons and Knighthood AU, based on that one AoMomo pic with Momo ithe Knight and Dragon Aomine that I reblogged a while back and I actually let me imagination go a bit too much in the tags. I ended up actually rather enjoying the premise I set up in the tags so I actually started writing that one out! Completion rate at about: 5%? I’d say? Less? :D

2. AoMomo Music AU - a dearly beloved project that I am pouring a lot of love and attentioin to. That’s why it’s coming along super slow. It’s been in the making since November and I chewed it and mulled through it so thoroughly that I’ve grinded to a halt with it. Intending for there to be 2 chapters, and I am at about 25-30% of chapter 1 currently ready currently. At the pace I’m going, it might be another full year before you actually get to see this bad boy up, but when you do, I’m sure you’ll see all the care and effort that went into making it perfect. Honestly, no joke here, I am intending for this to be one of my rare masterpieces in this tag. So I’m not gonna rush it!

3. AoMomo Car Accident AU where Daiki barely manages to save Satsuki from being run over by a hit-and-run and ends up being the one run over instead. This was my first piece of writing after coming back to AoMomo last summer and yet completion rate is a sad thing. I want it to be flawless, a perfectly agonizing, thrilling type of torturous read that gives you a great sense of relief by the end of it. Needless to say, the clusterfuck of negative feelings is a bit difficult to hold onto for a prolonged period of time and the work is coming along slowly. Planned at about 5 chapters, I have 2 complete ones and the 3rd one is at about ... 30%? Hopefully before this year’s whumptober, we’ll have a finished piece!

4. AoMomo bond character study, which went in a direction I did NOT expect nor intend. It was suppsoed to be an idea that you will see also listed below. But I started this one from their early childhood and somehow, instead of focusing on the kids and their bond and their weird interactions with each other and their first moments of realizing they are of opposite genders, it turned into something much too fun to let go of and the ideas for scenes just kept piling. It’s going to be a long one, very explorative and very in-depth character study on the bond between these two and how it changed over the years, and their first encounters with their sexuality inbetween (because that was really the main idea that I started with... xDDD;;;) Currently at 1 chapter complete, chapter 2 somewhere around 50-60% completion, and at least 6-7 chapters to come after that, soooo.... :’DDDD YEAH. THIS ONE AIN’T SEEING THE LIGHT OF DAY ANYTIME SOON.

5. AoMomo deciding to practice stuff on each other, because I am a sucker for this trope.THIS will be what the idea under previous number 4 was SUPPOSED to be like, but it instead spun out of control. So this one, under number 5, is going to be the smutty, idiots bumbling through physicality to discover that they actually have serious feelings for each other kind of piece. Chapters are planned at about at least 6-7 or so, but not my usual monstrocities! :D First we start with practice kissing, and we move our way up from there!

6. “The Evil of Humanity” AU - a dystopian futuristic kinda mecha AU, sort of an amalgamation of some of my favourite anime in the genre - a bit of NGE, a bit of Gurren-Lagann, a lot of Darling in the Franxx rewrite and improvement, in distinctly AoMomo colors. I poured a lot of thought and love into initial outline of main moments for this one, and I really hope to make it an epic, thrilling action/adventure with a big dash of romance kind of read! Chapters currently not even planned properly, because I need to sit down and consider this seriously. It will definitely be more than 10-15 though, and they will be my usual chapter lengths so.... likely no time soon. :D

7. Aomine Fanclub - I got a plot bunny some time ago and I shared it here and my friends were spurring me on with it, so I started trying it out a little more. I’ve written out like... maybe 30% of this one as well, but need to re-read and reconceptualize to get it back on track. The issue with this one is that I’m not really sure where I want to take it, thus it’s on the back burner at the moment.

8. KagaKuro AoMomo double-date kind of story, where Aomine is asking some curious questions of Taiga about going to America and pondering if any of his immediate friends know what Satsuki wants to do with her life. I’m really invested in this one but haven’t started properly writing it out yet beyond just sketching out the idea so I don’t forget it. (I’d say 1% complete here.) Really looking forward to using the idea of Kagami being super impressed with AoMomo perfect sync when playing as a team in arcade games!

9.Laws of Attraction Chapter 2 - You might be surprised at this, but I’m actually super invested in this one. Likely the reason why I am delaying so much working on it - I feel like all my great scene ideas are just too chaotic and I have a hard time starting the chapter flowing properly. I had like 4-5 false starts already and I’m feeling a bit skittish with picking it up. But I have such AMAZING concepts on where to take it after it revvs up the engine, so... Maybe sometime this year! Completion rate: 0% written, but at least about 30% ideas built up for the installment!

10. AoMomo college rooming together story - sort of an expansion on my fill for one of the prompts way back those years ago in AoMomo week. I really dig the concept and the trope of sharing spaces with someone you consider nothing more than a friend and then gradually learning to appreciate each other for something so much more. I am definitely doing this one some day, but not anytime soon, likely.

11. A random idea bit me the other day (read: a month ago) and I actually wrote out like... maybe 25% of it already as well. A random comment from Wakamatsu miffs Satsuki but then she realizes why he’s asking dumb questions and she comes to realize that something is wrong with the equation: either Dai-chan likes someone really close to them and she hasn’t realized, which is unlikely, or Dai-chan likes HER and is super blase about it in a way that betrays his feelings not at all, which is even more unlikely. Being a curious individual, she sets out to find which it is! Some hilarity should ensue but mostly just some mess-with-Dai-chan fun!

12. Touou summer training camp at the sea - progress is practically 0, I wanted to write a summery piece and set my mind on this, but nothing beyond has come to me, so I’m not forcing it.

13. AoMomo cultural festival fic in second year of high school (meaning something approx end of Oct -> beginning of Nov.) with Daiki being in a distinctly Haruhu Suzumiya role at that festival (has anyone even seen this anime? I adored that episode to freaking bits, man, it’s engraved upon my soul) and singing Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell” and one more song just like Haruhi did. And Satsuki just beholding the phenomenon he becomes in no time flat while he lays bare his passion for life for all the student body to see. Shippiness will happen in private afterwards!

14. You Can Leave Your Hat On Chapter 2 - Probably like 2-3 years ago while I was still in the damn woodwork and wrestling with real life and adulting being crap, I remembered this AU premise and I got super hyped on the idea of Club Owner Dai-chan being a flirt with innocent Satsuki who got dragged to his joined and fell in love at first sight with his shenanigans. I’ve already played around for like 7k words with the second chapter of this but I’m still not where I want to be at, so it will take a while longer to flesh it out.

15. Idol Worship - a story that I promised my mate aricana some 6 years ago the premise for which I am super hyped for but not quite engaging with it yet. The idea was that Momoi finally starts gettiing the dates she has been pesting Kuroko for for years, and Daiki feeling terrible about beholding that, whilst Kise is being pestered by Horikita Mai for a date and instead ditches her with Daiki because he knows his former Teikou classmate is a huge fan of her. Mai-chan isn’t particularly happy but somehow ends up enjoying her time with Daiki and starts considering actually pursuing him instead of Kise when she sees what an interesting soul he is, with the torch that he’s carrying for some girl in his life he doesn’t really talk about but is evident from the little things he drops off as hits. AoMomo shenanigans will start to ensue properly when Satsuki realizes that Daiki is actually having a close female friend who is not her but is Horikita Mai instead, Dai-chan’s perfect woman, practically. She doesn’t take well to the news and has to grapple with why that is! And what to do with these newfound frustrating emotions!

16. Obstruction of Justice Chapter 3 - MAYBE SOME DAY, I WILL GET TO WRITING THIS. Last summer I inteded to do just that but instead, Wild Side of Justice was born. And it became a spin off of sorts on its own. ORZ. I WILL FINISH THIS SOME DAY, I do have some plans for it and I do have the desire to pursue them. I just need to be in the right headspace for it ahsjkfhkjaf

17. A PWP story of Kagami arriving early for a practice match at Touou and somehow walking in on AoMomo getting busy with each other in very unexpected and explicit ways that Kagami did not see headed his way. Because, we need more PWP in this fandom, honestly.

18. And since we DO need more PWP, recently when checking the 30 lemons community on LJ (shut up, I’m not ancient, YOU’RE ANCIENT) I was wondering how exactly a smut plot around the “Taken by the Faceless Stranger” could work for Aomomo and I came up with this Masquerade ball that they end up both attending because of their friends and meeting each other and hitting off fantastically just chatting the night and then banging in a niche in the long castle-like premise of the ball. :’DDDD Cuz it’s me and if I don’t have something like that in the works, you know i’m likely sick.

ALL OF THESE I am planning on eventually finishing one day. ONE DAY!

For now they are in various states of completion and in various stages of being cared for and improved on with more ideas added and fleshed out.

I am not joking when I say I am very invested in this fandom. I just have difficulty getting to writing out these ideas when I spend like 60% of my free time playing my mobile games. :D

So there you have it. I didn’t want to say anything about these because 1) I don’t want to get your hopes up. You Can Leave Your Hat On 2, for one, has been in the making for 3 years, very on-again-off-again kind of way, and I just... can’t do that to you guys. I have decided against posting any incomplete fics so I don’t torture you guys and my muse doesn’t abandom me forever for them. So when something is complete, it gets posted promptly for your viewing pleasure!

And 2) If I divulge too much of the story, I feel like my hype of it may disappear completely. Ehh, my muse is a willful creature, what can I tell you...

So let’s hope at least SOME of these get to see the light of day soon!

#my scribbles #here you have it #a rather complete list of incomplete AoMomo stuff I'd say #Rally's works in the making #tagged as:#AoMomo #because it's all AoMomo #sorry for spamming the main tag with nonsense #Kuroko no Basuke #will I ever finish any and all of these?#here's to hoping!#a little bit insider info from the kitchen #fanfiction #writing

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thewheezingwyvern · 4 years

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Dark Content

tw:Death, tw:COVID, tw:PTSD, tw:Medical talk, tw:rape mention

It took me longer than it really should have to sit down and type this up. I don’t know if this is going to help but I hope that it helps some of you understand and to calm down when you get up in arms about dark content.

As some of you know I’m a smut writer here. Most of what I share here now is smut. However if you were to take those pieces and assume my sexual activity about me you would be very, very wrong. I am on the asexual spectrum and my husband and I have never had penetrative sex. It’s not for me. Hell most times in general I find sex to be gross and repulsive. And yet there seems to be this mindset here that if I write it, it must mean I want it. I’m not even really a dark content writer, and yet I still see that. Why?

I think some of you really need to grasp the concept that just because we have stuff that we enjoy writing and reading does not mean we enjoy it in real life or support it in real life.

Fiction is a safe space for us to explore things. Not just writers but readers as well. I can enjoy exploring dynamics but that doesn’t mean that it’s something I would want in my real life. Take for example....I had the chance once to write a fic (not here) with a religious cult environment. It was super toxic and dangerous and that was part of the intrigue. It raised the stakes and honestly the dynamic was fun to explore. But I would in no way, shape or form want to be in that environment myself.

Not only can writing this stuff be a way to explore things safely, it can also be a way to process and help handle traumas and stresses. My fic Biohazard, is focused around the pandemic and some of the uglier sides of the medical field in addition to a romance/sex plot. And I literally write it because I am a responder knee deep in the trenches of this fucking pandemic. I decided to share that because while it’s helping me, it might also help others.

I write things because I want to and because they help me and because I can explore things safely in the sanctum of fiction. But what is safe for me may not be safe for others and that is literally why the warnings and tags exist.

I’m going to be honest: it is incredibly hard not to be angry with a lot of you antis right now. Like a deep primal rage in me that could rival the heat of the sun. We are living in a time of a global crisis with an awful virus. I am watching in real time so many people DIE from this pandemic and die alone. Our entire medical system is being taxed to the fucking brink and we have a thousand and one problems that need to be fixed. A thousand and one hurtles to champion for and what do you pick?

Two D fucking lines.

With all the time and energy some of you sink into this, you could actually address real world problems that are actively happening right now. But the fact is...most of you don’t want to actually “fix” anything. You want to destroy other people to elevate yourself and you pick an outlet that makes you have the “moral high ground” so to speak.

And I am so goddamn tired of it.

Like I’m not saying you have to LIKE the content. Or even approve. But you literally don’t know anything about that person other than what they write out and believe it or not, fanfiction of any sort is not some kind of manifesto that authors put out on what we want in real life. It’s not a check list. It’s ok to not like the content. Just keep moving on with your life. Block the tag, filter it out and keep scrolling.

I don’t really talk about my experiences on here because one it’s a very personal thing and two a lot of what I see? It’s not something the average person can just hear casually. But I can tell you now in my line of work not only do I see grisly things, bloody things, violent things but I’ve also seen the effects of abuse on people. I have seen first fucking hand the look on someone’s face when they realized “someone just tried to kill me” or “that person nearly raped me”.

You want to champion victims? Then go actively donate and support organizations or are supposed to actually help those survivors, not harass anonymous strangers over the internet that you make assumptions about without even knowing them based on their content. You want to make a change? Then go find ways to help the organizations that are dedicated to helping those people instead of directing that on fanfiction.

#wyvern wheezes #tw: discourse #tw:death #tw:violence #tw:medical talk #tw:rape mention #there are people actually dying right now #people suffering #REAL PEOPLE #NOT FICTIONAL FUCKING CHARACTERS #MAYBE YOU SHOULD FOCUS ON THEM

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