#to me there is merit even in a story that didnt go the way you thought it would invoke the narrative just you wanted. SHRUGS. AGAIN

[cyberdragoninfinity]

Oh I think I saw the post u meam and (u can delete/ignore this is its too far from the point and shit) the "The only yusei I like is a depressed one" is so. Idk? Harsh? Hes allowed to ve happy and still be written well, he doesnt need to be shoved onto other peoples sins when the series already has him doing that. He can have an implied decently peaceful life until death. Sometimes! You do so much and oull so much weight that you become something intangible and divine to someone whos never met but still thinks of u! And sometimes its one guy and sometimes its them and the last remnants of the human race out of a desperate love for both!

Idk, just let yusei be like, not suffering 24/7, they forbid him from even entering the WGRP for fun bc ig thats bad to so many characters, let him have a scrap

YEAH. YEAH. god ive been thinkin about this all day, this is so good anon you get it you're Logged In you see the Intent of it all...

again like. if the 'z-one isnt yusei' thing isnt someone's favorite narrative choice, whatever, thats your journey, but every time i see this "well he was ACTUALLY supposed to be yusei from the future for real!!!!" rumormongering i want to groan into my hands, it just feels like this desperate grasping at straws because they really wanted Sick and Twisted Evil Yusei Real and then when that didn't happen they had to make up some grand production conspiracy instead of just taking the "welp, cant win 'em all" with this one and acknowledging that's just not the story the 5D's writers wanted to tell.

i LIKE a good protagonist corruption/evil!protag AU, they're really fun, but you're so right, this sort of Insistence I see when people are like "no, it was GOING to be true, z-one WAS dark and depressed and hopeless future yusei," i just cant wrap my head around it. there's just this sort of miserable harshness to it that i'm not personally very into. (in general i cant really vibe with this idea of "i need my favorite character to constantly be suffering." just really not my thing, ESPECIALLY WITH YUGIOH CHARACTERS??) (also. like. we already did have that. with jaden. and honestly yuma also is fucking Suffering too. it's cool seeing a different spin on things. idfk!!)

i just want to like. grab people really gungho about this thing by the shoulders and ask "why do you want a Yusei who willfully betrays and gets his friends killed SO BADLY? why do you want to see a Yusei who hurts people THIS much?" I feel like it would have just been so jarring and unearned. it doesn't feel like Yusei even in his darkest hours (which imo is part of why Z-one is such an interesting character to me--the concept of someone who thinks if they can wear a fabled hero like a pelt, if he can Become them, then that will fix everything, then They can fix everything. that's so fascinating and fucked up to me!!!! i love thinking about it!!!)

this idea that in the far future Yusei's become this sort of folk hero, this "something intangible and divine" like you said, just from saving the world and doing good and helping people, that's just SO neat and has so much merit and is worth discussing!! and it's unfortunate that you have a Not Insignificant amount of people who just wont even consider the potential narrative weight in it, who are so sore Their Trope of Choice wasn't canon theyre out here weaving madeup production stories to back up their personal disappointment. just. idk. you can give the 5D's writers a lot of rightful flak for stuff in s2, but i do very much think there was great intent from the beginning to have z-one be Just Some Guy who's rotting in a body that isnt his own, and to have him reflect yusei in ways without Actually Just Being Him.

[kafkaguy]

why did head (1968) flop so badly, you may ask?

the short answer is: terrible promotion. why the promotion was so terrible is another question entirely. there are two schools of thought: 1) bob rafelson and jack nicholson were being deliberately avant garde and obtuse (maybe to attract a certain psychedelic audience) or 2) deliberate malicious intent from columbia pictures to get rid of the monkees (by November 1968, when the movie premiered, the monkees TV show had been cancelled for 2 months).

(LA Times, 2008)

what exactly was the ad campaign? Well, it was originally supposed to be Bob Rafelson's head displayed for a few seconds smiling at the camera--according to Wikipedia this was a spoof on Andy Warhol's short film Blowjob (1964). but in the end it was John Brockman, even more unknown, and he was just the guy who was supposed to be filming the clip.

from Andrew Sandoval's The Monkees Day-by-day Story (page 210). explains more about why they did this. Micky also says he thinks it was a way to get back at the monkees for striking on the first day of filming when they found out they would get no creative credit for the film and had been "getting ripped off pretty badly" basically for years.

another factor was the critics reviews. obviously Head is not your average film, and loads of reviews looked down on it as psychedelic garbled trash. they didn't get it. there were positive reviews of course, but most people just didnt get it (and you cant really blame them - its at its most enjoyable when you are a) a bit of a freak, b) a total anti-capitalist, or c) substantially aware of the horrors the monkees were going through at this point. no film critic at the time ticked all 3 of these boxes). i think at this point bob rafelson panicked, because he wanted the film to do well, he just wanted it to do well independent of the monkees (hubris). there's a funny story about the night before the movie premiered in new york, he and jack nicholson got arrested for putting up stickers promoting head, after jack tried to put one on a police officer's helmet. and it makes me wonder why he then didn't fight harder for the film to do well.

it's funny (re: sad) how so many things came together to bring about the doom of the film: bob rafelson and jack nicholson's own cockiness about how well the film would do, their complete disregard of the what the monkees themselves wanted, the studio being tired of the monkees/already having cancelled the show, the whole phenomenon dying out a little since record sales had gone down (the last album they put out was in february 1968 - by this point it was november, and the Head album wouldn't be released until December)...

another peter quote because I trust him the most (again from the day-by-day story, page 210)

Mike over the years has said different things, at one point calling Head an assisted suicide (pertaining to his own desires to kill the monkees phenomenon and be seen as a serious musician), at other points calling it a murder (which i think is how peter continued to see it throughout most of his life, while simultaneously recognising its artistic and cinematic merit, and also saying the soundtrack was the record he was proudest of besides headquarters 1967). but here's something Mike said in the Head commentary (some time in the early 2000s) which i find simultaneously funny and devestating:

so yeah. the main conclusion is that nothing was in Head's favour for it to do well. there were conflicting visions, conflicting motivations, a total lack of interest from Columbia pictures, and no one was on the Monkees' side, not even really the monkees themselves. the world just wasn't ready for the crazy anti-monkees monkee movie. their swag was too different. everybody wanted to kill them. but they didnt have to cos they killed themselves it happens right at the start of the movie and again at the end. WATCH HEAD.

[likeadevils]

I've seen people say she has a habit of choosing the wrong singles for albums. Aside from Lover, i think she's done pretty well in that area? What are your thoughts?

i dont think she's bad? but i think her single choice did lead people to view her as a worse songwriter than she actually is. especially lead singles were consistently the most frivolous songs on the album between for red, 1989, reputation, and lover. like for the general public that will only hear the lead and maaaybe second single, unless a later single blows up, it's just. financially lucrative but not gaining widespread artistic respect.

which i think is a big reason why she's blown up once a) she put all her songs on streaming and b) tiktok came on the scene. like, you're adding structures to throw fan favorite songs into the general public's face-- stuff that wouldn't have worked on radio, like enchanted or all too well, or stuff that just never got it's day in the sun like don't blame me or cruel summer. like, folklore and red tv where also massive turning points, but giving the general public actual, physical evidence of how good her deep cuts where across all her albums goes a long way, too.

(specific album thoughts under the cut)

i think debut and fearless have excellent single selection. speak now is a tricky album to pick singles for and i think she did the best that she could but was also just kinda cursed for that album.

red is weirder-- wanegbt is a perfect lead single, but i think it set off a pattern of like, frivolous lead singles that didn't end up in a good place. but on its own, wanegbt is perfect and i wouldn't give it up. i think begin again is a fascinating second single and i'm not sure i would make the same choice but i understand why she did it. in general the country singles off the album are a bit weak, to me, but then i wasn't immersed in country radio in 2012/2013 so i don't know what was popping off in the market. BUT i do think i bet you think about me would make a good touch back song, which is one of many reasons why i think it should have made the album. or hell, even throw in all too well, once you know you're leaving the genre in a couple months. just a big swing with a lot of artistic merit and nothing to lose. also holy ground should've been a single.

1989 is where i think the pattern starts-- at least for the lead single, not the rest of them, it's hard to go wrong with picking a single for 1989. but in terms of what to start with, shake it off is an interesting choice. like, i think shake it off is a necessary part of the story she's telling on 1989, but it doesn't gel with the rest of the production as smoothly, so establishing it as like, "yeah, shake it off, we've all heard it" goes a long way to smoothing over any little mental speed bumps. that being said, it's not the best song on the album, and blank space and style are, i think, the more natural lead single choices-- blank space especially establishes the "i don't care about my reputation" element of shake it off, but from a more cynical place that could be fun to build off of. also it proves that she's serious about the album being 80s pop

reputation is tough one. there's no song on that album can't be clowned on to hell and back, and there's no way the next taylor swift single wouldn't have been clowned to hell and back after 2016. i guess you could make a big swing and go new year's day, which isn't as meme-able, at least, but that's not what taylor was going for and it would have been false advertising. so like, i don't know. maybe don't blame me or i did something bad instead of end game. but i do like the story lwymmd -> ready for it -> end game -> delicate tells, i think it's neat. and even though it kinda ruins that story, you gotta go getaway car for the closer. like i get that negotiations with bmr had likely broken down and she didnt want to make them a bunch more money, but getaway car -> cruel summer is a once in a career album handoff. sonically, story wise, just. it all clicks

every swiftie on earth knows their opinion on the lover singles but i think anyone can admit that this was the album that really set in stone her reputation of bad single selection.

folklore is just a fun thought exercise, like you basically get one single. definitely one music video, and the cardigan music video is general enough that you can kinda click it into another song, so you can go as far as to say you get this music video, find the song for it. cardigan is very understandable and obviously not a Bad Idea, but with the benefit of knowing the fan favorites, august is just, kinda perfect? i think seven would've also really worked. but also its an Album, not a single, and i don't think a song could've ruined that

evermore is similarly fascinating. i think willow is just kinda meandering and hard to grab onto as a song, but it lends itself well to that music video she made and the music video is a good overview of the full album. that being said, i would've gone no body no crime-- i think you can make a really engaging mv of it without having two people in the same room together, which flows with covid regulations pretty well. or tis the damn season, but i admit that personal bias clouding things (but like? it functions as a christmas song, so you could get airplay in december! and it sets up the main storyline of the album!). but similarly to folklore, hard to drive down public opinion of this album with one single.

midnights solidly breaks the curse, to me. like there were songs on this album that would've set it off on the wrong foot, and then anti hero was the perfect song on every level. as for other singles, they shouldn't have done that to ice spice's verse. that was so mean why did they do that just have it be the beat that's on the rest of the song it works so much better

[skaruresonic]

I just wanted to share that I relate with you, a few years ago I posted that I really hated Sonic Forces, bad game bad story and everything, I then ended up getting someone who send me numerous messages on how wrong I was, I ignored them but they kept going, then they made fun of the way I drew Sonic and I suddenly a week later I got messages on my personal blog mocking me for my post regarding depression thoughts, thinking about suicide and missing my cat who passed away . That really hurt, not helping them was that they constantly told me I drew Sonic out of character, a hobby that helped me cope with my feelings, all this beause I didnt like Forces. I just disabled anon messages for six months. When this year I expressed mild dissapointed with Frontiers gameplay but that I still like the game, I got 4 messages on how wrong I was. I dont get this with the Pokémon fans. It just makes me think there is something fundamentally wrong with the Sonic fanbase.

Jesus. You shouldn't have received that kind of treatment for posting opinions online, and this is coming from someone who leans more towards neutrality on Forces.

It's also funny, not "ha ha" funny, but in an ironic way, as a contrast to our experiences, because once people caught onto the fact that a few of us didn't think the game was utter dogshit and it does have a few good points, they proceeded to double down on their cries of "Pontaff apologist." Apparently saying "No, Forces is not the equivalent of '06" is enough to get people on your ass, but it also seems disliking it garners you harassment.

Plus, they were all too happy to dismiss Frontiers criticism as "you just hate Flynn and are using this an excuse to bash him again and not give him a chance" because Flynn Haters must never have independent thoughts, their hatred of him is just a mindless reflex. They implied this, even though some of us stressed repeatedly that Flynn's involvement ranked pretty low on the reasons we just didn't like the game.

What does that tell you about how mercurial the environment is? At this point I can't imagine being a part of the in-group, how stressful it would be to keep biting my tongue, stifling my real thoughts, just because at any moment someone could arbitrarily decide they don't like my face that day and proceed to use my "shitty opinions" as an excuse to fling abuse at me. If one of my friends says "I don't like SA2, it's overrated and the story sucks," the most I get is annoyed for a while. Then I move on. It's not something I hold against them because ultimately their opinion doesn't have to affect mine.

Somehow, though, this fandom acts like you have to hold the Correct Opinions or else, which just makes you wonder at the insecurity underpinning everything. If they really believed what they believed, they wouldn't have to resort to these tactics. If we're "desperate," as they often say, they're insecure.

---

I then ended up getting someone who send me numerous messages on how wrong I was, I ignored them but they kept going, then they made fun of the way I drew Sonic and I suddenly a week later I got messages on my personal blog mocking me for my post regarding depression thoughts, thinking about suicide and missing my cat who passed away .

I'm so sorry. Again, that should have never happened. That kind of behavior is reprehensible and unacceptable. There is no opinion you can express online which merits such treatment.

This? This is what harassment is. Idk what they're on about when they complain they've suffered "harassment" because one of us reblogged their post with commentary on The Reblogging Site. They are absolutely not the same thing, and you (general you) are insulting harassment victims when you do this.

---

It just makes me think there is something fundamentally wrong with the Sonic fanbase.

There is. I can't exactly pinpoint one cause because it seems to be a melting pot of interrelated issues. It's like a pressure cooker of conformity borne of the desperation not to be seen as cringe by the mainstream - hence all the diatribes about "you guys are making the rest of us look bad," like, who are you performing fandom for? why are you performing fandom? - with anti-games bias stemming from that since the games aren't considered as "deep" as the comics. Unlike the book which improves them, the games are childish, and we wouldn't want to be seen as childish, taking something as inconsistent and puerile like Sonic games too seriously.

Then you add a dose of purity culture, the intense focus on parasocial relationships with ascended fans (I find IDW staff's conduct unprofessional and really skirting the line wrt its fandom), and outright abuse apologism (the stuff with Emi Jones is sickening), and the mixture becomes toxic.

[boyswanna-be-her]

Fanfiction is so nice in terms of providing a built-in audience and I wish more reluctant creators saw its merits as a soft landing and/or low pressure sandbox to play around with characters and plot etc, if the thought of writing original fiction or creating oc art is mortifying.

Original characters are of course completely necessary, if you deem fanfiction necessary, because that's the bedrock, right? You can't have fanfiction without canon. But when i contribute to fandom (in contrast with when I'm freeform writing something with no extant properties) I feel like there is ZERO pressure. I'm not asking readers to invest in characters they haven't met before. No leap of faith necessary.

On the other hand. Free of fandom. It is an undeserved blessing when a character occurs to me out of the ether! There's almost nothing better than when a little buddy shows up right when you need them!!! But a barely-defined goblin from my imagination doesn't mean anything to anyone but me. I have to convince a reader that MY puppet show is worthwhile, even though it's going to take time to get oriented.

Idk. Much to think about. Fandom is a nice transition into complete fabrication, and if you struggle with the change, I recommend filing the serial numbers off of your "shameful" fanfic and pretending like there's no way your stories didnt spring forth from your own genius with no supporting architecture.

The thing I miss a lot about fandom these days is that I'm writing these chapters that—to me at least—feel killer and tight. But all they do is sit in my manuscript. I viscerally miss the experience of posting a new chapter of something and having a bunch of people drop everything to read it. I miss writing something fan service-y and watching the comments roll in. I MISS THE INSTANT GRATIFICATION SO MUCH. And i hope that if you're a fandom consumer, you understand what a service you do by being excited and providing feedback.

Thus ends my new nightly, highly embarrassing stream of consciousness journal sesh. Thanks for coming.

[sleepii-moth]

kind of vague tunic spoilers below the cut, this is more just an opinion than anything- but if you're wanting to play this game blind then i wouldnt look. (if you don't mind some vague spoilers and are planning on getting it i would recommend reading this though) Tunic is the most heartbreakingly underwhelming game i have ever played.

Yes, I have played through the entire game. Yes, i have gotten both endings. When I say this it's not coming from a place of malice, I don't think Tunic is a bad game... it was just so so not for me.

Over the past year or two I've been playing a lot of games almost completely blind, and from that I've found some of my favorite games like In other Waters. Tunic was also a game i was told to go into blind, despite that though i heard a few things about it. I heard people compare it to Outer Wilds, I heard that it's combat was bad, I heard that it was a puzzle game that involved a very unique mechanic of piecing a book together to learn how to play the game. Of course, I never expected it to be just like Outer Wilds or anything, but given everything else I fully expected this game to be something that i would enjoy. I mean- a puzzle game with a gameplay mechanic that supposedly breaks away from what games are often thought to be? A once in a lifetime experience like Outer Wilds? Count me in! given all those facts there's no way i could not like this game, right?

Maybe it was a product of over-hyping something, maybe i just had the wrong idea. But Tunic was nothing like what i had heard. It leaned more in the direction of a Zelda rip-off than anything. The combat was bad, at least i knew that was true beforehand. But i didnt realize just how much of the game is combat. 90% of it is combat. But i can just turn it off and ignore that, right? I thought, Surely the story and puzzles will be enough to move me forward despite some boring gameplay, right?

And then I encountered the puzzles. The puzzles that rely on the in game handbook which ranges from just an answer sheet to incredibly cryptic. The puzzles themselves were sometimes just downright diabolical. I mean like some of the most crucial puzzles in the game rely on you just looking at some discrete pattern in a wall and pressing some buttons on your d-pad like 10 times. I usually love puzzle games, but when I think of puzzles i think of Portal's physics puzzles that require you to use your surroundings and tools in unique ways, or Outer Wild's logic puzzles that require you to think about the world around you works. Tunic's puzzles are along the lines of finding a code and putting it into a keypad- you never actually do that but that's always what it felt like to me. I can only think of one or two times where the answer to a puzzle actually has some merit somewhere else in the game. Much of the game simply relies on you going through dungeons, getting a tool you need to get to an unreachable place, maybe doing a few puzzles along the way, rinse and repeat. If it weren't for the handbook this game would've just basically been Zelda without Link. And even the handbook felt more like a gimmick than a gameplay mechanic. It was just like a sheet of hints because the games puzzles were too specific and complicated to leave them by themselves.

I think given all that i wouldn't have finished the game if i wasn't holding out for the story. I was convinced there had to be some reason why I had heard such good things about this game! If its not the combat or the puzzles it must be the story right? Except it wasn't. It felt like the game was going to give me a mystery with all the cryptic and hard to understand text it gives you, hell there's a whole guidebook in some made up language! But in the end the most i felt about the story was some small amount of intrigue, and at worst it felt like it practically didn't exist. I'm all for trying to tell a story without characters or dialog, plenty of games do that really well! The power of environmental storytelling, right?! As far as my incredibly recent memory goes i only remember about 3 times the environments ever felt genuinely unique to the story, and even then it wasn't ever elaborated on. All the other environments in the game were just your standard environments for a game with some small nod to a symbol or idea expressed in the story. The story itself.. was.. kind of nothing? Games don't always need to have some profound story with meanings and plot twists and all that but given the rest of the game being what it was i kind of expected something? I feel like it was sort of presented as a mystery but maybe that was just my overall cluelessness about everything in the game- though despite how little i knew i never exactly felt compelled to find answers, i kind of just wanted there to be a story?

In the end i was left with game that consisted of bad combat, ridiculous puzzles, a nothing story, and a gimmick that at most times i feel like wasn't used to its fullest potential. I kept going until the end because my mind was somewhere between "Just keep playing and you'll understand all the praise, it'll get better!" and "God dammit i paid for this with my own money and I'm past the refund cutoff" This could've been part of why my experience suffered, or maybe i simply should've looked up more about the game, or maybe it was a combination of a lot of things. But Tunic is a game most definitely not for people like me.

In the end I'm still not quite sure why so many people like this game, but it's not really my place to judge. I suppose might like it if you're the type of person who enjoys obsessing over things with a lot of codes or riddles to solve like ARGs, or if you like old school Zelda combat. I'm sure this game is great, but if you were expecting a game with unique puzzle solving mechanics and/or an interesting narrative, this game is not that.

[lavender-lores]

june reading wrap-up

finally back from my trip so now i can make this post! i've also updated my read list accordingly :)

the love interest (cale dietrich) - 6/13, 4 stars

it was entertaining for sure! but some parts of the book were either badly written or with weird plot pacing 😭😭 and even though its supposed to be stereotypical, what can i say? it was stereotypical.. and then the late half of the book just comes at you out of nowhere it was weird... but i really liked it what can i say??

my mechanical romance (alexene farol follmuth) - 6/14, 5 stars

this book knocks it OUT OF THE PARK! its realistic and its witty, and i guess a large part of the reason i liked it so much was because i related so much. its ironic but i finished this book about being a girl in robotics while literally sitting in my robotics class where i'm the only girl 😭😭 i loved this book. i want to frame it. its lighthearted in the parts it needs to be and the pacing + writing is superb. you gotta read it!

these violent delights (chloe gong) - 6/21, 4 stars

this book has been in my possession since literally winter and i have been trying SO HARD to read it until now and it was just SO HARD to get into. but by chance when i picked up at the beginning of my vacation i found myself well into the book. i dont think i'll check out the sequel, though. it was good, but it just didn't hit all the way for me.

cafe con lychee (emery lee) - 6/21, 2.5 stars

idk why but emery lee's writing just doesnt stick well with me. the book had me feeling empty and it seemed like there was just no real reason behind the book, yknow? it was fine at best. but i didn't enjoy it

a crown of wishes (roshani chokshi) - 6/22, 4.5 stars

this book!!! was so fun!!! i am not an enemies to lovers type of person (i am an extinct species) but this was literally so fun. the RELATIONSHIP between the mcs, the ACTION, the FANTASY, and the ROMANCE!!!! i loved it so much! this book was just so me in a way i cant explain. this one is one thats going on the darlings shelf

the kite runner (khaled hosseini) - 6/23, 5 stars

not much i can say on it that nobody else has, but let's just say that i'm using this for my ap lit summer reading as a "book that demonstrates literary merit."

skyhunter (marie lu) - 6/24, 4 stars

another that took too much time to get into 😅 my friend recommended this to me in like november and kept asking me about it because they loved this one so much but i had to kept telling them i hadnt finished it yet and i felt really bad.. but once i read it it wasn't all that bad! but it wasn't a fave that's for sure.

the tiger at midnight (swati teerdhala) - 6/28, 5 stars

I. LOVED. THIS. BOOK. the dialogues were fun and the pacing was good, plus it had the long-lost-royal trope that i absolutely love! sometimes though the writing would be weird about the whole viper stuff cuz it would keep saying she was super scary and then most of the book is her acting very.. lackluster? as opposed to this in-universe reputation. either way, i simply had to get the next book asap. and...

the archer at dawn (swati teerdhala) - 6/29, 2 stars

....... what happened 😭 idk the story quality literally nosedived after the first one i was so shocked and i didnt even feel like getting the next book i have no idea what happened in this book..

solitaire (alice oseman) - 6/30, 1 star

there are some people that are going to be very mad at me for this. but unfortunately, i feel that there is something all those people share that allows them to like this book: relatability. and i do not have that. the mc is unlikable, and she is unlikable on purpose. the point of the book is to help you to understand life from the perspective of someone like tori. but all i can say is that i absolutely hated reading it. this book did nothing but.. annoy me. i hated how she acted to other characters. i hated how she complained all the time. i wish michael holden never came back. this whole book just made me mad. i'm really sorry but i just hated this book.

here's to reading more in july!

[rosanthium]

Wheel of Time Review Retitled: Surprise! A Man hates Women and Diversity.

As someone who actively consumes a lot of film content I find myself curious as to how different prominent and professional film critics and reviewers are to my own experiences as an audience consuming content. After all, art is in the eyes of the beholder and film is just that, another form of art that can be interpreted in many ways. How people interpret content is largeley based on and tailored to the individual's personal experiences and identity, which ultimately affects the reading of film in either positive or negative ways.

Now as a queer woman and a cinephile, I have some beef. Above is a review of the TV adaptation of the The Wheel of Time, written by one James Delingpole for The Spectator UK. I am in no way a misandrist or man hater, or anything along those lines, but this review has pushed my buttons to the enth. Too many times have I seem film reviewers (largely old white men) absolutely slam perfectly acceptable and creative content just for the fact that women may have depth of character, people of colour exist as does the lgbtqia+ community.

Never have i seen a review so biased and hateful, not even towards the TV adaptation but for the source materal too and it perplexes me how these reviews are allowed to continue being published and pass the editing room. Im not talking about being PC, but fuck if your going to review something base it on merit and not the fact that ripping source material to shreds, reducing the author to a failure in the fantasy literary world and then criticising the thespian abilities of the young actors, makes a review credible. Talk about hate shot after hate shot.

I don't normally get this fired up but today I'm on this hell app letting you all know, how lovers of the books, the show, the characters and the actors, have been so denegrated to "trite" and "tripe" is absolutely disgusting. You know how we learnt "If you don' t have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all?" this, I feel, should have been the lesson here, as the only purpose of this review was to let us all know that this guy just doesn't like the Wheel of Time, full stop. Here are a few beautiful examples I would love to share with yall:

Firstly I would like to point out the arrogant preconception that reading a 14 book epic fantasy series will be feasible on a 2 week holiday. Yet despite personal recs and global sucess, the persuasion to pick up the book actually stemmed from the fact that Robert Jordan was a decorated war hero, engineer and an absolute mans man which inspired Delingpole to follow through with the book recommendation, then using Jordan's military and mathematical macho backround to justify his disappoinment in the failings of the book, as if that instantly gives agency for good authorship. The failings in Delingpole's eyes being:

The reviewer didnt even finish the books, and i feel we can all agree that the best thing about the Wheel of Time is how well the characters develop and change throughout the story to make a well fleshed out and rich fantasy world. By reducing it to a Lord of the Rings rip off, we see how, instead of reading the way Jordan developed those ideas that yes, have existed in other stories too, have rather opted in just disregarding TWoT as a failed copy cat that has "basic dialogue, leaden prose and uninspiring characters." Ahh, there is the literary language I so look for in justification for poor reviews, and yet we haven't even got to the show yet. As a reviewer who seems to hate the source material, Dalingpole sure had hopes that the TV adaptation would be different in his eyes, but nope, its EVEN WORSE.

Now lets get to the meaty part cos boy its a doozy:

Fuck me where to start. For someone so reverent of Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings this guy sure does have some hang ups about unique fantasy names, especially outright naming the 3 examples who are played by poc actors as "annoying and unpronouncable". Sure "James", Mr Western White Man who, unsurprisingly, has a problem with foreign names, (the racist subtext is starting to smell a bit here). I wonder as such an avid reader and professional reviewer how illiterate he became when reading Dune, or any other series that has predmonitely white protagonist and unpronouncable names.

Now to Moraine and the Aes Sedai. Unfunny, pompous and crotchety witches/seers/spell-weavers who only exist as a dominating and powerful political and protector class to pander to new age feminism and paganistic hippies. WOW. God forbid women have any sort of agency and respect in an epic medieval fantasy except to be the lovers, mothers, sisters or whores of great male heros. And how dare such a "macho man" like Robert Jordan pander to these ideologies. The only thing that makes sense is if he wrote an entire, intricate world surrounding womens' power as an elaborate Barney Stinson ploy to make Jordan desirable to female audiences so he could essentially, fuck them. Yes, thats right. Delingpole believes that if a male author writes about powerful women, it must only be with predatory intentions. I dont care about defending Jordan, but I do care about how narrow this lense is, and that for this male reviewer, is the only logical explanation for a female-centred narrative written by a man. As if men can't write women with any authenticity. As if women can't exist unless to be of service to a man. As if we aren't over the tireless harmful gender roles and stereotypes that 100 years of Hollywood has reinforced. As if nothing can break out of that mold and formula unless its pandandering to minorities or feminism. I can't for the life of me see how this perspective could fly these days when it is based on so much misogyny and ignorance that I've got whiplash. And this isn't even confined to the books but bleeds into the TV series as well.

Cold but sexy-ish Gandalf? Delingpole has futher reinforced his Tolkien hard-on by essentially saying that Moraine is unlikable because she is mysterious and withdrawn (which if he stuck around, he might have learnt why there are 14 goddamn books) and that her only likability is by reducing her character to looks only. That the only redeeming quality for a MAIN CHARACTER is her fuckability. For someone who didn't finish the story or is even sticking around to finish this TV series, he sure has seemed to make up his mind. I think we can all agree that Rosamund Pike is doing an exceptional job as Moraine, and the nuances she is bringing in the show is dominating the screen by bringing the source material to life in a new, refreshing way. I goddamn screamed and cried when they canonically made Moraine a gay woman in a loving relationship with the goddamn Amyrlin Seat. What a power move. What a moment to witness, this small change that made me feel more seen and connected and personal than any other adaptation I've ever consumed, and made me hope for the future of representation on the screen. Not saying that the books and the TV adaptation are perfect, and that the debate on creative liberty is one I'm not going to get into here, but this level of criticism based on the Reviewer's personal bias makes me wonder if they were the best choice in critiquing this narrative.

Moraine isnt the only protagonist under fire. The four possible Dragons are reduced to "petulant teenages" with no "discernable personality", and now I start to wonder whether we have seen the same show and read the same book. Sure, they are doe eyed villiage folk embarking on a great adventure with life/death ramifications. Since when was innocence regarded as petulance, when was the mistakes of simple mountain folk thrust into larger destiny held to such a high regard, as if teenagers aren't fucking stupid and mess up sometimes. I doubt this reviewer has the same views of Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin if you get my meaning. Hypocritical doesnt even begin to describe the level of arrogance Dalingpole has to have his word be God and the only opinion that matters in this context. And he doesnt stop there.

I know there has been some controversy in this community about the way Barney Harris is interpreting the role of Mat as a serious, brooding and whiny figure instead of the kind, trickster like, humouros conman and scoundrel as he was portrayed in the books. Either way, my personal opinion had me (ironically) disliking Harris's portrayal the most out of everyone due to the fact he felt unfamiliar to me. Whether we see a different take with Harris being recast is a different matter, because Delingpole reveres the character who has adopted the most toxic traits, whilst belittleing the rest.

Reducing young emerging actors to the thespian abilities of school play mediocrity has me reeling. How dare Delingpole attack the greener actors and diminish the hard work and talent that goes into making this kind of series, as well as insinuating that hotness and racial/queer representation is the only reason these people were cast in the first place. Im sure he didnt have any problems with the young, predominately 'white' actors of Game of Thrones, as if they are the pinnacle of acting abilities. And yes I'm gonna look at this through a racial and queer lense because goddamn James seems to feel the need to attack every minority represention left right and centre within this review. For someone hell bent on not finishing either the books or the tv series to find out if these young actors can "grow into their roles", he really is not giving any space to change his mind. Which brings me full circle and is further supported by his conclusionary statements:

In conclusion James Dalingpole wishes Game of Thrones never ended and that any form of diversity is a hindrance to the sucess of television fantasy. The Wheel of Time is thus, a cheap knockoff of every medieval fantasy that has been popularised in culture, and any decision to include minority representation in the source material, or the adaptation has ultimately lead to failure in his eyes. And yet here, Delingpole reinforces that it is the most successful fantasy series since Lord of the Rings. So how did it go so wrong? Answer: it didn't, Delingpole just has a lifelong perscription of bigoted glasses and his script ain't changing any time soon.

I am not saying that my rant on this review is the only truth out there, we all have our own opinions and interpretations, but having a reviewer so biased against diversity, whether it be gender, race or sexuality, leads me to wonder why these kinds of reviews are allowed any agency at all. Everyone's a critic, sure, but never have I seen such a blatant disregard and disrespect of the books, the fans, the actors and even the studio execs. It irks me that this drivel is still being reinforced because these opinions don't actually give any form of depth or nuance, just hatred for the divulge in formula. The classic "Bring me back to the good ol days" mentality where anyone who wasn't a man was opressed. The Wheel of Time is not Lord of the Rings, nor is it Game of Thrones, it is beloved by many, myself included, and can stand on its own if we stop the comparisons to what 'was' normal and Hollywood formula and embrace that diversity is becoming the norm. Women exist, people of colour exist and so do lgbtqia+ people who are allowed to have agency in how we create a new norm and formula for medieval epic fantasies. I, for one, am someone who can seperate book from adaptation and am so far loving both, but to write this review as an attack on the narrative as a whole feels outdated and honestly pathetic. Here I am, reading the words of another angry old white man who is pissed off that representation is being normalised, when we should be embracing the fact that outdated source material being brought to modern audiences need to reflect a sense of modernity, which thus means, adapting women-lead narratives, casting lgbtqia+ and poc actors to adapt the roles and just outright not give people like this Reviewer any more agency to reinforce these harmful opinions. I'm also not saying the Wheel of Time is perfect, because like everything, it has flaws, but outright calling it a failure due to its type of content, makes me wonder if James Dalingpole has actually enjoyed anything since we emerged into the 21st century.

Anyway, rant over. Check out the full article yourselves and suss it out. Am i reading too much into this? I hope not, cos this is just one example of so many film reviews I have seen this year absolutely sloshing new films and series just based on the fact it is "Too PC" and this last one got me in the gut. I'm over it because I fucking love how film these days are setting the standard for progressing culture away from the dominant western patriarchal ideologies. It starts with small change, and i know that change is scary for book purists and fragile egos, but the only way we are going to see rich, personalised and diverse stories on screen is if we stop letting the voice of an old white man dictate what constitutes good content or not. I don't know, fight me about this if you want but I'm just fucking tired.

[blog-jei6x]

How start to love favoritism and get redemption arc in LO.

So i want to talk about Underworld work, especially how much there prospers favoritism. There is you can read post why favoritism is bad 

link

as in this post i started to interest in it after discussion between Daphne and Thanatos, but after i started reread LO i have seen how much Thanatos was right, but his position was shamed by everyone, by"good" characters, by audience, even Author have shown it as something wrong, and only he strated to love Persephone and thought that special attitude to her is fine, he became good person and start his redemtion arc.

i don't want to talk about how unbalanced this relationship is (I saw many posts about it and i have nothing to add), i am more interested how it influences on other co-workers.

Favoritism in underworld or maybe on Olymp seems to be something normal, because Hera given this work for Persephone for to get closer with Hades (it was hinted very clear), although they had antoher opotuinities for this, with their finances and love for Savor they could do Dinner party, ball, party etc where Persephone and Hades could know each other better. Why was love affair at work best variant for it? I sincerely have no idea.

Wherein Persephone said that she isn't enough skilled for this work, so someone enough skilled doesnt get this position, because Hera want to make couple from Persephone and Hades.

i would be fine if Persephone try hard for this job, yes, some characters said that she is smart, but I didn't see her labor and striving, i dont feel like she deserve this position, her only merit on that moment was beuty, it  s not enogh i think, btw to be nice and kind too. As they say in my country "a good person is not a profession".

Let's look on Underworld's bosses.

in story RS tried to show as Hades is hard worker, he preferred work to relationship, he thinks about work even in strip club and many characters said that he is so. But his behavior shows him absolutly from another side.

to my mind he and Hecata busy only his personal life. With Minthe and after with Parsephone.

as soon as Hades knew that Persephone in Underworld he left everything and flew to save her, very romantic, isn't it? but let's think a bit: Persephone came in dangerous closed facility (btw where their security system?) and made accident, it like someone broke in secret laboratory and start the fire, even if it accidentally it s not something that would be left without responsibility.

Someone can said: it's not her fault, it reptile Minthe! I partially agree with it (only partially) but it s truth for audience not for Hades, he didnt know it. For him it should be random person which got into forbidden place and acted badly there.

Hades reaction: he started to regret her, to apologize, to go everywhere with her, What the Hell was going on? oh yes and another co-workers had to look for Persephone`s brooch and cloak, so they had to left their their direct responsibilities, because somebody coulndt go away after she understood that this place is dangerous, she could wait after door of Tower 4 or befor Hades cabinet, she wouldnt lost anything in this way. But Persephone is sooo smart, isnt she, Hera?

btw very considerable moment Thanatos started to worried about his work when he knew that Persephone is liked by Hades, because he entered in train before her, does it mean that Hades not only choose favorites but shamed co-workers which dont like this favorites? we will see that yes he do it.

Another situation is presentation Persephone, oh i feel your cringe Minthe, i were in similar situation, my past boss forced our team to congratulate his girlfriend with birthday, should i say that we even didnt know her?  it was so awkward. when i read this part of story i feel the same cringe as in that day. Yeah this boss was kinda terrible, mb he didn't like me because i am not enough beauty for him? i have this feeling after LO reading.

First working day of Persephone is just quintessence of favoritism. initially Hecate went with her everywhere, after - Hades started to do it, they even changed his schedule and yeah i find indignation of Minthe and Thanatos (i dont care about their motives now) very reasonable and Hecates arguments were just silly. Why he should work with someone unqualified? and why boss dont have better business than to take an excursion ​on Underworld with new intern?

Hecate arguments is annoying, he cant said that she is unskilled (she is really so) because he eaten her baklava? great. Why they need to apologize for Persephone stupidity? Tell me someone pls, it s to hard for my mind. And yeah it's not school prom, mb Hades will start to work and stop flirting with new intern?

Oh i start to hate her, how she can be one of the favorite character by audience. Can she just be honest? Persephone is here and everyone go around her because Hades find her attractive.

Another favoritism example it is Persephone salary, Author could not accentuate that trainee dont get salary in Underworld, and it would be fine, okay she get receive income now but no, Persephone should be special and other interns aren't so special,  it would okay if she would work in office some time and she would be so hard worker that leadership would want to prize her for it. But she is just special, just because she is attractive for Hades. 

In chapter 88 Persephone confessed that she flirt with Hades, but she dont want special treatment, but she embarrassed only by business card, not salary, not that everyone worry about her. It shown as joke, oh ha-ha how naive Persephone, for me it looks not like joke, more like mockery for people who work hard and don't have such prizes, because they are not attractive for their bosses.

And in this chapter Hades left his working place and gone to decide Persephone's problems, problems other workers don't matter, but Hecata asked nice question.

i think no, how Hade's corporation are still active and success with such directors?

but actually no, looks like Thanatos and Minthe are still try to do some job, because only they could teach Persephone how to work with computer program (why is not Hermes? he works in the same position as Thanatos does it mean that he doesn't understand in this work anything because she even did not ask him?) and  I on Thanatos side in this, why he should spend his time for her?  (He already has trouble that he works worse than Hermes) and btw he tried to work, did not fawn for boss favorite, so he tried to make his work better in honest way.

And maybe she will try to read user guide? if she learned how to rule car from reading what is problem to do the same with computer program? and doesn't waste time of another workers.

Anyway It's strange that people which try to work are not fire yet. Because another worker who tried to do her work right was almost fired, because princess don't know her ID. Whose fault is it? Again for Persephone's fault another worker had trouble, and why is shown as humor again? why pain and fear are funny here, and it's unfunny where Gestia acted with Persephone in similar way. I think if it s funny it should be funny with everyone not only with defenseless and weak workers which isnt boss favorite.

and of course hades gone to bank with their interns, because what else he could do on the work? pffffff

the only time where Hades reaction looks adequate at the start at least, it accident where Persephone given coins to souls which made riot  because of it and again with it should deal other workers. everything what happened with Persephone that Hades was a bit angry and after they kissed, she transformation in butterflies, he forget about this accident and started to search what transformation means.

I thought it makes no sense to compare relationship Hades/Persephone and he\his other workers. For everything that she done any other worker would be fired, beaten, killed or something.

this leitmotif in LO if you like Persephone you are nice, if you don't - go to hell. Thanatos redemption start from his liking Persephone and think that Favoritism is fine.

Why it should care other workers and Thanatos especially? because they have trouble because of her, she tried to waste their time, and some great hard worker dont get any prize, where she get prize only for flirting with boss. their boss became unproductive and don't care about them, he think only about his sweet princess. 

So go away Daphne, pls. You are such smart as Persephone.

Btw Thanatos is gathering souls, and Hermes falsified counts of souls because of Persephone, i am not sure about that but looks like Hermes productivity were such great because of this falsification,  so if it is so, he can hate her with pure conscience, because he was blamed that he is lazy and bad worker and didnt get increase in salary.

So okay, i think Favoritism can be in fiction, but not how it was shown in LO, as something unequivocally positive and romantic, and Thanatos opinion was unequivocally shamed, everything it can work with grey moral story and such type of characters, someone can say: in LO characters are "grey", maybe, for me they are much worse than grey, but in story they dont show as grey, grey moral story it s when you can like any character and dont be in others eyes "misogynic" or no one will say to you "dont sit right with me" because of it, and another phrases which get person who prefered unpopular LO characters.

Oh what a huge post, thank you if someone read it to the end)

[bigskydreaming]

What kills me in fics is when you have tags going like "Good brother Jason", which, cool, but in the same story there's " Dick TRIES to be a Good Brother" LOL way to switch the dynamics. I also tend to stay clear of the ones where the centric character seems to have a platonic relationship tag with everyone (including the ones where they're antagonists in canon like Jason & Tim) except Dick. You can feel the hate/dislike/prejudice a MILE away.

Yeeeeeeah. You are definitely not alone. Like pretty much every Dick Grayson stan I’ve ever talked to on the subject stays the hell away from any fic tagged “Dick Grayson tries to be a good brother.”

LOL like....it’s basically what I was talking about in that older post I just reblogged a few minutes ago. That thing where Dick’s actions or choices in a canon story or fic aren’t judged on their own merits but are rather inherently weighed against some hypothetical perfect choice that he DIDNT make and so he’s basically evaluated based on how much he falls short of that mark each time instead of anything he actually did.

Sorry not sorry, but I’m just not interested in stories that TRANSFORM the character most commonly referred to as the emotional glue of the family and the only one who consistently even CARES about them all being a family....into the fumbling incompetent relationship disaster man who at best gets credit for at least putting in an attempt at being there for his family.

Especially not when Bruce and Jason and Tim are praised for doing the bare minimum in canon when it comes to family interactions while everything Dick ACTUALLY did is just completely ignored and overwritten in order to make his Failure to People Good the narrative obstacle to be overcome.

Now, the “Dick Grayson Tries To Be A Good Brother” tag applied to Tim-centric fics in particular tho....hoo boy I am out of there so fast there’s a Kool-Aid Man shaped hole in the wall and not a sign of me as far as the horizon.

Like, currently my Pet Peeve Thermostat is set to Battle for the Cowl-referencing fics that don’t use this tag but very much are in that spirit. You probably know the ones, like their summaries suggest they’re open to considering Dick’s side of the situation but turns out the author at most is throwing him a “well at least you tried not to suck” bone while still reading him the riot act for very much still sucking.

Because what drives me up a flipping WALL here in particular, when I naively click on a link that seems different from the usual and ignore the voice of experience because I’m just desperate enough for Tim and Dick food that doesn’t just go on and on about how Dick ruined their brotherhood and it will never be truly repaired....

What makes the fruit bats in my belfry go absolutely B-A-N-A-N-A-S is not just the super fun realization that Psych! You thought this fic might be different but it’s actually the same!

Nah.

It’s how much people, both writers AND commenters, just absolutely LOVE to reference Tim’s shitbag parents and how emotionally abusive and neglectful they were (all true and valid, btw, let’s be totally clear about that)....but bringing them up here specifically to emphasize just how great Dick’s ‘betrayal’ was and how what he did makes him no better than them.

It’s like. Oh. I see.

So because after twenty years worth of stories about Dick dropping everything the second Tim needs him, whether it’s for help or just advice or even just reassurance or comfort or ANYTHING ....because after two decades worth of content showing Dick absolutely doting on Tim in their EVERY SINGLE interaction and buttressing his self confidence at every opportunity, never passing up a chance to call him his brother and emphasize that they’re family and he loves Tim and is so proud of him...

Because after all that there’s a story whose very premise forced Dick to choose between two kids, both still very much his brothers and their shared father’s sons even if one was new to him and didn’t have the same history the other two had....

Because by the very nature of the story Dick had no choice but to prioritize one over the other due to them both hating each other and Dick already being stretched to his absolute limits trying to live his dead father’s life and take on everything Bruce used to do at the cost of giving up everything Dick had chosen for his own life and wants and priorities, all while dealing with his own grief....

And with it being inevitable that the boy he DIDNT choose to prioritize was going to be hurt....

Because after twenty years of never failing to put Tim first the second Tim needed him, never even putting HIMSELF first OVER Tim....because for the first time Dick felt that someone else he felt obligated to, felt a responsibility towards, actually needed him MORE than Tim....

And for that reason and that reason ONLY, Dick picked that other boy, all while trying his best to tell Tim that he still needed him, still valued him, all the things that Bruce DIDNT tell him when he took Robin not even because he thought someone else needed it at the time but simply to take away, with absolutely nothing Dick said in any way negating or contradicting any of his many, MANY assurances to Tim over the years that they were brothers and always would be and with them still very much legally brothers and with concrete ties to each other that declared them family even WITHOUT the connection of Robin....

Because after and despite ALL OF THAT, Dick picked the brother that he didn’t know and frankly didn’t even LIKE, because he knew no one else was going to pick this kid and he also knew he’d already picked Tim a hundred times before and hoped that at least all that HISTORY of past focus and attention he’d given Tim to help build him up, give him foundations to build further upon, that hopefully at least that history that was still there, still relevant, still something Tim had actively benefited and grown from in ways Dick now hoped to help Damian....like surely this would be of at least SOME significance to Tim, SOME kind of proof of how much Dick loved and valued Tim....

Because one time and one time ONLY, Dick DIDNT put Tim’s needs first, not because he didn’t want to or because he was being selfish or short sighted or simply didn’t care, but rather solely because this one time Tim’s needs were in direct opposition with the needs of another young boy Dick saw as his responsibility and in even greater need and with even less of a foundation than the one Dick had helped Tim build....

This puts Dick on the same level as Tim’s shitbag parents, the ones who are infamous for (and practically synonymous with) emotional abuse and neglect. Dick’s basically interchangeable with them now. Certainly no better than them. Tim’s entire emotional well-being rested on Dick and Dick alone and nothing he’d provided Tim with in the past counts, just this one moment in time right here right now, that’s the entirety of their relationship see, it all comes down to this and nothing else, and because Dick didn’t put Tim first, no matter WHAT his reasons or how much he wanted to, he has officially failed Tim as hard as the neglectful parents who did nothing BUT neglect, ignore and just not give a shit at all, simply because they couldn’t be bothered to.

Yeah.

That’s neat.

[redrabbitspod]

This is in no way meant to be rude or disrespectful and I am fully aware that you can do whatever you please but I feel like Neil is getting so out of character. He clearly started to develop more of an own personality but he definitely has been through so much and he is just so..cheery and happy and clingy all the time(which if you’re like that is in no way wrong or bad) and now he reminds me so much of Nicky in AFTG. It’s really hard for me to still see Neil.

OOC: This is very long, and while we think everything leading up to it is super important to our thought process (and yes this is something we’ve thought about) the bit in bold is the heart of the point we try to make. (Please read the whole thing though!)

Hey, I’m actually really happy that you sent this in because I’ve been wanting to talk about it. I know that there’s a post going around that we both wholeheartedly agree with about Neil reaching far past ooc and becoming very ‘fem’. Jeni and I had a really long talk about this because we were worried that our Neil would be perceived or mistaken to fit in that trope. And while I think your concern is EXTREMELY valid (note: people can write the characters however they want. It’s fanfiction, they can do as they please, like you said, we just did not want to go that direction), I have a few points as to why I disagree. 

On surface I definitely get that. Idk if you’ve read the entirety of RRP, but I know for those of you that just read the asks (Im sure there are a lot), it DEFINITELY seems that way. But we went into RRP right off the bat letting people know that these characters will fundamentally be different. In Andrew’s case, we know he’s extremely soft now and we bring that up a LOT in the fic. Both himself acknowledging it and all the other characters around him. But we went in knowing he was going to be very different from canon - mainly because we took out the plotline that he was ever put on meds. In Wish You Were Here, the story we are writing post-season 2, we will be mentioning that and how we twisted it. Because in canon, that shaped his entire character. The medication changed the physiology of his brain and we hated the fact that something so abhorrent was forced upon him by the courts that we didn’t do it. And as a result, Andrew’s character is completely different because he’s able to tap into emotions that were blocked in canon. He’s able to grow in ways that he was not able to before and besides the fact that this is set a good while after college and especially his sophomore year that we saw in canon, he was going to change. We definitely know that them admitting that they love each other, making strides in their relationship both physical and mental, opening up, expressing, for his character may seem extremely ooc for some, but we had to take into account what would’ve happened if we took the thing that shaped his character in canon away. I hope we’ve done him justice. 

Now onto Neil. Neil we work over a LOT. And when Jeni brought this up to me because of the post, there were glaring things in my mind that automatically said no. This doesnt apply to our Neil even though to some it may seem that way. Here’s what we’ve done at least very consciously to make sure that our Neil holds integrity to his canon character, that he holds merit and a backbone to back up how he’s grown throughout our series. 

From day one, we knew that they knew each other. We knew that an event from the past not only shaped how Andrew approaches life, but how Neil does as well. Childish sentiment and nostalgia kept Neil in Arizona for so long, which we imply throughout season 1 and start the ball rolling in the first chapter. For the both of them, they held onto the boy they met at the Grand Canyon through everything they’d been through. When shit got tough, it was each other they thought of. And on some wild whim, Neil hoped one day Andrew would walk through the Book Nook’s doors and he’d see him again. Not because Neil had a crush, because he didn’t. But because Andrew was the embodiment of strength for him. 

New York was really important to us. Neil standing his ground and letting Andrew know exactly what he’d done to him, was what the entirety of Season 1 and EVEN season 2 culminated and came back to. Neil being able to say no, fuck you asshole, and always express exactly how he was feeling, was so vitally important to us. ESPECIALLY when it came to Andrew. Those few weeks of New York we wanted to build a bridge if you will. Andrew’s intentions were always genuine and well-meaning and Neil knew that, but survival instincts and what’s been ingrained in him stuck. They started to have a little give when he came to realize that he felt something for the man before him. But he never lost that fight for himself. That HE has to ALSO be okay. And I think we see a lot in that trope of Neil that he loses the fight, the backbone, the integrity that makes his canon character so compelling (even if he is a martyr). 

One thing we worried people would misinterpret was how fast we pushed their characters together. We definitely get that. In our world we didnt really have the luxury of really stretching it out like some may have, just because we were working with real-time. And honestly? As we wrote, the drive to push them together because they were so connected and intertwined just fell genuinely and organically. For us, it only made sense and not because of canon, but because of the story we’d written already. It made sense to us for Andrew to be the one to hold himself back and Neil be the one reaching out - Neil be the one exploring and beginning to recognize what want and really, agency over himself AND his wants, was. Neil was the one to ask for their first kiss here, Neil was the one to initiate them all afterwards, Neil was the one that asked Andrew to touch him, Neil was the one that asked what they were in Arizona, Neil was the one to bring up sex. And in return, Andrew was peeling away layers of himself, feeling accepted, and wanted, and understood in ways he’d never been before. And honestly? Feeling honored that they were both experiencing emotions in ways that they both never felt before. We see their relationship has an equal give and take, a push and pull. And I’m saying all of this because it’s honestly and truly really important for why we’ve made Neil’s character the way that he is. 

Going into season 2, we knew that happiness could not last long. They both had things to sort out, they both had hurdles to hop over, bridges to cross, whole fucking oceans to swim. Before season 2 started, before we had anything written or really even solidly planned, we knew they had to break up. Jeni even had the scene written back in either july or august. We knew that in order to continue trying to give integrity to their characters and relationship, how far they’d grown but also that growth is not a linear path, we needed to break them up. And in the lead up to that, we made sure that Neil was not only looking out for Andrew or trying to, but that he was looking out for HIMSELF. Unlike in canon, he didnt automatically have the foxes - not in his head at least. Of course he knew he had a home there, he knew that he had friends, but they weren’t like canon because he didnt grow WITH them like he did in canon. In his mind, he really only had Andrew and if there was no Andrew, why stay? And when their fight happened we made sure that Neil had value enough in himself, care for himself, love for himself AND for Andrew that they couldn’t let this go on any longer. Neil left because he knew he deserved better. He knew Andrew needed help and he couldn’t provide it. And he held onto that. In fact, Andrew even held onto it himself: 

“Is there no hope, then?” Andrew asked, unable to help himself.

Neil sighed and Andrew was grateful that he at least didn’t pretend that he didn’t know what Andrew meant.

“I don’t know, Dr- Andrew.” Was it possible for his chest to hurt even more? He wanted to curl in on himself, but settled instead for clenching the sharp corners of the pack of cigarettes in his pocket into the palm of his hand. He watched as Neil bit the inside of his lip and that little indent appeared. Maybe he feels it, too . “Part of me wants to say fuck it all and let’s just go home. I hate this... But I hate what you’ve been putting me through these last couple of weeks even more. I can’t do that again,” he stopped talking once more and inhaled a shuddering breath. “You broke my heart, Andrew. I know I sound dramatic and stupid, but I don’t know how else to say it and - I don’t know how to do this, for fucks sake.” He finally turned to him, but the eye contact was brief and before it was even there, it was gone. “I came into this knowing nothing about relationships and I know even less about breakups. I don’t know how to navigate this.”

“You think I do?” Andrew asked. He didn’t mean  for it to sound so bitter, but there it was.

“I don’t know with you,” Neil shrugged. “I feel like you keep everything so close to your chest, that there are whole sections of you I’m missing. And listen, I don’t blame you. You should be able to choose what you want to share. But I can’t help that it makes things hard when you’re falling apart and I don’t know why...”

Andrew let go of the box and put both of his hands in his lap. Grinding his teeth together, he heard the beginning hum of Bee’s buzz , but took a deep breath to try and keep her at bay. Clearing his throat, he looked back to the stadium and that stupid orange fox paw, before he murmured, “What if I offer you a piece?” - suddenly and quickly said, it was as if his mouth was trying to outrun his mind, despite the second he took to contain it. He’d known this would eventually come - that he would have to do this. And besides, Neil deserved an explanation, even if they never got back together.

“Andrew-”

“I’m not offering with hopes that we’ll get back together right now, Neil. I’m working through shit the best I can. Therapy is helping, but I know it’s a process. I just know you deserve an explanation. And I haven’t wanted to tell you because it’s fucking horrific, but I was also afraid that it would send me even further down the spiral if I talked about it. Now that I have a space to vent through, I don’t think I’m so afraid of the fall.”

This part was so important to us for both Andrew and Neil’s character. And in the entire build up to the break up and directly after, Neil held onto the fact that they needed to talk. He kept bringing it up. Because he knew that if they didn’t it would escalate just like it did before. 

“I wouldn’t risk being with you again if I didn’t think things would be different. I’m not better and to be honest? I probably wont ever be better. I’ve spent my entire life dealing with my shit by myself because that’s just how it was. I’ve avoided relationships because I never trusted anyone with my baggage and I didn’t think it’d be fair to pile it on someone anyway. So when it comes to talking about shit - I’m not used to that. Bee was the only person I’d ever told everything to, and she doesn’t even know all of it.”

“I know that,” Neil said, leaning forward as if to show Andrew how much he actually understood. If that was the case, Andrew believed him. “I know you, Andrew. I would never force you to talk about something you don’t want to. That’s not what I’m trying to do. But , I need you to work with me, and if not me, someone else. Don’t take it out on me when you’re going through shit that neither of us can control. It’s not fair and it makes me feel like I’ve done something wrong and I can’t fix it.”

Now. Now we’re up to your points. I promise all of this was important for me to explain, because I know there’s literally SO MUCH that we’ve written, that shit happening now can get in the way of everything that’s happened before to lead up to this. 

We fully recognize that Neil is definitely happy. But he’s not happy-go-lucky and we tried really hard to make sure he didn’t lose his integrity - his backbone - the things that made Neil, Neil. 

Something I realized throughout this series was that I was getting worried that the focus of season 2 was so heavily on Andrew. I was seriously worried about that. But then I realized that Season 1 was focused solely on Neil. Season 1, Neil was a fucking wreck. It was Matt AND Andrew comforting him, Matt and Andrew bringing him down, Matt and Andrew trying to protect him, take care of him, find him, search for him, all of that. But even through Neil’s horrific anxiety and all the bad shit that happened, it was still Neil that pushed himself up from the ground, pulled Lola back, and gave Andrew the in. It was Neil that fought with the doctors and nurses to see Andrew and make sure he was okay. Even still afterward though, it was Neil discovering and Neil understanding and a lot of Neil, Neil, Neil. 

Season 2 is heavily focused on Andrew. We’ve already seen Neil’s story and his growth. Its Andrew’s turn to try and again, build his bridge to getting better. But with that, it was Neil that made the strides to speak and handle Ichirou, it was Neil that figured out things with his uncle, it was Neil that ultimately had the gun, brought Andrew for practice - took it out and demanded Andrew get behind him this time. It was Neil that looked Andrew in the eyes as the cops patted them down and desperately tried to tether them together.  It was Neil that kept reassuring Andrew they were going home. It was Neil that snapped the moment the cop tried to put his hands on Andrew to show them where their things were when they left the prescient, and ANDREW that allowed himself to be pulled into Neil’s arms in that moment, because he knew that he was the one thing that was SAFE. It was Neil that held Andrew that night and Andrew that LET himself be held as he broke down. 

That was one chapter ago. And we really tried to illustrate at the end that they have a life ahead of them now. They have a future - a future that is spread out and it’s bright and full of possibilities. They have a future where they can do what they want. They have a FAMILY. They have nieces, Aaron, Kate, Bee, the entire TFN team. Neil had nothing and now he has something. He has hope. 

Promise Im coming down to the end omfg. This is why our Authors and End Notes are so fucking long i swear to fucking god. 

This BTP chapter, we wanted to explore that fucking unbridled happiness. That elation of fuck - we have the world out in front of us. We don’t have any killers on our backs, Hailey is safe, Robin is safe, Jean is out, the Moriyama’s are taken care of, Stuart isn’t begging Neil to join the Hatford Branch, Aaron and Kate might be moving back to South Carolina, they’re married and all of that isn’t terrifying. It’s COMFORTING. So yes, this BTP chapter was bright and cheery. Neil was most certainly happy and showing it. Jumping on the bed, kisses all around, getting excited over ZOO BABIES and a ZOO CHOO train. But just because we show this side of him where he gets to go on a road trip and experience real and true fucking freedom for the first time, doesn’t mean that we’re all of a sudden shedding everything that we’ve built for his character. I don’t think that’s what you meant, but I mean it when I say we take the characters, the integrity of the characters, very, very seriously. Also in this chapter, Neil takes a homophobic asshole to task and not in the way that a lot of people do, but by quietly hinting at the threat because Neil doesn’t need bells and whistles. In fact, he even talked about how being happy was something his mother frowned upon: 

Because the way he looked at Neil when a butterfly landed on his finger or when he snuggled up to a goat in the petting zoo let Neil know that Andrew was happy. And he was happy.  That was something Neil never really had in his life. His mother didn’t care if he was happy, only that he was alive . In fact, the less happy he was, the fucking better. By her logic, he was less likely to go rogue if he didn't feel like there was something to be happy about outside of her. 

Neil’s finally had a moment to enjoy and let go and we know exactly how that can come off, but we have an entire future planned for them and the book they’re about to explore. Spoiler Alert: It won’t be all “butterflies and rainbows”. But all of this does not mean that all of a sudden we’re giving in to tropes and changing his character entirely because of one chapter. RRP and it’s characters mean too much to us. 

So I definitely get where you’re coming from and I’m so fucking sorry this is so long omfg. And I respect your view because we definitely worried that people would see them like that. But we have a reason for almost everything we do in this fic and really, we just wanted to see the boys happy here. We don’t believe he’s like Nicky and we don’t believe he’s clingy, but everyone interprets these characters differently, and you’re certainly entitled to that opinion. We hope this just makes our thought process on Neil’s development a little clearer. - The Creators

[ouyangzizhensdad]

i meant white/western audiences are slow to understanding the subtext rather than asian fandoms, when i was a kid i remember most asian countries didnt even have "kiss scenes" in movies or dramas, for us the "subtext" was normal for straight couples too (I've seen a few white folks think cql is a story abt 2 straight friends). the issues with the poor production and it has shit production coz of the budget but the drama wasnt supposed to be a big hit. also like how u just made it the "idol drama"  as if most kdramas and cdramas arent full of idols. I mostly agree with ur cql fandom hate too but to me it seems like u sometimes just want to prove that cql is worse than it is just coz the fans it brought in. I dont blame u either, I've seen some shit metas and the cql fans who hate the novel and call the writer homophobic are also funny. What makes me irritated is that the amount of hate cql gets on here is equal to the amount of hate novel gets, when the drama made alot of things possible for asian LGBTQ audiences. This is the first drama that my gay asian friend (who isnt out) watched with his parents and got them to fall for all the ppl and support the couple. Novels have our imagination in them but dramas need to make a lot of ppl happy and also keep censorship at bay. for me personally cql seems like it made it possible for alot of closeted kids be comfortable talking abt a gay couple with their parents, as novels are limited to a fandom. (Like I've not read a single harry potter book but I've watched 4 of the movies 😚)

I'm not trying to attack u but I'm trying to tell u that just coz the drama brought in a shit ton of weirdos in the fandom it still helped alot more ppl than u can imagine...

Hi anon, 

One thing where we seem to be of a different opinion is that criticising cql as a work of fiction, or highlighting the political economic context surrounding it, in no way negates what it can mean for people. I personally consider that these are completely different matters. These things often have nothing to do with the inherent quality of a thing, or even how good “queer rep” it is--they are relative to people’s specific and personal experiences, or a particular moment in the media landscape. All the things she said holds special meaning to me because it was the first time I got to see two women kiss on tv and it felt revelatory. I vividly remember sitting cross-legged right in front of the tv and refusing to come eat until the end of the music videos--at a time when I could not articulate why I was so fascinated by it. I know that this song is still meaningful for a lot of queer people my age, even if many people hate it for being a straight gaze fantasy. Regardless of what it personally means to me, I’m not going to argue that the music video is a masterpiece, or be blind to the reason why the kiss was included in that music video. CQL is very meaningful to your gay closeted friend, and allowed him to discuss wangxian as a gay couple with his parents, and that’s absolutely great. But I personally think it’s a little bit far-fetched to suppose that the same couldn’t have been said of any other live adaptations of a danmei novel who didn’t shoehorn in a het romance: if the timing had been different, perhaps the first drama with romantic subtext between two male characters he would have seen with his parents would have been Guardians, or the incoming adaptation of TGCF. Hell, H2O was so popular that they might have just watched that one together as well, even if the subtext “romance” is between two side characters. 

Let me be clear as well that I am not trying to argue that MDZS is this groundbreaking piece of fiction wrt “gay rights” or queer representation in China that changes minds and sways public opinion. It’s one of many danmei novels--it just is one that has a lot of literary merit. I simply think it’s disingenuous when people in the western fandom claim that a subtext romance is better “representation” than a canon gay couple who get their happily ever after. CQL is more impactful because it is mainstream, but it does not mean the representation it offers is inherently better. It is also ridiculous sometimes because the hurdles faced by a danmei authors vs the government-backed media giants who benefit financially from putting out censored version of their stories is just..... not something that should be ignored in my opinion.

Asian audiences being more used to romance depicted through subtext does not, at least in my opinion, negate the power of heteronormativity or compulsory heteronormativity to influence readings of that subtext by a portion of the audience. Chinese people are absolutely creative and innovative in the ways in which they manage to circumvent censorship, but a webseries financed by a media giant is not going to be a transgressive attempt to pull the wool over the censors’ eyes--at the end of the day it needs to be a safe investment. 

You seem to suggest that I am hard on CQL for being an idol drama but do not bring the same criticisms to other idol dramas. I find this weird because it’s not like I’ve ever praised an idol drama, and I know I haven’t because I simply don’t think they are competent works of fiction (although sometimes the camera work and editing is at least competent, compared to cql where the production quality is kind of poor). The closest I’ve come to doing that is praising My Mister, which is not in any way an idol drama, but which I suppose features an idol (IU) in the cast. When I said the first jdrama I watched was Hana Yori Dango, that was not an endorsement of how good it was--because honestly it’s one hot mess barely held together by the chemistry between the two leads--it was just a statement of fact. 

I am very critical and judgemental, I’ll give you that, but I don’t think that equates to “hate”. Yes, most of my discussions of CQL sprout from existing discussions within the fandom. But most of my posts indirectly reference or respond to something I saw. What’s the difference between me addressing a common novel fanon and me addressing a common opinion on cql’s virtues? 

TLDR; a work of fiction being significant to people is something to recognise but it should not preclude being able to discuss that work critically, especially wrt how it executes its story since the inherent quality of the work as art has no direct correlation with its impact, be it on individuals or on a specific media landscape. Moreover, the impact of a work on queer people or on the social perception of queer people is not inherently proportional to how “good queer rep” it is: it has usually more to do with the context (ie people don’t remember Brokeback Mountain because it was the best movie with a gay love story ever made until then--there was more at play). 

[sometimesrosy]

I really wanted the last season of The 100 to give closure, but I was so heartbroken when it didn't. As someone who has never missed an episode in the past 6 years, I couldn't make myself watch the last 4 episodes after I heard that Bellamy died so awfully and without a goodbye, and after I heard that the story continued to get worse. They killed Bellamy ok, but they did have to kill Maddie as well? I remember thinking I wanted an explanation for what happened, but it won't be satisfying. Sigh*

i’m not sure i would be able to NOT watch it. I would need to know how it ended and see it for myself, so I could judge on its own merits not other people’s opinions.

i’m not sure how it’s LESS satisfying to see it rather than to just hear about it. i mean memori was pretty good. and gabriel’s death was good. the absence of bellamy or bellamy’s real effect other than just saying “but bellamy would have wanted it” was a big hole. The Maddie storyline was when I went, okay they can’t come back from this way. And then they just went diving over the edge making Clarke into the bad guy which was my BIGGEST problem. Along with the whole humanity dies and our heroes are neutered and living on a beach somewhere. ugh. gross man. 

There WAS no explanation for Bellamy’s death except “we lost him years ago” no  you didn’t. you didn’t give him a chance, not even any kind of chance that you gave everyone else or they gave you.

it just DIDNT FIT WITH THE STORY SO FAR.

ugh whatever. I’d still rather see it for myself than not see it, so I can pick it apart and see where it went wrong.

Because it doesn’t fit and it seems like JR just gave up and threw the grimdark fake ending that made the whole story and then vindictively cut Bellamy and made Clarke psychotic and told the bellarke fandom who’s been watching for seven years to go fuck themselves and then threw CL a pity appearance to rub it in means to me season 7 is illegitimate. So he fucked up the story... but he also didn’t, because it was so badly done and didn’t match with the rest, I can just ignore it. It’s like the season ended at s6.  No conclusion.

[hungnitan]

My thought about Wangsheng Funeral Parlor

I just need to let out these after talked with my irl friend since Hutao gonna coming soon. I will delete this post if these proven (all) wrong

We talked from why Zhongli work in Funeral Parlor of all places and having kid like Hutao as his boss (don't mad, this based on other character thought about her) then my friend wondering about Northern Bank relationships with Wangsheng as whole since we all know... Liyue arc doesnt explain anything

So, after I dig my brain + looking at wiki for lore I missed + my reasoning (lol)

I think Zhongli started work at Funeral Parlor from previous boss (which likely Hutao parents/grandparents) and they died before Hutao learn any particular things to maintain an organization. In other meaning, Wangsheng keep going on without their director do anything 😂 for example like a company still keep doing their job even after their boss doesn't know anything to maintain it

About Zhongli position as consultant, I think we should questioning it to current boss Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. From one announcement post in Liyue (forgot the name) there's one post about Zhongli mentioned to comeback or Hutao gonna give him full ears and Zhongli voiceline about Hutao seems give a hint that he can't handle a kid, my best guess is he mainly babysitting Hutao then handling Wangsheng Parlor as if it's his own company 😂

Above are kinda like joke, but relationships between Northern Bank and Wangsheng really an interesting lore to me. To answer it, there's some point need to be explained :

From Liyue arc when Childe introduce Zhongli to us he said something like "Wangsheng Funeral Parlor helped us in dealing dirty job but at front they pretend clean" but dirty job here get corrected by Zhongli with "burried dead person" and then Childe want to explain further but stopped

I read from wiki (which I don't remember where it get mentioned) that Northern Bank is Wangsheng financial backbone

Wangsheng and Fatui both are in bad term with Qixing which makes enemies of my enemy are friend

Tbh point one pretty weird to me, if Childe didnt try to explain and stop maybe I don't question anything... But since it happen, I think there's more dark stories about Wangsheng except ritual and prying to dead people/gods

We all know Fatui doing moreless like debt collector and assassination. So what's Fatui interest to cooperate with Wangsheng ? My best thought it's to clean up their aftermath job

Maybe some of you didnt know, but the most difficult thing after killing a person is tidy up it's dead body (ex : make it like suicide or nothing happened) but with Wangsheng there, they can make it like someone just died normally

And these explain like Wangsheng didn't picky their way as long it's merit their sides (well, I guess Zhongli too as long didnt break any contract) and he seems have good "trust" on Tsaritsa cause looks like their "bussiness" are in long term already

Additional : I know some GI player feeds their belly with ChiLi pairs (well me too😂) so my irl friend wondered if they become friends for longest time...

Well, sad to break those illusion but I must say big NO. Why ? There's so many scene I can explain but the most reasonable is Childe keep asking about must eat with chopsticks all the time which explain he don't know anything about Liyue culture and giving tips 888 mora in Zhongli PV which I definitely sure it's Zhongli advice and triple 8 is kinda like good charm in Chinese term (considering the dish price, it's unreasonable giving tips that much even you're sugar daddy😂 it's like buy two get one price)

❤️Thank you for read these unimportant long rant ❤️

[tolstoyamericanrevolution]

Turn Christmas:  Hidden in Finery

A Robert Townsend & Arielle Nathan story I was meant to publish awhile back but forgot about so happy late December 17th!! 

The problem of forgetting you are trapped is when the trap twists itself around your ankle, and you dare to show your distress.                                                     At Rivington’s, she had forgotten about it all, the redcoats and the beatings from Captain Hennely’s wife. In the daze of candlelight and a humorous conversation, she forgot about the war outside her door. She forgot about her role as prisoner & friend, governess & respectable guest she forgot about all the titles given to her when James Rivington made a joke or John André mused a poem out loud.

Arielle forgot about her family being miles away in Philadelphia when Robert smiled at her.

That rare secret smiles that she tugged close to her chest.  Robert Townsend had many ways of smiling- the polite line for drunk customers who ranted about everything and nothing, that reserved smile of amusement when Rivington would refer to him as “Robby Boy” or her favourite- well favourite two.

The sly one that would catch the glint in his eyes when something amused him- genuinely unrefined. It could be a joke or a complaint made by a person, or perhaps it was a thought that crossed his mind. Those rare melancholic free thoughts as he laughed to himself about a uniform three sizes too big on a young officer or the invisible ink debacle. Arielle liked those smiles.

The one she loved, was that gentle smile unaided by a raise of his eyebrows or a slant of his chin. No, instead it draped over his lips in momentary content. His witty smiles were regular affairs that fluttered her chest- these gentle ones; a rarer variety as if budgeted and allotted in his monthly account books—emerging when he felt in control when the world stopped spinning, when everything felt in order- as if Robert had not sacrificed all his prospects in a high stakes gamble. That of a spy; that of life and death.

When he first gave her that smile, her heart melted. She realised that the love she thought she had felt previously was nothing because she wanted to imprint this moment in her very being. She was longing for some reception, for some encouragement. Arielle could still recall the way his eyes softened when the coffeehouse was closing, and he glanced up from his books and smiled—not seeing her as out of place in this world of his but rather a comforting part of it, amongst the candles burning low and the day's numbers recorded.

This sense of belonging was not here tonight. Andre was away at dinner and Rivington was entertaining a table of ladies. The one man she did care about was tending to his wares—streets away which at this table felt like oceans away.

Bitterness coursed her chest, gripped at her tongue, forcing her to taste anxiety in her bones and the resentment of this cage. This cage that had deceived her so well until the cards were laid in front of her. Numbers racked up in debt, the men around her smelt like gin and rum, like a pulsing wound under bandages. Toxic and jaundiced.

Captain Hennely, the fool, was in debt and racking it up fast as he insisted on another betting coin. Arielle watched him with abject horror- leading him to snap at her “Shut your damn eyes constantly!” “Judas of a woman!” the two alternating every two minutes. When he lost a round, he slammed his fist down in front of her. If he chose not to bring it down on the table, he could quickly bring it down on her, to her stomach and thighs, causing her heart to patter in her throat.

Arielle could not just leave, to find another table even when she longed for anyone else's company. For if she tried to move he would snap about having to keep an eye on her. That someone should see his victory should learn the value of coin over-etching it out in budget plans.

The man he gambled against was a wolf of a man. Conniving and greedy for anything that glittered. Rivington once told her that he got violent with anyone who tried to cheat him. Oft, dragging them to the nearest alleyway to crash bone against bone. Townsend’s nod told Arielle this wasn't just James’s typical exaggerations. This man focused his gaze on her neck, on her necklace like a fox upon a goose.

Upon the pearl and aquamarine choker, a gift from her parents, the first necklace of significance she was allowed to own; Not to share the diamonds and pearls with her sister or mother from the family safe. Not the gold chains of girlhood. This necklace was her sixteenth birthday present, a present that told her she was now allowed her safekeeping items. The pearls were small white river pearls that circles her neck in singular role while in the center was a cushion-cut aquamarine secured in gold plated brass while hanging from it was a baroque seawater pearl, with its pear shape, that felt like a tear, the size of her thumbnail- small, delicate yet strong.

This necklace may not have been the most costly, but it had sentimental value, it demonstrated when Arielle has first trusted with value herself and now this man wanted it. Hennley failed his bet and had no money to give. Taking the opportunity, the man demanded her necklace to settle all debt- so he could play another night again.

She began to refuse, this was not his to give it was hers- it was her possession. “I apologise sir but this is mine, it is not for sale”. It was then she realised she was still entrapped that she was the property of the crown, that a last-minute cry saying it belonged to her father meant nothing.

He slammed his hand in front of her, the same way Hennley did. Demanding it outright or else that captain would be no longer, and she wouldn’t want that. Oh, see how I care Arielle thought spitefully, at first. Drag him by his guts for all I care this is mine. Her barred teeth in a snarl meant nothing. For every time, her emotions began to get out of check, that another guest may notice- this same captain pinched her hand. “It doesn't belong to you, it belong to the Crown and as you’re exchequer I demand you hand it over”

Protests died on Arielle’s lips as tears pricked her eyes. Her neck felt cold as her possession was stored safely in the man’s hand. “It will fetch for a fair price” he murmured as he passed her. Straight to the market. Away from her hands. Standing sharpley she demanded a coin- a carriage she was going home. Henley handed her a coin reluctantly “be prudent with your travel” he had such a nerve.

No one met her eye, Rivington continued chatting, Andre was still gone and Robert was far away while she was left feeling like a bartered whore- none of her possessions bound to her by ownership let alone honor. Her anxiety fretted- what else will they take from her?

The accounts were in check, the stock for the Christmastide sales was prepared. When Robert Townsend came back to Rivington’s the following day everything felt alright. He was prepared for last minute officers trying to barter the price of rum. He had everything from second hand goods to newer ones. Abraham often critiqued him for his loyalty to his business. Accusing him of not engaging with the Ring fully in order to save his own income. Fool.

That was the only answer Robert would give to it. It is not like he spent nights awake pondering if there was any merit in his words.

There was one thing out of place, however, Miss Nathan’s regular expression of glee, often smiling with some wit on her tongue. Her choleric rants. Her general ability to hold court in the room. That is what made her and Rivington work so well. He would work one half of the room and her th either. Yet while James was intentional- Robert thought it was just Arielle’s nature to challenge, twist, debate and laugh.

Instead she appeared late; strange. Her dress plainer than her regular vibrant colours or patterns. No jewellery around her neck. The most telling was the way she sulked around the room. Eyes dark refuting anyone who came near her. Watery and untrusting. Perhaps that was what concerned him, Arielle was as volatile as he was. One minute light hearted next minute serious, melancholic then temperamental. While he was private however; her face was a stage informing everyone of her mood. Robert didnt know how he felt about the twisting in his chest when he caught her eye.

It felt strange not to have a presence by his elbow, peering down at whatever he was working on. It was all very strange indeed.

Yet; Mr Townsend could not go and talk to her. Risk showing the world their closeness. No instead he would have to make inquiries. The hint came when Captain Hennley- he never bothered to catch his first name, scoffed past her and she scowled, teeth bare like a fox disturbed.

Pouring a glass of port, he delicately placed it next to the man.

“Gambling good, sir?”

“Could be better,”

“is that so?”

“Aye, some wolf like bastard bet me out of my money” Robert cringed but continued.

“I hope you found a way to remedy it” He tried to sound neutral, not generally given to inquiries.

“Oh I did- he wanted the girl’s necklace, she has been in a wicked temper ever since, the King doesn’t pay me enough for this”

Over the next couple of days, Arielle felt herself go from bad to worse. It was not the material object of the gif that mattered. It was this idea of not having any grounding of being trapped. She suddenly became more aware of her limits, of her confinements. Of how much she missed her family. The necklace was a symbol.

Who was her ally?

The bustle of officers, actresses and curious traders made for decent observing; they were like headless chickens on the 24th. Arielle failed to take notice of the man behind her. His hand dropped to her shoulder, startling her with a squeak. “Hush now” came Mr Townsend’s voice “Do not startle all of York City.”

Even now, she felt herself chuckling. “Come”. He was gesturing to the cellar. Leaving first; curious Arielle disappeared from the crowd into the back. Two seconds later, he held out his arm. “Where are you escorting me to, Mr Townsend?” “You will see.”

Robert guided her to his room and with the wit she had left she turned “Now this is not very proper”.

“Look what is on the bed.”

There was a small brown paper package wrapped neatly in twine. It was not very thick, and she could tell there was cloth under it. “Am I to open it” “Well it is a gift, I believe that is what you do with them” Too curious to retort Arielle undid the tie and noted underneath one of his handkerchiefs- the one subtly embroidered with white cross-stitch. Unfolding it, she felt something cold. By God, it was impossible.

Sparkling back at her was her necklace.

“It is not a replica; it is the same one...I traced down Captain Hennley’s contact and made some inquiries the man he sold it to is in debt to me for sharing stock so in exchange for settling our debts I got it back” Robert explained, each word gave her this urge to embrace the living daylights out of him and never let go.

“Before you ask why you were far too miserable for this establishment and I could not have it affecting business” “business? What one?” “the one of my mental state.”

So he was concerned about her. She had an ally.

“I suppose it is a Christmas present.”

“Don’t tell any of the other Quakers” Robert cooed with an amused expression.

“Now, let me put that on for you” gently moving her hair out of the way he clasped it around her neck, his breath warm against it. If Arielle could have melted, she would have. Then he knelt down placing an intense, warm kiss to the back of her neck.

The gesture made her think of customs. In Sephardi culture, a groom as a sign of engagement would gift anything of value, a coin, a ring or a necklace. It was a sign of the marriage that he could support them. It was not limited to the Ashkenazi ring or coin. It could be earrings, or it could be the hunting down of the string of pearls around her neck.

“I won’t tell the Quakers if you won’t tell the Jews.”

With a grin, she added “or else we might be engaged.”

Startled, Robert sharply inhaled before laughing “I think I could think of worse things.”

“Run along, go light up the room again.”

Instead of moving, Arielle sprung up and embraced him. Her head in his shoulder, arms tight around him. Robert’s arms were soon around her. A quiet, warm embrace. Murmuring a thank you,  she caught the sight of him.

Robert Townsend was smiling, gentle and unaided.

[autumn-foxfire]

Bro im so tired of twitter

So the latest thing ive been seeing a lot of are things like 'jujutsu kaisen is just a copy of naruto' or 'do you likw jjk or bnha?' A whole lot of compering and arguing and belitteling one show to lift up the other

Here are my hot takes

1. Nothing exists in a vacuum, everything has been inspiered by something and Gege has been very open about his inspirations (which dont even include that much naruto)

2. You can, stay with me now, like more than one show

Like im so tired of ppl compering shit and tearing one show down because they like the other. Like i like both jjk n bnha. I like jjk more cuz its more suited to my tastes. But also i think bnha has been really good recently n has some of the horis strongest writing to date and im very excited to see what comes next. Just because i like one show over the other doesnt mean i suddenly hate the other or think its badly written. I can appriciate both their merits. N the comparisons with naruto are really annoying cuz like 🙄 who cares. Naruto is one of the big three, a lot of mangaka who work now read it as kids OF COURSE they'll be inspiered by it just like they'll be inspiered by bleach n one piece. News flash just because one show did something first doesnt mean its automatically better than any other show that does it. Saying 'jjk is good but it would be nothing without naruto' means NOTHING. Jjk has its own themes and character n ideas and sometimes there will be similarities with other media cuz of fucking course there will be, humans all have similar ideas, no one is 100% original, its the way different authors spin n retell those ideas that actually matter. Shonen jump is basically a brand of its own they are gonna push conent similar to content shonen jump readers like. The fun part is watching all the different authors taking pieces of those formulas n fitting them together in new and interesting ways.

Sorry for the rant im just really tired of 'the war between jjk n bnha fans' or 'jjk can never be as good as naruto' or whichever it is today. Idk i guess ppl are bitter that jjk became so massivly popular so fast but??? Who cares???? If you dont vibe with it just dont watch it and leave the fans alone??? I didnt like that akudama drive was so popular last season but i didnt go to its fans n rant about how their show isnt good as this other show, just let ppl enjoy things??? Nobody is forcing you to say jjk is the best thing ever, nobody is forcing you to watch it. Just go enjoy the show you do like??? N if u like jjk u can also like bnha n others???? You can like more thsn one thing??? Idk im just fuckin tired of dumbass bullshit like this n ppl making drama for no reason at all

Like imagine if this was how i talked about my fav shows 🙄 re creators is better then beastars because its female characters are more prominent and beastars is better then talentless nana because it has better world building, but talentless nana explores trauma n abuse better then re creators n re creators has way more to say about nature of story telling then beastars

WOW ITS ALMOST LIKE ALL SHOWS HAVE STRONG N WEAK POINTS N THEIR OWN THEMES AND STORIES TO TELL FUNNY THAT

If people don’t think Gege isn’t inspiring Hori too, then they really need to look at the character design for the sixth holder of OFA who looks like a re-coloured version of Inumaki <.< It’s a two way street when it comes to inspiration because surprise, surprise, both JJK and BNHA are two of the most popular manga and will also inspire writers :p

There has also been a lot of comparisons between characters in Naruto and JJK recently too, a popular one being Sakura and Nobara, and I can’t help but roll my eyes at most of those comparisons. Especially when Nobara’s story isn’t even finished yet compared to Sakura’s which is complete (unless you include Boruto but no one like Boruto). It’s such a moot thing to do. At least give Nobara a chance to develope before you declare her to being treated as bad as Sakura was T-T

I don’t know why people always feel so threatened when the see a new manga get popular, maybe because they don’t like to see the flaws in their favourite work become that bit more apparent because another writer did it better (and lets be honest here, Gege is much better at writing female characters so far and Hori’s females have always been a point of discussion because of how he writes them, it’s not like JJK is showing us something we haven’t already noticed).

As you said, there will be parts in Hori’s story that will be better then Gege’s and vice versa, but that doesn’t mean the whole of their works are bad and we should feel bad for liking them.

You know, I love to compare my favourite mangas personally. When I started watching BSD I noticed how many of the characters reminded me of DRRR ones and I wonder if it’s because Kafka was inspired by Narita. Being inspired isn’t a bad thing (as long as you don’t completely copy someone elses work) but you’d think it’s the worst sin in fandom with the way some talk about it.