#you are welcomed with meta feels!!!

[pinkd3mon]

Star Allies Guest Star teams

[ranna-alga]

I just realised something from the TLOU gameplay that made me so depressed that I needed to share with you all.

Rewind back to the prologue where Sarah is dying, and we see Joel look away from her a total of two times before she dies: the first time is at the same moment the camera pans to solely Tommy, of whom Joel is looking at (first image). Before he is out of shot, Joel can just be seen looking to Sarah again, until the camera turns back to him where he looks away a second time towards Tommy again (second image).

Now, if you go and listen to the audio of the actual scene itself, you'll notice that the second time he looks away is when Sarah draws her last breath and passes away. She's already dead now.

And Joel missed it by looking away for only a second.

The second time he looks away and then looks back at Sarah, she is already gone. He couldn't do anything. He couldn't look into her eyes, still filled with life (albeit hanging on a thread) anymore before becoming absolutely soulless because he missed it. He didn't see the light leave her, he didn’t see her succumb to the bullet wound where she would move on to no longer feel anymore pain in death. He missed it almost instantly. His last good look of her is after the second time he looked away, when she's already passed on.

But then we fast-forward to the very near end of the game where Joel is trying to perform CPR on Ellie after she almost drowned. He's becoming mentally and emotionally frantic because he cannot lose another one and projects this by trying to resuscitate her. He is back to where he was twenty years prior trying to save Sarah. And then the Fireflies appear.

Joel looks away from Ellie one time. He probably doesn’t even realise that these are Fireflies (they could have been Hunters or even FEDRA for all he cared). The look on his face in the second image is heart-breaking, but it only lasts for a second before he immediately looks down to Ellie.

He only looks up at them once. He doesn’t look up a second time.

Again, if you watch the original scene with audio enabled, you can hear the shakiness in Joel's voice, almost tearfully and very much coming from a place of fear. He's literally pleading for Ellie to wake up, all the while keeping his eyes on her - not looking up again - not even with one of the Firefly soldiers approaching him with an armed weapon.

He can't look away a second time because the last time he did, he lost Sarah immediately. He fears that will happen again, but he cannot let that occur. He won't. Not with Ellie: his second chance, his new reason to live, his new love. Joel refuses to tear his eyes away from her, even for another second, if it risks her life suddenly slipping away before he could even realise it.

He cannot afford to have another daughter lay lifeless in his arms and have her drift off to a place where he cannot follow and protect her anymore, even if it means placing his own life on the line.

[rubberbandgirlme]

back on stage in my big clown leander shoes, a promised post. here's what i talked about previously: part i, part ii, part iii

let's go back to the last two points in part i (starting with 'now hear me out'): i replayed the whole scene and turns out i was wrong. here's why: 1) never write any theories at 5 am 2) never take things out of the context. sorry for misleading you, lemme make some amends:

if you choose the 'keep touching him' option, leander will notice how desperate and touchstarved mc is (he's constantly pausing before speaking: afraid of hurting anyone with his words or skillfully manipulating? i know it's the latter, but what if it's both? 👁), keeps eliciting information and, when his suspicions are confirmed, he puts his trusted weapon to use: flirting (empty flattery, as vere said). we all know he's lying and he's not infatuated with mc at all (his pulse was steady). BUT!!

power?? is that some kind of doublespeak because leander doesn't want to mention the curse and ruin the moment OR is it a slip, and the curse is not a curse but something that mc just cannot control (yet?)? 🤔

for now the 'level-headed' line in the context seems to be used just for building mc's trust, not for hinting that controlling the curse is difficult; same with "we match" — to stress that everything is okay, and leander's completely reliable, because hey! he and mc are alike! (i am squinting suspiciously here though, i still have a hunch he means so much more) however, that's yet to be seen how much truth leander actually reveals in his speech.

the question is: why does leander need mc to trust him with their life? he can control the curse, can he teach mc how to do that? or does he want to use them however he likes, feeding them lies and using mc's "curse" (or even mc) as a weapon? much to think about.jpg

[thunderboltfire]

I have a lot of complicated feelings when it comes to what Neflix has done with the Witcher, but my probably least favourite is the line of argumentation that originated during shitstorms related to the first and second season that I was unlucky to witness.

It boils down to "Netflix's reinterpretation and vision is valid, because the Witcher books are not written to be slavic. The overwhelming Slavic aestetic is CDPR's interpretation, and the setting in the original books is universally European, as there are references to Arthurian mythos and celtic languages" And I'm not sure where this argument originated and whether it's parroting Sapkowski's own words or a common stance of people who haven't considered the underlying themes of the books series. Because while it's true that there are a lot of western european influences in the Witcher, it's still Central/Eastern European to the bone, and at its core, the lack of understanding of this topic is what makes the Netflix series inauthentic in my eyes.

The slavicness of the Witcher goes deeper than the aestetics, mannerisms, vodka and sour cucumbers. Deeper than Zoltan wrapping his sword with leopard pelt, like he was a hussar. Deeper than the Redanian queen Hedvig and her white eagle on the red field.

What Witcher is actually about? It's a story about destiny, sure. It's a sword-and-sorcery style, antiheroic deconstruction of a fairy tale, too, and it's a weird mix of many culture's influences.

But it's also a story about mundane evil and mundane good. If You think about most dark, gritty problems the world of Witcher faces, it's xenophobia and discrimination, insularism and superstition. Deep-seated fear of the unknown, the powerlessness of common people in the face of danger, war, poverty and hunger. It's what makes people spit over their left shoulder when they see a witcher, it's what makes them distrust their neighbor, clinging to anything they deem safe and known. It's their misfortune and pent-up anger that make them seek scapegoats and be mindlessly, mundanely cruel to the ones weaker than themselves.

There are of course evil wizards, complicated conspiracies and crowned heads, yes. But much of the destruction and depravity is rooted in everyday mundane cycle of violence and misery. The worst monsters in the series are not those killed with a silver sword, but with steel. it's hard to explain but it's the same sort of motiveless, mundane evil that still persist in our poorer regions, born out of generations-long poverty and misery. The behaviour of peasants in Witcher, and the distrust towards authority including kings and monarchs didn't come from nowhere.

On the other hand, among those same, desperately poor people, there is always someone who will share their meal with a traveller, who will risk their safety pulling a wounded stranger off the road into safety. Inconditional kindness among inconditional hate. Most of Geralt's friends try to be decent people in the horrible world. This sort of contrasting mentalities in the recently war-ridden world is intimately familiar to Eastern and Cetral Europe.

But it doesn't end here. Nilfgaard is also a uniquely Central/Eastern European threat. It's a combination of the Third Reich in its aestetics and its sense of superiority and the Stalinist USSR with its personality cult, vast territory and huge army, and as such it's instantly recognisable by anybody whose country was unlucky enough to be caught in-between those two forces. Nilfgaard implements total war and looks upon the northerners with contempt, conscripts the conquered people forcibly, denying them the right of their own identity. It may seem familiar and relevant to many opressed people, but it's in its essence the processing of the trauma of the WW2 and subsequent occupation.

My favourite case are the nonhumans, because their treatment is in a sense a reminder of our worst traits and the worst sins in our history - the regional antisemitism and/or xenophobia, violence, local pogroms. But at the very same time, the dilemma of Scoia'Tael, their impossible choice between maintaining their identity, a small semblance of freedom and their survival, them hiding in the forests, even the fact that they are generally deemed bandits, it all touches the very traumatic parts of specifically Polish history, such as January Uprising, Warsaw Uprising, Ghetto Uprising, the underground resistance in WW2 and the subsequent complicated problem of the Cursed Soldiers all at once. They are the 'other' to the general population, but their underlying struggle is also intimately known to us.

The slavic monsters are an aestetic choice, yes, but I think they are also a reflection of our local, private sins. These are our own, insular boogeymen, fears made flesh. They reproduce due to horrors of the war or they are an unprovoked misfortune that descends from nowhere and whose appearance amplifies the local injustices.

I'm not talking about many, many tiny references that exist in the books, these are just the most blatant examples that come to mind. Anyway, the thing is, whether Sapkowski has intended it or not, Witcher is slavic and it's Polish because it contains social commentary. Many aspects of its worldbuilding reflect our traumas and our national sins. It's not exclusively Polish in its influences and philosophical motifs of course, but it's obvious it doesn't exist in a vacuum.

And it seems to me that the inherently Eastern European aspects of Witcher are what was immediately rewritten in the series. It seems to me that the subtler underlying conflicts were reshaped to be centered around servitude, class and gender disparity, and Nilfgaard is more of a fanatic terrorist state than an imposing, totalitarian empire. A lot of complexity seems to be abandoned in lieu of usual high-fantasy wordbuilding. It's especially weird to me because it was completely unnecessary. The Witcher books didn't need to be adjusted to speak about relevant problems - they already did it! The problem of acceptance and discrimination is a very prevalent theme throughout the story! They are many strong female characters too, and they are well written. Honestly I don't know if I should find it insulting towards their viewers that they thought it won't be understood as it was and has to be somehow reshaped to fit the american perpective, because the current problems are very much discussed in there and Sapkowski is not subtle in showing that genocide and discrimination is evil. Heck, anyone who has read the ending knows how tragic it makes the whole story.

It also seems quite disrespectful, because they've basically taken a well-established piece of our domestic literature and popular culture and decided that the social commentary in it is not relevant. It is as if all it referenced was just not important enough and they decided to use it as an opportunity to talk about the problems they consider important. And don't get me wrong, I'm not forcing anyone to write about Central European problems and traumas, I'm just confused that they've taken the piece of art already containing such a perspective on the popular and relevant problem and they just... disregarded it, because it wasn't their exact perspective on said problem.

And I think this homogenisation, maybe even from a certain point of view you could say it's worldview sanitisation is a problem, because it's really ironic, isn't it? To talk about inclusivity in a story which among other problems is about being different, and in the same time to get rid of motifs, themes and references because they are foreign? Because if something presents a different perspective it suddenly is less desirable?

There was a lot of talking about the showrunners travelling to Poland to understand the Witcher's slavic spirit and how to convey it. I don't think they really meant it beyond the most superficial, paper-thin facade.

[moongothic]

I know people often speculate about Crocodile and if that is his "real name", either implying he has a deadname or his name is another one of those Hidden Ds (much like Roger and Law)

And like. This is just me but personally I would prefer it if he didn't have a deadname at all. It already grinds my gears when people use Sanji's "real name" when he himself hates it and doesn't want to be called by it, and so god knows if Crocodile is trans then the fandom misgendering is going to be obnoxious enough, you don't need to add a """real name""" into that mix

So. Personally, I would prefer it if Crocodile really was his birthname. It would just help us avoid some toxicity, ya feel me? Like people can't deadname him if he has no deadname to begin with?

That said.

I do find it interesting how Crocodile never actually introduces himself during the story to like. Anyone. Like we never see him go "yes hello you may call me Sir Crocodile" or anything

In fact, like, very specifically, when we finally get Crocodile's face reveal in Chapter 155, he explicitly says

"Call me what you will"

Of course, the citizens of Nanohana had just been calling him a 'hero', 'desert king' and 'the Guardian Deity of Alabasta' in the previous page, so his comment is mostly just in reference to the various titles people were shouting out rather than his actual name

And to be fair, the dude is Extremely Famous, he doesn't have to introduce himself because everybody already knows who he is

But it's still an interesting detail, isn't it?

(Also tangentially related, but Crocodile never seems to object to people calling him by cutesy nicknames either? Like to be fair, he probably couldn't object to Ivankov calling him "Crocoboy" to begin with, but he never seemed to mind Bon-chan calling him "Zero-chan" repeatedly either, nor did he object to Buggy's "Cro-chan" 🤔)

If nothing else though, considdering even his former bounty was associated with the name we know him by, it's possible that even if he had a deadname, "Crocodile" could be his "pirate nickname" that he chose to roll with. Kind of like "Strawhat" or "Blackbeard" or "Hawkeyes" etc, a title people use so often you kind of forget the person's actual name

Or he might have that Hidden D. Which, if he did, I'd be more inclined to believe would be more like with Law (where he might've been told as a child to keep it a secret). Instead of the whole "names being merged into one to hide the D" like with Roger, since that one was a specific, intentional move from the World Government

The only thing about the Hidden D is that. I just. I think it'd be a little silly. Like. Crocodile doesn't have to be a part of the D clan in my mind. Like I don't need that twist. But to be fair, there is an argument to be made for Crocodile being a D. Like if his goal is to destroy the WG and the World Nobles (that being the reason he wanted military force and Pluton to begin with) then ARGUABLY it would be fitting for him to be a D, since the D clan are the "Natural Enemies of the Gods". Also, there's the whole trend of D clan members always dying with a smile on their face. Like sure Crocodile hasn't died (yet) but he definitely went to Impel Down (hell) with a big ol' smirk on his mugshot (chapter 413 cover), which is close enough. So there is an argument to be made for Crocodile having a fullname with a D that's been kept a secret

I dunno, these details are interesting to me

[this-is-a-podcast-fanblog]

i need to hear your reasoning on janet coming back and also what you think will / want to happen when she does

Oh boy. Okay, to be completely honest based on Finknoriams' writing, in my heart of hearts I don't think she is going to come back. From a narrative perspective by all rules of how to write a plot, she should, but Fink and Cranor haven't been interested in following the rules of plot for a long time and Brie Williams only became an official writer after that season was already over. And they also said on Patreon that Janet Varney was only booked for a limited number of voice spots as Lubelle. So don't expect her to come back again based on one dyke on Tumblr saying she should. If she does ever return it will likely be years from now when they bring back older material, like what's happening now with Kevin.

However, they SHOULD bring her back, and here's why and here's what I want to happen.

Buckle up.

Narratively, the University of What It Is arc was just unsatisfying. The first time they were ever mentioned was all the way back in year three, when a faculty member named Sylvia Kayyali came to Night Vale while Carlos was in the Desert Otherworld. She told Cecil that Carlos had been missing for several decades. At the time, this seemed to fit into the whole idea of "time doesn't work in Night Vale", especially with the later reveal that time doesn't work in the Desert Otherworld but like, even more so. Except when Janet arrived, she didn't seem to think Carlos had been missing for years. She didn't even seem that interested in Carlos when she first arrived.

Janet's introduction came in the form of a post-credit voicemail, where she said that Kareem Nazari got in touch with the UOWII to tell them about Night Vale. Why would Kareem need to do that if they already knew what Night Vale was? Secondly, when Kayyali came to town over seven years ago, she said that her University had no science department aside from Carlos and ever since he left there were no scientists on staff. So how could Dr. Janet Lubelle, a dedicated scientist with a huge research team, have not only materialized in the University's staff but also become interim dean of their new branch over the course of just seven years?

In writing, there's premise and then there's plot. Sometimes the two don't line up. Take something like Repo the Genetic Opera as an example. The concept of that musical is a world where people can finance their organs from a large corporation called Geneco, which will repossess those organs if the lender doesn't pay. That's a really interesting premise, and the story could use it to talk about Capitalism and the insurance industry. However, the story isn't interested in those things, and it uses its premise as more of a backdrop for the actual story, which is a family drama and a coming-of-age. Just because a writer sets up a premise for their story doesn't necessarily mean that the premise needs to be explored in great depth.

Or, to use another example, take Breaking Bad. When Walter decides he'll start cooking meth for Gus Fring, there's already a lab built, and Gus already has a huge distribution system that he can easily plug Walter into. How he built that lab and got connected to this system isn't really important to the plot, because the plot can't continue if he doesn't have it. He has it because he needs to have it. But the story carefully gives us enough glimpses into Gus's past, his connections with the cartel, and his operation, that it makes sense for him to have this lab and network. It doesn't feel contrived, it feels realistic.

I mean, Night Vale itself sort of follows this idea, at least for the first few seasons. It's a town where every conspiracy theory is true. Why is every conspiracy theory true? Who knows! Here's the weather. Of course, by now the show has been going on for so long that the how and why have been fleshed out a little more, but it's ultimately not important to the story how Night Vale works. Until Doctor Janet Lubelle, who wants to know why everything is the way it is.

That's how she was presented, at least. But again with premise versus plot: the story says that Janet wants to understand why everything is the way it is, the reality shows that she wants to just explain everything away. As such, her motivations are really unclear. And like I've already said, you can have a premise that raises questions without needing to answer them all. The problem is that this season introduces so many questions to the point that they sometimes conflict with each other and ultimately the story of the season just doesn't make sense. This is all wrapped up in "Carlos, Explained", to a degree that doesn't actually make sense.

Q: Why did Kareem Nazari call the University of What It Is?

A: Doesn't matter.

Q: How did Janet get hundreds of scientists to come to Night Vale with her anyway, if Carlos was the only science professor seven years ago?

A: Doesn't matter.

Q: Does Janet want to understand how everything in Night Vale works?

A: No, she's just going to explain things away.

Q: Then does she not care how things work?

A: No, she just wants to prove a point.

Q: What is the point she's trying to prove?

A: That her version of science is better than Carlos's.

Q: And why is she trying to prove that?

A: Because Carlos took away all of her funding years ago.

Q: Then why didn't she come to town years ago if she knew Carlos was here all along?

A: Doesn't matter.

Q: Then why did she wait an entire year to explain Carlos away?

A: Because she wanted to destroy Night Vale first.

Q: But why did she want to destroy Night Vale?

A: To fuck with Carlos.

Q: Then why did she seemingly not care about Carlos at all for the entire year she was there or the entire seven years before that?

A: Doesn't matter.

Q: Then why did her team entirely abandon her if she'd brought them out here for the express purpose of fucking with Carlos?

A: That's not why she brought them out here.

Q: Then why did she?

A: Doesn't matter.

And the problem is that you can continue these circular questions forever. No, we don't need to know exactly how Janet recruited all her scientists or how she became Interim Dean, but her motivations and the story as a whole don't have enough internal logic. The only way to successfully conclude this arc would have been to give it way more time, and that just didn't happen.

But at the end of the day, what was the story of Janet Lubelle actually about? We've talked a lot about concept versus execution. Repo! the Genetic Opera is about taking people's organs for an insurance market, sure, but at the heart, it's about family. Breaking Bad is a story about a meth kingpin, but at the heart it's a story about change. Spirited Away is about growing up. American Gods is about religion and memory. Night Vale is a Jewish folktale and a love story.

What is the story of Janet Lubelle? Is it a revenge story? If it is, it doesn't set up the motivations for revenge, because I'm sorry but one episode where Janet says Carlos stole her funding is not enough of a motivation. Is it a story about how power corrupts? Then you have to give us some inclination of where her power stems from. Is it, as some people have suggested, a story about how a rigid system of conformity tries to erase queerness? Yes, this sounds right at first, but the text doesn't hold that idea up enough when we barely know anything about the University as a whole or Janet as an individual. Is the story just that some people are bad? To be honest, that's not a very interesting story.

I like all of these concepts individually, but they don't come together enough to create a satisfying narrative. Janet Lubelle as a character has a lot of potential, especially since she's the first person to permanently kill off some Night Vale regulars like Sarah Sultan and the Glow Cloud. I think her relationship to the town as an enemy is interesting.

What I would like to see, if she comes back, is exploring her relationship to the town as someone who can't leave. Carlos was a scientist who came to Night Vale with wide eyes and fascination, who fell in love with it easily and decided to stay in spite of his skepticism. It's also strongly implied throughout the show that if the town wants you, it's not going to let you go. I'd love to see Janet coming to terms with the fact that she's stuck in a town she tried to destroy. How could Night Vale challenge her worldview? How could it deradicalize her from her idea that anything unfamiliar needs to be destroyed? Could she accept that Carlos has won again, or would she be a permanent minor antagonist like Kevin, someone to come up and be foiled ever so often?

There's a lot left to explore with Dr. Janet Lubelle. It probably won't be, but I'll happily talk about her anytime someone wants me to.

[starfilledsea]

i can’t be the only one who constantly thinks about the library scene between jack and the girl in boston.

it’s one of those scenes that for me feels like the core of the show: we see how everyday people within Civilization see the pirates, the characters we’ve spent most of the show getting to know and rooting for, and we get the reinforcement that flint was right in the first episode that they are monsters. and not only that, but these people don’t want to see the pirates as anything other than monsters. “the truth isn’t nearly as interesting.” all they want is a good story and it’s so much more entertaining to believe that charles vane eats his enemies than that he was a good man. not only does it go against everything they think they know about pirates (and people don’t like to have to reframe their worldview), it’s boring. and that’s what matters in the end, tying into “a story is true, a story is untrue… the stories we want to be believe, those are the ones that survive.” people see pirates as monsters not only because that’s what they’re told they are, but also because it’s more entertaining to believe that. it’s not the truth that matters in stories, it’s never been the truth. it’s what people want to believe, and what’s the most interesting to them.

[fayoftheforest]

man, it kind of bums me out how the majority of the time that kyle's jewishness is a focal point in fan content, it's for a negative reason. if kyle's contemplating the fact that he's jewish, it's because he's being bullied or harassed, because he's feeling insecure about his appearance or self worth, because he's feeling lonely and isolated, because he's having a crisis of faith, etc etc. these are all totally valid themes and character arcs to explore, of course! i think many jews like myself may be able to relate to these themes, thanks to living in a society where antisemitism and other shitty behaviour runs rampant. but i think we're really missing a golden opportunity to explore the complex and compelling positives of being jewish. where's his love for his community? where's his excitement for an upcoming holiday? where's the comfort he might take from prayers? where's his curiosity or knowledge about his family history? where's his passion for debating interpretations of the torah? these are also valid, relatable and in-character directions you could take things!

i know that this trend is probably heavily influenced by the presence of this pattern in the show itself, but it's still a bit sad. or maybe gentiles (non-jews) shy away from celebrating his jewishness because they don't feel confident in commenting on a religious experience that they've never had. to those people, I would ask, why is it you feel comfortable speculating on the hardships of being jewish, but not the joys?

that isn't to say that you're not allowed to write about the former if you're not jewish, of course! regardless of religious background, anyone can empathise with his struggles because, at the end of the day, we're all human, and it's our humanity that unites us. but i'd encourage you to push yourself out of your comfort zone, do a little research and have some fun celebrating and supporting his jewishness once and awhile :)

[homeless202]

Haejoon got him figured out

-> WRONG

also, did y'all notice that when HJ is unsure abt what to do or whether what he did was wrong, he turns to juwan for advice/feedback/guidance?

sometimes, when he doesn't know how to react, he just doesn't and leaves the room without saying anything. and the next time we see them juwan knows abt the situation (probably bc HJ told him).

but when HJ knows how to react, he does without consulting juwan (eg. the stealing arc <- bc he knew how to handle the situation from his mom).

[crescentfool]

been playing through p3 fes and… i genuinely love that maxxing out minato’s social stats ended up coinciding with the “ryoji is the appriser" reveal on december 2nd. so here’s a tangent about some hcs / thoughts i have surrounding december as prompted by gameplay experiences.

i feel that the reveal as is, already hits hard, given the moral and existential question that ryoji’s proposal raises. SEES are forced to reevaluate their actions under perceived hopelessness and it’s!! good shit!

but there’s an added layer of depression when you think about the player choices during the afternoon and nighttime segments of the game, and what that implies for minato’s mental state.

since i had minato’s social stats maxxed out (and already completed the tower and devil SLs)... during december, i ended up sending minato to game panic EVERY single night since there’s… not as much left to do. the idea of minato constantly engaging with repetitive activity at game panic just to burn time gets me fucked up. the weight of the decision he has to make by the 31st leaves this suffocating silence that’s hard to push away. and he can’t completely turn away from the impending feeling of “doom” looming over him- during december there’s fliers all over paulownia mall for strega’s cult to worship nyx and antagonize SEES.

hell, you could also just… send minato to bed early and not bother to do anything for the night given that gameplay-wise it’s not “productive” for the player to visit the social stat raising places. december feels extra fucked up when you experience it in-game because it almost feels that minato is just going through the motions of Life™ while trying to grapple with a heavy decision and the existential dread that comes with it. i also think minato could have insomnia- and it just gets WORSE this month.

the dorm’s atmosphere also completely shifts this month as well. aigis is out-of-commission, and each member of SEES is attempting to process the information that ryoji dropped on them- making sense of it in their own ways. when they do join together to talk about it- it’s messy, and emotionally charged by this imminent threat. i love how well the gravity of this situation is reflected in-game, and how SEES musters the resolve to fight nyx, no matter what the future may hold for them.

ANYWAY. i love december in p3- getting a chance to experience it in-game and translating gameplay experiences to the protagonist has really heightened my appreciation for it! even if the protagonists are ‘intended’ to be blank slates… there is so much that you can infer and piece together from the gameplay and AUGH! i love the MCs 😭

[nanasalt]

i just wanted to drop in and say i’ve been thoroughly enjoying going through your blog :)

i recently rediscovered my love of frozen, and newly discovered hansanna, and your mini tag essays are everything. i could read them for hours. you have some brilliant analyses.

i also really enjoy anastasia (and glenya) and your insights were very interesting to read about. gave me a new perspective

I unironically love the diplomacy of "gave my a new perspective", hah. I know my manner of engaging with Anastasia is highly critical and not for everyone but I think it's a fun show to break down. The end product has a lot of metaphorical fingerprints from prior versions of the story, fairy tales, other musicals, the writers' own biases and process, American Culture on the whole ... all I ever hope for is to make people think about it, because it's genuinely fascinating!

So the fact you like my tag essays in general has me crying, blushing, etc, especially when I have been thoroughly enjoying your tags!! They're so sweet and wonderful and truly acting like a jolt of caffeine in terms of my going feral about hansanna stuff again, oml. I feel like a shop proprietor or museum curator eagerly trying to get you to come back again.

Honestly I'm genuinely deeply curious about you rediscovering Frozen but newly discovering Hansanna. Please do share your thoughts and experiences, because I got dragged aboard hansanna-first (by someone who knows what they did) and it's interesting to see how other people got onboarded!

[ziskandra]

Fanfic Writers Asks for:

Precipice

5: What part was hardest to write?

14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

Precipice for the Fanfic Writer Asks

Ah, my most recently posted meresino work! 💖

I kind of ended up answering both questions in one go, but tl;dr: the trickiest scene was Orsino's love confession, given that it's based on a shared history that's only shown in snippets within this work. And insofar as anything I write is ever meant to be instructional, I wanted to share my understanding of the similarities between Meredith and Orsino. More broadly, I wanted to explore how things don't necessarily happen for a reason, how we as people often craft narratives to make sense of an arbitrary and unfair world. And yet, we also can't forget that there are people who benefit of from our suffering and oppression, but the system is deliberately designed to hinder us from accurately identifying the culprits.

The Long Version

The love confession took several rewrites, and truth be told, I'm still not 100% satisfied with it: I wanted there to be a bit more of a transition from the preceding paragraph, which is more focused on physical chemistry.

At this point, I could probably write Meredith and Orsino fighting and/or fucking in my sleep, but genuine emotion is still a bit more tricky, because neither of them are well practiced in allowing themselves feel any sort of attachment, let alone express it. With words.

That being said, Orsino has had the better part of fifteen years to dwell on his regrets (all while watching one of the most important people in his life become progressively angrier and more bitter), and most importantly, he's always been a bit of an optimist! Whereas Meredith is, uh, not.

Also, because I could talk about the parallels and contrasts between them for days, I see both Meredith and Orsino as characters who are defined by their boundless capacity for love. On one hand, Meredith loses everyone she's ever cared about but yet cannot stop herself from wanting to protect those in her power at all costs (but that's a meta for another day). And then there's Orsino, who remembers little of his life before the Circle, who pours so much of himself into advocating for those around him. But nobody ever really shows him that same level of care and devotion back. His best friend as an apprentice dies in part due to how much she misses her family and wishes she could see them. And while Orsino can objectively acknowledge that that's fucking awful, he can't personally relate, because there's nothing for him outside the Circle. The Circle is all he's known. TL;DR BUT basically what I am getting at is that with the love confession scene I wanted to convey two things: 1) the concept that it's often easier to love than be loved 2) and that for a brief, fleeting moment in time, Orsino was the most important person in Meredith's world, and he's never going to forget that he actually mattered to somebody. Given that this is my 'technically canon-compliant' verse, I just love the inherent tragedy of shared history drawing two deeply fucked-up, traumatised people back into each other's orbit, and them both being destroyed by the thing they fear the most (love, and being loved in return). Meredith tries so hard to save a city that is beyond saving to the point of actively hastening its destruction. And Orsino (at least in this 'verse), desperately needs to believe that Meredith can change, because what does it say about his worth as a person if one of the few people who has ever made him a priority is capable of such cruelty and hatred? How is he supposed to reconcile that? The Last Straw is in a way, the last straw for so many of the characters involved. Anders blows up the Chantry, murdering the Grand Cleric to remove any chance of compromise. Whatever one's opinion on Anders, it's irrefutable that his intentions were to start a war, or at least to shake up the city so much that people simply couldn't coast on the status quo any longer. Anders deliberately eliminates the last person in the city Meredith felt any shred of accountability towards. And in the absence of that accountability, she takes out her rage and her fear and her guilt on the last group of people she feels she can actually DO anything about: the mages, and more specifically, her mages. She doesn't even DO anything with Anders. For all intents and purposes, she turns to Hawke and says, 'You deal with your problem mage, I'll deal with mine'. Meanwhile, Orsino is facing the horrible consequences of his own failures: there was a part of him that genuinely thought he could stop Meredith. That if he tried enough, if he loved her hard enough... And he realises, too late, that it isn't going to work, that it was never going to work.

And that's also why I think he gives up (gives in) in the end. Even if Hawke helps him, there's a moment where he's confronted with the sheer magnitude of what he feels he's allowed to happen, and it's just... too much! And it was all for nothing, too, because there's absolutely no way Meredith is getting out of this unscathed. Orsino can't save his mages, he can't save the woman he loves, and in the end, he can't even save himself. ... Anyway, so that's that on how this is a story about the sheer destructive power of positive emotions, especially when one is trapped in a system that is deliberately oppressive.

[coraxaviary]

ok so like does anyone else have the rational fear that

someone's gonna come along and mention/post/recommend/rant about their fic on tiktok or some other social media? Mostly tiktok, but I suppose there are other possibilities.

Like, I don't want random people from tiktok coming to read my stuff. I certainly don't want to ever get the attention of anyone associated with the production of these shows -- especially the actors, God forbid.

Like, oh my gosh the prospect of "blowing up" for fanart is so appealing -- like, my eyes *light up* you know what I mean -- but the thought of someone mentioning my fanfic on any other website gives me a cold sweat and heart palpitations

[pynkhues]

I found your blog through your incredible Succession meta (and have since checked out Good Girls because of your posts and am really enjoying it!). I really love reading your views and find you’re often able to articulate things I’ve been thinking but had struggled to convey succinctly. Do you enjoy writing out commentary and metas and are there ever any that either take a long time to find the words for to answer or that stump you as far as pulling coherent thoughts into an organized form? Also, for future reference, are there some topics you’d prefer not to touch or be asked about?

Hi! Thank you so much for your kind words, anon, and I love that you've been watching Good Girls. It's a very different show from Succession (in more ways than one, haha), but I think it was a more interesting show creatively than it got credit for (especially when you compare it to shows of a similiar genre), and it's a shame it never really got the broader audience or attention that I think it deserved.

And yes! I do enjoy writing out commentary and meta. I'm a writer by trade, so I enjoy thinking pretty deeply about the things I watch and read in general, but I find answering other people's questions can really prompt me to think about things at a different angle or to articulate thoughts that might be only half-formed in my head. Understanding both the mechanics and the artistry of storytelling is something that's important to me, on both a personal and a professional level, and writing meta is both fun and also a great sort of exercise that I think has definitely helped me develop as a writer and deepen my own stories.

There are definitely things that take me longer to answer though. Funnily enough, I don't think it's so much areas of questions (I'm happy to be asked about any topic, really), but I do find really broad questions can be difficult to answer. Like I have a few questions in my inbox now that might just be like 'what do you think of Shiv' or 'talk about the music on the show', which I find are both interesting topics, of course, but also kind of hard to write straight forward answers to because my thoughts on both are big and vary across the 39 episodes of the show.

Specifics though like, what do you think was going through Shiv's head when she did x, or talk about the music in x scene makes it a lot easier to hone in on the details and I think (hope, haha) give a more satisfying answer to the person who sent the ask too.

[donatellawritings]

୨୧ based on this submission from @sageworld

boxer!rafe & shy!reader bc they are cuties xx

a big fat reason why you were such a shy and mousey little thing was due to your thick latin accent and broken english. sure, you could hold your own with basic conversations, but your doe eyes never missed the way people squinted into over-exerted focus as you spoke. you were well aware of how you mispronounced words and the way you subconsciously elongated the wrong consonants, so you completely despised having to speak, unless you were spoken to. after spending about an hour with you, rafe was fully aware of your cute quirk and welcomed it with open arms.

quite frankly, the way your tongue carefully sang each word with practiced effort was heart wrenchingly adorable to him … and he silently wished that you’d never stop talking.

“okay, mama — y’gotta use y’words, just like i’ve been teachin’ you, yeah?” rafe calls out from the bathroom, steam leaking through the opened door, his voice raised, thanks to the toothbrush that rested between his teeth.

with a frustrated huff, you quickly blinked back the tears of defeat that welled in your bambi eyes, tilting your head back in a desperate attempt to stop your whiny tears from ruining your makeup that’s you’d spent a whopping hour and a half doing … it was so pretty, soft, and sparkly — messing it up would just send you over the edge.

you remained with your head tilted back for about a minute before the pinned up curls that covered your head became too heavy for your neck, “don’t want to, papi — i feel stupid,” you pouted your lips, swollen from the glittery plumping gloss that you’d applied just a few minutes prior.

rafe had taken it upon himself to be proactive when it came to breaking you away from your shy shell, and he figured that if you tackled your largest insecurity first — the rest would be a piece of cake. so, rafe decided that he simply wouldn’t talk to you, if you only gave him one worded answers or hummed responses.

“hey — fix y’face, no reason to be havin’ an attitude,” rafe enters his bedroom, towel hung low on his semi-wet hips as he snaps a corrective finger in your direction, his glassy eyes glaring into yours as you nod obediently.

adjusting the hem of your powder pink skims bandeau top, or lack thereof, to sit just a bit higher on your perky and swollen tits, you comply, “the pr-press thingy — yo no quiero ir,” you speak, your voice shaky as you approach rafe, bare feet padding against the polished hardwood flooring, “s’too many people,” you add in a low mumble.

acknowledging your concerns with a simple nod, rafe rolls his shoulders, the towel that once hung around his hips now replaced with grey briefs as he glances over at you, before letting out a hum of feigned thought, “that’s what had y’all fussy? jesus, baby,” he sighs, allowing his tight shoulders to soften as he nudges the tip of your chin with the knuckle of his index finger.

letting out an embarrassed whine, you closed the gap between you and rafe, swinging your arms around his tense neck as you jump from the tips of your painted toes, snaking your legs around his waist, earning a knowing sigh from your man, “y’know i can’t have you sitting here alone — need to keep an eye on you, mama,” he coos, keeping a free arm curled underneath the fat of your plush ass and thighs as he continues to make his way towards your shared closet, hiking you up to sit up a bit higher on his buff and toned frame.

“no soy una niña — y’not being nice,” you speak against the side of rafe’s neck, earning a quick slap to your bare ass, “raafe, that was hard,” you moan, lightly swatting your hand against his firm pecs.

rolling his eyes, rafe grabbed ahold of a the crisp navy blue suit jacket that hung neatly, his voice monotone as he searches for his matching slacks, “not a little girl, huh? y’sure as hell are actin’ like one, princess,” he comments blankly, his squinted eyes widening as he nudges your waist with the metal part of the hanger that held his jacket, “hold this f’me.”

with a bratty roll of your eyes, your small hand grips the hanger, your chin resting atop of rafe’s flexed clavicle as your makeup remains in tact.

fisting his slacks and louis vuitton belt in his grip, rafe walks out of the closet, leaving your legs to cling tightly around his waist as he walks towards his king sized bed, spinning lowering his frame to sit down on the edge of the bed, with you straddling him as his loving gaze met your sparkling eyes.

“okay baby, who’s the man that keeps a smile on y’face, huh?”

biting back a blush, you quickly peck your tingling lips against rafe’s, “rafe cameron,” you speak confidently, oblivious to the way the man before you’s dick began to tent within the thin fabric of his briefs. fuck, he loved the way your latin tongue rolled over each letter with innocent seduction.

“yeah?” rafe raises his eyebrows, “and who is rafe cameron,” he pushes, tonguing the inside of his cheek, eyeing the way you fiddled with your fingers as the cogs in your pretty little head began to turn.

batting your wispy lashes, you take a small breath — you practiced this, “rafe cameron is th-the future uni-unified champion and the el-dest son of w-ward cameron,” you exhale, immediately breaking eye contact with rafe as you force yourself to focus on your freshly manicured nails.

“there you go! see, y’talk just fine, hm?” rafe praises, sealing it with a playful nudge to your jaw, just as his free hand snaps the band of your thong to slap the skin of your hip.

with a sharp gasp you sucked your teeth, craning you neck to see the light red marking left by the skin-tight fabric, “ay, rafe dejarme quieta!” you whined, pathetically fighting your way out of rafe’s grip, much to no avail.

securing both of your wrists in one of his hands, rafe patted the meat of the side of your ass cheek, “a’ight, cut it out — was just playin’ around,” he grabs your cheeks with his free hand, silencing you with a sloppy and slobbery kiss.

annoyed whines left your mouth as you felt the sticky gloss smear off of your lips and onto your chin, “hmph — papi, my lipgl-” you were quickly cut off by your own needy moan as rafe slid his tongue up your lips, before swallowing your mouth into a deeper kiss.

“i know, baby,” rafe mumbles into the kiss, your concealer and lipgloss painted on his chin and jaw as you tightened your arms around his neck, both of your tongues lazily lapping at each other.

the messy and sticky kiss continued for a few more minutes, before you ran out of breath — your once flawless makeup now left smeared and patchy as your lips, now red and swollen, and a bit sore stretched into a cheesy smile. a few of your pinned-up curls had fallen, some wild strands of hair sticking to your lips as you wiped the messy corners rafe’s sticky and glittery lips with the pad of your thumb.

“thank you, sweetheart,” rafe chuckled, not missing the way you still couldn’t maintain direct eye contact with him.

who would even begin to think that he still hadn’t even asked you to be his girlfriend yet?

[actual-changeling]

welcome back to alex's unhinged meta corner, today's topic: the chest touch at the pub. that scene has me in a chokehold for some reason and i still cannot stop thinking about it.

the first thing i wanna talk about is crowley's reaction, since this is the shorter part. he did not expect aziraphale to reach out to him like this and freezes for a second while aziraphale happily chatters away.

they were both walking and the hand on his chest stops him, so he comes to a stop right next to him while he was slightly behind him before that. his gaze also snaps to aziraphale's face, who is very much not looking at him.

they were having a conversation, but the touch essentially shuts crowley up and zira leaves him to get their drinks.

now, my question is why aziraphale does it. sure, it could just be an absent gesture since they're in a crowded place, just that he has never really done so before. i think it was very much planned, like asking crowley to dance and grabbing his hand later on.

a second before he actually reaches out, he also looks back to check whether crowley is where he thinks he is. that is the only time he does that, he was busy looking for a free table and miracles them one when he cannot find one - the look back is deliberate. especially since crowley is practically glued to his side, he has no need for confirmation, he can feel him brushing against him while walking.

the hand motion he does gets me, too. he is busy fidgeting with his hands like normal and has them clasped in front of him. aziraphale lifts them once he gets to "that is precisely the point", yet also already moves it slightly towards crowley, realizes he miscalculated where exactly he/his chest is, looks to check, then looks away again before actually touching him. am i reading too much into it? maybe.

i think it is his version of a little temptation. not only does it make crowley's brain short-circuit for a second, he also gets them their drinks and is now (or so aziraphale hopes) a bit calmer and will take the news aziraphale is about to give him better. the conversation at the cafe did not go entirely as planned, after all.

additionally, something i am not sure if other people have noticed or not is that aziraphale does not just touch crowley, it is a caress. he moves his hand down his chest.

the movement in order:

bar girl unfortunately moves in front of them, but you can clearly see the way his hand takes. to give you a direct comparison of the starting and end point:

a good point of reference is crowley's bolo tie but also the angle of aziraphale's arm while it is still visible.

the best part, in my opinion, is that aziraphale puts his hand right on top of crowley's heart. i think the symbolic importance of that is pretty clear and does not require any more explanation, although it makes me want to throw myself into a river. but that's by the by.

to summarize, aziraphale caresses crowley's heart chest to get him to calm down and not go insane over the news he is about to give him. he is also simply a bastard and knows exactly what he is doing to crowley.

as always, this is me going nuts with analysis, but i'm also curious to hear other people's thoughts on this.

don't tell my therapist about my unhinged meta posts or she will probably be very concerned for my mental wellbeing