#because you could go and write an original story about a woman who travels to a magic land and meets a sexy pirate or whatever

[atlantic-riona]

full offense but if you write a book about Neverland or Peter Pan and have there be a romance between Wendy and Hook I am sending you outside to consider your crimes. don't bother coming back inside until you repent

#'ooooooh captain hook is so sexy let's do a love triangle—' #do you hear yourself? why are you sexualizing a story meant for children #really think about that for a second #because you could go and write an original story about a woman who travels to a magic land and meets a sexy pirate or whatever #so why do you want to take a character who is a child and hook her up with a character who's an adult #and is also directly thematically tied to her father #(if you consider that in stage productions and movies hook is always played by the same actor for mr. darling) #(AND FURTHERMORE) #(one might argue that Peter Pan Hook and Mr. Darling represent the boy who won't grow up #the man who didn't grow up and the man who did grow up) #so if we're going down that road why are you simplifying those themes to 'hook sexy peter immature #literally do not talk to me until you have reread the original and considered the actual themes and takeaways from it #I rank this as a worse crime than taking a beloved magic land like Wonderland Oz or Neverland and going #'ooooh what if it was DARK and EDGY and ACTUALLY EVIL' #just stop #go make your own edgy original world #leave the beloved classics that you clearly do not understand alone #but anyway back to my original point: do not do this #if you think to yourself that children's classics need more sex or edginess they don't!! that's the devil speaking #hope this helps #peter pan

[sgiandubh]

What about Grandma then? In recent days, that Barbour issue has been discussed in several corners of this fandon, as you said. Well, the day before yesterday Garance was posting stories showing off his Barbour coats...Obviously those two also follow the topics discussed on Tumblr. 🤷‍♀️

Dear Garance Anon,

You will have to forgive me for the very, very late answer. I wanted to give it my full, undivided attention, because I believe we never spoke seriously about Mrs. Mariline Fiori, aka Garance Doré.

The short answer to your comment is 'oh, but we know they do, as we know they are not the only ones'. Unlike S&C, though, the McGrandmas might see us as a free, useful toolbox of sorts, where readily available ideas congregate. Remember they have deliberately calibrated their public couple personas on exactly what SC are unable and/or unwilling to give/show this fandom. To some extent, it works and, as any good Frenchwoman, Garance understood she was savvy to play the atout charme joker card. Which is exactly what she does - also, being French, she knows exactly what type of European public is instantly attracted to the Barbour reference: a public whose wallets she needs.

But as I just said, your post made me think about Mrs. Doré. Who is she, really? So, sorry, Anon, if I use you as a springboard for my musings.

She was, as I said, born Mariline Fiori, on May 1st (same day as JAMMF, LOL) 1977, in Ajaccio, Corsica's main town and birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte. Not a Corsican, though (same as Napoleon, LOL): Italian father, French/Algerian mom. People who left Algeria when it became independent, after the Evian Peace Accords, and whom the metropolitan French still call, to these day, 'pieds-noirs' (literally and quite derogatorily, 'black feet'). Her family's social status is, however, a bit unclear, as Mrs. Fiori successively played with her personal story in interviews, in what the French also sarcastically call 'des petits arrangements avec la vérité'/ a bit of tinkering with the truth.

In this 2019 interview to Elle UK, for example, her parents are described as owning a restaurant in Corsica (https://www.elle.com/uk/life-and-culture/a29758314/garance-dore-original-influencer/):

But in another 2013 interview to The Talks, her mother was a shrink (https://the-talks.com/interview/garance-dore/):

Also, for the sake of clarity:

Oh, well: different country, different crowd/market, different agenda and perhaps older and wiser when talking to Elle UK, you would think?

Not necessarily and still a divisive figure for the international press/blogosphere. People did not appreciate her frequent flying and luxury travels during COVID, for example, along with her 'white, bourgeois woman entitlement'. Both in New Zealand...

(Source: https://www.ensemblemagazine.co.nz/articles/garance-dore-new-zealand - I think you should read the entire article, as it is absolutely enlightening, also something I wouldn't go polemic about, you make up your own mind, really).

...and in France, where they apparently are not very fond of her 'cult of personality' approach to social media, to say the least:

(Source: https://www.madmoizelle.com/a-t-on-vraiment-besoin-de-preter-attention-aux-conseils-antivax-des-influenceuses-1145916 Non Francophones could use Google Translate, but considerably lose in doing so the ferocity of the writing - but then, again, the French press is particularly sarcastic & ferocious, when set against someone or something. I love them to bits.)

The translation is clear, and I deliberately did not insist on the political stance of the article, whose title gives a straightforward idea: 'Do we really have to pay attention to the influencers' antivax advice?':

'This influencer cannot singlehandedly convert a part of her fans to antivaxing, via Instagram, but this comforts those who already thought so and keeps them even more hooked. This is because Instagram is a social media whose model heavily relies on shared affinities, meaning that it congregates likeminded people and creates bubble phenomena, of which GD is a good example.

GD, who built an empire around her handle which she turned into a brand and transformed her own lifestyle into her best product might very well turn her cult of personality into an economic model. Many celebrities already do so and are perfectly entitled to. But in her case, we are not talking about sending a birthday personalized cameo, we are talking about dispensing health advice during a pandemic.'

Truly, Ha-wa-wee 2.0 sounds like kindergarten compared to the above and never made it so far and wide in the international press. But hey, don't we know, double standard is the law of this land.

But to cut the story short, because it's 5 AM in here and we'd be talking about Mrs. McGrandma until tomorrow evening, do we really imagine someone so well versed in the ways and means of social media not following Tumblr?

Yeah, thought so, too.

#anon #fandom #shitshow #BoozeWars

[thecomfywriter]

Writing Likable Characters

Hey y’all! How is everyone? It’s your girl, @thecomfywriter, back after… a long time. Let’s not talk about it lol I have no excuses and you’re not here for life updates. Anyhow, I’m back! And today’s topic is a doozy, not because it’s complicated, but because for some reason, it’s unnecessarily difficult to actually make a character likeable and worth rooting for. Considering most stories want readers to emotionally invest themselves into their characters and like them— well, we see the issue, don’t we?

In this post, we’ll explore the fundamentals of character development, why it's important to create likeable characters, and how to create characters readers can emotionally invest in. There’s a great benefit to creating characters readers actually care about, whether they’re protagonists, side characters, or even (shh….) the antagonists. So without further ado, let’s get into it. 

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Topic Overview: 

1.0 Why Have Likeable Characters?

2.0 The Common Characteristics

NEXT POST: Is it possible to create an unlikable character worth emotionally investing in? 

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.0 Why Have Likeable Characters? 

It seems obvious, but once you break down the purpose of a likeable character, it becomes easier to identify the fundamental characteristics and traits that most likeable characters possess. 

Suppose you go to a dinner party with your friends one night. There, you meet a variety of new people. ‘A’ is a tall brunette, with wide eyes and an even wider mouth. ‘B’ is a short and plump woman, with curly blonde hair and the occasional grey streak in between. ‘C’ is a scrawny man with a long face, a crooked nose, and a bow-legged stance. And ‘D’ is a blue eyed man with spiky green hair, tattoos all up his arms, and a silver septum piercing in his nose. Now, I’m going to ask you: ‘Who of these four people do you like ?’ 

Pretty freakin’ hard to answer, huh? 

Now suppose I gave you the same scenario, but I tweaked it just a smidge. You go to a dinner party where you meet a variety of people. ‘A’ is a talkative woman who only stops to take a deep breath and inhale a gulp of her red wine. She is loose and flamboyant while she talks endlessly about the various adventures she’s been on during her time off as a travel nurse. But while her extravagant storytelling is more than entertaining, you find it difficult to get a single word in when talking to her because somehow, the conversation always steers back to herself. 

Meanwhile, ‘B’ is a preppy and bubbly woman who works as an elementary school teacher, but you never really discovered that until the end of the conversation, when your mutual friend asks her how ‘the kids’ are, and the origin behind her soft-spoken tone and expressive eyes clicks in place. Your conversations together mainly center around your mutual love for animals— her with her dogs and you with your cats. Though she overapologizes and tends to be a bit more passive with all other topics of parley, the conversation is otherwise lighthearted. She is the first person to leave, however, cutting your time together short when she realizes the time and suddenly her dark circles seem to get darker. She is the one to redirect you to ‘C’, who is a professor at a prestigious university in a neighboring town. He looks quite formal and acts even moreso when he offers to shake your hand and requests the full length of your name and background. 

As a complete contrast to ‘B’, ‘C’ is entirely reclusive and apathetic— outwardly, that is. There is an aire of stiffness around him, with his tall posture and unintentionally impressive vocabulary. Your conversations deviate from topic to topic, never dwelling too long on one discussion but always exploring it to a level of depth that surprises you. Whatever point you make, ‘C’ presents a counterargument, and what could have started as a regularly subjective opinion transforms into an interesting delve into the nature of peaceful arguments. While the conversation is more than cordial and definitely leaves you feeling a bit more intelligent and curious than before you met him, you can’t help but notice the lack of impression or reaction from ‘C’ whenever you spoke. It is only when ‘D’ swings around and introduces himself to you that you feel more assured, as he informs you that everyone who talks to ‘C’ leaves the conversation feeling a bit judged. 

‘D’, you discover, is a freelance photographer who asks you if you would like a photo of you and your friends. You end up talking about his photography career, looking through his portfolio with awe— he is remarkably skilled and filled with a plethora of experience. Like your conversation with ‘B’, the tone is lighthearted, but this time, a banter is exchanged between yourself and the extremely witty ‘D’. His little quips are sassy, occasionally sarcastic but the follow-up laugh and pat of the shoulder relieves you from taking anything too seriously. While ‘A’ was entertaining, ‘D’ has a sense of humour that wonderfully matches your own. He is touchy, with every joke he makes being paired with some form of physical contact, but you discover he is like that with everyone as he expands the conversation to the entire dinner party circle. Occasionally, when his joke doesn’t land, he’ll do an awkward chuckle and make a self-deprecating comment to release the tension. But the tension never really dissipates when he makes jokes about his ex. Nevertheless, his smile is bright and his body language is always oriented towards the person he is talking to. You can’t help but feel properly heard when talking to him. The eye contact is unwavering and his every response is a testament that he was genuinely listening. 

Now, if I asked you— who of the four do you like? Is it a bit easier to respond?

The difference between the two is a bit obvious (intentionally, to make things a bit clearer). The amount of substance allotted to each character increased with the second scenario. While the descriptions of the characters in the first example were confined to their appearance, the second scenario offered interactive exchanges with each character that allows you as the reader to fully imagine this person, even without the physical descriptors, and visualize the interaction with them beyond a surface level. In short, the first scenario gave you caricatures; the second scenario gave you people. 

Why do I give you this very obvious statement? Because the more you think of your characters as characters to be liked or disliked, as opposed to the actions and interactions they have with their peers (in story) and their audience (the readers), the more shallow they will seem and the harder it will be for readers to connect to them, much less emotionally invest in them. 

If you want to create profound characters, expose your characters to scenarios that showcase their interactions with that environment and the people in that environment. Allow the readers to feel like the character is someone they know in their life, someone they can relate to or envision, whether it be themselves, their mother, or their chatterbox coworker from HR. 

Real characters evoke real emotions. 

—-

2.0 The Common Characteristics 

Before we get into a general list of likeable characteristics, let's highlight two terms and define them to differentiate them. Introducing… charm and charisma! Similar, but not the same. 

Charm: this is your golden ticket, and also the hardest to nail. Charm is essentially the presence a person carries, and how attractive it is to outsiders. Not attractive in the sense of romantic interest. Attractive in the sense that this person has a draw to them. Their personality is inviting, unique, and confident. They have an ability to put other people in ease in their presence and are welcoming and inviting while also keeping people engaged. Charming people are attractive because their personalities and presence in a room makes you want to stay near them. 

Charisma: the way I define charisma is magnetism. Its one of the components to charm that acts as the hook, line, and sinker. Charisma is a person’s humour, their body language, their tone, the way they look at you when they speak, whereas charm is the agglomeration of charisma, style, confidence, and personality. 

Okay, now for the list. You can pick and choose characteristics from the following list to create your own unique combination for your characters, but its not enough to have characters “have” these characters. Remember part one of this post. How your characters demonstrate these characteristics is fundamental to how charming and charismatic they are. Also, the influence these traits have and relationship they have with other characters. 

Likeable traits: 

Intelligence: people generally respect intelligence in a person. There are different types of intelligence though

Wit: how quick-thinking a person is. Think of someone who is witty— they’re quick with their responses and multifaceted. IMPORTANT: multifaceted. If you’re just quick with your responses, you’re quippy. But to be witty, your responses have to display intelligence through introspection or observance in a humorous tone. It’s a hard thing to master, which is why witty people are usually highly respected and considered inexplicably charming. 

Shrewdness: think of this through the example of schemers. Shrewdness is a meticulous, detailed type of intelligence that is sometimes used in negative connotations to describe people who are cunning and use their intelligence for malevolent intentions. But in general, shrewdness is about being practical, decisive, and considerate of multiple factors before coming to a decision. It displays thoroughness and patience in deliberating one’s thoughts and actions. Personal opinion that is not at all unpopular: shrewd villains >>>> MWAH! 

Cleverness: I like to think of these people as atypical with their intelligence. They find out-of-the-box solutions to problems and are able to apply creativity to problem-solving. 

Knowledgeable: this is what people think of when they think of trying to make an intelligent character. The typical approach to writing a genius is making them know everything. And while many intelligent/smart people are knowledgeable, it's typically because of the underlying traits they have that drive them to pursue knowledge (i.e. curiosity, focus, passion, wonder, skepticism, objectivity). Focusing on those aspects of your character rather than what they know itself is what will sell your character as intelligent rather than a human encyclopedia. 

Introspection//Observation: this is emotional intelligence. Being able to assess people’s intentions, their emotional states, predict their reactions, and also being able to understand and connect to their own emotions. Emotionally intelligent characters are honestly so lovely, so refreshing, and such an underrated type of intelligence. To be able to read and predict human behaviour is so extremely impressive and also allows your character to alter their behaviour depending on their audience, which can add to their charisma and charm 

Kindness: no one likes an asshole. It’s really as simple as that. People enjoy the company of people who are tender, caring, compassionate, empathetic, and not mean. It’s safe company, and company that makes others feel better about themselves. Entirely welcoming, which is why its so charming to be kind and gentle. 

Humour: I could do a whole separate post on different types of humor. But to summarize it lightly, to write a character, it’s more important to try to humor the reader than the other characters. Humor is subjective, but adding genuine comedy rather than ingenuine reactions from other characters and telling the readers that ‘Character A is funny’ doesn’t have the same effect as inciting genuine laughter from the reader. Different types of humor include: 

Witty humor: as I mentioned earlier, it carries an added advantage of intelligence to the mix. These can include light jabs between friends, but if done incorrectly, can make the character seem mean. So good luck lmao 

Dark humour: hard to pull off tastefully. General rule with attempting dark humour though? It's all about boundaries. It's dark humour if you're joking about your own experiences, traumas, or something personal to you/your character. Doing it on the expense of someone else's experience is called being an asshole.

Sass//sarcasm: use this sparingly. Sass is fun with banter, but imagine hanging out with someone who answers everything with sass or sarcasm. Sounds exhausting? That’s because it is. Also, quick differentiation: sass has personality and a bit of zest to it; sarcasm is deadpan and mocking. Compare the following dialogues:

Sass: “Hey Jocelyn! Jeez… Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.” “And clearly someone else woke up on the right side.”

Sarcasm: “Hey Jocelyn! Jeez… Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.” “You don’t say.”

Trustworthiness: the most inviting thing about a person is knowing they’re not a backstabbing, shit-talking, macking asshole. Someone you can trust your secrets with is someone you can be vulnerable around, which is one of the foundations of creating intimate relationships. Having a character who blabbles off other character’s secrets, or even just petty gossip, is not a demonstration of trustworthiness. Valuing a person and truly listening to them while they speak, and then asking them about how private they want to keep that information— oof that’s a keeper right there. 

Good listener: just to bounce off the last point, being attentive and showing your character cares about the people around them, their interests, and what they have to say is such a likeable quality because it appeals to the part of everyone (including your reader) of wanting to be sincerely heard. Your character doesn’t have to be devotional. But it’s about being respectful. 

Okay, a bit more of a condensed list now so I can wrap things up:

Empathy: understand others’ emotions and being considerate towards other perspectives 

Humility: no one likes an arrogant prick. Don’t make them Mr. Humble either (Mr. Humble in the sense of being humble to the point of being rather pretentious or being a doormat. Like, a person can acknowledge their achievements, be proud of themselves, have confidence, and ALSO be humble by not being braggy and arrogant about it)

Honesty: telling the truth, yes, but also being sincere in how they conduct themselves. 

Reliability: no one likes mr. flakey lol. Being able to depend on someone strengthens relationships, and the moment a character exhibits this quality for the reader to view, the reader is able to attach themselves to this character 

Optimism: optimism is fun! Optimism makes people feel hopeful. Yeah, pessimism used for comedy with sarcastic characters is a whole trope. But it’s only likeable if executed correctly. Otherwise, pessimism can be a drag. Think of pessimism as the risky route vs optimism as the safe route. 

Resilience: showing a person’s willpower and their will to live by enduring hardship is one of the most respectable qualities, because its a quality we all wish to emulate in our real lives and understand takes a great deal of effort to actually be successful in. 

Generosity

Patience

Authenticity

Open-mindedness

Courage

Gratitude

Adaptability

Selflessness

Fairness 

Integrity: what are your character’s values? How true do they stay to their values? How strong is the needle of their moral compass? This one is massive to creating a character who reader’s respect, because efining a person’s value system allows them to become intimately familiar with the character’s perspective of the world, their ethics code, and their morality. Even if they cannot agree with all of the values of the character, a character who stays true to their values and has integrity is commendable, and therefore in most cases, respectable (hint hint, this is a huge transition to my next post lol)

Essentially, creating likeable characters is about trying to charm your readers with your characters' personality and presence, to the point where the reader would genuinely want to be friends with this person in real life. Having their actions match their narrative description and their in-story reputation also adds to your reliability as a writer. If you’re trying so hard to convince me as the reader than Jonathan is a real stand-up, charming guy who is a huge womanizer; smooth-talker all around to the point where he is able to get positions and extort favours from people because he has such a way with words… but then all of Jonathan’s dialogue sounds like a piece of wet cardboard was brought to life, I’m going to start thinking you as the author are rather delusional, think I’m dense, or have no idea how smooth-talkers actually sound. But what I’m not going to believe is that Jonathan is what you say he is. 

—

Okay! That’s all for today, folks! Stay tuned for my next post on writing unlikable characters that readers still want to root for. Also! I’m thinking of short story prompts for you guys to practise your writing with on this account, now that I have the chance to be a bit more active. 

Why do I have more opportunities to be more active? 

I FINISHED MY BOOK, BABYYYY!!! LETS GOOOOOO :D

Yeah, so I might post some excerpts of my own wip here. Currently though, I’m in the editing phases, and then querying!!! 

Okay, anyways, toodles! Have a great rest of your day or evening! <3 

#writers #writing #wip #writing community #writerblr #fiction #writers tips #writing tip #tips and tricks #writing tips #character development #charming #character #characters #ocs

[aingeal98]

Can you list down the orpheus and euridyce moments? :o and whether it's doksoo/ joongdok/ yoohankim related

OK so to preface I'm sure people out there have done much more coherent analysis than me who just finished the novel last week but I'm gonna throw together some of my thoughts anyways:

The whole final third of the novel is the Orpheus/Eurydice Moment to me. Either the build up, the event, or the aftermath. And they're ALL yoohankim related like it's the three of them or it's nothing. Everything from reincarnation island onwards feels like it's foreshadowing the ending, in big obvious ways but also in small subtler ways. Also given the amount of greek mythology present in the story I'm sure it's deliberate lol.

The story of Orpheus/Eurydice at it's simplest is a man who loves a woman so much he'll go to the Underworld and try to get her back. And he almost does, he just has to walk back to the surface without looking back to make sure she's following. But of course he looks back. Because he loves her. He needs to see her, he loves her too much to risk never seeing her again. Even if it dooms them. He already lost her once, and his grief won't allow him to move forward so easily.

When yoohan get off the train with Dokja, they look back. When I read it I was like holyyyy shit they're both Orpheus and seeing the official art confirmed it for me.

(Couldn't find the image without the text but anyways)

Dokja is their Eurydice. If they didn't look back, if they accepted 49% Dokja and kept moving forward... Well who knows for sure what would have happened but we do know that we wouldn't have gotten 49 Dokja swept up into 51 and then torn down until just a tiny version of himself remains, alive but comatose. We wouldn't have gotten the Dokkaebi King telling Han Sooyoung "You should have been content with 49% Kim Dokja."

But of course they would have never been content. The same way Orpheus could have never made it to the surface without looking back. They had to. Just like they have to keep trying, no matter what.

The thematic parallel to Orpheus for me is how they cannot let go of their grief. They love Dokja too much to settle for anything less than him being there with them in full. Orpheus was terrified on his way back up, convinced the Gods could be tricking him because he couldn't hear Eurydice's footsteps. What if she was just a shade? A shadow of the woman he originally loved?

He could never settle for that. They could never settle for that either. Only unlike Orpheus, who's solution was to die and see Eurydice again, these two go a little bit more bonkers with their grief filled reunion attempts. World line crossing, time travel, reality crossing, screaming and fighting your other Orpheus half because they're not playing along and pretending to heal from their grief, brainwashing authors from alternate universes into writing Dokja's story so they can bring him back...

I'm kind of curious what Orpheus in Orv's reaction would be to seeing those two repeat his story. Like is he happy or is he like wow those two do NOT know how to quit they're kind of embarrassing me right now.

But yeah if I'm yelling incoherently about yhk being Orpheus and Eurydice, this is the basics of what I'm talking about. Thanks for the ask!

#asks #orv rambles #orv spoilers #yoohankim #orv

[gen-is-gone]

Doctor Who and 2 for the fandom meme?

2. My three favorite characters and why I love them so much.

Hello hi would you like to hear about the best TARDIS team you've never heard of, right as I've fallen back hard into special interest fixation on them :D :D :D

So there's this book series.

After The Enemy Within, aka Doctor Who the TV Movie, premiered to an astounding lack of enthusiasm in 1996, BBC books decided to steal Virgin Publishing's idea to write novels about dr who, and promptly yoinked the license so they could cut out the middleman and do just that, this time starring Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor instead of Sylvester McCoy's Seventh. This novel series was called, aptly enough, The Eighth Doctor Adventures. So entirely skipping over almost three decades' worth of entertaining intrafandom drama and also how nu!who shamelessly stole basically every good idea the EDAs ever had (the biggest being of course the Time War, tho tragically nowhere near as well done), my favorite TARDIS crew:

The Eighth Doctor (as you may have guessed), Fitz Kreiner, and Anji Kapoor.

I love them, I adore them, they're my best friends. All three of them are amazing in their own right, but they're absolutely phenomenal as a team.

Eight, and the EDA version of them specifically, is my favorite doctor bar none. They're flighty and giddy and tactile and deeply affectionate, they're extremely weird and have a number hyperfixations and special interests and other very relatable neurodivergent tendencies. They are very prone to amnesia in a way which starts off as kind of a running gag and ends up being a huge plot point for the entire second half of the series. They're easily the most genderfluid the Doctor ever gets before textually being played by a woman and going by she/her, which is a big part of why I like using they/them pronouns for the Doctor generally. They kiss people often and canonically date people of multiple genders. Being played by (or at least written in reference to) Paul McGann, they are extremely pretty. They also go through the absolute fucking wringer, both in the sense that their arc plots are really dramatic and complicated and dark, and also in the sense that some of the folks writing for the series are pretty unapologetic whump fans lol. Best Doctor. No notes.

Next up is My BoyTM. The ur-blorbo himself, Fitzgerald Michael Kreiner. He's the best and I hate him. He's the worst and I love him. He's a musician from 1963 with appalling fashion sense and truly awful luck. He's canonically bi and in love with the Doctor (and their kiss in the novel Dominion in 1998 was the first kiss between the Doctor and a man in the history of Dr Who). He's a clone of himself because Eight lost the original Fitz 600 years in the future and then he joined cult of shitty time traveling mall goths. The original Fitz lived 2000 years and was filled with hate and wanted to kill the Doctor for abandoning him but never actually stopped loving them. He's a massive idiot. He's genuinely embarrassing so often but also despite thinking of himself as a coward and an asshole he's very brave despite his constant terror and very kind despite his pretending that he's only out for himself. He is such astoundingly perfect tumblr bait it's not even funny. He's one of the longest running companions in the franchise by number of consecutive stories.

Last of my darlings is the myth, the legend herself, Anji Kapoor. The first Asian companion in the history of Doctor Who, she's a stock futures trader from 2001 and to this day the only example I can think of off the top of my head of a woman of color having her white boyfriend get fridged for the sake of her emotional pain and character development. On the surface, she's the one with braincell, but she's so much more than just the white boy babysitter stereotype. She's a massive closet nerd who loves Star Trek but won't admit it, she's got a very weird thought process that makes her jump to the most absolutely batshit decisions while justifying them to herself as being perfectly reasonable and logical and not at all insane, she thinks of Fitz as a brother and the Doctor as a sister, she once called the Doctor a useless otterfucker, literally what can't she do (other than get back to her own time and planet rip).

The three of them have such a wonderful dynamic together. They're best friends and close family despite them being thrown together entirely by chance. They banter and joke and snark together, they riff off each other and enjoy each other's company, all three of them would catch a bullet for each other and all three of them more or less have. They're in a run of I think 25 books, which is a pretty significant time to spend together, and while there are some clunkers in their run ngl, they've also got some truly amazing books together, including one of my favorite books not just in the EDAs or Dr Who, but as a whole, The Year of Intelligent Tigers. I love them so so much I can't even.

I'm... not sure how accessible anything to do with the EDAs is give I fell off the DW deep end solidly a decade ago and at this point I just have to admit I'm in for life, but I have observed that most people who do read the EDAs tend to put 8&fitz&anji in at least their top five TARDIS teams, if not their first pick. Anyway, I love them, thank you so much for letting me gush about the best TARDIS team in all of Dr Who :D

#mihrsuri #eighth doctor #eighth doctor adventures #fitz kreiner #anji kapoor #megan whines into the empty abyss of cyberspace #listen my love is so strong that I was willing to type this whole mess on my fucking phone that tells you how much I care about them

[buffyfan145]

I finally got to read Tolkien's "The Fall of Arthur", his unfinished poem of his take on the King Arthur stories, and it was really good!!! :D I've always liked these stories/movies/shows about Arthur, Guinevere & Lancelot, and Camelot and knew it was one of the major inspirations for LOTR too, but now being a Haladriel shipper this also took on a different meaning like how I see their relationship now in the other LOTR books. I've broken down some of the similarities I noticed and how this also fits them, and this is again another example of how Tolkien actually did write similar Haladriel like stories as some of these also fit our fics we've written.

Mordred and Guinevere were a couple first in the original stories. Both fell in love and decided to marry and rule the kingdom together. Similar to "Tristian and Isolde" where a young woman marries an older king but falls in love with his nephew that's closer to her age (and in that story Tristan hid his identity at first because they were enemies with Isolde being an Irish princess and he and his uncle from Cornwall). They had children together too in some stories, and before he was killed Arthur cut off Mordred's hand.

Obviously their names when you use Sauron's original name: Mairon/Mordred & Galadriel/Guinevere.

Tolkien wrote Guinevere as having golden hair similar to Galadriel and blue eyes that captivated the 3 men who loved her and looking like a beautiful fairy-woman (aka elf) likely because she was a Welsh princess (and Morfydd being Welsh). Mordred and Lancelot both are described by him too as being dark haired, tall, and handsome. Using this gif here of the 2011 series "Camelot" as Guinevere was like how Tolkien wrote and there's even a scene where she holds up a dagger to Arthur's throat (though couldn't find a gif of that moment LOL).

Lancelot only got added to stories later when the French started writing them and took the role of being Guinevere's lover away from Mordred as most there thought he was too evil to be with Guinevere (LOL), but Mordred still lusted after her and wanted her to be his queen/wife but she turned him down in these stories.

Lancelot and Guinevere were given matching, magical rings in some stories that warded off evil. In some stories too she has magical powers of her own and might be part fairy. He also saved her when she was held captive.

Lancelot and Guinevere were separated by the sea and would only meet again after death/end of the world. Tolkien even wrote it that it "sundered" them, similar to the Sundering Seas.

Tolkien reused names of places like Mirkwood and Avalon. Christopher even included outlines of how his dad was going to end his version and that Arthur being taken to Avalon was going to connect to LOTR with it being Avallonë and that Eärendil's Way was going to take them there.

Tolkien kept referring to Mordred taking over Camelot as a shadow taking over it, similar to how he described both Morgoth and Sauron doing the same in Middle Earth.

Also was the only time Tolkien ever wrote a character lusting after a married woman (Mordred) and having fantasies about her. He also wrote about how Guinevere and Lancelot were truly in love, even with her being married. The guilt though over all of this, the destruction of Camelot, and the deaths of Arthur and Mordred also, normally led her to becoming a nun and staying away from Lancelot even though they could've been together, and Lancelot became a priest. However, Christopher said Tolkien was going to end it with Lancelot going after Arthur to Avalon and he never came back to England (possibly if he found Avalon he couldn't leave as like in all the LOTR books if a mortal finds the straight road they can't go back to Middle Earth/our world) while Guinevere went back to her family in Wales. It also makes you wonder what Tolkien considered Arthur's sister/Mordred's mother Morgan as she could travel between the island and England and Christopher never addressed this. Would also mean Mordred is part what his mother was too.

There's now been books that have included Guinevere and Mordred being lovers again too, and even some where she does fall in love with Lancelot as well, but he's still exiled and then her relationship with Mordred happens. Kiersten White's YA book series "Camelot Rising" even has the two of them form a friendship first and she's torn between all 3. The reviews I saw also sounded like us with Haladriel as Mordred is more sympathetic and it's easier to understand his motivations, he alone truly sees Guinevere for who she is and the power she could have, and their feelings for each other are real.

Then "The Book of Mordred" by Vivian Van Velde's cover image of Mordred weirdly even looks like Halbrand/Sauron/Charlie Vickers but it was released in 2005!!! LOL :D

#the lord of the rings #the rings of power #haladriel #galadriel x halbrand #galadriel #halbrand #sauron #mairon #jrr tolkien #king arthur #mordred #guinevere #lancelot #books #morfydd clark #charlie vickers

[look-how-they-massacred-them]

Preliminary Poll

Metron

Submission reason:

Metron is the god of knowledge and technology. He is aloof and enigmatic, and ALWAYS seen with his greatest invention, the Mobius chair, which allows him to travel the astral winds of all time and space. BUT when DC rebooted everything after the infamous Flashpoint event, things changed. In Justice League: Darkseid War, writer Geoff Johns clearly decided Metron wasn't good enough. Instead, a villain from a decades-old event was renamed Mobius and was said to be the inventor. WHY? Was Metron's backstory and his treacherous dealings with Darkseid (one of DC's biggest bads) to get the element that powers his invention and the subsequent betrayal to the other New Gods not compelling enough for Johns? Did he think he could write a better backstory?? Well he didn't. But if we continue the story arc, we see Metron try to help the Justice League, who he has worked with amicably in pre-Flashpoint comics. Mr. Miracle who is also a New God is part of the League and does try to vouch for Metron a bit, but even still they decide the best course of action is to TIE HIM UP AND STEAL HIS CHAIR. WHAT?! Wonder Woman, I love you, but what is going on. Green Lantern remarks that Metron doesn't know anything, the chair has all the knowledge. Excuse me? No that is NOT how that works. So then Batman sits on the chair and gains ALL the knowledge. Batman does. Batman. Anyone familiar with DC Comics fandom knows we have an oversaturation of Batman, so yeah of course it's everyone's golden boy who sits on the chair. Anyway, more hijinks ensue and they basically leave Metron tied up and I guess left for dead? He frees himself, has a covert meet up with freaking Owlman (yes, Owlman from Watchmen) on the Moon for some reason. He's giving Owlman the Mobius chair (which btw he would not freaking do that), and then they both sense someone behind them... and get obliterated! Like actually dead! OFF SCREEN!! It just cuts back to two steaming piles of dust. WHAT EVENNNNNN. So, yeah I guess Geoff Johns said you know what? Eff this character. We're going to strip him of his invention and any backstory he had plus all his meaningful interactions with other characters. AND THEN KILL HIM OFF. And the worst part is, hardly any fans EVEN KNOW ABOUT HIM because writers love to remove him and overlook him, but still use all his stuff. Like, oh man I didn't even mention how much DC loooves using Boom Tubes. GUESS WHO THE INVENTOR WAS. YEAH. IT WAS METRON. Okay, I just. I'm done. I can't.

Propaganda:

Metron is basically made to be a tumblr sexyman. He's weird, arrogant, and probably the most intellectual of DC's characters. He was originally created by Jack ""The King"" Kirby back in 1971 and in pre-Flashpoint canon has been integral to several major events. He's morally gray, but sees the beauty in life and the universe. He likes to say he's an impartial observer, only valuing knowledge, but two seconds later there he is getting involved. He's wry and dramatic, and I just think he's neat.

#look how they massacred them poll #look how they massacred my boy #metron #dc comics #dc metron

[zoomertheweimarwolf]

Aitheris | A Ninjago AU

Before I start this I would like to give some context, back in 2022 I started writing this, it is also on Wattpad because it’s all that I had at the time, this au will follow the same major plot points as the original but with a twist because we have my oc Vayu, master of the wind, who you will learn more about as the story goes on. The current goal is to get through seasons 4-5, 8-15, and so far season 4 is complete (with this first chapter being rewritten recently), so enjoy the first arc, as I am going to go write season 5 now.

Tournament of Elements | Chapter 1: Travels

The sun had set and night soon fell over Ninjago City, lights from buildings lit the area along with the waxing gibbous moon that continued to rise into the sky, casting it's light over Ninjago. Cars and people could be heard on the streets, returning home after a long day of work, or enjoying the city at night, for as much danger that truly lied in the city, it was a beautiful place.

But of course, not everyone would be returning home and relaxing, for some, their adventure had just begun as two cloaked women ran between the ally ways and roof tops of buildings, staying in the shadows as they continued onward until they had reached their destination, the docks.

The docks were on the older side, creaking with every step taken on them, stretching out far into the water, the two women stepped out onto the open, walking along until they reached the end of the dock.

"So... we got here first?" One of the cloaked women asked as she looked around, she wore a dark cyan cloak, and a dragon mask that covered her face, matching the cyan colour theme.

"I guess so," the other woman said, her cloak was a bright orange, not the best for sneaking around but it looked good, she adjusted her cherry red hair to sit better in her hood, "remember Vayu, you don't have to come with me."

"I know I know, I just worry," Vayu admitted, "I want to make sure you are okay Skyler, besides that note said elemental masters, I'm an elemental master too."

The two watched slowly as more and more people began to arrive at the docks, Skyler began to talk with some of them as Vayu just looked over the crowd, her eyes then locked onto a person, he wore a green gi and golden shoulder pads, he pulled his mask down and began to talk with three others who wore similar clothing.

Something about this boy interested Vayu, he felt familiar somehow, although she had never seen him in her life she knew there was something up, he held a determined and confident look on his face, whoever these people were, they came with a plan.

Eventually a horn sounded, Vayu and Skyler walked to the end of the dock with everyone else, a man walked across the plank they had set up between the boat and the dock, he stood beside it, with one arm behind his back and the other gesturing towards the ship.

"Watch your step ladies," He spoke in a cold but amused tone, he had a lisp where he overenunciated the 's' in his words.

Skyler looked back with a smile towards Vayu and then looked back at the others before entering the ship with Vayu close behind her, they both made their way to an upper lever of the ship, Skyler leaned on the railing looking at the others get on, Vayu watched for a bit before going down to the main floor of the ship as it began to depart.

Walking down the looked at the other elemental masters, training and showing off their abilities, she observed their powers with curiosity.

"..grandson to the master of speed..."

Vayu looked over to see an older man, he spoke with the ninja as they followed him through the ship, was he an elemental master too?

She walked off to another end of the ship to continue observing the other masters, feeling the cool breeze gently hit her mask and run along her cloak, she heard people moving throughout the ship, and the waves of the ocean gently lap against the boat as the ocean was calmer tonight, everything felt calming about tonight, the view was calming, the sounds were- THUNK!

Startled, Vayu looked up, she heard the sound of two people fighting on the upper level, wait.. "Skyler!" Vayu worried as she ran to the upper levels, passing by people who looked curious as to what was going on.

Making it to the third level she saw it, the red ninja and a man who's skin became metallic were fighting, the other ninja along with the older man watched as the metal man threw him across the ship, the red ninja dodging his attack before his foot was grabbed through the floor and he was dragged down to a lower level.

"What the heck are they doing!?" She hissed, running up beside the green ninja, "You have to get your friends under control before they do further damage to the ship!"

"I-"

"Skyler!" Vayu cut the ninja off as she ran over to her friend, who was holding onto her wrist, "are you okay? Did they hurt you?"

"I'm fine Vayu, I promise," Skyler reassured her as Vayu checked on her wrist, light bruises had formed on them from the metal man's grasp, "I can take care of myself."

"I know, I know..." Vayu sighed, "I just.. You know I want to protect you, I don't want to loose my best friend.”

"Same here," Skyler smiled.

"Enough!!!" They heard Clouse shout, everyone went to the lower levels to see what was going on.

The metal man walked away to the other end of the boat as the red ninja laid on the ground, Skyler walked over to him to help him up, Vayu stayed back, watching the two when she felt a presence beside her, it was the green ninja again.

"So that lady is your friend?" The green ninja asked her, his tone friendly.

"Yeah, and I'm assuming that hot head is your friend?" Vayu guessed.

The green ninja nodded, Vayu looked over to Skyler, who looked over at the front of the ship again, nodding in a way saying she would wait for Vayu there, she turned her attention back to the green ninja.

"So what's your power then?" Vayu asked him, being unable to figure out his element from his attire.

"Energy," he smiled, "what's yours? Speaking with animals?" He pointed at her draconic mask.

"No," she lightly smacked his hand away, "I'm the master of wind."

"oh wind? Well I guess the dragon mask makes more sense then, since dragons can fly through the wind, right?"

"You could say that," Fern stated as the two started walking to the front of the ship, "I am going to go back to my friend now, your should go back to yours."

"oh, yeah," he said, looking around before adding, "My name is Lloyd, what's yours?"

"I'm Vayu," she responded before starting to walk towards Skyler, who was waiting near the front of the ship.

"Well then Vayu, good luck in the tournament," Lloyd smiled, before walking off towards the old man at the very front of the ship.

"oh.. yeah you too," Fern said, a bit confused, he was going to be an opponent right? why be so kind?

Fern joined Skyler, standing beside her as the island came into sight, multiple towering mountains peaked up into the clouds, a lush forest painted the landscape a gorgeous green, and a light fog swayed over the ocean waters. They were here, the Tournament of Elements had just begun.

#ninjago #ninjago oc #tournament of elements #lloyd garmadon #ninjago kai #ninjago karlof #ninjago skylor #Skyler’s name is never consistant in the show #ninjago garmadon #ninjago clouse #fanfiction #I’m still working on murder drones stuff #I just forgot to post this for months

[youllallriseintheink]

Accretion, chapter 1

Hey, everyone. I’m not sure how far I’ll go with this story. This could be a 6-8 chapter story that will look at Team Galactic from its beginnings to the lives of those affected by it after its reformation under Saturn. I also reserve the right to just leave it as two relatively short chapters (was originally one chapter, but it got long) of Cyrus backstory if I choose to pursue other things.

I hope you all enjoy this.

---

Alba took a last look in her compact mirror before ringing the doorbell to sister’s immaculate home. She found that her appearance was also immaculate. Good. She wanted to look like she belonged here. Her son, Cyrus, was at her side, silent as usual and well-briefed on how he should behave. She knew that attempting to reconnect with her family would be Hell. She knew that they seemed to have ears all over Sinnoh and probably knew about the disaster her life had been the last while. But after so many years and so many missing invitations, she would take any face time she could get.

The door was answered by her brother, who gave her a look of surprise and then wordlessly shuffled back to a woman Alba didn’t recognize. Alba noticed he was wearing a wedding band. He’d gotten married without telling her. Great.

“Go play,” Alba whispered to Cyrus, who dutifully left her side. She had to figure out where the booze was before she lost her mind. She managed to find it amongst twenty-some guests and helped herself to the white wine.

“So, how is everything going, Alba?” came her sister’s voice once she was on her third glass.

Alba lowered the glass, flashed her biggest, fakest smile and said, “Wonderful. Everything is perfect. Now that Cyrus is in school, I’ve got a lovely new job with a big tech company. And since we have the extra money now, my husband and I are going to Kalos next year.”

Her sister arched an eyebrow. “You’re travelling with your husband? If things are going so well with him, why haven’t we ever met your husband? I heard that you were let go about the same time your little boy came into the picture. And that’s also when your husband tapped out, isn’t it?”

Alba took a deep breath and tried to think of an adequate answer. It wouldn’t help her case to say that things had gone downhill long before that and they definitely weren’t going to Kalos together.

From behind them, they heard the muffled sound of a child crying.

“Is that yours? Because it definitely isn’t mine,” her sister said.

“I’ll go set things straight,” Alba grumbled.

Alba downed her glass and made her way to the room most of the kids had cloistered themselves into for the night.  There were over a dozen of them in the relatively small playroom, and yes, the one crying was hers. She marched over and took his hand, ignored the chorus of kids insisting that they’d done nothing wrong, and dragged Cyrus outside. Once they were in privacy, she slapped him across the face. “You realize you’re making me look bad, right?” she said. “The people in there think I’m a joke, and you’re a big part of why. You’re lucky I even gave birth to you. Now get it together, get in there, play with your cousins, and act like a normal fucking kid for once.”

The little boy wiped away his tears. No sooner than his eyes were dry did she pull him by the arm back into the family gathering. It was too loud in there. Too many moving parts to keep track of, and too many ways he could mess up being a normal fucking kid. He snuck into a bedroom and closed the door.

Calm. Quiet. Better. He found an empty journal and thought he might as well write in it to pass the time.

My mom’s family is having a reunion today. She was very mad at me for crying and not playing with my cousins. I wonder why everyone else can just handle being around so much noise.

Cyrus paused and tried to figure out why that was, but he had no idea, and it was upsetting to think about. If he got upset, his mom would be mad. He focused back on writing.

Sometimes, when I’m sad, I like to think of my favourite place in the world. It’s a beautiful meadow where no one can see me. You can only get to it by a rocky path between the cliff face and the ocean off of Sunyshore beach. There’s an abandoned garage there, and that’s where my best friend lives. He prefers to stay away from others, but that’s alright. I don’t want anyone to hurt him or take him away from me, and this way I have a place that’s just my own.

---

Cyrus opened the door to the abandoned garage and threw his mom’s toolkit onto the workbench. School was out, his mom was out of town, and he had the whole day to himself. He turned to Rotom, who had followed him in after he had seen him coming through.

“Hey. Do you want something new to possess?“ Cyrus asked the little ghost. It buzzed excitedly.

“Great. Because I wanna figure out how those special motors work!”

With that, Cyrus scampered over to the lawnmower, flipped it over so the motor was exposed, and took to unscrewing the motor. Unfortunately, he had to take the motor apart to understand it. He’d taken things apart and put them back together before, but he still wasn’t going to take the risk of depriving Rotom of its mower without taking every precaution. After all, it was unlikely that anyone else would know how to repair it.

“Camera,” Cyrus requested.

Rotom tossed Cyrus his camera, and Cyrus took several pictures of the motor’s outside, capturing every angle.

“Screwdriver.”

Rotom tossed the tool, and Cyrus set to work dismantling the motor. He had Rotom take pictures with each stage of dismantling, and once it was reduced to parts, he followed the steps in reverse, putting it back together stage by stage. Once it was almost complete again, a question occurred to him.

“Do you think you can possess this now?” Cyrus asked. “It couldn’t function as a motor like this.”

Rotom approached the device with curiousity. It disappeared into it, and the device turned orange and gained the creature’s smile and blue eyes on its side. It shuffled towards him. It was probably the only motion such a crude form allowed him.

“Fascinating. This device... It can work as a motor, but it doesn’t have to. It’s more like a vessel for containing a soul. Which means that you can possess anything I attach one too, whether it actually uses a motor or not.” Cyrus paused to think over the implications of that. “So! What do you want to possess?”

The rotom left its vessel and jolted over to the chainsaw hanging in the corner.

Cyrus laughed. “You got it!”

It took hours to find the parts around the garage to replicate the motor, but Rotom was happy to help and Cyrus found it relaxing. Machines were amazingly simple. They acted predictably, they didn’t hurt others or judge them for stupid reasons, they didn’t get hurt easily, and if they didn’t work the way you want, you could just fix them.

“I wish I could be fixed this easily,” Cyrus mused as he replaced the chainsaw’s motor with the new one he’d crafted. It was rather crude-looking, but it looked like it would stay together. “If I were a machine, maybe my mom could turn me into what she wants me to be. And even if she chose to throw me away instead, I wouldn’t care, then. Anyone could treat me however they wanted and it wouldn’t matter at all. It would be nice.”

Cyrus could hear the buzz of his rotom behind him. He supposed he shouldn’t say such depressing things, especially to someone who couldn’t talk to him or even touch him.

Suddenly, the chainsaw turned orange in his arms and lifted out of them. The device turned so Cyrus could see its face, and then it winked at him and revved up.

“Oh my God! It worked!”

With that, Rotom was off. Cyrus ran after it into the woods. He wasn’t sure what it was off to do, but they would surely have a great time together. They always did.

Years passed, and they remained friends.

#pokemon #galactic boss cyrus #rotom #ocs #my fanfiction #Accreation

[esther-dot]

"Yes, I do inhabit my characters. Some of the time, I’m a dwarf. Some of the time I’m an incredibly hot chick riding a dragon. Sometimes I’m a psychopathic 10 year old girl, killing people and slitting throats.”- GRRM. I understand what he is saying. What I don't get it is why he is referring Dany, a 15-16 yrs old, a 'hot chick'.

Each time I see this quote pop up, I have to check that it's real. It is (quote here with a link to the spot in the vid where he says it).

In that instance, he was trying to emphasize how different the characters are because he was talking about the difficulty in switching between voices, so we could be generous and not take his words about Dany (or Arya--this is where he calls her psycho after all--) too seriously.

But, I can’t totally dismiss it because he has said things about Dany elsewhere that are...uh, odd. Here's an example:

Q: If you had to choose a travel companion among your characters, who would it be? (Laughter). A: It would depend on fate and what he wanted to do. If, for example, it was simply about sightseeing, seeing landscapes and getting to know places, I would probably take Tyrion Lannister. I think his acid comments would go very well at certain times. He is a character who likes to get to the point and would surely have many interesting things to comment on. If it were a more romantic getaway, I would take Daenerys Targaryen because, in addition to being a lot of fun, she is a very beautiful woman. Q: Who is sexier: the Daenerys of your imagination or Emilia Clarke? A: Hahaha. The truth is that Emilia is very sexy, but, well, they are different. It's hard for me because I find both of them very sexy. Emilia is older than the character as I conceived it. In the book, Daenerys alternates between being a young girl entering the world of sexuality and being a little girl. Sometimes she behaves like a child playing queen and other times like a fully functional adult in every way. Emilia, who is a 23-year-old actress, plays a character who is supposed to be 17, because we have made her older in the series than in the books, and not a girl between 13 and 16, who is the character's original age. (link)

These are google translated quotes, so that's a big note before reading too much into them. Perhaps this was all said in a very joking way, I don’t know how seriously to take this, even so, I think adults talking about romantic getaways with teenagers is gross even if they are fictional.

I've sometimes thought he was speaking of a character/situation from their perspective, or even simply playing along with the interviewer regardless of his own feelings, and he does write his story in a setting in which as soon as a girl hits puberty she's kinda/sorta eligible for marriage (talked about that some in this ask), so sometimes I wonder if he's answering questions still thinking of things in those terms. With the specific quote you mention, I've thought he's simply using the view that so many in his audience have of Dany (I mean, it makes sense to me that he's knowingly tricked his audience into being enamored with this "hot chick riding a dragon" only to turn her into a villain...), but considering some of his other quotes, like the one I listed...I don't know. Sometimes when I read Dany or Sansa I think Martin must be picturing a girl years older than she is, and the way the fans depict them and talk about them...I think they are too.

I really can't say for sure what he's thinking or doing when he says things like that about Dany, but even with the most generous of interpretations, I find it disturbing.

#ask dot #< tag to filter

[cringecompanionapologist]

Changing History: The End of the Pure Historical

I wrote a ridiculously long Doctor Who essay on a whim and now you all must suffer my thoughts and opinions.

So, considering that Doctor Who is about traveling in a time machine, visiting historical events is inevitable. The show was originally designed for this. Barbara and Ian were a history teacher and a science teacher respectively. The show would alternate between stories set in the past, with Barbara as the main character interacting with history, and stories set in the future, with Ian as the main character using his knowledge of science to save the day. Susan was a student they could deliver lessons to to make the educational tangents sound more natural. The Doctor was just there to be the reason Ian and Barbara ended up in these situations in the first place.

Over time, pure historicals, adventures in history with no science fiction elements other than characters from the future being there, were phased out of the show. This essay isn’t about the reason why that happened, why that choice was made, but why that kind of needed to happen. This isn’t to say that the pure historicals were bad. Some of the best early Doctor Who stories were pure historicals. But, the way the subject of changing history, something inevitable in stories about time travel, was handled, changed over time into something questionable. Science fiction elements, things that weren’t supposed to happen in history anyway, served as a way of avoiding the moral dilemmas that a show for children just wasn’t equipped to handle.

You could argue that parts 2-4 of An Unearthly Child were the first historical adventure, going back to the Stone Age and sorting out caveman politics over the discovery of fire. However, the discovery of fire occurred before the invention of writing, so this is a time period we know very little about, making it a difficult first history lesson, hence all the politics. Because of this confusion, Marco Polo serves as the first pure historical. Since Marco Polo is seven parts long and completely missing, it’s quite difficult to talk about, so the first story to feel like one of the pure historicals of the Hartnell era is The Aztecs.

Season 1: You Can’t Rewrite History, Not One Line

The Aztecs is the first Doctor Who story to directly discuss the possibility of a time traveler changing history. It establishes the rules of time travel, as they are in season 1. In The Aztecs, changing history is impossible. It’s not that it’s wrong to change history, but that history is fixed and changing it is impossible. The Aztecs are destined to practice human sacrifice and Barbara can’t change it. History resists any attempt to change it, so it’s literally impossible. This also implies that the characters can interact with historical figures and get involved in historical events without consequence, because everything will just turn out the way it’s supposed to anyway.

The Reign of Terror explains the rules established in The Aztecs more clearly. If you tried to tell Napoleon about his future, he wouldn’t believe you. If you shot at him, the bullet would miss. If it’s not supposed to happen, it simply doesn’t.

The rules of time travel established in season 1 didn’t last. Maybe it was more interesting that way, if there was some risk that our heroes might erase their own existence by accident, or something like that.

Season 2: I Might’ve Poisoned Nero

The Romans, the first historical of season 2, makes it perfectly clear that the characters can change history and must avoid doing so. The Doctor warns Vicki not to try to change history before he lets her explore unsupervised. She discovers a plot by Nero’s wife to poison a woman that’s attracted her husband’s attention. Said woman is Barbara, but Vicki doesn’t know that. She just doesn’t want this anonymous innocent woman to die. So, when Nero and the woman are served drinks, with the woman’s being poisoned, Vicki switches the goblets around so Nero will be poisoned instead. She tells the Doctor what she’s done and he scolds her for it and rushes to stop Nero from drinking, preserving the course of history.

The important thing about The Romans that makes it stand out from previous historicals is that it’s a comedy. Before The Romans, historicals often had darker tones than the sci-fi stories due to the events being based off real things. The Aztecs practicing human sacrifice is the central dilemma of their story, and in The Reign of Terror, Barbara and Susan narrowly avoid the guillotine. The more brutal aspects of history are treated as deadly serious.

But, The Romans, though it still portrayed darker aspects of the era, such as slavery, gladiator fights, and Nero being a serial rapist and general violent lunatic, much of it is treated like dark comedy. Not all of it is played that way. Ian and Barbara’s storyline of being sold into slavery has a more serious tone than The Doctor and Vicki’s storyline where the Doctor is mistaken for a famous musician and has to pretend to be him for Nero and his court, which is a screwball comedy. Barbara’s interactions with Nero are where the storylines overlap. When the show focuses on Barbara’s perspective, Nero’s actions seem a bit more disturbing than they do from the Doctor’s perspective.

The combination of the more disturbing aspects of history and the zaniness of the mistaken identity plot make The Romans into a rather dark comedy. It’s kind of surprising that they got away with this on a show for children in 1965. This comedic tone also allows the story to get away with what would otherwise be a nasty ending. The Doctor accidentally gives Nero the idea of starting the Great Fire of Rome. The story doesn’t take this seriously. Vicki is excited to watch a major historical event unfold and gives the Doctor credit for bringing it about, being a part of history. They laugh the whole thing off.

Celebrating inspiring a mad emperor to set a city on fire, killing many people along the way, sounds extremely wrong, but the comedic tone of the story makes it easy to ignore. Also, the Doctor seems to think, despite what happened with the poisoning plot earlier, that the season 1 rules about changing history still apply. If the Doctor hadn’t been there, something else would’ve given Nero the idea to burn down Rome. It’s just what’s meant to happen, so he’s not really responsible for it. Vicki thinking it’s cool that the Doctor might be responsible for it is sort of Vicki being Vicki. She’s a teenager who’s kind of drawn to chaos. She thinks monsters are adorable and literally squeed over getting to meet Nero in the first place. She’s Like That sometimes. Since she tried to save an innocent woman from being poisoned, we know that she’s not a bad person, but she reacts to things happening right in front of her, like the poisoning, differently from things happening at a distance, which is where she’s watching the fire from. It’s not cruel, just immature in an “out of sight, out of mind” sort of way.

But, though The Romans can use its tone to get away with it, this new attitude towards history carries a bit of a disturbing implication. Changing history is possible, but it’s bad. Okay, fair enough. But causing history to happen, even the bad stuff, is treated as good. If something bad is meant to happen, trying to stop it is wrong, but actively participating is right. An Unfortunate Implication in a comedy story can be forgiven, but if it shows up in a more serious story, it could be a problem.

At the end of season 2, two important things happen. First, Ian and Barbara leave the show. Without the history teacher, you don’t have the set-up for history lessons. The sci-fi stories had given up on being educational well before this, but the historicals continued to have an element of their original purpose, which is now a lot harder to do.

The second thing is that we get our first historical to include sci-fi elements. The Time Meddlers starts out as a historical set in 1066. We’re about to learn some things about Saxons and Vikings and The Battle of Hastings. But, we interrupt this history lesson to bring you the Monk. We meet another Time Lord (though they weren’t called that yet) with another TARDIS. But, the Monk has come to 1066 with the intent to change history. He’s not trying to take over the world or anything. He actually wants to make the world better by changing historical events. But, he has no way of knowing if things will turn out the way he wants them to. Will Shakespeare have his plays performed on television or will he not even exist? The main reason to stop the Monk is that he’s reckless.

But, the Monk creates the first situation in the show’s history where the Doctor faces down a rival, an equal and opposite. This would later become the purpose of the Master. Like the Master, later versions of this sort of conflict had the rival as malevolent, seeking power or just wanting to cause problems for the hell of it. The reason the Monk is against the Doctor is purely based on the subject of changing history. The Doctor is good because he doesn’t change history and the Monk is bad because he does. The Monk’s recklessness creates a justification for why he’s in the wrong, but when you think about it, the Monk knows that something bad’s gonna happen and he wants to stop it, while the Doctor wants to do nothing and allow innocent people to suffer and die, simply because they’re supposed to. The morality of time travel, when history can, but shouldn’t, be changed, if the consequences of successfully changing it aren’t shown, is that of maintaining the status quo, no matter what.

But, in The Time Meddler, this position is justified, even if we get to see Vikings committing atrocities along the way. The show’s attitude towards changing history in season 2 is one that has dark implications, but the show doesn’t seem to be aware of them. However, the show is about to deliberately take a darker turn, and this would make the pure historical completely fall apart.

Season 3: Saving Anne Chaplet

Season 3 was the first time the show changed producers, leaving Hartnell the only member of the original team left, something he wasn’t happy about. A new producer meant a new direction for the show. In this case, it was a darker direction. None of the cast liked this and there was something of a power struggle behind the scenes. Maureen O’Brien, Vicki’s actress, was a victim of that power struggle, fired after complaining about her lines in Galaxy 4. Galaxy 4 wasn’t the most well-written of stories, so I can only assume she had a point.

This led to Vicki’s sudden departure in The Myth Makers, falling in love with Troilus, becoming Cressida, and leaving the TARDIS to say with him. The fact that Vicki was a teenage girl from the 25th century deciding to marry a man she just met in the ruins of Troy in the early Bronze Age, and that Cressida is known for being more than just the lover of Troilus in the myths of the era, are conveniently ignored. If they didn’t write her out here, she would’ve been killed off in the next story, a role instead given to Katarina.

Look, Vicki is my favorite Hartnell companion and I will be mad about this.

The Myth Makers is an interesting historical in that it’s mostly a historical comedy like The Romans, but then the Greeks get into Troy and the destruction is taken completely seriously. The Doctor was involved in the creation of the Trojan Horse, similar to his inspiring the Great Fire of Rome, but the results aren’t funny this time and no one celebrates them. Steven is severely injured in battle and thus begins a long string of darker episodes, with a short break for a rushed Christmas special.

The Daleks’ Master Plan is a bleak, brutal twelve-parter with a high body count, including two companions, Katarina and Sara. Neither one is a companion for a very long time, but they’re considered companions and they both die horribly. The Doctor laments the terrible waste of human life, though Steven kind of has to remind him of their losses first.

The Daleks’ Master Plan isn’t a historical, but it’s a demonstration of just how dark the show was getting around this time.

You’d expect that after that bloodbath, the show would take a breather and do a light, fun story. Right? Wrong! The next serial is literally titled The Massacre. To be fair, the original serials had different titles for each episode and The Massacre title was provided later, but it’s not at all inaccurate. The story is also known as The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s Eve, but that title is both very long and not quite historically accurate, so I’m sticking to The Massacre.

The Massacre is about a historical event that a lot of the audience wouldn’t have known about. Though a lot of historical info would’ve been new to child viewers, adults would know that The Aztecs practiced human sacrifice and that Nero burned down Rome. The Myth Makers follows mythology more than actual history, because we don’t know much about any real Trojan War, only that a conflict like it happened, but everyone knows the story. The violent endings of The Romans and The Myth Makers were something the older audience members would’ve been ready for. The Massacre was not. The intent was to shock people with the destruction.

Now, even by missing episode standards, almost nothing of The Massacre has survived, so there’s definitely some stuff that we’re missing when recapping and analyzing it here. Keep that in mind, though it’s not going to be a big part of what I talk about.

Though there were a few pure historicals after The Massacre, it’s the death of the pure historical. It’s not that it’s a bad story. Not at all. But, this is the moment where the problem The Romans introduced and The Myth Makers called further attention to really comes to a head.

In hindsight, there are aspects of The Massacre that can be compared to The Fires of Pompeii, a comparatively recent Doctor Who story that ends in a big historical tragedy. It finds a way to give this sort of situation a happier ending without seriously changing history. We’ll get to that towards the end.

The Massacre barely features the Doctor at all. Instead, Steven, the only companion at this time, takes over as main character. He, like much of the audience, has no idea what’s about to happen. He wanders around Paris in 1572 and meets some of the Huguenots, French Protestants. Steven is implied to also be a Protestant, but whatever his religion is, he sympathizes with the people he meets, especially a young woman named Anne Chaplet. He also meets the Abbot of Amboise, who looks exactly like the Doctor. Because of this, Steven thinks the Abbot might be the Doctor in disguise. This turns out to not be the case, as the Doctor shows up again later, learns what day it is, tells Anne to run and takes Steven back to the TARDIS. He explains that a massacre is about to happen and that the deaths will include several people Steven met, though he doesn’t know about Anne. Steven storms out of the TARDIS in a rage that the Doctor didn’t bring Anne along with them, but the Doctor insists that he can’t change history.

The Massacre has a bit of a rushed happy ending when a teenage girl mistakes the TARDIS for a real police box and Steven returns because there are real police on the way, so they have to dematerialize. The girl introduces herself as Dodo Chaplet. After learning a bit more of her family tree, Steven’s convinced that Anne survived the massacre and that he’s now traveling with her descendant.

I mentioned The Fires of Pompeii before because Steven basically wanted the same thing Donna did: If we can’t save everyone, can we at least save someone? He just wanted to save Anne, someone with so literal relevance to history that the Doctor didn’t know what happened to her. But, even that would be changing history too much. Several incarnations later, the Doctor learns that this actually isn’t the case and he probably could’ve saved Anne without causing a problem.

Weirdly, leaving Anne behind might’ve changed history more than taking her with him would’ve. It’s never explained why Dodo would have the same surname as Anne Chaplet, an unmarried woman, if she was her direct descendant. Steven comes to this conclusion out of nowhere. The only way the direct descendants on Anne would carry her maiden name is if she had a child out of wedlock and the child’s father wasn’t in the picture, which is kind of an odd thing to just assume about someone. Steven might just be desperate to believe that Anne survived, but there could be another reason for him to suspect that. Although she’s never directly portrayed as a love interest, Steven gets very close to Anne and they spend a night alone together. They could’ve had sex during that night. If Anne got pregnant after that encounter, she might’ve given the child her maiden name due to the father being out of the picture. Generations later, Dodo shows up.

Steven is a space pilot from some unknown time in the future. If he hadn’t shown up in 1572, there’s a chance that Dodo might’ve never existed. If Anne went with Steven and the Doctor, her child probably wouldn’t have met whoever he had children with, so the line leading to Dodo wouldn’t have existed. It was the Doctor’s decision to leave Anne behind, presumably not knowing that Anne’s history had already been changed, so he made a decision that changed history and got a new companion out of it. Nice!

But, that’s not the only interesting thing about the course of history in The Massacre. I mentioned when talking about The Time Meddler how the Monk existed in opposition to the Doctor. A similar thing happens with the Abbot in a more symbolic sense, since the Doctor and the Abbot never even meet. The Abbot, involved in the build-up to the massacre, is someone who causes a violent historical event to occur. He’s not the main perpetrator, admittedly. He was involved in various plots against the Huguenots, but his death was one of the things that inspired the massacre. But, that still means that the massacre couldn’t have happened the way it did without him. This connects back to the implications of The Romans that it’s bad to change history, but it’s good to be a part of it, even if it’s a violent part. The Doctor isn’t the Abbot, but having them played by the same actor and mistaken for one another creates a parallel. It makes you think of more serious, deliberate versions of the ending of The Romans. If the death of innocent people was part of the course of history, and the Doctor took actions that caused the death of those innocent people, that would be considered a moral good by the show’s logic.

This can also be compared to The Fires of Pompeii. The Doctor, in order to stop the monster of the week, actually has to make the volcano erupt and destroy Pompeii. The story has him backed into a corner: either he causes the eruption and destroys this one city, or the monster of the week kills everyone. It’s a trolley problem. The Doctor chooses the death of one city over the death of the world. But, destroying Pompeii isn’t treated as good or heroic, only tragically necessary, and, unlike in The Massacre, he’s convinced to save a single family. Basically, The Massacre asks a question and, nearly 50 years later, The Fires of Pompeii answers it: Maintaining the course of history isn’t a moral good, but it might be necessary to prevent something worse. Also, saving a few innocent people is fine but you can’t save all of them.

A key difference here is that The Fires of Pompeii isn’t a pure historical. There’s a monster of the week to cause a potential apocalypse. The Doctor’s motivation isn’t to preserve the course of history, but to prevent a greater tragedy. Adding sci-fi threats to historicals, potential tragedies that aren’t supposed to happen, means that the show can stay away from having the characters be portrayed as morally good for ignoring or even causing historical tragedies. Instead of visiting real tragedies, sci-fi historicals create new ones, which keeps the show out of the uncomfortable territory it got into when it was decided that history could be changed.

Before we move on, I’d like to make it clear, if it wasn’t clear by now, that I’m not saying that The Fires of Pompeii is better than The Massacre. The Massacre barely exists and I can’t even make that judgement. They’re both good stories. But, they’re interesting to compare as,a moral question and answer. Cool stuff all around.

The Troughton Era: The Highlanders and the Cruelty of the Time Lords

The Highlanders wasn’t the last pure historical. Black Orchid, a forgettable two-parter from 1982 was. The Highlanders is also quite close to being forgettable, though that may be due to the fact that it’s completely missing. From the perspective of 2022, The Highlanders is The One We Got Jamie From, which is a reason to forgive any problems that the story might have. At least it introduced one of the best companions in the show’s entire history.

Though The Highlanders wasn’t the last pure historical, that’s only because a much later era of the show experimented with bringing pure historicals back while trying to find itself. It doesn’t feel like there were meant to be anymore after this one.

So, we’re now in season 4, the season where the show figured out how it was going to last forever. After only two stories, the Doctor regenerated for the first time. The show got a new lead with a different personality and proved that it could still go on. Of course, The Highlanders was only the second story with this new Doctor, so they were still trying to figure everything out, but this story played a key role in that in multiple ways.

The first thing The Highlanders did to properly begin the Troughton era was to kill the Hartnell era. This was the end of a process that began with The Tenth Planet. In the more obvious sense, the Hartnell era died in The Tenth Planet because the Doctor regenerated at the end. Hartnell was no longer the Doctor. Era over. But, there’s also the story’s over-all format. The Doctor and company arrive at a isolated base full of scientists. Monsters show up and our heroes fight them off. It’s a Base Under Siege By Monsters. The next three seasons would be full of these. Season 5 will contain only one story that isn’t one of these. The Tenth Planet is a Troughton story with Hartnell.

The Highlanders, as a pure historical, is a Hartnell story with Troughton.

The Highlanders doesn’t feel quite right. This new incarnation of the Doctor doesn’t seem to fit into the setting. He’s a bit too chaotic for it. This demonstrates why there’d be no more pure historicals after this point: the new main character just doesn’t fit them. This new Doctor is a hero for the late 1960s, someone too rebellious to heroically preserve the status quo. He defends scientists from monsters and overthrows dictators and dystopias.

The other thing The Highlanders does for the new Doctor’s character is introduce Jamie. Keeping Jamie as a companion was a last minute decision, but that last minute decision changed everything. The Doctor’s dynamics with their various companions are always a part of their character, but it’s rare for the introduction of a single companion feel like a completion of an incarnation of the character. The only two examples I can think of are 2 with Jamie and 7 with Ace. The writers only seemed to figure out what they wanted to do with these Doctors after these companions came along. These Doctor/Companion dynamics are basically an aspect of these Doctors’ personalities. This is clear with 2 during the later multi-Doctor stories. In The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors, 2 reverts to his early personality. This is the Doctor at his most clownish. Those traits were toned down a bit over time as the comedy of the Doctor became part of a double act. The Doctor and Jamie take turns playing the straight man, leading to him developing a more serious side. They’re also about as emotionally attached as a classic era Doctor/companion pair can get, which gives the very alien Doctor a more “human” emotional side.

The Two Doctors, the only multi-Doctor story where Jamie is around for more than a cameo, keeps the more serious side of the Second Doctor that the prior two don’t. This version of 2 isn’t completely in-character, but he’s a bit closer to it than in The Three/Five Doctors. This comes out in his banter with and concern for Jamie.

I could write an entire essay just about interesting things in The Two Doctors, but that’s a story for another time.

So, The Highlanders. We’ve got yet another dark moment of history in the Battle of Culloden. It takes place right after the battle, focusing on a group of surviving Jacobites. Surviving the battle didn’t mean they were safe. They could still be captured and executed or sold into slavery. Both of this things almost happen, but the Doctor and company manage to save most of the group. This group of Jacobites mostly consist on Clan McLaren, the laird, his son and daughter, and a piper named Jamie McCrimmon.

This isn’t quite relevant to this essay, but fun fact about Jamie’s family: In real history, there actually was a family of pipers named McCrimmon. The Donald McCrimmon Jamie names as his father was a real person. The McCrimmons were pipers for Clan MacLeod, not McLaren. The MacLeods sided with the Hannovers during the Jacobite Uprising. Donald McCrimmon actually died fighting the Jacobites. Jamie and his father were on opposite sides of the conflict, an interesting backstory that probably happened by accident and is thus never elaborated upon. It does serve as a reason Jamie was so quick to join the Doctor. He survived the battle, but the McLarens had left for France without him. Where would he go now? Home, you’d assume, but if this accidental backstory is a thing, he probably couldn’t. He sided with the people who killed his father, something his surviving relatives probably wouldn’t forgive.

Anyway, Jamie is the Anne Chaplet of The Highlanders. His role in history is unimportant enough that the Doctor, and later the Time Lords, can’t say for certain whether he lived or died in the aftermath of Culloden. Furthermore, like in The Massacre, conflicts between Catholics and Protestants were involved in the Jacobite Uprising, though the serial doesn’t mention it. The Doctor’s companion, Polly this time, asks the Doctor if they can bring him along in the TARDIS. This time, the Doctor agrees. The moment is played lightly, with the Doctor deciding to invite Jamie along to teach him to play the bagpipes, so I don’t think this was meant as a deliberate parallel to Anne, but it’s interesting in how it sets the Second Doctor apart from the First. The First Doctor wouldn’t have brought Jamie into the TARDIS, in fear of altering the course of history. The Second Doctor barely has to think it over before accepting him. This Doctor has a far more relaxed approach to the subject of changing history, making him a poor fit for pure historicals. The conflict of the pure historical dies when you have a Doctor that would’ve saved Anne Chaplet.

A few seasons later, we actually get to see where the First Doctor’s attitudes towards changing history come from, and this time, there’s nothing heroic about it. Jumping from Jamie’s first story to his last, we have The War Games. The War Games is ten parts and a lot happens, but we’re focusing on the ending here. The conflict goes beyond what the Doctor can handle and he has to contact the Time Lords to sort it out. He reveals that he ran away from his own people, apparently out of boredom, but more likely out of rebellion. He wanted to interact with the universe more than he was allowed to.

I’m gonna stop here to point out how much of a 1969 thing the Doctor’s backstory is. He ran away from a repressive society, which was pretty much what the hippies did. I mentioned before that the Second Doctor was basically created to be a hero for the late 1960s. He’s more chaotic and rebellious than the old-fashioned gentleman he used to be. His adventures, especially later on, often have elements of 60s counterculture in them. Some of this is in the aesthetic. The Mind Robber is a story full of surreal imagery. Some of it is more directly political. The Krotons are literally square authority figures and the Doctor teaches people to free their minds from them by using acid. Zoe’s entire backstory fits counterculture in the same way the Doctor’s does. She was raised to basically become a human computer, suppressing emotions. She decides that she doesn’t want to do that anymore and runs away with the Doctor. It’s the Baby Boomers growing up in the 50s, taught to suppress emotions deemed distasteful by their society, sexuality, in their case, dropping out of college, becoming hippies, and running off to find themselves.

The Wars Games accidentally provides an ending to Zoe’s story that parallels what would happen that generation later on: She forgets everything she learned on her travels and returns to the status quo she was originally raised for. Very prophetic.

But, Zoe’s story takes place in the future but is about the present. Jamie’s character mostly stays within the realm of the history he came from, a history that he’s removed from. Removed from his time and place, Jamie remains himself. He still wears a kilt even when he wears more modern clothing from the waist up. He combines the new things he’s learned with the old things he’s familiar with. Jamie’s story doesn’t have elements of a “savage” from the past learning to be “civilized”. He changes to adapt to different surroundings, but the Doctor never pushes him into it. When Jamie is taken out of history, he’s still himself, just a version of himself that’s been exposed to new technology and different cultural norms. He also forms strong bonds with the people he travels with. The change of history here is clearly a positive one.

But, the Time Lords see preserving the course of history as always good and any meddling, no matter how minor, as always bad. This is the repressive 50s ideology the Doctor has begun to rebel against. They send Jamie back to the aftermath of Culloden, erasing the memories of everything he learned on his travels. They don’t know what will happen to him and they don’t care, because that’s just the course of history. Jamie isn’t a person to the Time Lords, just a small part of history. This is the mindset of the Doctor that wouldn’t save Anne Chaplet, a mindset that he first truly rebelled against by saving Jamie. This was a moment that defined the morality of the Second Doctor as different from the First, a key moment in making him who he is. The actions of the Time Lords show us who he might’ve been, and actually sort of was, if he never rebelled against his society.

The Doctor’s arc killed the pure historical, in a sense. He needed to be freed from adventures where all he had to do was follow along with whatever was supposed to happen. He can no longer be restrained by the realities of history.

As good as many pure historicals were, the change was probably for the better.

#doctor who #classic doctor who #classic who #60s doctor who #the aztecs #the reign of terror #the romans #the time meddler #the myth makers #the massacre #the highlanders #1st doctor #first doctor #2nd doctor #second doctor #barbara wright #vicki pallister #steven taylor #dodo chaplet #jamie mccrimmon #very long post

[marezelle]

20 Questions

tagged by both @toopunkrockforshul and @writingordinaryrealities so I guess I'd better do it LOL

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

18!

2. What’s your total AO3 words count?

202,063

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently only Greenwing & Dart by Victoria Goddard. In the past I wrote a teeny bit of Legend of Korra fic, and then one Check, Please! fic and one Pokemon fic.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

falling and falling and falling, A Beifong Woman's Guide to Getting the Girl, tender is the night, to face unafraid the plans that we made, and protective measures

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to, and I usually do immediately after I post a fic. (I always end up running behind, though.) I do so because I am genuinely SO grateful to everyone who reads and comments on my stories. Every comment is a gift.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

To call it angst is perhaps overselling the yearning happening there, but probably protective measures.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I had to go back and look at fics I've barely even thought about in years, but probably tender is the night, tbh.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Nope! I am not a popular writer. (thank god)

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I have begun to dabble, though I don't know how to quantify it? it's smut. LOL

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I still have that unfinished Carol-inspired Check, Please! au. I'm probably never going to go back to it, but I maintain that the vibes were immaculate.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Don't think so!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not yet, but how cool would that be?

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

No, and tbh the idea of doing so is intimidating as hell, but I'm sure it would be fun.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

What do you mean "favorite"? I'm supposed to pick? I can't even pick a current favorite, considering I'm writing a whole polycule of various ships for G&D and I love them all.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I've accepted that my older unfinished works are going to stay that way, but sometimes I do think about The Journey. The end of that fic was going to involve Jinora and Opal leaving the Eastern Air Temple, to be followed by a sequel where they travelled to Zaofu, then the Southern Water Tribe, and then through the Fire Nation. The third story in the series would have brought them to Republic City, where they would establish Air Temple Island. The story as I began it just had too many plot holes, though, and I ended up losing interest in the primary romantic relationship.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I do a decent job with pacing. It turns out that I'm good at planning out a cohesive narrative that will play out over the course of a series; working out the snags is part of the fun. I like when unnoticed details are given greater/changed meaning or depth later on. (I learned that from @ourimpavidheroine!) Oh and my friends say I write pining well, LOL.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Figuring out plots driven by anything but the characters' emotional beats. (This is why I've written thousands of words of fanfic this year, and simply cannot get an original novel out of the planning stages.) I so wish I could write a complicated political plot, or a mystery, but I think those things are beyond me. Weaving in description alongside dialogue is also tricky for me, I always feel like I fall into using the same phrases over and over.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I don't speak any other languages well enough to do it, but it would be very neat.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Pokemon, *way* back in the day.

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

*gasp* How dare you make me pick just one. I guess it has to be hello, my old heart, though. I just am so proud of that fic. It's not just that it's the kind of thing that I've dreamed of writing for a long while (slowburn, lots of yearning, LONG) but that I managed to do it during a summer where I was struggling with just about everything else in my life. I'm very fond of the world it's set in, and I have so many plans for both prequels and sequels to it.

I'm tagging @ourimpavidheroine, @assistant-blogkeeper, and anyone else who thinks this would be fun! (no pressure to play along, though <3)

[upagainstthesunset]

I dont remember what the poll bracket was that I originally submitted this to, but I doubt my entry will be included. So I'mma post here what I sent in bc I stand by it and i deserve to rant 😂

--

Metron is the god of knowledge and technology. He is aloof and enigmatic, and ALWAYS seen with his greatest invention, the Mobius chair, which allows him to travel the astral winds of all time and space. BUT when DC rebooted everything after the infamous Flashpoint event, things changed. In Justice League: Darkseid War, writer Geoff Johns clearly decided Metron wasn't good enough. Instead, a villain from a decades-old event was renamed Mobius and was said to be the inventor. WHY? Was Metron's backstory and his treacherous dealings with Darkseid (one of DC's biggest bads) to get the element that powers his invention and the subsequent betrayal to the other New Gods not compelling enough for Johns? Did he think he could write a better backstory?? Well he didn't. But if we continue the story arc, we see Metron try to help the Justice League, who he has worked with amicably in pre-Flashpoint comics. Mr. Miracle who is also a New God is part of the League and does try to vouch for Metron a bit, but even still they decide the best course of action is to TIE HIM UP AND STEAL HIS CHAIR. WHAT?! Wonder Woman, I love you, but what is going on. Green Lantern remarks that Metron doesn't know anything, the chair has all the knowledge. Excuse me? No that is NOT how that works. So then Batman sits on the chair and gains ALL the knowledge. Batman does. Batman. Anyone familiar with DC Comics fandom knows we have an oversaturation of Batman, so yeah of course it's everyone's golden boy who sits on the chair. Anyway, more hijinks ensue and they basically leave Metron tied up and I guess left for dead? He frees himself, has a covert meet up with freaking Owlman (yes, Owlman from Watchmen) on the Moon for some reason. He's giving Owlman the Mobius chair (which btw he would not freaking do that), and then they both sense someone behind them... and get obliterated! Like actually dead! OFF SCREEN!! It just cuts back to two steaming piles of dust. WHAT EVENNNNNN. So, yeah I guess Geoff Johns said you know what? Eff this character. We're going to strip him of his invention and any backstory he had plus all his meaningful interactions with other characters. AND THEN KILL HIM OFF. And the worst part is, hardly any fans EVEN KNOW ABOUT HIM because writers love to remove him and overlook him, but still use all his stuff. Like, oh man I didn't even mention how much DC loooves using Boom Tubes. GUESS WHO THE INVENTOR WAS. YEAH. IT WAS METRON. Okay, I just. I'm done. I can't.

Metron is basically made to be a tumblr sexyman. He's weird, arrogant, and probably the most intellectual of DC's characters. He was originally created by Jack "The King" Kirby back in 1971 and in pre-Flashpoint canon has been integral to several major events. He's morally gray, but sees the beauty in life and the universe. He likes to say he's an impartial observer, only valuing knowledge, but two seconds later there he is getting involved. He's wry and dramatic, and I just think he's neat.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metron_(character)#/media/File%3AMetron_(New_Gods_character).png

#im right and i should say it #metron #new gods #fourth world #katetakes #metron if i fits i sits

[deafchild2000]

Legacies: Hayley Marshall is arc of her own

As a writer, I try my best to hear both sides of the story, especially in a world as complex as The Vampire Diaries Universe.

Hayley Marshall is someone whom I feel was just as important to Legacies (as the Crescent Alpha and sole parent who raised Hope in TO) but also as someone who is also a werewolf traitor betraying the hybrids + indirectly causing Carol Lockwood's death for the names of her dead parents in TVD).

As someone who's writing an OC twin daughter for Hayley, I had to consider who Hayley was before and after she became a mom, as well as what her actions and repercussions being affiliated to the Mikaelsons.

So, after long consideration, I decided that Hayley is a sympathetic anti-hero.

We know her past: Born werewolf royalty from the lineage of THE first werewolf and the creator of the Werewolf Curse, orphaned due to political tensions and said evil ancestor, adopted and and after triggering her curse and kicked out of the only home she knew, she traveled and lived with other werewolves until she came across a man who could lead her to the truth - At the expense that she betray her own kind. Then, the person she be tested those hybrids to protect her in return and ended up conceiving Hope.

I admitting it have a hard time looking at this, because you know she's angry and scared - but you have to remember that she had this coming. She betrayed the trust of desperate werewolves (more like slaves) and got indirectly got an innocent woman killed. And had she not been pregnant, this wouldn't look so bad (on Tyler's part). But another reason is because of the fact her unborn child is a tribrid (a halfbreed in it's one right) that she unconsciously insulted and the irony that she had no choice in becoming a hybrid but had to finish transitioning if she wanted to see Hope again.

To say that her daughter, Hope, is her only redeeming quality isn't untrue. When it comes down to it, every good and evil thing she has done has boiled down to her longing for a family - and once she got that family - her determination to keep that family. But despite her effort with the werewolves of New Orleans - when push came to shove, she was always a Mikaelson. Everything about her fit right into that family (and let's remember she's belongs to the bloodline of THE first werewolves and the curse creator) and her time with the Crescents, whom she considered family - were more like extended relatives and soldiers if needed when regarding Hope's safety.

Why do I say this:

She married Jackson to pass on her hybrid abilities (minus the vampirism) to the Crescents. And yet, in trying to defend Hope, they lost a lot of their numbers - To Dahlia and Lucien as wolves. Not to mention Hayley involving herself with torturing Tristan de Martel is what put a target on Jackson's back and got him killed.

And then, rather than staying in New Orleans with Hope and Crescents - She skipped town to help the Mikaelsons while Klaus was under (and not bringing any - the closest powerhouse to Klaus's hybrids - for extra protection). And her only assuming control of the Crescents until her death was to keep the peace so Hope could have a home.

Like I said, Hayley is a sympathetic anti-hero. All she does is for family, but in a large part, her family wasn't the one she found with werewolves, but with the ones she clicked with the most: The Original Family.

If this had been talked about in Legacies, I don't doubt Hope would have eviscerated anyone who dared disrespect her mother. But it would've been interesting to see Hope have no choice but to face the double standards of her mom's actions, especially if this involved conflict with the School Pack - especially those from packs around the country. Or, to go further, would what Hayley had done be public knowledge at school?

#legacies cw #legacies #the vampire diaries universe #the vampire diaries #the originals #hayley marshall #50/50 anti hayley marshall #hope mikealson

[konnfusion]

You've tagged so many cool posts with Odessa that I'm officially intrigued, I would love to hear about her!

I hope you're okay that I posted this publicly because you're the first person to ask about OC lore in quite some time, and I am ECSTATIC!

I will put a "read more", however, as I tend to ramble, and will mostly assume anyone reading this knows something about Doctor Who.

so a brief tldr; primer is that about a decade or so ago, my now-husband and I were intensely into Doctor Who and did a very cheesy, self-indulgent (pretty poorly-written but fun) RP here on tumblr with a companion character I'd created traveling with the Tenth Doctor. cut to now in 2023, and he's fully back into DW (classic and new), and dragged me along with him. I'd been reworking this character I'd created off-and-on for years (changing her name, her faceclaim, backstory, everything; I just felt like she deserved an update as my writing developed and improved!), and now that the hyperfixation is back in full swing, so is she.

pinterest board for vibe check // story pinterest board with working title for extra vibe check // said posts I've tagged with her name

basically, Odessa is a young woman living in an isolated cottage in the countryside following personal turmoil (including the mysterious and untimely death of her parents and possibly leaving a man at the altar, her neighbors are unsure about that last part; she's a little bit of a "champagne problems" gal), and barely has any contact with anyone. she's just chosen to shut herself up for whatever time she has left on Earth, and tend to her garden and books and be alone until she dies.

but, on her way home from a trip to town one day, her bike runs into a big blue police box that definitely hadn't been on this rural dirt before, and there's man nearby who says he's investigating some strange, not-of-Earth communication signals in the area. I won't give all the details since we're intending to publish portions of this at some point (I hope!), but she decides to help The Doctor find the source of the signals and hopefully stop whatever's going on before it can hurt anyone. it turns out the mystery is linked to her and to the death of her parents, and shines a new light on the tragedy and on her decision to live an isolated, quiet life alone. so, when they've deal with the threat and The Doctor invites her to travel through time and space with him, she agrees. might've been a little bit of a "Getaway Car" situation in the beginning, but developed into something so, so much bigger.

we've been planning lots of original adventures with her, as well as some stuff that adds her into canon episodes, all going through the end of Ten's run, through Eleven's, and into Twelve's and beyond. and, yes, she does get to find romance because I am a romantic at heart, so how can I resist?

there's so much I love about her that I wish I could put into concrete words, but I recently realized that the arc I'd been writing for her was seeing her start as someone who decided to lock away her love because all she ever did was lose the things she loved; to grow into someone who forged this huge, time-and-space-spanning family that she could love unabashedly and wholeheartedly. sort of a coming-of-age out of linear time, and one that she never got to have because she just always felt stuck in the same place (derogatory). she gets the chance to fight to protect the things she cares about, and be openly who she is without fear of judgement or shame--and feel like she matters in her own life. (I do like to joke, though, that she locked away her love because, for her, all love does is end, but then she fell in love with someone who is functionally immortal, so did she really ever unpack that fear? it's sweet, though, I promise.)

it's been fun morphing her into a character that sometimes is just so unapologetically weird, too. I mean, to travel with a centuries-old alien through all of time and space, you have to be a little weird, but I feel like I just poured all my wonderful weird into her and let her run wild. (and this is the first post I tagged her in during this little revisiting, SO. this somewhat references a plot point that my husband doesn't even know about yet, but that will be deliciously angsty and link back to Odessa and The Doctor's very first meeting.) it's been really satisfying to rework a character I've had in my back pocket for a decade and feel like she's more fully-realized, even if just in my own head. less of an avatar, and more of an actual character with needs and an arc. (an actual character who has a proclivity for going after Daleks with a baseball bat and relates a little too hard to the bridge of "Mastermind", but I digress.)

it's also been so gratifying revisiting a story that my now-husband and I were working on in the very beginnings of our friendship, and develop the romance plot from just romance to eventually a marriage between two characters we both really love. hell, we've already formed a spin-off AU, and one-off adventures with different incarnations of The Doctor outside of their shared linear timeline. (one of my husband's creations is a story where she's put on trial for perceived "crimes" against the known universe, and for being accessory to "crimes" committed by The Doctor. we love a chaotic woman wanted for multiple violations against the space-time continuum. ✨)

as I'm re-reading this, it feels kind of vague for how much lore I have in my brain, but honestly sometimes it's like when someone asks what your favorite movie is, and you suddenly forget every movie you've ever seen. 😅 I'm always so, so happy to talk about my characters (and their pinterest boards and playlists and such), please feel free to ask me to elaborate on anything if you're still curious!!! 💕 Odessa is a constantly-shifting, ever-developing, total-failed-misanthrope-beause-her-heart-is-just-too-big, time-traveling madwoman in my mind, and I love her so, so much and love that you reached out to ask about her!!!

#ask #kaijueiga #oc talk #odessa #text #anyone is always welcome to ask about my OCs oh my god I could make powerpoint presentations on all of them #like I am geeking right now this ask has made my whole day!!!!

[dayseternal-blog]

saw that you saw Hamilton for the first time and couldn't help but wonder what your favorite song/s were? or maybe some songs that you would like to learn all the lyrics to?

:DDDD They toured here, and I got to see them live last, last Friday!! It was wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course all the songs are great. Right now (subject to daily changes), my faves in order, and I'll link to yt in case you want to listen, too, right now haha:

"Dear Theodosia" - The way they are singing to their babies!!! AHHHHHHHHH. I could die. It's SO soft. and SO heartwarming. omg. I just. love love love this. the line: "You will come of age with our young nation." and "If we lay a strong enough foundation, we'll pass it on to you. We'll give the world to you, and you'll blow us all away." Seriously, is there anything more important than this 😭😭 And finding out that the original actor for Aaron Burr was praying for his yet unborn daughter when it wasn't his part to sing, and that by the end of the run, he had prayed around 500 times for her ugh 💓

"The Story of Tonight (Reprise)" - idk, no real explanation, it's just a funny, touching song. The line: "Raise a glass to freedom, something you will never see again." and John Lauren's "What are you trying to hide, Burr?" is so funny. Also, Alexander Hamilton's "Oh, shit" when he finds out that Aaron Burr is having an affair with a married woman. Just a feel-good song. Out of context, I now see that those lines don't sound funny or feel good.

"Guns and Ships" - My favorite character is the Marquis de Lafayette. I was so enthralled by the actor's charisma, I read the entire Wikipedia article on Lafayette and have been info-dumping this guy's whole life story on anyone who is a captive audience for me. Which has happened 4 times already. Did you know he was only 18-19 years old when he snuck away to America against King Louis XVI's orders because he was so sympathetic to the American cause and hungry for war glory? Did you know he was a war hero by the time he was 24? Did you know this? And Hamilton was like about the same age as him. Also did you know Lafayette picked up English fluently within a year of his travel to America? Shall I keep going? I can tell you more!

"It's Quiet Uptown" - This song gives me really emotions, I cry.

"Satisfied" - "From your sister who's always by your side." Anyone else has a loving eldest sister who's the wittiest, funniest, smartest, most charismatic in the family? 🙋🏻‍♀️ Honestly, Angelica Schuyler does NO wrong, and I am convinced based on the info in this musical that she did nothing wrong her entire life haha. Facts. Did you know she and her husband organized to help Lafayette escape from Austrian prison? (Which succeeded, except Lafayette got lost and recaptured).

"Helpless" - This song was my top fave after watching the musical. The actress sings so well. I love how absolutely gone she is in love with him, and that's basically how I aspire to write my NaruHina fics haha. This line: "I'm trying not to cry cuz there's nothing that your mind can't do." Just, the absolute faith she has in him!!! The admiration she has for his intelligence and the belief she has in his worth and capability!!! I love it.

"A Winter's Ball" - This song is very short. It also does the best job at showing that these guys were like. 19-20 years old. College age bros forreal.

"What'd I Miss" - Undeniably Thomas Jefferson has the most charisma of any character in the musical. I love the jazziness of this song, too.

"Non-Stop" - whoever said that this song is the entire musical crammed in 6 minutes is so right.

"Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story" - Since this idea is basically the theme/lesson of the musical, it left an impact on me at the live show. Also, yeah, I'm a sucker for recording generational history and making sure that the sacrifices of the past aren't forgotten.

"Cabinet Battle #1" - This rap song convinces me I would've learned better in AP Gov if this musical had been around 13 years ago.

"The Election of 1800" - Hamilton's drag of Aaron Burr is such a burn. Ouch.

"Cabinet Battle #2" - These lines: "We signed a treaty with a king whose head is now in a basket. Would you like to take it out and ask it? 'Should we honor our treaty, King Louis’ head?' 'Uh… do whatever you want, I’m super dead.'" lol, point made.

Oops, I spent like over an hour writing this post and listening to the songs. Please anon, come back and tell me your favorite songs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#anon #nice anon #nice ask #who's letting me get back on my soapbox for things that no one else cares about???!!!!!! #musicals my beloved #fun ask