#for me they're good bc of the characterisation and the romance and also the way it plays around with fate and stories and truth | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bahoreal · 10 months

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omg omg

Im truly so speechless I don't even know where to begin. Number Four Was Always You was the most thoughtful and well-organized and clearly so well-loved (as the writer for their piece) fic. I haven't been so blown away by a fic in a very long time. Your character descriptions were so quintessentially accurate and truthful to the characters and their actors' portrayal of them! So many times while reading, I found myself smiling or nodding along and thinking, "yep, that definitely would've happened." I hope you know how well you wrote their voices and captured the spirit of the show, as well as it's storytelling. Please believe my complete sincerity when I say that THIS is my canon season four. Period. If you ever chose to dive back into this world, I'll be there every step of the way. (Honestly, I could read how the rest of their lives played out from your perspective!!) Bravo, my friend! And THANK YOU for putting this out in the world for us.

Oh wait!!!! I HAVE TO FANGIRL OVER CHAPTER TEN. The whole story was amazing and had me literally smiling to myself constantly, and chapter 10 was the perrrrrfect ending omg. But my absolute favorite scene was Ted's confession!!!!! I giggled out loud and just smiled for a solid 15 seconds before I could keep reading. You clever thing, you!!! You'd set us up so well with Ted's multiple plans for himself throughout the fic and following through storytelling-wise with each one. So when I tell you how UNPREPARED I was for his sudden confession, but how PERFECT AND WILDLY ROMANTIC IT WAS omggggg I'm still giddy about it the next day. Gahhhhh just perfect. You've got a new fan for life! I'll ready anything you write for this lovely ted lasso fandom of ours!

IM LITERALLY SOBBING THANK YOU SO MUCH season 4 was about ted and trent falling in love we all know it <3 i'm truly so flattered tha tmy characterisation and character arcs were so satisfying to read, i can't say thank you enough it was so fun to write and the fact that it resonated so much;;;; pls, y'all are too nice to me. i really loved writing that fic, i'm glad that the epilogue was good too omggg, they're SO romantic in their own little weird way!!! the romance just WORKS for them bc they're with each other, it's less about the setting and the setup and more about how obsessed they are <3 i hope you also enjoy the rambling headcanon post i wrote about the propsal scene that i just posted (that's how all my plot documents look before i make them make sense by writing the fic hahaha) and i have a few other ted lasso fics in the works!! they're coming!!!!

#ask #tedtrent #ted lasso #daesmilewings #honestly i can't put into words how blown away i am at the reception to this fic #you guys are making me feel SO good about my writing i love oyu all #number four was always you

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st-just · 9 months

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oh did you want long angry rants for the unrecommend ask meme hm. oh I know. I unrecommend yu/wu (余/污) it's this chinese bl webnovel and...

look on a moment to moment level it's really fun to read, there's chekhov's guns set up in the first 10 chapters that are set off in the last 10 the whole book is very dense with reveals etc and parts of the character work was very compelling. but like. once you finish it and actually start thinking about it the whole thing is just so, so thin. everything is internally consistent within its own logic yk.

like first the entire book focuses on how rotten to the core the nobility of Chong/hua is how awful, selfish, fake everything there is... aaaaand the entire climax was a "yeah the nobles squabble in peacetime and all but when faced with an existential threat they all band together and work like a well oiled machine :) :) :) oh you expected the ending to have some resolution to this conflict? fuck you we've installed a new emperor that's shown throughout the story to also be corrupt but we have a threat to keep them in line. they'll slowly reform the system :) :) :) we have to go with this though bc the new emperor's the best option possible... if we keep to the made up rules about only being able to choose from the imperial bloodline. even though this existential threat has shaken up the country enough that you can probably get away with someone else. or not having an emperor at all. you know" (poking at the worldbuilding [or like. anything not on a character level] of romance webnovels is an exercise in frustration but I keep finding myself doing it)

(there's a reveal involved with the new emperor that could be read as transmisogynistic but it was such a nothing reveal - happened at the end of the story so there's not much done with it - that there isn't really anything interesting to say about it)

+ one of the main protagonist's motivation is literally "he was born as a slave and wants a better life for his fellow slaves and to prove slaves are just as competent as nobles in xianxia!fighting" so you'd expect it to yk. do much of anything about it. or at least not fumble it given the focus. but like later literally all the major + powerful characters ended up having noble blood and all 3 of the non-noble characters who were subtextually positioned as "see they're also super powerful and they don't have noble blood".... ended up having noble blood. from the top noble families no less. which. yeah not a fan!

also this is likely unintentional (I think the author just likes writing about dubcon/noncon relationships which I mean all power to her) but there were 3 mlm relationships in this book and every one of them except the main couple involved one sexual abusing (or otherwise predating on) the other so. yk. don't like that.

+ a major source of conflict between the two leads is "the protagonist that was born as a slave finally couldn't stand the cruelty of Chong/hua and defected to an evil empire, killing a bunch of the Chong/hua's soldiers, stabbing the other protagonist in the chest, etc."

but like the way that was resolved is literally "oh turns out he didn't do/had a Secret Good Reason for doing/isn't the one at fault for All That" which. let him have done some bad things for christ's sake I mean first saintlike perfect characters just aren't all that interesting to me but also why did he have to be perfectly innocent and not at fault at all to not deserve all that was done to him. couldn't he have done everything he's accused of and still not deserve how he's treated dammit.

also I said the amount of chekhov's guns are supremely satisfying and I stand by that but also it makes everything loop back to the protagonists which makes this whole-ass kingdom feel so goddamn claustraphobic this is an entire country why is there only like ~20 actual people in here

(tbf on a purely character level most of the folks that actually get characterised are characterised pretty well but the number of those are... small considering the scale of the story. also this doesn't help how flaccid the slave plot ended up being considering there's close to no slave in the plot that is given interiority. there's an entire army full of them but they're treated like a collective)

and there's the typical chinese ableism towards the mentally ill/etc (background radiation of my life) + distasteful genre tropes but I came in expecting that so

(although I would argue the Ontologically Evil Empire's effects on the story is notably worse than average)

plus like I love melodrama but even with me the prose felt so cloying and exaggerated I can't articulate it but I was getting a toothache reading it. although I see folks talk about how gorgeous the prose is so hey maybe it's a taste thing.

+ this is a neutral judgment but whenever I start doubting I'm asexual I think about this book and immediately am sure again. the thirst is like some gravitational force that everything in the story bends towards itself which. glad other folks are happy not my thing though.

anyway yeah *offers this rant like a raccoon* there's other stuff but that's mostly nitpicking. generally I describe it as "really fun in the moment-to-moment if you're the target audience but once you start thinking about yk. everything else it's just more and more. why was it like that. why was it written this way."

tbf a fair amount of my dislike is "dead dove do not eat / I don't know what I expected" but in my defence the way I was sold it vastly skewed/overinflated my expectations (picture the way folks sell atla/pjo/etc. as so much more than it is)

(I'm self censoring with /'s bc ik there is a decent fandom for it on here)

Excellent rant thank you very much. And also, like, not exactly familiar with the genre but that sounds deeply painful, yes!

That said,

This or something like it happens so often in every fucking type of fantasy and I loathe it with every fucking fiber of my being.

#reply #apollo-cackling #unrecomend me a book

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softlyspector · 6 months

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Hiii! Obnoxiously long rants anon back to rant about Over the Moon (possibly the part of Moon Struck I've reread the most). Before that though, allow me to congratulate you on getting a job interview!! Job hunting sucks so much, I am sending you all the good vibes and well wishes. May the Force be with you (reread Hard Landings the other night bc I had a really shit day and needed a comfort fic. I'm also making my way through the last jedi this week bc life is hectic and I haven't been able to sit and watch it all in one go unfortunately but every time I see a bit of it w Poe it makes me read Hard Landings all over again so that's why I felt compelled to have the Star Wars reference in there. Anyway, back to Over the Moon!!)

OKAY SO. The way you have written the Marc-Steven-Reader dynamic is so much fun. Like yes there's a lot of pining going on and it's sad how accurate it is to Marc's character he'd prevent himself from accepting love. But like also... on the other hand... beautiful men with big brown eyes being kinda grumpy will never not be funny to me (rest assured this sentiment will make a comeback when I review your Din stuff :) I just want to tenderly hopd Marc by his cheeks and tell him that he deserves comfort and happiness and softness and love. That was honestly the chief emotion I had for most of Moon Knight so to me you have captured something so vital from the source material but made it entirely your own. In my brain there's a standing ovation from a sold out, old-timey, beautiful theater for you. Hope you can hear the cheering.

Now I need to highlight just how much I ADORE the relationship between Steven and the reader. It's hard to pick a favourite part of their dynamic, but I think the reciprocity of their relationship ultimately takes the cake for me. I love how they both give each other compliments, they both provide each other with reassurance, the way it's so clear that they are both so invested and really want to make it work you know? There is romance, there is flirtation, but there is also so much mutual respect and admiration, it practically sings out at you through the screen. When Steven said “You are so many things to me, love. Bit brilliant of you, innit, to take up my whole world like that?” THERE WERE NO SURVIVORS. She got Gus a gift???? She buys him books? Becca STOP or I will cry RIGHT NOW. Also I don't know if this was on purpose but you showed that they have a blend of all the love languages in this chapter!!! Words of affirmation (plenty, and really wonderful ones), physical touch (them dancing makes me smile EVERY. TIME.), quality time (every date described in this chapter is something I want to experience pls @universe), gift giving (Steven saying the keychain is more from Gus... who is the queen of characterisation? Oh yeah, YOU ARE) and acts of service (technically I'm thinking about Marc here the way he walks her home all the time but Steven was ready to swoop in the moment she cried and imo that counts). This is a consistent feature of your writing that I love: I can always tell WHY characters love each other. The words you have them say, the things you make them NOT say but show through the actions, not only is it believable but it's heart-warming. I fall in love with them falling in love with each other!!!! I get why they are attracted to each other!!! I can see the way they keep the love alive!!! Lovely lovely lovelylovelylovelylovely.

NOW AS FOR MY BOY MARC. Okay so one thing that I love is that the attack actually has mental consequences for Marc. In some TV shows these days I feel like traumatic things will happen but they're moved on from way too fast. But you maintained the guilt and how it would weigh on Marc so perfectly. Obviously no fic is obligated to be realistic but sometimes realism really helps a story and you letting the feeling of failure Marc would put on himself be realistic really pulled my heart strings just the right way. Also the way he starts opening up was also beautifully realistic. Steven nudges him, he sees the toll him avoiding the reader takes on her, he feels protective when he sees her crying, and slowly but surely he develops. It's the poetic cinema meme but make it fanfiction. I had to reeeeeally control myself bc I was again faced with the challenge of wanting to quote the entire fic back to you since I couldn't choose my favourite moment, but I just picked the part that stood out to me most in my latest reread: "“You didn’t go inside,” he says simply. “You aren’t home yet.”" GIRL. YOU ARE A PSYCHOLOGIST THE WAY YOU HAVE FOUND YOUR WAY INTO THIS FICTIONAL MAN’S BRAIN. Like it's such a perfect encapsulation of Marc. Driven by protectiveness and a sense of duty even as he deprives himself of the fruits of that protectiveness and duty. I can't even talk about the part where Marc comes to the performance it makes me so emotional. He's been into her the whole time. But he wanted to protect Steven. JUST STAB ME BECCA IT WOULD HURT LESS.

Also the thing about the cape being extended to make her a protective jacket that can take any form but weakens the suit???? Never in a million YEARS could I have come up w something like that. The creativity! The world building! The fact that not only do you have Steven and Marc's voices down, not only have you creater a consistent voice for the reader, you also got Konshu's voice down? It's giving talent, it's giving well-thought out storyline, it's giving A-list writer.

Last thing before I leave you? Love how the ending line is about how Marc looks at reader bc Oscar has such expressive eyes and I feel like I know EXACTLY which look you're talking about. Conclusion? I will never be normal about this fic. Gonna go make dinner and think about Marc going "That's my girl" now, good evening to you.

Hi! It's so interesting that your most reread part is Over the moon! And I'm very flattered that anytime you see Poe you think of Hard Landings! That's a special lil fic to me and I always wish I could write another longer fic for Poe but I've just never been able to finish anything. As always thank you for sending me such kind and detailed love <3

Like yes there's a lot of pining going on and it's sad how accurate it is to Marc's character he'd prevent himself from accepting love.

To me Marc is just such a burdened by love character. He loves so deeply about Layla and Steven that he's willing to sacrifice himself and their opinions of him for the sake of keeping them safe in his own ways. I'm glad this comes across in this fic and with this reader.

I ADORE the relationship between Steven and the reader. It's hard to pick a favourite part of their dynamic, but I think the reciprocity of their relationship ultimately takes the cake for me.

I so love this part of them too! Unlike Marc, Steven is so accepting of love. He loves to receive it and give it. But you're very right, Steven loves but he also respects and admires, even if its something he doesn't exactly get or understand, and the reader gives that right back to him.

In some TV shows these days I feel like traumatic things will happen but they're moved on from way too fast. But you maintained the guilt and how it would weigh on Marc so perfectly.

It wouldn't have felt true to Marc's character to just move on from something like that. He would dwell on it and think about it constantly being his fault it's really just part of who he is.

Like it's such a perfect encapsulation of Marc. Driven by protectiveness and a sense of duty even as he deprives himself of the fruits of that protectiveness and duty.

YES!! Yes, yes, yes. You get it. This is just who he is and I'm glad it came across in this fic.

It's giving talent, it's giving well-thought out storyline, it's giving A-list writer.

Stop, stop, stop!!!! I love you and I'm BLUSHING about this.

Once again, I'm so so so so beyond flattered you take the time to write all of this down and send it to me. I know I say it every time but you so deserve to hear it. <3

#bec talks #rant anon

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