#ive got a couple more character concepts for this story i might work on

[ooctlt]

I think the etiquette of ask blogs is a forgotten art. what I'm saying is (imo) it's not that people don't want to play, it is they don't know HOW, and more importantly they don't understand that the game exists to begin with. obviously you do not have to teach people the rules because your time and energy is finite but idk. it feels like from some of your OOC responses that you assume people know the rules and are playing badly, but I genuinely think people (me) just don't know what you are wanting them (us) to do. and also they (i) don't know how to tell if they (i) are playing the game correctly.

An example I am genuinely confused about is, is inciting a "shut up" answer a signal that the game is being played correctly, because we are inciting a reaction from the character? or is a "shut up" answer a signal that we are playing wrong and need to do something different? I'm sorry. I really love your art and seeing the story unfold but I'm confused and I want to play and I don't understand how.

yeah ive had a couple people tell me this has been the first active askblog in a while and the concept of askblog etiquette has been forgotten- @thatneoncrisis and i made a diagram:

link to full-res image

a "shut up" reaction will hopefully show whether or not it's a closed path of exploration: if you have gideon sweating, going "pshhh its nothinggg" it means there is something worth exploring. if you have harrow slamming the door in your face, that is an advance that wont work on her

transcript under the readmore:

DEAD END QUESTION ANON: CAMILLA DO YOU THINK HARROW'S HOT?

"Please stop talking to me."

This question is BAD because it's BLUNT, INCREDIBLY PERSONAL and founded on INCOMPLETE KNOWLEDGE of their relationship.

NOTE that its not that shitty questions will NEVER be answered, its that 1) they have a LOWER chance of being answered and 2) they have a HIGHER chance of being made fun of in character

gideon: haha who thinks harrow is HOT

DECENT INCONSEQUENTIAL QUESTION ANON: CAMILLA DO YOU LIKE TO DO ANYTHING FUN WITH HARROW?

"Sure. We run a lot of errands together."

This kind of question may not advance the plot, as it is INCREDIBLY BROAD yet NONINVASIVE. They're good for quick 1-3 panel answers. May generally be met with a less EXCITING answer.

It might also be DIFFICULT TO ANSWER because a broad question could include MULTIPLE ANSWERS - asking "do you guys go out" could not be answered SUSTAINABLY, because i cannot draw all the places they visit

ANON: EVERYONE, WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CLOUD / WATER / MOLECULAR STRUCTURE / BONE / CAR / COFFEE BRAND/ BOOK CHARACTER?

me: "i have to do so much research"

NEAT QUESTION CAMILLA HAS HARROW EVER ASKED YOU TO DO SOMETHING WITH HER SHE WAS EXCITED ABOUT?

"Yes, actually. She once invited me to [REDACTED], I didn't know she liked that sort of thing."

This question is SICK AS FUCK because not only do you learn something SUBSTANTIAL about the characters, you have stumbled upon A NEW PLOT BRANCH, one that actively deepens character connections and their past within the world. It specifically remarks upon a MEMORY* rather than AN OPINION and will typically be LONGER.

Another good option is to PROMPT something following this:

ANON: CAMILLA, MAYBE YOU SHOULD TRY TAKING HARROW OUT TO DO [REDACTED] THAT SHE LIKES BEFORE XYZ?

and this can then spiral onward…

*DM, ONE TIME I ASKED ABOUT A MEMORY AND I GOT A RUDE ANSWER; WHAT DID I DO WRONG?

It's not that this topic can never be spoken about, it's about WHEN you asked it and HOW you said it, or even WHO you asked.

Some topics, like the nature of HARROW AND GIDEON'S UPBRINGING are too recent for them to talk about, it has only been TWO YEARS since they left and there are SPECIFICS about the situation that the AUDIENCE hasn't discovered yet. There are things like GIDEON'S PARENTS that she CANNOT answer because she DOESN'T KNOW and answering multiple asks with I DON'T KNOW becomes repetitive and dull for both the DM and PLAYER.

BUT! She can learn! Over time, when the time is appropriate and feels the most natural for STORY PROGESSION. Think of it like a BAD ENDING in a visual novel. You START OVER and ask a DIFFERENT QUESTION, or approach it from a DIFFERENT ANGLE. If Gideon reacts poorly to someone congratulating her leaving BAD CIRCUMSTANCES, consider talking to her about the FUTURE. Instead of trying to pry at Camilla to see if she had an INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP with Pyrrha, try to ask about other things in that period of her life, like how they met or what caused her to move out.

FINALLY, if you'd like an ask to be answered out of character, your best bet would be to goto @notedchampagne and send it there. If you'd like an ask to be answered SINCERELY or you don't want SNARK, you can specify this in the ask, but know this blog may not be your thing.

#actual ooc

[ottoslab]

not to be extremely predictable abt the characters i ask abt but do you imagine any of the p7 are still around during or right before the future au? i know they are. Old. but i always am fond of the concept of like the old folks helping out at the camp after pn2.

Im always so very tossed up about how and If the p7 are still around during the aac timeline . But for the sake of “it would be funny if,” I will simply say they Are. (And ramble more about the thoughts ive had about a couple that might Not be and Why under a cut bc its kind of depressing)

Otto will never die and will never leave the Motherlobe much to Hollis and Truman’s dismay. The older he gets the more powerful he gets. He continues to contribute, arguably with increasing efficiency, but as each year passes he gets less and less concerned about getting caught doing things outside of the parameters of Psychonauts rules. “What are you gonna do? Fire me? Lmao” *goes back to working on his death beam that he just made because it was funny.*

I have this hc that at some point Sam makes it her mission to renovate the Lumberstack Diner as the Questionable Area? becomes more profitable over the years. And i think Compton working as a cook there would be a nice little job for him to have while in retirement. Cooking is like the one type of stress he can handle i think. Hes so so scared but in the comfort of something familiar so its less likely to cause him to start blowing things up.

Bob and Helmut deserve a nice little retirement home and I think theyre the primary residents of the Gulch (next to maybe Cassie and Compton?) They supervise (re: sometimes run into and chat with) Raz and his team who have basically taken up their own residence in the Gulch. Perks of being teammates with agent Aquato and Zanotto is that you dont have to resort to dormitories.

I’m not sure what’s up with Cassie! I don’t think she’s doing much either, probably also sticking around the Gulch. Though i think through the support of the others she at least gets Slightly more involved with the Psychonauts or going out into towns to do book signings so that she doesn’t become a complete and total recluse again.

I think Ford and Lucy are out traveling a lot while they’ve still got the time to. Making up for a whole lotta lost time n all that, giving each other time to talk and jazz. They’re not around a lot but they visit often!

Ok. And a very specific less sweet outcome for Ford and Lucy under the cut

When i run through which characters it would be like. Narratively “Best” to have passed away around the AAC timeline, my mind always immediately jumps to these two. Like obviously I think some characters would be more likely to have died before them (looking at you my friend Bob) or ones that could be more impactful in other directions (Cassie and Compton having to learn to exist without one another) but considering their last narrative experiences in Pn2 was finding each other again for the first time in years, it feels like any of those four (Bob, Helmut, Cassie, Compton) passing away would just be a disservice to prior storytelling. And Otto will never die, as I’ve said, so don’t even worry about him <3

I just think a lot about a story in which Ford and Lucy pass on before Raz can ever really reconcile any of his issues he had with either of them. A story in which he’s happy to see them getting along and traveling together, but every time they leave he holds his breath and counts down the days until they make it back and he can guarantee they’re still alive and he goes “This time, this time I’ll say something,” and then he doesn’t because how do you even bring up that conversation after all this time.

And then eventually they pass and it’s almost poetic, really, going at around the same time. But he never got to say anything to them, never got to reconcile and barely got a goodbye. And now he has to learn how to deal with that. How to deal with the fact that they’re still everywhere, in True Psychic Tales issues, on murals, on old pictures, inherently buried in the history of the psychonauts.

And i dont know. I think it’s an interesting story to explore. In a hypothetical real Psychonauts future story, you enter the story with some characters trying to question Raz about something theyre worried about that he always cuts off or dodges before you get to hear, but the lack of any mention of Ford or Lucy is so absent that it’s palpable. Stuff like that.

#psychonauts #agent aquato and co au #death mention tw #asks :0]

[liketwoswansinbalance]

MASTERPOST for The One True School Master of Vault 41

This is a continually updating table of contents to help with navigating my posts about TOTSMOV41, my WIP longfic.

The fic's premise: Sophie joins forces with a resurrected, former lover in the midst of trying to get Tedros back onto Camelot's throne, but that's not even half the uphill battle: rogue psyches and distrust abound and threaten to shatter the present state of the Woods as everyone knows it.

or

In which Rafal is resurrected during the events of One True King and things go horribly, disproportionately wrong!

Also, the fic will not be published for a very long time, so don't expect to see it anytime soon. I'm still on draft zero/the outline/script.

⸻

—Table of Contents—

Title reveal and associated music

Round I of Excerpts

Apparently, the tag "otk" is banned from tumblr.

The misleading trope hint

Round II Excerpt

Visual ref. 1

Facts about the fic

Reblog #1

Aesthetic for one of the first scenes (and flower trivia in the comments)

A Peek at My Outline Process

Reblog #2, dialogue, and reference to suicide

Round III of Excerpts

Sketch - Rafal got punched in the face.

Screenshots of my Pinterest board for the fic

Update, more facts about the fic, and its references to philosophic concepts

Round IV Excerpt

Cover Reveal

Reblog #3

Reblog #4

Reblog #5

Hypothetical Non-Excerpt

The Recurring Japeth Punchline

Reblog #6

Reblog #7

Three "Fun" (Incongruous) Facts

Thanatos drive reference mentioned

Reblog #8

Reblog #9

Reblog #10

Ask containing minor fic trivia

Update and Round V of Excerpts

Which wizard is this? (a.k.a. The Tedros Insanity Poll)

Reblog #11

Reblog #12

Reblog #13 and Fic Tags

Round VI Excerpt

The Suffering Scale

Word Ask Game

Word Ask #1

Word Ask #2

Word Ask #3

Results of the Tedros Poll

Round VII of Excerpts

Guess the Last Verb/Noun

Minor Spoilers

Reblog #14

Reblog #15

Reblog #16

Visual ref. 2

—The Story— [Links TBA after publication.]

Part I: Of Solipsism, Sophistry, and Storians.

Part II: Great Mistake II, Great Mistake III, and Verisimilitude

Part III: Phantoms, Prescience, and the Pen

Deleted Scene

Meta post

Fic Analysis, Commentary & Trivia

Propaganda

⸻

Need-to-Knows (a.k.a How I'm meddling with canon):

This fic will involve Rafal being resurrected, and lead up to an alternate continuity of plot events, all set during One True King. Thus, its title will be: The One True School Master of Vault 41. However, the title may or may not be a bit of a misnomer, so I might just end up subverting your expectations after all.

There will be a form of "psyche travel," or an approximation of time travel, using Dovey's crystal ball like in ACOT, the arson of a certain Wizard Tree to look forward to, and some offbeat, unprecedented action taken by the Storian. Of course, Agatha and Rafal will bicker a lot while Sophie plays the role of mediator. And, oh, Rafal will be tortured, slightly…

Additionally, there's a couple things to note about the premise and the changes I've made to canon, for context:

1. The fic will disregard Fall as canon, yet will acknowledge Rise.

2. There are several canon elements I'm not using. The Rafal is the fic is him from Rise, and also from TLEA. I decided to only acknowledge Rise but not Fall because I didn't want to work with the identity-swap twist. So Rafal is Rafal is Rafal in this case. I will draw from both his Rise characterization and his TLEA characterization.

3. Later in the fic, Rise Rhian only has minor appearances, and is present in Rafal's psyche, but he will not actually be a character until I write a possible sequel, if I ever do reach that point. So, you can assume Rhian was moderately Good to grey on the morality scale, and that Rafal was the one who ultimately committed the fratricide for the purposes of this fic.

4. I've decided not to acknowledge the OTK parentage twist. To clarify, Rafal will have no relation to Japeth, simply because it felt out of character for him to have children with a woman he seemed to loathe, even if it may have been less out of character for the canon Rhian falsely disguised as "Rafal." I personally thought it contradicted Rafal's characterization, so Japeth's placeholder father, who probably won't even be mentioned in the story, will be the Green Knight, to explain his magical prowess as the Snake.

Otherwise, for the most part, this fic is alternate continuity "canon," and diverges at some point during OTK.

I've tried to set the stage, eradicate confusion, and mediate potential disappointment as best as I could above, but if anyone would like me to demystify anything about the fic, my writing process, or ask anything else at all, feel free to send questions to me! Yet, I might not be able to answer everything, for various reasons, including limiting excessive spoilers, so please keep that in mind.

#school for good and evil #rise of the school for good and evil #sophie of woods beyond #agatha of woods beyond #rafal #rafal mistral #sge #sfgae #the school for good and evil #tsfgae #rotsge #rotsfgae #one true king #japeth #japeth sader-mistral #japeth of foxwood #tedros #tedros of camelot #sophie x rafal #rafal x sophie #raphie #rophie #sofal #safal #my post #my fics #the one true school master of vault 41 #totsmov41

[angelkissedface]

a character concept ive been meaning to do for a while! pop is a demon hunter who magically tethered his guardian angel, rathanael, to himself to use as a weapon.

#art #2020 #oc: pop #oc: rathanael #i was gonna draw more om! stuff but i had no ideas so i thought it would be a welcome break to do a big draw for Not that #their dynamic is 'this situation is dumb but we have no choice but to get along and learn about each other #because the tether between us hurts us if we move too far apart so we're stuck together' #pop ofc doesnt mind that aspect since its his fault but rath just wants to go HOME before he turns into a demon in the absence of his peers #they share the same universe as zach and chamuel #ive got a couple more character concepts for this story i might work on #original character #oc #my oc

[jemmo]

Habe you seen any of P'Aofs other works? I'm still quite new to BL so I wonder if he's just that good or if Ohm and Nanon make most of the greatness of Bad Buddy? I mean obviously they play a big part but with a shitty script even fantastic actors couldn't do much. 😳

hello dear anon!!

and yes, i've seen a lot of p'aofs works. from what i remember, his most notable series have been he's coming to me, dark blue kiss, still 2gether and atots. and they have all been very good in my opinion. i wasn't much of a fan of 2gether, but i dont know what p'aof did when he picked up those follow up eps but to me they were a big improvement, so he must have some kind of magic up his sleeve.

and as for all the others, i couldn't recommend them enough. to me, dark blue kiss is one of the best handlings of an established relationship in a BL ive ever seen. it might be a tad overdramatic and have its own shortcomings, and yes it is centred around jealousy which isnt always my fave, but i do honestly understand where both the characters are coming from. there are reasons for both of their actions and how they behave and i really appreciate that. plus tay and new do have great chemistry and i like their dynamic, but thats just bc i love when they bicker like an old married couple. and lets not forget mork and sun who literally invented side couple syndrome. i think they stole everyone's hearts, their storyline and dynamic was just so good and i so wanted to see more of them.

atots is atots. i feel like its already legendary even tho it only aired last year. such a refreshing storyline and setting. both characters felt so fleshed out and whole as people. and i love that, besides the romance which was amazing, you got to see how both characters went on journeys as individual people. i cry at a lot of things and there's a lot of things to cry at in atots, but what got to me the most was the scene where tian has to leave the village. let me tell you, if you love the found family trope and want to see a young man find true fulfilment and happiness in his life, watch this show.

and last but definitely DEFINATELY not least, he's coming to me. this show THIS SHOW. if the rest of my reply is trying to convey to you that p'aof really is just that good, this is where i say that if you pair p'aof with seasoned, talented actors as we did with bad buddy, you get a masterpiece. bc p'aof, working with singto and ohm in this show must've been a match made in heaven bc this show is amazing. for such an out there and kinda ridiculous concept, it somehow delivers. nothing about it feels like a joke. they took a story about falling in love with a ghost and made me actually care. not once while watching was i thinking in my head 'this is stupid and pointless bc this would never happen' bc i was too invested in the journeys these characters were having, of learning to move on and learning to be and accept yourself. and yes singto was amazing, but for me ohm stole the show. watching this series was what made me watch bad buddy, bc i just needed to see more of ohm acting. his portrayal in the series is legit faultless to me. at such a young age as well he gave me everything. the innocence and pure joy of someone so young and naive to the world, the sheer amount of empathy and care he had for mes, gosh i dont even know what else to say without crying he just carried this show. and i can see why it created such a strong bond between him and p'aof.

but bad buddy really and truly knocked it out of the park. and from what i can see, that is ohm and nanon. bc p'aof has brought magic to everything he's done but this is another level. bc to me, p'aof is great at everything he does and can do, scripting and directing and helping actors with characters etc, but where these other series dont compare to bad buddy is in the chemistry. ohm and nanon have the ability to act so naturally together and thats not something p'aof can create himself. sure, he can help a lot, but that chemistry comes from their close bond, their understanding of themselves and each other and their talent and passion as actors. its just a dream team the three of them. and i so hope that gmmtv will let p'aof run wild with experienced and talented actors again so we keep getting more masterpieces like bad buddy. bc there's no hiding now, we know they can do it, we know they have all they need, so just be brave gmmtv. let p'aof work his magic.

#bad buddy #aof noppharnach #sos for the rant but i could go on more believe me #i could write for days about these shows esp hes coming to me #and i could go on and on about the genius of p'aof #bc he really cares about what hes making #he doesnt see bl as a cash grab or pandering to an audience #he knows that just like everyone else we want a good story and good characters and good cinematography and theming and sets and sound #but we just want it to be gay too #and as a gay man i think he sees the opportunity that bl gives #to deliver good queer media #and for that i love him #made by jemmo

[peachcitt]

Hi! You've mentioned on Discord that you read a lot of books, and I was wondering if you could rec some? Either your favourites, or ones that had a big impact on you/your writing 🥺

yes!!! all my favorite books generally affect my writing style, and often after ive finished reading a really good book, i'll write something and end up emulating that book's style (either on accident or on purpose haha). sometimes on my ao3 you'll find in my author's notes me saying what book i just finished, and if you read or know those books, you'll probably see me mimicking certain aspects of style

for other reccommendations/more in depth descriptions of book plots, i also have a reading list that i posted this past winter on my writing blog that you can check out, and im planning on posting another one at the end of the summer!! (in fact ive already started the list lmao)

the list will be structured as follows: book or series name, author, and a couple reasons why i like it. in addition to this, i will put stars by author's names if i have read other books by them and greatly enjoyed them.

without further ado:

The Grishaverse by Leigh Bardugo*

this has got to be my favorite series of all time. i love bardugo's capability to write complex characters and complicated plots, and i really like the way she structures her books. the series is just so artfully done and when i finished it i was so perfectly satisfied and so perfectly sad because i mourned the fact that it was over

I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak*

literally my favorite book. this is the book i tell people is my favorite if anyone asks. i love zusak's casual humor alongside his ability to write such heartbreaking and heavy moments in just little scraps of images. it's a romantic book without being about romance - it's about love and kindness and how powerful those things can be be, and that shit gets me every time. i have reread this book so many times - yearly since i got it, i think, and i got in middle school, i think. im in college now. and every time i reread it, i get something different out of it

The Chaos Walking Trilogy by Patrick Ness*

i think about these books constantly. these were the first books i read by patrick ness, and, now that ive read some of his other books, i know in classic patrick ness fashion, these books haunt me. patrick ness has this uncanny ability to take genres you think you know and twist and warp them until you're on the edge of your seat trying to figure out what will happen next without the safety net of genre supporting the story. in addition to that, his characters are always wonderfully flawed - he puts real people into fantastical situations, and it's fascinating and always an emotional and satisfying read

The Alex Crow by Andrew Smith*

dude i think about the alex crow so much. i said i normally call i am in the messenger my favorite book, but every so often i'll say this one is because i just love it so much. the alex crow is just so bafflingly weird but the teenage boy main characters are so real and gross and hilarious. andrew smith has the amazing knack for writing weird as hell plot lines and telling stories that are about everything, all at once, while still making it about one thing. that doesn't make sense, but if you read the alex crow (or his other book i've read called Grasshopper Jungle that is actually on my summer list) then you will know what i mean. the alex crow is so many things, and i love all of them

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson*

i used to read a lot of ya romance and, to be honest, the stuff i used to read was not all great, but this book absolutely changed the game and probably made me raise my standards exponentially. the timeline of this book is so creative, and it's done in such a way that it leaves you wondering how the timelines will reconcile. in addition to this, both romances in the book are so interesting and loveable, and the relationship between the two main characters (who are twins) is an amazing thing to see unfold. this is a peak ya romance book, and i can't recommend it enough

Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven*

another ya romance, and i have to say the romance in this book is so beautifully done. generally, this is just a really sweet book that gave me butterflies, to be quite honest. i think niven has a really good knack for writing characters that are diverse and a little strange but all have their own distinct personalities that mingle really interestingly with each other.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe By Benjamin Alire Sáenz

this one is an obvious choice, and for good reason. aristotle and dante is just a classic queer novel, and it's earned its place as such. it's a poetic sort of book, and i love the voices of the characters, as well as the pictures of the world we get through ari's voice. this is a visual book written in text - i think a lot about the steady, careful romance of the book and the way sáenz makes ari an unreliable narrator by artfully excluding his feelings from scene descriptions and dialogue tags. it's such a creative and heartbreaking technique that i often find myself wanting to do

The Leviathan Trilogy by Scott Westerfeld

oooohh this trilogy changed me. for starters its such a weird, creative concept - alternate history steampunk and biopunk world war I. like doesn't that sound so interesting?? and this trilogy's main characters are so easy to love - and watching their relationship unfold and develop is so endearing. also, my copies include these wonderful illustrations (which i think might be in all copies?) that really let you put images to the weird fantastical things westerfeld included into the world.

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

this book was actually on my winter book list, and i read it so fast and so obsessively because i wanted so badly to know what was going to happen. the plot absolutely pulled me in, and the first line - "I forgot everything between footsteps" - stuck with me because just look at the way that's written!! it's so artful and intriguing, i was just dying to know what would happen next. the timeline is this amazing maze that as i read i couldn't help but admire how long or how much turton had to plan in order to make everything line up in just the right way. it was a fascinating book with so much to say - im really looking forward to reading it again

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

this book was also on my winter book list, and it just absolutely enraptured me. its witty, quiet sort of voice was amazing to read, and the imagery instilled into every scene made it seem like everything was so real, just right there for me to touch or smell or taste. the plot of a secret huge magic library really roped me in, and i think this is a love story for people who read, people who love stories, people who love the magic of a library.

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero*

cantero's works are just so creatively written - not just by plot or character standards, but by style standards, too. meddling kids is great not just for its complex, loveable characters or for its fantastical, dark, and mysterious plot, but also for the weird and intriguing liberties cantero makes with style. in his other books, too, is the switch between snarkily written prose to stage directions to video or audio transcripts, and it makes for such a visual sort of book - i mean, i could easily see any of cantero's books being made into a film or series because all the material is right there. cantero's creativity with style is so intriguing to me, and because of him, i've become more familiar with playing around in style in an attempt to create something as interesting as his novels

and that's all i'll put down here now!

i mentioned it a little, but probably my biggest style references are leigh bardugo, markus zusak, edgar cantero, and andrew smith for various reasons that i am more than willing to talk more in depth about if anyone is wondering<3

thank you for asking im always willing to talk books :')

#ask #miabrown007 #book rec list #book recs #long post #I ALWAYS TALK SO MUCH WHEN IT COMES TO BOOKS IM SO SORRY #someone: what are you favorite books? / me (vibrating at the speed of sound): #anyway if anyone is truly curious about my style references just send me an ask and i will answer!

[softtofustew]

an odyssey | afterword

rating: T

pairing: Hwang Hyunjin/Han Jisung

summary: Somewhere in the galaxy of the Stella Primum, Lieutenant Han is the best fighter on his team, a real ace shooter, with five gold stars to show. Too bad Second Lieutenant Hwang is not only great at battling the Ordinem, he’s also got disgustingly perfect looks to match, and now Jisung’s stuck in the same spaceship with him for possibly the most impossible task of their lives. Or the one where a rivalry is brewed across the skies and stars, until Jisung realises what there is to flying beside Hyunjin on a mission to save the galaxy.

if you haven’t read it yet, read here.

this is an afterword to ‘an odyssey’, where i write about the origin of the story, the characters, and my struggles of writing :’)

(i) The Origin

I’ve had this work in my WIPs since, believe it or not, January of this year. I’ve had this idea for so, so long. I wrote it intermittently throughout this year, with a scene or two in September, then October. 

Due to my exams, though, I couldn’t write as much as I wanted to. That’s why I only really started writing ‘an odyssey’ back in mid-November. The good thing was that I had more time to plan this out, because frankly, this is perhaps the heaviest fic I’ve written in terms of plot so far. 

I can’t for the life of me remember where this story idea planted itself in my head. All I knew was that I like space AUs, I adore Hyunjin and Jisung’s friendship, and I love enemies to lovers. Realising there weren’t any fics out there that combined the three, I knew it was my time to shine. Or something. 

(ii) The Plot

The plot was the trickiest to pull off. I’ve written an urban fantasy here and there, but I’m pretty sure if I reread them thoroughly, I’m bound to find a couple of plot holes. 

There were a lot of elements to cover: the Prophecy. The five gems. The push-pull relationship between Jisung and Hyunjin. The journey to discovering the whereabouts of the last Gemma. The last boss fight with a Governor who could wield the Force. There was!!!! So!!!! Much!!!! Going!!!! On!!!!!

Perhaps if I reread ‘an odyssey’, I might find another plot hole or two; who knows? For now, though, I feel quite contented with this work of mine. Considering it’s my first time writing something as long as this (50K+ are you kidding me?), I feel this is a first step for me to continue expanding my horizons when it comes to writing, to continue to challenge myself to write something different, something bold. Something new.

(iii) The Characters

I rewatched the Two Kids Room and One Kid Room episodes so many times, over and over again. There’s a reason why this story is centred around Jisung and Hyunjin, and why it’s written from Jisung’s perspective.

Their relationship is, after all, something coherently interesting. They really said “enemies to friends but make it irl”. I guess I took that concept and sort of exaggerated the extent of their ‘hate’ for each other, which isn’t exactly hate to begin with. The further you read on, the more you’ll realise that they don’t exactly hate each other — they just got off on the wrong footing, and have never tried turning back to start over once more.

It’s written from Jisung’s perspective because personally, I wanted the story to be told from the eyes of someone who was prideful, who was eager and determined, and who wanted to show his worth to everyone else. I feel like perhaps I didn’t expand on characterising Jisung to the fullest advantage possible, though, which remains a slight regret of mine. 

Another reason why I wanted this to be written from Jisung’s POV is because we can find out how Jisung feels about Hyunjin throughout the story. When he realises whose son Hyunjin is, he’s torn between wanting to pity Hyunjin and keeping things between them the same as they always have. (If I were in his position, though, I don’t know what I would have done lol.) It was hard to try and interpret his emotions, but there’s that.

Someone commented once asking if we’d ever get Hyunjin’s POV. Sadly, one of my biggest turn-offs is the switching of POVs in stories when it’s not entirely necessary haha. As much as I would want to know what Hyunjin is thinking when they’re arguing, or when they’re fighting, I like to keep on the suspension line. It gives you the feeling of immersing yourself as the Jisung in the story, of only seeing things from one perspective. 

As for the other characters, there wasn’t enough time to expand on all of them (for example, I mentioned Seungmin several times throughout the story, but really, he speaks only once haha). And as your fellow StayDay, it was definitely fun for me to include a few members of Day6. (please don’t ask me why I thought of ‘PJ and Honey’ while writing. I was probably hungry.)

I don’t know if I’ll continue to expand on the characters in this same universe, but it would be fun to think of the other relationships, for example Chan and Felix, or Changbin with Minho and Seungmin. (someone please save the seungbinho tag!!!!!!)

As far as characterisation goes, I’ve still got so much to learn. For now, though, I hope you enjoyed the dynamics between the characters and how Jisung and Hyunjin learnt to grow within a span of six chapters.

(iv) The Writing Process

Granted, the writing bit was a little easier in the beginning, but as I delved myself deeper into the story, I found it harder and harder to express the emotions I wanted to deliver in the story. One of the hardest chapters for me to write by far was the last chapter. I wrote two versions of the last chapter, simply because I felt the first version was too lacklustre for the ending of such a long story haha.

I had a clear outline of my story, but I did end up extending it from the initial 5 chapters to 6. For the first time, though, I didn’t add any random elements to the story, unlike how i wrote this story last year haha. The lesson I’ve learnt is that I should ALWAYS have a brief outline of the plot — detailed enough to cover the entire story, but brief enough to give me some creative freedom mid-writing.

The excitement of writing honestly wore off near the last few chapters. I’ve realised the importance of reading unfinished works in this way. Writers really need some form of motivation to keep them writing their chaptered works. So if you’re one of the real ones who started reading this even before it was completed, kudos to you. I really appreciate it.

Overall, writing this was fun. Hopefully I don’t need to do this again though; I absolutely hate writing chaptered fics because of all the time and effort put into them. I’d much rather be a ‘One-Shot Hotshot’ lol.

(v) The End (?)

I left a bit of wondering for the readers in the last chapter. If Atkins was able to wield the Force despite the false pretence that there was no longer any Force-wielders left in the universe, how many more of them could there be? 

That leaves an opening for me if I ever wish to return to this alternate universe sometime in the future. The Universe is ever-expanding, and so is our imagination.

(vi) The Inspiration

Obviously, I need to thank Star Wars. I also need to apologise because I absolutely butchered their universe. Fun fact: there was one huge plot hole I had to cover up halfway through writing. 

If you’re observant, you might remember the scene where Hyunjin asks Jisung why they didn’t just jump into hyperspace to reach Ilsanis. That’s because I was watching an episode of The Mandalorian where the Mando was forced to fly a ship without a hyperdrive engine, and I almost freaked out right there in the middle of the living room realising how weird that would be if I left the issue unattended in my own work (yikes). 

Long story short, I drew elements from the Star Wars universe and created a story of my own. I’ve been asked how I came up with the idea of the Prophecy. Frankly, I don’t know. My brain farts sometimes, I guess. Brain Farts = weird ideas that somehow make sense sometimes.

(vii) Lastly

If you have any more questions you’d like to ask (or plot holes to tell me about *shudders*), do leave me a question in my CC, or holler at me on Twitter (I’m hardly alive here on Tumblr haha). To anyone and everyone who has read ‘an odyssey’, I thank you.

This year has been a funky year, and even worse, it’s the year I had to take my IGCSEs. Writing has always been a way for me to create my own universe and release my tension and emotions, so not being able to write as much as I used to was a little tough. 

Writing will continue to be a medium for me to express my emotions and my thoughts while creating stories of my own, so simply by giving my fics a read, you’ve already fuelled my reason to continue to write. Thank you for all the support in ‘an odyssey’! 

(why did i write this entire monologue like i’m giving a speech at the Oscars or something lol im so dramatic :”))

#mycommentary

[dear-yandere]

—ask collection!

a collection of mostly very old chats and sweet asks that i never got around to answering! thanks for the patience and love!! 

beware, fairly long post... woops....

chat asks.

darling: Eu-jin is best boy. Change my mind.

vanya: i am physically incapable of fulfilling that request, how dare you do that to me... i’m biased since he’s my own oc, but i would die for my (very best) boy eu-jin... who can resist such a gentle yandere that loves you so whole-heartedly?

that reminds me! he’s actually based off of kuroyuki and gekkamaru from the otome nightshade, so if you want similar characters by any chance, do check them and the game out ♡

darling: I was watching the dub for Part 5 of JoJo's Bizarre adventure yesterday...Mista called himself Daddy and I like- sdfghjfgsdhnhnmj!! My heart can't take this--

vanya: WAIT HE DID???? i’m not even big on daddy kink and reading that made me go 😳 this is vital information to know... what episode was this??? for research purposes, of course. gotta perfect my yan! mista, after all~...

darling: for yandere songs, have you heard of the major to minor covers by chase holfelder :O? the way he delivers the lyrics in some songs (betty, all i want for christmas), added with the key changes to minor, is really fantastic, and gives a stalker-ish vibe imo! and he's a really good singer in general

vanya: i have!! a good chunk of them are actually on my personal yandere playlist, so i end up hearing them frequently when i’m writing!! i haven’t been keeping up with his uploads recently, so ‘betty’ is completely new to me and just, wow???????????? this man is an absolute god send for us “romantic” horror fans... ♡

this ask gave me such a lovely idea, though, darling: assigning yandere types/mbti based off each of chase’s minor key covers. i think i’ll do that just for you. ♡

darling @blossomiich​: I reread some of your old character interaction asks and saw the one with Jotaro hugging his Darling after a panic attack and the elephant seal plush reminded me of the iconic C H O N K Y ringed seal plushie that was kinda trending and I can totally imagine Jotaro having one of those >w< that's so adorable!

vanya: i honestly don’t remember that interaction, but then again i don’t remember most things hmghng so i looked it up and

j...just imagine star plat hogging it and not letting joot cuddle with it 🥺 the duality of man...thank you for this cute image...

darling: Umm, sorry for asking this. I'm just curious because of your bio language in your header. Are you Chinese too, perhaps?

vanya: no worries!! i’m mixed guyanese (indian, chinese, & possibly black and/or portuguese), but my family only celebrates (or rather, acknowledges?) our indian descent, since the majority of our family is predominantly east indian. 

my header is actually a quote from a danmei novel (and one of my all-time favorite fandoms), tiān guān cì fú (heaven’s official blessing)!

darling genki stan anon: Omg you're writing for free now, i didn't expect that one lol. It's a cute show innit? Not a nagi stan but I feel like nagisa has that kinda unsnapped personality that would make him peak delusional yandere material lolol like oikawa but less threatening and without his head being up his own ass 😂. Hope you're doing well!! -gsa

Gdjsjs im such a fool, i think my last ask said something about not thinking you'd write for free when i literally just pointed out kisumi on your sideblog LMAO my bad 😅 😂 also ill hold back on the gen chan requests because ive already asked so many in the past! Thank you though 🥺. Also feel free not to post this, it can just dip into my onesided chats with my lil flower 💐 so long as you receive them im fine 😌 -genki stan anon

vanya: nagisa isn’t my favorite (kisumi is), but gods if he wouldn’t make a great yandere. honestly, out of the iwatobi boys, nagi is probably the most unhinged. i wouldn’t peg him as delusional, at least not at first; i think he’s very lucid and knows exactly what he wants and how to manipulate people in order to get it!!! kisumi is fairly similar now that i think about it... i might... have a type...

please feel free to send in gen-chan requests whenever you want!!!! i’m kinda super asocial, so it’ll take me a while to answer, but i love getting asks from you since you’re so sweet and excitable!!! your little flower reads and cherishes them all!! 🥺

also darling genki stan anon: Sorry for spamming you with asks hdjkdks, u dont even need to reply im just kinda brain empty venting here whether you recieve them or not 😂 i just needed to confess that while yes i am #1 gen simp, and he is undoubtedly my fave oc of yours but that Ilya tentacle smut had me very much so highkey kinda 👀, had to re read the genki oral style drabble to bring my head back. He dont even need to worry about luca bc that man a thot. I think therin is a thot too but like lowkey, a classy thót -gsa

vanya: omg i’ve kept this one for forever mnmghngh i might’ve even answered at some other point, now that i think about it... but i just 🥺 gosh i hope i find my muse soon, because i really wanna write you a genki fic 🥺 hhhh

the ilya tentacle smut was so in character for that boy... i have no clue how to write monsters, much less tentacles, but i’d honestly do anything for him 🙏 kinky russian boy...

therin is definitely a classy thot, the kind that only bangs the finest concubines then turns around and slut shames you for banging the very same prostitutes gbfmngnfg rules don’t apply to him, in his kingdom...wish that were me tbh ✊😔

sweet asks.

darling one: i've read almost all of your dazai and chuuya fics and i love them so much!! your formatting is also super aesthetic just a question, i saw on your kofi that you also draw so i was wondering if you drew all the header arts?? bc they're all super pretty :) have a great day!

darling two: Just wanted to say love the writing and the way your format your posts is so aesthetically pleasing. One day I hope my posts looks half as good as yours because I legit can't get over how pretty and organized it looks.

vanya: omg thank you so much!!!! one of my bffs, yue, is to thank for the formatting and aesthetic choices, really! if you wanna see more of her aesthetic formats and posts, she actually runs a few blogs! you may know her as @milkscafe​, formally @milkaaton! i adore her and her aes choices so much 🥺

as for the headers, i don’t draw 99.98% of them! i have drawn a couple, but they’re so few and far in between since i almost never finish my art wips haha... my older posts are lacking proper credits because i’m an absolute idiot, but i’m slowly working my way backwards to credit them all where possible! they’re all indeed super pretty!!!

have a great day yourself, my love!!

darling: THEY’RE NOT BAD CONTENT, I LOVE THEM ALL

vanya: this was in response to a now-deleted lil blurb but i kept it in my inbox because i wanted to say i love u very much and seeing this ask each time i open my inbox makes my heart skip a beat ♡

darling: Listen I love your writing, you inspired me to start it myself! I've always loved to write, and read of course but your style and concepts just stick with me. If you where to write something besides Yandere content/fandom content and started your own series? I would read the shit, out of it. I'm always nervous to interact with my favorite writers because you know, I'm afraid of the impression I'd leave but I just wanted to say this anyway! 💞💞💞🔫😳

vanya: wowowow fgfnmgnfmngfg that’s such a high compliment my brain just gmfnbgmnf go boom fogjfngnfg and thank you for the interaction, us writers truly appreciate it no matter how awkward or nervous you think you may be / come off!!!

darling one: As a writer, your post struck a nerve with me. I don’t send feedback to writers I like nearly as much as I should (and certainly not as much as I’d like in return as a writer). So, as such, I’m going to start doing that when I can, starting with you.

You are an incredible writer. You were one of the first yandere writing blogs I found and you’re still one I check in on regularly to see what you have been working on. You can portray a sense of suspense and intrigue in a natural way that many other writers - published ones included - struggle with. You delve into the darkness without it feeling forced, and you have an amazing grasp on the psyches of the characters you write for (which is a quality I adore in writing and strive toward myself).

I’m not great at ending these things so I guess.. you keep doing you? Because the you is great and I appreciate it.

darling two:  hey. i'm here to tell you that from the bottom of my heart i love you and your writings. i really admire your writing skills. you inspire me. one of your posts once saved me from a nervous breakdown. thank you for everything you do. you're a wonderful person. good luck!

darling three: I wanted to tell you that thank you for writing such wonderful beautiful writings and that you take time to edit and write I hope you are taking care of yourself 💖❤

darling four: Thanks. I was having a hard time and deleted all my apps, but as soon as i opened my phone my first instinct was to look at your blog and i got my motivation back. Thanks (:

darling five: Hi ! I just wanted to say I really enjoy the stories you write and how they are detailed so well ! Stay safe and I hope you have a good day/night ! ლ(╹◡╹ლ)

vanya: ahhhh, these are very old asks mostly dating back to my “tumblr writing community is dying” post, and i’ve kept them this entire time because i’m just so starstruck. i have no clue how to reply to compliments, so i’m not sure what else to say besides that these asks made me very happy and got me through a few insecure moments!!! i’ve actually been feeling a little down about my writing recently, mostly because of lack of motivation / inspiration, so revisiting these really warmed my heart, so thank you truly ♡ i’m certainly keeping the originals in my inbox until the end of time!!

darling @monstrously-obsessed: psst, this local cryptic mom thing send all of their love for you 💕

vanya: your local herbo says she loves you very much momster 🥺 mwah

also, to the anon worried about my safety:

thank you so much for pointing that out!!! it hadn’t even crossed my mind when i made those ocs, so i appreciate your concern! i was contemplating revamping those two as is, so this is a great place to start! thank you again!!

#asks collection #not a fic #vanya rambles #[ vanya LITERALLY rambles ] #[ life's hard when you're this asocial i swear fgmnfgnmfg ] #[ now to answer concept asks ]

[titusmoody]

It’s the end of the first quarter of 2021. Here’s a brief review of the things I watched/played/read.

Games

Donut County- pretty charming, very easy, fairly satisfying to play. I’d recommend Untitled Goose Game over this, though.

Heaven’s Vault- If you only have room in your life for one space archaeology game, play Outer Wilds instead. However, you get to translate alien writings yourself (in a simplified game way) in this one, so I’d recommend both. 

Donkey Kong Country 3 103%- so many fun level mechanics in this one. The difficulty of finding and completing everything in the game was spot-on for me.

Donkey Kong Country 2 102%- Each level mechanic in this one is explored and used in far more interesting ways than DKC3, though I honestly had more fun with 3 this time around. This one is the “dark, edgy” one aesthetically which is extremely dumb. Also, there was a lot of guesswork involved in finding some of the hidden stuff, which I didn’t enjoy.

The Room 4- I like escape room games. This one was good. It continued 3′s trend of trying to shake up the format a little, which is fine (better here than in 3, I think) but I wouldn’t have minded if all 4 stayed exactly the same, just with new puzzles.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales- Everything about it was competent. Not only was each gameplay activity fine-tuned to feel good, but the structure of the game also kept kept you experiencing a good variety of each activity. PS5 graphics are good, too. Nothing about it really got me excited to play it, it was just a good after work unwinding thing.

Cyberpunk 2077- Exactly the opposite of Spider-Man in terms of quality consistency. There are aspects of this game that are amazing, horrible, and every step in between. However, I’ve thought about it quite a bit and will probably continue to think about it for both good and bad reasons.

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair- Donkey Kong Country has better level design and controls. Well, the best levels of this were every bit as good as the best DKC levels, and maybe I’m just so familiar with DKC levels that I zone out a little during the boring bits, but had to pay attention to every moment of this game. Still, I didn’t have as much of an overall good time as the DKC games I played earlier.

Hue- Good 2D puzzle-platformer. I’m no longer surprised by these, but I still appreciate them, much in the same way as I like playing escape room games. I was under the impression for a few years that because I understood the potential of puzzle platformers, it meant I wouldn’t want to play any more of them, but that’s simply not true. I had a good time with Hue.

Shows

Gravity Falls- It’s fine. Pretty entertaining. I wish there were more low-stakes kinds of episodes, just to get more familiar with different sides of the characters. It would have made the characters and setting feel more rounded.

Cowboy Bepop- I didn’t get the hype for this show when I first watched it at 21, and now I can say that it’s simply not my kind of show. I have much more appreciation for it now than I did the first time, but it doesn’t hit me emotionally the same way that it seems to hit so many people. 

Seinfeld- It’s Seinfeld. There was precisely one episode that I had never seen before, plus confirmation that I didn’t dream the episode that’s told in backwards chunks like Memento and is set in India.

Paranoia Agent- While it was disappointing that this ended up being a more simple morality tale than every Satoshi Kon movie I’ve seen, I still enjoyed watching this a lot.

Aggretsuko- I liked the mundane, every-day storylines like a modern, more empathetic Seinfeld. Unfortunately as the show went on, there were more and more wacky situations that no one actually gets into. I might watch the upcoming season if I hear that it’s less ridiculous.

Over the Garden Wall- This was really cool and I’m glad it exists. It’s ten episodes long, which is perfect for it. I thought it was at its weakest during the more lighthearted or humorous moments--precisely the opposite of Gravity Falls. The word “classy” comes to mind to describe this show. 

Beastars- Really good when it isn’t falling into anime plot and dialog cliches. A lot of this first season is dedicated to introducing characters and the setting, which I thought was very well done. I’m curious to see what Season 2 is like.

Movies

Scott Pilgrim vs the World- It’s a fun movie to watch. It definitely makes many of the characters’ flaws seem like more fun than it probably should, but I’m more bothered by the criticism I hear that boils down to “it’s a bad movie because the characters are bad people” which I suspect is an impression you only get if you lack both empathy and media comprehension.

Big- Kinda bad. It has iconic moments that are only possible with its weird premise, but it’s just not a premise that supports an entire good movie. 

Phantom of the Opera- Way better and way worse than I remember. Has the precise right amount of horses.

Knives Out- Not really a movie I needed to watch a second time, but it sure is good.

District 9- I didn’t remember most of this movie and unfortunately I zoned out for most of this rewatch, so I still feel like I don’t know what it’s about.

From up on Poppy Hill- Not one of the top tier Ghibli movies, but still really good in a down-to-earth way that I like from Ghibli. 

Enter the Dragon- I knew to expect everything to be turned up to 11, which is good because it really is a lot. I liked it, though.

Shutter Island- I have never actually liked this kind of twist-reliant movie. I thought I would for many years, but I was always disappointed. At least now I am aware that it’s not what I’m into.

Soul- The premise is much too convoluted, but it does have an excellent moment near the end.

Onward- I liked this one a lot. Why don’t more people talk about this one? It’s definitely better than Coco, which itself was really good.

A Silent Voice- The kind of movie that reminds me that sometimes Japanese storytelling is more to my taste than Hollywood style, in that scenes can be more emotionally ambiguous. 

Tangled- Good in exactly the same way as Frozen and Moana. I can’t really complain, but this isn’t the same situation as puzzle platformers or escape rooms. In this case, I do get a little sick of being completely unsurprised. This movie was made first, so it’s only by chance that this is the one that I saw last.

Monsters University- A good movie, but it really doesn’t have to be about the same characters as Monsters Inc. 

Monty Python and the Holy Grail- Still funny

The Departed- Good if you want an enjoyable crime thriller to watch, bad if you want a Scorcese movie.

Titanic- Getting very drunk and watching this with Brittany might be the best time I had in the past three months. Maybe I won’t think too hard about why a movie about the overdue, violent death of a social order resonates with me right now.

Prince of Egypt- Impressive and grand, but I didn’t really care about the characters or story.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan- A good but not great (by TNG standards) concept for an episode that was made extremely enjoyable by the added budget and longer runtime of a movie.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock- Not as good, but still watchable.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home- The kind of ridiculous concept you’d only make when you’ve already had three successful movies and are confident that you’ll be able to make at least another couple. The gang go back to the 1980s (present day to the original audience) and save the whales. It’s apparently exactly the right movie to watch if this is the third consecutive Star Trek movie you’re watching.

Mamma Mia- A lot of fun, but has weird problems that seem like they would’ve been easy to solve at the script level. Maybe if the conflicts had been introduced early on instead of dragging the whole pace of the movie down for much of the last 20 minutes, I would’ve enjoyed the whole thing.

Books

The Well of Ascension- The second book of a trilogy. Very competent. Introduces a whole lot of minor conflicts that really keep the momentum going and give the characters short-term goals that contribute to the overall plot and their arcs. 

The Hero of Ages- The final book in the same trilogy. Equally competent. I wish there had been more long-term payoffs, which is the trade-off you make by stuffing the books full of those short-term conflicts. Spoilers ahead, but not ones that I think ruin the experience of reading. It’s very odd that of three of the central characters, one dies, one becomes a god and then dies, and one becomes God. 

Check Please- About as pleasant as it gets. Full of the type of minor character that sitcoms end up running into the ground because they’re too one-note (Creed from The Office, for instance) but in a series with a pre-planned length, there’s no chance for it to get stale. Plus, I really liked both of the lead characters.

Milkman- Good book about “The Troubles” in Ireland. Very odd collection of characters, but the narrator had an extremely enjoyable voice to read. 

And Then There Were None- Classic mystery story for a reason. Feels more like a Hitchcock movie than Sherlock Holmes. I read it in one day both because the prose was easy and I wanted to know what happened next. Not much substance to it, unfortunately.

Homegoing- Extremely ambitous book where each chapter is narrated by the descendant of a previous chapter, alternating between two branches of the same family. I liked it quite a bit, though because I only finished it yesterday I don’t have much reflection done yet so my opinion has yet to solidify.

[cryptocism]

So since pretty much everyone agrees that Tim needs a name change, and I think most people dislike the first two RR costumes (I dislike the pretty much Robin one too, because it seems like he hasn’t accept losing Robin, when I feel a lot of his comics right after Bruce W died was about that?) which leads me to: What do you think Tim’s costume would look like if he got a good outfit, and what name?

o yeah i was not a fan of the cowl. and the n52 design is just… so busy and excessively accessorised (excessorised???) - i drew it a couple times for this project im workin on and the whole process was me squinting at reference panels and whispering softly but passionately “what the fuck” - and i agree on the rebirth RR design, it looks more derivative of dick and jasons retconned robin costumes than inspired by tims og 80s design (however. the unternet costume - its simple and appealing and clearly nightwing-inspired and i am a fan, also the giant scythe/halberd/mace thing was so ridiculous i loved it)

which is why i thank pat gleason for my life bc tims new outfit is such a good modernisation of his original robin design. so i mean to answer ur question i think tim has a p good design right now (although not for long i guess since they announced hed get a new look/codename soon) BUT if i were in charge of debuting a new design and name… hm……….

whatever his new name is, it’d preferably have something to do with wherever his personal storyline is headed, which i dont know, and for all my complaining abt how red robin is a shit name i dont actually have great alternatives lol. i did see somewhere the suggestion for the name “Cardinal” which i dont hate, so ill use that as a placeholder for now (although “Halcyon” is an interesting option)

tangentially, my personal preference for his robin graduation would be a miniseries featuring tim and damian both as robin, begrudgingly having to work together to fight some greater enemy and becoming true brothers along the way. ending with tim giving damian his blessing to be robin (a post-mantle blessing but still) with the first amicable passing on of the robin title literally ever

as for Look: his new design should a) accurately reflect his character b) mesh well with whatever tone his personal storyline is going for c) be a natural progression of gleasons newest iteration while still d) able to stand as its own iconic look

i always thought tim would do really well in a more grounded noir-style detective story, both using and especially subverting the tropes of the genre (for instance tim befriends every femme fatale and romances absolutely zero of them. theyre pals and have weekly movie nights or smthn) obvs using some of the mystery elements to springboard into classic comic wild times etc etc. theres also a great opportunity to include some more cyberpunk aesthetics to the look and feel ofthe story

i.e. tim is part of the waynetech r&d teams, working with them to develop new technologies, and proceeding to test out some of the prototypes while doing vigilante work (bc terry had to get his rocket boots from somewhere ok). gotham is still gotham, but its starting to see some of that neo-futuristic/blade runner flavour from batman beyond.

so. cyberpunk detective story starring cha boy tim drake. im not gonna draw it rn but lemme just gather some ref elements here in case i ever do

first off - motorcycle, obviously. redbird is back babey and this time its a two-wheeler. all his gear would be modded the hell out of, but the motorcycle itself would be an approximate balance of 70% ducati and 30% tron lightcycle situation. a speedy bike with ample room for the edgy overkill batfam aesthetic, with maybe a little akira in there who knows

same goes for helmet; 70/30 on this modern/cyberpunk situation. heres a quickly photoshopped “cardinal” helmet lol 

although theres totally room for some daft-punk leds in there. serving as a heads up display AND a fun neon aesthetic. I really want to play into that John Wick neo-noir situation.

besides that… ive got a preference for street style over the superhero spandex, so… detective jacket. every detective has a good jacket. norm breyfogle made a comment on his early tim robin designs that itd be pretty either/or on jacket vs cape, merging the two looked a little silly. for robin they probably decided on cape to keep things classic, but for cardinal i can do what i want

and i want to bring back some of this popped collar.

which i basically did for that other tim design i drew, which i still like, so this one would probably be at least a lil borrowed from that. 

attempting to merge cape/jacket might end up smthn like these:

which admittedly i like. 

admittedly… i do also like the concept of wings introduced in tims n52 design, i just think they couldve been hidden/incorporated better

greig rapson had a sweet robin design that had a sort of flight-suit (which dove into the actual mechanics??? i love) and since id want to dive into tim testing out waynetech prototypes, its a pretty good natural progression from him to terrys glider thing

the whole ensemble would be fairly understated however - enough to semi blend in with any crowd, hero or civilian. after all the story focus would be just as much about solving the mystery as it is punching the bad guy

the various interchangeable gadgets would be both prototypes of terrys eventual batsuit, and also all the failed prototypes that never managed to get off the ground. just to add an element of tension/plot devices wherein tims gear could break or malfunction pretty much anytime.

im fixated on this rocket boot situation though so itd be a paired down version of terrys eventual seamless/invisible design. still noticable and clunky, but working with the sleek modernish style outlined by gleason

smthn almost similar to the prowler actually from spiderverse - as in: Clearly Rocketboots, and clearly diy’d the shit out of, but still working with that Aesthetic

(most of the screencaps of prowler are dark af so im taking this from jesus alonso iglesias concept art) 

im debating on the addition of more overtly birdlike/cyberpunk elements, so ill add this here cause its dope as fuck (from ahmet atil akar). 

and a lot of batclan capes tend to end with that concave spiked look, which works great for bats but not really for birds. a tailcoat might emulate the bird tail, but it also might evoke Penguin a lil too much idk.

also in the interest of keeping everything within the same sort of design language, i would Love to see some new villains emulating deconstructionist/architectural kawakubo fashion:

like could you imagine the supervillain potential

so uhhh yeah. budding cyberpunk detective story with a little noir and a little technological advancement progressing in fits and starts. taking from the gleason foundation with heavy black featuring brighter coloured accents and modern sleekness, made a little dorky via prototype technology, with some extra neon blade runner shit thrown in there.

depending on how much i love or hate the new codename/design reveal i might draw this via inspired motivation or spiteful motivation lol

#asks #tim drake #tim redesign ref #tim scarlet redesign

[possiblyimbiassed]

What happened to Sherlock? Part VIII - The Sign of the Hetero Norm (1)

Why does Mary Morstan play such a prominent role in BBC Sherlock? 

I’m surely not the only one asking myself this; while she’s barely mentioned in canon after marrying Watson, she’s all over the place from TEH and onwards in Mofftiss’ adaptation. And when I recently read this excellent fic by @discordantwords, a couple of things dawned on me, that I think have been brewing in my mind for quite some time. Which brings me to the long promised continuation of my marathon meta series about what I think we’re actually seeing in this show. Because the entire point of Mary Morstan seems to be to prevent Sherlock and John from getting together in a romantic relationship - a story of hetero norm. This eighth installment will explore the ‘case’ of little Rosie, and the role she and her mother plays in this show. 

This far I’ve published an intro and seven installments, each with corresponding attempts to test my hypotheses:

Introduction - The game is on (explains the method of analysis) Part I - Blog vs TV-show Part II - Re-living memories Part III - Drugs and weirdness Part IV – Heartbreak and coma (1) Part IV – Heartbreak and coma (2) Part V – Bizarre scenarios Part VI - Live and let die (1) Part VI - Live and let die (2)

Part VII - The Importance of Being Earnest (1) 

Part VII - The Importance of Being Earnest (2)

This installment will also be parted in two, and the second half can be found here (X). Many of the screen caps from BBC Sherlock in this meta are from Kissthemgoodbye.net - thanks! And thanks also to Ariane DeVere for the incredibly useful transcripts!

My next hypotheses is, in and off itself, a clear and straightforward prediction that can be explicitly verified or falsified once we finally get to S5, so it will be extra fun to see what happens with it in future: 

Hypothesis #8: John is not the father of Mary’s baby

(Disclaimer: My suspicion here only concerns John’s biological offspring. It would still be possible that John, and perhaps also Sherlock, might father the child - if it exists - by adoption. It does not exclude a metaphorical reading where the baby represents, for example, Sherlock’s and John’s relationship. I also want to stress that this hypothesis is an attempt at logical reasoning based on observations in the show and in ACD canon; it’s not meant to be ‘gossipy’ and has nothing to do with whether I would actually like to see this happen or not - that’s a whole other story. ;) )  

This hypothesis has been brewing in my mind for quite some time now, but I don’t think it’s just a hunch; there are actually a series of reasons that have made me come to this conclusion. 

(Continued under the cut)

But first of all: can we debunk my hypothesis at this stage in the story, by testing it ‘scientifically’? Well, not really, since the show doesn’t provide any reliable evidence that confirms John as Rosie’s biological father. Not even IRL would this have been possible without a DNA-test (or without physical circumstances that would have made any other option impossible). And the only thing that the show tells us about human DNA-tests is that not even this procedure is 100% reliable, as shown in ASIB:

JOHN: You were dead on a slab. It was definitely you. IRENE: DNA-tests are only as good as the records you keep. JOHN: And I bet you know the record-keeper. IRENE: I know what he likes, and I needed to disappear.

DNA is brought up in TGG (Ian Monkford’s blood) and again in TST (the identification of Charlie Wellsborough’s body), but since John’s fatherhood is never questioned in the show, little Rosie is never tested, as far as we know. The remaining evidence that speaks for John being the father is circumstantial: that John and Mary obviously must have been living together at the approximate time of conception. And that they both act as if they’re both Rosie’s parents.

So I guess that in order to get any further with this, I’ll have to start at the other end, analysing the characters and see if I can find evidence that support my hypothesis - on a textual level as well as metaphorically and on the meta level. 

Mary’s function in the story

I think we can safely say that Mary is the most controversial character of BBC Sherlock. Some viewers love her, others hate her, but I can’t recall anyone claiming to feel indifferent towards her. Mofftiss have indeed managed to push forward a character who is hardly even visible in canon, once she’s married to Watson. In BBC Sherlock, however, Mary totally dominates the show from HLV and onwards. Her appearances may have been increasing in numbers and length already from her introduction in TEH. But from the point where John wakes up in HLV, there isn’t a single case where she’s not somehow involved. Up until TFP, everything is about ’Mary’. And even then, once we might have believed we’d got rid of the ghost of this hijacking protagonist, she comes back, only to once again take over the narrative with a weird and basically inexplicable voiceover. She seems like some kind of obsession; a brain ghost stuck on someone’s mind.

This is rather different from ACD canon, where Mary Morstan has extremely few lines as soon as she’s no longer a client, but Watson’s wife. Personally I find it hard to see the lovable aspect of this character in BBC Sherlock, since she constantly shifts appearance, behaviour and motivation; it’s almost impossible to pin down who she actually is. Which makes me convinced that Mary is not meant to be a real, believable character that we can relate to as such - at least not all the time. And maybe that goes for canon as well.

But what then is the purpose of her, what’s Mary’s actual function in the narrative, looking at the subtext? I think there’s basically three of them, and by no means mutually exclusive:

1. Mary is a metaphor for heteronormativity and its power over people when they internalise it

2. Mary is a façade or ‘beard’, where a straight marriage is established to cover up a story of a gay relationship

3. Mary is a mirror for Sherlock; by substituting himself with a female spouse for John, Sherlock can be with John ‘by proxy’, trying to figure out John without having to face his own real problem: reveal his emotions and risk failure.

As soon as Mary firmly puts her foot in the show, it all becomes a spectacle, a demonstration of how to keep up a straight facade at any cost. After TSoT, no-one ever assumes John and Sherlock are a romantic couple; Mary is the ultimate ’proof’ that John is indeed straight. Which is of course illogical, because why would a bi person stop being it because they married someone, no matter of which sex? Mary admits it herself by telling Sherlock that ”neither of us was the first, you know”. And Sherlock complains that John is dancing around Sholto ”like a puppet” even after the wedding ceremony. But in all the episodes after TSoT, John is happily freed from people’s assumptions regarding his sexual orientation. Gone are all the gay jokes, and John Watson is miraculously ‘cured’. 

I think this is perfectly illustrated in the fic by @discordantwords​ that I mentioned above. The plot follows logically on TFP, as things would be if everything we’ve seen from HLV and onwards is actually meant to be ‘true’. Mary is now dead and John lives alone with little Rosie. For a case, in order to get close to the suspects, Sherlock is planning to fake his own wedding with Janine Hawkins, and John is feeling jealous and excluded – especially when he finds out that one of the murders that Sherlock is investigating had involved a wedding of a gay couple:

"Why all of this, then?" he asked. He tipped his head towards the kitchen, where Janine was fiddling with the kettle. "I could have just—wouldn't it have been easier for us to just—?"

"You're not gay," Sherlock said.

"Well," John paused. "No." He cleared his throat, looked back at the wall. "But everyone already thinks we're a couple. Wouldn't be that much of a stretch, really. For a case."

"No one has thought that for quite some time."

This fanfic rings perfectly true to me, considering S4 on the surface level; John and Sherlock appearing as a couple wouldn’t work after John’s own wedding in TSoT. Because gone is now every allusion to John being anything else than straight. Gone is also John’s admiration for Sherlock; from HLV and on, he hardly ever even speaks about Sherlock in a positive way. (Which also makes me wonder: was ‘The Fall’ also about Sherlock feeling he had fallen from John’s pedestal of admiration?). For the rest of the show, it’s only Sherlock whom we see suffering from (presumably) gay pining. It’s only in Sherlock’s Victorian imagination that Moriarty tells them to ’elope’ together, while John in TLD is shown to be exclusively fixed on his dead wife. 

On the surface, Sherlock seems to support John’s relationship with Mary, while I’m sure he is actually suffering deeply. But I think, metaphorically, that Sherlock is acting like some kind of self-sacrificing Christ figure. (Don’t forget Irene’s words from ASiB: “I think you’re damaged, delusional and believe in a higher power. In your case, it’s yourself”). He bears the ‘cross’ of torture by seeing John with someone else, until he can’t stand it any more and trashes himself on drugs. This is what we see at the beginning of TEH, John holding hands with a woman in front of Sherlock’s grave:

Why can’t we see Mary’s face already here? I think it’s because this is from Sherlock’s POV; he’s either seeing or imagining them from behind. She might have a hidden face but a familiar shape because by the time Sherlock is recalling this, he already knows what Mary looks like. But at this point in time, maybe he didn’t? In any case, it must be devastating for Sherlock to see or imagine John with someone else, when he should be there to mourn him, Sherlock. 

Thinking about John with Mary, Sherlock can’t even sleep. He is tortured on a cross and dies for all our ’sins’, doesn’t he? On the meta level Sherlock Holmes sacrifices his life, he extinguishes his true self, in the name of heteronormativity. So that John can have his straight marriage, even if it’s dysfunctional. But our worst ’sin’ as an audience, I believe - our ultimate mistake - is to buy into this narrative without questioning it. That’s literally letting the hetero norm rule.

King David the Adulterer

Mary’s ex-boyfriend David is introduced in TSoT, but after this episode he never shows up again. But this seems very random to me; why is David even there, and why is he depicted as some kind of rival to John? What is his narrative purpose? David is often blurred out in the scenes, but he is definitely present during the whole wedding reception, where his role is to be an usher (showing people their places/seats). David gives the impression to be single, since he attends Mary’s wedding without any partner as company.

Sherlock, who meets David alone at 221B during the wedding planning, deduces that he still seems to have an intimate relationship with Mary. Only recently I discovered this meta from 2014 called The Baby Problem by @abitnotgood​, which brings up pretty much exactly the same suspicions I have had for quite some time now. The main points are the following:

Mary was dating David for 2 of the totally 5 years she had been undercover with the false name Mary.

They’re still close enough friends for David to attend the wedding, which might indicate their breakup was unwanted from one or both parts.

Mary’s reactions during the wedding reception indicates that she still cares for David.

Sherlock finds out that David has “offered to be her shoulder to cry on no less than three occasions.” 

David sits at the same table as most other major characters, which indicates that he’s important.

David doesn’t look particularly happy while toasting for the bride and groom.

To these I could also add that Sherlock gets so suspicious about David that he threatens him with keeping a close eye on his whereabouts with Mary. From a story telling POV, when a character is suspected by the main character who is a genius detective, there should actually be some reason for this - shouldn’t it?

So who is David? Does he appear anywhere in canon? I actually think he does. In ACD’s short story The Crooked Man (CROO), the name David plays a symbolical role. The story is about a (supposed) murder of a middle-aged military officer, colonel James Barclay. It’s a classical Sherlock Holmes mystery with a door locked from the inside and the key missing. The death seems to originate from a domestic quarrel between the colonel and his wife. (Which is particularly interesting considering the Watsons’ ‘domestic’ in HLV). 

Turns out the colonel died of fright when he saw his old rival Henry Wood, whom he had betrayed in the war and deliberately left to be captured by the enemy. Henry was repeatedly tortured and crippled and held prisoner for many years, until he could escape back to London and a coincidence brought his old love interest in his way, who was now married to the colonel. (Hmm... tortured by the enemy. Been away. Love interest married. Does this seem like anyone we know? ;) ). Henry was “the crooked man” of the story, who was bereft of his loved one because of James. 

But the name David was mystically uttered by Colonel Barclay’s wife while quarreling with her husband - why? Holmes claimed it was a biblical reference to the drama of king David, Batsheba and Uriah. King David committed adultery with the beautiful Bathsheba, who was married to his soldier Uriah. Bathsheba got pregnant after sleeping with David, while Uriah was out fighting a war. David tried to cover up that fact by sending Uriah home, but Uriah refused to leave his comrades. Then David betrayed his rival Uriah the same way James betrayed Henry: by deliberately leaving him exposed to the enemy. The only difference was that Uriah died on the battlefield, while Henry was caught and crippled. Which leads us almost inevitably to Captain John Watson - he is a soldier who was crippled by the enemy too, wasn’t he? ;)

What about Rosie?

Although Mary is dominating the show from TEH and forwards, John’s and Mary’s daughter - little Rosie - is subjected to the opposite treatment; she has very little screen time, and we never learn about a single character trait of hers. In ACD canon the Watsons never had a child, as far as I know. And – even in Victorian times – I believe it would have seemed strange with the Doctor spending so much of his free time (besides work) together with Holmes, obviously neglecting his family duties. So since Mofftiss have introduced a totally new ingredient to their adaptation - a time-consuming baby - one would think this has to have a clear purpose, right? I would have expected Rosie to play a part of her own, someone the audience could relate to just like the other characters, if only still a baby. 

But instead, Rosie is seen most of all as an obstacle. Mary is balancing her while discussing a case with Sherlock. Rosie is handed over to John like a sack of potatoes when the family goes on to solve a case with Sherlock; she doesn’t make a sound and we don’t even see her little face. We see John change Rosie’s diaper once (basically to show that he has a toy daisy behind his ear, which is apparently a good flirting device), and then we see Sherlock trying to babysit her at 221B, getting hit in the eye by her toy. We also hear her cry in the background once, and see Molly hold her once. And that’s about it. 

When Sherlock texts them from the London Aquarium at the end of TST, Mary and John debate which of them is going to have to stay with the baby, but finally both of them show up at the Aquarium – without Rosie. And this happens not long after Mary has taken a ‘little trip’ around Eurasia ending up in Morocco and John and Sherlock going after her – little Rosie staying at home. Which means weeks without any of her parents. If S4 were real, I’d feel truly sorry for little Rosie.

In TLD, Rosie is more absent than her dead mother! While Mary haunts the episode, all we hear about the baby is John’s tremendous guilt for neglecting and abandoning her (which he manages to do completely). John does seem to have enough spare time and energy to go on another case with Sherlock, though, in the middle of his therapy session. At the end of TLD, all is supposedly fine again with Rosie (until John gets shot with a tranquiliser), but we never get to see it. But then in TFP John goes on a long journey with Sherlock to a far away island, and not a word about Rosie. She’s not even present when John receives Mary’s DVD at home. At the end she’s suddenly there again, though, without any comment. 

Based on this, it doesn’t seem farfetched to ask if this little character is even supposed to be real. There’s a subtle hint in TLD which could point in this skeptic direction: 

Sherlock: “And, of course, I hadn’t really anticipated that I’d hallucinated meeting his daughter.” “Still a bit troubled by the daughter. Did seem very real, and she gave me information I couldn’t have acquired elsewhere.” 

John: “But she wasn’t ever here?”

An earlier quote from TGG could also question John’s fatherhood: ”Of course he’s not the boy’s father - look at the turnups on his jeans!” (Sherlock while watching telly with John in TGG, right after the fourth ‘pip’).

And - of course - if S4 is all imaginary, only happening in Sherlock’s head, Rosie would probably not even have been born yet. 

There are also some more subtle hints about Rosie’s narrative function: John’s guilt about cheating on Mary in TLD is connected to the baby. John specifically mentions that he was “cheating” on Mary while she was taking care of Rosie: JOHN (to Ghost!Mary): “We texted constantly. You wanna know when? Every time you left the room, that’s when.  When you were feeding our daughter; when you were stopping her from crying – that’s when.” This does make the (otherwise rather exaggerated) texting affair sound a bit more damning for John, doesn’t it? ;)  If this is all taking place inside Sherlock’s head, it might rather reflect one of Sherlock’s (possibly) major excuses to himself for not confessing his true feelings to John; it might (once the baby is born) disrupt a whole family and affect an innocent little child.

John and Mary’s relationship

The other day I took to re-watch this little piece of extra material from S4: statements by Martin Freeman and Amanda Abbington about John’s and Mary’s relationship (X). Every time I see this video I’m just laughing so hard. Please don’t miss how Martin is struggling to keep a straight face without smiling, after claiming “they’ve been through stuff already in S3 that would test any couple.” (Yep. Like the discovery that Mary is actually a contract killer who shot his best friend and hasn’t even revealed her real name to John). Or how Amanda avoids looking at the camera when she’s lying talking about Mary’s feelings towards John, closing her eyes and shaking her head. Great acting! :)

I mean, this cannot even be intended to fool anyone; I think this is meant to signal to the audience that the marriage we’re seeing is a dishonest, superficial construction made up of empty words. It’s very similar to the scene in HLV where Sherlock tells John about his ‘relationship’ with Janine. Platitudes like “we’re in a good place” are not only included, but also called out in the very same dialogue. John: “You got that from a book!”  Sherlock: “Everyone got that from a book!”. In the video clip, overly sweet violin music is playing when Martin and Amanda talk about their characters’ supposed deep love for each other, but this is mixed up with sitcom-like scenes where this love is made very hard to believe in, like Mary about to give birth in the car and roaring to her husband to pull over, or John telling Mary that he simply intends to forget about a recent past where she very nearly murdered his best friend.  

John’s marriage actually seems terrible from start; he can’t even keep himself off Sherlock’s blog comments during his own honeymoon. Which I believe is canon consistent; in ACD’s stories Mary Morstan even encourages Watson to never leave Holmes’ side. And the bad marriage is also confirmed in HLV by Wiggins’ and Sherlock’s deductions about John’s cycling to work and keeping his shirts ‘folded and ready to leave’ at any moment.

But what’s Mary’s position in this? Let’s say, as a mental experiment, that she knows from start about John’s feelings for Sherlock. Why would she want to be together with, and even go on to marry, a man who is obviously in love with someone else? Well, while I don’t buy the facade-climbing Ninja!Mary who tries to kill Sherlock in HLV, she could still be dishonest in her approach to John. She could still be on some sort of mission related to Sherlock, where her role simply is to get in between John and Sherlock, while she actually is together with someone else (and even carrying that someone’s child). Her aim could be to hurt Sherlock as much as possible, for a specific reason. 

As far as I see in TEH, Mary seems suspiciously eager to befriend Sherlock. Instead of behaving like one would expect from someone in love who just got their special moment ruined by a rival; with anger or at least annoyance, and of course supporting the beloved - Mary immediately sides with Sherlock.

And she seems to side with him most of all on an intellectual level, taking part in his explanations of how he managed to fake his death.

“Oh, he would have needed a confidant...”

So - what can we deduce about Mary?

If everything we see in the show after TSoT only has happened inside Sherlock’s head (as I’ve tried to make a case for in this meta series), from this follows logically that in Sherlock’s ‘reality’, there is no Assasin!Mary, no SecretAgent!Mary, no Martyr!Mary and - of course - no Ghost!Mary. Because up until the wedding, Mary seemed to be just an ordinary woman. The character’s appearance from HLV and onwards would all be fabrications of Sherlock’s drug-influenced mind, albeit loaded with a lot of metaphorical meaning from his subconscious. 

But Mary still seems to exist on some level, doesn’t she? She is referred to by John on his blog, talked about by other people on the blog (including Sherlock), and she even makes comments on it on no less than ten occasions. On the blog, John is clear about getting married to Mary. And after Sherlock’s final blog post ‘The Sign of Three’, it also gets obvious that Mary is now pregnant. 

And – most importantly – if S4 is all-fake, this also means that in Sherlock’s ‘reality’, Mary’s drama-loaded death in TST never happened. Mary is still alive! So if Mary is a ‘façade’, a ‘beard’ and/or a mirror for Sherlock on a meta- and sub-textual level, who is she on the textual level? Well, I think there are some clues in the show, and also a lot of subtext material in ACD canon to draw from, which might have been developed into actual story line in the show.  

And this will bring us to the second half of this meta, which you can find here (X).

Tagging some people who might be interested: @raggedyblue​ @ebaeschnbliah​ @sarahthecoat​ @gosherlocked​ @loveismyrevolution​ @sagestreet​​ @tjlcisthenewsexy​​ @elldotsee​​ @88thparallel​​ @devoursjohnlock​​ @sherlock-overflow-error​​ @yeah-oh-shit​

#who is mary?

[kinetic-elaboration]

January 2: The Final Frontier

Watched Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. I remember it being pretty awful but honestly... I liked it! I wouldn’t put it on the same level as I - IV as a whole, but I did like it.

First of all, this is such a good triumvirate movie. Like fully 50% of it is just Kirk, Spock, and Bones being awesome together and I’m fully committed to this concept. Especially since I read Kirk and Spock as space husbands and McCoy as their best friend who knows he’s hanging out with a couple and is totally fine with it.

They canonically go camping together on shore leave. Spock researches camping rituals for them and brings marsh melons with him. He flies around with his friends on rocket boots. They all know Morse code, but not very well. Some of the other films may have been better at showing off the rest of the crew (only Scotty really got significant time to shine here) and they might have had distinct roles for Bones to play in particular, and good Kirk & Bones and Spock & Bones moments, but no other film or episode really showed this family-friendship dynamic among the three of them so well, so consistently, and in such a front and center way, and I really, really appreciate that.

The general concept of Sybok and the quest for God... Idk I think it sounds nice enough on paper and I can’t entirely pinpoint where it doesn’t work for me in practice. I was definitely expecting a very different character before I watched the movie the first time, so I was disappointed but I basically knew why. This time... I still felt something was off, but I can’t describe what. Maybe I wanted a more charismatic Sybok? Maybe a more detailed relationship between him and Spock? I don’t know.

I’m not the biggest fan of the secret brother back story but... I also don’t think it bothers me as much as it bothers other people (including Gene Rodenberry lmao don’t tell his ghost what garbage has been put into his franchise since). I just have a different interpretation of the relationship and I don’t think mine is really contradicted by the film itself, except maybe by Spock’s line “we were raised as brothers.” I guess that’s supposed to imply they actually grew up in the same house and knew each other. But it doesn’t have to mean that. Imo “raised as brothers” could mean “were introduced to each other and knew they were brothers.”

Anyway my understanding of their relationship is that there is a BIG age gap, like 12-15 years. Half-siblings often have age gaps like that. Then Sybok was either raised by his mother or at, like, Vulcan boarding school. Also if he were 15 years older than Spock, for example, he’d be an adult by the time Spock formed any real memories. And if he was exiled at a fairly young age, he might not have seen Spock at all since Spock was a very small child. This makes sense to me implicitly because Spock gives off STRONG only child vibes. Also, Kirk is understandably incensed at never having heard about this “brother” but, as someone with a half-sibling I wasn’t raised with and rarely talk about, I can totally understand how that would happen. I often confuse people by mentioning my sister after I mention being an only child. And third, it would explain their vibes around each other--they are technically brothers, but they don’t seem especially close; Sybok still treats Spock as if he hadn’t matured since he was very young, and even though he probably has access to all of Spock’s memories (as much as he has everyone else’s), he picks the absolute earliest one he could; and when they first meet he says something like “you finally caught up to me,” which to me implies a large age gap.

(Also btw this makes more sense with Sarek’s apparent age b/c if Sybok was a Pon Farr baby, he’s probably only 18-20 years younger than Sarek, whereas Spock would be, say, 33-35 years younger, which seems appropriate.)

Parts of this movie just... didn’t give off strong Star Trek vibes to me. I think the sections on the desert planet really didn’t feel right. They felt more Star Wars than anything. This might be because I see a desert and I think Tatooine, I see a bar in the desert and I think cantina scene--but I also suspect it’s more than that. This concept of a bunch of aliens hanging out on a planet together... that’s never been Star Trek. ST has always been so focused on the ship, even through the first four films. Having these none-ship POV scenes just felt weird.

In a way, the movies have been moving ever farther from the mood of TOS, and I can’t quite put my finger on how just at this middle-of-the-night moment. I still like them, but there’s something more.. general sci fi about them. Even the ship design and the uniforms just feel less unique. It’s the og cast and characters keeping it together--which is probably why I’ve never cared to watch any other series and fail to see any other crew as “real Star Trek.”

Scotty/Uhura was super fucking cute. They are canon and, I’m just going to say it, it would have been interesting to see AOS go that route, too.

This was also a great film for Captain Kirk characterization because honestly, say what you want about Shatner, but he KNOWS this character (setting aside his erroneous opinions about the bisexuality he himself acted into the guy in the first place lol). I love this mature, confident, leader Captain. (I’d be interested to see a non-T/arantino AOS film that shows off this characterization of Kirk. CPine has the range.)

Some great K/S moments: “Would you like to join me in the shower, Spock?” “Worse [than betraying the ship/crew], I betrayed you.” Spock giving Kirk his hand in the brig. And of course, “Not in front of the Klingons, Captain.”

Also a fan of the moment at the end when Chekov and Sulu are definitely checking out the lady Klingon, and the implication (I think??) that the Federation rep who looked like David Thewlis and the Romulan who didn’t look like any Romulan I’ve ever seen hooked up off screen.

It’s not a masterpiece but this movie doesn’t deserve the hate it gets and it didn’t deserve to bomb commercially either. Perhaps people were just more interested in TNG. But I would absolutely rather watch ST V than any episode of TNG lol.

#the year 2021 #2021: fandom thoughts #2021: star trek tos #star trek tos #this is a t/n/g hate blog #not entirely but actually a little bit #but it's definitely a disc/overy hate blog so i will block you if you respond to me with talk of any other children of sarek #2021: star trek

[cosmonaughty]

I recently re-watched Season 1 of Fargo FX and, as is the case with every great show or movie, there were things I noticed that I had missed in earlier viewings. A few of these had to do with the portrayal of hospitals in film, which is another small obsession of mine, so I thought that I would take the time to combine these two interests and talk about the way that Fargo FX depicts hospitals. I will be mentioning the inaccuracies in this portrayal and the way that the liberties that are taken advance the plot and enhance the mood of certain scenes. By pointing out these inaccuracies, I am not trying to criticize the show or its writers, I’m just using my specific experiences to talk at length about something I love.

(Also, this post will contain big ol’ spoilers for Season 1 of Fargo FX, so go watch it if you haven’t yet and then come back.)

There are a few scenes that I wanted to discuss here, and I will bring them up chronologically. In episode 5, Lester is rushed to the hospital in an ambulance with what appears to be sepsis resulting from a shotgun pellet lodged in his hand. In the following episode, he sneaks out of the hospital to frame his brother for his wife’s murder. He does this by switching beds with his roommate, whose face is bandaged. As far as accuracy goes, it pretty much goes without saying that this concept is pretty farfetched, but I’ll run down the issues here anyway.

It’s never really clear to me what injuries require intensive care in this show (more on that later), but I will say that Lester recovers from sepsis in what must be record time. When I had more or less the same thing, my body essentially held down its own power button and restarted everything. I was in the ICU for multiple days, though I’m not sure how many because I wasn’t lucid the entire time, and I was pumped full of fluids and antibiotics, as well as hooked up to multiple tubes and wires.

Lester, however, is in excellent condition pretty much as soon as the source of his infection is removed, despite having been delirious, vomiting, sweating, shivering, and all that other fun stuff only the night before. His room seems to be on the general ward and the only thing hooked up to him is an IV, which appears to be dispensing saline and nothing else.

He is also under the care of what may be the least competent nurse I’ve ever seen in any show. Nurse Farber comes in to transport Lester’s roommate to radiology, but if she had checked his bracelet, she would have realized she was transporting the wrong patient. She also moves the entire hospital bed, rather than moving the patient to a gurney or a wheelchair, as has been my experience in the past (those beds are portable, but they’re very heavy and unwieldy).

However, these aren’t “mistakes”. They are deliberate choices that serve to move the plot along. We can’t put the story on hold so that Lester has a couple of weeks to recover and gain his strength back, so that process needs to be hurried along for the sake of the plot. If the nurse had checked his bracelet, his plan would have been foiled and, again, the plot would not be able to progress. If she had moved him to a wheelchair or gurney, he wouldn’t have been able to smuggle a change of clothes with him. So, these choices don’t arise from the writers’ ignorance of hospital procedure, they just need to bend some aspects of reality to advance the plot.

I would also like to point out some things this scene gets right about the hospital (based on my experience).

This room layout is pretty accurate. I like the little details like the plastic cup + bendy straw that everyone always has on their bedside table (even if you can lift a cup to your mouth, a bendy straw is required. It’s like an unwritten rule). I like the detail that the windows don’t open and I really appreciate that they didn’t have Lester pull out his IV like every renegade tv character seems to do. Instead, he simply disconnects the port from the tube so that he can move around, which I’m sure is more difficult than he makes it look but it’s leaps and bounds better than the old rip-em-out technique that I seem to see all the time.

I also like that the nurse uses the pain scale, which is pretty standard but I get a kick out of it. And, believe it or not, I have actually been deposited in the hall and left alone by nurses while waiting for imaging, which is how Lester manages to escape in the first place. Personally, I’ve never made it out the front door, but I haven’t tried that hard.

 Now that we’ve talked about how the writers take liberties to advance the plot, let’s look at how similar inaccuracies can be used enhance the mood of a scene. If you want to see me get emotional (you sadist), get me talking about episode 7. In this episode, Molly, having been hospitalized after an emergency splenectomy, makes a trip from her room on the general ward to question Mr. Wrench, who is in custody in the ICU after having been shot twice by her (it’s not clear where he was shot, but he indicates his upper right chest, so somewhere in that area). He uses a white board to ask about his partner (Mr. Numbers) and Molly confirms that he is dead. She makes an attempt to connect with him and asks for his help in finding Lorne Malvo, but he shuts her out by refusing to look at her and she leaves. Later, in episode 8, Malvo shows up to taunt Wrench about having killed his partner, as well as to commend him for coming closer to killing him than anyone else had in the past. He gives Wrench the handcuff key and leaves.

Like I said earlier, it’s not clear what requires intensive care in this show, since Mr. Wrench doesn’t appear to be any worse off physically than Molly is (or than Lester was earlier). He does have more stuff attached to him, which is…good(?), but let’s talk about this ICU room:

This looks nothing like any ICU room I’ve ever stayed in. For one thing, in my experience the bed has always been facing the door, not inward to the rest of the room. I assume this is to make it easier to provide emergency care, which is the function of just about everything in the ICU. For this same reason, there’s very little privacy; the doors are usually clear glass and people come in and out all the time (nobody checks on patients in this show).

As I mentioned above, he has more “gear” (no, that’s not the correct term, but just be glad I didn’t call it “swag”) than either Molly or Lester, but far less than I would expect to see. There are maybe two bags on that IV pole, so probably saline and morphine (no blood/plasma/antibiotics/other medications). He’s got a heart monitor and a pulse oximeter, but no oxygen or bp monitor. Whether I like it or not, I’m always given oxygen in the ICU (which I tend to remove as soon as possible, apologies to my nurses) and if he was shot in the chest, he might actually need it. I’m also not convinced that heart monitor is working, since it doesn’t fluctuate at all when Malvo shows up in episode 8. ALSO: that bed rail should be up; I don’t care if he is handcuffed in place, that looks like a fall risk to me. Who is running this place?

(I’m also kinda jealous, because I’ve never been in an ICU room with this much natural light.)

 As I mentioned before, there is specific intent behind these omissions and changes.  For one thing, if there were several different machines and wires and lines and the like, the shot would be really busy and it would be distracting, both visually and auditorily, as hospital equipment tends to beep and beep and beep and beep.

Additionally, the shots are very clean, which effectively communicates a sterile environment to the audience; the natural light from the window compliments the Season 1 aesthetic really well and it also contributes somewhat to the coldness of the scenes in this room.

Speaking of which, this is as good a time as ever to bring up something I only consciously noticed very recently. Let’s go back to episode 7 and take a look at the difference between his room and Molly’s.

It’s very subtle, but the light above her bed is a warmer tone; her bedding is also comprised of warmer, lighter tones. Additionally, there’s some framed artwork on the wall, and most importantly she is surrounded by people (and flowers) in every shot.

Even in reverse shots of her, the frame contains color and warm tones. Contrast this with a similar OTS shot of Wrench in his hospital room. The temperature of the scene is a lot colder and the frame surrounding him is empty, which is excellent shorthand to communicate loneliness and alienation.

His room also has some kind of mesh over the window, the practical purpose of which (if there is one) eludes me. As I mentioned earlier, hospital windows don’t open, something the writers are obviously aware of, and I’ve personally never been in a hospital room that had a grate or bars over the windows. Regardless of its practical purpose, this is another detail that contributes to the theme of isolation that is present in the design of these scenes. Being in the hospital can be a lonely, alienating experience, which is something I feel is communicated really well here.

These are subtle decisions that make a huge impact on the mood of the scene. I’m gonna be real with you right now, Mr. Wrench is my favorite character and this scene breaks my heart every time I see it. A good deal of that is owed to the quality of the show’s writing and the amazing talent of Russell Harvard and Allison Tolman, but it is always fun to see how my emotions are being relentlessly manipulated by the cinematographer as well. Good job, you guys.

 I want to conclude with a proposed alternative to the staging of that last scene.

As you can see here, this scene is set during the day, with daylight clearly visible from the window. However, imagine how the emotional intensity might be different if the scene was set at night.

In my experience, nighttime in the hospital can be the most difficult, emotionally speaking, and it’s something I’ve even come to dread as a patient. For the most part, visitors have to go home, the room is dark but the lights are on in the hall and the nurses’ station. You can’t sleep because you’re uncomfortable and people keep coming in to take vitals and blood, and overall it’s very lonely.

So, imagine this scene exactly as it is played out in Season 1, but now instead of a closed off room with daylight coming through the window, the lights in the room are dimmed, it’s night outside (maybe street lights are visible through the window, but not too much). There is a soft glow coming from the heart monitor. Molly is sitting beside the bed with her back to the open door rather than the window. In the background the lights are on in the hall, you can see hospital staff going about their routine in the background. His life is falling apart in this scene, but it’s business as usual for everyone else. Even Molly, as sympathetic as she is, is just doing her job here.

I’m not saying that this staging would have been better, but it would have had a different emotional intensity. I like to see how the environment of the hospital could be used to enhance the mood of a scene, rather than simply act as a back drop because hospitals are deeply personal places, but can be so alienating at the same time. That said, I think that the way they used the environment to impart that sense of loneliness was excellent, and I support the decision to omit certain specifics that might compromise the mood or the flow of the plot.

Oh, and, if you still haven’t done it: go watch Fargo FX.

#fargo fx #fargo season 1 #lester nygaard #lorne malvo #mr wrench #molly solverson

[flockofdoves]

list of webcomic recs for @gynandromorph based on what they said they might be interested in but also i’d rec these in general they’re all good

i honestly don’t read much furry stuff beyond your work?? not on purpose its just the circles i tend to find things in are more human character centric i guess so sorry theres not many furry comics on here even though i know you said you have a preference for them

also sorry for word salad, i have pretty bad brain fog today lol but i hope this is legible/helpful!!

finding home - one of my top favorite currently updating comics tbh and i’m even more confident in saying that now after just an hour ago reading beyond whats currently posted publicly by finishing the second volume i got in its recent kickstarter. i love the scenery and atmosphere of this comic and i love the care put into developing the main characters and their relationship and backstories and trauma and stuff. everything in this from the page layouts to the dialogue to the worldbuilding feels really well thought out imo

buuza - less than a year old still so i’m only just starting to get a real feel for it but i’m excited for seeing whats to come. i know you said with your vision certain art styles can be harder to read and i feel like that could be a problem with this though?

charity case - one of the comics i read that i most consistently appreciate for how effective its art and page layouts are

non sequitur - not a story or anything just a bunch of one shot comics but their concepts are always so fun and creative

fables and tales - same thing as last one, a bunch of one shot comics

backdoor - on hiatus right now but while i always enjoyed it, as its gone along i’ve become a lot more invested in it and the creator was always good but continues to improve in art and story telling really markedly imo

decale - story isn’t very far along but i love the character designs and the characters are all so expressive and the way the creator animates some panels is a lot of fun imo

sakana - one of the currently updating comics ive been keeping up with for the longest time, its a lot of fun and i like the character designs a lot

i know you prefer consistently updating ones but for a few finished ones theres

puu - one of my all time favorites, it went places i didn’t expect from reading it when it only had a couple updates. really beautiful

hotblood - i love the art and paneling in this one and its sequel zarco a lot, the one thing worth mentioning but not necessarily a bad thing is the main characters are like (intentionally) not very likeable people kdjfgfhkdf but its so pretty

shootaround - one of my all time favorite comics its storytelling really got to me

also theres definitely a lot of comics that i need to catch up with again that feel like they might be more something you might like than a lot of the ones i’m currently up to date with just because i lost a lot of my RSS feed bookmarks a while back and then the ones i didnt immediately remember to bookmark again i fell behind on and i’ve honestly not felt like i’ve had the energy to pay attention to comics that are more serious/really conscious in developing plot and such over the past year and have more just read a lot of lighthearted stuff to fill the time or comics i kept up with on tapas instead of through RSS bookmarks. i really want to get back into a lot of comics but for the time being i feel weird reccing things that i’m over a year behind on (or longer, some of these i last was into mid high school so idk how they hold up) so uhhhh Disclaimer most of these i’m behind on by 2+ years even though i really want to get back into them but really quickly theres

dead end (finished now i think)

espaced (on hiatus)

o human star

widdershins

goodbye to halos

this is probably way too long sorry about that!! i get really excited about comics

i hope this can be of some use and also i just want to say thank you for making your comics, you’re one of my favorite comic creators and i admire and am inspired by your work a lot

#cpost #webcomic blogging #long post -

[angel-of-reckoning]

Thoughts on The Gardener of Gratitude, its themes and its concepts

Now that The Gardener of Gratitude is complete, I want to just kind of muse on what went into it and expand upon my thoughts about various things.

If you have not read the entire story including the epilogue, there will be spoilers in this post, so please be mindful of that.

When I decided to remake The Gardener of Gratitude and began writing up the details of its characters and plot, I had certain ideas in mind right away.

One thing that was particularly important going in was completely reconceiving Fernando VIII’s character. Instead of being the unrepetantly, cartoonishly evil character he was before, I wanted to reinvent him as a sympathetic villain who embodied the “good villains are the ones who see themselves as the hero of their story” idea. In the earliest drafts of the remake’s concepts, he was still angered by Rosalita becoming the heir to the throne over him and was obsessed with defending the kingdom from outsiders. This evolved over further development to become just one part of Fernando’s backstory, indicating that he was upset over being passed over for the throne because of his belief that only he could protect La Ciudad Dorada from external threats. Ultimately, it became what you see in the story - he is unable to cope with Rosalita being chosen because it ruined his idea of where he belonged, and his discovery that an outsider - Sutter - gained the gift of the Fountain of Life while he never would focused his anger on the idea of outsiders taking what belonged to the Doradans in his mind.

Coupling into that is another theme I wanted to include, which is the danger of falling into extremism. This isn’t something that really requires an explanation to understand the subtleties of; it’s obvious how Fernando’s descent into madness and the way his actions tore both his family and Matt/Amanda’s apart. Surprisingly, though, there’s a more subtle sort of extremism Rosalita fell into. When Fernando finally snapped and murdered their parents, Rosalita fled the kingdom to escape him framing her, but once she connected with Matt’s group she was able to put her own plan into place - complete the trials of the Three Pillars as fast as possible so she could take the throne, reasoning that once she did so, her occupying the position he sought would force him to relent in his quest. She learned otherwise over the course of the adventure, but by the point she got the chance to put that into effect, it was already too late.

However, there is another theme that links Fernando, Rosalita and Shaymin together in that they all made a similar mistake. All three are preoccupied to various degrees with clinging on to elements of the past that they need to move on from. Fernando is the most plain of the three. He wishes to preserve an idealized version of what he has been taught the kingdom should be. This is the end result of his obsessive research into Doradan history, which has led him to see peace as the product of a stagnant, unchanging society. Rosalita, on the other hand, wants to hold on to their shared innocence and close bond from when they were children. Ironically, this drives her to fail to notice Fernando’s descent into madness until it’s too late; had she been more able to place herself into his shoes while she was being prepared for the throne, she might have been able to help him reach a better fate. That said, it is probably up to the individual reader to decide if that would actually be the case. I don’t have a position either way on if it would really unfold like that.

Perhaps most interesting is how Shaymin made this mistake. In fact, everything that went wrong is arguably, in the end, all Shaymin’s fault. Despite being a Pokémon that feeds off of gratitude, Shaymin didn’t trust the Doradan people to continue expressing gratitude for their peace and prosperity after the civil war, so it helped cover up the truth of the conflict for centuries. It, too, wanted to keep the kingdom preserved in a state of stagnation in the name of peace, but pulled all of the rulers after Fernando IV first conceived this plan into it as well. This led to Fernando VII and Sophia concealing the truth from their children, which in turn led to Fernando VIII becoming obsessed with keeping things as they were, and finally to him rebelling. When he discovered Sutter’s role in the kingdom’s succession ritual and that Sutter drank from the Fountain of Life, he could not reconcile those facts with his deeply ingrained beliefs and snapped, murdering Sutter, his parents and ultimately carrying out his campaign as depicted in the story proper. Had Shaymin trusted the people enough to push back when Fernando IV proposed lying about the cause of the first civil war, there would have been none of the extreme secrecy that caused this chain of tragic events. If nothing else, Shaymin needed to understand that the state the kingdom was in prior to the war could not come back. The innocence was lost, and the only way forward was to incorporate the reality of the war into La Ciudad Dorada’s collective identity and move on into the new future.

Loss of innocence is another theme that comes up, mainly when it comes to Rosalita and her relationship to Fernando and their parents. Like how La Ciudad Dorada could never be the same after the civil war changed everything, there could be no turning back after Rosalita being named crown princess upended the dynamic between the two of them. They could never again be the children who played games pretending to be the king and the king’s knight, which they’d managed to preserve right up until that moment. Had things worked out for the best, they would have been able to put together a similar dynamic with the roles reversed. But once that decision was made, Fernando fell into despair over the loss of the life he both knew and expected, while Rosalita believed in vain that she could convince him to go back to what they had. He couldn’t cope with the loss of their innocent life, and it took until the moments leading up to her coronation for Rosalita to realize that innocence would not come back.

Yet another theme, and one that expands beyond the royal family, is the search for a place where one belongs. It’s a theme that even continues beyond The Gardener of Gratitude into The Angel of Reckoning, coming to be embodied by the searches Matt, Nekou and Olivia are on, but it is prominently featured in The Gardener of Gratitude as well. It forms a core component of Fernando’s motivation; as mentioned above, he fell into despair and lashed out because there was no way he could reconcile what he believed with what he learned. It gave him the impression that he was unwanted and unneeded, that his birth was a curse due to the lie that twins caused the first civil war. His despair over this is what caused him to take the actions he took prior to and during the story; he truly felt he had no right to exist and couldn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel, any chance that he mattered. He felt compelled to seek out a validation of his existence through any means necessary, and it ultimately caused him to become blind to reality and, in the end, lose everything including his life. Rosalita, on the other hand, knew where she belonged but had trouble coming to terms with what it would mean for her life. Noel and Leon are driven by searching for a peaceful existance by escaping their life of crime through one big score. Perhaps most notably aside from Fernando, Eleanor is very upfront about her feelings of not feeling at home anywhere. She is a native of a large metropolis (Orsay City in Kalos) but that isn’t the kind of person she is, so she doesn’t have a place she feels comfortable in. Had she lived, she would have moved to La Ciudad Dorada. But as things stand, she sacrificed herself because she truly felt like she belonged in La Ciudad Dorada, with the people she met there. To her, the act of self-sacrifice she carried out was the ultimate act of love for the place she felt like she belonged in.

Now, shifting gears, Cassy’s role in it this time. In the original version of the story, Cassy was an active antagonist secretly collaborating with Fernando throughout the plot in order to take the Griseous Orb for Polaris, although she was still using their multi-layered infiltration of Team Galactic as a cover. While those basic ideas are still there, I wanted to reconceive large strokes of her role as part of a more significant reinvention of her character in the greater Operation GEAR project. The fact that she is the one who wrote the letter threatening La Ciudad Dorada and thus provoked Fernando into action may make her seem like, to put it in trope terms, the Greater Scope Villain of The Gardener of Gratitude. I guess in some views, that could be seen as true, but that’s not really the way I want it to be personally. I see her more as still being a protagonist, but of an entirely different story than the one the other protagonists are pursuing, one that has more of an agenda behind it. She may have written the letter, but none of what she did was a plan she came up with; indeed, if anyone is a Greater Scope Villain for the remake, it’s Finansielle. The final scene of Chapter 9 is intended to emphasize this, but in case my intentions did not come across as clearly as I hoped, let me explain it: Cassy is, as she does in The Angel of Reckoning as well, working on an operation with Mercury as her handler. The plan was devised by Finansielle using her consultation with the as-yet-unnamed “Oracle” Polaris holds, who gave her details on exactly how everything in La Ciudad Dorada would play out. It was Finansielle who ordered Cassy to compose the threat, knowing that threatening La Ciudad Dorada would lead to all the events that occurred and ultimately allow Cassy to take the Griseous Orb for Polaris. In a sense, and this is something I want to further emphasize in The Angel of Reckoning, Cassy is herself a victim caught up in Finansielle and Father’s machinations, allowing herself to be manipulated by them because she believes - or needs to believe - that their endgame will let her go where she wants to go. That’s something for The Angel of Reckoning, though, as I said.

Well, I might as well wrap this up. I hope I was able to give you an insight into how I worked on the story!

#The Gardener of Gratitude #author note #pokefic #pokewriting

[tenacious-scripturient]

a run-down of / my thoughts on the novel ‘trade secrets’

so! i’ve recently finished this beautifully written novel by @bettsican​, and am anxiously anticipating for the second book in the trilogy! (seriously, give it a read. it’s a great lgbtq+ thriller and mystery story, i promise you’ll love it!! you can find trade secrets in many places, including amazon, where it’s only $6)

as i was reading it, i noted down all the thoughts i had. it was fun, interesting, and kept me on the edge of my seat!

oh, and spoiler warning, of course.

Chapter One

okay. this is interesting. why are they in paris? or rather, why are they NOT in paris?

2080. damn.

who is cooper hall and why is he important i want to knowwwwwwww

Chapter Two

HOLY FUCK

CHAPTER ONE WAS A PROLOGUE

OKAY IF I DIDNT NEED TO BEFORE I HAVE TO READ IT NOW

-ahem- anyway

nate literally everything you think of has to relate to smoking, doesnt it?

clyde you absolutely bitch raccoon

im sort of piecing together what’s happening here? either way this is a SUPER interesting concept.

i love the idea of every word being important

nate look at you being a nice guy. testing the CAPS before giving them to ur clients

or maybe it’s just good business

but whatever

okay, so credits are money in this world. but how do people get them? obviously there’s what nate’s doing but what’s the legal way to get them? ill probably find out soon

if it wasnt explicitly said by betty that nate ends up with another guy (i forget his name. cooper?) i would have thought audry was the romantic interest

audry you loving caring hypocrite

i feel like she’s gonna be one of my favourite characters

who is this young man that dares disturb nate’s slumber

cooper? cooper.

Chapter Three

nate get up

u turtle get up and hurry down the stairs

or—okay you can fall into that drywall that works too

ohhhhh so nate is a detective. that’s interesting

i also love this idea of keeping secrets (haha trade secrets)

dude are you sure that your embarrassing entrance wasn’t the ONLY reason you blushed? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE HEIG—

nate ur spending an awful lot of time looking at his features you funky little bisexual

oh damn ur smarter than u seem, just watching him take a single breath and you’re already making connections. i guess that’s why he’s a detective

im gonna assume this is cooper, even tho it never explicitly says so

i feel like we aren’t gonna get his name for a while, bc clients and whatnot and not getting attached

Chapter Four

NATE WEARS GLASSES???????

that’s kind of cute

im lowkey gay rn

anyway

NATE CALLED HIM SWEET-FACED AND PRETTY-FACED O K A Y

oh he has curly brown hair

and oh the glasses aren’t real glasses. oh. the use is actually pretty cool!

so from what im gathering civilians are people who don’t live in sanctuaries, and lemnis are people who do?

cooper sweetie why do u need so much money what have u done

nate’s pretty clever

HAH I WAS RIGHT WE AREN’T GONNA GET HIS NAME FOR A WHILE

well that’s that i guess

Chapter Five

he’s so timid awh

hehe he’s on nate’s bed

sorry

goddammit man calm down or else you’re gonna get everyone in a 5-mile radius around you arrested

wait…. zero-credit balance?? didn’t he just have a few hundred thousand credits???

OH THIS IS A FAKE PROFILE HE MADE

so cooper isn’t his real name either

oh

Chapter Six

oh we’re back to 2080

oh they’re back in the apartment??

it was obvious before but at this point it’s confirmed that they’re going to be doing some travelling together or something

Chapter Seven

this is getting really interesting i dont wanna stop reading and type everything that comes to mind

these are gonna be shorter now hehe

“i’d been a petri dish of mixed emotions and wild chemical changes for half the day” I LOVE THAT METAPHOR LMFAO

what happened with nate’s mom

i want to know

my prediction: she wanted him to either change up or completely remove the chip bc she did something horrible? or maybe she just wanted to leave idk im bad at predictions

either way it said she was crazy

o h

that’s why he’s terrified of cutting the chip

poor nate

Chapter Eight

oh this is strangely intimate

very intimate

i feel that, because cooper has such high pain tolerance (or doesn’t show pain), he has some backstory for it

Chapter Nine

lmao nate just went off didnt he

THEIR FLIRTING IS CUTE FHJKJDLSKAJDKLSJAK

also is being lgbtq+ widely accepted as the norm in this setting? bc nate considered cooper to be flirting with him

ughhhh it’s so good so far, from the character interactions to the suspense, especially in this chapter

Chapter Ten

rude cooper is rude, rude nate is even more rude

F E D O R A

“coop”

Chapter Eleven

aw i love jimmy already—

WHAT THE FUCK COOPER

EXCUSE ME

JIMMY

WHAT

HOW COULD YOU

goddammit

what the fuck is cooper hiding

cooper oh my god

you

you’re playing a dangerous game, mate

are you really that heartless

“deceptively innocent eyes” you got that right

this chapter hurted

thanks a lot jess

Chapter Twelve

“like a weeping wound on the canvas of my home” this has got to be one of my favourite similes ever omg

the way nate’s describing cooper makes my heart hurt awh

i feel like butterflies have some sort of symbolism

maybe being ugly on the outside and beautiful on the inside, or vice versa? the vice versa was basically cooper lol

aye we finally get to meet audry!!

PEANUT BUTTER AND TRICYCLE I WANNA HEAR ABOUT THAT

i love audry omg

IT’S NATE’S BIRTHDAY?? HAPPY BIRTHDAY YA SMOKEY CONMAN

“bright eyes” is the cutest nickname ever

Chapter Thirteen

oh we’re back to 2080

wait what they’re trapped together

is this story gonna have a sad ending

please no

Chapter Fourteen

OH IT’S THE LINE ON THE COVER

i like that

nate’s back to where he left cooper

also if it wasn’t obvious before, it’s definitely obvious now that nate and cooper or gonna find each other again. hm. not sure how i feel about that

kind of pissed at cooper but also we need him for the story to progress

O H

COOPER IM ONLY KIND OF PISSED AT YOU NOW

IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE

NATE IVE SAID IT BEFORE BUT YOU’RE PRETTY CLEVER

also who is ‘her’?

COOPER WANTS TO BECOME A?? LEMNIS?? GODDAMMIT MAN

I CAN FEEL THE PRESSURE RISING

nate’s in danger

wow this chapter is

a lot

i need a break

-cue a break-

Chapter Fifteen

i’m back

eisley is a cool last name

oh wait so even people outside of sanctuaries can become a lemniscate

i’m still not 100% sure what a lemniscate is

it’s so ironic elijah’s last name is king, but i assume you did that on purpose. i also like the slight nod to royalty by his first name

OH

COOPER’S BACK

why hello there

Chapter Sixteen

they’re

competing

to become a lemniscate

and one of them dies

do they fight back?? is that why they end up in prison??? so many thoughts are going through my head right now

nate, your fantasy about becoming a lemniscate is surprisingly dark. i’m totally down for it

Chapter Seventeen

oh wait so joshua is cooper’s blackmailer?? Interesting that it’s a lemniscate

i keep forgetting nate is wearing glasses

cooper, my dude, calm the fuck down. you’re gonna get yourself and nate killed

it’s the return of soft™ nate

Chapter Eighteen

oh there’s another one

oh this is very ominous i don’t like

Chapter Nineteen – Twenty-One

okay i was eating while i read so i couldn’t type here but just know that these chapters were really really good

Chapter Twenty-Two

wait fuck what’s happening this is all happening so fast

cooper brought out his gun,,,, it’s aimed at ivonne,,,,,,, they’re walking,,,

OH IT WAS A FAKE KIDNAPPING

nice

i like ivonne a lot

Chapter Twenty-Three

the entire story just changed course

this isn’t just about cooper and nate anymore, it’s about a corrupt government

NATE AND COOPER ARE HOLDING HANDS AS THEY RUN THROUGH THE BARRIER THAT’S SO ROMANTIC

also the line “only the dead are ever truly free” is beautiful

THAT’S WHERE PARIS COMES IN

THEY ALL GO TO FRANCE DON’T THEY

I’m so curious to find out where this story is going

Chapter Twenty-Four

this is doin me a confusion

but tbh these hints/ visions of the future, if you could call them that, are giving just enough information to keep me super interested. props to you

Chapter Twenty-Five

AUDRY STOP TEASING NATE

just joking keep doing it, this might actually get their relationship somewhere

ivonne is definitely my favourite character so far. she reminds a little of melia from xenoblade chronicles, in that they’re both ‘royalty’ that rebel. also they’re badass and smart

oh fuck the brother is here

okay thank god he’s not an asshole

oh god things are happening again

Chapter Twenty-Six

nate stop ogling at cooper when you’re in a life-or-death situation

holy shit the lemniscate are messed up

this crew is pretty great, it sucks that it’s almost the end of the book

WAIT I FORGOT THERE’S A SECOND COMING SOON HECK YEAH

anyway

YES COOPER PULL THROUGH

awwww yiss

Chapter Twenty-Seven

oh

oh

O H

oh my god i ship them so hard

THEY KISSED

THIS IS SO STEAMY

this chapter was art thank you so much for this

Chapter Twenty-Eight

AHAHAH AUDRY

once again, i’d like to state how much i love her

oh the tension just grew twentyfold

this is… great

oh god nate what are you planning, you just got together with cooper and now you want to leave him?

Chapter Twenty-Nine

what’s with all the dancing?

Chapter Thirty

oh god the description

so he’s going around and giving people credits, all the while confessing things that would help the lemniscate track him down. i assume this means he’s going to die, but why?

just what are you planning?

oh we’re back to clyde, the guy who started it all. it feels full circle

Chapter Thirty-One

OH

HE’S MAKING HIS CHIP SHOW THAT HE’S DEAD

that’s much smarter

FUCK

NATE YOU IDIOT—COOPER’S REAL NAME

SHIT NOW KING IS HERE

everything’s going downhill now isn’t it

Chapter Thirty-Two

wait that took an even darker turn

there’s so much happening right now i can’thandlethis

cooper and nate are couple goals

Chapter Thirty-Three

king isn’t as horrible as i thought

still horrible, but not a monster

NEVER MIND YOU’RE A FUCKING MONSTER WHAT IS THIS BS

cooper

actually

shot

nate

Chapter Thirty-Four

OH MY GOD

WHAT

THIS IS HOW YOU END IT

I CAN’T

HOW DARE YOU

NO

NO

NO

NO

i need the next book

like right now

what the hell

Final Thoughts

okay so this book was SO good, and so well written. like damn

aside from that horrible ending how could you do this to me

i’m joking, it was an incredible and emotional ending, i loved it and hated it at the same time

it very rarely felt static, and especially in the first half, there was a good mix of action and backstory/description. it was never boring

the story is just,,, so unique. i seriously haven’t read anything like it, EVER

the world-building?? Is?? so vast?? and insane??

the increasing tension and speed as the story progressed is perfect, i felt my heart beating faster the more i read

anyway that’s all from me

this book was amazing i cannot wait for the next

#writeblr #other writeblrs #trade secrets #phahbiyah speaks