#the depth of the themes and the characters and even the fucking world building are so much deeper than other ones like bro 😭

[cinnabeat]

god i read a post that was like. the manga acts like a shitty generic shounen manga and it only gets interesting once lacie shows up and. how do i kill someones opinions with my hands

#LIKE. WHERE IS IT A GENERIC SHOUNEN MANGA FIRST OF ALL?? #does oz act like your standard shounen protag? yes! bc he actively forces himself to act like that!! boy literally wants to die!! #he literally pointed gils gun at his head when gil was being controlled by zwei!!! in like!!!!! the forst ten chapters i cant remember when #it is but like!!!! he may act like a standard protag but hes also vwry much not like he has DEPTH actually #look me in the eyes and tell me ph has the same shitty genericness as fucking bn/ha #AND THEN??? the rest of it is no where near standard shounen shit like bro ive read so many standard shounens like the basic ones you know #ft i once caved and read op but it got super boring and also was shit anyways #like they are not the dame bro!!!!! the vibes are different!!! this is mot standard!!! #the depth of the themes and the characters and even the fucking world building are so much deeper than other ones like bro 😭 #god you wanna talk about something that starts off standard and then gets actually interesting lets talk about tcf cuz its only after 100 ch #chapters that that bitch actually gets interesting beyond 'this could potentially be good' and that shits nearly 800 #chapters #god im so mad #michi tag

[yellowocaballero]

Reading 'Solo Leveling' (a webtoon/webnovel about a guy who uses a game-like interface to level up and fight monsters and become ridiculously OP and the coolest and hottest guy in the whole wide world) really proves something to me that I've thought about.

The goal of a story is to achieve what it wants to achieve. Different genres have different certain marks the story should achieve. If it doesn't hit those marks, it's not a good example of the genre. In a lot of was it's not even a good story - it doesn't entertain the audience in the way that they want to be entertained. A romance novel isn't a bad story because it doesn't feature great action scenes, but neither is it a bad story because it doesn't delve deep into the sociopolitical implications of neocolonialism. Does it make the reader feel happy? Is it cathartic? Is there a happy ending? Then it's a good romance story - even if you think stories shouldn't need happy endings.

The 'satisfaction' of stories like Solo Leveling is the fact that is very entertaining to watch a guy be super powerful and mow down bad guys and have everybody around him go "WHOAH that's a cool guy". Maybe it's cool because you're projecting, or maybe you like great action scenes, or because you like 'underdog gets powerful' stories. It's a power fantasy. That is the goal of Solo Leveling, and so long as I'm going "WHOAH COOL", then it's a good story. And Solo Leveling is the example of the power fantasy video game dungeon OP protag. It does those elements, it executes them competently, it's a good story.

This is the third of these types of stories I've read more than 5 chapters of. The first was Omniscent Reader's Viewpoint. And baby. This is no ORV.

ORV a big reaction to Solo Levelling in a lot of ways, since Solo Levelling was very genre defining and influential, and it's hard to write these OP stories without having a relationship to Solo Leveling. It's like the most popular webtoon out there. The OP hero, the gaming interface and rules, the gods fucking you up, power fantasy - they're all checked off by ORV. It doesn't subvert them much. You watch kdj pull one over on a shmuck and you're like HEY YA BABY and you watch him utterly decimate some schmuck and you're like WHOAH COOL. You like ORV, basically, for the same reasons you like Solo Leveling. They're the same genre and in a lot of ways the same story.

But ORV has driven me nuts and after a while Solo Leveling has gotten boring. Because ORV has a fantastic supporting cast that puts the MC's OPness in relative perspective. Because there's cool action scenes with different teams, of different dynamics, giving freshness to each chapter. Because you get to see kdj slowly implement some nuts gambit of the course of the entire arc and when we finally hit the end point where it all comes together it's FUCK YEAH. I'm leaving out the actual depth here. But ORV and Solo Leveling do the same thing, except ORV has a great deal of other story elements that build into the main 'point' and escalate the satisfaction, joy, and intensity of those points. You don't read these OP hero novels for the supporting cast. You read it to watch a dude be cool. But ORV's supporting cast - and, like, the fact that they're actual characters, even the women - gives us a lot of other smaller 'hey yeah!' moments, gives it buildup, makes the OP moments meaningful, and gives a grand climax and huge satisfaction when kdj does what the SL guy did by himself. And the supporting cast is only one example of this. A story is a good story if it accomplishes its point, but a story like SL will never really deliver its promises nearly as well as ORV could. Not because ORV is deep and has """themes""" or fucked up shit like that. The 'WHOAH COOL's are just better. Because ORV knows why stories are good and what makes a good story.

Anyway I'm fucking begging you I have tears in my eyes this is why your fic needs more than the hot ship of the day I promise it won't detract from the ship it will make the ship BETTER but you have to get WHY you like these homosexuals so much and it's NOT just because they're CUTE sometimes there's OTHER REASONS THAT ARE IMPORTANT LIKE THE WOMAN YOU'VE BOOTED AND -

#you're killing me smalls #my writing #orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #solo leveling #solo leveling is good at what it does bc i've read 120 chapters of it #but it's not great because i don't actually care #man really early on the MC had PTSD and I felt like we were doing something with that #and why he was so desperate to grow stronger and i felt like that was a good character motivation for the #hashtag grindset #we like characters for other reasons than projection. i prommy. prommy i swear #the funny thing is that literlaly everybody who reads all 1 million words of orv #are a kim dokja kinnie and you do have to project insanely #because the story self-selects for kdj kinnies #if you weren't insane in the exact same way kdj was insane #you wouldn't have fucking finished orv now would you

[sophitia-of-hyrule]

Tears of the Kingdom is killing my love for Zelda

BotW promised a bright future, a change to the status quo, only for TotK to throw all of BotW's themes in the trash and go back to the "good old days" of absolute divine right monarchy and sexist writing. Not to mention Ganondorf having zero nuance. Despite his gorgeous design, he's by far the worst Ganondorf personality and motivation-wise. He's such a nothing character. What's the point of giving Ganon his humanoid form back if he barely has more personality than the evil cloud around Hyrule Castle.

Twilight Princess came out almost 20 years ago and it had more active and likable female characters. TotK makes TP look like peak feminism. Why is the latest game in the series so goddamn regressive? Why are we going backwards?

There's barely anything interesting about TotK. It's so shallow and again, incredibly regressive for a game that came out this year.

The more I read interviews and Nintendo statements, the more I realize they don't fucking care. They don't care about giving you a good story that makes sense, or an immersive world, or likable characters. TotK is what happens when you take "gameplay over anything else" to it's extreme.

Sure gameplay is important, but what's the point of playing a game if I'm not immersed into the world? TotK is a huge sandbox, it doesn't feel like a world, it feels like a tech demo. It has the same energy as Yandere Simulator leaving a bunch of weapons right in front of the school gate so the player can go wild. This world doesn't feel alive to me. It's like Nintendo saw people complain about BotW being "empty" and tried to solve that problem by throwing a bunch of shit everywhere with no rhyme or reason.

Sonic Frontiers has it's issues. It really does. It's extremely janky, has some bad level design and the story has a few holes. However, I could feel so much love in the dialogue and the character interactions. It was a love letter to the series and its characters. It felt like a fanfiction, but in a good way. Like a passion project. Sure the game is far, FAR from perfect, but I could tell the people who wrote for it really cared.

I didn't get that feeling playing TotK. It really felt like Nintendo just wanted to flex their new physics engine and stupid fucking building mechanic. They really gave us Zelda Nuts & Bolts and everyone clapped.

What's the point of building shit if the world feels fake and the characters are merely shadows of their former selves? What's the point of making a sequel if you're just going to ignore everything that happened in BotW to "not confuse new players"? What's the point?

I don't fucking care about the building mechanic. That's not why I play Zelda. The story is important to me. The characters are important to me. The worldbuilding is important to me. And Nintendo ignored all of those things.

In my opinion TotK's opening and ending (minus the true ending) are fantastic. But everything in between is a bitter disappointment. Nintendo confirmed the depths took very little time to make because they were auto-generated. Hyrule has barely changed except for the fact that Hateno has a bunch of ugly mushrooms everywhere now. Sky islands are few and far between, and are copy-pasted to an absurd degree. Why the fuck did this game take longer to develop than BotW? There's barely anything new. "BUT THE PHYSICS ENGINE IS INCREDIBLE" "BUT YOU CAN BUILD THINGS" Big fucking whoop. I don't care. I don't play Zelda for the fucking physics.

My boyfriend got mad at me when I said it felt like a cash grab but that's genuinely how I feel.

Edit: TotK confirms that Link bought the house in Hateno village, yet everyone in Hateno acts like they've never met him before?? Bolson doesn't even recognize him despite TotK confirming that not only did Link buy the Hateno house, they went to Hudson's wedding together. Bolson should know who Link is. Who wrote this. Who thought this was okay. Why are people praising this game.

#my post #rant #the legend of zelda #tloz #loz #zelda #tears of the kingdom #totk #tears of the kingdom critical #totk critical #tears of the kingdom criticism #totk criticism

[mdhwrites]

FYI, Amphibia actually got to have a full 20 episode season for its third and final season, while Owl House's third season was shortened to three specials. So don't go saying Amphibia exists as an excuse that Owl House could do better without needing more time when that show got to have a full season 3.

Answering this late night because it's just kind of... Frustrating because I chose the examples I did for a reason. The blog they're responding to for context.

So, part of the point of the blog was to compare two elements that got roughly the same amount of time. The same amount of episodes/appearances and critique which one did it better. This is also part of why I stopped the analysis when the characters finish their arcs because Amity finishes her arc BEFORE the show's shortening could have even affected it. Before it could be excused. Dana has said (interview here) that Eda's Requiem was in production when news of the cancellation came down. That is still two episodes AFTER the latest point, the one that is the most equivalent with Sasha's arc, that I place the end of Amity's character arc, Looking Glass Ruins. Amity's arc, or failure to properly have one, is NOT a product of the shortening.

It is just a product of bad, wasteful writing. Amphibia was able to do an arc more impressively, more robustly and more meaningfully to its actually story than TOH was in the same amount of time. The ONLY difference is that yes, Amphibia's plot got to move forward but that isn't an argument in Amity's favor. In TEN. EPISODES (and more appearances), Amity has literally NOTHING to do with the actual overall plot of The Owl House. She is a romantic subplot who doesn't move other characters' arcs forward, doesn't add to the world building besides a single time of going to a new location, or even adds much depths to the themes because of how botched her motivations for her change are. Or, you know, how there's a lot implied Amity but actually very little exploration of her character or relationships (this is part of why Alador's change of heart sucks so much because Amity seems to give zero shits about him before suddenly being a daddy's girl) which isn't nearly as compelling as what Sasha got because her appearances are DRIPPING with character and exploration.

This also ignores that Amphibia is quite literally INFAMOUS for the amount of episodes that don't technically need to exist. There are a LOT of episodes, even in S3, that serve more to add flavor, fun and small bits to theme than move the story forward. I love this flavor because Amphibia is genuinely fun and has a lot of fun with its world so it actually has flavor but... Well, it's not like it couldn't have been shortened. I actually wrote up an outline for how to do it but decided that that deserves its own blog if people are interested because it is still pretty long and doesn't actually address the real problem here.

Amity's arc finishes before the shortening. It wasn't affected by losing out on those extra episodes. It was written as intended for her going from enemies to lovers. That is part of why I feel it's so okay to compare the two because if Amphibia had been shortened, Sasha's arc might have had to get worse. Amity's literally didn't get affected by TOH's though. Maybe how she is post her arc could have been explored more but that's it. Her actual arc to becoming a good person was untouched. I am harping on this because I am SO TIRED OF HEARING THIS FUCKING EXCUSE.

But despite that, her arc also did very little actually with her and/or the world. That's the bigger point. You can argue that TOH had plans to do that post her arc (Reaching Out shoots that concept in the head admittedly) but why wait until then? Why be that wasteful? Even if they had three full seasons with 20 episodes each on average, Amity's arc, at its furthest point, takes up a SIXTH of that time. Ten of Sixty episodes. And in that time, they do such a piss poor job actually exploring her changing and wanting to become different. Meanwhile, Sasha spends 9 segments, because True Colors and the like are counted as one segment in the overall segment count, of a show with 106 segments. A bit less than ten percent. Even if we say 10 segments to include Commander Anne, it's still under ten percent of the runtime, which is WAY less time devoted to Sasha's arc percentile wise while Sasha ACTUALLY FUCKING MATTERED. She is also explored, expands the lore of the world, show us sides of it we wouldn't get otherwise and actually presents compelling, thematic arguments that challenge Anne and the show. Now yes, Amity doesn't literally get the full runtime of her episodes but she gets the majority of almost all of them but Looking Glass. If it's literally time spent on a plot line featuring Amity? She probably still clocks in at just around the same amount of time for her arc as Sasha did for hers.

TOH has flaws that run DEEP. Flaws in priorities, planning, pacing, actually exploring its own world or keeping things consistent. Amity is actually one the best examples of it because while yes, I like the character in S1... It didn't feel like she was actually ready to have her arc wrapped up soon after Winging it Like Witches. There was simply too much potential, too many problems in the way between her and Luz, or her and happiness in general, too little actually explored about her place in the world, for it to wrap up in two episodes or so.

And then it did, despite the fact that it wasn't shortened at that point. Then you look back on her arc and holes just keep showing up. Not because of Disney. Not because it was gay. Not because of the shortening.

It's because it was badly handled and not actually well written, especially when compared to its contemporaries. It just looked that way for a while but looking like something and being something are vastly different.

======+++++======

Sorry for how repetitive this blog probably is. I'm just really tired of hearing this excuse.

Edit: Shout out to the fact that someone actually, before the blog was published, asked me what would have happened with Amphibia if it had been shortened like TOH. So... I'll set that one for the morning.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#the owl house criticism #toh critical #toh #the owl house #amity

[thatdeadaquarius]

OP your addtion about the Harbinger's reaction? Sent me wheezing to the moon 🤣🤣💀

I dont have any additions to Teyvat language yet (other anons have a more in depth explanations while mine is just shitposts wheEZE--) but I did have an idea for a Genshin AU.

I'm pretty sure everybody has heard about the blue alien people Avatar. Tribal people from another planet. (Also I just stumbled upon the forests of Sumeru while going through Chasm quests. The one that has giant mushrooms).

Imagine Genshin in the Avatar Au. Sumeru can be based on the first movie (It fits cause from what I can explore of Sumeru reminds me of the time I watched Avatar of the first time. Pure awe and wonder..) While the Water nation can be based on the 2nd movie, Hoyoverse hasnt released the name of the Water Country yet so we're just waiting. Mondstadt can be based on the upcoming 3rd (4th or 5th? Idk they had it lined up) movie that involves being high above the clouds. Kind of like the Jade palace or the Floating Abode in the serenitea pot.

Its all I could base for now since the other movies dont have that much info yet to be paired with Genshin's countries.

Bonus idea that randomnly popped into my head:

Still going with this Au but its sagau themed. Creator!Reader arrives to Teyvat and is considered as Eywa

NOW THIS

THIS IS AN ✨️IDEA✨️

I just want u to know i feel b l e s s e d that u put this in MY ask box , when this coulda been a whole post of ur own 💖💖🙏🙏

WARNING: So i havent seen the new movie, just the og Avatar one, and i totally loved that concept about Eywa and how their world works so ill refresh myself but if theres any new lore from the 2nd movie i aint got it yet 💁 srry babs

🎵 FROM THE DAY WE ARRIVED ON THE PLANEETTT

AND STEPPED OUT BLINKING INTO THE SUN

AND THE SUN ROSE HIGH IN A SAPPHIRE SKY

ITS THE CIRRRRCCCLLLEEE OF LIFFFFEEEE 🎵

^ except ur like the life itself bc ur god now

Thats why i put that there

This AU radiates that energy

♤

BRO I TOTALLY FORGOT ABT U MENTIONIMG THE COOL CHASM STUFF AND PICKED THAT GIF ALL ON MY OWN

BC I THOUGHT IF ANYTHING LOOKS LIKE EYWA TREE IN GENSHIN ITS THAT BEAUTIFUL MUSHROOM GOD

ANYWAYS-

So I accidentally posted this too early so keep refreshing or coming back bc if theres no "♡the beloveds♡" im still updating this then LMAO

SRRY GUYS

So anon's a genius and i could listen to u talk about this all day

I fucking love combining world building or lore together

Esp like making one the AU or just the setting like u said with Avatar worlds as settings and same characters-

EEEEEE U ARE EYWA- YESSSSS YESSSSSS I AM YOUR GOD BITCHES!!! SUCK ON MY BIG FAT MAN TIDDIES BITCHES RAHHHHH /REF

♧

So they deffo use "Eywa" as a term for you instead of your name

Honestly, before when u were a mysterious af planet creature thing (lets say u get isekaied there i mean)

Nobody rlly knew if u even could take a mortal form or even thought of that as a concept

I feel like the younger generations immortals and Teyvat's current countries kinda think of you Eywa as more of a passive entity life force thing

Rather than the older immortals and creatures that had seen thru eons or over the course of a couple thousand years

That u were very aware and intelligent

Not that ur energy or aura didnt tell them that alone

◇

So a little deeper into the Teyvat lore here but i dont see anybody else talking about it so I will

Originally, it was the Seven Sovriegns and you, and eventually Phanes and their Four Shades,

And they literally all quickly came to realize u literally made this planet and began to start the first traditions of worshipping you!

Like putting gifts or hand made goods at the base

(Ppl have also gotten a tradition from Morax/Rex Lapis and Guizhong and other adepti to leave birthday letters to offer you, which ties into what i say below⬇️)

Ya know,

Eywa the tree could even be a sort of source to the eyes of Teyvat of what you look like while u were playing the game

Like how Eywa's little jellyfish reach ppl in the forest and shit? I think?

So like i would imagine that whatever u make certain vessels or acolytes do most often, is what they think they should offer u :0

◇

Claymore users give u gemstones and ores

Bow users give u hunted game like fowl, or the treasure from puzzles that required arrows (like those bursting blue balloons?)

Catalysts and Polearms give u all kinda of crazy shit lmao

Bc they can be used for a vareity of things

◇

Bc of ur player status and abilities, people of Teyvat attribute a gain in power or talents or whatnot to you, Eywa

So say u actually physically there now, and u just wake up under the coolest sickest tree youve ever seen in ur life

Omg could u imagine????

Seeing Teyvat irl? But AVATAR WORLD IRL???!!!

You would stand there lookin around like a drunk fuck for like 20 minutes, maybe longer lmao

Its just so ✨️pretty✨️ here

Also the tree itself just feels like, the equivalent to ur bedroom basically but like specifically if it was hella comfy and like just the way u want it (all the decor is up, the floor is clean, u got like hot choco on ur desk, theres a candle burning, etc.)

♤

Oh so since ur like weirdly connected to the land, like u know how theres a voice line abt walking in that glowing aranara part of Sumeru and ur steps light up?

I saw that too in the OG avatar movie

So i feel like u would have a map with ALLLLL the peoples on it and little icons

U can focus on just vision users or bosses or big nature things like Dragonspine

◇

Oh so Eywa can control all animals and whatnot and so u as a mortal person can too

So anytime theres a threat u can deadass just become a pokemon trainer LMAO

Ok but think how badass it would be to just like,

Get the Primo Geovishap or Giant Bird Jadeplume Terror thingy to just leave their territory and wipeout some mfs

(coughunknowngodasomodaycough)

It would be fucking amazing

♧

Unrelated to above bc im just spitting out ideas srry guys

but like

I feel like if u were a lifeforce sort of ancient eldritch god for the entire goddamn continent of Teyvat let alone the whole planet-

You would have to maintain said continent/planet

Like, make sure the Irminsul is growing okay, protect from mfs like Dottore,

Stop diasters if ur Eywa too, esp bc u can hear prayers now, and would hear ppl crying out to help them geez

while the prayers of the many kinda just glob together to form the major "feeling" of the prayer for most creatures,

Vision users, gods, ancient creatures u can get their exact sentences

Basically more magic = better heard to connect with u

◇

Oh u know, i could even see it being even more manual or personal labor bc ur not like a tree connected to ur roots thruout the world technically

Like if volcanoes erupt in Natlan, the archon and gods there help and u r also wanted/needed in person for it to work

U would still be powerful, but yeah like say the tree was u just playing genshin before,

The game automatically regulated diasters and stuff other than what was supposed to happen in game

◇

So kinda bouncing off that I read smwhere that the Na'vi dont actually view Eywa as like omnipotent or omniscient

(like the God™️ from the Christian bible for a example of what your not)

And also! Dont blame/attribute natural diasters, plagues, or other bad stuff on Eywa

So good for you whew 💦

Ur actually supposed to kinda just be the collective lifeforce or Teyvat/world and nature, and a defender and guide of life :0

Which kinda fits with the whole "upgrading characters" thing actually

◇

Okay but I saw somewhere in SAGAU tag someone did another name instead of Creator to spice it up and its "All-Mother"

And interestingly, Eywa in Avatar is also called that and "Great Mother"!!

How fun :0

Also, the reason Eywa still got people with free-will is bc they kinda described the relationship to Eywa being something like a mother or parent

Maybe where name/titles came from ig?

Either way, ppl be calling u all types of nicknames u aint heard before lmao

I mean ur sacred, they dont just say ur name,

Nobody knows ur real name or what u call yourself

Just what they call u

Bc they couldnt communicate with u super well before, (the bday letters were the closest they got verbally, and even then they had to be addressed somewhat to ur first vessel the traveler to get thru/be seen)

Otherwise yeah u operating them lets say before on Earth you rlly felt like an eldritch nature deity 💀

Cause u guide them in battles, strengthen their talents and skills and bodies, and feed them food

If they were in battle like needing healing food, u help them heal by consuming it for them so they dont have to take a snack break in battle and

Let me tell u, these denizens of Teyvat who have to constantly deal with magic and monsters and abyss stuff, so a stroll outside ur house gets u in a fight...

...They are very grateful for that needless to say.

Plus i like to think u make fighting easier on them bc ur "guiding" their bodies

◇

Anyway thats a long winded way to say, help me think of all the names Teyvat's given you lmao:

Eywa

All-Mother / Great Mother

All-Father / Great Father

All-Parent? / Great Parent

Creator

Their Grace

Great Puppeteer

The Puppeteer

Soul of Teyvat

Greatest Soul

☆

She aint long bc im not that creative and this idea has sm potential too😔

I would love to be Eywa sounds fun and powerful af and i dont get expected to be Jesus and they know i dont cause the natural diasters, like that sounds nice

Aight im no genius and this writing feels like im just rambling like a drunk guy sittin on the sidewalk mumbling to myself, i had to stop writing 💀

Like that energy specifically-

So lmk if yall got any other cool titles or names :0

I couldn't think of anymore :/

Also srry about the updating this post and making u check back in if u already read this before i put the taglist

(Me putting the taglist means im done editing/writing this dw if u seein this)

Cheers,

🌒🌧🌊Aquarius♒️🌌🌘

♡my beloveds♡

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist

#oh geez #this is embarassing #yall dont look at me rn dont perceive #go check out my 2 other recent asks #genshin impact #ask box open #genshin sagau #my asks #sagau #genshin imagines #genshin sagau ideas #gender neutral reader #genshin isekai #genshin god reader #ok i finished #lmao my writing i mean #i accidentally posted this before it was fully baked in the oven 💀 #it was undercooked #fixed it #genshin avatar au #genshin impact avatar au #genshin eywa reader #genshin impact imagines god reader #genshin impact sagau

[nyaagolor]

Vex's big fat SV fic recommendation list

Being stressed while waiting for reviews and thesis feedback had me tearing through the SV AO3 tags like a rabid animal. Bright side to this is that I've been through basically the entire tag for a few characters so you don't have to. Below the cut is all the fics that really stuck with me

Invasive Species by hiratake Hassel/Brassius oneshot. You know that popular post that says the holy grail of AO3 is a 10k oneshot that changes your life when you binge it at 3am? yeah that's this one they meant this fic. It's a look at their younger years and the falling in love stuff these two go through and it's fantastic. There's cute cameos, excellent prose and really fun themes throughout

Team Building (and other remedies for loneliness) by viodef Arven Gen multichap. By the time I finished this fic I was convinced it's canon. It fills in the unseen parts of the game absolutely expertly, telling the story of how Arven caught and raised his team, and balances emotional angst and cute moments within his team flawlessly. It actually got me to care immensely about Arven's Toedschol. btw, this fic is part of a series-- and every fic in it is just as excellent as this one. They're some of the best Arven fics I've ever seen and I cannot recommend them highly enough

I Love You (just in case you didn't know) by WizardGlick Hassel/Brassius oneshot collection. "Where are all the incredible writers for SV?" making old man yaoi content. The Hassel/Brassius scene on AO3 is killing it. This fic has been on my mind since I first read it, it's so GOOD. It's tender it's emotional it's cute it has it all. Even if you don't care for this ship you will by the end of it. Read it

normal people by golden_blue Larry gen oneshot. I'm actually astounded at the charm people are putting into fics about Larry, a character designed to be as basic as possible. This is a fic that really just brings the pokemon world to life, giving so much depth to characters and making everything feel so grounded and lived in. If you like Larry, or even if you don't, read this fic, it'll leave you loving Medali and everyone in it

Kitchen Confidential by aclockworklemon Zerotrio Gen Twoshot (for now). People who characterize the player's mom are the most powerful among us and this is as good as it gets. There's a lot of subtlety in how the characters emotions are explored through the perspective of the character's own mom, and honestly I just love a fic that feels so grounded and sweet. Everyone is characterized so well, and the conflicts feel so real and personal. Good times all around

lost in translation by fivveweeks E4 gen oneshot. This fic is fucking hilarious I am actually begging you to read this one. One of the few times a fic actually got me to belly-laugh. Every work in this author's series about the E4 is equally as funny and equally as good so just do yourself a favor and read them all

holding onto the past (just like her) by centispores Arven oneshot, focused on grief. This one absolutely destroyed me. It has a real mastery of prose, a slowly building sense of dread and confusion that really hammers in the emotional core, and a really good understanding of flow. Setting the fic to a flu delerium backdrop lets the author's talents really shine and also gut punch you right at the end! It hurts, highly recommend

Tenderhearted Trust by infaredlove Jacq focused oneshot. SV introduced the best cast of side characters (the teachers) in the history of this franchise and some valiant authors took it upon themselves to just make banger after banger all about them. This is honestly a recommendation for this author's entire catalogue of work because I adore how they characterize the academy staff, Jacq especially. The prose is great, the feelings are tender, and who doesn't love seeing some nice stories about the adults in the room?

kids and their newfangled lingo by rentaldragon Rika/Geeta oneshot. This one is less than 1k words and as cute as it is funny. It needs no introduction, it's got silly lesbians in it!!

Up the Creek by neutralize Arven oneshot, focused on his failed attempts to heal Mabosstiff. Another ouchie of a fic. This one stings real bad, and the depth of emotion in this one is an absolute killer. The ever increasing desperation here and the ways that Arven's own trauma prevent him from reaching out or getting help for his own mental state are absolutely brutal and an incredible way of illustrating the pre-canon events. This one is rough but it's a very worthwhile read

YOUR _____ APPEARS ABNORMAL. by johnchurch Larry oneshot, Geeta POV. This fic is absolutely genius and even if you don't like either character you have got to give it a shot. It's such a fun and clever way to integrate in-game glitches to an in-universe headcanon. Genuinely delightful. Also watching Geeta slowly lose her mind is more fun than I initially expected

Cool, Cool, Cool by Chumpy Arven/Giacomo oneshot. Really and truly who is doing it like rarepair shippers. They are the backbone of fanfic society and I mean this. This fic is pretty lowstakes in comparison to the others on this list, but man is it cute. I love the characterization, the realism of teenage dialogue and all its awkwardness, and just the way the relationship progresses during the story. Sooo cute, give it a read!

Perennial by Seasonal Penny twoshot. Fics that are canon to me. I'm not even sure how to properly articulate how much this just feels like a legitimate explanation of canon events that happened offscreen. This fic is perfect and also canon. Real to me.

The Fellowship of Glimmora by dragons_tree Geeta multichap, unfinished. This is THE Geeta fic to me. The prose is incredible, the characterization is incredible, the worldbuilding is incredible. If you read one SV fic today make it this one, it will leave you with so many new thoughts on Geeta and her relationships with the gym leaders. Genuinely so so so good I think I would kill to get this fic to update again

Ortega's Drag Race by MimeOfATime Team Star oneshot. This fic is canon in my brain. This is so real to me. The characterization is perfect, the worldbuilding is perfect, begging you to read this fic Right Now. Pls. For me.

Push by agendergrim Professor-focused oneshot. This one is short and also just cracked my brain wide open. SUCH an interesting take on what happened to the other professor and well-written to boot. Do yourself a favor and read this one when you have a few minutes

Historical Perspective by n7punk Sada/Raifort exes oneshot. No one understands Raifort like this author I stg. The characterization of everyone here is absolutely fantastic and is filled with concepts and ideas that feel so authentic to the story of the game. I too love disaster lesbians so this fic was an absolute delight

regret, reflected in crystal by Emolga Turo and Arven focused oneshot. This one is INSANELY rough, big tw for child abuse and an absolutely gut-wrenching internal monologue about it. This fic is really heavy but insanely good, I had to sit down for a while to process it all when I was done. I highly recommend this to anyone who's looking for a fic to blow them away, the author is insanely talented and a master of their craft, but also OOF.

oh, just one more question… by pistachiosoda Penny focused oneshot. Such a sweet Team Star character study, it's really neat to see the unique ways that each character speaks and reflects about the boss and how it serves not only to characterize Penny, but them in turn. This genuinely feels like it could be dialogue ripped from some DLC of the game. If you like Team Star def give this one a look

irony by mousewritings Penny and Arven oneshot. This author REALLY understands teenage dialogue. It feels so real it's almost painful, so if you want something that's really gonna captivate you, give this a read. There's something about the way the characters fumble that feels really natural, and this author is extremely talented when it comes to dialogue and attitude. I adore this fic

Endearment by Sarajaye Penny focused oneshot. Centers around Penny's feelings about her dad-- it's like 400 words and super sweet, just do yourself a favor and read it right now. Click on the link and go for it it'll take like two minutes. You'll thank me later.

Glimmer by WolvZephyr Geeta focused oneshot. Good Geeta focused fics are few and far between, so it was fantastic to see one that really delved into her philosophy and attitudes and personality. This is one of those fics that really puts so much depth into a character that it feels like a natural extension of everything in game. Whether or not u think ur a Geeta fan, read this, because it'll absolutely give you a fresh perspective on her

Patch Up by ColourfulVoid Nemona and Miriam focused oneshot. This might actually be one of, if not my absolutely, favorite fic I've read about Nemona. It so perfectly captures the masking she does and the ways that the adults in her life WANT to help but can't because of all the fronts she puts up. This is filed under lists of fics that changed my brain chemistry. Read it

hues by aukai Nemona and Jacq focused oneshot. Similar to the above, this focuses on Nemona's unhealthy habits and masking and I just absolutely adore it. It's a brief glimpse into her pre-story school life and really adds depth to everything happening offscreen. Nemona my beloved

If you don't wanna use a tumblr post for the links, I have all these bookmarked on my AO3 Vex_ation, which is linked here

#pokemon sv #mod vex #fic recs

[ya-world-challenge]

Book Review: The Conqueror's Saga by Kiersten White (🇷🇴  Romania)

[image 1: book trilogy covers: And I Darken, Now I Rise, Bright We Burn. On each cover a spear slashes through an object: a flower, a necklace, a pomegranate; image 2: map showing modern Romania; image 3: the view from Poenari castle in Romania - the walls of a stone fortress drop away to a steep mountainous landscape covered in green; source: wikimedia]

And I Darken; Now I Rise; Bright We Burn

Author: Kiersten White

YA World Challenge for 🇷🇴 Romania

I've seen some criticism of this series by Romanian reviewers, one of which is Lada's name (which I agree is odd), and others that are to be expected when you take a national hero (Vlad the Impaler), gender-flip him, and write him in love with the leader of an empire that oppressed your nation for centuries. So it's important to acknowledge this series as pure fiction. It did have me flipping through Wikipedias of the the real historical characters mentioned, many of whom I had never learned about before.

While much of the series (1 and 2 especially) take place in the Ottoman Empire (modern Turkey), the series follows the point of view of two siblings from Wallachia, a historical region of the modern state of Romania.

Review

Lada and her brother Radu are left as hostages of the Ottoman Empire as children to keep their father "loyal" as a vassal. I loved Lada's character from the beginning: strong-willed, possessive, brutal even as a child, and "ugly". The character-building was expert and the way the author weaves relationships and motivations in a complex tapestry, against a backdrop of a rich world.

And I Darken builds the siblings' relationship with the future sultan Mehmed, setting up that messy love triangle, and a scheme to get Mehmed on the throne. While Radu falls for Islam, Lada is never not wholly dedicated to Wallachia.

With Now I Rise, oh lord, the gay angst!... dear Radu. With Lada gone off to find support for her kingdom, Radu is left with his angst. We see the battle of Constantinople, and interconnected politics around Eastern Europe as Lada raises her army and searches for allies.

Bright We Burn, and Lada is ready to go full-on Impaler. The action was great, until... the entire climax and ending. I felt the finale really cheated Lada and did not serve her character. I didn't feel that book 3 lived up to its title. (And god, what a cringe epilogue!)

I have such mixed feelings about this series because it is incredibly well-written and engaging throughout, with an epic world and depth of character. But I dislike the ending the more I think about it. Without spoilers, I can just say that I think the whole feminist theme built up through the book fell apart in the end.

Books 1-2 I would have rated 4.5 stars, but Book 3 ultimately pulled the rating down.

Other reps: #muslim #gay #m/f #lesbian side characters #orthodox christian

Genres: #alternate history #drama #romance #adventure #war

★  ★  ★    3 stars

SPOILER rant under the cut:

In Book 2, the gunpowder lady said something to Radu - that Lada would be the type to go out with fire. With a title called Bright We Burn, I fully expected to see Lada going down as brightly and destructively as a meteorite, taking herself out with everything. What a disappointment.

The ending and Lada's forced 'submission' to Radu, by him taking away every last thing she had, under the guise of *compassion*, quite rankled me. It took away all the independence of her character that the series had built up from the beginning, and replaced it with nothing.

And. The. Kid. That epilogue. No, just no. I hate that such a promising series had to end with the cisheteronormative notion that "you must bear progeny to have a legacy". Fuck that. It completely threw away everything that Lada was just to have this "oh cute she acts like her mother" moment. 🤮 That and Radu vandalizing the church floor with his weak, misogynist scratchings.

It could have been so much better.

#book review #ya world challenge #romania #and i darken #now i rise #bright we burn #historical medieval to 19th century #historical fiction #romance #drama #adventure #war #alternate history #m/f #gay #lesbian #muslim #orthodox christian

[kirnet]

I love ur analysis of dsom. I read it a couple years ago and got so frustrated thinking "this is the book everyone is raving about??" The magic system and world has such potential but the characters drag it down. I remember a scene where Kell is up in his feelings about his whole. Incredibly fucked up "family situation". And Delilah is essentially like "well at least you HAVE a family". And the narrative seems to frame that interaction as her being cool and edgy and the voice of truth or whatever. And Kell is like. I guess youre right :( ill stop complaining. But the story doesnt grapple with that any further??? Doesnt use that moment to build out either character beyond "Delilah is so cool and also right (and an asshole but thats what makes her cool)" and "Kell's complex feelings about this are now solved/set aside after this clap back". Family is one of the themes of the book but even this scene doesnt really explore the concept in depth. I may be misremembering it but that one scene just summed up for me everything frustrating about the character writing and the way the story uses the characters. Maybe the issue is revisited in later books. I wouldnt know, bc very little about the writing makes me want to read any more.

Yeah!! Yeah!! That scene was… argh, you’re exactly right. The main source of frustration for Lila for me is that the narrative frames her as right almost always and especially in that instance. And like, if I’m willing to engage with it, it is a telling character moment of hypocrisy where Lila is lashing out in grief after losing Baron (?? I dont remember his name) and is displacing all those feelings onto Kell. But the way it’s handled, like you said, makes me assume that no, Schwab didn’t intend for it to be that deep. It’s so frustrating because the world and the characters have so much potential! With a few more drafts and edits this could be a really good book! But as it stands it’s a 400 page book with little to no plot, hardly any interesting character progression or arcs, boring flat fight scenes, and uninteresting prose. The masquerade scene is there bc she thought it sounded cool. The elements are there bc she thought atla is cool. The fake eye is there because she likes bebop. There’s no actual substance. I have read books half the length that have succeeded in all of these places. I’ve heard similar criticisms of her pacing in other books from people who did like darker shade so, idk, it sounds like she needs a better editor honestly.

And like, yeah, maybe this is revisited in later books, maybe her writing gets better, maybe the second book is fantastic. I honestly had a lot of the same criticisms when I read the Founders Trilogy, but the difference there was that i ADORED the characters and the world building. They were so solid that I HAD to continue even if i had some issues with the writing style and pacing. This series has none of that appeal for me. If she had ended it on a cliffhanger, if she had actually set up this world to be as dark and edgy as she thought it was, if Kell had to use his wits as a smuggler to survive in a place far from his family leading him to conclude that yes he does love them, if Lila had to fight to survive trapped in white london and then come to grips with her violent nature and that its not actually a positive, then I would be all over the rest of the series!! Idk, other reviews mentioned that they were disappointed with this after reading some of her other worlds like viscous, so maybe I’ll give that a try when I feel less burned.

#realityphobia #ask #it is just so much worse to hate a book you thought you were gonna love then to just read a mid book lol

[sea-salted-wolverine]

P, Q, T 👀

*insert grumble mumble while I hunt down which questions those are*

P- invent random AU for a fandom.

Uhhh... Klondike gold rush era Alaska. 1890s and there's money coming out of the ground at the ends of the earth. The corners of the map have all been filled in but there is one last frontier to explore. The mounties are making your characters carry 3 years worth of supplies up the chilkoot pass. They have more money than God in a place where there is nothing to buy. Wump opportunities galore. The only people actually turning a profit are the outfitters and the whores. The closest version of western civilization is a tent city in a swamp run by gangs stealing luggage. (Anchorage mention) Robert Service is writing poetry about a frozen zombie mailman. Jack London is writing about murder dogs.

Yeah.

I am not optimistic about the quality of a gold rush AU written for fan fic purposes because its a super niche thing that would require assloads of research, but its an incredibly rich setting and frankly a fucking insane period of history. Go read the Cremation of Sam Mcgee and slot in whoever you feel would fit. Tag it as #wouldn't it be fucked up if

Q- i don't so much abandon ships as I put them in drydock and forget about them. I have a habit of latching onto underdeveloped characters in mediocre media that are never going to get any more fleshed out than "cute naive love interest" or "comic relief character #2" and then I'm vaguely dissapointed when the mediocre media wraps up and is content to leave them as accessories of the plot. I have a handful of fics that started as ships, and I did so much work extrapolating personalities and fleshing out the characters that it just became original fiction. The worst offenders are usually Shonen Manga and action movies because while there is a solid chunk of my media taste that is a 9 year old boy who wants to see explosions and superpowers and giant rock-em sock-em robots, those are generally not the kinds of stories that have much in the way of character depth.

Though, sometimes I am surprised and a ship I had thought was moldering away in the back, ready to be scuttled for artificial reef building, comes charging up to the forefront guns blazing and colors flying. Usually when someone has an opinion about Christopher Eccleston. NineRose doesn't so much live in my head rent free as it chewed a hole in the wall and pops out at random moments.

T- do I have any headcannons i will die defending?

I have a bit of a unique approach to head cannons. If it makes the story work better If it makes the story work better then everything is fair even if its contradictory. Senshi is the equivalent of a 20-year-old with a full beard and a 1000 yd stare is supported by canon and contradicted by the supplemental material, but thats not the thing that makes or breaks the headcannon. Its hilarious and fits the themes, despite the fact its not the authors intent.

I do get protective over intentional allegory especially unstated intentional allegory. Just because there isn't a great big banner stating that Pacific Rim, the movie about giant monsters from the ocean, rated on a 1 to 5 category system, showing up specifically because of rising CO2 levels and a warming atmosphere, that the goverment decides to fight for a little bit and then ignore and slap an in effective seawall on it and just let everyone on the coast get fucked, is about hurricanes, doesn't mean that I'm making things up when I say it's about hurricanes. The same with reading the Matrix as a trans allegory. The Wachowski Brothers were the Wachowski Sisters by the time they finished making a trilogy about taking a pill to remain comfortable in the status quo or taking a different pill to make some difficult changes and see the world as it is. So denying any queer interpretation of those movies is somewhere between willful ignorance and illiteracy, especially when the pills are color coded to zanax and oral estrogen.

#ask answered #Ask game #Watch me ramble #Wolverine warbles

[leafy-m]

alizayd for character opinion bingo 🧍🏽‍♀️

Thank you! 💖

Alizayd al Qahtani is the fucking best. There is no contest. He's empathetic, he's a sass machine, he's got a backbone made of righteous steel, he's a nerd raised to be a jock and was the best zulfiqari of his generation through sheer determination. He's the smartest (and tallest) man in the room that loves to help people and is also an oblivious social loser. He's a math genius and an economic wizard that outsmarted the Royal Treasury's best accountants as a teenager to secretly fund and make the Tanzeem's illegal transactions untraceable, and *During a Recession* got a millennia-old decrepit hospital to be completely rebuilt and functional in like 6 months. He also actually listens to people, and did possibly the most romantic thing in the series by building Nahri her private Cairo-themed office. He's self-sacrificing and self-denying to a fault and all he wants to do is fix things (and swim, and read), and he perfectly fits into soldier life and civilian life.

My man has the best character arc of the trilogy as he learns and grows past his early prejudice and indecision while sharpening his best traits. He is constantly reevaluating himself and his actions while still holding on to what matters to him, like his faith and his idealism that Daevabad can be improved. Even in the depths of his bitterness or grief, he always returns to trying to do the right thing, and not holding unrelated people responsible for the actions of others. He has the best motivational speeches in the series. His great grandpa is a crocodile and their scenes together are hilarious.

My man Alizayd has some Lord of the Rings: Return of the King-level epicness, in how he is descended from both Zaydi al Qahtani and the marid-blessed Armah. Zaydi, who rallied the djinn world against the genocidal Nahids and overthrew them to take Daevabad 1400 years earlier; and his ally Armah who commanded the marid to help take the city and Suleiman's Ring, and made the ultimate sacrifice by staying allied with the djinn. Ali is constantly compared to Zaydi in City of Brass and Kingdom of Copper, but there's this steady transfer of similarities to Armah in Kingdom of Copper and Empire of Gold, until Ali is truly representing both sides combined as he aids Nahri and a global army that he put together in three days to once again take back Daevabad from a genocidal Nahid. The man is a fucking legend, and with any other author or director it would unquestionably be at the forefront of the story. Instead it hides in background details foe readers to piece together, like it's barely worth mentioning.

This is because my man Ali also has the self-confidence/self-esteem of a shy beetle hiding six feet under the earth, and the author's subtle/vague writing style and inability to stand up for what she's trying to say when people misunderstand has created... how do I word this... A lot of wiggle room for bullshit?

Ali gets dragged a lot for being self-righteous and a fanatic, because characters that are threatened by him in the book call him that, and readers parrot it without any consideration or critical thought. Is it self-righteous to be against slavery? Or to create personal boundaries regarding drinking and premarital sex? Is it fanaticism when he argues against corruption, or practices his religion *in a completely normal way?* I dare say no! But Ali is both black and muslim, so he gets a shit load of shit from every corner, and with the author unable to really clear things up and too cowardly to even admit that Ali is her favorite character without immediately asking everyone to forget she said that (Oops. Also: no), it makes me very, very concerned for whoever ends up playing Ali in the Netflix show. Because if past is any pretext, he's definitely not gonna get paid enough for all the harassment he'll face. And if the author can't stand up for her characters and book themes now, how will she do it when the audience is much, much bigger and louder? :/

As much as I love Ali and his countless parallels with Nahri, and have a thousand headcanons for him (and a thousand fic & art ideas/wips), the series itself (or rather how it undid all its narrative themes in the end to appease loud fans who never understood what the series was trying to say in the first place, along with the author's blindspots regarding the Nahids/Daevas), has made me incredibly bitter. 🙃 I am someone who worships canon encyclopedically and remembers everything, and have come to the unfortunate realization that I cannot in good health ever read this series again.

So my beloved blorbo Ali exists for me in a weird dimension that I cannot really interact with anymore. Made worse because I still desperately want to see fandom stuff, but then also viciously tear apart everything I find. 💀

Idk how to end this. Thanks for the ask! ☺️

#The stupid thing is that I'm still trying to finish my fics #Because I LOVED writing Nahri and Ali???? #Like yes my god he deserved better; but when they worked it was So Good 😭💖 #And I feel guilty because We Fucking Won in River of Silver and I still can't get past my bitterness #Doesn't help that the final story is a time paradox and proves that no one on Team Daevabad is doing any due diligence with fact checking #Don't even get me started on the changes to the Gazebo scene -- I'm still mad about how she watered down his lines #I literally cannot think about this series without ranting #Even the good parts just remind me of how it gets fucked up later #And most people don't even notice??? All the praise I see makes me feel insane #And all the Dara fans and other readers completely misunderstanding the series makes me insane #I've never seen a series ask its readers to remember so many details and nuances; and then Get Worse the more you understand! #And not in the 'oh its so much more tragic' sense; but literally 'they stopped fact checking things' sense #It's a series that runs on vibes but is also completely against the vibes its sending out #Fuck I wish I could quit this series 😭 #How do other fandoms manage this kind of bullshit omg #Hhhh #Ok I'm done #Alizayd al Qahtani #The Daevabad Trilogy #Long post #My posts

[lesbiansforboromir]

I’m using @eamonorus-blog​ ‘s question here to do the post I’d been meaning to do for a while. But I want to give a bit of backstory first. 

Initially, as many people were, I was very skeptical about the show. Tolkien adaptations and I have never gotten along and initial reveals about the show weren’t particularly inspiring. I hadn’t seen what I wanted to see out of a story about this particularly point in Middle-earth history; namely a deep dive into the political religious philosophy of Numenorean Kingsmen vs the Faithful. And not only that, I had some other lore and plot related concerns surrounding what was being released. MUCH of those issues have been settled since then within some of the recent promotional material but some still remain, namely;

- Why do we have two Durins living at the same time, considering they are supposed to have the same soul. - Where is Anarion that’s my fucking boy. (I’m more reassured about this one than I was before but it’s still present as a concern for now) - There is actually no feasible way to sensitively deal with the Numenorean slave trade, deforestation and colonialism without making Elendil a bad guy. - The Southlands plot is looking quite uncomfortable in terms of the implications it has for Middle men/High men politics but we really don’t know enough about it to say. 

And really... that’s all the issues I have left! And what I’d say is, essentially, the things I’ve seen since the original first few leaks were released are more than exciting enough for me to still want to watch the show inspite of those four issues. 

I have to start with talking about Numenor. Remember when I said I hadn’t seen what I wanted to see, the political religious philosophy of Numenorean Kingsmen vs the Faithful? Well since SDCC where RoP had a massive presence, that plot thread has been WELL in view. Trystan Gravelle (actor who’s playing Pharazon) has talked at LENGTH about the kingsman perspective, the worries and frustrations that drive him and the very understandable issues surrounding being a mortal in a world where immortal creatures exist and speak to you and ask you favours. 

Lloyd Owen, Elendil’s actor, has mentioned that we find Elendil in a time of such high emotional turmoil that even HE is looking for more stability, turning away from the strict faithful dogma and looking more to the capitol. And Elendil having a crisis of faith? Perhaps the most exciting concept I’ve ever heard. I love Elendil’s crisis of faith I want to kiss it’s beautiful little head and tuck it into bed at night when it is inevitably resolved. Just the mere idea of watching Elendil struggle with these issues, not being just a stoney wall of holy righteousness, that’s interesting! I want to watch him go on that journey with his children! I want to see him discuss it with Pharazon and Miriel! 

And these themes aren’t just present in the characters, the whole Numenorean set is riddled with such a depth of world building, I have to stim everytime I see a new thing about it. Numenor visually is what Peter Jackson never gave me for Gondor, there are COOLING TOWERS there are frescos and massive statues and tiny little secret shrines tucked away in street corners and adunaic graffiti over the top of elvish script!! Have you all seen Nimloth? 

This is a terrible image but she’s absolutely beautiful in the trailers. And most vitally these more elven architectural arches built to honour her are falling into disrepair now that she is becoming more a symbol of what men are apparently barred from ever having, than a divine blessing. 

I could go on and on about how excited I am just to see this Numenor, even if the rest of the show is absolutely terrible I will be excited to just turn the sound off and stare at more images like THIS and THIS and THIS 

BUT I know not everyone cares about Numenor like I do SO, in terms of elf excitement (difficult for me, doesn’t come naturally but) The most promising thing I would say I’ve ever heard on the elf front is hearing Benjamin Walker (Gil Galad) talk about elves and their struggles in this particular era. There is going to be ELF POLITICS! They have thought about the tolls as well as the benefits of a somewhat immortal existence, Gil Galad and Galadriel have a RELATIONSHIP with each other that is both respectful and old and difficult, he’s talked about the need for elves to maintain a strict society given that grudges held can last forever, he’s talked about this weight of grief that the elves are trying to overcome by falling in love with Middle Earth. Like!! Even if you don’t like the specific way they’ve decided to go with some characters, doesnt that sound neat? Aren’t you intrigued? I know I am and I could not care less about elves. 

The Dwarven stuff has to be the SECOND MOST exciting thing I want to see. Durin and Disa’s relationship is such a unique thing to see onscreen, we’ve never gotten a mainstream portrayal of dwarves who are in love with each other! And they are figuring out their own political discourse as well, they are treating with the elves, they are dealing with their family politics, Khazad Dum is at it’s HEIGHT and the sheer vastness of the design for the whole city just makes me buzz with a thrill each time I look at it. There’s also been a verbal acknowledgement from the writers team that dwarves have previously been depicted just for jokes on film, and that they all wanted to move away from that and treat dwarves with more care and respect. Which I’m all for! And I suppose this isn’t about the show itself but, did yall know Sophia Nomvete gave birth to her child a WEEK before she flew out to start filming the show? And they sewed special accomodations into her costumes to allow her to breast feed on set? That cast and crew members would take care of her baby whilst she was doing her scenes? I’m absolutely enamoured with Sophia honestly, she’s been the most elegant and bold and joyful ambassador for the series. 

HOBBITS? Now for a long time I was really uncaring about the hobbit plotline, I love Lenny Henry but it seemed like an unnecessary addition to the show. BUT! Recently we got confirmation that we have entwives in the show. And isnt the idea of ancient hobbits interacting with entwives just the coolest? Especially when we know that will all go rapidly downhill VERy soon? And alongside the later seasons plots, they could be a great lead into a variety of aspects. I’m essentially accepting of them now and we’ll see how it goes. 

The Southlands!! Are Mordor!! This is both terrifying and fascinating, we are going to see pre-sauron mordor, with what I can only assume are the people who... HOPEFULLY NOT ALL BUT SOME? Will become the slaves of Nurn. Which... as I said!! DICEY.. but still fascinating and I do want to see it. 

There were a raft of short reviews from some folks who got to watch the first two episodes early and they were pretty much universally positive but the one that actually inspired me the most was a guy who said it was ‘beautiful’ but also ‘really dense and slow’. Which... isn’t that the greatest desire for tolkien fans? Fuck yeah give me the densest slowest show you’ve got. 

The last thing I’ll say is like... I think I’m actually in a pretty good position. I think my already very great disappointment in the Jackson films has really helped me keep the right perspective for the show. It’s not going to be exactly what you all want it to be! The time compression is going to be frustrating, the character changes will be disorientating, the fandom that will spring up around it will have misconceptions about the lore and that WILL annoy you. But take it from me! You’ll survive and you’ll also still probably have a good time watching it to boot. Untense! Take a deep breath! This is an exciting new era for the tolkien fandom and you might as well enjoy yourself. 

#rings of power #Erran AMA #rop AMA #the rings of power #tolkien #eamonorus-blog #chats #long post

[aimmyarrowshigh]

what do you like/is your favorite thing about writing bucky 👁👁

Interesting question! The thing is, when it comes to writing stucky, I am first and foremost a Steve Rogers Girlie. All of my weighty, lengthy stucky fics (uh, all, you know, 3 of them that are longer than like 2,000 words) have been in Steve's headspace.

The only time that I've really delved semi-deeply into Bucky's head was for Five Things Bucky Did That Didn't Bring Steve Back (And Why Steve Came Back), I think. And that fic is very deliberately written at a pretty closed-off psychic distance -- much further away than I ever write Steve POV. And that served the story: Bucky, post-EG, especially when it comes to missing Steve, had to be intentionally closing off his emotions and the depth of his wound about Steve leaving. Otherwise, the story wouldn't work.

It would be a fundamentally different story if I'd closed in with the psychic distance and written the depth and breadth of Bucky's feelings, because then the story would have to be about *Bucky feeling those feelings* instead of Bucky *pushing away* those feelings. I wanted it to read like Bucky's mourning for Steve made him just... hollow. Rudderless. A Bucky without a Steve, you know? And that meant keeping a lot of Bucky's head and heart closed off from him as the POV character, because he would be compartmentalizing as self-protection.

He's also a man who was born in 1917 and was a WWII sniper -- even after Wakanda, even in the modern world, he's not the kind of guy who DOESN'T close himself off from his feelings to pretend that they don't exist. We literally see him do it in the stupid last ten stupid minutes of stupid Endgame, when he fake smiles and it drops as soon as neither Steve nor Sam are looking. We see him hiding from feeling his feelings in the entirety of TFATWS; it was one of the main themes of TFATWS, insofar as Bucky had a character arc or theme. Hell, Bucky is hiding his true feelings the very first time we meet him as he pretends for Steve that he's feeling okay about leaving for the War when he's terrified and was *drafted* and doesn't want to go. When he offers to let Steve move in after Sarah dies, Bucky doesn't say, "I would really love to live with you, we'd love to have you, etc." He couches it in half-jokes to hide how much he wants Steve to say yes. (And, ofc, he's a fucking closeted gay man who we meet en route to a date with a girl.)

So tl;dr, the one time I've written Bucky POV, it was really important to me not to get too close to Bucky's inner self with the actual text. I wanted it to be clear how he was feeling by what he was talking *around* and what he was doing *in spite of*.

tl;dr again, uh, sorry, this answer is got away from me. But uh, I like writing Bucky's total devotion. As much as he hides his emotions from the world and from himself, he can't hide them in his eyes or his actions, you know? He's just the most devoted little scrungly man. Literally would rather die in a burning building than leave Steve. Literally died for Steve. Literally came back to life for Steve. That's a hell of a guy.

#asks #writing #fandom #fanfiction #my fic #five things bucky did

[shantyslimes]

Whenever I hear someone say that silent protagonists aren't immersive I can't help but think about how for years people made fun of Bioware games having dialogue options like "hey don't kill eachother" and the character actually saying "you're both lame idiots who nobody loves fuck you you suck absolute waste of precious oxygen smh" because a character with a voice inherently changes the meaning from text. Plain text is forced to be clear in its tone and how harshly it tries to be.

Remember how in Fallout 4 how every single dialogue had a "sarcastic" response which was usually just you being an asshole and the conversation not moving at all? Or that one robot you can talk to who describes methods of cooking and killing you, and your dialogue options are all responses to the different methods it describes. But your character literally just says "What?" for all the options.

I see more depth of personality from the Fledgling in vtmb having options between "I listened very closely, here's what was said to me" and "something about anarchism? I wasn't really paying attention" partly because every time I play for the anarch ending, I say I wasn't listening. Because I, the player, interpret that as not letting on that I was taken by what was said to me. In either case it doesn't change the response LaCroix gives. "You would do well to pay attention to what everyone says"

If those lines were read by a voice actor then it wouldn't add to my immersion. It doesn't help my mental image of my character absentmindedly picking wax out of their ear. It sits you down and tells you "this is how the line is being said." and leaves me with less room to put my own voice in the world.

In games like bloodlines especially that's important because you're a POV character. They exist to be projected upon. I don't think I've heard anyone say they're more immersed by the Fallout 4 protagonist having a voice, if anything I remember everyone being frustrated and annoyed by them being an extremely fixed character without much room to make them your own outside of what faction you work for and what build you use. But everyone loves how the Courier felt like a person who existed in the world before you started playing yet never imposed itself upon you, meaning you were able to roleplay and actually get immersed without the main quest being entirely about how your character had a life before you that you don't care about. Back to Bloodlines, how you play the fledgling is up to you, but you know they had a life before you, because one of your friends before you were embraced, in a panic, tries to bring you back to your old life after you disappeared. She assures you everything is going to be okay, that it's fine that you vanished but now you can come home. And you tell her no. Because in the players mind, you were minding your own business and now you're being ambushed by someone who you have no idea about. When the game tells you that you've redeemed the masquerade for it, you realise that woman was right. Your character used to know her. The themes of VTMs horror is sold more by your own choices of dialogue being rewarded than having a voice actor stammer out lines to make it clear that they're lying ever could. Hell, assume you the player pick up on it immediately as many do, and you still have to lie to her. The game doesn't give you an option to go back, but it's an act of quiet horror that you have no choice but to commit to, just like how the fledgling has to knowingly lie to this woman. If you had a voice, and could hear the performance, unless it was played to damn near perfection, you'd lose something by not feeling these be your own choices that you need to commit to.

If in Fallout 4, you had no voice but the world simply reacted to you diving into the most secure location in the country just find your kid, people asking how you did it, being amazed that love can drive someone that far, or even horrified at the implication that you managed to pull it off, then people would lavish it with praise. Like they did when that happened in Fallout New Vegas, and the moment you've hunted down and killed the guy who tried to kill you, every major faction starts gunning for your attention because that's an insane thing to do and they want you. It's not the voice that ruins that idea, but the writing surrounding the player.

Anyway tl;dr voiced protagonists aren't more immersive you just need to write really well and people will praise the writing.

[fiendtheanonymous]

8, 14, 18 for the salty ask list

From this ask game here.

8.Have you received anon hate? What about?

I've never received anon hate from the Powerpuff Girls fandom, but I have for the Mario fandom.

I pretty openly headcanon Cackletta from Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga as aroace agender, as opposed to more popular fanon interpretations of her being a lesbian. Somebody told me to fucking kill myself over it LMFAO.

Also, her color palette even matches one of the main AAA flags it's right there /j:

Even color picked it from her palette a year ago, looks great legitimately.

I'm down for all sorts of queer interpretations of my favorite characters even if I don't personally headcanon them as queer in that fashion and I think people should be respectful of other people's takes as long as it isn't shitting on existing canon queerness. It's a blast to see all the lesbian Cackletta interpretations truly even if I don't headcanon her as such, obsessed with the fact that lesbians love her; tbh it makes a ton of sense as somebody who used to ID as a lesbian.

14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

For the PPG fandom, I think a lot of people in the fandom have a stick up their ass about fanon works, particularly aged up work, work involving the Ruffs and/or Punks, or work that's darker/has more mature themes. I get being annoyed with stuff like this, totally, especially after that atrocious CW script leak.

Slight detour but people don't talk about this part enough when they bring up the worst lines from the CW script. Horrid, truly.

Back on track, I get it. I do, PPG, while an all audience show, is primarily targeted at kids and is for the most part light hearted. Even Craig himself states that changing any aspect of its premise and setting doesn't make it PPG anymore. Also I am very, very, very aware that a lot of fanon interpretation work is truly terrible and also deeply frustrating for a numerous amount of reasons. But I think it's a shame that this is so pushed back against because I honestly think that there are so many fascinating ideas that can be pulled from expanding PPG's world building and taking things in a darker or more mature direction. I have read some truly phenomenal darker PPG fanfiction that dives into more mature themes with the grace and nuance that they deserve. I have read some beautiful in depth work about people's future AU's that really take into account every. Single. Little. Detail. About how a setting like this could affect their characters and that includes diving into darker and more serious topics.

I get it's not for everybody, including Mr.McCracken himself, and I'm not saying "oh I'm right all you losers are in the wrong". Once again, there's a lot of stuff there's very frustrating out there. But the idea of having a more mature and in depth look into the setting and truly diving in and doing some intense world building/character building is such a fun concept to me given that there is so much to work with and build off of. I think people in the fandom are too unfair about the idea (outside of just not being personally interested which is 100% fine), not every older/mature dive into these characters and setting is going to be like the CW script or some mediocre High School AU fic where the author thinks that drugs and sex are the height of maturity and that 16 year olds are constant fucking and doing cocaine.

18.Does not shipping something ‘popular’ mean you’re in denial and/or biased?

NO. You are not required to ship anything, ever. Not shipping something says nothing about your values or whether or not you think something is canon. While I mostly don't ship things (I ship like... seven ships out of all the media I engage in, and three of those are the PPG/RRB color code ships and two of them are my own OCs) and don't care what others ship as long as it isn't like, pedo shit, I do have some popular ships that I truly cannot stand. Bowser/Luigi and Odd/Aelita being the mains ones off the top of my head. I just block the tags and don't engage with it, it doesn't make me in denial about anything or mean that I have biases. I just, do not care about these ships and don't want to see them.

Inversely, I know a lot of people who hate the handful of things that I do ship and they have their own valid reasons for it. They aren't in denial, they aren't biased, they just don't like them. It's fine, it's not the end of the world if somebody doesn't like a ship that I do. For the PPG fandom specifically, I interact with quite a few people awesome people who don't like PPG/RRB shipping and that's more than fine, we just talk about other shit it's not that hard. I don't like that shipping is seen as this be all end all in fandom spaces where so much discourse and strife is located. I hate how much of fandom it takes up and how big of a deal it's treated as even when I do ship stuff.

Additional perspective: I think the idea of not wanting to ship things or not shipping things being seen as bad excludes aspecs from fan spaces. I'm demiromantic/grayromantic (not 100% sure on which LOL my identity is a complicated mess), asexual, and generally shift between being neutral and favorable on both romance and sex. There are a lot of aspecs in fandom spaces who are solidly repulsed or uninterested in sex/romance or seeing it explored in fandom. The amount that shipping is focused on in fandom makes most fandom completely inhospitable to aspecs who aren't interested in romance and sex. Putting morality on not shipping things only pushes them out of fan spaces further than they already are.

Yeah sure, there are people who might not ship shit because they're queerphobic or racist or any other sort of bigot who doesn't like the dynamics of a ship due to the fact that it involves minorities. But those are not the vast, vast majority of people who aren't interested in ships.

#asks #anonymous

[wallacejwriting]

Hello! Welcome to the blog. This is an updated intro. I've been here for a minute, just wanted to tidy things up.

I am Wallace, but I also like Wally and Lace just as much (and I generally refer to myself as Lace), so feel free to pick your preference! They/Them or He/Him pronouns, in that order.

This is my writing sideblog. My main blog is over at @lacependragon! I will follow, like, comment on posts, and send asks from there, but I post my writing here and I reblog writing stuff to this blog.

I'm a queer, autistic author with chronic illness/pain and a whole lot of wips. I'm Canadian. I've been writing over half my life (and when you're a couple years shy of 30, that's not bad!) and I was reasonably popular as a fanfic author (RWBY fics mostly), something I've largely stopped doing as of September, 2021.

I'm very passionate. Which is to say I have a Lot(TM) of opinions. And I refuse to take personality tests even if I love them for characters.

Also I really love writing programs. I don't think you need them to be a good author, whatsoever, but god I love them so much.

My Writing

I write basically two things: big ass, character driven, SFF series with tightly woven plots & relationships, plus ridiculous amounts of lore and worldbuilding; and romance novels. That's it. I'm pretty sure I'm better at the latter, which I think is cool.

Also: I have a lots of wips. I cycle between them regularly but I always come back around to the others eventually.

I can sum up my writing as such:

Mostly SFF with a focus on fantasy and scifantasy

Character focused and driven

Often relationship driven - family, friendship, romance, etc.

Almost all of my protagonists are they/them NBs or some other flavour of trans

Mainly queer, disabled, neurodivergent characters

Queer and trans focused romances, also polycules

Found family, slow burn romance, platonic bonds, redemption arcs, overcoming adversity & trauma

Gray morality and tough decisions

Intricate world-building, in-depth magic systems, lots of fantasy creatures, and details on how these things interact with everyday and overarching life

Puns. A lot of puns.

A lot of silly combo words I use as a shortcut to avoid conlanging unnecessarily (though I do LOVE a good conlang)

Listen there's a lot of apocalypses in my WIPs. And overcoming them. It's a theme. It's because of the state of the world. Roll with it.

The Blog

What can you expect on this blog?

Character intros, WIP intros, worldbuilding posts, magic building posts, lore posts, and more

Lots of rambling posts about my WIPs, in general, and progress updates as I draft them

Screenshots and discussions of writing programs, including Scrivener, Word, Excel, Plottr, Aeon Timeline, Scapple, Powerpoint, Illustrator (for maps), Clip Studio Paint (for maps), Photoshop (for nonsense), and Notepad++

Snippets and chapters from various drafts of various WIPs

Inspiration posts for various WIPs

Reblogs of other writeblrs I think are great

Tips, tricks, and advice I picked up from my own experiences as a writer

Rambles about writing, the universe, and my process

Non-Writing Tag: #wall talk

The WIPs

[Under the cut because oh my goodness this is getting long]

Main Projects

THE METAHUMAN INITIATIVE Book One: Descent

Series Overview Urban fantasy, mystery/thriller, suspense, adult. Long as fuck.

Nat Carter is drawn to Veda City, a place built to uncover the secrets of superpowers in Metahumans, after the violent and mysterious death of their family. Once there, they set out to uncover who killed their family, why, and how it boosted Nat's own powers, only to realize that the conspiracy is far deeper than they ever imagined. And, somehow, Nat might be at the centre of it all.

Links: WIP Post | Series Tag | Book One Tag | Series Playlist | Book One Playlist | Character Profiles | Book One Excerpts

BEURKRATTI: THE PLACE OF STONES

Series Overview High fantasy, urban/constructed fantasy, adventure, mystery, adult. Multiple connecting series.

The changing world brings forgotten history forward. The Wardens, the protectors of the world, struggle to find the source of the faltering ancient magic that is causing widespread destruction. Old gods and new are risen in the Free Cities, and nothing is as it seems. For a young Warden, Katya, an opportunity arises to seek the answers for her people's inevitable spiral into nothingness, only to find far more than she ever bargained for.

Currently Undergoing Major Revisions

Links: WIP Post [Being Updated] | Series Tag | Book One Tag [TBA] | Spotify Playlist [None]

BOOK OF FARSIDE Book One: City of Fractured Dreams

Series Overview Scifantasy, apocalypse, adventure, mystery/suspense, adult. Series.

A floating, island city suffocated by civil unrest is thrown into deeper and more violent turmoil after the return of the apocalypse kills its elite fighting force in one fell swoop. Everyone seeking power leaps at the chance to seize it, all while ignoring the dark fate that made it possible. Amidst it all, two siblings, separated by eight years and an entire city, struggle to find one another and not lose themselves in the process.

Links: WIP Post | Series Tag | Ramble Tag | Book One Tag | Spotify Playlist

PATHS MADE OF STARDUST

Series Overview Fantasy, magic school, mystery/suspense, young adult. Series.

Every year, new witches flock to one of the many witch colleges across Mokeno. This year, three students arriving at Starmont College will cross paths for more than just classes. Two first-year students discover a third is held captive by her father's illegal curses and fight to free her from his grasp. If they succeed, they can bring down one of the most corrupt men in the country. If they fail, getting caught will be the least of their problems.

Links: WIP Post [Being Updated] | Series Tag | Book One Tag [TBA] | Spotify Playlist [None]

RESTORING MOONBLOOM HOLLOW

Series Overview Romance, fantasy romance, polyamory, adult. Companion series.

A dying trading post on an abandoned road receives new life when a poorly worded ad tricks an alchemist into moving to the town. Unfortunately, Arlo is not the saviour Moonbloom Hollow was looking for. Two townspeople, Samir and Winnie, don't let Arlo's grumpy exterior stop them, however. They are determined to save their town, and Arlo is determined to save themself. Maybe, working together, everyone can get what they need, and maybe fall in love along the way.

Links: WIP Post [Being Made] | Series Tag | Book One Tag | Spotify Playlist [None]

Side Projects/Minor Projects

Supernova | wip post | tag Urban fantasy, contemporary, young adult. Standalone 15-year-old Andie has never belonged. Bounced from foster home to foster home, they figure they’ll leave the system when they age out. An encounter after school one day awakens powers Andie never knew they had and quickly turns their life upside down. A foster home that cares, foster parents who know their struggles, a new school, and even new friends. But where did Andie come from? And how did they get here? They need to know, or they’ll never be able to rest.

Ghostpossible | wip post | tag Urban fantasy, new adult. Standalone When Y2K hit, it tore open a portal through the ether, letting ghosts, spooks, and all sorts of monsters through. Sixty years later, the best people to tackle the dead and ghastly are the young, and Kai Yeung, part time college student and full-time big sibling, is trying to make it big in the ghost hunting live streaming business. Money is tight, and this is their best option. Until a guy named Archie shows up and reveals that he’s been possessed by an ancient magical artifact and the very grumpy warrior trapped inside it. If Kai can get the artifact off, they can sell it and provide for their sister for years to come, but that’s only if they can get it off Archie before those chasing him can catch up.

Demon Fuckers Anonymous | wip post | tag Fantasy, dark academia, new adult, erotica. Standalone. A disabled student in their upper years at a prestigious, elitist, bullshit academy for magical grad school struggles to keep up due to exhaustion and ableism. To get back on track, they summon a demon in hopes of getting him to help. But the summon uncovers a deep conspiracy beneath the bowels of the school, and a long pent up desire to connect with someone, mind and body.

Queer Witch Cozies | wip post | tag Urban fantasy, cozy mystery, romance, adult. Series Ciar Gallagher can find things no one else can, that’s their talent as a witch. So when a frantic man comes to the door one night begging for Ciar’s help, they’re pretty sure they can do it. But there’s two problems. One, the man is a regular human, one with no knowledge of magic, and two, he’s asking Ciar to find his kidnapped daughter, and Ciar’s never tracked a person before.

Care Home for Chosen Ones | wip post | tag Urban fantasy, contemporary, adult. Standalone 25-year-old Marlowe takes great pride in their career as a care worker at Sunrise Elder Care, especially in their chats with the remaining chosen ones of a long finished prophecy. But when strange shadows begin to haunt the care home, Marlowe must summon all their knowledge and their most trusty weapon – the push broom – in order to stop the returning Dark One and save the elder chosen ones and their home before it’s too late.

Persephone Project | wip post | tag Science fiction, mystery/thriller, adult. Standalone Five years ago, Axl Thorn was arrested aboard the U.S.S. Faraday for techno-terrorism and multiple counts of first degree murder. Now, the cybernetic attacks have made a resurgence, but this time someone else is behind the keyboard. Pulled out of holding to help, Axl is kept on a short leash by their pissed off personal guard, whose job is both to keep Axl out of trouble – hah! – and to keep others from attacking them. Yet as the attacks grow stronger, the unlikely allies must cast aside their differences if they have any hope of saving the station and all those it connects to.

#writeblr #my wips #my writing #writing intro #writeblr intro #updated intro

[findroleplay]

🕊️✨ hello people! this might be a long stretch but I'm currently looking for an omegaverse discord plot set in the marvel universe (mcu), with some dead dove/dark elements. in particular, I'm looking to play against an omega bucky barnes, preferably in a plot set somewhere during his time as the winter soldier. considering the timeline, I was thinking about creating a female alpha oc (someone who is also forced to work for hydra, a nurse or a scientist or even someone with powers), but I can also play canon muses if we find a way to make it work. I'm looking for a plot that won't revolve only around smut (although that will def happen given the abo context), but that will focus on hurt/comfort, building a relationship between the characters, introspection, seeking freedom, and keeping each other alive in a fucked up world. some triggering/dark themes that might be present (we can discuss more in-depth) could be dub/noncon (it's hydra, duh!), torture, brainwashing, nsfw, blood & gore, body horror and so on. I'm also a fan of mpreg (although I don't like kids or the building-a-family kind of trope, so it would be more of a dead dove material), forced feminization, alphas being turned into omegas (maybe the serum did this to bucky?), soulmate tropes, and a lot more stuff that can be found in abo verses. basically, we can come up with whatever we want. just please be 21+ cause I'm 25+. also, be ready to plot a lot ooc and share hcs. I also prefer quality over quantity so, take your time with replies cause mine are usually pretty long (3+ paragraphs, I often hit the discord count) but of course I don't expect you to match that (just give me something to work with please!). if you're interested or just want to know more, hit the heart and I'll reach out!

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#rp #roleplay #marvel rp #mcu rp #omegaverse rp #oc rp