#the twelve kingdoms trilogy

[wordsarelifebookblog]

I got book mail!!

Jeffe Kennedy was amazingly kind & sent me a signed copy of The Promised Queen, the third and final book in her Fogotten Empires series. She also sent these stunning bookmarks 😍

#bookworm #booklr #bookish #bibliophile #Jeffe kennedy #signed books #high fantasy #forgotten empires #twelve kingdoms trilogy #uncharted realms #bookmarks #bookstagram #books #reading #romance #read #words are life #novels #must read #book recs #life is words #book addict #bookshelf

[wellspringofallagony]

Twelve Fair Kingdoms by Suzette Haden Elgin

Cover Art by Frederic Marvin

Bonus: the message that was written on the inside cover of the copy of this book I bought at a used bookstore in Albuquerque

#twelve fair kingdoms #suzette haden elgin #ozark fantasy trilogy #frederic marvin #fantasy #paperback #pulp

[dduane]

Middle Kingdoms "Tale of the Five" Mark V covers, minimalist (type 1) group, TDIF

This is the only one of these where I'm not going to put the work under a cut, because there are going to be twelve of them before I'm done, and I don't want to bore people with the roughs in progress.

So this was the sketch for this group's Door Into Fire cover the other day...

And here's a rough example of what I was seeing in my head.

Possibly a little on the nose, but (a) I had to start somewhere, and (b) it was 1 AM when I finished work on this one and I was beyond caring. :)

The "since we're talking about doors, let's lean into that" concept is one that's appeared in previous covers on this series—both mine and other people's—but none of mine have looked this polished, because I just wasn't as good at this stuff ten years ago as I am now, and I've now got far better tools.

...Though one hilarious exception to this situation has been applied to the lettering. The extremely nice Eye Candy plugin from Exposure Software once in its much earlier versions ran on both Corel Photo Paint (my preferred design software for pushing three decades now) and Adobe's various versions of Photoshop. But for whatever reason(s), that situation came to an end. Now, I have Eye Candy for Photoshop... but I really hate Photoshop, and avoid using it whenever possible.

So in order to add some pop to the Cinzel Decorative font on this page, I had to go elsewhere... which in my case means to the little Samsung notebook computer that lives (mostly snoozing) in the front window of the living room, and is still running Windows XP. (Because of this it's never allowed to go online any more, as it can't be made secure.) I refuse to get rid of it because we've traveled too far together, and I've written too many books on it, and I love it too much. But its other chief virtue is that it will still run Corel 11 (which my newer Windows machines refuse to do). And the install of Corel PP 11 in the Samsung will still happily run the old version of Eye Candy, which has all the familiar presets that I tinkered together over years of use. I really need to sit down, eventually, and figure out how to train the current version of Eye Candy to accept the presets from the older one.

But today is not that day. Today I just plugged in the .cpt Photo Paint file and edited it to add the golden-colored effect on those letters. That was all this rough needed for me to kick it to one side and get on with thinking about the next one.

Anyway, for those interested in materials: the hand and the doorway were created using Daz Studio. The blue fire is stock art. (I do have a very nice app called Flame Painter, from Escape Motions, but I'm not yet expert enough with it to use it much in cover work.) The basic (parent) font is Cinzel, as I mentioned: both Cinzel Bold and Cinzel Decorative Bold variants are used in this cover.

There are still a number of things that can use some tweaking in this one, but as I said, this is a rough. Over the next week or so I'll get around to the other two in this set, and get a better sense whether this whole idea is workable—as if the style doesn't work well across all three covers in the trilogy, it's useless.

And now I'm going to go make some oatcakes, as @petermorwood someone seems to have eaten all the ones I made last week. :)

(cc: @mutantenfisch: Links to the print copies at Amazon are over here, if you don't feel like waiting for the new covers...)

#Middle Kingdoms #Middle Kingdoms meta #The Door Into Fire #cover design #tag to make finding these easier: #MK Mk 5 covers

[sleepingdeath-light]

listed below is everything that i have published for my 2022 kinktober writing event - listed by date of publishing and updated daily between the 1st and 31st of october.

minors please do not interact with any of the content outlined here! thank you!

MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS WILL BE BLOCKED

os = one shot ; hc = headcanon set

(readmore used because there are 60-something links to scroll past)

day one ; edging

os . “in the dead of night”

feat. masky (marble hornets) and an amab!reader (they/them) + dub con

hc . howl pendragon (howl’s moving castle)

hc . clotted cream cookie (cookie run kingdom)

day two ; gun play

os . “russian roulette”

feat. din djarin (the mandolorian) and a female!reader

hc . undertaker (black butler)

hc . natasha romanov (marvel)

day three ; overstimulation

os . “cry for me”

hc . steve rogers (marvel)

day four ; breeding kink

os . “the heir”

feat. prince caspian (the chronicles of narnia) and a female!reader

hc . bruno madrigal (encanto)

day five ; impact play

os . “one more time”

feat. mean dom!light yagami (death note) and a gender neutral!reader (they/them)

hc . vincent phantomhive (black butler)

hc . the grabber (the black phone)

day six ; praise

os . “pretty little thing”

hc . daycare attendants (five nights at freddy’s)

hc . jason voorhees (friday the 13th)

hc . sawyer brothers (texas chainsaw massacre)

hc . thomas hewitt (texas chainsaw massacre)

day seven ; hair pulling

os . “weary head”

feat. l lawliet (death note) and a gender neutral reader (they/them)

hc . affogato cookie (cookie run: kingdom)

hc . hawks (my hero academia)

day eight ; body worship

os . “lady in red”

feat. grelle sutcliffe (black butler) and a male reader

hc . undertaker (black butler)

hc . padmé amidala (star wars)

day nine ; daddy/mummy kink

os . “his baby”

feat. erwin smith (attack on titan) and a male reader

hc . jane foster (marvel)

hc . dark!wanda maximoff (marvel)

day ten ; consensual non consent

os . “tourist trap”

feat. otis b. driftwood (the firefly trilogy) and a female reader

hc . bucky barnes (marvel)

hc . asa emory (the collector)

day eleven ; pegging

os . “something new”

feat. tony stark (avengers) and an afab reader (they/them)

hc . korrasami (legend of korra)

hc . valkryie (marvel)

day twelve ; multiple penetration

os . “at world’s end”

hc . slenderman (creepypasta)

hc . hela odindöttir (marvel)

day thirteen ; oral

os . “hell and high water”

hc . eyeless jack (creepypasta)

day fourteen ; knife play

os . “born to rule”

hc . jesse cromeans (laid to rest)

hc . azuma genkaku (deadman wonderland)

day fifteen ; deep throating

os . “king for a day”

hc . baby firefly (the firefly trilogy)

day sixteen ; hand jobs

os . “the consort”

hc . natasha romanov (marvel)

hc . newt scamander (fantastic beasts)

day seventeen ; shower sex

os . “after dark”

hc . levi ackerman (attack on titan)

hc . jennifer check (jennifer’s body)

day eighteen ; threesome

os . “scream for us”

hc . eda clawthorne & raine whispers (the owl house)

hc . gomez & morticia addams (the addams family)

day nineteen ; temperature play

os . “pathetic mortal”

hc . frost queen cookie (cookie run: kingdom)

hc . dabi (my hero academia)

hc . marvel woman (multiple film series)

hc . fire spirit cookie (cookie run: ovenbreak)

day twenty ; gagging

os . “quiet, love”

hc . saeyoung choi / 707 (mystic messenger)

hc . scp 035 (scp foundation)

day twenty one ; sensation play

os . “training”

hc . queenie goldstein (fantastic beasts)

hc . scp 049 (scp foundation)

day twenty two ; collaring

os . “new pet”

hc . sirius black (harry potter)

hc . sinclair brothers (house of wax)

day twenty three ; face sitting

os . “good boy”

hc . wanda maximoff (wandavision)

hc . marauders (harry potter)

day twenty four ; exhibitionism

os . “disciple”

hc . tom riddle (harry potter)

hc . captain caviar cookie (cookie run: kingdom)

day twenty five ; thigh riding

os . “the reward”

hc . charlie morningstar (hazbin hotel)

hc . scp 035 (scp foundation)

hc . remus lupin (harry potter)

hc . original avengers (marvel)

day twenty six ; bondage

os . “all wrapped up”

hc . jumin han (mystic messenger)

hc . hoodie (marble hornets)

day twenty seven ; voyeurism

os . “secret admirer”

hc . ticci toby (creepypasta)

hc . misa amane (death note)

day twenty eight ; breath play

os . “three, two, one”

hc . bo sinclair (house of wax)

hc . tiffany valentine (bride of chucky)

day twenty nine ; pet play

os . “pretty piggy”

hc . sebastian michaelis (black butler)

hc . harley quinn (birds of prey)

day thirty ; period play

os . “the urge”

hc . alcina dimitrescu (resident evil village)

hc . trancy demons (black butler)

day thirty one ; degradation

os . “stupid bitch”

hc . philip whittebane / emperor belos (the owl house)

hc . angela blanc & ash landers (black butler)

#sleepingdeath #minors dni #kinktober 2022 #minors will be blocked #ageless blogs dni #ageless blogs will be blocked #writing masterlist #kinktober masterlist

[hallwriteblr]

new phone who this

hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii i went missing for another few decades again 💕💕💕💕🥰🥰😘💘🤟💘🥰❤️‍🔥🤟🤟❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥💕❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥i'm so sleepy yall got no idea.

im hall, a filipino nursing student with the humor of someone who should not be in healthcare. you will only see me biannually unless god decides to love me. i write original works, all of which are 3 paragraphs from a hipaa violation. my search history will put me on death row one day. i write about everything, jam-packing my works with lethal doses of found family, 2000 ccs of trauma, fantastic homosexuality, the occasional god complex, and the arduous process of semi-legal adoption. i've been told that most of my tales revolve around grief and the concept of a beating heart being a good enough reason to keep living.

so where the hell are my books?

you might wanna come back in 30 years for that, bestie. i got a bunch of stories im working on alongside @canadjester, my best bud. here's some of our faves:

End With One (Never Zero) / Novel

The day after the sun fucking deletes itself from the universe, terminal insomniac Sage gets kidnapped by aggressively delusional twelve-year-old Sasha and the ragtag group of preteen social rejects that she brainwashed into believing she's the messiah. The reason for his kidnapping? He's an NPC—and she needs cannon fodder. The journey to becoming the Ultimate God is a savage one, and she isn't about to sacrifice one of her loyal slaves to ensure her plot armor is kept intact. So, she forces him to die for her. He does. Many, many times.

In God's Image / Visual Novel

Greasy boy Rui finds out he's god and is promptly told to go find "some answers." His best friend, the sole reason why he is not dead yet, says that he didn't find out jack shit. He was scammed, she says, by a cannibal or incest apologist or whatever else decided to exist before the poisoned water supply and mutants drive them all to extinction. Best to forget about it, she says. Don't even try going to Death Ocean Incredibly Lethal Do Not Go Here It Kills Everything Turn Back for "some answers," she says. You'd be stupid stupid dumb dumb idiot moron if you did that, Rui. You aren't stupid stupid dumb dumb idiot moron, are you? In his defense, Rui is addicted to adrenaline and very, very bored.

To Rise a Fallen Angel / (Self-Indulgent) Trilogy

Princess Avyalva Dembrose and her twin brother Avoristell have been left tragically unsacrificed after the Guardian Angel spontaneously Fucking Dies. Source of Kingdom Etheria's protection from complete and utter bullshit now eviscerated and reality threatening to become one giant gutter, Avyalva turns to her favorite novels for guidance. Their answer? Found family. Find a legion of really... unique... clusterfucks. Unfortunately, none of the stories prepared her for the sheer amount of plot holes and twists real life has to offer. And how long it actually takes to get from Point A to Point B.

and that is all~~

this blog will mostly feature others' writing and, of course, my writing. expect very little discourse and posts outside of writing. let me know if you'd like for me to reblog any of your works!

note: a good chunk of the stories i have here are works that i was once writing alongside a friend, Marcy. due to certain circumstances, i became the one in charge of actually publishing the damn things, and now i own all her characters. i was recently informed that she had a writeblr before deleting her social media presence. let me know if any of the works are familiar to you! if you could tell me anything about what you know of them, i would be grateful :)

#writeblr #writeblr intro #writeblr introduction #writeblr reintro #introduction #my posts #long post

[jesuisici33]

9 Books To Read in 2024

open tag by @eddiebabygirldiaz!

Camera Man by Dana Stevens

a biography about film star, Buster Keaton.

2. Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

Two rival journalists end up anonymously writing each other letters during a time when the gods are warring against each other. I don't know much about this one, but two friends recommended this to me with high praise.

3. I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai

When going back to her high school reunion, Bodie has to face questions of what really happened to cause the murder of her roommate Thalia. And if the suspect, Omar, is really to blame.

4. While You Were Dreaming by Alisha Rai

IF YOU NEVER READ ALISHA RAI, START NOW!!!!! I swear, she's the unknown queen of romance. This is her first ya book. Sonia Patil, in a homemade superhero costume, ends up saving the life of her crush, James. Now she's trying to dodge TikTok detectives while getting to know James while hiding in plain sight.

5. Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips

The Greek Gods are crammed together in a London townhouse and fighting to still stay relevant in the modern age. Soon all twelve gods start fighting and it's up to two humans, Neil and Alice to smooth everything over between all of them.

6. Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy

A queer, heavily tattooed, chain smoking nun who says fuck the police and investigates an spree of arson crimes? Do I need any more reason to want to read this book?

7. Wolfsong by TJ Klune

I've only read one TJ Klune book so far (I know!) but I heard so many mutuals rave about this. When Ox was a teen, he joined the Bennett family pack of shapeshifters, and formed a close bond with Joe. However, when Ox was 23, a murder occured in town causing the Bennetts to leave, leaving Ox behind. Now three years later, they've returned.

8. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin

(I've had a book with the entire Inheritance Trilogy for like two years, plus Jemisin has been on my tbr for even longer.) When Yeine Darr's mother mysteriously dies, she's been trasported to the city of Sky and made the heiress to the king. And suddenly she's been thrust into a vicious power struggle.

9. Malice by Heather Walter

Auora (Sleeping Beauty) and Malificent romance. No need to give any more than that.

and also if anyone's interested: My Goodreads My Storygraph

tagging @hippolotamus @911-on-abc @malewifediaz @rmd-writes @monsterrae1 @liminalmemories21 @disasterbuckdiaz @loserdiaz @wandering-night19 @carlos-in-glasses @cold-blooded-jelly-doughnut @apothecarose @mammameesh @thewolvesof1998 @steadfastsaturnsrings @daffi-990

[mermaidsirennikita]

Do you have some star-crossed HR recs? Can be for any reason, I'm just here for the But We Mustn't.....(except they do) content. Thank you so much for all these rec posts too, they've been so fun to read and pick titles to put on my TBR from!

For sure! And thank you, I try.

Laura Kinsale is really good for this with For My Lady's Heart--I keep recommending this and I should add... It is kinda dark and intense? Laura really gets into the nitty gritty of medieval life. But it's so severely interclass, and the heroine has a lot on her shoulders. It feel super star-crossed to me.

Forbidden by Elizabeth Lowell feels this way to me. Another medieval, published in the 90s. There are territorial issues throughout the book, but the heroine also can't be touched by anyone but the hero and is keeping a big secret from him.

A Kingdom of Dreams by Judith McNaught--another older medieval, the hero is English and the heroine is Scottish so they're literally on the other side of a war, lol. They do end up in an arranged marital alliance deal, but it's later in the book.

Since the Surrender by Julie Anne Long may give you these vibes! The hero is a veteran, and the hero is his former officer's widow. They had a kiss while her husband was alive and he basically had to like... be removed to stay away from her. Now they're reunited and it's quite angsty.

An Island Princess Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera may give this vibe! The heroines are in lesbian Paris, but you know--the world is still pretty heteronormative, so one of them is engaged to a man and they begin an illicit affair that becomes more intense.

You might want to try The Saint by Monica McCarty--in this one (a medieval--medievals tend to be better for this) the hero and heroine were sweethearts when they were younger, but their families are enemies and they get separated... only for her to become engaged to his friend.

The Ranger is another one in the series, and it's GREAT. The hero is an undercover spy for Robert the Bruce on an estate wherein the lord sympathizes with the English.... He begins falling for that lord's daughter, and she has no idea who he really is. And she's about to get engaged to another man. It's. TENSE.

Twelve Nights as His Mistress is a novella by Elisa Braden with this vibe. The hero and heroine met while she was married to another man and felt IMMEDIATE tension. After her husband dies, she feels guilty (and there are other issues) so she doesn't want to act on their feelings... but he does.

Surrender to the Devil by Lorraine Heath. The hero initially wants the heroine as his mistress, but it quickly gets out of hand--but he's a duke, while she's from the gutter and holds herself apart from him. TW: heroine was sexually abused as a child.

Check out Joanna Shupe's Uptown Girls trilogy--they all have this vibe for various reasons! The Rogue of Fifth Avenue is "falling for my boss's daughter", The Prince of Broadway has a revenge plot, and The Devil of Downtown is the ultimate good girl/bad boy (criminal) book.

Her Night with the Duke by Diana Quincy has a widowed heroine who hooks up with this random guy.... only to find out that he's supposed to marry her stepdaughter. Verrry star-crossed.

#romance novel blogging #book recs

[angelicminds]

ABOUT ME

Pen name ↠ Kiki Beroski

Age ↠ 21

Pronouns ↠ She/her

Background ↠ Caribbean, Netherlands, Bi, student

Hobbies ↠ Writing, painting, drawing, designing things, making playlists and moodboards.

Music taste ↠ Pop, punk pop, soft rock, indie rock.

Howdy hey! I'm a new writer of original fiction, but I have been writing fan fiction for about two years now. I am a university student as well, so the journey might be long very long before I finish a book. I'm also writing fan fics, so this is a 5-year plan.

I'm not a native English speaker but I have above average English skills, except speaking (I am the worst haha). All my writing is in English and I don't really care to write in my mother language. I always ask beta readers to help me out, don't have one for my current WIP yet.

Under the cut my original fiction wips <3

Main WIP: Tales Of Te Ao Trilogy.

Secret Pride - Drafting

NA, LGBT, Romance, Soft Fantasy, Smut, POC focused.

Two princes are arranged to marry to safe their kingdoms from war, yet they have not been informed about this. Childhood friends to enemies with benefits to lovers. Wip page (mobile).

Kindness Of Paradise - Outlining

NA, LGBT, Romance, Soft Fantasy, hints of found family

Twelve young teens are chosen to compete for the throne while having to deal with normal teenage complexities. Friends to complicated to lovers. Wip page (mobile).

Project title: Capture Of Oracle - Plotting

NA, LBGT, Adventure, Romance, Soft Fantasy, Found family.

After the new King is chosen the oracle disappears. The royal couple needs to find the next oracle to ensure the future of their Kingdom. Found Family, Bandits, Established Relationships.

Side WIPs

Project title: Sapphic Witches - plotting

NA, LGBT, POC Focused, Romance, Witches, Cosy Fantasy.

I'm looking for other writeblrs to follow, so if you're interested please follow and reblog this post. If you want to be friends, you can introduce yourself in the tags. After checking you out I will follow back from @larrysballetslippers, that's my main blog. I want to thank @pens-swords-stuff for helping me to set up this blog up with their amazing posts (and for the good intro post I basically copied hehe).

When a new witch ends up at an Academy for Witches, she joins a coven and falls in love with every single girl there. Polyamory, Found Family, self indulgent book lol.

Project title: The Sorcerer's Master - plotting

Adult, Magic, Steampunk, LGBT, Dark comedy, Romance

When a dark sorcerer tries to overthrow the government, a darker witch gets rid of him. However, she doesn't exactly kill him, so naturally he convinces her to overthrow the government together.

I would love to be tagged in tag games!! You can always ask me stuff!

#about me #writeblr

[masterghandalf]

Embers by Vathara: A Too-Long Review

Embers is one of the most famous – perhaps the most famous – fanfics in the entire Avatar: The Last Airbender fandom. It’s also one of the most controversial, prone to creating very strong, very polarized opinions among its readers. The fic’s fans call it an incredible piece of worldbuilding that turns aspects of the original show on its head and enriches others with a darker, more morally complex plotline and sophisticated themes. Detractors call it blatant Fire Nation propaganda that worships at Zuko’s feet and demonizes everyone who ever slightly disagreed with him. The fact that both sides of the debate can get very… heated, to put it mildly, only furthers the controversy. At the risk of igniting old flame wars (pun very much intended😉) I thought I’d step in and offer my own thoughts on things. In brief, I think there’s a lot of positive things to be said about Embers, and I can see why it has the fandom it does… but at the same time, for a number of I reasons, some major, some nitpicky, I personally cannot bring myself to embrace it. Let’s take a look behind the cut to talk about why!

What is Embers?

First off… what’s this about, anyway? Embers is an Avatar: The Last Airbender AU fic, diverging from canon early in Book Two, written by Vathara (a rather famous fanfic writer active in multiple fandoms, and IIRC has also published original fiction under her own name) from 2009-2014. Its basic premise involves Zuko, while on the run with Iroh in the Earth Kingdom, rediscovering, based on things his mother had taught him, a lost firebending technique- fire-healing. From there it snowballs massively as Zuko gets caught up in spirit shenanigans, becomes a yaoren (two-element bender) who can also bend water, wrestles with his own legacy, and ultimately explores finds himself caught up in an ancient struggle involving spirits and dragons with more at stake than anyone has realized. The story begins in a one-shot, “Theft Absolute,” and then continues in Embers proper, and it is long – 91 chapters (not counting “Theft Absolute”) and more than 700,000 words even discounting author notes, making it longer than the entirety of The Lord of the Rings (even if you include The Hobbit too), longer than freaking War and Peace, and roughly comparable to all three volumes of Brandon Sanderson’s original Mistborn trilogy together. Woof. In other words, there’s a lot to dig into here. Though the fic itself (at least the FF.net version) does not internally divide itself in any way other than chapters, its TVTropes page splits it up into twelve discrete story arcs, which I may bring up occasionally for ease of reference. Anyway, the sheer size and complexity of the fic means there’s a lot to discuss, so with the basic intro out of the way, let’s get to it.

What’s Good About Embers?

Before we begin, I’d like to say that while my ultimate feelings about the fic are largely negative, I can absolutely see why it got popular and why its fandom has generally been so devoted to it (and since I will be talking about a lot of negative things, I did want to go ahead and put this part first, to make it clear that I do have aspects I like, and the things I don’t like should be understood in that context). For one, it’s very long, very detailed, and as of 2014 it’s complete. As a fic writer myself who has written some very long fics (none this long, though!) I have an inkling of how difficult a feat this is to pull off and can absolutely salute Vathara for the achievement. As for the writing itself, I wouldn’t call Vathara a great wordsmith, but she is, generally speaking, a solid one, with prose that feels professional-novel-quality; considering what a lot of fic (especially from a fandom that skews young, particularly at the time of the show’s original airing and the time Embers got started) is like, that’s yet another breath of fresh air. While I have some issues with the plot itself (more on that later) it nonetheless has a clear plot, one with lots of moving parts, and pulls it together generally well. In short, as a literary achievement Embers is already head-and-shoulders above a lot of fic, and not a few published novels. It also uses a lot of tropes and plot points that have a lot of appeal in the fandom. Zuko is the hero! Multi-element benders who aren’t the Avatar! Fire healing! Zuko is the reincarnation of an important historical figure! Aang’s Fire Nation friend Kuzon is an important historical figure! Ty Lee is a secret airbender! Koh the Face-Stealer is the big bad and was all along! Spirit stuff! Dragons! Any of these are things the Avatar fandom tends to eat up; Embers has all of them. At the same time, it also avoids a lot of the common pitfalls; in particular, it mostly doesn’t focus on issues of romance at all and thus neatly sidesteps the fandom’s infamous shipping wars, which is both rare and a relief, especially for a Zuko-centric story. It also has a lot of worldbuilding of Vathara’s own devising that’s extremely complex and detailed; said worldbuilding is controversial, and I can say I’m one it doesn’t really work for (again, more on that later) but there clearly was a lot of effort put into it, Vathara did her homework, and if you do like it, it’s one of the fic’s major selling points. She also includes a number of OCs from various walks of life that offer different perspectives and flesh things out more. And, of course, deconstruction fics that seek to problematize the canon and/or offer darker, more “mature” takes on the source material are always going to have a following in any fandom. Regardless of what you think, it makes you think (as the fact that I felt compelled to write this review, something I don’t normally do, should attest… I certainly wouldn’t put this level of thought and effort into a fic I just thought was bad). In short, I can absolutely respect Embers as a piece of writing and as a rare achievement in fandom, and I can also see a lot of reasons why it has the appeal it does for people.

But in the end, the story doesn’t work for me. Some of the reasons why are obvious; some are more subtle; some are more nitpicky issues of personal taste. But I’d like to take a while to discuss why, despite everything I do think there is to like or appreciate about the fic, it rubs me the wrong way. First off, I think it’s best before anything else to discuss the lion-turtle in the room.

Is Embers Fire Nation Apologism?

This is perhaps the most common accusation levelled at the fic by its detractors; that Vathara loves the Fire Nation, presents them as being in the right and the war as justified and everyone who opposes them as being evil. In fact, Embers’s tropes page used to (it’s since been removed) compare the fic directly to The Last Ringbearer, an (in)famous LotR fic (actually a published novel in Russian, its original language, but a free fanfic in English) that flipped the tale’s original morality, presenting the elves and wizards as evil, Gondor and Rohan as their dupes, and Mordor and Umbar as innocent victims of bigoted imperialism. The fic’s fans, meanwhile, says that this is a surface-level reading that completely misses the story’s nuances and ignores its actual messages. So, what’s my take? Is Embers pro-Fire Nation apologism? My answer is… no. And also, yes. Let me explain.

First off, the fic’s reputation as Fire Nation apologism has undeniably been exaggerated by its hatedom. It presents the Hundred-Year War as being wrong. The genocide of the Air Nomads was wrong. Characters like Ozai and Azula (and, posthumously, Sozin and Zhao) who were villainous in canon remain villainous in Embers. Stopping the War and overthrowing Ozai remains a goal of all sympathetic characters in the story. That Last Ringbearer comparison is, I think, unfair (and, honestly, regardless of my issues with Embers, I think it’s a superior work to Last Ringbearer in every way… but that’s beyond the scope of this review). Vathara does not try to paint Hundred Year War-era Fire Nation as being in the right or “the real good guys.”

But. But.

Embers doesn’t try to paint the Fire Nation under Ozai as heroic, true enough. What Embers does do, however, is prioritize Fire Nation POVs and Fire Nation concerns. You might argue that this is a natural side-effect of the fic’s POV centering on Zuko, but I think it goes beyond that. Cultural clash is a major theme in the fic, and this is where a lot of Vathara’s worldbuilding goes is in exploring the worldviews and practices of the four nations in much more depth than the show does (more on that in the next section). But practically any time a Fire Nation character gets into an argument with a person from another nation, the Fire Nation character’s POV gets prioritized and they’re the one the narrative wants us to side with. Characters are frequently lambasted for not understanding the Fire Nation and Fire Nation values, and if they don’t that’s their fault, but the reverse is almost never true, with almost any conflict presenting the Fire Nation character as being in the right. The Fire Nation are literally descended from dragons, it’s eventually revealed (all Fire Nationals seem to have a little dragon ancestry; a few have a lot of it); none of the other nations have anything like this going on. Fire is consistently treated as a “special” element unlike any of the others, and firebenders get to do things like keep volcanoes from erupting to protect everyone else in the world and no other nation has anything comparable going on; we also get a lot of info on how unique the Fire Nation ecology is and the specialized management it requires. The war is mostly understood through the lens of how it affects the Fire Nation, with a lot more time given to how it’s warped Fire Nation culture than the harm they’ve done to the rest of the world (indeed, a big deal is made at various points about how once the Fire Nation conquers territory, they view it as just another part of the Fire Nation and its people as their people, to be treated as such, and those who don’t follow that ideal are presented as aberrations, which is… not how empires actually work). And so on.

But the biggest issue… Kyoshi. Embershas a really weird take on Kyoshi and her role in the Fire Nation’s history that hangs over the entire fic, and not in a good way. See, in Embers-verse the Fire Nation in Kyoshi’s time was a bunch of independent islands ruled by feudal lords (who fought each other all the time but apparently never tried to take more territory than they could control or unify the islands because they knew they couldn’t hold it, because that’s clearly how aggressive warlords think *rolls eyes*). But the Earth Kingdom was attacked by Fire Nation pirates, and none of the local “Great Names” could stop them because hey, the pirates weren’t their subjects. So Kyoshi committed genocide on half the Fire Nation and forced the survivors to swear allegiance to the Fire Lord, and in Embers if you swear loyalty to a firebender, you can’t break it without dying or nearly dying (more on that when we get to the worldbuilding). So, yeah, the political structure of the Fire Nation is presented as being an unnatural imposition and it’s all the Avatar’s fault, with the war being a direct consequence of this. Yeesh. This backstory ends up pervading the Fire Nation’s characterization, providing justification for why no firebender will ever trust the Avatar and why they’re convinced the other nations want to wipe them out and will if the war turns against them or if they try to make peace. It doesn’t justify the war… but it is used to present the imperialist conquerors as victims themselves, doing something they’d never have done if an outside force hadn’t mauled them and rearranged their political system first (all that pent up aggression they used to work out fighting each other had to go somewhere, apparently…). And that… really makes me uncomfortable, not least because of how it takes the onus for starting the conflict off the Fire Nation and puts it on someone else (not the only way the fic does this, as Ozai ends up overshadowed by the real villains too) while also creating a scenario where it feels like the world revolves around the Fire Nation and the Fire Nation’s issues, with the rest of the world as supporting players. In short, while it doesn’t try to justify the Fire Nation’s actions in the present, it goes to great length to make sure those actions are understandable and Fire Nation voices and Fire Nation concerns are prioritized by the narrative while those of other nations are generally marginalized.

 It gets especially obvious when you see the treatment Vathara gives the other nations. So, let’s take a look at the fic’s worldbuilding in general.

The Worldbuilding of Embers

One of the most talked about aspects of Embers is its worldbuilding; Vathara takes what’s established in canon and adds a lot of detail and complexity to it. Like most aspects of the fic, however, said worldbuilding can be very controversial; fans love how detailed it is and how it reframes their understanding of canon, while critics tend to think it doesn’t fit well with what canon establishes about the world. Personally, I tend to fall into “the worldbuilding is really interesting and compelling, but I’d like it a lot better if it was an original setting rather than trying to shoehorn it into the Avatar world,” but there are a few cases where I do think it has very profound issues of its own. So, let’s dig into it, shall we?

Bending: I’m going to address Vathara’s take on bending first, because it influences almost everything else she does with the setting. Bending in Embers works quite differently from how it does in canon. Most obviously, not only does every element have its own sub-school of healing (instead of just water), but every element has mind control powers of a different sort. Yes, really. I’ll discuss each of them in turn as I get to each nation specifically, but in general for a fic that prides itself on realistic consequences for actions and well-researched worldbuilding it's a rather... striking choice to throw in “but literal mind control” as an explanation for peoples’ actions. Also, benders (and non-benders, to a lesser degree) are often depicted as being under their element’s direct influence much more obviously than in canon, to the extent that it’s treated as genuinely surprising when someone does something opposed to their element’s philosophy; despite the work Vathara does to flesh out her various cultures, this ends up making them feel rather “planet of hats-y” at times. Ultimately, I kind of like Vathara’s bending as a magic system, creepy stuff and all, but I do think she adds so many elemental bells and whistles to things that the basic idea of magical elemental martial arts gets kind of muddled.

The Fire Nation (and dragons): I’m going to start with the Fire Nation, because it’s clearly Vathara’s favorite culture and the one where the dragon’s share of the worldbuilding goes to. And, okay, I’m a bit torn. Because on the one hand, Vathara’s Fire Nation is genuinely interesting. On the other hand, it ends up diverging significantly from the show’s Fire Nation, to a level beyond what I think Vathara intended or realized; for another, I think there’s some very problematic aspects of this society that go uninterrogated because Vathara is too busy squeeing over how awesome they are. I’m also including dragons in this section because they’re intimately (in some cases very intimately) tied with the Fire Nation, and because Vathara clearly really likes them and changes them significantly from canon.

To start with, let’s look at the political system. I’m honestly not sure Vathara realizes this because she doesn’t really discuss in in her author notes, but she somehow ends up giving the Fire Nation an entirely different form of government than they had in canon. The canon Fire Nation is clearly a centralized absolute monarchy; everything we see seems to be run by a centralized bureaucracy, its military force is a centralized, professional military, and the chain of command for both culminates in the Fire Lord, who has absolute legal, military and (implicitly) religious authority over everyone. Vathara’s Fire Nation is still a monarchy, but instead of a top-down absolute monarchy it's a bottom-up feudal monarchy where, instead of one centralized country, it’s made up of a bunch of local fiefdoms where people are loyal first and foremost to whoever their local “Great Name” is, that person has authority over the domain and then in turn swears loyalty to the Fire Lord. Needless to say, this is a completely different form of government and would produce a completely different social and especially military structure from the one we see in the show. Indeed, in the fic said social structure is greatly explored and becomes plot-critical, but it doesn’t really jive with other aspects ported over from the show’s version (such as why Embers’s Fire Nation still has a centralized professional military instead of each domain providing their own troops separately when called on, as would be the case in an actual feudal system). Unfortunately, I think a lot of the detail also comes at the expense of the other nations, with a lot of aspects of Vathara’s Fire Nation being held up as unusually awesome in-universe, whether explicitly or implicitly. Most obviously, Great Names (which, considering the Fire Nation’s Japanese influences, is a pretty clear equivalent of historical daimyo) and their heirs are awesome and Vathara really, really wants to make sure we know that. The fic makes it clear that to be a Great Name you have to be a badass, and you have to hold yourself to certain standards of behavior (even a Great Name as tyrannical as Ozai seems to have to have some standards at least where his subjects – ie, the Caldera specifically in his case – are concerned) and have to keep all the volcanoes in their territory under control so everyone should be grateful to them, and have their special court language based on Sanskrit that only they speak, and if you’re a real Great Name everyone will respect you and think you’re wonderful because you’re just. That. Awesome. Even Earth Kingdom characters are impressed when realizing that Zuko (or "Lee”) is probably a Great Name’s son and think that must make him a badass! It gets a little wearying after a while, to be honest, especially since the other nations have nothing comparable (titled Earth Kingdom nobles don’t get nearly as much focus, with a few exceptions, and the Water Tribes and Air Nomads obviously have completely different systems). At the same time, the Fire Nation is also apparently the only country that regularly fields female soldiers (this one does have some basis in canon – they certainly seem to have more of them, at the very least) and also the only country where a commoner can become a high-ranking officer, even though the sorts of feudal societies Vathara’s Fire Nation is modeled on tend to not have much room for social mobility, to put it mildly (military aristocrats are an elitist bunch, as a rule, and tend to guard their prerogatives jealously!).

Oh, and this is all held together by the Fire Nation’s version of mind control – loyalty. Basically, anyone who swears allegiance to a firebender can’t break it without resulting in severe illness or death, and powerful firebenders can even attract the loyalty of people around them and make them want to serve them, even if said people don’t want to or even know what’s happening (in some cases, like Azula with the Dai Li, even if they’re not Fire Nation!). Every Fire Nation citizen (except exiles) owe loyalty to someone, and again, can’t break it or disobey an order without potentially fatal consequences. And this is where I have my real problem with Vathara’s Fire Nation. This system as a whole is never criticized or problematized. Oh, sure, loyalty to the Fire Lord specifically is a bad thing… because it was imposed from outside by Kyoshi. In the natural state of things, every domain would be independent – but still under the control of their Great Name, still with their own little loyalty pyramid, just without the Fire Lord at the top over everyone. And, indeed, at the end of the fic, the solution to the war is… to dissolve the Fire Lord’s throne and return every domain to self-rule but keeping the Great Name/loyalty system intact. This is uncritically presented as a good thing, because this way the Fire Nation will police itself by means of domains fighting each other (and it’s made clear Fire Nationals always want to fight, and it’s a dreadful imposition to try and make them live peacefully) keeping any one of them from getting too powerful. What’s never addressed is the way this would logically lock a quarter of the world into perpetual conflict with itself, driven by the personal honor of feudal warlords whose people are essentially powerless to disobey them (and again, it’s made clear Fire Nation clans have to have conflict; we’re explicitly told Sozin’s father trying to mediate them all was doomed to failure and drove him to die young, and this was crucial for shaping Sozin’s outlook on life, his resentment of the Avatar, and his desire to redirect his people’s aggression outward). And despite Vathara’s insistence that a proper Great Name doesn’t take more territory than they know they can hold, I’m still not sure what’s stopping a particularly ambitious lord from conquering neighboring domains, forcing their lords to swear loyalty, and eventually building up enough of a powerbase to start the whole mess over again. I don’t think Vathara’s intention was for her Fire Nation to be read this dystopian, but personally, I find it very hard to read it any other way (it doesn’t help that almost all our major Fire Nation POVs are nobility, military, or both; we don’t really get the common person’s take on all this, but I somehow doubt they’re all that enthused). It does remind me a bit of PC Hodgell’s Kencyrath series (enough that I wonder if Vathara’s read it…) where the Kencyr also have a feudal society driven by magically binding loyalty to the ruling class and strict, arcane codes of honorable behavior, except that society is portrayed as deeply, profoundly messed up in ways that Vathara’s Fire Nation isn’t. Also, one last word on the concept of loyalty… it pretty much creates a society where the “I was just following orders!” defense is actually valid (yes, you can disobey orders in Vathara’s Fire Nation, but the consequences are bad enough it’s clear people generally don’t, and Fire Nationals in-fic tend to treat “I had orders” as a justification for most things) and… I really, really hope that was unintentional. Because if not… damn.

In hindsight, this may have sounded harsher than I meant it to. I really do find the concept of Vathara’s Fire Nation interesting, and “decadent empire run by corrupt, backstabbing sorcerer-aristocrats” is one of my favorite setting types, but I really wish she’d taken the very problematic aspects of this society and, well, problematized them instead of going all in on “clans and domains are awesome and Great Names are awesome and everyone wants a good Great Name to pledge loyalty to.” It’s not that Vathara’s Fire Nation doesn’t have problems, but said problems are mostly presented as being imposed from outside (the entire office of the Fire Lord, for one…) and the ideal solution is to essentially revert back to the pre-Kyoshi status quo. It plays into the overall theme, which I’ll get to at the end of the review, that yes, the war is wrong, and Ozai was wrong… but the Fire Nation itself is the real victim here instead of the people they were, you know, trying to conquer, or at least as much of a victim as they are. And, well, I don’t like the implications of that very much (and I’m less sympathetic to this sort of thing than usual this past year, considering certain current events), especially when you consider Vathara’s takes on the other nations.

Before we go on, one last word I’d like to have is on dragons. Vathara clearly likes dragons a lot. I don’t blame her – I went through a big phase of dragon-loving in my teenage years, and they still remain one of my favorite fictional creatures. In a broad sense, I really like Vathara’s take on dragons. Unfortunately, she’s shoehorned them into a setting where they don’t fit, and it makes a mess. Canon’s dragons are “the original firebenders,” fire’s equivalent to sky bison for air or badgermoles for earth. They’re powerful, wise, ancient creatures, sure, but still essentially animals. And I really think Vathara didn’t like that, because her dragons are sapient, nigh-immortal shapeshifters who can and do often interbreed with humans. On its own, none of that’s bad – I like most of those traits in dragons, and there’s mythological basis for most of it. But where Vathara tries to jam them into the place of canon’s dragons is where it gets awkward. In particular, she seems to have an axe to grind with canon’s take on dragons, at several points actively mocking how dragons are often considered animals by humans, people who don’t realize dragons are sapient, or how they are regarded as no more than sky bison (which in canon I’d say is no insult at all, but, well, I don’t think Vathara likes sky bison very much). That “can breed with humans” bit becomes particularly important, because it turns out all Fire Nation people are descended from dragons. Most of them very distantly, of course, but some much more closely, including (of course) Zuko. And we get treated to a lot of exposition on how this directly influences Fire Nation people’s psychology and culture and makes them different from other humans, especially “dragon-children” with close draconic ancestry. So basically, what it boils down to is Vathara’s favorite nation having literally superhuman ancestry (I count “being a dragon” as superhuman) something none of the other nations do (it also adds another layer to fic!Fire Nation’s persecution complex, since they think if the other nations find out they’d consider them subhuman). Normally, I’d love to read about a culture of dragon-people, but it’s just so incredibly out of place in the Avatarverse that I can’t really connect with it there, especially since I feel like it just serves to underscore that Vathara’s favorite culture is special, everyone!

Basically, there’s a lot I find conceptually interesting in Vathara’s Fire Nation, but I don’t like it as written. Personally, I’d emphasize the self-destructive nature of their feudal honor culture more, play loyalty for horror in general (not just if you’ve got a bad lord), and move it out of the Avatarverse entirely into another setting where the dragon stuff could be made to actually fit, or at least into a fic where it’s a full AU from the start in a sort of “Avatar: The Last Airbender reimagined, ultimate universe style” rather than a canon divergence AU that still accepts large swaths of the show as having happened. This is something I’ll be coming back to quite a bit, actually, since I think Vathara’s Fire Nation really highlights how much of this stuff I’d find much more palatable as original fic (or, again, full AU) rather than fanfic.

The Air Nomads: Okay, this is where I think real problems lie. Because even if I unironically loved everything else about the fic… I still wouldn’t be able to rec it unreservedly if it had Vathara’s take on the Air Nomads in it. Whereas most of my other issues with the fic are about context and execution, its take on the Air Nomads is something I find inherently irresponsible and indefensible on its own merits. Vathara’s Air Nomads disturb me – not their activities in the fic, but the meta fact that this portrayal exists at all.  What am I talking about, you ask? Well, first off, there’s a running theme that starts in the fic early any time the Air Nomad genocide is mentioned talking about how it actually makes perfect sense that everyone in the world secretly hated and resented the Air Nomads and weren’t that sad to see them go. To the point that it starts getting uncomfortably victim-blamey. Then we later learn that in the distant past the Air Nomads used to be Mongol-like warlike conquerors. Okay, that’s not as bonkers as it seems on the surface (real-world Tibet did have its imperial age, and there are some interesting historical connections between Tibet and Mongolia) but considering the earlier portrayal, I still side-eye it. And then, we get the big reveal – the Air Nomads, or at least the Air Monk elders, were evil. See, the airbenders’ version of mind control is something called “Harmonious Accord” that is never really explained in detail but is apparently just flat-out brainwashing. And the Temple Elders used it to force all their people to agree on everything and to use the Air Nuns as baby factories then force them to give up their children to be raised communally. Anyone who dissented, and anyone who wasn’t a bender (canonically, all Air Nomads were benders, but clearly Vathara knows better) were kicked out and forced to live among the other nations, which boiled down to the Air Nomads inflicting their criminals on everyone else. Since they were all conditioned to not be attached to anything, the Air Nomads wandered around the world, causing disruption and refusing to deal with the consequences of their actions. Oh, and little things like “compassion” were brainwashed away too, apparently (which is, like, the antithesis of actual Buddhist belief – hey, Vathara, compassion’s the whole point). And it turns out that their pacifism was a hypocritical sham, forced on them by one bitter old monk (who started the temple system) who was jealous of the warlords and seized power during a power vacuum and remade the whole culture in his image (and apparently by forcing the airbenders to be peaceful, he somehow locked them out of most of their powers, including healing… somehow). Yeah, so basically, Vathara’s Air Nomads were a literal brainwashing cult created by an evil old man bitter because he wasn’t a good warrior as a form of revenge, and everything Aang knew about his people was a lie! I can get trying to grey up the Air Nomads a bit, break a few of Aang’s pedestals, but this is just excessive. And, sort of as the antithesis of how it seems like nobody can ever get a word in edgewise arguing with a Fire Nation character, any time Aang tries to defend his people, he’s met with evidence of some new horrible thing they did.

Now, like I said, Embers doesn’t try to justify the genocide itself. The mass murder is clearly portrayed as wrong (though it also has some of the edge taken off – a lot of the kids got out, with help, and there are enclaves of surviving airbenders around the world, including in the Fire Nation, so Aang’s not really the Last Airbender). But at the same time, the destruction of the Temples themselves and the culture that was based there… Vathara seems to think that was good, or at least necessary? She even has Gyatso, or at least his ghost, seem to agree with her on that. And, okay, I hate it. I hate that Vathara took a peaceful, monastic people from canon and turned them into evil baby stealers, for reasons I’m not entirely sure on (partially, I feel this may be to punish Aang specifically – more on that when we get to characters – but I also can’t help but wonder if a Buddhist monk wronged Vathara somehow in real life, because it’s sort of… weirdly personal). But I especially hate it because the Air Nomads are a stand-in for people groups who have faced genocide in real life – Tibetan Buddhists most obviously, of course, but others as well. And while Vathara did say in some of her ANs that she wanted to engage with the sort of propaganda that makes genocide possible… what she honestly ended up doing, IMO, was creating a culture where that propaganda is true (they’re not like us! They don’t think like us! They don’t value our culture! They don’t care about family or loyalty! Peaceful coexistence with them just isn’t possible!). And, well, by about the dozenth chapter where I feel like I’m being treated to the Protocols of the Air Temple Elders (seriously, the only thing that saves the fic from flat-out slandering the Air Nomads with blood libel is that they don’t seem to steal other nations’ children – though honestly, I wouldn’t put it past Embers’s Air Nomads) I just feel angry. Even Yangchen gets reduced to having been a brainwashed nun who had to be saved by the yaoren before she could realize her destiny as the Avatar. I just… am deeply disturbed Vathara thought going this far was okay, and desperately hope the unfortunate implications here were unintentional. Desperately.

The Water Tribes: Vathara’s take on the Water Tribes has me torn. On the one hand, she does go into a lot of detail about what the lives and customs of an actual Arctic tribal people might entail, in particular how their wars and raiding work, how their chiefs lead and gain honor, the role of women elders in the tribe as peacemakers, negotiators and sources of wisdom and authority, etc. I like all that stuff a lot. But there’s also some problems. The biggest problem, as I’ll get to when we talk about characters, is Katara. Vathara openly hates Katara, and a lot of what we learn about the Water Tribes is filtered through her take on Katara, which ends up painting a lot of it in a bad light. Furthermore, a lot of the comments Vathara makes about the research she did for the worldbuilding here comes across as, well, pretty condescending in the way she explains how “tribes” have to prioritize survival above all else (as if “tribes” are some sort of unified phenomenon), using the “E word” unironically when talking about real-life Inuit peoples, and the hopefully unintentional implication that anyone who lives in the Arctic is definitionally driven insane by the lack of a regular day-night cycle. Ultimately, this ends up painting a picture of the Water Tribes (especially the Southern Tribe; the Northern and Foggy Swamp tribes don’t get as much focus) as backwards and parochial, focused on their own communities above all else and not really caring about the rest of the world except as it affects them; also, they’re seemingly obsessed with revenge, to the point that it’s treated as fact that if a Water Tribe Avatar is born while the Hundred Years’ War is still ongoing, it will almost certainly end with said Avatar leading their people to commit genocide on the Fire Nation as “enemies of the tribe” (which also serves to feed the fic’s ideas about Fire Nation victimhood, and is part of a general trend where the fic equates “the desire to see the Fire Nation as a state and military power defeated” with “virulent racism against the Fire Nation as a people”). Also, Vathara’s waterbenders have the power to control other peoples’ emotions and bind them together towards common attitudes and goals; it’s very telling that unlike Fire Nation loyalty, this is called out as being creepy and dangerous, and Katara gets portrayed as a terrible person for doing it, albeit subconsciously. It’s not all bad – Water Tribe warriors, including Sokka, Hakoda, and Bato, tend to get fairly sympathetic portrayals (even though they do sometimes need other characters to explain things to them that I really think they shouldn’t) but then you also get weird asides like the implication that Gran Gran is apparently into murder and eugenics(!) on rather spurious reasoning. So, all in all, it’s a mixed bag, with some genuinely interesting worldbuilding I actually really like, that unfortunately often gets filtered through a seeming need to make Katara look bad that negatively impacts the portrayal of the whole culture.

The Earth Kingdom: This will be the shortest section, as Vathara’s Earth Kingdom feels very close to the canon Earth Kingdom. Even earthbenders’ form of mind control apparently just involves binding people to honor contracts and agreements, which is pretty straightforward and doesn’t get much focus. The biggest issue is the Dai Li. Honestly, I think Vathara gives the Dai Li more overt whitewashing than she does the Fire Nation. Vathara’s Dai Li are actually supposed to be an order of badass spirit-fighters, protecting the people from dangerous spirit world threats, which they apparently still do most of the time, with the whole "secret police” thing being more of a sideline. While Long Feng is still presented as evil, the overall vibe is more that the Dai Li are only corrupt because he’s in charge, rather than the whole organization being rotten (and we’re treated to a number of sympathetic Dai Li characters, most obviously Shirong, while the Gaang get called out for assuming the Dai Li are evil, even though none of their interactions with them have given them any reason to think otherwise). And even Long Feng gets a war hero backstory he didn’t have in canon. I assume this is more of Vathara’s desire to add moral greyness to the setting, but, well, I don’t think that the creepy authoritarian secret police were a group that really needed a sympathetic POV showing that they’re mostly a bunch of honorable men who just want what’s best for their city and it’s just the guy in charge who’s a bad apple, honest! She also gives Kuei a bunch of superpowers for being Earth King, which I’ll discuss when I get to the fic’s themes since I view it as part of a larger trend.

Spirits: Embers uses spirits a lot; it also really plays up the blue and orange morality of spirits in a way I genuinely like and appreciate (though Vathara seems weirdly defensive about this, like she expects her readers to assume that all spirits must be “good guys” and she has to defend a different portrayal, despite the fact that in my experience most of the Avatar fandom considers spirits to be assholes and thinks the world would be better off without them). I do have one particular issue, though. Maybe no one else cares, but as a grad student in religious studies it bugs me so much. That’s Vathara’s use of real-world deities. Agni as the Fire Nation’s patron god has some slight basis in canon, since Fire Nation honor duels are called Agni Kais (Agni is the name of the Vedic fire god… but it’s also literally just the word for “fire” in Vedic Sanskrit) but then out of nowhere partway through the fic she throws in Guanyin as a deity worshipped in the Earh Kingdom, and Tengri as the deity of the Air Nomads. Tengri, in real life, is the chief deity of Tengrism, a traditional religion of Mongolia (which ties back to the connection between the historical Air Nomads as fantasy Mongols from the fic’s history) while Guanyin is indeed venerated in China – but she’s a Buddhist bodhisattva, which is especially weird because the Earth Kingdom isn’t really coded Buddhist in either the show or Embers (shouldn’t the Air Nomads be the ones revering a bodhisattva? And this one really gets me in particular; for some reason, likely Guanyin’s comparative real-life prominence, it feels as immersion-breaking as if it turned out one of the Air Temples was now home to a sect of Christian or Manichaean monks). It’s especially jarring because the Water Tribes still revere the Moon and Ocean Spirits rather than real-world deities (and Vathara gets their names backwards – the Moon is Tui and the Ocean is La, but she flips them for some reason). Honestly, I wouldn’t use real-world deities in the Avatarverse in the first place (I have referenced Agni in some of my old fanfics, following fanon at the time, and I now consider that something of an old shame, fwiw) and if I did, I’d stick with a unified theme of Vedic deities (going off of Agni) rather than taking a grab bag of different traditions and trying to weld them into one cosmology.

The Avatar and Yaoren: Vathara’s take on the Avatar is… interesting. On the one hand, she does have a running theme of each Avatar having to wrestle with their predecessor’s mistakes which I like, and which basically became canon as we got more stories focused on different Avatars (though I do think Vathara sometimes takes it a bit too far, making it seem like the Avatar has caused more problems than they’ve solved; seriously, what did Kyoshi do to you?). On the other hand, she for some reason feels the need to retcon that the Avatar is not actually the reincarnation of their predecessors, but the World Spirit (this fic being mostly written before the introduction of Raava) choosing a new, different human host each time. And I absolutely don’t get the point to this (conceptually, the Avatar is basically a cross between the Dalai Lama and the Avatars of Vishnu, and in traditional interpretations that’s not how either of those work) and it mostly just seems to be thrown in to give Aang something else to be wrong about. Yaoren, on the other hand, Vathara loves; they’re her own creation and as two-element benders are basically mini-avatars (though they’re actually older than the Avatar) and of course Zuko gets to be one. And while the fic goes into a lot of detail about how traumatic the experience of becoming a yaoren is, the way it also lays on thick how important yaoren are and how the Avatar needs them as advisors and how the world falling out of balance is partially due to their decline and how her yaoren characters (especially Langxue) seem to have a better idea of what’s going on and how to fix it than everyone else just oftentimes makes it feel like she’s really laying it on thick regarding how amazing this creation of hers is, with the traumatic aspect being more about milking more sympathy for Zuko than something that actually affects the plot (ie, being a yaoren supposedly cuts Zuko out of the line of succession for good, since he’s now technically a waterbender… but that ends up not mattering because the position of Fire Lord is abolished anyway, and it doesn’t stop him from becoming the Great Name of Dragons’ Wings once it’s established).

Well, this is all getting a little long, so I think I’ll stop here for now and split my overall review into two parts (at least). I hope you’ll join us next time, as we dig into characters, plot, theme, and the fic’s relationship to canon. And if you’re reading this and do like Embers, please keep in mind that I’m not trying to attack you for liking it, and all of this is just my own opinion, no more, and no less. Otherwise, see you soon (fingers crossed!) for part two!

#critical #embers #embers critical #fanfic review #reviews #avatar the last airbender #long post

[alintalzin]

List of my wips: Original Fiction part 1.

I'm splitting this into four parts because I have a very long list of things that I'm either writing or going to write.

Worlds of Myth and Magic- working title, haven't come up with anything better- my great big fantasy universe that I created when I was twelve and that I sensibly rebooted when I was 16.

Atlantis.

Classical mythology inspired kingdom, the first fantasy storyline I created and the only one who didn't get the story changed.

Water's Dream: The first installment in the quartet, Mirilla's story. Incomplete.

Aquaria's story: The second installment, the story of Mirilla's third born daughter Aquaria. Incomplete, and I need to change the title.

Auralure's story: The third installment, the story of the second born daughter. Still plotting the story for this one.

Calliroe's story: The story of the youngest daughter. Haven't even got to plotting a storyline for this one yet.

Kesseti.

Arabian fantasy sultanate. A family saga trilogy with one spinoff novel.

Fire's Blood: The first story in the trilogy. Soon to be complete.

Bronze melting Emeralds: The prequel, currently a work in progress.

Untitled third book: The sequel to Fire's Blood. I don't know what the title is yet, but I have a good idea about the storyline.

Untitled spinoff: Featuring the cousin of the heroine from the first book, Indian fantasy. The storyline isn't fully fleshed out, but I have a pretty good idea of what happens.

Dynwen.

Medieval Shakespeare inspired fantasy kingdom. A duology.

To Win a Crown: First book, currently a work in progress. Not yet halfway through.

To Keep a Crown: Second book, takes place 15 years later, currently a work in progress. Not yet halfway through.

Eirlonia.

Celtic inspired fantasy kingdom.

Pansies, Violets, Witch: Standalone novel. Again, currently a work in progress, just begun.

Zhuti.

Asian fantasy empire. A trilogy.

The Prophecy of the Yellow Dragon: First book in the trilogy, work in progress.

The Reign of the Black Dragon: Second book in the trilogy. Still working on the storyline.

The War of the Red Dragon: Third book in the trilogy. Storyline is already plotted, and all I have to do is start writing it.

Cosmia.

Early Victorian lunarpunk fantasy kingdom.

The Star Queen: Standalone novel, retelling of Queen Victoria's early years on the throne. Currently a work in progress.

Uranus unfolding stars: Spinoff novel set three years later, still plotting storyline.

Sungardia.

Early Victorian solarpunk fantasy kingdom.

Untitled Standalone novel: Don't know what I'm calling this one, and need to flesh out the plotline.

Tula.

Native American chiefdom.

Earth and Feather: Standalone novel, still working on the storyline.

#Worlds of Myth and Magic #Atlantis #Kesseti #Tula #Cosmia #Sungardia #Dynwen #Eirlonia #Zhuti #Fantasy #wips

[tennessoui]

Thoughts on a reincarnation au where anakin and obi-wan live on a version of our world, and the events of the prequel and original trilogy happened in the distant past a-la-Sailor Moon with the Moon Kingdom. And they start having dreams and flashbacks to their past life. And then they met each other ! 😱

Lol idk i just thought it would be an interesting (and possibly angsty 😭) au 🤗😬

oohhh i always love an angsty memory reveal even though this goes against my love for force ghost obikin supremacy

but maybe obi-wan and anakin tire of being force ghosts after a long time so they become one with the Force--but them becoming one with the Force actually somehow ends with them in this galaxy, very, very near, and they have no memories of their long lives and afterlives

The Force decided that they should get a chance to fuck. In person. Alive. Touching each other.

So.....the Force made them into modern day college students except Anakin is a 19 yo, starting late freshman, and Obi-Wan is the RA of his floor, who is staying in the dorms and doing this RA shit so he can earn credits for his masters in education + cut his living expenses in half.

So the nightmares kick in for Anakin first. Because Anakin in his life before death in the gffa is probably a little more haunted by his actions than Obi-Wan (though not by much)

and like--your RA. you see them around, but not like a ton. But definitely enough that the hot TA can show up in your dreams unannounced, right? But these are weird dreams. First of all, weird clothing and this guy is much older, though recognizably his RA. Second of all, Anakin feels this longing inside of him that's going to break him he thinks. and then there are the angry dreams---the ones where they fight and his hot RA cuts his limbs off and then it's all pain and pain and agony and still that damn longing when his RA turns away. The longing that says Master, please don't leave me.

When Anakin wakes up from that particular dream, his sheets are soaked with sweat. It feels like he's just been hit by a bus. It feels like he's just discovered twelve new things about himself.

Shakily he pulls his laptop up to his face. Those last, unspoken words of his dream echoing in his head, he types into yahoo! answers: I want to call a hot man Master. Nothing has ever felt more right. Am I into weird sex stuff?

The answer of the Internet is, resoundingly: yes.

#asks #sorry i meant for this to be a serious ask reply i really did #it just also has the potential to be a bit funny #college student anakin has this overwhelming urge to call his RA master #and he has NO idea why #RA Obi-Wan thinks it's weird that one of his freshmen isn't calling him master and he panics #RA Obi-Wan has a conversation with anakin and is weirded out that anakin is not hanging on his every word #where is the love???? #galaxy near and dear au

[dhr-ao3]

Say That You Will

Say That You Will https://ift.tt/d1Hx0ti by acacia_ii For decades since the Great War, Aragi (formerly the United Kingdom) has lived under the tyrannical thumb of Minister Albus Dumbledore. He and his Order of The Phoenix created and honed a system to keep all of the twelve districts in submission: The Hunger Games. Each year twenty-four children, aged eleven to seventeen, are thrust into an inhospitable arena to battle to the death in a televised spectacle that only one will survive. When a fifteen-year-old Hermione Granger's name is drawn at the Reaping, she assumes that she will become canon fodder just as so many before her. She leaves behind everything she knows and loves to accept whatever fate has in store for her, only knowing that she must survive for her sister's sake. However, as she and the mayor's son, Draco, soon find out, when it comes to The Games... there is more at work than what meets the eye.   No magic AU... but with a twist :) Words: 3529, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Series: Part 1 of When The Bough Breaks Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death Categories: F/M Characters: Ron Weasley, Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, Rita Skeeter, Albus Dumbledore, Sirius Black, Nymphadora Tonks, Dolores Umbridge, Original Female Character(s), Original Male Character(s) Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy Additional Tags: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Evil Albus Dumbledore, Albus Dumbledore Bashing, BAMF Hermione Granger, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Hurt/Comfort, Alternate Universe - Age Changes, Alternate Universe - Dystopia via AO3 works tagged 'Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy' https://ift.tt/Ac4Homp November 17, 2023 at 02:05PM

#IFTTT #Dramione #Draco x Hermione

[avilesnicolee]

Emergent Literature (Project)

• Manga

- One Piece

One Piece is a Shonen action-adventure manga written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda that had been published in the anthology Weekly Shonen Jump. Established in a fantasy world dominated by pirates, it essentially portrayed the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy, a headstrong young captain with an innate capacity or power. He is also considered as a young adventurer who has yearned for an existence of independence since he was a child. He sets out on a risky expedition from his small village in search of the legendary fabled treasure, which is called the one piece, in order to become King of the Pirates.

- Haikyu!

Haikyu is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Haruichi Furudate. It was published in Shueisha's shnen manga magazine Weekly Shnen Jump from February 2012 to July 2020, with chapters collected in 45 tankbon volumes. Shoyo Hinata, despite his modest stature, continues to strive to become a well-known volleyball player. The story revolves around when Shoyo Hinata becomes enamored with volleyball after seeing Karasuno High School compete in Nationals on TV. Hinata, who is diminutive in stature, is inspired by Karasuno's short but talented wing spiker. Hinata is known for being an athlete that possesses an outstanding vertical jump. He joins his school's volleyball club, only to discover that he is the only member, forcing him to spend the next two years convincing fellow students to assist him practice.

- Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Yaiba)

"Blade of Demon Destruction" is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Koyoharu Gotouge. It was written in Shueisha's shnen manga magazine Weekly Shnen Jump from February 2016 to May 2020, with chapters collected in 23 tankbon volumes. It was released in English by Viz Media and in Japanese by Shueisha on their Manga Plus platform. It portrays Tanjiro Kamado livelihood as a kindhearted coal vendor that changes one day after his family is slaughtered and perished by a monster. To bring back his sister named Nezuko, the lone survivor who has changed into a fearsome demon, the two embark on an adventure to find the monster who murdered their family.

• Science Fiction

Hunger Games

- The Hunger Games is a young adult science fiction novel authored by Suzanne Collins that was published on September 14, 2008. Katniss Everdeen, the story's narrator, tells of a mighty Capitol and the oppressed twelve districts of Panem. The girl protagonist who boldly volunteers for the 74th hunger games and finds herself pushed into a parallel story of revolt against the Capitol's cruel authority of violence, chaos, and tyranny as she battles to survive. The Hunger Games defends the oppressed and examines oppressive systems critically, pointing out how power structures perpetuate violence, poverty, and the struggle between classes.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

- Bloomsbury released Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in the United Kingdom on June 26, 1997. J.K. Rowling's creative mind inspired the story. Rowling's work provides an inspiring amazing story in which the magical universe is revealed to an orphaned child who enrolls in Hogwarts, a wizardry and witchcraft school. Harry Potter was abandoned and grew up with the Dursleys, who are considered muggles. Because Ron and Hermione are his "chosen family," Harry's relationships with them are based on "affection and loyalty" rather than the more traditional family structure.

The Mortal Instruments (City of Bones)

- The Mortal Instruments series, written by Cassandra Clare, begins with City of Bones. The novel, first published in 2007, is set in contemporary New York City and has been translated into other languages, including Bulgarian, Hebrew, Polish, and Japanese. It is the first book in the trilogy The Mortal Instruments. The novel City of Bones is about Clary's relationships and group dynamics, as well as those of her mortal best friend Simon and the three Shadow hunter youths who accompany her when her mother is kidnapped. The core of the plot centres around an insurgency led by Valentine, a Shadow hunter with similar political ideas to Hitler, but with Downworlders transforming both gypsies and Jews.

• Chick Literature

Confession of a Shopaholic by Sophi Kinsella

- The protagonist Rebecca Bloomwood is a sweet and charming New York City girl with a tiny, tiny problem that is quickly becoming a major problem: she is hopelessly hooked to shopping and drowning in debt. Rebecca aspires to work for a top fashion magazine, but she is unable to appear to get her foot in the door—that is, until she accepts a position as an advice columnist for a new financial magazine published by the same business. Her column gets extremely famous overnight, making her an instant celebrity. But as her excessive spending and mounting debt threaten to undermine her love life and job, she struggles to keep it all under control and is eventually forced to reflect what's really essential.

• Doodle Fiction

Timmy Failure: The Cat Stole my Pants

- Timmy is on his mom's honeymoon in Key West, Florida. He doubts that she truly married Doorman Dave, but he's there with Dave's nephew Emilio, who's meant to be an apprentice at his investigative firm. Timmy requires staff because Total has decided to swim to Cuba, but he does not believe Emilio is competent. Everywhere Timmy goes, there is a secrecy, from the famous stolen pants to the appearance of weird and perhaps lethal notes. Timmy's mother has signed him up for summer school with Corinna Corinna and even has her Skype with him, despite the fact that she is unaware of the requirements of his job. Total agrees the opportunity to examine three very long books and report on them in exchange for Timmy providing funds for him to buy meals in Cuba. Timmy is taken aback when he encounters a shadowy figure from his past who sheds light on matters that was bugging him as well as addresses one of his problems.

Dairy of a Wimpy Kid

- The author and cartoonist Jeff Kinney established the Diary of a Wimpy Kid book series. Kinney worked on the book for eight years before submitting it to a publisher. Following its first release in 2007, Diary of a Wimpy Kid was named a New York Times bestseller, and the series has resulted in 16 sequels. Greg Heffley, a middle-schooler who keeps a diary, is the protagonist of the series. The story “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” is about a young boy navigating middle school, where small sluggish people occupy the hallways with kids who are bigger, meaner, and already shaved. The dangers of growing up until you’re ready are individually exposed through words and drawings in Greg’s diary. The said literature was written in diary layout and depicts the journeys of Greg Heffley, who craves prominence and develops dozens of frauds to acquire it. The plot is noted for its amusing cartoons and relatable characters, as well as for covering topics such as popularity, trust, family, accountability, companionship, the teenage years, and learning to do the appropriate thing.

• Six word flash fiction

"He died happy, knowing he lived."

—Alexander Hoffman

- This six word flash fiction of Alexander Hoffman means that an individual who passed away was happy and contented knowing that we was able to accomplish and finish his/her mission here on earth completely without having regrets and doubts. She/He left the earth and successfully did all the things and responsibilities that were assigned to them. Left the world knowing that they were able to enjoy their life to the fullest and experienced all the ups and downs which help them know themselves more. They also feel calm and contented, and have no emotional conflicts within themselves or with other people.

"Find your purpose and live it"

- Sal Buttaci

This means that seeking our life purposes have the power to direct choices in life, influence conduct, determine objectives, provide direction, and generate meaning. Some individuals associate purpose with vocation—meaningful, gratifying work. Others find their meaning in their obligations to family or friends. It is essential for everyone since it encourages you as an individual in balancing your life, allowing you to avoid certain people and behaviors that do not fulfill your goal. It is an important driving force to keep motivated when times are rough so that you can create and fulfill objectives for both the short and long term.

[takerfoxx]

Well folks, it’s time. My affectionate hatred of Jurassic World has reached its (as far as I know; stuff may change) climax. Jurassic World Dominion, the final Jurassic World movie and the sixth overall movie in the Jurassic Park franchise has been released. And just like every other Jurassic Park movie, I have now seen them all in theaters. We have completed the set.

But before we get into my thoughts about JWD, let’s review my thoughts on this very odd movie franchise with which I have some very strong and conflicting thoughts.

Jurassic Park. Favorite movie of all time. Others like Serenity or the Lord of the Rings trilogy might have a decent claim to that title, but in terms of sheer longevity in how much of an affect on my life a single movie has had, Jurassic Park reigns as king. Not perfect, but by God is it great, and like so many other nineties kids it ignited a lifelong love for dinosaurs.

The Lost World. Loved it when it came out, but I was like, what, twelve? In hindsight, while not without its merits, it is starkly inferior to the original. Barely an adaptation of a book that was only ever written to be adapted in the first place, Spielberg himself has admitted that he got overwhelmed with the task of following up the first movie and turned in a half-assed product as a result. And what they did to Sarah Harding is unforgiveable.

Jurassic Park 3. The living definition of empty calories. Takes the cut river raft sequence from the first movie, bloats it up to a full film, adds in a couple of dumb ideas (talking raptors, the cellphone), and ends up with a big nothing of a film. Inoffensive, but there’s really not a whole lot here.

Jurassic World. I fucking HATE this film. A shallow copy of the first film that is painfully aware of its own inferiority and weaves that into the narrative, to its own detriment. Deeply insecure, utterly lacking in the suspense, terror, and majesty of Jurassic Park, and does all of the cliched sucky sequel things while thinking that being self-aware about it gives it a pass. And yet I’ve spent so much time dissecting this whiny turd of a film that I’ve developed an odd affection for it. Go figure.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Objectively a worse film than the first JW, very dumb, but it loses the crippling insecurity of the first, and it got so ridiculous that I honestly had a good time watching it, even if most of that was due to me and my mom cracking jokes under our breath the whole time. Also, Blue vs. Super Raptor in a gothic mansion. I have to admit, that is my jam.

So, it’s kind of weird to have is monumentally successful and beloved film franchise that one has one actual good movie, right? They’ve churned out blockbuster after blockbuster, each one being a financial success, but that’s mainly on the strength of name recognition of the original. Yes, there’s elements in the other movies that people like, but c’mon. The reason people keep coming back is that they want to feel like the first movie made them feel. That’s how powerful Jurassic Park is.

And now we come to final film (maybe, who knows?), and I have to admit, I was looking forward to it. Not because I thought it was going to be any good, but in hopes that it would provide the same wacky spectacle that Fallen Kingdom did. Because there is still value to be found in an entertaining trainwreck. And now I’ve seen it, and here are my thoughts.

Jurassic World: Dominion is OKAY! It was a DECENT ACTION MOVIE! I had a PRETTY GOOD TIME!

Seriously. That’s it. They ditched the crippling insecurities of the first one, the obnoxious goofiness of the second, and despite all the callbacks to the original Jurassic Park, they pretty much just gave up on being a Jurassic Park movie, so what we got is a pretty mindless summer action flick with dinosaurs, one that I can’t say didn’t entertain me while watching, but I had to remind myself that I had actually seen when I woke up the day after.

Huh.

Y’know, I kind of wish this movie was worse.

Well, okay, let’s be perfectly clear: this movie isn’t necessarily “good,” insofar as these things are judged. It’s just not blatantly bad either. I smiled a bit during the raptor motorcycle chase, they incorporated the original trio a lot more effectively than I expected, there were some really cool visuals like the burning locusts, and I will always give props to anything that includes a baby raptor and doesn’t kill it (still traumatized by that scene from the original novel). Plus, DeWanda Wise’s character? I, uh, kind of have this thing for ladies with biceps, so…thank you.

Also, while they barely even attempted to match the original’s suspense and terror, settling instead for nonstop action, I will give all the praise to the scene where Claire is trying to get away from the blind Therizinosaurus in the forest. That was easily one of the best sequences in any Jurassic Park film, on par with the stuff from the original, and I have nothing bad to say about it at all. A shame that the rest of the franchise wasn’t handled with the same care.

Which isn’t to say I’m not going to disagree with the critical thrashing this movie is getting, or even defend it. Because it really isn’t that good. The opening scene with the dino breeding farm was a mess, and was where I first thought, “Wow, they’re not even trying to be a Jurassic Park film anymore.” Actually, the whole movie is paced and edited really badly, jumping from one place to the next. It’s not as aggressively terrible in that regard as, say, The Rise of Skywalker, but it’s still noticeably jarring. The script is nothing to write home about, and they made a terrible mistake in cutting out the original T-Rex vs. the Giga prologue, as it left their titanic battle feeling really tacked on and superfluous. Say what you will about the I-Rex, but at least its silly fight with Rexy felt earned.

Also, for all the focus that Blue and Beta got in the advertising, they weren’t really all that important to the plot. I really would have liked more focus on them, and more effort to incorporate them. Blue is one of the few unironically good things about the Jurassic World movies, and I’m totally here for a baby raptor being given focus. So why do they feel like they were also just thrown in there to appeal to the Baby Yoda crowd?

Also, while I am pleased with Biosyn and Dodgson being back, and am very much on board with Dodgson being this scummy Mark Zuckerberg-type, why the hell did it take them this long? Apparently Trevorrow planned the plots of all three movies in advance and has been teasing Dodgson the whole time, so why not get them involved at the beginning? Like, just have a phone call between him and Hoskins to establish a connection. Have Biosyn be involved with the Fallen Kingdom auction. Use them instead of Mantah-Corp in Camp Cretaceous. Have them be the ones who snuck back onto Site B and created the Spinosaur in all of that website material. Like, seriously, Dodgon was the big bad of the books, and you had plenty of opportunity to use him, but they just keep making up other bad guys that he easily could have filled the role of or at least been connected to. Still, having him get killed by dilos was poetically appropriate, even if I also feel that it took them way too long to bring my hooty boys back and didn’t give them much to go on.

Actually, the same could be said for a lot of new dinosaurs. We finally get a feathered raptor with the Pyroraptor, but it gets one chase scene with a neat swimming thing, and we never see it again. Same with the Dimetrodons. Why?

Though on that note, I have heard people complaining about there not being enough dinosaurs in comparison with the other JW films, and while I do understand where they’re coming from, I will remind you that cramming those films with more and more dinos didn’t save them from being bad. Also, the original Jurassic Park film only had like 14-16 minutes of dinosaurs in its two hour run. I would prefer there being fewer dinosaurs but with better executed scenes and more suspense. Quality over quantity. But we can’t really expect that from a Trevorrow film.

And I will admit, while I was rolling my eyes at the OG trio being brought back, I did appreciate that they had stuff to actually do instead of just act as fanservice. I mean it was still fanservice, but it was executed better than other comparable films.

But was the Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler romance thing really necessary? Like, really? They barely hinted that they were an item in the first film, were nothing more than student and teacher in the book, had them be just friends in the third, but broke off that relationship just because I guess Trevorrow was an Alan/Ellie shipper and wanted them to get together or something? Whatever, I know people were happy about it, but it stood out like a sore thumb.

I honestly don’t know if I would be kinder or harsher toward this film if I didn’t have such a complicated relationship with this franchise’s messy history. I appreciate that Jurassic Park’s shadow looms the least over Dominion from a vibe standpoint, which did help, but it also doesn’t add much substance to make up for it. Is it the same kind of empty calories as Jurassic Park 3? Sort of, but the lack of trying to be Jurassic Park did help them taste better, but it also doesn’t leave much of an impression. Hell, had I not already planned to write up this review, I probably wouldn’t have thought of it at all afterward. It would just be a movie I saw and was mildly entertained by.

So take this as you will. I didn’t hate it, it didn’t necessarily suck, but it also doesn’t have a whole lot going for it. It’s a midlevel summer action flick with dinosaurs and a Jurassic Park logo pasted on. I don’t regret seeing it, but I also wouldn’t have bothered if it weren’t for what this movie was connected to, and would have forgotten about it entirely otherwise.

#jurassic world dominion #jurassic park #colin trevorrow

[friendlyfatbee]

List of Fandoms!

9 (movie)

AI The Somnium Files

The Alliance Alive

Angels of Death (Videogame, Manga, Anime)

The Arcana: A Mystic Romance

Baldi’s Basics

The Beauty and the Beast: An Enchanted Christmas

Billie Bust Up

Catherine Full Body

Cells at Work (Anime)

Clone High

Club Penguin

The Creature in the Corner

Cuphead (original and DLC)

Deltarune (Chapter 1 & 2)

The Depraved Appetite of Tarrare the Freak

Danganronpa v3

Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared (original and tv series)

(Don’t) Open your Eyes

Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Sim

Dream of Gluttony

Earthworm Jim (TV series)

Epithet Erased

Etrian Odyssey: The Millenium Girl

Five Nights at Freddy’s (Whole videogame series)

Fire Emblem Fates

Fire Emblem: Shadows of Valentia

Fire Emblem Three Houses

Friday Night Funkin’ and mods (Deltarune, Garcello, Mid-Fight Masses, Mistful Crimson Morning, Paper Mario and the Origami King, Sonic.exe, Twinsomnia, Whitty)

Ghost-P

Guilty Gear

Harvest Moon: Skytree Village

Homegrown Pet

A Hat in Time

Hello Puppets

Identity V

John Doe

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Little Shop of Horrors (1986 film)

Luigi’s Mansion (3)

May Bird and the Ever After (whole trilogy)

Medievil

Minecraft

Misfiction and Mistrick

Monster High (generation 1)

A Monster in Paris

Monster Prom

My Darling

My Hero Academia

My Sims (original, Agents, Kingdom, Party, Skyforce)

Nefarious

No Straight Roads

Octonauts (TV series)

O.K. K.O: Lets Be Heros

Overwatch

Paper Mario and the Origami King

The Penguins of Madagascar (movie)

Persona 4 Golden

Plants vs Zombies (1, 2, Garden Warfare 1 & 2)

Pokémon: Legends of Arceus

Pokémon X

Psychonauts (1, Rhombus of Ruin, 2)

Punch out (Nes and Wii)

Puyo Puyo

RWBY (Seasons 1-6)

The Scary Godmother (movie)

Smile for Me

Sonic the Hedgehog (1st & 2nd movie)

SpongeBob the Musical

Spooky’s Jumpscare Mansion

Steven Universe

The Stupendium

Symposium of Grief

Thrill Kill

Twelve Forever

Twisted (Musical)

Twisted Wonderland

Undertale

The Upturned

Villanious

Violet Evergarden

Wario ware (wii)

Your Turn to Die

#list of fandoms

[bardic-tales]

Happy WBW!

Does your world have multiple suns/moons?

Hello, Plu. I hope you are having a wonderful day or evening. Thank you so much for the question.

Does your world have multiple suns/moons?

Cirel does have twin moons: Amés and Andrea. These moons are named after the respective God and Goddess. There was originally one moon orbiting the planet. Shortly after its creation, a chunk broke off of it forming Andrea.

After the major twelve divine sealed away the Endless Hunger -- or the Great Ones as the Gods call them -- and mourned the loss of their brothers, sisters, and children, Amés wanted to do something that honored the fallen. He decided upon plane that would share a duality to the Death Plane. Amés formed the Death Plane to punish the traitors during the Civil War that raged across their world.

With Vittore, the God of Death and War's help, they would create Cirel within the Arathean Plane (Life Plane). Utilizing their own life force as the Endless Hunger was locked away, the gods and goddesses would tie themselves to the planets and plane. The gods wanted to create life from death, so to speak.

It was during this time that Amés and Andrea underwent a ritual and created the moon, showing Cirel their love. It was soon after that the moon would be split, creating a second one. The Great Horses and Dragons would name these moons: Amés and Andrea. The names stuck over time.

As Andrea was tied to this moon, her personality and belief in her husband faltered somewhat. It would become soon

Shortly after the events of Cold as Ice, an anti-hero goes into the Drakl Kingdom to stop the Draklian threat to the Olessan Empire once and for all. The Draklian King was able to control the weather with a book from the time of the dragons: the dragonomicon.

In her anger, the anti-hero stabs through the book. This also destroys the moon Andrea, plunging Cirel into an eternal winter. This will winter will carry into an unannounced final trilogy.

#nl answers #wbw #worldbuilding wednesday #worldbuilding #settings: poe #poe: the world