flyingfanatic

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Go go check out Tilda's new video if you haven't found her on Youtube yet - some very delicious analysis. Then go check out the Near and Queer SFF podcast on Spotify!

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VOLUNTEERS Abbott Elementary (2021)

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the doctor and river song are unironically one of the most tragic love stories in modern media, but they keep getting undermined by writing that would rather go for cheap laughs and badly hidden fetishisations instead of fully leaning into the pathos of time travellers who keep meeting their soulmate in the wrong order

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I would like to offer a potentially cursed third option: it's the part of Alecto within Gideon/Kiriona speaking.

Sure, the direct textual evidence for Alecto's soul having rubbed off on Gideon is thin, but given the premise of soul permiability as presented in the text, I think it's a logical step.

Nona has already described Alecto (herself with her memories) bleeding through as a savage voice she doesn't recognize. Alecto has that rage, and displays it later on a very similar subject when talking about the Cavaliers being killed as "appeasement" to their adepts. It would bridge the gap between Kiriona's emotional state and journey of understanding, because Alecto has been angry about this very thing for ten thousand years.

@spending-life-pretending

NO WE DON'T KNOW FOR SURE WHO SAYS THIS LINE!!

The book describes it as being said "so savagely that it sounded like a new voice altogether," with no further elaboration.

Aiglamene and Kiriona are talking over one another at this point in the conversation. Crux's response isn't very helpful because he could plausibly be talking to either of them. He never liked Gideon or Aiglamene, and he certainly believed he knew better than either of them what was best for the Ninth and best for Harrow.

Kiriona was my first assumption, too. Assuming this line comes from her, it shows some considerable evolution in her understanding of the relationship between the Ninth and Harrow, which she had always envied Harrow as a child. It's also tiny bit hypocritical. A sharp condemnation not just of the culture and people that failed Harrow so badly, but possibly also of herself and her way of thinking in Harrow the Ninth, lining up just like all the rest of them to shove her death down Harrow's throat as an offering.

The audiobook gives the line to Aiglamene. I had to think about it, but I like this interpretation as well. Giving the line to Aiglamene makes it a brief outburst from a woman who once believed the Ninth had a future worth waiting for, finally allowing herself to be angry that all they were waiting for was to die. That one way or another, all the Ninth knew how to give its children was death. I think she's due a moment of savagery on seeing the corpse of the child she thought she'd helped escape that cycle competing for the right to die again. She thought she'd gotten her out.

It drives me a little crazy, because both versions are good. Both versions are plausible. But they aren't entirely interchangeable in their implications, and there's no way to tell for sure which version is true.

On the balance, I still lean toward Kiriona. Aiglamene takes a bit more convicing to let Crux be the sacrifice, and it would be a damn quick about-face for her to lose her composure like this and then snap back to her titles and duty, volunteering to die herself. But Kiriona does also volunteer to die in this conversation, before being reminded she's already dead. Some ambiguity remains.

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call me blade sharpener the way i'm a wet stone

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why do we as dykes not have a cruising culture… sometimes i do not want the requisite first date staring soulfully into each other’s eyes and talking about our childhoods sometimes i want one brief sizzling glance at the grocery store and have it be immediately understood that i want two or perhaps three of your fingers inside of me as i cling to your jacket for balance in the single-occupancy bathroom and muffle my moans into my fist

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some of the best writing advice I’ve ever received: always put the punch line at the end of the sentence.

it doesn’t have to be a “punch line” as in the end of a joke. It could be the part that punches you in the gut. The most exciting, juicy, shocking info goes at the end of the sentence. Two different examples that show the difference it makes:

doing it wrong:

She saw her brother’s dead body when she caught the smell of something rotting, thought it was coming from the fridge, and followed it into the kitchen.

doing it right:

Catching the smell of something rotten wafting from the kitchen—probably from the fridge, she thought—she followed the smell into the kitchen, and saw her brother’s dead body.

Periods are where you stop to process the sentence. Put the dead body at the start of the sentence and by the time you reach the end of the sentence, you’ve piled a whole kitchen and a weird fridge smell on top of it, and THEN you have to process the body, and it’s buried so much it barely has an impact. Put the dead body at the end, and it’s like an emotional exclamation point. Everything’s normal and then BAM, her brother’s dead.

This rule doesn’t just apply to sentences: structuring lists or paragraphs like this, by putting the important info at the end, increases their punch too. It’s why in tropes like Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking or Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick, the odd item out comes at the end of the list.

Subverting this rule can also be used to manipulate reader’s emotional reactions or tell them how shocking they SHOULD find a piece of information in the context of a story. For example, a more conventional sentence that follows this rule:

She opened the pantry door, looking for a jar of grape jelly, but the view of the shelves was blocked by a ghost.

Oh! There’s a ghost! That’s shocking! Probably the character in our sentence doesn’t even care about the jelly anymore because the spirit of a dead person has suddenly appeared inside her pantry, and that’s obviously a much higher priority. But, subvert the rule:

She opened the pantry door, found a ghost blocking her view of the shelves, and couldn’t see past it to where the grape jelly was supposed to be.

Because the ghost is in the middle of the sentence, it’s presented like it’s a mere shelf-blocking pest, and thus less important than the REAL goal of this sentence: the grape jelly. The ghost is diminished, and now you get the impression that the character is probably not too surprised by ghosts in her pantry. Maybe it lives there. Maybe she sees a dozen ghosts a day. In any case, it’s not a big deal. Even though both sentences convey the exact same information, they set up the reader to regard the presence of ghosts very differently in this story.

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Family scruffing pt2!

+this

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tlt characters as cats....

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Arcane Season 1 Episode 7: The Boy Savior | Arcane Season 2 Episode 7: Pretend Like It's the First Time

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The ghosts of her regrets visit Vi during her pit fighter era. To the reader: there is nothing healthy in this fic.

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I,,,, I uhhh,,,,,,, ummmmm uhhhhhhh

sketch I guess!

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Howdy howdy hiw bout ✅️🎀🌅

Hi shipz!!!! you're an awesome duck.

✅️ list one or two favorite lines you’ve written and explain why they’re your favorite

oh this is so hard! I feel your pain. I'm gonna do three. It's my ask box I can do what I want.

Call me paranoid, call me delusional, but you better not call me innocent. (from my pyrrha OG Lyctors acension fic with notes of stale beer flavoured spy fiction)

"Do you think she’ll be pleased, to come back and find you’ve kept yourself exactly how she left you?" (Ianthe to revenant-style Gideon/Kiriona, ref her stigmata and Harrow in Holy Hand Grenade)

Caitlyn squeezes the hinge between her jaw and skull to force Vi’s mouth open so she can lick the blood from her teeth — so that Vi understands that she is totally at Caitlyn’s mercy to do with as she pleases. (from pitfighter Vi WIP)

🎀how do you decide when something is done?

I do usually have an end game in mind before I even sit down to start writing in earnest. I like to let a WIP stew in the ideas phase until I've got a framework for the plot, which usually includes an end-state for the story. Once the work gets there I'll usually do one to two full edits, then it's cooked!

🌅do you typically known the ending to something before you start writing it?

yes! I find it really hard to sit down and write in earnest without knowing where a piece is going at least emotionally, and I will usually have the final scene(s) blocked out.

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Hi! I hope you’re having nice day!! For the ask game: 💕 😊 🔥

Evie! Hi! Yes, definitely a Good Day, hope you're having one too.

💕 whats your favorite part of your writing process?

my favourite part is the ideas phase, when I'm out and about or going on a Thinking Walk and a snippet or scene hits me out of the blue, rain of frogs style. it's always great to get the feel of the characters walking about in your head doing their thing.

😊 say something nice about your writing

I'm pretty good with description - creative, emotive imagery that seems to resonate with people.

🔥 what’s something that’s currently going really well?

I've been developing my self-editing process, which is something I've always found really hard to do. using speech-to-text has really helped with general edits and flow, while colour-theming has worked to tackle specific issues (sentence variation, action-context ratio, etc)

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Did you want more meat behind the CaitVi reunion? Did you want to see Vi get to be good and angry about, well, everything? For Caitlyn to put in the time and legwork to earn back the trust she shattered? Did you want some good ol’ lesbian processing? Then this might be the fic for you!

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post canon slow healing and the never-ending journey of redemption