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meimi-haneoka · 2 years ago

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Clear Card Trivia 1 ~ Literary and musical references/mentions in Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card

Hello everyone! The end of the Clear Card manga is very near, so I thought it was about time to start writing the long list of posts I'm going to release in the upcoming months, since it's almost time to wrap everything up and it would be nice to look back and not only analyze the plot but also trivia and themes/topics discussed (openly or not) in these almost 7 years of serialization of Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Arc.

Today we talk about the several literary and musical references spread across the different CCS Clear Card media. The references are quite a lot and I find it so very fitting for a story that features books so much, both under a positive and negative light. Books have a life-saving role, being the only thing young Akiho could cling to, to survive mentally till the arrival of Kaito in her life and the subsequent removal from her abusive family, but for a twist of fate, a spell under the guise of a book is also what was about to destroy her soul forever when said book got filled up with magic. The very first time Akiho's inner book gets set off is precisely in Fujitaka's library. Moreover, a fictional world existing into a forbidden book called Alice in Clockland is also where Kaito sends everyone in the climax of the story. In that fictional world, it is said that books record the memories and feelings of people. And after recording them, that same book can rewrite them. Books are literally an essential element of the plot of Clear Card Arc.

In my list I will take in consideration both the anime and the manga, with a special section for the now-defunct Happiness Memories mobile game! The references are ordered basing on their impact or importance within the plot, and include all the info we have till chapter 72. I might update this post if we get more literary references in the very last chapters of the arc. I will probably not be able to talk in depth about all the possible double meanings and connections of these stories to the real Clear Card plot, as I haven't read most of these books or I'm still in the process of reading them, but I have looked at summaries on Wikipedia, so hopefully I'll be able to feature at least a part of the interesting connections. Anyone who knows these stories or songs in depth is welcome to give more insight!

Soooo, ready to dive in?

1) Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There / Lewis Carrol

Of course the first reference featured in this list couldn't be other than this one! The whole Clear Card arc is heavily based on the Alice In Wonderland narrative, but particularly in the sequel "Through the Looking-Glass". The very first mentions of "Alice-related" stuff is as early as chapter 12, when Sakura and Tomoyo visit Akiho's home and they check out her huge library: here Akiho shows them her book "Alice in Clockland" for the first time. Tomoyo spots the resemblance with the title of the best-known novel, but Akiho says that the book she's holding wasn't written by the author of Alice in Wonderland, and although the language it's written in is composed by runes, she was taught how to read it. Later on we discover that the more she progresses reading this book, the more it gets connected to recurring dreams she's having, with an "Alice" as the main character who experiences all sorts of adventures (unbeknownst to her, she's dreaming about Sakura's adventures with the Clear Cards). Akiho sometimes shares these dreams with Kaito and he always listens attentively, commenting that it'd be good if Alice acquired "more and more skills". We also see Rika (through Sakura) giving away to Akiho one of her Alice picture books, and the girl is definitely thrilled and moved by the kind gesture of who is basically a stranger to her.

Moreover, in chapter 38 & 39, Kaito shrinks Sakura in order to prompt her to create a Card, and sends her down a hole carved in a tree, calling her "Alice". Sakura also created the Shade card supposedly basing it on the Jabberwock featured in Through The Looking Glass. The whole situation prompts Kaito to remember about his first face-to-face meeting with Akiho, which he says happened in a garden fit for Alice in Wonderland. The whole scenery Sakura witnesses in the strange world she's sent to is very reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland/Through the looking Glass, with her being so little and the talking flowers. Of course, the biggest reference to Through the Looking Glass is the whole Alice in Clockland play, in its first version based on Akiho's beloved book with the same title (Naoko initially called the play "The Two Alice", but then decided to change it at last minute, in a twist of fate). Both "before" and "after" the rewriting of memories operated by Momo's book, we not only have an Alice in this story, but also a Cat (which will have a key role) and a Red Queen. Another notable similarity is how Alice, in Through the Looking Glass, crosses "the wood where things have no names", forgetting her own name for a short time while crossing that forest in the company of a fawn. In Alice in Clockland, the Red Queen completely forgot her name once she entered Clockland, in both versions of the play, before and after the rewriting. Akiho/Red Queen regains her memories by lifting the dark veil covering her face, while Sakura/Red Queen regains her memories thanks to Alice telling her the truth about what happened.

Furthermore, the fact that later in the climax Sakura and Akiho are turned into twins by the forbidden magic activated by Kaito might be considered a reference to the famous twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee (although, that's also commonly known as one of CLAMP's obsessions 😂). One more reference is represented by the White Queen in Through the Looking Glass, who can remember events that will happen in the future, and while Sakura can do that herself to a certain degree, certainly this character is better represented by Lilie, Akiho's mother, who could see so much of the future ahead and tried to reach Sakura in her dreams to inform her of an important truth. It is also to be noted that the White Queen's daughter in Through the Looking Glass is named.....Lily.

2) Ten Nights of Dreams (夢十夜) / Natsume Sōseki

"Ten Nights of Dreams" is a collection of short pieces by Japanese novelist Natsume Soseki, where he narrates 10 mysterious dreams set in various time periods, including his own. The book gets featured for the first time in chapter 10 / volume 3 of the manga, and episode n. 6 of the anime. In this scene, Sakura and Akiho are each reading a portion from the 7th dream, the one where the dreamer finds himself on a ship, among strangers, not knowing where the ship is headed to or when he'll see land again. The tone of this dream, like the rest of them, is pretty dark, as the dreamer is extremely discouraged and decides to throw himself into the sea, regretting it when it's already too late. This book gets directly mentioned again in chapter 58 of the manga, when Naoko reflects on the fact that even the tenth night told in the collection is a dream, because there's no point where the storyteller wakes up. This leads her to think how scary it would be to have a dream you can't wake up from, and this will become for her one of the sources of inspiration for the scenario of the school play. When the teacher talked about this book to her students back in chapter 10, she stated "this collection features plenty of mysterious stories, but depending on the person, they could also be considered 'scary' ". I feel like this is exactly how Clear Card Arc could be described too, especially from the POV of the Japanese readers, that I've witnessed these past couple of years on social media. I wonder if this wasn't a way for CLAMP to tip the readers off regarding the thematics and tone that Clear Card would take halfway through. Moreover, the teacher mentions "foretelling dreams" in relation to this book, and that prompts Sakura to consider if the dream she's constantly seeing with the Mysterious Cloaked Figure could be a foretelling dream too.

3) Momo / Michael Ende

"Momo" is a fantasy novel written by German writer Michael Ende (the same of The Neverending Story), and it gets featured in chapter 39 of Clear Card, while Kaito is having a flashback of his first face-to-face meeting with Akiho. At the moment of Kaito's arrival in the rose garden, Akiho was reading a book, and when she's asked about its content by Kaito himself, the girl tells him of a story that is unequivocally that of "Momo": a little girl battles some so-called "time thieves". Akiho seems to love that story, as she has read it many times.

Although it might seem just an easter egg at the level of the Cthulhu books that I will mention later, the presence of the "Momo" novel here is completely different and very significant to the main story of Clear Card. First of all, its complete German title translates in English to "Momo, or the strange story of the time-thieves and the child who brought the stolen time back to the people". As we all know, this sequel of the Cardcaptor Sakura series deals heavily with the theme of time, and Kaito is strictly related to that theme, as he's the major "player" of that element, using magic to stop it or especially to rewind it. In "Momo", the "time-thieves" (also called Men in Grey) are some kind of paranormal parasites with the goal of stealing the time of humans. They appear to people offering to save their time in some so-called "Timesaving Banks", urging them to spare time by dropping any activity that supposedly "wastes time" like relaxing, playing, enjoying things, with the goal of having that time returned back with interests later. But that time saved in the bank is actually stolen and consumed by the Men in Grey for their own survival. Human feelings such as love are a hindrance for them, and they avoid at all costs to form any bond with anyone. Momo is a mysterious little girl, beloved by everyone in her town as she seems to be able to solve anyone's problems or afflictions just by listening and talking to them. She will eventually take on the task of defeating the Men in Grey. Ende's novel is a critique to consumerism in the modern society and how hectic our lives have become, where time is everything and we often never use it for what really matters the most: making us happy. Momo was published in 1973 but its thematics are super relevant even today.

Aside from the easy connection of the topic of time to what Kaito does (although in a more benign way, in our case), "Momo" is also how Akiho chose to name her beloved bunny plushie, who, unbeknownst to her, is actually the magical Guardian of the Book of Time. We don't know when exactly that naming happened, as of chapter 72, but the fact that one of the most treasured and beloved existences in Akiho's life was named "Momo" - the same as the title of the book Akiho was reading when she met Kaito for the first time - suggests hitsuzen is strongly at work here. Akiho might have named Momo after she met Kaito, and to show how important that meeting was to her, she chose to name her after an element that was strictly connected to that meeting. And if she named her so before meeting Kaito, then it shows just how fateful their meeting was. She named one important existence after a beloved book, and precisely when she was reading that same book, she had her first meeting with another important person in her life. The one she will love the most.

It is also to be noted that in "Momo", the time is consumed by the Men in Grey in the form of smoking cigars made out of dried hour-lilies' petals, which are pink flowers representing time itself. Again, a feature of lily flowers, which connects us once more to Lilie.

Depending on how Clear Card will end, and whether Sakura will be able to regain all the memories and the time lost with them, beating the Forbidden Magic activated by Kaito, we might even draw another reference - how Ende's Momo is able to give the stolen time back to the people of her town.

4) "Tsuki ga kirei desu ne" (月が綺麗ですね) / Natsume Sōseki + "Kaze no nai yoru ga boku wo semetogameru" (風のない夜が僕を責めとがめる) / SPARKS GO GO

In chapter 48 of the manga, Akiho, unable to sleep after waking up from an unsettling dream, heads to the garden of her home in the middle of the night. And there surprisingly she finds Kaito, also awake and staring intently at the full moon. In a magical and emotional scene, illuminated by the full moon and prompted by feelings of worry for Kaito's pale complexion - too pale for his own good, Akiho tells him "Can we talk a little bit longer? Because...the moon is really beautiful".

At first, these can seem totally normal words of admiration for the full moon illuminating the two. But actually in this scene, Akiho has just covertly confessed to Kaito that she loves him. Many of you probably already know, but in Japan there's a little story that takes us back again to the famous novelist Natsume Soseki who seems to influence Clear Card so much (he'll get another mention later in this post). There's no actual written evidence of this, so Japanese people tend to consider this as some folklore tale, but when Soseki worked as an English teacher, he allegedly corrected one of his students who translated too literally the English phrase "I love you" in Japanese. He supposedly said "that's too direct, Japanese people don't express such phrase so directly. You should use 月が綺麗ですね (tsuki ga kirei desu ne, 'The moon is beautiful, right?') instead". And that's how the myth of expressing "I love you" in Japanese with "the moon is beautiful, right?" was born. It is very poetic, romantic and subtle so there's no doubt its popularity is really high and used in all kinds of media even today. And, I have to say, it fits romantic, shy and bookworm Akiho to a T. But how can we be sure that Akiho was really-really meaning that? It's because of the quotation marks on the original Japanese script. Akiho was deliberately quoting a source. And her face right afterwards, eyes cast down and red as a tomato, is the final proof of her intention. We still don't know, 24 chapters later, if Kaito's surprised face meant he understood what she was secretly meaning, or not.

However, I have a second source for this particular line from Akiho. One day I was searching on the internet, wanting to know more about this popular phrase, exactly as she worded it (it's slightly different from the classic one) and I stumbled upon the song "Kaze ga nai yoru ga boku wo seme togameru" (The windless night is reproving me) by Sparks Go Go. It's a love song from 1993, and the very first verse features the very same line Akiho said, worded exactly as she did. When I started to translate the lyrics, I was shocked. The lyrics actually fit perfectly the scene in the garden under the moonlight and what was going on between Kaito and Akiho in that moment, so much that it really makes me wonder if Ohkawa wasn't trying to make a double reference here:

Since the moon is beautiful I'll invite you for a stroll outside Tonight it's a bit chilly So wear one more layer of clothing I'm stammering And for some reason I suddenly realize All the feelings I've kept inside till now The windless night is reproving me Even though you're telling me A funny thing that happened to you today Tonight it's a bit different than usual My heart is twinkling Our footsteps echo softly As if I'm about to realize something All the feelings I've kept inside till now The windless night is reproving me The windless night is gently inviting me

As you can see, it's almost a precise description of that scene, with the mention of the stroll at night under the moonlight, the talk and the hidden feelings that are being conveyed in that moment.

I'll conclude this paragraph with something that I usually always mention when I tell people about the "moon is beautiful" 's hidden meaning in relation to Clear Card's storyline, because I think it's highly related. There are several ways to respond "I love you too" to a love confession made in that fashion. And one of the most popular ones that gets associated so much to this phrase (despite not coming from the same author but actually another one, Japanese novelist Shimei Futabatei who lived in the same period of Soseki) is 死んでもいいわ (shinde mo ii wa), which literally translates in English to "I can die happy" or "I can die for you" (you already know where I'm going with this one, right?). Apparently, Futabatei decided to translate in Japanese as shinde mo ii wa the Russian word Ваша present in a passage of the book "Asya" by Ivan S. Turgenev. The word Ваша actually literally translates in English as "yours", and the scene showed a woman deeply committing to her love, but since this is the same period as Soseki, the Japanese novelist used an indirect way to express it. I've read that the choice of shinde mo ii wa is tightly connected to the context of the original story, where a woman of low social status (an illegitimate daughter of a Russian landowner) and a man of higher class fell in love, but kept it hidden for most of the story. Back in those times, such relationship was frowned upon by society and so, indulging in that love could also be seen as the death of someone's life in society. In that sense, that "I would die for you" expresses the spirit of abnegation and complete dedication that such profound love inspires. Now, back to Clear Card, consider who's literally sacrificing himself for Akiho, and draw your conclusions.......

5) Liber Ivonis, Celaeno Fragments / H. P. Lovecraft & August Derleth

When Akiho visits Sakura's home in ch. 26 in order to learn how to cook from her, Sakura also brings her to visit her father's small library. In a very excited way, Akiho recognizes some books of her interest and she asks Sakura if she can take them. Those books are, in order of appearance, "Liber Ivonis" and "Celaeno Fragments" (there's a small typo on the book's title, due to the ambivalence of R/L in Japanese) which are two books featured in the Cthulhu Mythos created by US writer H. P. Lovecraft. Both books seems to be grimoires about occult topics and dark magic spells. It is very likely that the two books are merely easter eggs (they had no influence whatsoever on the plot) or a covertly way from CLAMP to let us know that Akiho was acquainted with magical books.

6) Buying Mittens (手袋を買いに) / Nankichi Niimi

"Buying Mittens" from Japanese author Nankichi Niimi is the book Sakura and Akiho are asked to read to the children of the hospital in episode 19 of the Clear Card anime. The story features a baby fox going on a journey to a nearby village to buy mittens to warm its cold paws in the rigid snowy winter. The story revolves around the themes of trust in other human beings. Although the mother fox advised her little one to be careful of human beings, because if they found out it was a fox, something terrible would've happened, the little fox actually finds out humans are not all the same, and the human being selling the mittens wasn't actually harmful at all.

See, when this episode was released in May 2018, I remember it got a lot of criticism for being a "wasted episode" and not bringing the plot forward at all. But I had already understood back then that this was actually a very symbolic episode for one of the major thematics of Clear Card, which would've shown its full importance only later on the story: how much we can trust other people, especially when we don't know them and they are having seemingly hostile behaviors. I knew the anime staff chose to feature this book for a precise reason. With hindsight, from the manga storyline POV, this is absolutely connecting to how Sakura had her trust tested multiple times in the entire arc, not only towards Kaito who had the most ambiguous behaviors, but also her loved ones, starting from Syaoran himself - who stole her cards in the very beginning and even lied to her, hiding an important truth for her sake; but also Yukito, for a moment, when he activated the Moon barrier all of a sudden, scaring even Kero and Suppi; or how inevitably Sakura's trust in Akiho was also put under pressure once she found out that Kaito was a magician and so inevitably she had to question the reliability of a person very close to him. Trust, trust in your beloved people and even more deciding to trust someone you don't know well is of utmost importance in this arc. If Kaito the magician is, in Buying Mittens, the human known for hurting and hunting and killing foxes, Sakura is the little fox who has to make the important decision of whether she can trust him or not, especially when she's in a moment of vulnerability (in the story the little fox shows the fox paw instead of the human hand to the hatter, who recognizes it as a fox but actually doesn't hurt it at all).

When Sakura found out about Kaito being a magician, she made a careful and delicate decision: she decided to trust Akiho and indirectly to trust Kaito too, avoiding to jump to conclusions and to ruin Akiho and Kaito's relationship by questioning her friend about Kaito's nature. And despite acting in shady ways for the entire arc, and sometimes being just misunderstood - leading everyone to believe he intended to hurt Sakura, in the end we found out that none of that has ever been Kaito's intention from the very beginning.

As repeatedly told by Nanase Ohkawa of CLAMP in Twitter Spaces, Sakura trusts her loved ones, and that actually represents her strength to believe that she will always be ok and everything will eventually be alright.

At the end of the Buying Mittens story, on its way back to his mother, the little fox hears a human mother singing a lullaby to her baby, and the fox draws a parallel to its own mother. Thanks to that, while being cuddled by the mother fox later, the baby fox says "maybe humans are good, after all". Motherhood and mother's love is definitely another thematic common to Clear Card and Buying Mittens, but also finding something that wholesome in common between the two species (humans and foxes) is the key to trust that there can be something good to be found even in "the other" that seems so scary and oppositive in the beginning. I'm certain that will also be a huge theme that will lead Sakura to help Akiho and Kaito in the very end of this climax.

7) Night on The Galactic Railroad / Kenji Miyazawa

"Night on The Galactic Railroad" is the title of the book Yukito is reading to the children of the hospital in episode 19 of the Clear Card anime.

8) "Oborozukiyo" (朧月夜)

"Oborozukiyo" is a Japanese folk song that gets featured in chapter 9 of the manga and episode 6 of the anime. Tomoyo and Akiho sing together this song in 2 different occasions between manga and anime: in the manga they sing it at the hanami in front of group of school friends, while in the anime it is a song that Tomoyo suggests to Akiho to sing together, and at the end of the performance she offers Akiho to join the choir later. The song is also featured in the Clear Card soundtrack album.

9) Special references appearing in the mobile game Happiness Memories:

Botchan / Natsume Sōseki

Natsume Soseki gets mentioned again in the Happiness Memories game when Akiho, in one of the photostories (the one focused on the study of English, with Syaoran reiterating his love to Sakura in English without her knowing what he meant ❤️) tells Sakura she's looking for the English version of some books, namely Night On The Galactic Railroad by Kenji Miyazawa (already mentioned above) and Botchan by Natsume Soseki. Apparently, Kaito suggested her to find those books and read them in English, since she's still having some difficulties with Japanese language. Akiho doesn't initially remember the titles of those books, so Syaoran intervenes and tries to help.

The Wandering Lake / Sven Hedin

"The Wandering Lake" is a book written by swedish geographer Sven Hedin. This one gets seemingly mentioned during one of the photostories set during the old anime arcs, where Syaoran gets invited to the Kinomoto home and bakes a cake with Fujitaka and Sakura (I don't really know much of the details because I never got this card 💦) While they wait for it to bake, Fujitaka and Syaoran talk about their favorite subject, archeology! And Fujitaka apparently makes references to this book (he supposedly mentions the lake name, Lop Nur) while explaining his love for archeology.

And I believe that's all for this first installment of "Clear Card Trivia"!! I hope you enjoyed it and maybe that it surprised you too, for some reference that you didn't catch before today! My love for this story is infinite, for all the reading "layers" it provides us with, and one of those is composed by all the literary references featured in it, since books are really so important in this arc. Knowing all these little quotes and references makes me appreciate CLAMP's efforts to build this arc as something deeper and more meaningful.

As I said in the beginning, I intend to update this post in case something else comes up in the handful of chapters that are left! See you next time, what will I feature? I have looooots I want to talk about!!

#card captor sakura #cardcaptor sakura #ccsakura #clear card arc #sakura card captor #clear card trivia #<- this will be the designated tag for this series of posts!

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jichanxo · 5 months ago

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hiii jichan, long time no senseific asks from me... am kinda interested why you’ve thought the first kiss scene you wrote several says ago will have such, uh, destructive impact to the other plot points. i mean, it suddenly felt natural for them to kiss earlier than you planned them to, or 👀 (sry i’m awkward, can’t think of another way to convey that i. really appreciate your work)

(context for everyone else. my complaining was in the tags)

hi againnnnn :D well the short answer is that i'm probably being over-dramatic, but since a kiss is a big deal i gotta look over the stuff after that scene with new eyes and make sure all of it checks out with the new context

(more under the cut + general senseific updates for the curious)

it's their second kiss (so far), and i threw it in around the middle after shuffling around some plot points (the plot point shuffling is definitely going to be more, uh, destructive than the kiss is anyway, so i am just being over-dramatic), but uhhh... well it's an early release of tension and expression of yagami's frustration towards kitakata than i originally intended so... that's gonna change how their dynamic is going to feel afterwards until the tension is resolved completely (i.e. they sort their shit out)

i'd just placed those plot points in their new spots and saw a gap in the middle of my fic and was Struck By An Urge so now this kiss scene exists with only a vague idea of what the context behind it will be. ...well, i'll write it when i get to it, i suppose. but it was a lot of fun writing something exciting and new for senseific!

but now i gotta get back to the stuff i actually have to do 😔 which is mostly dance club stuff right now. i am thankfully actually making progress on that front. and later i also gotta check some stuff with the robotics club for a short part in chp 1 and 2. and just give everything a general look for cohesiveness.

chp 1 is, by my judgement, very close to its finished form (i just need to do that short robotics club part and general tweaking)

chp 2 still has quite a ways to go, but i've got big chunks of dance club where i want them now, alongside the existing kuwagami stuff (which is the other focus of that chapter). i also need robotics club stuff here but it's pretty minimal rn

chp 3 is.... well the front half has a direction (resolving the dance club), and then it gets a bit lost. (on a related note, those re-homed plot points start to get placed around here). my focus right now is to get the dance club stuff done and leave this problem to be solved later. when i move onto the robotics club, i'm hoping to see what comes up naturally. for now, i gotta focus on the immediate tasks and all that.

[tenuous separation between chapters 3/4 depending on where 3 ends naturally when i finish writing it]

chp 4 is where the new kiss scene is. and a bit of old writing of where i am generally expecting kuwagami stuff to go. around this point is where things get even further away from a readable state, so i won't go on. ....if their second kiss is in this chapter, feel free to take a guess at when their first will be. hehe.

senseific currently has a working title. chapters 1-3 have titles that i think are not gonna get changed, cause i'm attached to em (but you never know, right?)

general senseific update aside, since that kiss is around (what is currently) chp 4, i am eventually going to have to go over the older writing around that point and make sure it all matches the vibe

#jitxt #this ended up being a general senseific update because i wanted to keep talking. so excuse me #my actual answer is pretty short since i'm not really elaborating on the context of that scene for once lol #i've done a lot of casual spoiling of senseific ahahahaha #remember when i said i felt like i had all my kuwagami plot beats sorted #that wasn't untrue because i got all the big ones i want and the general direction #but my god. i wanna hit my past self on the head for feeling so satisfied when there's still SO MUCH TO DO #sorry for being unnecessarily verbose i'm just going to ignore my anxiety and press the post button before i rethink the whole post 👍

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void-botanist · 1 month ago

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2024 Review & 2025 Resolutions

My resolutions for 2024 were organized into a few different blocks, but for a better overview, here they are in one big list:

Clear out my askbox: [laughs while crying]

✅ Clear out my drafts: I did it at the beginning of the year and then immediately filled up my drafts again.

✅Follow up on a few ancient tags that I’ve been thinking about for months: I did at least one of these!

Create the Hall of Fame list: I thought about it a lot but didn't actually retag anything.

✅Catch up on my reading list! At the top of it are vacantgodling’s Cage, outpost51’s Between a Rock and a Hard Place, writernopal’s As a Stranger or a Friend, anoelleart’s Protolith, and theskeletonprior’s The Bishop of Black: this was a partial success. I made a good start on Cage and read AASOAF 1 plus 2/3 of AASOAF 2, but I didn't get to BRHP, Protolith, or TBOB. They're still on my list tho!

Write more lesbian smut: didn't get very far on this one, but that just means more to write later.

✅ Figure out Sid’s deal - and for that matter the rest of the plot of AOM that right now is just mud: AOM mostly makes sense now, and it's a lot of people making these faces at each other!

Do another pass through Nicea to fill in some of the ideas that are just empty scenes, consider Declan and Tristan more critically, and edit in Isabel’s infamous ex (he’s great actually but infamous for context reasons): I did a little bit of this but honestly I don't think I wrote that much on Nicea this year at all.

Continue doing music-inspired scenelets in some capacity, maybe to kickstart Nicea a bit: music definitely inspired me but not so directly.

Finish my other sex scenes that are just sort of hanging out: uhhhh also didn't do this but I tinkered with some of them.

✅ Get deeper into cultural worldbuilding, especially with Pajiir: there's still a lot more to do but I got some more stuff figured out!

✅ Continue cultivating better art habits (draw from the shoulder ugh) and consider actually learning to touch type for real to save my wrists: didn't learn touch typing but I got a lot better at drawing from the elbow and/or shoulder. I still need to keep working on it tho.

Have my Spotify Wrapped 2024 be at least 1/3 Black artists: ngl, my Wrapped is a mess. But I did listen to way more Black artists across genres whose songs are on my playlists now, and of my 16 favorite albums that I first listened to this year, half are by Black artists.

✅ Get back to cross-stitch and other fiber arts: I didn't finish anything but I did make progress on an ancient cross-stitch and crocheted a little.

✅ Make powerpoints: I finished one for Night Shift and started like ten others.

I completed or made good progress on 8 of 15, which is not bad! But this was honestly too many resolutions to keep track of, even though I was gonna do some of them resolution or no.

2025 Resolutions

Finish one unfinished piece every month. Doesn't matter what it is - art, writing, music, code - I'm gonna get it done.

Finish one thing from my reading list every month. This one might not happen on a monthly schedule but at least I'll be reading stuff continuously!

Clear out my askbox and drafts and this time, don't let them build up more than 20 things each.

Get my nekoweb site into a more complete form. I want there to be setting and character reference pages along with more writing and maybe an askbox or a linktree?

Listen to more jazz. This year I branched out more into goth and hip hop, which I'm gonna continue doing, but man I love jazz and I just want to listen to a ton of it this year. Recs are welcome!

This isn't everything I want to do that's relevant to this blog, but it will help me stay on track, I think. Maybe I'll do a monthly update.

Anyway, thank you for joining me this year! I'm looking forward to seeing what you all get up to next year, and I'm very glad to be mutuals/friends with a number of you! Happy 2025!

#resolutions #meta botanist

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gamergirlshelby · 1 year ago

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Alright I just finished Chapter 1 of Rejuvenation 13.5 and I have many thoughts I want to ramble about.

I want to note that I have done 100% playthrough of version 13.0 a few months after it had initially released, so although my memory is a bit rusty, I will be talking a bit about some of the changes between the versions (i want to note that they're all positive imo)

Also should note that be wary of spoilers for new content for 13.5 as well as spoilers for story stuff since I want to talk about how good the writing in this game is. I've taken a lot of screenshots and will be adding them when i think they fit in my little rambles and stuff.

Without further ado my ramblings are under the read more!

To start things off I wanna just gloss over the beginning scene with Maria and the prologue on the SS Oceana. From what I can remember nothing really changed between those two sections but honestly I think they are as close to perfect if not as perfect as they can be. They give just the right amount of information to set up some of the first main mysteries and plot threads, and I think they do amazingly at setting the tone for the game.

Next I want to talk about how East Gearen has changed, having made some small adjustments to the city to help make traveling through it all the more easier. I'm happy that the changes were minimal enough that walking through the city I still knew where everything was, so everything felt familiar but it had been different enough where seeing everything game me the same sort of wonder and comfort that it had in my first playthroughs.

I think the biggest changes being to the designs for the Gearen lab and the Gearen Help Center (I haven't made it to Sheridan yet so I'm not sure if all of the help centers have been changed to be the same sort of layout, or if they all have a unique sort of look to them). The only change I'm not the biggest fan of is the starters all being lined up in rows as shown above. It definitely makes choosing the starter easier since they're all in one space, but having them all in their own little enclosures had this quaint sort of feeling to it. Still I do think that it was a good change overall, it just doesn't pander to me specifically.

Next change that I want to point out is the ability to take on quests right when you see the npc and not needing to go to the help center. Overall I think everything about quests has been changed to be much easier and more streamlined. The little quest notification does a lot in making finding the details for quests and even just finding quests a lot easier. Overall I'm a big fan.

I also adore the additions of finding some relevant story npcs out in the world outside of big story events and areas. It just adds so much to the world and helps make the world feel more alive, like its really worth saving. Whether its just small dialogue that doesn't impact anything, a conversation that can build up on your relationships with characters, or even having a quick battle, I love these small changes.

Next on the list is the completely new content, with the most notable being Mr. Luck's tent. I'm gonna be honest I am a big fan of him, I love this character archetype of just these mischievous tricksters (probably a more common term for this trope but. y'know the sort of characters I'm probably thinking of) Honestly the whole quest introducing Prism Pokemon was very fun! Melia also explains them later on during the Goldenwood Forest section with the fight with the Prism Nidorino, but I think being able to learn about it early through the quest is fun. Also I am just a huge fan of the contracts and items you can trade in. I'm gonna save a bit though for some of the more expensive items though, at least for now. If I can find a way to grind for the Black Prisms easily I'll probably grind for that ??? contract, but I have no idea what it could be (also 999 is a lot,,,).

Next up I want to talk about the update to Venam's gym! It definitely feels a lot more her than the last one, but I do think there was a bit of charm to the idea that she didn't really get a say in what her gym was like, to the point she made a gym grave yard to help preserve those old gyms. The factory is still there and I'm gonna be honest I kinda just walked there first when it was time to challenge Venam and I was very confused-- Not complaining just a silly thing I thought I'd mention.

Next I want to talk about the Zygarde quest. I think introducing it during the main story instead of pushing it to the side in the help center was a smart move, but I did not realize who Ayuda was at first when I saw him in Venam's gym. I'm gonna be honest though, I don't see myself going out of my way to work on completing the Zygarde quest this playthrough, mostly just cause I'm not the biggest Zygarde fan, but also its just very tedious to look for all of them.

Next I wanna talk about the Goldenwood Forest Section and I just. Wow I think how it was reworked was phenomenal. First I absolutely ADORE how instead of having it be a cutscene you can help out everyone in Goldenwood made the trip feel a lot more impactful. I adored that original cutscene but honestly I think having a few quick quests to help everyone in the area made what was once gonna be one of the best days ever into the worst day ever feel a lot more... real if that makes sense, telling a story through gameplay and not just cutscenes, something Rejuvenation never had a problem with, but I'm glad they made the change here.

Also the fishing quest. Oh my goodness the fishing quest. The mechanical Lairon encounter hinting towards the future mechanical Pokemon you have to fight later on even more intense cause like. This rusty old one can give you trouble if you're not prepared for it, and and the fully functional mechanical Pokemon found later on in the game can be pretty rough, especially since there are so many of them in some sections like in the pearl route of chapter 15. That said there was something really funny to me about the idea of this fisherman having the hardest time trying to get a Magikarp haha.

Next I love the information Melia gives about the mural, how she talks about how the squares couldn't be buildings, since the Garufans hadn't been very technologically advanced. Honestly there being so many differing interpretations for the Garufans and how they handled things is so cool to me, cause I feel like its just like how people who research ancient civilizations are in real life, especially when there isn't a lot of information available. This might be partly because I have this stuff on my mind because I am taking a World Civilizations class rn for my college classes. Karen talking about in the Missing Starly quest that the Garufa were a nomadic tribe that harvested the powers from Pokemon's souls to be able to cast magic. Then in the Hidden Library quest we learn that they hated Pokemon, seeing them as vile pests. Even the idea that their technology was undeveloped is something that gets disproved later on in the story. I just find it fascinating that nobody can seem to agree on what the Garufa were like. I may be pulling at straws here though I just think its cool.

Next is the whole redesign for the Silent Grove. First I think the name itself is new but tbh I may just be forgetting and I don't feel like looking up an old playthrough to check (tbh thats just me being lazy tho). I personally was a big fan of the grove being a small secluded area, but I think the big castle builds on the lore that was first established in the Goomy Kingdom quest, that being what the world was like all the way back before the calamity decades ago, and showing that there where even more castles. Also it just makes more sense that this would lead to the secret Garufa settlement that we explore in the Pearl Route for Chapter 15. Also I love the new statue design being based on the Ranger sprite for Arceus.

Lastly I just wanted to say I think the battle with Zetta being changed to take place in a crater instead of the lake front just makes sense. It didn't make sense to me that the park had been closed off for so long after the Rift Gyrados was dealt with. I know it's because the Gyrados wasn't completely gotten rid of, but before it was just overgrown, but still manageable. This level of damage I could see needing to have a full quest line repairing.

Anyways that's it for my thoughts on Chapter 1 and the Prologue for version 13.5 of Rejuvenation. Hope you enjoyed my rambles and thank you again for reading all of them :D

#pokemon rejuvenation #long post #pokemon rejuvenation 13.5 spoilers #pokemon rejuvenation spoilers #pokemon fangames #this game is so good guys i will shill for it forever please if you havent played it please do and also please talk to me about it #honestly id love to have some more people to talk to about this game this game just makes me so happy to talk about and make fan stuff for #if you have anything to add or talk about relating to the stuff i talked about here i'd love to hear it!#i'll probably end up doing more posts like this it was very fun!

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twotangledsisters · 1 year ago

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Hey, love ur stories! Can u tell me more about Fred and Ari and their relationship when they were young and started dating? Also when is ur fanfic about Fred and Ari releasing?? I just love Fred and Aris relationship and u write they amazingly!

Oh my goodness, thank you so much and, of course I would absolutely love to talk about Ari and Fred's relationship!

But first I will address your second question!

The Adventurer and the Prince, the prequel fic focusing on Frederic and Arianna's relationship, has no planned release date. But I do have a plan for how it'll release! I plan to start publishing as soon as I have a few full arcs and release the chapters on an arc based schedule.

So what that means is that there may be weekly updates until an arc is complete and then a hiatus of however long is needed! I'll make sure arcs don't end on cliffhangers and are a sort of-self contained mini stories with an overarching plot similar to Tangled Sisters during Within the Walls of Corona.

I am really excited about this fic and recently I've been really wanting to work on it! It's just important I prioritise Tangled Sisters as it'd be easy for me to fall behind on daily updates if I didn't.

The first arc is just one scene away from being complete and it's named the Prince and the Puppy.

Which is a great way for me to move into talking about their relationship!

I know in the show, technically Arianna was also royalty from birth because she competed in the Contest of the Crowns, however, it was a minor detail and for this AU Arianna has already stated she married into royalty. A change that I think helps Arianna as a character understand her daughters, who are learning the ways of royalty later in life, but I also found it made for a funner backstory.

Arianna first meets Frederic when she is requested to take a very special delivery to the Crowned Prince of Corona. A puppy! Her firsts impressions of the prince are that he's pretty stuck up and definitely not someone she wishes to engage with.

But then she sees something she shouldn't have (not going to go into detail for spoilers!) and her opinion of him changes ever so slightly. She feels a sense of obligation to help but isn't sure how until she sees an opening for a riding instructor for the crowned prince who apparently is completely useless at horse-riding!

So that is how they start out! Arianna trying (and failing) to teach Frederic how to ride a horse while also trying to be a friend to him. Frederic at first is wary of her and thinks her foolish, but eventually he comes to appreciate how genuine she is.

Frederic's father is not at all in favour of Frederic dating a commoner, especially one who came from outside of Corona! He tries to cause trouble for the couple, but instead these attempts just end up teaching Frederic to stand up to him more.

It's planned to be a pretty slow development, from not enemies but certainly two people with very different opinions and ways of life, to friends, to lovers.

There are miscommunications on both sides with Arianna not knowing how to behave within a royal environment. And Frederic, not really knowing how to talk to someone who isn't a servant or high-ranking nobility, neither of which quite match up with Arianna.

Frederic learns to be more open about his emotions, learns it's okay to not always be this imposing presence that demands respect.

Arianna learns how to be a more regal and imposing presence when handling certain types of company.

It's a lot of sweet moments, stuff like Arianna asking Frederic to head to the store to get some sugar because she's baking and has run out, and he comes back with an entire sack because that's what they have in the palace kitchens.

Frederic having his entire schedule messed up because Arianna didn't realise it was her job to keep track of lesson time for the prince.

Perhaps one of the cuter moments is when Arianna sees Frederic's room in the palace and it's just... boring. All white walls, royal paintings, very formal. She asks about the decoration and he explains it's what a prince's room should look like and that anything out of place gets thrown away so he knows to keep it pristine.

So Arianna clears a corner of her home (she rents a place in Corona Village) for Frederic to decorate as he pleases.

Basically, the early stages of their relationship is Frederic, bringing Arianna along to regal events like balls, and dinner; and Arianna, in turn, dragging Frederic to outdoor picnics and hikes! A, 'here, let me show you my world' sorta thing with both being patient and wanting to make the other one happy.

I cannot wait to share this fic with you!

Thank you so much for the ask and the excuse to ramble on a bit about them! I'm so glad you enjoy how I write them as they're one of my parent-couples in media ever! ❤️❤️❤️

#ask answered #tangled fanfic #tts fanfic #rta fanfic #tts au #rta au #queen arianna tangled #king frederic tangled

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impalakiing · 1 year ago

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LOW ACTIVITY & SLOW REPLIES blog, multiship / multiverse / OC & crossover friendly! Mun is 21+, mature themes will be present (minors DNI), everything will be tagged accordingly though.

Discord available upon request for plotting & rping purposes !!

Update March, 2024: Icons credit - mendinggashes / icon border: jaynedits

Read rules before interacting.

RULES / ABOUT.

Mobile friendly rules under the cut.

Hello! You can call me Bibis / Bibi, I’m 25 years old and roleplaying has been one of my hobbies for over 10 years. And I’ve been a big SPN fan for about that same amount of time too. However, as I’m very slow & my life’s a bit chaotic, I haven’t finished the show yet but I intend to do so very soon. But for now, my portrayal will mostly be based on early seasons - personal headcanons! (If you wish to do something set in later seasons though, I don’t mind spoilers and we can definitely plot something out).

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Dean, Supernatural or anything on this blog other than my writing.

CREDIT: icons - lanadelrph, baseicons, huntforgifs-blog, luluxaj, icon border: fleursourceold

BLOG ACTIVITY: I have a full time job & just many boring adult life responsibilities + I have other rp blog, so I’m most certainly not going to be here all the time. My activity will be low / sporadic, replies slow. This is supposed to be fun & not a job, so please do not pester me for replies, I understand that me being a slow rper may be a deal breaker for some people and if that’s the case for you, just don’t follow me because I’m not the right blog for you, clearly.

SHIPPING: I love shipping but it’s not a priority here, besides, given Dean’s occupation as a hunter, it’s just hard for him to maintain long term relationships– nearly impossible tbh. Unless we’re writing an AU or something, most of his romantic realtionships will be one-night stands and such. & given some bad experiences I’ve had with people trying to force ships on me, I might be a little picky with whom I write that sort of thing with, so if we’ve have a few interactions & you feel like there’s chemistry between our characters, come talk to me so we can discuss it and see if we’re both on the same page about the topic! Let it be known that with Dean, I’d much rather focus on platonic ships though! He’s all about family & so platonic ships are what make the most sense for him.

NSFW / TRIGGERING CONTENT: Supernatural is a horror show & I am well over the age of 18 so there will be nsfw / triggering content on this blog. I do my best to tag that sort of thing and depending on what I’m writing, I’ll also place it under a read more. I may forget to tag some stuff at times but let me know if you need anything specific to be tagged & I will do so right away!

That’s about it, thanks for reading & I’m looking forward to writing with all of you!

#( pinned. )#do not reblog pls

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of-the-wingwatchers · 3 years ago

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update: i've finished the book and here's some of my thoughts, kind of tired and have been burnt out on the third arc/wof for a while so it's not going to be too detailed. but to summarize without spoilers i have a mostly neutral-positive opinion on this book - if you disagree or agree that's fine, these are just my personal thoughts regarding tfoh. these might change with time as i did just finish it for the first time - note that everything beyond this point of the post is not spoiler free

i think i generally liked how Luna's character was handled? i liked her fair enough compared to most of the third arc protags. and honestly i found her relatable to some extent

i do like the background on the Scorching n such and how it happened was alright ig (just mostly neutral on it) but. still kind of wish that it had been its own thing that could've had its own book? idk how to explain it really

Axolotl is good. i like them

i honestly wish Raven and Mole had appeared more in the book, as well as Vole? like the previous book definitely felt like it was setting up for Raven to be a more important character and she's just. the prologue pov and appears in a few scenes later on but that's it. i'm a little biased because i do actually like Raven from what little we're given in tdg and in the prologue of tfoh, as well as Mole. so it's kind of a shame that neither of them or Vole really...got much focus, or that little compared to what was sort of implied in tdg

honestly i personally don't mind if there's a dragon-human relations arc at this point and ik i'm in the small, small minority but. honestly idk i feel it's both more suited for a potential L2 sequel and/or that it's kind of just going to be wasted potential (which is honestly how i sort of feel about this book)

in addition i personally just didn't mind the human stuff but that might also just be due to bias. even then i still think a lot of it could've been handled better (and i personally don't feel it took up too much of the book? like w/ Cottonmouth and Freedom it felt kind of expected that it would go into that because their backstory directly involves the Scorching. but like i wouldn't say it took up too much of the plot but then again i'm kind of just burnt out of this arc's plot)

at least the HiveWings weren't completely treated like they did nothing wrong and there wasn't the constant "not all HiveWings" shit in this one? idk it was just a lot more tolerable in this one than in previous books. still irritating to some degree and still makes me uncomfy as a poc but it didn't. feel as bad in this one ig (please don't argue w/ me over this)

honestly i find it hard to hate this book but at the same time i wouldn't say i liked it either? idk it's a bit weird. again i just don't care for the third arc and generally ignore it when it comes to personal wof aus but like. there was some stuff i liked here. but most of it i don't think i particularly cared much for

i do appreciate the mlm representation though especially as someone who's sometimes mlm (as well as the non-binary rep for similar reasons)

in general i just feel like this book didn't really tie up many loose ends or really. explained some things brought up in previous books? or maybe that's just personal feelings? idk, but it does feel like that and sort of feels incomplete like that. and honestly it makes me wish that the arcs weren't set to being just five books per arc because it feels like a lot of stuff was crammed in here but not enough at the same time. and i think it's mostly that aspect of it that really holds it back for me (then again i am burnt out of wof, especially the main arcs. so it could just be a personal nitpick). ik this could always be touched on later in a future book/arc but...it's just odd for me when looking at this book specifically, especially when it's the conclusion for this arc

at the same the previous point might also just be that i do find some things with the third arc overall very messy or it at least gives me that vibe

my gripes aside i do think this book might be tied with tdg in terms of my liking for the third arc books. i think both have their issues and both have their strengths (or at least things i liked?) and it kind of makes up for it since i. didn't really enjoy the first few books in this arc (tpj was my most preferred over the three but. otherwise yeah i kind of just didn't like them that much if i'm being honest)

#wingwatcher notes #wof spoilers #the flames of hope

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possiblyimbiassed · 4 years ago

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The lying liars who lie

Years and years late to the party, I’ve finally gotten my hands on all the DVDs of BBC Sherlock, and I thought it would be fun to watch the extra material carefully, one piece after another, and also listen to at least some of the show makers’ commentary of the episodes. But at this point, after S4 where DVDs seemed to be a constant lying device in general, I tend to look at them with a bit more suspicious eyes...

I still love the show of course, but now that I’ve taken this deep dive into all the special features, I find them a truly hard thing to try to wrap my head around. Even this long after the fact, I’m amazed by the amount of shameless, self-congratulatory BS in the DVDs, where the people involved can’t have enough of complimenting each other and their show, while they skillfully avoid to discuss anything actually meaningful about the plot line. ;) For example, Moffat claims in the S2 DVD that “In fact, you’ll never see a more obsessively authentic version of Sherlock Holmes than this one”. But if we follow their light-hearted commentary, which basically takes the show at face value, I’d call that not just hyperbole, but an outright lie. If you want to see the ‘authentic’ stories from ACD’s work in this show, you’ll definitely need to go much deeper into the subtext and meta levels - neither of which are mentioned on these DVDs of course. Here’s my own (rather subjective) ‘review’ of the whole thing, trying to pinpoint why I view most of the commentary of the show from its own makers as an advanced art of deception.

(My musings under the cut)

Series 1 - a wealth of extra material

First of all - as many of you probably knew already - the whole of the Unaired Pilot is added to the DVD of S1. In the extra material about the making of the series, they (Sue Vertue, Mofftiss and others) talk about what things they changed between the Pilot and ASiP, claiming that many changes were necessary improvements once they knew that they had a whole series and a lot more time at their disposal.

Which I can perfectly understand and agree with in general. But I think what’s missing in their discussions is more interesting than what’s actually there (”Mind the gap” ;) ). Things that I would expect from the show makers when they go to the trouble of comparing the pilot version with the aired product. There’s not a word, for example, about the fact that they added both Mycroft and Moriarty to the story in ASiP - two characters who later turn out to play major roles and appear in almost every other episode until the end of TFP. Or about the choice that one of the screenwriters would play Mycroft.

Neither do they discuss why they chose to relocate the place where Sherlock was challenged by the cabbie from 221B to Roland Kerr’s School of Further Education. Instead they focus on the details, like for example the new design of the interior of 221B.

Not to mention the fact that almost every scene in the Pilot is mirrored in ASiP (as pointed out long ago by @kateis-cakeis X), but at Angelo’s in the Pilot Sherlock follows the events with the cabbie while looking in an actual mirror. I even noticed that in the Pilot the cabbie is offering Sherlock dark-coloured bottles with the pills in them, while in ASiP those bottles are transparent, as if the cabbie is offering Sherlock to play Black or White in the chess game that he is simulating. What’s with all these mirrors, though? Not a word on the DVD... ;)

Now, even though these rather remarkable choices are neglected together with a great bunch of minor ones, I still think that the most interesting fact about all this is that they actually included the whole pilot version within this DVD, which is sold by the franchise. Why even do this, when it raises far more questions than it answers? The only logical reason I can come up with is that they’re laying out a track of little hints that anyone with a deep enough interest in the show to actually buy the DVDs can try to follow. And it seems to me that lying by omission is one of the first steps in the long line of cryptic and misleading author comments on this show. But at the same time, they clearly want the fans to have access to it all, even the abandoned version.

Moving on to Series 2, time for bigger lies

In the extra material of this DVD Benedict himself describes how his character "faces one of his deadliest enemies in the shape of Love, and it comes in the form of Irene Adler, who is this extraordinary dominatrix [insert here a bunch of superlatives regarding Adler]...”. And then we see how Adler whips Sherlock with a riding crop (without any kind of consent, I have to add) while he’s lying on the floor, and we have Lara Pulver telling us how it was to have a go at Benedict on set. So Holmes whips dead bodies and Adler whips living; seems like a match made in hell! :))

Gatiss claims, grinning with his whole face, that “they’re clearly, absolutely made for each other”. OK, so I think we can see Sherlock being intellectually impressed by Adler, and even trying to protect her from Mycroft, and we can see John acting jealously. We can also see her being dressed and styled as a perfect, female mirror of Sherlock. But I’m still at a loss what all this has to do with love on Sherlock’s part? Especially since he’s not even responding in any fashion to her various attempts at seducing him.

And there’s more: Paul McGuigan, the director of ASiB, claims that the scene where Sherlock has a conversation with Adler inside his Mind Palace about the crime case with the car that backfires "is a part of a kind of love story, if you like...” No, I don’t. Maybe it’s just me, but if their aim really was to convey to their audience a love story between Sherlock and The Woman, I think they failed miserably. All I see is a guy ’mansplaining’ to a clever woman how to use her brain, while she’s trying to flirt with him by expressing her admiration (to no avail, though) and make deductions at the same time. Nothing new under the sun, really. John did the same thing repeatedly in ASiP (without making own deductions) and got far more attention from Sherlock, but I’ve never heard any of the show makers call that ”a love story”. But by ’lie-splaining’ the scene with Irene to the audience, they try to manipulate us all to see it as such...

In all the direct commentary of this episode, where Steven, Mark, Sue, Benedict and Lara are present, I get the impression that every time they even touch on the relationship between Sherlock and John, they hurry to add the term “friendship” or “man love” or similar words in case they forgot them at first, avoiding even the tiniest possibility that there could be anything more going on between them. They even explain that when Irene calls them “a couple” she does not mean anything romantic. This whole approach feels almost paranoic in the midst of all the laid-back jokes and light-hearted talk about the filming. It’s as if a sort of restrictive, heteronormative filter or blanket is being constantly applied, to teach the audience the ‘no homo’ lesson of it all. And the more I listen to this, the more tiresome it becomes.

In the commentary Moffat does reveal an interesting detail, though: that the ‘Flight of the Dead’ in ASiB was inspired by a cut out scene in the Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service. To me this is just one more reason to question the ‘authentic’ quality of this scene, as opposed to possibly taking place in Sherlock’s Mind Palace. But I digress...

Listening to the commentary in general, it’s like it’s aimed to distract the attention from what’s going on at the screen rather than highlight it and try to explain their intentions. They do mention that Irene didn’t actually ‘beat’ Sherlock in the end of ASiB, but there’s no explanation of this obvious deviation from canon, where Adler does indeed fool Holmes, taking advantage of his prejudices.

The rest of the extra material of S2 is mostly about technical stuff, special effects and such, and also about filming techniques and Benedict’s delivery of fast deductions. But the part I really do love is the one where Andrew Scott talks about how much he enjoyed playing the scene where Moriarty dances before breaking into the Crown Jewels. That’s one of my favorite scenes of he whole show. :) Also, the takeaway message from this DVD is Moffat’s words at the end:

“These are still the formative years of Sherlock Holmes, and the most important thing about this series is not that it’s updated; it’s the fact that those two men are still young and they’re still at the beginning of what they don’t yet know is gonna be a lifelong partnership”.

And then comes Series 3...

...and its extra material, with the most blatant attempts at deception so far, I believe. At this point Sherlock is called a “psychopath” by both the show’s characters, John’s blog, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as if it were true, which is a big deviation from ACD canon. That simply doesn’t happen there; while Holmes is sometimes described as eccentric, no one in the books is ever claiming that Sherlock Holmes has some kind of mental illness leaning towards cruelty and egotism - not even his enemies say this about him. In the show, however, they begin in ASiP with making him torture a dying man for information (something that is not included in the Pilot). And in S3, where they avoid discussing the reason why they turned Mary Morstan into a ruthless assassin, this major shift is glossed over by the fact that in the same episode (HLV) they also turn Sherlock into a murderer, who cold-bloodedly blows the brains out of a blackmailer for threatening to make said assassin’s crimes public.

But without ever getting into the “why” of it all, the cast and crew seem overly happy and smiling describing these rather morbid choices as something positive; “fantastic”, "fresh and new” and "amazing” are their choice of words. Benedict claims that Mary, who has literally shot and almost killed Sherlock in HLV, is now "a new best friend of Sherlock’s”. Amanda claims that Mary “is protecting John” when she shoots Sherlock in the chest. Now they’re both psychopaths, and poor little John is forced to stomach them both because he’s addicted to danger. In Amanda’s words, Mary also “kind of gets in between the two of them, but she wants them to be together as well”. Which is a load of BS considering that Mary tries to kill the protagonist of the story.

Lars Mikkelsen thinks it’s “such a good script” because “you’re mislead as an audience”. But he never gets the chance to expand on what the misleading actually contains, because then Mofftiss cut in to express how much they love playing with “what ifs”. As if this whole mega-budget project of a show were just a big experimental playground without any actual story to tell.

Benedict repeats his line from HLV that Magnussen “preys on people who are different” and Moffat also says he “exploits people who are different”. Which is really confusing, considering what we can see Magnussen actually do in the show. Lady Smallwood and John Garvie are two well-established, powerful governmental politicians whom Magnussen blackmails by finding their respective pressure points. In Garvie’s case his pressure point seems to be alcohol problems in his past, but according to media he’s later arrested on charges of corruption. Lady Smallwood is blackmailed on the basis of her husband having sent compromising letters to a minor many years ago, in spite of later claiming that he thought she was older and stopped when he found out the truth. And then Magnussen is blackmailing an assassin who recently threatened to execute him but shot Sherlock Holmes instead, in order to try to get at Sherlock’s brother Mycroft, another powerful governmental figure.

But what does media seeking out dirt on certain people in power and their families have to do with “people who are different”? Despicable as the method may be, isn’t this unfortunately how political power play usually works in our society? Or are TPTB somehow a repressed minority group now? Unless this whole “people who are different” accusation is actually about something entirely different, something that none of the show makers even cares to mention... ;)

In these DVDs, none of the involved persons is ever discussing the change of roles with regards to canon, though, or the (lack of) logics in this turn of events, or even a hint about the narrative motivation behind them. It’s all about the great Drama, the extraordinary visual effects and the aim to endlessly “surprise the audience”. Which is fine by me to a certain extent, but when this is all that’s being said, it feels extremely superficial, as if the audience is merely seen as a bunch of consumers that have to be triggered more and more by horror, special effects and cliff hangers to be able to appreciate the show. (“Warm paste” indeed, like Gatiss has later criticized some viewers of wanting...) While the "why”; the idea behind this surrealistic adaptation, made by self-proclaimed fanboys of ACD, is not even touched upon. Around this, the silence is total and therefore totally confusing.

Maybe I shouldn’t even go into Series 4...

...but why not, since I’ve already started? :)

First of all, there’s a lot of extra material on this DVD and I particularly love the parts about the music and composing and Arwel Wyn Jones’ work with the design and build-up of John’s and Mary’s flat and the interior of 221B. Those bits are truly enjoyable. What I could live without, though, is the leading commentary that kind of instructs us, the audience, how we should interpret the show.

Benedict is on it again on this DVD, telling us that in TST they picked up where they left off in S3 and “It’s a very happy unit of three people that then become four.” Why does he feel the need to make this statement, considering how S3 ended? Actually, if there’s anything I totally fail to see in S4, it’s happiness. The banter between the three of them may seem entertaining for a while, but who could have a relaxed, warm relationship with someone who tried and almost succeeded to kill you less than a year ago? Without any sign of remorse? Now there’s a dark tone of discomfort and mean jokes that feels forced and not even a bit happy to me.

But Martin tells us how excited John and Mary are about starting a family and Amanda mentions how much they’re looking forward to the baby. Again and again it’s repeated, as though trying to rub it in: “they’re in a good place, they’re a loving, married couple”. Yeah, right - a child that (judging by TSoT) wasn’t at all planned and now with an assassin for a mother... Twice we see the new parents complain that their daughter has the mark of Satan on her forehead and debate which horror movie she’s from. The clichéd hypocrisy of it all is sickening, and I’m willing to bet that it’s really meant to be. ;)

But Gatiss chimes in, deciding for us all that the christening of Rosie is “a funny scene” and “they’re enjoying each other, enjoying being on adventures as a three”.

An interesting detail is that Gatiss also tells us that the working name of this episode was “The Adventure of the Melting power Ranger”. So this little blue guy was that important? :) And - even more interesting - is when he says: “Cake is now the code for violent death”. So how should we interpret Sherlock, John and Molly going out to have cake in TLD then, on Sherlock’s (supposed) birthday?

These might be jokes, though, but when they tell us that Sue cries every time she sees Mary’s death I strongly believe they must be joking. How could anyone feel truly moved by this overly sentimental long monologue where far more efforts are put into reacting to Mary’s speech than saving her life? And John’s mooing like a cow, is that also moving? :)

One thing Martin says about TLD that actually disgusts me is regarding the morgue scene where John assaults Sherlock and Sherlock lets it happen: “From there, really, their relationship can only sort of rebuild, that’s the absolute worst it can get”. As if outright physical abuse would be something that makes you want to rebuild a relationship? Wow - just wow... How far can they go with this crap?

Anyway, when we finally arrive at the absurdity of TFP and Sherlock’s ‘secret sister’, everything is of course discussed as if she actually does exist on the given premises, and everything she does is ‘real’, no matter how impossible it would be in real life. The abandonment of any attempt to have the story line make logical sense is skillfully covered up by more distraction with fascinating technicalities of the film making process. This is where Gatiss makes his now almost classic statement that after Sherlock and John jump out of the window at 221B when a grenade explodes there, it’s just “Boop! And they’re fine.”

Of course there’s no serious attempt at explaining this logically. Except perhaps Gatiss claiming that they both landed on Speedy’s awning - whatever good that would do to them, since the awning is leaning downwards, but never mind... But we never even saw that happen, did we? A great deal of time is then dedicated to show all the precautions to have Martin and Ben jumping safely at low level onto a madras supported by empty cardboard boxes.

Sian Brooke did say something interesting about Sherrinford, however, that got me thinking. She said that Eurus “wants revenge for the years and years that she has been held captive” there, isolated, and that in TFP the Holmes children are now “lab rats” and “it’s an experiment”. On a meta level, I think we can indeed see this episode - and maybe the whole show - as a kind of experiment, but maybe we, the audience, are also lab rats? Since Sherrinford is slightly shaped like a film camera (not commented in the extra material, of course), it leads my thought to all the adaptations through the years and years where Holmes and Watson have not been allowed to be together. A whole century when Sherlock Holmes has been held captive, restricted by the very same sort of heteronormative filter that all this extra material imposes; it’s like Sherrinford, isn’t it? Which gives all the more meaning to Moriarty’s arrival to the island, accompanied by Freddy Mercury’s “I want to break free”...

I think I’ll let the final words in this little exposé come from Mark Gatiss in The Writers’ Chat (my bolding):

“Moriarty is a fascinating thing in that in our sea of ongoing lies, one thing we’ve genuinely been completely consistent about is telling people he’s dead. But no-one believes it! And it’s a rather brilliant thing.” Again - self-congratulatory statements. But instead of providing some actual evidence of the death of this character, who has kept popping up in almost every episode since his supposed demise, they think that the more a confirmed liar repeats something, the truer it gets? And the more we’re supposed to believe them? Well, all we can do is wait and see. :)

Tagging some people who might be interested:

@raggedyblue @ebaeschnbliah @sarahthecoat @gosherlocked @lukessense @sagestreet @thepersianslipper

My earlier meta on a similar topic (X)

#bbc sherlock dvds #Deception in BBC Sherlock

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quirklessidiot · 4 years ago

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title : cigarettes and parfaits [2] pairing : older!nanami kento x younger!reader [13 year age gap, ft toji fushiguro] Genre: romance, fluff, josei, mild angst, comedy, strangers to lovers au

Summary: you’re pretty sure you’d remember marrying a man 13 years older than you, right?

Warnings: alcohol, smoking, mild smut, y/n making stupid decisions, everyones a human-au so yeh non-canon stuff and everyone’s happy (periODT) Notes: tbh idk how marriage works in japan, all i know is that once you have both your signatures in the marriage registration certificate with one witness then you guys r married skdjssks anyways onto the story- also might i add this is happy story?? i promise yall, all youll see is cute stuff in this story bcos fuck angst (ok maybe lil angst since you know plot development) but i stand by that nanami kento deserves that trip to malaysia under the sun with his lover! before i forget to add, the age dynamics is that y/n is around 25 and nanami is 38. no power play and all that, just two healthy consenting adults! sorry for the early delete had some minor corrections :(

Izakaya-informal japanese bar

Masterlist || taglist || [prev ; next] [updates; every friday yay!]

*13 hours earlier; a night before at some random Izakaya in Tokyo*

You sat in front of your phone and three bottles of saki, despite your friends advising you countless of times to lay off drinking too much, all sense and warnings are thrown off the window tonight.

You’re clearly far from sobriety as you recall the video chat with your otosan not looking too good and bright, “Why don’t you move back home? It’s not like the teaching job at tokyo is all that great! You’re alone there and your obachan and I don’t like that a lot…” your father’s words haunt you again and again.

Just what was wrong with living alone? And excuse your otosan but you definitely had a very good job at Tokyo High (It was a prestigious academy that paid well, best job out there that you still didn’t know how you landed). You mumbled a few curses underneath your breath, Oh, how much you love that oaf of a father and worrywart of a grandmother but could they lay off the idea of settling down? You were a responsible and good child who never had stepped a toe out of line. Wasn’t that enough already? You immediately downed the drink and let the saki burn your throat down.

“Oh ho, slow down there.” You hear someone say, “You’re all alone and it seems like you have no one to help you back home.”

It seemed like the men on the opposite side of the bar had noticed you.

“I can take myself home, thank you very much.” You mumbled, loud enough for them to hear. Unlike older men who liked to prey on you for your innocent stature. The men who sat across you in the Izakaya didn’t really exude that sort of energy (what can you say, you had a knack of experiencing that, unfortunately).

“Are you sure? We can ask the owner to call a cab for you. She’s a woman and she’s a friend of ours.” the other one in robes pipes in, wait, was that a Buddhist monk?

“No, I’m good. It’s just…” You paused before letting out a long sigh, “A bad time so I need to stick around for a bit.”

The white-haired stranger tilts his head just a bit, “Seems like you and a friend of mine are both going through some rough patches.” he replied, pointing towards his blonde company who you didn’t notice until now.

You wordlessly shifted your gaze towards the office worker next to the Buddhist monk, you hadn’t noticed the blonde man until now. It seemed like he was going through a rough time too since the pair was loud and boisterous enough to conceal his silent presence.

You notice how out of place he looks with his crisp and clean suit, hard gaze, and silence. It made you wonder what sort of man hangs out with two contrasting personalities, “You’re wondering if he’s our friend or our boss, aren’t ya?” the white-haired man asks.

You immediately turn red in embarrassment, were you that easy to read? You try to stutter out an apology but the monk waves it off, “It’s alright, we get it all the time. Contrary to popular belief, Kento is two years younger than us and is our junior from high school.” He smiles.

“Ah,” you nodded mutely, “Sorry. It definitely wouldn’t make sense to see a boss and his subordinates at an Izakaya.”

“Oh, Kento-chan doesn’t usually go out drinking but he couldn’t resist. After all, he’s a father with two very emotional teenage boys.” The white-haired man teased in a sing-song voice. It seemed like the three were close, with the way they were carelessly lounging around the stoic and kind-of scary man.

“I’m starting to wonder if he gets that teasing attitude from you.” The blonde man, seemingly out of his trance, called out his friend. Contrasting to his aloof features, he didn’t mask the annoyance in his tone.

“Oh, uh, do you need help?” you quietly asked, tilting your head to the side in wonder. The blonde man’s head snapped to your direction and quirked a brow.

“And you are?” he seemed to be calculating and observing you from head to toe. It suddenly made you a bit self-conscious because this older gentleman had no business being this good looking and scary at the same time.

“Oh, I’m Y/N by the way. I’m actually a high school teacher.” You introduced yourself sheepishly, “I’m always surrounded by angsty teenagers.”

His gaze narrowed just a bit, it seemed like he’ll be giving you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was a bit desperate since he was getting advice from a drunk stranger in an Izakaya out of all places, “So what seems to be the problem, Ojisan?”

He’s still quite hesitant so it’s his white haired friend who speaks out for him, “You see, Kento-chan here just moved last week because of a promotion from Kyoto.” he grins, telling the story for his friend, “His kids aren’t very keen with the moving, well one of them is outright showing it and the other one is well keeping it in since he’s just the sweeter one.”

The white-haired stranger keeps babbling on about how his friend had regretted taking the work promotion because it feels like he shouldn’t have done that. You peerlessly observe the older man’s reaction while his friend talks about his problems to you. He remains stoic.

It didn’t look like it but it seemed like this man had such a soft spot for his kids.

How nice, his wife must be proud of him.

“... and before I forget to add, Kento-chan is very much single.”

You almost choke on your saliva, this friend of his sure knew how to run his mouth. It suddenly dawns upon you why this man had been very worried, he was a single parent who only wanted what was best for his boys but he didn’t even know how he should proceed now.

“Um, ojisan?” You quietly call out, “I think you’re doing great.”

Silence lingered in the air for a bit, you cringed at your rather awkward and forward approach, “Excuse me?” the older blonde man asked, clearly dismayed by your response.

“It’s just…” you ears turn red, not from the alcohol but from embarrassment, “You wouldn’t have moved in the first place if the pay wasn’t better than your old job, right? Plus you’re alone and raising two kids. It definitely isn’t easy to provide for everything alone but I can see that you did some careful reevaluation on the whole thing. Obviously you can’t avoid the fact that they feel bad but you can sit them down and talk to them about how the whole thing was beneficial not just for you but for them too.”

You spoke way too quickly that you wondered if the man could understand you.

The blonde man holds his breath for a moment, “I know…” he mumbles, “I just don’t really know how to talk to them.”

“Well, maybe you could take them out?” You advised, “Spend a whole day with them for a while and just move around with them. Help them get acquainted around their new school or something!”

You watch him silently look at his glass and think it over. Man, if this guy wasn’t older, your obaasan would outright agree and tell you to go out with him since she was never fond of how men weren’t as calm or laid back as he was.

“That sounds plausible. Thank you, Y/N-san.” his voice turned a bit softer and you feel your stomach turn just a little queasy by his tone. God, was the alcohol this bad?

“Well, would ya look at that.” the white-haired man grins, placing his drink up as if he was signaling everyone to cheers with him, “I told you drinking at an Izakaya would solve all your problems. For that, we should drink here again next week!”

The man glared at him yet again, “No. I should be heading home now. I can’t be anymore away from S-”

“Ah, ah. You promised that you’d stay until 2 am.” The white-haired man hushed, “Or I’ll be pestering you for a whole month.”

You could definitely tell that a vein popped on his forehead and his blood pressure was shooting up. Man, you were really starting to doubt that white-haired man was older than everyone in this room. He sure had the mental age of an elementary student.

“You also said I could leave after five drinks.”

“That’s only your second.”

“Satoru…” the Buddhist monk dangerously hovers over his white-haired friend. Wow, middle-age men sure were amusing, “You don’t even drink that well and he has to drive home…”

“Tit for tat, I’ll hire one of my personnel to drive you home after five drinks and I’ll leave you alone for a wee-”

“Please just leave me alone for my whole life.” the blonde man deadpanned.

Unlike you, he wasn't such a bad drinker. Four bottles for him and one more drink for you later, you're both kind of woozy and you had gotten on even friendlier terms with the three men who you now know as Geto-ojisan, Gojo-ojisan, and finally, Nanami-ojisan. Nanami was well into his late thirties while Geto and Gojo were in their forties.

If you were sober, you wouldn’t be making friends with older men. With stories of how easily young people are taken advantage of in the big city, you’d swerve away from them. Luckily, it seemed like they were a good trio and not once did they invite you to sit on their table so you had some good distance between you four and so far, they hadn’t tried anything funny or uncomfortable.

Geto is currently a lawyer, Gojo’s apparently some swanky businessman of god knows what you heard jewelry or something and Nanami was an accountant. A job that he described was ‘dead-end’ and ‘fucking boring’.

“...What happened to your wife, Nanami-ojisan?” you ask, the alcohol slowly shedding your shyness away.

“I told ya, Y/N-chan. He never was married. The way he got the kids was just complicated!” Gojo Satoru frowns, splaying his long limbs in the air, for a man so enthusiastic with drinking, he sure got drunk pretty quickly.

“Really? Didn’t you have a hard time? Wow…” you whistled, “I have such high…” you raised your hand as high as you could, “...respects for like, single parents!”

“See? See? But he can’t get a partner because of that Y/N-chan.” Gojo pouts, “...We’ve been setting him up on dates and such but he keeps bailing on them!”

“I have kids.” Nanami deadpans, narrowing his eyes.

“What my friends are trying to say, Kento has a number of opportunities to bring a partner into his life but he likes to use the boys and his work as an excuse.” Geto surmised, it seemed like the lawyer was also starting to feel the effects of the alcohol since he had become more talkative.

“He’s good-looking, right Y/N-chan? If he probably didn’t act like some fossil from the Triassic period, he wouldn’t have a problem sometimes about the boys having a mother figure!” Gojo rants, making Nanami flick his forehead.

“Idiot, must you tell this stranger all my problems?” Nanami harshly interjected.

“Well, you do know that to actually get a partner, you must get out there, right ojisan?” you try to calm him down, you didn’t want a bar fight to erupt.

“I know.” he rolls his eyes, “But the kids-”

“I know.” You try to smile, “You aren’t very interested in bringing just anyone in your life, right? The boys need a permanent figure and you think dating around is going to help.”

“Holy shit, Y/N-chan.” Gojo exclaims, “I thought you were a teacher? How come you know all this shit?”

“It’s basic, Gojo-san.” you smile, ready to take another swig of your saki, “You should take into consideration that Nanami-san isn’t just anyone who’d settle for less. He needs stability since he’s technically a parent.”

“That makes you a perfect pair, don’t you think?” Geto nonchalantly replies, “I mean, you need a stable man in your life who has all of it figured out and wouldn’t hold you back at all while Kento here needs a person who could not only be a good parent but also be as understanding.”

“That’s…” you chuckle, he technically was right, “That’s definitely odd how all our problems will be solved if we both just went out together.”

“... looks young enough to be my child.” Nanami rejoined, “why would Y/N-san like-”

“I mean, you’re good looking.” you shrug, rather shamelessly, “I wouldn’t mind going out with you. Heck, I wouldn’t mind if I married you.”

Gojo spits out the saki he was drinking all over the table and that makes you cringe in disgust, “As long as he doesn’t get invited to the wedding. I’d marry you. If you’d like we could even get married right here, right now.” you proudly proclaim.

The blonde man is thrown off by your statement yet he’s too drunk to even sip in the seriousness of your words, “Well as much as I agree on not inviting Gojo to my wedding, I don’t know-” he tries to explain.

“You know what, isn’t Geto-san a lawyer? He could have it notarized and all that right now then we could get married. I’ll be a great mom and help you out then you could help me get my family off my back. You scratch my back, I scratch yours!”

Geto is definitely in shock, how odd was it that he even had a marriage registration certificate in his briefcase back in the car too?

You both could just sign it and Satoru could sign it as your witness and he could have it officially notarized since he had his seal back there too.

Solved.

“So, Nanami-san, what do you say? Wanna marry me?”

Oh god, were you shameless.

Who in the right mind would marry a stranger, one who was thirteen years older and a father?

One thing was for sure, your friends were right. You definitely needed to stay away from alcohol.

taglist [if crossed out, i can’t tag u ; - ;]

; @coldbookworm ; @frankenstein852 ; @neavil ; @shephard17895 @kristineyoshaii ; @airybnb ; @okachansenpai ; @amortentiaxo ; @rinvtaro ; @franko-pop ; @kozutenshi ; @kaldoesthings ; @moonlitdabi ; @chococroissant ; @bleepop ;

@Kurok1717 ; @hcn421 ; @shinhiromi ; @airybnb ; @katshuya ;

#jjk x reader #jjk #jujutsu kaisen fanfiction #jujutsu kaisen fanfic #jujutsu kaisen headcanons #nanami kento x reader #nanami kento x you

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leyyvi · 3 years ago

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ley I need writing advice, how do you write out your stories? Do you just start writing and whatever comes to mind just gets put in or do you write a writing plan beforehand like a summary of what u want to happen

Hmmmm my writing process is like...super erratic tbh. It's a mixture of both honestly. Sometimes I get ideas when I'm out doing stuff and I'll quickly jot down a summary or dialogue for it in my notes to put later in a doc.

IDK if it'll make sense but I've written Paychecks as if I was writing a screenplay or like...episodes for a long running tv show. Every chapter is intended to feel like an "episode" and I usually start thinking of things with dialogue first. A lot of them are just conversations I'd want to have between characters or what I'd think they say.

More below the cut because I have a bad habit of rambling

My process has definitely changed like when I first started writing the story I'd write out entire scenes which were mainly derived from my own experiences, just tweaked a bit. I didn't outline or anything I kinda just....wrote. (I was drafting paychecks for a couple months before I posted the first chapter). I think it was easier for me to sporadically write instead of outline because at the time I was really craving just...going to places? Like travelling and stuff, and I was SO bored at work I'd just start daydreaming 😭 and then my coworkers started talking about sugar daddies (one of them had some experience in that stuff)

I had a lot of stuff just written out of order randomly on this doc (it's got around 90k words on a single doc, never doing that again LOL) but then after a while I started to actually think of a plot and move some scenes around. But for the first several chapters I kinda just rewrote a lot of what I had drafted. Butttt I don't have anything drafted after a certain point anymore so it's more difficult for me to write. It's a big reason why it takes me so long to update now.

But noooow I actually put a very vague outline at the top of my doc for the chapter. I have an idea of what I want to happen for the story as a whole, but there's also a bunch of stuff I add in that I think of while writing. Here's the outline for chapter 16. (Granted some things are changed when I wrote the final draft)

And then I'll usually write out the scenes in that order. Sometimes I have dialogue already for it so I'll start out with that. Dialogue is the easiest way for me to determine how the scene will go (I'm basically talking to myself in my head thinking of them lol). Then I'll add things after that, like what they're doing when they're talking. If I have a thought about some inner monologue or introspection I'll add that too.

If I'm feeling stuck on a particular scene, I may write a summary of it and come back to it later when I have an idea.

Another thing is I have this story planned out in arcs. So there's the beginning arc where Levi and Reader first meet, then the Vegas arc where some sort of connection is established, the Eren arc which is what we're in right now, and then I have another one planned. I found thinking of it in arcs broadens it when I get stuck and helps me see the story and how it's flowing as a whole.

I will say that listening to playlists has helped a lot too. I’ve been listening to the first few songs that I added to my playlist and as weird as it sounds it gave me a lot of...nostalgia of when I first wrote it. It brought back a lot of feelings I had last year when I was writing ;; That and I have a pinterest board for Paychecks Levi and Eren for inspo too and I liked to look through/add to it when I’m not sure on what to write.

Good god this got very long I hope there's an answer to your question in there somewhere lol feel free to ask for clarity on anything! Hope this helped ❤️

#asks

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caramelcal · 4 years ago

Text

Slow Down

Request(s): Ooooooo could you do a Luke x reader fic based on the song Slow Down by Why Don’t We?

+ Anonymous said:Luke x reader? He’s on tour halfway across the world but all he can think about is spending time with his girlfriend?

Word Count: 2.1k!

a/n: hey! i know that this doesn’t fully cover the second request so if you want something completely based off of that, just request again! Thanks for requesting anyway and I hope you enjoy! Also did you guys see Madi’s lives today??? The cake decorating??? THE COVER?? MY EARS ARE B L E S S E D update: not me forgetting to add tags

Masterlist

Oh, I've been lying to myself and I might know why I miss the way you looked at me before you left New York (hey) I've been tryin' to find help, 'cause I can't deny The way that I feel when I'm with you Oh, I'd do anything to save ya

He could hear the fans screaming in excitement, the overall chatter of them but he couldn’t enjoy it at the moment. How excited they were to see the band. He was filled with nerves, and even though he was born to perform as many would say, he still couldn’t help feeling nervous.

It was no surprise that Julie and the Phantoms had gotten big, their music was amazing. After they played at the Orpheum, they got a lot of recognition and only ten months later they were whisked up on a tour, a new album out only a month ago gone viral. Everyone loved them, and they were finally living their dream.

Luke loved performing, it was second nature to him, but being on tour was very different from playing in the garage with the band like he was used to. So whilst he basked in the glory of the fans, there were still nerves and that’s what he felt right now.

Checking his phone, his foot tapped against the floor at a rapid pace, his guitar sitting to his right. Normally, playing his guitar would comfort him, but it wouldn’t right now, that’s why he needed you.

And thankfully, his worries that you weren’t going to answer as he heard your calming voice through his phone, “Hello?”

“Babe,” Luke replied, breathing out a sigh of relief when he let the nerves out of his body.

“Luke? Aren’t you supposed to be on stage right now?” You started, and he could hear the worry in your voice, “Is everything alright.”

“Yeah, everything’s fine. Just nervous, that’s all. We’re just about to go on,” Luke informed you, eyes staying on the ground as he simply focused on you and not any of the fuss around him. Backstage concerts were always crazy like this, especially just before they started. No doubt someone would be through in a second to pester him about getting ready to go on stage.

“Luke, babe,” You said, your voice calming as you spoke to your boyfriend. You knew he was going to absolutely kiss it out there, he did every single time he performed, “You’re going to be amazing, okay? I’ve never met anyone as talented as you and the rest of the band. I’ll be cheering you on all the way from California.”

That brought a smile onto Luke’s face, making him bend down his face so he was facing the ground. He didn’t like everyone to know just how in love he was with you, and the beaming smile on his face would be a clear indication. It wasn’t like he was very good at hiding it anyway, he constantly talked about you, somehow managing to praise you like you were a god even if you did a simple task. He was completely and utterly in love with you, no one could deny that.

“Thanks, babe, I miss you so much. I will find time to see you at some point,”

“You better, I miss you too. Plus, who else am I supposed to jam with in the car when you aren't here?” You joked, laughing lightly with Luke.

Luke casts his hazel eyes up to the figure in front of him after catching on to the very professional shoes that stood just in front of him, catching eyes onto his manager, “Listen I gotta go, but I’ll call you tonight, okay? I love you.”

“Love you too, my rockstar,” You said teasingly, knowing that it always made Luke flustered when you called him that. It wasn’t long before you guys had finished saying goodbye and his phone was turned off and put away, guitar in hand as he was ushered on stage.

Yet, just before he got on stage, he stopped, whispering, “This is for you, y/n/n. I love you.”

And with that, he ran out, and the fans erupted into screams and cheers.

I think we need a little California 'cation We took a shot at this, but maybe we're too wasted It's hard to swallow, but I know we gotta chase it, oh

Slow down, I think that we just need to slow down, slow down Turn around, things were so simple way before now, 'fore now

Turns out, that even if Luke did want to meet up, that the tour was far too demanding for that. It was two months since the time you called, and you guys still haven’t had the chance to meet up. Hell, you guys barely had time to facetime. Luke was on constant vocal rest, and the times he normally was available, you were in class.

It was safe to say, the distance, and the different time zones were definitely getting to you. Some people were too, saying how people go off on tours and lose feelings if their girl stays back home, they often find flings and extra stuff like that. You knew Luke wasn’t like that, and both Carrie and Flynn have cussed the girls out for putting that in your head when it was obviously not true, but you couldn’t help but think about it sometimes.

Luke barely picked up your calls anymore, and you knew that what he was doing was very time demanding, but you thought that at least he would make a bit of time for you. You guys did text of course, but you often wouldn’t get around to replying to each other until hours after so it wasn’t a stable conversation. You thought about flying out for a weekend, or taking a few days out of school and flying somewhere to meet him, but your college student finances were not stable enough for that and you didn’t want anyone’s help, not even Carrie’s when she offered.

After being deprived of your boyfriend for so long, you often found yourself wallowing alone in your college dorm, but that wasn’t where you were right now. Flynn and Carrie had somehow managed to drag you outside to a party, a red solo cup in your hand and a fancy top on with some nice jeans. You contemplated drinking but found yourself denying any alcohol that went your way, getting drunk probably wasn’t the most responsible way to go.

Yet, as you saw the couples, some sweet ones holding hands or hugging, and some a little more...heated, you couldn’t help but drown in the thoughts of him. This was supposed to be a distraction from your wallowing, but you felt even more miserable here than you did back in your dorm room. You wouldn’t be for long though, not when you found out who was here.

See ya, I wanna see ya, ah I wish you weren't so far so I could see ya, ah 'Cita, mamacita We were comfortable, we didn't understand but now we know

Two weeks before the party, Flynn found herself on her bed, mindlessly scrolling through Instagram before her phone went. She quickly answered, seeing Julie’s face pop up on the small screen with a smile. They talked for a while, just catching up and Julie shared some concert and fan stories before she asked, So how is everyone? Carrie? y/n?”

“Carrie’s doing good, Dirty Candy is slowly getting some recognition for themselves, I see a tour in their future,” Flynn said with a smile, trying to distract Julie from the subject of y/n. She knew that most likely, the boys would be close by, and she did not want to tell them how miserable she was without them. That would only damper their moods.

“That’s so cool! I’m really glad, they deserve it. How’s y/n?” Julie asked, a smile on her face but as she looked at the hesitation on her best friend’s face, she knew something was wrong, “Flynn, is y/n okay?”

However, Flynn quickly found out that her silence was not helping her in any way, and when Julie asked about y/n again, Luke who playing about with his guitar in the corner of the room caught onto her concern. He stood up, alarm flooding his features as he walked over, taking the phone from Julie.

When his face showed up on the video call, Flynn could see his concern and worry and it made her eyes go wide. She knew there was no getting out of this, “What’s up with y/n?”

“Nothing, she’s fine,” Flynn tried her best to dismiss, laughing awkwardly but when she looked back to the camera she could tell that Luke was not buying it.

“Flynn.”

“Really! She’s-”

“Flynn! You do realize this is my girlfriend?” Luke said, raising his voice slightly to get the girl to stop rambling, which she did. Luke was only growing more concerned for his girlfriend and annoyed at the girl for trying to keep something about his girlfriend away from him, “I wanna know what’s going on with her.”

“She’s just,” Flynn hesitates, trying to think of a way to make this easier on Luke without lying to him but she realizes that she needs to be straightforward with the guy. Sighing, she starts, “y/n misses you to the point that she holes herself up in her dorm, and only comes out for food and classes. Hell, she hardly gets out of her pajamas anymore, Luke. She’s taking this a lot harder than she’s telling you.”

Luke went quiet, a frown forming on his face when he realized what his girlfriend was doing. He knew that she couldn’t keep going on like that; he still had another two months left of the tour and she would have wasted months of her life locked in her dorm. He casts a glance towards Julie, before looking back at Flynn, “I’ll sort this out. I’ll send you the details once I work them out but clearly, something needs to change.”

And with that, Flynn hung up and Julie and Luke started to plot a plan...

I think we need a little California 'cation We took a shot at this, but maybe we're too wasted It's hard to swallow, but I know we gotta chase it, oh

Slow down, I think that we just need to slow down, slow down Turn around, things were so simple way before now, 'fore now Slow down, I think that we just need to slow down, slow down (need to slow down, slow down, whoa) Turn around, things were so simple way before now, 'fore now (things were so simple way before now)

“Y/n!” Carrie calls out, grabbing your attention from the red solo cup in your hand. You look up at her, giving her a small weak smile.

“Hey, Carrie,”

“You enjoying the party?” She asks, hands on her hips as she looks around the room with a smile on her face. She had a fitting golden dress on, much fancier than what you were wearing but you didn’t care.

You tried to wrack your brain for what to say, and how not to offend Carrie about her party. Her party wasn’t bad, you just...didn’t want to be there, “Uhh, it’s alright, yeah.”

“Well it’s about to get a lot better,” Carrie says, a wide smile coming on her face as she looked behind you, making you furrow your eyebrows in confusion.

Then, you felt a tap on your shoulder. You whirled around and saw him take a few steps away, a wide smile on his face. You stood there, shocked, this couldn’t be real, he was on tour. He wasn’t here, he couldn’t be.

But then, you sprinted, jumping into his arms, head leaning against his shoulder with your legs around his waist. He held you close to him, savoring the moments of you just being in his arms; something he had not got to experience in months.

Everyone at the party watched on but didn’t say anything, fond smiles on their faces for the reunited young couple. For you and Luke, however, it seemed as if you two were the only ones in the room, because no one else mattered at that moment.

You pulled your head up from his shoulder, eyes meeting his as the wide smiles that were on your faces only growing wider, never fainter. When you next spoke your voice was quiet, almost as if you believed if you spoke too loudly he would go away, you would realize this was just a dream, “Luke, you- you’re here.”

“I am y/n/n,” He whispered back, nodding his head as he leaned in and softly kissed your hips, your hands going to each side of his face, playing with the soft messy hair that he had. With eyes shut, you stayed in each other’s embrace, simply enjoying the moment, “I’ve missed you so much.”

“Don’t leave me for so long ever again, I can’t live my life without you.”

Let's just say, you two were never parted for too long after that.

#luke julie and the phantoms #julie and the phantoms #charlie gillespie #jatp #luke patterson #luke patterson x reader #luke patterson x y/n #luke jatp #julie and the phantoms x reader #julie and the phantoms luke #charlie gillespie x reader #charlie gillespie x y/n

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steve0discusses · 4 years ago

Text

S5 Ep 15 Pt 2: Don’t Trust Anyone Who Wears a Floor Length Robe Over Their Casuals in Yugioh

Hey, it’s my birthday, so I’m gonna release this early because the rest of today I just have to work like an adult and that’s no fun.

In the first half of this episode we dunked the worlds smallest plane into a lake and so this second half of the episode involved the kids running as far away from their only responsible adults as they could.

Which like...took whole of less than a second for them to peace out and enter mortal danger.

...I’ve never been in a jungle in India but...I have seen the Jungle book many times...and there’s like tigers and stuff in there, right? and tons of monkeys that are hella mean? And freakin snakes? They sing jazz and scat? That’s some terrifying stuff.

Like these city kids have to learn at some point to fear the woods. But they just freakin don’t. And strangely, the most dangerous thing in these woods isn’t even a snake or something, but a human man just being as suspicious as possible lying prone on the ground.

(read more under the cut)

The card cultist happens to have a British accent, because this voice acting team freakin loves to pull out their British accents. It’s not as lowbrow as Valon, but it’s not as...well whatever Bakura is supposed to be. He’s a lot more tame than Bakura’s, but still very British.

I don’t know if this is because British English tends to be taught instead of American sounding English in many parts of India, but, most likely they just wanted to do an accent. And like...he’s an archeologist...and so the stereotype is there...but honestly, the decision of making this guy British gets weirder and weirder as this episode goes on, get ready for it. None of you are ready for what I assume is the very obvious plot twist of this freakin guy.

Catfish of the century, this freakin guy, I’m pretty sure.

Yugi immediately believes this completely out of place white British stranger in the Indian backwoods next to this inaccessible lake and immediately thinks “yes, my Grandfather crash landed in India EXACTLY where I’m standing right now, and now I must save him.”

Thankfully, Yami exists to gently and politely tell Yugi to hella stop.

Also, I like that Yugi has finally stopped wearing his school outfit out of school. But, he is instead wearing a jacket that is so close to his school outfit I honestly couldn’t tell until the end of this episode. It’s like...I think one shade more purple, it has white piping, and his undershirt has a center seam. It’s nice Yugi has 3 versions of the same black sleeveless undershirt, and this show cares enough to show that tiny factoid about Yugi’s closet.

So, because Yugi is a dumbass and Pharaoh has to just sit back and watch this happen so he can say “told you so” later, they follow this random cultist they found in the woods. Much like Hansel and Gretel, we snack on cake crumbs all the way to the witches house, which in this case, is an undiscovered monolith you would have easily seen from outer space.

HMMMMMMMMMM.

And so get ready for this:

Hey guys.

Remember how Alexander the great was buried in a pyramid?

Now because they’re name dropping Alexander, that’s actually kind of helpful, because Alexander the Great’s favorite damn horse in the entire world died while he was at war with India so he named a city after it. It’s believed to be in Punjab, which is in the Northern part of India

Which means we first of all, definitely crossed the tallest mountain range in the world to get here, and also means that we are like...in some really disputed territory of India right now, and it is crazy that these kids went here for a vacation completely unsupervised.

Another fun fact about Alexander is that when he died, it took 6 days for his body to decompose. At the time, they thought it was because he was a God (or in Yugioh’s case, Extremely Cursed) but nowadays historians think it’s because it took him 6 days to fully die. He just wasn’t dead yet. Had to give it a minute and the ancient Babylonians just got way too excited.

Anyway, Alexander super died in Babylon so I don’t know what the hell he’s doing in India. There is a fun spot in History where his body did get dragged to a couple different places, meaning we probably did lose the original Alexander and there’s a lot of people just guessing at where he ended up...but putting him clear up in India sure was a choice when one of his assumed burial sites was literally Egypt, which would be a more fitting location for a Pyramid and a more fitting location for this show.

Especially since Alexander was trying to invent a new race and culture...it seems a little strange he’d be buried in such a massive pyramid, but maybe he got a really, really good pyramid deal from the funeral home when he was like 28 and just figured he’d change it before the time he died at 32.

Which...now that I’m older than 32, how crazy is it that Alexander the Great died at freakin 32? You blink twice and you’re 32. Is history seriously trying to tell me this guy wasn’t like secretly 62? That maybe he just celebrated his 20th for like 20 years in a row as a royal mandate? I just feel like history is playing pranks on me with Alexander.

Anyway, our weird shady new archeologist guy is named Alex and so take that as you will.

I sure hope Alexander the Great was revived to wear khakis and bother children. Guy conquered the world once and was one of history’s Freakin Worst so he does deserve it, but also...it would explain why he thinks it’s normal to wear a Darth Maul robe over your business casual.

Anyway, lets enter the obvious trap pyramid.

Joey just wanted a nice time running around Northern India. He just wanted to eat some yummy chaat and look at some tourist destinations and maybe glance at a Bollywood star or two. But instead he’s gotta deal with spike floors because Yugi couldn’t say no to a cultist.

Also...one of those spikes clearly went through Tea’s feet, right? And she is absolutely fine? Just checking on Tea’s godlike strength and clearly it is still godlike.

Alex gives us a very long explanation of how he went upstairs and Grandpa went downstairs, and there was a door or something so Alex turned back around and Grandpa was gone.

All of those steps were probably plot relevant and I’ll probably forget all about it in 2 episodes.

The thing is Alex...literally thinks he evaporated. Literally thinks that. But how do you disprove it to this freakin guy who like...might have named a city after his horse once and thinks that’s a normal and acceptable thing to do?

and so Joey immediately leaps onto the haunted playing floor.

the way Yugi said this line was sort of hilarious to me so I may cap it. If I remember to do it (I’ve been a little busier lately, with things opening up, as you can tell because my update schedule is in the toilet.)

So, if Joey jumps in...everyone else has to, also.

And we say good bye to Alex and enter the new forest zone, which looks a LOT like the other forest we were just in.

Nice Protoss armor.

We get some hijinks from the local wildlife, which are all cards but real (but not real because we’re in a board game...don’t think about it) and the off brand Sheikah tablets have helpful monsters in them if you touch em.

This season may have been better off as a video game, being honest.

Joey has gone somewhere else, despite going onto the same game tile, and he’s too busy on a mountain range to really help anyone out. So he’s just gonna vibe up here for a bit.

Tea got up after this point and said along the lines of “k, what’s next?” Because mortal danger does not affect her and she fears nothing.

At a beach somewhere, Tea and Tristan spend some quality time together forming a new family with whatever these creatures are.

And Tea’s love of her winged angel comes full circle and now I will suffer this winged orb for the rest of this arc, pretty sure.

Please admire the number of belts on Tea. Her outfit is like max 00′s and I appreciate that. We’ve had a lot of questionable fashion on Yugioh, but they actually dressed Tea pretty on point this arc. Like I often feel like 00′s fashion is hard to define or describe, but it’s Tea right now. That’s it. She did it, it’s right there.

Yugi gets a new flagship card for this arc, and this time it’s Celtic Guardian. Hell why? I feel like his defining card changes every single arc, and they need to like focus and just give him one. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s still Dark Magician...and maybe the show forgot?

Anyway, if you just got here, this is a link to read the rest:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

I think I forgot that link in the last recap because yo it’s kind of been a while since I’ve updated, I feel. (well I had a graveyard post and those don’t count really) But, we’re back, we’re still going, slowly but surely.

#YGO #yugioh #Yu gi oh #episode recap #photo recap #S5 #Ep16 #yugi muto #yami #capsule monsters #tea gardner #tristan taylor #Joey Wheeler #Alex Brisbane #Alexander the freakin great #and a pyramid in the middle of Northern India #And lets just make it an isekai for kicks

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capesandshapes · 4 years ago

Note

First, I just wanted to say congratulations on your successful writing career. From what I’ve seen of the fics you put out, you’re an amazing writer and I can see why your works are so popular. Second, I just wanted to tell you that I literally aspire to be like you. I know it sounds cheesy, but it’s true! If I ever had to name a person that I look up to, you would be the one I choose. You seem like an amazing person with such a great sense of humor. Third, I was wondering if you had any tips to give in terms of getting your writing out there. For example, do you self publish or do you have some sort of contract with a publishing house? If option number two, do you have any tips on how to get an audience with them? Sorry, this is so long. My brain sort of vomited words out. I hope you’re happy and healthy and have a wonderful night (or day, whatever the time is where you live)! :)

Oh my god, this is such a nice message, thank you so much! I'm so happy that you like my fics and my gosh, what a message to receive!

I love talking about publishing and there's a lot to discuss there, so here's a cut for the people who don't want to read about that. Basically, long-ass storytime and then a full breakdown. Like, talking about how to get published and indie vs traditional/a hint of how I started ghostwriting/that experience.

My dumb story:

So, I started publishing in 2020 (and was doing some query stuff in 2019), and what was going on at the time was it was the beginning of the pandemic and publishing houses were cutting back/there was this massive incident in YA/children's publishing that I didn't realize actually mattered to anyone in a professional sense because money. I did the traditional query thing and got a few, "maybe in a year or two" messages and I just wasn't about it. People liked my plot and my writing, they told me that it was something they would normally buy, but it wasn't the right time (more on that later). That whole querying process is, however, what led me to my ghostwriting side gig, since people wanted to go for familiar names and a lot of authors were adopting ghostwriters to deal with the media consumption boom of quarantine.

So the second I got that offer I was like, "man, people think I'm pretty good at this and I really like this, I want to make it work." I'm from Minnesota, so Amanda Hocking has always been pretty fresh in my mind. (She lives near me, like really weirdly close)

I decided to self-publish my first book for fun, basically, and made a little bit of cash. It definitely was not a runaway success, and my second book wasn't much better either, but I like to write and I like to show people what I wrote. I got a little trickle of money, like eleven dollars, from that first month and it was strangely encouraging? I mean, most ya authors don't actually earn out their offers and never start receiving royalties, so I was technically earning the normal amount there for what traditionally published people make in royalties a few months in (if they're successful initially). (Also they get advances, which are like huge chunks of money, before they even publish and I didn't get that since I self-published-- But I'm a dork and I was like, "yes, I sold things and made normal royalty rates!)

And I was working at this library where my job was basically to sit there, watch college students, and be present. So I had a lot of time. That's why at the beginning of my ml fanfic days you see like a bunch of fics published and updated really close together. But one can not live off of bugs and cats alone. By that I mean, I get kind of bored writing about Miraculous every now and again and wanted to do some weird crap.

So I wrote a standalone in December, this net me about thirty bucks. It sucked, but it was the beginning of me going down the right path. A lot of people who read it really liked it, and I was having a good time, so I thought, "sure, let's keep going."

I wrote another standalone in February, this was my first adult fantasy romance book instead of YA. IT TANKED. I made one dollar. Thank god for ghostwriting and library jobs.

When you write things, you find that you have a crap ton of failures, and while they sting, you keep moving on. A bunch of the fics I love on my account right now are my bottom-ranking ones, so I would say I'm pretty prone to self-indulgence and rebounding from failure. If you want to write at all, you have to have a thick skin and an awful attitude; don't let anyone tell you no ever.

So here's where we start getting into the meat of my tips for books and bookselling. A lot of this is specific to my category, which is ya fantasy romance.

I looked at the market and I saw what people liked. I looked at my taste, and I saw what I liked. There was some overlap. Always focus on the overlap. My whole idea was, "I want to make this type of book but with my own spin and make it as self-indulgent as possible." I think it was the self-indulgence that mattered.

Then I looked at other people in my category and figured out what I was missing. Most people in YA do a lot of review stuff, so I started working with a few review groups and giving out my book as much as possible.

SUCCESS, a few hundred dollars.

I saw that a bunch of people wanted a sequel. I'm pretty prone to giving in to people. I decided to write a trilogy (using the first book as a prologue) and employ the same strategy.

SUCCESS, way more than a few hundred dollars. I can like, afford ads with the money from that first successful book, so I did it. I got ads and I gave my book to anyone who I thought would talk. I received fanart and I posted it to my newsletter for people interested in my book, which made them take it (like, honestly poor fanartist because I've seen it reposted aside from me and it makes me sad since I asked for permission) and those people started talking more.

I basically built up as good of a rapport with people as I could and gave out books like mad, which helped me sell a lot since there was a hype building and people who had received the other book for free wanted to read the one that's out now. This helped me get preorders, which pushed me to the top 100 (technically the top 20 if we're getting into my actual rank) of my category and pushed sales even further.

I wanted that because I don't like work and also it sells the other books on my account through exposure.

Now here's where things got weird.

So I started self-pubbing for fun and all, but I also kind of knew that self-pub is how a lot of newer authors are coming out, so I wanted to do good and kind of kept that in the back of my mind. Especially since doing really really bad, like thousands of negative reviews bad, can make sure that you never get a book deal traditionally (doing moderately bad, like getting no reviews and no one caring, does nothing to you most of the time, like agents don't really care, they just don't want to buy that already published book. In my genre at the very least, the sucking at self-publishing will ruin your career thing is a myth). Since I did all of this stuff and was making actual money, I woke up and there was an email from a person.

One who sells book rights.

Which is kind of where I'm at right now, which is finishing my trilogy so then I can sell my rights at the end of the year and negotiating my price for my back catalog to be republished. This also might suck in the end, admittedly, because if you choose too big of an advance, you won't outearn it, and you earn fewer royalties going traditional so even if you enter a bigger market, you can still struggle financially, even if you were doing great before. (please look at Maggie Stiefvater, she's a traditionally published YA bestseller and she makes like middle-class money a year tops selling millions of books. She confesses in one of her twitter posts that she struggles to afford car repairs and stuff like that still despite her success.)

Okay, so that's my whole spiel there.

Now, actual advice and less story (but there was like information in the story too just so you know):

-Write, write, write. Write every day and write as often as you can. I do the pomodoro method the whole day and use my twenty minute breaks to go on tumblr like a trash person (this is a long twenty minute break that is actually not twenty minutes so I could respond to this ask). This normally nets me about twelve thousand words, but on some good days I can do twenty. (This is not a normal word count, I am a crazy person and am on Adderall for ADHD).

- Plot, actually plot. Like make an outline of your chapters and plan them out. Trust me. This makes series so much easier because you have a template to follow, and you have the information right there to go back to.

You might not completely follow the template, but just having a path to follow helps.

90% of failed long-form fanfics have no plan and it sucks because fanfic feels so low stakes, but you need a plot. (Please look at the last resort, there's a reason it's not updated and it's because I have no clue what's going on there.)

-Publishing is hard. Like, really hard. I almost went and got my MFA in writing to make connections in order to be published because, spoiler: I'm not rich and I know no one. But the thing is, despite what people tell you, you don't need a masters degree to publish or even a college degree (I have one in creative writing, but that's a lot of regret there, also MFA programs hate genre fiction which actually sells books and makes money more than literary), you need connections. Being rich and knowing people is like, the biggest step to getting published, unfortunately. If you're a normal poor person like me, you have to go the low chance, high effort way.

You can try and build these connections via querying, and that might work. Like, there's a 10% acceptance rate with querying, and from there, there's a 7% (last I checked, which is like a year or two ago and pretty specific to my genre) chance that a publishing house of decent size will want to pick up your book.

I really do encourage you to try querying first, because it at least opened up the door to being paid to write for me via ghostwriting. And I know at the end of the day, it will make your life easier.

I would go back and query again, maybe, if I really felt like it, but I'm currently making money so I don't feel too pressed. Also I hate writing letters to people and constantly feel awkward.

Basically, once all that fails, people do self-pub. Self-publishing used to have a really bad rap, but now it's sort of taken off because of Amanda Hocking, Elise Kova, and a lot of women in the romance sphere. Romance is the easiest genre to get into, since it's the largest and most popular. Like, look at the charts.

I've seen a lot of people talk about self-pubbing like it's the back door of traditional publishing. I would say that, yeah, if you're smart about it, it kind of is.

The most important thing in self-pubbing is not to pay to publish and not to go through someone else who will own your rights instead. It's really tempting, because then they do social media for you (sometimes), but you won't get picked up that way and you're starting a legal nightmare. KDP is the best way to self-pub, since it leads directly into Amazon's store (ugh, Bezos) and pits you against other authors who have been traditionally published. This shows agents and publishing houses how you market yourself and how well you actually sell.

I outsold a couple of old Cassandra Clare books during this recent "Get caught with shadow hunters" social media thing, so that's how someone saw me. He went on my Goodreads and noted that I had a decent amount of reviews for one book only being two months old and the other being three days old, and he saw an investment (You really don't start to get thousands of reviews until you have a completed series (and have been out for a few months, it seems like six is the magic number), and it's hard as hell to get people to review on Amazon). The problem was, my series wasn't finished and I had already begun to advertise when the next books would come out, so we're waiting until my whole series is done. Right now we're talking 18,000 to 24,000 for the whole series, which is sadly pretty standard for YA advances. I won't talk about how much I earn in royalties (I get 70% right now on my own), but I will say that I make enough to move across the country to phoenix and rent my own apartment without roommates in a few months.

If I had gone the traditional route, I likely would have earned two thousand a book. So I did add some value there.

-Audience building

Obviously, I did a lot of reviews, but I also did a lot of other things. Disclaimer: Right now my social media presence is laughably bad because of how I manage my books, and I still have a really long way to go there, but I have a large reader base as evident by my sales rank and earnings. I have no clue how Instagram or Twitter works, and I didn't build an audience at all before I released. Like, I basically have fifty followers on social media, but I make enough off of actual book sales to live.

So, basically, I started out with a newsletter. I gave out my first book for free to anyone who would sign up, and while a lot of them gave their address and unsubscribed, I learned that a few of them would buy from me and also were interested in receiving free books to review. Knowing that, my goal became to make my newsletter as free book and new book heavy as possible. Basically, any time I need reviews I send out a newsletter and give them a limited link through a website to download my book and review it on amazon and Goodreads. If they don't do that, which some do, I have it set up so they can't download another book from me until they review.

A lot of traditionally published authors have newsletters as well and offer you free content in exchange. Look at Holly Black and the deleted scenes from TFOA or JK Rowling and her absolutely insane newsletter that eventually evolved into a whole website. People love free content. I'll probably move on to doing what a lot of them started doing after Elise Kova (who is self-pubbed but now owns her own publishing company, I think???) skyrocketed, which is offering a deleted scene or bonus epilogue in exchange for newsletter subscriptions. It sucks, because I hate being spam, but it sells books so I can't complain.

Aside from that, I have ads.

I actually do pretty well with ads, I spend like five dollars a day on them and since I know my audience really well, I don't need any more than that to survive. They just drive traffic to me and make people realize that my books exist. It doesn't matter if people click on them, just that they know I'm there so that they can mention me if need be. My ads are on Facebook, and I'm in a lot of YA reading groups so I have a really good idea of the people who read those books on that platform.

Lastly, I build a lot of my audience through just being there and posting consistently. Since I have this book a month thing going right now, people have me in the back of their minds and check back pretty often on my amazon/ other accounts to see if anything is new. I have a website and an inbound tracker, so I see what websites they come from when they check in on me. A lot of them come from Goodreads and amazon since my website is WordPress affiliated and shows updates on my seller/author pages. I spike by about three hundred people when I announce something, and then see fifty people a day for the next week and a quick dwindle after that.

I tell people that my WordPress is the best place to find my release announcements and additional content, so I think people like that I have it localized like that and they don't have to sign up for it. When people are actually looking for things they're more likely to be receptive to being sold to. (Also I put a lot of world-building stuff up there and since I do magical worlds, people eat that up).

I don't really do cover reveals, which I know is probably really lame and not building into the hype that people love, but I'm lazy and again my social media is like pitiful, like, fifty instagram followers pitiful. (I have no idea how to advertise social media, go figure). I just post that bad boy on my WordPress first to dull the shame and get more eyes on it, then give them a little preorder link. Amazon also reminds them when I have books up for preorder and release, so that's really good tbh.

I'd say the biggest thing I did for myself audience-wise was having a series, but that might be a ya only thing. You'll notice in fanfiction that a lot of people favorite and recommend the same long-form fics, since you have to go back to them repeatedly and they stay fresher in your mind than one-shots. Same concept. Writing the prologue to a trilogy was a good way to get people's attention, then they moved on to the first book (along with a bunch of people who never read the prologue). People like having stuff to be excited about, and they love continuations with characters that they feel comfortable with. Also, when I announced the first book in that series, I saw a lot of people go back and read the prologue again or, (since it's in kindle unlimited) actually buy the book.

-Last tip here and then I'm going to do a dumb little traditionally published vs self-published plus/minus chart

Print books are dying right now, it's a covid thing. People read a lot of ebooks. I'm not saying they'll be dead, I'm just saying people were converted to ebooks by the convenience. This is cool, because for traditional and self-published authors these have higher royalties and lead to more catalog exploration, but a lot of people get disheartened? I don't know, I don't mind as much, but that might be a side effect of ao3 and internet life.

Basically, don't measure yourself based on print book sales and pretty Instagram posts with your print editions, no matter what. Like, those books aren't even half of the ones sold, and it's mainly the really popular authors moving that many copies to show up on Instagram.

Like, do people post their kindles with my ebook covers sometimes? Yeah, and it's cool. Is it life or death for me? No, not really. I've made more money this month than I have ever seen in my life (outside of my student loan balance), and guess what?

I'm the only asshole who bought a paperback.

Apparently, you sell more physical books when a series is complete but, man, what a time.

Okay, more crap in this long post.

Trad vs self with a little dumb note about vanity publishers at the end.

Traditional publishing:

+Support of designers and editors who want to see you succeed. Your cover is normally done to industry standards and you only have to think about writing.

+Available in bookstores with no effort. (You can still do this indie-wise, if you're popular and have an ingram spark account. I think I'm technically in one bookstore without ingram, but that's because I'm from Minnesota and authors from Minnesota are a novelty in the state so they feature the hell out of them)

+They advertise and build your audience. This can catapult you to super fame overnight sometimes.

+They have reviewers, and they look for the ones who will represent you the best. A lot of these reviewers are also for huge publications or have big social media followings.

-Small royalties, most people don't earn out. Everyone else gets paid before you when it comes to the books, and even though you negotiate your percentage, I know a lot of people are only getting 10% to 12% (last I checked.)

-No creative control. If you hate your cover, you're fucked. If you want a threesome scene like Sarah J Maas, you better hope your editor wants it too.

-Sometimes traditional publishers just want to build their back catalog. So like, I guess they get midtier authors or people they think will do good but aren't remarkable, and then they don't really advertise them, they just sort of sell their books with everything else to get more profits. Basically you're like a, "if you like this, buy this." I know a few authors like this, and some had moderate success. Beth Fantasky (Jessica's guide to dating on the darkside) and Aimee Carter (the goddess test) (like these are good books but no one talks about them even though nearly everyone has read them because they weren't advertised like ACOTAR or any of the others). A lot of the time they get a series signed and then they're done. Like just one book series, one that isn't really advertised but just sort of sells via being shelved near other things.

-You don't control what the company does. See Macmillan trying to charge libraries for the reads on books that the libraries already have licenses to and that Macmillan knows will be immensely popular when they release, resulting in a bunch of books being boycotted.

Self-pub:

+Creative Control, do whatever you want kids. There's so much outside of your control that will force your book to go one way or make it unpublishable for the big five. My first book was a witch book with a whole magical universe, the main reason I got feedback on it was that people thought it was well written... so why didn't it sell.

Let me tell you about my mortal enemy, J.K. Rowling, and the fact that that TERF couldn't shut her mouth for five seconds. If you look at people from my publishing class (literally just the year you were signed and like, debuted), you won't see many witch books. Like, the ones that made it were pushed back in release, underhyped, or avoided half the tropes to make it work. This is why magical academy took off in YA self-publishing.

I did not have a magic school. I did not have a chosen one. I did not have a Voldemort, or anything outside of a magical society (which has its own rules and class system unlike harry potter), but J.K. Rowling owns the wizarding genre, and her trainwreck status kept so many books from being published. (And most of the time I wasn't given a reason, it was only when a few agents were like, "this is so good but I have bad news" that I found out why. And I was literally sitting on this website complaining about the high TERF without realizing that she connected directly to the publishing industry and what they bought. HDKHSDFKDJFD SOME DAY, ROWLING, SOME DAY.)

+You control how you're advertised, and this can go really well. This has worked out for a lot of upper ya and na people. Like the new adult genre is practically built on self-pubbers since traditional publishers still think of the genre as a passing phase or something that's not real. Combination advertising in YA and NA is how I've made most of my money, I appeal to more people when categorized properly and I'm serving a niche.

+No wait to release. I literally release monthly, which makes it easy to build a following. If I was traditionally published, or make the move, I would be publishing once a year to once every two years in most cases. The only reason James Patterson publishes every month is that he has name recognition and there are people who will pick him up every month, they don't have to build hype for him or really mull over his product. You wait a long time for a traditional publisher to package and hype a release.

+I know that what I'm writing is going out there. Shitty fact, a lot of the time people find out that they don't actually have a sequel after they write it because a book didn't sell well enough or the publisher has decided to move on with something similar; please see the Spirit Walk series in ya, which was supposed to be a trilogy and ended after two parts/RUINED MY LIFE.

Also, it's not just sequels. People get dropped a lot. Like, once second you have a book deal, the next second they change their mind because of the market and all of that. They don't ask for the advance back, but now you have a book that you either have to try to sell again to someone else, or can't sell again because you don't own the rights even though it wasn't published.

-You have complete creative control. Listen, not everyone should be given the keys to the kingdom, and there are some bad choices you can make. I did one of those bad choices.

I had an absolutely awful cover on my debut for months, like not in genre or anything, and it kneecapped that whole series (also people kept thinking there was a nipple on my cover when it was a circle of candles). Now I've learned that I can't do what I want all of the time.

-Marketing sucks. Building an audience is hard. I have no freaking clue how twitter works, or instagram, and I have dismal followers there. Would it help if I had more? Yeah, it would. Do I know how to fix that? Not really.

I mean kind of?

Now that I'm bigger I get invited to things and like build via those giveaways and other crap, but man did it suck at first.

-You pay for everything. You buy your covers, you pay for ads. This can suck.

-There's definitely a different conversation about self-pub now, but a lot of people still scoff at you. I make more than traditional authors in my genre right now, but I'm still regarded as a lowly piece of trash. After you get signed, it doesn't get much better. Amanda Hocking's books were re-edited and republished and you still see reviews going through them with a fine-tooth comb looking for errors and complaining about indies. The lady literally makes millions, and most people can't tell the difference between her original books and her traditionally published books (Even traditionally published books have spelling and grammar errors, like the accepted amount is like one error per ten thousand words, but most people have more than that. Think like three errors for five thousand words, even if you're traditionally published. I shit you not).

This is changing, but people are still assholes. Like, Elise Kova is a best-selling author and there are people who will never touch her books since they're self-published.

A lot of people get around this via using pennames, but then if you move onto your normal name you lose name recognition and back catalog sales (which are the bulk of your money, like release day nets you a good amount of money but even if you're traditionally published most of your income comes from people buying existing books after reading like one of your novels).

I super don't care though, since I was raised in the fiery pits of fanfiction.net, so I used my real name and I'll keep selling under my real name forever. Does it kind of suck when people google me? Yes, but the only time I was turned down for a job because of it (head YA collections manager) was really recently, because I didn't show up on google searches until like the fourth page before I started actually selling. And, tbh, I didn't need that job and I make more off of books than I would have from that job. (Also it was literally just because writing books in YA made it a conflict of interest and not because I write awful things)

Vanity publishing, don't fucking do it:

A vanity press is a press that charges you to publish and distribute your book. They don't actually make profit off of your books, but rather you. They gained popularity because people were desperate to be published and had been rejected elsewhere in the past, and since the publishing industry makes it hard as hell to know how things actually work. (Like that you get paid an advance before you begin receiving royalties, and this advance is basically a downpayment on your rights that you have to outearn (with your percentage of the royalties, not the total sum) before you start receiving monthly royalty checks.) (Also that you don't need to pay an editor to go over your manuscript before you send it for query because every publisher has a different style and like edits to their style so they don't care as much about that unless you send like My Immortal level typos. You literally just spend money for nothing if you do that.)

So people paid to publish, and like, the companies made books. They still make books, nice little print copies for you and amazon listings for your ebooks. But do they put any effort into marketing? No. Do they give you a cover half the time? No. Do they charge you royalty rates equal to traditional publishing on the off chance that you get big? YES, THEY DO. These things are pretty pre-amazon and they prey on the insecurity of writers, they're awful.

Literally, don't do it. You know what the best vanity is? Publishing your book for free on amazon (or smashwords, or a whole host of other ones if you feel like it). All of the money you would pay to use a vanity press could be better spent on a nice cover and like, maybe even some ads.

You can literally make print copies available for free with amazon, and unlike some vanity presses, you don't have to pay for a whole box of them beforehand. They're even introducing hardcover options!

If that's not enough for you and you want wider distribution/ to be literally everywhere, the only people you should pay are ingramspark. Ingram costs 50 dollars USD to just do your paperback or hardcover and sell literally everywhere. You want to pay to go on amazon? Bam, seventy-five on ingram.

Spoiler though, when it comes to ebooks: Most people buy ebooks from amazon and not really anywhere else. (Unless it's kink, which gets taken from visibility on the amazon store, then you can buy your dirty books that are too much for amazon on smashwords (basically stuff that would raise eyebrows on AO3, even.)) Publishing through amazon is also super easy.

And, honestly, since ebooks don't really sell a ton anywhere else, kindle unlimited and ebook exclusivity on amazon isn't that bad. Like you can't put your book anywhere else, which sucks, but you can sell your paperback literally everywhere and keep your ebooks on amazon (and only amazon) for the higher royalties and the page read payouts. I've sold three hundred ebook copies this month, but the majority of my money comes from kindle unlimited. I have a little graph that says 65%.

Kindle Unlimited is basically a flat-rate service for readers (you don't pay to be a part) that allows readers to read all the kindle unlimited books they want for that amount (10 to 11 bucks in America, I have it) and pays authors by page reads proportional to the amount of profit amazon made off of kindle unlimited that month. Like ninety percent of people I know subscribed to it because you can read the whole harry potter series on it for free since JK is the devil and made a huge deal pre-being awful to sell her books to amazon in that capacity to promote the service in exchange for a crap ton of money for her to spend on orphan blood or something (for bathing). People go from that to their recommended reads, and a lot of people decide to keep it, which is good. I would say that when you're starting out, kindle unlimited is literally one of the best ways to build an audience/find a following. Because, even if your books are absurdly cheap (like let's say I don't know, 2.99 USD :I), some people still won't spend that money to buy them since they don't know who you are (also some people still won't spend the money even if they know you, use those grifters for free reviews). So a lot of people find you via kindle unlimited and feel like they're getting a good deal reading your work for 'free', which helps you hype releases and build profits. Kindle unlimited is also super cool because they recommend your back catalog and other books in the series to readers when they choose to read your books. They sometimes give a list of books once someone flips the last page in their book, and a lot of the time you're on there so they go on to the read the next book in the series.

Endnotes/Disclaimer:

And like, that took a super long time to write and I probably went way too into detail there, but that's it. I sort of have a lot of weird experience when it comes to publishing since technically the books I ghostwrite are traditionally published but weird (I have no part in the editing process for my ghostwritten stuff but submit the first manuscript and then they like take it and go away), and I do a lot of indie junk/might sell my catalog (NO IDEA, ACTUALLY, I'm talking to a financial planner about it and holding off until December to see if I can drive up the cost via writing a second in-universe series and bundling the rights???).

But yeah.

That's publishing.

#idk there's probably typos in this it's three am #but that's it #it's a large overview #DID YOU NEED THIS MUCH DETAIL? NO #BUT I DID IT #IT'S THE LASER FOCUS OF THE ADDERALL KICKING IN.

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realbigpodcastslut · 4 years ago

Text

Should You Listen to King Falls AM?

(Update at the bottom)

Lately, I’ve seen a lot people looking to start KFAM and conflicting views on if you should listen. Being a fan for a long time, I’d like to put in my two-cents. I’m not going to tell you if you should listen or not, but I’ll present the facts so you can make your own choice.

Overall:

King Falls AM is a podcast, and out of the hundred+ I’ve listened to, it is definitely my favorite one and I always seem to be relistening to it. Taking place in the small town of King Falls, late-night radio hosts Sammy and Ben have to tackle the weird and whacky. It’s funny, the characters are amazing, and I just love the overall idea of love (platonic and romantic) conquering all. The music is also amazing. While the background music is to die for, this is really shown in their musical episode (which is done right).

Now, while it is my favorite podcast, there are a lot of faults. Representation is mishandled, there are problematic parts, and the creators and actors have had some not-so-great reactions to valid criticism. Also, the story is unfinished and there is no word if they’re coming back after COVID-19.

Characters:

I can’t deny, I love the characters (especially Lily Wright). The characters will worm their way into your heart until you fall in-love. Whether it’s the main characters of Sammy, Ben, (Emily, Troy, and Lily), or the townspeople, you’ll most likely end up loving them. And if you don’t love them, then you will hate them so much you love hating them. I’m going to avoid spoilers, but you will love these characters and feel for them. Even I, the stone-cold bitch that brags about not crying that much over media, ended up crying over them.

On the other hand, the characters are not the stellar representation that a lot of podcasts have. There are plenty of LGBT characters later on, but a lot of them are stereotypes. Archie, a gay man, is overly camp, and Jacob, a bisexual man, is sex-crazed. Though, I should point out that almost every non-main character is a stereotype, but this can be off-putting to a lot of people. Women are also not represented great. They’re pretty one-dimensional and while they grow, they’re sort of looked-down upon and hated. This changes around episode 90 where it is specifically called out on and episodes 75+ start to change this poor representation somewhat. Though the representation of POC is just bad, with Walt being a stereotypical Native American man and Storm Sanders an alcoholic. There is also a racist witch, while hated by everyone, is still suspicious.

Comedy:

King Falls AM is also extremely funny. There are several jokes they actually made me laugh out loud (hard to do) and in my relistens I still laugh. The character’s banter is hilarious and I just can’t state how funny some of the stuff is. While some stuff aren’t direct jokes, the absurdity of events are funny. For example, there is a vigilante named the Dirt who is basically a dimestore Batman in BDSM gear. Another thing is that there is a murderous Elf of the Shelf that says some things that are comedy gold. Even later on, they don’t sacrifice much of the comedy for arcs that will tear your heart out.

While the jokes are funny, there are many jokes that miss the mark and are not politically correct. One that sticks out is “Don’t assume my gender.” There are a lot of race jokes (ew) and quite a few on the holocaust. There are also a lot of gay jokes, which while sometimes done right, can make LGBT people uncomfortable. Especially when two characters (Archie and Lily) are made out to be too gay to function and make a lot of sexual jokes. This missing-the-mark is made clear as it is written by straight white men, which really can’t joke about stuff they don’t experience.

Themes:

The themes of KFAM are also good and you can’t ever go wrong with found-family. Love is the main aspect surrounding the show and whether platonic or romantic love, it’s embraced. I really enjoy how Sammy and Ben are able to say “I love you” to each other without it being seen as creepy or “gay.” Characters also grow for the better and are always pushing to be better. They even talk about mental health struggles and pushing each other up to be the best they can be. Lastly, the main storyline is compelling and it opens up for a lot of theorizing and trying to figure out what is going to happen (or what happened).

The themes of found family can be criticized over the fact that several characters already experienced found family due to being gay and already being a family, though I think this one is a little weak (but I included it). Some of the storylines may get boring and it can be a sort of slow-burn as things come to fruition. There are also plot holes (but not that noticeable).

Creators, Actors and Community:

This is the final point and the thing that has made many die-hard fans dislike KFAM and be ashamed for listening to it. Starting at episode 34, there was an episode on Helen Keller and it was essentially making fun of her. Obviously, fans did not like this episode and told the creators so. They did not apologize and basically said, “Sorry you didn’t like it.” Around April or March of 2020, one of the creators retweeted NSFW fan works and people told them how they needed to tag it, etc. They reacted poorly, only for a person to say “Death of the Author” (a literary idea where you ignore the author’s influence on a work), and then the creator freaked out, thinking this was a death threat. These were not the only events, so if you’d like to find out more, I have archived (with my friend) a decent amount on the blog @kfam-tea.

The community is also toxic. There have been a lot of times where die-hard fans will delete any criticism from the subreddit (though this has seemed to stop). These fans also started “attacking” WTNV after Cecil Baldwin (voice of Cecil) made a jab at other radio podcasts. The discord server is also closed off from everyone except those already on it, and they’ve deleted a lot of channels and such. Overall, the community is not the best and it’s quite divided.

Lastly, we don’t know if KFAM is coming back. While they said it was going to start after COVID-19, there’s reason to believe that isn’t the case. The creators unfollowed each other on Instagram and Twitter. There was a Reddit threat where people asked if it was coming back only for Kyle (co-creator) to call them entitled (yikes, I know). So far, there is another podcast made by everyone but Kyle and Trent (the actor for about half of the town).

Conclusion:

The choice to listen is up to you. You may or may not like it, but I’m not going to say this is strictly a terrible or amazing podcast. I think it is both. I fell in love with the story and while it has many, many, terrible warts, I think people should know what they are heading into. I see too many people either praising or hating KFAM completely, and it’s not fair. This story isn’t for everyone and has it’s bad moments, but it also has it’s wonderful moments. To listen, that is a personal decision for you to make.

UPDATE:

KFAM isn’t coming back and it left on a big cliffhanger so maybe don’t listen.

#kfam #king falls am #king falls #essay #long post #sammy stevens #Ben Arnold #kfam podcast #podcast #audio drama #i think this was needed for the community #i myself struggle with both enjoying this show and its warts #but i don't just want to tell people no #because if i hadn't listened then i would be a different person #this podcast has meant a lot to me personally and i really love it #slut.txt

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