#Another long one and I don't have an editor so apologies in advance for any typos or errors that I didn't catch

[thistledropkick]

It's been a while since I posted a long translation, so here's an article I translated a while back from Number Magazine. This article is about a year old, but it really changed the way I thought about both Hiromu and Desperado when I read it, and I think it's even more relevant now than when it was written.

The article and the accompanying photography are both by Masashi Hara - please go check out the original article even if you can't read Japanese, as the accompanying photography adds a lot.

Also, please don't repost this translation elsewhere. If you'd like to quote an excerpt, please link back to this source and credit me as the translator, and please also make sure to credit the original author and link back to the original article.

Will Takahashi Hiromu and El Desperado surpass the “Liger Era?” The true reason “NJPW’s Top 2 Juniors” fought in Freedoms

8/18/2023 - article and photography by Masashi Hara 原壮史

New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Takahashi Hiromu and El Desperado have taken every opportunity to fervently collide, from battles for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship to the Best of the Super Junior finals. They are both representatives of the current New Japan Junior division.

On August 11, these two men participated in the battle at Pro Wrestling FREEDOMS in the Yokohama Budoukan. They both fought in a ring marked with the phrase “The Bacchanal of the Free” rather than a New Japan ring, against opponents who were not New Japan pro wrestlers. In doing so, they revealed a difference in the paths they each have walked.

In order to surpass “The era Liger built”

Takahashi Hiromu formed a tag team with Takaiwa Tatsuhito. Dragon Libre and Katori Takahiro of the ‘doms Junior division stood in opposition.

The impetus of this match was a “love call” from Libre to Takahashi. Takahashi attended a Freedoms show at Shibaken 1st Ring, to confirm for himself what Libre had said on the radio and SNS many times.

“I know my own worth. That’s why it’s still too early for you to wrestle me,” Takahashi said.

On January 5th, 2020, Takahashi was Jushin Thunder Liger’s opponent in Liger’s retirement match. Liger teamed with Sano Naoki, and Takahashi with Ryu Lee, each forming a tag team together with their wrestling career’s greatest rival.

In the match, Takahashi usurped Liger’s position, achieving a 3 count with TIME BOMB. After returning from a long-term absence due to a neck injury, the “Red-haired Time Bomb” had, one day earlier, defeated Will Ospreay to take back the IWGP Junior Heavyweight belt, and now read Liger his last rights as the symbol of the division.

Those two days were a manifest expression of Takahashi’s love and devotion to the Junior Heavyweight division. After those two matches from the new “Face of the Junior division,” one could believe that even though “Liger cannot be surpassed,” “that man will build a new era of the Junior division that will surpass it.”

Three and a half years have passed since then. After another serious injury, a torn pectoralis major, Takahashi has acquired the IWGP Junior Heavyweight belt three times since 2020, including when he regained it from Ospreay, and has won the BOSJ three times in a row. No one can complain about his many achievements, and he clearly continues to sit at the top of the Junior division.

In the Shinkiba ring, Takahashi continued to speak to Libre.

“What reason do I have to fight you? Depending on your answer, I might say NO.”

Libre replied,

“I must defeat you, to show you that the ‘doms Junior division has leveled up.”

(next page - Tokyo Dome main event is… Takahashi Hiromu’s “magnificent dream”)

After he wins a title match, or to close a big event, Takahashi shouts,

“More, more more more more more! Everyone, let’s have more fun!”

In order to face the crowd and say the words, “Everyone, have more fun,” he must find and face opponents who have the same level of skill as himself. For that reason, Takahashi accepted Libre’s “love call.”

Tokyo Dome main event is… Takahashi Hiromu’s “magnificent dream"

Takahashi has stated his dream many times.

“To hold the IWGP Junior heavyweight belt, and the IWGP Heavyweight belt”

But this isn’t all. His dream continues further.

“To have the match broadcast on TV during Golden Time” [note from me: this is similar to “prime time” in American English, and refers to the time between 7 and 10 pm when TV viewership is the highest]

“To fight for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight belt as the main event at the Tokyo Dome”

This dream cannot become reality without a suitable opponent. And thus, if Takahashi doesn’t excite not only the New Japan Pro Wrestling’s junior division but the entire pro wrestling world, it cannot happen. 1990 was not the golden age of only New Japan’s Junior Division. And creating an era that will surpass the era that Liger built, the era of the Super J Cup that included wrestlers such as Hayabusa, Great Sasuke, Wild Pegasus (Chris Benoit), and Black Tiger (Eddie Guerero), is a dream that can’t be achieved by one person alone.

Therefore Takahashi, for the sake of leveling up the Junior wrestlers in other promotions, did not say no to Libre’s request.

The match against Libre and Katori in Yokohama, one could truly feel the distance between Takahashi at the pinnacle of the Juniors.

Libre repeatedly absorbed Takahashi’s heavy strikes while constantly yelling “Come on!” And with one chop, Takahashi made it felt that his wrestling was on a higher level.

Ultimately, Takahashi finished the match not with a TIME BOMB but with a Dynamite Plunger. And after the match, he gifted Katori with another fierce chop, enthusiastically displaying the “difference” between the two of them.

“I don’t feel like I was even in a match. What do you mean “Come on!” You come on.”

After the IWGP Junior Champion once again starkly showed the difference in status between himself and Libre, Takahashi told the Freedoms president Sasaki Takashi, who had worked hard to make Libre’s dream come true, the conditions required for a rematch.

(next page - “The man who was too late” El Desperado’s awakening”)

“If you’re not a Champion, (a Freedoms junior singles match) is out of the question. I think that’s the bare minimum. I’m not disrespecting you but, I have my pride as the IWGP Junior champion, and my pride as a New Japan wrestler.”

And he added one more thing.

“Please keep mentioning the name Takahashi Hiromu again and again from now on.”

In order for Takahashi to create more fun, other wrestlers must rise to the same level as him, and fight on the same stage. If wrestlers like Libre and Katori are able to close the gulf they were forced to acknowledge on that day and once again stand against Takahashi in the ring, that means that “dream is growing close to becoming a reality” and it would be proof that “the era that Liger built” is close to being surpassed.

The Man who was too late - El Desperado’s Awakening

Of course, the energy within the New Japan Junior division is indispensable for the industry as a whole.

In Liger’s retirement match, Takahashi’s rival was Lee. When discussing “rivals coming together as a tag team,” Desperado’s name was not  even mentioned.

“My quality as a wrestler took too long. Really, I just wasn’t able to get there. I was too late.”

That was what Desperado said at the end of 2021, at the end of year press conference addressing the Tokyo Dome show, about the champion Takahashi.

“I won’t make that mistake again. At last year’s BOSJ, Hiromu said ‘Let’s show them our era,” but, I’ll show you my future. To take hold of my own future, I’ll win, and I’ll open my own future.”

Desperado was victorious in that match.

“In order to make my dream come true, Desperado, I want to fight you. I always want you in front of me,” Takahashi said, after his loss.

If Liger’s retirement match happened now, the man standing next to Takahashi would be Desperado. But because those two did not team up, the different paths that they would go on to walk became clearer.

(next page - That guy, he fuckin loves deathmatch)

Desperado, who now stands shoulder to shoulder with Takahashi, once again formed a tag team with “Charisma of Deathmatch” Kasai Jun, this time fighting against Takeda Masashi and Yamashita Rina.

Desperado was thrown into a thumbtack board, was slapped in the face after having had thumbtacks shoved into his mouth, his mask was torn and his head cut with scissors, and he was slammed into the aluminum can board that he himself brought to the ring …… In other words, he freely enjoyed deathmatch to the fullest. But of course he also gave as good as he got, breaking a steel chair over the head of the “Deathmatch Amazoness” Rina, and cleverly countering Takeda’s attempt to use a fork board against him, as he faced off against some of the best deathmatch fighters in the world.

He sent forth a Loco Mono and Pinche Loco combo with Kasai, watched a Pearl Harbor Splash from a “special seat” and thoroughly enjoyed his time tagging with Kasai in a fun and super stimulating match, which ended with Kasai pinning Takeda for the victory. After the match, Takeda said of the rogue luchador, “Desperado… He’s fun. He fuckin loves deathmatch.”

All that is to say, Desperado is a person who pursues what he himself likes, and who takes action for his own enjoyment, and that is his what makes him so charming.

Truly, if you watch someone enjoying himself to the fullest, you will also feel enjoyment as a viewer. In addition to this, because Desperado truly loves what he’s doing, the respect in his heart is conveyed to the audience, and the quality of his matches naturally follows from and reflects that deep respect.

For Takahashi, it’s “Let’s all have more fun.” For Desperado, it’s “I’ll have fun.” However, Desperado’s matches make the audience have fun too. Despite being a rogue, he is more conscientious than anyone, and this mysterious balance allows him to mobilize those around him, form connections to others, and forge a path unique to himself.

Takahashi Hiromu and El Desperado have traveled different paths, but at key points, those paths have overlapped. They are truly eternal rivals.

Surprisingly, the connection between these two men once again pulled them together as they both attended “The Bacchanal of the Free” and the fans were able to savor an experience of utmost “fun.”

[jeannereames]

Hi, Dr. Reames. This is probably a dumb question to ask, but I know you´ve been wrting your whole life, I think, so I thought I might ask you anyway, as I admire your work a lot. How do I overcome my fear of writing? It's kinda hard to explain, It's not about what other people will think about my work, It's what I will think of it. I never think it's good enough, in my eyes it's always bad written, unoriginal, boring. Even when I have an idea I love I struggle to get myself because of these thoughts. Any time I write something, when I think about posting it somewhere I´m like “I will cringe so bad for this in a few hours/days/months/years”. Every time I find something I wrote a while ago I think “how could I even think about writing this?” and I know I should take it as part of the progress, failing to win y'know, but instead I find it keeps me from writing and sharing my work, even when I think it is good. I want to write and post my work, I have too many ideas but I don't know how to overcome these fears to actually do it.

Right now I'm struggling with writing a story I have to do for college and give in a few days, but I'm completely blocked. I think it's a ridiculous idea, although I like it a lot, It is making me feel anxious and embarrassed beforehand.

First, I’m answering a little out of order for what’s in my inbox, as the asker mentioned she had a story due in a few days, so it seemed time-specific.

So, let me just open by saying I don’t know any professional author who doesn’t hit that “I hate my story” point somewhere in the midst of writing it. “This is terrible! What was I thinking? Who would be interested in this? Who do I think I am to believe I could write about that/that character?”

Seriously, this is a normal litany, particularly for women authors. (I do not know if the asker is female gendered, gender fluid, or male gendered, but it seems that a lot of folks on Tumblr belong to the first two categories.) After all, we’re taught to sit back, look pretty, keep our legs crossed, our hands neatly folded, and let the boys talk. Let the boys win. Nobody wants to hear from us. Our job is to showcase the men in our lives.

Even if you never heard those words said to your face, you’ve “heard” them in everything from the advertising industry to TV shows and movies to political dialogue and Twitter. It hurts EVERYbody. Men are not expected to question themselves, so if they (naturally) do, they assume they’re secretly a failure. And women are expected to question themselves, apologize for having an opinion/original thought, so they learn to do so from preschool on.

Writing a story that one intends to share with the universe is sort of arrogant, when you think about it. To assume that anybody besides me gives three shits about the stories I tell myself in my head is an act of either great self-confidence or great self-delusion. And if one wants to go pro, we add another layer of expecting other people to pay for my “little whimsies”? Who do I think I am? (Echoes one of the questions above, no…?)

That’s the negative way of thinking about it. Let me turn that around…

Writing a story that one intends to share with the universe is an amazingly generous action.

That’s right. Generous.

I will never recoup in royalties the blood, sweat, tears, (and cost) that it took me to write Dancing with the Lion. I can’t even begin to add up the hours devoted to writing, revising, rewriting, revising again, that story. And you get to read it for $6.99 each, or, if you go for the Riptide special, $8.99 for both! (Pricier if you want a paper copy.)

Some authors don’t go quite as overboard as I did in perfectionism (it’s kinda part and parcel of the phud). Yet even established professional authors with 5-figure advances do not make anywhere close to minimum wage, sometimes not even 6-figure advances (depending on what those 6 figures are). And the bulk of us will never see either of those.

Writers write because they have a story to tell. That’s an act of generosity. You don’t have to like that story. You don’t have to read that story. You may, in fact, think that story is utter crap and should be consigned to the dungheap. (There are some even professionally published novels, never mind self-published, I feel that way about.)

Yet it’s still an act of generosity. And even if I don’t like __ story, probably somebody out there will. More to the point, nobody gets better unless they, you know, actually work at it by writing (and getting useful constructive criticism because virtually nobody is Carson McCullers, to pen a classic at the tender age of 21). So yes, some writers may not be up to publishable quality fiction yet…although what IS publishable quality lies somewhat in the eye of the acquiring editor. But keep going.

The biggest and most munificent leap any author makes is to finish a story, hand it to someone else and say, “Would you like to read this?”

Writers are all but driven to write. I can’t NOT write. I’ve been writing since 6th grade when my English teacher gave us one of those “Use this word in a sentence” assignments and my sentences turned into paragraphs, then into little stories. And she let me get away with it. Lord above, she even encouraged me!

Write. Trust yourself. Share it.

Yes, take constructive criticism if somebody offers it. Ignore unconstructive criticism. The former pinpoints weaknesses with concrete suggestions for how to fix/improve them. The latter is just soul-sucking drivel.

Long, long ago when I was an ambitious but uncertain 18-year-old, I got to hear Lawrence Dorr give a talk on writing. After, I introduced myself and said, “I’m a writer. Well, I want to be. I’m not published yet.”

He stopped me and replied, “Do you write?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re a writer.”

That has stuck we me, coming from an award-winning published author.

So I will pass that on to every other aspiring author out there.

Do you write? If so, you’re a writer.

[risottostitties]

Hi! It's me again sorry I just love ur blog so much please don't slice my body in 26 pts.😂 Jk! qwq any Headcanons for La squadra with an Aspiring mangaka S/O? Like she really REALLY Love to make a comic so much? (Take note she's not sassy as Rohan lmao)

ur lucky none of my knives are sharp. (lmao jk jk I’m so happy you like my dumb blog aaaaa)

Risotto

Intrigued but hesitant. Hopefully you don’t plan on incorporating his likeness into your manga at all. He’d be antsy about a character inspired by him, even if it bore no resemblance to the real thing at all.

He has a habit of throwing himself into his own work, so he doesn’t often ask you to take breaks or remind you about things like food and sleep. More or less leaves you alone if he sees you’re really deep into your work.

Enjoys working on his own stuff in the same room as you. There’s something to be said about enjoying each other’s company in silence.

Really likes looking over your shoulder as you draw. He was never artistic so watching how rough sketches become inked panels is fascinating to him.

Gifts you fancy pens often, even if they aren’t the best practicality wise. He would be thankful if you gave him specific names and thicknesses you liked.

Prosciutto

He’s another one that doesn’t drag you out to take breaks, but unlike Risotto he’d at least bring you coffee. He’d like to sit with you too, instead of leaving you be.

If he sees you’re becoming exceptionally tired Prosciutto would kindly (and firmly) suggest that the two of you retire for the night.

If you ask him for his opinion on something he’ll be honest with you. Prosciutto doesn’t sugarcoat his words, but he does make sure to reiterate that he’s proud of your work no matter what.

Great at pep talks and surprisingly good at brainstorming ideas with you too if you find yourself stuck on how to advance the plot.

Of a similar mind to Risotto when it comes to ‘cameos’ in the manga. But if he sees a character wearing something that looks suspiciously like Grateful Dead’s eyes he’d be flattered.

Pesci

He’s a nice middle ground between Prosciutto and Fromaggio in terms of getting you to take a break. He’s not as annoying as Fromaggio is but more insistent than Prosciutto.

Pesci is already a fan of anime and manga. He’s read enough manga to know a bit about panel composition and the general process of writing one and if you ask he’d hesitantly offer up what he thinks are good suggestions.

He doesn’t want his opinions to get in the way with your creative process so he’d be hesitant about sharing unless you assured him you really wanted him to.

Would never ask you to draw him in your manga, or pester you for art but if you drew him in the background of a page he’d be incredibly flustered and happy.

If you get fustrated and throw away a page he’ll take it out of the trash and keep it.

Fromaggio

Please make him the star of your manga, he won’t stop pestering you about it.

Also please draw him in your style, he will pester you about that too.

Don’t tell him how the plot is going to go, he’ll spoil it somehow.

He gets antsy if you work for too long, especially if he’s just come back from a job and he hasn’t seen you in a while. He’s gone enough for his work anyway, why would he want to spend his limited free time in silence watching you draw when you two could be doing something fun?

Despite his habit of trying to pull you from your work, he’s actually very supportive of this. He’d help you mail off copies of your work to publishing companies and is the first to suggest a massive party when one of them inevitably offers to publish your work.

If he catches wind of people talking shit on line he can and will make a throwaway account and debate them.

Illuso

watching you work from the mirror world because he prefers to do everything from the mirror world. If you invite him in though, he won’t decline.

Not too familiar with the process of manga writing but enjoys watching it anyway. He’s pretty low maintenance so he doesn’t mind passing the time with only the sound of your pens and pencils breaking up the silence.

Takes note of the type of pens you like to use and what they’re primarily used for (shading, line work, blocking, detail, etc) and those will sometimes appear on your desk.

Likes listening to you talk about your work, the fire in your eyes is endearing to him.

He’s not an artist himself but if you ask him for an opinion on something he’ll give it to you no holds barred.

Never realized how much of a technical aspect there was to manga writing and finds himself fascinated by all the little things you might not notice when reading like text formatting and panel composition.

Melone

another one that wants to be in your manga

while he certainly has a preference for certain genre if you write something outside of his typical favorites he’d be happy to read it anyway.

spitballs character concepts and power ideas with you for funsies. 

Enjoys hanging over your shoulders to watch you work even if it gets in the way.

Would 100% cosplay the main character of your manga and make it weird by hitting on you the whole time.

Would also make it weird by asking you to draw what you think your kid together would look like.

Genuinely treasures any art you give him though. He frames it and keeps it in a place he can see every day.

Would get misty eyed if you made a character inspired by his older sister and gave her a happy family.

Might want to write a children’s book with you one day. He’d supply the text while you drew the pictures. But he wouldn’t mention it until after you finished your manga. Doesn’t want to distract you from your primary focus.

Ghiaccio

He’s kind of like a built in editor which is either really great or awful depending on how well you take Ghiaccio level ‘critique’ because while he might love you, that doesn’t mean he’s going to go easy on you.

Ghiaccio is more a stickler for writing rather than the art or panel composition of your manga. If you’re going to let him read it while its still unfinished you’re going to have to be careful which idioms or turn of phrase you use.

He’s supportive though, and while it might not be possible to cut him off once he’s started picking apart an idiom you used that he took issue with at least he apologizes later about it.

One of the ones who makes sure you take a break weather you want to or not.

Enjoys the quiet moments together where you’re working on your manga and he’s reading in the same room and you two are just spending time together like that.

Surprise him one day with a ‘candid’ drawing of him reading with you and he’ll be a mess.

[fen-ha-fuck-you]

As much as i don't like echo.If you see it from her view( and Spacekru cuz they didn't seem happy about it either) Clarke did betray them. Yeah they don't know what happened and stuff but still. I don't think Echo is going to try to kill Clarke but i think we the bellare fam are reaching when we say bellamy would turn on echo this season.As much as we don't like he does love her. but we'll what the confrontation between clarke and echo is about

I know this ask really wasn’t this deep, and I know it wasn’t centered around what Echo would or wouldn’t do, but let’s dive into that for a moment, shall we? Because I went deep with this response, and Echo’s moral compass has a lot to do with my ultimate argument of what Bellamy would or wouldn’t do. That is, of course, Bellamy would absolutely turn on Echo if she tries to hurt Clarke.

I’m also gonna apologize in advance, because I know this ask wasn’t sent with any kind of bad energy or intention, but the longer I kept writing this response the less cool with it I got, and I get very passive aggressive towards the end, so... you’ve got that to look forward to. 

I mean... Echo is the only one of Spacekru who was immediately like, “Yep, Clarke betrayed us, makes sense. I’ll deal with her at the first opportunity.” The last they heard, Clarke and Bellamy were negotiating for peace. Murphy, Emori, and Raven seemed more confused than anything, which is the actual correct reaction to have, given how relatively unbothered the others seemed about it. Bellamy—and Harper and Monty, to a lesser extent—know the context of why Clarke is already in the valley, and they know she also doesn’t want a war in the last survivable land on the planet. For all they know, Clarke has been doing what she always does and working with an ulterior motive from the inside, which considering the, “If [Clarke’s] on their side...” makes this point of view likely. These are also people who know Clarke far better than Echo ever will. If she was a good spy, she would realize the importance of that.

And... Echo is also the only one who has jumped on every opportunity to betray allies without a second thought. Even when we just look at season five. She’s been wanting to kill Shaw since she first met him, despite having proven himself as trustworthy and valuable. She pushed Raven into betraying him in the first place. 

Despite appearances, I want to like Echo. I do. But even when you’re trying, it is very difficult to like a character when they are constantly making decisions that go against the best interests of literally every actual likable character on the show. That being said, let’s look at what has happened in the text.

So far this season, Echo has done the following: been a terrible spy (canonically, this has been stated explicitly by Diyoza once and Raven twice, possibly more that I’m forgetting), shoved a flash drive into the bullet wound of a woman she told she’d keep safe less than a half hour previous (the merits of which are up for debate, but not on this post, please for the love of god), chosen to go behind Raven’s back to sell Shaw out to Diyoza (which Raven asked her not to do because she had another plan already), threatened to kill Shaw on numerous occasions (despite that being incredibly strategically illogical considering he’s the only pilot, as Raven points out), and immediately rejects the idea that Bellamy and Clarke had a valid, separate plan because of how she thinks Octavia would’ve reacted, despite Bellamy and Clarke very obviously knowing Octavia far better (in which case the actual outcome of Bellamy and Clarke’s plan doesn’t matter, because Echo had no context, she just decided her plan was superior).

That’s not even everything, but the paragraph is long enough.

My point here being that Echo’s characterization this season can be pretty much summed up as, “I don’t care if it doesn’t make complete sense or hurts people I care about, this is what I’ve decided is right, and I’m not going to listen to anyone else’s opinions about it.” If that kind of sounds like Octavia’s characterization this season, too... yeah.

I don’t know if Echo is going to try to kill Clarke. What I do know, based on what I’ve seen from her this season, is that even if given evidence to the contrary or opposed by Murphy, Raven, or Emori, if Echo comes to the conclusion that Clarke (or Madi!) is a threat, she’s going to try to take her out of the equation. 

Echo is, as of now, under the impression that Clarke (and Madi, by extension) are not a part of her family. And, to be fair, they’re not. But they’re Raven’s family. And Murphy’s. And Monty and Harper’s. But most importantly, Clarke (and Madi) are very much a part of Bellamy’s family.

Therein lies the tension.

The idea that Bellamy wouldn’t turn on Echo if she were to turn against Clarke is... laughable at best. I never said Bellamy doesn’t love Echo. What I am saying is that the line where Bellamy says he loves Echo specifically was cut from 5x06 for a reason. Echo was completely removed (with the exception of a couple frames of nose) from the end of 5x03 for a reason. And the fact that it was the same editor for both of those episodes has not escaped my notice (shoutout to you, Daniel Martens).

Look. This whole season has been a giant neon sign above Bellamy’s head saying, “ASK ME WHAT I’D DO TO PROTECT CLARKE GRIFFIN.” And the response is a resounding, “Whatever it takes.”

Bellamy didn’t want to harm the Eligius prisoners in cryo. But when he found out that Clarke was alive and in danger, he was willing to trade all 283 of their lives for hers without hesitation. 

Bellamy had never wanted to hurt Octavia. Ever. In fact, there was a whole episode this season about how he wasn’t willing to hurt her, even while she was directly threatening Echo’s life. I’m sure a lot of people don’t, but I definitely remember 5x06. Bellamy’s response to that was to run away. 

What did it take for Bellamy to turn against Octavia, his sister, his responsibility, the person he’s been trying to keep safe at his own expense, for four and a half seasons? What did it take? 

Octavia looked him in the eye and told him she was going to execute Clarke. That was the real beginning of the ever-expanding Blake sibling rift finally tearing open. 

Without even mentioning Octavia calling out Bellamy’s feelings for Clarke: Octavia knew he’d come to her, but she thought he was going to beg. Even Octavia, who knows how Bellamy feels, didn’t think that he’d poison her. 

Bellamy Blake poisoned Octavia because he couldn’t let her kill Clarke Griffin.

So, let me just make sure I have this right. You think that Bellamy Blake, who, upon seeing who his sister had become, poisoned her for threatening Clarke’s life and later denounced her as his family... wouldn’t also do that to Echo?

In case anyone has gotten this far and is still somehow unconvinced that that opinion is... wrong... I’ll go a step further.

Bellamy and Echo’s conversation in 5x01 is incredibly important, in that it outlines their relationship’s downfall... perfectly. It also plays into my theory that Echo hasn’t actually changed, but that’s not the point of this. So, jumping around a little:

Bellamy: “Wouldn’t it be easier to just step outside?”

The conversation quite literally opens with a callback to who the two of them were six years ago, the last time we saw them. 

Bellamy: “Nothing is gonna change on the ground.”

Considering that literally the first thing that changes on the ground is that Bellamy finds out Clarke is alive? Self-explanatory, next.

Echo: “I’m still banished. What if Octavia tries to—”Bellamy: “No, she won’t.”

She did. Almost immediately.

Echo: “You do remember I almost killed your sister.”Bellamy: “My sister will understand... she’ll forgive you, too.”Echo: “Bellamy, it took you three years.”

Hold on... let me just queue up 5x08 real quick...

Clarke: “I’m sorry that I tried to...”Bellamy: “Kill my sister?”Clarke: “Suddenly I’m the one letting my heart rule my head.”Bellamy: “Mama bears don’t think. They just protect their young.”

Six years later and the Bellarke Near-Instantaneous Forgiveness is still kicking, got it. Next?

Bellamy: “Whatever we run into down there, Octavia will be the least of our worries.”

If this one needs explaining, then I can’t help you.

At the end of that scene, Echo goes to follow Bellamy out, then turns back and grabs her sword. She’s choosing the person she was on the ground.

There is one important aspect of that 5x01 conversation that I saved for the end here, specifically because we haven’t seen it be proven false like all the rest. Yet. But after 5x11, there’s a foundation.

Bellamy: “We’re family, and nothing can change that.”

5x11 showed us a pivotal moment in Bellamy’s character arc. He is no longer willing to hold on to relationships that hurt himself or the people he loves, even if the relationship he’s cutting off is with someone he loves. 

Octavia was his family. Octavia’s choice to try and execute Clarke started Bellamy’s active opposition of her behavior and her actions (as opposed to his passive opposition throughout the show until this moment). In 5x11, Bellamy explicitly told Octavia, the audience, and himself, that Octavia is no longer his family. 

It took Bellamy three years to forgive Echo for her actions on the ground. When he sees her again, there’s the distinct possibility of Bellamy either being told or realizing for himself that... she is making the same decisions she would’ve made six years ago. And if she tries to kill Clarke? They’re right back where they were in 4x01.

If you still think for one moment that Bellamy Blake wouldn’t be willing to stop calling Echo family for the same reasons he denounced his sister, who had been family for almost his whole life? I don’t know what else to say to you.

[peaamlipoetrydoctor]

Happy New Year 2022

[[Alt Text - the image is a screengrab from my Instagram account, so it appears in the square 3x3 format that has become such a well-established visual language in mainstream social media. The images are all taken from my daily walks during or shortly after First Lockdown 2020. TL peach-coloured roses. TC the statue of the shepherd plus sheep in Paternoster Square. TR a glimpse towards St Pauls through the Paternoster Square development. CL a sandstone church, Myddleton square, at dusk. CC the trouser legs of the statue of Fenner Brockway, Red Lion Square. CR from the shoreline of the Thames, looking back towards the steps and up to the sky and to the cranes above. BL the bright turquoise painted shop front of Epic Pies, with the image of me taking the photo appearing reflected in the glass door of the shop. BC two young men in smart casual business wear walk in front of a graffiti'd monster, with the Barbican towers in the background. BR inside the Barbican complex this time, two red hot poker flowers in the garden in front of a tower.]

Apologies in advance that this might be quite a dull post for anyone else who comes across it but I haven't yet summarized my year in writing for 2021 and it's finally occurring to me that if I don't, no-one else will... My plan, then, is to write up the summary today and over the next couple of days, I'll put a copy of the poems that are already "out in the world" into the few posts following, for future reference.

So, first up, I have to acknowledge that 2021 was when I completed my doctoral thesis and had the corrections accepted:

Working through climate grief: A first person poetic inquiry.

It's on its way into the British Library ETHOS database and can also be found on my supervisor's website, Dr Steve Marshall / writing.

Turning to poetry, I think I will always have a special heart-leap of joy at the thought of Allegro Poetry, which was the very first poetry journal to publish any of my work - and double bless the editor Sally Long, who took a piece both in March (Lockdown, issue 26) and September (Spring Equinox in Leeds, issue 27).

Next up, I was included by Dissonance Magazine in their month-long special focus on NaPoWriMo writings , April 2021(National Poetry Writing Month).

This was "I Come From" which was one of my early doctoral poems about the shifting consciousness of coming to see myself as within-Nature and from-Nature, not separate-from or superior-to, as is still quite normal, I think, in many Western culture contexts.

NB I see that Dissonance had to go on hiatus in May 2021 due to a personal emergency, and I vm hope that the emergency is loosing its grip and normality is returning...

Also linked to NaPoWriMo, my poem "Rage is the Thing with Wings" was a featured poem in response to one of the daily prompts, chosen towards the end of the month (Day 25) by convener and curator, Maureen Thorsten. A sort-of nonsense poem, but a fun one to write.

In May, Muse Pie Magazine accepted "Small Talk" for Shot Glass, an online journal for short poetry (14 lines or fewer).

In the summer, Wingless Dreamer accepted a villanelle about Midnight, "The Midnight Hush" and (yeay!) it placed as one of the 10 finalists in that competition; I had another piece accepted in the Decembre competition later in the year, "Hope in Mid-Winter", although that one had to content itself with simply being published.

In October, another moment of great gratitude - three poems published in issue 2 of Paddler Press who, to my astonishment and joy, then picked one of these to be one of their Pushcart Nominations for 2021 - "Before Lockdown, I Used to Walk to Work..."

In November, "The Postman's Park" appeared in the 2021 City Lit anthology of creative writing, Between the Lines 2021.

And then, at the end of November, another joy, another first - placed as a finalist in a competition that carried a modest cash prize for all 10 finalists. This is officially the first time I've received ££ for any of my writing. And there's been QUITE a bit of writing over the years.

This was "To My Executors" for the Literary Taxonomy competition. The challenge is to write a new piece linking someone else's first and last lines. Here, the source material was from Katherine Mansfield.

[esselley]

hi! so i just made an archive of our own account and i don't know what to post first. do you have any tips or advice for posting on ao3? do you have any tips for ao3 in general? thank you!

Hi there anon! Thank you for your question!

First things first: I think to a certain extent, what to post first is going to be entirely up to you. Whatever you feel like writing, whatever format it’s in, you should write it up and post it! Or, depending on how long you’ve been using the site as a guest, you can look through other people’s content to pay attention to tagging, author’s notes, formatting – that kind of thing. AO3 is user-friendly in most ways, and you’ll grasp it pretty quickly.

But, I do have a couple tips to help you out on your first run-through (and actually some helpful tricks I think some more familiar users may not know, as well)! 

BTW since we’re on the topic, if you use the subscribe function on AO3!!! Did you know about the different ways to subscribe to an author, a series, or an individual work?

You can only subscribe to an author from their dashboard or their profile page! If you are in the middle of reading a particular fic, and you hit the subscribe button at the top of the page, you will only subscribe to updates for that fic. Same deal if you want to subscribe to a series, you must be on the series page. Subscribing to a fic within that series will only subscribe you to that specific fic – you will get updates if that story is updated/chapters are added, but not if a new work is added to the series.

I suspect some people are unaware of this, due to the frequent amount of subscriptions I get on one-shots! (But, idk… maybe there’s just some really hopeful people out there laijefliajelsjf)

Anyway, now, onto the rest of this textbook (it got long)!

NEW WORK vs DRAFTINGWhen you go to post your very first work on AO3, you’ll go to Post > New Work at the very top to open up AO3′s drafting tool. From here, you can go through and copy over a work from Word or Google docs or whatever writing program you use, or just write up your fic in the post box itself! 

Either way you choose, you can then decide to post your work right then and there (Post Without Preview), or if you are still editing it, you can choose the Preview option. This will take you to the work as it will appear once posted; from there you can go back to the editing page, which will now have a Save Without Posting option. Use this if you would just like to save your work and come back to it later. Note: drafts are saved for one month only.

HTML vs RICH TEXTWhen you open your drafts/start a new work, the main field for your text has two options: HTML or Rich Text. HTML just shows you all HTML codes in your work. Rich Text is probably what you want to work in while editing, because you’ll only see this bar in that format:

However, sometimes you will want to use the HTML section in order to copy over text from another source that allows HTML format; for instance, Tumblr! I always copy the HTML from my tumblr fics over to AO3 when posting, because it is the easiest/fastest way to ensure the formatting stays intact. Here’s where to find that:

AVOID BACKDATED DRAFTSThis is a pitfall I encountered with my first fic I ever posted. When you create a draft, the date of posting defaults to the date you first saved the draft. So if you are like me and you draft fics way in advance of posting, you need to make sure to update the post date before you actually hit post, or it will backdate your fic – this happened with This Place in the Sky, and it was several hours before I realized it had backdated by a week, and no one was seeing it T.T Learn from my mistakes, younglings

(And if you want to backdate a draft, then you would go in here to alter the date.)

ITALICS ISSUESome people have noticed an issue with AO3 that causes fics to have odd spaces after punctuation (periods, quotation marks, dashes). This is a glitch related to italicizing when you transfer over fics from another source. To avoid having to search your entire fic for those spaces, always italicize the punctuation that precedes/follows your italicized words. For instance: 

“No!” – quotations/exclamation not italicized, glitch makes it show up as: 

“No!” – all punctuation italicized, now shows up as:

:D It’s just less of a headache to have to comb through and find all the random spaces, I find, when you just italicize beforehand! A preemptive strike. 

PARAGRAPH SPACINGLet’s look at the variations of line spacing in a posted fic: 

And here’s what this looks like in AO3′s Rich Text editor:

Sorry that is so tiny, but notice the clear difference in spaces between paragraphs while editing! There’s no actual correct way to do this, but! The “regular” option of spacing is the most common on AO3, and also the easiest to read. Avoid the no spacing option at all costs! It can be a huge headache to read, unless you are indenting paragraphs (less common on AO3, but acceptable). I tend to dislike the double spacing option as well because I feel like it breaks up the flow of wording, but that’s just personal preference.

HOW TO AVOID DOUBLE SPACING BETWEEN PARAGRAPHS

Frequent posters may also have noticed a thing AO3 does where it will insert double spaces at random intervals, often for large sections of the fic at a time, for no discernible reason. This happens often when you copy your work over from another source. But there’s an easy fix!

On MS Word and Google docs, find the “Add space after paragraph” option, and enable it for every fic you write. When you hit Enter (ONCE) to go to a new paragraph, it will autospace for you (meaning, you should not need to double tap the Enter key).

Now when you copy this over to AO3, it will read ONE SPACE reliably, giving you that regular spacing option up above. Cool news: if you copy your HTML from Tumblr to HTML on AO3, you don’t even need to worry about this. HTML be chill like that

QUICK HTML CODESAnother thing I see people asking is how to add hyperlinks! But also, did you know you can add links, bolded, and italicized text to your summary/notes as well? You just have to put them in HTML, and this:

ItalicsBoldHyperlink

will show up as:

You can easily bold/italicize/add links in the Rich Text editor, but summary/notes are HTML only and you will have to use the above. These are the most useful/common options you’ll need, I think. Try to preview before posting to make sure you got it right (and haven’t bolded your entire summary and the world with it on accident). 

LINK BACK TO TUMBLRThere’s an easy way to link your stories to Tumblr (or Twitter) that automatically includes your title, tags, summary, and all other relevant information right in the post! Just hit this button at the top of your fic, once it’s posted – it’ll take you to the Tumblr log-in screen, so log-in and from there you can edit the post. This is what I use to make all my AO3 fic posts on Tumblr \o/

TAGS/SYNOPSISFinally, more of a stylistic note! Be thoughtful when tagging your fic/writing a synopsis. In general, try to be clear and concise, so people can see what they’re getting into at a glance. Tag what’s important to the theme and tone of your fic. This really varies from person to person… maybe you want to tag every single thing your fic encompasses! I find really long tags to be overwhelming when browsing AO3, and prefer simple ones. I tend to overtag more for smut-heavy/PWP than I do for longer, plot driven fics.  

Your summary should also be clear and to the point, and describe the content of the fic. You can put any other thoughts in your beginning and end notes; if you are leaning towards saying anything like “sorry this sucks this is my first fic/I am bad at summaries/etc” just leave that out! If you don’t like summaries, use a quote from the fic. You don’t have to apologize for posting, even if you don’t think it’s a Shakespearean masterpiece. You still wrote a fic, and that’s awesome!

This is everything I could think of for the time being…I hope it’s helpful!!