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cringecompanionapologist · 1 year ago

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Since I've Got a Transcript to Play With: More Stuff About The Cradle of the Snake

I promise I'll get round to the Kiss of Death and Eldrad Must Die stuff eventually, but being able to screenshot the dialogue of The Cradle of the Snake means I can do a more thorough analysis and I can't resist. I love this story too much.

Off course, this is mostly gonna be a bunch of 5/Turlough stuff, Turlough in General stuff, and so on. I'm also trying to figure out exactly how the Mara is supposed to work, since it's a bit confusing.

Now, since I Don't Know When to Quiet, there are too many screenshots for one post, so I'm going over each part individually. This post is just The Cradle of the Snake Part 1. It'll still be long, so here's a break:

The Cradle of the Snake Part 1, or Turlough Did Nothing Wrong

Everyone's low-key a dick to Turlough in this first part, before it's revealed that the Doctor's been possessed by the Mara. Turlough basically serves as a red herring, based entirely on the fact that nobody trusts him. It's actually pretty obvious that the Mara jumped from Tegan to the Doctor (I like to refer to it as an pSTD a pSychically Transmitted Demon, because I'm weird), but the writing not only has other characters suspect that Turlough has been possessed, but kind of expects the listener to suspect that as well, to some extent.

To be fair, you have to consider the timeline here. Putting all the Fifth Doctor stories, or any Doctor Who stories in chronological order is basically impossible, but Turlough's first adventures on the TARDIS actually have a pretty clear timeline:

We start with the Black Guardian Trilogy, and a couple short stories placed turning this timeframe. Mawdryn Undead, Terminus, Enlightenment. In Terminus, Nyssa leaves. The Companion Chronicle Freakshow takes place immediately after Enlightenment. Cobwebs, where Nyssa is reintroduced is also treated as if it's only a day or two after Enlightenment, so it probably goes immediately after Freakshow. Cobwebs is the start of a trilogy, in which all three stories are back-to-back, with The Cradle of the Snake being the third story of said trilogy.

So, we have Mawdryn Undead, Terminus, Enlightenment, Freakshow, Cobwebs, The Whispering Forest, The Cradle of the Snake. The Black Guardian trilogy was like less than a week ago by this point, so Turlough really hasn't gotten much of a chance to prove himself trustworthy. The continued suspicion, even if irrational, is understandable.

Anyway, Turlough's first scene in the story is basically him being told to fuck off:

Nyssa's focus is completely on Tegan at the moment and she doesn't feel like turning away to recap everything to Turlough.

Eventually, Nyssa has the Doctor and Turlough leave, so Tegan will talk to her. She'll only talk to Nyssa. So the boys get sent to the console room and the Doctor tries to explain the Mara to Turlough, though the explanation still doesn't make a whole of sense.

The Doctor already suspects that Turlough could be easily influenced by the Mara. This is funny, because, by the end of this story, though the whole TARDIS team gets possessed at some point, Turlough spends the least amount of time possessed out of the entire group. Tegan doesn't spend much time possessed in this, but she already had two serials of being the Mara's primary target and has earned a break.

It's kind of assumed that the Mara targets whoever's the most "corruptible" or "least good", but that isn't true. From what we'll see here, the Mara goes for the nearest convenient target and seems to even prefer targeting more "virtuous" people, being really determined to possess Nyssa.

Speaking of Nyssa, she's trying to help Tegan through this Mara crisis and the Mara takes over for a bit. The audio includes a "sting" to signify the Mara's influence popping up, usually when someone shows off the snake mark on their arm, but the first time the sting is used is to mark the shift from Tegan speaking, to the Mara speaking through her.

Tegan sounds normal for the first few lines after the sting, but it builds up. The first real Mara!Tegan line actually sort of fits with some of Tegan's mindset. She doesn't trust Turlough and she sees the three STEM genius aliens she travels with as having a connection with each other that she's not part of. But, Tegan likes Nyssa, so this resentment is normally kept in check. But, the Mara uses it to manifest. Instead of more traditional "sinful" thoughts, the Mara's connection to its hosts is based on mean-spiritedness. We all think mean things about other people, often unfairly. The Mara can take control through those mean thoughts.

So, Mara!Tegan wants to spread its influence and Nyssa is the only other person in the room, making her the nearest convenient target. Speaking through Tegan, it wants her to take the Mark of the Snake.

The Mara is so Obviously Evil that it kind of sucks at corrupting people. Back in Kinda, it messed with Tegan's head to wear her down in her dreams, but Nyssa is fully conscious and aware of what the Mara is. The Mara's attempted persuasion is also pretty vague "join me it'll be fun". It doesn't work on Nyssa because it honestly wouldn't work on most people.

But, there's also the subtext of Nyssa and Tegan being alone in a bedroom, so maybe that's what it's really going for. We'll see that the Mara has a habit of revealing itself to it's victims in these sorts of small, private spaces. By being a mark on someone's arm, under their sleeve, you have a pattern of two people being alone together, with one of them removing or pulling back some of their clothing while talking about the other person enjoying themselves.

So, all this Mara Seduction stuff causes enough of a racket for the Doctor to get involved, Turlough right behind him, though apparently not following close enough, because the Doctor has to ask where he is.

Turlough has to be there to do the Traditional Male Companion Role of being strong, even though that really isn't his thing. Whenever the Doctor needs to lift or move something heavy, he calls Turlough to help him. Nyssa is right there, but he doesn't ask her for help. I don't think this is anything significant, but I find it amusing.

Once again, Turlough was clearly right behind the Doctor when he asked where he was. He wasn't in his direct line of sight, so the Doctor lost track of him, apparently. He was close enough to hear Mara!Tegan when the Doctor came in, so he had to have been right there.

Also, Turlough just asked a simple "yes or no" question and the Doctor decided it would take too long to just say "yes".

So, the Doctor sort of telepathically links with Tegan to face the Mara, who decides that his Complicated Time Lord Brain would be much more fun to play around in.

The Doctor doesn't exactly sacrifice himself, but he believes that his Complicated Time Lord Brain could resist the Mara better than any of his companions could. He will soon be proven very wrong.

Back in the land of the living, the Doctor's obviously in pain and Nyssa wants to wake him up, even though the Doctor said not to. Turlough wants to follow orders.

Naturally, they both get snapped at for waking the Doctor and interrupting the Mara battle. Nyssa said she'd take the blame for it, but Turlough apologizes as well without Nyssa saying it was her idea. Either she decided not to take the blame for it, or Turlough decided to share the blame. The dialogue suggests the latter, since Turlough never says it was Nyssa's idea. This would imply that Turlough not wanting to wake the Doctor wasn't about him not wanting to get in trouble for disobeying him. He just didn't want to disobey the Doctor, out of either loyalty or trust of his judgement. Loyalty and trust aren't really Turlough's thing. This is actually new. This actually will influence some of Turlough's actions throughout this story. He goes out of his way to help the Doctor and protect Nyssa and Tegan at various points throughout the story.

The Doctor decides that they need help with the Mara and sets coordinates for Manussa, but he gets the date wrong. This isn't that unusual, but the Doctor reacts as if one of his companions had to have messed with the controls for this to happen.

In hindsight, this was the Mara's influence on the Doctor. The Mara touched the controls. That would also be the case if the Mara possessed one of the companions, and everyone is quick to assume that it has to be one of them.

It doesn't seem like the Mara is speaking through the Doctor here. He might be holding it back. This might be the Mara speaking through the Doctor trying to cover its tracks and turn the TARDIS team against one another, but later in the story, after it's revealed that the Doctor is possessed, Mara!Doctor is obviously evil. The Mara doesn't hide itself as well as it would have to be doing here, so this probably really is the Doctor with no memory of setting the coordinates.

No one suspects the Doctor of being possessed here. The companions are all wondering which one of them it is. The fact that the Doctor was just in direct contact with the Mara isn't considered. They all assume his Complicated Time Lord Brain would protect him.

Of course, if a companion has been corrupted, Turlough becomes the prime suspect. Aware of this, he's quick to wander off from the rest of the group.

The Doctor, still seeming himself, takes Tegan to a specialist to check for any lingering Mara influence. Turlough is willing to hang out with just Nyssa, since, having not been there for the Black Guardian reveal, she's less aggressive in her suspicions than Tegan is. But, he's still worried.

Nyssa is also suspicious of Turlough though.

Tegan is confirmed to be free of the Mara for the time-being, but the Doctor wants a word alone with the doctor that confirmed this.

The Mara doesn't really try to convince Kerrem here to accept the mark. It just waits for Tegan to leave, shows itself, and Kerrem's possessed now. He's not a main character and we haven't got time to know him, so the story just doesn't want to waste time with him.

And that's the cliffhanger for the end of Part 1. I think the next part will be more interesting than this one. But, there you go.

#the cradle of the snake #vislor turlough #fifth doctor #tegan jovanka #nyssa of traken #turlough did nothing wrong

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recurring-polynya · 3 years ago

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Do I mind if I ask how you approach writing longer fic? I've always struggled to write anything more than maybe two chapters long and I'm curious if you have a particular method to how you approach such stories.

Thank you so much for this ask! I absolutely love it when people ask me for writing advice because it makes me feel like a Smart Person Who Knows Things.

Before we start, here is one grain of salt to take all of this with: I have a naturally long-form brain. It is very hard for me to write something less than 1k. Short fiction is great, and there is nothing wrong with sticking to short things if that's what your brain likes to do.

So. You have decided to write a story. This is going to focus on "stories". Some people write fic that's more freeform or whatever, I am not going to cover that. What I mean by a story is this:

It starts

Some stuff happens

It ends

It is highly probable that your story contains a change of state, which could be that a villain is defeated, or a goal is reached, but it could also be that character falls in love with another, or someone learns to like broccoli.

I like to start out by completing the sentence, "This is a story where _______". This is basically like coming up with a summary for an ao3 post, except that it doesn't need to be catchy. Lots of different kinds of things could go in that blank! It could literally be what happens: This is a story where Ichigo goes back in time and punches young Aizen in the nose. It could be about what you want to explore: This is a story where Hitsugaya gets a better understanding of his zanpakutou. It could be about the vibe you want to achieve: This is an AU where everyone is in a punk rock band and has cool hair and outfits. The idea of this is to clearly define what you, the author, is interested in writing. Make sure it feels right! Maybe you pick the first one, but when you say it out loud, you say, "You know, I really just want Ichigo to go back in time so he can horse around with young Renji and Rukia and punching Aizen in the nose is just an excuse for that." That may sound dumb, but it's fine, actually! Most people don't read stories strictly for the plot, they read stories for the implications of those plots! Will my favorite two characters kiss? Will there be funny interactions between these two groups of characters? Will there be sick fights? Stories are excuses to have scenes. Sometimes, you will have a story where the interesting sequence of events is the draw, but the point is to know what you're about.

Once you feel happy with your "mission statement", you need to decide the bounds of your story: where it starts and where it ends. It may be easier to start with the end. In some cases, it may be obvious from your mission statement: everyone gets home, a villain is defeated, Kenpachi realizes the meaning of friendship. On the other hand, let's look at that punk rock AU. You've picked a vibe, but you don't really have a natural story arc. It has to have a destination, though, otherwise, it's not really a story, it's a recipe for 3 chapters of an abandoned fanfic. So brainstorm a little: Maybe they get a record deal? Maybe they win a Battle of the Bands? Maybe Byakuya accepts that the band is actually good and tells Rukia he is proud of her. Do not settle for a plot just because it works. Pick something that makes you excited! You're the one who is gonna have to write it!

I said that we needed to pick a beginning point, too, but I'm actually going to skip that for now. The next thing I do is think of all the Big Scenes I want to write, the ones you are hype to write, the ones that pop in your head as you think about the premise. Make a bullet list. They don't need to be in order. The descriptions don't need to be super detailed, but write down anything about it that is important to you. If there's a mood or a snippet of dialogue or a joke you want to make, go ahead and jot that down so you don't forget it later. What you're doing now is putting broad blotches of color on a canvas, filling in space and leaving the detail for later.

Once you are pretty happy with what you have down, try to arrange it in chronological order. Put your end at the end (if it wasn't one of your big scenes, add it now). The next task is figuring out how to traverse your scenes. You've already picked out where you want to spend the majority of your energy. The rest, I regret to tell you, is your slog writing. Now, it often happens that you will find joy in some of these scenes and your best writing may occur there, but that's serendipity. These are the scenes that you are gonna have to make yourself sit down and write, so you honestly want to limit them to just the ones you need.

So how do we do this? Look at the first thing on the list. Can you start there? If so, congrats, that's your beginning. If you can't, what needs to happen to get to there? Where can you start so that you can get to your first fun scene as soon as possible? There. That’s it. You’ve picked your beginning, good job! Now, go through the rest of your list, and add in things that must happen, even if you don’t particularly look forward to writing them. The characters need to travel from geographic point A to point B. Shuuhei needs to say something that Izuru hears and misinterprets. The Central 46 makes a new law. If you have a good idea of how these things happen, go ahead and write them down, but it’s okay if you don’t know yet. Fill in all the blanks so that if you think of each bullet list as a scene, you could read it as a story, start to end. Once you get writing, you might add more scenes, or move things around or whatever, but you should have a thing that functions as a story.

If you struggle with this, an alternative is a story with a very strong structure that is going to guide you though what you have to write.Here are two examples from my own stories Hold On, Hold On (which is only one chapter, but the principle is the same) is structured around the 5 stages of grief. Not Broken, Just Bent takes place over roughly a week, and I just decided what happened every day of the week. See You on the Other Side takes place in the middle of a bunch of canon events, which worked at mile markers.

Congratulations. You’ve just made a rough outline!

Special note for avoiding burnout!: I am a slogger. I will drag myself through the broken glass of an interminable plot to get to a single thirsty scene. That's why, at this stage, I try to look at the ratio of what I want to write to what I must write. It's gonna vary for everyone, but this is a hobby, and if looking at this proto-outline makes you feel deeply tired, maybe this isn't a good story to be devoting your time to! Can you carve it down? Can you chuck two scenes you really want to write and get rid of 80% of the slog? Or maybe you can't! In that case, just write that thirsty scene as a standalone drabble! Or just go work on something else! Maybe in the future, this one will come back to you and you’ll have a fresh idea or a renewed enthusiasm for it.

Another thing I sometimes like to do at this point is to write out some notes about my characters and their motivations and moods. Character A is homesick. Character B is so determined to defeat the enemy that they are having a hard time being sympathetic to Character A. Character C cares for both A and B and is trying to support them both. This is sort of background info that you want to keep in your head as you are writing. Depending on the type of story you are writing, this might actually be the main plot, or it might be happening subtly, but adding to the emotional impact of the story. It’s very easy for me to write these sorts of emotional arcs, but if you struggle with that, you may wish to go ahead and made a more detailed outline for that, too.

Now, it’s time to start writing! I am great at beginnings-- it is very often the case for me that the opening scene was one of my Big Tentpole Scenes. (Before you hate me too much, I make up for this by being double horrible at endings; just let me have this) Usually, I will start at the beginning and write linearly for as long as I can until I get stuck. Then, I will look forward on my outline and do the next chronological scene that I feel like writing. In general, if I sit down to write and there is something I have an urge to write, that trumps everything else. Inspiration is a precious commodity, and you should embrace it when it hits! You can slog any day. I will occasionally hold off writing a scene that I really want to, because I am saving it, like a prize for myself for getting that far. This is a very personal process of figuring out what motivates your brain and then giving your brain what it needs to be its most productive.

Eventually, you will run out of things you are excited to write, but the good news is, you’ve got a bunch of story now! Odds are that what’s left is going to be a lot of those connective tissue scenes, and you’re just going to have to do them, except that now, because you’re connecting two concrete points instead of two abstract points, it will be a lot easier. You can continue running jokes you’ve started. Maybe you invented a cafe in an earlier scene where your characters hang out and you can have them return there. Try to think of ways to make these scenes more fun, both for yourself to write and for your reader to read.

Around this time, I like to start refining that rough strokes outline into what I will call an “as-built” outline. (This is an engineering term where you update your plans or models for something to reflect any changes that had to be made along the way). This is a great activity to do at times when you feel like you have writers block. I write down every scene I have written as a 2-3 word blurb, in order. I break the scenes into what I think makes logical chapters, and I will do a word count on those prospective chapters and write it down. As you do this, you will realize that maybe you can move a scene from here to there, which will make it 1000% easier to write. Things may be happening too much, or you’ve got the characters eating three times in the same chapter. If you have subplots and dangling threads, this is where you make sure they get closure. I know this sounds very headache-y, but you are so far along in the story at this point that it’s really not-- it’s a way to look at the problems you have left. Use some sort of formatting (I like to bold things I haven’t done and sometimes I put them in red) and it gives you a very visual to-do list.

You specifically mentioned multi-chapter fanfics and I admit that I don’t tend to think in chapters, I tend to think of the story as a whole and just break it up where it feels natural. The as-built outlining I described is very helpful in making sure that my chapters feel balanced. They don’t necessarily need to be the same length, but I like them to have the same amount of stuff in them. One chapter may basically contain one long scene, and other may contain many short ones. I don’t tend to, but you can certainly have a fanfic that varies between short and long chapters, that can actually be an interesting effect. But like I said, I always like to know what I am doing, and so having it mapped out, you can say “welp, this is what I’ve done, how do I feel about that?”

Polynya, you may be saying at this point, do you write the whole fanfic before you post any of it? and I regret to inform you, the answer is yes. A lot of people write as they go, and I have made one attempt at this and I didn’t like it. I don’t like locking myself in, I just need to be able write out of order and go back and change things. Here is the story of a little in love: someone gave me an AU prompt and I got mildly obsessed with it, and wrote 5 snapshots drabbles in that universe, ending with a slight cliffhanger ending. I probably should have stopped there, but I decided to keep going. I wrote out an outline of 5 acts where the first act was detailed to the degree of each chapter being specified. The chapters here were much smaller than I usually make chapters: 1-2k. I wrote act i and ii and it was actually great, and then I hit act iii which required a lot of set up for misunderstandings and a mini romance arc. I couldn’t wing it, but nor could I figure it all out with outlining. I write dialogue in almost sort of an improv “Yes, and...?” style, so until I do it, I don’t know what’s going to happen. So, what I did was treat the second half of act iii as a complete story in the process I describe above, wrote the entire rest of it, and then posted it. One might notice that the chapter lengths grew to 3-5k each. I have two more acts to go, and I haven’t decided how I am going to do them yet, but I suspect I will treat each of them as their own mini-stories.

(I will admit that in Heart is a Muscle, I tend toward chapters that are about 10k long, and this is honestly too long, someone should smack me. If you like punchy chapters, 1-2k is good. I think 3-6k is probably an ideal chapter length. Is this how long the chapters are in my latest fanfic? Absolutely not.)

Okay, so there’s one more step, which is quality control. I am habitual re-reader-- I read my fanfics-in-progress over and over and over while I am working on them. I understand that not everyone does this, but I am usually the primary audience for my own writing, and this is the actual fun part for me. Nevertheless, you should re-read your work at least once, to make sure it hangs together.

This is purely optional, but I recommend it: get a writing friend (if you don’t like re-reading your work, I recommend this even more strongly). If you can get a full-service beta reader, that’s great, but if you can’t find someone, or if receiving that level of critique stresses you out, it’s perfectly valid to just find a friend who will read your stuff and a) shower you with compliments, b) reassure you about parts you aren’t sure about (or suggest ways to help) and c) point out any huge problems you missed. When I am writing a long fanfic, it is a huge motivational factor for me to be able to send my beta chapters as I finish them. If you are already an established writer, and you have people who consistently comment on your fic, they might be overjoyed to get a sneak peak at your work.

And that’s it! That’s the way I do it, anyway! Some people are able to sit down and write a very detailed outline and the write it start-to-finish. Good for them, I say! I have tried this and it doesn’t work great for me. I will admit that some of my fics (especially my early ones) I just sat down and banged out whole-cloth like an insane person and they are generally better than the ones I actually plan out, but that’s not a reproducible process.

As one final mechanical note, I usually write in Google Docs, which I can access on multiple devices (I used to write a lot on my phone), has convenient sharing functionality, and I use the ao3 html formatting script add-in. I generally have two documents for a single story-- one is the outline, and any other notes I want to have handy. I’ll usually put a trashcan space at the bottom for scenes that got cut but I don’t want to lose. The other is the fanfic itself.

I hope this is helpful! Please feel free to follow up with other questions and good luck with your writing!

#writing advice #longform writing

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st-just · 4 years ago

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I need a good podcast to listen to (informative or entertaining audio, not really looking for a story at the moment). Do you have any recommendations?

Oh do I!

But honestly, it depends on what you’re interested in?

So, like, historical lectures (in increasing order of my impression of obscurity)-

Mike Duncan’s Revolutions. Decent chance you’ve already heard of/listened to it, he’s one of the more commonly interviewed semi-intellectual pop historians at the moment (..that might come off as derogatory. Not intended. Just in terms of where he gets interviewed). A series on the great political revolutions of modernity, starting with England, though America, France, Haiti, Spanish America (told as an extended biography of Simon Bolivar), the July Revolution in France, 1848, the Paris Commune, Mexico, and Russia (currently ongoing, to be the last). The first two aren’t...bad, but no great either. Haiti is amazing and a topic that’s basically never covered in mainstream historical surveys. Honestly a better historical survey of the long 19th century in Europe and Latin America period than you’re likely to have gotten in school. The first dozen episodes of the Russia series are also a generally decent explanation of the development of marxist and anarchist thought in the 19th century.

Partick Wyman’s Fall of Rome and Tides of History. Fall of Rome is what you would expect from the name, though rather than trying to do any sort of general survey after the introduction he focuses episodes on specific regions or themes rather than just a slice of time, generally. Tides of History is the same for the period from 1250-1550 (I think? might be a century off there), which he considers Europe to have developed the necessary conditions for the creation of the modern world. More recently, still under the Tides of History title, he’s moved on to early humanity, with the most recent episode being on predynastic Egypt. Found of, like, hypothetical case studies/explaining events and situations by describing what the biography of someone unexceptional living through it would have looked like. Spices things up with interviews with other academics and book club discussions with his producer on occasion

Sharyn Eastaugh’s History of the Crusades and Reconquista. On the opposite end, these very much are chronological narrative histories of the periods and subjects (including the Albigensian and Baltic crusades). If you’re the sort of person whose eyes glaze over at lots of names and places or zones out after fifteen minutes spent on one battle, you’ll bounce off of this, but she does an excellent job of getting into/trying to describe the personalities involved, and digs up plenty of interesting anecdotes to spice things up. First part of HotC excellent to listen to as you read Foucault’s Pendulum.

(Okay, I’m too lazy to write out descriptions of all of them, but History of Japan, Egypt and Byzantium, Age of Napoleon and Fall of Civilizations are all also good)

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Still history, but more conversational

Robert Evans’ Behind The Bastards. Which, again, decent chance you’ve heard of. Biographies of the worst people in history interspersed with comedic banter with a rotating cast of guests. Early episodes are more comedic and obvious, stuff about Hitler’s attempts at painting or Saddam Huessein’s poetry and such. After that focuses on digging into terrible people and horrifying things that you probably wouldn’t have heard of, though! (also gets significantly more openly political).

Isaac Meyer and Demetria Spinrad’s Criminal Records. A true crime podcast but instead of serial killers its about digging up really weird of interesting crimes or court cases - ‘the oldest court case in ancient mesopotamia for which any record still exists’ is probably my favorite example. The hosts are a couple with a solid rhythm to their banter, and in between episodes on like the Stonewall riots or Jack Johnson or William Calley, they really do dig up some wonderfully obscure and bizarre bits of history.

Anthony Kaldellis’ Byzantium and Friends, an interview series with various experts in the study of byzantine/eastern roman history and related fields. Far more than any of the others listed, this is academics talking to academics for a presumed audience of academics, so neither a great introduction if you don’t know the field at all nor very snappy or highly produced or polished and often more than a bit dry. Still, really interesting and extremely current in terms of the state of the field.

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Pale Reflections is the unofficial-official Pale read-along podcast, analyzing a week’s updates at a time as they release. Useful substitute for having any friends irl you can actually talk to about new updates! Also good for pointing out the obvious things you missed and letting you feel smart for noticing things the hosts didn’t.

Pale in Comparison is a recently started Pact live read podcast where one of the hosts has read Pact and the other hasn’t but has read Pale, trying to figure out what Blake’s in for and understand the setting with that accurate-but-incomplete grounding. Doing an excellent job so far of making me want to reread Pact!

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Beyond that mostly scripted fiction which you don’t want, various politics/current events/opinion shows whose value basically depends on if there’s an ideological niche you wanted to fill in your news diet, and a couple Canadian investigative journalism shows which are probably a bit parochial. So hopefully one of those appeals!

#reply #plumcoloredblazer #podcast #history #recomendation #in this essay I will #honestly I need to find some more history shows by non white dudes at some point #but all the common recomendations just have way too high a banter to information ratio

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vikingqueer · 4 years ago

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music recommendations because i have some thoughts™

i don't wanna be that person who's like "my music taste is so weird lol" but i find that very often most of my friends don't really care for the music i like so i thought i'd just make a long ass post about it on tumblr instead. Fair warning, I'm very passionate about MIKA and The Mechanisms and so this very quickly got VERY long because it is part of my ongoing campaign to convince people to listen to mika and the mechs.

1) MIKA in general, but especially My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019) and No Place In Heaven (2015) (especially the Deluxe version!!)

MIKA is a kind of British singer (half Lebanese, grew up in France blabla), and you probably know him for Grace Kelly and Relax, Take It Easy from his first album Life In Cartoon Motion from 2007. He writes a lot of FUN music, interspersed with the occasional slightly sadder song, especially when looking at an album like No Place In Heaven, which contains a lot of songs with gay themes, resulting in some songs that are just a little bit ouch. He's originally classically trained and has a frankly RIDICULOUS range and idk he just writes very good pop music. Also I have so much respect for that time he talked about how a lot of pop is very fake, with like expensive cars and stilettos and mini skirts in the snow and said "Because I walk down the street, and I don't see any of that. I see fat women and gay men. I don't know... That's real". He's written 5 albums; My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019), No Place In Heaven (2015), The Origin Of Love (2012), The Boy Who Knew Too Much (2009), and Life In Cartoon Motion (2007).

For starters, I recommend listening to Last Party, Origin Of Love, Grace Kelly, Blame It On The Girls, Blue, Happy Ending, Pick Up Off The Floor, Last Party, Underwater, Tomorrow and Tiny Love (yes this is a long list but i REALLY love MIKA). If you want a slightly broader palette that's not just my favourites, I recommend the Mika starter pack on spotify.

2) The Mechanisms. I warn you. I am making this a thing. I have been obsessed with the mechs since last march.

Boy, where to start? The Mechanisms were a British 9 member space pirate story-telling cabaret that "died" in January 2020. They rewrite songs to fit retellings of various stories. I don't even know what genre I'd describe them as, but probably folk but steam-punk?? Their 4 "main" albums are concept albums, and I honestly just recommend listening to the from beginning to end in chronological order. A good way to get into the mechs is also to listen to UDAD and then watching the live show on youtube or alternately try giving Death To The Mechanisms a listen, to get good quality live show audio of TBI and various other stuff. Also, it was streamed on YouTube and someone combined the footage with the album audio and it rocks. Really, I think the mechs' best selling points are honestly just their concept albums:

Once Upon a Time (In Space) Their first album from 2012. I'd say this is the most "easily digestible" for the general public, since it's a retelling of various fairytales. So, what if Old King Cole was in fact not merry, but rather a cold-blooded dictator, intent on colonising as much of the galaxy as possible. What if Snow White was a general, looking to avenge what King Cole did to her sister, Rose. What if Cinderella was to be wedded to Rose the day that King Cole attacked in order to kidnap Rose? But y'know, In Space and also like every other mechs album it's a beautiful tragedy. Fave songs are Old King Cole, Pump Shanty, and No Happy Ending.

Ulysses Dies at Dawn You guessed it, it's a story about Odysseus, or Ulysses because I guess Ulysses is easier to rhyme or fit in the meter or something, idk. Ulysses is a war hero of unknown gender who is said to keep something that could take down the corrupt Olympians, meanest families in the City, in a vault to which only they know the passcode. Oedipus, Heracles, Orpheus, and Ariadne have been hired by Hades, who happens to be The Mechs' quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, to get into Ulysses' vault. I didn't care much for udad at first, but honestly it's got some real bangers and the story is really good. UDAD weirdly stands out as the only of the concept albums to not feature any gay relationships, per se. Fave songs are Riddle of the Sphinx, Favoured Son, and Underworld Blues.

High Noon over Camelot This is my favourite mehcs album. So basically, this is Arthurian legend, but it's a space western and Jonny D'Ville does a bad southern accent. This is the story of the cowboy lovers Arther, Lancelot, and Guinevere searching for the Galfridian Restricted Acces Interface Login, or GRAIL, in order to stop their world from falling into the sun. Meanwhile, Mordred and Gawaine are ruling Camelot, and Mordred has convinced Gawaine to try to establish peace with the Saxons by whom Mordred was raised, but Gawaine hates viciously. If you love getting your heart broken and songs by a fucking off the rails batshit preacher I HIGHLY recommend hnoc. Fave songs are Gunfight at the Dolorous Guard, Blood and Whiskey, and Once and Future King. Honorary mention for Hellfire because it awakens something animalistic in me.

The Bifrost Incident TBI is the frankly only good adaptation of norse mythology I've ever known of, and I say that as Dane who was literally forced to learn things about norse mythology in school because it's my heritage or whatever. I've been listening to TBI a lot lately because it's VERY good. It's definitely the most refined of the mechs' albums (because it's the newest) but also I just love a little bit of cosmic horror. 80 years ago, Odin, the All-Mother, ruler of Asgaard, launched a train through the wormhole Bifrost that would reduce the travel between Asgaard and Midgaard from 3 months to 3 days, but things didn't go quite as planned. Lyfrassir Edda of the New Midgaard Transport Police is trying to solve the case of why suddenly the train has arrived 80 years late; to figure out whether it was accident or maybe it was sabotaged by Loki, who was allegedly sentence to death her murder of Baldur, by the Midgaardian resistance led by Loki's wife Sigyn, or maybe by Thor, who was to take over after Odin, and who holds quite the grudge because he used to be a friend of Loki's. You might've heard the song Thor from this album, it's apparently quite popular. Fave songs are Loki, Ragnarok III: Strange Meeting, and Ragnarok V: End of The Line. Yet again an honorary mention: Red Signal because while Lovecraft was a bitch, his invocations are fucking RAW.

Basically, the Mechanisms do all of their performances in character as captain first mate Jonny D'Ville, quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, pilot DrumBot Brian, master-at-arms Gunpowder Tim, science officer Raphaella la Cognizi, doctor Baron Marius Von Raum (neither a baron, nor a doctor), archivist Ivy Alexandria, engineer Nastya Rasputina, and The Toy Soldier, who is, as usual, present. You can find very obscure lore about the crew of the Aurora here, tidbits on Tales To Be Told and TTBT Vol. 2, such as One Eyed Jacks, The Ignominious Demise of Dr. Pilchard, Gunpowder Tim vs. The Moon Kaiser, Lucky Sevens, and Lost in the Cosmos.

If you feel like listening to a full 40-50 minute album to find out if you like a band is a bit much, I recommend listening to one of the mini stories Alice, Swan Song, or Frankenstein, which are about 12, 5 and 9:30 minutes respectively.

3) The Amazing Devil You know that guy who played Jaskier in the Witcher? I got into The Amazing Devil from spotify recommending them because I listened to the mechs, and apparently Joey Batey from The Amazing Devil is the same Joey Batey who was in the Witcher. Both him and Madeleine Hyland are VERY talented singers and songwriters and their second album The Horror and the Wild makes me go out into the forest and SCREAM. I listened to it on repeat for like a month straight. I guess they'd also be considered folk, but like. New Folk. Also yes, this is another British artist, I don't know why I'm like this. I've never really gotten that into their first album, Love Run, but King slaps. As I understand there's this whole lore about the Blue Furious Boy and Scarlet Scarlet, Joey and Madeleine respectively, but unlike the Mechanisms it's actually possible to find out things about the actual real people and harder to find the obscure lore? I'm open for people to please help me. Fave songs are The Horror and the Wild, Farewell Wanderlust, and That Unwanted Animal, which is literally a third of their second album, but again. I haven't really listened to Love Run that much, and I just LOVE the harmonies on THATW. (also im gay and dramatic leave me alone)

4) dodie I have so much love for this woman. Like many others, I first knew dodie as doddleoddle on youtube. I think I first stumbled across her in probably 2015, because I distinctly already knew her before she released her first EP Sick of Losing Soulmates in 2016. I think I watched probably every video she's ever made in the span of a few weeks. I just loved her quiet sound and was absolutely HOOKED. Also she's actually the reason I got into MIKA originally, so thanks for that. Dodie just realeased her first album Build A Problem (in addition to her three EP's; the one mentioned above, You, and Human) and it slaps. Yes dodie is also British Fave songs are probably Monster, Rainbow, and In The Middle.

5) Cladia Boleyn Unfortunately, Claudia Boleyn only has three singles and that's it. She's been making content on youtube for quite a while, and that's how I first discovered her. I don't know what genre her music is, but I like it. The songs are Celesta, George, and Mother Maiden Crone, of which the latter is my favourite. I'm not saying Claudia Boleyn invented women in 2017 when she released Mother Maiden Crone, but she did. Also you guessed it, Claudia Boleyn is British.

6) Hozier I'm not about to tell you about Hozier. You know who he is. Listen to Nina Cried Power, Angel Of Small Death & The Codeine Scene, and Shrike. Also Hozier isn't stricly British in that he is definitely from A British Isle, but Ireland is not part of the UK. Give me a break.

7) Oh Land Oh Land IS DANISH. I like her early music best, because I'm not that into the electronic sound. I guess Oh Land is just you regular old pop, but with the occasional weird vibe? Oddly enough, I like her first album Fauna best. Unfortunately I haven't really listened to her newest album Family Tree much, but it seems good? Fave songs are Frostbite, Love You Better and Family Tree. I cried on the bus, first time I listened to the Danish version of Love You Better, Elsker Dig Mer because my mother tongue always just hits harder. Also Frostbite is Oh Land doing a duet with herself which is pretty cool.

8) Oysterband This is a live recommendation. I mean they're a decent folk band and all, but they're a fucking experience live. If you like folk and you ever get the opportunity to see Oysterband live, do it. Unfortunately, yes. They are British. Either way, they are incredible on a scene and I think they deserve a mention for that.

9) Ben Platt Honestly don't know much about this guy, but he's not British and he was in Dear Evan Hansen. He released an album in 2019, Sing To Me Instead, and I just think it's a good album, there isn't really not much more to it. Fave songs are Grow As We Go, Bad Habit, and In Case You Don't Live Forever.

and thats all for now. this has been a ramble. shout out to you if you actually read all of this, especially the mechs part.

#music stuff #amalie.txt #music recommendations #mika #the mechanisms #the amazing devil #dodie #claudia boleyn #hozier #oh land #oysterband #ben platt

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rayofspades · 4 years ago

Text

How to Write a Horror Story: The Magnus Archives

This post is kinda weird since most tumblr fandom content is based on the assumption that Everyone Has Seen The Thing, but since this is a transcript of a video essay, it’s more broad.

I might link the video in a reblog since, you know, tumblr doesn’t like links.

Anyways, here’s the post:

Hello Jon, apologies for the decep-

I’ve seen a lot of mystery shows in my day, and some supernatural shows, and the common thread between them is that they kind of...fall apart as they go on.

Obviously, this is a generalization and I haven’t seen every mystery show or every paranormal show, but it’s a pretty common problem.

At this point in pop culture criticism, it’s basically common knowledge that these shows fall apart due to a lack of planning. If a mystery series is making shit up as it goes along while trying to surprise the audience, it’s going to stop making sense at some point. And if an episodic paranormal show is constantly trying to up the stakes, eventually it’s going to become absolutely ridiculous and stretch the audience’s suspension of disbelief past a breaking point.

Other people have already talked about this stuff to death, but today I want to talk about a paranormal mystery show that actually succeeds at what it set out to do.

The Magnus Archives is a podcast written by Jonny Sims and directed by Alexander J. Newall. It ran from 2016 to 2021 and it’s...really really good. It’s an episodic horror story, taking place at the fictional Magnus Institute where the head archivist reads various statements about people’s encounters with supernatural entities. It’s got it all; scary stories, mystery, an overarching plot, office comedy, office romance, office tragedy, a villain that’s making straight men everywhere question their sexuality, and an overall really solid structure.

If you listen to the Q+As put out by the writer and director, you’ll hear them talk about how they planned the series from the beginning, setting up the layout for each season. Some things were definitely changed throughout the actual writing process; that’s just inevitable and necessary when you’re working on a long running show, but in a general sense, they knew where they were going. But, writing a good story doesn’t just involve knowing where you’re going; it’s about executing whatever plan you have effectively. And I think the execution of The Magnus Archives is pretty brilliant, so I want to talk about it.

And for the record, I said “brilliant,” not “perfect.” I do have a lot of criticisms of this show, and I’m definitely going to talk about those too, because honestly? Even the problems with this show are interesting in their own right.

Ok, let’s go.

Oh, spoilers by the way. For the whole plot. Whole thing.

Part 1: Horror and Mystery

Ok, so The Magnus Archives has two separate plots going on: the episodic stories that can be listened to individually, and the underlying meta plot. The former is where most of the mystery storytelling takes place, and it’s a really engaging mystery. It’s starts off slow, and almost undetectable at first. The main character, Jon, also known as The Archivist, is just reading out old scary stories that people have delivered to the Magnus Institute. Stuff like; a college student sees a ghostly inhuman figure asking for a cigarette, a woman’s fiancé dies and she finds herself trapped in an empty graveyard, there’s this goth kid who apparently murdered his mother and then skinned her? But she’s kind of still alive? What the f*ck? Hope we never see that kid again. Also, this “Jurgen Lietner” guy wrote a bunch of cursed books and Jon knows about this? Are more books gonna come up? And then you’re like, wait is the goth kid who killed that burn victim the same goth kid who killed his mom like 8 episodes ago? Holy shit the family of that girl’s dead fiancé FUNDS THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE? Did this famous youtuber meet one of the missing people from episode one? The goth kid is back and he’s looking for Leitner books? The name “Michael” has come up like 6 times? Are they all the same guy? I just—who the f*ck is Jurgen Leitner?

So yeah, as you can see, a lot of these stories connect in cool ways, and I’ve only mentioned like, 0.2 percent of all of those connections. Furthermore, these stories are told out of chronological order, and sometimes the same scenario appears in more than one statement, told from different perspectives. This asymmetrical storytelling and odd doling out of information creates a mystery that’s really interesting. It also makes for a great re-listen, since you can retroactively see what elements were set up before you even realized that they were going to come back.

The audio format contributes to this too; you can’t just see that the table from episode three matches the pattern on the box in episode eight. You have to pick up on clues that were mentioned and pay attention to what people are describing, and it’s highly rewarding when the pieces all start to fit together.

There is a bit of a downside to this though. Technically The Magnus Archives is a horror story first and a mystery second, and these two elements can mesh in weird ways.

The horror is element is really strong. Each story is completely different, sometimes focusing on psychological horror, body horror, or supernatural versions of more primal fears like heights, darkness, enclosed spaces, etc. Basically, if you’re afraid of anything, there will be at least one episode of The Magnus Archives that gets under your skin.

Jonny Sims can really sell his stories through both his writing and acting. He plays Jon, by the way, and plagiarized his own birth certificate for the character name. (For future reference, Jonny is the actor, Jon is the character). Overall, he’s really good at writing prose, and each narrator has a very distinct voice even though the large majority of the stories are being read by one character/actor.

Obviously not every episode is a bull’s eye. Sometimes it’s due to the subjectivity when it comes to what you as an audience member are scared of, and occasionally it’s just weird writing decisions. I’m thinking specifically of episode 21 where the line “the sky ate him” is said, and it is the worst line in the entire show. The whole goddamn show. That’s it. That’s the number one worst line.

But still, overall, the horror storytelling is incredibly solid, and some episodes even gave me brand new fears, like the unholy isolation of being in space, or the concept that someone you love could be replaced by someone completely different without you noticing.

But here’s the thing;

A lot of good horror is based on the absence of explanation. Most of the episodes that gave me the most visceral reactions of genuine terror come from the first two seasons, because that’s when the audience has the least amount of information.

For example, in episode two, a really terrifying coffin is introduced. It’s creepy, it reacts very strangely to water for some reason, and appears to compel people to try opening it. By the end of the episode, the audience never finds out what’s in that coffin and that is a good thing. That is a huge part of what made that episode so unnerving.

And then a few seasons later, we do find out what’s in the coffin, and to be fair the answer is both very creative and very scary, but it also takes a lot of the punch out of episode two.

No matter how f*cked up your thing is, it’s not going to compare to whatever the audience can conjure up in their own mind after such a creepy set up. This problem isn’t just stuck in this one scenario either; there are a lot of early episodes that, while still good, seem a lot less creepy in hindsight after you learn more about the scenario.

I don’t think it’s bad writing, but I do think it’s a double-edged sword. Jonny Sims even mentions this sort of issue in the first Q+A.

But yeah, to sum up; the narration is good, the ideas are creative, and seeing the mystery unfurl itself is deeply compelling. And for the record, the mystery elements aren’t of the Sherlock Holmes variety. It’s less about finding out who did the thing, and more about discovering how all of these individual points are intricately connected, pulling on each other as they move. Woven together like a... oh shit what’s the word? Gah, it’s on the tip of my tongue. Ah, whatever, I’m sure it’s not like a running motif or anything.

Part 2: Stakes

One of the main reasons I stopped watching Supernatural is that it devolves into complete f*cking nonsense. At the end of season five, the boys literally defeat the devil, and then the show...keeps going? Which would be fine. It’s also, largely, an episodic show, so if they have more creative ideas, they could definitely keep going with it. In fact, there are some post season five episodes that I thought were pretty good. But as they kept trying to outdo themselves with Bigger Bads, it got kind of difficult to suspend my disbelief. And the final nail in the coffin for me was the end of season nine, when Crowly basically points out to the audience that the main characters keep dying and coming back to life, so there are no stakes. The most-badest bad guy can always be defeated because some new Thing can just come out of left-field, and dying isn’t even on the table as a threat since people have tons of ways of coming back to life.

The Magnus Archives, while being a show based in the supernatural, notably doesn’t bring anyone back to life, even though some very beloved characters die. I say “notably,” because in the season three Q+A, Jonny even says, “We make a point not to bring people back from the dead in Magnus, I know it sometimes feels like that, but we are very careful to never actually resurrect anyone.”

Upon listening to this I said “oh my god, these guys are the only writers left who at least kind of know what they’re doing.”

Also, as far as plot progression goes, The Magnus Archives is lowkey structurally perfect in the way the threats escalate in the underlying plot; both in terms of destruction and power and in terms of emotional consequences. Season one starts off with one major threat that’s dealt with by the end of the season, season two reveals the main villain, season three lays out the grander forces at play, season four ends the world, and season five is about un-ending the world. The difference between season one and season five is vast, but how we got there makes perfect sense.

As for the emotional stakes, let’s talk about themes and characters.

Part 3: Themes and Characters

At the very end of season two, it’s revealed that the supernatural happenings in the Magnus universe are the result of entities far beyond our understanding. Since their existence is so fundamentally different from what we can comprehend, they interact with the world through cursed items, creatures, and humans who have dedicated themselves to an entity.

A lot of people read this as a metaphor for late-stage capitalism, and I am one of those people. A bunch of faceless entities exploiting humans through means of dehumanization and causing people to suffer because it feeds them seems like an appropriate metaphor.

While we’re on this topic, I do want to talk about Elias, since he’s the main villain of the entire series and also one of my favorite villains of all time. The Magnus Archives is a series that deals with a lot of moral questions and has a lot of characters who do morally questionable things, so one might assume that the villain of said series is, you know, morally ambiguous and sympathetic to some extent despite being “the bad guy.”

Nope! No stops, full bastard. It’s great.

He falls under what I’ve deemed the “unbeatable boss” archetype. He just doesn’t tolerate insubordination or resistance, and that combined with his lack of empathy means that anyone who crosses him is either killed or brought to heel. His power set is cool too. On the surface the ability to see out of any eye and read minds sounds useful, but not deal breaking, but the way he uses that power to manipulate people and anticipate threats...yeah, it makes him kind of impossible to beat.

He’s just...so evil and he loves being evil and every single f*cking thing he does pisses me off and makes me want to kill him. It’s. Great.

Anyways, I think Elias’s role as the central antagonist is what makes the capitalist reading so common. He’s the head of the institute, he’s wealthy, he’s powerful, and he dehumanizes people in ways that are both brutal and chillingly indifferent. He seems like an appropriate stand in through that lens.

I also love how voice actor Ben Meredith plays him like’s he’s trying to seduce the audience.

With all of that said, I wouldn’t call this the critique of capitalism a direct allegory or anything; in much looser terms, this could be a metaphor for any power structure that exploits humans. Organized religion or cults might be even more on the nose, considering there’s a lot of mentions of rituals and worship within the show.

But if we boil it down to its barest aspects and focus on the avatar characters, The Magnus Archives is a series about people becoming monsters. Or, at the very least, becoming worse versions of themselves. That can mean a lot of things to different people in a metaphorical sense; the tense relationship between desperation and morality, the eagerness to please at the cost of one’s own mental health, the psychological traumas that lead people down dark paths, and how personal choices can still be dictated and manipulated by outside influences. It’s kind of heavy stuff, but put into a digestible package through the show’s abstractions.

Well, for the most part.

There’s some debate as to whether or not Daisy’s arc was handled tastefully. While her demise and Basira’s character arc were clearly meant to condemn police brutality and the deeply corrupt system that allows it to foster, it’s still a weird subject to discuss in such a fantastical context, and there is a strange sympathy for the devil angle that can get kind of uncomfortable for some listeners.

Okay, stepping back from that for a bit, let’s talk about Jon and how he fits into this whole “people becoming corrupted” thing.

Jon has one of my favourite brands of character arc, which is one based in deterioration alongside growth. The most obvious way this takes form is his departure from humanity as his relationship with the Eye drives him to psychologically harm others, and he finds himself sympathizing more and more with the people he was afraid of, stating in episode 152 that anyone listening to his recordings might compare him to the other avatars that have had their minds and morals twisted.

Over the course of the series, he is repeatedly traumatized and the show makes a point that he is being both physically and emotionally scarred. These happenings are what drive his motivation for revenge in season five, and he even states that revenge is making him a worse person. As a character he’s constantly berating himself and his own monstrousness, much to Martin’s dismay.

That’s why the finale destroys me in the best way. Upon seeing that Jon has betrayed him and basically given himself over to the Eye, Martin asks “how much of you is even left?” And when Jon tries to reassure him that he’s still himself, Martin’s response is “how would you even know?” This cuts through me every time. Up until this point, Martin had consistently stood up for Jon and Jon’s humanity, even in the face of Tim’s doubt, Basira’s mistrust, Elias being cryptic, and Jon’s own self-hatred. This is the ultimate breaking point, the point where even Martin, the love of Jon’s life, doesn’t really recognize him. It’s brutal. Because at the end of the day, Jon is still himself; he’s a deeply broken person trying to make the right decisions.

We’ll come back to the finale later, but for now I want to talk about the romance.

Jon’s emotional growth throughout the series is largely tied into Martin. Martin’s the first person that Jon really opens up to, and this later grows into trust which then turns into a genuine emotional connection. On the flip side, Martin’s growth in season four is largely tied into Jon. Martin starts season four basically waiting to die, but Jon’s return gives him a reason to keep living, and he’s later able to recognize his own value outside of the pure utility of ‘you need to set yourself on fire to keep everyone else warm.’ Both of them give each other reason to push onward despite everything becoming more and more hopeless.

It’s a good romance. I wish the two had had a few more scenes together before the culmination, but it is built up over the course of four seasons and comes together in an utterly fantastic confession.

And yeah, the scene with Martin and Jon in the Lonely is cheesy as hell, but it is the highest quality of cheese. These are some gourmet nachos.

Umm, also kind of stating the obvious here, but it’s also pretty cool that the main character in this horror story falls in love with another man. You don’t see that a lot, and it’s cool that no one even makes a big deal out of it. It’s just a normal romance, but with two guys. It’s nice.

So, they go to Scottland, they hang out, they’re in love, Jonalias starts the apocalypse through Jon, the world ends, and season five starts!

...Let’s talk about season five!

Part 4: Season 5

At the very start of this post, I said that supernatural mysteries tend to get worse as they go along, and I am deeply sad to report that I don’t think that The Magnus Archives is an exception. It just goes downhill in a very different way than its ilk.

And, so we’re clear, I don’t think season five totally tanks or becomes unlistenable, it’s just, in my opinion, notably worse than the rest of the show.

As discussed earlier, it doesn’t fall apart due to a lack of planning; everything still makes sense, but the presentation has changed drastically. The episodic statements are no longer scary stories, but more like slam poems about the various hellscapes that Jon and Martin are trekking through. Honestly if these were published in a book of slam poetry, I would probably think they slapped pretty hard. I genuinely believe that Jonny Sims is a good writer, but as a podcast a lot of these statements just made me zone out. There’s at least four that I don’t even slightly remember. Myself and many others have noted that they just...aren’t scary, unless there’s a specific episode that really gets under your skin due to a certain fear or phobia.

To quote my friend, “it’s harder to feel a solid impact when the setting is literally divorced from reality. People would either go numb or insane to the point where their fears become unrelatable.”

And, to be honest, I think that this same surreal odyssey set up could have worked with a slight shift in narration. Two stand out episodes for me were “Strung Out” and “Wonderland.” Both of them show the tormented target actively trying to resist and interact with their tormenter, instead of just trying to escape or live through their situation. “Strung Out” is also more of character study; you learn about Francis’s life before the apocalypse through their interaction with the Web hellscape. Meanwhile “Wonderland” is just...f*cked, and you get to see Jon take the perspective of first-person Bad Guy throughout the whole thing, which is its own level of disturbing.

But the majority of episodes feel so abstract that I kind of forget the people trapped in them are supposed to be characters and not just concepts, so it’s harder to feel their dread and pain.

But I’m still here for the metaplot, the drama, and the romance. And when that’s good, it’s great! I think the final handful of episodes are really solid in that regard.

Buuuuuuut...

A decent chunk of season five is dedicated to the “kill bill” plot. Jon discovers he has the power to smite people, and while at first, he’s embarrassed about this, since he actively enjoyed killing Not!Sasha, Martin is super into it! He’s encouraging Jon to murder people.

This is actually the set up for a really good arc. As Jon gets more and more into his own avenging angel persona, Martin could get more and more disturbed by it so by the time they get to London, Martin could be really upset that Jon is so willing to wreak his own divine justice by killing or torturing all of the avatars.

And this does kind of happen. We do reach this end state, and it makes for a good final conflict, but the way we got here was borderline nonsense. Thematic gibberish, if you will.

Throughout the journey, Martin is clearly motived by a sense of justice; these people are bad, and so they should die. Whereas Jon is clearly more motivated by revenge; he only goes after the avatars that hurt him personally. At one point, Jon admits that maybe all of this killing isn’t making anything better, but just making him worse. Martin apologizes for egging him on, Jon absolves him by saying he started it, and then Martin’s like “I’ll keep my apology then.” This is the second worst line in the entire series, right after “the sky ate him.” And it’s close.

But it kind of feels like we’re back at square one. Jon is back to being ashamed of killing and Martin is still keen on his justice stance, but now just less pushy about it. The arc is basically half resolved at this point.

But then it doesn’t matter, because Jon kills Helen anyway. So, Jon’s back on his revenge/justice thing. Then what was the point of his earlier revelation? Why have that if it’s not going to matter and the conflict that was escalating still culminates with Jon leaning into the avenging angel stuff, and Martin being disturbed by it? It just makes both of them look like huge hypocrites! I f*cking hate it when they’re in the tunnels and Martin says “you weren’t meant to enjoy it this much,” regarding Jon’s smiting. Where did this come from?! Why didn’t you say this earlier? Third worst line in the series.

And yeah, I’ll say it; the boys fight too much in this season. I loved their romance up to season five, and their cute moments and more lowkey serious discussions are still good in this season, but God, they fight so much. And I’m not saying couples can’t have fights or tension, that’s just realistic and also stories need conflict to be interesting. Jonny Sims is on the record saying that balancing a healthy romance with the stress of a literal apocalypse was a priority, and I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s well balanced. I’m just saying that sometimes it feels like they don’t even like each other and it really started to grate on me.

Maybe it would have been better if the beginning of this season was dedicated to charming romance at first, so we as an audience could better appreciate how strong their love is and how it’s truly being tested. But obviously that was never on the table—

ALEX NO.

So, yeah, I have a lot of problems with season. I think it’s the worst one by far, even though there is a lot of it I still enjoy, including the ending.

As I mentioned before, the moment where Martin confronts Jon in the panopticon absolutely kills me, and Jon’s reaction kills me even harder. Throughout the season, Jon had largely been motivated by revenge, martyrdom, and the subconscious call of the Eye, and all three of those factors led him to his position as the pupil. He’s getting revenge against the powers, sacrificing his humanity to get rid of the Fears, and taking his place as wearer of the watcher’s crown. But all of this gets thrown out the window when he realizes that Martin is going to die. And not only is Martin going to die, Martin is going to die specifically because he loves Jon and refuses to leave Jon alone to die horribly. Martin had always been an underlying motivation for Jon, his “reason” as stated in episode 167, but now love as a motivator has come to the forefront, and Jon can no longer go through with his plan because of it. But at this point in the series, they’re both utterly doomed, and Jon concludes that the only possible chance they have of surviving, however unlikely, would be to sever the pupil of the eye, technically killing Jon, but maybe, just maybe, allowing them to escape with the Fears. Whether that’s meant to be literal or more ethereal is left unclear. Hell, maybe Jon’s just making it up completely and creating his own potential happy ending. It’s a pretty potent ending in emotional terms; Jon has to release the Fears and Martin has to kill Jon, and those are the two things they were dead set on not doing.

The Web, arguably the real main antagonist, basically won, and their manipulation of Jon worked. The destruction spread, and there is kind of a bleak underlying tone to that.

But at least this ending has some semblance of hope to it. I’m not saying that releasing the Fears was objectively the correct moral decision; the entire point of the dilemma is that there was no objectively correct moral decision. But, while Jon’s solution does have merit, it was also the most hopeless. I think dramatically, any one of the choices on the table could have worked if the writing was well executed, but thematically this one seemed like the perfect combination of grim and optimistic. Like, all of the evils that plague humanity can’t just be defeated forever and things could get worse, but maybe not. Maybe everything works out...

So yeah, The Magnus Archives...is a podcast. And it’s a really good podcast. Great, even. I can complain about season five all I want, but regardless of how that worked out, you can tell throughout the entire show that the people working on it were trying to tell a genuinely excellent story.

It’s good. Go listen to it. Even though I spoiled the entire thing and if you’re still here, you’ve probably already listened to it. Listen to it again.

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood

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fuckyeaharthuriana · 5 years ago

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I went through your links and I couldn’t find it (though there’s a good chance I missed it) but do you have like a beginner’s guide to Arthurian legends? I have like a basic knowledge from like pop culture, a few movies, a wiki hole I went down at work a few weeks ago, but there’s just so much stuff I don’t know where to start.

My links are a bit of a mess, and I think I put some beginner guides around that I cannot even find myself, haha.

I remember that when I started reading arthuriana I focused only on one character. I think that was easier for me because I was really obsessed with him (Mordred, of course!), and I think there are different routes to approach arthuriana (also, be mindful that for me, approaching arthuriana = hobby =/= academic study!).

1) Option one is to follow a character of choice. In this case feel free to ask for more character specific recs, otherwise I have here a list of books I’ve read tagged by main characters and secondary characters. The Arthurian list of everything also has old texts (pre 1850) tagged by character! I think for me this was the easy route because I ended up absorbing a lot of other arthurian stuff in my desperate quest for Mordred content.

2) Option 2 is following the chronological order for old texts (main texts)! You can click on the arthurian list of everything where I added both characters, dates and download links for old texts, or you can check this post which has less texts but I put in bold my favorite ones (they also have download links)!

Personally, when I started I did a mix of option 1 and option 3, which is mixing up texts, just because I love novels and I really wanted to mix up my old texts with some modern novels and movies/tv shows.

3) Option 3 is mixing it up! Let me explain a bit better!

I have here the old “How to start arthuriana” post with mixed up old and new texts (here is another “How to start”). To summarize it, I do think that the main “old texts” that people cite and use as references are History of the Kings of Britain (Geoffrey of Monmouth), Four Romances (Chrétien de Troyes) and Le Morte d'Arthur Volume 1 + Volume 2 (Thomas Malory) (with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Wedding of sir Gawain and dame Ragnell if you are interested in Gawain).

Mixing them up with good novels for me was a plus, because I love seeing how stories are re-imagined. What helped me at the beginning was reading novels that encompass the whole of Arthur’s life, from his birth to his death, adding various re-interpretations within. This ended up putting in my mind a vague order of the main arthurian themes and elements that are used and re-used. Some examples are:

Sword at Sunset (Sutcliff), if you like historical novels

The Once and Future King (White)

Guinevere trilogy by Persia Woolley

Merlin trilogy by Mary Stewart + The Wicked Day (Mary Stewart)

The Pendragon (Catherine Christian)

Firelord (Godwin)

Warlord Chronicles (Bernard Cornwell), also historical

Any of Mike Ashley’s short stories collections

Some character specific good novels:

Arthur: Sword at Sunset (Sutcliff) or The Great Captains (Treece) which is Welsh inspired

Morgana: I am Morgan le Fay (Springer) or Morgana (Rio)

Guinevere: Persia Woolley’s trilogy or Queen of Camelot (McKenzie)

Bedivere: The Pendragon (Catherine Christian)

Kay: Exiled from Camelot (Baldry) and Idylls of the Queen (Karr)

Gawain: Down the Long Wind (Bradshaw)

Mordred: Idylls of the Queen (Karr) or The Winter Prince (Wein)

Lancelot: Guinevere novels tend to have good Lancelot, otherwise there’s Vansittart’s Lancelot or Lancelot by Gwen Rowley

Ragnelle: Gawain (Gwen Rowley)

Percival: Corbenic (Fisher)

Lady of the Lake: Here Lies Arthur (Reeves) or The Book of Mordred (Velde)

Merlin: Mary Stewart’s trilogy

Agravaine: Camelot’s Blood (Zettel)

Galahad: Blessed Bastard (Lehman) but it is hard to find!

Regarding tv shows and movies, I have written here a list of arthurian tv shows in order of my personal preference, with small explanation to why, but I do think for someone who is diving into arthuriana the classic tv shows and movies are:

The Legend of King Arthur (BBC) tv show

Camelot (musical, any version)

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Excalibur (1981)

The Sword in the Stone (Disney)

The Knights of the Round Table (50s movie)

Merlin (1998) miniseries

The Mists of Avalon miniseries

Plus, here is a list of movies divided by character and a list of tv shows divided by character.

Other nice and fun arthurian things to start are:

This amazingly funny Legends summarized video

For any “Who is who???” Bruce’s dictionary is an amazing resource

I hope this helps! :D

#arthurian #arthuriana #morgana #king arthur #camelot #resource #resources #question #where to start

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adultswim2021 · 3 years ago

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Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law #12: “Trio's Company” | April 18, 2004 - 11:30 PM | S02E02

I would say that Space Ghost's ending truly was the end of an era. I'm not sure how cognizant of it I was at the time, though. I can't remember if Space Ghost's season was plainly stated to be it's last or if it just felt that way or what. But if it did indeed seem like an ending at the time, then what a fucking insult giving us more Birdman to kick things off for phase 2. I mean, Jeuss Christ.

In “Trio's Company” we are treated to a barrage of empty zany jokes about Birdman trying and failing to get in GiGi's pants. She's a beautiful redhaired lady that is making out with every man in the office (and elsewhere) but him. She's based on Gravity Girl from the Galaxy Trio. Their relationship takes a turn when he asks her out and she agrees... to move in with him. Funny? I mean, it's not a bad concept, especially when she brings other dudes over with her (I think they're the dudes from the Galaxy Trio, but I'm so exhausted from looking up “Gravity Girl”, I simply can not bear it). But everything in Birdman's world has no gravity, which is pretty FUCKING ironic because [you get it already, I'll stop].

This is when I officially gave up on Birdman. I might have said that during the write-up for the last episode, but it's technically truer to say so here. I did actively watch “Blackwatch Plaid”, but any and all moaning about “I'M NEVER WATCHING THIS SHOW AGAIN” is basically meaningless for me, a person who will emptily make this threat and then wind up seeing a bad show to it’s conclusion anyway. Me giving up on Birdman has to happen in practice, which it did here when I did not watch this episode on television. I did not actually see this episode until I started this project.

Birdman plays it's comedy with the precision of that brief bit in The Animaniacs where it shows the writers “flipped”. I don't know if this is going to mean anything to any of you, but I’ll try and explain. Literally almost every time when I think about Birdman-- okay, you know how sometimes when you hear about something, like an object or a concept or a person, etc, your brain will sorta identify that thing to you by showing you a brief image of it? Like a flashcard? Does anyone else experience this? Like, somebody says “fishing pole!” and your brain just shows you a very brief picture of a fishing pole to you, so you'll continuing knowing what fishing poles are?

Well, when people mention shows or movies to me sometimes more than a flash card pops up, but instead it'll be like an animated gif, and for me when I think of Birdman I actually think about that brief scene in The Animaniacs theme song under the lyric “the writers' flipped” and it's just two writers with re-re arms bouncing around while they make goofy faces and springs are coming out of their heads. I probably can't convince anyone here that I'm right about thinking Birdman is unfunnily zany in a detestable way by urging you to google the theme song for Animaniacs and look at that short little animation. But I wish I could.

I've explained this before. But some of you like when I repeat stuff incessantly, so this is for you: I attempted this blog one other time. I started a thread called something like ADULT SWIM IN REVIEW or ADULT SWIM: REVIEWED where I just decided to go through every episode of every Adult Swim show in chronological order. I did it up to 2004 or so, kinda around where I am now (yikes!). I dashed it off initially, cuz it was just a message board thread and I was basically just using it as a way to keep track of it for myself, so I'd say stupid pithy things that usually involved some message-board specific shorthand (example: “puppets? compn must hate this one” “Frylock produces a list that would rival Lim da Skit’s!” like, the most inane-sounding inside shit ever). I started over because it’d been so long that picking up where I left off felt weird, and also those early entries really didn’t hold up. Anyway, here's a previously-unpublished write-up for this episode that remarkably says different stuff:

Historically speaking, I gave up on Harvey Birdman around this time. This was the first Birdman show that I intentionally missed. All these Birdman episodes from here on our are exciting and new to me!

So anyway, this episode is really terrible. Like, spectacularly so. I hate every character, I hate every joke, I hate how the story moves... man, I just hate everything about this one.

So okay, Inch High PI is fired for being short. See, his shortness interferes with his surveillance-photo-taking abilities. That's funny, right? Meanwhile, Birdman deals with a comically promiscuous personal trainer who moves into Birdman's apartment after Birdman asks her out on one date. She uses his apartment to fuck dudes in, while never fucking Birdman. Birdman thinks that he has a thread of a shot of a chance getting his cloacae stroked, so he puts up with it. While this all happens, Inch High PI is shown running in at the end of every scene trying to get Birdman's attention (he's small! so it's tough!). Reducto goes crazy at the sight of him (because he's small! Reducto is obsessed with stuff like that!). You get the idea.

The most frustrating thing about this episode is that basically nobody actually has a conversation. That's one of the main things that irks me about Birdman: the characters are crazy joke machines and pairing any two characters in a scene almost never results in a functional verbal interaction. It's like watching bad improv or something. Except, you know, it's a cartoon, where there are multiple stages in production where you have an opportunity to fix that problem. It doesn't strike me as a creative choice as much as just bad writing.

This episode bites and I don't care who knows it. Go away!

EPHEMERA CORNER

The Popeye Show #9: "The Hyp-Nut-Tist/Child Psykolojiky/Cartoons Ain't Human" (April 19, 2004 - 1:30 AM)

At 1:30AM, Adult Swim started airing The Popeye Show. I’m not sure they even promoted it. I think they just needed to fill that half hour suddenly and just decided to plug The Popeye Show on there. I liked The Popeye Show. They showed three uncut Popeye shorts and included little bumpers discussing certain historically significant Popeye facts. It was clearly aimed at adult classic animation fans and not kids. Really cool, honestly. Anyway dipshits who don’t understand that Popeye is great complained, because they thought it was kids cartoons polluting their block. Relax shithead. Popeye is good. It’s a cartoon about a gross guy that kills people for fun. It fits right in to your precious Adult Swim block. It’s okay. They’re going to take it off the schedule soon, anyway.

Swimpedia notes that it was Popeye’s 75th anniversary around this time which I guess means Adult Swim actually was acknowledging our boy Popeye at some capacity. Unfortunately I don’t remember this! But then again, this is around the time I started drifting away from Adult Swim as a regular viewer.

#adult swim #adultswim2021 #harvey birdman attorney at law #sassy guy

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hornet394 · 4 years ago

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squire’s galaxy worldbuilding - chapter 0

Each fiefdom is it’s own Temple on a separate planet. The Heads of the Temple only rule the temple, not the planet! (Though they might, in some cases, but rarely in the Republic.) So Gawain (and later Gaheris) is Head of the Temple of Orkney, which is situated on Naboo, but they only have advisory roles in the Naboo government. As a religious sect, they have some form of immunity and land.

The Temple of Camelot, which is on Coruscant, is one of the larger Temples. Arthur does not rule over the Republic. I haven’t decided who does, but picture it to be someone wise and nice and steps down after their term is up because democracy ACTUALLY WORKS in this Republic. Many of the other Temples among Republic space send their best force-users to Camelot to learn from the Knights there.

The other large ones include the Temple of Athens, where Alexander, in fact, does rule over the Holy Roman Empire. Another one is the one meant to refer to France, which I cannot be bothered to go find the proper Head of the Order for. Obviously leaving this open so I can add more in.

On that note, each country in ST is it’s own little galactic republic/empire/confederation in this verse.

ST Temples have different traditions to the SW Order. More in line with ST canon, Master-Padawan relationships are more informal and can change anytime, there’s no real sanctity to it, until a Force bond is established. So while Tor and Plogrun was a Master-Padawan pair, no one would see them as a “pair” the same way they would see Gawain and Terence, who have a Force bond. However, both pairs would be referred to verbally as just Master-Padawan pairs. Most Master-Padawan pairs in ST Temples opt not to form Force bonds. Most other hierarchical structures also work more closely in line with ST canon as opposed to SW, so to justify why Dinadin and Griflet are still “Knights” even in this verse, and why they no longer kidnap babies. Knights can also get married and stuff in this verse! So the no attachment rule doesn’t really exist, except that your loyalty should be to your fellow Jedi and the main Temple aka Camelot before anything else.

All of the canonical ST knights are force-sensitive. In fact, everyone from ST is force-sensitive unless I say otherwise. This also means we get the ladies being Knights as well, because let’s face it most ST women can kick the butts of 99% of the men. In both ST and SW.

Jedi Knights = Knights. Jedi Master = Knights. Padawans = Squires. Initiates = Pages. Jedi = refers to all force-users as a whole. Sith = refers to people like Mordred, who use the dark side of the Force. The Seelie and Unseelie Court keep their ST titles - I cannot be bothered to come up with new ones. So while Lynet is a Jedi Knight to the regular Jedi, she is referred to as Enchantress by the inhabitants of the Otherworld.

I’ll add to this as we go.

What’s the Seelie Court in this equivalent then? Think the Father, Son, and Daughter from Mortis. So the inhabitants of the Seelie Court are beings so attuned to the Force that they basically are the Force in many ways. The rules of the Otherworld’s existence is the same as ST canon - so, no rules. It shows up anywhere and everywhere and the inhabitants of the Seelie Court can still pop in and out of various planets as long as there’s a doorway. They all have the capability of space/time-breaking travel, just like the loth-wolves from Rebels. Avalon itself is a distinct planet, but it’s on another level of existence just like Mortis - only those that the planet ordains can travel there or even see it.

Yes, this also means that Terence is Anakin in this equation - his father is the being closest to the Force itself, after all. To keep Terence’s distinct aura of mystery, in this verse most force-users are only more attuned to using the Force in combat and in meditation and discipline. In ST terms this would be a Knight knowing how to fight and also having a religious or personal moral code. Only those with Seelie parentage would get visions or connection to the Living Force the same way that SW Jedi do. Of course, you get people like Dinadin or Gaheris who are loved by the Force and gets flashes every now and then, but they cannot control or cultivate their abilities the same way SW Jedi can.

There are many rogue Jedi - so the recreant knights - and the Jedi sects also fight each other, similar to ST canon. Like I said, the dynamics and interactions and hierarchies will be like ST canon, I’m simply borrowing the Force and the galaxy setting from SW. The Force is something that’s way more common in this verse than in canon SW.

Just like ST and SW, everyone has hand-wavy ages and intergalactic travel is also hand-wavy.

Probably sticking with all-canon ships, the way Gerald Morris (absolute fecking genius) writes these het couples makes me ship them??? Which is very rare???? Only exception will be Dinadin x Palomides but we all saw that a mile away as I am, despite my recent anidala bookmarks on ao3, a slash writer at heart.

I’ll try to incorporate ST canon events but obviously things won’t happen the same way. I don’t want to just rewrite canonical events into a Star Wars setting. And frankly speaking, I cannot be bothered to reread the series.... Or can I........... This will also be non-chronological because... eh...

This is not going to be angsty and definitely won’t end the same way SW does. I hope.

#squires galaxy au #the squires tales #gerald morris #fanfic #crossover

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unseeliekey · 4 years ago

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Hello gem!! This may seem a little weird, but when you're writing a new fic how much planning do you do in advance for it? Like as an example, You Have The Right, how much of that was carefully planned? Or did you just jump into writing it after coming up with an idea and thinking about how you wanted the story to go? How do you plan out emotional beats and where to plant the symbolism and all that in your fics?

aha hehe this is truly embarrassing um. putting this under a readmore bc its long and sort of differs from fic to fic!!! ＝(￣□￣;)⇒

when it came to planning you’ve got the right i got. the premise. and then i figured out names for dice. and then i titled it with an owl city song because i thought it was funny.

and then i guessed at the plot of the following chapters going by lyrics from the song:

and i had scenes i knew i wanted- the masked slow dance, the chandelier, the ending, but beyond that i had absolutely ZERO plot until i was about midway through chapter two and realized i was also writing about self-destruction issues and i was like “i can use this (≖ᴗ≖✿)”

calling all cars, there’s an officer down - initial meeting, starting to live together

shot through the heart on a night on the town - at this point they start getting gay

and evidence of your fingerprints was found - cant really remember my plan here but it was basically saihara being more secure in deciding ouma was the thief of cards

and now/you’ve got the right to remain right here with me - i initially planned this to be one chapter bc when i started writing i was like “hm yep 4 is probably enough!” but i ended up splitting it into two. anyway i knew that was the resolution and i knew i wanted a dramatic rooftop confession.

but yeah beyond that absolutely nothing for that one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i do. very little shit for my more lighthearted fics. i’ll give you the notes for my recent halloween one, actually! (so. spoilers for that go read it. it’s not good but i DID work too hard on it.)

obviously i ended up shuffling some scenes around a bit and i cut some stuff bc it was getting lengthy but uh. yeah that’s what i started with and tends to be what i generally start with for most stuff!

i don’t write chronologically, though! i write sort of by tone and by mood. usually i’ll start with the first scene in a fic, and then jump down to fill in a few lines later if i’ve thought of some banter/ a good action sequence/some nice description, and then i’ll come back and work around those. i think i plan dramatic beats to some extent? like i usually have a vague idea of my pacing and how long things tend to get, and sort of arrange other stuff appropriately around it. i think writing out of order kind of helps- in the halloween fic, for example, it made it hellish to keep track of injuries but also having most of the final confrontation written fairly early gave me quite a concrete idea of where i was going to end up?

therefore you and me has an eensy bit more planning put into it- again, i plotted that out with lyrics and had a couple more notes for each chapter, but it sort of adapted and morphed as i went! i planned for the ng code/second game thing after about... chapter two, i think. i also had notes on themes/things i wanted to develop as the story progressed from the very start, which i didn’t have for you’ve got the right! yay for improvement?

symbolism in stories is stuff that just pops up from me! i use pinterest to help me out with it sometimes, but often i’ll just get a good visual and then sort of try to implement it in a recurring way- or i’ll find a theme and then try to think of ways to represent it in the story.

for the first example, um- in kattar shuffle the card symbolism was an accident, but i had multiple characters use them in the first chapter and then i started thinking about chance and poker and gambling games that rely on assessing other people and having a dealer and i thought it worked really well, so i’ve sort of rolled with that!

for the second, in you’ve got the right, i really wanted to build sort of a. domestic-y homey parallel to all the crime and high drama, which is where the coffee comes in! i think making someone coffee is just. so intimate. that’s why it happens so often!

anyway this is all contrary to kattar shuffle, which as a mystery built up of smaller mysteries, has about four physical papers lying around my study rn that all look like this, both for individual ‘arcs’ and for the overall plot and as opposed to me looking like someone who puts zero thought into his writing, makes me look like an insane person ☆*。★ﾟ*♪ヾ(☆ゝз・)ノ

(obviously i cant show the others bc. spoilers.)

#thank you so much for asking though!!! lmk if you want me to clarofy anything or get more specific!#chatter #asks #writing

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cycat4077 · 5 years ago

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Three Weeks In

So, I’m writing a series. Cute, fluffy ideas kept popping into my head and rather than making a new character/backstory for each one-shot, I decided to keep the universe I set up in Changes which is basically all the canon-SVU events but Sonny has a loving relationship behind the scenes. Let’s face it, the boy deserves happiness. It’s not necessary to read my other story first unless you want the backstory of the reader character and how they got together with Sonny. I’ll try to keep things chronological and weave in SVU events if I can. My OCD is forcing me to make sure the dates are all correct (ex: Sonny can’t be with the reader if he’s supposed to be upstate investigating a lead.) So tah-dah! I present thee with the second installment of the “Changes” series which is set immediately after 17x09, Depravity Standard, and begins on Nov 23rd 2015 (the day before Thanksgiving). It may be crap, but I hope you enjoy anyway!

Words: 2296 Warnings: none Pairing: Sonny x Reader Summary: Three weeks into dating Sonny and he already wants you to meet his family… AO3 here

Some days you actually have to pinch yourself as a reminder that your life is real. It’s been three weeks since Sonny showed up to your class. Three weeks since the two of you confessed your feelings. And three weeks of dating Sonny. While your schedules didn’t allow for a lot of one-on-one time, the two of you keep in touch and steal away for dinner whenever you can.

A steady beeping sound rouses you from your sleep and you roll over to shut off your alarm. The sun is starting to peek through the curtains, signalling a new day. Glancing at your phone screen, you smile.

Mornin’, doll. Have a great day! Talk to you later xoxo

Everyday you wake up to a text from Sonny and, though a seemingly small gesture, your heart aches in the best possible way from knowing he cares. You unplug the device and lay back in bed, phone perched on your chest.

Morning, Sonny. Hope you have a great day too and stay safe! xoxo

As you hit send, you imagine him smiling at his desk when the message comes in. You get ready for class and head out, a spring in your step while you journey to campus. Sonny texts you back around lunchtime with a message saying that he should be free tonight. He asks if you’d be up for having dinner and you eagerly accept. That evening you put on a nice outfit, fix your hair and set out to meet your date at a nearby restaurant. But SVU work can be unpredictable. You were made very aware of that during your summer there. One day could be quiet while the next could be so busy that you didn’t know whether the detectives were coming or going. So understandably, this line of work would sometimes force Sonny to be late. Nevertheless, if he was, he would apologize profusely and you would always reassure him that you understood. Tonight however, as you wait alone inside the restaurant lobby, Sonny is later than he’s ever been before. Not only that, but he hasn’t even sent you a message to confirm that he was caught up. His silence has you worried. You crane your neck towards the door once more before sending him a quick text:

Hey. Hope everything is okay.

Not a moment later your phone vibrates.

Shit. Sorry, doll. I’ll be there in 15.

You breathe a sigh of relief knowing he’s safe but then your gut knots when the alternative creeps into your mind. Restaurant patrons pass you by and the hostess keeps glaring while you’re standing there. They’ve seen it all before: a girl left waiting for a date who doesn’t show. You look up and let out a shaky sigh, hoping that Sonny hadn’t simply forgotten you. Practically 15 minutes on the nose from his text, a rather frantic looking Sonny comes barreling through the restaurant door. His winter jacket is unbuttoned and you can see his badge still clipped to his suit underneath. He hasn’t had time to change. “Hey,” he breathes out with apologetic eyes. “I’m so sorry. I shoulda texted you. It’s just Rollins -” Sonny takes a breath, chest heaving. He must have ran here. “She had a scare today. There were complications with her labor. Luckily, she made it though n’ delivered a healthy baby girl, but Lieu and I stayed there with her for a while. She’s gettin’ some rest now and Fin is gonna check up on her later.” Immediately you flood with relief. “I’m glad she and the baby are alright,” you say, “and I’m glad nothing had happened to you either.” “You dunno know how sorry I am for not lettin’ you know what was goin’ on. I shoulda texted. But things got hectic and we were all pretty worried about her…” “Sonny,” you cut off his rambling and force him to meet your eyes. “It’s okay. I’m not mad. Like I said, I’m glad Rollins is fine and I’m also glad she wasn’t alone through all this.” Sonny looks back at you and takes a breath. Your words seem to calm him right down. He smiles. “You’re amazin’.” You blush. “Back at you, but I’m starved.” He chuckles and the two of you approach the hostess. She grabs your menus but rolls her eyes as she turns to lead you to your table. She seats you at a little booth in the corner, Sonny taking your coat before you sit down. You braved wearing a knee-length dress despite the November weather and are rewarded by an expression of awe from Sonny when he sees it. “You look beautiful, doll,” he compliments, drinking you in. “And here I am, lookin’ shabby in comparison.” A little tired, yes. But shabby? Never. Sonny’s dark hair is still combed back and he’s wearing a tasteful burgundy tie over a white pinstripe shirt. You lean in and peck him on the cheek. “You always look handsome to me.” The two of you order and share a drink, happy to finally be catching up. “Shadowin’ Barba was fantastic!” exclaims Sonny through a mouthful of bread. “He’s so polished in his delivery n’ so sharp at findin’ the littlest things to drive it all home to the jury!” “Fanboy alert!” you joke. “Guilty!” he grins, raising his fork in surrender. “But I learn so much from him and it gives me new ideas for doin’ my written assignments.” “I’m happy for you, Sonny. You work so hard and you deserve every ounce of success you earn.” You truly can’t help the pride you feel for him. “Aww, thanks, doll. That means a lot.” Sonny gazes at you with the utmost affection and you nearly melt in your seat. “Say, what’s new with you? Anythin’ excitin’ in the ol’ biology class?” “Same old, same old,” you shrug. “Just gave the second midterm back to the students, so I expect a lot of office visits from them on Monday.” “You don’t have ta work or take emails over the holiday, do ya?” asks Sonny, pushing food around his plate absentmindedly. “Nope. Why?” You sense there’s something more to his inquiry. “Well, I was wonderin’…now, I know it’s short notice ‘cause I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to get off myself, but I was wonderin’ if…if you’d like to spend Thanksgiving with me at my parents’ place?” Sonny looks up. It’s the most hopeful expression you’ve ever seen on him. “I..uh…” you’re lost for words. You want to scream out ’YES!’ at the top of your lungs but at the same time it’s not that easy. “Sonny, that’s t-tomorrow. And it’s also your family time. I wouldn’t want to intrude on them.” “You wouldn’t be intrudin’! My ma’s been askin’ to meet my girlfriend n’ even said to ’make sure you bring her over for Thanksgiving’.” Your voice goes quiet. “I’m your…g-girlfriend?” The word floors you. Most guys don’t want to dive head first into labeling relationships, especially not after only three weeks. But here is Sonny Carisi, happily calling you his girlfriend and wanting you to meet his family. “Yeah, of course doll,” he answers a little perplexed. “We’re datin’ aren’t we?” Sonny fixes his gaze on you, trying to read what you’re feeling. You shake your head to snap yourself out of it. “Yes, y-yes. It’s just that…Never mind. I’d love to spend Thanksgiving with your family!” An uncontrolled smile spreads across your face and you’re pretty sure it makes you look like a complete dork. If it does, Sonny doesn’t point it out, but instead reaches across the table to hold your hand. He too is smiling from ear to ear like you’ve made him the happiest man alive. Suddenly your smile drops. “What?” questions Sonny. “What time will you be heading out tomorrow?” “Uh, well, I was thinkin’ we could get there for ‘round four o'clock. Time enough to introduce ya to everyone before we eat?” “Four?! That doesn’t give me much time to make anything!” you gulp. “Make somethin’? Doll, my mother wouldn’t want you to bring anythin’. Believe me, she cooks for a small army.” “Sonny. You can’t show up to someone’s house for dinner empty handed.” Sonny opens his mouth to argue, but you shush him instead. “How many people are gonna be there?” Conceding, he sets down his utensils, freeing his hands to count. “Well, there’s gonna be mom, dad, me, you, Bella n’ Tommy. Their little one doesn’t eat the good stuff yet, so I won’t count her.” Sonny unfolds that finger. “Then there’s Resa and Mia and Gina. Maybe a plus one for Gina, but who the hell knows with her.” Looking down at his two hands, he raises them to show you. “Should be nine altogether.” Good to know because you were going to be up early the next morning baking. -x- You don’t realize your knee is bouncing until Sonny reaches over and places a warm hand on it. “Don’t be nervous, doll. My family is gonna love you.” You turn your head towards him, flashing a weak smile. Sitting in idle traffic is only making your nerves worse. “Trust me. Besides, ya even baked fresh bread rolls on short notice. They’re gonna disown me and keep you instead.” Sonny taps your knee reassuringly before returning his hand to the steering wheel. The Carisis live in a quaint little suburban house complete with a petite yard and front porch stoop. It seems small for a family of six, yet still cozy and welcoming. You can’t imagine Sonny growing up anywhere else. Sonny leads you up the steps and knocks on the door. It instantly flies open and a short woman with grey hair greets the two of you with open arms. “Sonny!” she coos, scooping her boy in for a hug. Sonny plants his mother a kiss before introducing you. “Hellooo! Welcome, hon,” exclaims Mrs. Carisi as she ushers you into her home. The place smells delectable. If someone asked you describe the scent of Thanksgiving, you would say ‘the Carisi household’. “I’m so happy you could make it! Y'know, Sonny has told me so much about ya and I’m glad that boy finally got the nerve to - ” “Ma!” blurts Sonny, flashing his mother a warning look. Sonny must have spent those months apart dwelling over you, just as you had done over him. “What?! It’s true, honey,” defends the Carisi matriarch before turning back to you. “Whateva. You just make yourself at home dear. We’re all family here.” “Thank you, Mrs. Carisi,” you say sincerely. You’d never been so instantly accepted by another family. After sharing a hug with Sonny’s mother, you are swarmed by the rest of the Carisis. Sonny introduces you to his father first, who gives you a solid nod. Next is Bella, bouncing a tiny infant with Tommy by her side. Theresa and a shy Mia chime in a ‘hello’ before a solo Gina caps off the meet-and-greet. Mrs. Carisi is over the moon when you hand over your baking and the bread rolls end up being a major success. In true Italian fashion, the Thanksgiving spread is full of flavor with Sonny’s mother sparing no expense in variety or quantity. Everyone joins in saying grace before dinner and, though not a common practice in your house growing up, you don’t mind linking hands with Sonny and Gina while Mr. Carisi leads the family in giving thanks. Because you do have a lot to be thankful for: a great job, an incredible boyfriend and now a whole new family to spend time with. The rest of the meal is occupied by sharing in conversation, fond memories and laughter. You find it all sort of surreal. During the summer Sonny had entertained you with tales of this very family: How they could get on one another’s nerves but that at the end of the day still loved each other. And this is exactly what you see before you. Maybe it’s a light buzz from the wine, but you feel all warm and fuzzy as the chatter of the Carisis surround you. Eventually the evening winds down and everyone seems to be groaning over how full their tummies are. You know you’ve eaten too much but wouldn’t have it any other way. “The food was absolutely delicious, Mrs. Carisi. Thank you all for having me,” you say appreciatively, looking at everyone in turn. “Our pleasure, hon,” smiles Sonny’s mother sweetly. “Know that you��re welcome here anytime.” She clasps your hands in hers and gives them a few quick pats. You say your reluctant goodbyes before you and Sonny head to his car. Once inside, he looks at you. “So?” “Your family is wonderful, Sonny and I had a great time.” This makes him flush with pride. “Glad to hear it, doll. Sometimes they can be a bit much, but they mean well.” He turns the key in the ignition and his car grumbles to life. The two of you wave as he backs out of the driveway. Once you’re cruising down Arden avenue, Sonny pipes up again. “Y'don’t have any more of them rolls, do ya? I didn’t know you were such a good cook.” You let out a laugh. “I’m not that good. For every two-dozen there’s about a dozen that come out flat and ugly. But if you’re indifferent to what they look like, then I can hook you up with the rejects.” You wink just as the car passes beneath the glow of a streetlamp in hopes Sonny will catch it. He grins. “I don’t mind. Besides, it gives me a good excuse to walk ya to your door 'n steal a kiss goodnight.”

-x-

I have a bunch of ideas planned, the next being x-mas (wrong time of year, I know) but I just have to check dates from the episodes. Let me know if you’d be interested in more of these stories and any feedback would be loved!

Next part here!

#Sonny Carisi x Reader #Sonny x Reader #Sonny Carisi #Sonnyshine of my life #The Carisis #svu fanfic #law and order svu #my fanfic #Three Weeks In #SVU 17x09 #Depravity Standard #The Changes verse

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sometimes-love-is-enough · 5 years ago

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do you have any spicy hot takes you wanna drop 👀👀?? i will drop one as well, i think that everyone got carried away with the whole sympathetic and unsympathetic stuff -💫

okay so i read the first sentence and i was like ‘fuck yes time to talk about the sympathetic/unsympathetic thing’ and then i read the rest of it and yeah okay so we’re on the same page here. i have a feeling this is going to get extensive so if you don’t want to hear me complaining about stuff that you may or may not like don’t go reading under the cut. Also it's not going to be very coherent

disclaimer: i am not trying to police the fandom or trying to tell anyone that they can’t write stuff. i do my best to stay in my lane and read/consume content that i want to. these are just. feelings i have.

so on the one hand i sort of understand where the whole concept sprung from. it’s hard to write interesting longform stories without a villain of some sort, it’s not as if there’s all that many characters in the first place, and sometimes using the Dragon Witch doesn’t quite cut it. and honestly if you take away the whole ‘they’re all part of the same person’ thing it would’ve been pretty easy to assume that Deceit was the bad guy when he first showed up. he went the whole ‘ominous smirking, evil laughter’ route because he’s a dramatic little bastard, and some people were like 'my son, I love him' and others went 'evil man! Evil! He's planning bad things' and on a purely mechanical level having tags that distinguish people who think a character is good vs people who think a character is evil is a good thing, it helps you distinguish content you want to look at from the content that you don't!

HOWEVER. I think the idea of characters being 'sympathetic' or 'unsympathetic' in the way that this fandom uses those terms is innately flawed. It's black-and-white thinking and it veers close to the whole puritan thing that tumblr is so fond of. And in most cases 'unsympathetic' is just an excuse to write characters as toxic, abusive, and just downright cruel without having to explain yourself. Which is. Hm. And also just lazy writing.

This bit might be tmi but: Patton actually used to be my favorite Sanders Sides character. But back when i initially got into the fandom, I hadn't quite worked out how to filter the content I looked through yet, and I just kept seeing this... constant stream of stuff involving him being abusive to the others in a way that was hm how shall i say this. Uncomfortably familiar. especially with a lot of religious guilt themes. It's not anyone's fault, precisely, but it did tinge a lot of my fandom experience, and it maaaay be why i'm not great at writing him. Doesn't matter. The point is... There wasn't a point. I'm just still bitter about that and wanted to mention it. Maybe i'm angrier about this than i thought i was. Let's not talk about that. Let's move on with this discussion.

You'll notice that i used Janus as an example up there at the top. I can't be sure (and actually it grimly fascinates me so if anybody who's been around here longer than I have has any info on this send it over, I'd love to know) but I think that Deceit's appearance in CLBG may have marked the beginning of this whole unsympathetic/sympathetic split in the fandom. It seems a safe enough bet, anyway, especially since the earliest example I can find of any fic being tagged 'unsympathetic' in the AO3 archive is from 4th February 2018, literally the day after CLBG went up. (damn, guys, moving fast).

The first occurrences of the 'sympathetic' tag crop up about a month later. Tumblr is impossible to search so I don't know if there was any discussion about terms, or if it was just a kind of snowball effect with people seeing the tags and tagging their own fics as appropriate (and this is a fascinating phenomena in itself!) but either way - i have absolutely no idea what happened to make people go from 'we're divided on whether this character who presents himself a villain is actually doing bad and detrimental things to the other sides/thomas/the world as a whole/innocent puppies' to 'hang on what if the other sides were kicking puppies also?'

So now this has turned from a rant about terminology into me being genuinely curious about this whole thing. I will put the rant on pause while I go scour AO3 to see when the first occurrences of the tags popped up. Please hold.

Okay. I'm going to ignore the unsympathetic tags for anyone who's not a side because i don't hate myself nearly that much (but uh for the record. There is a part of this fandom that thinks the LITERAL CONCEPT OF SLEEP IS EVIL and i'm not sure if i should be impressed or horrified. What? What???)

All of these numbers are up-to-date as of 17/06/2020, which is when I'm posting this. I'm probably not going to update that, so keep that in mind if you're reading this in the future.

In order of chronological appearance:

Unsympathetic Janus ('Deceit' at the time, of course) - first appears 12 March 2018, 191 works Unsympathetic Roman - first appears 10 February 2019, 102 works Unsympathetic Logan - first appears 24 June 2019, 59 works Unsympathetic Patton - first appears 2 July 2019, 228 works Unsympathetic Remus - first appears 17 July, 2019, 121 works Unsympathetic Virgil - first appears 31 July 2019, 71 works

...I genuinely don't know what I expected.

The fandom was much slower to spark with Unsympathetic Remus content after he first showed up, which is kind of interesting. Unless they just didn't bother to tag it? Like, I'm working with the assumption that everyone's tagging all of their content, which might not always be the case

I thought there'd be so much more Janus and Remus-tagged fics than there actually are.

It does not surprise me that Patton has the most in this category. It makes me sad but it doesn't surprise me. Why are you guys so intent on making him evil

And on the opposite side of the sympathy spectrum (similarly chronological):

Sympathetic Janus - first appears 7 March 2018, 1920 works Sympathetic Remus - first appears 2 July 2019, 965 works Sympathetic Patton - first appears 31 July 2019, 71 works Sympathetic Virgil - first appears 1 August 2019, 69 works (nice) Sympathetic Logan - first appears 8 August 2019, 41 works Sympathetic Roman - first appears 20 August, 56 works

It's actually wild that 'Sympathetic [Janus]' seems to have appeared several days between Unsympathetic Jan made any appearance.

There were several Remus fics that were backtagged to before DWIT was released. I ignored them because it was throwing this off a bit. there may be other problems to this effect in any of the other stats, but i’m too lazy to go back and check those all one-by-one

Sympathetic tags in general seem to be used as, hm, there's a word here i can't quite think of. Basically, 'Sympathetic' seems to be the default setting for characters like Virgil, Patton, Roman, Logan (the 'Light Sides', although i take issue with that terms as well. This isn't the time for that, though. Statistics!!) which 'Unsympathetic' used to be the default for Janus and Remus. That's become slightly more elastic of late, though. Basically if you're using the Sympathetic tag for anyone who's not a 'Dark Side' you're usually doing it to make a point of something. e.g. if you have other sides who aren't usually unsympathetic as such and you're trying to clarify that yes, these specific ones are Okay. Or if you're just being thorough. Anyway that's why LAMP seem to have less works tagged as Symp than the other two.

All the sympathetic tags for non-Janus characters seem to have sprung up in quick succession over a short period of months! I have no idea what this means but it's strange and cool to look at

If you're wondering about the discrepancy between this information and my earlier note that the first appearance of 'unsympathetic' as an AO3 tag was the day after CLBG came out - that fic in question had a general 'unsympathetic dark sides' tag, no specific tags mentioned.

Okay statistics segue over. The only point of that apart from scientific curiosity was to try to puzzle out where the fuck this all stemmed from. I still have no answers.

I need you all to understand that 'Sympathetic' no longer looks like a real word to me.

So. Remember how i mentioned how this fandom managed to make unsympathetic!Remy/Sleep a thing? Yeah. That baffles me. I haven't seen unsympathetic Dr Picani anywhere yet but I know it's only a matter of time and that lowkey horrifies me. But that's not really the most baffling thing because, uh

Well. earlier this week I accidentally stumbled into a corner of tumblr that's dedicated to unsympathetic character Thomas content. If you're a fan of that, i'd advise you to click away from this post now because i'm about to get very angry about that and i don't want to make you upset. Thank you.

What the fuck. literally all of the posts in this corner of tumblr are about c!thomas abusing the sides and being a terrible person??? ??????? ????? WHAT? can we just take a step back and. WHY? WHY are you doing this? Are we watching the same show? from a psychological standpoint, that's self-abuse and self-harm and i suppose it might be interesting if you explored it as such but APPARENTLY NO. apparently that's not what this is about. This is just about writing about someone being abusive to other people for the sake of it. there were so many posts about him 'abusing the sides by telling them they're not real people' and. OKAY so a) he wouldn't do that b) THEY AREN'T. THEY LITERALLY AREN'T REAL PEOPLE WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT

[deep breath]

so actually i think that kind of leads me back to the point of this whole thing. I had a point, what? It surprises me too, don't worry. The point is (roughly) that writing characters as 'unsympathetic' isn't something that i have an objection to at all. Everybody has the capacity to be cruel! Nobody's perfect!! But with the sympathetic/un labels it seems to enforce this strict dichotomy of good vs bad. Either Logan is an abusive monster OR he's a perfect angel. Guys. That's not how it works. And it's not INTERESTING if you do that sort of thing because then you've got people being unnecessarily cruel and evil for the sake of it. They turn into 2-dimensional caricatures that only exist to be bad people.

People make mistakes! I write about characters making mistakes all the time! Janus and Remus pulling the whole trolley problem thing in Pick A Side definitely wasn't a great thing for them to do, but I didn't tag them as unsympathetic at the time and i have no plan to do so because i don't want to write them as two-dimensional caricatures who are only capable of one of two settings on the morality meter. (same goes for the next chapter, whenever that comes up but... let’s talk about that when i post it, maybe)That's boring. If you're going to take characters and make them into antagonists just because you can't think of anyone else to fit the role, and you're doing it by stripping away everything that makes them Them, then you might as well just stuff a paper bag with straw and cast a scarecrow as the villain instead because buddy. You're making a strawman. That's what you're doing. You can't have Patton without kindness and well-meaningness, just as you can't have Patton without the mistakes caused by those two things. Same goes for the other sides and their flaws and strengths.

And then there's the other thing that's definitely more specific to this fandom, which I think was best summarized with something i said in the comments section of Pick A Side with len at like ten minutes past midnight that one time:

(...) and not necessarily related to anything you said, but - this fandom is kind of unique in that... there's no actual bad guys or villains. (at least that's how i perceive it.) The Real Villain Is Your Poor Mental Health. people are always like 'unsympathetic deceit' or 'unsympathetic patton' and point to different points in the videos as evidence, ('i give you permission to think those thoughts' patton's being controlling - that's abuse) but like. it's all the same guy. he's giving himself permission. he's doing it to himself. imagine if we tagged other fandom characters with like 'Unsympathetic Harry Potter' when he was being mean or critical to himself. wild.

So yeah. In conclusion: obviously people should write what they like. If they see characters one way and they want to write about them being two-dimensional monsters that's fine. I kind of wish you'd put more thought into it and make it at least interesting if you're going to do that sort of thing, but you do you i guess.

That being said. If I see any more unsympathetic!Patton content I will start crying. i want to love Goofy Dad Man the same way i used to

#asks #min goes off the rails #this turned into an essay. apology for incoherence and my tendency to jump around wildly!#Anonymous

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miafic · 5 years ago

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do you !!! have a masterpost to your little blippets of the foster au or the essential need-to-knows of it? i have so many questions !! like how did awsten end up in foster care? how are the characters different from how they are in mia? is there a fanfic for it or just the oneshots you post here?

there’s no masterpost, but i love tags. i tag every single post that’s on this blog. this is the foster au tag. all the stuff i’ve ever written about the foster au is in there :)

things to know... geoff took awsten in when awsten was 4 and adopted him pretty shortly after. tuna has just turned 2 when it starts (like mia) so she’s alive for the entire foster au. i will never kill tuna haha she’s immortal.

awsten’s parents are Not Dead and sometimes pop up when awsten’s not expecting it which is Bad but i haven’t written much about it.

if you have any other questions, PLEASE let me know! talking about mia is literally my favorite activity in the world.

how awsten ended up in foster care (and what happened right after. and also right after that.)

the beginning of the foster au is set in 2014/2015 like mia is, so geoff is basically exactly the same. he’s a fairly new teacher in lakeview, lives on his own in the mansion with tuna, has the same personality and likes, etc.

mrs. wood is the same age she would have been when she had otto in the 90s, and otto is the same age as awsten (born sometime in 2009-11; idk exactly). they just kind of got bumped younger. awsten and otto grow up with smartphones, ipads, netflix, etc.

awsten still had a really hard time with his parents but is much happier and better adjusted than he is in mia. he carries a fair bit of his trauma with him throughout his childhood, but a lot of the memories fade and it almost becomes, like. a quirk of his? that sounds awful, but it’s like he has a couple seemingly-random triggers that can make things really bad really quickly but is otherwise pretty “normal.”

there’s also an au of the au where the shooting happens but people actually die. i never explain who did it or why because, like in mia, it’s not about that.

there’s no official fanfic, no, and the stories i have here aren’t in chronological order. they just get posted as i think of them or as people request them. i’m sorry if that trips you up!! a good thing might be to go in my archive and read them in the order they were posted in so you have context for the newer stuff?? idk. im sorry it’s a little messy haha.

#foster au #anon #ask Aly

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tessatechaitea · 5 years ago

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Justice League Spectacular #1 (1992)

Just off-panel: Bibbo's ice cream truck.

I probably shouldn't be reading this or Justice League Quarterly before I read the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League but what can I do? That's the order they were placed in the short box! It would be a different story if free will were not an illusion but since it is, my hands are tied. It's either read this or, um, I don't know. Die from a temporal paradox? I won't risk it! I was looking through a bunch of my old writing and art last week and discovered a bunch of the kind of sentimental and sort of intellectual crap young people write. It's the kind of stuff you hide away and never show anybody ever and hope that when you die, it'll just get tossed in a dumpster with your old porn and Magic the Gathering cards. But it got me thinking about how brave I am! So brave! The kind of brave you wouldn't hesitate to call some jerk who signed up for the military because he couldn't live as a civilian. No, no. More braver than that! And being this super brave kind of person, I thought that maybe I should share some of this old poetry with everybody! But not yet! You have to work up to being truly brave! So instead, I'll share this piece of artwork I did that was supposed to be the first in a lengthy and disgusting series. It's of Lord Fondlerot, a character I created for the Dwarflover online comic I used to do. He was really into fucking things and I thought, "Hey! I should do a series of drawings where he fucks every creature in the monster manual!" But instead of doing an entire series, I drew one picture and grew either bored or disgusted with the concept. So here's that one picture:

Lord Fondlerot fucking an Axebeak.

Now you're probably wondering just how terrible my poetry must be if I'm opening with that! Well, you'll see soon enough! This issue begins with Sue Dibny still alive and visiting a Florida theme park with her husband, The Elasticated Man. Wow, remember when Sue Dibny was killed and all the heroes freaked out about their secret identities and considered doing intense brain damage to every single person who ever knew any of their identities until they found out that The Atom's ex-wife Jean Loring had gone cuckoo for Atom's cocoa puffs? She wanted them back so bad that she began threatening and murdering the loved ones of all the super heroes. It was the kind of story DC sometimes does where you read it and think, "Well, the twist at the end of that mystery was definitely worth the destruction of the most stable marriage in the DC Universe and also the death of Firestorm and Captain Boomerang! So good!" I mean it doesn't make you think that. It makes you think the exact opposite. Tom King would eventually do pretty much the same thing in Heroes in Crisis but instead of Jean Loring fucking up by accidentally killing Sue Dibny and murdering more people to cover her tracks, Wally West fucks up and kills Poison Ivy and some others and then tries to cover his tracks. But at least Tom King's had all of those entertaining scenes where the heroes are doing therapy and we get to see how much they're all suffering from PTSD. That's always a fun aspect of super heroes we never get to read enough about. Dammit! I keep doing it. I meant it was the opposite of fun! Although I still liked it because sometimes I just like seeing other people in pain. Not in a sick perverse way where I pop a boner or something! Just in that way where you sit around all day thinking, "My life is terrible and everything is wrong and I hate my parents for bringing me into this wretched existence and the only thing that might make me feel better is to learn that Superman sometimes feels the same way." Oh, remember when Tom King was writing Batman and he had that two issue Booster Gold arc where we got to see how fucking insane Booster Gold was from living through all of those horrible, wretched, dark alternate timelines? And the only way he can deal with the trauma and the PTSD is by making a joke out of everything? I'll have to think of that as the canon Booster Gold when I'm reading Giffen and DeMatteis's Justice League. Maybe it'll make all of Booster and Beetle's inappropriate joking more appropriate. Back to the story, Sue Dibny, alive and well, and her husband Ralph "The Elasticated Man" Dibny are busy showing a bunch of European diplomats around the non-Disney World theme park.

See? You can tell they're European because they're all smart and shit.

The first stop in the park is to Alice's Wonderland where the diplomats are attacked by the Royal Flush Gang. They are a gang whose theme is playing cards and not expensive toilets. Their powers are the ability to ride on gigantic cards and to make poker puns.

If looking good in tight fitting costumes is also a power, it's my new answer to the question of which super power would I choose..

Ten's outfit reminds me of the days when nipples were allowed to show through tops without being erased away through some kind of editing software. The 70s were a wild decade! Sure, there were also nips on television in the 80s but the 80s, generally speaking, sucked and were a huge contribution to the downfall of America.

The King of Spades mansplaining their entire concept to the Queen of Spades.

It's true that the royal flush beats any other poker hand but I doubt Superman is going to surrender after this concept is explained to him because, in the end, they're not fucking playing poker. It turns out Maxwell Lord paid the Royal Flush Gang to make a little trouble so the Justice League could beat them up and get some media attention. But the Justice League has apparently broken up and The Elasticated Man just isn't hero enough to save the European delegates all by himself. He might have been if the Royal Flush Gang had done what they were told and not really fight back. But why would they do that?! Wouldn't they still be in trouble with federal agents?! Booster Gold finds Blue Beetle busy pouting in the old Justice League cave headquarters. Booster has decided to try to cheer his old buddy up although why wouldn't Booster just travel to a timeline where Ted Kord is already cheered up? Is that how time travel works in the DCU? Or did Booster already try that, it went horribly sideways, and now he's a little more fucked up in the head when he returns to the "real" timeline?

For some reason, Ice and Fire have also come down to the cave. Probably to accidentally go on a double date with Booster and Beetle. Booster and Fire and Beetle and Ice hear a news report about the Royal Flush Gang and decide to go save Ralph. Superman also hears about the situation and heads to Florida where he's almost immediately defeated by The Royal Flush Gang. Not because they're dangerous and competent super villains but because some mysterious benefactor has give them weapons capable of knocking out Superman's powers. Maxwell Lord is not that benefactor so who could have done it? Certainly not Guy Gardner, right?! What would he want with getting the Justice League back together. Isn't he busy being Warrior or something by this point? Power Girl, Metamorpho, and Guy Gardner all join in on the fight. The guy behind it all is that Weapons Master dude who is desperate to get a new weapon for his arsenal: a Green Lantern ring. The attack on the Royal Flush Gang fails to get him the ring so he decides to attack directly. But not in this issue! He has to wait for a regular series issue. Ice uses Guy's ring to contact Hal Jordan because somebody finally decided this Justice League wasn't really a big league Justice League. Everybody reading it knew it for years. But I guess Dan Jurgens was assigned the task to get a new, more believably powerful League together. So Hal Jordan flies around to pick up some new members to save the day. He chooses The Flash and Aquaman which seems about right. But he also chooses Crimson Fox which seems like sliding backwards into goofy Justice League territory. Not that I totally approve of Aquaman but I have to admit he's a "serious" choice for the League.

Doctor Light also joins the party. Although why she'd keep the name of a pedo, I couldn't guess. Just become Lightwoman or something. But no! Once some jerk earns their doctorate, they just have to demand to be called Doctor.

I'm sorry. I was too distracted pointing out that Doctor Light joined the fight and how her namesake was a pervert to comment on Metamorpho acting like a huge fucking pig. Crimson Fox beats up some guys dressed as cards and admits that she's a boring idiot whose favorite part of the game is shuffling the cards. I understand the need to think up some kind of goofy one-liner when you go into battle but shouldn't you at least try to think up one that doesn't make yourself sound like a pathetic asshole? Weapons Master's plan failed but he figures he has enough information to get Green Lantern's ring next time. He'll then sell it to a Dominator for a few bucks and maybe some slaves. The big hitters talk it over and decide they should start a new Justice League without the approval of the United Nations. Yeah! Who needs some stupid Earthly authority when you've got an invulnerable Kryptonian, an all powerful space cop, and the king of the seven seas! All they need is a Greek Goddess and a mentally ill furry with a long history of violent behavior and they'll have the big team back together! Booyah! I mean, without that stupid Booyah shit because Cyborg is basically a toaster at this point. Maybe. I don't know! What am I, Johnni DC, Continuity Cop?! The heroes make one more decision: split the group into two Leagues. So once again, they're forming Justice League America and Justice League Europe. How come I don't remember this shit?! Did the comics get canceled in '92 and then immediately fired back up? I don't seem to remember two different incarnations of these teams. Maybe I should have stored my comic books in chronological order so it would all make sense. Justice League Spectacular #1 Rating: C. I just read the letters pages and it looks like this comic book takes place between JLA #60 and JLA #61! So editorial decided the teams needed to be shaken up and the best way to do it was to disband the League in the regular series, have a special one-shot comic that gets them back together but with a different roster, and then send them back to work in the next issue of the regular series. I guess I should just shove this comic book into the middle of the regular series so when I reread it all again in my 80s, it'll make more sense! Let's close with the worst drawing of Aquaman I've ever seen:

Actually, he looks a little bit like Grunion Guy.

#Justice League Spectacular #Justice League #DC COmics #DC #Dan Jurgens #Gerard Jones

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gallaghercest · 6 years ago

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REPOST: Evidence #1 - Noel’s Sexuality

Hello! So, I’m reposting this 2017 post because Tumblr deleted it.

Enjoy!

— x — x — x —

Good evening, class! It’s been a long time but I’m back. It took so long because I needed plenty of time to arrange everything correctly, because tonight we’ll have a long post. And I’m back with such a polemic subject to talk about. That’s right: Noel Gallagher’s sexuality. Pretty much a taboo in the whole fandom.

I actually realised this should have been my first post here, since it’s focused much more on the 80s, but, well, it’s all said and done now, so just pretend you read this post first, ok?

Before starting I know that there will probably be someone/some people who will go “but jULIA YOU CAN’T TALK ABOUT THIS, IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, IT’S TOO PERSONAL, YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT NOEL AND HIS GAYNESS AA A A A A A A”

And I’ll tell you what, kids: I’d rather walk I HAVE the right to talk about this, I’m his fan, I have the evidences, I’ve done researches, essays, everything you can imagine, and my conclusion is: it’s not my fault if he prefers to stay inside the closet LG x

So, take your seats and here we go!

Disclaimer: this is a bunch of evidences I made by myself, based in conversations I had with my friends and months of analysis, suffering, nights of insomnia and tears. Don’t know if everything is veridical, but at least, it’s a way that I found to “light” up our way and try to find some proper fucking answers to this stuff.

Well, I bet lots of you have already wondered (at least once in your lifetimes) about Noel’s sexuality, because, honestly, it’s something really confusing if you stop to think about it. The guy fucking hooked up with his brother, that’s already a good point to start. But I’ll try to list all the evidences on a chronological order.

1-) This Charming Man

This one is more like a deduction but ok. Yes, the famous Smiths’ song always had an important role on Noel’s life. It was the first song he learned to play on guitar. It was his main inspiration to become a musician as soon he saw The Smiths playing it on Top Of The Pops in 1983.

But, a 16 year old Noel who hated school and all type of book obviously didn’t understand the references and the lyrics meaning of any song as a 21 year old Noel could.

There’s a quote from Noel, which I think it’s from the NGHFB era already – but it might be from the late Oasis years, who knows – which I couldn’t find now, but I promise I’ll try my best to find it. If you know it, you can send it to me, too. The point is that, basically, Noel was asked by the interviewer why would he play the same fucking songs in every single gig.

Noel answered that, when he attended his first Smiths’ gig, which I’m sure it was in late 80s, he wanted them to play This Charming Man SO SO SO SO SO MUCH, and they had played it on their last gig, or on the last week’s gig, something like this, so Noel was really hopeful about it. The point is: they didn’t play it on the gig that Noel attended, and he got pretty much traumatised over that. So, he claims he plays the same songs every single gig because of that happening.

But, now, I ask you: As I said, this song was always important to him. But, as he grew old, he might have understood the lyrics more – This Charming Man’s lyrics clearly talks about homosexuality and an affair between a guy from working class and a guy from an upper class, you can read more about it on Genius, I guess. And now that he was older, maybe he identified more with the song in general.

He said once that as soon as he heard This Charming Man, everything made sense, even though he didn’t know any literature references and stuff like that – so he admitted that he didn’t get the lyrics at first. And this is important because I’m not telling you he had homosexual tendencies since he was born, it came after years and years.

2-) “Effeminate Phase” AKA Manchester Mauler

In the Definitely Maybe DVD, when talking about the “Give me gin and tonic” bit from Supersonic with Mark Coyle (11:30), Noel mentions that he must have been going through one of his – ONE OF, IT MEANS HE HAD LOTS OF – ‘effeminate phases’ to be drinking gin and tonic at that time.

He even joked once in an interview with Zane Lowe that when Peggy asked him why did he kept in his room 24/7 playing guitar, he answered, joking, “because I’m gay” :’))))))))))))

And now, the thing that I guess it’s the most iconic thing about Noel’s sexuality: if you search on Google “Is Noel Gallagher gay?” you will find an anonymous answer (that actually was answered by The WikiAnswers Community™), which goes:

“Definitely! He’s known as the Manchester Mauler. A refrerence to his brutal homosexual appetite durring his youth in Manchester, England.”

And in case you’re wondering “what the fuck does Mauler mean?”, Urban Dictionary will help you:

(I censored it because maybe Tumblr would block it again if I didn’t)

Let me tell you: this is my favourite piece of information of the entire Oasis history. It doesn’t come from any reliable source but the point is: I don’t doubt it. It’s the truth to me.

3-) Clint Boon

This is probably the most important evidence – so important that it’s why I’ve chosen it to illustrate the post. Noel’s years as a roadie were, obviously, wild.

Everything started when he auditioned to be the new singer of Inspiral Carpets. As we all know, he wasn’t accepted, but he was asked to be a roadie, in case he was interested. I don’t want to be pretentious but I have lots of friends who think that the job was only offered to him because Clint was already interested, BUT ANYWAY.

It’s common to see lots of photos of Clint and Noel together, we all know. And very suspicious photos, in fact. Some of them are not even with Clint, for example. The one where Noel is almost kissing a guy with a hand on his **** is actually Graham. And you can tell it because Graham’s hair was shorter than Clint’s (it’s the third photo of the collage above)

Noel was already asked by this photo on an interview and he was BOLD ENOUGH to deny the kiss:

“Interviewer: There’s a quite famous photo of you snogging Clint [Boon] from The lnspiral Carpets.

Noel: Oh no, that was Graham [Lambert, Inspirals guitarist]. Yeah. We weren’t actually kissing, though.

I: It looked like you were.

N: Yeah, yeah, it did look like it. But I can assure you.”

Anyway, the point is, we know Noel can assure they weren’t kissing because the only guy he would kiss was Clint. Ok, seriously now: we know that Noel used to take suspicious photos with his friends, while they drank and did drugs.

You can even see Noel shotgunning – the act of blowing weed or simply cigarette’s smoke on another person’s, usually your partner’s, mouth, and maybe even kissing – on the 4th and 5th photo from the beginning of the post. Notice that both photos were taken at the same night (their clothes are the same) and with the same guy.

Ah, and we have the matching haircuts as well. Thing we saw happening to Liam and Noel too (1997, 1999…)

(please don’t ever let this photo die)

Well. My point here is not the photos, not even the haircuts at all. It’s Clint. The amount of photos/footage we have of Noel with Clint is much more significant than the ones we have with the rest of the band. For example, Noel’s not seen in bed with any other member than Clint.

Actually, I have more things to talk of Clint, but I’ll leave it to another post.

And more: on the book “Carpet Burns: Life with Inspiral Carpets”, by Tom Hingley, the lead singer, contains a quote where Clint claims that Noel taught him another use for the airplane tables (thanks, Mat, for the useful info!). Another use. If you know what I mean.

But the most extraordinary thing is that, coincidence or not, there’s a Inspiral’s song, called Dragging me Down, written by Clint, released on 1992 – when Noel was already gone and in Oasis –, that strangely makes references to planes, travels, sky and flying. Behold:

Now, it’s up to you to patch things together.

AND DON’T YOU GET ME TO TALK ABOUT THIS:

4-) Random Noel’s quotes through the years

This one is probably the more common and easy-to-find evidence. I’ll just give the examples I recall now, but if you have more in mind, feel free to share it so I can add it to this post!

I don’t know what happened to Noel in the ‘Russell Brand 6Music show’ on 2006, because somehow he said a lot of things there.

Noel insisted that if he was gay, he’d be the biggest gay in the world, saying “I would be gayer than Freddie Mercury”, and then, Russell suggested that the 3AM girls might be interested in Noel suddenly getting in touch with his gay side, to which Noel replied:

“In a manner of speaking, I may have done already.”

Bingo!

And there’s that one from 1 Leicester Square, also being interviewed by Russell Brand, where they even talk a little about Noel’s years as a roadie, and Noel later says he was “very in touch” with his “effeminate side” (again!) and that Noel was a girl’s name¿? Russell says Liam has a “sexualised arrogance” and I confess I’m really like ?¿?¿where did you get it, son?¿?¿? because I really do think it’s something Noel thinks at the deep heart, not something Russell Brand could say, actually.

And again, there’s another quote, from another Russell Brand BBC2 show from 29th July 2008: “I like a few women but I like men an awful lot more.” He even continues and say “I call myself straight, but I’m GAY!”. “If I went to call myself bisexual, it would be equally, if not more misleaded (?), I’m not undecided or bi-curious either” Then, Noel asks “Matt, can you come up with a new word for people who are mostly straight but a little gay or mostly gay but a little straight?” and Russell comes up with the brilliant answer: “Oasis.”

It actually surprises and triggers me how nearly every time Noel and Russell meet, they end up talking about that subject… really weird, innit? Does Russell know of something? We might never know… *suspense intensifies*

And, now, going out of the Russell Brand show, we have the beautiful quote of Noel for a German TV interview on February 2009, which I’ll give me the luxury to copy down here:

“Q: So tonight you’re on stage with your brother.

N: Unfortunately, yes.

Q: Unfortunately. You don’t like each other very much.

N: No.

Q: Is there anything you like about your brother? Anything?

N. There’s lots of things I like about his personality, but he doesn’t like me.

Q: Do you know why?

N: Uuuhm…

Q: Have you ever talked to him about it?

N: I don’t know. You’d have to speak to him. But I know he doesn’t like me. He insults me all the time.

Q: But you like him.

N: There’s certain aspects of him that I like.

Q: What kind of aspects?

N: He wears crazy shoes.

Q: Ah. Anything else?

N: He has crazy hair.

Q: And what’s that got to do with his personality?

N: They’re just things I find attractive in men.”

Fine.

6-) This.

Ok, now I have two destinations: either people will kill me or support me. I don’t want to, I don’t know, ruin Noel’s perfect-marriage-husband reputation or whatsoever; actually, I don’t want to ruin Noel’s marriage lolololol but the point is: it’s in the internet, so it’s free, right? And my job here is exposing. So, that’s what I’m gonna do.

Well, one day I was doing my daily research with my friends, seeking for evidences of Noel’s bisexuality, and I bumped up into this:

But then I thought, “c'mon, the guy (who I censored the username for legal reasons) could be tripping”, but then me and my big-stalker-KGB-ass did a research on the lad’s profile, and, in the same weekend he tweeted that, he really was at Glasto, in 2014:

And the point is that, Noel wasn’t playing Glastonbury then, but he ATTENDED Glastonbury; he was at backstage, as you can see here:

Maybe the guy is crazy? Yes! Do I think he is actually crazy? No! Simply because, as I said, I don’t doubt anything, I know Noel and his capacity. The only difference between Noel and Liam is that Noel is a perfect secrefreak.

7-) Oasis fans are noticing it

If you think I made up all this bullshit, think again. It’s more and more common you see, not only the more dedicated fan accounts talking about it, but more grown-up fans talking about it too – I mean: it’s common to see not only the fan girls talking of it, but 30 year old blokes talking too. So, something must be quite right in all of this, right?

That’s it, guys, thank you so much for reading, I really consider this post my ultimate masterpiece, so I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to reblog, it helps me a lot, send a message or whatever, I’ll love to read it, see you on the next post!

#noel gallagher #gallaghercest #gcestlavie #evidence #80s

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