#I am a self-centered asshole who only writes her favorite characters doing things she's personally experienced lol

[yellowocaballero]

i’ve typed and re-typed this paragraph in my head several times but. just. i am at a complete loss with how i should say anything. your writing is compelling and genuinely cried (when i thought i’d never relearn crying again). on a slightly more articulate note - i love your sylvain. so principled to the end. kudos in the truest sense of the word.

Thank you so much this is so extremely sweet!! ;-; The story really hit at some personal topics for me too...everything I write does, but in a few chapters it'll be most obvious.

Having feelings really is the worst thing in the world. I'm the type of person who's tried many times in in the past to carve out my heart. You have to be a little jealous of Byleth - of her own little world where nothing hurts, where sadness and pain and loneliness cannot penetrate. She can't love, but she can't feel the pain of a broken heart. There's far more pain than joy in the world, so it really seems like she has the better end of the deal. But I think the only way to survive is to be saved, and you have to save others before you can be saved yourself. And in order to save others you have to live in everybody else's world too, where pain and heartbreak is inevitable. It's like forcing yourself to place a hand on a hot stove, and to do it again and again no matter how often it hurts, but doing otherwise means you aren't living at all. You're not saving yourself or anybody else. We only have one life, and I'd rather live it.

Byleth's a fictional character. She can live 20 years without emotions, but we can't. Any attempt to carve out your heart will ultimately be unsuccessful, because we'll always reach back out to touch that stove again. So long as there's a billion assholes out there like me making very small and stupid little attempts to save people, I think we can't lose the ability to cry - I mean, you reached back, didn't you?

UM I HAVE A LOT TO SAY ABOUT SYLAIN BUT THIS POST IS ALREADY STUPID...I don't make it obvious but Sylvain is low-key my favorite character, up there with Felix. Like Felix, he does bad things for self-centered reasons. All I'll say right here is that Sylvain is the only one of the childhood friends who fully understands that Dimitri is a prince, and that as a big brother figure he is caught in a bad crossroads of protecting Dimitri and protecting others from Dimitri. Thanks for reading!!

[sammaysam]

When your therapist compares you to a character

December 2, 2022 

I think about many things most days, but to me alcohol and being the next brilliant writer, that even Bukowski would bow down to me is front and center in my brain. Truthfully I believe he was my lover in another life. I fuel myself with self loathing, vodka, and what used to be a slew of one night stands. They always laugh when I tell them there’s cab money on the table, but as I sober up I begin to realize that I slept with them because not only out of pity, but to quote Hank Moody from Californication “A morning of awkwardness is better than a night of loneliness.”

Hank Moody is someone that not only someone that I found myself relating to in such a deep level watching the show, I watched the show, and some moments I found almost mirror to life, but According to my least favorite therapist who is an asshole with his brilliant moments of understanding me, made me see that I have spent 35 years drinking until I am so blacked out at time that I can take home that beautiful girl home from the bar from her boyfriend, but I spend my life in love with Karen. (Watch the show).

The moment I got to hear it, it was truthfully it was so poetic because Hank Moody is by far is one of the best Mea Culpa characters ever written. He’s so twisted and dark, for fucks sake he smashes a 16 year old on the first episode who punches him in the face, and she turns out to be his ex wife’s new husbands daughter. He had absolutely no idea at first, where as I went after my best friends husband’s son in a sense of revenge and his dad has lost his fucking mind. Mission completed. In the words of Mortal Kombat, I “FINISHED HIM!” I sip on my vodka, and I wear those Aviators he would wear in the the smile I want, while I smoke a cigar while laughing in people’s faces because they’re simple peasants to me mostly. Because the most amazing thing about Hank Moody is that he will always take a punch to the face, but he also takes your woman to any bed. The charm we carry, the interest we show in your spoken words? Mean nothing to us. We are absolutely after that glorious pleasure seeking moment, and then want you to go. I got my dick wet sweetie, now let me meet your best friend.

I compiled a list of His quotes, and will explain how I feel they tie to me and how I believe this man would truly be a twin flame in my life.

Get it in while you can. It’ll all be gone soon enough.”

Live in the moment. Life is so short to worry about what others things, and to not give into your whims and pleasures. When you lose everything, nothing matters anymore.

“All those things that werent supposed to happen? They happened. What happens next is up to you.”

You can let Jesus take the wheel, or you can steer into oncoming traffic. Quit blaming others for your mistakes. You are writing your own novel of life stories, and do you really want that novel to end up in a 99 cent bin? I’m a NY Time Best Seller baby.

“I’ve lost a lot of battles, but I’ve never lost sight of the war. My goal is to fight my way to a day when we’re old and gray and she looks at me and says ‘I’m glad you never gave up.’ Until then, I fight. No retreat, baby. No surrender.”

I was raised a soldier baby, and I’m ready to go to battle for any war I see coming, even if I’m alone, I’ll use my anger as my armor. Because when I find that person, they’ll know I never gave up to get them.

“How can you be so fucking beautiful and so fucking wrong?”

I usually just tell straight girls they have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen, and next thing you know I’ve had several in bathroom bar stalls. What can I say, Straight girls are as much of a vice as my Vodka. Women are beautiful creatures, but when you make them feel wanted, they are yours for the taking. But don’t treat them badly because the next one to come along could be the one.

“I don’t just say shit. I mean, I do talk a lot of shit, but I generally mean what I say and I say what I mean.” I mean…. Have a 5 minute conversation with me.

“You’re right. You should probably do your best not to fall in love with me.” Ask anyone. Because baby I’m poision on your soul with the dark heart I have.

Maybe, you never know. I’ve always been quite the self-saboteur.”     

I’d rather be let down then try, because disappointment is comfortable.

“Really? Is this wrong? Because I can’t tell anymore.”

I have no idea where my line is anymore, and I’m going to keep trying to find it, and create chaos in my own way

“I can’t teach you how to write, and anybody who says they can is full of shit.” ― Hank Moody

What I love about writing, and when people ask me about it? The Most perfect reply:

“You know why love stories have happy endings?” “Because they end too early,” she continues. “They always end right at the kiss. You never have to see all the bullshit that comes later. You know, Life.”

Life took my soulmate, and my dog. Suppose that’s my happy ending. Dying alone, but at least I have vodka. That’s the one lover who never left me, and I’ll gladly let her take me too.

“She said one thing and I said another and the next thing I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life in the middle of that conversation.”

Every moment with those men who make my eyes twinkle make me believe these words. Unfortunately, I say those words for moments I know will be fleeting. For him, but mostly for me because once I getit I don’t want it anymore.

“When it comes to emotions, women know how to paint with the full set of oils, while men are busy doodling with crayons.”

They give me nothing, while out of boredom while pleading to be interesting with the 3 basic primary colors.

“The person that I want to have everything to do with, wants nothing to do with me.”

I keep myself far away because that raw vulnerability is disgusting. It reminds me the remains you find in a sink you can’t drain down, mixed with disgusting dishwater, that in your hands makes me want to vomit from simply touching it.

“Don’t tell me what to feel. All my fucking life, people have been telling me I do things wrong. I’m always the fucking asshole. I look around and I see everybody else is infinitely more fucked up than I am.

I am more fucked up than anyone else but my GOD I scream at people at how much, how much I love. I want them to know once I care….other than than that I am dirtier than Hank. Because I value people’s lives as much as I can stick my dick in them to keep them from talking.

“Once upon a time, I wrote a book. People seemed to dig it, so I wrote another and one after that. That’s when Hollywood came knocking at my back door. As soon as I cashed that check, I wrapped my lips around the mighty erection that is the film industry and sucked hard, just like a good whore should. Unfortunately, I had to be taught not to orphan the balls.

Luckily I never had to suck on the shaft, because I did it all myself, but being a writer is a descent into madness. The rejections, the thousands of rough drafts tossed aside with the dream that it will be better the next time, and the empty bottles spread around my room because I’m searching for the meaning of wanting this to be my purpose of what I was supposed to do. My entire life has lead me to these moments, but am I really that Good? Hemmingway once said “writing is easy. All you have to do is sit at a typewriter, and bleed.”

My favorite Part though is the letter he writes to Karen. It is one of the most poetic things written by a man with demons in his soul, and his primary concern after his family is himself. He loved someone this much, and I believe that maybe I will be stable sure, but to love someone like this again. Paul was a different love, but this is a love where he would take her place just so she wouldn’t shed one more tear.

Dear Karen, I’ve been thinking about Us, the story of us. How the fuck do I sum it up? Has it been perfect? Hardly. Any story with me at the center of it will never be anything less than a big smiling mess. But here’s what I know for sure—our time in the sun has been a thing of absolute fucking beauty. The nightmares, the hangovers, the fucking and the punching. The gorgeous shimmering insanity of the city of ours. Where for years I woke up, fucked up, said I was sorry, passed out and did it all over again. As a writer, I’m a sucker for happy endings. The guy gets the girl, she saves him from himself, fade to fucking black. As a guy who loves a girl, I realize there’s no such thing. There’s no sunset. There’s just now, and there’s just the two of us, which can be scary fucking ugly sometimes. But if you close your eyes and listen for the whisper of your heart—if you simply keep trying and never ever give up, no matter how many times you get it wrong, until the beginning and the end blur into something called until we meet again — and that’s it.

I didn’t know how to finish it, because it’s not over. It’ll never be over, as longs as there’s you, and there’s me, and there’s hope, and grace.”

Hank Moody is the writer I never knew I would end up being as an adult. As a kid I wanted to be Christopher Pike. Now I’m a whoremongering, binge drinking, half psychotic, and seek pleasure from pain. I respect Hank Moody more than I respect most people in my life because he’s everything I am and nothing will change my desire to go deeper down that rabbit hole he helped me see in myself. Until I find my Karen, I’m going to drive off into the sunset in the bomb ass car he drives, looking for my next conquest.

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[saywhatjessie]

Deputy Blaine

Klaine Advent: Day 4 - Deputy/Paper (Ao3)

“Hi!”

Kurt looked up, startled, to find a very cute boy smiling at him.

He had dark curly hair, styled in waves up and off his forehead. He wore a navy blue button up, tucked into washed cuffed shorts, short sleeves rolled over his defined biceps. His legs led down to an unfortunate pair of boat shoes but back up underneath his face was a charming white bow tie.

And what a face. A jawline like ‘whoa’ – not really sharp but broad and strong, softened by the wide smile dominating his face. The only thing that could possibly distract from such a smile would be his eyes, bright and friendly as fresh honey.

Kurt smiled back at this frankly beautiful boy. Then his eyes registered the clipboard the beautiful boy was holding and his smile faltered.

“Hi! Are you registered to vote here in Austin?”

Kurt let out a long sigh, lowering his phone to the table. He sent a soft look to this guy.

“Hi! No, I’m not.”

The guy’s smile turned up even brighter. “Great! Well, I can get you registered right now so you’re good to vote this November.” He turned his clipboard to Kurt, pushing it into his hands. “Just fill out everything that’s highlighted.”

Kurt took the clipboard more out of instinct than anything. He figured that was probably part of the training – physically handing the person the form to make sure they fill it out.

Kurt looked over the paper, already knowing he wouldn’t be filling it out. He was just visiting, he couldn’t register here when he doesn’t live here.

But Kurt supported the cause and this guy was cute.

Kurt smiled at him, laying the clipboard delicately on the table. “Who are you with?”

“I’m with NewGrade! We’re a non-partisan political organization trying to mobilize youth voters.”

Kurt laughed, teasingly. “Well, I can already tell you’re not non-partisan. Republicans don’t want young people voting.”

The guy smile back, sheepishly. “We are tad… progressive.”

Kurt laughed again. The guy blushed. It was cute.

“What’s your name?” Kurt asked, tilting his head in what he hoped was an enticing way.

The guy reached his hand out, face very open and friendly but not particularly enticed. “My name’s Blaine.”

Kurt took his hand, taking a moment to appreciate the rough firmness of his hands before answering. “Kurt.”

Kurt looked meaningfully at the chair across from him. “Care to have a seat, Blaine?”

Blaine hesitated for just a second before pulling his smile back and taking a seat.

“I’ll be straight with you, Blaine,” Kurt started before snorting and rolling his eyes at himself. “Well, not straight. I’m never straight. But I’ll be up front.”

Blaine laughed, his shoulders losing some tension. He rested his elbows on the table.

“I can’t register to vote. I don’t live here – I’m visiting from New York as part of my grad program.”

Blaine deflated a little but his customer service smile came right back. “Well are you registered in New York?”

“Of course I am, Blaine. I’m gay.”

Blaine laughed again at that but his eyes still looked disappointed.

“Do you have a quota or something, Blaine?”

Blaine sighed, sinking a little further onto his elbows. “Kind of. I’m an organizer, which just means I’m supposed to get volunteers to do my work for me. But my volunteers suck, so I have to get 8 voter registration by the end of their shift.”

Kurt had absolutely no context for whether or not 8 was a lot. He figured when it came to walking up to random strangers in coffee shops it must be.

“Well when’s the end of their shift?”

Blaine checked his watch. “In like an hour and a half.”

“And how many do you have now?”

“Six.”

“Oh,” Kurt scoffed, waving a hand dismissively. “You’ve got plenty of time! For two more?” He scoffed again.

Blaine nodded but blew out a tired breath. “Yeah, but I wanted to do better than 8. Why do what you can overdo, you know?”

Kurt’s mouth quirked up. That was a motto he could get behind.

“I don’t disagree.”

Blaine smiled back, a smaller but more genuine expression than Kurt had seen so far.

“So, how did you get into this?”

Blaine shrugged, looking at his hands. “Grew up in a small town in Ohio. When I volunteered to work polls in 2016 they told me how I could become more involved. I applied for this job and they shipped me out here.”

Kurt nodded, his eyebrows hiked high. “Where in Ohio?”

Blaine winced. “Westerville? It’s near–”

“No shit!” Kurt smacked the table. “You call that small? You’re right by Columbus! Try Lima, now that was small.”

Blaine brightened a bit his eyebrows like triangles hiking up his forehead. “You grew up in Lima? I sang against your glee club!”

Kurt grinned back. “Yeah! So, I mean, hey, Austin’s better than there, right?”

Blaine nodded, but sank back down anyway. “Yeah, it is.”

Kurt leaned forward, poking Blaine in the forehead. “Then why the sad face?”

Blaine blinked, a little startled at the contact, but smiled, sheepishly, rolling his eyes.

“Well, to start, Texas has some of the most awful registration laws of any state. You can’t just print out a registration form and mail it in. You need someone deputized to present it to you.”

Kurt’s eyebrows lifted nearly off his face, his mouth spread into a grin. “Are you telling me you’re a deputy.”

Blaine nodded, miserably.

Kurt put on an affected southern accent. “Well there, I didn’t see a shiny badge on ya! How’m I supposed to know you ain’t one of them city slickers.”

Blaine rolled his eyes. “Yeah.” Blaine paused as Kurt laughed at himself but continued, “And in addition to those jokes, a deputization only counts in one county. Which means I can’t register someone in Dallas even though it’s the same form. And every volunteer I recruit has to be deputized, too. It’s a nightmare.”

Kurt reached forward and patted Blaine’s hands in comfort. Blaine let his happen, looking at Kurt with a curious glint in his eye.

“I’m sorry, Blaine. That sounds rough. I wish I could help!”

Blaine kept looking at him, curiously. “Well… do you know of any better spots where I might get people to register?”

Kurt held up his hands. “Hey, man, I told you: I’m just visiting.” Kurt lowered his hands again, tipping his head in thought. “But, actually, there’s a club meeting happening at the ASFD commons I was invited to. I’m sure not all of those students updated their registration when they moved for school.”

Blaine’s eyes brightened again, his elbows coming off the table as he sat straight up. “Yeah? Do you think you could bring me?”

“That depends,” Kurt looked at him, tilting his head enticingly again. Blaine seemed to be a scoche more enticed. “Will you get coffee with me after?”

Blaine blushed, but nodded.

Kurt grinned, standing up and grabbing his empty mug. “Well then, let’s go. Democracy waits for no one.”

[c0rpsedemon]

i am curious, as someone who’s only exposure to arthurania was reading jane yolen’s young merlin as a child, would you mind saying why hnoc is a bad adaptation? i’m super curious but no worries if not <3

this has been sitting in my inbox for months bc i kept telling myself i needed to write a full essay with proof from medieval lit to make myself feel smarter.  however, since i’ve recently lost all credibility bc i can’t articulate points to save my life, and since i’ve realized that i could answer this in a just a couple paragraphs, now seems like the right time to answer this ask. sorry for the wait.

under a cut bc length

also warnings for mentions of racism bc this is hnoc we're talking abt and sexual assault bc this is med lit we're also talking abt

the basic problems are pendragon polycule itself, the story beats of the album, the fridging and lack of characterization of morgan le fay, the clear influence of pop culture arthuriana, and whatever the fuck happened with gawain/e.

pendragon polycule is... just not a good take.  there’s a bit in the lancelot-grail abt arthur viewing lancelot like a son (and lancelot not giving a shit abt him).  also arthur knew his parents for years before lancelot was even born.  plus lancelot just Doesn’t care abt him and i can’t stress this part enough.  arthur repeatedly tries to have guinnevere killed, mostly in the lancelot-grail, and guinn didn’t really have any say in marrying him bc she was a teenager.  lancelot and guinnevere is a lot better but that’s not saying much.  guinn doesn’t exactly treat lancelot too well... like at all, BUT it’s not intrinsic to their relationship and is completely caused by medieval misogyny and i’m all in favor of modern retellings saying fuck that.  but also lancelot has multiple pseudo-canon boyfriends (this is med lit after all), and one pseudo-canon husband so like... there were better options.  (also lancelot’s husband is basically in a lavender marriage with guinnevere’s maybe girlfriend who most authors just eventually forget abt as the story progresses).

this next one is a problem with a lot of modern arthurian works bc the inclusion of elayne of astolat is too much to ask apparently.  the grail quest isn’t tied to the fall of camelot, it just happens to be one of the last grand adventures the knights of the round table have.  the event that traditionally sets off the fall is the death of the maiden of astolat/the lady of shalott/elayne of escolat/she has a lot of names, her story has a few variations but usually she either is cursed to stay in a tower and weave and only be able to see the outside world through a mirror positioned across from her window, until lancelot rides by and she rushes to see him out of the actual window and her mirror shatters, setting off her death, or she lives with her father and brothers and takes care of lancelot bc he was injured for a time and she gets to go on adventures to find him and she’s friends with gawaine and she dies bc lancelot rejects her and this version’s a lot more fun but also more happens which makes it harder to explain.  the way her story ends however, is that she dies after she makes arrangements for a glorious boat to drift from astolat to camelot carrying nothing but her dead body and a letter explaining that she died of love for lancelot du lac and the court mourns the death of such a beautiful and young maiden (her age varies a lot but i’ve always read her as a young teenager at most).  but the important thing is, camelot is doomed from the moment she washes up on its shore bc she’s an omen of the end and has symbolic meaning and all that, the maiden of astolat washes up on camelot’s shores, the court mourns the loss of a maiden in her prime and she marks the end of camelot’s prime as well, morgan le fay reappears after being presumed dead and warns arthur of guinnevere and lancelot’s affair, aggravaine and modred conspire to bring lancelot and guinnevere’s affair to light, they succeed but lancelot escapes, guinnevere is to be burnt at the stake and lancelot rescues her, killing aggravaine, gaheris and gareth (gawaine’s brothers) in the process, gawaine drags his uncle and camelot to war bc he was driven mad due to the loss of his brothers, lancelot accidentally kills gawaine, his best friend and maybe boyfriend (i have RECEIPTS), and gawaine forgives him on his detahbed while lancelot and guinn rejoin arthur, meanwhile modred, who practically had the throne handed to him, usurps and invites the saxons in, camlann happens, and camelot is destroyed.  no where in there is the grail quest.

morgan le fay is honestly the most questionable part of the album bc there’s not a single text where she dies.  like....  at least with eurydice in udad she died in the original... there’s no basis for morgan dying.  also she is NOT modred’s mother and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar, she interacts with him once in the vulgate bc she had three of her nephews over and that’s IT.  it’s a horrible take which originated in the mists of avalon by marion zimmer bradley who is an honest to god monster for reasons i don’t want to trigger tag this post for.  also she’s one of the most dynamic and thought-out characters in the entire canon and they just made her a watered down morgause (modred’s actual mother, morgan’s sister, canonical milf)... there was no reason for it to be her apart from the fact that she’s more well known......

pop culture arthuriana is,,, one of my least favorite things.  no, morgan wasn’t modred’s mother, no, morgause wasn’t abusive but her husband sure was implied to be, no, aggravaine didn’t kill his mother, that was gaheris, he loved his mother, you’re only saying that bc he has a reputation as the “evil” orkney, no, the once and future king is not a good descriptor for arthur, stop making me read it, no, morgause wasn’t the one to initiate the thing with arthur resulting in modred, no, lancelot and arthur weren’t friends, no, tristan wasn’t a self-centered asshole, tennyson is a fucking liar, no, galahad didn’t have sex or want to, he’s one of the first ever explicitly asexual characters out there, no, galahad’s conception was NOT consensual, lancelot was tricked, and no, elayne of astolat wasn’t galahad’s mother, she’s implied to be younger than him.  those are just the big glaring ones, but i swear it’s bc of arthuriana’s reputation as a mythology and the connotations belonging to that word (no one true canon (which is true but there are still things that just AREN’T canon, not completely written down, passed by oral tradition) that causes ppl to see mediocre modern texts and go “oh. well this is abt as close to the original as i’m going to get” and don’t bother to look into so much as malory (who i only name bc he’s one of the most well known medieval authors with the most commonly used storylines, don’t read malory kids, he’s a mediocre-at-best writer even by medieval standards).  the big perpetrators of modern arthurian tropes are the books the once and future king by th wh*te, who is a shitty person and lets it bleed into his writing (which isn’t like... nice to read or anything, seriously why do ppl love this book so much it doesn’t have redeeming qualities), and the mists of avalon by marion zimmer bradley (it’s poorly written, the story is a mess, and mzb is honestly a monster and one google search will tell you that), and unfortunately the writings of tennyson, which are mostly good but he clearly didn’t read the povest (a later text that’s also my favorite, known for significantly improving ppl’s opinions on tristan, isolde and co.) before deciding he hated both tristan and isolde and he has HORRIBLE takes on them.  high noon over camelot is SEEPED in pop culture arthuriana and i think it would have been so much better if the band had read so much as a SUMMARY of the events of le morte.  it’s evident in the song “the once and future king” bc it’s,,,, literally named after one of the worst books in existence.  it’s shown in the morgan le fay thing, and it’s shown in the pendragon polycule thing.  and hell, i think you can even explain away the lack of elayne of astolat with pop culture arthuriana, bc ppl have had bad takes on her ever since th wh*te combined her character with that of ela*ne of corbenic, and the band probably went “huh, let’s write lancelot’s abuser out of this” and they would’ve been right to do so if that’s who elayne of astolat was.

the final big issue is gawaine, the closest thing the genre has to a protagonist, he’s pretty much canon bi and, in some texts, arospec, he’s a dashing knight of great reknown and he derails every romance to steal hearts, commit murder, and make out with every knight and lady mentioned.  and in hnoc he’s... racist.  that’s it.  it’s,,, almost completely unfounded by the arthurian canon and shows a major misunderstanding of his motivations (like i said earlier, he wants to avenge his brothers bc there’s a reoccuring motif of how much the orkneys value family).  i say almost bc in one text it’s his motivations for killing palomydes but i’ve never heard it mentioned by name bc that’s just what it’s known for.  most arthuriana fans just look away from it except when critiquing hnoc but that one text is an outlier, shouldn’t be counted, and i highly doubt the mechs made hnoc gawain how he is bc they found this text.  it’s just a bad text.

hnoc has,,, quite a few more minor issues, such as villainized ladies of the lake (their ONLY crimes were sealing away merlin bc he tried to assault teenage nimue/ninniane (proto-nimue/vivianne from the vulgate), and that one time vivviane/ninniane kidnapped adopted baby lancelot), assigning brain to merlin (y’know,,, the predator who helped arrange the [redacted] of arthur’s mother and tried to assault a teenager,,,) although merlin is portrayed in a positive light throughout modern arthuriana so i don’t think they knew, giving a song to pellinore, who my perception of has been forever altered bc i was introduced to him through malory and the explanation of torre’s conception, which you can just look up “sir torre arthurian” to find out abt if you can’t just Guess, if they wanted a song abt the questing beast palomydes was Right There AND has been associated with the questing beast for longer, but once again i don’t think they knew.

also namedropping a bunch of knights in the fiction is... it Suggests a bigger world full of all these other stories but they just don’t work bc the world of hnoc wasn’t designed in a way where the appearance of half these characters would make sense.  like,, tristan is referenced as dying in the grail quest in the same sentence as bedevere (one of the characters who is known for almost always surviving), but tristan Isn’t one of the knights who dies on the grail quest, his possible deaths (ignoring the potentially happy ending of the povest for a second) are either being murdered by his uncle, king mark (bc mark married tristan’s gf to try and get tristan killed and also to spite him), bc he was driven into a fury bc of tristan and isolde’s affair, or he’s injured and only isolde (the best healer in the world) can save him so he sends for her and if the ship he sent for her is supposed to fly white sails if she’s there, or black sails if she’s not, and the ship flies white sails but his wife (also named isolde) says it’s black sails (the why depends but usually comes down to jealousy), and so he gives up bc he thinks all hope is lost and usually succumbs to his injuries, either way isolde dies of a broken heart over his body.  there’s no way for the tristan and isolde story to play out like it’s supposed to in the world of hnoc, just as there’s no way for any story with gawaine (and Oh Boy are there a lot of stories with gawaine) or pretty much anyone else, without severely altering the canon.

of course, there are still parts of hnoc i like a lot, most of the music i adore and i just like the idea of space cowboys and the secret good hnoc that lives in my head.  and it has one of my favorite characterizations of galahad, even though galahad hnoc is nothing like galahad arthuriana.  it’s not GOOD but i like it and it’s fun to turn my brain off too, and i’ll always value it as my introduction to arthuriana.

also there are modern arthurian tropes i do like such as characters being genre-savvy/knowing they’re fictional/knowing they’ve done this before (which hnoc does wonderfully!) and bedevere-as-the-storyteller (everyone say thank you lord tennyson).

WOW that was longer than expected, i feel very passionately abt this, when i was planning to write a fully sourced essay i meant to include a bit at the bottom with recommendations to get into better arthuriana and i think i’ll keep that in this post.

if you like hnoc for the arthurian music i’d like to suggest heather dale’s arthurian music to you, she does occasionally fall into the trap of modern arthuriana (some parts of lancelot and arthur being close, morgan as modred’s mother), sometimes she’s just wrong (galahad at lancelot’s trial, a lot of tristan and isolde), and her stuff is kinda straightwashed sometimes (sir gawain and the green knight, for example) but i’d be lying if it wasn’t catchy, and it’s not quite as bad as hnoc adaptation-wise.  culwch and olwen is pretty accurate (albeit abridged bc culwch and olwen has SO many tangents), as is lily maid (it’s abt elayne of astolat!).

if you liked hnoc for king arthur... in space! then may i recommend to you my own fanfic? it's not posted yet but the second i finish writing the first chapter i'm going to make a Big Deal out of it that'll be impossible to miss!

if you want to learn abt arthuriana through tumblr-osmosis like i did at first, i’d like to recommend the love of my life @acegalahads, first and foremost (it’s me on a sideblog i’m just obsessed with myself), and i can’t recommend my arthuriana mutuals over there, @/gringolet, @/merlinenthusiast, @/jcbookworm, @/elayneofshalott, and @/elaineofascolat (the elayne urls have been popular recently), also i know for a fact that my mutual-in-law, @/itonje makes great arthuriana posts that i look forwards to whenever i open the tag.

here are a few good reference posts, a quick guide to the characters, a guide to characters of color, and a much more comprehensive intro to arthuriana post with even more texts linked to it.

if you want to ease into med lit, i’d like to introduce you to pre-raphaelite poetry, alfred lord tennyson and william morris are my favorites, although tennyson can’t be trusted with tristan and isolde.  the poem the lady of shalott is basically a rite of passage for arthuriana fans, although when it comes to tennyson’s writings abt elayne of astolat, i prefer lancelot and elaine, which is part of his much larger story, idylls of the king.  for morris, don’t trust what he says abt aggravaine killing his mother, but my favorites of his are sir galahad, a christmas mystery, which sounds like a shitty disney sequel, and palomyde’s quest, which i blame for my love of palomydes (that and the one bit of the povest where he asks tristan to be his greatest enemy and that he wants nothing more, gay ppl,,,,).

if you want to read abt lancelot and his husband, there’s the lancelot-grail cycle, which i believe was taken off of archive dot org and i think i found it on @/tobeisexhausting’s blog but don’t quote me on that.

the povest, which was a religious experience for me and i can’t reccomend enough if you want to like tristan and isolde, is here, i don’t know who scanned it but i think i found it on @/lanzelet’s blog

the dutch texts are just good in general, here’s a link to their section of a(n unfinished) site for hosting various texts by my former mutual @/reynier (who’s no longer on tumblr).  i’d like to recommend lancelot and the white hart specifically bc it’s mainly just just gawaine being gay for lancelot.

if you want older works, here’s my scan of the history of the kings of britain, and here’s culwch and olwen and pa gur.

oh wow this is even longer than i thought it would be so i’m going to wrap this up by saying that i always love to talk abt arthuriana more than anything if you have any questions or just are curious!

[devourer--of--books]

Some time ago (and by “some time” I mean a long ass time, oops) Kate (@pumpkinpaperweight) posted an analysis of gold rush by Taylor Swift tracing parallels to Agatha, which this post is clearly inspired by. 

(Go check that one out after you finish reading this post, it’s really good.)

Ever since, I’ve had an entire tagatha x taylor playlist/unfinished post that I don’t think will ever see the light because I’m too lazy to actually finish it. But now I have some spare time and I noticed that,,,, invisible string wasn’t on it.

And that's cause, well, despite the obvious gold fingerglow motif which is very tagatha … you already read the title of the post. It’s more like my own version of of what I would have had happen post-otk (will my epilogue version ever see the light, I wonder) than anything else, but this is my account, in which I am correct all the time and accept no criticism so,,,,

Green was the color of the grass where I used to read at Centennial Park

I used to think I would meet somebody there

Basically, these first two lines are about how Sophie’s egocentrism isolated her and kept her from making genuine connections with people from very early on, until she becomes friends with Agatha and even after that.

Okay, so have you guys ever seen those tiktoks that are like ‘13-year-old me, in black jeans and sneakers, at the beach, reading a book mYstERioUsLy so that when Harry Styles showed up he’d know I’m dIfFeRenT'?

This is the energy I get here. 

Like, Sophie in the start of book one doing all those ‘good deeds’ so set herself apart in the eyes of the school master hoping that he’d bring her to the school where she would meet *drumroll* The One. 

Most of us have, at some point (I hope, otherwise it was just me and that would be so embarassing), tried and failed to channel that main-character-energy to manifest ourselves into a story much more interesting than whatever is going on in your life at the moment. I feel like at the very core, that’s sort of what Sophie was trying to do? It’s a very juvenile feeling and shows just how little Sophie knew about love overall. Love as it is in fairytale books, as opposed to as it actually is.

She thought herself as above everyone else and thought she was entitled to true, unconditional love, which ended up holding her back and isolating her from everyone in the town, save for Agatha, give or take. 

This mindset is what really keeps her from seeing Tedros (and Agatha, and everyone else) as people, rather than characters in her story, and actually connecting with them on a non-superficial level. 

Teal was the color of your shirt when you were 16 at the yogurt shop

You used to work at to make a little money

I don’t think this part needs much explaining? 

On surface level, Nicola canonically started working at her father’s pub at a very young age to help with family expenses.

If you think about it a little more and contrast it with the previous line, though, it highlights the differences between Sophie and Nicola:

Nic works to help her family, learning responsibility and duty, while Sophie barely ever did anything for her father, both out of vanity (and a superiority complex) and out of spite (which is honestly undeserved all the way up to book 3, when Stefan let Callis die and fucking tried to blame Agatha for returning without Sophie and then guilt-tripped her into going to save her, after which he was dead to me lol). Sophie grew with a princess-like mindset, despite being just slightly better off than Nic, given all the villagers save from Callis and Agatha (due to them being outcasts) seem to have a similar income (with the exception of the beggar which I don’t understand and am probably overthinking about, but honestly, it’s a impossible to leave town and people die on the mill all the time, there's no college or whatever, did none of these assholes offer the beggar a job- I’m getting carried away), while Nicola has to shoulder most of the responsibilities due to her dad being sick.

Also, given the *misogyny* I’d be surprised if Nic didn’t have to do all the housework, as the only girl in her house.  

I doubt that the uniform of the pub was teal and given the book timeline she wouldn’t have been 16 in any instances in which Sophie and her met in Gavaldon, but I digress.

Time

Curious time

Gave me no compasses

Gave me no signs

Were there clues I didn't see?

Also kinda self-explanatory in a way?

On one interpretation, it takes Sophie an awful long time to mature and grow into an okay person. She lashed out after Tedros’ rejection because her desire was, when you get down to it, to be loved, even though she didn't understand what love was or how to go about it. She was already loved both by Agatha and by her father but she couldn't see it because the idea of love (romantic, loud, grand-gesture) was so embedded into her, but the clues to it were there all along.

On another, you could argue that Nicola also did not see this coming at all, specially if you consider canon!Nicola rather than fanon!Nicola (why would you, but okay, ignore my Hunter post, go on, stomp on my feelings). Nicola, whose purpose in TCY was to be the new hort-love-interest no one asked for, ending up with her *gag* love-rival? Unexpected, iconic, never done before (never actually done in canon), amazing, mind-blowin-

Bad was the blood of the song in the cab on your first trip to LA

You ate at my favorite spot for dinner

Bad Blood was a smash hit on Taylor’s career, playing on the radio  non-stop during the 1989 era, arguably her peak in terms of mainstream pop and radio plays.

The Tale of Sophie and Agatha was the equivalent in this context, as it was all the rage in Gavaldon after book 3; Sophie’s persona as the Dean Of Evil is solidified and everyone in The Woods knows who she is and read her tale, including Nicola (who already knew who she was, but now had a another version of her to compare to the version she already knew, which hm, did not favour Sophie either way).

I think it’s kind of fascinating how parasocial relationships work in the context of SGE because like, the storian is there as an omniscient narrator, but it doesn’t write everything. Like, does it just expose what the people in the tale feel and think only if it suits the plot or do the tales look just like the SGE books, in some sort of fourth wall break or is it like an actual children’s fairytale, where you just get told actions and have to sort of assume motivations? How does that affect public opinion? I don’t think most people would be too keen on stanning Sophie after reading The Tale Of Sophie and Agatha (cause damn, Sophie does a lot of questionable shit there) but canonically, they do, despite her being the villain, which is something I have opinions on (do I ever not have opinions on things?).

Like, sure there would be Nevers stanning her, but honestly, if they read the tale, wouldn't they be more likely to stan Hester or even Agatha? Cause Sophie almost got both Evers and Nevers killed, doomed everyone in The Woods for a guy, and was overall a horrible person with no regard for actual Good or Evil as balanced things? Isn’t this why The Coven sided with Agatha, like, I don’t get it- Is it stanning out of fear? Cause that’s the only sort of explanation I have, specially for people in Gavaldon, but that’s something I’ll go deeper into in another time.

Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nic’s first class at SGE was about The Tale Of Sophie and Agatha, given she was originally placed in Evil, due to Dovey and Sophie’s bet, and Evil’s school curriculum was under Sophie’s control, so if you think those classes were anything other than the Sophie-Show, you are wrong.

Now, on to headcanon territory, wouldn’t it be poetic if during her first lunch Nic sat at that tree in the middle of the clearing where Agatha and Sophie used to sit? Not only for ship reasons, but the tree is right in the center, which could relate to how Nic was supposed to be half/half?

Bold was the waitress on our three-year trip getting lunch down by the Lakes

She said I looked like an American singer

It’s a real shame that I don’t remember most of TCY. (But is it really?)

This is kinda of my own personal interpretation of what the OTK epilogue should have been like (and so, it's kind of a spoiler for my ever unfinished rewrite sksnsksn).

Imagine if, instead of that horrid school wedding (kill me now, please), they actually held the respective funerals for all the people lost in the Camelot power-struggle (I’ll take a school funeral, but don’t come at me with school weddings or I’ll lose my shit).

Tedros and Agatha, poor traumatized children, are on their way back to Camelot to try and get stuff back under control and do royal things. Sophie is pretty much on her own, with the remaining faculty of the school, as well as the new kids (yeah, Hort’s staying dead, boo hoo, I’m not sorry sbfhbsdb). Nicola will be returning home to Gavaldon soon, since the school schedule is already messed up beyond repair and everyone is taking some time off anyway. She was only staying there until christmas originally, so might as well.

Public opinion on the main trio is kinda weird at the moment:

Tagatha suffered a coup, then a while laterTedros killed the brother of his usurper, whom had been more popular than him, and well, they do tell people that Japeth killed Rhian, but it’s not like they have receipts? Like, there’s no way to fact check that. They could very well have killed Rhian, we, as bystanders, wouldn’t know? You can bet rumors like these don’t just go away.

And Sophie?

Well, I think public opinion on Sophie was already fear-based rather than coming from a place of admiration for her acts. People aren’t sure of her alliances anymore, and don’t really know how to behave around her so they mainly avoid her. Now that Dovey and Hort are dead and everyone else is resuming their quests, she’ll be pretty much on her own to deal with the aftermatch, which is not only sad, but also probably not healthy. She considers staying with Agatha, but she doesn’t want to add more scandal to the Camelot situation.

So she decides to go back to Gavaldon. Not permanently tho. Just to visit her father and take some time off to decide who could balance her well enough to be appointed as Dean Of Good. 

She'd choose Agatha, but you know, Agatha is kinda busy. Plus, it'd be good to see her father. Watching most of your parental figures drop like flies really puts things into perspective and maybe (just maybe) there's still something to salvage there.

Not many people know she's at Gavaldon, and that's on purpose. For once, Sophie just wants to be left the fuck alone, so she just tries to lay low and not bring unnecessary attention to heself. It's so unlike her to do so that when she walks in to have lunch at Nicola's pub, no one but Nicola even recognizes her.

And if Nicola keeps her company and accompany her on walks, well, it’s no one’s business. Bonding time? Bonding time.

Time

Mystical time

Cutting me open, then healing me fine

Were there clues I didn't see?

You know what these kids need after this Camelot shitstorm? Therapy, that’s what.

There’s no therapy in The Woods, so friendship will simply have to do. Please sir, let these kids heal.

Nicola was dragged to SGE while her father was sick and knew no one there personally, then got dragged again, now into a power struggle where she almost died multiple times, dated a guy, broke up with a guy and I can’t even remember what else but that sounds like a stressful time considering how close together the events from TCY are compared to TSY. What does she want to do now? Will she become a knight? Will she remain in Gavaldon? Does she have to finish school? How have Hunter and her dad been? Whatever went down with her brothers? Why was she important in the first place? Lots to reflect and self-search.

And Sophie. Oh Sophie.

Sophie fell once again for a ‘get-love-’quick’ scheme, not once, but twice! That is not something easy to look in the face and forgive yourself for.

With Rhian, it backfired by hurting everyone she loved, and after the shit Rafal pulled on her, she should have known better. But can you blame her? It’s not like the Rafal thing left her unscratched: you try being in an abusive relationship with a predator, see if you don’t get some trauma. And instead of doing the hard thing and keeping up the work she had been doing on herself she threw her progress out the window the moment Rhian said what she wanted to hear!

After that went belly-up, she at least managed to help her friends, but then later that backfired and she got brain-washed (are we gonna talk about this? disturbing much?). Then, she got fragile enough for her to attempt to find purpose in her life within Hort’s feelings for her, even if she didn’t actually reciprocate those feelings, simply because she was sure of them and they were familiar.

And later, even Hort was taken away from her. 

(Probably for the best, given their attachment had been… precarious, to say the least.)

Therapy, I’m telling you.

A string that pulled me

Out of all the wrong arms right into that dive bar

Something wrapped all of my past mistakes in barbed wire

Chains around my demons

Wool to brave the seasons

One single thread of gold tied me to you

These two would be so good for one another.

I think that being alone when you’re going through something is literally the worst you can do, but when you have someone who just…. gets it, you know? They were there too. They understand. It forms a connection.

After OTK, both of them (Sophie mostly) have enough on their plates for them to go down a dark path to a horrible place. But they don’t. Cause they are here for each other and have their support system to help them.

Does that translate into late nights drinking together after the pub shuts down? Maybe.  Keeping tabs on each other to make sure they’re sleeping and eating right? Yes. Keeping secrets and confessions? You got it.

And then my friends, begins the pining.

Cause, you know, they’re just gals being pals, gals being gay- wait what.

Nicola probably comes to terms with it first, but thinks Sophie is not interested in her like that (she also suspects that Sophie only sees her as Agatha’s stand-in and will drop her eventually once Agatha is no longer in such high demand.) Sophie is, in classic Sophie-fashion, neck-deep in denial, she’s not a lesbian right? she’s boy crazy, she’s not a lesbian-

Except she never felt like this with any of those boys. The only comparison she has is what she feels for Agatha, this feeling of being heard and seen and understood, but-

But Sophie doesn’t want to kiss Agatha.

And in retrospect, she never wanted to kiss anyone like this either.  Tedros who, Rafal who, Rhian who, Hort who, these bitches could never.

Eventually they attend the official tagatha wedding, HELD AT THE CASTLE, as each other’s plus-ones, and well, maybe consider checking my eventual OTK-epilogue for more on this, once it eventually comes out.

Cold was the steel of my axe to grind for the boys who broke my heart

Now I send their babies presents

Very self-explanatory, Tedros may be Sophie’s favorite ex, but he’s still an ex and they will be killing each other if left unchecked for two long unsupervised.

Nicphie as the tagatha baby godparents. Please, YES.

I’m not gonna go into detail because children make me uncomfortable,  I wish this was a joke, haha, but yes, Sophie and Nic pic the presents together and they attend the baby shower together. Are they dating, are they just married but don’t know it yet? I wonder. They're just together and no one really knows what's going on.

Gold was the color of the leaves when I showed you around Centennial Park

Hell was the journey but it brought me heaven

You know what’s funny? I didn’t tell you anything between the wedding and the baby shower. Remember how there was an opening for Dean of Good?

Yeah, too late to send in your resumes, position is already filled.

Sophie shows Nic the ropes of being Dean, or at least that’s how she’ll present it, but they’re still sort of figuring it out together. And that's okay.

They spend summers traveling around, christmas in Gavaldon, new years in Camelot and all is well. Their fingerglow colors now match. But it’s, unfortunately not gold.

Time

Wondrous time

Gave me the blues and then purple pink skies

And it's cool

Baby, with me

Yeah, it’s fucking purple.

I can’t remember if Nic has a canon fingerglow color, but I don’t really care much for canon, do I? I just really like the imagery of it, so it’s blue and pink mixed together. Because, you know I’m a symbolic bitch.

And isn't it just so pretty to think

All along there was some

Invisible string

Tying you to me?

Anyway, I am correct, this is the post.

[ylizam]

[picard through 1.6: my disjointed feelings vs. my disjointed thoughts]

I guess the tl;dr is that I love (most of) the characters, and I do not trust the writing? which, fine, par for the course, especially as a Voyager person, but still. I’m enjoying it! I don’t think it’s actually good! I keep having feelings! I am really confused about what they’re doing in re Picard the Character! anyway!

the positive (give or take):

LARIS <3 <3 <3 my Picard’s my Romulan wife! traumatized and her whole world is gone and ex-Tal Shiar (!) and Irish and sweater-wearing and honestly Star Trek: Laris is the show I want in the world. 

I’m this.close to changing my user icon thingy to Laris. I mean I love Caroline and her wine but what if. (the main reason I haven’t yet is because what if they kill her off for more Picard manpain and I’m too angry about it, etc. like I said: I do not trust the writing/writers/whatever, especially with Duff on the staff.)

honestly, there are so many stories one could tell about Laris and Zhaban and home and rebuilding and loss and spies and family and you know what, I don’t trust the writers at this point, so maybe I’m the tiniest bit relieved they’re not telling it (but, oh, for writers who COULD)

Romulan secret names? sure, I can accept that. plenty of cultures have family versus public names, etc. Romulan secret names they only tell their lovers? eh, no, that’s a myth they sent out to the universe for a laugh / to see who believes it / because they could.

Romulan Warrior Nuns. the entire concept. all of them. absolute candor. swords. give me more. 

give me Laris formerly of the Tal Zhiar and members of the Qowat Milat having an awkward meal together I am just saying.

relatedly, Elnor needs a cat. 

Seven. Of. Nine. with pockets. 

continuing trauma because of course! (and look I love Janeway but I do cringe at the way “humanity” was thrust upon Seven in a very limited and forced way and that can’t have been great for her longterm and give me more Seven learning that she is “human” enough there’s no one definition but also she’s fucked up and that’s okay too except where it’s self-destructive and not okay and) 

although seriously they tiptoed riiiiiight up to the line of confirmed queerness and then swayed a bit and hope that was enough and it’s not? (I wonder if they were so paranoid about Kill Your Gays-itis and what it would mean for Seven to kill an ex that they didn’t want to skirt that fallout, but come on.) (I also wonder if, when Seven comes back, they actually go there or if this is as far as it will go.) 

Raffi. Michelle Hurd as Raffi. Raffi.

Raffi deserves better. Better writing, better writing, better writing.

so that was her ex-girlfriend Picard bribed her with wine to contact, right? 

Hugh. That hug. Hugh. 

the negative (give or take):

the casual racism problem. 

stop killing characters of color! if you colorblind cast and then only/largely people of color die that’s not good! not to mention Indiana Picard (see next point) and the Romulans of color all swarming around him and yeah. stop it.

don’t dress Picard up like a colonialist unless you actually mean it—like, if you want to get into the issues with the Federation and colonialism rah rah flags and all that, do it, but I just feel like they’re not actually going there (too much emphasis on conspiracies and people infiltrating the Federation rather than, oh, maybe the Federation itself is an issue?). 

this is where my trust of the writing really comes into play because I just don’t know that they know what they’re doing. 

the writing can be pretty clunky. why did they make someone with basically no tv experience the showrunner again? (it turns out that maybe television and novels are different media! with different rules and etceteras!)

no really why is this show being made in 2020 so straight (and so 1990s coy about any hints of queerness)

I don’t care about Narek. At all. He bores me. 

this is obviously a personal thing, as I’ve definitely seen people out there who enjoy him. but yeah. he does nothing for me personally.

and his sister is just. cartoon villainry.

if you’re going to keep intercutting to scenes with the bad guy and his sister sexually choking him and all either actually explain the reason they’re doing all the bad stuff and actual justifications, etc. (we don’t need it to be a surprise to be interesting, yo! why do you care about the android homeworld or whatever it is you’re searching for? have you shared your secret lover names with each other yet or naw?) or just don’t. the baddies should be their own heroes! 

I would definitely prefer the story about how the Federation and Starfleet aren’t what their PR says they are and digging into how flawed they are and colonialism and all that to the one about the conspiracy and infiltrations into the Federation and Starfleet that sort of just skim over the parts where whatever the conspiracy managed to do depended on the flaws in the Federation and Starfleet. 

look, maybe we’ll get it? but, again, trust issues with the writing.

I really, really, really wish they hadn’t gone the addict route with Raffi

it feels a little lazy? very plug-and-play characterization? idk! I think she’d be more interesting without it! 

(also to be fair I have my own issues with addiction stuff in general so even if I trusted it to be done well and all that it still wouldn’t be my favorite.)

is there any trauma care in the future utopia times (the Borg Reclamation Project seems to suggest that there may be at least, on some level, an attempt at it)? has Picard received any mental health care at all post-living-on-a-ship with Troi who sometimes tried but also maybe was too much of a friend to be an effective therapist for him no really what is the status of mental healthcare in the future utopia times I want to know.

(I mean the PTSD stuff makes sense, I’m not denying that and that’s not the stuff I find myself disliking in the character. but it does lead me to wonder about the state of mental healthcare and the like, not because I think he should be “cured” or anything like that, but because I wonder.) 

Is Picard meant to be an asshole I no longer like? 

is the bit with the doctor who is not Beverly telling him about his brain whatever issue meant to be a hint that he’s going senile or something? is that why the worst parts of his nature keep being thrust front and center?

do the writers know how unlikeable he can be in this? is that the point? is there a point to it? do they have any idea at all what they’re doing? (giving alcohol to the addict so she’ll do what you want, Picard? really?)

in conclusion: I just don’t know what they’re trying to do in re Picard the Character on Picard the Series and I worry that the people in charge don’t know either. (also, I want to continue liking Picard the Character so.)

anyway I left out a bunch here (I largely like the crew of the La Sirena but also don’t have anything I really want to say about them) (my eh-reaction to Narek has affected how much I really care about that storyline, but I do in fact like Soji and hope for more interesting stuff for her because I was really bored with her adventures in sleeping with a bad guy) (anyway this is already very long, but yeah, hopefully the rest of the season will return some level in faith in the writings having a Plan but I’m not super confident in that oh well).

[millennialzadr]

About Page!

Hello~! Thank you so much for visiting my blog! My name is Koya, I’m 25, I’m pansexual, my pronouns are she/her, and I’m a full time freelance artist! My main blog is @koyakyuuun, so I’ll be liking and following from there!

Below are some guidelines for those who are curious to know more about this blog and what to expect from it, as well as some general info and FAQs!

Content Guidelines!

The focus of this blog!

So this blog is a mish mash of a couple different themes, but above all it is an adult oriented Invader Zim fan blog!! I grew up with the show and and was a BIG fan during highschool, and after rediscovering it this year I have been DAZZLED and DELIGHTED by the fan content being produced today!! I have a deeply nostalgic yet completely new perspective on the show now that I’m in my 20s, so alongside of celebrating iz content and fan content in general, this blog will center around my niche fave: the iz cast + millennial culture! in other words, the characters depicted as if they lived in the real world and aged in real time! I loved and related to the characters as a kid, and I still love them dearly to this day, so to see people experiment with character interpretations and create adult versions of them means I can still relate to them even now, and even make my own versions! and as a queer neurodivergent millennial who loves niche culture, my favorite versions of the characters are queer neurodivergent millennials who love niche culture!! (and by niche culture I mean MEMES, AESTHETICS, BAD FASHION, GAY CULTURE, CRYPTID CULTURE, DARK CORNERS OF THE INTERNET, CREATIVELY WEIRD SELF EXPRESSION ETC!!)

And of course the other main theme which fits into the first: ZADR! while I don’t ship Zim and Dib as they’re canonically presented in the show, I DO adore the idea of the two growing up together, eventually becoming friends, and eventually falling in love. I’m a Big Gay and I love romance and lgbt content, and ZADR holds such a soft place in my heart 😭 I wrote a big post about why I love it so much which you can see here if you’re curious about my interpretation of the ship!

And now, some guidelines!!

Things I enjoy and will be posting/reblogging!

- general IZ content! because holy SHIT I love the show and ALL the content the fandom creates is awe inspiring and amazing!!!

- millennial culture/humor! I FUCKING LOVE IZ + 2019 POP CULTURE REFERENCES AND MEME CONTENT OKAY

- POSITIVE CONTENT! IZ is my comfort content and I deeply admire the positive impact the show has had on so many people. I also interpret Zim and Dib as having hard lives and mental problems but eventually recovering and finding happiness (and making each other happy!!). I do also love vent content and gritty/dark themes from an artistic standpoint (and of course comedic Depression™ memes) but I will be focusing much more on comforting and uplifting content!

- character development/relationships, fluff, comedy, domestic content, daily life, sci fi, conspiracy/cryptid content, fashion portraits and camp horror!! these are my favorite themes!!

- friendship, romance, and found family!! I adore the relationships between the characters and they ALL DESERVE LOVE!!!!! JHONEN CAN BITE MY ASS

- the IZ creators!! speaking of Jhonen LOL I LOVE seeing content about the creators themselves!! I genuinely have such affection and admiration for the wonderful people who brought and continue to bring the world of IZ to life, they are such amazing and inspiring human beings and I will be celebrating them alongside their creations!!

- IZ characters + aesthetics!! some of my MOST favorite IZ content depicts the characters being stylized with or sporting the fashion of vaporwave, goth, grunge, pastel, spacecore, cryptidcore, future funk, 90s disastercore and any and all things strange, niche, glittery and neon, and I FUCKING LOVE IT. GOD

- and lastly, I talk a fuck of a lot, as you can probably tell by this post lol. I’ll be screaming in the tags constantly and am liable to write the occasional super long text post! for those who are into that, I invite you to have discussions with me! and for those who aren’t, feel free to ignore them!

Things I will be staying away from!

- romantic content that depicts the characters as minors AKA underage zadr!! there will be no kid ships here! I’m an adult and only enjoy shipping adult versions of the characters! kid content will be either canon, wholesome, or friendship content! while I do find adult versions of the characters attractive since they have qualities I find attractive in real life, I see the adult versions as almost completely different people since they’re so far removed from the source content, and the love I feel for the canon kids is HIGHLY maternal and very nostalgia centric. this would probably be more clear if I didn’t lump the two types of content into the same blog, but I really do love both the adult fan interpreted IZ world and the canon IZ world in equal measure, just in different ways!

- content that fetishizes or ‘yaoi’-fies gay relationships! I am a queer person and I enjoy queer content made by queer people for queer people, you’re not gonna find any “B-BUT WE’RE BOTH BOYS!” shit here 😂

- content that depicts abuse between friends or partners!! while violence is an active theme in zim and dib’s canonical relationship, I very much dislike zadr content that depicts the two being aggressive or malicious towards each other while they’re supposedly in love. complex relationships are certainly interesting, but while toxic and abusive relationships are realistic, they’re not okay and should not be romanticized. I understand some people use that kind of content to cope, but for me it’s nothing but bad feelings. sparring and play fighting is fine and good, consensual violence could be interesting to explore, but hatred will stay separate from romance on this blog.

- discourse and long conversations about negative topics! I acknowledge the importance of discussing problems within the fandom, however I wish for this blog to be a positive and comforting place, since iz content in general is positive and comforting for me! there may be an occasional post that touches on real life negative topics but overall this will be kept to a minimum.

- explicit content!! while I DO both draw and consume nsfw adult zadr content, it will not be on this blog! since tumblr decided to be idiots and remove any way for minors and people who don’t wish to see nsfw content to hide it, this blog will remain pg-13. I will also not be providing any links to my other sites because of this (I am a nsfw artist and I sell porn commissions for a living, not trying to shove that in the faces of my minor, ace and sex repulsed followers, but by all means seek out my art if you DO wish to!). similarly, I will not be releasing my nsfw zadr art publicly anywhere, since aged up characters are controversial and my career, being online, could suffer if someone wanted to use that against me. HOWEVER, for fellow adult fans with extra cash who take a shine to my art, paid content could be a possibility in the future 👀

Interaction Guidelines!

Things I’m okay with!

- tagging my posts in any way you wish! kinning is fine! any ship interpretation is fine! any gender/orientation interpretation is fine! sharing your thoughts/opinions is fine!

- as long as you CREDIT me! using my art for icons/headers etc, drawing my iz designs, referencing my art, and reposting my art on other sites is all okay!

- asks or anons of any questions you might have about me or my content!

- asks or anons popping in to share thoughts, opinions and ideas! it’s always nice to hear from other fans!

- leaving comments in the tags/replies/reblogs of my posts makes me very happy!! tumblr is the only place I post my fanart and I love seeing what people think of it!

Things I’m not okay with!

- messages, reblogs, tags or asks that are blatantly rude or disrespectful! I really do not care what the subject or reason is, if you act like an asshole, I will not respond and will block you!

- asks or messages that say only ‘hi’ or ‘how are you?’ I have no problem with people trying to be friendly but I never have a single idea of how to reply to these kinds of messages, I’m so sorry 😂 please talk to me about fandom stuff though!!

- pressure to produce content! I like any other creator adore comments and compliments, but things like “DRAW MORE!!” “MORE ZADR!!” “WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO DRAW MORE!!” are not compliments!! it is in fact very off putting so please don’t do that! it will mess with my motivation! consider commissioning me if you want more content!

- if you are considering trying to be my friend, please be 20+!! I am not comfortable being friends with teens! nothing against my teen followers, I respect and appreciate you, but please understand I cannot relate to you on a personal level, and besides that, being friends with someone over 20 can be harmful and even dangerous for minors! I am an adult and only wish to have adult friends! please respect my wishes!

About my content!

So since what I like to draw is usually pretty different from the show, here are the basic headcanons for my interpretations of adult Zim and Dib~! Basically they’re queer 2019 millennials who are damaged but doing their best and enjoy niche interests and subcultures. Zim is the type who’s tough to handle but it’s worth it because he’s an amazing and colorful person underneath it all and only those he’s close to get to see that, and Dib is an eccentric but completely reliable, intelligent, passionate, and loyal friend whose company is a familiar comfort and a total safe space. They live together and are mutually beneficial allies to friends to lovers!

I HAVE A FIC, or at least an idea for one lol and when using my designs for the characters, my drawings will most likely be set in its context! Affectionately nicknamed the Soft AU, it’s centered around rest, recovery, affection, care and bonding… bc I’m SOFT OKAY 😂 You can read the full summary here, but here’s the gist!

A little over a decade after arriving on earth, Zim’s banishment is reinstated and as a result his entire base and all his equipment is confiscated, leaving him stranded on Earth with no way off the planet and in danger of being caught and killed by the humans. Dib offers him a deal that he’ll hide Zim instead of turning him in in exchange for letting him study Zim. They live together in Dib’s apartment and eventually get used to each other. Loneliness induced affection ensues. Hooray!!

And now for the boys themselves!

My Dib!

- 25, 6′2″, Mexican, cis boy, bisexual, bilingual

- is recovering from depression and anxiety and has ADD and insomnia, has had a nicotine addiction

- has a ton of ear piercings and a few facial piercings, as well as a few tattoos

- is still just as obsessive about his interests as he was as a kid, just with more curbed enthusiasm due to, yknow, depression. researching Zim however brings his enthusiasm back full force. he still sucks at taking care of himself when enthralled with his work but he’s getting there

- runs various blogs, forums, and youtube channels making content about cryptids and conspiracy theories, the ad revenue of which is his main source of income (he dislikes using his father’s money to support himself, but will dip into the family account occasionally)

- is very patient and can communicate and problem solve very well, and is skilled at handling various conflicts and mental issues

- still has his ‘I hate people’ attitude but is more open minded and understanding than he used to be, and more compassionate. he has difficulty trusting strangers but his friends and family are very important to him

- can be moody and dramatic but he’s a big sweetheart at his core

- being friends with Zim has made him more willing to enjoy acting like a huge dork and total weirdo, even in public

My Zim!

- young adult, 5′5″, androgynous presenting demi boy, panromantic demisexual

- has PTSD and anxiety, is recovering with help from Dib

- displays inhuman behavior such as hissing, growling, chirring, chirping, scratching/biting, screeching, territory guarding and dominance displays

- is a demi boy, meaning he identifies as mostly but not completely male, and is more nonbinary than cis, but he’s never given it too much thought because gender is stupid. he has little to no concept and zero regard for human gender roles

- is a SHIT who’s main entertainment is annoying Dib and ‘winning’ arguments, but Dib seems to get harder to piss off as time goes on, much to his confusion

- pitches a fit when he doesn’t agree with/doesn’t want to do something but can be swayed with rewards such as food, sweets, new clothes, video games etc

- rambunctious and high energy, he gets stir crazy often, but since he hates the city he and Dib often take car trips to more fun/nicer places outside the neighborhood

- moody and bratty with skewed logic but smart and more intuitive than he used to be, he’s more than a handful to deal with, but this also makes him the most entertaining person Dib knows

- after having the free time to discover the world of aesthetics, he becomes very much into clothes, make up, accessories etc (be they masculine or feminine) and enjoys making a hobby out of creating a unique self image using fashion (thus also subconsciously asserting his individuality)

- is much more dependent on Dib than he admits (or even realizes)

- his beliefs in nationalism, fascism and genocide are direct results of brainwashing and personality altering programs run by his PAK, and are not actually part of his core personality (these programs will be overridden and deleted eventually)

Side Note: I haven’t thought as far with the other characters but my Gaz and Tak are definitely lesbians 😂

And finally, my tag list!

#my art - things that I drew!

#my post - any post that I posted!

#asks - asks!

#text post - any text post longer than a couple lines!

#video - videos!

#audio - audios!

#canon - content from the show/comic/movie etc!

#creators - any content featuring the IZ cast or crew!

#memes - memes, shitposts, short comics, comedic posts etc!

#friends - friendship art between any characters!

#family - family bonding between the membranes/found family between any characters!

#ships - ship art between adult characters!

#suggestive - any content that could be considered sexual in nature!

#positive - fluff, friendship, wholesome content, uplifting content, characters being happy/cute/having fun etc!

#negative - angst, vent art, violence, mental illness, dark themes, characters fighting/being sad/getting hurt etc!

#kids - content depicting characters as kids/irkens as their canon designs!

#adults - content depicting characters as adults/irkens with noncanon designs!

#millennials - content depicting adult characters that includes any modern culture! (personal fave)

#aesthetic - highly stylized or surreal portraits centered around aesthetic themes!

ship tags!: zadr (zim and dib romance), tagr (tak and gaz romance), rapr (red and purple romance)

friendship tags!: zadf (zim and dib friendship), tagf (tak and gaz friendship), zatf (zim and tak friendship), tadf (tak and dib friendship), zagf (zim and gaz friendship), zag (zim and gir)

character tags!: zim, dib, gaz, tak, gir, red, purple, membrane, skoodge, gretchen, keef, spork, miyuki, recap kid, bg chars, ocs

[angel-wings-and-broken-things]

A rant about Vanya Hargreeves

(Note: this is decidedly anti-Vanya. If that bothers you, I suggest you click off right now, you have been warned. That said, I'm always up for some friendly debate if you see anything that I’ve said is incorrect, but please don’t respond with bullshit comments like “Luther made her” as it’s an embarrassing display of the pure immaturity that comes from Vanya stans.)

So I’ve been putting off this rant for a long time, mainly because I’ve been busy with school and other stuff. Also, I’ve been getting my kicks ranting to my sister about the pure idiocy that is Vanya Hargreeves and Vanya stans. However, my sister now says that she is done listening to my hour-long rage-fueled rants. Let me tell you that I cried, because a staple in my morning routine has become eating my toast and spilling tea with my younger sister. However, when presented with the facts, for example, that she has never watched the show and has no opinions on the character nor on the cataclysmic stupidity of the fandom for idolizing this psychopathic monster, I realized that perhaps it was the proper time for me to make this, and pray that I can move on to a life of happiness after expelling my hatred of these unintelligent people and arguments.

Also, I’m extremely high on caffeine and procrastinating my essays. So please bear with me as I take you on the journey of my three AM coffee induced rants. I understand that there is a very slim chance that I will change anybody's mind about Vanya, as many people choose to be ignorant about the problematic and hypocritical behavior of their favorite character. Society is relentless in its enablement of the truly moronic behaviors, and nothing has made me lose more faith in the world than the actual arguments I have seen from the half-witted, mindless Vanya stans. I’m not saying that everyone who stans Vanya is an idiot, but if someone else were to say it I would not disagree. Unfortunately, that is simply the conclusion that all evidence leads to. This introduction has gotten away from me a bit, so without further ado, here is every single bullshit argument that I have seen Vanya stans argue debunked.

Vanya’s Childhood.                        

First of all, I would like to point out that I have the utmost sympathy for all of the Hargreeves children for having to grow up with an abusive father. At no point in this rant will I disvalue Vanya’s trauma. As much as I truly hate her character, invalidating traumatic experiences and PTSD is a fucking dick move that I will leave to other parts of the fandom (*cough* anti-Luthers *cough*).

Now that that’s out of the way, let me dig deep into her psychopathic tendencies and unflinching lack of remorse for her actions that clearly has been present since adolescence. First, let us address her powers. I see people everywhere saying that having her powers bound was abusive and horrible, that Allison could have rumored her to have control instead, that she didn’t mean to do any of the things she did, etc. However, please consider that Reginald didn’t have a choice. Or rather I should say that his choices were limited and he made the best possible one given the circumstances. I’m not condoning his actions at all, I will be the first to denounce his actions and character. However, we need to consider all of the facts; not only did she physically attack him, but she also murdered several innocent people because she didn’t like oatmeal. This was to the point that Reginald designed Grace for the sole purpose of having someone who could control Vanya. Vanya was clearly displaying apathetic tendencies towards murder at a young age and cares nothing for the people she killed as long as she got what she wanted. She murdered people over oatmeal, and people stay defending her?

I was shocked when I saw this scene and realized that people were still stanning Vanya, because do you know what this points to people? A pattern. Vanya is a power-hungry maniac. This is shown many times in the show. She knows that she’s the most powerful person in the room and she shamelessly abuses that privilege. When she is a child and she realizes that she’s more powerful then Reginald can handle, what does she do? She explodes the glasses and hurts him with her powers. When she is fed a type of food that she doesn’t like and knows she can use her powers to get whatever she wants, what does she do? She murders her nannies for the sole purpose of getting her way. When she is an adult and realizes that she doesn’t have to listen to Allison, what does she do? Slits her throat and attempts to literally murder her, then runs away. When she doesn’t want to be held captive she destroys their house. When her siblings try to stop her from hurting people she burns the world to the ground. Do you see the pattern?

Furthermore, let us discuss The Umbrella Academy. Also known as Vanya once again showing her true colors as a spoiled brat. We see in both her autobiography and in the flashback scene where she destroyed the house that she felt excluded. Listen, I am a sibling, I have felt excluded before and I’m sure that my sisters have as well. But somehow none of us have burned our house to the ground. I know, you’re probably sitting at your keyboard shaking your head in awe at out restraint. I get that people sympathize with her loneliness throughout childhood, and I can see why. But honestly, I didn’t see anything too terrible in the flashback scene. What? Diego was pissed at her for barging into his room and Allison didn’t want Vanya to see her macking on Luther? Call me crazy but that just seems like siblings being siblings (aside from the making out with your other siblings part, that’s weird). Yes, the one about her being left out from the family portrait was kind of rough, but no reason to attempt to murder your whole family, kill your mom and father figure, and destroy your house. 

She clearly has a being left out complex that began in adolescence and carried through adulthood. It’s okay when you’re a kid and you’re whining that Jimmy and Tommy won’t let you play tag with them, but it crosses a line when you act that way as a grown ass woman. Her book was also crossing a gigantic, fat red line that says in all caps YOU’RE TAKING THIS TOO FAR. What, Ben didn’t want to share his toys so in return you write a passive-aggressive novel about how much your siblings suck and left you out of their super secret club? Let’s say that Klaus also published a book talking about all of his traumatic experiences, and at the center of it was perfect Vanya who was normal and never experienced a single hardship. Different story, right? We don’t seem to talk about the fact that being in the Umbrella Academy seemed to suck. Klaus was forced into a mausoleum and made to live his worst nightmare, Ben was made to kill people using his powers, Luther was transformed into an ape-man without his consent and exiled to the moon, Five ended up stranded in the apocalypse for 45 years, and that's just when was shown on the screen. I’m positive that there were tons of other horrible things that the academy experienced, so where does Vanya get off pretending that she invented tragedy all because her precious feewings were hurt? 

Locking Vanya Up 

Listen. Listen. I said that I wasn’t going to invalidate Vanya’s trauma, and I plan to stick to that. Luther locking Vanya in that cage was fucked up. He shouldn’t have done that. However, in order to properly make my case we need to analyze everything, so allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment. Vanya slit Allison’s throat. In what universe is that even a little bit acceptable? Not only was Allison her sister, but she was just trying to help. She says repeatedly that she loves Vanya, that she wants to help her, that she’s trying to rescue her from her abusive boyfriend, and once again we see Vanya turn to violence when she doesn’t get her way. I see tons of people saying that Allison had it coming because she rumored Vanya into thinking she was ordinary, but consider this: you’re an asshole. Allison was a child, she didn’t realize that what she was doing was wrong. She even admitted it to Vanya and said that she was confused/just remembered it. Guilty people don't admit their sins. Allison was confused and hurt, and Vanya tried to kill her. 

Additionally, let’s refer to Leonard. Vanya killed him. Now, I’m not particularly broken up over his death, the bastard sort of had it coming.  However, this is yet another example of Vanya overreacting with violence when she’s upset. Her murdering Leonard wasn’t self-defense, as he wasn’t attacking her, nor had he ever physically hurt her. While I’m aware that emotional abuse can be just as bad as physical abuse, and that Vanya was definitely in an emotionally abusive relationship with Leonard, it was still murder. There is no way that it would have held up in court, and I get that people can get trapped in abusive relationships, but if you want to leave a toxic relationship, the answer is not murder. It is never okay to kill someone unless it is in direct defense of your life. or someone else’s. Vanya killed Leonard and showed absolutely no remorse. In fact, the only time she ever showed any sort of guilt over what she did was to Allison, and she got over that in about 30 minutes.

I have gotten a bit off track, so going back to Luther locking Vanya up, he shouldn’t have done it. That much is clear, you should never subject someone to their worst fear. I could go on about Luther and his motivations, but I’ll save that for another rant. All I’m trying to say is that he had a good motive, it's still not okay but I feel that the entire fandom already holds Luther accountable for that, whereas no one holds Vanya accountable for her actions. Additionally, consider the other timeline. In the time where Five came from, Luther didn’t lock Vanya up. Why would he? We can see from Five’s flashback to finding his family dead that Allison’s throat wasn’t slit, therefore because Five was the one who pointed them in the direction of Harold Jenkins, and he wasn’t in the original timeline, there is only one conclusion to draw based on the evidence. In the original timeline, no one went after Vanya. Therefore, Leonard was able to convince her to go destroy Hargreeves mansion, and sometime in the process, Luther ripped his eye out. This is supported by Five saying that while he has assumed that the mansion fell with the apocalypse, it has actually happened before that. Vanya then, after murdering all of her siblings, went on to destroy the world, Leonard, and herself in the process. This shows that Luther was actually somewhat justified in his actions, Vanya has already proven that she is capable of killing and has no qualms about doing so. She has killed billions of people in multiple timelines, and Vanya stans still want to act like none of it was her fault? Okay.

The Guy In The Car

This is a pretty specific sub-category, but I felt like I had to bring it up because it is so fucking incredible the things that Vanya stans are willing to look past. Vanya literally murdered someone because he honked at her. Even if you can justify everything else she did, how can you justify that? Is road rage seriously worth killing over? People are so quick to say “YAS badass Vanya! A QWEEN!” but was Luther a badass when he grabbed Klaus by his fucking neck? No, so why is Vanya a badass when she nearly kills her sister and actually murders innocent people?  The fact of the matter is, Vanya shows a continuous pattern of killing without remorse. She has not only killed many nannies, Leonard, her siblings (in the alternate timeline) and the whole fucking world (twice), but she murdered the man in the car for absolutely nothing. He could have had a family, he could have had children, but did Vanya think of that? Probably not, because she’s a psychopath.

Stop and take a good long look at any of these gifs and try to tell me she wasn’t in control. Try and tell me she isn’t a murderer.

The Apocalypse

Finally. The part of this rant that I’ve been the most excited to get to. This is where I get the most idiotic comments about Vanya. I may have to write a whole other section addressing the most stupid comments I have gotten. But nonetheless, everyone seems to be unanimously in agreement that it wasn’t Vanya’s fault, and this is where I run into some issues. Vanya isn’t a child, she’s a grown ass woman. Correct me if I’m wrong, but when you’re almost 30 years old, its time to take responsibility for your actions. Some of y’all’s mamas didn’t raise you right and it shows. When I was a kid, it didn’t matter if my little sister told me to steal the candy bar, I still stole the candy bar. It was my fault, I got punished. No one held a gun to Vanya’s head and forced her to burn the world to the ground. If you rewatch the final scene, it’s pretty clear that she’s in control of her actions. The only times I saw her lose control was when she was defending Leonard from the muggers and when she was ranting about her siblings. During the apocalypse? All I saw was pure vindictive pleasure. She was pissed off, so she would have everyone die. 

I would like to point out, because I haven't seen anyone else talking about this, that Vanya was straight up ready to kill Luther, Klaus, Five, and Diego. At the end, when they all were trying to stop her (from destroying the world) she had them suspended in air and was clearly hurting them. You could see them in pain, their lives were literally draining away. It was pretty clear that they would have died if Allison hadn’t stopped her. And through it all, she didn’t care. She didn’t care that they would die, she didn’t care that the world would burn. The bottom line is that Vanya Hargreeves is a psychotic murderer, and the fandom needs to stop treating her like a goddess.

In conclusion

To summarize, Vanya displays the characteristics of a spoiled toddler. All she does is lash out when she doesn’t get her way and destroy the world and other people. She has killed countless people, and the fact that people keep saying it wasn’t her fault is such a classic example of the world’s stupidity. If you say that she wasn’t responsible, or that Luther made her do it, then congratulations, you are just as mature as Vanya is and that is not a compliment. No one can make you do anything. You always have choices, Vanya chose to destroy the world and that is something that she needs to be held accountable for. 

I can kind of understand the appeal to Vanya, I suppose. She could come across relatable because of her lonely childhood. Or maybe shes just amassed such a large following because people love Ellen Page (which I get). But the fact remains that I have heard so many idiotic Vanya supporters preaching her psycho gospel and completely ignoring every shitty thing she’s done. So next time I reply to someone’s moronic, unintelligent, not thought through comment, and they try and start beef with me, I’ll just link this rant. I’ve gotten tired of repeating myself. So hey, if you said something to me on twitter about how Vanya isn’t responsible for all the people she killed in cold blood, and I commented with this link, then congrats! You are such a moronic mouthpiece that I felt the need to spend hours writing this essay detailing every single reason as to why your opinion is invalid. Save us both some time here and just stop talking. Either that or turn on your notifications and fight me irl, I won’t hesitate to cleanse the bloodline of your stupidity. Sucks to suck man, don’t let the door hit you on the way to hell. 

If you finished this, congratulations. Grammarly tells me that this takes an average of 12 minutes to read so thank you for sticking with me throughout this 2,500-word monster of a rant. You’re a real one. And if you still stan Vanya, then no worries. Believe it or not, I’m not against stanning Vanya. The problem is that most Vanya stans love her on the grounds of believing that she’s innocent, and the fact of the matter is that she’s not. It’s okay to like whoever you want to like, but acknowledge that your fave is problematic instead of being an idiot and naively trying to convince me of her innocence. The facts are on my side here, people. You’re not going to win this argument. 

[floraone]

In Defence of Seiya

So, one, because I’m currently writing him, and two, because he’s one of my most favorite characters, I wanna break a lance for Seiya, today. You’re still allowed to hate him afterwards, obviously, but maybe just hear me out, ok?

Yesterday I had a wonderful conversation with one of my dearest friends, a die-hard UsaMamo shipper just like me, but, other than me, the beauty of the Seiya x Usa BROTP still alludes her, and Seiya has a bit of a bad rep for her, but she gracefully allowed me to sum up our conversation, here. So, there you go!

(Also, I’ll be referencing to Seiya as a “he”, here. This is Stars arc, 90s anime, we’re talking about, and there he’s, at least to me, quite obviously portrayed as a guy, in his civilian form.)

Seiya was an ass for impersonating Mamoru toward the end. It deliberately hurt her, even when he KNEW how much she was hurting. Yet he still did that, and then even gave her that inappropriate “am I not good enough” line, after she broke down.

So, the scene meant here is this one, of course.

And I think it’s important to keep in mind that Seiya had no chance knowing that he was inadvertently impersonating the guy that Usagi misses so much.

He’d just, upon remembering their good times, made peace with her and the situation, was about to say goodbye for good, as he saw Usagi’s desk (with that adorably cute Mamo-chan doodle on it) and placed the rose, which is always in his performing outfit, on it as a goodbye token, when he was interrupted by Rei who was in frantic search of Usagi.

So, he came up, saving her by distracting the enemy, and just threw the damn thing he just so happened to hold in his hand.

He had no way of knowing what that image would do to Usagi. He’d never heard of Tuxedo Mask. Or that he threw roses. He was just the guy to the rescue, coincidently happening to have a rose at hand. He wouldn’t know to do this on purpose.

And yes, he says that line, but he’s breaking down with her, as he does. But it’s not a “take me”, it’s not a self-serving opportunity he sees to cut in and steal the girl…. Remember this is JUST after he’s sighed and smiled and been thankful for the time he did have in her vicinity. It’s more a … you’re hurting so much, I feel your pain so much, god I wish I could take that pain away from you, and damn if it were me I’d never do this to you, you’d never be in this much pain because of me, I promise I would never do that to you, I don’t treat you like that, I don’t want you to hurt, why can’t it be me, all I want to do is make you feel better, why can’t it be me?

He loves her, in the selfless way that he wants what’s best for her, and he’s not allowed to give it to her, and it’s frustrating!

Seiya was an ass for telling Mamoru he needs to protect Usagi at the very end of Ep. 200. Like, he really needs to be told that?

So, again, Seiya doesn’t know the guy. He knows nothing but that he was now apparently not so bad as he thought, and instead dead all year, and now appearing in some sort of armor, as he was revived. Personally, I never understood it as a way of Seiya telling Mamoru off, but instead it was stepping back, acknowledging that it was Mamoru’s place to protect her, be by her side, and not his. I understand it as a message solely intended for Mamoru; I’m not in your way, I know she’s yours, but damn take care of her cause she’s worth it.

(Excluding the part where I really don’t like it when men talk over women’s heads over their protection, especially when we’re talking about the girl who JUST saved all of the friggin’ universe, but ah well…)

I still feel like Seiya should have respected the boundary line that was implied by Usagi’s relationship.

The way I see it, to him, Usagi was in somewhat of an abusive relationship, albeit emotionally. She was in a relationship with a guy that upped and went and left her hanging without a word, so much that she skidded into depression. Personally, I myself would be MAD at my friends if they saw me in one and didn’t at least try to act like he’s maybe not the best choice in the world.

And as someone who’s in love with her, who adores the ground she walks on, only wants what’s best for her (which in the end, is what love is) I wouldn’t want her to be in a relationship like that, REGARDLESS of if she’ll be with me afterwards, then, or not,

and, like, this was his view, and still he really didn’t try anything (at least in the 90s anime version, but Manga!Seiya and 90sAnime!Seiya are so different, with different motivations, different feelings, different genders, I really don’t compare the two at all.)

Remember this is the story/show where Usagi gets kissed by people left and center, without her consent? In the anime, he wasn’t one of those. He picked her up on a friendly date, they had chemistry, and he kissed her on the cheek as a goodbye. These are all things you’d do with your friends, his only fault here was that he happened to be in love with her at the time, at least the way I see it.

Shouldn’t Seiya have asked about Mamoru, then? At least try to find something out about the guy?

well, for one…would you have? I wouldn’t want to hear the praises of a guy you know has left her without saying anything. Also, I mean… He’s not in her life. She’s depressed. And he’s mad at him for treating her that way, he even says it out loud to his photo; He doesn’t say “Ugh I hate that you exist” he says “I don’t like the game you’re playing with her” - I don’t like the way you treat her. He’s legit MAD at Mamoru for doing this to her.

This is an amazingly protective, friendly gesture, if it were true. This is how I would want all of my friends to react if it happened to me, and if it were actually the case – and Seiya has no way to think otherwise. It wasn’t, of course, but he had no way of knowing that. In fact, if he had dug further, asked about him, he’d have found out Mamoru has NEVER ONCE written back and his standpoint would have only gotten clearer. And if he’d dug even further, the story he’d have gotten wouldn’t have helped Mamoru’s case in this instance, either.

No matter the praises Usagi would have sung… I mean… what would have come out? He’s my lover from a past life, we have a miracle romance, then he was brainwashed and turned evil and almost killed me, before I killed him, instead, and then our future daughter turned up, and he left me because of dreams, and I cried myself to sleep, and then later he was kidnapped again, and right when I had him back he left me for America and now he’s never written back… It doesn’t SOUND so good.

Seiya wouldn’t have learned anything that he wouldn’t have interpreted in that exact way that he did.

But, then, the moment he realizes he was wrong, that Mamoru was dead, actually, his heart breaks for her. How could Galaxia have done this to her?

And then the only thing he does is try and make sure Mamoru treats her right, tell him to. He steps away without any fight whatsoever. Seiya loved Usagi. He loved her despite the fact that he had no chance. Just because she didn’t love him back, and was in a relationship with someone else, doesn’t make him a bad guy. In fact, I think he was an incredibly decent guy.

So many people lash out when they are in an unrequited love. It’s an incredible sort of heartbreak, and it’s understandable that so many do, but it’s also pretty harsh. The people they adored get devalued and degraded to bitches and asshole who are fools for not wanting them, get faulted for making them fall in love in the first place, and get left behind so the person can go and heal and forget. And, sometimes, the other party isn’t so innocent, either (which obviously isn’t the case, here), but even without that it’s really hard to just take yourself and your hurt back, and simply adore that person, while staying in their lives, no gain whatsoever.

Seiya does that. He adores her. He doesn’t blame her once, only wishes it were different. He takes himself back, and simply becomes the awesome friend that she really needs in that depressing time. And that is pretty damn selfless.

I mean, he didn’t choose this. He didn’t decide, oh, I’m gonna fall in love with this ditzy girl who has someone else; it just happened to him, and he dealt with it in a pretty heartbreaking way.

I mean… he repeatedly risked his life for her, this girl who will never be his.

And I understand that. I mean… I adore that girl, too. We all do, right?

[worldbuildingwren]

Thanks ​to @caltalwriting​ for tagging me!

1. What story/snippet/project are you most proud of?

Honestly, it’s an old project that I cringe looking back on, but it would have to be my first novel. Completing it made me finally feel like I could be a “real writer” someday, and I’m also proud of how I’ve grown since then.

2. When did you start feeling confident in your writing?

Again, probably around when I finished writing my first novel—it was proof that I could power through and complete a long-term project.

3. Are there any dream stories sitting in the back of your mind that you’d love to work on some day?

I’ve got some characters/plotlines that I want to set in my Siege of Castle Veh  world at some point, which I am super excited to write. In terms of whole stories, I had a half-formed idea the other week about a group of fae taking over a small town, and a changeling and their human BFF teaming up to take them down, but I don’t want to write that until I do some research about fae lore (and until I get a first draft done of the story I’m writing now).

4. How many drafts do you usually write before you feel satisfied?

I’ve never actually felt satisfied with a novel-length story, so I have no idea. For short stories, I usually go through it two or three times.

5. What is your favourite book(s)?

Favorite book of all time is The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers. Total love letter to literature, fantastic worldbuilding, and really clever language. I’d recommend his entire Zamonia series, but this book is the best, in my opinion.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell is also a favorite for its intricate storytelling and ability to juggle disparate genres. Peter Pan is my favorite fairytale, and was very formative to me as a child (and is, in my opinion, one of the most creative books ever written).

6. Have you ever drawn and/or commissioned art of your OC’s? Would you like to?

Nah and probably not? 

7. Which of your OC’s are closest to you in terms of personality? Who is the furthest? 

April Pages from Castle Veh is pretty similar to me—we come from a similar economic background, have similar living situations, both have a tendency to help people even when we know we shouldn’t, and can keep cool heads in stressful situations only to break down later (I know that that sounds really self-congratulatory but I consider these to be my strongest traits so).

Furthest is (I hope) Lady Viridian from Wordsmith. She’s an abusive, manipulative asshole and I am not abusive, couldn’t be manipulative if I tried, and am only somewhat of an asshole. 

8. How do you deal with self-doubt when writing?

I tell myself that at least I didn’t write Fifty Shades of Gray.

No but really, I just keep writing and remind myself that I can always edit it later.

9. Are you driven more by plot-centered stories or character-centered stories?

Character-centered stories! I always come up with first a concept, then the characters that would exist within that concept (i.e. “huh, okay, so people can create things just by speaking? How does this play out, what backstories make sense?”) and from these characters, I develop the plot (i.e. “So, Luka gets thrown into this situation, how does he react? Okay, lets take the story in this direction.”)

10. What writer did you once truly love, but have now outgrown?

I was obsessed with Stephanie Myer in middle school, but later realized how flat her characters were. The concept of Twilight is honestly awesome but was, in my opinion, executed poorly (also the whole “life is sacred even if the fetus is literally ripping the mother to shreds” thing from Breaking Dawn is really, really fucked up).

I tag @weirdassstoryshit. Answer these questions plus

11) What is your favorite trope to use when writing?

[lawful-evil-novelist]

Why Joker Getting Character Development Might be a Good Thing

Disclaimer: This is a long rant/essay primarily based on opinion and I am a bitter salt pile so if you disagree in any way that’s fine, this is just my personal take on things and you are free to disagree.

One of the few things that tends to irk me about DC Comics, particularly Batman, is that villains are not permitted arcs or development, save for a select few “choice” villains, and even these villains are severely restricted in what options are available to them in terms of character development.  Selina Kyle is allowed development, but only if it revolves around Batman or a member of the Bat Family.  Harley Quinn always has development in the comics, but it always follows a predictable pattern.  Even in Bombshells, to some extent, Harley grows independent of the Joker in some manner.

Harleen Quinzel is not Harley Quinn until she meets the Joker, and she cannot be with Pamela Isley until she learns to let him go.

And I think this is a problem we see with all villains in the DC canon but I think it’s especially prominent in Batman villains.  The Gotham Rogues Gallery is not allowed to stray outside of the very narrow boxes set out for them, and development they are allowed must remain inside these boxes.  Characters like Harley, Selina, Pamela, and Edward are allowed to dip into antihero territory, but only in predictable ways that the writers know the audience is comfortable with.

And I think this makes it so their most recognizable villains feel stale and overused.  They don’t stray far from their usual traits because they aren’t allowed to change in any way.

And for anyone’s money, I think we all know the biggest culprit of this lack of development and incessant use in spite of it.

Now I’m no Joker fan; I think the character is boring, overused, and frankly, an asshole.  But here’s the thing: he doesn’t need to be. Of all the plots they’ve stuffed Joker into, I’m surprised they’ve never tried to give him an actual arc.  He’s usually the bearer of an arc, usually one for Batman and is always the main bearer of Harley’s arcs, which I find particularly annoying because Harley’s development ends up centering around a man and it becomes often her only motivation to change.

Joker does not change, no matter the story. Even characters like Harvey Dent and Jonathan Crane change slightly, though the change often skews negative and they tend to get worse as a result (a different problem for a different day. Even as we laud Lego Batman’s Joker, we need to keep in mind that he does not change in that story.  The context makes it clear he has always been obsessed with Batman, and always will be, and the events of the movie do not alter his obsession, and in the end, it is used in Bruce’s favor.

This, in large part, is why Joker feels stale and overused, besides that he is forced into stories where other villains belong.  And though he is regularly used, he is not used to his full potential.  Writers pick him thinking he’s an easy write but he isn’t.

Now I’m not going to stand on a pulpit and list all the symptoms of ASPD to convince all of you Joker has it because, let’s face it, you’ve all heard it before and at this point it’s just part of the culture, but I don’t think that ASPD is an accurate summation because it has some caveats.  ASPD does not apply to conditions where the patient has another Cluster B disorder, and Joker’s “symptoms” as it were, fit closer to BPD than ASPD and a big portion of that is how he interacts with the world and how he himself acts, and in any case, I’m not here to give a sermon on how he has BPD instead of ASPD either. Diagnosing Joker doesn’t get us any closer to my point and it doesn’t make him any easier to write.

And my point is this: Joker doesn’t just need to be used less, though he certainly does.  What Joker desperately, desperately needs is to change and grow as a character.  Why? Well aside from not having the most boring thing that has ever dried your brain to a fine powder.  Joker is hard to write, I’m not going to sit here and tell comic writers or fanfic writers that giving him a character arc is easy because it isn’t.  Joker is a tough character to write.  He is simultaneously a man who is too far gone to care that anyone is getting hurt or killed in his jokes and a man who has lost everything and now desperately wants to die.  That isn’t easy to write and I think people tend to trivialize just how hard it is.

Or they do stupid shit like make him tear off his own face like that is exactly how a suicidally depressed person self-mutilates.

Yeah that’s totally an inoffensive portrayal of self-harm.

There’s probably a resounding question of why I should care.  Joker’s a manipulative, abusive asshole he shouldn’t be allowed redemption, right?  Well, I think there is a point where you need to look back and wonder: why is Joker so boring compared to the other rogues?  Because he really is painfully boring in comparison.

I think it’s because he doesn’t feel like a real person.  With Ed, Harley, Jon, Pam, Selina, we relate to them because they have personalities that feel organic and feel human.  We relate to Jon because we have all been scared children in situations we could not escape, we relate to Pam because we have all had scars that did not heal correctly, we relate to Ed because we have all been told at one time or another that we were not worth the time or effort to be loved.  None of us have been Joker.  None of us know, much less understand, what’s going on in his head. We know Jon is angry at the world, and we know it is because when he was suffering and scared no one did anything to stop it.  We know Pam is angry too, and we know she is angry because when she needed help to heal, help was not given.  We know Ed is overcompensating, and we know he is doing so because he desperately wants to prove that he is worthy of love.  We know and understand these characters and their motivations, they are human.

They are also not extremely offensive portrayals of mental illness and are seldom used as such.  If it sounds like I’m bitter about that face thing in New 52, it’s because I am, moving on.

When people call Joker a monster, it is accurate in that he is not humanized.  Even his very explicit wish to die is usually telegraphed by other characters.  The only time he mentions it is in probably the most human we’ve seen Joker in any comic: The Killing Joke.

And frankly this is one of my favorite comics involving the Joker because while I still didn’t relate to him, he still felt human to me.  And further, he recognizes, in this moment, that he has gone too far. This is something I think is important to recognize about Joker: he still has standards, he still knows there is a point of no return, he just doesn’t care.  And he doesn’t care because he wants to die.

But I don’t think Joker’s wish to die should be fulfilled, though I would like to see it explored, I’d actually really like to see Joker come to terms with the person he’s become, because he clearly hasn’t.  If he is so desperate to die that he purposely pushes at everyone’s threshold in an attempt to be killed, even Harley’s.

Harley even recognizes it. Can you imagine reading a comic where the main conflict is not dealing with someone who is mentally ill but someone who is mentally ill coming to terms with the fact that, no matter what, they can never be the same person as the one they were before their mental illness occurred?  That would be interesting!  In fact, I’m not even sure we’ve explored this with Bruce.  The only people who have come to terms with living with a mental illness and never being able to return to the people they were beforehand are Jon and Pam, and this acceptance is always before they ever become rogues, because they know what they went through and the changes they underwent as a result are how they’re coping, and that they can’t just pretend it never happened because that doesn’t change the fact that it did.

And keep in mind coming to terms with being unable to return to the time before the onset of mental illness is not the same as rejecting that time altogether, because that’s what Ed does and we know this is a coping mechanism and we know it isn’t healthy.  Ed does not like the person that came before the Riddler, Harley and Joker want to return to it so desperately they’re rejecting themselves now, and Jon and Pam, while not happy with the way they are now, know they cannot go back.  And the irony is that they both know they need to move forwards, and almost never do. Jon and Pam are frequently static in the comics, because the status quo is god and we must have a fear-obsessed delusional psychiatrist and a man-hating plant lady on the evil side because there is no way two people that have come to terms with themselves and are at best chaotic neutral types can ever do anything good and if they do it is with the aid of someone else because they are helpless to change on their own despite being intelligent human beings.

And if you are wondering, I am bitter about this too and it’s making me get off track.

The thing is, Joker has never been in a situation where his hand has been forced.  He has never been made to do something he doesn’t want to do and he has never had a single moment where, when the chips were down, he had a chance to definitively say: “I don’t want to die.  I want to be in control.  I want to do better.  I want to live.”

And I think he hasn’t because comic writers have never placed him in situations like that for whatever reason.  I think, and this is just speculation, that they are afraid that there is no situation you can put Joker in where he would, without a shadow of a doubt, say “I don’t want to die.”  There is an underlying feeling that Joker has no situation where he will look inward and realize that it is his fault he’s the way he is and he is the one that needs to change.

But no human is that stubborn or immovable, no human is so averse to change that they will never do so.  Somewhere out there, there is a situation where Joker would willingly change or even turn his life around, I can dare to dream of a world where instead of the Joker we have the Jokester because of character development instead of an alternate universe.

Especially since Jokester was summarily given the shaft in the Countdown series and we can add that to the third thing in this rant I am extremely bitter about.

Here’s the thing, there is something admirable about comics that address suicidal depression in a respectful and serious manner, there is a reason the Deadpool comic addressing it is so well-loved.

And the thing is, there are Gotham Rogues who suffer from depression, whether suicidal or not, and Joker is one of them.  It is perfectly fine to address suicidal depression with a character your audience will never see again, but I feel like it might also be accepted, or even welcomed, to have a character who suffers from suicidal depression address that it isn’t just a one-shot character, but one you always see.  Joker works for this too because it brings something up: you can be happy and still suffer from depression, these things are not incompatible.

I think Joker developing as a character is almost, in its own way, vital to the character as a trope. In continuities as long and extensive as Batman’s, characters need to grow and change to keep them from growing stale or feeling overused.

Though it might help to not use the characters so fucking much.

And that is the end of my bitter angry rant on the subject.

[amorremanet]

Oh boy, you're one of my all-time favorite content creators so I wanna ask a lot of questions. I'm particularly curious about 1-4, 17, and 19, but I understand that that is a significant amount of questions, so don't feel obligated to answer them all if you don't want to - just do whichever ones you please! 🌸

asks for fanfic writers

number 2 is done over here, but!

1. things that inspire you

……Uh. That’s a good question. tbh, it’s hard for me to pin down a specific set of things because… Sure, quotes or pictures usually help a lot, and so does music, but inspiration comes out of pretty much everywhere, for me, and at any time. Which can be super-frustrating when it happens, like. While I’m driving, or when I can’t get to my phone or a notebook to jot the idea down, but… Sighs. This is life, sadly

3. name three favorite writers — idk if this is supposed to be fan-authors or not but i’m really bad at picking fave fan-authors, so I’m going with not

1. Federico García Lorca — don’t mind me, I’ll just be over here, crying a lot, because García Lorca was such a beautiful soul who wrote such beautiful poems and plays, and THIS!! BADASS!!!! OH MY GOD. He was killed for being a gay man who gave General Franco the middle finger and didn’t just lie down for fascism but fought to try and keep his country from being taken over by said fascists. I love this man, don’t even go there.

2. Fyodor Dostoevsky — it was a really close call between him and Mikhail Bulgakov, because I’m limiting myself to one prolific Russian even though I love them both. But Dostoevsky won out because I’ve loved him longer, and I’ve read more of his stuff than I have Bulgakov’s (which is really saying a lot because Dostoevsky often makes GRRM look positively succinct by comparison) (though in fairness, that’s a bit on his brain; Dostoevsky lived with a form of temporal lobe epilepsy that resulted in hypergraphia and he lived in an age when novels were originally published as serials and you got paid by the word, so much like Darles Chickens, he went on and on and added subplots left right and center because Dostoevsky had to get paid), and The Brothers Karamazov is one of my favorite novels ever.

It’s also secretly hilarious, like. Yes, it’s a door-stopper that has a lot of heavy shit going on, too, with familial dysfunction and murder and all kinds of theology — but don’t try to read this book while you’re drinking something because you will probably choke on it at some point.

3. Adrienne Kennedy (I have admittedly only read one of her plays and I haven’t had the opportunity to see any of her work performed live, but Funnyhouse Of A Negro is legit one of the best works of 20th century American literature. It’s a one-act play, I’m not saying that this is a link to a PDF of it but I’m not not-saying that either if u know what I mean, and it will completely blow your mind — like, it’s so out there, doing stuff that nobody else is doing in the same way, and it’s fucking beautiful)

Honorable Mentions: Anne Rice (because no matter what issues I have with her, and we could be here all night, even if I cut out the, “and here is why Anne Rice is Wrong™ about fanfiction” tirade, because I have a LOT of issues with her? I am still trash garbage for self-indulgent gay Catholic vampires, especially when they helped get me through a lot of really bad downswings by being trashy and self-indulgent, the end)

Neil Gaiman (because no matter what issues I have with him — and there are plenty of them, some personal and some ideological — Good Omens, American Gods, and his run on Sandman are some of my favorite stories ever, they’ve helped get me through some shit much like Anne Rice and JKR have done, and I’ll probably never be over That One Quote from The Kindly Ones about, “Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn’t it?”)

and Leonard Cohen (I would talk about him more, I feel bad for not doing it but I’m still not ready to deal with his death, even though it’s been a couple months, just? His poetry is some of the most beautiful shit I’ve ever read, and to be fair, Beautiful Losers isn’t a novel that I’d recommend to everybody but I love it)

4. name three authors that were influential to your work and tell why

1. Augusten Burroughs, Oscar Wilde, and JK Rowling get listed together because they’re in the same post and I’m gonna cheat

2. Kurt Vonnegut — like, I love his stories themselves, of course. The first thing of his that I read was his short story, “Harrison Bergeron”; we read it in seventh grade English and it was so completely unlike literally anything I’d ever seen. The things that were closest to it were Roald Dahl (they had a similar off-kilter sense of humor, though Dahl and Vonnegut are different in how they go about being off-kilter), Fahrenheit 451 (we read it in sixth grade English and it just hit me like a big yellow school bus)

and Animal Farm (which we also read in seventh grade English, and it was on a similar wavelength with “Harrison Bergeron,” as being stuff written by political leftists who weren’t afraid of criticizing the behavior and beliefs of other leftists, but ultimately, Vonnegut and Orwell are two very different kinds of satirists and, for me, Vonnegut always prioritizes the human element of the satire over the ideological element that’s so central to Orwell’s everything ever. Like, neither of them is completely without any grounding in the other’s Big Deal thing, but they still have their preferences, and Orwell’s more about the ideas, to me)

—but “Harrison Bergeron” was still so far out there from anything else I’d ever read before it, and everything else I’ve ever read from Vonnegut continued rocking my world by just going off in his own weird little Kurt Vonnegut direction where he was gonna do his thing and you were just along for the ride. It was so much fun, and completely engaging even if I didn’t always feel like I got it, and I love this about him.

That said, though? The biggest impact that Vonnegut’s had on me is that he showed me that you can write satire without losing all of your compassion or your respect for the human element, which is so fucking important to me, because so many people conflate, “satire” with, “being an asshole”

—like, so many people take, “satire” as carte blanche to be a dickbag to people because they think they’re in the right about whatever’s on their mind, even if they’re trying to satirize people who are in positions of power like Jane Austen allegedly did

(granted, I don’t buy that version of the story with her, but in fairness, that’s because based on what I’ve read of her work, I think Jane Austen was a bitter, self-righteous snob who had no friends and that her so-called, “satire” was really just her being all, “Ugh, these loser preps are so jealous of me but I can’t help it that I’m better than they are” and having literary temper tantrums over the fact that no one wanted to spend more than a few minutes with her because she was a complete asshole who looked down her nose at fucking EVERYBODY)

(I mean, I already stanned for all of the Brontës before I learned that Charlotte had an EPIC hate-on for Jane Austen, but I started stanning for her harder when I first learned the story about how she refused to take on some collaborative project with Jane Austen that someone suggested she do, because based on reading some of Austen’s work, she felt that Austen didn’t have a single ounce of human compassion in her entire withered soul and thought that Jane Austen had more in common with the people who abused Charlotte, her sisters, and their brother Branwell, than with Charlotte herself — but that being said)

Anyway, my point is that Vonnegut is a satirist with a soul, and that’s what I want to be, too. More fabulous and gayer than he was, but still.

3. Terry Pratchett — on a personal note about why I love him, no other writer can make me smile as reliably as the late Sir Terry. Like, if it’s true that Gaiman did most of the heavy-lifting with the plot for Good Omens while Sir Terry did most of the joke-writing, then…… I’m okay with that, really? And it makes sense? Like, Good Omens was the first thing that I ever read by either of them, and its voice has much more in common with Sir Terry’s usual writing than with Neil’s

—but regardless of which of them did what more than whom, Good Omens had a huge effect on my developing sense of humor when I found it at an airport bookstore in middle school, and it was my first real, serious introduction to the idea that you could write a story with all kinds of angels and demons and magic and weird supernatural hijinks that didn’t have to be relegated to the Children’s Lit shelf like HP and Narnia (though Narnia was at least taken seriously when I was a kid, and HP was only taken seriously insofar as people could call it a literally Satanic corrupting influence blah blah whatever bogus arguments they pulled out of their asses), or unrelentingly Serious About All The Things Ever (like Narnia and LOTR)

or such nauseating Christian propaganda that it makes you want to stab CS Lewis’s corpse with a rusty fucking spork (like…… well. Narnia. Which is hilarious because Good Omens literally incorporates elements from the Book of Revelation, and a smattering of stuff from everywhere else in the Bible, while Narnia has a White Witch and a talking Jesus lion and a satyr, and yet, the one whose main characters are an angel, his demonic boyfriend, and the Antichrist is NOT the Christian propaganda here)

Moreover, Sir Terry is such a good example of a writer who grew in quality and also realized when he’d done Less Than Cool things that didn’t actually live up to his philosophical ideals, so he constantly tried to do better with his work. I respect the shit out of that, and I want to be like that as a writer, too.

Also:

That’s the shirt that he wore to conventions: “Tolkien’s Dead. / JK Rowling said no. / Philip Pullman couldn’t make it. / Hi, I’m Terry Pratchett.”

Great shirt, or GREATEST shirt.

Honorable Mentions: Sylvia Plath (because I was a completely cliché white theatre kid goth chick in high school and Sylvia Plath gave me hope that I, too, could write angry, angsty stuff that didn’t have to be all HOOM BAM MACHO like Jack Kerouac and have an audience)

August Strindberg (completely rocked my shit when we read The Ghost Sonata in the Theatre History and Histrionics class I took in my first year of undergrad, because, like Vonnegut, it was totally out-there and so unlike anything else that I’d ever read before. He’s just such a little weirdo and I love it)

John Waters (honorable mention because he’s not an author in the traditional sense exactly, but he’s a content creator and he does write the screenplays for his movies, and he’s gay and weird and a proud freak who’s all about that camp trash #aesthetic and about being gay and weird and freaky, and damn everyone who wants to make you fit in with their arbitrary standards when you’re not hurting anybody, and that’s all Very Important to me, on a personal level and on an Artistic Integrity Feels level)

and Jeffrey Eugenides (I don’t love him quite as much as I used to, back in high school — a lot of the cooling on him started when I learned that he’s straight, when I’d spent most of my adolescence thinking he had to be LGBTIQ, but that then led to an appreciation of some of the other glaring Issues in his books

like how he sort of plays at calling out southeast Michigan’s history of racism and especially of antiblackness in Middlesex, but ultimately ends up replicating it more than he actually calls it out, not to mention how the whole book is really Not Good about it deals with intersex conditions and how it represents intersex people, and it’s really heteronormative in a few ways that are now incredibly frustrating for me because I see them in clearer ways than I did in high school

—but I can’t deny two things: 1. Middlesex and The Virgin Suicides had huge effects on the process of me finding my own voice as a writer, and they both kept me alive in high school, more than once; and 2. Jeff was an inspiration because he’s from the Metro Detroit area, too, and I was totally sure for so long that nobody from ‘round here could really Make It as an author or accomplish anything for ourselves as writers.

Like, I wholeheartedly believed that I was probably doomed because I wasn’t from Somewhere Cool, like JKR, Terry Pratchett, Stephen King, or [insert any of the authors I ever had heart-eyes for entirely because They Were From New York!!! That Means They Are A Serious Writer!!!!] — but then along came Jeffrey Eugenides.

I discovered him completely by accident, because the Sofia Coppola movie version of TVS was on TV, and then I found out it was a book and had to read it… and then I found out that he was actually from the Metro Detroit area, and it was just? Whatever issues I have with him or his work, finding out that he was from ‘round here too was A Big Deal to me because !!!!! it meant that I wasn’t totally doomed to never have a future as an actual facts writer because I’m from Michigan instead of from Somewhere Cool)

17. favorite AU to write

ohhhhh man, hard question, because I like most of them.

Well, I mean. I like “correcting canon,” to borrow a term from @addictsitter — but tbh, I get so married to some of those ideas that I easily forget, until I’m called upon to explain it to someone else, that: Scott McCall isn’t canonically autistic and bisexual; Barty Crouch Jr.’s mother is not called, “Demeter” by anyone but me (but much like Braeden’s last name being Tandy because…… Meaghan’s last name flowed really nicely with Braeden’s, and Chris’s boyfriend being named Thierry Kensinger because I googled, “most popular baby names switzerland 1985” and, “most common surnames switzerland” and put together a name that I liked for him, I intend to just treat, “Demeter Lysistrata Gamp Crouch” as if it’s actual canon until everyone agrees with me); and all of my feels about [pick a character]’s gender identity, sexuality, neurodivergence, etc.…… are not necessarily shared by other people until I share them, oops

I like taking the, “non-magical/supernatural/ridiculously traumatic in ways that exceed average human capacity” AU setup for all of my fantasy, sci-fi, horror, Gothic, super-powered, or otherwise speculative fandoms…… and then finding ways to translate the supernatural parts into non-supernatural terms. Like, way back in the SPN fandom, my go-to was that Castiel isn’t so out-of-touch with people because he’s an angel; it’s because he’s autistic.

In Teen Wolf land: well, the Hales are generally not all dead, for one thing, because they’re not werewolves so the Argents had no reason to kill them, and Peter deciding to stalk and abuse Scott and Lydia has no magical components to it, he’s just a fucking creeper who preys on and probably assaults teenagers, possibly while he’s dating their mothers (since he’s canonically hit on both Melissa and Natalie, and went out with Melissa that one time in s1).

Then, Jackson’s kanima plot from s2 can be translated into non-magic terms as, for an example, Matt murdering the swim team on his own and dragging Jackson into it after Jackson witnesses one of the murders (I usually move Tucker the Mechanic to earlier and have Jackson be the accidental witness to his murder instead of Stiles), and instead of there being magical mind control murder lizard hijinks, Matt abuses and manipulates Jackson non-magically, Jackson falls harder into his fledgling drinking problem that came up a couple times back in s1 but was never mentioned again, and it’s Bad before Matt eventually gets caught and sent to prison. Even helping send him to prison with a promise of immunity in exchange for his testimony, Jackson doesn’t tell the whole story — not even to Danny — because there’s a lot of it that he’s trying to block out, or that he isn’t really ready or able to fully understand himself.

Or like in the Marvel theatre kids AU that I play around in sometimes, uh. Frankly, trying to make Thor and Loki into humans is kind of an enormous dumpster fire (a dumpster fire that I’ve enjoyed working on, personally, but still: dumpster fire) — also, for the link: cw for death, murder, kidnapping, emotional and psychological abuse, manipulation, (mostly inexplicit) references to torture and ethnically-motivated hate crimes, discussion of war crimes (more inexplicit than not but still), and hardcore douchebag!Odin (as in, he is the one perpetuating most of these war crimes, that is what I mean when I say, “douchebag Odin”)

But, uh. The characters who are not Norse gods are easier to put into non-spandexed terms — like, Bucky’s “winter soldier” plot involves emotional and psychiatric abuse; Sam hasn’t been in the military yet because he is in high school but his wing-man Riley died in a freak accident at Jr. ROTC summer camp; Pietro and Wanda are Erik’s cousins instead of his kids because otherwise I couldn’t have all three of them, and anyway, he’s ridiculously overprotective of them and will probably hurt you if you touch them; Nick Fury is the much beleaguered director of the theatre club, who is trying to (more or less) single-handedly save the entire fine arts department;

and Wade Wilson isn’t on drugs, he’s just like that naturally (“like that” here having the meaning of any number of possible ridiculous things but right now, let’s go with, “following Logan Howlett: Professor of Art™ around the mall on Saturday, narrating the entire thing like an episode of Crocodile Hunter, and dragging Peter Parker with him because Peter actually answered his phone when Wade called him at Too Early On A Saturday O’Clock and he has no idea why they’re doing this, but okay”)

And I was going to be sad because it’s 3:15 AM now and I didn’t feel like I had the energy left to talk about one completely ridiculous Star Wars AU in detail — but I remembered that I actually had a post about it a while back!

Short version: It’s seriously Keeping Up With The Skywalkers, just. Not rich and famous or anything. Also, no one is dead. Except Palpatine, probably. Anakin is a late-in-life closet bisexual who is doing his best to ignore this la la la, Padmé figured out that she was a lesbian after being with him for a while and is now married to Ahsoka — his ex-foster sister — instead, Obi-Wan was their friend in college and he and Anakin had A Thing before someone (Anakin) fell in with a really shitty homophobic pastor-local politician-crime lord who manipulated him (Palpatine) and a messy as fuck break-up ensued and Anakin has been trying to jump in Denial River ever since

(not that Obi-Wan can judge: he became Luke’s mentor when Luke was in college, knows that “Skywalker” isn’t a very common name and that Anakin and Padmé named their son, “Luke,” and he still totally glossed over how he, uh. Knew Anakin a few times over by calling him by his weirdo religious-political-mafia nickname, Darth Vader, in all the stories he told Luke, lol um, whoops?)

Luke is a soft gay activist but Leia is a hard bi activist who’s better at activist work that is more easily understood as activisty while Luke is better at stuff like community building and housing LGBTIQ kids who need places to stay in his spare rooms, Han is married to Leia but probably also kinda married to Lando in Canada (they were drunk, it’s complicated, but Lando is accepted as Basically Family by pretty much everyone. Anakin calls him, “the son-in-law I should have had” when he’s in a pissy mood with Han, which happens often), Chewie is Han’s incredibly hirsute old friend who has no sense of volume control (no one knows why his nickname is, “Chewbacca,” but Han insists that the story doesn’t make sense if you weren’t there), and the Falcon is an old van that’s constantly held together by duct tape, chewing gum, and luck

KyBen is constantly getting in trouble for being a bullying little shit to Poe and Finn on the playground (which is coming out of a lot of things, like, “Ben hates them for being more popular than he is,” and, “Ben hates them for being better at school than he is,” and, “Ben hates Finn specifically because wtf no, how dare you be so charming and make Poe Dameron smile like he likes you, this isn’t fair, Ben was like SO CLOSE to figuring out how to make Poe like him [not really], he’s going to go listen to a metal cover of, ‘You Belong With Me’ in his room and throw things, fuck everybody, he hates this town and this school and his family UGH IT’S NOT A PHASE DAD”)

Poe and Finn really just want that annoying Ben kid to leave them alone already like what is his deal, Hux and Phasma don’t like KyBen either (they just got stuck with him on hall monitor rotations and have to keep him from breaking people’s faces or else it will reflect badly on them), and Rey is a plucky, somewhat abrasive new girl who warms up really quickly if you’re genuinely nice to her and one time beat up Phasma to get her off of Finn because Finn was nice to her so Rey decided that they should be friends. Rey just moved to town with her adoptive dad

Obi-Wan is her adoptive dad

Anakin has the face-crack of the century

and Luke doesn’t want to detract from how hard this is for you, Dad, but is SUPER NOT IMPRESSED WITH EITHER OF YOU for totally failing to mention that you knew each other like???? WHAT. Fuck this, he’s gonna go to Tosche Station and then go have dinner at Mom’s with her and Aunt Ahsoka, this is bullshit

(Luke storms out of his own house, leaving Anakin and one of the kids who’s staying in one of the spare rooms standing in the kitchen super-awkwardly)

(update: it is 3:36 AM now, and I’m still doing better than expected, given how far off the point I’ve wandered here)

19. favorite fandom to write

Uh. Good question.

Cop-out answer that has a basis in fact: right now, my favorite fandom to write technically doesn’t entirely exist yet because I’m still making it up and the fandom won’t be A Thing until the novel’s actually done and people can read it. (And it’s not guaranteed to be A Thing but I’d really like it if I ever got to have a fandom based around something I wrote with my OCs. Like, even all of #The Discourse™, while probably incredibly frustrating on several levels, would be so flattering and I’d be beside myself because ksdfgkfgherb????!!!?! people??? liked??? this thing i wrote???!!!?!!?! enough to make a fandom?????!!!!!!!?!!!! *as yet hypothetical pterodactyl screech!!!!*)

Attempt at an actual answer: Right now, I’m sort of between fandoms a bit. HP is always my good go-to, because there’s always something to do there and even if Sailor Moon was technically here first, HP was my first fandom where I was really actively involved, in more ways than just going, “Huh, what does, ‘mpreg’ mean?” and clicking on that one NC-17 Aragorn/Legolas fic that abruptly shoved tiny eleven-year-old Kassie into the deep end of what goes on in fandom.

(Though in all due fairness, the first fanfic I ever posted online was some crack-ass HP/Sailor Moon crossover with a totally overpowered and inexplicably American Mary Sue self-insert OC. I was coming up on twelve, probably lying on my profile on that site and saying I was 13, and bless the person who took the time to leave a review going, “Hey, I know you’re young and this is a first effort on your part, but you show a lot of imagination here and that’s worth nurturing. BUT you’re not going to get much of anywhere if you don’t work on it and here are a few sources where you can start looking for help at developing characters better. I mean this to help you, so please don’t stop writing or having fun with it. But you can learn to do better, too.”

And then I asked for a copy of Nancy Kress’s book, Dynamic Characters, for my birthday, my parents found it at Borders, and the rest was history.)

(nb: this should definitely be read as me reccing that book. It’s not a perfect guide by any means, but it’s still one of my go-to’s for help with writing and inspiration for character development, and it’s a very solid, reliable resource. Like, I love it so much that I taped and glued my first copy back together about three times because it wore out from how much I read it and how I carried it almost everywhere, and then made buying a new copy a priority when I couldn’t put the old one back together anymore. but anyway.)

So, yeah. HP is my good go-to, and idk, I kind of want to try writing more than headcanons in the YOI fandom, buuuuut I’m not entirely sure where to start with that just yet — or where I want to start, aside from, “No matter what the actual main subject is, it will probably involve Chris doing IDEK what, something ridiculous probably” — and……

Well, the cop-out answer has a basis in fact? My original novel’s been getting most of my writing time and attention lately, so there’s that?

[amylanchester]

PitchWars #PimpMyBio

Hi, I’m Amy.

This is my first ever PitchWars, and I’m hyped af.

About My Manuscript

Title: More Fierce Than Fire (title comes from here)

Genre: YA Contemporary Fantasy

Word Count: 75,000

Comps: The Young Elites by Marie Lu, The Story of Owen by E. K. Johnston

Sixteen-year-old Abigail Hunter, the best healer in Grady Hospital’s Magical Trauma Ward, has a secret. Ten years ago, Abby wished her mother dead on the worst possible day—the day dragons awoke and brought magical powers to everyone in the world. Abby's angry wish became the powerful spell that ended her mother's life. 

Abby has devoted her life to healing magic to atone for the sins of her past. Though she’s still afraid of losing control, she has become increasingly aware of the threat the dragons pose and frustrated that she is helpless to do anything about it. Hoping to develop the skills required to protect others, she joins a new United Nations-sponsored program which promises to give her the chance to work directly with the dragons and their victims. Training with some of the best young mages in the world, she prepares for the war to come.

And the war is coming. When a group of unregistered mages leads the dragons in a deadly attack on American cities, Abby must decide if she’s ready to join the fight against them, or if she’ll be stuck reliving the mistakes of her past forever. 

A Note About Diversity

Diversity is extremely important to me in my writing. Most of the characters in my book other than my MC are POC and/or LGBTQ. I did not feel that I had the skill or experience to write a first-person perspective for a POC/LGBTQ character, so I didn’t. However, I have been fortunate to grow up in an extremely diverse place, so I’ve included a number of POC/LGBTQ characters (loosely) based on real people. I feel that authentic, thoughtful representation is important in all forms of media and am hoping to find a mentor who feels the same.

MS Pinterest Board

Novel Aesthetic (Quotes & More on My Instagram)

About Me

Let’s start this the way you did back in pre-school. My name is Amy Lanchester, and I’m twenty-eight years old. My favorite color is pink (and has been since long before millennial pink became a thing #ILikedItBeforeItWasCool). More Fierce Than Fire is my first novel. 

I’m “from Atlanta” in the way that most people who say they are “from Atlanta” are “from Atlanta,” in that I actually grew up about thirty minutes away and only moved to the city as an adult. I set my book here because I feel that entirely too many books are set in NYC, London, or Chicago.

I’ve been funemployed for the past year.

I started my first “real job” before I’d even finished my master’s degree, and after working there for three years, I decided I wanted to do a few things before I’m too old/settled. So I’ve traveled Europe:

ALL

OVER

EUROPE

and the western United States:

ALL

OVER

THE 

WILD

WEST

and I finally achieved a life goal in writing this book. I highly recommend taking a “gap year” to anyone who is able.

I live with my boyfriend and our beautiful asshole of a cat, Bret. We found him about two years ago at a local McDonald’s hanging out near the drive-thru. We went back the next day and lured him out with bits of hamburger, and he’s been our lovable jerk of a pet ever since. 

Why You Should Mentor Me

- I am really, really serious about this. I’ve devoted an insane amount of time, energy, and research on this project in the past year and fully intend to see it through all the way. I love and believe in my work. 

- I am crazy meticulous. I come from a STEM background, and I use the tools I learned there in my work. I’m a firm believer in spreadsheets, outlines, automation, and using technology to the fullest. I am a grammar nut who googles everything she isn’t sure about and spends hours nerding out reading style guides and grammar blogs.

- I take criticism well. I’m a fairly self-critical person who is realistic about her flaws and shortcomings. Though I love my work, I know it is far from perfect, and I am greatly looking forward to receiving a thoughtful critique. You won’t hurt my feelings. I want my work to be the best it can be, and I know that takes knowledge and experience I don’t have.

Writing History

I had the idea for my MS in May 2016. It was inspired by this tumblr post which made its way to reddit (a site I love and hate and spend entirely too much time on):

I decided I could write that book, and so I did. I wrote a prologue that I cut and part of the first chapter on a train from Warsaw to Berlin in September. I made an outline when I got back home in October, and I wrote the rest of the book during NaNoWriMo 2016. I did finish my 50,000 words in November, but the book wasn’t done. I had a completed (terrible) first draft of about 55,000 words by the first week of December. 

My first draft was mostly just dialogue and action. I discovered that I hate writing description as much as I hate reading it. So my next several drafts mostly involved adding description to scenes, and it took forever. I cut several scenes and characters entirely during this process and added a few more scenes and characters, bringing my final word count to 75,000 words. My current draft contains very little from the original NaNoWriMo draft, and believe me, that’s for the best.

Writing Style

I am definitely a planner. I would have gotten nowhere without my outline or character spreadsheet. However, most of my character’s personalities came out through writing their dialogue. I used dialogue (that I went back and cut because it was boring and redundant) to solve plot problems and work out motivations in scenes. If I ever got stuck, I just started writing a conversation between my characters, and it solved basically all of my problems. 

How I Write 

I started writing in Scrivener, a program I’d gotten for free when I worked at the Apple Store back in 2010. It helped me a lot with organizing scenes and research. I transitioned to Google Docs after a save file got corrupted and I spent an evening panicking that I’d lost everything (I hadn’t, thank God). Google Docs sucks for long documents, but it saves to the cloud every few seconds, so I suffered through it.

I write at night almost exclusively. My best creative work comes after midnight, and usually once I’m already in bed.

I dread having to get back on a normal schedule because the night owl life is best for my writing.

Favorite Writing Resources

- Excel/Google Sheets

- Grammar Girl

- Chicago Manual of Style (I’m too poor to actually own this, but I use their FAQs and this hyphenation table all the time.)

- Hemingway Editor

- Grammarly

- ProWritingAid

Upcoming Projects Preview

I have so many ideas. I think of new project ideas every day, and I constantly struggle not to get distracted by my newest, shiniest concept. Here are a couple of things I’ve started planning:

- Shakespeare’s plays retold in a combined setting like into the Woods or Marissa Meyer’s The Lunar Chronicles. A central, overarching series plot with individual volumes devoted to some of the plots of the original plays. I’ll be combining side characters from one show with main characters from another.

- A space opera/sci-fi series centered on a girl who rescues an alien from a hostile species at war with Earth’s space empires. The aliens have superior technology and are annihilating the space colonies, but we can’t communicate with them. My MC and her android nanny devise a method for rudimentary communication and are captured by government forces who have ulterior motives.

Stuff I Like

Books

- Harry Potter, obviously. Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite. I spent years convincing myself I was a Gryffindor like Hermione, my hero, but I’m really a Ravenclaw.

- The Young Elites by Marie Lu

- Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E. K. Johnston

- A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin

- Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

- 1984 by George Orwell

- Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

TV Shows

I freaking love TV. 

I’m convinced that if Ray Bradbury had lived in the Golden Age of Television that we’re living through, he would never have written Fahrenheit 451.

A short list of shows I love: Futurama, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Parks and Recreation, BoJack Horseman, Game of Thrones, The Handmaid’s Tale, Breaking Bad, The Wire, Jessica Jones, Broadchurch, Steven Universe, Stranger Things, You’re the Worst, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Musicals 

I love Broadway so much. 

I’ve been in (school productions of) Once on This Island, Les Miserables, Into the Woods, and Dreamgirls. Other shows I love include Hamilton, The Book of Mormon, The Last Five Years, Aida, Phantom of the Opera, Evita, The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof, and West Side Story.

Cosplay 

I picked up cosplay a few years back. I didn’t own a sewing machine, didn’t know how to sew, and had limited crafting experience. I taught myself using books, online tutorials, and YouTube videos. Some of my projects:

Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones

Chell from Portal

Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter

Elsa from Frozen

Joy from Inside Out

Eleven from Stranger Things

That was entirely too long, and I’m sorry.

If you read this far, you’re probably my soulmate. Please send me a message on Twitter and let me know. :)