#I clicked on a relevant playlist on a whim and was like

[nyssasorbit]

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that people don't just lose their minds over Middle Eastern music like I do. Like, it just sounds so gorgeous. And the landscape in that same area is also just absolutely breathtaking. I love all kinds of landscapes, but something about deserts just fascinates me. The land, the cities, the people, the culture...I just love it

[albatris]

HI hello hope you're enjoying this nice rainy Tuesday, I was listening to 'The Only House That's Not On Fire (Yet)' and I know it's a ATDAO bop and I was just curious as to how exactly? May I request a Ramble? As in-depth as you would care to be? Thank you thank you

hey hey hello hi!! I am enjoying this nice rainy-Tuesday-that-is-now-a-not-rainy-Thursday c: I hope you're enjoying it also, hope you're goin good, hope you're up to all sorts of cool stuff!

thank you for the question!!! I am always always excited at any opportunity to ramble about ATDAO song choices so as soon as I saw this in my inbox my thoughts started going a billion miles an hour

anyway, hey, yeah, ramble time! ramble might be a little fuzzily-worded because my brain is a little fuzzily-everythinged but hopefully it makes enough sense ahaha

ok, so!

this one is a bit of a peculiarity on the ATDAO playlist, actually! it falls into the category of "this song doesn't have an awful lot of direct plot relevance and is mostly just here because Vibes" yet, somehow, if pressed to name the song on the playlist that encapsulates ATDAO best as a whole, I would say it comes pretty close to the top spot :P

so, yes, a lot of the specifics of the lyrics don't particularly fit if we're thinking in literal terms......... the ENERGY is unparalleled though. HOWEVER I do have some particular parts of the song I can direct your attention to, of course, which I'll get into in a sec -

but ya, as for the song as a whole? it's the cheerful, upbeat acceptance of a series of completely bizarre circumstances! it's just a good bop for being like Welp I Guess This Is My Life Now. and being so accustomed to the completely bonkers state of your reality that it's all just completely mundane to you, which parallels to ATDAO so nicely

plus the start of the second verse, like so

I feel strangely regular / but honestly I prefer it to the usual bizarre / damn that oxymoron

AND the very...... feeling....... concept.....? of this being the only house that's not on fire yet is just kind of like........ I mean, whatever the narrator of the song is involved in, it very much gives me the impression of being entirely at the whims of some force that's volatile and completely incomprehensible

with the "yet" being crucial

But something keeps me as a pet / the only house that's not on fire yet

combined with the general tone of the music gives me the image of just like. sitting on ur front porch sipping a margarita, having just watched the rest of your street devolve into chaos and fire knowing you're completely at the mercy of something bizarre and all-powerful and just being like. "hm. yikes. anyway--"

it's a good tone for the general state of the ATDAO world, which is full of people going about their everyday lives against this bizarre backdrop of ever-present looming apocalyptic dread, completely at the whims of a chaotic and indifferent universe

like

the world is ending! the world is ending! a reality-warping sinkhole just opened in your local bowling alley! but in more pressing concerns, you're almost out of milk, you should try and get to the store before it closes or your mum won't have anything for her cereal tomorrow morning

another point I wanna address is the bridge (?) which is just

the punchline is that there is no punchline

repeated over and over, which is the kicker for this song in its relation to ATDAO imo

'cause like

the theme in ATDAO that keeps coming back and the main......... antagonistic......... concept? force? The Thing The Protagonists Are Constantly Up Against And Struggling With In Some Fashion Or Another? is simply "there is no meaning to this, there is no answer, there is no grand puzzle to be solved, this is all just cold and unfeeling cosmic machinery that doesn't even know you exist"

quite literally, if this is the universe's idea of a joke, there's no punchline

like, the things that happen to Tris and Noa (and Shara and Kai), the things that set the plot in motion, these are acts of chance, these are people being in the wrong place at the wrong time, these are ordinary human people getting swept up into the gears of this endless grinding machine they can barely comprehend and There Is No Point To It. There Is No Motivation Behind It. it happens because it happens!

and there's this shift from like..... seeing it through this very human lens, being angry AT something, being angry AT a particular force, trying to reason with it, trying to plead with it, trying to make it hear you......... to the realisation that there's nothing on the other end of it, there's nothing there to hear you, nothing to take the force of your anger and fear. and like, you knew you were alone, but you're only just realising you're ALONE

n just. "there is no punchline" just clicks FANTASTICALLY for that

(n of course, that's..... grim. so it bears repeating that, like...... the whole heart and soul of ATDAO is people coming face-to-face with the reality of an uncaring unfeeling universe and deciding, Hey, No, Fuck You. it's people caring about people, intentionally, purposefully, violently, no matter the costs! it's the human capacity for love and kindness and connection in the face of horror and indifference! and it matters! even if it doesn't matter at all, it matters!! it matters here and now in this tiny speck of time and space!! love is at the centre of everything!! it's the single greatest act of defiance against the nothing!!!!)

(and that's not relevant to this post at all, I just would have hated to leave on that sort of note LMAO)

long story short: tune good c:

[purplepersnicketywrites]

11, 17, 42?

11. Do you listen to music when writing?

HECK YEAH! I need music on practically 24/7! If I’m writing a particular thing, I try to put on a relevant playlist or just loop a relevant song to keep me in the right mood for it.

17. Favourite AU to write?

*stares into the camera like they’re on the office* Hmmmm, I wonder.

djhdfgjh definitely the Fantasy AU at the moment.

42. Do you plan ordo you write whatever comes to your mind?

It’s a mixture of both! I usually set out with a general plan, and like, a set of scenes I want to cover. My scene plans are usually really short and just sort of capture the mood of the thing/are funny because that’s what motivates me, and there are usually some like, key pieces of dialogue I want to cover that I have in my mind.

Other than that, I sort of let my whims go where they please during a scene! As long as by the end of it I’ve gone from the desired point A -> B i don’t mind if we stop off at 50 other different places along the way!

So the upcoming first scene in the next chapter of BohM’s first ‘draft’ was this:

denki: gotta go find those dragon idiots i guess

sero voice: i wish mobile phones had been invented

And the aim of the scene is to convey a rough timeframe of when this is set (slightly before what we’ve been seeing with Kiri so far), that Denki is going to leave the dragon village to find Kiri and Mina, and that he has a chat with Sero about it.

The actual scene veered into an adaptation of Sero’s powers for this world (really quite different from canon, but I think it makes sense and ALSO I can make a pun out of it so it’s all good), setting up a few further scenes that have now clicked more solidly into place, and a big, big glimpse into the wider world beyond what Kirishima and Bakugou know.

It’s placed a few more key pieces onto the board, and I’m enjoying the contrast between it and the second scene of the chapter, which is a sparring session between Kiri and Bakugou that feels like, you get that they’re more isolated in their own bubble as a result? At least that’s sort of the idea.

Whoops, that’s a ramble and a half, but I enjoy talking about this process ahaha!

I like that everyone so far has asked 3 things.