#I find it endlessly fascinating

[lostonmyroad]

jessica really said “god forbid women do anything” and doomed an entire people to war by installing her twink son as a false prophet by stealing her cult’s 10,000 year old breeding program propaganda

[sgt-dignam]

look, the fact is, tabitha got pushed out of a lighthouse and somehow ended up near a hiking trail in camden, maine. i don't think i'm being controversial when i say, by all known metrics, that's impossible.

+ bonus: #jade's little drinking umbrella

[kandadze]

If the horror is inside you, how do you get it out? (Jeanette Winterson, "Gut Symmetries")

Terror is part of me. (Tamura Ryuichi, Poems 1946-1998, October Poem)

[silverwhittlingknife]

"the fault, dear Brutus -" (Julius Caesar)

Quotes from A Critical History of English Literature by David Daiches. Panels from Death in the Family, Under the Red Hood, Lost Days, and Batman and Robin.

[author-a-holmes]

@unbearable-lightness-of-ink

I'm gonna chime straight in and say; If you have time PLEASE add your advice/process too!

Everyone writes differently and what works for me may utterly destroy someone elses manuscript, so I do think an alterantive perspective on a drafting process could help either OP or someone else who reads this.

No pressure of course, as I know you've said you're at work, but if you feel so inclined, I'd definitely be interested in reading your process <3

(How other writers work, and draft, and edit, it endlessly fascinating to me! For me, personally, my outline usually acts as my zero draft, so my "first draft" is usually incredibly clean, at least in terms of plot/structure. Darkling is introducing a whole new process for me so I'm excited to see how you handle full rewrites as someone who has never done one before!)

It has recently occurred to me that to make a second draft after the first one I have to... rewrite the entire thing?? Not just, take the document and, edit ON IT, OVER it.

And that a first draft is not really supposed to be... readable?

Guys I need help,.how do you do drafts??

[autumndragon]

not to be delusional, but, in a way, viggo and hiccup remind me of will and hannibal—there is just something in their dynamic that keeps taking me back to the episode 'mizumono', to that one famous line,

hannibal: do you believe you could change me, the way i've changed you?

will: i already did

in 'enemy of my enemy', hiccup mentions viggo changed him, got inside his head, like hannibal did to will. hiccup starts to try to be more like viggo, to be ruthless, to go to extremes, to keep pushing until the dragon hunters are all gone.

but in 'triple cross', it's proved that hiccup is not the only one who changed.

viggo: i spent my whole life hunting dragons, killing them, and i've come to respect them as equals. you taught me that, hiccup.

in the end, hiccup changed viggo as much as viggo changed him.

throughout the series, viggo comments on hiccup's innocence, his naivete, how he needs to be more ruthless, or the people he loves will die. viggo even tells him, in 'triple cross', that hiccup is more ruthless than he realizes. but that's not really it. hiccup isn't ruthless, and he doesn't have to be. it's exactly his compassion and bravery that helps defeat his enemies. it was his lack of ruthlessness that stopped him from killing toothless in the first place.

it reminds me of the episode, 'digestivo', the conversation between will and hannibal

hannibal: you delight in wickedness and then berate yourself for the delight.

will: you delight. i tolerate. i don't have your appetite.

viggo wants hiccup to be more ruthless, he believes that hiccup is capable of it, but even if he is, hiccup doesn't want to be. he doesn't see the point of it.

a little food for thought; it's just that every time i watch viggo and hiccup on screen i find myself wishing for another five seasons of them with a higher rating and bigger budget.

[uncanny-tranny]

I know this is a very unoriginal observation (much like any other), but I'm finally reading The Great Gatsby, and even I wouldn't describe men the way Nick does.

[fakerashid]

“louis thinks i’m boring”

sounds like a skill issue to me, armand. you are terrifying (dreamy sigh)

[wolframpant]

"And you don't have to pretend you'll miss me." "Of course, I'll miss you. You're my mother." "Well, that's very dutiful of you considering that I've never been very loving towards you. And I'm sorry for that but you've always been a great disappointment to me, Claudius."

[quillkiller]

do you like Molly Weasley?

lowkey not really

[sskk-manifesto]

Ep 4 :)

[xkuja]

If Kuja ever achieved the level of power he craves, he’d only grow incredibly angry and bitter, perplexed as to why he’s still so unsatisfied.

Isn’t that kind of sad?

He’d also be a deal more dangerous. He tends to be able to carpet over his internal frustration and anger with ambition… So there’d be nothing left to distract him if he managed to get what he (thinks) he wants.

It’s safest for him to be perpetually scheming toward domination.

[ryderwritings]

it’s so bittersweet to see arcane end because it was one of the pieces of media that really pushed me to create and tell stories for real instead of just thinking about it so i’m sad it’s over but mostly just glad it existed at all

[mirmi]

To further down the agenda. Because I never see it mentioned anywhere, and it's gonna bug me if I don't get it off my chest.

Also, I've been reading British Comedy RPF since school instead of Harry Potter and Twilight, it's too late for me now.

As far as I'm aware, Alex brought up actual fan fiction titles at least three times now.

Side note: I've spent quite a long time lurking on AO3 before diving into Alex's, erm, rec list — and the standard dynamic is pretty much set. It's the "canonical" one, of course, so I'm not complaining. Just worth mentioning that I was specifically looking for somewhat more realistic fics without the "subservient" dynamic — and, personally, finding them was a challenge in itself.

And then there's Alex's picks.

The Horne Section Podcast

Feast

Couldn't find it on AO3, but the podcast is from 09/2019.

Premise: Greg's sucking him off.

Taskmaster – 15x03 – I Love To Squander Promise

I wanna ruin our friendship (09/2022 – 10/2022)

Tags: "top!Alex".

Premise:

Filthy little ferret (09/2022)

Premise: Alex, the one with the agenda, manipulates Greg into sucking his fingers.

Tenderness (06/2022)

12K+ words, 6 chapters.

A great "same level" banter-y dynamic, Alex being the big spoon in Chapter 2, and being the top in Chapter 3 (with no indication of this in the tags, I must say).

And it's by the same author as the previous one. 7 fics below in their list of works.

Master of the Tasks (09/2022)

The only outlier, being a Doctor Who crossover.

Taskmaster | Champion of Champions 3 - Outtakes

A big boy like you (09/2023)

Tags: Top!Alex Horne, Brat!Alex Horne.

...I'm not saying that it couldn't just all be a coincidence. But I feel like there's a theme 😁

[the-starry-seas]

here is my hand that will not harm you for the WIP ask game? I love that title 👀

--sithfox ❤️

omg thanks

that's been buried in my drafts for a looong time but I have so many plans to get back around to it at some point

it's a canon divergent AU where Watto sold Shmi to a trader instead of Cliegg, and she rather disappears into the sands for a while. the galaxy keeps getting up to its shenanigans in the meantime, and in the process, Jango Fett becomes the template for the clone army. he also finds out that a total of four unaltered clones were made, and that the Kaminoans have plans to use all four to continue the cloning process. he disapproves of that happening and steals all four of them (Boba, Omega, and two OC cadets) when the war starts, trusting the chaos and his own skills to enable a clean escape.

he ends up on Tatooine to hunt slavers and crosses paths with Shmi. she has nowhere to go but desperately wants to leave the planet, and he is frankly in dire need of a babysitter. he hires her with an agreement that she can leave whenever she finds a place she wants to move to. of course, things get complicated from there - her trauma makes her skittish and his makes him aggressive, for one - but they manage to adjust to each other and feelings start happening.

as it turns out, the only place Shmi wants to move to is Jango's arms, and they're surprisingly happy, if not particularly well-adjusted. at some point they have a set of twins through space science shit (I'm a trans ace Jango truther so that wasn't happening 'naturally'). they're both full of emotions about the fact that they have their freedom and a home and there's no chance that their babies will ever be taken from them. but it's cool cause those babies have nothing to worry about ever <3

[iskeai-needs-more-dykes]

i think a major point of kill the villainess is the idea of a Main Character. no one is unjustified in their actions because in their view they are the main character and simply act like so. thats what makes it so fascinating, to have characters so rigidly in their roles like that. theres always a give and a take and theres always a consequence for an action. every person has been wronged and every person goes to lengths to seek justice.

the main exception of this is anahkin who lives under the pretext of a background character - although that role is destroyed by eris, the one whos fighting against the Design the most.

jason as well, with his main character story, is put into perspective as nothing but a cog in the machine, another side character to help along the story of others. the mad dragon, the love triangle with helena, his appearence to save eris from drowning. very interesting!