#I have these ideas that never follow through and these very frustrating as a writer

[dulcewrites]

Hellooo

One question, you had written a cannibalism fanfic right? I just can't find it anymore. If you did write it, will you do a second part?

I loved the fic, and I have not found another like it <3

(Sorry if it's written in a bad way, I'm using a translator)

Hi, your English is fine. I did delete it off ao3. I also deleted my other Aegon fic off there months ago too. Something about seeing them on there made me sad about how bad I am at keeping up with my Aegon centric stuff ☹️. I was tempted to delete them off every platform. I planned on doing a part two of acquired taste, but I put a lot of my focus on fcc, as well as another fic I started. As previous stated, idk why it is so hard for me to continue by Aegon stuff.

I still hope to pick up acquired taste and osftsb again one day

But both are still here on tumblr. Acquired taste is right here and one step foward, two steps back can be found on here too.

[arlathvhenan]

Sera Makes No Sense

Sera as a character baffles and frustrates me, because there was so much potential there and none of it was ever realized. I honestly don’t know what they were going for with her character but what we got feels so unpolished and incomplete.

For one thing, her backstory makes zero sense. It assumes that Sera, a City Elf, has either never encounter racism from a human nor does she know about the Alienages, the genocides, or the other incredibly out in the open atrocities being committed against the Elves to this day. That, or she is SO mean spirited and so lacking in empathy that she sees these people suffering and deems them worthy of being mocked for it, which kind of flies in the face of her whole ‘uplifting the little guy’ thing.

Sera supposedly cares for the downtrodden, and yet is constantly punching down. She openly mocks Solas at any opportunity over the death and downfall of their people. Just imagine for a second if this were set in the real world and we were dealing with a real life marginalized group? Substitute the Elves for any famously abused and oppressed group and consider if you’d still find Sera’s attitude all that charming.

Her hatred of the Elves in general makes very little sense within the context of her own narrative. Her story about the cookies is utterly baffling to me because it illustrates exactly why she should be distrustful of humans and yet she still projects her scorn onto the Elves, who are constantly being abused by the world around them. Why? How does that logic follow?

It honestly feels like writer didn’t know what to do with her. Her character has no arc. She never changes. She never really demonstrates any sense of empathy or compassion, yet we’re meant to believe she’s cares deeply about the plight of the powerless, yet her character never demonstrates this with her actions. She likes to cause trouble, sure. She calls it ‘payback.’ But that comes from a place of malice, not compassion.

I won’t say I don’t understand wanting to menace the rich, but at the end of the day what is she doing to actually help people? By her own admission she only wants to help the Inquisition so she can ‘go and play’ which…yeah. And again, she never really grows from this point. There is no arc to her.

I think the problem with Sera and why she’s yet another character it’s impossible to have nuanced discussions on is because people project a lot of qualities into her that simply aren’t there in the text, that warps their perception of her, and then they get attacked to the image if her they want rather than what’s there in the text. They like her, so they want to assume the best at all times. Her writer left her in an unpolished state, so people do the legwork of fixing her character in their interpretation and then crediting it to the original work. For example, the idea that Sera’s hatred of Elves is somehow internalized racism. A symptom of being raised by the oppressors of her people and wanting desperately to suit their image of personhood, therefore rejecting that which would set her apart from them. Except Sera clearly doesn’t care what the humans think of her. Certainly not the wealthy ones. Moreover, this internalized racism is never reckoned with by the narrative.

The objective tragedy of a social minority coming to despise their own due to the circumstances of their upbringing is never acknowledged. She never changes, which implies that the writers think she has nothing that needs changing. Ergo, they clearly didn’t think through the implications of her character or what it would actually look like for someone in her situation. Sera could have been a deeply interesting look into the damage colonialism and oppression do to a person’s sense of identity. Instead her racism is simply treated as a quirk.

TLDR; She deserved better writing than she got and it sucks that more effort wasn’t put into her story.

[earthtooz]

WELL, SINCE YOU DONT MIND~

a scenario in which reader gets writers block and xiao appears and xiao professes his undying love for us and we kiss him and hold hands and share almond tofu under the stars and we get married is a very cute idea and 10/10 plot. definitely the best idea to ever be thought of

FLUFF, xiao being xiao, reader is poet, i've never played genshin ever, i got spammed with this so much that i decided to give up and give in. @sixosix, for you, my little sibling xx

"what are you doing here? it's late." 

the sudden voice shocks you from the leather-bound notebook that you were previously writing in, so caught off guard by the intrusion that your pencil slips from your grasp, falling through the cracks of wangshu inn’s balcony. you’re about to curse out your own inability when a sudden gust of wind swirls around you, followed by a flash of blue. 

then, a pencil is outstretched towards you- your pencil, in xiao’s hand. 

“thank you,” you murmur, stunned. 

“like i said, what are you doing here?” the adeptus repeats, demanding for an answer.

retracting your legs that were previously dangling over the edge and closing your notebook with a defeated slam, he notices the look of defeat that graces your expression as you look out at the horizon.

“i’m trying to find inspiration for a new poem,” you murmur. “although i wasn’t very successful, i thought coming up the wangshu inn might have inspired me. sorry for overstepping on your turf.”

glancing up and meeting his golden eyes, you ignore the heavy pounding of your heart and pressurising of your blood rate; two feats that only xiao was able to accomplish. 

unlike your internal meltdown, his hardened expression doesn’t change with your complaints, in fact, xiao doesn’t even acknowledge them, heartlessly brushing over your predicament. “you shouldn’t be out here for much longer though, once it’s night the plagues will be out, and it’ll be dangerous.”

“i know, i know. no need to remind me.”

a beat of silence passes. you don’t make a move to get up. xiao doesn’t make a move to kick you out. instead, he takes a seat beside you, keeping his distance. “i didn’t know you write,” he mutters, the slight tilt in his voice betraying the disinterest he previously showed towards your predicament.

momentarily surprised by his curiosity, you nervously fiddle with the binder of your book. “oh, it’s just for fun,” you murmur, glancing away. “something i do to take my mind off of things.” 

he doesn’t say anything in response, the flicking of delicate paper pages fill the atmosphere instead. you wish you could peer into his mind to see what he is thinking so that you could have the easy conversations that you share with other people. however, for xiao, the only thing to discuss is nothing.

glancing aside, the unfinished almond tofu that you bought from the merchants sit beside you. as much as you’d like to finish the delicacy, your constant frustration with your inability to conjure up words diminished your appetite. there is one solution, but you feel a little foolish asking, “would you like some almond tofu?” to the blue-haired beside you sits up a little.

“i shouldn’t,” he mutters dejectedly when looking at the platter you pass to him. “you have it.”

“i can’t finish it, that’s why i offered. why don’t you help me out by finishing it for me?” you slide it across to him. 

with obvious hesitance, he complies. you look away when he takes a bite, the sight too oddly intimate and rare for some poet like you. how rewarding it is to do something for someone like xiao.

it’s silent once again as you both watch the setting sun, the colours melting into one another whilst dusk’s purple dominates and claims its turn in the sky. it takes the first star to appear before you mention leaving, especially now that the cicin’s are beginning to emerge, but more importantly, you’re surprised that xiao hasn’t told you off.

declaring your departure, xiao mimics you and stands up, tightly holding onto his spear.

“i’ll walk you home.”

“no- it’s okay!” you squeak, surprised by his decision. his golden eyes flicker to you, almost in warning that you shouldn’t argue back because he’s already made up his mind. “i shouldn’t bother you from your duties. thank you though-”

“-you don’t live far. it won’t be too inconvenient. besides, walking you home and fighting off potential demons is still doing my job.” he walks away, but not before turning over his shoulder to reassure that “i’ll protect you.”

he leads you down the inn and walks in front of you whilst leading you home, outstretching a hand in front of you whenever he thinks you might need his assistance down particular staircases or hills. you know you shouldn’t touch him, but the urge is there, and incredibly overwhelming, especially with each subtle flex of his muscles that are illuminated by the moonlight.

(you wonder if he does this with anyone else. judging by the rumours and talk that surround him, his apathy, and uptight front, you wouldn’t think so, yet here you are, being protecting by the legendary and fleeting xiao.)

the night is disturbingly silent, as if the archons had decreed that no inconvenience shall bother the two of you in this moment, but the peace is far from unwelcomed.

when your home appears in your view, you turn to face him with a reluctant smile, a little sad to leave, but very grateful for his time nonetheless.

“thank you for walking me home, xiao. i really appreciate it,” you mutter into the quiet night. 

“don’t thank me. if you ever need me, just call my name and i’ll be there,” he promises. you don’t even get to say anything in response before he puts on his mask and teleports away, all done in the blink of an eye and leaving your mind in a hurricane of questions you want answered.

for a second, you wonder if he was ever there, but the fading blue particles tell you that he indeed was.

shutting your door with a quiet click, you sigh out a breath that you didn’t even know you were holding before scrambling to your kitchen table, frantically opening your book to whatever blank page you could find. 

‘i’ll protect you’. 

you definitely need to take your mind off this evening. 

© EARTHTOOZ 2023, do not steal, translate, repost my fics and do not recommend my fics onto any other site.

[olderthannetfic]

Hi hi! I have a question and I apologise if it's impertinent but I really didn't have anyone else to ask. I'm new to ao3 and I'm still figuring out how it works. The problem is this- when I look up a character x reader, I'll see the tag included in many works that have oneshots but since it's a side character, more often than not the oneshot for the character hasn't been written and the tag has been there for months. Is it okay to do that or is it tagging something incorrectly? They say they'll write one eventually but they never do, y'know? To me it kind of feels like they're just trying to reach a wider audience but because of this I can't even filter tags and I have to manually search through the book to check if the character is included, especially when the chapters are titled only by numbers :')

Is it okay to tag things in advance like that?

--

Oh boy...

Wattpad refugees do tend to use AO3 "wrong", sometimes in ways that break the rules and sometimes just in ways I find annoying and against typical AO3 culture.

I'm assuming you are coming from Wattpad based on you calling a work or a fic a "book", which is a very, very Wattpad thing to do.

I'm assuming they are coming from Wattpad given the bad behavior you're describing and the fact that they're a x reader writer.

--

So, here's the thing, if you start writing a fic and there's any amount of the actual fic, even if it's pretty short and bad or in a weird format or whatever, it's still a valid fanwork. Most of the time, AO3 leaves it to the author to decide how to tag (aside from a very few things like death threats in the tags or failing to use the required archive warnings).

AO3 won't stop someone from tagging a future pairing that hasn't appeared yet.

--

But "books" of "oneshots" are such an obnoxious Wattpad thing. This is a completely stupid use of AO3 from the "Please send me prompts" part that is usually in there to the way that unrelated fics are smashed together.

It's not against the rules, but it's a crappy use of AO3 befitting of n00bs.

Sadly, old hands at AO3 also make shitty works that are unrelated stories mashed together. They're often a whole set of kinktober fics or something where the trope tags and the ship tags are accurate, but you can't tell which ones go with which ones without searching the whole fic.

We regularly complain about that on here.

--

A much better way to use AO3 is to make a series titled "My x Reader Oneshots" or "All of my kinktober fics" where each separate story is its own work with its own tags.

My assumption is that this person is using the inaccurate tag both to get more eyeballs on their existing work and because they probably take prompts for that ship or something. (I'm basing this on the kinds of things people say on their oneshot books on Wattpad. Maybe they don't actually take prompts since you haven't mentioned it.)

Some people just don't care that they're annoying others and messing up the tags, but I think some actually don't realize how AO3 filtering works and have no idea this behavior is a nuisance.

On a lot of sites, both Wattpad and algorithm-driven social media, unless a post/work is very popular, it disappears out of sight. Even an inaccurate tag doesn't do that much.

On AO3, one is getting a full list of everything with the tag, going back however far. It's a library catalogue for which you should use accurate data. But this writer is probably thinking of tags more as advertising and a way to get their name out there so readers can follow them pre-emptively. They mean to write the ship in the future, so it's not really inaccurate... (And, tbh, if it were a single work and the ship just hadn't appeared yet, I would agree with them even though those are frustrating too.)

--

So no, they should not do this.

But it's not actually against the rules.

I would mute the annoying people who do this.

[velvetvexations]

This is an edited version of something I posted to r/DaystromInstitute, a Star Trek sub. I'm proud of it and, having deleted my account, want to preserve it here.

Dukat is a fantastic example of Narcissitic Personality Disorder

I'm an individual with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It's very, extremely frustrating to see people claim everyone from Dolores Umbridge to Donald Trump also have NPD because they're like, just the worst. NPD doesn't mean "selfish", or "controlling", or even "self-absorbed", and certainly is not a synonym for abusive, despite all the self-help books that say sniping a narcissist who came within eight hundred yards of you is legally permissible under Stand Your Ground laws.

You might expect me to not be so appreciative of Dukat, who is, after all, a pretty horrible person. I actually have a worse opinion of Dukat's supposed nobility than many, as fairly often the fandom prefers to back the idea that he really was a misguided anti-villain who only succumbed to devil-worshipping when the writers assassinated his character.

Well, unfortunately, it's harder to recognize authentic NPD traits in heroes, and "recognize" is a term I use loosely, since most writers certainly didn't have NPD in mind at all. Nonetheless, I love Dukat because he exemplifies a nuanced, if not overly flattering, portrayal of a personality disorder that actual human beings deal with, and 99% of the time is just flattened into a thing you call people you don't like.

As a child, one thing that did a lot to mitigate the more negative social aspects of NPD was having it imprinted on my brain by anime and video games that being a Hero and as good as possible was the best thing to be. While praise and attention in general does scratch a powerful itch too, once my child-self internalized the values of the media I consumed - helped along by also being autistic - the standard for which I judged myself was set. I would literally cry if I accidentally picked up dark side points in a Star Wars game.

I think Dukat went through a similar process. Not all narcissists cling to a model centering morality, but Dukat, for one reason or another, did. He sincerely believes everything he does is altruistic and fair, and more than that, he wants to be altruistic and fair, having misidentified the origin of his cravings.

Another thing that helped me a lot growing up was a book called The Screwtape Letters. If you're unfamiliar, it's by CS Lewis and is presented as a series of letters from a high-ranked demon to his nephew, who works as essentially a shoulder devil attempting to guide his patient into sin and disconnection from God. I feel like Lewis would probably be annoyed with me not getting anything properly Christian out of it, but it is an amazing manual for teaching you how to examine your own thinking and subconscious impulses. It started me down a path of being very self-aware, which made it easier to navigate NPD, because I'm incapable of tolerating the flaws in my internal logic that I'm able to catch. If I may be excused for saying so, I think I do a decent job on that count, with the downside that I'm often far too hyper-critical and it results in regular anxiety.

But Dukat never learned that skill. As a result, his attempted nobility clashes with his other competing impulses, and all his actions are reinforced, rather than rejected, by his conscious, which his NPD assures him is being followed to the letter. As Lewis said:

The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point may be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the Inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely more because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.

Dukat's inner struggle is fueled by the need to be a revered benefactor while also having served at the head of the bastard offspring of the Iraq War and Holocaust. His solution at the time was to make it more like the Second Boer War, the conflict that originally popularized the term "concentration camp" despite the fact that those concentration camps weren't even meant to eliminate the thousands that were killed in them.

DUKAT: So in my first official act as Prefect, I ordered all labour camp commanders to reduce their output quotas by fifty percent. Then I reorganized the camps themselves. Child labour was abolished. Medical care was improved. Food rations were increased. At the end of one month of my administration, the death rate had dropped by twenty percent. Now how did the Bajorans react to all this? On my one month anniversary they blew up an orbital dry-dock, killing over two hundred Cardassian soldiers and workers. "KIRA": We didn't want a reconciliation. We wanted to destroy you. DUKAT: So I had to order a response. But even then it was a carefully tempered one. I ordered two hundred suspected members of the Resistance rounded up and executed. Two hundred lives for two hundred lives. That's justice, not malevolence. Justice.

Throughout the episode the Kira hallucination embodies the disrespected and ingratitude he feels he gets for being "nice". Cardassian values, attitudes, and objectives came first. Dukat, however, was smart enough to understand some of what was being done to Bajor was wrong, but not quite able to tear himself away from his own identity as a Cardassian and the protagonist of the universe. That was just too much to totally upend, as would be required to fully comprehend the reality of the situation.

So he tries, in his own way. Because he wants to be a good guy, the hero, the main character, and he truly believes that he is. Unfortunately, it remains pointed solidly in the direction of his own ego. He's unable to recognize that to err is Cardassian, but repentance divine, because he's already invested in so much. His identity as a Cardassian, his own past actions, his impulsive grabs for power, and being convinced he's such a good man shields him from thinking critically because it would necessarily mean criticizing himself. Dukat can only truly appreciate that he's made mistakes when it makes him feel like he's being the bigger man willing to compromise and graciously admit fault, but he was in charge of the Occupation for twenty years. It's hard to walk back from that.

And I should know, because even understanding I'm the one at fault, it's pulling teeth to force myself through accepting I did wrong, much less admitting it to someone else. I don't want to be someone who fucked up, no matter how minor. Pulling teeth. Quite a lot of NPD can be described that way, in fact. While half-brained wannabee psychologists present narcissists as being sociopathic manipulators who skillfully terrorize those around them, most of NPD is horrible, chest-thumping anxiety. It's not fun at all to want to break my controller in half every single time I get got in a game of Splatoon, even when the round is far from over.

Most Cardassians involved with the Occupation seemed to be either outright monsters or falling under the "banality of evil", like Damar. They considered the Bajorans as, at best, a bunch of backwards hicks who needed to shut up and listen to their betters. Dukat, though, fetishized Bajor and the Bajorans themselves, as quite creepily seen in his string of Bajoran lovers and his dogged pursuit of Kira throughout the show (which horrifically took Nana Visitor putting her foot down to keep from being canon!). He pursed his tenure as head of the Occupation with the zeal of someone who truly wanted his subjects to see he was doing all this for their own good.

The Dominion and most other Cardassians don't give a fuck if your subjects like you except insofar as it's convenient and makes them less likely to rebel. That's the Dominion's whole thing, they just want control, and if the carrot doesn't work they'll shrug and without a hint of emotion give you the stick. It doesn't matter to them how they're in charge as long as they are. When Dukat makes his point about having only executed two-hundred (suspected!) members of the Resistance, the Weyoun hallucination comments:

"WEYOUN": The Dominion would never have been so generous.

It's telling that Dukat is fixated on the contrast between him and the people he allied with enough for it to show up in his breakdown. Just a little before that, Dukat says:

DUKAT: Major Kira knows full well I made every effort to heal the wounds between Cardassia and Bajor. Since the very beginning it was my intention to rectify the mistakes of the past and begin a new chapter in our relations.

Dukat is capable of saying, vaguely, abstractly, "mistakes were made", but it infuriates and honestly baffles him that it's not enough for him to be recognized as the most brilliant and loving extraterrestrial patriarch the Bajorans could ever wish for. In an earlier episode, he has this conversation with (the real) Weyoun:

WEYOUN: If you ask me, the key to holding the Federation is Earth. If there's going to be an organized resistance against us, its birthplace will be there. DUKAT: You could be right. WEYOUN: Then our first step is be to eradicate its population. It's the only way. DUKAT: You can't do that. WEYOUN: Why not? DUKAT: Because! A true victory is to make your enemy see they were wrong to oppose you in the first place. To force them to acknowledge your greatness. WEYOUN: Then you kill them? DUKAT: Only if it's necessary. WEYOUN: I had no idea. DUKAT: Perhaps the biggest disappointment in my life is that the Bajoran people still refuse to appreciate how lucky they were to have me as their liberator. I protected them in so many ways, cared for them as if they were my own children. But to this day, is there a single statue of me on Bajor? WEYOUN: I would guess not. DUKAT: And you'd be right. Take Captain Sisko, an otherwise intelligent, perceptive man. Even he refuses to grant me the respect I deserve.

Weyoun ends the scene laughing at Dukat. Because he was just advocating they exterminate all life on Earth, and yet he's amazed, truly stunned by how crackers Dukat is. The sheer depths of Dukat's psychological need for validation is as clinically fascinating to Weyoun as it is to the audience.

As it is to me, anyway. Like Narcissus and his pool, I peer into Dukat and see myself. Unsurprisingly, he's one of my favorite characters.

[brain-amoeba]

Test: The Mortician's Flame (Gregory House x F!Reader)

Hi friends :) I have been very busy this summer between a 6-wk course session, an internship, and banging out a couple sentences a week on my wips because of writers block. BUT, I (obviously) have gotten into House MD and let me just say I am definitely very normal about it and can be trusted with it. Anyway, I was listening to Acid Bath and the song title 'The Mortician's Flame' gave me an idea for a fic in which the reader is a mortician. Below is a little excerpt, partly because I want to see how you guys like it and because I am hitting a block and need some feedback for the direction I want it to take...so without further ado, enjoy:

Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. It was a name you were quite familiar with, and found yourself frequenting. Considering your occupation, it did not exactly spell good news for the hospital, though…you were a mortician. If death did not follow you everywhere, then it was you who chased it. You tried medical school, tried working as an aid at various clinics of all kinds throughout your schooling. Despite your aptitude, you never quite clicked with the living patients. After years of frustration, imposter syndrome, and the death of a loved one, you were beckoned to your current profession. All of these thoughts left your brain swimming as you made your way through the lobby and towards the elevator. The sharp clacking of a certain cane snapped you out of your brooding.

"Oh, Dr. House…" You trailed off. An unusual clamminess came over you, and you found yourself wiping humid palms on your slacks. "I was just coming up to see you. I-" The ding of the elevator interrupted you, and he ushered you inside. " Y/N. I wasn't expecting a trip from the Grim Reaper so soon. Is it my time yet?" He asked, almost sardonically. Though you were used to his abrasive personality, his remarks still caught you off guard. "W-well, I don't live too far from here, and I got a phone call from my…boss…" You were dumbfounded completely--what the hell has gotten into you?! Normally, House's cold gaze did little to penetrate your psyche, but this time, that icicle was wedged completely between your eyes. "And? If you take any longer someone might actually die, and then you would have a legitimate reason to be here. But you don't, do you?" And there it was. Were you really surprised, though? If he could deduce a one in a million diagnosis and be correct on the regular, then him seeing right through your flimsy excuse was guaranteed. "I-!" There were millions of things you could say, but not even a single word could make it past your trembling lips. Saved by the bell again, the elevator opened with a ding and House led you out, towards his office.

[bonefall]

I’m not sure if you talked about it, but what do you think about A Thief in Thunderclan? I actually liked it, though it definitely had a few ehhh moments

Eh, honestly? Im kinda disappointed that James Barry had to go out on such a low note. I did not like it, it felt like a waste of time.

It wasn't like... offensively bad but I have very little good to say about it. It was fine. If you want to see more ThunderClan you can check it out?

(A lot of Thief in ThunderClan critique below the cut, I didn't like it much)

First of all, the mystery was just bad. I'm sorry. An owl? Swooping in at night for dead animals and leaving perfect scores in the dirt? It felt like a real "running out of ideas" type plot.

Brightheart was NOT fun to follow. She was uncomfortable for most of the story and secondhand embarassment is an emotion I really don't enjoy. Even moments that were supposed to be thought-provoking (like the Brambleclaw name confrontation) just felt like cringe because they were written so poorly.

Like, seriously? "Firestar why did you name Bramble after his father who disfigured me?" "Oh its because i uhhhh wanted to remind ppl of it so they would stop being reminded of it eventually" WHAT? That was a brainless enough choice when it was FIRST made, you can't fucking tell me any cat with a brain cell would go "wao... really makes you think... hngsociety"

I disliked the fact they decided to give Brightheart serious suspicion towards people like Longtail and Brambleclaw, I strongly disagree she would be like that. She feels so much to me like someone who would feel awful for doubting people she logically knows are innocent, and express to Cloudtail that it makes her feel like a bad person, but she CANT help it. She is such a kind, loving, and self doubting sort of cat... or, was, I guess? Or maybe it was never there at all and I'm the fool.

On that note? Her character arc was a mess. As much as I hate Shadow in RiverClan, I can say that Feathertail's arc was a competent *story*. Brightheart is having nightmares, suspects Bramble and Long of treason, is trying to figure out this mystery, trying to help train Rainpaw, the fact she resents not being his mentor is mentioned and dropped, she is pregnant... so much shit is going on and it feels absolutely unfocused.

And even worse, because it's overlapping with the beginning of Firestar's Quest, we end up having to Show Off The Continuity instead of telling a cohesive story. Oop Willowpelt died and Rainpaw is kind of sad about it! But wait we have to say bye to Firestar, make sure to squeeze in the Brambleclaw name confrontation before he goes! GO BACK Longtail has been blinded!! ALSO THE OWL! HERES WHY THE OWL WASNT MENTIONED IN FQ!!

And DUDE if there's anything that's a SERIOUS problem, it's Brightheart's stupid ass cutesy "look who's being USEFUL in here!" When blinded Longtail is helping out in the medcat den

First of all fuck you for the wording of that line! Second of all, GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD that disabled people shouldn't have to find a way to be "useful" to belong to their society.

The fact we're getting a book from Bright's perspective as a disabled person and the whole thing is chock full of "useful" language as she struggles with PTSD makes the fact this is COMMON in WC sting so much more.

Anyway back to just, normal critique and not frustration with ableism in wc.

I feel like they really wasted Brightheart's family. I enjoyed finally getting Cinder and Bright hanging out as sisters, but we got a MENTION of Frostfur, and barely anything with her brothers. It's already a mess so why not go the whole way?

Ashfur also has his post-TBC personality retcon which absolutely kills me. Why do we need this shitty "foreshadowing"? Why do we need him to have been so obviously controlling and argumentative? Why are these writers fucking allergic to having a villain that people thought was nice and normal once?

NITPICK: if i have to see another cat gently picked up by a large bird of prey without at LEAST getting a cracked rib I will shapeshift into 10,000 crows and fly away forever

I have some good feelings towards it though, and I have to be clear, this is actually Ambivalent Bones. I'm only mad at the "Usefulness" rhetoric, the rest is just my normal amount of whinging lmao.

I do really like Cinderpelt and Brightheart finally getting some interactions. It's long overdo lmao

I like Cloudtail and Brightheart as a ship so it's nice to see them hang out.

Uhhh this is a bit of a backhanded compliment but I liked how she was upset at not getting one of Whitestorm's children to mentor? I don't like how it bodes for the wider narrative though, because we know this ends in her getting shafted FOR YEARS and unable to get an apprentice. But I liked the plot setup of her having resentment for Cloudtail because of this. I thought that would make a really good plot point for putting a wedge between them to work through. Like, stop being cowards, LEAN INTO Firestar making some very serious, insulting, short-sighted mistakes, and it interfering with Brightheart's ability to heal. Kill your darling.

There were some nice lines. I do remember Ashfur's lame "greedyclaw" insult, which was funny.

I enjoyed the cute moments between the cats in ThunderClan. Ferncloud chasing after her kids, Brightheart convincing people to help her investigate, the Willowkin being upset about their mom. It's a mess but there's some nice stuff in that mess, y'know?

Overall, my memory hasn't been kind to it. I think I was giving it a 6/10 when I first saw it, but it's dropped down to a low 5/10. Not (very) offensive but too messy and pointless to revisit.

[stomach-bugg09]

hiii,i saw that requests ante open and was wondering if we can get a fali fic? 🫢 I don’t really mind/have a preference for what it’s about but maybe angst with some fluff at the end??? idek you’re the writer so you can choose, that’s basically it, and btw your fics are lush!! i love themm

thankyouuu <3

a/n: okay, hey !! took me a lil bit to ponder this idea and what would be the best approach , but i think this suits it with a lil bit of angst and then some comforting fluff. thanks so much for the kind words !! please, please, please comment feedback + reblog ( everything's easier when you have the motivation of your readers )

summary: fali is recovering from the bullet he took to save neteyam, but he's never been very patient.

tags: @rafeslovergirl @wxnderingthoughts @liyahsocorro @bonnibuckets @hjkshshjkhklhkl @theycallmesia @grierpilots @23victoria @nyotamalfoy @gcldtom

healing is hard

after eighteen years of existing, fali was never once considered patient. even when young, his mother could recall the numerous times where she scolded the poor na’vi for not waiting for her or his father before he dove right into the reef. she could also recall the way her heartbeat would flare when he let out a mischievous feat of laughter followed by a loud splash.

she had to say, though, that she would much prefer those small spikes of fear over the moment in which she witnessed tsireya speeding back atop her ilu, a limp body draped in front of her. 

vi’ieo and fpai had just been discussing the whereabouts of their son in concerned, hushed tones when they heard the olo’eyktan’s daughter yell, “help! it is fali!”

nothing could prepare either parent for the rush of nausea and dread that flooded their bodies at those four words; if they weren’t thankful for ronal beforehand, they owed their lives to her. no mother wants to experience the unforgiving event that it the loss of a child.

not again, at least. not after they lost what was supposed to be their first baby girl just before she was born. 

but now… now fali was okay. or, getting to it, at least. he was alive, and he was healed, but he still hurt. every movement he made, everytime he attempted to go through with tasks that he used to consider as easy if not daily.

he couldn’t even walk to the edge of the shore and back without help from someone else.

after being raised the only child of his parents and the supposed older brother to tsireya and ao’nung ( and then eventually rotxo ), fali picked up so many subconscious habits. he was reliable, he was independent, he was strong. now he was reliant, dependent, weak. he didn’t feel like fali te auahi fpai’itan.

everybody around the healing na’vi felt his frustration. they felt this sadness, his mourning of who he used to be. they felt the anger that surged through his body at the limited movement his left arm and leg now possessed after the bullet just barely impacted his spine enough to cause mobility issues.

it hurt. it hurt him, it hurt them, it hurt everyone.

and fpai and vi’ieo also missed the child he used to be. the child he was before he grew up, the child he was before he became the warrior, the child he was before they let war touch him. before they let war hurt him. but, they would forever be grateful for his mere survival above all else.

while fali saw their perspective, while he recognized the blessing that was his life, he was so sick of it. he was so sick of being thankful, of being gracious for eywa. he wanted his life back! he wanted his arm and leg back! for all he knew, fali would never even see battle again — he would never see the thing that he spent his entire childhood training for.

an impressive warrior whose skills were wasted on an avatar’s stupid bullet.

while everyone else tried to push a positive perspective onto the angry and healing na’vi, [y/n] knew better. she knew that wasn’t an option — not based on his personality, at least.

was she happy he was still alive? well, of course! in fact, she often jumped awake in the middle of the night and pressed a hand to his chest from where she slept right next to him, checking that he was still breathing. checking that he was still there.

but, [y/n] could never expect him to share the same exact outlook that she did, and she could never pretend to understand what he was struggling with. that would just be a lie, and she could never lie to him. not to her love.

so, instead of trying to get him to rest every time he stood up, instead of stopping him before he limped out of the marui, she gave him a soft smile and a nod. and then, of course, a wink followed by words meant only to push buttons ( which would hopefully only motivate him to success ), “scream if you need anything.”

he would roll his eyes, waddle out, and after about five minutes, [y/n] would be outside the marui. her eyes would be caught on his figure in the distance, oftentimes leaned up against a tree or paused while trying to catch his breath.

sometimes, although her heart shattered the most during these moments, he would be paused with his makeshift cane in hand, back hunched as sobs echoed through the breeze.

but [y/n] knew better than to barge in. she knew that, as much as every part of her body and soul itched to go and help him — to insist that it would be okay — it was only up to fali to decide whether or not that would be true.

it was only once, though, that [y/n] came running to him.

he’d been walking, small grunts of frustration heard all the way from where [y/n] stood. her gaze was soft against his back full of tattoos, scars, and muscles that she knew all too well.

and then, in a split second, everything broke.

the na’vi before her let out a yell of fury before throwing his cane into the sand, knees shaking as he fell onto them. the soft, wet sand was imprinted with his weight, allowing him to dip an inch shorter. 

[y/n] feet started moving before her mind did, practically running down the wooden docks and through the sand. the squishy substance tickled between her toes at each new step, until eventually she strut right past the tearful na’vi and grabbed his cane.

she spun around on her heel, looking him right in the eye, and she extended her arm towards him. the long piece of drift wood he’d adapted to be his mobile assistant faced him in an offering.

but, just as fali reached up and attempted to take it from [y/n]’s hand, she pulled it away and threw it about ten feet to her right.

stunned, fali blinked at her. “[y/n],” he gasped, shocked. “what are you —”

“get up.”

[y/n] voice was solid, firm. authoritative. all of sudden, fali couldn’t take his glassy eyes away from her, jaw dropped in complete shock due to her attitude. what was she up to? “[y/n],” he tried again, voice soft and shallow due to the sobs that sat at the base of his throat.

she merely shook her head at her healing lover. “no,” she refused. “no, you’re going to get up.”

“i —” he paused, checking his words carefully. “[y/n], what are you doing?”

[y/n] locked his eyes, not once making an effort to assist him in any form. “i’m telling you to get up. get on your feet and walk.”

once more, fali opened his mouth, but this time… this time it shut in a pregnant bubble of silence. instead of arguing any more than he already had, he placed two hands on the ground and attempted to push upwards.

and then, just like that, fali was back in his own head. not once did he realize, as he pushed himself over the edge, that he wasn’t alone, and yet… for the first time ever since he started leaving every afternoon to try and make progress… he was finally able to do it.

by himself.

but he wasn’t by himself. [y/n] was there right next to him, words of encouragement flooding from her lips with every noise of desperation or anguish. everytime he even made a signal of falling back down, more words spilling right into his ears.

and soon, before he even knew it, he was standing. by himself.

and his arms were wrapped around the familiar body of [y/n]. the same warmth he adored every night. the same build that made him feel safe. the same na’vi that made him rethink every part of his life.

he could have never made it without her. anywhere. not just to a new point in his recovery, but he couldn’t have made it to the person he considered himself to be then.

fali without [y/n] would be the same arrogant na’vi that pushed ao’nung’s buttons. the same na’vi that made dumb decisions. the same na’vi who prided himself only on his abilities on the battlefield.

with [y/n], he finally realized there was so much more to himself than he ever knew or knew to recognize.

he pressed his face into [y/n]’s hair, the soft strands soaking up his salty tears of joy. his shoulder shook every so slightly, and fali could feel [y/n]’s own trembling body.

it’d been so difficult.

“i’ve been wanting to help, you know,” [y/n] sniffed into his chest. “i just knew it wouldn’t have helped. the last thing i wanted to do was make things more difficult.”

fali swallowed. “i know, yawne, i know.” his voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. he couldn’t manage to summon anything louder, for he was world this beauty of a reality would disintegrate into a dream.

“but,” she continued softly. “i also knew you needed to be open to help. help from me, help from your parents, help from everyone. you can’t do everything alone.”

fali paused, silence overcoming them as he thought. she was right, of course, but he hated that idea. he was already vulnerable with his injuries. the last thing he wanted was pity from anyone else.

“i just…” he trailed. “i’m scared.”

[y/n]’s heart broke, her breath hitching in her throat at the big confession. “that’s okay.” she looked upwards, eyes locking between the two. “it’s okay to be scared.”

“what if i don’t get better?” he admitted, tears creating shiny streaks against his blue cheeks. “what if this is it? what if i can’t fight anymore?”

and then, as shocking as  it was to fali, a laugh bubbled from [y/n]’s throat. he gave her a quizzical look and asked, “what’s funny?”

“well, it’d be fine by me, is all,” she admitted, a smile resting on her lips. “i like it better when i know you're safe and not at war.”

he couldn’t help but feel a smile rise to his own mouth as well. “well, you’d still be fighting.”

she gave him a look that read duh before continuing. “plus, if you do learn to lead the village from the interior… you could be at home.” she paused, shrugging. “if we ever wanted a family and all.”

fali paused, looking into her eyes deeply. suddenly, all he could feel was his stupid grin. “and you couldn’t stay home and care for the kids?” “we’d get a babysitter.”

fali let out a loud laugh, leaning his head down and kissing her square on the lips. “maybe eywa made a good decision.”

[tippenfunkaport]

Bow's Character Arc

There was a discussion on Twitter from people who were confused about Bow’s character arc and whether he had one (he very much does, and it’s actually one of the clearest / most spelled out in the entire show!). To help anyone experiencing that confusion and because it’s never a bad idea to understand how character arcs work if you want to be a writer/storyteller, I might as well break Bow’s character arc down for anyone who might find it helpful.

Buckle in, it's nerd time!

At the most basic, a character arc is a change (usually growth) a character goes through over the course of a story. Usually good (positive change arc) but sometimes bad (negative change arc). It’s very often a reversal aka the character is often in the exact opposite state by the end of the story than how they start it out. It can be trickier to follow in an ensemble story like SPOP because there are a lot of characters with parallel story lines going on and multiple arcs colliding in different ways, but She-Ra does a really good job of giving each of the four leads arcs (with Catradora as the main leads, Glimbow as the secondary) near equal time.

Yes, including Bow.

What I think throws people about Bow’s arc is it’s based on hypocrisy.

Meaning…

He encourages his friends to talk it out and share their feelings… while hiding his own feelings from his dads and repressing his frustrations with having to be the middle man between Adora and Glimmer (Season 4)

He declares that average people (such as the kitchen staff at Dryl) don’t need the princesses and are just as capable of fighting the Horde themselves… while he believes himself and his abilities inferior to Princess Entrapta’s

He reminds the others (esp Adora) about the need to accept help… while refusing any help for himself (think about “Don't worry about me. I'm the one who worries about you. Can we go back to that? Please?” in Pulse through to that moment when he agrees to let Glimmer take him to check on his dads in Return to the Fright Zone and literally leans on her)

I think a funny way to sum up his character issue is: Not me, though.

This arc progresses across all five season as he gradually changes. He starts the series out repressing his feelings from both his family and friends while doubting his abilities and refusing to ask for help (he IS Adora’s mirror, after all!). Over the course of the series he learns to express his feelings instead of bottling them up (The Beacon > Reunion > really all of Season 4 but it comes to head starting with Boys Night Out through Beast Island > Stranded), gains more confidence in his tech skills (The Frozen Forest > Signals > Flutterina > Mer-Mysteries > Corridors), and starts to learn to ask for help (The Beacon > Pulse > Return to the Fright Zone).

Which of course all culminates in The Heart Parts 1 and 2 where he finally wraps up all threads at once by

a) asking Scorpia to trust him (putting faith in someone else to help)

b) completing Entrapta’s program to unchip everyone (proving he IS as good a scientist as she is)

c) giving the speech to everyone on Etheria rousing the common people to fight Prime (average people can make a difference… which he now fully believes that includes him).

And while you can make the argument that confessing to Glimmer is part of his arc to share his feelings, the fact is that he completes a full character arc without ever behind reduced to just someone’s love interest because none of his character growth is tied to his romantic relationship at all (which was what the original tweet claimed). It's all his inner journey to have faith in himself and his abilities and how they relate to his friends and loved ones.

And thus the guy who starts the series as “only one around here who’s not a princess” with doubt in his tech abilities ends the series as confident Tech Master and future King of the regular people he sought to inspire, which is about as textbook a reversal as you can get.

Does it come out of nowhere?

His character arc progresses and takes significant focus in the following episodes….

S1:E6 System Failure

S1:E10 The Beacon

S2:E1 The Frozen Forest

S2:E3 Signals

S2:E7 Reunion

S4:E3 Flutterina

S4:E4 Pulse

S4:E7 Mer-Mysteries

S4:E8 Boys Night Out

S4:E10 Fractures

S4:E11 Beast Island

S5:E3 Corridors

S5:E4 Stranded

S5:E9 An Ill Wind

S5:E10 Return to the Fright Zone

S5:E12 Heart Part 1

S5:E13 Heart Part 2

That’s 17 episodes out of 52 which means his character development gets approximately 32% of the focus of the entire show… which for an ensemble cast like this where he’s one of four leads is just about dead on as it's over a quarter of the episodes.

That's a significant chunk of screentime with multiple episodes devoted specifically to his character journey.

Is his journey as flashy and action sequence-y as what Adora, Catra and Glimmer get? No, but it's a) a show marketed to girls so it makes sense they get the more cinematic scenes and b) his arc is more emotional and thus didn't need to hinge on big action like theirs did. Though considering the culmination of his arc is him as a 100 foot tall hologram speaking to the entire planet, I personally feel like that was pretty hard to miss.

If you look at all of this and still want to say that Bow did nothing or had no character arc, I think the thing to ask yourself is: why is it so important to you to discount the accomplishments and character growth of this character specifically?

In conclusion, this is the face Bow makes when he spent five season growing, changing and kicking butt as Tech Master and Voice of Reason and you say he did "literally nothing"...

[pippin-katz]

FirstPrince Author AU

I mulled it over and decided that I could post at least a little bit of what I have from the first draft I did last semester. Let me know what your thoughts are, and if you're interested in reading more!

Untitled WIP

Alex lets out another frustrated sigh as he reads through yet another fan analysis that completely missed the point. With an eyeroll, he stretches his hands and starts typing rapidly. It's moments like these that he despises his favorite author.

H. Fox is the author of several successful fiction novels, and most recently, a fantasy series, the third installment of which was just released earlier that week. Alex is a picky reader, but there's something about Fox's work that draws him in like a moth to a flame. The passages are skillfully and elegantly strung together to create stories that make it nearly impossible for him to put the book down once he starts reading. He has multiple copies of each book, one that he keeps in pristine condition, and the other that he's filled with scribbles, highlights, post-it notes, and other markings denoting moments that stand out to him, sentences that spark a strong feeling in his chest, and subtext of underlying themes and analogies Fox carefully crafts in. Alex would be thrilled to meet the author, for the chance to ask them questions about parallels he's found, and what their inspiration was for their stories and characters.

The problem is that no one knows who they are.

H. Fox is an anonymous writer. They are faceless, an unseen genius that provides nothing but a few facts about themselves in their bio at the end of each book. All Alex and the rest of their readers know is that they love dogs and have a passion for the poetry of Lord Byron. Fox never does press. They never offer pictures or even descriptions of what they look like. It's a point of constant debate and speculation within the community of readers.

What gender do they identify as? Where are they from? How old are they?

All very simple questions with no answers. Some are positive Fox is a man, while most others are adamantly opposed to the idea. The majority of the readers who had been following the author are almost positive they are from a country where English is the primary spoken language, but certain word choices and phrases generate doubt around which. The age range they are believed to fall into is twenties to thirties, but there is no way to know any of these things for certain, since they are essentially a phantom.

And that is part of Alex's problem at the moment.

[mrslittletall]

fic writer self-recs

tagged by: @misskriemhilds (thank you and sorry for taking forever to do this)

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favourite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers.

Alright, without further ado, let's begin:

A Storm is coming (Dark Souls) This fic came to be because I was stuck with another fic of mine and frustrated and was like "Okay, but what would happen if Ornstein followed around the Chosen Undead during the second half of the game?!" I wrote the first chapter and added chapters whenever I felt like it and then this thing had over 40 kudos despite them not having gone on the adventure yet and I was like "??? Where did'ya all come from???" And then I started to put effort into this fic. My Chosen Undead, Tempest, grew into a proper OC. The story became a clear structure and outline. And the relationship between the two grew into a slowburn mutual pining romance. That is my most popular Dark Souls fic and I consider it my Magnum Opus as a writer. I sometimes write these two still for one-shots and they always always are so easy to write. They feel like a part of me now. Thanks so much to everyone who gave this fic a chance and stayed with it. Thank you so much.

Keeping it together (Dark Souls)

This is the fic I was stuck on and why I started to write Storm. It is basically about Ornstein dealing with Artorias' death. Horribly. I had a hard time myself during writing this, living through burnout. The year 2019 was my year to heal from everything and I made good effort but then... well, you know what happened in 2020... Anyway, I struggled a lot with this fic, but I think the last chapter of this is the best chapter I have written in my whole writing career. And it only happened because I took a deep breath and then suddenly everything was clear and I knew what I had to do. Off Balance (Hollow Knight)

Ah, another case of "I am writing this on a whim." This fic came to be because of some art of teenage Hollow and I was like "Oh, I want to make fic to this art". I first thought it might be a one-shot but I got ideas and continued and then it turned into a full fix-it and PK redemption arc. You can see in this fic how it grows and the characters with it. You can see how I make WL from sad mother to the queen she is, how PK grows into the role as a father but never stops struggling and how Hollow turns from the Pure Vessel into a child that enjoys life. This fic was extremely well received and I regurlarly receive kudos on it. I am coming back to this universe, I promise. It was just... after 2022, my life turned into hell. Hollow, Pendry, Rydellia, you are waiting for me, right?

Frenzy (Bloodborne)

Is that one of my best works? Honestly, it isn't, I really need to rewrite parts of it. But it is very dear to me. The idea was "What if Laurence got too close the Amydgala and turned into a catatonic state as result?" It was an exploration of the Frenzy status. Mostly from the caretaker POV of Ludwig and a little bit of Laurence (because he is not really there most of the time in the fic). I did quite some research on the topic but I vomited out this fic in a week (YES, REALLY), so it is pretty rough around the edges. Ranni and the horrible, annoying, obnoxious Tarnished (Elden Ring) I got this idea after the Mini Ranni quest in Elden Ring. I was like "Wow, she needs someone that shuts her up." And then I though "Hm, I need a Tarnished who can annoy her to no end." And who was grinning at me?! My version of Laurence (Bloodborne), who can be a horrible annoying obnoxious asshole! So I made an Elden Ring version of him and wrote him into this story. And it WORKED! This fic actually got quite some numbers. I guess I am not the only one who wanted to annoy Ranni xD Alright, let's see how many fic writers I can think of tagging... @within-its-cave @ruthlesslistener @deluxinn @redsixwing Go on, give your fics some love!

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

re the “can’t wait to see what you write next” comments, i commented that on a fic bc i also follow you here and you’ve talked about the halloween fics you’re working on, i meant to express excitement about those as well as what you’ve already written. sorry if it’s annoying!

Hello dear, your excitement isn't annoying! I love that people are excited, and that they express it.

My frustration was directed at people who were commenting on one of my very recent fics, who made it clear they were new to my writing and the fic they were commenting on is the first they've read, and they want to see what I put out next.

I'll get a little more specific than I did in my post:

I've had a flood of new readers in the last few months who have come to one fic or another from a recommendation on TikTok or Twitter. They read that one fic, and no other fic. They then say they want to see something new from me. I know all this because they tell me so (where they come from/how they found the fic, that this is the first/only fic of mine, etc).

I try to be kind and patient because I appreciate people reading any of my works, and I don't want to police readers and make them feel they owe me or tell anyone how to comment or set rules or something. But it does get frustrating that these people waited for the algorithm on their other app to present my fic to them, and then don't make any effort to check out any of my other work before making requests or asking for more. Ao3 is an archive, it won't feed you anything, and it honestly makes me scared for people and the future that these readers seem incapable of just clicking my name to look through my fic.

I will say that this is also why commenting on an author's fics are important - I've found out people are recommending my fics all over the place and not a single one of them has told me they liked it to my face. Someone could be a long time reader and I'd have no idea.

(I understand leaving comments can be nervewracking! It's just frustrating to me that people will find the words to talk so kindly about my fic but only where I can't see it.)

I'd also like to say I've seen an uptick in people apologizing for reading older fics of mine? Do you guys also apologize for reading Lord of the Rings (published in the 1950s) or Dracula (published 1897) or The Hunger Games (published 2008)? Fics are like books in that they are meant to be read and enjoyed at any time. You are never "late" to a fic and it's not weird, cringe, or upsetting to read older fics, and if that's the reason you're not reading my older work, get over yourself and go forth, read whatever you damn well please! I read some great smut from 2007 the other day. Had a fun time.

Anyway, that's what I'm talking about in this post. It's a very specific, "a meme is dead in a week," art-is-"content," algorithm-driven mindset and it's deeply concerning to me. Not for myself as a writer, although the experience is frustrating and disheartening, but for the minds of humanity.

I'm very glad you're excited for my Halloween fics and that you enjoy my work dear, thank you. I hope when I post them that they live up to expectations. ❤️

[denimbex1986]

'While filming All of Us Strangers in his childhood home outside of London, Andrew Haigh began to see ghosts. “I hadn’t been in that house since I was seven or eight, so it was like going into a haunted house,” he recalled. “It was really, really unusual.”

The writer-director, who sat down with Geek Vibes Nation following the film’s New York premiere, had adapted a 1987 Japanese horror novel into a loosely autobiographical story about a shut-in screenwriter (a devastating, recently Golden Globe-nominated Andrew Scott) who, upon revisiting the home in which he grew up, reencounters the spirits of his long-dead parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell). It only made sense, then, for Haigh to have the film reflect his own coming-of-age.

“It felt like the ghosts of my life were in the house telling the story of the film.”

Despite the film being drastically different than its source material, “Strangers” by Taichi Yamada, they’re both effectively ghost stories. However, Haigh’s choice to never apply external logic allows for his ghosts to better serve the lead character.

“There are lots of holes in any ghost story,” he says, chuckling. “‘Are they actually living in the house? Is someone else living in the house? Is he going into the house? Is he not going into the house? Is it all in his mind?’ I think you have to abandon logic to some extent…we are going into [the main character’s] mind, his subconscious. I decided to look at the whole film, really, as a manifestation of his emotional state.”

Through multiple beautifully-penned conversations, Scott’s character comes to terms with his parents’ untimely death as one of the year’s best films unravels its yearning yarn. Read more about Haigh’s process in our full conversation with him below, edited for length and clarity.

This film is based on a Japanese novel, specifically a ghost story. You approached it from a more humanistic place and adapted it very autobiographically and yet, in a strange way, it still feels like a ghost story in the same way as the original novel. What piqued your interest about taking this very surreal novel and placing your own experiences into it?

It’s really interesting when you start thinking about doing a ghost story. The novel is a very traditional ghost story and I liked it for that, but when I was trying to work out how to put myself into the story, I had to ask, “What do ghosts mean to me and what do they mean in British culture?” Because they mean something very different in Japanese culture than they do necessarily in British culture. To me, ghosts felt like what haunts us as adults, what we drag around with us. They’re always there, lurking under the surface, standing behind you in the shadows. I decided that I was going to ground [the movie] much more in a metaphysical space, rather than do it as a more naturalistic story that then ended up having ghosts in it. So much of the adaptation became about trying to navigate that tone and working out if people were going to be frustrated because there’s definitely different rules that you have with ghost stories as a logic, but I ignore that logic at times and then look into it at other times. In the end, I was like, “F**k it. I’m just going to play around with what I think is emotionally interesting and hope that the audience comes along for the ride.”

That makes me think of a very interesting choice that you make in this film. When the main character, played by Andrew Scott, encounters his parents initially, it feels like maybe a time travel thing. In reality, they’re just specters in this home. I was wondering if you could break down that logical paradox you’re talking about, this idea of wanting to have them as ghosts but having them still be very human in the eyes of the main character.

Yeah, that’s the thing. The emotions that we carry around when we lose someone – it doesn’t even have to be through death, it can be for whatever reason, you’re just not with them anymore – all the pain that we carry feels so real. I wanted that to feel as real as possible. I mean, look, logically, there are lots of holes in any ghost story. “Are they actually living in the house? Is someone else living in the house? Is he going into the house? Is he not going into the house? Is it all in his mind?” I think you have to abandon logic to some extent because, of course, it’s not logical. Really, we are going into [the main character’s] mind, his subconscious. I decided to look at the whole film, really, as a manifestation of his emotional state but grounded in a way that makes it seem like his parents are in this house when he opens the door. There they are and, suddenly, he’s going back into the past but it’s not the past. They’re not real but they take on their own lives. It’s not all in his imagination either, because they’re also having conversations without him there, we gather. It excited me that I could go down all these avenues.

I love that this film really breathes. Many of the shots are long and the performances live within silences. Were there any specific touchstones in the visual style of this film that you were specifically thinking about in terms of this tone?

It was a tricky one to get right. I always have a little list of films that are interesting to me at the time, but there was such a mixture of things. I looked at Jacob’s Ladder and Rosemary’s Baby and more traditional genre pieces, and then I had Quiets and Whispers, [Ingmar] Bergman’s film, Black Narcissus, [directed by] Powell and Pressburger, and Leviathan, the Russian film [directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev], all of these other films. Rather than saying, “I want the film to be like these,” it was like, “I want to combine a realism and a naturalism with an otherworldly genre-esque element, what decisions can we make going forward so that it feels real but also not real?” It was hard to find anything that felt exactly like a good reference because we were trying to exist within the gaps of things. In the end, I think the whole team really loved that because we were like “Let’s just treat it as a drama,” essentially, because that’s really what it is.

Yeah, I don’t think anybody watching this film could imagine that it was based on this horror story because you ground it in very personal terms. I heard that you shot parts of this film in your actual childhood home, so I’m sure there was an almost spectral feeling when harnessing your memories there.

Definitely. I hadn’t been in that house since I was seven or eight, so it was like going into a haunted house. It’s weird. You’re going back and you are feeling how you used to feel in an environment that you used to live in. You’re recognizing things that you haven’t thought about in 40 years. I’m even recognizing the feel of things. I would put my hand on the banister and I was like, “Something in me is remembering this banister.” It was really, really unusual. It created this really interesting tone for everybody, for all of the crew. Even the actors were like, “Wait, so this used to be your mum and dad’s bed?” This was my bedroom, this was my wallpaper – we recreated the wallpaper – that was the color of my walls. It felt like the ghosts of my life were in the house telling the story of the film.

We have to talk a little bit about Andrew Scott. Fans of him already know that he’s a marvel of an actor, but I think that this film is introducing the film community to him in a very, very big way. It’s a very difficult character to play because, not to say any spoilers, but he is very much a singular entity in the film. How did you and Andrew hone in on him as this grounded piece of a very ethereal story?

Basically, a lot of conversations. He was the only person we went to for the lead. I had liked him for a long time and was always amazed he hadn’t been a lead in a film.

You and us all!

You know, he’s 46 now! He’s a brilliant actor, so subtle and careful and precise, but then really natural at the same time. It’s a real skill. When I sat down with him, we went through the script and we talked about what the film means to me, but so much of it felt like it was his life too. It was so joyous because he was like, “You’ve written a script about me.” That’s what I want from a script, because it’s not just about me. I want it to be about lots of people, regardless of their actual experience. He really responded to it and then we talked a lot about navigating between being an adult and being a child, which I think is the hardest thing that he does [in this film] and he does it beautifully. When he comes back to see his parents again, physically he looks the same but somehow he feels younger. He even looks younger. He feels more innocent and he’s desperate for them to love him and there’s all of these things going on. Then, it changes again when he goes back into the present tense, let’s call it, of the story. I think he does such a good job allowing his vulnerability to come out. It’s a very vulnerable performance, it’s exposing. It’s all of the things that are not easy for an actor to get to, but he just threw himself in.

I have to ask you about “The Power of Love,” which is a beautiful song featured significantly in the film. I’m sure it has a significance to you based on your history, but I’m wondering if there’s a significance to it that goes beyond merely being a period touchstone.

It had an emotional resonance because when I was a kid – this is the middle of the 80s – I used to love that song. I was 10 years old and I couldn’t quite work out why I loved it. When I look back at it grown up, I now understand why I loved it. It’s a big, orchestral, powerful pop song and I feel like, for young people, pop songs become a way to express their inner selves. They themselves can’t express their longing or what they want from the world at that age. In the end, this is a film about love. It is a film about the complications of love, both parental and romantic, how they are linked together, how you can find love, lose love, find it again, and lose it again. We’re all going to end up having lost love in our lives. We’re all going to lose our parents. Lots of us might lose our partners. That’s what happens in life, but the importance of love is the key. When I got to the end of the film, I was like, “You know what? Let’s make it go crazy. Let’s just go wild with it and be big and operatic.” I think it’s almost speaking to my old childhood sense saying. “Do you know what? It is possible. When you grow up, you are actually going to find love.” For me, it was about that.

What’s next for you? Are you looking to find another horror film to personalize, or are we going in another direction?

[both laugh] I’ve got a couple of projects all at a similar level that could happen next year. There’s always so many reasons why you do or do not do something – availability, money, all of those things. I’m hoping something will fall into place. But also, now that this film is being embraced, the next film will be in conversation with this one. So, I have to be sure that what’s next makes sense. That doesn’t mean going bigger or smaller or anything. It just means that it will have a relationship with what’s come before. I’m just trying to work out what the right decision is.'

[olderthannetfic]

I'm in a fandom with a lot of virulent antis (surprise surprise, it's heavily dark source material and I don't know why they're here at all) and a lot of the pairings that aren't the main badwrong ship on ao3 now have DNI tags on them for shippers of the badwrong ship. I guess not enough to break the TOS (no direct threats?), but still full of stuff like "x shippers DNI", "get help you freaks", "You're disgusting" etc etc.

Its just... so frustrating. Like that's a pretty red flag for me that a fic probably is going to be in an immature writing style so I probably won't read it anyway, but every time I see it I just.... heave a big sigh. Why these people are in this fandom or on Ao3 at all I'll never know. Its not even helpful - the tags are there to help describe the fic, if I didn't want to see that kind of content I could just... avoid content that's tagged that way. Why even add that to a fic that's not even about those characters at all?

Honestly, my real question is.... Olderthannetfic, how do you do it?

I feel like I do it "right", in fandom, or at least I try. I always just block and move on. I don't follow the discourse where I can help it and block a lot of the relevant tags. I keep to a small circle of folks that have the same fun brainrot I do and have fun, generally. But this kind of stuff still slips through the cracks in a way that's unavoidable if you're ever online at all. To be honest, it still hurts a lot to see each time, and be reminded that some people seem to literally want me dead over reading a story. And I can't help the doubt and the self-flagellation that creeps in. Despite my best efforts, and all my research, and living to the ripe rip van winkle tumblr fandom spinster age of 27... I sometimes have a moment where I think, maybe I really am a freak or a degenerate, or an evil predator waiting to bloom.

Do you ever experience this? Does this feeling ever go away, or at least dull to a more bearable exasperated eye roll? Do you ever see these anti idiots grow up or grow out of this mindset? Is it just a matter of time, age or experience? Is there a point at which you felt like it affected you less, or perhaps it didn't affect you like that at all? Is there a secret to navigating it calmly and with confidence? Do you have any advice to give in the, er, art of not giving a fuck?

--

Why would I quail at a stupid child on the internet after coming out as queer when I was 14 in the 90s?

I grew up with very open-minded, supportive family aside from my mother's conviction that BDSM was something people were into because they'd been abused. Even then, I remember privately snickering because I was super kinky, and wouldn't that upset her given this silly world view?

I had it easy compared to most in the 90s, but I still saw a lot of nonsense, like good old Mom on the topic of kink or murders in the media. But I also spent a lot of time reading educational sexuality books that debunked myths about fantasies and kinkiness.

Maybe a firmer grounding in sexuality stuff would help you? Nancy Friday's work on women's fantasies is a common starting point. I'm partial to The Topping Book, which is full of "it's great to be a top, actually" and not "you only do it for the sub".

Getting older does usually help though. Most 20-somethings are insecure in their sense of self. Middle age is when people's fucks generally run out, and that only continues to grow. Watch a stupid child go after some 60-something zine writer lady. She's going to laugh in their faces. Some people remain insecure forever, I suppose, but not anybody who had to woman up to be in fandom in the first place.

It's not just that these little idiots are wrong about us being predators: it's that they are the morally degenerate ones for spreading the psychological equivalent of "vaccines cause autism" or "Jews want to steal your Christian babies".

This idea that The Bad People are infiltrating our minds with their propaganda overlaps heavily with anti-semitic conspiracy theory right wing fundie nutjob ideas, and yet these young fools claim to be pro-queer and pro-civil rights. They're an embarrassment to any progressive movement and it disgusts me.

When someone goes "You're not a Christian, so you're going to hell", do you have a moment when you wonder?

Because that's the level of absurdity here.

Even if they don't bully, even if they don't include threats in their DNIs, the fact that they're spreading myths about sexuality that have been thoroughly debunked many times means they're doing something unethical, anti-intellectual, and anti-science.

I'm not afraid or guilty. I'm embarrassed for them.

--

Do antis grow out of it? Yes, frequently.

They are—either literally or functionally—victims of right wing Christian cults. They have the same trajectory of realizing they've been had and slowly trying to work through the raging guilt and religious trauma.

I have limited patience but some sympathy. Like other victims who were indoctrinated to hurt people, escaping the cult is hard. It means not only giving up your false sense of safety and all of your friends but facing what you've done.

[the-blue-fairie]

hey, no worries at all about venting in the tags of... your reblog of my reblog of your post, lol!! as i mentioned, i was trying to find a completely different old post by someone else, and then ended up seeing your post in my search and i just feel that it's a great explanation of some of the issues that i have with the ending. i can totally understand why people who like the idea behind the ending and what the writers were trying to say with it want to defend it, to an extent, but i agree with you that they just didn't successfully say that. which only makes me more frustrated with the ending than i imagine i would've been otherwise. and i'm sorry people have been trying to group you in with frozen 2 haters when you didn't want to be seen that way! and to me, the posts of yours that i've read about the movie (including the one i reblogged that prompted this ask) never came off that way either. you always seemed like someone who had your issues with it and criticisms of it, but could also still see positives in it and things to celebrate about it.

Thank you for sending me this message. I apologize for not replying for a day; life got a bit busy.

Looking back on my old discussions of F2, I feel I was hamstrung by not wanting to make my friends angry. I have friends who are fans of F2 and, while I wrote those posts, I was cripplingly scared that they would stop being friends with me, or unfollow me, or dismiss my critiques as mere negativity. In fact, my fears were justified. Some of these people DID unfollow me and DID tell me I was being overwhelmingly negative. This broke my heart - especially because I spilled so much ink trying to balance every negative I discussed with a positive and celebrating the good elements, but it felt like it didn't matter. It didn't matter how anxious I was to be understood, it didn't matter that I was writing in good faith. And that hurt.

I also feel that I was intimidated by the extreme sides of the fandom. If, for example, I wrote a post criticizing Elsa's arc, anti-Elsa people could jump on it and say, "See, this is why Elsa is a bad sister."

So that's why, in my vent, I said I was too kind to the film. I was so constricted by being terrified of other people's reactions - terrified of having an unpopular opinion. So I qualified all my statements with, "Of course, I don't mean to be overly negative" instead of just focusing on my points.

I just want to shake people sometimes when they tell me the point of the film and say, "They followed through on their intent with very poor execution. They DIDN'T DO the things you are saying they did. They tried, but there are scores of reasons why they did not succeed - reasons that go beyond my personal preference, that have to do with characterization, pacing, story structure, etc."

It hurts because... I feel like, in the past, I tried to force myself to like the film more than I do. I've wanted to like it for years, but the last time I put it on I broke down crying and not in a good way and I just... I wish it worked. I wish that all the various thematic threads coalesced into an emotionally satisfying whole. And I know that, because of my emotional response, people might just dismiss all my discussion - no matter how nuanced I am, no matter how fair towards the film I am in my analysis, as, "Well, you're biased from the start."

No. I've spent years trying to see all sides, empathizing with a variety of people in the fandom, sometimes even at my own expense. I do value the parts of F2 that work and acknowledge the beauty of various elements including Anna and Elsa bonding with the Northuldra, the anticolonialist themes, The Next Right Thing, and more.

But at the same time, I argue that my case against other aspects of the film is robust, cohesive, and correct.

And to the friends that can see I am writing not to be a hater, but in good faith with actual analysis and discussion in mind - you mean the world to me. Thank you.

Sorry, this became kind of a vent in itself.

[alpydk]

THINGS THAT I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT MY FELLOW WRITERS

this is a super fun tag prompt list, thanks @orangekittyenergy

tagging: @sofancydancy and @senualothbrok

Right, let's see how this goes.

Last book I read: Pride and Prejudice. Had never read it before but the whole Tim Downie cameo got me doing it. Then watched the BBC series with a friend and we swooned something major over Colin Firth. I've picked up some other books since then but just haven't found the motivation to get through them. Looking at Dark Tower book 5 as well for the last year...

Greatest literary inspiration: I'm honestly not sure. My partner is the real reader of the two of us. I've enjoyed Dark Tower, The Witcher Series (Honestly still in love with Cahir from them), and Leaves of Grass is my poetry go-to. But inspiration, going to be silly but the Hardcore series by Andy Remic (RIP), is such a great series of books. They're not the most literary genius type books but the action is cool, I love the characters. They make me want to write cool shit too.

Things in my current fandom I want to read but I don't want to write:

Smut. Honestly, my abilities with writing smut are limited. I have no patience for flowery language (yeah I write poetry but I know what I mean.) but it means when it comes to writing my own smut it is very matter-of-fact and lacks what I'm looking for. I'm also very picky about my smut due to an annoying logical brain. If you say someone moves their arm and then they move something else I see that and if I can't follow it directly I'm just going to put it down.

You can recognise my writing by:

Lots of short prose-type sentences. I like the effect of repetition and I especially like writing in a more personal talking type way. I especially love to monologue so if anyone does recognise my writing it's probably from these things. I especially love writing anything angst, it's so therapeutic and I love being able to draw out emotions from other people. I can do this with sweet fluff stuff too but angst really is more enjoyable.

My most controversial take ( current fandom):

I hate the word folds. (Not fandom relations but still.) Makes me think of a packed ham sandwich.

Fandom-related though - Astarion fans can get pretty feral over their views of his character. I get it, Gale fans are the same but I've left groups over the rabidness.

Current writing mood (10 – super motivated and churning out words like crazy, 0 – in a complete rut): Currently about a 4 but it can vary depending on the hour and the inspiration. I completed the Nana story and now feel a little lost as to what the next project will be. Ideas are escaping me.

Top three favourite tropes: The whole "enemy to lovers" thing. I mean this in a 2 people who argue and fall in love, not as in the real enemies to lovers.

Star-crossed lovers, especially if they really are both doomed. Astarion/Karlach if she is going to burn up. I love that tragic acceptance. Give me more of that.

I like a loveable rogue too. Hook from OUAT.

Share a random frustration: AU fiction losing characterisations. Once your fiction hits a point where you could replace the characters with any other from any other series I'm going to stop reading it. Great, you want X to be sub, but if he wouldn't actually act that way in canon, why are you even using him as a character? It's AU, fine but then make it OC or use another fandom. Don't force me to read through 13 chapters of semi-ok stuff just to destroy the characters so you can fulfil the soap opera-esque drama that gets you the hits. I get it's difficult but this is my pet peeve. Rant over...