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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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About Bakugo, I actually think his original characterization is partly why his arc doesn't work for me: it seems like his contempt for others and desire to hurt them is innate, because he was already insulting and humiliating Deku for fun when they were in kindergarden, and at this age I'm not sure it makes sense to blame the adults around him for this behavior. This is also why I don't buy the "childhood friends" narrative, even before the infamous river scene Bakugo was toxic to Deku.

Hard agree, anon. I'm willing to give some wiggle room to the "Bakugo had a messy childhood and that's why he's like this" argument just because I'm not caught up (and thus might be missing some flashbacks/revelations), no one's life is ever perfect, and there's a subjective line between what we read as innocuous tropes vs. realistic traumas (example: is his mom hitting him something we take seriously, or just classic anime "comedy"?), but honestly I'm... not persuaded by that stance. Largely due to what you've said about this contempt being around since the very beginning. Bakugo's cruelty is the introduction to the entire series, the very first thing we see:

First, they're young here. Maybe not kindergarten young, but as we see in the above narration, it's at age four that Bakugo acquired his "I'm the best" thinking (more on that in a second). They're kids. This is not something that developed slowly over the years until Bakugo crossed some kind of line, he's been like this since the very start. Since a kid is capable of forming thoughts, opinions, and making decisions: like attacking another. In what way does this establish them as friends? Izuku literally shaking as he tries to protect another kid Bakugo is has hurt? Bakugo calling him worthless? Gleefully attacking and punching Izuku in the face? They were never friends! Izuku followed Bakugo around because he was paid some kind of attention by him and Bakugo poisoned the well — no one else in class will befriend Izuku. We see this both by the two willing to help beat him up here and, later, when Izuku says he wants to got to U.A. the entire class laughs at both the idea and Bakugo blowing up his desk in response. The bullying is the only kind of "friendship" Izuku has, so he embraces it with a smile and a nickname. Meanwhile, Bakugo allows Izuku to tag along because he makes him feel good in comparison. All Bakugo needs for an ego boost is to look at Izuku. He's the useless, quirkless nobody whose name can be read as "Deku." What's not to like? Izuku makes Bakugo feel good because Bakugo will always come out on top — always win — when pit against him. Did they have a few good moments gushing over All Might? Yeah, but anyone who has been bullied knows that it's not a clear cut "They were consistently awful every second of every day." Sometimes, those moments of pretend or conditional friendship make everything worse.

(As a side note, I keep hearing the more intense fans of Bakugo saying that those who criticize him identify with Izuku "too much" and it's like... yes? He's the protagonist. You're supposed to identify with him. To say nothing of the question of why you'd include such an explicit bullying subplot — arguably at the heart of the narrative in regards to characterization — if you didn't want readers who had experienced bullying to relate to this story. So it's all about victims like Izuku, you're allowed to care, just don't care in a way that holds Bakugo responsible?)

"But Izuku cares about Bakugo. He tried to help him out of the river." Yeah, because Izuku cares about everyone. Overlooking his warped idea of what friendship is due to having no one but Bakugo, Izuku is the kind of person who is going to extend his hand to anyone who needs it, just like All Might would. His extreme compassion and lack of other friends is not good proof that he cares for Bakugo in any true, healthy fashion, let alone that Bakugo cares for him.

As for when this all started, yeah, it was when they were even younger than in the scene above. Toddlers when Bakugo realized he had a strong quirk and Izuku was told he had none. Bakugo's reaction to these events — deciding he's better than everyone else and that justifies harming those "lesser" than him — is instantaneous. That desire was there all along. He just needed an excuse to act on it. After the conversations about the adults' influence on him, I went back to the anime scenes of Bakugo showing his quirk to his class and it's... pretty normal? I mean yes, there's praise, but in what world wouldn't there be praise? A bunch of other kids are going to ooh and ahh over mini explosions and the two teachers, unless they're entirely heartless, are going to tell this kid that he'll indeed make a wonderful hero someday. Those are standard responses for very young kids who aren't going to understand something like, "That is a powerful quirk and you could be a great hero... just don't let that potential go to your head!" There's nothing in those scenes that imply an excess of praise, at least so much that it would totally warp a kid's perspective of others to the extent Bakugo has going on. If I recall correctly, Bakugo's parents are quite disappointed in his behavior, but that never had an impact on him. And as I mentioned previously, we have incredibly talented characters like Momo (getting into U.A. on recommendation), people like Ida who come from families with other heroes they want to impress, Todoroki dealing with a crazy legacy to live up to, tied up in his abuse... yet none of them turned out like Bakugo. All of that didn't kill their compassion, but adults telling Bakugo he has a strong quirk made him into this person? Bakugo wanted to be that person, right from the start.

Honestly, I think a lot of fans latched onto Bakugo — which is awesome! — but didn't want to admit how horrible he actually is. So they took moments largely out of context and repeated them enough until they became fandom staples. Bakugo and Izuku were close childhood friends who just had a falling out they need to come back from. Bakugo was only like this because the adults in his life drove him to that behavior. Izuku loves Bakugo because he can see how good he is, deep down inside, and definitely not because he's been stuck with him since they were toddlers, unable to escape him even at U.A. It's a very sanitized look at their relationship, embraced because fans want them to be friends or lovers. Which is fine! God knows I'm into a ton of "problematic" ships, I just like acknowledging that they're problematic, not trying to sweeten the situation because fandoms have made others feel guilty for liking anything that's not squeaky clean and pure. Bakugo tormented Izuku for their entire childhood. He encouraged him to commit suicide. He tried to keep him from achieving his dream, both by undermining his confidence and outright threatening him (remember burning his shoulder?). He then reworked that obsession when they both got into U.A., trying to prove Izuku's uselessness, failing, and continually struggling with the thought that he's actually a great hero. And it's like... why do I care? This guy is a horrible person, he's been a horrible person since he was a kid, and his greatest challenge for more than half the story is acknowledging that other people aren't worthless trash. His improvement still hasn't gotten him to the standard of an average person, let alone a hero. If Bakugo were a villain, great, or if the story was going to really highlight the corruption of the hero career as a whole (we take anyone with powerful quirks, no matter how awful they are), great, but as a main character hero whose behavior is supposedly just a cover for a fantastic guy, please overlook everything he does and assume he's worthy of your respect anyway? Ehhh. Why do I care about him as a good guy when there are characters like Ida and Uraraka I could stan? To be clear, I'm not saying other fans can't enjoy whatever characters they enjoy, just that from a storytelling perspective I think it's a failure to introduce Bakugo as such an extreme, make him one of the heroes, give him such a selfish struggle, and then expect a lot of the audience to care. Bakugo either needed to be more balanced from the start — regular flaws instead of such an intense adoration for cruelty from the age of four — or the story needed to unpack his behavior in a way it never bothered to.

#BNHA #My Hero Academia #anti bakugo #mymetas

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circa-specturgia · 2 years

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Happy STS!

So as you might have noticed, I'm really curious about Mundi Somniorum / Circa Specturgia. You mentioned most of the character relationships develop there, so what happens? What is it about?👀

Oh and pls expand on the part that promises pain, what roles it play etc, I'm a big fan of that.🙏

@writingonesdreams

What is Circa Specturgia about…? Wow. Hmm. This one… This one might take me a while.

Thank you @writingonesdreams for the ask! I don’t know if I’ll be able to answer it to satisfaction quite yet, but, I’ll do my best! And once I do know what I want from this story of mine, I’ll be sure to let you know! ✨

What’s it all about?

The reason I didn’t put a plot summary or even outline in my Writeblr intro is because I don’t think I quite have one yet, if I’m to be honest…

I used to have a pretty solid framework for an estimated Book 1 and ideas for the overarching story as a whole, however those ideas for the first book have, to use a metaphor, rusted and grown weak in the year and a half break I took from writing, and I’ve decided to scrap that and place it on the side for later, having come back to it now with better ideas and a feeling that what I had before was stale and boring, unsatisfactory.

I write primarily for myself, for my own enjoyment, to put the ideas in my head on paper, to create something, to have a creative outlet, to tell a story that I’d enjoy reading.

The choice to scrap that much has left me with an empty canvas, which is equally parts exciting as it is frightening.

As a result I don’t really know exactly ‘what happens’ myself, apart from general vibes and some grander overarching details.

So, what am I certain of…?

Certain parts of character arcs, events leading to characters growing and evolving, LOTS of worldbuilding details and the like which is why I’ve mainly been posting as to those, and some overarching story details…

I won’t lie, it feels like I’m building a house less brick-by-brick and more chaotically one-part-at-a-time, though those parts aren’t necessarily in order. Bringing in a fridge and stocking it, and only then finishing the walls, etc… Some parts are very stable and concrete, some are absolutely nebulous. Hell, I feel like with the current reworking of everything, it like I’m changing my mind about the whole design of the house itself and scraping whole rooms or adding floors!

I’ll try to maybe outline big parts that I include or want to include though? Sort of the four main and central focuses and the general direction for them!

Magic

One big center focus of Circa Specturgia is definitely the magic, the world, the wonder! One reason I fleshed out Specturgy so much is because I have a burning passion for world-building and all sorts of systems and mechanics and in general just, magic, but another is because I want it to be a central part of the story, as characters evolve their understanding and connection to it evolves as well.

Characters and Relationships

I intend to focus heavily on the characters as well, so I guess you could say I want to share the focus of the story in 50/50 on the characters and their dynamics and personal growth, and on the world and greater plot? The two work in tandem, characters make choices that drive events and events drive characters to make choices and it’s something that I’d like to balance! I want to portray friendships, struggles, the fundamental things that make people people; selflessness, charity, love, all of these, which leads into another point:

Love and Emotion

I hope to, as a result of events written for characters, and the dynamics between them themselves, to show a lot of emotion and experiences for the cast to experience, many difficult ones, dealing with events that are larger than life, consequences, guilt, responsibility and the like. I mentioned pain as a simply summary for my intent to place characters up against things that will break them, against responsibilities that are far too heavy and great for them to bear, up against consequences for which the guilt will keep them up at night. Characters who make the wrong choices, and who have to live with that, characters who are wronged by an unjust world, characters who hurt and who bleed. And characters who most importantly get up after all of it, eventually, and keep going.

I don’t think I’d write a story where they fail however, in the end. The pain will be a hardship, yes, emotional and physical, but it will also be a crucible for their success and the ways they think in the future, facing other things through the prism of their experiences.

More on love and romance itself in Circa Specturgia in an ask I answered as to my thoughts on romance: Here!

The World!

I am what you could call a slut for world-building. Cities, people, countries, nature, biology, history, all of it is just so much fun, and working on intricacies and cool details is something I adore doing.

I intend for the scale of the story to encompass the world, with grand events that have huge impact, as well as travels that take the cast from one side of the world to the other and back again!

Considering my mention of pain, and how you said that it was interesting! I view the world of the setting to be a beautiful but uncaring world. One which you can admire for all its intricacies and details and it’s nature and vistas, but one in which you must take care to not be torn apart by, as it will chew you up and leave you to be buried and forgotten. People, as powerful as they may seem, are nothing against the incomprehensible vastness of what is the world, nature. That sort of energy to it plays into events and all!

Summa Summarum

I don’t think I can give a plot summary, yet, as while I could have done so maybe a month ago, a LOT of the ideas I had, I’ve shaken up and hope to replace with something I can be more proud of, but I can give some general vibes as to it:

A high fantasy/dark fantasy story set in a time period mixing elements from the late 1500s to the early 1800s, with a world fundamentally ancient, magical, and remaining deeply mysterious.

A cast of broken and yet to be broken characters who find family in each other, who find love together, who support each other when faced with a cruel, and beautiful world.

A mystery of sorts that moves in the shadows, the more that is uncovered, the deeper the roots seem to lead, and the higher the branches stretch into the sky…

Hope that answers some of your questions! I know it’s probably not quite what would be a good explanation of it, but the truth is I don’t even know where I want the story to go with how many things I’m thinking of reworking, as I’m coming back to it now, but, I hope to work on it heavily over the summer and I’ll be sure to provide and ample second take to answer this once I know! ✨

Taglist! ✨ Let me know if you want to be added/removed! @bloodlessheirbyjacques @athenswrites @magefaery @writingonesdreams

#writeblr #writing #writers on tumblr #writing thoughts #circa specturgia #wip.circa specturgia #writing community #writing inspiration #wtwcommunity

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fatalism-and-villainy · 2 years

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My final verdict on Yuwu is that it’s not as good as Erha, unfortunately.

Some of that not-as-goodness is structural, and can be explained by the fact that Meatbun completely changed the premise/setting of the book at the last minute, and so the ending in particular had to be suuuper reworked. That didn’t surprise me to learn, because as I was reading it, I was thinking, “this is kind of a contrived and under-explained solution that’s trying to emulate the endgame events of Erha, but without the emotional resonance of them.” And sure enough, the author was also aware of the contrivance.

But other than that, the setting doesn’t really land for me. Granted, I don’t think worldbuilding is one of her strong points as an author (I don’t have a ton of investment in the setting of Erha either), but here the shortcomings of the setting are more egregious. This is, I gather, because Meatbun didn’t originally intend for this to be a distant prequel to Erha, and so a lot of the connections to that story feel a little like afterthoughts, especially stuff like the presence of the Butterfly Boned demon race - they exist in the background, but there’s not much digging into their societal position like what we get through Shi Mei’s character in Erha.

And on that note, I think that the book is a little too optimistic about hereditary rule and governance and institutions for my taste - the stuff at the end about benevolent rule having the capacity to overcome violent means taken in obtaining power, and the rather pat ending in which the slaves are freed. Again, some of the problems with the resolution can probably be chalked up to Meatbun having to rework the ending, but it does still stand out as a rather unconvincingly happy ending. Especially since Erha really emphasizes the bittersweet quality of its ending, specifically through Xue Meng’s (and to a lesser extent Shi Mei’s) fate, with the protagonists only really becoming happy through taking a step back from the world. Here, things are a little unfocused and directed far too much towards the main couple, at the expense of other characters. (Like, we see so little of Yue Chenqing after a certain point!)

Like, the thing that truly frustrates me is that usually I’m not super enthusiastic about the trope in these novels in which the main couple ~depart from the world~ (though I know that’s a very Daoist-inspired trope), but I actually would have been alright with it here! The whole time I was reading, I kept thinking “this whole place is rotten, everyone is a backstabber, the only freedom is getting out”. Which they do, kind of, but it’s not as much of a retreat as I was expecting. I am glad to finally see a couple involved in teaching kids as their endgame, because that’s what I’ve really wanted to see with some of these other couples, but I wish some of these endgames could have been switched! 😂

Also, I’m going to be honest... while the main couple is very sweet (and Gu Mang calling Mo Xi “princess” as a term of endearment just makes me melt every time), they’re just kind of not badwrong enough. The comparison to Ranwan is inevitable, and Ranwan just hit different. That relationship is very sweet and caring and very much based in the characters’ desire to better themselves and the world, but it’s also dark and consuming and selfish and coloured so much by their extremely fucked up backstory together, and it’s all so wrong but so so right. Ximang is honestly pretty toned down by Meatbun’s standards, despite the violence and betrayal in their backstory, and the kinky undertones to the slavery setup. And I don’t think these two characters are quite as richly drawn either.

I do appreciate that Meatbun put in some Disrespectful Fucknasty side ships - including some shizunfucking! - but they’re not, imo, as well incorporated into the plot, or as compelling to me despite some surface-level flavour.

The plot is also much more economical than Erha - it’s long, but much shorter than that novel. And on the one hand, from a craft perspective, I think the pacing is more balanced here, because we’re not inserting a long episode involving Mo Ran looking hot while farming and Chu Wanning having a heart attack everytime he gets reminded that Mo Ran has muscles. But on the other hand, I loved those overlong, self-indulgent diversions! They’re what gives the story flavour! That’s what I look for in Meatbun’s writing! Give us more excessive horniness and sexual tension.

So, I do like the main pairing, and there’s some really cool magic stuff that goes on in the story - I really like what Meatbun does with magic! - but it falls a bit short of my expectations.

#yuwu talk #alpha reads yuwu

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theskeletongames · 4 years

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So I know I just asked what your favorite scenes were, but what were some of your least favorites? What was the most difficult for you to write? Are there parts that you look back on and cringe?

(Not saying there should be, your fic is my absolute favorite and the standard that I measure other fics to!)

Sorry I'm so greedy!! I'll retreat back into the hole I crawled out of after this I swear!

Burgerpants court scenes were hard. I feel like the one specific court scene is a bit cringy and I should go back and rework the dialog so it’s better... I’ve never gone to court so some things are probably very inaccurate, but I did try and read up about how some private cases are handled for things like that.

I remember getting stuck really badly at a spot when V-chan was cooking for the brothers, and she was giving a tour of her house to Boss and I couldn’t think of anything very funny when they went into her bedroom. The undercover jokes about the porn magazine came later and were actually much worse and weird feeling when I first wrote them.

I could also rework some of the haunted house scenes as well. Some parts are a bity wordy but I think the events are interesting even with a lot of exposition of how a haunted house works.

I usually get stuck writing between interesting events the most, and have found writing badly written sentences between them kinda helps. Editing and fixing sentences that already exist is much easier than filling blank areas, but it’s getting myself to first fill that black space with structure that’s hard.

I have so many things either going on, or that will happen in the future that I have to balance and make sure are touched on in every scene now, sometimes I spend forever trying to think of a way to include it all without being boring.

I have a thing about writing something boring, because when I read boring things I tend to skim, and I don’t ever want people to feel like they need to do that with my writing. If you can skim and still understand the story, then maybe it should be cut out, or trimmed, or written in a way that even if it isn’t plot related, it’s still very fun to read. That’s kinda my motto on writing. Also, plan events ahead of time and talk about them before they happen so they feel well meshed. People like to speculate and giving the audience something to speculate about fells very good.

The upcoming party has a lot of things I need to include and characters to introduce properly, and is a huge balancing act which is probably why I’m so stuck. This is probably the largest character scene I’ve had to write and it’s very, very hard.

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randowwriter · 2 years

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@sakurafairymage 3. Ooh, that's a tough one! As far as time goes by, I feel like I'm getting way more involved in fandoms so to speak than I did when I was younger. But Hetalia (the fandom that when I talk about is a mixture of that fandom was dangerous to me (by what I was writing and reading) and wow, I'm happy I became a fan) is up there surprisingly. It introduced me to a ton of things (some of which I should never have learned about XD), including certain types of AUs (and the fandom is ginormous), so AU variations which surprise a lot of people in other less big fandoms? I know I entered other fandoms and would change up the norm for Soulmate AUs or reference them, and people would be surprised, because they'd never heard of reworking them before. Hetalia also introduced me to fandom events! (Which is relevant.) Before Hetalia, I generally avoided prompts (little me thought prompts were evil or essentially for "uninspired" writers; I clearly don't think this way anymore.) I became like a prompt promoter in recent years. I'm like, take requests, Google prompts, write outside of your three centimeter box, it's fun and you learn new things you like to write. What I didn't see when I was younger was that prompts make you write new things and give you new ideas to play around with. I see it now. And a lot of my best friends or at least my closest internet friendships grew out of Hetalia; I got into roleplaying around that time (something I don't do anymore, but I genuinely recommend, also a great source of new ideas and almost like cowriting a story), and through roleplaying made some pretty amazing friends. Some of which I don't talk to as often as I should, and others I talk to so much now you'd be surprised. XD But moving past Hetalia, I'd also say Miraculous Ladybug, though when I was big into that, everyone was divided over which Love Square Ship was superior (most people said MariChat, so I'd support the less popular side, Ladrien extra, so it wasn't left out), but Miraculous Ladybug got me into a writers' group, where we brainstormed prompts or challenges more so, and inspired each other. It also to this day is the only fandom I've ever participated in a Secret Santa for, but I'd had to ask if we could do so? And we got permission, and every year, even when I wasn't into Miraculous anymore, I participated until it eventually died out fairly recently. But I started getting more involved (I wanted Hetalia level friendship community, but sadly, due to inactivity and other stuff, and maybe because we were older or something, it never really thrived like Hetalia did). And controversially, I'll say, Akagami No Shirayukihime (It's only controversial, because like Hetalia I've complained about it before. XD) ANS demands stuff of me in a way that other fandoms don't? It takes up a lot of my time, and I think hopefully that this community might stick in a way similar to how Hetalia did. ANS fandom is a mess sometimes, and other times it is so stunning, you'd be impressed by it, honestly. We aren't perfect, but one day, I hope that all of the hardships will make it even greater. So, ANS got me more proactively involved in the fandom (also you can thank ANS for me having a Tumblr actually XD), and suddenly, I'm "engineering" dreams with friends and making them into a reality. It's surreal. I'm doing the stuff that I only wanted to admire from afar, but now I have to get down to it and make sure things happen, and boy, oh, boy, am I a mess. XD Like, Hetalia demanded stuff of me, taught me there were things I'm incapable of doing, but ANS whispered in my ear, it's on you now, and now, I'm doing stuff similar to what I failed at with Hetalia. Which is kind of crazy honestly. I now am a part of what keeps the fandom alive, and that's a scary responsibility, and it isn't me keeping it alive, it's every single fan who makes stuff, who shares stuff, who analyzes stuff and gushes, and I'm just here, trying to hold up a sign cheering them on, and I'm the poorest person for this job, for this task, but I'm a part of it, you know? So, ANS demands stuff of me, and it wasn't really the fans who put me in the position I'm in, but there was a need (that I spotted and felt strongly), and I went about trying to fill that need, and I tried to talk myself out of it, and God wins, you know? I don't know when or if I'll step down one day, but God placed on my heart a longing and a desire and gave me the tools to rise up and fill it. And now, I'm seeing new things from ANS that get me excited every time. And finally, I'll throw in Yona of the Dawn, because this fandom is a blast! XD I don't know what it is about it, but it's a whole lot of fun, like all the time. XD Sometimes there's character bashing, or struggles, but this fandom is full of giddiness for me. I love it so much! I love the series and the fans and I have a ton of fun with it. (And because I can't forget it, I feel like I should mention Chuck, even though I'm notoriously bad at writing more fic for it, every single time, I do, I tend to get really sweet reviews; Chuck and Miraculous Ladybug are the only two fandoms I've ever been in where readership is unreal, where the amount of reviews is astonishing and the amount of love. ML and Chuck really love fanfics, and are here trying to support every fan writer, so thank you to both of those fandoms for their love. They make it feel kind of like a family somehow?) <3

#fandom ask game #sctwilightvampwolfgal

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thevindicativevordan · 3 years

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Any thoughts on Grant Morrison's Action Comics run? Beyond T shirt-and-jeans Superman being great.

That whole run reinvigorated my love of the character.

There have been numerous thoughtpieces about New 52 Superman, how he worked and how he didn't but these two entries really do a great job of summing up why Morrison's take on Superman was great. Morrison laid the foundation for a new generational Superman that DC completely fucked up and ran into the ground. I'll always be bitter about that, even if I had tapped out of reading the New 52 Superman books by the end due to how bad they got. Editorial and their idiotic mandates were what screwed over the potential of this take in my eyes.

Now I get that it wasn't to everyone's taste, but I cannot fathom how anyone could ever claim that Pre-Flashpoint Superman was better. If you liked Byrne's reboot better, your guy already got rebooted after Infinite Crisis. For someone like me who really enjoyed the Johns/Busiek era, that era's potential got spoiled after Johns & Busiek left, with New Krypton imploding and the awful Grounded taking it's place. When you get to the point where the best Superman book is the one starring Lex Luthor, it's time to reassess the franchise and figure out where the hell it went wrong.

Which is exactly what Morrison did. For this new Superman, Morrison mined all the best ideas of every Superman era to really give what I consider the ideal "base" for Superman. They also took pains to address common criticisms about Superman, working to correct his pop culture image. People have been complaining that Superman is "too perfect", "too unrelatable" for a long time, so Morrison addressed that. They gave Superman his balls back, and let him reacquire that Golden Age edge he had originally.

There are a lot of complaints you can make about Morrison's Superman, but I don't see how you could accuse this guy of being "flawless" or "bland". He definitely had a personality that you could describe, love him or hate him. Compassionate, but not a pushover. Clearly holding himself back, but unafraid to occasionally let loose. Flaws that were patently obvious, Clark had a temper here that could get him into trouble. There was a real showcase of anger here, of Superman being furious at the way people were treated by the rich and powerful, then doing something about it that I ate up.

I read this run just as I was coming into my teens and it hit perfectly for where I was in life. Did not want a Superman who would smile and tell me it gets better, I wanted a Superman who looked you in the eye and told you he felt that same anger, and then encouraged you to go out and do something about how you felt. That was what this run delivered in spades, and it expanded what I believed could be done with Superman.

While it totally blew my mind to see Superman acting this way the first time I read Morrison's Action Comics run, in retrospect it really isn't that different from how Superman has acted even under Byrne. One of the few traits I've seen carry across Superman incarnations in the comics is that he has a temper underneath that affable nature. "Don't tug on Superman's cape" as the old song goes. This run simply elevated that to the forefront of the character again, for the better in my eyes given I believe "Wrath" is Superman's Deadly Sin.

In fact, one of the strongest features of this run is that Superman gets actual character development over the course of the run, analogous to what Batman underwent in Morrison's Bat-Epic. While the Bat-Epic was merely Morrison re-canonizing Batman's entire history, and applying a retroactive character development storyline that culminated in Morrison's current Batman work, their Action Comics run had them attempt to craft something similar for Superman from scratch. What that meant was Morrison attempting to draw on the most important traits of every Superman era and incorporate those into this new take. So Superman had the Golden Age temper, compassion for the oppressed, and cockiness. The Silver Age supergenuis, proud scion of Krypton who cherished his Kryptonian nature, member of the Legion of Superheroes, and participant in stories that weren't afraid to get weird. Superman's wrestling with his place in the world, the importance of Clark Kent, and making journalism a key part of the character strike me as all being hallmarks of the Bronze Age. From Post-Crisis we got that Clark views himself as human and loves his adopted parents, considering them as equal to his birth ones.

One of the big frustrations for me with the endless origin stories for Superman, is that so many of them follow a predictable and stale formula where Clark puts on the suit and is essentially ready to go. Doesn't interfere with human affairs, is modest and humble, restrained in usage of his powers, it's like Clark has meta knowledge of what he "should" be, despite that he shouldn't have any foreknowledge of what a "superhero" should look like. He operates the same way at the start as he does in the modern day, and that's really boring to me. This Superman, because of the difference in powers and attitude, operated extremely different from his "present day" incarnation. Dangling Glenmorgan over the edge of a building isn't something a fully powered and mature Superman should do, but it works great to make his early days different and exciting to read about, it makes returning to that era something you can do different storytelling with. This run is the only time where I really cared that Superman is "supposed" to be the first superhero, because figuring out what that means here is a big part of how he develops.

We all know the common complaint that Superman is "too powerful" and that "nothing can hurt him" (funny how Thor never gets hit with those accusations), so Morrison made sure to show that this take on Superman could be beaten even if he could never be defeated. Events conspired to force Clark to use his brains as well as his powers to overcome the challenges in front of him.

Examples include him using his heat vision to fry Lex's equipment and escape the military, using his rocket ship to defeat Brainiac, and rallying the population of Metropolis to banish Vyndktvx. Not to say that Clark never used his brains before to win, but this run was very upfront and in your face about how important Clark's intellect is to triumphing over his foes. Can't take seriously the complaint that Superman is too overpowered when Morrison constantly showcased how even a very powerful Superman could get his shit wrecked by his Rogues.

Another example of Morrison addressing criticisms is Kryptonite. A lot of people poke fun at how convenient it is that pieces of Superman's homeworld follow him all the way to Earth. Isn't that a bit of an asspull? So Morrison made Kryptonite the power source of Superman's rocket, giving it a perfectly natural and believable reason both for it to end up on Earth, and for Lex & the military to get a hold of it since Pa Kent gave the military the rocket. That's still my preferred explanation for how Kryptonite ended up on Earth.

It also provides a better explanation for all the different Kryptonite variants. DC can handwave away the different types as a result of Lex experimenting or the different "forces" on Earth such as magic or the Speed Force or whatever creating the different variants. That to me is much more believable than Kryptonite travelling all across the galaxy yet still ending up on Earth somehow.

There have also been a lot of complaints about Superman's villains, and Morrison diligently set about reworking them. By far one of my favorite aspects of the run, was the villain revamps. Nimrod felt like a clean revamp of Terra-Man, making him into Superman's Kraven the Hunter struck me as a patently obvious route to go, wild no one has followed up on that or used him since. Metallo felt like a good synthesis of Johns take of him as an Anti-Superman weapon, and the sympathetic aspects of Corben's origin that are always there, I liked that Morrison didn't make him a total bastard before his transformation like Johns did. Brainiac got some sympathy added to him in that the collected worlds that were already marked for damnation, thus he was "saving" them in a fashion. Clay Ramses embodied toxicity as a wife-beater even before becoming Kryptonite Man, and I thought his backstory was a great way for Clark to still deal with "real" issues via a manner he could punch. Ramses is still the best take on Kryptonite Man. Vyndktvx felt like the greatest realization of the threat Mr. Mxyzptlk could pose should he decide to get serious since Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, plus I'm a sucker for stories where superheroes fight the Devil. Drekken and Superdoom took the only interesting aspects of Doomsday (his ability to evolve and that he can kill Superman respectively), and were much more interesting characters.

And oh my God, speaking of Superdoom, that part of Morrison's Action run has aged like fine wine. I don't know if they caught wind of DC's plans for the character, or if they were just prescient, but everything that Superdoom is playing on is still sadly all too present. What Superdoom is as a character is a condemnation of what DC keeps doing with Superman: killing him off or making him evil.

When you realize what Superdoom (demand for a more violent and "realistic" Superman) and Vyn (WB/DC) stand in for, it makes the frustration Morrison is channeling much more palpable. Those two plotlines are all DC can think of to do with the character, returning to those again and again. Endlessly attempting to recapture the high of Batman and Doomsday beating the shit out of Supes in The Dark Knight Returns and Death of Superman. Overcoming these two obstacles is Superman's greatest challenge as conceived by Morrison, because both are out to corrupt and ruin the very idea of him. It's not just a physical death he faces, but a metaphysical one as well. Sadly it's a threat Superman just can't seem to lick in the real world, with more and more takes on "Evil Superman" coming.

Lois and Jimmy are great here, because Morrison actually made the investigative journalism aspect of Superman important. Lois is an active participant in the story, trying to break in to the base where Clark is being held by her father, competing with Clark for stories (I love how Morrison writes the banter between the two of them), and generally being classic Lois. Jimmy though benefitted from being positioned as a peer rather than as a kid in comparison to the two, something I wish the comics had carried forward. It looks like My Adventures With Superman is going with that interpretation at least, so I hope others do as well. Jimmy being Clark's roommate really adds to their bond, and I wish we had gotten more stories with that status quo.

Investigative reporter Clark Kent was so actively used here that it feels jarring reading other Superman runs where they tend to downplay and ignore it. Following Clark as he travels to different areas of Metropolis and actually interacts with people, instead of hovering above them as Superman, makes him feel human. Watching Clark actively pursue stories aimed at bettering peoples livelihoods, and seeing how those stories crossed with the superheroics, was one of my favorite aspects of the run. It's one unfortunately few other writers seem all that interested in, especially the New 52 writers who followed Morrison (I know editorial probably bears a lot of blame for that though).

Besides all that, this run was a lot of fun! The Legion of Superheroes showed up, their connection to Clark restored, and they got to play a big role in Clark's adventures! Krypto the Superdog! Martian colonies! Memorizing all of medicine, Superman performs a lifesaving operation! Lex using a "bullet train" to knock Clark out! 5-D imps! Rampaging robots from beyond! A Phantom Zone Halloween story! John Henry Irons suits up as Steel and kicks ass alongside Clark! Every Superman Rogue teams up to try to kill him, but Lex Luthor saves his life because that's a privilege he reserves for himself! Showcasing their trademark love for the Supermythos, Morrison took us on a tour of Superlore that demonstrated the depth and width of what could be done with Superman. Meanwhile the backups by Sholly Fisch excelled at giving us smaller, more human stories about Superman (the one where Clark meets Pa again via time travel "after" Pa has died always gives me a lump in my throat to read).

Ultimately this didn't get to be the foundation for the next generation of Superman stories as it deserved. Johns made New 52 Superman the scapegoat in Doomsday Clock for a lot of storytelling choices he did over in Justice League, something that pisses me off to no end. You want to tell me that this guy "didn't relate" to people, didn't inspire "hope"?

Like hell he didn't. This guy was Superman in every way that mattered and he deserved better than to be framed as the scapegoat for all the stupid decisions DC made about what to do with him. Greg Pak was able to do some great work with this version after Morrison, and just like how Gene Yang got a redemption work starring Superman, I hope to one day see Pak return to the character. Would love to read a Black Label Superman story by Pak that follows his take on young Superman.

All wasn't lost however. Against all odds, and Rebirth trying it's damndest to sweep everything under the rug, it looks like parts of this era have actually survived to the current Infinite Frontier era. With Morrison being heavily involved no less, both as an ideas guy and as an actual writer.

Superman & the Authority is explicitly Superman coming full circle back to the attitude displayed by his young counterpart under Morrison. Janin has outright said that the costume Clark wears here is reminiscent of the t-shirt and jeans era of Superman, and this book so far feels saturated with an energy level from Morrison I haven't seen in their work for hire since they left Action. Reaching old age and realizing he never really delivered on the high ideals of his beginnings, it's Superman putting together a team to hopefully succeed where he couldn't alone. Scathing in how it criticizes the superhero status quo, this has been extremely entertaining to read. Wish Morrison was writing 12 issues with this team, and that ultimately it will be up to PKJ to deliver on the potential is a drawback (although I've loved PKJ's Action run so far), but I'm glad to see DC finally treating Morrison and their ideas with more respect than was shown during Rebirth.

Jon meanwhile feels like an even more explicit attempt at redoing New 52 Superman. There's the updated new suit, designed to appeal to a new generation with it's streamlined look. Positioning Jon as a Superman who wants to tackle the "real" issues, with Taylor explicitly comparing him to Golden Age Superman which as I mentioned was an era Morrison tried to reincorporate into their reboot. There's the Legion of Superheroes connection which played an important role in Morrison's reboot. The rumors about Jon's sexuality are interesting, hinting that DC is willing to go outside the box with him in a way they never would with Clark. I'm excited to see what kind of Superman Jon ends up becoming, if he can deliver on the promise of the New 52 Superman all the better.

This run deserves to be remembered and to have the lessons it tried to teach respected. Probably my favorite mainline run on Superman, I hope more people come around to liking it as time goes on.

#superman #grant morrison #action comics #new 52

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thelittlefanpire · 3 years

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100 days of writing // day 93

thanks to @the-wip-project for putting this idea together. tagging @kinetic-elaboration @she-who-the-river-could-not-hold @hopskipaway and @dylanobrienisbatman.

I have 50+ oneshot ideas, in various stages of development, but I am unable to FOCUS long enough to write any of them.

I tweeted the above yesterday and asked for advice on what to do. Short Sprints and a Roll of the Dice was what I got in response.

So @dylanobrienisbatman and I tried to set up a FaceTime Sprint Session…and omg I am so tired today… but we actually got zero writing done last night! Oops! lol.

I also tried to pick a fic at random to work on but still wasn’t satisfied with anything. But I do appreciate that sometimes you just have to let fate decide!!

This morning I decided on two things that I think will help me write:

Writing the Ideas in Chronological Order

Writing in a physical notebook!

I know…what? Seriously, I think I’ve had some kind of ADHD thing where I keep coming up with ideas but my brain keeps telling me I need to go back to my earliest idea. Especially if there isn’t a TROPED event going on…Today I worked on getting all my ideas ordered and you can see which one I started with at the bottom of this post! I grouped them, categorized all the fics, and broke them down on a loose deadline.

The Notebook Idea I’ve been thinking about for a little while now. I do/write EVERYTHING on my iPhone! But that means I do a lot of doom scrolling and digital pacing that just isn’t productive for me. I brought a blank notebook out with me today while one of the kids had my phone and actually wrote words! REAL WORDS, y’all. It also helps that I’m not reading and rereading over and over and I just focus on writing until I’m done.

I’m still taking advice on how to focus, by the way, but I’m off to a good start I think!

to @she-who-the-river-could-not-hold’s response to yesterday’s post: I decided this morning that I am not ready to write any of my Visual fics right now, but I will talk about their titles real quick!

a pair of bourbon kings - I swear I got this title idea from a book! what book that was remains a mystery to me because the book I thought it was (The Bourbon Kings by JR Ward) did not have the same ✨vibe✨ that I was remembering from whatever I had read before. but still, it’s a damn good title and I’m not exactly sure how it will relate to the story but I’m working on it!!

a touch of destiny - given the theme of the board and the summary, I feel like it’s easy to pick up on this obvious callback to a line from the universe I’m thinking about writing…

the longing, the pitch, and the choir robes - ok, but this just feels like the cleverest play on words from the universe I’m drawing inspo from and the one I’m creating. The cleverest!

17 & Holding - I’ve had this title for so long with this idea that I don’t remember the source or what I was thinking but I did include the exact photo from my original planning in my moodboard rework.

WIP of the Day:

Killing Me Softly || ao3 || moodboard

I did a morning walk to jumpstart my brain into thinking about this fic, ran through the remaining parts of the story I had left to tell, and then realized I backed myself into a corner with a few things. Some inconsistencies with the timeline and the weather and the landscape…of all things…oh, well! I did not let this stop me!! It’s all about the ✨vibes✨ anyway! I’m up to final climax of this fic and there is a lot of action and character resolution happening. Now to just keep writing!!!

#100daysofwriting #tlfwritingthoughts

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theexecutionerssong · 5 years

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SKAM FRANCE BTS MASTERPOST

This is a master post of BTS anecdotes told in interviews, at cons, screenings and on social media. Don’t click the read more if you don’t want to lose some of the magic. I know sometimes knowing too much of how a show was shot can ruin it. Also, it’s very obvious that there was more promo starting around season 3 than for the first two seasons, don’t hold it against me. Feel free to message me if you think of something else as I must have forgotten a ton of things.

CASTING, REHEARSALS, BTS IN GENERAL

Skam France had the rights for the 4 seasons first but had to follow the original script almost to a T for the first 2 and if the audience was big enough then they would be allowed to distance themselves from OG

Skam France casted actors that were as close personality wise to their characters as possible, which made it easier for the cast to identify with their characters and made the friendships developping between the characters more believable since it was also developping off screen

They were not allowed to cast underaged actors who would have been closer to the real age of the characters due to the long hours of the shooting conditions

Most of the actors come from theatre and many had no or little previous experience with shooting for a camera before

The cast isn’t allowed to watch the clips before they air.

Most of the clothes they wear in the show are their own.

During rehearsals of the first seasons, Philippine went to the board with everyone’s names on it and wrote something funny next to Zoe’s name and wanted to send it to her but she messed up and published it on her ig stories, leaking the entire cast when it was still supposed to be a secret.

Lula’s first reaction when she got the script and “met” Daphné was “oh no I’m scared. I just want to slap her, she’s insufferable”

Assa almost didn’t audition for two reasons: the casting call didn’t specify they were looking for a woman of color and French casting calls almost always say whether they are specifically looking for a black woman. If it says nothing then they are usually looking for a white person. She thought she had no chance because of that. Second reason, after accepting the casting call, she did some research and found out OG Sana was from the Maghreb and she’s not. But her agent convinced her to go through with it, the only thing the skam france team wouldn’t negotiate was that they wanted a Muslim actress. There was no way they would have casted a non muslim actress/actor for Imane and Sofiane.

Skam France was the first TV show on French TV to have a black muslim woman wearing a hijab as a main character

Paul, Robin and Axel knew each other before shooting, they’d met in Avignon.

Coline was still in her last year of high school when she shot the first two seasons.

Niels is the one who came up with a raccoon as Eliott’s spirit animal

They shoot about 15 minutes of usable content per day which is impressive (it’s usually 2-3 for movies released in theatres, 5-7 for TV programs)

When France TV told David the first two seasons were a success and they were renewing the show, he gave them a list of things he wanted to change so that he’d agree to come back to direct the next seasons, including a different camera, renewing the writers team (they included Niels), storylines, the ig content, etc. The new camera they got was a SONY Venice which allows them to play a lot with the focus/blur ratio and the cold and warm undertones, which made a major shift in the visual quality of seasons 3 and 4 compared to the previous 2.

David named Eliott after his son.

Having the teaser from Eliott’s POV was David’s idea. It’s the first remake to have a clip from the French Even’s POV

The bus stop from season 3 is fake, it doesn’t exist. It wasn’t even shot in Paris itself but in Saint Ouen.

Maxence didn’t watch OG - besides the towels in the bathroom clip - because he wanted to create his own Eliott without being too influenced, and he didn’t watch s1 and 2 of skam france either because he wanted Eliott to discover the characters without knowing their backgrounds.

Maxence wasn’t supposed to audition. He wanted to be done with his acting school before shooting anything but the head of the casting team came to watch a public class at his school and asked him to audition for Eliott at the end. David and Niels knew right away he was the one. Niels watched the audition tapes and was very impressed with another actor but within the first 3 seconds of watching Maxence, he knew it wouldn’t be anyone else. Maxence met Axel after the 3rd call back and they clicked right away. He’d broken his foot two days earlier so he was in crutches. They watched Even’s manic episode and had to improvise a similar scene but had to do with the crutches. They also went for a drink before shooting and they talked for hours, their connection was instantaneous.

When he learned Maxence was cast, Axel went on his instagram and saw the model pictures and thought he was way too hot with the abs and everything and he himself would look like a potato during the nude scenes next to him. So he got a coach and for 3 months he trained and got on a very strict diet. He was disappointed that there were no shots where you could actually see his abs properly in Skam. He had also said months before that he had gotten a coach because before they started shooting seasons 3 and 4, he had met up with Marilyn to get advice on how to carry a season and she had told him to get a coach otherwise he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the pace. So what is the truth?

It leaked that Maxence was casted in July 2018 because someone on a Korean website recognized his shoes in an IG story from when he’d been spotted at the airport months earlier but it was kept mostly under wraps. Then his and Lais’s names leaked too a couple of months later but most people hadn’t seen his face before the trailer.

David asked Axel and Maxence to give up their phones and social media during the couple of months they were shooting to be really focused and not get distracted by the outside world and they mostly did. Axel bought an mp3 to still have music, he wrote “LUCAS ♥” on it with a white out pen. He created a playlist for Lucas, including songs like Run Boy Run and I love you by Woodkid, and To Build a Home by the Cinematic Orchestra.

Maxence’s process to get ready for a shot: he does yoga and dances a lot in the morning. he puts music on and paces a room while picturing himself standing on the edge of a cliff and if at some point he feels like falling and loses his balance, it means he’s got it. He asks that all the scripts he gets be printed on the right side of the page and on the left he takes notes about what the character is feeling through 7 different states: love, hate, fear, power, vulnerability, sex and i hate myself for not remembering the last one. To play a scene properly, you have to conjure up 4 states to create one emotion. He loves that David respects his method and is able to adapt to every member of the cast’s method. He also uses his body as a tool, for example if his character has to feel lonely or unsure, he will curl up into a ball for an hour without moving and then he’ll be in the right mindset because his body is telling him he’s isolated. That’s the method he used for Eliott, he created “lost scenes” that weren’t in the script, moments in between scenes with Lucas, to get more into Eliott’s mindset.

Maxence wrote a letter to Eliott, drew a picture of him, and spent hours adding notes to the script about his personality before even trying to get into his mind.

There was a contest for the drawings in season 3. Maxence participated but didn’t get picked. Jeanne Lelièvre did!

All the social media content for seasons 3 and 4 were shot on the same day in December 2018 which is why you can see heavy winter clothing even when the content was published in May. For season 3, most ideas were Axel’s, and Maxence said no to 90%.

While shooting for seasons 3 and 4, Axel was also on stage every night for theatre

To prepare for his role in s3, Axel watched CMBYN, Moonlight, and The Office

They received more feedbacks from international fans than French ones at first. It was even a private joke between Niels and David, there were no comments in French on Youtube. Then the piano clip happened and David’s phone went crazy with notifications. He was in the editing room with Jérémy and the buzzing from his phone was non stop. They banned phones in the editing room after that.

Skam France owes part of its popularity to how accessible the cast and crew are, either on social media or IRL, with 6 entirely free events organized to get the fans and the cast and crew to meet, watch episodes together and have Q&As during seasons 3 and 4.

Skam France shooting locations have become extremely popular for the fans to hang out at and leave little mementos, to the point that the mayor of Paris has asked the team to pick completely untraceable locations, or make sure they are not in Paris itself for the next seasons

Skam France was the first remake to get renewed for 2 (possibly 4?) original seasons

Alexia and Daphné were supposed to have their own seasons they but couldn’t get the green light from Norway. He got the idea for Arthur’s story quite quickly after but they had to rework the scripts for seasons 5 and 6 a lot. Robin talked to David about his addiction to video games and how it could be a potential theme but in the end David chose deafness instead.

SEASONS 1 AND 2

It was Coline’s idea to make Alexia bi. There was a scene when Alexia mentions an ex boyfriend and she asked David “why wouldn’t it be a girl?” and his only reaction was “Ok. What’s her name?” and that’s how bi!Alexia was born.

It was also Coline’s idea to give Alexia’s colorful hair. She later regretted it because she had to bleach her hair twice to get the blue to stay and it fried her hair.

Assa’s worst memory of shooting s1 and 2 is when the girls have to carry Daphné, she kept dropping her and was afraid of hurting her.

Marilyn and Lula ruined the scene when the girls are having breakfast all together when they are on the countryside because they couldn’t stop laughing over carrots and the crunchy noise it was making. It was the last day of shooting and their nerves were all over the place.

SEASON 3

The first scene in the common room didn’t hit them that much, they didn’t realize the impact it would have because the whole shooting was just David yelling at them to look at each other then stop then do it again then stop etc

Nobody realized how big of an impact the “Moi c’est Eliott” line would have and then when they watched the clip, it was obvious.

The check de gang wasn’t scripted, it was Paul’s idea to make it a running gag. David wasn’t sure about it but after doing it just once, he was sold. Basile tripping over the bench was also Paul’s idea but he didn’t warn anyone he was doing it so Xavier started laughing and the camera was shaking so bad that they couldn’t keep it and had to reshoot the scene. They noticed during the editing process that Robin also tripped at the same time in the background during one take so they had to keep that one.

Lucas playing the piano was Axel’s idea even though he didn’t know how to play properly. He sent a text to David at the end of June with different ideas for songs and David picked the most difficult one. He then practiced anytime he could until they shot the scene in october. It took him two months to learn it completely and then a little more to make it look easy. (Niels later said it was his idea and that Axel was a cheeky little shit). Maxence had never heard Axel play the song before that moment so Eliott’s reaction is genuine. He didn’t think he’d manage to get in the right state of mind because the apartment was too small for the whole team and they were all very cranky, it was 3 am, but the moment he heard the first notes, he forgot all about it and was completely amazed.

The infiltration party: David asked that Basile pushes Daphné a bit, like shoves her out of the way when they have to run, but they hadn’t had the time to rehearse anything. After a couple of takes, Paul pushed Lula a bit too hard and she fell on her knees quite hard. He felt so bad because he never wanted to hurt her and they all had to take a half an hour break because her knees hurt. David after that was like OKAY NO MORE STUNTS EVER.

Axel got mad at the makeup department because the two lines on his face were not on the same place when they shot the outside scene and then once inside. He got so angry he could have cried that they wouldn’t believe him. So during the shooting he looked straight at the camera and wiped them away with the back of his hand to force them to draw the lines properly.

The first kiss scene: they had been shooting for 12 hours. It was raining intermittently all day so the team had to pack up the cameras often and wait it out when it was too much. They ran 4 hours late. They had a fake rain machine but no change of clothes so they could only shoot once. Below the bridge is not easily accessible, it’s a long path from the gate, so they used ropes to get things up and down from the bridge. They only had one shot. They had already shot kissing scenes but David was always telling them it had to be more passionate and kept yelling at them to use more tongue so for that shot they gave it their everything on the first (and only) take they did. 5 minutes later they were shooting the Remember scene.

They shot all the scenes in the colloc on the first week of shooting. Minute by minute was shot right before Samedi 9h17. They had to restart shooting samedi 9h17 four times because something wasn’t working between Axel and Maxence, they were clumsy and stressed. After taking 5 minutes to themselves with David to remind themselves of how pivotal the scene was, Axel and Maxence said they were ready and they shot the opening scene that made the cut.

The Phase de latence clip : Axel and Maxence felt like terrible actors because they had already shot all the big very emotional scenes and this was a bit tamer since Eliott doesn’t show much emotions. They felt that way about all the scenes shot in the school.

The Fête de trop clip: They shot the fight with the guys 8 times but it wasn’t enough for David until Robin slapped Axel on the 9th. After that they shot Chloé yelling at Lucas. Axel was still out of it due to the slap he’d gotten earlier that he hadn’t expected. At 3am, they finished with Lucas injuring his hands. Axel cracked the metacarpus in his hand and only told David two days later.

Leo has talked about the coming out bench scene and said Yann took it a bit too far and was too dramatic, he was like “i don’t know if i can say that… but c’mon… I mean. C’mon… that’s your best friend… who cares if he didn’t tell you right away, he had bigger problems on his mind, right?”He would have done it differently.

The “viens on n’en parle pas” scene was shot in 50 minutes in the middle of the night on the second day of shooting. Marilyn and Axel’s emotions were briming under the surface so it was one of the easiest scene to shoot.

The hardest scene to shoot for David in s3 was the intervention clip. It was the second day of shooting, the 4th clip of the day. Axel’s first take was not good enough and David was scared it would set the tone for the season. He had a stern talk with Axel. Thankfully, they shot a second time and it was the right one, everyone on set was crying and Axel was completely drained.

The scene where they go get the couch from the creepy place is the one they shot last for season 3.

The paint scene: they only had one try. Axel and Maxence hadn’t shot together for a week, David had done it on purpose and they’d missed each other. It was shot on a Friday at the exact time it was supposed to happen IRL. The whole thing lasts 14 minutes long. David took their pants off because they were slipping too much. Xavier almost stopped filming he was like “is he serious? did he just take their pants off??”. They shot a part when one of them slips on the ground and the other follows but that didn’t make the cut. There were 25 people on set, everyone in a suit to protect from the paint, but Axel and Maxence forgot everyone and just got lost in their characters. When David yelled cut, Axel and Maxence didn’t hear him and kept making out. David had to separate them. Then they all were so happy that they yelled their joy but then saw all the people who were behind the camera, and everyone was crying, like they had witnessed something too intimate. They showered for an hour, emptied 2 bottles of soap and even then it wasn’t enough, Axel still had paint running down his neck at a party that evening. The music used on set was Dreamer, the Khlar remix. Maxence was upset it wasn’t the one they ended up using in the clip, it felt like a betrayal because it “wasn’t the song they had made love to”.

Maxence fought with the costume department over the briefs he was wearing in the paint scene, because they had shot the PONI scene first and he could remember which ones he was wearing for the PONI scene and he wanted to wear the same ones. He was sure people would notice.

The first scene Maxence ever shot was the PONI scene.

The boat scene was quite special. It was a big moment for Maxence, he was extremely nervous, so David reduced the team on set as much as he could. Maxence got upset at Axel for being too present during the scene. Being used to a theatre stage, Axel is always a bit over the top, eating his ham with a flourish, stuff like that, but this was supposed to be Eliott’s big scene. Maxence asked for a break and told David that if Axel didn’t tone it down, he’d kill him. That also got resolved quickly.

The Remember Me scene: the priest is Lula’s dad. Lula and Niels both make a cameo in the church. They forgot to warn Axel that a car was coming when he’s running so his reaction is genuine. He was running so fast, the minivan with the camera couldn’t keep up so they shot it twice. They shot Lucas finding Eliott under the bridge just after shooting the first kiss. Maxence only had 4 minutes to get into the right state of mind which was extremely challenging and during that time he had to change his clothes, dry his hair and redo his makeup. Axel wasn’t feeling very well, he was exhausted after having shot 4 clips that day, but David told him he could do it so he ran on the path to the bridge harder than ever (David thought he was going to hurt his sinews) and when he fell to his knees, he was close to passing out, you can actually hear when he says the first “t’es pas tout seul” that he’s about to throw up / can’t breathe properly. They only shot that part once and after it was done David told them they should hug each other because what they had just done with Lucas and Eliott was precious and a moment to remember.

There was supposed to be a scene after the Remember scene but it was cut. Eliott is sleeping, Lucas brings him food and starts reading his book and then Eliott wakes up. They say hi, Eliott is confused about the time it is, it’s already late afternoon. He says he needs to leave, but Lucas tells him no. He keeps saying he has to go, he has to go to his parents. Lucas tells him it’s fine, they’ve been warned of where he is. But he says he’s got to leave anyway. Lucas asks him why he keeps insisting he needs to leave and Eliott tells him he just doesn’t want Lucas to see him like this. Lucas tells him he doesn’t mind. Then he starts teasing him, saying Eliott just wants to leave because he doesn’t want to own up to the fact that he lied to him. Eliott is confused. Lucas reminds him that he’d said there was no way he would ever be able to sleep next to a guy that hot (on the boat) and yet here they are actually taking naps. So Eliott must have lied to Lucas about finding him hot. Eliott says he’s an idiot and Lucas tells him that at least he’s not a liar at that what matters is that he is his idiot. “Congrats, you’re now the owner of an idiot… more or less hot” Eliott tells him he’s won and asks what they should do now. Lucas answers that they should start by saying hi properly and they kiss, and when they pull back they just look at each other whispering “salut”. Axel said he was upset at David for cutting the scene because it was so soft and intimate, he called him when he watched the episode to ask why he cut it, but it would have been too repetitive with the following Lundi 17h21 clip.

Lundi 17h21 is the second clip Maxence shot. Lucas’s “T’es beau quand tu rigoles” wasn’t scripted, Axel changed the script, he was supposed to say something about liking seeing Eliott smile.

The Je t’aime scene: the first shot they did was the most emotional one, it was one of the hardest scenes emotionally for Axel. He was crying so so much, he had tears and snot everywhere, and Maxence was just wiping it away so tenderly that David thought about keeping that shot but the snot was REALLY disgusting so they didn’t keep it. They shot it a few more times, except that then Maxence had to leave. So the shot of Lucas saying Moi aussi is actually to David. Axel said it didn’t feel weird because he does love David so it felt true.

SEASON 4

Assa sat down with the team before they wrote anything for the season and told them her whole life story. It lasted 4 hours and she cried when reading the script because they had included so many things she had told them, it felt like her and Imane were one.

Making Assa dance was Philippine’s idea. David asked her what she thought about when thinking of Assa, something that was really her and Philippine said “Dada, you should see her dance”

Moussa and Assa knew each other before since they had filmed together 5 years prior, a movie in which they already were siblings. They feel like siblings in real life.

The worst clip to shoot was on Lais’s first day of shooting, it was the bus clip. The shooting conditions were terrible, there was too much noise, and the crew was tired from having shot the 3 bus stop clips from season 3 earlier that day. David was convinced there would be nothing to save and they would have to rent another bus but the team worked their magic in post prod and it turned out amazing.

They shot the scene with Imane, Lucas and Eliott in class the day after Halloween. Maxence was at a party the night before and lost track of time. He had to take a taxi straight from the party to the set at 6am and showed up in full zombie costume and makeup.

Charles come back: it had been cloudy and raining all day but the moment the camera was on the girls’ faces, a ray of sunlight appeared and the wind blew in their hair, making it a real dramatic moment. Too good to pass on, it’s the shot they kept.

The fight between Lucas and Eliott that we vaguely hear in the background was just gibberish. Axel and Maxence hadn’t prepared anything and Axel just ended up shouting at Maxence things like YOU LIED TO ME BEFORE ABOUT LUCILLE YOU MIGHT BE DOING IT AGAIN ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE and Maxence NO I WOULD NEVER - BUT YOU DID - NO I WOULDN’T - YES YOU DID - NO and they kept going in circles so David was like “guys…. please, you might want to start screaming about something else or this is gonna sound very repetitive” but in the end we can barely hear anything so it didn’t matter much

When Alex comes to pick up Emma to go to the cinema, Assa had a break down and couldn’t stop laughing, hiding under a blanket and making all the girls laugh too with her. David had to scold them a bit to get them to stop.

Lais also ruined a clip by laughing for 15 minutes straight, it’s the clip at Imane’s house when they talk about the fair. It was the longest 15 minutes of the crew’s life.

The oui oui song during Daphné’s birthday party wasn’t planned, the team just lost control of the cast. Axel started it and everyone followed. The cast are actually terrible extras. They are too dramatic and noticeable in the background so party scenes like Daphné’s birthday were a nightmare to shoot.

Assa and Laïs rehearsed the Unknown dance clip every chance they got between every take, everyone kept tripping on them in the corridors.

The last sequences they filmed were actually the last clips at Imane’s house for the Eïd. Axel isn’t in the last shot because he had to leave for his play. He actually ruined the very last clip of season 4 by shouting his goodbyes to David from across the corner.

SEASON 5

The auditions for season 5 and 6 were held in June. Lucas was spotted through his youtube channel and asked to audition.

Coline learned sign language by herself after an initiation class with the whole team. She started signing in July and has been practicing ever since. Robin took a one week class in September and then kept practicing by himself and with the D/deaf people on set. David and the rest of the team also took an initiation class.

Robin doesn’t like water and was anxious about the scenes in the pool. David got in the water with Xavier, Robin and Winona to reassure him and direct them better. They limited the number of extras around the pool because of that.

The place where Eliott works is where David used to work when he was younger.

Coline wrote a song for the season

They couldn’t leave the mural in the high school so they took it off the wall (it wasn’t actually painted on the wall itself) and cut it into pieces. There are a few pieces framed on the walls of Lucas and Eliott’s flat.

#skam france #skam france bts #gaelle parle

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eternal-reverie · 4 years

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*drumroll*

notes of a kh au of both evil plans successfully getting a sora puppet!!

some context, this is a canon divergence idea inspired by this thing I drew a while ago.

ok im absolutely thriving with this fic idea but first, there was a painful hurdle in thinking about how to rework the Chain of Memories plot for Naminé to go along with Marluxia’s plan completely, and that naturally would change a lot of things. Especially regarding Riku’s story plus Axel’s role and a bunch of other characters. It’s actually so intimidating with all these characters and their conspiracies clashing with each other, scooping all that up to transform that into a (hopefully) coherent sequence of events;; in comparison, Days was pretty simple to deal with the change.

Anyway what I have so far is this:

Roughly decided that Marluxia, Namine, Sora, and Xion are the main characters. Riku and Roxas are in comatose states but still influence the story. Xemnas is the main antagonist naturally. Aqua and Ven become key players towards the end. Saix, Axel, Zexion, and Xigbar are also important. Larxene will be a surprise element. Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and DiZ are there for the most part too.

The original event that pushed Naminé to tell Sora the whole truth was Axel letting her go meet Sora. So for this plot divergence to work, someone has to intervene here. I mulled it over and decided Larxene should be the one to to do it, resulting in her attacking Axel. They argue in the midst of the fray on who’s the real “traitor.” Sora arrives and defeats them both. Larxene learns of Saix’s plot before she fades. Axel then tells Sora to trust his instincts and to fight off Marluxia’s schemes, before cryptically telling him to not forget their appointment on the clocktower for ice cream. Axel then “fades” away.

Namine becomes more convinced with going through the deception (though not completely) due to interacting with the Angelic looking Specter. She encounters this figure and is given some revelation into some of Marluxia’s motives. i’ll have to think a lot about Namine and how her desire to end her loneliness comes into conflict with her integrity, in addition to how she is manipulated. She consistently guides so many characters through the series with her insight, so that’s a trait i want her to grow into. I think she’ll be the one pulling the strings in the end..

One of the biggest changes is Riku’s reverse/rebirth story. Originally, Riku doesn’t fall into Zexion’s trap due to Namine’s influence and advice dealing with darkness. However, in this AU, Naminé is going ahead with tricking Sora, being absent for Riku. So Riku would lose to Zexion, who’s desperate to use him as a counter to Marluxia’s command of Sora. Though it won’t work out for Zexion in the end because Ansem would finally be able to possess Riku fully...

Which has got me thinking there would be a clash between Ansem and Marluxia in the castle. I think it would be interesting for two of these characters who have a guardian behind them to fight!? Somehow Marluxia wins, adding to his arrogance when it comes to Xemnas.

DiZ is now stumbling over what to do and the mouse would get sad at these turn of events; both heroes of the keyblade now compromised...which leads to Mickey thinking, wait there’s someone in the realm of darkness!!! this is now a secret mickey redemption story

That will lead to Aqua returning to Castle Oblivion to do pest control and finds Axel and Zexion scrambling about trying to find the Chamber of Waking. She promptly decides that Ven is no longer safe there and gets him out. She finds Riku replica and recruits him (might change this detail, forgot to say that Marluxia told Naminé to power him down prior. Aqua finding a replica could be interesting, lest Axel or Zexion gets to him first,,)

Also forgot to mention that Riku is now the one placed in the pod for him to sleep and not turn back into Ansem. (role reversal with sora woo!!)

Sora goes happily along with Naminé but despite all the memory rearranging is still wary of Marluxia in charge (thanks Axel). Something that’s interesting in CoM was how Marluxia told Naminé to destroy Sora’s heart, finding this last resort a shame and rather having preferred him unmarred. So this AU is just that, the plan with Sora’s uninjured heart (but perhaps...breaking his heart could be point reached...in regards to Ven’s heart hidden in there..)

Mar’s character is actually one of the harder things to address. So I need to think more but I want this story to touch upon his hidden memories as so many things will remind him of the old plight of losing a loved one. Mainly observing the interactions between Naminé and Sora, Aqua and Ven, and maybe Xion??? I want Saix’s search for Subject X aka Skuld to be relevant to this too. there’s!!! so!!! many!! examples!?!?!

As he remembers more, the specter haunting him becomes more smaller and human-like. The specter will talk to Namine more for the most part. This will influence Naminé to turn the tables against Marluxia; so you could say she will manipulate and influence him with her memory powers along with her insight.

Will he gain a sibling-esque affection for Sora and Naminé? Yes. Vaguely... I think Sora’s going to lose against Xion... so Marluxia’s going to have to take up the protective role much to his displeasure. Being around Sora’s and Namine’s hearts for an extended amount of time will be a factor in his memory returning and regaining a heart.

Much of his story is taking control back of his destiny vs finding what his true purpose is and what method he choses. I feel like his time as a union leader could contribute to him feeling qualified taking over the organization. Plus him having a strong feeling that Xemnas’s plan is b.s. which is of course, spot on. Does Marluxia become a good guy in the end? im not sure yet, but I want to say no for the most part. (oh the appeal of tragic villain protagonists) who’s to say he wouldn’t sacrifice or destroy anything to recover what he’s lost?

in regards to Xion, I think she’ll be the one in most pain oh boy. Roxas was asleep through the Castle Oblivion events and Xion left seashells at his bedside during that time. The discarded Sora memories, as a result of Naminé’s interference, will pour directly into her mostly. Xemnas sees this plan working and once Roxas wakes, forces him and Xion to clash resulting in Xion successfully absorbing Roxas and becoming the perfect sora puppet. sorta

Xion is at this point, still in confusion on who she is. Everything in her tells her she’s Sora, but the dearest memories of her own life so far is of Roxas taking her up on the clocktower for ice cream, and she holds on to that. Xion also has the discarded C.O. memories including Axel’s last remarks to Sora. I want Xion and Repliku to meet in this story.

Xemnas discovering comatose Ven will be a main thing eventually. Which led me to this image of Xion!Sora thinking Ven is Roxas ;-;

Up to this point, I still need to address how real Sora and Xion!Sora clash. It’ll probably be in the throne room, not unlike what happens at the climax in ddd. the moment I’m most excited for is Marluxia’s humiliation at these turn of events LOL that’s why i drew that joke comic for the most part! someone commented on the post with ‘GET OFF THE STAGE MARLUXIA’ and i was GONE LMAO

there’s more stuff (from my 10 pages of notes i made yesterday. it’s a small square sketchbook so it’s probably more like 5 pages) but i think this summarizes the majority of my ideas. Idk if I’ll get this off the ground promptly since the scope is so big 😵 but it’s a start!

Here’s some sketches! lol i couldn’t resist.

sorry if there some gaps or holes since this wasn’t an outline, i just jumped around with ideas. now to think about this more meanwhile i have other responsibilities to attend to @_@

#i need to give this a proper tag #hrmm ok #puppetplanaufic #there #a project title i guess #warning this is long #and there's some sketches!! to look at #kh #this is just all the main characters receiving the bad ending of their respective games?#um days already has a 'bad' ending but like this one is...way worse #also a bunch of identity crises!#just average kh stuff #long post #sorry the read more doesn’t work on mobile 😥

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monstersandmaw · 4 years

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Do you have any tips or tricks for an amateur writer such as myself? More so related to focus because I'll start something and then stop to do something else than go to pick it back up again only to discover I'm at a block.

I’ve got a lot of short asks/answers to questions like this under the tag ‘writing advice’ so make sure you follow that up on my blog for more answers like this, but essentially, think about what drew you to the story in the first place, and think on that for a while. If you’re not writing professionally, and since you say you’re an amateur (which essentially means you’re writing because you love it, don’t forget!), then focus on what it is about writing that you love in the first place.

I think that’s what lies at the core of any piece of writing - it’s the spark that makes people remember it, and it’s what made you want to write it in the first place. Even just sitting down with a cup of tea (or drink of your choice, but stay hydrated - it’s good for the brain cells, and the aesthetic is neat too :P), and almost meditating on what it is that drew you to the concept in the first place can act like a whetstone, to sharpen up your focus and reboot your desire to write it. It might spark a new character, or a new direction, location, event... or it might solidify what you’ve got already.

Remember that writing anything - including this answer! - takes time and energy and focus, and crafting a whole story (regardless whether it’s something steamy for the fun of it or fluffy or deeply angsty) will take energy. You will be tired or even drained after you’ve done some writing. You may not have the required spoons for the story that day, and that’s ok. Reduce the task size from writing ‘a nebulous amount of words’ to something more manageable like ‘I’m going to get the story moving on by two paragraphs today’. If you write more, great. If you write one paragraph, that’s ok. If you only manage a sentence, it’s still more than you had before, and you’re doing great.

If you’re blocked on something, write down exactly what it is that’s stopping you going forward. I do it with pen and paper because it’s more tangible to me, but you could make a fancy graphic with lots of colours or type it out in a doc or something. I did this with my novel when I hit a major block and it helped me fix it a bit. I’m going to have to rewrite everything, and it’s 150k words long, but at least I know that now!!

So yeah, literally ask ‘why is [character] doing [this activity]?’ or ‘what is the exact function of [insert maguffin]’ or ‘how does [character] feel about what happened in the last bit?’. Play games with yourself and figure out why your characters are doing what they’re doing (or not doing, if you’re stuck!) and sidestep it if you have to. Don’t just say ‘I’m stuck’ and leave it there. If you still care about the story as a whole, figure out exactly what’s causing the block.

You don’t have to write the whole thing in the same order as the finished piece. I’ve got a story on the go at the moment which - at 14 Chapters - is 54k words long, but the Scrivener file with the rest of it tells me I’ve written 88k words. I’ve got chapters that are way way ahead of the current published chapter, and some might not even happen in this story. It’s part of the world, and it involves these characters, but it might not work. It’s ok though because I’m exploring these characters and how they’d react in a given situation, and I can use that to inform other chapters. Write what inspires you in that moment, and fill in the gaps between those chapters or story-beats later.

Remember that a first draft is just ideas on paper. I read something recently (and unfortunately I can’t remember where it was, or I’d cite it!) which resonated - If you are Michelangelo, and your finished story is David, then the first draft of your story is the block of marble extracted from the quarry. It doesn’t have to be shaped and polished at all - it’s just the raw material to work from. It might be disheartening to look at it that way, but if you get to the end of your first draft (even if it’s just a 100 word drabble) and you think it’s rubbish, that’s fine. It’s normal. Let it sit for a day or so, then come back and rework it into something better.

It’s ok if you’re not writing reams and reams each time you sit down to write something. Remember that even a sentence is an achievement, and you don’t have to produce a 50k word novel every time you sit down to write. Take care of yourself, and remember that being a writer isn’t always about creating the actual draft/document. Engage yourself in the world of your story, your characters, make moodboards and colour palettes, design outfits and find out what their favourite foods are. Don’t use that to procrastinate too long, but if you’re struggling with something, taking a new perspective on it can help.

And remember that writing is a craft. You don’t get to be Michelangelo with your first attempts. It takes hours and hours of methodically working on something, of being disciplined and firm with yourself, even if it’s just ‘for fun’. Each time you sit down is like a musician practising a study - you’re getting better each time and with each sentence you craft, so don’t get disheartened!

And enjoy it!

#writing advice

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ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 3 years

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The journal system doesn’t include every TLSQ you’ve missed I don’t think. I mean I’ve missed a few like the Jules one by accident but it still hasn’t shown up in the journal. Idk if quests only show up if you’ve missed them twice or if the journal is a replacement for the 2nd trigger though. Not sure if newer quests even have 2nd triggers yet tbh

No, you're absolutely right. In that previous post, I guess I was mainly talking about potential. What the Journal System could be if it was exploited to it's fullest effect. Like I love this game but the TLSQ system we have currently is a laughable mess. The Journal as it stands currently is a step in the right direction for sure, but it could be so much more, and it should be. Here's what I propose and I can only hope Jam City is reading this or at some point, finds this post: Eliminate the whole idea of TLSQs spawning abruptly, eliminate that altogether. Instead, have every TLSQ and I do mean every single one, recorded in the Journal - but obscured and hidden until the player reaches the point where they can unlock these "special episodes." And notify them when the special episodes are unlocked.

This way, there's no need to make weird changes to the TLSQ to fit Years that they were not written organically to take place in. There's no need to write Rowan out of quests that include them, for instance, and any quest that drops before Y6CH18 can. The player will know that the quest dropped earlier and it was their choice to delay and play it later. Obviously, there is still the question about what to do concerning the page system. I would say reduce the price of buying a TLSQ from the Journal - or eliminate it altogether, but since they've added a way to farm them daily, I suppose they aren't that difficult a commodity to come by. Still. I feel like TLSQs should be free to play once the player has unlocked them. The pages can be used to purchase something else (Like previously exclusive event outfits and furniture? I can dream.)

Jam City, this is how most other games that I've seen with a "special episode" system make it work. I'm not saying that what I've just proposed is a perfect rework of the current system but it would be better. I know it would take effort but it would be worth it to make the game that much better, as the TLSQs are arguably your main source of content. They are the meat and soul of HPHM's "sidequests." Let me ask you, how many people play Skyrim for the main story? Exactly. (Which is not to diss Skyrim's main story or HPHM's for that matter cause I enjoy both of them but the point still stands.)

#Jam City #Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

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honourablejester · 4 years

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On the subject of ‘mundane uses of magic’, I found an old character concept I had for an Arabian Nights style story after a dream I had about a city in a shield, a street thief and a junk vendor.

The basic idea was that the desert city-state had been taken over by a demon-summoning advisor (think King Solomon crossed with Jafar) who had promptly used the king, court and army to drive out every other magic-capable person in the city-state and then lock the city down under a shield and a tyrannical anti-magic inquisition so no one could pull the same trick back.

The character was an evolution of the junk vendor from the dream. ‘The Junkman’, as not-so-affectionately known, is secretly a fleeing court mage who got out before the shield came down and is hiding from pursuit from the city, and also from the other mages trying to mount a rebellion/re-taking and who are just going to get themselves messily killed or enslaved, so could they kindly fuck off before they get contagious about it?

Junkman’s particular magic is really really useful for this. His primary talent is imbuing magical properties into items that have been worked by human hands. The more worked the object, the more easily the magic infuses it. Cloth, metal, wood, wicker, you name it, it works. Anything that has been deliberately shaped and worked by people. So Junkman has a lot of craft skills, and is a junk vendor specifically to acquire objects that have been heavily worked and reworked over their lifespans. As well as being so lowly as to be beneath notice by pursuers, of course.

Particular applications of this magic include:

building protections into armour (which is primarily what he did for the court)

creating entertaining wonders from mundane objects (the other thing he did in court)

making a living space inside his wooden backpack (junk tardis!) and shrinking gateways to shrink and access said living space into the latches (portal rings!)

make brass rings containing the same idea as the latches and embed them into the city’s roads/walls, which if located correctly can make holes right through the city shield (guess why the rebellion really, really wants him, or would if anyone actually knew about this)

make a cloth wrap for his chest with an illusion on one side to look like nothing’s there, and a magically enlarged space on the other side to comfortably hold his breasts

… Yeah. Because ‘he’ wasn’t a court sorcerer, ‘he’ was a court sorceress. And anyone looking for a court sorceress is less likely to look at a male junk vendor. And ‘he’ may have had … personal reasons for immediately jumping to that as a disguise.

Namely, that she had always straddled the line a bit because she’d always had facial hair. What would be called a ‘bearded lady’ in other times and places. She’d been taught to shave pretty much as soon as she entered her teenage years (which had an interesting connection with foreigners because beards are actually favoured by men in her own country) or use other means to get rid of the hair and be respectable. Going on the run and needing a disguise allowed her to basically stop bothering about that, and embrace her beard a little bit, have some fun with it as much as her new lowered social status allowed. And her magic allowed her some relatively low-stress ways around the other aspects of the change/’disguise’.

Magical hammerspace for her breasts, for one, so she didn’t have to squash them. Just an illusion of a flat male chest on one side of the cloth, and a comfy magical bra on the other.

Magical hammerspace woven into another cloth for dealing with periods. Basically, she can bleed through a self-cleaning ‘gateway’ into a pocket-dimension woven into her undergarments and not even worry about it. Though it’s still a finite space, so washing said undergarments later can be a slightly traumatising event for onlookers, since abruptly floods of old blood can come out of it. (I was thinking a bit of the Bean Nighe from Scottish/Irish myth here, foretelling deaths for passing warriors by washing bloody cloths, and also just … it’d be really handy to just be able to make the blood go elsewhere, you know?). Also works as a diaper if you need it to, if you have kids, or are stuck on stake out, or in a prison cell … so on and so forth.

I’m not sure if she has a fake cock as well, either crafted or illusioned up, or if she just uses the old Monstrous Regiment sock trick and calls it good, since nobody’s ever going to be looking down there if she can help it. (Yes, I’m picturing her as mostly asexual, though at least some of it is situational paranoia). Though she probably would have a fake just in case.

I actually thought that might be how she winds up revealing herself to another mage trying to recruit her for the rebellion. The period thing, not the other thing. The other woman literally loses her rag, as in her period rag, while they’re forced to abruptly run, and Junkman has to offer up certain revelations in order to offer her a (magical) replacement in a semi-socially-appropriate way without getting fireballed in the face for interfering in things men should not interfere with. Heh.

So. Mundane uses of being able to magically work objects and make big spaces inside small mundane things: unlimited period supplies, and clothes that can be built to hide a whole multitude of interesting things?

#character concepts #mundane uses of magic #worldbuiling #possible tmi?#mythology #gender #practical concerns

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angel-deux-writes · 4 years

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Hi Angel! I've been a big fan of yours since HCM, and so I wanted to express my concern for your wellbeing. There was that big break when you took a month or so to finish HCM before posting it in quick succession, in order to not have to deal with the comments. Now, from what you've been writing in the notes to Dorne Rights, it looks like you are experiencing something similar. The selfish fan in me wants you to keep writing and keep posting, but the basic human in me is more worried that (1/2)

you are unhappy. Nothing is worth making yourself unhappy over, particularly not something that’s meant to give you pleasure. A favourite author of mine back in the days of my Spike/Angel obsession had a disclaimer on her stories telling readers to please not leave feedback of any kind, not even constructive criticism, on her fics because she finds them unhelpful. Her comment section was full of chats about various topics in that fandom, rather than her own fiction. Might help. (2/2)

Hello! I really appreciate this message, because you’re right: fanfic writing isn’t good for me.

(lol putting this beneath the cut because it’s way too long)

It’s actually my experience in this fandom that has made me realize that writing in general probably isn’t good for me, but unfortunately I feel a drive to it and can’t seem to stop myself from thinking I’ll one day get published, so that’s a bit of a downer. The truth is that I’m naturally disposed toward thinking that I’m shit, my words are shit, and every thought I’ve ever had is unoriginal and poorly written. It’s always been like that, from the time I wrote my first attempt at fiction at 7 years old to now at 31. It takes a lot for me to share my writing with people. I started writing fic at 14, basically as soon as I discovered that I wasn’t the only person composing stories about Han and Leia in their free time. I’m sure that my fics were horrendous. I give myself a hard time now, but 14 year old me probably deserved it even more. But there were sweet people on the internet who encouraged me (and lied to me) and told me that my stories were good, and that made a huge difference.

(that and my freshman year english teacher, who was very very cute and earnest and young and made me feel like I could actually be a writer.)

I’ve never been a part of a fandom before. Discourse and meta and long discussions about canon events have never interested me. I’ve said that before, and it remains true! I consume what canon there is, and sometimes I like it, and sometimes I hate it. Sometimes I’m so dissatisfied with it that I need to write something, and so I do. I don’t think I’ve ever written fic for something that I found entirely satisfactory. The extension of my being part of an actual fandom in the past was probably reblogging a few gifsets and recommending it to friends. I’ve just never had that sort of communal experience. This, the J/B fandom, was my first time really getting into it. It’s the first time I’ve ever made friends online that weren’t just frequent commenters on long multichapter fics! It has been exciting and I’m grateful for it! It’s just also probably not good for me.

It’s just, like, every time I post something, I’m fighting a very loud and very desperate voice in my head that’s saying “you’re shit and you shouldn’t bother”. It’s why I’m so good at writing first drafts of novels but so, so bad at getting past the second. It’s why I usually post fics only until I’ve worked out my frustrations: one or two fics per fandom and then ghosting away forever. It’s very hard to defy that voice and post something anyway, and this fandom experience has taught me that no matter HOW many stories I post, I’m ALWAYS going to have to fight that voice. And it’s gotten actively stronger. “You’re not what this fandom wants” “You’re not good at this” “Everyone’s just being nice” “You’ve overstayed your welcome”. Paying attention, often by accident, to the discourse and the metas only makes it worse, because my brain automatically turns to “well YOU don’t write them like that. That means you’re wrong”. I can tell myself as many times as I want that I myself like many different interpretations of J/B! My brain goes “yeah, but you’re just an idiot who doesn’t know any better. There’s a right way, and you’re not doing it”.

THIS IS ALL SO DRAMATIC! But it’s just the truth! Every time I post something, it’s against my nature. NO ONE outside of fandom reads my writing! I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve allowed my close friends and family to read things. So while it may seem like, idk, like I should just be able to get over it, negative comments, or even SLIGHTLY critical comments, really hit me hard. For all the positive feedback I get (and I really AM super grateful for it, and it means the world to me), those few critical voices seem louder because they’re agreeing with what I have already known about myself. And so it feels almost like a victory, but a shitty one. “Ha! I was right this whole time! I AM a shit writer, and I’ve for some reason tricked those other people into thinking I’m good!”

For a long time (much longer than I’ve ever written for any other fandom, obviously), I was able to shove it to the side. The J/B fandom HAS been super good to me, and they HAVE been wonderful about giving me feedback and making me feel welcome and included. But those negative voices are just SO LOUD to me, even though I know logically that they shouldn’t be.

It would be easy to point to a specific problem and say that my issues will be fixed if only I can address that. I do it CONSTANTLY. Maybe if I stopped tagging other relationships. Maybe if I stopped tagging other characters. Maybe if I tagged my works super specifically. Maybe if I made author’s notes about how I’m a shit writer and people shouldn’t expect things from me. Maybe if I just wrote “THIS STORY IS WRITTEN ALREADY AND IM JUST EDITING AS I GO! PLEASE DONT SUGGEST THINGS!” I just feel like, increasingly, I want fewer and fewer eyes on my fics. It’s the opposite of the problem I thought I would have. But my confidence took a huge hit with HCM, and then I was finally feeling good enough to post Dorne Rights. It was probably a mistake!

idk, maybe it’s just all the shit that’s going on in the world + in my personal life. Maybe it’s just time. Maybe I’m just running out of inspiration. But the positive voices aren’t loud enough to drown out my own negative self-voice this time, and so I’ve been trying to figure out how to handle it. Part of me wants to delete Dorne Rights with the intention of reworking it and maybe posting it again down the line with fewer tags and a lot more reminders that people can write their own stories if they don’t like mine. Part of me wants to just do a HCM and post it all at once so that I can leave the finished product up (even if I now think the entire thing is garbage). Part of me wants to stop writing fic entirely, at least until the next time I watch something with an ending so bad it fucks me up. I think my solution will probably be a massive step back from fandom for a little while. I’ve been feeling a drive to work on my original stuff, and I should probably lean into that. I would like to still write and post J/B, once I find the inspiration, but I’m tired of feeling like this is a job. I think I got so deeply sunk into this attitude of “I NEED to write and post constantly because these people want me to, and they actually like what I write!!” that I stopped writing things because I wanted to write them and started writing them because I wanted to write things for other people, to make other people happy, and so that they could tell me that I’m not a shit writer at all.

I should make it clear that I do intend to write my JB fic swap thing FOR SURE. I will drag that story out of myself no matter what. But in general it’s probably just healthier for me to not spend so much time On Here especially, and on fic in general.

#this got maudlin and it's way too dramatic but whatever #it's been a long time coming tbh #im sorry for turning your ask into this lmao #it was not my intention when i started to answer it #but then I just kept typing #ladywinterbottom

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crystalelemental · 4 years

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I know it's way too early for this kind of speculation, but what do you think FE17 will be? the Genealogy remake would be interesting, but that'd possibly damn FE18 into a Thracia remake, much like Shadow Dragon/New Mystery. unless they decide to make it into 1 game, which doesn't sound probable to me. maybe they'll make a new story, with less, uh, questionable morals to keep the new 3H fans interested into the franchise? will they keep the calendar, the instruction stuff, or go back to the laid back way of Awakening/Fates/Echoes? you don't have to give a long answer if you don't want, I'm just musing a bit here

“You don’t have to give a long answer,” as if that’s ever stopped me.

What do I think it will be? I have no idea. But given its popularity, they could be considering it like a Tellius situation, with a prequel game. I don't think they can go sequel (more on that in the other response), but prequel with Seiros as the focus, going from the Red Canyon Massacre to the end of the War of Heroes? Sign me up. I would love more on that. And I adore games that focus on side stories (Thracia, Blazing Blade), so I'm super on board for a fleshed-out side story about that period in Fodlan.

I can't say what they'd try to do with gameplay, but I do think they'd keep a sort of "home base" kinda thing at a minimum. The instruction aspect of Three Houses was very specific to that game, and truthfully, I don't know if it will maintain. Not to be how I am constantly, but I hope it doesn't. I really feel like the monastery exploration and having to fine-tune instruction for students was more tedious than anything, and ultimately didn't add much to the gameplay experience. I also feel like the calendar was kind of a bad call too. A lot of events, as they're laid out, feel like they should be happening back to back. But because of the calendar focus, you have situations where it implies you traveled far off to engage in a big battle, but then just walked back to the monastery for a whole month before marching out the same direction. I don't think it blends events together all that nicely. Frankly I think Fates' decision to have a pocket dimension where you can take care of your bullshit was a better way to hand-waive the question of how you're able to backpedal and stock up in the midst of a campaign.

That said, any non-remake game, and possibly even the remake game, will take inspiration from Three Houses in the same way Fates and Echoes did from Awakening. The massive success of Three Houses is guaranteed to be an anomaly to them. They still don't know why Awakening worked, I doubt they'll know why this one worked. So I anticipate a lot of character tropes and storytelling angles will be reused in future games. They'll try to mess with perspective and the idea of hidden history muddying the morality of things for sure. I don't think there's any benefit for them to go back to more clear-cut morality. Even if there's a lot of fan argument about it (Edelgard and Dimitri fans), that's never a bad thing. That's still attention being drawn to your game. That's still discussion around it. No press is bad press, and this game is still more popular than the rest of the series ever had been. So they'll keep characters like Lysithea, and Bernadetta, and have that attempt at a complex plot, and a bunch of mysteries that never get answered, and oh god every MU is going to be like Byleth now oh god oh fuck.

But personally, I want the next game to be a Genealogy remake. I have issues with Genealogy as a whole, both gameplay and story-wise, and a remake could salvage at least some of that. Support conversations definitely could, and a changing of certain story elements would be nice, although Fallen Julia's already in FEH so like...there goes my greatest hope.

That said, I don't really want them to do too much? Like, Echoes added a few characters, and while those are some of the best in the game, a lot of that I feel like was to add any sort of significance to Alm's journey beyond the end goal. Alm's route would be boring as all hell without Berkut, so his inclusion was a massive benefit to the game. But I can't think of a situation where my qualms with Genealogy is "This just isn't engaging enough, we don't have enough people." Genealogy almost has too many characters. If anything their bigger problem is that characters and themes they set up are never utilized. So it's more about reworking the narrative a bit rather than needing to include things to make a blander game stand out, you know?

I definitely don't think they'd combine Genealogy and Thracia. I mean they could, but I don't think it's a good idea. Genealogy, again, has too many characters already. Combining the games leads to the question of where the hell Leif's army is, and that's adding like 50 characters to the roster. Since you deploy every unit you have in Genealogy, that's...way too much. They'd have to completely rebalance the game. Not to mention Thracia doesn't play at all like Genealogy, and is way too long to be a brief side-story or DLC exclusive. There's just no effective way to integrate the two. I think it would be better to just make the game after that the Thracia remake, which...honestly is the best possible outcome as far as I'm concerned.

Binding Blade may not have come to the west, but people know Roy, and this series started over here with Blazing Blade. We know a lot of Binding Blade information, by virtue of dedicated fans being upset the logical continuation of their starting point never got translated. Comparatively, Genealogy and Thracia are pretty damn isolated, and it shows in their CYL placements. They're not well known games at all, and gameplay-wise, they're really awkward and (in my humble opinion), not actually fun to play at all. A remake is ideal for those games, because it gives them a chance to gain more attention and popularity in the general public's eyes. Which is good! Genealogy does have a worthwhile story to tell despite my gripes about its problems, and I honest to god thing Thracia's one of the best stories in the series, with one of the best protagonists in the series. These games deserve more recognition than they get, and they're not gonna get it until they get remade to be more accessible.

It also dawns on me that the "less questionable morals" may have been about Genealogy's whole incest thing. Listen, I get it, but they can't take it out. I don't say this lightly, but that is like...the central point of Genealogy. The awakening of Loptous is a matter of converging its bloodline, which had only one surviving member. You really cannot work around this one, without making things either too confusing or too stupid. If they really felt the need for that, they might back off of the remake entirely, which would be to their detriment. But considering the Byleth/Rhea situation, I don't think they'll have much trouble. And besides, it's pretty clear that an act of incest was the catalyst for almost destroying the continent, so I think it's safe to say the game doesn't agree with the practice.

#zeldafanmaria #fire emblem

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