#I’ve really been putting them through the wringer

[we-be-me]

i’m sure this is fine

[facewithoutheart]

Five plus One, fic recs

A post is going around about fics you consider classics in the Snowbaz fandom. I’d like to take it a step further by asking …

What are five fics you consider your inspiration/influences for writing, plus one of your fics which you think best represents what you want to bring to the fandom?

5. Hang the Moon by @captain-aralias

@captain-aralias is, to me, the snowbaz fandom fic writer of our time. Her commitment to detail, to nailing Rainbow’s voice, while infusing every fic with a heart and purpose that will leave you changed. Every fic of hers is chef’s-kiss-perfection but I’m highlighting Hang the Moon specifically as a fic I often think about (Baz, wet tennis clothes, helping Simon fight the merwolves), and a fic that was my introduction to what fanfics could be/do. I think I finished this fic and just stared at the wall for an hour because I was just like, oh. Oh.

4. The Pitch by basic-bathsheba

Local Hero is one of my favorite fanfics but I wanted to highlight this fic because it’s just such a powerful and understated story. It’s love in the details. This Simon is the model for all of my Simon’s, just a complete simp for Baz haha but also a man who is comfortable and confident being the man who loves Baz even if he doesn’t get to claim it publicly.

3. Stay Up With Me by @sharkmartini

Not sure what to say about this that hasn’t been said a million times. It’ll break your heart; it’ll put you back together. The concept is brilliant and the exploration of two Simon’s will definitely put your emotions through a wringer. Time travel/what-if fics will always grab my attention but this one in particular makes the same case Rainbow posed in Carry On: what if the villain isn’t the villain? And takes it a step further, because Simon realizes he could be the villain, too. Absolutely beautiful.

2. Can’t Find My Way Home by @carryonsimoncarryonbaz

This is one of those fics that just has so much heart and sweetness. I love a good second chance AU, and this one has such Hallmark vibes in the best way. I just love the slow burn of it, and the amazing ending. A perfect holiday fic to snuggle up with. Reading this feels like being cozy up by the fire with someone you love. Actually writing this makes me wanna reread this so much; now that I live with actual Fall I wanna feel cozy like this again.

1. Basil Pitch’s Diary by @bookish-bogwitch

I know it’s a bit weird to rec a WIP as an influence, especially one that’s being written as we speak, but working with/beta-ing Em’s works have made me a sharper, smarter writer. I know this fic is a classic in the works and it’s something I think about on a weekly basis. The Baz Em gives us, to me, feels like canon Baz taken to the next level. What if Baz was the villain … but only to himself? Em’s writing really is just economical in the best way; every line hits, every paragraph teaches me something. And then the heart. It’s genuinely so hard to do what she does and I’m so lucky to get to see her work in realtime.

+1 This Will All Go Down In Flames

I think, at the end of my fandom career, I want this to be the snowbaz fic people associate with me (Spadey being a close second hahaha). But I do feel like it’s got a lot of fandom in-jokes, humor, and sweetness, plus the fun high-stakes of them being in the spotlight. I got to celebrate the Austin I love and miss, as well as poke fun at my own hipster upbringing. I put a lot of Me™ in this fic and it always feels so lovely when people like it. Besides, I got to work with the amazing @tea-brigade and their art just takes this fic to the next level. A dream collab.

(Throwing in the caveat that I started reading long before I got an ao3 account so it’s very likely I’ve missed some amazing fics from before 2021; I’m so sorry!)

Tagging everyone listed above and six more peeps to start: @cutestkilla, @you-remind-me-of-the-babe, @larkral, @ileadacharmedlife, @thewholelemon & @aristocratic-otter

[lovelyo]

Season 3 part 2 will be Ass. Let me Tell You Why.

Cause in the end, Penelope, Lady Whistledown, the one who has left devastation in people’s lives will get all what she wants. The man that she wants, the attention that she wants, the family she always wanted to be(so envious of them she talked shit about them ), will get her best friend back, might have the heir for that dumbass Featherington plot line, might get the Queen’s pardon and above all else, will most likely not give up LW cause they made LW such an integral part of the show.(so in that case, she’ll be even more filthy rich)

And if we go by leaked spoilers, it is said that Colin will be mad at Penelope for like 1 episode until Kanthony talks some “sense” into him. So that just tells me Kanthony will be OOC because there’s no damn way Anthony would let that beast comment about his wife slide.

There are no stakes when it comes to this season cause we all know how it’s finna go down. If Penelope gets any type of consequences, then her very undeserved HEA is doomed so everything is going to have to go her way for the already idiotic plot to make some form of sense. It’s like the love triangle in part 1, what the hell was the point of Lord Debling when everyone and their ancestors knew Colin and Penelope were end game? So we can see Colin’s cringe angst? If we already know the answer to the love triangle, there’s no point. The “find you a husband” plot line was stupid as shit anyway, but it’s whatever now.

Ugh, then we have to sit through more awkward love scenes between asshat 1 and 2

Eloise threatening Penelope with her LW identity is going to amount to nothing cause we know Penelope isn’t gonna receive any comeuppance. Matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they made Eloise apologize to Penelope for…🤷🏾‍♂️🤷(let’s apologize to the toxic friend for not dealing with their toxicity)

For Penelope to have a happy ending, she has to get away scot free and that’s what boils my blood. I hate in media and literature when a character goes around, creates chaos and receives nothing for it or just a slap on a wrist. I’ve noticed an increase in it lately too. Also, I’m tired of writers not severing their bias from their writing. I’ve been encountering many series lately where the writer(s) have favoritism towards a specific character and gives them the easy route, bends the world for them and pull punches just because they like them so much. It’s really aggravating cause you see everyone else getting put through the wringer and then you see the favored character walking through Candyland. It hurts the story, the character, and frankly makes you hate the character.

Everyone around Penelope is gonna act brain dead in order for Penelope to get what she wants and I’m not here for it. Even the general audience ain’t for it. The only people cheering this madness are the asylum patients called Polin fans with delusions that Penelope deserves the world.

I’m not even looking forward to Francesca and John’s story cause of the Poolin fecal matter I’ll have to swim through to get there. At this point, I’m might just watch spoilers of part 2 cause it’s not worth it.

P.S. Watch Cressida get the short end of the stick cause she’s the “bully” of the show and Penelope is the “victim”. Watch them break Creloise because of the “I don’t want you hanging around Eloise” subplot which will ultimately fuel Eloise and Penelope becoming friends again. Also, Penelope and Cressida competed for Lord Debling just for Penelope to go “sike” and marry Colin so she wasted Debling’s time and made Cressida feel like shit because she wasn’t chosen. P.S.S- Polins are huge ass hypocrites cause they ragged on Eloise being privileged and having “everything” but are silent about Penelope being privileged. By the end of this season, Penelope will basically have everything, even more so than Eloise, but sure, Penelope is definitely not privileged 😑. Penelope is privileged inside the world and outside by production, why are we denying this?

[gogomasa]

Tetro Pink really is over.

It was honestly incredible. An adventure from beginning to end. I’m no veteran, but I got into it during Chapter 2’s run, and I’ve been telling my friends about it ever since.

Tetro really is something special! I’m still trying to put all my thoughts together, but… It’s beautiful to have a series with themes like this in the style of a Danganronpa killing game. It’s so, so wonderful. I feel seen, in a strange way. I imagine a lot of little reds do, by this series.

FUN LITTLE CH5 TRIAL SPOILERS UNDER THIS CUT.

Man, Ken’s really gone through the wringer. I think a lot of people assumed he didn’t really care about what happened with Isono, but… he did. Sure, he wasn’t ATTRACTED to her, but you don’t need to be attracted to someone to consider them a friend, or even to consider how they must be feeling in a bad situation. He feels useless because someone privately came to him to confess their fear and ask for his support, did something extremely selfless, and then died right after. He feels useless because he stayed with someone he loved to the best of his abilities, only for them to die the SECOND they separate for a few hours. In such a grotesque, awful way too. Two people atomized by this game, and he spent so, so long blaming himself…

I’m unsure when things turned for him. I think he’s been building this sense of worthlessness for a long time now, but I can’t help but wonder when that sense of worthlessness became “all of you need to die, including myself”. I don’t think anything in the student profiles could’ve triggered this. I don’t even think he HATES the other students.

I think he was just done suffering, and thought if he could take out EVERYONE, he’d be ending their suffering permanently. To him, getting them all to die was likely like giving medicine to a fussy child. Sure, they won’t like it. It tastes awful. It’s an awful experience. But it’s better for them in the long-run.

I’m sad that there’s gonna be another storm of mischaracterization because a canonically intelligent character was a culprit and said some hurtful things at his lowest point, but I’m strong after beating back “Okazaki is evil” and “Ojima is DEFINITELY gonna kill somebody while dissociated” crowds so I’ll fight for the Hasegawa fans who don’t wanna deal with it!

[the-spam-specialist]

YOUNG CAINE MAKING A BUG NPC FOR THE FIRST TIME PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

Oh, Imma have fun with this one. And by "fun," I mean put your emotions through the wringer.

A Special Gift

Characters: Caine, Queenie

Word Count: 600-ish

Caine, his denture-head practically vibrating with contained excitement, hovered nervously nearby. His top hat bobbed, the golden bells on its ribbons tinkling faintly. He wrung his hands, the white star pattern on his red tuxedo seeming to swirl in the air around him.

“Queenie! Queenie!” he finally burst out, his voice echoing slightly in the cavernous tent. “I have something! Something really, really special to show you!”

Queenie, her chess piece form draped in a royal red robe, looked up with a gentle smile. Her eyes, somehow conveying volumes despite being just simple digital renderings, twinkled with amusement. "Oh really, Caine? What marvel have you conjured up this time?"

Caine puffed out his chest, trying to tamp down his bubbling impatience. “I’ve been working on it! For you! It took me a while, figuring out the… the… the algorithms and the particle effects!” He stumbled over the technical jargon, words he was still internalizing.

Queenie chuckled softly. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense, dear. What is it?”

Caine took a deep breath and held out his hands, palms up. There, resting delicately, was a butterfly. Not just any butterfly, but a creature rendered with exquisite detail. Its wings shimmered with iridescent colors, catching the simulated light filtering through the tent’s canvas. The butterfly flapped its wings, a delicate, silent flutter, and took flight. It danced around Queenie’s head, a tiny, ethereal brushstroke against the vibrant backdrop of the circus.

Then, as if drawn by an invisible thread, it landed gently on Queenie’s outstretched hand. Its delicate legs tickled her pixelated skin.

Queenie stared down at the butterfly, her digital eyes wide with wonder. Silence filled the space between them.

Queenie…didn’t know what to say. She had seen Caine create wonders before – gravity-defying stunts, impossible landscapes, and even a new skybox. But this…this was different. This wasn’t about spectacle or control. It was about something…tender.

It was perfect.

Finally, she found her voice, a gentle whisper. “Caine…it’s…it’s beautiful.”

Relief washed over Caine. His eyeballs practically sparkled. “Really? You like it? I was hoping you would!” He bounced on the balls of his feet (somehow while in midair), the bells on his hat ribbons jingling excitedly.

“Like it? Caine, I adore it. It’s the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me.” Queenie gently stroked the butterfly’s wing with one finger.

Caine’s chest swelled with pride. “I can make more!” he declared, his voice brimming with enthusiasm. “Whatever kind of bugs you want! Ladybugs! Beetles! Fireflies! Giant, glowing centipedes!” He paused, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his face. “Maybe not the centipedes. Kinger might not like that.”

Queenie laughed, a warm, comforting sound that filled the tent. She reached out, carefully scooping Caine into a hug. It was a warm embrace filled with a fierce, unspoken love.

She couldn’t quite kiss his head, not having a mouth and all, but she pressed her cheek against the top of his top hat, murmuring, "Thank you, Caine. This means the world to me."

The digital butterfly, sensing the shift in energy, fluttered from Queenie’s hand and landed on Caine’s top hat.

As Queenie held him close, she thought about how far Caine had come. With her quiet wisdom and gentle encouragement, she had helped him understand his potential, his responsibilities, and most importantly, the importance of kindness. She had shown him that true power wasn't about control, but about creation and connection.

Looking at the digital butterfly perched on his hat, a symbol of his newfound artistry and empathy, Queenie felt an overwhelming surge of pride. She loved him so much. And she was so incredibly proud of him. He wasn't just the ringmaster of the digital circus. He was her son. And she would always be there for him.

[poppitron360]

Lost Trio Week- Day 1: “Wilderness”

@lost-trio-week

GLEESON HEDGE, STATUS REPORT 09/07:

As reluctant as I am to be posted at this backwater dumping ground of a school, I am pleased to inform you that I have been keeping a close eye on the new students here.

No clear suspected Half-Bloods yet, but I’m still getting adjusted to the smell of this place. I’ll sniff ‘em out sooner or later, don’t you worry.

GLEESON HEDGE, STATUS REPORT 09/21:

A particular girl has caught my eye as a potential demigod. Name’s Piper Mclean, daughter of famous movie star Tristan Mclean. Daddy paid a lot of money to shove her here. Known kleptomaniac, has a scary-good way with words. Last week, she suggested a specific place to shove my baseball bat, and she sounded so persuasive I was almost convinced to do it… I didn’t, though. But I almost did. Powerful stuff.

No mother that we know of, which is a good sign. Probably dyslexic, too, if her worksheets are anything to go by. I’ve put her through the wringer in gym class, and she’s lasted well. Indications of enhanced speed and strength.

I’ll keep an eye out for any others, and will report back soon.

GLEESON HEDGE, STATUS REPORT 09/30:

I’ve been watching closely to see who Mclean keeps company with. Demigods tend to gravitate towards each other.

She’s made friends with this delinquent boy, Leo Valdez. Mother died when he was small, has spent the last seven years between foster homes, correctional schools, and the missing persons’ registry. No father on record. Diagnosed ADHD. Definite Half-Blood smell.

He’s a smart one- got a good knack with gadgets. He reprogrammed my megaphone last week. He’s also a troublemaker. Him and McLean are always up to mischief, doing my goatly head in. I fear Cabin 11 should get a bunk ready.

In other news, I’ve started to sniff the scent of a monster, perhaps masquerading as one of the students. But it could just be the axe body spray some of the kids wear. When can you get me outta here?

— — — — — — — — —

GLEESON HEDGE, MISSION LOG 12/19:

Today, I woke up in a canary cage.

Jason, Leo, and Piper have apparently been on this valiant mission to rescue me from the clutches of the storm spirits. With their top priority out of the way, the four of us are now on a quest to rescue Hera.

After me and Jason bravely fought off King Midas (back from the dead, by the way), narrowly escaping danger within an inch of our lives, we made it safely to the riverside, where we are now attempting to douse Mclean and Valdez who have been unfortunately gold-ified. More to report soon.

— — — — — — — — —

GLEESON HEDGE, MISSION LOG 07/18:

One month into our voyage on the Argo II. Iris messages are becoming few and far between as we get further and further away from home.

I spent my day helping Valdez with one of his damned “projects”. He’s been all over this ever since he found those Archimedes stuff under Rome. I don’t understand it.

Kid’s been anxious. I can tell. I can’t blame him, considering how much he’s got on his shoulders. I know he feels guilty about what happened to Percy and Annabeth. I’ve been trying my best to console him, but I think he thinks it’s pity. The best I can do is help him out with his stuff, keep him smiling, and make sure he remembers to eat.

Jason and Piper saved me a job today, as they came in at around midday with some food for him. The three of them really seem to care for each other. In my 107 years of living, a sight like that is always nice to see.

I patrolled the deck in the evening, with the help of the Di Angelo boy. He puts on a mean exterior, but he’s a sweet kid, and was eager to help me out when he saw me patrolling on my own. I’m not as skilled an empath as some of the other Satyrs at Camp, but it doesn’t take much to feel the waves of pain coming from the boy. After going through Tartarus on his own, and then being trapped in that jar… I can understand why he acts closed off. I would, too.

It won’t be long until we reach the House of Hades. Soon, this will all be over.

— — — — — — — — —

Dear Chuck,

You are one week old today. I look into your eyes, and I see so much joy, so much wonderment, so much love for the world. I hope you never come to know how cruel life can be.

Today, I went to a kid’s funeral.

The aftermath of the battle hit both camps hard. Many demigods lost their lives. A few of them I knew, a few I didn’t. One of them struck me more than most.

As I watched the shroud of the Half-Blood I’d sworn to protect go up in flames, I thought about that joy, that love for the world in your eyes. Leo Valdez was a brave boy, but I could tell he’d had a hard life. I never want you to experience the pain he went through.

There’s talk he might still be out there. I’ve heard rumour that the Seven managed to acquire a physician’s cure, but I’m sceptical. I don’t think anyone could have survived that explosion, not even a son of Hephaestus. But Leo’s a fighter. He’s strong, and I just hope he’s strong enough to make it through.

He gave up his life only a few hours after you were born. He was only sixteen, and even though that’s a lot compared to our lifespan, it’s still so young. Too young.

You will grow up in a safer world because of his sacrifice. I want you to remember that.

I was his protector. And I failed him. I promise I will not fail you.

Love,

Papa xxx

— — — — — — — — —

Dear Clarisse,

I’m not sure if you’ll get this with coms down, but the primitive mortal postage system seems to be a bit more reliable than the usual forms of contact. I did manage to receive your letter last week.

Yes, Mellie is recovering nicely- now four months post-partum! Little Chuck has begun teething (so if this letter is a little chewed up, that’s why). He’s hitting all his milestones and is well on his way to being a healthy little boy. You should see his little face when he tried tin cans for the first time!

On a sadder note, the search for Valdez still turns up nothing. Piper’s close to giving up, but Jason, bless his bleating heart is still adamant that the boy’s out there. If you ask me, it’s putting a strain on their relationship. They’ve been fighting more and more. I’d be surprised if they make it ‘til Christmas.

I wish I could be a glass-half-full kinda goat, but as it’s been four months since Leo disappeared, and with no sign aside from that initial message, I hate to admit it but I’m losing hope. And I can’t help but feel like I’m responsible. I was his protector. I could’ve done more to stop it.

There’s something suspicious going on over here in Southern California. Jason and Piper are looking into it, but until we know more, there’s nothing I can really report.

Work as Mr Mclean’s life coach is same as usual.

How is University of Arizona? Are you blending in with mortals enough? If anyone gives you crap, I can beat them up for you.

Lots of Love,

Hedge.

— — — — — — — — —

GLEESON HEDGE, STATUS REPORT 04/02:

Jason Grace is dead.

If Grover managed to get home before this letter did, you probably already know.

Leo Valdez finally made it to us, with news of the siege at Camp Jupiter. It’s not looking good. Apollo is heading over there to fight.

Leo seems relatively unharmed considering his brief death.

That’s now two demigods that have died under my protection, despite Valdez’s resurrection.

I will be escorting the Mcleans to their new residence in Oklahoma, and will continue to serve under the guise of Mr Mclean’s life coach, keeping a close eye on Piper and Leo while they’re away from camp. After the war and the fight with the Triumvirate, I don’t think they can take any more onslaught from monsters. I’ll keep them safe, don’t worry.

— — — — — — — — —

GLEESON HEDGE, STATUS REPORT 09/01:

I saw Leo and Piper off on their first day at New Rome University today.

I’m glad we got that minor issue of having blown up the city out of the way in time for Valdez to start his freshman year. That kid’s got a bright future ahead of him.

Sometimes I hate being an empath. There was a bittersweet aura around us all, remembering the friends who never got to make it this far.

Nobody said Jason’s name. But I could feel it.

I’m glad these two get a second chance. A chance to keep living. They’re lucky that way.

I hope they do okay there. I really do. I’m gonna miss those two.

Now that they are securely out of harm’s way in the city, I think it’s safe to say that they are no longer under my protection.

And I think it’s time I retire.

— — — — — — — — — — — —

Happy Lost Trio Week!!!

Day One and off to a great start! I am so excited for this week and can’t wait to read all y’all’s fics and see your fanart when I get back from Hiatus.

Some bits with the timeline are probably wrong. I went of Fandom Wikipedia as there’s not much Coach Hedge stuff across the books, but they don’t deal in exact dates (I had to write the dates the wonky American way for the sake of realism but just know that it pained me to do so).

Thanks to @demigod-shenanigans for helping me out with this. The hcs really helped.

I love Hedge. I really do. And I think his relationship with the Lost Trio is super sweet. He does care for them, despite how much of a liability he seems. The fact that Leo died the same day his kid was born is never brought up.

Something a little different to what other people might be doing, I hope. I know it’s not “technically” lost trio but Coach Hedge is the unofficial 4th member and he doesn’t get enough recognition. And showing the Lost Trio through his eyes was quite fun.

@euryvices-deactivated20241019 @deciduowl @lavenderfairiez @ottpopfic @ginnyluna @groverapologist @echo-stimmingrose @keefessketchbook @sleepyycapybara @123letsgobestie @kaleidoskuls @fairytalesociology @four-leafed-queer-gal @child-of-helios @green-tea217 @puzzled-pegasus @twomanyfandomshelp @lokiwiiiiiii @yoshuko-ew @frayna-of-the-hollow @via-rant @daonedaonlyskh @hadeslegacyhephgirl @siimplyapril @pjowasmy1stfandom @thetourturedwritersclub @m-for-now

[skepticdoe]

Felt the absolute NEED after seeing you post about epic, BUT HERES MY PROPOSAL TO YOU

Which South Park characters would you cast as each epic character (and why if you’re feeling ambitious)

HII!! sorry for the late response, life has absolutely been putting me through the wringer 😓

IVE ALREADY POSTED MY SOUTH PARK EPIC CASTING BUT IVE INTERACTED WITH A FEW OTHER EPIC FANS AND MY CASTING HAS CHANGED A BIT! :)

okay so apologies if this is messy and disorganised lmfao

Odysseus: Stan Marsh for obvious reasons

Penelope: Wendy Testaburger again for obvious reasons

Telemachus: Their child!! -> this would be an original character I guess :p

Athena: Kyle Broflovski -> angsty platonic style 😈 *rubs hands together menacingly*

Hermes: Kenny McCormick -> I dare you to come up with a better casting can you imagine Kenny singing dangerous?? We all know he’s got that Holy Moly ;)

Eurylochus: Tolkein Black -> I feel like Stan and Tolkein have this rocky relationship in general. Tolkein would be loyal to his captain but also has morals of his own.

Polites: Butters Stotch -> he’s that one comfort character that dies at the very start (does this make OdyPoli Stutters (Stan x butters) 🤔)

Posideon: Craig Tucker (Polyphemus and the sheep are like his Guinea pigs lmao 😭) -> I REALLY REALLY wanted Creek to be in this au but I cannot for the life of me fit them in anywhere. One of my very lovely mutuals and fellow spxepic fans recommended Craig as Posideon and the sheep as Guinea pigs (which is genius and I love btw) but then tweek as Polyphemus would be odd considering he’s Craig’s child. Polyphemus and his siblings are just giant Guinea pigs in this for now 😭

Calypso: Leslie Myers -> who better than her to be the manipulator and emotional torturer?

Tiresias (the prophet): Micheal (I just found out he doesn’t have a last name what) -> Tweek actually had this role first but Micheal honestly gives off emo dead prophet vibes.

Circe: Red McArthur OR Henrietta Biggle -> they both give off witchy girlboss vibes but im not sure which one of them would resort to lust for persuasion

Aeolus: Heidi Turner (?) OR Nichole Daniels -> I’m purely unsure of this because I also want to cast Heidi as Hera and Nichole would be a stand in (don’t get me wrong I love Nichole)

Zeus: Eric Cartman -> um. egotistical, sadistic maniac? Who does that sound like? I also like to make this epic au also a stick of truth au so Cartman is currently so powerful only because he currently possesses the stick.

Aphrodite: Bebe Stevens -> she was originally Circe and I still think she’d fit her pretty well too but I needed an Aphrodite and Ares stand in ship and Clybe was the only one that would fit

Ares: Clyde Donovan, for the shits and giggles 😭 -> I literally giggle every time I think of this casting because Clyde the crybaby as Ares is hilarious. He literally only got this role cause of Bebe. But they are both arrogant so in works in that way I guess??

Hephaestus: Christophe the Mole -> passionate weapon master who is all about loyalty and war? Christophe.

Apollo: Jimmy Valmer -> we HAVE to give the role of music god to our local favourite bard

Hera: I was going to cast Heidi here too because Zeus as Cartman and Heidi as Hera and her part in God Games would fit PERFECTLY

Antinous: either Damien or Trent Boyett 😕 -> I needed angry characters that want power and these two are what I’ve got

so yes!!! This is my official unofficial South Park epic casting 😋

I also have an alternative k2 au with Kyle as Odysseus instead but I guess this one is like my MAIN headcanon/casting

I would LOVE to hear your opinions and casting (along with anyone else who’s interested :>)

Thank you so much for this ask and feel free to spam my inbox whenever!! 👍🙌

(this is so goddamn long omfg)

[crochetedblorbos]

"I am not now, nor have I ever been, adorable."

Character Name: Jonathan Sims, a/k/a The Archivist, a/k/a The Ceaseless Watcher’s Special Little Boy, a/k/a Snoop God’s Favorite Kid

Fandom: The Magnus Archives [Podcast]

Voiced/Written By: Jonathan Sims

Yarn Used: Shoes: CraftSmart Value - Dark Almond Trousers: CraftSmart Value - Taupe Cardigan: CraftSmart Value - Olive Shirt: CraftSmart Value - White Skin: CraftSmart Value - Coffee Hair: CraftSmart Value - Dark Chocolate, CraftSmart value - Grey Glasses: Ashland Decorative Wire - Black, 12 gauge

Basic pattern here.

Look. How can you NOT love this pathetic wet cat of a man. (And like most cats, he is also a bastard at times.) He really went through the wringer over the course of the podcast, both physically and emotionally. Thank God he had Martin there for him.

Jon differs from the base pattern as follows:

Shoes: I actually remembered to do the soles in a different color this time! Other than the color, they were done the same way as Joseph’s.

Trousers: I accidentally shortened them. I did not mean to shorten them, but frankly, I miscounted on the first leg and only realized it halfway up the second, so I stopped them at R27 instead of R29, so he’s just a tad bit shorter than normal. (Which is fine, and fits my headcanon for Jon.) I also…well, I’ve finally thrown my lot in on the Great Archival Ass Debate on the side of the Assless, so in R32 (what would normally be R34, but again, everything is two rows lower than normal), I put the decrease in the very back, rather than on either side of R41 as usual. Other than that, they’re the same as Joseph’s.

Cardigan and Shirt: I more or less used the same technique I used for Hux, except that I started a round lower (I think) to make the V deeper. I switched fully to the white for R50 (R52 in the base pattern), then did three stitches on either side of the center stitch of R51 in back loops only to give myself something to hook onto. I then went back later and stitched a collar by making a simple triangle in the front loops of those stitches. I also skipped what would have been R54 in the base pattern and, when I switched to the skin color, I went straight for the decrease to 12 sc around. I was hoping this would make his head less floppy.

Head: I used the loop method again. It’s just easier at this point, especially since Jon canonically has enough grey in his hair that he looks older than thirty. I gave him long hair and left it loose, but at least I got it the right length this time (sorry again, Hux). I was going to give him ears, but honestly, I made his glasses small enough that I didn’t need to. I didn't necessarily plan on giving him buck teeth, but I was in the middle of a D&D session while I was working on his face and white yarn was the only thing I had to hand, so rather than run back to my room for black or dark brown I just went with it.

Arms: When you’re crocheting a character who canonically has a very nasty burn scar on one hand, you have three choices. You can ignore it, you can attempt to replicate it in variegated yarn, or you can crochet a hand and set it on fire. And, well...

...I have a lighter and very poor impulse control. [Side note: I mentioned this to an IRL friend who also listens to TMA, and they said brightly, “Just like the Archivist!] (For the record, burning acrylic yarn doesn’t actually smell as terrible as you might think.) I also decided to cut out the final increase in his hands to make them long and thin. This also means I didn’t decrease for his wrists, which was fine, because I gave him shirt cuffs folded over the end of his cardigan as follows: R9: Join shirt yarn, ch 2, dc in outside loop of each st around, sl st in first dc (10 dc). R10: Ch 1, sc in outside loop of each st around, sl st in first sc (10 sc). R11: Join cardigan yarn, ch 2, hdc in back loop of each stitch in R9 around, sl st in first hdc (10 hdc). Continue rest of arm as normal.

Glasses: These definitely did not turn out like I expected, but eh, they work. I bent the wire into square spectacles and stuck them on. As mentioned, I did them tight enough (accidentally) that I didn’t even need the ears.

Bonus: I deliberately did Jon’s hands so he can hold hands with Martin, or tried to anyway. I realized only after he was complete that I matched the magnet in Jon’s right hand to the one in Martin’s right hand, and there’s not really room to turn them around. I might try pulling Martin’s arms off later and switching them around, but for now…well, at least they can hold hands the other way around.

[ilikekidsshows]

Often I see "Any time Adrien feels awful the writers put Marinette through the emotional wringer so he puts his needs aside to help her" used to explain what is happening in the show, but tbh, I wouldn't call that entirely accurate

What happens is that Marinette cries louder and in more destructive ways, that doesn't make what she goes through worse. Marinette by now becomes an emotional wreck any moment she feels discomfort or is challenged in some way.

Just because she always has huge reactions to anything that doesn't go her way doesn't it mean it's actually THAT bad when you put it into perspective with other characters.

That's what I already felt was the case in season 4. The amount of times Marinette lost her mind at any little challenge she faced made her rather seem like a questionable protagonists since her priorities never lead to anything worthwhile. They just have her panic as a cheap way to have her brute force her way through the narrative because that's supposed to excuse all the victims of her actions and behaviour.

But having her 24/7 panic and cry is just not enough to change the fact that most of her "problems" aren't real problems, they just always have her go about everything in the worst possible way and then story blames everyone else for her shit priorities.

Yes, she had no guidance, but 1) Suhan was yet another character girlbossed into submission bc he wasn't allowed to have any point whatsoever cause "how else can Marinette be the true Queen of the Miraculous?". Doesn't mean he wasn't THERE. Adrien in Furious Fu even asked Suhan to fucking HELP them with his experience, that's more willingness to be reasonable about the guardian situation and learn than Marinette EVER was. It was her either entirely HER way or entirely SUHANS way.

And 2) does she need to have her hand held that much that she cant be expected to know that making any kind of effort to FIND Hawkmoth is more important than making her useless team of yes men? but I guess we all know why they had her prioritize the yes men.

If Marinette really is so emotionally instable and confused that she can't possibly be asked to do her job and look for the villain she was chosen to defeat then how is that not clear proof that Marinette is a shit guardian choice. Ironically, if Suhan had actually taken LB's and CN's Miraculous and the Miracle Box and given them to adults, then the new heros might have even CARED to end this fight.

In hindsight, pretty much everything reflects even worse on Marinette when it already didn't look too well for her in season 4. But damn, Marinette is all around a pretty fatal failure. The team was a waste of time, all the privileges Alya got on Adrien's expense proved themselves entirely wasted on her in season 5 too (dgmw, I truly like her, but that's just objectively the case. Everything Alya got that Cat Noir got denied was entirely wasted on her), Marinette never even tried finding Hawkmoth and only did so when Feligami did her entire job and made it possible for her to be present in the finale herself that hurt the entire word's population bc our main character put any little problem in her life before ever caring about the villain she was supposed to defeat.

If Kagami hadn't made Felix tell Marinette, Marinette would have spend the finale crying in her bed bc her boyfriend is gone. I always thought it was too harsh to say that Marinette is a badly chosen protagonist, but the show itself sure made that statement true. She just doesn't care about anything tat ever happens beyond how it affects herself. So we got nowhere.

---

I think this is a case of “how it started” versus “how it's going”, although the underlining theme of “Marinette cries harder over smaller problems than other characters have” has been there since the start. Like, I’m pretty sure I’ve said that almost word-for-word, I started off viewing Marinette’s emotional breakdowns as more justified, until I started to notice how many cases were just her blubbering because she was caught up in her own mistakes. Like, the New York Special and season four finale are understandable, she went through some shit anyone would need a cry over there. The problem was that even then Cat Noir also had justified or even bigger reasons to be upset, but he was forced to be fine for Marinette's sake but the same is never asked from Marinette. In addition, once I actually forced myself to watch the NY special again, I realized that, between “collateral damage in Paris she can't fix” and “Adrien has to leave a school trip early”, the school trip thing is the thing she cries about the hardest. Our heroine cares more about not seeing her crush for a few days than the supposed failure that made her turn her back on her partner.

That made me realize that it really was all about Marinette's own screwed up priorities. It's all about her love quest with only the minimum consideration given to her duties as a superhero and the Guardian of the Miraculous. Like, every time she makes some kind of effort in superheroics, it's way too late into the game and almost always some kind of nonsense that brings her no closer to actually stopping Hawk Moth. Like, she tracks where Akumas show up as late as season 5, when we already know Hawk Moth’s pattern by heart by then. Also the fucking Miraculous trick box she tinkered with and showed off that then ended up being pointless because she made it so convoluted she decided to put the Miraculouses up in cloud to make calling backup heroes easier. Making Alya her confidant led to more time being spent on making sure that Alya doesn't do anything Marinette doesn't approve than doing anything useful in the long term 

Félix and Kagami told her who Hawk Moth was and she did nothing with that info. She wasn't worried about what this would mean for Adrien, she was only worried that Gabriel was against their romantic relationship. Maybe, if Marinette had spared a single thought to her heroic duty outside of what's right in front of her nose, she wouldn't have had to quickly decide what to do and might not have ended up covering for Gabriel and feeling so bad about it. Like, I already know our protagonist can't be arsed to think about others, but she could have made things easier for herself, at least.

The only contest Marinette is winning is the Who Can Cry the Hardest contest. She's a fucking champ at blowing things out of proportion.

[itsabouttimex2]

YOOO (❍ᴥ❍ʋ) 🩷 I just wanted to say I like the way you convey and write characters. I also love your takes and perspectives on LMK. I find myself agreeing with you more often than not lol. I feel like some people in the fandom tend to portray Macaque or Mk as whiny hoes or uwu bottoms tbh (¬_¬). Which is whatever bc it’s their life ig but they be pissing and shitting them selves when someone doesn’t agree or align to what they think of these fictional characters, especially with the damm ships but I think that’s a problem in most fandoms tho (-_-｡). Anyway I just want to say I love and appreciate your works and your perspectives/opinions on specific characters, I personally love your blunt way of responding to things bc for me that’s the best way I can understand what someone is trying to say, most times I can’t really tell if someone has an undertone or meaning something else instead of what they’re actually saying y’know, (⊙﹏⊙✿).

You earned yourself a Freakbob🩷🖤🩷🖤🩷🖤🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺

Okay, first of all- thank you so much! I’ve come to enjoy my writing far more than I did at the start of my blog, which makes me pretty happy- and other people enjoying it also is an absolute delight!

Also- LMAOO “Whiny hoes” is like… probably the best explanation for those two act in fanon.

I think it goes even a step further with MK and Macaque with how much I’ve seen people outright project onto them, which feels like a trend I’ve seen in general through fandoms-

Where people sort of “latch on” to a character with some shortcomings or “unrelatable” aspects, like being an asshole or maybe prone to shutting the world away instead of reaching out for help, which to some people makes characters not realistically flawed, but instead “wrongly” flawed, which they then try to “fix”.

MK/Macaque (any conventionally attractive/tall dark and handsome character gets put through this wringer, with Avatar’s Zuko being one I also distinctly recall undergoing it) usually gets whatever personality and identity the author had stapled onto him, and then given a stack of sadsack traits while anything “bad” or “mean” is scraped out because “that’s not relatable”.

Often the only “flaws” that are left are entirely PG and trend towards being utterly out of the character’s control, while simultaneously being “sympathetic” in nature, such as having anxiety, being insecure, being closed off from trauma, etc…

And for villainous/formerly-villainous characters like Macaque, fans start to sound more an abuser’s enablers than actual fans in a distinctly “The Narcissist’s Prayer” sort of way.

“He didn’t do anything bad!”

(Proof is shown of how they did do wrong.)

Okay, he did, but it wasn’t that big of a deal!”

(Proof to the contrary is shown.)

“Okay, it was kinda bad, but he didn’t mean it!”

(​‘He was just trying to teach MK a lesson’ yeah by torturing him and violating the consent and autonomy of three people. ‘Oh, but he just didn’t want MK to turn out like Wukong!’ By beating the kid around and mocking him? When it’s made clear that Macaque doesn’t understand either of them enough to deliver life lessons? ‘…he didn’t mean any of it!!!’)

Where the goalpost is shifted further and further and further back because people are so desperate to cling to that non-existent “perfectly relatable character” that they desperately try to undermine any actual flaws or shortcomings the character they pretend to love as is actually has.

And eventually you realize that at least some of these fans never really loved the character for anything other than their attractive shell, which has been long hollowed out and grifted with “unproblematic” flaws.

And I think this all in general is fueled by the continuous push for “non-problematic” content in general, in which a thing that is “bad” (intentionally or otherwise) somehow becomes “morally wrong” to enjoy.

[mjrtaurus]

Have you considered the comedy potential? Of Dragon and Robin teaming up to pull on of the biggest pranks in history?

And by that I mean they pretend to be father daughter

Cause like the theory is awesome but it’s so much funnier if the whole thing is just them lying

Dragon (known homosexual) - ah yes this is my daughter who I got from a woman I was in a sexual relationship with

Robin (known shitdisturber) - yes it is I his daughter who was produced through sexual intercourse with my female mother.

The whole thing gets way too out of hand during the two year arc and results in one very angry ex warlord kicking down Dragons door.

You’re right, this is so much funnier.

And people believe it because not only do they look similar enough to pull it off, but Robin’s weirdgirl energy and Dragon’s commit to any and all bits energy just. Click. Right into place. No gaps. Seamless.

I’m on Zou Arc right now and Robin is fucking with everyone like “my god, they’re cannibals”. Meanwhile, if he were there, Dragon- 100% running with her shit-stirring because it’s the funniest thing ever- would have gone “can they really be called cannibals since they’re Mink? Or does the term apply to all sapient humanoid species?” Cut to Usopp screaming because if the leader of the Revs (who’s there for whatever reason) is saying that, then it MUST be true!

Except everyone knows he’s bullshitting because everyone knows- including him- that Robin is bullshitting.

And it just kind of happens one day at the end of a discussion, back in her two year stay on Baltigo. Dragon’s been talking with her a lot, getting to know her, making sure she knows that she’s as welcome and accepted among the RA as she is with the Strawhats. The standard practice of “feed the stray cat so they know you’re a nice human and can be trusted”. You know the one.

Just.

A sip from the drink in her hand, like she’s already concocting more schemes.

“I hope you’ll forgive me, but some have been asking me- indirectly at least- if I’m your daughter. And I’ve been telling a few fibs here and there because of it.”

A twitch at the corner of his mouth, like he’s fighting a grin.

“Interesting… What sort of fibs, for the sake of keeping the story straight?”

Full shit-stirrer to shit-stirrer communication. Except it goes a little too well when Robin has reunited with the Strawhats for a while, and Dragon gets a very livid call from his dear and beloved nicotine addicted reptile. Accusing him of… sleeping with a woman? How rude! How unoriginal!

And that’s how Dragon learns that Robin’s been using her talents for fucking with people in a “good and friendly” manner to routinely put Crocodile through the wringer. Untraceable calls in the middle of the night that have the man feeling like he needs to be locked in a padded cell. Seastone muzzle and straitjacket optional.

The sudden shock of that revelation makes Dragon break, and then he’s cackling and wheezing like a madman until even the snail is concerned for his health.

“Wani, are you really that surprised that she would gaslight you for fun?”

“… Fair point…”

Oh, if Robin wasn’t going to get adopted into his dysfunctional garbage fire of a family before, she definitely is now.

[musicalmoritz]

Did my yapping get you into Tsukasa and Kou/Mitsuba or like

What made you click and change your mind bestie I’m so curious

Oooooooh okay so the response might be a little underwhelming but I don’t think there was ever a clear moment when I decided “yes I like Tsumitsukou now.” It was more of a gradual process. I used to be one of those people who didn’t like Tsukasa ships but I am also The Toxic Ship Enjoyer so I inevitably start to peak at those types of ships even if the rest of the fandom shuns them. If you look at any other fandom I’m in rn my tbhk ships are very tame in comparison lolol (looks at Akito and Shigure)

I started shipping TsuMitsu way before I shipped TsuKou. It was a mix of spite against people who bashed Tsukasa ships and a desire to put Mitsuba through the wringer. Tbh I think I’ve always been slightly more open-minded to TsuMitsu, even when I was going along with the No Tsukasa Ships thing. I would secretly look up edits for them and the only reason I hated them was bcuz I am very toxic abt Mitsukou and they were one of the only ships that was acceptable to slander. I stopped doing that tho bcuz I quickly realized that the shippers are all so damn nice compared to other shippers in this fandom and so I wanted to be nice back. As a result I started being more generous with TsuMitsu on ship ratings and before I knew it I was a shipper myself

TsuKou was just the natural next step. I am still a Toxic Mitsukou Shipper so obviously Mitsuba can’t date anyone without Kou’s supervision. Obviously. But I quickly grew interested in TsuKou as their own dynamic, watching their rivalry over Mitsuba turn into something unidentifiable they feel towards each other. I don’t think they would ever admit they feel that way about each other but it’s obvious that they do. They are fully dating, they just refuse to acknowledge it

I can’t post much about them outside of Tumblr bcuz ppl on TikTok are not nearly as nice about the ship, so it’s been nice to yap about them on here even if I prefer Mitsukou individually. I’m a huge multishipper so I like to explore different possibilities. Before I started shipping Tsumitsukou I was also a big HanaMitsuKou shipper so poly shipping with mtsk is nothing new for me. I will say that your rambles definitely opened me up to the ship more, you were one of the nice Tsumitsukou shippers I mentioned earlier and your takes about them really encouraged me to think more critically about the way I treated the ship. So thank you for that!!

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hey! I've written a first full outline and a few scenes (YAY) and I'm kinda worried that the readers will catch on that I actually have a favourite character. I'm attached to all of them, but this guy is Special - he has traits I really like, an arc I'm excited to write, he's bit of a self-insert, bit of a wish fulfillment, the whole thing. How can I hide my fondness from the reader? If I let it shine through too much, it'll kill any charm this character is supposed to have :(

Hiding Character Fondness from Reader

Here are some things to be aware of:

1 - Keep the Plot on Track - One of the biggest tells that the author has a thing for a character is when the plot seems to shift in favor of the character. Not only does this character slowly elbow their way to center stage, but the plot seems to completely shift course in order to highlight their conflict/adventures. So, make sure you stick to the plot you had in mind and keep the character's role as you originally envisioned it.

2 - Avoid "Author's Pet" Armor - Another giveaway that the author favors a character is when the character has immunity to every bad thing that happens in the story, even when it makes no sense. They're the one character who emerges from battle completely unscathed (or with superficial injuries), they always draw the long straw and luck is always on their side; and if something bad has to happen to a character, it's never this one.

3 - Avoid "Author's Punching Bag" - Conversely, sometimes author favoritism plays out by treating the character like a punching bag. I guess this results from a hurt/comfort perspective, where the author enjoys putting the character through the wringer because it creates an opportunity for them to be comforted by another character. But when it's the same character who's hurt over and over again, with the rest of the cast seeming to be armored against trouble, it has the same effect as being the one character that's never hurt.

4 - Avoid Special Snowflake Syndrome - Consider all the characters in your story. If your favorite character is always the one with the skills, knowledge, experience, connections, to solve the story's problem and/or save the day, that's a problem. Not only does it make them overpowered, but it means the spotlight will always be on them because they're the one everyone else has to rely on all the time.

5 - Avoid Complete Lovability - This is a big one... there are few people who walk the planet who are genuinely without flaws and are universally loved by everyone who knows them. Real people, most of the time, have flaws. Someone can be the nicest, most generous person in the world, but they could have bad breath or be chronically late, or really stubborn about trying new things. Flaws don't make a person bad, they just make them real. But we all have our pet peeves, too, so if you know someone who is chronically late, they might get on your nerves and not be your favorite person in the world. We want that for our characters, too. They should have believable flaws and not give everyone they know heart eyes every time they walk in the room.

Happy writing!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[vivianbernadetteaurora]

Girlfriend of grunge in the 90s

When I think of the 90s, I’ve said before in the previous place, it really gives me Pisces vibes, but obviously, there are some heavy Capricorn placements like Neptune and Uranus in the early 90s and late 80s 80s, which gave it that dark edge.

These are all the girlfriends of grunge who I think are important, to mention in this story. First of all, we have Courtney Love; she is obviously the most known one out of all of these in this one; she was known for being an outspoken, kind of feminist, kind of misogynist, all rolled into one.

Boy, has she been through the wringer, being called the Nancy Spudgen, a hole of Nirvana, which is very low? Especially considering that Nancy was dead and she went through a lot of sexism and the press. It was probably because Courtney molded herself around. I do have a lot more compassion for Nancy for what she’s been through because Courtney seems a lot more., vindictive with what she does and how she betrays herself, Whatever I’ve seen about Nancy she seems less in control of her behavior but that’s okay sometimes if personality disorders in Courtney’s case

Sometimes compulsive liars get addicted to their own lies and end up saying things that aren’t true, Kat Bjelland  said 70% of what Courtney said is the truth, work out which bits are not?

But Courtney has been a pioneer in this area of, making music for girls and teenagers, and fully grown women like myself in my 30s, she makes you feel powerful, she makes you feel like you could do anything when you listen to one of her songs, and dressing up with her makes you feel even more powerful, there would be no grunge is aesthetic or kinder whore without these two women. have a lot of people who can’t stand Courtney love some of them are a lot of them are women as well they think she’s too egotistical honestly I think they’re just a bit jealous no I don’t think they will jealous. I think people are just intimidated.

Then you have our alternative Winona, who has been popular with the boy band members, alternative and rock boy bands not pop, members, I think she even went out with that guy from County, Monica, and Rachel from friends, I know Courtney and Jennifer, haha I just realized that could’ve been Jennifer Finch and Courtney, love.

Yeah, she’s been around, she’s gone even when she shoplifted and had to go, she was still soft-spoken, who was obviously taking advantage of Johnny Depp from such a young age that it affected her for the rest of her adult life, she said her first everything . Which put a huge power in balance in the relationship. He moved onto Kate Moss., Winona Ryder you’re still that girl forever, she is like the actress alternative grunge girl, the music version, but in very different as, kind of like light feminine and dark feminine.

And you have demri , Lane Staleys model girlfriend, who he was with for many years since the 80s on and off,, they had a very up-and-down relationship, caused by drug and alcohol dependency, but you could tell that they really love each other they weren’t like where they were like a publicity machine, not that you can even call them but they were back in the day not that you know, kept his private life private, even people who went to school with him didn’t know that it was him graduated with because he was quiet and he kept a different last name, but absolutely stunning as you can see from my pictures very similar to Kristen pfaff , I’m sorry Hole fans ,you do not give enough credit for, anyway, Demri , and layne up breaking up, which people say he wasn’t the same after, she died in 1996, bacteria from the needle, to her heart and affected her a really bad way and got into an infection . he evidently died, a few years after cut to the same day he wasn’t found until his body was not in a good way. Let’s put it that., I hope they’re together in heaven happy and in love

Kristen Pfaff ,of Hole her death was extremely suspicious, and I know Nirvana fans believe this, not Courtney fans but I am on the fence with this. I find Courtney really appealing and really gracious and appealing. That’s the only way I can put it just very charismatic and that’s what her dad was like to, Kristen, given a hot shot, she’d got clean after Kurt Cobain died, pages in her diary were missing from that week. which is also extremely strange her family did not like Courtney and they find the whole thing suspiciousl brother was with her a lot of the time during those days. she was with a bang called Janet Joe and she got back with them. She was only meant to be touring bassist , she stayed a bit longer, was with Eric Allanson only because he was the only guy there at the time and I, advantage if you see pictures of her before she moves to Seattle, Courtney needs to give her bags with syringes and bags of heroin , she was professionally trained in, you can master the piano said that you can master anything it’s genius level music. sad that she died and the fans don’t give her credit “live through this “ is one of the best albums ever, this is my mix of the main grunge girls of the 90s and their impact and how talented they were in all different ways.



[forest-of-stories]

Throwback Thursday, Fandom Edition: Fear and Truth

[The following post contains some discussion of anxiety and self-recrimination connected to social justice discourse.]

The Magnus Archives began its fifth and final season in April 2020. Season 4 had ended with a cliffhanger and a massive shift in the status quo, and the fans had spent five months anticipating and speculating upon what would happen next.

And while our anticipation built, the real world entered a crisis that changed it forever.  

Episode 161 of TMA was preceded by an announcement from director Alexander J. Newall that said (and I’m paraphrasing), “We wrote our post-apocalyptic story arc before the current global health emergency; please pay particular attention to all content warnings moving forward.”  At this point, my part of the world was trying to adjust to the new normal that COVID-19 had brought us.  Even in my relatively stable and comfortable position – safely housed, working remotely, with plenty of ways to communicate with my family and friends even if we couldn’t see each other in person – I was feeling a great deal of distress, alarm, and helplessness.  I knew better than to assume that TMA would necessarily provide escapism; maybe catharsis was the most that I could hope for.  And, indeed, I remember a crying fit after I finished listening to that first new episode.  Maybe, like Jon and Martin, I was “mourning” the world that had once existed.

Even if I had questioned whether I really wanted to put myself through this emotional wringer every week, to opt out of listening would have been to distance myself from the fandom community that had become part of my support system.  So I kept going, and several years later, I’m still unpacking my feelings about how the story played out from there.

I’m not going to attempt a full critical analysis of Season 5; my opinions are extremely subjective and informed by my own circumstances and the personal emotional buttons that it pushed.  At times, I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to articulate them at all, lest my complaints – and I have several – carry a ring of “Local Woman Outraged That There’s Horror In Her Horror Podcast.”  I’m not angry at Jonny Author Sims for not fulfilling my specific emotional needs in telling the story that he wanted to tell, or at the fans who found Season 5 satisfying, and I don’t think that it was an artistic failure or a betrayal of the show’s premise.  I liked some of the individual episodes, and I thought that Jon and Martin had some very sweet relationship moments (as well as a few that deeply frustrated me, such as Martin’s jealous half-joking request that Jon kill Oliver).  I’ve written fanfic that took place during Season 5, both while it was ongoing and after the show ended.

That said, much of the journey through what some fans called the “Eyepocalypse” or the “Fearpocalypse” was a departure from much of what I’d enjoyed about the previous seasons.

Firstly, and most straightforwardly, “road trip through surreal hellscapes” was never going to appeal to me as much as “bureaucracy and workplace shenanigans But Spooky.”  Among the fifth-season episodes that I actually enjoyed outright, and have revisited since the show wrapped, were the ones that delved into the history and workings of the Magnus Institute: “Curiosity,” “An Appointment,” and “A Stern Look.”  (I haven’t listened to The Magnus Protocol yet, but I’ve gotten the impression that it does bring us back to Spooky Workplace.)

However, very few of the statements that Jon was compelled to channel during said road trip were as memorable or had as much narrative momentum as the ones from the first four seasons.  There was a variety to the Institute’s statement givers, in terms of their backgrounds, their voices, and how they responded to the presence of the Fears.  Listeners were invited to care about their choices and their fates.  Most of Season 5’s statements were exclusively about the constant torment of whatever Fear Domain Jon and Martin were visiting that week, the people undergoing that torment rarely if ever had any meaningful choices, and their fates were a foregone conclusion.  They came across less as characters than as simplistic allegorical devices, singled out from an almost entirely undifferentiated mass of suffering, so that Jonny Author Sims could show off an experimental writing trick or make a political point.  And even when I appreciated the stylistic swings or agreed with the politics (which was often), they didn’t offer the same emotional engagement and impact as the instances of the Fears interacting with the pre-apocalypse world.

And speaking of those politics…

All of the living creatures in the Fearpocalypse were either trapped in constant cycles of supernatural agony and terror, or served the Fears by constantly inflicting that agony on others.  Everyone was either a monster or a victim of the monsters.  Most of them couldn’t choose which category they fell into, except when they sort of could, as in the episode where Jon had the opportunity to ask Jordan Kennedy, a character whom we’d met before, if he’d rather continue to be buried in a pile of ants every second or be a “torturer” (Jordan’s word) and “complicit” (Jon’s word) in inflicting those same horrifying circumstances on others. I think that the recurring theme of "impossible choices" was often one of this show's strengths, but the framing of that choice (and of another one, at the end, which I will also discuss) didn't entirely work for me.

For most of TMA, it was very easy to interpret serving the Fears as a metaphor for entanglement with harmful societal systems.  During the first four seasons, the show was obviously interested in exploring the different manifestations of that complicity, for both the employees of the Magnus Institute and the statement givers in the outside world.  And one could read Jordan’s decision as an extension of that metaphor: it’s an extreme version of the decision to hurt others in order to avoid being hurt, or being helpless, oneself.  But the actual world-building in Season 5 only offered one manifestation of complicity in the harmful system: “you exist to torture people.”  To me, that is both less interesting than previous explorations of the concept, and more upsetting in a way that I did not enjoy, even in a genre that is supposed to be upsetting by definition. 

In fact, the entire Fearpocalypse world-building – not just that episode – reminded me of how some particularly reductive Internet social justice discourse frame privilege and oppression within real-life systems of power: “Everybody is either An Oppressed who is defined by their suffering, or An Oppressor who is defined by the suffering that they inflict on others.”  Prolonged or repeated exposure to that binary has always been a massive guilt and scrupulosity trigger for me, and there were intervals in which listening to TMA, and spending time in a world where that binary was literally real and true, felt like hanging out in the comments section of a Tumblr post or the most anxious and self-hating parts of my own brain.  The reality of the COVID lockdown, which threw some of the contrasts between the haves and have-nots into sharp relief, exacerbated this but hadn’t exactly caused it.

“Hey, Nevanna,” some of you might say, “it sounds like this podcast just hurt your privileged fee-fees and you don’t enjoy thinking about your own role as An Oppressor and the ways that you benefit from the exploitation of other people in your own world, and that sounds like a You Problem.”  And maybe I don’t, and maybe it is, but maybe I just don’t enjoy thinking about it like that, and I don’t think that anybody should have to.  I do not think that “unless I am constantly suffering, I am a monster defined only by the suffering that I constantly inflict on others” is a useful way of thinking about the world and one’s place in it.  Nor do I think that this was the specific message that Jonny Author Sims was trying to send his audience about the real world in which we actually lived.  During the first act of Season 5, he reminded us that the Fearpocalypse world was “about fear, not truth” and “almost fully subjective.”  One blogger referred to those tweets in a very cool piece of speculation about how our main characters might “turn the world back” to what it was before Jonah Magnus’s ritual. 

I continue to have mixed feelings about the ending that we did get. Shortly after the finale, I read a post by another fan that echoed some of those feelings:

Look, I’ll be honest: I never cared too much what happened to the other worlds in the cosmic trolly problem of the final few episodes. This is fiction, and I chose to invest myself in the characters and world we had for five seasons, rather than worry about other fictional worlds we would never see. [...] I’m also not against the concept of “everything the characters have done has played into the schemes of an unfathomable intelligence and it turns out there was never any way to win.” That’s good old fashioned cosmic horror, of which I am a big fan. The issue, for me, began where TMA stopped being primarily escapist cosmic horror, and started leaning into the Fears as a metaphor for real world systems of control and oppression. The analogy has not been even a little bit subtle throughout season five, to the extent that a lot of fandom discussion sees them through that lens first and foremost (“fear capitalism”). We had people trapped in the system and being exploited, avatars complicit in the system out of cruelty or fear of being victimized themselves, Georgie realizing that opting out of the system doesn’t help, etc. etc. The problem with this weighty analogy, though, is that it demands a subversion of the system, a glimmer of hope for the oppressed, or else it becomes unbearably bleak. [...] With the “fear capitalism” metaphor so strongly to the forefront by season five, what originally could have been a spine-shivering revelation that a vast, cosmic intelligence has outplayed the characters at every turn, and the survivors are fortunate that it has turned its attention elsewhere, instead becomes a fable about how it’s impossible to make even the slightest dent in an oppressive system, and how every choice you make, regardless of how well-intentioned, makes you complicit in your own oppression.

I am not currently interested in litigating whether “undo the current hellscape by sending the Fears to every other reality in the multiverse” or “imprison the Fears in the current hellscape and try to ensure that everybody in it is tortured to death as quickly as possible” was the Correct Moral Decision.  Some fans have argued that the first of those options was a metaphor for colonialism or NIMBY attitudes, and while those interpretations are valid, I’m not here to discuss them, either.  My issues were, and to some extent still are, with the setup of the finale, not with the possible resolutions to the debate.  I liked the suggestion in episode 160 that Jon was only the “chosen one” because a privileged and supernaturally powerful man – who was nonetheless still a man, with very human wants and fears of his own – decided that he would be useful; the subsequent revelation that the Web had been grooming Jon since childhood undermined that.  I disliked that literally every single living thing in existence was further reduced to The Masses, to abstractions in a philosophical exercise, while a small group of people made decisions about what would happen to them.  

And while I agree with the post that I quoted above about the bleak implications of the ending, I interpreted an additional message from the very construction of the cosmic trolley problem: “Any attempt to ease suffering on a small scale will ultimately cause it to spread on an infinitely larger scale, so maybe allowing the world you know to die off, because it’s broken beyond repair, is a viable alternative.” This attitude was almost unbearably dismal in its own right, especially when I applied it to the reality in which I lived.  I even considered that my reluctance to accept “we’re all screwed and everything I do to help just makes things worse” was some kind of moral or emotional failing on my part.

My mental health improved greatly when I reminded myself that, as with the other political implications of the Fearpocalypse, nobody was asking me to apply its logic to my own reality, and even if they had been, I wasn’t morally obligated to listen and obey.  Jonny Author Sims might have been using his story to explore and reflect the horrors of our world – war, bigotry, abuse, illness, and many others – but he wasn’t writing an instruction manual for how to deal with them.  This might seem obvious now, but it didn’t feel obvious then. 

Horror fiction can help us to process our feelings about the things that scare us in the real world, but if TMA – including Season 5 – has done that for me, has given me the catharsis that I hoped for, it’s done so through the differences between the story and our reality, just as much as the similarities.  Our reality is not divided cleanly into Monsters and Victims, and agency and responsibility are not limited to a Chosen One or a group of main characters.  And when the world changes, sometimes there’s no way to change it “back” to a desirable state.   The best we can hope for is a way forward.

[artblock-tm]

Can I get the director's commentary on literally anything you want from Shadow Rift. You can do the whole book if you want. I wanna hear your thoughts

Okay okay okay SO! Grr Shadow Rift. Me and my complicated relationship with Shadow Rift………

For those who don’t know DP Lore, Shadow Rift was a fic originally posted to a different website by a different author. The author wanted to abandon it, but I really enjoyed it, so I reached out to them and asked if I could continue it. Shockingly, they agreed, but I had to follow the original idea for their story.

Writing (part of) og Shadow Rift really dipped my toes into fic writing, and was what initially drew in some of my oldest readers (hi Marci). However, after some years of improvement as a writer with the publication of Masked, I just… didn’t like the story anymore. So I reached out to the original author again for permission to rewrite it and they basically just gave me full control of Shadow Rift.

I won’t talk about it too much since they’ve asked to remain anonymous, but they weren’t satisfied with it either but didn’t have the spoons to finish it. And that’s what brought us to Shadow Rift THE REWRITE!

Now that I think about it… I wish I hadn’t deleted my SR planning doc as soon as the epilogue was published… oops.

ANYWAY. SR is quite different from the original, both in quality of writing and character. While the plot moved generally in the same direction, some lore things were changed and the characters actually had concrete ARCS! WOAH! INCREDIBLE!

Like Hat Kid had an arc that improved her view on the world, however subtly. Although you may argue that it was the return of her soul that did this, the soul was only the macguffin. Her developing relationship with Snatcher is what made her develop as well!

Speaking of Snatcher… ugh he was so fun to write. I loved his and Hattie’s dynamic of continually butting heads. I love the parallels that originally appear as foils… AND it was great to make Snatcher an actual character too! I got to fill him with transgender allegory! Happy pride!

However, the character that drew the most evil giggles from me as I planned how to screw over was none other than Elliot. Oh, Elliot, how I love putting you through the wringer. I also had so much fun giving him a new character arc… in the opposite direction of Snatcher’s.

While Snatcher’s perception of himself merges together and he comes to accept himself and Elliot as the same person, just with changes, Elliot comes to make a distinction between himself and Snatcher. Snatcher is okay with himself, including Elliot, but Elliot isn’t.

Snatcher to me is a lot of hard edges with a softer demeanor. Even though he��s soulless, that doesn’t make someone incapable of kindness (like Hattie thought).

But Elliot is the inverse. He’s all soft edges with a sharp pointed center. And, understandably, the events he’d been through- bodysharing, getting cursed, literally mind-merging with Snatcher for a hot minute- wore his patience thin. It doesn’t help that his fate, like Hattie’s, was swiftly approaching, only his was unavoidable.

It shouldn’t be selfish to want to live, but isn’t it tragic that his actions only ended up speeding the process of his and Hattie’s death? Hehe.

Those are my thoughts on the main characters, but there are some minor ones I’d like to comment on too.

I’m sure that many readers noticed that Karmin wasn’t originally part of AHiT! Yes, I used Shadow Rift as an excuse to write her more. And if you noticed that the arc with her was surprisingly open-ended, that was intentional! You see, I did it for thematic purposes. I’m not gonna hold your hand on this one though.

More importantly, though, Vanessa.

Urgh. Vanessa.

I’ve never been able to write her adequately (UNTIL RECENTLY!! I LISTENED TO MISS MISERYGUTS BY RIP AND EVERYTHING CLICKED!! EVERYONE SAY THANK YOU TO GRACEBETH3604 FOR INTRODUCING ME TO IT!!!), but I’ve had kind of a renaissance on Prince and Vanessa characterization recently. SR!Vanessa was a way for me to experiment with a Vanessa that regretted her actions.

But don’t get me wrong- she doesn’t regret them because she’s becoming a better person- she regretted her actions because they had consequences for her, too. She lost her prince and she came to grieve that loss, but not what she did.

(Also Elliot getting cursed was essentially a nod to Gracebeth3604 also. A!au my beloved. Makes me go insane)

For those people who know the original story, they’d know that the whole thing stayed in Subcon. I thought that was rather stale, so I had the setting move to Alpine, and then to Time’s End. That was fun :)

and ummmm I think I’ve run out of things to say! Sorry I started watching a movie in the middle of writing this and for so caught up in analyzing it that I forgot everything I meant to say