#I'm posting this because I spent a shitton of time on it and I feel like it

[atopvisenyashill]

What are your thoughts on GRRM’s new notablog post on HOTD S2?

omg i'm sorry so i did not get notified that i had a few new asks, i didn't even see this until i logged in on desktop. tumblr eat shit smh.

ANYWAYS.

I actually agree with Xiran Jay Zhao, here, where they said this was a warning shot. It feels like a warning shot. Like a "hey I'm being nitpicky and pedantic now but if you think I won't go scroched earth you got another thing coming." I've seen so much "this is unprofessional" "this is annoying" "why is he complaining" and I think it is not only mind boggling to side with a corporation and the idiots running these shows (and we know I mostly like Condal and Hess, but come on Condal was the mastermind of Sansa Bolton why are we defending him right now!!), I think everyone is blowing his comments wildly out of proportion. He didn't take a dig at anyone but the writer's room and more specifically Ryan Condal, who he has had a working relationship with for well over a decade. He didn't shittalk any casting, he didn't shittalk any specific writers or directors except one of the main showrunners, he compliments the special effects, he has consistently had (and imo is careful) nothing but praise for the actors, even minor roles like Blood & Cheese. This was an incredibly milqtoast "please remember that every change has huge affects on the narrative later" critique and the people handwringing over his behavior are absolute losers, I'm sorry.

And beyond the fact that he didn't make any huge digs, I think this conversation also wildly ignores the way authors have no control over their own characters once they sign the rights over. They can be completely bamboozled by changes and they have no recourse to go "what the hell are you doing." And yet, signing your book's rights away (even if the production sits in developmental hell for decades) is usually what nets these author's the most money - GRRM surely makes a shitton off his books, but most authors get paid absolutely nothing even when they're wildly popular because of how book deals work now. Take, again, Xiran for example - Iron Widow was a huge runaway hit, a good and fresh take on this new boom of culturally based sff. And yet Xiran has talked about how they immediately set to work writing a middle grade novel because they desperately needed the money because they got paid 16k over two years for their runaway hit that made their publishers significantly more than 16k. I think George is not only mad for authors with less control than he has but also, obviously, for himself - I've said time and again, but I do think Dark Daenerys is where we are headed, and the fact that they completely botched showing it has got to smart. And if the ending for Dany is anything other than Jon killing her, that has got to smart too. So he watched these people fuck up his original series and push him completely out of that writer's room as they made more and more changes, and now he's watching s2 of HOTD and seeing some changes and getting some real bad vibes. It's not doomerism to think s3 is going to go massively off the rails when we have seasons 6-8 of the main show to show us just how off the rails it can go!

So anyways, that part of my rant over (and please believe me when I say I checked myself here because I could rant for hours about how it's genuinely so upsetting to see people call him unprofessional over this when not only did he write the fucking series, but he's lived in this series for three decades!!!!! this is his whole life, this is his legacy, of course he's feeling some type of way about how it's handled jesus christ on a cracker, there's people who have said worse about their mediocre nyt pushed bestsellers getting adapted badly!), when it comes to the actual meat of his post....I'm sorry idk how anyone is annoyed by this post because it was hilarious to me. He spent a whole blog post whinging about how Dead Baby #4 and Kingsguard Man #12 are gonna get cut out of the show. I think he framed it in that goofy way on purpose to hide how annoyed he is but you can see where the real annoyance lies - the changes to Helaena, losing one of his grisly death scenes, and being willfully mislead about potential changes to the plot. I think a lot of people missed those points but EYE am not a goofy ass like those people and I can guarantee you that Condal and HBO got the point too.

Of course, I do think he is also irked about Maelor and Ser Rickard's scenes being cut out. He wrote a long ass, highly meticulous, near unadaptable work, and I think when he handed the IP over he assumed he was giving it to people who would rise to the challenge and only make cuts when absolutely necessary. And that just clearly hasn't happened. Incredibly important characters get cut, main characters get their plots wildly changed for no reason, and people get personality transplants on a near constant basis for no other reason than D&D and Condal thought it would look cooler. I think if there was more dedication to keeping him in the loop and keeping true to the story, he wouldn't have bitched so much. But Hess is on record saying she doesn't feel loyal to the story and at a certain point, you reach your breaking point there and I think he has finally reached his. AND GOOD FOR HIM. LET THAT OLD MAN GO APESHIT THEY'VE COMPLETLEY FUCKED HIS WORLD UP!!!

[bedpolls]

how many characters do you have in your inbox?

I'm sure you didn't expect a nice long response anon, but that's what you're getting.

Right now I have 50 asks in my inbox, including this one. The last time I completely emptied the inbox was on 5/14. Best case scenario, is that it will take about 2 hours for me to sort through and post the requests to the queue. Once I got over 100 asks in less than a 48 hour period, and straight up spent 4.5 hours sorting through them. Here's why it takes me so long.

I do a basic search to make sure the character in question isn't a minor, and to figure out what their actual name is. I cannot stress this enough, idk shit about 90% of the requests I get. I don't know who that character is. Any mistakes made with names or photos chosen aren't because I secretly hate you and that character, or because I'm being malicious. It's because I've got little to no way to know what's correct. I'm going off shit on wikis, and most of that content is written by a bot nowadays anyways.

For me, the ideal submission format is "[FULL CHARACTER NAME] from [FULL TITLE OF MEDIA]" and that's it. That way I can just copy/paste directly from the ask into google. I have not instituted this as a rule, simply because I can't get people to read what rules I do have in the first place. Idk how much more eye catching that posts needs to be. It's bold, in red, and pinned to the top of the blog. If I put in a requirement for formatting, it would disqualify most requests, and I don't want to do that.

Some people feel the need to editorialize in the request itself, which tbh I mostly ignore. I don't care why you submitted this character. Idk anything about this character. Do whatever. Live your best life.

A random character nickname + acronym for the title is also the worst. I can usually figure it out, but it takes longer. When I've still got 30+ requests to get through, that's frustrating. I think sometimes people will just put the acronym for a piece of media in out of habit, or because they see I've used an acronym at some point in the tagging system. Tumblr does recommend tags, and that's why I might use it. This means that, when an acronym pops up again in the ask, I still don't immediately recognize it until I can remember googling it two weeks ago the last time that piece of media came up.

When it comes to the age of characters, I'll be honest I have much less patience. Sometimes I will google "[CHARACTER NAME] age" and what comes up is a spirited reddit thread, where people are arguing about whether or not the character is 15 or 45. Or 16 or 1500. Or whether or not they count as a minor, if they're physically 13 but actually 120 years old. Or whatever. I just fucking delete those, I'm not dealing with that shit.

I also often have to search the blog or scroll the queue to see if I have done the request before. There's a few video games where I've gotten a bunch of requests, there's a shitton of characters, and the names all blend together. If it's a duplicate, I delete those requests.

Generally speaking though, I try my best to ensure that every request gets posted. Yes even if it's weird, even if it's niche. You can submit characters from that one webcomic, or that one movie you love from 1954. The only requests that get deleted are ones that are 1) duplicates 2) violate the posted rules or 3) are so incomprehensible that I have no way of knowing what the fuck the requester is talking about.

[falciesystemessays]

it is hard to capture pain in video games.

this is one of the things i ended up thinking about a lot in the hospital over the past few days. i had been going through a lot of stomach pain, and it turns out it wasn't overeating, that i had to get my gallbladder removed. i am finally back home laying in bed, trying desperately to find a good position that will kill neither my back nor my abdomen. it's not going great, but i'm too much of a wuss to use the opiate i was prescribed, so now i am typing this post in a kind of terrible state. the people sending their love and good vibes and best wishes are nothing to me, no amount of good energy will cure this abdominal pain, no amount of thoughts and prayers will take away my shortness of breath. i normally have better writing than this, but you don't deserve better writing from me right now. i don't owe you that.

so, look, i spent most of this time playing a shitton of fire emblem fates and some rhythm heaven megamix, i have been desperately trying to distract myself from the everything of this situation. and of course, as a game designer, i try to think of how to turn this into a teachable moment for my design work. but it's not fuckin easy, is it? it's hard to sell someone on a game that will physically hurt them without being a very real health risk, and it's hard to emotionally capture that sense of viscerality using game mechanics alone. tell me in the replies games that come close! but genuinely no amount of heartbreak or dread or panic in a game comes close to the sheer horribility of being in actual godawful pain, for days on end.

in my past, i actually worked on a game that tried to be about pain. it's a very different project now, and no longer in my hands, but i ended up getting its protagonist, Fang, in my head. fang's gimmick is Blood Aura, essentially an attunement to pain that gives her greater strength the lower her health is at. in a sense, it kinda captures the sense of letting yourself get harmed on purpose because that's when you feel the most alive. it makes you put yourself at risk so that you can lash out in spades. but it's all very calculated, and more to the point, it's not making you the player experience pain.

the thing i've realized about games, rpg's especially, is that you are not your player characters. the player character acts as a surrogate for you, essentially as an arm for your will, but you do not become the character as you play. the reason i emphasize rpg's is due to the nature of a party-based game. you don't play as marth in fire emblem shadow dragon, you do not play as tidus in final fantasy x. but you also, crucially, do not embody any of these characters individually as you control them. you play as the collective, the group, the dynamic itself. you play as a collective id, or perhaps, an unspoken sense of team play. games like into the breach and xcom compensate for this by simply making you an offscreen commander. it's a practical solution, and it carries me to my next point.

shortly after the surgery, i started asking various people - my mom, my friends, my beloved - how they personally felt seeing me go through this. i realized that while you can't easily capture my kind of visceral pain as a player character, you can capture the feeling of knowing someone going through it. perhaps a party member in an rpg could fall ill, and you as a commander would have to marinate in that reality. some were worried, some sympathized but knew it was gonna be alright, my beloved was terrified, and my mom talked about wanting desperately to know, and to do something. that's something that can all be done in a game form.

so here's my idea. at one point in a fairly long rpg, one of your characters gets sick, or needs some kind of operation, or something like that. this isn't foreshadowed, medical peril so often isn't, but you have to deal with it anyway. this character, who may have been vital to your team composition or may have been just another unit, is now completely unable to do any of the things you expect. you're told this won't be permanent, probably, but recovery will be a very slow process as they slowly, slowly drift back into normalcy. during this process, you have several opportunities to check in on them, for all the good that'll do. maybe it'll do something, maybe it won't. you don't know, and you don't know how successful or quick this recovery will be. you can choose to process this however you like.

this will of course run into some issues. something i've noticed playing fire emblem is a tendency i and others have to care less about characters of less tactical use to us. whether i let a unit die on classic mode hinges on whether i can be bothered to reset. so there is, always, a possibility that a gamer could see this thing and be like "wow, now this fucker is useless to me, so i don't give a shit." and, if they know this is coming, they might not bother to level up the character because it'd just be a waste of exp. not that i even like exp systems to begin with, and i highly encourage you to ask me my thoughts on exp systems because i am running purely on spite at this point.

maybe what games ultimately need is to be willing to actually physically punish the player. we have game-linked vibrators after all, why not shift the pleasure into pain? but trying to actually sell this game would mean it only appeals to masochists, and while i respect them deeply, they are not my target audience. i want the player i inflict pain upon to hate every moment of it, just as i hate every moment of being in this goddamn bed waiting for things to finally recover. apparently it'll take about six weeks. awesome, right? maybe i finally will go on that damn opioid. i am on three hours of sleep, and before the surgery i had barely eaten anything for two days. this past week has been nothing but pain, distractions from the pain, and eventual relief from the pain. fuck i hate this.

[cicadidae-tm9899]

Ok i want to share my Disco Elysium skills because writing this is way harder than i thought it'd be lmao. This will be a long post bc there are 24 of these and I'm writing a description for all of them, so check under the cut if you're interested in reading me psychoanalyze myself! (also I'm sorry for how many culinary references there are in the skill names and also in the fic. Like, the fic is about me going to school which is just a shitton of cooking. I spend like 75% of my day in various kitchens so it's kinda hard to avoid mentioning it when talking about myself lol.)

Intellect- •Logic = Inference: With so many silent communications and unwritten social cues, the best some of us can do is infer meaning in everyday life. Having done this for so long has left you with the skill to guess at things and somehow make it out of the situation correct.

•Encyclopedia = Scribe: A penchant for writing essays and sessions reading the dictionary with your dad has left you with a dramatic vocabulary and a tendency to regurgitate information on a whim. It only seems to work while writing, as your speech patterns are long-winded and stumbling.

•Rhetoric = Embellishment: You have never been good at debating, always stumbling over your words and overthinking every possible retort until the time for response has passed. You are, however, great at hyperbole, and can make up stories on the fly whenever necessary. This is a defense mechanism.

•Drama = Attitude: A term coined by your parents after many an overreaction, Attitude would likely be better understood as just Drama, but the shame of subpar emotional regulation skills is easier to deal with than explaining to people that sometimes your emotions are too big and even you don't think it's that big of a deal, but yelling helps sometimes.

•Conceptualization = Creativity: Always the artist, right? Without the technical skill to translate ideas to paper all you can do is dream, and you've done plenty of dreaming in your day. A vivid imagination is as much of a curse as it is a blessing, so try not to let your mind wander too far again.

•Visual Calculus = Conversion: You've always been keen on "eyeballing it." Trusting your instincts and past experience when measuring things, whether it be in a recipe or gauging someone's reaction to something, you always feel like you can get the ratios just perfect. You are often wrong.

Psyche- •Volition - Discretion: Weaker than it should be for someone of your age. Always being forced into situations against your will has led to a warped sense of what you want and why you want it. You really should focus more on your own feelings.

•Inland Empire = Apprehension: Thanks to your sense of Empathy, your trust has been worn down by other people taking advantage of you. It's easy to back out of sketchy situations, but when it comes to someone's feelings you are almost always the last to leave. Once again, listen to the nagging in the back of your mind. It means well.

•Empathy = Empathy: Your father always said you were the most empathetic person he knew. This is often detrimental to yourself and your loved ones, as you always seem to gravitate towards the saddest people and give them everything you have without concern for your own well-being. This has always had long-term consequences.

•Authority = Privilege: You know you have no right to take as much as you do, and you try to help fight for everyone's rights, but it is becoming increasingly hard to ignore how good you have it and how much you take advantage of that. You can't help but feel like you deserve it.

•Esprit de Corps = Brigade de Cuisine: In almost everything, there is a hierarchy. Always a bigger fish, always a higher power. Remember that you are low on the food chain, and you will have to claw your way to the top even if it kills you (It will.)

•Suggestion = Proposition: You have spent years perfecting the art of white lies. They come easily to you, almost as easily as breathing. This has caused as much good as it has bad, saving you from minor inconveniences on many occasions but also digging you deeper into pits of guilt. This too is a defense mechanism (one that would be leagues more effective if you could manage to keep your mouth shut.)

Physique- •Endurance = Grit: Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You've made it this far and you sure as hell ain't gonna quit now. If you don't make it through this bit then everything leading up to this was for nothing so keep going. The pain is a privilege.

•Pain Threshold = Discomfort: Yet another symptom of your parent's judgements, it feels less like you're determining a level of pain and more like fighting a losing battle with your body, always trying to find a small bit of comfort in the midst of the constant aches and pains. They say it's rude to sit like that in church.

•Physical Instrument = Incarnate Vehicle: Threadbare seats, chipped paint, and mysterious creaking sounds be damned, this MC still gets you from place to place with undeterred consistency. It will squeal and groan with the effort, but you were built strong and you want to show it. Deteriorating but still reliable.

•Electrochemistry = Hedonist: With your upbringing, you spent many years shielded from the world and all the delights it offers. No amount of school assemblies have deterred you from yearning to partake in the myriad of vices you find yourself offered. Let's make up for lost time, baby! Get out there and get wild. This shitty college town is your oyster and it's been waiting for you.

•Shivers = Tumbleweed: There's a specific kind of nostalgia that washes over you when you spot a tumbleweed meandering across your path. Echoes of past droughts and moments spent poolside. This debris has seen more than you ever could, and will continue its journey until the end of time.

•Half-Light = Panic: That creeping dread you know all too well, crawling up your spine anytime you go outside. What if he's here again? He could have found you. Ever-present anxiety always keeping you on your toes, making even the familiar feel hostile. Prey instinct.

Motorics- •Hand/Eye Coordination = Knife Skills: You have been training for years to improve your coordination, and all that work has certainly paid off. Precise cuts made without a second glance, measured to the millimeter with only your muscle memory. A perfect julienne in seconds.

•Perception = Awareness: You often find yourself favoring smaller details over the bigger picture. This had led people to believe that you don't pay attention, when in reality you pay more attention than most. Always noticing small inconsistencies. Your hearing is going, but it only takes you a second longer than others to understand, and the chronic allergies have left you with a subpar sense of smell, but your eyes are sharp and your fingers can detect the most minuscule details.

•Reaction Speed = Reflex: You know that a falling knife has no handle, and yet you still flinch in the direction it flew. Even still, all you ever do is flinch. The instinct to grab the knife is inhibited by your seeming inability to truly act. Keep flinching, maybe someday your hand will move at the right time and you'll catch the knife.

•Savoir Faire = Charm: You always want people to think you have it together, so you spend time and money and energy to look the part, and then turn up the charisma when someone looks your way. They cannot see the you that hides behind flashy clothes and makeup. You do not like what they would see. You know it's only a grocery run, but maybe this time someone will take notice. So always have a joke ready. Make sure even your lazy clothes look decent.

•Interfacing = Tech Support: A summer spent in a dingy office with a borrowed computer and expensive camera equipment has lent you a decent amount of knowledge with computers. Though it isn't much more substantial than anyone else your age, it has earned you plenty of compliments from older family members or coworkers.

•Composure = Mask: Try not to react. They will know exactly what thoughts are in your head if your face moves even the slightest bit, so you mustn't let them know how you feel. Keep those big feelings down, big fella. Keep those walls tall.

[ghostlysleuth]

You said in the tags of a post that you’re ‘stuck doing art commissions for money’ which would make me feel shitty if I was one of your commissioners. But despite you having a wait list for said commissions, you haven’t posted any, just reblogged your old stuff. So have you just given up on your art? It’s a shame because I love your TLOU pieces.

it really sounds like you're paying too much attention to a stranger on the internet, dawg.

that comment (literally a tag from my sideblog, weird of you to message me about it here) was me lamenting my lack of free time to draw what i want, which is when i draw best, and when i do actually have time outside of school, it's spent doing it money that i need to pay rent. literally no shade at all to my commissioners (who have very kind and patient) and i'm sorry if that's ever come off as rude or ungrateful to any of you, but i meant it when i said drawing for money makes it less fun. it NEEDS DOING, which is why i do it, but it's not as fun as doing what i want (obviously).

i have a shitton of work that i shouldn't have taken on all at once, i'll admit it. but i'm literally always working on it after (and during) school and i'm constantly worried and anxious that commissioners think bad of me for taking breaks or drawing non-commissions or even just doing other shit that needs doing, so thanks a ton for reinforcing that.

no, i haven't given up but you diminishing my work ethic, shitting on me for rbing old art because i liked everything i did entire year when i was able to just draw whatever, and acting entitled to my content makes me want to.

don't try to soften this either by complimenting me at the end, i don't owe you shit.

[magnass]

Meet the Contestants for The Great British Bake Off (Holby City Edition)

Dom is a journalist from London, whose flair for the artistic is evident in all his bakes.  Raf, a Scottish solicitor who lives in London with his husband and their four kids, bakes with delicate precision (unless the kids decide to help out, that is). Ric runs a boxing gym in Winchester and loves putting a healthy twist on his recipes—and using ingredients from his garden to do so.  Bernie, a trauma locum currently in London, hasn’t been baking for very long, but her already considerable knowledge about the craft shines through.  Jac, who works as an executive in Manchester, brings a cool head and quiet confidence to the kitchen where she prides herself on perfecting classic French bakes.  Essie, a stay at home mum to three teenage children, has honed her skills baking for her kids and community in Ashford.  Henrik is from Sweden originally, but now works as an accountant in Oxford and enjoys baking biscuits and cakes for his coworkers at his firm.  Morven, this year’s youngest baker, lives in Cambridge with her fiancé, teaches reception and loves bringing her bakes in to share with her students. Zosia works in Exeter as a plummer. She learned to bake from her Nan when she was a girl and has been perfecting her skills ever since. Mo grew up in London, but now lives in Cardiff where she runs a tech startup. She has a passion for flavours and makes daring combinations in her bakes. Sacha works in Banbury as an insurance broker. He and his wife Helen met in a home economics course and have been baking together ever since. Serena is a surgeon and clinical lead in Holby. She’s been baking her whole life, and tests out all of her bakes on her most dedicated critics: her daughter and her nephew.

~fic coming soon to an AO3 near you~

[absynthe--minded]

I'm currently catching up on your fanfics (I really love your writing <3) and noticed that you tend to stay pretty in-universe so I wanted to ask about your general opinion on modern setting AU :) I like them because I can have all of the family related Russingon drama but with like less kinslaying/general death (I'm a little cry baby lmao). (also this is in no way a 'why aren't you writing this???' ask just wanted to talk about the topic)

first off, thank you!! I’m really glad you’re enjoying my writing and I hope it keeps staying fun!! I am so sorry because you’re about to get a whole wall of text.

second off, I have... complicated feelings on modern AUs, lol. though you’re not a crybaby! there’s nothing wrong with wanting Less Death. Eru knows our boys deserve it.

The problem that I run into consistently with a modern AU - as opposed to like, a postcanon modern setting like my fic set in Aspen Grove, where characters either come back East in the modern era or (in Maglor’s case) never left in the first place - is that I genuinely don’t know that any of the characters would be the same people in a modern AU. Their experiences would by definition be so different from what they went through in canon that I, personally, can’t find any basis for their characterization.

Like, Fëanáro won’t be the same kind of force of nature that he is in the book if he’s written as a corporate magnate or wealthy engineer of some kind, because a fundamental aspect of his character is his relationship to the crown and his desire for power and influence to secure his legacy. Maitimo can be a soldier and a POW and a survivor of grim conditions and torture, but he’s not going to have spent decades with a psychic sadistic demigod possessed of reality warping powers trying to break him down by pretending to be his family members or loved ones. Káno might be the best musician in the country but is that the same as an elvish bard? Does Tyelkormo still talk to animals? And these experiences - and the pressures of being nobility that operates under a very different idea of what that means than our postindustrial post-WWI society, and the fact that elvish psychology and linguistic development and approaches to the world are very different than human ones - are what shape the characters into the people we know and love from canon.

The biggest roadblock for me is that I get very stuck in the worldbuilding, in the details. I want to make every moment of one of my stories feel like it’s depicting a world that’s lived-in and full, and I want to make the characters make sense and tie their on-page actions into thought processes that make sense too, and that means I spend a shitton of time thinking about politics and elvish philosophy and sociological differences between the Quendi and the humans. It’s basically impossible for me to translate one to the other, lol. Even if I were to try and scale down to solely the Russingon drama of “you’re gay and marrying someone your father wouldn’t approve of” into a human modern AU (and I’m just gonna try and walk you through my process, how I’d approach this) -

okay, well, let’s assume Fëanáro is like eighteen years older than his younger siblings. Say Míriel and Finwë were fifteen and living in the US when they got pregnant and Míriel died in childbirth and Finwë had to single dad it for eighteen years, and his son’s now got a scholarship to MIT and he’s moving across the country for college, and Finwë is now thirty-three and dating again. He and Indis marry and have kids, except by the time Nolofinwë is old enough to marry and have children of his own, Fëanáro is well into his own career and independent from his father, because that’s how contemporary society works. he might have deep and lasting emotional issues, but he responds to them like a typical American man would rather than like he does in canon. Not to mention the ages - Maitimo would be closer in age to Nolofinwë than Findekáno, and there’s no guarantee they’d even meet except at the occasional awkward holiday dinner. Plus, even though marrying your first cousin is totally legal in many places in the US, it is still seen as sort of culturally weird and potentially worthy of a few mean-spirited jokes, so it probably wouldn’t happen at all. This plotline is nixed.

Try again - Fëanáro is an engineer serving as a senator, and Nolofinwë is a rival politician. They don’t get along, their families see one another relatively frequently, and then Findekáno and Maitimo meet and sparks fly. Except now a major part of the drama is gone - without Nolofinwë and Fëanáro’s intensely personal confrontations and especially without Nolofinwë’s biological relationship to Fëanáro, they’re just opponents in Congress, nothing more. And can we say that Fëanáro the polymath prodigy would want anything to do with politics if he’s not born into a royal family? Can we say that Nolofinwë would enter into public service and be successful when his platform is basically “I do what I must because the people demand it”?

Not to mention that a modern AU would have to deal with historical context that doesn’t exist in canon (if the Nolofinwëans are still black, for example, that carries with it a hell of a lot of history and culture and meaning that isn’t applicable at all to Beleriand, where they’re dark-skinned because elves are genetically diverse). And what about the people who work for them? We don’t view staff and hired help the way that canon elves would view their own staff and vassals. What about their social lives? Being extremely rich and powerful is different now than it was in the First Age, with different connotations and public perceptions. What about the fact that contemporary systems of government are vastly different than the quasi-early-medieval, feudalism-adjacent ones that the Noldor seem to have? What about homophobia? Russingon being gay isn’t really an on-page-confirmed issue in canon, so there’s no reason to assume elves have homophobia, but we humans certainly do. What about the history of LGBT+ rights, and the AIDS crisis, and the legalization of same-sex marriage? Does Ronald Reagan exist in this universe, and how did Finwë feel about him?

The only thing that I could really buy into is a contemporary secondary world fantasy with modern technology and amenities and culture but totally invented countries and systems of government. Make House Finwë something like the real-life House of Saud, where several royal princes all have blood ties to the throne and all are wealthy and politically influential but not everyone is actively vying for a place in the line of succession, and reintroduce the magic, and oh damn, I’m just back to canon again. Shit.

You see my problem. I’m standing at the bottom of a massive hole I dug myself, going “what now?” because I Overthink Everything.

[alyssalenko]

Year-end Writer’s Round-Up: the 2020 edition

I was tagged eons ago by my darlings @pikapeppa @ooachilliaoo and @cartadwarfwithaheartofgold and I am finally sitting down with it...on the last day of February...it was a little daunting XD

I will start by saying this last year was rough and I know I was drained emotionally, physically, mentally and creatively, so I definitely did not get as much written as I would have liked--though I made a shitton of edits which were kind of fun and relaxing, even with the incident I refer to as 'The Great Layer Deletion' on July 8th.

(Here’s my masterpost which I keep up to date and if any of the fics strike anyone’s fancy, feel free to check 'em out.)

Word count:

AO3: 17,250

WIPs: 8,548--I started a lot of stuff over quarantine. How many of it saw the light of day? See the above word count, which is actually kind of sad looking at it...

New things I tried this year:

I dove headlong into research which was definitely new. It's normally just an occasional random fact I need, but I needed to learn about the monarchy practice of needing witnesses to breaking in the marriage bed for a King Alistair and Queen Cousland moment which has yet to see the light of day.

I also finally started playing the Witcher 3 over quarantine (it only took 5 years for me to finally pick up the game.) I ended up researching the different schools a lot to figure out which one could possibly release a female witcher, for my OC Hetti.

Smutwise, I finally wrote down some of my filthier ideas in the form of a threesome doc which I use now as a springboard to get me comfortable with new scenarios and language/words in my smut. It had been feeling kind of stale so I made a list (which I never do because it's close to outlining XD) of different scenarios I wanted to play with, and I am ever so slowly working my way through it.

Fic I spent the most time on:

Definitely On One Condition. I started it in like January and tweaked it until I finally posted it on November 26th. My smut had been feeling a little stale and this was on my list, so I started this fic XD.

Fic I spent the least time on:

Um...let me think. Everything took me a good chunk of time looking back at them. I think it's a tie between Physical Therapy and Romancing the Shepard. I think both of them took me around a month to complete (and one of them was my birthday present to myself)? Gone are the days when I bang out a birthday gift fic in less than 24 hours...

Favourite thing I wrote:

Oh! Misuse of Biotics. I got to play with biotics/magic in the bedroom as well as bringing out Kaifan's dominant side because he doesn't like to not be in control after what happened to Vyrnnus. But he gets to channel it a different way because he's been practicing and I got some of the nicest comments on it. It was once again a new smutty scenario on my list, but hey, if it helps me be creative 🤷‍♀️.

Favourite thing I read:

I will be honest here and say that I didn't read much fanfic this year. It's not that I didn't want to. But I need the smut to be first and foremost, and I just don't have the spoons to get through plot and it sucks. But I did participate in some fic exchanges and read those. Because I always read and gush over my gift fics. And I love them all. So to single them all out:

Let's study some anatomy together by Estelle

To Touch and To Hold by @cristaldephoenix

Disguised as a Responsible Adult by drladybird

Sleepless Night by @siriusordo

What are you doing up? By @siriusordo

By I have to give a special shoutout to @cartadwarfwithaheartofgold for her depths of Desire Fic which I started and need to go back to, @guileandgall who had some super sexy oneshots that got me all hot and bothered, @lauraemoriarty for Lady of Light which I do need to get back to, and several other pieces by @pikapeppa I need to get back to...

Writing goals for next year:

In all honesty, I really don't want to make a writing goal and let myself down when I don't keep it. I'm a fly by the seat of pants kind of writer anyways, so I will follow the inspiration where it leads me. I mean, I would like to throw my hat into a few more exchanges but we'll see if that gets beyond the dasmutquisition and specrecs. XD

Gosh you guys are all amazing and I am hoping you are all staying safe and sane and happy. If anyone else sees this and want to play, please do and tag me so I can see all the things!

[wizisbored]

What are some of your favorite lines you've written for your fics? (Also I'm sorry things aren't going well right now. Sending love 💜)

right its time to go diggin im using this as an excuse to reread everything because i cant think of any lines off the top of my head even though i know theres a shitton

premptively putting a cut here because this will probably end up long as shit and you know what fuck yea to that because fuck yea to being proud of what youve made

SO

hallelujah, first thing i posted:

If those bastards want to make her part of their shitty musical, then she’s going to make it difficult. Or at least inconvenient.

The hive is not inconvenienced in the slightest.’

- idk if this is as funny as i think it is but i find it funny

"Nobody dies with dignity, Emma. There's no honour in the thing, however you dress it up."

- wrote that to sound creepy and now i cant decide whether i actually think its true

But he’s holding her like she’s his salvation, as if it’s his life hanging in the balance.

- salvation is just a good word tbh

It’s hopeless, but she refuses to be killed by a game of fucking ‘got your nose’.

purgatory, intended to be a shitpost but now i unironically think of it as the best thing ive ever written

After a few years (or maybe seconds, it’s not clear) / it takes a moment (or maybe it doesn’t, who knows?) / An undocumentable amount of time passes. /  They might have slipped into an uneasy silence lasting millenia - or milliseconds - if it wasn’t for the jolly tune that suddenly fills the air. / for minutes or years or millenia or maybe even eons / After a brief, indescribably long nap / But the incomprehensible amount of time seems somehow shorter this time.

- 2 in one of fucking with the concept of time and hinting at an unreliable narrator, hell yea. its about the weird atmosphere, baybeeeee

“Does one day of trying the hardest we could outweigh years of not trying at all?” Emma wonders aloud. Paul squeezes her hand.

“I damn hope so.”

He doesn’t ask if she believes in Hell.

- even without context i like this line but in context it really helped set the sombre tone so i could do a full 180 at the end of the chapter

Emma wonders whether they’ve been sent to musical hell for failing to stop the musical apocalypse

- love the implication that there is a hell dedicated to annoying people via musical theatre

“You said- you told her you’d never be in a musical?”

“Yes.”

“And then you died performing a musical number?”

“I- yeah, I did.”

“Brilliant! Now, that is stupid!”

- probably my best characterisation of death, sounds like something that would be said in a stupid deaths bit, i can hear it in his voice

teachers pet

“It’s only blatant if people know about it. So in actual fact this is secret favouritism.”

- hidgens gives absolutely 0 shits about the ethics of the situation good for him

“And if that is kidnapping, well, consider yourself kidnapped.”

- once again ethics simply do not matter

“Oh, where is your sense of adventure? Are you not curious about the results of washing baked beans?”

- this line hants me when im trying to make stew or just have some fucking beans on toast because I am curious about the results of washing baked beans

“Well, if it isn’t, and we both die, then I’ll be quite disappointed. We did spend all evening on this, after all.”

- priorities

finishing what we started, actually originally a scrapped ending idea for igtlt that i liked too much to abandon entirely

“How many bullets?” He eventually asks.

“Enough.”

- they just know what theyve got to do

Only thing left to say is a big ol’ fuck you to… God, everyone else in the fucking world. Oh, and God. Fuck you God, you prick.

- gotta love them tto refs

wildfire, almost 20,000 words of angst that im going to read through because fuck it why not

She doesn't understand the order, at least not yet; a dog doesn't understand the first time she's called to heel. But that can change. Though, from the bared teeth of this dog, the trader guesses it may take a while.

- this is actually something i really like doing in narration, calling a character something in dialogue or comparison and then directly calling them it in the narration

He understands; she doesn't want to show weakness to someone who could exploit her, doesn't want to show gratitude to someone she hates. But the tribeswoman is tired and scared and hurt, and it's obvious. She's broken, at least for today.

The loneliness, however, refuses to wane. It settles in her chest like a physical need, a craving for closeness.

- got inspiration for this description by thinking about hugging my partner while i was stuck in lockdown

"You can say that again," the older woman mutters, shaking her head. "God-fuckin'-damnit, Lauren, why d'you never think about the implications?"

Jemilla turns to her with a questioning look. "Who's Lauren?"

"She-" Molag begins to explain, then pauses. She thinks for a moment, then shakes her head. "I don't even know."

- crossover jokes hell yea

He’s tolerable, she’s decided, at least relatively so, but not trustworthy. If she could truly trust him then he wouldn’t be involved in all this. If she could trust him, she wouldn’t know him.

The thinly-veiled threat in his grin

She stares up at the man, shaking, whimpering, pleading. Wordlessly begging for him to stop.

- gotta love reaching the breaking point

She probably looks insane, bruised and bloody and laughing quietly to herself in a cage. She doesn’t care. They can think she’s insane, just as long as they don’t think they broke her.

laughing as they rediscover half-forgotten days spent as children let loose in a world that seemed so huge and yet so small at the same time

“You know, kids like Zazzalil - scrawny little things born as Autumn died - they’re not supposed to see Spring.”

- i will see any character without a detailed fleshed-out backstory and say ‘is anyone going to make headcannons about that’ and then not wait for an answer

Maybe the pain will shock her out of her head.

im going to live twice

It feels more like a bag of broken crockery than a human.

- this was the only time ive ever had to describe something really gory and decided to make it as uncomfy as possible

she notices with a concerning level of non-concern

Paul Matthews is gone, boy. And if I catch you using a dead man’s name again, well.

- its about the ✨forced disconnect✨

It stares at him, and for a moment he sees the young man that Benny used to be, silently pleading for the agent to tell him he'll be okay.

"In my defence, that was the Colonel's idea.” The man raises his hands in surrender. “I wanted to call you Lauren. I was outvoted.”

- i will take literally any chance to make a 4th wall joke and that is a threat

“I’ll see what can be done,” he assures it, knowing full well that nothing will be.

- xander doesnt flat out abuse emma in the way mcnamara and shaffer do but hes still cruel in subtler ways

“No chance of being hurt?”

Xander nods. “No chance of you being hurt.”

-  ✨foreshadowing ✨

If only he was free, free to just get up and go find Blue and tell her - actually tell her, out loud, with words - that she’s going to be okay. If only he could say that and have it be the truth.

She holds onto that piano. Right now, as she kneels crying into the tabletop, it's all she has.

- ‘sir thats my emotional support near-complete stranger’

smoke and feathers

Irony can be a cruel, twisted bitch.

- probably the best opener ive written

There’s a sort of pathetic irony in the fact that she slipped on a stone while wading across a shallow stream and broke her neck.

The stars move across the sky, and she still doesn’t know why.

- sounds poetic and all while also being a fuck you to the chorn twist because i hate it

It seems like every time she looks away the moon goes from waxing to waning and back again, time marching onwards in one unending night, swallowing one unending forest.

Even with her limited view of the person’s face, Zazzalil can see the softness in their expression. She’s hit with a pang of longing for Jemilla.

They share those tender looks that make Zazzalil long for home.

The kind of silence only shared between people who can appreciate the simplicity of each other’s presence

aaand thats pretty much all of em. i know when you said ‘some’ you probably meant less than this but i will give a consice answer to a question when pigs fly. i was going to do the double e au too but its past 1 am now and im going to bed. thanks for this ask because whether intentionally or not you just made me read 48,860 words of fic and thats a damn good distraction when things are getting a bit shitty :)

[twicetolivetwicetodie]

I love Oliver and I appreciated the tributes to him but Felicity, Thea, and his kids should have been there after he died. I'm glad Barry and Sara were with him and I'm glad we saw Diggle and the team's reactions but there were other people close to him whose reactions I wish we'd seen too. I'm very upset about the Flash's disappearance not really happening and Eobard not appearing after years of build up! Wtf! The crossover had some great moments but was also very disappointing in ways.

I know I’ve been rough on Oliver on recent posts, but I don’t really have anything against his character, I’m just annoyed at how the crossovers have utilized him and downplayed everyone else. And I 100% agree. It was good that Sara and Barry were there for him cause they were his closest friends from other shows (and Sara debuted on his show), but Thea, Felicity, and his kids not really getting to say goodbye to him didn’t feel right.

I know I’ve ranted about this a lot but Barry not disappearing afterall was very anticlimactic. They’ve been building up to this for six years only for it to not happen? Earth 90 Barry disappearing in his place was a total copout (and I said that before I was sure our Barry wasn’t also going to disappear). 

And Eobard. Yeah. What’s crazy about that is that this was the foundation of our show. Eobard’s 15+ year long master plan of ensuring that Barry disappeared at Crisis, the article that has been here since the pilot, and Guggie decided to throw that all away because “it was written six years ago” and “none of the current showrunners were involved with that”. Basically “I wasn’t involved with that and I already stole the Flash’s biggest storyline that they built the foundation of their show on so I might as well take this away from them too” (sorry I’m really bitter). I can only hope Thawne shows up soon to make up for this. What’s his backup plan since Barry didn’t disappear? He spent a shitton of time planning this out, where does he go from here? It also negates his entire storyline from season 5 (he wouldn’t have been at Iron Heights at all if he wasn’t there during Crisis). We joked on Twitter that he didn’t show up to this particular crisis cause he found out it was about fucking up Oliver and not Barry and he lost interest 

This also makes me wonder what the fuck is Barry’s character arc for 6B now? I am at a loss cause I had all my theories surrounding him still disappearing so I have no idea where they’re gonna go with him. Him being extra protective maybe cause he already lost everyone and doesn’t want to lose them again? Repercussions mentally from being stranded and isolated in the Vanishing Point for what felt like years? I really don’t know