#THEY ARE THE SAME STORY WITH A DIFFERENT FONT!!!

[elainsgirl]

You know what I find amazing? Every single time I hear gwynriels or Eluciens describe their ship, they are describing Elriel. It's amazing. Every time. I don't get it. It's like they switched Elain's name for Gwyn when they read. Or Azriels name for Lucien. But why? Why not like the OG thing. The thing that is actually in the books? Because they will be getting exactly the thing they're asking for, but with Elain and Azriel.

Have you seen this? If you have, why do you think this is? It's just so amazing and inexplicable to me. It makes no sense to me.

Elucien and Gwynriel IS elriel in a different font. They literally just swap out Elain/Az for the characters they like more aka Gwyn and Lucien. Why? If you look at it from Gwynriels perspective: most of them do not like Elain. They find her useless, boring, meek. Why would they ship their fave batboy with such a wallflower? Generally speaking, a popular trope is the “quiet, introverted, moody boy” x “chirpy, extroverted, sunny girl” -> that is not elriel. It does however fit gwynriel. Its a popular dynamic they can HC onto gwynriel. Same with Elucien. Now; w eluciens its not that they’re such big elain fans. Its that for them, mates = happiness. Their baby lulu has been through so much and he deserves his happiness and he’ll achieve that when elain accepts the bond. A popular microtrope for “reluctant engagement/marriage” especially with a ladylike character such as Elain is “sassy, conveniently attractive, foul mouthed man meets the proper, society abiding woman” -> his witty banter makes the proper lady blush and unable to handle herself. Again. It’s not elriel but can be used for elucien. And the reasons these micro/tropes fit is due to the fact Elucien and Gwynriel are so undeveloped you can virtually shape them to be however you like making them more favourable ships when you compare it to elriel - which is developed. They have a canon dynamic, you can’t just place any HC onto them. If I was to say, “omfg I can’t wait for the banter between elriel!” - you’re going to be like…but they’re not a couple that “banters”….thats not how elriel is. But If I was to make the same statement with gwynriel, you can’t really argue against it bcs it can happen between gwynriel. They’re that raw. And considering how far we’re into the series -> its not how Sjm rolls. But thats another discussion. Alternatively, instead of antis not liking elain/azriel - they may ship gwynriel/elucien as it drives the story in a different direction thats more liked by them. For example, with Gwynriel you’ll get more of Nesta, Emerie, H.O.W -> less of feysand and IC. And after acosf and the hatred for the OG cast, this new one in acosf is more liked and people want them to be centre staged. You’re not going to get that with elriel. Same goes for elucien -> less of the NC, IC, feysand and more of other courts and characters eluciens’ find interesting such as Eris. Again, that won’t happen with elriel. I have seen this countless times over all the years. Gwynriel: Gwyn will accept Az for who he is, she won’t be afraid of him or his shadows, she’s going to call his scars beautiful, Az will want to spend time with her, Gwyn will become a spy alongside Azriel and the twins who she will also become friends with, Azriel will get Gwyn such a beautiful Solstice gift, Gwyn will make Az laugh so much like he hasn’t done before, Gwynriel are going to love spending alone time together, gwynriel will help revive the prison, Az will take gwyn flying, their powers are so similar etc etc etc,

I’ll be honest - I haven’t seen eluciens “steal” elriels’ tropes/plot points (I mean they could be, im just not aware of it) aside from saying Elains choice being Lucien is impactful, and now trying to twist the forbidden love trope for elucien instead of elriel….who literally had Rhys stop them and told Az to stay away. I think with eluciens - its that they disregard canon and just go with whatever they want. They don’t take into consideration elains canon characteristics or the plot she’s connected too. They have a vision for elucien which they force onto the couple even if it makes no sense canonically. Lmfao who am I kidding, they don’t gaf about elains canon feelings towards Lucien so why would they care if their Hc/Theories align with elains traits and associations. Its all about Lucien. Their whole plot has Lucien right centre stage with Elain tagging along. Same like Tamlain and gwynriel really.

Thing is - I can’t blame gwynriels for having to be unoriginal and take a lot of “inspiration” from elriel bcs what unique thing can happen between gwynriel? Azriels most impactful moments have already happened with Elain. Take him giving TruthTeller to her. That was a pretty important scene. Monumental for both Az and Elain. If Az was now to give Gwyn TT…it won’t be special or anything new. Its why you often find gwynriels downplaying a lot of elriel moments only to use those same moments for their own ship but showing how its going to be 100x more spectacular.

[lesser-robot-cat]

I bound @perpetualcontrolleddrowning's beautiful and heart-wrenching SVSSS fanfic, Dreaming You the Same Sun in a Different Place into a book. One for each of us!

Because it's SVSSS, everything just had to be green. I used scrapbook paper and recycled fabric for the covers, with hand-drawn gold foil lettering and cotton thread for the endbands. I accidentally wrecked one copy while casing in, so I had to start over with all new cover paper. Luckily I have a whole block of stone-textured papers, and there was another one in green. Considering this story is about rebuilding connections in an unfamiliar world, it's kind of fitting after all.

The title font is Love Letter TW. It was super popular among computer nerds in the 90s. It was even used in an anime about people whose consciousness shifts onto the internet when they die. Sounds familiar, right? 😉

The author's copy will go into the mail in a few days, and mine will take its place on my bookshelf. I'm so glad I was able to bind this!

[ariaste]

Hello, professional author here, I have a *slight* tweak of a suggestion to offer, or an alternate take from a slightly different perspective. First, I 100% agree with the meat of what you're both saying here, and I absolutely share your frustrations with the genre of cozy fantasy as a whole -- so many of them have something going wrong with the engine of the story. The car won't start. You turn the ignition and all you get out of it is a weak grumbling. So what's happening here from a mechanical perspective?

We're talking about cozy fantasy being "low stakes", and that's certainly how it bills itself. But low stakes are not the source of the problem -- there are plenty of stories/movies/tv shows with very low stakes that we still enjoy watching! Great British Bake Off, for example. The stakes are only "Will the cake come out right" and "how will the judges react". Right? Those are low stakes! The world is not ending, society is not in danger of crumbling to pieces, there is no great battle between Good and Evil for the fate of all humanity. But we watch GBBO and we're ENRAPTURED. We're INVESTED. Why?

Not because of the stakes, but because of the tension.

wait hang on i need to say this in the loud font because it's crucially important

IT'S BECAUSE OF THE TENSION

Both readers and apprentice writers often confuse "stakes" and "tension" because, frankly, increasing the stakes is often a cheap and easy way to increase the tension. Here's the difference, just to make sure we're all on the same page: Stakes are an external, objective thing -- "will the cake come out right, how will the judges react" -- but tension is internal. It is the pull between two things: On one hand, how much this contestant wants to win, how hard they've been trying, how emotional they're getting about a mishap, and our knowledge from an earlier episode about how their mum always believed in them and how they've struggled to believe in themself but since making it onto GBBO they've been thinking that maybe... maybe they can believe in themself.

And what's pulling from the other side is: How their nervousness and lack of confidence is causing them to make mistakes; how we as the audience don't know whether this challenging thing they're trying is going to turn out well; how they're ever going to recover from a cataclysm like forgetting to turn the oven on; whether they could do their absolute best and try so so so SO HARD and it might not make any difference because the other contestants also were all trying their hardest.

Man, I don't know about you, but even just as I was writing that out, my heart was in my throat and I was getting a little choked up.

THAT'S tension. And that's what a lot of cozy fantasy is lacking, because they say "low stakes" and they think that stakes and tension are the same thing, and so they forget that YOU STILL HAVE TO MAKE YOUR CHARACTERS CARE PASSIONATELY IF YOU WANT THE READER TO HAVE ANYTHING THAT THEY CARE ABOUT. As readers, we care when the character has something that really, really, REALLY matters to them. We literally cannot help it -- look up "mirror neurons" if you want the neuroscience explanation for why we literally cannot help it.

High stakes is a cheap cheat code to tension because something like "We have to save the world to keep the Dark Lord from invading the kingdom and slaughtering everyone" is sort of self-explanatory about why it matters. Ah, yes, We Don't Want To Be Slaughtered. Got it. No explanation necessary. You can get away with not really showing whether it matters to the character, because the audience just naturally ASSUMES that it's a Good and Important thing to be doing.

You can't get away with cutting corners like that if you're doing low stakes. Here, look:

High stakes & high tension = Think Mad Max: Fury Road. It is a LOT and you can't look away but you might feel sort of exhausted afterwards and need a nap.

High stakes & low tension = Many Marvel films. Sure ok yeah we're saving the world, that's fun, whatever. Probably saving the world is a good thing to do so that's fine

Low stakes & high tension = GBBO as previously mentioned. Also pretty much any sport (sorry, sports fans, but "will they win the big game" is not high stakes, it just SEEMS like high stakes because of ow much you care about it -- which is TENSION!!!) You will be on the edge of your seat, you will be crying about how amazingly well that border collie/papillon mix did in the agility course.

Low stakes & low tension: Legends & Lattes. Probably if Plan A doesn't work out, the character could just wander off and try Plan B and it wouldn't be that personally upsetting.

So that's my two cents on where a lot of cozy fantasy is going wrong. And like, I can kind of see where my colleagues are coming from and why books like this keep being produced these days??? Like the pandemic really fucked up everybody, and so many of us are incredibly burned out and running on fumes... And so sometimes it feels impossibly challenging to write any book except one where nothing bad happens and nothing is in danger and nobody is really bothered or worried about anything and everything is mostly fine and there aren't any major setbacks.....

But that leaves readers cold. And frankly, I don't feel like it does much of anything to nourish either our souls or theirs. It feels like eating a bag of potato chips for dinner instead of going to the effort of even just heating up a frozen dinner that has a vegetable in it.

idk, man. I've taught university classes about this shit, but what do I know. Maybe I'm talking out of my ass. (Also, if you would like an example of cozy fantasy where it really fucking matters to the person going through it, may I humbly suggest Yield Under Great Persuasion? I wrote it partially as an illustration of how there's a difference between Stakes and Tension. :D)

Cozy Fantasy and Why It Doesn't Work

I think I am among many who feel like they should love cozy fantasy and have found it an incredibly lacking genre.

This newly branded "cozy fantasy" genre that has taken readers by storm since 2020 and while it is new that books are now marketed as cozy, the genre itself isn't new. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones is a great example of the genre before it was labeled and also how to make it work.

Cozy fantasy is defined by many as fantasy with low stakes. Fantasy aesthetic but less sword fights. On paper, it sounds great. But the execution has been less than stellar for readers like me. The lack of physical stakes has also impacted the emotional stakes of these books, creating forgettable characters with boring problems. As a romance reader, I find this frustrating. Romance is known for being a predictable and formulaic genre, the now defunct Romance Writers of America defined romances as needing happy endings, a term romances have continued to follow. Yet these romance texts manage to have low physical stakes (how to date your neighbor, how to confront your toxic friends, etc) while still maintaining high personal stakes that keep readers invested and begging for more. So I was initially confused why cozy fantasy authors struggle to write texts that connect to readers like me.

I think I have found the answer which is the genre is just here for vibes. It is all about aesthetic, not even worldbuilding that fantasy is known for as most cozy fantasy I read have so many problems as soon as you ask one question. It is hard to acknowledge that a genre that is pitched to work for readers like me doesn't work for many of us. Especially because occasionally there is one that works beautifully to my taste.

I often say my favorite cozy fantasies that are more contemporary are short and visual, which I plays into the idea of the genre being an aesthetic. The Bakery Dragon by Devin Elle Kurtz is a good example because it is a simple story that is given the perfect amount of pages and gorgeous visuals without dragging on when the message is very clear and easy to understand. Books like The Phoenix Keeper and Legends and Lattes have absolutely nothing for me, their very clear message hitting the reader over and over so the readers don't miss it and focusing on the aesthetic of worldbuilding rather than the reality of the fantastic elements within the world.

I guess my point is. . . I realize this genre isn't for me since I have realized it is more of an aesthetic than anything. .. .but I want it to be. Should I let it go and put my efforts elsewhere? Or should I keep exploring this new trend and find the hidden gems?

[youruinedmylifebynotbeingreal]

In my mind Elena of Avalor and Tangled the Series/Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure are shaking hands

[dovewingkinnie]

when the hero is more deranged than the loser villain

[deadrobinsclub-est1988]

Agent Cody Banks: I’m a Cool Teenage Spy!!! I work for the CIA!! Sometimes I have to sneak off and go rogue because my handlers don’t trust a child to deal with grown up problems :((( But everything turns out alright in the end :). I get to kick ass, save the world, and run off into the sunset with Hillary Duff! SICK AF SPY GADGETS!!!

Alex Rider: MI6 has stolen my childhood. I’m an indentured servant to the government. Every single adult in my life has been complicit in my abuse, neglect, and reckless endangerment. I was groomed to be the perfect spy by the man who has raised me since infancy. I have survived torture and assassination attempts. Everyday I grapple with the blood that stains my hands as I try to hold on to the shreds of my innocence. Sick AF spy gadgets

[respectthepetty]

Ayaka is in Love with Hiroko has me in my Old Fashion Cupcake feels since both Japanese office romances deal with a lost underling being inspired by their cool superior to enjoy life more and falling for them in the process.

Their supervisors' advice is the reason they are the excellent workers they are and it affirmed their queerness since they fell in love with their bosses.

(And they are both color coded!)

So it makes perfect sense that Ayaka would lighten up after seeing the brightness and brilliance of Hiroko much like Togawa did after seeing Nozue's radiance.

After all, Hiroko was the one to give Akaya her color.

So it's interesting that the previous episode highlighted that Akaya's nails are pink.

Because this episode showed that whoever hurt Hiroko a decade ago was also a Pink Person which has caused Hiroko to become stuck and it was shown through the nails and the drink.

Even though their bosses gave them life-changing advice, their bosses became comfortable and cautious, so they need their persistent subordinates to remind them of their brightness.

And their love (for life).

[helpiamlostsomewhereinthegarden]

Asmo: *story telling* Once, I was arrested for being too handsome.

Lucifer: We had to wait a week before he came back home

[the-common-cowgirl]

Me anxiously waiting for HOTD Season Two knowing that it’s going to diverge from the book and is basically Fire and Blood fanfiction but not caring because of if I wanted to be a book purist, I would have just stuck with the books.

[diorgirl444]

RIFF LORTON ANGST IN THE WORKS ‼️‼️‼️

[hampurrger]

If I had a nickel for every character I knew whose mom does love them, but tries to make them into someone they're not, someone who they dont want to be, and tries to push or take away what they truly, really love and claim it as "doing what's in their best interest"

I'd have two nickels.

[tmnt-obsessed-ace]

Ok we have a full set of turtles that adopted rise turtles.

Same Story Different Font Leonardo

Shellshock Raphael

Ghost In The Shell Donatello

Know Peace Michelangelo

I wanna see them hanging out, getting into chaos, hell even taking a nap together (god they need it)

Absolutely yes :D

That would be so cool

[pezberrypolls]

[jynjackets]

jonathan nolan can always flirt with a really cool concept of the meaning behind humanity without ever landing on a conclusive message or solid point but as long as it’s done in a dope ass setting i will ALWAYS sign the fuck up

[lord-rain-master]

i just love how both ning yuanzhou and xie wei have the same "we both are so similar" speech for their s/o but the difference in the delivery is the complete opposite

[br1ghtestlight]

if you want to write a video essay about queer identity in bob's burgers u must first understand

queer identity and neurodivergence in bobs burgers are both intrinsically connected. its impossible to talk about the other as they're both such an essential part of the show and written in its dna

bob's burgers has a specific way of protraying societal bigotry and oppression that applies not only to their protrayal of queerness but also fatphobia and sexism etc. U must first understand this or u won't get it. you simply will not get it

cis lgb and trans/drag queen identity in bobs burgers are protrayed in very different but connected & positive ways. how lesbian or bisexual characters are treated is not how genderfluid characters are treated. but it informs both

there has never been a character in bob's burgers explicitly stated or implied to be heterosexual or cisgender. queer until proven otherwise okay?

once you understand all of these points MAYBE you are ready for writing the bob's burgers video essay on queer identity..... But of course this is only one of my five requirements,