#They might do it at the actual midpoint

[itsnobodysproblem]

Most Sherlock Holmes adaptations I've seen tend to place their Final Problem towards the mid point of the series (or even a bit earlier) - it's also in my opinion the best way of going about it, so you have time enough for the characters to adjust after the reunion but they know each other well enough for the events of Fina to be devastating.

Sherlock & Co is done with 20 of the adventures. How many are there? Fifty-something? Almost sixty? Let's say we'll be entering mid-point territory after the 25th story.

So let's pretend for a moment that we have 5 more stories until The Final Problem. Ok.

Estimating an adventure at 3 episodes each, that would mean little over 3 months - maybe 3 and a half? Starting, of course, from the end of Sign of Four, which will be somewhere in December.

So let's say 3, maybe 4 months into 2025. That would be, what? Late march, early april?

Early april?

John having to tell the listeners that Sherlock is dead, in early april?

Quick calendar search reveals what I was praying it would - the 1st of april will be on a Tuesday next year.

So what I'm saying

What I'm saying is Sherlock &Co has the opportunity to do the funniest fucking thing

[pusselwrites]

a fourth of the way through my camp nano project!! a bit behind but that's okay! had a great writing session just now! wrote an entire day's worth of words for a normal 50k nano so im feeling very accomplished

[avocado-writing]

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

*eats your words*

no but seriously, your writing has me kicking my feet when I’m supposed to be typing an essay 😞‼️ I was wondering if you could do some headcanons for the companions x monk! Tav who, when being confessed to, Tav responds with “it’ll pass”?

basically fleabag inspired 😍‼️ please and thank you! stay safe n warm 🔫

OH GOD HEARTBREAKING i tried to make it have a happy ending tho!!! enjoy! and I'm so glad that you enjoy my writing! (mild nsfw mentions)

writing as if you're saying this because you think you wouldn't be the best option for their future, one way or another, and want to try and soften the blow for them by replying like this. you only want them to be happy and you're scared it can't be with you.

Astarion

you cup his face, and the look in your eyes is so, so sad.

you think perhaps your simple nomadic lifestyle will not be enough for him. you love him, you do, but he needs someone more modern. more cosmopolitan.

when you tell him it will pass you see a myriad of expressions cross his face: sadness, confusion, anger... but finally, resolve.

he takes your hand in his, firmly.

"my heart. I know when things will pass, and when they won't. my love for you is not some trifle, a fashion to be abandoned like it would go out of style. I mean it. I can make my own decisions, and I have decided where I want to be. It's with you."

he reaches out to embrace you. you're surprised, but let him do it anyway, and you bury your face into his neck to hide your emotions.

maybe, just maybe, you were wrong.

you hold him tighter than ever that night.

Gale

you're worried he is too smart for you. that he will get bored of you, and the idea breaks your heart.

you tell him "it'll pass" when he confesses because you're scared.

seems actually offended that you'd tell him his love for you might be fleeting.

"there are things which will span the ages. stories, gods, heroes. my love for you is one of them. I do not confess that lightly. you are a beacon of hope in my life, love... and that will never fade."

goes on for some time afterwards about how committed he is and how much he loves you, until eventually you accept that he's not going anywhere.

bloody wizards, so good with their words...

fall asleep that night after having the most intimate lovemaking session, all about feeling each other's breath and heartbeats.

he is here to stay, forever.

Wyll

wyll deserves someone amazing. someone who could handle his life if he became duke, and you're scared you'll let him down.

when you tell him 'it'll pass' he is hurt, and leaves the conversation for a moment. you think perhaps it is for the best. you don't need this to cause any more pain.

but later he comes to find you and asks if he can have a private moment. you find out he wasn't hiding from you but preparing: he has a little intimate picnic set up where you can sit and be alone.

when you're comfortable he tells you about how deep his love is, how fate has thrown you together.

"there is nothing about how i feel about you that could pass. nothing."

to prove his point, he slips to his knee, and that is when he proposes.

you're overcome with emotion. you have to accept how committed to you he is, and work out if you deserve something as fierce as his love.

there are tears in your eyes when you accept. you never think his love will pass again.

Karlach

probably the hardest one to say this too. together, your future is so uncertain. it will be easier to break it off here rather than maim both of you.

gets angry. in fact, goes into a rage. tears up the surroundings, and for a moment you're taken aback--

but then she turns and she's sobbing, stuck at the midpoint between being apoplectic and brokenhearted.

"you don't get to decide that for me! you don't! you're the first person i've loved... I've touched... I've felt anything for, for a fucking decade! when i feel this, it doesn't fade! how dare you think about yourself like that? as if you're some sort of phase?"

eventually she calms down enough but bursts into tears instead. you go to hold her and she embraces you so tightly that the wind is knocked from your body.

"i love you. i won't leave you. don't leave me." her voice is tiny.

how could you ever say no? how could you ever doubt her?

when the two of you are in Avernus, you're reminded of this moment, and so glad she fought against it. you'd trade this away for nothing.

Lae'zel

would she want someone like you? long term? she's so brave, so fierce. what if you're not good enough? what if your relationship develops only for you to let her down?

she gets angry too, but quieter.

is furious that you would question her affection.

"githyanki do not give their devotion lightly. the fact that you think my love for you could pass makes me wonder how well you know me."

it turns into an argument where you try and explain your side, and she's angry at you for thinking this way.

eventually it descends into angrily making out. some fierce lovemaking. her saying how much she loves you, possesses you, between every bite and kiss.

you lie in the afterglow. she says she will not leave, and pretty much tells you that you won't either. you agree, and tangle your hand with hers.

Shadowheart

tries to hide how hurt she is.

yes, Shar is the lady of loss, but the idea of losing you... of not having you in her life? unthinkable.

you only tried to tell her it will pass so that, if she wishes to become a dark justiciar, she will have no lingering attachment to you after.

and yet...

it is blasphemy for her, but she refuses to let you go.

"no. i won't allow it. i can't believe this will fade between us. you are the most precious thing to me. stay."

you're weak for her, end up tumbling into bed, reconfirming your love for each other.

you never quite believe that this is forever until she changes her hair, embraces selune. then your heart is full of joy. and it is full of Shadowheart.

[idiopath-fic-smile]

If you are still taking Halloween fic requests:

Member of a monster-themed novelty band Grantaire x Actual Vampire Enjolras

oh HELL YEAHHHHHH

i'd apologize for the ensuing silliness but you can probably gather that is a hallmark of the fledgling "monster-themed novelty band x actual literal monster" genre. this is part one; i may write more tomorrow

“Grantaire,” Joly panted, “come quick, it’s a party emergency!”

Grantaire, who might as well have lived inside a glass case labeled BREAK IN CASE OF PARTY EMERGENCY, flipped himself right side up from where he’d been about to attempt a keg stand, and nodded solemnly, clapping his hands together. The blood rushed back to his head in a giddy wave.

“What do you need?” he asked.

Joly nodded at Bossuet to explain as the three of them barreled down the hallway.

“Here’s the thing,” said Bossuet, “we hired a band tonight, but the lead singer got way too high and now he thinks he needs to liberate all the notes from his guitar.”

Grantaire cocked his head to one side. “Does that explain why someone’s spent the past hour loudly and determinedly playing scales?”

“I don’t pretend to understand the inebriate’s mind!” Joly shouted, gesticulating wildly. The effect was slightly undercut by the bottle of gin in his hand.

“Point is,” said Bossuet, still walking at an almost-run, “we already rounded up Eponine and Bahorel. We need you guys to take the stage and salvage what’s left of tonight. C’mon, Bahorel says your sound is really getting there.”

“We’re not a band,” Grantaire insisted. “We’re a support group that keeps getting noise violations. We’ve never even played a gig.” He knew he probably sounded whiny but it had been a long week. His minimum possible math requirement was kicking his ass. “Besides, I had plans for tonight. I was gonna get laid.” Or at least, he was going to do his damnedest. Believe in yourself. Manifest your dreams. No I in team.

Bossuet simultaneously peered at Grantaire and pulled him through a door. “Is that why you’re dressed as…god, I don’t know, what do you call all this?”

“I thought he was an Animorph,” announced Joly. “Like, at a midpoint in the transformation to some kind of hairy animal.”

Grantaire coughed.

“Sorry,” said Joly easily. “A Sexy Mid-Transformation Animorph.”

“Shit, take in some culture once in a while, this is embarrassing,” said Grantaire. He gestured at the wolf ears on his headband, the fur glued to the cuffs of his shirtsleeves, the canine nose he’d drawn over his own with Eponine’s eyeliner pencil, the strategically ripped shirt and jeans. “I’m a Sexy Wolfman,” he said. “Obviously.”

He and Eponine, who had watched Ginger Snaps every day for the past month, had agreed to go as a pair of werewolves, but then Eponine had abandoned their pack of two to go make out with Cosette, which he really should’ve seen coming. He couldn’t even hold it against her; Eponine had been “casually” memorizing Cosette’s general weekly schedule for the past couple of semesters, when she wasn’t watching Cosette moony-eyed from the other side of the Quad. It was all probably very cute.

“Well, Wolfman,” said Bossuet, nudging Grantaire in the direction of the makeshift stage, where Bahorel was taking a seat behind the drums and Eponine was—reluctantly, by the look of it—re-tuning her borrowed bass. “You three have about thirty seconds to think of a band name.”

Grantaire picked up the electric guitar and raised his eyebrows at Eponine, whose lupine makeup was now marred by bright red lip marks, like something from a cartoon. Her own lips were smeared crimson, which was to be expected, but.

“She stopped to kiss you multiple times on the cheek?” he muttered.

“Shut up,” said Eponine, visibly blushing. “How’s your quest for a meaningless hookup?”

Grantaire let out a long breath. “Not even the furries are biting,” he admitted as Eponine snickered.

“Band names, people,” said Bahorel. He adjusted a cymbal. “I don’t have all night.”

“Hello,” Grantaire intoned into the microphone. “We are Not Even the Furries Are Biting! This first song—”

“Gonna kill you and make it look like an accident,” Eponine crooned low in his ear. “The embarrassing kind. Toilet-related.”

The thing was, in their capacity as a very loud sort-of group therapy session, with October 31st on the horizon, they had actually been talking about the appeal of wolves as a metaphor for the parts of oneself that felt wild or lonely or unlovable. To that effect, they’d been toying with a couple songs.

Maybe, thought Grantaire, this would not be a complete and total clusterfuck.

They played “I was a Teenage Werewolf” by The Cramps. They played “I’m The Wolf Man” by Round Robin. They played “Werewolf” by The Frantics. Any time he, Bahorel, or Eponine ran into a snag—a fumbled note, a missed beat, a patch that wasn’t perfectly memorized—Grantaire attempted to cover for them by throwing back his head and wailing, as if he was losing more and more of his grip on his humanity.

They were just finishing the first verse of The Black Keys’ “Howling for You” when Grantaire saw him: a tall, handsome stranger lingering at the back edge of the room, with intense eyes and an even more intense air of stone-cold sobriety. He wasn’t smiling, wasn’t frowning, just—looking. Disapprovingly? Apathetically? Saddled with a bad case of heartburn? It was hard to tell.

The chorus started up, and Grantaire sang along with Eponine and Bahorel:

“Da da da da da, da da da da da da—”

Grantaire grinned as more and more of the crowd joined in—pulled along less by the band’s general prowess or charisma and more by a drunk college student’s inherent love of an easy earworm, but Grantaire wasn’t splitting hairs at this point.

“Da da da da da, da da da da da—”

A sea of bobbing, singing partygoers, and there on the fringes, Offensively Sober Guy stood perfectly still, watching Grantaire so intently that Grantaire almost forgot the words to the refrain.

Or rather, the word.

Or rather, the single repeating syllable.

To Offensively Sober’s left, two guys attempted to clink their beer bottles together and somehow lost their balance, careening into him. He maintained his impeccable posture as if they weren’t even in the room, never breaking his stare. It was honestly a little creepy.

For reasons Grantaire would later not be able to fully reconstruct, he decided the funniest thing to do would be to wink and smirk and generally pretend like Sober was really, really into him.

[howtofightwrite]

I love picking at plot holes like scabs so i want my fight scenes to be as realistic as possible. However. There’s a creature in my head that says a buster sword is SICK AS HELL. What modifications would it need to be even remotely wieldable while still keeping its central appeal (huge sword big blade cool and sexy) intact?

You’ve made a mistake. You mistook suspension of disbelief for realism. This is a common problem that gets in the way of a lot of fantasy and sci-fi authors. So, don’t worry. It isn’t just you. However, realism vs believability is where your hangup is. Stories don’t need to be realistic to be believable.

The quick and dirty (and possibly unhelpful) answer is to create a world that justifies your buster sword, not a buster sword that’s trying to justify itself in a world that doesn’t want it. You step back from the sword itself and away from a world where reality dictates that it’s too heavy, too clumsy, too slow, and ask yourself: “in what type of world does this thing make sense?” And there’s about a billion different ways to create that.

The hangup with the realistic argument is that all of fiction is a lie. Good or bad, that’s what stories are. They can be very compelling, addicting, manipulative, feel incredibly good, and still be fake. The goal of a creator isn’t just to create stories that are believable, but for your audience to want to believe in them. Storytelling is always a joint venture between you and your reader. You are the salesperson asking your audience to come along for the ride. To keep their attention, you’ve got to spin up a good yarn. Build trust. The world has to feel right, but it doesn’t have to be right. Reasonable, not right. The goal is to take a cool idea and work backwards to how your society got here so that when seen from an outside perspective, the choice ultimately looks like a reasonable conclusion given the surrounding context. One of the better ways to build your reasonable conclusions is by studying the history of technological invention from the beginning to the midpoint rather than starting with the end point—the results.

History is full of weird, wacky, wild attempts and failures at creation. You’re not the first person to look at a human sized sword and wonder if it could, in fact, hit good. Or, really, better than swords that currently exist. Or, fulfill a battlefield role the sword was currently not occupying. Or, as we like to say, have real battlefield applications. The Claymore, the Zwhihander, the Zhanmadao are all real weapons that saw real, if not necessarily extensive, use. Like all weapons, they were specialized tools meant for particular battlefield uses. In this case, mainly as anti-cavalry support.

Ask yourself, why? Not just, why would I want it? Ask, why would I use it?

What actual purpose does the big cool blade serve beyond looking big and cool? What function does it fill on the battlefield? Why use the big cool blade instead of other weapons? What does it do better? What are some offsets which might account for the massive size? Technology? Superhuman enhancements, mystical or otherwise? Gravitic fields? Magic? Why is the big cool blade better suited to ensuring a character’s survival? What advantages does it provide? What is its practical value to warriors within your setting?

The initial defensive reaction is that we don’t need a reason because we have the Rule of Cool. That could be the reason, but I challenge you to go deeper. Go deeper than, “this was the weapon my character was trained to use.” The followup question is: why were they trained to use it?

In the real world, we can answer these questions both from a personal and from a larger social perspective. We may not be able to answer whether we’d use a gun, but we understand why humanity developed guns, why we use guns, and the purpose they serve both for personal protection and in their military applications. The answers don’t necessarily need to be good or smart. What matters is that an answer exists to feed your audience. When your reader starts struggling to believe, they begin to ask questions, they pick at the fabric of the narrative trying to figure out why their mind has rejected the story they were previously enjoying. What we, the writer, want to create is a chain of logic underpinning the narrative and its world. This way, when questions are asked, a reasonable answer is ready and waiting. While we won’t win over everyone, trust that your audience wants to believe. Trust that they’re smart enough to figure it out without being spoon fed. That way, you won’t fall into the trap of infodumping.

Worldbuilding always involves a lot more happening under the surface than ever makes it onto the page. Your characters will be the ones to demonstrate and act on the internal logic that’s been created for them without needing a billion questions to lead us from Point A to Point B.

If we look at human history in a wide view, we find that weapons are a fairly steady march forward that matches a civilization’s technological growth. We keep what works and discards what doesn’t. The crossbow replaced the bow as the main form of artillery in martial combat, but we still kept the bow. The bow still had practical applications. Guns eventually replaced the crossbow just like they replaced the sword, but it actually took a very long time. We had functional firearms in the Middle Ages.

Ease of Use

Ease of Training

Lethality

From a military standpoint, these are the three most important aspects for widespread adoption of any weapon. Easy to use. Easy to train. Lethal. The longer it takes to train a soldier on a weapon the more time your army is losing out on using that soldier and the more effective the weapon needs to be in order to justify its expense. Why give your soldier a big cool sword if they’ll never get close enough to reach the forward line to make the assault? Why have them use the big cool sword if operating the laser cannon is more efficient, effective, and keeps them alive longer? In the coldness of battlefield calculus, it’s often better to have cheap, efficient units rather than more expensive ones that might be more lethal but take longer to produce. No matter how good they are, you’re eventually going to lose them. Therefore, easy replaceability becomes a factor.

If you can answer those questions (and the myriad of other similar ones) you won’t just have a weapon, you’ll have a world. You’ll have more than a justification, you’ll have battlefield strategy, tactics, and a greater understanding of how the average layman characters in your setting beyond your main character approach warfare and possibly a technological history. You might even have several functional armies.

Ultimately, this is a game of value versus cost. Most settings that use big cool swords sacrifice ease of use and ease of training to amp up lethality. The weapon having a specialized function or only being usable by a specialized unit helps if that unit’s battlefield effectiveness is justified. Or, you could just have a weird technological outlier where its effectiveness doesn’t quite justify its cost even if the individual warrior is effective. A good example of this is in shounen anime where one character has a specialty that no one else has, a really cool, effective weapon that never appears anywhere else, because the length of training, high skill floor, and finicky nature of its use make it difficult to justify widespread adoption.

The danger is assuming there’s a right answer. There isn’t one. The value in learning the rules of real world violence is so you can break them. This way you can tell the difference between the vital rules necessary for suspending disbelief and don’t accidentally break the ones you needed to keep your audience invested.

-Michi

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[kedreeva]

Thank you for your time, whether or not you entertain my questions. I really appreciate it!

1.) Do you have to be careful about things like aerosols around the birds?

2.) How would you determine body condition in a bird without a keel? Or a small one?

3.) Where is a bird’s center of gravity? Around their hips?

4.) Do birds in general have stiff spinal columns?

1) yes they have very delicate respiratory systems. They have a super weird respiratory system actually. It is looped and goes one way. If you don't know about this I highly recommend looking it up, it's fascinating how they make use of air sacs to just. always have inflated lungs.

2) a small one is the same, as long as they have a keel, you just have to be more delicate about it. As for ones without a keel, I've never kept ratites, so I can't give you an actual answer, but my assumption would be by leg condition (even in flighted birds you can look at legs and tell when they're losing weight- there's not a lot of meat on their legs but it can still change shape when it's bad) and still by chest/rib palpitation. But you'd have to talk to someone that does ratites to know for sure.

3) my guess is that it depends on the bird. A penguin's center of gravity will be different from a sparrow's. Birds don't really have the same kind of hips you think of when you think of hips. This is a drawing so you can see better:

There are a bunch of fused bones there, and it takes up a huge portion of their body just like the keel. The center of gravity for peafowl is about where the blue mark is.

I want to point out that birds may not share this hip bone structure with dinos, even the ones that are bird shaped, so it may not translate. A dino with a heavy tail would probably balance more over the hips, as they have more weight on the back end. You're generally looking for where the midpoints laterally and dorsally meet up, not necessarily a structure like "hips."

4) I can't answer about birds in general, but peafowl in general do not have spinal columns. Or any other bone.

In seriousness, I guess it really depends on what you mean by spinal column, and how much neck they have. The length of spine over the keel is pretty stiff for obvious reasons, but overall peafowl are pretty bendy and loose limbed. I think some folks who animate large birds tend to animate them more stiffly than they actually are. I don't know if dinosaurs would lean more toward that or toward lizards, and if skin type makes a difference- birds generally have pretty thin skin on their bodies, until you get up to the ratites, so it moves very easily. I know people CAN make leather from fowl legs but. also why. That's so much work for so little. But, anyway dinos would likely have thicker skin than most birds and larger dinos might have stiffer necks than peafowl or other birds like them do. Depending on the size you want you may need to find a ratite keeper to ask.

[i-draws-dinosaurs]

i was rewatching the rite of spring segment from fantasia and i've got to wonder. Why Did We Draw Archaeopteryx Like That. i remember toys having that same, boomerang arm shaped pose too. it's like a monkey lizard more than a bird.

Ooh okay this is a fun one cause while it technically is an Archaeopteryx and is listed as such in the production draft, I don't think the design is based on Archaeopteryx at all!

To me, this "Archaeopteryx" almost exactly resembles something else, the fascinating historical phenomenon called Proavis.

Proavis, or Tetrapteryx as some four-winged interpretations were called, was a hypothetical prehistoric creature that was proposed in the early 20th century as a best guess at what the unknown ancestor of birds could have looked like. The illustration above was drawn in 1926 by Gerhard Heilmann, a Danish artist and amateur scientist who argued that birds evolved from non-dinosaurian archosaurs like Euparkeria. In his 1916 book Vor Nuvaerende Viden om Fuglenes Afstamning and the 1926 English translation The Origin of Birds, he presented Proavis as the imagined midpoint between a scaly ground-running archosaur and Archaeopteryx, which at the time held the title of The First Bird.

Other versions of the same hypothesis, like William Beebe's Tetrapteryx above, were published and discussed around the same time, but it was Heilmann's Proavis that gained immense popularity to the point that bird evolution was considered essentially "solved" for decades. It was also painted by Zdeněk Burian, one of the Old Greats of palaeoart, which kept the concept alive in dinosaur books for decades as well.

Of course further study has shown this hypothesis to be incorrect and that birds are instead members of Dinosauria (and honestly Heilmann either missed or ignored a lot of evidence for a dinosaurian origin of birds even in the 1910s), but the Proavis to me remains a beautiful and fascinating concept that represents scientists and artists striving to understand the prehistoric world and the passage of evolution, much like we still do today!

And of course, its popularity in the early 20th century put it at the perfect time for Fantasia's artists to take... let's say heavy inspiration from Heilmann's imaginary Proavis when depicting a creature that was intended to be Archaeopteryx the whole time! The pattern of feathers matches up almost exactly, although the larger leg wings might have been inspired by Beebe's Tetrapteryx as well:

So to get back to your original question that led to this whole deep dive, artists didn't actually Draw Archaeopteryx Like That except when they were mistakenly drawing something that wasn't Archaeopteryx at all! If you want to read more about the Proavis and Tetrapteryx I recommend this Tetrapod Zoology blog post by Darren Naish, he does into more depth about the history of the concept and some of the unusual evolutionary ideas that Heilmann used to arrive at this weird and cool imaginary creature!

[gayszlen]

For the yet-to-be-informed, let me preach to you the gospel of Das gayszlen

What is Das Gayszlen?

Das gayszlen, generally translated as the "whip" is a technique in historical longsword fighting from 15th century German tradition. The basic mechanics of the gayszlen are as such: a single handed strike with the nondominant or lower hand, where the sword is released from a traditional grip to allow the blade to sweep towards the leg of your opponent. Some also define other one handed strikes, slices, or thrusts as a gayszlen, but (in my experience) the more common interpretation is the narrower definition I provided. There is some difficulty however in knowing definitively how it was used historically, beyond the general difficulty in knowing anything for certain in HEMA that comes with the territory of reviving a dead art. Much proverbial ink has been spilled online about how, when, and if it is appropriate to use, and many consider it to be a cheap trick, not to be used in serious competition or incorporated into a revival of historical fencing systems. I have Thoughts™ about it and my new URL change inspired me to detail those thoughts, continued below.

Where does it come from?

Ok. so. maybe "15th century german tradition" is a bit generous. There is a grand total of ONE source for the gayszlen, which is in a fechtbuch (fencing book) by fencing master and author Hans Talhoffer, one of the most influential and prolific of his time. His numerous manuals cover a wide range of weapons and techniques including grappling, dagger, polearms, mounted and armoured combat, as well as some more silly things like duelling/long shields and "man vs woman" duels (last two pictured below).

Despite all that and multiple depictions of many of the techniques for these silly "niche" styles of combat (at least in the context of modern HEMA practice, they likely were somewhat prevalent at the time and used to resolve legal disputes) there is only one illustration of the gayszlen, in one of Talhoffer's books. It depicts an exchange between a fencer in a "free point" (afaik the only time that term is used as well, though it is a position that is quite common in german longsword fencing, being a sort of hanging guard or the midpoint of a strike like a zwerchhau) and another performing the gayszlen against the aforementioned fencer, shown below (figure on the right is performing the gayszlen).

You may notice the text on the image, next to each figure! These say Ain fryes ortt and Das gayszlen, again translated as "a free point" and "the gayszlen". You may ask "but what does the actual caption or description say about it?!" I'm so sorry to disappoint you, and I share in your misery: this is all there is. Truly sad, I know. This lack of source material is (in my opinion) why there is so much difficulty defining it and so much debate over its historical usage and value in modern use.

So how do people interpret it?

As stated earlier, the (general) consensus is that it is a one handed strike (a hit, hew, or cut, as opposed to a thrust or draw/push slice) made with the offhand to the lower half of the opponent's body. One of the main disagreements on how to interpret this is whether the sword is "whipping" or cutting to the left from the right, or from the right to the left. Based on the foot position, it might look like the fencer performing the gayszlen (hereafter referred to as G) is bringing the sword from their left side to swing into the opponent's (hereafter referred to as F) left calf. However, this hand position and movement of the sword leaves G entirely open to attack anywhere on their torso or the right side of their body generally. An example of me (right) executing this interpretation is below: you can see that I do actually get the hit, but my opponent nearly hits me with the first strike to the right side of my head, where I am most vulnerable, and follows it up with another strike to my head. If this scenario played out with sharp swords and no protective gear I would lose this fight.

Another interpretation of the gayszlen is this: G holds the sword in any guard on the right side of their body (higher guards may be better for generating more force or deciding to do literally anything other than the gayszlen) and releases the sword from their right hand, holding the pommel in the left and sweeping the sword towards F's right calf. in the picture we have, it may be that the "free point" is meant to be a response to the gayszlen, and therefore F is retracting their foot to avoid the gayszlen, while striking G to their unprotected body. An example of me (left) attempting to execute this interpretation is below: even though my opponent fails to parry or suppress my attack, it wasn't necessary. I didn't have the reach to hit her leg, though her dodge may have saved her even if I had been a bit closer to begin or had extended farther.

Something that I believe supports this second interpretation is the general attitude of historical German longsword manuals to favor attacks and guards from above, to high openings, or generally closer to the upper half of the body than lower attacks and guards. A reason for this is detailed in many European sword systems, namely the destreza rapier tradition, thibault by extension, and meyer.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tPHbG28niyc

The above image and video are pretty simple explanations, the core idea being that a sword and arm extended at the height of the shoulder (or nearer the shoulder) will have more forward reach than a sword and arm extended higher or lower than the shoulder. Because of this, F theoretically has somewhat of a reach advantage over G, as their sword and arm are closer to their shoulder. though the utility (as I'll talk about more later) of the gayszlen is that it is done in a grip that extends G's reach beyond a normal grip like F has.

There are also interpretations that point to it being a thrust (like I attempt below) which is supported by similar techniques showing up in other European sword systems, which I could spend a whole equally long post talking about, but this is plenty long as is, maybe a topic for another time. The two lame reasons I have for not liking this interpretation is that a thrust doesn't seem very "whiplike", and also a thrust to the legs with one hand is harder to pull off than a cut to the legs or a one handed thrust to the torso.

How can I incorporate the gayszlen into my modern HEMA practice?

To preface this, throughout all of this I'm mixing terms and concepts from Fiore and Liectenauer and Talhoffer and Meyer and probably some other stuff. I primarily study and practice Liechtenauer blossfechten via Ringeck, Danzig, and Lew, as well as most of Fiore's system. This is just my opinion on what purpose the gayszlen can serve in the frog DNA filled world of HEMA longsword, this is not pure to any martial art system, just an application for the sport.

That being said: I believe the gayszlen's place in modern longsword fencing is similar to that of guards like the boar's tooth, long tail, or the key, all of which can use distance deceptively. they place the sword further back than it would be in an iron gate or a plow (guards which are somewhat close to those I mentioned) and allow the fencer using them to seem less threatening than they would with more aggressive guards. Likewise, I often find myself throwing gayszlens from positions where I'm somewhat retracted or seemingly out of distance, or preparing for an attack to another opening. This can often allow an attack at an unexpected timing or from an unexpected angle. I find it works well when your opponent is static in a guard and you to a distance juuust outside of where you could hit them with a normal grip, and the switch to a one handed pommel grip gives you the couple inches you need to get the hit, and hopefully enough speed to avoid getting beaten away by their sword. One of the big dangers with the gayszlen is the opportunity it presents for getting hit. When you employ this technique, you give up basically all protection your sword has to offer, you can't block any incoming attacks, and you don't have a good enough grip to bat your opponent's sword out of the way. This means that if you don't plan well, you leave yourself totally open to a double or a hit to you if they avoid your gayszlen. See below! The fencer attempting the gayszlen (right) goes in with his head down and totally unprotected, allowing the opposing fencer to get a really beautiful hit to his head as she dodges his gayszlen. This is what you should do if you encounter someone who is eager to use the gayszlen and you wish to discourage them.

A safer position (both to avoid getting hit and to avoid injury, as I'll mention in the next section) is a more upright stance and a deep lunge, though keeping your shoulder up, as I mentioned earlier, reduces your range to that lower point.

Why don't some people allow it in tournaments?

Many tournaments, in my area and others, don't allow gayszlens. some ways this manifests are bans on all one-handed cuts, all one handed strikes altogether, including thrusts, hits to the leg below the knee, etc. Some people just don't like the gayszlen, think it's too hard to judge, think it doesn't have enough historical basis, or think it is dangerous to the person doing it or the person having it done to them. A lot of those reasons are laid out in this article, which, while I disagree with most of the points, makes those points pretty well. It's also the first result when you search on google for gayszlen, which makes me sad :( Another argument regarding the safety that isn't mentioned in that article is that to get additional reach and evade strikes from above, some people get really low when executing a gayszlen, even exposing the back of their head or body, which can lead to some really nasty hits to the back of your head or your spine, which are vulnerable areas even when wearing gear, are are often the parts of the body that have the least protective gear. In my opinion, any ruling that is intended to ban gayszlens that we've seen is too broad. banning one-handed cuts (or strikes altogether) means that whole sections of manuscripts or traditions (such as fiore's uno mano plays) can't be performed, banning cuts to the legs or parts of the legs can give an advantage to taller fencers, discarding them automatically because they're too difficult to judge the quality of can punish those who have worked to perfect them safely, etc. At the end of the day it doesn't really make a huge difference one way or the other, and every tournament organizer is biased in the way they make their ruleset one way or the other, but I think the gayszlen is unfairly maligned. In my opinion, with proper attention to levels of force, protective equipment, and judging, the gayszlen deserves a place in modern HEMA tournaments.

ALSO IT HAS GAY IN IT TEEEHEE!!

some people pronounce it "guy-slen" and I usually say "gay-slen" and I don't speak modern or medieval german so idk how it should be pronounced but I like saying gay :) because homosexuality get it???? I

I've made the gayszlen a bit of a meme in my local scene by shouting "GAYSZLEN" whenever I do it, like an anime character. This is typically regarded with friendly annoyance, and it makes hitting this silly ass technique SO much more satisfying and makes whiffing it a lot less embarrassing :)

anyways thanks for reading my long ass post ily <3 if anyone has additional thoughts, please leave them in the comments! I'd rather not debate anything, but I'd be happy to discuss intricacies of the gayszlen's use and interpretation if you're nice about it!

[writers-in-moominvalley]

Okay, so, let me get this straight:

They adapted the Muskrat, whose sole purpose in Comet in Moominland is to be the catalyst for which Moomintroll and Sniff set off their journey, and who was treated as comedic relief in Finn Family Moomintroll, and... Made him entirely irrelevant?

Muskrat? They included Muskrat? And didn't commit to adapting the one useful thing he did?

Muskrat, who is functionally useless outside of comedic value in the books EXCEPT FOR THE BEGINNING OF COMET IN MOOMINLAND, and all he did for the adaptation of Comet in Moominland which is supposed to be the grand finale was... Gossip that the Comet MIGHT be bad, without solid evidence, a thread which turned out to be absolutely useless because for some Grokely reason they decided to make "The Comet Is Bad" the midpoint plot twist.

Nevermind how much that complete structural change negates all the tension in the first half by making the characters' primary motivation be naming the Nuclear Bomb Metaphor, that's an entire other issue in its own right, but it begs the question.

WHY ADAPT MUSKRAT IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Listen, listen listen listen

I'll be Muskrat's biggest defender and advocate, I think he has amazing potential to be a fascinating character and to be completely frank I think philosopher characters in the wider media landscape are too often dismissed by other characters or narratives.

A nihilist philosophy that mostly serves as an old man's convenience and easy bait for admiration from laymen is a very interesting premise, Shin Mūmin had a whole episode exploring the actual practical applications of that convenient nihilism and it is one of my top episodes of that series! I would love to see more media (fandom or otherwise) exploring that thoroughly! I love philosophy! I love academic-leaning characters! Give me more of that!!

However, if you are able to say that Shin Mūmin of all series did any character better and more faithfully than your adaptation just by one episode, something has definitely gone wrong!

Why did Gusty bother with him? For the sake of their lame British sitcom humor? They had to include a useless wet blanket in there somewhere? Him? Without doing anything interesting at all with his character??? They added him to Moominvalley in November but set him aside to gossip idly with Mrs. Fillyjonk???? And it goes nowhere?????????? They don't even get to stir up panic in the valley over the Comet before the kids come back to inform them???????????? They just had to squeeze that in there between the adventure bits and Moominpappa's absolutely useless b-plot because the little kiddies wouldn't pay attention otherwise????????????????????

[tevanbuckley]

If my prediction that bobby actually gets the all clear (or at least stabilises) by the episode midpoint turns out to be correct (which tbf it might not), I actually wouldn’t be surprised if buck isn’t in much of the episode past that point given how much drama everyone else has going on. obviously the meat is gonna be about bobby and athena and then however it plays out im guessing we’ll have buck and madney playing support roles in the eddie and hen storylines respectively. which makes sense given that both madney and buck got pretty hefty episodes earlier in the season.

having said that I do hope we get one more soft little “Evan,” just to sustain me through the hiatus.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 29 Thoughts: Lost in Translation

We're at the penultimate episode of the season, folks. It's a surprisingly standard episode given what we had for the last one. It's also a very TMA flavoured one at that. This episode, despite being written by Alex, might have taken the top spot for one that feels the most like an Archives ep. Which isn't a bad thing. Or even a good thing. However it is an enjoyable thing and I thought this episode was really well put together on the whole. Also, fun fact for the non-readers; this episode was originally called "Locked In".

Spoilers for episode 29 below the cut.

Sam's not dead. What a shock. Genuinely, I've no real clue why people thought him dying there was a possibility. It would've been probably the least satisfying death possible for a central character. I am so on board with Sam’s death at some point though. Maybe at the end of act 1 or the midpoint of act 2 in season 3. If only to shut up the small contingent of the fanbase upset over their own invented issues about him being the sole main character whom all other characters exist to support. The gang is off to Hilltop to find all that juicy Magnus lore.

I don't think there is much to get into for Lena and Gwen's exchange here but I do think it's set up for her role in the finale. So I'll cover that later.

I really liked this incident. It felt very classically Magnus to me and was just a really solid self-contained story. It's also a really good one for using the format it's in the the benefit of the narrative being told. The structure of it as a diary and how that's used to show something traumatic happening before it's ever spoken of was very well done. The characters being an older couple also is something I think is really clever too. Not just because it helps explain the diary format. I think in a literal sense this episode doesn't need much of my insights. It was all pretty clear exactly what happened. Old couple redid their proposal holiday to tragic results leading to the survivor taking their own life via magic key. Tale as old as time that one is. There are a few language details to talk about though. The husband was called Stanley Locke. Stanley is a brand of locks. I can only assume that was intentional. The other reason them being old is important to the events is I think a younger couple would've just not gone into the locked museum. Because that's what the place is. Zamčené muzeum isn't a *lock *museum, it's a *locked *museum. Google translate would've solved this whole episode then and there. The major thing to actually talk about here is the incident's placement as the penultimate incident. It's not likely to be a randomly placed one and given it's about opening all sorts of barriers I think it's pretty obviously foreshadowing for our finale. Hilltop has more than one thing needing to be opened. The Institute's secrets, and the gap in reality. It also mirrors [Error]'s introduction as the first thing they do is open a padlock.

Teddy's near-confession is the most interesting thing in this whole episode for my money. Mostly because it's such fertile ground for speculation. There are a lot of ways it could go but there are some facts that I think point us in a direction. He still works at Royal Mint Court/was interviewed for a job there. He's still up all night. He's got a big secret he needs to tell Alice that's important to her current circumstances enough to be urgent. Meaning he therefore has new information he didn't have before he left. Which means where he is now is in a place that could provide said information. The OIAR has more going on behind the scenes than we ever see yet is seemingly staffed by a tiny amount of people. Which points to Teddy maybe still just being at the OIAR. Either just moving up in the organisation and the party was a ruse, or he was headhunted after he left and his work fell through. It could also be a company like Starkwall too, if there is any real difference between the two. Some offshoot of the Institute is also a possibility given the link between Newton and the Royal Mint. Or, he's been scooped up by Klaus.

The final scene here doesn't have an awful lot to comment on. It's somewhat curious that [Error] is able to get around so unseen but we do know she can teleport. I'm assuming she's on the train to get Celia's secrets about the Institute. Plenty of time for that too as London to Oxford is about an hour on the train. Not really anywhere for them to hide either so they're probably pretty fucked.

Now the long wait until next week begins.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What sort of penultimate episode post would be complete without some finale predictions? I think there are a fair few pieces in play here and so there are quite a lot of things to speculate on.

I think there are some fairly obvious things that are likely to happen. Celia is going to get [Error]ed and exposition dump about her whole deal. It's got to come out some time and I think in general the show has been foreshadowing this pretty hard with Gwen and Sam both getting [Error]ed. The other major possibility here is that Alice gets got and she's got some secret twisty trauma. If *Connor is her dead name then she *is on CHDB (the Institute's list of children they tested, see the master sheet below) but I would generally hate that. I mean, they might pull it off but I really don't want Alice to have that backstory. She is the character we know the least about so far though and there have been more than a few hints about the fate of her parents. So it's a strong possibility too IMO. Albeit it does mean that Alice would need to catch up with them somehow. Maybe Teddy can give her a lift and we'll hear what was on his mind. Or it's both as this will be a double-length episode so there is room for that.

Speaking of [Error] it seems likely that Celia is going to reveal at least what she knows about Archivists. With [Error] being this season's antagonist it's likely that she's going to get defeated in the finale and as such we'll lose the best opportunity to learn more about her. Revealing that information after she's dealt with is less impactful. They might end up [Error]ing themselves and given a statement, or villain monologuing. It's curious that they're so obviously capable of speech and have said so little though. So I am expecting something to change there.

Hilltop could go a lot of ways. It could be a gaping maw in realities that sucks our cast off to someplace new. It could be nothing but some clues to the Institute's purpose. I don't have much in the way of anything I'd like it to be either. I generally think it'll be the least interesting bit of the finale. The biggest thing it could answer it won't, that being JMJ, and so I'm content to just let that one play out and not think about it too much. In either case Hilltop is likely to play some role in defeating [Error] and if I had to hazard a guess I think it's likely we'll see some of the great cosmology at play here. Both in terms of TMP itself but I think we'll get some hints at how things have changed from TMA/how TMA's things have changed.

I think we're also going to see a good bit of Gwen going being Lena's back too. Assuming we're not going to jump forward in time at all then Gwen is currently alone in the office and is clearly planning things. I don't think we'll necessarily see anything major happen but I do think it's a pretty likely hook for season 2. Either something to do with Klaus or the other strange emails. It's that or Colin is going to break in and cause some havoc. Gwen is the character I most see going along with him on this too. I think that might be a surprising take to some of you but Gwen is unique in that she doesn't actually give a shit about him, and also wants to ruin Lena's career. Colin wrecking the place while she's not there would certainly do some damage to her job stability.

I'm not too sure we'll see much of the other voiced cast. I can't really see a reason for Lena, Teddy, Ink5oul, or anyone else to get involved in the finale. Although Lena could certainly be a big part of the epilogue assuming any of the Gwen stuff goes down like I expect.

Anyway, lots to look forward to.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: 4254 is unremarkable. At this point I really don't know what it'd take to tip my theory on its head.

CAT# Theory: CAT2 is another funny one for the Person/Place/Object idea. The museum was arguably supernatural but the key was obviously supernatural. So if anything this should be CAT3 or potentially a CAT23 but it's just CAT2. If it is P/P/O I'm going to need a really strong explanation for why it sucks so bad.

R# Theory: Yeah, B sounds good to me. Strong physical evidence of a thing happening but nothing that definitively proves the supernatural. Going into the finale this whole theory seems to be holding pretty well. At least for non-Ss. An S could be a lot of things though so we'll see.

Header talk: Drowning (Subterranean) -/- Key (Metaphor) is somewhat interesting in that Key (Metaphor) can be read as the key itself being entirely metaphorical. I think that's fairly obviously wrong but it's interesting. The meaning is more that the key has the ability to open things in a metaphorical sense. It works on more than just doors, after all. So the key itself is real but it works on a looser interpretation of "opening" than just locks and doors. Beyond just that interpretation there is also the metatextual element that the incident itself is metaphorical for what's to come. Assuming it wasn't randomly placed, that is.

[mantequillamcwhoremick]

How did you come up with the plot to Chaos Plan??

YIPPPEEEEE ANOTHER ONE!!!! HEHEHEH THANKS FOR THE ASK

Omg I LOVE this question. I'll never get sick of answering that, so like warning for long post incoming 😈😈😈😈

I talk about my inspirations a lot on this post and also in the end notes on some chapters, especially chapter 10 and chapter 20, and I always pinpoint the scene from TFBW where Butters/Chaos talks to the others through the screens of U-Stor-It as "the moment where it all started," so I guess I can talk about something different now😁😁😁I might still repeat myself a lot though lmao so sorry about that.

The Premise: Butters' Disappearance and Detective Harris

Fun fact: the summary on ao3 is actually the first thing I ever wrote for the fic, and I feel like it still holds up.

I debated for a long time whether I actually wanted to write this story, because the idea of it fascinated me so much but I was scared to commit to such a big project. But then I read this pitch to my best friend and they were FASCINATED, and that was kind of the push I needed. I haven't looked back since.

The premise of Harris hiring Mysterion (despite either of their desire to work with each other) was something deeply inspired from the premise of Six of Crows, a book I reread at least once a year. I love crime and heist stories, especially when the criminals in question are sad little losers with questionable motivations and morals, and I feel like Mysterion getting HIRED to stop Chaos is a story that wrote itself. Especially since I wanted the added backstory to be that Butters disappeared after a tragic event, kickstarted by the aforementioned TFBW scene that made me immediately think of Jinx from Arcane. That's why I implemented all those visual bits and pieces of Chaos grafitti-ing the town, particularly places associated with childhood (playgrounds, the basketball court), and decorations that make you think of a kid's birthday party (like the fairy lights).

Mysterion and Chaos

In my notes on chapter 20 I talk in detail about my thought process on Chaos and Mysterion's villain and vigilante identities and their respective modi operandi, which is something that drove the development of this story a lot.

I'm a huge character psychology nerd, so I really wanted to write a story where these two characters drive the plot fueled by their fascinating canon skills, backstories and trauma in the given canon setting. A story that illustrates in great detail how they would operate in a hero/villain story while keeping the story as close to canon (or canon equivalents) as possible.

"Professor" Chaos being an entrepreneur-type scammer & hacker villain was an idea that I found baffling to not be as widely represented as I'd expect it to be (especially given the existence of Vic Chaos???), so I took it upon myself to realize my dreams lmao. This involved a lot of research on scams and cyber-crime and everything computers and crypto (I'm a tech illiterate. this was painful bro) so I watched a bunch of documentaries on a bunch of different assholes lol. (I'd be happy to share which those where if anyone's interested hghaahah) Thankfully my mom works in a cybersecurity-adjacent job so I know a bunch of fun facts like that you can actually get hacked with a QR-code! the more you know

The Plot and Shit

Whenever I have a story idea the first thing I do is pull out this bad boy

and make myself think about all the crucial plot points that could be represented by each beat sample. (I used to have the "Save The Cat" novelwriting book and it honestly changed how I think about story structure).

Even though a lot of the original first outline drafts don't really end up representing what the story looks like in the end, it does make me think about necessary beats to keep the tension up and have it flow nicely, and the vague idea of the crucial beats does usually hold up. Originally, the moment where Kenny finds out Chaos is Butters was meant to be the "midpoint" but I ended up focusing on a bunch of other stuff in the plot that I'd probably determine the moment the roof of City Hall blowing up as the "midpoint" now.

But these scenes were among those I knew I wanted in the story since the beginning:

Harris hiring Mysterion

Mysterion and Chaos talking at U-Stor-It

Kenny running into Butters

Kenny and Butters at the graveyard

City Hall roof blowing up

Mysterion talking to Chaos at a destroyed playground

some others i can't spoil teehee

And as you'll see, this represents like 5% of what happens lmao. Most of my ideas involving Kyle were super vague, and I had no fucking idea how to even involve Stan at first, even less Cartman (I actually wanted to keep Cartman away from the plot but he fought his way in anyway, as he does).

Brother, i didn't even have any scenes with Karen planned. I came up with that one spontaneously when I was struggling to figure out how to write chapter 7 (8 on ao3, when you count the prologue) and how to connect the dots between the U-Stor-It bit and what I wanted to do with Kenny figuring out the transport thing. You'll have found me like this trying to figure out all the connections and dots in Chaos' plan between Harris, the bar, Butters past (yet to be revealed) and how the motherfuckers of our main characters are actually gonna figure all that shit out.

I'm too embarrassed to say how many chapters were just kinda spontaneously rawdogged when they demanded actual detailed explanations of what happened, when I only had like the most vague idea thinking "yeah it happened somehow" (chapter 9 was most definitely one of them. That chapter description just said something like "Kenny and Kyle do detective work idk")

So yeah i guess the TLDR answer to this ask is kinda "idk man i fucked around and found out and the plot possessed me in vivid visions." I think at it's least ramble-y and most honest, that's what it all boils down to

THANKS FOR THE ASK <33333 AND KISSES IF YOU ACTUALLY READ ALL THIS LMAO

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hello! I have a question about stakes. I feel like the first half of my story is lacking stakes. There's a war going on nearby that might soon expand to their country as well, and they have all sorts of inner conflicts and conflicts between them, yet I don't feel like there are real stakes until the midpoint. Despite the conflicts, their lives or anything else are not at direct risk. The tensions between them don't peak until the midpoint, and their inner conflicts around the climax ("dark night of the soul.") The war is only hinted to reach their country after the story ends.

Any advice?

Thanks in advance!

Story Lacking Stakes Prior to Midpoint

Stakes derive from conflict, so if your story is lacking in stakes, you need to go further with the conflict. The first thing we need to consider is whether you need better internal conflict, better external conflict, or both. And the way we find that out is to determine whether your story is plot-driven or both plot-driven and character-driven. (I can already tell your story isn't solely plot-driven, so we don't need to worry about that.)

If this is a character-centric story where the impending war is just a backdrop, this is a character-driven story and you will need to strengthen your internal conflicts. (More on that in a minute.)

If the impending war is more than just backdrop, this is both a plot-driven and character-driven story, and you will need to solidify an external conflict while strengthening your internal conflicts. (More on that in a minute, too.)

In a story that is fully or partly character-driven, internal conflict has to be more than just clashes between the characters. There needs to be a solid internal conflict driving (or helping to drive) the story. Usually this is the protagonist's internal conflict, but in a story with more than one protagonist, they will each have their own internal conflict, usually tying in with the others' somehow. What isn't quite right with the protagonist's situation (or protagonists' if an ensemble)? What is holding them back or keeping them from feeling fulfilled? What do they think is causing that problem? And are they right or is the cause actually something they don't realize? What goal can they pursue to fix this problem? And are they right that this goal will fix the problem, or will the pursuit of that goal lead to an even better solution?

In a story that is also partly plot-driven, an external conflict gives your characters a tangible goal to pursue while the internal conflict plays out. In a story about an impending war, I would suggest looking at the politics behind the war. Why is the war occurring in this other country? Why might it expand into the characters' country? What is the country's leadership's role in provoking or trying to prevent the war from spilling across their border? How does this impending war potentially affect the story's main characters? What role, if any, do they have (or could they have) in provoking or preventing this war from reaching their border? What external goal can they pursue related to provoking or preventing the arrival of this war? Now, we get to stakes. Like I said, stakes arise naturally from conflict. Stakes are what's possible to gain and what's possible to lose. Or, the bad things that will happen if conflicts aren't resolved, and the good things that will happen if the conflicts are resolved. Going back to the external conflict, what are the good things that will happen if the characters achieve their external goal? What are the bad things that will happen if they don't? Those are stakes... And, going back to the internal conflict, what are the good things that will happen if the characters achieve their internal goals? What are the bad things that will happen if they fail to achieve their internal goals? Again, those are your stakes. Have fun with your story!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

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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[inbarfink]

I know that ‘Germs’ and ‘Dark Harvest’ are only paired together because the original pairing of ‘Bestest Friend’ + ‘Dark Harvest’ was considered just Too Fucked Up but… they really do make an Interesting Pair.

Because these two episodes both kinda follow the same plot hook of ‘Zim gets irrationally obsessively paranoid about something that might blow his mission’ but then go to the total opposite ends of the scale of, like Zim Likeability. Because in ‘Germs’ Zim just kinda comes off mostly as pathetic and pitiful and worthy of sympathy. It really is kinda adorable to see how scared he is of Germs.

And his obsession mostly just hurts himself and his mission (and, like, mildly annoyed GIR), which makes him feel more sympathetic.

And then, there’s ‘Dark Harvest’, which - again - starts from a very similar point of Zim’s paranoia about jeopardizing his mission.

But this time, when he goes too far with his obsession and starts misinterpreting things in a cartoony way (“more organs means more human”) he does so in a way that hurts a lot of people and basically makes him into a Horror Movie Monster.

…actually ‘Bestest Friends’ also kinda has a place here. Since this one is also about Zim’s Anxieties Going Too Far. But it’s, like, the exact midpoint on the scale between these two episodes.

Swinging between moments of extreme sympathetic pitifulness from Zim

And moments of extreme cruelty.

And finally ending on a real culmination of both, a comedic misunderstanding that really showcases the height of paranoia and anxiety that is constantly plaguing Zim, while also alienating him from who is actually the First Person to Genuinely Care About Him

And THEN he does something that's just really fucked up!

And that’s just the Duality of Zim, isn’t it?

[talonabraxas]

The Flower Moon Talon Abraxas

The May full moon marks a turning point, a movement into the bright, sunshiny half of the year.

May’s full moon is often called the Flower Moon. This name originated with the Algonquin First Nations people, while the Cree have called it the Budding Moon. We have entered the season of flowers, the post-Beltane period that marks the beginning of the summer season and the march toward the summer solstice.

A Turning Point Beltane is a traditionally Gaelic holiday celebrated by pagans and Wiccans on May 1st. It mirrors Samhain (Halloween), which similarly marks the midpoint of the season. That means this time of year is a turning point, a movement into the bright, sunshiny half of the year.

Every full moon is an invitation to let go. To look at what we have been growing in our lives, hearts, and minds, and weed what’s no longer serving us. It’s a time to think about completion, the end of a cycle, and to release what’s no longer needed.

The May full moon is an especially powerful time to look back at what’s been happening over the winter. Perhaps it’s time to think about what habits we have been cultivating from the dark, cold times, and start to move into a new perspective for the light half of the year.

When we are working on letting go, it’s always important to also consider what we are making space for. As we move into this new season, what do we want to have room for? What new habits can we cultivate for this coming part of the year?

Find Some Flowers The Flower Moon is a wonderful time to get outside. Depending on where you live, you might like the practice of blossom hunting: go out in your neighborhood and try to find flowers. Look at what’s in bloom. Smell the flowers, if you can, take their pictures, and soak up the bright colors and the beauty.

Naturally, spring and summer are the seasons when many of us want to get out and socialize a little bit more, while the fall and winter are more about hibernating and introverting. If you are feeling the call to be around people more, doing so outside has always been a safer option in these times. Perhaps it’s time to call up a friend you haven’t seen in a while and meet from a distance if your local regulations allow it.

This year has come with some big feelings and big changes, and the full moons tend to intensify whatever it is we’re feeling. Part of a letting-go practice is a willingness to feel. Often when we are in a stage of release, we want to push away the feelings we’ve been dealing with, to get rid of them and move on, so to speak. Ironically, the best way to move on from whatever we’re dealing with is to actually sit down and deal with it. As the old adage goes, you can’t heal what you can’t feel.

On this May Flower Moon, take the time to pause and let yourself feel. Get outside, find some flowers, meditate, and most of all, enjoy.

[sokovianfortune]

hello . i would like to talk about my own sexuality/relationship headcanons for the wbn trio since it’s a topic of conversation today :3

jack and elsa are both bisexual. this is a semi-recent discovery for both of them, given that most of elsa’s sexual partners have been women and most of jack’s sexual and romantic partners have been men. had they been asked about their sexualities pre-special, they’d both probably identify themselves as some flavor of gay (here meaning same-sex attracted, rather than an umbrella term like queer!). there is a reason why i have referred to the two of them running into each other in the maze as The Bisexual Jumpscare.

jack is also asexual! he’s not particularly sex-repulsed, he just largely views sex as a bonding activity and a way to make his partner feel good/express romantic love. this is fine by ted because uhh. i mean. let’s all be honest with ourselves here, it is very doubtful that my man has a libido anymore or the hardware to make it happen.

on the other end of the spectrum, you have elsa who only rarely indulged in sex as a way to scratch the human need itch. most of her past partners were one-night stands and she never stuck around for long, either way. but, once she and jack got together, her libido went fucking haywire and now she’s constantly (willingly!) dragging him into ulysses’s old bed chambers. good for her. good for them.

ted only the other hand is Gay gay. he did have a wife pre-transformation as per comics canon but, at the time they were married, he hadn’t really realized or even explored that particular facet of himself. workaholic scientist, yknow. he was operating under the typical “oh i guess i have to get married now because that’s what people Of My Age do.” there also might have been some period-accurate comphet involved, depending on how old he actually is.

ironically and perhaps to metatextually lean into monsters being queer-coded, becoming what he is now, while obviously a traumatic experience at the time, eventually allowed ted the freedom to explore this facet of himself and become comfortable with it.

jack and ted call each other husbands. they are not legally married. it just kind of started as a bit one day and it stuck. at what point did it stop being a bit? they don’t know and have not addressed it. jack would love to wear a ring regardless but he’s very worried about accidentally severing a finger if he forgets to take it off before the full moon.

on the hand, if anyone refers to jack as anything less neutral than elsa’s partner, she Will start gagging. she is forty one years old, she is nobody’s fucking girlfriend. wife is also off the table. she’d get married for practical tax reasons or something maybe but it would have to just be signing a paper in a courthouse with one (1) witness. an actual wedding ceremony (having to bear her stupid soft feelings in front of everyone she knows!!!) would be akin to a particularly humiliating trip through the nine circles of hell for her.

i call them the people’s polycule but they’re really more like a poly v with jack as the midpoint. ted and elsa are decidedly not romantically interested in each other at all but they Are besties united by their love for their beloved little bow wow. i know we have confirmation of the “she’s not into dogs” line but my headcanon is and always will be that the thing ted says to jack to make him laugh at the end is only kind of a joke about being willing to try opening things up if he wanted to.

(jack immediately dismissed this as A Joke and that was when ted knew he was in for a whole lot of yearning. god help him.)