#ae thought most of it and didn't write it down so it might be a tad hard to explain but uh. we would certainly try

[thereareeyesinsidethetrees]

ae love the reactions to that post about ford questioning if stan really loves him or not

so far we've got absolute misery, shock by that last line, and analysis that didn't quite get what we were going for (though we do still appreciate cause. well, evidently, we didn't think about that interpretation, and it's very interesting seeing all the different ways folks took it. giving us lots to think about y'know)

[amemoryofwot]

In regards to WoT show Liandrin I think there's a certain point where a character in a show needs to portray concepts that are otherwise lore or exposition. Like, the writers didn't do so much with her because they think she's Super Neat in the books or something, but because as a relatively one noted early intro character she's in a convenient place to tackle some Stuff onto. Some examples I can think of are:

The Vileness - as this is like one of my personal fave WoT topics I YELLED at her intro in the very first episode. It's the Vileness!!! She's hunting down and Gentling men unsanctioned without a trial! She only has Reds with her there, and it's so completely different to the procedure for Logain where she has the Greens. She even put them into a position where they felt they had to Gentle Logain early, I maintain that she slipped that shield for a fraction of a second.

The ability of the Black Ajah to lie - The rewatchability of the show remains peak, it's super fun to see all the places she's definitely lying, bringing into play that hidden Black Ajah wild card of Being Able to Say Anything. Again, the first intro scene, where the critics were so pressed she misrepresented the taint. Ah yes, famously man hating Black Ajah Liandrin just might have something to say about that, yeah.

The unnaturally long lifespan of a channeler in relation to others - Watching your child age and die is a pretty horrific consequence of this, and one example is enough to explain why none of the other women have children either. This does get verbalized in the books but again showing examples is going to be more impactful in a visual medium than someone saying it out loud.

Black Ajah recruitment - I don't know whether she truly thought she would get Nynaeve as a Black, certainly at least she thought she could argue her into the Red (why Heal the aftereffects when you can go after the cause?) but it does show there is a recruitment process involved. Albeit in the books it seems to be limited to capturing a person and demanding they swear to the Dark or they will be killed, the show has at least tried to provide some hot nuance with Liandrin, Min, Dana, etc. You can argue RJ had some clear cut ideas of what made a Darkfriend (petty, selfish, etc) but these are human emotions in general, the world for the most part isn't divided into a subsection of Bad People that only have these emotions. Plus some of RJ's ideas of what a Good Person is (namely, self-sacrificing) isn't always, uh, good.

The general idea that Darkfriends may appear helpful or good, but have a secret agenda - when the eps first came out there was a lot of pushback that Liandrin got some of Siuan's scenes. I think this was all to entirely sell us on Liandrin is On Our Side Actually, because in the book it is actually hilarious how Min's like "hey gang I have a bad feeling" and then Liandrin shows up out of nowhere to whisk them away. Plus the scene with the sword and wrapping them up in Air and stuff is not really a great look. It was enough to seem like she's trying to help, but coming across in a really traumatic way that on hindsight of the betrayal makes it even more abusive. Now, we are constantly suspicious that other Aes Sedai may end up being secret Blacks

That the Forsaken have different agendas, and use Darkfriends to implement them - using one single character like Liandrin and shunting her from Ishamael to Lanfear (and ultimately to Moghedien) helps illustrate how the Forsaken work without giving away too many secret identities.

Anyways that's the one's I can think of now. Again truly the show is so efficient with its writing, practically every line has some lore or foreshadowing or twist to it, and expanding on these honestly somewhat flat characters is a really effective way to illustrate these concepts.

[kop-mischief]

The Spider-Verse animated films are so fricken gorgeous it reminds my cold dead heart that media is still capable of making me feel pure fucking joy. I mean the visuals are an artistic and technological feat on their own. Then add writing with the balance of heart, humor, pain along with a soundtrack lining up with shots that completely emerse and wrap the film around your entire being. Even the most ridiculous of characters (looking at you Peter Porker) are are given the respectful amount of depth for their role in the film. I'll never say a movie is "perfect" but shit... Into the Spider-Verse was the closest to perfection I thought you could possibly get. Then Across the Spider-Verse 1 up'd it.

I love how nerd culture has reached to point where it's given the financial resources like never before but unfortunately we've also seen it broken down into megacorp studio formulated soulless cash grabs. I just want to feel man. Look what Disney did to Star Wars. Lucas may have made it...not great but Disney made it boring. Which might be worse. BORING! (cept you Andor. You keep doing you).

It was my birthday and I picked seeing Across the Spider-Verse as the birthday meet up. A few weren't thrilled with my pick but they tagged along to hang. One of those peeps told me after the movie - "I didn't know half these characters since I only ever seen 1 Spider-Man movie years go cuz I'm not a nerd like you guys (Just a different kinda of nerd who's gears more towards Star Trek lol) but that was a fantastic fucking movie." Not seeing the previous Into the Spider-Verse she really appreciated that this one made the Spider-Man mythos easily translatable for those who are unfamiliar. It's a testament to everyone who made these movies possible to how much love and thought went into these.

I switched majors to animation in 2005 focusing on experimental 3D. Much if what I tried to do was bringing my 2D illustrations and incorporating them in a stylized fashion. Shortly after and doing a small stint in post production I watched the craft partially devolve into low risk cookie cutter digital noise as 3D got cheaper and easier to utilize. (Video games fortunately still inspired me) Considering my job and my team relied on digital VFX its kinda bad when digital artists are wishing for the return of more practical effects. Hit us especially hard after Mad Max Fury Road came out.

So yeah. Not kidding when I say I nearly cried in the theater with both movies. I'm almost wanting to open AE and play around with animation again. Pixar can pump out beauty and pluck heart strings like no one else but the Spider-Verses are like walking through a museum of different art installations depicting eras across media history, culture and artists. This is the potential for 3D I've been dreaming of since 2005.

[goforth-ladymidnight]

2023 AO3 Year-End Fic Review

Thank you for the tag!

What is your AO3 account?

I'm Midnight_Wishes over there, but I use my Lady Midnight pseud for Tamlin-centric fics. I might get rid of the pseud eventually though. I only write for one fandom, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to divide them. I was still pretty new to Tumblr and AO3 when I did that, originally. We'll see.

2. How many words did you write total in 2023?

I didn't realize AO3 had this feature, so when I looked into it, I was blown away... 279, 802 words!!

3. How many fics did you publish in 2023? How many multichapters vs oneshots?

I wrote 5 new fics in addition to updating my current longfic. 4 of them were oneshots, and 1 is a multichapter that is currently on hiatus. I want to get back to it eventually, but I don't have a happy ending figured out yet. *cries*

4. What was your longest fic? Your shortest fic?

For 2023 specifically, The Faintest Blush of Rose (Helion x LoA) is the longest, but my shortest is the oneshot Love Bite (Tamlin x Briar). I have more written for TFBoR, but no motivation, currently. I also want to get back to my Brilin fics eventually, but, again, no motivation. :(

5. What was your most popular fic? Your least popular fic?

A Court of Frost and Embers is hands-down my most popular fic, which still continues to surprise me, since the Feycien fandom here on Tumblr is practically non-existent. My least popular fic was written near the end of the year, and I have more to say about it below.

6. What fic didn't perform as well as you thought it would?

The Feylin fandom is tiny, but I had hoped that The Perfect Gift would get more of a response, since it is a Tamlin x Feyre "holiday special". I'm still very happy with it, but it didn't perform as well as I hoped it would.

7. What fic performed way better than you thought it would?

I was surprised to compare stats and see how well Still Beautiful, Still Mine stacked up. It was my first M/M fic, but I think making it a gift for @praetorqueenreyna made me feel more comfortable writing it, since I wasn't concerned with anyone else's opinions but hers. The overall response has been really positive. (And even if it wasn't, she loved it, because she's so awesome and supportive, OMG.)

8. What was your favorite fic you wrote in 2023?

Is it cheating if I say A Second Chance? I started it at the very end of 2023 for the ACOTAR gift exchange (again for PQR!), and while it is my current project, it has been an absolute blast to write. I've never written an modern AU before, but it has freed my creativity in ways that I could not imagine. Not to mention, the Tamcien brainrot is real, y'all.

9. What was your favorite fic that somebody else wrote in 2023?

There were so many lovely ones, it was difficult to choose! But I would have to say: The House of Mirrors by @ae-neon The worldbuilding in this mafia AU is just *chef's kiss*.

10. Tag your friends to have them do this year-end fic review as well!!

No pressure whatsoever, but I'll tag @ae-neon @bookishfeylin and @songofthesibyl

2023 AO3 Year-End Fic Review

I found the AO3 review I had made last year and decided to fill it out for 2023! Answer all the questions yourself, then tag some friends!

What is your AO3 account?

I'm at LittleQueenTrashMouth on AO3!

2. How many words did you write total in 2023?

I wrote 69, 299 words in 2023 for 4 different fandoms! Well 3-4, since one fic was a crossover fic. Most of that was for ACOTAR, which is HILARIOUS considering last year I was so convinced that I was done with ACOTAR. I played myself. It's also way more words than I wrote the past few years, which is cool!

3. How many fics did you publish in 2023? How many multichapters vs oneshots?

I published 17 fics in 2023, 15 of which were for ACOTAR. 3 of those are multichapter, and the other 14 were oneshots.

4. What was your longest fic? Your shortest fic?

The longest fic CONTINUES to be my multichapter Tamlin/Lucien fic, lovely and lonely, which is now at 27,528 words and is ALMOST DONE. My longest oneshot is the Nesta/Eris fic, counterintelligence, which is at 4,446 words. The shortest fic I wrote last year was you up?, which is a modern AU Tamlin/Rhysand fic.

5. What was your most popular fic? Your least popular fic?

My most popular fic was lovely and lonely, which is now at 2,044 hits and 107 kudos!! My least popular fic was the Tamlin/Briar fic Come, my drifting flower, which is at 29 hits and 5 kudos. But TO BE FAIR all the fics I wrote for my gift exchanges are at the bottom of the list for hits/kudos, because they were only published like a week ago!! So the least popular fic that has been online for over a month is my Eris Week fic Concession Strategy, which is at 168 hits and 11 kudos. BUT ACTUALLY I'm realizing now that somebody put the fic in a secret collection so nobody has been able to read it in months lmao. So my REAL ACTUAL least popular fic is the Tamlin/Amarantha fic obsessed with you, at 226 hits and 17 kudos.

6. What fic didn't perform as well as you thought it would?

I feel like I've answered this before lmao but ANYWAY I thought a knife for every heart would perform a little better. It's been up since March and has 143 hits. I guess people don't want to read about Lestat and the Corinthian fucking nasty.

7. What fic performed way better than you thought it would?

ALREADY my Nesta/Eris ACOTAR secret santa fic soare cu dinți is performing way better than expected! It was posted just a couple weeks ago and already has 262 hits, which is PRETTY GOOD for an ACOTAR rarepair! In general I've found that Neris fandom fucking SHOWS UP when you write them fic, which is awesome!!!

8. What was your favorite fic you wrote in 2023?

LMAO my favorite fic this year continues to be my Yellowjackets fic, Lagomorpha. idk I just love writing body horror and psychosexual tension and learning about how fucked up rabbits are. I also just LOVE Shauna, I'd really like to write more from her POV in the future!!!

9. What was your favorite fic that somebody else wrote in 2023?

OKAY LISTEN!!!! yall are very talented but really stood no chance against @goforth-ladymidnight's Tamcien fic A Second Chance. Seriously, if you haven't read this fic, GO READ IT RIGHT NOW!!! IT'S AMAZING!!! LIFE CHANGING!!!! EARTH SHATTERING!!!

10. Tag your friends to have them do this year-end fic review as well!!

OKIE I TAG PEOPLE!!! if you see this and I don't tag you, please fill it out!!

@queercontrarian @northern-star-polaris @riote @thevanserrras @foxcort @goforth-ladymidnight @andrigyn @looseleaflettuce @isterofimias @drowning-in-cacophony

[marshmallowprotection]

I love my boy Yoosung, but his ending doesn't sit right with me. Like, I get that we made him happy, but he was still living in a lie. And we don't know anything about Saeran, and I can imagine how broken Saeyoung is. No one can convince me he didn't try to find his brother, but I guess he didn't succeed. And we hear in Yoosung's AE that he still like to make pranks, but I don't know if he's being genuine, or if he just chose to keep the Seven/707 facade forever.

Here's the thing, not all endings are going to be happy for every character and that's kind of the trade-off with most circumstances.

It's realistic in the sense that you know that real life isn't going to work in your favor all of the time. It's cruel, but reality isn't peaches and roses all the time.

You're allowed to imagine anything you want after the After Ending for the character you love and for the ones that you love platonically. I never think about any endings that aren't Saeran's and Saeyoung's as I'm writing but I do understand that pain with the other routes since everyone wants to help the RFA altogether.

I can definitely say that the Saeyoung we know isn't going to leave his brother behind, and in the context of Yoosung's Route, you know that it's the heaviest one since it's the one that you should play before you play Jumin and Seven's Route. You get to learn about Saeran proper on that Route.

Let me tell you, he's not going to let Saeran go like that. He's going to keep looking for his brother tenfold. I imagine that Mint Eye moved to another base but they're not going to quit it. I imagine it's going to be a problem again, no different than Zen's Route and Jaehee's Route would be. I can't see them stopping.

Same case with Jumin's Route.

It's never going to end.

So, Seven is going to be working to find his brother and trying to take down the cult all the way while dodging his agency and more. It's... It is clear that he's still covering things up with the RFA, but he's doing that to keep his eyes on V and figure out more. I haven't thought too much about it, but...

You can imagine it beyond the scale. Yoosung already knows about Unknown to a strong degree and you know that if Unknown makes another move, it's going to come up with the RFA and there might be a group intervention where Seven can't hide everything, neither can V.

Huh.

A lot to imagine there.