#also violet is just stupid and a terrible protagonist

[shallanspren]

the absolute whiplash i have going from the excellent writing of flamefall to...whatever the fuck is going on in f.ourth wi.ng though.

[jun-thorne]

This story (oneshot) takes place after the events of the auction. Wanted to do this for a long time, finally got down to do it. If you have feedback, I would be glad! Criticism is also greatly appreciated (I want to improve after all).

Confusion

Even at 1am in the morning, Tokyo could not be considered as peaceful. The sound of cars and the chattering of passerbys filled the streets, creating a ubiquitous murmur. But to Seido Takizawa, this was one of the more peaceful moments.

The ghoul leaped through the night, from rooftop to rooftop, a dark shadow above the flickering city lights, his white hair illuminated by the dim light of the moon.

No one at Aogiri would miss him at this hour, he thought. Ghouls usually hunted at night; his absence was therefore expected.

But hunger was not the reason why Seido roamed through Tokyo. No, his goal that night was of different nature.

After the auction, Seidos mind had become even more confused. Before, hunger and self-hatred had been all that burned inside him. And he was content with it. Their bitter taste kept the confusion away. All these disgusting, human parts of him he had buried so deep. They muttered questions, screamed inside him and confused his already unstable mind even more. So he had supressed them, replaced them with his hatred.

But something had changed, when he had seen her. It had only been a short glimpse, one small look during his escape, but it had been enough to awaken something deep inside him. His mind wouldn’t concentrate on the anger anymore, instead he would bring up sensations or memories Seido had long thought forgotten.

The faint smell of pineapple shampoo, a pair of violet eyes, blonde hair in the sun...

"This has to end!" Seido thought. He made one last leap, landed on a rooftop and suddenly he stopped. Standing at the edge of an apartment building, his toes already hanging over the edges, he froze.

Now that he had arrived, he was not so sure anymore.

"What am I doing here?" the thought echoing through his mind.

Standing on the ledge, Seido could feel his stomach twisting.

"It’s not like I can talk to her! I am a ghoul; she would kill me without hesitation! She probably has already forgotten!"

His thoughts were racing, stomach clenching even tighter, and suddenly Seido felt sick. He rose a finger to his mouth, biting on the knuckles till blood dripped on his tongue and the sharp pain returned his mind to the moment.

"I’ll just take a look! It’s not like she’s awake. I’ll just need to see her one more time, then I’ll move on" he whispered, more to convince himself. It didn’t work.

Still Seido knew that he had to do it. In the last weeks the confusion inside of him had grown unbearable. He found himself lying awake, thinking of blonde hair and snarky comments. Emotions, he had thought long gone, resurfaced, and the human parts in him slowly crawled back up. And with these parts came the desire to see her again, to look into her eyes and hear her voice.

Of course, this was not possible, he knew that, but every time he tried to suppress these thoughts, they came back stronger.

Seido felt himself giggle, a joyless sound which was immediately swallowed by the night surrounding him.

"I’m like the protagonist in one of these stupid soaps Hina-chan watches" he thought. "Hopelessly lost to a beautiful and tragic lady".

It had to end; he knew it. These thoughts made him weak, unfocussed. And Ghouls devoured the weak.

Seido took a deep breath and stepped forward. He went into a free fall, rushing past half a dozen balcony’s before he stretched out his arm and caught himself. He could almost hear his muscles tear, felt pain race through his nerves but he welcomed the feeling which anchored him in the moment. With his other arm he pulled himself up, sitting down on the rail of the balcony. His muscles tensed as he rose his eyes to take a look.

Akiras room was minimalistic. A bed, a TV, and a blanket for her hideous Cat, which was nowhere to be found. But Seido took only quick notice of this, his eyes drawn to something else. Sleeping on the bed, only in a light black nightgown was she. Akira Mado. Her delicate figure was illuminated by the dim moonlight, her chest lifting slowly with every breath, a peaceful expression adorning her normally stoic face.

His heart was beating rapidly, but not because of the fall he had just survived. Suddenly Seido felt ashamed. He did not belong in this place, he knew that. Still, he couldn’t turn his eyes away.

“She is so beautiful” he thought. His eyes lingered over her body, absorbing every inch of her into his memory.

“What am I doing?” he whispered. He had come to end things. See her and forget her, that had been his plan. And if that wouldn’t work, well then, he would just kill her. Problem solved. She was only human after all, weak! But now that he was here, he could already feel the confusion coming, freezing his body and chocking his throat with cold, dead hands.

Weak… he repeated over and over. Weak, weak, weak, beautiful, weak, gentle, weak, admirable, BEAUTIFUL!

Seido opened his eyes again, noticing the taste of blood in his mouth. His right Hand was throbbing in pain but the confusion was supressed again.

“For now…”

As much as he hated to admit it, he had failed. Coming here had not helped him in the slightest. He could still feel his human parts, even more than before. They were clawing at his heart, eagerly trying to rip it out.

A single tear rolled down his pale check, gleaming in the moonlight.

“If they could see me now” he thought. Seido Takizawa, the feared Owl, Nightmare of the CCG defeated and destroyed by simply looking at a woman.

“It’s the second time she defeated you…” he chuckled. This thought was strangely comforting.

A sudden movement caught his eye. Akiras expression had changed, she was now frowning and rolling over, her breathing becoming faster.

“a nightmare” Seido thought, feeling a little sting of worry.

“I should go” he whispered to himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. He knew that forgetting her was now impossible but bizarrely this thought did not fuel his anger. He threw another look at her. Akira was still frowning, her brows pulled together in a V Shape, her soft lips pressed together. Her body was trembling lightly.

Another sting went through Seido, making him skip a breath. “I’ll protect you” he whispered, a small, but warm smile forming on his lips. He settled down on the balcony rail, dangling his legs over the edge. He averted his gaze from her and looked at the moon, a silent resolve forming in his mind, drowning out any emotions and confusion. No Harm would come to her tonight!

A sudden noise made him freeze. The balcony door had been opened. Seidos heart jumped in his chest, every nerve screamed at him to leave, but he could not move a muscle.

Leave, leave, leave, LEAVE!!!!

Quiet footsteps approached him, but he still couldn’t move. Every moment, Mados Quinke would impale him, splattering his organs and blood over here balcony. This would be his end, he knew it!

“Seido?” Her voice was soft, and still heavy with sleep. No aggression, no anger.

Seido mustered all his willpower and slowly turned his head. Akira Mado stood only an arm’s length apart, her hair tousled and her arms wrapped around her torso. Her face was full of confusion, but there was something else in her eyes as she looked at him.

Affection? Grief?

“What are you doing here?” She asked, her voice still so unbearable soft. Seidos mind was flooding with thoughts. Why was she here, unarmed, unprepared? Why didn’t she attack him, why wasn’t she angry, why was her voice so soft?

“I…uhm” Seidos words only came out as a raspy whisper. He did not know what to say. This situation did not make sense, his sudden feelings did not make sense, everything was too much!!!

Akira looked at him, patiently. There was no resentment in her expression, only confusion mixed with… grief?

“I… came to see you” Seido murmured, confusion raging through his mind like a firestorm.

Akira looked at him, her eyes locking his in place. Her lip was trembling, he realized. Suddenly she stepped forward, and before Seido could react, she wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. Seido could feel her breath at his chest, feel her warm skin clatched at him. His mind went blank.

She was trembling, he realized. Acting instinctively, he slowly wrapped his arms around her, comforting her as she began to sob into his chest. He did not understand what was happening, but holding her felt right, just so right. And as little drops fell onto her head, still buried in his chest he realized that he was crying too, tears silently running down his cheeks.

After what felt like a moment, but what could also have been an eternity, her sobbing stopped and his tears dried out. Slowly, she was the first to pull back out of their embrace. Her eyes locked with his. They were red and swollen, but she smiled nonetheless, a warm and equally sad smile.

“I thought I lost you.” Her voice was hoarse from crying but Seido noticed the small glimmer of happiness in it. And he wanted to scream. “You lost me! I am dead! This isn’t me” But all that came out of his mouth was a small whimper “Akira…”

“Akira, I am a monster now!”

He expected her smile to die down, swallowed by the realization that he was, indeed, a monster, despicable and dangerous. But it didn’t happen. Instead, Akira raised her index finger to his mouth in a silencing gesture. Her eyes looked up to him, a violet, determined gaze.

“When you and Amon died, I lost everything.” Akiras voice was still husky but a vigorous tone was now underlining her words. “I don’t care what they did to you, or what they made you do, Seido! You are alive, you are here.”

Seidos felt his cheeks flush red in shame. This wasn’t right! Sure, he was still Seido Takizawa, but not the one she remembered. He had done terrible things, she knew that! He was a ghoul, the kind of beast she had sworn to destroy. Suddenly he couldn’t bear to look into her eyes anymore. He turned his head looking away in shame.

You’re a monster!

He felt a soft touch of fingers on his chin. Her thump gently stroked his pale skin and his black lips as she slowly turned his head, forcing him gently to look at her. And as Seido looked into her eyes he saw nothing but softness in her gaze.

“After the auction I read your file” she said, her voice now clearer. “I know what you did, what they did to you… I know that you´re a ghoul now…” She raised her chin, and Seido couldn’t help but remember the famous Mado pride. “And I´m still here Seido! I left you once, I will not do it again. Whatever comes next, well go through it together!” She said, with a voice that made absolutely clear that she had meant what she said.

Seido looked at her, a barely noticeably smile on his face. Words couldn’t express how he felt, couldn’t express the thankfulness, the shame and the happiness which sparked in his heart, not supressed anymore. And he knew that he wouldn’t find the right words to tell her. Instead, he closed his eyes and leaned slowly forward, his lips brushing softly against hers. They were so much softer than he had imagined, gentle but defined.

Slowly he pulled back, suddenly afraid he had made a mistake. But when he looked into her eyes this fear disappeared. Her gaze was still soft as she looked up to him. She shoot a quick glance at his black lips, a fire in her eyes, that he was sure had not been there before. Slowly she raised her hands, caressing his cheeks with her thump and then crossing them behind his head to pull him down to her.

Their second Kiss was more passionate. Akira pressed her lips to his, still gentle but more demanding than before. Soon she opened her mouth, gently sliding her tongue over his lips. When Seido opened his mouth, their tongues started to dance with each other, exploring the newfound spaces. Akira moaned softly, taking even the last concern from Seido. He gently grabbed her hips, moving her closer to him, embracing her and feeling her warmth through his dark cloak. For a long moment the remained like this; then Akira pulled back, emitting a small whimper from Seido.

“Will you stay the night?” She asked, making a gesture in the direction of her bed. She had lowered her head, avoiding his eyes as she asked. Seido felt a sharp spike of guilt. She was already afraid of losing him again.

“I will” he stated firmly.

Akira looked up to him again, her smile returning. “Great, because its getting a little bit cold out here.”

She grabbed his hand, leading him into her room. It was warm, Seido thought. And it smelled like her. As his eyes lingered back to her, he realized that she was inspecting him with a contained smile on her face.

“That muddy cloak does not come near my bed!” she stated. Seido couldn’t help but chuckle at her comment. Akiras smile grew wider as she closed the distance between them, her fingers quickly undoing the straps of his coat. Soon, she stripped it off his shoulders, the cloak falling silently to the ground. Seido stepped out of the legs, a little bit self-conscious and feeling somewhat naked. He was now wrapped only in his tight black shirt and a pair of loose pants which both, just like the Cloak, were rather muddy. He sighed and kicked these off as well, standing now only in his boxers. When he looked at Akira, his face flushed slightly red, he couldn’t help but notice her admiring gazes.

“You got muscular” she said, no hints of teasing in her voice. Seido couldn’t help but feel flattered.

“Thanks” he muttered. Still, he couldn’t quite shake his embarrassment and quickly slipped under the covers of Akiras bed. Only a moment later he could feel the warmness of Akiras body at his side. In a quick movement, she cradled her arms around him, and kissed his forehead. “Sleep well Seido” she whispered softly. And Seido knew he would.

[mimzy-writing-online]

I hope this question isn't too stupid, but you're one of my favorite writing blogs so I'll give it a shot. I want to write a FanFic based on the 1971 version of Willy Wonka. I wanted the story to tell Violet Beauregarde's story, the one that turns into a blueberry. However, I have SOME questions as I'm fairly new to FanFic. 1). Am I better off focusing on each kid's perspective, going back and forth? Or is it good to narrow my focus one one character? 2). Can I give them a character arch, li

(2/3) like Violet's really mean in school but she becomes kind after her experience at the factory. Is that too cliche or predictable? 3). Why does she try waddling away after her blueberry transformation and the Oompa Loompas are singing/dancing around her? They're trying to help her, and I don't really get why she'd do something like that. 4). What are tips to better understand the characters I want to flesh out? I guess it circles back to the last question, understanding their psyche. Yikes

(3/3)  Yikes! Super sorry this ask is long. And I'm even more sorry if my questions were lame or you've covered them before. :P. I can overthink at times, ESPECIALLY when it comes to my writing. I'm such a perfectionist storyteller, it's not even funny. I hope my questions aren't bothering you. You're one of my favorite writing blogs, so I figured I could come to you. I apologize in advance for wasting your time. You DO NOT have to reply at all if you don't want to. :P Thanks, have a great week

First and foremost: this is not a stupid question, you are not wasting my time at all. This is actually a rare treat for my blog because I don’t get many asks that don’t involve blindness, though I usually know better how to answer those than I do other questions. So, here we go:

Are you better off focusing on each kid’s perspective, going back and forth? Or is it better to narrow your focus onto one character?

The general rule of writing is to simplify. If two background characters serve a similar purpose, just combine the characters, for example. Slimming down extra scenes that don’t contribute to plot or character development.

However, that advice is meant for people publishing novels, working within an overflowing industry, dependant on sales and royalties. They have to meet whatever industry standards are, like word count or POV types. They have to find someone willing to take them on as a client because they love that book.

Fanfiction is not bound by such nonsense. Fanfiction is a beautifully lawless land where capitalism cannot influence it. What defines what you do with fanfiction is if you enjoy reading it, and if you have the steam to continue a long project.

Some people easily write 200,000k fics within a matter of weeks or months (or in my case, just once, two years). Some people work best with short fics. Both (and everything in between) are wonderful.

So, how much steam do you have for this project? How long do you think you can carry it and still finish it? Because that defines how big you should plan to make this project. If you don’t think you can write a long fic, then maybe just stick to one character.

A compromise between the two is to focus primarily on one character, and examine the other characters more briefly. This could be done in just a single POV chapter, or a handful. This could be done with the characters connecting and seeing the side character through your main character’s eyes, seeing how they’ve changed.

There’s no wrong answer. This fic is for your enjoyment primarily. No matter what you write, it will appeal to at least a few people, if not crowds. But your fun comes first, both literally and figuratively. Write for you, write to explore the story for yourself.

Can you give them a character arc like Violet’s where she becomes kinder after her experiences in the factory? Is that too cliche or predictable?

I wouldn’t call it predictable, because I’d expect everyone to go into completely different directions because they were all such unique and individual people before they entered the factory, and they were foiled by their own quirks.

Violet was mean and fake, she was demanding. I don’t know how much I want to speculate on the plotline you have going for her, how you’ll develop her to make her want to be more kind.

But I would love to speculate on the others.

Agustus Gloop? 

I feel like his experience in the chocolate river and almost drowning would make it hard to enjoy chocolate ever again. I think it would be a long time before he had any sweets. Also, because of his weight, I imagine there’s got to be some body-image issues hiding under the surface. I’d also put money on him being bullied, and him acting out against the students who bully him and because of his size he is more intimidating, but that doesn’t stop people from saying things behind his back.

I imagine the chocolate thing is a form of self-comfort. Maybe he turns to other foods to over-eat with to cope. Maybe eventually he figures out that this isn’t helping him. Does he try to replace unhealthy foods with healthier ones? (idk, I have a personal turn off on getting into the concept of dieting, so I’m not going to dig in much there).

I’d like to see him learn to love himself, develop some body neutrality, that his body doesn’t define who he is or what his worth is. That he becomes okay with who he is as he grows up. People who are happy and comfortable with themselves are generally nicer and easier going than people who aren’t. Maybe with some self-love, he’ll be kinder to others.

Veruca Salt?

Okay, I have a confession. My brain thought of her when discussing Violet. I haven’t seen either of the films in years.

Well, let’s thank Wikipedia everyone, the greatest gift of the internet.

Veruca does come across as a spoiled brat. Her parents shower her in material objects, which might mean something. I have a close friend who hates people buying things for him or giving him gifts that cost money. This has to do with a parent buying him things out of guilt after episodes of emotional abuse. I asked him a while back what he wanted for his birthday (I meant baked goods, I bake or cook special meals as birthday gifts for my friends. A has asked for chocolate chip cookies for three birthdays in a row now. Several friends ask for cookies for Christmas). Anyway, my friend had a panic attack and couldn’t respond until an hour later.

Maybe there’s something to that.

What does she think about money as she grows up? Does her love language continue to be gifts? I think it might one day be quality time. Maybe it is now. It’s common for rich parents to be absent and barely spend time with their kids because of work and extravagant social lives that sort of money gives them access to, meaning they barely have time in the day to spend with their kids. Maybe gifts are the only way she can make sure her parents still care, the only way she can get their attention? 

Mike Teavee?

Apparently in the movie credits his last name is spelled Teevee. But I’m obsessed with tea (and this is the point where I remember my tea and wonder if I’ve let it go cold because I got too focused. Nope, it’s still there). So it’s Teavee here.

Wikipedia describes him as a young boy who only watches TV, nothing but TV. He’s especially interested in cowboys and Western films. He comes across as a know-it-all. He’s easily annoyed but gets along with others.

Anyone have a guess at where I’m going with this?

Mike is neurodivergent. I mean, that’s my new headcanon. I lean towards ADHD because that’s what I project, but like everything else, his interpretation is in the eye of the beholder. Every viewer sees something different in him.

Some common ADHD (and autism) experiences beyond having a specific interest is how others react to your special interest. You get used to people getting bored when you talk about your interest for the thousandth time, but it’s still important to you, but not to someone whose opinion matters to you. RSD is probably common.

Wikipedia says he’s described as lazy in the books? Common ADHD “symptom,” or rather something that outside viewers label as laziness. Really, he just doesn’t have the motivation to do any of those other things.

And Charlie?

Did anyone think I wouldn’t have any thoughts on Charlie, our hero and protagonist?

Oh no, I have thoughts. Charlie goes to great lengths to set his family up comfortably, he becomes generous with his money. He also knows nothing about running a factory. I’m hoping Willy Wonka gives him some help there. But I bet adult Charlie is a stressed-out workaholic who tries to do everything and thinks he has something to prove, that he’s not just some random lucky child, that he can do this. Charlie totally gets a work-related anxiety disorder.

Those are my thoughts. I still think giving them Violet’s arc isn’t cliche or predictable, but rather completely different from what you think would happen to all those kids.

I mean, maybe a few of them are still little jerks in their adult lives. There’s no one road to grow up on, even if you’re four strangers who shared a similar traumatic experience.

Why does she try waddling away after her blueberry transformation and the Oompa Loompas are singing/dancing around her? They're trying to help her, and I don't really get why she'd do something like that.

They strange looking short men she’s literally never talked to, never seen or heard of before today, who’s already taken away two children by this point, all while singing a song about what terrible children they were.

And she’s scared because her body is doing something strange and scary and awful. She’s scared. She doesn’t know what to do. What will happen if these strange men take her away? She doesn’t know what happened to the other kids.

And they’re not really communicating they want to help, just singing cheerfully about how awful children are.

What are tips to better understand the characters I want to flesh out? I guess it circles back to the last question, understanding their psyche.

A lot of it is just watching real-life people and wondering why they are the way they are. Listening to their reasoning and what they tell you about who they are and where they come from.

I know people who grew up like Agustus with using over-eating as a way to self-comfort, and the bullying they experienced. I know that if a kid was physically bigger than his bullies, maybe he’d fight them to make them stop and leave him alone. People who go through that journey of learning that their body doesn’t define who they are, accepting it because it is theirs and it takes care of them.

(Which reminds me of a post I like that pops around here and there, that positive body image should be about more than how “sexy” your curves make you look. A person shouldn’t have to be sexy to be treated like a person. A person shouldn’t have to be sexy at all if they don’t want to, especially not all the time, and especially not a child. And there are a lot of obese children in the world who don’t have any positive body image messages designed for them)

I learned what my friend’s love languages are and why they have them and what they mean. Which is why I have that theory for Veruca.

Mike is just self-projection and listening to other neurodivergent people when they describe their life experiences or listening to their theories when they say a character is neurodivergent too.

I won’t lie, my theory on Charlie is based entirely on the Avatar: the Last Airbender fandom’s common head-canon that Zuko becomes a workaholic after he becomes Firelord. There might be some canon material in the comics that supports that, but I’ve never seen it. I think Zuko and Charlie have a similar vibe and that those three years Zuko struggled, and Charlie’s entire life before the factory make them both feel like they need to be perfect and do everything right to prove they deserve the job they’re given and that their backgrounds don’t define their worth.

Thank you so much for your ask anon!

And again, you are not a bother. I enjoyed digging into this movie I’d never thought in depth about until tonight. And you’re not alone, lots of writers are overthinkers and perfectionists. You are in good company. Our writing and fanfiction community welcomes and loves you <3

And thank you for your kind words! I’m so happy that you love my blog so much <3 It made my day to read that

Take care anon, and good luck in your writing :)

[blakeseptember]

ACOTAR Review, Chapter Two.

This chapter introduces us to Feyre’s family: her father, who remains unnamed in all currently published ACOTAR novels for some reason, and her sisters, Elain and Nesta. Nesta is the eldest and Elain is the middle child.

However, despite Feyre being the youngest of the bunch, all responsibility for feeding and keeping the family alive falls to her. Her father is an invalid who makes wood carvings and angsts about the past, Elain is framed as infantile and ridiculously naive, and Nesta is spiteful and unnecessarily mean to Feyre. The entire situation gives off a vibe that implies that Feyre’s family were written solely to make life harder for Feyre. It gives off a lot of Cinderella vibes: young girl forced to do all the work for a parent and two sisters, which is strange because this is supposed to be a Beauty and the Beast retelling. ToG is supposed to be the Cinderella retelling, yet this one scene feels more closely related to the fairytale than that entire series.

Feyre’s father is scared because Feyre killed the wolf. Feyre uses inclusive language to talk about gutting the deer, but no one so much as lifts a finger to help her. They just sit around doing god knows what and watch the baby of the family gut a deer all by herself. There’s an offhand comment about how Feyre’s mother told Feyre to look after the family while she was on her deathbed, and it seems that the whole family took that promise as law and let a literal child (I believe Feyre was 11 when she started hunting?) go into dangerous woods by herself to hunt because everyone else was too lazy to do it. Not only is this entire idea absurd, it’s downright insane. What parent, or older sister, in their right mind wouldn’t assist their sister in these endeavors? Feyre hunting is the only reason they haven’t starved to death, and the text implies that her family know it, but Nesta refuses to even chop wood to help Feyre, so Maas’s goal with this whole situation becomes clear.

Aesthetic. Again, Maas writes solely to produce a particular aesthetic for the book. She wants this chapter to show us how hard life is for Feyre so she can contrast it later on, but she does it in such an obtrusive way that it doesn’t feel natural or even logistically possible. Why would her family never help her? Helping her should help them, it keeps them fed and it keeps them safe. For selfish or selfless reasons, helping Feyre should be quite high on the to-do list. This just feels nonsensical and foolish.

Maas also can’t seem to decide on how she wants to characterize Elain in this chapter. She portrays her as docile and dreamy, but also says that Nesta and Elain “parade around as if the young peasants of the town made up a second-rate social circle,” which seems to conflict with the other information we receive about Elain. This sentence in particular feels very out of place.

For the length of this chapter—12 pages—absolutely nothing happens. They eat dinner. There’s a little bit of conversation about Nesta getting married. Nesta is mean. Elain is stupid. Their father is useless. Feyre is the only one framed as competent.

Maas displays another obvious lack of research in this chapter. She says that Feyre is an artist (does the protagonist have a hobby? If the answer is yes, proceed. If the answer is no, spin the wheel and have one randomly allocated to provide “character depth”) and owns three cans of paint. These are obviously red, yellow and blue. She doesn’t have white or black. However, she’s still somehow perfectly capable of doing nice paintings of flames, flowers and the night sky on a chest of drawers. Flames? Okay, I guess, but without white they’re not exactly going to look nearly bright enough. Flowers? Feyre describes them as roses and violets, but it would be immensely difficult to paint flowers without being able to make shadows and highlights. I’m picturing the versions of flowers that little kids draw; the ones that are just coloured blobs with a blob of yellow in the middle right now. Feyre paints the night sky on her drawer with the yellow standing in for the white (which would literally just be yellow dots.). It isn’t stated whether or not Feyre has painted a blue background onto the drawer first, which is probably a good thing. If she had I would’ve had to talk about the fact that most blue paint is way too light to use a background for the stars. Either way, Feyre’s drawer is covered in yellow dot and little crosses to emulate stars, but i suspect it looks rather terrible given her lack of materials. Side note: where did she get the brush? Good ones can be expensive ad cheap ones need to be replaced quite frequently, so how exactly does Feyre handle this?

A lot of information from the first chapter is just repeated. It’s dull and unnecessary.

This chapter is even worse on em-dashes than the last: Fifty three in 12 pages. Most notable is page 19 that had a grand total of NINE on it. NINE. Naturally, it’s also full of sentence fragments and feels like it needs a new editor, because whoever was hired to edit this thing has no clue what they’re doing. From what I’ve seen so far, this book could be cleaved in half if all of the useless material and some of the purple prose was removed. It doesn’t bode well for the rest of the book if i feel the first 20 pages have no business being as long as the are, does it?

[antagonistchanremade]

Some character descriptions of the Stellar Grievances cast.

Stella Greenfield, our main protagonist, is a 20-year-old black woman. In her “civilian” form she’s got long black hair in a ponytail and wears a sweater, leather jacket, miniskirt, thigh highs, and sneakers. In her “Logged In” form, Mechaniisms, her hair is drastically shortened and gets more boyish, and her clothes are replaced with dress pants, combat boots, a really nice dress shirt, a vest, and a cravat, not including her equipment. Her eyes are purple and she’s average height. She was a strategy game nerd in the real world, and upon being thrust into the game world she suddenly essentially had a shit ton of in-universe (since the game world and real world rely on different laws of physics; notably, Newton’s laws are specifically stated to not necessarily be true in the game world) engineering knowledge dumped into her head, so strategy and technology are her two big hobbies. When not giving orders or dealing with a situation herself, she can usually be found tinkering, either on the team’s ship, the GSF Headstrong, or on her own equipment and drones. Also, she comes from an interracial family and has a white stepmom and stepbrother (her stepbrother, Tyler, actually got her into Stellar Grievances in the first place, and he’s part of the main cast for a brief period of time in the beginning). And she’s bi and has ADHD. Her Wrench is called the Gauntlet Wrench.

She’s also regularly joined by her sidekick of sorts, an AI she programmed named Eve. Eve is fully conscious (which is rare but not unheard of in the setting), and usually refers to Stella as her mother. She sometimes appears as a holographic human (and can range in size depending on where she’s projected from; if she’s being projected from Stella’s own equipment, she’s usually the size of a fairy or something, but larger hologram projectors in larger machines can make her practically any size, usually life sized), but her primary function is to operate Stella’s various combat drones, so she can also appear as them instead (and some of them can get pretty humanoid; eventually, Stella even develops a drone that just... looks like the holographic form Eve takes, so Eve can basically have a real body if she so chooses). Eve acts like your typical AI assistant character- generally unemotional and analytical, but she has emotions and whatnot, she just doesn’t really have the emotional maturity to match her logical reasoning and academic intelligence and thus comes off like a computer to those who don’t really know her.

Then, Madison, our secondary protagonist. When she’s first introduced as Buttercup, she has back-length blonde hair and yellow eyes, and is wearing a fancy lolita dress; however, when Phyll dies and passes on his powers to her, her eyes turn green and she gets a green streak in her hair, and when she changes her name to Madison and joins the team, she cuts her hair a little shorter, starts wearing it in a side-ponytail, and switches to wearing jeans and a hoodie. In her “Logged In” state, Agent Yellow, she visibly matures, getting taller, curvier, and less babyfaced (since she was generally short, smol, and babyfaced in her civilian form), her voice gets deeper, her hair gets longer (and also pointier), and her clothes are replaced by beige power armor that... basically looks like Halo power armor but without the helmet. And she wears a beige cape. She also carries a green sniper rifle. Personality-wise, she’s very much the team Cinnamon Roll, though she also carries insecurities from her time with the other Awoken Agents (as she was the last one created, and shortly after her creation work fully began on the Specialist system, so she never really got to contribute much, especially since her only power was that she couldn’t stay dead); it doesn’t help that the Agent who was kindest to her, Phyll, is now dead, and the Agent who was least kind to her, Violet, had a crush on Phyll and blames his death on her (though Violet eventually gets over all this and becomes Madison’s love interest) and can often be found brooding. Her sniper rifle is called the Proto Rifle.

Lily Flowers is the team’s Medic, and the entire basis for her character back when I first envisioned her was that she toyed with general stereotypes for people who play “Healer” characters in media vs in real life. Specifically, back when she first started playing online games, she was what you’d expect from a “healer” character in anime- a moeblob who just wants to help the team, no matter what! But years and years of maining healer characters in online games has worn her down and she’s now more like someone who actually plays healer characters in real life- cynical, sarcastic, and untrusting. Her main coping method that stops her from becoming a total bitter pessimist? Being the team memelord and shitposter. She’s basically the Moca Aoba of the team, the Neptune of the team, the Yang Xiao Long of the team, you know, that character. The one who practically says “Eh? Ehhhh?” after everything they say to make sure everyone got the stupid pun they made. She’s got short messy pink hair and silver eyes, and they don’t change at all when she Logs In. What does change? Well, for one, her prosthetic, since she’s an amputee without a right arm. In her civilian state, her prosthetic is fairly normal; however, when she Logs In to become Yuyuriri, her existing prosthetic twists around to come out of her back, and a new prosthetic that’s bulkier and clumsier but has her MedTool built in is fixed in its place. That’s not the only thing that changes when she Logs In, but it’s the biggest difference; the other big difference is that she wears a big coat in her civilian form, but removes it when she Logs In. She appears to have a different outfit when she’s Logged In, but she’s actually wearing that outfit in her civilian form, too, just under her coat. Specifically, the outfit is made up of a blue turtleneck with no right arm (so it doesn’t get in the way of her second prosthetic), jean short shorts, tights, and boots. Lily’s also a lesbian, and in fact is Stella’s main love interest.

Kyousuke Tenjou, meanwhile, was originally created for two purposes. One, to be a sort of self-insert, and two, to parody/refine the character of Kirito from SAO; the former has mostly been abandoned (my idea was that he’d start out as a total Fedora Neckbeard type, but then slowly get better as he hung out with the rest of the team, and eventually even realize he was actually a transgirl, which is an exaggerated version of how I realized I was trans (I was never quite to the Broni Friendzoni level, but still), but I eventually dropped this aspect to focus more on the Kirito thing and also to keep the team more gender-balanced, though there are still hints of it). So, Kyousuke is this brooding longer swordsman dude who’s visually similar to and named similarly to Kirito, so the comparisons are obvious. But, see, Kirito is regularly rewarded by the series for being this jackass loner dude, even if it does make a token effort to have him grow out of it; the series claims that Kirito’s loner attitude makes him less happy, but more effective as a warrior. Stellar Grievances, meanwhile, makes it clear that Kyousuke’s loner attitude is a weakness and that he’s an arrogant dipshit for thinking he can play a teamwork-based game alone, and he’s mostly doing it in an attempt to look cool and badass when it really makes him look like an asshole and a dumbass. A big part of his character arc is about him unlearning all sorts of toxic masculinity, including some internalized aphobia (because he does start out as this jackass trying to get into every woman he sees’ pants, but it eventually becomes clear that he’s trying to compensate for the fact that he doesn’t actually find any of them attractive and he feels like not liking women makes him less of a man). Anyways, in his civilian form, his hair is short and messy, but longer and messier than Lily’s; his Logged In form, xX_Kyo_Xx (or Kyo for short), reins it back in to Lily levels. His eyes are blue and his hair is black, but when he Logs In his hair is dyed electric blue and he wears green colored contacts. The colored contacts are also functional, as he wears glasses in his civilian form but not his Logged In form. He’s generally wearing black jeans, black boots, and a black sweater in both forms. In his civilian form, he wears a brown jacket, but when he Logs In he trades that out for black gloves and a black cape.

Travis Bhatia was created pretty much alongside the concept of the Scout class itself, but once I’d finished deciding what the Scout class even did, I decided to flesh out his story, and his character arc ended up being about felon’s rights. Because a big part of his backstory is that when he was 19, he committed a horrible crime. And this wasn’t a case of him being framed, or it being an accident; he did a terrible thing on purpose. And he agrees that it was terrible, and even that he deserved to go to jail for what he did. And he did go to jail for three years. But when he got out, that was when the bullshit started. America treats its convicted felons very badly, even once they’ve served their time. And while Travis agrees that he deserved every second of his jailtime, he feels like he was completely screwed over when he got out. He’d served his time, but he was still being punished. And he ended up having to freeload with a cousin of his, and got addicted to online video games like Stellar Grievances. Which is why getting stuck in another world was the best thing that ever happened to him- it let him get a new start on life without the baggage of his felony. Travis is also a first-generation American, as his parents were immigrants from Britain, and he’s also ethnically Indian (for clarification, if it wasn’t obvious, actual Indian, like from India). In his civilian form, he wears jeans and a logo t-shirt; in his Logged In form, Explorer21 (or just Explorer for short), his jeans turn back, he gets his hoverboots, he gets goggles, he gets gloves, the logo on his shirt disappears, and he gets covered in belts, but most importantly, he gets a really long leather coat with a popped collar that looks totally cool when he’s flying around. He’s generally pretty chill and down-to-earth. He’s also gay and very flirty. Originally he was gonna be covered in robes, kinda inspired by the music video for Superheroes by Daft Punk. Travis is also the second tallest of the team after James.

James Reynolds was actually not originally gonna be part of the main cast. I created James to be an antivillain who became friends with Kyousuke and helped Kyosuke realize he was a transgirl, since James was himself a transman. The team’s Marine was gonna be Stella’s brother Tyler. However, I found myself mixing up Travis and Tyler’s names a lot, and realizing that I just liked James better than Tyler, and wanting explicit trans representation back in the team after I decided to leave Kyousuke a guy after all, so I decided to replace Tyler with James. But I didn’t want the antivillain angle with James to go away completely, and Tyler’s presence in the beginning of the story was very important (in fact, Tyler’s presence in the beginning was significantly more important than his presence once things get going, which is part of why I nixed him), so I decided that Tyler would be the team’s initial Marine, but he’d have to leave the team fairly early on, and the team would be without a Marine for a while until James, introduced as an antivillain, would betray his villainous allies to join the protagonists. Anyways, James is the tallest member, with blue eyes and messy orange hair in a ponytail. His general appearance can basically be described as “Bishounen”. He’s generally wearing jeans, a blue t-shirt, and an unbuttoned brown button-up shirt. His Logged In state, Don1998 (or just Don for short), wears a fedora (NOT FOR THOSE REASONS), a dress shirt, dress pants, dress shoes, a green tie, and a blazer. James is generally pretty quiet and stoic, though he does often either chuckle or glare depending on his mood. He’s also bi, and a frequent (willing) target of Travis’s flirting, though his primary love interest is a woman.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that Travis and James’ hair colors change when they Log In. Travis’s hair is black, Explorer’s is green; James’ hair is orange, Don’s is red. Don’s also got slightly shorter hair than James, but James’ hair is already pretty short. Travis has spiky hair in either form.

[bforbookslut]

Review: I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo

I have given this book ☆☆☆.  325 pages. It belongs to the Young Adult Contemporary genre. Farrar, Straus & Giroux published it. It was published 30th May 2017. I would recommend it to anyone who loves quirky heroines and light, fluffy contemporary young adult romances. 

The blurb reads: “Desi Lee believes anything is possible if you have a plan. That’s how she became student body president. Varsity soccer star. And it’s how she’ll get into Stanford. But—she’s never had a boyfriend. In fact, she’s a disaster at romance, a clumsy, stammering humiliation magnet whose botched attempts at flirting have become legendary with her friends. So when the hottest human specimen to have ever lived walks into her life one day, Desi decides to tackle her flirting failures with the same zest she’s applied to everything else in her life. She finds guidance in the Korean dramas her father has been obsessively watching for years—where the hapless heroine always seems to end up in the arms of her true love by episode ten. It’s a simple formula, and Desi is a quick study. Armed with her “K Drama Steps to True Love”, Desi goes after the moody, elusive artist Luca Drakos—and boat rescues, love triangles, and staged car crashes ensue. But when the fun and games turn to true feels, Desi finds out that real love is about way more than just drama.”

I apologise that I don’t have any quotes for this review (and therefore, little to no evidence) because I went on vacation with this book and forgot to bring my post it notes.

"But I never lost the belief that you could will something just by sticking to it, by being unwavering. By keeping your eyes on the prize. And by doing that, there was nothing you couldn’t control about your own life.”

Verdict:

I wanted to really love I Believe in a Thing Called Love (IBiaTCL). After all, the MC is a girl of Asian descent (that’s me) who is naturally an overachiever (not exactly me but I can relate), has trouble dating (23 and terribly single with no prospects whatsoever) and loves Korean dramas (also me).

But I’m terribly on the fence with it.

Mostly because Desi Lee is written as such a caricature of K-dramas, ignoring the fact that Korean dramas are incredibly diverse. They have the typical high school romances (that IBiaTCL are most likely based on), crime dramas, soap opera-like dramas, family dramas and the list goes on. Even though Maurene Goo is of Asian descent, IBiaTCL seems to have been written from a very white lens and is as clichéd and predictable as they come.

But, when it comes to the K-dramas of the cheesy, romance variety, clichedness and predictability are at its core. And that’s why IBiaTCL got three stars despite how much I disliked it.

Also, it’s well-written, fast-paced and Desi Lee’s antics are incredibly funny in a what-the-fuck-are-you-doing sort of way. It’s refreshing to see her antics /mostly/ backfire and she has to try and save herself.

In the end, I hoped IBiaTCL had ended differently but ah, well.

[contains spoilers]

The Bad:

This gets a little rant-y.

There’s so much incredulity with Desi Lee that she seems like an almost unrealistic MC. Aside from the ridiculous name (which is attributed to her parents’ love for Desi Arnaz of I Love Lucy fame). 

Desi is an overachiever who knows all there is to about cars, is a sports star, class president and all around know it all.

To top it off, she’s got super dooper good-looking best friends

and boo-hoo, she’s the least good-looking one

and she gets picked on because she’s an annoying know-it-all.

Yet, Desi thinks she’s super friendly and nice and that everyone likes her.

And she’s super obsessive, she stalks her crush and manufactures moments to bump into him and make him fall in love with her.

Let’s also not forget that there’s the oh-so-cliched female rival who hates Desi’s guts because of something Desi didn’t even know she was doing.

Oh, and the cherry on top of the cake, is that the guy falls immediately for her.

On the other hand, I can’t ignore the fact that since IBiaTCL is heavily influenced by K-dramas, these sort of things are pretty much standard in a K-drama plot. The heroine is unrealistically beautiful and everything seems to fall in her lap, yet, she’s branded as the outcast and the weird one, and in Desi’s case, a world-class nerd.

In K-dramas, no matter how ridiculous it sounds, the heroine goes out of her way to manipulate her love interest to fall in love with her. Even in a most recent drama, Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo, a university student pretty much sacrifices a lot of her life’s hopes and dreams to make her love interest fall in love with her, lying about who she is and such. Although, I will say that it’s mostly in high school drama romances that this sort of thing happens because romances with adults are less, for lack of a better word, ridiculous.

But it’s just such a cringe-y rendition of how K-dramas can be used to fall in love that makes reading IBiaTCL such a troublesome read.

My big overarching issue with IBiaTCL is how much YA and society has progressed today but instead, this book sort of regresses.

For one, Desi Lee is the smartest, most accomplished girl in school. Instead of using her wits and her smarts, she throws all her intelligence out the window to chase this useless boy who couldn’t even see how much she’s worth. She’s not in the Art Club and immediately, he casts her out. Like, wtv, if you can’t see how smart I am and what a great female president I would be in ten years, bye felicia. But no, Desi Lee sees the hottest thing to cross her path and give her a little attention and she latches on.

Secondly, there’s just so much female rivalry in the book that I’m like, aren’t we already past this? YA can do better, babes. Violet who is in the Art Club, insanely pretty, also Korean and also vying for Luca’s affection is portrayed as an incredibly catty, petty and vindictive woman. And oh, it’s revealed later Violet and Desi used to know each other but Desi moved on and left the church and play school and shit and forgot about Violet which is so fucking normal. She was a kid when it happened, did Violet expect her to remember for the rest of her lives? I avoid people I know in primary school. It’s fucking normal unless you go up to her and introduce yourself????

Not to mention, Desi is contrasted directly against Lucas ex-girlfriend, Emily, who’s like insanely beautiful and model like and ruined Luca’s life by letting him get arrested for her graffiti and then completely discarding him and putting him aside. But Luca gets angry when Emily wants to commemorate their relationship by putting in on social media and says:

“You just reminded me how it’s never been about me, or how you feel about me. How it’s about manipulating your image, what it looks like to everyone else. How I can never tell what’s real.”

Yeah, damn straight. Manipulating. Even Desi realises it.

But oh, yay, congrats because Luca forgives her in the end for being fucking manipulative and almost risking his life. Because she even manufactured a car accident a la Descendants of the Sun but without the precarious cliff-dangling.

But I think the worst part about IBiaTCL is that Desi was ready to give up a life of Stanford and gloriousness for fucking love. She was a definite shoo-in for the off-Ivy League institution, hell, I would give my arm and my leg to study at Stanford but she throws it all away to drive halfway across the country for Luca????? That’s a stupid ass decision right there.

And it’s the most unrealistic thing. Girls, please never ever throw away your hopes and your dreams for some stupid boy who couldn’t even appreciate you for all your smarts and wits in the first place. He’s not worth it. He’s only in it for the sex.

And speaking of useless boys, why couldn’t we have an Asian love interest??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? WHY WAS DESI SO OBSESSED WITH THIS BOY WHOSE HERITAGE IS NOT ASIAN AND I’M NOT GOING TO ASSUME THAT HE’S LATINX??????????????????????????? She can clearly call him Won Bin (who, by the way, is not at all the standard of male handsomeness or even at the top of the desired K-actor list). Why couldn’t Maurene Goo have given us an Asian love interest? This brings to mind the whole why are brown men so obsessed with white women on screen thing and makes me wonder if it’s the same thing here.

The Good:

One of the good things about IBiaTCL is definitely the portrayal of Korean American home life. I am neither and I can’t speak about how authentic or realistic it is but it’s nice to have these sort of experiences in YA. It’s nicer to have them explained and discussed as opposed to Jenny Han’s To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before where Korean American home life is touched on very briefly.

Although, it’s interesting that in both these books with Korean American protagonists, the mother is not present and instead, the father has to raise a daughter. But then again, even in K-dramas, this seems to be a theme.

Another thing I thought was a nice touch is that in writing IBiaTCL, Maurene Goo consulted the moderators of dramabeans.com which I would go as far to say, is the leading source of drama recaps. My sister uses it. My friends use it. I don’t lol mostly because I prefer watching my dramas as opposed to reading them. So, on the topic of K-dramas, this book is in good hands.

In conclusion, K-dramas thrive on being extremely unrealistic, as do romantic comedies. Why should I expect this book to be any different?

[tessatechaitea]

Mother Panic #1

This could be the title of my autobiography.

Oh, it isn't a camping trip. It's a killing trip!

I don't like the cut of Fred's jib. He might make me acknowledge the thought I was trying to suppress so that my day isn't ruined. But I bet Violet has learned since this moment how to pull the trigger! I bet she's a real anti-hero killer since she has to be some kind of funhouse mirror reflection of Batman. You can't live in Gotham City and not be a reflection of Batman. Violet is approached by a reporter who wants to talk about her father's disappearance fifteen years ago. Okay! Now we're getting somewhere! Daddy Issues ahoy! Also probably Mommy Issues. And maybe some issues caused by Fred. It turns out Dominic is not the bearded guy Hemsley's Boy-Toy but his bodyguard. Apparently showing him his "art" was a test and Dominic failed because he tries to ditch Hemsley. Also, Violet is busy following Dominic so that she can kidnap his bodyguard who can lead her back to wherever Hemsley hangs out where she can kill him in private. Maybe. I'm making a lot of assumptions here because I haven't finished reading the story. But then Mother Panic steps in to save the bodyguard!

And a, um, rabbit shits in a, um, skull?

Don't think that last caption was me questioning that panel! I totally get it! It's so...so...profound! Such art. Man. Incredible! You get it, right? Of course you do! What kind of a dope doesn't understand the whole rabbit in an upside down skull thing! It's like a representation of fertility and mortality. Um, right? Each criminal beaten down by Mother Panic gets a subliminal picture to go with the pain. So one guy is all, "Ow! I'm like a tree that just got struck by lightning! Not as profound as being beaten like a bunny shitting in a skull but still painful!" Then the next guy is all, "Holy ouch! Seven arrows in a swan!" And the next guy is all, "Melting candles on a birthday cake! SO PAINFUL!" And the final guy is all, "A pink snake eating a rat! I got off easy!" Mother Panic knocks out the bodyguard so she can take her with him. But first she says, "Fuck the bat," because the kid thought she worked for the Batman. Later, Batman happens upon the scene and he wipes a tear from his eye as he asks Penny-One, "Why would somebody say fuck me? What did I do?!" Mother Panic (or Violet, of course) takes Dominic back to her mother's indoor gazebo where her mother spends her days singing. Her mother speaks in cryptic sentences that actually mean things if you're into poetically profound nonsense. Like me, of course! So good! And smart! Elsewhere, Hemsley pays a visit to Mother Panic's real nemesis, Gala. She's a criminal who does art crimes! Murderous art crimes! Who could have guessed?! I suppose I came pretty close to the mark in my initial summation of what I figured this comic book would be. But then it's not hard because it's obvious the Young Animal comic line is meant for pretentious pieces of crap.

Anything can be art if you have enough gall to tell people that it is!

Anybody can take a shit but it isn't art until somebody takes a shit and tells other people that it's art. Sometimes they explain the meaning behind the art so that people nod vigorously and say things like, "Right! Right! I totally see that! What a mind blowing piece!" And sometimes they don't explain it because what can you really say about a piece of shit that hasn't already been said by smarter people who aren't trying to fool everybody into believing you're profound. Mother Panic questions the bodyguard to find out what Hemsley's been doing. But he isn't blabbing his story or what he saw until next issue. Until then, I'll just have to be content with the back-up story, "Gotham Radio Scene One: 1621." In it, some radio talk show host is talking about how we're all holes and we just can't get enough dicks stuck in us to ever feel whole. But then he's shot live on the radio by some hooded guy who takes over the microphone and is all, "Thanksgiving." I guess the rest of his deep thoughts about the holiday will come next issue. The Ranking! I think I could enjoy this. But I promise I'll continue to be super cynical about it. Because that's my art! To see bullshit in everything. Tearing everything apart is my canvas! Destruction is my creation! I'm just a trite, cliché, petty write who doesn't know how to bare his soul to any other human being! I don't want to fill the hole at all. I just want to be bigger hole!