#and - at least in the good fiction IMO - it helps say 'hey. that's not right.' and 'hey make sure you're there for your loved ones'

[zoanzon]

Unsure the current trending opinions on Across the Spider-Verse, but:

Beyond the fact that the art fucks 1,100% and the way it made me look back on Into the Spider-Verse with incredulity to see how far back Across’ foreshadowing was set up-

It’s a coming-of-age movie, in the most heartwrenching and unapologetic ways. The whole damn trilogy is a coming of age story. It takes the nice happy ending we get in Into the Spider-Verse, and goes ‘No story remains wholly happy, if you don’t pause the scene after the kisses and hugs.’

And not in a bleak way, or at least I think that’s something Beyond the Spider-Verse will - hopefully - hammer home better than any of us will see coming. But...

There’s the whole overarching thing in Into about “No Expectations” and how this applies to both the expectations his family has and the expections of being a Spider-Man. Well, Miles did it. He had to fight that fight, and he won it at 14. It changed the course of his whole fucking destiny. 

And...Across the Spider-Verse comes knocking on the door and goes “Yeah, that fight isn’t one you fight and win once. The endless expectations that you subvert and slay at 14, are coming right back around at 15. This is a lifelong struggle, and old happy endings will always become more bittersweet as you get older.”

And, as Across has started to lace for us - and, as I think and hope Beyond will run home for us - it’s also going “And this is alright. It sucks. And it’s not fair. But also, fuck destiny and what’s expected of you, and you’ll find family to help build a better future alongside.”

Beyond being on the bleeding edge of animation and having a story being executed to precision, the Spider-Verse movies are also a coming of age story.

[padawanlost]

the clones were essentially slaves and the jedi allowed it. they are in fault for accepting the army in the first place; and for those who think this is a hard pill to swallow; apathy by not calling out they were slaves. i really think this shows the corruption in both the republic and the order itself but most people defend the jedi for some reason. the jedi weren’t the only victims of order 66; the clones who got their free will overridden were somehow always out of the question. having a inhibitor chip that somehow can control your actions is a scary dystopian-ic sort of concept.

and yet, the clones had to go through this but no one acknowledges that because they don’t want to blame the jedi for accepting what essentially is a slave army 🤷

yeah i have a lot of feelings

I think we live in age where being fan means refusing to acknowledge we don’t like. sure, fandoms are supposed to be fun so it’s normal for us to want to engage only with the parts that make us happy. However, I’ve been noticing with growing concern a new trend where only the parts we want to engage are welcomed as valid fandom community.

The Jedi Order is prime example of this. We have fans who love them, fans who hate them and fans who enjoy them in parts. All are fans, all are valids. But I’ve noticed that, tumblr at least, is no longer a safe place for fans who want to discuss topics that ‘jedi stans’ find unflattering.

Not to sound all fandom-elder but back in my day when someone said something like ‘I think the Jedi did something wrong’ someone would disagree and life would go one. now it seems people who want to talk about anything beyond the ‘I love this and everything about is perfect’ mentality is considered a fandom-terrorist. Someone who is actively ‘ruining’ the fandom experience for everyone else, even if said ‘hater’ is not engaging with anything, even if they are simply posting their opinion on their own blog. Considering we are talking about a platform where performative wokeness is the norm, it’s not all that surprising that people will resort to self-victimization when arguments fails them.

What any of this has to with do with clone slavery? Everything! Because that’s a sour topic in this fandom. it’s amazing how something so painfully obvious – slavery is *always* wrong – became such controversial topic. It says a lot about the overall mentality of the fandom when people argue pro-slavery because the opposite would mean their fave character did something morally wrong.

Again, when wokeness is perfomative something as innocent as enjoying a fictional character can put a crack in the image you’re trying to sell. If you’re a victim of cruel, abusive fandom that is ‘ruining everything’ for you, of course everything you consume must be pristine as your image. On top of that, if the fans (who disagree with you) are inherently evil and wrong, you don’t have to spend as much time and energy arguing their points. You can just say they are bad people and get some sympathy points.

To make matter worse, after the ‘stan culture’, we also have to deal with racism and sexism. If you pay attention to the argument defending clone enslavement and the role everyone played in it, you’ll notice the issue is not so much that people don’t care about slavery and murder. They simply don’t care about the enslavement and murder of anyone who isn’t a (white) favorite.

For everyone fan saying Anakin was wrong in killing innocent tusken children, there’re at least 3 fans saying they deserved it because they were savages who needed to pay for their parents crimes (or that killing them made the people safer). However, these same fans will relentlessly argue that Anakin killing that cute little boy in ROTS is one of the most vile crimes put on screen because he was such innocent, pure little boy.

The same goes for the clones. Anakin and Obi-wan being enslaved for a few days was traumatizing, cruel, vile, etc; the clones being enslaved for years and used as cannon fodder is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  (the main point being that everyone, including the jedi, did everything they could to save the clones…and by everything they could, they usually mean nothing at all)

More recently, we have the clone wars finale. A heartbreaking hour of tv made to illustrate how cruel and unfair the war was *for the clones* and yet the main complaint was the show not taking its time to show the real victims of Order 66 (the jedi). We had a whole blockbuster, full-length movie illustrating the tragic end of the Jedi Order but people were still pissed Filoni dedicated an hour to show the clones were victims too.

To be honest, I’m done arguing this because experience has told me people aren’t interesting in talking about the issue, they just want their faves to look good. They don’t really care about the clones beyond their relationship with the beloved Jedi (Obi-wan’s men, Anakin’s men, Plo Koon’s men…they are never viewed as their own men, men who should be allowed a choice to exist beyond the role forced – and enforced – upon then).

I’ve said this a countless time before and I’ll say it again, there’s no justification for slavery. No righteous course action beyond doing everything in your power to stop it, and if you don’t have any power to act by yourself it’s your moral (and legal) duty to make sure people with power act on your behalf. If you’re not a legal enforces, you can still make sure you vote for the right leaders, protest, write letters, contact the government, go on strike, protests, etc. sitting on your ass because ‘there was not nothing you could do’ is not a valid (or even accurate) option when it comes to the enslavement of human beings. And, imo, it’s fucking sad this even needs to be said.

The clones, the children and everyone else enslaved in the GFFA deserved better, deserved someone willing to help them, deserved more than empty words and gestures. And that’s a hill I’m more than ready to die on.

But hey, wtf do i know?

[The Jedi] are being corrupted by this war, by being forced to be generals instead of peacemakers. – George Lucas 

[kitkatopinions]

What makes you like May so much? I notice that despite her relatively little screen time and character development, she’s in a LOT of your top 3 ships. Not hate or anything, just always curious when people latch on to minor characters

Alrighty, let’s unpack May Marigold. Like you said, she doesn’t have a lot of screen time or character development, but even if a character isn’t featured much, there are still ways you can like them right away. Funnily enough, some of the reasons I like May are the same reasons I liked Qrow from his first season even though he didn’t get a lot of focus and we knew very little about him.

1. Mannerisms, body language, and attitude

I like expressive characters, I like characters who are dry or feisty or both, I like characters who can be in tense situations and look totally bored, I like joking characters and mock politeness and winks and attitude. May has a dry wit and an air of devil-may-care behavior around her that I find really appealing in a character. But she also has a society upbringing and it leaks into her actions here and there and that adds interest. She feels really distinctive. Also since the mains have started all seeming a bit... interchangeable, May is a nice change of pace in that way. Everyone in the above image is making pretty much the same face, but May, who looks like she couldn't be more bored.

2. She's someone I want to root for

When Team RWBY wanted to pretend they were in a situation where they could save everyone and everyone could win, May recognized what they were too stubborn and illogical to. May was the voice of experience and reason in that situation that point blank told them ‘there’s no saving everyone, you have to choose.’ And I mean, I was on Ironwood’s side in volume seven before he shot Oscar, but May not only has a point in what she says and in her goals, but has follow through (something Ruby didn’t have.) She wants to launch Amity Tower and so accompanies Team RWBN while feeling assured that Ruby’s friends are making up for her loss in protecting Mantle, she resolves to help Mantle after the Tower is launched with the statement that Atlas has soldiers defending it while Mantle does not and therefore she’s of better use there, and then she does what she says she was going to and goes to protect the people of Mantle even though she did it alone because Team RWB couldn’t choose anything. While Team RWB was hiding out in a mansion drinking tea, May was actually determined to do something. May is a flawed character, she calls Penny ‘robo-girl’ and gets called out for it, she’s aggressive with Marrow, she’s partially responsible for the delay of Amity being launched, and she seems to follow Robyn with too much devotion imo (considering my dislike of Robyn lol, I think this is fair.) But she’s also determined to help those in need and is willing to follow through, and uses actual logic to see the situation for what it is and understands her own limitations. Between annoying protagonists with impossible idealistic standards that act like they never have to change who feel very insincere, former heroes who have gone crazy and who might be actually fighting and trying to do good but are also down to murder anyone and therefore can’t be supported, and villains who are getting ‘redeemed’ in the sloppiest and least convincing ways possible... May stood out as someone who is trying to be both smart and caring, brave and compassionate, but realistic. Ironwood was no longer allowed to be seen in a good light and so was turned into a puppy kicking maniacal ball of crazy willing to torture and bomb just to get his way, and Ruby was not allowed to be seen as wrong or failing and so the whole narrative was about how good and right she was even if she didn’t accomplish her goal or earn a victory because hey, at least she made a rousing speech and yelled at anyone who wanted to do something she deemed not enough. May was allowed to be a moral character who just disagreed with Ruby, she was allowed to make mistakes without it either being treated as monstrous or quickly covered with pretty words about how everyone knows she’s still great. May was allowed to be a character without the authors constantly reminding us of what they want us to think of her. Maybe if she’d been in one of the earlier seasons, she wouldn’t have been as compelling to me (because that wasn’t a rarity lol,) but compare her to Ruby now and she’s amazing. Also she told Ruby she was wrong, and she may have softened it later, but still, it was one of the better parts of the whole volume. Ruby needs more people who are willing to give her hard truths, instead of people who are going to agree with and support her no matter what.

3. Potential

When it comes to characters, the first thing I really look at is if they’d be good in fan fictions, how I’d use them, how I could see them interacting in this or that scenario, and what dynamics I think they’d have. A lot of this has very little to do with actual canon, like wondering how she’d fit into a fake organization full of OCs I’d written into a couple of fan fics or wondering what her dynamic would be with the redeemed Roman Torchwick and Emerald and Mercury that I’ve often centered my stories around. But some of it is stuff like ‘How would May see Winter? What sort of tension might May have with her in Vacuo?’ ‘How would May get along with Sun and Neptune in Vacuo?’ ‘When the others get back from the void, what will May be doing?’ Much like I took to the cocky but clearly more under the surface winking argumentative Qrow in his very first season, I like what little I’ve seen of her and hope I get more of what makes her an appealing character to me later. And much like I got attached to Neo after even her very minor appearances in the first three seasons and started including her as the babied little sister figure of Roman somehow three times more cut throat than him that takes his word as gospel, I like May for what I can see her turning into in my fics even if she’s never given a lot of focus or room to grow or (God forbid) gets her character thrown to the wolves.

Also, as for shipping her with people, I feel like since she hasn’t yet taken a lot of screen time and we are wondering at how she’ll interact with people once things aren’t so tense, it’s easy to imagine her with a lot of people just because I haven’t been put off by any interactions and relationships that were badly handled or that just don’t vibe. I think I’ve listed her in the top three ships with Ilia, Sun, and Blake, and omg I just realized how funny it is that I listed May as a possible romance for all three of them. XD These ships are pretty casual, as I was looking for numbers and I’ve shipped Sun and Blake for so long, it’s hard to picture them with anyone else and there are pretty big road blocks in shipping them with many of the other mains, and I hadn’t really considered many ships for Ilia before writing the post. May just happened to be a ship I saw that I thought ‘that could be pretty cute, actually.’ However, thinking about her and Sun...

Idk, I just think it’d be neat. If BlackSun can’t be canon, this just might be my second choice. Sun is a bright, caring, loyal optimist who isn’t afraid to get serious and emotionally vulnerable and is also down for some low grade crime here and there. He values independence, he’s not pushy, but he’s also not afraid to challenge and call people out. May is cynical and a bit jaded, puts her trust in people maybe a little too much, but is also feisty and sharp witted and has a quick tongue, and she’s compassionate and willing to get her hands dirty and put what she thinks needs to be done over what others want and she’s realistic and gutsy. Also he’s got blonde hair and blue eyes and she’s got blue hair and honey colored eyes, so... Yeah. I don’t know, because it’s so hard trying to ship anything other than BlackSun for him, but there might be something the writers could work with there.

[icharchivist]

hello icha!!!!! learned from my mistakes and typed this out in a separate document. first i have to say im feeling a very deep connection with citron as of late bc i was giving myself a pep talk abt like physics and i told myself "face up and man the music!" and was like "...is that wrong. theres that song called man against the music isnt there... yeah it must be right" and. well i realized later. i also think the phrase "dont cry because it happened, smile because its over" is very good. also I’m halfway thru creating a very eclectic list of like. a Pokémon team for each a3 character which is… something. kinda knew it would happen to me. might take a while for me to finish it tho now that I’m halfway bc I’m suddenly having a crisis like “wait shit I’m only confident on my understanding and characterizing of like 4 characters am I good enough” so… it’s slow going lol. anyways. i finished that damn physics thing I was giving myself a pep talk about and so am treating myself to autumn/winter. happens that watching these events is also like. the only thing which reminds me to actually like. log into a3 lol. i am so bad at gacha games. probably a good thing in the long run. ok starting from the top!

hisoka going "zzz" as his reaction made me immediately go... oh dear, please dont fall asleep in the bath and guess what happened. yeah. good thing homare was there lol. speaking of i fucking adore homare and his poetry. id buy his collection. i also wish there was a collection like if there was a master list of every poem he says in like. at the very least main story. if not i will literally do it myself. i love homare so much im like him in that back when i had to play dodgeball id always be like kufufufu they cant hit me if im friendless enough that no one pays attention to me but like in my case it actually worked out. on the subject of the pillow fight tho, hisoka's crazy strong pillow fight throw... one more mark on the list for suspicious, maybe assassin occupation. this event made me realize how much i missed winter like. i saw the stranger pretty recently (which has caused the effect of be being like "taichi!! thats my boy!!" in my head everytime he shows up lol but anyways i havent gotten to a winter play yet so im VERY hype. especially bc this seems like it stars hisoka and homare??? like oh!! oh!!!! also detective fiction... im swooning. i also just enjoy the hisoka homare dynamic a whole fucking lot i think its nice how homare was like "yeah im ride or die for this funky lil amnesiac, why wouldnt you be?" and its just like. nice. feel like hes always reaching out to hisoka which is like. man homare is so nice.

back to chronology. ofc sakyo goes cheap for the hot springs lol. on brand as ever. was very hype for the azuma sakyo dynamic bc all i remember is like azuma trashing everyone including sakyo at some game or the other in one of the winter chapters and it was very good. or was this a clip in like a stage play? either way it was delightful. at first i misinterpreted taichi going "…" after azuma and sakyo said theyd never been on a field trip bc like. taichi being quiet or noncommunicative... after going thru autumn troupe act 1 it makes me fear for my life a little lol. anyways im glad he was just like planning fun times. speaking of taichi tho we got a tasuku taichi pair for etudes!!!! im not spoiling myself for later events but i hope to GOD tasuku and taichi do like a lead co lead in SOMETHING or at least like some mixed troupe event i want them to talk!!!

also dunno if this is an intentional pun but i enjoy that its called high spirits at the hot spring bc like oh theyre having fun but also bc like. "spirits" is used to refer to a certain type of alcohol i think? which is cool. dunno if its intentional but i liked that. anyways the talent show. taichis moving rendition of single ladies... ok i know it said single fellas but like. we know. wonder if that line was a different song in japanese? its not too old at ALL tho imo. anyways the way banri and juza being themselves Are the entertainment... flashback to when banri slaps juza live on stage instead of doing a stage slap lol. my reaction to azuma essentially went:

azuma: I can offer to bare my soul, and a little more ;)

izumi: what do u mean by that???

me: hey tasuku and omi were shirtless what's ur problem with azuma

anyways i reread and from what i understand they were maybe only flexing and doing a gun show? which like. no wonder it didnt last too long then lol. also explains why they didnt have shirtless sprites i suppose lmao. i am SO curious abt what azuma ended up doing tho that fade to black is so mysterious! did he tap dance? did he pole dance? the world will never know...

oh also im not like super familiar with azuma yet but my read on his personality is definitely like "I am so touch starved All The Time but I will be chill. :) :) this is fine :)" like he just seems to rly like being around people! just like basking in presence whether or not hes rly talking that much.

i enjoyed that juza mentioned pillow fighting with his lil brother... thats nice! i think a lot of this event was just focused on ppl having fun over the drama lol bc it got wrapped up sooo quick. i liked the bit where sakyos worried that izumi was out late searching for him tho it was so sweet. table tennis match was very fun although id argue calling hisoka and juza the two quietest tho lol like... banri exists so juza isnt quiet. just like inevitably. finally, the event cg!!! azumas hair tied up... so nice! thats how I tie my hair up sometimes tho it doesnt look nearly as nice lol. taichi rambling abt his first love for so long tho... lol. ill be honest i have to reread autumn bc i was not aware of this whole situation until it came up in the stranger and i like inferred from there. the end of this event was nice! it was cute. i dont rly have much thoughts on it but im so hype for the winter play

Hello:!!! so good to see you again, freshly learning from your mistakes then :3c

the connection with Citron is a BLAST to read about. I am glad that Citron is there, on your mind, supporting you at every turns of language. It's beautiful.

AND OH THE POKEMON LIST!!! thrilled to hear about it being a wip ongoing! take your time ofc and i hope you'll feel more confident as you go for your characters interpretation! i believe in you!

lmao i'm glad the events help you remember to play a3, i'm sure that by the time you'll be done with the events you will have unlocked so much of act 2 you won't have to worry too much about it. Anyway i'm glad you treat yourself to good things :3c

of course Hisoka fell asleep in the bath. tbh this event was a lot of "Hisoka almost dies in a spring house multiple times if it wasn't for his troupesmates". Between sleeping in the bath and almost swallowing the table tenis ball... where would we be without Winter, and especially Homare, taking care fo him.

I'm SO GLAD you like Homare that much! he's so so good! i'm sure there must be a masterlist somewhere, or well. can be done anytime i guess?? but yeah Homare is fantastic and LDJFDLKFJDF the evil plan to avoid dodgeball from both of you.. this is incredible DLKJFDLKF. But yeah alas he's loved by his own so he gets hit smh.

And yeah Hisoka is just acting sus huh.

BUT YEAH... YEAH... WINTER... BELOVED.... I feel regular and normal feelings for Winter as you know, s o .

(i'm so delighted that you feel that way about Taichi though, as he deserves!! what a good boy!!!)

But yeah Winter play next!!!!! i love the winter plays so much i hope you'll like it as well!! aND YEAH HISOKA AND HOMARE AS A DUO... for a DETECTIVE story?? so good.

I'm sO GLAD you like their dynamic! yeah i adore it too. Homare was so quick to leap into taking care of Hisoka? Like i mean he immediatly called him sleeping beauty when they first met, and immediately decided to be his roommates to watch over him, and then he did everything to take care of him and it's just so sweet. Homare has such a big heart he's so gentle with Hisoka. Homey and comfortable, whenever Hisoka admits it or not ahah.

ahah wouldn't be Sakyo if he didn't need to stay cheap. BUT YEAH the Sakyo/Azuma dynamic is pretty good. oh the event you talk about i think is in some of his very first backstage storyes (that you can read if you have them since they're at this point of the chronology). There's one where they play a mafia game and Sakyo is warry of Azuma because "people like him are those you need to worry about the most" and Azuma is just ":) you wound me :) i would never :)" and then Azuma wins the game and starts to mess with everyone. It was so fun. and yeah i see which clip you mean for the stage play!! it's so so fun they have such a neat dynamic and i loved to see it in this event as well.

and omg worrying about Taichi while he was just there preparing a fun time! this child really would have worried us all back then huh

but AHH YEAH TASUKU TAICHI.... It's such a neat dynamic! ofc i won't say anything but man i love the potential of their stories, as the two ex Godza boys. To see them bond and be comfortable with each other always make me so soft.

OH NICE CATCH FOR THE PUN! i think it must be the reason for it tbh, i love it! thanks for pointing it out!

The talent show was really fun yeah ahah! I wonder what it is in Japanese too but at least the localization was hella fun!

"anyways the way banri and juza being themselves Are the entertainment." THEY'RE SO SILLY I love them so much

AND LMAO YOUR REACTION AT AZUMA I LOVE IT. YEah i think Tasuku and Omi are just flexing (which is Still. SO FUNNY. Just there saying "our talents is.. our muscles...") meanwhile Azuma is like "my talent is that i'm crazy hot :)"

But YEAH Azuma... AZUMA WHAT DID YOU DO....

your read on Azuma's personality feels pretty spot on to me ahah omg. Staying with what you know about him, the fact that with his job and all, he seems like he's starving for connection while also terrified to make himself emotionally vulnerable. He loves staying with people, listening to them, caring for them, and he's touch starved as hell (i mean it's his job) but he doesn't seem to really know how to be on the receiving hand of affection. there's a flair talk, i can't remember where, with Omi at some point, where Azuma compliments him, and Omi is just "mhm.. but you know i think that it's more about you" and ends up complimenting Azuma in depth and it let Azuma dumbfounded because he didn't expect Omi to trick him at his own game, while Omi just genuinely don't get why Azuma is reacting that way. He gives he gives he gives, and he's genuinely happy with that, but he seems to have difficulties to take, or to demand for something, while also starving for it. I have so many emotions for Azuma.

Any mentions of Juza's little bro are the best things. I love this type of mention TwT

And yeah it was such a laid back event. Honestly deserved after the crying fest that was The Stranger imo. It's good to relax once in a while and it was nice to have them have fun. There was the bitterness of both Azuma and Sakyo's past that was always a bit looming but everyone was working so hard for them to enjoy themselves that the joy just overtake any sadness i loved it.

Sakyo worrying about Izumi is always adorable TwT

And yeah the Table Tennis match was so fun and chaotic LMAO. I love the dynamic between Juza and Hisoka. Just two usually quiet boys who like sweets. Except that yeah like you say, as long as Banri is around, Juza cannot be 100% quiet. Rip.

THE CG WAS SO PRETTY i loved seeing it. And omg you can share your hairtips with Azuma how nice :D Azuma manages to make everything look beautiful smh....

Oh yeah Taichi and his first love! if i recall he mentions it quickly at the begining, that Yuki reminds him of his first love, and he says that again at some point - then the fake Portrait he does he mentions his first love again. And since then it's been a reccuring topic so yeh :3c

but yeah! this event was really sweet and laid back, not much to say about it, but it was nice to have it at all!

Hope you'll like the winter play :3c

Take care and thank you again for your thoughts <33 i love reading them!! bless you!!

[microsuedemouse]

man it has been a MINUTE since I made my own post about anything fandom-related on this website but @suzirya is blogging about The Old Guard and I haven’t seen anyone else talking about it really and I’ve got. some thoughts

I had literally never heard of this movie at all until a few nights ago when we were eating dinner in the living room and my dad pulled it up and said ‘hey I want to watch this’ and played the trailer for my brother and me. We were pretty much like yeah, sure, we all enjoy a good action flick, and aside from my other brother (who was occupied with D&D) it ended up being the whole family watching it. and I enjoyed it WAY more than I’d anticipated, especially for something I’d never heard about.

if you don’t know what I’m talking about: drop what you’re doing and go watch The Old Guard on Netflix. (it’s a Netflix original so yes it will be there.) it’s a very fun and good action film based on a series of graphic novels about a small group of immortals trying to do what’s right. there are many selling points but one of them is that it will be very good for your little gay soul, bc Charlize Theron stars (in a character with no explicitly-stated romances but lots of relationships that will make you Feel Things) and two of the other main characters are two men who met during the Crusades and are just amazingly in love with each other. And not in a vague way that the straights can interpret as Powerful Friendship. They are explicitly in love with each other and so devoted and ugh.

ANYWAY. putting the rest of my chattering under a cut bc spoilers and also I’m a wordy piece of shit

1 - early in this movie I was thinking about how glad I am that Charlize Theron has stepped into this role of like... cool female action star, but also, her characters are never super sexed up. almost any female characters I can think of in action movies, if they’re part of the action rather than victims/bystanders, are always made sexy. even when they’re Strong sexy, they’re still... a lot sometimes? I was thinking especially of some Angelina Jolie stuff, Scarlett Johanssen, etc. there are probably lots of exceptions to this that I just don’t know but still - we’ve had Theron in several roles like this recently, and appearance-wise she’s treated with the same respect as her male counterparts, which is so fucking cool and also such a fucking relief. we all love beautiful ladies, obviously, but it’s so SO good to see our female heroes just doing their jobs, without us ever being made aware of their sexuality.

and as the movie went on this was hitting me more and more, and I was also thinking it about... everyone? like. the other female lead, played by KiKi Layne, was arguably more feminine than Theron but not any more sexualised. even once she’s out of her army fatigues she’s dressed with practicality in mind, and again, we never have her female-ness pointed out to us. and I was so about every bit of that. both objectively and as a person whose relationship to female-ness and femininity is kind of weird, it’s such a good thing to see leading women whose gender and appearances and bodies aren’t being focussed on that way.

and as a sidebar to that, while I wouldn’t describe any of the prominent male characters as unattractive by any means, none of them were like... Marvel-actor hot. and I just, idk, especially in action/superhero movies, that’s refreshing to me. a lot of them looked like Regular Dudes in a way that I find very appealing.

2 - can we TALK about Joe and Nicky. holy shit. my brother and I kept leaning over to each other to be like ‘if anything happens to either of them I’ll riot.’ I MEAN.

we got a genuine, explicit, on-screen established romance between these men. it was not implied, it was not just how the actors played it in the hopes that people would catch on - it was right there. they hold each other to sleep, they kiss each other with such love, they talk to other characters about how much they adore each other. they met during the Crusades. they’ve been in love for centuries! and they’re so sweet, so devoted, so adoring! and they never have any arguments or tension to further the plot (one of my personal most-hated plot devices in any story with an established relationship). they just spend this movie loving each other, protecting each other and their weird little family, doing anything they can for each other. they’re taken prisoner and spend their time awake joking and making each other smile. and the one singular bit of casual homophobia they encounter on-screen is met with a declaration of love so heartfelt and intense that the guy who made the shitty comment literally doesn’t know what to say - which is a brief but extremely good scene in the movie, imo.

oh, also worth noting: this romance is biracial and interfaith (inasmuch as either of them may be men of faith after being alive for centuries). just to add to how good this is to see on-screen. all of this on top of them being IMMORTAL AND UNKILLABLE. NO GAYS BURIED HERE

2.5 - can I talk for a second about how goddamn much I love seeing non-hetero romance in genre fiction!!! I know it’s getting easier to find, but still. genre fiction is very much my domain and I love seeing queer romance there, especially when it’s simply an accepted fact and the characters’ queerness isn’t central to the story. narratives about queerness are good and important and serve a function but most of them aren’t really my thing, personally. a story that’s about all kinds of other things but also has queer characters there, being themselves, being in love, is so 1000% my shit.

3 - also? Charlize Theron’s character, Andy?? fascinating from a queer perspective. she doesn’t have any explicitly-stated romance with anyone, but her relationships with other characters are so compelling and so interesting. The backstory about her and another immortal, Quynh, very very distinctly gives you the impression that they were women in love. everything about Andy’s guilt and bitterness over not having been able to find/save Quynh feels so much like there was a romance there. it could have been platonic or familial - they were together, without anyone else, for centuries at least, and therefore obviously developed a very deep love - but the way Andy talks about Quynh it feels so much like there was something left unsaid, or unresolved.

also, her scene with the clerk in the pharmacy. oh my god. this woman clearly recognises that whatever is going on with Andy, something is wrong, and she offers her help, no questions asked. she takes her into the back room and patches up her wound. this scene has such an inherent intimacy because of the close quarters and the privacy and the act taking place, but... there’s also this really interesting connection happening between them, where they recognise something in one another but don’t state it. (personally, I couldn’t help wondering if the clerk was a domestic abuse survivor, maybe? but there are so many ways you could interpret her character from her behaviour and dialogue in that scene, and I’d love to see other people’s takes.)

and then on the other hand you have her relationship with Booker, who’s been with her the longest out of any of the living immortals. they’re incredible. their relationship is so, so interesting and well-depicted! they have such chemistry, that you can easily read as romantic or platonic. they’ve been together for so many hundreds of years and they work together, trust each other, with such a deep understanding and love and respect. and it never quite tips over into the romance you kind of think it will, which imo only makes it that much more compelling - there are so many directions you could take that dynamic.

4 - and then on the topic of Booker: I am SO into the way his betrayal was handled.

he did, undeniably, betray the others. there’s no argument on that fact. his motivations were understandable (and heartbreaking), even to Andy, though certainly not an excuse. so yes, they were furious with him. reasonably so! but... that didn’t actually break their relationships with him. they didn’t leave him behind in the lab, even if in some ways they might have wanted to. and in the ensuing battle, they were still able to work together and trust each other as they always have. the damage done to their larger relationship was put aside to be dealt with after all of this, as it should be. and even when they did deal with it, what they agreed on was just a century of exile from their group. given the lives they’re all living, that seems like such a mild sentence.

but to me, it makes so much sense. again, these people have lived for centuries, and there are so few of them. they need each other. the bonds they’ve formed over all this time together - the trust, the love, the sense of family - would not only be vital to both their survival and their sanity, but also incredibly difficult to truly break. what he did would seem unforgivable from an outside perspective, and even after that century passed I’m certain he’d have to earn back their trust and respect, but it makes absolute sense that they’d be willing to take him back one day.

god. GOD. I’m sure there’s more I could talk about but this is what I can think of right now and I’ve been typing for like forty minutes probably so I’m done for now but.

god.

this movie and its characters GOT ME, guys. I’m really in it. ugh UGH

[thefudge]

Just out of curiosity, did you read JK's essay? I don't support everything in it but many parts resonated with me. Not to mention the horrific online abuse hurled at her, especially the countless, countless "choke on my dick" phrases thrown at her which are so violently misogynistic, it left me with a deep seated feeling of not only discomfort but fear as well. Idk I guess I just felt safe sending this because your blog seems more open to discussion from the other side instead of instant cancel.

i’m glad you think so about this blog and i hope that remains the case.

i didn’t have a chance to read JK’s essay until today (my previous ask about her was written before that) but here are some very, very imperfect thoughts on it:

the essay confirmed my previous take that she has inoculated herself against certain outside arguments but it’s also made me wonder about JK’s understanding of gender and sex. She is very attached to “natal women” and calling all people who menstruate “women” because of “common experiences”, despite the fact that her beloved de Beauvoir, whom she quotes in the essay extensively, acknowledged that “woman” is a social construct. JK herself at one point complains about having to comply with the rules of femininity while growing up and how it made her want to stop being female, so what is the truth? She argues that young girls shouldn’t be thinking about transitioning just because they are made to hate their femaleness but that’s!!! exactly what!!! pushing the term “woman” as sacrosanct does to girls!!! most of what JK felt in her childhood was the kind of misogyny which connects women strictly to their uterus. it made being male a better alternative precisely because of the gate-keeping of penis/vagina. a young girl who acted like a tomboy, for instance, would be criticized for trying to deny her sex, because deep down her biology still made her a “woman”. both sex and gender cannot be divorced from socio-cultural realities, because we act with our bodies and embody what we act. so, if we expand what it means to be a “man” and a “woman”, we liberate, not confine. JK wants young people to feel free to be whoever they want to be, but they must be called “women” when discussing menstruation or else (i won’t even go into the obvious addition that many cis and trans women exist who cannot or no longer menstruate).

Now, she does bring up some fair points about cancel culture and freedom of expression that I will level with, but the problem is that the nuancing she is trying to achieve also serves as weirdly specific dog-whistling. So let me address that:

(warning: spoilers for the Cormoran Strike series)

Right off the bat, we have this explanation added in her intro: 

“On one level, my interest in this issue has been professional, because I’m writing a crime series, set in the present day, and my fictional female detective is of an age to be interested in, and affected by, these issues herself (...)”  

and already, i’m asking questions. how is Robin Ellacott, one of the protagonists of the Strike series, “affected" by these issues, personally? she’s “of an age” to...what? be gender critical? there’s not a lot of that in the novels (unless you count Robin being tall and knowing how to drive well being framed as anti-girly...).  How does crime relate to it? How is she connected to this really? 

the real connection JK wants us to see because she’ll reveal it later in the essay is that Robin was r*ped in college. she’s a sexual assault survivor, which must make her critically engaged with the fate of trans women because....because underneath JK’s empty statement about her female detective....is the correlation that men “disguised” as trans women can perpetrate the same sort of horrific abuse.  she keeps making this correlation throughout the essay.

Here she talks about various people who’ve reached out to her:

They’re worried about the dangers to young people, gay people and about the erosion of women’s and girl’s rights. Above all, they’re worried about a climate of fear that serves nobody – least of all trans youth – well.

And again here:

“So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.”

This one is my favorite because it’s so twisted (here she’s listing her charity work):

“The second reason is that I’m an ex-teacher and the founder of a children’s charity, which gives me an interest in both education and safeguarding. Like many others, I have deep concerns about the effect the trans rights movement is having on both.”

“safeguarding”

hmmmm

What JK wants to spell out with these “common sense” arguments is that she fears that trans women are predatory, and the most convincing argument she can bring, ultimately, is that she herself has been the victim of sexual abuse and therefore, that potential fear never goes away. That’s a very dangerous leap to make. The climate of “fear” she mentions is also connected to cancel culture, of course. She fears women won’t be able to express their opinions online without receiving various amounts of vitriol. But you see how she has merged all three issues together? So that if you agree with one, you must agree with the others. Because yes, cancel culture often goes too far, and yes it is a real issue, but to say that the trans community shutting her down foments the same atmosphere of “fear” as boogie trans women hurting children in bathrooms and her being abused by her cis husband… that’s a veeery slippery slope. Instead of sticking to “freedom of speech” and whatnot, she keeps correlating these issues that should not be correlated (some of them being false issues, as well).  

Is there too much opprobrium around discussions of trans identity? Yes. Are there worthy discussions to be had about young women, homophobia and gender dysphoria? Absolutely. Can being trans become a fashionable trend/identity among kids, like the bygone goth and emo labels? Sure, but these discussions shouldn’t be had at the expense of trans people who have to constantly prove that they “mean” it. Because by stringing up all these issues together, JK is saying “the kids don’t know any better, and the adults are faking it”. Yes, cancel culture is impeding dialogue, yes, we shouldn’t shy away from discussing young teens’ identity problems, but if you pile up all of these things in a giant “trans women are the problem and they might be predatory too” milkshake, you won’t get anywhere.

I want to come back to this quote:

The second reason is that I’m an ex-teacher and the founder of a children’s charity, which gives me an interest in both education and safeguarding. Like many others, I have deep concerns about the effect the trans rights movement is having on both.

Beyond the (in my opinion) not very tasteful enumeration of things she’s done to help, JK’s mention of “education” there is veeery interesting. On the one hand, she probably feels that schools will try to censor “free speech”, but on the other hand, I bet she’s also concerned schools will not do enough censoring, so that impressionable kids become pressured into adopting a trans identity. You see how it flips on a dime? What does she ultimately want children to learn about this? Does she want them to be kept in the dark completely? Does she want them to be allowed to critique or invalidate trans identities without being censored? On this second point, things get complicated. Schools and institutions will naturally censor free speech.  Kids are there to learn how to express that free speech; they will be told “hey, don’t say that to your colleague, it’s not very kind” or “you need to structure your argument appropriately instead of just saying “I don’t like it””. Is there room for criticism in how schools operate that benevolent censorship? Obviously. Hell, Foucault & co. have been talking about this for decades. So what does this argument about education ultimately mean? What are we protecting the kids from? Imo, it goes back to that covert argument about sexual violence.    

Since I’m a teacher too, I’ll talk about my own experience: I brought some texts to my undergrad class about the trans experience with the goal of 1) building empathy, because literature is the grand unifier of experience and 2) showing different literary perspectives which i also included within literary theory. ultimately, the trans experience is about being human. we were learning about being human, nothing more, nothing less. if younger kids end up treating it as a fad it means that a) they need more, not less education,  b) parents and schools should work together to make them understand that being trans is not the same as being “emo”, for instance. this partially resembles the trend of white kids adopting black culture just because it’s cool, but not actually engaging with the black experience. who do you sanction for this? black people? because in this analogy, the trans community should be responsible for children not benefiting from education and parental support.

oh, I know what JK is saying. the trans community is responsible for shutting down conversations about this. it’s part of the general climate of tiptoeing around trans issues. yes, here I can agree with her that Twitter discourse either helps build sympathy or loathing for the “cancelled” person instead of seriously grappling with what that person has done. it’s the nature of Twitter and I hate it, but to go from that to saying women and young girls are in danger from other “fake” women really undermines her own argument. There are normal pitfalls as we try to incrementally do some good in this world. Cancel culture and the deplatforming and ruining of lives of certain individuals will not promote the cause and is certainly to be frowned upon, but JK will be absolutely fine. there are hashtags right now like “istandwithJK” and there’s a slew of people who support her. the misogyny she faces is deplorable, but we shouldn’t conflate valid criticism with trollish vulgarities. I don’t want to minimize the dangers of online culture; I know people have lost jobs and livelihood, but that is a discussion to be had under different parameters, admitting the responsibility of both parties (for example, maya forstater realizing that maybe saying some hurtful things about public figures and proudly talking about the “delusion” of transwomen will come back to bite her in the ass) and the fact that under capitalism, your job is always at the whim of appearances and simulacrums. essentially, you are the job. this is a state of things that deserves a larger discussion not on the back of the trans community. should we live in a world where you are allowed to say anything, free of consequences? some of us do, because we can say whatever we want in our head, in our room, in our house (other ppl aren’t so lucky), but the trouble starts in the public sphere. even if we wanted to build a public sphere where everything goes, we’d be at each other’s throats in five seconds anyway because we’re human. the most we can do is educate and correct where we can.  “facts don’t care about your feelings” discourse is often not informed by facts at all and forgets the vital importance of feelings.

anyway, that’s my incomplete take. still lots to think about and debate. ultimately, i think any fair points JK brought up were tainted by other bad-faith arguments and i wish she’d use this time to self-reflect because this isn’t a topic that should be breezed past in 3k words. nor should young trans ppl be called “adorable” (facepalm). i myself have many questions and constantly grapple with all of this, but since she’s a writer (and for better or worse, i still like her books), she is in a perfect position to investigate the matter with kindness and stop giving ultimatums. and i hope this post fosters discussion and doesn’t shut anyone down.

( forgot to mention that other nifty subplot in the Strike series about these really unlikable kids who are transabled and experience BID ( Body integrity dysphoria)  and want to have a disability. Strike is super-offended by them since he’s genuinely disabled and we as readers are meant to think they’re real pieces of shit, and while transableism is suuuuper complicated and my thoughts on it vary wildly, i do think those BID kids also stand in for other folks in her mind..again, food for thought.)

[veiljumpernyssa]

How do you keep your motivation up for writing fan fiction? I am trying to write my first fan fiction for Tale of Genji and finding motivation is extremely difficult for me. I noticed you wrote 9 chapters for your dragon age fan fiction, how did you do it?

Hey! Thanks for the message. First things first -- motivation isn’t always kept up in this house. The timeframe between Chapter 8 and 9 of my fic is about 5 months 😅 but considering I was in the middle of a very strict lockdown last year due to COVID, I’m trying to give myself a break.

Okay this is going to be long and I’m going to ramble about my own fic as an example too. Hopefully that’s okay and I can give some good tips.

Here are my tips for keeping up the momentum of a longfic:

1. Make a story outline. I know some people like to wing it, but I have ADHD and require structure and medication to function, so that just doesn’t work for me unless it’s a drabble, and even then, I still do a loose outline.

I find it most helpful to start with a broad overview of what kind of story you want to tell, or the purpose of the story. Do you want to write a romance? Do you want to write characters going on an adventure? Do you want to develop a specific character or OC?

For example, for Sulevin Ghilana Hanin (the Dragon Age fic you mentioned, excuse me while I plug it) I want to cover the time Nyssa spent with the Inquisition and the role zie played in certain events during 9:40 - 9:42, as well as set hir up for where zie’s at for Dragon Age 4. Within that timeframe I wanted to develop hir character and examine hir complex relationships with Solas, hir clan and Fenris, writing a follow-up to the previous fic, By Any Other Name. So it’s sort of a blend of romance and slice of life, with some intrigue. We all know who and what Solas is now, but I want to delve into what zie thinks of him and what he thinks of hir. It will be relevant when DA4 rolls around, so I’m setting the stage using what info we know now to develop hir further when we learn more.

I assume you know the basics like how to construct a basic plot or w/e. Once you have a loose idea of the beginning, middle and end, you can break it down chapter by chapter.

One thing to keep in mind is while it’s good to have a story outline IMO you don’t have to go nuts with overplanning every chapter down to the detail. My own chapter plans range from a detailed point by point list of events (Chapter 8, Red Letter Redoubt) to a loose general idea (Chapter 5, Tarasyl’an Te’las) to literally one sentence (Chapter 4, All New, Faded For Her).

It also helps to figure out the purpose of the scene or chapter, especially if you’re writing a character development fic, or an intrigue/mystery. For example, some chapters I’ve written have just been slice-of-life or filler, where I’ve written about Nyssa settling in to Skyhold and getting to know hir new associates. Other chapters have been specific events that I write for foreshadowing or development for Nyssa. Sometimes it’s hir learning about hirself; sometimes it’s hir being challenged specifically.

I feel like this is really important to keep momentum. If you know where the story is going, all you have to do is write it to get there.

2. Write longhand. Obviously you don’t have to if you can’t or don’t want to write with a pen and paper, but this is personally what I do cause unless I’m editing an existing chapter, I can’t focus on it. Writing longhand always helps me get my thoughts down.

3. Set up a designated writing space. If you’re at home, maybe you can set up a desk or a nook or w/e. I personally don’t tend to write much at home and prefer to go out.

The last year or so, I’ve been going to a local park and writing in the fresh air, and it’s been good for inspiration. Prior to that I also went to cafes and sat. I could spend a few hours and bang out a few pages. If you go though, at least buy a drink every hour. Don’t be that guy.

Wherever you are, make sure there’s no distractions, or you have headphones with music or ambient noise (I like Rainy Mood as it helps me focus). Have some water and maybe some snacks, but also make sure to take breaks and stretch. Wrist exercises are important if you’re writing longhand.

4. Be kind to yourself. If you don’t get the writing you want done in one or two days, don’t feel bad. The world is in a very bad state right now and I feel like collectively our mental health is at an all-time low. It’s okay if you don’t write as much as you want in a day or a week or even a month. Hell, I literally just went 5 months without updating, and I struggle with my brain every day. My brain tells me that nobody cares about my characters or my writing (or art etc) and that I may as well not bother. Sometimes I listen. Other times I say ‘fuck you brain’ and do it anyway.

Hope this helps! Good luck on your fic!

[mechecolomar-archive]

genuinely curious: do you think that the depictions of homophobic abuse and violence towards lgbt characters in tlou2 outweighs the portrayal of their other experiences and happy moments of love/self expression? is it bad representation if the lgbt characters go through strife and pain as well as being happy and allowed to express themselves? i feel like there are valid criticisms to be made, but views on lgbt rep tend to be pretty polarized, either "it's great" or "it's bad" with no nuance

I think a big issue I have with the characters and representation specifically in The Last of Us 2 is that in the game the characters feel like they were created solely to serve a point in the plot, the game’s tone is progressively bleak (and the violence is gratuitous), and the inclusion of bigotry also felt unnecessary.

As a disclaimer, I’m not saying tlou2, Naughtydog, or even Neil Druckmann is simply homophobic because the gay character gets in fights and all that, but for me personally I felt that the treatment of lgbt characters in the game made me uncomfortable and wasn't satisfying. I’m glad they weren't outright stereotypes, but I’d like it if there was a bit kinder treatment of these characters. It just really feels like nd heard they didn’t do diversity well in the first game and just threw in a bunch of poc and lgbt characters without really thinking... I don’t think what happens is homophobic, but it feels very thoughtless.

The characters in tlou2 are not well done, I’m not sure what happened between The Last of Us and tlou2, but they do not feel the same at all. Every character in the game feels very weak and the player themselves cant name 10 facts about each one, even characters like Abby or Dina (I’m excluding Ellie and Joel because they already existed). This applies the most to Jessie imo, but I’ll only discuss Ellie, Dina, and Lev since they are the lgbt characters in the game. in tlou2 Ellie is just the vengeful character and as Neil put it, “the villain.” tlou2 could have been a wonderful opportunity to add more to her story, but here she’s basically just the traumatized girl who likes girls and is playing the guitar to remember Joel. Dina is basically the player’s partner who is randomly benched halfway through and from a narrative point she is something that Ellie can lose, you learn she has some ability with tinkering, she is Jewish, bi, has a sister... and not much else. Finally Lev feels like the main justification to sympathize with Abby, without Abby he is introduced literally being hunted because he is trans. Every character in the game is like this, but with these three very prominent characters, it’s disappointing.

Next, for tlou2 the violence seems to be double what happened in tlou, being much more detailed and forcing you to look at what is happening (Ellie getting her face smashed in and Abby threatening to kill Dina and its good because she is pregnant). Tlou was able to thread the needle concerning this successfully; having Ellie being kidnapped, hunted, and almost being sexually assaulted to immediately having the famous scene where Joel and Ellie pet giraffes. Tlou also (to my knowledge) did not have those shock value moments 2 constantly has, and when there is violence its rarely explicitly shown. Now in tlou2 this is almost the opposite, instead of going back and forth between intense and calm scenes, the sequel seems to steadily go downhill in tone. I know that these specific characters arent being hurt BECAUSE they’re lgbt, but its still not good to see.

The happiest moments are the beginning with Dina and Ellie, but while they're having fun and making out together what’s happening? Joel is currently getting his face caved in by Abby. Halfway through the game after Ellie and Dina are beaten, it seems to go back up in tone, but ooc tommy forces Ellie to turn back to revenge and the whole thing comes crashing back down. “I’m afraid of ending up alone” Ellie chooses to leave Dina and Ellie’s life is now hell going all the way back to Abby. After all this Ellie comes back to their house but her family is no longer there. Ellie is alone. I have a huge issue with the ending and it’s that you are explicitly shown that everything there is sad. Nd doesn't make “letting go” of Joel a relief, and they don’t show any implication of Ellie reuniting with Dina. Our lesbian protagonist is now living her worst fear, even though she did the “right” thing and spared Abby. Lev’s ending is clearly better because he’s affiliated with Abby, but it doesn’t change that throughout the story he’s repeatedly hurt and has a similar fall to Ellie after Abby thinks she finds the fireflies, he is never explicitly shown recovering from being made a literal slave and almost crucified.

My last issue is that the bigotry is entirely uncalled for, especially in a world that is as already violent as they’ve made tlou2. One of the most striking moments to me in tlou2 is Dina saying, “What’s this” referring to lgbt flags, indicating she has no concept of pride for being bisexual. Ellie also has no clue and they joke about the erotica and thats the end of that. Later Ellie is called a slur. The man who does it isnt exactly punished and Ellie is forced to make up with him later. That scene and the scene at the end somehow included Ellie, but clearly were about Joel. The last flashback is used as a tragic “Ellie could have forgiven Joel but he was killed :(” scene, there’s very little focus about her sexuality positively. Ellie and Dina are also never openly gay, the one time they are (in a room full of maybe 50 people) Ellie is called a d*ke. Ellie’s previous gf is scrapped except for subtle concept art and notes and she only has one conversation in the beginning mentioning a her.

Then on the opposite side of characters, Lev’s entire story outside of and before Abby is being hunted simply because he is trans. He’s deadnamed multiple times and even Abby cluelessly says it (??). There’s endless reasons why he could have been hunted (hell, just simply wanting to leave the cult because theyre so violent), but nd went with this... for some reason. Him being trans is also never discussed in a positive way other than Abby’s weird attempt to make him feel better by giving him a toy (”Hey, I know your group you grew up with and family literally wants you dead, but uh, would a toy help?”). Lev THEN goes BACK to the people who wants him dead, and we’re shown that his mother has viciously attacked him and he accidentally kills her due to this. Him being trans is never mentioned again... I don’t think we have to exactly hide homophobia in fiction, but I personally do not play a game to get called a slur, I can find that irl. Also if these things were to be included, they could have at least shown comfort after, but they don’t. The scenes are simply more shocking violence and are never mentioned again, simply skipped over. Nd used these characters being lgbt as an excuse for them to be discriminated against for it instead of anything positive.

Their advertising of Ellie kissing a girl in 2018 and in 2020 having her be called a slur instantly after what was shown to us is just SO jarring... Nd and their stans like to say, “Well if you don’t like The Last of Us 2, you’re just homophobic.” but that’s honestly so ridiculous. There simply can’t be more instances of oppression than acceptance and think you're doing something good?? Revealing Lev’s deadname gives people an opportunity to be transphobic, having Ellie be called a slur and lash out at Joel after gives people a reason to be angry at her there. You simply can’t include these things if it can do the opposite thing that you want. The point of including minorities in fiction should be so people can related and identify with these characters, not as some virtual reminder that people will hate you specifically for these reasons. It should not be too much to ask for a character you are like to be treated well and nd not listening to fans critique the game is sad,

I suppose I appreciate the attempt at inclusion, but it feels like a failed one that I preferred would not have happened, or at least had been strongly corrected. It would have been different if maybe Ellie had reunited with Dina apologizing, Abby telling Lev she supports him, Joel saying he loves Ellie, or even Dina and Ellie talking about being gay in some way thats anything other than making out and calling each other “babe”, but idk... that didn’t happen. Dina and Ellie are clearly supposed to be the main rep, but I feel like they really missed things they could have mentioned. This rep really reminds me of Life is Strange, but I can’t decide if dying or ending up alone and depressed at the end is worse. I’m probably missing more things but yeah... It would be cool if my lesbian protagonist did not have to be traumatized for an overdone, useless story.

[rainandhotchocolate]

About Last Night - P2

A/N So i know I have a million other requests but I’m a sucker for this story sooooo here’s part 2222 lel enjoy!!

Mon 12:00pm

Sirius ~ So before I read the weekend news, should I be worried about seeing any murders I was supposed to be involved in? ~

Y/N ~ Don’t worry I planted your fingertips everywhere so they’ll know you were involved as well ~

Sirius ~ Oh thank god, I needed something to destroy my reputation ~

Y/N ~ And what reputation is that? ~

Sirius ~ Oh you know, cool edgy creative writing major with a soft side ™ ~

Y/N ~ Dear god you’re one of them :O ~

Sirius ~ Ur DiffEReNT thAN OthER giRlS ~

Y/N ~ **Blocked**

Sirius ~ I sincerely hope you know I was joking ~

Y/N ~ I guess I’ll have to find out :P What are you up to today? ~

Sirius ~ Well apart from giving my alibi to police, I have about 3 hours of classes today and an essay due ~

Y/N ~ Wow, that sounds like a super fun day – any good classes? ~

Sirius ~ Yeah I’m enjoying my lit class at the moment, we are doing genre fiction at the moment so looking into how writers create worlds, even within our own world, and why genre fiction is so looked down upon in literature society ~

~ and now that I’ve typed that out I am realising that it probably doesn’t sound wildly interesting ~

Y/N ~ Hahaha nah it does! That would be cool to learn about, I’m a sucker for genre fiction tbh, could never read the classics ~

Sirius ~ That just means you never found a good classic 😉 – What kinda stuff do you read? ~

Y/N ~ look I want no judgement here… I honestly mostly read fantasy/ sci-fi ~

Sirius ~ Have you read Dune?? ~

Y/N ~ Yes !!! Holy shit such a good series !! ~

Sirius ~ I’ve been trying to get my mates to read it for a LIFETIME its so good ~

Y/N ~ I would have thought Remus would have read them? He’s always got a new book with him ~

Sirius ~ I didn’t know you knew Remus as well? But yeah, he in theory would but he also has a long list of to reads and wants to go through them one after another ~

Y/N ~ Yeah, he studies with Lily a lot and I sometimes join them 😊. Also jesus that’s commitment, I’m usually picking up another book whilst I’m halfway through another ~

Sirius ~ I have no idea how he does it, if I’m being honest, if I hate a book I just don’t finish it (please don’t tell my literary friends I told you that, I would be killed in my sleep) ~

Y/N ~ Haha your secret is safe with me – imo I reckon that’s the best way to read, like why force yourself through something just because it’s a classic or whatever, I feel like that’s why so many people don’t read a lot you know? ~

Sirius ~ Completely! I actually just realised I have no idea what you study? ~

Y/N ~ Ahh that’s because I’ve been avoiding the question ~

Sirius ~ It can’t be worse than creative writing – I won’t even get a job after uni ~

Y/N ~ Oh believe me, it is. I study communications ~

Sirius ~ Oh dear lord you are every white girl who ever existed ~

Y/N ~ I know, I’m perpetuating the stereotype its very disappointing tbh ~

Sirius ~ So is that where you work then? ~

Y/N ~ Wow you remember a lot haha yeah, I’m doing an internship in social media management, it’s surprisingly soul-sucking ~

Sirius ~ Is that surprising… 😉 ~

Y/N ~ I mean, that was thinly veiled sarcasm haha but it’s actually not all bad, the strategy behind content etc is actually pretty interesting, and I’m working for an eco-friendly company so at least I get to come up with cool environmental memes ~

Sirius ~ Ahh yes, hit the youth with the memes ~

Y/N ~ See, you’re learning the comms ways already ~

 Thurs 11:28pm

Y/N ~ Whats ya facebook? ~

Sirius ~ Uhhh… Sirius Black? It’s not wildly hard to find, why? ~

Y/N ~ I’m gonna be real, I would like to stalk you ~

Sirius ~ Is this Y/N? ~

Y/N ~ :O ok you’ve known Y/N like 2 days how did you guess that ~

Sirius ~ Cause this message felt like one of those old school msn ‘my friend hacked me !!!’ ~

Y/N ~ You’re a smart boi, Black ~

Sirius ~ thank you kindly stranger ~

 Fri 6:45 am

Y/N ~ I AM SO SORRY ~

~ MARLENE STOLE MY PHONE ~

~ I PROMISE I’M NOT A STALKER ~

Sirius ~ Why on earth are you awake right now ~

Y/N ~ Because my body never allows me to sleep in ~

Sirius ~ how rude, also don’t worry I accepted your Facebook request so you can stalk all you want 😉 ~

Y/N ~ Literally am going to stab Marlene ~

Sirius ~ At least she’s up front ~

Y/N ~ Wait why are you awake rn? ~

Sirius ~ James wants to make the firsts soccer team at uni and has decided I must train with him ~

Y/N ~ Well that’s gross ~

Sirius ~ Couldn’t have said that better myself ~

Y/N ~ so what does this training consist of ~

Sirius ~ Mainly James trying to shoot balls at my head as I attempt to goal keep ~

Y/N ~ Can’t see that ending well ~

Sirius ~ Excuse you, I happen to be VERY athletic. I am a multisided human being thanks ~

Y/N ~ I am so sorry to have placed my predisposed ideas on you ☹ pls forgive ~

Sirius ~ I will have to think about it – right now James wanted me to do suicides and I must go into hiding ~

Y/N ~ Godspeed ~

Sun 2:58pm

Y/N ~ Ok I know I promised not to stalk, but what the fuck is going on in this picture ~

~ file ~

Sirius ~ oh no no no no no no no no ~

Y/N ~ ehheheheheheheheh ~

Sirius ~ I really thought my privacy settings were better than this ~

Y/N ~ Yeah this was very easy to find ~

Sirius ~ I’m going to kill James ~

Y/N ~ You can’t blame james for this beauty ~

Sirius ~ Oh I really can, he decided it would be hilarious for us to have a photoshoot when I was completely trashed one night. And then proceeded to post everything and tag me ~

Y/N ~ James sounds like a fun night out ~

Sirius ~ I wouldn’t say that to lily ~

Y/N ~ What she doesn’t know won’t kill her 😉 ~

Sirius ~ You are slyer than I thought ~

Y/N ~ I think I’m going to frame this photo and place it all over your uni ~

Sirius ~ You wouldn’t ~

Y/N ~ You may need to convince me otherwise ~

Sirius ~ Anything to avoid that embarrassment in my life ~

Y/N ~ Perhaps you’ll just have to owe me for sparing you ~

Sirius ~ I think that’s a fair deal – what about a coffee? ~

Y/N ~ I think a coffee or two would be a fair trade off :P ~

Sirius ~ Well I have the most disgusting week of midterms but perhaps on the weekend? ~

Y/N ~ Sounds LIT ~

Sirius ~ You’ve just made me regret inviting you anywhere ~

Y/N ~ That’s what I’m here for 😉 ~

 Wed 3:07pm

Sirius ~ Bit of a creepy question, but did I see you at uni today? Navy Skirt, Black Jumper, & tights?

Y/N ~ Wow you really observe an outfit don’t you ~

Sirius ~ I mean I noticed the outfit cause I thought it looked good and then I realised it was you and so it stuck in my head ~

~ in a less creepy way ~

~ in fact let me just completely start over – were you at uni today? I think I saw you! ~

Y/N ~ Maybe, what was I wearing? ~

Sirius ~ I hate you ~

Y/N ~ 😉 Well to answer your question, yes I was at uni – it was Lily and I’s weekly cheap lunch date ~

Sirius ~ Classy ladies you two are ~

Y/N ~ Couldn’t describe us better myself ~

Sirius ~ Oh by the way, are you going to Remus’ party this Friday? ~

Y/N ~ Mmmm I was thinking about it, why? ~

Sirius ~ No reason, I just knew Lily was invited and he mentioned inviting some of her friends ~

Y/N ~ Mmmm, yeah he told Lily to bring Marlene and me along, unsure though as Lily is particularly annoyed at James this week and he will of course be there and be annoying ~

Sirius ~ What if I can promise he won’t annoy her? ~

Y/N ~ I really don’t think you should make a promise you can’t keep :P ~

Sirius ~ Ah, you underestimate me! James has to go home this weekend to see his parents so he won’t actually be there ~

Y/N ~ This is a very interesting development – we may reconsider ~

Sirius ~ Well Remus does throw a great party ~

Y/N ~ DO you actually know what James did anyway? She usually likes to rant about it but she’s been shut in her room the past 2 days ~

Sirius ~ Honestly I’m not sure, James has been unprecedently quiet as well ~

Y/N ~ Hmmm how odd ~

Sirius ~ Indeed it is ~

 Friday 4:42pm

Y/N ~ What are you guys wearing tonight? ~

Marlene ~ Not sure, I’m torn between a velour tracksuit or the classic Canadian tuxedo ~

Lily ~ Both very classy options ~

Marlene ~ You know me, go hard or go hard ~

Y/N ~ You’re both incredibly unhelpful ~

Marlene ~ Worried about meeting a certain dark haired texter? ~

Y/N ~ Am I not allowed to want my best friends’ help on my outfits?? ~

Marlene ~ I mean I can’t help you look hot if I don’t know who its for 😉 ~

Lily ~ God forbid she looks hot for herself ~

Marlene ~ Hey, you’ve gotta play to your audience ~

Y/N ~ How would you even know what he likes ~

Lily ~ She stalked him around campus yesterday ~

Y/N ~ um MARLENE ~

Marlene ~ I just wanted to know his style, habits, if he was a psycho killer ~

Lily ~ She has a point, if he’s as annoying as James we have to protect you at all costs ~

Marlene ~ We need to make sure she isn’t sucked in by his serial killer prowess ~

Y/N ~ You’re making me sound like prey ~

Marlene ~ 😉 ~

Y/N ~ How did you even stalk him, Lily has no classes with him ~

Marlene ~ I have my ways ~

Lily ~ She flirted with the office assistant until she gave her Sirius’ schedule ~

Y/N ~ You minx ~

Marlene ~ No one can resist my charms ~

Lily ~ That is yet to be determined actually ~

Y/N ~ very true Lils, we’ve never met anyone you’ve dated yet ~

Marlene ~ Sooooo not the point, and we’ve gone off topic! How are you going to wow Mr Black ~

Y/N ~ That is 100% not what I asked ~

Lily ~ you may as well have ~

Y/N ~ You both suck ~

Lily ~ Wear that flowy black dress you refuse to ever wear!! ~

Marlene ~ YES YOU LOOK BANGING IN THAT ~

Y/N ~ ugh but it’s a casual party ~

Marlene ~ Who gives a shit, stand out ~

Lily ~ He’ll be drooling ~

Y/N ~ I don’t need him to drool I just want to make a good first impression ~

Marlene ~ Aha the truth finally comes out ~

Y/N ~ if you were actually in your dorm I’d be hitting the roof with a broomstick rn ~

Lily ~ Where are you?? ~

Marlene ~ Where do you think 😉 ~

Lily ~ Not the office assistant ~

Marlene ~ 😉 ~

Lily ~ How!? I was with you the whole time, you never exchanged numbers ~

Marlene ~ Exchanging numbers doesn’t have to be an oral task… unlike other things 😉 ~

Y/N ~ We get it, your sexual prowess is above all of us ~

Lily ~ I’m honestly impressed, she was cute ~

Marlene ~ I’m offended you’d be impressed tbh ~

Y/N ~ Ok so you are both coming over to my house in an hour to dress and intoxicate me ~

Lily ~ Deal ~

Marlene ~ Maybe give me an extra 30 mins 😊 ~

Taglist:  @averytruerayofsunshine @siriuslyjanhvi @blushingskywalker @blackpinkdolan @thebabblingbookworm @cherrie511 @imlukesnirvana @avengersassemblee @maraudersandco @sly-vixen-up2nogood @katbernoulli @sirius-lysad @evyiione @minerva26love @aikeia @gollyderek @greatwombatblaze  @songforhema  @your-typical-giggle

[1358456]

Review Response, Sep 27 - Oct 3, 2020

Now that I’m stable once more... weekly response time. I think there are at most 3 responses left.

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Heart #007

1)  Hey! Really liked this story. One of your better fics imo. I saw your tumblr post today and I know it's really late but I'd like to thank you for providing me with plenty of entertainment and emotions over this summer. I hadn't found your page until this quarantine and Special Events was the first fanfic I've ever read. You really got me back into Pokespe after a few years of forgetting about it and ngl I teared up a bit after I saw your tumblr post. I just want to let you know that you've really left a mark on many people's lives with your writing even if it's just a fan-fiction and I don't think I'll forget these works for years to come.

Thank you. It means a lot to me to hear that :)

Well, the last chapter is no longer tied for the absolute worst. It’s now second worst.

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Destiny #031

1)  This is still Mel, I just got the genius idea to actually create an account since I use so much. Anyways, I just- wow. That is so depressing. I still can’t properly think about what happened to Y, because it’s just so much... but I’m glad she’s still the same. Sort of. Personality wise, I mean. After she’d resurrected I was afraid she was a completely different person, tainted. But this meeting with Blue made me realize that she’s still a kind girl, but come to think of it I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. She would suffer more that way, no? Or would it be worse to be a shell of the person you were? It’s a tough question. I don’t think I can answer it. As for X, I am not excitedly anticipating his meeting with Y. That’s a lot of angst right there. But I’m still hoping for a happy ending? Or at least as happy as an ending it can get. I’m sure it’s possible. Although, maybe you’ll pull another alternate ending and that’ll technically count as a “happy ending”, just that it’s not the true one, haha. Would X kill her on the spot? Would Y kill *him*? Will he still be brainwashed at that point? There are so many outcomes, so many possibilities. And I thought it was sweet, the moment with Blue and Dia. I can imagine them being great comrades. Especially since he was so physically affectionate towards her and that’s exactly what Blue needed. It’s also great that she’s made yet another connection! I can’t wait for her to be acquaintances with all her juniors! She won’t be so lonely then when she has so many friends and that’s all you can really hope for Blue :’). That and the possibility between her and Red (*wink, wink*). There were some mighty big hints in this chapter, will anything come of it? Perhaps Red is too dense for any of those things (how is it possible that a person can be so dense?). I’m more of a specialshipping person, but that ship is a mixed bag (they all are tbh), and this between Red and Blue is really sweet. Also, poor Surge lmao. Just wanted a cozy tent, but here comes three scary ass women and an unconscious squirt who kick him out into the cold. Life just isn’t fair for old Surge, is it. I sincerely hope you are doing well. Love, Mel

Hmm. Would X and Y get a happy ending? ... Maybe? Happy-ish?

Hehe. Red & Blue... Ohoho! More hints coming as the pairing shift fully transitions. ... Which of course, spells disaster for a certain blonde girl, but... ehn. Hehe.

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Destiny #032

1)  Haha, those alternate lines at the end were funny, but that didn’t do much to lift my mood. Dammit, I knew I would get this reunion and I was right. How could I have thought there was any chance of a happy ending? ‘Cause there is no way this is a happy ending despite it ending without X and Y murdering each other! I honestly don’t know what I expected. A tender moment between the two? Forgiveness and peaceful moving on? Wtf? There are too many bitter feelings, and there isn’t really a way that Y can move on peacefully with the whole deterioration thing. But anyways yeah, definitely not happy. I suppose the whole “live and be happy” can be taken as a good thing, but in all honesty we all know deep down that X won’t live that way. Who would be able to move on after *that*? He loved her! She blamed him (Justifiably, but in the end it truly wasn’t his fault. I mean she was being hypocritical “I will always go after you, but I’m blaming you, because you went after me.”? He was concerned? Can anyone help it? Even if in the past it was the cause of a bigger problem?). It’s just not plausible. There’s truly something noble and amazing in moving on and living, but there are some times that dying is sort of the right thing to do? I dunno how to explain it, and it’s honestly a rare occurrence. I don’t want to romanticize suicide or dying or anything, but it’s not a cowardly thing in certain circumstances. X wouldn’t be living if he stayed alive. Anyways, that’s all I can really say besides, hot fucking damn. When I read the similarity in this fight scene and the first one between X, Y, and the Mega Hunter, I couldn’t help but remember a happier time. Well, I use happier hesitantly, ‘cause it wasn’t exactly “happy” per se, but it was certainly a *better* situation than this one. Y was still underestimating her value to X, but it still wasn’t such a hopeless situation. If only the damn boy had confessed. Maybe things wouldn’t have gone so downhill.

“It’s just a flesh wound.”

Dying is sort of the right thing to do? Well, human emotions are absolutely irrelevant to being right or wrong, so dying just because a lot of sh*t is happening is by no means “right”. It’s times like this I really wish I was able to put in a lot of my thoughts into my writing and stories. But I’m not a professional writer by any means, so I can’t quite cram in specific themes into the plot and story without making it far too obvious.

Poor X and Y, eh? There was never quite a happy time for them. ... Well, not in this story, anyways. According to the Legacy spoiler post, they do get a very happy ending in the good ending. So... they get to be very happy together... in another story. Hahaha.

Well, there are now 11 Destiny chapters left for you, and 3 weeks left. Do you think it’s possible to finish before I disconnect my FF.net account? I would’ve really liked to see you move on to SA afterwards (you would probably like that story a lot more too), but I simply don’t have the time for that anymore...

[chut-je-dors]

im sorry but i kinda disagree with your stance on this whole John and Paul who is the sub/bottom debate. It’s not right for you to keep saying how paul being a dom is canon bc none of us know how paul was/is in bed and we can’t just look at his personality and make that determination. imo that’s just as harmful as assuming he’s a sub based on his looks. also you’re kind of projecting a sub role onto John based on those same things (looks and perceived personality) which is a bit hypocritical (1)

(CONT)

I agree sometimes sexism seems to fuel people’s portrayal of paul in fics but at the end of the days it’s just fiction and none of us actually know j or p so it actually shouldn’t matter what people write them as or even why they do it (we shouldn’t project a motive into people and assume intention). I hope this didn’t come across as harsh or curt or mean. I really love your blog and your writing but i just didn’t agree with your take. Have a great day/night ❤️ (2)

Ooooh yeah I definitely agree with the whole “none of us know” thing. you can’t look at canon john and paul and say “these dudes are this and that” cos you don’t KNOW. for me the fandom is all about having fun, writing fics and stuff, and it’s fun to speculate about these guys! so when i said in the post that john is the subbiest sub it’s the same as puck going “paul got pegged by linda and that is a FACT, CHANGE MY MIND”, and then we laugh. we mean this stuff as in “hoho, imagine if! haha. would be wild. heheh.”, y’kno?? whereas in fact WE DON’T KNOW, 

what spurred that particular post was that one specific type of fics where you have people being born into sub and dom roles and the society having like, idk, rules for them i guess?, and then somehow those fics at least seemed to have paul as the sub by definition (haven’t looked at ao3 that closely in a year, so this could’ve changed by now) -- which seems weird to me cos if you’re aiming for at least a SOMEWHAT accurate characterisation of john lennon and paul mccartney (never truly accurate, no matter how close you seem to get, cos WE DONT KNOW, haha), it’d be odd for john to NOT be the sub at least ONCE, since i see his “canon” personality traits being more easily modified into the role of a sub. (not saying paul doesn’t have those traits!!! it’s just, when it’s nearly  always him... i fear it’s abt the same thing as him traditionally being the bottom based on his looks) personally i think both would’ve been switches, but again, i can’t know that

idk if i’m explaining myself well here, but that is what the post was. i know i didn’t specify a lot in it and that’s on me, but at the same time i nEVER thoUGHT PEOPLE WOULD LIKE, ACTUALLY START A WHOLE DISCOURSE ABOUT IT. IT WAS JUST ME OBSERVING THINGS ALOUD IN THE VOID SO,,, help

as predominantly an au writer i’m all about exploring different scenarios, the “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if.../what would happen if.../what would they be like if...”. so if you got paul as the sub, cool! if you got john as the sub, cool! it’s when different authors all seem to go for the same scenario, repeatedly, without considering doing it the other way around (been a problem with bottom!paul... with sub!paul... macho!john, girly!paul...) when i start questioning it a little. ultimately it’s the author’s own choice what to do with the characters and how to build their personality. but i think furthering that perception of their characters into, say, switching the traditional roles around, is much more fun in the end, and brings some fresh air into the fandom.

basically, the more diversity there is, the more people will be attracted by the fandom, thus the fandom grows, the diversity grows, rinse and repeat. and the well-being of this fandom is one of my main priorities, because being in this fandom is so much fun and it’s so dear to me, that i’d hate to see it wither away (hence the whole... library... thing, to support the authors). so i attempt to give a little nudge to the authors to think of the possibilities as well.

(like... the whole ten minutes fic started from the idea “hey, what if john was the prostitute for once”, cos you have so many fics with paul as the prostitute, and... not that many with john, at least back then, whereas i feel that from the two of them, semi-realistically speaking, considering what we know of their real personalities and looking at their actions... john might be the one to go for that sort of thing for fun, re: the whole 70′s pushing the boundaries of his sexuality. again.... just, diversity. both. both is good.)

so. um, long story short, you’re right and i agree with all your points? hahah

thanks for the ask tho!!! don’t worry about sounding mean, this was a really polite and good ask, thank you! i really do hope i managed to... at least shed some light into my thought process? you can disagree with everything i wrote of course, that’s completely fine! or if there’s something that was left unclear, or you feel confused by something, just send an ask and i’ll do my best to answer it. sometimes i say things “wrong” or can’t express my thoughts well, (which is apparently part of the ADHD gig), so rlly, don’t hesitate to tell me if there’s still something bugging you!!

[darkpoisonouslove]

I retaliate/reward you with writer asks 2, 3, 4, 12, 22, 24, 36, 37, 39 and 42 ;D

Sounds good to me. XD

Okay, let's break these down. (I've crammed things that should be separated in different paragraphs in the same paragraph because of the structure of the ask. I just think it is easier to navigate it that way even if more paragraphs would make more sense. That way every opinion is constricted in one paragraph and you can tell which point it refers to easier. (At least imo.))

(I can't put a read more link rn as I'm on mobile. Sorry.)

2. Don't use adverbs

I cannot begin to describe to you how much I LOATHE this. It is, by far, some of the stupidest writing advice I have ever read. No, I don't care Stephen King supports this. Stephen King writes mostly horror and in horror you need to maintain suspense so short and to the point is definitely better and cutting adverbs is certainly a way to do that. However, I don't think this applies to all writing. I think this isn't really a genre thing as much as it is a specific case by case thing. And in most instances I think this advice is bullshit. Think about it. Language was created to allow us to express ourselves. Cut all adverbs out of it and that narrows down your way to express yourself. It's kinda like "Oh, hey, my leading hand serves more purpose. I should probably cut off the other one because it's not that effective." Congrats, you just crippled yourself. It's the same with language. Why would you deny yourself the help of an entire group of "tools" to express yourself? I just don't understand it. I suppose you've seen the posts going around about "good" and "bad" adverbs so I won't go into that as I agree that an adverb is a good idea when it adds some meaning to the word that wasn't there before (eg. "cried happily"). Sometimes it can actually make things faster to just "tell" them rather than show them through the context. I think adverbs are as neat as any other part of language and deserve their place in writing.

3. Write what you know

Yes, you should know what the hell you're writing about. Whether it was something that you were familiar with before you started writing or you did your research on the matter. I might be a little biased on this because I kinda hate doing research so I can be swayed towards write only what you are completely familiar with but that would just make things boring. So I think you can write about stuff that isn't quite your area of expertise as long as you put the effort to research it to the proper level depending on what you need it for. If it's more of a mention, you don't need that much knowledge about it but if you intend to make it the subject of your writing, please make sure you understand what you're going to be talking about in the entirety of your story. I am begging you because when you don't, we end up with stuff like 50 Shades of Grey (and I'm not just talking about the sex parts since this book is full of poorly researched stuff that, shockingly, ends up being unbelievable at best, potentially harmful at worst). However, I think that applies to a greater degree to published fiction rather than to fanfiction but let's not get into that debate since it's a completely different topic and I already veered off course.

4. Avoid repetition

This I mostly agree with but it depends on the purpose of the repetition. If it is done in order to establish a theme or motif or to emphasize a point (without overdoing it, of course), I fully support it. (I do that a lot in my personal writing and it shouldn't be that hard to find examples of it when looking at my fics ("What Is the One Thing That Can Never Break?" is the best example of this but I have done it countless times in most of my fics if not all of them since this is one of my fave techniques).) However, there is a thin line between establishing a theme and making dead herrings aka something that is brought up repeatedly without any point to it other than boosting the word count since it doesn't lead to anything and it was already discussed at a prior point (which I might have done a few times myself in some of my longest fics). If you're bringing another angle to an issue you've already looked at or are furthering the point, you should be fine but this is indeed a thin line to tread so it demands a bit of caution. I do believe repetition can be a valuable technique in specific circumstances, though, so it all depends on how it is used.

12 is already answered here

22. Do not use semicolons

My personal opinion on this isn't very applicable to anything else because I am not really quite sure how to properly use semicolons so I avoid them. I also don't really like them in other people's writings. I'm sure they have their uses but I think a lot of authors also overuse them to make those horrendously long sentences that I hate (but have started becoming guilty of as well even though I think that if you can't remember how the sentence started at the end of it, it is too long and needs to be split in some way). It is why I haven't bothered to learn how to operate them. XD But I think that my point about adverbs should be applied here as well. It is another tool you can use and I am sure it can be helpful. So I am not necessarily against it and wouldn't tell someone to stop using them. Only, maybe try using full stops as well? And I'll try to do the same because, like I said, I have started becoming guilty of paragraph long sentences as well. (Just to be clear, sometimes longer sentences are okay. But not when literally every sentence is over 150 words. You need to break them down, spice it up with shorter sentences thrown in the mix.) Also, I think this is an instance of the trap of "bigger is better" for a lot of writers except that here it is "longer is better". It really isn't. And I can tell you why. My scenes have started getting thousands of words long and if I were to write novel, I could hit 50k words with about ten scenes. Most novels are up to 120k words total. Those would be 24 scenes in my numbers but don't you feel like a novel will need more than 24 scenes? Consice writing is definitely a good idea and it is much harder to cut things rather than to add (at least for me). Fanfiction gives more room with the word count but I still think that it is important to be able to convey your point in as little words as possible. (Btw, this is a tangent but long sentences and semicolons appear a lot in academic writing and I hate it even more there because it makes it more incomprehensible than it needs to be (and in a lot of cases it already is written to be as incomprehensible as possible). Just... start another sentence, I am begging you. This one already is a page long, for the love of everything in the world.)

24. Don't edit as you write

A complicated one. Mostly because I have done this. I used to do it a few years back. I (mostly) don't do it anymore. I might stop to edit a typo or change a sentence that just doesn't read right but nothing bigger than that. And you should, arguably, not do that either. Why? Because you may end up deleting the entire paragraph, page, chapter and all that perfecting will have been for naught. It has happened to me when I spent a ton of time perfecting the first chapters of several of my works and some of them I will never finish while others actually need to start from a different point in time so the whole chapter needs to go. Along with all of my efforts. I would say this is mostly for longer and chaptered projects since the structure of a one shot (depending on the length) is easier to figure out and you probably won't need to rearrange parts of it. And if something is really poking your eyes out, you can fix it real quick. But once you have the whole thing, it will be easier to see what needs to stay, what needs to go and what needs to be changed. Sometimes the temptation is hard to resist and it's fine if you give in as long as you're doing it with the knowledge that "yes, this may be all for nothing but I can't look at it like that for another second". Sometimes I would say that you need to go back and see where everything derailed if you can't move on. There was good advice that if you're stuck, the problem is probably a few paragraphs before the point where you hit a wall and it has helped me get over a block a time or two. However, if you can move on without touching anything, you probably should. That can also save you from deleting something that is actually good. I have felt like the whole thing I was writing was terrible but holding back from deleting or even altering anything and, instead, giving it some time to breathe has saved a few fics along the way from being completely butchered. So I think this is, generally, good advice because of the reasons I listed but just like any other rule, it can be bent and broken. (I would say fixing typos is a form of bending it which I allow myself all the time. Spelling is just really important to me.)

36. Never use a verb other than 'said' to tag dialogue

I hate this specific phrasing of it a lot. Never start any rule with never. Of course, you need to use other verbs as well since they were created to express the wide range in which a person may speak their chosen words. My problem with this is the reason that is usually given for it and that is that it distracts the reader. It has never distracted ME. Not a single time. And while I agree that using said most of the time works since people usually speak in a calm, even, steady manner which to describe as simply "said" works well enough, I think that other dialogue tags have their places too. Because people don't always say things. Sometimes they scream them, sometimes they whisper them, sometimes they hiss them, sometimes they snap and so on. Here I think a better phrasing would be to use Syndrome's lesson again that "when everyone is super, no one will be". Dialogue tags different from said are supposed to direct your attention to the change in tone. They're supposed to stand out. If everything stands out, nothing will. (This philosophy is so applicable to so many things and I think we have to take a minute to appreciate how valuable the lesson of "The Incredibles" is.) So as with every other writing tool, if used accordingly, dialogue tags (all of them, not just "said") can only be of help and will not hinder you in any way. Just don't put more frosting on the cake than there is cake, you know?

37. Do not start a sentence with a conjunction

FUCK THIS RULE so much. This one you have to keep to only in academic writing. The moment you step through the threshold of creative writing this rule should be crushed under your soles. I often start sentences with "and" or "but" because I am looking to emphasize whether this sentence agrees with the previous one or not. Think about it. When you say "I liked him. But I didn't trust him.", it reads very different from "I liked him but I didn't trust him.". It focuses your attention on that contrast and makes you pay more attention to the objection to the first sentence that comes in the second. That can be incredibly valuable and help emphasize what you're saying in a more subtle way than repetition would. This is one of my favorite techniques of focusing the attention on where I want it to be and I will never give it up. Sue me if you want. And see if I care.

39. If there's a story you want to read but it hasn't been written yet, you must write it

Must is too strong a verb. You are not obliged to write anything. I couldn't possibly write everything I want to see written in a single lifetime. Calm down there. I think what people need to understand here is more that "if you want the story done the exact way that you would do it, you will have to do it yourself because no one else will do it the very same way". Doesn't mean that someone can't come close enough (I had that luck once) but it is unlikely that they'll do it in a way that you won't have any complaints about. So, really, "if you want something done right, do it yourself". But this can also mean "you have something fresh that the world needs because no one else has done it yet" (or at least not the same way you would do it). Which is cool but you really don't owe anyone anything. If that story is what you want to read and write (emphasis on that because writing is hard and takes a lot of energy, guys), then great! Go right ahead. But if you don't feel like doing that, you can leave it alone. Someone else might do it in time but with that we loop back to my previous point. I think that you should write whatever you want to write whether no one has written it before or it has been done hundreds and thousands of times.

42. Write your first draft by hand

Very mixed feelings here. I used to do that. The main reason for that is that I didn't trust myself to edit quite as sufficiently if I wrote it directly in a document as I would if I had to transcribe it from paper to the computer. For me personally, it is easier to change sentences when there is only blank space after that sentence since I don't have to worry whether the next sentence I have will still make sense once I'm done rewriting the current one. It was just easier to change things. A way to deal with that is to just press enter a few times before you start editing the sentence so that it looks like there is nothing after it and you're free to change it as you please. However, writing directly in a document is definitely faster and since I was having a lot of things to do in a limited time, I started doing that. It helped get over the fear of a blank page to a degree. It is faster. And I don't think I have noticed a change in the quality of my fics. Not a negative one at least. I just know that if I had had to write the 10k+-word ones by hand before typing them on the computer, I would've lost it. It would've taken way more time and patience than I was willing to give these ideas. Writing the words by hand sometimes helps me feel them better, though, (if that makes sense) and I wouldn't completely give up on it. I like to go with my intuition when deciding whether to write it by hand or type it directly in a document and it has worked out well enough for me so far.

[killjoy-loveit]

A Little Bit Like Clover

Request: Oh yay! May I please request a Rowoon/Seokwoo Barista!AU? One shot or scenario, Romance/Fluff, female reader, any POV where he falls for a a florist who works in a flower shop right across from his coffee shop. I don't really have a specific plot in mind other than that 😅 thank you! 💕

A/N: I would like to clarify that everything written in this story is complete fiction and isn’t to be taken as a true portrayal of reality. To the anon who requested this, I’m so sorry it took me so long :( I hope that the story lives up to your expectations!! Side note: I wrote this in a style similar to that of one I tried previously for another story, I personally like this style a bit so lmk what y’all think of it :)

Also this was proof-read by the absolutely wonderful 💚💚 @uwunnie​ 💚💚, whom I wish to thank for taking time out of her day to check over it for me!!

Word Count: 3,914

Genre: Fluff, overall v cute imo

May 3rd, 20XX

     The nice old man, Mr. Jones, that owned the bookstore across the street decided to sell. He would always come in on Tuesday of every week to buy flowers for his wife’s grave- Tuesday’s had been their date nights he’d confided in you one day. Sometimes Mr. Jones would choose her favorite flowers, other times he’d tell you to make a pretty bouquet. You were sad to see him leave, but you knew it was inevitable. It was difficult for him to run the store on his own, especially with him going on in years. Now you just wondered who would become your new neighbor. Would they be nice? Would they change from a bookstore? The possibilities were numerous.

June 1st, 20XX

     After almost a month the bookstore was successfully purchased. Still, you were unsure of who owned the space. You’d yet to see one individual frequenting the establishment, though it would be hard to pick them out anyways. There was always a gaggle of people moving about the old storefront nowadays, pulling out all of the old furniture and books. Clearly it wasn’t going to be a bookstore anymore. That small discovery made you a bit sad. You would miss going over there on your days off and finding new books to delve into.

July 15th, 20XX

     Finally you met the new owner of the store across the street. He’d come in right as you were finishing up a bright bouquet that would be one of the samples for a party planner you worked with. You’d glanced up as the bell had rung, the typical customer service smile coming to your face. As he stepped up to the counter, you wiped your hands on the apron tied about your waist. 

     “Hi, welcome to Oopsy Daisy. How can I help you?” Your voice automatically switching into the chipper, vibrant tone you used to interact with customers. It must’ve shocked him, you thought, as you noticed his eyes widen a tad.

     Nevertheless he smiled politely at you and extended his hand. “Hello, I’m Rowoon, I bought the store across the street from you.”

     Surprised, you reached out your hand to shake his, mouth parted slightly. “Oh, wow. I was wondering who’d bought it- now I know.” You laughed lightly, then proceeded to introduce yourself.

     “Well, I just wanted to come over and introduce myself. I’m not sure if you know, I changed the layout into that of a coffee shop, so if you ever decide to come check it out the first cup of coffee’s on the house!” 

     “I’ll make sure to stop by soon!”

July 16th, 20XX

     You were up earlier than usual as orders had piled up, what with it being the midst of wedding season. Oopsy Daisy wouldn’t open to the general public for a few hours still, which would leave you plenty of time to make decent headway on the orders. But you would make no progress without having a cup of coffee first. And what better time to try out the new coffee place across the street than right now? 

     Despite the early hour, right about the time typical business people would be floundering for their first cup of coffee, the shop seemed relatively empty. Two or three customers were placed throughout the shop, two at separate tables sipping on their coffee and looking at laptops, the other sitting in a comfortable chair with a book in hand and a coffee set on a table beside them. The store didn’t seem to change too much, despite the switch to becoming a coffee shop. Bookshelves lined the small brick wall that separated the coffee counter from the seating area. Small tables and comfortable chairs were scattered throughout the area, giving it a cozy feel.

     Walking up to the counter, you saw Rowoon standing behind it- pretty relaxed, a book in his hand. A mix of to-go cups and porcelain mugs caught your eye as you got closer, each one had the store name and logo printed on. The logo being a heart made of coffee beans around the shop’s name, which is succinctly called ‘Kinda In Love With Brew’. That made you smile.

     “Your store’s name is cute.” You said after reaching the counter, pulling his focus away from the book in his hands.

     “Oh, hey! I wasn’t sure when I’d see you again.” Rowoon grinned. “And thanks, I came up with it myself.”

     “Really? I wouldn’t have guessed that.” Shifting on your feet, you fiddle with the zipper on your bag.

     He just laughs, shaking his head. “A lot of people say that. Do I not seem like I could come up with a cute romantic name for my store?”

     “No, it just seemed like a mild romantic sort of name and I guess I didn’t see you as that type. Clearly I was wrong and shouldn’t set out to find a job in profiling.” You joke lightly.

     Rowoon sets his book down, leaning his forearms against the counter. “Now that we’ve adequately discussed my shop’s name, should we talk about yours? Or save that for another time?”

     “Another time perhaps, I’m on a bit of a time crunch.” 

     With that said, you quickly order a drink of Rowoon’s recommendation. And once the drink is in hand, you make your way back across the street. 

October 28th, 20XX

     It’s been a couple of months since Rowoon opened ‘Kinda In Love With Brew’, and you’d met on many occasions. It had become a habit to pop across the street for a coffee when you knew you would be slammed with orders. And he’d taken to coming over and chatting whenever business was slow, leaving his store under the watch of one of his employees. Normally people got on your nerves, which is why you ran your store all by your lonesome- not one employee to help you out. But somehow Rowoon didn’t. You weren’t sure if he had some charm to him that made it harder to be annoyed by him, or if your personalities just meshed well together.

     Either way it didn’t matter, you were well into becoming friends. Which is why it almost didn’t surprise you when he knocked on the door to your shop well past closing. After letting him in, you’d questioned his arrival.

     “Well,” He replied, taking a deep breath. “I saw the light in your store still on and I wondered why you were still working. It’s almost one in the morning.”

     Glancing over at the clock on the wall to confirm his words, your jaw dropped slightly. “I didn’t even realize… I just got carried away, I guess.”

     Rowoon raised an eyebrow at you. “Carried away or frantically trying to finish an order before the pickup time?”

     You smiled sheepishly at him. “Maybe it was more frantic than being carried away.”

     “I just don’t understand why you refuse to hire some help around here.” He sighs, looking intently at you. “You’re practically running on fumes at this point. If you keep this up then you’ll have to start turning away customers.”

     “I get annoyed by people easily, especially if I have to explain things multiple times. It just wouldn’t work if I tried to hire someone to help me. The cons would outweigh the benefits.” You mutter, picking at your apron awkwardly.

     “I don’t think they would if you found the right person.” Rowoon chided. “But right now what you need is sleep. Go home, get a good rest and finish the order later.”

     You shook your head quickly. “I can’t. They’re picking up the bouquets at nine and I haven’t even finished half of them yet.”

     “Let me help you then.”

     At first you’d been hesitant to let him assist in the bouquet making, but he’d actually done a good job. It turns out that he catches on rather quickly, so after observing you make two arrangements he was able to start making them on his own. It was nice having someone next to you, working in harmony, conversation flowing naturally. This wasn’t something you’d experienced before, and you found that you enjoyed it. Not to mention you actually finished a lot faster than you would have on your own. Hours faster. Once all of the arrangements were finished though, before Rowoon could leave, you promised to repay the favor or at the very least treat him to a meal when he was free. 

November 14th, 20XX

     It was about five o’clock in the evening when Rowoon rushed into your store, completely frazzled and unkempt. Luckily there was no one inside your shop at the moment, though this was because you were technically closed to the public. The asters you were holding falling to the counter in shock. Never had you seen him appear in such a state, he was typically calm albeit a little goofy. Yet here he was, standing before you, out of breath, with panic written all over his features. 

     “What’s wrong?” You moved out from behind the counter to where he stood at the entrance, hand smoothing down his back in an attempt to calm him down.

     Rowoon gulped in a deep breath. “There’s- there’s a lady in the store, and we already called the ambulance, but I don’t know what to do! How am I supposed to help her? I can’t-.”

     You cut him off, worry seeping into your veins and activating your brain. “What happened for you to call the ambulance? Was she injured? Did she slip and fall? Is she bleeding?”

     At each of your questions after the first he shook his head quickly. “She went into labor!”

     Eyes wide, you stared at him, mouth agape. “And you just left her there? What’s wrong with you?” You smacked his shoulder lightly before rushing out of your store to his.

     Sure enough, once you got inside you saw an obviously pregnant woman, sitting on a chair breathing heavily. A man was standing beside her, appearing very panicked, holding a phone talking to a person you believed to be an emergency operator. Only a few other people, all coincidentally men, were in the store, but each one of them appeared nervous and anxious on behalf of the lady who had just gone into labor. All of this energy couldn’t be good for her. The lady in question, looked scared, and all of the people around her weren’t calm either- which was helping nothing.

     Hearing the door close behind you, you determined that Rowoon had followed you. “Go get wet a cloth with cool water, wring it out and bring it to me.” You stated without looking at him, but he quickly followed your orders and moved past you.

     Without hesitation you raised your voice to address the people in the coffee shop. “Everyone who is not with the woman in labor, please leave! I understand that you came here for a coffee fix, but right now might not be the best time.” 

     As the other customers departed, you were left alone in the store with three other people: Rowoon, the lady in labor, and the guy standing next to her. As you approached, her gaze was flickered between you and the guy next to her.

     “Hey,” Voice calm, you pulled a chair up beside her and sat down. “What’s your name?”

     “V-Vee.” She hissed out, teeth gritting in pain.

     You worked on keeping your voice as calm and soothing as possible as you conversed with her, trying to help ease some of the nerves. Rowoon had appeared with the cloth in the midst of your conversation, which you’d handed to the guy standing next to her, telling him to help keep her cool. Overhearing the emergency operator state that the ambulance was still a little far out, Vee became panicked. She was blubbering about how she didn’t want to have her baby in a coffee shop, she wanted to have it in the hospital after getting an epidural, how she wasn’t ready yet. 

     “Breathe,” You reminded her, while you tried to come up with some words that might help. “The ambulance is coming, and soon enough you’ll be able to get to the hospital.” You locked eyes with her. “You can do this. Just think, in a matter of hours you’ll be holding your little one. Isn’t that amazing?”

     She nodded slowly, muttering under her breath. “I can do this.”

     It wasn’t long after this that the ambulance arrived, sweeping her and the man with her away. Which just left you and Rowoon in the store. Of the two, you were clearly the one with the level-head currently, as it appeared that he was mentally checked out at the moment. After guiding him to a seat and getting him a glass of water, you flipped the sign on his door to say ‘closed’. Then you began cleaning up spilled drinks, most likely occurring from witnessing a woman go into labor. Cleaning the spilled drinks didn’t take too long, thus you continue cleaning the rest of the store as you’d seen Rowoon do many a time through the wide windows of his cafe.

     Even after you finished cleaning, Rowoon still seemed to be in a state of shock at what had just happened. So, you did the only thing you could think of- you took his store keys from him, shut off all the lights, dragged him outside and locked up. 

     “Come on,” You murmured, hand wrapped around his wrist. “I’m going to make you a cup of chamomile tea.”

     Making your way across the street, you led him into your store, which you locked after entering, and up the stairs in the back to your apartment. Minutes later Rowoon was sitting on your couch, a steaming mug of tea in his hands. You were starting to get a little worried, as he’d yet to say a single word. 

     Sitting down beside him, you looked at him with concern. “Are you okay?”

     He turned to look at you, the glaze that had previously taken over his eyes dissipating. “I think so,” Rowoon breathed out softly, taking a sip of tea. “I wasn’t expecting anything like that to happen in my store.” 

     Laughing quietly, you patted his arm. “I don’t think most people expect a woman to go into labor in their place of work, unless you’re at a hospital that is.”

     Cracking a joke, it seems, was the right move. Rowoon was able to relax a bit more as your conversation went on. Stories were exchanged of the wildest things to happen in your stores, though you were pretty sure he won, what with what happened tonight. He expressed how amazed he was at your ability to keep calm in such a situation, praising how you’d even helped to calm the soon-to-be mother. That night, Rowoon stayed over- the two of you falling asleep on the couch with a worn-out blanket covering your legs, an old rerun playing in the background, his mug of tea sitting empty on the coffee table.

December 22nd, 20XX

     Snow gently floated to the ground, setting the perfect atmosphere for the holidays. Normally it didn’t snow in this area until January, so it was exciting to see it appear before the new year. However, the snow did nothing to calm your nerves as you built the courage to go to the holiday party currently taking place in Rowoon’s cafe. Through the window you could see the crowd of people smiling and laughing, even managing to hear snippets of the music playing inside each time a new person went inside. 

     Wringing your hands, you finally resolved to pull yourself together and walk across the street. It couldn’t be that hard to step into a building you’d been in numerous times before, could it? Rowoon had invited you, said he was looking forward to seeing you there- you couldn’t just not go. With a particularly deep breath as your fuel, you stepped out of your store and quickly crossed the street after checking the road was clear. You hadn’t been in front of the door to the cafe for more than a second before it was opened by Rowoon himself, a bright smile on his face as he pulled you inside.

     “I’m so glad you came!” His eyes crinkled at the edges. “Do you want some cider? Or hot chocolate? I also have eggnog, a few different wines and ales, or water, if you prefer.”

     “So many options,” At your words, a dusting of color rose to Rowoon’s cheeks. “But I’ll have to go with the first one, cider.”

     His hand remained wrapped around your wrist as he led you through the party, weaving around multiple groups of people, smiling and greeting them as he went. Rowoon only letting go of you to pour a cup of warm cider, which he handed to you with a grin. Shortly after, the two of you fell into a comfortable silence, observing the party-goers together. That is until someone came up, pulling Rowoon away for some reason you couldn’t quite catch. Rowoon had seemed reluctant to go, glancing back at you as he was led somewhere else.

     As you didn’t really know any of the people at this party, you kept your place beside the refreshment table. Time passed by rather slowly as you watched everyone socialize, Rowoon having disappeared somewhere among them. Despite his tall stature you couldn’t manage to pick him out in the crowd. Heaving a sigh, you continued to sip at your drink, wondering how long you should stay. With the amount of people in the cafe, if no one stayed around to help Rowoon clean up, he’d probably be here hours afterward. Since he’d helped you on multiple occasions before, the desire was there to help him in return.

     Although maybe it wasn’t just that you wanted to help him. Rather, maybe you just wanted to be alone with him. Your mind flitted back to the week prior, when Rowoon had invited you to the party. 

     He’d walked into your store, head bent slightly, teeth denting his lower lip, and almost walked right into a display of primrose and snowdrops. If you hadn’t moved fast enough he would have bulldozed right into that display, one that had taken you a bit of time to get just right. You had run right over to him, grabbing his wrist and jerking him away at the last second. Rowoon had looked up then, shocked as he stumbled and had to keep himself from toppling over.

     “I’m sorry,” You’d apologized breathlessly. “I just spent so long on that display and you were about to walk right into it.”

     Rowoon glanced back at where he’d just been, eyes widening a fraction. “No, I’m sorry I should’ve been paying attention. I was too lost in my thoughts.” He offered a sheepish smile.

     Eyebrows raised, you cocked your head to the side. “What were you thinking about so deeply you forgot to pay attention to your surroundings?”

     “Oh, I was thinking…” He paused for a minute, eyes flickering to the ceiling. “Of the holiday party I’m having next week. Would you be able to come?”

     At first you’d been a bit hesitant, mainly because you were aware there’d most likely be a lot of people you didn’t know at the party. But Rowoon had managed to convince you to come. Besides, it was much too difficult to say no when he looked at you with hopeful eyes. 

     Hours passed by- hours you didn’t note because at one point you’d left the safety of the refreshment table to find Rowoon. Instead of finding him, though, you’d managed to find an old book of poetry half-hidden on a bookshelf. This book had kept you entranced as the party continued and as it eventually wound down. 

     “Enjoying yourself?” 

     You glanced up from the book to see Rowoon standing next to you, and the rest of the cafe empty. “Is the party over?” 

     He nodded, a tired smile overtaking his face as he sat next to you. “Yeah. Sorry I left you alone the whole time you were here. I kept trying to come and find you, but I kept getting pulled about by other people. Being a party host is exhausting.” Rowoon finished with a sigh, elbows coming up to rest on the table as he set his head in his hands.

     “It’s fine,” You murmured, setting the book down on the table. “I managed to keep myself occupied.” Silence permeated the air between you for a minute before you stood up. “Do you need help cleaning up?”

     “What? Oh no, you don’t need to help clean up.”

     “But nobody else stayed behind to help. You shouldn’t have to clean this all by yourself, look at the mess!” You gestured at his cafe, which had empty paper cups and plates strewn about and streamers hanging loosely on the walls. 

     He stood up, taking in the state of his cafe, lips pursed. “You’re right, it will be hard to clean on my own.”

     You waggled your eyebrows at him. “Of course I’m right! Now come on, let’s get to cleaning.”

     Before you could walk away to find a dustpan and broom Rowoon’s hand grasped your wrist, stopping you in your tracks. “Wait, I… I need to tell you something first.”

     Turning back to face him, head tilted, eyes focused on him. “What is it?”

     He blinked rapidly, mouth opening and closing a few times before he blurted out a sentence so jumbled you couldn’t properly understand him. You had to ask him to repeat himself, which he did, but he was so quiet you couldn’t hear him. 

     Finally, after you couldn’t take the anxiousness anymore, you propped your hand on your hip. “Rowoon, please, will you just say whatever it is? It can’t be that difficult to say.”

     “I’m so happy that I bought this place, and that I was able to meet you because of it. I don’t want to ruin our friendship if you don’t feel the same way as I do, but I need to tell you that I don’t want to be friends with you- I want to be more than that.”

     You watched as he bit his lip, his eyes flitted nervously around the room as he awaited your response. “You want to be more than friends?” He nodded swiftly. “Are you saying you have feelings for me?” He nodded once more. A smile broke out onto your face, one that he hadn’t caught yet because he was avoiding looking at you. “Hmm, well, I guess we can’t be friends anymore.”

     Rowoon’s eyes jerked to you, going wide, mouth parted slightly. “Huh?”

     You stared at him innocently. “Does this automatically mean we’re a couple, or do we need to go on a date first?”

     He sighed, relieved. “You really drew that out.”

     Most people tended to grate your nerves. Most people made you want to whack your head against a door repeatedly. Most people were capable of making you wish for a solitary life. Most people felt like weeds, popping up at the most inconvenient of times. However, Rowoon wasn’t like most people. If he were compared to a weed, he wouldn’t be the kind that covers any and everything like Kudzu, rather he’d be the kind that helps a garden thrive, like Clover. In this way, it’s safe to say that he grew on you unexpectedly.

[fuckyeahcarlosandlidia]

Season 4

So guys, as I said in my previous post, this blog is not spoiler free so I’ll give my opinion on the season, since I watched all the episodes.  If you don’t want to spoil yourself, be careful because I’ll go into details.

The season started well, probably too well, and I should have seen it coming.  My expectations were high, I admit it; the pic we got of them from season 5 set kinda made me feel sure that nothing bad could happen in season 4, when you have Lidia and Carlos like that in season 5, when Lidia is holding him and looking at him like that. (x)  Also, Blanca’s interviews reassured me as well because it really didn’t sound that romantic feelings were involved when it comes to Francisco, and that Lidia was very much sure of the choice she made, of the life she has with Carlos, and their family together.

It turns out that yes, Lidia is indeed happy with the life she has, the first episode was actually really good to me.  I enjoyed pretty much everything and I felt for each character. Sure, it was sad that Lidia couldn’t stay at home not even one night with Carlos and Eva because she had to go playing the nurse for Francisco, but I got it.  It was understandable.  Then it became too much and you could feel Carlos’ insecurities raising and raising and raising, and honestly that’s very much understandable, too.

My biggest problem with all of this is that the writers decided to make Carlos act completely OOC in order to separate him from Lidia and for her to go back to Francisco.  And to me, this is completely unacceptable and mean. You don’t destroy a character to make the other side of the triangle happen and to make the other guy shine, it’s too convenient. Do they really think it looks great for Lidia and Francisco to happen like this? Or should I call her Alba again, since IMO that ending is her going back being Alba. 

Lidia increased Carlos’ insecurities, she didn’t talk when she needed to, she didn’t reassure him when he needed it.  She kept being obsessed with Francisco being in a coma because apparently it was their fault he ended up like that.  Excuse me, how’s that Carlos’ fault anyway, since he got shot too and couldn’t be at the airport to save Eva?  How is that Lidia’s fault as well?  Since Francisco is an adult man who decides consciously what to do with his life and consciously was there to help Lidia getting Eva back. What happened was an accident. If Lidia felt guilty because she’s the one who kept asking him for help, every single time things with Carlos are rough, that’s her problem. But Francisco’s conditions were anybody’s fault.

Carlos was supportive, patient, ready to help her and listen to her constantly, even if it was just watching her being in pain for Francisco, and she didn’t appreciate it at all.  She actually kept him at distance. So Carlos had every right to feel insecure, fearful and left out. To be honest, I understand why he went crazy, it was a very hard situation to handle. But let’s get to that. We’ve been told Carlos used his mother’s money to rebuild the company behind Lidia’s back, because she didn’t want to use Carmen’s money. Seriously, this was made up to create this stupid plot for Carlos. He was happy at the radio station in season 3 and just went back at the Company because his mother asked him to, or else she would have report Lidia to the police.

Suddenly, he was so interested in the Company, but okay fine, he used his mother’s money. He should have told Lidia about it, of course, but he probably couldn’t imagine that his mother would have left the prison anytime soon. Of course, she was back before he thought and he found himself in a very difficult situation, because his mother blackmailed him, because she’s just a precious human being. Carlos’ intentions are to fix everything by himself because Lidia doesn’t have to find out and because he doesn’t want his mother near her and Eva. That’s when everything starts and that’s when Carlos’ downhill starts.  But let me get this straight, the fact that Carlos wanted to use the money he owed to his mother to help Francisco, well that to me was wonderful.  And yes of course he was doing it for Lidia, bu honestly does that matter? He wanted to do it. And here I’ll say something about Elisa.

Did you get Elisa’s side in all of this, guys?  Because seriously I didn’t. She was one way with Carlos, and the complete opposite with her mother.  She actually convinced Carlos to take Eva at the park only to meet Carmen. She played with Carlos’ feelings too, she told him things about Lidia, his relationship with Lidia comparing it to the one she had with Francisco. Only to make him feel more and more insecure, because Lidia would leave him as soon as Francisco woke up. She accused him of doing everything to keep Lidia close to him because he was scared to lose her, and the way she did all of this was really bad to watch. Is this the way a sister treats her brother? Is this her way to help him? No, please, it’s insane. Lidia and Carlos’s relationship has NOTHING to do with what Elisa and Francisco had. And even later when she finds out Carlos didn’t tell Lidia Francisco woke up and he has amnesia, the first thing she does is saying everything to Carmen.  SERIOUSLY?  Whose side are you on? 

I truly hoped she was the one who help to fix the situation.  A good sister would have gone to Lidia and told her everything. Yes, she indeed told Carlos to tell the truth to Lidia because it was the right thing to do but she didn’t do it in the right way and he was lost already. She was no help. And of course  knowing everything Carmen used all of this to her own advantage. I know that Carlos fell into his own trap but no one truly helped him. And finally when Lidia talked to him and told him the things he needed to hear, it was just too late. He already made the big mistake.  And there was no going back because he just kept doing mistakes one by one, victim of his own fears, his insecurities and mind games, too. It was a mess.

What I truly believe though is that Lidia accepted his proposal genuinely. She was truly sure and happy about it.  Sara/Oscar was condemned and Lidia realized life is too short, everything can change in a minute and that’s why she accepts to marry Carlos. That was good, it was actually a beautiful scene but obviously it wasn’t at the right time, because Carlos was lying to her. And he had no escape, or at least he had, he needed to tell Lidia the truth, facing the consequences but he can’t. Once again, Elisa doesn’t find the right words to explain it to him. And it was really bad to see him lying to Lidia’s face, but for the life of me, I just can’t truly accept how they could treat so badly a character only to make the other appear as the true hero, the one that can’t be manipulated, the one that always does the right thing. Francisco doesn’t remember anything except Alba, the young version of her. The woman before him is a stranger but wait, it’s his Alba so he’s willing to do anything she asks him to.

Lidia decides to run away with him and Eva, just RIGHT AFTER she finds out Carlos lied to her. Because she realizes Carlos wants to keep her and Francisco apart, so Carlos is the big bad guy now who keeps the lovers apart. Is this real? Are we watching a joke or a show which is supposed to be about feminism and keeps making the protagonist washy washy between two men? Does Lidia need a man or a dog? Can’t Lidia just leave alone with her daughter, if she feels that Eva is not safe as long as Carmen is alive? Why leaving with Francisco, just like that, taking away Eva from Carlos, his own daughter? Yes, he put her in danger, but he had no idea what Carmen intended to do. He was so blind and they made him so dumb, my poor baby, he just couldn’t understand anything anymore. But of course Francisco and Lidia need a fresh start, and all Carlos gets is punishment. Like “hey, you wanted this, you did everything yourself.” And I’m sorry but that’s not good writing. AT ALL.  

The characters keep doing the same mistakes, all over again, there’s no growth, actually they go downhill. The season in general was slow, confusing, with no logic at all. We spent 5 episodes with Francisco in a coma, dealing with his cures and when he gets up, it feels like he never was in a coma. Seriously, oh Doctor Miracle, right? Called by Carlos, BTW.  Angeles was killed in such a stupid way. They didn’t give her a second chance, they didn’t reunite her with her daughter, they made her lie to, and then she gets shot just like that.  Everyone survives a bullet but not her.  The whole central plot became boring because they dragged it too much, and the characters just dance around themselves with no logic at all. Where’s season 1 quality? And season 2 as well?

Damn I thought season 3 was bad, but season 4 was a nightmare. A real nightmare.  To be honest, it felt like a fan fiction written by a Francisco and Lidia’s shipper. We got it, they wanted to separate Carlos and Lidia because they wanted to re-open the triangle, and since they have 2 more seasons to come - yes Roger Gual, the director replied in a Instagram story that season 6 is in pre-production, kill me - they needed to do it, I guess. But for God’s sake they did it in the worst way EVER because they decided to hit Carlos, making him act OOC, for that to happen. Or else, Lidia wouldn’t be “justified” to change her mind. Is that supposed to be good for Alba and Francisco, anyway? I don’t think so.

I really don’t know what to think about season 5, how that pic from set is going to fit in all of this, because clearly in that pic they do seem very close. Honestly, right now I’m very mad and disappointed. And I feel played as well, because do they think we’re stupid? I mean, the nonsense was huge. Anyway, said that, guys I’ll obviously post gifs from the new season, be active and everything. If you have requests, feel free to ask and if you want to share thoughts about the season, they’re very welcome:D Let’s hold on together, dealing with the disappointment and hoping for the best to come. 

[microsuedemouse]

hhhhhhhhhhhhhwoof I hate fandom/ship drama

anyway I’ve been thinking about how. there is nothing, inherently wrong,, with being interested in exploring ships (or even non-romantic/non-sexual character dynamics!) that are unhealthy in-universe.

here’s something: there is value in recognising that a ship is unhealthy or toxic or abusive or whichever other descriptor you feel fits best. (I am going to be using ‘unhealthy’ as my umbrella word in this post; obviously it’s an understatement to call an abusive relationship ‘unhealthy’ but it’s still accurate and it encompasses the variety of things I’m talking about.) there is value in taking that as fact and acknowledging such in whatever exploratory work you may choose to create or engage in.

I wanna take a second here to clarify part of what I mean: it is not inherently wrong to enjoy an unhealthy ship, and you are not required to defend a ship as healthy/‘not abusive’ in order to justify your interest in it. this is a very weird result, imo, of purity culture and virtue signalling. when you have a healthy understanding of the difference between fiction and reality, and a recognition of what’s acceptable in reality and what’s compelling in fiction, it’s actually very worth exploring what interests and engages you about Fictional Bad Things.

you know that phenomenon where people love villains? a lot of discourse around purity culture naturally leads to the conclusion: “it is wrong to like villains.” most of us are capable of recognising that this... doesn’t make sense. because obviously, we aren’t - or at least, the great majority of us aren’t - claiming that we would like and support this person in reality, or that we would be entirely comfortable with the deeds they commit if those deeds took place in reality. we’re saying that the character appeals to and compels us for some reason, within fiction. that’s a different thing - and it’s usually a sign of good writing! it’s very worth exploring that experience: what about this villain makes you like them so much? what about them makes them relatable to you, or sympathetic to you, or perhaps even cathartic to you? these kinds of questions can offer both entertainment value and, possibly, some new insights into yourself as a person. those insights might turn out to be interesting and meaningless, or they might provide you with new ways to express yourself, or they might even offer you a new avenue for growth.

(moral purity often also extends to the conclusion ‘you shouldn’t enjoy stories in which the main character suffers, because it’s wrong to enjoy someone’s pain.’ we all know this makes no sense, because that includes most stories. a major reason human beings tell stories is to share in the emotional journey of a protagonist ultimately overcoming great obstacles. but anyway, this is a whole other issue, really.)

what I’m getting at is - the same can apply to ships. there are a few approaches to unhealthy ships, and I wouldn’t go so far as to say they stand on equal moral ground, but there are a variety of ways you might be able to explore them without it making you an inherently evil person, or whatever. it’s also worth noting that while, obviously, I’m expressing here what aligns with my moral position and encouraging you to think similarly - but, I also encourage you to think critically about your own moral positions. decide what is comfortable for you, and what feels right to engage with. it’s fine and it’s normal to draw your own lines in the sand and say, this is where the range of acceptable ends for me. I won’t support or engage with what’s on the other side.

to give a quick overview of some approaches I’m not as comfortable with: sometimes you’ll find a writer/artist/other fan who likes to depict a ship as totally healthy in a way that can only be described as out-of-character. sometimes this seems to be a denial of the actuality of the ship; I don’t like that so much because it’s often a refusal to acknowledge that their canonical behaviour/dynamic is bad. other times this is depicted as a sort of AU; this doesn’t bother me quite as much personally (often depending on what the writer’s overall attitudes seem to be) but it’s also often less interesting to me. in my experience, this is usually very self-indulgent work and has a lot more to do with the writer’s own experiences than with canon itself. which is fair, honestly. sometimes that’s cathartic for the writer and that’s enough - I don’t have to be into it personally to respect it.

another thing that crops up that’s kind of worrisome, imo, is when a writer/artist/etc. depicts the ship as in-character but denies that it’s unhealthy. now, in fairness, if you’re simply reading a fic or looking at a piece of fanart or something, you cannot always tell exactly how the creator thinks the ship actually operates. not everyone is always going to include a disclaimer that says ‘hey I don’t think this is actually Good.’ so try not to immediately ascribe intent to the writer/etc. unless you’ve seen them state outright somewhere: this isn’t abuse, it’s just cute! (or whatever it is they’re seeing.) at that point it is worth being concerned about what this person thinks constitutes a healthy relationship, and if you don’t feel good about supporting their work that’s entirely fair.

HOWEVER. there are also other approaches. two in particular stand out to me that I think are worth discussing. one is simply exploring the possibilities of an unhealthy relationship, with total acknowledgement of its flaws. one unhealthy dynamic that I admittedly find really engaging a lot of the time? ‘these two characters are Very obsessed with each other, and it sure ain’t healthy psychologically, but it’s definitely mutual.’ I love that shit. gimme a couple of unhinged, incredibly codependent pieces of shit, and you have my full attention. particularly if they’re on equal footing - if they’re damaging one another, it’s reciprocal, or at very least they’re both getting exactly what they want out of the relationship. obviously this would not be a dynamic I could support in real life! that’s terrible and I don’t want anyone to go through it! but in fictional characters it can be fascinating to explore. and if the content is going to upset or trigger certain fans: that’s why we use tags and warnings. AO3, where many of us go for a huge amount of our fan content, literally has a whole system in place for precisely this purpose: so we can let each other know what’s inside, and make informed choices about what we want to consume.

the other common approach is the redemption arc. it’s always gonna be up to you which characters you consider redeemable and which ones you don’t - that’s okay. again, it’s your choice what content to engage and what to pass over. but as people we’re traditionally very fond of the redemption arc story, and as fans we love to create the redemption arcs our favourite characters don’t get to live out in canon. because we love something about the character and want to explore them further. like I said earlier, that in itself is worth giving some thought to. sometimes we’ll even end up writing partial redemptions: this character goes from totally reprehensible to kind of appealingly awful. the ship goes from abusive to a much more regular level of fucked up. that can definitely be an interesting story in itself, and it’s okay if you want to explore it.

the main thing is that you always exercise your ability to think critically about what you’re consuming and why you like it - which, honestly, you should be trying to do all of the time, anyway. be clear about what you do and don’t endorse, about what your actual values are, about where you draw the line. (as both an example and a disclaimer, since I know I still have followers from A Certain Fandom where this cropped up a lot before I mostly dipped: one line that I personally draw, and always will, is at ships involving an adult and a literal child. I am not comfortable with exploring this even in the hypothetical space of fan content. it is too objectionable to be compelling.)

go forth. explore your unhealthy ships and shitty favourite characters. experiment and learn why they compel you. write properly-labelled fanfic about them hurting each other and loving it. just remember that everyone has different boundaries, and that fiction and reality are very separate spaces. acknowledge that what you’re enjoying is not inherently right or acceptable in real life just because you enjoy it in a story, and it doesn’t have to be. if you’re a content creator, consider portraying these things in such a way that your audience is well aware of your position on the matter, in order to help them also understand what is and isn’t healthy. be a ruthless writer and a kind person, and you’ll do just fine.

[rayshippouuchiha]

Hey Ray- I love your writing, and you reblogged something on older men with teens being always wrong- what's your thoughts on adult fans shipping Steter, with the frame of Stiles being a teenage boy and Peter (and Derek) MUCH older men? I know people lose their shit over Starker, and just wanted your well thought out take on shipping as a point to factor in on the debate.

I’ve talked about this before in pieces but I don’t mind giving you my opinion on the issue darling and we can use Steter and Starker as examples. Also this got long so watch the readmore.

And before I start I’d like to say that I am in no way trying to down play any experience anyone might have had with a relationship with an abusive age difference, including things like assault/abuse/incest/pedophilia/etc.  I am aware that victims of these horrible crimes can find ships and media with age differences triggering and to that I can only say that I am sorry that you’ve suffered and you have the right to curate your own media/fandom experience.  If something is a hard no for you then take the steps to filter it out.  There is no shame in that and you deserve to be safe in every single way you can.

Okay, now to move on to the topic at hand, first of all there has to be a line drawn between fiction and reality.  I know Tumblr over the past few years has leaned the way of not acknowledging this but it needs to be said. 

Fiction is not reality.  Yes the two can and do influence each other a great deal but they are, at the end of the day, two separate things.

There are things I read/watch/write in fiction that I would never in any way approve of, take part in, or even want to see happen in real life.  Some of these things are cathartic to me when dealing with my own issues.  Sometimes I’m curious.  Sometimes it was cathartic to the author.  Maybe it’s a safe way to explore an issue without anyone ever getting hurt.  Maybe it helps them deal with a similar sort of trauma. Etc etc.  There’s a lot of different reasons why people create/consume less that pure content.  Not all of those reasons are as good intentioned as the ones above but not all of them are evil either.

An example I’ve used before is that I love Hannibal but you don’t see me going in for real life cannibalistic serial killers.  I love horror movies and angst fics but I’m not going out murdering people or abusing people either.  Sometimes darker media is a release valve.

And the odds are that people who commit these kinds of crimes were going to do them regardless and them watching Halloween or reading a dark fanfic didn’t make them do it.

So fiction and reality can and do impact each other, but there is and should be a distinct separation between the two for most people.

Now to get back around to the issue of age gaps, while I might ship certain age differences in fiction I will always have a problem with, for example, a real life 35 year old adult trying to have a “relationship” with a 16 year old child.  That’s not a relationship, that’s abuse.

That’s an adult influencing and grooming a child into a relationship that will always be unbalanced and unhealthy.

Another thing is that it’s not even the size of the age gap that’s the true problem, it’s the placement of it.  Give that same couple 20 years?  Make that 16 year old 36 and that 35 year old 55 when they meet?  I’ve got no problem with that in real life.  Yeah the gap is large but that’s two consenting adults in that relationship.  They can do what they want.

Now, that being said, this is where the separation between fiction and reality comes in yet again.

In fiction age differences can get ... tricky.  Especially if you add things like the supernatural to the situation.

I mean on one hand we have fandom police screaming over Starker but they have no problem with an age difference along the lines of say Bella/Edward (Twilight) or Kagome/Sesshomaru (from the anime InuYasha) or any other human/immortal-slow aging creature pairing I could think of.  A supernatural influence can skew people’s opinions on age differences.

So when it comes to age differences I, personally, tend to judge based on dynamics.

Take Starker for example.

With MCU Starker specifically, there is an extreme age difference without any sort of supernatural influence

Tony is 30+ years older than Peter.

Peter Parker is an actual child in universe at 15-ish and is portrayed as such.

There is very very much a relationship dynamic of father/child - mentor/student etc etc between them imo.  There is no chance, not even remotely, of equality between Peter and Tony on any level.  There will always be an unfair power dynamic between them and it feels more like incest and/or abuse than a traditional May/December kind of relationship.

Physically Peter might be able to overpower Tony but emotionally? mentally? maturity wise?  No.  It’s too uneven and unhealthy.  There is no common ground.

Now Steter on the other hand?

Yeah there’s a age difference but, in my opinion, you can first subtract 6 years off of Peter’s age because his time in a coma should not count.

Plus there’s the fact that the ages of the Hale family are notoriously fucked up. Jeff Davis couldn’t make up his mind about his own canon or his characters and as such so much doesn’t make sense. Thus we don’t really know how old Peter really and truly is.

And when it comes to him and Stiles, well there’s a tension between the two that is very very easy to read as sexual/seductive, at least on Peter’s part in season 1.  So there’s a basis of interest on which to grow.

Peter’s also one of the only characters to never underestimate Stiles. And there is, of course, the fact that Stiles would absolutely murder Peter if pushed too far.  He did in fact have a hand in murdering Peter once before, proving that Stiles has hard lines and boundaries in place that he won’t allow Peter to cross.

There is a sense of equality between Stiles and Peter, or at least the promise of it.  There is a respect between the two, a sort of meeting of eyes that says ‘we’re both dangerous’.

This lends their dynamic a much more equal footing.  It feels like a partnership could be possible between them and they play well off of one another.

So I enjoy Steter but don’t ship/enjoy Starker on this basis.

And if we loop back around to reality again there’s also this fact:

There is a difference between shipping a teenage character who is played by a 20+ year old actor with an adult character played by an adult actor and approving of a real life child being preyed upon by an adult.