#and by that I mean do something meaningful and enjoyable instead of what I do now which isn’t NOT meaningful in a way but much less

[sleeplessinseattlee]

do I actually want to change careers or is it just another monday? Time will tell

[txttletale]

healed ive been doing some very basic communist readings lately and. how do you cope with the fact that none of it seems particularly possible. how do you manage to put any of this theory into practice when the only two parties out there seem to be the We’re Basically Demsocs Party and the Sexual Abuse League. how do you not let it crush you and what ways have you found to like… manifest these ideas in your life? i guess one could say i was “radicalized” by recent events but having done basic reading (just beginner Lenin and Marx) has made me feel so much more hopeless. there’s no vanguard party and i don’t see what I can actually tangibly do to help proliferate communism. and it’s making me feel guilty for living my life, too, for doing things that I find fun and beautiful and enjoyable - there’s just the guilt of “this is a time-waster, this is brainwashing you”. do you have any assurance at all

so obviously the role of a marxist-leninist in a revolutionary situation (ie, one in which the conditions are revolutionary, in which the current bourgeois state is no longer tenable) is to be in a vanguard party at the head of the organized working class. but these things don't appear from nowhere--i think it follows that if you are in much of the world, where a revolutionary situation is not imminent in any forseeable near future, then the role of a communist is to help organize the working class and raise class consciousness through class struggle so that when such a situation presents itself the working class is both radical and organized, or capable of becoming such in short order.

that means that working within non-party organizations (unions, activist and mutual aid groups, grassroots campaigns) with the intent of learning the tactics of organization and radicalising the people around you is a meaningful participation in the class struggle. as much as i say 'get organized' and believe that a proletarian party is the best and most powerful vehicle for revolutionary action, that latter belief is of course to be taken and adapted for the situation.

do not be hopeless because you have read lenin--instead, be aware that when lenin was writing much of what he wrote, the situation of socialist parties across europe was dire. criminalized, divided just as they are now, replete with the exact kind of reformists you're complaining about (as well as adventurists). what lenin wrote about was not just a theoretical ideal party that did exist in his time, but instead the blueprints for the party he had a hand in creating. realize that lenin genuinely believed during periods that he would not see revolution during his lifetime.

organize with whoever you can, in whatever arena you can, and participate in the class struggle. develop the skills and understanding of the methods of struggle, even if trade unionism or climate activism alone are not sufficient vectors by which the contradictions of capitalism can be resolved, they are avenues by which your class consciousness and that of those around you can be honed and sharpened. find the most radical body around you and join yourself to their struggle--a vanguard party should emerge from the struggles of the working class, it should be an organization that serves as a vessel for effective action. you do not have to tie yourself to the decaying and rotting shambling zombie parties of the 20th century to participate in the class struggle--we as communists owe these organs no loyalty if they are not equipped for the realities of class struggle.

i'm lucky in that there is a small but dedicated group of marxist-leninists i have been able to join up with and work with. if that's not the case for you, conduct the struggle within anarchist collectives or trade unions or solidarity campaigns, while always keeping your true goal in mind. the class struggle unfolds across a multitude of arenas--as long as there's someone you can organize alongside on something, you are not powerless in your capacity as a revolutionary communist. good luck, comrade.

[maaarshieee]

i see, u needed dottore ideas so IM GONNA DROP ONE EVERY WEEK 🎉

angst to fluff dottore when he decided to lash out on y/n after accidentally ruining his papers and he told y/n to leave him alone!! y/n proceeds to ignore him for weeks and he's starting to feel guilty

or

dottore meeting y/n through another mad scientist in sumeru. the scientist experimented on y/n and dottore grew fond of y/n. something happened that almost killed y/n so he got mad AND TOOK HER AWAY! THE SCIENTIST WAS FOUND DEAD AFTER A FEW DAYS

i like angst because i like hurting myself... anw im gonna be weekly anon.... HMMM

- weekly anon

⎯⎯ ୨ 𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐘𝐨𝐮 ୧ ⎯⎯

➢ Iʟ Dᴏᴛᴛᴏʀᴇ x Gɴ!Rᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

➢ 1.9k ᴡᴏʀᴅs ┊ Hᴜʀᴛ/ᴄᴏᴍғᴏʀᴛ

➢ Mᴀsᴛᴇʀʟɪsᴛ

a/n - welcome to my hell, weekly anon. and omg I WOULD APPRECIATE THAT FRRR YOU HAVE ALL MY LOVE /P. also i would like to add that i only do long-term relationships with dottore (since childhood or akademiya) bc i feel like it would go very yandere or toxic. i just prefer if dottore had a deeper and more meaningful relationship for a long time! i hope you don't mind anon 😭 i can do variety of readers but my fav is when the reader is also sick in the head like he is. anyways THANKS FOR THE REQUEST AGAIN!! titled, "need you", have a nice day/night!!

↬ cw: established long-term relationship with reader, mentions of experiments and torture, canon typical violence, slight obsession (dottore and reader), couple fights, reader crazy like him fr

Dottore never raises his voice at you.

Just a snark remark here and there, would scold you for your chaotic antics in his lab from time to time. But would never raise his voice at you. Well, intentionally, of course. There were times before when he'd yell at you, but they were never too serious, or loud enough to startle you.

Today was different.

He was already in a foul mood when it all happened. His experiments were giving him a headache rather than enjoyment lately, and the workers he assigned simple tasks that anyone could do in a span of a few days all failed. Things were not going as planned, even his research hit a dead end.

And what did you do to even worsen his mood?

Spilled coffee on his piles of papers. It was an accident, of course. You were tripped by a discarded pen on the floor and stumbled to his desk, hand letting go of the cup as you caught yourself before you hit the ground. He can look past your mistakes since it was you, of all people. But his day has been one of the worse ones yet and his sense of rationality was clouded by his frustrations, letting his anger burst out to you.

"Ah, shit—" You hiss at the painful burns of your hot coffee that landed on your hand but forced yourself to ignore it and instead tried to grab the ruined files, to attempt fixing, or at least dry it but before you could do so, Dottore slammed his hand on the desk.

Startled, you froze like deer a caught in headlights, eyes wide in shock. The impact was so loud in the quiet lab that it rang throughout the spacious area and all the segments present in the room had halted from whatever they were doing, all eyes on the both of them.

"You moron," He spat with venom, a scowl on his lips, and beneath his mask, you could tell he glaring at you with those ruby eyes of his. The hairs of your skin stood as your heart began to palpitate, unsure of what to do under his furious gaze. "Do you know how long it took me to finish all these?"

It was the first time in years you'd seen him so mad at you, your hand began to shake, so you folded your arms behind you, trying to mask your already obvious distress toward him. Cold sweat began to form at your neck whilst you tried to open your mouth to speak, "I- well-"

"Speak up when I'm talking to you."

Technically, your position in the Fatui is much lower than Dottore's. You were his personal assistant, the person who takes upon tasks with much more difficult since you're much more competent than most soldiers. So, it meant you were under his command. But that didn't mean he treated you like a mere soldier.

Well, at least not until now.

You went frigid at his demand, head hung low and eyes on your toes, hands clenched to fists. You tried your hardest to talk louder for him, to follow his orders, but all you could do was let out a meek; "I apologize for ruining y-your papers..."

Dottore heaved out a heavy sigh, pulling back his chair and sitting on it, arms crossed as he stared you down condescendingly. "Your apology is utterly useless." You flinched at the tone of his voice. He pushed the pile you'd ruined to the side and threw them all in a garbage bin, your bottom lip quivering as tears threatened to escape your eyes. "Leave. I don't wish to see you again."

You snapped your head up at that, stunned that he'd even say such a thing to you. "W-wait! Let me at least make new files for you-" You pleaded, taking a step forward but he clicked his tongue, annoyed, whilst he grabbed a new piece of paper and began writing. "Leave me alone. Be of use while you're at it."

Were those files that important? More than you? You swallowed down all the words at the tip of your tongue, gritting your teeth, and just nodded, bowing respectfully, as if you were just one of the Fatui's myriad of soldiers, and walked outside of the laboratory, ignoring the concerned and worried looks of his segments.

And that's how it has been for the past few days. You still fulfilled your duties when Dottore tasked you with a mission, always delivering flawless results. Neither of you mentioned what happened that day. Dottore never apologized, and you never spoke about it, opting to ignore him as much as he's ignored you.

Usually, you would've made a fuss. Nagged him to apologize to you, since he'd hurt your precious feelings and because he loved you. But you hadn't said a word to him unless it was really needed. And you've started calling him sir. It made him frown when you first did.

Now, he was aware of what he did a few hours after he realized you were nowhere to be seen in his lab. Dottore searched for you out of instinct and only stopped himself when he remembered what he had said. He called you a moron. He told you to leave, and so you did.

But would he ever apologize to you upfront? When did he ever do that? Of course not. He expected you to come around at some point, but by day 3, he had grown more and more agitated. Dottore thought that he would alright with you, but he was proven wrong. Not when his patience was beginning to thin and snapping more at others the longer this went on. Hell, torturing his lab rats didn't quell his bothered mind at all.

And you? Well, you missed everything about him. The tasks he gives you were easy enough, but you've been trying to distract yourself from them by holding yourself back. Finishing faster meant reporting to him, and gods know you were hanging on a thread of self-control to not launch yourself into his arms when you see him again.

You planned to ignore him until he'd grovel on his knees, well at least something similar to that because he'd never do such a thing, even to you (but it would be a nice sight if he ever did) but your will to continue and your spite toward him was slowly beginning to crumble.

The two of you were never meant to be separated anyways.

So when he started assigning tasks that required you to be close to him, you knew his stubbornness to not feel an ounce of longing for you was dwindling down. You swear you could feel the apology he wanted to say with his own lips by his mere presence, but he still attempted to turn a blind eye to his emotions, especially when he felt a rush of ecstasy when you moved closer to him.

"Tch, this guy..." You chuckled under your breath as your expression softened when you watched him walk away to fetch something, letting your shoulders sag, tired. "Fine fine, I'll take the lead..." As much as you prefer he would make a much more straightforward move, you'll just take what you can get. It's not like you can take much more of this anyways.

The next day, you approached his desk at your own whim, a stack of files in your arms. Dottore paused his writing, putting down his pen then gestured at the multiple folders you held, confused. "What's all this?"

"I redid the files you threw away a few weeks ago." You carefully placed them in an empty space on his desk, a small smile on your lips as you watch him purse his, taking the document on top of the stack. "I wrote them exactly how you wanted them. Margins, your handwriting, organization, paper, and stuff."

He must say, he was quite impressed with your dedication. What you said was true, you did make it just the way he liked his files. It made the corners of his lips twitch, opening his mouth and almost letting a thank you slip out, but he caught himself. "First sentence in and you've made so many grammatical errors..." You heard him mutter under his breath whilst he continued to scan through the papers.

You gave him an annoyed smile, hands behind your back as you said through gritted teeth; "Are taking them or not?" Maybe you just imagining it, but you could've sworn his shoulders shook lightly at what you said.

"I suppose this'll do." Dottore decided, putting away some of the documents inside his drawers. You proudly nodded at yourself and opened your mouth to say something else when you felt his gloved hand touch your cheek. You paused, staring at him with surprised and questioning eyes but he just caressed your skin, trailing from your cheek and down to your jawline.

"I'm sorry," He wrote.

You couldn't help the huge, triumphant smirk that graced your lips. Though, he didn't seem to mind, allowing you to slip off his glove and press your hand on top of his, leaning against his touch. "Now, what's this supposed to be?" You teased, narrowing your eyes at him humorously. Dottore scowled at your comment, but never pulled his hand away from you. "Forget it." He hissed, nails digging into your skin, but the slight pain only made you grin and cheeks flush.

Easily, you forgave him when you moved his hand toward your lips, pressing a kiss on his palm, before carefully slipping back his glove onto his hand. With another loving kiss on his knuckles, you bowed at him, but not as a soldier that work for him. No, but as you, his teasing lover who loves to rile him up.

Just as you were about to take a step back, to leave to resume your duties, Dottore grabbed your arm and pulled you behind his desk and onto his lap. Before you could raise any protests, he gently grabbed your chin between his fingers and tilted your head upwards, a little breathless at his sudden actions. "Now, where do you think you're going?"

Similar to the day he rose his voice, you felt yourself grow nervous under his stare. But compared to it, there was excitement flowing in your veins as his arm wrapped around your torso, his breath hot against your lips, mere inches away from one another.

"I have a mission in Liyue, you know?" You say shakily, pressing your body close to his and wrapping your around his neck, in contrast to your words. Dottore absolutely loved the sight of red painting your cheeks, the warmth of your body, the vulnerability you only show to him that he's so addicted to.

Undoubtedly, he missed you so much. But Dottore was never good at words when it comes to how he felt. Actions though? Occasionally subtle to the point, it gets on your nerves, but there are times when he touches you like a starved man. You're utterly obsessed with it. With him.

Clearly, you're never meant to be separated from one another.

Dottore only scoffed at your excuse and before you could say another word, your lips connected.

If you want to be tagged in future works, fill out this form to be added to my taglist! Remember that usernames are only lowercase and have no spaces!

Taglist: @anniejourn, @dilucssiliconedildo, @achlysyo, @sunoo-bby, @iyagato, @randomidk-123

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛❛ If you like this a lot, consider reblogging! I'll appreciate it very very much! Don't repost and/or translate my work anywhere. ❜❜ ┊˚ ̥۪͙۪◌

[maxwell-grant]

You’ll prob wait to answer this after Caped Crusader drops, but: Does making Penguin NOT a white guy drastically change the character? And if so, is that a good thing?

Anonymous asked: So... Thoughts on Oswalda from Batman: The Caped Crusader?

@jcogginsa asked: New Batman show is out, and with it is a new Penguin. Have any thoughts on Minnie Driver's take on the Penguin?

Regarding the first ask, I mean, it really ought to, right? That seems to be part of the point of doing this kind of thing, to change or recontextualize something big and important about a character in a new light. If it wasn't supposed to be some kind of big change, if it wasn't meant to at least be something new or say something slightly different, I'd ask what would be the point of doing it. Don't get me wrong, it's absolutely a thing to do just for fun / variety's sake, but it's not a choice that can just exist in a vacuum, it does matter how and why exactly you're doing it.

There's a couple of things that I'd say make or break this kind of stuff for me, besides like, you know, not removing existing meaningful elements of characters identities, like making Jewish or Romani characters generic caucasian Americans, real basic decency stuff y'know, not a lot to ask here. I think a change like this should at least bring questions to strengthen it, like: If this character is defined by certain traits or saying certain things, how is this interacting with those? Is this strengthening those existing traits and statements, is it providing new ones, or is it weakening them without offering much in return? Questions about how much can you redefine a character and still have that character be recognizable and all that, and of course the actual important questions of, Who is this for? What is being said here? Why was this decision made? And so on.

The example that comes to mind regarding that specificity, and how that can work wonders to breathe new life onto a character, is the MCU take on Namor, as Ritesh Babu elaborated on in a Patreon article

The reason I say I never truly cared for Namor is that while I thought him a great, compelling character in plenty of works I loved, I always felt a lack of emotional connection. He was enjoyable, but I didn't care about him, y'know? There was a connect. Watching Ryan Coogler's Wakanda Forever helped me bridge that disconnect. I finally realized what had been missing for me. It was Emotional Context.

Namor is historically an abrasive character. He's an angry character. He's got fury and rage, and he doesn't suffer fools. He's headstrong and unrelenting. He's an unyielding force. And he's great and fun that way, historically handled by mostly White writers (with rare exceptions, such as Greg Pak). But it was also, for me, an anger and rage and fury framed and constructed in such a way that it could be broad-strokes. It could be anything and everything from the pollution and climate ruination to perhaps some other tragic thing involving someone he cared about.

Ryan Coogler and Tenoch Huerta to me granted the character an emotional context here that clarifies everything he is, and all that shapes his thought. He's not angry at the surface world and its clownshit in abstract. It's not just the anger of a distant warrior-king of the oceans. It's the anger of the colonized, of the Othered.

What Ryan Coogler and Tenoch Huerta did is give him specificity. He's not just a broad-strokes figure in White hands, for White writers to write as an archetypal broad-strokes morally murky angry bastard guy. No, there's a specific history to this guy, there's a cultural specificity and context to his very existence.

And so Namor isn't some weird racially ambiguous/sorta white figure in largely White hands, but is instead an Indigenous Mexican hero and legend. He's a Mesoamerican figure and he's Mayan.

Coogler dispenses with the vagueries and broad-strokes thinking of the comics, and like any interesting creator should, asks good, rational questions. And that specificity, that's really what makes it for me. That's what I was missing. This is an attempt at using genre to speak to truth, to realities and real experiences, which are important to Black and Brown people. It's a far cry from some abstracted away thing to serve a primary White audience and its sensibilities or interests. - Ryan Coogler's Namor and Specificity

An example I'll give, as far as one reinvention that can make sense but I didn't find so interesting: The conception of Deadshot I like, from Suicide Squad (1987) and bits of Secret Six, is heavily informed by him being a privileged rich white man, a morally catatonic and emotionally rotten self-serving piece of shit in large part because of his privileged background and experiences, as well as a guy who's purposefully evoking the image of white western cowboys and providing commentary on their archetype. Deadshot, to me, is heavily informed by his whiteness, by his American elite background, and by his toxic masculinity, and thus the cocktail of what Deadshot is, comments on and speaks to comprises specific things that I think you'd have to approach very very differently if Floyd Lawton is a black man. I think the specificity of what that character is saying or tends to stand for is lost in adaptations that fudge those elements to make him more like the Will Smith version - you can definitely have another kind of meaningful and cool take on Deadshot, but it's a Deadshot who's gonna have to be saying different things, if he is to be saying anything at all - and most of the time, he isn't, and so to me, that context behind Deadshot is lost with not a lot gained in return. Under no circumstances does this mean you shouldn't be allowed to do it, but I feel like if you're dedicated to doing this to an existing character, there should be at least some commitment to what they are and do.

Getting back to that first question, it also really depends on what exactly are you changing. Like regarding the Penguin specifically, is it his race? His gender? His nationality? It's a very broad question to apply a single Yes or No to so I'm gonna say it's kind of both. On one hand, obviously some major aspects of his presentation and origin and defining traits would have to be altered to better correspond to that defining change. On the other hand, he is already extensively defined around his issues with his self-image and his surroundings and how people treat him, a person who is ostracized and Othered because of his looks or his background and where he stands in the city he grows up in. One of the consistent cornerstones of Oswald as a character is that he's trying extremely hard to overcompensate in wealth and class and power partially to override the ability of others to marginalize him over his weight or stature or poverty or disability and so on, in no small part that's what allowed him to take on protagonist status in recent years. If he was just a regular white guy, he'd be Rupert Thorne. Although, on the other other hand, I must stress here that treating marginalized traits as if they are equally interchangeable is how you get the X-Men school of representation, and we simply have do better than that.

I was very intrigued by the idea of turning Oswald into a woman. Fat men are very often shamed and ridiculed due to traits they are perceived to have in common with women, to be a fat man is to be dehumanized and stripped of masculinity and thus stripped of your worth of as man. To be accepted, fat men are forced to overperform masculinity just as fat women are forced to overperform femininity, and that element of overperformance is never not present in Oswald Cobblepot, who essentially lives in drag 24/7. A genderbend take on Oswald could certainly add a whole different meaning to his typical overreaction to jokes about his weight or looks, things that are commonly played as a joke. Fat women get consistently treated like absolute garbage by most people in ways that are different, more pervasive and frankly nastier than the ways fat men are also treated like garbage, and if people didn't treat him like garbage, The Penguin wouldn't be the person they are.

Penguin as a woman is a concept that could force a lot of his traits to demand renewed consideration, and in some ways you could argue he kinda already is feminized. He certainly doesn't get treated as a man the way Batman and the Joker and Bane and Gordon are. He overcompensates extremely hard in that regard, and it doesn't stick, he can act as tough and grizzled as he wants and he will never not be "the fat one", will never not get pushed around by the real man in Gotham, will never not be the unfit and bloated and squishy lesser-man hiding behind the umbrella because, why, he's not man enough to grit his teeth and hash it out with his fists. If we go back to Count Fosco from The Woman in White, we'll find this is something else they share in common:

"Fat as he is, and old as he is, his movements are astonishingly light and easy. He is as noiseless in a room as any of us women. With all his look of unmistakable mental firmness and power, he is as nervously sensitive as the weakest of us. He starts at chance noises as inveterately as Laura herself."

This passage holds the key to Marian’s complex attitude toward the Count; she is at once fascinated and threatened by him. As Marian’s description reveals, he is both alluring and dangerous, not merely because of his increasingly suspicious behavior throughout the narrative, but because he unnaturally exhibits the qualities of both sexes.

Even though Marian does not explicitly identify the Count’s androgyny as the reason for her discomfort with him, the novel’s keen preoccupation with identifying unknown figures by their sex illuminates the anxiety underlying Marian’s description of the Count. The Count complicates those binary categories, and, in true Victorian fashion, his deviance attracts simultaneous fascination and repulsion - Count Fosco and the Androgynous Mystique

He is Oswald Cobblepot, the pathetic little momma's boy, because even his personal tragedies are depicted as lesser, insignificant, not the right kind of cool cinematic masculine tragedy, and he is The Penguin, the eccentric oddly enthusiastic about worthless little things like his favorite animals and trinkets - things that the narrative deems worthless because Oswald is worthless in the literal term: he is worth less than Bruce Wayne, less than Batman, and we watch him as he fights tooth and nail to deny this, whether it's by beating Batman his own way or seeking power to avert his lot in life and stand above all the men that have put him down, or even just seeking villainy as a form of self-actualization, through that perseverance and ability to outmaneuver men so much bigger and scarier, who think they can nail the Penguin while their world is swiped from under them.

It's not for nothing that, in terms of where they stand in Batman's world nowadays, Penguin is practically sharing an apartment with Catwoman and the Riddler, the other 60s camp queens who won't leave banding together even when they can't stand each other. So, yeah, I was extremely curious as to what direction Caped Crusader was gonna lean into with the idea. Could it go wrong and be offensive garbage? Obviously, but I also thought it promised an intriguing new direction, of context that could add or rework so much about his existing traits. I didn't like the name Oswalda, no, but even besides all that I mentioned above, with The Penguin show coming out with it's new take on the character that's all about modernizing and grounding and twisting him around, I thought going big on Classic Penguin, with the top hat and monocle and sword-umbrella and existing in a Golden Age Gotham, and doing a genderflip, was a very solid idea to place opposite of it. So how did I feel about Oswalda Cobblepot?

...It sucked, guys, I'm sorry, I'm really not happy to say it. Caped Crusader's first episode was ASS, and 6 episodes in, while the rest of it has been better (not great, but tolerable, occasionally good even), that pilot was the most stone-faced I've ever been sitting through a Batman thing and frankly I don't even have anything to say about regarding Oswalda. There were tentative beginnings of a take but not actually anything that rounds out into one (and frankly I'd say this Harley Quinn also has that problem to a lesser degree, this show so far has been just really barebones across the board), and frankly I'm not asking for much, I've lived off breadcrumbs before when it comes to Penguin, I'd be good with something if there was something. She isn't remotely a threat to Batman and seems pretty damn dumb, and she gets dealt with on the pilot to make way for Rupert Thorne in a way that kinda really betrays the escalation theme they're shooting for here and it's, guys what else am I supposed to talk about here, seriously?

I don't even like the design that much, it feels like they started from Penguin's head and shoulders and then tried as hard as possible to cinch her waist and slim her down leaving a weird disproportion between her upper body and legs, it looks weird in some shots but I guess you could say that's just the animation being, uh, sub-par to be polite. I guess I like her ruthlessness and that scene where she murders one of her sons, even though that's her being really stupid not noticing the obvious snitch in the room, and it's more so because that was the only moment in the episode where something almost cool happened. I do like her being a cabaret singer, but, man she sounds way too boring for a character with such a distinct way of speaking, if she didn't look like the Penguin from the shoulders up you would never tell that's who this was supposed to be.

I'm sorry that she continues Penguin's bad streak from BTAS, man what a bummer. Still, I have been really enjoying The Batman Audio Adventures lately, it's not like I'm starved for a more classically flavored take on Penguin, so it's only a bummer. I'm open to the idea that she can come back in a later season for a better showing, and she was far from the worst thing about the episode, in fact by process of elimination she was overall the best, but she was the one part I had the most slight hopes for. Oh well.

[luxe-pauvre]

Some people postpone “real life” to distant points in the future, subconsciously telling themselves it’s when they graduate, or get married, or switch jobs, or retire, that the truly meaningful part of life will begin. (I’ve sometimes been guilty of that, too.) But the short-horizon version of this tendency is in some ways more seductive, and thus more dangerous, because the future moment in question is due to arrive so imminently you can almost reach out and touch it. It’s not “in 30 years, when I retire.” It’s the day after tomorrow, just as soon as I’ve got this article out of the way… It was my growing disillusionment with this outlook that led me, eventually, to what now feels like a baseline principle for living a calm, meaningfully productive and enjoyable life, which is that in the end, striving toward sanity never works. You have to operate from sanity instead. […] And the basic principle in operation, as far as I can grasp it, is this: if you treat sanity as something you have to get to, by doing a lot of preparatory things first, the main effect will be to reinforce the sense of its being out of reach. You might get plenty of useful things done along the way, but you won’t reach peace of mind – because you’ll effectively be telling yourself, on a daily basis, that peace of mind is off in the distance, and never available here. Operating from sanity, by contrast, means embodying a certain orientation toward life now, first, then doing stuff – rather than doing the stuff in an effort to attain the orientation. The crucial point is that it has to be now, not next year, and not even in a few hours’ time. In his book Anti-Time Management, Richie Norton breaks it into two steps: “1. Decide who you want to be. 2. Act from that identity immediately.”

Oliver Burkeman, How to choose sanity now

[hungee-boy]

Feel free to ignore if you’re uncomfortable with or just don’t want to answer but how would you change isebela to not be caricature without changing the whole character? Would it be more fashion changes or physical or something else?

Kinda like: how would you change her if you were her character writer/designer for the new game?

isabela at her core i think is a very compelling character and is relatable to a lot of romani experiences, especially with her doing whatever she has to to survive

i would definitely keep her stealing as castillion's responsibility, him making her steal the tome of koslun under threat of death for example would be fine because if he wasnt in the picture, chances are she wouldnt have stolen it in the first place

other forms of thievery besides just like looting bodies and picking chests (as those are gameplay mechanics for all characters) shouldnt be for her enjoyment or greed, only for her survival or just not done at all

her staying a pirate is fine imo and i like the idea of her being an ethical pirate (like her freeing the slaves castillion had her transport) but we all need to look at how pirates are depicted in fantasy and how much of that is anti-roma racism and caricatures

her being so sexualized and her comments on "life back home" are where i have the biggest issues honestly

like romani women have always been targets of fetishization and sexual violence, as well as many women being sterilized without consent to prevent more romani children being brought into the world

getting some damn clothes on her would be a great start, like some pants at the very least. i would like to incorporate more romani clothing in her design tho like maybe a traditional blouse instead of her usual top

maybe a romanced isabela can have her replace her blue dikhlo with red, since wearing a dikhlo is usually reserved for married women of certain vitsas (most common with eastern european roma if im not mistaken) or giving her a red hipcloth (again specific to certain vitsas)

romani dress is usually modest and loose fitting, with women commonly wearing long skirts and blouses with jewelry and adornments to symbolize her wealth and status and im not saying isabela should be covered head to toe, shes an open person and not every romani woman should be expected to dress one way over another, its just her look is way too impractical for the sake of being sexy and again romani women are very often sexualized regardless of what they wear

isabela's attitude towards sex and being open to intimacy is not an issue on its own, what is the issue is how the writers make fucking jokes of her sexuality at every chance they get (like the std joke in anders' clinic, aveline's slut shaming, etc. etc. etc.....) and this is just my personal opinion but there are times that she comes on too strong to like hawke or carver or fenris that seems unrealistic and just like an attempt for the writers to further hone in on how horny shes supposed to make you feel

like yes have her be open and not ashamed of being intimate but put more love and respect on it. i love an isabela that is repressed in her own feelings and the only way she knows how to have meaningful connections is through sex cus thats what was expected of her. like oh my god do you know how many people relate to that, if its done right it could be a very compelling arch to her character and maybe something she learns isnt concrete the more platonic/romantic meaningful time she has with everyone in da2 and beyond

as for her comments about rivain and the people there, like the phrase "even deny a fortune teller and theyll run you out of town" to merrill, just makes rivainis out to be greedy and shameless swindlers and that projection is obviously also put on romani people since that is a VERY common stereotype

like the phrase "getting gypped" literally means to be cheated and comes from the word gypsy. theres no denying the intention the writers had when they wrote that line for isabela

and honestly i love the idea of rivain (i say the idea cus we only hear accounts of the nation, we havent seen it in person yet) i love the idea of a matriarchal society that is religious and spiritual but does not tolerate the chantry's bigotry and openly accepts society's outcast such as mages and qunari

romani culture irl is patriarchal and often anybody who is not romani is typically not trusted, but if rivain was treated as an idealistic fantasy romanistan, where our values and traditions are implemented and we make a better world for ourselves and other outcasts then it could be very compelling

thats the thing with representation, sometimes it doesnt have to reflect reality 100%, but it still requires knowledge so that you can make new ideas based on the facts and reasoning of the group youre representing

[wings-of-ink]

Hello! Hope your day is at least half as lovely as you are!

I have been meaning to ask this ever since the last chapter came out but, uh, didn't...?

So, I believe I have seen you, in an ask, mention that in the bathing scene Oswin should be able to react to seeing the scar he had given you in a sword duel sparring match thingy (the one you select in the scar section if your trade is swordsmanship). I, despite my countless, brave, and determined attempts, have not been able to achieve [seeing] this. Is this an issue on my part? Should I keep flustering my dear boy by replaying the scene over and over until I finally get it??

Thank you in advance! Love all your stuff, the RO asks have me far more weak than I'd like - or like to admit. As such, thank you for being such an amazing writer as well.

Hello my friend! My day has been sleepy but good!

You are correct, I remember popping that into an Ask somewhere. And it's funny you ask now, because it has been on my mind recently, lol. You must be channeling to me. That scar specifically I debated about when I was actually writing the scene. The reason being, is that MC keeps their back to whomever is with them and I kept getting conflicted as to if the discussion might come up since it's the visual that prompts the convo. So I left it out...and then here recently I was rethinking that decision, and then I had a different idea anyway.

The scar that did make it into that scene is the one where the MC duels the other kid and they take a cheap swing at them, scaring their back pretty badly. There's also a couple tattoos that get mentioned. There was another scar as well that didn't get any attention, that is around the back of the MC's neck - I haven't decided if I will add that or not.

For the Oswin scar, I think now I'd rather do another segment where that one can come up. One that they can have a more meaningful discussion about it. Maybe Oswin can touch it and things like that if I do it this way instead. So it can be a moment for touch if the MC wants or just to talk about it, since Oswin's feelings are going to be kinda heavy. It can be a whole thing instead of a few passing remarks.

Sorry you didn't get what you were looking for in that scene, though I am pleased that the ROs have you weak in the knees. ^_^

You are too kind, my friend. I am so happy that you have found such enjoyment in this story. It really fuels me to keep at it and make something you can all adore.

[hirazuki]

Hush, child, the darkness will rise from the deep And carry you down into sleep, Child, the darkness will rise from the deep And carry you down into sleep. (Loyalty loyalty loyalty loyalty Loyalty loyalty loyalty only to me.) -- Mordred's Lullaby

Personal preferred interpretation of *gestures to everything* under the cut! Warning for blatant and shameless conflation of multiple versions of the text with pure, self-indulgent headcanons.

I've gone back and forth on this a lot, but I think I've finally settled on preferring Eol to be both a Dark Elf (i.e. never went to Aman) and a "darkened elf" (i.e. former thrall of Angband/corrupted by Melkor). I know Tolkien changed his mind on both of these later, but I don't find it repetitive at all to have Maeglin also suffer the same fate; I think the cycle is meaningful and adds another layer of complexity to these characters. Also, it would give Eol's "ill at ease" within Melian's girdle and seeking to stay away additional meaning, making it a physical consequence of his circumstances and not only a predilection of his personality. Idk, the more layers and reasons something has behind it, the more enjoyment I draw from it :)

I do like Eol being Sindar and Thingol's kin, but also more alike in spirit and behavior to the Avari than anything else. Witch of the Wilds aesthetic, and more in tune with nature and the land than the Sindar in Doriath. He and Maeglin have always given me a Morgana and Mordred vibe. (fun fact: the mirror is supposed to be obsidian, which is used for scrying.)

He truly loved his son, and his relationship with Maeglin was no more and no less positive/negative than your average father-son relationship -- some minor disagreements as any parent and child are bound to have -- until Maeglin started expressing a desire to see the Noldor; and it was all downhill from there. He still loved his son, however, despite everything, and his attempt to choose death over Gondolin for him was done out of love as well. Perhaps not a healthy love, but a genuine one all the same.

Eol being a darkened elf + Maeglin being born in Beleriand + the "Melkor ingredient" present in all matter outside of the Blessed Realm = a compounded (x3) tendency towards Melkor within Maeglin's spirit that was there since he was conceived. If everyone who has a body that is nourished by Arda (outside of Aman) has an inclination towards Melkor that they can't be free of in their incarnate forms, how much stronger might that be if one of your parents is a former thrall who -- going off of his behavior and tendencies -- still bears the marks of that bond? I like to think that the way Melkor affects his thralls can carry down genetically, even for elves that remain elves and weren't turned into orcs.

I personally prefer Maeglin to not be under an enchantment as a way to explain why he betrayed Gondolin -- I like him being responsible for his own actions! Even if he also never had a chance and was doomed from before he was born. I like the interplay of those two concepts and generally don't find them mutually exclusive -- but I do love the idea of compulsion. Of his pre-existing link to Melkor through Eol and through Arda being used (I prefer this to be Mairon's work, but it certainly can be done by Melkor instead) to sway him. Like, not Mairon actually spelling him and making him not be in control of his body or not being able to warn people in Gondolin because his speech is bound, etc., but like. Mairon slipping certain elements into the fabric of his voice -- he is Ainur; underscoring his speech with Music is no big deal -- to manipulate that Melkor ingredient within Maeglin and make him be more receptive. Compliant. Add to that some carefully crafted understanding as one talented smith who knows what it is like to feel ill-suited to his surroundings to another, a little bribery, and, of course, the ever-present and very real threat of torture -- in delicately balanced respective quantities -- and done.

This is totally entirely self-indulgent headcanon territory here, especially since Mairon is never actually present for Maeglin's imprisonment in any version of the text (to my knowledge) BUT: I like to think that, just as with Maedhros in my headcanons, Mairon formed a kind of reluctant attachment to Maeglin. But whereas with Maedhros it was more of an equal footing type of thing, a grudging acknowledgement of a worthy opponent being cut from the same cloth, with Maeglin it's more of a foster situation. Like: "Here is this very valuable prisoner who we can work with, who -- with a only a small amount of effort -- is amenable to working together and he's the son of a former thrall so there's already a connection there and, oh, he's also a smith? Oh, he's actually pretty good. Wait, he's only 189 years old, idk because I've never cared much for elves but isn't that ridiculously young wtf, he's clearly ambitious and reeling for approval and acknowledgement and will easily take to a guiding hand. Well, there's no one else around but me, I guess I'll take one for the team and the war effort and all that" *accidentally transfers all the instructing instincts he possesses that had previously gone to his wolves now all long dead, he doesn't keep wolves anymore since losing Tol-in-Guarhoth, it's too painful to this strange elf* Again, not healthy, but complicated and messy and invested.

... I did not mean to make it all about Mairon again lmao I am so sorry XD

I'm sure I'll have additional thoughts as I keep re-reading the Silmarillion, or my opinions/preferences may somewhat alter (I still have to sit down and read HoME and Nature of Middle Earth properly, I've only read snippets), but. an overwhelming number of you voted that you enjoyed reading stuff like this so. There you go. This is where I'm currently at lol.

[sunlightnmoonshine]

It is unfortunate that the writers intention was to make the audience feel sympathy for eunseung but lop sided writing meant irritation was only ever directed at the character. The ending that eunseung got was clearly an attempt meant to tug at sympathy strings especially the zoning in on the necklace and the dialogue prior, of him not understanding why he was unloved, but the issue is -

1. there has been no valid attempt to show us why he should be loved in the first place, every attempt to get haein was by ruining her life first, we don't even have a clear reason as to why he liked her in the first place except for pure obsession (which just seems weird now given we have that flashback now and know that he despised the family and you mean to tell me that one dog scene was all it did???). The writer could have even gone the route of saying his need to be with haein was so that he could be closer to his mother or something, like even that would have made more sene than what we got, and so when he looked at haein in with that hurt after literally being a jackass the whole series with no reason why she should have ever liked him it's difficult to give a shit about his death although it's clear the writer was aiming for that.

2. his relationship with his mother has been so poorly executed, we should have got this messed up dynamic in earlier episodes so that we could see how little moh seul hee actually cared about him and how eunseung was broken by this, instead we got a few mediocre conversations that always ended with him willingly benefitting from her plans, plotting with her, ruining characters with her, and all in all just being all "you abandoned me" one scene and then "that's what we need to do to maintain our wealth" the next. We could have had such character exploration by delving into his hatred and abandonment issues had they linked it to the story instead of just shoving his meaningless obsession down our threats.

3. there is little added to his character at all, he doesn't care about anyone, you dont see him meaningfully interact with anyone, even his business prowess is a lukewarm tell don't show situation, when da hye felt bad for him I was like why? there has been nothing shown to the audience where you have reason to feel bad for him, if anything his end seemed too kind after everything the main characters had been put through and more importantly outside of haein he hasn't had a single moment of kindness. Frankly he didn't have a single meaningful moment.

A good villain does not in anyway need to be redeemable, but they do need to be enjoyable to watch and it seems like the writer tried to create a complicated villain but fell short by just giving him three main traits "I have mommy issues, I am obsessed with a woman who has shown no interest me, and I hate the man she loves because I am not him" that for the most part were poorly unpacked and then failed to invoke feeling from a perceptive audience.

With all this said, park sung hoon did a great job working with what little he had and deserves all the praise and well so long eunseung I'll miss yelling at you every week.

[rpedia]

How to deal with lack of motivation to reply?

Ah, the old blank screen stare. So, for the most part I consider this issue to be several intersecting problems at the same time. Usually a lack of motivation indicates a.) a lack of fun/enjoyment, b.) low/no expectation of reward, or c.) fear or apprehension. Let's explore that under the cut.

When you are roleplaying and you're not enjoying yourself explicitly, if the journey to a finished post is not fun itself, we're kind of fucking ourselves over. Creation of these words, excitement at turning a phrase or approaching an idea you really want to explore is basically the whole gist of it. It is a hobby, and loving what you write and laughing at your own jokes is important! You are your own first audience, and if you're not impressed or pleased with what you're writing, it becomes an endless Sisyphean task where you unhappily struggle to write something, anything, to just get through it.

In this case it may be a lack of inspiration. With no structure, or core, we can really easily lose sight of what kind of play we're looking for. What are your goals? Are you here for plot, or character? For smut, or a quick playful bit of banter? Do you want to fight, or are you reaching for some overarching thing? Hell, do you know where THIS scene is headed, or does it feel like an endless trudge? These ideals disappearing or falling to the wayside for someone else can really fuck the vibe!

How are you supposed to know what to write, if you don't have any plans for the character, or don't know where they might potentially go? Like it doesn't have to be hard and fast, but understanding your characters own personal goals, fears, joys, and secrets (entirely different to you, the player) can help with motivation in writing them. I like to explore these by playing games with myself, and daydreaming about scenarios and possibilities that aren't "canon" to my character, but just let me know more about them if a similar situation were to come up. Having a library chock-full of potential what-ifs can help a ton in figuring out how to approach any actions or direction a partner may push you towards. Be excited to explore your character, and to show them off to others! This journey is soooo important to love for itself!

Like with any piece of art, not enjoying the process is a quick short-cut to burn-out and misery. So, if this is happening you might want to adjust some things if you're sitting there upset and bored instead of enjoying what should be a fun pastime you can lose yourself in! So instead of beating yourself up about posting, figure out why it's a chore. Are you taking care of yourself? Have you met the S.H.R.E.K. criteria for the day? Is this post not something in your wheelhouse, or do you feel like you could be doing something else and getting more fun out of it?

Before I get ahead of myself, let me address the truly horrific acronym I just threw at you. S.H.R.E.K. criteria? Who would inflict this on you? Well... me, because it's so memetic and stupid I remember it way better than most acronyms, so buckle up buttercup. It stands for:

Socialization: Have you talked to someone or had meaningful interactions with others for the day? Depending on your needs, you may need hugs, touching others, chatting with loved ones, or cuddling. Some people literally need to be touched, held, hugged, and talked with the thrive, and others can do just fine with a little less. Listen to the monkey studies: Don't be a wire mother to yourself, let yourself have cloth mother sometimes. Hydration: Have you been drinking enough liquids to be hydrated and keep your piss from being too yellow? No liquids means your body starts sucking at everything from getting oxygen to the brain, to making food into energy. Make sure you balance hydration with salt and food intake, but never underestimate what a good cold cup of something can do. And yes, any liquid works. Coffee is dehydrating, so is soda, but their hydrating effect is way bigger than how often they make you piddle so it balances out. Still, water is best but don't beat yourself up about it. Rest: Have you slept enough in the last 24 hours? I know you think 4-6 is okay, but it's really not, it will actually cause you to behave like an alcoholic and lead to later insomnia, mental issue worsening, and health problems like heart issues. Nip that in the bud, sleep full 8-10 hour nights. Or nap if you're just sleepy! Eat: Have you shoved nutritious food in your gob or are you dying from scurvy, beri-beri, and malnutrition simultaneously while depriving the lil dudes who help you write a good lunch? Don't starve your lil neuron folks, they need a good meal too. Even if it's just ingredients for a meal, anything is better than nothing and you deserve food. Kinetics: Have you moved around? Stretched? Walked or played? Sometimes if you're starting out from zero, you might try just standing up and sitting down a couple times to help get bloodflow going! Getting active at whatever level you're at is good for the brain.

Anyways after that interlude, back to basics. At the lowest tier we want to be having fun. If we're not, it might be us, or it might be a boring lackluster partner. That's where a lack of reward comes in. If the partner is, bless them and their hard work, just not giving you the thrills to pay the dopamine bills? That just might mean you guys aren't a good match! This is not the end of the world, it just means you might need to stop playing with them.

Step back, consider if roleplaying with their style and output is worth your time and effort, and do BOTH of you a favor if they aren't. Set them free to play with other players who love their writing and can't get enough of it, and stop grating your teeth across cement trying to come up with something to keep things you don't even like going. This is the communication part, remember how I used to harp on that? Well old Uragani still thinks it's super important. So discuss that 'hey, we might not be a great fit for writing together' and come up with solutions. Maybe finding new partners, and just staying friends, or just waving goodbye to each other and hitting the road.

Here we find ourselves looking at challenger #3, the good old fear and apprehension. This comes up more than I'd like to admit. Are you worried about what's happening next? Or how you might portray something? Have you worked yourself up too much, and now you feel like you can never meet your own expectations? Are you scared of letting down a partner, and not giving them your best? Do you feel like your post might go over an unwritten line, and leave people upset with you?

Congrats! I hate that shit too! I do not know why brains do this to us! I would like to sue!

Anxiety is a hell of a beast, so is Impostor Syndrome, and fear of letting people down, and all the other fun goodies in that bag. They can be worked on at home, in small doses. You gotta learn to sit back, and be able to talk to yourself. Why are you feeling this way, and finding the name for your emotional state, accepting it, and letting it pass through can help. In major situations, you might need to find yourself a good old Common Sense Dispenser, better known as a therapist. They have the tools you need, and yes, roleplay can be a play you find out what you need. It's not dumb, it's useful.

Working through this can be as simple as discussing your fears with your partner and making sure everything is kosher. It might need you to look at a worst case scenario and then planning an exit strategy for that, even if it never happens. Sometimes, you just gotta heft yourself up, and push through the fear. There's a million ways to get through it, and I'm not the person who can tell you which will work for you. But I can tell you, it gets better the longer you work with it. Confidence comes from experience, the more you work at it, the more it feels like second nature.

But that brings with it the last beast, the hidden #4. Burn-out. Sometimes, when we delve too deeply into something we love, we ignore the signs of burn-out. Losing interest in things we once deeply enjoyed. Feeling exhausted at the thought of starting a post, or writing anything. Feeling like we've lost touch with what we used to be good at. Burn out can be a miserable thing, because it stand between us and our goals, our happiness, and it keeps them behind the thickest glass, so we can see them, but getting them feels impossible. The harder we push, the thicker the glass becomes.

In cases of burn out, like the kind I've experienced, sometimes you need to take a step back and just do something else. Go on hiatus. Maybe it's hooked to a character, and you simply have to play with some other muse. Maybe it's with another player, and finding a new fandom without them in it can help. Maybe it's with writing at large, and you need to go find some other outlet to explore while this one heals. You cannot do the same thing forever, you will lose touch with what makes it special. Believe me.

But after healing, which can take years if you keep pushing it like some idiot who wrote RPedia long after you should stop, it'll be fun again. You'll want to come back, and do the thing you were good at, and loved again. The spark will return, and things just... settle and feel better. I promise. Just let yourself have that time to recover without pushing yourself somewhere you aren't meant to go right now.

Naturally there's other stuff too. ADHD/Autism/other issues could be throwing the executive dysfunction ball into your lap and suddenly doing the thing you've done a thousand times is impossible. Stars aren't in alignment. Maybe you're stressed out because of an external force and need a break. Maybe the thread you're in has been going on too long in the same scene, and you need to cut and start a "fresh episode" before everything stays stale forever. Maybe you just aren't in the mood! There's a million reasons, but all of them come down to figuring out what the problem is, and engaging with ways to break that problem down into bits. Find your fun. Look for partners who make you feel like writing with them is worth it. Work with your fears, and express yourself about them and let them past through you. Find external help if needed, and take care of your body while you're at it.

And hey, remember, I am not the end all be all of advice. It could totally be something outside of these circumstances, but I'd like to think that in my experience these are the major factors that I keep coming across. If any of this has been a help, I can only be happy to have said it. Thank you so much for reading!

[mogamuncher]

Ok ok I know it hasn't been that long but it just hit me and now I have to inflict this on y'all as well (also season 3 of Re:Zero dropped and I've been gnawing at the walls)

So, remember how in my last Cakeverse post I proposed a Re:Zero branch of this au, with Subaru as the Cake and a lot of other characters as Forks? Well now I really want to brainstorm and analysize more closely what exactly this would mean for Subaru as a character, and how it would affect the story.

Because, like, here's the thing right: Subaru already gets killed by his own friends, a lot. Like, a concerning amount. If you made a tier list of the people most adept at killing Subaru then you'd see that a lot of his friends are up there (with himself being way higher ofc), so what's the point of this Au? What would it change for Subaru if his friends killed him for being a Cake instead of literally anything else?

See, this is where the themes of love in Re:Zero come to play, there's a reason why I specifically picked this fandom for this AU (outside of my own bias), this story is inherently about love. Every character has their own definition of love, their stories are permanently marked by it, Re: Zero is fundamentally a story about love.

Similarly, Cakeverse is an Au all about love as well. Both mediums represent all the visceral, ugly, terrifying and gory aspects of love, exploring them through a gimmick and metaphors as to drive the point home. The time loop is a metaphor for love, the cannibalism is also a metaphor for love, both are utilizing their most brutal aspects to literally hit the audience over the head with a hammer with their themes of love and what it means to love someone.

i think fusing both of these perspectives of how to explore love would be amazing. Thinking about those deaths with Rem or the kiss of death, how meaningful it would be to have the two women that Subaru loves most, who he would sacrifice himself over and over again, who consume and own his soul literally consume his body.

How enhanced would Subaru's own complexes be once he realized that the people whom he cares for literally want to eat him? Furthermore, how would he react to the fact that he's the only thing they can taste? Fate cruelly stripped them of a basic function everyone else has from birth, potentially turning them into a social pariah from the jump if others found out, and most importantly, they'll never know the feeling of eating for reasons outside of strict necessity, no enjoyment to be found in a plate.

I mentioned the concept of Cakes wanting to give parts of themselves away because they enjoy the feeling of being useful, of making someone satisfied and happy even if it tears the asunder. I do truly believe that Subaru, once he has the full context of what being a Fork entails, would spiral into this sort of behavior—ESPECIALLY if Rem and Emilia are Forks.

While, yes, he learns to not abuse Return By Death and to value himself in Arc 4, I do believe that some of his issues with being a Cake would still be mainly unresolved, because Subaru would genuinely feel awful for all the Forks that are in that sort of situation, especially if they're someone he knows.

His bleeding heart looks at the isolation Forks face, he sees how they're fundamentally missing something that everyone else around them already had effortlessly, they're being left behind by the world itself inherently for who they are, stagnating, and it's like looking in the mirror. Forks and Cakes didn't exist in his world, but he knows what it is like to feel misplaced in the world at large.

So he puts his bad habits to "productive use", food soaked in blood to give out flavor, telling Emilia to kiss him whenever she just wants to taste anything for a change, letting Rem or even Otto take a bite whenever, maybe this can even extend to Louis down the line. Out of seeing Forks as his kindred spirits, a misplaced feeling of guilt and his own skewed self perception, I fully believe Subaru would actively serve himself up to the Forks around him that are close to him.

As you can guess, the reactions to this behavior would vary, a lot. I also think that rest of the cast that aren't involved in these dynamics would be extremely concerned when seeing it from the outside. Like: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU ARE LETTING YOUR FRIENDS BITE YOU?!" Sort of stuff.

For a record, in my brain I believe that a few of the folks that would be Forks in this Au would be:

Elsa, Rem, Ram, Emilia, Satella, Otto, Reinhard, the gluttonies, Shaula, Todd, Cecilus and maybe Vincent.

And here are the Cakes:

Roswaal, Heinkel, Subaru (obviously), Felix, Aldebaran, Wilhelm, Betelgeuse, and maybe even Echidna herself

Anyways, much to think about. Feel free to come up with more ideas and concepts as well, I'd love to hear everyone's ideas for this Au!

[house-of-galathynius]

Overdrive

Chapter Four

Chapter Three - Chapter Five 

Word Count: 3.1k

~

Aelin

The luxury of being born into a wealthy family meant that Aelin never really had to think about getting a job or worrying about money. The disadvantage to this was that she spent a lot of her time twiddling her thumbs and trying to figure out what she actually wanted from life.

With Lysandra caring for her new baby and Aedion starting pre-season prep, it meant Aelin was at a loose end. She’d finished her masters degree and hadn’t rushed into finding a position because God knows she didn’t know what she really wanted to do. But she found herself procrastinating, not really finding anything productive to do with her days. There were only so many brunches she could go to with her mum or pilates classes she could stomach. The people who ran in her parents social circle weren’t exactly exciting, and most of them didn’t see the point in Aelin being ambitious— why would she, when her father had enough money to support her indefinitely.

Her father was at the breakfast table reading the news, the TV was on low in the background and her mother was pottering about the kitchen when she entered. Sure, Aelin could have been back in Melbourne in her own apartment or at one of their family houses basking up the sun. But instead she was at her parents’ home in the countryside enjoying her time with them.

“What’s up, kid?” Her dad said cheerfully.

Aelin slumped down into a chair and poured herself some coffee from the pot. “I’m bored.”

Evalin laughed and her dad chuckled to himself. “The garage needs sorting out. Or you can finally fix up the old car in there. It’s been sitting waiting for you for three years.”

Aelin groaned. “I want to do something meaningful, dad. Not hide myself away and play with an old car that will never get driven anyway.”

He put down his tablet and met her eyes. “I told you that Murtaugh offered you a spot as an engineer. You told me there wasn’t any chance in hell you’d go back.”

Which had been true. After her introduction back into the F1 world a month ago, her father had taken it as a sign that she might be willing to jump back into racing again. Rhoe had been full of nothing but glee when he’d informed her that Red Bull needed another engineer for the season. But after one evening surrounded by the drivers— surrounded by Rowan— it had all but confirmed her aversion to that industry and the people within it.

“It might be a really good opportunity for you. You’d barely interact with the drivers and it’d mean you could be with Aedion and support him for the season.” Her mother said with a slight hopefulness to her voice. “Plus, it would get you out of the house and doing something you love.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to get rid of me.”

Her parents laughed, but shared a look as if to say that they were trying to get rid of her. “We’ll support you in whatever you do, Aelin. But it’s been four months since you graduated and I think that it would be a really great opportunity for you.”

It was true. What better experience was there than becoming an engineer for a Formula One team? Since she had been ten years old, it had been her goal to become one. Her dream had started because she had been desperate to make sure her dad’s car was the safest it could possibly be. Then it had morphed into genuine enjoyment and before everything had gone to shit, she had been on course to join Red Bull as an apprentice. Then the shit-show had happened. And all she wanted to do was leave behind any sort of memory of Rowan—  including anything to do with F1. But she had a stubborn realisation that she wasn’t going to let him take everything from her. So she’d stayed and endured the years of study.

She turned back to her parents, “I don’t even like being around those people. Going to the awards with Aedion was enough to remind me that I don’t care for that world.” Although her heart was saying that it would be fun, that maybe she could ignore him.

“Ace, that was one evening. You know what those events are like… you’d be too busy during the day to think about where you were and too tired in the evening to bother with socialising. And the reporters will stay away from you because they can’t go near the cars anyway.”

Her mother nodded in agreement. “Don’t let one person ruin this for you. You have been working so hard to achieve this. It’d be a shame to let it go to waste.”

As always, her mother was right. Aelin hated that fact… but she also hated being in this in between state with nothing to do. And it was probably true; she’d barely see the drivers and she’d be too tired after the day of work to bother socialising with any of them. But she would be lying if she didn’t say that her stomach dipped at the thought of spending nine months travelling the world in close quarters to Rowan.

“I’ll leave it up to you. But don’t say no just because you’re scared.”

~

Rowan

Pre-season testing always hyped him up. The winter break was always too long and he craved to be back in the car.

This winter break had felt too long.

When he had finally received the email of his schedule and he realised there were only two weeks left before he would be back in the car, he could barely contain his excitement. In fact, he’d gone out with Fenrys that evening and had celebrated the return of the season with one last booze-fest and then rewarded himself with the prettiest girl in the bar.

His head didn’t thank him the next day, but it had been enough fun that he didn’t care. Of course, once he’d politely encouraged the woman to leave his house he’d finally felt fully relaxed and could enjoy a long run on his treadmill and an easy breakfast on the patio.

The house he lived in might have felt empty, but there were still certain parts of it that he loved. Although, he was eagerly anticipating the day he would get to leave and not have to look at the place for almost a year.

Rowan’s phone vibrated on the table and when he saw Aedion’s name on the screen he felt an ounce of dread seep into him. Whilst he had a lot of respect for Aedion on and off the track, the two of them rarely communicated unless it was to do with something race related.

“Hey man.” Rowan answered casually.

There was faint crying of a baby in the background and then Aedion’s voice cutting through it. “Hey. Sorry to call you so early. I just thought you should be aware of something.”

Rowan sat up straighter. “Is everything okay?”

“Of course. I mean, I’m great. But um,” there was a beat of silence, “Aelin is coming to join the team. Murtaugh offered her a position as an engineer for this season.”

Rowan was quiet. “I thought she turned it down?”

“She was going to. But she changed her mind.” There was sigh through the phone and then Aedion began talking again. “I don’t know what happened between the two of you and honestly at this point I’m too afraid to ask. But I wanted you to know so that you weren’t surprised when she’s there.”

“Right.” He replied slowly. He didn’t know what Aedion wanted him to say. Did he want Rowan to kick off and complain? Or was he waiting for Rowan to admit something about their relationship— or lack thereof. He wasn’t entirely sure, and in all honesty his emotions about this bit of news were all over the place. “Thanks for the heads up.”

“Sure,” Aedion said hesitantly, “you’re not going to make this an issue, are you?”

Rowan scoffed. “No offence, Aedion. But I don’t care about your cousin coming to work for the team. All I am focused on is winning another championship.” The word cousin seemed to be the only way Rowan could pretend that she was just another insignificant person.

“Got it. I’ll see you in a few weeks then.”

The phone went dead and Rowan didn’t move from his position. He’d assumed his run-in with Aelin at the awards ceremony was a one-off. She hadn’t been in the F1 world for five years and he had assumed after their disastrous meeting last time, she would just avoid coming back into it again.

Rowan realised he was gripping the table so tight that his knuckles were turning white. He immediately let go and paced across the floor. He tried to convince himself that it wouldn’t be that bad. She may not be working on his car… and even if she was, he’d only have to see her in passing and he could ignore her.

He’d just finished a run but his body was tense again. He would need to find a better coping mechanism than this for when he was around her more.

~

Aelin

Murtaugh had been more than thrilled at Aelin wanting to join the team. And though she had her reservations about being back, there was a simmering excitement within her at getting to work on such an exciting project.

Her father and Aedion had been just as excited as her and the two of them had been swapping stories with her all evening. Although her father had retired to bed when the clock had hit one in the morning— leaving Aelin and Aedion to finish off the bottle of whisky between themselves and enjoy the last weekend before shit hit the fan.

“I told Rowan you’re coming back.” Aedion said in between sips.

Aelin rolled her head to the side and glared at him. “Why would you do that?”

Aedion shrugged. “I didn’t want there to be any surprises. After your last encounters with each other, I thought it be best that he was aware you’d be around.”

“Shouldn’t you be spending your time looking after your newborn? Rather than worrying about how Rowan might react to seeing me?”

Aedion snorted. “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you say his name since whatever happened.”

“I’ve said his name plenty of times.” She replied defensively.

“Ace, I’m being serious. If at any point you think that you two are going to clash and make working together difficult, you have to say. Rowan is on a mission for another championship and you have a massive responsibility in making sure our cars are the best they can be. You can’t be distracted.”

“Jesus, Aedion. I know.” She finished her drink and turned to him, “if I thought I couldn’t handle it, I wouldn’t have said yes.”

Aedion went silent. She knew that she was being unfair on him. After all, he was just trying to look out for her. But she didn’t need him or anyone else telling her how to work or to be careful. She was a grown up. And she had been letting what happened with Rowan stop her from being in the world she used to love for too long.

“Whatever happened between us is over. I think seeing him again made me realise I’ve been holding onto anger against him for too long and I need to get over it.”

Aedion laughed. “The fact you’ve been holding a grudge for so long suggests that you won’t get over it that quickly.”

Aelin playfully hit him and poured herself another drink. “We’ll see. At this point I’m just going to stay away from him because I don’t think I have anything nice to say anyway.”

“So mature of you.”

It was the first time in a while that she had been able to talk about Rowan without wanting to scream at the top of her lungs or hide away in a corner from embarrassment. Whilst she had spent five years trying to forget about him and avoid talking about him, in her subconscious there was always a part of her that remembered the day they stopped being friends. She didn’t think that any amount of time would erase the memory of it. Her therapist had told her multiple times that talking it out with Rowan would ease the pain, but Aelin had been unwilling to listen and had shut down any further conversations about him. But maybe her therapist had been right…

She finished her drink and then stood. “I’m going to head to bed. I’ve got some prep to do before I start work next week and would rather not be hanging for the next two days.”

She left Aedion sitting there and as she made her way into bed and lay there thinking; she hoped that what they had talked about what be true. She wanted nothing more than for this job to work out. And she hoped that both her and Rowan would be mature enough to work together civilly.

~

Rowan

The only thing he didn’t enjoy about his job was the meetings. Gods they dragged on so long, and there were always so many of them. Especially at the beginning of the season when there were so many new people and new things to learn. But Rowan absolutely loathed the day long talks and the constant stream of people trying to speak to him— or on some occasions— flirt with him.

There were of course the people he was happy to see. And he spent as much time with them as possible before he was pulled away by Murtaugh to say hello to others.

“Rowan, we want you to come meet your engineers.” One of the coordinators told him, interrupting a dull conversation with a stakeholder.

He happily followed the petite red-haired into the large conference room and nodded in acknowledgement to a couple of long-term employees— whose names he should have known. Then he was being seated at the head of the table and within seconds there were people pouring into the room as well. Some of them smiled at him, others gave him a look of pity— he reminded himself to steer clear of them when they were in the garage. The ones who didn’t look at him at all were few, and they tended to be the newest members who were still a little awe-struck at being around him and Aedion.

Rowan was politely listening to what the coordinator had to say when his attention shifted to the door. His stomach did a flip at seeing her standing there— chuckling to something Murtaugh had just said. It seemed the entirety of the room had shifted their attention to her now, too. Not only did she have this immediate draw to her, but she was the spitting image of her father— save for those Ashryver eyes.

“What is she doing here?” Rowan asked the red-haired girl who was still loitering beside him. Her own gaze fixed on Aelin.

“I thought you were aware that Aelin is joining the team as an engineer.”

“I did. But what is she doing here.” He said again, gesturing to the room.

The red-head swallowed. “She’ll be working on your car for the season.”

Rowan swore under his breath. What the fuck was Murtaugh thinking? He’d made his feelings about her joining the team very clear after he’d found out. He had said to his team principle that he would be as civil as he could and if they ever interacted it would be friendly. But she was not to be anywhere near his side of the garage, if Murtaugh could help it. Rowan couldn’t be doing with any sort of distractions this season. Not if he wanted the championship again.

Just as Rowan was about to go to Murtaugh, the old man made his way to him.

“Get over it, Whitethorn.” And that was all he had to say.

The meeting was short and sweet and Rowan was ready to get the hell out when Murtaugh had finished his speech. He hadn’t spotted Aelin leave, but she had clearly had the same feelings as him and had left as quickly as she could. And for that he was more than grateful.

Rowan was halfway down the corridor, finding the bathrooms— his mind on Aelin, not paying attention to what he was doing— as he went straight into someone as they exited the same door he was entering.

“Oof.” The woman’s voice said.

Rowan steadied her with his hands on her shoulders. It took a moment to see who exactly he had touched and then he was ripping his hands from her like the contact was burning him.

“Watch where you’re going.” Aelin said bitterly. “Or can you do what you like because you’re Rowan Whitethorn?”

Rowan rolled his eyes. “Don’t act like a fucking child, Aelin.”

“Rich coming from you.” She snarled.

“I’d be careful how you speak to me. I could have you fired faster than you could blink.”

Aelin laughed hollowly. “I think you forget who my father is.”

Rowan cocked his head, “you can’t stand there and tell me I do what I want, when you throw your father’s name around just as much to get what you want.”

Aelin was silent. And Rowan gave a satisfied smile. If Aelin wanted to act like this, then he could play the game too. She was still holding open the bathroom door and he was blocking her exit.

“Don’t you think we should try and be nice to each other? As we will be working closely together for the foreseeable future.” He said eventually.

Aelin narrowed her eyes. “I don’t need to be nice to you to be able to do my job efficiently. Just stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours.” With that, she brushed past him, leaving him seething in the hall.

He knew that he had fucked their relationship. He knew that the words he had used all those years ago had hit her where it hurt… and he regretted the way he had ended their friendship. But the hatred she seemed to have for him was a burning rage that had been stewing for five years and was now finding its way out. When he’d seen her at the awards ceremony he had briefly wanted to reconcile— or at least tell her he was sorry. But every time they spoke she was angry and she threw accusations his way and he had no choice but to defend himself. He was frustrated and wanted nothing more than for the problems between them to disappear.

But right now the only thing that plagued his mind was getting into that car and winning another championship.

~

Taglist: 

@morganofthewildfire @tomtenadia @fredweasleyhasadhd @luckyrunawaycheesecake @live-the-fangirl-life  @fireheart-violet  @charlizeed @scarblx @xo-fangirl-xo  @wordsafterhours @jesstargaryenqueen @sailorsassley @sjmships @endlessdaydream @aflickeringsoul @tillyrubes10 @rowaelin-cressworth @cookiemonsterwholovesbooks @rowaelinismyotp @rosegoldannie @maryberry @viajandosinalas @becarefuloflove @allthebooksunderthemoon @sheharahu @swankii-art-teacher @superspiritfestival @becarefuloflove @tanvee1231 @viajandosinalas @backtobl4ck @emily-gsh @whispers-in-the-darkest-heart @becarefuloflove @goddess-aelin @thegreyj @leiawritesstories @nerdperson524 @rowanaelinn @tothestarsandwhateverend @athena127 @jisco @gracie-rosee @elentiyawhitethorn​

[maxellminidisc]

I really do think people need to start building an awareness of consumption around art. Like if you're talking about reading and film in pure numbers a year, music in how many sales you contributed, how many likes or follows your art gains you on social media, etc, you're absolutely falling into that consumptive mind set. And you need to step back and realize how uncomfortable and evil it is that you are ALSO being exploited there along with the art you're consuming.

And I'll be sympathetic and say it's not your fault! It's the result of capitalism, it's a result of carefully built and perfected strategy by industries decade after decade to reduce art into a product that you move on from one to the next. It's no longer about giving art its proper enjoyment, it's time to get up close and personal with you, to induce a passion for artistic curiosity, or inspire at the capacity it could. I'm not saying none of these things are possible anymore, but that the space for art to do these things feels like its shrinking from what I see and hear around me regardless of generation!

And I mean regardless of generation! I'm frankly sick of people blaming kids for the consumption of music and subculture especially when like whats to blame is the exploitation and sort of prepackaged shell of art and subcultures being the standard for most of what they engage with, especially online. And let's not act like people older than them havent fallen under the draw of short form formats for everything from videos, music, and literature. The lack of absorption alone I see in people my age and older in art they engage with as well as a lack of meaningful engagement as it is worries me sometimes.

My point is, I think we should at the very least think about how we engage with art and especially industries in the arts. I'm not saying never to buy an album, watch a movie, or read a book. But like consider why you feel like doing any of these things needs to be a numbers game for you, be it sales numbers you're increasing or how much media you can cram in as little time, instead of a personal transformative interaction! Idk I guess with every passing year that one Brian and Roger Eno quote gets more and more relevant to me and I guess I'll end with it. It goes:

"I think being slow is a gift to the world,” says Brian. “To say to people: you can enjoy things that are slow, where nothing much appears to happen. That’s a very important, anti-capitalist message. Capitalists want you to be constantly stimulated, consuming, and doing something different from what you were a minute ago – it’s about distraction. Stopping you staying in one place for a length of time because that doesn’t make any money.”

He continues: “So to have music, or forms of art, that say, ‘You don’t need very much,’ during a time when we’re harvesting the results of over-consumption, those are actually very important messages – you can make do with less.” Roger echoes this: “It allows you time to put distance between yourself and the frenetic.”

[thatfinewine]

Silly little oneshot that turned in a direction I hadn't intended but went with anyway. Prompt from @potetosaradas was "Blips and Chitz", and the pairing Rick Prime/(young) Rick C-137. It isn't explicitly shippy, but hopefully it's still enjoyable. 🙏

Every so often Rick has to acknowledge that he can't handle all of who Prime is.

(Prime truly does not give a shit. Rick gives too much of a shit.)

“Eh, you win some you lose some,” Prime shrugged nonchalantly as he tossed the helmet game controller down onto the dashboard of the machine, where it landed precariously close to the edge.  He got up from the cramped-but-plush seats and made a show of stretching his long legs, while Rick followed and stood up after him from the opposite chair.

“We wouldn’t ‘lose some’ if you’d quit making us lose!” Rick snapped as he (much more carefully) set his own helmet down and readjusted Prime’s closer to the center of the console without thinking.

Prime reached down and tore off the measly amount of tickets the machine spit out for them.  “Hey; I was having fun shooting Space Fascists—”

“—Instead of protecting the civilians!  Like the objective told us to do!”

“I mean, you made it sound like you had that part pretty handled—”

“—until you blew the whole left wing of the Feds’ ship off and it crashed down on top of us and killed everyone!”

“—which wouldn’t have happened if those pig bastards knew how to steer their own ship.  They drive like male Obravadians!  Man, it’s like they were aiming for you guys – actually, it was kinda funny.”

Prime had already started moving on towards his next objective, leaving Rick to catch up with him.  Rick, mood visibly soured from the loss, didn’t find any of it even slightly amusing.  When Prime caught the look, he rolled his eyes in a comically obvious way.  “Anyone who has taste would find it funny, anyway,” he grumbled, purposefully loud enough to be heard over the ambient noise of the arcade.

“Sorry I don’t find watching innocents being crushed to death funny.”

The air around Prime shifted, the growing tension seemingly choking out the oxygen between them.

“Rick,” Prime said, emphasizing the name with the condescending sort of tone of a teacher who’s disappointed in a student.  “You know you can’t let yourself get all tangled up in small stuff like that.”

Rick felt his face and chest grow hot with embarrassed anger.  Prime spoke about other living beings as if they were hardly more than a footnote to him, but the loss of life never felt ‘small’ to Rick.  That was a conscious being, snuffed right out of existence, losing the most precious thing ever gifted to any of them – life.  A single life that could never be brought back once it was gone.  But the two of them had argued about this so many times before, and this was supposed to be a fun, low-stakes day out playing video games…

“I know,” he answered quietly, sounding simultaneously defeated and bitter about it.

It was moments like these that were chilling reminders of what Prime was like to everyone else.  He was generally good to Rick because he liked Rick.  But Prime didn’t harbor any sort of meaningful fondness for anything else besides creation and discovery.  Rick was an anomaly to him, something that had such a low chance of happening that it was basically a nonexistence; an impossibility.  It made the heat inside of him run cold; as if a block of ice settled into Rick’s ribcage, where it slowly melted into his veins, as he stood in the face of their reality.

Prime found the universe fascinating as he watched life crop up and die as if it were nothing but cells under a microscope.

Rick thought it was wrong to see a disaster happening and do nothing to stop it when he very well had the power to.

Prime said that ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are societal constructs and aren’t even real.  In the beginning he thought that Rick’s ‘planetary mindset’ was… cute.  But as the same conversation kept circling back around… he was getting annoyed at having to repeat himself.

“You’re not stupid, Rick.  I know you’re not stupid.”

Rick hated those words so much it made him feel sick.

“I know you’re not stupid.  So why do you keep acting like it?”

The feeling of how finite the universe truly was became heavier around Rick, putting pressure on his heart to the point where it hurt to keep beating.  How could two people stay by each other's sides and make a relationship work when their fundamental moral compasses couldn’t align?

“Why does it matter, then?  I-I-I’m not asking you to— to do anything, I’ll do it all myself.  If nothing matters, why does it pi-p-pi-piss you off so much that I want to save lives?”

“Is that really what you’re going to spend the rest of your life doing?  You could be inventing literally anything!  You could be doing anything!  And you’re choosing to waste your own invaluable time simply postponing death for some thing that’s not even going to benefit you?  They’re going to die, Rick.  They’re all going to die.  So you spend a week stopping a flood and helping rebuild a town – then what?  You’re going to leave, feeling all proud of yourself for earning these hero points you invented as a reward and to feel like there’s a balance to the universe and it’s not all chaos – and after you leave, the dam breaks again, or a volcano erupts, or an asteroid slams into the planet, or a burst of solar radiation hits them and wipes out everything.”

“That’s—” 

“—Or another space-faring alien shows up and decides they want the resources and have no use for the people and pick them all off!  Maybe sell them as slaves for a quick buck!  And this is happening to millions of planets - all with sapient life - right now, in this very universe, right this very second, and here you are helping none of them.  So then what, are you choosing which life deserves to survive with your benevolent help?”

“No, I-I’ll—” 

“—Are you going to clone yourself so you can be in billions of places at once, stopping every single disaster on every single planet?  Are you going to lay awake at night beating yourself up over the ones you didn’t save, wasting even more of your time?”

“...”  

“…Do you see how ridiculous you sound to me now?  Come on, Rick.  Look out for yourself - and if a stupid fucking species is going to wipe themselves out with nuclear war, let them.  You’ve fooled yourself into believing that you care.  …If you want to then just do it, but don’t act like it makes you a saint.  You’re not.  You’re Rick Sanchez.”

They usually don’t talk for days afterward.

“I’ll give you time to calm down and actually use that brain of yours.  I know you’re not stupid, Rick.”

Rick didn’t even look over as he heard Prime let loose an exaggerated groan.  “Oh my God,” he complained, drawing out the title into a word that took two whole seconds to say, “stop pouting.”

“I’m not pouting,” Rick snapped back, as he actively made an effort to stop pursing his lips and slumping his shoulders.  It wasn’t pouting.  It was… it was…

“We came here to have fun – it’s a fucking space arcade!   You really can ruin anything, huh?”

The good times were so good, but the bad times were so bad.

“It’s a talent,” Rick muttered, trying not to sound like he was marking up a list in his head of the pros and cons of choosing this man as his partner.

Prime shot him a sidelong glance and gave his cosmic twin’s face a quick once-over.  Rick often wondered what Prime’s mental list was.  How long did Rick even have before the scales tipped out of his favor and he lost his appeal?  What would happen to him then?

Existence was finite, after all.

Even for Gods.

[jennablackmorebooks]

Maybe most ineffective no-nuance writing advice is susceptible to the problem of trying to find one or a few "problem items" and thinking like eliminating them in all possible circumstances is the objective forever key to objectively good writing.

Like, for a few examples:

Epithet overuse

No-nuance advice: You're saying your character's name too much. Call them by their hair colour or height so your prose doesn't suck bad forever. Cut out names to be good.

What might help people understand their writing better and what they're trying to accomplish: epithets draw attention to the trait you're pointing out, so if you're going to use one, it might be helpful to pick a relevant trait your narrator or protagonist might notice that means something instead of defaulting to their hair colour every time. Also, most people don't think of their friends through epithets all the time once they know their names, so consider what doing this does to the perceived level of familiarity we have with the cast.

"Mary Sues"

No-nuance advice: if your character is powerful and has weird coloured eyes and hair and is good at things and people like them, that's a Mary Sue and bad forever so don't ever give a character colourful design traits or talents. Cut out 'weird' designs and any skills to be good.

What might help: the trouble with "Mary Sues" is often their tendency to bend an established story, or the story they're in, to serve them when it's not realistic (or endearing to the audience, who might have liked the established world, actually!). Consider the worldbuilding you're using and if your new character fits that without having to sacrifice the characterization of every other character or the physical limits of what are possible in the world for this one extra character. There are ways to make a character Cool without also throwing away the foundations of enjoyable storytelling everywhere else, and it probably has very little to do with their eye colour, really.

(obligatory disclaimer that the term as it is used out of its Star Trek fanfiction context is not particularly helpful at also being meaningful 21st century writing advice especially since people's definitions of it range from "a character whose existence in the narrative bends the story in ways that don't make sense" to "a woman in a story that had a role" depending on which end of the sliding scale of credibility or lack thereof you ask :( obligatory disclaimer that I am using the term because you know what I'm trying to get at in general when I put the name in the post, and it's an effective catch-all term for the type of writing advice I'm trying to make fun of here even if it's not effective as general writing advice itself).

Said is dead

No-nuance advice: said is a bad plain boring word for bad plain boring writers. Use fancy synonyms all the time instead to prove your big vocabulary. Cut out 'said' to be good.

What might help: Too much unintended and prolonged repetition can be unpleasant to read for many, and too much 'said' can contribute to this. Use synonyms sometimes to enhance the meaning you're already trying to convey, but also vary your sentence structure so not every sentence is repetitive enough in form to warrant a dialogue tag, said or otherwise. Varied sentences of different lengths and styles can provide different effects, so using the ones that will get the intended point or pacing across better will make for more effective prose. There is no one magical dialogue tag to use or avoid that will fix the actual stylings of the prose.

Kill Your Darlings

No-nuance: everything you think is good is bad and you should take out the scenes you like. Cut out the parts you love for the sake of it.

What might help: Sometimes a scene you wrote that you thought is cool unfortunately, in retrospect, does not fit the tone, theme, worldbuilding, story, or something else of the book you intended to write. Please do not hesitate to edit or remove a piece just because you love it if it harms your vision for the rest of the book. A little utilitarianism might help you put the good of the whole book over the good of the one scene if the two cannot coexist peacefully.

I think a lot of advice that tries to be a 'life hack' for Objectively Good writing is reductive and lacks substance. If a piece of advice is suggesting you to remove something no matter what, and that's all you have to do to write well, it's no better than clickbait to me. The goal should be to try to understand what effect certain elements have on a story, so you can proceed knowing if the way you would like to utilise it is effective for the story you're trying to tell. But this requires nuance on the part of the advice provider, and maybe for them to concede that sometimes things they hate reading can be used effectively, and it requires the author to know what they're trying to do with the story they're telling. So it's a lot easier, perhaps, for a lot of people, to cut all exclamation points forever, cut all adverbs forever, so on and so forth, without learning how to use them effectively.

[mdhwrites]

I still like TOH, but your comments have made me notice something about reviews praising it: namely, a lot of the elements praised are specifically described- Belos’s character, Luz’s depression, the dark themes, the serialization, etc- as being amazing for a kid’s show, and I think that’s a factor in why critical reviews tend to match fandom opinion. Namely, kid shows having understandable limitations leads to attempt at darker themes/big stories being praised as standouts as long as the execution is competent enough to not be noticeable. So while some people do acknowledge TOH’s flaws, they point out it’s still admirable the show made the attempts it did, especially with Disney’s public stance on what it pushes for in its cartoons.

So... I want to be kind first before I somewhat lose it because I am so SO TIRED of it being stated that TOH is different from other kid's shows. The Owl House is perfectly competent and entertaining in just its base elements. The animation is good, the voice acting is amazing, the feeling of teenagers is well captured, it's a lot of fun when it's interested in being fun and S1 has a lot of great ideas that earn a lot of good will with an audience and the plot line with Eda in S1 is genuinely amazing. After all, usually you don't have a character who is actively dying.

A theme they never actually address in detail. Eda doesn't feel like she's being held back by the curse very often and there's even one episode where it's used to re-enact a family guy episode of King trying to murder a toddler who won't let him be ruler of the playground. That... Isn't serious. In anyway. It's only serious when it's first revealed and the big sacrifice moment. After S1, it's barely a thing outside of Keeping Affearances.

This is the fundamental problem with The Owl House... And why it's so easy to praise. Yesterday I talked about how it screams its themes at the top of its lungs. How it is very blunt about how it wants to be perceived. Whether this is perception is earned or not is secondary to what it can easily state.

Which makes making an online article about how it's so different from other kid's shows, how it's the kid's show for those who don't like kid's shows, very easy. If you don't actually know much about kid's shows and how shit like Static Shock way back when was already addressing racism, having serialized content, etc. like that.

I mean, if we look at recent kid's cartoons, we have Steven Universe and Steven Universe Future. Gravity Falls. Amphibia does a lot of the same themes as TOH, with honestly about as much meaningful serialization, but also while being good, consistent and enjoyable. It earns its themes... But you have to dig for them.

So why have to scrape the barrel when the soapbox preacher is right there? This is part of the character arc problem too. Do you know how EXHAUSTING posts about "Look where they were and are now" by the end of S2? Where Amity would be a distinct, interesting, unique character in S1 but all they care about is that now she SMILES!

If you don't actually have to talk about the substance of her arc, if the show actually tackled any of its potential, complications, etc like that, it looks impressive. Then you talk to them about Winging it Like Witches or Understanding Willow, both frankly very much so kid's show episodes that something like Danny Phantom, My Little Pony, or Kim Possible would have and could have done, and suddenly it sounds less impressive, doesn't it? Not when you're describing episodes where Amity's past doesn't match her introduction at all and are obviously wiping away what makes a character arc interesting for "SHE'S ALWAYS BEEN GOOD! It's not her fault."

Sure. That's why she was willing to kill someone who didn't even lower her grade but instead just got someone else to be praised. And that's still S1.

Luz's depression is similar. You can have her make big statements that sound like they may imply she wants to die but they're still not willing to use the actual terms. Have Luz only suffer the absolutely loudest but worst stereotypes of depressed people like being constantly suicidal, pushing others away and not caring about them. 'But it's depressi-" No. As someone literally crippled by it, I don't want it being used as the excuse for literally the worst thing Luz does in the whole series, which is to just abandon an entire world to whatever fate she claims to believe she inflicted on it. I myself and a lot of other depressed people will tell you that it is FAR easier to help others, especially if you've hurt them, than any sort for yourself. But Luz's depression is used as an excuse for her to claim to keep caring about others when she is actually only serving herself and lying constantly to everyone around her while doing it. If that's great, depression representation, something most kids are still going to miss what it is, then fuck that noise.

But depression is a big topic right now so going "DISNEY'S FIRST MAIN CHARACTER WITH DEPRESSION!" sure is a headline, isn't it?

And let's quickly talk about the fact that TOH is very morally weird. It's not willing to do many big lesson episodes, hence why Episode 2 stands out so much to me, and a lot of its main cast has dubious morality. And... Then it doesn't really touch on morality either. It has no interest in it, even to the point of bad actions maybe getting a line or two said about them but then moving on.

As an example: Amity just wants to invade Luz's privacy. Period. She has Luz's phone and wants to be given an excuse to look into it. Talking to Willow, they could have a very real, very human conversation about how Amity's parents have taught her that such measures are okay because trust doesn't matter as much as control and how that's not okay. It could be a genuinely very adult moment for the series and maybe even have Willow talk about how Luz finding out so much about her past during Understanding Willow makes her uncomfortable sometimes because even if nothing bad surfaces, that was information given. By making all that a real conversation, which yes would have taken more time but let's face it, TOH honestly doesn't spend enough time setting its characters morals and letting them have conversations where there's real conflict between the two. And none of this is explicit or so dark or so boring that there's no reason a kid's show couldn't have it.

And do you want to know what you gain by making it a conversation like that? A real lesson to kids. A lesson that will prepare them for not only their own loves but for just how to handle others in general. TOH is still a kid's show after all. It should in theory be considering its audience and while not talking down to them, remembering they do need to still bring them into the conversation.

OR, YOU KNOW, HAVE WILLOW SHRUG AT THE QUESTION! And I could do a full breakdown as to why that's a real, human reaction to that question, even for someone like Willow. But I have to bring the real world, my life experiences, my sister's life experiences (and she's 30 while I'm almost 27) in order to explain why Willow is not blatantly being a TERRIBLE person by not calling Amity out.

And yes, that's when TOH is at its worst. It commonly just brushes off immoral behavior that isn't the end point of the plot as just a thing happening, like how Edric and Emira don't actually suffer consequences for their plan against their sister or how Luz is made to feel bad for stealing Amity's wand but then isn't attacked by Amity but put into a protective circle by her. A time out, sure, but one that leads to the ice glyph and her getting to save everyone.

A kid can learn the wrong lessons by the lack of consequences in the show and they're not going to learn a lot of good lessons from what is there. There's a reason why kid's shows are blunter than other media and they have morals. They're remembering that, especially in our modern age where one income households just DON'T EXIST that they have to pick up the slack and modern cartoons are doing that better than old 90s cartoons.

But do you know how much TOH reminds me of older cartoons like the 80s or 90s? With their villains who are evil for the sake of evil? With characters that can change on a dime, or the blatantly comic relief ones who don't have much character outside of that? The plotlines that are more about spectacle or statement which led to all those terrible PSA cartoon moments? Or hell, with how Amity ended up: The character who is blatantly only there to be the pretty girl that gets with the main character?

That's the thing: You want to say TOH is better than Teen Titans Go? Fine. That is obviously true. Who actually cares about and is praising Teen Titans Go though? When you compare it to the shows that people do praise, like Amphibia, Gravity Falls, etc., shows that not only teach and make kids better but also tell an engaging, full story with real themes, characters, developments, etc... What does TOH actually have? How much more serialized is TOH than say, the first season of My Little Pony? There were two episodes of build up for the Grand Galloping Gala before the finale and in TOH S1, you technically only need to see The Intruder and Covention, besides the pilot obviously, before you will understand almost everything going on in Young Blood, Old Souls and Agony of a Witch. There's more in S2 but most people agree that it's done competently at best, which is why people keep screaming about the shortening and I made an entire blog pointing out that S2 is bad because... The show is bad about serialization effectively.

And as a final note: I lived with a Star Wars and Star Trek fan for two years at the peak of Discovery being out and as wind up for Rise of Skywalker was going on. I lived on their couch and when they put on an almost 24/7 reel of 'reviewers' for these franchises, I heard a LOT of shit takes. A lot of the same shit being repeated with no real thought behind it, it being what was popular said (which goes into what makes people popular online versus being a mouthpiece for the popular opinion) and showing no thought or care about the actual system of production for things or the people behind it. A lot of people just blaming issues on one creator, or praising a single creator for all the good in something without talking about why they were attributing the problem to them. And yes, I know how hypocritical all of this is coming from some white dude on the internet no degrees, experience, etc like that. I just hope that my blogs show a little bit more real thought to storytelling to make it not as bad.

So a show where the popular, fandom consensus is that it's amazing, it states its themes making 'deeper' analysis easier and is very loud about its statements like they're original is going to be very popular to this type of review. Does this mean it's all disingenuous? Of course not. I started this blog by saying a lot of the reasons why the show is easy to like. Does it mean it has none of the depth people give it? No because a show trying this hard is going to manage successes sometimes though a lot of the times it then shoots those successes because it doesn't realize it's doing them.

But this statement that it is somehow better than things that have come before, is somehow truly groundbreaking while shows clearly paved the way for it so that it's just at the front of a wave it didn't have to make, and ignoring its flaws for all of these reasons, especially with "It's special because it's on Disney" or "It's only bad because of the shortening" is... REALLY tiring. To put it mildly.

A thing should be good because it's good. Not because it says it is or because you have to put modifiers on it to make it special. Shrek was groundbreaking not because it was made by someone other than Disney. It was groundbreaking because it genuinely looked at how it could parody the landscape around itself while making a genuinely good adventure and love story. Did it help that the creators wanted to give a middle finger to Disney? Maybe but I don't have to bring that up with what makes Shrek amazing. I can just say it's very good. In or out of its time.

The Owl House will only become increasingly less special and interesting as time moves forward and its big statements have to be yelled louder and louder to be properly heard. =======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead, If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!