#and i was compelled to attempt to salvage it

[curiosity-killed]

feesh

[ALT ID: A digital illustration of a shark-like mermaid swimming through a school of colorful fish.]

[lakesbian]

What was he doing?  Why was he so focused on getting Bitch to admit it was over? Reputation, yet again.  He needed to salvage this situation, and the surest way to do that, to recoup his losses and come out of this looking okay, would be to get the meanest, toughest, most notorious of us to bend at the knee and concede defeat. He really didn’t know Bitch, though. She pulled her cheap plastic dog mask off and threw it to one side.  It was only a formality, really, since her face and identity were public knowledge.  Her smile, as it spread across her face, wasn’t the most attractive.  Too many teeth showing. “Lung underestimated her, too,” she told him, looking at me.

okay, continued forcing myself to spend time analyzing rachel lindt instead of letting her live in my worm blindspot for no reason. to recap: at this point in the story, she's gone on the ABB raid with rachel & had that gay little moment where rachel gave her her jacket when she was cold walking back home + got so close to taylor to inspect her injuries from lung that taylor thought she was going to kiss her. it had deep connotations of blossoming romance and taylor narrated some shit about still kind of being cold despite the jacket but the warmth in her core keeping her warm all the way back to the loft. now, although taylor is still only consciously ranking rachel at "i don't hate her" in her mind, rachel has now started doing shit like this.

one of the primary rachel/taylor theses is that taylor isn't rachel's dog, rachel is taylor's dog. it's established over the course of the worm that she trusts taylor completely implicitly. there's the part in the behemoth fight where the entire world is falling apart around them and rachel is still smug and happy about taylor having a plan. there's the part at the end that makes all of us want to smash our heads into the wall:

she trusts taylor in the same way a dog would trust their owner even on the table for euthanasia. she sees taylor as smarter than she is not in a self-deprecatory way--there are plenty of people who you might call smarter than rachel that she'll happily call morons--but because consistently, time and time again, taylor goes up against smart pieces of shit who are trying to fuck the undersiders over and figures out what to do about it. and this scene here, where she's responding to armsmaster's attempt to put her down by insisting that he's underestimating taylor, seems to be the first instance of rachel's trust in taylor shining through. in fact, this happens even before taylor considers them to be friends, before they've had any significant bonding. one of the very first positive things rachel feels about taylor--maybe even the first positive thing--is that, when people are putting her and her team down, when odds look grim, taylor can be trusted to solve it. it's actually, like, kind of bonkers compelling that rachel's first seed of positive response to taylor isn't "well, actually, i guess she seems nice" but "my teammate taylor could beat up this dickhole armsmaster."

it's worth explicitly noting, by the way, that rachel interprets smiles as like dog growls. the reason her smile is a little too wide with too many teeth is because it's not actually a proper smile. it's rachel being a growling dog, placing all of her trust in taylor. I Love You Rachel Lindt

[wordsnstuff]

Hello! I just had the realization my original plot just isn't going to work but I'm almost done with my first draft and I'm too married to a lot of my scenes I've already written to feel like i can fully start over. Do you have any advice? Just thinking about starting over is making me want to put the pen down for a while...

Starting over near the finish line

By first draft, I'm assuming you mean that this is the first attempt at putting the your story to paper. What I'm about to say is not to devalue the incredible amount of work that you must have invested up to this point. It is an accomplishment on its own to sit down and put words on that page, let alone reach a point anywhere near a finish line.

The first time you do something (anything) is rarely the time you do it well, let alone perfectly.

If I sat a beginner down with some printouts of blogposts about knitting and a spool of yarn, I doubt they'd make me a sweater without having to undo at least 50% of the moves they make. That wouldn't be because they're stupid or genetically predisposed to suck at knitting. Regardless of how seasoned you are as a writer, each work you approach is like starting a brand new hobby from scratch. You have to mentally allow for space to make errors and to let go of good ideas. This doesn't mean you throw the good and essential core of your story out.

Take significant time to review what you have, identify the bits and characteristics that you find most emotionally and mentally compelling. Write them down, examine the commonalities and congruencies between them, and work out exactly you like about your story as it stands. There is always good amongst the bad. You seem to already have identified certain parts that you cannot bring yourself to let go, so once you figure why that is, you'll be able to trim away what doesn't serve you and move forward.

You aren't starting over. This is not the beginning, and you will never be back at the beginning again. This is process, and process is imperative to making anything. If you continue to visualize writing as an act that starts at point A and ends at point B you will never be done. Nor will you do justice to your ideas. If you don't allow them to waddle around and fall on their face like the newborn babies that they are, they won't develop as they're meant to.

This is not failure. This is writing. It's a necessary part of what you're doing. It's normal. It's good for you. It's good for your story. In fact, it speaks well to your character development and world building and even your plot development that you can recognize there is so much worth salvaging in this first attempt to bring to the next. You're already emotionally connected to so much of what you've made, and plot is only part of that. If you're able and willing to acknowledge what doesn't work, you will be able to trust yourself when you determine what does. A story is a sum of its parts, and this is just one part that you're going to put down, regroup, and reconfigure.

There are several resources that I've created over the many years to assist in plot development and all the problems encountered within, and those are available on my masterlist for your perusal.

I wish you the best of luck and look forward to your triumphant follow up once you finish that second draft.

x Kate

[roomba-mangga]

thoughts on thistle and yaad's dynamic that i vomited in the tags of another post but will now try to articulate here: they're not actually family, or at least they shouldn't be. not in a conventional sense anyway. framing them as uncle and nephew (even in a non-literal, silly fantasy world way) rides more on technicality than anything concrete.

what i mean by this is yaad calls thistle by name and says he and delgal were raised "like" brothers. he talks about thistle like he's an outsider imposing himself into the melinis' space, and it's clear that thistle was never legitimized as a member of the family. for thistle's part, though we don't know how he would treat yaad pre-demon brainrot, it's safe to assume based on the way he punishes him—turning him into a doll—and how little is shown in the way of any sort of relationship between them that thistle only cares* about yaad as an extension of delgal (otherwise i'd expect something like kabru and milsiril, because it's not like another complicated interspecies family dynamic would be out of place, yet there's next to nothing on them even in bonus content, just their scant interactions in the main story).

in essence, they're strangers to one another. thistle's desperation to preserve the illusion of a family, a model where he doesn't even fit, was the snare they were caught in for the past thousand years of stasis. yaad-as-nephew is a prop to uphold that illusion, and thistle is playing a role he's unfit to play. in the context of post-canon interactions, attempting to reconstruct that facade would only be a reenactment of trauma for them both (in a deeply compelling way i'd love to watch unfold, tbh), as that "uncle and nephew" framing places thistle in an implicit position of power over someone he's already traumatized through misuse of authority in the past, a role which also perpetuates his adultification and yaad's infantilization in turn. it'd mostly be an obstacle to any real connection.

best to burn the melini family bridge, i think, and if there's still anything salvageable left in the rubble, let something different supplant it.

[mrderofcr0ws]

idk about you guys but rooks rest in HOTD is not canon to me. the rest of this show isn’t canon from here on out because it’s obvious they hold no respect for aemond’s character or any character in fire and blood they way they were written originally. so many of the F&B characters have been written entirely wrong and it’s so blood-boiling. especially the greens!!! so many of them have such compelling stories and they’ve been thrown in the trash!

they’ve thrown helaena aside. in fire and blood, she’s a dragon dreamer! she has a dragon! she had three kids she loved so much! she is a valued queen of the realm! what is she in the show? the quiet one no one listens to or tries to connect with besides her own mom.

they’ve utterly ruined aemond. in so many ways, they’ve changed him drastically. while aemond does have hard feelings with aegon and makes some sly and questionable comments about aegon not being fit to rule— HE DOESNT TRY TO KILL HIS BROTHER???? I genuinely cannot fathom how the writers could sit in the writers room and be like, “yes. this plot line. this is gold.” they’ve ruined him. they have fucking ruined him, his loyalty, and what he is fighting for. “you think you can fly about the realm and steal MY brothers throne?” — AEMOND TARGARYEN!!!!! and you’re telling me he attempts to murder his brother? no. fuck off, no.

they’ve made aegon seem like nothing but an idiot. aegon may not be as smart as aemond but oh my god he’s not some blubbering stupid idiot who can’t sit still. they cut out his whole reason for ascending the throne as well and that is so damning to his character. aegon takes the throne because criston and alicent place the worry of his siblings being slain in his mind. they convince him rhaenyra will kill him, his siblings, and his children��� so he takes the throne. “what kind of brother steals his sisters birthright?” — AEGON TARGARYEN

they have reduced alicent to criston’s fling and vise versa for criston. alicent was a strong and compelling character— and now we have to watch her give herself a miscarriage? really? the woman who was so adamant about her son ascending the throne is sitting there and telling him to do nothing after saying he should be asking questions and learning from them???? “nothing” is the answer you give your son — the king — after he asks for your advice, alicent? really? it just proves she and everyone around her raised aegon to be a puppet— and she’s so lost inside her own “sins” she can’t even see how damned her children are because she doesn’t take the time to actually care for them.

they’re going to introduce daeron soon but show watchers have no idea who he is. when he shows up, it’s not going to be meaningful. just like when aegon started acting all loving and silly on screen with his kids and it left being people like “wow, what the fuck???” IF YOU DONT SHOW THE CHARACTER OR WRITE THEM CORRECTLY, PEOPLE WONT FEEL ATTACHED TO THEM CORRECTLY!!!!

THE MISCHARACTERIZATION OF THESE CHARACTERS IS KILLING THIS SHOW!!!!!!!!

even with rhaenyra. i love that she wants to uphold peace and i think it’s so valiant, but everyone is ready for rhaenyra the cruel. give us maegor with tits the way she is in the books and stop having her care so much for alicent. it’s killing her reign. the men in her council are harping her and her not being around during the start of a wartime is maddening to watch. yes, she’s a mother. yes, she wants peace. but peace can’t be achieved through Alicent!!! I loved their relationship in the younger years, but there is nothing to salvage and I’m so fucking happy jace snapped at her. she shouldn’t care for alicent at all— because alicent in F&B was her older step-mother that didn’t get along with her. even in HOTD after rhaenyra knows alicent usurped her throne over a miscommunication, there shouldn’t be anymore “but we were once friends” moments. idc if it was a mistake on alicent part— that mistake is something she isn’t even willing to admit or fix. in rhaenyra’s eyes, alicent should no longer mean anything from here on out.

rhaenyra is also no more a pillar of peace than aegon is. they both do terrible things whether or not it takes rhaenyra longer to start doing them. they both get people killed. they BOTH tear down the realm in attempt to grapple for the throne.

it’s fucking exhausting at this point watching the writers play a game of “this side is more morally righteous” when they’re all bad. it’s even more frustrating when the cost of “this side is better than this side” comes by destroying these characters and ruining the moments that define them!!!

rooks rest was a shit show. not only did they make aemond do something ENTIRELY out of character for him, they didn’t even give rhaenys her correct death. she doesn’t fall to her death. she gets burned like a true dragonrider.

rest in piece to rhaenys— and to aemond because they just dug his whole character a grave to jump into when people watch next weeks episode.

[landgraabbed]

currently playing: dread delusion (dev. lovely hellplace)!

man, what a game! you are prisoner xvii, kept captive by the apostatic union. however, as they attempt to capture vela callose of the dark star mercenaries, the mission doesn't go quite as planned, so you are freed in a last ditch attempt at salvaging the mission. shenanigans happen and you are set out to continue the hunt for vela in the open world of the oneiric islands. this is a small archipelago, part of this wacky world in which the surface is an uninhabitable wasteland and humanity lives in floating islands orbited by neuron stars. on top of that, humanity killed their gods and now contends with the fallout. you navigate the world trying to advance your hunt for vela and at the same time deal with the local issues. different factions have conflicting interests and you may navigate those issues as you see fit.

mechanically, character creation and stats are very simple, but work well in this smaller scale rpg. the worldbuilding is dreamlike and eldritch, the leveling mechanic feels very lovecraftian in the sense that you collect delusions through exploration and questing, and use them to improve your core stats (which in turn raises two of the skills). exploration is a core component of this game. it's how you come across quests and find glimmers of delusion in the world. since combat doesn't contribute to leveling, these are your two ways to level up. it is an open world without quest markers which is something i adore (but might be a barrier at first for some people). instead, you can make your own map through a quest, and since the world is small (though very dense) you can easily reference landmarks (which you can also add to your map) to navigate the world. in terms of performance, it plays really well save for a lag spike when the game is loading a new chunk, which happens very infrequently.

i found the art direction to be lovely. it looks like the lovechild of morrowind, king's field, and lsd dream simulator. it's perfect. the low fidelity style pairs well with the eldritch-like design for creatures. the game comes with options to enable/disable the 3d wobbliness that is a hallmark of the ps1 era, which is a boon for the motion sickness prone folks like me. the soundtrack is mostly ambient and i really like it, but i did notice the lack of variety after a while.

what has left the most positive impression on me, together with the ambiance, is the tone of the writing. the worldbuilding grounds the factions and npcs very well, and they are in turn very likeable. the main and side quests alike present situations that i found really interesting to navigate. some choices i found really difficult to make and to digest, which is in my book an excellent sign. i found it all subtly nuanced and incredibly compelling in a very understated way.

[itsclydebitches]

It's weird to think Vol 10 of RWBY just straight up might never happen. much less further volumes. No matter how bad it got I would still have loved some form of ending but Barabas comments don't paint a hopeful picture. Alas fics of RWBY will go until the end of time.

It's very weird. Most shows I come across have either already concluded, or give their audience an estimate of when things will wrap up ('We're planning another two seasons and each takes us about two years to film, so...'). I have shows that unexpectedly get more content after providing an ambiguous, but still satisfying ending (Alice in Borderland), shows where each season is self-contained so it can end whenever without issue (Bake Off), shows that were cut short and had to scramble to wrap up (Sense8), and of course there are always shows that are straight up cancelled and can't do a thing to mitigate that... but RWBY feels almost, almost unique in this combination. It's a webseries rather than a traditional TV show. It's gone on for a decade with absolutely no indication of where it's heading. Each season feels threatened to the point where the fandom can no longer differentiate between a real cancellation concern and Internet exaggeration. The story has hit what's arguably its most important narrative peak - the team has traversed an alternate world, Ruby has "overcome" drinking the tea, Summer finally appears on screen - only for news of the story's future to remain frustratingly vague. Not only have we never had a sense of when RWBY's story will end, now we don't even have confirmation of whether it will end. That's such a frustrating way to approach storytelling given that your audience relies on some level of commitment to remain engaged.

I too want RWBY to finish up because I am not immune to the Sunk Cost Fallacy: I put this much time into the series and it needs to satisfy me with a conclusion, even if the conclusion itself will inevitably be unsatisfying. Outside of any normal disappointment with a story you love getting the ax, I generally don't mind embracing unfinished works. I read abandoned fics, watch cancelled shows, browse barely started comics, because getting a taste of the world is always worth it if it's compelling to me. I never regret meeting characters whose stories go untold because as a writer myself I can at least imagine that on my own terms. But RWBY? Losing it now would be a real kick in the teeth. I personally don't think the story is salvageable at this point, but at the very least fans deserve a conclusion: one that will likely please a lot of devoted viewers and allow critical fans to put a satisfying tick mark on the box in our heads labeled "RWBY."

Given its popularity I wouldn't be surprised if RWBY wound up cancelled and then concluded in a comics run, or a one-off movie. Beyond the fact that this would no doubt mess up the writing even more (now you have to iron out this mess of a plot on a time limit, in a new medium, with new authors!) it would, unfortunately, be kind of hilarious too:

[generic tour guide voice] "Hello. Welcome to RWBY. Our fandom is known for having copious side stories connected to the canon in confusing ways. Some are incidental to the main series. Some outright contradict it. Some are crucial to your understanding of the primary plot and must be engaged with in a timely manner. These texts range from comic runs to random bits of information in abandoned mobile games. Please note that this corpus did not grow naturally across decades of storytelling, as is the case with fandoms like Star Trek and Star Wars, but was rather cobbled together by RT in an attempt to 'fix' numerous, ongoing issues with the webseries. Our latest addition? The ending. Yes, if you would like to finish RWBY please refer to this index of sources that together provide a semi-cohesive conclusion to a ten year show. Now, on your left you'll see the ongoing brawl as fans attempt to determine whether this index is canonical or not. Please watch your step..."

[mutival]

Okay so I wrote a Cassandra fanfic

Can’t believe I’m writing about a cannibal but here we are. Any constructive criticism is always appreciated! English isn’t my first language and this is like the third fanfic I’ve ever written. Idk if Cassandra is acting like she would canonically so PLEASE lecture me on that as well if need be

Thank you!

Fluff/Sleeping/Cassandra Dimitrescu x reader RL

Opening night is always messy backstage, I now know that better than anyone else.

After my Juliet, Cassandra Dimitrescu herself, and I managed to round the show up, we were far too busy to properly reflect and fraternize, much to her dismay. Bouquet after bouquet, fan after never-ending fan, there was no end to the amount of socializing

Cassandra had to do before we could properly discuss the play. However, I wasn’t let off scot-free either. The second the curtains dropped, I was whisked off to the side door by the producer, where I fell face-first onto my roommate, Daniela, in the cold night. The darling girl was holding flowers, of which now there were none left unscathed. She yelped when she fell backwards, softening my blow. ‘’MC, the flowers!’’ Daniela exclaimed, feeling the thorns of the roses puncture her perfect abs. I haphazardly shot up, nearly collapsing again from the strain. However, as fast as I rose to my feet, I was slammed down again by the weight of my lovely second roommate, Angie, flanking me from the left. I crashed into a piece of decor, promptly catching Angie but leaving nothing salvageable of the castle wall prop. The ruckus made me wonder if Cassandra would leave her socialite group to come check what all the noise was about. Angie practically squealed when she finally stabilized, straddling my hips. ‘’Roomie!’’ She yelped, I only noticed just now she had a celebratory wine bottle in her hands. ‘’Courtesy of the Dimitrescu winery!’’ She pressed it into my hands, a cute silver ribbon covering the neck. Daniela rubbed the back of her neck, seemingly looking uncomfortable. ‘’Don’t tell Cass or my mom. I kind of-’’ Angie cut her off. ‘’She stole it!’’ At that, I gasped. ‘’Dani?!’’ I scolded her, holding the evidence of a crime that could get me in some deep shit with the family I so desperately wanted to impress. Dani gave me an awkward grin. ‘’Only the best for our star!’’

Star.

‘’Star.. Yeah, damn right! I am a star now, am I not?’’ I plucked Angie off of me, striking a pose that could rival Cassandra’s. Angie cheered, grabbing me by the arm. She mumbled something about getting caught, and off we went to the dorms. I took Dani’s hand in mine with my free hand, forming a little almost duck-like train.

-

About 4 hours later, I'm laying in bed. Sleep doesn’t come easy after those 5 AM recitals. However, seeing Cassandra beaming on stage and.. oh, right. We kissed. Oh my god. We kissed. In front of HUNDREDS of people?! I groaned, my cheeks heating up when I remembered. Angie was drunkenly sleeping on the couch in a position her aunt would’ve definitely scolded her for. She was awfully strict on posture, after all. I’d run into her a few times before while unceremoniously getting locked in the auditorium. I still don’t know what possessed me to take Angie’s dare to stay in the auditorium to hunt for a phantom. ‘’Phantom my ass, if you believe in ghosts, you must be really stupid’’ I had declared. After wrecking another piece of decor in an attempt of getting away from the phantom I claimed wasn’t real, I got a brief introduction.

I yawned, grabbing my jacket. I was certain no shop would be open at this hour, but I felt compelled to take a walk to clear my head from all the fuss and chaos the show had caused. After pulling on my shoes, I snuck past the snoring Angie coddling a vodka bottle in her sleep, murmuring “I won’t let you get wasted” and “I’ll take care of you” and snuck out. I strolled towards the campus, staring up at the room where the student council resided during the day. How peculiar, someone had left the lights on. However, that isn’t my problem and I definitely won’t be making it my problem, I thought as I roamed around the center of the campus. I took a sharp left past the now calm auditorium towards the-

A faint rustling can be heard.

What the fuck?

I whipped my head around at near lightning speed. Another phantom?! It seemed to be following me. I struggled to grab my phone from my pocket, dropping it in the process of getting the flashlight on. I cursed to myself, bending down to grab my device as fast as humanly possible. Whatever was after me must have heard me, for footsteps rapidly came closer. This was it. I was gonna die. But there was so much I hadn't done, so many things I hadn’t said. Before I even registered the voice calling my name, I had chucked my phone in their direction. It flew through the air gracefully before colliding with my pursuer, who let out a sharp hiss. A… hiss? I looked up, barely making out their figure. The adrenaline started to wear off once I heard her voice. ‘’Fuck, ow! That might bruise!’’ She whined, almost stomping her feet like a little baby. I strutted towards the ‘’stranger danger’’. ‘’Cassandra?’’ I could finally make out her face, albeit her voice having been a better clue after having heard it day and night throughout the last couple of months. ‘’Call me Cass.’’ Even injured, she was smug as ever. ‘’I’m so sorry, Cass!’’ I gasped, seeing her covering her eye and huffing. However, I quickly changed my tone. ‘’But what the fuck were you doing, sneaking around in the dark?!’’ I knew the answer to that all too well, but I still couldn’t help but be worried I had seriously hurt her. She bent down, taking my phone and returning it to me before she spoke. ‘’The nightmares. I can’t… I don’t want to go to sleep, but I’m so tired. I thought a walk might help me.’’ She whined, almost like an upset puppy. ‘’I don’t want a full 8 hours of torture right after such a good performance.’’ she huffed. I felt bad for her, I really did. So, I asked the following; ‘’How about I come with you? I’ll be able to wake you if you start having nightmares.’’ She looked positively puzzled. ‘’Bold offer, because you do sleep like a normal human being. Who says you can stay awake longer than I can?’’ She grinned at me, teasing me, challenging me. I responded stoically. ‘’Your screaming will do the trick. Now come on.’’ I extended my hand to her. Oh god, what was I thinking?! Surely she wouldn’t-

But she did.

And now here I am. In Cassandra’s shirt, in her bedroom.

Believe me, I really tried this time to get my own clothes. However, my courage quickly parted from me once Angie stirred and murmured awful song lyrics in her sleep. Fearing I might wake her, I asked Cassandra for a shirt. She handed me one, making promises about not peeping. Looking in the mirror, however, I can confidently say she most definitely did not intend on keeping her promise, staring at my reflection through the window.

I laid down on the bed, waiting for her to come lay next to me. She did, eventually, but something about her demeanor changed. She wasn’t chatty or flirty anymore, her face only resembling flusteredness and.. fear. I can’t say I was any better, anxiously twiddling with my hair. Sharing a bed with THE Cassandra Dimitrescu was a big deal, after all. ‘’..Hey.’’ I whispered, looking at her. She could barely meet my gaze. ‘’It must be hard, letting people in.’’ I muttered, taking one of her hands in my own. She looked down at our hands, and then intertwined our fingers. I’ll forever be grateful for the lights being off, because I was redder than her mother’s lipstick. She murmured something under her breath, before speaking more clearly. ‘’It is. It’s just a struggle, you know?’’ She looked at me expectantly, her gaze piercing through my very soul. I nodded in response, yawning. She understood I was tired. I could swear she scooted closer, but at this point I was too dazed to care. ‘’Goodnight, Cass.’’ I spoke in muted tones. Before I drifted off, I heard her purr. ‘’Goodnight, my star.’’

Around 8 AM, it happened. I awoke to Cassandra stirring, she was definitely a lot closer to me than she was before we went to sleep. I contemplated waking her, but she really needed sleep. Instead, I went with an irrational solution. I gently started rubbing circles on her back in an attempt to soothe her, whispering sweet nothings to her. Seeing as she wrapped an arm around me and slowly came to a halt in her wrestling with the bedsheets, I deemed my mission successful. One of her arms snuck under my waist, pulling me even closer. She was tucked into the crook of my neck, her soft breath on my pulse point. After letting out a small yelp at the sudden contact, I eased into her. Her arms were brass, not as defined as Daniela’s but definitely rugged from all her work in the mechanic’s shop. There was no going back now, her grip was far too strong and comfortable, oh so very comfortable for me to attempt to wrestle out of. I didn’t want to either, continuing to gently draw shapes on her back. As I, once again, drifted off to sleep I heard it. I swear I heard it, albeit not even I could believe my own ears.

She whispered, ever so softly;

‘’You’re so adorable, my star.’’

The little kiss on my neck confirmed I wasn’t dreaming, for when I looked in the mirror the next morning, there it was.

Her lipstick.

So every time I convinced myself I was crazy..

I most definitely wasn’t. This was real.

[azure7539arts]

Re: being blind and in the dark—a side-by-side look at TtEotM and Black Moonlight

I have a whole draft about this but it's so long, and idk if i should post it, so here's the gist:

The fact that the show shifted the narrative of person-trapped-in-the-dark from Li Susu/Ye Xiwu to Tantai Jin is very important to me. (The show and the novel are companion pieces, you can't convince me otherwise.)

In the novel, Li Susu went blind and partially deaf because of the curse from the Qingshi Flower. Basically under house arrest in the Cold Palace with no human contact for an extended period in such a state, Li Susu was left deeply traumatized because freedom and the ability to see are both very important to her and her quality of life. The trauma carried over after she'd left Ye Xiwu's body, which culminated into a scene where she had to go into a dark cave in search of something and ended up having a panic attack due to the subsequent onslaught of bad memories. Tantai Jin, shaking with realization that Susu had developed a fear of darkness because of what had happened in the past, rushed in to her aid, and upon finding Susu, he dug through his belongings to find the most reliable source of light he had on hand before helping her out of the cave. Once out, she had an epiphany about confronting the traumas of one's past in order to move on and become a stronger person for it, then she immediately retreated from Tantai Jin, leaving his side to finish what she set out to do.

A lot can be said about this character development on Susu's part, but what I find most compelling is how the show took this and asked, in return: what of Tantai Jin?

In the show, Susu never developed a fear of the dark. There's a couple of reasons for this: one, she never went completely blind and was still able to see a little of the approaching thunder right to the end of her life as Ye Xiwu; two, she was less concerned about her own freedom and sight, and was more dead-set on attempting at righting the wrongs that had transpired between her and Tantai Jin—in doing so giving him another chance at life. Li Susu in the show is a little more mature than in the novel, and she possessed more self-reflection in all the things that she went through as Ye Xiwu with Tantai Jin, which contributed greatly to their developing relationship at the time as well as her own perception of him. Bo're Fusheng Arc, therefore, became a cornerstone of even greater importance in the show than in the novel, imo, because through Sang Jiu's story, Li Susu saw what kind of enduring suffering and hopelessness would push someone to the brink and down into the precipice. This was where she learnt that she didn't necessarily have to agree with someone's actions to have compassion for them, which is an amazing lead into her eventual argument with Tantai Jin after their wedding where he told her that he'd been lost in the dark for the 20 years of his existence, stumbling through that void like a blind man until he'd thought that he'd finally found his one light in life—her.

This is a direct parallel of what was depicted in the novel. A great reversal of a question to illustrate Tantai Jin's pains, even if his experiences didn't justify the viciousness of his retaliations, and how they had both pushed themselves into this corner: their inability to see beyond the frames of references they had operated on throughout their entire lives. She was unable to see past her prejudice against him, and he also was unable to see past the perceived betrayal from her, and in their blindness, they ended up torturing each other until there was barely anything left to salvage. The moment Susu, in the show, realized what had actually happened in regards to the poisoned congee and the death of Ye Xiwu's grandmother, all the previous set-ups from the showrunners were paid back in full: if she had ever had any misgivings about her initial assumptions of this, living through Sang Jiu's life with all of its trials and tribulations left no shadow of doubt in her heart that everyone had a breaking point no matter how resilient they seemed. A series of unfortunate tragedies had been enough to turn a once optimistic, naive, and softhearted princess (who had a great, if not spoiled, upbringing) into a cold-blooded murderer, then what of Tantai Jin? Tantai Jin who had never had anything in his life?

After all, "to become a god or a devil. It all lies in one single thought."

There was no taking back everything that they had done to one another, but "some people in darkness do not deserve light" had been the cruelest thing she could have told him, and Li Susu knew this. That was why she used whatever was left of her life at the time to exchange a new existence for him—to once and for all be that light in the dark that she had previously, continually denied him time and time again. So he could hopefully see a way out somehow, even after she'd gone, and do whatever he could to begin again.

(sighs.)

Truly convinced the novel and show are each other's companion and should be both read and watched for a full experience.

[deltaengineering]

Spring Anime 2024: A Wizard is never late

Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku (Train to the End of the World)

If you want a reason for why this post is woefully late, it’s this show: since we’re going in ascending order of quality here, it must come first, yet I have a hard time saying anything about it. I suppose I can start with the most obvious problem: I will probably watch your original anime, but I do that to get away from light novel levels of insufferable dialogue. Yet this one definitely goes with the NisioisiN school of writing, which is to say, talk a lot first, then figure out a point at your convenience. This definitely doesn’t endear the show to me and makes it mildly annoying right from the start, but it could still be salvageable - but then Shuumatsu Train just turns out to be not particularly good at any of its selling points. For a weird show it’s not weird enough. For a comedy it’s not funny enough. For a character drama the characters are too superficial. For a profound allegory, it's much too vague. And even though the parts are hardly stellar, the result somehow still ends up as less than the sum of them. It‘s not a total write-off since at least there is some ambition here, but I really can’t say that being more meaningful than not at all is enough of a payoff for something that is mostly just basic attempts at wacky humor presented in an annoying fashion. 4/10

Yuru Camp S3

So, speaking of ambition. My last contact with Yuru Camp was me getting very mad at S2‘s incessant products and services shilling. Admittedly S3 turns this down to an acceptable level, but that only makes the deeper issue more apparent: Yuru Camp is and has always been astonishingly vapid, and three seasons and a movie in all the vibes in the world can no longer make up for it. I won’t even complain that the show is no longer about camping in any meaningful capacity (since I never cared and at least the local-tourism-and-food lane we‘re in now doesn’t require purchase of specialized gear), but godammit if personality-free blobs looking at small footbridges for three episodes didn’t kill my enthusiasm for any of this mush. It‘s still broadly inoffensive, but at this point I feel like I’ve thoroughly exhausted anything this show is ever willing to offer. And Yama no Susume shows that you can have all the theoretical positives of a Yuru Camp with compelling enough characters, so there’s really no excuse. 5/10

Yoru no Kurage wa Oyogenai (Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night)

I don’t know where this recent trend of cute but reasonably serious girl band anime came from (I would like to think MyGO, but more likely it‘s Bocchi the Rock + the most blatantly obvious and viable way to improve on Bocchi). But here is Jellyfish and uh… it certainly makes an attempt. The first impression is very positive, since Doga Kobo provides pleasant visuals (per usual), but it quickly becomes apparent that it’s the writing that is really holding this one back. It’s not even bad ideas or a lack of ideas, since the concepts this show wants to tackle are generally quite good. But pretty much every execution on those plot ideas is botched in some way, be it by resolving them in a stupidly simple way (impostor syndrome? just do your best!) or by just having a character read out their character arc really dramatically. A bunch of plot points don't even make sense when you look at them in context of the ostensibly real world this show takes place in, and the ending is a massive nothingburger. It's all stuff that's barely passable when something like Love Live does it, but in something that aims higher it seems like a first draft at best and more likely just extremely amateurish. One can only wonder if you gave such a concept to a seasoned veteran like Jukki Hanada... 6/10

Tonari no Youkai-san

Tonari no Youkai-san started out as a rather simple show that I really liked: a mostly but not exclusively lighthearted depiction of a world where Youkai are real and the weird situations that can create, with likeable characters carrying it along. But then it became apparent that what it really wants to do is back-to-back KEY-style sadpiano scenarios. While those aren't bad in moderate amounts, the fact that every scenario now had to be about some heartbreaking backstory no matter what quickly became rather tiring. And then, if it wasn't apparent enough that this show was writing itself into the weeds, it capped the season off with a completely bizarre sci-fi multiverse action arc where everyone dies (very sad!) but then comes back alive because power of friendship beats entropy or something. Well, at least I prefer laughing at this nonsense to being annoyed at contrived tearjerkers, I suppose. I wouldn't call it quality though. 6/10

Dungeon Meshi (Delicious in Dungeon)

When the Dungeon Meshi started, I just didn't get it. The hyperbole around this show (mostly coming from manga fans, I think) was clearly not befitting a very mediocre gimmick anime where even the gimmick had been done better elsewhere multiple times. I do have to admit that as it went on, I could start to see where people were coming from: Once the cooking dies down a bit, the characters start to develop a bit and it finds its pace, Dungeon Meshi's "default mode" is an entertaining adventure anime with some nice characters, decent humor and engaging action. So far so good. However, I'll still call the show merely above average because it's in its default mode less often than you'd think. Every time I started to like something, Dungeon Meshi immediately had to head off in some random other direction that I don't care for: The cooking I did not care for in the beginning becomes vestigial but never stops taking up airtime nonetheless. The nerdy exposition about dungeon mechanics should not merit more than a footnote in a splatbook, but never stops taking up a lot of airtime nonetheless (it's also a painful reminder of the "worldbuilding over narrative" nonsense that I hate, but Dungeon Meshi isn't the worst offender here so I'll let it slide). The show expects me to care about other, far less interesting parties after I just barely mustered up enough enthusiasm to see Chilchuck as more than a spare Marcille when Marcille can't play the tsukkomi herself. Falin turns into a tragic zombie chicken. They adopt an annoying cat. It goes on and on and I'm not thrilled. I will admit though that I will likely still watch the sequel, mostly because Trigger really does a fantastic job with this adaptation on all levels, which at the very least manages to keep it watchable even in the doldrums. I just wish the source material was more consistent. 6/10

Kaiju No. 8

Every season there's some random anime that isn't particularly great, but still competent enough to merit a watch. It's usually some light comedy like Torture Princess, but every once in a while it's something else. This season it's Isekai QC, but in spring it was something even less likely: Kaiju #8, a Jump-brand premium shounen. Yeah, that's a surprise. It just doesn't do anything particularly wrong, apart from the genre staples that it must do wrong: The pacing is bad, but just regular bad. The tone is all over the place, but just regular all over the place. The protagonist isn't as good as he first seems, but not as bad as he could be either. It starts out as "less miserable Attack on Titan where people shoot at huge monsters with guns at shounen powerlevel efficiency", which is extremely awkward, but eventually it settles into a more standard "hit bad guy with sick special attacks" groove, which isn't exactly exciting but at least clearly something the show wants to be. In short, nothing special but the bullshit does not exceed the maximum level I will tolerate as the price of entry to epic dudes epically fighting in an epic fashion. There always is a point with these where you have to ruthlessly cut your losses, but it did not reach it in its first season when the average genremate reaches it within the first episode. That's... something. 6/10

Nijiyon S2

I wasn't even going to write about this because what is there to say about Nijiyon, except that Nijiyon is that rare mini spinoff that actually gets better and starts to outshine the main show at points. Half the time. The other half is still very basic and very arbitrary 4koma hijinks, but an improvement is an improvement. 6/10

Bartender: Glass of God

Why did they make a second Bartender anime in 2024? I can't answer this conclusively but I will say that if Suntory didn't pay for at least half of this production, they got something for free. With that out of the way, the most interesting thing I can say about Bartender is how it compares to Gin & Sonic '06. The old one was certainly ambitious, but in a rather obvious way: Treating the Bartender mystique as somthing close to supernatural and presenting it in a very abstract and stagey way. This is great when it works, but just as often merely comes off as extremely pretentious. The new one... just doesn't do any of that. It's a very straightforward, simple story with actual characters and stuff. It's workable enough with some stronger and some weaker episodes, and even though it does not even attempt to reach the highs of the old one, it doesn't sniff its own farts and does its best to avoid the old man machismo stank that faintly polluted the first adaptation. So I will actually call it better in some ways, maybe even on average, but it still can't compete with a show that had a better reason to exist than to get you excited for Yamazaki whiskey. 6/10

Euphonium S3

I've had my ups and downs with Yoof, and I will say that while some nags remain, I am satisfied with how it managed to (hopefully) wrap up. In fact, S3 might be the best the show has ever been. We were never going to get the cartoonish and quite frankly more entertaining presentation of S1 back, but for what it's worth, S3 takes the overcooked presentation and histrionic character writing of S2 and brings them down to a palatable level, and that makes it at least worth thinking about. Another big point in its favor is that it's now finally truly the Kumiko show, and not just the Kumiko stumbles into other people's drama show. Cast additions like Kanade and Mayu are prety great as well so yeah, I had a good time. Really my biggest complaint is that S3 might actually be a little too good at character drama, because at one point it seemed it was on the verge of starting to question a few of its core assumptions. I never expected it to have doubts over whether letting your school club control your entire existence is in fact a good thing, but ideas like Reina actually being as insane as she comes across and that Taki actually being as terrible as a teacher as he comes across seemed extremely promising. But nah, of course Kumiko just had to be honest with herself, that solved all the problems and then the show just coasted to the most predictable ending imaginable. Euphonium always seemed like it could be way better with a bit more risk-taking, but this was a particularly disappointing moment for the show to be itself. Anyway, if you just expect Euphoinum you're getting the good Euphonium here. 7/10

Girls Band Cry

So, about that "Hanada writing Jellyfish" quip I made earlier? What if that actually happened, in the same season no less? Yeah, these two shows are shockingly similar but unlike Jellyfsh, Girls Band Cry does things right... for the most part. You need to get used to the somewhat janky CG animation, but you're getting some great expressiveness in the deal so that's no problem. You'll also have to put up with Hanada's trademark yuribaiting, a pretty weak ending (as if these two shows didn't already copy each other's homework enough) and music that is much too obvously coming from the Vocaloid camp for my liking. Apart from that, GBC is very good. Not quite as good as MyGO (which has even better character dynamics and I still can't get past how shockingly high its quality is for a franchise anime), but it's really close. So close in fact that I don't even feel like pointing out in detail why GBC is good, because it really is MyGO again: Very flawed yet likeable girls try to get their mental in order while swinging between goofy and depressed and occasionally making music. It's not complicated, but when the character writing delivers (i.e., by seasoned pros like Yuniko Ayana or Jukki Hanada), it just works. If this is a trend now, I'll gladly take it. 8/10

[draven]

I saw your mindflayer edward oc, what are they like?

woah oops idk when you asked this but i hope youll accept your answer now!

hes generally good-humored, though can seem stoic at first (if he's not actively attempting to scare you off). generally delivers punchlines to jokes incorrectly and without any real delivery prowess, so it can be hard to tell when hes joking. he understands that other species are more social and follow codes of conduct, but cant really wrap his head around why. nor does he care to figure it out. he likes to toy with people because it helps him know which buttons to press and when.

hes egotistical; as an ulitharid, he knows he is special and likes to flaunt it. (extra tentacles, baby.) that said, he has no desire to become an elder brain and abandoned his hive because of this. he enjoys a nice luxurious day of self-care just as much as he enjoys a day spent subjugating and enthralling others on various planes of existence. he lives a relatively solitary life, due to both choice and circumstance. (Choice because he would truly identify with the “introvert” label after a particularly compelling buzzfeed quiz and circumstance because, well, he is who he is.)

he will always do and say what benefits him or gives him leverage. this makes him sound mean but on the surface he really isnt. he can be a good and powerful friend, but you'll have to find him first and he is very good at hiding.

sometimes he is exceedingly wise. others, he sounds like a cheesy motivational poster you'd see in a classroom or office space.

some fun facts: he loves and revels in self-care, he plays stringed instruments, he has a cockatoo, he has a mansion powered by some salvaged nautiloid parts that lets him teleport his mystery mansion as he pleases. his favorite song is love shack by the b-52's.

thanks for reading my wall of text. enjoy this picture of him in his supremely evil outfit with his supremely evil bird.

[mr-geargrinder]

Star Trek Rewatch Thoughts

Finished my rewatch of DS9, Voyager, and TNG. I've lost count of how many times I've rewatched TNG and DS9, but this was only my second time going through Voyager, because it just didn't click with me the first time through. Anyways, here's some thoughts.

TNG is fascinating to me because you can see them assembling the show as they go. They change plans pretty drastically, remove and bring back characters, and try to salvage others with a few last minute episodes. That left a permanent mark on the way I think about storytelling.

TNG is a pretty goofy show, but it takes itself seriously and there's a lot to be said about how dedication to the bit and some really charming actors doing their best can totally overshadow cheap sets and silly technobabble... and even when it doesn't, those goofy moments are still very charming too.

I only skipped a handful of episodes and most of them were Troi or Wesley episodes, for obvious reasons. Troi got a lot of bad episodes and Wesley is... Wesley. Someone who kind of embodied all the worst parts of Gene Roddenberry's silly utopian wish fulfillment fantasies. One of the things that I never noticed before was how the last season was filled with so many bad episodes, followed by one of the best series finales ever made.

Voyager was less bad than I remember. I found myself liking certain characters a lot more and hating others much more intensely. Janeway, Tuvok, and Neelix really clicked with me this time. I recall Neelix being hated for being the silly comic relief character, but he's got some depth! He's a sincerely, genuinely good person who is trying his hardest for the people around him and that really resonated with me this time around. Especially his interactions with Tuvok (minus the Tuvix episode).

Tom Paris ended up being the guy I liked the least because his three traits are "pilot", being a general shithead, and reminding Harry about every single time he messed up romantically in a list, over and over, and none of that really helped them sell him as a roguish hotshot with a heart of gold, or whatever. He's just a shithead.

Skipping episodes helped me to enjoy Voyage a lot more. Almost anything to do with Chakotay was skipped immediately. His bullshit tribal mysticism, literally made up by a con-artist who convinced Hollywood he was a Native American and an expert cultural consultant, did not endear him to me in any way. Robert Beltran did his best to portray the character with dignity and wisdom, but Chakotay just suuuuucks. The inclusion of the Maquis subplot was also a pretty big waste of effort, but the fact that it gets ignored for most of the series makes it easy for me to ignore.

Anything to do with the Kazon got skipped too. They're just lamer, dumber, more irrational Klingons and they have nothing of value to add to any story they're featured in. That also meant skipping a lot of the Seska plot, which was Chakotay heavy anyways, and I don't regret that. Seska was not compelling at all.

Likewise, the Vidiians got skipped without hesitation. Not only do I hate the body horror aspect, but they were an attempt to create a sympathetic monster faction in Trek, but they're just.... irredeemably bad. There's no reason for anyone to allow the Vidiians to keep living. Not because of their disease, but because they are organ stealing monsters who hack random people to bits to extend their lifespans a tiny bit, so they can keep stealing more organs. No thank you. Fuck off. Go away. There's a reason no one talks about you.

DS9 remains my favorite Star Trek. It's got some rough episodes, and it struggles at time between being a planet/anomaly/random-space-threat of the week and a smaller scale, single-location focused kind of story, but the entire cast does a fantastic job of switching between the two without skipping a beat.

I don't think there's a single character on DS9 that I can say I dislike and the few I could complain about are mostly ones who were there for a single episode or just didn't have the benefit of a few more seasons to develop them as much as we got with characters like Jake and Nog. Speaking of which, Jake and Nog are such a perfect example of how you can have kid characters in a trek show and have them work and develop naturally and feel like a natural part of the story.

One of the things that struck me that never occurred to me before is that DS9 is a show that is very, very much about the concept of "home" and all the complex ways the character interpret and grapple with that concept. Quark and Garak have a fantastic scene towards the end of the series where they both commiserate about how their home planets are changing rapidly and how they'll never be able to return to the planets they once knew. It's kinda there in nearly every character and plot and it's really fascinating.

I think the only episodes I skipped were a few of the "It's time to make O'Brien suffer!" episodes, and that one specific episode where they meet that insane lady who forces her anti-technology beliefs on everyone by lying to them and abusing them, and the moral of the story is "actual this is good and she's right!" -- Fuck that episode. I'd rather watch the board game episode.

The last stretch of the Dominion War is a little uneven, but it's still a strong arc overall. Could've maybe done without the Pah-Wraith stuff, and the Ezri and Bashir subplot is a little weak, but those are nitpicks.

Anyways, go watch Star Trek.

[ostermad-blog]

📖, 💡?

Two excellent questions. We'll take 'em in order!

📖 My favorite class or playbook from a game.

It's funny, this question. I'm someone who prefers to run games rather than play in them, so I don't really spend a lot of time thinking about classes/playbooks unless I'm designing a game (my current project has had me doing a lot of reading over different playbooks for inspiration). So I'm going to cheat and give you two answers.

The first answer is the Ghelf from TheOriginalCockatrice's game Troupe. The Gelf is a preening pissant, someone petty and small and full of self-importance with a flair for the dramatic. They are hard and bitter but believe themselves to be loving and sweet. They are in so much agonizing denial that my heart hurts to think about it. I think TheOriginalCockatrice did a phenomenal job expressing the ghelf's wretchedness, their vulnerability, and their allure.

The real answer is the one I am embarrassed about, the one I knew was my answer as soon as I read the question, the one class that has stuck with me since I read it as a middle schooler in the Complete Warrior book for dnd 3.5. I feel like an indie ttrpg poser that my favorite class is one from dnd, but let me talk to you about the Warshaper and maybe you'll see why it has been in my bones since I was 13.

The Warshaper is a prestige class, something that doesn't exist in dnd 5e (thank goodness). Prestige classes had to be built into, you had to multiclass in just the right way, do the right in-game things to qualify, take the right character customization options. And some of them were utter garbage and some of them were incredibly powerful. Like many things in 3.x, there was a kernel of a good idea somewhere in there, but the implementation was horrible.

The Warshaper's most onerous requirement was that you had to be able to change your shape, to transform from one body to another. A wizard's polymorph would do, as would a druid's wildshape. As would being a werecreature, as well. And the central premise of the Warshaper class was: what if you could change your body better? Now, this was dnd, so the implementation was all about combat - you can grow more natural weapons, they do more damage, you can rearrange your organs and muscles to make you immune to critical hits, your limbs can extend up to 10ft away from you. But the idea behind the class was immediately compelling, and as a deeply, deeply closeted trans teenager, as soon as I read this class I knew I wanted to be it, in a powerful and personal way. I also, being a deeply, deeply closeted trans teenager, never attempted to build a character that could take the class. I thought about dnd a lot more than I played it, and I made dozens of characters. And I was never brave enough to make someone who could transcend their body-of-birth and take this class, at least not until many years later, in college, when I played my first female character. Playing her was probably the closest I came to realizing I was trans until my egg actually did crack.

So, yeah, the answer I like to that question is the Ghelf. My real answer is the Warshaper.

💡 A game that inspired my own design or creative practice

Here I have many equally true answers. Honorable mention to dnd 3.5 for being so poorly designed that I had to start designing for it to patch up the gaps and salvage something good from it.

The actual answer, well, one of them, is Kazumi Chin's Rogue 2e, which is a love letter to the OSR and storygame ttrpg genres. Rogue 2e is an elegant game. It uses as few rules and mechanics as possible to communicate worlds of potential. Chin's game really opened my eyes to indie ttrpgs more broadly and proved that the adventuring ttrpg experiences I had grown up on could be built in so many more ways than I had thought possible.

Another answer, and the last I'll give for now, is Alexis Smolensk's D&D. Smolensk is a phenomenal writer and his blog (tao-dnd.blogspot.com) is an invaluable resource to anyone looking to run, play in, or design adventure ttrpgs. He has been building his world and expanding his rules for decades with the care and artistry of an expert craftsman. He showed me what adventure games could be, that the skills involved in running them could be deeper than I had ever imagined. I will spend the rest of my life trying to meet his skill level, and I hope that one day people playing in my setting can have half the fun I had playing in his.

[spider-xan]

Fucking THANK YOU for your recent take on SHED - the fact that Martha and Billy are all happy chappy about being lizard clones who can never leave the sewers and live with the man who murdered the child gives me a bad case of the Big Yuck. I know that it is still canon, but I think of it as no more canon as that shitty mlp fanfic about Pinkie Pie killing Rainbow Dash - just unnecessary grimdark shite with no purpose than to show how """"""""""""adult"""""""""" Spidey stories can be. Not to mention the shitty implications of Curt only being properly being loved by his family because they share the same technical disability as him................

Yeah, like, I understand Nick Spencer was in a really awkward position in trying to do a back-to-basics approach at the start of his ASM run regarding Connors bc he inherited the absolutely fucking awful and offensive legacy left to him by Zeb Wells, Dan Slott, and Marvel editorial in terms of both Shed and the Clone Conspiracy, and for all of Spencer's many faults, I think he actually writes Curt surprisingly well and his characterization in the first arc and Hunted felt correct and compelling to me - except you have to ignore how it falls apart once you take Shed and the post-Clone Conspiracy status quo for the Connors family into account, leaving aside that Hunted was a response to Shed and attempt to resolve it (spoiler: it can never be resolved).

Not to mention that Peter and Mary Jane being totally cool with the situation makes them look awful too, like, how the fuck are they comfortable hanging out with them in the sewers for fun times under those creepy circumstances? Why was Peter cracking jokes about Curt eating people, as if that isn't wildly offensive on several levels? Don't get me wrong, I love the four of them being friends, but it no longer works without everyone looking like assholes.

Shed was horrible enough, and you know what, Clone Conspiracy may have been salvageable if Curt's arc was more along the lines of him getting one last chance to apologize and say good-bye to his family before letting them go - and you can definitely make a case that he has a problem with letting go (see: his entire inability to cope with his disability and loss that lead to the Lizard problem in the first place) - but no, Slott decided it would be sooo funny if Curt lost his mind and forcibly turned his family into lizard zombies to play house with creepy 1950s family sitcom overtones while his wife and son have zero agency and it's sooo funny he's delusional and crazy for that last page image??

Even with Spencer giving Martha and Billy their agency back, the entire situation feels so creepily coercive precisely bc they can't leave the situation, even if it's not meant to come off that way, which they never asked to be in either, and it's not like they even got any of the cool parts of reptile superpowers, they're literally just humanoid lizards stuck hiding underground and can't go anywhere, and Hunted kind of addressed this with Billy being rightfully pissed off, but Martha is just like, the endlessly accommodating perfect wife, and by the end of the arc, everything is back to being happy again, and just, fuck no, what the hell?

And at this point, I don't think any of it will ever get fixed bc Connors is mostly ignored now unless you need the Lizard as a generic villain for a one-off story where Spider-Man just beats his ass like a common street criminal, and honestly, I don't know if it even can be fixed - the Lizard really should have been retired as a Spidey villain years ago, but that's comic book serial storytelling for you.

[lothiriel84]

Think Only Upon the Present

Margaret looked very pale and agitated, a fine tremor running through her entire frame; before Mrs Shaw could do so much as utter a single word, he was at her side, guiding her to sit down with such tender solicitude that earned him a tremulous smile from his intended. 

A North and South ficlet. John/Margaret. Sequel to Some Strange Presumptuous Way.

Mr Thornton endured Mrs Shaw’s hour-long denunciation of his ungentlemanly conduct and his shocking want of morals with remarkable composure; he had come prepared to face the harshest of censures, and was determined to make no attempt to justify himself, standing before his accuser with his head bowed in silent acknowledgment of the gravity of his sin. However, when the affronted matron began casting aspersions on Margaret’s character alongside his, he felt compelled to speak up against the unfairness of said accusations.  

“I won’t have Miss Hale held responsible for my own actions, madam,” he stated in the same decisive manner that had won him the respect of his fellow mill masters. “It was unconscionable of me to impose upon your niece at such a time as that, and I deeply regret my unpardonable lapse of control in the face of her vulnerability. You may rest assured I fully intend to right my wrong, and to henceforth show Miss Hale all the care and respect she is owed.” 

“Let me be very frank, Mr Thornton,” came Mrs Shaw’s icy reply. “If there was a way to save Margaret from the impending scandal without condemning her to everything a future with such a man as yourself entails, I certainly would not give my consent to this marriage. As it is, I would be a fool to deny her the only chance at salvaging however little of her reputation we can still hope to preserve; but if were ever to hear a word of my poor girl being treated with anything less than the consideration she deserves, I will not hesitate to come and take her back to London, where she shall always have a home waiting for her, if she wishes.” 

Calling upon every last reserve of patience he possessed, Mr Thornton just about managed to rein back his temper; as despicable as his conduct had been, it had come from a place of deep love and affection rather than the sort of malicious intents Mrs Shaw seemed determined to ascribe to him. “I am well aware I was never a gentleman in your eyes, even less so now; but I hope you will at least do me the justice to allow the bare minimum of human decency to persevere among my many faults.” 

Of the strength of his abiding love for Margaret, he hesitated to speak openly in front of her aunt; and yet, when Mrs Shaw finally instructed a servant to fetch Miss Hale, so that she might get confirmation of her niece’s wishes from her own lips, he could not bring himself to leave the room. Margaret looked very pale and agitated, a fine tremor running through her entire frame; before Mrs Shaw could do so much as utter a single word, he was at her side, guiding her to sit down with such tender solicitude that earned him a tremulous smile from his intended.  

No sooner had Miss Hale confirmed her willingness for this marriage to take place with as much haste as could be managed that she burst into overwrought tears, begging her aunt’s forgiveness for tarnishing the good name of the family as well as the memory of her beloved mother and father. It could not be expected of Mr Thornton to allow this state of affairs to continue, and he did not think twice before braving the brunt of Mrs Shaw’s disapproval by kneeling beside her niece and once more offering his shoulder for Margaret to cry upon.  

“For heaven’s sake, child, you ought not to distress yourself so in your condition,” Mrs Shaw exclaimed at length, and for the first time he could detect the very real concern behind her words. “You shall marry tomorrow, or the day after that, if a special licence cannot be obtained sooner. Now I will take you upstairs myself if I need to, for I cannot have you risking your health in such an unconscionable manner as this.” 

Relinquishing his precious charge to the capable hands of Mrs Shaw and Miss Dixon, Mr Thornton took his leave from Harley Street and went about making the necessary arrangements for the wedding. He did not care it would perforce have to be a hasty one, with very little in the way of pomp and ceremony; all he longed for was to be allowed to call Margaret his own, and to bring her home to Milton at last, where she belonged.  

---

Despite Margaret’s insistence, neither her aunt nor Mr Thornton had been of a mind to allow her wish to walk to the church on the day of her wedding. It was for the best, as she was soon to learn; for the exertions of the past few days, combined with the strain of several weeks’ worth of anxiety and the heat of a very fine summer day in London had her feeling very faint and weak throughout the ceremony.  

Captain Lennox had offered to stand up with Mr Thornton, while Mr Lennox had abruptly departed for Scotland as soon as he had been informed that this marriage was to take place. Edith, on her part, had been inconsolable that she was forbidden from attending due to the lateness of her confinement, and had gone so far as to call her cousin selfish for making it so that she could not postpone the ceremony to a more convenient date, thus earning a half-hearted scolding from her mother for her unkind words; in her emotional state, Margaret had fled to her room where she had proceeded to cry all over Dixon’s shoulder for a good half hour, while the old servant attempted to calm her by recounting tales of Mrs Hale’s confinements – how much quicker to tears and bout of tempers alike her mistress was wont to be when with child.  

As exhausted as she felt in body and mind, Margaret could not stand the thought of spending another night in Harley Street, and had therefore insisted that they journeyed to Milton immediately after the ceremony; out of concern for her health as well as that of the babe, Mr Thornton had attempted to dissuade her from such notion, but even his well-meant remonstrations had only sought to distress her further, and in the end he had bowed to her request, though very reluctantly.  

What Margaret had failed to consider was the probability that a long train ride might not agree with her condition; by the time they reached Milton, she was in such a bad way she had to rely entirely on her husband to hand her down from the train carriage, then into a hired cab that would take them to her new home. When they reached Marlborough Street, John paid no heed to her protestations that she was well enough to walk; instead, he picked her up as one would a child and carried her inside, would not rest until she was safely ensconced in his bedchamber, with Doctor Donaldson sent for despite the lateness of the hour. 

Amidst her dizziness and bone-deep tiredness, Margaret was vaguely aware of Mrs Thornton’s displeasure at the unfolding events, and the servants’ whispers that would invariably lead to more tittle-tattle come the morrow; nothing felt real to her, save for the warm anchor of John’s hand around her own, which he did not relinquish even when Doctor Donaldson came in to examine her. In his quiet, professional manner, he asked few questions of her, did not appear to dwell overmuch on the circumstances of her condition in relation to their hasty marriage; he merely recommended bed rest for a few days, and did his best to put Mr Thornton’s mind at ease as to the unlikeliness of any permanent harm to come to either his wife or the child she was carrying.  

Margaret was asleep before Doctor Donaldson had finished taking his leave; her husband’s hand never once leaving hers throughout, nor for the entirety of the night to follow.  

---

“It has all been done properly, John,” Mrs Thornton informed him, disapproval apparent in her tone. “It is the second-best bedchamber, and she shall be much more comfortable in there, especially in her condition.” 

Mr Thornton pinched the bridge of his nose in a desperate attempt to keep his composure in the face of his mother’s most recent attempts to undermine his authority pertaining the household matters. “My wife has expressed her wish to share my bedchamber. I see no problem in that, Mother.” 

“It is not proper for a man in your position, son. We have room enough for each of you to have separate bedchambers, and the servants are already talking.” 

He gave a short, sharp bark of laughter at that. “I think we have given the servants enough to talk about regardless our sleeping arrangements. You need not concern yourself, Mother – should Margaret wish to remove to a different bedchamber, I am sure she will let you know immediately.” 

The stony silence that followed was just as tinged with disapprobation as her previous words were. Still, he waited for he to speak her mind, as he was sure she would.  

“How could you, John?” she demanded after a lengthy pause. “I did not raise you to be the kind of man to behave so dishonourably towards any woman, let alone one who was ever so determined not to have you.” 

“Mother! You cannot be suggesting – I own that I conducted myself as no gentleman would, but you must know I would never – not in the manner you are thinking of.” 

“I was speaking of the prideful manner in which she spurned your first offer,” his mother replied haughtily. “And how I presume she refused you a second time – for I pray to God you did the honourable thing and offered for her, afterwards.” 

John sighed, the distant echo of his past misery weighing on his chest for just a moment. “I did. It is no matter – she’s my wife now, that is all I ever asked for.” 

“We'll see if you still feel the same way once the scandal has lost you the mill,” Mrs Thornton prophesised gloomily, turning her gaze out of the window. “Were that she had never come to Milton – we would be carrying on as we always did, you and I, without all the upheaval she has caused in our lives.” 

That proved to be the last straw for Mr Thornton’s already strained patience. “Mother, I will not have you speak about my wife in such a manner. If you cannot find it in yourself to be gracious to her for my sake, then you shall remove to Fanny’s home – this is my final word.” 

“No.” 

They both turned around to find Margaret standing there – her cheeks as pale as the lace trimmings of her gown, yet her eyes were glowing with renewed purpose.  

“I will not have you drive your mother away from her home for my sake,” she stated very firmly, despite the lingering weakness in her voice. John was at her side at once, and insisted she took his place in the armchair, arranging the pillows for her comfort.  

“You ought to be resting, lass,” the elder Mrs Thornton pointed out, not unkindly. “There will be time to discuss these matters once you’re feeling better. And do not think I will stand for you to risk the wellbeing of my grandchild over such trivial a matter as a disagreement between myself and my son.” 

Mr Thornton acknowledged his mother’s implicit concession with an imperceptible bow of his head, and rang the bell for the tea to be brought imminently.  

---

By the time Mr Bell came to visit his goddaughter, Margaret was much recovered, and had taken up such portion of the household duties that had been deemed appropriate in her condition. The timing of his arrival could have been better, as she had had to sit through one of Fanny's interminable calls already; the new Mrs Watson had looked torn between the disapproval she felt she ought to express at the evident proof of her new sister-in-law's unmaidenly conduct, and her positive envy for Margaret’s condition while she herself could not boast any such luck on that front just yet.  

However, Margaret Thornton was even less one to put off an unpleasant duty than Margaret Hale had been; she was only thankful that her husband was occupied with the mill at this time of the day, and she could face whatever reprimand her godfather had come to deliver on her own.  

“Are you quite well, my dear?” Mr Bell enquired after the initial pleasantries had been exchanged, his pointed gaze resting on her increasing figure slightly longer than would have been deemed appropriate. “I am sorry, exceedingly sorry that you did not feel you could confide in me – I promised your father I would look after you, and I have failed spectacularly to do so at the very first opportunity.” 

“Oh, Mr Bell, you need not trouble yourself on my account. My sin was mine alone, and it is a small comfort that my poor Papa was spared the disappointment of knowing his daughter for the undutiful creature she has proved herself to be.” 

“Do not speak so of yourself, my poor child. Clearly you have been misguided, and by one whom you considered a friend no less. Margaret, if you are unhappy – if you feel like you have been forced into this marriage, then I shall make arrangements immediately, take you wherever you wish to go.” 

Margaret stood up in her agitation, and began pacing as if her very life depended on it. “Oh, but you have it all wrong! Mr Thornton and I – in short, I could not bear to be parted from him, and the same is true for him, I know it. What we did, it was very wrong – but I cannot, I will not regret it, because that is what brought us here, together.” Again, she took her place beside him, raised her clear gaze to meet his own. “Despise me now, if you like. I shall not repent before anyone but God himself, and He has been so good as to show me his mercy where I least deserved it.” 

Mr Bell waved his hand as if to dispel the absurdity of such a notion. “Despise you? I may be an old fool, but never as big a one as that, I hope. I have come here to make certain you were well looked after, and as you assure me you are, there is nothing left for me to do but to obtain your signature on certain legal documents I have been carrying around for this exact purpose.” 

“If you wish it,” Margaret replied somewhat cautiously. “I understand very little of legal matters, you see, and I cannot – rely upon Mr Lennox, as I used to.” 

“Oh, it is nothing to trouble yourself over, my dear. I merely intend for a portion of my assets to be transferred to you at once, relieving you of the anxiety of having to wait for my demise, however – imminent that might be. Come, come, there’s no need to distress yourself so, my child – I am only happy to be of service, that is all.” 

That night Margaret wept in her husband’s arms in anticipation of this new grief that was soon to come; she cried also in relief that the mill would be safe, and John need never know the indignity of failing in the business he had worked so hard to create and maintain. And when he had finished drying her tears with the soft press of his lips, she begged him for the very same kind of comfort he had once offered her on a gloomy April night so many lifetimes ago; and so he did, then held her close to him when she fell asleep immediately after, a contented smile on her face. 

[dragonseeds]

Why did you have a negative reaction to Alicent's storyline in the first half of the season?

oh u know just the cycle of abuse and shame etc.

i actually love her writing overall, especially in the first half where the plotting is so tight but still feels perfectly and coherently driven by the emotions of the characters. however, emotionally my reaction to her character was like… i was angry at her, despite intellectually recognizing and appreciating the unfolding story? i think i framed as like: choosing not to tell rhaenyra about what was going on, though completely understandable, was a choice that she made.

and this is probably way heavier than you were expecting (and i’m sorry if it is) but i didn’t realize why that specific part of her storyline got so under my skin until july, when my grandma died and i had to go home for the funeral. i hadn’t seen or spoken to my dad’s side of my family in like ten years and suddenly had to be around them, alone, for days bc southern funerals are a production. it was awkward and awful in a lot of ways and in an attempt to like idk heal and/or defend myself and/or try to salvage some kind of relationship with them i felt like i had to finally tell them about what my dad did and said to me, at least some of it. i wanted them understand and for me to be able to actually say it. and the first thing my aunt said was, “why didn’t you tell us? why didn’t you say anything?” which was devastating to me.

like it’s easy write up a little dissection of a character on a fantasy tv show with cgi dragons + the first doctor you imprinted on wearing a series of insane wigs where you say that (she could have told rhaenyra, she could have told) like it’s a compelling character flaw but to actually sit there in reality in your body and have an adult who knew exactly what kind of man your father was and left you with him anyway when you were a child say that to you is [????????????]. obviously of course that thought has been with me and part of me for my entire life—why didn’t i/i couldn’t/i could’ve—and it turns out projection is real i guess

what’s actually funny 2 me was that i stayed with my mom during the trip (my parents were divorced and she was like. i do not want to go over there but i will if you need me to and i was like. no i got it i am an adult 🫡) and i made her start watching h/otd with me to distract myself and we made it through the first two eps before i was like excuse me i need to go peel off my own skin right now immediately