#and it just has to end to a cliffhanger

[tekikato]

AABAJXNAHZBWUAJWHSJQHQ /pos

Dawn pt. 6

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[turtleblogatlast]

AU where Leo is trapped in the Prison Dimension for months instead of minutes and the only way he gets by with his sanity intact is through recording himself talking to his wrist comm.

When they finally manage to get Leo back and make him rest up to heal, Donnie can’t help but listen to the recordings left behind.

He’s not sure what exactly he’s expecting, only that his subconscious is screaming at him that it has to be heartbreaking, that it has to be torturous.

Instead, what Donnie is subject to is a full thousand hours’ worth of Jupiter Jim and Lou Jitsu crossover fanfiction. More than one part in the series. Spanning well over a million words.

(The worst part is that it’s actually good.)

[mischiefbuckley]

will we finally get rid of buck’s loft this episode🧍🏻‍♀️

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

A Tempest of Tea

first in a YA fantasy duology

follows a young immigrant woman in a fantasy Victorian city who runs a tearoom that doubles as an illegal bloodhouse for vampires at night

when their business is threatened, she gets a chance to save it by teaming up with her best friend, a rich girl with a talent for forgery, a vampire artist, and a mysterious city guard to do a heist to infiltrate high society and collect a logbook that may reveal the extent of the corruption in the city

fantasy city with a masked ruler, arthurian elements, themes of colonialism

[jq37]

Descendants: The Rise of Red is kind of a bizarre movie to talk about critically because, imo, it almost doesn't make sense to talk about it in the usual terms of good vs bad or enjoyable vs not enjoyable when the way more obvious tension is finished vs unfinished.

Because, more than any other movie I've ever seen, it does *not* read as a full movie. And I don't mean in a "this movie has a cliffhanger" kind of way. The Empire Strikes Back and Across the Spiderverse fit that description. They end on big dramatic cliffhangers that point to a resolution in the third installment.

But Rise of Red just sets all this stuff up and then...ends without concluding anything. It doesn't feel like the first movie in a trilogy (or duology). It feels like the first act of a two-act musical. It very specifically reminds me of the end of the first act of Into the Woods where all the main characters sing the song Ever After about how they all fixed their problems with magic and nothing bad will ever happen to them again and then the narrator ominously says "To be continued" before the curtain drops. But in Into the Woods you know there's a second act and this movie wasn't sold as the first act of a bigger story. Like sure, it has the, "You didn't think this was the end" tag at the end like all the other movies, but those movies were complete, self-contained stories even though they had sequels. This was NOT a full story. It's half of one story.

Like, if we're supposed to take this as a full story, there are so many bizarre choices:

Why did they make sure to mention that Cinderella and Charming fell in love at the ball at the top if it wasn't meant to set up Back to the Future style, "Oh no, I accidentally got my mom banned from the ball so she's not gonna fall in love with Dad and I won't be born" shenanigans?

Why did Maddox very pointedly have that bit about "you could lose your mom completely" if that was never going to come into play? Red never did anything to endanger Bridget or endanger her own birth so it doesn't make sense as a warning in that way.

Why was there all this focus on this Carrie on prom night moment for Bridget if we LITERALLY NEVER SAW CASTLECOMING? Why dance around this moment and talk about it all cloak and dagger with no specificity if they weren't building up to some big reveal that it wasn't as straightforward as it seemed? And like, they leaned in HARD with making Bridget the nicest, sweetest, cotton candy princess as a teen so I need WAY more than, "She got pranked by known bullies she's been enduring with a smile very handily up to this point" to buy that she went from that to "murderous dictator". And even if she did become murderous, I find it insanely hard to believe that she'd include her best and only friend on the list of people she wants to suffer unless there was a betrayal. I find it INSANE that there wasn't a falling out scene at any point in this movie with how thickly they were laying on the admiration and camaraderie.

(Note: And adult Cinderella def has guilty vibes re: the Queen at orientation. Which I know I'm not imagining because it's literally spelled out in the Jr Novelization!)

Before the time travel element of the movie started, I thought they were going for something like they go to the past and realize that Bridget was bullied not by the VKs but by the spoiled royals, and Ella ends up joining in the bullying once she gets with Charming, betraying Bridget and justifying her whole "Love Ain't It" philosophy. Or Ella ditching her at the last minute to be with Charming meaning she has to deal with the monster prank alone and it was the being alone rather than the prank itself that hurt her (though that is NOT a good enough reason to go all off with their heads on your subjects). The fact that, as far as we know right now, it literally was just a relatively mild and reversible prank that caused all of this is just, such flat storytelling, you know?

But! All of this makes way more sense if this is meant to be the first act of a single contained story. And I don't wanna be all "Pepe Silvia, secret good 4th episode of Sherlock" about this but I did see this picture:

Which seems to indicate that this was written as a Part One. Which, if so, idk why they wouldn't advertise it that way but whatever. The point is, if that's the case then it means that we're potentially in bad pacing territory rather than straight up bad storytelling territory. Because this isn't a bad place to be halfway through your story:

The heroes, warned that time travel is dangerous, have gone back in time to change the heart of a brutal tyrant before she can stage a coup. They seemingly succeed in their mission and when they come home, everything is great! But then, the side effects of time travel start to catch up with them. Chloe realizes that, in breaking the vase, she prevented her mother from going to the ball and falling in love with her dad (who was conspicuously absent from the final scene btw) which means she's starting to be forgotten and erased from the timeline. And Red realizes that though this new version of her mom is as sweet and kind as the teen she once met, she's a complete stranger to her (fulfilling the Hatter's warning that she could lose her mom completely). So they have to go back in time once more to make sure the Ella and Charming fall in love again, perhaps at the cost of whatever bad thing that happened to Bridget happening again and bringing back the original version of her future self. But, now with more context of how her mom became that way, Red can now talk to her mother and persuade her to give people another chance.

Boom, that gives us time to go back and hit everything we haven't yet hit. We can pay off the time travel tropes that were set up but not explored. We can go to Castlecoming which feels so obviously set up to be the centerpiece of this story (like, come on, Back to the Future literally does the school dance thing. This is Time Travel Storytelling 101). We can actually get info about what the prank was and why it affected Bridget so completely.

(Note: This is a side thing but it really strikes me as so crazy that Bridget would so SUCH a big 180 here. Like, I know the Queen of Hearts is a silly, goofy, campy villain, but she straight up murders people and there's no way to get around that if we're taking her out of the surreal story she comes from and putting her in a (comparatively) grounded story. If I wasn't doing a betrayal plot, I would make the twist that the spell that turned Bridget into a "monster" didn't just have a physical effect, it had a mental effect and it magically twisted her personality to be the way it is now. So they broke the physical half of the curse, but neglected the other half and it's been festering the whole time, turning her as evil as she was sweet. Because like, a simple physical transformation isn't that big of a deal to have such heavy security--Bridget made cupcakes with a transformative effect and that was totally fine. I'm not saying that that's what's gonna be the case. I just think it would be an explanation that makes sense for why she changed so crazy much that makes more sense than a simple prank or even a betrayal. Her mom wasn't even evil! How did she go from zero to murder without even an evil mom to push her onto the path? But I'm super digressing right now.)

(Note #2: OK, one last thing. The trap on the book presumably would have hit the VK's and trapped them in Merlin's office regardless of what Chloe and Red did, right? That's like, net zero influence on the timeline. I genuinely can't tell if that's a straight up plot hole or set up to be like, "Oh no. Actually when she said that she was turned into a monster in front of everyone it was meant in a less literal way." Like she was just made to look bad and that was the real thing that pushed her over the edge. Like idk. It really feels like the only thing they really did that would change the timeline was get Ella banned from the dance and presumably out of the way where she couldn't hurt Bridget. OK NOW I'm done.)

Anyway, my point is that this is not how I would have structured my movie and I think this was a super weird way to go into the second era of Descendants movies, but they can still tell a complete story if that's their plan. I'm genuinely really curious to see if this pans out to be a fairly competently told story that just happens to be split over two movies or a complete fumbling of the narrative bag because it could really be either at this point and it's fascinating to me.

[wingsofhcpe]

anyway if yall want something greek-mythology inspired to read, please pick up Threads that Bind by Kika Hatzopoulou. It's a post-apocalyptic fantasy romance (soulmates!) with lots of queerness in it, inspired by various mythologies but centered around greek mythology, with a greek-coded protag & cultural elements strewn across, and written by an actual greek woman who lives in Greece. It's also the first book I see by a greek author to be written & published in English/abroad first, and to go semi-popular on western reading circles.

we need more like this. please support her.

[new-berry]

I pulled my calf muscle oh my god the agony. I take back everything I’ve said about professional sports people being pussies. Please someone stab me with the drugs they use to mask the pain of broken toes.

I want the shit that would get Callum Wilson on the pitch. :(

I am not particularly complimentary about NUFC so I will cut this.

So my club is owned by Saudi Arabia you have google, you know why this sucks. And I will be eternally thankful still that Ashley is gone and for Amanda for brokering the deal.

BUT the cult of personality around the take over and her is.. unhelpful. The saga with Ashworth and not getting someone in replace him before it was too late doesn’t cover the takeover team with glory. And hoping to fund the future with a linear route up when the rules of PSR are literally designed to protect the big six-ish to prevent there being a super league.

Anyway drugs are kicking in.

[bbcphile]

WIP Wednesday: Part 3

As promised, here's the opening of Di Feisheng's section of Chapter 1 of the AU where Li Lianhua's shiniang tried and failed to sacrifice herself to save him. (To catch up, read part 1 (LLH) and part 2 (FDB) here).

And, uh, sorry about the cliffhanger?

Tw/cw: suicide attempt, medical emergency

***

Di Feisheng dropped to his knees behind Xiangyi, catching him against his chest rather than the ground as he fell. He snatched Xiangyi’s wrist–veins bulging and black, damn it–and felt for a pulse. Faint. Erratic. Still poisoned by Bicha. Completely emptied of Yangzhouman. Where the fuck was the Beifeng Baiyang he’d given him? Why couldn’t he feel it? How the–

“–Lao Di,” Fang Duobing wailed, “he was walking toward the water! He–”

“–Shut up,” he snapped, sending a wisp of his own qi through Xiangyi’s meridians. Or what was left of them. He bit back a growl. They were too damaged for his qi to travel with the sort of speed he needed to evaluate this. He didn’t have time to do full triage, not while Xiangyi’s pulse was getting fainter by the second. He’d start with the heart meridian then; that would be the best way to stabilize–

–why the fuck was his heart meridian shredded? Who had dared to–

–no, damn it, he had to focus. There would be time to rage later.

He had to repair it. But Xiangyi didn’t have the Yangzhouman for it, and the remnants Xiangyi had given him wouldn’t be enough. Could the brat–

“–Get out of the way,” Fang Duobing sobbed, shoving him and thrusting two shaking fingers toward Xiangyi’s chest, the force of his qi rippling the air. “I’ll do it.”

“No,” Di Feisheng snarled, hand flying from Xiangyi’s waist to smack the brat’s away before it would destroy whatever was left of his fragile meridians, “you’ll kill him.” 

“Bullshit!” the pup yelled, as Huli Jing began to howl at equal volume, “I’ve healed him before! Let me help!” The brat’s qi spiked and the sand around them rippled.

Oh for the love of– he didn’t have time to explain this and save Xiangyi. What the hell had the great sword God been teaching this whelp? Xiangyi, if you die, I’ll kill you myself.

He unclenched his jaw against the noise. “You want to help?” he gritted out, each word like knives against his tongue and ears. “Calm your qi. Stay quiet. And keep the mutt quiet, too.” 

“You–”

–Healing the heart meridian now was out, until that ignorant pup could keep a tighter leash on his qi. He’d have to work on the heart directly. 

Di Feisheng pressed his hand over Xiangyi’s chest, closed his eyes, and directed the faintest hint of his Beifeng Baichang to surround Xiangyi’s heart, ready to observe and mimic its movement, as he would any new sword form.

It wrapped around his heart in an embrace. 

Xiangyi’s heart gave one erratic flutter. 

A pause.

A second, weaker thrum against his qi.

Then nothing at all.

[lady-of-the-garden]

edited a chapter. made that chapter two chapters. more than doubled the word count. completely changed the ending. can no longer go seamlessly into the next (already written) chapter. lost an absolutely fantastic ending sentence. ugh.

[peachcitt]

hey everyone!! I’ve got some new chapters of my @ladrienjune fic greatest hits out now!!

find them here: 15 // 16 // 17 // 18

thanks for reading!!<3

[zazikels]

bruh they did not release coral island ("full" version) without even finishing a main storyline and slapping WIP in your fucking journal 💀💀💀💀💀

[raisinushigher]

am i the only one who has a feeling that scudworth being able to clone the students like right the same age and brains and everything might be important later . like ik the show’s whole thing is throwing dumb unimportant stuff in your face and that’s like a big part of the comedy with it but i feel like they didn’t reveal that he can do that and make that clear for no reason

[ladyluscinia]

I mentioned this when I was musing the other day, but it is genuinely wild that the OFMD fandom has somehow gotten this divided over Izzy and Edward's character arcs given that they basically don't exist yet.

Season 1 was like 5 hours of tv, which is barely anything by tv standards, and it had to spend that time mostly on Stede's arc to speedrun him from intro-Stede to hero-Stede. Plus getting you introduced to the ensemble cast enough to care about them, getting you introduced to the concept of BlackBonnet on a "this is how they are compatible and why you should root for them once we start on the struggles" level, going on a detour to give Jim a fairly decent subplot arc, generally just being funny...

I mean, at the end of the season Izzy has gone through a complete life collapse that still only really encompasses the inciting events of his story in the series, and Edward is a main character but he didn't shift from mostly static character setup to actual arc progression until, like, the start of 1x09? And he had to split time pretty heavily with Stede so that comes out to what? 30 minutes, max?

There is a reason that a lot of my speculation as to why Izzy isn't a bigoted villain leans so heavily on show themes, genre, and doylist questions of "why not be worse?" And it's because at the moment Izzy isn't far enough on his arc to have definitively committed to a "good" or "bad" arc direction. There's just not enough content. Neither side has enough evidence purely from Izzy's character and actions to say this is where he's going, vs you could totally do that with Stede.

But I do think we have enough evidence to compare what any Izzy option would require from the writing and what they would say thematically, and I think evil bigot Izzy is both poor thematic messaging and lacking the kind of setup I feel they would need to have done by now, given how limited the show is on planned time. If they wanted him evil, they did not have the episodes to waste on close ups of his emotional devastation or using plausible surface level explanations that sidestep the actual messages they supposedly wanted him to send. He should have just skipped over that bit and been Evil™ like the Badmintons.

[sleeptaken]

*forlorn sigh* when will my wife (my fave st fic) return from the war (get a new chapter)

[cheriafreya]

this was painfully slow to go through, please don't ever do this again Hoyo :_)

[radiaking]

i think a lot of shows would suck a whole lot less if they stopped trying to squeeze every drop of money out of a concept/show, etc. when they've already finished the story