#and it just. is such a fucking slog. especially in the epilogue

[betty-burnout]

Every "cycle of revenge" story wishes it had what Memento (2000) had

[wannaeatramyeon]

Gun Park x Reader: this is our place (we make the rules)

Chapter 5 - Probably should read ch1 first

Gun has a new neighbour. Index: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Epilogue

You are this close. This close to having a breakdown.

Who the hell flirts and says ‘are you hungry for food or something else,’ and invites you in for actual food. 

And, you think as you consider jamming the chopsticks into your eyes, why the hell did you follow him into his home. Do you have no sense of propriety especially after what an asshole Gun has been?

Are you so overcome with horniness that you abandon all standards?

Yeah Gun Park might be hot. Maybe even the hottest thing you have ever seen. 

Too bad he is rotten. A- a… 

Douche, your brain offers and you slump at the impact of the word, like a bang that just fizzles out, missing the mark. You were hoping for the most aggressive curses known to man. But yeah. He is a douche. A douchebag. 

Who the hell has black eyes. Who wears sunglasses indoors. Who does he think he is.

You know what? Fuck it. 

You will not be intimidated by his home. All clean lines and pretentious.

Clearly lacking a personality, just like him.

If he has invited you for food. You will eat. You will eat him out of house and home and gorge yourself until your stomach bursts.

With gusto, you tuck into the food laid out before you. Just about enough for two people if they had small appetites.

Douche. You swallow down a mouthful of bibimbap.

Douchebag. And inhale the pickled radish.

Asshole. You take a swig of the sharing bottle of Coca Cola. 

.

.

By the time that Gun comes out, he’s staring at a few stray clumps of rice.

“Hungry?”

“Starving,” you give him the biggest grin you can. Ha, that’ll teach him.

With a shrug, he takes out his phone, taps a few more times then tucks it away into his pocket.

“More food is on the way.”

Oh. Your grin turns into a grimace, “...Thanks.”

.

.

Waiting for the next food delivery is painful.

The minutes slog by. Seems to slow down even more when Gun takes a seat at the dining table opposite you. Observing you with those sharp black eyes.

Gun doesn’t speak.

He hardly finds that he needs to in most situations, preferring to let the silence settle and permeate. Grow uncomfortable until fools find the need to fill it. Spilling more than they intended.

“So,” you lean back into your seat and cross your arms, “Gun Park?”

“...”

“That’s your name, right?”

“Yes.”

“Gun Park,” you repeat again, testing the way the words sound on your tongue. Huh. It’s not as repulsive as you thought it would be.

“Y/N,” he says, and you jolt at the fact he knows who you are.

“How do you know?”

“I looked up who you are,” He says casually, like everyone just looks up random people, “I was curious.”

Oh yeah. Sure, that explains it. 

“What did you find?”

Gun rattles off statements about you. Reduces your life down to a few lines and facts and dates. Punctuates it with, “That was all the PI could find.”

“Private investigator?” You hear your voice getting higher with each syllable. The ‘-tor’ is shrill.

“...”

“You said you looked me up! I thought you meant on social or something! AISH!” You flop back into your seat and click your tongue at Gun, who seems tickled at your reaction.

Seriously. Who is this guy anyway. This sounds like some rich Chaebol shit, which… tracks. 

You glance around at his clothes, his stinking rich aura, the apartment that would be described as minimalist and never sparse or empty.

“Y/N.” Gun says again, this time he’s the one that’s testing out your name. He thinks of your furious eyes, the foot jammed between the door, all the times you flipped him off and finds he can’t help accompanying it with a small smile.

Oh.

All your anger and exasperation evaporates with that smile. Not a smirk, not mocking. 

His face lights up and transforms. Eyes crinkling slightly at the corners, a ghost of a dimple on his cheeks. It takes years off him, looking more boyish.

Damn, he is handsome.

.

.

Gun finds out very little else about you. 

At least, nothing that answers what he wanted to know.

As he eats, you ramble something about college and your family and friends. Moan about your sink. Talk a little about how odd it is to have money. To buy what you want but you still can’t bring yourself too.

He finds he doesn’t mind your words. Voice pleasing and warm, seeping into his skin.

And as you grow comfortable, gesticulating and body growing easy - Gun can’t recall ever having shared a meal with someone in his home. 

Can’t recall sitting with someone else in their company like this.

.

.

Silence settles, this time amenable, almost pleasant. Any annoyance long expired.

You notice the kitchen stove is spotless to the point of unused.

“Have you even used that?”

“Never.”

“So you just order takeout all the time?”

“When I’m home, yes.”

“You can’t cook?”

“I prefer spending my time doing other things.”

“Like what?”

Gun gives you another smile, this time teasing.

Your breath catches in your throat and your stupid traitorous heart pounds.

.

.

Over the weeks, as you cook you find the portion sizes growing infinitesimally.

It gets to the point that there’s enough for another portion left over and then some.

Huh. Will you fancy that.

.

.

The most difficult thing is getting Gun to thaw.

Because once he thaws and warms to you, he himself melts into a puddle surprisingly quickly.

Getting past those walls? Worming your way under his skin and finding a heart there? Nigh on impossible.

Actually statistically impossible, never been done before.

Saying that. He's never had such a constant, harmless presence in his life before too.

Someone that doesn't want anything from him or expect anything either. Doesn't know who he is, and accepts what they see.

There is no exchange of power. Barely even any exchange of words.

Gun finds with you, there's no ulterior motive.

If there's never any danger in the first place, then the walls don't need to be built as high.

.

.

Each time you see him, he's a little less frosty. The curt nod developing into a ‘Morning’ or ‘Evening’. Or when he’s in a particular good mood - ‘Hello’.

You continue flipping him off on the odd occasion and he stills the gesture, not used to the disrespect. (Who would even dare to do that to Gun Park especially if they want to keep their finger.)

Then he huffs, a tiny and subtle exhale and the briefest quirk of the lips. But it's there.

And so. You build up your confidence.

.

.

“Here,” you hold out a tupperware to Gun that he receives with thanks and little rebuttal.

By the next morning, or a few days after that, you always get your container back. Left on your doorstep with a sticky note and a messy scrawl.

‘thanks’

‘this was good’

‘more salt’

‘i dont like cilantro’

‘you should make this again’

‘too much garlic’

Even the criticism perks on your day. 

It becomes something you look forward to each morning. You keep the notes, hiding them away in a drawer.

The handwriting that initially is almost illegible you can now read with ease.

[aeantizlkamenwati]

Final Veilguard Thoughts

I just completed Veilguard 100% platinum (though honestly it is one of the easiest platinums so not much accomplishment there). I have to say again it is not a bad GAME just bad Dragon Age. It reeks of multiplayer and loses everything that made DA unique because of it. And the epilogue is a slap in the face with their “we honor past stories and stories are about change” fourth wall bs and lack of closure. But below the cut is a massive amount of spoilers.

The TL;DR is it’s just a massive missed opportunity and a reboot.

The game up until Weisshaupt is sub par. Boring. It is like they knew the middle and end and then realized they’d have to do a beginning. And then just catered to the newbies and halfassed everything or didn’t do more than one draft. Again the repeating, the handholding the lore while also spoiling everything unnecessarily.

Ghil’s introduction is clownish. Treviso and Minrathous was just fucking blah especially compared to the later missions. It’s just a single fight. And the dialogue Ghil gets? It just makes her a joke. It’s not until Weisshaupt that you see oh she’s crazy and a goddess. It actually felt big while the stupid binary choice was just “eh pick who to fuck I guess”. Maybe if there were other choices like that, it wouldn’t feel so…thrown in there for the sake of supposed stakes.

But the first forty hours (if you are like me and refuse to do main story stuff until everything else is done) is just bad build up. I did not want to push forward until after Weisshaupt. It should NOT take half the game to actually get good. Blood of Arlathan was amazing. It actually felt like I was against a god. It was DIFFERENT than all the other running around quests the game had been up to that point.

I think it would’ve benefitted from more diversity overall. Like gameplay diversity. I think the combat especially needed more. It fucking sucks. It’s just a button masher with no thought. And every boss and big enemy is the same: shield, find the things to pop to break shield, rinse and repeat two-four more times. On storyteller difficulty it’s a joke. And every mission is just fight forward. No puzzle or interesting quests except Blood of Arlathan. Maybe Weisshaupt from the “everything is fucked” thing (it really felt like there should’ve been another REAL everything is fucked, dodging shit that fucked up Treviso/Minrathous to really introduce Ghil) The ending is a bit of a slog too but I enjoyed the cutscenes and war council stuff (again because it was different and interesting and felt like Rook actually had a reason to do it). The end boss battle was cool though not a big fan of the kaiju battles. I called the plot twists at the beginning of the game. Not sure if that's a mark for or against the writing. And the more interesting bits about regret weren’t given enough time to really sink in.

So I think it’s a pacing issue as well as a dialogue issue. I feel like they missed an opportunity to really do something with Rook’s regrets. They are just optimistic and driven all the fucking time that by the time we get trapped in the prison, that’s the first time we see Rook has self doubts and whatnot. There’s this one dialogue line that hit with the masc 1 voice, talking with Solas afterwards that’s “I liked working with you” and it just hits. Where was that emotion before? That level of feeling in the dialogue? If the game is about regrets why didn’t they lean into it??? Instead they leave it blank and deprive Rook of anything interesting, of the thing that made them UNIQUE among the DA protags.

I mean the Inquisitor could be "idk what's going on and why I'm here", but they didn't really have the option to doubt themselves. Hawke was our "everything falls apart around me and I'm just pure chaos" protag. And the Warden was the "Guess I'm in charge now, everyone deal with it" protag. Rook could've been really interesting, to show the different kinds of doubts and regrets. Maybe they are just a scared kid trying to hold it together because they've fucked up everything else in their life. Or maybe they are just pissed that they are the one stepping up. (I also think they could've added depth to the whole elf god thing. Could've also been a nice reason to "fix" the DA racism instead of pastel paint it over). They could’ve utilized the companions to show they cared about Rook that they see what they are going through.

But nope! Bland nothing you have to headcanon your way out of. And Rook is still blander than Origins because everyone knows who they are but the player. They should’ve done something about the backgrounds to set the scene for each Rook. Like resolve them in the game too, not just introductory scenes. Like Aldwir could've had a special mission where them and Strife hash it out (with probably more yelling) cause I kinda felt Strife was Rook's father figure and it would hurt to be constantly told they fucked up by him. Mercar could've had scenes with their family, talking about what it is to lead. SOMETHING to tie Rook to the story and flesh them out beyond headcanons (any developer who relies on headcanons to make their stories interesting, unless the protag is meant to be a Dovahkiin blank space, is fucking lazy, rushed or bad at their job. I don't want to be told "this is the correct Rook", I want enough personality and story to sink my teeth into and Rook is a paper thin vanilla wafer) And they are fucking contradictory? You choose the elf option for tattoos in the beginning and Rook states they were not raised Dalish. They tell Taash they were raised in a city. Then you can say you are Dalish??? And have all the knowledge of a Dalish about the culture. When canonically that’s doubtful. But nope rainbows and sunshine no problems here.

Then the companions are the biggest missed opportunity. I can forgive shitty gameplay (Andromeda) if the companions are good. And this is where the multiplayer starts really showing up. The fact that 90% of their bonding is completely missable and requires you to go into their rooms, stand there, and then just leave without a word from Rook is bullshit (and weird as fuck). Even Andromeda let you have conversations outside cutscenes.

And there’s a lack of balance between the characters. Fucking Taash has like 20 cutscene things and everyone else gets a quarter of that. Why isn’t Lucanis’ healing as important as Taash’s gender journey??? Or Bellara’s grief?? I like Taash don’t get me wrong (at least when they aren’t acting like a moody edgy teenager. That’s just bad writing) but they feel like the favorite child and everyone else is just there. Even NB Rook gets shafted for Taash’s story. I feel I know Taash and have missed everything with the other characters.

This lack of development hits mostly in the romance. Lucanis’ is nonexistent it seems with the majority of flirts doing nothing. One almost kiss and then the companion quest doesn’t change and boom can be in a relationship with nothing new added. It feels like they got the okay to do single player and went “oh shit now we have to do romance…uh just throw the same formula and they’ll be fine”. Like the companions have better chemistry with each other. Rook is just...nothing (no one can convince me they are supposed to be like Shephard because there's having a predefined character and having a blank doll that talks like it has personality) This is a step down from even fucking Origins and DA2. At least those were unique with their own plot lines and themes. At this point I’d take the cringey sex montage of Origins over this nothing burger. Those had more depth than a classic Disney film.

And who’s bright idea was it to put the kiss/make out scene right after you just found out your mentor is dead and you’ve been played with by a god (and why wasn’t that given more room to breathe??? I would feel fucking violated as fuck! But given that one of the writers once wanted you to have sex with a demon masquerading as Leliana I'm also not fucking surprised the idea of consent got thrown out the window) and watched your friend die???? How is that okay???? And didn’t one of the directors say “this is the most romantic da game to date” or something??? Seriously? You call this more romantic than having a literal Princess Bride moment with Josie? Or Dorian learning to want more that he can have more? Be for fucking real.

The lack of all of this gives me serious doubt about Mass Effect 5. I expect a full reboot like this where they just nuke everything off screen so they don’t have to deal with it and call it something like “necessary to avoid pointless one liners” again. I can think of several decisions I made that could’ve aided the South. You know like the schism between the Grey Wardens. But nope. Apparently the only things that matter are: did you want to fuck Solas (as Dorian gets one line and everyone else gets nothing), did you want fucking kill Solas, and how would you like to fucking do that. They made it where there’s only one answer that’s given the care to feel correct/complete. And even then Solas’ sudden "k I’ll bind myself" feels rushed or just cobbled together cause that ending needed more. I don’t care if it’s supposed to be vague that’s an excuse for shitty writing. I should feel like I got closure and I don’t. I just feel insulted given how little care they gave for the previous stories and how little they cared about this one apparently. I shouldn’t have to rely on fanfics to fix your damn story BioWare. Fanfics should build upon what’s there not do your job for you. They could’ve done something interesting but instead we get an indistinguishable multiplayer clone trying to masquerade as a Dragon Age with piss poor pacing, dialogue and direction.

I’m out. It felt like them killing Varric was a metaphor for them killing the older games. A nice fuck you to the player base

[neverlearnedtoread]

Spinning Silver

⭐⭐⭐⭐; the staryk king and mirnatius with the word 'wife' on the board: there's only one thing more horrible than a wife.... *rips off paper* MY wife

Oh?? 👌😉😏

women are fucking amazing and wonderful and terrifying and unequivocal badasses. especially to their husbands. it's about the fantasy of a marriage you have no control over being perfectly suited to you in ways you didn't even know it could

inhuman fae creatures that actually have a separate culture and set of rules they are governed by. they're much more powerful than humans, of course, but they are bound to their laws, and if you're smart you can work with that

fairytale-esque magic system that relies heavily on (1) trickery (2) Having Audacity and (3) the rule of threes 😉. we love a soft magic system that rewards big swings and BDE!

not one, but TWO separate arranged marriages engaged in HEATED pvp AKA two people bound in hostile matrimony trying to kill each other while having 'wait, are they hot? fuck!' moments

you can be cold and practical and still be a good person. you can be strong enough to protect yourself without sacrificing others. with a good enough grasp of contracts you can force a demon to leave your kingdom AND husband unharmed in a 2-for-1 deal

No.. ❌🤢🤮

multiple POVs with no names for chapter titles so you have to figure out who it is from context clues - if you're like me and love a little puzzle to go with your reading time, you'll really enjoy it (Novik does it VERY well) but if you get confused easily or don't wanna put in the brainpower its annoying and overly complicated

if you don't like enemies-to-lovers where they actually argue and are ideologically opposed, you're not gonna enjoy the romance subplots. this is not a 'forbidden-lovers' kinda enemies-to-lovers. this is firmly in the 'my husband misses me a lot - but his aim is getting better!' zone

really quick wrap up - it gets tied up a little too fast after the final confrontation with the Big Bad. i wouldve liked at least to have irina POV at the end because her side of things just. gets left hanging

Summary: Miryem is a daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, and though her father doesn't have the hardheartedness to be a good one, she'd rather be despised for what she's owed than starve. Her knack for the trade, coupled with her sharp tongue, draws the ire of her village, and even more alarmingly, the Staryk's attentions; faerie creatures who only covet gold, they take her offhanded boast that she can turn silver into gold quite literally, and show up at her door to hold her true to her careless words - which, honestly, kind of backfires on them when she rises to the challenge and upends their realm into complete disarray, so maybe there's a lesson there for the next group of nonhumans to learn: don't bet the house against a human girl whose Had Enough Of All This Bullshit. She might win.

Concept: 💭💭💭 I don't know Rumpelstiltskin's story very well, and Ice Kingdom aesthetics aren't my favourite (you can blame it on my residual dislike of Frozen), but I DID read Uprooted before this. I wasn't as into the book blurb as I was with Uprooted, but I'm an experienced (and opinionated) enough reader to know when to trust my gut - if I find an author's writing style easy to read, and I enjoy how they handle their themes, I'm not afraid of diving into deep waters. If it's that bad, I can always DNF

Execution: 💥💥💥💥 As I've come to expect with Novik's writing, a wonderfully easy read; the storytelling voice flows smoothly and makes me want to keep on reading. No slogging through difficult to understand passages and too slow pacing for me! I instantly wanted to collect every POV character like puppies in a basket, no matter how brief their sections were. I will say the ending does forget what it wants to say and simply ends on a happy note, instead of a complete thought. It doesn't tie in the POV characters together strongly enough - I would've loved to see an epilogue scenes with the 3 main female characters supporting each other, or at least being three distinct Bad Bitches!

Personal Enjoyment: ❤❤❤❤❤ Mostly because of Irina and Miryem (and Wanda)'s absolute BDE. They truly brought their stories to life and felt very dynamic, constantly driving the story forward through their actions, especially because their personalities and characteristics were so well-suited to the challenges they faced (Miryem rules-lawyering the Staryk, Irina taking to politics, Wanda keeping faith despite all the shit she's been through). Honorary shoutout to the complete hilarity of Mirnatius's POV (though ultimately it IS more indulgence than necessity, I respect Novik for it) - may he spend the rest of his life desperately drawing his wife in vain search of her bad angles!

Favourite Moment: the running gag of mirnatius losing his fucking mind trying to prove irina isn't hot. you know that post that's like 'find a blorbo to draw and your art skills will start improving so much faster'? irina is his blorbo. special mention of the scene he gets jealous realizing a random guard has a crush on his behated wife and immediately jumps to the conclusion that irina would want to fuck the guard for the sake of the kingdom. babygirl the hoops you are jumping........where is this gymnastics routine even going 😭 this man is not beating the meow meow allegations..

Favourite Character: It's really a tie between Miryem and Irina, who are both so similar yet different at the same time. Miryem's BDE was enjoyably explosive - she throws it in everyone's face, which is perfect to play off of the Staryk's otherworldly impassiveness. Irina's BDE was a lot more...steely. Quietly coming into her own as she realized how adept she was at politics, and how perfectly well-suited that made her to being tsarina - and when they finally met each other? it was so funny when were like 'hey...why dont we kill our husbands via pokemon battle??'

[unreadpoppy]

DAO Final Thoughts/Review (I guess)

So overall, this game was fucking good. Choosing your origin which will determine the small prologue you play that sets you up for the whole thing was a really good concept and it made me immediatly hooked with the plot (and it made me want to replay the game with the other origins to see how things are). Also, I like that the other stories in those origins happen even if you didn't pick them (like the whole wedding situation of the city elf origin still taking place and you seeing bits and pieces of it when you get in Denerim as another origin).

I went with Cousland warrior mainly because I knew nothing of this world so I went with the one thing that felt familiar: human warrior (cause I didn't want to mess with spellcasting without having a grip on how things worked at first). And let me say, I usually don't play with warrior type characters but this game made it very enjoyable to do so.

(under the cut cause it's long)

I loved all of the companions. Each one was so unique from the other and I did get a sense of like cammandery (idk how to spell this word) from them, especially with their banter (which, btw, fucking top tier banter). Wynne, in particular, was probably my favorite companion solely because of her wisdom. Like, almost every interaction I had with her, I got tears in my eyes because of her words of encouragemnt and advice and i just i love this "old" woman so much.

I romance Alistair, and let me say, this dude got me hooked ok. He's just so fucking sweet and his rose speech was so fucking special and I just AAAAAAAA. Since I was playing with a Cousland warden, I did marry him in the end. I just, I love him so much your honor it's hard to explain.

Quests wise, I focused more on the four main ones and did a few side quests. My favorite was probably Nature of the Beast solely because of the ending, with the spirit and the elf dude whose name I can't remember making peace and dying together, it made me emotional. My least favorite was probably A Paragon of Her Kind because I cannot begin to explain how much I H A T E D the Deep Roads. I hated it so much, I ended up enjoying the Fade, and I did the Fade first. It was just...such a slog to get through, and I felt like I was walking around aimlessly. At least in the Fade, I had a sense of progressing and it gave some insight into Zevran's background with the Crows.

Another quest that made me emotional was during the Urn of Sacred Ashes, when Bryce (Cousland's dad) shows up again....aaah the flashbacks to a dnd game of mine were huge.

I also liked the sense that the choices you made were actually affecting the world around you. It gave everything a sense of importance, and I really enjoyed that, especially with the aftermath of the Landsmeet.

Speaking of which, I'm sorry to everyone who likes Loghain, if I see this dude on the streets I'm fighting him. But good on Bioware for creating an interesting antagonist, as I wanted to murder him every step of the way.

I actually enjoyed the path to Fort Drakon before facing the archdemon. I like that halfway through, you cut back to the 4 companions you left at the gate and get to put them to work too. Idk how to explain, but fighting those darkspawn really gave a sense of like damn this is the end, we're getting to the final boss battle. Also, having all your armies there really came in to help, and first enchanter irving, bless you for being there to kill the Archdemon.

Killing the Archdemon also felt realllly satisfying and seeing the big light while the darkspawn retreat was *chef's kiss*. The epilogue was quite nice, thought it did make me a bit sad that it was like 'all your friends are leaving' but I understand why it was that way. Also, Fergus showing up was nice. I liked the ending cards showing what happened after and althought I'm not the biggest fan of DLCs, at least they had the sense of saying like 'that's a sotry ofr another time, this is the end.'

My biggest issues with this game were all on the more technical side - I struggled HEAVILY with crashes and bugs after leaving Lothering, which made me have to spend days without playing so that the issue could fix itself. I hope this game gets remastered one day just so that it runs smoothily on nowadays computers. My other struggle was the map, but that's a more personal issue than anything.

I loved this game, loved the world and its characters and it's definetly one I'll want to go back again in the future.

[meetmeatthecoda]

(star emoji) for Grifting With The Enemy :D

Pumpkin!! 🧡🧡🧡 Hello, my dear friend, thank you so much for your endless interest & support!! 😍😍 And for giving me a reason to re-read GWTE, which I haven't done for a loooong time!! 😂😬 (But, the good news is, it low-key got me inspired to hurry up & finish it!! 😏) BUT - in the meantime - here's some BTS info from my re-read under the cut, which is a lot - fair warning - since it's a 4 chapter fic & counting!! ❤️

LOL I forgot how stressful it is coming up with names for random extra people in fics, I hate doing that LOL But I did think it was important to open with Red NOT being a merciless crime lord who kills anyone who displeases him, cause - while he does have that side to him when necessary - that's not who Red is or wants to be.

I liked including that little moment with Red & Dembe about the parallel parking. I love those father/son & brotp moments for them, they're just the best. I tried to sprinkle those in wherever I could in Red's POV in this fic.

I loved the mental picture of Liz - with glasses & beanie a la The Harem - just leaning casually against a bookshelf the first time Red sees her... & he's immediately captivated, just like in canon. Especially with her eyes, I can't NOT write any version of Red that is not completely blown away by Liz's eyes, I mean, come on I also thought it was important that he thinks she's much younger than she is (intentionally part of her persona) & I'm looking forward to writing the reveal of her true age in a later chapter.

I loved writing a Liz that instantly challenges Red, already having heard about him (& more than that, as revealed in chapter 2) & point blank telling him she may refuse the job bc she has a say too. I liked keeping - & even amplifying a little - that dynamic from canon!Liz of always surprising Red & keeping him on his toes, all while he's trying so desperately to stay ahead of her & impress her.

I LOVED writing the brush pass scene - that moment where Red realizes he has officially underestimated her - & LOL I completely forgot I wrote that part about the condom LMFAO wow past!Coda, mighty daring of you 😂😂😂

Plus, I couldn't help the bonus bit about her stealing his phone & tossing it to him to end the chapter, that was just so fun to throw in there!!

I liked opening chapter 2 with Red still thinking about Liz, just to show how she captured his attention, even before he finds out she's been stealing from him. And I liked writing that revelation without any anger on his part, with him understanding it wasn't a full-scale attack on his empire, she's just a thief taking well paying jobs where she can get them, & instead it just shows him how talented she is. I thought that was an important thing to clarify before moving forward.

I LOVED writing Red & Dembe surprising Liz in her apartment, especially the part with Red's snooping & being confused & surprised by what he sees there. I loved kind of creating/designing Liz's apartment to showcase her true self, not her "young thief" persona that Red falls for at first. I wanted it to be clear that Red is fascinated by her seeming duality from the start (canon LOL) as well as just straight-up attracted to her (also canon LMAO).

Also I gave Liz a loft apartment cause I've always loved those!!

And I LOVEDDD writing Red super confident about surprising her & looking forward to taking her off guard by settling in on the couch & all that macho man stuff, only to be rendered fucking dumbstruck when she comes downstairs with no pants on lmfao & I included that little detail of her usually wearing a knife on her leg to show she's not to be underestimated 😏 & I couldn't help but throw in there Dembe kicking the back of the couch, that made me cackle lmfao

I think the truce was important to establish asap bc I didn't want any secrets or lingering animosity between them. That's for canon 😒 Only flirting & sexual tension here, thank you very much.

I had to include Red being a gentleman & asking if she wanted to get dressed, but I also couldn't resist Liz being confident & careless about it, while still hiding tactfully behind the counter. I thought that was a cute exchange.

lmfao of course, I included their coffee preferences being noticed by the other, I think that's an obligatory thing in any Lizzington fic ever, I'm so guilty of that lmfao

I loved the idea of Red being ready to start on a classic Red's Blacklister Presentation but Liz once again stops him in his tracks (while still secretly being impressed by his presence, of course, & I even accidentally switched POVs for no reason to include that?? nice Coda lmfao) as well as trading barbs & quips with him while Red feels awful & guilty at any accidental slights bc he can't bear to insult her.

AM&R vs. AR&M whoops typo lol

I liked the little snippet of dark!Red we see in their conversation of consequences for his enemies, that way Liz sees a little bit of what he's capable of & Red sees how she's not phased by it.

And that last little flirtation & wink to finish the chapter - lol can't resist

Ooooh, I loved switching to Liz's POV (fully ha) for chapter 3, I enjoyed describing how head over heels she is for Red already, that was fun. I liked writing about her lil movie day & chores she's completed, as well as fleshing out her AU past a little with Sam & her young grifting experiences. And her burning her popcorn while daydreaming about Red cause... same 😏

Ooooh, phone conversations are always so fun to write between them, I love trying to get that perfect mix of joking & sincerity & flirting & pining & pressing the phone close to their ear.

I thought it was important to keep (or rather re-invent, since TPTB seemed to drop it like a hot potato 😒😒😒) Liz's intense interest & respect for psychology, especially as a reason for being attracted to Red, since it kind of mirrors one facet of his interest in her. Not to mention Red thinks at first that it's just a useless, do nothing degree for her LOL

Ohhh, I loved establishing that mutual respect & friendliness between Liz & Dembe early on, that's such a fave of mine, I've always loved their friendship & thought it had a lot of potential. Liz loves & respects Dembe for keeping Red safe & Dembe loves & respects Liz for being so dear to Red.

Ugh, I LOVED writing Liz so completely disarmed by Red's relative state of undress at his safe house (paralleling her pants-less parade in chapter 2, of course) bc sameeeeeeee girl.

I also had fun writing Red blabbing on about some story as he often does, meanwhile Liz has already picked the lock on the safe, once again impressing & surprising him while she admires his different passport pics. That was so fun.

And I loved the quick shift to just a little animosity between them with Red insulting her lockpicks & Liz flaunting her thefts from him. I think those little spats give a little electricity & tension to the relationship, even if they blown over quickly, which they always do. And the fact that Red apologizes & they shake hands & make up is very refreshing to me (since they never fucking do it in canon lol fml) & also it's an excuse to write a little teasing physical contact & sexual tension 😁😁😁

And damn, I forgot how fun it is to throw a little teasing jab in there at the end of a chapter, just for fun - probably bc I'm allergic to multi-chapter fics & never write them lmfao wow

Ahhhhhhhh. I remember how much fun I had writing this whole restaurant scene, partly bc it was a difficult & long process (trying not to make all the flirting & physical movements repetitive while fitting in all the necessary dialogue in a semi-non-boring way lol) but also bc it was so fun writing their back-and-forth while seated at a table alone with nowhere else to go & nothing to distract them. I also wanted to take the opportunity to show Red's genuine interest in her as a person & let them spend some quality time together for the first time. I loved the idea of them losing track of time & Dembe having to come interrupt them with a knowing smirk. Also I def referred to the Olive Garden website for the food they ate cause I'm lame lmfaooo

I thought it was cute to throw in that Liz almost couldn't find Red when she arrived but for the fedora marker he placed out for her & then when she's leaving, she can feel his gaze on her the whole way out. Little parallels like that are my guilty pleasure 😁

Omggg I forgot about the end of this chapter, I remember I wanted Red to surprise Liz yet again & I thought the dessert snuck into her bag was a cute touch. Plus, tiramisu is a favorite of mine 😋 I also tried to make the vibe of this phone call a little softer & more tentative, not so much on tender hooks with lots of tension as the previous ones have been, showing how they're getting used to each other & falling in love at a break neck pace lol

Welp, that's all 4 chapters that are posted buttttttttt a sneaky look at my document that I haven't opened for an embarrassingly long timeeeeeee shows my sketch for the rest of the fic which revealssssss....... a detailed 10 chapter map with an epilogue!! Wow, I forgot I sketched everything out in such detail, this isn't too bad, maybe I should actually write this 😂😂😂 And I promise I will, hopefully sooner rather than later!! ❤️❤️❤️

Well, there you go, Pumpkin, I hope that didn't take you too long to slog through & there was something enjoyable in there for you!! 😂 Thank you so much for your interest again, my lovely friend, & getting me excited about this fic again!! 🥰 Much love to you, always, Pumpkin!! 🧡

Fanfic Writers: Director's Cut

[rainwolfheart]

after several years I FINALLY finished DAI (including Trespasser) and have some thoughts. controversial opinions? maybe? does anyone still care?

Tresspasser as an adventure kinda sucked, the puzzles were really hard, the close quarters were really annoying for my archer rogue Inquisitor, and I hated the Winter Palace as a home base

I did not catch a single one of those harlequins

the plot however was pretty good. I would have enjoyed a bit more political crunch and really getting to debate stuff with your advisors at least, if not companions. felt especially weird to not be able to have a more in-depth conversation about it with Josephine, my LI

I hate Solas so fucking much. like I get why he made the Veil in the first place, no issue with that slavery is awful. but now he wants to do genocide of everyone who isn't an elf because it might bring back the culture he destroyed? not to mention return the possibility of the Evanuris enslaving elves. and he says all of this with a straight face to a dwarf Inquisitor. what the fuck Solas. my people can't even do magic or experience the Fade (normally).

that said the whole twist with the Evanuris really fucking sucks, Bioware. stop doing terrible things to your Indigenous-coded fantasy people.

the post-slideshow ending makes me think the next game's PC has to be an agent working in Tevinter for the Inquisition/former Inquisition (I disbanded). find people Solas doesn't know? dagger stuck in Tevinter near a place called Solas? c'mon.

also Scout Harding!! my love!!!! I missed her so much I'm glad she showed up for that final scene

some more general thoughts on the endgame/DLC stuff:

maybe I was just over-levelled and forgot all the buildup cause I spent too much time dicking around finishing sidequests first, but the Corypheus fight was so anticlimactic. it wasn't challenging and the cutscenes weren't very good. my archer Inquisitor killed the dragon with a dagger for some reason? let me do cool archery!!

I fucking LOVED the Descent. I know the Deep Roads is a divisive thing but I love playing dwarves and the implications of the Titan are so so interesting to me. I hope Valta comes back and we learn more about them.

Jaws of Hakkon was also very good, I loved all the extra Scout Harding content, the new NPCs (Kenric, Svarah, Storvacker) were really good, and the Hakkon fight was fun

I don't know why they kinda missed the mark on making Trespasser fun? JoH and Descent were so much fun. Trespasser was kind of a slog just getting to the cutscenes.

why was there narration in the main game epilogue but not the Trespasser one? also both should have been Varric, why did Morrigan have such a big role.

whyyyy do they keep doing the "DLC reveals the villain of the next game" thing?? with the others you could probably skip it and only miss a bit more depth to the villains, but if it's gonna be Solas they have a lot of 'splaining to do for people who didn't play Trespasser. also there's some major decision making in Trespasser, what will the default answers be?

[gaknar]

Review: The Claremont Crossovers

Geez, I haven’t written a review for this blog since my Secret Wars review from like 17 years ago. How can that be? Well, I guess I used to work on this blog a lot more often and now I’ve gotten way more into Super Nintendo games and BDSM. Like a lot of people. But now that I finally finished reading Inferno, it is time once again to bookend my experience with an overly wordy wall of text filled with the worst kind of oblivious meninist butt humor jokes and pretentious sounding run-on sentences that are trying to sound smart but are always improperly ended with prepositions of. And lots of ridiculous comic book panels.

These are only the silliest panels from this reading that I could find after looking for about 25 seconds.

Bookeeping. This review covers everything that I have read since X-Factor #1. This includes Uncanny X-Men #204-243, X-Factor #1-39, New Mutants #38-73, along with a smattering of annuals, Daredevil, Power Pack, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Excalibur, and X-Terminators comics that were all part of the Mutant Massacre, Fall of the Mutants, and Inferno crossovers. There were a lot of developments over the course of the 4 years these comics were published. Jean Grey was resurrected and the original members of the X-Men reformed under the moniker X-Factor.

Mr. Sinister formed his band of evil mutants, the Marauders, who would become the X-Men’s main antagonists, and their most devious act would include committing mutant genocide against the Morlocks in the New York City sewers while dealing critical wounds to main X-Men team members Kitty Pryde, Nightcrawler, and Colossus during the fight.

Later, the X-Men were seemingly killed in a struggle with the mystical being known as the Adversary, but in reality they went into hiding in their new Australian outback base.

Illyana Rasputin lost control of the hell dimension Limbo which led to a demon invasion of Manhattan.

And finally, perhaps most prominently, Cyclops left his wife Madelyne Pryor and their son to get back together with Jean Grey, an act that led Madelyne to become corrupted with Pheoenix Force power and to turn into the Goblin Queen.

This era of X-Men comics contains the first major crossovers between the main X-Men comic book and its spinoffs. These events would become common as Marvel found ways to use its more strongly published works to carry the weaker ones, and the ploy still works apparently since here I am 30 years later reading 500 page omnibus collections just because there are 4 or 5 absolutely killer X-Men comic books in them. I love the X-Men so much that I’m willing to wade through the unending buildup to get the most out of the climaxes.

Seriously this artwork.

However, I find that this style of editing leads to a peculiar trend in pacing that can be tough to recover from in-between the major storylines. As Mutant Massacre leads into Fall of the Mutants, which then leads into Inferno, the characters are faced with consistently increasing stakes. With each passing story line, casualties grow and become more grave, and the consequences are more lasting. Mutant Massacre starts with the genocide of a mutant community, and several main characters are critically wounded as the X-Men face the worst defeat they’ve ever experienced. Then a year later in Fall of the Mutants, just as the team is starting to recover, the entire team of X-Men is killed during their battle against the Adversary. They would immediately be resurrected as a reward for sacrificing themselves to save the world, but it is still a defeat that claims the lives of every member of the team, if only for a moment. By the time we get to Inferno, the world is literally ending. Demons are raining from the sky and regular people are straight up getting slaughtered in the streets and elevators as the X-Men are more or less helpless to stop the destruction.

Inferno is an amazing storyline, if only for all the scenes of inanimate objects coming to life and straight up eviscerating common folk who are just minding their own business. Look at this shit!!! How did the comics code of conduct ever approve this. A mob of people just packed themselves into a demon FOOD PROCESSOR and every inch of them was liquefied except their bones. Chilling. (And let’s just forget about how the writers retconned all this blood orgy stuff in the Inferno Epilogue).

This all works in a capitalistic sense. Constantly raise the stakes and don’t let up for a second because if you do, the reader will take their eyes off the page and you will lose money. But the problem is, you can’t do this forever. And if you try, eventually you are going to write yourself into a corner where you’ve raised the stakes so many times, and you’ve re-manufactured the drama so often, people will stop caring. I call this the Dragon Ball effect.

How many times have these characters become gods at this point? Like three movies ago, the most recent movie was literally called “Battle of Gods.” I’m not even watching Super. Once your characters get so far away from humanistic stories people can relate to, you are no longer creating art. You’re manufacturing sensationalism. And it gets boring. These guys are starting to look like different flavors of freezie pops.

Maybe this is why the X-Men comics that come after this, the comics that make up the last leg of writer Chris Claremont’s 17 year run on the series, become so weird. Because perhaps there was no way to continue to raise the stakes any higher. After this point, we don’t get any more big crossovers until X-Tinction Agenda, but even that story is small and quaint when compared to what is presented here. Wolverine completely disappears from the series, all our other favorite characters disappear into the Seige Perilous to be transformed into completely different versions of themselves, and we get a lot of surreal stories that don’t have any sort of climax in the way that we’ve been conditioned to expect. The series becomes murky and ambiguous, without a solid narrative arc, and I think that’s why people regard the end of Chris Claremont’s writing on the series to be the weakest part of his run.

I can’t wait to read the X-Men comics that are coming up next. Because I didn’t know what in the FUCK was going on in these comics when I was a kid and I’m hoping they make more sense now.

Anyway, I’ll be the judge of all that, once I get there. (I may even indulge in the Infinity Gauntlet omnibus because, you know, there’s a couple X-Men involved in that). But regardless of what comes after this, I think it’s also true that the crossovers presented in this reading are generally regarded with less respect than Chris Claremont’s earlier work on the series, such as the Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past. This I don’t agree with. While the stories in this reading do range in quality, with Fall of the Mutants definitely being the weakest of the three big crossovers, and even though the Uncanny X-Men portion of Inferno isn’t even the central story of that crossover (the critical story elements take place in the far inferior issues of New Mutants and <ugh> X-Terminators written by Louise Simonson), Claremont’s writing is still much stronger, more layered, and more elegant than anything else that is presented in these collections. These crossovers may not be as timeless or original as the most famous X-Men stories, but the writing here is still really darn good and engaging (at least in Uncanny X-Men), and in my opinion, does not represent a decline in aptitude on the part of the writer. It’s clear that Claremont’s writing has continued to mature and become more nuanced, so much so that when you compare it to the first issues he wrote for the series, it seems like he’s a completely different writer.

KALIDASCOPICALLY. Again, these were just the silliest panels I could find after looking for about 25 seconds.

Personally, I love this period of X-Men comics. Under Claremont’s executive control, no plot thread gets dropped. No minor detail goes disregarded. Characters continue to grow and develop at such a natural pace, sometimes it feels like my own life is developing right alongside theirs. This adds depth to these readings and I can’t describe how it feels to be a part of them, and I think it’s this element that is missing from so many other comic books written by so many other comic book writers, including nearly every X-Men story written after Chris Claremont left the series.

Case in point, there are so many minor recurring characters that appear in these stories, like Franklin Richards. (I seriously tear up every time I see these panels). This little guy bounces around the Power Pack, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four like a ping pong ball. He’s a key character in the story line where Kitty Pryde finally recovers from the wounds she suffered during Mutant Massacre. And even though Kitty and Franklin have only met each other a few times, those meetings have meaning and they are remembered and called upon in the telling of the current story. All of the efforts made by the writers and editors to keep the narrative linked make these characters seem like real life people with weight and substance, rather than a thin layer of ink on a piece of paper. And it totally works.

Ugh, this review turned into another circle jerk about the writers of these comics, and especially about Chris Claremont. But what can I say. It’s because of the writers that we are here. Love or hate these comics, and I know Claremont’s wordy scripts are not everyone’s cup of tea, but these are the stories that make the X-Men what they are. It’s tough to be aware of these things when you’re in the middle of reading them, but I’m having the absolute best time writing this blog right now, and it is primarily because these are the comics that resonate with me the most. And when I’m finished with Claremont’s material and I’m slogging through some crap written by Chuck Austen, I bet I’m going to look back on these days with envy.

[ardenttheories]

To add another to the BS tally of HS2: what’s with all the political matters all of the sudden? ACAB Vriska (I don’t know how that happened and I don’t wanna know), facist Jane, rebellions... HS did have those political matters, sure, but it wasn’t scrubbed against your poor face with Equius levels of strength. Yet I swear the Epilogues and HS2 are half politics half misc fuckery. Whatever happened with playing a godly game and random shenanigans? Oh wait HS2 also has that! Badly done! Bluh.

I don’t think including political matters into fiction is an inherently bad concept; it can be one of the best ways to immortalise current events and to encourage discussion about them, and Homestuck has never really shied away from political discourse (such as Caliborn’s rampant misogyny, the facist dictatorship of HIC, both on Alternia and on Earth Alpha, and the entirety of the hemospectrum being an anaolgy for real life racism and classism, as well as the multiple rebellions against HIC in Alternian history). 

However, it was often handled a lot better, and wasn’t so fucking heavy-handed. Hussie incorporated these issues a little more naturally, explained them in much better and much more subtle terms. The hemospectrum is definitely something we can relate to our own world, but it’s also just a cool piece of lore for the trolls that makes them a completely unique species. Caliborn’s rampant misogyny is a fun prod at the type of men you find on the internet who are just... like that, and making him a villain was both fitting and making him childish about it was a good way to belittle the point of view he was presenting. And the rebellions on Alternia? Things like Feferi wanting to make things better, but also being morally grey about it herself? It was naturally integrated into the lore of Alternia and into Feferi’s personality as a whole.

Overall, it was just more palpatable because it flowed with the tone of Homestuck. It was presented as part of the lore, as part of the characters, in such a way that it won’t seem like Homestuck has a lot of politics in it unless you pick up on the IRL parallels. But the parallels are there, are intentional, and are firm - and it’s an amazing point of discussion in and of itself, really, when you dive into it. 

The Homestuck^2 team have... a lot less tact about it. They’re going less for natural progression and more for what will shock and horrify. They want it to be as much of a slog to get through as possible, as blunt and brutal as they can make it, which is okay, I guess, and gets the point across, but being so outright about it isn’t... the best way to do it. It doesn’t fit in with the rest of the themes of Homestuck; it’s clearly something that isn’t meant to fit in; it’s clearly something that has been crowbared in from our own world. This, admittedly, is just really bad storycrafting. It ruins the immersion of the text, which is why it’s now so obvious that it’s a “political text”; Homestuck has always had moments like this, but never so out of place. 

And, in general, while it’s good to include politics into media and to appeal more widely to an audience with genuine real life issues, giving them more traction and showing your solidarity with a point of view, you do still have to remember that, like... people read fiction to get AWAY from the world. Sometimes, shoving in harsh and clearly abrasive reminders of what’s going on in the world around your readers isn’t going to go down very well, and can come across as extremely tone deaf (especially since at least Kate seems to be focused more on ACAB as a statement and a non-race-related protest rather than part of the Black Lives Matter movement, which deeply diminishes the fact that ACAB because of the violence they commit especially towards people of colour). 

On top of this, in Homestuck, any negative political commentary wasn’t done with the villains being characters we loved. 

Like, there’s an inherent difference between recognising that HIC is, for lack of a better analogy, like Trump - someone who has always had power, was always born into power, and who got power and went too fucking far off the deep end because they were corrupt to begin with - and watching Jane just... go so violently against everything that we as fans love - which, while not perfect, would be a bit like if Obama suddenly turned around during his presidency and said “close off the boarders, get rid of health care, let the poor die”. It’s not shocking and deeply expected from someone like HIC. It’s deeply shocking and disturbing from someone like Jane. 

It also lessens the point you’re trying to make with ruined character development. People are so lost and confused over Jane suddenly being a fascist that anything they could be trying to say ABOUT facism is being talked over by fandom feelings of betrayal. The joke they made out of Karkat being a Solid Snake ripoff gives no credit towards anything they’re trying to make out of the rebellion. 

In fiction, it’s almost always better to parallel real life issues with clearly defined traits; a villain and a hero. HIC is a villain. Jane is a hero. You can add in morally grey characters, of course, especially those in positions of power, because things aren’t always so well defined - but for something like politics, we’re well aware that there are Good Guys and Bad Guys, or at least Bad Guys and Even Fucking Worse Guys. And we know, for instance, that these people are almost always RAISED to be racist, to be xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, abelist, classist, murderers - it’s in every ounce of their blood to continue white supremacy because it benefits them most. 

So the fact that Jane is now suddenly a villain, for no actual reason - without a full character arc, without any real justification, she just takes over and all of a sudden she’s paranoid about trolls and being incredibly xenophobic from the start - is what people are going to focus on most. They’ve upheaved so fucking much, it’s almost impossible not to look at the upheaval and to make that the point focus of attention. Like, how much clearer could it be that they’re making Jane a portrayal of white people in power despite the characters supposedly being aracial? And where the fuck did any of this come from? Why are such important and VERY close-to-home topics being thrust onto a character that we used to associate with? Why are they putting Jane up onto the rung of fucking Trump, when they could have chosen a completely new character for this to have been and actually gotten their point across away from the hurt fury of “what the fuck did you do to Jane?”

When you do something like this, you seriously run the risk of detracting away from the point you’re trying to make - which is exactly what’s happened. 

Unless, of course, there’s no fucking point at all. A lot of HS^2′s writing focuses on the “nitty gritty of being an adult”, so there’s a fairly big potential that this... isn’t meant to reflect on anything in specific. It might just be what the writers think are “adult issues”, which, again, almost completely discredits the entire fucking point they’re trying to make. They might be doing this just to be shocking, to be upsetting, because they know ruining Jane will piss a lot of people off - and how much does that undermine the very real issue of facism when a lot of what’s going on in HS^2 is happening in our world right now? 

This isn’t the sort of climate where you just turn someone into a fascist to be shocking. Not when real world fascism is on the rise and becoming more violent. That goes beyond shocking - it’s upsetting and tone deaf and horrifying, actually.

But, yeah. Homestuck has always has politics involved at its very core, like you said. It’s just that it was handled a damn slight better than whatever the fuck’s happening in HS^2 now.

[silverbastardgoldenfool]

Realm of the Quarantine Reread End-of-Book Questionnaire: Royal Assassin

Any differences between your first/previous reading experience and this one?

Not as stark a difference as with Assassin’s Apprentice, but definitely still there. Apart from all the obvious stuff, like feeling much more attached to the characters already and picking up more details, I think the biggest change was a complete lack of patience for the teen romance drama lol. There was a decent period where I was feeling quite frustrated with it. Not that I loved it the first time round, but back then I had a very different view of how it fit into the story. I saw it as teaching Fitz a depressing lesson of what it really means to be a royal bastard and a king’s man. Fitz’s literal need (for all he knows he would have been killed if not for his deal with Shrewd) and sense of duty to put his loyalty to his king and country first creates a relationship that is toxic, turbulent and built on lies. And teenage horniness masquerading as love. I saw all that the first time and thought it was just something he had to go through. Now I know it’s something he never really goes through but rather grips onto, romanticises and ultimately goes back to. I know the point of that is meant to be that he finally gets to have something for himself, but why it had to be Molly specifically??? I have very few qualms with Robin’s writing choices overall, but why she chose to write their relationship this way if they really are meant to be is beyond me, especially when so many of her other romances are written so well - it feels like it can’t possibly be unintentional. For most of this book they’re either fighting or fucking and honey! That ain’t love! Hell, Fitz all but sees her as just another demand on his time as the book goes on. But he can’t let her go because she’s the one thing he can point to that makes him feel normal. Not happy, not cherished, not safe. Normal. She’s simply a refuge from his real life. He literally says to Chade “I need her.” I find that so telling, man. It’s not really about her, which is a shame because Molly is great. They’re just really not good for each other.

So yeah. It’s just kind of trying to read all the Fitz/Molly stuff when you know and don’t like what it ultimately culminates in. At the same time… Bee… So I will always be conflicted lol. I just can’t separate the events of Royal Assassin from the furious disappointment I felt when I finished Fool’s Fate. Perhaps I’ll have a new Fool’s Fate experience this time that will make the next re-read a bit easier in regards to Fitz and Molly? But I won’t bet on it lol.

Anyway. It’s not as if I haven’t already said just about everything there possibly is to say about Fitz and Molly yet I also feel like I could go on about it forever. Luckily this is kind of as bad as it gets in terms of how much “screen time” they actually get (apart from Fool’s Assassin maybe? But they don’t bother me too much in that) so yay! I made it! And hopefully it’ll be a good few books before y’all have to endure my ranting about it again :)) Also hopefully this doesn’t give the impression that this read was more bad than good? It was mostly just a particular angsty chunk before they properly get together that was a bit of a slog to get through, but overall I really loved reading this book again and got a lot out of it.

Something you can’t believe you forgot

That Molly punches Fitz in the face hard enough that he bleeds and that Fitz fully intended to punch the Fool for asking if Molly was preggo before seeing he had already been beaten. I pretend I do not see it.

Favourite character introduction moments/scenes

Omfg I was just about to say “huh we didn’t really get any major character intros in this book” bitch Nighteyes???? But in my defence I just. Cannot process the fact that Nighteyes is only really in 3 of 16 books he just feels omnipresent to me BUT his introduction is most definitely iconique and god I love him and he made me cry eight thousand times!

Favourite character arcs

Speaking of Nighteyes: what a glow up. He goes from angry, scared, untrusting little bb to……. Nighteyes. Like. How does one even describe the kind of person Nighteyes becomes. He’s just Nighteyes and I love him with all my fuckin heart!! He is Fitz’s constant… He is wise… He is silly… a comedic genius…… a big, open, unconditional heart. Incomparable. I can’t believe I’ve seen ppl saying they dislike/d Nighteyes……. Honey…… it’s called taste xx

Favourite quote/s

Again no tabs so it’s a bit harder to keep track but there were a few that stuck out enough to copy down. There are a lot of iconic quotes in this book that get shared a lot so I only bothered with ones I didn’t remember.

- “I wince to think of the price willingly paid for loving me.”

- “My soft, clean bed beckoned, like a soft, clean tomorrow.” (mood)

- “I looked and saw they were both made of hungers, like containers made of emptiness.”

Favourite relationships

Kettricken/Verity obviously. I was shocked by how little time they actually have together being in love before Verity leaves??? Because all I remembered was how strong their love is. But the whole journey towards that love is what makes it stand out as an actual compelling story in its own right. This is definitely one of Robin’s greatest skills as a writer; giving the minor characters depth by giving them their own relationships that grow and change and have a life of their own outside of Fitz. It makes the world feel so much more alive.

Also Burrich/Fitz in this book continues to be bittersweet, but with a lot more sweet in there than usual! They fully start out this book as a team. Burrich calling Fitz “FitzChivalry” makes me fuckin emo and idk why even. Burrich does seem to start seeing Fitz a lot more as his own person in this book which changes their dynamic in some rly nice ways. The fact that towards the end of the book Burrich even uses the wit to help Fitz is enough to make me cry tbh - and writing this has made me realise that I’m officially past any uncomplicated good times between Burrich and Fitz y’all mind if I fuckin die real quick!!

Fitz/Verity is soy pure and beautiful. Fitz and the Fool is always, always compelling and complex and tender and perfectly mysterious. But overall you’d have to say Fitz/Nighteyes, hey? They are literally meant to be, in a way so straightforward and undeniable and beautifully simple that I never really know what to say about it. Little brother!!! :’) They literally make me cry all the frickin time lol rip!

Favourite setting

There aren’t that many to choose from in this book! Ima go with the skill river bc hey, Robin’s magic systems are so unique and beautiful and the fact that the skill is written as a kind of a place is really frickin cool and deserves a shoutout.

Favourite chapter

The final chapter (not the epilogue) ummm broke my heart but it is written so beautifully, oh my god, it’s like an out of body experience. I feel like this is kind of when RotE becomes RotE - the first time it really goes to that place that is so fitting yet so unexpected, so beautiful, so tragic, so awful, so visceral. Making use of the genre to really test the limits of humanity; to see how far you can bend a person without breaking them and then refusing to turn away from the consequences. Idk man!! I don’t know how to describe it without sounding like a pretentious dick but it really is that intense and strange and overwhelming for me. There is something in that moment, when Burrich pulls Fitz’s body out of the earth and Fitz/Nighteyes is recoiling from it and deeply terrified… Something about the enormity of the existential questions raised converging with the pinpoint specificity of it all being wrapped up in the story of a character that feels so real and who you care about so deeply… It’s almost written like a horror scene, but that’s not quite the feeling. It’s just the RotE feeling; there are multiple throughout all five series, and it’s what makes these books unlike any other.

Most loved character

Fitz, Nighteyes, the Fool all had my entire heart this book. The Fool is just so sad and pathetic and literally must be protected!! I think I’m kind of obsessed with Burrich? Also I think I almost forgot how much I love Kettricken? She’s a complete badass of course but she’s also got the biggest goddamn heart like…. Who said she was allowed to be such a beautiful person???

But god, everyone. I love them all.

Most hated character

What can I say? Regal is disgostang. Wall Ass a close second.

Raise your hand if you’ve been personally victimised by Robin Hobb (most heartbreaking and/or visceral moments)

Shall I list just a few? :)

- Burrich screaming at Fitz through the bars of his jail cell, horrible things you can’t help but feel are at least a little bit true

- Burrich sobbing over Fitz’s dead body repeating, “You aren’t dead, you aren’t dead.”

- Fitz going to Nighteyes before everything went down on the night of the coronation and just fuckin hugging him really tight

- Fitz trying desperately to leave his broken vessel behind but not quite being able to disown his body

- The Fool being beaten

- The Fool being beaten again

- The Fool sprawled and weeping across Shrewd’s dead body

- The Fool really believing for a moment that Fitz had betrayed him and killed Shrewd

- Fitz tending the Fool’s wounds………. bitch….

- Chade giving Fitz a chance to escape with them and Fitz going to kill Serene and Justin instead

- Idk why this is even that sad but Nighteyes saying the only person he loves is Fitz!

- The entire incident with the forged ones literally tearing apart a three year old girl, which I had completely blocked out until now :)

- The fact that Fitz continues to be reminded and traumatised by this incident for the remainder of the book beCAUSE HE IS A GOOD BOY. A VERY GOOD BOY WITH A VERY GOOD HEART.

- Fitz repelling at Nighteyes to try and force their bond broken

- LITTLE BROTHER

- WOLVES HAVE NO KINGS

- High off his face Fitz calling Patience “mother” no shut the fuck up!!!!

Details, observations, spoilery notes made with the benefit of the full picture

- I’ve been trying for ages to decipher when the Fool started falling for Fitz, and I think I’m officially putting my money on their last interaction in AA. “I wish I had a place that was as much me as that place is you.” I mean. If someone said that to me… I’m not a slut but who knows, ya know? (I know this is more a note for the last book but I thought of it while reading this book. So shh.)

- It’s so clear to see this time how much Fitz’s sense of self and politics are affected by his time in the Mountains. He obviously feels much more inclined to their way of thinking about royalty and sacrifice and equality and returns to Buckkeep with a self-respect he’s never really had before. Weird how being among people who don’t just think of you as The Bastard will do that.

- It’s no wonder Fitz becomes so fixated on Molly; he literally has almost nothing else to occupy him and no companionship when she suddenly shows up

- It’s gross that he spies on her, obviously, but you can’t not take into account the fact that Chade has been teaching him since he was ten that this is justifiable behaviour; a reasonable way to gather information and get what you want. Fitz’s lack of social awareness goes further than him just being a little awkward; he has literally been trained to believe the only thing wrong with stalking would be getting caught.

- I’ve seen a few people talk about the fact that Regal isn’t appropriately punished as if it’s bad writing and like, while it is frustrating, it is supposed to be frustrating - it is not a plot hole. It made sense to me the first time I read it and it was even more obvious this time; Regal has the loyalty of the inland duchies. If he were to be publicly punished those dukes would rally behind him and raise hell, and Regal would no longer need to play the part of the dutiful prince. Even if Regal died a “natural” death - something I can’t see Shrewd or Verity orchestrating anyway - the inland dukes would feel that they no longer have a Farseer on their side and may, again, raise hell. It’s a delicate balance that would be outrageously difficult not to topple if you removed Regal from the equation. There is a lot more to it than I’ll bother writing here but yeah. I don’t really know how people can read this book and think that Regal retaining his life and position is some sort of lazy plot contrivance. It was all set up in the first book dude.

- Fitz and Nighteyes meeting in this book is the perfect metaphor for our need for connection versus the fear of inevitable loss. Fitz’s experience tells him that entering into a bond with an animal can only end in pain, yet he can’t resist it. In real life this is especially true with humans and our animal companions, since they almost always have a shorter lifespan than us; signing up to love them is signing up to lose them. But the same is also true of our relationships with other humans. And like Fitz, we have all had our fair share of loss and pain. We all have our reasons to be afraid of the connection we naturally crave. Sometimes we give in to the fear to the point of holding ourselves back from it entirely. That’s where Fitz is at when he meets Nighteyes. But what’s so beautiful about their arc as a metaphor is that it suggests that these connections, if we submit to them, are what keep our vital spark alive. Even when Nighteyes dies later in the series, the sentiment always remains, essentially, “It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.” Ya boi is projecting bc it’s hard to be vulnerable and make friends as an adult, but I think the observation stands. Love and connection and vulnerability are key threads that run throughout all of Fitz’s story, but in this book it is best represented through him and Nighteyes.

- “I hoped I would not become too adept at lying to myself.” Honey, you got a big storm comin.

- Very inch resting (gay) that Fitz finds it hard to meet the Fool’s eyes. I know almost everyone does bc his eyes are weird, but I reserve the right to reach and I will absolutely NOT be accepting criticism.

- I find it interesting that Fitz says Kettricken’s wit is not strong just because she doesn’t use it exactly the way he does

- I know it’s not meant to be funny but……. The way Fitz described losing his virginity had me literally laughing out loud

- Fitz was really like “okay i better go break my bond with Nighteyes” just cos he and Molly fucked. Teenagers don’t deserve rights.

- You know what? I really, really appreciate how fucking weird these books are lol. What other author would use their magic system to have their characters accidentally intruding on each other’s awkward sex stuff? Okay, maybe a few, but they would do it to be like, edgy and sexy. Robin Hobb just does it to make you cringe so hard you lose several years off of your life.

- But seriously, even apart from the cringe stuff, these books get so strange and out there and like! That’s what magic is for! 

- Bruh. When Fitz is like “omg poor Verity…. He’ll never have what i have with Molly” I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone encapsulate the self-important delusion of teen romance so perfectly lol. Wow.

- Okay some Fitz/Fool stuff that made me lose my tiny mind. Sorry.

- Fitz literally said about the Fool “he burned too brightly” I WILL DIE.

- Fitz is always like, irritated by the Fool… yet positively delighted by his presence at the same time…… okay bitch

- Inch resting how Fitz has always been uncomfortable with the Fool getting serious. I don’t quite know how to put my thoughts on this into words so like. I’ll just put it there. Make of it what you will.

- “Sit on my clothes chest and take your shirt off…” i stopped fucking breathing noah fence

- “I ran my fingers lightly down the line of his jaw, and around his eye socket. At least no bone seemed damaged. ‘Who did this to you?’ I asked him.” my GOD this is literally textbook gay/romance. It hurts me. It physically hurts me.

- Straight from my notes: “I can’t even focus on reading this bc it’s the first time they are tending each other’s wounds and I am a homosexual!” and “the gays are quaking!! (it’s me I’m the gays)

- Okay wow! I think that’s it! Hello if you made it this far! Hope this was remotely coherent and I’m always keen to hear your thoughts on my thoughts :)

Anyone doing a reread feel free to fill this out! You don’t have to use the tag :)

[dahniwitchoflight]

fucking, god, he called his ship Theseus. Oh god im not ready to face this epilogue stuff in actual visual form oh jeesus

Dirk, Dirk pls. no one can take you seriously now that we can actually SEE your Villain-Sona. 

oh god, the second hand embarassment is real.

Alright so there seems to be like, a tinge of Rose existing as her own person, doing things that Dirk dislikes, but its in conversation only, so it seems facetious.

The other true thing though is the narrative is entirely Dirk’s perspective, and Dirk is exactly the kind of person who would absolutely love and believe he was capable of subsuming another person’s soul and idealogy entirely, but we went through this deceit in the epilogues with John and Roxy as well, with John’s unquetionaing hold on reality and what is canon also seeming to have an unconcious warping effect to whatever John thought was important, but Roxy gave a good point of how do you even know you did this and i didn’t choose it or wouldnt have chose it? you dont

So we could see that being repeated here, either as a parallel of that or a subversion, remains to be seen

“ Speaking of which, I think it's time I started undoing some of the more egregious mistakes this story has been subjected to over the years. Yes, I'm talking about that guy. The other orange one. Remember him? Vriska got stalked by him a bit and it was uncomfortable for everyone concerned. Anyway, the point is that he fucked up big time, and I'm here to clean up the horseshit. It's time to get this story back on the rails, back to what it was always supposed to be. I know it, and you've somehow always known it too. There was something else, some other route that Homestuck was meant to take but then didn't, a way that wouldn't've spent so much time dicking around with stuff nobody cares about. Like seriously, why did we all have to sit through talking about everyone's most intimate and private feelings for two hundred thousand fucking words. That would never have happened in Act 1. Where did it all go wrong? “

lol the andrew hussie is peeking through a bit here, so Homestuck2 is gonna be the exact thing I figured a sequel would be, its going to be a sort of retelling of the story, but its gonna flip the importance for certain things in the opposite directions, so right here its saying Homestuck is a story with a layer of importance on the characters themselves and their mindsets and how they lived in the environment they found themselves in, with the lore and the conceit of the story being a huge creation story more of a backdrop than the focus

so Homestuck2 is going to be a more "creation story” focused more on the sburb lore, buts its going to have less of a focus on the characters (perhaps even to the detrimnet? maybe characters will seem strange and out of character? but he kinda already made that feeling i the audience with the epilogues, thats what that intended effect was)

and neither one i think will turn out to better or worse than the others, theres definitely going to be benefit and downsides for both, but its not hard to see that Homestuck1 is the story that Hussie wanted to Tell, and Homestuck2 is how he’s changing it and telling a different story than he originally would have in the first place

not that hes changing Homestucks orignal story at all, but now hes telling a decidedly different one

Thus far, even though I understand Dirk’s basic mindset being “Hussie’s story sucks im gonna tell a BETTER one” and deciding that he alones gets to decide others will is unquestionably villainous train of thought, like why cant we let the characters just decide for themselves what kind of story they wanted to have and be genuine..

I AM dying of curiosity to see what sort of lore and information were going to get out of this, especially with the twist of that sort of focus being brought more into view, it’s a tantalizing glimpse of something very sexy that im into...

WORLDBUILDING :p

The World of Homestuck to me, HAS always been more infinitely exciting and interesting to me than the characters themselves, even though i liked them fine, they werent the reason why i kept reading the story for sure

Anything little thing we get about sburb or the world system out of this im happy with, regardless of what happens to the characters

(Would that be considered a villainous mindset if I was in canon? maybe ^^; good thing im not lol it does give off very “evil mad scientist morally corrupt experiments” kind of vibe lolol)

“ Look, I know what you're all really craving. I've been studying canon—or rather, what's left of it—and I think I've found it. The critical moment, in the wake of which everything started to take a nosedive into the protracted, endless slog of sheer insufferability we got saddled with near the end. This was the single most crucial error in the process that led to the present situation. The day when the story was wrested screaming from the arms of its readers like a bawling infant and carried helplessly away, from then on to be raised according to the whims of a masochistic menace with no thought for you, the common fan. “

I do have to laugh at this though, because your not wrong??? but also, it was inevitable that a story that started out like homestuck and was written like homestuck and ended like homestuck would inevitably turn out the way it did

it was a communal product of the screaming masses that turned into a singular mans story, it was unfortunately going to lose something to everyone, because everyones ideas couldnt all coexist in one canon at the same time (thats what outside of canon is for)

and then Dirk does something I DIDNT expect him to do

“Channelling my full potential as an ascended player of Heart, I expand my consciousness to commune with the boundless force of collective willpower that is the internet. My mind floods with its divine potency, a million formless cries coalescing into a sequence of discrete, formal instructions. It is a maelstrom as chaotic as it is deafening. And yet from this formless, uninterrupted spate of hard, unembellished data, a single suggestion takes form, as if bubbling up from a vast, infinite ocean of possibility. It is a whispered prayer to a compassionate god whose ear attends faithfully the will of his believers.Ok, let's see what you chucklefucks came up with.“

instead of entirely subsuming other’s will like a villain would, he has instead opened up his heart and conciousness to absorb the ideas, suggestions and wills of the masses, he is literally trying to bring back the act1 flavor of homestuck by taking suggestions, be he is ironically doing something no different than hussie did by curating and choosing which one to respond to

hah! he really does think he is the hero of this universe with Hussie as some sort of villain. 

So Hussie has probably intentionally curated this idea of himself as “Author Villain” who drives the story seemingly into mud by seeming to reject and upend the audiences expectation rather than curate them and bringing forth the best out, 

this happens with the epilogues undoubtedly, 

and this environment has gown a character from inside the story to step out and try to “oust” him from this position and instead tell a “good” story one that “everyone” wants, but is in fact detrimental to the story and world that the characters inside it themselves wants, which is was Hussie curated the whims to in the epilogues instead of the audience

So maybe this will be a “good” story, and hit all the marks for what the audience wanted originally, but there is no benevolent force to make sure a happy ending exists for any of the characters inside of it, because what the characters want doesnt matter anymore, only the lore does

[m39]

Homestuck^2 Summary: The first half of Year 1

Homestuck^2 by this day:

1) Total amount of Chapters – 8

2) Total amount of pages – 235

3) Main updates (CEST Timezone):

MEAT

a) October – 1 on 25th (prologue)

CANDY

b) November – 1 on 23th (chapter 1)

c) December – 1 on Christmas Eve (chapter 2)

MEAT

d) January – 1 on 17th (chapter 3)

(From this point on there is two updates per month)

e) February – 2 on 15th and 24th (chapters 4 and 5)

f) March – 1 on 12th (chapter 6) (Second update was postponed to April)

CANDY

g) April – 3 on 3rd, 4/13 and 27th (chapters 7 and 8 [parts 1 and 2] )

 Well folks it’s been over a half a year since the hellhole known as Homestuck^2 started. It is a perfect time to look back at both of the timelines and see how it all holds up for the lack of better words.

MEAT

Well, I don’t think everyone will be shocked when I say that I prefer the Meat timeline. This timeline feels closer to the original Homestuck comic. It has more of your typical Homestuck shenanigans. And it’s a giant theory goldmine for all of us. Personally I like it, but let’s face it, it will never be as good as the original. I mean, look at chapter 5 – big ass, beautiful artwork and then nothing but a wall of text! Like seriously?

CANDY

Like I said the last time, the last update featuring this timeline gave me back hope for it; too bad it was for all the wrong reasons. Changing subjects, the first chapter is actually pretty good. It has foundations for some good theories (especially about Brain Ghost Dirk). But the following Candy updates sans the second part of chapter 8 feel more and more like a slog. It made me start not caring about most of this timeline’s characters asides from Vriska and the Omegas. JUST LET THE OMEGA BABIES BY FINALLY SAFE FOR FUCK SAKE!!

CONCLUSION

I wish I could say more, like how I could make this comic better but I’ll probably wait another half of a year for it to happen to have more material to talk about it. Say what you want about Hussie but this man is smart and he cares about his work. That’s why Homestuck^2 and the Epilogues are labeled as dubiously canon. If Hussie came out and said: Yeah it’s all 100% canon than it would cause a much bigger meltdown in fandom than ever.

That’s all for today. See you next time. I hope I’ll finally fall asleep after all of this Hamsteak and shit.

Bye!

[clockworksalsa]

not a fan of the epilogues

mmkay I’m just gonna say that I, personally, hate the epilogue. I get the point behind it, the metaphors, the parody, the canon and non-canon duality. There’s some good shit in there, lots of classic deep homestuck shit and just generally playing around with disseminating tropes.

But it wasn’t GOOD, y’all. There’s nothing wrong with dark content, especially considering that the comic has always fluctuated between nonsensical whimsy and gripping drama, but this was a fucking chore and a half to slog through. It made me feel gross and heartbroken. It had no homestuck charm, nothing to cut through the no-holds-barred feature length depressive episode. In the comic, someone could be literally murdered and it still be enjoyable. Gamzee’s showdown with Karkat, and the preceding hunt of his former friends, was tense and gripping and dark, but it never made me feel disgusted or violated, which is what the epilogues lacked.

I don’t know how to do line breaks on mobile i- here’s more in depth stuff

Some characters were so washed out in the epilogue (like roxy, in candy) they were practically paper thin. Where was the depth? Where was the heart? It felt like a huge, cruel, soulless joke. Defend Dirk and Jane’s arcs all you want, I can SEE it, but it doesn’t mean that they HAD to become evil in the end what the hell. Jade? Jade? They made her so uncomfortable and literally icky. All that shit with Gamzee was absolutely uncalled for. I can’t help but feel like they stretched these characters and their personalities either uncomfortably far, or made them literally invisible and useless.

You cannot tell me that every character was IN character. That the timeline of events felt natural. It was a clusterfuck of terrible events specifically orcahstrated to make us feel awful for wanting a more thorough cap on Homestuck, and that’s just mean-spirited! Like it or not, it did NOT do canon justice, and was a slap in the face to us and the entire breadth of canon! It was fucked up!

There’s being gritty and then there’s being over the top, pushing limits and going off the rails. These epilogues went way past what was necessary, and for what? It felt like nothing in the epilogues mattered, because nobody really cared for long or reacted to much, which means that half the events were more for shock value than actual story development. It was almost like cheap jump scares in horror movies. Yeah, maybe it plays into atmosphere, and maybe it helps build tension, but it does nothing plotwise, and just startles the viewer.

You’re allowed to enjoy it, of course, if it really your cup of tea, I suppose. Like the comic itself, though, we gotta call a spade a spade and recognize that it’s not perfect, it’s got some glaring flaws, and some stuff that felt really awkward and gross. It was nowhere near the quality of the original, and kind of was a huge downer to read, putting it lightly. but I really cannot see it being related to homestuck whatsoever. It’s fanfiction at best, a mockery at worst.

TL;DR- I feel like the epilogues really served to spurn the reader. It was hard, if not at times impossible, to enjoy the content itself, and hard to reconcile what we remember from canon with the absolute nightmare that the epilogues depicted. If you liked it, cool. Just recognize that the work has its flaws and a lot of that stuff really served no purpose but to make it dark and terrible, which is a hard u-turn on the dual whimsy and drama of homestuck.

[emilykinesis]

ON DELTARUNE

me thoughts. SPOILERS AHOY.

The entire time, I was waiting for it to be “surprise! This is a joke!” It kind of finally fucking happened at the end but like??? It was played straight the whole time besides that. Why was I waiting for it to be a joke?

UNTIL THE REVEAL IT WAS JUST WATERED-DOWN UNDERTALE.

Yes, watered-down.

We already know Undertale’s gimmick. You can’t use that shit anymore. Don’t fight, you don’t have to. Otherwise ~something bad will happen.~ Okay, great, so I have to slog through this game sparing everyone one by one. And the story itself left SO much to be desired, especially in the face of the beautiful and intricate story that was Undertale. “Dark bad light good heroes chosen hue hue hue.” I was sitting there like.... you fuckin’ kidding me?

Also, we get the most generic characters ever. Sure, they have funny dialogue because of course they do, it’s Toby, but we have “sweet kid who thinks everything can be solved with love” and “mean girl who doesn’t.” Not to mention stoic fucking main character who doesn’t react to jack shit. Look, they learned their lessons! Except Main Character Kris, because who the fuck are they? (Also I felt like they were WAY more clearly male, but y’know, that’s personal.)

THE FUCKING UNDERTALE-SHAPED AXE HANGING OVER OUR HEADS.

Admittedly, Lancer and Susie’s relationship was very sweet, but I couldn’t actually get into ANY of the characters, especially Susie, just because THEY DON’T MATTER. We want the MEAT, Toby! People are going to be distracted for the ENTIRE game. We can’t focus on anything until the end.

THE STUPID SACCHARINE SCHTICK.

I’ll admit, the dialogues at the end got me and threw me off my rocker. But the beginning? Ugh. Happy happy Asriel at college Toriel teacher everyone happy. It put me on edge for the entire game waiting for the other shoe to drop. This wouldn’t have been so bad if...

TOO LONG FOR A DEMO, TOO SHORT FOR A GAME.

This is kind of personal, but Jesus Christ Toby I have shit to do. I wanted to play everything in one sitting obviously, but I had NO idea how long it would take. I think it was about 2 hours long all told and it left me uncomfortably unsatisfied.

MISC. BAD THINGS.

Why the fuck is the kid’s name Kris? I’m guessing they’re possessing some fallen child the creator named Kris. But even at the beginning, all the flavor text indicated that this was not the playful Frisk we know, or even the snarky Chara. Deeply, deeply uncomfortable.

The name Ralsei. This is another schtick that Toby can’t do anymore, unless he meant to. The problem with an Undertale sequel is that we already know the entire schtick. So why is there even a “FIGHT” option? I kept accidentally hitting it when I meant to ACT.

Fucking infinitely respawning enemies, enough said. What was one of the best things about Undertale again? Oh yeah, NOT THAT.

Susie is actually pretty fucking horrifying, what the fuck? She’s way too stereotypical, as is Ralsei, and again, couldn’t give a shit about either of them. Lancer was a little better, but again, stereotype city.

GOOD THINGS.

Battle system more fun obviously, we can run, there’s cool overworld events, Lancer and Susie’s relationship, funny dialogue and flavor text.

.....Which of course was all fucking eclipsed by the Undertale axe. I couldn’t care about any of it until I figured out what the fuck was going on. (Which we never do, so I never cared as much as I could.)

MY LORE THOUGHTS/THINGS IN THE EPILOGUE THAT WERE GOOD.

This is clearly Chara--it seems like they’re in some sort of alternate universe where they freed the monsters or something. They’ve been named by a creator and they’re heading to their next universe at the end. (”Let us erase this pointless world and move on to the next.”) People indicate that Kris is somewhat of a troublemaker (late to school, played a prank on Noelle). This definitely sounds like “laughed-off-poisoning-Asgore” Chara, not pacifisty Frisk.

Undyne does not know who Alphys is. Kris (fuck that name) does not know who Sans is, and he doesn’t know who Kris is. There’s some reindeer dude who’s apparently important. Asgore lives in fucking squalor--things are not as hunky-dory as they seem. 

Was not OK with the ending, that was fucking horrifying. I mean, I wanted the other shoe to drop, but Jesus Toby, not like that! Fucking Christ!

I have no idea if the actual full thing is going to expand on this plot or go into another world or something, but Toby has a lot of work to do.

FOR TOBY.

Dude. You gotta answer some questions at the beginning of the game instead of just creating more. We’re fucking rabid for lore. We’re not going to give a shit about these new characters until we know what’s going on. Either explain shit or make an entirely new game.

The battle system is good, but we already know we shouldn’t fight. And now it’s not even, like, a choice. It literally says “don’t do this.” I hate taking the evil path, so I’m not going to do that shit anyway, so why even have the goddamn FIGHT option? The “Warning” about Susie is cool, but it’s tedious as hell. In fact, it’s all tedious, from the insultingly cookie-cutter plot and characters to the obvious leading to something at the end. It feels fake and shitty.

Again--too long for a demo, too short for a game. It’s just weird. Why spend 10 minutes creating the backstory and the characters if you’re just going to shove them out and resolve everything in two hours?

Of course I’m grateful for the work. But I’m worried that Toby is relying on the rabid fanbase, easy fixes (like a better battle system), and a cheap jumpscare/reveal instead of actually making a good game.

I have no idea when the 24 hours is over. I’m spoiler-tagging.

[blueraspberrycoolatta]

2018 writing self-evaluation

yoo @suspendrs​ tagged me in this and i got so excited!! y’all know i love any opportunity to yell about my fics!!

ALL FICS MUST HAVE POSTED ON AO3 IN 2018

1. Number of stories (including drabbles) posted to AO3: 15

2. Word count posted for the year: 122,531

3. List of works published this year (in order of posting):

play me a memory (5 february)

don’t stop us now, we’ve started (11 march)

Ain’t That A Kick In The Head! (with @lesbianharrie​) (23 april)

come find me in the afterglow (14 july)

you look just fine on your own (6 august)

some princes don’t become kings (11 august)

melodies and memories (31 august)

I Get A Kick Out Of You (with @lesbianharrie​) (18 september)

i’ve learned to loathe these goddamn visions (7 october)

a little bit stressed out (2 november)

take off your colours (16 november)

no time for getting old (2 december)

hold onto this feeling (3 december)

taste the tension, now i’m begging (5 december)

half remembered, halfway across the world (first chapter posted 2 february, last updated 11 december)

4. Fandoms I wrote for: the legend of zelda: breath of the wild (8), one direction (5), 5 seconds of summer (1), kingdom hearts (1), choices: stories you play (1)

5. Pairings: louis/harry (5), link/revali (3), louis/zayn (2), calum/luke (2), hayner/roxas (1)

6. Story with the most:

Kudos: Ain’t That A Kick In The Head! (1062)

Bookmarks: Ain’t That A Kick In The Head! (432)

Comments: Ain’t That A Kick In The Head! (141)

9. Work I’m most proud of (and why):

it’s a tie between don’t stop us now, we’ve started and melodies and memories. don’t stop us was one of those stories that ran away from me in the best way—i intended it to be around 5k when i started it, 7k max, but as i dug into calum’s backstory, everything just kind of...started writing itself. 

melodies and memories was similar. it doubled in length from what i’d originally planned for it to be, but what i actually like most about this one is that since it’s so closely linked to half remembered, halfway across the world, i’ve been putting little easter eggs and phrases/occurrences that mirror each other, either within the same fic or across both of them. the paraglider that zayn makes for louis in melodies and memories is the same one troye uses in half remembered. loius tells zayn he’s not the type to make promises, once in melodes and memories, and then again in half remembered. zayn there are a ton more but i can’t say them cos those chapters haven’t been posted yet, but i’ve been having way too much fun putting them in. (as emma’s said: i’m playing 3d chess with this fic) 

10. Work I’m least proud of (and why):

probably take off your colours? i posted a first chapter and people seemed to like it but i started it with no idea where it was going and i’m worried i should have waited to post it, wrapped it up to make it a oneshot, and then just left it, rather than setting it up for a whole chaptered story. and i feel like the revalink fandom already has a bunch of soulmate fics and like do we really need mine fskjdfh

11. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

oh! can i post two? i’m gonna post two. the first is from a revalink fic, and the second is from the soccer fic.

Then it’s Link’s turn to say his vows. “Revali.” Link’s voice is soft, but steady and clear, no signs of nervousness as he picks up the diamond pendant. “When we first met, I thought you hated me. I thought you wanted nothing to do with me, and I thought I’d be just fine never seeing you again.” Scattered chuckles from the crowd. “I’ve never been so happy to be wrong. Revali, falling in love with you was like falling out of the sky. It happened so quickly, and I didn’t know what was happening, and it was scary at first, but once I accepted it, every moment has been thrilling and exciting and I never want to hit the ground and let it come to an end. I want to spend the rest of my life falling in love with you. So I take you, as you are, pride and all, to be my husband. I will be by your side, through storms, through Calamities, through everything life has to throw at us. I promise to support you and love you, unconditionally. You already have wings to take you into the sky—I promise to be the wings that take you into our future.”

Well, that does it. Revali blinks back tears. “Your vows were way better than mine,” he whispers, no venom behind the words even if he wanted there to be.

Link snorts fondly, standing on the balls of his feet to tie the pendant around Revali’s neck. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that not everything’s a competition?”

~

and then:

“I have dual fucking citizenship, you weeb.”

12. Share or describe a favorite review you received:

i really truly love every comment i get. it means the world that someone not only read my fic, but took the time to say something afterward. but i got several comments this year that were all along the lines of: i never thought about this this way. and i love that even in a fic context i can bring something new to the table, a unique perspective.

also, someone called me their favorite revalink writer and that made me into the literal hearteyes emoji i almost cried

13. A time when writing was really, really hard:

when isn’t it hard? but actually, nano was hard this year. i wrote more than i ever have, but i just felt like the pressure was Too Much. usually pressure is a good thing for me but for some reason it got to me this year. i was writing 4+ different projects, in 2 different fandoms, and i just couldn’t really focus. 

14. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you:

all of 5sos in the breath of the wild au took me by surprise with the depth of their dynamics, but calum especially. i didn’t Mean to give him a fuckton of backstory, but i did, and he just kind of...developed on his own. next thing i knew, he was a conflicted teenager with a penchant for fighting but a whole lot of guilt. i’ve been really loving digging into his character, not only in the prequel but with the way ashton and luke talk about him half remembered. in fact, he surprised me so much he’s getting a sequel set after the events of half remembered. but that won’t be for a while yet.

15. How did you grow as a writer this year:

i want to say i surprised myself with the emotional themes i’ve been exploring in fics this year. i’ve had so much fun writing angst, especially in the breath of the wild verse, and i used to say i’ve never do angst or i’d never be good at writing it. i don’t know if i can say i’m good at it just yet, but i definitely feel like i’ve been getting better at conveying more emotion in my writing. also, i like to think i’ve gotten better at humor. 

16. How do you hope to grow next year:

i just want to keep writing! i feel like especially this past month, i’ve just been hit with bursts of inspiration, and when that happens, i just want to go with it rather than be like ‘oh, that’s interesting, i’ll come back to that later when i have a better idea of what’ll happen.’ some of my favorite fics i’ve written this year have been largely unplanned and spontaneous so i want to carry that energy into the new year. 

17. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

my loggies! i loved getting together to write (even if not a lot of writing got done) but all your encouragement and support has meant the world. also i wanna shoutout @lesbianharrie for being the absolute best cowriter i could ask for. i feel like she’s helped me be funnier, which has been something i’ve always wanted to do. also, writing comedy is always more fun with a friend!

18. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

please refer to the entirety of Ain’t That A Kick In The Head!

19. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

honestly, you have to like what you’re writing. otherwise, you’re gonna slog through it and you’ll hate every moment and that’s no fun, especially if writing is meant to be a hobby. write the stories you want to write, even if it seems like no one will read them. you never know—people might surprise you. and even if they don’t, hey! you wrote something you like and you’re proud of, and that’s enough.

20. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

I’M GOING TO FINISH HALF REMEMBERED. I’M SPEAKING IT INTO EXISTENCE. the second half is actually going to be posted more quickly because i keep writing it out of order. like. i have the epilogue done. but do i know what’s happening in the immediate next chapter? not a clue!

but also, i have some really exciting new projects in the works as well! i have a high school bagpipe band au that’s gonna be ridiculous and (hopefully) funny, my fic for the @hlmusicalsficfest that’s gonna be based on nice work if you can get it, and at Least two (2) more disaster harry fics. get pumped!

21. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read.

uhhh idk who’s been tagged and who’s already done it so i’m just gonna say: anyone who sees this and wants to do it! just tag me, i wanna read your answers!

[murasaki-murasame]

Episode 23 of :re continues to be a really solid adaptation, even if it’s of some very flawed material. And this final arc at least feels a bit less exhausting and overdone than it did in the manga, so that’s neat.

Anyway, detailed thoughts under the cut, and spoilers for the whole manga.

As I expected, this episode covers the first half of volume 16. Like, literally half of it. The volume is roughly 320 pages long, and this episode adapted the first 160 pages, lol. And as I also expected, it worked out just fine, pacing-wise. Barely anything actually got cut. A few scenes got made a bit more concise, and Takizawa didn’t watch Donato and Amon fight, but that’s about it.

At least in terms of the stuff specifically from this part of the manga alone. I think it’s worth noting that they bring Ayato back into the story in this episode, but they don’t really talk much about what he was up to, and it looks like they’re completely cutting out the detail of him bringing back some feral children that lived underground.

I think I like this change a fair bit, even though I can tell it’s gonna annoy a lot of people. I always really disliked how Ishida handled the entire plot point of Ayato finding that underground city and the corpse of the old dragon, so I can certainly live with how the anime is removing a lot of the focus on it. The time spent setting it up in the manga just made it all the more disappointing when absolutely nothing of value came of it, so at least in the anime it’s upfront about how much of a background detail it is.

On the topic of things I didn’t like from around this part of the manga, I’m vaguely disappointed that the anime kept the stuff with Eto being brought back at the last minute, but I can’t really blame them for just being faithful to the manga. I still think that the anime is at it’s best when it’s actively going against the execution of the manga, and this is something where I think they could have easily just cut it out. I have a feeling it’s also going to be something where anime-only people wind up understandably assuming that the manga must SURELY have done more with this plot point, and taken even the SLIGHTEST effort to actually explain why the fuck it’s happening, but yeah no lol. The way that Ishida brought her back out of absolutely nowhere and then almost immediately kills her off was so awfully handled that most of the fandom genuinely hates it and wishes it never happened. There’s a lot of things where I’m in the minority for disliking some parts of the writing, but trust me when I say that nearly everyone hates what Ishida did with Eto here. I honestly still don’t fully grasp what he was even trying to achieve with this, other than him trying to bring the Owl back for the final arc just to . . . make some last-minute parallels to the end of the first series? Who even knows.

That’s actually my only real complaint about this episode, though. Everything else was very solid and well-executed. They didn’t really add anything or flesh anything out beyond what happened in the manga, but they just adapted what happened in the manga in a really solid, satisfying enough way.

I remember disliking how the Donato-Amon and Yomo-Uta fights were handled in the manga, but I think that was mostly a pacing issue. The manga devoted several chapters exclusively to those fight scenes, which just felt unnecessarily drawn-out. It feels a fair bit more natural in the anime, partly because both of those fights are a bit more concise than they were originally, and partly because I think the anime cuts between them a bit more than the manga did, which makes it feel less like you’re following one fight for a weirdly long time. I’d have to reread this part of the manga to remind myself exactly how I feel about it, but I also think that the resolution between Yomo and Uta felt more satisfying and less underwhelming than it did originally.

Also, I can’t really remember if an anime-only person would know about Amon’s history with Donato by this point. I never got around to watching Root A, so I genuinely have no idea if that season talked about their backstory. I know that it hasn’t come up in the :re anime, but even in the :re manga there’s barely any references to Amon’s childhood. So maybe that whole scene was something that wouldn’t work at all for anime-only people, but I can’t tell.

I still have a lot of complicated feelings about Amon’s entire place in :re’s story. It ultimately just feels really unnecessary, like he was mostly brought back just so he could wind up dating Akira and have a happy ending. There’s not really much that the story actually does in :re to substantially develop him or explore his character. On it’s own his whole confrontation with Donato is very nice and bittersweet, and it’s good to see him acknowledging that he’s a part of the warped world he lives in, and that he can’t avoid taking responsibility for that, but overall it feels particularly odd to have his big final moment as a character be focused on his relationship with Donato, given how little screen-time that plot point gets, especially in :re. It feels more logical for the story to focus on how conflict with Kaneki, but that whole thing just gets kinda . . . brushed under the rug in a really unsatisfying way.

I’ll at least say that the disappointing aspects of how Amon is handled as a character are much less obnoxious and jarring as they were in the manga, if only just because the anime has been covering like two thirds of :re in twelve episodes. It’s more reasonable for Amon to not have THAT much focus or development in a 24-episode anime than it was for his moments to be so few and far between across 180 chapters of a manga that ran for like three years. It’s still not the most satisfying thing ever, but at least people watching the anime didn’t have to spend literal YEARS watching basically nothing happen with his character, lol.

Oh right, I just remembered that V exists, and that I guess they’re another part of the episode I disliked. I mean, they’re involved with the whole Eto thing, but my reasons for disliking them are entirely separate. They’re another whole plot point that I think Ishida handled terribly, and there’s not much the anime can do to improve that. They’ve always just been this really lame, cliche shadow organization with murky goals, and nothing much ever gets done with them. I can’t blame any anime-only people for thinking that they’re really boring and under-utilized and unexplored, but the manga doesn’t do much more with them. To be blunt, the fact that I completely forgot about them right after the episode ended kinda says everything you need to know about how badly they’re handled even though they’re kind of sort of the Big Bads [tm] of the entire series, lmao.

I said before that this episode didn’t necessarily add anything new to what was originally in the manga, but after going back through my copy of volume 16 [I donated my English TG manga collection to my local library last week but I still own the last three volumes of :re in Japanese], it looks like that short scene with Mutsuki getting protected by Urie and Akira was anime-original. Which is a bit surprising since it was a fairly minor scene that didn’t impact much. I really liked it though. It’s just a neat detail to show Mutsuki’s friends and colleagues protecting him, and there’s something really bittersweet about how it comes across like he was willing to accept his fate and let himself be killed by the fake Owl, and was surprised to find himself being protected. It helps really hammer in the character growth and reconciliation that’s been going on with him and those around him lately, and it just works really nicely. It continues to be really interesting to me that almost all of the most major changes/cuts/additions in the anime thus far relate to Mutsuki’s character, and in general improving upon how Ishida handled him originally. I really appreciate it, but I’ve already talked about that a lot so I don’t need to go back over it.

Getting to the final part of the episode, the whole scene with Kaneki confronting Furuta wasn’t substantially different to the manga in how it plays out, and what sort of a note the episode ends on, but it’s interesting that the anime is portraying him in a more serious and genuinely threatening light, whereas this bit from the manga really played up his joke-y attitude. I think I prefer it this way, but it’s not the biggest change ever. In general I really like the note this episode ended on. I think the fact that they cut out one or two instances of Kaneki cracking his fingers previously in :re helped make this moment feel more important and surprising, so that’s cool.

Now that we’re halfway into the final volume of the manga, that just leaves the final half of it to adapt in the final episode, which should be totally fine. There’s a lot of scenes that can go by REALLY fast in the anime. Especially the epilogue, since a huge chunk of that can probably just be handled as a montage while the ending theme or whatever plays, rather than how we had to slog through so many pages of so many pointless narrative exposition boxes in the manga. Some of the final scenes between Kaneki, Furuta, and then Rize also felt almost comically drawn out in the manga, which always felt a bit weird given how rushed the overall ending felt, and how tight of a schedule Ishida was working on. You could really tell that he tried and failed to get the ending extended by an additional three chapters.

We don’t know what the final episode will be called yet, but they’ll probably have that sorta info up in the next day or two. I’m kinda excited to see what they call it, since the final episode of :re s1 ditched the naming scheme of the rest of the episode names to give it something more unique. So it’ll be neat to see what they do for the final episode.

I’m of course gonna hold back on giving my final thoughts on the :re anime until it all ends in the next episode, but I think we’re close enough to the end that my feelings on it won’t really change much, so I just wanna reiterate that I genuinely really love it, in spite of it’s flaws. I would have preferred something more . . . ‘transformative’, if that makes sense, but as an adaptation that takes the existing story and just tells it in a better way, I think the anime works surprisingly well. This final season in particular has been a big step up from the manga.

All in all I just have a lot of affection for it and what it’s been trying to achieve [especially with how they’ve done so much to improve the endless list of issues with how badly Ishida handled Mutsuki as a character], and I don’t think that goodwill could be tarnished at this point with just one episode left. I’ve jokingly said before that even though there’s more objectively good options, this is probably one of my favourite anime of this year, but I think I genuinely stand by that. There’s been some REALLY great stuff this year, even in terms of just stuff I’ve fully watched [like Devilman Crybaby, Revue Starlight, Planet With, etc etc], but I just feel really strongly about the :re anime. Also there’s some recency bias going on, lol. It’s been so long since I watched Devilman Crybaby. This year was a goddamn decade long.