#but i cannot overstate how much these two suck

[soup-du-silence]

I am drowning There is no sign of land You are coming down with me Hand in unlovable hand

sometimes when art is hard and I can't execute an idea, I draw it with 350% more corners and it turns out kind of okay

[ruegarding]

hi, quick question, how did you feel about Beryl Grace's character and how she was written?

hi! overall, beryl is another character that falls into the "interesting concept, not elaborated on in canon" category. in pjo, she's not particularly developed bc of her distance to the main character and narrative. in hoo, where she's directly related to a main character, she's flat, zeus is flat, hera is flat, thalia is barely relevant, and jason's entire character suffers from hoo being inconsistent and poorly written, which means anything that, arguably, should be done well doesn't hold up.

in pjo, beryl’s character isn’t very fleshed out, but she’s a side character to a side character, so it's understandable. she's also dead, but when she was introduced the majority of parents we knew abt were alive, so it wasn't too big a deal (this changes drastically w hoo, where there are more dead parents than living ones).

her existence answers a few questions: why doesn't every mortal parents know who their child's godly parent is? bc some of them cannot handle it. why did thalia run away? bc her mother coped w her mental instability by turning to alcoholism. why does thalia want to join the hunters? bc she wants stability. why can't thalia return home? bc her mother's dead. a lazy way out, maybe, but, again, beryl is a side character to a side character. the implied depth of beryl's character, that thalia cared enough to not only check on beryl's well-being after being revived but also feels enough guilt abt leaving that it's used against her soh, does a lot of the heavy lifting.

in hoo, we learn very little abt beryl's character, despite the fact that she is now connected to a main character. in fact, beryl's inclusion in hoo doesn't do much.

is beryl given depth now that she's closer to the narrative? not really. thalia had to raise jason bc beryl was always self-absorbed, so she and jason don't really have a relationship, therefore nothing to explore. and also the implied depth from pjo is removed bc actually thalia stayed bc of jason and doesn't care abt beryl. so, if zeus went back to beryl, had two children w beryl, that would imply that he loves her, right? no. bc why would we take this opportunity to imply that zeus cares abt other ppl and make him a multi-dimensional character. what does it mean that beryl unites two pantheons by having a greek child and a roman child? don't know. rick never explores it. why was jason sold to one direction? bc hera sucks and beryl's self-absorbed. how was jason able to recognize thalia's face despite last seeing her when he was two (or three??)? did hera tell jason abt thalia as he was growing up? was it all part of hera's big plan? don't know. probably. is jason and thalia's relationship an important focus of the series? no. do we explore the ramifications of beryl being a celebrity w children? no. where does jason's idea of what a mother should be ("caring, loving, selflessly protective") come from? not established. probably thalia...? was it necessary that jason's mother was beryl and not literally any other absent parent? no. was jason and hera's relationship explored in hoo, at least? if u settle for "kinda."

i can not overstate how little beryl shows up in hoo.

there's also a separate issue in how her disabilities are handled. like i say often, this is a series abt disability and therefore these things matter. she explicitly has an addiction and is coded w bpd and she and zeus are villainized for both of these things.

compare it w may. may can't give luke what he needs bc of her disability and it's approached w empathy and portrayed as a tragedy. similarly, hermes loves her and helps her how he thinks is best. and despite this, the audience can still empathize w luke's anger bc none of this changes the fact that he did not get what he needed as a child. that's how u write a complex relationship fitting for a main character of a series abt disability.

instead, beryl is written as incredibly shallow and repeatedly described as "unstable." she likes zeus bc he's powerful and he gives her attention. she caught his attention for shallow reasons and she wanted to keep it for shallow reasons. zeus is written like the villain for leaving, bc obviously he's also shallow and only there bc she gives him attention. this entire situation would be a tragedy if it were written w a modicum of care. it was a no-win scenario. he could have stayed forever, he could have made her immortal, and she would still be unstable, be unsatisfied. she put her entire well-being in his hands, and there is no way he can make her happy forever. it's sad! the love could've been there and it wouldn't've fixed anything!

boo sort of tries to add depth to her character and relationship w jason, but, again, it doesn't hold up bc jason doesn't have a relationship w her. for the two (or three??) years he lived w her, she doesn't even raise him. thalia does. jason doesn't see multiple sides of beryl. almost everything he (and the audience) knows abt beryl, he learned from thalia's crash course on why their mother sucked. the only exception is this promise beryl made, that she'd come back for him, except jason's already come to terms w the fact it's a broken promise, that beryl was never coming back for him, before the story begins. rick never establishes any redeeming quality of beryl's, or beryl's influence on jason, so jason's rejection of her doesn't pack any emotional punch bc...what exactly is there to reject? to let go of? why would the audience be attached to her? why would jason be afraid of becoming like her when there's nothing in the narrative to suggest they're similar?

it's not tragic. it's not triumphant. it's lackluster.

[fox-quills]

do you have any recommendations for writing a fic? i have so many ideas but never can get pass writing even 1 paragraph of my idea. I guess maybe it’s because i have ADHD but it sucks!!! I’ve such great ideas for mha / erasermicdeku fics but never can get far. Any recommendations that helped you out? Or helped you be more productive?

Okay this is about to get long-winded because I have a LOT of thoughts on this topic. I'll drop a tl;dr at the end lol. So! First some background. I have ADHD too anon, and I'm struggling my way through life unmedicated, so I absolutely get where you're coming from. I've been writing fanfiction a long time. To give you an idea, my oldest posted fic is actually older than my current beta, so you know. Fandom ancient or whatever. But, for a long long LONG time, I really struggled with consistency. I have a list of unfinished fics behind me a mile long, because as much as I loved writing, and as much as I wanted to do it, I just couldn't seem to manage it around all that ADHD brain fog. So I wrote sporadically, only ever finished one long fic in probably twenty years, and generally felt pretty bad about myself all around. And then about a year and a half ago, I decided that I wanted to try writing consistently. Again. For the fifty bajillionth time. But I also knew everything I had ever tried didn't work, so if I wanted it to happen, I needed to do something different. So I started getting up two hours before work every weekday, and I regret to inform you that it worked beautifully. I think a large part of it is hedging your bets against ADHD brain. First thing in the morning, you're going to be more alert, and you haven't already used up all your limited thinky spoons on work or school or whatever else. You get your best, fresh morning brain! Let me give you some stats. Here's my total word count for the last five years:

I started my morning writing in June of 2023, which is probably pretty obvious. When I first started, my daily word counts weren't anything crazy, but I was making consistent, daily progress and I was super happy with it!

And here's my daily word count for the last few days:

And this is not me going crazy. Just my two hours in the morning, which is closer to an hour and a half because I gotta get up, make coffee, etc. I have a few things that helped make the transition easier. I work from home, so I can write up until the moment I gotta boot my laptop for work. My husband also happens to get up for work at the same time I get up for writing, so that helps too. But even without these things? I'd do it. If I had to drag my ass outta bed at 4am, I would, because it just works that well. I'll never go back to doing anything else. I have one other piece of advice that really helps keep me motivated, and that's to find a circle of people to talk to about your writing. Talk about your fic with your friends, join a discord server, something! I absolutely CANNOT overstate how motivating it is to have people excited for your story, people to talk to about your ideas, people who care about this silly little thing you've created. There's this idea that writing is a solitary thing, but I don't think that's true. At least, it doesn't have to be. And I don't know about you, anon, but I'll write an entire novel for one friend who wants to know how it ends. I write because I love it, but I also write because I love other people too, and I like making them happy. tl;dr - Get up early to write. Yes, I know it sucks, but it really does work. - Find someone to talk about your stories with. A friend, a beta, a fellow fan. Shared enthusiasm is a wonderful motivator. I'm not going to guarantee what works for me will work for everyone. I do strongly encourage you to give it a try though, because you never know! It took me a long time to get where I'm at. Part of that was not knowing I had ADHD till I was 30, so I was stuck fighting an invisible enemy. And then I had to learn how to work around it, which wasn't an easy thing to do. The most important thing is to be kind to yourself, and to do what you can. If you're lucky it won't take you quite as long as it took me, but if writing is something you enjoy, then you'll be able to carve out a place for it. It just might take some trial and error to get there. I believe in you ❤

[madamtrashbat]

It's that time again for political posts in America and I have some thoughts. Ignore if you want.

Sometimes I really feel like people get so caught up in fucking white knight political ideology that the ensuing inaction causing the creeping rise of fascism or conservative assholery is seen as an inevitable instead of as a direct result of internet leftists sitting with their thumb up their asses because there's no ideologically pure candidate they can throw their weight behind. When the flood comes they'll be so smug as they drown because they saw this coming, especially because the person who was trying to stem the flood was using outdated tools so obviously this was inevitable.

Complacency and plans for BIG GRAND SWEEPING GESTURES that will rework the system in one fell swoop are always going to fail, and beyond that it's always going to cause more harm. Always. Your leftist utopia isn't going to suddenly appear one day if you post enough hot takes, things aren't going to change if you decide you don't like that someone has a differing opinion on high-speed rail systems than you and therefore they're basically a fascist and cannot be supported. Black and white doesn't exist in politics.

Elections are not just the president. It does suck that we get a choice of only two, and it's a bummer that the Democrat option is Joe Biden! I don't agree with everything he does, and I am certainly not in agreement with a good deal of what he does, but that does not change the fact that I'm going to vote for him, because the alternative is unfathomable, and quite frankly, there is a good list of what he's done that I approve of.

"Voting doesn't matter!" Respectfully you are stupid. Elections are not just for president. Do you know what senate seats are up for grabs this term? What's on your local ballots? Do any amount of cursory research and then join the conversation. People wouldn't try to keep you from voting if it didn't matter.

"Biden is too old!" Yes, I'd love a younger candidate, too, but what is sitting this election out going to do to fix it? Are you just going to hope a younger candidate appears out of nowhere? Or are you going to do the work to support candidates you do like?

"Biden is a centrist!" I cannot overstate how behind we are politically that Biden is literally the most left-leaning president we've ever had and it's only by participating in politics that we can keep pushing it even further. Democrats are historically more open to changing their minds than Republicans; I watched Obama move from not supporting marriage equality to signing it into fucking law in real time. How much work are you doing to help push our politics left beyond just angrily posting about how shit it all is?

"Two-party system sucks!" Big agree! How will not participating in it change it? Are there any smaller candidates, like reps, who agree with you? Can you support them to get us closer to a multi-party system?

"Palestine matters!" Could not agree more! Absolutely agree with you that the atrocities in Palestine need to end. Biden has a shaky stance on this at best, with a weird position of still supporting Israel as an ally and also condemning what they're doing, but he is not the first president to have a weird, fucked-up foreign policy and he's likely not going to be the last. But how well do you think Palestine will fare under Trump? Al Jazeera reported that Biden at least views that Palestine should be self-governed and supports a two-state solution, meanwhile, Trump unequivocally supports Benjamin Netanyahu, and said through his nepotism mouthpiece Jared Kushner that Palestine doesn't deserve statehood. What hope would Palestine have under another term of Trump?

"Trump and Biden (or) Democrats and Republicans are all the same anyway" if you actually believe this, and I mean truly believe this, then public education was absolutely and thoroughly wasted on you and I want you to personally repay the taxes that paid for it. Four years of Trump saw the overturn of Roe v. Wade by cramming unqualified conservative stooges into the Supreme Court, the reduction of the assistance provided by food stamps, the mishandling of a global pandemic that killed many thousands in the US alone, the US stepping away from climate action, and actual problems of exposing state secrets. Less than four of Biden have seen the enactment of the massive infrastructure bill, approval of an OTC birth control pill, a reworking of redlining laws that expands protections for home loan borrowers, cracking down on predatory overdraft fees from banks, incentivizing farmers to reduce carbon emissions, and enacting stronger punishments for companies that interfere with union votes and enacting more union protections. I'd say those are pretty big fuckin differences.

---

Look.

I get it. This shit seems rough because we're going through it and we're tired. But refusing to be involved is a little like deciding to protest your quarterback being an asshole by standing still on the football field. Because the thing about that is that the other team's quarterback is ALSO an asshole, a huge fucking asshole, and even though he's not on the field right now, his line is still coming for you, and they're going to tackle you, despite you claiming you're not playing anymore. You're on the field whether like it or not. You might as well fight until you can convince your team to find a new quarterback.

You can't give in to despair. Anyone claiming Biden and Trump are the same are lying to you. A better future is possible, but only if you keep pushing. Stack the house and the senate with people that have the best policies and uplift them. Get involved in your community. Change starts at the smallest level, and it is enacted by you.

Remember how many states the Republicans lost that it took them gerrymandering to get back. We can do it.

But you can't think of it in black and white. You have to keep marching towards the horizon. Do not stop, ever. Keep pushing, and drag the people you can forward.

[blessphemy]

2024 ao3 wrapped [writer's edition]

original prompt post link

How many words (of fanfic) have you written this year? 234,231 words. all murderbot. shut up. This was my second biggest year. I'd like to thank the time on my hands, posting a longfic I had in the works for a while, and participating in a Big Bang. (2021 was my biggest. I'll thank back pain and unemployment for that one lol.)

How many works did you publish this year? 42 fanfics.

What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)? Networks VOID + Networks VITAL. Took me over two years to write and I finally finished it and punted it into the universe this year. fucking monster roller-coaster of a fic capping off a monster roller-coaster of a series. probably the most technically challenging thing I've written to date, by merit of all the balls in motion and all the emotional beats crammed in over the course of 99k words, with the majority of the action taking place during ~48 in-universe hours. i'm so proud of it. it deserves all the love it's gotten LoL thanks everybody!!

What work of yours has the most hits? Via Solitude is a perennial crowd pleaser. Wide audience appeal. Slow and long-running multi-chapter slice of life. ("Slice of life" whilst stranded and surviving alien wilderness.)

What work of yours got more feedback than you expected? idk I'm honestly pleasantly surprised every time people comment at all. but I guess SecUnit Feet got hella reactions, for a borderline gag fic for April fools.

Favorite title you used Stranger (manic pixie dream killing machine) ^ honestly i've peaked with this one

If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most? I don't.

Pairing you wrote the most for this year? I don't really write much as far as pairings go. The REAL talk is that I posted another entry for my niche obsession: re-writing the Exit Strategy Dock Showdown from the point of view of "Hostile One" the Combat SecUnit. Surrender/Please is my fourth one in this microgenre, and does it just as fresh and fun and different from the preceding three. ^_^

Favorite pairing you wrote for this year? Well I did write one ship fic: Stranger (manic pixie dream killing machine). In which 2 characters that never interact in canon suck face. It's pretty good makeouts if you're into that. Honestly I do love this fic I did a good job on it. Took me a long time to iron it out. Alternatively, if you stretch the definition of "pairing" to mean "self-destructive murdercule" there's the squad from Networks VOID/VITAL being patently insane. Together. Heart Emoji.

What work was the quickest to write? Funny you should ask. I gave myself 30-minute limits to write the daily Febuwhump prompts and timed myself. equivalent exchange took me 11.25 minutes, and it's not bad considering the time crunch. Mensah POV of killing that SecUnit in All Systems Red :)

What work took you the longest to write? Aforementioned Networks VOID/VITAL. I cannot overstate how insane I was making myself writing this thang for 2 years before posting it to the internets.

How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year? I think I made a list of some ideas I've had knocking around, but they've been backburnered a bit since I've been noodling other writing stuff lately. (I say, while succumbing to banging out random fics for a prompt event during December -_-)

What’s your longest work of the year? Networks VITAL again, at 99.8k. Maybe I should edit in a couple hundred more words to bring it up to a clean 100k. that would be funny. maybe. eh.

What’s your shortest work of the year? I've written a few drabbles. (drabble = 100 words.) 🦎 herping 🐍, Handoff, Sugar

What WIP are you taking into next year with you? Via Solitude. She marches on.

What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag? I'll do top 3 since the top 2 are tied to a prompt event: Febuwhump 2024 (18), Whump (12), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence (6)

Your favorite character to write this year? Take a Wild Fucking Guess (*uses my foot to push 29 fics tagged #Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries) under the bed*)

The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year? I find ART kinda challenging. It's a multifaceted lil gremlin. But really everyone is fun to write.

What’s one pairing you want to explore next year? idk. maybe i'll make 2 bots make out again.

Which work of yours have you reread the most? again Networks VITAL. like just from the editing process alone.

Which work has the most comments? Via Solitude again. She's killing pretty much every popularity stat.

Did you do any collaborative works this year? Wrote a meta with ArtemisTheHuntress: [Meta] Name Dropping about the ways Muderbot refers to other bots in the series. Surprising little nuggets of realization such as: Murderbot only refers to bot pilots generically or with nicknames, and the only named ships are A) Holism the supership and B) Lalow, which has no bot pilot. Also participated in a big bang with every_eye_evermore to create Plastic Plague. I did the writing, every_eye_evermore did the awesome illustrations and helped me work out the kinks. If Networks VITAL hadn't stolen the show in terms of the man-hours and heart I put in, I think I'd have named Plastic Plague as my pride and joy. Kind of surprised myself with how fast I wrote it given its length. But also it's one of those fics that's like 2 degrees removed from being a whole ass original novella. lol. If you're interested in getting your heart broken and then pulled back together, come check out this post-apocalyptic pandemic fic. owo.

Did you write any gifts this year? Yeah! The yearly gift exchange let me create a pretty fun one: HELP WANTED: decryption key needed before half my brain gets locked behind a paywall #paid #ManticSoft #semi-urgent And the lil fluff of🦎 herping 🐍 for musicofthespheres :3

Did you receive any gifts this year? Also yeah! Once again the gift exchange gave me a fic I Adore thank you isilee: what to do when your friend is a victim of organ harvesting. pod AU. i love pod AU. and more??? everyone is being so nice to me. The Great Slug Migration and debugged [comic] by musicofthespheres. and Sing Your Feelings by ArtemisTheHuntress

What’s your most common category? Gen. I'm a 97% gen household lmao.

What do you listen to while writing? Bathroom fan white noise. Neighbors noise. Sometimes noise muffling headphones. I usually can't listen To Stuff and write at the same time, there's barely enough space in my head to have 1 full thought per second. It's like 0.6-0.8 tps in here.

Favorite work you wrote this year? I couldn't POSSIBLY pick a favorite out of all my precious children. I would never. I love them all equally. 🏆 Networks VOID/VITAL 🏆

Favorite line/passage you wrote this year? Listen I wrote 234,231 words worth of bangers. Girl I forget. I'm not rereading all that to find my fave passage. Here’s one from Surrender/Please: “I’m chasing you, my mental crosshairs locked on you, which is how it’s supposed to be, but something is so wrong, so wrong, so wrong with you, so wrong with me. The ghost of your presence in my feed digs its ethereal fingers into the back of my neck, where my data-port is, and just above that, wedged within the shriveled heart of a stripped-down medulla, is my governor module.” Here’s one from false pulse, ComfortUnit POV: “I want to cut the mimic heart out of my torso, that lying little device in the center of my chest put there for the sole purpose of broadcasting a false pulse to a sentimental human audience, that races loudly now, unbidden.” From Suns Out Guns Out: ““SecUnit. Where are your arms?” SecUnit shrugged its armless shoulders. The gesture made its empty sleeves flop a bit. “Planetary customs has them. I’ll pick them back up when I go up the elevator.”” From illucid: “The systems swerve uncertainty, the missile misses its mark, the mote floats free.” Also I think spousal privilege does a great job burying the lede. But I won’t paste the whole thing here.

Biggest surprise while writing this year? How did I write so many bangers? uwu. (Actually I spent a month or two having forgotten how to write good because I went outside and touched too much grass. (Read: went backpacking for a while and didn’t have access to writing.) It was a little agonizing. Then Surrender/Please knocked the cork loose and I was able to write again everyone say thank you Surrender/Please.) At this point writing is kind of a near-daily compulsion for me.

[hello-there-world]

hey, thought about William's backstory in the Rewrite...and Boy is it sad, but it Does explain a lot about why he's...Like That.

like...i have a few categories that my favorite villains go into. two of those are:

Sympathetic, But In The "You Understand How They Got To This Point, But It Doesn't Excuse Their Actions" Sense.

Sadistic Fuckers Who Are Doing Evil Shit 'Cause It's Fun To Them.

Rewrite!William technically fits in both of these categories, but the latter one is much more prominent post-Springlock.

like. his backstory is tragic, but that doesn't change the fact that he, y'know, 1) Killed A Bunch Of Children, Including His Own Son, and 2) After He Was Springlocked, He Straight Up Killed MULTIPLE Fazbear Employees, Maimed Several Others, And Attempted To Kill Both His Former Business Partner's OTHER Kid, As Well As One Of His Last Living Children.

with all that out of the way, let's get started with this man's horrible start to life:

so like. he was born to this really wealthy family in England on Feb. 14, 1941. had three older brothers and an older sister. off to a great start, right?

uh...wrong. parents? Sucked Ass. they're physically and verbally abusive, and care about Perfection above all else.

and William, the incredibly autistic child he was...well, he wasn't having a good time.

one of his few joys at home was the fact the property they lived on had a lot of rabbits and hares. Will would just go out there and play and chase the animals around. the fact that rabbits and hares became one of his special interests isn't surprising.

his other forms of escapism included drawing and reading in his room, especially picture books that had animals as the protagonists. drew a lot of furries cartoon/anthropomorphic animals

this guy's only real friends were his teachers, his older brother Joshua, and his younger sister Mary Anne. his other siblings were rather distant, We've Already Gone Over His Parents, and other kids his age think he's annoying/a Teacher's Pet. like. This Dude Was Lonely As A Kid. I'm Sure This Isn't Gonna Give Him Attachment Problems Where He Practically Clings To Anyone Else Who's Nice To Him!! Surely Not!! (see: Henry, Henry's kids, Claire, and the Afton Children)

but...William did have one other friend.

you see, for William's sixth birthday, his parents got him a pet rabbit (mostly so he'd quit fucking asking them), and William fucking adored that rabbit. loved it like it was his baby. i cannot overstate how much losing this rabbit would fuck him up.

for three years, William cared for that rabbit, treated it like it was a part of the family, and gave it the best life he could (William's parents told him that the rabbit was his responsibility). everything was going well.

...until some of Josh's friends came over one night.

it was an accident, ultimately. they came into William's room while he was in the middle of drawing and talking to his bunny. they made fun of him, about how much he seemed to care for this "stupid rabbit," and they picked up the rabbit and started messing around with it, despite Will's constant warnings to put it down and to be careful with it.

well, they weren't careful enough.

by the time Josh got into the room, William was screaming and crying, practically inconsolable, and the rabbit was laying on the floor, limp and lifeless. he pretty much told his friends "get the fuck out, what the hell is wrong with you?" as he tried to comfort his brother.

William never fully recovered. his parents were never much help, and his siblings just...didn't really know how to help. neither did his teachers.

but...he had his ways of coping. mostly, through drawing. William eventually came up with a concept of a children's book of his own, complete with a character: O'Hare, a lovely golden hare that lived in the countryside. they was silly, goofy, gave facts about hares and rabbits, and...they were loved by the creatures around them. it was William's own escapism fantasy, whether he realized it or not. it was his way of coping with everything, really.

but his father, upon finding William's many assorted pages of this hypothetical storybook, didn't see it that way. he saw it as a sign that there was something genuinely wrong with William.

the way his parents saw it, they had two options: send William off to an asylum or something to get him Mental Help (probably would've made things Much Worse, let's be real. considering shit's already pretty bad nowadays, i can't imagine it would've been ANY better in the 50s-60s. if anything, it was probably SO MUCH WORSE), but it would risk their reputation being ruined if news got out about it (because to my knowledge, if the family members of any well-known people were sent to asylums/had any major mental health problems, they kinda just tried to cover it up and make sure the public never knew), which, considering how close Josh and Will were, Josh would've made sure people knew. and their other option...send William off to Boarding School and just claim he was an "unruly child" if anyone asked.

they picked the latter (neither Josh nor Will were happy about it)

okay since it's getting late, quick summary of rest of the timeline:

William Has A Bad Time In Boarding School (starts fights, has a lot of breakdowns at night, staff is concerned)

William turned 15 and the Boarding School went "yeah, we aren't dealing with this kid on the Adolescent Hormones" and sent him back to his parents.

William's got more volatile emotions now (can get VERY sad and VERY angry quickly)

parents move the family to America because they think it'll help (it didn't, but now William can have a fresh start since no one knows him over here).

William turns 18, and his parents just kinda got him a car, threw a lot of money at him, and went "go to college or don't, we don't care, just gtfo of our house" and then he did that. kinda wanted to leave anyway.

drove to Utah and went to college there because it was pretty far from his parents (and family, but mostly his parents, who lived over in maybe NY), and then he just took some classes to see what he was interested in.

he learns he has a dormmate. Enter Henry Emily.

alright, there's the short version of the timeline. anyway it's late. have this.

Ooh! I really love this. I'd imagine all that kinda messed him up. I also bet he absolutely loved the pizzarias when he was working there, since he was more allowed to just be a kinda weird guy who loves rabbits and hares.

Until he started killing, of course.

[ladyalisette]

How to make your fan plushie: Part 2 - Fabric and Sewing

So. You got your pattern. You’re reasonably confident in what you got going on with it.

Time to pick a fabric.

Personally, I prefer to work in fleece for the main part. It’s got some advantages:

1) it doesn’t fray, so I don’t need to hem it. Since I’m doing all my sewing by hand, not having to hem this shit is VITAL to the continued existence of my carpal tunnel.

2) most fleeces are the same on both sides. You can’t fuck up the direction of a fur or the pattern or the shiny vs matte side, which imo makes them great beginner’s fabrics

3) they tend to stretch equally in both directions. This does, again, make your life easier because it means the plushie won’t distort weirdly during stuffing if you accidentally flipped a piece somewhere

4) soft, yet not so fuzzy that it will start obscuring the details. A lot of my work got small details going that you just cannot get on plush

Generally speaking, I buy my fleece at a local store, in person, if possible. It lets me touch the fabric, and hold up threads and other pieces to it to see if the colors much. BUT. if the internet is all you got? Go and use it, no shame in that.

Now, there are two other kinds of fabric I regularly use in plushie making: one is thin felt, and one is satin ribbon.

The felt is for flat, detailed applique work that would suck in fleece. You can only cut fleece so small before it starts disintegrating on you. Felt can be cut finer before you hit that point.

The lion is felt, because cutting the mouth in fleece would have been suffering.

The other thing is satin ribbon. Now, this does especially for ghosties, but you may use this knowledge as you please: it’s hard to make fabric glow. Fleece doesn’t look shiny, it doesn’t catch the light, the structure isn’t meant for it. Satin however does just that.

So if you have a detail on your plushie that you want to jump out, something that should glow and shine?

Like this?

Satin ribbon is your friend.

The contrast will let you approximate without having to fuck about with electronics, and satin ribbon comes in endless colors, many widths, and can often be bought by the meter.

Otherwise, depending on your subject, you may want embroidery floss (the XIV up there is embroidered on).

Then you bring it all home. You lay it flat on a surface of your choice (floor for me), and you trace all your pieces onto the fabric. I use both tailor’s chalk or a plain old ballpoint pen, depending on how dark my fabric is. Both work fine. Use what pleases you. Just note that if you need a lot of pressure to trace your pieces, you may distort/stretch the fabric by pulling on it

HOWEVER FOR THE CUTTING i cannot overstate how much a pair of dressmaking or fabric shears makes your life easier. They are handsdown the best sewing investment I’ve ever made, even if you need to handle them with a bit of care and can only use them for fabric, ever, they make it SO much easier to get good cuts. Expensive fabric markers you can skip but shears are so good. Get yourself some shears.

Anyhow, you trace your stuff, you cut your stuff, your result should look something like this:

(this is  Mr.Bean’s Teddy before assembly begins)

Now, if you’re new to this, my suggestion here would be to pin a few things together, see if the sides match up like you want them or if anything got stretched in the process. If you’re confident that it’s all to size?

Get your needle and your thread and get sewing. small pieces you may be able to just hold together, otherwise you can baste or pin them. I usually prefer pins.

I use bog standard thread, doubled up, knotted at the end and then I just...put everything right side together (meaning: the outside that you can see has the trace marks on it, the inside is pristine. Because the now-inside will be the outside once we flip this over) and sew ahead. My suggestion would be to use the trace line the line you sew along. It’s an easy marker to where your stitches should be and it’s there already anyways.

My preference for a stitch is a regular back stitch as explained here:

Now my method is to overlap the stitches a bit, so instead of going to the end point of the earlier stitch, i end up somewhere near the middle of it. I find that it makes a tighter, and more secure hold. As for stitch length: this depends on how big the thing you’re doing this, and your personal preference.

Also: do not let people tell you that you HAVE to go left to right or right to left or that it got anything to do with your dominant hand. Work in a way that is comfortable for you. I’ve switched directions between pieces, it’s really just a matter of what works for you, in that moment. So. you get going and you start putting your things together.

Just remember: you gotta turn that baby out later, so if you’re making an orb? Leave a seam somewhere only partially done, we’ll need that to flip it over. The size of the opening depends on how soft your fabric is and how much fabric you gotta pull through but better save than sorry. Sewing up a bigger hole later one makes no difference, but if you’re rough and rip apart your stitches in the process, the repair can be a real bitch. Knowing how much space you need again comes with experience.

[kwaggysshardmindemporium]

So I was in a slightly different work situation where I couldn't be on my phone much, and that means I'm like a week behind on albumposting. So here's a huge one:

Apparently where I left off was The White Stripes according to my site history, so that makes the next one So by Peter Gabriel. Was good. Has his ginormous hit "Sledgehammer" on it, which is a ginormous hit for a reason. This was like a week ago at this point so that's about all I remember, but I gave it a 4/5.

Next up, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, no points for guessing the artist. I *like* the bits after each track of audio from a classroom where a teacher talks about what the next topic is gonna be, but it definitely gives the album a kind of weird pace because you'll be listening to a fun song and as it fades out and you're eagerly awaiting the next one you instead get a minute or two of only kinda related whatever. Still though, the tunes are good and unlike most albums I've listened to through this that had between-track skits they had a clear POINT and also none of them were painfully awkward audio of the artist getting their dick sucked. (I'm reasonably certain Lauryn Hill doesn't have a dick anyway, but I'm even more confident that if she did she STILL wouldn't have put audio of her getting sucked off on this record as a skit.) Cannot overstate how refreshing that is because LITERALLY every album this list has given me so far with inter-track skits includes one or more of them being the artist getting blown. Aaaaanyway tangent over 4/5 it's good.

Next! The Age of Understatement by The Last Shadow Puppets. Never heard of this one before, but man did it whip ass. It's basically a lost Arctic Monkeys record, and damn did it rock. 5/5. Probably my favorite thing in this grouping here.

Now, Fuzzy by Grant Lee Buffalo. Little bit like the Pixies' softer stuff. Very calming and nice. Not a lot to say about it. 4/5

Like Water For Chocolate, by Common. I just didn't really vibe with this one. It's certainly not bad but it didn't really do much for me. "A Song For Assata" was good. 3/5

Then yesterday was Slanted and Enchanted by Pavement. It's another album where it's the sonic equivalent of sticking your hand in styrofoam packing peanuts, and thus earns the same rating every one of them gets: 3/5.

Today, finally caught up, was Black Holes and Revelations by Muse. An album I'd actually heard a bunch of songs from already from back when I used Pandora in my late teens and got a lot of Muse. Some of it I like a little less than I did then, some a little more. "Knights of Cydonia" I like a LOT more because I was introduced to it through Guitar Hero and it just isn't a super fun song in those games. Listening to it all with fresh ears really makes me appreciate that Muse is such a good fucking band man. 4/5, plus an apology to KoC for having the misfortune of meeting me in an unfortunate method shine on you good little song you.

[creekfiend]

Just wanted to say thanks for "people from culturally Christian backgrounds" because that seems like a good way to phrase it, and I'm going to try to remember to use it when I'm talking about this sort of thing. (I try to not be a dick to people, when possible, and trauma's messy and complicated.) I'm sorry that some people are being horrible in this whole discussion, and I hope you are doing okay.

I'm doing fine! I really sympathize with most of the people involved in this tbh (except the outright antisemites of course lol) bc like I HAVE seen a lot of reactive and reductive and unkind blanket statements about this by some jumblr people in which they are condescendingly explaining other people's realities to them. Which is my LEAST favorite thing. Jumblr can also be really... umm, dog pile-y in a way that I find frustrating and unproductive. However. I think it's also fairly obvious that most of these reactions are trauma responses, and while that isn't an excuse it is an explanation and provides additional context that I do not feel is irrelevant. For jews we have constantly been told 'well simply stop being jewish' like all the time by everybody, often at gunpoint. So like, when I see nonjewish atheists assert that stuff jews are TELLING you they have gone through "literally never happens" that ALSO REALLY SUCKS. like so so bad. Cannot overstate how much that sucks. Cannot overstate how much it sucks to see ppl I sympathize with deeply wrt their mistrust and hatred of like, organized religious authority, align themselves with people who refer to jewish atheists as "religious nationalists" for refusing to divorce themselves from their ethnic backgrounds/culture/community/traditions. That rhetoric is Just antisemitism in a form that has been used to cause real and violent harm to us in living memory.

Also really alienated by the idea that one must be This Vitriolically Angry About Religion to "count" as an atheist. Like what? That is bonkers. I do not understand why the people making seemingly reasonable posts about "actually here's some interesting writings by people from Islamic cultures or majority Hindu cultures or orthodox jewish cultures outlining the ways that the authorities in these societies have used religion to cause harm on a systemic level" (objectively true) seem to be aligning themselves with people who are doing the SAME THING TO JEWS that they resent being done to them -- e.g. condescendingly explaining to us that our negative experiences with a certain type of atheists Don't Exist or Don't Count or cannot possibly be rooted in antisemitism.

I find the whole thing depressing and troubling. I don't tend to follow jumblr because of the aforementioned issues I have w it but this backlash seems to me to be disproportionate and really hateful in a way that... combines poorly with the increased antisemitic sentiments being lobbed at jews from all ideological sides recently. I wish we could all be more congizent of 1. the role trauma is playing here for everyone and 2. the inherent lack of productive discussion that can be had when two parties are simply Trauma Responsing at each other back and forth endlessly.

Then there's the people who just get super aggressive about people "believing fake things" but I'm not sure there's any help for them. Sure wish that the nonjewish atheists who are not like that would disavow them though! I certainly am more than happy to say "acknowledging a cultural/societal dynamic that privileges one religion and culture as default and that existing in thay culture might cause people to have unexamined assumptions about other religions and cultures" should not be weaponized against individual people in order to bully them by insisting they are a thing that they manifestly are not (atheists aren't Christians. The fact that atheists from Jewish backgrounds will have Jewishness shackled to them regardless of their degree of identification with Being A Jew is actually bad and a function of antisemitism; it is not an aspirational dynamic we should be applying to other people simply because their cultural background is privileged over our own in our society.)

Like can we stop talking past each other and try to understand where people are coming from

People are expressing a lot of hurt and anger about atrocities and systems of oppression that I ultimately feel are totally interconnected. Because of this hurt and anger most people are not being precise in their language or prioritizing connecting or actual dialogue about this and instead focusing on dogpiling and gotchas. It's discouraging.

I'm a secular humanist jew with complex feelings towards both jewishness and atheism as concepts and movements. I want to understand and connect with people based on our common ground.

This is I guess all me being a big baby who is unsuited to internet fights but this one specifically feels really hurtful to me because I feel like my reality is being ignored and denied. I suspect a lot of people are also feeling that way. Which might be a good place to START the discussion to be honest.

[fandaniel]

i cannot overstate how much this sucks on a narrative point that these two are brothers with everything that happens. one is so duty bond for so long he forgets who and why he promised to do such a thing and at what cost. the other is a fragmented soul of his brother who ends up having to fight him and imprison him. they both share the title of warrior of light. (pained groan)

due to cherrys hair without mods being That One its like fuckk. the twins are real. i think its even more clear with the mods update.

[yeenybeanies]

Family Visits

damn i guess i never posted this from my patreon?? wild ocs | clayton hess, lake hess, & nathan o'rourke 2,244 words no significant warnings!! likes < reblogs!! thanks for reading!! patreon ✨ ko-fi

Clay’s ear swiveled slowly as he worked, tracking the sound of hooves thumping through the grass. Every so-often he would glance over his shoulder to check on the source of the noise: his nephew, Lake, gleefully frolicking about. After the train ride from the herd to Clay’s home, Clay didn’t blame the little centaur for needing to stretch his legs. He bucked and reared and rolled in the grass, giggling with unrestrained joy. Clay took a moment to watch him. Had he ever been that energetic in his youth? He didn’t think so. Lake’s reserves were boundless, it seemed.

“Hey, Uncle Clay!” Lake asked suddenly. He stood up from his roll and shook himself off, though blades of grass still clung to his wild hair. “There are humans that live nearby, right? Can we please go see them? I’ve never met a human before!”

Oh boy.

Clay rubbed the back of his neck and sucked a breath in through his teeth. He knew this question would come eventually. Lake was a curious boy; of course he’d want to meet the humans in the neighboring town. The idea made Clay nervous. It wasn’t that he thought that Lake would intentionally try to hurt anyone; quite the opposite. Lake didn’t have a mean bone in his body. What made Clay nervous was the fact that Lake was still very young. Like all other centaurs his age, he could be clumsy at times, not watching where he put his hooves, bumping into things, being too rough with his hands.

“Not today, kiddo,” he said. “I gotta let ‘em know you’re here first, so you don’t go scarin’ ‘em too much. You gotta be extra careful around ‘em, too.”

“What if I promise to be super duper careful?” Lake looked up at him with those big brown eyes, the spitting image of his mother. Unfortunately, though, Clay grew up with his mother. He was immune to her pleading looks, and, therefore, immune to Lake’s. He shook his head.

“Not today. You gotta practice.”

“Aw, come on, Uncle Clay! What do I have to practice for? Mom told me that you’d let me see them!”

Clay chuckled and shook his head. “Gotta practice just… bein’ near ‘em,” he said with a shrug. “I cannot overstate just how easy it can be to accidentally hurt ‘em.”

Lake huffed and jutted his lower lip out in a pout, but didn’t argue further.

“Cheer up, son!” Clay said. He ruffled the boy’s hair, shaking out some of the grass. Lake ducked away from his hand, giggling through his protests. “There’s still daylight. Hows about, when I finish sortin’ this fruit, I take you down to Joyelette’s River.”

That did the trick. All traces of Lake’s pout vanished. His excitement came back in full, manifesting in a few joyous bucks. He returned to his frolicking, and Clay resumed his work.

***

As was to be expected, their little adventure was a resounding success. They’d spent nearly two hours at Joyelette’s River and in the surrounding megaforest. Clay relished the cool waters a bit more than he’d thought he would. It got him thinking that maybe he was working a little too hard. Someone had to do it, though; it wasn’t like he had anyone else on his land to help him out. Who, if not him, was going to tend to the orchards and the bees and the megafauna? Who was going to help the humans with their tasks that a centaur could do with a fraction of the time and effort?

...Okay, maybe he did have a lot on his plate. Maybe he ought to have Lake over more often, if the young centaur showed any interest in Clay’s particular lifestyle.

But that was something to be discussed later, perhaps when Lake was older.

By the time Clay’s home came into view, the pair were still shaking off the last traces of river water from their manes and tails. Lake was somehow still brimming with energy. He bounced around, chattering and asking questions about the land, talking a mile a minute. His curiosity was endearing, if not a bit overwhelming. Clay tried his best to keep up, but any longer-winded answers––meaning more than a few words––he had were often cut off by another question, or by Lake bolting away.

“Uncle Clay!” Lake said suddenly. Clay turned his head to the boy, ears perked. Lake stood facing Clay, pawing at the dirt with one hoof. “Race ya to the big tree!” He declared. The tree in question stood tall in Clay’s front yard, hiding a portion of his home behind its massive canopy.

“Oh, I don’t think that’s a fair race,” he said with a wave of his hand. “You’d beat me easily. Go on ahead. I’ll catch up.”

He didn’t have to tell Lake twice. The little centaur spun around with a hop and sprinted off, leaving Clay to follow behind in a relaxed walk. Lake didn’t make it far, though, before he skidded to a halt. Clay didn’t pay it much mind at first, figuring the kid had seen an animal or an odd-looking mushroom––something to distract him from his initial goal. But then Lake pointed and shouted something that made Clay’s heart stop: “Look! Is that a car? Is there a human here?”

Before Clay could react, Lake sprinted off even faster than before, careening towards the vehicle in question. To make matters worse, he recognized the vehicle. It was O’Rourke’s truck.

“Wait––no!” Clay sprang forward, rushing after his runaway nephew. “Lake, stop!” But his words went either unheeded or unheard.

O’Rourke had only pulled up a few minutes ago. He was wandering about the pathway leading up to the house, looking for Clay. “Hess?” He called out. The old centaur was usually working still at this time, so he expected that Clay would be somewhere outside. The ground beneath him started to rumble, drawing O’Rourke’s confusion. He glanced down with furrowed brows, watching pebbles rattle with increasing intensity. Briefly he pondered if the shaking was from an earthquake (which was ridiculous; this part of the country didn’t get earthquakes) or from an approaching centaur. Clay’s distant shout answered that question for him. His head snapped up sharply, eyes wide and spotting not Clay, but another, unfamiliar centaur. This one looked smaller, though, of course, still far larger than any human. Behind him, O’Rourke spotted Clay. Both of them were running his way. It almost looked like Clay was chasing the smaller one…

“Oh shit…” the old man muttered to himself.

“Aw shit…!” Clay said through gritted teeth. Clay spotted O’Rourke. The human was directly in Lake’s path. Clay pushed harder, pumped his legs faster. He sent up huge clumps of dirt and grass with every step. “LAKE!” He tried again. He was nearly caught up to his nephew, but there was little time left.

The centaurs showed no signs of stopping, or even slowing down. O’Rourke, for the first time in a long time, felt a trickle of fear crawl up his spine.

Clay, with one final push, came up beside Lake and threw his arms around his secondary chest. He pitched his weight to the side, yanking Lake right off of his hooves. Unable to slow down so quickly, he used the extra momentum and threw himself to the ground, landing heavily on his side with Lake in his arms. The two of them rolled to a messy stop, stirring up a large dust cloud around everyone. Clay remained still as a statue for a long moment, holding onto a very shocked and startled Lake.

“You okay?” He mumbled quietly. “Nothing broken?”

“N-no, I’m fine, Uncle Clay…” The young centaur answered.

Clay released Lake and pushed himself to his belly. “O’Rourke?” The anxiety in his voice was palpable. Desperately Clay scanned the grass, dreading that he might see the old man reduced to a red mess. “O’Rourke,” he said, more forcefully.

A hand shot up from the grass. He leaned over and very gently took that hand between his thumb and forefinger, giving O’Rourke something to use to pull himself up. Once the old man was up on his feet again, Clay bowed his head in relief and let his arms drop to the ground (mindful of O’Rourke) with a dull thud. He sighed out a heavy “Thank the skies.”

“Skies above…” O’Rourke said. He leaned against Clay’s knuckles, his own head bowed, and took a few breaths to steady himself. “Hess, I’m not so young anymore; you’re gonna give me a damn heart attack…!”

Clay grimaced and glanced up at O’Rourke. “We didn’t hurt you, did we?” He wasn’t sure that he’d be able to forgive himself if he had.

“No, no,” the old man said. He gave Clay’s knuckle a few pats, then pushed himself off to stand on his own, albeit still a bit shaky. He brushed his hands down his clothing, trying to dust off the dirt he’d accumulated in the commotion. “Just gave me a bit of a fright. But I’m glad you said ‘we,’ ‘cos I thought I was goin’ crazy when I saw two of you.”

“Er, yeah. O’Rourke, this is Lake, my nephew,” Clay said. He leaned back a little, letting Lake peek around him. The young centaur stared down at O’Rourke with wide, curious eyes and alert ears. His cheeks were flushed, both from exertion and from embarrassment.

“H-hello, mister. Lake Hess. Sorry if I scared you… I’ve just never met a human before.”

O’Rourke chuckled. “Hello, Lake. I’m Nathan O’Rourke. Your uncle’s a good friend of mine, so I’ll let you off the hook this time.” He could tell that Lake was young, so he couldn’t hold any malice or ire, even if he wanted to. He looked between the two centaurs, noting the family resemblance. “You said that you’ve never met a human before, hm?”

“No, sir,” the young centaur answered. “The herd I’m from doesn’t really go near human towns very often, and when we do, it’s only ever a few of the older centaurs that’ll go talk to 'em.”

“Ah, the herd,” O’Rourke mused. He rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. “I’ve heard a little about them. Same one you’re from, I assume?” he asked Clay.

“Yes, that’s right,” Clay responded. “Left many years ago. Herd life wasn’t for me.”

“Right, so you’ve told me.” O’Rourke pondered this information for a moment, then clapped his hands together. “Well! It’s nice to meet you, Lake, even if you two did scare a few years out of me.” He winked and gave Clay a mirthful smile when he noticed the older centaur’s guilty grimace.

“Apologies again,” Clay said. “I was going to let you and the rest of the town know tomorrow that he was visiting.”

O’Rourke waved off the repeated apology. He pushed his way through the waist-high grass until he stood in front of the two centaurs, where he could better see Lake. “Well, I’ll be sure to pass the word along. How long are you going to be with us, young man?”

Lake blinked and gave his uncle a quick glance before answering. “A month or so, mister, i-if the townsfolk don’t mind. I’ll be careful, promise.”

“I’ll teach him to be careful,” Clay corrected, giving his nephew’s hair a hard ruffle.

“I’m sure you will,” O’rourke said with a chuckle. “Best one to do it, I reckon. I can probably convince a couple of the younger folk in town to help too.” Clay raised a brow in confusion, prompting him to continue, “How’s the boy supposed to learn if he’s not around any humans?”

“Er… I’m not so sure if that’s a good idea…” Clay said skeptically. Based on his first interaction with a human, having Lake around more so soon made him nervous.

“Sure it is!” O’Rourke said with a dismissive wave. “It’ll be fine. The boy said he’ll be careful, and you and I’ll both be there to guide him!” He beamed up at Clay, who seemed unconvinced. “‘Sides, some of the townsfolk need to get over their nervousness around your kind anyhow.”

Clay wasn’t so sure about that. It was understandable for humans to fear centaurs; the size disparity between the two species was immense. The possibility of a human getting caught underhoof was very real, even if such instances were incredibly rare. Centaurs were typically known to be gentle giants, though Clay still thought it smart for humans to keep their distance.

“I’d like that, Uncle Clay!” Lake exclaimed, dragging Clay from his thoughts. He looked between his nephew and O’Rourke, feeling helpless.

“I’ve never been able to stop O’Rourke from doing… anything,” Clay relented with a sigh. “Alright. I’m fine with it. But you––” he looked pointedly at Lake, “––are going to listen to me and do everything I say, understand?”

Lake nodded eagerly, grinning ear to ear. His excitement was palpable.

“Great!” O’Rourke said with a smile of his own. “I’ll see who I can round up, and coordinate with you from there. Until then, though, would ya give me a lift, Hess?”

Clay hesitated a moment, as he often did, then lowered his hands to the ground in front of O’Rourke. “Watch now, Lake,” he said. O’Rourke obliged with the demonstration and stepped over Clay’s fingers, to his palm. He settled down on his knees and gave the calloused skin beneath him a pat. “It’s important to keep steady,” Clay continued, “No sudden moves so you don’t drop ‘em.” His fingers curled in slightly as he lifted O’Rourke, bringing the old man up to chest height.

Lake watched with obvious fascination and awe, marveling at just how tiny O’Rourke looked in Clay’s hands. O’Rourke was perfectly at ease, comfortable right where he was.

“Like I said: best one to teach these things.” O’Rourke extended a thumbs up, then let his hand fall back to his side. “The young ‘un’s gonna be just as good as you in no time. Nothin’ to worry about.”

Clay… still felt uneasy about the whole thing, but he kept his concerns to himself. He knew his nephew. Lake had good intentions; he just needed to temper his excitement.

“Right,” he said with a sigh. “We’ll see how it goes. In the meantime, what can I do for you, O’Rourke?”

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Re: Star Wars prequel novelizations - the Revenge of the Sith book is genuinely one of the best things I have ever read and changed my life.

THANK YOU, anon, for reminding me about the Revenge of the Sith novelization.  I just reread it, and my crops are watered, my skin is clear, and — I cannot overstate this — I actually remember why I love Star Wars.  That love has been for too long stolen by The Fandom Menace sucking the life out of those movies to invent a new definition of suffering while digesting them slowly over a thousand years.

Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover is one of the greatest works of adventure fiction I have ever read, and it continues to inspire the way I write action sequences and character conflicts.  It does so damn much to transform a movie that is, to be honest, just okay.  There are a couple of big additions from the novel that make the whole Skywalker saga richer, and there are about five hundred little tweaks that deepen the lore in a way that shows that Stover loves Star Wars to the core.

First big addition: having Obi-Wan tell Padmé that he’s in love with Anakin. This is great because yay, queer representation!  But within the specific context of RotS, it also sets up the super-important contrast between Obi-Wan and Anakin.  Obi-Wan, Stover’s novel makes clear, is the quiet and unassuming embodiment of everything a Jedi is supposed to be: he’s selfless, loving, hard-working, and incredibly skilled with the Force.  Obi-Wan falls in love with Anakin, realizes that Anakin doesn’t love him back in that way, and... lives with it.  He spends time with Anakin, supports Anakin, enjoys Anakin’s company, and doesn’t act like the world will end if Anakin isn’t his.

Anakin loves Obi-Wan, in a siblinglike way, and he loves Padmé.  But he’s got a nasty habit of expressing that love through possession and control, through going behind Padmé’s back to “fix” her life without her permission.  Anakin falls in love with Padmé and immediately concludes that he cannot possibly live like this: they must begin a secret relationship, and he must both marry her and remain a Jedi.  Later he destroys the Jedi and eventually Padmé herself because he sees himself as having no way out of that dilemma.

And all the while, Obi-Wan is there in the background.  Also in love with someone with whom he cannot have a relationship, and just… dealing with it like an adult.  Because millions of people are in love with people who don’t love them back, and that’s just how it is sometimes.  It’s selfish to obsess over “having” their love at all costs.  For Anakin, that obsession with saving Obi-Wan and Padmé eventually leads to him killing them both.

When Yoda tells Anakin that he must deal with his fear of losing Padmé through letting go, Anakin takes this to mean “let her die.”  But what Yoda means is not “let her die,” but rather “love her the way Obi-Wan loves you: quietly, selflessly, and with a willingness to do what’s best for her, whether or not that means you get to have her.”  And Anakin never understands that, because Anakin’s view of the world is so intensely egocentric.

Second big addition: updating the Force to explain the Dark Side. Revenge of the Sith, even more so than any other Star Wars, is all about the contrast between the Dark Side and the Light Side.  Here, Stover’s contribution is brilliant; he makes the Dark Side egocentric and the Light allocentric.

Terminology! “Egocentric” in psych refers to the perspective that focuses on how the world affects you and how you affect the world.  At the extreme, egocentric thinking can be believing that a baby is crying in a deliberate effort to annoy you, or that every person in a crowded cafeteria will remember what shirt you wore when you ate there a week ago.  “Allocentric” refers to the perspective that the self is one of several disparate elements buffered around by the world.  At the extreme, allocentric thinking can be failing to realize that others are reacting to your presence, or viewing your own life as one thing you can give to help others.

Stover doesn’t use those terms, but he does describe how Dooku “drew power into his innermost being until the Force itself existed only to serve his will” (p. 64).  Later, Obi-Wan “gave himself to the living Force… the Force moved him, let him collapse as though he’d suddenly fainted, then it brought his lightsaber from his belt to his hand” (p. 285).  Dooku ultimately loses his fight against Anakin because he focuses on how everyone is responding to him, and misses that Anakin and Palpatine are beginning to build an alternate alliance right under his nose.  Obi-Wan ultimately wins his fight against Anakin because he allows the Force to shove him around, and sets aside his concern with both his own life and that of his best friend while fighting for the greater goal of peace.

Not only that, but Obi-Wan’s understanding of the Force moves beyond that of most Jedi.  He compares “the will of the Force” to “the will of gravity,” in essence stating that simply because it is beyond human comprehension doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its own rules.  One can be a Jedi without needing to understand the Force in the same way one can be a pilot without needing to be a physicist.  In RotS, we see that his refrain of “search your feelings” is a way of calling on a Force user to be mindful enough to accept realities that are already evident, if one can only allow oneself to have that knowledge.

Stover also uses these competing perspectives — allocentric and egocentric — to explain why the Jedi Order falls.  The tight control the Order exerts over the Jedi moves them away from the will of the Force and toward the will of the Council.  Its insularity creates a sense of superiority, which is the reason so many Jedi fail to see their clone troopers as threats until it’s too late. Stover tweaks the Jedi Purge scene to emphasize that the only reason Obi-Wan and Yoda survive is because of their selflessness.  Obi-Wan takes the time to befriend his alien mount, repeatedly confirming her well-being, and then she shields him with her body when his troopers open fire.  Yoda respects the Wookie command and puts himself in a position to assist rather than lead the resistance movement on Kashyyyk, meaning that when a fight breaks out between him and his troopers the Wookies don’t hesitate to side with him.  Yoda and Obi-Wan are the only two Jedi who truly give themselves to the service of others, and thus they are the only two to survive the Purge.

...and the million little favors this book does for the movie.

During the opening battle, having Obi-Wan tell Anakin to “use the Force” to fly a narrow trench and having Anakin roll his eyes at such an obvious suggestion.  It’s a callback to A New Hope, but one that drives home how much more the Force is integrated in the lives of Old Republic Jedi than it is in the lives of Imperial kids like Luke.

Fixing the minor continuity error from Episode III to Episode IV — why would Admiral Motti dismiss Vader as following outdated superstitions if there were millions of Jedi within his lifetime? — by explicitly stating that the Sith are considered a dead culture.  Ergo, Vader’s “ancient religion” isn’t the Force in general; it’s specifically the Sith creed.

Making Palpatine scarier and more seductive than he is in the movie.  Stover’s rhetoric about killing even the Jedi children is frighteningly rational and coherent, and he uses it to give Palpatine some stomach-churning speeches while corrupting Anakin.

Using the novel format for all it’s worth.  Stover skims over the physical-comedy elevator sequence in favor of having Dooku and Palpatine discussing their plans for the war.  He only tells us about Anakin’s conversation with Yoda after the fact, in scattered flashes as a panicking Anakin runs through the halls of the Jedi temple.  He gives us intense focus on Anakin’s mindset while trying to land the broken halves of Invisible Hand, less on what the ship itself is doing.  He cuts away from Anakin and Obi-Wan’s final battle, toward R2D2 and C3PO as they struggle to drag a dying Padmé into her ship out of a desperation to find some small way to help her.

Revealing that Palpatine spends the entire story trying to kill Obi-Wan.  This gets hinted at in the movie, but Stover includes several moments throughout Palpatine’s “rescue” from Dooku when Palpatine sets Obi-Wan up to die, and mentions like eight other attempts on Obi-Wan’s life as orchestrated by Palpatine.  It’s a great character addition, that Palpatine assumes he cannot get Anakin to fall unless he first eliminates Obi-Wan.

Expanding Padmé’s role in the movie (set dressing, and later refrigerator filling) by having her secretly organize and launch the Rebel Alliance right under Vader and Palpatine’s noses.

Those are just examples of how Stover clearly knows the Force, gets the Force, and strives to make the Force more internally coherent.  How he sometimes translates, sometimes preserves, and always improves the pacing and tone of the film.

I haven’t even touched on the FUCKING AMAZEBALLS imagery or introspection in the book yet, but this post is getting wicked long, so I’ll go ahead and leave it here for now.  Point is, all y’all should go out immediately and get a copy from your library and/or used bookstore, because Nonny is right and it’ll change your life.

[rallamajoop]

The Witcher: The Games vs the Books part 2 – Characters and Accents

So, I've already talked at length about the relationship between the Witcher books and games, but how well they captured individual characters is its whole own subject – and you’d better believe I have enough thoughts on it for a whole extra post.

Andrej Sapkowski's skill for creating vivid and engaging characters really is so much of what brings the books to life, and no matter how much work an adaptation might put into worldbuilding and plot, it's the characters you've really got to nail to get the long-time fans on board. Especially when you’ve done what the games have, framing themselves as a direct continuation of Sapkowski's story. Nothing invites comparison to your source material like basically forcing fans to read the original novels to understand even half the backstory alluded to in-game. 

So how did they do? I can only offer my opinion – characterisation is necessarily going to be a lot more subjective than just telling you what plot points the games contradicted outright – but like any fan, I have opinions in plenty.

Of the main cast, I feel Yennefer is the character they've captured the best. They've done just as well with some supporting players – I have no real complaints about Dijkstra or Phillipa, for example, who are favourites of mine in both games and books. For the main players though, Geralt and Regis seem to be the ones who's differences I'm most inclined to forgive, whereas I don't feel like they've done Ciri justice at all. Book!Geralt is much less of a smartarse, for one thing, whereas Book!Ciri is much more of one. But if we're talking about the differences, I’m afraid we really need to start with Dandelion.

Dandelion

For all the genuinely good work the games do with characters, old and new, I don't think I can overstate what a disservice the they've done Dandelion, who I could not stand in TW3, but is now one of my favourite book!verse characters. Alas, Dandelion is a prime example of something the Witcher games really don't do well: camp. Being the archtypical bard, Dandelion is about as flamboyant as any enthusiastically-heterosexual man can be: you should be able to spot this guy by body language alone, he should be flouncing around and he should talk like a spoiled noble auditioning for Shakespeare. Book!Dandelion is over-the-top and ridiculous and just so much fun, and I loved him well before I'd even really gotten into the rest of the books around him.

Here's just a bit of dialogue from one of his first appearances, to give you a sense of how he and Geralt play off each other.

The  bard  seized  the  fingerboard  of  his  lute  and  plucked  the strings vigorously. ‘How would you prefer it, in verse or in normal speech?’ ‘Normal speech.’ ‘As you please,’ Dandelion said, not putting his lute down. ‘Listen then, noble  gentlemen,  to  what occurred  a  week  ago  near  the  free  town  of Barefield. ‘Twas thus, that at the crack of dawn, when the rising sun had barely tinged pink the shrouds of mist hanging pendent above the meadows—’ ‘It was supposed to be normal speech,’ Geralt reminded him. ‘Isn’t it? Very well, very well. I understand. Concise, without metaphors. A dragon alighted on the pastures outside Barefield.’

Though TW3's Dandelion certainly looks the part, you have to go hunting through art from the Gwent cards to find much that comes close to really capturing his personality (see left pic below – though even there, a Dandelion who'd voluntarily break his treasured lute is a very hard sell). Though a lot of fanart does better (right-below – credit goes to Tatiana Ortaliz).

But as poorly as the games capture his flamboyance, they're not that much better when it comes to taking him seriously. TW3 left me thinking he was all talk and no substance; the books make abundantly clear that he really is renowned enough to be welcome in courts across the continent. Though he often overestimates what he can talk himself out of, he isn’t stupid either: he's lectured at Oxenfurt, spied for Dijkstra, and then there are the moments where the frivolous playboy mask slips and you realise he's sometimes much better at understanding people and relationships than Geralt will ever be (which is honestly kind of funny considering how many of Dandelion’s relationships end with plates being thrown at him from an upper story). He's not at all above mocking Geralt when he deserves it either (and especially his personal and relationship issues) – Geralt will happily mock him right back.

We never do learn how they became friends (I'm pretty sure the incident listed in the wiki is just the date of their first expedition together, not their first meeting), but Geralt just doesn't form lasting friendships or romances with anyone he can't have an intelligent conversation with. And Dandelion is a damn good friend to Geralt – one who, despite being a helpless, squishy little bard, will keep Geralt's secrets under torture, or will follow him into Nilfgaard in the middle of a war simply because you don't let a friend make a trip like that alone. (Seriously, I don’t ship it nearly as much as some, but hot damn there is some material in here if you do.) In short, it's basically inconceivable that he'd leave an amnesic Geralt wandering around Vizima alone, as he does in the first Witcher game – which is the kind of thing I can mostly forgive as a gameplay conceit, only it doesn’t really get better from there.

He’s also supposed to be blond, something I don’t think is technically specified until fairly late in the novels, but 100% what I’d been picturing since his first description as a man in a colourful bonnet with cornflower-blue eyes (let’s face it: Dandelion’s hair isn’t the only thing about him that screams ‘blond’). It’s a shame no-one from the games to the show to the novels’ cover artists seem to have noticed – but at least there are some fanartists out there who were paying attention (credit for these goes to Asphaloth, Ghostcupdraws, Hvit-ravn (tumblr deleted), 94355 and itsmespicaa).

As for the games? Well, I cannot speak to how Dandelion came across in the original Polish, but I think it speaks worlds about the priorities of the English version that they didn’t even bother to cast someone with a halfway-decent singing voice as their master bard. There are isolated moments of dialogue that come close to sounding like book!Dandelion– mostly in Witcher 2, which comes closer to capturing the spirit of the books than either 1 or 3, or his attempts to convince his captor he's a disguised noble when you rescue him TW3 – but his voice actor is just painfully ill-suited to the role.

Geralt

Geralt fares much better than Dandelion, though he’s still a little hard to square with the Geralt of the books. Book!Geralt spends a lot more time sulking, just to begin with: he sulks because his job is complicated and gets him no respect, and because the world is unjust and unfair – and, most of all, he sulks because Yennefer has dumped him again. He also gets mocked for sulking, and usually deserves it. Book!Geralt is generally a lot more taciturn and a less prone to making smart comments just to have something to say – arguably because in book!Geralt's world, making smart comments often ends at the gallows, or at least with some corrupt official making your life much harder. Book!Geralt's world kind of sucks, and he's just got to put up with it.

As much as he often plays into the expectations of being an uneducated monster hunter, he's also got a more of an intellectual streak than you’d guess. He may prefer to stay out of politics (because damnit, his job is to save people from monsters, not people who are monsters), but he attended school at Nenneke's temple and has even taken classes at Oxenfurt academy, and there's a lot of thoughtful nuance to his opinions – his speech to Ciri about why he can't in good conscience take a stronger stance against the Scoiata'el contains a wealth of historical perspective, just for one example. Even his smart comments tend to be, well, somewhat smarter in the books.

Book!Geralt’s explicitly a lot younger than Yennefer – around 50 is the usual estimate, falling far short of the 100-ish the games suggest (the scandal of having a man fall for – gasp! – an older woman clearly didn’t bother Sapkowski one bit). You don’t see nearly as much "I'm getting too old for this" from book!Geralt, who's really not that old by witcher standards, and is apparently still hunting monsters long into his future. I'm also a little annoyed by the way they play off his hatred of portals like he's a grumpy old man who doesn't like mobile phones, when his distrust originally came from having seen the gruesome deaths that result when portals go wrong. This is not to say Book!Geralt lacks other ordinary human flaws, however – twice in the last two books of the main saga, he gets severely sidetracked after his ego gets the better of him (in the adulation he receives after being knighted, then after arriving in Toussaint), and it's quite some time before he properly gets back on track for that whole rescuing-Ciri thing again. He’s also pretty hopeless when it comes to romance and relationships – breaking things off gracefully is really not in his skillset.

So why does game!Geralt not bother me more? Well, he's the main player character of a game franchise, and one who has to carry the experience largely solo. Some adjustments for genre are pretty much inevitable in that position. He's certainly fared better than Meve, for example, who's been softened far more from her book characterisation for her PC role in Thronebreaker. Then there's the whole amnesia thing – it's easy to believe that sort of experience would change a man – and if he doesn't sulk so much as he used to, maybe he's grown up a bit. Geralt's also in many ways the straight-man of Sapkowski's Witcher universe – there largely as the reliable centre for other, louder personalities to play off. But I expect the real bottom line here is that I do still like game!Geralt enough to forgive him a lot of what he lacks.

The books never do describe Geralt as being very attractive – something book-based fanart often tries to reflect. The point has been made before that the rather-alien-looking Geralt of the first game (left pic above) is probably a lot closer to his book-description. However, the main distinguishing factor you’ll see in book-based fanart is probably the ubiquitous headband, which genuinely is what book!Geralt wears to make his hair behave (the example on the right above comes from Diana Novich).

All that said, if Sapkowski really wants me to believe that nearly so many women are eager to jump into bed with him, I’m going to have to shallowly assume our witnesses are unreliable on this front, and Geralt is at least as attractive as Witcher 3′s take on him. Nothing else makes sense. *g*

Regis

Regis varies mostly in that book!Regis is a lot more smug, sometimes verging on obnoxious – and a lot keener to make fun of Geralt (who generally deserves it). But then, Regis is old and wise and superpowered enough to dance rings around most everyone else – can you blame him? By Blood and Wine, Regis' overconfidence has been recently smacked down hard after his near-death-experience at the hands of Vilgefortz, and that kind of thing could knock some chips off anyone's shoulder. Throw in the fact that with Dettlaff, we have a situation not even Regis could make light of, and the changes to game!Regis make a certain amount of sense.

I do feel it's a bit of a shame that the vocal direction didn't work just a little bit harder to capture some of Regis' smugger side, or emphasise that his long-winded philosophising on human behaviour is supposed to sound a bit pretentious. This is actually something I suspect they were going for a few times in the script, but which didn't come through in the dialogue quite the way it was meant to. Still, again, I'm sure I'm biased by the fact that I like game!Regis far too much to find much fault in what they've done with him. They've done a lovely job capturing his friendship with Geralt too.

Looks-wise, there's a tendency in book-based art to portray Regis with long hair (even some pre-Blood-and-Wine Gwent art did so – see the two pics on the left above, from Gwent and early B&W concepts. The right-most pic is cover art from the books). I couldn't rightly tell you where long-haired-Regis comes from, though – perhaps it's described more explicitly in the original Polish, or perhaps it comes up in passing in some passage I've forgotten, though it may just as well just be a fannish meme.

The books do describe him as looking rather like a tax collector, slim, middle-aged, with an aquiline nose, prone to wearing black, and his hair as 'greying' or 'grey streaked', so presumably somewhat younger-looking than the game would have it. The hammer-horror-esque sideburns are likewise a game-verse addition, though I do like the look they went with – it's distinct from Geralt in a way that making him another long-grey-haired man wouldn't have been, and that's probably the point.

Being the hopeless Regis fan I am, I have quite the folder full of different fanart takes on book!Regis, so have a selection – art here is by gellihana-art, justanor, greysmartwolf, Nastyaskaya, NatalyLanier, beidak, natalliel, ellaine and afternoon63. For what it’s worth, I feel beidak’s (bottom pic, second from the left) comes the closest to what I’d have pictured personally, based on how he’s first described.

Ciri

I find it much harder to rationalise the changes to game!Ciri, who I didn't exactly dislike, but found stuck too close to the role of generic-macguffin-girl-who-just-wants-to-be-normal to be very interesting. Having read the books, not only do I much prefer book!Ciri, I'm not sure I can emphasize enough how much the game did NOT prepare me for utter gauntlet of whump and misery that girl survives in the last four titles. Book!Ciri is a character who works for me mostly because of the same flaws the game mostly strips her free of – TW3 makes some token noise about how you can't tell her what to do, but she’s an utter little royal brat when we first meet book!Ciri, and it’s so much of what brings her to life. She throws herself into her witcher training with the enthusiasm of a kid going completely native, but still revels in getting to be girly for a change when Triss first arrives at Kaer Morhen. She hates Yennefer at first, but soon bonds with her just as strongly as she ever did with Geralt, picking up some of Yennfer’s haughty mannerisms along the way. And then she gets thrown through a portal and lost in the distant wilderness, and the whole world comes down on her head.

The build up to the first time Ciri actually has to kill someone is intense... and things only get worse from there. Steadily. For another couple of novels at a stretch. Seriously, a major caveat that pretty much has to go into any rec for these books (and I will absolutely rec these books) is that Ciri's story gets heavy. So heavy one finds oneself using phrases like, "that time that one guy died of his wounds on top of her while semi-consensually feeling her up was honestly one of the less traumatic incidents in the period."

By the end of the novels, Ciri has nearly died of thirst, been beaten, tied up, dragged around the country as a prisoner, run with bandits and killed innocent people for the fun of it, done fantasy-cocaine and got a tattoo, fought off more than one attempted rape, been drugged, lain for multiple nights next to an impotent elf who completely fails to impregnate her, watched the bodies of her friends and girlfriend being mutilated in front of her, and did I mention where she got that scar? She has survived hell, and it is absolutely a testament to her own strength that she somehow comes through it and puts herself back together at the end. When Geralt finally arrives to rescue her, what matters most isn't that her ordeal is over, but that she finally knows she hasn’t been abandoned by everyone who’d ever loved her after all.

The Ciri of the books is fierce and wild and arrogant, but she's learned her morals from the best, and she holds onto them until she can't, then picks them back up again when she can, and above all she survives. For all that her story turns arguably too much of the last two books into a slog of misery, oh boy does it pay off at the end. And that's probably about as much as I can say about her Big Moment in the last book without spoiling too much, so suffice to say that by the end of the saga, Geralt has pretty much become a supporting character in Ciri's story, not the other way around. (Seriously, you’d be surprised how few chapters of the last two books he’s actually in.)

Finding art which captures the aspects of Ciri’s character and history which are missing from the game has turned out to be pretty hard, though the fanart above from her bandit phase takes a decent crack at it (credit to Loles Romero and NastyaSkaya). I do rather like that one shot of her on horseback beside her girlfriend too, which comes from Denis Gordeev’s illustrations for the novels (below).

How much of this does TW3 get across with her portrayal in the game? Well, she's still pretty headstrong, I guess. And they let you give a 'sorry, I like girls' answer in one bit of dialogue, so they remembered her girlfriend existed. That's nice. But game!Ciri still has a kind of wide-eyed innocence that book!Ciri lost years ago, while book!Ciri is a little force of nature in ways the games hardly even hint at, and that's a really shameful loss.

You'd think, with a character so young, it ought to be easier to imagine she's simply grown up since we saw her last, but so much of what's changed about Ciri feels like a step back rather than forwards. I can shrug off Geralt and Regis' differences and still enjoy their game-verse-selves, but Ciri leaves me genuinely disappointed.

I’d say the official art that comes closest to capturing book!Ciri is that one portrait of her as a very grumpy young child (right above). Some of the early concept art (left above) feels a little more like it has her attitude, though she’s rather too yellow-blonde – not to mention too pretty. I think it also bears pointing out that Ciri isn’t really supposed to be the kind of beauty she is in the game – even before she gets what’s meant to be a seriously ugly and disfiguring scar. (Fanart below by justanor and bobolip)

But of course, the male gamer fanbase can’t be expected to give a fuck about a girl they wouldn’t want to fuck, so game!Ciri must be generically gorgeous. Le sigh.

Triss

I suppose I should at least touch on Triss, too, though she's a very odd case. She's so out of character in the first Witcher game that I am wryly amused that the biggest thing they arguably do get right is that taking advantage of Geralt the moment he showed up with amnesia is... pretty well in-character for her (look, I gotta be honest here, I'm not much of a fan of Triss in any of her incarnations).

The second game does a much better job with her – she actually feels like book!Triss, she has some good dialogue, we're finally dealing with some of her conflicted loyalties to the Lodge and to Geralt – though by the third, her characterisation has been so softened into “the nice one” that none of that potentially meaty conflict is ever resolved, or even really mentioned. Perhaps there's more buried in the Triss-romance path, which I've never bothered with, but the writers seem to have just given up on dealing with anything that might make her look less than wholly sympathetic. Heck, we hardly even get a clear statement about why she and Geralt broke up between Witchers 2 and 3.

Even speaking as such a not-a-fan of Triss, I promise there is more they could've done with the character the books give us. There's her ongoing trauma in from the Battle of Sodden, where she was injured so badly she was memorialised as one the dead: the 14th of the hill. There's her furious impatience with the neutrality of both the witchers and the Lodge: Triss has fought and died for a cause, and is ready to do so again. The second game sort of gets into this, but by and large, the games really aren't up to tackling the moral complexity of having such a theoretically-sympathetic character as Triss, who was still broadly willing to go along with the Lodge's plans to pair Ciri off and get her pregnant as soon as possible – her own wishes be damned. No, instead, Triss has conveniently left the Lodge before the rest of them go spiraling into abject villainy in the second game, clearing all that messy grey stuff out of the conflict.

Of course, the really big unresolved plot point still hanging over book!Triss is how badly she needs to terms with the fact Geralt's just Not That Into Her, and never has been – but since the games want Triss to be a serious romantic option, that's definitely not getting the resolution it could've used.

Book!Triss also pointedly avoids any outfit with a plunging neckline because her chest is covered with the ugly scars she received in the Battle of Sodden, something the games did not have the guts to reproduce. In a more confusing note, the books do consistently describe her hair as 'chestnut', which we'd usually think of as meaning 'brown' – though it turns out the games actually may not have been wrong to make her a redhead, since in Poland 'chestnut hair' apparently mean dark red hair (google some pictures of actual chestnuts, and you'll see why). Still, the firy-red-haired Triss of TW3 who wears nothing but plunging necklines remains a bit of a stretch, however you slice it. Once again, TW2 gets her best (and I must say, gave her the nicest outfit) – though even here she's conspicuously unscarred in all her sex scenes.

(Leftmost pic above is official Witcher 2 art, whereas Triss-with-scars fanart comes to us – once again – from nastyaskaya)

Shani

Shani sort of falls into a similar category as Triss as someone who isn't terribly well-served by any of her appearances, given that both exist in the first game largely to compete for Geralt's attentions. But I can't honestly say I find Shani’s portrayal in the Hearts of Stone expansion to be much better – the degree to which either version exists solely to fall all over Geralt is a bit painful, especially given that their relationship in the books is limited to a single, undramatic hook-up. Book!Shani really only appears in a couple of chapters: we meet her as a medical student friend of Dandelion's, who's been surreptitiously selling pilfered university supplies to fund her degree, then later see her again in the final book, where she proves herself as a battlefield medic during the climactic Battle of Brenna. She's pragmatic to a fault, and I really can't see her as the type who needs Geralt to point out to her that her patient is dead, for example, or who'd subject a guy with Geralt's problems to such an extended feelings-dump as you'll get out of her during the wedding.

Shani is a reasonably logical book-character to bring back, if only because she’s one of those who explicitly survives the ending, but for my money, "serious contender for Geralt's affections" is just not a role she works in.

Anna Henrietta

The duchess of Toussaint, Anna Henrietta, is another case who differs more from her book counterpart than you might think. In the books, the duchess is by far the least competent of the (pleasantly many and) various female leaders and rulers we meet – she comes across as rather young and naive, and every bit as absurd as everyone else in the ridiculous fairy-tale duchy she rules. She is, for example, most displeased to learn that Nilfgaard's war against the north is ongoing (something her courtiers have carefully avoided mentioning in her presence), because she'd long since sent the Emperor a stern note demanding he brought it to an end. She promptly has one of her ministers sent to the tower for misinforming her, and demands the others prepare an even sterner note for the emperor, which will surely do the job.

After Dandelion (inevitably) cheats on her, she has him repeatedly sent to the gallows, only to change her mind and send him a reprieve at the very last minute each time. Picture yourself a much younger and prettier version of the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, and you've about got her general vibe.

Blood and Wine sort of waves at this part of her character when she first speaks about Dandelion, and again in suggesting there's a widespread feeling she lacks compassion, and once more as she proves utterly immovable on the subject of her sister. But the generally sensible and insightful woman you deal with for most of the main story is a far cry from her book-verse characterisation. That’s a bit of a shame, because I feel like there's a lot more they could have done to blend the two versions of her. Still, it’s hard to argue the duchess we get suits the story being told around her.

Other characters

Much as I love Yennefer, Dijkstra and Phillipa, I don't really have much more to say about them because I feel the games have done such a good job. The Yennefer of the books gets to show a lot more depth and complexity simply because she has more scenes and more space in which to do so, but when ‘there isn’t more of her’ is your biggest complaint, the game is officially doing pretty well. I could certainly gripe her about how “dresses in black and white” seems to have been taken as “dresses in black with maybe a trace of white trim”, or how Yennefer and Triss seem to be the only sorceresses in the world capable of wearing pants, when Phillipa (just for one) is in sensible men’s clothing the very first time we meet her, but that’s getting into serious nitpicking territory.

(Not that Yen can’t look amazing in outfits with more white – art by Emily Caroll, theclashofqueens, BarbaraRosiak, and cosplay by greatqueenlina)

Vesimir, Lambert and Eskel, Geralt's fellow witchers from the School of the Wolf, fall into a similar category for me – though we spend far less time with them in the books, everything we see of them in the games feels like a fairly logical extension of their book-roles. Vesimir is somewhat over-played as the old fogey, and his death is painfully cliched, but the impact on the characters and Kaer Morhen still hits home – and the games do some especially great work expanding Lambert into a much more complex character. To my mind, the only shame is that more of the book-original characters didn't get the same treatment.

Who have I missed? There's Avallac'h, of course, but I think I've got him pretty well covered by that last post. Zoltan, perhaps inevitably, has had his personality largely flattened into 'generic dwarf', with nothing better to do than hang around Geralt and Dandelion. You wouldn't know Book!Zoltan was apparently incapable of turning away women and children in need, for example – even human women and children with the chronic inability to say thankyou for his help. Or that he eventually admits to Geralt that the luggage he and his friends are carrying comes from a decidedly unsavoury source for such a supposedly charitable, upstanding guy. Yes, even Zoltan gets to be a morally complicated character in the books – who knew?

Speaking of dwarves, pleased as I am that Yarpen Zigren gets remembered in TW2, he's an odd one to talk about, since even in the books, he appears to have had a substantial personality transplant between his two main appearances. Yarpen’s a largely comedic figure in The Bounds of Reason short story, where he cheerfully admits to having considered letting his men knock down a particularly pompous aristocrat and piss all over him to teach him a lesson, but he’s evolved into a studious voice of reason against the scoiata'el by Blood of Elves. TW2 doesn't do a particularly good job of capturing either version, which I suspect probably bothered me more than most people – I liked the later book-incarnation of Yarpen immensely (and not even just because he's one of few ever to really call Triss out on just how much she needs to stop misreading Geralt's friendship as anything more than it is). His chapter in Blood of Elves packs a hell of a punch.

On the subject of accents

I do have to wonder if I'd have warmed up to characters like Triss, Shani and Dandelion (or even Letho) more if they'd only had halfway decent voice actors. It's not just that none are exactly leading the talent at the acting part of the job, it's that their American accents stick out in TW3 like a sore thumb.

Geralt mostly gets away his own US accent by dint of being the very first character we meet, so we've gotten used to the way he talks long before we notice how he stands out – hell, maybe that's just how they talk down in Rivia (hilariously, book!Geralt eventually reveals he's not even from Rivia, but simply picked the place and taught himself the accent so he could feel a bit less like the abandoned foundling he is, which only gives us yet more excuse for why his accent might sound a bit weird). More importantly, Geralt is meant to stand out, to be the outsider wherever he goes, so having him sound like no-one else fits the character.

But neither Triss or Dandelion are "of Rivia", and by the time they show up we've had dozens of hours in a game where literally everyone else sounds British, or Scottish, or Irish, or vaguely-eastern-European in the case of the Nilfgaardians. So why do these weirdos sound like no-one else on the continent?

The short answer seems to be that every character with an American accent in TW3 is someone who had an American accent in at least one of the previous games, which were way looser with their casting and had enough incidental American accents around that they didn't stand out. Clearly, by TW3, consistency with prior games has been prioritised over consistency with literally anything else we’re hearing.

Gaetan is an exception to the rule as the only new character (at least that I caught) with an American accent – presumably because between Geralt, Eskel, Lambert, Berengar, and Letho (and cohorts), some sort of 'witchers have American accents' rule has been pretty well established (another random American-accented witcher shows up in Thronebreaker, just to underline the point). We're going to mostly ignore Jad Karadin here, since his British accent is presumably a recent affectation to go with his new identity, and so makes sense.

This still doesn't really work though, since Letho’s school is all the way down in Nilfgaard (land of the Eastern European accents), while the oldest witcher from Kaer Morhen (Vesimir) is the one guy with a British accent. He sounds nothing like any of his students, despite the fact he's logically the guy they ought to have learned their accents from. So the logic falls in a heap however you slice it, and I'm thrown right out of the game.

With TW3 as your intro to the series, it feels almost as if characters like Triss and Dandelion have been assigned American accents because they're just too important to be saddled with the same pedestrian British accents as everyone else, which did nothing to endear them to me. The only one I eventually warmed up to was Lambert, and then only because he's just such a bitter asshole that he eventually goes full circle and comes out the other side (somewhere around when you've heard his miserable backstory, then gotten drunk together and told him how much you love him, man). Gaetan similarly snuck in under the same clause – American accents clearly work better for me in this series when attached to characters you're supposed to find pretty insufferable on first impressions.

Some final notes

To conclude, it seems only fair to throw in a quick nod to some of the more memorable book-characters who don't appear in the games. Neither Mother Nenneke (Geralt's sort-of-surrogate mother) or Vissena (Geralt's biological mother) ever appear either, alas – Vissena doesn't even merit so much as a Gwent card, which seems quite the wasted opportunity.

Milva, Cahir and Angouleme – the three remaining companions of Geralt’s who died alongside Regis but who were not so easily resurrected – naturally don’t appear. But nor are even really mentioned in all the games, which seems rather less than they deserve after giving their lives to Geralt's cause.

Cahir and Angouleme do at least have pretty badass Gwent cards to their names, though I am properly offended that Milva (who has the dubious honour of being my very favourite book character who doesn't ever appear in the games) is stuck with a card of her freaking death scene – which not only gets the scene wrong (believe me, there was no grimacing and gripping the arrow buried shallowly in her chest for poor Milva), but doesn't even bother to get her hair the right colour, for fuck’s sake. Basically, Milva was a stone cold badass and absolutely deserves better. #justice4milva

One can only guess how I'd have felt about some of these characters had I read the books before playing the games – I am obviously biased towards forgiving changes to characters whom I liked in their game incarnations, regardless of how they compare. Still, I think it does speak wonders that there still all these characters who suddenly made sense only after I'd met them in the books.

Even if only for Dandelion and Ciri, I can only dream of seeing a bit more of the book-original characterisations make it into the collective fannish consciousness. There's nothing wrong with getting into the canon purely based on the show or the games, but having read Sapkowski's novels, it's no longer any mystery how they spawned this massive franchise. That the saga wasn’t even fully available in English until well after Witcher 3 was released – a solid couple of decades late, and long after it had already been translated into Russian, French, German, Spanish and more – is a real shame. For once, it’s us in the anglophone world who’ve been missing out: these books deserve so much more than to be thought of as a footnote to the games or the show.

[youcouldmakealife]

LBTE: Jared (52-55)

In which Jared is a little out of his depth at the NHL level, Bryce is immune to Jared’s many faults, The Rossi-Marcus Bromance begins, Jared tells Greg about Bryce and Greg is UNDERSTANDABLY kind of freaking out, Mike Brouwer is Scary, Darryl Rogers is Good, and Jared gets sent home.

Series page if you want to follow along.

52. Stretch

Jared grins and bears media day, even though he doesn’t think it’s fair that they made him put a Oilers jersey on twice in the space of months and forced him to smile through it.

You utter muppet.

They’re definitely better than the snatches of what he’s hearing peppered at some of the returning Oilers, which sound like a nice version of ‘how are you going to suck less this year?’.

Jared never thought he’d feel empathy for an Oiler, but ouch.

Also, it’s — well, if he’s an Oiler, is it empathy or self-interest, him wincing at the thought that might be him in a year or two? Hard to tell.

Jared: am I developing empathy or is it just a different form of self-interest??

Most of them seem to handle it pretty well — Jared guesses you get used to it if you suck year after year — but Brouwer’s on the fucking warpath after — maybe they asked if he was planning on actually contributing to anything other than penalty minutes this year? — and Jared is unfortunately directly in the path of him marching the hell out of the building.

“Whoa,” Jared says, and manages to get out of the way before Brouwer like, knocks him out with his shoulder. It’s a very near thing. “Didn’t think you were supposed to take out your own teammates,” Jared mutters, after Brouwer’s past.

Mike just found out Liam had an off-season boyfriend, it is EMPHATICALLY not the time for snark Jared Matheson.

“I’d say his bark was worse than his bite,” Rogers says, from where he’s standing near the entrance. If Jared didn’t know better, he’d think he was hiding from the media. Who could blame him, honestly. “But.”

All bite.

Rogers grimaces. “He’s dealing with some shit right now,” he says.

So’s Jared. He’s wearing a fucking Oilers jersey. You still don’t see him knocking over innocent prospects.

Jared Matheson.

“Anyone call him Bruiser before?” Jared asks, to confirm Brewer’s incipient heartbreak.

“Definitely one of his nicknames,” Rogers says. “Bowser, Brouwbeater.”

“So basically anything synonymous with violence works,” Jared says, and Rogers laughs like he’s hilarious.

“Basically,” Rogers says. “Don’t worry, it doesn’t usually extend to his own teammates.”

When it does there is ENTHUSIASTIC CONSENT from one Liam Fitzgerald.

Jared has no idea how a roster so bad can have so many people in shape that makes him seethe with envy.

Easy to forget even the worst fourth line plug is in the 0.001 percentile in skill and will be in elite physical form.

Jared is suddenly very concerned he’s out of his league. Like. Literally. He knows he’s good, but — he just. He didn’t realise how big a leap he’d have to make, and he’s not sure he actually can.

Proper player development’s importance cannot be overstated.

Jared pretty much expected not to be able to shake Brewer off for the entirety of camp, preseason if they both made it to that point, but he ended up peeling off pretty quick to a group of dudes who’re closer to Bryce’s age than Jared’s. He’s nice enough in their room, he’s not ignoring Jared or anything, he just isn’t clinging to Jared like Jared thought he would.

Jared’s relieved. He’s not offended at all. Even a little.

Jared: I don’t want to hang out with Brewer

Brewer: *hangs out with other people*

Jared: RUDE

“If the dude doesn’t like you, he’s a moron,” Bryce says. He picked up immediately when Jared called him after trudging his way up to their room. Brewer was hanging out with that other table. They were laughing when he left. Jared doesn’t know how they still have the energy to laugh.

“I’m not actually, like,” Jared says. “Likable. I know that.”

Bryce makes a very offended sound.

HOW DARE YOU INSULT HIS JARED.

“Okay, like, friendly,” Jared says. “Obviously I’m very likable.”

“You are,” Bryce says, all chiding.

Jared grins down at his comforter. “Friendly, or likable?”

“Both,” Bryce says.

Bryce Marcus shut your lying mouth.

“Really?” Jared says. “Really, Bryce?”

“Okay, maybe you’re not like, the most friendly guy,” Bryce admits. “But that’s just because you have like, standards. And obviously Brewer doesn’t deserve to be your friend, so he can suck it.”

Bryce <3

Seriously, though, Jared doesn’t spend much chatting with anyone. He needs to keep his head down, his head in this. It’s training camp, not find your Bryce and Raf camp.

You’ll have find your Julius camp next year.

bryce marcus just asked me if I wanted to grab a drink after training camp, Chaz texts him. I’m not gonna lie I’m fanboying a little.

Chaz <333

Jared grins, wide.

You are lying., Jared texts Chaz. You’re fanboying a lot.

true true, Chaz responds.

Jared is DELIGHTED at the idea of his former captain fanboying about his boyfriend.

Jared turns off the TV when the shower starts, resists the urge to text Bryce. He’s busy with Chaz right now.

Jared: be welcoming to Chaz.

Bryce: *is welcoming to Chaz*

Jared: :/

“Hey, Matheson,” Jared hears, and looks up to see one of the trainers. He hasn’t gotten all their names down, so this one is, for now, ‘the bald one’. “You’ve got to take it easy there, you’re asking to pull your groin if you keep stretching like that.”

Hehehehehe.

He can’t believe the first thing Bryce ever fucking said to him was about pulling his groin, and he was right. Jared is never, ever telling him about this.

To his GRAVE.

Some sort of fight breaks out — well, play fight, Fitzgerald on the ground laughing hysterically while Rogers pummels him with not an ounce of real strength, and everyone starts cheering on one or the other, placing bets. Jared hears one of them put twenty on this ending in Rogers getting kneed in the balls, because ‘Fitzy fights like a rat’.

Absolute weasel, that Fitzgerald.

“So I’m definitely gonna do my best to get sent back down,” Jared says, and Jacobi laughs and claps him on the back. Everyone in Edmonton seems to think he’s hilarious, and it’s all based on the faulty assumption he’s joking.

Absolute hobgoblin, that Matheson.

53. Socialisation

“It’s um,” Jared says. “Dave Summers. I have his number if you’re ready?”

Apparently Greg isn’t. “Who the fuck are you dating?” he asks.

Greg is FREAKING OUT. Dave Summers is not in the league of agents that Greg is in.

“Bryce Marcus?” Jared says weakly.

“You did not tell me your boyfriend was Bryce Marcus!” Greg says.

Greg needed to know this A LONG TIME AGO JARED.

Bryce texts him a few hours later with summers is so mad at me rn lol and Jared doesn’t know if he’s imagining that it’s a little pissed sounding.

I mean he just got screamed at for an extended amount of time so he’s juuuust a bit pissed.

“To pussying out,” Jared says, lifting his beer a little in Brouwer’s direction.

Brouwer grunts. Scowls.

Nice guy. Not terrifying at all.

“Glad we had this talk,” Jared mutters, though he waits until Brouwer goes off to sit by himself in a corner first. He’s not stupid.

:D

Don’t listen to your mom, his dad texts a minute later. No Man Is An Island…except Mathesons.

Seriously, Jared’s dad gets him.

They have a Bond. A Bond of Hating Everyone Except Those They Do Not.

“It is kind of weird,” Jared says, instead of, ‘my boyfriend says your brother’s a dick’

Good call?

Please don’t accidentally board me, Jared texts Bryce when Morris goes to the bathroom.

??? Bryce texts back, then, I wud never hurt u with a heart, because he’s a dope.

<3333

54. Losers First

He wonders if he should tell Bryce not to board Rogers either or something. Jared can’t help but like Rogers.

Darryl Rogers is such a good guy he won over Mike Brouwer AND Jared Matheson. That’s skill.

“This was my home ice,” Jared says, not sure why he’s admitting that. Why it even matters. It isn’t anymore, at least not tonight, so there’s no point mentioning it. He doesn’t know why he keeps blurting things out. Rogers just has one of those faces, Jared guesses, like whatever you say, it’s cool, he’s there for you.

Jared doubts that’d be the case if he mentioned what was really getting to him right now.

“C’mon,” Rogers says. “Take a walk with me, show me around.”

SUCH A GOOD GUY, offering that just to distract Jared from his nerves. I love you Roge.

Morris bumps shoulders with him on the bench, and Jared wonders why so many people seem to think Jared needs like, to talk. He doesn’t want to talk.

“Soon as you hit the ice it won’t matter,” Morris says, and he’s not right, exactly, but he’s not wrong either.

Ben is also a very good guy.

she definitely didn’t own that Oilers jersey when Jared left town.

“What are you wearing?” Jared asks, appalled. “Take that off right now.”

“I’m supporting my brother,” Erin says sweetly.

She’s fucking trolling her brother, and she knows it.

“I thought it was nice she wanted a jersey,” his dad says, with this little smirk around his mouth like he too knows she did it to troll Jared. Hell, he’d probably wear one himself if he wouldn’t like, melt if an Edmonton jersey touched his skin.

He was, however, willing to buy that jersey for her for dual support and trolling.

“I mean it,” his dad says. “You’re on a rebuild team, buddy, losing is something you’ll have to learn to live with. You can’t sulk about it every time.”

WATCH him. (But good advice from Don.)

“How’s Marcus in person?” Jared asks. “He seems like kind of a dick in interviews.”

Jared.

“Nah, he’s a cool dude,” Chaz says, and Jared bites back a smile. “I think he’s just like, shy. He’s pretty quiet.”

Jared really wants to hug Chaz right now, but that would probably seem pretty weird.

“Shy,” he says, instead. “Really?”

“Yeah, I dunno, he doesn’t like, talk much in the room?” Chaz says. “But he’s been really cool to me, like, not even remotely how they make him seem, so I think the media’s kind of full of shit about him.”

Chaz <3333

That night, Brewer sleeping while Jared glares up at the ceiling, jaw clenched tight and eyes blurry, he wonders if he’s cut out for this at all, because it fucking — it hurts, and he didn’t expect it to hurt like this, didn’t expect to care as much as he does, more than he ever has, and the games don’t even — they don’t even count yet, and here is is fucking trying not to cry like a little kid.

Babe.

55. Consolation (it’s not like you’re a prize)

“You looked great out there,” Donahue says. Jared’s stopped calling him GM Dumbfuck even in his head, because what if it escaped his head and entered his mouth? Nightmare fodder.

IMAGINE. And fair concern considering Jared’s sieve of a brain to mouth filter.

“It came down to the wire, Jared,” Donahue says. “You have a lot of potential already, but we think another year of development might make a difference in the long run for your career, and we have to think longterm here.”

Was the right call, GM Dumbfuck!

“Hey,” his mom says, picking up on the first ring. “Did you—”

“Can you come pick me up?” Jared asks. “I can take a train probably, but they’re expensive last minute and I just — I want to go home.”

“Oh, honey,” she interrupts, and Jared finds his eyes blurring. He doesn’t know why he’s this upset right now. “Yeah, I’ll take the afternoon off work, come pick you up this evening, okay? I’ll leave in about an hour, that work?”

Susan dropping everything to drive a six hour round trip because Jared needs her — she trolls, but she loves him really hard too. (Thankfully her boss is very understanding of ‘my kid just got cut from an NHL team and is understandably very upset can I leave at lunch or nah?’. It’s a tight knit office, they’re all rooting for Jared.)

Erin doesn’t say a single mean thing during dinner, which is good because Jared’s kind of afraid if she did he might cry, and that’d scare the shit out of everyone.

Mathesons do not CRY!!!

By some silent mutual consent, the words ‘Oilers’ or ‘Hitmen’ or ‘cut’ never enter the conversation, and Jared’s pretty sure that’s his mom’s doing, that she took his dad and Erin aside or texted them or something to tell them that Jared didn’t want to talk about it, so they weren’t going to talk about it or they’d face her wrath.

He loves his mom a lot right now.

She did do that and I love her a lot too.

Jared wants to go to Bryce right after dinner, but it seems rude, especially after his dad hands him a beer, and when Jared side-eyes it, says, “You can have one, you had a hard day.”, before getting one for himself, because Jared guesses he did too. Probably doesn’t feel great to hear your kid didn’t make it. Not quite the same as hearing you didn’t, but shitty regardless.

Yeah pretty shitty day for Don and Susan too, bud.

“I’m sorry,” Erin says quietly, lurking beside his spot on the couch, which is weird and a little disturbing, both the sorry and almost gentle tone of voice.

“Thanks,” Jared says.

“I wanted to get some more use out of my Oilers jersey,” she says, which is more like her.

Jared snorts.

“Sorry,” she says again, and leans down to give him a hug, probably the first time she’s done it in years. Jared hugs her back for all of half a second before she pulls away and darts back upstairs.

“Did that just happen?” Jared asks.

“She really does feel bad,” his mom says, then, “She liked that Oilers jersey.”

Mathesons are incapable of showing affection without a dose of mockery and I love them.

“You’re not getting a cab, don’t be ridiculous,” his dad says, and Jared wonders if this is it, the moment his dad is legit going to lock him in his room rather than let him go home to Bryce, before he says, “I’ll drive you over.”

‘Over’ is noticeably not ‘home’, or even ‘to your place’, but Jared’s not going to jeopardize a free ride by arguing semantics with his dad.

Free ride beats arguments about semantics (but barely)

“I know it sucks,” his dad says. “I’m sorry it sucks. I wish I knew what I could say to help, but you know I’m not — you know I’m not good at this stuff.”

Jared inherits his verbal acuity from his dad.

“It’s not okay,” his dad says, closer to a shout. “It’s fucking bullshit, Jared, they’re—”

“Dad,” Jared says. “Don’t, okay? If I’m not pissed about this you don’t get to be pissed about this.”

“Why aren’t you?” his dad asks. “You work so much fucking harder—”

“I don’t want to suck,” Jared says. “Okay? I don’t want to walk into my first season and fucking suck and make people doubt that I even deserve to be there, and if another season in the Dub means that I come out of the gate better, I want to do that. I’m — they’re probably putting Chaz on the fucking third line, and he didn’t even make the Golden Seals’ preseason last year even though he’s awesome, and Bryce — Bryce is a legit phenomenon, and even then he didn’t play more than a few games for the Flames until he was nineteen, so it’s not like this is weird. I don’t want to suck, and they don’t want someone who sucks, and that’s fine, okay? I’ll get better, and I’ll make it when I am.”

“You had seventy fucking points last season,” his dad says. “In what world do you suck?”

“In the NHL,” Jared says. “I didn’t deserve it and I didn’t get it, and I need to start focusing on the Hitmen season and I can’t do that if you keep yelling—”

Don is the only person (barring Bryce) that Jared offers an unvarnished truth of his career to (this is the man who drove him to every game and practice and sat in the stands and did post mortems with on the drive home, Don is intrinsically tied to Jared’s hockey) and one of the reasons that he has such trouble talking to Don in his moments of deep disappointment and hurt is that talking to Don means he has to admit they’re moments of deep disappointment and hurt. Don turns off Jared’s ability to compartmentalise his feelings, they all come out, and Jared can’t handle that right now.

When he gets in the door, Bryce is standing in front of the couch in front of a dark TV, like maybe he turned it off and stood up the second he heard Jared’s key in the lock.

Exactly like that.

“You know, it’s going to be super hard to live your life surgically attached to someone by the hand,” Jared says.

“Shut up,” Bryce says. “I don’t see you letting go.”

Well. Touche.

“It’s weird,” Bryce says. “Like — I dunno, you’re right here but I don’t like, believe it? So if you want your hand back, too bad.”

Babies.

Jared shifts closer, letting go of Bryce’s hand — “Oh my god, I’ll give it back,” he says to the complaining sound Bryce makes— until he’s made himself comfortable, head on Bryce’s chest, offering his hand so Bryce can lace their fingers again. He listens to the slow pound of Bryce’s heart under his ear, and he holds on tight.

Bryce falls asleep fast, easy, and Jared can’t, finds himself staring into the dark same way he did in Edmonton, but at least he’s got Bryce’s even breathing to lull him, Bryce’s chin nudging his head, lax hand still twined in his, Bryce’s smell on the sheets and maybe Jared’s too, not right now, but eventually, because it’s not Bryce’s bed, it’s theirs, and he’ll be sleeping in it now, leave traces of himself too, so Bryce won’t ever doubt he’s been there, is there, is going to be there again soon.

Home, Jared thinks, and it’s a good feeling, but — it’s a good feeling, maybe, but it hurts too.

Always mixed feelings with this bit. Disappointment and relief.

[etirabys]

lesbian monarchism

I had a throwaway detail in some worldbuilding: "X lives in a planetary culture where being a lesbian is moderately stigmatized because it's associated with the semi-fringe monarchist movement". Here’s how I think that works.

Challism is the ideology that the best form of interplanetary governance is hierarchied polities dealing with each other fairly and mercifully, based on personal ties between strongly surveilled monarchs who are women screened for empathy as well as competence. These monarchs hold power for up to a lifetime by default, but can be voted out. They should primarily have social and emotional and sexual bonds with each other, and limit the role of men in power because men tend to be too ambitious and mess up the cooperate/compete equilibrium that's set closer to cooperate if women are in charge. Challists state that they are not suspicious of men in general, only the kinds of men who tend to gravitate towards the top in a natural political environment. They think the average woman and the average man aren’t that different in ambition or ruthlessness, but the 99.9th-percentile-ambitious man is much worse than the 99.9th-percentile-ambitious woman.

The founder, Chall, established the movement through erotic literature – she wrote a lot of lesbian porn espousing this very system of royalty, with lots of ideological expositions. She was influential in the same kind of way Ayn Rand was. The typical radicalization pathway is that a relatively intellectual teenage girl will read this weird 100 year old gay porn novel for kicks (like reading de Sade today), get sucked in, and have their gay awakening at the same time they come into political consciousness. Chall is hot and charismatic and paints a picture of a lesbian power structure utopia that's candy for a certain kind of ambitious gay woman. Chall points towards a handful of space age states that had unusually good governance and economies under the lead of women who had social ties to each other and argues for further emulation, although the evidence that this is particularly helpful is ambiguous. Challism stays in vogue by having just enough functional institutions run by charismatic people.

There is something that looks like lesbian-specific homophobia in this world but the central example of it is "you're gay? are you a power hungry monarchist?". Sufficiently many high profile women answer "yes I'm proud of it" or "no but I endorse lesbian monarchy and my ideal place in that system is as a high status sub who's pampered by the high-powered monarchs", that the lesbians who aren't monarchists have a moderately annoying time dating.

(I cannot overstate how much I wrote this because imagining very different cultural contexts for queerness delights me, and how little I care about real life discourse. This is meant to be a relatively minor detail in a story where the focus is on my two gay female leads destroying or trying to destroy each other's lives, becoming obsessed with each other, and fucking while playing stupidly elaborate mind games.)

[popculturebuffet]

Star Vs: Stump Day Review or The Why Are You Booing Tom He’s Right Holiday Special

Before we start a special credit to @jess-the-vampire​ who I discussed the episode with during the writing process and brought up a LOT of good points that ended up going into this review. She clearly hates it as much as I do and had even more good reasons for it.  Happy Hanukah, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Everybody! And today we got a big, fat, grotesque lump of coal to smash to pieces. And after a long, draining, if worth the effort scrooge review, and with this being something I needed to cross off my to do list this holiday season, I put this one here as I could use the cathariss of giving this steaming bowl of elephant piss a good thrashing. As you can tell unlike my usual reviews, I do not like this episode. This isn’t the FIRST i’ve not liked i’ve covered, but it is the first rather infamous one to me i’ve covered and not just a dead possum of an episode I ran into while reguarly covering an otherwise good show like “Quaraller’s Pass” or “Strife of the Party”. This one’s had it coming, making my top 8 worst christmas specials list last year, and while not the series worst outing, that’s a toss up between the finale and marco jr, it’s easily one of them. So while usually I like diving deeply into something good and picking apart while it’s good, if not ignoring any bad aspects, here i’m just going to take a hammer to this thing to explain why it dosen’t work and why it sucks dirty ass in thunderstorms. I might be overstating it a bit but probably not.  Nothing really new has happened since the last episode so the only new thing to cover is why i’m doing the episode here instead of after Monster Bash. And the simple reason is that like the Ducktales Halloween and Christmas specials, this episode clearly does not take place in the same time frame of the episode before or after it, with the next episode, The Bog Beast of Bogabah, taking place the day after Monster Bash. It’s most likely they simply held this episode over till Christmas and it dosen’t really fit in AFTER the huge game changer that is monster bash, especailly since the next three episodes after this all take place in rapid sucession, two on the same day one the day after them. So yeah i’m doing this one first and putting it ahead of monster bash on my episode guide for clarity’s sake. 

Good, so with all that settled, let’s unwrap this complete works of pauly shore shall we? We open on the titular Stump Day, essentially mewni’s christmas complete with Cocoa, carols and a gay couple and their equally adorable child. And Star, unsuprisingly is giddy for it as the actual chlidren, and wearing an adorable santaesque dress complete with horns on her santa hat. Seriously you cannot tell me tom didn’t get that for her. Fucking precious. Marco is more just confused and has his hood up and one of Star’s cousins asks uncle river to tell him the origin of stump day. River’s response.. is easily the best joke of the episode. 

“(in a jolly tone) ha ha, you don’t tell me what to do”

He does so anyway though: Basically when settlers arrived on Mewni they found themselves cold and griping with each other, and soon found a blizzard had struck.. but by huddling together under a magic stump, they all learned to get along or something like that and now once a year everyone gathers in warmth and camraderie.. or else. Before Marco can understandably question what “or else” means in this context, Star butts in when one of her cousins chastises the younger one who asked river the question for beliviing and says he’s real. It’s a nice touch as it fits star perfectly to still belivie in mewni’s horrifying version of santa. I forgot just how adorable and likeable the character was before the final season shot that to hell. How her energy could be infectious and how Eden Sher really brought her all to the performance, which is still the performance of her career and hopefully like Rider Strong she’ll do more voice acting eventually.  So that night as Star tucks in after wonderful  night of sleep, and to avoid her dad’s usual drunken chorus of Tom Jones “Sex Bomb”, and gets woken up by Marco who leads her to the dining hall because a windows broken to fix it with magic. Star entirely buys this flimsy story.. but as Jess pointed out, and as I missed hence the credit up top... she dosen’t bring her wand. She.. dosen’t bring her wand.. to go fix something with magic. Now i’ll grant next season shows she CAN fully do magic without it, and while not as powerful like her mom still has plenty of punch behind it.. especially when she does the rainbow fist thing. But it’s still.. weird she dosen’t think to grab it and feels out of character. While Star’s learned by this point not to rely on it, and as we’ll see gives it up entirely, one of the few bits of her character development that actually sticks, it still seems resonable she’d take it with her wherever she goes.. and usually SHE DOES. And her jammies, which are also adorable, seem to have pockets so the animators had no reason to not just stuff it in one. It would’ve made their job harder yes.. but then don’t have marco use an excuse that directly requires it then and draws attention to the fact the wand is missing, and the fact you blatantly just hoped we’d forget about it as it’d ruin the climax. 

It’s far from the worst thing in this episode..trust me we’re almost there. But this does bring me to a point.. so far the episode is GOOD. The comedy’s good, the setup for what’s about to happen is good, the holdiay setting is warm and inviting but weird enough to perfectly fit mewni, and River, much like his VA and homosexual talking boat portrayer Alan Tudyuk, is a national treasure as always. Whelp it’s all down hill from here bitches! Giddyup. 

So Marco announces a SUPRISE PARTY! And everyone’s there: Tom, Kelly, Ponyhead, Starfan14... oh yeah this is the first ep i’ve coverd with Starfan14 isn’t it? Starfan14 is star’s insane fangirl, voiced by series creator Derfron Nercy herself, who star happily tolerates despite clearly wanting to wear her skin. We’ve all been there. Also Jackie is transparently missing, though at least it’s SOMEWHAT reasonable as she and marco broke up a few .. months ago? I mean it is winter on mewni for this episode but the end of season 4 and the series is set at the start of summer, yet months still pass..... 

Confusing timeline aside, Jackie has every reason not to attend a party thrown by her ex for the girl who confesed she had feelings for said ex and it’s probably the only good decision Marco makes this entire episode that he wisely decided to give Jackie some space. And it says something a decision made entirely off screen that was probably because the creators genuinely forgot Jackie once she was out of the way so they could shift the love triangle stuff to Tom, Star and Marco instead of you know.. not doing that because most love triangles are annoying at best and utterly insufferable at worst. Case in point this episode but I can give out more about this aspect of things in a bit with more context. 

And to his credit, and as Jess backed me up on, Marco’s gesture is genuinely throughtful.. at least to start with. He got her a choclate fountain, brought all of her friends, and geninely just thought Star never celebrated her birthday on her birthday because it was you know the same day as christmas. As someone whose birthday is a week before christmas, December 16th if you were curious, I understand the pain of having your birthday in the same month as christmas. Of having all your presents clustered at once and of having to manuver around a very stressful season, though it does sometimes have perks like getting to celebrate your birthday and christmas, it also means your birthday is secondary and always will be to most people due to proximity. And Star has hers ON mewman christmas, so it’s even worse. So from Marco’s perspective, TO START, his best friend constantly had to share her birthday with her faviorite holiday and just wanted to do something nice. SO FAR, he’s done nothing wrong and just means well. That’s... about to end.  Star.. instead of being greatful.. starts muttering no before going on an manic rampage and destroying everything including hte band’s insturments. And apparnetly star’s gotten some flack for her behavior.. but I understand it. To her the stump is VERY real, and will be very angry if someone else celebrates so to her all she’s doing is saving her best friend from the holiday equilvent of the trees from evil dead, and when Marco asks about it she GENUINELY is sorry, getting he meant well, that he was being sweet, and that he did a lot of nice stuff for her.. she just can’t celebrate not because she loves the holiday but because again, from her persepctive, the stump will kill them all if they don’t support it. She is genuinly affraid for her friends lives and given she could go grab her wand and fight it, clearly thinks she, with all her CONSIDERABLE powers, cannot win this, and neither can tom whose powers are almost entirely fire based. Star is just trying to protect her friends from being horribly murdered. And she turns out to be entirely right about it so no, star was not a jerk here. A bit over the top, but she was not insensitive, she was not mean, she just didn’t want a party for understandable reasons.

So let’s get to actually insensitive shall we?! Marco’s reaction to this is at first confusion as he didn’t realize the stump was real, though Tom, Kelly and Pony are convinced it’s not. Also this episode implies Kelly is from mewni, but she turns out not to be so why she knows about the stump I genuinely don’t know. They think it’s just a baby thing.. though in Tom’s defense he dosen’t phrase it that way, thinks star still beliving is cute, which for a teenage boy finding out his girlfriend belivies in santa is very sweet and mature of him, and is trying to be nice about it even if he doesn’t believe.  But Marco.. his response to his friend having a good reason for not wanting to have the party.. is to complain about how much effort he put into it and try to guilt and bribe her into having it by mentoining he got her faviorite cake flavor, rainbow. Just.. WOW. I’ve seen some bad turns from characters, but WOWWWWWW. Holy shit.. I mean at least other jerkass marco episodes before this had SOME reasoning to them. Sophmore Slump had him clearly sublimating his feelings for star combined with the usual obnoxiousness of someone having gone abroard for the first time, which as Letterkenny recently went into, the only thing worse is Stillborn Puppies. Nothing else. 

And with Lint Catcher while he was presumptive and not blameless.. river still outright lied to him. Here? It’s clear star dosen’t want this, cake can be refigirated, he only takes a loss on the choclate fountain and he could still just let everyone have some and say it’s for stump day to appease her. He dosen’t have to take a loss on this finacially or morally and there would be no harm done. But that’s.. not what HE wanted, not waht HE set up and he wants what HE wanted, which was to impress star with a thoughtful gesture. But that’s the thing bud: Gestures aren’t about you or what you get. Their about doint something nice for another fucking person. It’s the whole point of christmas and birthdays: To just give someone something to be ncie and to celebrate the day and them respectively. If she dosen’t WANT your gift for understandable reasons and isn’t being rude about it you don’t have any leg to stand on you seflish twatwaffle. 

So already Marco is not coming off well.. and if you know this episode you know it gets worse. Oh god it gets worse. So first PONYHEAD of all people calls out Marco.. and for once, PONYHEAD, the most selfish, most unresonable and a character whose tolerablity varies on the episode, tells him he’s being selfish and is only pressing on because of his need to control things. So not only is Ponyhead right but the episode LIKELY wants you to feel she’s wrong because she’s pony which is not how this work as she knows star well and thus, while unaware she still belivied in the stump, which tracks as while it’s obvious she does Pony is so up her own whatever she has that functions as an ass, it’s understandable she’d miss some details. So no Pony’s right, and the fact PONY is one of the more resonable people in this episode is both a sign of the apocalypse, which is thankfully starting to recede, and a clear marker of just how bad Marco’s being if someone who torments him and disagrees with him out of principal is entirely right. 

Oh but it gets worse as next up, Tom steps in and tries to get Marco to back out, admitting he told him this was a bad idea. Now granted Tom did mess up by not stepping in to stop this a bit.. but he A) didn’t know how much his girlfriend genuinely belivied in the stump and B) Probably assumed Marco meant well, as would I before he whined about not getting his way, and decided it was worth a try. So he’s not that bad, and while it is a bit ehhh to try and take back credit for this when he participated, it’s still minor and Marco is still being a huge dick who refuses to help shut things down when it’s clear the party is only causing star to have a panic attack and assault some humble marachi players. He sees nothing good is coming from this and just wants what star wants. Also it paints Marco in a worse light as he was warned about this, and was so obssed with making it a suprise party because that’s how his plan went, he refused to just.. talk to her about it. Hell he could’ve just casually asked “Why do you never celebrate your birthday on your birthday”. It’s an easy question, dosen’t give the game away and allows him to gage if this is a good idea or not BEFORE baking a cake , hiring a band and getting a chocolate fountain. Instead he just went ahead with it.  And he did so.. because this ISN’T about making Star happy. This is abotu HIM making star happy. Him showing her how thoughtful, and considerate and sweet he is and how he’s always been there for her and how maybe she should be with him instead of Tom. I mean it just comes off that way.. he made it a suprise party because in his head that’s how it worked and she was super impresed and left tom that day to be with him in some elaborate fantasy. Granted the episode dosen’t say this.. but it sure as hell acccidently implies hte hell out of it by having marco act like a selfish ass who refuses to take what STAR wants into consideration, and just wants to get his fantasy back on track. What supports this to me is how he treats tom, you know one of his best friends: He, again, accuses him of forgetting.. then calls him a bad boyfriend.. a bad boyfriend for NOT wanting to force a celebration on his girlfriend she does not want, and for not forcing it on her. For you know GROWING AS A PERSON.  Beacuse here’s the pickle pumpernickle: This thing Marco’s doing? Is exactly the kind of thing a pre-character development TOM did, that was rightfully framed as bad. Being controlling, wanting things to go JUST a certain way instead of letting them flow naturally, not getting the hint star isn’t intrested, and not caring about what she wants and only what you want. Marco is doing the same thing Tom used to do. And for starters i’ts already bad because you know MARCO WAS THE ONE WHO FINALLY GOT IT THROUGH TO TOM THAT THIS KIND OF BEHAVIOR WAS TOXIC AND SELFISH. But apparently when it’s Marco himself doing it it’s fine. If there was ever any clear evidence Marco regressed as a character, there it is.  Him actively unelarning a lesson he taught someone else and then getting combative when that person rightly tries to call him out. Marco is just insufferable in this episode: He’s being selfish, creepy and posseive and he’s apparenlty supposed to, at least on some level BE RIGHT.  But.. we will get to that. Consider a pin put in this rant. 

So Tom overreacts, and throws some fire at marco, which is genuinely wrong and Kelly’s right to call him out, and then headlocks him asking marco to say he’s a good boyfriend. Marco screams out ‘NEVVVEEEERRRR”

I just made this, by hapinstance, while watching the video I put up there. I.. I did not think i’d get to use this so soon but my god. Just my god that’s a terrible thing to say.  So the party soon breaks down elsewhere as Kelly is mad at tom for.. understandable reasons again the guy she has a crush on was just nearly set on fire, even if i’m still on Tom’s side overall here, it’s still not right. Janna points out it’s probably because she has a crush on marco, which while acurate dosen’t mean she was wrong and Tad pops out to be upset about that. Even though you know you two are broken up and as Kelly points out he needs to move out. Pony is mad she’s not getting any attention and Starfan is mad because star’s mad. Star results to desperate measures, opening the windows to try and repeate the act of the settlers.  She didn’t however count on the Janna factor as she throws the stump in the fire, which is in chracter. What’s not, and again I give Jess full credit for this one, is that everyone just starts.. warming around the stump and not caring like a bunch of jackasses not caring about their close friend, and in tom’s case, girlfriend’s feelings. Also tom and marco apparently stopped fighting just to be this stupid. 

But naturally burning the symbolic stump is a bad idea and the real one attacks. Protip: If you live in a world of magical nonsense, maybe don’t discount the magic stump. Everyone’s captured, including moon and river, with River also being suprised and replying to Star’s annoyance at him not beliving with “Sweetie it’s a stump!”. Alan Tudyk is a god and I feel you all should acknowleddge that. But yeah everything seemsm to be bad but everyone apologizes, if not for the right things in Marco’s case, and Tom says “I’m sorry i’m a bad boyfriend!”. You .. you aren’t. You did nothing wrong. I feel like this is tom for the last agrivating 6 minutes of the episode

He did SOME THINGS wrong but he is NOT a bad boyfriend. He is throughtful, kind and while he has flaws, SO DOES STAR. He is not a bad boyfriend for not wanting to repeat past abusive actions! GAH. Let’s just get on with it. They all hold hands, they thiunk this is what made the stump go away but Star is sure it was just going to kill them, Moon and River have a thousand yard stare as they realize they both have to get repairs for this room now and do an extra big stump day next year to make sure it dosen’t come back. And Marco apologizes to star.. for not beliving her. Not for forcing this on her, not for causing all of this, not at all to tom, but for not beliving her while star FUCKING APOLOGIZES TO HIM.  Pin removed, bullshit falling to the floor... Trunks if you would. 

Thank you. Star DID NOTHING WRONG. Tom DID LESS WRONG THAN MARCO. WHY ARE THEY APOLOGIZING. Why is this little shithead getting everything he wants as the party happens after all, if a day later, and he gets to dance with star, while everyone else is painted as being in the wrong? That’s what makes this special so putrid: that MARCO is apparently in the right for doing the same , if on a smaller scale, manipulative shit tom used to do before he grew as a person, yet the episode sides with him, props him up and teases Starco. If it’s Starco it’s okay apparently and that’s.. not okay. You can’t .. build a ship on a character acting like a jackass. That’s not how this works. Marco was wrong, he was bad and he should FEEL bad. Instead he’s just a creepy jerk this entire episode, being entitled, manipulating star, screaming at tom.. and gets REWARDED FOR IT. Fuck this episode. 

FINAL THOUGHTS: I believe I said Fuck this episode.  This is easily one of star vs’ worst episode and much like the season after this episode it gets worse the more you think about it. I put it on my worst holiday episodes list for a reason.. and frankly even with the decent first 4 mintues it should be higher. It’s an unplesant mess that throughly ruins Marco’s character and takes him from a kind, upstanding, polite and bright young man to a creepy manpiulative jackasss. Fuck this episode and have a happy holidays.