#but i preferred the tragic ending for this format

[the-littlest-goblin]

I reblogged this earlier saying I had nothing narratological to add but then I had more coffee and turns out that was a fucking lie.

Who remembers the post that made the rounds a while back that went something like, "people keep trying to psychoanalyze the appeal of enemies-to-lovers but the simple answer is just that thesis-antithesis-synthesis is one of the foremost structures in narrative"? Change makes stories interesting, that's pretty much ipso facto. Dynamic vs static characters is like, the first thing they teach you in English class after the unit on reading full sentences.

BH are all pretty much thesis the whole way through, and its not a strong thesis at that. Others have already broken down, for example, Laudna's stagnant character arc, and the same chief criticisms apply to for her relationship with Imogen: nothing significant changes between them though the campaign despite their nominal "arc" from a platonic to romantic relationship. The CR cast (and other AP professionals iirc) have often talked about discovering their characters in real time at the table, especially early in the campaign. OP covers how the early stages of c3 put BH at a disadvantage for crystallizing in this way, but its got me thinking about character development more generally. There's a quote about Silver's character arc on Black Sails that I think about a lot for my own writing: “The fun at the beginning was taking him as far from the Long John Silver of Treasure Island as possible." This kind of teleological approach isn't useful in an improv format and in fact can be actively detrimental (something something Friedman something something the ongoing debate on interdisciplinary approach to game-narratives something). On the other hand, improv is not exempt from the Reversal* principle of narrative.

I have always mildly side-eyed Taliesin's apparent fascination with static characters. I think he's only used that exact term to describe Caduceus (and I contend that Caduceus is not fully static, though his development is certainly subtle and understated), but a certain degree of inflexibility is a hallmark of all his characters (it goes along with the running arrogance theme). I don't say this as a criticism: Taliesin makes consistently fantastic PCs, and a part of what makes them so strong is their stalwart world views. However there can be cons to his style (as with every style), and I think the emerging pattern in epilogues is evidence towards its limits.

I won't say Percy is Taliesin's strongest PC because as always to subjective preference, but I will go to bat that Percy has the strongest arc of Taliesin PCs on the basis of that thesis-antithesis-synthesis structure. And that arc only happened because Taliesin was challenged to come up with something other than the imagined tragic ending he had for Percy after the Briarwood arc. Not to say that the tragic ending wouldn't have also been strong, as an alternate path! But there is a bit of "first thought" simplicity to it. I'm reminded of that "New Choice" improv game—saying "no" to your first instinct can result in something more interesting and original. In Percy's case, that new choice came in the form of his resurrection—by extension a result of the budding romance with Vex, something neither Percy nor Taliesin had planned on.

Change doesn't occur in a vacuum—whether its a diegetic change in the character or a change in creative plan by the author, change means you responded to something. Which is the essence and appeal of collaborative improv—but I wonder if the "yes, and" principle doesn't sometimes undercut the crucial antithesis stage. Or maybe not "yes, and" exactly, but C3 certainly suffered from conflict-aversion, both between the PCs and in Matt's unwillingness to say no to his players. Conflict (like consequence) is not the absolute negative that so many people in fandom construe it to be, and the reason it's essential to narrative is because conflict is the crux where response and change can happen. And that's a two-way street, especially in collaborative improv—the story (diegetic)/the DM (extradiegetic) are just as capable of being unresponsive. In the case of c3, it was a very unfortunate combination of stagnancy and that teleological approach I mentioned earlier.

Ironically, Ashton was one of the strongest characters in BH, despite being also I would say the most stagnant of all Taliesin PC's across the 3 campaigns. Much as I found them infuriating to watch, Taliesin did a great job of taking Ashton's initial characterization to its extremes, which is an alternate option to the reversal or synthesis models of character development (once again, a strength of a character having a strong personal ideology, whatever it may be). Instead of making a different choice in response to challenges to their worldview, Ashton largely had his views confirmed (e.g. re: the gods, re: the titans, re: FCG) and responded accordingly. Unfortunately, the narrative didn't reciprocate by responding to him and this choices— similar to Laudna with Delilah, we never got much follow-through regarding Ashton's investment in the Titans, which is extra strange because that's not something that was native to his characterization initially. The Hishari and elemental magic stuff was there, obviously, but the deeper, active pursuit into that thread of lore was Ashton responding to the ongoing god conversation, a theme introduced by Ludinus and the Moon plot. But that thread just kinda peters off, because logistically speaking, the Moon plot didn't require any further story regarding the titans in order to resolve. I give Taliesin mad props for trying to course-correct at the eleventh hour by tying Ashton's other dynamic thread, his investigations into his dunamancy brain, into the resolution beat, but then that sharp turn towards a tragic ending also got smoothed over in the name of conflict aversion—and that's just one example of Matt refusing to let the narrative respond to the characters. We also have plenty of complementary instances of individual players either missing or actively shirking opportunities for the characters to change or grow in response to the narrative: neither Laudna nor Imogen ever fully committed to leaning into their dark powers. Orym could have had an arc relating to his being the primary voice of opposition (read: voice of reason) for releasing Predathos, but Liam was dedicated to keeping him a follower. I could go on—it's stagnancy all the way down.

*See Aristotle's Poetics

Sorry if you've answered this kind of question before, but yesterday's ask about the villains made me think about the opposite: what kind of story do you think Bells Hells could have worked well in, the way they are? With their complete disinterest about the world I struggle to imagine them working in anything but a monster of the week kind of format where things are just kind of thrown at you...

Hey anon,

This is a fantastic question because it gets to the crux of something I don't know if I've properly articulated and honestly might not have the right words for so if any of my mutuals who have a greater degree of expertise in narratology/storycraft than I do want to mark this up with red pen, go nuts.

The way I approach characters in stories is not just who they are initially; but who they become through the process of the narrative in which they find themselves. I'm not immune to a first impression! I repeatedly find myself initially drawn to more driven, serious, emotionally closed off, genuinely good but kind of a bitch about it characters; and dismissing the ones I see as chaos gremlins, and then having to recant myself if/when the chaos gremlins show more depth through their actions. I rarely find myself drawn to a character like Nott or Fiedra (to use a couple recent examples) from the start; both won me over utterly. This isn't always the case! Sometimes they don't win me over! But my point is that I think most people have archetypes they immediately latch onto and are comfortable with and even might ultimately prefer through the course of the story (and I am no exception), but character and story are inherently intertwined with each other. It's essentially nature vs. nurture but for narrative.

So: a big part of the problem is that Bells Hells were given a story that failed to challenge them in such a way that they would grow into it. They were told what to do and infodumped at and their own motivations often wrapped up remarkably early in the narrative with little effort on their part so that we could get to the Moon Plot, and then suddenly the bottom dropped out and they were suddenly supposed to do a bunch of vitally important quests with relatively little guidance or oversight, and like many a sheltered teen going 1000 miles away for college, they did not respond well. Unfortunately, instead of taking the "well fuck it I'm going to do jaegerbombs and see what happens" route they went the "I'm going to beg whoever I see as an authority for answers while also resenting them for not giving me the answers I wanted or worse, suggesting I try to come up with my own" route.

I think had Bells Hells had an introduction rather more like the Mighty Nein's or what we know of Vox Machina's, they'd have become people who could make those decisions! Because the thing is, both those parties kind of did have a Monster of the Week format early on because that's a really normal way to start a campaign! If they'd spent their lower levels having to reluctantly work together without any benefactors and take watch in a hostile environment and take on weird jobs for money, I can't guarantee that they would have become decisive and self-motivated and interested in the world around them, but I think it would have been much, much more likely! No one was particularly intelligent, but to give an example, Imogen did have a lot of interest in finding out about her powers! A narrative in which that was not a "we have to give her the answer in the first 50 episodes so we can get to the moon plot" but rather a slow burn that required seeking out knowledge and following threads throughout the campaign would have meant regular trips to libraries or archaeological dig sites or academic institution, and that could have served as an ongoing motivator and as a means for other characters to learn more about the world while Imogen was reading about her magic. But because those avenues were largely closed off after the beginning of the campaign and the answer given at like, the 40% mark, there was no opportunity for her to grow or change or develop other interests.

There's a reason why the classic D&D setup is "you meet in a tavern, you take weird jobs on the job board, and you eventually fight god" and not "you meet in a tavern, you have a series of benefactors, you resolve 90% of your backstories in the first 40 episodes, and then the BBEG happens" and it's because taking weird jobs on the job board is what turns you from "only fit for Monster of the Week plot" to "a group of people who can make complicated decisions and who have a deep interest in the world." The only reliable way I've seen to get around this is by explicitly telling your players "This is the basic premise of the story I want to tell, so I need you to play curious and decisive people from the jump." Disliking the odd jobs route of an early campaign but wanting a complex ending is like wanting to run a marathon but refusing to train for it.

I've been trying to focus my critique of Campaign 3 on the campaign itself and not its fans at this point but I think this is relevant: I find a lot of fans are not really that happy with much of what happened, but are big fans of Bells Hells as people (to the point of treating them with more personhood than their detractors). This has led to some statements I can only describe as wildly stupid and in bad faith in which they seem oddly incapable of processing the idea that one's opinion on a character can - and should! - change over the course of the story based on that character's actions; whenever I and others were like "hmm, I don't like the turn Ashton is taking" it was interpreted as some kind of Rapid Onset Bigotry That Exclusively Applies to Ashton And Not FCG (or Dairon, or Yudala, or FRIDA, or like, any other nb characters) or (hilariously given what I just said) inconsistency and not "if you used to like someone and then they said something really shitty, you might not like them any more". And the thing is, that is the problem of Campaign 3 in a nutshell, even without the fandom - Bells Hells seemed to be simultaneously terrified of seeming like bad people and also all too willing to be self-absorbed and inconsiderate, and most crucially never seemed to realize that stasis and indecision are themselves horrible qualities that many people dislike. Bells Hells as the characters who showed up in Campaign 3 episode 1 were not doomed to be the people they became; the narrative (and obviously the player choices) led them into that. I do not, after 121 episodes, give points for lost potential; but a different campaign from the start might have actually brought out that potential and made them into characters who could be the focus of a good story.

[miriammctroi]

The Black Cat

James and Regulus broke up. It's the middle of war. James is isolated at home after his parents death and with his friends constantly being on missions.

One day, a black cat appears at his door step. He shoos it away.

The cat returns the next day and the day after. James gives him food and buys treats and lets him inside. It's not curing his loneliness but he feels better as long as the cat is there.

The cat likes him. He sprawls himself out on his legs and sleeps on him. He climbs on his shoulder and kicks his glasses off his face.

James doesn't tell anyone about the cat.

One night, he dreams of Regulus. He hasn't done this in a while. It seems almost real. Almost. But it can't be. Regulus wouldn't ever come back to him. He is evil. He took the mark. He is a Death Eater.

But dream-Regulus is none of those things. Dream Regulus is gentle. He whispers his love confessions and his apologies. He almost kisses him but they remember that he is just a dream and they can't touch.

During the day there is the cat. During the night there is the dream. James doesn't feel so lonely anymore.

He doesn't tell anyone about it.

One night, dream Regulus appears. He cries. He cries and cries and whispers how much he loves James. How he has always been honest about it. He confesses everything James has wanted to hear: He didn't want to take the mark. He was forced. He didn't want to follow Voldemort. He didn't believe in his doctrine. He changed while he was with James and doesn't believe in blood purity anymore. He says it all just like James hoped, but he cries, still.

"I love you. I love you. I love you." He whispers over and over. "Please believe me."

And James does.

Then dream Regulus kisses him. It doesn't matter whether or not they could or couldn't touch because he is just a dream. They kiss regardless of the rules, just like they did at school.

The kiss tastes salty.

James doesn't care.

He kisses him like his lips could make him real.

He falls asleep with Regulus pressed against him as if that could trap him.

The next day, the cat doesn't come. The next night, James doesn't dream. The following day, there is no sign of the cat either and James knows.

He takes the floo to Sirius and Remus. He is babbling nonsense about cats and dreams - but none of it matters because he knows.

Regulus was in danger.

His sweet, sweet Regulus, whom he loved and who wasn't evil and didn't want to follow Voldemort, was out there. He was somewhere needing help, needing James.

He knows.

His friends can't believe it.

It doesn't matter.

Regulus is dying. And James knows. But he doesn't know where even to start looking for him.

And he knows, there is nothing he can do to stop it.

[galaxymagitech]

hiiii ⭐️ and ❤️ for the “jason writes fic” fic??

Thank you so much for the ask! I am really excited to share stuff about this fic.

Really Cool Ask Game (anyone can ask questions for any fic if you want! or reblog it and then people can ask you questions!) | Jason Todd vs. The AO3 Curse

♡ SMALL THINGS: pick a fic and I’ll tell you my favorite minor detail from it!

I think my favorite minor detail is the fic titles. I didn���t explain them anywhere, so they probably went unnoticed, but I’m very proud of them:

“No Net Ensnares Me” comes from a Jane Eyre quote: “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” I think this quote fits Jason perfectly, from his rejection of his time as Robin to his refusal to be constrained by Bruce’s code to his desire for independence and power over his own story.

“Don’t Fly Too Low” refers to Icarus. Perhaps Jason flew too close to the sun as Robin, but this emphasizes that there was pressure from both ends—I think that Jason firmly believes he would be kicked out if he wasn’t Robin.

The last two titles are lyrics (or modified lyrics) from Poison Idea songs. Jason is canonically a fan—he has a Poison Idea poster in his Crime Alley hideout. I know nothing about Poison Idea, but I looked up some of their songs to find ones that fit.

“started with nothing (ended with less)” — This is from “Feel the Darkness” and I think encapsulates quite a lot of Bruce and Jason’s fraught relationship from an older Jason’s POV. Highlights include “Meet a man who'll make your dreams come true / Your worst nightmare has just begun for you.” Bruce made Jason Robin, gave him a home, gave him magic…but it ended with a nightmarish death. And later “I can't think about running back to (you) / You started with nothing, but you ended up with less.” And this is basically Jason screaming “you’ve lost me” at the top of his lungs. “You’ve lost me, and you’re never getting your son back.” Jason starts this fic while things with Bruce are still good, but it carries him into the darkness and beyond his death.

“Soul of a Washrag” — This one’s from Taken by Surprise. At first glance, the song’s lyrics fit Jason and Bruce again (references to an “imperious aura” and lack of emotion). But I think parts of it also match up really well with “I just wanted to believe we could be family again.” Highlights include: “For a moment, I thought I saw something in your eyes / That's when I was taken by surprise.” Like, Jason genuinely believed for a moment that he and Dick could be Nightwing together, as crazy as it was. “You said, ‘it takes two to start a war.’” This line just kills me. Because Jason is reaching out, but he’s also partially at fault for burning all his bridges, and it’s tragic all around. And “soul of a washrag” refers to just feeling wrung-out, and could refer to any of the three characters.

So yeah I put waaaay too much effort into something with very little chance of being noticed, but I love these details.

✰ NEW SHAPES: send me a fic and I’ll give you an alternate direction the fic could have gone!

Well, to start off, this fic was originally supposed to be a Tumblr post. And then I thought, well, maybe it’ll be multiple Tumblr posts and I’ll make a master list of Jason’s A/Ns. And then I remembered I could do HTML formatting in AP3 to make it actually look vaguely like actual AO3 notes, and my programmer brain was hooked. A couple things I considered as well:

Canon divergence—I was seriously considering having the Batfamily find his author’s notes while he was just starting out as Red Hood and then have the story play out secondhand.

Focus on comments—I wanted to have a comment section, which would have involved Tim’s account and eventually other characters as well. But I couldn’t figure out the HTML. I prefer it with just the notes, though, because I like the flow from note to note.

I was originally going to not include half the Red Hood stuff I did and instead focus on Jason’s responses to commenters and random (non-canon) anecdotes. I eventually chose to follow canon pretty closely to make us all “in on the joke.”

[thatdepressedtwink]

Bugbo Headcanons (sorry for the poor formatting I did this in notes)

- Bugbo is left handed

- Any of gerbos legs work as hands

- Gradient Joe is TRANS AND HAS TOP SCARS!!!

- Bugbo is arospec

- Thomas Flyswatter goes by He/they pronouns (honestly this might even be canon)

- Thomas Flyswatter, even if he did have feelings of Bugbo, probably would not realise after A LONG TIME, and when he does realise it’s because of a completely unrelated topic much like how he blames Bugbo for his tragic backstory despite no connection

- Gradient Joe knows BSL

- Hoppo knows guerilla warfare

- Hoppo is taller than anyone of them, she just prefers standing low to the ground

- There are no wars present and they ended a bit ago, Hoppo is just committing war crimes

- Bugbo is only slightly unsettled by Hoppo, the same way a regular person might react to Bugbo

- Bugbo’s motto for “togetherness makes anything effortless” as well as his need for actions to have reason is because as ants, you must work together as to help the colony grow and be orderly. Hence his philosophy. That or autism.

- Bugbo listens to white noise as a form of entertainment.

- Bugbos love languages are words of affirmation, and if close, touch

- Gerbo types with kaomoji’s

- Bugbo’s handwriting looks like New Times Roman

- Gradient Joe uses cursive

- Hoppo puts ink on her hands and types on paper like a typewriter, and she’s good at it too.

- Bugbo never swears, and he HATES it. Emphasis on hate. But he does think in swears when in rage.

- Gerbo can roll around like a wheel when all his legs are straight

- Gradient Joe gets back at people he’s mad at very subtly. For example, next time they mention they’re gonna go to the loop-the-loop roller coaster, he will not mention that he saw screws flying out that thing when in use.

- Bugbo is similar in the way he gets back at people he’s mad at, except hes more direct at inconveniencing them while trying to make it seem like hes helping them.

- Bugbo doesn’t know how to give affection/show how he cares for his friends in a socially acceptable way and is slightly self conscious about it. He also gets very uncomfortable and speaks fast when receiving lots of direct affection. Like “ohthankyou”, “thatsreallygoodimgladforyou”

- Bugbo can do the back up vocals to Laplaces Angel, the “oh how I know, how I go, how I go” vocals, and black box warrior OKULTRA

- Bugbo watches documentaries and Vsuace and occasionally goes “how riveting” while watching

- Bugbo unironically goes “oooooh” and “aaaaaaah” when he sees something cool

[lemonfizzyy]

I am officially posting my rec list, because I was nicely asked for a few fic recs and I immediately made a fully formatted and meticulously vetted list of fics, complete with synopsises and word counts.

The thought process there was "Oh, I got a ton of fics. But wait I can't just give them a bunch of loose links, I need to title them! Might as well add the word count too, some people prefer longer fics. And also it's so annoying reading a improperly summarized fic and finding out halfway through it's not something you'd like, I'd better write a couple words to explain it..."

And so on and so forth. I truly got very sidetracked, I even reread entire fics to make sure they were as good as I remembered.

Anyway, all that aside, this is my (incomplete) personal list of recommended fics under the cut for the wider populous to enjoy. (All of these are gen btw!) :

Jason Fics:

Glow in the Dark Stars by essspressso // 46k words

"Red Hood Jason and 15-year-old Jason swap timelines, landing one week before 15-year-old Jason is supposed to die."

Jason Todd: The Not-So-Outlaw by GoAwayOlivia // 200k words

Jason becoming his own person, gaining some stability, connecting with his family, and renovating his apartment.

Get Used to Dying, by papered_king // 1.7k words

The tragedy of Jason Todd except it's a screenplay and packed full of symbolism. Words don't do it justice, the author is really talented. TW for suicidal ideation.

Chicken Bones by lurkinglurkerwholurks // 2.6k words

Jason grapples with the fallout of the murders he's committed, Bruce is there to help him. (Honestly anything written by Lurker has peak Jason characterization, it was hard to choose one fic of theirs.)

Two Dead Birds by InsaneTrollLogic // 29k words

Jason time travels back to his original debut as Red Hood and fixes some things while trying to get home.

Dick & Tim Fics:

A Gala and a Gambit by BirdsBatsandCatsohmy // 8.3k words

Tim is taken to a gala whilst sick, and Dick and Babs end up taking care of him.

First Priority by avaya29 // 6.8k words

More of a Tim, Dick and Jason fic actually, but includes some rarely used characterization from the canon that I think is pretty neat! "Jason learns a lot about his brothers and what happened while he was away, and something about himself too."

a soft place to land by unchosenone // 3k words

"Dick is ready to be a good big brother to his grieving little bro. Tim flips the script."

Jason & Dick Fics:

did you forgive me? (before the world ended) by hiraethanna // 6k words

A very underrated tragic Dick and Jason fic. Dick isn't actually present but he's quite intensely haunting the plot. Massive TW for grief!

Stubborn by bowditch // 20k words

4 chapters of the Batboys helping each other out! First two are Jason & Dick. Third is Jason, Dick and Tim (Mind the TW in the author's note.) Fourth is Tim and Damian.

when words fail by mikkal // 3.7k words

"They were supposed to go out and have some proper brotherly bonding time, but there's something wrong with Jason and Dick is determined to find out what."

Jason & Tim Fics:

Little Red by destiny919 // 40k words

"AU where Tim is younger and has been illegally adopted by his hero, the Red Hood." A cute series that is probably my favorite take on Jason adopting Tim.

Short-Term Memory Loss (Leads to Long-Term Sibling) by VamillePudding // 12k words

"Jason's attack on Titans Tower goes a little differently than expected. When Jason wakes up, the last thing he can remember is being fifteen and having breakfast with Bruce."

Dick & Damian Fics:

Emavee's Dick and Dami Week 2021 series // 12k words

Mostly focuses on the aftermath of Dick leaving Gotham after Bruce comes back! Both angsty and pretty darn fluffy.

my shoulders are heavy already by a_alene // 9k words

Damian gets sick and Dick has an itty bitty crisis.

I Could Even Learn How To Love by CarrionCarnival // 4.3k words

A wing fic featuring a grieving Dick and a worried Damian.

the question of morality by Anonymous // 6k words

Honestly one of my favorite takes on Dick and Damian I've ever read. This is a Dick characterization that sticks closer to canon than most fics. Technically the fic is unfinished but the plot of each chapter is self-contained so there's no cliffhanger.

you don't need poltergeists for sidekicks by danishsweethearts // 7k words

During his time at Spyral, Dick keeps hallucinating his dead Robin.

Also here are my two Dick and Dami fics because why not:

Matchsticks + Extras // 9k words

"A retelling of The Little Match Girl, starring our very own Damian Wayne." + What happens to Damian after he dies, and a future where he lived.

Damian and the Yellow-Eyed Bird // 6k words

Talon!Dick and Damian meet and find escape through each other. Pretty much this is a massive love letter to Damian Wayne as a character.

Honorary mention to the best Dick and Damian fics of all, which are the ones that live in my head. 💔

[weaselandfriends]

I just binge'd your Hymnstoke series. Now that HS^2 (HS^BC) is back up and running with James Roach at the helm, I was wondering if you could share your thoughts on the direction that HS^2 and Homestuck Beyond Canon are taking with the new updates?

Before I begin, I'll point you to a previous post I made on the topic of HS^2, back when it was under the previous management.

Truthfully, I still haven't read HS^2, either the old version or the new. I remain uninterested in it conceptually. For me, the Epilogues were the perfect finale to Homestuck and I no longer have any desire to see its story continued or its characters expanded upon.

I think I'm somewhat mismatched with the typical fans of Homestuck. From talking to fans, it seems many of them started reading as teenagers, who found in its something relatable and became invested in the journey of its characters. I wasn't like that. I began reading Homestuck in college. I was not introduced to it via fandom osmosis or seeing art of it or cosplays or so on. I didn't even learn of it from word-of-mouth from one of my friends. I was reading a post someone had made about so-called ergodic literature, which cited House of Leaves and Homestuck as examples. Having read House of Leaves only a few weeks prior, I was intrigued and looked up Homestuck, going into it almost as blind as possible.

As Hymnstoke probably indicates, my interest in Homestuck was literary from the start, and what impressed me most about it was always its boundary-pushing approach to medium and narrative. Even late into Act 6, past the point where most fans might say the story "gets bad" or whatever, Hussie was always, always concerned with that, and that is why I actually prefer Act 6 to Act 5 despite this being a fairly controversial take. I think in Act 6 Hussie is far more experimental, far more willing to take artistic risks and pursue innovative formal exercises. So, even as more traditional markers of narrative quality like character and plot stagnant, meander, or suffer altogether, Homestuck to me always felt like it was still growing in new and exciting directions.

At least until the series of super long pauses that ended with the whimpering and frankly pathetic Collide + Act 7 combo, two tragically substanceless flashes that really add nothing new or unexpected whatsoever.

The Epilogues, however, were a return to form on the formal front. The competing Meat and Candy narratives, though told in arguably Homestuck's most traditional format yet (prose narrative), are intertwined in ways that push even this ancient medium to new, unseen limits. In that sense, even ignoring all the plot/character stuff I mentioned in my previous HS^2 post, the Epilogues were a culmination of all Homestuck meant for me. A thematic capstone: A return to a traditional format that is then enlivened through daring experimentation. My Hymnstoke series often mentioned the theme of the meteors wiping out Earth so that a new society could be created out of recycled detritus from the old and stagnant world. The Epilogues are that simply in how they are made, and to me that is peak Homestuck, the chief thing that matters most about it.

HS^2 has not seemed interested in formal experimentation at all. The pre-Roach group was mindbogglingly retrograde in eschewing flashes altogether and even, really, art, preferring instead long script-style dialogues. Long pesterlogs were part of Homestuck before, but far from the only part. But there simply seemed to be zero interest in innovation, in doing anything new, in even trying anything new. To me, that's not Homestuck.

I'm not super keyed into the fandom drama, but my understanding is that the old HS^2 group was nasty and combative with the fans, while Roach has attempted to establish goodwill in the fans and repair some of the burned bridges from yesteryear. To that end, his approach seems to be succeeding. But there's a part of me that sees it as being similar to the Star Wars prequels and sequels. The prequels were an unmitigated trainwreck that the fans despised; the sequels, by contrast, began with a soft remake of New Hope that seemed tailored to tell fans "Look! Star Wars is Star Wars again! We're back! It's real! We have practical effects, and on-location filming instead of green screens, and the plot is straightforward instead of trade dispute politics!" It was like JJ Abrams watched the infamous Plinkett review of the prequels and decided to address everything directly, all to reestablish goodwill with fans.

For Episode VII, it worked. Perhaps if the rest of the trilogy were 1-to-1 soft remakes of the original trilogy, it would have continued to work. But the instant the new creators attempted any kind of innovation in the criminally underrated and over-hated Episode VIII, they were raked over the coals, and in the process of backtracking furiously wound up creating something on the same level as the prequels with Episode IX. And nobody was happy in the end.

In the position Roach is in, he can at best muster the kind of nostalgia-baiting soft remake that is so popular and common in Hollywood today, a Homestuck 2.0 rather than a Homestuck^2, something that is not in fact Beyond Canon but enslaved by it. By appealing to the goodwill of fans that's what you have to do, because what the fans love is the ghost of the story they remember, and the reason they come to Homestuck^2 over any of the endless amount of content online is because it has the name Homestuck in it, and they remember Homestuck. Waiter, I'm the critic from Ratatouille, bring me the thing I remember.

But that is conceptually antithetical to the thing I remember. And so, it'll be difficult for it to engender much interest in me. I think there are a lot of exciting, talented creators making amazing original content online today, new boundary-pushing content, a new avant garde, and that's where my interest will lie. I think the members of the Homestuck fandom who had the talent to create content like that, like Toby Fox and perhaps Tamsyn Muir (who I have not read but Gideon the Ninth is certainly popular so it must have some spark to it), have gone ahead and done it for their own original works outside the Homestuck label.

Anyway, those are my rambling thoughts on the matter, again without having actually read either the old or new HS^2, so take them with a grain of salt.

[that-rackin-frackin-varmint]

#5— 07/24/2022 12:53 AM

Ok so Idk what y’all said about that video, but I’ve deduced that this interesting piece of cut content was leaning towards:

1) Lola probably having broken up with Bugs

2) Bugs being in oblivous/in denial of her spite towards him and looniness

3) Bugs actually being very conscious of not being “in the spotlight”

4) and a more development between Bugs and Lebron’s icy tension (like a bump between two control freaks)

I honestly would’ve been into some elements of this version of the story being used instead of what we ended up with.

Lola being fed up with Bugs makes sense since in SJ, she really didn’t have looniness in her. She was very bland to say the least. This version of their dynamic would be a lot more tragic when you know TLTS exists (where their relationship there was thriving). But otherwise, it would’ve opened up a lot of opportunity for a more fleshed out version of SJ Lola.

Her being annoyed with Bugs’ looniness is understandable if you were in her shoes. Like, realistically, not just anyone could tolerate Bugs’ chaos day to day. Plus, she did seem like she was gonna get written with more emotional depth than what the looney tunes cast are usually on brand for.

So her having an added arc of wanting to permanently separate herself from the toons would’ve been so much more interesting for her character. And also the fact that Bugs seemed more overtly fixated on the basketball game being what will bring them back to the spotlight in a semi-metatextual sense.

Bugs in this video is a tad more unlikable and fallible than he usually is for better or worse. And he seems more at odds with Lebron. Even if it’s not really staying true to Bugs’ character — it would’ve been fun to see more angst and implied rocky relations between the toons. I would’ve preferred that over the whole basketball game format tbh.

Present day thoughts:

Lola was plenty looney in the original Space Jam. At the time of this original ramble, my standard for looniness was based on characters like Daffy and Wile E. Coyote. But nowadays, I've kinda concluded that she was just as looney as any other looney tunes love interest more or less. The movie went ahead and straight up retconned what little distinct personality she had.

Also, I still believe this premise would've been more interesting than the final story we got. I'm not particularly invested in the preservation of the looney tunes' characters in something as corporate as the Space Jam movies so might as well lean into the ooc-melodrama of it since the final film was just Lebron-lip service atp.

[espressohhh]

Excerpts from my thesis on Hedda Gabler

#1: Introduction, Modernism, and Feminism

This series is based on my BA thesis on Hedda Gabler. I won’t be uploading the thesis itself - parts of it have been reworked for this format. Hopefully, I've succeeded in including only the most interesting parts in a way that’s easier to follow. By no means do I consider this a complete or flawless interpretation, and I welcome differing views, thoughts, or questions. The following structure is a preliminary format. Part one is an introduction covering my starting point, common trends in production, and HG’s connections to modernity and feminism. Part two analyzes Hedda’s idealism through a philosophical framework. Part three focuses on her communication and relationships. Part four examines her collapse. Part five is a deep dive into the Eyre version used in the 2005 Almeida production starring Eve Best, using other translations for comparison. I also want to do a post on the van Hove NT production, but how to find the time..? Ever since I got an ask about HG the other day, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. I’ve got finals at the moment, but I’m hoping to have these posts up by June.

Introduction I think some things need to be said at the outset. To understand Hedda, one has to recognize that her idealism and yearning are expressions of a Romantic utopia and a product of her being diminished and confined as a person in a gendered and sexualized way. 

It is important to remember that Ibsen's work can be interpreted in many different ways. The way I read Ibsen will never be like anyone else's. Some view him as a playwright of romantic vision and tragic idealism. Others see him as a relentless critic of upper middle class society, someone who exposes psychological flaws, moral weakness, and decay. More recently, postmodern scholars have begun to interpret his work as a melancholic diagnosis of the loss of meaning in modernity.

Theater as an art form is close to our lives. It challenges us to understand its characters, much in the same way as we in real life have an obligation to understand our fellow humans. The difference is that we cannot influence or intervene in the theater, unlike what we try to do in real life. I think Cavell said something along the lines that Desdemona will die every night, but every night I can do nothing to stop it, and every night I have to acknowledge the tragedy of her death.

The same goes for Hedda. Every time I read HG or see it, I have to approach Hedda with a neutral gaze, so I can hear what she is saying and observe how she is acting in order to understand her. And every time, by the end of the play, I want to cry at the tragedy of it all, most importantly for Hedda. 

In general, I think it helps to acknowledge that we often seek out problematic characters in the arts, while we seek to avoid them in real life. Hedda is difficult. Hedda is immoral. 

General Trends in Production Postmodern productions of HG have tended to reduce Hedda’s yearning and romantic idealism, making her seem ice cold, aggressive, and/or frantic. Often, her deeply emotional interior is downplayed in the general postmodern trend of preferring dark comedy to deep emotions. 

One reviewer of a 1950s Broadway production remarked that “Hedda goes wildly irrational. The neurotic becomes psychotic, and sympathy and compassion go trailing into the wings. By the time she retires to the next room to put a bullet to her breast, the impression is merely that expediency has triumphed—for how else could the curtain be brought down?” Pryce-Jones similarly criticized a New York staging for making Hedda’s malice far too obvious, far too early: “To give the play its full impact, we ought to discover only slowly the full awfulness of which she is capable…” By contrast, Gilman took a more nuanced view, suggesting that “Hedda is not a femme fatale or a study in neurotic behavior as much as she is a locus for energy turned in upon itself, an arena for the struggle of being with non-being.”

Recent Heddas have been overly witty, contrasting with the “she-devil” Heddas of the early 1900s. Sometimes, it feels like the directors don’t expect us to understand her and her longing for something more. I’ve seen productions of HG that are so fast-paced, where she is running around on stage, screaming or crying throughout. To me, those portrayals make it almost impossible to see that she is a general’s daughter on the verge of collapse, that internally, she has a vivid, clear, conceptual idea of how things should be. 

Cate Blanchett’s Hedda was strikingly physical, restless, often flinging her arms about. While effective in its own right, I find it more compelling when Hedda maintains a cool composure, punctuated only by carefully measured outbursts. The entire point is that she is perceived as upper-class and restrained, yet quietly cruel. If the audience meets a visibly unhinged Hedda in Act I, much of the play’s dramatic potential is lost.

Frankly, I’m tired of productions that, intentionally or not, flatten Hedda, reducing her to a caricature of madness, hysteria, villainy, or illness. This oversimplification seems rooted in a mistrust of the audience’s ability to engage with her complexity. Hedda Gabler is fundamentally a study in character, a portrait of human paradox. When a production treats the burning of the manuscript merely as a petty or vengeful act; to stir conflict, or inflict pain on Loevborg and/or Thea, it fails. At the same time, productions and translations should resist the temptation to over-explain or insert clarifying lines that reduce the ambiguity of the original. 

The best productions of Hedda Gabler, in my opinion, show us Hedda’s vast inner life and that she will, even if her circumstances change, always feel restricted, misunderstood, and incapable of human connection. Portrayals of Hedda are at their best when they are able to show her yearning for beauty and the supreme, her despair at being misunderstood and underestimated, her struggle to keep control over herself, and her intense emotions and ideals that shape everything she says and does. Everything that goes on in Hedda‘s mind, this vision of the greatest, is so all-encompassing that it completely dominates the way she thinks. The best Heddas can show us that her ideals, ideas, and visions are so strong that they almost become hallucinatory, that they are the dominating factor in shaping her and everything she says, does, thinks, and feels. 

Modernity and Feminism At its core, Hedda Gabler is a play dealing with modernity, and through that, about subjectivity and meaning. Hedda is hidden and trapped. Her yearning, fear, and disgust make it impossible for her to live. Her despair stems largely from the banality of her life and the world she inhabits. 

Hedda is egotistical and deeply self-centered. At the same time, she wishes to remain invisible, a contradiction (or is it really?) that reveals the extent of her despair, which is existential in nature. She creates a secret world and a secret self, perhaps unconsciously, to exclude others and preserve her identity. She is convinced that her situation, essentially the alienation of modernism, makes it impossible for her to live with beauty, passion, freedom, or meaning. This play is not about rejection of reason, but the search for it. To claim that Hedda’s suicide is difficult to comprehend, or that it comes out of nowhere, is a misunderstanding. This view is disappointingly common, see Hardwick (1974) who wrote that Hedda has a complete lack of motivation.

While Hedda Gabler is typically referred to as a play about “a woman who struggles to settle in the world she lives in”, this framing is too narrow. Yes, the play illuminates the gendered struggles of women, but it needs to be thought of as an example of just a person struggling, without regard to gender. Putting it differently, the play can, and should, be read as a meditation on the modern human condition. Hedda is a person in existential crisis, not merely a woman out of place. 

The play shows the challenges of womanhood in the 1890s, and also the challenges of womanhood that have existed since the beginning of time. One example is pregnancy. It is arguably one of the most dangerous experiences of womanhood, and perhaps the closest women come to death, especially before contemporary medicine. Women are thought of as inferior to and weaker than men, putting women in precarious, dependent positions. Women are expected to uphold puritan ideals, but also live with the fact that men often take advantage of them and place shame upon them afterward. 

Men still dominate the world of Hedda Gabler. One of the first things we notice is Tesman’s female relatives talking about his male relatives, his father and brother, while his mother is notably absent. There is also a telling moment when Tesman says, “But not pink and healthy and putting on weight,” just as Aunt Julle is leaving. Hedda immediately denies the implication, but Aunt Julle brightens, praises Hedda, lauds Hedda. When Aunt Julle exits, Hedda lifts her arms in frustration, only to stop herself from striking anything. She manages to suppress the physical impulse. By the time Tesman returns, she has composed herself again, staring silently out the window. Her isolation becomes tangible. The imagery she uses in that moment, often filled with references to death or decay, underscores the depth of her internal despair.

Up until this point in the play, perhaps the most important takeaway is Hedda’s attempt to maintain freedom from the Tesman family. She tries to control the dynamic, to deny her pregnancy and everything it symbolizes. She does not succeed and ends up seeming rude and self-centered. This pattern repeats throughout the play. We also come to see where Tesman’s priorities lie, whether he consciously acknowledges them or not.

HG proves the challenges of persons adjusting to modernity, and also the challenges of persons who are not understood by or fit in their surroundings. Hedda is fundamentally out of step with her environment. In a world that has abandoned romantic ideals in favor of harsh reality, there is no place for someone with a grandiose, emotional, inner life. Hedda is not like the others, and the people around her neither understand her nor recognize that they don’t. They reduce her to being strange, illogical, or sick.

The greatest part of this play is that Ibsen combines all this, so one does not have to choose between a feminist reading or a universal reading of it. It is tempting to think that Ibsen recognized that a female protagonist, subject to unique forms of societal pressure and scrutiny, would be better than a male to exemplify the difficulties of modernity. Brack trapping Hedda in the final act makes something tangible out of her experience, it literalizes her internal experience. Her lack of freedom reinforces the problems of modernity.

–

I'll link future posts here:

[mocha-writes]

Tagged by @rlainarin to do this tag game

Three Ships:

Strahd von Zarovich/Patrina Velikovna (Ravenloft/Curse of Strahd): I admit they’re both close to—if not already at—the point of being original characters with the departures I’ve taken from canon when constructing my own lore for a potential CoS campaign, but I have been thinking about them for years (the guy who tagged me in this can confirm it). Every day I grow closer to the rewrite where the love story at the center of Ravenloft’s formation was theirs instead and they’re co-Darklords of Barovia.

Lestat de Lioncourt/Nicolas de Lenfent (The Vampire Chronicles): I just love how deep, meaningful, and ultimately terrible their relationship seemed in The Vampire Lestat. It’s such an inversion of the tropes I usually see associated with romance between childhood friends. The contrasts between them and their equally fierce emotions compel me, even though I know their story ends suddenly and tragically. (It also adds interesting layers to Lestat’s eventual relationship with Louis)

Orpheus/Eurydice (Hadestown): It feels a bit weird highlighting the musical rather than the myth it’s based on but anyway, I really love Hadestown Orpheus and Eurydice because of their contrasts and how they share each other’s worldviews (though in different ways) by the end, and how despite everything—despite reconciling Hades and Persephone and giving the world back its seasons—everything still ends bittersweetly.

First Ship: I’m pretty sure it was Erik/Christine from The Phantom of the Opera musical. I hadn’t even seen the 2004 movie or the stage version as a kid, but I squeezed everything I could out of (I think) Wikipedia and DeviantArt lists (the kind where one drew responses to prompts) about the film version and made things up in my own head. The memory that’s coming to mind is of gender-flipping them and trying to write my own play with that premise. Now, I personally prefer Raoul/Christine, but they still have a place in my heart, particularly the 1989 movie’s versions of them.

Last Movie: Hairspray (2007)

Last Song: “The New Girl in Town” (stuck in my head thanks to the aforementioned movie)

Currently Reading: The Vampire Lestat. It’s been slow-going with this one because Life but I have around 200 pages left. It’s made me appreciate Lestat even more, though I don’t necessarily believe everything he says.

Currently Watching: Not engaged with any TV series at the moment

Currently Eating: I had popcorn for a snack a while ago

Currently Craving: Stability, that setting up my new PC will go well, that I can play video games again and introduce my fictional people to my friends and their fictional people… I miss having the drive for OC asks and writing prompts. I’d like to get back into those somehow

This was originally titled something like “tag 9 people you want to get to know better,” but I struggle with thinking of people for these things… Tagging @perkeleen-lavellan , @hurl-a-can , @whenyoulosesmallmind and @darkspawntaxcollectors . There’s no obligation, as always, this was just fun and I thought I’d share. If you want to do this but weren’t tagged, do it anyway; let me enable you.

[inaconstantstateofchange]

I have to ask: how did you let Astarion make the choice with regards to the ritual himself? I know you can let characters like shadowheart choose during their pivotal moments, but in my playthrough I only had the options to help, to persuade (after dialog regarding the other spawn) or refuse. So I’m really curious to see a few people say that they were given the option to let him choose for himself, and wondering what triggers that.

Tragically, I’m pretty sure it is something akin to a bug. It was on my first full play-through and I just thought it was an option I hadn’t heard about and was stoked.

After some research (once I didn’t have to worry about spoilers), I figured out it was definitely not the typical Cazador-confrontation cutscene, and went back through a few iterations of the scene to see what caused the difference.

I thought at first it was because I interrupted the entire ritual so it never even went through one round, but as cool as that would have been, it ended up coming down to me playing a druid, and being in Wild Shape at the time the confrontation cutscene started.

Usually the game will force you out of Wild Shape for those scenes, but for some reason in this one it didn’t, and just treated it like my character was not there.

The scene that I got has some weird lighting and occasional consistency issues, but otherwise still very much maintains coherence and internal logic, so it was definitely coded for at least to some extent.

For that reason, and it being my preference of all the options, I do consider it a canon outcome, even if by technicality.

I have a video capture I took of it embedded in one of my recent response posts, but I can also link it here. (I’m on mobile right now, so sorry if the formatting is weird.)

I hope that answers your question, and I’m more than happy to talk more about it!

[kateub]

#1 Sylvia Plath and the Adolescent Girl

The year is 2019, and I'm in my senior AP Lit class because I was obviously that brand of over-achiever. We were assigned to write in-depth analyses of poems of our choice, preferably from one of "the greats."

I landed upon Sylvia Plath because Google told me she was "edgy and different," and I chose "Morning Song" because the title sounded pretty. Top-tier decision-making.

Here's the poem. In short, it focuses on her feelings towards motherhood, specifically in a child's earliest days. I won't go into too much detail on this poem. If you want a better discussion of it, check out this great post I found.

So. There I am, all of seventeen years old, writing about how motherhood might change a person's life -- how the reflection in the mirror will look unfamiliar, how you begin to value another's existence over your own. Meanwhile, my largest issue in life is paying my rent. Which, to be fair, isn't a great issue for a teenager to have. The point is that I know nothing about motherhood, and I'm very good at bullshitting because I got a 96 on the paper (damn formatting; it'll get ya' every time).

Despite my inability to relate to its intended meaning, I loved the writing. It was flowery and sweet on the tongue. I could read it over and over again without getting bored. Each word had a new meaning after every read. When the project ended, I used my grungy tip money from a certain nameless drive-in to purchase a Sylvia Plath poetry collection at my local Barnes and Nobel.

And thus, the love affair began. I was hooked. It was the first time I felt that literature -- as lifeless as it may appear -- understood me. A woman who lived a much different life than mine decades prior had been able to translate my feelings into words, and the stars had aligned perfectly for me to discover her one fateful Tuesday morning in English class.

The human condition never changes, no matter the circumstances. Romance is always romance, and a suicidal teenaged girl is always a suicidal teenaged girl. She'll always think of red poppy fields when she sees her own blood. She'll listen for her father in seashells. She'll believe that she can come back to life, whether it's 1963 or 2015.

So, all of that being said might seem antithetical to my argument moving forward. . .

This is from an article on Sylvia Plath as America's "cinematic sad girl":

Because Plath's work has become synonymous with pain and suffering, her name is watered down to nothing more than a tragic figure instead of one that, despite her suicidal tendencies, possessed profound hope.

As a whole, we tend to look down upon things that teenaged girls enjoy. Look at Twilight, and Uggs, and Starbucks, and basically every young-adult romcom. We see them as trivial, basic, or *gasp* girly. Because there's absolutely nothing worse than being associated with women (the horror!).

Let's be clear. This sentiment is rooted in sexism. I believe something to this degree occurs a bit with our dear Plath, with a dash of good, old-fashioned, mental health stigmas. Another except from our previous article:

There are countless examples of other characters in film and television using The Bell Jar or Plath's name as a synonym for 'depressed,' 'complicated,' or 'overdramatic', emphasizing her misinterpretation in the cultural lexicon.

Why do I care? I love Plath. I'm not claiming that the bulk of her work isn't about her struggle with mental health, or that you should love her, too. Just to post the question: is the issue Plath's focus on her mental health, or that too many teenaged girls relate to her, so we must shit on her because something that women enjoy must be awful?

And with that, I will leave you all with a short list of some of my favorite Plath poems.

Lady Lazarus

On the Decline of Oracles

Fever 103°

Wreath for a Bridal

Ella Mason and Her Eleven Cats

[myloveforhergoeson]

ash's january 2024 reading round up

find all the books and fics i read this month under the cut with a link to the synopsis and my reviews/ratings attached :)

this is just for fun! i'm not a professional, i just like to read <3

book list!

1. Wreck the Halls by Tessa Bailey (18+!)

• review: i am a massive, massive, massive tessa bailey fan so it's no surprise that this was my favorite from this month and my first book of 2024! i received this christmas-themed rom-com as a holiday gift and i absolutely loved every second of it. the plot centers around the main couple, beat and melody (i know, right?!), who are the children of two bitter ex-bandmates, attempting to reunite their mothers' band on a live, 24 hour reality tv show! definitely one of the most unique concepts for a contemporary romance book i've read in quite some time! i loved following beat and melody's dual perspectives on both their past and their present as well as unraveling how difficult their family relationships were despite their fortuitous upbringings. the position of being the child of a famous individual can be quite isolating and even though beat didn't mind the spotlight and melody hated it, they're still some of the only people in the world who understood the other's struggles. the 24-hour live stream format was also very interesting to read from their perspectives - they were so funny both on and off camera! their mothers, trina and octavia were such dynamic characters as well; learning about their bitter rivalry through the perspectives of their children was so neat! between the two main characters, melody was my favorite. she was such a well rounded and dynamic character! my favorite chapters were all from her perspective. i could have gone without beat's weird overprotectiveness of her though - personal preference. i'm not too fond of characters like that and sometimes he took his protectiveness way too far for my liking! highly recommend for fans of campy rom-coms and those looking for a fresh take on the genre :)

• rating: 4/5 epic guitar solos !

2. My Life With the Walter Boys by Ali Novak

• review: very conflicted feelings on this one. if i hadn't watched the netflix adaptation first, i think i would have liked the book more... idk. like other published wattpad novels before it, the main character jackie is displaced from her perfect new york city girl life after a tragic accident leaves her an orphan, so what must she do? move to rural colorado to live with her mother's best friend and her 12 children. of which 11 are boys. oh no! there were parts of the book that i really enjoyed, like getting to see jackie bond with her new housemates and get used to the small town lifestyle and making new friends around her high school. the show cut out a good majority of her friends but i really liked them in the book! however, aside from jackie and her love triange between walter boys alex and cole, all the other characters were super underdeveloped and two dimensional, which made me yearn for some of the original plotlines developed for the show. i feel like making the main conflict center around a family of 14 and not really developing 12 of them is just a waste of time. and also, i didn't really vibe with jackie or alex in this version of the story. i'm still a proud member of team cole in the book and the tv show. i also wasn't fond of the ending personally... tldr, if you're interested in the plot synopsis i have linked, just skip the book and watch the show. which feels backward to say, but trust me ok!

• rating: 2/5 characters i liked in the book but got cut out of the show :)

3. The Deal by Elle Kennedy (18+!)

• review: ah. yes. like in all things. men like hockey. women love music. haha. my favorite thing about this book was the concept - i'm a real sucker for these contemporary hockey romance novels set in fake college towns with fake hockey teams and a book for each player and their love life... generally, i very much appreciate what elle kennedy was going for with this one. that being said. the male main character, garrett, was just an ass for more than half of the entire novel and the female main character, hannah, just let him walk over her for a good part of the beginning. usually i like fmc's in books like these, but she was just a bit boring to me... yikes. i did really enjoy how gattett and hannah's stories intertwined throughout the book, and even though garret was a persistent dick he sure loves hannah. i can respect that. in addition to the main two, i though their respective friend groups were interesting as well! the jocks and the theater kids coming together to unionize is always funny to me :) hannah and garrett's two worlds blending together into one was nice. i'm planning to pick up the sequel to see how that progresses as the shift moves to other players on the hockey team! if it's got a hockey player in it, good chance i'm gonna read it.

• potential trigger warnings if interested in reading: mentions of a past sexual assault on the female main character; mentions of past physical abuse on the male main character; mentions of current physical abuse on a side character

• rating: 3/5 times i had to google a hockey term while reading !

4. Wildfire by Hannah Grace (18+!)

• review: if you run in booktok spaces, you may have heard of Hannah grace's other novel, icebreaker. in my humblest opinion, this book deserved the hype icebreaker got! main characters russ and aurora were sooo dynamic and i absolutely loved their second chance romance while they were both camp counselors at a fancy summer camp! both of them having their own separate storylines that ended up converging was so well written and the two of them supporting each other unconditionally was so refreshing. the atmosphere of the camp and surrounding town were so adorable - i wish i could go there! plus all the sneaking around they had to do because of the camp counselor's no-fraternizing rule... mm. russ was so freaking sweet too - not enough sweet, kind, shy gues in these types of books. i also enjoyed aurora's confident, outgoing personality! the side characters were adorable as well and the cameos from characters in icebreaker had me screaming! ugh i love them and this book so freaking much!! highly highly recommend for fans of second chance romance or good books in general :)

• potential trigger warnings if interested in reading: gambling addiction struggles in a parent; parental neglect and verbal abuse on the male/female main character

• rating: 4/5 marshmallows to make the perfect cup of cocoa

fic list!

Goddamned (51100 words) by skyline

• fandom: big time rush (tv)

• pairings: kendall knight/james diamond, brief kendall knight/jett stetson, carlos garcia/logan mitchell

• i can't sing this fic's praises enough, one of the best i've read in a quite some time. a pjo/btr crossover is just what i needed in my life and i enjoyed every moment, every word, every twist and turn... so so so obsessed! the world building was so incredible and after i finished it i couldn't think about anything else for hours. i can't recommend this one enough :)) we all know i love a long fic and this one was just perfect

[thegoodceai]

afddighadfi <3333 sending all the hearts <33, sry for the late reply I had a Long Time at work but I had read your message and was also liek *twirling hair, kicking feet* trying to think of a fitting response !

Letsgo!! IF is soo good, I need to get more into IF if anything. Fallen Hero is Top Tier. Got a top three IF? And Nice! U a player or dming for them?

Aww! I'd love to know any info about her! Plz feel free to yell at me about her. Wuts her (current) name, design?, sign, The Demons (the story ur putting her through lol).

Bro! I've relatively done the same, I had waited so long to play Retri, wut ending did u get 👀👀👀. Ortega is just 😩😩😩

I hadn't heard of her nor the song, but checking it out I can definitely see why it's been on repeat <333.

We love little sharp bbies <3. Do u have a preference for color? Got a name picked out already lol?

Fair Enough, least they chase u with a stake. The Aesthetic and Seduction are unmatched I will give em that ;p. Oh! I know Of the series, but next to nothing what its about, wuts it about/what drew you into it? ((I know I could Google it, butt any excuse to get you to chat/yell more <3))

Thank you for replying to all my random questions lol. Been following for a long time, and in my mind ur already a Friend :))))

<3333 sending all the good vibes, i know we've been mutuals for a while and truly the one reaction i have every time we interact is Friend!!!!!

i am DMing for my friends, it was the only way to get them to play. i started out with only 2 players, just for some light fun, but i ended up with 5 now and a whole homebrew campaign that they can play around in and so far they do seem to be enjoying being chaotic gremlins with the side of Mystery Plot i threw at them

IF is amazing, i love the versatility of the format. idk if i could pick a true top 3, but for ones in progress ones i keep going back and replaying there's A Tale of Crowns (a favorite and one of the first ones i played, like 2 years ago when it was first released), Project Hadea, and Attolo. i love all of them dearly and cannot wait to see how they end up. for finished ones, i loveeeee Way Walkers University (i feel like it's so underrated, but i really like the style it is written in and how well developed the world of it is, there just so much and the variations you can play are huge), The Passenger (Roach my beloved), and i really liked I, The Forgotten One (been following this one before it was published, and it's truly not everyones' cup, but i found it compelling)

the story i'm working on is kind of fantasy adventure, heavily based on mythology and folklore (specifically romanian one), and i am planning to like, make it public at some point this year (still ironing and detailing some stuff, but the bones are solid, it's been rooting around in my brain for A While). the main cast are all variations of very very old ocs i have (originally for another story sort of in the same vein, but i'd like to think i grew a bit as a writer and they're more put together now, as well as the story itself). so imma hold on to the details about this whole thing for now but aaah thank u for being interested in it <3333

aah first ending i got was accident as sidestep, stayed as sidestep, and got the whole old gang involved in breaking them out of the hospital. i've been playing sidestep as a reluctant villain that's gunning for justice/exposing what the Powers That Be are actually up to (anarchist villain baby), all while being friendly with the Rangers and ended up keeping the cover so none of them know about the villain sidegig lmao. been trying to psych myself to play a fully evil sidestep but. it's hard. and i loooove playing reluctant and tired mcs that are done with everything but ultimately will do the right thing at any cost (tragic heroes my beloved)

16 year old me would have given anything to have a black cat named either Loki or Thanatos and you know what? they were right. but in reality i will probably just end up adopting a bunch of stray animals and naming them like. normal human names. or food names (i am very fond of the name Clementine, but it is kind of a mouthful)

lmao i remember next to nothing of the series, i've read it forever ago (i was like, maybe 13?? when i got the first book). all i remember was that i liked Sookie very much at the time. it was i think the first like, adult book series i read and it was fascinating to my young brain, seeing a fully developed female main character being badass and resourceful and kinda doing her own thing (the series is from her perspective, so that was also kind of novel at the time, after reading a lot of like, classical literature and school stuff). idk if i'd recommend it now, but it was definitely formative for me. it's also the series that got me into like, modern fantasy (both reading and writing it)

[semi-imaginary-place]

ffxv episode ignis, ardyn, dawn of the future

episode ignis: what awkward placement. this explains why ravus turned against niflhiem and the ring deal but it's got so many endgame spoilers and assumes players have played the ending. see this is an argument for why dlc is a bad thing it reminds (ha!) me of kh3 where games now days are designed to be incomplete and dlc is story mandatory so one game for the price of 2 but worse i actually prefer smt digital devil saga and persona 2's duology format which are each complete story arcs instead of this 93% 7% dlc deal. ff15 in general isn't the best (or the worst) at explaining what is going on so it's hard to follow why things are happening without this extra material. ffxv isn't even that bad the story is coherent without the dlc mostly, but it still bothers me. dod3 goes so much in the opposite direction it's funny it's not even a videogame anymore it's a multimedia project gotta rake in the cash.

anyways ignis is the devs favorite isn't he. alternate end is well done and i loved the lore but im not sure it should exist. first choices i dont think ignis would give up if it was for noct. if chosen ignis pays his life to surpass his limit and draw from the ring's power why isn't he dead. look i get that the crystal is a giant magic plot breaking plot device but there's got to be narrative limits. deus ex lunafreya. things went a little too well sure they got some ardyn-less free time but he's shown by the throne so he's out againwhy hasn't he killed ravus or something. which btw wow ravus is the one thing holding the universe together and the darkness from taking over should have tried harder to keep him alive huh (also this isn't how genomics and inheritance works like if every generation has 2 kids that's exponential number of oracle descendants). and why is noctis still alive did they just not destroy ardyn? if they didn't permanently end ardyn great job kicking the can down the road and passing over the super special chosen king, who knows if any one else in the future can do it. the main problem though as with any alternate route in any story is the risk of cheapening or downgrading the main story. mostly it just comes off as the writers being indecisive.

it feels like the writers are relying on lunafreya and the crystal to just be miracle workers and move the plot however they want. it also cheapens making the player choose between not using the ring and losing to ardyn, using some of the power at the cost of eyesight but that not being enough, and trading your life for the power to take down ardyn like it's suppose to be a hard choice but the writers take the consequences away

episode ardyn: i get that they're trying to do a whole oracle king romance parallel but well actually ffxv already has no respect for how ancestry and genomics actually work so why do i bother. oh aera is the og oracle. flueret and the oracles are her descendants but she was betrothed to ardyn and died so did she have kids before marriage or what is going on. really with the whole absorbing and (kinda) neutralizing the starscourge and healing people of it ardyn should have been the oracle and the ancestor of the flueret line and if they wanted to avoid the incest undertones just make it them not brothers so that caelum and flueret were political rival families both trying to get the throne. (except isn't tenebrae on another continent... eh it doesn't matter tenebrae being 200 mi closer to insomnia wouldn't have made a difference to the story). maybe it's the insomnia (ha!) but im liking this idea more and more like maybe the original prophecy wasn't a savior/warrior king so much as just a savior/fighter of darkness and so ardyn almost became the oracle king

yeah the writers have lost me i've stopped caring. the whole ardyn thing always felt messy like the want this embodiment of darkness and evil but they also want him to be tragic but they also want him to be noctis' foil but also luna's foil and the writers don't juggle all this narrative weight well, something has to give. Like somnus sucks but the narrative treats him as having divine providence and ultimately doing the right thing when no that was neutral at best. ffxv is so stuck in this binary of good and bad unwilling to truly transgress the boundary they have drawn between good light divine, and evil darkness taint. and then bahamut comes down and tells ardyn that his role is to bring darkness. and like what this is such a major reveal either it shouldn't be here at all or it should be in the main game. because this proves that the 6 aren't on humanity's side like much of the cast believes, bahamut isn't acting for the sake of humanity or the world they're acting to bring forth this prewritten script. i think this is my least favorite dlc, it's very messy writing wise.

skimming through the cancelled dlc and dawn of the future, the dlc since episode ignis seemed to have been veering off in a new direction probably best that it was cancelled because this new thematic direction would have been better tackled in a sequel or side game. in main ffxv the gods are distant and fate is a reassurance a comfort that one has purpose in life. where as the dlc episode ignis and ardyn are about the flipside of that how destiny and fate can also be a shackle, it's about defying the gods.

Like they wanted ardyn to be this kind self sacrificial healer but then dropped that character trait with no continuity like they could have made it that he had a savior complex and ego but that didn't come through or they could have made it about how he felt the people owed him and now feels betrayed by everyone but i didn't get that either. btw quarantine and prevention and vaccination are scientifically better than curing individuals when it comes to infectious diseases irl. so ardyn's characterization is someone who cares about the small scale and individual even when it's to the detriment of the greater whole, and that characterization got dropped. there's also how ardyn's turning evil only happened in the last like 30 years so his turn towards revenge narratively feels rushed it would have been nice seeing the daemonification and memory reading eating at him in stages. or i mean there was 2000 years could have had him conscious the whole time and stewing in misery turning over the same thoughts over and over reliving aera's death and having that drive him insane. oh yeah and bahamut pops up out of no where. bahamut is so plot breaking it begs the question why he didn't intervene in main game more.

dawn of the future great lunafreya is alive again. see this is the problem of having plot breaking super gods you cheapen their original deaths by making death meaningless. now that can be an interesting story in of itself but it contradicts xv main game's themes. this is also the luna ardyn show where as in maingame these two are barely secondary characters. noctis, gladio, ingis, and prompto are the main characters of ffxv butt they aren't plot important so don't show up here at all. all this definitely should have been a separate game. yeah all of this dc should have been a separate story imagine if we got lunafreya as the main character. like hey remember what i said earlier about ardyn absorbing miasma as a parallel to lunafreya? also wasn't the oracle bloodline holding back the darkness aka the apocaylse happened when ravus died well since the writers brought luna back shouldn't that change. i think the writers didn't think through killing luna. she's so lore important but she does nothing in main game. see they flip the script of noctis being the chosen king instead he just happened to be the dude around when ardyn woke up which is interesting but again very very different thematically from main game. wow the writers really went wild with this, kinda cool really good concepts but this and maingame are separate stories.

see fiction needs rules that's how you build tension when you throw the rules out the window things just become a mess with no stakes. which can be interesting and also very post modern absurd but that's not what's happening here. like so much emphasis was put on the cost the ring of lucii and king powers have. that regis is aging faster than he should that it took noctis 10 years to absorb the ring's half of the power and then to throw it out or how ardyn was showed to have daemonified pernamently with no way to cleanse the miasma and then haha jk there's no consequences because gentianta healed them! that's such an asspull you build up all these stakes only to say last minute that they don't matter. which again can be done for a thematic point like the writers could have really leaned into how humanity are just playthings and the gods have absolute power and decide the facts of the world (like yeah get meta and absurd with it kill luna 45 times and bring her back, nothing has meaning nothing matters!) but the writers didn't succeed in this and also this type of story is very difficult to tell.

thinking about this more and totally could have been a side game or compilation of episodes. Persona 2 did it where Eternal Punishment overwrote the ending of Innocent Sin and the two are rather tonally and thematically different.

[daandov]

[ ... ] ─── i do it so it FEELS LIKE HELL - i do it so i feel real.

i am only thirty and like the cat i have nine times to die. ─── [ ... ]

O MY ENEMY DO I TERRIFY ??

#DAANDOV. ──────── a writing blog for an ORIGINAL CHARACTER for the LAST DRAGONBORN in 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚'𝐬 𝐞𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐬 𝐕 𝐬𝐤𝐲𝐫𝐢𝐦. [ ... ] focusing on motifs of :: the tragic hero , being nothing but a vessel for prophecy , gods leaving husks behind of their champions , coming out the other side of the hero's journey worse off , dogged loyalty , getting chewed up and spit out , feminine rage , how much more of myself do i have to give? , being doomed by the narrative [ ... ]

crossovers are preferred & no knowledge of elder scrolls is needed to interact ── blog established october 2023 , character est in 2018 , blog triggers include ;; substance abuse & suicidal ideation , loved by ouija , 21+ , she/her , rules below the cut

affiliated with @recitedemise , @bendwill , @tidesfate / @eldritchborn

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ⸻⸻

( ₁. )  character timeline .   ( ₂. )   pre-est connections .   ( ₃. )   spotify .   ( ₄. )   meta sideblog .   ( ₅. )   pinterest .   ( ₆. )   carrd .

001. general  ⸻ this blog is a writing blog for my oc VALVARI ALANTAR who i've built over the past five years. intrinsically tied to the legacy of the dragonborn mod, she is a canon divergent last dragonborn. i use caps from baldurs gate just because of it's character creation.

SPARK NOTES :: valvari's adoptive fathers own museums across the world. she's grown up first learning deep history, and being more book focused, but as she began showing a bit of a temper and anger streak, she was sent with one of her father's to start adventuring to begin finding artifacts and curios that are gathered to store in the museums. just recently, they've opened a new museum and val is going to start adventuring on her own in order to help fill it.

002. following ⸻  this is a highly selective blog , i am keeping my circle very small right now and will only interact with those who make concerted efforts to plot with me. i practice mains, i'm not interested in exclusives. i do not follow writers under the age of 21. if you're ever softblocked and you still want to interact, please feel free to follow again, it's never that serious i promise.

i softblock liberally if we have not interacted, i'm not interested in being a number to people. i don't expect to be responding to our threads every day, i don't expect constant ooc talk, we all have lives and other muse interests. what i expect is interaction with other posts that show you're interested in my muse. a like or a reply to a post goes a long way. when time goes on and you're radio silent but still active on dash, i'll likely just softblock just so i'm not feeling unwanted. i promise it's not a big deal, it's just about curating my dash to active mutuals.

003. formatting  ⸻ i don’t care about formatting or icon usage on your end , you do what makes you most comfortable. i personally use normal text with some formatting, and icons only show up in writing if i feel like it. i'll use them if i'm feeling it, otherwise there may be threads or posts where they're absent because i couldn't be bothered to add them. if there's something about my formatting that doesn't work for you let me know and i can adjust.

004. shipping ⸻  i love shipping and am always open to discussing it. val requires chemistry to ship with and i require being comfortable together ooc. it's not going to be a focus on this blog and i'll never be the first to ask in order to keep people from feeling uncomfortable. if you are interested, let me know, i won't consider it forceshipping, but be aware i may say no.

please note :: val is sex positive and a bit blunt, so she may flirt if she thinks your muse is attractive but i'm ALWAYS okay with her being shut down. i promise it's never that serious, and i'm not trying to beg for a ship. she will also drop the topic the moment someone isn't interested.

005. plotting ⸻  i rely heavily on plotting and interacting ooc and my attention will be focused around those of my followers who i have a plot for and rapport with. it isn’t necessary to have one off the bat , but if interactions are going to go anywhere , plotting is required. i typically prioritize these threads/muses and if we go a period of time without interacting or you showing interest in my muse/blog at all, i'll softblock so i can keep my dash to the people i'm actively writing/chatting with.

006. interacting ⸻ i will like starter call , but do not wait to see one on my blog because it won’t happen often. instead , please send memes. they can always become threads. and they are great ways to explore our muses while we aren't working on our active threads. send them and send them often, i'm never agitated if you're sending multiple. i'll delete any i don't have muse for but i'll always answer some.

007. triggers ⸻ there will be adult content present on this blog including , but not limited to :: sexual content , potential mention of self harm , violence , adult language. if you are uncomfortable with any of these please tell me and i will avoid them in our threads. i don't have any specific triggers, however i will always tag potentially triggering things as : trigger tw

008. ooc ⸻ hey i’m ouija , 30+ i’m just a nerd. I have a full time job and a home to maintain so my activity will vary. icon border by ariapsds and icon psd by jaynedits

i've grown comfortable existing on the edges of fandoms and just fitting val within them, thus i'm very crossover friendly.rape, incest, pedophilia, hate / bigotry (ie: racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc) is not accepted on this blog. i may keep myself distant from callouts or personal drama that appears (mainly just because i don't like calling attention to myself), however i'm not against them when it comes to keeping the dash safe and letting people know about problematic people.

[chuurotonin]

pulling up one from the archives for the first time and just because the tag #diary is somehow useful because it's one of the tags in my pinned post above this :D this gets lengthy and at some cases, personal so i will be editing some of details on this entry so here it is the first ever #diary post on chuurotonin <3 enjoy reading! i love u!!!

June 23, 2023

i dreamed about [], a boy i went to school with on [] and i want to make out with him. he is cute and what,'s weird about liking him is when we we're once schoolmates, one day, he called me "bakla" which became a derogatory term for me knowing i really liked him back then, it traumatized me because of how i didn't like the sound of the word growing up, it felt violent and unwelcoming. it's way too odd because for months, waiting for graduation to come and sweep us all away into first year high school, that tragic happening made me ignore him for the rest of waiting for the school year to end, a slow hammer pound to the nails punctured in my heart, i acted like he didn't exist. it was awkward as fuck because we had drum and lyre practice together and our line formations are always close to each other. (side note: I hated [] practices and i hated playing []. if there were anything i would take back from the past, it would be 1) That i couldn't eat too much because I was too []. and 2) That i shouldn't have agreed to playing the fuck ass [] in that tired []. I was even surprised we'd win that title on my last school year at that school.

it hurt trying to pretend someone close to your heart doesn't exist not because you want to do that, it's because you are a young boy like him, in the closet, not ready to face the world of queerness, trying to cover up the fact that you like him, by a measure of "too much." i didn't let it consume me, i can't have that, and even if i would, i couldn't admit to him that i liked him :( it's a depressing thought but the past is gone and here is now, who knows i might end up bumping into him someday, fun fact: i've seen him on [] a couple of times when i was a senior year student studying [] and it was mindblowingly surreal seeing him after all the years that has passed. for me, [] is like an otter that needs to be held 24/7, I've never given this much thought or I've never rlly put it into words but I do like him, a lot, and if i was chicken shit to tell the world how i felt back then, i'd have nothing to lose if i was to tell him anyway. He's adorable and i wish we we're still friends. I just wished he didn't call me that word because to be frank, I'd be offended if he'd do it again. but I'll say it to him, i'll ask him first if he remembers me ignoring him and tell him why i did it in the first place. I wonder if he remembers all of that. I remember when he used to wear these blue or brown (?) velcro sandals, i'd stare at them at drum and lyre practice. I hated his sandals, I've always thought flip flops were better than sandals. Infinitely better if it was worn by a boy I liked.

[] never left my mind, but he was in the corner or a speck of thought somewhere here. what shocked me the most dreaming about him is i just "thought" of a different [], the [], cousin of []'s and []'s [], who i think is cute too but my mind just says, shouts and prefers this [] ([].) minutes after of this dream (which i couldn't remember, and i hate the fact that i couldn't...now i'm regretting i didn't write the details of it the moment i woke up.) i thought of looking him up on facebook. apparently, he bakes cookies and cakes and all that pastry and dessert shit. his Matcha cookies looks good, so, i really don't know if i'll add him and i *might* have to order some from him. the last post from his [] business is from 2021 though so i don't see a reason for me to order. but i can see a reason for me to shoot him a friend request, hit him up and confess my feelings to him after months of hanging out or whatever. i guess we'll have to find out the next time I will pull up the Notes app and start typing again like a mad bitch whose supposed to be sleeping now because I'm tired from nothing but I'm doing good mentally far from when I was employed at fucking [] house of fake ass fucking FUCK YOU [] A.K.A []rat-looking-motherfucker [] who verbally and psychologically abused me repeatedly.

anyways, this felt like an essay-diary hybrid. so good luck, good life, good love.

~

i feel likethe next diary post won't be like this by the way ! if you made it this far, thank you and ilu!!