#but more realistically i think a pre-outsiders tv show would be so so so good

[boysborntodie]

Me @ to anyone, please anyone, I am begging you-

[beccascribbles]

kita, kunimi, iwa, and kenji w a shy gf that comes to their games?

a/n - omg 'shy gf' kind of me though

you turned to face kita's grandmother, pulling at the hem of your sweatshirt. the day before, you had sat with his grandmother as she helped you embroider kita's name and number on the back, and inarizaki on the front. she reached over, taking your hand and giving it a small squeeze.

"he's really happy you decided to come," she explained, hand patting at your thigh as both your gazes turned to face the volleyball court, where inarizaki had just appeared. she recalled with a fond smile. “you should’ve seen him this morning, pacing around the house. i don’t think he’s been more excited for a game before. he told me to keep an eye on you. i’m sure he told you to look after me too.”

“yeah, he did,” you replied, glancing down briefly at your hands joined in your lap. when you glanced back upwards, kita’s gaze was focused on you, his hand raised in a wave. beside you, his grandmother was waving enthusiastically, beaming down at her grandson. hesitantly, you lifted your hand in response, a slight smile tugging at the corners of your mouth. you mouthed, “good luck.”

he nodded in thanks before turning around and shifting his attention back to the team. now that his back was to you, you couldn’t see the wide grin splitting his face. from your position in the stands, you couldn’t hear the teasing remark thrown his way by atsumu, or see the resulting flush that crept up kita’s cheeks.

as the game progressed, you found yourself getting lost in the excitement of it, leaning forward in your seat with mouth agape. you were so lost in what was happening on the court you didn’t notice the small looks kita kept shooting at you, the glances enough to reassure him that you were fine, coupled with the looks his grandmother would give him.

at the games conclusion, you stood from your seat, clapping loudly and grinning down at him proudly. it didn’t matter to you that he had only played for a small portion of the game. the result was the team’s win, and a testament to him as a captain.

“well done, kita,” you cheered, voice not loud enough to carry above the sound of the band. he read it on your face anyway, and, when he was able to reach his phone, messaged you telling you where to meet him.

you turned to his grandmother, offering her your hand. it was with her help that you navigated the crowds, the woman’s presence calming, a reminder that you weren’t alone. but, when you were about to arrive, she turned to you, her hand resting on your shoulder.

“i’m going to go outside to get some fresh air,” she said, smiling kindly at you. “come meet me when you’ve finished congratulating him.”

“wait,” you stammered, about to plead with her to stay, not welcoming the idea of suddenly being alone. you words were cut off when you flinched at the feel of somebody’s hand wrapping around yours.

“hey, calm down,” soothed kita, stepping into your line of sight. he began to rub the back of your hand with his thumb soothingly. “it’s just me.”

“shin,” you gasped, reaching forward and wrapping your arms around his waist. his own went around you in response, one hand cradling the back of your head. “you won! it was incredible.”

he let out a low laugh, letting his head drop slightly to rest against your own. he murmured into your hair, “thanks for coming.”

your hands clutch at the material of his jacket, holding tight as you calm your breathing. he has a couple more minutes until the team are meeting up, having arrived early so they could watch the game before their own. after receiving the text message from you though, he was quick to leave, slipping away before anyone could stop him.

realistically, he should have know he'd find you hovering outside the entrance, uncertain of whether you should enter or not. however, he is slightly surprised when you rush towards him, hands immediately clutching at his jacket as you press your head against his chest. he lets out a sigh, reaching up to pat your head, ruffling the hair there slightly.

"i should probably show you to the stands," he explains, looking down at you as he steps back, extending his hand. you take it, stepping in closer to press against his arm. he doesn't hate being this close to you, enjoys it really. he feels secure knowing that you trust him so completely to protect you. it's why he doesn't complain too much at the effort it takes to do so.

as you walk, him guiding you to a spot in the standards, you talk away to him, filling him in on your morning, the tv show you started watching last night. it shocked him at first, how open you were with him, how all your shyness seemed to disappear momentarily. it's a comforting feeling to know that you trust him this much, that you know you can open up to him. he nods along, letting you talking, occasionally interjecting if he feels the need to do so. the conversation puts you at ease, and you can almost forget that you will soon be sitting in the stands alone.

kunimi doesn't really acknowledge your sudden fear, moving to unzip his jacket and drape it over you shoulders, the smallest of smiles curling his lips. "now you look like a part of the team."

you look down at the ground, shifting your weight from foot to foot as you slide your arms into the material. it's warm and smells like kunimi, immediately putting you at ease. he knew it would, knew you would need something to make you feel more comfortable in this new environment.

"don't expect me to do anything too fancy," he says, brushing a quick kiss to your lips. hard to repress, a smirk pulls at your lips.

"i never do. now go out there and play well."

you hesitate, looking over at where iwaizumi is celebrating with his teammates. they've just won their quarter final match. they deserve to celebrate together, you reason, wrapping your arms around yourself. it would make sense that they wouldn't want you involved. you glance down at the teal and white sleeves of the jacket, wondering if you should go over there and return it to him. he should stay warm after a match, and you have your own coat. you'd only put on his jacket because he'd insisted, zipping it up for you and placing a kiss to your cheek - a little pre-game ritual that had begun the first game you attended as his girlfriend. after a little longer contemplating, you decide to just message him. it would be rude to impose.

"y/n!" calls the voice of your boyfriend, and your head jerks upwards just as his eyes find you in the crowd. you give him a small smile and gesture at him, telling him he should go with the team, that you'll be fine. iwaizumi simply rolls his eyes slightly, walking over to you and pulling you into a hug so tight it is nothing short of a miracle that your ribs weren't cracked. "i'm not leaving you, stupid. you're part of the team and shittykawa's paying."

"i don't know, haji," you say uncertainly, pulling at the jacket sleeves. you look over his shoulder to see them watching you, oikawa with a wide smile on his face, his arms slung over matsukawa's and hanamaki's shoulders. "it's a team thing and i don't know... won't it be weird?"

"weird?" he questions, cocking his head slightly. you nod at his question, but don't resist when he winds an arm around your waist and tugs you into him, beginning to walk towards the waiting third years. "don't be ridiculous. they're your friends, aren't they?"

the third years were. it would be very difficult to be iwaizumi's girlfriend without also being friends with the other third years. after all, oikawa had been particularly nosy, enlisting the help of hanamaki to spy on your first date (and a few more after that until iwaizumi had seen him and given him a solid punch to the gut).

"oikawa, makki and mattsun are," you sigh, casting a worried glance over at the second and first years hovering in the distance.

"then what's the problem?"

"i just..." his eyes followed your gaze and he nodded, seeming to understand. he looked over at oikawa, hand doing a subtle shooing motion as he cocked his head slightly towards the door. oikawa nodded in response, wheeling matsukawa and hanamaki around. he shouted out for the rest of the team to get going in the process, leaving you and iwaizumi alone in the corridor.

it was then iwaizumi turned to face you, hands going up to hold each side of your face. his eyes met yours, and he held your gaze steadily.

"you've got nothing to be nervous about," he reassured, pressing his forehead against yours. "they'll all really great guys and i'll be there with you. if it's too much for you, we'll leave, okay?"

you nodded in response, and a grin split his face as he reached down to grab your hand, fingers interlocking with your own.

"tch," futakuchi tutted, eyes immediately locating you. in fairness, it wasn't a very good place to hide. you were the one point of stillness in the bustling hallway, leaning up against the wall with your phone held in a death grip. something told him you weren't looking at anything of importance, and this was confirmed when he got closer to you and saw you had neglected to open any apps. he commented in a drawl, "if you're going to pretend to be on your phone, at least do a better job of it."

"shit," you cursed, spinning to face him, a hand resting on top of your chest, where your heart raced. "you scared the crap out of me."

“come on,” he said, holding his hand out to you. “the team are waiting for us. we’re watching the next game.”

you took his hand with reluctance, letting him begin guiding you towards where the team was waiting. sweat was collating on your palms, and you were certain futakuchi was aware of this fact, the slight purse of his lips a tell tale sign. it wasn’t that you didn’t like the team (most of them were great and made you feel at ease), it was that some of the players intimidated you, in particular a rather tall and excitable first year.

“kenji...” you breathed, tugging at his hand to indicate to him that you wanted to stop. he turned to you with a frustrated sigh, the irritation leaving his face as soon as his eyes fall on yours. you looked at him with trepidation, fingers tightening around his. “maybe i should watch somewhere else?”

for a moment, he stood there in silence, seeming to weigh up the best way to approach this. he had only been given permission by the coach to find you, not to sit in another place. he was also of the opinion that you should be pushed out of your comfort zone more to encourage you to gain confidence. he used his grip on your hand to steer you towards an empty alcove, only releasing you when you were firmly placed in front of him.

“you’re watching with me,” he stated firmly, hands reaching out to run down your sides, the motion soothing, “and i’m watching with the team. if it makes you feel better, i can put you between me and aone.”

you nodded slightly at that. it was a well known fact that aone was the person you were closest to on the team other than futakuchi. people often commented how odd it was that you two had a relationship, struggling to see how either of you had took the first step in communicating.

“you’ll be fine,” he reassured, leaning forward to place a kiss to your lips, hands tightening on your waist to pull you flush against him. your hands rested on his shoulders, fingers curling into the material there as you returned the kiss. he pulled away, resting his forehead against yours. “it’ll be fine, okay?”

“okay,” you agreed, hands moving up from his shoulders to interlock behind his neck. his arms tightened around you, and you let your head drop to rest against his chest. “can we stay like this for a moment?”

“just let me know when you’re ready.”

you let out a hum in response, relaxing in his hold.

[clexylexy]

rating wlw ships i’ve encountered in my gay life

(but only the ones that “actually” sailed... listed in the order i watched them)

1. stef and lena - the fosters

this is the first wlw ship i remember encountering. BEFORE i realized i’m a lesbian. 

i remember seeing stef’s journey with her husband and lena and thinking, “god i would hate that” and feeling personally attacked even though i thought i was straight. -3 points on accounts of slight pettiness in honor of pre-gay me.

it’s been a while since i watched this show, but from what i remember they were good together and i felt seen, even though i had no idea why. +.5 points.

total: 7.5/10

2. brittany and santana - glee

whoever let me watch this show? it’s ridiculous. -4 points on accounts of being ridiculous.

anyway, still didn’t know i’m gay at this point. but i remember being invested. 

i did enjoy santana’s arc. again, i felt very attacked because at the time i was in denial. -2 points on accounts of slight pettiness yet again.

they were always the best part of the show, though, in my opinion. +2 points.

total: 6/10

3. lexa and clarke - the 100 

i was invested in these two for A WHILE. 

only cons include that this was a slow burn that got cut off before the good feeling of a slow burn could hit. they didn’t even get to become a real couple because lexa died the second they consummated their relationship. -4 points on accounts of unnecessary pain. 

other than that, lots of gay pining and really obvious gay proclamations made by lexa, including but not limited to: “attack her and you attack me” and “i swear fealty to you, klark kom skaikru.” +2 points.

coincidentally, sometime during this show or maybe slightly before watching it i came to terms with my sexuality. +0 points on accounts of this not being affiliated with the show or the couple.

total: 8/10

4. kat and adena - the bold type 

i didn't like this show too much. i kept losing interest often. -3 points on accounts of... being bored.

i did, however, like the ship. i sometimes struggled to connect with it, i think because i wasn’t all that into the show as a whole. i’ve never been the type to watch a show just for the gay characters. -2 points.

please note that that’s just my opinion. you could very well end up liking the show a lot. i do remember them being apart for a lot of the season for some reason, which quickly made me lose focus. i can’t remember why, that’s how little this show stuck out to me.

total: 5/10

5. waverly and nicole - wynonna earp

lovely couple. very cute together. also, they care so much about one another and they get lots of screen time. 

plus, the show is killer. i love the cast and there's a lot of relatable characters.

i only watched seasons 1 and 2, however, because it stopped recording on my tv for GOD KNOWS WHAT REASON and i’m not caught up yet. so i can’t say anything on seasons after that.

total: 10/10

6. alex and maggie, then alex and kelly - supergirl

i love alex’s story line. it felt super relatable and real, plus she got some cute ladies. her sexuality isn’t turned into a big deal. as soon as she realizes and has that conversation with herself, it drops away. nobody is like, “huh, alex is gay???” ever again. she just... is.

i also really like that alex isn’t just with the first girl she meets, like a lot of wlw who realize they’re gay in a show. she realizes that her and maggie don’t share the same views, recognizes that she wants more, and breaks up with her. then she finds kelly. it’s realistic, i love it.

total: 10/10

7. elena and syd - one day at a time

such cute little babies. they have open conversations about themselves and their future and it’s insanely healthy. also elena’s coming out arc is wonderfully portrayed. i have nothing else to say, i love them.

total: 10/10

8. nico and karolina - marvel’s runaways 

one thing that stuck out to me about their relationship is that nobody butts into their business once they’ve made it abundantly clear that they’re together. they just get to exist. 

also, extra points for the whole “light and dark balancing each other out” thing that they have going on between them. i also appreciate that they get a good amount of screen time, and their relationship is realistic. 

total: 10/10

9. casey and izzie - atypical 

another case of a very realistic relationship that i was really able to connect to. it does take some time before they end up together, but this really only sold it more for me. they’re both young, and confused, and trying to wrap their heads around their feelings, and the time that it took for them to come together was honestly, in my opinion, worth it. 

total: 10/10

10. toni and cheryl - riverdale 

i’m sorry, but riverdale is just... absolute garbage after season 1. -5 points on account of just how horrible this show actually has become.

i watched clips of toni and cheryl on youtube when i learned they were together. they’re cute, and they clearly care for one another. i did like the way they came together, even though i was extremely confused whenever they would reference stuff going on outside of their relationship. 

one thing that sticks out, though, is that cheryl is an absolute bitch, and you already KNOW i am a softy for bitches who become ENTIRE WHOLE SOFTIES for their gfs. +1 point.

total: 6/10

11. korra and asami - the legend of korra 

they don’t actually get together until the final episode, and even then... there’s no kiss or anything. -6 points.

i did, however, like their friendship. i always thought (especially in the last season) that there was something more there. +1 point.

total: 5/10

12. eve and villanelle - killing eve

i am including this mainly because of the kiss, but also because of all of the... sexual tension. 

these two are not a good wlw couple in that they aren’t really even a “couple” at all, but i appreciate the cat-and-mouse game that they play throughout the show.

they can never really have any sort of “relationship” at all seeing as villanelle is a psychopath and i don’t really see them (well, eve) ever fully being able to move away from that. -3 points.

total: 7/10

13. ali and aster - the half of it

very good movie, really good representation. they do share a kiss, and their whole back-and-forth with the letters is adorable. 

but, there’s not a lot of gay content between the two of them. -4 points.

please note that this movie is not about the gays, though. it’s more about the friendship between ali and paul, and ali coming into her own and discovering who she is.

total: 6/10

14. harley quinn and poison ivy - harley quinn (2019) 

i adore their friendship, and i love their special bond. i am really only including them, however, because of the most recent kiss and harley’s gay panic. it is not entirely clear if they will actually end up together or not, but who knows tbh. -4 points.

total: 6/10

15. scylla and raelle - motherland: fort salem 

SUCH a good story line. i’ll admit, at first i was nervous because i was afraid this relationship might put a bad rep on wlw relationships. particularly because of scylla’s involvement with the spree, but it pulled through and gave me that good “holy shit this was supposed to be a mission but i actually fell in love” relationship i have always wanted...

also, they’re adorable. i appreciate that the gay stuff happens in the very first episode, too. so if you’re looking for that shit... this is the place to be. doesn’t hurt that the story is really good, too.

total: 10/10

[ladyautie]

get to know me more!

@funyasm​ tagged me and I’m bored after writing my chapter, so here it is!

✨ what do you prefer to be called name wise?

My name’s Sophie. My friends call me Spencou or Spence. We met on a Role-Playing game forum where I played a character named Spencer. We’re used to call each other by our characters’ names and nicknames, most of the time. My brother calls me Sis’.

✨ when is your birthday?

15th november 1993.

✨ where do you live?

Paris, France.

✨ three things you are doing right now?

I’m watching an episode of AT4W on youtube, scrolling on Tumblr and I’m drinking a coffee.

✨ four fandoms that have piqued your interest right now?

Definitely It and especially Eddie Kaspbrak and the ship Reddie. I’m kinda obsessed right now, writing fanfic, reading fanfic, daydreaming about it and all.

I just played the Last of Us 2 and I’m currently watching a let’s play from my favorite youtubers, Mari and Stacy from Geek Remix. I’ll probably read a few fics as well.

The tv show Barry (HBO) is a definite special interest for me. I’m probably going to watch it all once again real soon and I’m planning on writing a fanfic or two in the future. I’m dying for the third season to come.

Finally, I’m probably going to be super into The Umbrella Academy once again, when the second season will be released. I’m just really into Vanya, Klaus and Allison and I can’t wait to see more of them.

✨ how is the pandemic treating you?

None of the people I know have been contaminated, so I’m lucky about that. I’m not quarantined anymore, back to work, and the transition is not easy. 

I feel like I’m more openly autistic than I used to be and that I can’t stand the rest of the world for a long period of time. I’ve experienced multiple meltdowns and shutdowns and I have real difficulties to socialize with most people or to focus on my work.

I feel incredibly naked and vulnerable whenever I’m leaving my flat without my mask on, so I think that’s definitely something I’m gonna have to work on in the future.

Leaving Paris and meeting my folks for my mother’s wedding, I found myself surrounded by people who mostly didn’t care about the virus, kissing each other on the cheek in true french fashion to say hello, hugging, not wearing a mask, not respecting any kind of social distance. 

I was quickly overwhelmed by all of that, plus the noise, and I had to isolate myself in my parents’ car, sobbing hysterically and willing to suffer in a overheated car if it meant having a bit of peace.

There are definitely going to be long-term consequences. I can only hope that my physical health will remain okay, though.

✨ song you can’t stop listening right now?

Keep On by Sasha Sloan. I just really love the lyrics and the message.

✨ recommend a movie.

Whenever I have to think of a movie to recommend, Frank by Lenny Abrahamson is the first one that comes to my mind. This movie is an obsession for me since the first time I watched it and I often find myself watching it again and again. Despite its heavy subjects, it’s definitely a comfort movie for me.

Too often, movies featuring mentally ill characters will aim for the characters to “get better”, which doesn’t mean for them to find healthy ways to cope with their issues, but usually for them to look more “neurotypical-like”, if you know what I mean. Frank  doesn’t go that way at all. On the contrary, it pushes the viewer to empathize with the main characters and to understand their point of view, their way of being.

It’s so incredibly comforting to watch a movie featuring mental illness realistic and not romanticized and to have the movie say “you’re different and you have issues, but you’ll find your tribe someday and be able to find your own happiness, even if it’s unconventional by society’s standards”.

I don’t know, I just have so much feelings about this movie. Plus the music slaps, the humor is hilarious (kudos to the random French guy who can perfectly understand English but refuses to utter a single word if it’s not in French) and the actors are truly on point (I can only salute Domnhall Gleeson, among everyone else who is also worthy of praise, because he definitely managed to make me hate his character in a way I almost never hated a character before).

Watch it!

✨ how old are you?

I’m 26 years old.

✨ school, university, occupation, other?

I used to be a librarian, but I couldn’t find a stable job in this field, so I passed an entrance examination and I’m now working in the tax administration. Yeah, not really glamorous, but it pays the bills and I’m accommodated for my disability, so it helps. 

✨ do you prefer hot or cold?

Definitely cold. When I was a kid, I used to swim in mountain lakes, at temperatures close to 13° celsius, and I still take my showers mostly cold. I can’t stand heat, I get headaches very easily when it’s sunny and I’m getting confused easily whenever it’s too hot. I recently had a nosebleed at work so intense that I found myself spitting blood (it went better once I got a fan, making the temperature bearable).

✨ name one fact others may not know about you.

I used to be allergic to my own sweat when I was around 18, until my early twenties. Whenever I was doing a mild physical effort or getting stressed out, I would get hives and itchy skin rash all over my whole freaking body, which was so exhausting that I would fall asleep immediately as soon as the rash was gone. 

It disappeared as suddenly as it appeared, without me ever doing something about it. I still don’t know why I experienced that and if I’m going to experience that ever again. I hope not.

✨ are you shy?

My autism makes social interactions complicated, but I’d say I’m mostly impaired by my social anxiety and the various traumas I’m dealing with daily.

Traumas I got after having been bullied pretty badly by kids and teachers during my school years, my stepfather being borderline abusive and different traumatic experiences, including my childhood crush dying from a ski accident when I was 15 or so (and me never being able to tell him that I loved him) and people betraying me so many times that I can’t even recall every little thing.

As a result, I find myself doubting constantly that I’m worthy of love, affection and respect and I often wonder when I’ll do or say the “wrong” thing that will cause me to lose everyone I care about. I also have a hard time knowing who I am and, as a result, allowing everyone to know who I am as well. 

I often don’t know what to say and will find myself keeping my mouth shut, even on topics I’m knowledgeable about, because I’m scared of people shutting me down, among other things. My friends make it easier for me to talk about things I like and all, but I’m still heavily doubting myself.

I try to challenge myself regularly. I’ll force myself to take part in events that are taxing or that are forcing me to perform in front of people. That’s how I found myself taking part in the casting part of the french equivalent of “American Idol” (I merely met the pre-judges, but I did manage to sing my whole song in front of them). I needed to prove to myself that I could do it.

✨ do you have any preferred pronouns?

I’m using she/her, but I don’t mind people using they/them to talk about me if they don’t want to be gender-specific.

✨ any pet peeves?

I hate how people can freely and openly be homophobic, racist, ableist, transphobic, sexist and so on, but as soon as I open my mouth to let them know that what they said/did wasn’t appropriate, I’m labelled as one of those “hysterical feminists” or a “party pooper”. s/ Sorry if your antisemitic joke isn’t making me laugh, my “dear” colleague... /s I hate whenever people infantilize me, especially my mom. She’s still keeping an eye on my bank account, despite me telling her that I didn’t want her to do so again and again. I don’t dare to block her out, because I’m scared of her emotional reaction.  I hate the ugliest parts of fandom, notably the obsession with “who’s topping / who’s bottoming” whenever there’s a gay pairing or the racism / ableism / transphobia / homophobia I’ve witnessed again and again.

I don’t dare to engage in the Last of Us 2 fandom because of that and the way some people describe the character of Abby (a very muscular woman), focusing on her physical appearance and calling her awful names (being downright transphobic when they thought that she was the transgender character that Naughty Dog announced there would be in their game). 

✨ what’s your favorite “dere” type?

I had to google it, because aside from Yandere and Tsundere, I didn’t know a thing about it. I guess you could say I’m a Dandere (someone who is quiet and asocial. They are afraid to talk, fearing that what they say will get them in trouble.). 

My favorite type is Kuudere though, when it comes to anime in particular (someone who is calm and collected on the outside, and never panics. They show little emotion, and in extreme cases are completely emotionless, but may be hiding their true emotions. They tend to be leaders who are always in charge of a situation.). 

My favorite anime character, Kiyotaka Ayanokōji from the anime Classroom of the elite, is the most extreme case I can think about. He’s completely expressionless for most of the anime, talks with a very dull voice and it’s impossible to know what he’s thinking about at all times or what’s his overall plan. His hidden depth makes him all the more fascinating. He managed to keep me interested in a mostly meh anime.

✨ rate your life 1-10. 1 being really crappy and 10 being the best you could ever be.

It’s a bit hard, but somewhere around 5 or 6? I went through tons of crap in my life but I’m still here and able to live on my own, even if my quality of life isn’t all that good. I live with nearly daily suicidal thoughts since I was a teenager and have to compose with my meltdowns and anxiety attacks as well. I feel “other” most of the time and I can’t relate to most people I’m meeting and interacting with, which can sometimes feel very lonely.

On the other hand, I have wonderful friends who are willing to put up with my trauma crap and are overall amazing to talk to and be around. I have a cat I love dearly. They’re the reason why I’m still alive to this day, giving me a reason to say fuck off to my suicidal thoughts. 

✨ what’s your main blog?

My main blog is Ladyautie and is about autism. I have another blog, reddie-4-more, focusing on the It movies and Eddie Kaspbrak and Richie Tozier.

✨ is there anything you think people need to know about you before becoming friends with you?

So, uh, don’t be weirded out by the kind of things I can tell you about my past. Even if it seems a lot, all of it is definitely true. 

For example, I was almost kidnapped when I was around 8 or 9 by a random guy, while I was camping with my father. 

My father and my paternal grandmother actually kidnapped me and my brother when I was around two and I stayed with him until the social workers determined that my mother had to raise us again because our well-being and overall life were threatened. 

Lots of events of my life seem far-fetched or out of a movie / a book or something and I had people telling me that I must be lying or that I’m over-exaggerating, something that always hurts deeply.

I’m terribly awkward and more or less openly autistic, so you’re definitely going to notice something different about me. I can’t change for you and I’m not willing to hide my traits only to make you feel more comfortable about frequenting me, so if you can’t handle my socially anxious and disabled ass, then just leave.

I need people to actually tell me what they think or feel. I’m very “first degree” and I’m pretty bad at guessing what people are thinking about. Don’t be afraid to be frank.

Finally, never, and I mean never, infantilize me. I’m a 26 years old woman. I’m not a kid.I’m fine with my friends offering to help or making sure that I’m okay or so, but never assume that I don’t understand something and don’t force your help on me if I say that I’m okay.

That’s it, those who want to take part in this exercise, don’t hesitate!

[collidingxworlds]

Who are your top three favorite fictional characters and why?

Mun’s writing meme | Accepting !

(( Okay, this is a pretty tough question. I’d be tempted to go for the characters I’m currently more obsessed with, but...that would be cheating and wouldn’t really answer the question, right? So...let’s go chronologically. ))

Aster, from “Chronicles of the Emerged World” by Licia Troisi. This is a trilogy I’ve read as a pre-teen and that have been my favourite books for a good while. Aster is the main antagonist of the series. You get to see him only at the end of the series, but at the same time he’s a constant presence that lingers in the background and the reader knows that they are gonna see him, sooner or later, because he is the core of the whole conflict the protagonists are trying to solve. You see him through others’ eyes and hear rumours about him, till you finally meet him and...it’s not what I had expected. He’s a very complex, very deep character, with a tragic story that explains why he has got where he is and an internal conflict that pushes him to want to save his world by destroying it. I think it was through him that I started to realise how attracted I am to ambiguous, ambivalent characters. I haven’t read the books in ages now, but his character truly stuck with me, so I think he has an honorary spot among my forever favourites.

Dexter Morgan, from the Dexter book saga by Jeff Lindsay (NOT the show). Tbh, I think my fascination here is born mostly from Jeff Lindsay’s writing style, but the POV that’s used in the books is beyond fascinating for me. You get to see our world, normal, daily life from the eyes of someone who is a complete outsider. A “monster”, as Dexter easily calls himself, wearing the mask of a completely normal, even if smart man. The books are written in first person, so you get to see everything that passes through Dexter’s mind and I find that he is extremely relatable, in some situations. He sees the absurdity of our routine and social rules and he has no issues calling them out (even if he adapts, because that’s what he must do to keep living his double life in piece). I love the take of someone who basically knows no empathy and the struggles he has to face daily to understand some human behaviours that seem to come natural to most people around him (and I can totally related to that). Plus, he has a magnificent, macabre sense of humour.

John Constantine, from Vertigo’s Hellblazer & related runs (I love TV!John, but comic!John is better) Alright, I admit that he is one of the characters I’m currently hyper-fixated on, but I think that he’ll stay among my favourites even after the current obsession will have passed. Why? Because he’s another, complex, so very realistic character. There are just so many layers to John. You get oddities and quirks. You get struggles and mental illness (very well depicted too, and not just in his character). You get both daily life problems and literal world-endangering threats. You get social issues and insights on society. You get a whole circle of emotions and a very human way to deal with them. He is a person, and a troubled one, with all the dimensions that come with being such, even if his stories revolve around the supernatural, the unknown and the incomprehensible. And I think that this is what sucks you in, reading the comics (even if at times I do feel super confused because he’s so much smarter than me and I take a while to get some of the mental leaps he does xD). They did one hell of a work building him up and he’s definitely one of the best built characters I’ve met so far!

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Hi i love your metas. I am now get worried that Tsurumi is a sociopath but he, Ogata are spies so hard to understand. I always think Ogata has BPD bcoz he is like this person and normal for a man. But author sometime writes him only for making plot twists. Sorry for bad english.

Thank you, I’m really glad you love my meta!

Don’t worry about your English as I’ve said many times English is not my mothertongue either.

Now, in regard to your ask and personality disorders let’s put some order in this as I’ve noticed there’s quite a lot of interest for this topic.

First of all rarely characters from works of fiction have accurate personality disorders. The best they can have is the trope version of that personality disorder, unless they’re stories dealing either with real life people or written by someone competent or that researched a lot into the topic as writing realistically someone with a personality disorder isn’t easy at all.

Also, more often than not they go for the extreme version of the personality disorder as the tame version wouldn’t be worth the effort.

That’s why instead than using my studies in psychology I fish up the trope descriptions for personality disorders and use them. It’s not just simpler but also more fitting considering the subjects at hands.

It’s also worth to note way too many authors aren’t trying to represent a personality disorder... with the result it becomes impossible to fit a character in that personality disorder because any resemblance is coincidental and the character simply isn’t meant to have it.

Long story short, I don’t think Noda had a particular disorder in mind for Ogata otherwise he would give him much more obvious syntoms.

Noda, instead than giving disorders to his characters, seems more focused in giving them traumatic experiences and maladaptative copying mechanisms giving them ambiguous disorders without really having to dig too much into them so as to make them accurate.

The only disorder Noda seems to refer at, albeit vaguely, in his manga, is the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as most of the cast is composed by war veterans who might be esperiencing it one way or another (well, actually in real life not everyone experience it but in fiction it either doesn’t exist or everyone experiences various deegress of it and becomes a Shell-Shocked Veteran).

The good part of having so many cast members who are probably experiencing this is that in order to keep characterizations different, each of them experiences it differently, giving the whole thing a tinge of realism instead than a flat aderence to a trope.

Of course this too can be Noda merely referring to a trauma and to the maladaptative copying mechanisms derived by it, without Noda really planning to dig too deep into the disorder’s condition.

Sugimoto, after all, isn’t really qualified to give a diagnosis for himself and the others and it’s worth to note part of the people he’s thinking at had pre-existing traumas.

Long story short, even if post-traumatic stress disorder seems a safe bet, we can’t really be sure about it.

Anyway, let’s give a look at the two disorders you mentioned.

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD or APD) and Borderline personality disorder (BPD) don’t quite have a referencing trope as far as I know.

It can be because to people who aren’t really into personality disorders antisocial personality disorder closely resembles sociopathy and psychopathy and borderline personality disorder resembles post-traumatic stress disorder so media didn’t feel like digging into the distinctions.

Or maybe they just aren’t mainstream enough.

This of course lowers the chances Noda thought at them as well.

Anyway, Antisocial personality disorder.

I’ll just pick the main defining traits from tv trope again because they feel what an author would use more than the defining traits from a psychology book... even though since I’ve already said Ogata didn’t fit the sociopath trope, this might feel redundant.

Antisocials will simply take what they need or want, and don't think of anybody as a friend; everybody is a tool.

While Ogata has no friends, not everybody is a tool to him as, as I mentioned discussing the sociopath and the narcissist tropes, he went out of his way to spare Huci, help Nikaido, spare Shinpei and even comforted Koito.

They have a reputation for rationalizing acts most would consider dog kicking, in the process shaming their accuser for standing up for themselves. Contrition and remorse are tools for getting what they want and nothing more; if they think or know that they can win their way back into someone's good graces by appearing to want to atone for their actions, they will, only to revert to their old ways the minute that they have succeeded.

Ogata never tries to atone for his own actions... but I’ve already discussed how he clearly feels guilty for Yuusaku’s death.

They are also notoriously prone to violent and aggressive behavior and will frequently seek revenge after a setback, and their general inability to experience guilt or appreciate consequences means that they are unlikely to view punishment as anything other than an undeserved injustice, something to bullshit their way out of, or as a score to settle.

Ogata, being the trope of the cold sniper isn’t really prone to violent and aggressive behaviour. Sure, he used scissors against Ejiri Matasuke, but that’s probably the only time Ogata did used physical violence against someone without being in need of it (kicking Koito to render him unconscious is tactical, not gratuitous violence).

He didn’t kick Asirpa when she tried to reach for the arrows nor beat Koito after he was immobilized to take revenge for Koito hitting his nose with his head.

In a time period in which people are actually very violent (look at the Nikaido brothers beating Sugimoto up or at Sugimoto threatening Shiraishi or even at him and Kiro beating the guys who were trying to rob them), Ogata is comparatively very calm and cold.

More traditional methods of teaching empathy are generally held to be useless with antisocials, as they typically just learn how to be better manipulators.

Again, I’ve talked already about how Ogata fails as a manipulator.

(They) have no qualms of violating established rules or disproving widely held theories.

This can be perceived as fitting... but it actually fit all the cast. No one is really following the law in the gold hunt, it’s a pre-requisite to take part to the gold hunt itself and again just a trait wouldn’t be enough to.

Long story short, no I don’t think Noda had this in mind when he created Ogata.

Borderline personality disorder now.

I’ll skip all the elements it has in common with post-traumatic stress disorder... as this can be a disorder in Golden Kamuy.

So... defining traits that differentiate it from post-traumatic stress disorder are: frantic fear of abandonment, unstable and intense relationships, impulsiveness and inconsistent image of self.

None of this really fits Ogata.

He is an abandoned child, true, but while he likely would have preferred for Asirpa not to leave him, he didn’t show a ‘frantic fear of being abandoned’ by her.

His relationships aren’t intense or they wouldn’t fit with the trope of cold sniper.

Ogata isn’t consistently impulsive, he’s a risk taker, true, but he usually plans things first when possible and hardly acts on impulse.

Regarding Ogata’s image of self he knows very well how good he is as a sniper... but also how little worth he had in his father’s eyes.

Long story short I don’t think Ogata was meant to have this one disorder either.

Again it’s just me.

If the Golden Kamuy characters were real life people to make a diagnosis about what they might suffer would be a lot more complicate than just checking a checklist. As they’re just characters, we should expect them to have just the defining traits to the disease, the ones that would eventually create a trope.

Still, if you want, you might consider reading @chibivesicle‘s post which actually considered the chance of Ogata having borderline personality disorder per the NIH as @chibivesicle diggest into this not from the trope side but from the psychological side.

Now... can Tsurumi be a sociopath?

Skipping I don’t think Noda had in mind specific diseases for his characters, Tsurumi is much more complicate than Ogata to analyze because we hardly have any introspection for him... and since he’s meant to fit the trope of chessmaster and manipulative bastard we hardly see him in contests in which he can be himself still... let’s try.

Mind you, this time I’m going to report only the main points and not the descriptions.

1) Lack of Empathy and Devoid of Conscience

As I said there are little to no introspection scenes with Tsurumi so we can’t really say if his actions are due to how he feels or due to the image he has to project outside to play out his role of chessmaster and manipulative bastard to judge.

However the fact he tries to send away Fina and Olga...

...and seemed to genuinely suffer for their dead

since he remained with Fina until she died, holding her hand and even told her his true name, showed affection for Olga...

...and even set them down to rest together before leaving...

... make me think in those moments he was showing empathy and coscience otherwise he would have had no reasons to waste his time with them once Kiro and Co were out of sign.

Also although it would have been easy for him to persuade his men to get rid of the lightnight bandit and O-gin, he spared him and even entrusted him to Huci alongw ith some money wrapped in his parents’ clothes so he would even have mementos of them.

2) Consummate Liar and Manipulator.

As said before Tsurumi fits the tropes of chessmaster and manipulative bastard so of course he’s a consummate liar and manipulator, the best in the whole Golden Kamuy were everyone lies and way too many have tried manipulating someone.

The problem comes from the fact this isn’t an enduring maladaptative behaviour which characterize a personality disorder but a set of skills he had to learn to be an effective spy and that now is using to reach his goal. As we’ve no info on Tsurumi PRIOR to him becoming a spy, we can’t know if he’s just someone with enduring maladaptative behaviours which he’s using to do his job or if those are merely acquired skills.

3) Pathological Need for Stimulation.

I wouldn’t say Tsurumi is doing all this for the thrill, even if there are moments in which he seems to relish on the thrill. We also have no info about him viewing his existence as boring or meaningless.

Tsurumi seems to have a clear goal in mind, and all this doesn’t seem just an excuse to have fun.

4) Shallow Affect and Complete Lack of Emotional Reciprocity.

Again he seemed to care for Fina and Olga but, due to the situation, it’s hard to say how much. He might care/might have cared for others, like Tsukishima, but again, his plans get in the way and with the lack of internal dialogue we can’t really tell, just speculate.

5) Grandiose Sense of Self-Worth.

I can’t remember Tsurumi babbling at how clever he is but since he wants to become the new Hokkaido dictator I guess he could have some.

To sum it up.

Info on Tsurumi are vague and, due to the tropes he represents and the lack of inner info or past info about him, we can’t really sort him well.

Tsurumi has very little evidence going again the idea he’s not a sociopath (never mentioning Noda even had fun compating him to hitler or a demon) and actually, considering other factors people could very well buy he’s one.

Is that the case?

Actually I still think we miss pieces of his past that we should know before judging him... and I’m not sure Noda aimed to represent personality disorders and, in this case, the resemblance with one is ‘coincidental’, the result of Tsurumi being an antagonist as well as Noda wanting to use the chessmaster and manipulative bastard tropes, and not to a genuine effort to portray a personality disorder... but again, maybe I only saw the tip of the iceberg.

Still, it's worth to note I think if he wanted us to buy he's a sociopath he would have given us absolutely 0 evidence he could not be one and instead he gave us 2 moments that seem to deny it and much more evidence he's one when there are actually some parts for which we've no evidence.

In short Tsurumi I understand how people can thinks Tsurumi can be a sociopath... but his resemblance to the Sociopath trope can very well be coincidental due to the other tropes he represents and due to us missing some info. It’s hard to say FOR SURE as for now we've nowhere near enough elements to judge... and some elements seem to go against this theory.

Noda seemed to favour being vague so I think we can only wait and see.

Thank you for your ask and sorry if something in my reply was unclear but I had a pretty terrible week and now I’m mostly worn out. Sorry again!

[rabbiteclair]

So, a whole lot of notes on Flatscreen. This is, like, halfway my attempt to analyze what I was doing for myself, so I can't guarantee they'll be informative or interesting to anyone else, but hey. It should go without saying that there are tons of spoilers in here.

Mysteries And Stuff

I guess the big thing on my end was that I deliberately went out of my way to avoid establishing a definite answer about What's Actually Going On with big facets of the story. Like, I didn't come up with them at all. Some of them don't strictly need answers. Some of them I felt were best left mysteries. Overall, though, subjectivity was kinda a theme for the story as a whole, so it felt appropriate to leave as much as possible open to interpretation. Most of these have apparent explanations within the story that work, because I still wanted a coherent narrative, but here's a short list of things I deliberately kept a bit vague: Does Gensokyo exist in this timeline? Compare the list of occult goodies Renko inherited from Sumireko in Flatscreen:

There are a handful of keepsakes, passed down from your grandma, that have managed to keep your faith in the supernatural alive. A photo of a gate in the Netherworld, with cherry blossoms on one side and a mundane graveyard on the other. A series of videos from her long-archived blog where she's bending spoons and levitating balls with her mind. A rock she brought back from 'some pyramid or another' that does, in fact, sharpen any razors you leave near it.

to Eyes in the Dark:

It had been a large box full of stuff, and practically the only mundane thing in it was a pack of Zener cards.

There was also a photo of a gate in the Netherworld, with cherry blossoms on one side and a mundane graveyard on the other. I know it's the Netherworld, because Maribel and I investigated it once. (Case File #6) There was a series of selfies that my grandma had taken with people she swore were youkai. (A few of them did have remarkably realistic costumes if not.) A recording of an unearthly song that did strange things to the listener's mood, that was supposedly from a youkai night sparrow. A heavily-warded jar with what could only be a ghost of some sort bound inside.

Flatscreen Renko... really didn't get anything impressive, apart from maybe the Netherworld photo from Ghostly Field Club. Maybe Sumireko just didn't leave her much--Renko doesn't really seem to know anything substantial about Gensokyo in the canon stories, after all. Maybe the Sealing Club stories are an alternative timeline from the main Touhou canon, and Maribel is traveling between worlds when she visits Gensokyo (we already know she's ended up in current-Gensokyo's past before, so it wouldn't really be much weirder.) Plus, Fantasy wasn't in very good state when Renko visited it. I think that's probably the case either way--Gensokyo would be a pretty crowded place if every single forgotten god, myth, or youkai ended up there. But, you can definitely point to it as evidence that Gensokyo isn't out there making things better, if you want. Is Renko the real Renko? What even counts as 'real' in this particular case? Whether or not this all happens in the same world or timeline as Gensokyo, Renko might not be The Renko that Maribel remembers. She raises the possibility herself in chapter 3--she has a past that she remembers, with no Maribel in it. It's entirely possible that by erasing Maribel, the monster changed the past and made a new timeline with a whole new Renko. Or maybe she's from a pre-existing timeline and was out there all along. Or, hell, if we're considering alternative timelines anyway, maybe this isn't the same Renko or Maribel from the Sealing Club stories. Or maybe Maribel is right, it's all one tidy timeline, and the monster didn't do much except alter some of Renko's memories. I did kinda wimp out on this one a little, by letting Renko regain memories of Maribel. It undermines some of these possibilities, but I couldn't stand the thought of having Renko go through all of that and only remember a single week with her. What is the monster? I really wanted Renko to make some kind of Black Hole Information Paradox comparison here, but never found a way to shoehorn it in. Regardless, it kinda fits. Whether the monster was a god, or a youkai, or whatever, almost by definition, there's no way of knowing what it used to be. All that information was lost when it got completely forgotten. Or maybe Maribel's theory is completely wrong, and these things aren't gods. She was guessing on pretty thin evidence. Renko thought she saw claws on some of them, and the main monster had some kind of weird features at times too. Stealing existence might be a bit much for an undead myth. If you want to interpret it as some kind of minor elder horror or an especially unstylish Excrucian or something, it doesn't change much about the story except maybe some of the implications. This is part of the reason I avoided giving it a name. The other half was for horror purposes--having Renko give it a snappy nickname like she did in Eyes in the Dark would make it feel a little less scary, I think. For what it's worth, in my notes, I referred to it as the Static.

History and connection with Eyes in the Dark

I really gave most of the relevant bits in the notes at the beginning of the story on AO3. The short version is, the story didn't originally have a monster, and when I decided to add one, a few rounds of expansion later, I had the outline for Eyes in the Dark. There are a few tracts of text that I originally copied over verbatim, and any differences in the section between the two stories evolved over time. The stuff about fake fish is one of them. Renko's big list of stuff Sumireko left for her is another. The monster from Flatscreen is fairly similar to the first iteration of what became the Watcher. When I went to add monster(s) to the first partial draft of Flatscreen, I thought it would be best if it was something that could threaten Maribel, even with her TV-dwelling nature, so a TV-filling monster was one of my first ideas. Obviously the monsters in both stories evolved quite a bit from that point, so it'd be incorrect to say that it's an earlier evolution of the Watcher. This is probably why both stories pretty heavily revolve around televisions, though. The lack of a monster to add some opposition was one of the two things that made me shelve the first draft of Flatscreen.

The other one was the lack of an ending. 'And then Maribel became Yukari' is practically a stock ending for Sealing Club stories, but somehow it didn't occur to me for about two and a half years.

Chapters 1-3 are pretty similar to what the original draft had, minus the monster. In the original draft, Maribel’s plan was to take Renko on a tour of various places they’d visited together, to try jogging her memory, which might hopefully help Maribel become real again. The plan was for Renko to get more and more absorbed in the fantasy world with Maribel in it, while Maribel just kept getting weaker and weaker. Eventually, Maribel would get too weak to even show up outside of Renko’s dreams, and Renko would decide it was better to float off into nonexistence with her than stick around on Earth alone.

... this was the plan for about thirty seconds before I realized it kinda sucks, at least. The lack of a satisfying ending was the main thing that made me drop the story and move on to other ideas.

Yukari!!!

Anybody who’s talked to me on the topic much (this is a list that has like two people on it, so in retrospect this was a bad way to introduce this paragraph) knows that I’m actually not all that fond of ‘Yukari is older Maribel’ as an interpretation of their relationship, in general. For one thing, whenever canon has a big open question and everyone just kind of decides it has to be answered the same way, I wanna go the opposite direction just to spite them. (See also: the idea of the previous shrine maiden being Reimu’s mom.) For another, I feel like it produces a lot of kinda crappy stories. I’ve read a ton of doujin and stuff where Maribel isn’t a character, she’s a macguffin for Renko to chase after, or a placeholder to stand around until Yukari pops up.

... but it isn’t an inherently bad idea, so I was able to convince myself to end the story like this after a while.

If I had to guess (and I do, since it’s another thing where I didn’t come up with a strict Objectively True Answer), it was just kinda the first step. That talk she gave about ending up somewhere else eventually was pretty open-ended. It definitely made her a bit weirder and more... eldritch. Probably, she drifted around in there for a while, ended up way in the past, and came back to find Renko again once she was able to. Could’ve been decades or centuries on her end.

I did definitely mean to drop some hints about how this all led to her becoming Yukari, though. Between the abandoned tanuki house and the really horrible state of Fantasy in the last chapter, it isn’t hard to see where she might get interested in something like Gensokyo. She’s literally playing around with the boundary between fantasy and reality before the story starts. And her walled-off fantasy bubble in the last chapter is basically a mini-Gensokyo, if you wanna think about it that way.

... I think that’s all the stuff I intended to cover? If I missed anything, feel free to shoot me a question, I guess.

[letterboxd]

Trustworthy: The Lynn Shelton Q&A.

“I wanted to let myself have a bit of fun.” Filmmaker and actor Lynn Shelton chats with Letterboxd about the improvisational joy of her new film Sword of Trust, the “mixed bag” of streaming services, and the power of Claire Denis.

Lynn Shelton is a trusted director in the world of TV comedy, having helmed episodes of GLOW, Fresh off the Boat, Shameless, New Girl, The Good Place and many more. Along the way, she has written and directed several feature films that together form a smart, gently praised mumblecore-meets-naturalism oeuvre.

Shelton’s films are small delights, with low stakes and a human scale to them; introspective, contemporary chamber pieces that give her actors plenty of space to improvise. Your Sister’s Sister, which she wrote and directed, has been hailed on Letterboxd as a “terrific little character piece from three superb actors” (Mark Duplass, Emily Blunt and Rosemarie DeWitt), and her earlier mumblecore arthouse porno comedy Humpday (also starring Duplass, with a turn from Shelton as well) has received love for being “absolutely hilarious and deeply awkward”.

Her latest, Sword of Trust, which she co-wrote with Mike O’Brien (a.k.a. Pat the Pizza Guy from Booksmart), is a screwball inheritance comedy starring comedian and podcaster Marc Maron as Mel, a pawn shop owner. He teams up with a couple (Jillian Bell and Michaela Watkins), who are trying to hawk a Civil War-era sword. Together with Mel’s man-child shop assistant (Jon Bass), they are drawn into an absurd world of conspiracy theories.

Shelton’s association with Maron began in 2015 when she appeared on an episode of his exemplary podcast, WTF with Marc Maron. The following year, Shelton directed the first two episodes of the fourth and final season of the IFC series Maron (she also had an on-screen role in episode 11), and in 2017, she directed Maron’s Netflix special, Too Real. He is, it turns out, not only the star, but also the muse for Sword of Trust. “Since the first time I worked with him, I felt he had untapped depth that I wanted the world to see on-screen.”

Marc Maron as Mel and Jon Bass as Nathaniel in ‘Sword of Trust’.

What inspired the premise of Sword of Trust? Lynn Shelton: [Marc and I] started writing a script for a different movie but it was hard to make progress on it because we’re both so busy. I was getting frustrated since I wanted to get on set with him, until he told me he would show up for any part I wrote for him. For Sword of Trust, I was inspired by seeing a pawn shop and thinking he would be a great pawn shop owner and that it would be a great place for a narrative to unfold.

I knew that I wanted to give myself the opportunity to explore a new genre and do a screwball caper. It would be emotionally grounded and have authentic characters who resonated as real people, but goes on a misadventure; a comedy that allows itself to go into slightly unrealistic territories. That was something I’ve never allowed myself to do. Before this I always wanted to make sure that every single minute was completely realistic.

I wanted to let myself have a bit of fun. I also wanted to return to improvisation, which I haven’t really done since Your Sister’s Sister, which was nearly ten years ago. I was excited to return to that territory and I started to assemble a cast of people I knew that would be really good at improvising around Marc.

Lastly, I really wanted it to involve some sort of a con that was relevant to what’s going on in our cultural political situation. One thing I’ve been obsessed with right now is this peak moment we’re having in society of conspiracy theories and the idea of alternative facts. I wanted to make a film that would point it out, but also one that wouldn’t make you want to slit your wrists as you walk out of the theater. That’s where the whole conspiracy theory premise came from.

When you direct with improvisation, what structures do you have in place to ensure you and the cast keep the characters and the story consistent, yet also make sure you stick to the schedule? I built those characters with and for the actors, especially Marc’s character Mel. With improvisation in general, it’s important to have clear back-stories and relationships between the characters going in, even weeks before you arrive on set. I asked the actors to get together with the people they were supposed to have relationships with to get the wheels turning about who these people were. By the time we got there they were able to start spinning out some sort of narrative that reflected all of that work we put into their back-stories.

This is a very plot-heavy movie, which was tightly pre-constructed, so it wasn’t the kind of improvisational movie where you show up and wonder ‘what will happen to these people today?’. I knew exactly what had to happen in each scene to map out into the final narrative. In this case we had a 50-page scriptment, where some scenes are written out in terms of dialogue but actors were always free to toss the specific words out the window and come up with their own replacements. There’s a lot of room for embellishments or improvised little side roads.

There’s a moment I always think of: when Jillian Bell picks up a sale item she was inspired by in the pawn shop we were shooting at and she created a whole little funny side thing about it. People are inspired by the environment they’re in and something will just come out of their mouths and they’ll just go down that road. It’s a beautiful thing.

I ask them to do a lot of heavy lifting in terms of getting some exposition out while planting seeds, but outside of that they can really play and have the freedom to find their own way through the beats of the scene and add their own little grace notes to how the scene plays out.

Jillian Bell as Cynthia and Michaela Watkins as Mary.

Did anything significantly change between the initial treatment and final film? How does it transform on set from the core essence of what you have on the page? There were a couple scenes that ended up getting thrown out on the cutting-room floor after we had a few feedback screenings. We had multiple endings and we got rid of a lot of them, which didn’t seem to hurt the film at all. We also had some great scenes that were added along the way. Halfway through the shoot we had a little break and Marc suggested a new scene that helped round out a couple of the side characters that we hadn’t gotten a chance to get to know very well.

I had planned for the confederate thug characters (who try to get the sword from Mel in the pawn shop) to turn up again later when the four characters are at the farm, but it was Marc’s idea for Mel to recognise them from when they were kids and embarrass them about how they would come into his shop when they were younger. It’s a tragic story Marc paints about them and it really shifts your perception of these two bozos and gives you a sense of sympathy for them even while they’re trying to be tough guys.

I love when you can take a couple of characters who seem to initially be two-dimensional and then you find out some extra facts about them and you’re able to turn them into fully fleshed-out human beings, even if they don’t get a lot of screen time. It’s a wonderful thing to humanize characters like that.

The scene in the back of the van—which I think is really the heart of the movie—also developed over time. In the script itself it just said: “they get to know each other in the back of the van.” That’s all it said. That was the most fully improvised scene in the film. I left it open-ended because I had a feeling it would fulfil a really important role in the movie but I didn’t know exactly what it was until we got going.

It became clear there was an emotional journey with Mel as he starts out very shut-down and he opens up a little bit by the end. I realized this scene needed to be used in the service of that arc, so I told the actors that I needed them to open up to each other and be vulnerable to each other so the characters could become more intimate. A lot of the time they drew from real life, drawing from first- or second-hand experiences to build those back-stories.

You’ve settled into a real groove with directing television. Your resume in that area is really impressive. What keeps you circling back to film when you could keep making a career out of being a TV director? Most of my income is from television and I really enjoy the extra-collaborative nature of television. It’s almost a pathology with filmmaking—I can’t stop doing it! This is my eighth movie and I just love it so much. I love the little family you develop. Obviously there’s a lot of overlap in the process of making film and television since it’s basically the same thing, but when I’m writing and directing I have more of an opportunity to set the tone and really create from the top-down of what I want the culture of the production to be like.

I can be the creative visionary in a way that, until I create my own television show, is not going to be possible. If I’m the director on a show, I’m ultimately in the service of other people. Luckily, I keep working with really visionary and talented people. This film, I sort of willed it into existence and it’s nice. I really wanted it to happen, so I asked a bunch of friends if they would join me, and it ended up becoming reality and there’s something really lovely about that.

Your last two films and your Marc Maron stand-up special are on Netflix. Anyone can (and should) watch them at any time, and streaming has completely transformed indie cinema in this way over the past decade. Yet, there are so many films that they can all still get lost in the shuffle. How do you feel about the way streaming has changed low-budget cinema? What work needs to be done to support them? This is a constant topic of conversation between filmmaker friends of mine. I know a lot of friends who were able to get films made that wouldn’t have been able to if not for Netflix, for instance. I don’t know if that’s even going to continue being the case because they seem to be shifting their paradigm in the kinds of films they’re producing, but for a while there they were almost the last bastion of producing films of a certain size that weren’t just giant tentpole movies.

Obviously films are still being made, little- to medium-sized films, but the issue of them getting lost in the shuffle because of this vast ocean of content that’s out there—unless you have this big machine waving flags to say: “look at this over here”—they will continue to disappear into the ether. It can be disheartening for sure.

My last film Outside In [one of Shelton’s more highly rated films on Letterboxd] had a very tiny theatrical run and basically went straight to Netflix, so I don’t really have any sense of who is seeing the film. But it’s interesting how I do have people reaching out to me saying they didn’t know I directed it but watched it because of Edie Falco, or they were recommended it. People do seem to see the movie, I just don’t know exactly what the numbers are. You just don’t know, so it’s a very strange feeling.

On the other hand, it’s very nice that it’s accessible and it can be discovered. If I wanted to point somebody to one of my films on Netflix, I know they can easily access it anytime. Streaming is a real mixed bag for independent filmmakers. Right now I have about 30 theaters showing Sword of Trust and I’m so thrilled that even if it’s just a weekend, at least a good chunk of folks will be able to see the film and have the communal experience the way I wanted in the first place.

Lynn Shelton turns up on screen as well as behind the scenes, playing Mel’s ex, Deirdre, in ‘Sword of Trust’.

Finally, a favorite Letterboxd question: what was the film that got you into films? I could go to different points in my life. My mother was a huge fan of Jules et Jim so I saw that at a really early age and it had a big effect on me. It was the first time where I was ever aware of the filmmaker’s hand. I never started thinking about it until the one sequence where Jeanne Moreau is singing and it freezes and then it plays and then it freezes again and then it plays again and it made me realize there was a director who made that decision to do that. What does that mean? That got me thinking about filmmaking when I was really young.

Then later in life I heard Claire Denis speak when her film Friday Night was coming out. I remember finding out that she was 40 when she made her first feature and Friday Night was her sixth or seventh film. I had an epiphany that I could start making movies and it wasn’t too late for me because I didn’t make movies in my 20s and 30s. I didn’t make my first feature [We Go Way Back] until my late 30s. That was the film and filmmaker that really made me feel like ‘I can do this too’. Those would be my two bookends about being inspired to be a filmmaker.

‘Sword of Trust’ is on streaming services and playing in select US cinemas now. Images courtesy of IFC Films.

[hopevalley]

I’m back, and with the usual nonsense. 

I’ve been thinking about that potential novelization again. Heck, I dreamed a while back that I was going to tweet Hallmark to ask “permission” to do it (but ended up tweeting them in the dream to novelize the Wedding March series instead). It’s fanfic. I don’t need permission to write it!!! (Dream!Me was stressed out at the idea that Hallmark could say yes, because then I’d be locked into writing it. I’m still marveling at Dream!Me’s confidence.)

I’m gonna ramble about the potential for a novelization of When Calls the Heart here, just ‘cause I can. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings and nowhere to put them. Read on if you’d like!

I like When Calls the Heart! I really do. It’s had its ups and downs, but overall things have been pretty darn awesome.

I don’t think any of us would be here if there wasn’t something about the show that really captured us, took us by storm. For some people it was the romance. For others, the friendships. I know people who watch the show for specific characters or character arcs (Henry comes to mind), or because they like the feel-good nature of the series while it deals with some realistically awful situations/issues; the Lee and Rosemary and the infertility plotline that popped up in S6 comes to mind, here.

Honestly, I wish I could trust someone else to novelize the tv series the way I’d like to see it done. Unfortunately I’m a picky baby and I have very specific ideas of what these characters are like from a more intimate POV than we get with the show, so...if I want it done, I gotta do it myself. (RIP my free time, though.)

The biggest roadblock, though is...feedback.

This fandom is notorious for being terrible about ‘participating’ and fanfic isn’t everyone’s cup of tea anyway. Imagine working your tail off to produce a well-crafted novelization of the series only for it to get ignored. I’d probably never write again...and that’s not me being dramatic, either. I think it’s fair to say “my time is worth something” and stick to that. It is. My time is worth a lot to me. I could use it to clean the house, do dishes, spend time with my husband, play with the cats, clean the yard, do gardening, work longer hours and get paid, play video games, crochet, et cetera. I have an endless supply of hobbies! It’s harder than it sounds, because it means I can’t ever dedicate tons of time to just, you know, one of them. On the plus side it means I’ve got something waiting in the wings no matter what mood I’m in!

The possibility exists that the story would be a surprise success, too. I mean, I doubt it (judging by the numbers, fanfic for this series isn’t that popular), but...you never know! Jack and Elizabeth are a focal point of the first few seasons and a novelization of the series would also support this.

Anyway, I think I said before that I was toying with the idea of pre-writing five chapters, posting them a week or two apart, and gauging interest based off of that. If people aren’t interested, I can abandon the project early enough into it that nobody has to feel sad about it. If people are into the idea, and take the time to comment on the chapters... Well, it looks like I’d have to keep going.

It’s just a struggle to get started.

For two reasons. 

The first is the possibility of failure. Now, you could say it’s not a failure if you complete the project, or no time spent on a hobby is wasted, but for me that just isn’t true—at least not completely. Writing is a hobby, but it’s a very personal hobby. I pour a lot of myself into those stories, into storytelling, and the very point of writing for me, especially when I post it online, is the social aspect of it. Fanfiction is a social hobby! When nobody comments on the story, nobody favorites it, nobody bookmarks it... 

Well, I might as well have just left it all in my head and not taken the time to write it down.

The second is...Elizabeth, and by extension, Jack. And, uh, by extension of that, Jack/Elizabeth.

Hear me out!

I think both characters have some good foundations going for them. Season 2 shattered a lot of the good things they had going on for the Dramaz (which I wholeheartedly disagree with), but I feel fully capable of warping the S2 events to better suit the characters we ended up with (and to avoid some of the unnecessary meaningless drama that never did sit right with me). I just feel like both characters are...a little bit...empty? And especially for focal characters, they need depth that the show just simply refused to provide outside of Dramatic Situations.

I’ve been working through some of that in my head. Something I always liked about Elizabeth was how she unapologetically enjoyed being rich! Whether she was in Coal Valley or Hamilton she sported fashionable things. She loved going shopping with her sisters, dressing up for dinner, et cetera. Her vague ignorance of people like Abigail visiting (welcome in the house, but definitely unaware of ‘dressing for dinner’) was this really nifty mix of like...endearing and frustrating. I think playing that up a little further, or rather...bringing it to the forefront, might be a great idea.

--

Speaking of Abigail, I think the character was an excellent addition to the series in the beginning and I’d prefer to continue along those lines, here. I’d fully plan to include her, but with my own slight twist on things; she stays Abigail. No Lorigail.

I can’t decide exactly what to do with some of the other characters, though. I greatly enjoyed Cat and her children, and as Emily is still around later I feel like I’d want to keep her around, but she needs a role to fill and it doesn’t feel quite right to relegate her to the very background when Elizabeth spent the first season going up to bat for her. I think I could figure it out easily enough, but it’s another consideration I’m up against.

--

Of course, this is all kind of hinging on the idea that the first five chapters would be met with some measure of success, because if people kind of shrugged over them it won’t matter what I do with Cat or anyone else.

Anyway I feel like it should be stated outright that I have no real intentions of completely altering anything...at this time. That could definitely change, though, if the readerbase wanted it badly enough and I felt it was appropriate. There are some things that I think need more attention, but that’s not the same as altering events, per se. Bill as a character comes on really mysterious but what’s the point of writing him that way when the entire potential readerbase already knows he’s married? Already knows about the counterfeit plotline? It might actually be more fun to get into his head and write some of those scenes from his perspective (third person limited, not first person; I despise first person). Then we have his reasoning (stupid or not) instead of the mystery.

Therein lies the reasoning necessary for anyone to actually start reading it in the first place: it offers something the tv show doesn’t (because text-based mediums can get into people’s heads and narratively examine their psyche) but doesn’t actually deviate hard from what people already know and like about the show. I guess you could say that it’s giving them more of what they like?

--

I think the difficult part of balancing a novelization has to do with the points of view; do you pick a few and stick with those? Do you GRRM it up and everyone gets it sometimes, or do you choose the scenes and select the narrative based specifically on how that scene would best be told, which could result in some people having more scenes than others?

I’m leaning a little toward the latter with the idea that some characters will probably never get their own scenes, because if a character is only allowed to have one, why bother even giving them that? I’m not sold on the idea though, because I can’t even choose a character who wouldn’t get a scene. Probably characters who just aren’t around enough for it to matter? I’m thinking about characters like Greta (the investor) or Jenkins (bank manager) more than I am even characters like Ray Wyatt, ‘cause at least Ray sticks around in the story for a reasonable period of time (and therefore might deserve a scene or two along the way).

(Though I mean, I can’t say for sure. We all know what happens to these characters, so maybe I’d have to stick with giving characters scenes who will eventually join the ensemble of Hope Valley? Hm.)

I guess it’s something to think about.

--

Rolling again with the assumption that the story is a success (let’s just be confident, here!) there are future aspects of the series that didn’t really do it any favors and/or weren’t presented in a satisfactory manner.

I’ll give a few examples off the top of my head: Season 2′s drama, Lorigail, AJ and Bill’s weird relationship dynamic, wedding drama for Jack and Elizabeth.

I can swallow a lot of nonsense! I like drama...when it’s interesting and done well. What I don’t appreciate is the cheap stuff, designed to fling a roadblock in the way of a romantic couple. Jack and Elizabeth didn’t need Charles to make things feel off/weird/bad, or for Jack to be made to feel unwelcome. I personally think the entirety of the S2 plot could be better shaped and molded for the characters. We can still have drama, but not at the expense of the characters’ integrity!

Just throwing ideas out there, but in the novels Elizabeth’s original contract was only for a year, so when that year was up and it was the summer break from school, she returned to Hamilton and waited to hear from Coal Valley to find out if she’d be invited back there for the next school term. I’m not against Elizabeth’s mother falling ill to get her back to Hamilton, but I’d prefer if her...extended stay there didn’t hinge of iffy (flimsy) health stuff. They resolved that way too neatly and it was just... I don’t know. It could have been better done, maybe to offset the potential for drama.

As far as Lorigail goes, I think Abigail taking on a role in town as part of the town council and eventually stepping up as mayor should come at a cost, and those costs eventually lead to her giving up her role as mayor (which would take care of a lot of the lorigail issues of her just being involved in everything). Obviously this is so far in the future it’d hinge on a very successful story overall, but I’m busy being confident so I’m willing to entertain the idea that someday I’d have to address this. 

AJ also doesn’t show up for a very long time but her introduction was pretty mediocre, and Bill’s reaction to her (not chasing her down instantly) didn’t make a lick of sense. Bill isn’t easily swayed by anyone’s dumb opinion, and he’s not a romantic in the traditional sense so it’s hard to imagine a kiss from a stranger made him slack on his job duties. An easy fix here would just be to show the good moments that had to have existed between the bad ones. The only reason Bill would let AJ go without even trying to find her is if he feels that 1) she doesn’t deserve to be jailed, and/or 2) she’s safer if she’s free. It’s not a huge issue in the grand scheme of things but I think it’d be a real shame not to ‘fix’ the issue while possible.

Finally, with the wedding drama... Honestly they didn’t need any of it. The church didn’t need to burn. If we want wholesome content: there’s been a bit of a drought and there aren’t any nice flowers for the wedding, so Elizabeth’s dad remembers that his girls used to like making paper flowers and organizes everyone to use colored paper to make them so they can string them up in the church. I mean, something little like that doesn’t really change the backbone of the story we’re getting (I mean, we’re here for Jack and Elizabeth’s wedding, a celebration of happiness, not for the drama that ends up being completely meaningless). Cute mishaps on the wedding day would be much better/more interesting/tell a better story.

(Or maybe Bill just about completely misses the wedding and then we get Lee and Rosie’s rings being used, which sort of ties in with how close Elizabeth gets with them in S6 storylines...)

--

The more I think about it, the more potential for an amazing story I find in this, and the more excited I get. 

Henry is SUCH an interesting character; it would be amazing to get into his head early on.

Imagine getting to see Elizabeth and Abigail’s friendship actually form.

Clara’s relationship with other people, like Abigail and Elizabeth, but also exploring the specific kind of grief she feels vs. the grief Abigail feels and how that might clash/be different.

Exploring the different relationships the women in town had with their husbands. Some were obviously still in love, some not so much, others ready to move on quickly and a few completely closed to the idea.

A schoolhouse/group of kids that isn’t replaced every ten seconds and remains somewhat consistent...

Getting to write Jack and Elizabeth actually falling in love over the big and the little things. 

Elizabeth as a passionate teacher.

Characters dealing with nightmares, good dreams, dreams about their friends or potential love interests... I want to see real raw human emotion, here! The good stuff, definitely, but maybe some of the bad, too, because writing the different ways they deal with it could be...fun.

Abigail being Abigail and staying Abigail... ♥

HOBBIES being a part of everyday life!!

CHURCH!!!!! SERMONS! Worship! Gathering together for meals! 

Rewriting some of the dangerous scenes to actually FEEL dangerous.

Writing in Julie’s perspective would be SO much fun.

Including travel time for the big events and shaping the world into a place where time MATTERS aaaaaa that’s so fun too!

--

Anyway, I’m rambling. I just really, really love the idea of writing this. I have so many thoughts and ideas I want to do, all without deviating too far from the source material that we all love so much.

It’s just hard to feel like I should spend my free time on it...but lately it’s really been gnawing at me, so...

We’ll see! It could be a lot of fun just to try. At least if I try, I’ll know. If I don’t, I’ll probably always wonder what might have happened if I had.

[sole-cuore-amore-e-droga]

Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta Denmark to Eurovision with a cute multilingual jingle

Dansk Melodi Grand Prix is... a NF I don’t really have anything to say about. Like, you expect me to rile up 3 big paragraphs about the pre-NF dramas and what-not, but honestly... what’s the point.

Well, aside from the fact people did not really get excited over the lineup this year. Me neither from the names alone, actually. Even last year was more interesting to look at despite with another lineup of songs you can’t give a fuck about and then move on - I noticed they had Sannie who used to be known as Whigfield (”Saturday Night” <3333 the duck quacks <333), Ditte Marie (anyone remembers “Overflow” from 2012?) and Albin Fredy (which seems to be the same Albin that brought me my one of the two DMGP 2013 favourite songs, “Beautiful to Me”???). This year was a big “WHO IS SHE?? WHERE DID YOU FIND HER???”, so I just left DMGP in the corner where it picked cobwebs until not too long ago when someone got chosen.

Well, this NF keeps being a NF where I don’t personally feel too emotionally fucked about any of them entries, so that’s a big plus in my book, which will mean that I won’t throw a “THIS WAS ROBBED!!!1″ post on Denmark NF-wise... at least this year and the last year because I really loved “Venter” in 2012 and the said “Beautiful to Me” and “Invincible” in 2013 (I also liked “Only Teardrops” but I was mad its victory was so obvious xD). As for why I like it when the NFs don’t toy with my feelings, A Dal 2019 is an obvious demonstration, but more on that on my Hungarian writeup, which is significantly longer than this one - that’s how much of a demonstration it is.

Anyway, let’s talk about the chosen song, shall we? Performed by a smol skater girlie Leonora (Jepsen), here comes “Love Is Forever”, which was co-penned by the ever-so-notorious Lise Cabble - the champ-mastress of writing Eurovision songs for the Danes (by that I mean she wrote their 1995 entry... and then none of her entries got chosen for ESC until 2011 lol). And this is a significally softer turn of hers compared to “Only Teardrops” - ever since Anna Ritsmar in 2018′s DMGP, she tends to write cute, acoustic tunes sung by young ladies with their lil cute and lil crispy voices. “Love Is Forever” is just that, tbh.

Well THAT and also it sounds like a lovely acoustic background song for those funny photos/student quotes/test answers/etc. compilation videos on Youtube (I actually am talking about the channel Scoop, because other kinds of compilation videos use Youtube Audio Library-like pop songs or something straight off NoCopyrightSounds). Or the theme song for a TV programme for animals. Or the theme song for a children's programme they show at hospitals. There's so many places you can insert it into, I guess. At the same time it feels like a cupcake with pink frosting that tastes nice. And a cup of warm cocoa with whipped cream and sprinkles. It's a delightful bite. Yum.

Realistically though, the song itself has an easy noddable-along-to rhythm, cute violin string plucks, the capability to melodically progress to sound even more joyful (I mean, the chorus just adds more and more layers of brass as it keeps repreating, just giving it a bit more of a typical Scoop channel background music material), the D flat major key of this song’s uplifts the spirits of this whole shebang and it also somehow includes lines in some more languages than expected in a Danish song ever, how odd it seems like??? And it’s especially given that we haven’t really heard Danish in a song since like what, 1997?? We only got “shout insh’allah” and “taka stökk til hærri jörð, taka” ever since then, and these aren’t remotely Danish lines. But this year we’re getting some Danish, and French, and even German. Feeling the love in multilingual. L’amour est pour toujours, y’all! Liebe IST für alle da!

There are also people that aren’t buying into the song all that much because Leonora looks way too creepy to sell a song about love love peace peace, like someone emerging out of a demented cabaret. I suppose that other people think that this song was forced onto Leonora when she didn’t really want it, and now has to pretend that we have to spread love to the world, make friendships with others, don’t get too political, and then act all supercool about it. The saddest bit that she does sound like that person that would sing a song like that... young, with a passion for skating, looks like a person that could probably hug you when you least expect it, the one that posts light purple sweater pictures with a glitter effect applied to them on Tumblr, the one who would wear white mittens with a giant red snowflake painted on/knitted into them... I don’t know if that’s all Leonora wanted to compete with in DMGP to make a breakthrough with her singing career after skating so darn much, and if she even believes in what is she singing (this is my rare reminder of the war situation in Israel that’s going on, and I’ll probably never have to speak of this again in any writeup, hopefully. Yeah sure, love is for ever...), but I somehow buy it, sue me. Those acoustics and that touch of brass instruments won me over.

So my final thoughts on this song is that it’s a joyball with that kind of song message so overused I cannot be angry on it because it’s not slapped on a dreary Russian peace ballad - it’s a singer-songwriter-esque small showtune, which makes it all seem a lot different because love is cute and this song is cute. So I guess I have no issues with it, whereas I can’t stand the aforementioned Russian peace ballads all that much because if you remove the good singers singing it, they’re cliché af; “Wars for Nothing” (Hungary 2015) sounded too innocent while having a full gun tree serving as a backdrop for them and if you looked too much into Boggie’s eyes, you could very well feel her penetrating your soul with war imagery; and Iceland last year was a knock-off Russian peace ballad that sounded too good to be unbearably dreary and the vocalist wasn’t even a belting girl. So yeah, I like it. More adorable songs about spreading love, less overdone ballads about world peace.

Thing is though, why did she really dress like a barista from a late-night-open cocktail club? I get that looking like a princess à la Maria Olafs won't cut it anymore as it would look way more saccharine, but Leonora is up like she's there to serve you your damn drink as soon as possible so she could go outside for a small smoke break, not to advertise love. Watch me make "when you have Eurovision at 9 and job at a cocktail bar at 11" memes on the night of the 16th. Seriously, her image barely even fucking suits the song!

Approval factor: Well, one of my faves won DMGP again, for the 2nd time in a row, so why wouldn’t I approve? ^_^ Love from me is forever!

Follow-up factor: For Denmark it kind of seems like a decent follow-up? For all those out here that remember Denmark as the nation that plagiarises every other entry, it would just seem logical for them to finally send a generic royalty free ukulele song for Youtube videos. Which is spectacular! No one knows which song did this one exactly plagiarize - the entire concept was ripped off! Jokes aside, it’s an interesting one after Rasmussen. After a song that urges you to lay your weapons down in a war and go find higher ground more peacefully, we’re now getting a morale on the fact that love is for ever and everyone. Isn’t it sweet. I’d rather these than a bland love song about laying down armours and guns. ^_^

Qualification factor: depends. For now I feel like writing it off because to the 1% of the people who’ve already heard this song beforehand and hate this song, the whole thing feels like “love :) is :) forever :) please love everyone you little shit :) :) :)”. To some others however, like Luke Malam from ESCXtra, it’s a song that definitely makes them feel the love being forever, just like “yaaaay we love each other and the world yaaaay!!! ^o^”, so it’s perhaps a bit of a mixed bag. I wanna see it through though, just as much as I want to see Lithuania, about which I will be talking next in these write-ups. But I see it very much so as a borderline because... idk, just a gut feeling. Sometimes songs that ooze loveliness just don’t quite get themselves across the other hand side of the viewer thus they don’t really qualify, for example, Finland 2012, another song sung by a lady better known as a sportswoman rather than a singer (but maybe that’s just because there was too much intimacy of hers with her and her celloist’s mom, and she looked too awkward to pass the intimacy to the viewers so they too could feel the loving bond and the life metaphors coming from a Finnish entrant singing in Swedish). For now from me it’s a positive borderline. Yes, I think that it probably will make it and we’ll see that large Ikea chair prop with many people swaying to the rhythm on it next to Leonora on Saturday as well.

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

Even with me not having much to say about DMGP, I will go ahead and cherrypick the favourite songs from the event:

• The big favourite of mine this year was brought by Julie & Nina, who served a bilingual schlager-like midtempo track, “League of Light”. Hats off to sounding properly Eurovision-y but without using a “rent-a-NF-songwriter” songwriter for to write this! It’s soaring, majestic, somewhat memorable and inclused Greenlandic. Yeah. Do you believe that this would have been a year where we could’ve gotten more exotic Language spins? Now we have lost both Aboriginal and Greenlandic out of Eurovision, hopefully just for this year so the languages can return again sometime. I’m proud of these women being so courageous and delighting some that really wanted schlager pop that still can click with some that are bored of Eurovision NF schlager cliches. Oh and this song is in A flat minor, probably one of my favourite keys in music. Not too bad, everything this was, although the aggression they transmitted through the song during their live DMGP performance kiiiiinda made them looked like pissed-off housewives imo?

• Them both and this guy below, Sigmund, were picked to the superfinal to compete against Leonora. What was Sigmund’s contribution and why did he deserve to be there so much? Well, I really love his colourful flamboyant electropop track that has piano influences, “Say My Name”, which lyrically reflects on the song’s protagonists big power that he will probably have if only the invisible force Sigmund’s singing to would just “say [his] name”. And I definitely think he deserved his spot over some really nice pop entries that the fandom definitely overrated. Oh and the song is in A flat minor too. Maybe I’m biased, maybe I’m not. You judge. >:)

• See, I don't feel like talking about the DMGP songs this year. It's a cool bunch of songs that some of them I like but nothing quite outstanding to talk about beyond those I already have paragraphs for. Well maybe you'd like to look up the entries by Humorekspressen (for to get a pub singalong song) and Jasmine Gabay (for to get yet another Latino-influenced Havana club track). But that's it. Here from me the last one you'll be getting is Simone Emilie with her teen-flavoured light radiofriendly dance-ish song "Anywhere". Why didn't it do better despite having the power to click with the Eurofans quite much? Well, maybe it's because her backdrop and the fairytale-esque dress went for another kind of atmosphere than it was required to have on the song.

• I don't know, I just find this particular winning reaction shot funny. Not sure if she's yawning or being like "yaaaazs bitchesss ;) 😄 ✨" in here. I gotta say - her lipstick was definitely on fleek that night.

That guy below her takes the cake at making this shot memorable too. Do you want the invisible meal Leonora is about to take a bite of too?

And besides that moment I don’t really have any on-show moments besides songs that were somewhat memorable. Why do Danes always have to be this vanilla in the Nordic country barrage, I will never get. That’s it. That’s their crime. Of being average. And being sued for plagiarism a lot in the past.

For now I’d just wish Leonora good luck in Tel Aviv and show ‘em that love can and will prevail before hatred does, if only people remember to love... ah wait, wrong kind of philosophy.

[grapenehifics]

Chapter 44

(Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40473339/chapters/109325631#workskin)

I love the 'making your (friend/parent/sibling) talk to you on the phone while you wait for someone else to arrive so you don't look like a dork with no friends' trope.

"You're six-two and can run a five-minute mile" is from Armie Hammer's line in The Social Network: "I'm 6'5", 220, and there's two of me!"

Is it realistic for Dathan to give Anakin a $20,000 check? No. Their lawyers would do some sort of escrow/money order type thing. I mean, what is Anakin supposed to do with that, just waltz up to the bank? That's a great way to get audited by the IRS. But I like this scene, so I kept it, illocigality be damned.

Satine spreading out all her papers and working on cases in the backseat of the car while they run errands is from The Lincoln Lawyer (book and movie both).

I had to very quickly learn about skateboard construction to write this; I know nothing; I fell the first time I tried riding one and ended up with a lump on my hip the size of a baseball, walked with a limp, and wasn't able to wear pants for a month, and haven't tried again since.

I'm going to spectacularly mangle the quote. But. The final scene of the last episode of the first season of True Detective, as I remember it but I only saw it once so it is very possible I'm mis-remembering, has Woody Harrelson helping Matthew McConnaughey leave the hospital, and once they're outside he asks him if there's anything he needs from back there (like, he probably means, your toothbrush, or things like that). And Matthew McConnaughey says, no, I have everything I need. (Meaning you, my best friend, my support, etc.) Everyone else seems to remember the bit after - which is good too! - about the light winning. But that moment - even fuzzily - has stuck with me ever since. That's what I was going for when Obi-Wan asked Ahsoka if she had everything she needed. Even if she didn't - it's only stuff. You can always get a new toothbrush. In the ways that matter, yes, she has everything she needs.

Nicki's mom being named Debbie is a joke borrowed from my mother, who is convinced half the women in America of her generation are all named Debbie.

Anakin thinks the concept of 'bad' words in general is stupid, but does have the presence of mind to realize it's important to other people, and not saying 'fuck' in front of her friends' parents will probably make Ahsoka a more socially acceptable houseguest.

OMG, guys, you're literally mooning over each other on some random woman's porch. Time and place, friends!

The pre-pandemic explosion in popularity of pub trivia made me really, really happy. I hope that comes back someday, in some form.

I spent way - way! - too much time researching what judges actually say in adoption court. And then I remembered the judge isn't actually the important character, in this scene, and I could cut all that out and stop worrying about technical accuracy and just write about our main characters hugging it out. So I did that instead.

Here's the story behind "Thank you for my life." So there was this book about Army doctors, called M*A*S*H. Robert Altman made a movie, also called M*A*S*H. Donald Sutherland played the main character, Dr. Hawkeye Pierce. It was popular enough that CBS was going to make a TV series of it. They offered the role of Hawkeye to Donald Sutherland, again, but he wasn't interested in TV and turned it down. So they cast Alan Alda instead. And playing Hawkeye on TV came to define Alan Alda's career. 99% of people who know who Alan Alda is, know because of M*A*S*H. M*A*S*H was on TV for something like fifteen years. Alan Alda was in every episode, cast his family in some episodes, directed and wrote some episodes...it was this huge cultural phenomenon. And he never would have had all that if Donald Sutherland had taken the job instead.

So, at some point in there, there's some awards show, or charity gala, or something like that, I don't remember what, and Alan Alda and Donald Sutherland happen to both be in attendance. And somebody says, hey, let's get a picture with the two Hawkeye Pierces. Now, Donald Sutherland and Alan Alda had never actually met before. They played the same role, but at different times and in different things, and they'd never overlapped. But suddenly they're standing next to each other. And Donald Sutherland said Alan Alda shook his hand and said, "Thank you for my life."

[yourpaljughead]

                                             summer time and the living is easy

want to plot with yourpaljughead during the summer hiatus? you’re in the right place! below is a list of show moments i would love to flesh out, or plot ideas i’ve always wanted to write. i will include an umbrella “season one” and “season two” plot call - since jughead is vastly different between the two. thank you for taking the time to read this and being interested in writing with my boy. if i am not following you no fear, just like this post (so i will message you) or reach out yourself so we can get the ball rolling! i’d like to write with new blogs as well as my tried and true, so this is open to everyone. (keep in mind the general rules i have for writing with other blogs still hold through this: if your blog doesn’t have a lot of writing i won’t follow, i’ll only write with mutuals, and anyone glorifying violence, rape, pedophilia or statutory rape will be ignored - writing that is fucked up). the plots will focus on specific show moments, but will also focus on characters and au verses.

                                       PLOTS AHOY - - - - ! !

jughead jones from the cw’s riverdale indie, private & highly selective eulogy given by v

show plot-specific:

one. season one homeless jughead (between the episodes of 1-4 when jug was living at the drive-in, and between episodes 4-7 before he “moves in” with archie). this is my most favorite jughead of all. i think he is very complex and guarded during these moments. i’m willing to “break canon” (for example having jughead interact with toni or any of the serpents). this is also room for jughead to hate on archie, which is very satisfying to write.

two. season two finale jughead. my second favorite jughead, the boy who now has leadership of the new serpents and is reeling after his almost-sacrifice. i want to explore his relationships with toni, cheryl, betty and any serpent characters who come our way. while he is dating betty canon, i’m willing to break that. i also don’t want to write things being lovey dovey and perfect between he and betty - this is just unrealistic given their particular placing (betty twisted up over her dad, jug having gone to die). i’m willing to play angst for this. i am also willing to explore fights with serpents. the serpents in the season two finale are not the serpents we’ve seen thus far. does your serpent character want this change? do they want to hold onto the old ways? do they like the changes jug is hoping to make? let’s explore. (this plot also includes camping!jughead).

two, a. i’d love to write out the serpents escaping through the town after cheryl warns them of hiram. that would be fun. obviously open to cheryls and any serpents! or those who might discover them along the way.

three. season two jughead circa episode 8 (or chapter 21). i want to explore what would have happened if jughead had kept true to his break up with betty. i want to explore what freedom feels like for him, since he felt very caged until that moment. i want to explore him descending further into the serpents as they stand pre-season two finale. my boy wants to cause a ruckus. ( shout out to @southsidelover​ )

four. what would have happened to jug if he’d followed in his father’s footsteps. serpent jug from the beginning, let’s explore how he would have moulded himself into the serpents. would he have even called himself jughead? or would he go by four/forsythe, and been a completely different person than we see in the show?

character specific:

jellybean. what if gladys had taken him to toledo and the two had grown up together? let’s explore an actual sibling relationship between these two. would they have moved back to riverdale together? in time for high school, or after graduation? let’s explore what would have happened if gladys and JB never left in the first place, or perhaps JB stayed without her mum. this is open for my JBs to explore and let me know what you think about your character!

betty. the real betty cooper, not the romanticized one. the one who struggles with mental illness (functioning or otherwise), and who feels immense guilt from her position with jughead, her father and potentially the serpents. ( shout out to @forbiddenfrut​ ). this doesn’t have to be lovey dovey, in fact i don’t picture it to be. jug’s “want to be my queen” moment was, in my exploration of jug, out of love. like when kids say “marry me” but don’t really mean it. so let’s explore what happens if betty accepts and how jughead would fight back against that. or perhaps if betty had tried to become a serpent after her dance. let’s explore the angst, the fighting; the real.

veronica. i’ve had such a back and forth relationship with veronica during the show. i want to explore these two post season 2. i want to see their relationship grow as jughead realizes he can trust veronica, at the same time showing veronica that he respects her sacrifices. he can show her how to live a semi-homeless life, or how to break into pembrooke for her clothes without anyone seeing them. i want to explore a legitimate friendship between these two. (anyone who wants to explore pre-season 2 finale, that’s okay, but it won’t differ much from the show. jug doesn’t like her).

toni. i want to explore their wild, interesting relationship. how does toni know so much about him? were they close friends as kids, losing contact as jug moved his school life to the northside? or do they keep up on weekends, laughing about the privileged kids? is this verse based on a serpent jughead (see plot four, where jug was always a serpent)? this plot also intertwines with plot three, had he stuck with his break up with betty and dug deeper into the serpents.

archie. i want these two to fight - circa riverdale’s season one episode 1-4, and season two episode 6, chapter 19, and episode 16, chapter 29. i want to explore their friendship, both the good and bad. i want to explore how jughead handles archie’s PTSD and in turn how archie handles jug descending into the serpents. (there is zero room for romantic relationships here - platonic only). this is open for your interpretation on archie and how he handles his mental illness (if any) and his PTSD. this can also include any manipulation and emotional abuse from hiram lodge.

cheryl. i’ve always had a pull toward cheryl and jughead but i want to explore their relationship realistically. i want to explore the moment jughead returns her iconic spider broach, or after cheryl’s testimony at his father’s arraignment. would jughead find out betty blackmailed her, and if so how would that impact his relationship with betty? for season one, of course we can explore their non-existent relationship (if there even is much to write aside from them bickering/ignoring each other). for season 2, i want to explore a moment of vulnerability after jug’s sacrifice, since cheryl is the only one who can relate. i want to explore cheryl’s newfound serpent status and how jug wants her to be vocal about where she thinks the “gang” should go. this is open for platonic and romantic lines - but i suspect platonic will be where we start. i’m willing to break canon and make jughead single ( since mun and muse are sick of betty’s shit. smiley face emoji ). ( shout out to @chaosblossomed )

sweet pea. i want to explore their dynamic as it stands show canon. i want to see how sweet pea reacts to the things jug wants to change in the serpents, or if sweet pea cares at all. does sweet pea really want leadership, or is he okay being the Bodyguard, so to speak, of the “gang”? the show has moments where, while sweet pea DOES go head to head with jug, he shows up and comes through for jug. i want to explore that dynamic of “i’m here for the serpents even if i don’t agree with you”. (there is zero room for romantic relationships here - platonic only).

remaining characters. don’t think you’re excluded, i just haven’t had much interaction with characters other than the specific ones above. i am ABSOLUTELY open to exploring relationships with your character - just message me and we can figure out our own plot lines together. there are definite things i want to explore with characters outside the ones listed above, so let’s get talking!

OCs & non-Riverdale (riverdale verse specific, see below for AU). please don’t hesitate to reach out if you’re an OC or a character with a riverdale verse!!! i’m absolutely open to exploring new relationships. any plots will be fleshed out together! yay!

AU verse specific:

OCs & non-Riverdale (any verse not riverdale, see above for riverdale-specific). if you’re an OC or a character from another TV show/book/movie/etc verse, reach out! i’m more than happy to work in jughead into your world, whatever that may be. if you’ve always wondered how jughead would mix in with your character or your verse, i’m your muse!

gossip girl. for this verse, i want jughead to be similar to chuck bass circa season one. rich kid, drug user (we’re going to exclude the sexual assault). i’m willing to work jughead into wherever your gossip girl character may rest, or if you’d like to work your character into a GG verse as well.

the 100. i haven’t kept up with the 100 since the clexa nightmare, but i would like to focus on season 1-ish, where everyone has just landed back on earth. i want to explore a murphy-like verse, maybe a bit of jasper in there. this is open to discussing more since i haven’t kept up with the show in ages (remind me to do a re-watch).

animal kingdom. this show is amazing, go watch it immediately if you haven’t. i want to explore jug’s life if his entire family had been career criminals. very show specific plots in mind, happy to explore the canon verse in california. mix between season one and season 3 Jay.

scream tv show. shout out to the OG season 1, 2 and halloween special. i want to throw jug into this world so bad. whatever and wherever you want to put your character is good for me. if you have a scream tv muse, HIT A GIRL UP. if you want to throw your muse into the verse, too, let’s plot!

 rupaul’s drag race. im fucking kidding.

the vampire diaries/shadow hunters. i would be open to exploring a plot somewhere in these worlds. i haven’t watched either show in ages, but if you have a character and you’d love to see jug intertwined with your verse, let me know! i’m definitely open :)

various movies/horror verse. here are a list of movie verses i would like to explore, if you’re interested let me know and we can plot together!! the purge, the strangers, you’re next, baby driver, gone girl, hush, OG scream trilogy. if you have something in mind other than these, let me know!

[rantingstories]

I woke up at 5am, drove to a local hill and read my book. How did it affect my day?    

 I use to wake up at 7am, eat straight away, sleep for half an hour and be late for work

 Hellewwww. So, I would like to discuss a concept probably foreign to a lot of us, and that is productivity in the mornings. I think the general consensus for mornings is; wake up, turn the alarm off, lay there being miserable about our inevitable rise from the bed, literally fall back asleep like you don’t even need wages because you got the rent fairy to help you out, turn the alarm off, after laughing at the wage fairy thing become miserable again, tiny ‘lil pep talk, and rise. Usually, the mornings are for being sluggish, letting your body adjust and rest at the same time. You would eat your food and watch some TV or look on your phone, until it’s time to get ready for work or school. I feel this is the default morning of most people. My mornings have always been a little lazier and more shameful then that!

Typically, I would give myself an hour and 9 minutes. I’d have to leave at 8:15 so I would get up at 7:06 because sleep minutes are more like hours when you feel you’re losing them and 6 more minutes in bed felt like a lot to me. Then I would sluggishly walk to the kitchen and feed my two cats who would be bountiful balls of energy, making me a mere shell of a person in their presence. I would then make any cereal I can find and sit on the couch watching TV or looking through my phone as I ate. I wouldn’t really have time for a cooked breakfast or tea because here comes the important bit; I lay sleep, on the couch, for half an hour, as my partner lays in bed. Why? Glad you asked J I have no clueL. For me, being awake whilst in bed is fantastic because I can actually feel the pleasure of just lying there and letting my mind drift. I’m conscious to know I’m snuggly in bed and that’s a great feeling. So for me, I actually like my body being awake. That’s the reason I lay on the couch, much to my fiancés dismay that I would rather lay alone on the couch where the cats walk all over me and crush my ribs, their wet noses tapping my skin as they examine what the hell I think I’m doing with my life, then in her arms in our warm bed. I lay there merrily, thinking about nice happy things, body at rest, mind adrift, milk getting sneakily licked from my cereal bowl by those assholes as I lay careless and oblivious in my own warm bubble of rest and contentment. This is also subliminally stressful as I have to remember to get up at eight and each morning, my drifting mind lives in secret fear and sheer panic that I’ll properly fall asleep and be awoken at like 8:15 by my ashamed partner. Nonetheless, I always get up because I don’t actually sleep, I just lay there, pointlessly. Let’s think about what can be done in half an hour?

 ü  A workout session

ü  Reading a book

ü  Applying for jobs

ü  Answering emails

ü  A walk with fresh air

ü  A shower

ü  Putting effort into your make up, hair and outfit

ü  Chores that you now don’t have to come home to

ü  Making your partner breakfast

ü  Watching EastEnders whilst washing up

You can get a lot done in that space of time so why was I just lying there, not even sleeping? It was pointless and I decided to change it, to explore the enigmatic world that rapidly progresses as we lie half dead asleep. The World of the Larks.  The Larks are strange beings, they do the equivalent of half a day’s work a night owl does, in the two or three hours you’re still asleep. They are powerful and their motivation and strength should be feared or stolen from them when you get the chance. I decided this morning, I would try it. I spent a week, a few years ago, jogging at 6am. It was winter, dark, everyone at the bus stop looked like lonely orphans in any film designed to tug on your heart strings, and it didn’t appeal to me. However it’s the penultimate month of summer now, so I thought it would be different.

 The hardest part already was the night before. Using my valuable, precious, beautiful time in evenings to actually be asleep by 10pm. I was devastated. I typically have so much damn fun in the evening, writing ideas for my 27 open novels, being too devoted to Bored Panda, Facebooking drama watching, TV, shouting “CUTENESS” at my cats, then I’ll go to bed at the ridiculous hour of about half 11, 12 or even 1! I’d fall asleep straight away and then repeat the aforementioned cycle of the 7:06 start. It sounds dreadfully unproductive and like a stereotypical uni student really. Like I would have lived when I was working till 10pm then at uni at like 10 or 2am. But this isn’t fun times anymore, I have a big girl job with a big girl flat and a big girl life and car insurance. It’s time to behave like a big productive girl who organises her life in diaries and budgets. So now we’re in the morning and I sort of woke up at 4:48am, my brain obviously pre-empting its doom. Then 5am hit. I took some advice from videos I had watched to prepare for this and I charged my phone in the hallway outside my door. That way, to shut off the noise, I had to get up, walk out to the hall and crouch down, giving my knees a workout already to switch it off. My partner decided to do this experiment with me, but left her phone on the nightstand, showing clear signs that her heart wasn’t in this, but she came with me and I feel so very proud. Her names Ashleigh by the way. Anyway, so I used the time to respond to some messages, they had built up because I didn’t use my phone half an hour before bed the previous night, another tip I picked up. The break from the screens will really do me good. It will help my eyes and my concentration levels. My eye lids won’t be lower, looking down at the phone, which helps with the eyes feeling lighter and me feeling more awake.

I was also surprised with how awake I actually felt. I find this happens every time I wake up before 7am, I always feel more awake then when I wake up after 7am. It’s odd but it’s true. Your body feels a bit weaker rather than just sluggish, but your eyes and mind are awake, like this is the time they are meant to be up all along and you’ve been over sleeping them. I don’t know if it’s the same for everyone else, but always been like this for me. So we woke up and had some grapes and water. I’m the type of person who could honestly eat KFC and drink coke, 5 minutes after waking up. Ashleigh could barely look at the grapes. 2 hours before their breakfast time, and the cats thought we were tired enough to forget and feed them early. Suckers! So then we left in her car and we drove to these hills near our flat, you climb them in a twisting motion and they overlook a beautiful canvas under the blue skies’ light of cars racing down the motorway, dull brown house roofs and Greater London pollution. Once we reached the precipice, we found our journey up had consisted of talks of the mind, how it copes with waking up early, how being productive actually boosts our serotonin levels and how we feel happier and more alive. So smarter conversation was happening. In our normal routine, the only conversation we’d get in the morning is what’s happening on Facebook or… nothing. It felt great to have an in depth conversation with nothing but the breeze around us, no screens no third party media to influence our conversations, just us, our minds and the world. It was lovely.

At the top, it took a minor toll on our legs. Let me tell you by the way, your legs at 5am are the equivalent to the little devil on your shoulder who tells you, you won’t get a degree because you’re useless at life or you won’t ever find a career you love just lower your standards or you won’t feel in the slightest horrible if you spend over £20 on a pizza delivery at 11pm on a week night. They don’t like 5am and they will remind you you’re a sadist and to have mercy and send them to bed. Ignore them, they are the over dramatic one in the family. Nonetheless, we sat down at the top and began to read our respective books. Mine was “The Good Guy” (Susan Beale), set in 1964, a realistic view on marriage, its ups and downs, the pressures on the typical masculine and feminine roles, motherhood and adultery, and hers was “I Let You Go” (Claire Mackintosh), how one mistake, brought on by pressurising and damaging events, can turn life upside down, with thrills and chases and emotions tugged hard. We only read a chapter each, but as everyone knows, books nourish your eyes better than a screen will, they nourish your imagination, forcing it to work to picture what you read rather than it being given to you, they nourish your vocabulary and extend it and they nourish your mood for the day with the journey you take when reading it, leaving you picturing your own world and story with more passion and thoughtfulness.

We descended the hill (and I ran up another, sorry legs L I am a bit heartless) and made our way home. She cooked us an omelettes and I washed up meaning, we will come home to a clean and tidy flat with no chores after a long day at work. We had tea and coffee, ate our food, shouted “CUTENESS” at the cats for a 37th time, and watched the YouTube Video that inspired this. I will link it down below. When we looked at the time it was 5 minutes to 8. I still had 5 minutes and I felt like I’d done my whole usual morning up until lunch time.

 This experiment really did change my day, I feel brighter and more awake at work, driving to work made me feel more conscious and thus, safer. My morning was accomplished and productive, I felt like I had a much better handle on my life. We saw people jogging, people exercising, couples doing yoga at the top of the hill, and the enigmatic world of morning larks turned out to be a nice peaceful group of people exercising, nourishing their minds and bodies, leaving them free to relax in the evening. My partner and I both feel rejuvenated, in control, happier, fresher, lighter, healthier and less stressed immediately. I even got a text about something that had been stressing me and I swear it felt so much lighter on my shoulders, in fact it went straight over my head because I felt happy and in control of life, not down trodden and rushing to get to work. I suggest you all spend at least one day waking up at 5am, I promise you, you will not feel as over tired as you think you will, you’ll even feel more awake than usual, or your money back! It’s still, sort of summer, so leave the house, and go on a small walk or read a book, climb a hill and kiss the rising sun, do anything as long as it’s doing something productive. Then cook a hot breakfast and feel proud of your strength and your beautiful, accomplished morning. I do not miss my beautifully pointless naps and my hobby of running red lights because I’m late for work.

 Mentioned YouTube video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGWrGFlYtAQ

Thank you

Siobhan

[blueraith]

Some folks still need to learn how to constructively comment

Wish I could say that I’ve been writing Chapter... 12(? Legit, I don’t often remember the chapter numbers outside of the Google doc) since posting Chapter 11 (we’re just gonna assume I know where the fuck I’m at in my own story, okay? Give me this).

But that would be a bald faced lie.

(Mostly because of my sister’s graduation and all the family visiting and the concurrent back injury I was suffering. Really kills the writing mood when you can’t sit up properly to type.)

This is going under a read more, because this incident Vexed Me To The Max(TM) and triggered a Rant of Epic Proportions(TM).

But graduation has been over, and my back has been feeling great. What really kept me a bit down since all that was over and done with is that very morning I’m feeling better, I see that I have two comments on the 100 fic I’ve put on indefinite hiatus. Yeah, it’s not an active story, but I still care about it, and I’ve been thinking about it recently. So, in short. I still care about it a hell of a lot. Hell, I care about everything that I write. I’ve written fanfiction at what’s nearing 10 years now, but nothing has erased the fact that putting yourself out there in the public eye takes a hell of a lot of effort and, sure, a smidgen of courage and confidence.

Well, this lovely commenter told me that my word count was way too high, that I was slowing my story down, and that they skipped to the last chapter (from Chapter 2, they skipped 6 chapters of ongoing character development, an ensemble cast, Ark politics, and canon fix-its) “40k words and [Clarke’s] still not on the ground yet??”

This is me paraphrasing both comments. I deleted them with extreme prejudice from the fic because I wasn’t leaving that kind of useless bullshit on my work after it effectively ruined my mood for, like, four days.

Why was it bullshit? Well, for one thing taking the average word count per chapter, it’s only a little over 5k words per chapter. Look. I balance out my word counts very carefully for each story that I write. This fic has a longer than average word count compared to my more recent stuff (which is around 4k per chapter) because of all the fuckin shit I was pulling off in this particular fic. Reworking canon to better explain why the Arkers were resistent to the radiation on the ground while having the superior blood that the Mountain Men wanted without putting them up in their shitty space station for thousand of years that evolution would have actually required them to have gone through to be remotely realistic.

Jake’s alive in this fic because I don’t like dead characters shaping character development on a pre-canon basis. Personally, I dislike orphan/parental loss storylines before the specific original work has even started. I get that orphans exist in real life. But YA media has a disproportionate amount of dead parents. Eh. I wanted to do something different. So, this means there’s an entire extra character in the story that I have to write and develop.

Diana Allers actually matters in day to day Ark life instead of just showing up and nearly murdering everyone because she’s a selfish bitch for little to no reason other than to make Abby’s already pretty damn full storyline even more packed than it already was. (Seriously, why didn’t they develop Allers more? She’s lazily implemented in canon, and I hate it. Lord only knows I enjoyed Abby and Raven’s plotlines far more in several places of Season 1 rather than Bellamy’s Manpain Adventures Lite Before He Turns Into A Complete And Utter Psychopath Later On In The Series).

Jaha is far more competent and slimey than he is in the show, rather than being a foolish man who is barely toddering along in the plot towards something useful.

Abby and Jake are at odds because Jake technically betrays Clarke and allows her to get arrested in the beginning of the story. They adopt Raven in the interim and they’re all awkwardly trying to free Clarke while pretending that Jake and Abby aren’t having marital problems. Well, Jake and Abby are pretending, Raven is as blunt as she usually is and just calls shit like she sees it.

Ensemble cast. There’s literally a tag on this story that tells you all that “This Story Is Literally About Everyone.”

So.

Yeah.

Clarke’s not on the fucking ground yet. But you wouldn’t know that, would you? Having skipped past 6 chapters.

Is 5k really that long? I wouldn’t know, personally when I read a longfic, I go into it knowing that the chapters might be long as fuck because I know that I’m reading a fic that could literally take me through several days and I read pretty damn fast. Not that 40k words is really all that much when you’re rewriting a TV show using all the characters who already exist in canon and then getting into their thoughts and motivations because that is literally what books do, this isn’t a screenplay, I wouldn’t be caught dead writing one because I despise them. Sorry, but you’re getting the full range of thoughts and emotions of everyone involved. I know, that’s just awful, getting hours and hours of content for free, but god forbid the plot doesn’t run on your timetable.

But that’s really the crux of this rant, isn’t it? NEVER complain about word counts, people. Too short? Who the fuck cares? The author could be just beginning their writing careers, so to speak. Word counts of any significance takes practice, first of all. So, not only could they might or might not have the required experience to write longer chapters, they may not even want to. And that’s fine. Because they do this FOR FREE.

Same thing with longer chapters. Are you really going to come at me, nearly a year after I’ve written and posted this work, complaining about word count, as though there’s even a remote chance that I’m going to go back and edit down all of that time and effort I put into that work to satisfy your fragile reading stamina?

Pfffffffffft.

I mean, this is funny to me in some regard because I’m over here wondering just what would be a good length for this person. Part of the reason my chapters tend to be at least 4k words long is because that’s generally where I can get a comfortable amount of character interaction, introspective thought, and plot moving forward. All three of those things matter to me when writing chapters. I hate reading too short works (and no, I don’t tell these authors this. I read what they give me and just deal with it because they’re entertaining me for free) and it’s little more than characters just trading dialogue with each other. I want to know what they are thinking about as well. I want a bit of narration. I’m reading something from a specific character’s point of view, and I want that chapter to ooze the personality of that character.

These are all the things I keep in mind when I write to my word count goals, personally. Doing it in less than 3k words might be possible, but it would sure as hell be annoying.

But most of all, it just irritated the fuck out of me. Like I’ve said multiple times in this rant. I do this for free. I don’t expect you guys to know this, but in order to get these substantial updates when I can manage to actually feel well enough to write and get them published, it takes me EIGHT TO TWELVE HOURS of sitting in front of a computer screen to have a chapter finished. On a good day. Yes. Most of the chapters I put out are done in one day, in one block, and I’m often up until 5 AM finishing something up. I have severe ADHD. Sometimes it is a chore to get shit put on a page because I can’t sit down and focus my thoughts enough to sound even coherent. Sometimes I have issues keeping up with what the beginning of a long sentence was about and I have to constantly keep up with what the fuck I’m even talking about in any given thought.

So, you have an author with a severe executive function disorder attempting to concentrate hard enough to get her own thoughts in character for each and every character that is featured in any given story while attempting to resist even the most mundane distractions while desperately hoping she’s going to hit a period of hyperfocus long enough to get substantial work down, but if that happens she’ll probably forget to eat because she’s on a writing binge that goes on with actual significant work for a period of several hours.

I love writing, despite the challenges I have to deal with in order just to get it done. I love most of the comments that I receive. I’m coming off a period of extreme depression from some family issues I was dealing with. My skin is rather thin at the moment and that irritated the fuck out of me, but those two comments knocked more wind out of my sails that I really wanted them to, and that bugs me even more.

But I am more experienced in fic writing than probably your average person. This commenter pissed me the fuck off, but I’ve moved past this, it’s hardly shattered my motivation to write forever.

But a careless commenter could easily do that to someone just getting into fanfiction. And it makes me wonder just how often this happens everyday, every hour, when entitled, spoiled people who think their needs are more important than the author doing this FOR FREE decide to voice their terrible opinions on their works. I love my readers, I don’t hold myself beholden to them, but they are extraordinarily important to me. Plot, pacing, and character development are all my own when I write because first and foremost, I write for myself. It’s a hobby that I clearly have to work very hard at to even be remotely successful at, and taking anyone else’s standards into account is never going to happen when I have to live up to my own already very high expectations. But I do keep y’all in mind when I’m devoting my time, energy, and effort in. The chapter lengths I have partly exist to make up for the wait times I inevitably have between each release. I very much know that I am sporadic and inconsistent when updating. So, when I do, I want to have something that isn’t just a whisper in the wind when it finally cycles to the top of the AO3 listing.

I know there are inevitably readers who didn’t like my content, or do think my stuff is too long. That’s fine. But don’t come into my space and give me two comments that were effectively “TL;DR” and expect that not to be a slap in the face. Because it is. I have wonder if the fandom kids today even know the kind of slap backs this sort of thing would have gotten in LiveJournal.

But, never mind that. I’m a big girl, I took some petty revenge in deleting that bullshit from my boards and then setting the fic to moderated mode, but what I would like anyone who decides to read through what is actually a long winded post (all my rants are, admittedly) to learn is that you are not reading professional work. You are not reading work that has been paid for. You are not reading work that has been professionally edited. I’m not saying that you can’t have standards for fic, lord knows I have many, but I don’t go into an author’s work and leave shitty comments. Never. Constructive criticism on fanfiction keeps the author’s time in mind, their skill level over what they’re actually capable of, and whether or not they’re even open to criticism. Some authors don’t even want your advice. They just want to know that you liked it. And if you don’t, just don’t say anything. I’m not quite that fragile personally, when someone is giving me useful criticism that can be used to actually improve my quality of writing, but I will freely admit that clearly I have a sore spot about comments addressing word counts.

Get out of here with that shit.

In short. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.

[chrysalisim]

SEASONS TAG

I was tagged by @pxelbutterflies -thanks kimmy!

1. which season are you going to play with first?

well. i would love to see fall first, but my story is still taking place in late august/early september-ish.....so i might have to see summer first.

2. from what you’ve seen in the trailer, what are you most excited about?

holidays!!! i’m so excited for (what looked like) new years! i love holiday decorations. it’s not in the trailer, but custom holidays sounds fun!

3. what’s your favourite season irl?

F A L L. Not the beginning of fall, when it still feels like summer, but I mean actual fall. When it’s a little windy and it’s just starting to get cold.

4. what’s your favourite flower/plant?

this sounds basic, but i love roses and sunflowers. i also have some succulents that i have somehow kept alive. am i a plant mom yet

5. are you going to create a new sim/family or are you going to keep your current household?

keep the same household! i’m going to probably experience seasons for the first time with winnie & co., but i have a personal save that I’ve had since 2014 when i first got ts4.....i’m only on gen 4 of that family, but i jump in between like 20 households at this point. this is a story for another time. anyways, i’ll probably play more with the features of seasons in that save!

6. what would you like to see in this new add-on that we haven’t seen yet?

hmm.....i’m not sure i can really think of anything else, except maybe how weather will affect occult sims? pets? i’m not too sure...OH, will sims be more susceptible to illness in certain seasons/weather?

7. how do you feel about not having a new neighbourhood?

i’m fine with it. i don’t think seasons in ts3 came with a new world.......i dont remember though. i dont think you can really make a “themed” world for seasons. san myshuno was specifically crafted for city living because of apartments, festivals, etc. brindleton bay was specifically crafted for pets to be a small town, home-y place. i dont think you could do that with seasons, especially when half of them are complete opposites (summer/winter, spring/fall).

8. snow, rain, sun or wind?

depends on the temperature and where i am. if its not too hot, i like the sunshine! if i’m in my room, R A I N

9. favourite refreshing drink in summer?

there’s a place by my university famous for lemonade and their vanilla and peach flavors are the bomb.

10. favourite hot drink in winter?

hot chocolate or coffee! i’m not a big tea drinker, mostly just when i’m sick.

11. walk through the forest or by the beach?

dependent on where the forest is/how dense. being in the middle of the woods would freak me out, so i’d say beach!

12. swimming pool or ocean?

swimming pool for swimming, ocean for just relaxing.

13. where would you like to travel if you could leave right now for a week?

I want to go to Italy so badly, it’s beautiful and i’ve heard the people are so nice

14. how is the weather today?

G R O S S. it’s been so hot, and it’s been raining on and off so the humidity is through the roof. this is by far my least favorite weather.

15. what new traits would you like to see in the new add-on?

oooooo i don’t know.....maybe a new take on the loves the heat/cold traits we got in ts3....maybe a trait that marks your sims as “easily burned” if they stay outside too long in the summer!

16. do you like to play with supernatural creatures like vampires and aliens? and if so, would you like to have witches/fairies/elves?

unfortunately, no, not really - my gameplay is more realistically centered.

17. what is your favourite thing to do during winter?

we have a fireplace in my home so i like sitting in the living room with a hot drink and either a good book or a good tv show!

18. …during spring?

uh. i’m not sure...hike, maybe? OH WAIT there’s a big grassy lawn at my university and it’s nice to sit there on a blanket and study or play with dogs or smth.

19. …during summer?

um, NOTHING because I H A T E hot weather. hate it. i guess i like swimming because then im shielded from the hot fiery hell outside

20. …during autumn?

hammocking!

21. have you already pre-ordered seasons? and if you haven’t, are you going to pre-order it or wait until it comes out?

no. i’ll wait for it to come out and then in a few weeks the physical copy will prob be on sale at target. ive gotten every expansion for $20 at target like a month after they come out. patience

22. in which neighbourhood are you going to play first with seasons?

probably san myshuno

23. do you listen to music while playing? and if so, what are your favourite songs to play to?

no, i don’t! i usually have my tv on in the background though

24. what’s your favourite thing to do in the sims? creating sims, building, etc?

creating sims! which sucks because i create so many i want to play with but i refuse to make any new saves outside of my story and my first save, so i dont usually get to incorporate them!

25. what’s your favourite kit/pack/add-on?

hmmmm. any pack? or just game or stuff packs? expansions, city living and pets. game pack.....i think parenthood. and stuff packs....laundry day and bowling i think have my favorite cas and build/buy things

26. and finally, what add-on/pack would you like to see next?

oooooooooooooh boy. ummm i don’t know actually! university would be nice, but i think i want a tropical themed add-on more than anything! i want my sims at the actual beach. the bay is nice, but i want an island paradise kind of deal!

im sure everyone has prob done one of these by now so pls forgive me if i tag you and youve already done it.... ill tag @maxismademedoit @ali3npixls @psychoxmachia and @whiisker

[letterboxd]

Wild.

“It’s made me feel really excited about what film, TV, and storytelling can be… It can be very deep, provocative, political, and very human.”

Irish singer and actress Jessie Buckley plays Rose-Lynn Harlan in Tom Harper’s new film Wild Rose, which also stars Julie Walters, Sophie Okenodo and a brief cameo from Kacey Musgraves. Rose-Lynn is a Scottish mother-of-two, recently released from a spell in prison, with dreams of becoming a country music star.

Letterboxd members report that Buckley is “a revelation”, "one of the most exciting people you could ever hope to see on a movie screen”, who injects “a heartbreaking pathos to a deeply flawed human” in a film “cleverly written with layers, great dialogue and unexpected twists by Nicole Taylor”.

Jack Moulton spoke with the Chernobyl star about Fellini, becoming a songwriter during the filming of Wild Rose, and wanting to be Julie Walters when she grows up.

Jessie Buckley as Lyudmilla Ignatenko in HBO’s ‘Chernobyl’ miniseries.

Right now [as of June 2019], Chernobyl is literally the highest-rated title on Letterboxd, as rated by our members. That’s above the Godfather films. Jessie Buckley: Wait, really?

Yeah, honestly. How do you feel about being a part of something so enthusiastically embraced like this? Well, I’m very shocked and proud. With Chernobyl, the scripts were so incredible, when you have quality like that you feel something happening on set. The story is unbelievable even though it’s all true. None of us expected such a tragic realistic drama would reach people like this and have the reaction it’s had. It’s made me feel really excited about what film, TV, and storytelling can be. It’s not just escapism like Marvel or fluff. It can be very deep, provocative, political, and very human. I’m really honored.

Does that [radiation sickness] makeup haunt your dreams too? I can’t imagine seeing that in person. Oh yeah, oh my god. Adam Nagaitis, my co-star who played my husband, was in make-up for nearly 10 hours just to get that right. The incredible art of the people who did that work is mind-blowing.

For Wild Rose, director Tom Harper has said that you were the only actress he could picture for the lead. That faith in you must be really gratifying. What was the first aspect of the script that hooked you in and made you realize how Tom was right to enlist you? I’m not even sure I would have said Tom was right. I was more “My God, are you sure?” What first excited me about the script was that it was like a prison break film; how Rose-Lynn was a catalyst for all these amazing women to break down the walls in their lives.

I was directed by Tom for War and Peace and played Princess Marya, who’s the complete opposite to Rose, so I don’t know how he saw me on that set and thought “oh yes, she’s good to be an outlaw”. But I loved working with Tom so much that I was so excited to work with him again. It’s very rare that you meet creative partners where you have an unspoken relationship.

Your character’s mantra is ‘three chords and the truth’. It’s tattooed on her arm. What part of your own truth did you want to bring to the role? You’ve got to be as truthful and honest to the character as you can and I always try and meet a character halfway. She comes away with a bit of me and I come away with a bit of her. But it’s nothing black-and-white like that, it happens after you’ve been nattering away to each other over a period of time and sharing each other’s passions and struggles.

So Rose-Lynn’s goal is to go to Nashville, and you’re currently bouncing between America and the UK for your projects [Buckley’s upcoming films Judy and Ironbark were shot in the UK while The Voyage of Doctor Doolittle and I’m Thinking of Ending Things filmed in the US]. You’re in New York right now. What do you think it is that keeps the American dream alive? Ha, I don’t know. I think people have achieved incredible things in this country. For Rose, Nashville is the epicenter for passion. Everybody who feels like her is there. It’s a promised land where her dreams can be accepted and she won’t be an outsider anymore.

As a novice to the genre, how did you prepare to play someone who lives and breathes country music? Did you discover any singers in particular who affected you? I think my entry point was Emmylou Harris. ‘To Daddy’ was one of the first country songs I learned. Bonnie Raitt was also a huge influence on me. I really loved her voice and the way she told stories in song. She’s an amazing musician and her womanhood and honesty inspired me. Those two artists especially, and then the lyricist John Prine I was just blown away with.

You co-wrote the songs for the film with screenwriter Nicole Taylor. It was your first time songwriting. Did that come naturally? What was the collaborative process? It wasn’t an idea pre-meditated before the film started. When we were filming, we would bottle around to Nicole’s house on a Friday night with coffee and croissants and since we had lived with this character for so long the lyrics just filled out between us all.

What did you find most difficult about playing a mother whose biggest obstacle is her maternal responsibilities? Balancing life and balancing wanting more for your life is a very tricky thing whether you’re a mother, or a father, or anybody. I don’t think there’s anybody in the world who hasn’t had moments where they’ve struggled with the dilemma of nurturing your individuality but also the relationships that you’re in.

Jessie Buckley and Julie Walters in ‘Wild Rose’.

How did you feed off playing against Julie Walters and Sophie Okonedo. What was the creative atmosphere like? They’re just the best of the best. Julie is an incredible woman and so down-to-earth. Getting to stand opposite her, I would just look at her and go “God, I wanna be like you when I grow up”. She’s in it for the right reasons. There’s no fuss. She just gets to set and is so available, generous, and as curious as you are to find the scene.

You’re starting in film almost ten years into your acting career [Buckley made it to the final of the UK talent show I’d Do Anything, where contestants competed to star as Nancy in the West End musical Oliver!]. That Beast shoot must have felt like a long time ago. How are you handling the wait for these films to get out into the world, especially with all these journalists—and BAFTA—telling you that you’re “a rising star”? I’m taking it all with a pinch of salt. At the end of the day, the thing I want to do is be good at what I do. So, yeah!

Finally, what was the film that made you want to be in the movies? The first film I ever saw was Meet Me in St. Louis. I couldn’t believe the color, or Judy Garland’s incredible performance. But I think a film that made me go “that is just amazing cinema” was Fellini’s La Strada. It’s my favorite film and Giulietta Masina is my favorite actress. That was the first film where I was like: “I wanna do that.”

‘Wild Rose’ is in US theaters now.