#could have an entire slow burn narrative here

[emloafs]

Ik its not your ship but what do you think about miguel x hawk

OKAY LISTEN i'm not mad about it!!!!!!!!!!

here's what is true to ME:

there's no universe where miguel sat down at that lunch table and eli didn't immediately fall in love with him...

there's no universe where miguel beat up eli's bully (kyler) right in front of him and eli didn't fall head over heels...

i don't make the rules, it's just the truth! eli had a crush on miguel and that's why he joined cobra kai, you heard it here first!

[mousegoesmoo]

Okay I'm sure many of you all have seen this tiktok:

This tiktok has seemingly reached a very broad audience and I'm lowkey beefing with some of the comments. And then comments are stirring some byler doubt in me but I'm just gonna come on here and think through things logically. I'm only going to take into account things that are canon or have been stated by official sources.

Many commenters have stated that Byler will only be one sided, Will in love with Mike. Narratively, this does not make sense. Will's character has been pre-planned to be queer from season 1 episode 1 and in his character description. Additionally, Robin originally was not going to be gay, but that was changed during the filming of Season 3 (Maya Hawke talks about this). So, why would they have the only canonically gay character be used as a plot device to further El and Mikes relationship? It just doesn't make sense for his love to be unrequited. They have stretched out the plot point of Will's sexual orientation and love for Mike for many seasons, it has been slow burned. They could have given Will a sharp rejection in Season 3 during the rain fight, but they didn't. If they did, moving to California would be an opportune time for Will to move on from his love for Mike. But they didn't. Will made an entire painting for Mike and gave him a veiled confession- if it ends in unrequitedness they stretched out this plot line for far to long. It is unnecessary. It would just be unnecessarily devastating for Will to be rejected in the final season. Plus, we have seen it before, entire relationships can form in one season. Mike and El were formed in one season, Nancy and Steve broke up and then Nancy and Jonathan got together, why can't the same happen with Mike and Will?

2. Mike has never been implied or done any actions to suggest he is gay or reciprocates Will's feelings. First of, to quote the byler slides, Mike has more queer coding than Will (slide 7, slides linked). To preface, queer coding is "...when a character’s sexual orientation is implied by significant subtext without being stated outright."(Elizabeth Duarte). So, this doesn't necessarily prove that Mike is in love with Will, but it does imply that he is in the very least bicurious. Personally, I believe that one of the strongest bits of queer coding for Mike is during his initial attraction to Eleven. Eleven was often described to look very similar to Will and boy-ish. A little suspicious if you ask me. To add on to that, the problems in Mike and Eleven's relationship have grown as El has explored her femininity and self. Granted, the problems could have arose due to them both aging, but, it is still another common denominator. But, the byler slides have many instances of queer coding for Mike (some probably better than what I presented), so I would suggest looking into those rather than having me repeat them here. But queer coding implies queerness, therefore, Stranger Things has suggested that Mike is not straight.

2.5 Mike's feelings have never been reciprocated for Will. Now this is a trickier one. We haven't had a scene from Mike's perspective in a while, making it very difficult to have hard evidence that he is into Will as well. However, we can prove that Mike is heavily queer coded (because he is). So, if Mike were gay, who would he direct his affections towards? Lucas, who is trying to rekindle his relationship Max, Dustin, who has had a steady long distance relationship with Suzie, or Will, who has never shown interest in any girls despite having many opportunities (arguably, more opportunities than the other party members)? They would not put Mike into a one sided pining with Lucas or Dustin for the final season, it simply does not make sense. But Will, who has already had a developed crush on Mike for several seasons, the pieces start to click together. Mike liking Will is very dependent on Mike being queer, which we have proven through the fact that he is heavily queer coded. So, the only same sex individual that would make logical sense as his love interest is Will. Also: a huge point about not having a Milkeven endgame is that Eleven was supposed to die and, consequently, so would their relationship.

3. Unlikely for the time, so it will never happen. Girlypops. It is unlikely for someone to be dating someone with superpowers in the 80's. It is unlikely for a parallel dimension to take over and infect this one random town in Indiana in the 80's. ITS FICTION. Additionally, it is know that homophobia exists in the fictional Stranger Things universe (Lonnie, Troy, Robin's extreme hesitance to come out, etc.), ,but on the other hand, the Duffers are actively pursuing a relationship between Robin and Vickie. As of our knowledge right now, Vickie's sole purpose in the show is to be a love interest of Robin's. If they don't end up together it is most likely because Robin either gets a new love interest or one of the two dies in the final season. Ultimately, I do not think that Stranger Thing's taking place in the 80's will have an impact on whether or not byler becomes canon.

So those were the main three points made in the comment section of that tiktok.

I just want to also state that if Byler isn't canon, I would want to consider this to be a case of queerbaiting (but, this still depends on how they wrap up Season 5). Also, I would consider slapping a new love interest for Will to wrap up the season as very sloppy and lazy writing. AND, I think using Will's love for Mike as a stepping stone to progress a heterosexual relationship deeply offensive. If they were going to have Will be rejected, they should have done it way earlier in the series.

Thats all I have to say xx

[kaylopolis]

Alastor's Shadow (18+) - Afterword

Alastor x F!Reader

Synopsis: There’s a new Overlord in town and it isn’t the Radio Demon. Six years after you fell into Hell, you have finally earned your seat at the table as Pentagram City’s newest and baddest and with the Extermination coming six months earlier than planned, it is now time to implement your ultimate endgame. After all, who doesn’t love a bit of power and chaos? Your plan brings you to the doorstep of the Hazbin Hotel as Charlie’s newest Redeemer, but who you find waiting for you will not only turn your entire plan upside down but also challenge your grab for power… 

Tag List: Slow burn, rivals to lovers, eventual smut

Masterlist Link: Masterlist

Spoiler Warning: Please read this after the Epilogue

Dear Hoteliers,

Before we begin, there is one thing I’d like to address: why did I kill Alastor?

Alastor’s death, believe it or not, was not about Alastor.

While you were dying, your thoughts were not fixated on him, nor were they fixated on Mary Marie if you read that alternate ending. They were about the abuse you experienced as an Angel of God. After all, this story, the very first thing that brought you to the Hotel was revenge.

But this was not a story about revenge. That all changed in Chapter 14 “Picking a Fight,” when you and Alastor finally caved and gave in to your feelings for each other.

No longer was your Endgame plan clear cut. Things got complicated. Alastor had to accept you and the plan or it didn’t work. Why? Because, again, you thought your story was one of revenge.

Alastor’s death - the demon saving you, looking after you over the years he was “dead,” and the lengths you went to revive him - changed that narrative. Because now it was not about Alastor accepting you and the Endgame plan, but you realizing that your story could not go on without him.

Literally, hence the time jump.

I did this for your character development, closure of your character’s arc, and because it has been the theme from the beginning of this work: power born from love is a thousand times more powerful than that born from fear.

Hence, the power, chaos, and love modified mantra I ended with.

So, if love was the solution/closure you needed why were you so fixated on the abuse as you died? Why did you not find resolution in those final moments (hence the “your fault” present during this scene)? Why was there no healing from your triggering past during this fic?

I intentionally did not want that sub-plot to find an ending because that’s not how trauma works. It’s an ongoing process - a battle to fight everyday. We have our good days and our bad, and we do not let it dictate our lives, but it’s a battle nonetheless.

I’ve always taken issue with movies and books romanticizing trauma and a character becoming empowered from it, using it as willpower to take down kingdoms literally and metaphorically. Culture wraps up trauma in a nice pretty bow and sticks it on a shelf and calls it a day when, in reality, that’s not how healing works.

It is a battle. An ongoing battle many of us spend our entire lives fighting.

How fitting that Mikaela’s a soldier…

But I’m not here to rehash this subplot. I’ve said my peace for you all to synthesize on your own because I find writers have many hidden motives we don’t catch while reading, and, as a writer myself, it makes me incredibly sad when a reader misses it because the story is SO much better if you understand them.

That being said, I’m here to reflect. After all, it’s what an “Afterword” is for.

I’ve never written a fanfic before but I am a fantasy writer. I decided to use this piece to explore romance, smut, and to fantasize about Alastor because how can you not? Vivienne inadvertently dropped us a hottie who has taken the fandom by storm!

I started this piece off as an “eventual smut” piece. Trying to practice my writing in a way the great Alastor Fictive writers on here would be proud to read: @minkdelovely , @hazelfoureyes , @hurthermore , @krahk , @fraugwinska , @macabr3-barbi3 (seriously go read their stuff, it’s AMAZING). Yet, around Chapter 14 (I call it the “Golden Chapter” in my head because I consider it to be the climax of not only the fanfic but of my writing as a whole. I’m quite proud of that chapter and honestly spent a long time debating ending the story there, but so many things were still unfinished) I found that I didn’t particularly have a talent for writing smut, nor did I enjoy it in the same way I enjoy writing fantasy.

This entire project was a discovery and a challenge for myself, and I grew A LOT as a writer.

Looking back, if I had to do this again, I would change quite a bit after Chapter 14. Maybe I will in the future, but as of right now, I have school and another manuscript to complete.

That being said, I have fallen in love with Mikaela and plan on using her in the future for my own book. (I will obviously not use any of Vivienne’s stuff because copyright laws exist, but I just love the character’s personality.)

I’m not planning on writing more on Tumblr anytime soon, but the series will stay up for future readers to find and enjoy.

My only goal with this was to reach a few people and have one person - just one - say they liked my writing. :)

Thank you, Hoteliers. Without you, this project wouldn’t have happened.

To power, chaos, and love!

As always, stay smutty <3

kaylopolis

Btw looking for feedback, feel free to send me a message!

-> Link to Masterlist

Tagged Hoteliers:

@sirens-and-moonflowers @wonderlandangelsposts @saccharine-nectarine @goyablogsstuff @mommymilkers0526 @eris-norwega @missgirlsstuff @alastor-the-radio-demons-blog @sillywormtrixareforkids @its-a-dam-blue-brick @cloverresin20 @blue-bird251 @speedycoffeedelight @littlebluefishtail @sawi1987 @mopeyghost @beelz3bub @fraugwinska @minamilinaqueen @demoarah @diffidentphantom @divineknightmare @animecrazy76 @sleepykittycx @graunta @reath-solia @satansdaughter123 @mysticatto @freshonyourpages @chibistar45 @rapunzelbro @stephydearestxo

[crooked-wasteland]

Stolen from @pinkandpurple360 anonymous ask.

"Blitz still has a long way to go with character development”

That's great. I can't wait to never see it.

This was an issue I tried working into my Fizzarolli Dissection but it kept feeling less about the character and more an overarching writing issue, so let's just take it here.

Every bit of character development in the series is inconsistent or entirely spontaneous. Stolas being in love with Blitz seemed like a slow burn until out of nowhere in Ozzie's he is so head over heels for Blitz in specific. Asking why Blitz only now is asking him out "after all this time", like he has been waiting on and expecting it despite that never being a thought towards their dynamic before. Going from being entirely obsessed with their sexual contract and seeing Blitz as a sex object to suddenly wanting cuddles on the couch with no strings attached?

That change was never shown in the series. It was never developed. There is no character growth, they merely are different to suit the new direction to the plot.

So again, I'm so glad Blitz has more character development to go through, can't wait for it all to be implied off screen like every other ounce of character we've been gaslight into believing has "grown".

If you never show it on screen, the dynamic, the relationship, the change, it never happened. Loona at the end of Queen Bee seems to get closer to Blitz but the next time we see her she's trying to assault him. We never saw any moment of change following the end of Queen Bee where we felt her character actually develop. Even after calling Blitz dad in the episode, she ignores him in favor of strangers at the party. She expressed clear disgust with Blitz before leaving with him, and her mild softening towards him at the end could just as easily be seen as nothing at all as it could be a character growth.

However growth requires reinforcement. If you never reinforce that moment meant something, it isn't growth, it's a cheap emotional scene to get a reaction from an audience. A short scene of Loona simply telling Blitz good morning to show some kind of change was all that was needed, but it was not as important to establish change in the characters as it was to have the most cringe scene in existence. Priorities.

One of the biggest issues with the series is how blatant the meta agenda of the writing is. They never allow the space to establish characters or change, instead citing these one off moments as “proof” of story when they do not amount to anything at all. There is unfortunately a distinct difference between a story and a scene, and it is painfully obvious by how Medrano and Nylan utilize these scenes that it is entirely for a superficial effect.

The relationship between Fizzarolli and Blitz similarly is extremely vapid and has no foundation to establish what their dynamic actually was growing up. Additionally, the two scenes of them being younger are fundamentally contradictory. Younger Fizz from The Circus is assertive and confrontational. He threatens to punch Blitz for being annoying and not playing the way he wants to play. He's bossy without necessarily being mean and not only knows he's popular, but also how to utilize it as manipulation, seen in how he draws attention to himself to spare Blitz the embarrassment of his failed joke. This Fizzarolli actually lines up also with the Fizz from Ozzie's. It's hard to claim that Ozzie's Fizz was "just an act" when as a literal child he has all the same traits

Then in the Special he is insecure, timid, has very little self esteem and is an anxious people pleaser with a mousy voice. There is nothing to establish this as the same person at all, and all the narrative context clues around his popularity does not support the direction of change this character has experienced. Fizzarolli has only gotten bigger between being what appears to be six years old and what I can only assume to be thirteen based on his cracking pubescent voice and gangly limbs. All we can go on is context clues and extrapolation, but arguing of a non-existent event that humbled Fizzarolli to this extent, while maintaining his stardom prior to ever meeting Mammon, is founded on nothing, when there is a much simpler answer.

His whole personality has taken a 180 turn for the sole purpose of the episode’s narrative. Fizzarolli being the pathetic whump he is in the episode is not founded anywhere else in the show, but we need that so people feel bad for him. There is no confidence in this writing. It shows that instead of believing the character is likeable as a whole for a complex personality, the only way anyone will like him is if he is just the softest jellybean in the bunch.

It is only this way because it suits the episode right here and now. And when his character changes, it isn't founded on any concrete narrative of growth and actions having consequences, but on what the writers need to get the audience to feel a certain way. So I say it again:

That's nice, I can't wait to never see it.

[qqueenofhades]

Okay, sort of on that note: I know we are all thoroughly enjoying the Bird App's destruction and drama and firing shots in the air to keep our property values low and complaining about Twitter users moving here and all the rest. But I'm gonna be real with you for a second and offer a Hot Take that might well get my Tumblr elder credentials revoked:

As long as they are willing to play ball with us and understand the rules of the road and etc (and lbr, we have plenty of absolutely idiotic Disk Horse of our own, that will never go away), we should a) actually be glad that they're coming here and b) recognize the far more sinister aspect of Twitter's slow motion Jenga collapse. Because it's all fun and games until the massive human rights violations and democracy destruction starts (or rather, continues). Why is that? Well:

As noted a few weeks ago when this insanity started, the second-biggest investor in the Twitter takeover, apart from Musk himself, was the Saudi government. Now, I have a friend whose PhD dissertation in sociology I have been copy-editing/proofreading for the last few years (he is originally from Saudi Arabia but doing his PhD in the UK). A huge part of his research is about how ordinary Saudis use Twitter HEAVILY, and as a replacement for the freedom of speech they aren't allowed in any other formal aspect of their country, despite many cosmetic reforms and plans for greater international investment and openness. The Saudi government, while tolerating this newfound criticism on the surface, has also routinely jailed these citizens for one critical tweet about them, including those made while the person in question was not in the country. In other words, they're not nearly as happy about this as they like to pretend, even if they're putting a good face on it, and especially during the Arab Spring and other attempted uprisings/calls for reform in the region, Twitter was a hugely effective way to circumvent government narratives and get out community information. After all, it is the biggest communication platform in the world, and anyone can instantly use it.

So, enter Musk: a petty alt-right billionaire who pals with dictators and can do anything he wants by burning ungodly amounts of money. He partners with the Saudis. Two weeks later, Twitter is going down in flames, its entire top legal team has quit, Musk is braying about bankruptcy, advertisers have fled, it's 50-50 whether it survives the year. And yes, this could be because Musk is a sociopathic idiot, since he is. But if you consider that this one evil prick can literally destroy half of the world's only medium of quasi-free speech and community organising just by throwing $44 billion at it... well... that's a lot more sinister than just him wanting to make "free speech" for all the absolute dregs of the Internet who adore him. In other words, it starts to look awfully deliberate, and Musk is anything but a fan of democracy, community organising, and all the rest.

Anyway: Tumblr doesn't function the same as Twitter, we don't want it to, and we are able to laugh at its burning corpse because many of us don't rely on it as our one and only place of meaningful speech and ability to criticize the government. But if Twitter DOES go down in flames, it will be a huge and irreparable loss in a real sense, and in that case, if you see a Twitter user poking their head in here, give them some rules of the road, advise them to change their icon, and otherwise let 'em stay.

[girl4music]

Remember what I was saying about bisexual narratives? This is one but since it's about a female romantic interest they had to be a lot more careful with it. But the fact they did an entire episode about the concept of Gabrielle being jealous over Xena and Lao Ma's intimate relationship is significant, and again, just proves how much they took Xena and Gabrielle's relationship seriously whether it was interpreted as a romantic one or not because this is a DRAMA. It's not a joke. In fact it's the only Gabrielle-centric drama. Yeah, there's humour in it with an amnesiac Gabrielle and Joxer trying to get her to remember but that's completely besides the point of what they're saying here.

Which is that Gabrielle betrayed Xena in Chin because she thought Xena was leaving her and going to hook back up with an ex-girlfriend because neither Xena nor Gabrielle had any idea Lao Ma was dead until the point of reaching Chin and then learning that information. So making this an episode in actual context of why Gabrielle did what she did in betraying Xena makes complete sense. Why wouldn't she think that when Xena literally says to her that she'd give her life up with Gabrielle to fulfil some insane debt to a woman she once loved. Gabrielle doesn't understand what that debt is UNTIL Xena explains it after the whole ordeal so - naturally - Gabrielle would think in her grief and anger shit like: "She still loves her and she doesn't want to be with me anymore. I'm nothing to her. I'm not a lover, I'm not a friend, I'm not a sidekick... I never was important to her at all. I was only there to help her pass the time away. Why should I let her have happiness now? Why should I let her have that power over me?" and they really go into this area of thought with her as a full-on drama because petty jealousy like that can be a really compelling storyline and vehicle for character development and we come to get a whole other dimension to Gabrielle's character that we have never gotten before - that we probably never wanted to get - but the creators were like "No, we're taking this relationship so seriously to the point where we have to depict the ugliness in it as well as the beauty because that's what real life couples go through” and Gabrielle has to finally stop lying to herself as well as Xena that her motivations for betraying her and hurting her were not selfish or self-serving because they were and she had to come to terms with the fact that she was never like this when it came to any of the male romantic interests in Xena's life. But with a female one... because she knew Xena was a lot more emotionally invested there... she was a lot worse than she ever was when it came to Ares or Draco or Marcus. She was a lot more fucking concerned and rightly so because like if Xena was into women - why the hell haven't they gotten together? Why are they not more than they are? So you see what I mean about how interpreting them as a slow burn really works with everything going on in the show with all of the narratives because they can do an episode like this and it doesn't feel like it's just come out of left field at all. It feels logical and necessary.

I think as much as Season 3 showed us Gabrielle wasn't the entirely innocent, pure or selfless character - this was the storyline arc that showed that she could be pretty freaking vindictive when she can't get her way with Xena or when she wasn't the center of her attention but I thought that all this made her even more of a great character because she wasn't clean cut anymore. She could be a bitch too and so she was on more equal footing as Xena who we know used to be and would absolutely understand where Gabrielle was coming from.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hi there! Do you know of any fics with john and sherlock raising rosie that take place when she's a bit older, like in the 10-20 years old range?

Hi Lovely!

Oh gosh, good question... If I have any they'll be on my Parentlock lists:

Parentlock

Parentlock Pt. 2

Parentlock Pt. 3

Parentlock Pt. 4A (MFLs 0-25K w.)

Parentlock Pt. 4B (MFLs 25K+ w.)

Parentlock Pt. 4C (WIP MFLs)

Adoption

But here's what came up with a quick tag search on my offline lists. If you guys have some to add, please do list them for us!

OLDER ROSIE FICS

Evermore by SosoHolmesWatson (G, 2,068 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S4, 5-Year-Old Rosie, Love Confessions, Song Fic, Parentlock, Oblivious John, Pining Sherlock, First Kiss, Love Confessions, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Disney Songs, Beauty and the Beast) – For the past years, John and Sherlock have lived at Baker Street again, raising Rosie together--as friends and nothing more. Ever since the little girl has watched her first Disney movie, she is obsessed with princesses. When John comes home one day, he finds his friend and his daughter in the middle of a reenactment of her current favourite. Part 1 of Made of Music

Made of Music Series by SosoHolmesWatson (T, 6,464+ w. across 2 works || Series WiP || Post S4, Parentlock with Rosie, First Kiss, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers, Cuddling, Love Confessions, Angst with Happy Ending) – For the past years, John and Sherlock have lived at Baker Street again, raising Rosie together--as friends and nothing more. Ever since the little girl has watched her first Disney movie, she is obsessed with princesses. When John comes home one day, he finds his friend and his daughter in the middle of a reenactment of her current favourite.

A Quiet Life by DiscordantWords (M, 25,176 w., 6 Ch. || Post S4, Retirement, POV Sherlock, Awkwardness, Established Relationship, Family Dynamics, Minor Character Death, Questionable Parenting Choices, Non-Linear Narrative, 20 Year Old Rosie, Meddling Mycroft, Pining Sherlock, First Kiss, Love Confessions, Angst, Sherlock Whump) – There had been three days of silence and a funeral. Sherlock had the terrible feeling that whatever happened next would depend, entirely, on him.

How To Unfold a Heart by elwinglyre (E, 25,477 w., 7 Ch. || Post S4 Fix It, BAMF John, Mentioned Eurus, POV First Person Sherlock, Case Fic, Fluff, Slow Burn, Topping from the Bottom, 3 Yr Old Rosie, Introspection, Sexual Fantasies, John Worship, Ogling, Hand Holding, Kidnapping, Domesticity, Sherlock Whump, First Kiss/Time, Doctor John, Caring John, Soft Sherlock, Sensuality, Touching, Crying, Love Confessions, Anxious Sherlock, Rimming, Toplock, Fingering, Bossy Bottom John) – To Sherlock’s dismay, John’s return to Baker Street with Rosie is only temporary. Sherlock’s daily visits to Regent Park with John and Rosie illuminate his lost childhood memories and missed opportunities. But with each trip to the park, Sherlock also feels a growing sense of hope. That is until the past horrors return unexpectedly in a cryptic note folded in the shape of a heart. To decipher the message, Sherlock must uncover the nature of the hearts around him, including his own.

Chaperones by MissDavis (T, 34,114 w., 7 Ch. || 11 Years Post-S4, Fake Relationship, Parentlock, Disney World, Bed / Room Sharing, Friends to Lovers, Fluff, First Kiss, Obsessive Sherlock, Insecure John) – Right. Of course. Everyone assumed they were a couple and no one would question it. John put his elbows up on the table so he could rest his head in his hands. "You want to pretend to be a couple so we can chaperone a trip to Disney World with Rosie's class and you won't have to share a room with a stranger?" "Exactly." Sherlock beamed at him. "Don't worry about the cost. The Birmingham case last month paid more than enough to cover expenses for all three of us."

MARKED FOR LATER

About Being Gay by A_Candle_For_Sherlock (G, 1,088 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Coming Out, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, First Kiss, Romantic Fluff, Older Rosie) – Rosie looks up from Sherlock’s picture book about poisonous plants, gives Sherlock a look and asks, 'Are you gay, Sherlock?' and Sherlock, without missing a beat, just says 'Yes,' and continues drinking his tea, and Rosie says 'Ah,' and goes back to her plant book, and John nearly doubles over in the corner.

Are You Gay? by orphan_account (G, 2,299, 2 Ch. || Parentlock with Rosie, Older Rosie, Fluff) – Some boys at school called Rosie "Gay." She doesn't exactly know what that means, but maybe her dad does?

Hope is sweet by Lock_John_Silver (T, 2,977 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Parentlock with Rosie, Valentine’s Day, Developing Relationship, Pet Names, Friends to Lovers, First Kiss, Classical Music, Idiots in Love, Endearments, POV Sherlock) - Sherlock wants to be more than John’s best friend. Has wanted it for ages, truth be told. So, when Molly comes up with an idea, that to some extent involves three year old Rosie, Sherlock doesn’t hesitate.

"Daddy, who do you like?" by OnlyForward (G, 3,441 w., 1 Ch. || Parentlock / 6 Year-Old Rosie Fic) – Rosie is in the phase where she constantly asks questions. This leads to questions like "Who do you like" and develops, eventually, to "Why don’t you kiss Sherlock?"

If Equal Affection Cannot Be by blueink3 (E, 31,156 w., 3 Ch. || Post S4, Family, Retirement, Grown Up Rosie, Angst, Reunion, Loneliness, Sussex, Fluff, Sexy Times, Happy Ending) – Sherlock fled London a couple of years after John left him in hospital with nothing but an old walking stick and a half-hearted goodbye. Rosie grew up thinking that Sherlock died when he committed suicide in front of her father by jumping from Barts' roof. So it's somewhat awkward when they run into each other in a Sussex general store between the loaves of bread and the Mars bars...

Consulting for Christmas by ohlooktheresabee (G, 40,153 w., 6 Ch. || Far Future Post S4 / Older Rosie, Thriller, Case Fic, Pre-Relationship, Christmas, Paris, POV Alternating, Fluff, Light Angst, Mutual Pining, BAMF John, BAMF Sherlock, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, Jealousy, Misunderstandings, Mistletoe, Ice Skating, Heist, Awkward Romance, Developing Relationship, For a Case, Background Mystrade, Angst with Happy Ending) – The Louvre Museum in Paris is planning to host the celebrated Winter Fabergé Egg for its winter exhibition - quite the feat as it has not been on public display since 2002. However there is a snag: whispers of a world-renowned master-thief with his eyes set on the valuable prize. The curator has asked the famous Sherlock Holmes to consult on security, but the detective needs a lot of convincing: he is after all a bit busy with trying to woo a certain clueless ex-army doctor… At the same time, John is attempting to balance work, missing Rosie who is off on her gap year, a volunteer gig at a local London orphanage, and seething jealousy upon the arrival of an apparent old friend of Sherlock’s. Attempting to foil the heist of the century while remaining friendly and objective might just be a step too far... A Christmas crime caper packed full of misdirection, miscommunication and mistletoe, set against the romantic backdrop of London and Paris in the winter. Thrown into all this, will our two idiots finally manage to see what has been right in front of them all along?

Here We Go Again by disfictional (E, 46,687 w., 10 Ch. || Mama Mia-Inspired Fusion || Post-S4, Older Rosie, Alternating POV, Reunion, Retirement, Case Fic, Mutual Pining, Coming Out, Parentlock, Weddings, Fluff and Angst) – Ransacking some old trunks, Rosie Watson finds her father's old journal filled with remnants of a blog he used to keep about his association with Sherlock Holmes. In an attempt to meet the man who had a profound impact on her early years, Rosie invites the long-estranged detective to her wedding under false pretenses.

Know You All Over Again by PoppyAlexander (M, 53,028 w., 21 Ch. || Post-S3 Canon Divergence, Post-Break Up, Angst with Happy Ending, Therapy, Mary is Moriarty, Ex Sex, Parentlock) – After five good years, one difficult one, and six months that were hell, John and Sherlock live apart but still share custody of seven-year-old Rosie. With therapy, supportive friends, and those inevitable dance recitals and open school days forcing them into each other's paths again and again, anger and bitterness fade, leaving space for a new view of each other across the divide.

[thecurlyginger]

Your Protector

Hi everyone! This isn't a new fic, but I've been working some edits for my first BG3/Gale fanfic as I (attempt) to write it's sequel. And with so many new friends here, I wanted to reintroduce you to this story with the hope that it'll see new eyes and I can receive some feedback!

Summary: Sometime after being pulled from the sigil by her strong arm, Gale found himself being pulled in by the party's enigmatic leader. While trying to uncover Tav's mysterious past, he fell into the all-too-familiar entrapments of longing, burdened further by his self-doubt. The road to Baldur's Gate would be a long one indeed, though perhaps Gale and Tav could find easier footing by walking it together. A Gale-centric POV fic that follows the game narrative with the romance in the foreground.

Rating: NSWF for eventual smut (slow burn baby), and descriptions of violence

Pairing: Gale/Named Female Paladin Tav (But you'll learn that name later)

Status/Word Count: Complete! 13 Chapters - 43.5k

Read it on Ao3 with an excerpt below!

Excerpt:

"You’re hurt,” he said, his voice incredulous. It wasn’t that injury was uncommon – Gale and the party had sustained their fair share of battle wounds in addition to the scrapes and bruises that came with traveling in the wilderness. But a cleric traveled amongst them, and no one in the party withheld any healing potions found. He tried to recall when he had seen Tav sustain the gash. “The gnolls?” One had slashed at her left arm in an ambush three days prior, but Gale distinctly remembered her declaring she was fine after the battle, even laying a healing hand to Wyll.

“Yes,” was all Tav answered.

“Even if you couldn’t heal yourself, surely you could have asked for a potion.” Gale couldn’t help but chastise; this was borderline foolish, even for her. “To die of an infection after all that we’ve survived so far? Not exactly the legacy I’d leave, but to each their own.”

Tav scoffed at him, rising to stand with her bowl. “I’m not going to die, Gale. I have salves to use.”

“Just heal yourself!” He turned to his companions for support, finding a range of humor on the faces of Astarion and Shadowheart at the spat, to disinterest from Lae’zel, and concern from Wyll and Karlach.

“I don’t like to.” Tav’s tone of finality, of the end of the discussion, were never used toward Gale with such force. He knew he must have looked taken aback, but felt worse, like he had overstepped, defying her in front of everyone. “I do appreciate your concern, though.”

And with that, she departed to her tent, leaving an air of awkwardness behind. Gale looked to Shadowheart, ignoring her sly look to Astarion in the aftermath. “You’ve never once healed her?”

“She asked me not to, and while I might not be as learned in magic or as smart as the great Gale of Waterdeep, at least I’ve known better than to stoke that flame,” she quipped sarcastically while nodding in the direction of their leader.

Gale followed her gaze to see Tav’s pained look as she took a clean dagger to reopen the wound and drain it before applying her salve and rebandaging with fresh cloth. Only then did she eat her dinner, the food undoubtedly as cold as it was in his own untouched bowl. Had he truly been so absorbed by his own condition that he never noticed her unwillingness to heal by spell or potion? Still flummoxed, he waited until the party separated to their tents and nightly rituals before strolling as casually as possible to the only tent he could imagine having as selfish an occupant on the matter as himself – Astarion. After all, this wasn’t just about Tav’s wellbeing; their individual survival counted on the skillset of the entire group. Going down their mighty paladin dwindled their strength and lost them their most sound leader.

“Don’t you think it’s odd?” Gale asked without context, knowing by the raised eyebrow Astarion greeted him with that the vampire spawn still found the events from the previous hour highly amusing.

With a flicked wrist, Astarion responded, “Not any odder than a visit from a cambion of Zariel herself or, say, a magical orb that could level a city.”

“Ah, I see,” Gale said, regretting his decision to start this conversation in the first place. “We’re going to forgo reason for the person who so recklessly agreed to let you drink her blood, which is even worsened by the fact that she didn’t heal herself after. Excellent. Truly sound decision making.”

“Maybe darling, you care this much on the matter, not out of self-righteousness, but because when you look at her, you also see her as a little snack.”

[mamawasatesttube]

Kon-El questions 3, 7 and 16

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

hmmm. how do i put this. it's like... the way karl kesel treated him as a self-insert for his own teenage fantasy self or whatever sometimes. obviously this comes out in the way he gets preyed on by adult women and this is played off as cool and chill, but it also comes out in the way a) kesel writes his flirting. sometimes it's very endearing and cringefail, and other times he's kissing women without consent, and that's played off as chill and fine because kesel thinks it should be and the women in question almost always are fine with that, but also b) he writes off concerns about indigenous hawaiians in kon's narrative (like silver sword or ...man i'm forgetting that kid who gets jealous of him and has powers about it for a minute, but that narrative). and like. yeah. white man in the 90s wrote this for SURE. i don't think it's like, written in the absolute poorest taste imaginable, because there's a lot of ways where it seems almost like they were trying to be respectful of native hawaiian culture, but then there's shit that's so far off the mark it's like. dude. and it's very evident that it just reflects karl kesel's own views much more than any character in-narrative.

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

lmaooo that's a toughie!!!! fanon kon at large is just. straight up not my boy. however there's a subset of fandom who leans into him being genderqueer/gnc/trans a lot more than canon ever has and i looove that. trans kon truthers lets go ♥

16. What's your least favorite ship for this character?

LORD. tim/ber/kon is the one that makes me roll my eyes hardest, alongside the rarer but no less irksome ber/kon. it's like... this is 100% not about kon as a character. this is about tim. ber/kon is almost funny in that it's entirely about tim but with tim himself cut out of the picture. but tim/ber/kon is just "let's take tim's most popular two fanon love interests and just shove all of them together!" and i have yet to see Anything even remotely try to convince me why kon and bernard should give a shit about each other. like, MAYBE you could sell it as a loooong slow burn, but i just. i don't see it man. putting the rest under a cut bc i AM gonna ramble about why i dislike it, so if you like tim/ber/kon or tim/ber and don't wanna see that, keep scrolling here👍!!

this is also partly bc i just... man i really wanted to like bernard and tim/ber but there's nothing there. i knew i didn't like rebirth tim characterization going in when i read tdr but i was hoping i'd at least find some crumbs. it's all just ... like there's no substance to it. there's no conflict, no character flaws, no "why do they even like each other???", no particular way they seem to help each other grow. it's just tropey "told, not shown" fluff where megfitz insists they are SO in love and perfect for each other, over and over, without backing that up really at all, and it just holds absolutely no appeal to me. and when it's just tim/ber i'm like yeah ok sure it's not my thing but whatever. but when people start trying to shove kon into there i'm like NO!!!!!! sdjkfhkd like im just SO unconvinced and it feels like such a great steaming heap of Nothing.

the main reason that is is that to me a relationship needs to have an arc. it can't just be stagnant. if there's no conflict, if there's no room for growth, if there's no development, it falls apart in my eyes. it doesn't feel like a real story about actual people. and as far as the tim/ber dynamic established in tdr, there's just. nothing. even the fact that bernard apparently somehow knows that tim is robin, which should be a HUGE source of conflict, is completely glossed over. it never comes up in any way.

like, we know that tim wants to tell people, but holds back out of a sense of duty. in robin '93, he agonizes about this with steph. but when bruce tells her his identity without his consent - which steph tells him bruce did immediately - he flips the fuck out!!!! he panics and runs away and he's furious with them both!!! so you'd ostensibly think that bernard knowing, and then not telling him he knows, would be sowing the seeds for an explosive conflict later down the line. especially because bernard now knows that tim is just. lying to him. all the time. shamelessly and blatantly lying through his teeth. and sure, it's for a good cause. right? but you'd think that in a relationship that's only just been established, just for a few months, that would also be offputting!! you'd think he'd start getting more and more unhappy that tim is just constantly lying to him and he knows it!! because he knows it about the robin secret, but what else might tim be lying to him about??? he knows now that tim has no qualms just lying to his face all the goddamn time, and he's... FINE with that???? there's this giant secret they're both dancing around and it's set up that there's just. N O T H I N G done with that. it drives me up the wall. i found this absolutely infuriating to read. both of them just being so one-dimensionally "oh we're in looooove so nothing else matters" that it erodes not only tim's specific characterization but bernard's ability to react like . idk. a human being? it just feels like running into dead end after dead end.

so yeah adding kon into that mix makes me want to tear my hair out bc it just feels SO surface-level. it's like... how much of him are you gonna shave off to fit him into this soulless, conflictless mold? it's like how i get annoyed when tim/kon fics ignore kon being genuinely really upset tim didn't share his identity with the team in yj98, but worse. because identity shit REALLY matters to kon. kon has never dated anyone who didn't know he was superboy. all of his civilian friends in sb11 know he's superboy. like, he does Not get close to people if he can't share that. it would be!!! a source!!! of conflict!!! but i've never seen Any ship content for tim/ber/kon that isn't just either completely declawed fluff that's just oh hehe tim has two boyfriends, or "kon angsting over tim dating someone else uwu" bullshit, which occasionally leads into completely declawed "tim has two boyfriends" fluff. it just does such a disservice to every character involved imo.

[that-ari-blogger]

Weaponizing Empathy (Mer-Mysteries)

She-Ra and the Princesses Of Power is, pretty fundamentally, a war story. It has psychological affectations and a cyclical narrative structure, but it’s a war story.

As such, there aren’t that many plots that it has access to, although the series is surprisingly good at weaving odd ideas into the central scheme. You want a prom episode? It’s a diplomatic meeting. You want a lone wanderer western? Exile. You want a romance?

One of the best examples of this approach to storytelling is Mermysteries, which draws on detective fiction and film noirs to subvert almost every convention that this season has going on.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD (She-Ra and the Princesses Of Power)

Ok, first up, let me explain my biases: Mermista can do no wrong and so any episode with her in it is a masterpiece. Best character. Fight me.

In seriousness, I like Mermista for reasons I have spoken about before, but I also have a deep love for detective fiction and slow burn stories. I am the type of writer who avoids writing dialogue at all costs, and that reflects in the stories I like reading.

I was guaranteed to like this episode.

But I don’t actually want to talk about the one true queen in this post. I actually want to talk about how this episode and the series as a whole handles Double Trouble.

This is a character who is defined as being the opposite of every other villain in the series, someone who is a threat the protagonists aren’t prepared for at all.

Shadow weaver is completely unempathetic, to the point where she is repeatedly blindsided by Glimmer, who is willing to bend her morals entirely around her care for others.

Horde Prime is also utterly uncaring. His motif is control through the absence of free will. What use does he have for empathy.

Catra, still a villain at this point in the story, is in that place because she seems unaware that there are actual people around her. She cares when she realises, but her trauma has made her self centred and selfish. She can’t comprehend anything in terms other than victory and loss.

Which leads me to Double Trouble, a character whose greatest strength is that they can read anyone like a book and then play that back to them.

They are an actor, a shapeshifter. They exist on replication and take great pride in the art of that. They are terrifyingly empathetic.

Which leads into the plot of the episode and reframes it slightly. Usually, a detective story focuses around finding out what happened, the audience learns about the relevant details along with the detectives.

Here, we all know Double Trouble is the spy. We know how they are doing everything, from the impersonation to the communication. There are no stones left unturned here.

So, instead the story hinges around that dramatic irony, and showing off how easily everyone can get twisted around. You know that Flutterina isn’t Flutterina, so you notice her discrepancies, and you notice how she works as a manipulator.

Hey look, our protagonists are divided by a wall, separated by Flutterina. Meanwhile, Angella hangs over both of them like a ghost.

“It's just that, everyone's so on edge after what happened in Dryl. Have you tried interviewing Shadow Weaver about it? She seems kinda untrustworthy.”

Double Trouble has identified a weak spot that they can use to drive Adora and Glimmer apart, so they use it defensively. The second they are asked questions that might reveal their deceit, they poke at the hole in these two’s armours, then exit the scene.

This carries over to when they are caught. They love the drama, so they strike at that wound a little more, with the question about drawing from experience. Double Trouble knows people better than they know themselves.

In any case, the central question has already been answered. We know who the spy is. So, is there actually a mystery in this story?

You could argue that the question of whom Double Trouble was impersonating functions like this, but you see two Frostas on the screen at once, and Flutterina turns directly to the camera at one point and does the weird blink thing just to let you know.

You could also argue that the true mystery centres around the attack on Saleneas, but I will contest that. This isn’t set up as a mystery, nobody is investigating it. It’s a Chekhov’s gun that gets brought up at the start then forgotten about before coming back. It’s not a mystery, it’s just a plot point.

This flips the season’s theme on its head. We have been focusing on tragedies subverting themselves at the last minute, but now we have everything going right until it abruptly isn’t.

This episode, more than any other, feels like it is being written. It’s not organic, it’s contrived. But this is the point, and it works because the person doing all that legwork to make the plot happen is a character within the story. It’s contrived because Double Trouble is contriving it in real time.

Control over the narrative is a signifier of power in storytelling. When everyone reacts to something someone has done, that means they are significant or influential. Double Trouble takes this a step further by looking the audience directly in the eye and saying “remember what story we are telling here”. They let you have your fun, and then remind you that there is a war going on.

Which brings me to a criticism I have about this character. Well, I have two, but one is more significant to me.

First up, Double Trouble is a flat character. They are a charismatic plot device who exists to cause trouble because they enjoy causing trouble. They don’t have a backstory or a motivation beyond selfishness, and this is disproportionate to their significance in relation to the plot.

This is actually not my criticism, but one I’ve seen online and want to examine a bit. This is based on the assumption that complex characters are more effective, and to that I ask the following question: “more effective at what?”

Is it engagement with the audience? Every early Disney villain would beg to differ.

Nuanced storytelling? I would argue that Rasputin from Anastasia is an incredibly simple character who doubles as an allegory for grief. Even if the film isn't the world's greatest, it's a nuanced story and part of that is its villain.

The key thing to understand is that, on a basic level, all characters are plot devices. They exist to serve the story. They are not real. They only need to do what the plot decrees and all you have to do as a writer is to create a motivation or quirks for the character that cause them to fill those needs.

In that case, complexity is a matter of preference, some people like one end of the spectrum, some people like the other. I would recommend a balanced diet, but what do I know?

The other piece of criticism is my own, and needs to be taken very carefully.

The fact is, Double Trouble is the only named nonbinary character in She-Ra, which steps into some tricky ground. Coding is a complex topic, and the idea that the only character who is nonbinary is a shapeshifter alien who plays both sides isn’t the healthiest. It implies that this is either a gimmick chosen for the character, or it has other, nasty connotations about nonbinary people being inhuman. Stereotypes have baggage attached to them that isn’t always obvious.

This is, I need to clarify, so obviously not the writer’s intention. I have no doubt in my mind that the coding was not intended. But it is still there, and it causes turbulence. It’s just something to be aware of.

But I’ve complained too much. This is a detective story, it’s all about the fine details. So, here are some that I really liked.

Every time a character looks away from the camera and out of a window or into a fire pit. They are silhouetted against it, their back to you, hiding their face and their motivations. Bonus points for Glimmer and the window especially because it alludes to her desire for freedom.

The lighting in this episode is brilliant. It’s soft enough to not be jarring, but its warm, framing the truth as welcoming and benevolent.

The camera pulls back here, stretching the scale even further and making it seem almost infinite. But that pales in this scene in comparison to the fact that Mermista doesn't speak. She's too stunned, too broken. She's had more lines in this episode than the rest of the series combined, and now she is suddenly and noticeably quiet.

That final scene, with the shot of everyone looking over a destroyed Saleneas. I’ve talked before about the show’s use of scale, but it comes back here to highlight just how massive of a loss this was, and how devastating it is.

I also like that the purple lightning. I think that’s pretty.

In this one shot, Perfuma manages to be the smuggest here, despite not being that at all. She is nice, eternally so, and that's annoying in the best way possible. It's the "oh, did I foil your cunning plan? I am so sorry." It's such a fun character beat.

Final Thoughts

Why does Horde Prime smile at the end? Why is he in this episode? Like, I get that he got the message about the port, but why would that make him smile?

And what does it do for the episode and season? Are we just associating him with bad stuff?

You don’t need to remind the audience he’s there. They last saw him destroying a moon. He will show up when he shows up and the audience has already been given enough about him to care. This feels redundant.

However, because this episode is perfect and I will hear no word against it, I am choosing to ignore this criticism, because I said so.

Next week is Boys’ Night Out. Stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[smileyoureoncamera]

Okay so I just finished the all of us villains duology (after postponing and then forgetting about it midway lmaooo) and it was definitely a favorite of mine! I'm going feral about it ngl. ANYWAY I think one of my favorite things is the character development of all parties. Apologies for not being able to spell

Isobel who was basically manipulated under the guise of family to participate in the tournament. Like think about it, even though she was part of the main family she really wasn't because of her parents divorce (I think my brain is fuzzy) and then once her BFF just yeets her as champion she forced into the limelight and then loses everything except the people who only care about her stays as champion aka her dad and his side of the family so she loses the ability to trust. And then the shit that happened with Alistair who she had to trust because of losing her ability to see magic and then he basically dropped her for his brother (same tho) and then having to relearn to trust and be trusted? Reid being the person to basically help her relearn to trust??? To help her figure who and what she really wants for herself and not based on what other people tell her???????

Briony who was raised to think that being a champion was an honor and not a death sentence who really thought that she could do good and then realized well fuck being a champion ain't it and tried to remedy that who sacrificed herself and who tried to be better her entire arc was genuinely one of my faves like and then the fact that she died in that room in the castle and no one will know exactly how it went down????? The what if will haunt them forever, she really was in a sense the first brick thrown ksbsjheisjkejejd

Finley mr.perfect I think him really branching himself off from those expectations was absolutely stunning and subtle. Like hold on he really gave me hs quarterback with cheerleader gf vibes who just went with his cookie cutter life??? But then discovers actually there's to life than that and I think that's great. Honestly my brain is blank with him rn but YEET I kinda wanted more interactions with him and the others

Gavin in particular is also a fave mostly because I love characters who pull themselves from the pit like he genuinely would have done whatever it takes to win and prevail simply because his family just immediately gave up on him and everyone else refused to help and I respect that something about a character refusing to let the odds win like the strength that takes is amazing and also his relationship with al was so good ngl like he genuinely hyperfixated on him and was like nah imma be the only one to kill him that's peak romance right there that slow burn enemies to lovers was PERFECT but also his relationship with hendery? I think they were really similar narrative wise, two people destined to die and didn't or in henderys case came back

Alistair WHOOOOOO BOY WHEN I SAY HE WAS FAVE BRUH I absolutely love his character, the angst! The trauma!!!! He is wrapped in grief and I am here for it. I love how when he was introduced it was basically as the big bad wolf and he was! The monster everyone feared and then Hendry dies and it's like ACTUALLY he is simply traumatized and it's beautiful. When Hendry dies it's basically revealed that it was just them against the world and when he looses that he just sinks into his grief and despair and then with isobel he kinda learns that he doesn't have to just bury himself like that and then it's revealed that the tournament can be broken and he finds some type of reprieve but when he realizes that he would loose hendery right after he immediately throws that idea away because he just lost then gained the one thing in the world that mattered and he isn't gonna lose it again and then the curse??? Be for real without it he would have impossible to defeat. He was determined to be the monster everyone said he was to keep the one thing he cared about and I fuck with shit. I also really liked how his relationship with Gavin essentially like lead to him? Processing his grief? The loss? Of hendery? And then if course hendery being the final nail in the coffin to tell him let go it's okay you will be ok. He was so important to me because he was sculpted as a monster then became a monster and then realized no I don't have to be, I'm not. Idk kshsisjksjs

Hendery my bbboooyyyyyyyy he deserved better but okay the set up for his play in Alistair being the champion like looking back at it it was foreshadowed so hard. I'm glad we got to see moments where yeah he's still a lowe like he grew up in that environment where he was expected to be a monster even if he was the 'softer' brother and getting revenge on what they did to him was expected and deserved but I also love how he was just as fierce. He was the light to Alistairs dark lol i think the focus of their sibling bond was my fave part because they grew up separated from society they didn't interact with other people their age and they knew that everyone hated them it was literally them against the world and then the family took that from them idk man I have thoughts. His fear of dying again and leaving. Like kshskjdjdjd he was definitely one of my favorite characters

Reids story being controlled by grief is PEAK he went through so much shit and decided actually imma fuck shit up and take yall down with me and that's so valid of him but I also really love how when he became a champion he realized that huh there's actually a chance. His character development in particular was one of my favorites I wish I could put my thoughts into words.

And don't even get me started on the tournament like I NEED TO KNOW THINGS like we have the vague stories of how the relics came to be but I wanna know the full details. What really started the tournament why it started WHO started it. It's implied that others tried to stop it I wanna know THEIR STORIES kskshiwhsiejsjs

[dual-domination]

'The sunset fic' for the meme please?

Hi Fixa! Thanks for the ask! The sunset fic is within the ‘Reverence’ folder, which has all the fics and wips of my 10-years-married-Weilan series. I guess this series became all about Zhao Yunlan’s side of the devotion between them, little pieces of their life where I don't explore anything other than softness and lightness, and the beauty of endless love when it can finally be expressed without haste and without fear.  I tend to write long and intense fics, lots of Angst, lots of conflicting feelings (you especially are following one that tends to get worse skjkjkjs), and sometimes I need to take a break from all this and rest in a sweeter, calmer writing. Sunset is more about the art that will accompany the fic than the theme itself, but since the text is not finished, I never know where it might end up and what analogies will end up being part of the narrative. Here, have a snippet and spoiler of the art :D

The scent of blue poppies was delicate, a mixture of many wildflowers Shen Wei had seen, but at the same time, similar to none.  He knew well that poppies had no scent.  Except the ones growing at his bedroom window now. Those were fragrant like warm tea steam as the snow falls. That was the best way he had found to describe the scent in words, remembering sitting by a door or window with a cup of tea in his hands and watching the translucent snowflakes falling, countless times, in his only lifetime which was many lifetimes. The comb gently ran through the strands of the long dark cascade falling over Shen Wei's shoulders and back, sliding down the sides of his hips, hanging over the edge of the bed where he sat, contrasting with light and opaque bedding. The strands shone indigo blue, in a raven-feathers black. Lean fingers followed the slow, gentle movements of the comb, gingerly aligning the locks. There was a time when letting the hair down and allowing Zhao Yunlan to play with it was purely for this purpose: Zhao Yunlan's pleasure. That was still a reason, but not entirely. When in the past, would Shen Wei have sat quietly, drawing inspiration from the silence of the room and the fragrant smoke from the burning incense mingling in the air with the faint scent of flowers made out of love for him, while his husband took care of him with veneration? Of all the people in the world, it was his very own husband a god, no less. Worthy of prayers and offerings in a time forgotten by most. But not by Shen Wei. Yesterday he was a little Ghost King, fiercely craving a simple hug. Today his husband wouldn't let him go from his arms for as long as he could keep him captive.

[frazzledsoul]

So there was a lot of talk the past two days on my feed over Rory being right to turn down Logan's marriage proposal in S7....which is completely the rational take as both of them were under 25, they'd never discussed it before, Logan is going to crash and burn by trying to rush right into marriage, home ownership, and financial independence at the same time at the ripe old age of 24 (slow down, my man, there's a recession coming in two years), Logan said he'd factor her plans into his and then does the exact opposite and she didn't want to break up with him over the issue....and oh yeah, she didn't want to and it's not like the disaster of her parents failed reconciliation a few months prior to that event could cause her to be wary of the institution in general. Sure, her career devolves on its own years later and Logan becomes unavailable as a legitimate prospect to her years later because he decides to become a character in an eighteenth century novel with the whole "I have to marry this heiress to please my dad even though my heart is stuck on another, whatever shall I do? Oh, nothing, apparently, the narrative says I'm doomed no matter what"...but hey, maybe all of those things would have happened anyway, and it's still not a reason to force yourself to get married when you don't want to.

However, can we talk about how weird this episode is? Why is Rory leaning on her mother for advice at this point, who has gone through a failed engagement and a divorce (to two different men!) in less than a year and Rory was upfront with thinking the marriage was a bad idea? Why is Christopher whining about Logan not asking him first, given it seems that he hasn't contacted Rory on her own since the divorce because he STILL is unwilling to do much of anything parental unless Lorelai is involved? Why is there no discussion of Luke attending this graduation, even as a suggestion that's dismissed? What is even up with Logan's "my way or the highway" attitude? That isn't how he's acted all season and he and Rory have had disagreements and been able to deal rationally with them. And finally, what is up with Luke and Lorelai taking so many steps backwards? Lorelai is frustrated that Luke isn't making a move when she's going around telling everyone that serenading him isn't a big deal, what did she think was going to happen? Luke very logically tells her that Rory marrying her college boyfriend seems like something she should carefully consider (gee, it's not like he and Lorelai both have ill-fated spontaneous marriages in their recent past or anything that could inform his thoughts on this matter) and Lorelai decides to make that entire conversation a metaphorical moratorium on their relationship and conclude that Luke isn't willing to consider marriage again? (Uh, maybe this issue isn't going to be resolved in one conversation, hon). And finally, Lorelai tells Rory that if she doesn't immediately want to marry someone the first time the issue comes up, she should just accept that she's never meant to marry that person and the discussion is forever closed! I'm sorry, Lorelai, that is TERRIBLE ADVICE and maybe ease up on the projecting here.

This episode was written by Jennie Snyder Urman, who would later go on to run Jane the Virgin. She also wrote the Luke/Lorelai car shopping episode, Lorelai and Christopher's breakup episode, and the episode where Lorelai tells Rory she's gotten married and Rory and Logan fight over the magazine article she writes. I think she has good takes on both couples in the past, so it's bizarre to keep why they're so off kilter here. I get it that they wanted Rory to be single by the end of the season and not get Luke and Lorelai back together quite yet but it's just...a really sour way of making the narrative orient around rom com miscommunication and kind of taints the back half of the last season, which was otherwise pretty stellar.

[cuckoo-on-a-string]

I’ll be so honest with you, I have torn through your entire list of sandman works several times over (I am truly obsessed) and I love it so much but I need more and I am hooooping you could give me the names of some other authors you like? or some fic titles? I love (!!) the style you have of a fully developed/named oc so original characters are not only fine but in fact highly desirable. (I’m so sorry if this ask is rude or pressuring or anything!! feel free to ignore if it is!!)

That isn't rude at all! I think this was very flattering and politely framed.

There are SO MANY great Sandman fics. It really depends on what you're looking for. Are you looking for smut or slow-burn? One-shots or long, complex narratives?

Here's a varied list:

Treehouse by inlovewithanendless

Reallystressedhoneybee has a TON of works

alteon77 has a multi-fic series with a ton of amazing worldbuilding

@dotieeee @roguelov @aralezinspace all have varied and delightful flights of fancy with our beloved Endless

This list wouldn't be complete without mentioning @ohraicodoll and @peachesofteal, either! Both great writers.

There are so many fics I forgot to bookmark during the initial wave that I mourn losing, but this list should be a starter for you!

[doctorweebmd]

okay I literally can’t stop thinking about this and this can’t sleep so I gotta get it all out. Here we go:

Listen. After sitting on the chapter for the past 24th hours, I think I overall like the ending. It’s certainly not perfect but no one expected it to be. Also let the record show that in any story, being underwritten and letting the reader come up with their own in-between is always better than being over-written.

Izuku Midoriya

- ends up quirkless. Going full circle with the narrative from the very beginning. Expected and well done.

- unexpected is the EIGHT YEARS between losing his quirk and getting a chance to be a hero again.

- listen. the bittersweet aspect continues to break my heart. Izuku did not graduate as one of the big 3. As his friends were excited about joining agencies and starting their lives, he just sat in the background and smiled. He became a teacher. He watched them from the sidelines. He’s lonely and he says so, too many times to count.

- the eight year time skip leaves a lot to your imagination. It would have been nice if we saw Izukus classmates adjusting training for him. Practicing more hand-to-hand combat so he wouldn’t use OFA unless he needed to. Slowly developing new support items and working with them.

- it would have been nice to see the people he gave everything up for rally around him. Talk to him about the way he felt. We lose so SO much insight into Izukus mental state here and it hurts me to no end.

- I like him being a teacher. It suits him, especially with how good he is with helping and inspiring kids. It’s following in All Mights footsteps quite literally.

- eight years is a long. Fucking. Time. All Might your ass sells more action figures of yourself than every other hero combined. You have favors to call in from every government on the planet. You didn’t have a couple yet to pitch in??? Did you blow your money on mechamight? Shoto and Momo are both canonically rich. Youre telling me no pro heroes would have pitched in on this thing? How did support items MADE BY IZUKUS FRIENDS take eight. Fucking. Years. To develop. Even monetarily. Come on. One year. Three MAYBE max.

- I have a lot of thoughts on Izuku and shigaraki. Again, very bittersweet that the person he wanted to save so desperately, who he wanted to help and understand, died. Even with the past users and Gran Torino telling him he’d have to kill Shigaraki, he insisted on saving him. Nana wept to him because of his kind heart. But we still end up with the inevitable and it’s just… glossed over. I’m glad Shigaraki haunts the narrative. I’m glad Izuku can’t forget about him. In fact, Izuku dealing with having a person right in front of him that he could not save, just like Eri, just like Katsuki, would have been a powerful character insight and development if we just explored it more.

- on that note, after all the arm-fuckery foreshadowing, I think he should have lost at least one of his arms. Something something the cost of reaching into the fire that burns you. Something something you reap what you sow you arm-breaking motherfucker.

- I really liked his conversation with spinner.

- I like that Katsuki reached out to him. I like that he fought so hard to get Izuku back into the fray. Again, the last 8 years are unwritten. Who knows. He might have been supporting him the entire time. Mourning OFA when the embers finally burned out by his side. We can believe they finally talked to each other about life and death and sacrifice. We can believe they became close, best friends, even. The last chapter suggests nothing of the sort, but that’s what fandom is for I guess. On that note….

Katsuki Bakugou

- outside of Izuku (actually even including Izuku) he suffered the most injuries out of EVERYONE.

- so tell me HOW he bounced back like that.

- his heart literally. LITERALLY exploded. Sure you can say he started slow and ‘trained himself up again’ (not how hearts work) except he was still in the top 3 at graduation. And somehow outranks Shoto as a pro. And retained none of that ‘having to stay calm to control his heart’ rhetoric at the end with the Kacchan typical yelling. You’re telling me he fucking DIED and suffered no physical repercussions from it?!

- his arm was ground into bone and muscle SOUP. Yes he did physical therapy yes he did hand exercises yes he started writing with his left. Okay. How is he able to use it normally now. You’re saying soup-arm McGee suffered no long term issues? He’s just ambidextrous now I guess,?????

- he was literally crippled. It would have been beautiful to see him having to slow down, feeling left behind, it being a point of connection and friendship between him and Izuku. Again we can just imagine those things happened in the past 8 years but the glimpses that we do see imply otherwise.

- listen I’ve written a million pages of bkdk but you need at least two lines to be able to read between them (I personally do not feel as overwhelmingly happy about the contributing to the mechadeku fund as a lot of people…. It’s sweet and all but it’s kinda…. 🤷‍♀️ after what they’ve been through and what they’ve done for each other if he wasn’t the biggest contributor I’d be confused.)

Todorokis

- not giving each Roki their own subsection because I actually very much like the way their arc turned out

- I like that endeavor could no longer be a hero. I like that Tatsuo went no-contact and he accepted it. I like the effort he’s taking to spend time with Touya even if it is too little too late. I came in as a hater but truly think Endeavors arc is one of the best done redemption arcs in manga or anime period.

- … I also think he could have/should have died. Probably with Touya. Probably as a last act to protect his family.

- I like that Shoto is slowly getting away from being known as Endeavors son. I like that he’s still a hero after everything he’s seen and gone through.

- I liked the scene where him and Touya find out they have the same favorite food. Damn that broke me.

Ochaco Uraraka

- not a ton to say as I also like the way things ended for her

- I appreciate that she got to show her pain and grief over Toga, and that she made it so clear to everyone

- I also love that she became such a huge advocate for quirk counseling (although…. Not quite sure how the technical aspects of that would really change anything………..)

The Villain Trio

- it comes as no surprise that this is the part that I don’t agree with and could have been done differently

- there is no reason all three of them should have died. None. Zip. Zilch.

- Tenko/Tomura I kinda covered above. He’s a horribly tragic character. He wanted to become a hero to the villains. He’s been manipulated his entire life, from the second he was born, and that desperate little boy drowning in a sea of hands waiting for a hero fucking died.

- I love the scene in his memory. I love Izuku reaching out to him. I love Nana preventing her son from hitting him. I think it was beautiful. I love how his single moment of agency he used to heat AFOs crusty ass.

- but Hori cmon you could have pulled SOMETHING out of our ass. He hasn’t reaped ANY of the shit he sowed. He quite literally dismantled (kinda) hero society and got to see NOTHING. You could have let him be a vestige for a bit within the embers. You could have swapped his situation out with Dabi. You could have brought in Chisakis crazy ass and somehow reconstructed his body so it wasn’t all fucked. Cmon.

- spinner writing that book. Compress reading it. That vision of tomura in the end. I am killing myself.

- listen. Despite Shigaraki being my favorite villain ever and one of my favorite characters of all time, I GET his death. Okay?

However…..

- there was NO reason for Toga to die. Not one.

- direct parallel to Katsuki here. Where is protecting HER future? Where is making the sacrifice to give HER a new day?

- Toga is a child. She’s seventeen. Tenko wanted to destroy everything and Dabi wanted to destroy Endeavor, but all she wanted was to live freely as herself.

- she would have THRIVED in prison. She would have made lots of friends and saw Ochaco once a week and maybe found a side-piece that’s into blood play.

- SHE died from blood loss? Bro idk if you know this but the thing that pumps blood in your body is the heart. In fact your heart exploding is a fantastic way to bleed out in 0.000001 seconds.

- even if Touya and Shigaraki had to die, she could have survived. She could have been the kernel of hope. She could have been the signal to Ochaco to be a hero to the heroes AND the villains

- hello i am writing a manga where i explicits make the point that the line between heroes and villains is paper thin and that under different circumstances these heroes we know and love would also make mistakes and could end up similarly. Anyway all the villains fucking die the end.

- Touya wanted to die and did everything in his power to do so. That boy waiting for the last of his body to give out as he died slowly and painfully is probably his worst nightmare. Jesus fucking Christ.

Other thoughts:

- love that Eri and Kota are friends and UA students together. SO CUTE.

- love that Aoyama still became a hero with them all

- La Brava and Gentle married?!?!

- Hatsume more like HOTsume 🥵 amirite ladies?

- I like that the hyperfocus on heroes in society has decreased. That the old lady helped ol’ string lips and he’s now in UA. I love how all the kids can see now that there is more than one way of being a hero

- if anything the hero ranking charts should have been abolished. Completely.

- like…. Have we abolished heroes wanting to be heroes for fame and money and power? Seems not

- speaking of where is stain

- thank GOD hori left all the relationships completely open.

- all their adult designs are CLUTCH. Mina, Denki and Shinsou MVPs

- Aizawa/Izuku coworker friendship. His problem child now his problem office mate. They’re both essentially quirkless now so that’s some shit.

- light in All Mights eyes!!!!

Okay it’s too late that’s all I can think of right now. Horikoshi is an amazing writer and has built a world that has changed a lot of lives. Endings are difficult and can never be perfect. I think he did it in the best way that could possibly be done.

Sigh. I’m gonna miss these kids so much.

[mirambles]

Teri Meri Kahaniyaan: Ek Sau Teeswan (Review)

Ek Sau Teeswan is the last story in the 3 film anthology Teri Meri Kahaniyaan.

Let me be honest upfront, if not for this film being Wahaj Ali’s debut film, I would not have headed to the theatres in the first week of its release to watch it on the big screen. Before I dive into the details of the third story, a quick word on the first two stories in this anthology.

The first film Jin Mahal is a horror comedy with an underlying commentary on class and social strata that exists within all countries. The entire homeless family from the grandmom, to the parents and kids are wonderful to watch! They play their parts so well, especially Gul E Rana who plays the blind grandmom is an utter riot. Much much fun.

Skip the second story Pasoori (I couldn’t cause I watched it in the theatre) - it’s such a bad copy of a Bollywood film. The leads are not only terrible dancers, but they are also bad actors. I have seen both in different PTV dramas and was disappointed how bad Ramsha was here. I had no expectations from Shereyar (Osama of Zindagi Gulzar Hai) and I have no clue how he is getting any main lead roles. Can’t emote to save his life. Where is the fast forward button when you need it!

Now the winner of this film - the third story Ek Sau Teeswan (123rd). I’m not wrong to say that it is the biggest reason for the success of this film. Mehwish Hayat as Sadaf and Wahaj Ali as Asad star in this short tale of strangers on a train.

Two people meet on a train journey - a game of flirtations ensues , and co-passengers on the train join the audience to play the ‘will they , won’t they’ game.

The movie is Sadaf’s story, of her loyalty to her marriage despite the betrayal from her husband. Asad is clearly smitten by Sadaf’s beauty and makes no qualms about it. But he is carrying his own baggage of his marriage falling apart. In the next 30 mins through their conversations, we learn everything we have to about Sadaf and nothing about Asad. This is where the biggest flaw of the story is - it could have been more balanced giving us the male and female perspective on marriage.

But like I said, this story is about Sadaf, about a woman’s perspective. No woman today is going to like the narrative that Sadaf is working with when it comes to her marriage. I definitely didn’t, because adultery is an absolute deal breaker for me. It’s no go, cannot be forgiven. There is even a hint of abuse at the hands of the husband and that’s worse. So I couldn’t root for Sadaf for the choices she makes or sympathise with her. Mehwish though, reminded me so much of Chitragandha Singh and she is really delightful to watch. I get the writer was probably trying to say loyalty trumps love for women, but the way it was shown from Sadaf’s story was not palatable.

Now let’s go to the main reason I went for the movie - to watch Wahaj essay Asad for a total screen time of less than 30mins of this 40mins film. Like I said earlier we get to know very little about Asad. Asad tries to initiate the conversation but the rest of the journey is only about him reacting to Sadaf’s views and opinions. Through her story it is implied that he reassess his marriage and his feelings. I would love to dissect that last line he delivers and his expressions, but that would be a major spoiler for those who haven’t watched the movie.

Wahaj as Asad is charming as hell the moment he enters the screen, he is made for the big screen because you can’t take your eyes off him. Minimal dialogues , maximum expressions. How powerful are his eyes, mesmerising and captivating. They are speaking all the time - the infatuation, the realisation, the disappointment, the love, the apology. Wahaj needs no words, no dialogues. It’s like the writer and director narrated the character to him - said you don’t have many dialogues, now show me what you can do! Wahaj aced the assignment.

I need to see Wahaj in a full fledged slow burn, angsty , healthy romance. I have said so many times, he is born to romance on screen. He is not perfect as an all round actor, but he has perfected the romance genre, the look of love, the heart melting confessions, even if it’s only one line in this entire film. He woos you, he charms you, the moment he looks at you. I wish Pakistani drama and film industry does justice to his talents - he needs more powerful scripts and strong characters to show the world what he is truly capable of.

Mehwish Hayat is an accomplished name in the industry, while Wahaj is making his debut in this film - but he matches her effortlessly in terms of acting and screen presence! It’s not my favourite pairing of his, but he can create chemistry with anyone!

In summary, Ek Sau Teeswan is Sadaf’s story, any other actor playing Asad could have been a side character; but Wahaj as Asad tiptoes gently in the story and ends up stealing the limelight with that last line delivery and look! A star in the making - choose the right scripts Wahaj and we are seated to watch you soar!

Verdict : Teri Meri Kahaniyaan is not a blow your mind, must watch film. It’s good in parts and has many flaws. If you are a Wahaj Ali fan like me , definitely go watch him on the big screen if the film is running in a theatre near you. If not, wait for it to release on OTT and do watch him essay the gentle, soft spoken, charming Asad. Until you wait, listen to this wonderful track in Shuja Haider’s voice - a song about unsaid, unspoken, unexpressed, unrequited love.