#doesn't feel like it but it was a decade ago

[khattikeri]

i've seen discussions before on why scum villain doesn't Need an identity reveal, but part of me feels like an un-reveal where all three major Shen Qingqiu Obsessives find out on their own would nicely tie off loose ends.

yue qingyuan understanding that his xiao jiu of decades ago is gone and beginning to move on, starting to find contentment in other activities and people

liu qingge eventually realizing that his complicated feelings were for the idea of shen jiu being someone he severely misunderstood; realizing he still likes spending time with shen qingqiu, but it's different if he isn't the same man he grew up with

luo binghe conveying to shen yuan in his own way that he doesn't care that shen yuan isn't shen jiu, that even if he's a "fake", shen qingqiu is his true shizun and his husband, and everything shen yuan did as shen qingqiu did meant something to him

[phantomchick]

The ending of Oshi no Ko vs The beginning (chapter 166 vs 10)

So as you can see, there's clear evidence of intentional parallels happening here. This is the aftermath of Ai's death that mirrors the aftermath of Aqua's. Aka already claimed to have the ending planned well in advance months ago so it's not a big surprise that even the ending panels of the first (not counting the prologue) and last chapters match.

And yet Oshi no Ko still falls flat despite fulfilling its promise of a revenge-tragedy.

I think the biggest problem it has is the way the last chapter tells us instead of shows us as chapter 10 did.

Yes chapter 10 also used narrative text boxes a lot, but I argue that the effect then was much more immersive.

With them being used with precision to move us through a time skip with only the most necessary information about the fall out for the characters, even the distance had the effect of doing characterisation work with Aqua describing in a narrative text box how the policemen hid the scene from Ruby but Aqua felt his mother's body going cold beneath him as they arrived - this use of the text boxes casual tone over child Aqua sitting in his dead mother's lap gave a sense of disassociation and shock to the scene.

Even the textboxes turning black to mirror Aqua's dark emotions concerning his revenge as the star in his eye turned black showed how much attention was being paid to their use.

Ruby.

Ruby felt much more real in chapter 10, her rant about the internet's callous response to Ai's murder felt real and emotionally charged. In comparison, for all she's the main subject of the last chapter, she feels like a 2d cut out of herself, barely in there for all we see her struggling through Akane's observant gaze.

She expresses her motivation to be an idol despite hardship by acknowledging that Aqua's right about idolwork being difficult and cruel but reminding him that despite the darkside of the entertainment industry, their mother 'shone' very brightly. The talk about how Ruby shines more the darker things get and how this is a good thing because it reaches out to people trapped in darkness of their own (just like her when she was a terminally ill cancer patient) is clearly meant to echo this idea.

Frankly it fails.

Ruby feels hollow.

To the point where we barely get any insight into Ruby's real feelings at all or any emotional connection with her in comparison, by 166 it's genuinely unclear whether or not she's lying even to the portrait of her dead family when she's 'alone' on her way out the door.

We don't see a conversation between her and her adoptive mother about Aqua, we don't see her talking to Akane at all. We see her grief and her success from a deified distance, just like the fans do. And it alienates us from the character.

Lies are love and she has two stars in her eyes. Just like her mother did.

I think this more than anything condemns the idol industry, she has to keep lying even to herself about her job being fun because otherwise what was all that pain and suffering and loss for?

Aqua died in a murder-suicide (shout out to Taiki for experiencing a loved one doing this twice, poor guy) to give his little sister success in a job that she has to get up at 5.30 for, devote her entire youth to and will have to quit in less than a decade. It has to matter, that she provides escapism for people who are suffering like she did, but it doesn't change the grim reality of her exploitation.

I think the lack of dialogue in the final chapter and the loss of voice for Ruby in the last few arcs mirrors the loss of agency she experiences as she becomes the ultimate idol, everyone's star.

But that doesn't change the fact that from a reader perspective it's just bad writing. Aka failed to carry his audience with him to the finish line and his messages about the idol industry were blurred by the rushed plot after the movie arc began.

If it weren't for Mengo's art hard carrying the clumsily executed story, I can honestly say that I don't think many would have read this manga all the way to the end.

[imbecominggayer]

Writing Advice: How To Condense Your Story Down

From @melda0m3 we have: I'm wondering, how do you fit everything important in fours episodes of 5 minutes? (Yeah... Maybe I'll change it to more if I can't find my answer). I plan on making it really like a series, but without the visual aspect, so no narrator describing anything, just dialogues

Personally, I have no experience with podcasts or recording whatsoever but I do know a little bit about formatting and scripting so that's what I'm going to do!

A) Script Out What Needs To Happen

Grab a computer or a piece of paper and write down everything that needs to happen in this chapter.

In general:

In the first few chapter, it's all about establishing the status quo. What are the relationships like? What are their beliefs?

Then the next middle chapters are about the status quo changing. New lines in the sand are forming. People are going new places. New. New New.

The final chapters are about the conclusion and reflection. Thinking about what happened. How it happened and giving the reader a taste of what the future may bring.

It's incredibly important to have an idea of what the purpose of the chapter is because otherwise the plot tends to either be too slow or too quick. Scripting can serve as a check-in to see if all the actions are flowing in a logical and straight-forward way. The scripting can also create a chronological schedule for not only what needs to happen but also when it happens!

It doesn't have to be detailed. For an example of a cursory guide:

Chapter 9:

Haun reveals how they aren't the chosen one to the King

This causes his adoptive father to banish Haun from the castle for the time being until this mess can be sorted.

Haun's banishment incentivizes Niko to use this opportunity to sneak into the previously hidden room while the King is distracted

There! Short, sweet, and with a logical flow!

B) Write It Out And Chop It Down

The first draft is the indulgence draft. it's the draft where you plop your consciousness out onto the page and see what gets created.

Then you can use the subsequent drafts to cut it all down.

Example A: The house was utterly decadent and large with cracks running up and down everything since it used to be abandoned a couple of years ago. Every single step inside the house rings out a creak and every single glass from the window lost it's sheen. It's just so strange that a house as rich as this one as built in the woods though. I can't believe I used to live here when I was a child.

Example B: The forgotten mansion stood proudly in the forest like an aging warrior holding onto the glory days. Vines caressed each column with a motherly touch. It's almost like it's judging me for having dared left such a beautiful place to wither away.

The problem with the first paragraph, in my opinion, is the obnoxious repitition of how abandoned and decadent the house looks. It doesn't provide additional detail. It just reiterates the fact that there are creaks in the house and thing are dirty. I also dislike the non-sequiter revealing how this used to be the narrator's house when the description doesn't fit a nostalgic or childhood vibe at all!

The first sentence of Example B paints the fact that the mansion is forgotten and large in one simple sentence while Example A takes two uninteresting sentences to do it. Example B uses (or tries to use) nostalgic language to talk about the home so that the reveal the narrator used to live here doesn't come as a shock

C) Dialogue

Dialogue is the most important thing in this project so we have to get it right!

Every single piece of dialogue needs to communicate:

Knowledge (what a character knows)

Personality (how a character acts)

Emotion (how they feel about what they are saying)

Intention (what they are trying to say)

There almost always tends to be a secret 5th element

Secrecy (what they're trying to hide)

This is the case during jokes, love confessions, exposition, and everything!

That scripting thing I was mentioning? Pull that out now! You need to establish the setting? Have a character do it through some dialogue!

"All I can do now is pray Mrs. Jackson forgot about the test!"

This little sentence reveals:

Setting: At or about to go to school

Character A knows there is a test today and they haven't studied

Character A is definitely not studious and probably a bit careless

Character A is nervous about the test

Character A is trying to communicate how they forgot the test

You can also use another character's dialogue to do all of this while still communicating something about another type of character!

For example, Character A could have said:

"I just fucking hope little pet Micheal doesn't remind Mrs. Jackson we have a test today."

This not only establishes the dread and personality of A, it also establishes how Micheal is a teacher's pet and how Mrs. Jackson has a bit of a forgetful streak if this is a reoccuring event.

The dialogue also serves to establish relationships and motivations for why those relationships happen! A is a careless student who resents Micheal for his dedication to school and being a moral little stickler for rules while Micheal has respect for the teacher since they share similar values about education.

D) Inspiration

Since I have no expertise with this subject, I recommend doing the tried and true method.

Find people who use idolize that do this, analyze their structure, and apply it to your own work.

[weemietime]

in Canada, they have yet to stop a vigil that will be held for Sinwar.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/mississauga-hamas-vigil-yahya-sinwar

what the fuck is happening to the world? If a vigil was organised for Bin Laden a decade ago, the organisers would’ve been investigated and/or arrested. I feel like we’ve accidentally been thrown into the worst timeline imaginable, the upside down.

Canada is particularly spicy when it comes to antisemitism unfortunately, this doesn't shock me at all.

In my small city we have pro-Palestine protests every single week. One time they threw a bunch of fake blood at a bank lol (I guess that's where they thought the Jews were), and they shut down our university.

They think Netanyahu will be like, "Sacre bleu! The warnings from Biden to withhold weapons do not stop me but PLEASE let the Dalhousie students study 🥺🥺🥺🥺 I will kiss sinwar on the mouth"

[fuckyeahelenapaparizou]

Helena Paparizou in Melodifestivalen 2014

Heat 1 [x]

Andra Chansen - Round 1 [x]

Andra Chansen - Duels [x]

Final [x]

[tinystepsforward]

ngl it makes me want to die a little bit that it's so often trans people who feel that sex is mutable but oppression is always-forever based on asab in ways that allow them to demand that information from other trans people. like it feels fucking bad. it feels bad when it's people holding up someone who posts a lot of selfies as transition goals to a degree they have to clarify what they have or haven't done or what "direction" they're going in, it feels worse when people are out there like "caster semenya is not tma" or whatever the fuck. i am, as always, not a trans woman, but here's a sentiment echoed by many of the trans women around me who log the fuck off, quoted directly from one: "people who draw a clear line where they say that semenya or khelif are tme and then call me tma are just calling me male at this point".

like i get it. i really do. we seek community and shared experiences, and we feel betrayed when people have less in common with us than we thought they did. [*more on this later.] but that's not those people's faults and my god in the case i'm seeing play out on twitter rn this poor person did absolutely nothing to intentionally mislead people, just posted pictures of their actual kid self. who looks a lot like i did, because shockingly enough "we can always tell" doesn't fucking work for trans people either!

on the one hand i move in intersex circles which are unapologetically welcoming in cis "dyadic" people with pcos, because it serves nobody to draw a clear line where mutilation or genetics or some ineffable childhood suffering are what make somebody intersex, especially when most of us (esp in places like nz) have never been karyotyped and are being treated for symptoms without a pinned-down cause anyway. the more of us there are the stronger we are, the more pressure we can exert on a medical profession which doesn't like to consider how common outliers are, how uneasy sex is at all. and then on the other hand there's dyadic trans people on the internet who've yelled me out of spaces because a couple of traumatised incarcerated trans women i worked with as a prison abolitionist assumed i was also a trans woman and i didn't immediately tell them my entire csa-involved history of being sexed in varying ways as an infant and child and/or exactly how big my phallus was at birth or where in my junk config my urethra lives so they could decide i was tme or whatever.

returning to the * for a related but not identical thought: i think presuming shared experiences leads to some fucked shit in general! "oh we all had a radfem phase" or "oh we all were channers" no we fucking weren't and it's particularly obnoxious when me & mine are trying to build trans community locally to organise and resist the growing wave of far-right backlash against our existence, and there's just white people in there on a spectrum from "straight up being antisemitic and trying to get the n-word pass" through "handwringing about how they need to make space for people who aren't politically correct" to "handwringing about how brown people are right to be mad at them but doing shit fuckall". and then the other fucking brown people in the space are on some identity politics shit where they're like "trans joy inherently excludes those of us who could get deported" or "big city white queers are killing us by being visible instead of going stealth bc it stirs up the discourse" or whatever the fuck i've heard pulled out this year. there's a bunch of reasons i primarily organise outside of trans spaces and that's one of them. i've never felt more alone in spaces where people claim we're all the same than being left as the brownest moderator or organiser in a space full of people to whom "this is a safe trans space" apparently means they get to abdicate all other responsibilities not to lapse into presumed shared patterns that are fucking racist or otherwise alienating. i've never felt more alone than surrounded by exclusively trans people who sort people into boxes and assume everyone in those boxes has the transition goals they have. like i was on cypro until it disagreed with me to the point of endocrine crisis and now i'm on t and at both those points people were so fucking presumptive or entitled to my reasons or journey or personal relationship w my body

literally just submitted on (and was invited to consult on) the nz law commission's review of the human rights act and like. it's straight up fucked how many nz trans people fully do not comprehend that any "sex assigned at birth" type definitions fundamentally exclude migrants who have no way of proving it and many intersex people who happen to have been reassigned later or many times or never assigned at all as a baby. we can't make law with this shit and that's why we have to have symmetrical protections for all genders/sexes/expressions/presentations, bc naming and defining a protected class here often leaves the people who already are left out from those shared experiences of marginalisation out in the cold when they face violence

[sydney-carton-of-sour-milk]

For this week's post, I have a very special announcement:

As of the minute of my posting this,

this blog

is officially

A DECADE OLD!

To mark the occasion, I've gone back to my old sketchbook and (at long last!) made a scan of the first drawing I ever posted here...

...which I've used as reference for a redraw🥹

I've been through a lot in the last decade (as you can imagine), and, consequently, the nature of my love for and appreciation of the novel has changed so much through those years; with each subsequent time I've read it, A Tale of Two Cities has meant a different thing to me and held a unique place in my soul, tailored to its shape at that point in time.

That's part of why it has been such an immense, immeasurable joy to have this blog as a constant, a place for me to capture those shapes (and their changing over the years) by providing the good people of Tumblr's A Tale of Two Cities fandom with posts of all varieties. What a wonderful and rewarding place it has been for finding community in which we can all share our collective appreciation for this incredible novel. So if you're reading this, thank you! And I hope this blog has been able to provide for you anything like what it has for me!

Now this post is done, why don't we call a health, dear reader; why don’t we give our toast?

Many more posts - and years - to come, then!

[uhoh-but-yeah-alright]

.

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

the higher-ups (and Yaga) immediately trying to leverage Gojo & Ieri's absence to put Yuuta on the roster??? God that's such a stark moment. Thank god Nanami and Gojo saw through that one immediately, because Yuuta wants to justify his own survival so badly he would've fallen straight into it.

That whole scene, with Yuuta immediately jumping on the opportunity to help people even though something is Extremely Wrong with him and he's on the brink of physical collapse--this boy is selfless to the point of self destruction and I am chewing the drywall about it. I love him so much.

If only he was able to summon his newly found homicidal rage in defense of himself, the higher-ups would no longer be a problem. Alas, this boy is Extremely Unwell.

(Sea Glass Gardens is absolutely incredible and i am obsessed with it in a way that is totally and 100% normal. I'm so normal about it, trust me <3 )

The thing about Yuuta is that he really is prime to be taken advantage of right now and the higher ups know it. They had him try to kill himself for them--they know that there's a window of opportunity that they can use to get him under their thumb and avoid The Problem of Gojo, which is, namely, having a human weapon who you cannot fully control. Gojo nailed it from the beginning: they want a magic gatling gun with no personality or free will. They learned their lesson with Gojo and are trying to rob Yuuta of his agency before he learns how to protect himself.

And Yaga's part in that scene really was meant to kind of emphasize how, even with the best intention's, he just doesn't work to protect the kids. Like. everything he said was technically true, and he meant it with the best of intentions. He's the guy who has to think of everyone's needs. he has to manage this crisis. he's got a lot of people hurt badly who just came out of a war, and a lot of people going into fights with some very aggravated curses spawning without sufficient manpower to address the danger and no healer to save them if they cut it a little too close. He didn't have the intention of manipulating or sacrificing Yuuta, but he was aware that it would come to his detriment and risk.

The issue is the higher ups. They don't give a shit about the people in their workforce. They should be the ones doing whatever it takes to solve this crisis and save their people--and if that means giving up on their machinations? They should have already done it. It's their responsibility.

They just don't care. They want Okkotsu Yuuta under their thumb, and their society hemorrhaging is treated like an opportunity, not a dire problem to be solved. They don't care if half a dozen of their own people need to die to do it. Hell, it's better if they do die--they can put it straight on Okkotsu for not being willing to sacrifice himself, when they should have been making whatever promises they had to in order to make this work.

Gojo's done this before, is the thing. He was Yuuta, a long time ago. Nanami was right there watching it happen. They both know what the higher ups do: They let society get to a crisis level and put all the responsibility on you to save it. they let you maneuver yourself into a vulnerable position as a result, and then they use it as leverage to put their goddamn boot on your neck.

The thing is that Gojo adopting megumi all those years ago really did put them into a crisis state. the zenin pitched the mother of all bitch fits trying to secure his unconditional return, and they were a huge percentage of jujutsu society's labor force and resource pools. instead of the higher ups managing the problem at all, they took advantage of the situation and shoved more and more of its weight and responsibility onto gojo, until he was dropping off his own kid at his abusers' compound thinking it was the only compromise that could resolve things. megumi paid the price for gojo not calling bullshit, and right now, with him in a hospital bed? gojo's less willing to repeat mistakes than ever.

he knows that they're going to use the safety and suffering of everyone else as the leverage against him, and he knows that as terrible as it is, he cannot blink first. He's played this game before, and he knows that the only way to get the higher ups to back off on something like this is to dig in your heels.

I think what happened to Megumi all those years ago and how bad it got before they put a stop to it is something that haunts all three of them. When they first started raising him, they were very young, and they were very broken, and they loved him very, very much. He was their little boy, and he was never the same after the Zenin. They were supposed to protect him, and they didn't, and not a single one of them has forgiven themselves for that.

Megumi was sort of sacrificed for the greater good when he was a kid. None of them thought that that was what they were doing when it happened, but that's what happened. His happiness, safety, and wellbeing were sacrificed to pacify the Zenin and make it easier on everyone else.

Megumi and Tsumiki had to become their non-negotiables after. They had to become the things they refused to compromise on. The Zenin would take miles and miles if you gave them a millimeter, let alone an inch.

Gojo didn't think he was compromising them when he left them on their own to deal with Geto's war. They were disgustingly self-sufficient kids. They had been alone for longer stretches of time when they were practically toddlers--they should have been fine on their own for a couple of weeks.

But they were still his kids, and he still left them alone for everyone else's sake, and now his kid is blind and half dead in a hospital bed. It's like being punched in the face by old mistakes.

So they're off the roster completely, all of them. And they're not compromising an inch on what their focus is, and they're not letting anything happen to any of the other kids in their care.

It's terrible that their coworkers are suffering, but it wouldn't be happening if the Zenin hadn't fucked with Gojo Satoru's kid, of all the goddamn people. It wouldn't be happening if the higher ups would actually do their job and start managing shit.

And if they use Yuuta as an anxiety riddled bandaid on the bullet hole in their society? Then they'd be sacrificing him the way they sacrificed Megumi all those years ago. And they have never been less willing to do that.

I'm so so glad you like the story! Thank you for talking with me!

[creaturefeaster]

yo maybe im just having a bad morning but im a hair's width away from leaving this site man it's getting so fucking annoying & bloated with features i could not give less of a fuck about

[solradguy]

Whenever I see someone being transphobic on twt in a bridget thread i reply with three pictures of my mains: ky kiske from ac+r, ky kiske from rev 2, and ky kiske from strive.

it self selects for people who actually play the game. it’s canon that he’ll fight off transphobes with the blade. and if they actually played guilty gear they’d get the underlining messages

While it can be really funny to bully these guys back, please keep in mind that nothing you can say or do to these people will hurt them or waste as much of their time as what they say will stick with you or waste your time. It might be funny to send them a bunch of Ky pictures, but what they're doing is laughing that the only response the people they hate can give them is sending a bunch of pictures of anime boys.

The only thing that works is blocking them. They've turned being an asshole into a recreational sport and getting any sort of response in return is a victory for them.

[theheadlessgroom]

@beatingheart-bride

I am?

These two words, this simple little question, very nearly came out of Susannah's mouth before she stopped herself, reminding herself of Philippe's sincere nature. This was a man who would never lie to her, least of all about her appearance, and so she allowed herself to be flattered in that moment, cheeks turning a soft pink as she replied, "Th-Thank you, Philippe. You..y-you look v-very handsome!"

Not about to let him linger out on her front porch all night, she was quick to sweep him inside and into her little kitchen, where she had everything laid out, ready and waiting for them. She was also pleasantly surprised by the strawberry-creme bonbons he'd procured for them; they would make a wonderful dessert to cap off tonight's dinner.

"I-I...I have something for you too!"

Before they sat down to their meal (she would've liked to have just dug in, but perhaps giving him this gift would mitigate some of the butterflies in her stomach and let her actually enjoy dinner), Susannah hustled out of the room, only to then return with a small box-not ornately wrapped or even particularly eye-catching...unlike what was inside.

It was a hand-knitted sweater, made in a beautiful sky-blue yarn, laced with delicate honeycomb and blackberry patterns, very similar to the one Wilhelmina Pace knitted for her future husband many years ago (the only difference being was that the one she made was a soft buttercup yellow; Susannah had it tucked away in the cedar chest upstairs, along with many other heirlooms). It would be plenty warm to wear, once the cold snap eventually settled in.

"I-It's an Aran sweater," she explained shyly, her heart pounding in her chest as she watched him open it, on pins and needles, waiting for his reaction, wondering nervously all the while: Will he like it?

[boymounter]

clothes shopping as a fat person is such a hostile environ. i need to go in there with a machete

[luxceon]

well. how are we feeling past/current AH fans?

[good-to-drive]

whyyyyy do the beatles have so many solo stans this site is so weird

[ectonurites]

ik i've talked about this before but. sometimes i still just try to wrap my head around how my dad could possibly think a logical course of action—after his wife who was trying to divorce him and his 15 year old child called 911 because of his abusive behavior which led to him getting arrested—would be to get a friend to bail him out of jail and then walk BACK TO THAT VERY HOUSE HE WAS JUST FORCIBLY ESCORTED OUT OF. AT 3 IN THE MORNING.