#how do people write Plot regularly my brain hurts so much

[absoloutenonsense]

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[thedevillionaire]

2 for you, and then 6 & 7 for Cerberus and Kia? If it's not too greedy to ask three at once.

Of course. 💕 No greed detected!

2. what in your fiction has turned out differently than you expected when you began? what has always remained the same?

Dear gods, so much has changed. I have been writing in this world, with greater or lesser regularity, for literal decades, so there's been more than a few "welp, that's not how I thought that would go" moments. Many more than a few. SO damn many more. Honestly, though, the biggest surprise has been...here. Cerberus's path has taken many unplanned and unexpected turns, but nothing even near less planned or expected than, uh...part-time snzfucker sex symbol. 😂😂 But so much has remained the same. Like, say, my total lack of a coherent beginning-middle-end plot arc. It's been just a bunch of stuff that happens since the start, and it still is. Happenings happen. But my focus with those happenings has long been, very regularly: (a) interpersonal relationship related in some way, (b) probably got a supernatural power or two in there somewhere, and (c) wow, these people are really good-looking. And I used to get really annoyed with myself for only being able to long-term immerse in this one world, and I've tried to kill it off and work with new OCs in a new setting multiple times. Some of these attempts even resulted in a few fics here and there, but not ever for long. These days I just roll with whatever. The Underworld and its various populus are the creation that ate my brain, and fine then, so be it. 😅 I mean. I love what I love.

6. what would their dæmon be?

Answered for Kia here, and now it's under-the-cut time!

For Cerberus, the jaguar, and particularly a black one, because he's Aesthetically Consistent™️- this is a rare, intelligent and immensely powerful animal, usually solitary and self-reliant by nature, and one that also happens to be imposingly beautiful. Because aesthetics. Of course.

7. do you have a favourite scene of theirs in canon, or in your own work? what scene have you always wanted to see or write for them?

Kia's answered for here - same place as the previous link, as it happens! For Cerberus...arrgh, nope, I can't choose. I have literally sat here thinking about this for, ooh, way too long, and I still don't know. I keep changing my mind. He's my favourite and I love everything* about him, honestly. That is such a non-answer and I'm really sorry about that, but every time I try to commit to something, I'm deleting it a second later because, no, there's also this. I do know what scene I want to write for him, though, and I can't do it because it hurts my stupid heart too much and I am genuinely incapable, which is the moment he breaks down after the death of his best friend, at the point where he has no choice but to face that he can't change what happened, he can't fix it. I've tried to write it several times, and failed. But I wish I could, because it's such a pivotal moment, and it's as emotionally shattered as he's ever been, and it's important in both the short and the long term as regards his story. *okay, almost everything. We argue, lol.

[wistfulwatcher]

Hello I saw your tag on that "im 25 and dying post" please tell us how it got better for you. Im 26, still living with parents, currently having a fight with my boyfriend, and i still have a year until I get my bachelors. The comparison to everyone younger than me is killing me.

I'm really sorry to hear that you're struggling, but I hope you can take some solace in the fact that that post has a lot of notes and you are absolutely not alone in feeling the way you do! I can certainly try and share my experience, but unfortunately I think the biggest factor is just time (and like, a buttload of self-reflection).

I moved back home after college and worked full time at an administrative job I was doing during school breaks. I majored in psychology and anthropology in college, and was planning to eventually go into forensic psychology, but wasn't interested in going straight into grad school. So I did that administrative job for about a year, and tried to find something that was a bit more stable and at least semi-related to my field. I did end up finding a new job when I was 23 - stable, semi-related to my field (a psych/research background was required), and decent pay (especially as I was still living at home). Exactly what I needed, since I still wasn't ready to start looking into grad school.

I was doing pretty well, until I started getting comfortable at that job, and then I started getting hit with the "I'm not doing enough," and "I need to look into grad school," and "will I ever find a boyfriend?" (friendly reminder that 23-year-old me thought she was straight, yikes), "how will I afford to move out, I have to save my money and do it soon!", "I'm not doing anything but watching TV, I'm wasting my life," "I'm lonely, but I'm too tired to try and make friends," etc., etc.

But it wasn't constant. I'd have a flurry of those questions and fears, and then days where I was just living life and doing my job and taking care of my dogs, without any of that. And I don't think I felt good or particularly comfortable those days, it was more like I just wasn't actively thinking about it, like when you feel "good" after a physical pain goes away and you're just normal.

Eventually, I started thinking about all of these concerns I had, and the fact that it felt like it was URGENT whenever I thought about them. It felt like I needed to get my shit together immediately. I also started to acknowledge that there was this big sense of guilt around those concerns; I was too old to be living at home, I was too old to be single, I was too old not to be starting a career. I felt like I was wasting my life (cue the guilt), and I realized that part of why I felt like I was wasting it was that I felt like I was missing milestones I wouldn't be able to do at a later time because the older I was past "normal" the more humiliating it would be to try (cue the shame and embarrassment, hard).

I also started to doubt that I wanted to go into forensic psychology. More importantly, I started to seriously doubt that I wanted a "career" at all. My job (as I kept that same semi-related to my field one) was absolutely a job, not a career. And I think this was a huge tipping point for me, because a career had always been a given in my life. I'm passionate about what I'm interested in, so it literally just never occurred to me that I would be content with a job. I also started acknowledging that I had some messed up associations about being content with a job meaning that I was lazy (because the only way to be ambitious is with a career and, more damaging, a lack of ambition is fundamentally bad).

Now, I need to clarify that all of the above occurred over the course of years. I was constantly seeing "friends" (i.e., of the facebook variety) go to grad school, start careers, get married, buy homes, etc. And with all of that alongside the entire mess I've outlined in the above paragraphs, it was really, really, tough. It gets hard to find a foothold in better thinking, I believe, when seeing all of these people (some younger) doing things "right" was really just compounding my guilt and shame. (I feel like it's worth mentioning, too, that I was always "an individual" growing up, march-to-the-beat-of-my-own-drummer, yada yada. I feel like that's worth pointing out for others who may be in the same boat, because I think it can lead to another layer of shame in comparing yourself to those around you - especially if it's a big part of your identity that you DON'T do that, because I think it's inevitable as you get older, and you're looking to reach these milestones that prove you're an adult.)

So, here I am, acknowledging that I feel guilt and shame about what I'm not doing. And suddenly I ask myself my first really important question: Do I want a career? The question hot on its heels is: Do I want to go to grad school? Honestly, my answer is no. There is nothing in me that's excited by the prospect. But what, does that mean I'm just going to work my job for the rest of my life? How is giving up going to make me feel better about Not Doing Enough?

As I'm opening this door (remember, years), three things happen: 1) I realize I'm gay, 2) I watch Dirty 30, 3) I start playing D&D.

First, realizing I'm gay. Woohoo! Not only was this exciting because girls are amazing, but it made me seriously look at myself. Realizing I had spent 25 years assuming one thing about myself that turned out to be completely wrong made me question everything for a while. I started to ask myself, "Do I really like this?" more often, which seems like a really obvious question, but I'm not convinced that it's one people ask themselves consciously all that often. But once I did, I realized how freeing it was to answer, "No," and move on to something I did like.

Second, I watched Dirty 30, the Grace Helbig/Mamrie Hart/Hannah Hart movie. It feels dramatic to say that it changed my life, but the older I get the more I honestly think it did. Mamrie Hart's character is a dental hygienist who is freaking out about turning 30 and feeling very much like that text post I reblogged. But (spoilers), at the end of the movie, she decides that she loves her job (job, not career!) because it's comfortable and she has fun at work, and that it makes her happy. She has other things going on, but the idea that a character in a film is content with her job and choosing to "settle" into her life as-is and she's genuinely happy about it? I honestly can't think of a single other time I've seen that happen on-screen. I still think about that ending very often. And after seeing it, I started to ask myself another question regularly: "Am I happy?" Again, this feels pretty obvious, but I think there is something incredibly empowering about making sure you are happy on a regular basis, instead of just assuming that you're fine until something hurts.

Third, I started playing D&D. This is not a plug for D&D! (Well, maybe a little.) One thing that happened to me when I started to get into the urgent-guilt-shame-confusion mess of my mid-20s was that I got very much into a routine of go to work, come home, sleep, go to work, come home, sleep, be totally brain-dead on the weekend, repeat. I found it very difficult to feel creative because I was just wiped, and as all of my creative outlets (gifs, fanfic) are self-motivated, it was really easy to brush them off. I ended up starting Critical Role (this is also not a plug for CR! well, maybe), and I wanted to give D&D a try myself. (I was VERY lucky - my best friend happened to be listening to the Adventure Zone at the same time I started CR, and she wanted to try to run a game. The stars truly aligned!)

I started playing, then DMing, and found that it was a great fit for my interests. I used to be a theatre kid, and I was getting to act again (something I didn't realize I was missing). I was getting to build and flesh out characters, which is what I love the most about writing fanfic. I was also discovering that I was stretching myself - world building and plot had never been my strong suit, but as a DM it became the majority of my creative effort. It gave me soft deadlines with people I didn't want to let down, and it made me truly social again for the first time since college. Essentially, it was filling in all of the gaps of what I felt lacking in my life. This isn't a D&D plug because it wasn't D&D specifically, but rather a hobby that satisfied what was missing in my life. For example, I didn't realize how isolated I was before D&D until I had regular interactions with friends, and that isolation absolutely made the urgent-guilt-shame-confusion worse.

D&D gave me that final push to realize that I was OK with having a job and being passionate about hobbies instead of trying to fit myself into a career, because I was getting out of that hobby what I had been convinced I would get out of a career. I started to really value that I could punch out and go have fun doing exactly what I wanted to do. (It feels so obvious as I type this, but it took me a long time to get here! Sometimes it really is that simple!)

The above is specific to my job vs. career struggle which may not be in the mix of things you're struggling with. But what I do think is universal/can be your take away, is that sometimes you just have to actively choose to let go of the pressure to be doing things. Which, I know, sounds so much easier than it is (and part of why I think it just takes time/is part of growing older). But I think it's something that can be worked at over time, by checking in with yourself about what you feel, why you feel it, and what you need to make yourself feel better in the present.

It's been 6 years since I started that semi-related job, and I'm still there. I still live with my mom. I'm still single. My circumstances have not changed since 24, but honestly? I'm OK. When I check in with myself about it, I do enjoy living with my mom and our dogs (even though I'm 30 and "real" adults move out). I am happy more often than I'm not (much more, actually!). I have a job that allows me to be done after 8 hours, and I have hobbies I look forward to doing each night (and the energy to do them, most of the time). My weekends are free to play D&D with my friends and laugh until I cry. That is what I've worked out as my definition of what I want life to be right now. You'll notice it includes none of the "milestones" that those younger than me have hit.

As I noted on that text post tag, I still struggle with this. I definitely have days where I think, I'm a mess, I'm not DOING anything. It's hard. But time does help, those days become fewer and farther between.

I know that was probably a hundred times longer than you wanted it to be, but I did want to illustrate just how much of a process it is. It takes time. My summary advice is to check in with yourself often, be honest about what you want and what you need, do not let anyone else define where you "should" be. And if you aren't living life how you want to be, identify what you can do (however small) to make yourself feel like you're getting closer.

[catty-words]

Have you watched the table read? I would love to know your opinion :)

i did! when they announced it, i told myself i wasn’t gonna watch it, i was gonna wait until july. but, being the content gremlin i am, of course i cannot sit idly by when something as enticing as a table read is dangled in front of my face. (i also donated a little bit, too! yay, supporting the global community!)

anyway, putting my numerous and effusive thoughts under a cut to avoid spoiling those who are not gremlins:

- the sneak peek inside my brain since last night would look something like this: john mcenroe is back-enroe 💃 john mcenroe is back-enroe 💃 john mCENROE IS BACK-ENROE 💃

- the fact that it’s called “...been a player” - i don’t even know how to name the emotion it invoked in me but it pressed some huge, I LOVE THIS SHOW button in my heart that’s for sure

- seeing devi in her tie-dye hoodie and ben in his polka dot collared shirt as the first shot of season two will kill me dead, even with all this time i have to prepare

- speaking of being killed dead, the fact that we know the camera will linger on ben smiling privately to himself after devi climbs out of the car is like. AHH! i already wanna see it gifed a hundred times

- and because i am truly this love triangle’s bitch, i’m also already fluttery over the fact that paxton waited for devi and over the narration about paxton’s ramble - “he never uses this many words. i mean, we’re talking about a guy who regularly texts back the letter ‘k’.” or something like that (johN MCENROE IS BACK-ENROE)

- super interested to learn that we’re not dropping the move to india plot as i kind of imagined we would in the wake of malibu + my assumed inclination on the part of the writers to not separate devi from our established cast of characters. i wonder if they’re going to ‘will-they-won’t-they’ the move as one of the overarching season arcs.

- if they do, i’m already all clenched up over the possibility that nalini’s potential love interest could sway her toward staying in the states i do not want that i do not want that one bit

- anyway, i see never have i ever’s knack for inelegant product placement is alive and well

- the moment where devi tells kamala it’s tragic that no one will know what a big nerd she is because she’s hot and kamala earnestly thanks her is exactly the kind of sister energy i’ve wanted from THEM thank you season two

- very interested in the storyline being set up for fabiola because one of the things i love most about her is her complete ignorance of and disinterest in pop culture, so seeing how fabiola might navigate eve being very much immersed in gay pop culture as part of her identity when eve is fab’s gateway to this community and how she’ll choose to present herself as a lesbian is like. everything i didn’t know i wanted as a follow up to her coming out.

- (the fact that eleanor knows killing eve and is crushing on villainelle is like. confirmed, she is not straight and fabiola/eleanor will riiiise)

- also very interested in and approving of the choice to have fabiola and eleanor reject ben as a worthy potential love interest for devi outright. a) because that’s a totally valid pov for them to have as people protective of devi and b) makes me giddy for the potential of ben having to put in the effort to win them over. ALSO the way devi seemed disappointed no one was making the case for team ben has me all up in my d/b feels so.

- gkbsljgn devi arguing that ben driving her to malibu was romantic and fab countering that her dad makes that drive every day for work...i love this show i love it so much

- SPEAKING OF FUN, SILLY MOMENTS THAT MAKE ME GIDDY BEN ASKING DEVI IS SHE’S GONNA KILL HIM THEY’RE STUPID AND I LOVE THEM

- love having the confirmation that ben and shira were sexually active together, do not love the way ben chose to communicate that fact dfkjg

- the private jet line made me laugh out loud, i regret to admit. i don’t want to find ben being obnoxious about his wealth charming but gosh dang it, the writing demands it.

- THEY’RE SITTING ON HIS BED, THEY KISS

- okay, but on the flip side of that excitement is the way the title sets up that devi is going to get in too deep with both guys and they’re both going to end up hurt. the whisper of that plot is already hurting MY feelings.

- ooh, and speaking of setups, the narration making a point to mention that paxton transferred schools to sherman oaks and to name where from...aneesa is absolutely an old pal from that school

- in summation: GIMME

[ghostmartyr]

/clears throat/ so, Immi, I hear you like the locked tomb, which is fantastic! from one person also escaping the snk series into TLT to another, what did you think of the characters and plot in HtN? are there any things you're most excited to see when Alecto comes out in 2022?

-pats lifeboat- This baby can fit so much trauma.

SPOILERS, naturally.

With another paragraph informing the curious that unspoiled is the way to go into HtN, since if you aren’t lost and confused, are you really reading Harrow the Ninth?

I read it all in one day, and that was a choice. It does mean my memory and understanding of what all went on is slightly dependent on someone else on the internet exploding over a particular set of paragraphs and explaining their significance to me, but I still enjoyed the hell out of it.

HtN disappointed me on one front in that I was hoping seeing more of Harrow 1.0 would help out any future fic endeavors. On everything else, like the first one, being told the story is such a good time that I’m willing to wait on a full comprehension of where it’s going.

I also really like second person.

What I loved most about HtN is how even without Gideon mentioned until very, very late in the book, you can feel her absence everywhere. In the wrong bubble flashbacks you’re commanded to examine the strangeness, but even in Harrow going about her day, the isolation and the wrongness of it decorate her every action. She’s alone, and she shouldn’t be, and the loss she’s unaware of bleeds into a constant echo of grief.

I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated absence as a narrative tool so much. Obviously griddlehark hours go hard once they start in HtN, but even before then, there is so much power to their connection that looking into a world where it never exists still manages to punch you in the heart with how much each one inhabits everything the other is.

The whole series is amping me up with a few thoughts on loneliness, honestly. Gideon and Harrow grow up alone on the Ninth, save for each other. It takes leaving for that to be any kind of good thing. The first book is tag team Among Us with everyone in their little clusters, slowly learning what other people are about as they all drop dead.

The second book has a different vibe and different plot things going on, but it’s similar in that the protagonist gets thrown into a world they don’t fit and have to put on a show. Only now there are even fewer people to familiarize with, with that number correlating directly to how they all killed the person closest to keeping them from being alone.

Lyctorhood is taking the person dearest to your heart and trapping them there forever while they’re stripped of everything that made them who they are.

...Also Ianthe is there.

Gideon, Mercy, and Augustine are the last Lyctors standing after 10,000 years. There were only seven, starting out. Sixteen acolytes who came to the First. The only pair who didn’t succeed in condensing themselves is separated from the pack and sent to live away from their peers on a tiny planet that no one has anything good to say about.

Alecto is John’s -- who even knows, past A Lot, and he puts her to sleep and locks her in a prison no one but he can get past.

God has seven friends. More if you want to count the people in the Cohort, but realistically, he has seven friends. Then they keep dying.

Harrow spends HtN in a spaceship with five people.

One is trying to kill her.

One ordered that one to try to kill her.

Two could not care less about the useless baby Lyctor.

One is Ianthe.

There is no real endgame. There is surviving life, and life has become a game of running as far away as possible so you don’t share your ruin upon your inevitable death.

It’s bleak and sad.

Harrow’s healthiest relationships are with dead people, and some of them she didn’t know at all in life.

Reiterating it, the most plot significant bit of the world is finding someone else in the world, swearing yourself to them, and smashing your souls together until you’ve lost the connection entirely.

My brain’s not in the best place so I can’t do more than gesture loudly at it, but a few people have mentioned that the series’ thesis is a counter to Ianthe’s statement that love is acquisitive.

Harrow tightens her hold around Gideon until Gideon would rather she just strangle her and get it over with, all things considered. It fucks them both up, and when they start working to get past it, circumstance wraps a chain around both their throats.

The necromancers who become imperfect Lyctors have all acquired their cavaliers, and besides the cav, it kills that bond.

Harrow’s rejection of that is why Gideon’s soul is still in the world of the living (and John blood).

She has spent her entire life eating pieces of Gideon to keep herself a horrid imitation of whole, and when she is finally offered that, she refuses.

Grief and how Harrow just can’t are active elements of the book, and Magnus gives her more therapy in five minutes talking about it than she has ever had in her life, but the reason why that isn’t the end of Gideon is because, unlike all the other Lyctors, Harrow turns the offer down.

With the exception of Babs and Ianthe, the relationship between cavaliers and necros about to do the Lyctor thing is cavaliers promising to burn for an eternity while their necromancer lives off the fumes.

Fuck that is Harrow’s response.

Cytherea says, in the aftermath, that they had the choice to stop.

Harrow stops.

A lifetime of doing exactly what Gideon is telling her to do with her death, and Harrow chooses to stop.

Harrow remembers Ortus’ poetry. She regularly sees her congregation off to their deaths. She keeps Gideon’s glasses. She views Palamedes, head exploded and all, as an infinitely better person than she is because of the quality of his exemplary character. She pulls Gideon the First from the incinerator on the night she plans to kill him.

Kiddo has so many fucking issues, but somewhere, she has learned to respect people for being people. That’s why she and Gideon are the heroes of the story, ultimately, and Ortus saying that they’re heroes worthy of the Ninth doesn’t fall flat. They’re actually trying.

Where that puts us for Alecto, I don’t pretend to know.

Since the first book is the temptation of an end to isolation, only to have it snatched away, the second book is the continuation of isolation with a few promising sparks of human connection that pave the way for hope...

That leaves the third book to shed the isolation and allow the connections to thrive.

With Gideon and Harrow MIA.

I know that the books kick things up into high gear in the final acts each time, but if they’re both gone for the majority of the book, no matter how much fun it is, I’m going to miss them. They’re the core leads, and I don’t want to be without them in the final part.

The 2022 release date has aged my soul. I deliberately planned my GtN read to land a month before HtN came out, then suffered when that was delayed. When really that was nothing at all. I hate waiting.

(Insert note that I’m very glad they aren’t forcing Muir to rush anything out. It’s been a rough time, but also, just in general authors should have the opportunity to create the best versions of their art they can, so the extra time hurts, but it’s obviously for the best.)

What I’m most excited for is probably the cover art. The first two have been awesome, and the artist said he’d likely do print sales for all three when the third’s revealed. My wallet cries but my heart does not.

What I dare not be excited for is the potential for Gideon and Harrow meeting again and perhaps hugging. In their own bodies.

I’d take other bodies, but ideally, y’know.

Also I would love for Harrow to finally meet her popsicle girlfriend.

I doubt it would be a wholly positive experience, but by golly I want it. Maybe they could hug too. It would probably kill Harrow again, but who doesn’t expect several people to die again in the third book?

However it plays out, I’m expecting to enjoy AtN. The writing’s the sort that I’ll happily follow wherever it goes. For everything else, there’s fanfic. The only real worry I have is the whole book will be narrated by Ianthe, and while I mentally groan at that, I actually find Ianthe’s commentary delightful, so even in the worst case scenario I’m having a good time.

Thank you so much for the ask.

[fae-fucker]

Review: Death Wind by Tara Grayce

Essie should be planning her happily ever after, not planning a war. Although they once were enemies, the humans of Escarland and the elves of Tarenhiel have allied to fight the trolls from the far north. But alliances are tricky things even in the best of times, and with Farrendel, the elves’ foremost warrior and Essie’s husband, captured by the trolls, the circumstances appear dire indeed. But Essie won’t give up, and she will make her two peoples work together to fight this war if it’s the last thing she does. One way or another, she will get Farrendel back, no matter what it takes.

Gonna be honest, didn't expect much given my lukewarm reaction to the previous two books, but this one? This one actually held my attention for genuine reasons rather than just being a light read. Because the plot involves a lot of conflict (arguably the biggest conflict possible, war), the pacing is steady, and two of the three POV characters are mostly suffering and/or being tortured, there's actually tension for once. It's a welcome change, and proves that the author is very much capable of writing it but just chooses not to in favor of boring and conflict-free family interactions.

With Melantha introduced as a POV character, we're offered a pretty buckwild concept for this series: a character that makes mistakes and has to live with the consequences. I actually found myself liking Melantha, not because I thought she was a compelling character (she wasn't) or because I felt bad for her (I didn't), but because she had what Essie didn't: flaws. There's even a point in the book where Melantha thinks about how much she dislikes Essie because Essie is so sugary perfect and everything Melantha wishes she could be, and I think it's supposed to show us how bitter and insecure Melantha is? Except she's 100% correct, Essie is literally too perfect to be a real person and I just sat there going "yeah, you're right, and don't feel bad for being shitty because literally nobody can actually be like Essie."

However, Melantha suffers from Stupid Bitch Syndrome, which doesn't exactly make for a good protagonist/POV character. She's not intended to be dumb, the book expects us to think she was simply misguided and bitter and not, like, a complete idiot who should've known better. But her instant remorse feels less like character development and more like her suddenly realizing she’s actually a huge idiot who fell for the enemy’s nonsense, which she is. She's supposed to be an older elf, a grown woman, yet she makes such an obvious mistake and immediately regrets it and folds like a wet blanket the moment shit hits the fan. It's honestly a bit pathetic. The only reason I preferred her over Essie was because she introduced some much-needed depth to the character roster, but that depth was still about the size of a teacup, compared to Farrendel's thimble and Essie's singular water molecule. Her relationship with the troll prince was actually ... interesting? It was all mostly unspoken, which I think made it stronger than the overly telegraphed thing Essie and Farrendel have going on, and I’m sure it’ll be flattened out and become boring in the next book, so enjoy this potential before it’s wasted.

Farrendel spends the entire book being tortured and thinking about how he's being tortured. I can't blame him, but it doesn't make for good reading. I honestly think his POV could've been left out altogether and it wouldn't have changed much. Melantha is already there with him letting the reader know he’s suffering, we don’t need two POVs telling us the same thing. Oh uh, except for the part where he ... puts his magic in a soul-bond pocket. I'd mark this as spoilers but it's literally on the cover. I guess if his POV was removed then we'd never know how Essie learned to blast his power in battle at that one convenient moment, but it barely affects the plot afterward so um, yeah. I'm having a hard time justifying his POV at all. I'm still not over that part btw, how Farrendel just ... makes a "mental fist" (no, really), grabs his magic in one and his soul bond with Essie in the other and just puts them together like he's connecting two cables to an adapter. And he knew to do this ... how? It's not like we've seen him experiment with his magic before, in fact he's been shown to hate it and only use it when necessary, but apparently this tortured and exhausted man has the presence of mind to try something as vague and theoretical as ... putting his magic in a soul pocket. He spends a few pages going “I wonder if I can do this” and then it works on the first try. He does consider whether it’ll hurt Essie and decides not to try it, but as I said, he does it soon after anyway so like ... I don’t think it’s supposed to be funny or show how little of a shit he gives about Essie, but that’s sort of the implication and I thought it was funny as hell. 

Anyway, the magic pocket is about as much worldbuilding/lore as we get from this series entry, aside from the trolls having their own political intricacies and tensions, which I’m assuming the next book will expand upon. The writing itself in this book was pretty bad at times. The repetition of certain words and names was really glaring in some parts and felt amateurish. Take a shot every time the word “magic” appears and you’ll be in the grave before the book ends. Prince Rharreth and King Charvod are almost always referred to with their full titles and names for some reason? A few editing rounds would’ve helped this a lot, methinks.

The plot is mostly moved along in Essie’s POV, which is slightly less insufferable than usual because she’s the one observing the movement of the two armies and there are actually action scenes in there that, while don’t exactly made me worried about her (there’s no way this perfect idiot will ever die), still provided some tension. But it’s honestly not much, the “war” lasted two entire weeks (and that’s including the strategy, logistics, and mobilizing) and with how fast the armies travel and how little resistance they face (and how Deus Ex Farrendel-d the final battle was, the guy is apparently full of godlike destructive power despite being starved and tortured, go off king), it all felt very unrealistic and easy. Like, we have two armies marching in the middle of a mountain chain during magical snow storms, all while being regularly assaulted by the defending army, and they still get there no problem, without a single mention of soldiers struggling not to die of exposure. Aight. I guess these elves and humans are just very resistant to the cold, for some reason.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason it goes over so fast in-universe is because the author wanted Farrendel to be horribly tortured throughout his captivity, but also knew that if that lasts too long, the damage will be too severe to easily resolve in the next book. But instead of easing off the hardcore torture, because then we’d lose out on that drama and those High Stakes, she decided to speed up the whole war thing, because hey, who cares about that, anyway? We just want Farrendel back, right? Riiiight? Better hurry up guys! Don’t want Farrendel to be too tortured to fix with some strawberry-flavored medicine and vague counseling in the next book!

So yeah, the plot moves on speedily, but at what cost? Mainly depth. Again. And once again, Essie suffers the most from being a bland caricature of a person and dragging the whole thing down. The author’s GR bio says she writes “spunky and tough” leading ladies, and I guess having no other things in your brain except sparkly kitten gifs is a certain kind of toughness in an “immovable object” sort of way, but “spunk” implies a of counter-culture edge that sweet widdle Essie simply does not have.

There was one small section where Essie felt bad over how the human and elven warriors were going to die, how many mothers and sisters and daughters would suffer just so she didn’t have to, but then we don’t find out the death count, the casualties are never even mentioned, and Essie moves on from this without even a single thought questioning the morality of a monarchy or her own position of power. Now, I get that that’s not the focus of this series, but it just adds to how Essie’s worries are always surface-level and never justified by the plot, how she never has to do any introspection and is never allowed to not always be annoyingly positive. Whenever she even begins to think something negative, she instantly, almost compulsively changes trajectory and just decides not to worry about it, and then it never comes up again anyway. This would’ve been like, an interesting take on toxic positivity and how Essie represses her own emotions, but no, the book never goes there, she’s just that perfect and wee and optimistic, even during a war and when her husband’s being tortured to near-death. It’s kind of insulting to read, honestly.

Oh yeah, that’s another thing that annoyed me. Even when she loses Farrendel, she takes it surprisingly well and focuses mostly on keeping a positive attitude for his sake, so he doesn’t feel her sadness through their “heart bond.” I never really felt her loss, her love for him, when she so easily could just decide not to feel bad “for his sake.” I want her to feel bad, I want her to miss him and to ache at his absence and to fear for what they’re doing to him. But no. That would just upset him more and hurt him more. So Essie doesn’t get to experience any negative feelings because it might upset her husband. Essie doesn’t get angry and determined to fight, she just keeps being her cheery little Stepford Wife self because being nice will keep everyone’s spirits up and make them hope and fight harder to preserve that hope!! :)

It just comes off as really flat and moralistic yet dishonest at the same time, because nobody would fucking react like this IRL. Essie might be a good person in-universe, but she drags the entire series down just by being perfect, cheery, and never, ever challenged or even allowed to challenge anything herself. Essie isn’t allowed to have any negative feelings because it might affect her husband, and yet we’re supposed to find this empowering somehow? We’re supposed to believe she’s spunky and confident and a sweet little firecracker of a redhead?

Eugh.

At least Melantha is an idiot, I guess. One whole female character gets to have a flaw, and she’s the almost-villain who needs to be fixed with love.

Idk man. The sexism in this series is like a constant undercurrent that grows stronger with each installment as our “understanding” of this world expands. All of Essie’s brothers, including the king, are at the front lines because they are manly men “have to” be there, while the women who aren’t Essie or Jalissa stay behind to be mothers and caretakers. It’s never expanded upon and just sort of accepted as part of both human and elven society and the narrative treats it like this obvious thing that even Essie doesn’t really bother noting how unfair and/or weird it is. There’s not even a single comment on it. Essie is in the war not because she can fight but because Farrendel needs her, and Jalissa is there because ... Um. Because ... she. Uh. She needs to be there when they confront Melantha? She’s Farrendel’s sister? Idk. Jalissa’s main point in this series so far seems to be the ship tease between her and Edmund that feels awkward and one-sided as fuck.

So yeah. The pacing and plot flowed along really well, but the characters and the writing and worldbuilding are all just really undercooked, which, at three books into the series, feels more glaring than ever.

But hey, at least it was a quick read!

[alright-red]

The rhythm of my heart

Summary: Street racing wasn’t something that Race was particularly proud of. He didn’t like the shitty attitude that people in the scene had and he sure as hell didn’t enjoy spending time after time breaking several laws in one go.

What he did enjoy was the rush of adrenaline, the way his body almost disconnected from his brain. The way his brain assumed that he was almost flying.

_________________________________________

Hey you guys, this is a prequel to a fic I’m currently writing and I thought why not share it. This is for my street racing AU featuring Race and this lil’ thing is mainly me figuring out plot holes so.

Disclaimer: I don’t know anything about street racing and I’m pretty sure it’s shows, but bear with me. Also English isn’t my first language but I think I did okay.

Rated: T for language, I guess. There’s a lot of cursing. ~1500 words

_________________________________________

The engine roared loudly, the entire car vibrating from it’s force, being pushed into third gear with the hand brake still on.

The wheels were turning and had started smoking against the dark asphalt, making sounds that any other person would’ve deemed hurtful to their ears.

To Race though, they sounded like a melody, an old familiar song, that accompanied him on the street. He took the pedal down to the metal and looked straight ahead, where some female thing was waving around flags like she was a shitty circus performer.

Race never knew where the guys got the girls they put on the spot, but he didn’t really care either. They enjoyed the feeling of being part of something like this, so who was he to judge?

Suddenly her waving pattern changed, a pattern Race would recognize anytime anywhere. He checked his rearview mirror one last time.

Three. Two. One.

He put down the break and almost flew into the night, the lights of the city traveling by faster than shooting stars. He barely registered them, focus unwavering and locked on the road in front of him. He knew the streets by heart, knew every bump and sign, knew the way the curves tightened and loosened.

He was confident he could win this thing and he got Albert to listen to the police radio and inform him in time if a car was headed up their way. He rarely got into races with that much confidence but today just seemed to be one of those days. He shifted up to the next gear within a mere blink of an eye.

Street racing wasn’t something that Race was particularly proud of. He didn’t like the shitty attitude that people in the scene had and he sure as hell didn’t enjoy spending time after time breaking several laws in one go.

What he did enjoy was the rush of adrenaline, the way his body almost disconnected from his brain and did all the driving while he focused on the traffic and made sure to let his opponents think they could beat him, just long enough to not end up in a giant brawl in the end, because they could count his win off as luck. It was tactics that helped him survive out here.

Aside from that. there was also the fact that his brain couldn’t quite tell they were driving anymore. It straight up lost all common sense and assumed that he was flying. There was nothing Race could do that would even come close to that sense of freedom (and he had tried to find a less dangerous pasttime).

Race also loved the car that Finch had assembled for him. Well, maybe less for him than for Charlie, but he was the one who took her out for drives at night and beat her up to over 140 mph in the city.

This year Charlie had chipped him a Toyota Supra despite Race’s protesting (“only the best for the best, Race”) and Finch had modified the sleek sportscar with gadgets and technology Race didn’t even pretend to understand. What he did understand though, was that Finch wouldn’t dare to disappoint Charlie and that’s why he trusted in the car. Well that, and because he assumed that Finch wasn’t one to go out and try to get people killed.

Halfway through the course that he had agreed on with his competitor, Race realized he should’ve taken the Toyota out a bit more before racing. Every now and then his driving got weird, whenever the car handled the speed and wind differently than he expected it too and he felt like his handling was going to get him to lose grip and send him flying into the next wall.

He started checking his rearview mirror more regularly, a slight insecurity starting to settle in his stomach, but realized that he couldn’t find a trace of the other’s car behind him. That was beyond weird. Morris Delancey most definitely had not managed to overtake him, yet he shouldn’t be far back either. At least not so far, that Race couldn’t even see his lights in the mirror. Morris’ car was a damn powerhouse and with any other driver surely would’ve come out top of each race.

Race was starting to feel sick. He definitely could not lose this race. Not with high stakes.

Race was well aware that the decision to race Morris was hella risky. Most of the city’s racers went under nicknames, trying to make sure that they couldn’t be ratted out and the plice couldn’t trace them. Or for that matter, other racers.

Morris Delancey though, he didn’t need a nickname to be safe. His daddy’s money made sure of that all by itself. If the police ever got him he’d be free again sooner than sunrise. The racers around the city were cautious of him; not only did he have supplies and money to boost his ride, he also was known for not following the few rules that street racing had.

So when word got to Race that Morris Delancey wanted to race him, the one person nicknamed after his talent in street racing, Race’s initial reaction had been to decline. He was good at what he did, but that didn’t make him stupid.

But now here he was, in Charlie’s car, getting more nervous by the minute, because Morris Delancey had made him an offer he couldn’t pass up. The same Morris Delancey who apparently had cheated and took a shortcut, because there was no way in hell he was that far behind Race.

“Crutch, you read me?”, he asked while speeding up even more, having to use the handbrake to make the turn and partway drifting through the turn that got him back on track to their starting point. His vision started blurring and he took a deep breath in an attempt to calm his nerves. The alarm that had started blaring in his head as soon as he had realized that Morris wasn’t where he was supposed to be, didn’t really help as he tried to concentrate on getting back as fast as possible, throwing any caution to the wind and pushing the car to it’s limits.

A small crackling sound reached him through the radio, followed by Charlie’s voice. “Yeah, man. What the hell is going on out there? We lost signal on Morris’ car a few miles ago. His team ain’t any wiser.”

Shit. Race, contrary to popular belief, wasn’t stupid or slow. He knew damn well that could only mean one thing.

“Crutch, he’s taking a blackout. Haven’t seen his car for a bit and there’s no way he took the lead. He’s playin dirty. I can’t lose this one, you hear me, Crutch?”

When he got no answer, Race started to panic and for split second forgot he was supposed to be handling a monster of a machine at a speed that would kill him if he made one mistake. He heaved the car off the course into the street lamp back onto the road. His knuckles had turned white a couple minutes ago from the death grip he had on the wheel.

“Crutchie?” Nothing.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Fucking Morris Delancey. Fucking asshole.

Another crackled sound made it to the radio. “Yo, Race, it’s Al. I had Charlie take over the radio station. Give me a sec and I will find where that ass is hiding.”

Race breathed out a sigh of relief, thanking the gods for giving him a best friend that had too much free time on his hands and tought himself how to hack pretty much any system. He knew the race couldn’t take that much longer; if he kept up his speed he’d probably be back in around 15 minutes.

“Al, how are we lookin? I need good news and preferably now.” Another turn, another neigh drift. Shifting gears, using the momentum for faster acceleration.

“I got something and… Shit.” The connection went down for a second before - “Race, he went right through that old lane that belongs to the outer parts of the red-light destrict. I don’t know how you can overtake him, man, he’s got a couple miles on you.”

A string or curses left Race’s mouth, some of them slipping right back to Italian. Merda.  Va’ a fare in culo!

“I feel ya. So what you wanna do now?”, Albert asked through the com.

What do you wanna do now? Race didn’t need to think twice. He had raced cheating assholes before, making sure they got a lesson for trying to best him under entirely unfair conditions.

“Funny you should ask, my dear Al. Because I have quite the idea.” He got off the road he was supposed to be taking and drove down a lane that would save him a good couple minutes on his way.

“I wanna take out that motherfucker and I sure as hell won’t let him beat me at my own damn game. Al, get your systems started, I want a route that will put me in front of him me, pronto! I want his sorry ass to eat dirt.”

He heard laughter on the other line, then frantic typing. A beat of static noises and then - “There you go, dude. Show him who’s the King of ‘Hattan!” A small clicking noise let him know that Albert had cut the connection for now, most likely because he knew that any kind of distraction might cost Race his win.

A mere second later the screen inside the car lit up, providing him navigation and - on top of that - let him keep track of Morris’ position.

“Alright, baby, let’s see what you got”, he murmured and took the car down the trail that would cost Morris his sweet, sweet victory.

Race only had one thought as he flew down the streets of Manhattan: I am going to win this thing!

[bytheangell]

hi elle! if you feel like it, could u elaborate on your thoughts on jace? dsjkds he's one of my favorite characters and ngl i feel like canon did him,,, kinda dirty,,, it's ok if you don't wanna!! i just like talking about him aah :') (also i love your blog and writing ur incredible have a nice day!! dfhdsjkds)

Of course! I will talk about Jace as often as possible, he’s definitely one of my favorite characters to explore and try and dig into the headspace of. Sorry this took me roughly 50 years to get to! My brain was being rude this past week and not doing the whole ‘thoughts to words’ thing (it’s still fighting me but we’ll do our best here so I don’t let this sit forever). 

Right. So. This is elaborating off of this ask about Jace! (with the full disclaimer that this is, obviously, just my point of view on it! And everyone is free to like or dislike or think about or not think about a character for whatever reasons they please!) 

To start, I completely agree with you- canon definitely did him dirty. That’s a lot of what I meant when I said he’s written off at surface value too often - the show isn’t great about giving him as much depth as his character really deserves. What you’re shown for so long is the ‘I’m the best, everyone thinks I’m the best, all the girls love me and I can do no wrong’ swagger assigned to him and immediately that’s all he is. We get surface characteristics of confidence and sarcasm so often that you forget they’re used as a defense mechanism - we don’t get those reminders that he spent the better portion of his childhood living in constant fear of being anything but perfect, or of a boy so desperate to do well and belong so he isn’t left alone, isn’t deemed ‘not worth it’ and abandoned. We don’t see the moments he lets that guard down or the defenses break as much as we should. 

And when we do get them it feels random and out of place more often than not. Like that entire flashback montage they did for the sole purpose of being able to say “Three go in, three come out” in present day and have it be ~meaningful~. If those childhood flashbacks could’ve been way more frequent they could’ve added so much depth to not just Jace, but Alec and Izzy, too. 

Instead the show does a lot of telling rather than showing. We get told the parabatai bond is this deep, meaningful soul bond, but not shown it regularly enough, only during a small number of plot-convenient moments. We hear Alec say “I’m nothing without Jace” but they don’t show that sort of connection they way they should, we just have to believe it because we’re told. This is a bond that’s supposed to mean more than anything else in this world, more than marriage, more than blood relations most times. It’s definitely a weak point of the writing, and I know time constraints and a large ensemble and plot to move forward don’t allow for every little nuance to be explored but I really wish in relation to Jace and Alec we got more of that bond focus, given how important they are to like, every plot. >.> 

The problem comes when you get more memorable scenes of him being selfish and hurtful, often for the sake of furthering a bit of the plot, and then the plot moves on and the takeaway is ‘hey remember that time Jace was awful’, because while we’re shown those things, we never see the apologies and the talks that might follow. The “Hey, sorry I was a dick earlier, that was really out of line and-” “it’s fine, I know you, i know you were just upset and-” moments you know would happen between brothers, between siblings and friends and even other Shadowhunters. Slightly eventually forgiven and good graces won back over time. But we don’t see that because there isn’t time for that, and if you don’t care about his character that much it’s easy to just go ‘well that never happened he’s just awful 24/7′ instead of reasoning that a lot happens you don’t see on screen. 

So for people who like the character and dig into it more, we look beneath the surface moments we’re shown and reason that some of the ‘selfish’ things he’s doing are with good intentions, that he isn’t ignoring how those around him would feel if he got hurt or died but that he’s weighing the outcome as worth it for those around him in the end. And for those who don’t, they see his choices hurting others, or not immediately feeling genuine, and write it off as Jace Being Awful and never think about it again. And that’s when he’s dismissed as ‘just a perfect soldier’ and ‘just a love interest’ and out for himself by such so many people, because if that’s what’s shown on the surface and those reasonings aren’t explained or hinted at, it’s all some people will take away.

Main example: whenever I see the ‘Jace never even thanked Magnus for sacrificing his magic’ argument, which I wish was a moment we got on screen, but which I can’t believe people think didn’t happen just because we didn’t witness it. Magnus saved his life. He gave up a monumental thing to do it. Of course, at some point, there was a thank you at the very least, if not a whole meaningful talk about it.

(To be fair, a lot of this happens to every character to varying extents, not just Jace. And I’m not saying he isn’t a dick sometimes, either. He absolutely makes a few shitty, selfish decisions along the way and I’m not trying to justify them, just discuss the character perception as a whole!)

...this got rambly and I’m not sure I explained ANYTHING I meant to well enough, but I hope I managed to get some of it across! 

[clumsyclifford]

the lovely @ashtcnirwin created this sexy tag game which i was subsequently tagged in by @redrattlers and (by virtue of being in the club lol) @escapesos so thank you friends

i’m gonna tag my friends up here and then put a cut before my answers because (quelle surprise) i got a bit long winded. so i will tag!! @haikucal @calumcest @calumsclifford @tirednotflirting @ashesonthefloor and @5sos-fan-boy go crazy

and here is a cut for courtesy

1. what was your first encounter with fanfiction? one direction fanfiction! on wattpad! probably in about 2012. it was the like, 1d x OC stuff. i read some Not Fun Stuff. it was very disturbing. even in retrospect, disturbing. and now here we are

2. your favourite creation of your own of all time if you create stuff (feel free to link it)? i really don’t think i can fairly answer this because i have written So Many Things. even if i’m just keeping it within 5sos it’s still A Lot!! i know i talk about it a lot but i’m stupid proud of neon weekend for a lot of reasons. also hello, hello - i talked about this somewhere else but i don’t, like. i don’t really write chaptered...things. i’m not good at it!! and the fact that i successfully did it with hello hello and also that it was GOOD and that people liked it?? that’s all i need, honestly. that’s all i’m saying for now i’ve already gone on too long

3. what vibe are you going for with your home decor (or what vibe do you wanna go for one day, if you don’t have your own place atm)? uh.....welcoming and practical. i have no idea. i do not have my own place and i really doubt i’ll have one any time soon since i’m, you know, a college student, but yeah ultimately i’d like it to be, oh, clean? that’s not a decor thing but it is very important to me. vibe-wise i really don’t think i can explain it any better? i want it to be welcoming. guests to feel welcome. that’s all!

4. first fandom you ever joined? what was it like? on what platform did it happen? yeah it was one direction it was on wattpad i read a bunch of (bad) fanfiction and i also wrote some (also extremely bad) and then for awhile i stopped being part of that and........yeah lol

5. what are your sun, moon and rising signs, and do you think they make sense in relation to how you know yourself? well i am leo sun, pisces moon, cancer rising. according to meghna’s google search pisces moons are intuitive and creative in abstract ways like music, and cancer risings are family oriented and are likely to keep their guards up and have plans before going into unknown situations, and both of those things very much sound like me, so! and of course leos are like, self-obsessed, which i am, and enjoy attention, which i do, and passionate, which i AM. so there you go!

6. if you write and/or read fiction (original or fanfiction), do the tropes/plots/character types you typically seek out to read and/or write about reflect something about you as a being or how you see the world? man i can’t be thinking about this stuff right now i have no idea !!! in a way, yes. i don’t read things that....that i think i won’t enjoy reading? and i don’t write things i wouldn’t want to read. so in that sense, yes. final answer yes. i don’t know. my brain hurts.

7. what is the hardest obstacle you’ve had to overcome so far in life? uh.......fuck. ive been through some shit but i’ve had a relatively easy life, so this is a hard question for me. but i guess that like, my first two years of high school were REALLY bad like mental health-wise because i had just been severed from all of my best and closest friends and friendships and was starting high school with no friends at all nor basically any connections, which. if you have ever started high school you know that’s !! a shitty way to do it !! but anyway. i got through that, which is nice. but i’ve gone back and read some of my journal entries from that time in my life and i remember like, being in that time, i would think to myself how i wasn’t depressed and how i was fine and this that and the other thing, but looking back on it..........you know. i definitely was Not Fine. got long-winded here oops lol

8. what is your all time favourite song(s)? you can’t ask me this dude

getaway green // a daydream away // vegas - all time low

check yes, juliet - we the kings

why georgia - john mayer

naive - andy grammer

9. what do you look for in a person you wanna keep in your life, be it a friend or a romantic partner or anything in between? there are some things, like...it’s important to me that we understand each other. and i get along best with people who are not extremely dramatic, that is, reasonable people, and that are good at both listening and communicating. and then also, i mean, this is the obvious, but. this is a useless answer but someone that i can be myself with!! and by that i mean ALL of myself. there’s a lot of me. and i think a lot of the time i’m being some of myself but not all of it, because, you know. i’m a lot! but the people i wanna keep are the people who make me feel absolutely confident that no matter what kind of crazy i am, they will love me the same. like, not just tolerate, but love. so. yeah.

10. this is a bit of a difficult one, but have you ever had a moment of clarity, a conversation with someone that made you go “oh!”, or anything along those lines? one time my mom told me i had a fear of failure, and that made me realize that i have a fear of failure, lmao does that count? jgkdflgjf sorry for real though i feel like i have moments of clarity constantly, because i’m always always always seeking to improve myself and be, like, better and more than i am. i have big realizations regularly. i TRY to. i don’t want to believe that i know anything definitively. i am often wrong! i don’t know if that’s a real answer to the question but it really is how i feel.

[threewaysdivided]

I saw your conversation about Sam Manson. I was talking to Imekitty about this, but I’ve noticed a few things that (sort of) make Sam’s relationship with her parents seem more like teen-drama than actual hardship. If you look closely, she’s got a lot in common with them: outspoken political-activism, possible shared-interest in vintage clothes, and no shame in saying they don’t like certain people. Also, after the Fentons, they were the first to volunteer to use the Ecto-Skeleton, risks and all.

(In reference to this post.)

It’s been a little while since I rewatched DP so I’m not well-placed to do a detail-analysis implication-breakdown right now, but yeah - that fits with the overall impression I remember getting.  To me they came across as being sort of old fashioned set-in-their-ways conservative and snooty, and maybe a bit too Pleasantville -  but more often in the way of parents who do genuinely want good things for her and to be able to be proud of her despite not really understanding her interests, choices or friends and being very bad at expressing it.  Plus she seems to have her grandmother fully in her corner a lot of the time.

I really wish that the writers had committed to one or the other; either making it clear that Sam’s martyr/ persecution complex is mostly just regular self-inflicted teen-drama BS and giving her an arc addressing it, OR fleshing out the idea that she faces a lot of judgement/ pressure/ control/ nonacceptance in her home life and that her negative traits are a bi-product of defensive/ coping mechanisms resulting from that strained dynamic, rather treating things with Roger Rabbit Rules.  

(Which isn’t to say that a person can’t have similar interests/ personality traits to, and positive interactions with, their parents while still having a strained, broken or even abusive relationship with them on a deeper level, but the show never really goes hard enough in either direction to make it work.)

As mentioned the last post, this is kind of a consistent pattern across DP - the writers tend go with the low-effort first answer for whatever is Funny or Awesome or Convenient in the moment rather than putting in the work to find a solution that’s consistent with the characterisation, themes and world-lore overall.  There’s enough internal contradiction in the show that I don’t think it’s actually possible to take every canon detail as canon without fundamentally breaking things.  And in some ways that’s kind of cool; it makes the series more open to interpretation, and trying to distinguish authorial intent from authorial incompetence and come up with theories that account for as many pieces of canon as possible is really satisfying.  But, you know, it’s also kind of bad writing in general.

I think the thing that bothers me about Sam’s characterisation in particular is that - where it tends to be more obviously out-of-character when it shows up in other places - there’s a pattern to the inconsistency with how the writers handle Sam:

Throughout the series there’s a double standard in how Sam sees herself/ seems to expects others to act, compared to her own behaviour:

Despite being pro-pacifism she’s okay with smacking Tucker and encouraging Danny to destroy the trucks she doesn’t like

Sam values self-expression and is a feminist, but derides other girls for wanting to express themselves in a conventionally feminine way

Sam doesn’t like being forced to conform to others’ values but is okay with forcing others to conform to hers

Despite being anti-consumerist she shows very little discomfort at, or awareness of, her lavish home life and material belongings

She encourages Danny to take the moral high ground towards his bullies but has no problem antagonising and getting into petty verbal spats with Paulina herself

Sam stalks Danny and his love interest out of jealousy/ protectiveness but threatens to end their friendship when he does the same

In Mystery Meat, when Danny tries to express his discomfort/ anxiety, Sam hijacks the conversation to complain about her own parents instead of listening.

In One of a Kind Sam photographs Danny and Tucker hugging in their sleep, without their knowledge, with the stated intent of putting it in the yearbook, then uses it to blackmail them into silence. 

Side note: this joke is also tacky on a meta-level because it boils down to “male intimacy ha ha toxic masculinity no homo amiright?“ Would have been nice if show didn’t use low-key sexist humour as much as it did.

Instead of expressing that she’s hurt by Danny’s “pretty girls” comment in Parental Bonding, Sam retaliates by pushing him to ask Paulina out - a move she knows will most likely result in him getting publicly shut down and humiliated.

Then, after getting the result she wanted, she comes over to gloat and insults Paulina, rather than dropping it now that her point’s been made, which is what ultimately sets off the episode’s subplot.

In Memory Blank Sam permanently physically alters Phantom’s appearance to better suit her tastes while he’s not in a position to understand or give informed consent, then lies when Danny notices and asks about it later.

To be clear this definitely isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of her character and it’s not there 100% of the time - there are plenty of moments when she is loyal and generous and helpful and sincerely kind and where her stubbornness comes in handy.  But it’s the aggregate pattern of all these small instances that drives a crack through the foundation of her character integrity; producing this insidious undercurrent alternate-reading of Sam as someone who, at a deep level, just doesn’t respect or recognise that the emotional needs, pains, opinions, autonomy and boundaries of others are as real and valid as her own, and who responds to criticism with passive-aggressive hostility.

Again, I think that’s why people are so quick to point out that line from Phantom Planet, even though we all know the episode was a complete mess.  None of the examples above are particularly bad in isolation - you can’t really point at any one of them and say “oh no, bad girl” without sounding like you’re making a mountain out of molehill and irrationally hating on her just to hate on her.  It’s an uncomfortable slowburn pattern of subtle micro-transgressions that accumulates across the series - a “you might not notice it but your brain did”.  And it makes sense that it would be the worst-written episode that amplifies and brings that regular bad-writing undercurrent close enough to the surface for people to consciously recognise and use it to articulate those frustrations.

To wit: Not because it’s most telling of her character but because it’s most telling of the specific bad writing that regularly hurts her character. 

And again, from a storytelling point of view, it’s okay for Sam to have flaws.  She’s a teenager!  She’s learning.  She’s allowed to be egocentric and self-important and do things that aren’t the best at times.  It’s okay if these are her character weaknesses and a source of conflict with the rest of the cast.  But again, for that to be satisfying something really should have come of it.  It would have been nice if the writers were willing to have any self-awareness about these flaws being flaws that a person should recognise and grow past in order to have healthy relationships with others.  But they didn’t - because it’s easier to keep her as she is - to the point that they’ll actively bend the narrative to roll back or skip over moments that would have necessitated that growth.  So, even though they call attention to her flaws, the writers end up rewarding and enabling them instead of letting her learn.

And again, this isn’t meant to hate on Sam.  Hanlon’s Razor in full effect: it’s clearly a result of authorial/editorial incompetence rather than deliberate malice.  I know this isn’t the intended interpretation.

My preferred reading of Sam Manson is that she’s a Rosa Hubermann/ Hermione Granger/ YJS1 Artemis Crock-type character.  Someone who’s passionate and forceful and maybe a bit abrasive and hard to love at a glance, but whose core nature is compassionate and sincerely kind and loyal-to-the-death for the people they value.  I wish I could 100% like her without caveats; to be able to say that even if I don’t agree with her flaws I can at least understand that they’re a valid product of the life she lives, that they make her who she is and that she’s trying her best to be a good person who will get better despite them.  

But I can’t because the writers don’t give her that.  They’re always prioritising other things over the integrity of her character.  They don’t give her background enough time and context to make her negative traits feel resonant with it (because that would take time away from the Wicked Cool Radical Ghost-Fighting Superhero Action™) and the framing and plotting doesn’t give her chances to recognise or grow past them (because that would mean character development and those negative traits are an easy source of cheap conflict).  The writers just don’t seem to care all that much about Sam - her actual character, who she is, how she came to be that way, what she wants or how her negative traits would actually play against Danny and the others.

And that sucks.  Because she has a lot of potential to be a well-rounded and great character.  I’ve seen plenty of fics that seize that potential and roll with those gaps and the result is very good.  I wish I could like her canon depiction without feeling like I have to actively ignore a bunch of latent behavioural red flags as the price of entry.

She deserved better.

[dragonnan]

9, 8, and 6 for the writer asks?

I love asks so much!!! Okay..

9. What are three weaknesses in your writing that you’re very aware of, that you’d like to spend time working on to improve your works?

(1) Story structure - by which I mean plot development.  I tend to craft as I go which opens the door wide for plot holes.  I only recently began toying with outlining (thank you @kitcat992!!) and it made a WORLD of difference for one of my fics.  Even though I haven’t updated for months, I know exactly where to pick up the thread again because the entire story has been plotted out.

(2) OC creation - I very rarely bother creating OCs and yet I have a number of them I’ve read about in other people’s stories whom I utterly love at least as much as the main characters.  I very much want to develop strong OCs with importance to the story that goes beyond “bad guy” or “victim”.

(3) World building - by and large it isn’t something I really do - certainly not to the extent which other writers excel.  Yeah, some of my MCU fix-it fics rely of some world building to rewrite certain events [WHICH WE SHALL NOT SPEAK OF] but on the whole I don’t explore this as much as I would like.

8. What are three things you’re proudest of when it comes to your writing? Dialogue, descriptions, humour, romantic fluff, kisses, action, pacing, worldbuilding, setting, anything! Even small things like sentence structures and the way your characters banter counts! 

(1) So banter, for sure, is one of my favorite things in my writing.  It’s why I love “sarcastic assholes” more than any other character type (see: Tony Stark, Stephen Strange, Sherlock, Shawn Spencer, etc).  These jerks are a blast because they always have such great lines and, I dunno, I guess I’m a bit of a sarcastic asshole because that dialogue just sorta lives in my brain.

(2) Hurt/comfort.  I have been dwelling in the genre of hurt/comfort or “whump” for the better part of 2 decades now and I don’t feel much desire to drift away from it.  I certainly have some whump tropes I return to regularly but I also love to branch out into unexplored territory.  My current passion is amputation - which, again, I’ve only explored tentatively in MCU fics  but I very much want to delve into it more thoroughly in other universes.

(3) Overall story - while I list plot development as a weakness it is also a strength.  Ignoring certain plot holes and structure, I really do like the way I “tell” a story - how it starts and where it ends up.  I feel I manage to include all the right parts to make it a satisfying read.

6. When you write emotional scenes, do you feel what the characters are feeling? 

Oh - very much so!! Which is why scenes of sexual assault, in particular, are VERY very hard to get through.  I’ve gotten so sick after writing scenes like that that I’ve wanted to vomit.  If I don’t feel the emotion of a scene as I’m writing it then I don’t feel as if I’m accurately getting it across in the story.  Even more interesting - I feel it differently based on whichever character I’m writing.  The way Sherlock responds to something emotionally is very different from how a character like Shawn Spencer responds.  Shawn tends to clam up (much like I do when I’m furious) whereas Sherlock gets incredibly vocal and often speaks very rapidly.  

This is such a great aaaaask!!! Thank you so much!

[kinetic-elaboration]

January 3: Writing Resolutions

Okay, taking a break from rambling about Star Trek (...on tumblr, still talking about it on skype lol) to try to give some sort of order to my writing life in 2021.

I’ve had these ideas in mind for a while, but I’ve been trying to put them into words and put them in order.

I know I want to go back to writing more (and reading more) this year. But I also know that life is going to be just as hard as last year, probably for a while, and that my work schedule is not going to be conducive to me having a lot of time and energy to be creative.

I also know that I’ve been unhappy with my creative life for a while, for other reasons: my sense that engagement with my work is down; my lack of interest in the source material; my perception that the general tide of popular fandom stuff is...not wherever I am, I’ll just put it that way. So it’s hard to even convince myself that I should be here at all (I mean, in t100 fandom).

I ask why I don’t quit and it’s because of a sense of obligation to, and continued interest in, my WIPs and my unwritten ideas, plus a dash of ‘too scared to seriously write Star Trek again.’ That’s basically it. I can continue to support my fandom friends by reading and commenting and promoting their work, so that I know people around these parts doesn’t matter much to me re: my own output.

So, here are roughly my thoughts on where I want my writing to go now.

(Goals and Resolutions below.)

Goals:

To write regularly (at least every weekend) in order to keep my creative brain active, and for my own enjoyment.

To be organized with my projects, but not to set deadlines or put pressure on myself to write faster or more.

To finish things for the sake of finishing them, and for no other reason.

To separate myself as much as possible from fandom validation like comments.

To be okay with throwing out drafts, writing stuff I don’t like, experimenting and seeing some experiments not work, and possibly even with throwing some old WIPs in the abandoned pile.

Resolutions:

Take on as few events as possible. As of right now, I’m committed to 2 projects. One is the BBB, which I might drop out of as a writer--I really don’t know. I’m still at a point where I could drop and not hurt anyone else, which is the important thing. The other I have to keep working on. I’m open to participating in rounds of Troped, but not as much to rounds that require sign ups before hand (for example, if another version of Madness happens this year). I didn’t sign up for BJJ, which took a lot of self control, but I have no regrets about it. I am currently leaning against applying for This Simple Fanzine.

Perceive (and speak of) this year as a hiatus. I’m not going to go so far as to ‘retire’ from writing or from posting or from T100. I’m not on an official hiatus. You will see things from me. But my default is “I’m not really going to post much this year” so everything you DO see on tumblr or AO3 is a deviation from the norm rather than an expectation.

Re-organize my writing projects. My current organizational tool is Notion, which is probably better than the documents I was using before but... I’m not actually that fond of it, tbh. It works for other things but not for my writing. I don’t know if that’s the platform or me or both. I have some ideas for how to re-conceive it to be more helpful, including subdividing projects into scenes, arranging the columns as a timeline, changing the default views and metadata fields, separating fandoms from each other, and pulling out projects that are only ideas, not yet started. But we’ll see how that goes.

Start a second system for ideas. I know I can’t continue to treat “fic that’s half written” the same as “hey I had this random thought.” Properly categorizing different types of projects has always been a major difficulty for me. Does an idea suddenly become so much more important because there’s an outline or a few hundred words written for it? Does an idea become more important simply by virtue of time? I’m still not sure what’s going to end up counting as a “pure idea” or “plot bunny” versus “story” or “work in progress” but I do know I need some kind of new level or organization, some kind of strict (if inevitably semi-arbitrary) dividing line.

Return to free writes. I almost entirely stopped doing this after I finished my rare pair project last year. I think this was partially about burn out and partially about my new work schedule, and I admit it can be hard to come up with a whole new idea on the fly. But I also think I need to carve out that sort of space for myself: where there really aren’t any consequences, I don’t care about plot or even characterization, I don’t care if the idea is complete, I don’t care about editing, etc., etc., etc. I’m still on the fence on where I’ll get the inspiration. I might make a generator or open my inbox to requests more often.

Finish those WIPs. Some way or another. I have too many and I feel like they’re a burden on me. I hope to actually finish, as in complete according to the original idea and then post, as many as possible. But “finishing” for current purposes can also mean “cutting out bits and reconfiguring them into something else.” It can mean “throwing them in the abandoned pile.” In some cases it might even mean acknowledging that the story in question isn’t even a WIP--it’s an idea, and maybe one I don’t care about anymore.

Be forgiving. If it’s not fun, it’s not worth it.

I think that’s it.. I’ve also been considering trying to put myself out there as more of a cheerleader to other people, but I’m not sure how. Like, I want my inbox to be open to writers who just want to rant or be proud of their work or throw around ideas, even, but I don’t know how to... market myself that way, especially without sounding arrogant lol. I don’t claim to have qualifications, I just want to be supportive and I want to feel excited about stuff I am not personally writing!

[scripttorture]

Hi, lovely to send an ask to your blog. I have a character who's been kidnapped and kept in a cell for an unspecified amount of time. The cell is the size of a spacious room, with a mattress, sink, and toilet, the victim has access to move about as he pleases. The abductor kept my victim well fed, didn't physically harm him unless he had to (ie. Victim tries to escape, attack, bite back with words), he wanted him in good shape. (A)

(B)Whenever my victim acted up, other than sometimes having tophysically restrain him (roughs him up in a corner and leaves), hepunishes him by turning the electricity off, leaving the victim inpitch darkness and icy weather, and with no sound source but his ownbreath. Regularly, the abductor comes at least once everyday (or asoften as five days a week), sits with the victim for a few hours, andeither talks about his life, tries (and fails, at the time) to softenvictim's heart...(E),...left him food and left. Either until he got bored, or when victimcracked and broke down begging for any stimulation and company. Themental breakdowns increased in intensity when the victim lost accessto the TV, he'd unconsciously hurt himself, cry and scream until hepassed out, refuse to eat or move from his spot in fear of themonsters lurking in the pitch blackness in the room, and will justsit stuck listening to his violent hallucinations until the abductorput mercy on him.(F)At the end of the abduction time, Victim starts to show new symptoms,he rather becomes"animalistic" in someway, he loses(forgets temporarily) the ability to put words together, so hesnarls, whimpers, acts physically his needs, becomes very aggressiveand uncooperative, lost a drastic amount of weight, refusing food,tried on multiple occasions to hurt himself for the sake of feelinganything but the emptiness of his cell, and in a psychotic outburst,destroys the TV, and...(G)(oh man I forgot where I left off... please bear with me if I mistookthe paging) He spent the next few days mourning the TV, missing thecharacters he used to obsessed over as much as the family he slowlystarted to lose memories of. It was a pitiful sight. Since thebeginning of the abduction period, the abductor has been feedingVictim lies, from the reason he kidnapped him (preserve his amazingabilities, keep him safe from others who were after his skills, noone appreciated his...(H)His skills as much as he did, and it was obvious b***) but the damagecame when he gradually convinced him his family didn't care, that'swhy he was trapped for so long. And victim was convinced his familyloved him above all else, but as time passed and hallucinationsbegan, he lost that conviction, not at all helped by abductor'sconstant false reassurance. Abductor also lied about the time frame,coming down with cake to celebrate their one year anniversary whenit's been a few months.  (I) Little did victim know, his family werekilled the night of his kidnapping. Finally, at the last day, or afew days after he lost the TV, abductor has moved the broken pieces,only to miss one screen glass shard that victim hid under hismattress. And it happened as victim tried to stab his abductor, inself defense, the abductor threw the victim off, and his head hit thesink. Cue panic stricken abductor, not thinking straight with theamount of blood, and wrapping the victim up...(J)... wrapping him up and throwing him in an alley across the citybefore fleeing the country. Now my biggest dilemma lies in twothings! One: I need him to have amnesia for plot related reasons,very important, but I'm afraid that will make all of what he wentthrough redundant, so the list of after effects I made him have is..Severe anxiety, depression, anger management issues, avoidance ofdark places (full blown panic attacks if forced into an sort of darkroom)… K) Vague, abstract night terrors, extreme loneliness even inthe company of friends, and fear of neglect. He has a few namelesstriggers, any show on TV like the shows he used to watch, not feelingclean, showering more than once a day as he lost that privilegehaving to use the sink to clean up, horror movies for all thereasons. Two: how does the state (any) and hospital actually dealwith this situation, I realize this is out of your expertisepossibly, but I'd appreciate a nudge… (M) A new cycle of abusebegins between him and his boss, manager and unit mates, but I'llleave that for another ask ^^; This got so long, I'm sorry, but I'dlike your criticism and input on my story so far, it actually takesup two other victims of abuse and my MCs road to recovery. I'm veryadamant on making this right. Thank you!!

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This is a follow up to a previous ask. Honestly- I’m still finding the question a little confusing. I’ll answer to the best of my ability but I may well have misinterpreted it.

 That said- I think you need to do a lot of reading and completely rewrite your story if you really do want to make this realistic and respectful. At the moment I think it’s a very long way off.

 I think I said that last time so this time I’m going to be blunt. I do not think you are ready to write torture.

 Firstly, specify the amount of time this character is held. Decide. Don’t keep things vague in the hope that it’ll seem more realistic.

 You don’t have to tell your readers the detail of how long your character is held or every detail of what happens to him but if you don’t know then you can’t work to show the effects realistically.

 I can’t decide what your plot should be for you. And if you’re unwilling to define what you’re putting your character through and for how long I can’t give a reasonable estimate of how likely he is to survive.

 Memory loss in torture scenarios does not work in the way you’re describing. That kind of ‘amnesia’ and losing old, established memories of family members does not happen. Not without significant, disabling brain injury that effects other things like being able to move and breath.

 If you want to know what memory loss in torture survivors is like I have a post here that covers it.

 Torture survivors do not regress into some sort of savage ‘animalistic’ state. They do not forget how to speak.

 Frankly I think these kinds of unrealistic tropes are incredibly insulting to survivors.

 It’s saying that torture has ‘made’ the survivor dangerous and unreasonable. Those are exactly the kinds of arguments people use to stop survivors getting treatment in real life. Don’t add to that.

 Hallucinations in solitary are not common.

 They become more likely if a person is held for a long time (over a month), but since you are not giving me a time frame I can’t say whether this is likely or not.

 If the character is held long enough that hallucinations and a psychotic break become likely then- given the conditions you’ve described, the character is likely to die from cold, starvation or disease before the captor dumps them outside.

 People can die from the cold very very quickly. If the character is repeatedly subjected to freezing temperatures for a long time then they are probably going to die of hypothermia.

 Additionally the phrasing throughout this sounds as though it’s taking the abuser’s ‘side’ over the victim’s.

 No one ever ‘has’ to abuse anyone else. It is never necessary.

 On a related note- I think you’re severely underestimating the damage caused by beating. It is very easy to beat a person to death. The way I’m interpreting the question it sounds like the abuser beats the victim when he tries to escape. It sounds like the abuser beats the victim until he stops moving every time this happens.

 There isn’t much difference between beating someone unconscious and beating them to death. If the character is regularly being hit until he passes out then he probably wouldn’t live for more then two weeks.

 Which is not long enough for the extreme effects of solitary confinement you’re describing.

 I think this scenario is a very strange mix of treating people as too resilient and too fragile. The physical abuses you’re describing seem really like to kill the character. At the same time the mental health issues you’re describing are completely unrealistic and-

 Well honestly? As a mentally ill person I think this depiction of mental illness is insulting. It is degrading. It shows no understanding of mental illness and no compassion for people who are mentally ill.

 I struggle to speak sometimes because of my mental illness. It does not make me an animal. It does not mean I can not think. And it certainly doesn’t mean I can’t describe what I was going through when that moment has passed.

 The list of ‘severe’ symptoms you’ve given isn’t what you’re actually describing the character having. Your description does not sound like mood swings, anxiety and depression with a few triggers.

 If you were writing these symptoms accurately I would tell you that your list is not enough. If I was just relying on that list I would suggest more symptoms and writing them to a greater severity.

 But I can’t just rely on the list. Because your description of the character’s mental state and what he goes through contradicts your list. Which suggests to me that you either haven’t decided what symptoms the character should have or you don’t understand what mental health problems are like.

 I do not think you are ready to write mental illness.

 I could go into more detail. But I don’t think it’s going to benefit either of us if I go through this and tell you why every single detail here is wrong.

 My job here is not to write your story for you. And it isn’t to make moral decisions for you either.

 If you are serious about writing torture or abuse respectfully then for now you need to stop writing. Instead I need you to do some reading. Because if you want to do this ‘right’ then you need to gain an understanding of what torture is, what it does to people and how they cope with it afterwards.

 So I’m going to give you a reading list. I think you should read each of these books carefully.

 Why Torture Doesn’t Work by S O’Mara

The Question by H Alleg (if English isn’t your first languages this is available in other languages, pick the one you’re most comfortable with)

A Darkling Plain by K R Monroe

A Sourcebook on Solitary Confinement by S Shalev

To the Kwai and Back by R Searle

 I think you should also read Black Jacobins by C L R James.

 Take your time. Make notes.

 When you’ve done that I think you should go to Amnesty International’s website and look at their recent interviews with torture survivors. Pick two or three large studies. Read detailed accounts from at least fifteen different people.

 Then I think you should come back to the story and completely rewrite it based on what you’ve learnt.

 I am not saying that you should never write torture. But it’s obvious from the plot and characters you’ve proposed that you don’t know enough to write it well yet. Take the time to gain that understanding before you write. You will write a better story for it.

 If you don’t want to do the research don’t write about torture.

 It’s a difficult topic to engage with. If you try and fail then that isn’t your fault. Reading about torture is upsetting. Not every one can deal with it in depth. That isn’t anyone’s fault or failing.

 But if you can’t cope with reading about the reality, if you can’t educate yourself, then you can’t speak on behalf of torture survivors.

 If you can’t listen to them then you simply don’t know enough to tell their stories.

Availableon Wordpress.

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[adamwatchesmovies]

The Worst of 2019 (So Far)

And now we get to the opposite of yesterday’s post: the worst of what we’ve seen so far. Time to give them a proper thrashing before they (hopefully) fade into obscurity. Disappointingly, there's a general lack of films that were bad but in an interesting way. Mostly, it’s either been the same sorta dreck we usually get with a couple of unusually offensive stories and a couple of soul-crushingly bad superhero flicks. Curious? Read on.

10. Serenity

I like to save my #10 spot on the “Worst of” list for a movie that has a chance of becoming a favorite among those who love bad movies. Serenity is competently enough made that it does not belong in the same category as The Identical or Runaway. It’s another kind of bad movie, the kind that baffles anyone who sees it and who will have film historians scratching their heads in the future. It’s not quite on the same level as 2017’s “The Book of Henry” but close. Top-notch actors at the top of their career in a story so poorly conceived it would’ve been brilliant if it weren’t awful and utterly absurd.

The revelation that everything we've been seeing is actually part of a video game programmed by an angry teen who hates his abusive father, and that his actions are tied to those of Matthew McConaughey's character is the kind of nutty decision someone at some point should've questioned. My advice? Surprise some unsuspecting friends with it. Periodically pause the movie so they can write down how they think it'll all fit together and then watch their faces as they're proved wrong.

9. After

I’m not going to remember After down the line so this is my opportunity to give it another flogging. I can’t believe fan-fictions of real people is a real thing and that one of them was deemed legitimate and popular enough to be turned into a movie. It plays out like the clone of a clone of a clone of Twilight. At least that movie had danger in the form of vampires and werewolves. This has nothing to offer except embarrassing drama and a prepubescent’s idea of what romance and love look like. I saw it in the theater with a friend and thank goodness she was there; it made what would've been a chore... slightly more bearable.

8. Dumbo

I’ve already gone on about how I feel about Disney’s string of live-action remakes. For the most part, they fail to validate their own existences; they’re just copies of the original but with “real” actors dancing around animated backgrounds, objects and locations instead of everything being traditionally animated. Dumbo isn’t like Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. It does try new things. It diverges from the source material significantly in the worst way. The titular character winds up playing second banana to a bunch of circus performers no one cares about and in the end didn’t contain an inkling of the emotion the 1941 version did.

7. Dark Phoenix

This one’s a triple-whammy. Not only was it a deeply disappointing way for Fox’s X-Men series to end, it retreaded old material in a way that was worse than X-Men 3: The Last Stand AND it was a box office bomb. By the time the story finally comes alive… it’s just about over. The whole thing feels like a mistake, bringing in aliens and asking us to invest in characters we just haven’t had enough time to fall in love with. Makes me wonder what the future of the characters is going to be like. Yes there are a number of heroes and heroines we haven’t yet seen, but are people going to care, even when the brand gets a new coat of paint from Marvel Studios?

6. Men in Black: International

Was anyone asking for the Men in Black series to return? Maybe if they'd had a dynamite story this could’ve overcome the public’s general disinterest, but this was an extremely generic plot you could figure out easily minutes in and lost touch with what endeared us to the first. Even with the combined forces of Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth failed, it to generate many laughs. Worse, to make sure I got any references or Easter egg it might drop, I re-watched all of the previous Men in Black movies, including the horrific Men in Black 2.

5. Replicas

This movie goes about itself in such a convoluted way. First, Keanu Reeves plays a scientist working for a company that wants to transplant the mind of dead soldiers into androids. Then, his family is killed in a car crash, prompting him to use the mind transfer tech to put their memories into new clone bodies of themselves. Problem is, he only has the means to clone three out of four family members. This means he has to erase all memories of his youngest daughter from the others’ brains. Following me so far? Good because it keeps going from there. Actually, that’s just the start of it. It’s a classic case of TMSGO - too much sh*t goin’ on. Even with all that, it STILLL managed to have gaping plot holes. No surprise it came and went as quietly as possible.

4. Hellboy

This one hurt. I wanted to see a superhero horror film badly. The early interviews I read about them wanting to adapt Mike Mignola’s books more closely than the Del Toro films got me excited. I was a little apprehensive when the trailers showed some goofy stuff but I figured these were included to draw people in. I should've listened to that sinking feeling. The actual film is awful, one giant mistake after another. Without a doubt, this featured the year’s worst special effects and even this I could've forgiven but the would-be humorous tone was badly misjudged and the story bloated with way too many elements that might've worked... if we weren't also trying to tell the character's origin at the same time. Hellboy ends with a teaser promising more and there’s no way we would’ve seen a sequel even if this had made money at the box office. Cool demons though, for what it’s worth.

3. Shaft

Looking back, I’m struggling to think of anything worth seeing in Shaft. I hated the film’s approach at comedy, particularly when it reverted Samuel L. Jackson’s John Shaft into the kind of man who proudly doesn’t understand modern sensibilities and spews out one homophobic joke after another. The plot was uninspired and uninteresting - not to mention generic - and none of it felt like it belonged on the big screen. On the upside, it prompted me to view the original trilogy with Richard Roundtree and those were enjoyable.

2. Simmba

Simmba is unlikely to be on the “Worst of 2019” list next January. It probably won’t be at the #2 spot. The film mixes two wildly different tones but not well. It begins as a romantic crime comedy, a dated one, sure. Simmba staging a phoney crime in order for the woman he’s attracted to to call him for help and then use the call as an excuse to stay with her through the night is creepy but I guess it might’ve passed like 20 years ago in North America. What makes this a bad film is the way it then introduces a character’s gang rape and murder as a way to prompt the anti-hero onto a righteous path. From there, it turns into this vigilante revenge film that has disturbing implications. You probably haven’t heard of it before now, much less seen it. I don’t recommend you check it out.

Runner Ups:

Aladdin

A controversial choice, as many casual filmgoers seem to have fallen madly in love with it (similar to the way they ate up 2017’s Beauty and the Beast) but honestly, what does this film do better than 1992’s Aladdin? Add an unmemorable song for Princess Jasmine to sing? Reduce the number of talking animals in order to give us more… nothing? Pile on the CGI to the point you wonder why it was made with live-actors in the first place? Like the innumerable direct-to-video sequels of classic films who've been all but forgotten, I tell you this Arabbian adventure won't endure.

Tolkien

So much potential squandered on a boring story. It didn’t take an astute viewer to recognize the film was crippled by the studio failing to obtain the rights to Tolkien’s actual work. I get the feeling we'll see another shot at a biography of J.R.R. Tolkien in a couple of years and this will be the Christopher Robin to the much superior Goodbye Christopher Robin.

The Hustle

It’s an unfunny comedy, what more is there to say? Rebel Wilson makes yet another bad career choice playing the same character she always plays. I only realized it was a remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels while writing my review, which is unfortunate. Hopefully I can expunge this film from my memory soon enough and forget anything it might’ve spoiled about the original Bedtime Story or the 1988 remake.

1. Unplanned

The numerous instances of technical incompetence - mostly coming from the performers who are given lackluster material - would be enough to condemn Unplanned to this list. What made me hate the film is the way it blatantly lies and attempts to manipulate the audience into further entrenching themselves in a certain point of view through cheap, manipulative means. I can respect that genuine passion was poured into the project but the way it goes about it is shameful. Do not go see it, even if you're curious.

Yuck. That last one really left a bad taste in my mouth so I'm going to talk about a movie I did enjoy and am enthusiastic to direct you towards Alita: Battle Angel. Rosa Salazar as the titular Alita impressed me and I really dug the action scenes. I'll also right a wrong from last year by reminding you to find and watch Paddington and Paddington 2, both movies I should've put on my "Best of" lists the years they came out. I don't know what I was thinking but I keep coming back to these in my head. They're excellent for kids and adults.

And with that said, the list is over. Back to our regularly-scheduled film reviews until something big comes up. Thoughts or comments on the list are welcome and I hope you enjoyed reading.

[bigskydreaming]

Just wanted to thank people again for their reblogs and donations, I will never be able to describe how I feel about the support - both tangible and emotional - that people on here have given me over the past three months in particular. Especially now that I have a definitive diagnosis and course of treatment to aim for, and an optimistic timeline of maybe even having the surgery within the next few months, at least before the summer....it really just depends there on whether my insurance approves that expense or how much of it, etc.

I still definitely could use continued help, though I’m trying my best to not rely on it as much as possible. Its just...yeah. We’ve kinda hit the point where its really just not possible period for me to make it where I need to get to without support. The slight downside to all the positive stuff I mentioned above is I’m a very goal oriented person. And this has been a very long and constant ordeal for me, where its been nothing but seven days of constant stress and pain a week, not able to rest or relax or take a day off working or searching for work for literally months and months. The only way I’ve managed to keep going is by fixating on some nebulous future point I had to reach and kinda use that to drag myself forward day by day. Its not nebulous anymore. I have answers, I have concrete needs and timelines and all that. But that also means now I have a very clear awareness that I can not make it the rest of the way with just the resources I already have myself.

It’s like...desperation energy, that’s fueled me to get this far and last this long, but there’s a difference between desperation and futility, and motivating myself with the thought ‘just hang in there long enough to get answers and solutions and FIX things’, like, it did what it needed to do, getting me in sight of all that, but it took pretty much everything I’ve got to use all that to tread water, to just stay afloat to get to this point. There’s just not enough there to stretch that out to continuing to stay afloat WHILE doing three times as much work on TOP of that. I know my capabilities and have a lot of self-respect for them, but I also know my limits and I can’t afford to waste everything it took to get to this point just so I can pretend I’m capable of more than I am. Because that’s the other downside of being in sight of the finish line, but still having it far enough away its not anywhere you’re gonna reach in just a few more steps.....like, lmao, I’m fucking tired. I want to rest. And I’ve gotten just enough good news after nothing but years of new rock bottoms that my brain and my body are trying to take that as a sign that its okay for me to just collapse now and take a breather. But I can’t really. Because I’m still not actually there yet.

So on that note, putting the link to my paypal up here nearer to the top for a change, for people who don’t actually need my long-windedness, lol.

https://paypal.me/bigskydreaming?locale.x=en_US

And then on a related note, I just wanted to say again that I’m totally okay with and even eager for people to leave notes with their donation for any writing commission I can do in return. Again, this is totally MY issue, and not something I think should apply to all donation posts: expectations of a quid pro quo. People help out because they want to help out. As long as whatever information a donation post includes is sincere, however much or little that information is, I think that’s the only parameter that matters. People have different personal criteria for what motivates them to actually donate to a relative stranger on the internet. If someone donating to a person whose post is just a simple paragraph of need with no context for why or what their situation is, if that doesn’t make sense to you? It doesn’t have to. That’s not actually any kind of scam. Someone just wants to say, hey I need help and no, I don’t want to explain why? Sure, a lot of people might not feel inclined to donate but anyone who does, they’re not being scammed. Someone asked for x amount of help, someone else decided, hey I can provide this much help and I’m okay with doing that with no further context needed. The end.

Just wanted to clearly express my opinion there, before proceeding on: for ME, personally, I like a degree of quid pro quo for the help people give me, because that’s something that works for my situation. I don’t LIKE not being able to work as much as I want to, because thing is, I have been fortunate enough to make careers out of work that I actually enjoy. My income over the last ten years has almost completely stemmed from acting, writing and graphic design, all things I enjoy. LOL I rant endlessly about how much I hate capitalism, and its true....but I don’t hate doing things I love. Obviously for the past year I haven’t been able to do any acting jobs cuz of my health conditions, and my writing and graphic design work has been unreliable for the last several months for a variety of reasons. 

The major way my health stuff (and related mental health stuff) has impacted me is not even with actual work, but finding new work. My headaches and chronic pain have lessened how many hours I’m able to be focused on work, but not so much that I can’t do what I need to get done when I have a clear objective and goal to focus on. It’s when that’s done and I have nothing else to work on and haven’t made the money I need yet. When I try to power through several hours a day of headaches/pain in search of new jobs as my lack of results amps up my stress and aggravates my health stuff even further....that’s what really makes days suck. And because of my mobility issues with vertigo and not being able to drive and all that, going out and getting a non-internet based job just flat out isn’t possible for me at the moment.

So I’m really starting to feel hopeful again that there actually IS an end point to all this and it might be soon even...and then I can get back to business as usual and build new client bases same as I did before, even get back to acting (omggggggg I miss it). But until that happens, as long as I still need to ask people for help and financial support, like, PLEASE do not feel like you’re imposing on me by suggesting something I can write in return, especially if you’re someone who’s been donating to me regularly. Or if you follow me in part because you enjoy my writing and my headcanons and fics and such. It’s not a chore, its something to do that I CAN do, that I LIKE doing, that I WANT to do. It actually helps make all of this more bearable, because like I said....writing and graphic design as my sources of income...they don’t feel like work. I ENJOY doing them. They actually get my mind off my issues, they give me a reason to get up in the morning, they make me feel productive, like I’m actually doing something with my life instead of just existing, and going through the motions day by day just to survive. 

So if you make a donation and you can think of something you’d enjoy seeing from me, please don’t hesitate. All I ask is that you understand that I’m not in a place to make guarantees at the moment, but when and where I can devote my time and energy to a direction you’ve pointed me in with your donation, I’m happy to, and hopefully that might result in something sooner rather than later. And eventually, if all goes well, I will get to a point (quite honestly a better place than I’ve been physically AND mentally in years) where I CAN be better about staying true to my intentions.

For now, just a rundown of things I have been writing for people who did make requests (though most of them are friends whose names I recognized and I hunted down and badgered into telling me what they’d like so I could do this, lmao. There were definite GDI WHAT DOES IT TAKE FOR ME TO MAKE YOU TELL ME WHAT I CAN DO FOR YOU convos being had, lolol I’m such a well adjusted person, honestly how do I stand it, science may never know).

Anyway, for anyone interested, the current slate of ‘commissions’ I’ve been working on, just so there’s no need to make a duplicate request:

Lightning Crashes Update - LOL a long awaited update to that beast. Its a 3 POV chapter, Kira, Liam and then Allison, and came out to around 10K. It’s done and just needs a final read through and polish, which I’ll do literally as soon as I manage to finish paying my insurance for the month and get caught up with what I owe my motel. Which means in the next couple of days for sure, if for no other reason then I like....have to make sure to pay those things by then one way or another lmao. But point being, for anyone still invested in that fic or interested in reading more, since its been so long and you’ll probably have to reread the existing chapters to refresh your memory, I think its pretty safe to go ahead and do that whenever, and the new chapter will happen somewhere in the next few days. 

As to the rest of the fic after that - this is one of three fanfics that I’ve always sworn I really want to finish someday no matter what, and that remains true. The clusterfuck TW fandom became for me really hurt my ability to write that story the way I originally wanted to, mostly because I didn’t want my resentment of Stiles to affect how I wrote his necessary part of the plot, and by the time there was enough emotional distance between me and the show/fandom to write it again, like....all this happened, lol. So I do think once my health issues are resolved and I’m settled in an actual permanent place, I’ll FINALLY be able to resume it. There’s like, a couple hundred thousand words worth of unposted story already written there, lmao, its just I outline and then write nonlinearly, so most of all that just doesn’t work without me finally writing the bridge chapters that pull it all together.

Born Under a Bad Sign Update - Same thing pretty much, as this is one of the other Big Three fics I’ve always wanted to finish. Largely because its got a sequel that’s already written in full, lmao. The sequel is my YJ version of Under the Red Hood, but builds on the plotline I always had in mind for BUABS. The sequel was just easier for me to write first because it wasn’t as personal. BUABS doesn’t have as much pre-written as LC, but its not nearly as long either, and it has always been totally outlined and with a lot of dialogue for later chapters pre-written. Anyway, this is what I’d like to post after the LC update. It’s not finished, but its also not as long as the LC one. It’s a Roy chapter, and doesn’t have a time break but while writing it I’ve split it into two parts just for my own purposes. The first is Roy and Ollie confronting Catalina, the second is Roy and Ollie talking about their own shit in light of that. For this one, the first part is written, the second has the dialogue written but the rest needs fleshing out. It wont take that long to finish, its really just a day or at most two days of writing. When that’s done just depends on when I can next devote time to it.

Untitled X-Men One Shot - Someone asked if I’d write something about Scott and Bobby’s friendship and some kind of reunion between them after Scott’s return from the dead. I will of course be ignoring AoX completely, lmao. This one’s mostly done, its like 10K lmao (look those two had a LOT to talk about okay), but the last couple thousand words of that is all just dialogue I needed to get down before I had to focus on other stuff. So everything I need is all there, I just need to return to it to finish fleshing out the last quarter or so of it.

Untitled Dick and Jason One Shot - Someone else asked me to write something with just Dick and Jason interacting, set in the comic book universe. I’m going with a blend of pre-nu52 and a little bit of nu52 for the setting, pretty much ignoring Rebirth etc, because a) I think the Rebirth reboot mostly sucked and b) I really don’t know much about post Rebirth continuity cuz I’ve read so little of it cuz what I have read I think mostly sucks. This one is basically Dick and Jason finally airing out their shit and all the things I’ve long wanted them to say to each other and know about each other, so they can try and build an actual functioning relationship as brothers. Its got all the dialogue written, but not much else. The dialogue’s really the only framework I need to build a one-shot, so it won’t be hard to write around it, its again just more about when and where I get the time to do that. It will be Jason POV, as in canon its usually Dick reaching out (to whatever degree) and Jason not trusting his sincerity. So the angle I’m going with is this one shot’s about Jason realizing he doesn’t know his brother as well as he thought, and that if he’s always trying to get the family to accept he’s not the same person he was before, like....the same can be true for Dick. Neither of them are the people they were back then, so the reasons they weren’t close aren’t actually reasons they can’t be close now. And what Jason thinks are Dick’s issue with him might not actually be what Dick actually has a problem with. 

Original Superhero Novella - This is likely the last of these things to be finished as its the longest and thus more on the backburner, like just writing 1 or 2K at a time on it. This one’s the request of a friend who knows enough about my original superhero universe (I call it the Ellis Eighteen universe) to know who she wanted to read about specifically. Which - not surprisingly, given that Batfamily is one of our shared fandoms - is my version of a Batfamily. Only not really, because lol I don’t like being derivative or writing analogs of existing characters aka I must be the specialest snowflake ever. So its more like I was like ugh I love the Batfamily but hate how rarely DC lets them like, GET ALONG, oh hey, I’m gonna shove all my resentment from that into making up my own dysfunctional blended family of superheroes who actually love each other even if they’re bad at saying so. Plus superpowers.

So their concept is there’s a C-List supervillain named Murphy, as in Murphy’s Law. He has low grade probability powers. Basically he makes it so anything that can go wrong will go wrong in a designated area. He doesn’t have any control over how that manifests, but he’s great for diversions, so he gets hired for a heist by some big name supervillains to just create mayhem while they do the actual work elsewhere. Except Murphy discovers the corporation they’re stealing from donates a lot to children’s charities and is heavily involved with ‘supporting’ the foster care system...as a means to seek out superpowered children who end up in the system, and exploit them for their powers. And while looking for the best place/way to make a diversion, Murphy stumbles across evidence of this, as well as four boys on site in advance of them being sent to a home specially intended to raise the boys to feel indebted to their benefactors and eager to do whatever they want them to.

Which doesn’t work for Murphy at all, because he’s not so much a bad guy as someone who ended up a criminal due to circumstances and desperation and from there just never found a reason to stop. This though, he’s not okay looking the other way, so he says screw this company and screw the guys who hired me, and he breaks out the boys and they go on the run, keeping anyone from getting their hands on them and moving from place to place while he tries to provide as much stability as he can, let them grow up and decide for themselves what they want to be.

Eventually though, the two oldest, Misfire and Crossfire (I call them the Fire brothers because even though they’re all biologically unrelated, they each have powers that lend themselves to picking the codenames Misfire, Crossfire, Ceasefire and Backfire). So anyway, after a couple years of this, Misfire and Crossfire end up sneaking out to be vigilantes. And Murphy catches them of course and is like wtf are you thinking, do you know how dangerous that is? What if you get hurt? What if they (asshole corporation) find you?

Only it turns out, they just wanted to be like their dad. Which Murphy doesn’t really know what to do with, cuz he never talks about his past with the boys. Because he’s ashamed of it, doesn’t want them to think of him as a villain. Which they don’t of course. He’s the one who rescued them, who gave up whatever his life was before to make it all about protecting them and always doing what was best for them. To the boys, Murphy’s always been their personal hero, so they kind of took it for granted....that’s what he was. Murphy was never a big name player, and they’ve always assumed that he was just some masked hero or vigilante who retired when he took them in so his old enemies wouldn’t come after them too.

So basically its a found/adopted family where the boys grow up to be heroes, thanks to the values and role model their father provided without ever having a clue how they really saw him, due to his own insecurities. And then it backdoors into Murphy eventually becoming a hero as well as its the only way he knows to keep making sure he’s there to look out for them, as well as like....he’s inspired by his kids, who in turn were inspired by him. He wants to be the man they see him as, live up to that image of him, not realizing that like, he always already was that man. That image of him is based on his actions, the way he raised them. So in reality, its not even that he’s inspired to heroism by the example his kids set, its more a gradual embrace of the role he’d always played for as long as they knew him, no matter how he personally had seen it (and himself).

And because I’m me, they end up making it the family business, with the older two boys and their dad working together to expose and topple companies engaged in exploitative practices, while the younger two ignore all orders to stay home and always stow away to make sure they’re part of the action. Like.....its the Batfamily with superpowers meets Leverage, if the Robins came first and Bruce only became Batman to be their partner and have their backs. And also he used to be a crook which is still way better than a billionaire. So, that’s that on that.

So that’s the slowest of the current slate, its at about 18K of a projected 30K, with this particular story being set after Murphy and the two oldest are already established as vigilantes. Murphy’s in his forties, Misfire’s 21, Crossfire’s 18, Ceasefire’s 16 and Backfire’s 14.

I’m open to writing pretty much anything I’ve ever talked about fandom wise, and that you know is something I’m familiar with. If for whatever reason a request is something I’m not open to writing or I’m not familiar enough with to write, I’ll just make a post about it and you can hop on anon and either clarify or ask for something else. And its okay to ask on anon ahead of time if I’d be open to something.

Anyway, on that note, I’m all done here, thanks again for everything!!!

[serpentsangel]

Talk Me Down: Part Six

A/N: So sorry this is delayed, I’m currently away and had an extremely long day today (4:00am to 3:00pm) oof. And I also just haven’t been feeling well in terms of motivation and whatnot so writing was hard-hence why this is a shorter chapter than usual. I hope that once I get back home I can get my muse back. So apologies if this is crap

Plot: With Veronica and Betty taking (Y/N) into their group, a new threat arises and Reggie wonders if he can protect her from it until he can 

Words: 2,277

Part One // Part Two // Part Three // Part Four // Part Five

Part Six

(Y/N) yawns as she slowly gathers books and supplies from her locker and places them in her bag and when she goes to close her locker, she’s almost taken aback by the sudden appearance of Veronica and Betty. “You two scared the living hell out of me.” (Y/N) places a hand over her heart and feels the sudden speed of her beat but she laughs it off and adjusts the falling strap of her bag on her shoulder. “What can I help you with?”

“I wanted to say, I accept your apology.” Betty nudges Veronica. “And I’m sorry for not being the least bit understanding towards your attitude. You clearly have been through enough already and the least I can do is to set aside everything and help you through it.”

(Y/N) smiles softly. “You’re not at fault at all. You were already trying to get me accustomed here but it was I who pushed you away and therefore, I’m sorry but I am glad you are accepting my apology and just hope that from this day on, we can hopefully be friends to a degree. Right now the only person I really know is Reggie and hey, there’s just some things only girls can gossip to each other.” The three of them laugh as (Y/N) reaches her hand out and shakes it with Veronica and Betty.

“We saw Cheryl give you a River Vixens uniform and we would love to have you there.” Betty chirps up. “Your moves are killer and I know you have some of your own views about cheerleading, and we don’t mind that, but it’d be nice to…”

“One try won’t hurt.” (Y/N) pops in, opening her locker again, grabbing the uniform and placing it inside her bag.

“That’s great! We’ll see you at practice.” Betty and Veronica wave at (Y/N) as the two of them walk pass her.

(Y/N) turns back to wave them goodbye too before looking forward just to be scared again, this time by Cheryl. “What is it with people here and sneaking up on others? I feel like I’m going to die of a heart attack before I even graduate.”

“Oh, (Y/N), you and your silly sayings. How’s your mother? Haven’t seen her since the Rosewoods Charity Gala.” Cheryl folds her arms elegantly as she shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “Anyways, I’ve come here to see if you’ve thought about my offer. Especially because my girls and I have been training hard to maybe make it to Nationals, and with your talent by my side, I’m sure you and I can lead them there.”

“My mother is…..fine.” (Y/N) mumbles, not really wanting to bring any of her life from the outside into school, as if it isn’t bad enough already to have to go through, why would she want to bring any of that to the one place she can actually feel safe from her mothers wrath? “And I’m coming for one try, I don’t know if this even a thing I want to stick with.”

Cheryl rolls her eyes playfully. “Being a Vixen will change your life, trust me, it changed mine. And please, I’ve been a vixen for as long as I can remember, I’ve been a dancer for longer and I have to say, your talent is unlike anything I have ever seen. Like I said, we could really use someone like you. Stay if you’d like. It’s like poison, sweetheart, try it once and you can’t turn back.” Cheryl swirls and walks down the hallway before being rejoined by her two minions, leaving (Y/N) to stand there in her own thoughts. Maybe she shouldn’t be so afraid to do an extra activity, if she’s going to eventually reach to the hopes of being a normal student then maybe she needs a constant in her school life, and if studying regularly with Reggie is the constant, then maybe coming here isn’t worth it. The constant of studying and learning with one individual only inflicts too much memories of her homeschooled life under the watchful gaze of her mother. Looking down at the uniform in her bag, (Y/N) shoves it to the lowest point, pushing it aside as she heads down to maths.

The class is already starting to fill up and (Y/N) grumbles as she finds some random seat next to a boy she has yet to learn the name of. As she sits down, the boy pauses conversations with his friends and turns his attention to (Y/N). “Hey, I don’t think I’ve introduced myself yet. I’m Chuck.” Chuck extends out a hand to which (Y/N) shakes carefully, going to her books and taking out all the required items for the class. “I don’t want you to think I’m one of those students that looks at you like a circus animal, I just want to welcome you into our school. Not everyone in this school is as mean as they make themselves out to be.”

“That’s somewhat comforting but so far, I’ve only met three decently nice people.” (Y/N) states, not looking at Chuck as she opens her text book and turns to the pages that were required for the class. “And I’m sure there are nice people out there but they aren’t anywhere near me.”

“Consider me the fourth decently nice person.” Chuck smiles, turning his body to face the front of the class. “Students can be tough, especially when you’re as notorious as you are but I look past that. I’m pretty sure you can be as normal as everyone else because we’re all human, right?”

(Y/N) shrugs her shoulders. “I guess so but normality is subjective. Everyone experiences it differently and everyone considers it differently. So, however low or high your standards of normality may be, regardless of the fact that we are all ‘human’, I  could be considered insane and not anywhere near to being normal. You take the pick.” Through class, the two made small talk here and there, mainly just (y/N) feeling not to bothered for that much social interaction so early in the morning. It was towards the end that they realized they also shared a class afterwards and while (y/N) took time to make sure she gathered everything, Chuck waited patiently before the two of them headed out to their next class.

“So, I’m not sure what your interests are but I’m holding a party this week with a few friends and I want to invite you over. Introduce you to some of my pals, show them that you’re just a regular high school student. It’s nothing too serious, not too big, not too crazy, just a couple of friends getting together away from the stress of school.” The two of them walk side by side, trying to avoid bumping into any of the other rushing students.

(Y/N) thinks for a moment to herself. The sound of a party peaking her interest but also the sound of it is horrendous. In her mind, all parties included the same thing, booze, mindless drink games and a hook up, not something she really wants to engage in when people still believe her to be a cannibal and or a spy but then again, if she’s going to try and change peoples minds about her then maybe this isn’t as bad as she is making it out to be. “I’ll think about it. I’ve got a study session with Reggie this Saturday but if it’s Sunday or Friday, I can probably make it but don’t hold me to my words, yet.”

“I won’t.”

**** A new day. New opportunities. New chances. As happy as (Y/N) is that Veronica and Betty accepted her apology, and that she’s met at least one more guy that isn’t Reggie, the horror of lunch time still haunts her as she wonders if she’s high enough in anyones social blade to warrant her the pass to sit with them. It hurts more when you know them and have spoken but you still are enough of a stranger to not be on their table and for the first time in her life, (Y/N) felt the pain of lack of friendship. Just as she is getting ready to sit alone at her usual table, she hears Veronica call her out. (Y/N) looks up and sees her waving her over. (Y/N)’s brain suddenly goes into overdrive as she’s given the window of opportunity but hesitates on acting on it.

Eventually she takes her tray and walks towards the table, not able to shake off the feeling of the entire room staring at her as she sits down next to Betty. “Welcome, (Y/N). I’d like to introduce you to everyone. This is Kevin. You know Veronica, next to her is Archie and I’d introduce you to Jughead but he’s moved schools and is only around here sometimes.” Betty excitedly welcomes (Y/N), who says hello to all the new faces she hasn’t had the chance to meet yet. “So, how are you finding Riverdale High so far?”

“It’s not what I expected to be honest.” (Y/N) pauses to take a bite out of her sandwich as she wipes the corners of her lips of sauce. “I mean, it’s better than being homeschooled because then I can at least do things that any other old teen would do. It’s nice to get out and whatnot. Also, to have activities that aren’t just tending the garden or feeding my mothers pets.” (Y/N) laughs.

“We’re here to make sure that you are given the best high school experience, ever. Betty and I can take you to Vixen’s practice each time, that is if you choose to stay.” Veronica offers. “Kevin is profound in the arts and is aiming to direct a school play one day and Archiekins here is musically talented. There’s also Josie, who is the Mayors daughter, and has a band of her own but they’re a little bit exclusive to their own. This school is a gold mine for you, just make sure you have a sharp eye.” She sighs. “As much as I adore this school for what it is, not every place is perfect and you get bad apples here and there.”

“Especially Cheryl Blossom.” Kevin chimes in. “She’s a walking Black Widow ready to strike. Don’t be fooled by her cherry red smile, she’ll play you like a friend, then when you least expect it, she’ll find a way to tear you down. Especially you.”

(Y/N) raises an eyebrow as she pushes her tray a little forward. “What about me?”

“Cheryl runs on social power. It’s how she manages to keep roaming the halls like she owns the place.” Betty explains. “If someone poses as a threat to that order, then she’ll see them as a target. A threat. People have been curious about you since you arrived and all the attention is towards you and not to mention the fact that you completely dominated the dance floor that one day at Vixens practice, which I must say, was pretty sick.”

“I just don’t get it.” (Y/N) groans. “Why am I so fascinating? What is so great about a girl who was practically locked up in her home most of her life? Its a lot more depressing than fascinating.”

“It’s because your family is known in Riverdale’s Elite and when you have that social rank but is never seen, it’s going to get people curious and talking and the rumours start.” Kevin states. “And trust me people do talk, half of which is ridiculous if you have any ounce of a sensible brain.”

“Whatever it is, there’s nothing Cheryl can do that can tear me down. I’ve built enough of an exterior, itd be tough to break it down enough for me to be a social mess. And besides, how bad can she get?”

**** At the end of school, Veronica and Betty waited for (Y/N) as she tried on the Vixens uniform, once she manages to get it on, she walks out and both girls look at her happily. “You look like a natural, my friend. Now, are you ready to rock it out there?” (Y/N) nods as she follows the girls to the outside field, right by where the football team were practicing. Cheryl is still busy setting up as (y/N) joins one of the other Vixens in stretching.

In the distance, Reggie approaches the field with his helmet, seeing Chuck wave over at someone with a big smile on his face. Curious, Reggie follows the direction and sees him waving at (Y/N) and he couldn’t tell what shocked him more, the fact that (Y/N) is in a Vixen’s uniform even after she said she wasn’t going to, or the fact that he just spotted Chuck creepily waving at her and (Y/N) acknowledging him back. “Whatever it is that you’re planning to do, you better get the idea out of your head, Chuck or I will ruin you.”

Chuck scoffs. “Please, not all of us are sleaze’s Reg. She’s coming to my party.” He smirks. “Try to stop me then.” He places his helmet on as he runs off to join his mates, Reggie clutching his helmet tightly as he looks back at (Y/N) staring at her momentarily before sighing, the least he can do is protect her from the other dirt that threatens the wound, at least until he’s the one to open it.

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