#i actually had some of the dialogue written for this ages ago and have just been waiting to piece it all together | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

genericpuff · 7 months ago

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Lore Olympus just pulled off the biggest whiff in webtoon history.

I promised I would choose one of two headlines and of course, this is the one we wound up with. But should we really be surprised? Rachel herself seemed to be telling on herself down to the minutes leading up to the finale, fully confirming to us that yes, she's been writing this comic at the last minute, by the seat of her pants, for ages now.

(that second one was literally posted TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES BEFORE THE COMIC UPDATED.)

Welp, let's get into it. Possibly the last essay I'll ever write about this dumpster fire of a comic (but probably not, let's be real LOL)

CONTENT WARNING: DISCUSSION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND FASTPASS SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES FINALE AHEAD!

Holy crap, where to even start with this. I knew it was going to be bad. I knew it was going to be rushed. I knew it wasn't ever going to live up to what I had hoped it would be years ago when I was still a diehard fan.

But I didn't think it was going to fall quite this hard. Despite bracing myself for the worst, Rachel has once again let my expectations down through a final display of explosive mediocrity and disappointment.

Yes, the episode is called "You're Welcome", and yes, that instant "ick" you're feeling is the exact same as what we're all feeling. This title plays into the dialogue later, but what a shitty, lowkey mean-spirited title for the series finale.

Now, before we get into the actual episode, the WT ads for this are just... so desperate and misleading.

They are trying SO HARD to hype up something that isn't there, and at the last minute to boot, because Rachel definitely hadn't written any of this ahead of time.

First off, the bit about the gods being in "eternal chaos" of course isn't a stake worth worrying over because Gaia literally does away with Ouranos in the first 5 panels.

Did you really think I was joking about that 5 panels thing?

That's it. That's the death of Ouranos. As mysteriously and quickly as he arrived, he was gone, after Gaia ripped out of him what appeared to be some purple sunny side up - but it's actually, in fact, Apollo.

And that's when we start to get some of the worst dialogue I've ever seen throughout LO. Remember when I said LO's dialogue was like Shenmue 3? Welp, the finale decided to continue that tradition and further fuel the suspicion that this entire thing was written by ChatGPT.

Oh, by the way, that "thank you, ma'am" was Artemis' first and last line of the episode. So once again, just like in Episode 248, we're completely robbed of her reaction to Apollo being a rapist piece of shit and the character development she could have had as a supporting character. The women in this "feminist retelling" really couldn't be more half-baked.

Gaia stumbles upon Persephone, and I'm not even gonna fucking bother showing the panels where Gaia says it's time to "make things right" because they literally don't matter. Why don't they matter? Because Rachel just had to get in one more pointless time skip.

We're shown a sequence of pointless images that I'm not gonna show as I don't want to waste my image limit on them, depicting Hades having a sad day because his small wife isn't with him and oh nooo what could have happened?? Did Persephone finally divorce him ??

Nah, we couldn't possibly have an actually happy ending in this comic. Instead we get a completely pointless phone conversation between Hades and Hecate-

Not only is the grammar particularly bad in this episode, but the actual script-writing is atrocious. We literally did not need this phone conversation to happen because-

-we're cutting BACK TO THE PRESENT THAT WE JUST CUT AWAY FROM FOR A 3 MONTH TIME SKIP. FOR NO REASON BESIDES SHOWING HADES BE SAD OVER SOMETHING THAT ACTUALLY ISN'T THAT BIG A DEAL, AS YOU'RE ABOUT TO SEE.

I- I LITERALLY HAVE NO WORDS. I HAVE NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE WHAT THE FUCK THIS IS. ALL I CAN HEAR IN MY BRAIN IS THE LEGEND OF ZELDA ITEM GET MUSIC-

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-BECAUSE THIS WHOLE THING SUDDENLY SOUNDS LIKE SOME CONTRIVED FETCH QUEST. WHAT DO YOU MEAN HADES AND PERSEPHONE HAVE PROVEN 'TRUE LOVE' IS REAL? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY HAVEN'T USED 'LOVE' AS A FORCE FOR DESTRUCTION?? ARE WE FORGETTING THAT HADES MUTILATED A GUY IN THE NAME OF 'LOVE'? THAT PERSEPHONE LITERALLY INVADED THE HOME OF HADES' CANONICAL FIRST WIFE BECAUSE SHE FELT MILDLY THREATENED BY HER?

This whole concept of "true love" that Rachel is trying to convey feels so juvenile especially for a series that has sold itself as being mature and thought-provoking and progressive.

HAHAHA SO FUNNYYYYYYY why does Rachel write like this. this is, at best, the writing of a 13 year old on fanfiction.net, which I SHOULD KNOW, because I WAS ONE OF THEM. BUT I'M 28 NOW AND RACHEL HAS ANOTHER 10 YEARS ON ME.

Okay, this is the part where I'm CONVINCED Rachel either just mashed this into the episode in the MINUTES leading up to its release, or she used ChatGPT or something. Because NONE of this dialogue makes any sense. Beyond how stilted and lifeless it is (seriously, this dialogue reads like something from Empress Theresa) Gaia is clearly meant to 'replace' Erebus here which I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO EVEN EXPLAIN IS SO FUCKING DUMB, but ALSO what is even Persephone trying to communicate here? "That is true, but it was a deal I was willing to make and ties me to the Underworld. Please don't change me." What? Gaia hasn't even insinuated that she's going to do anything to Persephone, why is Persephone immediately jumping to this conclusion? What does 'changing' her mean? Is she asking Gaia not to force her to sacrifice something (which she never did)? Or is she asking Gaia not to strip her of her Underworld status? Because again, why is that even something Gaia would do?

Maybe this is harsh but I'm pretty sure even Empress Theresa is more coherent than this, what in the flying fuck is Gaia talking about?

"I can just see the potential for conflict! To relieve you from the burden of the whats, the hows, and wheres." Like... okay, first of all, that second sentence isn't even a complete sentence, it's a dependent clause left hanging, but also what the fuck does this MEAN. Is she EXCITED for the conflict but then contradicting herself by saying she wants to relieve Persephone of that conflict? Or is she saying she can see the conflict it would cause for Persephone to have to perform duties in both realms and trying to insinuate that she's going to relieve her of those complications?

Here's what I think happened - I think that second 'sentence' wasn't supposed to be a sentence, but the start of the sentence to the next panel-

So with that theory in mind, the sentence becomes, "To relieve you from the burden of the whats, the hows, and wheres, you are to spend three months in the Mortal Realm to do spring and the rest of the year in the Underworld. That seems fair to me."

It's still a very poorly written line of dialogue, but at least with that fix in mind it makes sense. But man, you can really fucking tell this episode was submitted at the last minute because that's a serious syntax error that should NOT have happened in this two-time-Eisner-winning comic.

Errors aside, it's clear that Rachel is following through on having Persephone spend only three months in the Mortal Realm, rather than the traditional six. There ARE other translations that have that number closer to four, but those four are the time she spends in the UNDERWORLD, meaning she's always spending either equal or MORE time in the Mortal Realm. Of course, Rachel doesn't want her self-insert small wife power fantasy to actually have to be separated from Hades despite this being a retelling of The Abduction of Persephone, so instead of her spending three months in the Underworld, she's now spending them in the Mortal Realm, literally doubling the MINIMUM amount of time (four months) she was originally meant to reside in the Underworld.

But oh no, apparently those three months are STILL NOT SHORT ENOUGH FOR PERSEPHONE-

Of course, Rachel "Retcon" Smythe had to have her cake and eat it too. I always worried something like this was a possibility, but I never thought she would actually prove me right - not only is Persephone only separated from Hades for three months out of the year, but actually he can visit her any time he wants to, so really, they're not separating at all.

I think Rachel needs to look up "reunion" in the dictionary, because if you can visit each other any time, then that means the 'reunions' are no longer special occasions. This completely removes any semblance of depth or meaning from all of the storytelling leading up to this, all of it with the expectation that this was a retelling of the Abduction of Persephone, because that's what Rachel said it was going to be. At this point it's safe to say that Rachel has zero business attempting to "retell" mythological stories, because she doesn't even seem to grasp the concept of why they were written the way they were to begin with. Either that, or she really just doesn't care, and the only reason for making LO a Greek myth comic at all was to propel her career.

This also brings me back to those promotional ads, the other one that posed the question, "Will sacrifice be enough to bring these two back together?"

This is stating the obvious, but I need to make it perfectly clear - Hades and Persephone have never sacrificed a single thing. The only thing they could POSSIBLY quantify as a "sacrifice" is "not being tied at the hip for a few hours", because even Persephone going on the equivalent of a work trip next door is apparently enough to make Hades sad as we saw in the 3 month time skip panels. Why is Hades so sad and lonely if he can visit her any time? Why is he acting like he hasn't seen her in years when he's actually on his way to reunite with her? Why is Hecate calling to ask him if he's "okay" as if he JUST got separated from her, but actually he's about to literally go to the Mortal Realm to reunite with her?

Hades hasn't 'sacrificed' a damn thing, neither has Persephone. They've both always gotten exactly what they wanted, even at the cost of breaking the story's own established rules. Their 'sacrifice' is equivalent to what billionaires think are 'sacrifices' when they can't buy another yacht or go on that third overseas vacation for the month.

And even outside of this episode, when have these two ever sacrificed anything?

I've tried so hard to think of what sacrifices have been made by the characters within LO, and I genuinely can only think of one - and that was when Artemis chose to go to the Mortal Realm with Persephone instead of staying with her family in Olympus. That was a genuine, selfless sacrifice, made by a character who has been shelved in favor of focusing on the self-centered pink and blue airheads.

Being forced to be apart for a couple days to do the equivalent of a day job and whining about it the whole time is not a 'sacrifice'. Neither of these characters have ever sacrificed anything, they just feel like sacrifices because they have the integrity and empathy of soggy cardboard.

sigh Anyways, we're back in the present and Hades and Persephone immediately decide they're gonna have sex because ofc, and then we get this gem of a panel-

MMMMMM

FUNNYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY JOKE

For some reason it's just a common thing for people to just be in Hades' home, and they can't seem to get any privacy as a result of this, but I digress. Turns out they still need to have that coronation for Persephone.

There is... so much wrong in these three panels.

First, to state the immediate issues - why the fuck are they mentioning Apollo at Persephone's coronation? Like first of all, no shit Apollo isn't gonna be there, but also, if this is supposed to be an event for and about Persephone becoming Queen of the Underworld, then why in the WORLD is Apollo even being mentioned? This is supposed to be a "feminist retelling" where the victims are empowered and heal from their trauma, but LO once again can't try to show any sort of positive growth for the victims without bringing up the assaulters and giving them screen time. It just goes to show that Rachel's idea of "healing" is purely rooted in the revenge, and not the growth. It's a very high schooler approach to this subject, hellbent on showcasing how all the meanies from the past are losers now and life just sucked for them forever, but inadvertently proving its own point that the victims haven't and can't move on because the narrative is spending so much time on caring what's going on with the abusers. It's the "I don't care! Look at how little I care! I'll prove it to you by putting in the effort of showing you how little I care!" approach, it doesn't really feel like moving on.

It's not about how Persephone and his other victims could have grown and healed, no, Rachel always needs to highlight just how much worse the bullies and haters and abusers are doing to make the victims seem like they've healed by comparison. Don't get me wrong, I can understand wanting to showcase the downfall of a character like Apollo, but this just... isn't the right context for that? Because it's once again taking attention away from the victim to focus on the abuser. It's once again spending screentime on the voices of the oppressors rather than the oppressed.

And speaking of, what the fuck is this punishment even? I knew Rachel wasn't gonna be able to resolve this plotline properly, she never had the capability to, but ... community service? Are you fucking for real? What is this even a punishment for even? Was this EXCLUSIVELY the SA, or does this ALSO include his attempts to overthrow Zeus by poisoning him, nearly killing Daphne, Eris, Eros and Psyche, trapping Eros and Psyche in an enchanted basement, and framing his father's 'death' on his half-sister? Because if so, how in the world is anyone content with community service? He hasn't even been turned into a mortal, HE'S STILL A GOD, so what's to stop him from going "WE'LL MEET AGAIN, SPIDERMAN" and trying something else? How is this a reasonable resolution in ANY context?

This is why I talked at length about what an issue it was to hide what Apollo really admitted to. Because now we really don't know what exactly he confessed to, and thus we can never really see the point of views of the victims outside of just Persephone - and we still don't even get Persephone's, because she just walks away from him and then he gets eaten by Ouranos and next we see of him is him doing community service! Once again, any emotional development that could be given to Persephone and the other victims is stripped away to make room for the point of views of the oppressive men. In this, the two-time-Eisner-winning "feminist comic" that is LO.

And that brings us to the "where are they now" segment. Yes, as we all feared, there's a "where are they now" segment, and it's as rushed and underwhelming as we ought to have expected it to be.

There is just... so much to unpack here, and yes, all of it is delivered in the dumbest way possible that only raises more questions than answers.

So Rhea and Metis are just back and we're not gonna talk about the implications of them being alive again?

Dionysus is a 3 month year old in the body of a teenager / young adult, and his mom is just alive now because Hades conveniently got his hands on more ambrosia and brought her back to life offscreen? But somehow Triptomelus and Hedone are still child-sized relative to their ages?

How did they 'heal Zeus'? And why is he so content with losing his power as King and Apollo being sentenced to community service after making an attempt on his life? How does he feel about the letter that Hera gave him? Did he even read it?

Where the fuck is Hebe in all of this? Is she okay? Do people still think it was her who put Zeus in a coma? Or did Apollo confess to that, too?

You're telling me Hera and Echo are just in a relationship now despite the fact that Hera is literally racist towards nymphs and there is ZERO reason for them to have a relationship in the comic beyond the fans making gratuitous headcanons out of it? How is Rachel, a bisexual woman, so bad at writing actual lesbian relationships and giving them the same amount of attention as the heterocis ones without shoving them into the background as props for insincere queer rep? And what about Hera herself? How did she overcome her role as the Goddess of Marriage to finally divorce Zeus?

"Ares is still a dog!" Haha! Ares is still a Persephone simp! Happy end!

Why is Eros just standing there smiling at the camera struggling to be seen past Hedone who's just floating right in front of him? You're telling me there wasn't a better place to put her out of that entire panel?

"Hades and Thanatos have been making more time for each other. Sometimes they even have a conversation." I'm sorry, is this supposed to be funny? The man abused Thanatos for years, treated him as just a lowly employee when he was literally his adopted son, and now you're trying to play it off as a joke that they're "making more time for each other"? What the fuck is this?

TGOEM disbanded? Why? What about the women who were genuinely a part of it?

Also, Artemis and Selene are just good friends now because reasons? Because they're both affiliated with the moon, I guess? Why is Selene even in this comic-

"They are still looking for Kassandra". Who? And why? This feels like such a last minute addition to acknowledge a character that the comic spent WEEKS foreshadowing only to have her finally appear as a pointless McGuffin, but it's so last minute that it does nothing. I'm assuming it's Eros and Psyche looking for her, but like... why can't they find her? They're gods, tracking down one mortal shouldn't be that difficult LOL ???

And also, where the fuck is Leto?? You're telling me she was an accessory - maybe manipulating Apollo, maybe not - but we don't see what happened to her? Is she just back to being a social outcast then? jesus christ this comic isn't finished-

Kassandra is where the "where are they now" sequence ends, and we're treated to one final horribly written dialogue scene between Hades and Persephone, where they tell each other how much they love each other in a desperate attempt to convince the audience that this is, in fact, a romance.

There's this thing in romances called chemistry, and if you're good at writing it, you shouldn't have to write dialogue like this. You should be able to see how much the characters love each other through their actions, through their small behaviors around each other. It's not always about what they say out loud, it's about what they don't have to say, because when two people really share that close of a bond based on love and trust and chemistry, words often aren't necessary.

Hades and Persephone do not have that chemistry. It has been apparent for years now, but this final exchange really is the nail in the coffin. There are no microexpressions or subtle emotions, no subtlety in their word choice, and nothing unique setting their voices apart. It's all just "wow thank you for being such a wonderful amazing partner, you are amazing and I love you" word salad that has to do all the heavy lifting for the completely non-existent chemistry that's been at its absolute worst throughout this entire season.

And worst of all, despite this story trying so hard to be focused around Persephone, around her story, her trauma and her healing, her voice... it's still all just about Hades. In the end, she's thanking Hades, and forcing him to say "you're welcome". All of it is trying so hard to convince us that Hades has been a positive addition to her life, that she 'owes' so much to him, but we've obviously seen plenty throughout the comic that begs to differ. And even if he were a better person than he is, it still doesn't change the fact that once again, the men are being held up above the women, with the women being grateful to the men who choose them. LO can try its hardest to convince people that it's feminist, but it is, at best, reinforcing the very same structures of the patriarchal system that it claims to despise and rebel against.

We do get one line from Hades acknowledging Persephone's part in the relationship-

-and it falls so fucking flat because it's still about him and what she does for him, and because nothing about their relationship was built on any sort of organic chemistry. There was a lot more chemistry back in S1, but it was still predicated on Hades lusting after a vulnerable 19 year old girl.

Yep, and that's it. That's the end.

Except it isn't because Rachel wanted to try and be smart by including an 'epilogue' that's really just stretching the episode out pointlessly for another few panels. And of course, we had to get another time skip, just a final dose of salt in the wound, this time to years ahead when we inevitably had to reconnect with Persephone and Hades in the future after Melinoe was born.

To recap, Melinoe doesn't remember... because Hades had Morpheus erase her memories.

This plotline has really started to give me the ick because it actually feels very familiar. Bear with me here, because I'm gonna go on a bit of a tangent about my own original work, but it's because I wrote a plotline exactly like this years ago.

There's this... turning point, in Time Gate: Reaper, when the main character Uzuki is kidnapped by a Reaper (see: undead) who wants to experiment on her in the hopes that he can somehow gain her abilities to bond her soul with others (which later allows her to literally possess people after she becomes a Reaper herself). Mitsuhiro, the male deuteragonist who kickstarts the plot by telling Uzuki she's got a limited amount of time left to live (which he knows thanks to his magical death timers that mark themselves on his skin), feels an immense amount of guilt after finding out she was kidnapped by the Reapers (at this point she's been gone for three months), as they were originally after him; he worries that she was made a target simply due to him associating himself with her, and vows to rescue her.

With the help of some other spunky teenagers and anime trope characters, Mitsuhiro does eventually rescue Uzuki - but for the three months she had been gone, she had been tortured, abused, and experimented on, causing her mind to split and for her to lose any sense of awareness of who Mitsuhiro or her other friends were. She was no longer herself after the hell she had been through.

Mitsuhiro's solution to this is to have Springlock - another Reaper with motivations that are not yet clear to the cast - erase her memory. This is not a light decision that comes without consequences - for the remaining duration of the story, Uzuki is plagued by night terrors and panic attacks, unable to really remember what happened to her aside from whatever brief flashbacks her brain recalls in its haze of memory loss. She is traumatized, both physically and mentally. She has lost three months of her life and memories, and doesn't know how to explain why she's covered in scars that are still healing, why she's missing organs, why she's now blind in one eye, and why the sound of scraping metal and ticking clocks gives her panic attacks. Mitsuhiro has convinced her friends that she's suffering from memory loss due to trauma, but only he knows the truth that he forcefully took her memories away from her, without her consent. This was not the right choice to make. It was not noble of him, it was not a grand gesture of love, he made a decision on her behalf without her consent that has now resulted in her becoming a nervous wreck. Sure, she still would have had PTSD if she remembered what happened, but at least she would know why and could then seek adequate help. Without those memories, she has nowhere to begin to heal. And so we see the consequences of this throughout [AFTERBIRTH] and even the upcoming Thread of Fate. It is a long-term problem that is not going to be solved overnight, especially not with Mitsuhiro withholding information from her.

Reading about Melinoe having dreams about her experiences trapped in Tartarus with Kronos ... it felt familiar enough that I had to talk about why the insinuations of this are so fucked up. I know there are people who are gonna handwave it away as "she's just a kid", "these are gods so what does it matter", etc. but ... it just feels like such an oversight to have Hades effectively erase her memory of her trauma and then hint at them still being present in her mind through her dreams. She did not ask for that. And the fact that she's now dreaming about it all does not bode well. But we're supposed to think Hades made the correct choice, regardless.

But none of this is effectively expanded on or explained, because we get one final scene of Melinoe and Demeter visiting Persephone, who has just given birth to... Makaria?

So it turns out Persephone and Hades are just able to have biological children now. Don't know why, but of course they both look exactly like Hades.

What I was really confused by though is the fact that it's Makaria and not Brimos. Do you remember Brimos? The child that was foreshadowed in Hades' original fantasy dream sequence about his future children about Persephone?

Either Rachel completely forgot about him, or she saw all the criticism over the fact that Brimos isn't a confirmed child of Hades and Persephone (rather, an epithet that can apply to basically any Underworld god including Persephone and Hades) and that her "research" was dependent on a book she read when she was 13 and decided to axe that. But she went to the effort of establishing that all the dreams Hades had were , in fact, canon visions of the future, so good job Rachel, you created yet another plothole on top of the hundreds of others.

And that's where the series ends, on a final nuclear-family-photo of Persephone, Hades, Melinoe, and Makaria. Of course, Dionysus and Thanatos aren't present in this shot because this is Lore Olympus and only biological children count /hj

Why Rachel couldn't move the "the end" portion to THIS part, I don't know, but I'm also expecting way too much of the person who finished this 20 minutes before it was due.

So that's it. Six years and that's what we get. I didn't expect much, but I was still incredibly disappointed, as were many others who walked away from this dazed and confused. Maybe it's all the "haters" deserve at this point. But what of the fans? While many of them are celebrating this ending at best and tolerating it at worst, I can't help but think of the fans of this comic who hung on for so long in the hopes it would "pay off", just for it to go out as gloriously as a wet fart.

As for me, I have such mixed feelings about Lore Olympus ending, but none of them pertain to the comic itself. Most of what I'll miss from this comic isn't the comic itself, but the people who have made reading it every week so fun, the artists and writers who have enriched the content with their own interpretations of what could have been, and the experiences of being part of such an amazing community made up of people who are as long-term-obsessed about this piece of media as I am.

I get people who ask me a lot if it's "worth it" to be so engrossed in the LO slander, who assume that I'm going to "regret" ever being a part of it all... but from where I'm standing right now, I couldn't ask for a better view.

Even if I didn't love every minute of it, everything I have here I owe to this comic. This stupid, wonderful, boring, amazing, pile of shit comic.

#lore olympus critical #anti lore olympus #lo critical

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naok-iyuu · 1 month ago

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When the sun falls - Zed Necrodopolis x Reader

I am so sad one of my biggest comfort character doesn't have much fanfiction to honor him, so I'll try to work myself to fufill my desire and make some of you guys happy ! I am quite not satisfied with what I did, but I've spend so much time on it that it must be published now. (and why are the dialogue with the childhood friend better written than the actual overall fic???) Please do not hesitate to leave prompts or ideas you could have for future fanfictions, I'll gladly read them and write !

English is not my native language, I appologies for any grammar or other mistakes ! Don't hesitate to tell me for future work. Idea from Creative Writing Prompts My Masterlist

No warnings, just highschoolers being highschoolers.

Word count : 2.6k

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-. It was when the sun made his smile a little bit brighter that you realised, Zed Necrodopolis was indeed making your heart beat faster.

You had taken the habbit of spending time near the football field when school's days were over, not wanting to go home the second the bell rung. Your childhood friend being a player in the seabrook team made it easier to find an excuse as why you were always near the team of shrimps. It became usual for the group of boys to see you, always sitting on the highest bleacher, reading a book or scrolling on your phone when words were too much to bear after a full day of eyeing them on the school board.

Maybe, you sometimes left your eyes wander, watching the jocks run all over the field, tossing balls, and screaming excitedly at each others. It was funny at times, even when you were secretly praying that one of those balls would never have the secret need to kiss your face.

Today wasn't the day you would get hit by a ball, but it was the day your eyes decided that a green haired boy was more interesting than your romance book about a super-hero and the girl he'll never have. Zed was the kind of guy that was easy to get along with. You both weren't close friends strictly speaking, but James, your childhood friend, made it easier to speak to the zombie. Conversations flowed safely when you two spoke, even when James was between you two, trying to feed conversations, hoping he'll get the two of you to become besties and hang out more with him. He was an optimist, something that really brought light to your life since a young age.

Your head was resting on your backpack, your body fully lying on the bleacher seating as the few last minutes of practice were almost over. Your hand hanging down was careful not to touch the ground, there was no way your skin was going to touch something long forgotten by a dirty student. Your eyes attentively followed Zed's green hair like he was the only guy you knew amongs the teenagers. Surely because he was the most noticeable, you had told yourself. Sometimes it hits you, why Zed was so popular amongs the folks in Seabrook. He was the first zombie who got his kind accepted by the humans, he was a good football captain and player. And now that his relationship with Addison ended a few months ago... It was safe to say that girls became a bit more aware of his charms. It would be a lie to say you've never noticed how handsome he looked, you just choose to ignore it, most of the time.

"Hey (L/n) !" Hearing your last name, you let your eyes drift lower to find the blond hair of James calling you with the biggest smile. Waiting down the bleachers, he breathed like he just ran twenty times the field. "Careful there, I can see you drowling from over here."

His voice was loud enought to reach your ears, and loud enought to catch the other boys attentions. He chuckled and a few players followed his humour with amused smiles, catching your attention. You narrowed your eyes, both slightly embarassed and annoyed that he had to call you out in front of all his teammates. You automatically stand up, picking your bag in one, strong hand, and made your way to him down the bleachers, already knowing that practice was over.

"Nice try James, I was just watching if your skills in football were better than mine." Switching you bag from your hand to your shoulder, you defended yourself with the tiniest amused smile, guiding his attention to anything else than you eyeing the captain of his team.

"Oh really ? What do you think then, did I improve myself ?" He asked, his joke long forgotten.

"Not really. You are not even reaching 10% of my football skills." Your smile grew wider as you made fun of him.

"Yeah yeah of course, how about we take that to the fi-"

"Hey James, time to take a shower buddy." You did not notice Zed approaching the two of you, only letting your eyes on him when he stood next to your friend and made his presence known. His elbow nudged James's, earning a scoff from him.

"I was going to, but I still need to take care of the lady remember ?" He moved his finger close to his temple, reminding him of your presence and how important you were.

"Oh I can take care of that, because it smells like death here." He waved his hand in front of his nose, making you chuckle against your will.

James tapped Zed's shoulder, turning himself to leave.

"Look who's talking Necrodopolis." He shook his head, looking at you. "I'll wait for you at the entrance." He then waved later to you, and you did too, smiling at his body leaving in direction of the locker room.

"Looks like you got rid of him." You now looked at Zed, your smile still full of playfulness. His eyes didn't lose time to search yours, raising slightly his head due to you still being on the bleacher stairs. You could have a better look at him this way, and didn't have to raise your head like you usually did. "Was my plan that obvious ?" He added to your teasing with a smile of his own, his body weight shifting on his left foot.

"Totally, I could see you wracking your brain from the football field, wondering how you would get to talk to me without James third wheeling." Funny flirty banter was your thing, whether you used it to smooth the atmosphere or to hint a slight interest. And in Zed's case... Well... You did admit to yourself that he was gorgeous.

"And I could see you staring, didn't know you had a thing for jocks." However, it was less of your thing when a charming boy used the same tricks as you. Zed's words made your cheeks grew pink, something you could easily blame to be the evening sun's fault.

"Just watching you boys play, it's pretty interesting sometimes."

"Only sometimes ?" He raised an amused eyebrow.

"Only sometimes."

"Too bad, I thought the team captain had caught your attention. You know, the handsome player with green hair." He attempted, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly.

"Really ? You're the team captain ? Since when ?" You let your face paint itself with a false air of surprise, playing more and more with the jokes he lets you have fun with.

"Oh it's recent, only one or two years since I joined the team. I also often forget how popular I've become." And again he shrugged his shoulders, delivering his line with the most unfazed facial expression you could have seen.

You laughed a bit louder than before, making a twinkle of victory appear in his eyes along with a charming smile. "Alright alright champ, I am just messing with you."

"I wouldn't have guessed." He mocked you a bit more, just to see you roll your eyes and shake your head with yet another giggle. A few seconds pass and Zed's can't help but notice how your eyes seems to have wandered to a thought deep hidden in your head. "What are you thinking about ?" He demanded, lowering his voice not to startle you in case you were already far into your daydream.

"I guess, I never really noticed... But the evening sun really compliments your hair." Too focus on the bright new color the sun created, you can't notice how Zed's cheeks became a lighter shade of pink, contrasting with his very pale skin. Sunddenly aware of his hair color he couldn't help but to run a hand through his locks, his eyes now shifting away from your face. His slight movement appear to break wathever spell you got yourself into and your eyes made their way back to his, not noticing his new attitude.

The next second, his eyes looked back at you, a thought of his own appearing behind the dark of his pupils. "I think I can find something well more complimenting than my crazy green hair. They are totally natural by the way."

His sentence seems to finally knock some sense into you, the very sense you had lost while looking at his hair, and the very same sense you had struggled to get back when your eyes looked at his. "I highly doubt that." Wide eyes take over your features to prove your point and your doubt before being washed by Zed's shaking his head.

"You do ? Okay, give me your hand if you are so sure of yourself." Stretching his hand in your direction, his brown orbs were pleading his case, puppy style, almost encouraging you to trust him.

You rolled your eyes, yet again, placing your hand in his. Your fingers curl around his skin, mimicking the way his just did around your hand. He does not lose the opportunity to take your second hand in his palm while your foot comes down your perch, trying to convince himself that your stability is his top priority. The grassy ground reminds you of how small you are compared to his giraffe heigh, and your head must now look up to gaze at his face. You tried to erase the thought his is skin being soft against yours, his hands being, oh so large, around your girl sized baby hands. But the task was way more difficult than you had imagined. In a soft motion, he exchanged both of your spot by making you rotate with him, his back was now facing the bleachers while you were greeted with the powerful sun on your face. You wondered how you did not became blind on the spot while Zed's face moved around tring to find several different angle to look at you. The skin on his face, moving without warning, cartooned his expressions which made you giggle. He looked so focused on his task that it made you feel self conscious about your look. "What you are doing ?" You try to quiet your giggle while your eyes followed his every move.

He focused his gaze on your eyes again, smiling with satisfaction. "The sun really compliments your eyes, they are beautiful."

At that moment, you couldn't quite grasp if it was the way he looked at you, or the way his voice gently complimented you, or maybe if it was just the fact that you were lying to yourself about being attracted to him, putting that affirmation far behind the fact that he was just charming. But his words stole all the air from your lungs and you felt extremely hot in a matter of seconds. His gaze didn't drift from yours, just admiring you even if he noticed the shy mess he just made of you. He was enough of a gentleman to not make a comment about it, and just appreciated it. Your thoughts racing faster than a rocket made your eyes dance in every direction possible, trying to find your words and confidence from earlier. Acknowledging the fact that you needed to respond, you bit your lower lip, trying to find the air you once had in your lungs.

"They are pretty common, really." You tried to put his words above your head, high enough so you wouldn't think nor take them for what they were.

"Have you seen my eyes ? That's what you can call common, you can even call them poop brown." His joke diverted you from your previous thoughts, obtaining, like it was a precious gift, another laugh from you. You shook your head and, at last, looked at him again. "Are you serious ? Have you seen your eyes under the sun's rays ?" It was easy to compliment other people, you would even shove their face in whatever you could find if that meant they could see how fine you thought they looked. But when it came to you, compliments, praises, were not allowed. Hell you even made yourself think that it was forbidden. But in that moment, you could see the determination in Zed's eyes to fight you teeth and nails just to make you hear him.

"My point, your eyes are beautiful." You were about to dismiss him again when he cut you out before he even saw you mouth starting to move. "And I am winning this one, you can no longer contradict me."

You sighed a small 'okay', your being eating you from inside so you would, in fact, contradict him. His eyes were quick to make you forget what you were going to fight for, and even quicker to make you wonder if something was indeed happening between you two. You couldn't shake those thoughts, maybe you were a hopeless romantic, but you guys were flirting... Right ? Not being able to read your thoughts made Zed's bite the inside of his cheek. Your face was an open book, James didn't lie about that when he talked about you. He could see the wheels turning behind your eyes, and your eyebrows moving to every feeling and image your brain was sending you. He decided to catch your attention once more.

"Hey, I was wondering..." His voice was gentle, almost feeling like the comfiest pillow you would want to lie on. "Would you like to-"

"Hey Necrodopolis ! What's taking you so long, practice over and I want to go home !" The strong voice of the coach resounded in your ears, making you jump on the spot. He almost made you have a heart attack.

Zed's eyes widened with frustration, his head falling backward in an attempt to regain some control over his emotions. His tongue licked his lips, almost bitting it. He turned his head to look at his coach who called him from the locker room doors. "I am coming, I just need to-"

"You'll talk to your girlfriend tomorrow ! Go take a shower and go home champ." You could see from afar the coach tapping his foot against the ground, Zed surely had ran out of talking privilege.

He sighed, turning his gaze to look at you with tiny apologising eyes. "I am sorry I have to go, coach orders." You nodded to show that you understood and didn't hold it against him. With a last and gentle 'I'll see you tomorrow' his hands softly left yours before jogging in the adult direction who seemed to scold him when he arrived in front of him, and maybe tease him a little.

Your hands suddenly felt cold, sinking in the fact your brain had erased on purpose. His hands had hold yours mid conversation and didn't let go. You haven't even thought more about it on the spot, like it was natural. Your heart was beating a bit faster than usual, it took a deep breath to ground yourself. It was when the sun made his smile a little bit brighter that you had realised, Zed Necrodopolis was indeed making your heart beat faster. And you were totally going to blame the sun for it.

"I guess you were too busy and forgot to meet me at the school entrance." James had reached your side from god knows where, his football uniform long forgotten and changed into some random t-shirt and sweat pants. He looked at you with a cocked eyebrow and the most annoying smirk he could have made up on the spot.

You shook your head from your previous thoughts to now fight your childhood friend who seemed to want to have fun about the fact he had left you alone with his captain. "You sure you showered ? That was pretty fast." The best defense is a good offense you convinced yourself, praying that James would leave you off the hook.

You started to walk away, hearing his foot following you closely before adding. "So, can you finally tell me what zombies taste like or am I, still, supposed to wait ?"

"Oh my f-..udging god !"

"Argh almost won a dollar in the swearing jar with this one." -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Am I tweaking or James parts are actually better ?

Thanks for taking the time to read my first work ! Like I said on top of the post, I am really not satisfied with how it turned out. I just feel like I did my boy dirty TwT I might be so in love that I can't even focus when writing about Zed, the sun's fault though ;)

#zed necrodopolis #zed necrodopolis x reader #disney zombies #zombies #z o m b i e s #zombies fanfic #fanfiction #fan fiction #female reader #x female reader #x reader #milo manheim #one shot

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ifishouldvanish · 11 months ago

Text

Some Olrox Analysis & Headcanons

Have you seen this man? Now you have! 🥰

I have a lot of thoughts about Olrox Castlevania Nocturne and I'm dumping them here.

DISCLAIMER: We know so little about Olrox's past and I am but a humble stan looking at an expressionist painting and projecting my own deranged nonsense onto it. I'm fully prepared for 90% of this to get jossed in season 2, but for now I'm just letting the worms in my brain wiggle and send me beautiful visions of what could be 🥹

1. Olrox Was a Commoner and Does Not Respect Hierarchies

I've seen people point to his manner of speech and dress as evidence that he must come from a privileged background, but I think he displays too much contempt for the wealthy/nobility to have been one himself. I think these things are just symbols of power he has learned to use to his advantage.

Of course, there's everyone's favorite quote: "I prefer my blood blue." But he also demonstrates virtually no respect for authority or symbols/institutions of power in general:

He refuses the escort sent by the marquis when he arrives in France and insists on staying at the inn because he likes to "keep his ear to the ground". He would rather be around 'the people' than accept anything from the wealthy.

When Drolta is reminiscing about her glory days as a priestess, there's really not any nostalgia or sentimentality when he interrupts and says "and now those temples are half-buried in dust."

For as good as he is at presenting himself as a Gentleman of Status, he cannot bring himself to even pretend to enjoy himself at Erzsebet's lil debutante ball at the chateau.

When Erzsebet insists she is a goddess, his response is "Of course you are, sweetie 🙂"

His whole speech to Mizrak in the morning-after scene is basically a deconstruction of what power means, and how it is only a perceived vs tangible thing, a temporary position vs an immutable one:

"There are petty demon princelings you can haggle with and cheat. There are demon charlatans whose faces you can laugh in, spit in. There are demons who once were gods... And those who still are."

Foucault? In MY anime adaptation of a vampire video game?? It's more likely than u think 🤔

(continued under the cut bc this got long as hell)

2. Olrox was an Adult when Cortés Arrived

(I don't have a relevant screenshot for this point, so here's Olrox being pretty for no reason)

I've seen it float around some places that if we adhere to historical timelines to a 'T', it would make most sense for him to have been a child, but I'm of the opinion that it's more useful to take what the text itself gives us and fill the gaps with bits and pieces of the actual history where it's convenient. At the end of the day, this is a work of fiction/fantasy. So what does the text tell us?

He lived a long time as human and vampire

As of 1783, he'd been a vampire for approximately 250 years

Now, if we want to take this 250 figure literally, that would put the year of his turning at 1533. But I think we can give ourselves +/-15 years leeway because 250 is just the kind of rounded, even number one would use in natural speech in place of "267" or some shit like that. It's just how believable dialogue is written. So what lies in this +/-15 year window? The invasion by the Spanish, 1519-1521.

Now, he tells Mizrak: "Long ago, when I was still human, I watched men wade ashore from ships..."

I think this is another case of how important dialogue is. Because if he was a boy at the time, this line would likely have been written as "Long ago, when I was just a boy..." or something like "One of my earliest memories is of..." instead. "Still human" implies not only was he a human, but that he had been human for quite some time already. That the events he's describing fall in the stretch of time leading up to "still human" no longer being true.

tl;dr: the Spanish arrival and him becoming a vampire happened within a few years of each other, and if turned vampires stop aging, then he would have had to have been an adult at the time.

3. Olrox Became A Vampire Willingly

I assume that vampirism is something that was introduced to the Mexica by the Spanish in the same way it was introduced to Haiti by the French, in Annette's case.

However, rather than vampires creating spawn left and right, the persistent lore (in the show at least) is that to be turned is to be accepted into the sort of elite in-group of vampire society. (Carmilla questioning why Lisa was never turned, the Count never turning slaves, etc). Vampires feed on humans, they don't view them as potential spawn to have in thrall or whatever.

The Spanish weren't going around giving natives The Bite, because vampirism is power. So what I think, is that Olrox recognized that power, and decided to take it for himself. Rather than being the passive 'recipient' of the 'gift' of vampirism, he pried it from some Spanish vampire's cold, undead hands. (i.e., he drank their blood)

Do I have any proof of this? No. It's just what the worms in my brain are telling me 🤷 But!!

Do I think it would be a sexy little inversion of the way Erzsebet drank a god's blood to obtain her power? Yes.

Do I think it would be thematically very appropriate for a morally grey character who seems to have a very... Interesting relationship with power (individual power vs institutional powers, the subverting of power, the weaponization of symbols of power, etc)?? Oh absolutely fuck yes!!1!

[sickos.jpg]

4. Olrox Was a Priest, But Not Like That.

Priesthood in the Mexica empire was largely dominated by the nobility, whose children would be sent to the calmecec to learn how to read and write, speak the noble dialect, perform rituals, etc. But if the circumstances were right, the children of commoners could also get in!

Olrox says he's never been much of a believer, but he's highly intelligent and incredibly good at reading people. Even if he was never a man of faith, the priesthood was still a powerful institution where one could climb the ranks and earn influence over the nobility. No doubt someone as sharp and charismatic as Olrox would be able to take advantage of the opportunity to get a good education and maybe try to undermine the system from within/play a bit of political games while he was at it.

Also... Olrox's weapon of choice is the dagger. Obviously a dagger is an appropriate weapon for a character who's kind of rogue-ish, but also consider: Aztec warriors used a lot of weapons in combat: clubs, spears, arrows, axes—but an obsidian dagger? That's something that would have been used by a priest during rituals.

5. Olrox is a Bitch™ Who Knows Just What to Say to Get Under People's Skin

A common myth is that the Mexica welcomed Cortés at first because they thought he was Quetzalcoatl. But this is a misreading of the way Mexica social conventions/the noble dialect worked, which was kinda ~passive aggressive in a way, such that the more loftily and overly politely you spoke with someone, the more you were actually telling them to go eat shit and die. I think Olrox's dialogue demonstrates this beautifully in the scene where he meets Erzsebet:

"Taker of Souls, Vampire Lioness, She Who Mauls, The Messiah of--" / "Yes, charmed to meet you 😒"

"Her magnificence has heard much about you." / "Flattered. For a god to have heard of me. 🥱"

"I am a goddess!" / "...Of course 🙂"

His words are receptive, respectful, docile, even... but his tone and delivery are completely the opposite. Compare this with the way he speaks with Richter and (in later interactions) Mizrak—which is more informal, open, confrontational. He's more direct with them because he actually respects them.

As far as reading and getting under people's skin with pinpoint precision, I present the following interactions:

When he catches the marquis' severed head in the catacombs, he reads him (and potentially also Drolta) like a book: "This one? He was just an opportunist, following the messiah because she's powerful. But there are those who love her [looks to Drolta]. So I'm told."

When Drolta gives him a verbal slap on the wrist for feeding on the wealthy, he says "mY Ap0LoGiEs, I didn't realize how invested you are in keeping the mortals happy." - To which Drolta goes on to grumble about how their alliance with some of the mortals disgusts her.

When Erzsebet is waxing poetic about how everyone will see her beauty and worship her, he has the balls to—without missing a beat—say "PaRd0n mEe, but you mean to do this through an alliance with a man who will never worship you? 🫢" right to her fcuuckin face mgod I love him so much (this is the point where she whips out the big guns and yells "I am a goddess!!" while threateningly flashing her orb of darkness btw. Like she did NOT like that)

6. Olrox Has an 'Eye for an Eye' View of Justice

A prevalent theme in Aztec religion is the idea that like... ain't nothin' in this world for free. Sacrifices to the gods weren't symbolic gestures of devotion, but an act of paying the gods back for providing humanity with the means to survive.

The idea that everything has a price pervades the dialogue he has with Mizrak in the morning-after scene:

"What was the cost? Who pays it? Just him? Or all of you? Will you? Which demon will claim his price when all this is done?"

And it's also present in the very first scene where we are introduced to Olrox:

"You see, your mama took someone from me I loved, just as much as you loved her. So, she had to die."

What's interesting about this scene is also how... calm he is the whole time—before the fight, after the fight. Yes, he's motivated by the murder of the man he loved, but he brings zero of that passion to this confrontation. It's just an execution, something inevitable that must be done.

That he's fine with confronting a terrified Richter immediately afterwards to explain what just happened (and is completely unapologetic about it) is also telling. It suggests that Olrox views this kind of thing as just 'the way of the world'—a hard truth that Richter will be better off for having learned sooner rather than later.

I think this also helps explain why, years later, Olrox seems to treat Richter with a little more.... Familiarity than we might consider appropriate. He approaches Richter in the catacombs like he's just an old acquaintance, as though Richter should have no reason to be terrified of him. When Drolta mentions the incident later, he seems kind of lightly amused by it. Then, when he drops off the book, he's visibly/audibly frustrated that Richter starts gearing up for a fight. To Olrox, the whole "killed your mom" thing is water under the bridge, nothing personal.

7. Olrox is a Vampire of Prominence in The New World

Obviously, he has to be kind of a big deal to give a Belmont a run for their money. But let's go deeper into the IMPLICATIONS!!

"In 250 years, do you know how many vampire hunters have promised to slice me in two?"

"Her magnificence has heard much about you."

"You will be her guide into America."

He's enough of a big deal that countless hunters have promised to kill him. Enough of a big deal that Erzsebet has not only heard of him, but sees him as a valuable ally who knows enough about America to guide her as she builds her empire across it.

Olrox wasn't just a powerful vampire who got entangled with the politics of colonial Massachusetts and happened to cross paths with a Belmont. He's presumably had a hand in matters across the continent. Erzsebet refers to the colonists as "American upstarts" but for her, this is a conflict between humans vs vampires. The American colonists aren't allies or even rivals to her—because they're not vampires. They're just more pesky humans to be dealt with. (Also??? 'Protestant Vampires' as a concept is just hilarious to me, I'm so sorry)

So.

What the worms in my brain are telling me is—And this is Big!! This is a Steaming Hot Take!!!

(...seriously, tin foil hat tier headcanon incoming)

Olrox has established a network of indigenous vampires who are resisting the colonial threat. He's been turning them (or at least select individuals who are into it), and thereby redistributing the power he took from the Spanish colonizers to wield against the British colonizers.

(Look I have 0.01% faith in this actually being canon or anything. I just think it would be cool as fuck.)

Anyway.

Thanks for coming 2 my Ted talk or whatever. 😘

#Olrox #castlevania #castlevania nocturne

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jules-ln · 6 months ago

Text

Sorry Anon, the post was too long so I decided to make it its own post instead of an answer

Let me write my Bible because I have thought about this more than I should and I'm mentally ill

First the silence of the girls

I'm going be honest and say that while I don't like this book, I can recognize that is very well written and author makes it very interesting

But!

The girls were silenced indeed 😅

Like, if you're going to market your book as a "feminist" retelling of the Iliad I'll expect your level of feminism to be more advanced than what Homer was writing

Don't get me wrong, I know that women and children are often overlooked at wars specially in a historical context, but what Pat Barker was presenting as feminism was simply "Women suffer more than men in wars 😥" and that is the same thing that Homer was saying hundreds of years ago, more than that, I'd say that Homer did it better

And you know, it's supposed to be a feminist retelling, so I was expecting sorority to be a thing, specially because the only other source of comfort, respect and friendship a woman like Briseis could have had then would've been other enslaved women

But no, we don't really see sorority in the greek camps for more than a couple of paragraphs at best, and I got the feeling that some women characters were just genderbents of the male heroes, like Odysseus's enslaved woman is clever, Nestor's enslaved woman is maternal, florals for spring? groundbreaking

More than that, in the Iliad there is a character named Iphis that is Patroclus's enslaved woman and Briseis mentioned being close friends with her. So you expect that being a close friend of the protagonist she should have a lot of dialogue, specially in conversations with Briseis, don't you think?

Bish, I don't even remember her talking at all to begin with, much less to Briseis! 🤣

The only meaningful relationship Briseis has in the book are Achilles and Patroclus, her life orbits around these men and the other women don't matter

And that leads me to my other point

Briseis doesn't do ANYTHING.

Now, I know, I know, I know. Briseis doesn't do anything in the Iliad either, but that's some of the problems I have with Iliad adaptations.

Like, none of them will EVER be as good as the Iliad, to any writer that think that they can make an adaptation of the Iliad be as good as the Iliad. Sit down, you aren't that guy

So really, they should just do what MM did. Do your own thing that can stand on its own without hanging on the Iliad. Even if it's different, that's a good thing

Now, I say all of that because, it would've been Good if Briseis did something, ANYTHING at all other than stand there and look pretty

You might say "it's accurate to the Iliad" I say "A protagonist that doesn't do anything at all and doesn't influence the world around them in any way is boring"

There was even this part where Briseis wonders about how much control Patroclus has over Achilles, And I was here like "Yesssss, Briseis is going to emotionally manipulate Patroclus to control Achilles so she can be the one who is actually in control of both"

Nope, that, didn't happen, like, at all

Even at some point the narrative kicks Briseis out of the story to focus on Achilles and Patroclus, and like, feminism where? 😅

Once again that leads to my next point. Patroclus and Achilles part was more interesting.

Unironically, the best part of the book was the relationship that both had, it was the type of relationship that was like "I love you, but ngl I kinda hate you and want to kill you too unironically" And I think that's interesting! That's new, I've never read anything like that regarding those two before!

But that's a problem, because when I bought the book I wanted to read about women, I wanted to read about Briseis, not about Achilles and Patroclus, and that the author made them SOOOO much more interesting than Briseis, is just sad

Then there's the problem of the rapes scene, which, in this day and age if you're going to add a rape scene in anything, you better have some freaking good reason. And in this book, they're there for mere shock value, it doesn't give anything to the story, it doesn't change the tone of the book, a good editor would've take them out, but I guess it was part of the "feminist" message 🙄

But really, I don't hate the book, like I said, it's well written in my opinion, but it is a disappointing book because it could've been a great book with some tweaks here and there

Now about The song of Troy

ACHILLES YOU SON OF A BITCH FUCKING LIPLESS MUPPET I HATE YOU Y SI CIEN AÑOS VIVO CIEN AÑOS CHINGAS A TU MADREEEEE

Now that we got that out of the way

See, the thing is that I've read the song of Troy some time ago, and I mostly rage read it so I don't remember it very well

Like I hated it SO MUCH it it it Flames flames FLAMES on the side of my head (yes, it's a reference) so I'm just going to say the things I remember that made me mad

🔸️Helen is the prime example that writing women that don't suck ass ISN'T an innate skill in women, like she was one of the most misogynistic characters that I've ever read and if I was Menelaus in this book, I would be happy that she was gone, bon voyage biatch!

🔸️Both the book and Achilles treat Patroclus like Trash

🔸️The story treats Achilles like an uwu boy that can do no wrong when in reality in the book he's an idiotic asshole estúpido kbron hijo de la chingada pinche mamon bastardo agarras tu espadita la haces rollito y te la metes por el culo pendejo de mierda. Yeah, I don't like Achilles in this book

🔸️Odysseus is written to allegedly be very smart, sadly in actuality he's very dumb, because you see, the whole thing about the fight between Agamemnon and Achilles was an elaborate plot by him to get the Trojans to come out if I remember correctly, now, I think any good good tactician will tell you that an overly elaborate plan that will result in like half of your men dying with no guarantee of it being successful anyway, isn't so smart

🔸️Briseis was written so badly... I'm just going to put it this way, at some point in the book Achilles hits her, and that was the best fucking thing Achilles did in that book, like yess fucking muppet slap that bitch again. Oh but don't worry, Briseis in the book was ok with being slapped and not in a kinky way

🔸️Helen hits Andromache, and so did Hector. I'm going to leave it at that

🔸️I don't remember too well because at this point the fog of rage was too thick, but I think Achilles and Hector kinda fell in love when they were fighting? Which was very weird

So make yourself a favor and don't read it

If you want a good adaptation read these

🔹️War music by christopher logue, it isn't finished because sadly the author died, but best adaptation I've read so far

Here's a quote I like:

"When Nyro’s mother heard of this

She shaved her head; she tore her frock; she went outside

Ripping her fingernails through her cheeks:

Then down her neck; her chest; her breasts;

And bleeding to her waist ran round the shops,

Sobbing:

‘God, kill Troy.

Console me with its death.

Revenge is all I have.

My boy was kind. He had his life to live.

I will not have the chance to dance in Hector’s blood,

But let me hear some have before I die.’

‘I saw her running round.

I took the photograph.

It summed the situation up.

He was her son.

They put it out in colour. Right?

My picture went around the world.’"

🔹️La cólera by Javier Olivares and Santiago García, is a comic in Spanish, but if you can get your hands on one copy, do it, it's so good and the art is beautiful, one of the best portrayals of Achilles I've seen, Pyrrha also appears

🔹️An Iliad, by Denis O'Hare and Lisa Peterson, is a play, and tbh I don't like this one as much as I do the other two, but it is SOOO GOOD too.

🔹️En mitad de tanto fuego by Alberto Conejero, this one is a play; short and sweet and the narrator is Patroclus, very new too, and as far as I know it's only in Spanish, but if you can get it, do so, because it's very good.

Let me translate a part of it to the best of my abilities to tempt you a bit

"How short was life, how short... Now bury me as soon as possible so I can cross the gate of Hades. Bury me, Achilles. And if someone in the future finds my tomb and opens it, let them see how smoke comes out of my shroud still. Because of the desire, Achilles, because of the desire"

#ramblings #greek mythology #iliad #tagamemnon #trojan war #achilles #patroclus #patrochilles #book recommendations #feminism #the silence of the girls #book critique #briseis

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girl-named-matty · 4 months ago

Text

20 questions for fic writers

thank you for the tag @rypnami <33

How many works do you have on AO3? Seven currently! Idk how many more there will be but for now it's seven!

What's your total AO3 word count? 627,138!

What fandoms do you write for? Hogwarts Legacy but I'm more currently writing for a different fandom.

Top five fics by kudos? Passion || Sebastian Sallow is my most popular fic!

Do you respond to comments? Yes. I sometimes forget I have ao3 ngl but 99% of the time I respond to comments on wattpad if I can remember.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Usually I try to give happy endings to stories because I'm that kind of person. So towards the end I'll have something angsty but the very end will usually end on a better note. But In The Shadow of Her has a decently angsty towards the end because it follows along with the game and In The Shadow of Magic has is angstier towards the end for several reasons lol.

What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Honestly--outside of my full fics, my one shot "Moving in" probably has the happiest ending.

Do you get hate on fics? Perhaps??? I'm not really sure. I've gotten a few off-handed comments that make me go "???" and any hate comments have been very rare.

Do you write smut? Lol nope and I never will. I'm okay with writing stories without it.

Craziest crossover? Ummm I can't really remember ever writing a crossover but me and my bsf would joke about Sebastian and Ominis going to a Jackson Wang party so?? Does that count? 😂

Have you ever had a fic stolen? YES ACTUALLY LOL. It was ages ago and I was literally like 12 y'all HAHA. The fic wasn't even GOOD but it was on Wattpad and got reposted on NovelHD. It was crazy for me to find out ngl. I didn't really care, especially cuz the fic was garbage (in my opinion now) but yeah LOL.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Not that I can recall.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes. Many times. Me and my old fandom buddies from a long time ago would do it.

All time favorite ship? AAAAAAA. I hate this question because I can never decide lol. I don't really have a favorite ship but I do have some I like. I'm not going to say any outside of the HL fandom but I will name a few from my friends. @rypnami's Jamie and Jack have had my heart for so long <3 @morelikeravenbore's Aurelie and Sebastian. Ugh I just love them sm <3 @catohphm's Danny x Adelaide is SUPER cute and I love it sm <3 @keri-mcberry Keri x Sebastian OHHH MY GOSH. Keri is literally my favorite artist and everything from her is just so cute and adorable and omg I love it. <3 @boxdstars Amara x Natty. Super adorable, super funny. Props out to Natty for dealing with Amara. Love them sm <33

What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? My old fanfics from old fandoms that have just been sitting on my computer for four years LOL.

What are your writing strengths? Fluff, usually. I'm good at Angst too. Romance eehhh kinda?? I've never been in a relationship so I don't really know how it works but I've written several relationships that I think were good.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language? I used to do this a lot actually. But I doubt 100% of it was correct. Now that I'm older, I definitely hesitate more with it. But I think it's super cool and I planned on doing it for my fics but my MC's first language is Irish (Gaeilge, Irish Gaelic whatever you wanna call it lol) and in the 1800's it was even harder than it is today SOOOO in order to avoid mess ups, I just used one-word expressions most of the time.

First fandom you wrote in? Oh gosh, I can't even remember. Maybe it was Merlin??? Spirit Animals?? I don't even remember cuz it was so long ago.

Favorite fic you've written? My favorite fic is probably not even and HL one LOL. But to keep it HL, all of my books have a special place in my heart and I really can't choose. Some of them have strengths over others and that much is clear but idk if I'd ever be able to choose.

No twentieth question - I LOVE YOU GUYS AND THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO ME YAP LOL <3

tagging: @plxnetn1ne, @endeavour12345, @superconductivebean and anyone else who wants to join in and talk abt their writing! <3

#hogwarts legacy #hl #hogwarts legacy fanfiction #tag game #love u guys <33

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madroxed · 6 days ago

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Fic Writer Interview

i was tagged (ages ago, oops) by the wonderful @lafaerie to do this 💖

i'll tag @jamesandanthony, @lavellenchanted, @shanastoryteller, @coyotesuspect, @doreyg & @floating-in-the-blue but zero pressure.

How many works do you have on ao3?

96 on my main and 22 on my secondary, but i've orphaned at least another, idk, 60? over the years, and there's some fics lost to the chasm of time that is livejournal and prior out there to never be found again.

What’s your total word count?

351,946

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

then you'll wake up, your left hand man, pocketful of sunshine, only by chance, when there's no ground. all are shadowhunters/mortal instruments fic, which is a surprise to exactly no one.

Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

i do initially, and then i am terrible for not replying after a certain time which is something i'm working on. it's entirely an anxiety thing, and very silly, but if i don't answer right away i feel like it's too late? idk, i'm trying to be better at it.

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

i'm not known for my angst, let's be honest, so i'm going to put end of eras (haunting of hill house, luke & nell) here because it's hohh, angst is a given, and also mayyyyybe still my heart this moment and tell me you'll remember (both glee, sam/blaine) which also deal with character death but, like? in a not totally sad way? one's ghosts and one's immortality/reincarnation soooo. i think they count.

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

as a happy ending truther, this could apply to practically all of them, but let's go with be in my book (bridgerton, penelope/benedict) which is about as fluffy a fic as they come.

Do you write crossovers?

i used to, back in the wild old days of comment ficathons and crossover comms on lj, but i haven't in years. definitely would, just would have to really think it through now.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

once that i can think of, which was very silly and obviously sent by someone who was deliberately reading fic they weren't going to enjoy.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

i have been known to, on very rare occasions. my most recently posted fic is actually 911 buck/tommy smut (find peace in the noise) which i wrote almost entirely because of the group chat. it's not necessarily my go-to, but if the mood strikes.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

yes.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes, a couple.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

not in years, but i used to co-write a lot with a friend in the lj days. i'm not fantastic at co-writing, if only because i am useless with time management.

What's your all-time favourite ship?

i'm not sure i have an answer to this. i sort of just collect ultimate otps and store them and they pile up, so i don't have just one. some i come back to more often than others, but i've definitely been in too many fandoms to have any less than a dozen.

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

oh boy, yeah, any? all? i am notoriously bad about this. if i don't write a fic to completion and then post it, the chance of it getting finished are nil. i have one wip on my ao3 (build it better (the second time around), the order, knights poly) that i started before the second season had aired, and every part of me wants to finish it but...we'll see. maybe one day. the part written docs on my computer for dozens of other fics though? coin toss.

What are your writing strengths?

i think i'm pretty good at characterisation. i like how i write dialogue. i think i'm able to say a lot in few words. other than that, who knows. i have a blast with it most the time? that's definitely a strength.

What are your writing weaknesses?

actually sitting down and writing, let's be honest. but otherwise, long fic and plotting are definitely not things i'm great at. i'm trying to get better at extending my word count, but detailed plots still largely elude me.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

i try not to, as i am - alas - a lazy english speaker who never picked up another language remotely fluently. and no one trusts online translation tools.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

either buffy or hp, i can't remember exactly.

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

i am currently working on some jack/kent (check please) fics (finally - they are one of the dozen that fits into that otp question), which feels terrifying because i love them so much. i also have a couple of stranger things fics i'm thinking about.

i'm notorious for dropping one fic in a fandom and then nothing else ever again, so i'll write for pretty much anything.

What's your favourite fic you've written?

though the truth may vary (shadowhunters, simon/raphael). (i actually started an author's favourites series on ao3 a while back which felt huge, and i've only put four fics in it, oops.)

#text #about me #hoping i'll finally get my writing mojo back soon yikes

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1425fivefive · 7 days ago

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hii amelia, i've been really enjoying your fic process posts and i'm wondering if u have any advice for new-ish fic writers? i wrote a few one shots back in the days when i was really young and although im fond of them it's not great work. now that i'm writing a new one (landoscar brainrot has forced me to get back to writing) longer format too, i really want it to be good- i don't know how to make sure it isn't absolute shite before posting it because after rereading it a thousand time for editing my brain is incapable of telling whether it's any good. but anyways. if you have any wisdom or tips and tricks for writing/editing to share i'd be endlessly grateful 🥹💛

Hi lovely anon, thank you so much for sending this ask!

First of all, I just want to say how much I adore you for wanting to write and share it with people! It took me a very long time to get comfortable enough to share my work publicly and I still get really bad indigestion every time I'm about to post a fic because I'm convinced this will be the fic that makes everyone realize I'm actually a terrible writer. So I fear the feeling of "this is absolute shit and everyone will hate it" is maybe a permanent thing, at least for me.

BUT, I do have some tips for making sure things aren't "absolute shite" before posting (below the cut because it's a bit long).

First, taking some time away from a fic can be really helpful, just to be able to see the fic with fresh eyes. I know that can be hard because you want to just post things, but stepping back can help you come back and read the fic as a fresh reader.

Second, I always try to make sure everything's formatted correctly. So, proper dialogue tags (comma vs. period), sufficient line breaks, making sure a new character speaking or a new action is a new paragraph, etc. (here's a post I shared ages ago about proper fic formatting).

Third, and this is the most important to me especially with a longer fic, I try to think about whether any parts of the fic are boring. Not slow, but boring. Try and look at each scene and think "what is this scene trying to accomplish?" That can be a variety of things (character development, plot, character interactions). But once you feel like the scene has achieved that thing, it's okay to move on to a new scene. One of my biggest complaints about most fics, especially longer ones, is that scenes can feel draggy or repetitive of other scenes. I cut so many scenes from Learned Behavior because I realized I was only including them because I liked one little piece of dialogue from it or had some other attachment to a random thing about the scene. Don't be afraid to delete scenes by copy-pasting them into another Word doc or Google Doc tab. You might be able to rework them into something else later down the line, but not every scene you write needs to be in the final fic

Fourth, there is such a thing as over-editing! I, at least, edit so much as I write that most of the time the "first draft" is already pretty polished (like I wouldn't be horrified by posting my first draft). When I start spending ages editing, I often start making things worse because I'm overthinking every sentence and it stops flowing together and sounding like me. I try to remind myself that I wrote/edited the sentences in a certain way for a reason

Fifth, remember that this is just for fun! At the end of the day, "good" vs. "bad" art is highly subjective. My least favorite fic I've ever written is my second most popular fic, while my personal favorite will probably never come anywhere close to my most popular fic on AO3. It's also just really hard to judge objectively whether your work is good or bad! If you have a decent time reading it, then I'm sure other people will enjoy it too

Anyway, I'm so sorry for the ramble, but I Iove hearing that you want to share your fics! I have total faith they will not be absolute shite, and my inbox is always open to talk about writing 💕

#asks #writing process

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slippinmickeys · 8 months ago

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Twenty questions for fanfic writers

I was tagged by @agent-troi and @randomfoggytiger Thanks for the tag, guys!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

712,000 exactly, which is sort of creepy?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The X-Files mainly, though a million years ago I wrote two fics for JAG, and technically, I have a His Dark Materials fic (but it's an XF crossover)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The Mesas of Deuteronilus Mensae

Prompt Drabble Collection

The Annapolis Grant

Three Part Harmony

A Companion Unobtrusive

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try to! Comments are the only payment fanfic writers get, and it's an incredibly valuable and underrated currency. Fanfiction as a community is one of the most generous you'll find, and I'm incredibly proud to be a part of this particular one.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh man, probably La Comtesse de Saint-Germain.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

In this day and age I feel like we deal with enough shit, so I try to end most of my fics happily. I think A Gem-Like Flame probably has the most uplifting happy ending, but then, I'm a sports nerd.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I haven't yet.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Um, probably pretty vanilla het MSR. No shame.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I've only written one, but it turned out really well, I thought. It's an X-Files/His Dark Materials novella-length crossover that takes place in Lyra's world, pre-Lyra, called Out of the Little Grove.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Anyone who steals my fic is going to catch these hands.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, a couple of years ago someone asked if they could translate one of my fics to Russian. It's out there somewhere.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I jumped in and helped @monikafilefan get Five Years and a Lifetime over the line for a fic exchange a couple of years ago. A fun, collaborative experience, that was like 85% Monika. It's a great fic, check it out if you haven't!

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Mulder & Scully are my OTP. Always and forever.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I'd love to finish Madam Scully's Spiritual Services, Inc., it's an AU where Scully works for her sister's Psychic Boutique while prepping for med school. Scully ends up being actually psychic and she helps newly minted FBI agent Fox Mulder solve a series of murders. I have it almost completely plotted (except for the nitty-gritty hard stuff), but I don't think I'll ever get it done, sadly. It's just too big a story to tackle with where I am in my life. Though I never say never.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'm decent at dialogue, have a pretty firm grasp on plotting, and, I hope characterization.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

My character work is probably my weak spot, which is why I have so much fun writing fanfic--the character work is already done, I just get to play around a world where everybody already knows the characters.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

When I do it, I hope like hell that I'm doing it right. I think it's necessary for some stories and you just hope you're properly respecting a language you don't speak.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

The X-Files, in the year of our lord nineteen hundred and ninety eight.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

It's a toss up between Proof of Life, an AU where CNN conflict reporter Dana Scully is kidnapped and imprisoned with fellow kidnap victim and photojournalist Fox Mulder, and they, you know, fall in love. And North of Zero, a post-col novel where Mulder and Scully get William back and have to save the world. The one I totally pantsed (made up as I went along), and it came together like alchemy. I love that story. If you don't like AU, you'd like Proof of Life. If you don't like post-colonization stories, you'd like North of Zero. I don't always like everything I've written after I'm done writing it (a writer's life), but I'm incredibly proud of both of those fics.

Tagging @monikafilefan because she's already tagged, and anyone else who wants to do this!

#fanfic asks #the x-files #the x-files fanfic #slippin mickeys

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leggerefiore · 1 month ago

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In relation to your N poll since it refused to fit in the comments: I firmly believe that N is a human. Ghetsis probably lashes out at him because he can’t accept defeat (his enraged speech about N after he failed to defeat the protagonist in BW, completely shutting down in B2W2, pushing and taking Lillie hostage in USUM, while other bosses were rather chill) and is jealous(!) (I think that both of them are distantly related to King Harmonia, and N is the one to inherit his ability to speak with pokémon, aka the chosen one. So the only logical thing to do (I condemn) in Ghetsis’ mindset, is to berate N for his uniqueness and make him think of himself as inferior). Also it’s easier to shift the blame for failure and redirect agression on someone else (coping). <— I don’t think any of this proves that N is a pokémon. Ghetsis sees pokémon as inferior beings and tools, so he degrades N to their level. The only healthy Ghetsis imagine I can come up with: is him being dragged by his partner to a psychiatrist (I am not in position to diagnose anyone, but from what I’ve read from books, I think Ghetsis may have ASPD). I like both Ghetsis and N (admittedly, I am thirsting for like Ghetsis more) because they provide so much room for theorizing, I wish we had more info on them. Now that I am thinking about it, I wonder how Ghetsis treated Anthea and Concordia, and at what age they both were adopted. Don’t remember seeing anything related to that in the first game. And what happened to N in the alternate universe USUM Ghetsis is from? What a messy family our old man cooked.

Anyway, now that I am here, I absolutely love your writing! The characters are written so… in character, it’s obvious you love all of them, and it makes your imagines so delightful to read, thank you so much! (I began adoring Lear because of you too, haha.) Don’t reply if you don’t see the need in it, just wanted to let you know my opinion. (Also I made a meme a while ago about writing Ghetsis content I was too anxious to send to you, but after your last post it now seems outdated. Sorry in advance for bad English and chaotic thoughts flow.)

Eh, you can send in whatever. I don't like Ghetsis, but I can laugh at him. Honestly I think the only times I've ever been like "??? No" was when people asked for actual child characters, like Alistair.

I would love for some more backstory on either of them, too. Why does Ghetsis have a ninja group under him? Why is he like that? Who are N's supposed real parents? Literally anything about Concordia and Anthea. Colress? How did Ghetsis meet him? A canon (not Masters) interaction between N and Colress is something desired. Also, any actual canon discussion about the King Harmonia those two are supposed to be related to. So many things to be desired.

Off-topic a bit, but one line from the previous post was from USUM Ghetsis about humans being easier to control. N probably still ended up having a change of heart in that universe... He also notes confusion at Colress betraying him, meaning Colress was at play somewhere there. I want to see all the USUM verses kind of. Maybe not Archie's or Maxie's. 7.8/10 too much water (and sun).

To be honest, Ghetsis's dialogue alone wasn't enough to really sway me. It was more Masuda's comment on N's possible backstory.

Granted, it's just a rumour, but I do find the thought experiment fascinating seeing as there are apparently people born from pokemon? Like the Froslass guy in the Alabaster Icelands in PLA. Ghetsis doing some freaky science experiments to make a Zoroark hybrid kid perfect for his plans really doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility. (I want to explicitly state that I do not pull any of this from his personality and character traits. He is a socially uncertain, sheltered, and brainwashed guy trying his best – That does not make him something inhuman.)

Thank you for your kind words! I try so hard to learn about the characters as much as I can before I write them. I'm ready to write a dissertation on Cyrus's lore (which has now been mostly confirmed). And don't be afraid, I don't get mad at discussion. It's healthy for any theory, no?

#interna fi #n.ima #pokemon.ima

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mrsbsmooth · 7 months ago

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20 questions for fic writers

Thanks for the tag @rebelrayne! @longbobmckenzie tagged me in the body of hers too so I’ll take it.

How many works do you have on ao3?

82 right now, but I’ve orphaned a few recently

What’s your total ao3 word count?

1,220,982. I’ve got about another 30-40k words in WIP documents right now, so almost one-amd-a-quarter million words 😨

What fandoms do you write for?

Love Island the Game, Too Hot to Handle game, Harry Potter (Dramione exclusive), Romance Club (Heaven’s Secret)

Top five fics by Kudos

Tell Me What You Want (HP)

This Time, I’m Serious

Jaded

Unhealthy

Kinktober 2022

TIL that my Harry Potter fic has overtaken TTIS even though TTIS has more hits.

Do you respond to comments?

Yes! There were a few on TTIS I missed that it would be awkward to reply to because it was so long ago, but I make a point of trying to reply to every comment.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

The only sad ending I’ve ever written was the first chapter of Jaded which was originally done as a oneshot.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably Welcome To Racers. They got the whole shebang. Love me a happily ever after.

Do you get hate on fics?

Not recently. I’ve had hate for my portrayals of Alex, Lucas, and Suresh. But I haven’t had any nasty anon comments in ages which is lovely.

Do you write smut?

Yeah it's kinda my thing.

Craziest crossover:

I don’t know if I’ve done many crossovers… maybe Bruno and Miri Make a Porno or All I Want for Christmas is You which is a hetero take on Red White and Royal blue?

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

No but I think I would probably die of happiness.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I HAVE! All’s Fair in Casa Amor was written with my beautiful friends @i-boop-you and @crimswnred !!!!!!

All time favourite ship?

Dramione (new fave) but for LITG? Hard question because our fandom is so built around an MC. But with two canon characters? I secretly love a Bruno/Valentina. Also love Hope/Lucas. They just WORK.

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

It’s gotta be Recovery. I have the whole thing planned in my head but I just have no motivation to write it at all. Other than that, I don’t see myself finishing Famous Last Words any time soon. If I was going to finish it I’d take it down and rewrite it to make it fully OF.

What are your writing strengths?

Smut probably, I’m not bad at it. I feel like my narrative pacing is alright, and my prose is decent despite it being really inconsistent.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I rely too much on dialogue. I miss all the little body language bits leading up to an important line that could take it from an ‘aww that’s sad’ to a ‘holy fuck I’m sobbing’. Luckily I have wonderful beta’s who help me with this.

But more than anything, characterisation. Forming a fully fleshed out character before I start the story. I struggle with it. I’ve always felt like I’m more of a storyteller, (a plot person) more than a deep dive into a character’s psyche kind of person. I love reading character driven stories though, but I think it’s something that comes with writing experience. I haven’t actually been writing for that long and I think I’m getting better at it, but it’s still a weak point.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I sometimes forget that people don’t like this. I LOVE it. I do try and use it sparingly though. It’s so nice to see a character conversing with someone in their native language. I try and put the English dialogue in brackets or italics unless it's rather clear what they're saying (like swearing).

First fandom you wrote in?

LITG

Favourite fic you've written?

I, like Sarah, absolutely hate this question. My fics are my children. I like some of them more than others, though (I never claimed to be the world's best mother). But I love them for different reasons.

I love Welcome to Racers because it was my first AU. I loved The Only Two Things because I got to create an entire world, an entire city for my characters (Yes I'm aware Waterford, Ireland is a real place but God, I loved that story so much). TT,IS was the first fic I started and it gave me the friends I have today and the amount of people who tell me it's S4 canon just makes my whole life. Jaded was something different. It was a challenge to myself and I'm so proud of it. Unhealthy has been the most difficult to write, but it's also pushed me the hardest in my development of characters. FLW has been so much fun because I get to dive back into my music roots, urghhhhhh. Love.

I don't care if it's narcissistic. I re-read my fics on a regular basis. They're perfectly tailored to my taste. I love doing a nice re-read and sprinkling in a few extra details with liberal use of the edit button. If there was someone who knew my fics as well as I did, they'd get something a little bit different on every read. Might just be a line or two, might be a thought or a reaction, but I love to add and tweak and tinker with them all.

Love.

tagging: @i-boop-you @crimswnred @ellegreenwxy @tammyisobsessedwith @operationnope @sparxaf @eskiix

#mbs tag game

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daisyishedwig · 5 months ago

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Writing meme about me!

@lusthurts tagged me over two weeks ago but I have been so busy with work I haven't had a chance to answer it.

How did you get into writing fanfiction?

Unofficially I just liked messing around with the characters in the media I consumed, I've always had a habit of pausing in my watching or reading to daydream and theorize about what could happen, or maybe just what my brain wished would happen and so at a very young age I started writing those ideas down.

At some point when I was twelve or so I discovered FF.Net through the Supernatural fandom, I don't remember exactly how. But that was when I went from writing Stargate and Inuyasha fanfiction purely for myself and started writing and publishing Supernatural fanfiction. I really love the weekly 100 word drabble challenges that fandom had back in the day and most of my oldest surviving fic are for those prompts as most of my other stuff I've deleted over the years.

2. How many fandoms have you written in?

So Glee is obviously my most prolific, and then Supernatural would be just behind that. In the past I've also written for Stargate, Inuyasha, Naruto, Buffy, Harry Potter, The Vampire Diaries, Doctor Who, and Takin' Over the Asylum, but most of those have been deleted and lost over the years. I do have unpublished WIPs for Stranger Things, OMGcheckplease, The Real O'Neals, Captive Prince, Magnus Archives, Hatchetfield, and probably more, no idea if any of those will actually see the light of day though.

3. How many years have you been writing fanfiction?

I've been publishing it for about fifteen years but writing it for probably twenty which is an insane number to type out. Like I know I've been writing for pretty much my whole life but seeing it in words puts it in a new perspective. But yeah, my earliest posted work is from 2009.

4. Do you read or write more fanfiction?

It depends on the era? Currently I've been writing more fic than reading, purely because I've been focused on reading so many regular books at the moment (my roommate and I are in a race to read the most books this year, and I'm currently winning, but the rules are that I can't count anything that isn't already on StoryGraph and most of the fics I read are not).

5. What is one way you've improved as a writer?

I think my ability to write banter has improved a lot. I've been writing for so long that everything has improved, but the most noticeable to me is my dialogue, especially when it's witty. I used to struggle so hard with that even though I loved good banter in stories. It's part of why I used to not write Kurtbastian, because banter is so integral to their relationship, but I've been getting more and more comfortable with it .

6. What's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

I'm going to ditto Lusthurts Ohio geography, which is especially frustrating considering how much Glee itself ignores Ohio geography so there's this line of making it not sound completely stupid while also remaining true to Glee's own absolute disregard for it. Also songs and movies that came out in 2012 specifically since I write a lot of stuff set in season 4 of Glee and I try to keep the media I reference contemporary.

7. What's your favorite type of comment to receive on your work?

I love all comments! But if I had to chose my favorites it's probably anytime that I drop subtle hints or foreshadow something and people pick it up and point it out, either on the original read through or during a reread. I also love when people point out symbolism I didn't intend or realize I was making.

8. What's the most fringe trope/topic you write about?

Idk I kinda write a lot of infidelity and toxic relationship stuff. Seblaine is the main ship I write for nowadays, and the nature of their relationship lends itself to a lot of infidelity in their process of getting together. I also just love writing angst, so even when I'm writing established relationships, they end up being sort of toxic throughout especially given the traits of both characters. I just find it more fun and probable to write a slightly toxic relationship than a 100% healthy one.

(I did not intend to just leave Lusthurts answer for this one, but also, ditto. I love the messy toxic relationships, they've always intrigued me and they're so fun to sink your teeth into. I also love writing a lot of polyamory, which idk how fringe it is nowadays but I've been trying to breakaway from the throuple mold and branch out into more interesting, complex, and realistic polycules)

9. What is the hardest type of story for you to write?

I tend to stick very much to the emotional side of things, so stories that get too physical or actiony are the ones I struggle with. Since I've been reading more I've been getting better but it's still not great.

10. What is the easiest type?

Hurt no comfort, lol. Like I do enjoy writing the comfort but sometimes my brain gets hung up on it not being realistic, things getting better too quickly, things like that. But it gets less anxious about just having the angst, even with no happy ending.

11. Where do you do your writing? What platform? When?

I tend to write on my couch, I do like going to the library down the road when I really want to focus, but usually I just write in my living room. I usually just write to google drive, I'm interested in alternatives but I've been using google since jr high so I'm just very used to it and it has so many years of documents. And I just write whenever, but usually in the evening after work, but really whenever I have time.

12. What is something you've been too nervous/intimidated to write, but would love to write one day?

I love ensemble fics and all the distinct personalities of the different characters and I would love to write one that focuses on many characters one day. I'm kind of trying that with my Season 2 AU but that still mostly focuses on Kurt, Blaine, Sebastian, and Sam, which is exactly who most of my fics focus on, so I'm not sure if it will fit full ensemble status by the time I'm done.

13. What made you choose your username?

So Daisy is an old nickname of Darren Criss' (he's talked about it in a few interviews, how he was studying abroad in Italy and when you say his initials in an Italian accent it sounds like Daisy) and when he was in Hedwig and the Angry Inch the username DarrenisHedwig was already taken but I thought DaisyisHedwig would be fun and I've been it ever since.

Oh boy, I'm going to tag @kurtsascot, @calsvoid, @fallevs, @cryscendo

@bitbybitwrites, @annepi-blog, @sperrywink, and @backslashdelta

#personal

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