#i haven't ever re-read it because i just know its so bad

[ughgoaway]

as a writer, I love watching someone go through a series or my masterlist like it's so cool. I'm sitting there thinking, "Oh yes, that blurb, I like that one" and "oh god please don't read that one. don't judge me on that"

if you're reading a whole series or reading all of someone's masterlist, it's so cool to see someone liking each post!!! it's not annoying i PROMISE - it is so nice <3333

[violetwhisperswolfstar]

The Evolution Of A Wolfstar Girlie

(with my fic recommendations)me aged 10-23: there will never be a book I like more than Harry Potter. I love books and read all the time but Harry Potter is above anything. Reread HP everytime I am feeling down.

me aged 24-30: I lost the ability to read for pleasure. Just read to my kids and A LOT for work.

me at 31: *after a random tiktok video* Sirius and Remus were TOGETHER together?! Never even crossed my mind!!!

But... I get it.

But like... JKR didn't write it. Fanfic is just amateurs writing, right? I have enough of reading as is, I have to read for my job (I'm a translator).

But... They promised it's a HP experience. And I do have an eReader... It costs nothing to try it.

But... What the hell is ao3? What is smut??? Fluff??? HEA? MCD??? Cannon?? AU? Excuse me, is this English?!

The following then happend over 2 months time:

📖 Reading All the Young Dudes

OK, this is really very much like HP. I am getting hooked. This is ACTUALLY what happend, right? Like this is amazingly written. How is this not a real book? (What IS a real book and how do I not know this being a book translator?!) Are Sirius and Remus getting together in this one?

Oh my!

Actually, I've not been this obsessed with a book in like 10+ years.

Reading all through the night (with three kids, mind you, so a very stupid idea)

🎶Love this music!!! Have always loved rock, Queen, Beatles, Bowie, led Zeppelin… You name it. But this makes it better!!!

Finishing ATYD: OMG! OMG! I AM OBSESSED. They need to be together forever. I need to re-read it.

A SEX SCENE in Harry Potter?! EXCUSE YOU! Like… Didn't know I needed that. Thank you.

Of course they had teenage sex at that school. Yes to a giant snake killing people with its sight and no to some friendly petting? Yeah, sure, JKR! Be for real! Never thought about it like that before. And of course they had parties. And smoked (weed) and did drugs. Like… It's a boarding school for heaven's sake! this is much more realistic. Finally know what smut is and I am here for it.

I want a cigarette SO BAD right now (haven't smoked for YEARS)

googling specifics of gay sex because I never thought about it (and I live in a very conservative country) (and like I had QUESTIONS, excuse you, like can you just do butt stuff without prep?!)

finding 📖 explicit one-shots from ATYD

📖 Reading ATYD sirius's POV:

This is ALSO good. So... fanfics on the internet can just... be amazing, right? How has this existed for years and I did not know about it?? Sirius is obsessed LOL. He fell first and he fell harder, the poor boy.

My husband is SO MUCH like Remus. (personality-wise). Guess I know my type, lol.

These fanfics are written better than majority of books I've read. I'm utterly amazed.

📖 Reading Out of the Blue and Bootleg Tapes:

OK, I needed some healing. Happy for Grant and all. But I need wolfstar more.

📖 We could be heroes (finding out what a "fix-it fic" is)

Yes! Wolfstar endgame! A happy ending! Yes!!

Intrusive thoughts: Is ATYD wolfstar like… toxic?

Are they ever happy?

Don't go there, brain!!

Trying to heal with 📖Manacled, then DMATMOOBIL.

Like Dramione. But wolfstar is far superior.

Also have to note that Draco is amazing in bed.

Not a sentence I've ever thought I utter or think. Ever.

Finding 📖 Cadence Of Part-time Poets

sceptical.

How can muggle AU be good? Don't I like all this because of the magic?

Reading it, re-reading it.

Buying an e-cigarette (cause I have to DEAL ffuck's sake and they smoke in like every second scene and ecigarrete is the least of all evil)

Obsessing.

Cannot get enough.

Best. Thing. Ever. Written.

Somehow more magic than magic U.

DOES REGULUS LIKE JAMES?

Seeing the possibilities of Jegulus (is everyone gay in the end? Excuse me, Am I GAY at this point ?)

THE MUSIC OMG THE MUSIC IS MUSICING!!! I am in love with the music! How are Marauders not a band in cannon?! Like that's obviously what they were always supposed to be! Lottie, Simon, Tonya, Tomny… They ARE cannon for me lol. They were there and you cannot convince me otherwise.

Cannot read more, afraid I will lose this Cadence feeling. Just re-reading the best scenes over and over. Stalking motswolo's tumblr. Consuming all there is about Cadence out there. Trying to talk to people about it but noone reads fanfics here!

Can we like start a gofund me for them to get therapy??? I want to see them diagnosed, aware of their traumas and forever together.

Also, why is Remadora a thing? Thank god it wasn't in Cadence (yet) but sometimes i remember it exists and like… vomit internally. Gosh, I rly hate JKR. She just did it to discourage Wolfstar.

getting to read 📖 Black Mass Over Highway 90:

Very sceptical at first.

It's American… and Marauders are essentially English. Remus somewhere in Texas… of all places? Afraid this won't be my cup of tea... Cowboy Remus?! wtf

OMG.

OMG.

This scene basically porn… right? Why do I LOVE THIS?!

Remus is DADDY! Officer Moons!!! He can get it. Like omg. Cowboy Lupin FTW!!

THIS IS the SMUT, RIGHT?! Like do I even want to watch porn at this point? How am I - a cis female in a hetero relationship of 14 years with 3 kids - finding this SO HOT?!

📖 Reading Blends

Also very sceptical.

But... it's so sweet! Is this fluff? Am I discovering fluffy fics? Now, this is comfort reading! Coffe-shop AU? Like, this is where I want to die, my friends! This is so sweet, so incredibly sweet, and I DO NOT miss Voldy and his stupid war one bit, like to hell with him, he can order an Americano and Remus will decaf him at this point!

I am in LOVE!

📖 Reading Names (Blends sequel) because can you do anything else at this point?

Now this is... a whole other thing. It is fluffy, yes. But it goes deeper. And... wider somehow?

It's the first WIP I give a chance.

Cluster headaches are an AMAZING parallel to lycantrophy.

HOW exactly are people this talented just out there publishing fanfics?!

And this "slice of life" thing IS doing it for me. Like really.

📖 Reading Crimson Rivers

Is there anything else besides angst in this?

Wait, James likes... Regulus?!

discovering Jegulus -

wow. I am utterly amazed... cannot put this down at any point of the day. Reading while breastfeeding, reading all through the night. Reading all through the day. Learning how to read and braid my hair at the same time.

I keep thinking - why DO I love gay man/boys stories? How did it come to this? How is this FREE? How do I GIVE BACK to these AMAZING authors that are just doing incredible things for me? Like this is everything I've ever wanted from a book... and they're not even getting paid for this?!

📖 Reading a bunch of short fics inbetween (honorable mentions: Like Real People Do, That's the Art of Getting by, Led by Light of a Star Sweetly Gleaming, Pages of You - discovering Drarry, thinking Drarry is less angst because there's less homophobia in the 90s,

📖 Reading Only the Brave

OK, it's Jegulus, let's give it a chance...

OMG

OMG

OMG

I feel like ever since getting into this fandom, I'm just falling and falling and falling. Falling... In love.

This is so good, you guys. I love JEGULUS!

But as long as WOLFSTAR are together, I can deal (took them half a fic to get together, so please don't do anything stupid!)

I. CANNOT. STOP. READING. WOLFSTAR.

In every universe.

Wolfstar & fanfic taught me not to have any prejudice. And I also discovered that I was quite prejudiced without being aware of it!

I can read anything with those two... just don't break my heart and just let them be together.

Wolfstar made me read again and actually enjoy it. It's been several thousands of pages in a couple of months and I don't regret the lack of sleep…

They are soulmates. In every universe. I don't know what this fetish is called but I need them to be together, see them together, read them together. Love them both. Just need them to be happy.

I am completely amazed at the sheer power the internet has, that an online community has. This is my new obsession and I am utterly devoted to it. It taught me and gave me SO MUCH. I will forever be learning how to give anything back.

Thank you.

[thatneoncrisis]

oh captain my captain, I've read maybe ten TLT fics in all my time here so I'm not necessarily familiar with the common fandom takes. If you haven't already, would you mind elaborating on them? I'd like to know more about the history that prompted you to write your latest fic. please and thank you, I'm still reeling from the update today and I think I need to hear like. all of your thoughts ever about writing it

GUH. christ. idk its like a lot of things, its a year and a half of fucking around on ao3 and getting annoyed in a way i am only susceptible to because im fucking Online. if i get too specific it starts calling people out by name which i want to avoid so keeping it super broad:

the way gideon is written wrt being a trans butch of color

connected to that point like, the insane amount of rizz she has. god its so funny. to me

the way fics have like an interesting premise but run at a breakneck pace to get to the kissing and then it just ends. nooo the world was so cool go back nooooooo

how a lot of stories do this thing where they want ianthe to be a shitty ex girlfriend/half hearted love interest but they cant commit to her being genuinely awful or treat her like a person with feelings so it accidentally reads like her worst crime was being uncommunicative and bad at sex and unfunny, because the audience is already primed to hate her so were just like yeah this tracks

the sixth mommying harrow to an unbearable degree, like they treat her the way they treated nona in canon, this also extends to them wingmanning her

the like. paradox of wanting genuine conflict between harrow and gideon but also retaining their close banter. this is a hard thing to do if theyre like MEETING in a fic for the first time. theres rarely a reason for them to hate each other with such intensity and thus it fizzles out like immediately. i didnt even really bother with this i just did an immediate inexplicable closeness that is then undercut when harrow snaps out of it by going back to how she generally is

wrt harrows relationship with her faith this is less something im upset about and more something i rarely seen done in a way that interests me as an individual. shes catholic Ish, it doesnt really matter re her day to day outside of her childhood or maybe her job, she might pray sometimes or allude to long since conquered internalized homophobia

and in a similar vein like the very. Correct way people talk. its all very precise terminology to describe their sexuality or gender or a diagnosis they got and are actively working on. nobody is a faggot or transsexual or a girlboy or a thing they dont have a word for but know exists

again im saying this as often as i can. if youve done any of this cool. genuinely. keep doing it i cant stop you. its more about how often i see it just compound in on itself over and over, its the vast majority of fics that do at least one of these things. its a personal problem about wanting more from something that doesnt want to be more, and i cant make it more, because its not mine and wasnt made for me

[syoddeye]

this is re: your tags on a post you rbed forever ago (i'm creepin my way through ur blog to entertain myself while sick asf, hi (and also thanks for posting i guess lol)) so feel freee to just like… ignore this, BUT i just had to say you are sooo right about soap's death being dumb as fuck 😭

i'm suuper new to this fandom so idk if it's just because this is something that's been talked to death and that everyone's collectively moved on from, but i've never really seen anyone on here talking about how badly done that whole thing was?? what even was the point of that. like actually

idk if you're familiar with the original games at all, but it's crazy because as bad as it is even just looking at the remake as its own standalone thing, i honestly think it's even worse if you look at it through the lens of it being an adaptation... they literally took out the entire plotline his death was a part of & served to advance but then left in in purely for THE most empty, pointless shock value ever?? it's sooo frustrating

i could go on a whole spiel about this bc its so bad, but i will spare ur inbox all that and just say thank you for validating my irritation about this. you are so right about everything ever <3

hello and welcome! 🧡 thanks so much! i know i've read some great crits and reactions to soap's death, but i'm failing at remembering specific posts. but on the whole? yeah, soap's death is bad across the board.

obviously, i'm upset that he died at all, but honestly? i could've made peace with it if it didn't feel completely rushed. i haven't played the originals but i know that, considering what happens, major character death was always on the table. but yeah, activision shoved mw3 out the door.

then there's also neil. i'm not a person who stans actors, but he clearly loved being soap. the guy embodied him. did extra promo. engaged with fans. shared so much fanart to his twitter and instagram. it is *bonkers* to me that a company would waste the one actor putting in the extra work like that.

you can rant about this any time. i'm still mad about it lmao.

[ananke-xiii]

Form and Void... Hands and Hearts.

Intro + the post before this you kinda need to read them all or it won't make a lot of sense lol

Dean and Crowley's relationship is not fun.

Full disclosure here: I have no problems in terms of shipping and having fun with the characters outside of what's canon but I personally don't see Dean's canon relationship with Crowley as "fun", it's not something that I particularly enjoy watching. Like, the actors are great etc. but the actual story makes me feel... uncomfortable. I actually find it sad that Dean's still attached to Crowley because, as much as I like him as a character, the King of Hell acts like a total predator towards Dean and this episode highlights this side of their relationship in uncomfortable ways. So be warned that things get a little ugly from here.

Let's see how food is treated in the episode: Crowley is presented as "Father Crowley" while he puts sugar in his tea and calls Dean "a rather scrumptious altar boy". The image I get from this is both that of the sugar daddy and, because of the religious references, of the scandals surrounding the Vatican and its priests (I'm trying to be as sensitive as I can but the show is really not and Crowley literally makes a reference to these events later on in the episode).

Father Crowley is a piece of shit.

He will later pull up in a van and kidnap young Amara with this line:

My, haven't you grown into a sweet young thing? Want some candy, little girl?

If we consider that Amara and Dean are connected (by the mark that's above Amara's heart and that was on Dean's right arm) Dean and Crowley's past relationship doesn't look so much fun anymore (well, it never was fun to begin with as I've written although the show did its best to make it look like it was fun with the karaoke, the cowboy hats and the sex. I mean, on paper it does look like fun if we can just forget that Dean was very much Crowley's guinea pig).

In case you were wondering, Dean and Amara are bound guys.

Crowley here is the preacher/hunter of "The Night of the Hunter". He dresses like a priest but he's hunting for demons (yeah, I know, it's a clear reference to "The Exorcist" too). He happens to find "the child that eats the souls" and proceed to kidnap her. I mean, brrrrr.

And how does Dean feel about it? He still loves him! Poor, poor, poor Dean.

While Sam went for the heart of Poor Guy with the electrocution device, the angels went for Cas' heart (and other parts too) with the angel blades, Dean goes for Crowley's heart with Ruby's knife. Unlike Sam and the angels, he doesn't finish what he had set up to do.

Dean's knife is pointed at Crowley's heart but I'm bad at taking screenshots so this is what you get.

Instead, he pins Crowley's to the wall by stabbing his left hand (the hand of love and receiving) with an angel blade. Visually, it's quite similar (not the same, similar) thing that happened to Cas at the end of S10. It couldn't be more sexual (angels blades are the dicks, also interesting choice of weapon to stab Crowley: Cas' ghost in their relationship is ever present) and more problematic: in a heartbeat Dean goes from prey to predator.

They re-used this very explicit image in S12.

Just like Dean is bound to Amara, he's still bound to his former abuser Crowley. And, I mean, from a storytelling pov it tracks because Amara is very much Crowley's and Dean's baby ("You're very maternal, Dean"). Yeah, I can hear your "ewwww" from here knowing where they went with Dean and Amara but I didn't write the show, they did and I'm picking up the things they've put down. Anyway, Dean and Crowley's relationship will be over only once Dean's not bound to Amara anymore. Or, at least, it should be but like any love triangle writers liked to milk it unti it was dry, i.e. one of the three permadied. This is why, I think, we had the echoes of the same trite trope in S12 too and if you enjoyed it good for you. For me it was torture.

Demons would be the perfect angels. Sam too.

A SPN-related theory of mine is that demons would make perfect angels. Both demons and angels are cursed with the "I get what I want" mentality. Abbadon said it, Crowley says it again in this episode. It's a very angel-like mentality, however demons are unironically more likely to put in the effort, follow the guidelines, work behind the curtains. They would be perfect angels for Chuck.

Ironically this time, angels and demons have hardly ever gotten what they wanted (hello Castiel!). They all tend to work in a certain direction only for the result to backfire in the end or leave them dead. Which reminds of a certain character named Sam Winchester.

"Form and Void" is an episode that explicity parallels Sam to the angels and to Crowley. Sam and Crowley's parallels are my everything. Up until s8 they were quite obvious while after that they're in the story's backbone rather than clearly on screen. If you care, this is one of the reasons why Crowley and Lucifer's power struggle could've been way more interesting if they had thrown in Sam in some capacity instead of doing whatever they did with Sam in s12. *breathes and calms down*

The End (of this rambling post).

"Form and Void" foreshadows how S11 would end: dark and light becoming One. It's something that US tv shows (tended to) do a lot when they deal with Christian themes: when they're going a little over the edge and very close to blasphemy they pull a "Eastern Mysticism" card to signal that they were just kidding! In SPN they did the same thing to Jack in s15. When they deal with God they use buddhist concepts as a cop-out to avoid doing things that may upset Christian believers (and no, canon bisexual God is less of a threat than canon God's older sister who's more powerful, female-presenting and holding a huuuuge grudge or than having a world with no God, no Hell and no Heaven).

Hands and hearts are a huge motifs and they signal what the characters will be doing and/or their true intention/identity. In order to see this, though, one must pay appention to the scene shown at the very beginning of the episode, a scene from the movie "The Night of the Hunter". This specific scene tells us that what we see is the opposite of what the writers mean and that the core theme of S11 is not so much God vs The Darkness but rather love. This love, however, lies in cages protected by keys and it's secret and forbidden but, as that scene tells us, love's a-winnin'. To save the day and let Love still win we've got a giant plot-twist in the form of maternal love and the resurrection of Mary Winchester. The heart's needs are met, its wants are still unknown. You can't always get what you want... SPN really did believe that.

[clairedaring]

Hello Claire! It always takes me by surprise and leaves me with awe when I read your posts about thai production houses. And it's a topic that really interests me.

So, disclaimer before I mention my question - sorry if this is stupid or weird, but why did Nadao close its operation? I mean, given the fact that they had such powerhouses under them (not just actors but directors, producers, musicians, etc.) and if I remember correctly, it was right after IPYTM (or maybe after a year or so), so it felt like they were on the pathway of constant success.

~ @tipsyjaehyun

Hi Rain!

I always love talking about Nadao so thank YOU for allowing me the opportunity to talk about them. And please, there are never stupid or weird questions ever, especially when it comes to Nadao Bangkok (rip love).

When Nadao announced they were closing down, they posted this very long letter explaining why as well. Here's a summary of the contents:

In short: Nadao will terminate their roles as artist development, series & music producer. The reason is that their artists are now grownup enough to choose their own paths. Also the seniors have different goals. It is not sudden. They have been discussing it for a while. We have seen many Nadao artists moving out and continue with their own journey. This is the reason. Nadao will terminate their roles and want to give their artists more freedom to work in the industry. Ongoing series production will be passed to the director and they will make their own decision. Ongoing music production will be under the artists’ own names. Nadao will also introduce their artists to network in the path that their artists are interested in.

Nadao closing its business leaves a lot of regret in the hearts of fans who follow Nadao artists (me, i am the fan in question). Out of all the speculations, I think there's this one Reddit comment from u/Virtual_Tadpole9821 that aligns most with my speculation.

I wasn't originally going to comment because I was hoping to see some analysis emerge online, but since I'm not seeing any here's my two cents anyway. Knowing Nadao, the move is unlikely to be directly motivated by financial reasons. The company has consistently been profitable. Its financials for the 2021 fiscal year haven't been filed yet, but even in 2020, when the pandemic first hit, it still made a net profit of 29 million baht after taxes. Though this was down from 40 million in 2019, it's still more than 21 million in 2018. Things might have been worse in 2021, but it's unlikely to be too bad for them to weather. They don't appear to have that many fixed costs. As most of their income comes from artist management and the main costs are the artists' cuts, less work just means the pie is smaller, but the company still gets a piece and won't bleed to death. Not producing means not having to pay for crew and equipment, and their productions are usually externally funded anyway. If the company was facing financial difficulties, the first thing to do would be to scale back on non-performing operations, and the loss-making Nadao Music would be the first to go. But that's not what they're doing. Rather, they're shutting down all current operations at once. The move is probably more due to ideological re-questioning of the company's mission. As /u/dangrankeyi pointed out, Nadao tries to position itself as first and foremost a talent management agency. But it hasn't really been able to grow itself much in that regard. As their artists keep outgrowing their target group, they need to keep replacing them. But the scene is much more crowded now than in 2009 when the company was founded or in 2013 when it made Hormones. The company doesn't appear to have been successfully developing much new talent. Its latest pivoting attempt was when it launched Nadao Academy in early 2020, but that seems to have ceased with the pandemic. And even if the project was successful, what work would the company find for the trainees? It's not like it's doing that well with its current artists anyway. Nadao has some 30 actors under its umbrella, but apart from BKPP, things have been rather quiet for them. The problem I see is that there's a disjoint between what the company wants to do and what it actually does best. It wants to grow talent, but it's having problems finding work for that talent, and doesn't quite have the capacity to generate that work itself. On the other hand, Nadao has become best known for is productions, which for the most part have been passion projects driven more by their creator's visions than by business strategy. But such projects don't serve those original goals well enough. The only way they could have sustained this was probably to keep dishing out seasons of Hormones, but they didn't, because they knew they wouldn't be able to maintain quality, and even if they did, it would have lost steam by now anyway. The thing is, Nadao doesn't actually need to exist for its creators to do the production stuff they want, and are good at. That can be accommodated under parent company GDH and its other subsidiaries, which is where Nadao's production crews come from anyway. Looking at it this way, it isn't very difficult to see why they'd come to the decision not to continue doing the things they're doing as Nadao Bangkok.

And I would say that after two years since Nadao closes down, it's been pretty clear that the closing down of Nadao was more ideology-motivated than business. While Nadao officially shut down it's business, the actual company itself was renamed Tada Entertainment to accompany P'Yong Songyos Sugmakanan's pursuit of making the next perfect idol groups. Tada Entertainment now manages girl group MXFRUIT (under subsidiary label Ily Lab)...

And BUS (a Thai pop group formed through 789 Survival, under subsidiary Sonray Music). Khunpol (Bas from ITSAY) also competed in 789 Survival and debuted in BUS.

And DICE (consisting of the members who participated in 789 Survival but didn't make it into BUS, also managed by Sonray Music)

One must be quite confounded by P'Yong Soyos' new pursuits but watching the documentary of how 9x9 (Nine By Nine) was formed, I think it becomes very clear that P'Yong has always harboured an interest in making the next big Thai pop group, similar to Kpop idol group style. I highly recommend watching this if you have time, or at least the first two episodes of the documentary. It's honestly one of the realest documentaries I've ever watched of an idol group, the way they talk about each other here is basically how they talk about each other in real life, even now.

It was just unfortunate that 9x9 had to be a temporary thing 🥲 (understandable though, they had 4 full time lakorn actors Tor, James, Captain, Ryu, 2 singer/actor Ice and JJ and 3 music-focused artists Third, Jackie, Porsche). So their reunion on the last episode of 789 Survival was a hugeeeeeee thing.

So yeah.... before I ramble on and forget what your original question is, I would say P'Yong's general pursuit and ambitions in the music/Thai pop industry coupled with Nadao's roster of artists outgrowing its target group are the biggest reasons for Nadao closing in general.

I'm always grateful to Nadao for bringing us some of the best series in existence (crazy to think how In Family We Trust is conceived as a part of 9x9 project, with the main purpose to make a series to star all nine boys of 9x9) yet it swept the Nataraja awards (Thai Emmys) that year. This is yet another stellar example of how Nadao ended up excelling at what they don't plan to do (producing series) than what they do intend (managing artists/boy groups). 9x9 was a successful project though, don't get me wrong, I'm just trying to make the case that IFWT is more successful than P'Yong probably intended it to be (though P'Yong was pretty ambitious with this project himself, getting all the experienced older lakorn actors into this so perhaps he did plan for it to be that successful).

Even though, there were many Nadao artists that left before they closed down like James, Peach, Nonkul... I really like that most Nadao artists remained very close with their fellow Nadao peers, and often times ending up in same projects together once again. This year, a few notable reunions off the top of my head is Nonkul and Ud Awat in a horror zombie film Operation Undead (currently out in cinemas), Tor and JJ in thriller series Spare Me Your Mercy (currently filming), Nonkul and Captain in the Mouse TH remake (just wrapped filming).

I'm always sad about Nadao closing down but seeing how most former Nadao artists have no trouble finding works on their own after its closing, I'm very happy to see them flourishing and doing their own thing. I love that there's a huge family energy when it comes to Nadao because the senior artists always consider their junior like their little brothers and sisters (Ice Paris being the MC for both DICE and BUS showcases, Tor and Ice being the MCs for the 789 Survival). P'Yong has previously talked about how "Nadao isn't just a company, it's like a home. That's why when some of their artist left Nadao, P'Yong considered it more as them "graduating" so they can grow and build path on their own."

Below is a clip of Tor talking about how grateful he is to P'Yong (if you watch 9x9 documentary and some other interviews Tor did, you'll see that P'Yong can be quite harsh to him and put much pressure on Tor (and other Nadao artists as well) but they all seem to look up to him like a parental figure)

Not to mention, if you are a fan of Hormones, the girls always have their annual reunions and it always warms my heart to see how close they still are with each other.

Sighs... I almost completely forgot the question again. But yea Nadao definitely could have stayed and given us more magnum opus because I personally haven't had enough at all but it's great to see P'Yong happy with his successful groups and the former Nadao artists going on their own individual paths while maintaining good relations with P'Yong and Nadao/GDH creative crew (directors, producers, writers...)

[differenteagletragedy]

i was reading through your blog and omg musicals!!!! a theater kid, myself, i'd love if you'd write some headcanons about a broadway/musical star mc, if its not too close to your famous mc headcanons! also, i'd love to hear if you think the ol1 boys can sing and who would help mc practice (both lines and singing)! also who would sing along with mc while they're doing chores/housework/etc or if they'd just listen/hum/etc! you can just assume theyre poly with mc for this, if it makes it easier! :)

Listen. Listen. I love this so much. I am also a theatre kid (so much that I am forced to spell it with the "re" at the end) and I have many thoughts.

Also, Bobby from Company is Baxter after he reconnects with MC and friends, with an MC that ends up with Cove or Derek and this is just a fact. Evidence:

This is a video of single Baxter with his ten friends in five couples: Cove and MC, Derek and Tamarack, Terry and Miranda, Jude and Scott, and Qiu and OLNF MC.

ANYWAY.

-- Cove is such a fanboy. He's there to see your shows literally every time he can make it and will be disappointed if he can't come. He knows all the words to all the songs and a lot of the dialogue too. He is so proud.

-- Did you get to make a recording of your show? Try to get Cove to play something else in the car, I dare you.

-- Derek is also a big big fan, he is telling anyone who will listen about how he's your friend/boyfriend/husband. Jorge might have to tell him to chill a little bit but he's just so EXCITED.

-- He will make a point to pick you up after your evening shows. The crew knows him, so he just comes backstage after and will walk with you out the stage door. It's late and people are unpredictable, and he wants to keep you safe.

-- Baxter, surprise, also a big fan! If you started Broadway after the breakup in Step 3 then he may not figure it out, Broadway stars aren't as mainstream as movie or pop stars, for example. But he'll obviously find out when you're brought back together in Step 4 and he'll have some much research to do on you during those lost years!

-- He'll be streaming your recordings and just feeling so many things.

-- But maybe in Step 3 you've decided to pursue your theatrical dreams! A last summer at home before you move to New York, perhaps. Let Baxter take your headshots for you! He will be so good at it. He will also style you.

-- If this is the case, that you move after Step 3, I don't think Cove will move too. He could! But I can't picture him leaving the California coast. Long distance love. He and Cliff come in to see your big shows.

-- Cliff cries. Cove does too, he got it from his dad.

-- Maybe Derek will blow off a big game because it's his only chance to come see you. He feels bad about it, but he's not going to miss your big moment.

-- I haven't thought about this too much shut up

-- Boys at the Tonys! Baxter is going to KILL IT. I've talked about this with the general famous MC stuff lol, the awards show stuff, but he's going to dress to impress. So will Derek, this is very important and the boy who wore a polka dot bowtie at 13 isn't going to pull out any stops.

-- You're going to have to tell Cove to button all his buttons though, it's not the time for your cleavage baby

-- I think Baxter is the only one who could carry a tune, but he wouldn't try to get technically good. Cove is bearable with his singing. Derek really is not, but he has so much fun with it that no one would ever tell him to stop.

-- They'll all help you with your lines. Derek might actually learn lines instead of reading them from a script so he can help you practice while he's driving or something. And yeah, that's a lot, but that's just who he is.

-- If you're just having fun singing, in the car or doing chores or whatever, then they'll all sing with you. But if they catch you really going for it in the shower or something, they will all just stop and listen because oh my GOD

[lia404]

Get to know me better game—2 in 1 because I'm 6 months late

Tagged by: @baratrongirl and @missmewachu

Thanks for being so patient while I was figuring out how Tumblr works again and why I had a blue dot beside "Activity" (as in, notifications about tag games I've been sent 6 months ago. Better late than never 🤦‍♀️) Thankfully the tag games you sent my way are very similar so it won't be hard to do 2 in 1!

Last song I listened to: Chipzel - Courtesy - YouTube

The 1st track of Super Hexagon, composed by Chipzel. Chipzel's music has been a pick-me-up since 201...4 I think? And since I fell back into Super Hexagon around a week ago, the music has also found its way back into my work playlist.

Currently reading: Trick question! There is what I am MEANT to read, and what I am ACTUALLY reading.

What I am MEANT to read is To Shape a Dragon's Breath, by Moniquill Blackgoose, which has absolutely all the elements I need to love a book. The problem is that my brain absolutely refuses moving further than Chapter 1, and I've been stuck for MONTHS. The good news is that when it happens, I usually struggle until the moment my brain finally snaps and I read the whole book in an afternoon. Wait for me, Moniquill Blackgoose, I'll soon be raving about your book.

What I am ACTUALLY reading is... well, it's more re-reading, but I'm going through Happy Hour by Inkflavored and Keep the Light Shining by Clydeside, two Yu-Gi-Oh AUs that have been incredibly healing for me in the past months, for very different reasons. I wanted to re-experience them to see if I could turn them into fanbinding projects (if the authors give me the authorisation of course, but I haven't reached this level of confidence yet, let's give it time.)

Currently watching: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS.

Do you believe me if I tell you that it was an accident? It kinda was though! I wasn't the one who played the first episodes I just kept going afterwards. That said, I have fully adopted Yusaku. I kind of wish he could meet Philip from Kamen Rider W. Things would go so well.

Currently writing: this one is plain cruel, because after a drought spell of almost 2 years, I finally feel like getting back into writing (thank you, current obsession.)

I have 3 WIPs, one PWP because I like a challenge, one backstory of a character that has basically become my OC, and one AU that @wisyhana created and that I'm using as a wonderful sandbox. I am between 2k and 5k into each, nothing is complete, I'm losing my mind. But at least I'm writing again, right?

Spicy/sweet/savoury: Okay yes no it's cruel again and you will not make me pick just one.

If you've followed me these past years you know that I have completely lost my sense of taste between 2020 and 2023. I was lucky enough, and honestly even the specialised doctor said it was a miracle, to have most of it come back to me abruptly in March 2023, after 3 years unable to enjoy a bit of chocolate or a nice gratin. Some tastes are lost forever, but so few compared to what came back that I just can only be very very grateful and very confident in saying SPICY SWEET SAVOURY I'LL TAKE THEM ALL. I LOVE TASTES. ALL OF THEM.

Relationship status: I have been told polyamory looks good on me.

And I am lucky to have the most patient and tolerant lovers ever. EVER. I love them so much and I'm so bad at showing it because I am a mess. There isn't a day where my heart doesn't overflow with gratitude that they are in my life and agree to putting up with my bullshit.

Current obsession: Listen, Mew put it SO ELOQUENTLY I can help but quote:

mentally ill traumatised japanese teenagers and their ancient egyptian guys who hang out in their jewellery all playing card games.

So, yeah, current obsession is Yu-Gi-Oh!, and with it Duel Links, and everything children-card-game-adjacent. I am currently trying to figure out why everyone in this kid's show is so hot and delightfully traumatised. Characters after my own heart, all ready to be projected on and used for cathartic writing purposes. Other obsession is MEW'S FAULT TOO ACTUALLY since it's my newly founded Clan in Flight Rising. Ask me about my dragon Atem.

Favourite colour: I like my colour like my wine—burgundy. (I actually like all sort of shades of purple, violet and red, but I don't know how to list them.)

Tagging: Wow uh who do I know around here who is still active?

@twilightknight17 for sure (although I'm sure you already did it), @wingsonghalo maybe? Uuuh, I think @the-wanderer-of-thoughts and @istadris? You know, considering how inactive I am here, I think it's already a lot, but if you're not in the list and want to do it too, be my guest!

[melishade]

Attack on Prime Chapter 90: The Big Twist

Spoilers ahead if you haven't read the chapter. I recommend that you do if you haven't.

So.....

let’s talk about Primus. Eh?

So looking back on the Transformers franchise as a whole, Primus himself isn't really capitalized on. In a few of the shows, he’s only name-dropped or doesn’t even exist like TFA. In shows like TFP and the book the Covenant of Primus, he is alluded to and even given a brief backstory of his and Unicron’s origins before shifting gears to the Primes and their dynamics, but never makes an on screen appearance. He’s shown as the core and that’s it. We don’t know what he looks like in the Aligned Continuity. I think there is a toy out for him, but it was never said to be official. The only Transformers content that really explores on Primus is the IDW comics. Where Primus has aligned himself with three other transformer deities, but one of them got really angry with him for some reason and as punishment, got rid of his god powers, made everyone forget ever knowing him after he so much as left the room. (Look my info on IDW is spotty. I never got the chance to read the comics in full. Although god being a therapist is hilarious).

Besides IDW, there aren’t many interpretations or characterizations of Primus, which is a damn shame, considering we’ve always seen Unicron in almost all Transformers iterations. So it was something that I’ve always wanted to take a crack at: putting my own spin on the creator of the Transformers. I wanted to bring him into Attack on Prime, but before the AOT story was completed, I had no clue how to bring Primus into the story without it sounding so contrived and out of nowhere. I couldn’t have him pop out in the sky, tell everyone to stop fighting, and then have him leave, confusing everyone. It wouldn’t have made sense. In fact, I was all but ready to scrap the idea for AOP…until the Paths chapters dropped in the AOT manga, and I realized:

And I immediately got to work on how to incorporate Primus into the story while also making it make sense. Which took a while. I’ve worked on multiple rewrites of Primus’ character and his interactions with Eren and Zeke before creating the final draft for the chapter. I started my brainstorming of my characterization of Primus in late 2019 with the document titled RELGN 132 (which was the title of a religion course I took at UCLA, so fairly on the nose). So yeah, I’ve been working on it for 4+ years.

But first let’s talk about the multiple lead up I’ve had up until this point, because again, I’m meticulous with my foreshadowing. Chapter of foreshadowing include:

Chapter 45 Chapter 69 Chapter 70 Chapter 72 Chapter 77 Chapter 81 Chapter 82 Chapter 86

(And a bunch of other additional chapter do have foreshadowing and there is a small inkling of Primus' presence, and I might explain that later, but I want to see if people can piece it together by re-reading the chapter. If not, then I'll probably just say it outright, IDK.)

But, some moments might’ve been noticeable, some not so much. I knew that I didn’t want Primus’ introduction in the Paths to feel out of nowhere. Eren and Zeke are talking and suddenly this guy just pops out of nowhere. I needed him to be alluded to, which is where the 4th notebook and Pieck come in, oh and also Unicron. Well, at least Unicron's powerset.

In the Covenant of Primus, Primus and Unicron are said to come from the same being: The One, who split apart due to its own internal conflict regarding the state of the universe. If Primus and Unicron come from the same being, they must have the same abilities. Or similar abilities at least. One of the abilities should include: using their blood to communicate with others who carry their blood. Dark energon flows through Unicron while energon flows through Primus. Through energon, all Cybertronians are connected and return to the place they spawned from after their death, regardless of how good or bad their intentions were. If this concept can apply to Cybertronian, surely it could apply to titan shifters, who’s powers even defy death itself on some level. Once all the titan shifters, or at least the Founder, had access to energon, Primus had access to them, and would have found a way to enter the Paths, either through his own power or Vector’s help, since the Paths operate outside of space time. (Primus himself will provide a brief explanation in the Paths II. And the In Between OVA that I keep bringing up, is simply AOP from Primus' perspective. God I am so happy I can say that now!)

But because the Paths operate outside of space and time and the fact that the full powers of the Founder hadn't been utilized on the flow of time, Primus lacked the tools he needs to figure out what the hell was going on or even eliminate the power of the titans. He is flung through the memories and lives of each titan shifter; however, some memories are blocked from him and he doesn’t know why. And because of Primus lack of control, he can’t properly interact with the world around him. He can only interact with other titan shifters as a distorted image. A shadow. He can’t give so much information to Kruger and Pieck. He can only provide images, hidden clues because of the barrier between them. And Primus wants to learn about the truth of the AOT world, so he sees through their eyes and listens to their stories. Even when Kruger and Pieck interact with Primus and even touch him, they are met with a warm, gentle, touch of comfort. Something to show that he is other worldly. In addition to that, the allusion to the overlap of voices, how Primus knows about even that happened thousands of years into the past, his glowing blue eyes, how he forces Kruger to feel the pain and suffering of the people he turned into titans, how Primus had called Megatron and Arcee by name before asking Pieck to believe in Optimus, proclaiming he would be the one to end the power of the titans. The longer Primus is on screen as the shadow, the more ‘in your face’ the information becomes. If you haven’t pieced together the shadow is Primus, then at the very least, you know that the shadow is Cybertronian.

Other pieces of information that are not so subtle, is actually the local therapist Rung in the Cybertron OVA. If you know your transformers lore, then you should know that Rung is Primus. That was one of the obvious bits of information that I was incorporating here. Some of the interactions that Rung has includes him not batting an eye when Starscream lashes out at him and catches the energon cube with such ease that he completely forgets to react the way a normal person would. The scene that Rung had alone where he looks at the Jackhammer in a remorse manner, almost as if he knows what’s going to happen but can’t do anything about it. Finally, when Rung places a comforting hand on Arcee, Arcee notes that the hand feels warm and comforting, and she feels a swell of emotions. Ya know, like every other interaction he’s had with humans on screen. Not to mention that Rung recommended that Arcee leave the planet on purpose because of prior knowledge of the AOT world because I’ve hinted at the fact that Primus in the story right now is from a time where the events of AOT haven’t happened yet. Right before he sends Optimus (Of course, this will be explain more cohesively within the In between OVA, which is going to focus on Primus and what’s he’s been doing throughout the AOP story).

More subtle bits of information when foreshadowing Primus’ role in the story is the drawing of Optimus Prime’s holoform, or rather Primus, from the 4th notebook. The drawing is led to believe and cement the fact that the Attack Titan can see into the future. Which is true, Primus’ appearance in the story is a future event, however, I have to make a note that what they are looking at is not Optimus. It’s Primus wearing Optimus’ face. So I had to have someone who would take notice of the way that Primus is wearing Optimus’ face. Erwin had to be the observation because he’s the only human that has been known to notice those subtle details and connections. He of course brought this up with Megatron and Megatron does notice the difference. But the drawing is not Megatron’s concern, assuming that someone trying to interpret someone from memory is going to get a few details wrong. Also, they have other priorities to take care of besides a drawing from the past. Megatron and ultimately Erwin let it go, but I’m letting the audience know, something is clearly up. Adding on top of that, Kruger has never met Optimus, but he had seen the shadow’s face before dying. That should be another indicator that it’s not Optimus. It’s the shadow. It’s Primus.

Finally, the more subtle indication of Primus’ presence in the story is the conversation that Eren and Kenshin had about the existence of gods in general. While Kenshin believes that god exists, Eren does not. He critiques god and believe god to be hypocritical while Kenshin believes that god cares and wants the creation to live freely. It’s supposed to be an engaging conversation while also hinting at the fact that Eren’s definitely going to talk to a deity with his mentality and future visions and get the crap kicked out of him.

I’m certain that I missed something but what I’ve wanted to say but the foreshadowing of Primus is there, and I wanted it to be clear. However, Primus’ characterization is something I wanted to discuss for a long time too. Again, we don’t know much about Primus’ character besides Rung, and I didn’t want him to be a stoic deity. That’s boring. I wanted to have some fun. I wanted Primus to be the complete opposite of Unicron. While Unicron is haughty and prideful, Primus is kind and humble. While Unicron loathes the idea of existence and wants death and destruction, Primus believes in life and creation. Unicron believes that everything is beneath him while Primus sees the value of even the smallest living thing. Unicron believes in working alone, and that he is the most powerful being. No one else should have his power. Primus believes in cooperation, unity, and sharing his power. Unicron wants to destroy the universe, Primus wants to be a part of it.

With that in mind, I was able to write a characterization of Primus: a gentle, kind being that cares deeply for the lives of others that may or may not even be his own. Someone who gets excited at the prospect of learning new things about new beings, someone who mourns the loss of life, and someone who gets angry at the prospect of someone wanting to take that life away. Someone who genuinely tries to understand the individual and their experiences in order to truly understand the meaning of life.

However, there is a fatal flaw to Primus. People I've talked with in the transformers fandom, myself included, have criticized Primus for his own inaction during the war. He gave the Matrix to Optimus, sure, but he did nothing to stop the War in its tracks or even stop the caste system from taking place. Why didn’t he help out Megatron and his people? Why didn’t he stop Megatron when he had gone insane? Why did he make Optimus shoulder all his responsibilities twice? Why does Primus not step in when there are life-threatening events that could destroy the universe? The very thing he values and wants to be part of? It’s very simple: Primus is an immortal deity, with powers to see beyond the veil of time and defy reality if he wanted to but chooses not to based on the safety of the whole universe and every living creature. A personal theory I've come up with is the Unicron prophecy in TFP. Unicron was set to reawaken on Earth, but Cybertron doesn’t know about Earth until the war happens. Sure, if the war didn’t happen, the caste system could have been fixed and Cybertron could have been a better place to live, but Unicron would have awakened with no one to stop him and would have destroyed the whole universe, Cybertron included. It’s an example of Primus trying to see the bigger picture and that’s where his flaw lies. When seeing the bigger picture, he ignores the sufferings of mortals who lead very limited lives compared to him. Primus has all the time in the universe to figure everything out, but not Cybertron, and not everyone else. His purpose even if Cybertron is destroyed is to battle Unicron once more. It’s an endless cycle. But Primus ends up missing the point that he wants to understand. There’s a quote from Steven Universe’s character Sapphire that encapsulates this perfectly:

“I keep looking into the future when all of this has already been solved, as if it doesn’t matter how you feel in the present. No wonder you think I don’t care.”

The meaning of life to a mortal is vastly different to that of an immortal. As a result, Primus will never fully understand them and can’t be part of the universe like he wants to. He cannot live and die like they can. But even so, he still tries to, and that’s what makes him all the more understanding. This is what I want to encapsulate for my characterization of Primus in AOP. Now he has to confront two titan shifters with their own flaws and failings: one that wishes to die, and one that wishes to destroy. And he is not happy with either of them trying to play god out of selfishness.

(There's other things that I want to discuss, like Primus' design and other actions within the story, but I think I'll take care of that tomorrow. Still if you haven't, please leave a comment. That would be greatly appreciated. And I encourage you to read back through AOP to find those clues of Primus' presence.

Not to mention, chapter 45 isn't Primus' first appearance.)

[kylos-starlight]

Oops :) Gets real under the cut. It's nothing bad though! <3 turns into a gush post near the end~ It's a little long so I get it if no one reads it but I like to voice my thoughts that's all.

Top of the list he goes. He deserves to be there. Not only are his scenes at the end of IX helping me to overcome my fear of thunder and lightning. There's something else.

A few years ago I lost a certain spark. Every ounce of creativity and passion I had shattered. I was always chasing the next "big f/o" that would spark that passion again, that creativity. I never found it and I got depressed for a little bit because I thought I would never find a love as grand as I had before. So my storytelling became nonexistent, I stopped drawing, and the endless thoughts I used to have were replaced with an endless emptiness so I went quiet. I gave up trying to chase something that I thought would never happen again. I was slowly losing myself

I spent a last few years yes, self-shipping and yes don't get me wrong I love all of my f/o but there was something missing, I didn't feel the need to scream every two second about how much I love them, there was just something "off" with myself. I couldn't voice it or the anons would come with their pitchforks "You don't really love your f/o" plus it was hard to put into words. How can you love your f/o but still feel that something is missing?

cut to my sick ass lazing on the couch in the present time. I get an idea, "Hey I haven't watched the Star Wars movies in like...forever- maybe I'll re-watch them all.. then there are the newer ones I haven't seen yet." So I start watching the movies. I had a few interruptions when I was watching VII and VIII but I kept on watching. I thought Kylo Ren's lightsaber was so badass but at the time thought nothing much of Ben himself.

As the days went on I decided to rewatch VII VIII and IX because of said past interruptions be it people or my sick ass having to take meds and stuff. As I do with most things I watch the second time I really consume it. I noticed something. Something different. The very first time Kylo took his helmet off I felt it the feeling that started in my chest and radiated to my stomach.. butterflies? He spoke and there was no distortion from his mask as he wasn't wearing it and I felt my heart skip a bit. what the hell?

the more I watched the more I learned, the more I learned the more I started to fall in love. Do I condone some of the things he's done? No. Do I still love him? Absolutely. After the movies I sort of just sat there on my couch, looking at my own reflection of the tv. "wow, I like Ben huh?" I said to myself then I shrugged. "Ah, fleeting crush and maybe an f/o" Throughout the rest of the day however I couldn't stop thinking about him. Everything from his appearance to how he talked and how he carried himself.

So I decided to run with it. Would it be one of those f/o where I say I'm crushing and nothing happens? Or maybe it will be like my other recent f/o Alex? Talk about him for a little bit but then the fixation dies almost as quickly as it started?

Neither of that happened. I got flooded with endless thoughts, and ideas. Ideas for moodboards, playlists, art.

I got attached to Ben so much, it's hard to explain it but I feel connected to him in a way that I never thought was possible for me ever again. He makes me genuinely smile and I don't mean just smile with my mouth but makes me smile with my eyes. He makes me blush and laugh and feel like I'm on top of the world in such a euphoric state. I actually feel like we're together- like actually. I know it sounds insane but I have every bit of real emotion for Ben. I feel well- in love.

I said I love all my other f/o too and its true and this might sound terrible and believe me I've thought myself as a terrible person but the love I hold for Ben is higher and so much more different than the love I have for the others..

I thought he'd be like a shooting star. A moment of fun but he'd fade away just as fast as he came into my life.

I'm thankful that wasn't the case. He managed to do what I thought wasn't ever gonna happen to me again. He reignited my spark and love and appreciation. I can't say the last time I smiled this much irl and how much I've had my heartbeat fast and the tint rise to my cheeks.

I guess in short...

Ben makes me feel like I'm alive again.

<- I'm trying so hard not to cry as I talk about this but I mean it's true, I've had so much bullshit happen in my life. I've survived so many hardships and awful people. I forgot what feeling alive was, I thought my new normal was to not expect happiness because it will be met with tragedy and I'll be back at square one. Alone and fighting demons in my mind.

Ben has reignited my heart and I am forever grateful for him, I love him so much already and I hold him so incredibly dear. He makes me feel strong, and loved, and passionate- I love him with my entire soul. So deeply that the love extends past the words themselves. It's so much deeper.

If you read this far thank you <3 It means a lot to me. Thanks for listening to me coherently ramble for once.

[bettsfic]

(Love on Display is the series name for ASE and its sequel)

okay so for this commentary i went through my ASE tag to read the asks i'd gotten about it because i can't really remember the whole process, and found this response i'd written:

you know how like when you read or watch something, you kind of look for the character you relate to most? when i was rereading the hunger games last month i was thinking, i don’t relate to a single one of you bitches. and then annie shows up like “nope nope nope i can handle exactly 0% of this bullshit” and i was just, ah there i am

looking back on my mental health issues, the irony is that i was writing about madness in a time i was actually pretty stable, despite the pandemic being in full swing. i remember writing ASE throughout summer, sitting on my grandma's porch swing and admiring her garden, going inside only when it got dark enough for the fireflies to come out. at the time, i was approaching my third year of rejections on the original fiction front; i'd been querying agents for over a year and submitting short stories, and i felt like i wasn't getting anywhere. i was also about to start a phd program, which i was apprehensive about, to say the least. i wish i'd listened to that "i have a bad feeling about this" instinct.

tbosas had just come out (to almost no attention or acclaim; even now with the film coming out in a couple weeks, the gifsets i've been reblogging don't get a lot of traffic and the tag only has 250 fics in it) and so i read it, loved it, and immediately re-read the hunger games with the new lens of snow's origin story.

the hunger games is one of the few things that i think is completely worth the hype. it's a beautifully written series and i really admire it. tbosas i thought was even better, because it felt like suzanne collins had full creative control. it's not easy writing a villain origin story and i think she really managed to thread the needle with coriolanus as a POV character who is really the antagonist of two protagonists whose POVs we don't have access to.

anyway as soon as i finished re-reading the hunger games, i went back to read the one thg fic i'd written after the film series concluded, the baker's son. it wasn't as bad as i remembered it, because 2015-16 were the years i was really starting to figure out how to write, so everything from that time in my memory is hand-wavy at best. but i remember thinking, this could have been really good if i'd just taken my time with it.

back then, i never took my time with anything. i had so many ideas that i had to churn through them in order to get to the next one. when you're just starting out writing, you haven't followed through on enough ideas to know how to sort through them properly and find the ones that have legs. so i was still learning how to control my attention.

and so ASE marked a huge change in the way i viewed my own work and the reception thereof. i was getting nowhere in publishing, i was no longer in one single fandom and so i didn't really have a community, and i finally realized the only guarantee i would ever have is my own joy. that changed everything.

i know i'll always love the hunger games, because i genuinely believe it's good. it's engaging and entertaining and meaningful. before, i'd written for canons i actually didn't like, because communities had formed around them and i was inspired by what i felt was unmet potential in canon. but i know i'll never rewatch supernatural or the 100. in fact i didn't finish either of them. with big fandoms, sure, i get more traffic and comments. but i'd stopped writing for traffic and comments. i wrote ASE because it was fun, and i knew in 10 years i'd read the hunger games again, and i would want my perfect fixit fic. and i would want it to be long, and well thought out, and something i could be proud of.

i've kept that "i'm writing for my 40 year old self" mentality for all my writing. at 40, i want to look back at what i wrote at 30 and know it was time well spent because it made me happy during a hard time in human history. it's a lot easier to make creative decisions when you're writing for an audience of your future self.

with tbosas coming out soon, i'm hoping to finish the coriojanus fic i started in 2020 (i think it's 7k?). and looking back through my ASE tag i also saw how many ideas i had for finnick POV and i could see myself fiddling around with a few of those prompts eventually.

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Eye of the World: Prologue

I haven't reread the whole of the series ever (my last reread was in preparation for the finale), so with the books getting more popular and the show simultaneously entertaining me and getting my goat I figured I'd jump onto the bandwagon and maybe get some validation from internet strangers. As the title states, this is a reread, so I will be spoilering the hell out of everything, so if you're a show only fan or still working your way through the books, please run away screaming (but tell your friends!).

...

Okay now that I can no longer hear any screams, let's get into things. I first started reading The Wheel of Time in 2003 in middle school, catching up in time to read New Spring when it debuted and the subsequent novels after (except oddly, Towers of Midnight, which I didn't get around to until the finale was right around the corner, so I guess my longest reread only goes up to book 12 technically). It's probably my outright favorite fantasy world and has a lot of characters I love - in fact, at times I feel I don't quite fit into the fandom because I don't have an irrational disdain of any of the common hate sinks bar maybe Gawyn, and even then some people are making me like him a little bit more so I don't know what I'm going to do then.

That said, like most readers who came of age in the 21st century, I do have a lot of problems with Jordan's worldview. It's a rather interesting friction: the man was definitely trying to write a world without the sexism of our modern era (and to a lesser extent other prejudices as well), and yet he could never rise above them himself. I'll probably spend a lot of time talking about this kind of stuff and what might have been done instead.

Likewise, when we reach the inevitable Slog (and sorry people who didn't start reading until the series was finished, it's real), I'll be talking a lot about how the plot might be adjusted for brevity and, once we reach the Sanderson era virtually everything I want to talk about will be magnified tenfold because as much as I enjoyed his efforts at the time, I've greatly soured on him as an author in general and as Jordan's heir in specific since.

But for now, let's focus on what's important: The Eye of the World's first prologue: Dragonmount.

The palace still shook occasionally as the earth rumbled in memory, groaned as if it would deny what had happened.

As first sentences go, I'm not in love. It's not bad, but it's just a little too vague; "the palace" doesn't really give my mind's eye much to work with because they can vary so much depending on when and where they were built. It ends well though.

The dead lay everywhere, men and women and children, struck down in attempted flight by the lightnings that had flashed down every corridor, or seized by the fires that had stalked them, or sunken into stone of the palace, the stones that had flowed and sought, almost alive, before stillness came again.

Despite its length, a sentence like this would work better to me as the start. It's shocking and terrifying; this is a level of violence we won't see channelers pull off until much later in the series.

The mind-twisting had struck at the core, ignoring peripheral things.

This feels pretty on-theme for the story, really. The Shadow tries to subvert the major powers of the world but its defeat is primarily orchestrated by a bunch of farmers.

The edge of his pale gray cloak trailed through blood as he stepped across the body of a woman, her golden-haired beauty marred by the horror of her last moments, her still-open eyes frozen in disbelief.

Well I made it four quotations before we needed to talk about feminism so that's... more than I expected, really. Meet Ilyena, a character so posthumous that despite being part of a prologue 3,500 years before the main story she's still already dead by the time it starts! Obsessing over dead women is probably one of the biggest complaints this series gets and boy does it deserve it. Despite electricity being long gone, our characters have no shortage of fridges.

That said, I do want to note that as it stands in this book, things aren't that bad. In this book. See, in this book, Ilyena isn't the only victim - the children she and Lews had are also among the dead, as are quite a lot of other people who just happened to live or work in the palace or were visiting. Except for the use of LTT's title "Kinslayer", none of them will be mentioned again after this book - in fact, the non-family members are completely forgotten after the prologue. But again, that's jumping ahead. In this book, Ilyena is about providing a specific name and face to the tragedy, humanizing all of the victims by proxy in a way that, "Twelve hours after saving the world, Lews Therin went insane and killed two hundred and sixty-five people including all of his blood relatives," does not.

...brought by merchants from across the World Sea...

We talk a lot about how Jordan was too immersed in southern culture to understand how its gender roles were about as universal as Mongolian throat singing, but not enough about how he's too immersed in globalized petro-fascist markets based on maximizing inefficiencies for the global elite to use to extract wealth to understand why a real planetary utopia living in harmony with nature wouldn't be shipping luxury goods across the ocean when there's perfectly fancy fabrics to make at home and anyway the Green Men should be able to help silkworms thrive anywhere if you're that desperate for something breathable.

On the other hand, points to him for not going crazy about Gateways and assuming that all global trade could be handled by teleportation just because they're a fun tool. I will have a lot to say about Gateways as we approach the authorial transition.

For a moment he fingered the symbol on his cloak, a circle half white and half black, the colors separated by a sinuous line. It meant something, that symbol.

Even now though, it means something other than what it once meant (being the sign of the seals on the Dark One's prison) and before too much longer it will pick up two more meanings, one for each half. The Wheel turns and the world changes.

Behind him the air rippled, shimmered, solidified into a man who looked around, his mouth twisting briefly with distaste.

Props to Ishamael for clearly Traveling with the True Power even this early on in the series.

Not so tall as Lews Therin, he was clothed all in black, save for the snow-white lace at his throat and the silverwork on the turned-down tops of his thigh-high boots.

Thigh-high boots! <3 (Seriously Ishy how can you want to destroy the world you can express your fashion sense in?)

Also note how this contrasts the Aes Sedai symbol described earlier. There's a little bit of white though, because it can't be helped even by the Shadow.

It will soon be time for the Singing, and here all are welcome to take part.

One detail from the Sanderson novels whose origin I'm uncertain of but like regardless of who came up with it is Rand's claim that the AoL was NOT paradise and that it was rotting from within even before the Dark One got involved. The latter half of this sentence suggests one such flaw: having the Voice is a hell of a talent, but apparently there were places that did not welcome all potential Singers. This could just be a result of the War, but maybe it speaks to something deeper.

“Shai’tan take you, does the taint already have you so far in its grip?”

Ish here is mostly pissed that he doesn't get to enjoy his gloating, because for all his talk about nihilism, he is petty first and foremost.

Dangerous for you, fool, not for me.

Ironically, all things considered it's really the other way around - Shai'tan is no threat at all to the Dragon soul and will utterly ruin Ish by the end. Ish really isn't anywhere near as clever as he makes himself out to be, he just looks smart because he's the last survivor of Academia.

“So you do remember some things. Yes, Betrayer of Hope. So have men named me, just as they named you Dragon, but unlike you I embrace the name.

This is an odd detail, all things considered. LTT's fatal flaw was pride (this very prologue says as much), so why wouldn't he be proud of a flattering name? I wonder if we get any more details on this in the books or if it's just a little detail that was lost in the shuffle.

But it is not enough. You humbled me in the Hall of Servants. You defeated me at the Gates of Paaran Disen. But I am the greater, now. I will not let you die without knowing that. When you die, your last thought will be the full knowledge of your defeat, of how complete and utter it is. If I let you die at all

See what I mean about Ish? This is not the behavior of someone who is tired of existence and wants everything to end, it's the behavior of a dude with a petty grudge that he dresses up in fancy terms and fancier boots.

[Ilyena] will give me the rough side of her tongue if she thinks I have been hiding a guest from her. I hope you enjoy conversation, for she surely does. Be forewarned. Ilyena will ask you so many questions you may end up telling her everything you know.

Quick, name a female WoT character that Jordan doesn't think this description applies to! Can it be done? I doubt it. Another common criticism is that for all of his 3,000 characters, all of the women were just his wife. I don't think it's quite true, but I do think that the women he knew well were all cut from pretty much the same cloth.

“A pity for you,” he mused, “that one of your Sisters is not here.

This is another oddity. AoL healing required all five kinds of weaves and they didn't divide things up by gender anyway, so why wouldn't a Brother suffice? There's plenty of male Aes Sedai who haven't gone crazy at this point, and it's been only a couple days at most so you wouldn't think people would have time to reflexively assume men wouldn't be helpful. Is this another kind of healing that works better when you do it cross-gender? Maybe Towers of Midnight mentioned that?

Helplessly he convulsed, thrashing, his skull a sphere of purest agony on the point of bursting.

Good to know that every incarnation of the Dragon suffers horribly for no good reason, I guess. Rand's nihilism is a lot more understandable to me than Ish's is, considering how little suffering the latter actually endures.

“You can have her back, Kinslayer. The Great Lord of the Dark can make her live again, if you will serve him. If you will serve me.”

"Your kids are fucked though. We put their souls in vacuoles and then jettisoned them towards Sindhol, so we can't fix that even if we wanted to. Also you balefired half of them repeatedly, we think. Hard to be sure because there's no record of them left except some silhouettes on that doorway over there."

(More seriously, they're being left out right now because LTT isn't cognizant of their demise, making this the only excusable omission.)

“Ten years your foul master has wracked the world. And now this. I will. . . .”

Plus a whole century of societal collapse, but I guess RJ hadn't come up with that detail yet. Hell at this point maybe Shai'tan was still supposed to be ET's son.

You and I have fought a thousand battles with the turning of the Wheel, a thousand times a thousand, and we will fight until time dies and the Shadow is triumphant!

Ish says this and the fandom as a whole treats it as true but... we don't actually know this! Third Agers often state that they HOPE to be reborn, which suggests that's it's possible the Wheel stops reincarnating some souls (replacing them, presumably) - and who better to retire than the people who stop being grateful for existence and start actively trying to undermine you?

Further, Rand's epiphany is about how despite the crushing cycle of everything, anyone can still hope to live a better life - there's no guarantee that Ishamael falls to the shadow every time, or that he ever has before or will again! Hell, he could just repent even after he falls. Bro has choices, he just refuses to see them.

His own sons and daughters, sprawled like broken dolls, play stilled forever.

This is actually another odd detail. I don't know how Aes Sedai fertility works, but while it's not implausible that LTT & IS could have children who were of the age where their play is the most notable thing about them, they should also have kids old enough to have grandkids by now! Lews' murders could potentially number in the hundreds without starting on the servants and faithful companions.

Also note that while Ilyena's demise horrified LTT and left him with nothing to live for according to the narration, it isn't until he sees that he's killed all of these people he loved that he actually tries to commit suicide. This is the sort of thing that's completely neglected going forward, but it is nice that things were a little more complex than him finding his girlfriend in the fridge and his mom in the oven.

The land around him was flat and empty. A river flowed nearby, straight and broad, but he could sense there were no people within a hundred leagues.

This is a pretty subtle sign of just how much death the last ten years must have entailed: the Erinin is flowing through a temperate part of the planet (there being no indication that the Earth's axis was significantly affected by the Breaking) yet there are no cities nor farms within a hundred leagues. By all rights there should be, but now they're gone. One can see why balefire was banned.

He did not believe it could come, forgiveness. Not for what he had done.

Maybe it's just my own weird moral code speaking but I think stuff one does while literally and entirely involuntarily corrupted by the source of all evil shouldn't really count against them. Obviously he's in shock, but it seems like something that carries on into Rand's behavior as well and it's a little depressing that in a series about free will vs. determinism there's such a common attitude that the stuff you're doomed to do regardless counts against you more than the things you had a choice in.

Because in his pride he had believed that men could match the Creator, could mend what the Creator had made and they had broken. In his pride he had believed.

And he wasn't wrong to believe that, he just did it wrong and doesn't consider that there might be other approaches. Tunnel vision is a real affliction in this series.

Only a heartbeat did the shining bar exist, connecting ground and sky, but even after it vanished the earth yet heaved like the sea in a storm. Molten rock fountained five hundred feet into the air, and the groaning ground rose, thrusting the burning spray ever upward, ever higher.

No denial on the earth's part here, just straight up compliance.

Of Lewis Therin Telamon, no sign remained. Where he had stood a mountain now rose miles into the sky, molten lava still gushing from its broken peak.

Now imagine a million more dudes doing this and you start to see why the Breaking was as destructive as it was.

Then [Ishamael] was gone, and the mountain and the island stood alone. Waiting.

Presumably Ishamael went off and told someone about LTT's suicide before being vacuum sealed for a millennium and change, cuz otherwise there's no way people would know what Dragonmount was.

The oceans fled, and the mountains were swallowed up, and the nations were scattered to the eight corners of the World.

The west, the Waste, Shara, the sea, the Mad Lands, north Seanchan, southwest Seanchan, and southeast Seanchan. There, we've turned what was obviously an odd turn of phrase into a literal statement with all eight items acccounted for!

Let the Prince of the Morning sing to the land that green things will grow and the valleys give forth lambs. Let the arm of the Lord of the Dawn shelter us from the Dark, and the great sword of justice defend us. Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.

Well Rand did most of those things, but I don't remember any lambs, so I guess really he lost the war and the whole of the epilogue was a taunting dream the Dark One wove for him to distract him.

(God I hate those kinds of theories. If your assumption is that nothing is true, your theory is dumb and you should feel bad.)

From Charal Drianaan te Calamon,The Cycle of the Dragon.

So a lot of people talk about the conlanging in this setting and I just want to point one thing out: the fact that we go from the Old Tongue in the AoL to this New Tongue in the Fourth Age suggests very, very strongly that Randlanders are not inexplicably speaking English or anything close to it but something in between the two fake Tongues. We have a clear transition from things like "Telamon" and "siswai'aman" to "Calamon" for example, that dragon doesn't really fit into except as a distant ancestor/descendant.

Anyway, that right there is the prologue! I would compare and contrast it to Amazon's adaptation, but I cannot because they have not adapted this sequence yet. It's something of a shame, because I think the prologue is very important for making it clear that we're not actually doing a Tolkien-esque story like the early chapters suggest, but after seeing Winter Dragon I can also sympathize with not wanting to lead with this. That said, I am deeply depressed we couldn't keep Billy Zane and hope against hope that Rafe will find a role for him to be crazy in.

The TV show does do a sequence set in the AoL, but it's closer to being an adaptation of part of The Strike at Shayol Ghul than anything else, so I will hold off until we get there after A Crown of Swords.

[bookinit02]

HI HELLO GOOD EVENING

I'm dead tired bc I got barely any sleep last night + braindead because I've spent the past several hours binging through your Stranger Things Byler retelling and I'm a bit out of words, HOWEVER. It finally clicked in my head that you have a tumblr and I, also having a tumblr, can use said tumblr to throw my appreciation upon you in a more direct manner.

On that note... the retelling is AMAZING and I love it so very very much!!! (I've also been leaving a whole stream of comments on the fic itself, so a lot of my feelings have already been described in detail there XD). It makes me feel so very many emotions, both good AND bad, and for a fic to trigger THAT MUCH of an emotional reaction in me is really an achievement. It's so beautifully sad and tender and joyous and realistic, and all the more painful for it—and all the more beautiful IN that pain. I haven't actually been a big active part of the Stranger Things Fandom (TM) for several years, but I still often return to Byler fics, sort of like a comfort blanket in story form—and yours are some of the BEST (I think it was also you that wrote one of my favorite ever painting scene fix-its; I'll have to go back and re-read that as well!!)

I started reading season 4 last night (which is in part to blame for my lack of sleep) and finished up the rest of it today. I'm so extremely excited for season 5 and to see what you've done with it—I already started reading the script for episode one and it looks amazing (god, I bet that Mike having a panic attack/Vecna episode hurts WAY more in prose)!!! I can't decide between reading all the script first, then reading the fic; or reading the script episodes and then reading the according fic chapters; or just barreling on ahead in the fic and coming back to the script if it strikes my fancy later (which is, if I'm being honest, the most likely outcome). All will have to wait til tomorrow, however, as I have dinner and a warm bed to get to. All the love to you and your fic!!

(Love how I said "I'm so braindead I've run out of words" and then proceeded to give evidence to the EXACT OPPOSITE claim. I'm really a bit like Mike lmao, even if I'm struggling to actually describe my specific emotions or feelings about something, I can run my mouth about any old thing for ages XD)

hi hello good morning!!! i have been watching ur comments come in with so much joy and happiness—hopefully i get time to respond to all of them within the next few days! i hope that you have gotten so much rest and that you are all refreshed for the next day🫂💗

thank you so much for all your kind words, in this ask and otherwise! the rewrite is really a labor of love that has been sustaining me for over a year now, and it is always so impressive and awe-worthy to me when new people discover it and start from the very beginning. that is SO much to read!! several novels worth!

as for the script, read it in whatever order you would like! my recommended order was originally to read the script first, then the fic chapters—but i know that some people want to experience the plot twists and developments as they happen, so really any way you decide to read it is completely fine! the byler scenes are all the same (with a bit extra in the fic), it’s really just the other characters and plot lines that are expanded.

thank you for “running your mouth,” as you’ve called it—but i prefer to think that we’re just chatting🥳 i really love interacting with people through both comments and asks, so feel free to do both (and to talk as long as you’d like)! i am super grateful and honored that you’ve chosen to read my story, and i hope that you enjoy what i have so far of season 5!!💗🫂

[cchapsticck]

20 Fic Writer Questions

@dreamwatch tagged me and I have been so slammed at work but the show is open now and am able to look at my tags.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

11!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

146,941

3. What fandoms do you write for?

On this account its been Stranger Things, Baldur's Gate 3 and Critical Role - because we're sticking to a Dungeons and Dragons adjacent theme completely not on purpose.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

UNTITLED RECORDING rcd ca. 1987-1988 ANACRUSIS ca. 1987 head line sunflower broke wait, runner

5. Do you respond to comments?

I sincerely try to! I get them pretty infrequently so I'm always so tripping over myself to say something in response and surely sound like a total dipshit when I do. I know there are a few in my inbox I haven't responded to yet because work has my free time in a vice grip at the moment.

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

Oh surely dog at the door - the ending was always intended to be vague and open to interpretation but I cannot imagine any good faith interpretation to the ending is like. good. Runner up is probably of or pertaining to the body, which only takes the runner up status because its an elaboration on canon events that are objectively harrowing, versus with dog where I have engineered speculative misery for the express purpose of being miserable.

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

head line, I think, is my only published fic with an unambiguously optimistic ending. I think there's been hope and happiness in my other fics, but not without caveats or as of yet unaddressed emotional complication in the futures of those stories. idk does that even make sense?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not so far as I know but who knows, maybe there are corners of the internet talking mad shit what do I know?

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

I have said it before and I will say it again, I feel like one of my greatest failings as a writer is my inability to write smut without cringing myself inside out. I just don't think I'm any good at it. Smut lives in my heart though.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I suppose it depends on what one's definition of a crossover is? Like where's the line between an AU and a crossover? One time I wrote a DnD ST AU that includes no established WotC DnD NPCs but all of its world building, is that a crossover? Or does a crossover only constitute as a crossover as a matter of disparate series characters interacting? I have questions.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

lmao aint no on reading my business I cannot imagine anyone would be so moved to do so

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I don't believe so, but I also haven't looked into it.

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

I've definitely worked on collaborative projects before, they all exist in various states of planning or semi-publication or DM hollering. I enjoy it, its like playing toys with your friends.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

It really depends what I'm in the mood for? Vibes wise lol? I have a handful of ships that I constantly rotate around in my brain like a rotisserie chicken that re-enter the hyperfocus zone on a semi regular schedule. Ask my about my forevergirl ships.

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

lol could be any of them tbh

16. What are your writing strengths?

lmao lol even I'm so bad at self praise this is a nightmare. I like to think I have a deft hand with character voice, I like to think my writing feels generally grounded, lived in?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I really lack rigor, I think, when it comes to writing. I get discouraged by writers block very easily, I make it very easy for myself to walk away from a project. Which, I know isn't inherently a bad thing - some things just don't work out, or you don't have the time for that kind of commitment etc - but I often feel like there is a necessary momentum that I lose that just makes my creative endeavors just stagnate and I really struggle to manufacture that momentum for myself when it starts to diminish.

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

I think it depends, I think there are contexts where it's appropriate and contexts where its inappropriate. For me it boils down to like, one's ability to use the language authentically and grammatically, if the language being potentially inscrutable to the reader is part of the need of the use of another language - textually, does it feel authentic to the way multi-lingual speakers communicate, etc etc etc.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I think the first fic I wrote with the intent of public consumption was KHR? I think?

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Hm. This answer changes from time to time depending on how I'm feeling about my work in general, but I think right now sunflower broke is holding that top slot. It got me back into writing, it made me realize how much fun writing Eddie's character was for me, the themes that sort of preoccupy me about him floated to the surface there. Just a little scratch of the surface with that one.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

vague musing theme re: deh in evan and the Mom & Son theme and evan taking on responsibility for how his own mom feels, and then also connor's. irreconcilable tension in deh, as in life, with [the family unit, at its smallest: a Parent & Child unit] inevitably needing to be validated via supporting whatever conclusion we get (and the conclusion support it in turn) versus whether, actually, that not only Can be enough but Must be enough, b/c of how it cannot be denied, that is: rejected

we have Parallel Moms in the first song, it's a relevant difference that the murphys are relatively rich & the hansens relatively poor, but the Primary effect of this difference being heidi's frequent absence at home due to working, vs. the lack of such financial pressures resulting in cynthia being....stuck at home and trying to figure out anything in life Through her role as Stay At Home Mom, whilest she also Isn't guaranteed more successful connection with her children (or husband, except that: he's Here, married to her) for that, as established already in that first song lol

evan right off the bat taking on the pressure of how his mom needs him to have a good year because also she needs to have a good year, and heidi talking about this in terms of things that evan needs to Do, like, he needs to Order Pizza*, he needs to be Making Friends & then Be Away Hanging Out With Them (*also i always consider how evan Could've avoided getting pizza to not spend the money? but nothing else (besides evan being conscious of financial woes & feeling pressure abt this more generally) really suggests this is the case, and i guess at any given point he has $20 to spare)....then referring to the Resolution of this relationship where suddenly heidi has a turning point offstage (like, offscreen lol) wherein now she can go "oh i didn't know you were Feeling like this" versus like. that the conflict the rest of the time is with her own feelings, of course, and evan's Behavior. wherein she doesn't really mind the bare facts that he's dealing with anxiety, has prescriptions & therapy about it, but she Has minded about the things he needs to Be Able To Do (specifically on his own, mind you) and what's important to Do to get there (despite the letters sure not seeming to help, and then like, never officially being written again. does he still go to therapy appts?)....and that she starts feeling rejected by him As His Mother, which is like, the main issue up until she reads thee letter via facebook and realizes [evan thinks he's failed heidi as her child, because of how he makes her feel (bad)]

that even when heidi refutes this, prior, it's not the answer when like, "you're the one good thing that ever happened to me" is also like about as much pressure as could be put on evan, The Answer here wouldn't necessarily be like "no don't worry, i don't reject you as my child, because of how you Don't make me feel bad / Disappointed"....cynthia illustrating this, though we have little sense of how connor felt, probably not like "i feel really secure b/c my mom definitely isn't disappointed or anything"....and then "sorry i can't give you more than that" from heidi as a followup is Effectively a shutdown to conversation b/c like, what can evan say to that, it's basically on par with something like a sarcastic "well sorry i'm not perfect / i guess i'm the worst parent ever" that's like yeah obviously nobody's perfect nobody's the Best Or Worst person ever, it's a dismissal. which i hardly think heidi's Trying to dismiss evan or anything, or is being disingenuous, but again like "i'm trying my best / i can't give you more than [my best, or your being the best thing in my life]" can't really serve as any kind of Concluding Remarks if the conclusion isn't just like "okay so we haven't reached a resolution but let's cut it out now"....it's fun how of course we can understand how then heidi would find it devastatingly hurtful for evan to be like "well it's not my fault other people can [give [me] more than that]" but it's also like welllll the only reason here it's Not true is because evan's (a) got his World Of Lies going on, which heidi doesn't know is part of this situation & (b) evan is looking for validation that he's Supported as a Child figure to the murphys in these pretty superficial ways lol as per the fantasy of the like ideal suburban untroubled nuclear family unit....cynthia's just Here, with time to cook, larry's just Here, with the willingness to impart his own interests onto evan, they don't know evan has [diagnosis: anxiety] going on, evan feels like he's making these parents feel Better and themselves validated as parents, via both his fiction about how connor was maybe happier than they know, and his performance about being this no-hassle no-problems no-friction child who's also just Here. unlike connor....like tbt like eh excise the part where evan does happen to be making things up to have gotten here, and like. is it so bad he stays at another family's house when his mom's out at work. would it be so [Bad poors] if the murphys paid for college for him. heidi clearly responding to this with a "sorry, our bootstraps, you know" reasoning but Really primarily rejecting it because she's thrown at the apparent realization that evan's Replacing her with the murphys, she's rejected as his Mother....as she makes explicit in the next scene, the I'm Your Mother & they're Not Your Family(tm) like. okay, and? again, she doesn't know evan Wasn't that secretly close to connor lol and part of the point of deh is these lies bleeding into truths from the start, and Why evan lies, which isn't just "b/c he's an evil sicko?" nor as an elaborate scheme to get at zoe though like, at this moment i'm trying to puzzle out what couldn't be improved by zoe Not being a murphy....

well anyways. the tension here being like "yeah when is One Person ever """"enough"""" for anyone else all on their own. why do we demand that happen" like How & Why. no single person could or should be Everything to someone else. we even see how like Two People really don't have the resources for their One Child together completely on their own, and why is it that it Should be whittled down and isolated as much as possible. wherein the costs of being a parent, one who is tasked with bringing up a child with as little external support as possible while also already getting little external support as an individual in the first place (which a spouse, again, One Person, is supposed to fulfill in any/all ways), is supposedly offset like "well the magic of parenthood will be (Should be. if you're a good enough parent (threat)) its own rewards....and btw the child is Yours. they're someone stuck in a house with you. you can have this fantasy about Who They'll Be and try to ensure they become that. sure you're in charge of them (a burden!) but also: you're in charge of them (you can be an authority figure in this one aspect of your life). you can Always have access to them no matter what, because of the fact that as soon as a child exists, you're Now & Forever Their Parent"....i'm your mother, they're not your family....how are cynthia's like Identity Crises that are expressed to her family through cooking resolved? well, so far as we know, they aren't, but hey she's not getting divorced. zoe implying that cynthia's problems are thanks to having nothing to do / not leaving the house, such that gee evan your mom's lucky she Has to work....while evan apparently feels like heidi at least in part is always going to work b/c she hates to be around him, since he's all like well i presume you're so Not Unhappy in being the Mother to my Child that that's why you're always at home, cooking every dinner....like, what happens there? does cynthia join a club? take up a hobby? is evan Right that it's chill being stuck at home if that household is happy (as is the "it's fine having women's lives be Staying At Home, if that household is good enough :)" ideal) like well not sure but the status update is: she's not getting divorced

anyways i'm arguing against the nuclear family including in its theoretical distillation of "well god a Parent & Child if that's the very best you can do" here lmao and uhh deh not so much since the mother & son aspect Must resolve, kind of like what's supposed to be required of the parent & child aspect irl. and not like i think it's terrible it Does resolve, or it shouldn't, in this Story, but it's a definite [shhhruggg] from me like yeah that's nice but like, what's evan have going for him besides "he doesn't think his mom hates him now" (better yeah) and "he has a customer service job" (like oh my god so sorry. is this supposed to be Better? like oh he can order pizzas now? idk we don't get enough detail. ppl just get a part time job like yeah it's fine. i also have part time schooling but i'm saying it's a year off?) and this is not disconnected from how i feel about the Evan Needs To Believe He Could Have The Theoretical Perfect Gf which has to be answered in the end by zoe like, yeah i Wish we could date without the history. alas....like, Huh. why is she saying this (a) as a character & (b) as the conclusion to this story? god knows, but not like we don't know the ideals of Romance are also considered keys to the success of the nuclear family, and are an interim goal even if you don't have the kids yet, or like a begrudged Alternate goal as the next most adjacent thing, being Single has to be as vulnerable as it is re: any material or emotional support as Needed, much less what is Wanted for any further fulfillment. down to destruct the nuclear family & romance in one fell swoop baby. pointing at the camera and deh you're first (this sentence is a joke, the previous one is humorous but fully in earnest. kind of like [jared & alana (especially alana re: the earnestness)])

anyways again this is all still vague lol just sure Noting how very relevant it is that evan is motivated by a sense of his responsibility in how he affects his mother's like overall emotional landscape. while heidi does derive / seek emotional support from evan. not like her kid can be Emotionally Irrelevant to her, or like there's no good & relevant way for evan to be aware of or interact with her feelings. or like all of this is saying the point i want to make is that heidi is terrible or something. the parent i'm firing out of a cannon & into the sun is larry though lol. like heidi, being a person, can be Imperfect, and have an imperfect relationship with anyone, including her son, and have feelings, and care about her role as a mother....and all this can Not be resolved by evan simply not hating her either, or by anything else All hinging on her son. like how idk how cynthia's gonna do better than she was even before she was a grieving parent when nothing's changed for her except that a manifestation of happier memories is i guess enough that her terrible marriage can be sustained lol. larry's arc starting out dismissive ending up dismissive, with some dismissiveness in between...an anti larry zone here for sure

meanwhile it's sure just Something that like, heidi transitions into this equivalent role with 2 of evan's Peers in good for you. other people having noted that heidi being previously Rejected & presumably also pretty much fully cut out of the life of her ex husband is playing into her feelings here: a relationship of hers with a Peer. just now as i type this being like hmm interesting to juxtapose this with [so big so small] moving Away from this perhaps by tapping into evan being like a very small child. while the murphy parents, again, find resolution in turn by remembering better times with also much younger than he was connor....aaand in both cases presumably less "difficult" children than when they're teens :I like i wouldn't have heidi Not be mad or anything, another whole point here is that i wouldn't expect nor demand deh to be like, issuing a Statement about "and everything you saw up here is a model of the ideal family experience okay," heidi can even feel petty about it or have whatever other reaction and of course she's gonna feel hurt but like when it comes to Good For You i'm like, alana's grievances? hell yes go off. jared's grievances? hell yes go off. heidi's grievances? yeah alright but actually i'm more so on evan's side on this one lol....even when this scene establishes a clear pattern of "evan is also being petty & hurtful to people on purpose with his remarks here as he lashes out at each of them as things come to a head and he's deflecting responsibility" like yeah. and i feel entirely sympathetic to jared and alana here and not Unsympathetic to heidi so much as there's very immediate limits to that and (a) i don't think shutting everything down Because We're Family / I'm Your Parent as a fallback to whatever you do To your kids or whatever you fail to do For them, is legitimate, positive, constructive, non coercive and (b) heidi does & has been looking too much to evan for emotional support. wherein, again, don't need to go "i guess it's b/c she's a terrible individual" when it's like, she lives in a society....what else Does she have? where else is she Supposed to get any & all emotional needs met outside the bounds of her household (family) and her role as a parent/mother?

which is not really unrelated to evan's situation out here wherein, where is He supposed to find support and get his needs met? he doesn't feel that [at home] is providing that, even with him at least in part blaming himself for that, b/c he's not a good enough child for his mother. he turns to school as an avenue for Friendship, and when alana doesn't singlehandedly fix his whole life with a Hi before homeroom, nor does jared, and btw connor wasn't gonna do that either even if the "again i'm sorry i pushed you" hadn't been [their interaction: gone to shit: 2], like uh oh once again One Person isn't being Everything by virtue of somehow the status of "friend" making everything inherently perfect, or, [making everything perfect] defining the status of "friend," see: For Forever. see: how in sincerely me you have jared & evan effectively discussing, by proxy & creative fiction & plausible deniability, the presence of Effort & Communication in a relationship, as well as pretty much laying out a mutual belief in / effort towards successfully Becoming the person you'd like to be through deciding on who that even is and then just like, trying to be them lol. a sentiment that could hardly be wholly dismissed, people having goals, inevitably changing so you may as well be trying to be growing, but that ofc they don't have the perfect ideas at 17 of who they wanna be, How to be that person, and they sure really don't have much support to draw on for whatever efforts, And this being driven too much by insecurity & self-loathing re: who they already are, no pressure from anyone around them....and evan of course ending up thinking well the only thing that could fix my life is Romance, a Gf. and then he's not only finding himself in a situation where he feels responsible for another mom's feelings (cynthia), and feels like how people can think of the concept of connor is how they can think about him, & As he's navigating those things he starts feeling like he's finding some of What He Needs, and he already felt like it was up to him alone to do that, so of course it all escalates / continues for the next like hour & a half....he Is isolated, they all are, and not just because like uh oh evan on that damn phone

and then idk it's like yeah heidi realizing evan was actually thinking She was gonna reject Him and she tells him she won't. and for some reason zoe has to crop up to reassure evan about his potential for romance in general; meanwhile she's doing fine b/c....her parents' marriage is doing better = they're going on dates = also how cynthia is doing okay? idk. and no status updates on the couple of peers who also had no friends, weren't dating anyone, and didn't really mention family except alana's grandmother having died and jared not telling his parents anything and then only mentioning them previously to basically avoid getting in trouble with them oh and also how they'll be gone for a weekend so he's inviting his boy best friend to hang out with him the whole time like HMM to all of that!!! like well i don't think deh is really Trying to reach the most Definitive Conclusions in its story & what it's exploring, and that's great b/c (a) yeah there's a lot going on in there! and (b) it sure doesn't lmao. and i would always be detached from & in disagreement with "idk but Nuclear Family & Nuclear Romance must be like, It, right" or "idk. just be more normal" lmao. where'd your gay little peers go for the past half hour. bring them back out here

anyways i said "vague" so that i didn't have to try to muster a thesis. like yeah just noting Evan Feeling Responsible For Moms' Feelings: His Own, & Connor's, as very relevant up to his mom reassuring him she can't Feel like rejecting him / doesn't hate him. evan making sure to Behave as conveniently as possible around the murphys, and around his mom as well; while what heidi tends to talk about is what evan can/should Do, including how he should be Trying to feel, and as ppl often notice she doesn't have great boundaries, and as i'm at least noting, does need validation from evan / puts her insecurity on him in turn where again up until so big so small she's worrying about him possibly rejecting her. though she does seem to be Over That upon realizing evan felt That Bad, actually, and like thank god yeah evan doesn't have dialogue about "yeah btw mom i will never disown you" lmao. can sure look at this as just like, well, some "doing the best with what one's got?" wherein uh oh we Don't have much support outside this household/family, so it's good to improve it....like yeah sure lol and would be good if it was good even if they did both have a zillion other important connections to turn to in their lives. again, let's destroy romance and the nuclear family. and a further improvement were if cynthia got a divorce and befriended heidi (awkward at first but idc. here: they meet at a social group for divorcees and go from there lmao)

[bi-bats]

just barely holding back from sending you the entire list lmaooo. once again, feel free to pick and choose

1, 3, 5, 15, 24, 37, 42, 54, 77, 85, 100, 129, 131

Bean, my beloved. Hello dear thank you for always coming through 💖

A book that is close to your heart

Vicious by V.E. Schwab. If I had to pick a favorite book, it's probably this one. My original copy of this book is SO fucked up lmaoo

3. A stand-alone that you wish was a part of a series

OH Wilder Girls by Rory Power. What a phenomenal fucking book. It had an open ending that left me satisfied, but also really thinking about what was going to happen and wishing that I knew. I still think about this book and I read it like... four years ago?

5. Something in fiction that reads like poetry

THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR BY AMAL EL-MOHTAR AND MAX GLADSTONE HOLY SHIT HOLY FUCK I FUCKING LOVE THIS BOOK AND I HAVE FOR A LONG TIME AND ITS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BOOKS I'VE EVER READ I'M ABOUT TO READ IT FOR A FOURTH AND PROBABLY FIFTH TIME

15. A book rec you really enjoyed

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley!! This book has something for literally everyone, I'm actually in the process of re-reading it because I didn't know it was a part of a series when I first read it and my therapist keeps telling me that the way that she puts the overall plot of the series together is one of the most interesting things he's ever read

24. A book on your nightstand

The Cabinet by Un-Su Kim, The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin, The Martian by Andy Weir, Vicious by VE Schwab, I'll stop there because I'm not typing out like 20 titles for this and I wish I was joking

37. Your favorite heist book

I'm actually not entirely sure that this counts, but Anxious People by Frederick Backman. I have a bunch of heist books that I want to read, but I haven't gotten around to yet. This is one of my all time favorite recs though! I love Frederick Backman fr he's such a great author

42. A book that made you want to scream by the time you got to the end

Lost Boy by Christina Henry oh my god. Ohhhh my god. Oh my sweet lord. Everything by Christina Henry is phenomenal, but this one in particular fucked me up. This was one of those books that leaves you feeling raw and hollow at the end. It will stomp on you. It will shred your heart. It will be worth it.

54. A book with the best opening line

Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket. The opening line is literally "This morning I ate poison for breakfast." Full disclosure, if you go into that book expecting a full plot, you won't enjoy it as much. It's really a very wandery story without much plot, but I had a good time and normally I hate stuff like that. There's just something that's really so lovely about Lemony Snicket's way of writing though. Also, the audiobook is narrated by Patrick Warburton my beloved

77. A book so useless that you could use it as a coaster

Those We Drown by Amy Goldsmith. This is the only book I've ever given a zero star rating to. I've never read fanfiction as bad as this book. This is comparable to my wattpad writing when I was 12. Maybe worse. I wouldn't even use it as a coaster, because I returned it.

85. Your favorite book about magical realism

Right now it's probably Even Though We Knew The End by C.L. Polk. This book was so beautiful, and so quick, and the vibes of it were absolutely impeccable. It's a queer, noir, magical realism murder mystery. It was also slightly devastating, but in a really beautiful, hopeful, satisfying way.

100. Your favorite gothic novel

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. This is one of my favorite books of all time, and it's definitely my favorite haunted house story of all time! The plot is just phenomenal and Shirley Jackson is SO incredible. Also it's far superior to The Haunting of Hill House (which she also wrote)

129. A book with beautiful prose

Gallant by V.E. Schwab. She couldn't just have one book on this list. She's my favorite author by FAR. I just. kdfharughu. I don't know how she does it. There are always SO many banger lines in her books. The way she writes is just so. SO. Idk man. If you like my stuff, read her stuff, she's such a huge inspiration to me.

131. Recommend any book you like!

A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers OR The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey. Literally any book by either of them is phenomenal, but those are two of my favorites! They do have VASTLY different vibes though. A psalm for the wild built is like. a solar-punk utopian book about happiness and existence and success not being defined externally. And the echo wife is like. a sci-fi character study of two (three?) horribly fucked up people and also murder and also becoming the thing you fear the most and losing your humanity and rguahrgur. They're both amazing books though!

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