#i know there are many many wonderful new canon books (i've read some of them)

[ofpolitics]

so i just finished the princess and the scoundrel and it was... all but perfect. i am SO glad i bought the special edition with the poster because i now own this glorious book. it really did both han and leia justice, explored some of the issues that would arise from them marrying so quickly, and touched on both of their experiences of late multiple times. also, even though the halcyon is part of the book and you know this storyline was in part to promote it, revis does a great job of making it appear seamless. in fact, i feel like it just adds to the story. it really was a wonderful palate cleanser for disney canon book content after the last travesty!

(and for the most part, if not completely, i think this book will be part of my new canon timeline of leia!)

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

How do you analyze so good I'm really impressed and honestly wonder if I can learn from you

It's a skill, so the good news is, you can practice and get better at it!

Read A Lot/Gain Context

Analysis often means making comparisons or drawing from external context - one of the best things you can do if you want to be better at analysis is to try to cram your head with as much knowledge as possible. The time period, culture of origin, and where the author slots into those are usually major influences on a work (in Homestuck's case, much of it is a direct commentary on the internet culture it emerged from, and missing that part of it can drastically influence how the story reads).

Also important are the works the author themselves are inspired by. You've likely heard some variation of "nothing is original." We're actually really lucky with Homestuck in that regard, as the work is highly referential, and you can glean a lot by looking at what it references (for example, if you watch Serendipity, one of Karkat's favorite movies, which is titledropped during the troll romance explanation, you will understand Karkat so much better). This applies to things like mythological allusions - you'll hardly know why it matters that Karkat is a Christ figure if you don't know what the general outline of the Christ story is, nor will you pick up on the Rapture elements of Gamzee's religion or the fact that Doc Scratch is The Devil, etc. The key to picking up a lot of symbolism is being aware that the symbols exist.

And last, it helps to read a lot of media and media analysis so you can get a better understanding of how media "works" - how tropes are used, what effect language has, what other entries into the genre/works with similar themes/etc. have already done to explore the same things as the piece being analyzed is doing - and what other people have already gleaned and interpreted. I've mentioned before that many people seem to find Homestuck's storytelling bizarre and unique when it's actually quite standard for postmodernism, the genre it belongs to. But you're not going to know that if you've never read anything postmodern, y'know? I also often prepare for long character essays by reading other peoples' character essays - sometimes people pick up on things I miss, and sometimes people have interpretations I vehemently disagree with; both of these help me to refine my take on the matter.

Try to Discard Biases/Meet the Work Where It Is

Many will carry into reading media an expectation of what they want to get out of it. For example, one generally goes into a standard hetero romance book expecting a female lead, a male love interest, romance (of course), and a happy ending for the happy couple. If the book fails to deliver these things, a reader will often walk away thinking it was a bad book, even if the story told instead is objectively good and interesting. We actually see this a lot with Wuthering Heights, which receives very polarizing reviews because people go into it expecting a gothic romance, when it's really more like a gossip Youtube video spilling the tea on some shitty rich people (and it's really good at being that).

There's nothing necessarily wrong with this when reading for pleasure and personal enjoyment, but it presents a problem when attempting to analyze something. There's a concept called the "Procrustean bed," named after a mythological bandit who used to stretch people or cut off their limbs to fit them to a bed, that describes "an arbitrary standard to which exact conformity is forced." Going into a media reading with expectations and biases often results in a very Procrustean reading - I'm sure we've all seen posts complaining about how fanfic often forces canon characters to fit certain archetypes while discarding their actual character traits, etc.

Therefore, when reading for analysis, it's generally a good idea to try and discard as much bias and expectation as possible (obviously, we are never fully free of bias, but the effort counts) - or, perhaps even better, to compartmentalize those biases for comparison while reading. For example, Hussie talks at length about what they INTENDED Homestuck to be, and, while reading, I like to keep Hussie's words to the side while I try to experience the comic fresh, seeing what choices were made in accordance with Hussie's intentions, or where I think Hussie may have fumbled the messaging. At the same time, I try to let the work stand on its own, set in its proper context.

I'd say this is the number-one problem in fandom analysis. For example, people hear from the fandom that Eridan is an incel or a nice guy, so they interpret everything he says and does to fit that belief, or ignore any contradictory evidence. Or they fall for the character's façade that's meant to be dismantled by the viewer. Some works are fairly shallow and accessible, wearing all their meaning on their sleeve (or are Not That Deep, if you prefer meme-talk), and problems arise when a work is, in fact, That Deep, because someone biased towards the former will discard evidence that a work is the latter. This isn't exclusive to HS - it's happened in basically all of my fandoms - which is a statement to how easy it is to fall into this way of thinking.

Even without knowing that Hussie had coming-of-age themes in mind, for example, characters will talk about being kids and growing up. Knowing that Hussie has explicitly said that that's one of HS's themes serves as extra evidence for that interpretation, but the work itself tells you what it's about - if you're willing to listen to it.

Even If the Curtains are Just Blue, That Still Means Something

This is the next biggest fandom stumbling block - thr insinuation that when things in a work are put into the work without more explicit symbolism, that that means they're a discardable detail. This one is more about making a mindset shift - details aren't discardable, even if they don't appear to have been made with the explicit intention to mean something. Everything kind of means something.

First of all, whether or not the curtains are Just Blue is often highly dependent on the work. For example, in something made in large quantities with little time, staff, and budget - say, for example, one of the entries into the MCU's TV shows - there likely isn't too much meaning behind a choice of blue curtains in a shot (although you'd be surprised how often choices in these constrained environments are still very deliberately made). In a work like Homestuck, however, so terribly dense with symbolism and allegory, chances are, the blue curtains DO hold some special meaning, even if it's not readily apparent.

However, even in cases where a choice is made arbitrarily, it still usually ends up revealing something about the work's creative process. Going back to our MCU example, perhaps the blue curtains were chosen because the shot is cool-toned and they fit the color grading. Perhaps they were chosen because the director really likes blue. Perhaps the shot was filmed at an actual location and the blue curtains were already there. Or, even, perhaps the blue curtains were just what they had on hand, and the show was made too quickly and cheaply to bother sourcing something that would fit the tone or lend extra meaning. These all, to varying degrees, say something about the work - maybe not anything so significant that it would come up in an analysis, but they still contribute to a greater understanding of what the work is, what it's trying to say, and how successful it is at saying it.

And this applies to things with much higher stakes. For example, Hussie being a white US citizen likely had an effect on the B1 kids being mostly US citizens, and there was discourse surrounding how, even though they were ostensibly aracial, references were made to Dave's pale skin. Do I think these were deliberate choices made to push some sort of US superiority; no, obviously not. But they still end up revealing things about the creation of the work - that Hussie had certain biases as a result of being who they were.

Your Brain is Designed to Recognize Patterns, So Put That to Use

So with "establish context" and "discard expectations" out of the way, we can start getting into the nitty-gritty of what should be jumping out at you when attempting to understand a work. One of the most prominent things that you should be looking for is PATTERNS.

Writing is a highly conscious effort, which draws from highly unconscious places. Naturally, whether these patterns are intentional or unintentional is dependent on the author (see again why reading up on a work's context is so important), but you can generally bet that anything that IS a pattern is something that holds significance.

For example, Karkat consistently shows that he's very distraught when any of his friends get hurt, that he misses his friends, even the murderous assholes, that he's willing to sit them down and intervene on their behalf, despite all his grandstanding to the contrary. We are supposed to notice that Karkat actually loves his friends, and that he's lying when he says he doesn't care about them.

Homestuck is very carefully and deliberately crafted; if something comes up more than once, it's a safe bet to assume that you're supposed to notice, or at least feel, it. Don't take my word for it:

Basically, [reusing elements is] about building an extremely dense interior vocabulary to tell a story with, and continue to build and expand that vocabulary by revisiting its components often, combining them, extending them and so on. A vocabulary can be (and usually is) simple, consisting of single words, but in this case it extends to entire sentences and paragraph structures and visual forms and even entire scenes like the one linked above. Sometimes the purpose for reiteration is clear, and sometimes there really is no purpose other than to hit a familiar note, and for me that's all that needs to happen for it to be worthwhile. Triggering recognition is a powerful tool for a storyteller to use. Recognition is a powerful experience for a reader. It promotes alertness, at the very least. And in a lot of cases here, I think it promotes levity (humor! this is mostly a work of comedy, remember.) Controlling a reader's recognition faculty is one way to manipulate the reader's reactions as desired to advance the creative agenda.

But this applies to less deliberately-crafted work, too; for example, if an author consistently writes women as shallow, cruel, and manipulative, then we can glean that the author probably has some sort of issue with women. Villains often being queer-coded suggests that the culture they come from has problems with the gays. Etc. etc.

This is how I reached my conclusion that Pale EriKar is heavily foreshadowed - the two are CONSTANTLY kind to each other, sharing secrets, providing emotional support, etc. etc. It's why that part of my Eridan essay is structured the way that it is - by showing you first how consistently the two interact in suspiciously pale-coded ways, the fact that a crab is shown in both Eridan's first appearance AND his appearance on the moirallegiance "hatched for each other" page becomes the cincher of a PATTERN of the two being set up to shoosh-pap each other.

A work will tell you about itself if you listen. If it tells you something over and over, then it's basically begging you to pay attention.

Contrast is Important, Too

Patterns are also significant when they're broken. For example, say a villain is constantly beating up the protagonist. Here's our pattern: the hero is physically weaker than the villain. In a straight fight, the hero will always lose.

And then, at the mid-season two-parter, the hero WINS. Since we've set up this long pattern of the hero always losing to this villain, the fact that this pattern was disrupted means that this moment is extremely important for the work. Let's say the hero wins using guile - in this case, we walk away with the message that the work is saying that insurmountable obstacles may have workarounds, and adaptability and flexibility are good, heroic traits. Now let's say the hero won using physical strength, after a whole season of training and practicing - in this case, we say that the work says hard work and effort are heroic, and will pay off in the end.

In Homestuck, as an example, we set up a long pattern of Vriska being an awful, manipulative bitch, and a fairly remorseless killer. And then, after killing Tavros, she talks to John and admits that she's freaking out because she feels really bad about it. This vulnerability is hinted at by some of her earlier actions/dialogue, which is itself a pattern to notice, but it's not really explicit until it's set up to be in direct contrast to the ultimate spider8itch move of killing Tavros. This contrast is intended to draw our attention, to point out something significant - hey, Vriska feels bad! She's a product of her terrible society and awful lusus! While it's shitty that she killed Tavros, she's also meant to be tragic and sympathetic herself!

Hussie even talks about how patterns and surprises are used in tandem:

Prior to Eridan's entrance into the room, and even during, the deaths were completely unguessable. After Feferi's death, Kanaya's becomes considerably more so, but still quite uncertain. After her death, all bets are off. Not only do all deaths thereafter become guessable, but in some cases, "predictable". That's because it was the line between a series of shocking events, and the establishment of an actual story pattern. The new pattern serves a purpose, as a sort of announcement that the story is shifting gears, that we're drifting into these mock-survival horror, mock-crime drama segments, driven by suspense more than usual. The suspense has more authority because of all the collateral of unpredictability built up over time, as well as all the typical stuff that helps like long term characterization. But now that the pattern is out in the open, following through with more deaths no longer qualifies as unpredictability. Just the opposite, it would now be playing into expectations, which as I said, can be important too. This gear we've switched to is the new normal, and any unpredictability to arise thereafter will necessarily be a departure from whatever current patterns would indicate.

Patterns are important because they tell you what baselines the work is setting - what's normal, what's standard, what this or that generally "means." Contrast is important because it means something has changed, or some significant point is being made. They work in tandem to provide the reader with points of focus in the story, things to keep in mind as they read, consciously or unconsciously.

Theme

I'm talking about this stuff in pretty broad and open terms because stories are so malleable, and so myriad, and can say so many things. There are stories where horrible cruelties are painted as good things - propoganda is the big one, but consider all the discourse around romance books that paint abusive/toxic relationships as ideal. There are stories where the protagonist is actually the villain, and their actions are not aspirational, and works where everyone sucks and nobody is aspirational, and works where everybody is essentially a good person, if sometimes misguided.

This is, again, why outside context is so important, and biases need to be left at the door. For example, generally speaking, one can assume that the protagonist of a children's cartoon is going to be an aspirational hero, or at least a conflicted character who must learn to do the right thing. However, there are even exceptions to this! Invader Zim, for example, features an outright villain protagonist - a proud servant of a fascist empire - and for a lower-stakes example, the Eds of Ed, Edd, n' Eddy are the neighborhood scammers, constantly causing problems for the other characters with their schemes.

Thus, how do we determine what any particular narrative's stance on a given topic is? It's a difficult question to answer because every narrative is different. If I say something like, "the things that bring the protagonists success in their goals are what the narrative says are good," then we run into the issue of villain/gray morality protagonists. To use moral terms like "hero" and "villain" instead runs into the problem of defining morality within a narrative in the first place. But you have to draw the line somewhere.

So that brings us to themes.

Now, as with a lot of artistic terms, "theme" isn't necessarily well-defined (this isn't helped by the way the word is used colloquially to mean things like aesthetic, moral of the story, or symbolism). Wikipedia says: "In contemporary literary studies, a theme is a central topic, subject, or message within a narrative," but this is still very broad and hard to work with, so I'll give it a shot.

A theme is what a work says, beyond the literal series of events. Sometimes a theme is obvious - the theme of Boy Who Cried Wolf is that if you become famous for lying, you won't be believed when you tell the truth. Sometimes a theme is one of many - for example, Disney's Cinderalla says that kindness and virtue will eventually be recognized and rewarded, and that cruelty is interlinked with ugliness. Sometimes a theme is unintentional - for example, how Disney's body of work tends to villainize queer-coded characters. Sometimes context and the passage of time changes the theme - for example, Snow White originally held a message of hope for wartime families that domestic normalcy would one day return, but is now seen as anti-feminist as it appears to insinuate that a woman's place is in the kitchen, and her happiness is in marriage to a man. And sometimes a theme is not something you agree with.

In any case, a theme is a meaning to be gleaned from the text, more broad and universally applicable than the text itself. After all, we humans have traditionally always used story to impart meaning; our oldest epic, The Epic of Gilgamesh, contains within it several themes, most famously that of accepting one's mortality. It's startling, really, how applicable the story is to this day, even if specific details have become obtuse or unsavory to a modern reader.

This is, again, why it's so important to engage with a text on its own terms, in its own context, with as little bias as possible. A story's themes are not necessarily apparent, and commonly implied rather than stated outright, and approaching the story with expectations can easily lead to a Procrustean twisting of the facts to fit those expectations. A theme should emerge to the analyzer out of the reading, not the other way around.

Identifying theme gets easier with practice, and largely comes down to identifying patterns within the narrative (alongside looking at context and symbolism, of course). What does the narrative consistently touch base on? Are there any references; is there any symbolism? What does the story deem "normal," "good," or "bad"? How are ideas developed, and why? Why did these events happen, and are those motivations echoed anywhere else?

Homestuck is very complex and tackles many topics at once, and explaining why it's a coming-of-age would basically require a whole second essay, so I'll use a simpler and more popular example (like I've been trying to do) - let's say, Shrek.

The most obvious theme of Shrek is that beauty does not equate goodness, that one mustn't judge a book by its cover. The opening sequence is LITERALLY Shrek ripping out pages of a fairy tale book to use as toilet paper, and the movie ends with Fiona finding that her happiest, truest self IS as an ugly ogre. Shrek's main character conflict is that people immediately judge him as cruel and evil because he's ugly, and the characters' lowest points occur because Fiona is similarly insecure about her ogre half, considering it unlovable.

But there's other stuff in there, too. For example, if you know that Dreamworks and Shrek were founded after a falling out with Disney, then the beautiful, sanitized city of Dulac, with its switchback queue and singing animatronics add to this theme of a direct refutation of traditional Disney fairytale values, mocking them as manufactured, inhuman, and even cruel in the way that they marginalize those who don't fit an ideal of beauty. Again we see the opening sequence - defacing a fairytale - as support for this, but also the way that Dulac is displacing fairytale creatures. There's a moment where Gepetto literally sells Pinocchio, which can easily be read as a commentary on the crass commercialization and exploitation of fairy tales Disney likes to do.

And then, of course, there are lesser, supplementary themes. Love being a powerful positive force is one - Donkey is able to rally Shrek after he truly reciprocates Dragon's love for him (which echoes the theme of not equating goodness with beauty, as Dragon is still big and scary), and it's true love's kiss that grants Fiona her happy ending.

And then there's stuff that's unintentional. There's all this work done about how beauty =/= goodness, but then they made the villain incredibly short, which is a traditionally unattractive physical feature. So, does that mean that ugly things can be beautiful unless that ugliness is specifically height?

Sometimes, authorial intent does not match up with result - but in those instances, I think the most is revealed about the author. Modern Disney products tend to be very cowardly about going anti-corporation and pro-weirdness, despite their usual feel-good tones and uplifting themes - and that says a lot about Disney, doesn't it. That's why I think it's still important to keep authorial intent in mind, if possible, even if they fumble what they say they've set out to do.

Obviously, Lord Fuckwad being short doesn't REALLY detract from the overall message - but it's still a weird hitch in the themes, which I think is interesting to talk about, so you can see where personal judgement and biases DO have to be applied. There are two options here, more or less - either one believes that Shrek is making an exception for short people, who are of the Devil, or one believes that the filmmakers did a bit of an oopsie. Barring an outright statement from the filmmakers, there's no way to know for sure.

We can say a work has very complex themes when it intentionally explores multiple ideas very deeply. We can say a work has shallow themes when it doesn't have much intentional meaning, and/or that meaning is explored very lightly. The labyrinthine storytelling of Homestuck, with its forays into mortality, morality, and growing up, chock full of symbolism and pastiche and allusions, is a work with complex themes - especially as compared to the average newspaper comic strip, although they ostensibly share a genre.

We can say a work has very unified themes when these themes serve to compliment each other - the refutation of Disney-esque values, and love as a positive driving force, compliment the main theme in Shrek of not judging books by their covers, of beauty not equating to goodness. Ugly things are worthy of love, and those who push standards of beauty are evil and suck.

Similarly, we can say a work has unfocused or messy themes when the themes it includes - intentionally or not - contradict, distract, and/or detract from each other. Beauty has no correlation to goodness... unless you're short, in which case, you are closer to Hell and therefore of evil blood. To get a little controversial, this is actually why I didn't like Last Wish very much - there are approximately three separate storylines, with three separate thematic arcs, going on in the same movie, none of which particularly compliment each other - so the experience was very messy to me, story-wise, even though it was pretty and the wolf was hot. This is why we feel weird about Disney pushing anti-corporate messages, when they're a big corporate machine, or why it's easy to assume Homestuck was written poorly if you don't like Hussie - we want themes to be coherent, we want context to be unified with output.

Tone

Tone is somehow even harder to define than theme. It's like, the "vibe" of a work. For example, you generally don't expect something lighthearted to deal with the realistic, brutal tragedies of war. Maybe it'll touch on them in light, optimistic ways, but it isn't about to go All Quiet on the Western Front on the reader. By the same token, you don't expect fully happy endings out of the melodrama of opera, or frivolous slice of life from something grimdark.

Tone, too, is something people often wind up Procrusteanizing, which makes discussion difficult if two people disagree. If I read Homestuck as unwaveringly optimistic, with its downer ending the result of an author fumble, I'm pretty much going to irreconcileably disagree with somebody who reads Homestuck as though it's always been a kind of tragedy where things don't work out for the characters. Since it's even more difficult to define than theme, I'm not even really going to bother; I just felt like I had to bring it up because, despite its nebulosity, it's vital to how one reads and interprets a text. Sometimes I don't have a better answer for why I dislike a certain interpretation other than that it doesn't suit the work's tone. I generally try to avoid saying that, though, because it winds up smacking of subjective preference.

In summary... analysis is about keeping everything in mind all the time! But i swear, it gets easier the more you do it. Happy reading!

[intermundia]

Hey Will!

You seem to be very well-versed in the Star Wars books, and I was wondering if you could recommend essential reading as regards Obi-Wan and Anakin’s relationship (or character studies of them in general)? We all know about the ROTS novelization, but I was wondering what else you would recommend?

Any other prequel era book recs would be welcomed as well!

Apologies if you’ve already posted about this!

Obi-Wan and/or Anakin:

Legacy of the Jedi 📖🔰📙

Jedi Apprentice series 📖🔰📙

The Life and Legend of Obi-Wan Kenobi 📖🔰📙

Padawan 📖🔰📗💙

Star Wars: Republic: The Stark Hyperspace War 💥📙

Master & Apprentice 📖📗

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan: The Aurorient Express 💥📙

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan: Last Stand on Ord Mantell 💥📙

Cloak of Deception 📖📙

Star Wars: Obi-Wan 💥📗

Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace novelization 📖📕

Rogue Planet 📖📙💙

Jedi Quest series 📖🔰📙

Star Wars: Obi-Wan and Anakin 💥📗💙

The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader 📖🔰📙

Age of Republic - Obi-Wan Kenobi 1 💥📗

The Approaching Storm 📖📙

Star Wars (2020) #25: "the Lesson (Obi-Wan & Anakin)*"💥📗

Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones novelization 📖📕

Star Wars: Republic: The Battle of Jabiim 💥📙💙

Brotherhood 📖📗

Age of Republic - Anakin Skywalker 1 💥📗

Star Wars: The Clone Wars novelization 📖📙

The Clone Wars: Wild Space 📖📙💙

Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth 📖📙

Clone Wars Gambit: Siege 📖📙

Star Wars: Republic: Dreadnaughts of Rendili 💥📙

Secrets of the Jedi 📖🔰📙

Jedi Trial 📖📙

Labyrinth of Evil 📖📙

Dark Disciple 📖📗

Star Wars: Obsession💥📙💙

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith novelization 📖📕💙

Star Wars: Darth Vader (2017) 💥📗💙

Kenobi 📖📙

Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader 📖📙

Lords of the Sith 📖📗

Thrawn: Alliances 📖📗

Star Wars: A New Hope novelization 📖📕

Star Wars (2015) 💥📗

Star Wars: Darth Vader (2015) 💥📗💙

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back novelization 📖📕

Star Wars (2020) 💥📗

Star Wars: Darth Vader (2020) 💥📗

Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi novelization 📖📕

📖 = book 💥 = comic 🔰 = YA 📙 = legends 📕 = quasi-canon (novelizations only canon when they line up with the films) 📗 = canon 💙 = favorite or essential imho

this list is not at all comprehensive, but merely the ones that i have found to be good sources for both/either characters as i've explored the lore over time!! they are not all of equal credibility, with legends and YA novels being less vivid in the mind than the canon ones. i'm listing so many because i like so many, but this is hopefully not intimidating as much as it is a full buffet for you to choose from!!!

also: 💙 Darth Plagueis 💙 it's not about the Team, but it is a phenomenal worldbuilding book for the prequels in general

<!--also also: the tv shows and movies are the most important sources for the characters, more important than the written word: the prequel films and the original trilogy, the clone wars movie, the kenobi show, the 2008 clone wars tv show, some rebels, (and then the legends 2003 clone wars tv show) are best sources for them. it’s a lot to watch but it's the most accurate representation of who they are!--->

[aziraphales-library]

Hi mods! I'm new to the fandom so I was shocked seeing the AO3 tag for the first time. Largest fandom I've joined by far (difference in fic count is in the tens of thousands), so thank you so much for your hard work!! After finishing S2 I've read great fics where Aziraphale apologizes/decides he made the wrong choice, but I've had difficulty finding fics with a POV that A + C were both asking the impossible of one another. I was wondering if you have any s2 recs where that's explored? TY again!

Hello and welcome! Here are some fics in which they talk and both of them acknowledge mistakes...

undercover by Lilian (T)

Aziraphale seeks a broken Crowley out to talk to him again. This time they do slightly better. Story picks up right from where the show left us.

Three Kisses…and then Rabbits. by impatient14 (M)

The thing is, Crowley didn’t know. Not entirely, at least. Not in the same way he knew the measure of every nebula, the heartbeat of every star. He wasn’t given the tools–wasn’t afforded the right–to know. He’d thought around it, of course. He’d spent many a moment (or century) daydreaming impossible things. He’d read enough books and seen enough movies to feel pretty confident about the mechanics, at least. He’d even written a little scene or two himself–carefully vague, of course, and never to the extent of his mind’s vivid imagination. Given an Effort, his body responded the same way theirs do; it was all pleasant ache, shivering heat, and dazzling hope. And yet. When the moment came, it wasn’t what he was promised. *** Or, three kisses between and an angel and a demon.

the human custom of wrong love by pinklemonades (T)

He supposes he should’ve seen it coming from the moment they met in the garden when their lives became inextricably intertwined to the point of mutually assured destruction if either of them tried to leave. (or in which Aziraphale realizes that Heaven will never care for him the way he wanted them to, Crowley can’t figure out why he can’t let go and leave as easily as Aziraphale did, and the two lovers realize they need to learn how to love without hurting)

You must remember this by HolRose (T)

Aziraphale and Crowley have their extremely alcoholic breakfast at The Ritz at the angel’s invitation. Important conversations are had, harking back to their shared experience of one night in 1942. A canon-compliant fix-it fic.

only then i am human by Angelofsmalldeath69 (G)

When his phone rang he let out a squeak, heart stuttering. He stood up so fast his chair almost fell over, and paced for a moment before grabbing the phone. “Hello?” “Hello, Archangel. The demon has arrived! I’ve been asked to let you know.” Aziraphale screwed his eyes shut, holding the phone to his ear with both hands so it wouldn’t fall from his trembling grasp. He managed a thank you, set the phone down, and grabbed the edge of his desk to keep him upright. He could do this. So what if he was the worlds worst liar? Who cared about his awful case of stage fright? None of that mattered, not when it came to him. If he had to put on a show to keep his beloved safe then Goddamnit- this would be the greatest performance of his life.

- Mod D

[stormblessed95]

Hello Storm,

where is the ending line between "good" shipping and "bad" shipping?

I'm talking about fictional characters AND real persons from various media and genres ,canon and non-canon.

As a BL fan and mostly a fanfic reader for almost 15+ years (!), four years ago Jikook became my first rps couple and I decided it will be definitely the LAST .

Some limits and boundaries around BTS' shipping community got crossed several times with poor taste and insane thoughts .

So now I started to questioning things ..for example, maybe it's better to go back to canon BL-media, leave the members alone and focusing - only musically speaking - to the group ?

Going cold turkey on Ao3 ? Avoiding shipping AND supporting spaces in general?

Too many questions and I admit I'm a overthinker, but after the Tkk french book maybe is really getting out of control for everyone.

Hello my love! As a very avid shipper since a very young age, who before Jikook, doesn't really engage in RPS spaces either, I 1000% get what you mean. So here is where I'm going to link you to a bunch of different posts I've made before that cover this topic. Will you come back and let me know if they helped or not? 💜

This post covers the question what is shipping culture in kpop

This post is about the question, what are ship wars?

This post is I think where I draw that line of what is good shipping (supporting Jikook as individuals and potentially queer ones at that) and bad shipping.

Dealing with rumors about RPS ships by shippers post here

Respecting Privacy Post here

And here is my post where I talk about fanfiction in real person ships. You'll notice the tkkr hate book is an example that falls directly under my "things not to do and cross lines and aren't okay" paragraph. Lol

In the end, do whatever you are most comfortable with. Outside of my blog and a few others, I do not engage with a ton of RPS fics. I read some that are sent to me from friends I trust to engage in that stuff nicely and correctly and that's basically it. I've gotten a few recs from here also and only read the ones that sounded like I would be comfortable with. In fandom spaces, you have to interact with them in whatever way works best for you personally. And if you can quit ao3 cold turkey, I would so shocked and impressed 😂 I could never. I have 10 ao3 tabs open right now lmfao

Hope those posts help 💜💜💜

[blossoms-phan]

will never pass up the opportunity, so! i am asking. what are your phanfic recommendations?

ask (honoured!) and you shall receive bestie! quick preface: i returned to the wonderful world of reading phanfic around the start of this year and have admittedly missed out on years of incredible work i am now catching up on! also in terms of what i read i generally lean towards current-era fics, canon compliant/fluff/smut- although i'm always taking recs from lovely moots/whoever, you may find this isn't the largest range (no aus/long chapter fics or whatever) but this is just a selection of what i've discovered/loved in the past few months and i hope to make more of these as i discover more writings!

shoutout to everyone on here for their recs, all the incredible fanfic writers and the peeps at @phanfictioncatalogue for their work and accessibility and being the reason i discovered so many new fics/tropes i now love <3 ok lets get into ittttttttt

"you look at my face a lot" by natigail: i credit this fic for getting me into reading phanfic again in 2024 <3 one of the first ones i read post-hiatus and i've returned to it countless times! it makes my heart jump, just so sweet and so them. the slittening(s) were such an iconic moment i can't believe it's been 6+ months since them but i love the little moments like dan describing phil's hair colour to a sephora worker, always wanting to know more about each other and the soft intimacy.

"the angel in the marble" by ivylakes: OHH MY GOODNESS this one is artttt. this one is my fave of the post-phlondeing fics i can just see and feel everything that happens, the loving, lazy intimacy, and following this week's t-shirt events it absolutely cements my HC that angel is a nickname for our philly. introspection, hair-kissing, body worship- i eat it up (im having a thing for mirrors in fics rn so there's also that)

"slumber party" by possumdnp: if i wasn't already clear reality-based fics really just do it for me and i love this one!! slumber party is one of my favourite recent-ish gaming vids and i just love the cozy comfort vibes of having a sleepover and getting a little flirty with your best friend/crush going on 15 years <3

"after the birthday stream" by trashcanfromgallifrey: the birthday stream ignited something in all of us but this is just such a perfect depiction of (possible) events after hehe. feels so them, just love the loving intimacy and shower activities and fluffy endings with cake <3 (shoutout hannah ily!!)

"lovers, keep on the road you're on" by possumdnp: another personal fave. japhan 2019 is EVERYTHING to me, this is so lovely and well-researched and i just go in between reading this and watching the stories from it when i want to cry and book a flight to tokyo

"welcome home! (never leave that long again)" by natigail: this one is just soooooo soft and sweet and fluffy. so heartwarming and one of the many wad reunion fics that has my heart <3

ok i'm going to end up including all 40+ of my bookmarks (not a lot. but working on it hehe) if i don't stop myself so as much as i could write paragraphs about all of these just know that my PPA test is positive and i was probably sweating/giggling/kicking my feet at all of these so here's a speedrun list of pure smut (sorry it's a lot of what i read lmao):

"juxtaposition", "slow down", "sensitive", "some kind of mood" and literally everything written by the force that is intoapuddle

"come light me up" by JudeAraya (perhap not pure smut but I loveeee the teasing and characterization in this so so dan ugh)

"appreciation" by Scuddleduck

"a little vitamin D" by Spring_Haze

"good for you, good for you" and "under my thumb" by dvp_95

"lucky" by iihappydaysii

i could keep going but for now i'm going to stop here! i'm sorry if this is messy i have no idea what i'm doing with linking and stuff but i hope this introduces at least one person to a new fic they end up loving! i lurked/read sooo many fics before finally creating an a03 account only a little over a month ago so i def might be missing some i've forgotten to go back and bookmark! shoutout to all of these writers (i could include multiple works from them all u ppl are amazing)- again i'm soo open to discovering more phanfic and want to expand my horizons, i've started to read some chaptered fics i didn't include on here but will reblog more current reads where i can! also if we're moots pls shamelessly promote your works i'd love to check them out! need to start commenting more too but ok ok wrapping it up

[pesky--dust]

Ever since I read an interview where Fuller was upset because a movie wasn’t faithful to the original source material I think no wonder he keeps trying to add in stuff from other Hannibal books and sprinkling Clarice everywhere. It’s disappointing because I think the show is at its best when it’s doing something different and letting its characters stand on their own. Some lines he kept in didn’t even make sense like the Red Dragon thinking Will wasn’t handsome because he’s not in the book but he most definitely is in the tv show.

To be honest, I don't feel "objective" enough on this topic, because my first contact with Lecter's universe was Silence of the Lambs when I was a teenager. Then, in the mood for some crime-psychological series, I decided to give NBC's Hannibal a try. I started reading the books at the very end, so I think that watching the movie and series before the source material changes my perception of it, which is quite common when it comes to adaptations.

When it comes to me though, until recently I believed that the best adaptations were films/series that were fully faithful to the source material. It's only recently that I've started to learn what adaptation actually means and that no, not always being fully faithful to the source material is good.

I understand that Clarice's absence may be disappointing, but in case of Hannibal, I usually try to separate the book and TV series canon. And if I'm honest, while reading the books, I enjoyed recognizing parts I already knew from the series and movies. It gave me a new context of all of that.

Learning that Will mixes with Clarice in the series happened quite quickly after I finished watching the series, so I took it as quite natural that the lines about Clarice in the book/films were used for Will and I think it's good, since he took the role of Hannibal "lover". Changing the context of the conversation about "imago"? This is a moment in Mizumono that still gets me every single time.

However, it makes me chuckle a little bit, when I see how often fans of the series think that the producers came with the most beautiful lines about love, when most of the iconic words from the series (like: "If I saw you everyday forever, I would remember this time", "feel stab of hunger and find nourishment at the very sight of...", etc.), actually come from the books.

I got kinda sad though, when I realised how many of Doctor Bloom's lines the show assigned to Hannibal to make him seem even more amazing and "superhuman", because I feel like it strippes Doctor Bloom of their (in books it's a male, in the series it's a woman, so their) inteligence, making Doctor Bloom mainly a love interest for two seasons.

I know the show's creators didn't get the rights to Clarice, but at the same time, they poured a lot of her into the character of Miriam Lass and sometimes you may wonder why they didn't replace Clarice entirely with her. Does this have to do something with rights as well?

The changes introduced by the series with the usage of the source material fascinate me and I guess that I like most of them.

I have to admit though that the third season really neglects Francis Dolarhyde and I only understood what was actually happening in season 3B after reading the book.

But I disagree that Francis' comment about Will's appearance doesn't fit here! It is known that both in the book and in the adaptations Francis has very low self-esteem. If I remember correctly, in the book he aims the knife at Will's eye but hits him in the face instead, the same in the series. He may comment that Will is ugly, but still, he aimed at his face, as if in jealousy that Will "sees" him but hasn't experienced what he has.

[avelera]

I saw the IWTV finale early thanks to a kind soul sharing it with me!

A few (spoiler-y) thoughts:

Really interesting how they reimagined and framed the ending of this take on IWTV with Louis and Lestat mourning Claudia together. It feels like Justice For Claudia in many ways, it feels like a fitting homage to the origins of Claudia's character (the dead of Anne Rice's daughter from leukemia as a child), and in general was just a really interesting way to sort of give this closure the book never did and also use it to realistically allow them both to push forward past their toxic and abuse past into a somewhat plausible healed future.

It was also a decent reminder, to me, that these are vampires. These characters live forever. I would not condone Louis/Lestat in real life because life is too short to keep going back to an abusive ex. But these guys are vampires. Do not do as they do. But genuinely 70 years, a human lifetime, is realistically long enough to say, "Hey, we're new people now, we've learned and suffered a lot, we lost our daughter and it was fucked up. Maybe all we have is each other." And make peace with each other on that front.

BUT NOW I'M WONDERING HOW WE GET ROCKSTAR LESTAT - ok because Louis kind of got Lestat's book motivation for becoming a rockstar? The "Fuck you, come find me," to all the other vampires. Lestat I believe only speculates that as Louis' motivation, but they made it canon (or I could be wrong).

But that was Lestat's motivation for HIS book, making Louis and the others come find him. Since that's been solved with Louis coming to find him (lovely little homage to the IWTV movie with him playing the harpsichord) now I'm wondering if Louis is the one who encourages Lestat to become a rockstar and write down his book.

Thing is, it's not totally contradicted by the book. (SPOILERS) TVL does end with a beat where Louis and Lestat reunite and Louis is kind of his groupie for a bit. Moving that up so Louis is part of Lestat's rise is actually a really lovely touch, it gives them a bit more time together before shit goes down, and I could totally see this version of Louis as Lestat's agent since he's shown to have that business acumen.

Now that Daniel is a vampire (OMG OMG OMG MORE ON THAT IN A SECOND) the risk is no longer so bad for him to come interview Lestat and I'm sure he's salivating to do so and Louis would definitely invite Vampire Daniel to do the interview for Lestat's book, since there's no fear for his safety (or at least, not as much) anymore. And Daniel would jump at the chance. It would be a fabulous framing device, Rockstar Lestat with his agent, Louis, inviting Daniel to interview Lestat for his next book AND it means we get Daniel's snark throughout Lestat's story.

OK SO DANIEL BEING A VAMPIRE. Definitely leaves the door open for past AND present Devil's Minion WITH THE ADDED BONUS of Daniel not going insane after he's turned (likely owed to not being turned while still a drug addled young man so, hey, if there was past Devil's Minion where Armand said no, kudos to him for reading the situation correctly that vampirism would drive young Daniel insane but not Old Man Daniel).

I was SLIGHTLY, SLIGHTLY bummed to see Daniel as a vampire without getting to see the whole Daniel/Armand situation but only slightly. There wasn't enough room in the season, it would have been a distraction, and IMO we can now save it properly for its place in either TVL or QOTD, which I bet are going to be Seasons 3-4 or as many as 3-6 if we stick to 2 seasons per book.

A take on Devil's Minion where past and present Devil's Minion are intertwined would be AMAZING and I've got my fingers crossed that's how they do it. Maybe interweave a bit of Vampire Armand.

I don't think/know if we're going to get a full Vampire Armand season BUT I do believe the show is going to pivot its POV lens to say, hey, everyone's got a point of view, everyone's got a reason. At some point, we're going to get more of Armand's POV and why he did what he did because I imagine his version will be different from Louis', just as Lestat's is, that's the whole basis of the show. And in there maybe we'll get some past Daniel/Armand.

Ok this already got away from me but ANYWAY, those are my thoughts for now.

[kaytheday]

Two-Bits Sister Head Canon's

Hello! I've decided to make this into a series because I'm so interested about the girls from the Outsiders so much and I'm so sad we don't get to know to know much more about them. I will link that masterlist here and I'll probably update it once a week. It will be mostly Head Canons and One-Shots of all the different girls.

This is the first installment! It's about Two-Bits sister because that's what won the poll. Bear with me, I don't know what of this is actually canon or not but we're doing our best! More under the cut!

Her name is Susan Eloise Mathews but everyone calls her Susie for short. 

She’s in 8th grade. A year younger than Ponyboy in school and age. 

Curly red haired with freckles and pale skin. 

Susie was made fun of a lot for her red hair in school but she learned to deflect in the same way her brother does. Jokes. 

Her sense of humor takes on a more self-deprecating  shape because of this. 

Her father abandoning the family also had a big play in the style of jokes and wisecracks she adopts. After he left, she wondered for a long time if it had something to do with her or if it was her fault. 

When he left, Susie found out through a note from her mother who had just left for work.. She was sitting on the back porch crying when Two-Bit found her. He just held her and told her everything was going to be okay because she had him. 

She believed him but a secret part of her was worried that Two-Bit thought it was her fault that their dad left in the first place. 

Susie is the only one who doesn’t call Two-Bit by his nickname consistently. She is always calling him Keith, because that’s what she grew up calling him and she knows it annoys him. 

Two-Bit has also made many promises to her to stop drinking because their dad used to drink. He never has kept that promise. 

Susie often worries that Two-Bit will end up like her dad, but she never says it. 

Susie is also pretty smart in school, she only really gets in trouble for disrupting the class, being a smart-ass, passing notes, and gossiping.  

She likes to read. After her dad left, Ponyboy let her borrow a lot of books to try and make her feel better. 

Susie talks a lot. She talks very loud and tends to ramble.

Darry has a soft spot for her for some reason, but you know none of the gang would let anything happen to her. 

Speaking of which, one time this boy at the drive-in snapped her training bra and Two-Bit and Steve beat him up so bad he couldn’t walk straight for a week. 

When Pony and Johnny went to Windrixville, Two-Bit would come home really drunk and crying and that scared her something awful. 

She’d never seen Two-Bit so regretful and scared for something. She tried her best to get him out of it and offered to go to Texas with him to search. 

She cried after Dally and Johnny's funerals when she was alone. She didn’t cry during it because she didn’t feel like she got to. Two-Bit and Pony were having such a hard time she didn’t want to say anything.

She tried her best to help Two-Bit and even visited Pony a little when he was sick. She brought him some new books and stayed by his bedside for a couple hours. 

[olivieblake]

I know it's SO silly to avoid posting spoilers on a fic that was written almost a decade ago but @wonniesverse asked about what happens in chapter 35 or 36 or whatever of Marked (you know the one) and I am putting my answer under the cut!!! it's unfortunately kind of a short answer lol

hi! i am so sorry if i've got the wrong account but i had just recently read the clean and marked dramione series you wrote on ao3, and i was genuinely FLOORED. yep it's me lol this was the first fic i had ever genuinely cried for, the way you expressed hermione's and draco's relationship so well. the fic was written so long ago - in 2016 - and you might have forgotten about it, ahahahah pls but i had one question i simply couldn't ignore for the life of me: when snape used the time turner, he went to another parallel universe, right?

sorry to interrupt you here, but no! he used the time turner to go back in time, within the same universe, in a time loop. as with the events of book 3, there is still only one universe and only one timeline—there are briefly two harrys and two hermiones in the book because they're the ones who used the time-turner, but in this case, only snape went back, so he's the only one who is experiencing both the current timeline and the rewritten past.

so the new universe's hermione and draco could feel the phantom original universe's draco and hermione's experiences, so the original universe must still have been existing and operating alongside the new parallel one, meaning that the original hermione and draco were still there (please correct me if i'm wrong!).

so again, there is only one timeline, but them being able to feel the echoes of other decisions and other lives was meant to be sort of ineffable. magic!!! etc etc

but i was wondering, if that was a separate timeline, what happened to the original universe's draco and hermione if they still existed? i know draco died in the original universe, but i was curious how the original universe's hermione (master of death) lived after that, and if she ever found joy again, or if she only talked to the ghost of draco forever, and i also wonder how theo fared in that original timeline. there are so many other questions i'd like to ask, but i'll keep this as short as i can.

I made a joke in this week's not writing video that the oversaturation of multiverse media has led to some confusion so yeah, the timeline is disrupted and written over, like—oops maybe this is too Aged a reference—but it's like when you record over an existing VHS and the original footage is simply lost. but there is also the concept of a palimpsest, which is what I wanted those echoes of another life to feel like

as for what would have happened if that timeline continued: what the story suggests (the reason snape went back to begin with) is that the timeline is hopeless—draco is dead and can't be resurrected, hermione maybe never moves on, she allows absolute power to corrupt her absolutely. but that was the point of the story, that the pressure point that re-starts the time loop each time is that draco dies and everything goes irreparably wrong from there. you are of course welcome to reimagine something else! but that was the point of writing a story that resets to canon; I was trying to resolve and explain all the places where something doesn't make sense, like whenever an adult makes a terrible and illogical decision

the way that you wrote of hermione's heartbreak truly tore me apart, and i cried unabashedly when i saw draco died. draco loved her so much and she loved him, so to kill one of them would be utter torture, and i hope the original hermione got to find peace or at the very least see draco in the afterlife. theo was so strong too - even though he wished he could be selfish and talk to draco too, he knew he couldn't take even the ghost of draco away from hermione, so he gave up his chance. i cannot even begin to describe how this story broke my heart and mended it again, and i'm happy that at least the hermione and draco in the other parallel universe got their happy ending, but i also worry about the original hermione and draco too. if you've read until here, thank you so so much for just indulging and entertaining this silly question of mine, and i wholly understand if you don't feel like reading this question anymore. nonetheless, regardless of if you read or reply to this message, i just wanted to let you know that this series was truly of the best i have ever read, and i thank you so so much for that. again, if this is the wrong account, i apologize! but the fic was written in 2016, and the author said this was her tumblr account, so i found the best match i could <3

hahahaah it's so funny to me that you would have any doubt that this was me... I still pretty much write endings that people get mad

but thank you so much for caring this much about the story and I'm so glad you enjoyed it!!

[breathlesswordsbloodyknees]

Change and Divine Judgment

Alright y'all, I keep telling myself I need to write something light and fluffy, but instead this is what came out. I'd like to say I promise I'm not always this intense, I am going through a lot right now...but tbh I'm not sure how true that is. This is a bit of a doozy. But, I do think it ends on hope. I know it's one I needed to see laid out. And I hope...well, I hope it helps someone out there too.

Please have empathy for me and yourself while you read. Thanks in advance for taking the time.

Expanding on Sauron's redemption failure, regarding discussions about Eru/Manwe/Eonwe judgment, coming from my post Narrative Doom. (I'm sorry, I can't be bothered with the umlauts)

TRIGGER WARNING including but not limited to: Religious trauma relating to Christianity, biblical discussion, grief, mental health, and other heavy emotional topics.

—

To Start

Personally, due to a good smattering of religious trauma, I struggle with higher power forgiveness. Heavy evangelical/baptist upbringing that we're working on deconstructing.

In regards to the Eonwe/Manwe/Eru dynamic with Sauron’s judgment, I have a lot of thoughts. It's great for fanworks and symbolism and characterization and the like, don't get me wrong.

But it's itchy for me. This form of redemption that's all or nothing, more of a test—and usually a pretty rigged one. Absolute redemption or total damnation if you fail.

—

It echoes the Book of Job in my head. While this story isn't directly about judgment, as with Eru and crew, I think it does highlight the intricacies of divine testing.

Very reductive Bible take ahead, fair warning:

Basically, he was a man favored by God with wealth and protection, until Satan proposed a contest to test Job’s faith. (I keep swimming around Mairon and Melkor here)

And God agrees, “Yeah, alright, let's do it. You can raze his lands, cause him bodily harm, and take everything from him. Sure, kill his whole family. But just don't kill him.”

God put Job through the fucking wringer and he's expected to be grateful about it. All to settle a tiff between cosmic beings.

In the end, he more or less tells Job, “Hey! It's all good, I'll bless you with a bunch of animals and some brand-new kids. They'll be better than the old ones, don't worry about it.”

And that's how the story ends.

—

Even as a kid, I would sit and stew on this.

Aside from the lessons to be learnt about steadfast faith throughout suffering, what does Job think of all this? How does he feel?

Does he miss his favorite goat who he could always sit and find comfort with? Does the warmth of the sunrise over his vast fields seem different, marred by the memory of fire from heaven?

Let alone that—Does he miss his kids? Does he see echoes of them in the faces of his new ones?

Does he think about his former life the way I think of my pizza pocket shirt, left behind in an ex’s house or laptops I've lost filled with old stories? Or the person I was before the mistakes and trauma?

All that is gone for good, nothing to be done. But there's always that tugging inside.

We don't know, we're not given any of that in the Bible. Instead, we're given an almost throwaway passage detailing the flocks of animals he receives, how cool his new kids are, and how long he lives. It never sat right with me, his divine reward.

—

Job is a paragon of faith, a success story, a parable. But in Sauron’s case, he’s the opposite, a ‘cautionary tale’.

I hate it I hate it I hate it

Eru and crew set the stakes high: redemption or damnation, and in my (flawed) recollection of canon, this is just about the only chance Sauron gets for forgiveness. He's given a choice and he chooses wrong.

Thinking about Job and Sauron both, I'm left wondering: How much is approval in the eyes of the divine really worth? Does the spiritual ‘win’ truly wash the suffering away?

Many people would say yes, absolutely. I think that's beautiful.

I know the teachings about God’s all-encompassing forgiveness, enduring faith through hardship, “Be anxious for nothing” Phillipians 4:6-7, your sins can be washed away in the Light of the Lord. And I don't blame people who find comfort and peace in that—honestly, I greatly envy them.

(though I have my bitterness, you can tell. we're working through that)

But for some of us, especially the ones who can't seem to pass the test, no matter how much they study, I need to dig deeper. Is it really all or nothing? What is your worth outside of divine approval, if it can't be achieved? They say everything can be forgiven, but what of Judas? What of Saul? What of Sauron?

–

It makes me have to consider some things: It’s very true that “repenting in fear” and changing for other people isn't conducive to real growth. We can't expect Galadriel to swoop in and pull him out of the darkness by herself. And neither can Sauron, no matter how much we eat up the “you bind me to the light” line. It's delicious though

That's not a fair burden to put on her or anyone else. By no means am I saying that it is, you can't 'fix' people. “Heal yourself” is spot on.

(I could go down into the details of the lead up and differences of the S1 rejection vs the S2 rejection, but that's a rabbit to chase later)

In the broader framework of ‘how far gone is too far gone,’ (discussed in Narrative Doom), it’s just…when we take into account the reality that people (even Maiar) are fallible…

I mean, isn't that where a lot of us start with change? In shame and fear and guilt? Looking at something ugly inside you and freaking out about it? When you're lost in a bad way, that can feel like all you have to work with.

And sometimes a hand on your shoulder means everything, even if it's not pulling you up.

—

I touched on this before: the tension between good intentions vs bad actions feels like holding coals in your hands.

(Actions matter more than intent, I greatly believe. The impact on others is essential over the 'why' of it; however, I find myself caught in the nuances behind that belief. Intentions and motivations do have weight—to a certain degree. I digress; that's yet another rabbit)

It's all so very easy to tell yourself that the dark is too much to claw your way out of. You convince yourself you're stuck—not only believing that you can't reach for anything greater, but also that you don't deserve better. It's all so very easy to just throw it away and not look at it, hide it in a corner under dirty laundry. To go back to “former habitations,” well-worn grooves, harmful comforting behaviors.

So while Sauron is absolutely culpable for his actions and his moral failures, I, well…I can relate. I can understand.

I've been there, staring down the face of divine judgment and potential forgiveness, but unable to do and feel what you're supposed to, what you're expected to. It makes you angry, it makes you lash out. It's a vicious, bitter cycle.

—

Then I circle back to The Good Place quotes I used. “What matters isn't if people are good or bad. What matters is if they're trying to be better today than they were yesterday.”

For an objectively ‘villainous’ character like Sauron, recognizing and processing his attempts at change is difficult—if not impossible. Especially since we know his narrative ending.

From an outside view, it doesn't matter. He does evil, he rejects redemption, and he fails the test set for him by higher powers. What are his weak attempts worth if he just falls off anyways?

—

Internally, personally, though, I have to believe each little step, each timid shuffle is worth something, even if it's followed by three steps back. Otherwise, I'll give up. I'll throw the baby out with the bathwater. I'll run off into the woods and never return. Byeeeeee.

So I have to remind myself: Cleaning a single dish is better than letting the pile loom.

(which I know some people vehemently disagree with, insisting that if you're gonna do it, you need to do it all and do it right. I hear Ron Swanson's voice in my head: “Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.”)

For some of us though, particularly in dark times, those tiny little inconsequential acts are monumental. How are we supposed to change if we see it as meaningless?

I just don't think there's such a thing as ‘absolute’ redemption and total forgiveness; it's a gritty, painful process, forever ongoing. At least it has been for me. The dishes will always loom. But we can pick up and wash a fork.

[acewitch-writes]

Hello! I recently found your account, and I went on scrolling down and down...and now I hope you know how grateful I am. Thank u- Merci. About 90% of the content you share here has made me feel so much better. I realllyy hope wonderful things happen for you. I've been a fan of hp since 2001, but I'm not really a social media person so I haven't been active in the fandom. I had no idea what was happening here until recently..two months ago to be exact (other details are not important) and omg.. I ended up in a discussion with some I think, new fans. tbh I thought, "Great! I'm good at this, I read all the books more than once Let's talk :)"  and omg their very first question was "What do you think about Regulus?"

I was like, "Who?" *dying from secondhand embarrassment bc It turns out I'm not that good at this

but as the discussion continued, I became more and more baffled bc "Why was everyone talking about Barty, Evan, and Regulus? who is daddy Remu? and what do you mean people ship James Potter with R.A.B.? What?"

I swear for a moment I thought "Did the writer publish a new book? Did I miss something? " tbh, I respect everyone's opinion it's none of my business but I'm still shocked. The only thing that bothers me is everything that happened with this new Wolfsar

omg, for most fans around my age (or at least people I know), Sirius was the complete portrayal of a bad boy- a rebel, with boots, tattoos, a leather jacket, and a fucking motorcycle. so this new Sirius is like a stranger to me, and that's okay. Mein issue is kinda with this new Remus T T my beloved .

They (the fans I was talking with) told me Remus is "tall, so handsome, SO strong, and hot-headed person because,  yk he's a werewolf." I was like "hot headed? excuse me?" I tried to explain to them that Remus being a werewolf is a metaphor for illnesses like HIV, it's not some superpowery gift.  they didn't believe me, but then they literally looked me in the face and said, "Then why would Sirius like someone like him? He's poor, short, and ugly." I swear I wanted to cry right then and there.

What is this mindset that makes some people think that a person should be, Idk, hot and flawless to deserve to be loved? Yes I don't think Remus is tall and super hot and perfect and isn't it fine? and I am 100% sure he's so beautiful. not like Sirius ofc but he has this "warm, cozy, and soft" sort of beauty. and I don't think he was a coward (ok maybe he was a liitle) but I guess it's easier for us, humans, to take the worst or weakest moment of a character and amplify it until it defines them entirely. and omg I'm so sorry for my rant and my bad english. but once again thank you for your beautiful soul <3 thank you

Hi anon! I, too, am baffled by the recent obsession with Regulus in this fandom. I think Jegulus is fine as a crack ship, but it has become so mainstream that many fans have just gone ahead and canonized it to the point that you'll be vilified for not accepting it as canon. I underestimated how popular the "best friend's brother" trope was, apparently. I also think it appeals to many fans as a Marauders Era version of one of the most popular ships of all time, Drarry.

This new version of Wolfstar is my biggest complaint with today's fandom, too! I get that the Marauders have very limited canon information and therefore we have more creative freedom to flesh them out, but I really believe that it has gone way too far. Sirius and Remus in today's fandom don't bear any resemblance to the characters they're based on. Remus is just a generic alpha werewolf OC and Sirius is his generic himbo femboy love interest OC. They don't even share a physical description with their Canon counterparts, and their personalities and character traits are so far removed that I can't even fathom how we reached this point as a fandom. How can you claim to like these characters if you have to change everything the source material says about them?

You're English is great, by the way! I completely agree that Remus has a cozy-and-warm sort of beauty. He made a point to distance himself from the stigma surrounding Lycanthropy because it was the focal point of his shame and self-loathing. And I just adore Wolfstar's dynamic from this lens, with the intimidatingly beautiful, confident, headstrong Sirius Black, who could have his pick of anyone he wants, choosing this ordinary guy because he's cozy and soft and it's exactly what Sirius wants after surviving the harsh ideals and abuse of House Black.

[monstersinthecosmos]

So I'm a newbie in the VC universe that discovered the books only a few months ago through the series and I have a question regarding Louis character so I came here because I believe it's a safe space for that. Well, to begin with, I'm not really into the vampire lore before so the show was okay to me and since I'm more of the reading type, I plan on reading the books after watching the movie too because I kinda like the aesthetic of that century. And oh gosh, that was the best decision I ever made because I am madly in love with it especially with Louis whom I find so relatable, but then that's when I realised that though I find myself relatable in Book Louis, that never came across me with Show Louis and I wonder what could be the main reason for it. Is it my lack of understanding the story in the show or the show doesn't show me the side of that Louis? I suppressed this thought for a long time because of the constant fandom war going around regarding the book vs movie vs show on Twitter and I only upload Tumblr not long ago so I really got no one to ask at that time. Sorry if my question is hard to understand/lacking in any sense, I'm not really good in voicing out my thoughts.

Hi! So like, TLDR; they are two completely different stories and two completely different sets of characters that happen to share names. I don't think it's a big mystery that one resonates with you and the other doesn't, that's just how it goes! And I hesitate to compare & contrast the two canons too deeply because I don't need any drama lol. But I'll try to parse some of this: I don't think you're missing something in the show. Unless I missed it too. 😅 But truly the show has a completely new character, and while I think they have some things in common, and I definitely really SAW LOUIS a couple times, they really aren't the same. And even in moments where I think I see Louis (ie: thoughtful, brooding, spiritually tortured) I think some of the decisions the show made to change the story just really narratively don't work for the book character. I really think these two pieces are best enjoyed as completely unrelated series, because we can tie ourselves in knots trying to make the book fit what we're watching, and vice versa, and every character on the show is essentially an OC. Of all the characters we've met on the show, I don't think ANY of them feel like the book counterparts. (Lestat is the worst offender for me personally LOL.)

The book I think also is about grief and Anne Rice often discussed using "the vampire as the other" as a means to write stories about feeling isolated. I think that's a huge reason why the books are so successful and why they reach so many people! It's such a broad theme and using vampires as a symbolic conversation means that we can make it about anything when we're reading. And especially like IWTV being written IN GRIEF I think makes that theme so so powerful like not just the pain but like, how disorienting it is, how lost you feel, how small and powerless. And feelings of grief come up over and over in the series, and not just literally about people, but about the sun, about life, about things we lose when we're forced to go on without. And I don't think the show really got into that topic; even using vampirism as a conversation the timeline of the canon is so short it doesn't really stick the landing. We get some brief glimpses of the life Louis had before, but by the end of the season his family is still alive. Barely any time has gone by. If this will be sort of an overarching theme over the longevity of the whole series we shall see, but tbh S1 was so absolutely unrecognizable to me as a book fan that I'm not super interested in following up lol. You'll have to get back to me in a few years and let me know how it went. 😂

ANYWAY. I outsourced this ask to a couple friends because admittedly I've never been a huge Louis fucker so some of the show changes were lost on me and I hesitate to speak deeply on either version of him for that reason but!

@somevagrantchild says: [...] the tv show created a whole new character in Louis’s place, in a different century with different values and a different background that gave him his own unique personality and struggles that are very different from book Louis. Which means the decisions and choices he makes are also very different as well as the way he relates to Lestat.

An example is show Louis using his vampire powers to get revenge on people from his mortal life vs book vampires becoming detached and not caring about those things anymore Also show Louis being selective about who he kills (coming up with the evildoer idea on his own) vs book Louis just never wanting to know, so being the most indiscriminate killer of them all @covenofthearticulate says: i mean god the whole goddamn point of louis' character is that he only really values humanity after losing it, so after being turned he's like desperately grappling to find some sense of humanity and identity and goodness and i think that's something that resonated with a lot of readers who feel Othered………whereas the show gave him vampire powers that were basically an excuse for gore porn and weird revenge power fantasy @covenofthearticulate also wrote this post (in her @sangcreole blog) about the decision to have Louis kill Lestat rather than Claudia and I think it sums up a lot of the dissonance as well.

Anyway yeah the fandom can be a nightmare about this topic because I think people can be very defensive and emotional, and unfortunately there's a lot of cult behavior and bullying when people step out of the party line, and it makes it difficult to discuss these as two pieces of media which are different from each other, without saying that one or the other is bad. And we all relate to characters differently, and for random reasons, and we often DO NOT PICK OUR BLORBOS LOL, so like it makes sense that a book character might resonate with you when the TV character didn't, because they aren't the same character, and they are acting from different backgrounds, they are being used for completely different narrative functions, and their relationships to the people & places & centuries around them are totally different stories.

[evilwickedme]

Would you be willing to do a Good Omens fic rec list?

Oh yeah for sure!!! I haven't actually read that~~ much GO fic, but here are a couple of highlights

Crown of Thorns is the first fic I ever read for GO and it's. Um. A bit of a doozy at *checks again* 275k but it's also arguably the definitive ineffable husbands buy a cottage fic. It's book canon so it's subtly different than the show, but it's soooo good my guys

Another long 'un at nearly 100k, but Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach is just fucking fantastic. Crowley goes to therapy is the general conceit. I sobbed.

Adventures In Attempting To Purchase A Book From That Weird Old Soho Bookshop, A. Z. Fell & Co. and The Official Mr Fell Quarantine Thread are funky short social media aus about people just trying to figure out wtf is up with this weird ass bookshop and its owner and I just love them so much

it's a new craze is about ineffable husbands starting a podcast

And finally, Demon and Angel Professors is an extremely long series of soooo many goddamn shorter fics. No seriously there's 200 fics. The good news is that it's completed. The bad news is I've been reading it for two years. But it's a truly wonderful au which is dubiously/purposefully ambiguously supernatural where nearly everyone you know and love from s1 is either a professor or a student. A lot of it is about how long it takes people to figure out that Azira and Crowley are husbands. It's super funny. They keep adopting children, both literally and metaphorically. Some of my favorite characterization of Crowley in particular. Seriously it's so good

Bonus: I dug through my book blog and found the original fic rec post where I found CoT. I didn't end up reading most of these fics, but you could also check those out, esp if you like book canon!

Have fun 💜

[chevvy-yates]

WIP WEDNESDAY

Decided it is time for another update so here's a longer post to what I've been up to and stuff that circles around in my head lately.

tagging:

@medtech-mara, @imaginarycyberpunk2023, @itzsassha, @humberg, @kittenchrissy, @rosapexa, @cinnamon-mey, @heywoodvirgin, @dreamskug, @drunkchasind, and everyone who sees and wants to do as well.

No pressure as always!

—

1. CHARACTERS & LORE

Let's begin with sth. first I have on my mind for a while: As this fandom (sadly) seems to fall more and more apart, I would like to know if there are still people interested in reading actual lore content or not. As some of you know my dear friend @nervouswizardcycle and I are continously building up some sort of our own expansion after the main game events with rp/fic, character builds, backstory lore and support by vp and it eats a lot of time. The lack of interactions on tblr during the last few months and in several discord servers has led to me not posting a lot anymore either (beside my mental exhaustion phases that come and go). It seems more active again though, as majority already played Phantom Liberty by now or are right into it, so they slowly come back bc they presumably avoided spoilers. —————— So, here is me wondering how many following my blog are 'really' interested to see me sharing all lore of the boys (including story parts) or does the majority prefer just to see pretty pics and that's it? —————— (I've wanted to add a poll here but it doesn't let me save my post so I might do it in a seperate one a bit later) I know: it's my blog, I post what I like in the first place, and I'll likely continue that way but somehow I would like to know if it's worth the effort of formating and thinking about how the posts could look or if I can take that time to do something else with it instead if there's less interest. So, I would just keep it in my tiny discord server I share with my rp partner(s)/in private chats with those interested bc it's gotten to be a lot and we are still at the very start it feels.

2. SKILLS, CYBERWARE & HUMANITY LOSS

As I'm the type that can't have ocs with no background/lore, I sat down the other day and did a build for each with their skills, wrote down what chrome everyone got (incl. additional c-ware from the lore books plus I'm reading e.g. into what programs my runner twins are likely to make use of). It went this far that my friend used the amount of the game's 'cyberware capacity' as 'humanity loss'. It is used in the lore books/ttrpg anyways. So I've counted all my boys possible capacity* and use it as humanity loss (HL) now which led me to thinking about which one of my ocs goes to get treatment and how often they go to see a MedTech on regular base. I thought I could give them a certain minus amount to reduce the HL for each depending on how much or less c-ware they got — e.g. Thyjs as soldier has most (but all is good Militech chrome) and used to go and still goes regularly so his HL gets a huge reduce — whereas Ryder's gets always nulled no matter how often he gets threatment, because BEAST (rogue AI) eats it away each time (to understand that in full you probably have to know the story). Ry must have most HL loss as he often walks along the edge towards cyberpsychosis, so I'm forced to reduce Thyjs' with most c-ware installed a huge amount. And that's how I made it now. It's probably far away from canon ttrpg as my 'canon cp world' consists of 75% game, 20% lorebooks and 5% own added ideas I haven't seen on the lore yet. And I like it that way I gotta say. On a little side note: It also had me thinking about creating a new support character for the team that could be in fact a MedTech. But I won't do that anytime soon.

* some things might still change as I slowly started playing their playthroughs and skill them for real now. I love each build so far because it's a whole different experience! And playing someone with noe netrunning ability is hell as I was only usedto paly netrunner before.

3. FIC SNIPPET TIME

I decided to give you an insight of what I've roughly written yesterday about Ryder and Thyjs having a talk about how they feel for each other:

“Ik ben eerlijk. I liked that accidental kiss we shared a-and i-ik find je leuk, Ry. Probably more as— a friend is supposed to do.” De Wit instantly starts feeling nauseous and something tightens around his stomach but he needs to get it off of his heavy feeling soul. “I-I guess I have stronger feelings for you than I had expected and it’s confusing me.” He frowns, “It’s not usual for me. Never felt any kind of such an attraction towards other men. I-It’s just you— I think I might be into you, Ryder.” The last sentences came in a mere murmur than spoken and Ryder’s name was only a light whisper. Thyjs didn’t dare to look to his left. He feared he would lose his new gained friend now because he said his stupid thoughts aloud. Instead he continues staring at the distant horizon feeling the lump in his throat only getting heavier. The sun was already half arisen and the sky was painted in a bright orange and yellow fading out into never ending blue. After de Wit seems to have finally finished his long talk, Ryder realizes the pack has fallen out of his hands. He needed to repeat in his mind what Thyjs just told him. Did the man really pour out his heart to him at this very moment? He couldn’t believe it at first. The pale soldier he obviously secretly fell for just told him he was having feelings for him that reach further than friendship? It took him what seemed like an eternity to get out of his frozen state. Ry moves up into a straighter position, still supporting his body with his right forearm, turning more towards Thyjs, who is still watching the rising sun with a rather sad look on his face blinking every once in a while. Eventually Scharfenberg brings up his left hand to reach for the older man’s face and de Wit suddenly feels two fingers under his chin making him look at the younger man again. He sees a tiny smile on those dark lips he caught himself looking at so many times in utter secrecy. That tiny smile that’s usually the base for a brighter even more heartwarming smile baring dangerous fangs who make the man look frightening, but smiling like that? Thyjs often caught himself thinking Ry looked cute with these fangs as well. Ry sees Thyjs’ confusion as his eyes look questioning right back at him. So Ry better says something now. “I-Ich äh—” he clears his throat, “—I don’t know where to start. How to talk feelings in the first place.” Letting Thyjs talk himself off seemed to be right for Ryder and it was worth it, because he thinks it’s the most earnest confession someone has ever made to him, yet he doesn’t know how to answer to all this best. So he decides to place himself into a sitting position, to look the soldier boy straight into the eyes. His gaze gets distracted by Thy’s slightly opened lips for a split second. It is the same situation as earlier downstairs, only that Ry has his fingers still under de Wit’s chin and starts to lead his face towards the other man. Just a few inches are left between them and Thyjs can feel the younger man’s warm breath on his skin. He also has this incredible sight at those beautiful male black eyelashes again the very moment they cast down and then he feels those same lips from before on his own with such a soft pressure that again he closes his eyes in an instant and starts to revel in that same electricity running through him but also the revenant paralyze surrounding him again.

It is just a brief kiss, similar to the one in the apartment downstairs but shyer in its move. As soon as it happened it ended. Ryder opens his eyes afterwards immediately because he fears somehow the man in front of him would get up, step back and turn away but instead he still feels his chin pressed softly against his fingers. It casts another tiny smile onto Ryder’s face as his now racing heart skips a beat or two, seeing that Thyjs didn’t make a move nor a sound. His eyes open now as well and Ry swears he’s never seen heterochromia looking so soft but also surprised at the same time at him like Thyjs does right now. He waits for a reaction but Thyjs just keeps looking at him, lips parting shortly just to close again. “What? — Did that make you that speechless now?” Ry asks with nearly the same surprisement. Thyjs lets out a heavy breath and nods, eyes totally lost looking at him which lets Scharfenberg put on a warm smile. “Want to— try again?” Thyjs swallows his unspoken words that gathered in his throat he couldn’t speak aloud and nods again. Heavier, his lips turning into a smile as well and his eyes are suddenly filled with happiness and relief, like he’s telling Ryder that he cannot wait to have their lips meeting once more and to feel that intense buzz from before as it spreads through his entire body like when he’s powering up electricity. This feeling right now? It’s strong and sends an entirely new sensation through him. Is dat het gevoel van vlinders in je buik? He wonders but doesn’t get much more time to think about it because Ryder choses to lean in for a second time.

It can and probably will be rewritten or changed but I definitely want to have it this way! Thjys starts talking and talking almost doing a monologue instead of a dialogue until he comes to the final point and Ryder wants to respond with words but doesn't know how to (he may find them a bit later) and just does what's best: kiss this soldier. I'll max out this kissing scene for a lot more pages just because I can.

I love the idea of Thyjs as war machine being totally romantic and getting super takative when alone with Ryder. And Ryder definitely is a soft romatic boy, alsways was bu Beast made his life harder to show this side more but Thyjs gets to see it also in private.

4. VP

Since I do more 'actual play the game' now even though I have installed most of all mods back, I rarely do pics atm. If I do, they are just rather nice pics where I try to use the ingame light rather than to spawn spot lights. here's a preview of what comes next:

I have so many ideas I want to put into reality. Especially pics that underline the rp/fic chapters mentioned above. But I'm not going to force myself. I'll see what I can realize for the rest of the year and what gets to be stamped as a New Year's resolution. I'll probably focus on a few blorbo pics this weekend because Ryder's birthday is around the corner (31st October) and Jay's boyfriend Enzolino has just a day prior. So if I can manage, I'll do that in the first place.

Thanks for reading! <3

[stormblessed95]

Hi how are you fine I hope,...umm do you have a list of Manga or Anime that I could read or watch? If you have a list to start off with on your blog I would greatly appreciate. I used to read manga all the time but life happened so if you don't mind thank you...Happy Holidays.

I'm still new and haven't seen so much! Here is what I'll do, I'll give you a list of what I've seen and what I thought about it though!! It'll go like this:

Media Title (version I've seen it in, anime or manga, etc): my thoughts

and then you can take them as recs or not lol

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood (anime): SO GOOD. It was the second anime I watched ever and it's what really got me hooked. Lol it's just pure good solid story telling and is just truly amazing in every way. I love it so much

Ouran High School Host Club (anime): it was fine. Lol good moments, funny moments, cute moments. Lots of weird ass tropes that I didn't love lol. Good palate cleanser but not my favorite and not one I continued to really spend time thinking about after

Demon Slayer (anime & manga): a new obsession after I watched it. I had to then go read it because I was obsessed with the story and couldn't wait. The most beautiful animation too. Tragic and hopeful and amazing. Made me cry a few times and does flashback so well lol

Yuri on Ice (anime): so good. So cute. So gay. I have posts on this anime on here from when I was watching it. Lmao I'll just link that here. I'm still obsessed.

Spy x Family (anime & manga): I actually read the manga first and then found the anime and it's just so wholesomely wonderful in every aspect. I love the story so much. I love the romance. The slowburn is so slow is painfully good. I ship it SO HARD. The domestic family life of a Spy, assassin and telepath is everything I didn't know I needed

Buddy Daddys (anime): 2 dude (they make a good ship too honestly lol) assassins accidental baby acquisition. It's as funny as it sounds with some surprisingly dark and sad and emotional backstories and moments. Just a really great time. Short and quick watch too. Link to my rec post too

The Yakuzas Guide to Babysitting (anime): it was okay. Lol cute and fun but nothing that stuck with me. Found this one off my Spy Family and Buddy Daddy's high while looking for something similar lol

The Ice Guy and his Cool Female Colleague (anime): cute and fun but man some of the episodes dragged and were a little slow. The romance was just okay too but had some really adorable moments

Sasaki to Miyano (anime): SO CUTE. God the whole premise is the BL romance and the slow burn is soooo slow but istg. The tropes are so good too. The importance to consent is beautiful. Literal BL tropes all over the place as the MCs is a BL fan and introduced his LI to BL lol my rec post here. And my post over a clip of the new movie too.

A Silent Voice (anime movie): excellent movie. Sad as fuck. I cried so much. Lol all the trigger warnings though. Please read the trigger warnings

Your Name (anime movie): excellent movie. I still think about it all the time. I just read a book that pulled inspo from this movie. I had tears STREAMING DOWN MY FACE at the end.

Sk8 the Infinity (anime): so good. So wholesome. So gay (it's canon gay, fight with the wall, I don't care lol) just a little show about skateboarding. Who knew it would be SO GOOD. My rec post. My matchablossom brain rot post

Naurto, Naruto Shippuden (anime): OBSESSED. I watched this show with my partner as part of his "I'm introducing you to anime" series he has for me. Lol and clearly he was going to introduce me to the classics. Yes One Piece and Bleach are on his lists for us to watch together too.

Haikyuu!! (anime & manga): Look, with this being the 3rd sports anime I watched, I'm convinced all sports animes create so many ships low-key on purpose. Lmfao in all honesty though, it's so good. Never in my life would I have imagined getting so invested into volleyball. But here I am.

Jujutsu Kaisen (anime and I'm starting the manga now too): IM SO OBSESSED ITS NO LONGER FUNNY AND THIS SHOW IS SO MEAN LATELY. I had to go buy the manga because I CANNOT HANDLE WAITING FOR NEW EPISODES OH MY GOD. WISH ME LUCK READING I GUESS My post

Bungo Stray Dogs (anime): I started this show for Dazai. Found him on TikTok. Stayed for the weird ass powers and the absolute utter nonsense that is this whole world. Nothing makes sense and we are all just here for the vibes. Yes I fucking love it, thanks lmfao My post

Link Click (donghua): started this on a whim because I got a random rec video on my algorithm and found it on Crunchyroll and I was told it was gay. There is so little gayness in the grand scheme of this show I felt so unprepared for what it was. Lmao I have never in my life had a show hit me so hard in my emotions off the bat EVERY SINGLE TIME. BUT ITS SO GOOD?? I told my husband I start each episode going "so how are you making me cry this time link clink??" The twists twist so hard it hurts, but in a way I love. I need the next season like now. my God.

Blue Eye Samurai (anime sort of): my NEWEST obsession. I NEED SEASON 2 PLEASE. I said sort of about anime because it is animated and it's set in Japan, but it's not from Japan so it's not really an anime.... Lol but it's on Netflix. It's not for children. And it's so good. Go watch it. Only 8 episodes. The story is immaculate. My post

Inuyasha (manga): read the manga and thoroughly enjoyed myself as a super fast and fun read!! Really just there a good time lmao

Yona of the Dawn (manga): SO CUTE and yet intense too. My sister put me on this one as one of the first manga series I started reading and I just ate it all up. If we ignore some of the weirder tropes it throws at you in the beginning, it's just fabulous lol I love it

Mo Dao Zu Shi (donghua): read the books, watched the donghua, watched the live action too lol. The brain rot is SO REAL. Like these characters live rent free forever. Thanks. You can find tons of posts for MDZS and TGCF(heaven Official's blessing) in my master list on my other blog @moonofthesurvivor

Heaven Official's Blessing (donghua): SAME AS MDZS THATS ALL LMAO

No. 6 (anime): loved it, sci-fi dystopian madness and so gay. My rec post here

Given (anime): so gay.... So sad.... So healing... That kiss though! That backstory! The songs are actually so good! I love that it's just a band full of gay people. My post here too

Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess (anime): politics meets isekai (done well) meets lesbian romance, meets magical epic battles and showdowns, meets badass ladies saving the world. Literally everything you could want

Hunter x Hunter (anime): I am watching this one now and have been for a little bit. This is the current one I'm watching with my partner in his list of animes he wants to introduce me too. I'm having SO MUCH FUN with this one but I also am hurting a little. Lol yes he warned me about the ants. Yes I'm not having fun with this arc. Thanks for asking. I can report back when we finish 😂

And for those who will want to know yes, I've got lots on my list to still watch and work through. Lol I'm always open to taking more suggestions though too!!