#i mean hes also the pov character more or less. easy to have as a favourite really. but also. this fictional child has some anxieties

[humanmorph]

got to the episode where tino gets obsessed about this one particular guy not liking him. i wonder why i remember this one so vividly. strange

he made a poll for everyone in town to circle 👍 or 👎

[myapothecarydiary]

Thoughts from reading The Apothecary Diaries Manga Ch. 3

An expansion on an idea presented last chapter–how Jinshi's appearance affects how others treat him and the potential seriousness of it. Don't want to take it too far, but could it be said that people treat him how women are often treated in real life? With cat-calling and such. Only there's a difference in the power dynamics at play as Jinshi is in a role of authority.

Here we are also getting more insight into Jinshi's internal life and thoughts, which present a notable contrast to how Maomao views him and the persona she has so far observed. He's not all charming smiles and sparkles, we see him contemplative and expressing a range of emotions.

As of now, though her intelligence is notable, you wouldn't say Maomao could check these boxes, but lineage + beauty + intelligence are qualifications I think we should keep in mind in relation to her character. Maomao low key has some princess raised as a peasant vibes going on. Maomao and "a sense of virtue" have a less clearcut relationship, but it will be a topic of conversation in the future.

I think it's easy to imagine that in a more typical story, Maomao might have a more Cinderella-like arc, a peasant gaining the attention/favor of the Emperor through beauty and kindness and I am once again reminded of how Maomao is valued first and foremost for her intelligence. She will be found to be beautiful, but her beauty did not gain her Jinshi's attention or her position as a lady-in-waiting.

Both Maomao and Jinshi think of the rear palace as a cage. I wonder if he considers it a cage for himself as well considering what he must do to occupy space there? Or is it simply the opposite–a path to freedom? Perhaps both?

Jinshi also recognizes the role he is to play, but that does not mean he supports all the actions he must take. Everything is not always what it seems. Like Maomao, Jinshi is pragmatic about his appearance and recognizes the value/power in his beauty, but he also seems to resent it to some degree and view it as a burden. Pragmatic but resigned.

Jinshi's pov on the entire concubine system is quite interesting. He seems to disapprove of how things are done (and how the consorts/women are treated?) Surely this clashes with his desire for the Emperor to secure an heir?

Is "the plan" the one regarding the aphrodisiac (and the mid-ranking concubine/military officer)? Or his wider plan regarding working in the rear palace?

I'm wondering about what exactly produces Jinshi's feelings of...let's call it "glee"? in regards to "using" Maomao and how useful she will prove to be. Is it that she entertains him? Excites what feels like a dull and monotonous life? Is it that he enjoys exercising power in this way? I feel it's more the former, especially since he next goes on to describe how she treats him differently than anyone else he has ever encountered. She is novel. And Jinshi, as someone used to people being taken with his beauty, enjoys how her reaction to him goes beyond being unaffected by his beauty to the point of being repelled by it.

It's interesting that Maomao can seem rather monotone and subdued (except when she's not–she is extremely expressive when it comes to what she is passionate about, like poison), but her face also often acts as a give away. (Is that just a Jinshi related thing?) I mentioned this in the previous chapter and how she skirts the line in terms of respectfulness in how her actions and expressions (and even tone) clash, but maybe she isn't really so successful in skirting the line if her expression is so obvious.

I find it interesting how the manga opts to adapt the idea of Maomao as a "new toy" for Jinshi–he is the one to think it and make that connection. Also lol at it having him explicitly state he's "not a masochist" because hmm there's an argument to be made that both he and Maomao derive pleasure from pain.

Maomao as intriguing to Jinshi feels important. I said that he values her knowledge and skills, and I suppose that + how she treats him differently than others do (+ him eventually seeing her as quite beautiful) forms the basis of his attraction to her. But her being intriguing also factors into that and reminds me of all the intrigue and mysteries Maomao (and Jinshi) get involved in. She herself is like a mystery to be solved (as is he to her as the story goes on!)

Maomao as a toy also speaks to how Jinshi uses her. Yes, she entertains him, but "toy" also connotes a power dynamic (and so part of the enjoyment does come from having power over her?) Maomao is of course later referred to as a cat, not to mention her actual name, and Maomao as Jinshi's pet seems like an apt way to describe their initial dynamic.

(oh no she fell down a (pet) rabbit hole) BUT I really think there is something to be said for considering Maomao and Jinshi through "pet" and all its various meanings. Only thing is Maomao is not tamed or domesticated XD (but maybe she'll trend in that direction as time goes on aka adapt to Jinshi's lifestyle and status?)

For now, Jinshi is the master and holds the power in a traditional sense, but he will also quickly develop affection and favoritism for Maomao (and wants her companionship!) + despite how the dynamic should work, Maomao will hold power over him in turn (as with actual cats, the question is who is really the master and I think the answer is both)

Cutie Maomao appreciation segue

The panacea is presented here as a bit of a segue itself and to show Maomao's enthusiasm + passion + dedication to medicine and experimentation, but it always feels like a weighted thing to drop, like it will be important later, at least symbolically/metaphorically. Perhaps it also works as the perfect intersection of Maomao's care for others + thirst for knowledge/curiosity.

Mini Maomao! A reminder of how petite she is and how that works along with her status (as a visual representation of it in contrast with characters higher up who tower over her). Another way she appears unassuming and is underestimated.

(also–yay Gaoshun is here!!)

In terms of Jinshi using Maomao vs Maomao using Jinshi– Jinshi's status enables Maomao access and freedom (that she wouldn't normally be afforded in her position and situation) through her connection to him. She is able to do work she enjoys and indulge her curiosities because of him.

Circling back to what I said earlier about how Maomao can seem subdued but is extremely expressive when it comes to what she is passionate about. And it actually goes beyond her facial expressions, her whole body is invigorated and taken over XD

Her blushing expression and body position at the top of that second page almost resembles a girl in love lol

It is an interesting adaptational choice to make Jinshi's expression kind of an unamused frown here–I wonder what to make of it. (We get it described as "He watched her with a mixture of curiosity and sheer bewilderment" in the light novel). Especially as it presents Maomao in a different light than he has seen her in so far.

It feels like Maomao is almost actively seeking reasons to criticize and dislike Jinshi (to justify the instinctual bad vibes she gets? And going off the fake-ness she picks up on. This can also demonstrate a general dislike of people in high positions and the behavior their status affords them) but also this moment illustrates her appreciation for hard work and competence. Not that Jinshi is doing anything admirable here, it is just that Maomao seems determined to (understandably) see the worst in him/leans into bad faith interpretations of his actions.

Paper and ice–I call this the collection of planting seeds for future storylines and topics. I love how we're given information that will be relevant later in a way that feels natural and factors into the world-building.

Things to add to Maomao's list of skills XD

Okay Miss Maomao getting distracted on the job! More of her getting invigorated by her passions and how they can take over her mind and focus. But also amusing considering her criticisms of Jinshi "having too much free time" (yes, she still washed the dishes and did work, but her attention was diverted and she lost track of time)

More of Maomao's skill set and add alcohol to the list of seeds for the future (and lol @ everyone's reactions to her late night snack plans "what weird shit is this girl into?")

"Alcohol can be categorized as a type of medicine. The more sensitive a person is to a particular drug, the greater the impact." Not just a seed but add it to the pile of potential poison/medicine symbolism

More lol @ Maomao. I said her upbringing in the pleasure district serves her well in the rear palace, but it (in addition to her apothecary background) also give her a unique and potentially off-putting outlook. This whole scenario can go to show how in spite of her regard for propriety, Maomao doesn't always behave how she "should."

More of how Maomao frames Jinshi–"anyone would be attracted to him but to me, he is a worm." Does Maomao's familiarity with beauty make it somewhat ineffective on her? She makes the connection here about how Jinshi's beauty could be a burden (or not just harmful to others but to himself).

I also enjoy how a blushing Jinshi is described as being enough "to make anyone lose their head" when Maomao often says she does things/follows orders because she wants to keep her head attached to her body (aka not be executed).

Jinshi's attractiveness to both men and women is both a nod to varying sexualities and how he in a way transcends a binary understanding of gender presentation. I think it is interesting how Maomao is so blunt and matter-of-fact about people's attraction, to Jinshi and in general.

Similarly, I love this (repeated) matter-of-fact outlook on aphrodisiacs and pleasure from Maomao (it is almost non-judgmental but also emphasizes safety).

Alright, guess who used too many images and so has to continue this post elsewhere for the very end of the chapter...

[thefirstlioveyou]

hot take: mike has not been that shitty of a friend in st3 and 4 (at least not the the extent people make him out to be)

he ditched the party in season 3 to go make out with his girlfriend, but so did el

he was bitchy and snarky- but not ANYmore than he was in season 2, he’s a little shit, sure, but don’t pretend like he hasn’t ALWAYS BEEN a little shit

he was mean during the rain fight, yet he immediately biked across town in the rain to go apologize

mike definitely should have hugged will at the airport- but i’ll give it to him he was gay panicking, we’ve all been through it

will also couldve written letters, will could’ve called, he had a good argument in the fight (up until “we’re friends!”)

he’s an awful boyfriend tho (to el)

mike isn't this terrible person some people want him to be, you're right. it's not that what he did wasn't bad, but it's kinda crazy the way certain people talk about him lmfao. (it's not as common anymore but there are still groups of ppl)

if i hadn't watched the show, i'd assume he wasn't even one of the good guys. but then you actually watch, and you kinda sit there waiting for the irredeemable shit these people are mentioning to actually happen. and they don't? i mean, you get he's messing up but you'd think there would be some worse shit he does based on the things people say about him.

mike ditching his friends for his girlfriend makes sense when you notice mike looking left behind in s2 when lucas and dustin were obsessing with their crush on max and will seemingly going along w it. he looks upset at the snowball. people forget mike is performing based on his surroundings. he obsesses over his girlfriend because that's what he's been conditioned to think he has to do. the show implies in the end that it's not even what he actually wants, and he actually wants the same thing as will.

he's always been bitchy and snarky. he talks back. that's definitely not ooc the way people think it is. just go watch s1/s2 and you'll see him easily catch an attitude for no reason lmao it's funny

in s3/s4 we see him respond to will in ways that hurt him during arguments. however he immediately feels guilty after. that's how you know he isn't a terrible person and more than likely going through something that's triggering his responses. he's immediately aware the way he's acting isn't right and isn't like him and does something about it.

his personal problems are his main cause for these reactions because they aren't being taken care of. seems expected especially from a young teenager, but especially one that doesn't have an emotional outlet at home.

however, i believe every time mike's apologized, he had to. i don't think there was a time where he shouldn't have. i think there needs to still be an apology about the rain fight and clarification about the calling thing.

i think people treat it as irredeemable bc the writers decided to show us this behavior of mike strictly from the pov of will/el, throwing away his pov despite it being the main one. this means they haven't given us explicit reason why he's behaving this way. they focused on other povs because they wanted us to catch onto how suddenly different mike was acting. but unfortunately, in fandom, you'll find that it's very easy for people to disregard this and just resort to calling the character a terrible person because it's less to think about. it's easiest to understand only the character pov that's being emphasized.

in my eyes, mike is more of a bad boyfriend than he is this terrible friend, in all honesty. he can apologize to will, meanwhile he can't ever to el.

all in all, yeah mike has messed up. but he's not only his flaws and mistakes. he made some shitty mistakes (his biggest and main one being 'it's not my fault you don't like girls' imo) but he isn't comparable at all to like... the douche steve was in s1 (as an example).

send more hot takes guys :)

[howtofightwrite]

how can I describe an intense, suspenseful and viscous fight between two werejaguars and a human(who’s good with a gun) without it becoming repetitive “he clawed him”, “he shot him” for several pages?

As a disclaimer: for the werejaguar portion of this exercise, I’m going to focus on the jaguar part over the were part. Supernatural creatures come in all shapes and sizes and all with different rules attached. Anything I say will need to be balanced against the rules of your setting and what works for you. In this case, I’m assuming the jaguars are the antagonists but you can easily flip flop this the other way round to have it work.

The key aspect of building a good fight scene is understanding the players and the environment. Everything on top of that is technique, but you can’t get anywhere without a good foundation. This is the research phase.

Ask yourself what your characters want. What is the difference between what they can do vs what they want to do and what they’re willing to do? How do their weapons work? How do they choose to fight? Their background, current goals, and personality will dictate their actions. The temptation is to be general, but boil it down into specifics. This character is not just good with guns, what guns are they good with? The gun (or guns) the human character has chosen to arm themselves with will substantially change the shape of your fight scene. Are they carrying a weapon that would have an advantage over a big cat, much less a supernaturally enhanced big cat? Remember, good with guns doesn’t necessarily mean good at hunting, especially not hunting large predators. At what range is the weapon most effective?

Try to take every character in the scene into account. It’s easy to focus on your POV character as the decision maker and let them control the pace of the fight scene, but combat involves more than one character and more than one decision maker. Fight scenes are really 5% choreography, 20% characters strategizing, and 75% sitting there trying to figure out “well, if Character A lunged and Character B jumped out of the way on a 45 degree angle and is now behind Character A, and they’re in a narrow-ish hallway with a trash can, five windows, and no weapons, they’re going to do… what? exactly?” It’s the ultimate Choose Your Own Adventure game and fight scenes work best when the author makes an effort to manage both sides of the chessboard. It’s not about the end, it’s about how they choose to get there combined with whether or not their decisions work and their gamble pays off. Remember, it’s always a gamble and it’s okay to let your characters be wrong.

In this case, you don’t really have a fight so much as you have a hunt. That’s the through thread here between your characters. What this translates into is that your human needs the cats in front of him to get a clean shot while the jaguars want to be behind their prey. Big cats when they’re hunting and guns in general heavily rely on positioning to be effective. Neither of these two groups are going to want to be out in the open. For the human in this situation, an exposed back is a death sentence. This becomes especially true when there are two cats and they have to track both of them. As for your human, guns become less effective the closer you get. Despite what Hollywood teaches us, these are not close range weapons suited to hand to hand. Unless you’re working with a shotgun, you’re stuck with basic physics. The bullet needs time to travel to build up velocity for maximum penetration.

Jaguars are ambush predators. They use up a massive amount of energy per attack, which means they only have a few tries to get it right. Each failure carves off a massive chunk of their ability to continue the hunt before retreating. Humans, meanwhile, are persistence predators. Our animal brain is geared to outlast our prey, to pace them to death rather than run them down, and then kill when they are exhausted. Cats are also, by and large, solo hunters. Some cats do hunt together (siblings banding together happens more often than you might think, even outside of lions when there’s food to support it) but it’s generally not the norm. Whether this causes an instinctual conflict for your werecats is up to you. Their human half may be enabling them to hunt with sophisticated pack tactics. If so, I’d challenge you to consider what that looks like and sounds like as they communicate.

Your human with the gun is limited by the amount of ammo they have. They may be able to outlast the jaguars (depending on supernatural rules.) However, their ability to make a successful kill diminishes with each failed shot.

Jaguars, pound for pound, have the strongest bite force out of all the big cats. Their preferred hunting method isn’t to scratch or claw, it’s to sink their teeth through the back of the skull and into the brain in one swift, clean strike. Unlike some big cats, they largely don’t preferentially suffocate their prey first through the throat clamp. The claws are here to stop their prey from moving while they get that bite in. (If you’re having trouble visualizing how a jaguar moves, climbs, and stalks, I recommend watching some nature documentaries. Or, read some accounts of jaguars hunting humans. It happens.)

In this scenario, nobody’s squaring off unless it’s a feint. Both parties will be moving, getting into cover, and hiding until they can get into a good-ish position to make their attack. They’ll be relying on their senses to find their opponent and maneuver around them. Jaguars, being better at hiding, would in this scenario be forcing the human out of cover to look for them and, depending on their level of teamwork, utilizing each other as bait to lure their prey out. And they might work on getting the human to waste their ammunition first to limit their risk. If they’re smart, they’re trading off and the movement is coming from multiple directions. So, even if your human has a weapon that will kill the jaguars in a single, lucky shot, they’ll still (probably) be breaking cover to put themselves at risk and get a clean line of sight.

I’m not taking questions on the cats being better at stealth. I have an indoor white cat who ghosts off in a small apartment whenever she wants. Where is she? Somewhere. I don’t know unless she wants me to know. Cats are not dogs or wolves. They have a different methodology when it comes to hunting and even large cats possess the ability to vanish in urban environments that aren’t designed for them.

Anyway, this is your suspense. It’s not an original idea, but I recommend leaning harder into thriller, suspense, and horror when it comes to cats instead of straight up action. That terrifying gut twisting sensation of being all alone, not knowing where the enemy is, maybe hearing them but not being able to gauge how far away they are. Go watch some horror movies with big cats hunting people. Like The Ghost and the Darkness (1996) about the Tsavo man-eating lions, which, while not jaguars, is based on a true story and is a fantastic film.

It’s easy to get stuck on the concept of trading blows. “He punched him” and “he clawed him” and “he slashed him” or “he shot him” but remember that initial attacks are about creating openings. It’s rare for your opponent to magically be in the position you want them with all their vulnerable openings exposed, unless they’re caught by surprise. A lot of initial combat is about building into or setting up your finishing move, all while your opponent tries the same from the other side. Instead of thinking about your combatants as standing in stasis and duking it out, remember that they are in motion. They are moving, they are circling, they are bracing, they are hunting for that new position, that unguarded opening. If the opening is not there, create it.

-Michi

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[recurring-polynya]

Ranking my Habitual POV Characters, from Easiest to Hardest to Write

Renji. Too easy, actually. He's a yapper. I love him, tho, he is my favorite narrator and I would never write anyone else if I could get away with it.

Byakuya. I hate this for me, too. He is a man of few words, but internally, he is also a giant yapper. Uses all the fun words you can't use irl or people will know you are autistic, like "repast" and "phantasmagorical".

Orihime. Also very fun to write! Sometimes insists on honorifics. A minor yapper.

Uryuu. Easy, but not exactly fun to write. I just gotta let my brain go into full-anxiety mode and ride the wave. It works, but, like. I write fanfiction so I don't have to listen to my brain's anxiety barf, please and thank you.

Rukia (present day). She would be a lot lower on this list if I didn't have a ton of practice and spend twenty hours a day thinking about her.

Ichigo. I don't write him very much because he's already got a whole manga about him, but he is fine and remarkably well-behaved as characters go. Also an internal yapper, worse than Orihime but not as bad as Renji.

Hinamori. The only problem with Hinamori is that she uses an entirely different naming scheme for everyone she knows than anyone else on this list and also often insists on honorifics.

Chad. Very pleasant to write, but much slower than other characters because he very carefully considers everything he wants to say before he says it, including his own internal narration. Says exactly what he means to say, no more, no less.

Kira. I am perfectly neutral on writing Kira-POV, I just think he's more fun from the outside looking in.

Have I ever written a Hitsugaya pov? I don't remember, but I feel like he should go here.

Inuzuri Rukia. What happens to Inuzuri Rukia is no one's business but her own. It is certainly not mine, the author.

Ikkaku. The problem is that I am a yapper, so every time I write Ikkaku having any sort of insight or introspection, I have to roll it back at least twice. His narration is just the thoughts that occur to him, completely in the moment, absent any sort of analysis. I could never. Doesn't use any of the fun words. Writing Kenpachi-dialogue is this, but even moreso, which is why I avoid him as much as reasonably possible.

(if you're a fanficcer and want to make your own list, please do!)

[nyoomerr]

any tips for writing bingmei pov?

oh jeez, i'm not sure i'm actually all that qualified to answer this question 😅💦

bingmei is... very difficult for me to write personally, so please take all this advice with a grain of salt. a large grain of salt. perhaps keep the entire salt shaker handy while you consider this advice, in fact. that being said, these are some things that i personally try to keep in mind when considering his character:

even as a disciple, he's not actually a pure white lotus - he still spent some long, formative years experiencing misfortune and bullying. from sqq's pov this is less visible, but from bingmei's pov this reflects on his thought process a lot. he isn't going to be blindly trustful, and his predisposition to be a bit of a schemer/borderline manipulative is still there, even if his goals are different. it's just the difference between pre-abyss manipulating the disciple roster so that he's the one always available to help out sqq VS post-abyss manipulating huan hua into being his biggest supporter.

in the abyss and up until sqq's self destruction, lbh's motivations are very much along the lines of "i can fix this, so long as i have the chance to, everything can go back to how it was before." if he can just prove himself to be a righteous cultivator by making a name for himself with huan hua, then sqq will no longer have an issue with lbh's heritage. if he can just get sqq to sit still and have one solid conversation with him, then surely sqq will understand lbh the way he used to. the more things go wrong and prove that it isn't so easy to go back to the way things used to be, the more frustrated lbh is, and the more willing he is to take drastic measures (going from slowly building a reputation for himself at huan hua to allowing sqq to be locked up in a horrible prison, for example).

personally, i attribute a lot of lbh's willingness to hurt sqq to xin mo. he's willing to take more drastic measures on his own, and some things that sqq considers 'harmful' are things lbh doesn't necessarily think of as actually hurting him - for example, forcing sqq to consume his blood parasites - but lbh is truly taken off guard when something he does results in sqq being harmed in a meaningful way. that being said, because lbh does still act on those things, i think it means one of two things: either lbh interprets xin mo's influences as his own impulses, or xin mo erodes his own ability to understand consequences. either of these can make for interesting narratives, so i go with "whatever works for the specific au i'm working on," usually.

dfjgh that was a lot of rambling lmao. i wish i had more solid tips, but for as long i personally am unsure how best to write bingmei, all i can offer are the things i try to keep in mind when characterizing him 😅

also, a final tip that is purely selfish and maybe not a hundddreeeeddd percent canon driven and instead motivated by my desires to see more bingwife in the world: #1 tip is to wife that boy up / have him pursue being shizun's pretty little wife 😌😌😌

[comicaurora]

Hey! So I have a trope question

Something I’ve noticed since I was little is a that a lot of media with a trio had the same make up of two boys and one girl, is this a trope or just some weird thing that just happens by random odds?

I think it's a little bit more broad and nebulous than a trope, although it does have a TVTropes page. It's not random odds, it's storytelling trends.

For a number of reasons, the majority of protagonist POV characters are guys. Starting from this premise, if you want to make sure your protagonist always has somebody to play off of so they aren't engaging with the story in complete isolation, you give them at least one character to hang out with. This minimum one character can have all kinds of traits (mentor, scoundrel, battle butler), but if you as a writer are taking the easy, normal approach, you will give this protagonist a friendly buddy/rival to team up and squabble with (and this buddy will also be a guy, because again, this theoretical writer is taking the easy approach to character dynamics), and as a second thought you will probably give our hero a theoretical love interest girl for him to pine after so you can (a) write/draw a Hot Lady as much as you want and (b) get Hero Boy to cover a broader range of emotional situations within the comfort of his friend group. Thus you have rederived the trope of Two Guys And A Girl, congratulations on your moderately successful mid-2000s gaming webcomic.

As the story continues you might realize Girl Who Exists So Protagonist Can Remember Girls Exist is not actually an appealing love interest for him, so you'll probably pair off Girl with Second Guy and leave Hero Boy to pursue other romantic avenues. Second Guy is liable to be rather more interesting anyway, since he's going to be a Lancer to the hero's Leader-ness and serve as his primary foil, meaning he has a little more personality and frankly a lot more romantic tension with the lead. In fact, if you want to be really lazy about it, you can take these three characters and snap them into a love triangle with absolutely no extra work on your part, and that's an infinite drama generator at no cost to you.

You might take a slightly different approach if you, the writer, are a lady writing a lady-centric romantic story, in which case Girl is liable to be the POV character while her buds Hero Boy and Rival Boy take turns having romantic subplot adventures with her. In these narrative structures you don't want to add another girl to the inner circle, because the presence of a Romantic Rival (which seems to be the only purpose Other Girls serve in these stories) would spoil the center-of-the-universe romantic fantasy, so your hands are tied and we're back to Two-Guys-And-A-Girl again. You might add a supportive girl best friend when it gets adapted for netflix though - she can pair off with whichever boy loses at no additional cost.

What we're seeing here is Easy Mode Storytelling. This is what happens when a writer takes the extremely well-traveled road and lets their wheels slide into the well-worn tracks and follow where they may. It's not good or bad, it's just easy. It's a story we can recite in our sleep. This particular character arrangement occurs with unusual frequency because there are a number of factors that make it easy, and when you take a broad approach, the easy approach will be statistically favored.

This triple arrangement can obviously be genderflipped - Hero Girl with her friends Rival Girl and Love Interest Boy - but this is less common just by the numbers, because in the space of fiction there are more Hero Boys than Hero Girls. All-boy and all-girl trios also happen, but because most people are straight, most writers will see this as depriving themselves of all the exciting romantic tension they could get from having One Token Character to be romantically viewed and pursued. Additional characters can be added to the group, leading to Four-Temperament Ensembles and Five-Man Bands, but broadly this three-person arrangement is the smallest possible Ensemble Cast unit a writer can easily construct.

[kanohivolitakk]

You know, I find the difference between how the fandom treats Nidhiki and how the fandom treats Tuyet rather fascinating.

Because both of them are traitorous Toa Mangai who betrayed their team (and thus the ideal of Toa) for their own selfish gains. Both are characters who can be read either sympathetically or as completely selfish and vile characters. And lastly both are mean to represent the different ways a toa can fall to the dark side by having their vices and flaws win over their virtues.

Yet despite of those similarities, I have noticed people tend to be far more sympathetic to Nidhiki than Tuyet. People tend to give Nidhiki far more sympathetic towards his circumstances, minimize his flaws and outright wish he had been redeemed. While with Tuyet is at best seen as an interesting and somewhat complex villain, or at worst as a tyrannical lunatic.

It is easy to chalk this dichotomy up to Nidhiki being canonically more sympathetic than Tuyet, but I don't think that's necessarily the case. If we go by Greg's own commentary, his intention was other way around. For Greg Nidhiki was a selfish opportunist with few sympathetic traits, while Tuyet was someone who took her noble goals too far. Greg also has stated multiple times Tuyet is not evil, but rather insane (something that has it's own can of worms but thats neither here or there)

As such, we can easily think the dichotomy is either misogynistic doublestandards of sympathizing with a male villain while demonizing a female one in spite of the latter being less heinous, or yet another case of fans disagreeing with Greg. And while either of those conclusions are understandable, I think to simplify it would be rather dismissive and disingenous. As I do tink there are a few reasons why this is at play beyond misogynistic doublestandards or fans disagreeing with Greg for the fiftieth time.

Firstly, while Nidhiki was meant to be unsympathetic and selfish, his hints of a tragic backstory™ kinda muddy that interesting. If Nidhiki was meant to be a selfish powerhungry jerk, why then tell the audience he had to survive his whole life in one of the harshest conditions in Matoran Universe. Knowing Nidhiki's upbringing in TK Peninsula, it makes his actions far more understandable and sympathetic than if we knew where he came on. Tuyet meanwhile has no backstory or mindset that explains her motivations and goals, beyond her viewing Toa as too weak-willed to protect matoran. As such, it is easy to read her as a totalitarian despot who wants to control others, than anything more.

Secondly, Nidhiki is far more likable than Tuyet in their respective backstory oneshots. Tuyet in MDOTT is largely characterized as rather curt, nononsenical and somewhat manipuative, making her hard to sympathize for the audience. Contrast this to Nidhiki in MDOTT and BOADH, who while flawed is given more likable traits. Nidhiki is shown to be witty, clever and a bit of a snarker, which make him more endearing to the audience in spite of his impulsivity and selfishness being clearly present. Paired with BOADH being largely from his POV (and thus, allowing us to see his perspective, reasonings and mentality), it just makes Nidhiki a far easier character to root for than Tuyet, who is presented as an antagonist in her story.

Lastly, Nidhiki is just a character most fans have more connection to due his importance in the overarching story. Nidhiki was an already established antagonist in a main story arc, who'se backstory was mysteriously intriguing before being later expanded on. Tuyet meanwhile is a serial exclusive character first introduced as a plotdevice corpse, who was given a backstory to explain who she was while beinng alive and later used because she presented many interestig opportunities and potential. As such, people are more likely to be interested in the character present in the main story than the one who mainly exists in supplemential material.

But yeah that's just my own two cents on this as a Nidhiki fan who likes both characters. There's also the way how Tuyet does far worse things than Nidhiki and has far steadfast morality, but I feel I have talked about those earlier so I digress.

[nyoxt]

For Ram! The OC questions~!!!

[7] Are they a good liar, and what would they probably lie about? -

[27] Do they have any scars, how did they get them and how do they feel about them?

[39] What is their sleeping habits and favorite sleeping position, either alone and with someone?

That's all! Take care and take it easy!

[7] Are they a good liar, and what would they probably lie about?

Ram is a great liar! Lying is a sort of a fun social game to him (as is flirting. or joking). If Ram was a POV character in a story he'd be quite an unreliable narrator, because he would definitely make shit up to make the story more exciting. Usually the less he trusts the person the more he lies to them. 

And if not being honest to strangers is more of a job requirement/safety measure, than if he feels the need to lie to people he loves- that will be about his well being/health. He's one of those ppl who will cheerfully tell you they're fine to try and not make you worry even if they're obviously falling apart, you see

I'll put the rest under readmore because 1) there are bad pictures and 2) a bit of gore

[27] Do they have any scars, how did they get them and how do they feel about them?  He’s got some noticeable ones from being shanked or perhaps shived on multiple occasions in prison. Missing hand can count as a scar, I think. Ram lost it during one of his escape attempts and I didn’t think of a specific situation, but  the general gist is that it was either crushed by some mechanism or violently torn off, and this damage was very preventable if only he wasn’t trying to fiercely break free from whatever he was trapped at the moment. Kind of a “trapped animal chewed off its limb to break free” situation, but instead of freedom he became a laughing stock for the wardens, got a long time in solitary confinement, no fingers and a healing by a very uncaring hands.

(old sketch buuut it's not like im gonna turn it into something finished so why not throw it in here for the occasion, eh?)

Also he’s got some scars from one time he was bitten by a dog. He feels bitter and angry about all the stuff he got in captivity and doesn't like to talk about it, so folks that inquire about it will either get a fake story (new one every time) if he's in the good mood, or his go-to joke for every injury- that he got it while shaving. [39] What are their sleeping habits and favorite sleeping position, either alone and with someone? 

When he was a kid he loved to sleep all curled up in a ball in some tight space, and is not happy that now his horns and overall complexion make this impossible. And when Ram was living on the streets he got a habit of sleeping in a sitting position, hugging his backpack, ready to jump and run at any suspicious sound.

and/or snuggling with Duncan for warmth and sense of safety

Ram's also been a very light sleeper since childhood. “Wakes up if a person sleeping in the same room changed their breathing pattern” kind of light sleeper. So his sleeping habits boil down to “staying awake by all means ‘till he literally collapses out of exhaustion and physically can’t wake up”. And his favorite sleeping position is “whatever, hope I won’t wake up with a terrible neck pain because of the stupid horns”. As for sleeping with someone- he’s very, very, a snuggler))

[rweoutofthewoods]

Serious question not hating, I have been reading ur jegulus stories since foreverrrr and I have noticed that in the newer stories James is becoming this major loser who’s like about to cry and panic every five seconds and I was wondering if this is just like what James is now in general? because I read this other story (fbi agent smth killer Regulus smth) where Sirius smacks him for dating Regulus in front of people James starts crying LOL is this who James is now? Just someone who gets tussled around? is there a reason why he’s begin written like this? I’m not talking about “ men don’t cry” but more of a “why is he so spineless and pathetic now” idk it feels like James character in general is kinda of an empty vessel a lot of the time, in a lot of fics he’s this go happy go luck guy with god like spinelessness that is amusing to read like in “young blood” where even tho he’s supposed to be “bad” and in juvie he’s still not cool ? Or baddie? he’s just George Costanza like when Regulus goes “failed suicide attempt// you’re a liar” and James just wants to throw up and is having a nervous breakdown, In general it’s like Regulus is this major badass with an attitude and cutting words while James twirls his fingers nervously waiting for him to come home aka prey. Please please tell me your thoughts and don’t take this as hate I’m a big fan of your work

Hmmm I can see your point but I’m going to kindly disagree. Firstly, I’m not sure James and badass have ever been totally synonymous when it comes to his character. Like he is not weak whatsoever, but reg was always the one who was meaner, sharper, out getting himself killed to get the horcrux, so on. And honestly I think my James can be a bit mean and sharper than a lot of characterizations? I find it a bit funny actually because you can never please everyone, I’ve been told I make my James TOO mean.

I don’t believe my James has changed much at all. Look at anti-hero the first jegulus I ever wrote, and think about all the times James was a wreck in that too. His character only changes for plot reasons and to further a story. Also mind you, literature is more complex than just the words on the page. I had to deal with this when I wrote ppp too, that people didn’t fully understand that limited POV is LIMITED!! And a limited POV means that just because the character thinks of themselves a certain way doesn’t mean they’re seeing reality. They only know what it’s like in their own head. Also, my regulus has always been a mess too. That boy hates himself and has his fair share of breakdowns.

3 points:

1. Prey is a WIP with like 30k words or something? In fact we haven’t even seen as much of James yet, and I thought it was clear that Reg is the one out being badass because he’s free to since everyone thinks he’s dead. Voldemort tried to kill James and Harry and I’ve said that James’ Order duties are limited because he has a target on his back.

2. Youngblood James is extremely traumatized? Trauma and having a panic attack does not equal weak or spineless. Him freaking out in a stressful situation does not make him any less capable. PLUS limited POV!! We haven’t gotten to Regulus’ parts yet, and seeing James through Reg’s eyes, he’ll look different than James sees himself.

3. I have a lot of current works that I don’t think fall under the category you’re placing them under. I don’t expect you or anyone to have read them all, but Save Your Soul James is prob more of the badass James you’re looking for. Eoitv James is a bit of a bitch who gives as good as he gets. James was probably TOO mean in wck, and antipathy which I didn’t write that long ago. So let’s not make generalizations.

Anyway I can’t and won’t speak on anyone else’s choices or characterizations, but a character is not an easy thing to fully grasp when you’re writing them. Idk if you write yourself, but mind you a lot of jeggy authors are young or teenagers and deserve all the love and support as they grow and write however they want. Ofc as a more traumatized James characterization becomes more popular sometimes we’ll swing from one extreme to another.

I saw your second ask and I know you mean well and aren’t trying to seem rude, don’t worry. so I send you nothing but love.

However I love all u guys so much but I feel like every month or so I find myself having to back up and explain my writing or choices. And I hope I don’t sound like a conceited bitch, but I do know I’m decent at writing. Like I’m really good at understanding every single choice I make, ESP when it comes to characterizations. That’s always been my strength. I always know exactly what I’m doing and even if not everyone agrees with it, I can and will back up every choice I make in a fic because a lot of thought goes into every word. It is a little frustrating to often feel like I need to explain myself.

(Sorry last note I’m editing in to add: I’m the author and that means I’m in control, which means that for all the countless hours and all nighters I’ve spent writing, it is my right to write however and whatever I want. And it’s totally ok if you disagree with my characterization!! That’s your right too! but I can’t and won’t shape him to every person’s wants and whims. He’s my James and he belongs to me. Sorry I hope this doesn’t come off as harsh, I have no animosity I promise and I’m not trying to be, I know I come off as brash sometimes and I never mean it that way.)

But I know u don’t mean badly, and that’s not directly at you. Much love and happy Friday xx

[slightly-depressed-sloth]

Little fandom vent; sometimes I get annoyed at the way fandom reduces Damian down to stabby child who only cares about himself and does murder. Like yeah while I get fandom almost always reduces characters down to their funniest or snappiest traits Damian's just doesn't make sense.

Like his whole character is about how much he DOESNT want to be those things.

Damian cares so so so much about other people he just struggles to express it bc it takes a lot for him to trust someone enough to believe they're not going to pull the rug out from under him or betray him somehow. If he didn't care about other people he wouldn't have spent months trying to find Martha's pearls in the sewer, risking his life bc there was a bounty on his head at this point and further ruining his image with Bruce (who thought Damian was just sneaking off and putting himself in danger). He wouldn't have denounced the league and everything he knew to protect a man he'd met less than a year ago. He wouldn't have purposely failed a timed test as Robin to get across the city as fast as possible (a test that would've allowed him to go out alone as Robin and given him more independence one of things Damian values very highly) instead he went over the allowed time by more than 10 hours BC he helped old women with their shopping and walked women home after they were robbed and he sat with a man he saw crying in his apartment for more than 2 hours just having tea with him. I could go on and on about all the genuinely kind things he does bc Damian's empathy and kindness is one of his defining traits actually.

And yeah he used to kill people and he was more prone to violence than the other Robins but he was literally raised in an environment where his worth and by proxy his survival was tied to how well he did murder. I'm pretty sure if you raised any child in an environment where since they were born they were rewarded for killing and violence but punished for showing mercy and told them that it's for the greater good, that they're special and that there's nothing wrong with killing if the ends justify the means they'd end up the same.

Not to mention Damian fights so hard to not be violent bc he doesn't want to be, the people Damian admires most in the world (Dick and Jon) both based their entire personality around Superman (also it's confirmed Supes is his fav justice Leaguer in supersons). Damian wants to be like them so bad and wants to be kind and outgoing and as pacifist as you can get as a vigilante. Damian struggles so much to be that person but it's not as easy as just stopping when you've been conditioned your whole life that killing is the right move and that your worth as a person and the love of those around is dependent on you doing it. He literally keeps a sketch book where he just draws out all the intrusive violent thoughts he gets while fighting villains to get the anger and compulsion out so that he DOESN'T do those things. And Damian feels immensely guilty about all of his past murders which is shown over and over. When he kills no-body (an action he did to protect Bruce) he asks Bruce afterwards how he's supposed to make amends, how he's supposed to live with it.

Which leads me onto the other thing (and hopefully the last cause wow this is getting long) even Damian at his absolute worst only performs extreme violence out of either self defense or logic to him. He doesn't do it out of maliciousness (or at least that isn't the motivating factor). His worst actions were probably in his introduction where he 1) He accosted Alfred and stole the key to exit the batcave 2) Decapitated a villian 3) Attacked Tim

So let's get background on these events from Damian's pov. Damian has never been told who his father is and has to duel his mother every year on his birthday for the chance to find out. And then on his 10th birthday he wins and then that same night he's taken on a plane to go live with this man who he's told about on the plane ride over, then his first impression of him is Bruce fighting a bunch of manbats. His mother says she's leaving him with him indefinitely not telling him when she'll be back. And then this man who he only found out about hours beforehand takes him on another plane to a foreign country where he knows no-one and he finds out his father has other children as well. He's then locked in a small room adjoining a fucking cave full of weapons and told virtually nothing with no-one really talking to him except for them telling him that oh yeah everyone you know and trust is evil and your whole world view is wrong. And then when he yells at Bruce and has what's honestly best described as a temper tantrum (BC oh yeah he was literally 9 years old until a couple hours ago) Bruce in a bid to try and control his anger (since he's not sure how dangerous he is yet) uses league tactics on Damian telling him that he's dishonouring those who taught him. So the literal child whose spent his 10th birthday being flown around the globe to be a dumped in a foreign country with a man he's never met and only knows is a good fighter with a family consisting of an unknown amount of other allies who are similarly trained and then was locked in a room after being told his whole life is a lie might be forgiven for latching onto the only familiar thing here and going 'oh! Now I know how this works'

With the knowledge that Damian definitely decided from this conversation that the bats operate the same as the league it's pretty clear his reasoning is

1) Accosting Alfred and and stealing the key - a) I don't think you'd wanna be locked in a space by a bunch of strangers either no matter how nice the space is b) he probably assumed it was a challenge to see whether he was able to break out and a way they were testing his worth/ability

2) Decapitated a villian - once again assuming this is a test and trying to prove his worth/help his father in the mission to stop crime he was just told about

3) attacked Tim - a) Damian assumes that since Tim is home that he must be the current favourite and it's already known that in the league the way you replace someone is by killing them thus proving you were better than them. B) in the league if you were not the favourite/the best you were disposable c) the only way Damian knows how to earn/receive love is by performing violence, it's pretty reasonable that a 10 year old would try to go above and beyond to earn their new father's love (especially for a child like Damian whose always looking for that unconditional love he's been denied)

From Damian's perspective here he's being the best son anyone could want, he's doing the most past the point he'd be expected to and only being met with anger and disgust. Not to mention that from his view he's literally ensuring his safety since once again in the league Damian was one of the only people whose safety was ensured by proxy of him being the heir/favourite, we literally see them kill other leaguers as part of training.

Like this isn't to excuse what he did or say it's right but it is to point out that it WAS right from Damian's point of view and that he doesn't do what he does out of malice or blood thirst he's just a small child who quite literally didn't know any better.

(also him being mean is similarly a self defense thing, it's fairly common in abused kids. It's the logic of you can't hurt me if I hurt you first/you can't hurt me if I don't let you get close enough)

[lithopus]

For the ask game! 1! Who is your favorite character to write for and is this the character you find easiest to write for?

Thank you for the ask!

I guess for fanfiction, I pretty much only write Alhaitham and Kaveh’s POVs—although, actually, I’ve also written two (unposted, sfw) fics for my friends that contained Xingqiu’s POV, and he’s really fun to write for 😂 Now that I think about it, he’s probably the easiest perspective I’ve written. I enjoy his chivalrous and overdramatic way of speaking/narrating, and the guy is such a simp for Chongyun that it cracks me up. I definitely have a lot of fun writing him.

But, going back to Alhaitham and Kaveh…it’s difficult for me to choose! I like writing both of their perspectives for different reasons, and both of them are easy to write in some ways and challenging in others.

I’ll answer the question about whose POV is easiest first.

Technically, it’s Alhaitham’s—his way of thinking is a lot more accessible to me, whereas I sometimes struggle to relate to Kaveh’s perspective on things. It’s kind of similar to how Alhaitham “knows” Kaveh’s philosophies on a theoretical level, but doesn’t emotionally “understand” them the way that someone who personally shares Kaveh’s beliefs would. I more or less know how Kaveh’s mind works, but since I don’t usually approach things the way he does, his attitudes and ideals sometimes aren’t personally familiar to me. There are times when my brain has to work a bit harder to figure out how he views the world.

Because of that, though, I think that it might be easier—counterintuitively—for me to write stories from Kaveh’s perspective. Since I “understand” Alhaitham more, I can more easily convey what he’s thinking/feeling whenever I’m outside his head. Conversely, being inside Kaveh’s head allows me to get a closer look at how he’s processing things, which then makes it easier for me to work through his thoughts and figure out how to portray him.

So, Alhaitham’s POV is the easier perspective for me to write, in a vacuum…but if I’m writing a story about him and Kaveh, writing from Kaveh’s POV often makes things easier for me.

As for my favorite POV to write…if I had to choose a perspective to be stuck in, I think I’d choose Alhaitham’s. I love the unspoken depth of his love for Kaveh—like, his devotion is clear even from Kaveh’s POV, but being inside Alhaitham’s mind lets us see just how much he cares, even though he often hides it behind his sarcastic/detached attitude. I like being able to explore that side of him; it’s kind of like “looking behind the curtain” in the sense that we still see Alhaitham’s usual attitude with the way he speaks and acts, but we also see the contrasting tenderness he feels toward Kaveh (although, when I write him, Alhaitham’s narration does often try to bury that tenderness, lol).

That said, I do also like the idea of leaving Alhaitham’s unspoken affection…well, y’know, unspoken—so, being stuck in Alhaitham’s POV all the time wouldn’t be ideal for me.

It’s also interesting to get inside Alhaitham’s head and dismantle the “rational” barriers that he constructs around some things. That is, he’s clearly capable of caring deeply about certain things—like Kaveh—and I love writing about that kind of quiet intensity. And while I do believe that he’s the calm, logical person we see in canon, I also know that he can’t be invulnerable; he’s human, which means he’s capable of being hurt, and I like seeing how he processes those types of emotions.

But there are things that I enjoy about writing Kaveh’s perspective, too. For example, Kaveh’s artistry and ways of thinking give me more opportunities to be poetic with narration. When I’m writing Alhaitham’s POV, his analogies are usually more practical and functional; they tend to focus solely on explaining a concept, so while they might be creative sometimes, they won’t necessarily sound pretty. With Kaveh, though, I can let loose and be more indulgent with metaphors/imagery to explore a feeling or concept. I haven’t written poetry in a while, but his perspective gives me more room to flex those muscles, lol.

Kaveh’s perspective is also more straightforward, at least for me. Yes, he’s got a lot going on, and his psychology can get complicated at times—but he’s pretty much told us about all of his problems either through dialogue or his character stories, and we’ve seen him when he’s excited, happy, morose, angry, et cetera; he tends to acknowledge his feelings in a more “head-on” way, even when he’s trying to avoid his problems or downplay his emotions. So, I like that he’s a more “direct” kind of character, as opposed to the mental gymnastics Alhaitham performs in order to seem like An Incredibly Chill And Totally Unemotional Guy Who Is Never Bothered By Anything Ever.

(Now that I say that, it’s kind of funny that we joke about Kaveh’s mental acrobatics to misinterpret the things Alhaitham says, when Alhaitham is an Olympic gymnast in his own right 😂)

That’s my main answer, but I do have some additional thoughts about why writing Alhaitham’s POV can sometimes be a challenge for me. I’ll include those thoughts in a reblog, though, since I don’t want my response here to get too lengthy.

UPDATE: my additional thoughts are in this reblog

[evansbby]

I just know Ari loves the little spark in wg!reader. She’s not really a brat in the broader sense of the word but she’s sort of petulant in the most innocent of ways and I think it keeps Ari on his toes because he knows deep down that she’s just his baby on the inside!!! Innocent but feisty is so hot to me.

That’s one thing I think you’ve done rlly well since finishing poyt is NOT making them the same default character? Even though they’re meant to be us/readers we get a bit of variation which is cool to me. Poyt!reader is shy and almost obsequious whereas Wg!reader gives Ari a run for his money a bit and makes for some good sexual chemistry.

Even Ari and Steve are different. Like Steve is obsessed and shows his emotions easy and his need for omega’s validation is lowk obvious at times (we love him still), whereas Ari is so aloof and cool but you can sense that he becomes more obsessed. I need to see more dominant/obsessed ari in pt5 bc i am on my knees for him in wg

I think wg!ari is just soo in control likeee

Love ur writing as always!!

I don’t think you understand how much this type of ask means to me! Like when someone reads what I write and just UNDERSTANDS everything I’m trying to convey with the characters, and just analyses the way I write stuff, it just makes me feel so honoured and happy, you have no idea! Thank you so so much for this!!! I love this ask so much! 🥺🥺🥺

AND YES!!! okay so i definitely wanted to make wg!reader different from poyt!omega. ofc wg!reader is very innocent especially in the beginning but she was always lowkey sassy and petulant and she continues being like that throughout the series despite her becoming more mature and jaded as the chapters go by!!

AND YES ARI LOVES HER FEISTINESS! I really tried to show without outright telling that Ari really likes how wg!reader bickers with him, how she challenges him. He secretly loves it! Loves being kept on his toes!!! It’s a big part of reader’s allure from Ari’s pov… specially since Sharon isn’t like that at all!

And yes thank you for noticing how I really tried to make wg!Ari different from poyt!Steve! (I also tried to make wg!Steve super super different from wg!Ari and poyt!Steve which I think I succeeded too tbh!) but anyways yes back to Ari… you can tell wg!Ari is a lot more secure than poyt!Steve. He’s also less stubborn, a teensy bit more easier going too. Idk it’s just little changes bc I didn’t want to write the same character again (aka big sporty domineering jock)

I always want my characters to be deep and nuanced and have a whole story about why they act the way they do! I think with wicked games, a lot of people like the fic bc there are so many characters in that fic who all feel very very distinct! It’s the type of fic I personally would love to read! It’s almost like a dysfunctional group of friends who all inter-date and have history/romance with each other!

😭😭😭😭😭😭 IT IS SO MESSY BUT I WRITE IT BC I LOVE READING STUFF LIKE THIS!!

[an-indecisive-nerd]

Okay, this is going to be a post gushing about the outline of What's Your Story because I can't hold it in anymore.

When I first started writing WYS it was originally only going to be one book. Then it expanded to two. Now I realize that I've put these poor characters through so much shit that two books might end up meaning three or more. For the sake of clarity however, I'm going to be referring to them as books one and two.

Book one centres on Melantha Tollemache as I'm sure I've made clear by now. It'll take you through her and her brother gaining their powers, her family slowly falling apart, and her eventually running away. Then there'll be some stuff from Brandon’s pov as he discovers some unusual things about himself, eventually leaving town as well. Then it flips over to Alexander and shows his adventures in the afterlife, because even dying isn't easy for the Tollemache twins. This is what I'm calling act 1 of book 1. In theory there will be five acts in book one. Act 1 is obviously the most fleshed out, but I do have a basic idea of what will happen with the others. Act 2 will introduce and deal with the chaos god. Act 3 with introduce other worlds as well as the Organization and Faine. Act 4 will be the introduction of @thelovelymachinery 's world, trying to fight the org, and help the other worlds. Act 5 will be the final battle between the Order and the Org.

Book 2 follows Melantha and August's kids, the triplets Alexander, Amelia, and Arya. This book is less fleshed out than the first one, but I hope to organize it so that it has five acts as well. Act 1 will be them realizing their mother has disappeared, along with several other key figures in their lives. Act 5 will be them going to where they've found out their mother is and dealing with things there. Obviously I don't have the middle bit planned out too well. It'll come to me, don't worry.

I also may or may not have plans for a third book, but this is a very recent addition (as in a couple days ago), so I can't really comment on it right now.

Now then, here comes the crazy part.

I have a character creating addiction. I make characters that are meant to be side characters, then fall in love with them and make them an entire backstory and storyline. This has happened several times. As such, I believe I have material for a prequel and at least four spin off books. Yes, you heard me right.

The prequel will follow the gods. The acts will be called incidents in this one. I don't know how many there'll be in total, but so far I have The Corucia Incident, The Plutorath Incident, and The Eorianor Incident. The Eorianor Incident will most likely be the last act of the prequel.

Spinoff one will be based on Vreoxemund. This one will be two books. Book 1 Act 1 will be about how humans originally split off from vampires and about the first war between the two species. Act 2 will be about the rise of the Arany and Quintus families. Act 3 will be about the rise and fall of King Móric Kóbor, and the rise of King Firmin and Queen Louna, and the rise of Queen Dorina Arany. Act 4 will discuss the life of Crown Princess Aurélia Noyer, King Firmin and Queen Louna's daughter. Act 5 will be the death of King Edvard Arany and the rise of King Brian Quintus and the coming of the org to Vreoxemund.

Book 2 Act 1 will be the havoc the org wreaks on Vreoxemund and the plans for their removal being laid. Act 2 will be the fall of King Brian and the removal of the org for Vreoxemund. Act 3 will be the whispers of war between the vampires and the humans, and the new Queen Elvina's desperate attempts to hold everything together. Act 4 will be the beginning of the war. Act 5 will be its end.

Spinoff two will be on Shussuthas. Act 1 will be about Artemis Daniels' childhood, her schooling, and how she became a slave. It will show the corruption and cruelty of the Shussuthasian government through a child's eyes. Act 2 will be about Artemis meeting befriending and eventually becoming the adopted sister of Apollina, and about the sisters meeting Dr. Apricity Popov. Act 3 will be about how Dr. Popov manages to free the girls, and how Apollina creates the Sunlight Movement, a group dedicated to ending the slavery and injustice of Shussuthas. Act 4 will be the arrival of the org on Shussuthas and how it changes things for the Sunlight Movement. Act 5 will be the final fight for freedom.

Spinoff three is on Streosialyn. I'm not sure how or what exactly I'm going to do with this one, so I'm going to hold off talking too much about it for now. I do know however that it will follow Avani Xu, the daughter of the earth goddess Adamina and a man from Streosialyn, as she works to free her world from the org.

As you can see, each of these spinoffs have been about a different world. Ideally, I will eventually have a spinoff for each world. That may take awhile, but I already have some ideas kicking around, so I'm sure I'll get there.

The final spinoff is set back on earth. Act 1 follows a young Mark Zimmerman and his sister Agata through their time at the Horizon Institute. Act 2 covers Mark's escape and search for safety. Act 3 sees Mark reconnect with old friends from the Institute in the Order, as they plan to expose the Institute and take it down. Act 4 shows Kiara Prince's sabotage of the Institute from the inside as she tries to work her way to the top and cut off the head. Act 5 is the final downfall of Horizon.

This is a massive lore drop and I hope you guys like it. I've had these plans kicking around, not sure how I was going to fit them into the one story, for a good long time now. Finally I said to Hell with keeping it one story and decided to pull these shenanigans instead.

I hope you're all as excited as I am.

@thelovelymachinery @unforgettable-sensations @littleladymab @megamijadeheart @my-bright-legacy

@ominous-feychild @thecomfywriter @wyked-ao3 @anamelessfacelessnerd @differentnighttale

@mysticstarlightduck @the-letterbox-archives @leahnardo-da-veggie @paeliae-occasionally

[gender-trash]

hi!

not to be abrupt or vaguely out of the blue, but do you have any fun recent book/music recs? you seem like you like cool stuff and my to read/ to listen list is looking sad. or film/tv recs anything goes.

yeah absolutely, i am basically always delighted to rec books/music!!

books (fiction):

the goblin emperor: i read this for the first time recently and was just completely charmed by it. recommended if you like plotty court intrigue fantasy with a good-sized pinch of conlang. me @ maia (the protagonist/pov character):

the scholomance trilogy: not exactly a deep cut, at least among tumblr users who read fantasy, but on the off chance you haven't read it: it's good.

a tale for the time being: okay so i don't normally into litfic but once in a blue moon i'll pick some up and it'll obliterate me. alternates between the pov of a japanese teenage girl's diary and the middle-aged author-insert character in british columbia who finds the diary after the girl tosses it into the pacific ocean; plays with time in a fun way. subtle magical realism my beloved.

(and there's no such thing as an easy job has a similar subtle magical realism vibe, but is overall much less of a tearjerker. highly recommend.)

several people are typing: a guy gets isekai'd into his work slack; the story is told entirely via slack messages. this is a super quick read, and very funny. especially if you have a job that involves using slack.

the machineries of empire series: aauauahahahahgggh i need one of those mspaint drawings of a stick figure covered in blood to describe my feelings on this one. fucked-up science fiction (you... COULD call it lesbian space atrocities, i suppose!) that drops you in on the deep end trying to figure out what all these words mean and then you slowly figure out that it's technical terminology describing the torment nexus that powers society. killer shit.

song for the basilisk: admittedly i did not read this particularly recently but i will take any opportunity to rec it. patricia a. mckillip writes really good high fantasy (check out how many times she shows up in the mythopoeic awards list!) and, of all the books of hers that i've read, this is my favorite.

danmei (chinese boys-love novels) in english translation is like half of what i've been reading lately -- my all time favorite is the scum villain's self-saving system, which has eaten my entire brain (it's good in itself; it's great for chewing on in the form of meta and fan activity), but i also recommend guardian (the third and final volume of the official english translation is the book i most recently finished reading) and devil venerable also wants to know (no official translation but this fan TL is quite decent; i bound myself a physical edition, so i also have a typeset PDF i'd be happy to DM you if you're interested.)

books (nonfiction):

(going to be briefer here, since you specifically asked for "fun" books and my nonfiction taste is a little unhinged.)

one of my current reads is michael szonyi's the art of being governed -- this is an academic monograph about how military families in the ming dynasty handled their obligations to the state. during the ming dynasty, it was possible for families to designate themselves "military families", which was a tax-advantaged status but obligated them to provide one (1) man to serve in the army at all times (so if he dies or deserts, eventually the family back home would have to cough up another one). (and, by "serve in the army", often what is meant is "you are employed by the military to farm, which is more or less what you would have done back home anyway.")

if you're the kind of guy who reads patio11's bits about money or enjoys ssc book reviews, you will likely also enjoy dan davies' the unaccountability machine, which is a brief exploration for a popular audience of the (dysfunctional) system dynamics of large institutions like corporations and governments. very accessible and nontechnical, but with pointers to the Deep Lore if you subsequently want to seek it out.

the world of the shining prince: this is a book about what it was like, culturally, to be an aristocrat in the heian period. since i have never in my life come within either 1,000 miles or 1,000 years of being a heian period aristocrat i find this deeply fascinating. however, my friends and family have started laughing at me whenever i bring up information about the heian period. read at your own risk.

sei shōnagon's pillow book: sei shōnagon was a heian period aristocrat! she seems to have enjoyed it, but it is something of a shame that she died approximately a thousand years too early to make a tumblr account, because otherwise i feel she would have LOVED blogging. i'm reading the penguin edition (trans. meredith mckinney) and it is, fortunately, quite thoroughly footnoted, but i haven't read any other translations so i don't know if there is a better one out there.

music:

today what i was listening to on loop was the chainsaw man ost, which is a mixture of, like, the usual sort of j-rock you find in a shōnen soundtrack and slow-paced atmospheric stuff, and somehow it works really well together. recently i've also been listening to this playlist a lot because it's the playlist i made for a fic i'm currently writing.

other songs i've been listening to this summer, in no particular order:

sungazer is music theory youtuber adam neely's jazz band; lately they've been experimenting with hypertuplets and i'm super into it.

sometimes i find electric six's vocalist really irritating and sometimes it's exactly the juice my brain needed, and i have no idea what controls this. possibly the phase of the moon.

spotify recommended me this song and i listened to it on loop for like an entire work day and then clicked on the artist name to learn more, which i didn't. googled the song just now while making this post and apparently it was in a video game? the more you know.

i've been listening to irontom a lot this summer (and, um, a lot of similar music that i eventually stuffed in a playlist entitled "music with blown-out audio channels"). it's just, you know, the vibe.

(if that's not enough, here's my "summer 2024" spotify playlist. go ham!)

film/tv:

somehow, "watching things" is a skill it is possible to be bad at, and baby i'm winning last place.

the one tv show i've managed to watch in i think the past four months is chainsaw man, mentioned above. personally i really like well-animated shōnen with a cool soundtrack and i don't care that much about its other qualities; however, the protagonist is a dipshit teenage boy whose greatest life ambition is to touch a boob, so if this frustrates you you probably won't enjoy it very much.

i really really wish more people would watch legend of hei, a chinese animated film in the same corner of concept-space as studio ghibli. it's cuteeeeeee <3333

maybe someday i'll finally finish watching oh my general, a cdrama (free on youtube!) about a female general (ye zhao) who for reasons gets in an arranged marriage with the emperor's dipshit nephew (zhao yujin). this is peak fucking content because ye zhao is constantly saying gay shit by accident and swanning about being cute/badass in probably-historically-dubious armor. also as with all cdramas the costuming is completely off the shits.

[guiltycorp]

Not that i mind but i wonder if some changes to the shown dynamic were purposeful? The ending especially showed a lot of Gojo's regard for Geto, it was very cute (although I did think that Geto's depressive state in it would influence anime-onlys to see him as this typical brooding teenager who is annoyed by Gojo... and also im still certain that Geto showing middle finger in the group photo wasn't really in character for him). The lyrics of the opening and ending also add a lot of context for sure!

Then in the last episode they did a great job of adapting Gojo's emotional reaction, going even further with the excellent voice acting, erratic movements and bleeding from clenching his fist too hard... And of course the ambiguous redness under his visible eye after the dream, i'm sure we aren't going to get any confirmation whether it's from tiredness or tears (or allergies, or artstyle) but the implication alone is enough.

But!! At the same time in that final episode they chose to downplay the scenes where Geto mentioned Gojo before defection. And they didn't erase those moments but instead chose not to show his face fully.

It's like... His last hidden warmth towards Gojo, only shown to the manga readers. I'm not sure what the animation team's intent might have been with this, but I have to say - to me the manga had felt more ambiguous in regards to their relationship, their emotional states and feelings remained mostly subtextual (and i don't only mean the romantic overtones but just specifically Gojo's attitude towards Geto in the backstory). Meanwhile the anime chooses to focus a little more on Gojo's appreciation for Geto, clarifying a lot of things on his end but leaving Geto's side of things a biiiit less apparent? Which might in the end be for the best in order to make the sealing moment unambiguous. As it is, it was easy to interpret Gojo's fatal hesitation as an understandable shock at seeing a person from his past that he had killed. One could imagine him reacting the same way to Toji, for example. This way, however, Gojo's feelings will be clear. Also, I do remember how before s2 a lot of people claimed that Gojo didn't care whatsoever, citing that as the reason he had missed all the signs and why he 'had no problem' killing Geto in jjk0 (as if he hadn't avoided it to the last possible moment). So I believe it's very important for the audience to see that Gojo absolutely did care, and their sincere friendship just wasn't enough to overpower the messed up world they were living in, at least not without Gojo understanding that the system required change (which he didn't fully get until after Geto snapped, and even then... haha...). This in my view makes for a more complex narrative than just Gojo being a narcissistic person without personal attachments? It wasn't a one-sided narrative, both of them really were friends and liked each other outside of just going on missions together, it just wasn't enough. Anyway yeah, it feels like the anime showed a bit less of Geto's POV when it came specifically to Gojo, but we got more of Gojo's emotions in return, so yay!