#i'm starting a series of learning about things that are referenced in the book

[elipheleh]

The Waterloo Vase

But the first time I saw you. Rio. I took that down to the gardens. I pressed it into the leaves of a silver maple and recited it to the Waterloo Vase. It didn’t fit in any rooms.

Chapter 11, Red White & Royal Blue

The Waterloo Vase is a marble vase that stands in the gardens of Buckingham Palace. It is around 15ft high, 4.6m, and depicts the victories at the Battle of Waterloo - hence the name. The height listed varies between 15 & 18 feet, 4.6-5.5m, which probably is dependent on how they measured it.

The vase was initially commissioned by Napoleon, but after his defeat at Waterloo it was presented to the future King George VI, then Prince-Regent, who commissioned Sir Richard Westmacott to carve it. He wished for it to show the final battles of Waterloo.

Initially intended for display in the Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle, the weight of the vase - referenced as between twenty and forty tons - meant it wasn't feasible. After a few different locations, it was settled in the Rose Garden in Buckingham Palace in the early 1900s, and has remained there since.

The handles of the vase are depictions of angels, Victory and Defeat personified, with Defeat being shown with a shield atop their head. Above the depiction of Victory is one of Peace, who is presenting the Prince Regent with a palm leaf. Roses, crowns, shamrocks, and thistles are interlinked nearby, representing the national emblems all connected together. Also included were images of George III, then-King who had, at that time, retired from public life due to a mental illness that is now suspected to have been bipolar.

-----

There's something to be said that Henry chose not only to pour his feelings for Alex into something too big to fit inside the palace, but also that it was outside. Henry recalls that he "had better keep it a safe distance away" from himself. All his other feelings and memories were stored inside the palace, closed off and something he lives alongside, his grief and sorrow in rooms he would encounter easily. In contrast his feelings for Alex are placed outside, holding them at arms length so they can't impact him in the way he was so worried they would. They are something he has to consciously choose to revist, they are somewhere he can choose to avoid. There's a beautiful connection between the fact that his feelings about Alex and the Waterloo Vase itself were both too big to fit in any of the rooms at the palace.

The choice of the vase, with its connection to the King who was well known for dealing with mental illness - something comparable with Henry's 'dark days' - as well as George III's connection with the United States, makes it a multi-layered plot device, that on first glance appears to be much more simple than it can be read as. It is possible to draw connections between Henry and George III, tying both into the same link to history as the quotes of queer lovers through the ages Alex & Henry send as postscripts to their emails. While Henry's connection with America is the opposite to George III's - one lost the country whilst the other gained the country, albeit in different ways(!) - that link to the historical connection the UK had, and has, with the USA is notable.

Sources: Royal Collection Trust, Waterloo Vase Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mother image Good Morning Britain Coverage Chapter Eleven, Red White & Royal Blue

[celestial-sphere-press]

That National Geographic leather binding for Yellowstone is fucking Gorgeous!!! (Pardon my Language)

How long have you been binding, and what would you recommend to someone who wants to try it for themselves?

hello and thank you so much!! I worked really hard on that one (and no pardon needed haha)!

I started binding in February of 2021, which means in a few months I'll have reached 4 years. It's been an awesome journey!!

If you'd like to try it for yourself, I'd recommenda few things!

1) You can 100% try out the basics with near free or cheap materials. People typeset in Word or Google Docs or Pages. You can print on printer paper & use regular sewing thread & scavenge board from old books or notebook backs or do a limp leather binding & use no boards at all. You can make paper pamphlets. Any comments I make following this are about my preferences for best results. The most expensive part that cannot be avoided is printing. On the other hand expenses can wildly escalate if you're committing to it; once you are doing leather it becomes somewhat unavoidably expensive.

2) Check out some tutorials from SeaLemon or DAS Bookbinding on YouTube for the physical construction. SeaLemon is really clear for a beginner starting out, but then I'd move to DAS for better technique (DAS also has a beginner series though). I watched DAS Bookbinding videos for three weeks straight before I was able to start, & while that doesn't maybe work out for everyone I do think it gave me a pretty strong basis of understanding for structural techniques. DAS is *really* good at explaining why he thinks you should do something. The structure of the NatGeo bind is basically DAS's video on a rounded & backed bradel binding (but with leather & sewn on recessed cords). There is some good stuff on Tiktok/IG, but watch short-form videos/reels with caution. They move a little fast and I've seen a couple give instructions that can result in structural flaws (not that this is unique to the form, cross-referencing on instructions from any source is a good practice). They are good for if you're looking for a specific technique (particularly modern decorative ones, like cricut use, edge gilding, HTV application). There are also published books you can buy or maybe request through your library, such as Hollander's Introduction to Bookbinding. Renegade Bookbinding Guild runs a whole bunch of technique-specific in-house zoom classes annually.

3) Look to other fanbinders for tutorials on how to format the text (this is because most pro bookbinders do not do both text design & book creation! it's a pretty unique feature of fanbinding). @renegadeguild has some publically provided resources on our website here and more typesetting tutorials for a whole host of softwares (Affinity Publisher is my choice - one time purchase, fuck you very much Adobe InDesign) located in the discord server. Anyone 18+ can join the Discord. The NatGeo inspired book (text & dust jacket) was created in Affinity Publisher.

4) Join a community of fanbinders! It's really lovely. The space has exploded & there are tons of people to be friends with, trade tips, & cheer each other on. I'm part of @renegadeguild and we do a whole bunch of events throughout the year, and we have an in-person retreat every other year. I've met with over 20 different renegaders so far, in three different countries, and it's been such a blast. Definitely the community helps keep up the motivation. Renegade isn't the only community out there though! There's groups more rooted in IG/tiktok circles that have their own discords, plus a number of FB groups. I do think most people who are comfortable on tumblr enjoy Renegade's vibe.

5) While I learned most of what I do online, some things really benefit from in-person learning. If you want to do leather binding I would really recommend trying to take an in-person class. I did two attempts at a leather binding on my own before I decided to hold off until I'd had at least one in-person class. Leather binding can be extremely frustrating, especially when you can easily end up with a book that looks worse than a cloth binding at your same skill level but for double the cost. Imo this is mostly because the leather specific skills like paring, warp management, and assessing a random piece of leather for bookbinding suitability are all pretty tactile experiences, all of which are difficult to assess through a screen and can result in an unpleasantly bulky/stiff/shapeless book if ignored. For example- while this book of mine is a pretty popular post, I don't enjoy holding it and reading it, especially in contrast to the NatGeo bind. Part of this was the material I chose; part was not being able to adhere to the instructions quite well enough; part was just not knowing enough about what I was doing; part is they're different constructions. This might just be a me thing though; I'm sure others have had success with online only tutorials for leather.

6) I'm not going to get into specific tools bc that could be a whole post, but some things are necessary (printer access), some things are necessary depending on style, some things are "makes life easier but only drop the money if it's stopping you from making books out of frustration", some things are just technique-specific tools. Examples - sewing frames are often brought up but are never necessary unless sewing on cords; cricuts & cutting machines are commonly used in fanbinding circles but I don't have one (& don't intend to atm).

7) Don't be shy to offer the author a copy!! Like other fan activities, fanbinding is part of our fandom community ecosystem. Your fanbinding is in communication with the author's story. Giving a bind to the author is a great way of keeping the ecosystem going. I tend to think of binds as a combo of comment, fic rec, and fan art inspired by the fic.

8) Paper grain sounds stupid but it IS IMPORTANT! My personal hierarchy of give-a-fuck for grain: Board grain, spine card grain, endpaper grain, cover paper grain, text block grain, book cloth grain. The only thing I personally sometimes ignore is book cloth grain; but many people will not worry too much about text block paper grain.

Gonna stop there for now. If you've got specific questions or want elaboration, feel free to ask. As with all things, YMMV, this is my own opinions/experience and may not apply in all cases. There's a whole lot of different techniques out there, and it's hard to ever say something is wrong, per se - but I think it's important to understand if a method has an outcome you may want to avoid. Prioritize your goals & adapt for them - what's your goal? Longevity, readability, aesthetics? You might make different choices depending on them. My choices influence the techniques I chose to focus on, the tools I buy, and thus the final aesthetic of my binds.

[aaronsrpgs]

"Ancient World Fantasy" Reading List

(A little context to start. If you just want book recs, scroll on down to the first image.)

As I’ve been getting into RuneQuest (Wikipedia link), one striking component of the culture and community surrounding the game is that they’re very into the lore of its fictional world, Glorantha. I’m saying this as a comparison to a game like D&D, where the game is spread across tons of settings with no real sense of obligation to keep things in line with earlier editions.

Glorantha’s canon and worldbuilding has been going on since it was published in 1978 without, as far as I can tell, any big reboots. Which means that, unlike D&D, where people are bringing in all kinds of influences and doing direct adaptions of Jane Austen books and whatever, the RuneQuest game remains pretty tightly tied to the original setting. (There have been some exceptions. But not many!)

But since I run games for people who have ADHD or aren’t interested in studying up, I’ve been looking at all kinds of inspiration to drop into the game. Here are 20 novels that are roughly “ancient world” or “Bronze Age” like RuneQuest and deal with people interacting with strange gods, tight communities, and a world without fast overland travel or transferal of information.

I’m presenting them alphabetically by author’s last name.

The Brazen Gambit, Cinnabar Shadows, The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King by Lynn Abbey

I'm sorry for starting this post off with licensed RPG novels, but these are good! And I don't mean "good for licensed RPG novels." I've read tons of them, and most are so bad! But these are actually fun. Good character development in a sword-and-sorcery world. It's also an ecological apocalypse world, with godlike beings oppressing common folks, leading to a lack of technological advancement and knowledge of the past.

The Long Ships by Frans G. Bentsson

Written in the 1940s as a series of novellas, these stories take you on a tour of the Viking-era world, from Europe to the Middle East and beyond. Like a bunch of books on this list, this places them post-Bronze Age, so they're not officially "ancient world." But it gives a big spread of cultures, from the more clan-based Vikings to the bustling metropolises of Turkey. And it doesn't place any of them on any kind of linear advancement scale or whatever other gross way people "rate" cultures.

Tales of Nevèrÿon and Neveryóna by Samuel R. Delany

The master of weird sci-fi and gay historical novels, Chip Delany also wrote a fantasy epic. And it rules! Set on pre-historical(ish) Earth, these books describe the stories that maybe inform the myths we tell today? Dragons and slave revolts! A sort of "What if Game of Thrones was good?" series. Lots of good stuff about how people learn and how understanding expands.

I'm not listing the third book only because it's also a historical look at New York during the AIDS epidemic. It's an amazing book! But it strays from the "ancient world" aesthetic.

Baudolino by Umberto Eco

Another novel expressly set after the Bronze Age (this one starts in the 12th century). BUT it's about Medieval people's interaction with the knowledge they inherited from the past, specifically the myth of Prester John and the works of Herodotus.

I think I keep putting books like this on the list because roleplaying in a fantastical ancient world is not too far off from how Medieval people might have worshipped and referenced works from ancient Rome and non-European places.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf and Moon Witch, Spider King by Marlon James

One of our best living writers! These are fantasy novels expressly set in a fantastical version of ancient/Medieval Africa. The books explore the same events from multiple points of view and are full of cool magic, awesome spirit combat, and a vast number of places and cultures that actively deconstructs most games's portrayal of fantasy Africa as a homogeneous place.

The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth

I think Kingsnorth has been outted as a sort of eco-fascist? I totally believe it, so feel free to skip this one. It's a historical novel set in England in 1066, as the Normans invade from France. It's written in a faux Middle English language and focuses on the lower classes and how they try to resist the invasion. A good reminder that "Medieval culture" (and especially the Renaissance as a time that "culture advanced") is often based on certain classes of society, such as rich people and/or men.

Iceland's Bell by Halldór Laxness

Speaking of how class intersects with technological advancement, this book is set in the 18th century, but it focuses on Iceland at a time when it was ruled by Denmark, and the lower classes there were under an enforced poverty. It's a book about how a rich Icelander was trying to recover the stories of his people in order to create a sense of national identity and resistance. But it's also a story about how a destitute man acts like a total weirdo when he's not allowed to fish in his own waters and is cut off from understanding his place in history.

The Raven Tower by Anne Leckie

A big part of RuneQuest is people interacting with and enacting their gods. That's what this book is about! And it's about the strange vertigo that comes to people when they try to interact with the impossible timelines that gods exist on. Very good stuff.

Night's Master and Death's Master by Tanith Lee

Ostensibly set on Earth back when it was flat and demons roamed the world, which is basically RuneQuest. Sort of like a series of hornier, gay bibles? With lots of gender fuckery, fun sex, and cool monsters.

Circe by Madeline Miller

The story of the witch from The Odyssey, told from her point of view. Beautiful prose, tragic and beautiful characters, and a great share of mythical strangeness. Perfect if you want to learn how to run NPCs that are adversaries without being shallowly evil.

Ronia, the Robber's Daughter by Astrid Lindgren

Semi-Medieval again, but low class and vague enough that it could exist throughout ancient history. The daughter of a robber grows up in a tower full of robbers and generally has a wonderful time. Lots of weird monsters live in the woods, and there's a great starcrossed romance with someone from a rival robber gang. Perfect inspiration if you're running some cattle-raiding runs in RuneQuest; this is how to make robbers fun and sympathetic.

Read the book, watch the 1984 Swedish movie (which includes a great comedic scene of full-frontal dudity), and then watch the Studio Ghibli series.

A Stranger in Olondria and The Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar

Set in a world of pepper farmers and religious fanatics who worship a mysterious inscribed stone, these books do a great job of showing how people might interact with religion, rival cults, and mystery rites. It also portrays literacy and learning to read in places where it's gated behind social gatekeeping. And once again, the prose is beautiful.

The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola

The first African novel published in English outside of Africa, The Palm-Wine Drinkard is a funny, hallucinogenic story about getting drunk, stumbling through weird landscapes, and encountering fantastical spirits and people.

Tutuola also wrote My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, the inspiration for the famous(?) David Byrne/Brian Eno album. I haven't read it yet, but I'm keeping an eye out!

The Green Pearl by Jack Vance

This is a sequel to Lyonesse, which I haven't read because I love staring in the middle of things. Set around a mythical British Isles when Atlantis was still above the sea and part of the group of islands. Some great wizard shit, warring clans, romance, and a wizard whose name is fucking Shimrod (in case you need more convincing).

Those are my 20 novel recommendations! I'm gonna come back to add some nonfiction, comics, and myth resources for running games in fantastical ancient worlds. You can read SpeedRune, my ancient fantasy game, here.

[waitmyturtles]

The Old GMMTV Challenge: The Master Post and Explainer

Updated: January 15, 2025

Hello! Welcome to The Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC), my personal syllabus and journey through the most important, and/or impactful, and/or seminal of Boys Love (BL)/Series Y dramas from Thailand.

I started watching Thai BL series in 2022 with the airing of KinnPorsche. From there, I dallied with shows that were referenced across Tumblr -- but I didn't dig into learning about the genre as a whole until I watched 2021-22's Bad Buddy, and was thoroughly moved by it in countless ways.

I subsequently learned that Bad Buddy was, in large part, constructed to communicate with tropes and expectations established previously by the genre. In order to get to a point where I could appreciate Bad Buddy in all of its historic glory, I therefore decided to start from the top -- to watch Thai BLs in chronological order so as to help me better understand the tentacles of this young genre. I was also impacted by a post from a BL Tumblr lifer, @absolutebl, who talked in 2022 about current shows by the GMMTV network, the biggest producer of BL dramas in Thailand, that were answering for mistakes made in the early Thai BL days.

Bad Buddy is a GMMTV show -- but in order to learn fully about the genre, I've created a syllabus of shows and movies that spans well outside the GMMTV network and sphere of influence. In the spring of 2023, I crowdsourced information about Thai BLs from the INCREDIBLE BL community on Tumblr, and came up with the syllabus below.

This syllabus is ever changing, especially as this young genre (which was arguably born in 2014 with the airing of Love Sick) continues to explore itself outside of its male-and-male romance genre boundaries, by centering women and/or non-binary individuals, and even leaving romance behind for horror, suspense, mystery, crime, and more.

Besides watching dramas on this syllabus, I'm also in the process of reading English-language books and articles about the Thai BL genre and its influences in Thailand and across Asia on queer and non-queer communities, as well as on the most marketed-to BL audience in young women. Links to reading materials are below the syllabus.

If you're looking to learn more about BL, this is but one resource to use. There's an incredible community of bloggers here with vastly more knowledge than me about the history of this genre. This is only my path, and I encourage you to explore the corners of Tumblr to create your own Thai BL journey!

The Drama Syllabus and Review/Meta Links

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Love Songs Love Stories: Pae Jai (2015) (Thailand’s first serialized GL) (to be reviewed with GAP the Series) 5) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 6) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 7) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 8) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 9) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 10) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 11) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 12) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 13) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 14) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 15) The Fallen Leaf (2019) (not a BL; adjacent to the project as Thailand’s first lakorn featuring a queer/transgender main character) (watching) 16) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 17) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 18) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 19) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 20) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content at GMMTV) (review here)

21) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 22) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here) 23) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 24) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 25) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 26) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (review here) 27) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 28) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 29) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 30) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here)

31) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 32) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 34) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here) 35) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: preamble here, part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4) 36) Secret Crush On You (2022) (review here) 37) The Miracle of Teddy Bear (2022) (review coming) 38) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here)  39) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist (part 1 and part 2) 40) Triage (2022) (review coming)

41) Honorable Mention: War of Y (2022) (for the sake of an attempt to provide meta BL commentary within a BL in the modern BL era), with a complementary watch of Aam Anusorn’s documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy (2020) (thoughts here) 42) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 43) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine "Genre BLs," Along With a Critical Take on Branded Ships (review here) 44) Khun Chai/To Sir, With Love (2022) 45) Love of Secret (2022) (a GL that preceded GAP) 46) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL with a branded pair and ship) (review coming) 47) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023), Coupled with a Speed-Watch of My Love Mix-Up Thailand (2024) to Comment on GMMTV Trying to Make Magic Happen Twice  48) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 49) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 50) La Pluie (2023) (review coming) 51) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 52) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 53) Only Friends (2023) (tag here) (not technically a BL, but it certainly became one in the end) 54) Last Twilight (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as Thailand’s first major BL to center disability, successfully or otherwise) 55) Cherry Magic Thailand (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as the first major Japanese-to-Thai drama adaptation, featuring the comeback of TayNew) 56) Ossan’s Love Returns (Japan, 2024) (adding for the EarthMix cameo and the eventual Thai remake) 57) 23.5 (2024) (GMMTV’s first GL) (thoughts here) (I am not finished with this show; I will finish it when I get to it on this list)

Additional Reading Material

Dr. Thomas Baudinette, Boys Love Media in Thailand

Dr. Peter Jackson, Queer Bangkok

Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific -- Issue 49, Thai Boys Love (BL)/Y(aoi) in Literary and Media Industries: Political and Transnational Practices, June 2023

(Fandom reference) "Fan Leaders' Control on Xiao Zhan's Chinese Fan Community," Transformative Works and Cultures

(Fandom reference) "Xi Jingping Versus the Stans," Vox

[tortured-demigods-department]

an unhinged (and unofficial) dissertation on the pjo fandom

so i don't usually post anything that isn't my-works-related, but i had a...mildly heated discussion with a fellow film student tonight about the pjo show and it's got me thinking. bear with me, we'll be here awhile.

as we all know, the first season of pjo has ended. i've stayed relatively OFF tumblr and other social media during this time, but i know there are a lot of OG fans who are (in their words) "massively disappointed" in the show. most of the complaints i've heard have been during in person conversations though, so this post is mostly going to be referencing real complaints i've heard.

i've been a part of this fandom since i was thirteen. that's nearly eight fucking years of my life that i've devoted to the pjo universe. i have written and consumed YEARS' worth of fanfiction, i have read and reread every book so many times i can quote them forwards and backwards, and i went to the bookstore every single year on the new books' release dates to pick up my copies in-person. this fandom, these characters and this world have brought so much joy to my life, and i don't think i could ever fully articulate that in words. when i think of this series, i genuinely feel nothing but happiness.

but a few years ago—around the time i started college—i started distancing myself from the fandom for one glaring reason. this fandom can be such an...angry place? like, genuinely, i don't know how far it goes back—maybe all the way to the release of HoA, honestly—but i wasn't here pre-HoA, so all i know is that i very much remember how much people hated ToA when it came out.

here i was, having the TIME of my life with apollo and his silly little haikus, and people are going to war over how the series' writing quality has gone to shit and how everything was better before, blah, blah, blah. IN SPITE of everything that series gave us—discussion of the repercussions of child abuse and ptsd, representation of lgbtqa+ characters, and deep psychological messages that really teach young readers, i think, how to better understand themselves and their emotions and deal with them in healthy ways. and it just wasn't fun to be in a fandom where, as soon as you go "hey, did you read the new book?" they scoff and roll their eyes and only want to talk about how terrible it is. (i also missed all the discourse on the sun and the star when it came out—PHENOMENAL read, btw—but i've read some things that lead me to believe that it wasn't well received either, in spite of how lovely it was.)

so...it's dramatic to say i "left" the fandom, but i certainly withdrew from it. deleted my pjo ao3 and tumblr, started over with a different fandom. but the love has always been there, and the show starting really helped spark it fully back to life.

but now, the same thing is happening again, i'm noticing. remember back in the day, when we only had the shitty fucking movies, and we were like "man, ANYTHING would be better than this garbage. literally just give us actors who are the right age and we'll be happy." well, now we have PHENOMENAL kid actors who genuinely are having a good time playing our beloved characters, and instead of supporting them, we're STILL complaining about them not being "portrayed correctly"?

i've talked to so many people who complain that percy is "too smart," which is kind of a bullshit insult to percy's canon character. in the books (at least the first five) we're seeing things ONLY from percy's pov. he's a kid who's struggled with learning disabilities and been told he's an idiot all his life by everyone except his mom—but as others have pointed out way more eloquently than i could, percy is a very intelligent and powerful individual while maintaining his goofy fun personality, which is WHY so many people love him so much. he's complex, and i think they managed to capture that really well in the show even amidst all the changes.

don't get me started on the fucking racism towards leah sava jeffries—i'm honest to gods ashamed that there are racists who call themselves pjo fans. she is so talented, and everything we ever could have hoped for in an on-screen annabeth. ALL of the kids are—there's literally no argument to be had there.

and then, if people aren't complaining about the casting, it's the series' writing. or there's too much exposition. rick is changing too many things. the directors don't know what they're doing. it's not a TRUE book adaptation. (someone said that to me, and i genuinely laughed because i thought they were joking. when the MOVIES exist, they wanted to make that comment about the show.)

are there some things i would change about the show, given the opportunity? god, yes. the set design for the underworld was horrendous. (in my opinion, of course.) but here's the thing. i have spent eight years of my life waiting for this show to happen, and in that time, i've learned a lot about how much goes into successfully producing such a complex series. how much money and time is spent, and how many people have to be on board to make it happen. it's genuinely kind of miraculous that we're even getting this show at all, considering all the ways it could have failed before it even made it out of pre-production.

and i think we, as fans, sometimes forget that we aren't owed this. we don't own the percy jackson franchise. it makes me so sick and tired when authors or artists in any capacity feel like they have to cater their works to the masses, because they know they'll get thrown into the fucking fire if they don't. rick and becky riordan didn't have to got to the trouble of producing this show for us. they chose to—everyone involved chose to—because they wanted to make something fun and enjoyable not only for the fans, but everyone who chose to be a part of it.

do you know how insane it is that, when you read pretty much any interview of pjo bts, everyone talks about how fun the production was? i've been on film sets. they can be ABSOLUTELY miserable when they're not done right. but eight months into production, the kids were still laughing and having a good time, everyone's still giving 100%, they're excited, it's fun. walker was willing to go into a diving tank for a full fucking day in order to get one scene—i know i would never have that kind of dedication, and i bet 99% of you wouldn't either.

i know this has gotten really long-winded, but i've said all of that to say that...i'm kind of tired of fans trying to bring down the show, and more than that, trying to bring down each other for having a good time. as i've said before (many times, i'm sure), i waited eight years for this, and i have had SUCH a fun time watching it. assuming we get a season 2 renewal, there are going to be even more new fans coming in than we've already gotten from season 1, and i want this fandom to be a fun and positive place for them. for all of us. we don't have to miserable and angry all time. we can critique the show, sure—it's not perfect, and it was never going to be—but we have to remember that television is an art form, and that art is subjective even when it involves our favorite characters. and we can accept that and still have a good time, because it's just more fun to have fun, you know?

this fandom has always had so much potential to be the BIGGEST, most supportive and kind and loving fandom. with how much representation this series has, with how much content we've been given, with the SHEER massive number of us...i've always thought we could be a really, really great community. maybe it's impossible to hope that we could be the best fandom on earth, but if nothing else...could we all try to just be a little bit kinder? genuinely, as cheesy as it may sound...it's just nicer when we're nice to each other. and when there's so many real things in the world to be mad about...i would much rather this be a place where we can come to at the end of a long day and just...feel at home. personally, i just think that would be really, really nice.

[dizaryswrites]

I have a confession to make!

I don’t know how obvious it is, but I actually haven’t read any comics 😅 I know, I know haha, it’s just I haven’t had the time! Luckily, I mostly follow blogs that I know are comic readers so I know what’s fanon and canon mostly. But since I will have free time in the summer, I was wondering if you have any recommendations on what to read and where to start?

Oh man I WISH I could be one of those blogs who snaps out the long scroll that just rolls down the hallway with a concise cross referenced list of top hits from every era and where to start with each character! But I am a book hoarder with not enough time on my hands so I haven't even read half of what I have, let alone all the back issues 😅

Here's some stuff that I really enjoyed as a new-to-comics-and-DC reader and in general (in mostly chronological order because that's how I arrange my comic books):

Batman: Dark Victory

I really enjoyed the mystery and early Batman days, plus Dick Grayson's debut! He is a delight. I didn't read Long Halloween which comes before this so I missed some context but I picked it up easy enough (also according to some reviews the mystery can be repetitive if you have read Long Halloween sooo win for me ig?)

Robin: Year One

I am determined to read this one soon. I've heard great things about it though so it's being added

Batman: Prodigal

I read this without reading a single page of Knightfall because I was getting interested in Nightwing and this was the earliest book that my library had available (I have given up on a chronological reading order since those early foolish days). I knew nothing and still really enjoyed Dick!Bats and Robin!Tim together. I need to reread this soon

Formerly Known as the Justice League

A limited run, 6 issues I think. Honestly I should just say Justice League International in general but I started with this mini for Booster Gold and Blue Beetle after seeing some funny panels online and I fell in love with that whole cast of losers (affectionate). It's not BatFam but so so fun to read (and JLI has some really poignant moments too)

Young Justice: A League of Their Own

SO FUN. Tim and friends dealing with just ridiculous scenarios LOL I'm only halfway through but it's great

Batman: Hush

I haven't read a lot of just Batman titles but I enjoyed Hush. It had some good character moments for Bruce that helped me understand the way he thinks a little more. I also hear Bruce Wayne: Murder/Fugitive is very very good but I haven't gotten around to it yet (a running theme)

Batgirl: Point Blank

Cass is a treat. This was the first volume I found of her's, haven't read the others yet, but even lacking context I really enjoyed her as the main character and her interactions with Steph, Babs, and Bruce.

Teen Titans (Geoff Johns)

This was one of the first series I started reading and it was a good intro for me, a completely new DC fan. It's Tim and his friends but more serious than YJ. I've read vol 1-2 and part of 3

Under The Red Hood

Classic for good reason. I haven't finished it yet (teehee) but the first half has been entertaining. Jason has had some um... interesting writing in his time. But I really enjoy the way he's written here. It's a good baseline imo. I've heard Lost Days is also good

Nightwing (Tomasi run)

I love Tomasi and this run was a lot of fun. Dick is funny while not losing his serious, capable edge, he interacts with people in his circles, and has some interesting introspection moments. There's a weird part of the plot about midway that definitely uses bad Asian stereotypes which is so disappointing. But after that it gets normal again 😅

Batman & Robin

This comes right after Tomasi's run and it's a mixed bag for me. It's definitely interesting seeing Dick and Damian learning to work together but I was still new to DC with little context for things and was also *so* put off by the art style that I don't remember it well. But I thought I'd add it anyway since it's an iconic moment for Dick!Bats

Batman and Robin (Tomasi)

I adore Bruce and Damian struggling together to discover what being father and son looks like for them. I adore Damian having growth. That's volumes 1-3. 4 is post Damian's death (and damn issue 1 is a well written look at grief), I haven't read 5 or beyond yet.

Nightwing (Rebirth)

The first Nightwing title I read. Looking back, the characterization is a bit weak in some areas, doesn't quite match how he's written in older runs, but it had good moments and kept me entertained. Especially!!! In vol 3 with Humphries's Judge arc

For more current runs, I'm really enjoying World's Finest. Waid's writing is good and Mora's art is just *cartoon heart eyes*. Bats, Supes, and teenage Dick Grayson are a fun trio. Amid other runs that had me tearing my hair out in disappointment or frustration, WF is a breath of fresh air.

Titans United: Bloodpact is a 6 issue limited that was also a really nice read. It's Dick's Titans but Tim is there too and I enjoyed everyone's writing.

The Human Target (Tom King) but honestly I was just losing my mind over Greg Smallwood's art and paneling the entire time. A masterpiece. I want to frame every page. I cheered when he posted inspiration threads on Twitter.

Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen

It's not Batfam but hear me out!!!! This comic had some of the sweetest moments between Supes and Jimmy and I wanted to grab literally anybody by the shoulders and shake them until they looked at the Lois, Clark, & Jimmy in the helicopter panel and GOT IT!!! Also it is so delightfully wacky and funny, I was genuinely laughing out loud. Steve's Lieber's art is the perfect pairing with Matt Fraction's writing.

AND SPEAKING OF!

This isn't DC at all but it's the series that made me (and so many others) really love comics and their storytelling potential. Matt Fraction's Hawkeye run, volumes 1-4. Between his writing and David Aja's artwork and color theory (and Steve Lieber's guest issue that literally gut punched me and changed how I saw later parts of the story, it was never just a filler issue to me, Steve) you get a great story that says so much with so little (in the best way) and is a visual treat as well. Chef's kiss.

Some other non-DC comics I really enjoyed are Die (imagine Jumanji but D&D and novels and oh look the consequence of your actions has grown up), Something is Killing the Children Vol. 1 (I am not a horror girly but I really enjoyed this, in no small part because of Dell'edera's art), Eight Billion Genies (the world population hits 8 billion and now everyone gets a genie, what could go possibly wrong), and Paper Girls which I'm about 2/3 through (picture stranger things but with time travel, spaceships?, and oh shit is future me lying??)

Damn, I guess I really did have a scroll's worth. 😭 Anyway, my recommendation for where to start with this list is...what does your library have available? Don't forget about the Hoopla app too, that's where I read some of these digitally. Or the used bookstore which is where I got 90% of my comics from.

But seriously! Just pick whatever sounds the most fun or has the character(s) you're the most interested in and go from there. Skip around on the timeline or go in chronological order. Whatever floats your boat! I think that's the really unique thing about comics. Plus if you can't figure out the context of what you're missing or what is happening simultaneously (because writers & editorial used to care a little more) you can do a quick google or (and I wish I had this with Batgirl) @cephalog0d has a pinned timeline master list. Incredible.

[rubiatinctorum]

Tell us a little about your first novel! We're intrigued!

Oh my goodness, thank you so much!

I hope you don't mind if I narrate this one, but I love story time, and it will keep me on track, and it's so Universal Design for Learning multiple means of representation :3

I'm going to try to say as much as I can without giving my name away to the whole internet (I did not opt for a pen name and this specific blog would get me so fired for being. so foul. at my irl job lmao) but the details will be true :D

I started writing novels in 2016. Before that, I wrote short stories and a novella which I turned into manga (which I later turned into my second book). When I started Novel 1 in May 2016, I was still working on the manga, but before that, in October 2015, I needed a short story written by November for a local writing competition I'd last entered in 2008.

In this story, the protagonist had a terrible breakup with her boyfriend a while ago, and she's trying to navigate going to school and seeing him and his friends, when he is injured badly in an accident. She helps him get medical attention, and starts a new romance with someone else.

(Aside: There's a nonzero amount of my old writing that's just like. deeply uncomfortable for me to read now. because of the car accidents. This is the progenitor of these car accident scenes that would proliferate in my pre-2020 works. It's funny in retrospect though. It's funny. #we have to meme or we'll cry — I hope you don't mind me referencing that tag!)

The story never won the competition, but the adjudicators were quite kind about it. That left the story to ferment in my mind and grow into something bigger. Something that turned the protagonist into a reincarnated superhero and the former ex-boyfriend character into someone suspected for a crime he didn't commit.

There's also another important short story. While the first story was a tenth grader's heartfelt attempt at navigating themes of forgiveness, rejection, and moving on, the second one was entirely written to be hypnotherapy malpractice whump. That story lends Novel 1 three supporting cast members and literally the final major antagonist.

These stories fermented together. I wanted to do something major with them. Maybe a manga? That was what I was used to writing. Over 1.5K pages of it between late 2013 to May 2016 on folded multipurpose white paper in pencil. Not exactly a professional way to do it, but it was something. There was no way I was going to be able to keep up with that project and write another manga with an entirely separate cast and world at the same time. So, I'd have the manga as my main project, and a novel as a side project to work on. A novel from these couple of stories.

On May 8th, 2016, I started writing my first novel on loose-leaf paper in a navy blue school binder. Within a few days, I cancelled the manga project. The novel was my main, and only, project for a while.

Novel 1 came out to 50K words the first time. It's a few things.

It's a fantasy story about a teenage failgirl superhero in a magical land who is recruited again after being fired to solve a missing person's case. She falls in love with the guy who eventually becomes the primary suspect, and then accused and imprisoned for the kidnapping he didn't commit.

It's an identity crisis as the protagonist and her friends discover that not only did they used to be different people on Earth, but they reincarnated from those people because they died young and all have a shared past. Leaving them to recontextualize both their relationships with each other and who they are and want to be.

It's a series of plots by a man created by magical energy as a gift from a doctor to his patient, as this magic man has been living an irritating life that wasn't originally his problem to deal with, while the guy whose life he lives gets to faff about with his new wife (also created out of energy by the doctor to fill a companionship role before they holied their matrimony or whatever; she can't take shifts at the tedious life factory because people on Earth can't see her like they can see him) in a magical land. He's tired of being locked out of paradise to bear all of the responsibility, which is an understandable feeling, but if his antics are getting someone else framed and imprisoned for crimes it's not fun anymore.

It's a lot. One might be able to see already the shadows of what emo 16 year old Rubia thought would be 'badass. put it in the book' without thinking of, I don't know ANY OF THE POTENTIAL UNINTENDED SYMBOLISM OF ANY OF THIS. Does that mean that some of this was wielded with all the grace of a fucking cudgel? Yes unfortunately :( Did none of this come to mind not only during the writing of the book, but also the later rewrites? Yes unfortunately :(

I sent it around to publishers and landed with a print-on-demand press that wasn't ideal, but let me keep the rights to my work. I'd release my next three novels with them, and that's where Novel 1's story ended for a while.

In 2019, I started working through KDP. When it comes to securing a press for my novels, my morals have the backbone of an eel, and the press I worked with previously charged what came to 90 CAD for me to order my fourth novel and then didn't ship it for over 40 days. There were also more problems, ranging from a bad reputation to limited cover design choices to fees to edit and re-release. So, working with a part of Amazon didn't seem all that bad. After I released my fifth novel through KDP, I pulled all of my previous novels, including Novel 1, out of the other press.

My writing skills had really improved since then. In hindsight, Novel 1 was behind the times in what I wanted to release. So, into editing it went, and I brought it up to something like 60K words by elaborating on scenes previously glossed over, improving descriptions, and improving diction. What I've learned in the many years since then is that I'm a terrible under-writer on my first drafts, and even if there are no typos left in the document, a book of mine mustn't go to print without extensive additions of thousands of words between the first draft and the final.

In early 2020 I think it was, the currently-available final version of Novel 1 released :D That's how it is now. It also got a hardcover in maybe 2022? Same taste, great new package.

I don't know if I'd... recommend this one? In general, sure. It's not a terrible book. It has sufficient prose quality if someone were really into the premise of it. But to someone whose opinion and pleasant reading experience I value, the thought of recommending Novel 1 is challenging. It does clumsily things I've done better in later books, it does accidentally things I try to avoid in my books, and the worldbuilding is a little too ambitious to be as rudimentary as it is. If I were to actually recommend one and just one of my works, it's the vampire one. Of course it is lol.

Still, it means so so so so so much to me that you asked! I can send you the link to my works (the first book is the last one alphabetically), even though I'm not adding it here for not doxing myself to the internet reasons ^-^

Thank you so much for your ask!!!!!!!

[nobodysdaydreams]

Hello TMBS fandom. This is a request for a little help with some of my fic writing from any extraordinary education fans.

So I write mostly for the show, but am at the point where I want to start writing and referencing “show versions” for some of the book characters, and the one I’m working on right now is Violet Hopefield. Sadly, I have not read extraordinary education, and was hoping to get some character details.

I do want to preface this by saying that my intention is to write the character in a way that follows the plot lines I’ve set up, so while I won’t be writing an exact copy of the character, I do want an idea of what she’s like. Think the differences between book and show Noland and Canonball or even book Curtain and show Curtain. Are they the same? No. But you see the book character they are based on in them, while acknowledging that this is a slightly different story and a different version of them, while still enjoying both the show and book versions of the characters.

Head canons or popular head canons are appreciated, but I'm mainly looking for what's canon so if something is "canon to you" based on how the character acts, I'll consider it, but please specify what's canon and what's not.

With that in mind, here's a rundown of what I know and what I'd like to know. I'll start with Violet, but I might include a few things for John too (and I'll have some questions about a few other book characters eventually, but I'll stick with them for now).

Violet Hopefield:

The biggest gripe I think people might have with the way I'd write her is her age. Apparently in the books, the ages are Nicholas (9), John (12), Violet (14). The fandom wikipedia stuff I found only said that Violet had an 8th grade education and didn't list her age, so in a book series about genius kids, I just imagined her being younger than John, around Nicholas' age. Obviously this was a mistake, and given that show Nicholas is 12, that bumps the ages at which he meets them to Nicholas (12), John (15), Violet (17). My question is, if I made her character younger, like...around Nicholas' age, would that completely destroy the character? I know this is a big ask, but please, it's for plot purposes, and you'll be grateful later. I just want to know if it's a situation where "yes the characters are technically different ages, but at the end of the day, they're all just friends hanging out and who the oldest is doesn't really matter" vs. "Violet is the older mature one of the group. This is one of, if not her main defining character trait and changing it completely changes the character." If it's option two, I might still make Violet younger, while being very careful to make her a younger but mature child, like what they did with show Constance where she's not a toddler anymore, but she makes up for it by being extremely violent and fighting falcons (or what they did with the twin's ages, and Number Two and Rhonda's ages, etc.)

I know Violet is deaf, and Nicholas learns sign language to talk to her, but she's extremely good at reading lips. Her disability would for sure be part of the fic, and I've already read tips on and thought about ways I can incorporate this (at the risk of finding false info on ASL signs, I plan on writing when signing occurs, but won't make an attempt to write out the exact hand motions unless I can verify that what I'm describing is factually correct). Her ability to read lips is interesting, and I'm not sure how it's done in the books or whether it's done accurately (It is estimated that only 30% to 40% of speech sounds can be lip-read even under the best conditions and extra information is usually required to understand what is being said. That's from google, but I've heard that stat a lot). I plan to stay true to the books in this regard, but will be highlighting the fact that this is unusual and extremely impressive on Violet's part. How will I be doing that? That's a spoiler so unfortunately, I can't share, but I do have that covered. If there are any descriptions of sign language or aspects of deaf culture included in the books that are also important to include in fic, please let me know (I am also aware that her mother is also deaf, more on her later).

I know she's an artist. Not sure what she likes to draw (people? nature?) or what style she uses (painting? sculpting? sketches?), but if there's info on that, I'll take it. I also know she had an interest in going to art school (the whole Nicholas thing isn't an issues anymore since he's adopted by the Glenn's), so I will have her doing art competitions and stuff like that.

And that's a summation of everything I know about her. Other details that are appreciated are physical appearance (though that's subject to change, the show certainly changed that a lot for some characters, but I'd like to know what I can use), any defining beliefs or principles she lives by or revolves her life around, the top adjectives you think describe her, character quirks (e.g., Kate's bucket), and if possible, some snippets of dialogue from the books that give a good impression of her character.

I'd also like to know if there is anything that falls under the "she would NOT say/do that OR she would not say/do that without very special circumstances. For example, book Curtain would never adopt a child. In the show, he does, and most of us are fine with that, because they explain and clearly show the differences between the show and book characters. In another example, they made show Benedict a more flawed or maybe a better word is relatable mentor. And most of us were fine with that too, again, because they showed us how he arrived at that point. However, if they made Mr. Benedict a mean or unpleasant person, that would totally rip apart his character, regardless of the justification you gave for it. Obviously, what falls into the "would never" and "under the right conditions" categories is subject to debate, so I'll use my best judgment, but would still appreciate a starter list to go off.

Finally, anything else you think is relevant about Violet or her relationships with other characters is appreciated.

John Cole:

I know John Cole is Violet's brother, and he is adopted. I understand this happens in the books and that Nicholas and John are in an orphanage together, but since this is a show version of the character, this will actually happen before Nicholas meets them, but John Cole is still adopted. What I don't know are the circumstances of his adoption. Did the Hopefield's adopt him because he was friends with Violet? Is that why they wanted to adopt Nicholas too? How did the Hopefield's meet him? Do we know anything about John's bio family and culture that differs from the Hopefield's?

I've seen a lot about John Cole and farms. And a post about he and his wife having a farm. Does he actually have a wife in canon? Do the Hopefield's have a farm? Or does John just have "farmer vibes"? Is getting a city job something John would do or did he declare himself to have a deep seated hatred of the big city?

I know John calls Nicholas "Nick" on at least one occasion. Is this what John normally calls him? Do the Hopefield's and Violet call Nicholas "Nick" too, or is this just a "John thing"?

Other details that are appreciated are physical appearance, any defining beliefs or principles John lives by or revolves his life around, the top adjectives you think describe him, character quirks, and if possible, some snippets of dialogue from the books that give a good impression of John's character.

I'd also like to know if there is anything that falls under the "he would NOT say/do that OR he would not say/do that without very special circumstances as discussed above.

Any of course, anything else you think is relevant about John Cole or his relationships with other characters is appreciated.

The Hopefields:

I know Mrs. Hopefield is also deaf. Can she read lips too? Is Mr. Hopefield also deaf?

What are the Hopefield's occupations? I read something about them being miners and poor, not sure if that's accurate.

Why are they interested in adopting? Have they always been interested in adopting? Why did they want to adopt John?

Are there any important aspects to the Hopefield's culture or family philosophy? For example, if the Hopefield's are, say, Jewish or immigrants, or some sort of culture is mentioned, I would like to know so I can represent that properly and not accidently write it out of the story.

Are there any other members of the Hopefield family besides the parents, Violet, and John? Any beloved pets?

Other details that are appreciated are physical appearance, any defining beliefs or principles they live by or revolve their lives around, the top adjectives you think describe them, character quirks, and if possible, some snippets of dialogue from the books that give a good impression of their characters.

I'd also like to know if there is anything that falls under the "they would NOT say/do that OR they would not say/do that without very special circumstances as discussed above.

Any of course, anything else you think is relevant about the Hopefields or their relationships with other characters is appreciated.

Thanks guys! Feel free to add to the post, DM, or drop by my ask box.

And yes, eventually with enough time, I might like to read extraordinary education someday, but I'd likely write this fic first, so I want to get some accurate info. Plot spoilers are fine, that won't deter me from reading it.

[duhragonball]

I am not sure why you decided to cover Evangelion all of a sudden, but I am hella old like you and haven't watched it for whatever reason either. (which was strange because it was all the rage back at school thousands of years ago)

Not sure why this series eluded you also, but anyway I just want to thank you for this opportunity as I have decided to watch along. Looking forward to seeing more of your analysis.

Do you have any other bucket list 90s anime series that you have some interest in covering? I recently got around to Martian Successor Nabisco myself because the theme song is amazing

PS: You're a chemist right? Please make some crazy chemical that will make oldness go away for your sake and mine, it's 2024 I can't believe we haven't invented immortality yet

Thank you for reading.

I don't remember exactly when I first heard of NGE, but I'm pretty sure it was in the late 90s, probably in the Diamond Previews or Wizard Magazine. As I got deeper into comic book collecting, I bought both of those publications, and as anime started to gain a foothold in North American nerd culture, I started to see more and more anime/manga products referenced or advertised in Wizard and Previews.

I pretty much despised anime in the early 90s, mostly thanks to poor localizations of shows like Superbook and Speed Racer, which made the whole genre look like a bad joke. I remember those ads for "Japanimation" that tried so hard to make it sound badass and cool, but the ads were so corny that they ended up making the stuff look even dumber. By 1997 or so I had kind of learned to tolerate it as a concept, although I still had no interest in it. Sailor Moon was on Toonami, but it seemed like they only put it in the block to add a certain variety to the show. Vintage superhero fare, Thundercats, Sailor Moon, and that Johnny Quest show with CGI. Then they added an obscure show called Dragon Ball Z to the lineup, and that slowly won me over.

By 2000 I was tuning into Toonami mainly for Batman and Superman TAS, and getting hooked on DBZ and Tenchi Muyo! at the same time. I refer to these as the "Four Horsemen of Toonami" for that reason. In 2001 I started writing a Superman/Tenchi crossover, which basically cemented my status as a huge weeb. (Luffa is just a continuation of my effort to do fanfics of the Four Horsemen block of Toonami.*)

Anyway, somewhere in this period I probably started seeing merch for Rei and Asuka in their plugsuits or whatever they're called. I might have seen the Evas but let's be real, a mech wouldn't have stood out much in a genre full of giant robots. I'd see ads for things like Eva and Revolutionary Girl Utena and wonder just what the hell these things were about, but I also just shrugged and accepted that I would probably never find out, since anime was expensive and difficult to find, and I wasn't going to go out of my way just to satisfy idle curiosity. Back in those days, anime was an investment, and I wasn't going to pay thirty bucks for three episodes of something unless I knew it would be good. I tried a few things like Noir and Excel Saga, but only because I had a fairly decent idea what I was getting into.

By 2016, I had more disposable income, and this blog was pretty well established as a way to spend my free time, so I started looking for new things to watch. I checked out Hellsing Ultimate mostly so I'd be able to understand the jokes in Hellsing Ultimate Abridged. I checked out JJBA because it was red hot at the time, and everyone was talking about who their favorite Jojo was, and I wanted to know what that meant. I checked out Utena because I got a tip that it was available for free on YouTube, and I watched the first season of Sailor Moon. I didn't do all of that in 2016. It probably took me until 2018 to get all that watched.

So it was probably somewhere in there that I gave serious thought to tracking down Neon Genesis Evangelion, because it's one of those that I always wondered about, and now I had the means to actually find it and watch it, and I had enough anime experience that I felt reasonably confident that I could appreciate it. I suspect that I could have screened it between 1997 and 2010 I just would have been confused. But I've seen people talk about it for a lot of years, and probably a lot of that's been on tumblr, and it's just one of those things that's been on the fringes of my pop culture awareness.

I think NGE finally became available on Netflix in 2020 or something? But there were fans complaining about the dubs and the subs, so I thought I should hold off for a while. In 2021 I finally just said "fuck it" and bought a used copy of the "Perfect Collection" on DVD. My thing was, if I was going to watch this, I wanted to get it right the first time. I've savored Dragon Ball for decades by watching the dub, then the subs, but if I'm going to try out new stuff I don't want to have to keep going back to get the "true" experience.

I'm doing it now mainly because I hadn't had time before. I've been caught up in other things, and 2024 looked wide open, so I started thinking about things I've been putting off that I really wanted to do, and this was one of the first things I thought of. I just want to scratch that itch, and even if this show turns out to be awful, at least I can have the satisfaction of knowing I finally saw for myself.

As far as other old anime titles, I don't have any immediate plans. I still need to watch the Akira movie, but I read the manga so that sort of damped my interest in checking out the movie version. Galaxy Express 999 is on my bucket list, kind of for the same reasons as Evangelion and Utena, where I used to see ads for it and wondered what it was about. Fist of the North Star also interests me, because it has a kickass theme song, and I'm pretty sure it had a profound influence on the early years of JJBA. But I probably won't get around to them for a while.

Ultimately, there's only so much I can do with the time I have on this planet. There is no elixir of life, and unless they let you watch anime in heaven, I have to set priorities. One gripe with anime that I still retain from my youth is that it's pretty damn impenetrable. What I mean by that is that you can't even remotely judge a title by its cover, and so much of this stuff runs together that it's impossible to tell what would appeal to me and what isn't worth my time. I think that's why I've let popular culture and memes guide me in recent years. Stuff like JoJo Fridays and "Bitch, I Drink People" are tips that these shows had lasting appeal, and you don't make an impression like that without having a solid story. They can put a bunch of boobs on a DVD cover, but they can't draw a picture of the stuff that counts.

[finleycannotdraw]

Sorry for this stupid question, but I haven't watched or played Witcher (but planning some day at least to watch it) so I think you'll understand me 😅

I saw you reblog at first a lot of Witcher x that young boy (sorry, I have literally no idea what's his name is but he sings cools songs)

And now I'm seeing Witcher x another old man about which I know even less than nothing

Maybe I'm being stupid or something, but these guys are one from the series and another from the game? Idk cuz I knew only about Witcher x young boy and now I'm seeing that old guy and I'm confused because you just haven't reblogged it before and your reblogs are the only thing that teaches me about the Witcher. Idk when I'll watch series, but here's the question. WHO SHOULD I SHIP BRO JUST SEEING THEIR PICTURES AND HAVING NO IDEA WHO ARE THEY BUT STILL CARE FOR THEIR GOOD???

It’s not a stupid question! I’m happy to explain.

The first one is Geralt (witcher) x Jaskier (younger man who is a bard), and most fan-content of them portrays Jaskier the way the Netflix series portrays him. He is an adult, but most people tend to ignore the age gap because fantasy world (Geralt is close to 80 when he meets Jaskier in the show, but doesn’t look it). Plus, henry cavill and joey batey (actors) are close to the same age, so people tend not to think about it.

Jaskier is based off of Dandelion from the original witcher books. In the books, we don’t get to see how Geralt and Dandelion meet, because Dandelion is almost 40 and has reunited with Geralt for the duration of the books.

Another character in the books, that Geralt meets later on, is Regis (the old man). They get along very well, and Regis ends up traveling with Geralt, Dandelion, and a few other people in a group called the hansa. The way they interact is often flirty and sometimes homoerotic. Eventually it’s revealed that Regis is a higher vampire (very powerful and potentially very dangerous), and he and Geralt have a bit of a falling out, but that only lasts about 15 pages or so before he’s back with them.

Regis appears again in the Blood and Wine DLC of the third witcher game (the one I’ve played), where he and Geralt reunite as old friends before advancing the plot together. Regis is not in the Netflix series as of now.

Another character in the games that I’ve been posting about is Vernon Roche (but I wasn’t sure if you were referencing him at all). He’s a major character in the second game and comes back in the third. He’s the commander of the Blue Stripes, a Temerian (country) special forces unit designed to combat the Scoia’tael (a group of elven bandits from the books; they appear in both the second and third games, but much more heavily in the second). I’m not actually sure how old he is, but he’s more middle-aged than Jaskier or Regis.

As for the reasons I ship all of these different couples, it just comes down to a few things:

- I watched the Netflix series first, and therefore started off my witcher hyperfixation and subsequent reblog spree with Geralt x Jaskier. Later on, I learned about the book series, and fell in love with Regis, which led to the beginning of my Geralt x Regis reblog spree, continued vitally by me playing the witcher 3 and loving him even more. Then I made a super awesome friend who shared their love of Geralt x Roche.

- All of these characters, in my opinion, can make Geralt feel safer, happier, and more comfortable with emotional vulnerability. (This is also why I don’t enjoy the ships with the sorceresses, but that’s another post). I enjoy all of these ships because Geralt is an amazing, dynamic character whose relationships with others provide lots of space for good feelings and creative expression.

- I don’t stop shipping any of them when I have a burst of love for one of the ships in particular.

As for who you should ship, I can’t make that decision for you! I’d recommend engaging with at least one witcher series, be it Netflix, books, or the games (or the 2002 Polish Hexer series, which is low budget but made with so much love) and then deciding whose dynamic makes you the happiest! Fandom should be fun, shipping should be fun, so my advice is to just have fun.

Hope this helps! If you want to know anything else, don’t hesitate to reach out. :)

[veryace-ficrecs]

Criminal Minds Fanfic Recs

This list will include all ratings and tags, so read at your own discretion! :)   

He Was Left on the Steps of the FBI in a Basket by schrijverr - Rated T

Maybe not a basket, but sixteen-year-old Dr. Spencer Reid suddenly shows up at FBI headquarters claiming that his mother has been kidnapped. The BAU isn’t certain first, but the case he sets them on proves to be an interesting one, wherein they get to know the young doctor until he’s practically family. 

Shuffle the Odds by schrijverr - Rated T

Spencer is a Vegas boy, who's game is poker, no matter what others might believe. The team slowly catches onto it.

Following Spencer from when he started at the BAU till season 7 with poker as red thread.

Dr. Spencer Reid's First Case by boredom - Rated T

Derek Morgan wasn't sure he trusted Gideon's judgement. After all, who allows a 23 year old who can't even pass the academy's physical exam to become a field agent? Luckily for him, Reid is about to prove just how competent (and badass) he can be.

Trigger warnings: blood, violence, mentions of school shootings, death, lack of respect towards people suffering from mental illness, and other things you would normally find in a Criminal Minds episode.

Bite Your Tongue (Choke Yourself To Sleep) by drspencerreid - Rated G

reid tipped his head back and leaned it on the shoulder behind him, making it look like he was just putting on a show. he whispered, "i swear to god if you hold what i'm about to do against me, i'm sending garcia the baby pictures your mother gave me."

••

or the one in which spencer has to go undercover in a club and his friends are far too smug

Gotta Live Before We Get Older (Nothing To Lose) by drspencerreid - Rated G

the silence that followed in the next few seconds was eventually broken by prentiss loudly exclaiming, "i'm sorry, what was that?"

•••

or the one in which spencer surprises everyone with his view on tattoos

The Times They Forget by Ena2705 - Rated G

Spencer Reid is a genius, anyone can tell you that. But sometimes people forget that his head wasn’t always buried in books, and there was a time when he did something other than catch serial killers. 

These Are My Friends (I Love Them) by drspencerreid - Rated G

"as much as i have enjoyed learning all these new sides to the kid, i should start going too. i'm very slightly starting to get old, and i really shouldn't have tested it with all those shots."

"very slightly starting to?" spencer repeated. "rossi, i think you surpassed that like sixty years ago."

••

or the one in which spencer gets drunk and honest

Dumb and Ditzy by TimelessTears - Rated T

AU. Years of being bullied for his smarts left him dreading when people figured out he was a genius. What better way to throw them off then by acting stupid? Enter: Dumb Blond Spencer Reid. 

Supernatural:

Monsters in Your Closet by AlbusCorvus - Rated G

Series: 2 Works

When Castiel goes on a hunt alone and is caught by a particular FBI team, the brothers do something they never thought they’d have to. They kidnap SSA Spencer Reid to make an exchange. But being kidnapped by delusional serial killers is nothing like Spencer thought it would be. 

Monsters are Real by WhiskyBoys - Rated T

'Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.' Stephen King.

The kid sitting in the interview room swings on the rear legs of his chair, throws back his head, and at the top of his lungs, sings a painfully off-key version of 'Wanted Dead or Alive'. Hotch looks at Morgan with one eye-brow arched in question. "You think he's your unsub?"

No Difference by The_Bookkeeper - Rated T

Derek has been in a lot of bad situations. This one easily makes the top five. Or would, if Dean and Sam Winchester were actually acting like the sadistic psychopaths he expected them to be. Instead, Dean is referencing Star Trek, Sam is comforting Reid, and Derek has never been more confused.

Batman:

How... Did I Get Here? by PurpleMango - Rated T

Spencer Reid gets transported universes, happens along Batman, and ends up with a job as the resident quirky profiler to the Bat Family

[elipheleh]

Learning about things referenced in Red, White & Royal Blue

as we are celebrating a year since the release, i wanted to reshare this series i wrote last year.

in the leadup to the release of the movie version, i wrote a series of posts that primarily involved things that had been talked about or referenced in the book. these were things that i didn't know much about, or things that i thought were interesting & worthwhile to research.

i also shared spotify playlists for music both in the film & the book, as well as casey's character playlists they made (again both for film & book characters) - including transcripts of their instagram stories talking about specific lyrics that resonate etc. these are all grouped under the "Music (main post)" link as it became quite complex.

———

Waterloo Vase

Alex engaging with queer history (main post) & individual links - Stonewall, SCOTUS decision 2015, Walt Whitman, Laws of Illinois 1961, The White Night Riots, Paris is Burning, David Wojnarowicz photo

Music (main post)

Thisbe & Pyramus

The V&A Visit (main post) - individual links: Statues, James I & George Villiers, Santa Chiara (incl proverb & David and Jonathan)

Section 28 & Henry

———

It would be great if you could reblog this to share it more widely! I am really pleased with the feedback i’ve received from it & so happy that it’s helping others learn about things just as it helped me. This was always an attempt to learn together, and it warms my heart to see people’s tags that prove we have been doing so. if you're interested in seeing gifs that date back to the start of the rwrbedit tag, i'm reblogging them from the start of my blog - along with the new posts in the tag. i'm currently on hiatus but will be getting back to in hopefully in the next couple weeks!

[koiyin]

GUYS GUESS WHO'S BACK... 'YAY'

so uh idk why i come back on tumblr every couple months and make posts like this but i've basically ruined my account at this point haha perfectionist issues and i'm going to try to be honest with everyone of you guys because. idek at this point

i don't know how everyone's opinion of me is at this point, and it feels like i'm ruining it. i don't know if this is me now, if i kind of put up a front before, but why these posts seem different than the others on my blog is a mystery to me ^^'

maybe i'm just overthinking it, though?

well, my life is pretty shit. i don't really have any friends, except for a couple close ones who can somehow deal with me-- and, yeah. people at my school don't really like me, and i've fucked up a lot recently. this post sounds really depressing. sorry for that.

i don't know, i guess prior to the whole incident (moots, yk what i'm talking about) i always tried to put up a cheerful front. i had an idealized version of myself, and that was koi. and i did act like myself a lot around you guys, because i became comfortable with all of you and i felt accepted. i'm really grateful for what you all have done for me.

so, more about what's going on- basically, i'm just... not happy with myself, i guess. i wish i had more friends.

you know, my goal in life at one point was to be friends with everyone in my grade. that was more than a year ago. i guess that whole hope pretty much died out. but i do still try my very best, and this is turning into a ramble which i'm sorry for but i just want to get everything off of my chest.

i'll probably never use tumblr regularly again- but, who knows, shit changes.

the incident really affected me. after i was told about everything and learned about all of what happened, i was just... i don't know. i was told that it was that day that i began to eat less, act angrier, and all of that shit- and that went on for a couple weeks.

eventually, i tried to forget about it. i still think about every once in a while, though.

well, i'm starting to sound like a pessimist. i miss when i could be koi, the friendly, cheerful, happy person who had a bunch of friends that worried about him and asked if he was feeling okay.

i don't even know what's going on anymore. i feel fine, and then i go through short spikes of depression. or maybe i'm just a person that's sad all the time, but i choose to be ignorant. i'm really sorry that whoever reads this has to hear me vent and all that shit, but i'm just glad that i can say all of my feelings in the hopes that someone will read this.

so, let's talk about what's been going on since i've left- since i really feel like i should add some filler because of my long absensce '- -

well, i got a suit that kind of reminded me of haruchiyo sanzu from tokyo revengers (haha weeb things) and i look pretty hot in it, ngl- and, my family moved back to our house, which got remodeled. i've done a lot of drawing, too.

and, for context of the tokyo revengers comment earlier- i've been hyperfixating on it for so long. i love the series and the characters aaa

also, i started bakuman and black butler, and they're pretty good! i love the plot of bakuman so much!! (the death note team always makes amazing manga) i also got the first book of haikyuu from the library, because i've seen it referenced online so much and i haven't taken the time to check it out yet.

whew. i don't know, i guess saying all this makes me sound more human than just pixels on a screen. (but i'm actually 3 ducks in a trenchcoat) (i'm not funny)

i've had a lot of homework, so i've been pretty busy.

and i have to go eat dinner now, so i'll be leaving- but again, thank you guys for being my friends for so long. and, why are people still following me when my blog is inactive like- ????

[malimothreads64]

📜Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang📜

Genre: Adult Fantasy/Dark Academia

Series Status: Standalone

BLOOD Over Bright Haven, indeed. I have no idea how I want to start this because I don't think I've read a book covering such a complex but important topic that I actually have a bit of a grasp on. I don't feel like I have the capabilities to talk about this in any real capacity, but I'm going to try which means spoilers. So;

When you read the blurb of this and start the book and meet Sciona, you feel like this is just going to be a story about misogyny in academia through a fantasy lense, but it is so not even about misogyny. I made that mistake myself because I only read this because I got my friend it for Christmas on that assumption, too, and she loved it so much I've now read it not a week and a half later. This book is about a society that's built on atrocity for it to function, not unlike "the West." It's about radicalisation. It's about doing the work it takes to dismantle systems, even when it comes at great personal loss because it is what's right.

Sciona is the first woman to pass the test to become a Highmage in Bright Haven since it's believed women don't have the right disposition to be able to handle the work. She's accepted but not respected. One of the first interactions she has with her new colleagues is finding out that she's not been assigned a research assistant, so as a joke, one of the men whose father is an Archmage and didn't just get in on sheer merit asssigns the janitor as her assistant. More than that, though, the janitor is Kwen, which are second-class citizens and are treated as literally sub-human because of this world's religious dogma. Which, something I appreciate about this book, is that Sciona is no different. The majority of all the racist and mirco-agressive things that are said in the first half of this book are said by Sciona herself!

She develops a rapport and comradery with the janitor, Thomil, who is a quick study and is genuinely a good assistant, but where the story really starts to change directions is just before the halfway mark. it's revealed that the magic that's used to power the city, the magic that Sciona herself has reveared and studied her whole life works by killing the Kwen. While everyone is safe in the city, anyone outside it is fair game for siphoning. This realisation obviously causes a rift between Sciona and Thomil because he has just learned that his people have been getting slaughter, while Sciona wants to hold on to delusion and even implies his people deserve becasue of what she was rasied to believe.

This is Sciona's awakening to the system and how it works, but still wanting to have faith in it goes to her mentor, and he basically confirms that everyone who works there knows - and they don't care. Which is what they mean about women not having the constitution for the work. The implications there being that men are psychopaths. With this comes her true radicalisation, and from there, works to try and bring to light how their society truly is run.

Obviously, that's a very basic overview. but this book genuinely has so much. This very much is the story of having to tear everything down to be able to start again, and so much of this book is easily inspired by real-world events. Founder Leon stealing the magic used in this society from the Kwen is very similar to stories of Native Americans being very forth coming with english colonisers about the land and how to live off it for their kindness to be returned with genocide. How Leon then turned this theft into religious dogma that people to this day never question reminds me of Joseph Smith with mormonism. Who also referenced Native Americans in his holy text, and when they didn't want to convert, were slaughtered, not unlike how people in this say Kwen deserve their treatment cause 300 years ago they turned their back on God and that's why they're cursed with the Blight (when the blight is in fact the Highmage's magic).

Other more political things are, even after the truth is revealed, some people don't care or are willing to look away for the sake of their own comfort or privilege. Like the West with Free Congo. These people are dying mining the materials we need to create the technology that makes our lives easier, and that movement didn't blow up nearly as much as Free Palestine did. Both are extremely important, but of course, the one about the Black people, the one where the boycott would involve not getting the new iPhone when it came out, fell to the wayside.

As well as the hard truth of the matter: what it takes to incite change? There's a reason Sciona is the main character and not Thomil because no one was ever going to listen to or take a Kwen seriously. She had access way more than he did, even despite the misogyny she faced because she was the right type of person, and for Sciona to even create change still involved great personal sacrifice! The love of her family, but also her life! That's how much it meant to her to right this egregious wrong.

This will probably end up being my favourite book I read this month because I don't see anything topping it.

[litsnobconfessions]

Year of Animation Day 21 Disney Double Feature: Dumbo

Date: January 20, 2025

Day: 20

Content Watched: Dumbo

Year: 1941

Rating: G

Run Time: 1 hr. 4 mins.

I realized that I made a miscalculation. When I started this I said that I was not going to watch any Disney films or any old-school animation, but… I think this project is kind of also about comparison? And you can't really compare things if you're refusing to engage with the other side. And considering this was kind of the problem I was complaining to begin with, I figured I needed to reconsider my rules a bit.

Of course, I also said that this project was to compile a data set of modern, non-Disney animation so that when someone says, I don't like animation, I don't like modern animation, I don't like anything out of the mainstream, I essentially have a reference library I can point to and say, "actually, there's a lot of really great animation out there, and you should at least engage with this cross-section of it before you make any snap judgements." And quite frankly, I don't really want to sacrifice hours from that data set for the comparison films.

So instead, I'm going to try, a couple times a month, to follow up one of my movies with a Disney movie. I'm focusing on Disney because again, the people I've met who criticize animation hold up Disney as a standard. (And my friend who said "when I was a kid, animation was more sophisticaed," speicfically referenced Disney, and not, say, Star Trek: The Animated Series, which I'm told has very, shall we say, underwhelming animtion.)

With that introduction out of the way, today is our first Disney Double Feature, so I'm pairing How to Train Your Dragon with--and I can't believe I'm saying this--Dumbo.

I'm pairing these films because they are weirdly thematically similar? They're both about a young boy who doesn't fit in and learns that what other people think of as weaknesses are actually his strengths. They both feature a speaking protagonist who teams up with a non-speaking protagonist, and, my favorite similarity, they both involve flying!

I'm gonna admit, I'm going into this biased. It's been a love affair between me and HTTYD since I saw it in theaters. As for Dumbo, I'm just not a big fan. I've only seen it a couple of times, there's no big nostalgia for me, and the story of Helen Alberson has sort of tainted the movie for me. (Helen Alberson wrote the original book Dumbo was based on. She sold the copyright to Roll-a-Book, which then sold it to Disney. Disney made a movie. The book was never published. Nor did Alberson ever publish another book. I just feel like she got a raw deal.) Then again, I have no idea how Cressida Cowell feels about the adaptation the How to Train Your Dragon series, which is apparently a lot different from the films.

All that being said, while I did try to pair the Disney film with an approrpiate counterpart, I don't want to compare the Disney film only to this film, but to everything in my data set so far.

Now that you know why I'm suddenly breaking my rules, let's get into it.

Well, Dumbo is evidence of why Disney is a powerhouse of animation. It's also very much a product of its time. Let's break it down.

As far as movment goes, I think I would rank this in about the same place I would put ATLA, or maybe slightly above. We do have lots of people cheering and waving as the circus marches into town, but like ATLA, other scenes with lots of people, like the circus performance itself, has these characters drawn as part of a static background. And typically everything that would be moving is. I particularly like the way everything is swaying on the train whenever we see it.

The animation is also pretty detailed. I love the angles used as the circus tent is going up, the way the circus master's mustache and hat move as he snores, and the elephant who has a steak on her eye after the... pyramid scheme. (Yeah, I went there.) I also like that Dumbo is drawn holding Timothy's tail, since elephants actually do this irl. I was surprised, however, that in at least one scene, the circus workers had no faces (I'm guessing this was too hard to do for these scenes in 1941), and I feel like there's one or two scenes in which the movie feels dated somehow, but I can't put my finger on what that is. Maybe the texture of the drawings? I'm not sure.

I do think animation has come a long way since this film was made. The clouds in HTTYD are more interesting, but the animators have also said that they tried a bunch of new things to make them transparent because they knew the most interesting scenes would be during flight. I also think Toothless is more facially expressive than Dumbo. I don't know if that's because of advancements in animation or because Toothless just has more to say.

My favorite bit of animation is probably the rain. It looks fantastic. The storm is beautifully drawn, and I think it holds up just as well to say... the storm in The Red Turtle, made decades later.

I am disppointed they had to ruin what I think could be the best song in the film with racial stereotypes. I mean, put aside the crows for a moment, and just listen to the lyrics: "I've seen a peanut stand/I've heard a rubber band/I've seen a needle that winked its eye." Why'd we have to go and ruin the fantastic word play?

My least favorite song is "Elephants on Parade." I don't remember being scared of this sequence like a lot of people I know, but I do find it tedious. The storyline feels relatively simplistic, and the number just feels like filler. I know it's plot relevant that Dumbo and Timothy get drunk, so they can end up in the tree, and the song bores me. I will admit, though, that the animation was probably groundbreaking in 1941. And the transformation sequences are legitimately cool. I just wish it had more significance, like the transformation sequence in Coraline.

In my opinion, the story is Dumbo's weakness, and I feel this way about most "Gold Age" Disney films. I think a lot of the script is kind of trite and stupid, like the saccharine poems the stork delivers to Mrs. Jumbo along with her baby. There's also very limited character development. I mean, I've spent the better part of the last three weeks analyzing the arcs of Sokka, Katara, and Zuko. Dumbo doesn't have much of an arc. Nor does Timothy mouse. And I wish he did because not a very good friend. I mean, he tells Dumbo things like, "pull yourself together. Elephants don't cry." Imagine Hiccup saying that kind of nonsense to Toothless! No, instead, it's Hiccup's sense of compassion and belief that Toothless can have a full range of feelings that allows him to create such a close friendship. 

I guess this is why Disney is trying to re-do all their old animated classics--to update some of the outdated themes--like racist caricatures and telling kids to suck it up--but watching the remakes is a project for another year.

[makaronypoflotskiofficial]

@transgenderer says: > what do you mean by "non-diction" here? the final editing pass on any manuscript, including fiction, is the copy editing pass, where line-by-line fixes are made. one of the trickiest aspects of this process is verifying consistency. this is the least straightforward part to me, compared to things like fixing grammar, spelling, punctuation. diction-level consistency is at least a relatively normal way of thinking about words: the editor's task is to ensure the same concepts, characters, depictions of the setting, what have you, are using words in a consistent way. it's invisible when done correctly and gritty like sand in the mouth when done incorrectly. it's as basic as making sure a character's name is spelled the same slightly-different way signifying ancestry every time to as complicated as making sure that when the main character's curtains are described they're always referenced as something yellow or related to yellow, and if for whatever reason the author has suddenly in act 2 begun to refer to the curtains as ochre or ochre-adjacent, then i speak to the author and ask, hey, is this an intentional change, signifying a greater whateverwhatever in the narrative because it's the beginning of act 2, or did you forget you said yellow before and you happened to take a long break between drafting/revising act 1 and act 2, or did you realize you like ochre better as a word and forgot to change instances of yellow, or what? i'm pretty okay at that process i like to think. but where i personally encounter challenges is when i'm editing for consistency outside of that area, or non-diction consistency. when it's less about individual word choice and more about themes and motifs, or perhaps more identifiably, in writing technique, such as point of view or tense. pretty often if an author switches tense at some point, it's an error, meaning it was unintentional. that's a generally easy thing to catch. but when point of view is changed, or previously established mannerisms of the narrator are thrown out the window, it's not that i'm liable to miss it -- no, i'm probably more engaged than ever -- but my instinct to edit or correct or ask the author is buried so deep i sometimes don't even reach for it because i'm suddenly reading Woolf in my head or Delaney and i'm nodding along and creating meaning to the error out of whole cloth.

this is not always a problem when in fact it is intentional and the author is full deep in with me on the powers of fiction, but it is definitely a problem when the manuscript is like ... a pulp mystery, book 3 in the series. oops.

i'm of the very strong opinion that books are not visual, and they should not be thought of as such. i do not appreciate or like writing advice that tries to paint instructions using eyeball or god forbid film lens suggestion. "start a new paragraph when the camera angle of the scene changes" no no no no no. the manuscript is a unique guided meditation and hallucination, and i know i'm partially biased because i manually envision what i'm reading only when i decide to, and the rest of the time i'm enjoying the written word in the past tense, having learned what has transpired in the world of the book. and so my ability to pick out non-diction consistency issues are by nature limited and that sometimes runs me into tiny little troubles when i'm being paid to edit by the hour.

the hardest part of editing authorial fiction from not my own brain is my complete suspension of disbelief in the face of non-diction consistency. it's spring? it's fall? who gives a shit. i believe it. this novel should be more like Dhalgren (1975) <- applied to every manuscript