#is relevant I guess but I enjoy her story even for if there’s no omnipresent god figure controlling her

[swordmaid]

this kiss anim still makes me ?????? … can’t take ascended astarion’s kisses seriously they are so goofy like why are you choking her in public omfg I thought this was a classy party…….

[koiandjelly]

So Fila’s actual past isn’t very detailed, because she’s not a main OC, and I haven’t spent a ton of time actually thinking about her as a character lol. 98% of my Creativity goes to my original content characters, cuz someday when I finish actually crafting my worlds, I’m gonna write a book. I’m aiming for the lofty goals of making a full, fleshed out, intricate— just fuckin’... a whole ass Multiverse system comparable to the Lore content of Tolkien’s works, or The Elder Scrolls— gah fuck y’know what, I’m changing this post from being about my Fantasy Life OC to being about my creation baby, the effort of about 6 years (I am 20 years old, and although I didn’t know it at the time I started, I was 14 when I made the shitty Fire Emblem Manakete rip-off race that I’m gonna actually now talk about, because holy fuck this ain’t gonna fit in a parenthesis “btw have some info” bubble)

A’ight so I have a hard time keeping track of time, especially in a large scale across years. Apparently it’s related to being severely depressed without medication (communication error on my part, my parents are very lovely and helped me ASAP when I spilled the beans) while also having moderate to severe ADD. So, ya know, keep in mind that I was yet another terribly depressed 8th grader when I talk about my creation’s early days. I wouldn’t experience that time of my life for any sort of payment ever. It was goddamn miserable, because when I was midway through the age of 14, not only did the aforementioned depression spring up, but I also realized I was bisexual (And I live in the infamous state of Alabama, for reference. Don’t fear for me though, I was too unnoticeable to be bullied if anyone did know, and my wonderful mother, whom I love and cherish with all of my heart, is one of the few Christians that actually... like... do what their own God tells em to. That is, Jesus. I’m an atheist and have a general discomfort about the idea of super powerful entities actually existing irl, but I do agree with the stuff I’ve heard and remember from a decade ago in Church about Jesus. Good guy. But yeah my mom not only accepted me and reassured me when I came out, but she’s gone even further and is of the opinion/fact that lgbt folks are, really, good and normal and that God created them, so she really genuinely just... loves and accepts me. There’s no “I love you despite of this” in the equation and I am so grateful. But again. I digress)

Pause after that sidetrack, to recap, all of my medical issues began to emerge about 6 months before I turned 15. Including what I hate most, the emergence of my Fibromyalgia and Sjogren’s Syndrome, and for an added kick to the flesh, an undifferentiated connective tissue disorder. Meaning, as what I understand it to be, a nameless chimaera of many symptoms in a way that the disorder either is it’s own thing, or just can’t easily be recognized as any one disorder. And I had anxiety. If I recall correctly on *that*, forgive me cuz it’s been a while since it’s been diagnosed/brought up in a significant way, I have or had either general anxiety *and* social anxiety, or just lightweight versions of both, or something, but at the time I was horribly shy and I couldn’t even talk to the teacher after class about schoolwork, even though I tried rationalizing it to hell and back that I shouldn’t be scared— as you’ll guess, shit didn’t work out til I got medicine for it, because no amount of logic and rational thought will change the fact that I was struggling because of a literal disorder, an error of the brain, and as with that walking with two shattered femurs ain’t gonna work, trying to talk when the talk machine broke... ain’t going to goddamn work.

God. I am rambling a lot. But anyway, shit fucking sucked as a teen for me, because I got that wombo combo, prepare for trouble, make it double, precision strike at my existence as a person during fucking already difficult puberty— I am rambling. It’s 4:55am as of this sentence lmao. I had a nasty cocktail of both mental illness and physical disorders pop up once puberty hit me, so I, through many events starting from loving to draw as a toddler, to play pretend stories of heartbreak, betrayal, and death as best an 8 year old could understand via playing with Polly Pockets, and all the creative power I inherited from my Dad, plus the motivation borne through a need to escape, I started making my own characters.

So, to return to the present state of my creations, which will now be referred to as Bounding Beyond the Stars, or BBtS, I’m gonna get some things out of the way. Just to clarify, yeah? I have created my worlds in a way that is specifically meant to stand apart from the irl universe as we know it. I’m certainly not a knowledgeable researcher with any level of comprehension on Spacial law and quantum physics and shit like that. So hey, if something ever seems... like, off, or wrong? Unless it’s pretty obviously wrong in the “hey you just googled how a thing works, and misunderstood it, and made a detail based on a failure to understand stuff and that’s dumb in a catastrophic way that even a high school level viewer would notice...” kind of mistake, then hey, shoot me a message. But if some sort of universal rule seems fucky in the way that it doesn’t make sense, but isn’t a catastrophic structural error... well, Imma use that sentence to start a better one. For an example of a catastrophic error, perhaps... this: “This planet has no seasons cuz of its shape and axis! And it is also like twice as big as Earth!” That would be catastrophic alone because anyone with a grasp on planetary gravity or something, may go and think “if it’s that big, gravity’s gonna be way more intense”. And you’d be right! Which is why I usually account for those things with... *Magic*.

Before I split this post for Length reasons, and I’m sorry the majority of this was me rambling about how my general experience with life sucked from ages 14-17, I’mma state something very important about all my creations.

Magic, which will be explained in depth at a later point, is a fundamental, essential, and omnipresent force of not just any one universe in my Multiversal Trio. It is a key piece of Reality itself, as magic is the flow of many multiples of millions of unique and mysterious energies, concepts, and laws existing anywhere that Is.

To end this post, I’m going to put a quick summary and explanation why I’m rambling about any of this: The rant about my age and circumstances at the start are relevant because it’s necessary context for the tone and type of writing my creations are built upon. The foundations of BBtS are borne from a sometimes angsty, sometimes genuinely upset 14 year old who found escape in the art of Creation. There have been many, many, many heavy edits, rewrites, scrapped info and ideas, and even more info built upon it. It used to be pretty pointlessly edgy in a lot of ways, and redundant in grimdark, morphing into *grimderp* plot devices and character traits. The way it’s written today, I like to think the lore of my many high fantasy-alien societies, and all its denizens and creators and whatever else, are still written to be dark, be dangerous, even angsty... but more skillfully so, with the sort of nuance a 14 year old wouldn’t really even begin to understand. Cuz I still like high stakes stories with real consequences and character deaths when appropriate. And I enjoy characters who have tragic pasts, but now that I’m older and I’ve seen and read about and done so much more— I can write that stuff *better*. And more over, what I’m most satisfied with, is that I’m more in touch with myself as a person, and I’ve evolved many of my personal beliefs and ideals and all the things of the world I can have opinions on. But most of all, I’ve reached a point where I have consumed enough content from others to where I have figured out how to write something that should be interesting, and maybe a bit new, because I put a looot of Damn focus on identifying, and understanding, writing structure, cliches, plot holes to avoid, character traits to handle differently, and just generally making something that’ll appeal to both me, and my audience, should I get that far.

[pilferingapples]

Les Mis BBC: First Episode First Impression

Well, the actors are as excellent as I hoped they would be!

Cut for Spoilers or whatever term applies here

I really really really wanted to be wrong in all my misgivings about this series. I wanted to be blown out of the water by the whole thing, and have to make repentant posts about the error of my ways. 

Alas, this is not a Repentant Post. 

I liked some things! The set and scenery and props were all genuinely lovely. I enjoyed the animals everywhere? and the nigh-omnipresent beggars in Paris? Nicely done!  And I really, genuinely, appreciate the constant background French; I know just enough to recognize it when I hear it and it does add something to the atmosphere of the piece. 

The actors! What great performances! I want it clear that NOTHING I have to say in the way of character critique is down to them. Oyelowo is as good as I’d hoped he’d be, and that is saying a lot; Collins is doing a wonderful job with Fantine’s shyness and defiant hope; and the bit-part characters like Magloire and Nicolette are really standout. 

I really appreciate the inclusion of the Pontmercy Family situation, and Gillenormand being placed in this first episode makes his social relevance more clear IMO; he feels less like random comic relief than he sometimes can. Really, the whole Pontmercy-Gillenormand family conflict is a standout in the episode; Gillenormand’s emotional manipulation of Tiny Marius and  general domestic tyrannizing was very effectively shown (the scene with the toy soldiers!!!), and my heart was broken all over for Marius and for Georges. And Tholomyes is an amazingly perfect skeezeball; his PUA approach is clear and skin-crawling from the start.

*** Real quick Basic Plot Rundown: this episode covers roughly the era from Waterloo to Fantine being abandoned by Tholomyes. I say roughly  because it weirdly changes the timeline of Fantine’s life to sync up more with Valjean’s;he gets released and goes through the silver theft with the Bishop when she’s getting dumped.   The issue with that is of course that in the book Fantine is dumped in 1817 (the year 1817, when it was 1817); Cosette should just about be getting born around the year of Napoleon’s defeat and Valjean’s release, and now I guess she’s about a year old? This doesn’t necessarily have to be a big issue for chronology if the show’s just going to have Fantine and Cosette suffer for an extra two years (though: D:D:D:D: ) , and heaven knows Hugo is shifty on personal timelines, but...Les Mis *does* have certain unavoidable historical events it has to sync up with, so I’ll see how it plays out. 

Besides Valjean’s last little while in prison and Fantine’s courtship and abandonment, this first episode covers the Georges-Gillenormand-Marius family situation, with Georges limping home from Waterloo only to be refused access to his son. The show cuts between the three ongoing stories so they all progress more or less in sync. We get far enough along to see Georges watching his son in church without Gillenormand knowing (thanks to Nicolette, who’s the only woman in the Gillenormand house so far), Fantine holding Cosette in their apartment and wondering what they’re going to do after Tholomyes leaves them, and Valjean curled up in the road after robbing Petit Gervais.

Okay, Actual Commentary time! Please assume a Personal Opinion disclaimer for things after this point:P 

***

Several of the people I was watching with felt the constant cutting between scenes was jarring or hard to follow; I don’t know if that was the issue but I do think, overall, it just didn’t work as well as it might have. The individual scenes were very brief and the constant bouncing back and forth prevented them from building up any emotional momentum. I think..conceptually, I can see where it would be interesting to twine Valjean, Fantine, and Georges together, in many ways, but none of that thematic connection really came through either (Maybe most disappointingly to me, Valjean’s family is never mentioned, so the potential to connect all three of them as families torn apart by social inequality is lost). It really felt like just Three People Having a Bad Time in France.  it really is hard to follow, because it starts to feel...kinda dull , just a collection of sad anecdotes for no purpose. 

The dialogue doesn’t help. When the show leans heavily on Hugo’s writing (sadly, mostly with Tholomyes) , it’s fine, of course. But the original dialogue is clunky, pedantic, and weirdly flat throughout--and utterly lacking in nuance. It just aggressively clunks at points. 

Valjean and Javert suffer the most for this. Javert basically states aloud his share of the Confrontation while lecturing a bound Valjean for ...reasons?? It’s never really clear. But hey, here you go, Valjean, have Javert’s entire backstory! ( I should say that Oyelowo almost sells it. He is incredible , and does a great job making Javert feel both his adamant self and humanly affected by the world around him. Just. some of this dialogue. Geez.)  This is also one of those episodes with a weirdly more unpleasant Valjean; he doesn’t assault the Bishop, but he does  much more consciously rob Petit Gervais, laughing as he scares the kid away and grinning as he first examines the coin. He also just...yells at people a lot? and argues with the Bishop and asserts his hatred of mankind very bluntly. I found it hard to believe this Valjean had any of the original’s internalized self-hatred or sense of being  lower than a dog; he seems  solidly outraged by his treatment, and confident of the injustice of it all. Which is definitely fair and all, but just...isn’t quite Valjean.

 (Also, as I mentioned above, we don’t really get any of his pre-prison backstory; not an unusual adaptational move, but it sure doesn’t add anything to his motivation.) He seems both more casually violent and less emotionally deep than I’d expect a Valjean to be; I can’t believe , at least not yet, that he’s actually felt the Bishop’s forgiveness as a challenge in any way, even though the Gervais scene ends with him curled in the road--it just doesn’t feel connected. 

Fantine does  get more time--unfortunately, and unavoidably, much of that involves Felix:P . There’s also some brief conversation with Favourite about the general situation of grisettes. I think it’s a good addition, and puts in some useful context. (That said, I’m deeply uneasy about the attempt to portray Fantine and Favourite as actual  friends-so much of Fantine’s story comes from her being really truly isolated. If she’d had real friends to help in the crunch, it would change things-- and if she thinks  Favourite is a real friend and then Favourite fades on her, that’s even worse than canon and makes Favourite  worse than in canon. Hence, Unease.)  

Visually, there’s ..I won’t say nothing wrong,  and certainly I can have fun for ages going over the details of this or that outfit or hairstyle (and I really do  find the weird combos of Looks to be very distracting; if I knew less about the period it wouldn’t be,no doubt, but I do  know a lot about How It Should Look and the fact that it doesn’t  Quite sometimes makes it all feel like it’s happening in a generic Fantasy 19C) . But there’s no BIG thing wrong, it’s...fine?  

It’s just ... it’s just fine. There’s no particular strong visual feel to it, nothing really striking-- unless you count the weird 60s-Acid-flashback-looking timeskip moment. It really does  feel like LM 2012 in its more visually striking moments, and outside of that, it’s just very much a competently filmed period drama made in the last ten years--but that’s all. Without the specific characters, I don’t think there’s a single frame of it I’d recognize as being necessarily Les Mis and not any other random BBC Period Drama. 

I guess this is really my problem with the characters and the story too-- it’s...Fine, it’s technically there , but too often there’s no sense of depth or specificity to it. Part of it’s the dialogue, part of it’s the weird pacing/ story jumps , part of it is because no one ever seems to be given a moment to respond-(Fantine crying for all of thirty seconds after being abandoned before the show decides we need her up and talking and dry-eyed was really actively jarring to me)--

There are a hundred little details I could go through but the overall effect for me was just a whole lot of Underwhelming. Yeah, there’s the Pee Scene and the (correct and fitting) visceral discomfort of Everything About Tholomyes (he ,at least, really is a Triumph of Skeeze). But the real problem so far is just that it feels like a visual outline of a story; it’s not pulling together into feeling like a lived world. It’s not taking my heart, even though, despite my surface grousing, I really want  it to.  It’s here, it’s fine, it’s Whatever; but all my really strong emotional reactions either Cringing  or Cooing (over the very excellent babies). My heart didn’t break but the once, with Tiny Marius, and it really really  should have been in pieces by the end of the episode. 

I’m of course  going to keep watching, as much of it as I can find a way to see; it’s Les Mis and I really  am  impressed with the actors.  Maybe next episode, when the various stories start to come together a little, it’ll all feel more solid and more memorable. Right now, though, I’m sitting at a solid “ meh” about it.

[longsightmyth]

Myth & Kat Read WS, Chapter 1

(Kat’s post is here)

Myth’s First Impressions:

I am unwowed but my optimism is uncowed. Or something.

The first chapter doesn’t have to wow me, though. It just has to introduce me to the world and the characters.

Frankly I think the events of this chapter should have come later in the book, when we already had context and cared about the characters or at least understood that the main character cared about them. As someone who has written something that killed off a character early for supposed emotional impact… well. I wish I’d taken more time to develop Goldor before killing him off. I wish the author here had taken more time to ensure we knew K/osty/a better so we cared too.

Second Impressions (aka status updates the second time I read the chapter);

I’m unimpressed by the scripture. Step up your game, author. (I say as someone who likes to include this sort of thing in her writing and usually ends up removing it later, but I love it when it’s done well, like in Pellinor)

The author decided to explain what vespers were. Vespers are an actual thing irl.

‘She hadn’t anticipated losing her entire day to remedial labor, yet here she was.” Did you maybe mean menial labor?

Unlike Kat, I am amused by the pettiness of the potato inner monologue.

I am not, however, amused by the dialogue.

I wish we had seen the prank in action. I think it would have given some good insight into K/osty/a and the world at large.

Why are we using dull kitchen blades

Let the Sarah Janet prose begin I guess

Hey a semicolon! Pretty sure it should be a colon, but whatever

Why are we translating words used in the narrative directly to english terms

“When N/ady/a prayed, gods listened.” There I made it more dramatic for you and saved space. You’re welcome. (you don’t need to tell us that’s valuable or scary, that’s pretty clear)

This is so far very explain-y, but I think if we had a little more context and a little less exposition I would be enjoying myself.

The gods are not very godlike. Your mileage may vary.

Unclear if the T/ranavian/s actually know N/ady/a exists, let alone that she’s at the monastery. They could just be going for a tactical target in their holy war. In a book that explains so much else in exposition, this seems like a strange thing to omit.

“It’s over, T/ranavian/s! We have the high ground!” - all I can hear even the second time around.

I told Kat this when I was reading the chapter the first time and she agrees with me on part but not all of this: this really feels like it’s first person PoV that somehow got morphed into third person? Like, I feel like I’m reading first person, so every time I read about N/ady/a in third person it’s a shock.

Her hand isn’t frostbitten, it’s covered in magic ice. Words mean things.

Why would a character raised to believe in gods who also grew up conversing with them be shaken by their omnipresence? Maybe if we had more on the religion this would be explained.

Honestly I’d have been okay with the narrative telling me to feel things here if I knew more about K/osty/a.

Final Impressions:

I still think this should have been a second or third chapter after we spent some time at the monastery and met the people involved so it would have more of an emotional punch. The prose is… sloppy isn’t the right term. It feels unfinished, I guess? But it’s salvageable, and I think it could be much improved by removing 90% of the exposition to make room for character development that would show us how the world works and how these people interact with each other and their environment. THAT BEING SAID: depending on how the holy war aspect is handled, I could be all over this. Is it weird to say that I love a good fictional holy war?

BONUS:

Title is pretty cool at the outset and has the advantage of not being a ___ of ___ thingy. Jury is out on how relevant it will be, but I have hopes! (hiiiiiigh hopes/ musical interlude)

Kat Responds:

What’s hilarious is that I’ve seen so many reviews talk about how they love the scripture at the beginning of each chapter, since they seem to feel that it weaves more world-building into the book and also introduces us to the pantheon, but imo they really don’t serve their purpose. Maybe it’s just me, but I tend to skip over things that are right below the chapter header, which makes the purpose moot. And honestly, if you have to weave world-building in that way, the book itself needs some serious work.

I actually laughed at remedial vs menial.

The whole dull kitchen blades thing could’ve been interesting, if Father Alexei was supposed to be someone we dislike, since it’d show us if he trusted Nadya and Kostya or not (they’re not guarded, which implies he trusts them, but the dull blades thing doesn’t make any sense). Instead, we’re supposed to care for him, despite the opening paragraphs, and love his faith in allowing Nadya to fight (but that’s in chapter 2, where I rant a lot, so I’ll hold myself back here ahem).

I think the lack of explanation for why the Trana/vians are there and why they’re after Nadya is supposed to be some big secret from the reader, despite the fact it only serves to make us frustrated. You shouldn’t have to build up tension through withholding information, especially something that a person would normally think about.

I, too, love a holy war because they’re fascinating to read about, considering religion is such a huge driving force no matter where you are in the world (even if you aren’t religious yourself, chances are you are still aware of/impacted by it). I think what makes me wary is the way the gods are being introduced, or the lack thereof, because this entire chapter plonks us into the story without building anything up/making us understand and empathize with Nadya. I’m definitely still going forward with an open mind, but this first chapter doesn’t wow me at all. The foundation is there but little else.