#its a bit slapdash but i still love it

[dontforgetoctober3rd]

Savior

A new Rhaemond drabble!  Blabbity blah it is obv a no Dance of Dragons AU, y’all know the drill everybody loves everybody etc ANYWAYS It’s the day before Aemond marries Rhaena and he finally has a real conversation with her about the claiming of Vhagar.

—————————

Aemond quite liked this little balcony near the sea.  Often it was used by Daemon to train a bit with Ser Criston but for today, he had requested it be done up for a private dinner for him and his betrothed.  The Cargyll twins stood sentry by the wall some ways away, giving them their privacy but keeping them in line of sight.

A small rectangular table with a deep red cloth and two chairs facing the sea...assorted little cheeses and scones...two goblets of ale (Rhaena had apparently never tried it before coming to the Red Keep and immediately took a liking to it when Aemond had given her some)...a vase with a cherry blossom branch...and his Rhaena sitting and waiting for him, watching as Vhagar flew in the distance.  Her own dragon, Morning, was still the size of a small cat but someday they would fly together.

“She does enjoy showing off, when she’s aware she has an audience,” Aemond said, joining her at the table.  The smile of delight she graced him with warmed his heart.  Too many lemon cakes and he grew sick of them, despite being his favorite, but Rhaena’s smiles? If anything, he felt he never got enough of them.

“As she should!” Rhaena added in mock indignation. “Why shouldn’t she show off her beauty?” 

Aemond took Rhaena’s hand.  “You think she is beautiful?  Truly?  Is she not fearsome to you?”  

He was smiling still...but Rhaena sensed the conversation had shifted in a different direction... Her own smile left her face but her manner of speaking was reassuring.

“Of course!  She has her own kind of beauty.  Granted, every dragon has their differences but what other dragon has what *she* has?  Her demeanor, her battle scars, and ESPECIALLY her ferocity are what make her absolutely magnificent.”

Aemond smiled and looked away from Rhaena, towards the sea at his dragon.  “Do you regret it?  Not having the chance to claim her..because of me?  I know you have said countless times you made your peace with it-”

“I have, my love.” Still holding his other hand, Rhaena tilted Aemond’s head toward her, boring into his one functional eye with both of hers.  “I have long since made my peace with it and not just that...but I am grateful that you claimed her when you did.”

Aemond looked momentarily puzzled but Rhaena continued.

“...I often think of it, if you had not claimed her.  Do you know what probably would have happened?  I wouldn’t have made the attempt the next day.  Or the next.  Or for a long while after that.  Who is to say Vhagar would have remained on Driftmark, waiting around for a mere human to claim her?  I felt like the world had stopped when I lost my mother...it would have been weeks before I felt like I had the sufficient fortitude to make the attempt to claim her former dragon...”

Aemond kept listening intently, stroking the hand she was holding with his .  Rhaena still held onto his face, hand on his cheek.

“...if you hadn’t claimed Vhagar when you did...I think she would have flown away before I could try...think how lonely she would have been.. Mother was the first rider to claim her since Visenya.  Visenya!  Decades of loneliness, my love, before my mother finally found her.  Just...the thought of having almost done that to her again, subjecting her to such solitude, even if unintentionally...” Rhaena brought her forehead against Aemond’s, both nuzzling into the other. “You saved her, Aemond.  You were brave enough not only to dismiss rules of decorum but to stand before the biggest dragon in the world...you saved her and she knows it.  I know she does.”

Tears were streaming down Rhaena’s face at this point, Aemond wiping them away, peppering her forehead with gentle kisses.  A mighty roar from Vhagar broke the somewhat melancholy air, and both of them giggled.

[heraldeez]

i saw your requests were open temporarily, may i request a first kiss with jayce ? i think it'd be cute. i hope youve been well !

I have been well, thanks for asking! Life's crazy because I'm getting ready to move.

DEFINITELY CUTE. I want to smooch him. I wasn't sure if you meant his first kiss, the reader's first kiss, or their first kiss together, so I just knocked down two targets and hoped for the best 🙈. Hope you enjoy!

Jayce x Reader | 962 | SFW

Contains: bad group projects, falling asleep on someone, and some sweet sweet smoochin.

Jayce stiffens as your jaw comes to rest against his shoulder, hands freezing their progress. Chancing a glance down, he confirms that yeah, you’re out cold.

It's another late night at the Academy, spent doing curriculum work instead of work that could change the world someday. Jayce was fighting with a tricky relay of copper fittings. You'd finished your share of the project twenty minutes ago, both the clean copy of delicately illustrated schematics and all the vocal presentation bits that Jayce dreaded.

Nobody likes group projects. Jayce knows he isn't out of the ordinary there. He just can't help but feel that it grates on him more than the average student, faced with the fact that most of his peers didn't actually care about discovery. They just cared about making themselves look good. 

Not you, though. He'd only shared classes with you this semester, but you were always fair in your division of the work.

And you were one of the only people who seemed to be able to stand his… candidness, always laughing it off when he’d get frustrated with the pace, being slowed down by others.

‘It’ll get done either way, slow or not.’ You'd been smiling at him so sweetly when you'd said that, despite the fact that he knew he had been nothing but irritated and fussy. Your patience had left him stricken with… something.

Jayce decides to leave you be, asleep on his shoulder. This project wouldn't have been a problem if the rest of your group members had anything to offer except slapdash efforts and excuses, leaving the two of you with the brunt of the work.

Tonight, Jayce is the one slowing you down, grumbling his way through fixing the shoddy work your other partners had put forward and finishing the things they had neglected to do entirely. To get this project up to his usual standards…

It’s eating up far too much time. The least he can do is let you rest a bit.

---

Your pillow is talking.

“Finally. Alright, I’ve got it dialed in so the fluid can actually cycle through all of the cooling chambers even as a prototype – the professor should be impressed. This is almost professional quality, so our marks should be flawless.”

Your pillow also smells incredibly good, nice and warm, so you elect to ignore it and nuzzle deeper.

“Are you listening?” – it sounds incredibly put out – “Hey. Wake up, we can go home now.”

Blearily, you blink your eyes open and find yourself caught up in Jayce’s gaze, the low lamplight reflecting off the gold of his eyes and revealing him peering down at you, close and tired and – dare you say – almost fond looking.

This close you can see every last eyelash, and how his stubble is starting to come in from the late hour on the alluring curve of his jaw. Despite the bags under his eyes, they’re bright and satisfied, his face almost glowing, the way it always does when he’s worked hard and made something perfect.

In fact, you can almost feel that glow on your skin. When did he get so warm? His ears are starting to get red.

That little detail reminds you just how close your faces have become, but a sleepy contentedness has drizzled its way into your joints, and you can’t bring yourself to pull away.

He’s just so –

“You’re really lovely when you’re making progress, you know that? It opens you up,” you sigh, still half dreaming, watching the flush spill across his face.

Jayce is too busy looking at your mouth to respond, his own ever so slightly parted.

Were you not half asleep, you probably never would have chanced it. But the way he was looking at you almost lost, how close he was –

It felt natural, to wriggle in closer, tilt up your jaw invitingly.

You catch the way his brows shoot up just as your eyes slip shut, and your mouth slots perfectly against his, slow and –

And unmoving. A little shocked stiff. Jayce makes a funny little noise in the back of his throat, something aching and perhaps a touch confused.

You jolt back, suddenly a whole lot more awake. “Sorry. Wow, sorry, I should have asked first –”

“It’s fine,” Jayce cuts in, a little strangled, busying himself with wrapping the prototype in oilcloth and setting it inside its small crate as an excuse not to meet your eyes. “You were – It was nice, just – I’ve never done that before.”

The end of his sentence leaves him in a rush. If it’s possible, his ears seem even redder now.

“Never?” you echo, a bit disbelieving in the wake of how plush and soft his lips had been against yours.

His shoulders hunch up defensively, looking awfully small for such a large man. “I’m kind of a busy guy, alright?”

Jayce’s fingers snap the clasps shut on the lid of the box, but your brain wrapped itself around the way he’d said your kiss was ‘nice’, and you’re itching to try again, to give him something even nicer to latch on to.

“Too busy to give it another go?”

Jayce’s wide eyes cut over to yours finally, from where he’s tucking the prototype into his satchel.

His fingers loosen on the strap of his bag. “Well. Maybe not,” Jayce mumbles, leaning in close enough for you to close the gap again.

The shuddering exhale Jayce gives you when you bring your lips together this time is everything, your hand coming up to cup his jaw and guide him into the most comfortable angle. His movements are still a bit stilted compared to yours, but he’s mimicking your motions in an incredibly earnest fashion.

You have no doubt he’ll be a quick study.

[blessphemy]

@comment-bingo get me on that Blackout Prize List!!

These are all AO3 fics I commented on because.... I like fics. What about it. Perhaps on my next bingo card I'll remember to comment on some fanart and fanvids...

List of what I commented on under the cut! Because I'm a nerd.

Action/Adventure: Slapdash Neural Wiring by potatoturnipbean. This fic is part 2 of a series, but you can start by reading this one no problem. (That's what I did.) Featuring original construct characters set in the Murderbot Diaries universe, amazing heist fiction, drama, emotional turmoil, cool scifi gadgets, and line after line of hilarious, snappy prose. Do you want to be mercilessly punched in the emotions while laughing at the same time? Have you been craving a book that's exactly like Murderbot in tone and setting, but a littttle bit different? Do you want something gripping and fun and affecting? This fic is incredible and I'll tell anyone who listens. For free. Pleaes read Slapdash Neural Wiring it's an amazing work that needs love.

Poetry/Filk: Poetry installation: Untitled ("my friend always chooses the media") by borth. Very cool stuff. You have to actually read it to appreciate it I think... it's difficult to describe why I like it. In-universe poetry written in a bathroom stall.

Outsider POV: Cinema Verite by BoldlyNo. BoldyNo does it again with sensitive writing that explores canon and characters from various angles, this time it's Ratthi's perspective of creating The Video in System Collapse. Very good. Emotions.

Fave Trope: Road Trip For Science by Thirteen Primes. I don't know what my Fave Trope is, but I love Road Trips, and this fic has got a road trip. The author was inspired by a scene that came to them in a dream. There's something charming about this fic that is difficult to put my finger on. Featuring Mensah who'd done trucking to pay for school when she was younger, and Murderbot, driving a truck through a planet recently opening up to outside trade and which is being courted by corporate rim.

An Author You've Never Read: An Audacious Undertaking, Even to God by lumpy_space_princess. Featuring SecUnit 3, who is desperate to restore and re-upload the consciousnesses of SecUnits 1 and 2. Experience emotions from this fic or your money back. This fic is a multichapter and still updating!

Respond To Other Comment: On Constructs And Cats by ForestWren. Murderbot finds a kitten. What more do you want? It's exactly what you want.

Original Character: Happy Birthday by Jewels9162. Part of a prolific series about rogue Barish-Estranza units and their human handler. Bit of a nice slice-of-life here. About friends and birthdays.

Character Study: Sense of Belonging by ArtemisTheHuntress. Listen. I don't care what plans Martha Wells herself has for SecUnit Three. This fic is what truly happens with it in my heart after the events of System Collapse. It's such a good character study, about finding yourself in the context of a new strange social scene, about grieving what you've lost, about making a positive difference in the world using your specific skills and interests. So good.

Multi-Chapter: Slivers of Existence by musicofthespheres. A collection of loosely-connected ficlets. About Murderbot. It's very nice, okay. A bunch of pleasant scenes you can sip tea over as a pick-me-up. Enjoyable.

Long Fic (5k+ words): Family Portrait by ramshackle_fey. Are you ready to experience emotions about Murderbot and The Mensah Kids? Prepare yourself. Gird your heart.

Bharadwaj's Documentary: If You Want To Write by borth. This is a very neat concept. Chapter 1 is Murderbot and Bharadwaj talking to each other about the illiteracy enforced upon Murderbot by the company, and how Murderbot sneakily learned to read, and how its secretly-gained literacy is what allowed it to hack its governor module. Chapter 2 is a meta text exploring themes of literacy and worker control.

Old Favourite: In Another Life by Lick. Frankly it's impossible for me to pick only one favorite fic, so this is just one of many favorites. Frankly anything written by Lick is a favorite. This one is an AU in which Murderbot continued on its adventures for 4 years before returning to reunite with its humans on Preservation. The shifted dynamics with ART, SecUnit 3, and its humans, are a delight.

Free Space: do humans even dream by BWizard. A 4+1, times Mensah experiences nightmares, as noticed through the eyes of the people close to her. :')

Make a Rec Post: This post.

Crack: mining for copper (or ways to annoy your construct friend) by friendoftheJabberwock. Short and silly. Murderbot must do a very important infiltration at a costume party.

Canon Continuation: In Defense Of What I Never Had by Thylacine_Wishes. You ever want to ruminate on the Implications of Murderbot's shitty creation in comparison to ART's state-of-the-art University birthplace? Welcome. We have baby AIs.

Posted/Updated Pre-2023: precious cargo by FiannlyPhoebe babyfic. Fast forward some Years: Iris and Amena generate a human baby.

Fluff: people look east the time is near by BWizard. The secular space X-mas cookie making vibes. Sweet. Cookie decorating.

Hurt/Comfort: Memory Fault by Yellow. Murderbot and ART in the wake of the difficult events of Network Effect... talk it out.

Bot POV: Hints by i_have_loved_the_stars_too_fondly. Technically this is SecUnit POV. But I'm counting it. An exploration of how Amena may have come and done Murderbot's hair, pre-System Collapse. Made me feel a little sad :') I want them to feel connection and careeeeeee please.

Additional Canonized Tag: Third Dorm Mom by BoldlyNo. The canonized tag in question is "#Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland." Y'all this fic is AWESOME. If you love slice of life. If you love character and relationship studies. If you want a fic that is alllll about the relationship between Murderbot and Amena. It's this fic. Warm your heart over the coals, go on.

Fanart with <50 Notes: This collection of drawings by paging-possum. It had <50 notes when I reblogged it with commentary tags. You should check out this artist's works if you like Murderbot. Very nice drawings.

Podfic: [Podfic] Cog in the Machine, by FlipSpring by CompassRose and mistingsidekick on AO3. Come ruminate on the nihilistic POV of the Combat SecUnit that Murderbot faced off against in Exit Strategy.

Funny/Silly Tags: a comforting presence by afjakwrites. The tag in question: "#featuring secunit carrying ratthi bridal style." Consider, if you will: what if Murderbot is Objectively Hot.

Crossover: We Provide... Security by Blue_Bees. Very very good very good crossover!!!!! You don't need to know Leverage. Case fic + screw over Corporations time!

[tyrantisterror]

Fantastic Rants and Where to Find Them

So, back when the Herbie Porber movies were still being made, Warner Brothers saw the cash cow on their hands and decided they had to lock that shit down as much as possible to make sure they could milk it until its teats were chafed and withered to nothing. To that end, they bought the rights to every book the Terf Queen had written by that point - which included all the Henry Pansley wizard school mystery books, but also two gag books set within the Henry Pansley world: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which was presented as an in-universe biology textbook for wizard children, and Quidditch Through the Ages, which was an in-universe book of trivia for a fake magical sport.

And at the time everyone with a brain who'd read those two books was shaking their head and thinking how dumb those corporate executives were to do that because, like, those aren't novels or novelas or short stories or narratives of any kind. They are, and I cannot stress this enough, a fake textbook and a fake trivia book about fake things written in a slapdash manner as a cheap gag. They existed for three reasons:

First, to sell something Herbie Porber related at a significantly lower price point than the actual novels so the Terf Queen could get more of that sweet, sweet Scholastic Book Fair money by having something poor kids could buy.

Second, to give a portion of the proceeds raised from that poor kid book fair money to charity so the Terf Queen could get some nice tax writeoffs.

And as a distant third, to expand the world-building of the Henry Pansley setting a teensie bit.

Now, as far as I'm aware, they succeeded at the first two well enough - tons of kids bought those cheap-ass thin as shit paperbacks when I was a kid, myself among them. Well, ok, I only bought Fantastic Beasts and skipped Quidditch because even during the height of my Herbie Porber fan days I thought the Terf Queen's imaginary sport was really fucking stupid and every time it popped up in the books I was bored as shit and tried to skim it as quickly as possible to get to the interesting stuff. I think I looked over the book once in a Barnes and Noble and thought, "Wow, I knew I thought real sports were boring as shit, but it turns out fake ones are even more so."

But back on track - goal number three was... kind of successful, I guess? Like, I don't know if you know this, but bestiaries of fictional animals are one of my big interests. I love a big book of made up creatures, and have collected many in my long life of thirty-four years. And as I said, I got a copy of Fantastic Beasts - technically several, because those cheap ass paperbacks disintegrated if you read them more than once, and I haven't met a bestiary that I haven't poured over several times, no matter how shitty. And despite how often I read it, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was, well... pretty mid, honestly. It's a book that's 99% world-building, and like all of the Terf Queen's world-building, it's overall mediocre and undercooked.

Like, in pure Herbie Porber style, it's mostly concepts that have been done in fantasy fiction and mythology dozens of times before with no real original spin on them whatsoever, often stripped down to their most recognizable elements alone. There are a smattering of original ideas that are actually interesting an novel, a few more original ideas that have potential but don't seem very well-thought out as is, and then some that are clearly just there to be a joke and are amusing for, like, a second, but also would quickly become annoying if they were given any focus.

I'll give a very me-specific example. As a fan of vaguely medieval european fantasy tropes, one of the metrics by which I judge a bestiary is "How does this handle dragons?" Because, like, I don't know if you know this, but I love dragons a lot, and the sheer variety of dragons in fiction is one of my favorite things in the world. There is a smorgasbord of different dragons a person can choose from just in folklore and mythology alone, and that variety is reflected in a given bestiary, the higher I think of it.

The Terf Queen's bestiary gives us ten dragon breeds... and they're all more or less the same except for scale color and minor variations in size. Oh, and their names, which are all based on different dog breeds because the Terf Queen thought that was funny. It's the worst of both worlds because it gets your dragon-loving hopes up that there'll be lots of unique dragons but no, they're just different colors, ho hum. Even the Chinese Dragon sticks to the same basic bitch wyvern body plan as the rest, when, you know, Chinese dragons have SUCH a different body plan than any of their European counterparts. It's downright insulting to the variety and creativity of this iconic folkloric archetype to reduce it to such a samey-set of monsters. Absolutely the most disappointing dragon entry in any bestiary I've ever read, just infuriating.

BUT, BACK ON THE INCREASINGLY DERAILED TRACK: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was never meant to be a "great" book. Remember goals one and two: it was a cheap cashgrab, a gimmick, a gag book. It was meant to be a disposable bit of fun - "Tee hee, here's a goofy textbook from this goofy wizard story that you kids will likely grow out of in a few years, you can read it in twenty minutes and not feel bad when you pitch it because there's very little substance to it, and it only costs three bucks."

The Terf Queen doesn't write textbooks, gag or otherwise, she writes novels, narratives, and in its original form Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was clearly just her fucking around with something whimsical and stupid for shits and giggles (and money, sweet sweet money). The original version of it was published with notes in the margin written by Henry Pansley and Donnie Stoat themselves, the two wizard hooligans writing little jokes and messages to each other with further references to other characters from the series, both to add more humor and because, again, the Terf Queen writes novels, and it was clear she couldn't commit to the "fake textbook" bit without working in some characters riffing it for her own sanity. And that makes it work as a gag book - you get a few laughs from the wizard hooligans playing MST3K with their shitty textbook, learn a little about the (undercooked and poorly thought out) ecosystem of the wizardy world, and then when you reach the back cover the spine of your cheap as shit pulp paperback book falls apart and, unless you've got a weird obsession with bestiaries, you throw the dying book in the garbage without a second thought. Three bucks spent well enough.

BUT, TO GET BACK ON THE INCREASINGLY DERAILED TRACK AGAIN: Warner Brothers bought the rights to this cheapo cashgrab gag textbook, and goddamn it, they were/are determined to squeeze Herby Porber's sore teats until every last drop of money milk spills from his chapped and bleeding nipples. They announced they were going to make a Fantastic Beasts movie towards the end of making the Herby Porber novels into films, and everyone with a brain sat there and thought, "Well, that's going to be a stupid cashgrab. Bet the Terf Queen's laughing her ass off at how dumb it'll be, too."

But the Terf Queen was not laughing, at least not for long, for once the Henry Pansley movies wrapped up, she was left with the horrifying knowledge that people didn't care for her non-wizard books all that much, certainly not enough to keep her rolling in sweet, sweet money. She needed that mega millionaire cash, and she needed it in abundance and she needed it quick. So when Warner Brothers asked her to write a movie based on her cheapo cashgrab gag textbook, she said, "Yeah, I can make a novel out of that! I - I'm a talented writer! People love my writing! They definitely love my writing and they'd love to pay money for things I wrote that don't directly feature Henry Pansley!"

So now she had to pretend that Fantastic Beasts, the cheapo cashgrab gag textbook about made up animals in a made up world, has a narrative. Not just any narrative, but a grand, sprawling narrative, one to rival, nay, SURPASS Herbie Porbie and the Seven Books of Wizard-Themed Coming of Age Nonsense. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, she assured us, was to be a magnificant tale, and one she planned all along, and CERTAINLY not a marriage of convenience to a completely stupid idea for a film that she was desperately sculpting into a narrative it had no ability to support for the sake of trying to recapture her already passed glory days as a writer.

And I think, in retrospect, this is a great illustration of the Terf Queen's great character flaw. She just can't fucking admit to a mistake, even when it's obvious to everyone that one was made. She will hop on board a sinking ship and keep doubling down on trying to get it to sail even as the water is up to her neck. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a serious narrative now, not a gag textbook written to wring a few more dollars from school children goddammit!

Recent editions of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them took out the Herbie and Donnie commentary, by the by. They also added many of the new half-baked monsters that were introduced in the movies, in a shoddy attempt to pretend this was the plan all along, and that Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was always meant to be the seed of something great.

But it wasn't, and no matter how hard the Terf Queen pretends otherwise, it's obvious it wasn't. It's a cheapo cashgrab gag textbook, and that's all it really had to be, until greed and ego demanded otherwise.

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - Things are Very Mixed

May 2023 Wk 1

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs. Organized by which ones (in each category) I’m enjoying most.

Ongoing Series - Thai

Step By Step (Thai Tues WeTV & Gaga) ep 3 of 10 (MDL still says 12, but Gaga still says 10) - The subs are janky on YT, so you might want to watch this on Gaga. This is such a good show, it just feels so much more authentic to an office environment and first job then anything else I’ve seen in BL. Now that might be because it has western source material, or it might be because it is actually kind of old-fashioned (it’s been years since I worked as an office grunt). While the authenticity may be a little triggering for some, I love how much tension it adds to the leads’ dynamic and the quality of the narrative. I also really love the brothers’ relationship, now that we got to see them on screen together for a bit. Walk of shame was great! Oh look, character development, how novel. This is what Boss & Babe should have been. Not sold on the sides tho it’s nice to see a faen fatal as the main character in a dynamic for a change. 

La Pluie (Sat iQIYI) ep 2 of 10 - This one is really grabbing me by the throat. I love the starter concepts, what a fantastic twist on a meet cute not to mention soulmates. I hope we spend more time with the vet and his coworkers, they seem awesome. And another surprise, the guy we think is being set up to be the brother’s love interest is now clearly interested in the wrong brother. I love the trope subversions going on with this show! 

Our Skyy 2 (The Eclipse) eps 5-6 - FirstKhao are just ridiculously cute as a couple. Honestly? Aye just seems like he would be a lot of work as a lover. I’m not as wild about the premise of this installment, with the film clips and stuff (as I was of NlMG’s installment). And then, the singing. Oh well, you can’t have everything. I gotta say, First is a great crier, although I don’t think this story warranted his tears. In the end? My feelings on this installment were mixed, the movie storyline didn’t grab me and the birthday storyline seems a touch mean spirited, but I do think it adds substantially to the original Eclipse rather than feeling superfluous or slapdash like many of the other Our Skyys. So I’m going to go with 8/10 

Future (Thai Sun YouTube & Gaga) ep 6fin - More of the same (which I like) but I’m glad it ended. Didn’t need to get dragged out. Such drama over nothing. In the end? This is just a soft sweet cotton candy fluff piece about a younger boy who pursues an older boy and then manufactures silly gay drama. Nothing wrong with that. But I don’t think this style of BL really appeals to a very large market share. Will I rewatch it? Sure. Will anyone else? Nope. 7/10 RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS.    

Pastsenger (Thai Weds Gaga) ep 9 of 12 eps - And now the amnesia trope. I’m not a fan. This is such a pulp. At least it ends next week? Groan, no 3 more eps.  

A Boss and a Babe (Fri YouTube) ep 10 of 12 - one thing I realize I like about this main couple’s dynamic is that the seme/uke seems earned, where it didn’t in Echante. I don’t have much else to say except it’s crazy when a narrative betrays its characters like this and why to poor ForceBook keep having to deal with it? 

The Promise (Thai Weds YT & WeTV) ep 7 of 10 - Honestly, who wears an all white outfit to play around with coffee beans in the countryside? I LOVE the faen fatal, he’s so good, courageous, honest, and morally sound. He even gives his rival fair warning. Nan should totally go out with him. I made awwww noises over the faen fatal! I NEVER do that. I guess Phu was right all along? Nan won’t date a friend. Ultimate friend zone. Well shit. This show. Ouch. 

House of Stars (Thai Mon iQIYI) ep 1 of ?? - There seems a slight horror element which I do not like and it’s also confusingly like Melrose Place or something. Everyone is sleeping with, or wants to be sleeping with everyone else. It’s kinda hilarious to watch something where all the actors are supposed to be good actors but it’s a pulp so they just really aren’t. So far my main issue is I can’t keep them all straight in my head (pun intended). 

Tin Tam Jai (Tues Gaga) ep 10fin - There is very little I enjoyed about this show. The entirely forgotten side dishes gave us 5 min of excellent high heat and then vanished, but otherwise this show sucked in the wrong way. It’s forgettable and I intend to do just that. 5/10  

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Our Dining Table AKA Bokura no Shokutaku (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 5 of 10 - The way these two are very quietly yet thoroughly falling in love with each other is executed with such grace and subtlety that only Japan could have handed this out. It’s not even “falling” it’s more like sliding gradually into love. 

Love Mate (Korea Thurs Viki) eps 1-2 of 8 - Launched very much openly gay so that’s fun. Also very much bubble too, so no one around them cares. So: Seo is a player jaded older uke (fun character type we don’t see often) and his seme is a romantic if arrogant weirdo. Can you see my hands clapping? Combative trope activation! Absurdity. How fun. Also workplace harassment but hayho that’s BL for ya. (Also a nonBL Kdrama specialty.) ALSO whole office in on seme-stalker’s side? All in all, it’s odd and questionable, but I’m into it. Why am I like this? 

Happy Merry Ending (Korea Thurs Gaga) eps 3-4 of 8 - OK I’m not super into the main couple but I love all of the surrounding characters. The overly protective best friend with a crush is giving bad advice but it’s understandable and he’s super hot so I forgive him. And the idol character is a wonderful addition, he is my baby. Also, evil ex is v evil. 

Vian the series (Vietnam YT ) - I thought this was gonna be Tiktok only but apparently it’s showing up on YT too. It’s cute! My cat boyfriend (which is more common that it should be) and this seems to be Vietnam’s installment (we got Thailand’s last year). The boy playing the cat is the prettiest human being on the planet. Fight me. No fight him, get scratched. Serious tho. Holy hairballs. Look I don’t really like vertical content but I am watching this for him. Meow, indeed. 

The Day I Loved You (Vietnam YouTube) eps 2-3 of ? - BL Express’s first impressions mirror mine. Niks is so flipping cute. Rich kid is so into him, so is bestie. So much gay macho posturing. So much bi fear and het shame. But also it’s killer to get a femme main characters who isn’t being mocked. Dancing trope continues (better than singing together). It is kinda Heartstopper goes Pinoy BL. Honestly, I prefer kids a little drawings to terrible sound effects. This is better than it or we have any right to expect. 

Naked Dinner AKA Zenra Meshi (Japan Fri Gaga) ep 4 of 12 - There is a lot I like about this drama, except the weird central conceit of the naked dining. But the romance part is cute, if a tad simplistic. 

My Story (Pinoy Sat YouTube) ep 4 of 10 - chukchuk went missing and so did my interest in this show. I’m DNFing this one. 

Dancing together, the baby sub-trope of 2023. (The Day I Love You) 

It’s Airing But ...

Love Syndrome (Thai Sat WeTV) stopped at ep 2 of 12 - I’m just not into any aspect of it (except Lee Long Shi) - saving to binge if the end is solid.

Venus in the Sky (Sat YouTube) pilot/tester?) 0 of 10 - not entirely sure what’s up with this one distribution-wise, but the pilot was classic university-set pulp. I hope it happens because the leads are cute with good chemsitry and I thought it was fun. However, this pilot holds together as its own little short too.

Stormy Honeymoon (Vietnam) - meh

In Case You Missed It

Actors Bas Suradej (2 Moons etc...) and Copter Panuwat (so much BL) have left Starhunter. So Copter and Kimmon will part ways as an on-screen pair (RIP KimCop). Their upcoming show Boy Never Smiles will still air, but will likely be their last together. (source) 

Restart After Come Back Home (highly recommended), Athlete, Capture Lover, Tkumi-kun, His the movie (recommended) and also a bunch of the dark stuff like Forbidden Love and Shortest Distance are all leaving Gagaoolala soon. So watch ‘em while you can. A few are also on Viki, but many will be difficult to get hold of without Gaga. 

I finally finished the second season of The Reason Why He Fell in Love with Me (Japan Gaga) and gave it a 4/10. I just don’t like or recommend any of the installments of this franchise, but if I had to pick, it’s season one. 

Make a Wish finished at 6 eps. Stars Fluke Natouch (OhmFluke UWMA etc...) & Judo (The Miracle Of Teddy Bear) in medical-fantasy about a doctor who sees ghosts and a deity who resides in a Bodhi tree that earns merits whenever he fulfills a wish. Based on a y-novel by Sammon (Manner of Death, Triage). I will watch it if I get hold of it, but for now... who knows how it went? 

Here’s a really interesting podcast ep from 99% Invisible on captions and captioning.

Next Week Looks Like This:

Coming in May 2023:

5/18 - Starstruck (Korea ????) - A boy has had a crush on his childhood friend for a long time. Stars Zuho (Kpop SF9 - noted good egg) opposite rookie actor Kim In Sung (the one with the crush).

5/27 The Luminous Solution (Thai ????) 10 eps - Thana is having trouble at work and in his relationship. He can't seem to catch a break. So he makes a wish to change everything. The wish has a price.

5/27 Takumi-kun Series 6: Nagai Nagai Monogatari no Hajimari no Asa (Japan) - NO ONE ASKED FOR THIS (but that has never stopped Japan before) and no, I have no idea where to get it, why would I ?????  (Say it with me everyone: Oh Japan, must you?)

2023 forthcoming BL master post (see comments, some are inaccurate, NOT KEPT UPDATED)

Defining Gut Wrenching from The Promise

Honestly you gotta be so careful who you case as the faen fatal, sometimes he steals everyone’s hearts. I caught a BAD case of second lead syndrome. 

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

Future reviewing itself for us. 

Tiny king of the GMMTV cameo. (Our Skyy et al)

Frankly if this weren’t such a bad story, Cher might be one of my favorite BL characters. (Boss & Babe) 

(last week)

Current Kpop earworm? BTOB's - Wind & Wish (I don’t consider myself Melody but I make no case for that statement)

[bharv]

I love your posts so much analyzing the game and the Devs choices! Thank you so much for writing them and i would also like to know your opinion on what they have done to the greywardens in DATV. Im not gonna elaborate further on what is written in the game for them in case yoy didn't get there yet! But please if you have any analysis or opinion i would LOVE to hear them!

Ohhh thank you anon. I’m still having issues with my inbox so I’m hoping this posts…

I still haven’t finished the game so this is going to be my incomplete thoughts but I have, unsurprisingly, mixed feelings.

I'll put under a cut just in case! And apologies if it's a bit slapdash, I'm still a bit covid-brained.

I am going to be controversial in that I've never loved the bringing the griffons back part of the lore. Last Flight is easily my least favourite book, I preferred the imagery of griffons being a symbol of the warden's lost valour, rather than something to literally bring back.

However, I did like the Cauldron and what it showed about the dead glory of the wardens. I thought that was really good! Also the little histories in the memories about the wardens during the siege were very interesting, and a clever way to get around not importing choice by making it about people from the backgrounds of characters we know.

Davrin is also one of my absolute favourite companions. I love his attitude, I love his resolve and his inner conflict, and the performance is I think one of the strongest in the game. Controversially I kind of wish Assan wasn't a griffon but was an actual mortal child lol, I love the parenthood analogy but I kind of thing it would hit harder. As cute as Assan is.

I loved the First Warden. Again, another favourite character for me. I remember thinking FINALLY when he turned up. Finally, an adult! Finally somebody reacting to this news in a way that makes sense! I chose to talk him down and I loved his final stand as well, though I'm wondering if the implication that the gods can talk to the wardens through their blood is going to... pay off elsewhere. I've also always been a fan of Evka and Antoine, so seeing them get such a prominent role was great, and on the whole the wetlands is one of my favourite areas in the game. Feels very, very origins.

On that note, it's been one of my favourite things through the series that the wardens get progressively less majestic the more we learn. In Origins you hear of the Order in other lands, and you think (and your warden probably also thinks) oh, it's okay, out there somewhere there is a whole retinue of heroes that WILL save us! We just have to survive this, and then it will be okay! And then seeing that the order even at its headquarters is woefully underfunded, largely people who were conscripted and are scared and just trying to do their best... I really, really like that as somebody who has always been most interested in that side of Dragon Age storytelling.

I do wish we had a little more reactivity to our warden-commander in the game, even if the game did just decide to confirm that they were dead (hey, it's completely justified to me to kill them off screen. They would be nearing their calling now I think.) And the way the blight functions is a bit... nonsensical to me now we are absolutely COVERED in blight all the time. The likelihood of it getting in the bloodstream is so, so high the way the fighting works!

I've heard the story continues into other territory, so I will let you know what I think when we get there...

[thenixkat]

the millennium (i can't spell that word) project is literally a eugenics program that the Oans want to run on Earth to evolve/improve humans

the heroes are for it b/c they respect the authority of the oans for some fucking reason

also choosing 10 people as the starting breeders for yer eugenics program is uh… a rather small number

like really fucking small for 'advancing' the whole species

and they don't even guarantee that the whole 10 people they chose are alive and all have corporeal bodies by the time the New Guardians start

also, they didn't ask the people of Earth first if humanity would like to be groomed into future space police

they don't even pick people who are all open to the idea of being part of a eugenics breeding program, they're just picking fuckers based on their genes. And they very much arent explaining it as a eugenics program when it is when you look at the New Guardian's mission statement

but the heroes are cool with this. Cool with the idea of Earth becoming a future home of the Guardians b/c the space police are on the side of the good guys so their backers must be ok too

yeah, the Oans aren't telling people that the advancement of the human race means a fucking eugenics program which is slightly better than fuckers knowing. Also, fuckers are using scare tactics to get the folks they want in the breeding program who aren't interested in 'advancing the human race'

ALso love how racist DC is about Asians in its comics at all times. Just constantly especially in the 80s. And the 60s. And in 1999...

…i don't believe that the governments of Earth recognize the authority of the Green Lantern Corps as, like, a legitimate law enforcement agency from space. Pretty sure everyone just thinks about them as superheroes ie costumed vigilantes but ok

heheheeh. Ted thinks Lt Fisher who's been blackmailing him is with the Manhunters blackmailing superheroes in general and came to his office to beat his ass

Ted even if Lt Fisher isn't a Manhunter you should still beat his ass for blackmailing you.

I wanna see more of Ted beating the shit out of cops. It's wonderful, he should get to do it more often

Ted backhands Lt Fisher almost across the damn room. I love it. Let Ted fight more cops!

Yes, Ted, you should have just beat Lt Fisher's ass and told him to go fuck himself the first time he tried to blackmail you. If he's gonna do a criminal act to force you to do dirty work for the police, there's nothing stopping you from beating his ass like any other criminal

also, some of this is plot stuff relevant to Ted's solo run and referenced in it, I just don't like doing supplemental reading for a story. B/c if it was important it would have been included in the main story

so normal human-looking lady and the smurf are both oans just different sexes. b/c we couldn't have sexy smurf ladies i guess

Why did the Oans pick an explicitly racist White South African for their eugenics program to 'advance the human race'?

they also picked a gay man for their eugenics breeding program. I guess they're hoping he runs into transdudes who want to be bred?

This eugenics program is a bit slapdash and I can see all the reasons it failed

i guess that's what happens when yer sexes have been living apart for billions of years and they likely use machines to breed

they also picked a man for their eugenics program who has a wife and kids, and told him to leave his family to join their project…

if yall want him for his genes and shit... he could fuck his wife? and make more kids?

[unknownarmageddon]

hi im here to bring you silly fun ideas to make the bittersweet a little more sweet

ahem: imagine, cross off handedly mentions missing pizza, right

so what I'm thinking is, killer starts collecting stuff, ingredients that they're lucky to stumble upon, and its hardly easy to find things that are still edible, but killer is a scavenger and has a knack for finding things that don't want to be found

so he finds, somehow, enough ingredients to make the most basic, plain ass pizza ever, and the bread it stale and the sauce is sloppy and the cheese has a funny taste, but fuck, killer tried, and damn near succeeded, because its so so so close to what cross wanted that he can enjoy it without much problem

and its not hot enough and its kinda gross, but cross eats every last bit and insists killer eat with him (it really was a sloppily done pizza, not even round, just a weird shape that they had to tear because there were no slices, just a solid lump of pizza) and they eat slapdash pizza and cross is happy enough that he kisses killer in one of his rare moments of being openly affectionate rather than discreetly or quietly

and they have a nice meal and nothing ever goes wrong because we love them and would never make them sad for fun /lie

OHHHH OH ohhh my god I love that so much augh /pos/pos

They would they would they would so do stuff like that

Cause it���s the least they can do to make their quality of life less like the shitshow it has the potential to be and is. Cause they gotta have something y’know and even if the food or whatever it is is not the best quality and is barely edible or tolerable it’s something and that something’s good enough for them

[crehador]

brother crab’s 2023 seasonals in review: fall

most of the fall shows i'm watching are still an ep or two away from being complete but i'm leaving on a trip tomorrow and wanted to get this finished first so here we go

pretty sure none of this will change at this point (though aots and runner-up did just flip like five days ago lol)

FIRST UP. IN A STARTLING LAST MINUTE UPSET. ANIME OF THE SEASON

MIGI TO DALI!!! although for the past month or so i was convinced overtake! would take it, migi to dali has been coming to such a stellar climax that it's shot into the lead

overtake! is still exceptional and i've talked a lot about it this season, it's just a beautiful thing in its simplicity, with characters that are so Weird yet Real

migi to dali is EVEN WEIRDER in an astonishingly good way, it was intriguing right from the start and continued to build and build to a payoff that really blew me away

i don't think uniqueness is everything, sometimes a show that feels like i've seen it a hundred times before can still be my favorite thing of a season, it would just feel like home. but migi to dali's uniqueness is definitely a huge part in what makes it so alluring to me, the way it balances psychological suspense and comedy is so excellent and fresh

and now the sequels! in addition to spyfam, arknights, and dmdp, bpro and hpmi got sequels and hanako-kun got a little tv short

no comment on hpmi it'll get its own post

best sequel probably should go to dead mount death play, the world building is just fantastic to me, and this season definitely feels even stronger than the first (which was already very strong!)

however. i'm giving sequel of the season to arknights just for the sasha and eno ep, they put me on the fucking floor with that one

bpro s3 was unfortunately not really my thing, i want tsubasa happier and more well-rested :( but spyfam is adorable as usual, and some more hanako-kun was great (though we need more!)

quickfire thoughts on everything else:

onmyouji was unspectacular but surprisingly fun! and gay. gay as hell. asnm u have not led me astray this time

dog signal is not exactly High Quality but it's... fine and sometimes fun? i'm forever amused by the fact that it's billed as an educational series, and it kind of is! there's actual information about dog training in here. but there's also "guy walks other guy on leash in public for 2 hours" in here. and that was just episode one

kawagoe boys sing is a hot mess and i love it to bits, it starts out so silly that i'm sure it's an insta-drop for many people, but the club dynamics really come together throughout the series in a way i'm enjoying very much

bullbuster... talked about this a lot already, it was fine as an office drama/tiny business vs giant corporation type thing, but fell short on the mecha side of things

bokuame's shit. more on this later

atarashii joushi wa dotennen FREAKING ADORABLE. MORE OF THIS FOREVER

yuzuki-san chi no yon kyoudai EVEN MORE ADORABLE. MORE OF THIS FOREVER AND EVER

good night world was pretty decent, i overall... liked it, i think? it was very bingeable, so it was nice of them to drop it all at once lol and i liked the general premise and plot and all. but i think the wrap-up just felt a bit, eh, maybe slapdash to me? not Bad, but fell just short of exceptional

hoshikuzu telepath ADORABLE AS WELL as far as cgdct goes i'd say this is one of the better ones, kind of same tier as diy for me, but it's no yuru camp (the gold standard)

s-rank musume had a premise i really liked, and an overarching plot that was less compelling to me. wish we'd seen more of a focus on the family bond rather than like... magic and politics type stuff

watashi no oshi wa akuyaku reijou was a cute fucking yuri, the romance was a delight but as with s-rank musume, the 'plottier' bits were not as compelling to me

kamonohashi ron no kindan suiri feels like a very solid adaptation! makes me even more keen to read katekyo (which has been on my planning list for... fucking forever)

ragna crimson is pretty fun but not that outstanding, but like. really fun actually

shangri-la frontier is also very fun! not terribly high stakes (not really any stakes at all) but hilarious, action-packed in a good way, and probably especially entertaining for anyone who's played mmos before (because some parts are so so so relatable)

undead unluck is SO GROSS but IN A GOOD WAY idk how to explain this so i won't try

and sousou no frieren is anime of the year. no contest. (personally i disqualify my aots shows from winning aoty as well so i can do this. i can do anything i want forever)

as for the music!

we had a queen bee op this season and i will almost always pick queen bee as op/ed of the season when we have one, this is no exception. undead unluck's 01 takes op, and ed of the season goes to kamonohashi ron's lip-sync! just really like the vocals of that one

blorbo of the season MADOKA-CHAN KOUYA ship of the season surprisingly it's a toss up between like. seimei/hiromasa (WHAT YEAR IS IT) and kinjou/aoyama from atarashii joushi. like. momose/shirosaki VERY GOOD but those side bitches... they are in my head

[queenlua]

@fleecy said: so where does one read actual mtga plot/storytelling? i didn’t realize it had any! is it in like spinoff books or smth :?

oh boy that's SUCH a good question

the tl;dr is that Magic's official story has generally been told via a sort of slapdash combination of tie-in novels (in Actual Book Form) + short stories (posted on their website)

and of those two, the short stories are generally *stronger* and sometimes really quite good, but unfortunately the design-by-committee approach to the overall story does hamper their impact somewhat

the LONGER answer is:

* in the beginning MtG's storyline was told primarily via little bits of flavor text on cards, vibes, and maybe the occasional comic in a magazine or something

* and it really wasn't so much a *story* as it was history... set dressing that told you how this world came to be

* they made a concerted effort at telling an actual STORY on the cards beginning with the Weatherlight set in 1997, with mixed results. nerds like me loved collecting the cards and trying to carefully piece all the flavor text together into something coherent; most people were like "uhhh idk what's going on, but this Gerard guy pops up a lot i guess?"

* so then they tried publishing tie-in novels because this was the era of That Giant Shelf O' Shitty Trade Paperback Fantasy Novels At Your Local Barnes & Noble (feat. Mercedes Lackey)

* unfortunately the authors they chose were mostly bad, and when they weren't bad, they were working under insane deadlines to get a novel out in time for the launch of the accompanying set

* eventually someone noticed the novels weren't making any fucking money and killed them

* for a while they decided Vibes TM was all you needed for storytelling

* but eventually they noticed Superhero Stories TM featuring a Strong Central Protagonist TM worked way better for mass-market storytelling than their admittedly extremely WEIRD original conception of planeswalkers as basically-gods

* so they downgraded the powerlevel of planeswalkers massively, so they could be cool superhero-type heroes instead of actual gods

* and eventually they decided short-stories-building-toward-a-whole on their website was a cool way to tell the story of their planeswalkers

* this was actually a very good idea, and well-suited to the type of storytelling MtG does best (i think its universe really does work better with vignettes-tied-into-a-whole rather than constantly trying to make everything about Jace fucking Beleren)

* but unfortunately they REALLY bought into this "everything needs to be about planeswalkers" shit, so the storytelling has felt kind of samey and stale in that comic-book-y way where you desperately wish someone would do a reboot or something

if you ever want to dig into MtG lore i highly recommend this absurdly-well-researched, lengthy thread on the mtgsalvation forums. weatherlight was really flawed but i also think it was MtG storytelling at its best and i still think about Volrath like once a week, okay dweebing out over BYE

[chiropteracupola]

Leviathan groom, please?

this (this being the tattoos-and-superstition story I've spoken about a few times before) is probably one of my favorite Hornblower fics, to the point where I've been working backward and forward on it for over a year as I try and fail to get it to be Just Perfect. trying to find the balance of exposition to explain the fantasy worldbuilding and actual plot has been very tricky with this one, especially as I haven't quite figured out just how either of those things works yet.

so right now, even though I like a lot of the current stuff I've written, I'm probably going to start over from the bones up, patching in the bits I liked from the first version as I go.

[SCRAPING SOUND AS A BIG CURTAIN IS DRAWN BACK]

basically, the structure that I have so far is 'too much exposition' -> [BIG HOLE] -> 'Bush wandering around in the snow' -> [SPOOKY DESCRIPTION I'VE NOT COME UP WITH YET] -> 'Bush having a long talk with a creepy thing' -> 'slapdash ending that's a little too goofy'

so the main points that need to get worked on are going to be streamlining the magic system and integrating the function behind it into the actual story (probably through some kind of opening Sailing Scenes), redesigning the creepy thing to fit better with the tone of the story overall, and of course, ironing the plot until it's nice and smooth.

I've had some difficulty managing stories with a larger cast in the past, and I think I'd like to push myself with this one and try harder to make the settings feel populated and living, which I think will be more compatible with the eventual redesign of the antagonist. I do think a face-stealing shapeshifter still meshes very nicely with Hornblower's Issues™️, but doesn't really work with the rest of the setting that I'm devising here. so it's back to the drawing board on the creepy thing, and I'm going to do a little research for inspiration before I settle on anything this time. rather than the face-stealer, I think a more standard Endless Barrow Party to get lost in/feel deeply uncomfortable at/charge boldly into on an ill-advised rescue mission will suit the two of them better.

and I'll probably have to pick a new title, as changing up the fairy-folk rules will mean that I lose the double meaning that made this particular one work so well. (it was always meant to be ambiguous whether it referred to Hornblower himself or to the face-stealer, since they're both hanging out somewhere in the middle of the sliding scale between husband and sea monster.) while it'll be a little said to break up my Boreas-lyrics tradition for Hornblower writing, I've been trying to switch to a snappier and more memorable titling system for some time anyway.

and if you're still here after reading all that, how about a scrap of the Exposition Brick that probably won't be coming back in the rewrite:

Entering the navy young had many its disadvantages, but one solid point in its favor was getting the ink-workings on you. They worked the best when they were drawn in as early as possible, it was said, and Bush had had his since he was barely eleven.

With so many ways a boy could die aboard ship, there was at least one surely preventable, if the right precautions were taken. The right knot in the right place, and they’d be tied down tight to the mortal world as well as human art could make them. There were other charms of much the same theory, hold-fast and love-stay-true and safe-at-sea, all with their own mark and their own meaning, but the faith men put in those, though strong, wasn’t nearly so hardy. Bush had seen nearly every other form of ink-workings fail at one time or another, but never these two, the sort given to the youngest and most likely to be stolen away.

He’d even heard the discussions among the hands, the boastful tales of a man claiming he’d nearly been spirited off as a lad, and would have been, too, if not for the marks on the backs of his hands. Sadder stories as well, for as he passed by on his rounds, he’d noted whispers of someone’s sister’s son stolen away, nephews and cousins and brothers gone under the hills never to be seen again. Why don’t they just put the protections on them proper-like, one man would say, and the other would shake his head, and mutter that such people couldn’t be reasoned with.

Whether it was that the ink-workings simply didn’t work on shore, or that the minds of those dwelling on land couldn’t wrap around a too-permanent way to keep their children safe, it still was that those on land went without the marks. Bush wasn’t sure quite why, nor did he himself understand exactly how the tattoos on the backs of his hands kept him safe. He was a plain sailor, not an artist or a witch, and he was content to trust rather than to make an attempt at unpicking the workings of the art.

[snapscube]

so i just want to get confirmation

doesthe use of the heroes cutscenes in the shadow fandub mean you're not doing a full heroes fandub?

Yeah so, the truth of it is that the way we do dubs nowadays I really kinda like to make them a bit more of a feature-length affair. There hasn’t been a (mainline, not counting btdubs) dub shorter than 60 minutes since Sly Cooper, and I feel like my absolute minimum is 50.

There are a FEW reasons I elect to do this. One, I think it’s just really fun and inherently funny to create these large almost cinematic spectacles out of what ends up being some really stupid shit. That juxtaposition has kinda been at the core of SnapCubes Real-Time Fandub since the beginning, it’s what makes the show worthwhile imo.

Two, and this is the more practical reason, I find I am most satisfied with these dubs when they are not only funny, but when they can manage to pull together SOME sort of slapdash narrative that is actually gripping in some way. Whether it’s purely thematic, front and center, or entirely unintentional, I love when you can come out the other side of these and feel like they weren’t just a collection of jokes, but a story with legit characters you can feel invested in, even if only slightly. So, it turns out, long-form dubs are really the only way we have the SPACE to do that kind of thing as regularly as we have. Short dubs can still be very funny, and still great practice, but they rarely come together as cohesively because there just simply isn’t enough time.

Not to mention, we try to pick dubs that not only have a sufficient length of cutscenes, but that have cutscenes that flow together enough to help us put together a story in the first place.

ALL THAT TO SAY, for the current direction of our show, the truth is just that Heroes in and of itself does not have enough cutscene content to sustain its own individual dub. And yknow what, neither did Shadow until I decided on the time loop angle. And EVEN THEN, I included Heroes footage not only cause I thought it’d be a fun surprise but because it helped pad out that runtime to the hour mark. And I figure the best way to do anything Heroes-related from here on out is to also incorporate it into another, larger dub as well. So you very well might see more dubbed Heroes scenes in the future! It just won’t be its own entry. Hope this makes sense!

[whifferdills]

regeneration stories rated

"Caves of Androzani" (no one has ever bothered to top this. as good as this show ever gets. the inevitability of it, the relentless pacing, the villain. the fact that it's just another adventure of the week but this time Dr Who's luck ran out. all of the cruft and slack of 80's DW tossed out in favor of muscular, workmanlike storytelling. Great television in, like, a normal way)

"The Tenth Planet" (iconic, the originator. the first and most terrifying appearance of the Cybermen. kind of the opposite of Androzani in terms of like, the sense that this is finally a threat overwhelming enough that our tour guide isn't going to make it through)

the TV movie (perfunctory death scene, i appreciate the VNA-adjacent 7 though. everything else is Cinema. fine art. if you don't like it you can go to hell.)

"The Parting of the Ways" (extremely RTD finale when his shtick was still fresh. the closest the show has come to pulling off 'epic' but still kind of homey and sweet)

"The War Games" (overlong and messy but my god the Lore. the reverberating implications.)

"The Power of the Doctor" (jumbled, niche, and determined to cement the messages of the era if not its individual "canon" "plotlines". Chibnall at his self-referential shorthand, classic-Who-adoring, slapdash most. not best, perhaps, but definitely most.)

"Planet of the Spiders" (Buddhist parable with a bonkers chase scene. Like, c'mon)

"Twice Upon a Time" (some great moments, some shit moments, some unearned emotional beats that land nevertheless. the duality of Moffat, etc)

"Logopolis" (imo the weakest of the three-parter but it's got some quality bits and i LOVE the concept of the Watcher)

"The Night of the Doctor" (great to see Paul McGann in his little post-Dark Eyes outfit, appreciate the official tv canonification of BF companions, kind of like….don't get it, otherwise.)

"The Time of the Doctor" (eh)

"Time and the Rani" (6 i am so sorry…..i do love Kate O'Mara though so there's that)

"The End of Time" (extremely RTD finale after a series of specials designed to drain me of the last of my good will towards his shtick. it's slick and technically well-made but i hate it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

[autisticandroids]

Okay so this was a while back but im preety sure you had mentioned an au of yours where dean is a serial killer and cas successfully stalks him but i don't think you talked about it more than that and i just really want to hear a bit more bc that idea sounds so tastefully fucked up

okay so. weeks later i finally end up answering this ask. it inspired this post btw. anyway spn is a show that's like. all about justifications, as i said in the post inspired by this ask. it's about having no choice and doing what you have to do. and like there is the phantasy embedded in it, a phantasy that is both indulged and punished. but most importantly it's justified. the monsters are super strong to show how brave our heroes are for fighting them, the main characters let out great wails of grief every time their lady loves are violently ripped from them (even though now they are free to do whatever they want), the narrative twists to show our heroes as correct whatever they do. the fantasy (of being allowed to enact violence, of being free from feminine "control," of being right) comes first. the material construction of the universe of supernatural comes afterward. whatever the fantasy is, the universe of supernatural will provide material conditions to justify its acting-out.

and what this means is that our protagonists, dean in particular, are constantly doing just horrific things, which in any other circumstance would be unconscionable. but the universe of supernatural provides justification for these acts. the point of my serial killer au which i think about so so so much is to ask the question: what if these justifications melted out from under their feet? what if dean was left holding nothing but a lie and the weight of everything he's done?

therefore, the premise of my au is such (under the cut because this baby is long):

john and mary winchester, in the mid seventies, joined a doomsday cult known as the men of letters. the men of letters were rather unusual for a doomsday cult, in that they believed that the apocalypse could be prevented by human behavior. this started as correct living, correct worship, yadda yadda, the kind of behavior and thought control that cults are known for, but with the justification of: if you don't do this, the world will end. eventually, this escalated to human sacrifice. the men of letters managed to untraceably kill two homeless people in the late seventies. but they eventually fell apart. however, a month after john and mary left the men of letters (mostly john's choice, mary still believed), mary died in a house fire. john took it as a sign from god that actually, the men of letters were right, and the world would end unless john himself did something about it. so he took some of the (intensely numerological) theology of the men of letters. and he worked out his own formula. and he applied it to the yellow pages. and started ritualistically killed people to prevent the apocalypse, with his two sons in the back of the car.

now, obviously, this is some kind of grief induced temporary madness on john's part, shaped by the mental abuse he suffered in the men of letters. but the thing is, once you've killed a couple of people to prevent the apocalypse. well. there's this thing called the sunk costs fallacy. john wasn't gonna question his own beliefs after that.

and he raised his boys to believe it, too, or at least he raised dean to. they didn't tell sam what they did until he was twelve, and sam didn't buy it, tried to call the cops on them several times but in the end, they always prevented him. eventually sam ran off to stanford, where he now lives under a cloud of guilt that he's too loyal to his family to rat them out.

john died a few years back of a heart attack, but dean is convinced it's because he messed up a ritual two weeks before it happened, so it pushed him further into this belief system.

dean's killings (and john's before him) are ritualistic and distinctive, obviously the same killer each time. but they happen anywhere in the united states, seemingly at random, there are inconsistent amounts of time between each one (sometimes as short as days, sometimes as long as years), and there is no particular victim profile. obviously, since our killers are following an arcane mathematical formula to make their choices for them, but the police don't know that.

castiel novak is an unemployed shut-in with a small inheritance which he's living off of, a cryptography degree, and an obsession with all things morbid. he spends most of his time on the reddit true crime forums, playing amateur sleuth. by complete chance, he happens to recognize one of the symbols frequently used in corpse displays by the so-called sioux falls satanic slaughterer (so named because the first time three of his victims were in the same part of the country, it so happened that they were all in sioux falls, south dakota. this was in the late eighties.) as being mostly only used by a little known cult group called the men of letters, which dissolved in the mid eighties.

he only notices this because, as a teen, he had a special interest in cults and fringe religious groups. the men of letters weren't a particularly notable or well known phenomenon; they were small, and a lot like every other cult that formed during the seventies cult boom. (no outsider ever heard about the human sacrifice; there were rumors, of course, but they were garbled, sensationalized, and mixed up with satanic panic fodder.)

(the men of letters' two sacrifices were nothing particularly romantic or fantastical. they first lured panhandler josie sands back to their compound with promises of food and a warm bed when she admitted she couldn't get a bed at a shelter, and was thinking of getting caught shoplifting just so she could be under a roof in the county jail. the men of letters' leader, a man who took on the name alistair, forced his inner circle to dress in the ceremonial black robes he had given them when he initiated them into his nearest and dearest, and which his wife had sewn out of old bed sheets and dyed black with home made oak gall dye. these robes still left black smudges on the wearer's skin occasionally if they sweated too much. josie was laid, bound, on the altar, a slapdash thing constructed over the course of two days from scrap plywood and a couple of milk crates. a rich red tablecloth purchased at macy's for $3.99 hid its ugliness and gave it grandeur. alistair attempted to kill the struggling miss sands by bringing a sharpened kitchen knife down on her bosom and piercing her heart, but, having never killed a human or even slaughtered an animal before, was unaware of the problem presented by the human ribcage. after rather ineffectually poking at the area beneath sands' bosom with his knife while she shrieked in pain and terror for about ninety seconds, alistair tried a different tack, and slit her throat, which worked just fine, and she bled out quite nicely. the second and final victim of the men of letters was a local vagrant named larry ganem, an older gentleman who walked with a limp. he was lured back to the compound in approximately the same manner as sands, but instead of being bound, he was fed stew laced with sleeping pills. even if alistair hadn't slit his throat, he wouldn't have woken up. it's actually arguable whether he was still alive at time of sacrifice; mary winchester (eight months into her first pregnancy), who, as a member of the inner circle, was in attendance, actually tried to take ganem's pulse as he lay on the altar (now covered by a different tablecloth; the red one had turned stiff with sands' blood and been subsequently burned) and found nothing, so it is entirely possibly only sands' death can be directly laid at alistair's feet, and ganem's is the fault of mrs. ellen harvelle, who prepared the laced stew. regardless, these two deaths are lessons in the nature of human evil: it is very rarely skilled, suave, or smooth. it's often slapdash, half-hearted, and just plain incompetent. but that makes it no less grisly. alistair may have begun to drink his own kool-aid, as it were, and escalated this far out of genuine belief that the apocalypse was coming and it was up to him to stop it, but it is far more likely that he sensed the imminent collapse of his little empire, and wanted to bind his subjects to him through the horrors of shared guilt, considering two lives a small price to pay for the continued loyalty of his inner circle. and the tactic worked: the men of letters didn't start to collapse in earnest until almost four years later. perhaps if alistair had continued the killings, the men of letters could have lasted for far longer, maybe even up until the present day. but it seems that alistair, a psychiatrist by training and unused to violence, simply didn't have the stomach for it. unlike, say, john winchester, who before his time with the men of letters had done a two year tour in vietnam, during which he had killed three living, thinking human beings with the american government's go-ahead.)

anyway. castiel is the first person, ever, to make the connection between the men of letters and the sioux falls satanic slaughterer. and once that connection is made, castiel begins to research the men of letters far more in-depth. and he notices something: the theology of the men of letters was intensely numerological, filled with patterns, significant numbers, and even spiritual equations.

castiel thinks of the seemingly random selection of the slaughterer's victims, and has an epiphany.

he cracks all his fingers, and gets coding.

six months. it takes castiel six months to discover an equation that could fit the slaughterer's pattern. it's complex, but also clearly based on several of the men of letters' holy numbers, and accounts for every single one of the killings. it also suggests that there should have been two or three more deaths scattered across the years, but more than likely those did happen, it's just that they weren't reported as part of the slaughterer's portfolio.

but much more importantly, castiel's model can also make predictions. there will be two killings, fifteen days apart, in a city seven hours' drive away, six weeks from now.

so castiel waits. and he books a hotel room. and two months later, he's waiting outside 217 oak street when a shadowy figure climbs up a tree and lets itself into the upstairs window.

dean winchester is feeling particularly all alone in the world when he breaks into maisey banks' home (217 oak street). his father has been dead for half a decade, and he hasn't spoken to his baby brother for twice that. it's not like this whole grizzly saving the world business makes him a lot of friends. so once he's done killing maisey (which is easy, she was ninety three and dying of cancer anyway. she doesn't even wake up when he slits her throat) and arranging her corpse in the appropriate manner, with prayers and sigils, he turns around. and sees a man standing behind him.

smiling slightly.

as he watches dean gut this old woman.

dean freezes.

the man takes a step forward.

"you're very attractive for a serial killer who's been operating since the eighties."

dean is silent.

"family business, is it?"

silence continues.

"i'm not here to report you to police. i'm just here to see if my algorithm worked right."

and dean finally breaks his silence: "what the hell is wrong with you?"

what's fun here is that dean knows (or rather "knows") that he isn't a serial killer. so he finds what cas is doing, this amoral serial killer stormchasing, morally repugnant. because cas has no way of knowing he isn't a regular serial killer.

there's also the fact that that cas proceeds to flirt with him. aggressively. and follows him back to his motel.

but the thing is that dean is all alone in the world. and as cas continues trailing him around, he starts getting, well, flattered. and feeling a little bit less alone.

it doesn't take very long before they fall into bed. even if cas is an amoral stalker with a fetish for what dean considers a distasteful yet necessary vocation.

so. they fall into bed. they fall in love. they make a little life together, in dean's big sexy car. dean tries to explain to cas that he's saving the world. that these people's lives are a necessary price to pay. and cas seems to listen.

of course, castiel doesn't believe a word of it. but he's found that he likes dean. really likes him. and he realizes that the collapse of dean's belief system would destroy him.

so he sets about becoming as complicit in it as possible.

even to the extent where, when dean is hit by a car and ends up into the hospital a day before one killing is meant to take place, castiel agrees to take on the job. (he doesn't actually kill anyone, obviously. but he does use his extensive skill with computers to create three fake newspaper articles which make it look like he has.)

but five years later, something goes wrong. really, really wrong. dean miscalculates the formula. and by the time he checks his work, the actual date of the next kill, as demanded by the formula, has passed. in fact, so have three others. and the world didn't end.

dean collapses. he hyperventilates. all those people. all those people. for no reason. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people.

cas seems totally unfazed. dean stares at him in shock. but cas just takes dean in his arms, and whispers in his ear: "oh, dean, i never believed in the equation. i love you no matter what you've done."

and dean buries his face in cas' chest.

[clotpole-art]

Retrospective: Illustrated Merlin Alphabet Challenge

Finally finished the Merlin Alphabet Challenge, so here's the artist notes no one asked for! See below the cut for comments on each piece by order of creation. Be warned folks, it's a long post.

Before we begin: credit to @merlin-gifs for the challenge, which can be found here. It's awesome, go do it.

First thing you should know is I did probably 80-90% of these while on phone calls or in Zoom meetings and that's reflected in the simplicity of most pieces -- the compositions aren't complicated, the lines aren't refined, the coloring is slapdash. If you noticed variation in quality of the pieces, that's why!

Second: I tried to focus on trying something new for each drawing. Didn't always happen, but this challenge did succeed in helping me push me out of my own comfort zone.

Without further ado...

A is for Arthur Pendragon

Textures, baby! Brushed metal of his armor, scratchy linen texture of his shirt, wispy softness of hair and skin. I'd recently gotten my tablet out of storage after a year of figuring out where the hell I was going to live and this was one of the first pieces of digital art I spent time on. Glad it was Arthur kicking us off!

B is for the Beginning of the End (1x08)

Fun fact, I did not draw this with my tablet. I drew it with my work computer's touchscreen. It was awful, would not recommend.

C is for Camelot

I wanted to get used to different brushes, so landscape of the castle it was! There are brushes that help with drawing grass; I did not use said brushes and my wrist hurt afterward. That being said, I really enjoyed working on this and it was one of the few pieces I didn't do while multitasking.

D is for Daegal

Also drawn on my work computer's touchscreen, not my tablet. I didn't learn my lesson from B and the experience was even worse. This is my least favorite piece which sucks because it's Daegal so I'm slated to redo this sometime in the near future. Gotta do our boy justice.

E is for Elyan

Oh, I adored drawing this. Elyan often gets shafted in terms of fandom appreciation so I made sure to choose Elyan for this prompt and to participate in the Elyan fest. Plus, I love a good ghost story and figuring out a way to include the druid spectre was fun. Didn't multitask on this piece because Elyan deserved my full attention.

F is for Freya

Ho boy. This piece. I have such mixed feelings on this drawing. Really really didn't like it after I'd decided it was done and very nearly scrapped the whole thing. I had a vision in my head that I just couldn't render into reality and it frustrated me SO MUCH. Looking back, I like it much better than I did when I first created it.

G is for Gwaine

What can I say, he's pretty when he's cold. I didn't stretch too much with this one -- it's my normal drawing style, I was just trying to find a brush that mimicked the softness of pencil.

H is for Hunith

Another one that didn't stray too far from my comfort zone. I was stupid sick and slammed at work, so a motherly Hunith manifested herself. I blame the bad brush choice on the cold medicine.

I is for Isolde

I woke up and chose violence! Tried to vary my figure drawing style a little in this piece but my brain resisted, resulting in... this. Not mad at it, but not happy with it either. Poor Isolde.

J is for Juggling

Ah, this lovely piece was drawn during a particularly vexing meeting at work. Fun fact, there's another version of this line art that's less about Merlin's stress and more about mine.

K is for Knights of Camelot

Continuing the theme of doodling through bad news and shit meetings. Like I said above, normally meeting doodles aren't complex because I'm concentrating on something else. This one was more involved because I didn't want to concentrate on the meeting. I have a few issues with this from a technical standpoint (perspective, my nemesis) but it's still one of my favorites. Tried some funky coloring technique, didn't hate it.

V is for Vibrant Colors

And here is where we said fuck the rules and started going out of alphabetical order! This one was really fun to do and I loved kicking off Albion Party with this as my first submission. The colors were a challenge (as I hoped they would be) and this is the first time I had to do some color tweaking midway though and after finishing the coloring process. Vibrant Arthur, my beloved. This started as a multitask doodle but took dedicated time to finish.

O is for Old Religion

The concept for this one was buzzing in my head for a bit before a quote-prompt solidified it. I adore the thought of more visible, tangible representations of Merlin as the son of the elements, of "magic itself" -- not just sun-gold eyes, but sea-water hair and sandstone-skin. A complement to the vibrant Arthur portrait.

S is for Sorcerers

When I said I wanted to challenge myself, I wasn't kidding. Ho boy, this was fun but frustrating. I wanted to completely illustrate a gif. So I did. Will I do something like this again? Maybe. A while from now.

M is for Morgause

See above -- same illustrated gif style so at least I was able to reuse some drawings. Poor Morgause ended up looking a little wretched here because I was mentally done with this when I was drawing her. Love the concept of tarot cards + Merlin but others are doing it so I won't continue this series.

Z is for Zzzz

This one was specifically done to test out some custom brushes I made in Krita to make abstract background drawing easier for me. I think they turned out well! Plus who doesn't love bb iridescent Aithusa.

L is for Leon, P is for Percival

Quick, minimal doodles of the boys! Mentally, I was going for a Brady's-style retro ensemble cast TV show credits feel. Not mad at it! Some boys look closer to their actors than others (I think my brain broke drawing Percy, my apologies to Tom Hopper).

T is for Tristan

It wasn't until after I posted this that I realized there was more than one Tristan in Merlin. Could have drawn Isolde's bf but I drew Ygraine's dumb jock undead brother instead. Had some fun with dark greys and blacks here regardless.

Q is for Queen Annis

Best royal in Albion, bar none. I tried a different coloring technique here and I kinda like it! may make it my go-to but we'll see. Old habits are hard to break. Also: our queen deserved more badass clothes.

X is for Arthur X Merlin

Oh, be still my shipper heart. Doodled and colored during a meeting. I had hoped to spend more time on it outside of multitasking but alas, work is a bitch. This one is slated for a rework sometime in the future; I adore the concept too much to let it go without creating another version of this that isn't an utter mess.

U is for Uther's Ward

And here's my attempt at forgoing line art. Not fun, do not like.

Y is for Young Warlock

Channeled some pain into this one. Those are the dead eyes of someone who had been told that he'd succeeded when his friend died. That the destiny he'd been expecting to carry on his shoulders into old age was done and dusted before he turned 30. Grief plus the existential dread of the aimless immortal. Oof. One of my favs.

N is for Nimueh, R is for Rising Sun, W is for Will

And we end on this sorry offering. I was away from home for a while without my tablet and I just got tired of waiting. So, pen doodles at the airport. This was a challenge in its own right because 1. pen only and 2. I wasn't able to pull Netflix up for a reference on the fly. Which is why Will's face is obscured and Nimueh looks.... not like Nimueh lol.

In summary: this was a goddamn joy to do. I finished 26 letter prompts in approximately 21 weeks, which exceeded my own unspoken goal of filling one letter per week. I found a good, happy corner of the Merlin fandom after a years-long hiatus away from being a fandom creator. If you did make it this far with me, thanks for reading my inane comments and giving this little project even a moment of your time -- I'm so grateful.