#myself as a doofy teen

[peterlorres21stcentury]

Proof that yours truly has been a writer of cringe since at least 2002

Oh wow, 21 years ago, and practically to the day, as well. This was an assignment for my high school journalism class, dated March 19, 2002. I'm not sure why I remembered this specifically, but reblogging something about The Mask of Dimitrios just now must have sparked the one working neuron in my brain. I kept most of my old school assignments just because I originally typed them in Word, and they don't take up much space on the disk.

As I recall, the assignment was to write a film review in 1000 words or less, mentioning stuff you liked, and stuff you didn't like. I chose "The Mask of Dimitrios," because this was back when I was a lil baby PL fan and I obsessively taped as many of his films from TCM that I could. I'm sure my teacher thought I was crazy, but he was not alone in that opinion. Honestly, there is nothing I don't like about "Dimitrios," but I had to make something up for the purposes of the review. Enjoy my awful, awful high school writing style and laugh. :P

The Mask of Dimitrios is a hidden classic

Classic films are best when watched under optimum conditions: a darkened room, a big bowl of buttery popcorn, and rain drizzling on the windowpane outside. The Mask of Dimitrios is the perfect film to watch on such a day.

A little-known mystery thriller, it is a gem that is broadcast occasionally on classic movie networks such as TCM. With an intriguing plot and unusual characters, The Mask of Dimitrios tops most other films of the genre with its style, wit, and superb acting of 1940's Hollywood. The Mask of Dimitrios is based on an Eric Ambler book entitled A Coffin for Dimitrios. The book is about an English writer who travels the world in search of a treacherous man called Dimitrios. The film version was made in 1944 under the direction of Jean Neglesco, and features the acting talents of such immortal stars as Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, and Zachary Scott.

The movie opens in 1936 in prewar Europe. In one of his more offbeat roles, Peter Lorre plays the lead character of Cornelius Latimer Leyden, a mild-mannered Dutch mystery writer on holiday in Istanbul. While at a party, he meets Colonel Haki (Kurt Katch), the chief of police in Istanbul. Haki, an ardent fan of Leyden’s books, regales him with the story of Dimitrios, a murderer for whom he has searched for years. The fugitive Dimitrios was recently found floating in the Bosporus, a knife wound in his side. Haki even takes Leyden to see the bloated corpse on the mortuary slab. Despite the gruesome sight, Leyden is intrigued and wishes to learn more about the dead criminal in order to write a new mystery novel. He travels Europe in hopes of finding more information. One of the characters he meets, a certain Mr. Peters (Sydney Greenstreet), was once part of Dimitrios’s smuggling ring. The two become traveling companions as they help each other learn more about the man who once ruined so many lives in the past.

The story is told through atmospheric settings and flashbacks. Whether the set is a shadowy street or a plush living room, there is always a feeling of suspense and intrigue, but also with the soft suggestions of comfort and affluence. It is as if the viewer is contentedly ensconced in a favorite chair while the story plays itself out on the pages of a book. This is best demonstrated in one scene in particular, in which Leyden meets with a former smuggler of Dimitrios’s ring, named Grodek. As Leyden enters, he notices Grodek’s two cats, both looking very comfortable curled up in an armchair. Soon after, Leyden also is lulled into a sense of comfort as he sits by Grodek’s fireplace, draining another glass of Grodek’s “excellent whiskey.” The scene, although relaxed, is a set-up for the long flashback that is about to occur, soon giving way to even more mystery.

The dialogue is very clever, with a refreshing and intelligent sense of humor. At one point in the film, Leyden returns to his apartment only to find that it has been ransacked by Mr. Peters, who he met earlier on the train to Sophia. After the perplexed Leyden gets over his confusion, Mr. Peters asks if he can use his note-paper and a pencil. “Go ahead,” says Leyden, “you’ve used everything else!” It is this type of banter between Greenstreet and Lorre that adds color and sharp humor to what would be an otherwise run-of-the-mill mystery film.

The characterizations are, in a word, excellent. It wasn’t often when the short, large-eyed Peter Lorre played the lead role, but when he did, it was unforgettable. His character of Leyden is a laid-back, charming, literary person, with only a desire to learn more about Dimitrios, not to get entangled in any conflicts that may exist in the process. Moviegoers who know Lorre only as a movie villain will soon learn otherwise after watching his performance as the gentle Leyden. Zachary Scott fills the role of bad guy in this film (and also his first film) as the title role of Dimitrios. With his thin mustache, slick dark hair, and dapper pinstripe suit, he emanates evil at every step. Sydney Greenstreet, billed as “The Fat Man” by Warner Brothers, is the perfect counterpart to Lorre’s character. Under the facade of a jovial character, Greenstreet’s Mr. Peters is soon revealed to be no less greedy and cunning than those of his former smuggling members. It is interesting to note that the only major female cast member, Faye Emerson, does not have the typical romantic role, but is instead portrayed as a prostitute, a woman who was once loved and then betrayed by the murderous Dimitrios.

At times, the film drags, especially during the flashback sequences when former friends of Dimitrios tell Leyden of what they know. The script is also very talky, and could have been tightened. The drawn-out passages make one want to skip to the “good parts” and return to the web of intrigue that surrounds the characters. The viewer’s mind will sometimes drift away like the smoke curling from the tip of Leyden’s cigarette, and will instead focus on visual images, not really listening to what the characters are talking about. Be forewarned if you have a short attention span.

When Warner Brothers released the film, it was advertised in trailers under the flamboyant tagline, “Of course it’s from Warner Brothers.” The Mask of Dimitrios certainly deserves this praise. With atmosphere, mystery, and an exciting conclusion, this underrated little film certainly ranks high up among the classic early film-noirs of the 40's.

[writergamermom]

Promo and Live Blogging #5

Promo

Blind but free

by

@AnOddSock

Teen Castiel/Sam

Sam might not be able to feel much, but something definitely stirs when Cas talks to him like that.

Liveblog

Cas shrugs inside his puffy winter coat that Dean'd teased him about, saying he looked like the kid from A Christmas Story. He'd tried to get Cas a good Carhartt jacket, but the former angel apparently has opinions on outerwear, which Dean thinks is hilarious coming from a dude who wore three versions of the same doofy trenchcoat for over a decade.

               Cas in a puffy coat!!!!!

It was a bit of a long shot, but Sam was well equipped for taking things the extra mile. With no soul there were no qualms, no second guessing. Nothing to get in his way or cloud his judgement, his inner compass pointed at his own true north at all times.

               It would be nice not to doubt or second guess myself all the time.

Praying felt weird without a soul, hoping for something without the means for hope to really bloom. A candle with no flame and no way to light it.

               Nice simile

“Cas, we found something. It’s this gold box. Apparently Nazis were after it back in the day, someone opened it and their face melted off. I think it’s – ready for this – the Ark of the Covenant. Yeah. So…”

               HAHAHAHA

Cas was clearly annoyed, and Sam could tell he only had half Cas’s attention which was entirely unacceptable. Sam deserved more, he deserved to have the thing he wanted, he would get the thing he wanted, that’s what he did now. Nothing stood in his way anymore, not feelings, not those pesky morals, nothing.

               Well how about that for confidence

He wouldn’t, that was the crux of it. Sam needed to take a more… virulent approach. “If you don’t help us, I will hunt you down and kill you.”

               Damm Boy

[slippinmickeys]

Release Valve (2/10): Fi Follet

When the moon circles the Earth, it pulls with it the ocean. She used to lie in bed and think about it. How the world can be your compass -- moss growing on one side of a tree, the North Star, sunsets on the horizon. Even if you can’t see it, you know the moon is above you when the tide is high. She felt that with him. When he was near, her blood would sing, rising to meet him whenever he passed. Standing in the doorway of their office, she can feel him even now, her skin prickling and flushing on the high tide of love. “You’re here early,” he said as he walked in. He loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves, moving over to the cabinets behind his desk. “We’ve got a case?” she asked, hoping he hadn’t caught her mooning over him. She watched his movements with some trepidation. She hadn’t seen him since Friday and the new agents started today. He turned from the cabinets, unveiling his slide projector with fanfare. She made a show of rolling her eyes. “The kids are going to love this,” he said.

“Are they?” “You did.” “Did I?” Mulder gestured around the office. “The X-Files Headquarters: Where Fun Goes To Die.” He said. “If you’re going to make fun of my slideshow, you can wait in the hallway.” “Sorry, Mulder,” she said, grinning. “I’ll try not to ruin it.” “Thank you,” he said, earnestly.

On that, Stone and Isaacs walked in, chatting.

“Morning,” Stone said, his excitement palpable. He had a doofy grin pasted on his face and a cup of coffee in his hand. Isaacs was more subdued. She was tall, taller than Mulder remembered. He had met her last week on a long lunch with Scully where they’d talked about her past cases and what she might expect. There’d been a 15 minute stretch where she’d kept cutting her eyes to Scully, obviously expecting her to tell her they were kidding, an elaborate hazing for rookies at the top of their class. Even now she looked as though she expected people to jump out of the woodwork shouting “Gotcha!” Despite that, there was a quiet confidence about her. She looked at Mulder and nodded to the desk annex. “Anywhere in particular?” she asked. Mulder shook his head. “Anywhere you like.” She put her things down on the desk in the middle and went about unpacking her few belongings. Mulder looked to Stone. “The computer you wanted,” he said, “the requisition got approved. Should be here next week.” Stone pumped a fist in the air and dropped down at the further-most desk, the wheeled chair coasting a few inches before coming to a stop. He looked at Mulder, suddenly pensive. “Can you…” he started to say, then, with more confidence, “have Purchasing bring it down here as soon as it arrives. In the box, sealed. I’ll do the set up myself.” Mulder leaned back against his desk and shot Stone an approving look. “Look at him, Scully,” he said, “not in the basement five minutes and already he’s achieved a level of paranoia it took me 2 years to get to myself.” “You forget he’s read all your files,” she responded. “Our files,” Mulder said, giving her a meaningful look. “Speaking of the files,” Isaacs said from her desk, “I’ve read the Greatest Hits you sent me over the weekend. I wouldn’t mind taking a look at the rest.” “You’ll have some reading time,” Mulder said, turning to the projector and hitting the lights, “you two are flying to Cajun Country this afternoon.” “We’ve got a case?” Stone asked, excitedly. “We’ve got a case,” Mulder said, punching in the first slide. A picture of a small lake took up a wall of the office. It was slightly out of focus and a few degrees off being perfectly horizontal. It was close to either dawn or dusk, the water an inky grey, the trees in the background reaching up toward a new moon. In the far right of the picture a small green glow floated a few feet above the water, its twin reflecting off the lake below it. “This picture was taken about three months ago in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana,” Mulder started. “Anybody know what we’re looking at here?” “Will-o’-the-wisp?” Stone offered. “Two points to the kid,” Mulder said, then turned back to the slide, “Will-o’-the-wisp, also known as a hinkypunk, spook light or ignis fatuus in Latin, meaning ‘foolish fire.’ It’s an atmospheric ghost light, which, according to English folklore is usually seen by travelers at night, especially over bogs, swamps or marshes. It resembles a flickering lamp and is said to recede if approached, drawing travelers from safe paths. “This,” Mulder went on, pointing to the picture, “was published in a local paper around the time it was taken and became quite the sensation. Locals, particularly teens, started going out to the swamp at night, trying to catch a glimpse. It was all fun and games until three weeks ago, when it took its first victim.” Mulder switched the slide and the picture of a teenage girl came up. She was all smiles, looking directly into the camera as if daring it to take the picture. She had sky-high bangs and dangly gold earrings. “Vanessa Glassie, fifteen years old. Disappeared while out with friends on wisp hunt. They’d just seen the ghost light when she told friends she had to pee and that was the last they saw of her. Local authorities have yet to find a trace of her.” He clicked to the next slide. Another young girl, with dark pixie hair and a shy smile. “Then last week, Marcie Vincent, a friend of Vanessa’s, went missing as well, from the same area. Friends said she’d talked about going out and looking for her friend. She told her parents she was going to bed one night, and they found her room empty the next morning. The window open and shoeprints in Marcie’s size heading away from the house. The will-o’-the-wisp was seen in the area the same night. The local PD asked the FBI to investigate.” Mulder cut back to the first picture of the ghost light. “And they think what, the lights took her?” Scully said. “Not exactly,” he said, “there’s a more geographically targeted legend about the lights in that area of the south, called—“ “Fi follet,” Isaacs finished for him. Mulder cut her an impressed look. She shrugged. “My mom was born and bred in Louisiana,” she said. “But the fi follet is said to mostly play harmless pranks.” “And in some cases attacking people for vengeance and sucking the blood of children.” From Mulder, who dramatically flipped to the slide of Vanessa Glassie. The room was silent for a moment but for the hum of the projector. Then Mulder went for the lights. “Your flight leaves in four hours,” he said, dismissing them, “you should pack.” They both stood to leave. “I want updates twice daily,” he said, “even if there’s nothing to report, you call me.” They nodded and left. Scully leveled a look at him, “Will-o’-the-wisp, Mulder?” she asked, incredulous. “You heard Isaacs,” Mulder countered, “it’s called fi follet.” “It’s swamp gas!” “We’ve got two missing kids, Scully,” he said, “and authorities asking for help. Isaacs could do this one in her sleep and Stone needs seasoning.” “So you’re saying you don’t think the lights took those girls,” she asked, looking for clarity. “No,” he said, finally, “I think it’s probably swamp gas.” “I wish I had that on tape,” Scully said to no one in particular. XxXxXxXxX “You should take lead on this,” Stone said, as the wheels touched down on their flight from DC. “You’ve got seniority,” Isaacs replied. “I’ve also got fuck-all for field experience,” he said, “you should take lead.” Isaacs nodded. Same shit, different town. She knew she wasn’t going to get much different as a Fed, but the pay was better, the resources infinitely superior, and this paranormal stuff was the first work-related thing that had piqued her interest in years. You could have knocked her over with a feather when Agent Scully called her into her office her the last week of class and proposed the job. “That’s some crazy intense white people shit,” her boyfriend had said to her when she told him about it.

She’d had a tendency to agree until she’d read the files. For the first time in her adult life, maybe she wouldn’t be bored. XxXxXxXxX It was coming on evening when they followed the sheriff through the woods to the last place Vanessa Glassie had been seen. It was a tiny clearing in the swamp, the damp ground covered with brown pine needles and empty beer bottles. The air was thick with the scent of pitch and the dull whine of insects. The five of them, Stone, Isaacs, the sheriff and two of his deputies barely fit into the open area once they trampled in, and one of the deputies, McLaren, the tall one, nearly toppled into a tree. He kicked a beer bottle into the brush in frustration as he righted himself, his mood dark. “Fucking kids,” he muttered. McLaren hadn’t been very welcoming since their arrival. Whether he was pissed that the Feds had taken over the investigation or the fact that the lead Fed was black, Isaacs wasn’t quite sure. She smacked a mosquito as it landed on her neck and turned toward the sheriff. She really fucking hated the South. The sheriff caught her eye and nodded toward the empty bottles and cans. “The lights are just an excuse,” he said, “the kids mostly just come out here to party.” “Who owns the land?” Isaacs asked. “The State,” he replied. “I don’t really have the resources to stop these kids. They’d just find somewhere else.” He pointed to the brush off to their left. “That’s where she was last seen,” he said. Isaacs took a look, turning on a flashlight and running it over the area. “We swept it good,” the younger deputy, Miller, said, clearly trying to be helpful. Isaacs gave him a small smile. “There’s probably not much to find. I’m sure you guys were thorough.” She turned back to the Sheriff. “You had dogs out?”

He nodded.

“For both girls. They couldn’t find anything here. The dogs at the Vincent girl’s house lost her scent about a quarter of a mile from home. We’ve just come up empty.”

“I’d like to talk to Vanessa Glassie’s parents right away if you don’t mind. Marcie’s too.” “I’ll take you over there in the morning, first thing.” She nodded. Stone spoke up then. “And the lights?” He said, indicating toward the water on their right. “This is where they were seen?” “This is where the picture that ran in the paper was taken,” said the Sheriff in the affirmative. He narrowed his eyes at Stone. “You really think the lights had something to do with this?” Stone shrugged. “You never know.” McLaren huffed out an audible sigh. “And the lights were reportedly seen the night the Vincent girl went missing last week?” Stone went on, ignoring him. “We had a few people call in,” the Sheriff said, pointing East. “Her family’s house is about a mile and a half that way.” “There anything else around here?” Isaacs followed up, “other than the road and the Vincent residence? Any businesses or facilities?” “None,” he said, “this is all State land until it hits the Vincent property and they’ve got about 500 acres.” Isaacs nodded. “Thanks for bringing us out.” XxXxXxXxX The next morning came too soon for Isaacs. After checking in with Agent Mulder, she and Stone had stayed out in the swamp for hours waiting to see lights. They’d bagged out at about 2am, with nothing to show for it but bug bites and pine sap on their ass. “This is my best suit,” Stone said dejectedly as he took another swipe at his backside and unlocked the door to his motel room. He came out of the same door at 7:00am with a pillow crease in his cheek, carrying a small cup of steaming coffee. They were dinky motel rooms, but at least each one had a coffee maker. Isaacs slid into the driver’s seat. “You get any sleep?” she asked him. “A little,” he replied, on a yawn. “And I’ll tell you, my enthusiasm for field work is rapidly waning.” Isaacs smiled at him.

They pulled up to the Glassie residence at the same time as the Sheriff and were quickly ushered inside. Mrs. Glassie was short with frizzy black hair. She was pale and when she asked them to please sit, her smile was hollow. Her clothes hung off her loosely, like she’d lost a lot of weight. Mr. Glassie was of medium height and build, and quiet – he wouldn’t meet their eyes. Isaacs decided to just jump right into the questions. “Had Vanessa been acting strangely before she disappeared? Talking about any new friends or activities?” “We’ve already told the Sheriff everything we can think of,” Mrs. Glassie said. “And tell them too, if you don’t mind, Doris,” the Sheriff said, “they’re here to help.” “Nothing like that,” Mrs. Glassie said to Isaacs. “She’s a good girl.” “Did she have a job?”

“She wanted to, but I told her school was her job now, that she could get one next summer.” “How about a boyfriend?” On that, Mr. and Mrs. Glassie shared a look. “No,” Mr. Glassie said, short. Something about that was off, and Isaacs decided not to reply, to see if they filled in the silence themselves. It only took about ten seconds for Mrs. Glassie to jump in. “She wasn’t supposed to,” she said, “she’s only 15.” “But she did anyway?” “No,” again, from Mr. Glassie. “Bill,” from his wife. “He’s not good enough for her.” Ah. So there was a boyfriend. “What’s his name?” Isaacs asked quietly. “Martin Dubois,” said Mrs. Glassie. “We talked to him,” the Sheriff said then, “he didn’t give us much, but he seems like a good kid.” “He’s a goddamn dropout!” Mr. Glassie practically shouted. Stone cut in then. “Mr. Glassie, did Vanessa have a computer?” The question seemed to shake him out of it. “Yes,” he said, with a touch of pride, “a good one.” “Mind if I take a look?” “We didn’t find anything on it,” the Sheriff said. “Just covering all our bases,” Stone said with a smile. Mr. Glassie led him upstairs. Mrs. Glassie looked to Isaacs. “The neighbors are all saying it was fi follet,” she said, on a sniff, “isn’t that silly?” “Will you show me her room?” Isaacs said, not wanting to answer. Mrs. Glassie led her up the staircase and into a bright green room. It was covered with posters. Boys, soccer, Dave Matthews Band. Stone was sitting at her computer, typing, Mr. Glassie hovering nearby. There was a phone on the bedside table, one of the clear ones that showed the working parts inside. Isaacs pointed to the phone and looked at Mr. Glassie. “Does she have her own line?” “No,” he said, “she kept asking for one though.” Isaacs looked to Stone, then addressed Mrs. Glassie. “Do you mind giving us a few minutes?” Mrs. Glassie turned to leave, then looked to her husband, who didn’t budge. “Bill?” They both slowly shuffled out. Isaacs came up behind Stone. “Anything?” she asked, leaning over his shoulder. “Not yet,” he said, “Nothing on AIM or ICQ. No email or anything like that. But,” he said, continuing to type as he spoke, “her history did get wiped the afternoon before she went missing.” “Think you can recover it?” Stone looked at her. “I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” he said. She snorted a short laugh. About 90 seconds later, he leaned back and pointed to the screen. “There we go,” he said. “’DuBoy’ to ‘SoccerStar22’ in an unlinked chat room. Check it out.”

Isaacs leaned in. “I’ll be damned.”

[zdbztumble]

Botching Backwards and Forwards, Or: Today’s KH Ramble, Part I

As I play through KH III, I’ve also been catching up with the series by watching the Let’s Plays of the other games done by Team Four Star. Because they didn’t play through Coded and only watched the cutscenes from 358/2 Days, that means that there’s only one game on their playlist that I haven’t played myself, that game being Dream Drop Distance. From what I can tell, its gameplay operates on a similar mechanic to Birth by Sleep, which I enjoyed quite a bit. I frankly prefer the Command Decks to what we have in the console games. DDD making levels out of some left-field choices in Disney worlds was a pleasant surprise too. For the Fantasia world alone, I’ll have to consider picking DDD up when I’m not facing a month of utter financial ruin.

And yet, between the two of them, BbS and DDD are responsible for nearly everything wrong with the story of Kingdom Hearts up to this point IMO. Coded got the ball rolling by opening back up a story that had already been satisfyingly ended in KH II, but these two titles do the bulk of the damage to a series that, up to that point, had handled its story pretty well.

Starting with BbS, I freely admit that some of my issues with it boil down to a matter of preference. Turning the Keyblade into a (once) fairly common weapon with many wielders, with a history detailing a great Keyblade War and a test for a Mark of Mastery...all of that wasn’t to my taste, but I can’t say that there’s anything in principle wrong with it. It isn’t necessarily out of place for this series, and the one major wrinkle in continuity it causes (Keyblades choosing wielders) could be squared fairly easily. A prequel focusing on hitherto unmentioned characters rather than the series protagonists isn’t an inherently wrong choice either, though I’ll have more to say about that in Part II of this rant. That I don’t find Terra, Ven, or Aqua terribly interesting as characters is mostly a matter of preference as well, though I do think Terra’s descent into the darkness relies too much on sheer idiocy, and I will admit that Aqua is possibly the most fun player character in this series with her plethora of magic spells. But where I more seriously fault BbS (and Coded, for opening this door) is in its changes to Xehanort’s plots and backstory, and in undermining one of the best thematic ideas from the original Kingdom Hearts game.

"Ansem” turning out to be the true villain of KH I after two-thirds of the gameplay pass under the assumption that it’s the confederation of Disney villains was an effective twist that let an original character, more comfortably of the Square Enix half of the crossover, shine. “Ansem” turning out to be Xehanort the renegade apprentice, with his Nobody Xemnas the leader of Organization XIII, was hardly the most organic twist in the world; I don’t think anyone would go back to KH I and say “oh, it was so obvious, how did I not see it before?” But it made for another genuinely surprising twist in KH II. A villain can only have so many twists and secret plans, however, before effective surprises become cheap gimmicks, and any ability to take their current scheme seriously evaporates.

The revelation that Xehanort is in fact a transparently evil old man who, years before any of the events that led to KH I, plotted to synthesize a X-Blade and bring about a second Keyblade War (with less than ten combatants, so it’d be more of a Keyblade Skirmish) in what basically amounts to a mad scientist’s scheme in fantasy genre clothing, was the breaking point for me. This is a common trap of both prequels and conventional sequels; trying to tie too many things into a small group of characters, or in this case, a single character. Making Xehanort into a villain that spans multiple generations, the man who set into motion everything that preceded KH I and is indirectly responsible for Sora, Kairi, and Riku becoming Keyblade Wielders, can seem like an expansion of the universe on paper, but in execution, it’s a contraction. It reduces too many events down to factors in a single character’s actions. The fact that his scheme is no more coherent than those from KH I and II doesn’t help, nor does the fact that the storyline that most directly leads into Xehanort’s role in those games - Terra’s - is so transparently ripped from Revenge of the Sith.

But Xehanort’s abrupt reentry into the story isn’t truly maddening - not in BbS, at least. For me, the worst part of the BbS story is how it retroactively changes Sora’s. I’d go so far as to say that BbS is to Sora what Dragon Ball: Minus is to Bardock and Goku.

Don’t misunderstand me on that point: BbS is nowhere near as bad a game as Dragon Ball: Minus is a comic. What I mean by that is: prior to Dragon Ball: Minus, most people took Bardock: the Father of Goku to be canon. And, in that TV special, the history given to Goku, derived from what was said in the manga at the time, was that he was of no account by the standards of Saiyan society. He was a no-account spawn of a low-class warrior, sent off to a far-flung planet to clear out its worthless inhabitants. That low-class warrior who fathered him was as ruthless and mercenary as any typical Saiyan, and while he was stronger than the average low-class fighter and was given psychic insight into the fate of his people, Bardock was ultimately just another Saiyan doomed to die and be forgotten by time. Nothing in Goku’s origins is special or fated, which makes his accidental amnesia and eventual surpassing of Vegeta, the supposed Saiyan ideal, more remarkable. By transforming Bardock into a more tamed Saiyan with a close familial bond to his mate, who sends his son to Earth for safety in a blatant rip-off of Superman’s origins, Goku and Bardock both become too special, Goku’s turning into a kind-hearted child becomes too telegraphed, and their stories become too beholden to “chosen one” cliches.

And that is what BbS does to Sora, Riku, and to a lesser extent Kairi. That all three of them just happen, in their childhoods, to have had contact with Keyblade Wielders who left a personal mark upon them - and, in Sora’s case, literally took up residence inside him - is just too pat. It makes the three of them ending up with Keyblades too easy, too predestined. This hurts all three of them, but Sora most of all. Ven looking like Roxas and Vanitas looking like Sora, is a massive headache (and yes, I’m aware that there is at least some explanation of that), but the big loss is in the thematic content of the story, and there is where the comparisons to Dragon Ball: Minus really come into play.

Like a pre-Minus Goku, pre-BbS Sora is not special, in any way, at the start of KH I. He’s an ordinary young teen, plucky and affable and just a bit lazy, with a burgeoning quasi-romantic interest in his friend Kairi and an in-all-things rivalry with his best friend Riku. Compared to Riku, Sora comes up short in pretty much every area. Riku, at first glance, is faster, stronger, smarter, more dedicated, more fearless, and more capable. If you were going to choose one of those two to be the fated hero wielding a magic blade to save the worlds from darkness, Riku’s the better candidate by every metric, on paper. And, in fact, the Keyblade does choose Riku. The whole “chosen one” cliche is subverted in KH I in a brilliant way by essentially having destiny make the wrong choice. That Sora only gets the Keyblade by accident, loses it to its intended master, but quickly reclaims it on the strength of his accomplishments and his purity - that he earns it - is one of my favorite things in this entire series, and is a wonderful thematic idea and moral. Giving Sora and Riku both a fated “touched by a master” backstory kills so much of that idea, and it’s enough to make me wish that there was no BbS, as fun as the gameplay can be.

Ironically, DDD tries to have its cake and eat it too by playing up the fact that Sora wasn’t chosen by the Keyblade, but the damage was done by that point. And DDD further undermines that initial concept in the way it writes Sora, and his relationship with Riku. For one thing, Sora in DDD seems so much dumber than he was in previous games. Up to that point, he’d been written as an upbeat young teen, possessed of a certain level of immaturity and naivete, but always determined to help save the day, and more than capable of getting serious when needed. DDD abruptly starts to portray him as more of a doofy shonen hero, without any clear motivation and to no real purpose. It also introduces the idea that the central dynamic in Sora and Riku’s friendship is that Sora lifts Riku’s spirits while Riku takes up the slack from Sora’s sloppiness and carelessness. I have a real problem with that presentation, because it just isn’t true.

If you go back and look at KH I, those early Destiny Islands scenes set Sora up as the underdog to Riku’s Big Man on Campus. Riku jokes that he’s the only one working on the raft, and Kairi remarks that “he’s changed,” but he doesn’t come off as someone needing to perk up. And with one of the first challenges of the game being Sora gathering raft supplies, it doesn’t seem that Riku needs to take up that much slack either. In any event, over the course of KH I, Riku’s the one who drops the slack and falls into darkness, with Sora literally having to stop him from doing horrible things. And it’s Sora who continues on through CoM and KH II, saving the worlds. While Riku does appear here and there to aid Sora, his aid doesn’t come in the form of “taking up slack” or cleaning up after messes Sora leaves; Sora, Donald, and Goofy are still able to save the day by their own skill in each world. This whole notion, and Sora’s more dim-witted persona, seem invented, if not from whole cloth, then from very little that was previously established.

And again, there doesn’t seem to be a clear motive, unless it’s to highlight the differences between Sora and Riku and give more justification to Riku getting the Mark of Mastery when Sora wasn’t. But the writing doesn’t give a coherent through-line to that idea, nor does it sufficiently justify Sora not becoming a Master. Had the game actively told a story of turning the tables, and made a point to stress the idea that Riku’s fully reformed and that Sora was slipping up, then I’d be more forgiving (even if I still wouldn’t like the idea), but the work just isn’t there.

I’ll admit that there’s a certain amount of bias in my assessment; I’ve never liked Riku as a character. As a teen playing KH I for the first time, I found it easy to project my dislike of certain people IRL onto him, and in the years since, I’ve continued to find that the manner of his turn to darkness in KH I makes it very hard to accept him back into the fold with Sora and the others. He’s also a lousy player character in Reverse/Rebirth and in KH III IMO. But I accept that he’s the deuteragonist, and that his story since KH I has been one of redemption. In principle, a game that builds him up as a character and lets him save the day is fine. But the manner in which it was done in DDD was all wrong. And to an extent, the changes made to his and Sora’s friendship, and to Sora’s personality, have all carried over into KH III, which is even more frustrating.

And, speaking of things carried over...DDD is where Xehanort gets completely ridiculous IMO. Having pulled a third twist that he was actually an ancient Keyblade Master seeking to provoke a war, now there’s a fourth twist where his younger self has been traveling through time (by ridiculous means) to ensure that the fifth twist - that all that business about Nobodies having no hearts was a lie, and that the real Organization XIII exists to create thirteen Horcruxes vessels for Xehanort’s heart, so that there can be thirteen darknesses to face the seven lights in the Keyblade War (which still seems short of the numbers you’d need for an actual war, but whatever). The whole business about “recompletion” allowing an original person to revive if their Heartless and Nobody are destroyed is already enough of a contrivance to bring the original Xehanort back, but time travel and heart-splitting is even more absurd. And I still haven’t been able to figure out how “Ansem” and Xemnas can be back in action, even with the time travel aspect.

Recompletion also means that DDD brings back the rest of Organization XIII. I consider nearly all of them to be glorified henchmen, possessed of a gimmick for combat and a single personality trait at best, so their revival - and their cameos in BbS - do nothing for me. A big exception to that is Axel, but if I don’t care much for Riku, I can’t stand Axel. He comes off as what an “edgy” teenage writer would come up with for a “cool” character in a bad first stab at fiction. From his character design to his abused catchphrase, everything about him pisses me off. His one saving grace in KH II was that he sacrifices himself, and nothing undermines a sacrifice like a contrived way around death. That he’s become a Keyblade Wielder, and one of the Seven Guardians of Light, is ridiculous to me, and I’m not sure if I can think of a more blatant example of a writer’s pet character being so inorganically shoved to the forefront of a story that supposedly isn’t about them.

DDD also started to open the door to the possibility of Roxas and Namine being restored. That idea is less annoying to me than any of these others, but it’s still a mistake IMO. That Roxas and Namine both ultimately elect to give up their lives as individuals to return Sora and Kairi to their full selves, accepting their fate so that others can live more fully, is a bittersweet and touching concept, and one that lets “death” have some real consequences and the happy ending of KH II come with a price. I hate seeing that undermined, and I’m frankly frustrated by how much of KH III’s front half involved chatter about Roxas.

And speaking of KH III...that’s where Part II comes in.

ADDENDUM: Another thing about DDD that I feel undermines Sora is that, while writing him dumber, the game also hypes him up more than he ever was in the past. It’s the same problem as Harry Potter; for all that series’ virtues, constantly pointing out how special Harry is can end up taking away from his character by making his unique traits too ubiquitous. Other characters constantly pointing out how kind and loving and easy to bond with Sora is undermines that trait by over-playing it and turning it into an exercise in “tell, don’t show.”

[vivareverie]

"So, what now?"

That's a question I've had stuck on my mind for at least the past month or so now, regarding the state of my content production and my life as a YouTuber. It's a question that I've somewhat avoided asking myself for the past year, because I somewhat naively thought "Hey, everything'll just work out". Needless to say, that isn't the case, so here I am asking myself this question now.

Before I go any further I'd like to quickly clarify something: This isn't a depression thing. It might sound like a depression thing by the way I'm writing or the overall tone of this post, but I currently have zero mental health issues and require no sympathy in that area. All this is is an introspective look at my state of affairs, looking at what I did wrong attempting to grow my channel, and where to go next.

So, let's start from the start: My channel's success was lightning in a bottle. "Surprise! Your video has gone viral!" Starting with super short meme-y pony toy videos. Well... Admittedly that was at least a few years into my "career" at that point, but all my content before then just silly "Early-teen goofing around"-type videos, once I suddenly actually had an audience to make videos for, I obviously wanted to keep going. What's important about this "Era" is that I had a theme going on. I was the "Pony toy video guy", that was where my initial audience came from, watching my ~10 second long meme-y videos for a short giggle. These videos were very short, very easy to make, and had an audience... So, why did I stop?

Three big reasons: One, money. To make videos making fun of silly pony merch, I had to buy the merch, and, to put things into perspective, that Celestia toy alone was $50. Imagine that but for every single toy in every single video and it adds up quick. The good news is that I liked collecting them, and I had the money, but that was quickly running dry. You might ask "Well, couldn't you reuse toys?", and I did a bit, however...

Two, I hated reusing jokes, and still do to this day. Even back then I'd felt I used the "Celestia toy hits thing" joke 2-3 too many times. I suppose I'd somewhat considered it a running joke- but without putting a twist on it, it was just the same thing happening over and over again. Although "toy abuse" wasn't the entirety of my content back then- I did still try to be creative about it- but nonetheless I kinda felt that well drying up. Plus, finally, there's reason three, and this one is probably a bit obvious...

Three, I wanted to try out animation. It's history time: The reason why even my earlier pony animations looked at least half-decent was because I already knew ahead of time how to use Flash, the program used to animate MLP. This was because I used Flash to learn how to make terrible bodged-together video games, some of which are still online over on Newgrounds and Kongregate (And no, I won't be linking them (Maybe at a later date)), those games, although they were pretty terrible, did inadvertently teach me how to use an animation program, meaning that, when my YouTube channel kinda blew up, I suddenly had an entire genre of media to create with at my disposal.

Thus started "Phase two" of viv, the "Short goofy animation" phase. At the time I didn't think I was gonna ditch the toy video stuff, but after a short while I felt... More satisfied with my animation work. It took me a while to nail down why, but in the end I felt like I was "Undeserving" of the amount of attention I got from my toy content, and felt as if I had to "Earn" the amount of followers I was getting. My toy videos were recorded with terrible audio, a bad camera, very little care for lighting (One video in particular's punchline was ruined because I didn't think about lighting, "Applejack Wins" I believe was the name of that one), however my animations, with the exception of a couple of my early ones having framerate issues, were very "Clean" and felt polished, something I definitely couldn't say about the majority of my toy videos.

Likewise, my standards went up, and they went up fast. I did start off making more silly goofy short stuff, but I kept setting borders for myself making content more difficult to pump out. I wanted to make music videos, but I eventually said I didn't want to make them using pre-established "stuff you could buy on itunes" tracks, worried about potential copyright ramifications. A lot of my short videos were based on clips of songs, and I stopped doing those for the same reason. This was also a very similar (Albeit technically very different) reason why I stopped using show-style puppets, and although I technically could've continued animating show-style if I wanted, my standards had gotten higher still, and I wanted to start making animations using my own "Design" of puppets. Those are the horses you see in the banner of my Patreon page, the doofy ones with the fat noses. This starts what I'd call "Phase three" of viv.

...However, where I went, the majority of fans did not follow.

My earlier content was easy to digest, easy to share around, and easy to click on. Short doofy meme videos. Phase three of viv however- Although the content I was making was finally meeting my stupid standards, it ran into two problems. One, content production got slooooow. The entirety of the first couple of "phase three" years feels like I'd gotten nothing done, despite the, well, "Objectively better" quality videos coming out. I can count how many vivshorts I have on three hands, which is... Not a lot. It's good, and all of them are great, don't get me wrong, but throughout this entire "essay" I've been leaving out one giant big huge factor regarding my content: YouTube itself.

I'm sure you've heard this a million times before, but in case you haven't: YouTube does not promote channels that don't post often. The system likes channels that make long videos, and they like them posted every day.  This is... The complete opposite of the state of my channel, however. Especially these days, where my projects get larger, and the gaps between videos get longer. Unfortunately, the amount of production put into videos does not necessarily translate to views- Or at least not anywhere near the amount it does compared to my older videos.

I did make an attempt to make my channel more active with my Vivcast series, but, although that series has its fans (And I love you all much and you know who you are), I feel like all that did is hurt me during phase three viv. It littered my channel with videos that only a very niche audience would appreciate, and meant that newcomers would have difficulties finding the videos my channel was centered around when visiting my channel, which is, you know... A bad thing. All my Vivcast videos are now unlisted on my channel, but the playlist is still publicly available for those who still want to see them.

The second big reason why I got a huge dropoff of viewers from phase three viv was the change in style, or, more specifically, the lack of using MLP characters at all. I stopped being part of the trend, and went and did my own thing. It gave me more creative freedom, but it was less "Immediately appealing". It's far easier to click on "Rainbow Dash is Excited" than it is "The Second Day of Chrasmas". I've created a bubble of content that only those inside the bubble can enjoy, and this bubble is already inside the bubble of MLP itself, which, as much as I wish it wasn't so, has a huge huge huge stigma around it that to this day has never dwindled. Despite my content being less about the ponies themselves and more about the comedy or the writing or the animation, just the vague connection to MLP is a huge turnoff for potential new viewers who although might not care for MLP might still enjoy the content I may put out.

So, due to this, I have a dwindling viewerbase both because I'm not directly using MLP characters (Meaning the general MLP fans are turned off from my content) and also because I'm using pony characters in the first place (Meaning the non-brony side of the internet won't be looking at my content in the first place). I've inadvertently created a niche inside of a niche because I became complacent. I thought "Hey, if I make videos, the viewers will come, as they always have been", and that was true a few years ago, but I've diverted the train far far off course and not many people still want to stay on the ride.

...Okay, I should mention, no, 10k views per video is not bad in any way. That's really really good and many many many youtubers wish they got a fraction of the viewerbase I got, but it's all relative. In my case, I'd steered my life towards "Hey, I got a good following going, if I grow my following enough I'll be able to make YouTube videos for a living! That'll be super cool!" And that was okay for a long while, while I was "Doing the motions", while I was at college, while I was at university, while I was looking for a job and not finding any for... The entirety of 2017. That's a long time, that's, like, 4+ years at least. But, that whole time, it was fine. I was in no rush, I was in no hurry, no real problems, I'd gotten a little lazy and my content slowed down for it, but I didn't necessarily need the money so I wasn't churning out garbage 24/7 just to make sure I hit a threshold. I thought to myself "Hey, I'll think of something, eventually. 10k views per video isn't enough to make a living off of, but I'll make something that'll go viral again, eventually. It'll be fine."

However, that changed this January.

My new years resolution was to go back to making monthly videos. The Second Day of Chrasmas I made relatively quickly and I'd totally be up for keeping that going, I thought. But my free time was suddenly whisked away, and I was suddenly told I'd be "Working for the dole" for half the week, every week, for at least the next 6 months, or until somebody finally decides to hire me. If that's French to you, essentially that means that, in order to get the money I'm literally living off of, I'm now forced to spend ~15 hours every week doing tiring sweaty exhausting labour work, getting pricked, scratched, sunburned, and bitten, on top of the obligation I already had regarding finding work with the job employment agency I'm hooked up with, oh, and that's not even mentioning that I'm not earning any more doing this work than I was earning the entirety of 2017. essentially meaning that all the free time I'd grown complacent with the past year is now gone in the blink of an eye, and I'm getting nothing out of it.

...So I thought "Okay, 2018 will be the year I finally set my channel back on the right track." Suddenly that's something I can't do. I can't make videos that bring the views back when I literally don't have the time nor energy to make those videos in the first place. The past January shows it, I forgot to make the post-January update Patreon post because of how quickly the month passed by for me. My complacency led me down this track and now I'm paying the price for it.

Okay... So... What now?

This was the question I asked at the start of this post, and what you just read is my story leading up to this question. I don't know if I have the right answer to that question, but I have a few proposals.

One: Cut my ties with pony content entirely. This is a route I'd been intentionally avoiding because I didn't want to be one of "Those guys". You know, the "I'm grown up and more mature now, and therefore I cannot like or associate with pony anymore". That... In itself, I'd personally say is an extremely immature sentiment, cutting ties with who you once were is like denying part of your life existed. Likewise, if this were the route I'd take, I would never deny my association with MLP... However, I would be changing all my branding and future content to not be MLP related, and move into, say, video games stuff instead. That way I can tap into a very large audience of people that didn't exist within my bubble within my bubble. I may be able to grab that "Lightning in a bottle" once more... I wouldn't stop doing Bronies Reacts, though.

Two: ...Keep going. This is the significantly more risky route, but I still have unfinished business in pony content. The two big ones are Trigger Happy Horses and Brony Polka Animated, Trigger Happy Horses being very very well loved and a project I would be very happy to continue if I had the money and time, and Brony Polka Animated being a project I teased... Ah jeez, two years ago. Both projects would require at least several months straight of work to finish/continue, meaning no other content on my channel (Outside of stuff that maybe I could hire other people to edit (Which would imply I had the money to do so, which, I don't)), meaning it'd be super unlikely my channel would grow in any way from it. I'd still be inside my niche of a niche, that double-layered bubble. But... Maybe people would come back if they saw these projects as finished projects? I don't know, and I have no way of knowing- But I expect that may unfortunately not be the case.

Three: Do both... Kinda. Perhaps I could begin by doing new stuff that appeals to a larger audience and completely ignoring those huge projects on my backlog until I've reached a point of equilibrium- And then return to them once I've maintained a stability on my channel. Albeit, that implies I get to that point in the first place, I may be trying to throw darts at this invisible dart board for the rest of my life, meaning those projects go entirely unfinished forever...

...At the end of the day, if I want to keep doing YouTube, I'll want to be earning enough off of it to make it viable. This means consistent revenue, every month, every year. I'm getting a very nice fraction of that off of Patreon right now, and I thank all my patrons wholeheartedly for it, but... I need at the very least quadruple the amount I'm currently earning to get back to even attempting YouTube full time. Single time pledges won't really help either, I either need four times the amount of patrons I have or at least ten times the amount of views on my future videos, and consistently.

This revamp needs to happen. With it I'll be revamping the structure of my Patreon page before the end of the month, including probably removing the $10 and $30 pledge options... Which I feel like is kind of a terrible move because it's the last foothold I really have, I'll be cutting my revenue in half with that move alone, but I don't feel comfortable being pledged those amounts when the content I'm putting out is minimal at best, and entirely against what you were asking for at worst. Although I believe there is an option to pledge a higher amount than the given pledge amount, no rewards come with that, and nobody is obligated to do that for me.

Will this post do anything about my situation? Deep down I kinda hope it will, but really... I don't expect it to, and I've accepted that. You gotta deal with what life gives you, and when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. That term is thrown around so much it sounds like white noise so I'll turn it into a metaphor that actually means something: If you're given shit, make something out of it. Well, I've been given shit, so here I am figuring out what to sculpt it into.

It's midnight where I live now, so I'll be going to sleep. When I wake up I hope to have the answer to my question.

Good night.

- Viva

[fourteenacross]

2017 Fic Year in Review

2017 in fic! I still have to get used to this looking so different to how it looked from like, 2007 to 2015. I also did a lot of like...weird not!quite!fic things? Which I’m counting in my word count, just because I did put thought into them? But I’m not sure if I should? I don’t know. Anyway, I’ve had two glasses of champagne and a glass of red wine, so WHATEVER. Hamilton: Ghosthunters full-length fic Birthday Shots (2069) Commercialism, Merit Badges, and Liquid Courage (8179) Communicable (24382) Well Deserved Recognition (3738) Truth or Dare, Jungle Juice, and a Linen Closet (8532) Q&A Saturday - June 6, 2015 (1120) everyone must breathe until their dying breath (116,690*)

Ghosthunters ficlets: Mattie and Alex texting (1708) John and Francis at boarding school (794) Washington after the air grows cold around me and you (423) August 14 (573) Molly and the haunted chair (1159) Laf's sad Christmas (1656) John on the phone with his dad (1543) John's PoV on Alex's birthday body shots (1606) Alex and John's tattoo (2326) John at the beginning of but i won't go far away (1032) John draws Alex (1888) John is reckless (2036) John explains his tattoo (1307) John and Alex eat poptarts in bed (1924) Jo and Mattie, Jo realizes she's in love (715) John's birthday and turtles (1275)

Ghosthunters apocrypha: John's in the hospital (840) The Schuyler-Hamilton-Laurenses get a dog (332) July 12 (1634) August 27 (1535) November 24 (4020)

Three sentence ficlets: Herc and breakfast (129) Angelica leaving for London (canon fic) (133) John falling in love (102) Alex and art (119) Ghosthunters + tetanus shots (161) Eliza, first day of summer (113) Laf meeting George and Martha for the first time (180) John, first kiss with a boy (165) Burr, drunk and alone (172) John and Francis, getting together (164)

Ghosthunters Not!Fic: John and Mattie, fake dating (2563)

Non-Ghosthunters Hamilton fic: John and Alex share a bed on a roadtrip (2396) Supplemental not!fic to the above (2497) Alex and John on the dance floor with a surprise slow song (2038) Alex and John, almost drowning (3076) Supplement to the above (2335)

Not!Fic: John and his ghost boyfriend (4555) John and Alex, "summer in the city" roommates for a summer internship AU (1491) John and Alex, "may we meet again" teen besties meet again as adults and fall in love AU (2347) Hamilton noir AU, "we get the job done" (1522) Alex and John, "the world turned upside down" BFFs -> lovers AU (6161) Fem4Ham, "helpless" soulmate AU (6613)

Gravity Falls: Mabel, first crush on a girl (118)

Great Comet Not!Fic: Sonya, No One is Alone (756)

MCU: Sam and Steve and trick-or-treaters (467)

Grand Total Fandoms: 4 Total Full Length Fic: 7 Total Ficlets: 46 Grand Total Stories: 53 Grand Total Word Count: 235,409* 

* I'm including all the words of the ghosthunters summer story that I’ve written so far, even the ones that haven’t been posted.

Overall Thoughts: Man, this list looks so long, but it’s still so far off the mark that I had intended to hit.

This was a hard year, creatively. It was for everyone, I think, but after having a really great upswing in 2016 when my meds had leveled out, it felt particularly dire to me, even though I knew I wasn’t alone. It’s hard to absorb that sometimes, you know?

I’m disappointed I didn’t finish this summer story before the end of the year. I was making very good time this summer and cranked out like 60k words on a really good schedule. I took a break for DragonCon and the associated scrambling and packing, and then never got back on the horse. It’s one of those things where I can’t tell if it was self-discipline or brain stuff or exhaustion, but I’m mad at myself all the same, cause I’m like that. I’ve still got another 30k to write and I’m going to try to get back on a schedule and stick to it to push out these last couple scenes, but I still keep kicking myself about the whole thing.

A lot of it comes back to something I was talking about in last year’s round up, which is not having, essentially, @pearlo in this fandom. I spent like, five years sending Erica a constant stream of fic ideas and dialogue snippets and talking out every fic idea and texting her in the middle of the night with AUs and all sorts of other shit and it’s a hard transition to not having that built in. It was how I worked out a lot of issues and also expressed a lot of joy. It feels a little like screaming into a void on here, at times, and while you’re all lovely and I appreciate all your encouragement and feedback, talking about your own work all the time occasionally makes one feel like an egomaniac. So...that’s a thing.

On to more positive things! I really liked doing those sort of not!fic things--it got some of my creative juices flowing when I was blocked on ghosthunters and scratched the itch of starting a zillion stories that I had great ideas for but no time to actually follow to the finish line. Doing ficlet memes and stuff, too, felt really good, taking requests and such. Holding in-person writing dates was super helpful, and having @lisapizza around to occasionally badger into hanging out with me so I could talk about this shit.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted? I definitely expected to finish more, but numberwise and contentwise. I probably shouldn’t be surprised that I got much less done than I intended, given how weird the whole year has been, but I’m still kind of bummed. What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? Hmmmmm....I don’t know that there’s anything that I wouldn’t have predicted? Everything is pretty on par with what I’ve been doing for the past couple years? What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest? I loved a lot of the stories I wrote this year, because I'm super obsessed with myself. [[< -- I think I've kept that sentence in for the past few years because it remains true]] It’s hard to name anything other than everyone must breathe until their dying breath. I’ve been working on it for two years, on and off, and it was one of the first bits of character building I did as I started to create the verse. There are a lot of wonderful little character moments in it and a lot of parts I really just genuinely enjoyed writing.

Communicable was also something I was working on for a while, and there are so many lovely quiet moments. @the-everqueen actually pulled out my favorite bit of that story for commentary--that whole night they spend together at the Washingtons’ and John’s conversation with Martha the next morning were a joy to write.

Outside of the ghosthunters, the #fem4ham soulmate AU has eaten my brain and soul, and the ficlet about John and Alex sharing a bed really made me wish I had a million extra hours in the day to write about that universe’s John and his struggles. Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? Not any huge ones? I think my biggest “risk” is the same mistake I make over and over again--feeling pressured to give people an ETA on the next story and then....totally missing that deadline. I’ve gotta stop doing that, for serious. My best story of this year: Definitely everyone must breathe until their dying breath. There are a LOT of moving parts on that thing that are still only slowly unfurling. I wish I had finished the whole thing in 2017 /o\ My most popular story of this year: Okay, see, chaptered stories totally throw off AO3 stats. Hit counts, kudos count, comment count...all of that is inflated by repeatedly pushing those fics to the top of the tags and having people come back for each chapter and all of that. Also, timing? The stuff that was up in January obviously has more hits than the stuff that only just came up in December. 

That being said, I think everyone must breathe is probably my most popular fic, but who really knows? Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: I wouldn’t say any of the full-length fics are under-appreciated, but I’m so obsessed with the #fem4ham that I sometimes forget that it has less than thirty notes and no one but @lisapizza (and @charmingpplincardigans, based on her comments today at brunch) really cared about it when I posted it XD

Most fun story to write: I wrote Birthday Shots in one sitting and it was the kind of doofy, dialogue-based stuff that’s always pretty fun to play around with. I also liked the ghosthunters apocrypha with John being loopy on anesthesia, which I wrote entirely on the plane to Heroes. John’s ghost boyfriend not!fic was also the first of those that I did and it was pretty fun! Story with the single sexiest moment: Deffo the sex in the woods in VII of everyone must breathe until their dying breath. Story with the single sweetest moment: Hm. There’s a lot of sweet, that’s kind of my whole deal. I think maybe the first house-sitting scene or the train ride after seeing Ned in everyone must breathe until their dying breath. Most "Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story: Nothing really. Nothing cracky for me this year. Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: The sharing a bed story and its backstory supplement were probably the things that had characterizations most different from the ghosthunters. It was a very different world to pick apart as I was thinking those through. Hardest story to write: Seeing as how I’m STILL WRITING everyone must breathe until their dying breath it is DEFINITELY THAT ONE  Biggest Disappointment: Just that I didn't finish more, I think. Biggest Surprise: That dumb bedsharing ficlet has over a hundred notes on tumblr. What the hell. I mean, I’m glad, but also surprised! Otherwise, I’m honestly just surprised you guys have stuck with me this long and been so incredibly patient 💜 Most Unintentionally Telling Story: Everything with Molly in everyone must breathe until their dying breath, for reasons that I’m foolishly hoping end up being moot, but realistically suspect are not going to come to fruition.  Plans for the next year: Goals for 2018! 300,000 words! Getting through two more anchor stories! Writing a non-ghosthunters Ham!fic! Work on my dumb novel! Maybe try some nonfiction stuff! I don’t know, just try to be more flexible and kinder to myself, but also get things done? God, who knows, the world is on fire.

[darklordzorkaporp]

Story Time With Zork

So, when Porp and I were little we did absolutely everything together. We even used the bathroom together until we were, like, 8. I can remember only a handful of times we didn’t do something together until our early teens. Naturally this had its own host of problems, but that’s a story for another day. Today, we’re going to look at the near half a year where I wouldn’t even speak to poor Porpy-Poo because of something he was right about all along.

The first thing you have to know is that I was quite the shy child. I still am, but back then it was a miracle if I even spoke when the teacher called on me in class. I had only had one friend at that point that Porp didn’t introduce me to, and unfortunately we had moved schools and I didn’t see her much anymore. It was third grade and Porp and I had just moved schools and neighborhoods, only to be put in different classes due to some weird school policy about siblings. As you can imagine, I was pretty lonely.

Enter Taylor, a girl my age almost half my height with a personality bigger than Mount Everest. I must have been radiating “easy pickings” because the moment she introduced herself to me she latched on and did her darndest to make me miserable.

It wasn’t a typical bullying situation in that I was shoved around and verbally beat down. No, instead this child took me under her wing and made herself my god. Well, In her eyes anyway. I wasn’t allowed to do anything without her. I couldn’t make friends or play games unless she was there, and I couldn’t advance in school work without her approval. She had to be above me in everything, and if it weren’t for Porp she probably would have been.

See, while I was trapped under her spell having a miserably good time, Porp was not having it. He hated her on sight and butted heads with her at every turn. He was convinced she was the reason I didn’t want to play with him anymore and, well, he was right. However, I wasn’t having him not having it and was only upset that he wasn’t happy for me and my new friend. And so I did the only thing an 8 year old could think of to hurt him the most; I stopped talking to him.

For nearly six months I did my best to avoid my own twin brother. I stopped playing our favorite board games and watched our elder sister play video games instead. I didn’t go outside with him to explore like we always had done and locked myself in my room instead. I didn’t ask him to play dolls with me or ask to use his hot wheels. Heck, wouldn’t even look at him at the dinner table. All because I was convinced that Taylor was the best thing since sliced bread and wouldn’t listen even as I became a doll for her to play with.

Ironically, it wasn’t until she started badmouthing my brother around me that I started to wake up. After all, no one is allowed to make fun of my doofy little brother but me. Even when I wasn’t talking to him and avoiding him to the best of my 8 year old abilities I wouldn’t stand for the badmouthing of my little brother.

In the end, I made up with Porp and abandoned Taylor, much to her frustration. Unsurprisingly, I ended up making a lot of friends once I dropped her. And, of course, my dearest friend will always be my baby brother.

[ao3feed-stormpilot]

step brothers

by msdaphne

I have all these feelings about Poe and Leia's mother/son relationship, and so much anxiety about Poe being on the dark side of the poster (did Kylo do something to him? To hurt her?) and I found myself thinking that what I would really love to read right now is some really doofy Poe & Kylo Step Brothers crack. So I decided to try to write it myself. I have too many reservations about whether it's working to list here, so just yell at me.

Words: , Chapters: 1/5, Language: English

Fandoms: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Step Brothers (2008)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen, M/M

Relationships: Poe Dameron & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron/Finn

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2yzInjs