#not a hate post against PB btw

[aratedfreyjablog]

I don't know if anyone else noticed but it seems like PB took away back-to-back dispatch for the Portal of Holy Coins and now has it where you have to pay with gems to replay that level

I find that really inconvenient since I'm one those players that uses their gems for 1.) Solomon Seals/Archangel Portal and/or 2.) mass spend on resources (e.g., Action Power, Solomon Tears, Advanced Candy, so forth).

On top of the fact we're being forced to spend nightmare coins as part of the requirement to pass through the stages to get the rest of the rewards in Nightmare Pass, it's getting harder to really enjoy the pass...

Personally speaking, I wouldn't mind actually paying to get Luci since he's a fav. but with what's going on with the pass, I don't know if it's really worth spending actual money on it...

EDIT: Someone in comments just pointed that that apparently the back-to-back dispatch still exists so I’m guessing PB added in the case anyone wants to farm for more holy coins, they can.

[b1rdbra1ned]

Oh no I hate Fan too. Fan was not a good character in season 2 and he didn't actually face any consequences for his actions. Paintbrush was like the closest we got to Fan being criticised and people considered PB to be the one overreacting. Paintbrush is done so dirty because the fandom put their own belief about the bright lights being family even though Paintbrush never actually got along with them. They talked to tt like once, bickered with lb until the last ep they were in and then there's. Fan..

Also I think I hate fantube a little more after the theyrebasicallycanon polls put enstars against ii. Glad rinniki won they deserve the win against fantube imo.

Sorry I was tired of being critical of ii so I don't like it anymore 😔

But hiiii we haven't talked much in a while ik :(( I'm on holiday rn but feel free to talk to me if you want!

ALLLL OF THIS

Paintbrush was in every way in the right to yell at fan, he constantly bothered and nagged at them and the stuff about marshmallow was definitely the final straw

i only ever liked the whole bright lights family thing because honestly it could’ve worked imo!!! but they just never took that chance they never really developed the brights lights AT ALL most season (beside from marshmallow) the bright light felt more like the comical team (not really but can’t think of a better way to describe them) compared to the grand slams who definitely got way more focus and development

it’s shitty because i think the brights lights could’ve had potential but they were just casted aside until the last few episodes where “oh hey look development!! :] oh wait nvm they’re eliminated now <3” like ????

paintbrush definitely got the short end of the stick here. literally having what was supposed to be their episode mainly centred around tt and lb and having their feelings about marsh being completely casted aside. i wish more was done w/ marshmallow and them vs them and lb

looking back a lot of their scenes w lb just felt kinda off??? i don’t think can articulate this probably rn but paintbrush deserved better

but at the same time i wish the team got more time w/ each other in general, they have so many great opportunities to do it like in the maze episodes but again they’re kinda just cast aside as just comedy

and w/ s3 oh boy i hate what they did with paintbrush and their “arc” in the last few episodes. they quite literally and figuratively took away their edges, i miss sassy, sarcastic confident paintbrush they feel so dulled down in iii and it’s like no one in the writing team understands them at all. it’s like they didn’t even write s2 (but hey back to the point i mentions last post that show writers really ought to stop listening to fans sometimes because this is how fanon seeps in </3)

i hate how the a lot of the fans view paintbrush especially if it’s only ever in the context of lightbrush or shipping (another thing that pisses me off btw is how they’re always treated as irrational and or just plain out abusive FUCK PEOPLE WHO PORTRAY PAINTBRUSH LIKE THIS)

they’re such a great character who gets absolutely fucked over by the writing and fandom (not all of the fandom of course, i love seeing ppls takes and discussions on them but it’s just some fans who just </3)

i don’t like discouraging ships, if ppl are mature and respectful and don’t put other ppl down then that’s all great and stuff but my problem is that i really wish paintbrush was just seen as more than their ships yknow

Fan is.. the more i think about canon him the more im like yeaaa… uh no thanks…. (mainly w/ him and paintbrush and cabby)

idk if im even allowed to say they changed tt this season because.. she didn’t honestly have a lot of screentime last season compared to a whole lot of other characters, but in iii she feels off?? honestly all of them do even the new contestants later on during the season

idk if i have the words to describe why s3’s characterisation is so off and at time frustrating, their arcs too, was going to point out some characters but honestly i could make a case for nearly ALL the contestants the ones who weren’t voted out early at least

that’s the end of my ramble tho, sorry ik i talked a lot about paintbrush, i want to talk about the others too but they’re the one i still even think about. hopefully this isn’t a bit hard to read, ik im not that organised w my rambles sometimes

[agentidiot]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

thanks @justhallucinating for the tag 🫡🫡🫡

1. How many works do you have on ao3? 

23 atm but i'm planning at posting more

2. What's your total ao3 word count? 

129,910 ☠️

3. What fandoms do you write for?

right now for peaky blinders but i used to be very deep in the rolling stones and mcu (and i still am just doesn't feel like writing for them)

4. Top five fics by kudos 

If There Is A Will, There Is A Way (mcu)

don't feed me, I will сome back (pb)

like real people do (pb)

Don't Forget to Subscribe (mcu fic that i translated to russian like 8 years ago ☠️)

lavender (pb)

5. Do you respond to comments? 

YES I LIVE ON THEM AND SCREENSHOT THEM AND LOOK AT THEM FOR MOTIVATION

but i used to be bad at responding tho cuz i was too shy ig

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? 

love is the death of duty but only because it's an open kinda ending. but i'm your man which is the ongoing fic i just finished and posted 1st chaper of broke my heart when i wrote the ending

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? 

pretty much all of them, apart from the ones i mentioned have a happy ending

8. Do you get hate on fics?

no which im really happy about

9. Do you write smut? 

yes

10. Craziest crossover? 

i haven't done any crossovers

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? 

no thank god

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? 

no but i did

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

kinda if dumping fic info to @justhallucinating counts

14. All time favorite ship? 

tommy/alfie and mick/keith. but. hear me out. that's might be controversial. but i'm stony shipper since the first time i saw avengers. i'm a stony shipper til the day i die. also wolfstar but mainly because fics are just too good (fuck jkr btw)

15. What's a wip you want to finish but you doubt you ever will? 

i so many but i can only think of two.

the 1st on is about modern tommy and alfie meeting at the margate's beach where alfie sees tommy walking his cat (yes dangerous is a bengal cat in this one) on a leash. also alfie went to margate to rest after chemo and tommy went there cuz his family talked him into taking some rest after he broke his scull.

the 2nd one is tommy and alfie meeting via chess app. and then they meet irl but alfie doesn't realise it cuz he never saw tommy's photos but tommy did. and he decided to not tell alfie that it's him and suffers greatly cuz of it

16. What are your writing strengths? 

god idk i wish someone would tell me that. smut comes very easily, dialogs too

17. What are your writing weaknesses? 

HAVING. TOO. MANY. WIPS.

also i struggle with not established relationships like how the fuck i supposed to get those idiots together

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

i sometimes put russian words in when i write alfie cuz well i know russian, he knows russian, so why not

and i don't mind it if it's in the fic i read until it's not like in the first pages of war and peace which is a crime against humanity. but well i haven't seen fics like that yet

19. First fandom you wrote in? 

harry potter ☠️ (FUCK jkr)

20. Favorite fic you've written? 

it's either places we came from cuz HELLO? BOTTOM ALFIE TO THE MASSES 2024 or don't feed me, I will come back which is the 1st one from baker!alfie au

that was really fun!! thanks again

tagging: @gimmeaglimmer @rysko

[darrowsrising]

YA vs. NA vs. Adult

Hey there! I wanted to share some (hopefully) fun facts about the book market in the US, and maybe shed some light on why ppl find the original RR trilogy in the YA section. BTW I hope none of this comes across as preachy - I’m trying to get a YA book published myself and I’ve done a lot of industry research and just wanted to share some stuff. 

In the US, “New Adult” never really took off as a category except in romance, with Sarah J. Maas’s books being the biggest success (this is all according to interviews and articles I’ve read from literary agents and authors). I’ve heard that in Australia New Adult really took off so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a more well known category in other countries? I wish it was a category here, and if it was I def think the original RR trilogy would be New Adult. 

Anyway, because New Adult never really took off in the US most bookstores don’t have a section labeled “New Adult.” So then the choice becomes, do you shelve RR in YA or Adult? 

I for sure think the new books have an adult ~ vibe ~ and belong in the Adult section (and that’s usually where I see them). But as for the original trilogy? I think that’s up for debate. 

YA Author Alexa Donne has a really interesting video on youtube called What Counts as YA Fiction? She points to some hallmarks of YA, one of them being an immediacy to the writing; you feel like you are there with the character and there’s lots of big emotions. I think RR fits that. In fact it was one of the things I loved about the books. Another big YA theme is the MC finding their place in the world, pushing back against conventions and establishing their identity. I think that was a big theme in the original trilogy. Also everyone was looking for the next Hunger Games at the time, and I think marketing ppl saw that RR was on the line between YA and Adult and pushed it toward YA since that was the better market and a book marketed as YA would probably sell better. 

Honestly, I’ve heard a bunch of different definition of what’s YA so I think it’s a little subjective. I certainly understand your point about violence and other more mature themes in the book and I probably wouldn’t recommend it to somebody say, 12 and under? But I think the original trilogy would be totally fine for most teens. 

You brought up movie ratings, and one interesting thing about those here in the US is that you can get away with a lot of violence before you get an R rating. For example, The Dark Night Rises, the batman movie where a guy gets lobotomized with a pencil and the villain has two ppl fight to the death with baseball bats, was rated PG13. Taken, where girls are abducted and raped, was rated PG13. It’s usually full nudity and swear words that get you an R rating. I think those standards are really backward, but the point is that teens aren’t strangers to violence, especially in media. 

I found a 2014 blog post on something called teenreads written by PB himself where he said RR was both a YA and adult novel, lol. So maybe that’s the answer. 

I’ve heard a lot of people debate whether the original RR trilogy is YA or not and ultimately I’m not sure why it matters. The one thing that bothers me is when people say that RR is essentially too good to be a YA novel. Nobody on this site has suggested that but I’ve heard others make that point. It bothers be because I think a lot of people who aren’t familiar with YA think it’s all girl books about romance and vampires. In fact, YA science fiction is struggling right now because publishers think young women don’t like science fiction. So maybe I want RR to be YA to prove that a lot of young women do like science fiction and we’d like more of it, please. 

Sorry, I know I’ve rambled. I hope some of this was interesting! 

Thank you for your imput! It really is interesting. Here are some things I figured out as a reader of fiction in general.

Sarah J. Maas writes YA. That's what it is marketed as in the US and UK. That's why it comes with warnings for mature themes (sex). She announced that she's moving to NA for future books - Crescent City. My book provider imports books from the UK and they market it like they are on the british market. And, if I am not mistaken, she won awards for YA.

I understand that YA has a very bad reputation these days, but it's not only from the outside, but also from the outside. The YA fandom is toxic. There is no doubt about it. They (in general) have the highest amout of purity police with a checkmarking list of certain things that must be handled in the books a certain way, otherwise is trash.

I totally understand and hate that YA is considered 'hot vampires for girls', I hate it with a passion. It is as condescending as the romanian translator who was invited to meet Pierce Brown at an event and her after thoughts where that his books has many young female fans and now that she has met him in person she knows why. Which is code for 'the guy' s hot so there you have it'.

Bitch, I stood front row at that event because my love for this series and Darrow is beyond human understanding! Pierce could look like Smaug and I'd still sit front row. Because I freaking love every aspect of it, sci-fi especially.

But getting back to the subject at hand, if you looked at the crowds when Pierce Brown visited Romania, I would too market the series as YA.

I know perfectly well that teens from 13 to 19 can handle violence well and understand complex themes and question things that happen in the real life. I don't doubt their intelligence in the least. I was like 17 when I read the RR trilogy, i'm not a hypocrite.

The reason I don't wany it piled with YA is because it gets critiqued to YA standards. And the YA fandom has the worst standards. They have so many and they must be habdled in certian ways and lo and behold this trilogy gets trashed because it's all the worst things you can possibly imagine, but still better than the new trilogy.

The Red Rising Trilogy is indeed faster paced and more violent than most of the YA books I have read. So if it's indeed too much for YA, I think it's fair for it to be considered NA. The themes are handled in more intense ways than you usually find in YA. The fluff and comfort, the moments for breathing are rare and even if the protagonist just sits somewhere, his emotions are at war while he remains cold on the outside, barely keeping it together. The rest is survival, war, violence of all types, danger at every step. It's never stoping, just slowing it down for the briefest of moments. And I think that makes the very shallow boundaries between YA and NA - the way you handle the themes.

The Iron Gold Trilogy is indeed more in tone with the likes of A Song of Ice and Fire or Broken Empire. And I think the sault wasn't that big from RR to IG. It basically moved from NA to Adult.

I can agree with Pierce Brown that up to a point the initial trilogy is YA and Adult. I mean...let's not fool ourselves, kids and adults alike were all over the Harry Potter books. So I understand why he would say that. There were middle schoolers to the Meet and Greet I went to. Kids love sci-fi and battles and stuff.

Also, I don't know what to say about 'immediacy of the writing' as being hallmark YA. I have read NA and Adult that has that. And 'protagonists finding their identity and establishing themselves and pushing conventional boundaries' are themes in A Song of Ice and Fire as well.

But thing is there are certain boundaries I consider the way the themes are handled.

So... that and the fact that there are triggering things that easily make the NA mark makes me believe that the Red Rising Trilogy should be marketed as NA.

Again, it's not only the fandom and the attitudes towards 'impurity', but also the way the themes are handled. Which is not a clear delimitation, because as you said it, it's subjective.

Thank you for the info you provided, very helpful. Good luvk with your book and never shy away from rambling to me, I love it!

[pixelburied]

This isn't an anti-grandma josie post btw lol. She is obviously corrupted by hate and by the ancient power. If anything, she is a victim but that doesn't mean I won't fight her to save Elliot.

This is more of a call to maybe tone it down on the hate directed against characters with limited agency. I'm not up to date on D&D but based on the screenshots, I think they didn't let MC actually tell the whole story to lady grandmother. It's always "if only you knew". But she doesn't/didn't know because PB is dragging the plot for some reason.

If we're ranking villains, I just think she shouldn't be put on the same level as the Duke. Morality is judged on intent, impact, and circumstances. The impact of her actions - very bad. The intent - questionable but not malicious. The circumstances - not the best for an old widow like her but she made do.

Grandma Josie was valid until she threatened Elliot.