#partly why I reread this stuff

[luceafarul-de-dimineata]

I just got done re-reading the main story of whb and I have have come to the realisation that everything happend in only a week at max.

Everything between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 happened in the same day. Then we fell asleep due to Mammon's curse song thing and we were unconcious for an undisclosed amount of time (though I doupt it was more than a day).

Then Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 happen one after another without any stop in the middle, we get kidnapped by the Hades crew and we go to Hades (again, undisclosed amount of time, but still, probably no more than a day at most)

In Chapter 5 we have some rest time, but still not a lot since Leviathan really wants to go find the original seed of the tree of knowledge, so, again, I doupt that someone like Leviathan would just sit around doing jack shit while hell was under threat and he thinks he found a solution.

So, at most, the whole story so far happened in about a week. It honestly feels like there should be more, but I can't find any indicators suggesting time passing that aren't the ones I mentioned above.

We have been told repeatedly that time in Hell and time on Earth are different, which kind of makes this whole thing even more terrifing. From Minhyeok's perpective we've been gone for weeks or months, but from our POV we just got here.

When I first read Bimet's H-scene, I thought him saying "you're loose" was kind of a haha pun because MC fucked a lot of demons before him, but if we go off the timeline of events, we got done fucking Mammon like 3 hours ago.

I am very confused and I am putting this here to kind of see if anyone in this community can enlighten me.

Admitadly, it would be very funny if everything happened in one day. We should keep this going, cause I want to see how much stuff they can fit in so little time.

[pagesofkenna]

Looking for Manga recs!

maybe something under 150 chapters, or especially things that don't have huge tumblr fanbases (though if there's something popular that you think I should actually pay attention to, let me know that too!)

[vxxcte]

TRUMP & LILIUM stageplay + manga spoilers !

hot take!! someone on twt asked me my thoughts on Klauss’s state at the end of the play/manga but I HATE splitting stuff I have to say into different replies like twt or tiktok and this is kinda long SO here we go

Why I think it would be better if Klauss were dead:

To preface, I want to say that this opinion is partly formed because I had SEVERAL misconceptions about the events of the manga for a WHILE.

The manga wasn’t fully translated on the manga websites when I was reading it so I had to read the last 8ish chapters on tiktok. And sometime during constantly switching between the manga panel slides and the translation slides (no shade to the translator who is infact carrying the fandom), I missed some points and misunderstood some others.

One such point is: in the manga, as opposed to the play (which I watched much later), it was not as clear to me that Klauss is supposedly still alive.

When I watched the play I was so surprised by Klauss’s remaining alive, I thought the manga had not stayed faithful to the play.

So what I thought happened here at first was something like, only one immortal HAS to be around at any given time, so Klauss was able to die because Sophie was now immortal, or Sophie is TRUMP now. And given the way that Klauss said, “I finally reached the stars with my own hands,” I also thought that he meant he could finally die.

I felt that the intent behind this statement being, ‘I can finally die,’ gave the ‘I finally reached the stars’ moment a better meaning than the ‘I found a remnant of you and made it immortal’ part.

This is especially because part of the reason Allen affected Klauss so much was because Allen was aware of how awful immortality can be. I thought Klauss said he was able to reach the stars (like Allen wanted to) because now he was able to die.

When Allen always talked about having the stars, and in contrast when Klauss said in the forest that he doesn’t think his hands can ever reach them, it came off to me as a sort of ‘Allen is able to think like this and be so hopeful and whimsical because he has not been around for as long as Klauss has, and he has this security in knowing that he will not be stuck here forever.’

So kind of, reaching the stars = having the freedom to die. AND klauss can’t reach the stars = klauss can’t die.

This is why I thought, when Klauss said at the end, “I finally reached the stars with my own hands,” that he was able to die, and I thought that this gives that whole thing a better meaning, rather than just attempting to end his Allen-centric loneliness by immortalizing Sophie.

Okay now this one is not as strong of a point but going off how it’s ‘I can finally die,’ VS ‘I found a remnant of you and made it immortal’, it also just doesn’t seem as in line with what Allen would have wanted.

But maybe that was the point actually… now that I’m writing this out, it is pretty good how in the end, in the name of Allen, Klauss ended up doing to Sophie what Allen would never have wanted for himself, as if this was his opportunity to fix what he wasn’t able to do before. It makes it a lot sadder this way. I shouldn’t have doubted u suemitsu oopsies

My other reason for preferring Klauss died would be because it makes Sophie’s character more tragic. He’s spending 3000+ years looking for this guy thinking he has some kind of hope to end being alive for so long, but imagine this guy is not around anymore? then he’s just spent several millennia on a wild goose chase for hope.

And the OTHER other reason is just Sophie is my favorite because of his insane aura and he’d have MUCH more aura if he really was TRUMP. Just reread the last couple of scenes in the manga while imagining he’s TRUMP the aura go crazy..

But yeah!! I think that it just made a little more sense if Klauss had died at the end, because of how they set up that line + the contrasts between him and Allen to come off, and also just the whole point of him saying he reached the stars at all. and also sophie 🐐🙏

I did not mean for this to get this long tbh but yesterday I wrote a little essay for my creative writing class on Ul and tried to keep it short and it was still a page longer than allowed. so uh. we r not republicans but we stay yapping about TRUMP yippee?

and maybe i’m wrong about all this idk maybe it didn’t make sense or I missed something ELSE that was crucial to my understanding of this. if anyone has any thoughts on this or disagrees for whichever reason, please share!! I would love to hear

[yellowocaballero]

hi I am one of the people who read your no chip au (and serendipitously reread it pretty recently). I am delighted by the prospect of getting to read more (even better??), you have such a wonderful ability to write characters in any setting who suck so badly in ways that are so so interesting. obi-wan had a father figure it was cody that's just what dads are like.

THANK YOU SO MUCH I love hearing that I'm good at writing people who suck interestingly. That is genuinely usually my main goal. I do it on purpose.

There's a lot of reasons why. I think partly just because the stuff I write is usually character-focused, which means that characters need to be the source of drama and conflict, which means that a story is at its most Dramatic if a character is falling off the bad decisions tree and hitting every branch on the way down. Dysfunction is just more interesting than function. But that doesn't mean they have to suck, right? Evil isn't necessarily more interesting than goodness. I find that the reasons why I chase goodness are often far more complex than the reasons I hurt people. Chasing goodness is arduous, intensive, exhausting, and time-consuming work. We need strong motivation to do it.

But I think that's why. I do think of the guys as people who suck, interestingly. But the people I write I think are, by the end of the story, chasing goodness. The path towards chasing goodness is hard. I think we (Tumblr, especially) talks about goodness as if it's an innate desire, that we are naturally good and that evil is a deviation from our natural state of goodness, and that's probably true in an evolutionary sense. Babies are altruistic. But I think that thinking of good as something that good people do can leave us complacent to the great harm that good people are capable of. Goodness is a path you have to find for yourself, and we tend to believe we've found it before we actually do.

OBI-WAN HAD A FATHER FIGURE IT WAS CODY THAT'S JUST WHAT DADS ARE LIKE.

I spent too much verbiage on this post to start dissecting Cody here because that is such a fucking long post - it is, maybe, a 9 story and 200k+ word post [I said 100k before but I was very wrong] - but it's absolutely a story about the ruin love makes of a life. I have, however, been informed that Cody is what East Asian parents are like, specifically. If it's fathers specifically, it's because Cody is an authoritarian. He does great and immense amounts of harm to pretty much everybody throughout the story, and he does it because he loves you, and he does it because he is a fascist, and he does it because being a fascist is the only way he knows how to love you.

I find that (hyperspecifically?) fanfic has issues treating both parents and children as fully realized people and characters simultaneously. This is because fanfic authors tend to skew younger, lmfao, but also because the wish fulfillment tropes used tend to flatten people. Either the parent is an embodiment of our wish fulfillment works for the great parent or a cartoonish devil of evil parenting specifically set up so the perfect parent can swoop in (I fucking hate Batfam fics.), or the child is an accessory for the elementary school teacher/single dad meet-cute trope. Either way, the 'right' parenting is not flawed, and parents are rarely people. And forget about having, like, fascists, be people.

I'll always be sympathetic to Cody. He was a victim of fascism, and his only true desire was to save his family from the pain they were entrenched in. He made hard decisions because he prioritized his family being alive and safe, at the expense of his own soul. I can't blame him for what he did. He had lost so many people and he couldn't stand to lose any more.

And what he did made him actually the supervillain of the entire story, caused every conflict, and hurt everyone around him. It's a sincerely messy situation with a sincerely messy person, and it's a tragedy that would not have happened if Cody's life had been kinder.

I hope that people have empathy for the ways in which Cody and Ben are messed up. There's pain and love in equal measures there.

Also this is both a play on Luke and Vader's relationship (obviously - the Q of what do you do when you have a supervillain dad?) AND a deconstruction of the cutsey family funtimes Dad!Vader and Cutiepie!Luke stories because, I also have them as a guilty pleasure don't get me wrong, having an actual supervillain for a dad CANNOT ACTUALLY BE FUN and no matter how nice and kind he is to you, everything surrounding him has to be SO DAMAGING -

[tritoch]

long rambly post-endwalker wolund analysis post (so kind of a reflection on what they're going for the WoL from 6.1 onward, but with lots of oc nonsense so i'm not tagging it that way) (edit: i lied he's basically not in this it's just my notes on MSQ reread) structured around the dialogue options offered (all praise as always to xiv.quest)

right off the bat we've got a weird one with tataru asking you your future plans, and your options are more adventure, idk, or just not answering (with tataru's response implying it's because you're still emotionally processing the events of endwalker). interesting stuff that you're not allowed to explicitly say: that you want a break, that you're thinking of settling down, that you're done with adventuring or violence or war. they easily could have written in a consistent option for the WoL to be like "guess there's never a break, huh?" but the sentiment only comes up occasionally.

hits a lot of the same points as above but this is also The Moment we turn into The Adventurer and is worth flagging on that level. fun fact: the last time anyone called you the warrior of light in-game was hoary boulder, back in the post-Endwalker scion dialogue wrap-up.

No one has used the title since 6.1 began. it does show up in the abyssal fracture trial description i suppose

i think it's decently likely that in the next arc we won't be the WoL anymore but we might be The Bearer Of The Crystal. there's precedent!

anyways i find this moment very interesting because this is the one time in the patch series the warrior of light Makes A Decision. tataru suggests new possible places to adventure, and her reference to the Bounty sparks your memory of Emet-Selch and sets you going.

what i really like about this from a wol characterization perspective is that the warrior of light immediately transforms the call to new adventure into a duty. like literally by the text tataru is like "why not be a simple adventurer traveling in search of wonder?" and you think of THE BEST FRIEND OF YOUR PRIOR INCARNATION GIVING YOU A MAJOR POST-MORTEM DUTY TO HONOR BOTH HIM AND YOUR PAST INCARNATION, maybe the weightiest and lore-heaviest thing you could do. those two lines from emet are not near each other in the actual dialogue, they're from opposite ends of his speech! real "warrior of light, could you lighten up?" energy on immediately turning to that one, but it dovetails very nicely with my read that dawntrail is partly about the warrior of light trying and miserably failing to escape the demands and strictures of protagonism. you should stop feeling bound by duty. instead you should adventure, because it's your duty. GOD.

note to self: go back later and check if estinien ever calls alisaie by name. might need to check dungeon dialogue too.

pushing back lightly on the duty narrative above, the game DOES textually assert that the only reason everyone's in alzadaal's legacy in the first place is because you wanted "to see if the legends were true," or using estinien's phrasing were "chasing tales of underseas ruins." you don't get to displace the blame on this one!

here's one of those instances of the wol getting to be like "wow thought i was gonna get to chill" but i feel obliged to point out it's in a moment where everyone knows your involvement is a fait accompli. the wol never really gets to be like "I Would Like To Stop," but they LOVE giving you a wry "well, if i MUST save the world, i suppose i can" option (see: shadowbringers finale: "if you had the strength to take another step, could you do it? could you save our worlds? "what, all by myself?")

this is just a crazy y'shtola moment. "the dank cave i studied in was about as far from the bright, airy halls of academia as one could get. but it was a wondrous, magical childhood nonetheless." she's being so emotionally open with you because she trusts and cares about you i'm gonna *remembers you're not supposed to say it* cast superbolide

in keeping with the 6.X campaign to make y'shtola hashtag relateable, it's interesting that they have her read your silence as amused.

one of those fun moments where they just give you the same option dressed up in different language according to your roleplay desires. interesting to me because it elevates "the warrior of light is kind of just winging it" to the level of text, which makes sense! it's very rare that a fight in FFXIV takes place with full knowledge of what you're up against, and way more common that what wins the day is keeping alert and willing and able to change plans, as most clearly demonstrated in the ktisis finale with your improvised cooperation with emet, hyth, and venat around the issue of the aetheric convergence.

they really went the full gamut with these options (imo a strict reading of the third answer plainly implies that you DO consider zenos a friend, so imo all options are represented)

i love the early zero moments where nothing you do ever lands properly with her because she is an alien predatory intelligence in the shape of a person (who of course gradually reawakens to her full personhood)

there's the sliiiiightest defensive hint to both these options that i really love. yes, estinien, OBVIOUSLY i didn't know this. c'mon man JEEZ.

another entry for the "can't win with zero" pile, but also really interesting because this is such a fun example of the exposition and characterization blending. like, sure, the void does operate a lot on deals and agreements and contracts, befitting its nature as the place the mages of etheirys summon demons from to strike bargains with. but it works that way because everyone else DOES want something. most other voidsent have to want something, or the idea of a contract-based society wouldn't work, because a contract only works if each party has or can do something the other party wants. that's also why they're constantly fucking each other over (they want stuff really bad) and why they need a strong culture around honoring agreements (so people don't just break them, because they want stuff so bad). zero on the other hand claims to not want anything and is instead doing the insane depressed alien version of the saul goodman "put a dollar in my pocket so we have attorney-client privilege" thing, but for her revealing she's a memoriate.

skipping a lot of the alphinaud and alisaie dialogue bc it's either boring or fodder for my future "alisaie still deserves her own complete arc and here's why" post

i must've taken the second choice here bc i don't remember the first, which is cute. brb making a powerscaling tier list of scion research capabilities

the rest of the void stuff doesn't really actually have any interesting dialogue which more or less make sense because it's also not really your story

just remembered they made the leader of the radiant host a brocon for no reason. sometimes ffxiv really knocks it out of the park in terms of absolute left-field character choices

again, interesting that they don't let you NOT be interested in explicitly the golden city itself. you can be interested, skeptical of the rumors, or like "oh word?" but you can't be like ehhh.

a couple interesting things here. first, again, no option to be disinterested in adventure. you can be undecided, you can be like "idk i'd rather stay out of politics," but you can't be opposed to adventure or seeing new things, you can't at this juncture say you want to take a break (versus when you could with y'shtola in a situation where it didn't matter).

i'm also, in retrospect, very interested in the idea g'raha raises at this pretty critical and highlighted point in the plot. "what's important is to be true to yourself as you walk [the long road of life's journeys]." that's a kind of specific sentiment! like, some other easy generic sentiments the game could have slotted in: never lose hope, remember the beauty of the world, hear feel think, etc.

i would not describe FFXIV in the zodiark and hydaelyn saga as a game very concerned about being true to oneself as one walks life's long road. it's broadly in favor of it, but when you literally watch venat walk the long road of human existence, the wisdom she imparts is that life is a journey about finding yourself and your purpose, which is also about finding the strength to continue and also about finding joy even as darkness descends and also about finding light everlasting amidst deepest despair. then ultima thule's conclusions end up being about how suffering and adversity are part of life but cannot be either defeated or redeemed but must merely be accepted because they are simply part and parcel of all that life has to offer, which also includes free will and new experiences and human connection and the beauty of nature (which includes all things that are), which are good in themselves, and though joy is transient suffering is also transient. meteion basically spells it out at the end

there's not a lot of room in this particular paradigm for like, deviation from the self.

but you know who bursts in at the end of the expac to be like OKAY are we done talking HERO SHIT can you acknowledge there is MORE TO YOU THAN SAVING THE WORLD can i TALK ABOUT DESIRE AND PERSONAL PURPOSE NOW

and then of course, being true to the self ends up being a major throughline of dawntrail. it's wuk lamat's struggle (how best to be queen? in the end, by not letting herself be swayed by false desire or hidden resentment as the other claimants are, and instead to live honestly and thereby honestly connect with other people), it's also her big heroic moment (getting endless sphene to live and die as herself, thereby elevating their final battle past the realpolitik struggles of two states competing for limited aether and turning it into a space for two people from unfamiliar cultures to understand each other, recognize their similarities, and come to terms with reality). it's what koana has to do, it's what BKJJ has to do, gulool ja is doing his own little baby bildungsroman right now, new sphene is figuring out what it MEANS to be true to yourself if your purpose seems to have disappeared from beneath you...all this to say it's interesting to have g'raha set it up so explicitly here

something that really interestingly sets up dawntrail again here imo: not only are both your options here about adventure (and hey, fitting for cosmic exploration release time, that's another star trek ref up top), but neither is about the threat to eorzea. wuk lamat is very explicitly in eorzea for a political purpose: she needs you to back her claim to the throne to help her defeat zoraal ja and put an end to his policy goals before they can come to fruition, and she emphasizes that in her pitch to you. and you're like "yeah i'll come, seeing new stuff sounds awesome". you CAN'T say "i don't really want to, but i cannot abide the threat you described", which is a very common sentiment the game allows you to express in other situations! see, e.g., zenos. just a neat note here.

[lezarus]

this is making me feel good about me decision to not read the dreamer trilogy so thank you for your service

again its like well this is partly on me for reading ya but trc was so special to me and i reread it a few years ago and they still held up to me so i was like okay sure maggie why not. but god. i dragged myself through those books out of spite even tho they barely had anything to do with any of the previous books and also were actively destroying stuff i liked in trc. i feel insane how are they so bad?????

[carlyraejepsans]

as an erstwhile/current(?) runner of an askblog, and as someone recently acquainted with the experience of Kissy Cutie, do you agree with cunningham's offhand remark that kissie cutie has the pacing of an askblog

lmao yeah! i wasn't sure of what he meant at first but "throwing in random characters in order to Have Stuff Happen bc there's no clear objective in the story" is kind of par for the course. unless you set up your story's objectives right outta the bat, but even then you're still gonna be beholden to the way your audience interacts with your blog: the how, the when, the how much, what they choose to focus on etc. without constantly going back and forth rereading all the entires together as one, it's VERY easy for the pacing to slip out of hand. that's partly because experiencing an ask blog developing in real time is a completely different experience to the "finished product" wrapped with a bow. maybe even more important! it's an inherently interactive medium, after all.

to speak for daemoverse specifically, it's why i'm not actually using it to tell the story! the in character "vignettes" aren't meant to be connected into a narrative, but rather, act as a backdrop for the more traditionally paced story i'm going to make for the characters one day. preparing the stage, setting up character conflicts and themes that will be tackled in the story... and, most importantly, flexing my dialogue writing skills like a cocky rooster LMFAOOO. that's the biggest strength of ask blogs imo. bite sized episodic snapshots that capture the characters' voices and bring them to life, just for a little while

[alexanderwales]

Review: The Case of the Sleeping Beauties

The Case of the Sleeping Beauties is a novella that I wrote back in 2015. Ambitiously subtitled "a Utah Sinclair mystery", it did not make any significant splash. It's got 67 lifetime sales, a 3.8 rating, and a single proper review. Some of this is simply a lack of marketing: back in 2015 I had written some fanfic and not much else, and was still working as a software engineer. I'm not sure why I wrote this novella, or decided to put it up for pay (unlike virtually everything else I've written, it's never once been up for free), but I consider it an abject failure, at least as far as writing for money goes. Also the cover sucks. The whole thing is 20,000 words, so short enough that I can easily blow through it in an afternoon. Also (still) available in EPUB, MOBI, and PDF for patrons, but I don't have firm numbers for how many people read it that way, nor if it did anything to encourage patronage.

But is it an artistic failure as well?

There is actually another Utah Sinclair mystery, it was intended as a trilogy of novellas that together would be long enough (and coherent enough) to stitch into a full book with the three cases being individual "acts". I don't know the last time I reread The Case of the Sleeping Beauties, but my guess is that it was while I was trying to complete The Case of the Slaughterhouse Prophet, and that would have been almost a decade ago.

The story was written at a time when I was playing Malifaux, a skirmish game, and is clearly heavily inspired by that, though with the serial numbers filed off. It follows Utah Sinclair, a private detective of the yonside as he wanders around a rambling city trying to figure out where undead prostitutes are coming from.

Mild spoilers follow.

Prose

The first thing I noticed is just how much noir it's channeling, and how much is being put into descriptive phrases. Stuff like this:

The first human through the portal from earthside had found himself on the outskirts of an empty city, one that seemed like it had been cobbled together by an orgy of deranged architects.

Or this:

There were a few maps of Cathopolis, but they only agreed on the areas that the Priz maintained control over. Everywhere else was a geographical bedlam.

Or this:

He was the sort of person who was waiting to disgorge his thoughts, like a mother bird ready to feed a starving chick.

Or this:

I had a revolver strapped to my ankle, one affectionately advertised in the back of the penny dreadfuls as the Silent Witness. It was supposed to be a subtle weapon, but it was still a gun, and if I’d paid chits for it instead of pulling it off a dead man I might have written a nasty letter to the manufacturer about its supposed silence.

Or this:

It took me a moment to realize it, but he was dressed up like a Catholic priest, all in black with a white collar. Even if he’d been standing in the middle of the Vatican with the Pope vouching for him, it wouldn’t have been convincing. Partly it was the scars on his face, but it was also the head that had been shaved with a secondhand blade. The snub-nosed shotgun at his side didn’t help matters either.

I assume that this is channeling Raymond Chandler, since I read a lot of detective fiction when I was a teenager (my dad had loads of the stuff) and Chandler was always a favorite. I think the density of these flourishes could be higher, and if you're going with this style, it's better that it's liberally peppered in. You don't want to sink into the rhythm "normal" prose only to have a tiny speck of flourish pop out at you.

There were a lot of things that I tightened up while reading, partly because this is the easiest thing in the world when reading in GDocs, but I don't know that I'll push a change to the ebook, partly because I would need to figure out how. Most of these changes are fairly minor. There's an overuse of semicolons, which I think I was in love with at the time, a romance that hasn't lasted. There are a few minor tweaks that are just on the order of "no, the phrase 'mechanical fingers' might be misread as poetic, it should reworded to be clear that these are prosthetic". A few of the tweaks are just to reduce down how much text there is, making it more punchy, so "the Priz didn't tax any property that a person might want to claim in this part of the city" becomes "the Priz didn't tax property in this part of the city", and this is essentially inarguably better, tighter, cleaner prose.

Also I fixed some typos, and those do make me feel like I need to figure out the reupload.

Character

I think I've gotten better at character voices through the years, but here I kind of doubt myself, since everything seems fine in that regard. Utah and his partner Ralph don't talk enough early on in my opinion, and there might be a few too many characters introduced in rapid succession, which is a problem when they're not advancing the plot. Cyanide Sally is a bartender who owns the House of Skulls, and she serves a bitter almond special that's (supposedly) fatally poisoned one time in every hundred, and this is very fun ... but it's irrelevant to the plot, it's just fun for the sake of fun.

I do think that Ralph gets speaking lines a bit too late, given that he's the second main character. My advice to my past self would be that he should be getting characterizing dialogue from the word go, and that this central relationship should be better understood by the reader much earlier. And they should be more distinct from each other: the orthogonality thesis is that every set of characters should only overlap where there's something interesting to say with that overlap. Cover up the names and see if you can tell who said what line! This does not work for Ralph and Utah, but I think it does work for most of the other characters. And I guess I wouldn't say this is fatal, since it's not like there's some grounding character arc between our detective and his sidekick.

Utah himself is ... fine. Some of his characterization comes through in the narration, and there were a few moments I particularly liked from him, but I'm not sure that I could sketch him out in a sentence. He's down on his luck, loves to break rules, lies through his teeth, scrambles around and gets back up from the hard punches. I'm not sure that this is enough. A job should be more than a job, I guess, and I do get the sense that he's skeeved out by the necromancy, but ... well, that brings us to the other thing.

Theme

This is, if you squint, or maybe even if you don't, a cop story about sex work. It also kind of doesn't have that much to say about either of those things.

Utah is a private detective, doling out justice for people who can pay him. In real life, private detectives come in a variety of flavors, but one of the most common is just the pursuit of things that are not actually criminal issues, like breach of contract, or adultery. This is a criminal issue within their world, but it's one that no one in power is pursuing. There's some clear contempt for the regular cops from Utah, and some further contempt for the law itself, since he breaks all kinds of laws in this lawless world, including murdering two men, which doesn't greatly affect him. This is self-defense, but still. I don't think there's some great thesis on criminality or justice here, and the novella overall is justice-neutral, seemingly unconcerned with what's right or wrong, only trying to work the problem. This is maybe fine?

And the sex work stuff is seen through the lens of Utah, and this is also seen as maybe being just morally neutral in a matter-of-fact way, something that people do in order to get by, no different from working in a coal mine or whatever. And there's exploitation, but that's no different from working in a coal mine. So I think this story has a viewpoint, but not a thesis.

Does a story need a thesis? Does a little novella like this need to have something to say about the world and the people in it? I don't know, I guess not, but I sure do prefer when there's something to grab onto. I am a sucker for story structure though, and a nice little character arc, and this piece ... does not really have that. Utah is challenged, but he's not challenged to his core, and does not grow and change, and this probably fine for a 20k word novella.

I think in the end it's more of a "wouldn't it be fucked up" kind of story, and in this case I don't particularly like that, since it's not fucked up enough.

Ideas

One of the other things that I look for in any story is cool ideas, and this is one of the things that I like most about reading long ago pieces, because sometimes I've forgotten those ideas.

The idea density is okay, but I would have liked to see more. A weird fiction setting is a playground for ideas, and I feel like especially in the back half, there's just not enough playing going on. It is only 20k words, but that feels like it's enough for easily twice as many little fucked up weird things. So that's what I would do, include more fucked up weird things. (The part where they go to the manor is the one that stands out clearly to me as needing more fucked up weird things, there should have been some kind of magic sculpture there or a steampunk maid or something.)

Of all the stuff that I had forgotten about, my favorite was the necromancy lobbyist, a guy who just really believed that necromancy should be legal, but was supposedly not a necromancer himself. So he's just talking about like regulatory schemes and social mores, and this is funny. I'm glad he wasn't a bad guy in the end, for some reason I thought he was going to be involved in the plot in a more critical way. Instead, he's just a happy little academic.

Conclusion

Fun to reread, and no, I would say not an artistic failure. Definitely feels like it wants a second mystery to follow after it. I believe The Case of the Slaughterhouse Prophet is approximately half written, which with editing work means only a quarter written, but again, the numbers mean that there's just no way that I can justify that as anything but a labor of love.

I wouldn't say that this is the best thing I've ever written, but I think it compares favorably to the other mid-length stuff. Definitely would have been stronger with a thematic core, and with more cohesion between protagonist and plot, but I also think that's fine.

I guess, having read it after nearly a decade, I'm feeling weirdly defensive about it for no particular reason. It might have been one thing if it had just not sold, that's partly just down to the lack of marketing and also the market for novellas being bad. But it also scored poorly in terms of ratings, and on top of that, never got enough reviews for me to get a picture of what was not hitting right, which leaves me grappling in the dark.

So I'd say that I learned approximately nothing from this, except that I had some more ideas for a Weird West kind of story, if I ever end up writing one of those.

[1800titz]

isla lives in my head rent free so much that I felt bad for her when I was taking a shower today and the water was ice cold. My girl’s brave af for not safe wording when Mr Eros made her take a cold shower. Ughhh I love them both so much. I reread the blurb today and I was wondering if you would ever expand on what their dynamic looks like day to day. The blurb sort of alluded to maintenance spanking, use of belt and Isla standing in a corner. I just loved the non-sexual dominance that was alluded in that blurb!

HII yEAH :D I was trying to find a couple of TPE (total power exchange) asks with them I SWEAR I answered like a year ago to link back over but I have no idea if I mistagged them or just missed them entirely when I was looking or what because they are lost atm ndjxk. I probably covered this a lot better somewhere else and I’m just going off the dome right now BUT.

First and foremost kind of want to give context for the TPE. There’s no like SET second part to their story, so I really only have a general idea of how I imagine them playing out BUT. Basically I think that they start dating, at some point they start having the same sex they were having at Indulge, and then maybe a year/year and a half-ish into their relationship they kind of-sort of slip into TPE (but not like intense TPE if that makes sense). I think Isla would probably be the one to express interest first (which is so important imo given the power dynamic). I kind of knew I wanted them to end up a TPE couple, so this was sort of insinuated in chapter 10 when Isla talks about how she basically doesn’t want to have to worry about controlling everything. And I think that kind of sets a foundation for the eventual shift. She’d probably be super weird initially about bringing it up, given that she’s never been in a romantic dynamic like that, but then of course Harry would be very like “Why are you being weird asking about this. It’s me LOL.” The dynamic also definitely shifts into what it becomes over time— like Harry asks what she wants out of the TPE, they set little ground rules together, test it out, and see what works and what doesn’t. It’s just as new for Harry as it is for Isla, so they very much make it their own.

It probably starts with super subtle things like ordering for her at a restaurant (“You want the pasta, yeah?” in front of the waiter with a glance at her, and then he decides on something from that section on the menu) or choosing an accessory for her to wear the next day, like a specific necklace. I think the majority of it is partly based around the way they both get off on the power exchange and partly based on Isla being able to relax in everyday life by relinquishing control. As they build on things, rule breaks start to come with pre-discussed consequences. Like they sit down together and make a list of punishments they’re both comfortable with, and all of it is stuff that could be a funishment, but is altered just enough to be a consequence. Like obviously Isla enjoys spanking and she has a pretty high pain threshold, so if it’s a consequence, he uses an implement she doesn’t love or spanks her a little harder. On one hand, Isla is into humiliation, but on the other she has a really hard time staying still/biting back any little quips she has, so sometimes he’ll have her stand in the corner after (random unrelated story overlap, but spanko has a similar scene in chapter two to how I kind of imagine this playing out between Isla and Harry actually. Because spoiler— to no one’s surprise— spanko is also very brat tamer energy). TDIAGrry is very “punishment fits the crime,” so cold shower is kind of funny to him for “cooling off” if she breaks no touch, writing lines is an annoying, super tedious thing for breaking a rule and not doing something that takes two seconds like putting her shoes in the right spot or something. Basically all of this stuff is a consequence but Isla simultaneously enjoys it (probably not in the moment) because it goes back to relinquishing control and being taken care of. Also none of the consequences happen out of anger or frustration between them or anything like that— they don’t use it to resolve genuine issues between them without an in-depth conversation (if TPE dynamic is even applicable to the situation). Like I think I mentioned Harry spanking Isla for seriously endangering herself at one point or something, but they obviously talk everything out before doing that, and I think that moment and introducing aspects of the TPE into it adds a more serious touch to an otherwise fun dynamic and makes Isla feel really cared for. Also, TDIAGrry never, ever, ever does anything out of genuinely taking control from her, or to create an actual power imbalance, or because he sees her as less capable than him, etc— Isla is ultimately in control of everything because they have safe words and can stop anything at any time. Even if it’s something super subtle/seemingly inconsequential, like him choosing what underwear she’s wearing that day— if she doesn’t want to do it, she doesn’t have to, and all of the control Harry has over her is a very surface level illusion that she allows.

And I think when it comes to their day-to-day they wouldn’t be any different from the ice skating extras or the temp play extras— like they’d be very cozy mundane 90% of the time and the dynamic would stay very playful because 1. they’re a couple first and foremost and 2. Harry is not at all a no fun, I-expect-outright-obedience type of dom at all (like he’d just find a dynamic with 0 power struggle to be super boring) SO in theory, under the general basis of/the umbrella term of Total Power Exchange, he’d probably “let” a lot more slide I think. Like he’s not auto snapping on Isla for giving him playful attitude because that’s very not them. I think Harry is a super fun dom and kind of plays into a bit of everything— I wouldn’t categorize him as a soft dom (for obvious reasons) but because he’s a brat tamer he’s very like push me push me push me and lets her dig and dig and dig until he breaks. But yk he’s very like. Sweetest sweetie pie until the bedroom door closes so. I love him idk. The maintenance stuff you mentioned falls into that other 10% of the time and is part of keeping the TPE going— it’s just kind of whenever he’s feeling extra dommy (and Isla definitely enjoys it in a way, despite all the surface level griping she gives him over it). If she hasn’t earned a consequence in a while it’s just kind of a “well we haven’t done this in a while so here this is” LOL. I don’t imagine them consistently sticking to TPE forever, although they probably revisit it every now and again. Obviously as time passes and they go through new life developments things change naturally over time and they work with that.

ANYWAYS sorry for the essay but I hope this kind of clarified my thought process on how things play out with them after the actual story! :D

[collectionoftulips]

So I was rereading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (still working my way through the reread) and I went with a friend to see the new movie and here are some thoughts on Lucy Gray and Snow and all that stuff, in case anyone is interested, particularly the differences made between the book and the movie.

The first thing that stood out to me was the difference between (from what I could tell) book!Lucy Gray and movie!Lucy Gray. In the book, I think that Lucy Gray is much more of an ambiguous character compared to how she was in the movie (I wonder if it was to help make the main message of the film clearer (in classic 'beat you over the head with the metaphor' Hollywood fashion)). There is so much emphasis placed in the beginning of the book on how Lucy Gray adjusts her appearance, how she makes sure that she looks as good as she can - a tendency that is clearer in the book when she and Snow more overtly also strategise what she should sing when she's on television. The book makes it clear that they have had discussions about what she might or might not perform to get as many sponsors as possible before the event and he is surprised when she ends up singing something other than what they had discussed. To me, it felt like that the book spent more time showing us how similar they are to each other by showing how they manipulate people through impression management. Lucy Gray in the books is okay with singing for strategy, while in the movie, she insists on maintaining some sort of 'authenticity' by only singing when she is inspired to do so.

Something to acknowledge, of course, is that Snow is a character who fundamentally trusts no one. He is aware of Lucy Gray's tendencies and perhaps they are overemphasised to us as the reader because in the book we spend so much time in his head. Perhaps the ambiguity around Lucy Gray is merely a reflection of Snow's suspiciousness, but I like to think that she is similar to Snow in that she knows that there is power to being likeable to the right people and sometimes that's the only card you can play when the odds are stacked against you (Snow's sense of being wronged is obviously much more a product of his own delusion, while Lucy Gray's is much more real). It might be counter-intuitive, but I think having Lucy Gray and Snow be more similar on that level would make the deeper themes of the movie clearer: discussions of 'human nature' is fairly reductive and people have the capacity of both good and evil, sometimes at once, and if you assume the worst in people on your quest to power, you will probably draw that out but also that's how you become a ruthless dictator.

The fundamental difference between Lucy Gray and Snow in the end is that Lucy Gray believes in the good in people, and Snow does not.

So why am I going on about this? Well, partly because these thoughts have been floating around in my head, but also in terms of the romance aspect of the film, I thought it might have some potentially interesting implications. Mainly, do I think that the romance between Lucy Gray and Snow was genuine? Yes and no.

Yes in the sense that they did have a connection and whatnot, but also no for a few reasons. Firstly, because I think one of the main aspects of why Snow becomes attracted to Lucy Gray is because his vanity is flattered. He likes the idea that this now immensely popular girl likes him, that he managed to win her over, that despite that he's Capitol and part of the Games, she trusts him. He likes the idea of the romance, once he gets to District 12 (I'm not there at the rereading yet though) it's not like that he has a lot else to do, and it would make sense for him to try carve something out with Lucy as a backup as it looks like his future in the Capitol for all intents and purposes is toast.

Secondly, I think Lucy Gray is genuinely intrigued and attracted to Snow. But she's also someone who was deeply betrayed with the Reaping, deeply traumatised, and still reeling from the breakup that caused her to be in the Games. Then this handsome, charming man shows up who seems to care for her and goes above and beyond expectations as her mentor. At the start, she is very aware of the fact that he's Capitol is in the back of her mind. She also knows that she needs to keep him on side while she is in the Games (as she clearly sees that he's more invested than 99% of other mentors and she is gaining advantages from that investment that other tributes could only dream of). But over time, he demonstrates that he wants her to survive and he helps her out. When he then shows up in 12, she is surprised and she never expected to see him again. But he seemed to be a good person from everything he did for her in the Games (some of it she could barely guess at), and she's now basically forced to live in the same district as her ex and the girl who made her compete in the Games. He shows up, seemingly offering this fairytale and she happily goes along with it - after all, she likes him well enough. But she also has very little sense of who he actually is and she's (probably) still hurting a bit too much from her previous relationship for it to be a relationship where she is truly and deeply in love.

And then when she realises that he set up his seemingly only friend to be killed, she realised that her dream prince is actually not the kind of man she thought that he was, and that everyone is expendable to him. She is the apple of his eye at the moment, but eventually the shiny romance of it all will fade, so the best thing to do was to escape.

I don't know, maybe I just like the idea that Lucy Gray and Snow were people who had potential and that they were essentially two people who the world had broken in two, clinging to each other, and if it wasn't for Snow's narcissism and ruthlessness, if he had essentially been a better person, they could have really had something.

[porridgefeast]

last [insert thing here]

Rules: Tag 10 people you want to know more about (or not im not ur mom)

I was tagged by @obsessedferalgremlin. Thanks for thinking of me! It takes me forever to do things when tagged, but I still enjoy it. Here goes!

last song

Daisy Rickman, Willow's Song (from The Wicker Man)

This song is a bit weird and creepy but also very sweet, just as it ought to be for the movie it's in. I had a fascination with this version for a while and it led to me having lunch with a former coworker I really love to see, so it was a bit magical for me.

last film

Casablanca. My dad wanted to see it on the big screen but also I'm a big Bogart fan.

last book

I've been rereading the Locked Tomb novels in audiobook form. I finished Harrow last week & now I'm doing Nona. They both benefit a lot from rereading.

last tv show

Boys in Love. It's nice!

sweet/spicy/savoury:

Guess I have to say sweet since I always put a lot of sugar in my tea. And sweet will always be more of a craving, even if that's partly because I have to go out of my way for it.

relationship status:

Very single, for reasons.

last thing googled:

"Popcorn tree texas," because supposedly that's what's currently littering my home with pollen bits. What even is a popcorn tree? If they're native to Asia then why is this thing here?

currently looking forward to:

It can be tough looking forward to stuff at the beginning of what is already a really hot central TX summer. Makes me tempted to say "hiding inside and having a full day where I'm not sweaty," but that's rather sad. So... seeing my niblings again. Rereading Villette for book club.

current obsession:

I guess one recent long term-ish fixation is visiting Caddo Lake State Park in east TX, for the cypress trees (I love cypress trees, they feel almost holy to me). But I don't want to attempt that until the weather gets reasonable again, which isn't for months.

Someday I will tag somebody in something, but today is not that day.

[vancruejovi]

I ONLY HAVE 19 BOOKS LEFT ON MY PHYSICAL TBR YIPPEEEE ✨✨ THIS TOOK FOREVERRRR

I’ve wanted to finish reading all my books on my TBR for FOREVER and I’ve been slowly working my way through them but now is kinda the hard part because all of the books on my TBR are…not ideal lmao. I had a lot of older YA stuff and intense heavy reads that even though I knew the reasons I picked them up, I just never felt in the mood for them anymore. But I just KNEW I had to read them, and I have a plan! And I can be free to buy books I’m excited about and not worry about shelf space!! The books I have to read (but am struggling with) are as follows;

I’ve got books 6-11 of the Arsene Lupin series to read since I got the whole set (I finished the whole ACD Sherlock series even though I was procrastinating Last Bow because…reasons). I struggle a lot with series, especially ones this length and you’ll see that later on in my yap too, but I really do love the character of Arsene Lupin (I love him and Sherlock equally, why pit two bad bitches against each other) and I have a little sleeve that they go in, and I want to finish the series to fill in the little sleeve, y’know?

I also have two big rereads with the War/Test of the Twins with Dragonlance to finish my reread of the Legends trilogy. I love the Dragonlance books so so so much but Dragonlance is one of those worlds that consumes me whole so I have to kinda separate my brain time for them, if that makes any sense lol

Another kinda reread but not really is books 4-6 of the Vampire Chronicles, I’ve read up to Realm of Atlantis before but I never really reread the whole series and only read Interview and mayyybe Vampire Lestat since those are my favourites. This is another one that kinda consumes my soul. I recently finished Queen of The Damned so I’ll probably get down to business with the rest of the series

I also have 3 memoirs (I Am Ozzy, Dancing With Myself and Star Trek Memories). Ozzy’s has been on my TBR for the second longest time so I feel bad. I really struggle getting into memoirs when I’m not hyperfixating on that subject or person right that second, but I’m also really interested in the minds and lives of all three of these people so it’s kinda hard.

Partly on that, I have the last in the Black Coffee Blues trilogy and Brave New World, both books with messages I’m fascinated with…but are also really really heavy. And I’ve been struggling with picking them up because life has been feeding us enough crap that reading about how scary the world is is kinda hard. I’ve been basically exclusively reading fiction recently because of that. These two will probably be the hardest to get into out of all of them

And my arch rival, the rest of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. The first one is one of my most favourite books of all time, genuinely perfect book. But because it’s so perfect for me, I’m so nervous that the rest won’t be the same (even though I KNOW they’re just as good). This is also the most frustrating because they’re really quick reads for me with the writing style, in my fav genre, with all the things I love but I just CANT sit down and read them. I really just need to have like a 24hr readathon one of these days and just crack through the series, that’s probably the same with most of these.

My plan is to finish all these books by the end of the year (hopefully) and then I can buy books I’m excited with in the moment and read them without the guilt of having a bunch of unread books staring at me lol. Wish me luck everyone 🫡

[witchhuntress]

I’ve been trying to write an hour or so sprints the past 2 weeks, not just on GH Day, & I just remembered once again how much writing moves me.

I often think about why people read my fanfics when my English wasn’t so good back then, & I guess I can partly understand it. I guess my love for writing shows so much? When I started rereading my fanfics, despite the embarrassment at the bad grammar or English usage mistakes, I found how far I really went into plotting despite actually having less time w/ school & work back then. I dared to write despite knowing that it’s not perhaps my best work.

I guess, in short, I could tell I poured my heart into these fanfics despite not being the most easy to read, & I guess that’s a feat in itself? I also wrote stuff that I now find actually make the stories unpredictable for readers, w/o totally intending it to lol Examples of that is definitely parts of Reminiscence, most of Dollmaker, parts of Naru’s Moving Castle, Cloud, & the one-shot, The Idiot Scientist. Infinity also has some of these parts, especially chapter 3, from the ones released.

Reading my past writing really just makes me reflect about how hard I worked on stuff that I couldn’t believe I had written this or that before. This isn’t to flex lol Because my writing was definitely still mediocre, but it was also exciting to reread despite the bad English. And I’m glad that it moved readers despite my problems in writing. That people still reviewed despite such problems.

I guess I’m really just amazed people read my stories even when there are better written ones out there.

[modern-inheritance]

*slurps coffee*

Something that I'm starting to find amusing is the difference between my emotion when I write/read/reread vs the emotions that I get when I'm mumbling dialogue/character moments aloud and when I'm freaking out over the canon stuff.

I'm very monotone when I'm writing. Not like...vocally monotone but more like...facially, emotionally, etc. I just...exist and write. I do not really feel the emotions of the characters as I write, I guess, unless I get super super deep into a 'they write themselves' bit. That's part of the perk of writing in 3rd person and not fully adhering to a single POV most of the time.

This is why I might seem surprised, embarrassed or not understand all that well when someone says they had an emotional reaction to something I wrote. It's taken a long, long time for me to even partly comprehend that my writing can evoke emotions in others. Whenever I read something I enjoy, it's less an emotional reaction and more kinda like a uh...hm...like an urge to know what happens next. Last time I did a full, dedicated reread of IC, I remember being very eager to get to cafe one day so I could sit down and 'See what Eragon, Saphira and Brom get up to next' despite knowing the general plot. As far as I can tell/remember right now, it's hard to get emotional responses from me when I read. Same for writing. I write what comes out of my fingers and my brain. I 'feel' it but not emotion feel it.

All this to say...

lol if I post the current unaltered memory I'm working on for Arya that the Breath in MIC alters and she has to change back...

I'm so sorry. I don't know for sure (obviously), but I think this might make some people sad.

[asirensrage]

Hello hello 👋🩷👋🩷👋, I was just rereading your Lost Boys story for like, the hundredth time and it got me thinking about the feelings I've been having with fanfic's recently. There's no such thing as being too old for fanficton but I find myself unable to emerse the same way I did years ago. When I've now surpassed these characters in age, and when I read the reactions of the MC's, I can't relate anymore. It feels melancholy.

Then there's the fact that I can't read stories where the mc is out of character anymore, and that is just ridiculous. Like, why the hell can't this nutjob, serial killer be affectionate and loving? None of this is real, it's fiction, it shouldn't throw me off to view these characters in a different light.

I feel like I've lost the ability to really fall into a story and when it's taken up so much of life, I feel sort of lost.

Have you ever felt these sort of things?

Hey! It's been awhile but I hope things are going well overall.

As for your question, yeah, I get it. I totally do. There are times when I can't find myself invested in the same fandoms or characters that I used to take such joy in before. Even fanfics I loved sometimes I reread and can't fully get immersed back, but that's okay. It happens. It doesn't really have to do with aging, it's more about how priorities and interests shift in time. It sounds like you're looking for more depth in what you're reading.

Usually, when I find myself struggling to relate to characters or MCs it ends up resulting in me writing my own fics, tbh. Because I get frustrated at the reactions and then go to make my ocs react in more realistic ways imo. Sometimes I'll write things that age up characters just so I can give more dimension to them (also usually when I write darker stuff lol). (This is partly why i end up with a million wips lol)

I think you have to give yourself some grace. There's nothing wrong with you, or in the writing you're finding yourself in, but it may not be what you need in that moment. That's fine. It happens. That doesn't mean you'll never enjoy it again, you just may need to take a break or even shift in what you're reading (character, fandom or other).

If you continue your search for fics that fulfill that feeling, I hope you find more than you expect.

[wrongcaitlyn]

i started rereading tyt and i had a question. it’s probably answered within the fic but my english is not really that good but what exactly happened between nico, jason and bryce in the start of the fic??? was it a cupid situation or something totally different??

ahh no worries!! yeah it's intentionally made pretty vague, i think that i gave a short-ish summary of it but if that wasn't super clear that's 100% on me lmao - basically, i think towards the end of their freshman year-ish? or like mid freshman year. not entirely sure when but some time during their freshman year, it was bryce, jason, and nico in an empty classroom (i never put a reason why, but the image i pictured was like nico accidentally forgot smth like a pencil or his phone or something in the classroom and went to get it, meanwhile bryce was holding up jason and trying to get him to talk about stuff/be friends... like clout-chasing shit. he's an asshole but anyway

jason being the people-pleaser he is just stands there and kinda listens as bryce brags abt things that he doesn't even care abt, and then nico walks in to get his pencil or whatever it is, and bryce just takes this as an opportunity to like - gain jason's approval? or something? keep in mind that bryce is just a total dick, and jason is not, but bryce does not know that about jason. but anyway, i don't think he *actually* knew that nico was trans/gay, but just made assumptions/very negative remarks in relation to that in a sort of mocking manner.

it wasn't really ment to parallel cupid, because cupid most definitely knew that nico was gay. and he's a literal god. in this case, it's just a teenage boy doing a very shitty thing because he thought it'd make him cool (not excusing that at ALL hopefully this doesn't come off in a "boys will be boys" way because that's not what i'm intending)

nico, obviously, when hearing the implication, immediately dashes, assuming that bryce has somehow figured it out, and will then be telling the entire school, but really, bryce just picked on nico because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. unfortunately, nico doesn't see jason do a complete 180 on bryce (he's no longer just tolerating him), and eventually gets him expelled too. jason doesn't necessarily *know* if what bryce said was true, but he makes the assumption that based on nico's reaction, it was true to some extent, and it leads to him deciding on sitting at nico/leo/will's table the next year (partly because he's like, ah, gay friends for piper because i am totally a straight ally, and partly because he just doesn't know anyone else at this school who isn't a complete asshole- seeing that octavian and the others were friends with bryce)

so yeah it's pretty vague in my head, and it's not necessarily "nico was outed by someone who very definitely knew about his sexuality" but rather "bryce was pulling assumptions out of his ass to try and make bullying seem cool when it really really wasn't and nico was just unfortunately the one who was there at the time"

but obviously, that's not going to make a huge difference in nico's opinion. there was no way for him to know that bryce was just guessing. and so when he's able to very vaguely and briefly explain the situation to will and leo, he just thinks that he's been outed. he's shocked when he gets to school the next week and realizes that literally no one knows, and no one cares about him, just the same as last week

thank you for the ask!!