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steviewashere · 2 months ago

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I want to write something sort of meta, hear me out on it. Sorry, if this hits too close to home. The idea came to me and I needed to get it out of my system. And...would you look at that, another half-written fic.

Steve ends up getting really into Star Wars after Dustin shows him to it. Like, so much that he gets himself involved with conventions, cosplay, collecting anything and everything he can. He's involved in a fandom space. Learns the world of fan fiction. And let's say that maybe, during his time figuring out where he wants to go with life, he picks up writing fanfic as a hobby.

It encourages him to get an English degree. Encourages him to lean more into that hobby, but then expanding upon it to write original short stories and small novels that go published. But he holds strong to Star Wars and fandom and finding his spot cemented in it. He's been a fan for...nearly forty years at this point (set in 2024, ugh I know).

And maybe he dabbles in online spaces here and there. He ignores the insufferable adults in the Star Wars fandom (the "um, actually..." guys, btw). Indulges the effort of typing out his handwritten fan fiction, ones he used to bring and pass around at conventions, ones he'd let Eddie read with a shy look in his eyes. And he posts them online, has a Tumblr account, maybe does a few short things on Twitter, definitely is on AO3 (albeit newer, having never attempted online fan work before).

But then...then he gets his first little bit of hate. Vicious, gross comments on his work. Sometimes in private messages. Even publicly, once, on Twitter. It irks him. He holds strong, he does. But then it gets worse and worse and somehow, worse. Younger people claiming he's too old, others claiming that he can't write for certain characters because they're out of his age range, that he can't ship certain people, he can't say that a character would do this or that, that Star Wars is media for a younger audience (despite being somebody who saw it "back in the day"). But that he...That he's not supposed to be there.

And that last little comment sticks with him for a long time. It makes his effort and his attention and his love for writing fanworks falter. He stops. Thinks about the characters he loves, of Leia and Han or even Luke and Han or Lando and Han (listen he loves writing Han). But then he wonders if it's even worth it, to indulge this interest anymore. Yeah, maybe he's older than the source material. Sure, maybe he was introduced to it a little later than most, but that doesn't mean he doesn't love it. Yet, his attention towards Star Wars completely falls away.

He stops watching it. His DVDs going dusty and unused. Starts putting away all his action figures, because what if he posts a photo one day and somebody sees them and claims that that's not for him and—

Then, he goes completely offline from fandom. Even if he still gets the emails from users who actually enjoy his stuff, ignoring them completely. Focuses on using the internet for work. For his novels, for the little stories he actually gets paid to write. But his work just isn't the same. The passion, despite being an original story and original source material, is completely dwindled.

His hobby has been stripped from him. His interest has been knocked straight out of his hands. And he just...moves on.

Even if it hurts to go down into the basement of he and Eddie's home, eyes catching on the see-through bins of original action figures, Lego sets, comic books. Even if it makes something strangle in his chest when he opens up the browser on his phone and it immediately opens to a new ship he'd been getting into: Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker—because he finally picked up The Mandalorian, because he was finally talked into watching it when he had the free time.

And then it all bursts over when Eddie finally approaches him about it, when they're enjoying a night-in, sitting around lazily on their sofa.

"There's a convention coming into town," he comments, "supposedly, Hayden Christensen is going to be there. We should go, try and meet him."

Steve just grunts in response.

"Oh-kay...or we could just stay home and watch the movie?" Eddie suggests. "Been a while since I've seen Darth on screen, telling Luke about"—

"I don't want to," Steve cuts in quietly, "isn't really my thing anymore."

Silence then follows. For a beat. Then two. A third.

"Not your thing?" Eddie asks him incredulously. "Not too long ago you were raving all about that new show that's coming out! That you saw they were doing lightsaber whips and you were excited to see how they worked! What do you mean it's 'not your thing'?"

Steve shrugs. "Grew out of it or whatever. Got more important things to focus on now." He sniffs, trying to keep himself held together, grumpy and firm in his decision.

Eddie's stare drills into the side of his face. Scalding, just like that lava was in Revenge of The Sith. "Baby," he speaks softly, "did something happen? You haven't even...you don't read your beautiful little stories to me anymore. In fact, now that I think about it, I haven't even seen your lightsabers around here. What's goin' on?"

He fiddles with the hem of his shirt. A ratty plain white t-shirt that he wears now when he's lounging around the house. It used to be one with the Millennium Falcon on it, but that's tucked down far in his dresser. Not for him anymore.

"Steve," Eddie presses, "did something happen?"

His stare stays down at his lap, still fiddling with his shirt. Fingers flexing unfamiliarly in the strings, unlike the loose ones on his Star Wars shirts. "I just"—Steve heaves a deep sigh—"it's time I grow up. It's...not for me anymore. Too old for it now, I guess."

"You guess or you know? Because nobody's too old for anything. Unless, y'know, you're like eighty-nine and in terrible health and trying to hike Everest, then..."

Despite everything, Steve finds himself chuckling. A giddy little sound here and gone in a breath. He shrugs again, albeit smaller this time. Crumbling within himself. Quietly, honestly, he admits, "People were being mean to me about it online. About my writing. That I'm doing it wrong, that I—that I'm too old for it. That I don't belong because of my age." He finally brings himself to look at Eddie, blearily because his eyes are aching and wet. "I got to thinking and I...maybe I've just been too caught up in my own bliss to realize that those people are right. They're right and I shouldn't be into kids stuff anymore."

Eddie makes a soft, sad cooing noise in the back of his throat. "Oh, baby," he breathes. "Baby, those people don't know a single damn thing about your love. But...but I do. I know that you've seen every single Star Wars movie more times than I've probably eaten in my entire life. And what about all those Halloween costumes over the years? I didn't dress up like Leia for nothing, Mr. Solo."

Steve scoffs wetly. Goes to protest, but—

"And...and that handshake! The one with Dustin? You guys have had that for nearly forty fucking years! So, why bother indulging any of these...these hardasses on the internet? Did they sit next to you on the sofa as you fucking curled yourself like a shrimp and wrote every little intricate detail of a kiss between Luke and Han? Have they read your work while you blushed all shy, while you tucked your hair behind your ear and asked for the most earnest of feedback, to make sure you spelt things correctly or put a comma in the right place? These people, did they get to see you blossom and grow like a fucking bushel of roses over your hobby?

"Because I know I did. And even though you were nervous about your words on the paper, you still came to me. You still wrote and wrote and wrote until I had to bully you into breaks, just so you wouldn't ruin your poor wrists. If they had even an ounce of the passion that you do, they could write their own stories. They can make their own endings and make the characters the way they imagine them.

"They choose, instead, to—what—make fun of you because you have a space to express yourself? Because you found passion and turned it into something so beautiful, even I—a dungeon master, someone supposed to be amazing at storytelling—can't put into words? You found a way to do that, Steve. And you do that with kindness. You do it for free, mind you. If their only passion sits within sending you vitriol over people who aren't even remotely close to real, then they're the ones who don't belong.

"If I've learned anything, fandom is a space to share and bounce off each other's words. It's community and it's belonging and it's sharing what you love because you just love it. Fandom isn't bullying. Bullying is just bullying, Steve.

"And everything you've ever done in your life, in regards to fandom and outside of it, is so much better than hate. You may be a nerd or...or a little bit overzealous or whatever, but at least you aren't hateful. I think being hateful, that's worse—don't you think?"

Steve can only stare in response, fast tears down his cheeks, hands shaking in his shirt. Mind reeling. Because, yes, Eddie's right. And he maybe should've talked about it initially, but the hurt festered and festered and tangled and grew until he was nothing but an unhealed scab. And Eddie, he's the antiseptic to his uncovered cuts—the ones deep on his heart, where all his love is—even for things considered mundane, like movies, like TV shows.

"Steve," Eddie carefully murmurs, wrapping Steve's hands with his own, "you don't have to do something right to love it. You don't have to be a certain way to be happy. If Star Wars made you happy, then why give it up?"

He sniffles and chokes back on a sob. Because, again—damnit—Eddie's right. "I miss it," he admits quietly, "all I've done is miss it."

Eddie gives him a small smile. Something achingly soft that reaches deep within Steve. "Then open your arms and welcome it back, baby," he whispers, "even if you can't be online anymore, do it for yourself."

"I...I want to try it again, I'm just...scared. What if people hate it all over again? What if they're just nasty to me and shut me down and push me to the side and"—

"But what if they love it? What if your readers have missed you just as much?"

"You think?" he meekly asks.

Eddie's eyes widen and his eyebrows shoot up his forehead. "I know, actually. Your emails keep coming in on the computer's desktop because I keep forgetting to log you out. And, baby, you would not believe how many people have been eager for updates, for your return." His thumbs work into the backs of Steve's hands, warm and sure. "And, if it helps, maybe I can moderate your comments before you look at 'em? I'll read them to myself and if they're mean, I'll delete them."

Steve blows out a breathy little chuckle. "You'll just get mad at them," he gently teases. "But that doesn't sound too bad. Maybe I should try again. Not yet, though. I'm not ready."

"That's okay," Eddie assures, "take things slow. Maybe we start with watching the movies again? Getting your lightsabers back on display?"

"Can we go to the convention, too?"

"We can do whatever you want, Stevie."

For the first time in a long while, Steve finds himself smiling. "I love you," he whispers.

"I know."

#stranger things #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #future fic #modern day #Steve gets involved in a fandom space #established steddie

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destinationtoast · 5 months ago

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1/3 - Hi there! Three (I think) part ask incoming. You're the main person I know of who compiles tons of interesting fandom stats, so I wanted to ask you about it if you have the time to answer. :) I think a lot about how AO3 works great as a fan*fic* archive, but for other fanworks, like images, audio, video, etc., it's only as good as wherever the media is being hosted. With the way hosting sites come and go, or change their TOS to nuke nsfw or queer content, etc., it makes me wonder

how many broken image links litter AO3 at this point. I know it's not considered the primary place to find fanart, but a lot of folks do post images there—for events like Big Bangs, as standalone art, and even as decorative section breaks, etc. My question is: do you think there's a way to look at, say, works tagged with #fanart (of which there are 99,504 atm) and determine what percentage of those are broken links? From what little I understand, one would have to (perhaps with the use of a simple bot?) try to open any link bordered by the <img src> html, and see what portion of those return an error versus what ones actually load? I suppose it could even be something like looking at fanart posted in 2007, 2012, 2017, and 2022 to compare how many older links are broken versus newer links. Anyway, this may be completely unfeasible, but I figured I'd ask about your thoughts! Thanks!

Ooh, thanks for the great question! I took a while to answer because I wasn't initially sure what to recommend and ended up gathering some data to investigate. (If anyone else also has relevant data, please share in the notes!)

I liked your idea of looking at samples different years going back, and I decided to look through 100 AO3 works tagged "Fanart" (or a subtag) that were posted 10 years ago -- as a very fast starting point, I didn't even take a random sample of works, I instead looked at the first 100 multimedia fanworks posted in July 2014. (And August, when necessary; see more notes on methodology at the end.) Please keep in mind that this sample that may not be very representative of AO3 more broadly; to get better estimates, more sampling would be needed. Based on this initial data gathering (and the fact that most fanworks on AO3 were posted within the past 10 years), I would tentatively guess that that most fanart, fanvids, and podfic on AO3 still have accessible multimedia.

Given how many broken links and embeds there are on older webpages, I assumed that a ton of the links from 10 years ago would be broken. But I was pleasantly surprised by the results:

Wow -- 10 years on roughly 90% of the multimedia still works! I was honestly floored; I'd been originally planning to also look at 5 years ago to see how much better that was, but if ~90% are still working 10 years on, 5 years ago doesn't have room to be dramatically better. (However, I'd love to see more follow up sampling across different years to find out.)

There were a lot of AO3 users in this sample who posted multiple works -- some posted as many as a dozen multimedia works in July 2014. I didn't want the results to be overly skewed by any one fanwork creator, so I also redid the analysis with just one work from each unique creator:

Okay, cool, those results are pretty similar. I also did some further breakdowns on this smaller set of works to look at which hosts creators were using, and how many of the hosts were still working:

The most common fanart host used in this sample was Tumblr, then wixmp -- which I think from some very quick googling might be because Deviantart switched to using Wix for image hosting at some point? (i.e., I think most of those artists may have posted their art on Deviantart, then linked to/embedded the image on AO3, and the image's direct URL was was wixmp.) There were a few other hosts at the time that were used by 5+ different artists in the sample, and then there were a whole lot of hosts were used by just one or a few artists.

Most of the 10-year-old fanart is still up for all of these hosting categories! Photobucket is the least reliable of the most commonly used hosts. In the Other category, 25% of the links are broken, but that's still better than I expected (see full host list here).

This is getting long, so I'm moving the breakdowns for fanvids and podfic beneath the cut:

Fanvids were almost all hosted on YouTube, Vimeo, or both (the above categories are not mutually exclusive). All the Vimeo links still worked, whether they required a password to view or not. Most YouTube links were working, and the few missing ones had almost all been taken down by YouTube for copyright reasons (according to the errors I got -- I'm not rendering judgment about whether they were actually fair use), rather than by the vidder who posted it. And almost a third of vidders also linked to other hosts besides the big two, but many of those links were broken; 59% still worked. (see full host list here)

For podfic, mediafire was a popular solution 10 years ago, though many podficcers used it as a backup rather than the main link that they shared. A lot of podficcers made use of a fandom hosting site that specialized in podfic -- either parakaproductions.com or audiofic.jinjurly.com. Four podficcers used soundcloud (often as a backup). And once again there were a lot of less-frequently used hosts, often used as backup links; 69% of those still worked. (see full host list here)

Some methodology notes and further thoughts:

For fanvids and podfic (but mostly not from fanart), the fanwork creators tended to provide multiple links, and in those cases, I counted the multimedia as working if at least one of the links was still working.

I counted embedded media and links to other sites that host the media all the same way.

I counted the media as broken if I got a 404 when I tried to visit it, or if a site like YouTube had taken it down due to copyright issues, or if I got an Access Denied message for a site like Google Drive.

I counted the media as working if it required a password that was given on the page (common with Vimeo), or if an embed was broken but there were working links to other sites.

How representative is this data? Well, these samples contained most/all of the multimedia fanworks posted in July 2014; that month, there were 70 fanvids, 135 podfic, and 186 pieces of fanart posted that haven't been deleted since. So it's pretty representative of July 2014 specifically. :) But there could have been, say, a fanwork challenge going on in July 2014 that caused unusual uploading patterns then.

The above data gathering and analysis took me several hours over several days. If you want to follow up, you could do more data gathering similar to what I did (I'm happy to elaborate on my process as needed). Or you could write a bot to do something similar; you could have it fetch more AO3 fanworks and try following the links within each work. However, that would be slightly tricky; I ran across more kinds of errors and complicated situations than I expected (e.g., if a YouTube video has been taken down due to copyright, it still has a working YouTube page; sometimes an embed is broken, but if you open the link within the embed in a separate window, it still works fine; many Vimeo links require a password to test, and it could be hard for the bot to reliably find the password in the surrounding text). So you'd have to program your bot to be able to handle a bunch of different special cases.

Regardless of which path you are considering, if you or anyone else does any follow up work here, I encourage you to start by looking through a bunch of fanworks yourself and deciding which scenarios you want count as "working" vs. "not working," and any other things you want to pay attention to.

Hope that helps, and please feel free to DM me with follow up questions. And if you follow up, please share anything else you figure out in this space!

#ao3 #fanart #fanvids #fanvid #podfic #embedded media #multimedia #broken links #link rot #fandom stats #toastystats #asks #toasty replies #op #to archive #I have a bunch of ~recent stats I need to backup to ao3 #but not yet!#50 #100

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mellxncollie · 5 months ago

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Part 2 — this time with a focus on the flashbacks

(Check out the first post for some background info that will be useful)

When we’re looking at the cinematography of any piece, once we’ve established what the norm is (which is the use of anamorphic lenses, as per the last post) we can then look to see where it diverges. As far as I can tell, the only part of Dead Boy Detectives that doesn’t use an anamorphic lens is Edwin’s flashback scene.

Now this is particularly interesting since not only is it filmed with a spherical lens, but it also is the only scene with a different aspect ratio, and the only scene in black and white. Everything about this scene is glaringly different. The easy and obvious reason is that it sets this scene apart as something important to pay attention to, as well as emphasizing the difference in the time period. But I want to highlight how exactly it does this since it is quite clever.

It also raises the question: Why not film Charles’ flashback scenes differently?

Like last time, let’s start with a review of history and technical information.

What is an aspect ratio?

This is just the ratio of the width to height of the frame. 1:1 is a square, whereas 2:1 is a rectangle twice as wide as it is high. In film, aspect ratios are usually listed as a ratio of x:1, so you get common formats like 1.85:1 and 2.39:1 (the second being a super-widescreen format, i.e. a long rectangle). Other common ratios are listed with different numbers, like 4:3 and 16:9. Any time I write an aspect ratio with other numbers, I’ll also list it at least once with the x:1 format so you can compare things easily.

What are some common aspect ratios and what have the standards been across the past 100+ years of film and television history?

Brief history of aspect ratios in Film

The original silent films were mostly filmed in 4:3 (1.33:1). This aspect ratio persisted until the late 20s/early 30s when the Academy Ratio, 1.375:1, was introduced and somewhat standardized (at least in the USA) until the 50s. Then, widescreen became pretty popular and was used to draw audiences to the theaters. At this point, we get tons of variation in aspect ratios in films. But, for American theaters, common projections are 1.85:1 (which became super common) and 2.40:1 or 2.39:1, whereas in some European theaters, 1.66:1 is a more common ratio.

Some other common ratios deal particularly with 70mm film:

Standard 70mm film is usually 2.2:1. However, using anamorphic lenses will create a higher aspect ratio, and unless using a specific format common in the 50s and 60s (Todd-AO), this wasn’t often the aspect ratio that viewers would see. (The Sound of Music was shot with Todd-AO in 2.2:1, but until recently, most people only saw the general release in 35mm, which had a different aspect ratio)

IMAX, which is 1.43:1 (if IMAX is shot on film and not digital, it uses 70mm film)

Brief history of aspect ratios in Television

Pretty much all televisions until around the 1990s-2000s used 4:3, and broadcasters would show content in that aspect ratio. If a movie was broadcast over TV, sometimes there would be letterboxing (black bars), but pan-and-scan was common, where they would crop the movie to the 4:3 ratio, and pan around to wherever the action was happening. Starting in the 90s, widescreen televisions started to gain traction, and the 16:9 (1.77:1) format prevailed, and TV broadcasting had some more wiggle room for aspect ratio.

**Side note: Computers are often at this ratio, so if you watch older TV shows on your laptop, you’ll probably see pillarboxing (black columns on the sides), whereas newer movies are often shot with higher aspect ratios so they have letterboxing (black bars on the top and bottom)**

A note on widescreen

Movies are usually considered widescreen if they’re any higher than 4:3 (or 1.33:1). However, because of the aspect ratio of modern TVs and computers, and the even higher aspect ratios of most smartphones in landscape mode, a lot of people (especially younger generations) won’t consider things “widescreen” until they’ve got a much higher aspect ratio.

Streaming and Aspect Ratios

A weird effect of streaming services, and in particular Netflix, was the rise of a new standard in aspect ratios, 2:1. It’s used in shows like Stranger Things. It’s widescreen enough that it feels cinematic but it displays well on lots of devices. There’s minimal letterboxing (or none) on your phone, and more letterboxing on your computer and TV, but not enough to seem like you’re watching a movie instead of a show.

Netflix (and Amazon) really like this aspect ratio. In 2017, one of the production requirement documents from Netflix stated that any aspect ratio greater than 2:1 had to be subject to further approval (though now they state “Aspect ratio choices should be discussed with Netflix for approval”). It’s become increasingly common, and these companies have a pretty set standard for 1.9:1 and 2:1. If we see those ratios on a streaming show it isn’t always a creative choice, similar to the way older TV shows were required to be in 4:3.

A brief reminder about lens types with some extra bits about the timeline.

That 2.39:1 aspect ratio that movies use? That’s the standard for anamorphic lenses (discussed in Part 1). Anamorphic technology was developed around 1915 (for military reasons), but wasn’t used for films until 1927, and didn’t become commonly used until the 50s.

So, with that, let’s look at Dead Boy Detectives.

Aspect Ratio

The whole show is shot with anamorphic lenses, but instead of a 2.39:1 ratio, they use a 2.2:1 ratio. This is a really interesting choice since it is an uncommon ratio. It’s more widescreen than Netflix shows (they started shooting before being acquired by Netflix though so we can ignore any impact Netflix may have had on this decision) but not quite the widescreen that anamorphic lenses typically use.

Movies and shows can use almost any aspect ratio today, but it is still common to stick to the standards. When they choose something else, it’s not because of technical limitations, but because of a creative choice.

The one caveat I have is that Doom Patrol used 2.2:1, so it’s possible that HBO and DC originally just chose this for continuity between the two, before the show was shifted over to Netflix and the Sandman universe. But for this post, I’m going to assume that they were sort of starting from scratch when choosing the look.

If we consider what a 2.2:1 ratio has been used for, and what viewers have been “trained” to associate it with, we end up with Todd-AO 70mm prints and a few others from the 50s and 60s. It’s the kind of aspect ratio you don’t see often unless you’re lucky enough to live near a theater with a 70mm film projector. There are a few notable movies shot in this aspect ratio: Lawrence of Arabia and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Some more recent movies that used 2.2:1 include Dunkirk, Tomorrowland, Nope, and the non-IMAX parts of Oppenheimer. It’s also occasionally used in recent TV, but not a ton, and not with many popular shows.

This is an aspect ratio used by large-format, high-budget movies. As mentioned in the previous post, anamorphic lenses are associated with a romanticized notion of “cinema” and this aspect ratio only serves to further that, associating Dead Boy Detectives with the limited pool of content made in this aspect ratio. It may be a TV show, but it’s being shot like a movie.

Another really interesting point that follows up on the previous post is the idea of using cinematography to enhance the sense of the supernatural and separate the characters from the normalcy of the real world. The aspect ratio is a bit unnatural too, which serves to complement and augment this.

Let’s briefly look at what the show would look like in different aspect ratios. As a baseline, this is the 2.2:1 aspect ratio that the show is in:

If they had gone for a 2.39:1, a very typical aspect ratio for the kind of lenses they’re using, it would look like this:

When we see things shot with anamorphic lenses, we’re used to seeing it in a frame like this one. Especially in shots like this with the dramatic lens flares, this is going to look and feel familiar to people who watch a lot of movies. It has more of that Star Trek (2009) look, and feels kind of glossy and polished.

Next up, we have 2:1, the aspect ratio popularized by Netflix. It’s a reasonable possibility that if this show had been produced by Netflix from the very beginning, this is what it would look like.

Over the past few years, this has become the “streaming platform” aspect ratio. With the extra vertical height, it’s got some extra space to breathe. We would get less of the background and more of the characters, especially since Dead Boy Detectives favors centered shots of single characters over group shots like this one.

Finally, I’ve got the scene in 1.85:1, a ubiquitous film aspect ratio, yet one that is not used often on TV.

This is considered to be standard widescreen and it’s a great aspect ratio. Given how many creative decisions in this show were made to emphasize the supernatural, this could have been another good option as an aspect ratio, since we’re not used to seeing TV shows like this. However, they’re using anamorphic lenses so this would have required a lot of cropping. Because of how the anamorphic lenses work, this would also necessitate a lot of additional attention during the shoot. If they had gone with 1.85:1, we likely would have gotten a show shot on sphericals instead.

So what about Edwin’s flashback?

This section is shot in 4:3 (1.33:1). It’s the only part shot in a different aspect ratio. Sure, changing the aspect ratio forces us to acknowledge the difference in time period, but why exactly does it work so well?

Remember the history part? 4:3 was used for most of the early silent films. If we are to consider the “historical accuracy” of shooting the different time periods in this show, anamorphic lenses and 2.2:1 make sense for the present-day parts and Charles’ flashback.

But in 1916, widescreen cinema wasn’t a thing. If Edwin had ever been to see a movie while alive, it would have been in 4:3. The first time he would have ever gotten to see something in widescreen (if we assume he watches any movies at all) would be after he escaped Hell.

Using this aspect ratio is not just a vague decision that a lower aspect ratio and black & white looks older. It is, like many other aspects of the show, historically informed. They could have used the academy ratio here, but they didn’t. They used 4:3.

Not only does the aspect ratio switch for this scene, but also the height of the image changes.

This transition also sort of mimics the breathing effect of anamorphic lenses:

Something you may not know about how Netflix usually works is that regardless of the aspect ratio of the picture, the video file you see is part of a larger container, which is usually 16:9 (1.77:1). The black bars on top and bottom are part of the file, as shown in this screenshot of how it looks when you load up some screencaps in photoshop.

If you make gifs, edits, or are otherwise just used to having video files you are probably familiar with this. The Dead Boy Detectives files have letterboxing that is cropped out whenever people make fan content with it, whereas if you have a file for an independent movie, it usually does not have those black bars. Those black bars being part of the file make this transition possible.

We don’t usually realize that the container extends beyond the picture. For all we know, that’s the edge of the frame. But then it changes and forces us to reconsider what we previously thought to be true. Breaking out of what we think to be the image height is jarring, especially considering that this is the only time it happens (other than the brief flashbacks to the same footage later in the show).

Here’s a mockup of what it would look like if they kept the same image height, and just moved from 2.2:1 to 4:3 without expanding vertically. I find that it doesn’t have quite the same effect.

This would look so cool if it was being shown at a movie theater on a huge widescreen, but we’re not watching this show in theaters. We’re watching it on screens where this would make it look small; what they do instead retains the feel of watching something big and cinematic.

So back to the actual transition:

In breaking out of the perceived container, it’s as if it were breaking the fourth wall, an acknowledgment of the video’s format and its true container. This story is addressed to the audience in a way that the rest of the show is not, and it uses the aspect ratio to let us know that.

Spherical Lens

(I would highly recommend you read pt 1 if you haven’t already)

Edwin’s flashback is not only the sole scene with its own aspect ratio, it’s also the only scene shot with a spherical lens. Like the aspect ratio, this is a historically informed choice. Anamorphic lenses technically existed during the last year or two of Edwin’s life, but movies were not being shot on them.

How do we know that a spherical lens is being used, and how does this affect the show?

One of the quickest ways to identify the lens is to look at the shapes of the bokeh. There’s not much bokeh in the flashback, so I apologize for the intensity of my first example. But here, look behind Edwin’s head, where the lights from above reflect on the wet basement floor. They’re all circles, instead of the ovals that we get with the anamorphics.

The lens flares are also really different. Remember that the anamorphic lens flares are horizontal lines. Spherical lenses don’t do that, but they can produce lots of different kinds of lens flares. In this shot, the flashlight pointed at the lens lets off lines in lots of directions, kind of like sun rays.

This shot has another cool flare, in much more detail this time:

The next shot shows us more of the circular bokeh and another kind of lens flare.

For the bokeh, look at the lights on the ceiling as well as the corners of the out-of-focus architectural details (the semi-arches).

The lens flare here is the bouncing, blurry circle near the middle, as well as the brighter shape near the center bottom.

We can then look at the things that are not different, but absent when using the spherical lens: barrel distortion and focus falloff.

In this example, look at the windows in the background, as well as Edwin’s chair. An anamorphic lens would distort the vertical lines, bending them into a gentle fisheye. It would also make that chair and the lines of the window frames a bit blurry, as they’re close to the edges of the frame. Instead, the lines are straight and clear throughout the whole shot.

In this next example, not only do we get a great view of the lack of focus falloff, with clear lines throughout the shot, but we can see more of the difference in perspective and distortion of lines.

You may notice that the windows and doors are not perfectly straight up and down. But is this barrel distortion? If there was barrel distortion, the walls would curve back towards the center of the frame at the top.

Spherical lenses are often the ‘default’ lens. They’re wonderful and used in a lot of media because they are neutral. They distort less, thus representing the world closer to how it actually is. If we consider the anamorphic lenses in the rest of the show being used to enhance the sense of supernatural and story, changing to a spherical lens enhances the sharp reality. This is Edwin, alive.

The image breaks out of its perceived container, reaching out to the audience, and then changes the lens to be more ‘real.’ In these two changes, not only do we have a more historically accurate image, but it's as if the creators are issuing a warning to us. Maybe the demon isn’t real, but bullies are. Kids can be cruel. Classmates hurt their queer peers. This is not fantasy, and this is as true in 1916 as it is today.

Using a spherical lens in this instance, juxtaposed to the rest of the show, is a dramatic shift to make, as it alters just about everything in the image. In using a less distorted picture, for this, we are reminded of reality and life and the mundane.

On Charles’ Flashback (and an experiment)

Edwin’s flashback got the Cinematography Treatment™ but what about Charles’ flashback? It’s shot with the same aspect ratio and lens as the rest of the show. From the perspective of historical accuracy, this is fine. It’s a scene that could have been shot in 1989, cinematographically speaking. The reason I suspect that it wasn’t given any stand-out look is because, unlike Edwin’s flashback, Charles’ flashback scenes are closely tied to the present-day plot. They aren’t just scenes of Charles remembering things, they are a direct result of the Night Nurse’s “memory magic.”

Maybe changing something here would separate us too much from the plot. Both flashbacks (in episodes 4 and 7) are induced for a specific purpose related to other present-day characters. It wouldn’t make as much sense to have them be standalones.

However, if I were simultaneously the showrunner, screenwriter, and cinematographer, I would give Charles a standalone flashback scene. In that flashback scene, here’s how I would shoot it:

There would be a much deeper depth of field/smaller aperture than the rest of the show, so the background would be more in focus.

There would be harder, less-diffused lighting. This would also impact the coloring, and I’d maybe add some more saturated lights.

I’d try to make an argument to shoot that scene on film (and then argue to do Edwin’s on film too).

There would be a different aspect ratio; 2.2:1 isn’t out of the realm of possibility for the 80s, but it wasn’t common, and it wouldn’t have the kind of impact I’m searching for if it didn’t change.

There are three different aspect ratios I would choose between, and the lens would change depending on my pick.

I’ve made some mock-ups for how these would look, though I cannot adjust things like bokeh and depth of focus, and I can only do so much with the lighting.

2.39:1 with anamorphic lenses (specifically Panavision lenses) This is a super standard widescreen, with a popular lens from the time. We don’t have lens info for the rest of the show, but I think they’re using Panavision anamorphics anyway so the lens may not be a change. Big, blockbuster action movies from the 80s would often be shot in this (perhaps most relevantly, Ghostbusters), and it’s a style that kind of faded in popularity in the 90s and 2000s, so it can have more of a retro look, especially if shot on film. One downside to this would be the aspect ratio change would not be as dramatic.

Movies from the 80s shot with this combo: Raiders of the Lost Ark (and other Indiana Jones movies), Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (as well as Episode 4, which came out in the 70s. Episode 6 used the same ratio and did use anamorphic lenses, but not Panavision), Ghostbusters

1.85:1 and spherical lenses. This is also ‘widescreen,’ but the advantage of using this aspect ratio is that we could get another dramatic breaking of the image container, just like in Edwin’s flashback. It’s an incredibly common setup, so it’s not really unique, but it would look different from the rest of the show. Given how pervasive ultra-widescreen still is today, I think a lower aspect ratio would also ramp up the ‘nostalgia’ factor a bit. Using a spherical lens we’d end up with the same sense of stark reality that we get for Edwin’s flashback as well (the warning that kids are cruel, but this time to people of color), and I like the idea of that as a parallel.

Movies from the 80s shot with this combo: Back to the Future, Dirty Dancing, The Princess Bride, An American Werewolf in London, Clue, Another Country

1.66:1 and spherical lenses. This is a ratio that was used widely across Europe, but has never been a common ratio in the USA. However, by the 80s, filmmakers were going for a more widescreen look so it was fading from popularity everywhere. The 80s liked widescreen, so it’s maybe not the best pick for making a scene look “80s”. However, my main motivation for this ratio is that my personal picks for the most Edwin-coded and most Charles-coded queer films are both 80s films shot with a 1.66:1 ratio. We would also get the same benefits from using the spherical lens as I mentioned in the 1.85:1 section.

Movies from the 80s shot with this combo: Maurice, My Beautiful Laundrette, Law of Desire (La ley del deseo), and an honorable mention to Chungking Express, a 90s film that really exemplifies the kind of look I'm going for here

Giving Charles’ flashback a special treatment would probably do a lot to more firmly establish his character as a co-protagonist rather than a deuteragonist, which is definitely not the case but does seem to be how some people view him.

With the impact of the spherical lens and aspect ratio in Edwin’s flashback, the final two options for Charles flashback would be the closest in terms of echoing Edwin’s flashback, and would probably provide the most gravity and sense of crushing reality to the scene.

Setting a single scene (or two scenes) aside like this, with a unique aspect ratio, lens, and color grading (which I didn’t explore much for the Charles flashback), makes us consider a scene more independently from the rest of the show. Edwin’s flashback is a striking moment with a very different look, and that’s deeply memorable. It comes together to push how tragic and unjust Edwin’s story is.

—————

This concludes the planned portion of my cinematography analysis. I had a ton of fun researching and writing this (and making all the graphics) and I hope you all find this interesting/helpful/informative :)

Finally, I want to give another name drop to the cinematographers, Marc Laliberté, Craig Powell, and Pierre Gill. They’ve really nailed it from the very first episode to the last, and there’s so much intention and thought given to every aspect of how they shoot this.

#dead boy detectives #dbda meta #dbda #edwin payne #charles rowland #cinematography #dead boy detectives analysis #cinematography analysis #mygifs #dbdagifs

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drdemonprince · 4 months ago

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So, I (a trans guy) am kind of coming to terms with the fact that I might be more gay than bisexual after all. Where I live, the queer community is split pretty definitively between the "women, non binary and trans people" (or FLINTA*, if you're familiar with that horrible term) and the gay male community. While I have lots of problems with the former, it is kind of the community I am in, mostly because it has felt safe during my transition. It still feels safe, but not really comfortable. I want to feel like I am part of the gay male community, especially if I mostly want to date queer men in the future.

I am like, so scared of existing in any gay male spaces. When I tried being in them pre T, I felt like an imposter. When I travelled to the US a few years ago, the only place my then partner (also on T) and me were misgendered consistently was in gay bars (in a lot of famous "gay friendly" cities). All of this has left me with a sense of humiliation and not-belonging that gets reactivated every time I even think of stepping into one again, even if I am fairly certain I would not get this reaction now.

How do I get past the shame that is attached to my previous experiences and learn to actually enjoy myself there?

So, I believe that you have the order of operations wrong here. You don't get past shame and then go out to these gay spaces -- you go out to those gay spaces and then overcome (some) of your shame. And that shame may live with you forever in some form. You can still have a worthwhile life with it.

Go to the gay bars. There are many different kinds of them, all with wildly different energies and clientelle, and it is normal and boring and blase for trans guys to be at each and every single one of them.

One way that many newbies unwittingly screw up is by going to the most circuity, dance-y kinds of gay bars that tend to be filled with young, thin, rich, superficial people -- and then they mistake the meanness of that crowd for the meanness of all gays, or interpret the meanness as a sign they are not accepted by "the gay male community."

There is no singular gay male community. There are in fact a wide variety of subcultures with their own beauty standards, stylistic choices, interests, and norms. And there's a lot of cliquishness and mean girl behavior among people who have decided they are high rank in any particular small subculture, don't get me wrong. But you don't have to believe in any of it. They're just coping with their own history of marginalization and rejection by trying to become a new ruling class within their own tiny pond. You can laugh it off as the work of kind of sad, small thinking and just enjoy yourself and talk to people who are not assholes.

So, go to the leather bar. Go to a pup night. Go to an old-timers bar filled with gays over 60 (they will be nice to you and buy you drinks, I promise). Go to a gay bar that's casual and nerdy, with arcade machines and pub trivia. Go to a drag bar on a weekday night and meet some of the newer queens who are still trying to find their chops. And yes, go to the DJ sets and dance clubs all you like, but don't let what a few snatched bitchy 22-year-olds (or insecure former twink 42 year old real estate agents) get you feeling insecure. They're doing that shit because they are insecure.

Bring a friend. Talk to someone who seems nervous and alone on the side of the dance floor, too. Wear an outfit that will get some compliments. Nurse a drink at the bar and trawl grindr to see if anyone seems worth talking to. Join a dungeon or a gay running group. Attend a gay men's support group at your local lgbt center. Meet a ton of people and just get yourself out there, and quickly you will realize that your mind has wildly over dramatized how much you stand out or how much anybody cares.

Fat gays, disabled gays, older gays, Autistic gays, nerdy gays, poor gays, Black and brown gays, immigrant gays, they all feel like they do not belong and are not welcome too. Find them and be kind to them and hold onto them. Notice who is nice and warm with you, but also don't read into it too much if some people are just neutral. Eventually you will figure out what you like doing, which spaces you enjoy inhabiting, and who you want to be there with -- and then you'll have some fun.

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melodyartist-blog · 1 month ago

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This may be me overeading it but I'm curious, in your art of Menalnus reuniting with Helen, Helen is in a pretty provocative outfit, is that something you imagine Paris put her into and when she's home she dressed more cashually?

Ok it's like 4 am right now and I've been thinking for this for almost an hour! I've been trying to gather some previous sketches and put them together so it might be easier to visualize.

So, Helen's clothing... Well since I rarely show full bodies or color my sketches it might be hard to see but her clothes are just inspired by traditional Mycenaean outfits nothing much or nothing less (it might be easier to see on the men I think).

Even during her youth she wore those kinds of clothes

So it's pretty much the contrary, Helen kept her heritage as a greek woman for years instead of completely adapting and complying to the Trojan's customs, something that probably Queen Hecuba hated.

Penelope and Clytemnestra too in some examples are seen with those outfits in a more formal setting (if we want to say it like that.)

But you raised another interesting point! The casual outfit when she gets home, well in my mind after the return everything pretty much changed, in these 10-20 years of absence (it's said in some version that Menelaus traveled for almost 8 years after the war before getting back to Sparta) The fashion went on, the new generation are wearing what we could consider more as the "Greek outfits"

So people like Hermione(on the left) , Telemachus and many others of the newer generations are wearing Chitons while their parents are still wearing some of the older stuff, or making a big ol' mashups :V

It started with a simple question and it escalated very quickly...

#i should sleep #i have to wake up in 4 hours #time to ramble #characters design #greek mythology #the iliad #menelaus #helen #penelope #clytemnestra #tagamemnon #sketch

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thearchercore · 5 months ago

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I would say newer max fans are lestappen, older max fans are maxiel (and of course old lestappen fans) If you got into the sport in the last few years maxiel is like the meme go girl give us nothing. If you are looking at it with nostalgic lenses every interaction is amazing but as someone who is a newer fan to me maxiel is just not there. Sure they interact in redbull videos but not naturally, not at the driver parades, or in other public setting. They dont even really talk in a group setting. Usually if the drivers are talking in groups they are not even standing in the same circle.

yeah i see the angle there! obviously, in the f1 era when charles was slowlyyy getting into f1 and red bull was serving daniel/max videos on a silver platter, you naturally wouldn't go for lestappen because there was simply little to no content to go by.

if you look at ao3, the first full lestappen fic is from april of 2019. while first maxiel fic is from 2017.

there's also the fact that charles and max manage to attract people without being teammates, they don't need it. and gained most popularity in 2023 when they barely shared podiums in the first half of the year (due to sf23 being a tractor).

on the other hand, max and daniel were built on the teammate dynamic so once that got out of the equation, some people lost interest but WHO KNOWS.

as i said, the ships are here to have fun and everyone has different reasons!

#lestappen

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anim-ttrpgs · 7 months ago

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Wait does Eureka have its own established lore for how different supernatural creatures work?

Yes, it does!

(I’m going to preface this post by saying that just about everything I’m talking about here, and more, is available FOR FREE for you to read in the free pre-release version of the Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy rulebook that you can download from our website. Go to Chapter 8 to start reading about the supernatural lore. The rulebook itself will do a lot better job of explaining all this than I will, because it has the exact details of how each one works, and I’m just hitting the highlights and going over what those details mean.)

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is a game about very human and believable investigators digging into dangerous (often supernatural) mysteries way over their heads, and sometimes those very human and believable investigators will be supernatural creatures themselves.

These supernatural creatures are every bit as human and “normal” as their mundane investigators counterparts, they have jobs, friends, families, hobbies, etc. They live among mundane society, not outside of it.

Most modern fantasy settings have some kind of separation between normal society and magical society, like you see in Harry Potter where there is normal society, and then a separate, secret magical society hidden away from it, or Vampire: The Masquerade, where vampires all have an agreement to keep themselves a secret from normal society despite acting within it.

In Eureka’s world, there is no “masquerade,” but that doesn’t mean that magic and monsters are well-known and well-documented phenomenons. Supernatural creatures such as vampires, wolfmen, etc. are exceptionally rare. Don’t take this as an exact number, but you can probably assume there’s about one of these per every 3.3 million normal people.

This rarity, as well as the fact that each individual has little to gain and everything to lose by revealing themselves (try “coming out” as a person who regularly assaults people and drains their blood), has led to them going largely undocumented in the modern day. Sure, this is the digital age, there are videos, but viral videos are not exactly scientific evidence. For every real vampire caught on camera, there are a thousand hoaxes and horror short films.

There is no secret vampire government controlling things from the shadows—most vampires don’t even know any other vampires, let alone enough to form a secret society with any effect on national politics.

As for how they work, well, that’s one of my favorite parts to talk about.

There are five playable monster types in Eureka (The Vampire, The Wolfman, The Fairy, The Witch, and The Thing From Beyond) plus two extras that are Kickstarter stretch goals (The Dullahan and The Gorgon), but in the interest of time, I’m only going to really go into detail with one of them.

Most playable monster types in Eureka are very, very old-school, with an emphasis on actual historical folklore over just making up all our own lore. That doesn’t mean Eureka doesn’t have a unique approach to the supernatural, though. Little of it is “new,” but it is certainly unique, because to my knowledge no other RPG has ever taken the old stuff this far before. A PC being a monster in Eureka isn’t just a few +1s here and there and maybe a little extra damage from silver weapons, it means playing by an entirely different set of rules from fellow investigators.

The vampires and vampire lore you see in movies are not folkloric vampires, they are mostly a 20th and 21st century pop-culture creation. Eureka’s vampire abilities, weaknesses, and other traits are based on pre-1900 vampire legends, with older traits usually taking precedent over newer ones. Thus, a lot of assumptions you might have about vampires going in could end up being very wrong. For instance, in movies, vampires instantly die when exposed to sunlight, but the first ever instance of a vampire in a story being killed by sunlight was in the 1922 film Nosferatu. In Eureka, sunlight is still awful for vampires, it strips them of their vampiric powers, but it doesn’t do any real damage to them. Sunlight is an issue vampires have to deal with, but it is far from instant death. That doesn’t mean being a vampire is inherently easy though, because in addition to having all the powers that folkloric vampires have (which is a TON), they also have all the weaknesses, and it is the emphasis on weaknesses that really makes the moment-to-moment playing of a monster PC in Eureka the most interesting. A few of my favorites for vampires are the refusal to enter homes without a direct invitation, and the compulsion to count large numbers of small objects. I think most vampire media these days considers these to be “silly” weaknesses and don’t want to acknowledge them in the lore of their “serious” scary horror vampires, but honestly I think that the “sillier” vampire stuff can still be used to great effect in horror. Imagine knowing that the only reason a vicious killer at your door hasn’t stormed in to rip your throat out is because they’re being polite.

A vampiric investigator will need to work around these weaknesses, and more, in their daily life, all while being sure not to reveal their true nature to their more mortal friends. It’s something that really changes how a character behaves and goes about problem-solving.

For instance, the rest of the party may be able to break into a house no-problem, but the vampire cannot. They need a invitation. That’s a problem. That’s a puzzle. It makes me excited just thinking about it.

This was originally going to be a much longer post where I went into more of the themes of monsters in Eureka, but I have decided that that would be most cohesive as its own post, an upcoming essay titled "How Eureka Handles Disability." So stay tuned for that.

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is kickstarting from right now until May 10th! Back it while you still can!

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If you want to try before you buy, you can download a free demo of the prerelease version from our website or our itch.io page!

If you’re interested in a more updated and improved version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy than the free demo you got from our website, subscribe to our Patreon where we frequently roll our new updates for the prerelease version!

You can also support us on Ko-fi, or by checking out our merchandise!

Join our TTRPG Book Club At the time of writng this, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is the current game being played in the book club, and anyone who wants to participate in discussion, but can’t afford to make a contribution, will be given the most updated prerelease version for free! Plus it’s just a great place to discuss and play new TTRPGs you might not be able to otherwise!

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

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allthingsfern · 3 months ago

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About my new camera

Yes, I bought a new camera, but it was not a last minute decision. Well, the camera purchase was pretty much last minute after I saw a video about the camera I chose and did some research on the Web & Youtube.

For about a year I've been wondering if I should sell my Sony a7r3 body and Sony/Zeiss Sonnar T* 55mm f/1.8 lens, which came highly recommended, including by Ken Rockwell, who I also turned to for advice about my new camera. The 55mm f/1.8 lens was highly recommended; it was one of the original set of lenses for the Sony a7 line of mirrorless cameras.

I wondered about getting rid of it because, while I enjoyed using it and got some great photos with it, my 24-105mm f/4 Sony G lens also took great photos, and it covered the 55 mm range. Granted, the 55mm produced super creamy bokeh, but the 24-105 f/4 did too, though maybe not as creamy. Maybe for me, as a vegan, the 24-105mm f/4 bokeh was (is) creamy enough?

Anyway, here is one of my favorites, taken with the 24-105mm f/4 about 6 months after I bought the a7r3. (I've owned an a7r3 for over 6 years now...)

Like butter?

Back to the new camera story. About a year ago, I saw this video about "one camera/one lens."

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I also watched a video where he discussed keeping camera gear down to a useful minimum "5 Reasons to Keep Your Equipment Simple feat. Documentary Photography Daniel Milnor." His insights resonated with me because I am not a gear head. I like having one lens on each camera body and not having to fidget. I like to keep it simple.

Then, about 3 weeks ago, I watched this video.

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Now, I go make photos in SF often. Every once in a while I also go to Oakland, which has, at least in the 30 years I've been in living in California, a super bad reputation. I've never felt unsafe in either city walking around with my a7r3 with the medium sized 24-105mm f/4 lens on it. Granted, I carry it in the original, small, Peak Design sling bag, which I immediately christened my Audrey Hepburn camera bag because it is so elegant, especially with the little brown leather handle on top.

BTW, I also own the Peak Design messenger bag, but I almost always use this one for my camera and use the messenger bag for when I need to carry my laptop. The 5L sling bag had a bonus: Both my a7r3s with their respective lenses attached fit in this one little bag. Tight, but they fit.

Anyway, that video about feeling safe did set me to thinking, since I am getting older and walk around alone, but it also made go back to wondering if I should carry both cameras, which I rarely do anymore.

Then Adrian Vila posted this video.

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And then I found his original video, about 4 years old, about the RX100 vii.

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the idea of carrying a smaller camera with a 24-200 zoom intrigued me, I did some research, including visiting Ken Rockwell's site, where he highly recommended this camera (see the review here).

I was convinced, but I knew that the camera is 5 years old (and Sony has no plans of releasing a newer model), so I looked up prices for used, and if I could find them, new cameras. I eventually just opted to get a new one and am going to sell my a7r3 with the 55mm f/1.8 lens. Interesting fact: The Sony RX100 line (7 models) all have a Zeiss Sonnar T* zoom lens. Mine has a 24-200mm f/2.8-4.5 variable lens, so I am still going to have a Zeiss lens, even after I sell my 55mm Zeiss.

Then there was the coincidence that they actually had an RX100 vii in stock at the Sacramento store. I visited the Mike's Camera Website, choosing specifically the Sacramento location (they have several locations in California and Colorado) and saw they had one for sale, so I drove last there Wednesday to buy the camera.

Funny thing is, I learned they don't usually carry the RX100 vii anymore (it is, after all, discontinued) but they happened to get a delivery of one just that day from their warehouse. (I could have ordered it and it would be delivered to the store or to my apartment.) The sales person (Colton) went to check if it was ordered by someone, but no, so the camera was mine.

I explained to Colton how when I went in to buy my first a7r3 on 12-26-17, they did have it, but I wanted the 24-105mm lens, which was just released (and in popular demand) and was told they only had one, which someone pre-ordered. However, the salesperson (Taek) checked and it turned out that person had not gone in to pick up the lens or contacted them about it, and it was sitting in the store for 6 weeks, so Taek opted to let me have it. As Colton said, I have good camera Karma.

So, yes, I am going to be using a smaller camera with a smaller sensor (1 inch) that has only 20 MP as opposed to my a7r3's 42 MP in a larger full frame sensor. However, while thinking the new camera purchase over, I thought about the awesome photos I got from my Nikon D50 with its dinky 28-80mm f/2.5-5.6 lens, and the RX100 is a huge step up.

Finally, here are 2 photos of my new camera.

OMG, my a7r3 is dusty...

Ok. That's all for now.

The adventure continues...

#Youtube

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rockbell1003 · 5 months ago

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The Qualities For A Husband

Hello! It's been a while, but I come bearing a new fic featuring even newer faces. I'd like to preface that this was written purely because I fell down a Bridgerton/historical manhwa rabbit hole and there is very little historical accuracy happening here. So please take it all with a grain of salt and enjoy my regency delusions 😊

It was her first time at the royal palace. The extravagant ballroom was filled with the newly come-of-age sons and daughters of the kingdom’s nobles. The young ladies who had debuted on the marriage market were gossiping to one another as they eyed the young sons of influential noble houses. This party was nothing more than a means of networking for the parents, by securing political ties through the marriage of their children. Persis sipped sparkling grape juice from a crystalline glass as she watched the marriage-minded mamas shepherd their offspring. She found it mildly comical and a touch depressing at the same time.

“Ahem.”

Persis raised a delicate eyebrow as she turned towards her chaperone, her cousin, Theodore. She, too, was meant to mingle and meet a prospective partner for her house’s benefit. However, Persis held no desire to have herself paraded around like a show pony. She may be unable to find a love match but she refused to sacrifice her dignity to secure a husband. “Is something caught in your throat, dear cousin?” she inquired facetiously as her gaze drifted from Theodore back to the rest of the ballroom.

“I am fine, why aren’t you conversing with the list of potential suitors Father gave to you?” he asked.

Persis sighed, “If you haven’t noticed, the list Uncle compiled contains boys that have much to be desired,” she tilted her champaign flute in the direction of a young man exuberantly talking at a young girl whose disinterested expression was politely concealed behind a hand fan. “Take him, the son of Count Ingles. Despite being the top candidate to graduate from the Capital’s knight academy with honors, and as his father’s successor, the boy clearly has no education in decorum. That poor girl looks bored out of her mind and he hasn’t even noticed.”

“It would set Mother and Father’s minds at ease if you would at least participate like every other young noble here, Persis,” he sighed, “please Percy?”

The usage of her childhood nickname. It was a dirty trick and Theodore knew it. Persis turned to her cousin with narrowed eyes, “Fine, but I will not be abiding by Uncle’s list. He is not a good judge of character and you know it.”

Her cousin nodded curtly, and gently pushed her towards the center of the ballroom. Persis grumbled but resigned herself to her fate.

The next few minutes were not completely horrible. She managed to escape dancing and instead mingled with a few groups of noble ladies and men. They were shallow conversations filled with only pleasantries, suddenly, however, one conversation took an interesting turn.

“It appears that young Lord Macintire did come to the ball,” Eve the daughter of Count Grenwich said in a hushed tone. Persis followed her gaze to see a handsome young man standing off to the side of the banquet hall. He was engaged in conversation with a few other older gentlemen, “'tis a pity though,” Eve continued her voice trailing off and gaze averted.

Persis glanced back to the lady standing next to her, “I beg your pardon?”

Eve widened her eyes at Persis, “Oh! That’s right you’re new to the Capital,” she gestured towards the gentleman, “That man there is Bastian Macintire, son of the current Duke of Macintire.”

Persis gave the woman a tight-lipped smile, despite being what the young ladies of the Capital believed to be a country bumpkin, she was in fact aware of the Dukedom of Macintire and the controversy surrounding their future heir. The Duke is the most powerful noble in the kingdom after the King and the current Duke has two sons, both of marriageable age. Perfect prey for lower-ranked nobles hoping to form connections through their daughters.

“He is the firstborn son of Duke Macintire, yes?” Persis asked, taking another sip from her glass.

“He is but he is not the son set to inherit the title, due to his poor constitution. It has been decided that the second son will inherit the Dukedom.”

Persis froze, the crystal rim of her glass against her painted lips as she glanced back at the young man. She had heard countless stories about him from Theodore, the two were the same age and both went to the academy together. However, she never had the pleasure of making his acquaintance, until tonight. From appearances alone, he did not look sickly, perhaps a bit on the leaner side as he did not have the same strong muscular build as those who dedicated their lives to the sword. As Persis eyed the young lord from the corner of her eye she noticed him quickly turn his head away and into his shoulder. It almost looked as if he flinched not once but three times consecutively, but just as fast as she caught the movement, the young lord regained his composure and continued to converse with the other men. Persis lowered her glass and turned back to Lady Eve, “I am not sure I understand why his presence here is a pity? Surely there are young ladies who desire to be betrothed to him. He certainly doesn’t look sickly, perhaps the title isn’t as set in stone as you say it is.”

She shook her head, “according to the Duchess, Lord Frederick is sure to become the next Duke.”

Ah so there it is, Persis thought. It was common knowledge that Bastian was the son of the late Duchess of Macintire, the Duchess Lady Eve was talking about is the Duke’s current wife and mother of Lord Frederick.

“Many of the ladies do not wish to tie themselves down to a man with no title, let alone a man who is constantly confined to his sickbed.”

Once again Persis wondered how much of Lady Eve’s gossip held some form of merit and how much was fed to high society from the Duchess. At a young age, Persis had learned to appreciate the knowledge found in gossip but not to assume it was fact. The information she had just learned from Lady Eve did contradict a few things she had learned about Bastian Macintire from her cousin.

“Well, I wouldn’t mind having him as a husband.”

An audible gasp was heard from the ladies, Persis set her glass down on the nearest table.

“It’s nice to know that I won’t have any competition in winning his favor,” she smiled, “you ladies enjoy the rest of your evening.” Persis walked away, leaving the ladies to gossip amongst themselves.

Despite her bold declaration to vie for Lord Bastain’s hand in marriage to the group of gossiping noble ladies, Persis had found herself retreating to an open balcony with a glass of champagne she managed to swipe from one of the servers. She sighed and took a sip of the alcoholic beverage, closing her eyes to savor its sweet taste. Lord Bastian was the perfect candidate for her husband, he wasn’t on the list of suitors her uncle made so that was already a benefit. If he was struggling to inherit the dukedom then perhaps he would be open to becoming a marquess instead? Persis opened her eyes and swirled her champagne around in its flute as she drifted deeper into thought. She needed to find someone who would help her inherit the title her father left behind. She couldn’t let her uncle continue to act as proxy now that she came of age, let alone did she want to. Ideally, she wanted to find a man who would let her assume full control of the responsibilities of Marquess, but she knew how farfetched a dream that was.

“hNXT-uh,” startled out of her thoughts, Persis turned around to see Lord Bastian duck his head into his shoulder as he made his own escape to the balcony.

“Pardon me, I did not realize this balcony was occupied,” he bowed his head in apology and began to retrace his steps.

“It’s alright, you can join me if you’d like,” Persis gestured back to the ballroom, “it appears that you need the reprieve from dancing and small talk.”

He cleared his throat, “then I would be most grateful Milady,” he trailed off.

“Persis Basilwood, Milord.” Persis supplied.

Lord Bastian smiled, “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance Lady Basilwood.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Lord Macintire.” Persis replied.

She couldn’t help but take note of Lord Bastian’s features in the lamplight. Despite the other noble ladies dismissing his physique, he was tall and appeared to have some well-toned muscle hidden beneath his impeccably tailored tailcoat. His dark hair was perfectly coiffed minus a small curl that seemed to have been dislodged and now fell by his brow. He also had striking hazel eyes that in the soft lamp-lit light, almost appeared golden.

Persis took another sip from her glass as she watched him look out into the courtyard. Now privy to his side profile her eyes were suddenly drawn to his nose. It wasn’t all-encompassing on his face but not too small either. His side profile looked like the busts of ancient warriors her aunt had bought and displayed in their foyer. Strong and straight, and even in the soft light she noticed that his nostrils appeared a little flushed in color.

She hid a small smile behind her drink, so there was some truth to the rumors regarding his health then. Just not quite as life-threatening as the gossip leads everyone to believe.

Suddenly, Lord Bastian inhaled and swiftly ducked his head into his shoulder, “HnGXT, ngxt, h-hHh..ih’Ngkx,” he sniffled and raised his head, running one finger crookedly under his nose.

“Bless you,” Persis said before he could utter any apologies.

He lowered his hand to adjust his cravat and cleared his throat before responding, “Thank you.” He almost looked embarrassed and Persis had no desire to make the young lord any more uncomfortable.

“Are you hiding from the marriage-minded mamas then?” she inquired.

He glanced at her with widened eyes, “I beg your pardon?”

She gestured towards the ballroom with her glass, “Surely you are here to avoid being entangled with ambitious mamas who hope their daughters can capture the attention of the son of a duke,” she paused and looked back at him, “Why else would you find yourself here?”

Despite the dim light, Persis could see relief wash over Lord Macintire’s features. She concluded that the Lord did not want her to know that he must’ve snuck away due to what she assumed was a battle with his constitution. Persis took another sip of wine and looked out at the palace courtyard, she was more than happy to offer him another plausible excuse.

“And what of you?” he inquired, “why are you hiding away?” Persis noted that he didn’t answer her question, but answered his anyway.

“You are not the only one who needs a respite from socializing,” Persis set her glass down and placed both of her palms on the ledge of the balcony, closing her eyes and concentrating on the soft breeze that caressed her skin, “I’d rather spend my time here than listening to young lords prattle on about the qualities they are looking for in their wives,” she opened her eyes just to roll them, “Delicate and demure, they might as well just purchase a porcelain doll.” She turned to Lord Macintire with a small smile, “Please do not tell my cousin or I will not hear the end of it.”

Lord Macintire returned her smile with a grin of his own, “Your secret is safe with me,” he took a few steps closer to the ledge of the balcony so that he was now standing next to her, “your cousin mentioned that you were quite bright and a tad bit spirited,” he said as he gazed out over the courtyard.

Persis let out a small sigh through her nose, “I did not realize that my cousin liked to talk about me to his fellow schoolmates.”

Lord Macintire let out a light breathy chuckle, “he is quite proud of you. One moment he’s boasting and the next he’s threatening any man who might try to court you.”

Persis dropped her head and groaned, “I apologize for any offense he may have caused you.”

“No need, it was all in good fun. Although I will admit that his stories did cause me to wonder what it would be like to meet you.”

Persis looked up at his confession to see him smiling at her with an almost boyish grin. It was - she dared to say - cute.

“And do I live up to your expectations, Milord?”

Persis did not tear her gaze from him, daring him to respond. However, whatever he was going to say to her teasing provocations was lost. Persis watched as his expression crumpled, his eyes drifting shut as his nose scrunched. Bastian quickly turned his head away and into the shoulder furthest from Persis.

“hiiNXT,hi…ih..GNXT,” he sighed and raised his head from his shoulder, “excuse me.”

He sniffled wetly, fist pressed against the underside of his nose, “I beg your pardon, that was not very gentlemanly of me.”

Persis shook her head, “You do not need to apologize, it does not bother me one bit.” She bit the inside of her lip and then reached into the pocket of her ballgown, pulling out a delicately embroidered handkerchief.

“Here use this, you’ll end up hurting yourself if you keep stifling them like that.”

However, her offer fell upon deaf ears as Lord Macintire’s attention was solely on keeping this new stubborn tickle in check. Persis looked up to see his face contorted in pure itchy misery. Lord Macintire’s eyes were squeezed shut as his nostrils flared, his breathing becoming more erratic with each shaky breath. Persis quickly unfolded and pressed the handkerchief into his hand, hoping he would catch on and use it. As soon as she curled his fingers around the linen square and released her grip, Lord Macintire immediately brought the cloth up to his face and cupped it around his nose.

“HEH-MPFH!, HMNN--HMPFshhk! gh-heh…HEMPFH-uh,”

Persis knew it was poor manners to stare but she couldn’t help but watch as Lord Macintire seemed to lose control. Each sneeze was more powerful than the last and he was left curled into himself. An unfamiliar heat seemed to coil in her stomach, she felt her cheeks flush, unsure of what just transpired but wanting to experience it again.

It took Lord Macintire a moment to collect himself and soon he was back to standing straight. Persis quickly turned to the side to give him the privacy she should have given him in the first place if she wasn’t so distracted. She watched from the corner of her eye as he kept the handkerchief tented around his nose, he sniffled a few times before folding it and gently wiping the cloth against the underside of his nostrils. Persis wondered if he was embarrassed to use it to its full effect or if he was worried about ruining it and her ‘gentler sensibilities’ with it.

“Thank you, Milady.”

Persis turned around and smiled, “Do not mention it Milord, are you feeling better?”

Lord Macintire coughed lightly into the fist holding her handkerchief and Persis swore she saw a light dusting of pink across his cheeks. “Much, thank you again. However, I am afraid that I ruined your handkerchief.”

Persis shook her head, “I am just glad that it was of some use, I have no sentimental attachment to -” Persis was cut off by the resounding chimes of the Capital’s clock tower. Her eyes widened and she turned to face the direction of the bells. Suddenly all too aware that it was now midnight and all unmarried ladies would have to depart from the ball. She thought she had more time, she glanced back at Lord Macintire, lip caught between her teeth. There was no guarantee that he would be coming to the following balls, or partaking in any other social events in the Capital. This may be her only chance. She hoped that her panic was not visible on her face as she posed a question to the young lord.

“Forgive my candor but if you wish to reciprocate my kindness, perhaps you would like to meet me for tea?”

She watched as his eyes widened, not that she was surprised. She was being outlandishly bold, it was expected that the man would take the first step in courting a woman, not the other way around. But Persis did not have the luxury of other demure noble girls with the entire season to secure a husband. She did not have the time to give him coquettish smiles and send signals his way with a minute flick of a hand fan under the watchful gaze of her chaperone. No, if she wanted to form a courtship with Bastian Macintire, she would have to take the necessary steps to do so.

“I would like that very much snf, I will send an invitation to your family’s Capital estate in the morning.”

Persis took the skirts of her dress in her hands and began to make her way to the balcony’s open doors. “I look forward to it, Lord Macintire. Now if you’d please excuse me, I must find my cousin post haste before he realizes I spent an unseemly amount of time with you unchaperoned.”

She stepped out of the balcony and back into the ballroom, quickly making her way back to Theodore. Persis couldn’t hide the smile that graced her lips as she caught a glimpse of Lord Macintire’s own boyish grin. Yes, she wouldn’t mind having him as a husband at all.

#snzfic #snz kink #snz oc

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tyetknot · 6 months ago

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I thought you were joking when you said that the Farrar's books were outdated but holy shittt, even for 1970s wicca/witchcraft those guys were like full gender heterosexual white magic ye harm none thing, I was also seeing their interview were christian kids interview them, and boy it is hard to watch, but on to my question kskk, do you know if they changed later down?,like Janet seems to be okay sometimes,I can't find anything of them on their "controversial views" except their later polyamorous relationship (wich come to think of it I would love to hear their gender rationale on that), and also, how do you personally (if you do so) reconcile this type of author?, like there is no doubt that they are important in craft history, but now they kinda do more harm than good.

Hi Anon! I'm sorry if you've been waiting for a bit, you know how Tumblr is.

So one thing it's important to remember is: back in the 1970s and 80s a religion where women run the show was very progressive. Feminism got bolted onto Wicca pretty quickly once it hit the American West Coast and Starhawk wrote The Spiral Dance. Things like worshipping a goddess who didn't need a man around to tell her what to do were really unusual for the time. All this hippie-dippy shit like being naked in your rituals and such was far out, man, not like those totally square and boring Christians.

The problem is that, like many older people who were once cool and progressive, they just kind of stopped where they were in the 70s and 80s and didn't really......well, progress past that point. This leads to things like statements like that one in A Witches' Bible where they think that actually gay people are perfectly OK in ritual (this was a bit of a controversial point at the time) as long as they act like their biological gender, which is hilarious to us in 2024 because they obviously conflate being gay with being trans in some bizarre fashion. This was progressive for the time. It comes across as incredibly ignorant today. And of course, if their ideas did change, well, the book is already out there, people are reading it, and you can't go back in time and change something that's already been published. You can add notes or amendments to further editions, but I don't believe they ever did that, and Stewart Farrar died in the early aughts.

I find the polyamory thing to be pretty cringe, NGL, because I am a judgmental and suspicious piece of shit and think that an awful lot of the time polyamory is a tool used to make younger women sexually available to older men - good Lord, the age difference between Stewart and Janet - and that's very distasteful.

In my opinion the Farrars are probably the stodgiest and most conservatively-written books you'll find from that time period, and they're a good example of what coven-based Alexandrian Wicca looked like at that time, but there were a lot of more relaxed writers out there at the time and LOTS more a few years later. My primary complaint with A Witches' Bible is rather specifically that asinine Oak King / Holly King thing which they made up entirely and then ineptly shoehorned into the Wheel of the Year, where it just doesn't fucking work, and then everyone else just kind of went with it. No! It sucks and is bad, don't do it!

Do I think they do more harm than good? No, I don't. I think that anyone fairly new to Wicca shouldn't read this book first thing out the gate because it sets a lot of very unrealistic expectations, and because it's pretty old - Eight Sabbats for Witches was published in 1981, which makes it a few years older than me, and The Witches' Way in 1984, which makes it a year younger than me, and TBH there's much newer and fresher material being published every year. I would much sooner recommend someone like Thorn Mooney to new person interested in traditional Wicca.

#Wicca #Witchcraft #Pagan #Traditional Wicca #Alexandrian Wicca #Janet and Stewart Farrar #The Farrars

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vahalia-cress · 3 months ago

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⸸ Ilyon Asoh ⸸

Violence/Tenderness: DAY 2 @daily-writing-challenge

Violent lands wrought with countless years of tribal wars and strife. Such was the way of Tural and its inhabitants, older rather than newer. It had only come to know peace within the past 80 years during Gulool Ja Ja who sought to unite the people of Tural as a nation. And it stood, thriving even, to this day when he was setting his Promises out into the world to partake in their Rite of Succession. They considered it a pilgrimage where Vahalia was from, and the two weren’t too far off from one another in their respective purposes. It was never about the end but the journeys in between.

Vahalia had felt that nostalgia pluck at her memory bank, as she sat before the fire watching it crackle and flickler within the night air. A little over a decade ago it had been her, two others and their mentor traveling around the world taking up odd jobs on the side of their studies as Magi. It felt like a lifetime ago, she was a different person then than she was now, perhaps all roads eventually led her to this very place.

This journey.

Light golden eyes cut towards the two sleeping figures in their sleeping rolls. Cordelia and Wren were seemingly well protected as Vahalia and Castien had taken the first watch.

They had boarded the dirigibles into Yak’T’el taking their mounts with them and settled for the evening just at the outskirts of the Village of Ilyon Asoh beside the biggest tree they could find to shield them from the gentle tapping of rain they had felt prior in their travels.

A soft ruffle of the Chocobo feathers came and once more the large, geared, and armored avians adjusted back into their comforts. Castien came into few and placed the foul she had procured along the triad of sticks she had prepared prior, “Enough for the evening and morning.” she commented, dusting off her hands and exhaling as she took a load off alongside the trunk of the tree beside Vahalia.

“I take it you’ve pinned down a good idea of the land? You’ve been gone for a while.”

“Bought a few maps in Iq Br’aax, I couldn’t say no to a good start, it’ll benefit my maps later when I piece it all together,” Castien replied and she dug into her pack beside her to pull out a sketchbook and a charcoal pencil, already doodling away.

“Have you always had a fondness for cartography and art?”

“Not always but it was all I had. I didn’t have my mother around and ended up in an orphanage before I was six years old. We couldn’t afford much there so I would sometimes find scraps of paper on the ground or get pieces of scrolls from the kitchen staff after they were done with their recipes. I used to use the soot from the fireplaces after the fires died down in the mornings and I would find an interest in creating images that way. When I could afford my first paintset I was drawn to landscapes and the people.” Castien chuckled as she looked sidelong to Vahalia, “S’pose that does that to a person when you’re locked up and don’t go far. When you become your own person you sort of just want to see everything and know everything around you. I always found it…calming.”

A low hum emitted from Vahalia as she eyed the sketchbook, hardly seeing anything to truly judge what was within but she had seen Castien’s work before, plenty of times even commissioning her and buying her maps, especially when it came to her first purchasing ships for trade. There was very little to scrutinize however, she did find familiar ground with the prospect of something beautiful coming from the depths of depression and longing, abandonment and trauma.

Tenderly Vahalia’s lips curled into a subtle smile – it wasn’t perfect but it remained all the same, “you made something of yourself despite the things baring your way. I admire that.”

“Thank you.” Castien tilted her head and smirked in Vahalia’s direction.

“Some people are the prize, some are the punishment.” she retorted quietly and she slowly returned her gaze to the flickering fire before them.

“And which do you consider yourself, Vahalia?”

“That depends on who you ask.” Lady Cress’s gentle smile eventually twitched into a bit of a smirk. She was both hellfire and holy water, what you drank depended on how you treated her.

#DWC #augustdwc2024 #augustday22024 #Daily Writing Challenge #Day 2 #DWC day 2 #Stories #Blurbs #The Spinner #The Allotter #The Inevitable #Cress sisters #•• Witches Gambit ••

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bluewithpurplepolkadots · 5 months ago

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Honestly I might (might) write a longer post about it at some stage but like… my current feelings on finishing MAWs second season is that the new characters (as in those introduced in this show and didn’t exist prior to it) were very solid.

Certain older characters (as in: those that existed prior to this show). Uhhhh.

Um.

In any case I feel a reason for this is because those in charge of season two did of course watch season one: or at least had it fresh in their minds.

Because of this, they were aware of some things which didn’t work in that first season in terms of its newer characters and that the ending wasn’t satisfactory (particularly for Tylor and Val) and decided to make something better out of it: all while still making it feel like something that could organically grow out of the events of season one.

Things like monsters thinking comedy wasn’t respectable feels realistic. Tylor failing hard at it is also inevitable. Val being well suited to it also. (Especially as being more like a cool babysitter rather than doing stand up). I thought the fact they made them into a comedy duo was a very clever idea I didn’t see coming: but also didn’t feel like it came out of nowhere. It’s really a way for Tylor to be realistically involved with comedy again which doesn’t feel as forced and off as season ones doughnut joke did.

This is good solid writing to me. With their own new characters that they themselves made, while they may have stumbled in season one: I feel the show really gets them now.

But… I honestly wonder if the writers watched either MU or MI upon first starting to write for this show. At least recently. Since they got the job in question I mean.

They’ve clearly seen it at some point in their life. They also perhaps fast forwarded and zeroed in on a specific scenes like Sulley in the laugh floor with Boos picture in season one. They’ve researched the sets that were available and expanded. That sort of thing.

But otherwise it feels like they based the older characters off vibes and half forgotten memories they had of what they thought they were like. Like it’s possibly been more then a decade anyway since they’ve given it a look. Even in season one something feels off with Sulley to me. I’m not sure how to describe it.

And: Randall is indeed violent in MI. There he’s the kind of guy to turn invisible, throw a scream canister at you, state he’s always wanted to do that, darkly chuckle and then choke you out while your friend blathers on at you without realising what’s happening. Randall in MI can be dark man. But: The MAW version… it isn’t really Randall at all. He’s way too… cackling and bouncing off the walls for some reason. He doesn’t know these mifters. With Sulley, Randall has been bitter as hell for a long time and he wasn’t like this. The only take away from the original movie would be a call back to Sulley unplugging the machine to save Mike: like Randall did to them to stop them from taking back the laugh power.

The only possible explanation I’ll take is that his head got scrambled by the shovel. Which would be… fairly dark and possibly interesting as an implication. For Sulley and Mike to be responsible for that happening. But rather like the fact that in season one they just have CEOs legally able to banish monsters if they have the right excuse, I kind of doubt we’ll ever get a look into it or we’re supposed to think on things like that in any real depth.

Also, as a major Sulley fan. I have to say the whole evidence in Tylors locker things and jumping to belief of guilt kind of pissed me off. Granted while better than only-fifteen-minutes-lunch Johnny, he ain’t the best boss at points. (He had his comedians work a double shift? Mike almost dying from a drug overdose on energy drinks Etc) But once again… I’m not sure we’re supposed to take it that way or as a potential thing he has to work on which is kind of… disappointing?

Like he could have an arc. Learn to be a better boss? Maybe Roz shouldn’t have done the random idea of throwing it on them immediately. (Where is the board of directors Waternoose complained about anyway? Yeah see: this is why I think it’s been a while since any major writer has seen the movie).

Johnny was actually pretty solid until the finale and until he chose to tell Tylor of his plans for…. Absolutely no reason. Like Tylor had been working there for a day. He was expressing doubt even. Before this, given vague spoilers I had, I thought Johnny was being handled well and they could make his secretly-evil!Johnny reveal be good even if Randall wasn’t exactly sounding too hot.

Like just have Tylor sneak around and be suspicious of something. Did you run out of time? I guess it’s possible. Season twos pacing before the final two is pretty solid. But if you only had ten episodes? Hrm. Idk. Hard to know what to cut honestly to make room if you don’t want a cliffhanger ending.

I guess this may be an odd example of competent original fiction writers failing to write convincing fanfic.

#Maw #monsters at work

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tokusho · 11 months ago

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TF141+Vaqueros as Elementary School Teachers AU

Characters involved: John Price, Kyle “Gaz” Garrick, Johnny “Soap” Mactavish, Simon “Ghost” Riley, Alejandro Vargas, Rodolfo “Rudy” Parra

Warnings: One mention of bullying

WC: 1.3k

Notes: Irl I actually work for an elementary school and this is how I feel the soldiers would be as teachers and what they’d teach. In this AU they’ve never been soldiers. I do have plans for Farah, Alex, Nikolai, and Graves in this au. I may make this into an actual fanfic if there is enough interest.

Ghost-Kindergarten

Ghost is a veteran teacher coming in the second year of the school's opening. Knowing that students are snotty and don’t cover their mouths when they cough so he wears a face mask around them. Despite his large frame and the dark clothes, his kids flock to him. They love to sit on his lap during story time and cuddle against him during nap time. His dry sense of humor along with his natural leadership kindergarteners become comfortable and confident at the start of their school life. He is deeply protective of his class seeing them as still young and innocent. If he catches any older student picking on one of his kids he’ll come up behind them without a sound like a ghost escorting them to the principal's office. His children affectionately call him Mr.Riley but the other kids who were never in his class call him Ghost due to his more closed off personality and strictness with the higher grades. Ghosts classroom is filled with bright colors and mats in the corner ready for nap time right after lunch.

Price- 1st and 2nd Grade Special Ed

Price has been in the school ever since it has opened along with Alejandro. He knows every staff member and does his best to learn and remember every student's names in the school. His calloused hands hold his kids small hands through the halls making sure they don’t run off and get lost or hurt. His steady and sure personality helps with his little ones having tough times, getting overstimulated, or dealing with big emotions that they don’t know how to deal with. He's able to read situations and his students quickly knowing what to do and how to help. He joins in with his students doing their breaks with little dances, holding their hands and shimmying with them encouraging their playfulness while keeping an eye out for any potential problems. From the years of working at the school he has learned that he needs to either bend or break the rules to get proper accommodations to help his children whether it be ipads for nonverbal students, earmuffs, etc he’ll do anything to make sure his kids are happy. His classroom is set up practically and a little more sparsely than the other classrooms, not because there isn’t a lot of things its more that its organized so his students know where things go throughout the day.

Soap- 2nd Grade

Soap is one of the newer teachers still with enough energy to keep up with the students. He’s the joker, out of every other teacher he’s able to make any student laugh the loudest. He goes all in for each student making sure to hear their laugh at least once a day from doing dad jokes from falling on his face. He makes sure his students are learning but he doesn’t want his students' brains to melt from studying too much so he participates in brain breaks with them such as doing dance battles or even simon says. He affectionately calls his kids lads and lasses, in his eyes they can do no wrong so he redirects them and talks to them about what's wrong, unless if there was a case of hitting or bullying. When one of his kids gets a warhawk to look just like him he almost cries tears of joy ready to sweep the kid up in a massive hug. His room consists of big desks where the students can sit at a table with a large amount of space in the back with a rug for brain breaks and library time with his students.

Kyle- 3rd Grade

Kyle is one of the newer teachers like Soap but he knows for third grade they don’t need that overwhelming energy anymore. His presence is calming and positive for his students making them feel more relaxed compared to other classes. He wants his classroom to be a safe place for his students, to feel at ease while learning. In the eyes of the students (specifically his students) he is the calmest teacher at the school. He cares for each one of his students and if he sees one of them not being their usual self he’ll subtly pull his student out of the class to make sure everything is alright. As he walks through the halls, is doing lunch duty, or playground duty he is being constantly tackled by children wanting a hug or having other little kids wanting to show him something cool they found. He softly chuckles and hugs each student giving them a pat on the head despite knowing most likely he's going to get sick from them hugging him all the time. His room is very cozy, never using the harsh overhead lights but with many lamps with warm lights along with a variety of different places his students can sit to read or just to relax.

Alejandro-4th Grade Math and Science

Alejandro started teaching along with Price at the beginning of the school's opening. He is extremely proud of each and every class that has ever passed through having his class. Alejandro and Rodolfo share a class of 40, 20 in each class so the students can get used to switching classes for middle school. He calls his students his “pequeño

vaqueros y vaqueras” (his small cowboys and cowgirls). He believes that his students are the absolute best out of any other class in the whole school always talking and showing off his amazing students. He is willing to go to any lengths to help a student who is confused wanting for his students to unlock their full potentials. He is by far the loudest teacher in the school whether it be his normal talking voice, laughing at an awful joke, or yelling at a student trying to throw food at someone in the cafeteria. He believes in punishment for those who have been wronged whether it be a student being picked on or a horrible rumor. He’s the voice for the students willing to do anything to get proper accommodations just like Price, even if it means going against the higher ups. His room is a little less decorated than the others since he and rodolfo is prepping the students for middle school. The desks are in a half circle with big pieces of paper on the wall with big writing showing off math equations or science they are currently learning.

Rodolfo-4th grade Reading, Writing, and History

Rodlfo joined the school a year after John and Alejandro. Just like Alejandro he is extremely proud of each student and calls them his “príncipes y princesas” (princes and princesses). He and Kyle are some of the most hugged teachers in the school. He teaches his kids the curriculum along with some extra fairy tales if they finish their work before the class ends. On special days if his students have been behaving he lets them watch movies of the books they are reading. Whether summer or winter he is usually wearing his gray sweatshirt which is how his students identify him in the school. He is one of the kindest and laid back teachers in the school only beaten by Kyle. His students like to spend their lunches and sometimes even recesses in his room. A lot of students ask him and Alejandro if they are siblings, although at first they saw it as cute but after being constantly asked by every student, they made matching shirts that say “we’re not brothers”. Rodolfos class has many books along with desks paired in twos for group work. There is a big desk in the back so he can have small groups talking about books they are reading, stories they are writing, or specific parts of history they are learning.

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