#serena's reading adventures

[booksandeverything-in-between]

Gonna start something that I might forget about.

The thought here is that, since I deleted my Goodreads and it overwhelms me anyway, but I want to get back to reading now that I'm done with school, I'll reblog this each time I finish a book, so it's my own little reading log that'll live on my own little book blog that I've had for almost 10 years.

Books I've read this year:

(We must remember (to the best of my ability) all the reading I've done for my classes:

Constitutional Law & Politics, Vol. 2: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, O'Brien & Silverstein

So. Many. Supreme Court Decisions. Because they count!

The Art of War, Sun Tzu

On Guerilla Warfare, Mao Tse-tung

The Prince, Machiavelli

Rules for Radicals, Saul Alinski

The Starfish and the Spider, Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom

Digital Universe, Peter Seel

Not counting all of the articles/books I skimmed because I was a combination of too tired, too bored or too confused. (von Clausewitz's "On War," anyone?)

And probably more.)

Aug. 13 - The Blonde Identity, Ally Carter

[kayann9]

Hope is a dangerous game

Thank you so much to anyone who read the last one shot! I really appreciate anyone who took the time to read, like or re-blog!

This is mainly from Gale's P.O.V just before Shadow-cursed Lands and his confession. Nothing explicit; just fluff. Tav (f -Serena) X Gale. 1057 words and I do not own anything other than Serena :)

Gods she was beautiful.

Gale’s brain let the thought roam free, the urge he’d had to reign it in when the dark magic coursing through his veins heaved had vanished. He watched her train with abandon and revelled in the fact he could glance in her direction without the guilt and concern that doing so would end their lives.

He had noted that beauty when she’d dragged him out of the portal.

The type of grace that elves possessed was a magic unto itself, but she was spectacular. The others had made the same eyes at her that he had; his incessant babbling about his life in Waterdeep and tales of misbegotten adventures as a youth had been his weapons in the war for her attention.

“Your flank. It’s always the flank!” Karlach’s voice boomed as it broke his silent reverie. “You know, I will always watch your back Ren but sooner or later you’re going to feel the point of a sword there.”

“I’m left-handed! It’s hard.”

Serena was left-handed. Of course, she was. Gale had spent his time studying her since he’d decided he’d have to keep away from her, since the night of magic happened, and he’d seen that thought whirring in her brain. He’d worked out that she liked the outdoors, that she enjoyed the sound of water, she was better at cards than she told anyone – often faking poor hands and bluffs - and that when she was happy, genuinely so, she smiled with her whole face. This was one of those times and far from the usually clench of agony in his chest, it was just his heartbeat throbbing away at the sight of the brightness in her eyes.

It was a different kind of feeling.

There was no anxiety around her. There were no knots in his stomach when he looked at her; just the feeling of warmth. The feeling of not wanting to wait until she spoke to him or looked at him again. He didn’t question that she was fond of him, whilst their relationship had not been spoken out loud, their glances and touches were the most intimate he’d ever felt.

He was falling in love with her.

He was in love with her.

And wasn’t that the cruellest joke of them all.

His Mother would have been thrilled if he’d spoken to her and told her of Serena; intelligent, brave, beautiful, good. She’d been no fan of his special relationship with Mystra; no fan of his designs of wanting more than mortality. This, this she would have been ecstatic about.

And he wouldn’t ever be able to tell her.

Because it wouldn’t be anything more than a blip in time; maybe a moment before his destruction. His Mother would never know about how he’d met someone who made his heart sing; who laughed at his stories, genuinely and with heart; who made fun out of him with a soft glance.

He supposed the real question was would he even be able to tell Serena?

Would it be fair?

One part of him screamed to do it; to take her away to a secluded spot, show her the heavens and then some, tell her how if it were the real world and if he were at home, in his cluttered tower, he would’ve taken all the time in the world to do this right. He’d have taken her out, showed her any realm she wished to see, taken her to any place she had wished to visit.

Then there was the other part. The part that couldn’t forget the orb despite its silence. The part that reminded him how selfish that would be when he knew what the outcome was: oblivion.

And that was if she was even receptive to the whole idea. It hadn’t been lost on him that they were from different worlds; hers filled with blood and steel, his filled with mysticism and power. It was possible he’d read the whole thing wrong. That her glances were that of sympathy and pity not wanting and compassion.

He groaned and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

It was all so complex.

It was all so human.

“You look a million miles away.” He startled as she sat beside him. “I’m tired of my flank being told off so I am having a break.”

Sweat beaded along her brow, her skin flushed with the heat. She glowed. “Just lost in thought. Your flank looked good to me.” As the words left his mouth, his brain caught up.

“I am very glad to have you watching my flank.” Her shoulder knocked into his, that familiar teasing tone had been slowly creeping back since Elminster’s visit. “Maybe you should go and spar with her, I can watch your flank too.”

He didn’t flush, for that he was grateful.

“I’m not sure sword fighting is my forte. A wise man knows him limitations and using an executioner’s axe is most definitely mine, especially if you want me to keep my hands. Very difficult to cast the array of spells at my arsenal without them.”

“I am almost positive they have much better uses than simply casting spells.”

Gale’s heart stuttered. This was definitely a flirtation. It was one of her more obvious ones. While he had tormented himself about all the outcomes, the more impulsive part of him couldn’t help but lean into her: messy hair sitting on her damp skin, rosy glow of her face in the evening light.

“Oh, really?”

Serena was so fast that he barely had chance to register, entwining her fingers in his. “Oh, most definitely.” Her voice lowered to a whisper and he couldn’t help but glance around the wide space, checking to make sure he had not actually succumbed to death, and this was some sordid fantasy he’d spent weeks pushing away.

Her breath tickled his cheek, her lips close to his ear.

“You… are also an excellent cook.” The giggle brought him back to reality and before he could register his disappointment, she planted the lightest kiss on his cheek before dancing away.

His skin tingled with the faintest ghost of her lips.

His soul tingled with faintest glimmer of hope.

For the first time, in what felt like an eternity, the tiniest gleam of a new voice in his head whispered: maybe she will find another way.

[marukrawler]

Do you have any Serena x Kazarina AU headcanons (or a storyline in general)?

not sure if you've read the thread i linked but i'll post it here, too, and add a bit more details.

basically it's an au that entertains the idea of kazarina being born a neathian. she comes from a lineage of royal scientists who created the defense shields and the interdimensional warp technology used on neathia. because the royal scientists worked closely with the royal family, kazarina quickly formed a close friendship with the crown princess, serena. growing up together, they spent much of their time exploring the castle grounds, playing games and, if kazarina had her way, pulling pranks. while serena was a very polite and reserved person, a true model princess, kazarina had a knack for drawing out her mischievous side, leading them into all sorts of adventures. the two of them became nearly inseparable. but as they grew older, serena noticed kazarina's hunger for knowledge creep into dangerous territory. she wanted to experiment on living bakugan to test the limits of their strength, and to learn more about the sacred orb's divine power. serena tried to discourage her friend's ambitions, to steer her away from the path she was on but to no avail. for kazarina, experimentation was essential for progress. how else could they have unlocked the secrets of teleportation without studying and experimenting on the bakugan who possessed the ability? on one fateful day, kazarina broke into the sacred shrine. she had previously discovered that she wasn't pure enough to pass through the sacred spring but succeeded in finding a workaround. kazarina tampered with the orb by siphoning some of its power and as a result, the orb punished her. serena and her guards quickly came upon the terrible sight of kazarina, her body scorched and marred in places. the putrid stench of burned flesh lingered in the air. serena visited kazarina many times while she was bedridden and healing. she was eventually forced to break the bad news to her; that once kazarina was well enough to be discharged, she was going to stand trial before the current queen for her transgressions against the sacred orb. kazarina asked her dear old friend to plead her case because surely, serena understood why kazarina had done this. serena refused to defend kazarina's actions. the following day, kazarina was discovered to have fled from her hospital room. as the years passed by, serena eventually ascended the throne and became the new queen. she wouldn't hear from her friend for many more years, not until the war broke out and she saw kazarina on the frontline, spearheading the charge.

i also like the idea of kazarina deliberately killing jin as a way to hurt serena by hurting her sister. . .kazarina couldn't touch serena nor fabia but she could certainly get to jin. do you hate me now, serena?

here's a drawing of how i thought neathian kazarina might've looked like 👀👉👈

(outfit design pending)

[sunny-likes-pokemon]

Performance

Serena is planning her next performance and is completely stuck. Can her friends help her get out of her own head?

AO3 • ff.net

I absolutely love Showcases. They felt like actual dance competitions to me as someone who danced competitively in high school and college. As a performer myself, I related so much to those girls giving their all and improving their routines over their season, the costume troubles, the fun rivals, the weird ones who took everything way too seriously and weren’t fun at all. I’ll be honest, that’s probably why I like the Kalos adventure so much! It was very relevant to my life at the time.

I’ve read criticisms that the routines were “the same every time” and "boring" and I just want to be like—do you have eyes?? Can’t you see the gradual progression??? The growth of personal character and skill???? The changes that make such a big difference, culminating in a final performance reminiscent of and yet entirely evolved from the start????? Bah.

So this piece is dedicated to little me, full of anxiety but dancing her heart out anyways.

Serena sat with her head in her hands, thinking as hard as she could.

She’d gotten notes from the performance judges after her last showcase, but how in the world was she supposed to incorporate them?

One note had said her routine needed more ‘dimensionality,’ that she needed to use all the space available on the stage, including vertically, for the best effect. Another had said the rhythm of the transition during the bridge of the song needed to be improved. 

And, most confusing of all, one note said that she was ‘overthinking’ her routine.

“What does that even mean?!” she screeched, burying her hands in her hair.

The Pokémon gathered nearby to eat lunch startled, Frogadier jumping to his feet with hands raised, Braixen whipping out her branch and looking for enemies.

“Serena?” called Bonnie from the campsite where she was watching Clemont make lunch. “Are you okay?” Ash, who had been watching the Pokémon, and Clemont, busy with cooking, looked at her as well, concern obvious on their faces.

“Oh, yes, just fine!” she called back, embarrassed that everyone witnessed her outburst. She had to leave, just for a bit, and pull herself together. “I’m just going to take a quick walk.” And she stood in a hurry and quickly walked away.

“Stupid, stupid,” she muttered, then took a deep breath. “Okay. One at a time. Timing.”

That just needed more training, right? The more she and her Pokémon worked together, the more in sync they’d be. They would have to practice every day, then practice until they couldn’t mess up. Then they’d be perfectly on beat. 

“Okay, next. Dimensionality.” 

She closed her eyes and imagined she was looking at the stage from the audience, but frowned and stomped her foot when she started mixing up directions in her head. “I need to see it,” she said, marching back to the camp. 

“Clemont!” she shouted when she got close, still marching. 

The inventor jumped and nearly dropped his ladle into the soup. “Y-yes?”

“Did you record my performance?” He hadn’t mentioned anything beforehand, but sometimes he did things like that to be prepared for ‘a situation precisely like this one!’

“Y-yes?”

She nodded and put her hands on her hips. “I need to see it. I need to see what those judges were talking about.”

“I’ll watch the soup, Clemont,” Ash said, standing up and taking the ladle. 

The inventor was so startled that he didn’t even try to show her a ‘Performance Improver Prediction Machine’ or something. He just dug around until he found a tablet, loaded up the video, then handed it to her.

She sat down on the ground and started the video, studying it intently. 

“Um, Serena?” Bonnie asked. 

“Yes, what is it?” she asked, not looking up. There was the starting move from Braixen. Hm, maybe they could use Ancient Power to push it higher? No, that would change the shape of it too much. Could Braixen learn to increase her range?

“Don't you want to sit at the table…?”

Serena hummed absently and nodded. Pancham’s acrobatics were impressive close up, but diminished at a distance. How could he gain altitude? How far could he jump straight up?

“Notebook, notebook,” she muttered, reaching for her backpack. She didn’t find anything and realized she didn’t have it on. 

“Here,” Ash said, handing her her bag. 

Serena dug through the bag for a notebook and pencil, then started taking notes. 

“How to visualize…?” she muttered, then started sketching out the ‘beats’ of the performance, the big moments she really wanted to linger on, as they currently were, then below that, how she could change them to make them more dynamic. 

They had three minutes to perform, starting from the moment their music started, which was a few seconds after they took their starting poses on stage. 

They had to keep the performance escalating through that whole three minutes, starting off interesting and keeping it that way before a finishing move that would be memorable—popular vote deciding the competition meant she had to stick out in some way. 

“Serena, the soup’s getting cold,” Clemont said from nearby. 

She hummed and nodded, then squeaked when someone plucked the pencil and notebook from her hands. “Hey!”

Ash didn’t look impressed. “Seriously, you need to eat. I’ll give them back when you’re done.”

She pouted and pushed herself up, dusting herself off and stomping to the table to sit. There was a bowl of soup waiting there for her, as well as some fruit in the middle to share and her water bottle. 

She quickly shoveled the food into her mouth, grabbing her water bottle and a piece of fruit before standing up. 

“Okay, done! Give them back!”

Ash did, his eyes wide. He gestured at his face. “Um, you’ve got some soup…”

But she had already gone, heading over to the shade of one of the big trees around the campsite and settling down. She had to figure this out. 

—

Ash stood there, staring at Serena as she plopped herself down on the ground again. 

“That…was Serena, right?” Bonnie said, scooting behind Ash and holding Dedenne close as if to keep him safe. “She didn’t get possessed or…or body-swapped?”

Clemont shrugged. “I guess she must be really excited about working on her routine.” He started to clean up from lunch and Ash quickly shook off his confusion and helped. 

Usually, Serena was the last of them to finish eating, taking her time and talking and laughing, and she always helped clean up. 

Ash had hoped to move further that day, closer to his next gym, but Serena didn’t seem to realize anything else was going on, focused entirely on rewatching her performance and taking notes. The day dragged on and on, and Ash eventually had to admit they wouldnt be going any further. “I guess we’re camping here tonight,” he told the others, who looked over at Serena with concern. Camping here was okay with him. It wasn’t like gym battles were on a set schedule like showcases were (even if he did want to get there as soon as possible). He, like Clemont and Bonnie, was kind of worried about Serena, though. 

They set up their tents, the boys helping Bonnie with the girls’ tent, then got ready for bed. Some nights they all played a card game or something before going to sleep, but as one-fourth of their group was so frantically occupied, none of them were really feeling it. So Ash said his final ‘good night’ to his Pokémon and returned them to their Pokéballs to rest (except for Pikachu, who had already snuggled up in his sleeping bag). Then he put his hands on his hips and frowned at Serena, still scribbling away. At least she was sitting at the table now. 

“Serena,” he said, walking over to her, “it’s time for bed.”

“Just gotta…figure this…” she mumbled. 

He sighed. He understood. He did. And he’d had friends have this problem, before, too—hyper-focusing on planning it ‘just right’ and not taking breaks when needed, not doing what they’d planned. 

So he sat across from her and drummed his fingers on the table until she looked up at him, blinking, her eyes bloodshot. 

“Ash?” she asked, her voice a bit rough. “What’s up?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You. It’s bedtime.”

She scoffed. “No, it’s barely even…” She seemed to notice the dark of the sky then, how Ash was in his pajamas and the others already gone to sleep. “Oh. I guess it is.” She bit her lip and looked down at her notes. “But…but I need to…”

Ash sighed and propped his head up on his hand. It looked like a little more help was needed. “What are you struggling with?” She blinked at him in confusion and he waved at her notes. “I’ve had friends compete in things like this before. I have, too, but just for fun.” He scratched his cheek. “Maybe it won’t be the best help, but I’ll help you.”

Serena smiled at him, her shoulders finally relaxing. “Really?” He nodded, preparing himself for a long night. Then Serena yawned, covering it with her hand and then blinking slowly. “Oh, wow, I’m tired. Um, would you be okay to help me tomorrow?”

A bit relieved, he nodded again. “Absolutely.”

He stayed up while Serena got ready for bed, not wanting to leave her alone in case she decided she wanted to work some more. She did go right to bed, though, waving goodnight to him before joining Bonnie in the girls’ tent. 

The next day, Serena seemed to be back to her usual self, helping Clemont with breakfast and making Bonnie laugh with a story about her and Rhyhorn when she was very little. They got back in the road, and then Serena came up to him. 

“Um, are you still okay to help me?” she asked. 

He pumped his fist. “Of course! What do you need?”

She brought out her notebook, but paused and chewed on her lip. “When you said you competed in something like performances, what did you mean?”

So he explained contests to her, how the trainer was called a coordinator and specifically showed off Pokémon moves and the health of the Pokémon themselves, and then battled another Coordinator in a flashy way. Also, all scores were all decided by judges and not the audience. 

“Interesting,” she said softly, tapping her lips with her pencil. “So they don’t do routines?”

Ash frowned. “Well, I mean, kind of, but they’re much shorter and not set to a specific song. Not very many moves, either. Sometimes just one! They also don’t do the same routine, but come up with new ones each time. They weren’t as…it’s like…ah, buddy, what am I not explaining right?”

Pikachu crossed his tiny arms as he thought, then jumped off his shoulder and got into a ready stance, nodding at him. Ash laughed. “Alright, a demonstration it is!” He closed his eyes, remembering the moves he’d used before and what he’d learned since then. Then he shrugged and called out, “Okay, Pikachu, Electro Ball, straight up!” Once it was in the air, he called, “Thunderbolt at it, then smash them both with Iron Tail!” What resulted was an explosion of sparks and energy, and a very charged-up Pikachu. 

“Pika!!” Pikachu cried, eyes wide and grin wider. 

“Wow!!” Bonnie cheered, running up to them. “That was so cool, Pikachu!!” Dedenne cheered as well, scampering around Pikachu. 

Ash laughed at his little electric mouse, all fluffed up and sparking like a very hyper puff-ball. “Pikachu, Thunderbolt to get rid of all that static!” He looked back at Serena as Pikachu fired off a bolt into the sky and shrugged again. “Sorry, contests weren’t my thing. We probably would have gotten points off for all that static build up making Pikachu look silly. Some contests wouldn’t have allowed three moves. And there would have been a bit more planning, but that sort of thing.”

She tilted her head. “So, a coordinator just calls out a couple moves that their Pokémon practiced? They don’t all perform together?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Coordinators kinda just stand there. They usually have nice outfits, but it wasn’t a requirement.” 

She hummed and thought for a moment. “Well, I guess it’s not my part I have questions about.” Then she opened her notebook and showed Ash the drawings she’d made of a stage, tiny figures in various poses with move effects surrounding them. “One of the judges said I needed to use the vertical space more, so I was trying to think of different ways to get everyone’s moves to go farther.” She sighed. “I don’t know if you can train for that, though.”

“Well, you could have them launch themselves off of Pancham’s Stone Edge and then use their moves to get themselves higher into the air,” he said. “They both could do that, right? And then they could do something flashy while they’re up there.”

“Hm, yeah,” she said, turning to a new page and scribbling a few words there. “Maybe Braixen could blast herself up…”

Ash nodded, trying to think of cool moves he’d seen in his various battles. They continued to talk, throwing out ideas of different ways to add to or change Serena’s routine. Once Bonnie figured out what they were doing, she joined in, although she quickly got distracted imagining how Dedenne could perform. (And then Clemont joined in, too, when Bonnie seemed to think Dedenne could learn Flying Type moves.)

They didn’t make it to a Pokémon Center that day, so they found another spot to camp for the night. Serena seemed much more relaxed, actually joining them for dinner and helping set up camp. 

It was only after Bonnie and Clemont had both gone to sleep (Clemont had made a new invention which had exploded spectacularly and then said he was going to bed early) that Ash realized Serena was bent over her notebook again at the table, scribbling away.

He sighed. He’d hoped their planning session would have relaxed her. He was kind of tired…would it be better to let Serena figure out how bad an idea it was to stay up late on her own? Would she even notice, though? 

And then he heard a little sniff and saw Serena rub one eye, then a few more sniffs as she rubbed her arm across her face. She was crying?!

He grabbed his handkerchief from his bag and hurried over to her, sitting beside her and holding out the square of cloth.

“Thanks,” she said in a rough, quiet voice. “Sorry. I’m sorry.” She kept crying. She used the handkerchief to muffle the few sobs that tried to get through.

Ash frowned, trying to think of something to do or say. He shouldn’t just let her cry, right? When he got upset, he stormed off and brooded for a while. Except when he was at home, where his mom wouldn’t let him mope—she’d drag him into making dinner with her or playing a video game or watching a rerun of his favorite Pokémon battles until his problems didn’t seem so big. And if he was really upset, she’d sit with him and hug him until he felt better. There wasn’t exactly a kitchen, game system, or TV around, though, so he couldn’t do those things for Serena (he also didn’t know if she liked video games, and she probably would want to watch something other than battle reruns). He could hug her, though. So he scooted closer and wrapped his arms around her.

She squeaked and went very rigid. “A-Ash?!”

“It’s okay,” he said, patting her back and trying to remember what his mom had said to him in these situations. “It’s going to be okay.”

She slumped against him. “Why can’t I think of anything on my own?” she whispered. “I can’t just use your ideas all the time. Why…?”

Oh. Well, that made sense. “You’re thinking too hard about it.”

A groan was her response. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Have you thought about anything else these past couple days?”

“I mean…no, not really.” Then she straightened and narrowed her eyes at him. “And hard to believe you’re telling me that, Mr. Battle-Every-Trainer-That-Makes-Eye-Contact.”

He shrugged. “I know this stuff. Sometimes I use what I know.” Then he frowned. “I don’t battle every trainer.”

“But you want to.”

Well, she wasn’t wrong . “We’re getting off track. You can’t just think about one thing all the time. You’ll paralyze yourself. Do lots of things, think about lots of things.” He sighed and looked around at their little campsite. “That’s one of the reasons I like traveling with people. I get too caught up in my own head otherwise.”

She snorted lightly. “You? Really?”

He smiled wanly. “Yeah, I’m…not the best on my own.” 

She had been smiling as if expecting a joke, but it faded as she seemed to realize he was serious. “But you always come off as so confident and mature…”

Ash barked out a laugh, genuinely surprised. “Really?” He didn’t feel any different than he had when he first set off on his journey years ago, and he knew he’d been a brat back then, all big dreams and desperation to prove he had what it took to be a good trainer. Then again, he’d learned so much since then, met so many people and seen so many things, traveled all around the planet and had more adventures than any kid could ask for. It would have been stranger if he hadn’t changed at least a little bit. “If I’m so wise and mature, then you should listen to me and go to sleep. Sleep isn’t something you can miss and still function normally.”

Rolling her eyes, Serena closed her notebook. “Fine, fine.” She went to stand up, but paused and then sat down again, a small frown on her face as she looked at the handkerchief in her hand. 

“…Serena?”

Her eyes met his briefly, her expression unreadable. Then she smiled, bright as could be, and held the square of cloth out to him. When he went to grab it, she put her hand over his, her gaze practically burning into his. “You’re incredible. You’ll reach your dreams and go even further beyond them. I know you will.” 

Before he could say anything, she walked away and off to her tent. He didn’t move for a while, just sitting there, confused as could be. 

But…it made him really happy that she believed in him. She’d been traveling with him long enough to see the kind of guy he was, and apparently she still thought he could reach his dreams, no matter how big. 

He believed in her, too. Once she stopped worrying so much and found her groove again, he had no doubt she’d go on to be the best performer Kalos had ever seen. He couldn’t wait to see it!

[queen-paladin]

My Books and other Media: April 2024 Wrap up!!!

Here is what I thought of these! As well as some video essays I LOVED because I eat those up!

The Time I Got Drunk and Saved A Demon by Lemming:

A hilarious romantasy adventure romp! Our Heroine, Cin, has to team up with a demon to go on an adventure when they find out that their goddess possesses demons to attack people and the only way to stop her is to destroy her sacred items. It's laugh-out-loud funny one minute and sweet, romantic, and very spicy the next. I would highly recommend it! 5/5

The Death of Jane Lawrence by Starling

In a Victorian AU world, Jane doesn't want to be stuck as a spinster figure of pity with her adopted family, so she agrees to be in a marriage of convenience with a surgeon named Augustine Lawrence. Things seem to be going great until on her wedding night, she is dropped off at the manor house he lives in...at the haunted manor house he lives in. Since Crimson Peak is one of my favorite movies and this book was inspired by it, I had to pick it up and I was not disappointed! Very much had the same vibes but is distinctly its own thing! I liked Jane and her practicality and I loved Augustine and how much of a pathetic meow meow and simping malewife he was for her. There is plenty of scary, gruesome imagery and I kept being so nervous, thinking "how is Jane gonna deal with this?" Plus there was a pretty darn good twist in the last third and I was genuinely surprised by the ending, without giving anything away The only thing is that sometimes the prose is so poetic that it becomes vague, especially one section right before the very end. But I loved it! 4/5

Bride

Okay, so in a nutshell, this is an arranged marriage story between the vampire Misery and the werewolf Lowe, since the vampires, werewolves, and humans have been in constant conflict. For what I liked, the book was really funny. I enjoyed Misery's sarcasm, snark, and badassery and the romance felt developed and real. This is infamous for the omegaverse elements in the smut, but it wasn't overwhelming for someone who hasn't read a lot and I heard it's TAME compared to fanfiction. I especially liked Misery's friend Serena and I ADORED her relationship with Lowe's kid sister, Ana, who is so adorable and funny. My only qualms are that the romance felt slow to start, there were a lot of bland, forgettable side characters to keep track of, and the climax felt rushed and unclear. 4/5.

Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries by Fawcett

My favorite book of the month! This tells of socially awkward, incredibly intelligent professor Emily Wilde in the early 1900's. She is a professor of Fairy studies and is off in a tiny Scandinavian village to study the fairies there. Who else should show up but her charming, rakish rival in academia, Wendell Bambleby. They realize how much the fairies have messed up the local villagers and plan to take action. Okay, I LOVE that the fairies and the fae feel so much like the fairy tales and folklore of yore. The author did her homework! These aren't the hot people with wings and six-packs of Sarah J Maas. They are inhuman, immensely powerful, and can bless you or curse you in a minute's notice if you take the wrong step. I adored Emily and she seemed very much coded as neurodivergent with her passion for fairies her fear of offending others by saying the wrong thing and her lack of reading into social cues. And WENDELL BAMBLEBY! My BambleBook Boyfriend. He is a mix of Prince Hal from The Henriad and Howl from Howl's Moving Castle. He is slutty, constantly inviting his Bambleby Booty Calls, and lazy, having his students do all the work, but he begins to genuinely fall for Emily and is as charming and sweet beneath it all as he can be with a subtle element of "touch her, and you die!" It's dryly hilarious and the third act was incredible. The characters were well-developed and flawed, but still compelling, relatable, and likable. I adored this to death and would HIGHLY recommend it! 5/5

Twisted Love by Huang

In a nutshell, this is a brother's friend and grumpy/sunshine romance. What I love about Ana Huang is that she always knows how to pace and develop a romance between two characters AND her spice is top tier. There are a few funny moments, as well as genuinely sweet ones. However, there are all sorts of elements that veneer into the silly to where I don't take it 100 percent seriously. Like, how our main girl just HAPPENS to be friends with a princess of another country at some public university. And that our main guy is 27 yet a billionaire CEO of a whole company...and he just hangs out with college kids! Like?!?!?!!? I say a good 4/5 just because I always like her.

My Throat an Open Grave by Bovalino

What I expected:

What I got:

Ok, so this teenage girl, Leah, is miserable living in her tiny, religious, conservative town. One night, she is sick of babysitting her baby brother and offers him accidentally to the Lord of the Wood and wouldn't you know it! The Lord of the Wood takes him! So the town tells her she has got to go and get him back, though no girl who runs to the forest for that ever returns. So she gets there and...it's this nice, open minded, cottagecore normal ass village. Other than the premise at the beginning, this isn't Labyrinth but a wholesome Midsomar for kids. Though I do like the middle finger to conservative, small town purity culture, it kind of dragged and wasn't that scary and the stakes weren't high. I expected a scary, folk horror journey, but just got kind of "eh, here's a nice cult that doesn't judge you. You know kid, are you sick of your tiny, repressive town? Here's the answer: join a cult!" There is a really good twist, a scene that got kind of spicy and pushed it for a YA book, and I appreciate that the Jareth in this is around her age instead of some grown ass man offering himself to a minor (sorry, but I am in the minority of Labyrinth who thinks Sarah was right. She made the right choice at the end), it felt like it wasn't the heroes journey I expected and got kind of bland. 3/5

Bonus, My Favorite Video Essays:

The Dark Romance Community is Mad at Me: Okay, this girl, A Model Who Reads, posted a TikTok showing her surprise that the publishing company she works for was releasing a book marked as a Serial Killer Sexual Assault Romance, the dark romance community ATTACKED her in the comments. Here, she explains the problems with it why she isnt' sorry, and her issues with dark romance in full. Insightful, and incredible, and she finally addresses the issue concerning this angry, self-righteous, and unempathetic culture that has emerged recently concerning trigger warnings in media.

Mr. Burns: A Post Electric Video Essay My man, Kyle Kallgren, has done it again! Here, he breaks down Anne Washburn's play Mr Burns, a Post Electric Play, a play that portrays a post-apocalyptic story of a group of survivors recalling a Simpsons episode which then said episode transforms to a staged play to an epic sung through morality opera by the group at the end. He discusses post-apocalyptic media, the evolution of humor, and how humanity always triumphs over adversity. It's funny, deeply human, and chilling and incredibly well researched, in the Kyle KAllgren fashion. Highly recommend it, his channel and all his videos!

[bookgeekgrrl]

My media this week (22-28 Sep 2024)

📚 STUFF I READ 📚

🥰 Before Midnight (Nero Wolfe #25) (Rex Stout, author; Michael Prichard, narrator)

🥰 The Golden Age of Murder (Martin Edwards, author; Leighton Pugh, narrator) - in-depth look at The Detection Club members during the 'Golden Age of Detective Fiction' (between the world wars)

😍 Pizza-verse series (Closer) - 65K, Suits AU where "in an alternate universe, Harvey's still the best closer in New York but Mike's not a runner for Trevor: he's a pizza deliveryman, Harvey's favorite pizza deliveryman. And Harvey's discovery that Mike's more than he lets on will change everyone's lives… told and retold through Mike, Donna, and Harvey's point of view, with new scenes and reactions each time." - absolute banger series, love it so much

💖💖 +170K of shorter fic so shout out to these I really loved 💖💖

Only the Good Die Young (ZenaidaMacroura) - MCU: shrunkyclunks, 23K - excellent shrunkyclunks with EMT!Bucky/Cap!Steve who are both absolute awkward disasters

t'aimer sur les bords du lac (burning_brighter) - MCU: Stucky, 17K - a really good post-EG AU cabin fic where they finally get their shit together

Breathtaking and Absolute (alocalband) - Check Please!: NurseyDex, 3K - truly lovely getting together fic

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

In Deep: Life at the Bottom of the Ocean With Dr. Sarah McAnulty - Session 2

Dr. Odyssey - s1, e1

Handsome - Pretty Little Episode #6

Monét's Slumber Party - s1, e6

Handsome - Hannah Berner asks about inner voices

Dirty Laundry - s4, e4

Adventuring Academy - "Edit While They're Killing It (with Zac Oyama)" (s5, e4)

D20: A Starstruck Odyssey - s12, e14-18

D20: Adventuring Party - s8, e14-18

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

Normal Gossip - Romancing the Stoned with Jenée Desmond-Harris

How To Do Everything - Haircuts in Space, Tutus, and the Nasal Ranger

NPR's Book of the Day - In 'Who's That Girl?' Eve reflects on her time in a male-dominated hip-hop industry

Short Wave - Solving The EV Battery Recycling Puzzle

Pop Culture Happy Hour - Demi Moore's Film The Substance

⭐ The Sporkful - The Inside Story Of How Taco Bell Created The Big Cheez-It

Code Switch - Ask Code Switch: Do bike lanes cause gentrification?

Normal Gossip - MFAs and Other Mistakes with Brittany Luse

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Small Town, Big Story: The Giant Omelet of Abbeville, LA

Re: Dracula - September 24: Asleep or Awake, Mad or Sane

Short Wave - Harnessing The Ghost Particles Blasting Through You

Dinner’s on Me - Mena Suvari

If Books Could Kill - Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Death, Sex & Money - Bob the Drag Queen says Polyamory is Expensive

⭐ 99% Invisible - Cue the Sun!

It's Been a Minute - The SMACKDOWN: Serena Williams vs. Muhammad Ali vs. Trina

Short Wave - The Reality Of OCD

Code Switch - Latinos are moving to the far right. Paola Ramos thinks she knows why

NPR's Book of the Day - In the new book 'Want,' Gillian Anderson collects other women's sexual fantasies

Vibe Check - I Have A Dream

⭐ Decoder Ring - Calling Dick Tracy! It’s Warren Beatty Again

Re: Dracula - September 25: Bloofer Lady

Twenty Thousand Hertz+ - "blah, blah, blah…"

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Small Town, Big Story: The Pennsic Wars of Slippery Rock, PA

Ologies - Modern Toichographology (MURALS & STREET ART) with Conrad Benner

Consider This - Meet the man in charge of prosecuting war crimes

Re: Dracula - September 27: This Great Un-Dead

It's Been a Minute - An identity crisis at the heart of the election; plus, disrupting biracial fantasies

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books - 634. Climbing Mt. Fuji with Courtney Milan

Endless Thread - Defrauding Big Tech

ICYMI - ICYMI Plus: Why Are People Turning On Chappell Roan?

Re: Dracula - September 28: Some Rational Explanation

Overinvested - Ep. 306: English Teacher

The Allusionist - Tranquillusionist: Ex-Constellations

Hit Parade - The Bridge: Got My Back Against the Record Machine

Who Killed the Video Star: The Story of MTV - ep 1-3

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

Easy Mornings: Hindi

Good Vibes Only

Feel Good Mix #1

Feel Good Mix #2

Weird Tales of The Ramones (1976 - 1996) [Ramones] {2005}

[skylardoesthings]

More of my pkmn dnd au! Mostly lore stuff, this time!

– | — | –

Okay since there's like 12 players, the group is split into 2, with 6 players on each group. Group 1 being;

Clem

Bonnie

Serena

Korri

Mairin

Sawyer

(and Trevor's NPC insert to move the story along)

And group 2 being;

Alain

Miette

Nini

Shauna

Tierno

Ash

Each character of course have their own backstory (some more fleshed out then others), and have their own goals.

The campaign starts is like split into three main arcs, if it was a story;

Arc 1; The time the groups were separated • Getting used to the game, some small quests, and at the peak of the arc, when the two groups found out about each others existencr and finding each other.

Arc 2; The time the group adventured together • Backstories, character motives, have their own chaarcter arcs and the introduction to the BBEG

Arc 3; Where they try to defeat the BBEG • The group works tries to work with each other, learn more about each other, and try and defeat the BBEG

– | — | –

Lets get into the interesting stuff, character notes and in general just some notes.

First though, yes, i do have names for the player characters. I just haven't written it down yet, if anyone wants to know em, just say and i'll put it in a different post lol.

Nini's character, as a warlock have a patron god, and since her patron god is the "Great Old One" and after reading a bit about the GOO's description, I decided that instead of making up a diety like for Clemont's character, i made her patron god the fucking Dungeon Master. Aka, Trevor.

Korrina and Alain's characters would have a massive falling out because of both of their classes (a beast slayer ranger, and a beast barbarian)

Yes, Trevor's insert NPC does have relevance to the story. No, they aren't the BBEG.

Diantha's character is a royal.

Sawyer'a character never stopped being a Wild Magic Sorcerer, instead, he learnt how to use the wild magic to his advantage.

No, not every character survives in the fight with the BBEG.

That's all I'm gonna write in this post! And if you know me and how i make aus that are very fantasy-esque–

Yes, i do have worldbuilding written down, yes i do have character relationships written down, i have a lot of notes. So, if you wanna know about a specific character or something else, please drop an ask or something i am dying to share more about this au

[countessofravenclaw]

Breaking down some foreshadowing

So did you all read the new chapter of A Homeland This North, country dear fathers! ? Did you like it? Told you that nothing was gonna go wrong, am I right?

Honestly, if you follow me here, you probably knew what was coming since I have talked about it. Anyway, it's still interesting to see who was expecting it, since much of my writing is happy-go-lucky adventures with no actual stakes and I don't put a lot of thought into motifs and recurring themes. If my writing was looked at as real literature, it would probably be horrid. But, for this one as we have been building up to this since part one, I actually included some intentional foreshadowing. I mean the first alarm bell that rung in no one's head was the fact that they were not supposed to go to Finland originally and that it was due to Gastón that they eventually did. So, I decided to break down some of the foreshadowing I did that alluded that something bad was going to happen and it was going to happen to Gastón

Chapter 1

“Then let's let him,” Gastón just laughed, “Hey look, I turn 27 next week and be in my late twenties, so I gotta have the fun now.” 

“Well, I also have never skied—” Nina answered the question directed at her, “—nor will I. It seems dangerous. Anyway, I like the plan, there are other things to do for me.”

“I can live with never knowing if can I ski or not,” Nina stated, “I’m not athletic, nor do I enjoy it. I would just get myself hurt.”

Chapter 2

“It’s always good to have doctors as your acquaintances,” Isla nodded, “I actually recently was talking to Serena…”

“You were a natural in it, but you’re not 16 anymore,” Marco pointed out, “So be careful. The emergency number is different there.”

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t get in trouble,” Nina glanced at Gastón, “Thankfully, they can’t spend the whole day there as there is so little light. We did look up the emergency number. 112 is the most common one in Europe, but they didn’t use it at England. But I doubt, we’re gonna need to use it.”

“Do we really wanna go through that emotional turmoil again?”

Nina really wished that he could have come with them to see the capital, but his job obviously came first right now. Once they were in Lapland, they would have plenty of time. Even with Simon and Ambar and Luna and Matteo, there would be more than enough time to have just to themselves.

“Not really,” Gastón shook his head. “Just some things in the future that I might wanna do. But that’s the future, I have time to think about it.”

Chapter 3

“Tell her to talk to my Mom if she wants to fuss,” Gastón kissed Nina on top of her head as he sat down, “They can form a support group. They’re just scared that they’ll never get grandchildren if we die here middle of nowhere.”

“I still wish Mom and Dad would have actually picked if they wanted to be protective or not,” Gastón laughed, “More often than not, they just let me do what I wanted, but then suddenly they were convinced I was deliberately putting my life at risk. I’m still surprised they ever let me back to Roller after the fire.”

“Have fun,” Nina kissed Gastón on the cheek as he got up from the table, “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Us?” Gastón and Matteo glanced at each other. They had opted not to take any lessons, given that they had done quite frequent skiing while younger. It was to be seen how good an idea that was going to be. “Never.”

“Of course you are. Don’t worry.” Gastón ran his finger through a lock of her hair, “We’re not going on a black slope at the start. We’ll start off easy and be careful.” He leaned down swiftly to kiss her.

"I will never leave her side."

“Of course I have,” Gastón responded, “and so does Nina. We have talked about it a lot. It’s just not happening at this second. We have all the time in the world. You don’t think we’re actually gonna tell you when we’re trying? That would be crossing some lines. When there is actually something to tell, you will know.”

“And I’m not gonna question you any further,” Gastón finished his point before looking at the view down the mountain again, “You know, life’s really good right now.”

“Well, hopefully you won’t fall,” Gastón grinned and started sliding ahead, “See you at a lower altitude!”

“We took couple of green ones at the start,” Gastón started, “They’re beginner friendly. Wide and away from the forest so there is no danger if you fall or derail.”

“I wouldn’t try it,” Matteo shook his head, before looking at Luna sternly, “Luna, I’m being serious. Don’t try it. I don’t want to head to the ER during this trip.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure April won’t want any part of this,” Gastón laughed while he had been absenmindedly playing with Nina’s hair, “and she’s not a doctor, yet. She will be a neurosurgeon, not a radiology tech or ObGYN. She won’t be able to tell a thing, but we’re very well situated if someone has a brain injury…or well, you are. She won’t be allowed to operate on me.” 

I just wanted to show this off because I'm proud of it

[shiroi---kumo]

You are worth every word of love. Worth every good deed, worth every smile, every tear of joy. You are worth the suns rays and the warm air, you are worth the happiness and the laughter. You are worth everything good and beautiful. Give everyone and anyone this message, go to random blogs, someone you don’t even know, stretch your ask limit, anon or not, tell them they are worth it. Because the world needs more love.

Admittedly I have been busy with art fight this month so I haven't checked my inbox very often and I saw this right when I needed it but I forgot to answer it. I can't begin to tell you how much this means to me and I had to stash it in my inbox for a little while to read it over and over so I could keep it for a minute.

I'm happy to report the hands are getting better and I have a developed a system that is keeping the carpal tunnel pain at bay but I still can't push it. I am here. I am still going and still rocking and still ready to write and create and build and stretch these worlds and storylines out as far as I possibly can.

I'm still here and ready for adventure!

You've been here so long though. Through Ed, through Kumo, through it all for all these years and I just can't say thank you enough for that Serena. So thank you for that.

[dasom-bh]

hihihi so excited to be here! you can read a bit more about dasom under the cut and links to other pages can be found on my pinned post<3

beonhwa's self-proclaimed it girl

super bright, sweet, and cheerful......overall nice to everyone she comes across

but she can also come off as super ditzy and spoiled

spends almost all her free time at the establishments on flora lane (so if you're ever looking for her that's probably the first place to look after the mugunghwa estate)

overall she just sees the best in people and really does just try her hardest to be kind since she knows how lucky she was to have been brought up in such a privileged household

however, her home life has never been as easy as her public persona makes it seem

as the youngest child, she didn't bear much responsibility as her elder siblings, but she was engaged at a young age for political purposes

because of this, she was raised under direct supervision by her mother who expected nothing less than perfection from her daughter

her strict upbringing made dasom v quiet at home as she was afraid that the slightest mistake might upset her mother

she was often kept from her siblings to focus on her personal lessons despite desperately wanting to spend time playing with them growing up

now days, she wants to fall in love and become her own person with interests not dictated by her mother

however, she is still at her mother's beck and call, and will cower and give in at any command she's given

inspo: serena (webtoon of the same name heh), adrien agreste (mlb), mitsuri (demon slayer), umaru doma (himouto! umaru-chan)

&& some plot bunnies if you happen to be interested!!

her current obsession crush (can also be found on my plot page) kinda imagined them to be using her for their own personal gain and completely taking advantage of her reputation as a hopeless romantic

someone who finds it absolutely despicable that she's running around so carelessly despite being openly engaged and a representative family member of house of mugunghwa

she's pretty and rich and doesn't have a care in the world!! do you hate her or just want to be her????

you spot her at the beonhwa gallery but don't realize it at first due to her quite and demure behavior. it's the complete opposite of how she usually presents herself

peter rabbit has gone missing and she needs help finding him!! you accept her commission and ensue on an adventure together

you have a crush on her fiancé (amaryllis) and you're jealous of her...........or maybe she's jealous of you????

she grew up with you and trusts you with her life. either someone who is just waiting for the opportunity to betray her or someone who is genuinely and truly in her corner, rooting for her unconditionally

bad influences

enemies

ex-crushes of hers who still can't believe how quickly she moved on from them

i really lean towards angsty plots.......so if you are in need of anything in that field hmu

[aria-journey]

BOTW Aria :

•Aria loves the history of Hyrule, she finds it really interesting.

•She knows Pru'ha, she met her one day when her best friend Serena said she had seen a sheikah child running through the village, and heading towards the laboratory at the top of the hill.

•Aria loves food, she knows how to cook but that's not necessarily the area where she is most talented.

•She often forgets that she needs to wear glasses to read and only remembers when she starts to have a headache.

•She knows Prince Sidon, and even became very good acquaintances after she helped him clean the statue of Mipha.

•She doesn't really know the hero or the princess.

•She is 16 years old

•Her freckles make her complex, and her hair too.

•She seems open and sociable, but above all it is a cover to avoid intrusive questions

•When she finishes a trip, she goes home and doesn't come out for a few days

•She doesn't know how to fight and it's one of the things that slows her down during her adventures.

That's it for Botw Aria

I will probably release a version for WW Aria.

[crystalprima]

🌸 Intro! 🌸

GENERAL INFO:

Hii!! I'm just going to post whatever comes to mind here. It'll be unorganized and messy, but who cares, right? You can expect head-canons from random fandoms I'm in, aesthetics, stim-boards, mood boards, and MAYBE icons. Still debating it. If you want me to make something for your favorite character/show/fandom/whatever, feel free to ask for it! I have literally 0 followers at the time that I'm writing this, so I'm sure I'll see it.

Keep in mind, I'm in a lot of different fandoms, and some are pretty cringey (sorry MLP). This account is not going to be focused on one fandom, but an entire variety.

If you wanna learn a bit more about the stranger behind this account, feel free to keep reading!

PERSONAL INFO:

Name: Crystal Age: 22 Gender: Half female, half computer babyyyy (I'm being fr. I feel like a CPU more than I feel like a human. It's like 60/40%.) Pronouns: She/They Zodiac: Libra

Alignment: Chaotic Good Enneagram: 2 MBTI: ENFP Hobbies: Playing video games, singing, traveling, hiking, editing, this blog probably

FAVORITE THINGS:

Favorite Food: Pho Favorite Drink: Mint Tea Favorite Songs: Bailando, Fireflies, Birds Don't Sing, Alive, Amsterdam, Cha-Ching, I Can Do It With A Broken Heart, New Romantics Favorite Artists: Kesha, Madonna, Tame Impala, TV Girl, Empire of the Sun, One Republic, Imagine Dragons, Taylor Swift, Beyonce Favorite Movie(s): Heathers, Mean Girls, 10 Things I Hate About You, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days Favorite Shows: The White Lotus, Bob's Burgers, Bee & Puppycat Favorite Games: Far Cry 5, RD2, Stray, Any Pokemon Game Ever Favorite Book Series: Villains by Serena Valentino Favorite Season: Fall (Haha got u) Favorite Sports: Hockey, Baseball, Football Favorite Time Of Day: Night

FANDOMS:

(I will definitely add onto this as time goes on.)

Shows: -Danganronpa -My Little Pony -Pokemon -ENA -Gravity Falls -Adventure Time -Bee & Puppycat -ATLA

Games:

-Alice: Madness Returns -Kingdom Hearts -Stardew Valley -RD2 -Far Cry 5 -Doki Doki Literature Club -FNAF -Literally any Pokemon game

Movies: -Disney -Pixar -Studio Ghibli

Kin List

DISCLAIMER: I don't actually believe or pretend that I'm these characters. I just relate to them the most. It also provides some insight into my personality, I guess. I ALSO DON'T BEHAVE LIKE AN ANIMAL, IF THE KIN IS AN ANIMAL. I PROMISE I'M SOMEWHAT NORMAL.

Pokemon Kins: -Hilda -Skyla -Lillie -Primarina -Eevee

Danganronpa Kins: -Akane Owari -Aoi Asahina -Junko Enoshima (I'm sorry) -Celestia Ludenberg -Chisa Yukizome -More to come when I finish drv3

FNAF Kins: -Chica -Bonnie -Glamrock Chica -Roxanne Wolf

DDLC Kin: -Yuri

RD2 Kins: -Sadie Adler -Arthur Morgan

Amazing Digital Circus Kins: -Ragatha -Bubble

Bee & Puppycat Kins: -Bee -Toast -Sticky

MLP Kins: -Fluttershy -Sweetie Belle -Princess Cadence -Applejack -Rainbow Dash

ENA Kins: -Ena -Hourglass dog

Gravity Falls Kin: -Wendy

Adventure Time Kins: -Flame Princess -BMO -Lumpy Space Princess

ATLA Kins: -Ty Lee -Suki

Disney Princess Kins: -Ariel -Moana -Rapunzel -Belle -Anna -Nani

Disney Character Kins: -Luisa -Alice -Sally -Lady -Daisy -Eeyore

Pixar Character Kins: -Dory -Dug

Studio Ghibli Kins: -Sophie -Hin -Kiki

Other Fandom Info:

Favorite Pokemon Type: Water, Fire, Grass, whatever Missingno is

Dream Pokemon Team: Primarina, Alolan Vulpix, Eevee, Squirtle, Lilligant, Tauros

Talent: Ultimate Performer

Element (ATLA): Air

Other General Info:

Random Interests: -Uncommon glitches in games/software -Scammers getting angry -Science experiments -Miniverse things -Coding/scripting -Corruptions in games/software -Drama (i like to observe it, not to be in it)

Conclusion:

If you made it this far, I'm proud of you. You seriously have some dedication when it comes to trying to figure a stranger out on the internet. But please, go get some water or touch some grass. It's probably been a minute since you've stepped outside. Don't worry, I'm in the same boat. I'll do it with you. 3. 2. 1.

[fumikomiyasaki]

Favourite Date Spots of my ocs

Leroy: Arcade, Sushi restaurant, Cafe, lazer tag, if you are also into his hobby anime cons Henry: Fancy ass restaurants, Expensive parties, Beach dates, Renting out places, Mellow: Forrest walks, Cafes, his room, likely a less crowded place Carol: Study dates, Nature strolls, swimming, Resting in flower fields, small city trips, Brid: forrest strolls, build a bear, introducing her to new things Odel: Crystal caves, old castles, comfy antique baths, Lyla: Night escapades, small clubs, chilling in her Lab, City at night Camilla: Rose fields, ball rooms, Hiking, Bengal: Horror movie marathons or cinema, Nights in the woods, days working out, scary places or comfy places Eiji: Catacombs, Cemeteries, Halloween themed places, goth castles Kumo: Star themed places, Planetariums, desert walks, Stargazing in nature, Fuan: He wouldn't even think he get that far... maybe a potion shop, a sea trip? Naomi: Light shows or fire works, Shopping, concerts, swimming and diving Bolt: Concerts, Neon light places, Lazer tag, amusment parcs Grey: Book stores, pencil stores, wacky clothing stores, comic stores, Bianca: anywhere where its fun and not boring :) Eve: You could take him almost everywhere he likes learning new things Barry: Fancy restaurants or dates, Showing off at games or flexing his money, cinema, comic stores and conventions Francine: Shopping or small restaurants, ice skating, Winter sports Gilly: Music stores, Coffee shops, Clubs to dance in, a swing with their net date, Osyron: Showing you incredible spots he knew from the past, strolls, hot springs baths, Cultural ruins, Lydia: Training together, Fighting together, hot springs, Volcanos, Saneria: Getting her stuff, Showing her new fun things, mainly you have to impress her she won't give you ideas herself, you have to figure out or suffer Lennox: Sea and beach dates, underwater dates, nightly water cave dates, Fabio: Forrest field walks, much in nature, planting things or collecting fruit, tending to chocobos together, Ione: Calm and peaceful dates, sometimes sparring, she is unsure about dating so help her a little on picking things Agni: Volcanos to Saunas, he loves hot places, deserts too, as long as its not circus please Zariyah: Motorcycle rides, Amusement parks, beaches, sword training, jungle trips, just adventures Izar: drinking at a bar, shady venues, abandoned houses, night walks among fancy parties, Louis: Picnics, tea parties, Castle walks, gardening with his veggies, cooking dates Yuzuha: He will more appeal to you taste but he can be your host, go to restaurants or karaoke, read and discuss together, and more Kaeru: Fishing, dates on a boat, swimming and beach dates, actually lots of water related dates Kuze: telling stories over food, sparring, walks through melancholic places, Yasuno: Walks through the green House, neon clubs, Sparring Joel: He is fine with a lot but he would take you to art galleries, street artists and unique shops Serena: she travels all the time, imagine visiting a fancy town each day Elvira: You mostly find her in church and probably need to help her picking something Phobetor: He doesn't really care... in his eyes he has no right to say but... he would adore a cat cafe,

Flynn: Fancy places, Night sky's and escapades, movie scene like locations Nanoya: A walk at the shrine, midnight moon light, Asian restaurants Rubina: Cinema, Cafes, nightly walks Peko: Very cutesy cafes, amusement parcs, you can often take her to childish places Emma: Training with her in the gym, getting food, staying at her room being close Gregory: Has a hideout to chill at and play games, odd clubs and places, big party person but his disguise is not the best so be wary Tyler: Coffee and reading dates, helping him with work, strolls Rachel: Um if you wanna die Gabrielle: fighting in the courtyard, flying in her dragon form around, castle walks, chess dates or dnd Tesadelle: Chilling under the tree, nap together, tea parties Aiden: Making you food, Forrest walks, going to other restaurants, Media: collecting fruits, making things together, Tenera: enjoying food and rest, if you wanna play tennis with her Sindren: hero movies, parcours, walking around and strolling , sports Mythra: Parties, clubs, Showing off her outfits to you, fancy places Feena: ummm…. Dragiselle: Playing her model, showing you the animals, better you take charge if you two wanna go outside. Inessa: Ice skating, walks through snow, ice cream venues, waterfalls, Taron: Arcades, tech areas, playing things together

Tiam: Watch him scream in Panic not knowing what to propose Kayne: He serves, he goes any where you wanna go but, on itself he will make you a nice meal Quora: Watching sports games, Eating fastfood, doing sports, just comfy hugs or being close Kome: Many luck games or chess, book store, Ame: Clubs, very open social places, cinema, cemeterys, Emil: hard to know he would follow you.. but he likely would enjoy buying some things for what he makes or cute aesthetic places Vanessa: Parties, Wineries, restaurants, fancy venues, Macie: Electronic shops, Pet shops, walks through the city April: Casino nights, playing games, strolling through gardens, Julian: Dancing together, clubs, just anywhere he can flirt well with you Taylin: She can't see much so rather you lead the way, she likes getting tea though Eikichi: watching street artists, showing of experiments, hoverboard rides, going through cities Alioth: Stargazing, concerts, just places where he actually doesn't have to shrink down so outdoorsy Beelby: He knows some fancy places, bars, doesn't mind some outdoor activities too Zyan: Aesthetically pleasing places, far away from water, neon clubs, lazer tag Paula: cute diners, rollerblading, shopping, hanging in retro places Brenda: as expensive as you can, go as fancy as you can, Jin-Lou: Ramen shops, bars, fighting clubs and mma shows, chinatowns, mountains Sylva: beach, boat, fancy parties, golden places, anything extravagant

[tyrantisterror]

As has become tradition for the release of my novels, it’s time to do a trivia thread for Wizard School Mysteries Book 2: Tournament of Death (available now at amazon.com!).  That’s right, I’m going to make a long, self-indulgent post about all the nerd shit I did while writing this book, for you to gawk at in abject horror. 

(Shit, did I not do one of these for No Sympathies?  I should correct that, I packed so many references to classic literature in that bad boy.  But that’s for another time!) 

For now, let’s talk about wizards, tournaments, and the long term side effects of being a child of the 90′s anime boom.  Oh, and there will be spoilers, so if you haven’t read the book yet... probably don’t read this until you do?  I mean it’s a mystery story, I assume you want to go in blind.

- Wizard School Mysteries as a whole is intentionally patterned after anime and JRPGs.  I’ve touched on this before when talking about the series, but when thinking about trivia for this second book it becomes pretty clear that elaborating on this point is warranted.  I mean, it’s pretty obvious if you know some of the more prominent influences within that sphere - the a great deal of the series’s overall structure is ripped off from patterned off of the Persona series, for example, particularly the tarot motif (although that’s not exclusive to Persona - a LOT of anime and JRPGs use tarot motifs, from the prominent use of them in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure - which in turn heavily inspired Persona - to the subtle application of it in Fire Emblem Three Houses).  You’ve got Serena Takeuchi, whose name is a big homage to Sailor Moon and whose use of a wand and glittery crystal magic should at least visually call back to the Magical Girl trope, I could go on but we should narrow our focus a bit.  The two big anime/JRPG elements of this particular book are as follows: The Tournament Arc, and The Filler Episode.  Got it?  Ok, let’s expand on that in the next two bullet points.

- I wrote a lot in the forward about why I chose a tournament arc as the basic structure of this second book so I’m going to try to keep my thoughts on it here brief.  Tournament arcs rule!  Obviously they exist outside of anime, and indeed predate the existence of animation itself, but the structure of the tournament arc here is very heavily based on the ones that appeared in shows like Dragon Ball, Pokemon, and Yu-Gi-Oh!, which, incidentally, were part of the 90′s/early 2000′s anime boom that I grew up in.  The basic setup of heroes fighting a bunch of really weird opponents one after another, each more dangerous and bizarre than the last, while simultaneously trying to unravel a villain’s crazy scheme (ok that didn’t happen in Pokemon’s but it holds true for the other two) is just really fun and compelling, and I had fun trying to capture that magic while showing off the zany powers magic grants you in my fantasy setting.  The fight scenes should ideally make you feel like you just got home from school and turned on the TV to catch some weird but fun Japanese cartoon on Toonami.

- Now, Filler Episodes... again, it’s a term that extends to stuff outside of and predating anime, but I want to talk about this idea in the context of anime.  A lot of anime is adapted from manga, as you probably already know, and a there have been times where the anime adaptation of a manga runs out of a material to adapt.  So, while they wait for the manga to give them more of the “main” plot, they’d make episodes and even entire story lines to fill in the gap.  Hence, filler episodes.  Filler episodes get a bad rap because, by their nature, they can’t be too relevant to the plot - you can’t kill the big bad in a filler episode, because then you can’t adapt the material from the manga that hasn’t been written yet where the big bad is still alive.  A filler episode is, by its nature, expendable.

...that is, if you think the only important part of a story is the plot.

A good writer or writing team, however, can use a filler episode to their advantage. Because as important as plot is to a story, it’s only one core element.  Characters, setting, and theme are all just as important, and you can easily use a filler episode to expand on those elements in important and intriguing ways.  Like, for example, I spent this weekend watching Revolutionary Girl Utena for the first time, and if you were focused solely on the main plot of Utena dueling people to protect Anthy, then you could cut, like, half of the episodes out and still have a functional story.  But some of those episodes are the best episodes!  While light on developing the main plot, they do so much to flesh out the characters, setting, and theme, and without those episodes the series would be so much less impactful.

And I feel a well-utilized filler episode can in fact strengthen your main plot.  A story that’s focused entirely on its main conflict may neglect to stop and flesh out its characters, and that’s a problem because to care about a conflict, you kind of need to care about the characters involved.  If the conflict threatens the world they live in, then you need to care about that setting too.  And if you really want that conflict to resonate with your audience, you need it to have well developed themes that make it matter beyond “the hero is fighting the bad guy!”

Now, of course, my book is, well, a book, a novel, and not a TV series, so there aren’t really “episodes” in the TV sense.  But there are chapters, and scenes, and subplots, and one of my goals with this series and this book in particular was to make sure there were the equivalent of filler episodes here, moments where the main plot paused just long enough for our characters to catch their breath, and for us to see who they are when they’re not dealing with some murder mystery bullshit.  Maybe in one of the next volumes I’ll figure out how to do a beach episode (at the moment I’m unsure of how to get over the hurdle that, in a vaguely medieval fantasy land, most people’s equivalent of a beach trip would be skinny dipping...)

- The first WSM book was focused on introducing our core eight meddling kids, which was a pretty big task in of itself, and as such the setting took a bit of a backseat.  I mean, it was still there, obviously, but it wasn’t the focus.  While the characters are still very much the focus of book 2 (as they are in all my writing - I’m a character-focused storyteller), I really wanted this one to give the setting more spotlight than the first.  Book 2, more so than book 1, is the proper introduction of our setting - of the nations of Midgaheim, of the staff of the AAAM, and indeed, of the nature of that school itself.

Like, in the first book we have four teachers, and as a result of all the stuff that book had to pack in, those teachers end up fitting a simplified sort of Goofus and Gallant dichotomy: Oomlowt’s our good teacher, Gernderf and Alys are different shades of awful, and Mewcosa starts out as bad but eventually makes a turn with some student help.  It’s the kind of approach most school stories take to their fictional teaching staff - one good teacher and a sea of dull to actively bad ones around them.

Now, if you know me and the fact that I’ve worked quite a bit in education, you should not be surprised to learn that I dislike this kind of reductive portrayal of teachers.  It really couldn’t be helped in book 1, but that was ok, because this is an eight book series, and with this second entry I wanted to complicate our teaching staff.  We get Juno Panopte, who is a good teacher with a very different style and approach than Oomlowt’s (enough that it briefly throws our heroes off when they first meet her).  We get Lacey Spidergrin, who only has one scene but is hopefully enough of a presence in it to establish her strange but kind personality.  We get bombastic Heka Tlancheb and acerbic Prospera Bubos, both of whom clearly hold some differing views but care deeply about their students, and we get a scene of (most of) the teaching staff hanging out together away from the students to show who these people are when they’re not teaching.  My aim is that by the end of this book, or barring that then at least by the end of the series, the teaching staff of the AAAM aren’t cookie cutter good and bad teacher stereotypes, but, well, people, you know?  There’s not a lot of fiction where teachers get to be people.

- The wizard students descending onto a nearby town and changing it utterly is an exaggeration of my own experience in college at Western Michigan University.  Kalamazoo, the city that WMU resides in, can be kind of cleanly divided into the parts that are a more or less normal city, and the parts that are a College Town Filled with College Kids.  Of course, college kids being college kids, which is to say, young adults who suddenly have the ability to go wherever the hell they want and do more or less whatever the hell they want with their time, there was nothing stopping you from wandering out of the college part of town into the non-college city parts, and I always found that an interesting experience.  And there were a LOT of businesses in both the college and non college parts of Kalamazoo that actively courted (or preyed on, if you want to be more cynical about it) student customers, which I again exaggerated for my own book.  The name of the town in WSM, Calampen, is even a play on Kalamazoo.  Kalam.  Zoo.  Zoo = place where you hold animals = pen.  Kalam Pen.  Calampen.  Clever?  No, not really, but it makes me smile.

- There are some nods to other stories I’ve worked on and/or have in the works in Calampen market scene.  Fans of Offbeat Melody might recognize a certain golden-haired curio seller, for example, and we have more than a few mentions of the dread wizard Vormadon, who you’ll all get to meet when I finish writing Maude and Mordi (it’s high on the docket, don’t worry!)

- Serena and James splitting off together serves two purposes: first, it lets Gretchen and Margot have goofy jealousy antics, which I think is fun.  Second, it makes up for a fact that Serena is the only member of the team who didn’t get a solo scene with James in book 1.  Poor girl was so left out!

- James Chaucer identifying with snakes is not only an homage to my own love for the scaly beasts AND a fun metaphor for coming out, but also a bit of shade for the Terf Queen’s opus, where the magical boy hates being associated with snakes because he’s a huge loser who hufflepuffs farts or whatever.

- All of the youths have different skills to bring to their detective enterprise, and I like to think Serena’s is her Columbo-esque ability to throw people off by posing a seemingly innocent question.  I watched the entire series of Columbo while writing this book, it had to bleed out somewhere.

- Let’s talk about some obscure Tarot shit!  Helseng refers to the villain of the previous book as “The Apostle,” and likewise refers to the villains of this book as “The Centurion” and “The Thunderbolt.”  Now, if you have a basic grasp of the major arcana, that may seem odd to you, because those aren’t among the twenty two arcana cards.  Except they actually are!  Sort of!  See, there have been a LOT of different tarot decks over the centuries, produced in different countries with different languages in different time periods, and as a result the total number of arcana, the order of the arcana, and yes, the very names of the arcana themselves, have varied a bit.  While initially I only mapped out twenty-one main characters to the major arcana of Tarot, as I researched into the history of the game I saw these variations and thought it would be interesting to try and make some of the other supporting characters fit them as well, and the first ones that came to mind were the series’ villains.

The Apostle is an alternate name for The Heirophant, which represents a patriarchal authority figure.  Oomlowt Schwaa is our heirophant proper, and showcases the benign elements of that card, taking on a sort of fatherly role with James and the youths as a whole.  The Summer Prince from book 1, by contrast, showcases its negative qualities, being conceited, condescending, and oppressive, with the power structure he both leads and represents making him a terrible force in the narrative as a result.

Our villains for this book at the Centurion, which is an alternate name for the Chariot, and the Thunderbolt, which is an alternate name for the Tower.  We’ll talk about them a bit more later in this trivia post, but for now I ask you to think about the heroic counterparts here - Margot is a heroic Chariot, and Polybeus is a heroic Tower.  God what a weird sentence that is.

- I also wanted there to be some supporting characters who are never directly involved with the plot but still had roles to play in our heroes life, because again, going off of that screed I wrote about filler episodes, the stakes can actually feel higher if you know there’s more to the hero’s life than just the core conflict.  So I made some supporting cast members based on alternate arcana names as well - Columbina and Godfrey, for example, are the Juggler and the Magus respectively, which are both alternate names for the Magician.  The Magician is a friend and ally to the fool and likes to get into schemes and plans, many of which are too clever by half, and that’s very much what Columbina and Godfrey are, just to a lesser degree than our main Magician, Ivan Muromets.   I like to imagine that in an alternate timeline either one of them might have been the Magician to the Fool in the story.  But maybe that’s too self indulgent a thought even for this trivia post.

- If the joke of Lord Dhenregirr’s name was too subtle in book one, I’m pretty sure chapter four of book two hits it with a big hammer so it’s impossible to miss.  Not-coincidentally, this chapter is all about introducing red herrings - not just Lord Dhenregirr himself, but the many, MANY characters involved in the tournament, from the contestants to bystanders like Prospera Bubos and Grammy Crumblebuttons.  Which is the real villain and which are the red herrings?  Well, hopefully you heeded my advice and didn’t read this until after reading the book, and thus already know the answer to that question.

- Heka Tlancheb’s speech gives us as close to a unifying creation myth for Midgaheim as you will get, given that there are multiple pantheons at play here.  It’s basically a nod to the idea of a prototypical monomyth, i.e. the theory that the original humans created a first mythology that evolved with them over time into the many we have today, possibly explaining several odd similarities between otherwise unrelated mythologies, like the prevalence of thunder gods, big floods, etc.  The idea that there was some force of chaos that the gods had to kill, dismember, and/or overthrow is a common one, especially in European mythologies, and Heka’s assertion that magic is its breath, and wizard in turn are chaotic by nature for using it, is a nod to the similarly common belief that magic is a dangerous and somewhat sacrilegious force.  The second half of her speech, meanwhile, is just an homage to the opening speech of Elden Ring.

- Heka Tlancheb herself is a joke at the expense of my own crush on Cate Blanchett, particularly when she plays gothy witch roles like Hela or Galadriel in that one scene where she makes Frodo shit his pants.

- We get to meet another member of the Claw Gang in this chapter!  If you don’t remember them, they were a group of recurring background extras in book one, and if you followed closely you could see the broad strokes of their own mini-adventure running parallel to that of our Meddlesome Youths.  I like the idea of stories where the adventure of the heroes is just one of many in the setting, with others clearly happening outside the book’s focus.  It makes things feel more full, and I feel that making it so the world doesn’t always revolve around your heroes actually makes it more impactful when the heroes make a stand for that world - because while they may only be a part of it, they care about the whole, you know?  Anyway, we’ve named two of the three Claw Gang members in the books so far, and we’ll name the final member in book 3.  They may not be important to the central conflict, but they’re important to my heart.

- Oh, speaking of obscure Tarot bullshit again - there’s a card game that’s considered a parody of Tarot called Minchiate, which took the major arcana and then added a whole bunch of extra bullshit to it somewhat haphazardly, including the four elements and the Western Zodiac.  So, when I set about making a cast of minor character students for WSM, I decided what the hell, let’s include the Zodiac arcana (along with all the minor arcana, i.e. the number and court cards).  Shere Statchel, Andreea Vacaputere, and The Great Nyaa, who appear in this book as contestants in the tournament, are three of those Zodiac characters, being the Scorpio, Taurus, and Leo respectively.  Not sure when the others will show up in the later books - they’re all part of a large pile of minor characters I draw from when I need a crowd to be filled, and there’s more than sixty of the fuckers so I can’t guarantee they’ll all have memorable roles, but at least these three got a little spotlight.

- This is Lord Dhenregirr’s only scene in this book, but I made it a juicy one to compensate.  Him referring to his skeletons as “children of the dragon’s teeth” is a reference to Jason and the Argonauts - not just the myth, mind you, but specifically the Ray Harryhausen movie, which calls them “children of the hydra’s teeth” verbatim.  The fact that they’re skeletons rather than flesh and blood men is another sign this is an homage to the Harryhausen take (in Midgaheim canon, you can use this spell to make either flesh and blood humans or animate skeletons, and Dhenregirr chooses to do the later purely because he’s goth and likes the idea of having skeleton henchmen).

- Structure-wise, I wanted the fight with Dhenregirr to not only be fun, but to refute some of the things other characters have claimed about magic.  Earlier in this chapter Miguel Esmerejon chides Ivan for reciting magic words to cast spells, claiming that strong wizards don’t need to do that.  We’re also told that most wizards couldn’t make a homunculus in the arena because it would take too much time and power to pull off.  Yet here Dhenregirr both manages to pull off that very feat, and does so with a big long poetic chant no less!  And while he may have some personality quirks that soften the threat he poses, the fact is that Dhenregirr is a very skilled and deadly wizard when he has his head in the game.  In this chapter we get to see a glimpse of Dhenregirr’s other purpose in the narrative, beyond being a red herring joke villain: he’s the counterpoint to the dean’s philosophy of education, right down to being the one who (possibly accidentally, possibly on purpose) encourages James to try all four elements of magic where Gernderf had tried to make him stick with one.  Gernderf and Dhenregirr aren’t just hated rivals, you see - they’re foils.

- This is also where Dhenregirr, like Polybeus before him, takes a radically different direction than the Henry Pansley Herbie Porber Harry Potter character he’s a loose analogue of.  Harry and Voldemort begin the narrative hating each other and just increase in that hatred as the story goes along.  Here, James and Dhenregirr come to an understanding of sorts, and while they’re still on opposing sides, it’s clear their relationship from here on out isn’t going to be as clear cut as hero vs. villain anymore.

- I first thought up the specifics of Lord Dhenregirr’s fight scene while listening to Man on the Internet’s Lyrics for the Chaos King song from Deltarune.  Music is pretty important to my writing process, especially action scenes, and I always end up making soundtracks for my books to help with the writing and revision process.  In this case the song for this scene was so helpful that I gave it a little nod, having Lord Dhenregirr paraphrase its rawest line: “You lost before you picked this fight.”

- Gyrion Clodson, the first victim (though luckily for him, not in a lethal sense) of the villain plot in this book, gets his first name from two different iconic fantasy works.  The bulk of his name comes from Tyrion, the (human) dwarf character from A Song of Ice and Fire, aka Game of Thrones.  Swapping out one letter of that name to make a new one is itself taken from the naming conventions of the (nonhuman) dwarves in Tolkien’s The Hobbit - you know, Gloin and Moin, Kili and Fili, Dwalin and Balin, etc.  There’s no deeper meaning intended here, I just thought it was slightly amusing.  I should probably note here that the equivalent of fantasy nonhuman dwarves in my setting are called gnomes specifically to avoid confusion with real life humans with dwarfism - in a similar vein, giants are uniformly called ogres so I can avoid confusing them with, like, the adjective for things that are big.

- Chapter Five’s title is “The Sundown’s Shine” for a couple of reasons.  First, a good chunk of it takes place in the afternoon, and it’s a breather chapter - sundown is often when we stop working and catch our breaths.  Second and more importantly though, it’s when we introduce Geoffrey Travers, who, in addition to being our Moon Arcana character, is something of an extended reference.  See, Wizard School Mysteries is built in part by mixing aspects of college life with high fantasy, and so one of the questions I asked myself when planning it was “What would your average high fantasy uber wizard who’s seen the shape of the universe and has knowledge beyond comprehension be like when he was a college student?”  And, perhaps because of the popularity of this movie among college kids, at least in my day, my answer ended up being: The Dude from The Big Lebowski, but in his twenties.  So that was my baseline for Geoffrey Travers: he’s The Dude, as a college kid, and also a wizard.  Even his name is a play on it - Geoffrey is the dude’s real name, but also, Geoff = Jeff, Travers = Bridges, Jeff Bridges is the actor who played The Dude, you see what I did there?  And one of the iconic songs from The Big Lebowski is “I Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In),” which contains the lyrics “I woke up this mornin' with the sundown shinin' in...”  Eh?  Eh?  See what I did there?

- Extended Big Lebowski reference aside, Geoffrey plays a vital role of being a peer who opens our heroes’ minds to new ideas.  Professors do a lot of teachin in college, don’t get me wrong, but some of the most valuable lessons I got during my college years came from the older kids I met there, who had been what I was going through just a few years prior and kindly decided to give some advice and guidance of their own accord on how to deal with, like, just life stuff in general.  Which, again, goes with the idea of “what is the college equivalent of the next level wizard who has seen things you’ve never dreamt of” - it’s the older student who knows how to be a functional and independent adult who gets what they need.

- The game the gargoyles, mudmen, and scarecrow are playing isn’t D&D.  It’s Pathfinder, first edition, invented by the great wizard Pie-zo.  I included this scene both as a gag and to show that the homunculi of the AAAM aren’t mindless automatons, but rather sapient beings that most wizards treat like mindless automatons because they don’t understand the full scope of what they’ve done in making them.  It’s not a big plot point in this book, but it will be later!

- We get a glimpse of Gretchen’s life outside the youths here, namely her rivalry with a fellow nerd, Joan Tatou.  Joan is a bit of an in-joke, as she’s an amalgamation of some ideas that I initially wrote down in my series outline only to reject.  As I said before, Margot’s name was originally going to be Joan, both as a reference to Joan of Arc and because of my own fondness for the name, but I changed it when I realized people might see it as a reference to the Terf Queen.  I also initially planned for the character who would become Gretchen to be Frankish and for the one who would become Margot to be either Ruslovakian or Germanorean, but it seemed a bit too stereotypical for the bookish girl to be from the fantasy equivalent of France and the big buff girl to be from a land of hard consonants - I like the idea of big, intimidating Margot having a soft voice with gentle inflections, while bookish Gretchen has all these fierce harsh consonants when she speaks.  So Joan is proto-Gretchen with proto-Margot’s name, which might be why she and Gretchen don’t get on so much - Gretchen stole her part!

- The book Gretchen and Joan fell out over, the Nosfero Ex Mortis, is a combination of some of the less-well-known alternate names for the malevolent grimmoire in The Evil Dead series, which you probably know best as the Necronomicon, in part because that’s what it’s called in the third film, Army of Darkness.  Army of Darkness, of course, was the Evil Dead movie that takes place in the middle ages, and involves (among other things) a kingdom led by Henry the Red, and a big fight against Kandarian demons.  So in other words, Joan and Gretchen’s feud is over whether or not the events of Army of Darkness are canon in Midgaheim.  Listen, I had an Army of Darkness poster in my dorm room and Bruce Campbell was one of the big reasons I chose to attend WMU and make short horror films with my friends during summer vacation in college, I had to pay the Evil Dead series homage in my book series about college.

- The Sanguine Dormitory is the perpetually trashed party dorm, because if you know anything about the four humors, that’s very much what you’d expect from a place with a lot of people who have sanguine temperaments.

- Ok, another stupid joke for you.  So, in tv shows and movies that take place in colleges, it’s common for the dorm rooms to be, like, LUDICROUSLY huge, which anyone who’s attended a college knows is fucking ridiculous because real life dorm rooms never get much bigger than a walk-in closet.  There’s a reason for this: shooting scenes in a room the size of a walk in closet is a pain in the ass, and if you’re setting your entire story in a college, you kinda need to have those little quiet drama scenes in a location that, you know, isn’t comically cramped and shitty.  So in WSM, our heroes start off with realistic cramped shitty dorm rooms, but then, through the power of physics defying magic that makes dreams come true, manage to get a spacious cool dorm room like those that appear in 90% of media set in a college.  Because that’s the only way you’d ever get a dorm room that big.

- Chivalric ballads are the equivalent of trashy romance novels and soap operas in WSM - and, also, their equivalent in the real middle ages.  The ones Margot lists in chapter 6 are all made up by me, but the different versions of her favorite ballad (and her staunch favoritism of one version over the other based on how the characters were interpreted) is loosely inspired by the way Arthuriana is composed of different authors who clearly have WILDLY different takes on certain characters and deeply despise the takes that came before theirs.

- Margot’s opponent in this chapter, Sarkani Charmil, has a few references mixed into her.  Her first name is derived from a dragon in Slavic mythology, Sarkany, which, combined with her status as the heir to a tyrannical monarchy that rules a kingdom called Kastelvania (or, if you prefer, Castlevania) makes her a loose homage to, who else, Vlad “Tepes” Dracula, with her distinctive red armor drawing on the iconic red armor worn by Count Dracula in the beautiful-yet-terribly-written Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula movie.  Her last name, Charmil, is a double reference, with Char being the red-clad charismatic antagonist from the original Gundam, while Carmil is a shortened version of Carmilla, the most famous female vampire in literature.  Sarkani Charmil, child of dragons, heir to a warlord’s kingdom, possible vampire?  Only time and the remaining six books will tell.

- Hey, guess what time it is?  It’s Harry Potter rebuttal time!  Ok, so, Harry Potter had a tournament arc of sorts too, namely the fourth book, Goblet of Fire.  And the structure of the Harry Potter series is that everything has to revolve around, well, Harry Potter.  So obviously Harry has to win the tournament, because otherwise this story wouldn’t revolve around him, right?  That’s not necessarily a flaw - I mean, there’s tradeoffs here, namely how the tension of “will Harry win?” that the book tries to build falls flat if you think about the structure of things for more than five seconds, but in return for that you have the narrative satisfaction provided by things being focused.

But there’s no reason that tradeoff can’t work the other way, right?  Till this chapter in the book, I’ve tried to set you up to think we’re following that same pattern.  James Chaucer is our lead character, our first boy, our protagonist.  Obviously he’s going to make it to the final round.  Obviously he can’t lose his fight, especially not in the second round.  He’s the main guy!

Then he does, because this isn’t Harry Potter.  This is not a story that revolves around one character.  This is the story of the Meddlesome Youths, and while James may be their leader, he’s not the only one that matters, and that means he can lose.  And if he, the main guy, can lose, then doesn’t that mean any of our heroes could lose?  Yes, we lose some of the focus that the more famous wizard school story has, and with it I risk losing the narrative satisfaction that simpler, more straight-forward structure provides - but the tradeoff is that we have a bit more uncertainty, and uncertainty can make for a very fun mystery.

- Speaking of Goblet of Fire, remember how Cedric Diggory was a big bland nonentity of a character whose death was more or less an afterthought once that book was over.  A plot device more than a character, really.  Gabriev Zelgad is my attempt to... well, not do that.  Again, don’t mistake this for a criticism.  Murder mysteries don’t need to flesh out their victims to be effective.  A murder mystery victim’s primary job is to establish and/or raise the stakes of the conflict while also providing both clues and questions for the detective figure to notice.  If they manage that without having a personality to speak of, the mystery is still functional, and you can compensate with different elements of your story.

But, that said, there is a benefit to giving at least one of your murder mystery victims some sympathy.  I mean, fairly obviously, right?  The emotional impact of murder and the threat it presents is going to feel far more stark if we actually give a shit about the people who die.  You want an emotionally invested audience, and making us care about the victim is a way to get it.

It just also means that you have to juggle elements of your victim character that don’t have to do with their plot-specific role.  They have to have dimensions that don’t serve their bare minimum narrative role.  You need to be willing to, you know, take a narrative diversion, which is risky.  Some people hate “filler,” after all.  But I wanted to take that risk.  I wanted Gabriev’s death to hurt, and I didn’t want him to be an afterthought.  For Polybeus at least, his death has weight, and it’s going to keep having weight well after he’s gone.

- Gabriev’s chivalric code is paraphrased from the chivalric code in Dragonheart.  “It was a good [story]!  Had a dragon in it.”  Dragonheart was one of the first fantasy movies I ever saw and one of the things that cemented my love of this genre, and also that code is fucking badass.

- Gabriev comforting Polybeus by showing him a different form of heroism by way of the medieval concept of chivalry is loosely based on my own experience of reading medieval chivalric ballads and finding them to be very different than the modern masculine heroes I grew up with, and specifically different in ways that resonated with me.  For all the violence of medieval tales, chivalric heroes spend a great deal of time crying, pining after pretty women, and talking about their feelings with their friends in great and vulnerable detail, which is a far cry from the stoic murder men society told me to view as Peak Masculinity when I was a kid.  This isn’t to say there’s nothing of value in those modern day masculine heroes, or for that matter in the Greco-Roman mythic heroes that are standing in for them in Polybeus’s story, but just that learning there are different forms of heroism and masculinity is, well, freeing.

- I wasn’t sure initially when we were going to properly meet the Justice Arcana, Maxeral the head gargoyle.  I had loose plans for him to step into the narrative proper in either book 3 or 4, but in the process of writing this one I realized there was a natural place for him to slip in.  Maxeral’s tricky because he’s designed to fill that “friend on the force” role you often get in detective stories, because that role is both narratively useful and a fun character dynamic to explore.  But I also wanted him to be, like, firmly not a cop, because I know my audience and I know myself, and we both think ACAB.  So I tried to make Maxeral an anti-cop in as many ways as possible, in that the limits to his authority are literally written into his brain, and the fact that he cannot view himself as above the people he protects, but rather as beneath them.  He, like all homunculi at the AAAM, is a servant, and while that might be an injustice in itself (we’ll explore it in a later book, don’t worry), the fact remains that Maxeral is incapable of lording his power over his charges.  He calls you sir, not the other way around, and as a protector he understands his role is that of a servant, not a master.  Maxeral also thinks the boundaries between him and his charges are just, and values people who work outside the scope of his power if they do so for good reasons.  So yeah, not a cop, hopefully.

- You might have noticed that Maxeral is unique among the gargoyles we’ve seen beyond his size and rank.  He’s far more serious, for one (in fact his dynamic with his underlings is patterned on the stoic and stuffy version of Ultra Magnus from the comic Transformers: More than Meets the Eye), a bit better at his job, and lives in very spartan quarters.  While you could claim the bare nature of his room is a result of him being a homunculi that was designed to have no interests beyond the purpose he was written with, remember how we saw gargoyles playing D&D earlier.  Is there more to homunculi than even Maxeral is aware of?  Probably not a question you considered since it’s not relevant to this particular book, but remember this is an eight book series...

- Ivan’s conversation with Polybeus builds on/responds to the one Gabriev had with Polybeus earlier, albeit unintentionally on Ivan’s part.  If Gabriev vocalized my own revelation at reading about chivalric heroes, then Ivan likewise illustrates what I learned about modern heroes when I looked at them with older eyes.  As a kid, the hero narratives sold to me seemed pretty unappealing - superheroes like Batman and Superman were fit, conventionally attractive jocks who beat up ugly out of shape guys who liked snakes and dressing in dark clothes.  There was more of my bullies in the heroes sold to me, and more of me in the villains they tormented.  But when I grew up and revisited those stories, and the comics they were based on for that matter, I realized there was more to them than the initial shallow impression I got as a kid.  As tormented by the normative masculine heroic ideal as I was as a kid, an adult me could see nuances and interpretations where I could fit.  It wasn’t necessarily the fault of the heroes of my time, but with the way those heroes had been sold to me, if that makes sense.

And I think the Greco-Roman mythic heroes are a good stand-in for that.  Shallow, simplified modern versions of their myths will reduce them to Good Heroes Who Slay Ugly Monsters, and that can feel alienating if you relate to the monsters more.  But if you explore their roots and see all the different versions of them, you can see they are complex, nuanced, and more than just a simple ideal.  Just because the stories now make them stoic manly men doesn’t mean that’s all they’ve ever been, or all they could be.  They can cry, they can love, they can feel, they can be human.  It just depends on how you want to look at them, and what version of them you want to see.  And sometimes the thing you need to appreciate a story you’ve heard a million times before is to see it through the eyes of someone else who’s fresh to it - sometimes a Polybeus needs an Ivan.

- As I said, I’m a character-focused storyteller.  The first thing I tried to hash out in outlining this series, before even figuring out how many books it would be, was what the personal arcs of our eight main kids would be.  I wanted them each to have a hook of their own outside the main conflict and we’d examine and resolve them throughout the eight books.  Some haven’t been fully exposed yet (either because I’m rethinking them or have decided they can just wait a bit), while others are already pretty prominent.

Margot’s was the first I figured out, and her duel with Alys here was the first scene I outlined in detail for this series.  So to say I REALLY wanted to get to this chapter is an understatement.  There are several other big moments I planned for this series that I’m excited to get to, and we got to one of them before this (James Chaucer tricking the Summer Prince into buying his dead name), but man, I am happy to have this moment out there for your perusal.

- When figuring out how the eight Meddlesome Youths differed as spellcasters, I thought about them partly in JRPG terms, and partly in anime archetypes.  When it came to Margot, the muscle of the group, I felt there was one style that fit better than most: she fights like a DBZ villain, to the point where her ultimate attack is basically Freeza’s Death Ball.  In final fantasy terms, she’s the Black Mage, i.e. the character who is almost exclusively limited to offensive magic, though after this battle she’s on the path to diversifying her magic portfolio.

- There’s a moment in this book and in the previous where the idea of teachers being taught by their students is brought up in a pithy way, but I’d like to note that this is actually a true phenomenon.  One of the best ways to learn something - that is, to reinforce your knowledge of it and deepen your understanding of it - is to teach it to someone else, and an interaction with students can illuminate things for teachers just as much as it can for their pupils.  Education is by its nature a communication process (the education philosopher John Dewey has whole books that explain this better than I could), and communication is by it’s nature a two-way street.  So while these moments function as little jokes - “the teachers need to be taught” - I also feel there’s a truth to it, and a lesson to learn, I guess.  Education’s a lot more complicated than fiction often makes it seem.

- Yes, our wizards kids hit the bar, like college kids are wont to do.  I tried to make them responsible about it without getting into after-school PSA territory, because I want this story to feel authentic (as much as a fantasy story filled with dragons and magic can) while not glamorizing dangerous behavior to any theoretical young people who might read this.  Did I succeed?  Who can say.

- Hey, another stupid joke!  So the story of Achilles and Patroclus is very clearly one of two men romantically loving each other, but over the centuries writers have tried to patch that out because of, well, homophobia, with many versions saying their affection was because they were cousins.  You know what other story that happened to?  Sailor Moon, albeit with two girls who loved each other rather than two guys.  So in Midgaheim’s version of history, the real historical figures of Achilles and Patroclus had their romance covered up in one version of their tale by a writer named Forr Kydd.  Four Kids, as you may know, dubbed various anime, and while they didn’t dub Sailor Moon, they were notorious for bowdlerizing the anime they dubbed to make it more child-friendly, and also to remove references to Japanese culture that Americans might not understand.  Hence we have Forr Kydd, the translator who tried to de-gay the story of Achilles and Patroclus.

- Charlotte expects to get drunk off caffeine because spiders in real life are intoxicated by it, spining really shitty webs when under the influence.  Poor girl had no reason to suspect her human body would react so differently.

- I tried to work in a MLM romance into ATOM volume 2, but it quickly became clear to me there wasn’t room for it with all the other stuff going on in my story.  So I decided that the first canon consummated romance of WSM would be MLM to compensate.  Rodrigo and Ivan’s romance is the first one to be hinted at in book 1, and they’re the first couple to get together as of book 2.

- While most of the ballads listed in this book are made up by me, Tam Lin is real, being one of the famous Childe Ballads, and a personal favorite of mine thanks to the awesome version of it the Fairport Convention did.

- Geoffrey Travers teaches James Chaucer about using magic for passive buffs, a thing I have to constantly remind myself to do when playing RPGs (left to my own devices, I just spam attacks).

- Chungo Maximo’s knack for turning into animals homages a number of ogre folk tales, but primarily Puss in Boots.

- If Margot is a black mage, then Serena is a blue mage - a less well known Final Fantasy class, which draws its power by absorbing magic from others and reflecting it back at them.  I mean, she’s not just that, she can attack on her own just fine, but I thought it’d be a fun way to customize her battle set, and play off the idea of crystals being able to magically story energy and channel it back to the user.

- Ivan’s fears about his sillylusions not being worthy in the eyes of a teacher who’s taught him a lot about realism echoes some of my own academic anxieties, as I had many great teachers who taught me about serious non-genre fiction texts, and were very supportive and encouraging of me as I analyzed them without knowing that what I really wanted to use their lessons for was to  get better at writing silly stories about fire-breathing dinosaurs and magical wizards.  Like Ivan, I accidentally had this side of me exposed to one of my respected mentors when I submitted a short story I had written to the campus’s english studies congress (not even of my own volition, I was encouraged to do so by a pretty older girl on campus I liked), got it in, and then found one of my professors in the audience.  He loved it, though, and asked me a lot of questions, and a couple years later, when I got an award from the English department for my five years of work, he presented it and talked not only about my achievements in class, but about how I had also written fiction on the side of it all.  It was a scary but ultimately gratifying experience.  Ivan’s fears about his sillylusions lacking value because of their non-realistic nature also mirrors anxieties I had about my art back then - I strived for realism for a while, but ultimately found stylization worked better for me, even if it meant my art would never be taken as seriously as stuff that’s, you know, more detailed or whatever.

- Clowns being a variety of half-demon sprang about from me wanting clowns to be a gothic horror monster on par with vampires or werewolves in my setting, and since we’ve got at least one clown-themed demon in this universe anyway, it seemed like a natural choice.

- Of course Gernderf ponders orbs.  He’s a wizard.

- Godfrey and Columbina filling the dean’s office with ballons is inspired by a similar prank my friends pulled on our RA during my freshman year of college.  We liked our RA, though, she was cool, and she took the prank in good humor.

- The fun thing about creating and publishing your own fiction is that you don’t have people above you who can slap your hands and tell you “No that’s stupid” when you want to do something silly like make a war with mimes a canon part of your in-universe lore.  A bad part of creating and publishing your own fiction is that there’s no one who can stop you from doing something stupid like making a war with mimes a canon part of your in-universe lore.

- Though he doesn’t know it, Eruz Tobael is a nephilim, i.e. a half-angel.  His appearance and spell of choice give you a hint to what kind of angel his mother was.  I like the idea that angels and demons are an outside-of-context problem in this setting - all these pagan wizards are running around with their pantheons of gods and wildernesses of magic monsters, and every now and then a Biblical beastie pops up to throw everything they know on its head.  We’ll get more of that in the next book.

- Aldonza Dulcinea was originally going to be one of our major arcana characters!  Originally Charlotte would have been the Hanged Man in her place, but in the planning stages one of my friends suggested I should do a parody of Voldemort to match the Dumbledore parody I made with Gernderf, and the more I thought about the idea the more I felt he had to be a major character, and, if that was the case, he’d have to be the Hanged Man.  Because who’s a better rival to The Judgement than the card that faced it and inexplicably survived?  That left Charlotte in need of an arcana, so Aldonza got the boot and Charlotte got the Star.  To make up for it, I establish Aldonza as the hero of her own story here - albeit one we’ll only ever see glimpses of.  Her name comes from the love interest of Don Quixote - Dulcinea is what Don Quixote calls her, while Aldonza is her actual name.

- Having Polybeus meet Gabriev’s mom to discuss his death SEVERAL chapters after it happened was another attempt on my part to avert the Cedric Diggory situation here.  He might not have had a big role, but it’s going to leave a mark - and now Polybeus has a helmet to forever remind him of the man he only knew for one of the most important moments in his life.

- So, our two villains!  Richard Rainsford, the Centurion, is named for King Richard III (specifically Shakespeare’s take on the nasty fucker) and Sanger Rainsford, the protagonist of The Most Dangerous Game.  Richard III (as written by Shakespeare) is a tormented and haunted man who has chosen to become a villain because of his daddy issues and anxieties about never living up to what his family expects of him, and excels at putting on a kind and friendly persona while plotting to stab people in the back.  Sanger Rainsford, meanwhile, is a great hunter who prides himself on bringing down dangerous prey who unexpectedly finds himself getting a taste of his own medicine.  In short, Richard is well named.  The Centurion is an alternate name for the Chariot, a card that represents moving forward and victory, among other things.  Richard shows how the desire to constantly win and excel can be poisonous.

Miguel is the Thunderbolt, an alternate name for the Tower.  The Tower has a LOT of negative connotations, representing chaos, destruction, and sudden & violent change that disrupts all around it, which is very much what Miguel has achieved by setting the sabotage plot in motion.

- Polybeus claiming that “This time, the disaster will be theirs!” is a little nod to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, where, after several different moments where the Phantom screwed things up for the opera, including creating a lethal accident, the heroes finally decided to set a trap for him in turn.  The way Raoul says the line is deliciously hammy, at least on the original London cast’s soundtrack, so it felt like a fun line to give Polybeus.

- Serena’s second costume transformation and powerup is a reference to a pretty common trope in Magical girl anime.  Often such powerups come from the hero realizing how much they’re loved and/or how much their friends love them, which is kinda true here to, albeit in a more mundane way, where it’s Margot’s friendly act of sharing her magic that gives Serena her well-needed boost.  I like the idea of the heroes winning because they’re friends while the villains lose because they’re squabbling selfish assholes.

- As of this book, Margot has said two of the four one-liners her friends offered her in book one.  I don’t know if she’ll ever say “magic, shmagic” or “abra-ca-fuck you.”  Probably not that last one, since I’m trying to avoid using direct profanity as much as possible with this series, but who knows.  (abra-ca-fuck you is, of course, a reference to The Adventure Zone).

- Richard declaring he is the wizard slayer is an homage of sorts to Admiral Zhao in ATLA, who similarly shouted “I AM ZHOU THE MOONSLAYER!” in the height of his villainous hubris, shortly before being taken down a peg.

-  If you’re horrified at Gernderf sucking our two villains into an amulet, good, run with that feeling as we go into the next six books please.

And that’s it for this trivia round!  I hope you enjoyed, and thank you for reading all my self indulgent waffle!

[drawingale]

Double feature GlobalComix Update 💙

Aeria S2 Ep8 Part 1 is up now! Drawingale's Origin Ep1 Part 2 is up now !

Aeria: While Mira is nervous about Edaeron knowing about her secret, Via begins to fret about the future of Ailithyia 🌩

DG's Origin: The Wheel of Fortune- changes, destiny, luck, and new opportunities are headed our protagonist's way

[ceridwyn2]

Tagged by @pers-books

Rules: List your “top 10” (or up to 10 if you haven’t written that many) fics ranked by kudos on AO3. Are you surprised by what’s most popular to your readers? Then, under a cut, provide your ranking of your personal top 10 fics (with explanations if you want!), and then tag a few fellow writers!

So, I’ve just got 10 stories posted to AO3 so here they are. Some are for rare-pairings and older tv shows or films, so most don’t have many kudos at all, so if you happen to be keen to read them & like them, drop a kudos & a comment. I’ve put my personal rankings in front of the stories.

*2 - Words of Meaning 17445 words; incomplete) - Holby City (Bernie Wolfe / Serena Campbell) - https://archiveofourown.org/works/9709112 - 185 kudos

*4 - Freedom (1669 words, complete) - Bad Girls (Nikki Wade / Helen Stewart) - https://archiveofourown.org/works/8624221 - 32 kudos

*3 - Someone to Remember Us (2485 words, complete) - Bad Girls (Nikki/ Helen) - https://archiveofourown.org/works/1644383 - 25 kudos

*1 - A Retreat of Truths (14081 words, complete) - Spooks (Harry Pearce / Ruth Evershed) - https://archiveofourown.org/works/8602573 - 23 kudos

*6 - Seeking Comfort (1419 words, complete) - Fried Green Tomatoes (Ruth / Idgie) - https://archiveofourown.org/works/1640474 - 19 kudos

*5 - Not the Brightest Idea (1617 words, complete) - Bad Girls (Nikki Wade / Helen Stewart - https://archiveofourown.org/works/8603392 - 12 kudos

*9 - Bad Girls Song Drabbles (1062 words, complete) - Bad Girls (mostly Nikki / Helen) - https://archiveofourown.org/works/8622838 - 8 kudos

*8 - An Unexpected Conversation (2886 words, complete) - Battlestar Galactica (Laura Roslin / Natalie Six) - https://archiveofourown.org/works/31305098 - 6 kudos

*7 - Finding One’s Way (1208 words, complete) - Wire in the Blood (Paula McIntyre / Chris Devine) - https://archiveofourown.org/works/31304909 - 2 kudos

*10 - Journey of Self Discovery (1031 words, complete) - The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert - https://archiveofourown.org/works/1643138 - 1 kudos

Tagging: @thegirl20 @heartsways @darkshines1984 @ncruuk @serenacampbell @closingdoorsfanfic @absedarian @jmflowers @dinovia-grant plus anyone else who wants to give it a go.