#so i hate that order for plot reasons as i feel it removes a lot of Ashe's agency

[tea-cat-arts]

(Uh, hi. Currently doing my first 3 Hopes playthrough)

WHY IS EVERYONE IN SCARLET BLAZE BEING A DICK TO MY BOY ASHE! CHRIST, WHY'D NO ONE WARN ME THAT RECRUITING HIM JUST ENDS WITH HIM BEING EMOTIONALLY KICKED IN THE NUTS FOR 12 CHAPTERS STRAIGHT!!! WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS BLACK EAGLE FRIENDSHIPS!!!

Anyways, Shez, Mercedes, Raphael, and Rodrigue are the only characters that passed the vibe check on how they treated Ashe (so far at least). Everyone else should reconsider their life choices

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

So I absolutely despise the Senti-Rich kids plot, and I get the feeling you dont like it much either

Can you think of any way to make a plotline like that actually work in ML?

You would be correct in your assumption! There are a lot of ways to make that plot work. I'll list a few going in rough order from least changes to canon to most extreme changes to canon:

Never use the peacock for canon fodder sentimonsters or mention that sentimonsters have a remote control and the ethical issues become a lot less complicated, letting you treat the peacock like a wacky fertility drug. This path is kinda boring and still makes the Agrestes look bad, but it would remove all my main issues.

Modify the peacock so that there's something to make it clear that the senti kids are different from a normal sentimonster. I think I've seen someone mention the idea that, to make a living senti, you have to give up part of yourself and that's an interesting idea, though I think that sort of nuanced commentary on infertility is too complex for a kids show. Still, the general concept could work, especially if you added a way for a living sentimonster to break free of their amok.

Lean into the secret society stuff the show hinted at with things like the Diamond Dance and whatever the weird mask party was back in season four. Have some sort of rich people conspiracy to have perfect children that the heroes have to stop.

Along similar lines to the previous or in addition to the previous: actually acknowledge that you've introduced a slavery plot to your show and let there be a free the slaves plot. And I mean really free them. None of this, "well, you're technically still a slave, but we've given you the remote control, so it's fine! Just never ever let that ring out of your sight, okay? And be careful about giving yourself orders by accident!"

My favorite path: change the peacock's power to be something else, but keep the general plot line of that power being used in relation to Adrien (and the other two, if you want). I'll admit that this one is somewhat similar to the first idea, but the reason I like this and not that is that I just generally hate the idea of magical designer babies, but I like the idea that Emilie used the peacock for Adrien's sake. It's nice dramatic tension. I actually assumed this was going to be the big reveal up until we learned the peacock's power. Post reveal, I assumed that I was wrong because the sentimonster stuff seemed like too stupid of a move for anyone to make. I also find the peacock both overpowered and too similar to the butterfly, so I've wanted it to be something else ever since it was first introduced. The sentibaby plot line just further fueled my dislike.

[olenvasynyt]

7 for Raivis 👀, 10, 16, 45

7. What is an interesting fact about the 2nd oldest brother Raivis?

He has the deepest voice out of all the brothers and he is a very good singer. He has no interest in singing as a hobby or a career, and he probably doesn't even care about how good of a singer he is, but he does enjoy music, and the LoA loves his voice. Whenever they go to the temple for a worship ceremony, the High Family would sit together and Raivis would sing the hymns once in a while (more so when he was younger / before the War). It always reminds her of when he was younger; it makes him look not only beautiful and fae, but also peaceful.

10. Who do you think has the best relationship with Lucien?  Who has the worst relationship with Lucien?  Explain why and how for both

All of the brothers have different relationships with Lucien at certain moments in time. It all depends on their age and situation. I would say when he was little, he had the best relationship with Eris. It fluxuated from time to time: they grew apart, then grew closer again, and went back and forth. But Lucien clung to Eris when he was little, I would say until he was 8ish. Eris removed his mask for him and taught him things, read to him, allowed him to be the little kid, but when Lucien got older he kind of put on his mask to protect him. I feel like there is a bit of resentment in their relationship.

16. Rank the brothers from Most Fucked Up to Least Fucked Up by Beron

This is one of my favorite questions 😂😭 they're all fucked up in their own ways but I would say the order goes from:

(Most fucked up) Raivis. Was beaten a lot as a kid / adult (for reasons you'll see in my fic👀) , probably has the most expectations put on him after Eris. Has a lot of resentment for his brothers, especially Eris; but also has some self-hatred and pushes him away fro being good, because thinks that being cruel is the best way to survive in the Forest House. Very very manipulative and cruel at times, and he sees kindness as weakness

Maybe Eris? He very much knows good from bad but he still wears his mask, which I think can fuck up the mind a little. Because he also shoves away some parts of himself to survive (gay thoughts are repressed for sureeeee). He is also pretty paranoid since he is always trying to be two steps ahead.

Jora. Not really in a fucked up sense, but he is the 2nd youngest brother and was always shit on by Beron and his eldest brothers. Has a lot to live up to and he tries really hard to get ahead but always falls short. Has a lot of self-hatred which makes him very mean and sad and desperate, and he throws his frustrations o Lucien, who is the only brother who's younger than him

Elmar. I am veryyyyy excited for his little side plot in ACOEAS, I hope I put it together well 👀 becuase it's very fucked up and sad. He also has a lot to live up to, and he is very strong and powerful but easily manipulated

Galeti. The 4th oldest brother, and as a middle brother, he's kind of forgotten about. He's very clever and smart, and Beron can't find a lot of flaws in him and he doesn't see him as a threat to his crown becuase Galeti doesn't give a shit about politics. He is still fucked in the head though because Elmar, the 3rd oldest brother and the one who's closest in age, hates him and beats on him a lot. Plus he fought in the war and that can fuck anyone up. But he's pretty easygoing and parties (drinks a lot) to feel better

(least fucked up) Aatos. He is also fucked up, don't get me wrong, but he's probably the most innocent of the brothers. 3rd youngest brother so he's in the middle and Beron doesn't pay him any mind. He had some resentment for this but Eris was a clever big brother had helped him find things that bring him joy. He is almost always out of the Forest House and helps train the smokehounds, which is a valuable talent but not really seen as something that would earn him power in the political ladder.

45. Open question: name your favorite headcanon for any of the Vanserras!

Lmao I love how so many people make two of the brothers twins! Elmar and Galeti aren't exactly twins but they are born 3 years apart which is basically twins for High Fae since they're so rare. And they are alwayssss bickering and fighting with each other. My two favorite stories are about how Elmar shot Galeti in the ear and Galeti gave him a scar to match. The other is Galeti and Elmar still fight about the infamous stolen knife that “somehow” ended up in the Forest House River (it was Elmar’s knife and Galeti threw it in, but Galeti pretends he has no idea what happened to it and always says Elmar is just being stupid and misplaced it)

[bleue-flora]

my theory for why he wanted ctommy to trust him and be his weapon is because of a few things. He saw potential in ctommy, he knew ctommy was good at leading people (in pogtopia he was the one who ralleyed everyone together), ctommy could easily sway anyone to like cdream which is useful hes a social weapon, ctommy is cdreams biggest enemy at that time so getting him on side would make cdream be able to achieve his goal better, he is irritated with ctommy for ruining his life so in a way getting ctommys trust could be done out of revenge as it breaks ctommy and rebuilds him to be better and to allign with cdreams happy family goal. 'If ctommy is in order than maybe everyone else can be too.' Its interesting he chooses to fake a friendship with ctommy instead of just torturing him the entire time in exile.

A lot of his manipulative actions in exile are a result of him believing ctommy being around anyone but himself would result in ctommy reverting back to a trouble maker, even ghostbur which is why he got rid of him imo.

Hmm interesting… No offense to Tommy but of the characters I see as good at swaying a crowd or being a leader or social weapon he does not necessarily come to mind. Besides Tubbo I feel like there aren’t really any instances where Tommy was the reason people did things. A lot of people hated Schlatt for other reasons so I’m not sure Tommy really rallied together Pogtopia. Quackity certainly wasn’t happy under Schlatt, he was mistreating Niki, Eret wanted redemption, Techno wanted to tear down the government, Fundy was against Schlatt day one and acting as a spy, members of the Badlands wanted chaos and for the factors to tear themselves apart… etc. So, I’m not sure we can say he has the power to inspire and rally people into fighting for a cause like Wilbur. Even Doomsday, I don’t personally think they were really swayed by Tommy’s speech, Sapnap and Punz were already going to side against Dream regardless, the people living in L’manberg or around didn’t want their house blown up etc. I’m not sure anyone fought because Tommy asked them or gathered them together, I think they were going to regardless. And Dream would know that, I mean look how fast they turned against Tommy with the Community House being blown up. So leader? - meh. Social weapon? - if you mean by talking over everyone lol then yeah, but convincing people of things? Inspiring them to fight for something - I’m just not sure I personally see it. Within reason right. Yes, everyone believe the things about Exile and stuff, but they saw how Tommy was screwed up after. So if Tommy was being manipulated into being Dream’s social weapon I don’t think they’d side with Tommy on Dream’s side.

Also, I’m not sure Tommy was his biggest threat at that point Quackity starting plotting to kill him imediately after the war, everyone else I don’t think liked him because he sided with Schlatt, a bunch of people that weren’t Tommy went after George as the king including Technoblade, hence his dethronement. Not to mention after gaining the revive book, he became afraid of a lot bigger things or larger threats to the point of building a prison to contain such evil that can’t be killed for whatever reason. Tommy was perhaps number 1 annoying bug, and certainly a threat or a possible catalyst to another war, but I don’t think Dream saw him as the biggest threat to his plans per se.

I’m not sure I follow the logic of taking revenge on someone via making them better mannered, trust you and become your friend so that you both can make everyone be peaceful as one big happy family. I mean if you wanna really do revenge like that is the true reason - you ruined my life so I’m going to ruin you - I think you’d start with destroying L’manberg before it even is able to pick up it’s pieces, kill Tubbo, explode his house as you said torture him. What do you need trust for? How bout just kill him and then with him removed you build your happy family and then maybe revive him later. It just doesn’t make sense, and Dream may be somewhat insane and extreme and emotional, but he does things for a reason that make logical sense for his goal. That is a defining difference between them actually - Tommy does not follow logic but feelings and doesn’t do things for his motivation, while Dream follows logic over feelings and does everything or makes everything work that was emotionally caused for his motivation. His emotions leak through the cracks but he doesn’t lead them dictate his over plans, so doesn’t Dream take out revenge on Tommy - I think yes, I think his emotions pushed him to make Tommy feel exactly like he did - abandoned, trapped, having lost everything over and over, but I don’t think that was the ultimate purpose. I think that was almost more so unintentional like waking up grumpy and being a jerk to people all day, except in this scenario having your world crumble around you and starting to take it out on the person who is fairly responsible.

Because, clearly based on what we see in Daedalus Dream isn’t an idiot who thinks torturing or breaking someone is how you manipulate them/get what you want. It doesn’t work, not in the dsmp and not in the real world. And he proves in Daedalus that with the upper hand, he doesn’t need to lay a hand on someone to get them to do what he wants, yet he does lay a hand on Tommy, which is counterproductive, giving me the impression that it’s not necessarily part of his plan. In other words, I do not think Exile was intended to be the cruel punishment it ended up being, I more so get the impression that it’s almost like Dream was trying to parent him.

Like think about it… Time out: sent away from everyone by yourself, Grounded: Unable to leave, Getting something taken away: losing items of value, Spankings: hitting as punishment for disobedience. All of these things are methods used by parents to enforce the ideas of good and bad in a child who doesn’t know any better. And don’t those kinda look like exactly what Dream does in Exile? Sure it’s so an extreme but the bad things Tommy did are extreme: murder, stealing, arson, slavery, torture, destruction…. Etc so in a twisted sort of way it kinda makes sense (Do Not take this as me agreeing with Dream’s methods or anything, I’m just looking at similarities. This isn’t about deserved or saying the behavior was justified or the right thing to do or whatever. All I’m looking at is reasoning and our purpose.)

Anyways… what was I saying? I might be getting lost in my thoughts oops. Oh okay, right isolation. I think I touched upon this somewhere, I do think it was with the purpose of preventing them from pointing out how Dream’s a bad person. I don’t think that people make Tommy a trouble maker, he does just fine on his own, and I don’t get the impression most people would try do ya know like arson with him or something. I mean again they turn against Tommy in the house, believing it was him and also being upset. I don’t get the feeling that they are A-okay with Tommy’s behavior much more than Dream is, but I think they support Tommy so they’ll have his back like good friends. So not so much revert in my opinion as turn against Dream if that makes sense. But then if Dream didn’t want Tommy to turn on him and actually become like friends or whatever why would he act so cruel, and thats where the emotions leak through the cracks make perhaps what was supposed to be a lesson into more so hell.

I mean later, when Phil makes Tommy burn a precious items and burn stone over and over and over again to teach him about how items are just things, isn’t that kinda similar to what Dream was doing in Exile?… though I also think Dream was afraid Tommy was going to get stuff to then revolt against Dream and try to kill him or whatever so maybe his fear (something he was definitely being consumed by) was at play there. I don’t know… Exile is just so… I don’t interesting and weird, but I don’t think it was supposed to be cruel, or to break/make Tommy into his puppet or weapon, it just doesn’t make sense, not with what happened nor with Dream’s motivation and characteristic behavior. He says to Sam in Daedalus that Exile wasn’t “morally perfect” and I think honestly part of him believes that…

[duchessofostergotlands]

Weird question for you, non-royal. How do you feel about people (and I'm assuming its mainly us American people) planting a tree/buying a plot of land to be "given"a title? I'm on Scotland travel group and a few people said locals HATE that. I can see irritation if one expects people to call them by the title but in my view, it's just charitable giving vs harmful. But I'm American and our tendency to "pay more for better" may have made me jaded.

It's a great question :) If someone buys it as a gift for a friend and they laugh to themselves and move on with their lives, I can't stop them. If they bump into a Scottish person and announce to them that they have a "Scottish title" that's an issue. There's a few things:

What you are purchasing is the right to use their trademark. So it's like if I trademarked Lady of Jessicatown I could charge people to be able to use that. That's it. 1) You're not buying a title; partly because this company has no authority to hand out titles that actually mean anything but also because even if they were giving you the right to style yourself as Laird or Lady or whatever, that's not actually a title. Laird is basically a descriptor that shows you own land. If you've ever watched a period drama and heard an English character being referred to as a squire, that's what Laird means. It's as much a title as Mr or Mrs. and 2) you also aren't actually buying the land. They can't sell the same plot of land to multiple people, but it can't be legally registered so you don't own it. I'm sure you can imagine if I waltzed over to the US and said I'm not from the US but I bought a title and some land in your country when in reality you knew that was bollocks, it would annoy you!

Being "charitable" doesn't make something good. I personally cannot point to any discernible benefit these companies have provided. I also think if you really want to support the Scottish environment, just give to charity. If you step back and think about it it's someone looking at another country and only giving money to a community project so they could get what they believe to be land and a title in exchange, in a deal brokered by someone who isn't from the country either (the two biggest companies were set up by people from England and Hong Kong). That is absurd!! So that's why I don't buy when people claim it's for charitable reasons. It's because they want what they think is a title, and the charity part makes it feel ethical. If it was about charity they'd do some basic research and find out within a few minutes these companies don't really provide much benefit and are not respected by environmental organisations or local communities. Which should be enough.

There is a very painful history around land in the Highlands, where most of these companies have land. I won't go into too much detail but from the mid 18th to the mid 19th century there was a period we refer to as the Highland Clearances. Due to a combination of factors - the agricultural revolution and the desire to wipe out Highland culture - landowners set about forcibly removing the local farming communities who'd worked on their land for generations. People had their homes burned to the ground by wealthy landowners, tens of thousands of people were forced from their communities, and lots of people died because they had no food or shelter. This is still an issue today in some ways as Scotland has a real problem with private land ownership. About half of Scottish land is owned by around 400 people. Many of them are absentee landlords - they own huge plots of land but only come up to go hunting a few times a year. They also often don't protect the farmers who rent their lands, just like they didn't in the Highland Clearances. A lot of them do real damage to the community: demolishing homes, cutting the land their tenants have for farming, poor environmental policies. And these "title" companies have to come in and buy huge swathes of land in order to be able to pretend to sell you some of that land. So because of historical and present day issues, there is an innate cultural sensitivity around land ownership in the Highlands which these souvenir plots tap into.

[h34vybottom]

While I have a lot to say about Aragaki and his involvement in the plot (Very little), I feel as though even mentioning this character is utterly worthless. Aragaki is not a worthwhile or meaningful character to the narrative. He exists to die and barely exists in the text. Even in the new scenes in the remake, they're utterly superfluous scenes that are almost all exposition to things that the game has already stated a multitude of times. They've attempted to gloss this up by having art to represent younger versions of the original SEES members, but it's just flimsy dressing on an exposition salad. Cheap, uninteresting, and overall ineffective. This is in part why Aragaki is so worthless to comment on. He's just a plot device. There's no reason to care about him as a character and his story is so nakedly just pure shock value. I'm not going to argue against the potential utility of shock value scenes, but Aragaki's death is incredibly weak and a really bad utilization of drama. Most of the dialogue is exposition, of which I've cut around the most tedious and unneeded moments in this video example (This video is clipped together from a VOD, hence why the previous VODs are playing in the top left corner). All of the exposition in these scenes, sequentially ordered, are repeated bits of information from previous exposition scenes. All of them. Not a single exception.

Modern Persona, even upon remaking and adding new scenes into itself, refuses to change the script for the better. Once something is set in stone, it has to stay that way. There can be no changes to anything; The structure of 3, 4, and 5 are the exact same. The writing quality is the exact same. The gameplay is mostly the exact same (Original 4 tried to make the games function properly, but it failed). While there is a new scene for Aragaki's death, it's just a remade version of a previous scene. Glossy and uninteresting. Shot like a Genshin Impact cutscene and hyper clean, removing any and all originality for pandering, tamed, status quo affirming product (The original did not have a lick of originality as well, to be fair. It's more supposed originality than anything else).

These scenes leave no room for the player to think for themselves. The exposition, drowning every scene in the game, removes all chances for potential thought. A deluge of meaningless, vapid noise, clogging the airwaves w/ its nothingness, drowning out the players' thoughts. It's bad writing, in other words. Atlus hates their audience and does not believe that audience can function on any basis.

[tomwambsmilk]

Succtwitter has the most interesting takes about Shiv. She's apparently the victim in her marriage bc she's a woman and Tom uses his privilege as a man over her. Now I HATE to victim blame but two of the most abusive things Tom does to Shiv is reactionary to Shiv's treatment of Tom. Shiv treating Tom as irrelevant (to his face) made him feel like in order to be remembered and important while he was in prison was to have a kid with her, and then he betrayed her for constantly leaving him out of the loop and making him feel as though his position in her life was being called into question. Both things are AWFUL and indefensible but they're also a hell of shiv's own making

Yeah, this is part of why I tend to avoid using the word 'abuse' when discussing Tom and Shiv's marriage. Largely because the rhetoric around the concept of abuse - and specifically around the idea of abusers as ontologically evil - means there's no room for nuance as soon as the term enters the discussion. And I also don't think that's a helpful or necessary lens through which to analyze what's happening in their relationship.

That being said, I do think one of the primary tragedies of Shiv as a character is the way the destruction of her marriage is a self-fulfilling prophecy. She's so afraid of betrayal and hurt as a consequence of intimacy that she holds Tom at an emotional distance (something I absolutely think was part of her motivations in wanting an open marriage). She doesn't feel safe in emotional intimacy, and the commitment involved in getting married has deepened her unease. But holding Tom at that distance is what drives him to eventually betray her, something I believe he absolutely would not have done in season 1, or even season 2. He tries to play both sides, sure, but when he absolutely cannot, he sides with Shiv - up until season 3. That's why "my therapist was wrong, and I was right" hits so hard; it's not actually that her therapist was wrong, but that she's manifested her own fears into existence, and because she's not able to see how her own actions played into that she's doomed to keep perpetuating that cycle in other aspects of her life. When people downplay that aspect and remove Shiv's agency in the relationship, I think they neuter her character a little, and they undercut some of the tragedy of the story. Part of the reason she's compelling is that, even though she absolutely is mistreated by the people around her, she isn't simply a victim all the time.

I also think Tom's season 3 desire (and pressure) for a kid is a lot more complicated than just Shiv's treatment of him. There's a lot to unpack there, and so many posts I see oversimplify some aspect of it, which is too bad bc I think, as a plot point, it's a pretty brilliant convergence of several different aspects of Tom's character, his ideals, the outside influences on him, and his relationship with Shiv, and as such is pretty revealing on a lot of levels. But that's for a whole separate post, I think!

Anyways. It's frustrating because there are ways in which Tom's misogyny (which I think is largely unconscious, and rooted in the general misogyny of the Waystar culture - but it's still misogyny) negatively impacts Shiv, and you can have that conversation while still acknowledging the rather significant role Shiv herself has played in the destruction of her marriage, and the (again, significant!) ways she's mistreated Tom. These are not two mutually exclusive concepts!! Their relationship is messy and nuanced!!

[gooserps]

i wonder if we’ve been in the same groups because your experience describes mine exactly.

so i mostly use male muses, not sure why but it’s just a preference i’ve picked up after so many years of rping. i joined a group last year and ended up really really loving it. it felt like the whole group was eager to write together and coming up with unique connections. about a month or so in, i decided to bring in a female muse and everything changed. mind you, we still had like 50 original members at the time plus new members joining each day, yet she got barely any interactions. people stopped replying to plotting dms so i got nowhere. muns that were sooo eager to interact with my boy basically ignored her in every chat or talked down to her like she was a thirsty nuisance??? and she was just friendly to everyone! it was literally one of the most bizarre things i’d ever seen. i ended up just building really strong relationships with the other ignored female muses so that she could have SOME sort of interactions.

it left such a bad taste in my mouth that i exited and took a break from rp groups for months. it was the first time i wrote as a girl in years and i suddenly remembered why i hated doing that before.

also, i absolutely agree that most writers seem to want text threads. on one hand, i understand because having a huge amount of long paras with multiple nuns gets overwhelming really fast… but on the other hand, i’ve noticed a lot of members just not writing at all or only doing the bare minimum para requirement to not be removed while they’re super active ooc or in the social media channels. i just don’t understand joining a writing hobby only to not write 😭

i wouldn't be surprised if we were. i also picked up the habit of taking up male characters a long time ago ( in my case because i liked attention, girls, and had gender dysphoria -- in that order :) ). i genuinely like writing men and i get the ick whenever cis women say they can't write as men because it's only as different as you make it out to be. anytime i've picked up a dude, i had other muns approach me first about plotting, they'd suggest a ship, etc. in one of the more recent groups i joined, i hadn't even set up my channel yet. all i did was post a wanted connection and someone jumped at the chance to fill it. meanwhile, my poor girl who was more thought out got responses to plotting messages in the vein of, "yeah, whatever works," and i have to 100% come up with the plot myself or they will stop responding. people stop following the rule of 'yes, and...' when it comes to plotting with my women. i've had people be weird about shipping with my men and yet, as far as i can remember, i've had exactly one ship for my female muse. other than one decent plotting experience for my female character, i can only remember being in one group that had people who valued my female character by coming up with non-surface-level plots. i should not be yearning for a group from a year ago that only lasted two months tops, and yet it's the only time i felt like people weren't using me for a ship. it sucks because you would think other muns with female muses would know the feeling and band together with decent plots, and yet, in my experience, most of them couldn't care less? literally one of the best, very short lived paras i had was with our girls roller skating while drunk. i want more of that. i want that type of effort where some care is being put into replies and they're not just appeasing me or ignoring me altogether. as far as text threads go, i agree with you. there is some level of convenience to it. part of the reason why i switched to discord is because it gets overwhelming taking like an hour to reply to a para starter on tumblr. i feel like discord attracts a large amount of people who are more into things like fake life, anon talk, etc. like they're somewhat acting ooc and it's more about socializing. that's valid too, but it's not what i signed up for. btw, if you'd like to swap stories or write together, just message me for my discord. i don't bite! i don't think you're the same anon as the 1x1 anon but i didn't realize they were asking me to 1x1 so they can feel free to reach out too.

[drifting-knightjar]

Warbreaker Book Review

(spoilers, obviously)

I have lately finished my fourth read of Warbreaker, and it's probably my least favorite of Sanderson's Cosmere books. I know it's a favorite of a lot of fans, and I fully expected to like it just as much as them but... I was disappointed.

To be clear, this is still a good book, I just like it less than the other Cosmere books. I'm mostly going to complain about what I didn't like because that's more fun to write about, but again, I did overall like the book. I'd give it a strong 6/10, and I have liked more upon every re-read. I think part of that is because once i had read it once, I knew what was coming, and so wasn't as easily bogged down in directionless boredom...which unfortunately is what happened to me the first time I read it.

This book has lots of strong points--the characters are wonderful, the worldbuilding is great, and the magic system is perhaps the most unique I've ever seen.

But the plot. Oh, the plot.

Nothing fucking happens for like the whole middle of the book! It was so frustrating! I really enjoyed living in its world, but every time I opened it up to hang out there, nothing was going on! All three main POVs--Lightsong, Vivenna, and Siri, spend almost the entire book at a total loss for what to do. There's no direction, no forward momentum, because all three of them don't know what they're doing.

It's like reading a mystery book where the detective, instead of going out and looking for clues, interviewing suspects, and putting the pieces together, just had chapter after chapter of him thinking to himself "Hm. Something's definitely going on here. But I don't know what and I don't know what I'm looking for. But I sure do need to solve the case."

Vivenna spends almost the whole book being led around by Denth, and we aren't even privy to the plans he tells her, so we don't have an opportunity to guess what's coming. Every Vivenna chapter is just "And here I am in (place) doing (thing) because Denth said it was a good idea. Also everyone here is a slut except me."

Lightsong is useless on purpose, which is very charming and I love him. But again, every Lightsong chapter is the same. "War might be coming. Maybe I will do something about it (does nothing about it). Also I hate being a god."

Siri is trapped in the palace, and her storyline is probably the best, because I at least got to watch her developing relationship with Susebron, which was adorable. And hey, forward momentum! But again, nothing comes of her chapters! She knows something is going on, but doesn't know what, and has no way to get information. She tries to get information, but the priests in the palace hold all the power and she never really gets around that.

It just feels like each POV character got one (1) opportunity to take an action that had an effect on the story. Vivenna went with Vasher. Siri talked to Susebron about...stuff? But nothing came of it, plot-wise. Lightsong had that one scene where he was a detective. And the rest was wheel spinning.

Think about it, if you removed all three main characters, the outcome would have been the same. Without Vivenna's meddling, Vasher's initial efforts would have been more successful and he wouldn't have needed her help to undo the damage. Without investigating, Lightsong still would have ended up in that basement to heal Susebron because he held the Lifeless codes from the very beginning. And if Siri hadn't been there, Susebron still would've been taken to that basement and healed by Lightsong. And he said from the very beginning he didn't want war with anyone, so once he got healed he would've ordered the stop of the Hallandren-Idris war regardless.

It feels like you could cut out half the book and it'd be the same. I don't think it's a coincidence that my favorite POV to read was the one that was the shortest and thus had the least bloat.

I understand that there are in-universe reasons why the characters do so little, and it doesn't have to be a bad thing, but when 100% of your main characters spend the story accomplishing almost nothing, while talking endlessly about how important it is that they accomplish things, it is extremely frustrating.

A book driven by characters instead of plot can still be good, of course, but so much focus and word count is spent on the plot and the intrigue of this book, and for nothing.

And now that I have done exactly what I am criticizing Sanderson for, i.e. reiterating the same thing over and over ad nauseum repetitively, I shall bid you farewell.

[kysoncat]

Alright… This is gonna be really really long so I apologize in advance. Here goes nothing...

Okay so basically my AU is something I call "Eeveelution Squad Journeys" and it's basically just ES x Pokemon anime where the Speed and the others form a competitive battling team called the "Eeveelution Squad" and they compete in the regional leagues in order to become the best team ever while traveling around the many regions going on fun adventures and bonding. This AU takes ES in a more "shounen" approach but there are still bits of Slice of Life and romance (I'll talk about the latter thing later). The reason I came up with this AU is because when I first read ES I spotted issues with it like the characters and confusing lore and strangely the title bothered me a lot since the plot of ES does not fit with the title so I thought of a way on how I can make the title make sense while also fixing some of ES' issues. I found my answer with this AU.

ES Journeys (Just to shorten it) has the characters from ES still around (I'll talk about the main cast later) but there are stuff from the comic that I changed or removed from the comic.

The main cast are not together at the start. So we know one of the main issues with ES is character focus with the main cast. There's 9 of them at the start out of the 9 only Speed, Flare, and Black had focus while the rest either have very little or nothing at all (Looks at Crystal...). This bothered me so as a way to work around that problem I decided for this AU to have the cast not be together right at the start and instead join the team over the course of the journey. The cast in this AU are in different regions and when the team reaches a region that a ES member is in they'll join the team kinda like how Ash gets a new traveling companion in each region. Obviously each of them have their reasons with joining them.

Setting of the AU ES takes place in a PMD like world with wild Pokemon, confusing lore that people either hate or don't care about it, and have technology so futuristic that it feels like it doesn't belong in this world (The last one is a me thing I think). For this AU it takes place in a humanless mainline Pokemon world where competitive battling is a popular sport so Pokemon form teams to compete to become a champion team. The technology is obviously modern and there's nothing out of place looking futuristic technology. Characters from the games would be Pokemon that best fit them (Garchomp for Cynthia for example)

The Lore You're probably wondering how I'm gonna tackle things like the Berserker Virus and Timeline stuff so here's my answer. I'm not doing it. Nope. Get that garbage out of here. For this AU I'm not touching the lore in anyway and the only that's gonna be developed is character lore and a bit of the Coastal Tribe thing.

Romance and Shipping Okay so in ES shipping basically took over most of the story of ES and to be honest I don't like any of the ships. Speed with Lazuli or Silvia is toxic and I was pissed with the harem ending, Pearl was yandere in the beginning because hahaha Umbreon in danger is funny and now everyone think that's Pearl's main trait (Looks at Pearl in Last Chance...), Flare and Leaf were boring and didn't go anywhere (but the only good ship), and you basically get the point. Romance in ES Journeys does not happen for some time as I want to focus on actually having the characters interact and bond since that was something ES lacked which is character interaction. When romance starts it'll be less focused on than in ES. I'll say when romance starts later.

Now with the changes out of the way I'll talk about the main cast of the AU. The cast are more or less the same but have given certain characters actually things to do unlike in the comic.

Speed Speed in this AU is more "happier" than in the comic since in ES Journeys he's not subjected to terrible lore. He's just a normal Jolteon with a Coastal ability. As for personality he's about what you can expect. He's hardworking, smart, responsible, and a bit dense when it comes to social stuff. Don't worry, he's not gonna be a punching bag. He does tend to keep things to himself whether it's about his and his siblings' parents or about his past like with a certain Absol or a certain Umbreon.

Speed is significantly nerfed. Speed still has his fear of water but he does manage to get over it. Like I said before, Speed was never a Rescuer or Champion so he has regular strength. Despite that he's still smart and analytical so he can come up with strategies on how to win battles. He develops a speed based fighting style over the course of the team's Kanto journey. He has no healing factor or that weird Ultra Instinct thing. Now I should talk about his Turbo thing. Because I cut out the timeline lore, Turbo is a Coastal ability for Speed so that is his ability and not Volt Absorb or Quick Feet. The Turbo ability is basically a power up ability which makes Speed as strong as a Mega Evolved Pokemon so basically the Ash-Greninja ability. Speed activates at times throughout the team's journey but is unaware that he did. He does eventually learn about his ability in Kalos and does his best to master it before the Kalos League.

So Speed's development comes down to his role as leader of the team, trusting others, and him growing close with each member of the squad to the point he considers them family. He has his own set of rivals like Trace, Gai, Shade, and others.

Crystal Crystal in this AU is more or less the same. She's jolly, playful, and cares a lot for her friends on the team. She's the heart of the team, the one who makes everyone smile with her jokes and positive attitude, and the one who usually helps make new members of the team feel welcomed. Despite that she does sometimes question her place on the team when compared to her brothers with their special power.

Crystal actually gets to fight. Her battle style involves her moving around a lot but unlike her brother's where he's fast with his movements, Crystal has a more rhythm like movement, like dancing which by the way she likes to dance. Crystal is an out-of-box thinker when she battles so she'll do unpredictable moves and techniques that no one can see coming, not even her own team. Unfortunately Crystal doesn't get a Coastal ability so that makes her feel inadequate but she proves herself that she doesn't need a special ability in order to stand alongside her team and brothers.

Crystal's development has her learn to take things seriously. When the team started their journey she didn't take battling seriously but after losing the Indigo League she feels really bad about it and feels like she's holding the team back. She does eventually learn to take battling seriously. When arriving in Hoenn, Crystal was interested in Contest and when she lost she wanted to do better. She has her own set of rivals in Contest and a few battle rivals as well. She also does stuff! Yay! In Johto she gets suspicious of Speed hiding something from her and Flare (News that their mother is alive and out there somewhere) and in Sinnoh she helps Lazuli and Black feel less tense while on the team and befriending them.

Solarflare Flare is also more or less the same as the comic as he's polite and friendly. He's shy at the beginning of the story but over the course of the journey he becomes more confident. During the team's early beginnings, Flare does not battle for most of the Kanto journey because he believes fighting is wrong however he does learn what a battle is really about after the loss at the Indigo League and starts to become okay with battling. Following this he becomes one of the hardest working members of the team in terms of training because he wants to stand on his own alongside his team which made others see him as the soul of the team.

Flare is also nerfed due to not having the Berserker Virus since that was tossed away for the AU. Since Flare's virus power was an integral part of him I decided to replace it with a Coastal ability called "Inferno" or as he and others call it "Blaze". Flare at first was terrified of this ability since every time it activated he would go berserk and hurt everyone around him. He was so terrified of it he refused to accept it as a part of him. However in Sinnoh after having a talk with Leaf after another berserk incident with the ability he decided to try to learn how to control it and would soon accept this power as a part of him. Outside of that, Flare has a pretty generic battle style.

Flare's story has him start off as someone who refused to battle but over the course of the journey he learns to battle and would grow strong enough to stand beside his teammates with his own strength. In Hoenn he starts a friendly rivalry with Speed since he looks up to him and wants to be able to be as strong as him, maybe even surpass him with his own strength. Flare has a few rivals like Shade, Ali, and Solar. Also Flare gets with Leaf in Unova.

Sunshine Sunshine is sort of the same in ES Journeys as she's a cheerful, curious, and friendly Eevee but is shy when meeting new Pokemon. Since Sunshine is really young she learns a lot about the world and other things as she travels with the team. She is a comforting Pokemon to be around as she makes others smile and she deeply cares about her friends and family. Sunshine looks up to all the members of the Eeveelution Squad as she thinks they're all amazing and sometimes is influenced by them with her behavior for better or worse.

Sunshine is a special Eevee. Her DNA is more messed up than an average Eevee so because of that she has the power to use moves of her evolution forms without needing to evolve into them. To keep her from being broken though I decided to restrict her to only using the Partner Moves of Let's Go Eevee (Except Veevee Volley). Sunshine learns each Partner Move by bonding with a member of the Eeveelution Squad of that type (Bonding Speed has her learn Buzzy Buzz for example) and the move represents their bond. She also names the moves. Outside of that, her ability is Adaptability and her battle style is a mix of all the Eeveelution Squad's battle styles. She's not an official member of the Eeveelution Squad since she's too young but the team considers her as an honorary member.

Sunshine usually is the one wandering off and getting lost, getting the team into situations, or the one or helps cheer the team up. She learns about stuff over the course of the journey like regions and evolution. In Johto she meets Axel and becomes his first friend. In Alola she attends school there with Axel and falls in love with the region. She also for the first time thinks about her biological parents there.

Pearl Pearl is interesting in this AU. She has her usual personality of being a responsible and mature Pokemon. She still has her dream of gathering all the Eeveelution together and live together however unlike her comic counterpart who got that dream came true instantly (I call BS on her asking the first Eeveelutions she sees to live with her and they all said yes) this Pearl isn't so lucky and is turned down every time. She doesn't really care what kind of Pokemon the Eeveelution are as long as it makes her dream come true. When it comes to Black she's actually quite normal around him. She tries to get close with him but actually trying in a way that's normal and not in a yandere way so don't worry about that. When Silvia joins the team she does get jealous but doesn't do anything that hurts Black so don't worry, no Black abuse.

Pearl also gets to fight. Her battle style is a long ranged style due to her being the weakest in terms of physical strength on the team but that doesn't mean she doesn't fight at close range. As her psychic abilities grow stronger over the course of the journey she learns some techniques like redirecting moves and being able to levitate herself, making her the only member of the team that can fly sort of. Her ability is Synchronize.

Pearl makes her debut in Johto where she is invited by Speed to join the Eeveelution Squad as he said they were gonna help her make her dream come true to which she happily joined them. She wanted to help them as much as she can since they're helping us whether it's cooking delicious meals for them which she learned how to cook from Bolt to participating in competitive battles. Over the course of Johto she bonds with Speed, Crystal, Flare, and Sunshine to the point she considers them as friends. When Pearl started losing battles she felt bad as she felt she wasn't strong enough and thus was disappointing her friends however she was proven wrong as they help cheer her up and tell her it's fine. In response to this, Pearl forgets about her dream for a bit as she focused on getting stronger for her sake and her friends. After the Johto League when an opportunity for her dream to finally come true was presented to her she was unsure on what to do since she grew close with everyone on the team and after a talk with her parents over the phone she chose to stay with the Eeveelution Squad instead of making her dream real because she wanted to be with Eeveelution she considers as her friends. Kalos has her be jealous of Black giving Silvia attention which led to her doing some petty jealous stuff. She eventually goes too far (Not yandere level) and is confronted by Black by it and after realizing the error of her ways she apologizes to both him and Silvia and gives up on her feelings for him.

Leaf Leaf's personality is the same as her comic counterpart. She's kind and friendly to everyone but she can be too kind sometimes which can get the Eeveelution Squad into situations and led her to being manipulated and used. She sees good in everyone at least that's how she used to see everyone until she met a certain Pokemon. Leaf also likes to garden but she much more adventurous than her sister as she hopes to explore Sinnoh one day since she's spent most of her life either at home or in Oreburgh City. Like Flare, she also thought battling was wrong and refused to do it however after Flare told her that he used to feel the same way but learned what battling was really about she too also became okay with battling.

Leaf gets to battle as well. Leaf's initial battle style was long ranged however after learning Leaf Blade she become a sword fighter who mixes in ranged moves as well.

Leaf in Sinnoh goes through a lot. She along with Lazuli are the second newest members of the team. Leaf learns how to fight and to be able to fend for herself, she learns the harsh reality that not everyone is a good Pokemon as she was manipulated and used by Shade and gets beat up by him so bad that she couldn't participate in the Sinnoh League battle against his team that day. After Leaf learns Leaf Blade she does her best of becoming a good sword fighter in Sinnoh, Unova, Kalos, and Galar. Leaf gets with Flare in Unova.

Lazuli Lazuli is different from her comic counterpart at the beginning of the Sinnoh chapter but she does eventually become more like her comic self over time. The beginning of Sinnoh she was very hotheaded, violent, and aggressive. She didn't trust anyone except her sister and would be very protective over her. Her aggression and distrust is towards everyone which causes some conflict with the team and by team I mean mostly Speed but it's not a one sided abuse as he fights back and two have a comedic fight in the background (You know how in anime two character comedically fight in the background throwing punches at each other? That kind of comedic fighting). Her distrust of others is because of Alfred abandoning her and Leaf so she has no one she can trust except for her. When she joined the team she was also rebellious as she didn't listen to Speed, Crystal, Flare, or Pearl on what to do and does her own thing which led to some losses on her part. She does eventually learn to listen to them but was still pretty rebellious. After spending some time with the team her attitude started slowly changing as she became less aggressive and more open about herself to them. Soon she became a more happy Glaceon who's more friendly and less hotheaded but still have the occasional hothead moments. She likes reading a lot and got her love for reading after meeting Cynthia at Spear Pillar and her giving her. abook on Sinnoh's history.

Lazuli actually fights unlike how she did in the CC fight. So Lazuli's battle style is pretty obvious, she throws paws. Out of all the members of the Eeveelution Squad she's the one who fights up close the most and throws punches a lot.

Lazuli goes through a lot of development. Sinnoh she was the second newest member along with her sister. The Sinnoh journey had her turn from an aggressive, rebellious, and distrusting Pokemon to a Pokemon who is now more happy, is loyal to the team, and has Pokemon she can trust and call her friends. Unova tests her emotions as she rejects her feelings for Speed and doesn't forgive her dad right away. Kalos has her realize that Speed wasn't gonna be interested with having a romantic partner and so she decides it's best to move on from him romantically.

Black Black personality is relatively the same as he's a quiet and serious character. He would do his own thing away from the team's shenanigans but would join in with them from time to time. Black stands up for those he cares about or for those that are getting bullied. When Black sees a Pokemon that's in a situation that could potentially make them lose someone and end up like him he immediately helps them. Black hates two things which are Rescuers and liars.

Black fights so we know this already from the comic but he actually gets to fight actual opponents in this AU. He has a pretty generic battle style and his ability Inner Focus.

Black is a reoccurring character in Sinnoh and doesn't join the team right away. He joins in the later half of SInnoh which makes hi mthe third newest member. Black's development has him letting go of his past and moving towards a better future where he's surrounded by friends and his more happy. He learns to let go of the past with Speed lying to him and his hatred for Rescuers because they didn't arrive on time. He learns to be more happy and a bit less serious from others like Crystal and Leaf. In Kalos he falls for Silvia and has to deal with a jealous Pearl.

Silvia Silvia has some changes but is more or less the same. She's a cheerful who loves making others smile. She's silly like Crystal so the two often hangout with each other. Silvia when she was a kid liked getting attention with using Attraction however it was used as a coping technique for her not getting that much attention from her own family. She sort of motherly with how she raised Mana. When it comes to Speed she has complicated feelings for since she liked him as a kid but when she moved away so suddenly she never got a proper goodbye so she did not forget him and still had feelings for him.

Silvia also gets to fight. Her battle style is pretty generic but she uses moves like Attraction to distract them and leave them open. Her ability is Cute Charm. Silvia does compete in Showcases to which makes her have some rivals of her own like Nora and Daisy, Cream and Flora, and her unbeknownst to her is her own mother, Sylvia.

Silvia is the last newest member of the team as she joins in Kalos. Her development involves her learning to let go of stuff like her feelings for Speed when he and his team arrives in Kalos and accept things the way they are. (Sorry for her being short, I'm still trying to think of stuff for her).

Now that I'm done with the characters (That took so long... I'm so sorry...) I'm gonna briefly explain the story of ES Journeys. I'll explain the story as "chapters" (Main region) and "special chapters" (In between stories). Don't worry there's more chapters than special chapters.

Chapter 1 - The Beginning (TB): Taking place in the Kanto region, the Eeveelution Squad which consist of Speed, Crystal, and Flare travel around the region with Sunshine tagging along. The three siblings begin their journey as a competitive battling team and go through the Indigo League but they don't realize the difficult journey that's ahead of them which will be even more difficult with the team having lots of major flaws to it.

Special Chapter 1 - Adventures in the Orange Islands (OI): Following the crushing defeat in the Indigo Plateau Conference, Speed, Crystal, Flare, and Sunshine decide to head to the Orange Islands to sharpen their skills while also tackling the Orange League. While there, the three siblings, specifically Crystal and Flare would work hard as they're some of the fatal flaws to the team and tried their best to fix themselves so they can not be a burden to the team.

Chapter 2 - Gold and Silver (GS): After returning from the Orange Islands and learning about the Johto region, Speed, Crystal, Flare, and Sunshine head there to challenge the Johto League with much more confidence in their strength. While travelling Johto they meet Pearl the Espeon who joins their team though she has less experience than them so they help her become strong.

Chapter 3 - Ruby and Sapphire (RS): The Eeveelution Squad head over to the Hoenn region shortly after their Johto journey ends. The cast would compete in the Hoenn League as well as in a new competition for them, Contest. This journey has the cast trying and experiencing new things to them like Speed learning to become more of a leader to the team and Crystal trying Contest for the first time.

Special Chapter 2 - Side Stories (SS): This is the only "season" to not have any focus on any of the main Eeveelution cast so instead the focus is on the other characters such as rival teams and the main cast's parents who are doing their own thing across Kanto and Johto. This takes place during Ruby and Sapphire.

Chapter 4 - Diamond and Pearl (DP): After the cast finish their Hoenn journey they head to Sinnoh and compete in the Sinnoh League which would be one of their toughest journeys to date. There they would meet and become rivals/enemies with a team lead by Shade the Absol while also meeting Leaf the Leafeon and Lazuli the Glaceon for the first time. This journey is gonna take everything the Eeveelution Squad has learned in order to beat Shade's team while also competing in Contest too. Some of the members of the Eeveelution Squad will learn to move forward from their past.

Special Chapter 3 - A Break (AB): The Eeveelution Squad leave Sinnoh and head back to Kanto where they decided to take a break from battling for a while. This is a short "season" which would consist of mostly slice of life stories with no battling.

Chapter 5 - Black & White (BW): After taking a 3 month break and hearing about the Unova region, the Eeveelution Squad head there and compete in the Unova League. While they travelled across the region they learned they're quite a popular team in the competitive battling scene after competing in the Sinnoh League so not only do they have the challenge of facing the Unova League, they also have to deal with the pros and cons of being famous.

Special Chapter 4 - Battle Frontier (BF): When the Eeveelution Squad returned to Kanto following the end of their Unvoa journey, the team realized they're performance wasn't as good as before and decided to challenge the Battle Frontier in order to get back into the swing of things. while doing that, the Eeveelution Squad would also get back into doing Contest as in this year's competition all of their Contest rival teams from Hoenn and Sinnoh are here as well as the rising in popularity Contest team lead by Lisia. This would be another one of the toughest journeys the team has gone through.

Chapter 6 - XY (XY): Following the Eeveelution Squad beating the Battle Frontier, they head to the Kalos region to enter the Kalos League and win. There they meet Silvia the Sylveon who would be the final member of the team. The team's journey through Kalos would have them work very hard in order to keep up with their rivals while also being able face the power of Mega Evolution. This chapter would be most prominent when it comes to romance but don't think that means shipping moments would happen left and right like in the comic.

Special Chapter 5 - Alola Vacation (AV): After the end of the Eeveelution Squad's Kalos journey they went to the Alola region for some vacation time. The team would be joined by with their family for their summer vacation but soon learn there's more to the region than just beautiful beaches and relaxation. This is another short "season" that's basically just the comic's vacation arc but with no CC or Berserker Virus plot, just slice of life tropical themed stories.

Chapter 7 - Sun & Moon (SM): Following the end of the their summer vacation, the Eeveelution Squad decided to stay in Alola longer and were allowed to live in Frank's beach house during their stay there. Sunshine and Axel would attend the Pokemon School while the Eeveelution Squad would partake in the region's trials. Unlike the other adventures in past regions, Alola has the two Eevees form friendships with the Pokemon of the school and region while the Eeveelution Squad grow as characters instead of battlers as they learn to appreciate life while becoming more closer with each other as they start to view each other as more than teammates and more as a family.

Special Chapter 6 - Home (H): After leaving Alola and heading back to Kanto, the Eeveelution Squad decide to get a home for themselves to live in together after they talked about how living with each other in Frank's beach house was so much fun. The team decide to split up so that everyone can go back home and get their stuff while Speed, Crystal, Flare, and Sunshine hunt for the perfect home for them and the rest of the team to live in. Once again this is a short "season".

Chapter 8 - Sword & Shield (SWSH): 4 months after the Eeveelution Squad moved into their new home and lived happily with each other, the team decided that it was time for them to get back into action and so they head to the Galar region to compete in the Galar League. During the team's journey through Galar they learn more about the region and its history while also learning what it really means to be a Champion Team. Sunshine and Axel were sadly left behind for this journey as they had to go to school since they enjoyed being in school in Alola so Speed and Pearl signed them up for another school. While in school they make some new friends but also get themselves into some trouble. The Sunshine and Axel school plot is based on the after story journal with me putting my own story into it.

Chapter 9 - Master Journeys (MJ): The final chapter of my AU has the Eeveelution Squad go on their biggest journey yet after 1 year passed after the end of their Galar journey. The team travels across the whole world instead of just a single region while also trying to achieve two major goals which are winning the World Championship Series and becoming the World Champion Team and seeing all the Legendary and Mythical Pokemon to get a better understanding of their world. Sunshine and Axel would go on adventures with the Eeveelution Squad while also still attending school and this time they befriend and help out two students in their school, Goh and Chloe.

You may have noticed there's no Scarlet and Violet chapter and that's because I don't have any plans on doing that in my AU story. ES Journeys only goes through the first 8 regions and that's it.

So yeah... that's my AU, ES Journeys. Sorry for making super long... I've been developing this AU since 2021 so... yeah. I hope you like it. Let me know what you think of it and ask if you have any questions about it as I'll happily answer them.

Hello, I was wondering if I can get your thoughts on this ES AU I had in mind. Sorry if this bothers you

Feel free to share!! I love to see the things this fandom comes up with!! :D

[she-who-fights-and-writes]

Hi. I hate filler scenes, they drive me up the wall BUT i'm currently drafting one of my stories and notice that it needs a filler scene. Do you have any advice on how to make filler scenes feel less like they are a waste of words and feel more like they belong in the story?

How to Fix Your Filler Scenes

The primary reason a scene would be considered "filler" was if it offered no contribution whatsoever to plot, worldbuilding, or character development within the narrative. Filler takes up space, can make the pacing drag, and often adds quantity but not quality to your story.

It’s often seen as a setback to have any number of 100% filler scenes in your work, especially if you plan on publishing traditionally and need to keep your word count down.

However, a lot of people rely heavily on filler to provide a segue into the next part of their story and keep the pacing steady, so in that case, how do you make these filler scenes worthwhile?

Here are some ways to fix your filler scenes to make them meaningful (and essential) to the story!

1. Make it About The Characters and Their Relationships

A good way to make a scene not filler is if you use it to help develop your characters or the relationships between them.

Maybe you can use this time to make your protagonist and their love interest grow closer, or maybe you can use it to reveal some backstory that you weren't sure where to piece into the narrative beforehand.

Maybe your protagonist has a revelation about themselves or about the others in their group, whether through a meaningful conversation or by observing their behavior.

This could be a good time to show how your characters view the world around them, having philosophical conversation about love or death or anything in between, or to show them changing their views based on their experiences and the experiences of others.

All in all, if you make your scene an important aspect of your story when it comes to character development, then it's not filler at all, and will serve the story well in not only connecting two important events, but also allowing the reader to learn more about the people they've invested in.

2. Make it About the Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding is an important part of any story, especially in high fantasy and Sci-Fi. If you need to take a break from your plot in order to make sure things aren’t going by too fast, perhaps take some time to develop the world that your characters live in. 

Now, I’m not saying to use this time to infodump everything there is about your character’s world, but instead show it off in a beautiful and poignant scene that can be coupled with character development. 

It’s the night before a big event. The lovers sneak out of the motel to enjoy a drink at the bar at the far edge of the intergalactic satellite they’ve docked at to refuel. Perhaps while drunk, one of the characters reveals something about their past they’d meant to keep hidden?

A character takes their foreign friend shopping in a bazaar unlike anything you’ve ever scene before. Perhaps they find an item of interest there that helps them along their journey?

These scenarios make sure that the “filler” is actually an important aspect of the story that would actually take away from the overall quality if it were removed. 

3. Make it About Suspense

It's night. The sun is going down. The fire crackles and sputters.

Tomorrow, the characters will be off to battle. They know that they might be sitting in a room with people who will be dead by the following evening. They wonder if this will be the last time they see each other alive, if this will be the last conversations they ever have while they're all in one piece.

Suspense is a great way to make your filler scene important, building up the tension leading up to the next scene. Of course, this scene can only be used to segue into a very, very integral moment in the story, perhaps even the climax, so use it wisely.

Suspenseful scenes often benefit from an interesting setting and high-tension description and dialogue, and can also be paired with character development to show how your protagonists react in the face of fear.

4. Understand that Sometimes Cutting the Scene May Be For the Best

Sometimes, things just don't work out with the above ideas. Perhaps it's too late in the story to develop characters or worldbuilding, or maybe the subsequent event isn't important enough to prompt an entire scene dedicated to suspense.

In that case, it's probably best to just cut the filler scene. To keep from the timeskip being weird, have the event you want to segue into be at the beginning of a new chapter, or maybe re-work the narrative so that it weaves together more easily.

It'll be difficult to do this, especially if you've grown attached to what you've written, but I promise it'll work out all the better in the end; each aspect of the story is supposed to mean something, and I wouldn’t want you to put in all that effort and time into crafting a scene that, in the end, doesn’t really do much for the narrative.

Hope this helped, and happy writing!

[milkybonya]

i'll hate you until...

order 033, @luvbrie : small classic milk tea with pudding for treasure's Doyoung

summary: barista!Doyoung hates you... until you show your skills and he falls in love :")

word count: ~900

barista 🥛's 💌: i also made this a barista!au and i hope that's okay >.< it got so close to 1k words 'cause i got so excited making the plot and backstories ahh

Doyoung slams your drink down on the counter. luckily there's a lid on it, so not a lot of it spills. you scoff at him and take it without offering a thanks.

"why do you always come here when the barista's so rude to you?" your friend, Asahi, asks.

"the drinks are good and the atmosphere is nice," you say, walking over to some seats to sit down.

Doyoung, a young, part time barista at your favourite café is always there every time you come in. he doesn't want to be there when you are, but it just happens. he watches over you while wiping the counter clean, the same counter that he just made a mess of after slamming your drink on it because of his own pettiness.

why does Doyoung hate you? well, you piss him off. from the first day you walked in when he was working and acted so close with all the workers...

"who's this? a new guy?" you said, nodding in Doyoung's direction. he bowed his head and continued working on the drink he was making.

"yeah. he's still learning," Hyunsuk, a superior barista said, ruffling Doyoung's hair.

"how cute," you replied, smiling at the boy and watching him.

when he finally finished your drink and handed it to you, you pouted slightly.

"well, Doyoung, let me let you in on something since you're new. when you hand the drink out, make sure the cup and lid are clean. even a drop of coffee could make the customer angry. put a sleeve around it too, okay? whether cold or hot, you don't want to damage the customer's hands!" you explained before taking a sip from the drink.

"ah... i asked for a latte but you gave me a cappuccino? i can tell the milk has been steamed to be more foamy, like a cappuccino," you continued.

"we'll get you a replacement right away, y/n," Hyunsuk said, nudging Doyoung to get going.

"no, that's okay!" you said, taking your drink and leaving.

"hey, what happened? you haven't messed up like this before, yet. did y/n make you nervous? try not to mess up around them again, okay? they're a regular here and used to work as a barista, too," Hyunsuk told Doyoung.

Doyoung clenched his fists.

who the hell were you and why were you ordering him around?

that's where it all started, and you have no clue that Doyoung hates you because of that incident.

you talk to Asahi as you each try your drinks. the new menu items are good and Doyoung has actually done a good job of making them. too bad he's so mean to you for no reason, or you would've been good friends.

"y/n! hey, y/n!!" you hear a familiar voice call out.

you turn around to find Hyunsuk rushing over and removing his apron.

"y/n, are you busy for the next hour? i need to talk to our suppliers, it's an emergency. can you fill in while i'm gone? we're super short-staffed," Hyunsuk says, tying the apron around you when you stand up in shock.

"i didnt mean to-" you start.

"thanks, y/n!" Hyunsuk cheers before walking out.

you look at Asahi, who shrugs his shoulders yet urges you to go.

"i'll sit and watch," he says with a smile, and you almost smack him.

Doyoung frowns deeply when you open the 'staff only' door and step in.

"this is staff only," he huffs in a low voice.

"i am staff for an hour. Hyunsuk told me to," you explain, grabbing a receipt and getting started on making the drink.

Doyoung scoffs at you and keeps taking orders. he watches you like a hawk and loudly points out any mistake you make. you feel embarrassed but continue on for Hyunsuk's sake.

when you get an order for the new menu item, you know you're screwed. you have no clue how to make it.

"uh.. Doyoung?" you ask, turning to him.

he turns around and rolls his eyes.

"can't even make the new menu item? here. grab the cup.." he explains everything to you by moving your hands around to reach for the things you need, as if you're a baby. it all happens so quickly, but for some reason, the world moves in slow-mo for you. all you focus on is that fact that Doyoung's hands are attached to yours, and it makes your heart race. so soft, his touch...

of course, you were once a pro barista. you still know what you're doing.

"did you get that?" Doyoung asks, and you nod with a determined look on your face.

Doyoung purses his lips together after asking you to go ahead and make the drink while he watches.

you move with speed, remembering every detail, including the precise angle at which Doyoung poured the steamed milk. Doyoung himself watches in amazement. how do a person's hands look so pretty when they're making coffee? is there a breeze in here or is your hair naturally this bouncy and flowy? why does your skin look so soft? why does the way you pout your lips as you work make him want to--

"does this look good?" you ask, snapping Doyoung out of his daze.

"y-yeah," he says, quickly looking away.

"now hand it to the customer."

you do just that, and the customer walks away while giggling to their friend. you don't hear it, but they tell their friend, "did you see the two people behind the counter? they're a blushing mess, as if they got caught kissing or something."

[arabian-batboy]

There’s a big conversation going on about the handling of Jason’s character that emerged after a summary of an upcoming comic was revealed, where we will have him officially stop using guns while working with Dick to solve case where someone is framing Jason for murder.

I have to agree with majority here who find this premise to be ridiculous for the following reason: A) If Jason’s going to continue killing criminals then what’s the point of him not using guns? Is killing people with guns more immoral than killing them in other ways or is this his way of pleasing his self-centered father who has personal problems with guns? B) Jason is a serial killer who literally killed someone on live TV, even if he was framed for murder what will that do? “Ruin his reputation”? C) This story seem like its DC’s way of trying to take steps into fully infusing Jason into the Batfamily and getting rid of all of his anti-hero/anti-villain’s traits.

I would like to focus on point C, since I was always conflicted about it. For me I always preferred how badass and capable Jason was in Under The Red Hood storyline and how he was portrayed as Batman’s most dangerous enemy yet, which is a portrayal that DC didn’t stick to and now Jason’s character has become a much watered-down version than it was when he was first reintroduced as Red Hood. Now obviously most of us love the interactions he has with the Batfamily, but I feel like they came at the cost of Jason’s characterization, because realistically speaking, there’s no logical way to how Jason went from being a drug-dealing serial killer who breaks all the Batfamily’s rules and even attempted to murder both Batman and Robin at one point, to basically an overgrown broody teenage boy who makes sarcastic comments to his siblings, but will gladly work with them whenever they need back-up under Batman’s orders and then go eat Alfred’s cookies with them afterward (especially when in-universe, it hasn’t been THAT long from him coming back as Red Hood to current time)

It just feels like DC’s easy and cheap solution to him fluctuating between these two characterization is to simply re-write his character and remove everything that will stop him from being a full-fledged member of the Batfamily, with zero conflicts with anyone of them, to be fair this issue has been going on for a while now, but it seem Jason not using guns anymore is the first major step in doing this.

Personally I’m very conflicted on this, it seem like modern DC comics doesn’t know how to write anti-heroes anymore, they either turn them into goody two-shoes heroes (Jason, Harley or Selina) or pure sociopath villains (Black Adam or Talia) and I hate that. I always believed that Red Hood turning into a superhero is a compete regression to Jason and add nothing to his character or Batman’s comics, if anything it will take away from the variety of the stories being told and the complexity of the characters. However...........and this might hurt so many UTRH!Jason’s fans, I also believe that with the right writing, there can be a middle ground between these two versions of Jason? Because lets be real, Jason working with Batfamily has been going on for many years now and a lot of his characterization and relationships to other characters are in fact based on these years, so unfortunately I don’t think you can undo/erase all of those years without completely changing Jason’s character and turning him into something completely different.

It sounds hard to do and I don’t have a clear answer to how to it, but if it was up to me, I definitely will bring back Jason’s intelligence, his deadly abilities and his ideology from UTRH. One of which is haunting down The Joker for revenge (isn’t it weird how that plot-line was just dropped?), which will include him searching for criminals/mobs who may have clues for his whereabout and murdering them after foiling their plans and getting all the informations he needs and even if they didn’t have anything to do with The Joker, he will still murder them because they’re still criminals whose plans includes hurting innocent people (that’s where the anti-hero part comes in)

When it comes to his relationship with the Batfamily, he will no longer casually work with them or hang out with them in their day-to-day lives. They will no longer have ways to contact him and depending on the situation, he might work with them if they just so happen to run into each other while working on the same case, then sure, he will compromise and agree not to kill when he’s with them, but this only goes for missions not involving The joker (but every now and then he might snap and kill a person if he thought they were just too dangerous to allow them to live) however, this only goes for the Batkids, but not Batman, since that’s where his resentment lays on, so he will never be a sidekick to Bruce again or work under him, maybe next to him, but never under him.

One more thing before I go, I always loved the contract he had with Bruce in RHATO, where they both agreed that Batman will no longer go after Red Hood as long as he doesn’t kill anyone inside Gotham city. I think using that contract and the loopholes around it will help us find the middle ground I was talking about earlier, so hear me out: Red Hood should have his own city just like how Nightwing has Bludhaven! That way we will have Jason being the badass crime-lord from UTRH without the Batman/Batfamily compromising on their morality/code-ethic by allowing Jason to do what he wants under their nose and at the same time we will still get to have Jason taking a break from being a crime-lord in his city to visit Gotham and there we can have those endearing moments between him and his family. He respect how they do things in their city and they respect how he does things in his city, so unless it was a rare case involving The Joker or another equally super-disgusting human, no boundaries will be crossed (basically what happens in Jason’s city, stays in Jason’s city)

Not to mention that Jason’s having his own city will help him having (an actually good) supporting cast exclusive to him. He can have a civilian life with civilian friends/love interests during the day, while during the night he will have to deal with his antagonists, who will be divided by two; villains who hate him for ruining their business and heroes/vigilantes, (who aren’t affiliated with the Batfamily), who want to put a stop to him for all the many crimes he committed, so technically from their perceptive, he’s the antagonist, not them. (Also bonus point if they were his civilian friends who have no idea who he is) and because of that, the Superhero community will get off Batman’s back for not doing anything about his rouge son since he already has Superheroes keeping him in check.

That way everyone wins (for the most part at least)? Both Jason as a crimelord fans + Jason being a part of the Batfamily fans will get what they want and the best part is that we didn’t have to choose between one of them or sacrifice Jason’s characterizations in order to do so.

[kylosbreedingkink]

Zookeeper AU for @outofsuchlonging There's more! I could talk about this AU for hours even though it doesn't really have that big a plot just characters and some interpersonal issues. Under the cut again, maybe it will let me post a longer post this time. I don't have loads for Poe sorry, just that he really likes his orang utans and quite likes the new start, but the new start seems to quite like Rey and has also got the curators nephew pining after him so who knows how that will play out

Phasma: Works on LVI specifically, runs the tropical house including all the planting and theming and cares for all the inhabitants other than the birds. She gets annoyed at the amount of unwanted plants that grow such as tomatoes, as the birds shit out the seed from the food their eating. She's constantly asking Kylo to ensure the seeds are removed from the tomatoes before the fresh chop is given to the birds. He never listens. There's a few token nocturnal mammals on the section too, though not loads. Giant jumping rats, slow loris. She's ok with that. Until the powers that be decided to add aye-aye to the mix and now she feels the need to remind everyone that she's 'not a fucking primate keeper'.

She's extremely rushed all the time running around doing everything on the section which isn't an invertebrate. This is simply as Snoke refuses to hire enough staff (He does, she just makes them quit all the time) and Hux refuses to do anything which isn't invertebrate related.

Hux: The insect man. Mainly into beetles but spiders are fun for him too. He's the reason the zoo has such a good reputation for invertebrates. Mostly beetles. They're pretty much all he talks about. They're pretty much all he cares about. He looks down on pretty much everyone else but Phasma, as he knows Phasma will knock him out if he talks to her like he talks to others especially when he's already on thin ice with her. He's worked there for years, from volunteering as a young kid to now. Always with the invertebrates. But he so rarely leaves his section that people barely even know he exists. He always presumed he would be the choice that Snoke would make for assistant - Snoke still not having hired one since he himself was moved from assistant to full curator after Palpatine retired. It's been years now but any day…

Until Kylo suddenly appears and Snoke spends a lot of time with him. Snoke was always preferential to birds, but Hux took that to mean he would like someone into the other stuff to be his assistant and do the LVI part for him. He was wrong.

Hux and Kylo almost had a fling until Hux came to realise this and now hates him. Kylo is either oblivious or doesn't care - whichever it is, it makes Hux angrier.

One day though the livefood order is late and Kylo had birds rearing chicks that would only accept livefood. So Kylo goes into the invertebrate rooms and takes many nymphs of all sorts of species, including the larvae of the rare Fregate island beetle that Hux was breeding up for conservation purposes, all for his pekin robins. Hux confronted him, they had a massive argument which evolved into the angriest sex, and now Hux refuses to even look at him.

A few lightside people:

Rey: Did an internship on mammals, but Leia had to force Luke to take her on, as he was still sulking about Kylo not doing what he wanted. She loved it. Got good experience on all the mammals. Including the token bird on the mammal section - the penguins, a large flock of magellenics. Only on the mammal section as Snoke refuses to have anything to do with them and the bird keepers can't stand them, plus they are right next to the seals and sealion pools. Rey fell in love and got a penguin and pinnepeds keeper job after her internship. This also kinda annoyed Luke who was hoping to finally have a big cat protege but he supposes at least she's still on the mammal section?

Poe: He is the senior primate keeper and mostly hangs with the orang utans. The zoo is unique as one of the few with both Bornean and Sumatran and he loves telling anyone who will listen about the minute differences between them. He and the new start on the primate section have a bit of a thing going. As far as he knows anyway. Finn himself just seems to be open and friendly with absolutely anyone. But mostly Rey.

Finn: He has just finished an internship on the LVI & Birds part of the zoo and whilst he thought he got on with Phasma and may get a job there after, it didn't actually happen. That's ok though as a job with the 'primitive primates' opened up working with callitrichids and lemurs. His favourite part of the tropical house was the slow loris, so he goes for it, and gets it! He's brand new and very friendly with everyone. Mammal section keepers are all delighted that he has 'seen the light'. LVI & Bird keeper wise, Hux had no idea he even existed and Phasma just complains about her now increased workload without the intern to boss around. Kylo acts indifferent sometimes and other times looks at Finn like he has been betrayed deeper than anyone could ever betray him.

….I'll stop there as this is super long lmao. Maybe I'll do another post tonight with some of the other characters, we will see

[americangirlstar]

Now that both Courtney books are out and I’ve read and processed them both, I do want to say that I think they’re the least well-written of any of the AG books, but not through any fault of their own- let me explain.

(Note that for this discussion I’m ignoring the Doylist criticisms- Courtney and 3/4 of her friend group being white again, the lack of gay discussion in-text in regards to the HIV crisis, etc. These are valid complaints and concerns, but not what we’re talking about right now.)

The Problem with the Current Book Length

I think the main problem with Courtney stems from the fact her books are so short. American Girl has literally been doing the stupidest things in regards to their books lately, almost as if they’re trying to sabotage them on purpose. First they remove illustrations in 2015- when their target audience is about nine years old. I don’t know about you, but when I was six and getting into American Girl, the illustrations were the highlight for me. Not because I had no attention span and loved pretty pictures, but because it showed me firstly what the girl’s life was like, whether it be 1760s wilderness or 2001 Chicago. It was like stepping into their world, really helping you get into their heads, which was basically what the dolls were supposed to do, to let you know that girls like you exist throughout time and space.

As well as that, the illustrations were free advertisement. I can’t tell you how excited me and my sisters were as children to go to the American Girl place and look at the doll displays, shouting that that’s the dress Felicity wears to the ball! or look, Josefina’s goat looks exactly like the book! AG cut that from 2015 to 2020, as if they were trying to appeal to an older audience- while at the same time changing all the doll outfits, accessories and marketing to appeal to a younger demographic.

Now, this isn’t about the illustrations, as Courtney got those- it’s about what they did to the historical characters after the Illustration Outrage™ happened. See, they’d condensed the historical six-book format into two books- not necessarily a bad idea, parents would be more likely to buy two books for their kid than consider buying six. However, they then claimed that if they put illustrations back, they would have to abridge the books- literally my nightmare.

First of all, American Girl, we know for a fact you can fit all six books plus illustrations into ONE VOLUME, let alone two. You’re just being cowards here and trying to nerf your own stories for... some reason.

So that meant a lot of important things got cut- Rebecca’s Chanukah story, Melody’s cousin’s house search, Maryellen’s Christmas adventure... all things important to the girls’ histories and character.

The Problem with Courtney’s Writing

Now, Courtney was the first doll to be released after the abridging began, meaning her books were released, in their entirety, just as short as the abridged stories. So it basically means she gets four books while the others get six- and unlike the others, Courtney doesn’t even have mysteries or short stories to pad out. (And honestly, looking at her book’s amount of content, I’d even argue that she basically got two while everyone else got six, but I digress.)

The problem with her books isn’t that they have an author writing them poorly (I really feel like her author was doing the best with what limited time she had), but in how cramped American Girl made them. Because, well, Courtney has to deal with a lot in such a short amount of words.

Let’s compare her to Julie, for instance- Julie pretty much has a new 70s thing every book. In order: feminism, rising divorce rates, San Francisco’s Chinese culture, environmentalism, the country’s bicentennial, anti-bullying and deaf acceptance. And adding to this, we also have her own personal journies through her parents’ divorce and move, her basketball team, her friendship with Ivy (and later Joy), overcoming her fear of horses, student council, detention... It’s a lot, and yet her books don’t feel rushed or forced at all. It’s just a year in the life of a girl going through a lot of new and sudden events, and how she grows and changes throughout them. She may not be as deep a character as Addy or Kirsten, but not every girl goes through the trials and tribulations they do, and it’s a good series overall.

Courtney, meanwhile, does feel rushed and forced, because of the short timespan. Instead of fitting everything into a six-book format- or even at two-book format that is the same length and content as the six-book- everything has to be fit into two short books.   Everything Courtney has to cover includes the topics of divorce and stepfamilies, feminist and technological advancement, the Challenger explosion, the HIV crisis, Hands Across America, and the founding of Pleasant Company. And in Courtney’s own journey, she has to cover her learning to stand up for herself, her relationship with her stepsister and Tina’s own character development, her mother running for mayor and how that affects her, how much she misses her Dad after he moves, her friendship with Sarah (note on that later), her basically getting hate-crimed after standing up for her friend... that’s a LOT of stuff, and I didn’t even include the non-AG 80s product placement they shove into her collection.

But without the longer format, everything is pushed together to its detriment. Tina’s development and Maureen’s mayoral candidacy are two plotlines that are literally dropped and almost completely ignored in the second book. The Challenger and HIV issues were handled decently, but the Challenger only lasted a few short chapters, and the HIV topic was not as informative as it could be, leaving out several things like Reagan’s refusal to treat it for so long, and its effect on the gay community. Honestly, the HIV scare was more shifted to focus on the mob mentality of a new and scary disease- which, while needed right now, also ignores many of the bigotry-related reasons it became an epidemic. Pleasant Company’s inclusion feels forced in, and I think was the only resolution she had to her Dad plotline?

And don’t get me started on the Sarah plotline- every Girl of the Year since Kanani- sans Isabelle and Luci- has had the story of “oh no I’ve been ignoring my friend and now they’re mad at me :(” and it’s SO old. Seriously, I counted the contemporary dolls that have had that storyline, and it’s thirteen*. Thirteen times we’ve covered this issue- almost all of it in quick succession- and now we have to deal with it in a historical character book while much more important things are going on! Yes, it sucks when a friend ditches you while you’re being attacked and bullied for something you’re standing up for, but once again, with how much is happening in such a short book, it just feels like a forced-in plotline that we’ve seen a billion times, and with their falling-out happening mainly due to the attention Courtney was given Isaac, it serves to make Sarah seem closed-minded at best and bigoted at worst- it’s clarified that she’s not, she’s just scared and upset with Courtney, but when you put those events so close together, it leads the reader to lump them together and get the impression that, you know, Sarah is a worse person than she is.

*Full count: Nicki (book 2), Chrissa (book 2), Kanani (2), McKenna (1 iirc?), Saige (both books), Grace (2), Lea (3), Gabriela (1 and 3), Tenney (2), Z (1), Blaire (1), Joss (1) and Kira (1).

It’s a bit weird, too, that Courtney’s... what’s the word? Vibe? with her how her story is written and marketed Is closer to the Contemporaries than the Historicals. Am I the only one feeling this? My best explanation for it is that the author, Kellen Hertz, had only written contemporary books for American Girl before- the third Lea Clark book and all four Tenney Grant books, both of which contained the Friendship Issues™ plot. I’m not at all saying she’s a bad author- I honestly love the way the Tenney books are written- and I’m not saying she couldn’t write a historical book, but it’s clear American Girl didn’t ask her to change up her style or content from what she’d done for them before, as well as giving her way too much to cover in such short books.

Conclusion

Honestly, this conclusion should be obvious- American Girl needs to expand their books again. Whether they simply allow the books to be unabridged, or go back to the six-book format, Courtney's books are too cramped to tell an effective story, let alone the poor abridged girls.

The other girls were given six-book length, so if they went back to that length or format, Courtney would have to be rewritten, at least a little- and that’s okay! There’s a lot of things that could use expansion or connection, such as her Summer trip with her Dad that was given basically one sentence in the text. Her growth with her stepfamily could be acknowledged- and honestly? I think that if these books were expanded, her mother’s mayoral arc should either continue through the books, or Maureen should become mayor before the book 2 arc. I’ve mentioned this before, but having Maureen as mayor (or even still a candidate) would put a lot of pressure on Courtney to be perfect so that nobody can say “look at how awful this woman is for doing politics instead of raising her family right”- which means that when the Isaac stuff happens, it has even more stakes for Courtney and her family. Does her Mom still support her with her own reputation on the line, and what does that say about Maureen’s character, how does it affect Courtney and the D’Amicos... that’s all fascinating stuff that was completely missed out on.

And if she was turned into a six-book format- honestly, here’s how I’d do it, just off the top of my head. It would involve a bit of event shuffling, but honestly I think it would work!

Meet Courtney - pretty much the setup for everything happening, her starting to get her Crystal Starshooter plans and her mom’s campaign beginning.

Courtney Learns a Lesson - her relationship to Tina, culminating in the Challenger incident.

Courtney’s Surprise - we move the founding of Pleasant Company over here, since Molly’s basically her Christmas Present. We’ll probably need an additional plotline- maybe similar to Julie, she can have a story on spending the holidays in different places.

Happy Birthday Courtney - end of summer, aka meeting Isaac and her trip with her Dad.

Courtney Saves the Day - Beginning of the HIV arc, ending at her presentation to her class.

Changes for Courtney - Continuation of the HIV arc as things get worse for her and Isaac, ending where Friendship Superhero ends.

Is that a perfect sorting? Probably not, I came up with it in ten minutes. But would it give Courtney space to breathe and more time to explore everything happening to her? Probably!

The tl;dr of this is honestly that American Girl are absolute cowards right now, and need to expand their books back. Their abridging is only harming their stories- which, as Courtney herself points out, are the reason girls got into their company in the first place.

[leatherbookmarking]

sits.

a curse/plot imperative hits nmj and makes him invisible (inaudible, untouchable, etc, etc) while he’s in jinlintai. he’s convinced it’s somehow jgy’s doing, so he sets to find him and make him remove it, except, of course, shouting your san-di into anything is a bit difficult when he acts as if he can’t see or hear you -- the gall, the--oh fuck and walks right through you, as if you were a ghost?! fucked up. really fucked up, alright. and he can’t summon baxia to like, cleave the bastard in half, so he settles on following him everywhere, determined to discover the way to uncurse himself (because it’s clearly jgy, cmon). and also all the atrocities and plots jgy is undoubtedly up to when no one’s looking.

he finds... things, oh that he does. and stuff. such as: what jin guangshan looks like after a merry night with the girls (jgy came to wake him up). or: how jin guangshan behaves with a barely awake girl who passed out last night, and how long it takes for jgy to politely persuade him to perhaps get up and go have breakfast, or madame jin might be cross with him. or: how jin guangshan snorts and pushes his son away, sending him straight into what looks and smells like a puddle of vomit, for some reason. etc, etc

during those very educating hours, nmj does get an answer to the immediate question of why does he allow that to happen to him?!, and the one to provide it is no one else than madame jin, who never wastes a chance to remind jgy that he’s a disgusting bastard, this is not his home, and one wrong step can send him back down those stairs, so watch your place. she’s not the only one to voice her thoughts in this manner, because a couple of cousins also always has something to say. eventually he also learns to recognize the less obvious signs of someone’s contempt -- jgy sometimes does that soulless smile or clenches his jaw and nmj initially doesn’t know why, that person didn’t say anything hateful, and then he learns to notice the facial expressions, the tone of voice, even the backhanded compliments. tl;dr jinlintai is hell, what the fuck, nmj would have beheaded half of those bastards and jgy just keeps on smiling--

i mean he does find the corpses too, okay. he does find them because jgy has to pay a-yang a visit. like this is a thing that happens,

BUT ALSO he witnesses his meeting with sect leader su -- oh his name’s minshan, whatever -- who seems to be... aware of everything that happens to jgy and fucking furious about it, and also something something society. this su minshan notices that jgy has been slapped this day, and looks as if he’s boiling inside for a moment, and then he Snaps, which -- judging by jgy’s face -- isn’t his first time.

nmj finds out about a lot of interesting things after that? such as jgy doesn’t have any place to leave for, and if he “doesn’t like it” at jinlintai, he might as well just hang himself, it’ll be quicker that way; how his sworn brothers must think they’re so great and noble but how can they be any of these if jgy doesn’t feel he can ask them for help; how jin guangshan may be his father but it doesn’t excuse him deliberately putting jgy to the most humiliating, dirty and atrocious tasks, and ordering him to kill nie mingjue is honestly too much, what, can’t he kill him himself, this old, pathetic worm? does he have to send his son? and to nie mingjue, who regards him as lower than an insect, as if it wasn’t him who saved his ungrateful ass, etc etc? it’s a very enlightening evening for nie mingjue, in short

of course sms uses slightly gentler words; but jgy tells him off for that anyway, but at this point nmj... sails off a little, needing time to... (gestures) this ALL

and like. how it ends is honestly not as important as the EXPERIENCE, like LEARN A LITTLE, NIE MINGJUE. nmj is a character that, i feel, hasn’t really been robbed of his agency and power as others have (jgy being jgy, wwx and jc losing their cores, lxc losing his home and family etcetc).

like yes, he’s been living with the looming threat of losing his mind to saber brain, but being so possessed by rage and killing intent that you explode, killing everyone around you is slightly different flavour of hell than being aware that anyone could kill you anytime and no one would care! or notice.

so all the scenarios where he loses a lot of his power -- for example his golden core, i think i had an idea like that on twt, rip in pieces -- and can witness, first or second hand, what it’s like to be jgy or jgy-adjacent, are. good. crunchy. juicy and umami. yknow?

so, does he get uncursed? does he decide to help jgy, now seeing him in a different light? does he See, and feel bad about his black-and-white views? or does he simply -- march into xy’s merry little workshop when jgy is there, drag him out and execute him in front of everyone? who knows, it could be a very interesting fic i’m not going to write, but also, hngggghhh i am sorry for saying this and i love da-ge, his firm titties and his sexey moustache to Bits, but -- yesss nmj can get brought down a peg or seven from time to time. as a treat (for me).

also, it was all sms