#sure they have their similarities but the similarities kind of end past the overall structure of both ships' arcs

[sashannarcy]

Why do you think people wants Sasha and Anne to be always fighting each other? Just this last week I saw: the fanon Sashanne is bad because Sasha isn't a bitch to Anne, Anne is mis characterized as a damsel in distress and being "small" in comparison to Sasha so her saving Anne is bad, that they are a bad written Catradora, that they would never work without Marcy in the relationship, that people always give them bad break ups and that Season 3B Sashanne is bad because they don't fight 🤷‍♀️

honestly I think it's just based off of two things I've seen in the fandom over and over: 1) they throw a fit when Marcy isn't involved and 2) people are dead set on this idea that Sasha is abusive. Sashanne is a very wonderful ship but it's also the most complex out of all the trio ships, so it... is not surprising that a lot of people just want to see it burn. you're talking abt a fandom that, like a lot of other cartoon fandoms, thinks primarily in black and white. ofc they're not going to want to see a friends to enemies to lovers arc, they're going to want it to stop at the enemies part. especially since Sasha never seemed to be truly remorseful about his actions until s2/s3; he was kind of just fucking shitty. which is. literally normal. sometimes you are just a shitty person before you get better. but to people who cannot understand nuance to save their lives, this means he is abusive and that he should always be a bitch to Anne or else it's out of character

[lilislegacy]

So a lot of people talk about Percy becoming darker and crossing lines in Tartarus but I think a less talked about moment is when Percy got Bob to “kill” Hyperion. One of the reasons this moment is so startling is not just because we don’t view it from Percy’s perspective but because of how much a similar path Percy has been taking to Luke recently.

One of the reasons I think Percy really hates Luke for most of the first series despite I think mostly agree with him is that from his perspective Luke was the type of person to use his relationships with people as leverage. Annabeth, Thalia, Silena, even Percy. He was willing to use people’s trust and affection as a tool to further his goals. And Percy who values loyalty above all else, finds that to be a evil trait of his.

I don’t think in the end Percy hated Luke but that was the aspect that he may have unconsciously drew between them.

Then in Tartarus we have Percy using his friendship with Bob to manipulate him to “killing” a relative while hiding info from him.

It’s a really dark turn that I sure wish was addressed or followed up on!

The poison control is whatever, but this is the real moral tightrope.

this is really interesting

and i agree! i’ve always thought the reason percy hates luke so much, and hates being compared to him, is because luke betrays and manipulates people who trust him. percy himself, who’s defining trait is loyalty, thought luke was the first person in the demigod world to be his true friend. and then found out luke’s generous “gift” to him was meant to drag him down to the darkest pits of hell. that’s… pretty extreme betrayal. then to find out luke willingly poisoned the entire camp - his former home, his family’s home - is beyond percy’s understanding. then not to mention everything he did to annabeth, and thalia, and grover… luke is a traitor, which is the exact opposite of percy’s moral structure. hence percy never wanting to be compared to him.

but like you said, percy is a lot like luke in many ways, whether he likes it or not. however, i will say that when luke asks others to do things for him, it’s for his own personal agenda. but percy asking bob to kill hyperion was so that way percy and annabeth could make it out alive and save the world. so i have to give credit where credit is due. percy had overall good intentions.

BUT, as much as people don’t like to admit it, percy can be a real asshole. the fandom likes to make percy into this sensitive, emotional, defenseless little girly pop who’s favorite activity is braiding hair. (they also make him dumb). and as much as i do love sensitive guys like that, it’s not canon percy at all. percy is usually a sweetheart, it’s true. he’s a gentleman; very kind, funny, and reliable. but percy is also a tough ass dude. he’s rough around the edges. that was the whole point of seeing him from other POVs in HoO: percy’s view of himself is NOT how anyone else sees him. he grew up in freaking new york city. he skateboards and gets into fights and cusses like a sailor. he has an unpredictable temper, sarcastic humor, and doesn’t put up with anyone’s shit. he’s the reckless, quick-to-anger, super powerful half-god son of poseidon, and he’s done some really harsh things. there’s a reason people find him intimidating as hell. and as loyal and kind as he is, and as much of a mama’s boy that he is, he can also be really insensitive to other people’s emotions. remember how he treated upset annabeth in BotL? remember how he treated nico… many times? remember how he was an asshole to leo? and to jason? it’s just that sometimes when others are going through hard things, percy kinda seems to have a “ok and? we all go through unfair shit” mindset, or just doesn’t even think about it. he does realize this about himself in tartarus, which is why he feels so bad for using Bob in the past, and being unappreciative of Nico. as percy grows, he becomes a better man. but he’s still not the sensitive and emotional type, and can be really damn ignorant.

so i definitely think you’re onto something when you talk about how he used bob. and while i don’t think it’s the same as luke, percy has done things - harsh and insensitive things - similar to luke. a realization that would probably send percy into a dark place.

[stardustvalentine]

Yahaba Shigeru’s Stats

IVE MADE A DISCOVERY! yahaba (seijoh pinch server) and himekawa (tsubaikhara pinch server) have almost EXACTLY the same stats? the only difference is that yahaba has one more point in power. this makes sense cuz himekawa’s ceiling serve is more focused on the gimmick of going up so high—plus he’s a year younger—whereas yahaba has a more regular jump serve, so they kind of even out to equal anyway.

this is a really interesting parallel, as both of them come in for a pinch server and can’t ultimately get enough points for their respective teams. but yahaba’s role is more focused on his encouragement/admonishment of kyoutani, and he also seems to be more confident than himekawa, whose mini-arc revolves around his nerves. (but i think himekawa still gets more points for his team in total?)

in making this discovery, i found some other characters with similar stats:

nobuyuki kai from nekoma is almost the same, except he has one more point in stamina than yahaba does. nekoma’s whole thing is how they have a bunch of solid all-around players, but not a lot of stand-out stars. their average player stats end up being 18.86 according to that one reddit post, so yahaba (whose stats add up to 18) honestly might fit into the team pretty well.

daishou suguru has the same technique, intelligence, and speed—it’s interesting to see how they use this differently tho, since daishou uses this to get in his opponents’ heads with taunts and manipulation. i wish daishou was a second year cuz i’d love to see captain yahaba let loose a little in a match against him. (although futakuchi is a close match in attitude)

moniwa has the same speed, technique, & intelligence too, and a similar array in the other stats. he seems like a similar captain to what yahaba would likely be in his third year: someone with good leadership skills, but still a kind of average player overall. (in total yahaba’s stats being 18 vs moniwa’s 19. it would make sense that yahaba could get 1 more point somewhere by his 3rd year, so i feel like they’d both be the same skill level next year.) moniwa’s encouragement also stays with the team even past his retirement, and this is his main role in the narrative, just like yahaba + kyoutani. i can honestly see yahaba shaping up to be a very similar captain :)

kuroo actually shares similar strengths/weaknesses—they both have 4s in technique/intelligence, 3 in power, 2 in jumping, but kuroo has 1 more in speed and stamina respectively. he could also be another example of the kind of captain yahaba might live up to be :,)) so kuroo is stronger overall but his strengths are in the same areas

kind of interesting that yahaba shares more in common with other teams’ captains than his idol oikawa? really shows how he has HUGE shoes to fill but if he was being compared with these captains, he’d seem much more capable and competent 🤔

overall, yahaba is a really very average player. along with the first year kindaichi, he has the lowest total stats on seijoh’s team (with their team average being 20.21) and considering his 18 against oikawa’s TWENTY-FOUR, it’s no wonder he’s worried about filling those shoes.

none of yahaba’s important moments really focus on his skills on the court. he’s basically invisible as a setter in the practice match with karasuno. when he sets for kyoutani, that point is about how they’re working together as a team, not highlighting any particularly good setting from him. all of yahaba’s strengths seem to be in his off-the-court behavior, which is a total contrast to oikawa, who’s a monster on the court but very childish outside of the game. yahaba has definitely picked up oikawa’s leadership skills, but there’s not a lot going for him other than a fairly decent jump serve. this could definitely work out if he re-structured his team though to work more like nekoma (make sure every member is solid esp with defense instead of highlighting specific players). id also say they could work like dateko, but tbh i’m not sure if seijoh could make the iron wall work, and futakuchi is def a stronger captain than moniwa was.

so tl;dr, yahaba is a very very average player, though he has the potential to be a pretty good captain :)

[virtueisdead]

tumblr is the only corporate social im willing to use at this point, purely because of how vastly different it is from its contemporaries, structurally and culturally, but they're very clearly doing something that is quickly turning me away. for lack of less sensitive term, staff is practically gentrifying the platform. (forcing shit from other socials that tumblrs lack of were the only reason i still used it)

given i use spacehey daily, im sure youre already aware that im not a big fan of the contemporary concept of the "social media". i wont go on my whole pedantic/esoteric rant about distinguishing the definition of a social media and a social network because thats a whole other essay for another time and its not worth the argument given im already trying to discuss something else at the moment. (ive literally written a research paper about this because i seriously am that obnoxious about the subject)

so; one of the most substantial changes that happened to social websites in general over the past 2 decades was the introduction of algorithmic feeds. for those unaware, tumblr is in fact the very last major social platform that still doesnt operate (primarily) off of algorithmic content, and this is direly important to the continued use it receives from older bloggers. the majority of people who regularly use tumblr today and have for years are still here because it is the last bastion of chronological dashboards. this also plays a huge role in why theres such a dramatically different atmosphere on tumblr compared to other platforms.

reblogs are literally the only way that things can "go viral". posts do not ever spread if people dont actively decide "i want to share this with my friends" and hit the reblog button, as well if their friends dont think the same. whats especially important is that this system is entirely end-viewer-oriented; it does not particularly favor reactionary content like an algorithm does. on a platform like twitter, any kind of engagement at all (replies, likes, qrts, etc) will be taken by the algorithm as an indication that the post is likely to resonate with people in some way, regardless of whether the post in question is receiving positive or negative engagement, and regardless of whether or not it is thoughtful or warrants that- not to mention how this problem is even further exacerbated by the character limits on microblogging social media platforms like twitter.

so people love tumblr for the fact that posts that you wouldnt share with your friends simply will not garner any popularity most of the time. this fosters a far more unique and interesting community and types of viral content, but youll notice that a little while ago, tumblr quietly added the "for you" page. realistically, nobody who actually has used tumblr since before that tab was added would ever even touch it because it is a spit in the face of what makes people love the platform. but they they knew most people dont vocally give a shit like i do.

the first problem arises when you consider that new users from places like tiktok and twitter will naturally assume the tab was always there and likely use it as their primary means of discovery. they wont learn or understand the way that the proper system tumblr uses of follows and reblogs actually works, which is steadily creating an enormous and frankly insurmountable divide between new and old users of the platform. its already fostering the kinds of passive interaction from people who dont understand tumblr's mechanics that is honestly genuinely harmful to the community overall. people misusing the tools that the platform has due to not understanding their function or assuming similarity to things they already know from other platforms. honestly, this in itself would not even be that much of an issue because we could simply ignore the new users who refuse to make the effort to understand how to use the app and fall for the advertising trap that is the for you page...

but the problem is getting way bigger as tumblr is slowly but surely pushing the "for you" page onto other dashboards. youll see posts with a little "based on your likes" banner at the top crop up more and more. theyre quite literally trying to subtly force an algorithm into place where there wasnt one before. (ive been made aware you actually can turn this off from within an entirely seperate settings menu from the regular one that you open on the notifications screen for some reason?? the fact that i didnt even know this after using tumblr for this long is wild, but it doesnt invalidate my argument in that they turned it on automatically without asking or telling users) its not egregious enough to make me leave yet but its definitely been happening more and more frequently to the point that i am seriously doubting if i should consider continuing to use the website/app. this is the biggest structural issue, but its not the only example of what im talking about where tumblr is trying to pretend to be like other contemporary social medias in order to lure in new users without teaching them how things work so that they can use them as advertising guinea pigs.

another example would be the abrupt and frankly pointless introduction of tumblr live, which is entirely unnecessary and has received near unanimous criticism from older users. but a bigger one is something that a lot of people, especially newer users, mobile only users, or those straight other platforms have probably not even noticed- the completely silent removal of subdomain urls. (which is why people here call usernames urls in the first place) this one is way more apparent of an issue as far as my questionable use of the term 'gentrification' goes.

if i asked you the question "what is tumblr?" what would you say? more than likely, you would answer that its a social media- and to be clear, you would certainly not be incorrect in that assessment, but thats not the important part. as far as i can see, thats the first thing that comes to mind when they think of what tumblr "is" in its contemporary state. but if i asked somebody that a decade ago, they would likely give a completely different answer; they would say its a "blogging site". that's because fundamentally, that's what tumblr actually is and is supposed to be. a social blogging host platform. the dashboard and tumblr.com screen was always only half of it as far as the functionality went.

everyone used to have a personal website for their blogs, and people would often hook their tumblr blog up with its own custom domain as well. tumblr was first and foremost simply a blogging platform with social elements. while that subdomain (personal website) functionality does still exist, and you can see it on my blog because i customized my blog's css themes, they actually completely silently added a switch that gets rid of it, and they automatically turned it off for anyone that hadnt fully configured that page already which slowly consolidates everybody towards the exact same uniform tumblr-blog style like what you see on the mobile site. it forces a uniform visual aesthetic and functionality, which is one of the things i hate the most. in the first place, the enormous number of people who hadnt set up their page properly is largely because tumblr has for a few years now actively discouraged, hidden, or obfuscated the 'personal website' aspect of the service for whatever reason they may have using a method ill get into in a moment. it may be because they thought it was too convoluted for newer internet users who dont understand, or it may have been a more calculated effort to abandon older infrastructure and replace it with replicas of more contemporary systems like are used in other social medias, but it doesnt make a difference to me.

blogging is all about self-expression, and restricting that defeats the point so fucking hard. on the mobile app, my page will look something like this.

though this screenshot is taken on desktop. the url here is "https://www.tumblr.com/virtueisdead". this is an entirely separate and pretty recently added functionality called the profile view, which is entirely different from how the website used to operate, which is demonstrated for clearly by the fact that this is not what my blog is actually supposed to look like. in fact, you cant even see what blogs are supposed to look like on the mobile app at all. if you open your browser and go to my actual blog url, "https://virtueisdead.tumblr.com/", you can see the intended design, which is very similar to my spacehey profile.

im honestly not unconvinced that they intend to eventually completely distinguish the old blogging system (akin to wordpress and blogger) from the social media aspect of the site entirely, though thats more of a crack theory. the fact remains that they began to silently get rid of people's actual blog pages, slowly forcing uniformity with the mobile app. (this is less important, but another part of that that drives me up the fucking wall is that i cant even use the tumblr website in my main browser anymore. they made it so it only works in certain browsers, and im sure i dont need to explain why that is absolutely insufferable behavior)

tumblr is absolutely trying to mimic other social media platforms like tiktok and twitter in order to attract users from them or give them a more 'familiar experience' and its absolutely a detriment to the experience for people who use tumblr specifically because it isnt like other corporate social platforms. this is a separate gripe, but...

ive said before and will say again, twitter users should not look for an alternative to twitter, they should just stop fucking using it. thats like going from smoking a cigarette brand that uses slave labor to one that doesnt. youre a more ethical person but youre still giving yourself lung cancer.

[theroseempress]

Weaving and Finger Painting for the ask meme!

(Weaving: are your works typically similar to one another? Pick two works, and share one similarity and one difference between them.)

I don't know if I'd say my works are similar per se, but there's most definitely themes I gravitate towards, and as such most of my works have said themes in common.

As to what said themes are... I'm honestly not entirely sure, to be honest. I definitely like writing character interactions, so I guess most of my works have strong inter-character relationships? I also really like exploring platonic love (and in general find exploring various types of love/relationships fun) so there's that as well.

As to the two works, I'll pick The Golden City and Mercy City (placeholder title) since they're the two I've been recently working on. Similarity- the main protagonist of TGC's name is Felix and the main protagonist of MC's name is Felice Aside from their names, Felix and Felice are pretty similar in some aspects. Also each of these stories currently has City in the title. Difference- Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that MC has a magic system and TGC does not, just average humans. There's also a lot more groups of people up to their own agendas in MC than TGC.

(Finger Painting: share a small snippet from your earliest work (or the earliest that you can get back to). How would you rewrite it today? Either share the rewrite itself or just describe how you'd do it.)

Oh wow, my earliest work... Actually, hang on, I might be able to get that. One moment... Yeah, couldn't find my actual earliest work. It's hypothetically somewhere in my email, but I emailed it to someone when I was like 11 or something, so yeah.

My actual earliest work was a fantasy book where the main characters were horses, believe it or not. I called it Isles of the Endless Sea (which is honestly a very cool name) and it had like 3 or 4 books before I got bored halfway through the ending of one and just. stopped writing them haha.

IotES was honestly quite a good series despite the rather clunky writing (not blaming my past self, she did her best), I reread it recently and there's quite a few moments where I was like 'huh that's actually a really cool concept/line'. The first book's title was 'Night of Shadows' and I honestly can't figure out if that's a bit too dramatic or if it's actually a very cool title.

I'd like to try rewriting it someday, to be honest. If I did, the biggest change I'd make would be changing the characters to humans. I'd also adjust the plot a bit so it's less convoluted, and definitely change how ALL THE CHARACTERS are somehow related. (I'd just discovered the concept of 'secret evil sibling' and was very enamoured with it).

There's a snippet (the first book's prologue) under the cut! Notes specifically on the snippet... not that bad honestly. Formatting could definitely use some work. If I were to edit it now, I'd probably rewrite some of the lines, but overall quite good, especially for what was basically my first time writing.

“She will see you now.”

The white attendant stepped out of the way, and Reikan strode past him, into the throne room. The mare who waited there was beautiful, a deadly kind of beauty, however.

She was the color of polished black ebony, and had striped hooves. Her face was neatly structured, suggesting a hint of Arabian. The only flaw was a long scar,running down her jawline. It was not a ugly thing, merely a line where there was no hair. However, it served as a reminder of who she was to her legions. That and the sabre, that deadly curved sword, that hung in a sheath at her side. It had emeralds studded down the handle, and a blade many suspected was dipped in poison.

It was, in fact. A narrow tube ran down the blade, feeding from the tip, to a reservoir set in the handle, that was filled with adders venom! It had a plug at the tip, so that when it stabbed something , that plug would give leeway for a thin trickle of venom. If you felt the tip, you could feel a slight bump, the plug. However, no-horse felt the tip, as Ziara made most of her kills without using the poison at all.

But perhaps her most recognizable feature was her eyes. They were black, which was not a strange thing. But the kind of black..ah, that was strange. They were a deep black that if you stared into, you felt almost as if you were being sucked into a vacuum. When she was angry, the black gained a strange gleam to it. She was also a master of stares, and could make almost any horse feel the way she wanted them to.

Ziara was studying a map when Reikan entered. However, she greeted him before the door had even closed

“Reikan.”

Somewhat astonished at how she had know it was him, he bowed, and replied. “Milady”

Eyes spitting fire, she turned around.

“Reikan! How many times must I remind you? Do. Not. Call. Me. Milady!” “Apologies General. It was a slip of the tongue.”

The lethal mare returned to her previous state, one so charming it was impossible not to be awed by her beauty.

“Your report?”

[pochapal]

Curious about what speculations you might have at this point - given the way things are progressing in the first episode, how do you think this episode is going to end? And with that assumption, what do you think the later 7 episodes are going to be about?

i've thought about this a little in the past but i think it depends on if we get another murder in this episode. i first wondered if it would be a one twilight per episode kind of deal but the pacing argues otherwise - we have the clear timeframe of "until monday morning when the storm clears and the police arrive" laid out, which, given how it's taken ~10 chapters to get through the first day, could feasibly reached in another ~10 chapters from now if we keep this pace up. that would be a lot of killing and murders to get through at a rapid pace though so i'm not sure.

one hunch i am sort of toying with is that umineko might be a kind of murder mystery anthology where we get a bunch of seemingly disconnected series of killings with new and distinct casts that all have the theme of "beatrice" in common, except so much of beatrice and the epitaph is tied up with kinzo and rokkenjima that i wonder how that would even work. at this conjunction it's hard to find something that could be thematically extended outside of the ushiromiya family.

i think we could stay on rokkenjima longer if we get more metafictional with it but i'm not sure how likely it is any element like that will appear in episode one since i'm ~halfway through and outside of some unreliable narration and themes on storytelling there's nothing concrete to latch onto. if it did go metafictional there's a chance we could go down the zero escape route where we have a bunch of diverging timelines that build towards a point where everything in conjunction allows the mystery to be solved and lets everyone escape the tragedy alive (something similar to how the culprit in 999 gets exposed through clues in alternate routes) but again. no indication that something like that is going on.

my other hesitation on the zero escape style story construction theory is that apparently new characters do show up in later episodes (the characters that diverged from the alleged "umineko sexyman" concept that people have told me about for instance) and i don't see how that could happen in a closed environment like this.

i have some compelling ideas but i am very uncertain! i can think of these possibilities but the story isn't really hinting towards how it's structured yet so it is hard to say for sure. at this current moment it's all up in the air but once the overall "shape" of episode 1 becomes more clear (such as if the second twilight happens or if beatrice ever makes a physical appearance) then that'll start limiting the possibilities and make it easier to figure out.

[rhodesmusic]

RHODES MUSIC: CUT & BAND-AID

C Major 11/4 and 4/4 90 bpm 9 instruments 1 (homemade) sample

In contrast to the last song I posted, there isn't nearly as much to talk about here musically, so I'll go over the interesting technical stuff first. The song is split into two sections, the first taking up a bit more than half. I wasn't planning to make the song structured into two parts, it just sort of came out that way, which makes it sound like I don't know anything about composing, which I don't. A lot of my songs feel like they just pop up in fl studio unprompted, because I don't really think that much when I'm making music, it's like I'm teleporting from point A to point B (when I really just went unconcious and sleepwalked the distance).

Anyway, the first section is set in 11/4, which is just rib-tickling, and it features a midi clarinet in the center of things playing a repeating chord pattern with a similarly repeditive melody, using tape delay effects, tons of ornaments in the upper and middle end, and sharp changes in octave to offer interest throughout the section. It's really, really unorganized, but I might as well try to describe it. The chords are, loosely, GM CM Am FM, but it's worth noting that the phrases largely start and end with the third in the bass, the third actually being the lowest note in the bass in the whole section. The note is so short-lived that it borders on being strictly percussive. The whole section has a percussive feel to it because I decided to completely cut off the tail end of the clarinet sound, i.e. putting the release at zero. This in tandem with the tape delay I just completely abuse constitudes a spontaneous yet rich sound, hypnotising almost. At different points in a section I incorporated a repeating 4-note pattern of dyads in order to develop the harmonic tone a bit more, but I largely avoided holding notes for too long outside of the melody. The only real actual percussion I use is with a snap sound I incorporate into the background a bit past halfway in the section. Thinking back, this was most probably inspired by the similar purcussion in Aphex Twin's "Stone in Focus", and I like how it provides just a little bit of anatomy to the otherwise wishy-washy tone; I find it pretty easy to just lose attention of all the shit going on and just swim around in the harmony.

The second section goes to 4/4, since there's no way I could play anything structured or at least more purposeful in fuckin' 11/4 (I'm not some Berkeley graduate that only drinks black coffee and tells people that Tame Impala is overrated). I went from clarinet to guitars, having the low and middle end being filled out distinctly instead of blending together like in the previous section, and switched the progression to FM CM Em, making the harmonic tone more pronounced and the overall tone more HELL YEAH LET'S GO, further emphasized with a pretty simple melody that repeats and a nice and heavy drum beat. The guitars are similarly percussive, like the clarinet in the first section. This better sense of structure allowed me to add in a little synth solo section, which turned out really nice I think. That's really all that goes on in this section. I wish I could convey my thoughts about the relationship and contrast between the first and second sections, but all I can say right now is that I think it's kind of nice. Again, I fail to be able to fully recall my thoughts when I was actually making this, which is why I've only analysed my musical decisions in retrospect, but I feel like taking a moment to think about what's going on in the song after I've made it is begrudgingly healthy for me as a composer in some way. Regardless, I kinda like how it turned out, and it marks my transition into making more tonal-centered music.

E SURE TO SMASH THAT LIKE BUTTON AND SUBSCRIBE IF YOU LIKED THIS RHODES MUSIC, AND HIT THAT BELL IF YOU WANNA GET MORE AWESOME RHODES MUSICS IN THE FUTURE!!! 🤠🪲🐛🎵🎹

[msbarrows]

Thank you for your NMS screenies. When it’s been a while I see them and think “oh yeah I wanna go play that again.” I still haven’t left Euclid but your pics remind me there’s a lot more variety out there. Do you think ships and multitools look way more different depending on what galaxy you’re in? (Said another way: does tech from he same galaxy look similar?) Or is their appearance pure RNG?

Pretty sure it's pure RNG, the starships fall into the same variations over and over again from galaxy to galaxy, as do the multitools. About the only thing I've seen in the way of theme is that sometimes you hit a star system where a lot of the starships have similar colouration, though that's also likely to be just the way the RNG falls.

I like travelling away from Euclid overall (though I suspect the starship/mulitool pictures I take there are much more likely to be useful for other people to find specific ones they'd like). I think that the further you get from Euclid, the less likely you are to trip over evidence of other players having been there before you, which is kind of neat. Though even just in Euclid, as (comparatively) heavily used as it, you can go ages without seeing any sign of other players past or present. Just the sheer scale of the game is amazing - 255 galaxies, each with 4.2 billion regions, each containing 122 to 580 star systems, each containing 2-6 planets and/or moons (so somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1,470,000,000,000 star systems in Euclid alone, about 3-4 times that in planets). I can spend hours just going exploring on a single planet, or in one hour of exploring with my freighter find dozens of star systems and their planets.

I really love what the game has done using procedural generation and pseudo-random numbers. It's just amazing in the best way.

I think my one real wish for the game is that they'd had more alien-looking starship components - apart from the living ships and frigates, everything looks very human-designed. I know they wanted to keep it consistent enough in design that they could procedurally slap together pieces like lego and still end up with ships that looked reasonable, but imagine how cool it could have been if they did gek, vy'keen, and korvax pieces that mostly only got generated together within a set, based on the race of the star system in question (so a gek-based star system would lean toward but not be exclusively gek-design ships), but on occasion you'd also hit ships that got rarer RNG outcomes and had, say, a korvax hull with gek wing and tail structures.

(My inner 3d modeller is stirring in her sleep and muttering that she'd love to work on those pieces.)

[bookdepositori]

Officially finished with Mostly Dead Things. Overall my feelings towards the book are similar to how they were in my last post. I have some thoughts, but I’m probably going to have to give some minor spoilers to express them.

Now that I’m finished, I can say that I’m still a bit dissatisfied with how the characters in this book were handled. This book has a very specific chapter structure in which every second chapter will be a non-sequential flashback to the main character’s childhood. This is a book primarily about mourning, so these chapters are there to establish Jessa’s relationships with characters who are no longer there. This is interesting in concept, but in practice I felt these chapters to be a bit repetitive and underutilized. The first flashback you are shown is Jessa’s father teaching her how to skin an animal for the first time, a very important moment in a book taking place directly after his death. This was one of my favorite chapters and it made me really excited to learn more about Jessa’s father, though after this, he stops being a focus in these chapters.

The majority of these flashback chapters revolve around Jessa’s childhood friend, first love, and brother’s eventual wife, Brynn. I do like these chapters in general, they tell you a lot about Jessa and why she is the way she is, but I started to lose interest when almost all of these chapters were about Brynn and almost always tell you the same things about her. There were several chapters that opened with Jessa thinking about how she wishes Brynn would spend more time with her and not her brother. It got to the point I felt like I was reading the same chapter repetitively and I admit that I started speed-reading these sections. This disappointed me a little bit because this book is full of characters who feel underdeveloped to me in the end, especially Jessa’s father despite him being the catalyst for this book’s plot. It almost feels like the book is disinterested in him, it doesn’t go out of its way to ignore him, but he’s always mentioned in brief paragraphs and occasionally not talked about at all for several chapters. It makes sense for Jessa to be mourning Brynn as well as her father, but it feels odd that almost all of this book’s attention is given to Brynn when it takes place in the aftermath of Jessa’s father’s death. As I write this, I struggle to even remember his name.

As far as the rest of the cast goes, I did like the conclusion to Jessa’s conflict with her mother. I do feel like they have some really great moments together during the climax of this book. I won’t spoil any of it, but it was one of my favorite parts of the book. My only issue is that a lot of these scenes suffer from this book’s writing style in which you are flatly told how to interpret its characters rather than deciding for yourself. In general this book’s prose doesn’t have much subtext. Reading this kind of made me realize how important that is to me in character-driven fiction.

The one last character I want to mention is Lucinda, who I’m still a bit confused by. Throughout this book she feels like this supernatural presence free of human flaws or venerability. She feels more like some sort of spirit who has descended down to create conflict between Jessa and her mother. At first I felt like this was intentional with how differently she is described compared to the rest of the cast, though now I’m not so sure. Throughout the book, Jessa starts to develop a relationship with Lucinda, but the reader is oddly only told about it in past-tense. At the end of one chapter you are given a hint that Lucinda might be interested in Jessa, but then a few chapters later their relationship is already on the decline. It feels like such an odd addition as this subplot happens almost entirely out of the reader’s sight and then becomes an important focus at the very end of the book. Overall I just do not know what I was supposed to get from this character as she felt so otherworldly when compared to the rest of the cast and I’m not sure if it was intentional.

There’s still things about this book I enjoyed. I especially liked the way this book included so many details of life that most fiction ignore due to them being deemed as “gross”. Characters’ physical blemishes and odors aren’t ignored, their body functions aren’t shied away from. Though, I never felt like the book was doing this to be shocking for the sake of it. It felt like it was just letting me into the less savory moments of these characters’ lives rather than trying to gross me out or make me flinch. (Which is part of why Lucinda was so confusing to me, when she is described without any of these unflattering details).

Overall, I got some worthwhile things to think about while reading this book, but some of the writing and pacing hindered my enjoyment a little. This book is a very “tell” rather than “show” book and I’m now realizing that isn’t really to my taste. I also wish some characters were developed more, by the end of the book Jessa decides she doesn’t know as much about her family as she thought, but I knew so little about them it was hard for any of these developments to feel like shocks to me. I wish this book either spread its focus to more of its characters or trimmed its page count, because the constant chapters about the same characters doing the same things started to lose my interest. (the present-day chapters included flashback paragraphs that feature the same formatting flourishes as the flashback chapters anyways, so I kind of wish the flashbacks chapters were cut and just had those moments worked into the main chapters)

Overall, it’s a very interesting book, just not to my taste and didn’t feel as fleshed-out as I hoped.

[fmp1catherinek-g]

Drawing "The Lovers" card

Like all these cards, I began by tracing over the sketch I had done on paper being sure to check the sketch looks how it did in the original traditional sketch but digital.

I then sketched out the design that will be the background. To get the most symmetrical out come I ended up using the shape tools and then copy and pasting each part I drew to get an art Nouveau inspired pattern.

(flat colours)

After I laded down the flat colours, I got to shading her skin using the same set of pencil brushes I had uses for "The sun" card. With this card however I had to uses the brushes in a slightly different ways for them to have a similar effect as this design relies on the character as being the main point of focus.

I then moved my attention to the fabric wrapped around her making sure to add wrinkles that are coherent with the flow of the material. Whilst doing this however it was brought my attention that one of Aphrodite's arms wasn't right and needed to be changed for the position to look nice and humanly possible. What I had ended up doing was making the arm too thick and the elbow joint to sharp leaving her arm at an almost 90 degree angle which wasn't right. I fixed this by slimming down the arm and softening the angles and overall outline of the arm. This helped by giving the arm more structure and depth as I then went in and shade were was needed.

After that I coloured the hair and was sure to add lots of textures from the different pencil brushes I used. I also decided to add some flowers to her hair for some extra flair and because I think it suites her.

I then moved on to colouring and adding details to the background being sure to stick to a colour palette of pinks and light reds as those colours reflect the meaning and name of the card and the Goddess. This is one of the first cards that has a background that is heavily inspired by Alphonse Mucha and the art Nouveau movement as this is the first deity and design I felt would suit this kind of design choice.

References/pose inspiration

Although this card was done a while ago, I realised as I was working the last card that the layer that had all of the rendering I did on her hair had disappeared. As frustrating as this was I needed to fix it as quickly as possible so I found a way that meant I didn't have redraw all of that hair again. Because I had taken a screen shot of the finished hair I was able to paste that into Clip Studio and put that in the place of the layer I lost. After doing that I gave the copied hair some touch ups to make up for the decrease in quality (because it's a screen shot).

[blarfkey]

Tips on Beta-ing Fic in Fandom

Hello! So I’ve noticed from some of my experiences and the experiences of others that not everyone fully understands how to beta a fic or how to ask for a beta reader.

And I get it. Editing is a delicate process, it's terrifying to ask someone to look at your work, and it's equally terrifying to feel responsible for the quality of someone else’s writing. 

So I decided to write up a little guide. I enjoy being a beta reader and learned how to while I got my minor in creative writing and through participation in many writer workshops but being a good beta doesn’t require an education like that.  A lot of bad experiences I’ve seen or heard about could be avoided with communication and basic courtesy.

More under the cut:

First of all, there are different levels of editing that require different levels of depth and commitment. A lot of issues crop up when two people have a different idea of what’s expected. So here is a way of looking at the different levels.

1. SPAG (SPelling And Grammar): This is the most basic level and has the least amount of time commitment. The beta looks for issues in grammar and spelling such as: comma rules, homophones, run on sentences, anything that obscures meaning, ect. This is the easiest level to ask for since it requires a basic read through and no knowledge of canon or characters or the fandom at all. If you are with a new beta whom you don’t know well, I would start with just this level. 

2. Flow and Efficiency: this gets a little deeper into SPAG. A beta on this level would flag passages that slow down the pace of the story, words that are repeated too often, dialogue that doesn’t make sense or sounds awkward, pronoun confusion, sentence/paragraph order, ect. This requires more time and re-reading the fic more than once to do a thorough job. 

3. Characterization: This deals with how in character your dialogue and actions feel in your story. If you’re writing a character for the first time or you don’t have a full understanding of them in canon, it can be helpful to ask a writer well versed in writing that character to take a look at your characterization. This does require more of a commitment than the others and you need to communicate with each other to discuss what seemed out of character and why and what alternatives could be taken instead.

4. Plot and Story: This is the  biggest commitment for a beta and not something you ask a person to do real quick or even ask a person to do if you don’t know them very well. This type of editing asks someone to look at the story overall and see what is working and what is not working as far as plot goes.

Did the writer develop the story in a way that makes sense, did they lay down the seeds of the development throughout the fic, are they sticking to a theme, are they contradicting themselves throughout the fic, did they repeat a scene, ect? For multi-chapter fics, this requires a long term beta/writer relationship over the course of each chapter update.

You should not ask someone brand new to beta at this level for an update chapter, especially if they haven’t read your other chapters first or aren’t familiar with your writing. This level requires an immense amount of trust between beta and author and a huge time commitment for a beta.

~~~

Now that we understand the different levels of editing, here are some common courtesy guidelines for both authors and betas:

Author:

1. Decide beforehand what level you want your fic to be beta’d for. Communicate clearly exactly what you want your beta to look for and at what level you would like them to edit. You don’t have to use my guideline above exactly, but be clear if you want deeper edits than SPAG, for example. And understand that deeper edits, such as on structure and plot and characterization, require a lot of commitment on behalf of the beta reader. It’s understandable if they do not or are unable to give you that level of commitment so be clear about it upfront. 

2. Be clear on your deadline of when you want this done.

3. Be clear on the length, pairing/characters involved, rating, and major content warnings when asking for a beta. 

4. If you share a google doc, do not let any beta have full editing privileges. Even if you trust them, you won’t be able to see all the changes they make so you can learn from your mistakes. Keep the restrictions to commenter only. 

5. Be upfront and honest about  how sensitive you are to different kinds of feedback. Especially if you’ve been hurt in the past, be honest about what feedback you do not want.

6. Remember, you do not have to change everything a beta suggests. This is your story and even though they’ve done you a favor, it's ultimately your decision and judgement on your own fic.

That being said, you don’t need to argue with a beta about their suggestions. If you don’t agree with most or all of their ideas, they are not the beta for you. Thank them for their time and then follow through with your own suggestions or find a different beta.

Beta/Editor: Here are some basic courtesy rules you should follow when you are beta-ing.

1. Do not engage with fic that makes you uncomfortable, even if you want to be kind to a friend. Your reluctance shines through in your efforts and it does not end well for anyone. If you start a fic and then find you are uncomfortable with it, politely tell your author that you cannot continue. Do not do so in a way that shames their fic. You do not have to go into personal reasons why you cannot finish the fic, just tell them you are unable to do so. 

2. Stick to the deadline you agreed to. If something comes up, let the author know as soon as possible so they can find someone else, especially if they are on a publishing schedule or have an exchange deadline. 

3. Word all your non-spelling edits as suggestions, not commands. Ultimately any changes are the author’s decision and up to their discretion so it comes off as very rude and controlling when you use commands, as if you naturally know better than the author does at telling their own story. This also means that you should not change anything in the document without telling the author if they have given you full edit access on a google doc or word doc, ect. 

Some ways of phrasing you can use to make suggestions:

     A. “Could” and “can” instead of “should” and “need”.

For example:  For example, Maybe you could move this paragraph to the beginning because of ____ reason instead of You need to move this paragraph to the beginning. 

     B. “I think” at the beginning of a suggestion, so it's clear it's your opinion and nothing else.

I think this paragraph works better at the front of the chapter rather than the end.

     C. “Maybe” with a question mark.

This is one of my favorites. Think of it like brainstorming with someone. Maybe you could move this paragraph to the front of the chapter? Maybe X Character could do Y instead?

4. Always explain why you would make a change to story, flow, or characterization so the author understands your intent and reasoning.  

5. Do not judge someone’s writing. This is their story and their ideas. Do not try to steer the plot in the direction you would want to take it, do not kinkshame any of their smut, do not criticize their story/pairing choices because they aren’t to your tastes. The goal is to improve what they already have, not change it to match what you personally like. 

6. Do not offer only critical feedback without something positive. This is very important. Even if you are just at level one SPAG, leave a comment or highlight a passage, turn of phrase, line of dialogue that you enjoyed or leave a note at the bottom of something you think they did well. 

Asking for critical feedback is terrifying, and if there is not a balance of positive and constructive feedback, authors can be discouraged from writing further if they think all they write is bad or needs work. 

The way I did it in writing workshops is that I put every negative comment in between two positive comments. This might be unrealistic for beta, but you cannot beta a fic without leaving any positive feedback at all. 

~~~

Communication and clear expectations go a long way in a good author/beta relationship. It helps to find someone whose fic they have written or bookmarked align with your own tastes if you want deeper edits. Make sure you have similar ideas on characterization, head-canons, interpretations of canon lore.

At the end of the day, however, it’s fanfiction. It is written for free and for fun. Little things that would not cut it in professional publication can slide in an fanfic and there should not be pressure to make a fic as perfect as a professional, published piece unless the author gives you that explicit expectation.

Please comment or send an ask/message if you have any questions about beta-ing!

[year2000electronics]

good morning. so every member in team bleck has a member that sort of ‘parallels’ the five member ensemble of the heroes and tippi. bleck parallels mario as the leader, mimi and peach are the girly girls, o’chunks and bowser are the muscle, and that leaves the last two-

(long post incoming)

the fact that 8-3 and 8-4 have luigi and dimentio paired off with eachother pretty much implies that he’s intended to be luigis parallel, and that nastasia and tippi are also parallels. not to be overly thorough again but i’m gonna spell out a lot of the ways both these parallels work

luigi and dimentio:

- have matching colour schemes (luigis inverted green and blue becomes purple and yellow, and vice versa)

- have the obvious parallels thanks to moments like in 6-1, 8-3 and 8-4 where dimentio and luigi/mr l have extended dialogues alone

- on the topic of mr l and dimentio, both of their major design traits are their masks and how one can’t be recognized with it on, and one’s true intentions can’t be recognized thanks to their mask always smiling

- carson mentions that dimentio was turned away once by the count before seeing that he had potential, much like luigi wasn’t allowed to come on adventures in pm64 until mario saw him handle himself in ttyd (this ones a bit of a stretch admittedly)

and just overall the fact that luigi and dimentio are the only remaining pair means they’re obvious parallels

tippi and nastasia:

- have mirroring but similar form transformations (tippi from human to flying creature, nastasia was implied to change from a flying creature to a humanoid)

- both are from blecks past, but only one of them was his love

- both of them sacrifice themselves in the name of love for the count (nastasias may have been platonic or familial), but only nastasia lives to see the end of the ordeal

- both are the one ‘non playable’ character in the group- you cant REALLY play as tippi and nastasia doesn’t get a boss fight

- pretty much the ‘brains’ of the group, the one that speaks on behalf of bleck/mario a lot of the time

HOWEVER. what if i told you i could also make the argument that THIS is also an equally valid interpretation.

now obviously the game pretty much confirms that luigi and dimentio are parallels through their fights but i could also argue that luigi/nastasia and tippi/dimentio have some parallels of their own, and why i wanna highlight this i’ll talk about later

tippi and dimentio:

- unlike the other parallels, tippi and dimentio are actively made so that dimentio can’t be tattled. he is literally the only miniboss or major npc like this (aside from maybe nastasia as she has no true overworld encounter)

- at the beginning of the game, both of them are the characters with the most mysterious pasts, as in little to no information is given (tippis gets given later, again i’ll come back to this)- dimentio is the only bar story that doesn’t help out much in terms of his past or lack thereof

- both of them have teleported a character to the safety of flipside in the events of the story (tippi in ch 4 and dimentio in the ch 2 interlude, though teleporting is part of his niche in general)

- have elements that may or may not hide a “true” face (is dimentio’s mask his face or is he just like that?)

- tippi and dimentio’s “moments” together are a bit fewer and far between compared to the others, like her strange out of place “i know you. you’re that...” and the fact that she’s the only one who survives dimentio’s ch 7 nuke (when he tells her directly he’s her enemy) and the fact that despite luigi being onscreen and PLENTY mouthy in his actual fight with dimentio, TIPPI is the one who talks back to you in dimentio’s optional game over

- this ones a bit of a stretch as it’s heavily based on theories that i don’t even believe myself but if you believe dimentio is the magicians son then both tippi and dimentio have a pseudo connection to pixls

luigi and nastasia:

- both are seen as the ‘right hand’ or ‘number two’ for their respective ‘number ones’ (mario and bleck) and generally play off of more subdued versions of their designs (nastasias glasses vs blecks monocle, her white clothes vs his beige cape and hat, her light blue vs his dark blue, luigis proportions being a bit more average compared to mario and a more subdued green colour scheme)

- both have a deep affection for bleck/mario and this is largely in part due to their pasts with them, where seeing their ability and kindness made them believe bleck/mario was truly brilliant (nastasias lines and backstory imply that she was around to see bleck as blumiere which would imply she knew him just as long or longer as tippi did), they also have spent more time by bleck/marios side than the others, comparatively

- both almost never have things on their own, their escapades are mostly ‘side stories’ (but they still DO happen: i’ll give tippi and nastasia the fact that they do hover around mario/bleck more than luigi hovers around mario BUT nastasia isn’t always around bleck, does her own thing, and is even in a meeting when bleck isnt vs tippi only ever leaving marios side when she’s forcibly removed)

- much like luigi and dimentio have their moments, nastasia and luigi also share moments (mostly in the first part of the game, keep it in mind): the most pivotal part of the direction luigi goes in this game is when he gets caught by nastasia, and nastasia is the one who tells him not to mess with the wedding

- in addition, many times throughout the game nastasia details to count bleck each minions defeat, often just telling him the messages they relay or punishing them herself, but specifically when it comes to mr. l’s disappearance, she says she’s the one at fault

- you could also make another design argument that mr l’s mask could also be a parallel to nastasias glasses as a large part of her character also comes from her glasses as they do the fact that mr l can’t be recognized- theyre her weapon (the red rims are also a bit of a gut punch when it comes to that)

- both of them wind up ‘taking count blecks place’ (as the final boss, and as the one to get hit by dimentio’s fatal blow) (interestingly this also puts them both out of commission for the final boss)

- this ones a big stretch but nastasia is seen openly sobbing at the end and luigi is the one of the four heroes who’s the most prone to tears (according to tv tropes at least)

so with all that being said, Why. why did i make this post. i’m sure i could draw comparisons to fuckin uhhh luigi and idk BONECHILL if i had the time on my hands. well the reason why is because i wanted to think about... what if we all looked at spm like this.

in the beginning, nastasia and luigi are in fact eachothers parallels, nastasias logic vs luigis emotion nastasia being the villain to defeat luigis hero yadda yadda yadda. but as the story goes on more and more of the luigi/dimentio parallel begins to happen. and this is because starting with chapter 5, dimentio begins to show his hand- to the heroes, but also to the audience. more of his plan is succeeding, and as count bleck grows more reluctant, this story becomes less and less about how to defeat him and more about how to stop the chaos heart from doing its thing.

we all know how that story goes though, how dimentio usurps the count and takes luigi with his little pizza hands. but i’m thinking that luigis parallels, luigis villains are really supposed to represent the arc 1 villain and the arc 2 villain- both nastasia and dimentio are the ones who are trying to make the man in green choose the dark prognosticus as the true prophecy, it’s just that as the story goes on, dimentio is the one who seizes control of the story. even to the effect that he’ll shift the very structure of the team around so that HE will do battle with luigi. so that HE is the one who is the obvious representative of the ideal host for the chaos heart.

cos who ELSE would it be, right??? :o)

*and here comes the obligatory disclaimer that obviously i’m not trying to say that THIS is concrete 100% what the writers meant. i just think this is an interesting interpretation i’d like to explore

[unlikely-course]

The tl;drs of this very long post, which is about Gideon’s arc and her relationship to Harrow:

-Gideon’s arc in gtn is a corruption arc because tlt is not just goth but Gothic

-Gideon “forgives” Harrow because of Trauma and that’s definitely not the endpoint of how she feels about Harrow or their past

-The narrative knows what it’s doing

When Gideon says “For the Ninth!” as she dies, and thinks “this is the loyalty they always said I lacked, this is me making good” that’s not growth, that’s part of the tragedy of the moment. Like, the Ninth does not deserve her allegiance! It is, as Gideon was the first to remind us, rotten to the core. When she dies, it’s for Harrow, and her saying it’s for the Ninth does represent on some level that she’s come to new understanding about who Harrow is and how Harrow views herself *as* the Ninth, but like this is, I mean. Bad. Harrow herself does not deserve Gideon’s loyalty! Gideon gives it to her because it is a relief. Gideon is very good, yes, but the forgiveness is a response to trauma. The second Harrow shows even the slightest vulnerability or regard for Gideon, Gideon is eager to make amends because she has been starved for any positive association to others for her entire life, and Harrow was literally the only peer she ever had to associate with. She correctly identified that resistance to Ninth society was vital to her survival and selfhood, but also that shit is exhausting. That resistance is also partially formed by that society conveying to her: we have no place for you, we have no use for you as you are, and that makes you hateful to us.

Her response to Harrow and the cavalier role then is pretty classic! It is a relief to have a place, to be able to stop fighting, to give herself over to a structure sold to her as one in which she can support and be supported, to resolve the central conflict and most complicated relationship of her life. I maintain that you the reader are also supposed to feel initially relieved and even cheered by Gideon and Harrow growing closer and then gradually unsettled when Gideon embraces cavalierhood and the increasingly invasive demands of the trials, and has her mindset adjusted in increments toward sacrifice. To feel her thoughts turn in this direction is alarming! This is purposeful, and it is purposefully mixed in with good feelings, the same good feelings that Gideon is getting, to distract from and inoculate you against what is happening just as Gideon is inoculated against it.

In addition, Canaan House is a very particular crucible. This is not only the first time that Gideon has ever been bombarded with new people and experiences, but also the first time she’s faced these unknown external threats, which pushes her to unite with the familiar (Harrow) against them. Her past and present environments have made it so that the compassion she comes to feel for Harrow gets bound up in the idea of being loyal to her house, the ‘contract’ of her new role, and the positive interaction it gives her until the idea of her offering her life to Harrow is not simply necessary in the moment but good and right. Redeeming, even, when we as readers know she has nothing she needs redemption for. 

Gideon is so very angry when she comes to in htn, and it is not merely anger at those who have wronged Harrow or anger at Harrow for endangering herself. On the First, she made a simple deal: her life for relief from the emotional state she had to live it in. Forgiveness for some kind of peace. And when she wakes up that exchange is refuted. Gideon frames Harrow’s actions as a rejection of herself out of low self-esteem but also in an attempt to deal with unresolved anger she has towards Harrow, anger that cannot fit into the cavalier role she wants to embody, anger that she attempted to trade away but in actuality can’t. Because the role she was sold, the type of relationship the cavalier and necro is supposed to be, is ultimately false. It encompasses very real and deep relationships, as we have seen, but the framework uses these real elements to its own ends, the Empire’s ends, and despite its proclamations of mutual care the relationship is always at the cavalier’s expense.

This is what it means to say Gideon’s arc in gtn is a corruption arc. It’s not that she becomes “bad,” it’s that the corrupting forces of the narrative have reached out and altered her, worn her down, seduced her even. This is Gideon’s first contact with the wider Empire, in the seat and seed of its wretched power, and it has used her goodness, her capacity for connection (and yes for forgiveness as well!) against her to further ensnare her, to draw her in line with itself. And then she dies for it, as it demands! Wow. And the we have the other side of that, which is when Gideon says “For the Ninth!” she’s signaling to Harrow that she has come to value what Harrow values, just as Harrow herself, watching in horror, has come to realize her values are very fucked up.

And Harrow has indeed realized that by that time! Harrow really does travel such a distance in gtn, but this is largely obscured from us just the same as plot details are in the book, by the limits of Gideon’s perception. And let me be clear: this is a feature, not a bug. It is not a weakness. It is vital! Integral! To the above, and all it entails for Gideon as a character and the overall themes of the series, that Gideon forgive Harrow without Harrow having “earned” it or made real amends. The fact that she does conveys to us everything I’ve just been talking about!

Furthermore, this story is in conversation with a rather particular type of Christianity, but Gideon’s Jesus parallels are even more widely applicable. Forgiveness is kind of a whole theme with that guy, and the book is also plenty interested in what it costs for a human to forgive as divinely as scripture demands (to forgive as the bond demands, as the empire demands). In some ways there are good things that may come of it, sure, but it is not a purely redemptive force for the giver or receiver. It does not necessarily resolve.

I myself can’t say that I ship Gideon and Harrow in the way people traditionally think of shipping, nor as I have traditionally shipped other characters. Still, I reject the notion that that way of relating to each other is not a central part of the questions the book is asking. Like before, when I was talking about Gideon finding something to believe in in the way the adept/cavalier bond is sold to her—although we see that bond encompass many different types of relationships it is in Gideon and Harrow’s case speaking to how romantic love (much like that forgiveness!) is not immediately and entirely redemptive. I mean, Muir does say the series is about how love can be redemptive, but I think can be is the operative phrase here, in that it’s also first demonstrating the ways it’s not, or at least not always the way we think it will be--the limits and then the power. Trying to set that aspect of the relationship aside (like a “sisters” route or something similar) is a weak and queasy side-stepping of the issue.

Remember that interview where Muir says something along the lines of like, she didn’t write it as necessarily romantic but definitely homoerotic? Yeah. 

Despite all that I do want to make it clear that I hope Gideon and Harrow work it out in the end. Just don’t assume the narrative does not understand what working it out might entail. And who knows? I might have the read all wrong. Maybe Muir doesn’t understand what she’s doing. But I feel pretty compelled by the textual evidence.

[julyarchives]

Don’t You Hear Me Howling? || (M) || 01

Finding out you are a female Alpha sparkled some rivalry inside your pack, and resulted in you losing your best friend and your life turning upsidedown, so leaving for college was the fresh start you needed. Years later, you are about to finish your degree and suddenly this past comes back to mess with your head.

→ Pairing: Yeo One x Female Reader | Kino x Female Reader

→ Genre: Smut; A/B/O AU; Omegaverse; College AU.

→ Words:  3.4K

→ Contains: Mentions of Alcohool; Power Play; Hair Pulling.

→ A/n: Hey guys! So this is our new multi-chaptered story! We have never written this kind of AU before, so please be kind if you spot any mistakes and feel free to educate us. This story will follow cisgender real-life anatomy (a.k.a. it won’t have knotting, mpreg and changes of those sorts). This took us out of our comfort zone and we enjoyed writing it so much that we couldn’t wait any longer to share it with you guys. We hope you all like it as much as we do!

→ Index: 01 • 02 • 03 • 04  • 05  • 06  • 07  • 08

Changgu and you have been friends since before you could remember. You grew up in the same pack, Changgu being the firstborn of the alpha. It was obvious to everyone that he was going to be Alpha as well, the next one to take over the pack when his dad steps down. You two grew up as best friends, and the consequence of being brought up together with an alpha-to-be is that you end up getting some of his personality traits. You were very stubborn and territorial, often getting into trouble for feeling jealous when someone tried to approach your friends. But it was all brushed off as you just mirroring your friend.

Changgu got his first heat at the age of 15, and everyone celebrated the fact that his scent was very much dominant. Everyone started treating him differently, even your other friends in common, but to you, he was the same old Changgu, and one more time your lack of responsiveness was just “she just didn’t get her heat yet, I bet she’s going to change in a few years. I swear, those two will end up marrying”

You heard that since you were a child, and for a while you let yourself believe that. He was your best friend in the world, so why not? You would be his omega, fine, he’s always treated you nicely, so it wasn’t the worst idea.  You two remained friends, even though he was becoming a different person each day, cockier and sometimes even rude, growling and bossing everyone around. You were the only one that never took his shit, but he never seemed to mind that

Until the day of your first heat. It was all the pack would talk about. You were in your senior year, and when everyone realized that your scent was much stronger than Changgu’s it was a shock. It took a while for you to believe that you were really an Alpha, and to understand what that meant for Changgu. He was actually a Beta, that’s why everyone assumed he was an Alpha when you didn’t have your scent. It explains his personality and yours being so similar. It explains everything. 

At first, you didn’t think it was that big of a deal for your friendship, but Changgu suddenly started hating you. You two had plans to go to college together and even live together at some point, but after he found out he wasn’t the Alpha, he redirected his frustration towards you. As an Alpha, you could hold him back sometimes, stopping him from being the worst dickhead. But sometimes you just let it go for the sake of the friendship. He wasn’t willing to do the same.

Once you two moved out to college, it was the breaking point. He stopped talking to you at all, barely acknowledging your presence when you two came across each other in the hall.

Eventually, you just gave up and accepted you weren’t friends anymore. He found his omega friends where he could be the dominant one, and the fact that he provoked heat in them gave him quite a reputation on campus. You were fine, though, have moved on with your life, and last year to graduate as a chemical engineer, developing a research thesis on the studies of blockers and those types of hormones.  

This thesis was so important for you because it's a pioneer one in blockers for female Alphas, using plant based hormones to help block scents but not body growth, actually helping with it, so females can not be jeopardized by smaller body structure than males. Your life was hard because of that condition, that's why changing that for future Alpha Women meant so much to you, and nothing could stop you from achieving your biggest goal in life.

All of that didn’t stop you from developing certain anger towards him for abandoning you just for some stupid hierarchy shit. 

It was a particularly shitty day. All your lab experiments went wrong, and you got so out of control when a girl tried to help that you actually lost it and growled so loud that caused everyone in the room to stop immediately what they were doing and lower their heads towards you.

You just sighed, holding back all your instincts, and left everything behind. Rushing through the way to your apartment, you stumbled onto Wooseok

“Wow, (y/n), what is going on? I could feel chills all the way across the yard” He held onto your shoulders, towering his 1.9m over you.

Another growl escaped your lips, his touch was not doing you any good. He just released you, holding his own hand behind his back and muttering an apology. Wooseok is an omega from your pack, one of the friends you used to have in common with Changgu. You guys never lost touch, especially because he was a very submissive omega. But overall, a good friend.

“Everything is going to shit today, I got caught in the rain, my experiments went wrong, I frightened everyone in the lab and I’m pretty sure I’m getting my rut soon, so help me God if anyone else fucking touches me I will have a fit.”

“Oh, I see.” He twisted his lips “Let’s throw a party, my frat house is always down for a rager. You can find a nice unmarked person to have your fun with, and getting wasted as a bonus”

“That’s why you are my favorite omega” you reached up above you and patted his hair, and his reaction was smirk proud of himself “see you tonight.”.

Wooseok’s frat was huge. He lived with about 9 other boys, and they were known for having the best parties, so you had high hopes for tonight. The place was already crowded and the music loud. You quickly looked around searching for your friend, with no problem finding him, given his height.

“Hey, you made it!” he said when you approached, and introduced you to his group of friend “guys, this is my Alpha (y/n)”

One guy chuckled, you looked directly at him

“She’s your Alpha?” he asked, condescendingly, eyeing you up and down.

Your smile quickly faded.

“Got a problem with that?” You lifted one brow, crossing your arms in front of your chest

“Nothing, your just…” He looked at Wooseok, then at you “short.”

Alphas are usually the tallest of the pack. You weren’t. Being a female Alpha was already difficult, harder to be respected, and your height has always been a reason to be discredited of your position, you always took shit for that. You hated it.

Your blood boiled, everyone around you could feel it, it was easily noticed how everyone flinched. Your eyes were fixated on the boy, ready to jump at his throat. How could he be so disrespectful to an Alpha?

“Shouldn’t have said that, man” Wooseok said immediately

You growled hand curled into fists. You started to move to go against the boy, but a hand caught your wrist. 

Changgu was looking at you seriously, a very concentrated frown, though not a mad one, just focused. You two didn’t exchange words, just stared at each other for a while. As your Beta, the influence he has on you due to your connection is undeniable. With just that look, he meant “I got this”. And you trusted him.

The stupid boy had his head lowered still, he knew he fucked up. Everyone was paying attention to what happened, your scent probably stronger than ever. Changgu released you.

“C’mon, get away from here. And learn to have some respect” He smacked the boy in the back of the head. 

You were now calming down, and feeling embarrassed for causing a scene right when you arrived. You turned to Wooseok, who was watching you attentively.

“Get me to the booze, would ya?” You asked, and he just nodded and obeyed.

Arriving at the kitchen, Wooseok passed you a can of beer.

“I’m sorry for him, he was a jerk” he said, starting the conversation

“It’s alright, I’m used to it, honestly. Just lost my head because of everything today, I told you.”

“I know. I’m sorry”

“Yeah, it’s ok.” You took a long sip. Staring straightforwardly, you continued, not daring to look at Wooseok for the next sentence. “Didn’t know Changgu was going to be here”

“You didn’t? He moved in this semester.” He said carefully., knowing your history. “I was hoping you two wouldn’t stumble onto each other, it is a big party, it had a chance of happening.”

“Lucky me, my Beta senses my every feeling like a radar” you said with irony.

“At least he stopped you from committing a homicide in my house” your friend joked.

“Shut up” you punched his arm lightly.

Encountering Changgu was something else entirely. This was the most he acknowledged you in years. You do understand, though, that it was a natural reaction, very instinctive. No matter how much time you spend apart, if you two are near enough, he will sense every strong feeling of yours and act as your right arm. 

You hated that he was looking good. He recently dyed his hair a pale blond, his cut-out black tank top displaying his strong arms were very sexy, his piercing dark eyes staring directly at you, knowing your every feeling. God, you bet the sex would be amazing, and…

“Erm, y/n,” Wooseok shifted “You horny very out loud” 

“Oh,” you adjusted yourself “Sorry” you laughed.

The downside to being an alpha about to get your rut is that everyone around you gets horny. Even without you want to.

“I’ll fix that, let me introduce you to someone” 

Wooseok guided you to the crowd. Your eyes immediately found Changgu’s again. You couldn’t keep off of each other’s now. Years without any kind of contact were replaced by his touch and all the mental talk you just had. Now the bond grew stronger. It was inevitable to find each other no matter where, and it was pissing you off. You wouldn’t be the one to cave in, not at all. He was the one who put distance between the two of you, so he will be the one to change that if he wants.

Wooseok moved out of the way, letting one of his friends stop in front of you.

“y/n, this is Kino. Kino, this is y/n, the one I talked about earlier today.”

“It’s nice to meet you, y/n” he smiled at you, reaching his hand respectfully.

He was cute. He seemed young and cheerful, yet his eyes hovering you all over showed his intentions were beyond cheerful.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Kino” You dragged his name, sounding good on your lips.

He smelled like fresh strawberries, the scent filling up your nostrils very intoxicatingly. He was in heat. Just what you needed exactly. You had to remember to thank Wooseok later.

“I’ll leave you guys to it” Your friend excused himself, probably overwhelmed with the number of pheromones in the air.

“So, I’ve never been with a female alpha before. This should be fun” He grinned, his flirty personality enticing you

“Well, I guess there’s a first time for everything” You winked at him.

“Better not waste time, then” He reached for your hand, which you gladly allowed him to, and he guided you away from the crowd.

As you approached the empty hallway that led to the bedrooms, you stopped and backed Kino against the wall.

“Your scent is driving me crazy” You said in a low seductive voice, pressing your body against his.

His immediate reaction was to hold your waist and pull you closer, Hips rubbing together so you could feel his bulge through his jeans

“I could say just the same.” was the last thing he said before closing the distance between you two.

He kissed you hard and hungry, contrasting with his soft lips. His hands immediately slither inside your shirt, his warm touch burning trails against the skin of your back. Your nails lightly grazing against his neck, using your palms to cup his face and dominantly guide him to kiss you as you pleased. He was more than compliant.

“Shall we move this to the bedroom?” you said between pants. He looked amazing with his hair messy from the way you grabbed him, and lips in a pretty shade of pink, plump and swollen.

He just nodded, chest rising up and down fast.

This time you took his hand and pulled him to the nearest door you could find, luckily it led to a bedroom. 

“Sit.” you ordered shortly and he quickly obeyed. 

He sat at the edge of the bed, legs spread, leaning back supporting himself on his arms. He looked absolutely gorgeous, his eyes following your every move as you walked towards him and stood in between his knees.

He sat up, hands reaching under your shirt and pushing it up oh so slowly, taking his time feeling you. He looked at you with lust in his eyes. After he discarded your top, he planted slow wet kisses across your stomach, his hand working on the buttons of your jeans. He took the chance to take in your alpha scent, that’s when you say his pupil dilating, taking over almost his whole iris.

“You’re so gorgeous” he said, tugging your pants down. You caressed the top of his head, running your fingers through his hair.

“undress” you commanded him again.

When both of you were left naked, you straddled him, kissing him passionately as he grabbed your ass, grinding you against his bulge. You pushed him to lay down, not wasting time to sink down on his dick. Both of you couldn’t handle waiting any longer. You started riding him and he immediately started moaning and groaning high pitched in a small voice that turned you on even more. He carved his nails on your thighs as you kept the fast pace. 

He started rocking his hips up, following your movements, getting deeper inside of you, and hitting just the right spot to make you scream.

“Fuck, baby, keep doing just like that” you told him in between moans

Kino moaned louder at the pet name. You opened a smug smile.

“Like being called that, huh?” you ask and he nodded, moaning your name “like being my baby boy?”

He muttered a few curse words and your name repeatedly.

“That’s right, baby, keep being loud for me. Sounds so good” You kept encouraging him.

He looked fucked out already below you. His sweaty hair sticking to his forehead, a blush spreading across his cheeks, and his mouth hanging open.

You leaned down, not stopping moving your hips, to kiss him again, you just couldn’t resist. The harder you kissed him, the closer you got to your high. The arousal pooling in your core the harder he thrust into you. Soon like that you were coming hard and loud, and you thanked the loud music, otherwise, everyone would have heard you. Kino fucked hard, just the way you like it, and it got you exactly what you needed, obeying your every order like a good omega.

But he wasn’t done yet. 

You got off of him, laying in the bed on all fours and he soon was inside you again, taking you from behind with loud skin-to-skin sounds, his moaning getting louder and louder. 

“Pull my hair, Kino” you managed to say.

He quickly grabbed it in a make-do ponytail, pulling it so it hurt how you wanted, making you hiss in pleasure. But it got him too confident.

“Fuck, y/n, it feels so good like that” he said and followed with a light slap on your ass.

It got you snarling.

 "Oh no, don't think you're in charge.” you warned “Hit me again and we're done, baby boy"

He muttered a quick apology between gasps. 

Being put back in his place, Kino was working his hips enthusiastically now, while you backed it up against him. He definitely knew what he was doing. He took you by surprise when he reached below you for your clit, rubbing it in circular motions in sync with his thrusts. You buried your head in a pillow, muffling the high-pitched grunts leaving your throat due to the overstimulation, but you were loving every second of it. Kinos thrusts started to become more sloppy and faster, indicating he was about to cum. You both reached your high at the same time, the pheromones boosting it, making it the most intense orgasm you had in a long time. Curses and names being thrown around by the both of you, his hands digging in your hips while yours twisted the sheets around. 

Kino collapsed by your side at the same time you laid down on your back. He approached and kissed you again, this time not so urgent, but rather slow and sensual. His hand now patted your side softly, causing small goosebumps to rise on your skin. He kissed down your neck and buried his nose on your hair, taking in your scent 

“You did good…” you started teasing “baby boy”

Kino grinned, proud of himself.

“You were pretty amazing yourself.” he answered, biting his lip.

You hugged him closer, letting him cuddle you and enjoying the way he smelled as well. Strawberries will never be the same, you chuckled to yourself. You knew that for an omega, being with an Alpha was overwhelming, so you knew, that, even if the sex wasn’t the kinkiest, the aftercare was necessary.

You took the opportunity to get to know each other better. You learned that he is a dance major, which explained the flawless hip work, and he was 2 years younger than you, which was a first for you. Nevertheless, he was good company. After exchanging your numbers, agreeing to repeat the latest activity would be good both for your rut and his heat, and a quick makeout session, you both got dressed and headed back to the party due to the need for beverages.

The party was still at its high point, everyone was drunk and dancing like no one was watching. Kino and you earn a few lingering looks for showing up smelling so strongly like pheromones and sex. But you didn’t care, you were used to it. You two found a good spot on the dance floor and you told him to stay there, so you would get drinks for them.

Back at the kitchen, you quickly grabbed a pair of red cups with a blue vodka that god knows what flavor it was. When you were heading out, someone blocked your way purposefully.

“What do you want, Changgu?” You lifted your head, staring at him face-to-face, Alpha and Beta matching heights.

“So I am left to clean up your mess while you go around and fuck the first guy you see in front of you?”

You thanked whatever bigger force that the kitchen was empty, you didn’t want to cause another scene, but Changgu was getting on your nerves.

“Oh that’s so sweet, you think that was about you?” You spilled ironically.

“Just get your shit together before I have to rescue your ass for you to grind it on someone else” He said, trying to get the upper hand.

“I don’t know if you forgot, but I’m still your fucking Alpha, so back the fuck off before talking to me like that. I didn’t need you to come to rescue me of anything, I’m pretty sure I can handle myself. And finally,...” you looked at him up and down “Why do you care who I grind on? Upset it’s not on you?” 

He curled his hands in fists, staring at you with that same frown, only this time you knew he was pissed. You got closer and whispered at him.

“Next time, all you have to do is ask, sweetheart.” You bit your lips into a grin.

You backed out to stare at him again when you saw Kino approaching.

“Y/n!” he called you, Changgu immediately snapped his head to look at him, fuming. “Is everything okay?” He stared between you and Changgu, defensive mode ready to fight in case needed.

“Don’t worry, baby” You said to Kino, but actually staring at your Beta, who was gritting his teeth at you “Changgu was just leaving.”

You walked past him, bumping your shoulders on the way, and heading back to the dancefloor with Kino.

[balkanradfem]

When we see a tree, we tend to think of it as a singular unit – just as we think of ourselves as individuals. But biologists have discovered that it’s not quite so simple. They have come to understand that trees depend on certain kinds of fungi in the soil: hair-thin structures called hyphae that interlace with cells in the roots of trees to form mycorrhiza. The fungi benefit by receiving someof the sugar that plants produce through photosynthesis (which it cannot otherwise make), while the trees benefit in turn by receiving elements like phosphorous and nitrogen that they cannot produce for themselves, and without which they cannot survive.

But this reciprocity is not confined to just two parties in this ancient relationship. Invisible fungal networks also connect the roots of different trees to one another, sometimes over great distances, forming an underground internet that allows them to communicate, and even to share energy, nutrients and medicine. The ecologist Robert Macfarlane explains how this works: A dying tree might divest itself of its resources to the benefit of the community, for example, or a young seedling in a heavily shaded understory might be supported with extra resources by its stronger neighbours. Even more remarkably, the network also allows plants to send one another warnings. A plant under attack from aphids can indicate to a nearby plant that it should raise its defensive response before the aphids reach it.

It has been known for some time that plants communicate above ground in comparable ways, by means of airborne hormones. But such warnings are more precise in terms of source and recipient when sent by means of the myco-net. 16 Trees co-operate. They communicate. They share. Not only among members of the same species, but across species barriers: Douglas firs and birches feed each other. And it’s not just trees; we now know that all plants – except for a handful of species – have this same relationship with mycorrhiza. Just as with our gut bacteria, these findings challenge how we think about the boundaries between species. Is a tree really an individual? Can it really be conceived as a separate unit? Or is it an aspect of a broader, multi-species organism?

There’s also something else going on here – something perhaps even more revolutionary. Dr Suzanne Simard, a professor in the department of forest & conservation at the University of British Columbia, has argued that mycorrhizal networks among plants operate like neural networks in humans and other animals; they function in remarkably similar ways, passing information between nodes. And just as the structure of neural networks enables cognition and intelligence in animals, mycorrhizal networks provide similar capacities to plants. Recent research shows that the network not only facilitates transmission, communication and co-operation – just like our neurons do – it also facilitates problem-solving, learning, memory and decision-making.

These words are not just metaphorical. The ecologist Monica Gagliano has published groundbreaking research on plant intelligence, showing that plants remember things that happen to them, and change their behaviour accordingly. In other words, they learn. In a recent interview with Forbes, she insisted: ‘My work is not about metaphors at all; when I talk about learning, I mean learning. When I talk about memory, I mean memory.’ Indeed, plants actively change their behaviour as they encounter new challenges and receive messages about the changing world around them. Plants sense: they see, hear, feel and smell, and they respond accordingly. If you’ve ever seen time-lapse footage of a vine growing up a tree, you’ll have an idea of what this looks like in action: that vine is no automaton – it’s sensing, moving, balancing, solving problems, trying to figure out how to navigate new terrain. The more we learn, the stranger (or perhaps more familiar?) it all becomes. Simard’s work shows that trees can recognise their own relatives through mycorrhizal networks. Older ‘mother’ trees can identify nearby saplings that came from their own seeds, and they use this information to decide how to allocate resources in times of stress. Simard also describes how trees seem to have ‘emotional’ responses to trauma in a way that’s not dissimilar to animals. After a machete whack or during an aphid attack, their serotonin levels change (yes, they have serotonin, along with a number of neurochemicals that are common in animal nervous systems), and they start pumping out emergency messages to their neighbours.

Of course, none of this is to say that plant intelligence is exactly like that of animals. In fact, scientists warn that our urge to constantly compare the intelligence of some species with that of others is exactly the problem: it ends up blinding us to how other kinds of intelligence might work. Set out in search of a brain and you’ll never even notice the mycorrhiza that have been pulsing through the earth, evolving right under our feet, for 450 million years. This research is just taking off, and we have no idea where it might lead. But Simard is careful to point out that it’s not exactly new: If you listen to some of the early teachings of the Coast Salish and the Indigenous people along the western coast of North America, they knew [about these insights] already. It’s in the writings and in the oral history.

The idea of the mother tree has long been there. The fungal networks, the below-ground networks that keep the whole forest healthy and alive, that’s also there. That these plants interact and communicate with each other, that’s all there. They used to call the trees the tree people … Western science shut that down for a while and now we’re getting back to it.

Trees aren’t only connected with each other. They are also connected with us. Over the past few years, research into human–tree relationships has yielded some truly striking findings. A team of scientists in Japan conducted an experiment with hundreds of people around the country. They asked half of the participants to walk for fifteen minutes through a forest, and the other half to walk through an urban setting, and then they tested their emotional states. In every case, the forest walkers experienced significant mood improvements when compared to the urban walkers, plus a decline in tension, anxiety, anger, hostility, depression and fatigue. The benefits were immediate and effective. Trees also have an impact on our behaviour. Researchers have found that spending time around trees makes people more co-operative, kinder and more generous. It increases our sense of awe and wonder at the world, which in turn changes how we interact with others. It reduces aggression and incivility. Studies in Chicago, Baltimore and Vancouver have all discovered that neighbourhoods with higher tree cover have significantly fewer crimes, including assault, robbery and drug use – even when controlling for socioeconomic status and other confounding factors.

It’s almost as though being with trees makes us more human. We don’t know quite why this happens. Is it just that green environments are somehow more pleasant and calming? A study in Poland suggests that doesn’t explain it. They had people spend fifteen minutes standing in a wintertime urban forest: no leaves, no green, no shrubbery; just straight, bare trees. One might think such an environment would have minimal if any positive impact on people’s mood, but not so: participants standing in the bare forest reported significant improvements in their psychological and emotional states when compared to a control group that spent those fifteen minutes hanging out in an urban landscape. And it’s not just mood and behaviour. It turns out that trees have an impact on our physical health too – in concrete, material terms. Living near trees has been found to reduce cardiovascular risk. Walking in forests has been found to lower blood pressure, cortisol levels, pulse rates and other indicators of stress and anxiety.

Even more intriguingly, a team of scientists in China found that elderly patients with chronic health conditions demonstrated significant improvements in immune function after spending time in forests. We don’t know for sure, but this may have something to do with the chemical compounds that trees exhale into the air. The aromatic vapours released by cypress, for example, have been found to enhance the activity of a number of human immune cells, while reducing stress hormone levels. In an attempt to quantify the overall benefit of trees, scientists in Canada found that trees have a more powerful impact on our health and well-being than even large sums of money. Having just ten more trees on a city block decreases cardio-metabolic conditions in ways comparable to earning an extra $20,000. And it improves one’s sense of well-being as much as earning an extra $10,000, moving to a neighbourhood with $10,000 higher median income, or being seven years younger. These results are astonishing. There’s a real mystery here, which scientists still do not yet understand. But perhaps we shouldn’t be so surprised. After all, we have co-evolved with trees for millions of years. We even share DNA with trees. After countless generations, we’ve come to depend on them for our health and happiness just as we depend on other humans. We are, in a very real sense, relatives.

- Jason Hickel,  Less is More

[strikerez]

So, I’ve been thinking for awhile about how I’d like to see the WoT adapted into a series. Which books I’d condense into x number of seasons in my ideal world vs. how I think they’ll condense the books into the 8 seasons they’ll probably get. 

For my ideal world, I’d want 10 seasons:

1: Basically what we’re already getting. EotW, plus bits of NS, TGH, and probably Mat getting healed from the dagger being pulled forward from TDR. Maybe. I’m still not sure what plotline they’re pulling from TDR

2: This is probably the most difficult season to adapt, as TGH and TDR are both very similar in their overall structure and their climaxes. We don’t need to keep three seasons where they all end in Rand “killing the Dark one.” So, for season 2, I think we’ll speed things up and have all the events of TGH and TDR end in a climax at Tear where Rand draws Callandor and kills Ishamael, plus Mat blows the Horn at some point. Possibly have the Seanchan attack Tear instead of over at Falme or wherever they first attacked in TGH. Maybe make there be some prophecy about the return being that they need to grab Callandor.

3-5: In my opinion, just basically do a season per book for books 4-6. Move plotlines around (or from previous or later books) as needed to make it work for TV. 

6: I feel you can easily do CoS and PoD as one book. There’s some good stuff that happens in those books, despite what some might say. Definitely just doesn’t feel like they needed to be split up books.

7: This one is personally my favorite idea. Take the travesty that is WH and CoT being two separate books and make one season, and just cut anything that happens after the cleansing of saidin.

8: Start with all the stuff from CoT that happens after the cleansing, then go into all of the KoD stuff, which is all really good again.

9: Just combine TGS and ToM, since a lot of the buildup to AMoL is stuff that’s happening at the same time, just kind of told to us out of order.

10: You just gotta do AMoL in one season. Preferably with an episode for the entire Last Battle that is longer than entire the first harry potter movie. (The Last Battle is longer than the first Harry Potter book)

This is definitely my ideal breakdown of a WoT show, but the one we’re getting is probably gonna be capped at 8 seasons, assuming we even get past season 3. (Here’s hoping!) With that in mind, here’s my guess for how they’ll do their 8 seasons:

1: See above

2: See above, with an added comment that they might just cut the Seanchan out of this season and have them show up later, though I worry about where they would do that. Plus how would you have Egwene end up trapped like she is in TGH? That ends up being a pivotal moment for her character arc.

3: Still would have this be TSR by itself because that book has a lot going for it.

4: They’ll probably combine books 5+6 together into one season, with a shocking battle with Rahvin a few episodes in to kill off a bunch of people then bring them back then really kill Moiraine. Then Rand has to stumble on his own for the rest of the episodes before he ends up in a box and...yeah, Dumai’s Wells. If they do this route, I definitely think they have to have Rand start the Black Tower before he leaves for the Aiel Waste in season 3. Having the Black Tower start in this season and then be ready for Dumai’s Wells just feels way too rushed.

5: My best bet for this season is they’ll do a huge condensing of everything that happens after Dumai’s Wells until the Cleansing. Not sure how I feel about that, but it makes the most sense to me.

6-8: See seasons 8-10 above.

Maybe I’m being a bit optimistic with how they’d do those last few seasons, but I just feel like way too much happens in the last 4 books to condense them to shorter than 3 seasons. 

Anyway, I am curious what anyone who sees this thinks of my thoughts. Let me know in the tags or notes! :D