#this was written probably YEARS ago at this point but

[shanastoryteller]

Congrats on finishing See Something Say Something!! I checked the notification of the first AO3 email sent out and you initially planned on five chapters.

Would you say that the ending changed considerably since you started in October? Or has that stayed the same?

thank you!

it stayed the same lol. while my fics getting wildly out of control and becoming way longer than i anticipated is pretty common, i'm pretty much never changing overarching plot when this happens. the story that i become interested in telling is typically the story then i end up telling

almost every story can be made shorter or longer. it's less about what happens and more about how that information is conveyed. things that really tend to affect writing length are perspective and breathing room

the shortest fic i have on ao3 that's not part of a series is You Were (Not) Meant For Me (posted 11 years ago, jesus T_T). the premise is that claudia was a witch who intended trained stiles to be a witch and she arranged his marriage to laura hale, the future hale alpha. this is a traditional pairing as talia's husband was also a witch married to talia in service of the pact. except claudia died before she could train stiles or tell him about the engagement. stiles starts learning magic after scott is turned. derek falls for stiles and feels like he's betraying his sister by loving him, betraying stiles by not being the alpha he deserves and not telling him about the arrangement claudia made, and hates himself the entire time, but not enough to stop himself

that's a 100k fic easy

it's 1,696 words

it's extremely limited perspective (derek's) and it's made up only of limited snapshots of moments with very little context. there's no seeing what's happening, only told, which i think would quickly grow boring if it was longer and if the real point of the story wasn't derek's self hatred and how he fails to deal with it. that's the part of the story that isn't told, really - derek does think explicitly that he hates himself, but we're also seeing it in the way he talks and thinks about himself and the people around him

by contrast we have survival is a talent, which is obviously my longest fic. we're over 500k and we've got quite a bit to go

perspective doesn't just refer to character pov, but audience pov - are you being told a story, or are you experiencing the story? this is also tied into breathing room. there's no wrong way, i've done both and will do both, but one certainly requires more words than the other in my experience

siat is told only through draco and harry's perspective, but it's all happening in real time. the audience is being taken along for this story. the thing is that that things in real life don't all come tumbling one after another, not all questions have immediate answers. when depicting character growth and a plot unfurling, i think it's really important to include breathing room to give the audience time to feel that growth and change. i'm stricter about this with siat than anything else i've written, probably sometimes to its detriment. i want you and the characters to have time to feel the effects of emotional revelations and plot hints. i want you to have the time to question and wonder about things the same way the characters do

one time a friend criticized the good place for including the portion where they were alive again on earth because it wasn't as interesting as being in hell, but i disagree. we needed that breathing room both to live with the effects of character growth of going through hell and to have time for the effects of their actions on the plot to settle before they moved forward again. i stopped watching agents of shield because we weren't given enough breathing room - there was never a chance to see the characters not in crisis, the world was always ending, ect. the alchemyst book series has the first like 3 books taking place over a day and a half. i got tired of it after that. there's no breathing room

a story where i gave up on the concept of breathing room was build your wings on the way down. i liked that fic, but i wanted it finished, and to do it with i think optimal pacing would have made it twice as long as it was. so i said screw it, avalanche time, everything is happening all at once right now. there's very little breathing room there, which i think doesn't work too terribly in part because everything is so urgent and everyone is stressed so not being able to catch you breath sort of fits

See Something Say Something did not need to be 215k, although i'm not at all complaining. i feel very happy with how i told this story. but the basic premise - sam getting his powers early, getting involved in the large hunter world secretly from his family, and dean feeling misplaced and worried about how much sam needs/wants him - could have been told a hundred different ways and all would have pulled it off, so to speak

i considered doing the the entire fic from dean's pov (as a sam girl i love his pov because all he thinks about is sam and he's so insane about it) which would have effectively cut out basically the first five chapters. i thought exploring the slow realization of what's going on purely from dean's pov, with the audience having not insight would have been really interesting, just like what I did in dumb luck or good ghost with dean slowly figuring out that sam didn't die in the crash. another thing is the inclusion of all the side characters which i did to make the world feel rich and real, but we didn't need all these outsider povs to get the basic point across. very rarely is something vital being conveyed by an outsider pov, but it reinforced and adds to the main characters. i also initially didn't have wincest, which obviously added a ton of words. i loved exploring dean's self hatred and fear and sam's obliviousness, but bringing them to a place of ignorance to acceptance to happiness is a lot longer of a journey than just dealing with dean's propriety love as an unhinged co-dependent older brother. again, i'm sticking by all these choices, i made them because i thought it was the best way to the tell the story i was most interesting in telling, but my point is that you didn't need them to tell this particular story

it was also how i told the story. we spend a lot of time wallowing in character's emotions, especially dean's and sam's, but the others as well. part of this fic is convincing you that these two brothers should fuck, actually, and doing that effectively is going to take some time, especially at this point in their lives when things are pretty normal. comparatively, fucking your brother after starting the apocalypse is pretty small potatoes. i wanted you to understand these people, to feel what they were feeling, to not feel that it was inconceivable that jess would be willing to share her boyfriend with his brother, to buy all their relationships with each other in a way that isn't purely based on convenience

part of the reason i wrote dumb luck or good ghost before see something say something was that i felt i needed a firmer grasp on who the characters are before getting into who they were and who they could be - especially john, who i feel is exceptionally difficult to write without over excusing his actions or over villainizing them. the reason john doesn't get a single pov in see something say something is that while he's a motivating and underlying factor in much of the story, the story isn't about him. it's about the effect he has on those around him, and i didn't want to sully the pureness of that effect by introducing his internal dialogue, regardless of how persecutionary or absolving it would be. it's just not about him. it's how he responds to others and how they respond to him in turn

anyway! this is another example of something ending up longer than expected, but yeah. the plot of see something say something didn't change much from posting of the first chapter and my stories rarely do - i have plot points in siat that have been there since i posted the first chapter that are still relevant and happening. "harry and draco just. cut dumbledore's fucking hand off" my beloved

[abrakuxas]

Have been reading Batman/Batfamily books from the 70s up and I'm currently at New 52.

I hate most stuff but that are some gems:

S

- Batman and Robin is great most of the time, I cannot complain. The moments I thought were not very much in character ended up being my mistake and I've managed to understand them as genuinely good moments. The arc of Damian's death and Bruce's reaction to it is great and very consistent with how he reacted to Jason's death so many years ago.

- Gotham Academy is almost perfect. I've read the first 6 issues and all the kids are so much fun for me. I don't really agree with Bruce's writing on this first issues? I feel like he is written colder than he used to be written around children. I feel like the writer is doing it from a place of what Batman/Bruce's vibe is, not really from actual understanding of his character, but that's fine cause the protagonist is biased against him anyway, so I can excuse it as her perspective on him. I'm excited to see Dami in the school, I feel like Robin's school life is probably one of the best ideas ever, it worked for Tim Drake before and gothic academy is a great vibe for Damian.

_________________________

A

- Batwoman is also very nice. I think I could've put it in S tier but I've occasionally found myself a little bored by it or skipping something cause it wasn't very interesting to me. Mostly I think Kate Kane is a great character as she had been pre flashpoint and her book did not suffer much from this terrible change in direction. That said I don't care for Maggie Sawyer, I miss Montoya's Question and her dynamic with Kate. I wish Nocturna was better developed as a character as well, as I feel like conceptually she is a great foil for Kate. Alice and Red Alice were not to my taste. The idea and vibes are good but it sometimes feels like a Harley Quinn ripoff that's trying not to be that? Not a very consistent character and having read Alice in Wonderland I feel like this character deserved far better.

- Batman Inc. is... Complicated. I'll just come out here and say it: I do not enjoy Morrison's writing of Batman. I feel like their writing is sometimes TOO meta to a point where they are talking more about the real world IP Batman™ and not so much about Bruce as an actual character. Everything is a big metaphor to what every character represents in our world and not so much what they feel and think, which makes it feel like everything happens in a dreamlike world of concepts and commentary on comics. It's comics about comics and that's boring to me. It's not badly written, just not my cup of tea. That said, this second volume of Batman Inc. was so much fun and at the time it made me FEEL things, even if they were occasionally bad things. I do not like Morrison's treatment of Thalia at all, but overall I rather read a bold yet controversial book than any of the other VERY boring and safey books that make up Batfamily books up until now.

___________________________

B

- the Batman title was not as bad as it could've been. The New 52 is overall a terrible idea and I've seen lots of people say Batman comics got the better treatment out of it and oh boy, I'm so sad for the rest of DC cause most Batman comics S U C K... The Batman title though is mostly fine. Scott Snyder is a good writer. Am I fan of everything he did with this run? Not at all, but he was bold enough to create things, lots of concepts from his run are very very fun and deserve to be core concepts of Batman. It means a lot that the Court of Owls is that popular when the last big villain we got was probably what, Hush? And Court of Owls for all it's flaws is such a better story than Hush anyway. I enjoy a lot of the relationships and character writing here too.

That said, unfortunately, A LOT of the stories are kinda too similar to other stories and feel repetitive if you've read a lot of comics. I've SEEN "Batman disappeared and we're worried about him" just before Flashpoint, I don't need Bruce to be away in a maze (even though it's far better written than Batman RIP to my taste), same thing with Endgame... I've read Contagion and we don't really need ANOTHER pandemic in Gotham. But anyway, maybe that's a me problem more than it is the books problem. Snyder is very competent and his stories can be very very fun and even though not every idea works for me, at least he treats characters with respect and care.

_______________

C

Nightwing is the reason I started reading comics back when I met him in the Starfire goes to the future episode of Teen Titans cartoons and he was THE COOLEST GUY EVER. That said WHY is it that everytime they decide to give him a solo book he is 100% solo? Dick Grayson's best traits comes from his relationship. His weird older-brother-turned-father relationship with Bruce, his guilt towards Jason's death, his situationship with Barbara, his brotherly relationship with Tim and Damian, ALL of his Titans relationships. That's Dick Grayson. So WHY is he solo dealing with "the circus you grew up with is actually EEEEEVILLL and your childhood besties (WHO???????) want to kill you"? It's not just bad and boring, it's a weird trend that has started back with Chuck Dixon's run on him. That's a celebrated run that I don't understand, it's kinda fun at best but alienating at worst, which is sad cause Dixon's Batman run is quite good for Batfamily and Dick Grayson in my opinion. Anyway, this book sucks, what's next?

- Grayson. It's not necessarily badly written but who are this people? Give him back his suit, give Helena Bertinelli her suit and put them back in Gotham. Fuck Spyral and all cops are bastards, moving on.

- Batwing: I don't care for David Zavimbe, but Luke Fox had very fun writing and high stakes, I really enjoy this character, I wish he had more time and a better name. I like the idea of rich family boy finds out the reason all this Bat kids work is that they have absolutely no one except other super heroes and doing this with an actual, functional family is so fucking harder. This is not in C cause it's boring, it just had no time to cook better stuff, but I had lots of fun.

______

D

Detective Comics, Batman Eternal and Batman TDK have the same problem: they are not actual stories about actual characters they are excuses to keep an IP. It lacks personality, it lacks anything of interest, it's Batman living through an eternal hell of generic stories that take him nothing to nowhere, you lose nothing by skipping this, this is what people that don't read comics think comics are: nothing happens and every week Batman just fights a guy again.

Batgirl: Gail Simone can write the hell out of Barbara Gordon... As an adult woman.... In a wheelchair.... With the Birds of Prey.... Why is this 35 year old calling herself Batgirl again? Disgusting, ableist and very boring. And the ableism isn't JUST on Barbara, her Brother's treatment is honestly horrendous. And Batgirl of Burnside is not much better with her Oracle persona turning into an evil algorithm that she needs to talk down and destroy??? Fuck you, DC comics. I will not get into the weirdly transphobic story of a guy doing drag as Batgirl being treated as a monster and ridiculous. I will add though: if you really needed a college age Batgirl, you HAD Stephanie Brown AND Cassandra Cain. Oh wait, NO YOU DIDN'T, CAUSE YOU DISAPPEARED WITH THEM, RIGHT YOU MORONS???? I cannot believe how much better this could've been if we got roommate Cass and Steph as Batgirls attending college together and how their different personalities work off each other and in class. Also Barbara Gordon being 21 is probably the most ridiculous thing I've ever read.

Red Hood and the Outlaws: absolutely nothing of worth here except a couple of Jason x Bruce scenes, but barely. Lobdell can't write a villain to save his life and all the characters are just either thrown into the trash or we have Jason who is not necessarily thrown into the thrash but for some fucking reason has random mystic powers and training....? I don't know, I feel like it's the most convoluted type of story I've ever read, he was raised from the dead by the League of Assassins, WHY does he have to go away from them and then train with ANOTHER also league of also assassins? Lobdell is AI Writing before AI writing existed, it's insane.

I've also read Teen Titans and I uh... Rather not talk about.

[faceofpoe]

Poe, I was delighted, nay, obsessed with the post you reblogged about Collapsed Coruscant. What do you think would happen there after everyone with any credits fucked off to Hosnian Prime or wherever?

Ha, hello friend! Thank you for the much-needed break from doomscrolling. XD

My morbid obsession with Coruscant has always been around how we've seen it (it's so twisted! it just keeps burying itself, layer by layer! the iconic episode 10 Luthen&Lonni shot is of course an excellent example of the old mostly-forgotten infrastructure but my favorite glimpse of the depths is actually in the final Clone Wars season (there's a fucking lake! fucking what. and even THAT is like... so HIGH relative to the surface) (the SURFACE! there's some twisted remnant of a dead planet down there!) (I have gathered through the course of researching for a TBB fic that the TCW portrayal is largely born from a canceled video game called 1313? I think? Lost to the Dark Times the Disney I imagine. Anyway I digress)(MiniPoe just came down to tell me about his Sonic Encyclo-speedia and something about Metal Sonic getting too much backstory(?)(maybe?)so I lost my train of thought)).

BUT if we take a moment to imagine the infrastructure that must go into keeping the lower levels habitable (I'm not sure what the canon (if any) on how deep one can go) with food and water and air (I mean - AIR, at some depth surely it's just suffocating surely??) -

Side tangent there was an old EU novel in the New Jedi Order bonkers era where a mass evacuation of Coruscant/collapse of the government-ish happened and the novel Traitor has a character wandering the desolation of the planet and all the destruction and I don't remember a lot from it (there were def monsters though) but it's probably where my obsession was born.

Additional side tangent one of the EU X-wing novels has a fun little bit with a star destroyer buried (somehow??? these books were written pre-prequels, mind) under the city and it blasts its way free and just MAYHEM DESTRUCTION DEATH like millions of people just -

LAST side tangent in I thiiiiink the EU Jedi Academy trilogy (do not quote me on that) (also pre-prequels days) the Very Young Solo twins wandered off and ended up finding their way to the bottom of Coruscant where they met a dude who was like... a self-proclaimed king of the underworld (I think he'd once been some govt lackey under Palpatine maybe? I read these like 14 years ago lol) and he'd fled and was ruling happily in the depths and upon being informed 'oh hey yeah it's not like that anymore the Empire is gone you can come back up now' he was all "why would I I am a KING down here?" and just fucked off back to the basement.

Point being the EU was ridiculous as all fuck but it had fun playing with Coruscant before we had a Lucas-approved visual of Coruscant.

BUT if all the wealth up and fled Coruscant after the Empire. Hm. I mean, we still see a significant govt presence on the planet a handful of years later in Mando s3 I believe? So I like to imagine there was a sense of 'hey let's not murder trillions via negligence' but as time goes on and instability heightens and whatever the fuck First Order schisming or some shit (sorry I'm the worst sort of Star Wars fan (the type who thinks Star Wars would be good if only it were good))-

I feel like Coruscant would actually become a bastion (lol (no one gets that joke probably)) for remaining (wealthy) Imperial ideologues. Like - maybe some money would flee but I actually wonder if plenty wouldn't move in and continue enjoying living atop all the poor denizens of the depths. Content to live in the shadow of former Imperial glory and leave the New Republic to its rebuilding.

Ensuing power struggle with underworld warlord sorts who have been moving up since the Empire was yeeted? Waiting until the New Republic gets bored rehabilitating the galaxy to come all the way up and claim the prime real estate?

Eventual massive division and power struggle among a bunch of chaos factions, basically, is my proposal. Eventually, winning becomes more important than maintaining the infrastructure and supply lines. Eventually, maybe, the vicious competition for said supply lines ends up severing them altogether. Plenty of safer business to pursue, in the galactic rebuilding. Coruscant slowly fades from the greater galactic awareness. Left to its madness. Left to tear itself apart. Left to rot. Eventually left, undoubtedly, by many of the same sorts who set it on its slow death spiral in the first place.

Coruscant eventually goes dark.

Coruscant eventually goes quiet.

Every new level constructed through the millennia was, of course, built to be the best, the top, built to last.

How strange to finally have one emerge the victor, standing proud atop a dead city.

But the planet is just the same thing it always was, far back as history remembers - a tomb at the heart of the galaxy.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Now I need a lab safety wizard! U

se your PPE, do not microwave food or eat food. Specially in the Ethidium bromide area. Stop touching things with gloves that touched contaminated areas pLEAse!

You can see I'm frustrated lol

I have sent a helpful Lab Safety Gnome your way. May he guide you, and any students in your proximity to respect the Lab Safety Rules.

[shakingparadigm]

the fact that apparently they had ROUND 7 prepared for a long time now is kinda embarrassing. they really watched us spout our foolishness for like a year

[recycledraccoon]

I think my thoughts on the penultimate episode can be summoned up as disappointment over a potential we didn't get to see, and why that's ok. (This got long, 1.4k oops lol)

Am I a fan of The Rat Grinders? ABSOLUTELY. I think I started liking them even more when they were full-on confirmed villains. As fan's of the edited show, watching with a week between each episode to theorize and think, I loved seeing and theorizing over these 6 fucked up kids. We know Kipperlily prior to the second half of sophomore year, while she obviously still had her anger and jealousy over TBK's it wasn't ENTIRELY unjustified and completely out of control (although some aspects were utterly and absolutely unfounded and ridiculous). Jawbones file mentions her language being "I think Aguefort likes them more", "The school takes it easy on them", and "Half of them don't even go to classes." All of these are true things people in this world would notice. It's not until AFTER their Mountain of Chaos chaperoned trip, at the end of the year, that KLCK switches to "I hate them." The Bad Kids further briefly discuss if Jace would have asked Jawbone/looked for "students with rage disorders." I think specifically mention it being a disorder is important. Acknowledging its there, KLCK WAS trying to get help for an issue she had. They didn't talk to Jawbone about it, but did decide Jace must have given he went on that quest with TRG's. They further briefly talk about students getting randomly mad, and yes they specifically joked about Fabian shitting in class, but WE also remember the Soil club student getting so mad after having gotten that tainted soil. With the 30 Riz rolled, Jawbone's file ALSO specifically talks about Kipperlily loving her adventuring party. We know things weren't perfect, its obvious from when talking about their name change, but its still there and canon. Kipperlily loved her adventuring party. This is all just Kipperlily, mostly with our information from the first part of ep.16. It is not touching on the rest of the members, especially Ruben and his dreamscape we saw, or of his distinct 180 musical tastes POST Sophomore Year Spring Break. The implications of something happening to them during that time is pretty evident and acknowledged. So we're fans, watching a show, spending so much time thinking about not only our infamous protagonists, but also our villains. Many of us adults, getting older, thinking on the tragedy befalling kids and feeling empathy. So yeah. It's a disappointment over an unseen potential. Specifically tho? Its the potential we could have gotten on The Rat Grinder's thoughts and motivations that could have been revealed through dialogue. Dialogue that we got very little of in what could be considered a significant exchange of dialogue and not bits. I always have high narrative expectations from this show, due to its long standing history of SETTING those standards each and every season. This one episode just fell short emotionally while watching, comparatively.

AND THAT'S OK AND ABSOLUTELY NOT THE BAD KIDS/INTREPID HEROES FAULT

On the narrative side of things, The Bad Kids have had an incredibly stressful past 3 years. From day one, they have been involved in life or death stakes situations. It's always been do or die, and they've died, sometimes more than once. They've lost people and faced traumas that go often unaddressed. TBK's ENTIRE highschool experiences have been a revolving door of violence and unhinged situations. They've also always kinda been assholes, insular and more than a little mean especially to those pegged as enemies. We know them, know they have good hearts and intentions, and love and side with them constantly throughout because The Bad Kid's are our heroes. They are still teenage assholes sometimes, but that is something we love and forgive them for. The thing about this recent battle is that they are very used to the situation they are in by now. TBK's have to prioritize, move fast and hard, and get a job done so countless people don't die while something evil rises in their world. Emotions have been high for them all season, rage especially which is absolutely unsurprising on multiple fronts, and it's absolutely showing in what few dialogue exchanges we have. The Bad Kid's entered that gym for the singular purpose of stopping the situation, saving lives, and making sure something evil didn't arise to power in their fucked up world. Nothing new. They hid, already knowing where the final confrontation was going to be FORCED to happen in due to the nature of the ritual, and prepped. On point and smart of them. Then they entered the battlefield, very quickly getting to business. They know their skills, their friends and how to work together as a devastatingly effective team making heavy hits and masterfully controlling a battlefield despite the chaos. This is what The Bad Kid's Do. They got Ivy and Oisin out of combat as fast as possible, Oisin didn't even get a turn. They took out a high-damage long range attacker and the enemy wizard. They know how powerful and important Adaine is on the field, and they knew Oisin would have been the same. They crippled the enemy with the slow spell, effectively taking Mary Ann out of the running until it gets dispelled later on. Fig saw Ruben's high damage level 9 spell and dropped her ploy to get him out of combat as soon as she could. It was too dangerous to have him up, and while the hell bit was uncomfortable in the moment, it is absolutely on brand. This is what they have to do, if they want to stop Porter, who is our real main big-bad. Remove as many obstacles from the battle so more of them can focus on the fight that really matters.

This combat wasn't ever gonna go any other way, unless the dice gods decided otherwise.

This is what The Bad Kid's Do. In regards to the IH's, it is VERY important to acknowledge that while I've mentioned having high narrative expectations, this is still primarily an improve comedy show around a group of real people's DnD game. It's also a show they have a tight filming schedule for, with back to back days and long hours which we KNOW from the talk-backs leave them very tired. Like any tv show they also have a limit on how many episodes per season they can even produce. I think it was a real and genuine benefit to Sophomore year that they were doing it live, because it gave more time between sessions for the IH's to mull over information and whats been happening in-game. This is also a very well developed campaign world they haven't played in several years, which I certainly know would effect me in how I played. We still have one more episode, the Finale, and so much always happens there. I have incredible faith in Brennan as a DM and storyteller, for all that his players have a huge say in how any story he tells unfolds. There is a VERY real chance that what happens in the finale completely changes my mind on episode 19, and I will go back to rewatch with absolute glee because I know of the coming emotional catharsis in relation to The Rat Grinders. There is also a very real chance we don't get that in the way we want it, but that will be ok too. I will still love this season, rewatch it and laugh and have fun. The best part of having a fandom, is watching us take canon apart to fuel endless au's, fix-it's, character studies, ect. Taking crumbs and going wild with it is par the course, especially when something in a show has left us wanting in the moment of watching it. I think more than anything, I would be and am more upset from infighting and genuine anger directed to each other and especially towards our Intrepid Heroes. It is not wrong to be upset with an episode of a show, but it is to take those feelings out on others, be in in defense from Rat Grinder's fans or justification from Rat Grinder haters. So yes! I was disappointed with this particular episode emotionally. I still think it was funny, I think the combat was brilliant and fun to watch. I still love this show and this cast, and could never dream of being mad at them for how they played a game, and for the fun they were finding within the act of playing it as the well-known unhinged improv comedians we know and love.

I'm excited for next week, buuut I am absolutely consuming fan-content to help deal with my emotions, both the highs and lows.

[orlopsexdungeon]

kudos for fictionalized t.e. lawrence for managing to have both these complexes at once. truly cinema's most special boy

[wardensantoineandevka]

I've been going through the massive DATV text file (the excel sheet one of ALL the text, and it's really interesting noticing entire quests that have been cut.

I'm sure when people finally get around to hearing about some of these cut scenes or beats (I'm thinking of the three I noticed relating to the Wardens and one scene with Lucanis and—from what I can tell, I might be wrong—had the Viper in it that had a totally different ending for Lucanis's questline), they'll be really bitter and annoyed about it because they're interesting scenes, but I personally am seeing some of those scenes and going, "Super interesting! But I can see exactly why they cut it, and I'm actually REALLY glad they did because it does not fit that well tonally or thematically with the rest of the storylines and the overall core theme. It works well in isolation and is compelling on its own out of context of the larger narrative, but when considered as part of the whole, it feels like it goes against the thematic heart of the story and what it's all together actually about, thus unfortunately does not serve the overall narrative that well. So, yeah, I agree with cutting or rewriting that."

But, then, I lament already people not being able to think about it that way.

[psqqa]

i loooooooooooove listening to madonna's 'frozen' and thinking about jiang cheng, because first it's like "you waste your time with hate and regret you're broken when your heart's not open" and "love is a bird she needs to fly let all the hurt inside of you die" and oh yeah, that's that Good Jiang Cheng Shit, but then the song's "you" is complemented by an "i" and now suddenly this narrative is interpersonal and the mind turns to the logistics of it all. how would this situation arise? who would even be saying this to jiang cheng? what on earth could possibly have happened that jiang cheng finds himself being told by someone that "if i could melt your heart we'd never be apart"? and all of the options are so so so so good:

first up, the obvious: demon-siren-ghost lady. i'm not up on my chinese mythology enough to know what the appropriate option would be, but there definitely is one. cultures love coming up with evil monster women who lure innocent, horny men to their untimely demise. and jiang cheng's one of the guys in this world who deals with that kind of shit. and now he's done fucked up and gotten himself ensnared or whatever. perhaps he needs to be rescued. perhaps he just rolls his eyes and goes "yeah tell me something i don't know" and zidians his way out of it no sweat. like i said, the obvious option. but still. You Love To Ponder It.

second option, and perhaps the most in keeping with the tone of the song: some poor, unfortunate woman who's been sent by some guy somewhere to Seduce sandu shengshou for nefarious political purposes of some kind. she's being paid a lot of money. she's very good at this. she's.........pretty desperate at this point. like, seducing jiang wanyin, the proud, fearsome, ambitious, and super repressed head of the yunmeng jiang feels like it should be totally doable if you come at it with the right mindset and tools, and she definitely has the right mindset and tools, but here she is, in jiang cheng's bedroom, throwing everything she's got at this guy and he's giving her nothing. it is deeply painful for everyone involved and i am having a great time.

and then there's my favourite option: jiang cheng's recurring psychosexual nightmare. every night jiang cheng lies down, closes his eyes, and, baby, it is all happening here. we've got wen qing and jiang yanli. we've got wei wuxian and his mom. we've got every auntie and matchmaker who's ever sniffed contemptuously at him and declared him unmarriable. we've got qin su. we've got jin zixuan. hell, we've got jin guangyao, lan xichen, and nie mingjue along for the ride as well, i mean, who hasn't felt some kind of way about those three, amirite? like the gang is all here (jiang fengmian excepted, of course), all rolled into a dazzlingly horrible chimera flashing from facet to facet to facet pleading with him to bend even as it tells him he's broken. and then every day he wakes up, drenched in sweat, and has to get up and receive fantasy ancient china emails. truly the kind of soul-crushingly horrendous but delicious bullshit that makes jiang cheng one of the all-time blorbo greats.

what a song. what a guy. yeah i'll put that baby on repeat for hours and rotate between these three scenarios in hideous glee. god i love being alive.

[vault81]

I went ahead and made a quest tracker for Fallout New Vegas, and it's DLC's as well! Does the same thing as the FO4 one, tells you what the quest is called and where the quest giver is located! This time though I included the unmarked quests since it has some unique weapons and companion quests in there!

(https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-aD7mcsfRiA0R0MXloUPmLhNnqk5_lFWTbhLWpPYn2A/edit?usp=sharing)

[cuteniarose]

The consequences of my poor financial decisions are here!!

[memento-morri-writes]

It's been well over a week now (maybe two??) but I'm still plugging away (ever-so-slowly) at this vignette about Zara and Rook. Zara's POV is a lot of fun to write, now that I have a better sense of her character. Writing this has really solidified in my mind the kind of person she is and how she acted when she was Rook's captain and mentor. She's very calm and collected in comparison to Rook, even when under a lot of stress.

Anyways, have a little snippet that I'm proud of from today, featuring the origins of the coin trick!

Pacing back and forth across her cabin floor, she rolled the coin back and forth over her knuckles again and again. The motion was easy, almost mindless, more muscle memory than real intent. The coin trick had been her favorite way to soothe her nerves for years now. She’d picked it up out of idle curiosity after watching a street performer dining in a tavern in Bon Largo, who had chatted with her for over an hour as she fretted about something mundane, never once dropping the coin from their fingers. The same performer had later tried to steal her coin purse and ended up with nothing but a new scar for their trouble, but Zara had learned two important things from the encounter: Not to trust a warm smile and a pretty face, and that keeping her hands moving kept her mind from dwelling too much on worrisome things.

one-time tagging @space-writes because they commented on my tags about Rook learning the coin trick from Zara in one of my other snippets from this piece.

[muninnhuginn]

The instinctive reaction for both Xiahou Dan and Yu Wanyin when they take their first lives is to just lean into the unreality of the situation. It's so much easier if their victims are just all paper people, 2D characters, and nothing else. But they still keep count of their kills, at least at first. The 2D person rationale is just to try and convince themselves when deep down they know better.

And the fact that Shanyi (number 27) is the one that finally makes Xiahou Dan stop counting. He hadn't given up after he killed the maid, despite the low point in his life that represented, but still trundled on as his bodycount piled up. Still tried to survive long enough to meet his companion. That *Shanyi* is the turning point that makes him embrace his role as puppet/tyrant emperor and stop trying to escape the narrative. And it was a death he didn't even directly *intend*; wasn't even conscious at the time. The death of someone who was killing to protect their closest person.

After he embraces his role, he still remembers what it was like in those early days, so even as he continues to hide from Yu Wanyin, he still offers to take any potential murders from her hands. He knows he's already too blood-soaked for it to make a difference for him, but Yu Wanyin still has hope. It still affects her when she has to dirty her hands. She's still a stranger in this land, compared to him who is now in many ways indisguishable from the tyrant role he plays.

And Yu Wanyin offered him hope when he had long given up, so of course, he wants to protect that. Even if it means killing others.

In the end, he's not so different from Shanyi.

[itsalwaysdark]

i think itis funny in the past when i would list my interests as if i post abt them i donot post abt the shit im into rly Mainly bc im not rly Into Into anything anymore i occasionally watch or read or play something but i dont do fandom stuff rly much.... just sometimes i get brainworms

[b0ngwater69]

Reminded of dog poem symbolism discourse and it's got me thinking of a banger of a poem i wrote a while back and presented in a creative writing class (community college so a decent variety of ages/backgrounds) and the only complaints abt the dog symbolism i got were from a couple of younger women who didnt like/were confused by me using a dog (thing they liked) as an allegory for depression (thing they see as bad)

so basically write your dog poems who give a shit almost nobody offline will see anything other than a baring of your soul and vision

[anthromimicry]

just thinking about how many 'lives' misao lived throughout the years and as a result, how many people could potentially be wondering what happened to her, because she affected their own lives in one way or another. like in one of these previous lives, she worked as a orchardist for this wealthy family whom would open up their apple orchard in late august to the public and close it in november. so as you can imagine, misao had to uhh. Kill a lot of people within a short amount of time.

and because this wealthy family provided her with housing + a paycheck in exchange for taking care of the orchard year-round, she would literally 'stock up' on what she needed for months ahead within it as horrible as that sounds. and everything was okay for a while, as the family mostly kept their distance from the orchard since they trusted misao to take care of it. BUT they made an unexpected visit one day and discovered all of the terrible things misao stored in her fridge. + yeah... that marked the end of her time as a orchardist with this family.

but the thing is that she had this repeated customer during the time the apple orchard was open to the public who like liked her. and he wanted to properly court her. BUT by the time he tried to do so, she had disappeared without a trace from the place. and just a few weeks later, that wealthy families bodies were found washed ashore a lake a couple of miles away.

and this begs the question whether this guy is still wondering what happened to her + whether she had anything to do with what happened to the couple. but this is only one example of how misao has unintentionally left little 'breadcrumbs' of her continued existence around the world, so there's got to be more than just that man who remembers her and that's like. DAMN... misao really has messed up a lot of people's lives AHHH and she is certainly not as sneaky as she believes she is sometimes