#though it feels all very cliche and overdone

[ikeepwatchinghelicopters]

Random thought: probably a modern TMFU AU where Napoleon is still a thief, but it took longer for him to get caught. Imagine that Waverly is already running UNCLE and has Gaby and Illya as agents. Illya was also doing criminal activities before he was recruited by Waverly, but he was probably more of an assassin rather than a thief (though maybe he pulled of a legendary heist one time and then never stole anything noteworthy again). Anyway, Napoleon is a very famous and skilled thief and once he gets caught by the police, Waverly gives him a deal saying he can avoid prison if he comes to work for UNCLE. Napoleon agrees (mostly because Waverly took Illya along when he came to make the offer and Napoleon immediately wants to climb Illya like a tree), but he's very distrustful at first and tries to rebel against all the restrictions that he has now. But as he works along with Illya and Gaby, he learns to trust them. And then he finds out that Illya got recruited basically the same way he did and he cannot quite believe that honest, proper, well-trained Illya was once a wanted criminal. And when he finds out that Illya was actually behind that one legendary heist, he absolutely loses his mind.

I guess this is basically feral refined lone-wolf thief Napoleon learning to trust others and that Illya is a total badass on top of being hot.

[phyrestartr]

any tips for new writers

YUH BOI I have a lot lol

Write what you like. You will naturally put more effort/passion into something you're writing for yourself/smth you're writing for fun. Don't do it for clout, and don't write JUST to post. Also, don't write things just because ppl tell you to/request you to. Itsk to let stories perish if they're not working/you don't like it (you might figure out a way to save said story after some thinking, too)

If you read a fanfic/book and really like it, try to figure out why it spoke to you. Did you like the dialogue? Did you like the descriptions? Did you like the stylization? Then, try to incorporate that into your own writing in your own way

If you read a fanfic/book and you really DON'T like it, try to identify what you didn't like LOL. It really helps with crafting your style/story if you identify and avoid shite you personally think is cringe/uninteresting/overdone/cliche-y in a bad way/etc.

Accept that first draft is gonna be clunky and probably kinda bad. You pretty much just gotta get the story down even if it doesn't flow too good because then you can go back, reread, figure out what does and doesn't work in terms of prose and flow and character interactions

Don't feel like you need to write something super long and detailed. Detail and flowery descriptions are good when used in the correct moments, but don't harp on something meaningless for too long if it's not really important in the theme/moment. Writing short stories is the most fun and the best practice for getting into writing since it just has to be like one scene or a very short arc before ending. Lots of readers like the long fics (I mean, same) but they're really hard to write, so don't feel like you need to write a novel or anything. keep it short and sweet for a while!!

Use a thesaurus. Helps you learn new words and new ways to describe something

Themes are helpful for keeping a story feeling coherent. Ex. I use lots of 'godly' descriptors and comparisons of natural disasters (storms, forest fires, earthquakes, tsunamis) to describe how dangerous/powerful a person or feeling is, and I try to stay in that theme to build a better picture of someone/something

Show, don't tell! This is kinda based on your preference, though, since sometimes you just wanna say "bro was mad." It depends on the situation imo. Generally, describing the way someone is physically feeling instead of emotionally is more impactful and lets the reader think and make choices based on the info you've given them. Not everything needs to be spelled out--readers are quite smart and can put together their own conclusions even if it's not what the writer initially had in mind. (Ex. "John felt fury boil in his blood" vs "John's veins ached with heat and his face flushed an angry colour")

It's ok to make mistakes/not perfect a scene. Sometimes you just wanna move on lol

Have fun! If you're not having fun, what's the point homie u-u

hope that's at least a little helpful! LMK if y'all have any other questions/specific Qs or anything. I'm not a pro writer so maybe this is all useless idk LOL

[mask131]

Alright, after all this time, here is my opinion (kind of review?) of Netflix's The Monkey King, aka The Monkey King 2023 (at least one of the Monkey King movies of this year). I haven't done movie talk in a long time, but here we go. Also, spoiler-free!

Let's begin with the question everybody wants to know about. Is this movie bad? Definitively not. You cannot say in good faith and honesty that it is a bad movie. If you really disliked the movie, the most you can say is that it is "average" and not average as in a "mediocre, okay, decent, basic" kind of way - average as in "the bad elements are balanced by great ones". But if you ask me, the movie is good. Or more precisely it is "Good, but not without its flaws". It does have some little flaws here and there that prevent it from being an excellent or perfect movie, but it is a good/great movie.

Let's talk already of the little flaws first. Many people have already pointed them out before, so I won't expand on them much. I will say that I watched all of the movie in one go, without stopping, without even realizing how time went by, I truly watched the movie with ease and in one go - I originally just wanted to watch the first part and then stop and take it back later, I ended up binging the whole thing, so you know, classic Netflix type of product where you just do it all in one go (which is a good sign!). There was just one moment I cringed a bit, and that forms the weakest segment of the movie for me, and it is the second part of the "fake orchard of immortality" scene. But this is tied to the way the Dragon King and his minions are handled.

The Dragon King is a very cool-looking character based on an excellent idea, but I have to admit that it is one of the most... surprising elements of the movie because while in some scenes he is written as a great character that works, in other scenes he dangerously borders the overdone cliche. Overall he is an enjoyable villain and a good character that fits in the whole created world, but I admit some of his jokes fall a bit dull for me (though the finale made hm even greater than before - in all the senses of the term). It is a bit in the image of his villain song, "Take the world by storm": when I first heard it I cringed at some lyrics and jokes in the beginning and wondered why this song was here, but then I re-listened to it, loved it and it can't get out of my head. It perfectly translates the Dragon King character as a cool concept and great idea that sometimes is pushed a little bit too much when things should have been a bit more subtle or shortened. Another thing that I would call ambiguous is the heavy influence and references to Disney movies, of which the Dragon King participates as he is the most Disney-villain villain a Netflix product ever created. I think all this Disney influence will split people in two - on one hand some people will dislike it because they will see as just copying what has already been done before, and perceive there a lack of true imagination ; on the other hand some people will love it because they will get back the feeling of the Disney renaissance movies and will appreciate the homage and having back traditional Disney villains and characters "as they used to make".

For me the biggest "flaw" if you can call it a flaw - which isn't really a flaw because it doesn't "hurt" the movie, it would be rather... the biggest "blend" of the movie is the way the new plot is handled. Because the writers of the movie took no real risk, took no chance when devising a new plot to convey the movie. I am not talking about the adapting part - because they did a wonderful job at adaptating in a simple and concise way the entire whole first part of Journey to the West, into a simple, easy to understand, one hour and a half movie mostly aimed at a young audience. And that is definitively one of the good points of this movie, because it isn't an easy feat at all! But as a result, to make sure they reached this state, they went with a plot that is absolutely "classic" in all the senses of the term. Everything was expected, nothing in terms of plot-twist or plot-advancement felt new, I could already guess what could happen and where things were going. Mind you, I am an adult who watched numerous Disney and Pixar movies and who knows Journey to the West and several of its adaptations, so of course I wasn't going to be surprised. Again, this movie clearly is aimed at a young audience - one without an extensive cinematographic knowledge, and one probably unaware of Journey to the West, so I guess for this target audience the "generic-ess" or "bland-ness" of the plot won't be much of a problem. Plus, I am forced to concede that the new plot to convey the events HAD to be as simple and classic as that, because this was the best way to again, simplify the original material to create an easily accessable, reachable and understandable movie for an audience unaware of the source material or not familiar with the culture it came from.

Some people have also pointed out that "the cultural mix sometimes work, sometimes doesn't". I agree with this too. Because one of the specificity of this movie is that it tries to truly be a modern piece (and thus goes with the Percy Jackson, Asterix and co treatment of having more modern elements in Ancient China), and it tries to truly be a Chinese-American movie, by mixing purely Chinese landscapes, material and characters with American references and influences (such as the Disney one). Sometimes it works in funny way (I can't stress ow hilarous it is to have Sun Wukong live in a Disney-like universe), other times it makes you wonder if this was a wise decision.

So anyway, that was the little flaws that prevented the movie from being perfect. As some reviewers said "It is great, fun, fast, hilarious and cool-looking, but a bit odd from time to time."

But what about the GREATNESS of the movie? Oh, the things I saw, the things to say!

If the creators of the movie did not take any risk plot-wise, on the contrary they took all the risks with the visuals. Can I just say first that the animation is absolutely gorgeous and wonderful? And I want to stress something that many cynical or worn-down reviewers tend to forget: today's technology, and today's animation, is something wonderful and majestic and a prowess of technology and technique. I remember when everybody bashed on "Elemental" for the plot or the characters, and nobody took the time to point out how GREAT and FRIGGIN AWESOME the visuals and the animations were. Hopefully I have a bit of an "anchor" here in the form of... my mother. Because my mother stopped watching animated movies around the 80s or so, and only started back looking at some from the late 2000s onward (and mostly because I watched them as a youth), and every time I share with her a new animated piece, she keeps pointing out how amazed and shocked she is at animation style or animation processes that, for me, as a kid who grew up with the wonders of the early 21st century, were just "normal". It really puts into perspective how far we got into the animation world and how exceptional these movies are today - even if the content is bland, the creation, the material and the effort put in them is wonderful.

And Netflix's The Monkey King is definitively one of those movies that benefitted from the recent boom in unusual and daring animation experiences these late years (Elemental, the last Puss in Boots movie, the recent Spiderverse animated pieces, this Disney movie which featured the first openly gay character and that was completely ignored by the press and whose name I forgot about...). They truly played all the cards, with fast-pace action combat, unusual designs, vibrant color palettes, a true work on camera angles, daring to shift animation from 3d to 2D for some sequences, gigantic landscape works, etc etc... Now, I noticed that some people were put-off by some design choices in this movie. It is true that due to their choice of more cartoony designs for the supernatural beings (to contrast them with the human beings), some of the Immortals in particular can come of as better-versions, but still a bit off putting, of some of the 3D animated Addams Family designs. I admit this might not win over everyone - but at least that is a risk and a dare the anmators chose to still go into the unusual and bizarre. Again, the uniqueness and work and daring risks with the visuals truly complete and "excuse" the "genericness" and "expectedness" of the plot.

The other great thing about this movie is the characters. It has been a long time since any children movie characters grew on me, but their handling of the Monkey King was a perfectly simplified and child-suited interpretation of the original Monkey King - not sweetened up, but without playing too much into the horror aspect either, and using perfect metaphors to convey in a simply way what the character is about (the metaphor of the teenager more irresponsible and unwise than an actual child, the concept of the wild child that was never raised or loved by anyone and so got on his own all throughout his life). There is no real subtlety in the characters, just like in the motifs (the HAND! THE HAND IS EVERYWHERE!), but at least they don't try to do overtly subtle or complicated stuff - they know they are doing a simple, down-to-the-point, let's-go-and-have-fun-and-not-think-too-much, type of cast and story, and they do ther best to do something simple but efficient, unbsubtle but fun without being overtly blunt or hitting you too much on the head either. And the character of Lin actually grew onto me a LOT, much more than I would have expected. I actually liked the character - and the fact that she is a child depicted as intelligent, mature and reasonable might be part of this.

People also heavily praised the music, which I agree, the soundtrack is really cool. The movie is very fast-paced - which did bother some reviewers who said they couldn't just pause and breathe - but personally I enjoyed it, because again it works with their simplification and heavy reliance on visuals and characters more than plot, the fastness of the action and the quickness of it all allows you to just take the whole movie whole, without anything dragging on too much. Again, simplicity is key - and for example the whole "end of the fake orchard sequence" felt somehow cringe, precisely because there they slowed down the action and took a bit too much time on something that truly wasn't worth as much.

When I talked about the risks they took with this movie, I shall include one risk that I had doubts about but actually kind of paid off - the stick. It is not a big spoiler, but Sun Wukong's magical staff is here a full character, a sentient being, and acts as the "make some weird noise mechanical companion" to the hero, which has been a character archetype ever since Star Wars, the original Clash of Titans, and other American movies of this era. I had BIG doubts at first, but ultimately it didn't felt very cringe or badly handled, and it worked quite fine. Ultimately, I also have to admire the team for going this route because I do not think this iea had been ever brought up in any adaptation or retelling of Journey to the West - I think this is the first time the magical staff is treated as a character rather than a prop, and this participates in the uniqueness of this movie.

Of course, let's also conclude by the big effort made by this movie to have a majority of Chinese-descending participants for this piece. In fact, I will conclude my review on this final thought: I am quite certain that there are lots of Chinese cultural references I, and others, missed in this movie, due to not being familiar with Chinese culture. Everybody saw the Disney influence ; but I had to dig up and research to find out the influence on this movie of other animated pieces of China. For example, I discovered that this depiction and incarnation of the Dragon King seems to have been heavily influenced by the famous Chinese animated movie of the 70s, "Nezha conquers the Dragon King", a movie I have to shamely admit I had no knowledge of the existence prior to a few days. So I am fairly certain there must be other easter eggs and references to Chinese movies, animated pieces or mythological adaptations out there.

[dinogoose]

and now you’re mine (it was all by design)

“So uh,” Buck begins, leaning against the truck and crossing his arms over his chest, “Come here often?” He asks in the suavest voice he can achieve.

Eddie looks around, confused, “To a house fire?”

Not deterred, Buck nods his head.

The older man shakes his head, exasperated, as he continues rolling up the hose, “Yes Buck, it’s our job. What is wrong with you?”

(or, buck uses pick up lines to get with eddie. it doesn't go well.)

Buck's up late one night, going down the rabbit hole, following article after article to ease his active mind.

After he finishes reading one titled ‘6 Literary Masterpieces That Almost Never Saw the Light of Day’, he stumbles upon one called ‘40 Best Pickup Lines Ever!’ which is a bold claim, but Buck clicks on it anyways.

The lines are all ones Buck has heard before, the very cliche, corny, classic pickup lines. Ones that would likely never truly work on another living, breathing person.

Although, Buck is desperate.

So he makes a plan, he’ll finally confess to Eddie, finally ask the man he’s been in love with for years, out.

But of course, because he’s him, he’s going to use these overdone lines to do it. What could go wrong?

(Later, when he tells Maddie about this plan, she smacks him upside the head for being an idiot)

—

His first attempt happens on a call- which in his defense, it was as they were wrapping up, and no one was injured.

He gives himself a little pep talk, trying to psych himself up. The only thing it does however is make Ravi think he’s crazy as he watches him mutter to himself.

Then using all the confidence he can muster up, he struts over to Eddie.

“So uh,” Buck begins, leaning against the truck and crossing his arms over his chest, “Come here often?” He asks in the suavest voice he can achieve.

Eddie looks around, confused, “To a house fire?”

Not deterred, Buck nods his head.

The older man shakes his head, exasperated, as he continues rolling up the hose, “Yes Buck, it’s our job. What is wrong with you?”

Buck huffs, ready to explain himself, or maybe try a different approach, when Bobby calls for everyone to get back in the truck.

Eddie shoots him one last baffled glance before he gets on the truck.

Buck shakes his head, slightly dejected. He’ll just need to try again.

—

Another opportunity presents itself during some downtime they have in between calls.

Buck finds Eddie lounging on the couch, watching Hen and Ravi playing an intense round of Mario Kart. (Buck is pretty sure there’s money riding on it)

He plops down on the cushion next to him, which Eddie pays zero mind to as personal space doesn’t exist in their friendship.

Eddie’s hand is opened, facing palm up from where it’s resting on his thigh. Buck bumps their knees together, attempting to gain his attention.

The older man turns to look at him, his eyebrows furrowed together asking a silent question. Buck leans in closer,

“Your hand looks heavy, can I hold it for you?” He asks, gesturing to Eddie’s hand. Eddie’s eyebrows scrunch together even more as he squints at Buck.

“What?” Is what he eventually asks, still scrutinizing Buck as if the answers to all his questions will be displayed clearly on the blonde's face.

Buck just sighs, long and drawn out before turning away from Eddie.

“…Never mind.” He dismisses, missing the way Eddie’s lips tick up into a smile.

Buck is certainly feeling less sure of his plan, but hey, the third time's a charm right?

—

At the very end of their shift, Buck decides to give it one last go.

They’re removing their turncoats from their last call when Buck suddenly turns to Eddie,

“Are you from Tennessee? Cause you’re the only ten I see.”

“…I’m from Texas,” Eddie answers slowly, as he hangs up his coat.

“I know you’re from Tex-“ Eddie walks away towards the locker rooms, “-as. Man, I thought that was going to work.” Buck whispers to himself, another failed attempt under his belt.

Though this time Chimney had a front-row seat and is now cackling so loud Buck can feel his ears ringing.

“What was that?” Chim asks in between his laughter, Buck shoots him a glare that makes Chimney laugh harder.

Despite not wanting to tell him in the slightest, because Chimney’s an asshole, Buck feels like he should tell someone about this plan (this plan that’s stupid and half-baked at best).

“I’m trying to… ‘pick up’ Eddie, using pick-up lines.” He tells him using hand quotes. Chimney doubles over, nearly cracking his head on the linoleum.

“God- sometimes I can’t even believe you’re a real person, Buckley.” He stands up, wiping his eyes, “Well, I’m off to tell Hen about this, but,” Chim glances over to the locker rooms, “good luck, lover boy!” Then he claps Buck on the back, before leaving him standing alone.

Buck trudges to the locker room, not prepared for the awkwardness he and Eddie have been experiencing all day (that’s entirely his fault).

“Hey, man.” Eddie greets casually as if what happened five minutes again didn’t occur.

“Hey,” Buck says back, before changing from his uniform into his civvies with practiced ease.

Eddie is already done, and holding his duffel, due to his head start, but he seems to be waiting for something.

“Do you want to come over?” The brunette asks, catching Buck a little off guard.

“Oh- uh- yeah. I’ll follow you home?” It’s phrased as a question, but they both know this routine well, so Eddie just nods affirmatively.

He leaves and Buck takes a moment to slam his head into his locker.

—

Eddie unsurprisingly beats him home, (home, he meant the Diaz’s home) so Buck takes a moment to freak out on his porch.

What if Eddie confronts him? Calls him out for being a weirdo who’s been horribly flirting with him all day?

God, Buck doesn’t think he’d survive if Eddie turned him down, even if it was gentle and kind, because Eddie is a wonderful man who does his best to be good (and he succeeds, it’s one of Buck’s favorite things about him).

Buck honestly might be a minute away from a panic attack when the door in front of him swings open, startling him out of it.

“Did it hurt?” Eddie asks once the door is fully opened. He’s changed into a soft t-shirt and sweats, and Buck feels his mouth dry up.

“What- huh? Did what hurt?” Buck asks, meeting Eddie’s eyes, which seem to be sparkling with… amusement?

“When you fell from Heaven.” The older man deadpans. Buck squints in confusion at him, until everything clicks.

“You dick! You knew!” He shouts, jamming a finger into Eddie’s chest. Eddie just snorts at him, dragging him inside before shutting the door.

“Of course I knew, I’m not an idiot.” The words are mean, but he sounds incredibly fond so Buck lets it slide.

“Oh, my god. I cannot believe you right now.” Buck declares dramatically, though his hand now rests over Eddie’s heart, craving the contact.

“I’m sorry!” Eddie exclaims through laughter, “I had to, you’re my favorite person to mess with. But to answer your early question, yes, you can hold my hand for me.”

Buck shoves him a little, then grabs his hand intertwining it with his own.

“Chimney made fun of me for using pick-up lines on you.” Eddie’s smile grows upon hearing this.

“Rightfully so.”

“You’re an ass.”

“Yep, one hundred percent.” Eddie agrees easily. He tugs Buck closer to him, their faces inches apart, “Now will you kiss me?”

Buck closes the gap between them, slotting their mouths together perfectly. They move against each other in sync, always in sync.

When Buck bites gently on Eddie’s bottom lip the older man gasps, opening up for Buck’s tongue.

They break apart both panting.

“Hey, what material is your shirt made of?” Eddie asks suddenly, still slightly out of breath. Buck tilts his head dazed.

“‘Cause it looks like boyfriend material.”

(here’s it is! it was slightly rushed because I’m traveling currently, but I hope you still enjoyed! thank you for reading!)

[takeariskao3]

Hi Hannah, I can’t wait for the next chapter of tpfy! You mentioned a couple of next gen tpfy fics you were thinking of writing, are those still in the works?

hi! you sent this message several weeks ago and i didn’t have the heart to answer at the time because i thought it was going to be “i wish but no” type of an answer

and it still *kind of* is a no. or maybe not a no but definitely a not right now, but i figured it’d be fun to share anyway. i do have a story that lives in my head sometimes. i really want it to be about mothers and daughters and sisters and girlhood and growing up. ruby is the main pov character and i imagined the timing to be the summer after her second or third year at hogwarts. it doesn’t really have a plot (and the ones that’s i’ve thrown around feel cliche and/or overdone)

HOWEVER … i do have a prologue. from ginny’s pov and an epilogue too but that’s spoilers

so here, have some mom ginny to soothe the soul (under the cut for length)

Prologue

Parents don’t have favorites.

At least, that’s what her mum always said, even though Ginny never quite believed her. Molly Weasley had seven children, surely she had to prefer one or two over the others. It was only reasonable.

Ginny had asked, of course. Dozens of times. Always as some sort of joke, but still… she’d asked.

It’s Percy isn’t it? Wait, that’s absurd. It’s got to be Bill.

Her mother would sigh and give Ginny her most exasperated expression, then follow it up always with the same statement.

Parents don’t have favorites.

It wasn’t until Ginny was fourteen that she realized she’d asked so many times because she’d always suspected it might be her. And she couldn’t bear the thought of maybe, possibly, once being the favorite and somehow letting her mother down enough that she would lose that designation.

Then, when she was sixteen, she stopped asking altogether.

Because parents don’t have favorites, except maybe when a child gets taken from them forever.

It took until she had her own children to understand the lunacy behind such an idea.

Turns out, it’s true. Parents don’t have favorites. Ginny loves her three children fiercely, without question, without hesitation, and absolutely equally.

However, one caveat to this fact is that her children, however much she loves them all the same, are vastly different from one another. And therefore her relationship with each is distinct and unique, and completely individual to them.

Lily, their first, turned the we into three, and Ginny couldn’t define or quantify the emotion that she felt when Harry held his daughter for the first time. Lily looked just like him, just like Ginny said she would. With jet black hair that stuck up all over the place; bright green eyes that were always observing; and a thin, angular face that never quite filled out, even as a baby. Ginny often joked that she did all the work and Harry got all the credit, but deep down she knew she wouldn’t've had it any other way. Lily gave Harry something he’d never had in his entire life. Someone that was wholly and completely his.

She made them a family.

And if Lily kickstarted the whole thing, James, their baby, completed it. Mostly because Ginny was terrified of following in her mother’s footsteps and somehow birthing twins, but also because James was an impossible act to follow. He never settled as a baby, always kicking and flailing and babbling to his sisters’ delight. As a toddler, he never did things in the right order. One day he couldn’t be bothered to pull up on the ottoman, perfectly content to crawl places at fifteen months old, then the next, he simply stood up and started running. Once he was finally up and going, he never sat still. As a child he was constantly wandering and exploring and yelling “Mum! Look!” right before revealing a toad, or an anthill, or, one time, a very disgruntled opossum.

And that was James: happy, determined, and someone who didn’t even know the concepts of fear or failure existed.

Lily was the overture, James the finale, and Ruby — their sweet, darling Ruby — was the glue that held it all together.

She came pretty soon after Lily. Not Molly Weasley soon, but still, soon. And it’s an understatement to say Ginny was overwhelmed by day to day life with a newborn and a two year old. Thankfully, Lily was pliable enough to get carted between uncles and godparents and the Burrow for little spurts of time when Harry was traveling for work or when Ginny desperately needed a bath. And somewhere along the way, as Lily grew and flourished into independence, Ruby became Ginny’s constant companion. Ruby was her snuggle bug, her little shadow, her mini-me as she was the only one of the three who’d inherited the Weasley copper hair. She’d been strapped to Ginny’s chest in a wrap for the first eight or so weeks of her life, and subsequently got extremely used to Mum’s presence. She wanted held to sleep, not just rocked to sleepy. She wanted “Mummy, hold you?” and “Mummy, cuddles?” anytime, day or night. Even when it was middle of July and they had every window thrown open to coax in some hint of a breeze, Ruby was snuggled into Ginny’s side, sweaty and hot and fast asleep, but never quite close enough to her Mum.

She was hardly ever needy, or dramatic in her attachment, just resolute. Ruby knew what she wanted, and usually, what she wanted was Ginny. However as she got older, her timidity developed into quiet confidence, and then into staunch beliefs of right and wrong. She didn't have to learn what was good or what was bad, Ruby just knew. Inherently. Intrinsically.

She got that from Harry.

Because heavens knew Ginny had her struggles with knowing what was right and what was easy. What she didn’t know, was that it was possible, as a fully grown woman, to look up to an eight year old; but as Ruby stared down a girl twice her size and told her to stop tormenting the birds at the observatory, Ginny knew in that moment that her daughter was quite possibly her hero.

Ruby was also Ginny's to protect. Hers to grow and nurture and advocate for. The other two were just different. Lily had Harry, God-forbid James ever need anyone, but Ruby? Ruby was hers. Ginny would burn the world three times over for any of her children, but she was quite confident in Lily and James’ own potential for conflagration, and Ruby was the only one who would need her to.

Because Ruby wasn't a fire, she was an ocean. Thoughtful and deep, sometimes tumultuous, but steady as the tides.

It took Ginny a long time to understand that her protectiveness was largely unnecessary. Because when it came to fire versus ocean, ocean won. Every time.

But again, just to reiterate, parents don’t have favorites.

[the-story-dragon]

Officer Black Belt (2024)

Oh man. This movie had me HOOKED. Right from the characters all the way to the plot, it was all very interesting. There was nothing mind-blowing about the movie in the sense that it progressed how you would expect any typical action movie to progress. A protagonist who is kickass at martial arts who seems to have no higher purpose in life apart from having fun. He then somehow gets roped into helping some division of law enforcement by putting his fighting skills to good use. He saves people which finally makes him feel as if he has some purpose in life. He gets injured and is expected to stay out of action until he recovers but he gets together with his friends and they put their heads together to catch a dangerous criminal who is on the run. So, a lot of cliches and a lot of already-seen plots. But, the movie was still entertaining to watch and did keep me on the edge of my seat once in a while.

This is my first time watching something that Kim Woo Bin starred in and I can definitely get behind the hype for this man. His acting is good, the action scenes were pulled off well (though I don't know if he had a stunt double for the more complex choreographies) and he conveyed the emotions of the character really well. The protagonist was not insufferable in his actions and dialogues and the nuances of the character and the character arc did seem realistic.

The side characters were also really likeable. The friend group was super supportive and for once no one ruined the plan/plot by doing something stupid. They were actually resourceful and not accessories to highlight the protagonist's wit and strength. They had their roles to play in the story, albeit small.

The law enforcement officials were also pretty alright. It was interesting to see a straightforward team without the usual plot twists of spies and moles within the department. There was not much slander of the law enforcement. I don't know how realistic that is, but it certainly was refreshing to experience. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for it to be revealed that someone was a spy, but that never happened.

The movie addressed the issue of child s*x trafficking in South Korea, in a tasteful manner that emphasized the seriousness of the matter while at the same time not disturbing/traumatizing the audience much.

The movie was an easy watch. It was interesting to see how a different department of the law enforcement functioned rather than the overdone ones on media. You can sit back, relax and watch the movie with your favorite snacks without the fear of throwing your snacks away in anger, frustration, fear or grief.

Overall, 7.2/10

Definitely would watch again. 100% recommend.

[unclewaynemunson]

( 🥐 anon :D )

i'm writing my first steddie fic and i was wondering if you had any tips for writing them. or just tips in general. i've written before, but i haven't written ships before. ):

HELLO MY LOVE!!!

Honestly me writing always kinda feels like a bunch of possums in a trenchcoat pretending to be somewhat articulate, so i feel completely and utterly out of my depth giving writing advice tbh! It's really fucking sweet of you to ask that though, seriously, that's so kind of you and I've been thinking about it all day.

Anyway, I'm just gonna go with an overdone cliche here and say, find a story worth telling. And for me personally in fandom the most important thing would be characterization. Like, stay close to the source material and keep asking yourself, "Would they do this? Would they say this? Are they turning into someone I want them to be or are they still true to their essence in the show?" And even with that basis you can take a loooot of liberty - for me it always kinda feels like coloring I guess. As long as you stay between the lines you won't be changing anything too major about who they are, but it's all up to you whatever the hell happens within those lines. You can choose your own colors, make your own patterns, be as creative as you want with it. So don't let yourself be confined by rules too much, and most importantly, have fun with it :D Don't write for the likes or the recognition, because while that's certainly a great part of it, the very best part of writing is having a blast just you and your keyboard and nothing else.

And lastly, I'm suuuuper curious about what you're gonna write, so if you wanna tell me about it, my askbox is so very open! (I also get it if you wanna stay the lovely anonymous 🥐 and don't necessarily want me to read your shit so don't feel pressured tho! Hope you're having a great day and sending you all the good writing vibes!!)

[jefsuibhne]

“Babbling like a Pagan”

1

I had some big spiel worked out in my head I’d planned on writing today

Oddly enough though, Pastor Brian covered the exact same talking points except he did it much better.

He even used the same verse I’d planned on opening with. (John 3:16)

Writing this stuff out helps me better conceptualize.

The theme was “unity”

I’d cracked smug jokes at all religions for so long that’s it’s been a rough habit to break.

Not that I should never joke about my own, I should just go about it a better way. Ragging on Christians is overdone and cliched- the low hanging fruit, besides I AM a Christian, I should strive to unite , not divide. There’s enough Christian in fighting as is.

Besides, if I wanna troll people’s religions; the more fun choice is Satanists and Luciferians.

They take themselves embarrassingly seriously.

How can people be so campy yet so serious at the same time ?

I once said, “Anton Lavey is just spooky Ayn Rand.”

Haha

One is quickly reminded that they do NOT turn the other cheek, they get butthurt instead.

2

Unity

There are no worse enemies for Christianity online than Christians themselves.

I attend several denominations and not once have I heard any of them say, “our doctrine is the ONLY way to Salvation.”

I expected to hear it a lot, surprisingly not though.

Christians are way more diverse than I’d known.

At the end if the day, it’s about that core belief in the message of Jesus Christ.

Online on the other hand is a different story.

So much infighting it’s tragic

The trivial differences dont even matter at the end of the day.

I count the Mormons as my brothers in Christ, despite everything else

They do profess JC as their Lord and Savior.

They very much practice what they preach

Which I highly respect.

I’ll come back to the subject later on and see how this post aged

3

Prayer.

I’m slowly making my way through the Bible and have only delved much into the gospels.

I’m a minimalist when it comes to prayer on my end.

Let’s look at what Jesus tells us about prayer

”“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. “This, then, is how you should pray: “ ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. ’“

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6‬:‭5‬-‭10‬, ‭12‬-‭13‬ ‭NIV‬‬

My understanding from that was we should emphasize and pray the Lord’s Prayer most often.

No neeed to add or take away from it, as God knows what we’re praying for before we do.

I know talking about it is akin to “being like the hypocrites on the street corners, but I feel mabye my experience will help someone else some day

I don’t make big lists of things to pray for. I make mental notes throughout the day and then pray the Lord’s Prayer throughout the day

That doesn’t mean one should keep prayer to a minimum.

Quite the opposite in fact

Once I pray the Lord’s Prayer, I close my mouth and LISTEN

Spend some time in quiet adoration

Silence speaks volumes.

It’s sometimes not until days later that the silence is translated to “the message”

I place not much value on memorizing creed after creed and prayer after prayer

When does all that become “babbling like pagans” ?

Maybe I’m taking that a bit too extreme.

Lord’s Prayer

Listening time

Repent

repeat

I’ll get better at writing again the more I do it.

Once I work all the rust out of my brain

Thanks for reading

Stay tuned

Stay weird

Js

[moonsun2010]

So I watched Squid Game

[deartouya]

“ dating hcs ” [ izuku midoriya ]

-> summary: the mandatory, cliche, what dating izuku midoriya would include headcanons.

-> pairing: deku x gn!reader

-> word count: 1018

-> warnings: gn!reader, fluff, talks of food/eating, reader is seemingly a pro hero

↳ Izuku is such a devoted and focused boyfriend, despite being so nervous, you’re always at the forefront of your mind.

↳ He’s naturally very protective, overly aware of the dangers both you and he faces in everyday life, so he’s always checking up on you- asking what you’re doing and where you are. He doesn’t want to seem oppressive or controlling, he just wants to make sure you’re okay.

↳ He plans date nights months in advance so that he’s able to attend and no one has to cancel or postpone dates. And by plan, I mean plan. He knows the venue, his outfit, and any additional activities. He knows how precious free time is for heroes and he takes every step available to ensure you have time together.

↳ Izuku’s doting doesn’t stop after the date either. If you’re not living together, he walks back to your apartment- no matter how hard you protest. And the moment you’re out of his sight, even if he’s in his car out front, he’s texting you. Asking if you’re alright and safe and if you need him to do anything. He likes knowing you’re okay.

↳ Any sort of strong pda turns him into a flushed and stuttering mess. The longer you’re together, the better it gets- but he’s always at least a little flustered around you. He can’t help it, every time he looks at you he’s hit with the full force of affection and it sends his brain into overdrive.

↳ After he gets more comfortable around you and in your relationship, he loves to hold your hand- no matter where you are. It’s such an understated and casual affection, one that doesn’t attract too much attention but it helps him know that you’re there with him. It also pleases the hidden possessive part of him, letting everyone around you know that you belong to each other.

↳ A large part of him is also extremely pleased anytime you show any sort of possessiveness. You called him your husband once on accident, not even thinking about it, and you’d never seen him turn redder. You were worried he might’ve passed out, he was unable to form a coherent sentence or thought for several straight minutes. He just liked the idea of being yours.

↳ Very overdone, but I do think he has a notebook on you. Nothing too creepy, just things he wants to be able to remember about you down the line. He takes note of all your favourite shows- the characters you like, you hate, and the arcs to talk about afterwards. Doesn’t matter that he’s never seen them- they’re important to you so they’re important to him. He also has a list of all your favourite and least favourite foods so that he’s able to order for you when you’re not there.

↳ Izuku definitely has a very cheesy collage of pictures taken on dates and throughout the duration of your relationship. He also has drawn more of those initial + initial hearts in not just your notebook, but all of his notebooks than he’d like to admit.

↳ Izuku isn’t the best cook in the world, that’s for sure. Not incompetent, his mom taught him the basics to make passable food to survive, but it’s definitely not enjoyable. So, he adores you when you cook for him. No matter how good you are, he feels so cared for and looked after. You made him soup when he was sick and he nearly started sobbing. It’s something you put time into and he loves it.

↳ He gets so rigid when you fall asleep on him during movie night, staring down at you and refusing to move an inch. Sleep is such a vulnerable state and it means so much that you feel that comfortable around, that you trust him. Halfway through the movie, he does pull a fluffy blanket over your shoulder though, tucking you further into him. Nearly passes out when you cuddle into him, you’re just so cute and he loves you so much.

↳ Izuku always has anything you could ever need on him at all times, just in case. He has your favourite snacks and candies in his backpack, plasters and first-aid kit, the chap stick you use, and at least four hair ties. He likes knowing you can depend on him.

↳ He’s such a chatterbox [ affectionate ] with you. He’s always talking to himself, but the moment he gets comfortable with you and you tell him that you value his opinion- he’s rambling to you instead. Most of your free nights are spent splayed on a couch or bed, Izuku’s head cradled in your lap as he talks about a new improvement on his suit or the movie he went to see the day before.

↳ He really likes when you let him lay on your lap, hands in his hair. Feeling you twirl green curls around your fingers is so calming, lulling him into a cuddly, sleepy mess. He insists on returning the favour, but you could play with his hair all day. He’d let you too.

↳ Izuku wants to be around you more than he can, desperately. This leads to him spending all his free time on the phone with you. He calls you when he’s on his way home from work, asking if you need anything or if you’re hungry. He can pick something up? Are you sure, honey? He gets a break during patrol? On the phone with you. Doing mundane paperwork at his office? He’s calling you. And if you’re ever forced apart for a week, or god forbid a month, he’s on the phone every night, talking you to sleep and admiring your pretty, sleepy face. He always signs off with an “i love you, honey” and obnoxious kiss to the phone.

↳ Overall, Izuku crafts such a close, intimate relationship with you. You’re both able to read each other like open books, knowing every expression down to minute details and knowing how to flip any negative emotions back into contentment and happiness.

[thehaemanthus]

Haves and Have-nots

SURPRISE turns out when I have deadlines I’m really good about writing quickly

Wrote this for @azrielshadowssing ‘s ACOTAR Writing Circle. This is part one of a Modern AU Feysand fic, to be continued by different writers for part two and part three. Can’t wait to see what others do with this!

Enjoy!

Feyre hissed a sharp note as her elbow knocked into a cup of paintbrushes. Firing off curses under her breath, she quickly straightened the cup and dumped the paintbrushes back in before shoving it on the nearest unoccupied space on her shelf.

Scrambling across the room— and tripping on the drop cloth she’d laid out— Feyre slammed her hand on her phone to check the time.

They were going to start arriving any minute.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she continued to mumble obscenities. It didn’t help her cleaning speed, but it did make her feel better.

Frantic hands hastily capped paints and shoved brushes out of sight. Feyre carefully toted her easel and half-finished creation to a corner, making sure it faced away from the one room studio. The drop cloth was a crumpled mess, missing the crisp corners and lines it usually received when Feyre folded it up. She had time to take her brushes to the sink before the irritating scream of the buzzer signaled her time was up. She hustled to the front door of her apartment, buzzing the anticipated guest up and unlocking her front door before sprinting back to the sink. Then she sprinted to the window and shoved it open a grand total of five inches, each of which was a hard fought battle that the window screeched through.

It would be fine. This was fine. Finish cleaning, get out the snacks, act like she was tastefully and intentionally unprepared to host this movie night that she had been obsessing over for a week now.

“Feyre, love!”

The tension that squeezed Feyre’s heart released. That was the power of Mor’s voice, that was how warm and welcoming it sounded.

“Hey!” she tossed over her shoulder, rushing to finish cleaning her brushes. “How was your week?”

“Dreadful,” Mor slid next to Feyre, wrapping an arm around her waist and kissing her cheek. “So many meetings. Why didn’t you save me, Feyre?”

“I like this extra affection,” she joked through the burning blush on her face. Mor was a very attractive woman and Feyre was not immune. “What did I do to deserve it?”

“It’s a down payment,” Mor said. “So that next time, you’ll come up with some reason to need me and I can skip my meetings.”

“I think you secretly like sitting at the head of a table and being in charge,” Ferye said. “No matter how much you complain.”

“Please, Feyre, I don’t sit at the head of the table unless I’m dealing with the male investors and I need to stake my claim.” Mor tossed her hair over her shoulder. On anyone else it would look overdone and cliche, but no gesture or look on Mor was ever anything but perfect.

“You’re done with those stuffy quarterly meetings though, right?” Feyre dried her brushes on a rag. “Back to the real work next week.”

“Hm, we have that meeting on the new product branding,” Mor leaned back out of Feyre’s space. “Are you getting to sit in on that?”

“I am.” Feyre couldn’t help the proud grin. She was just a team member, just another graphic designer for Mor’s growing empire, but she got to sit in on this big meeting. A year ago, Feyre never would have seen where she ended up. Even more shocking— that Mor would some day end up in her dinky little studio apartment.

She hadn’t expected to strike up a friendship with Mor, but somehow it had happened. Two months after graduating, she ended up at Mor’s tiny start up. A year later, and things were no longer so tiny. But their humble beginnings had made everyone close, and for some reason, Mor had been especially taken with Feyre.

“Can I help with anything?” Mor asked as Feyre finished drying her hands.

��Um…let me get out some bowls and snacks, and you can help put it all out.” Feyre darted around the small kitchen, bringing out the grocery bags of cookies, chips, and candy she had purchased for movie night. Certainly a dent in her budget, but a worthwhile one.

Mor tore open a bag of chips and poured them into a bowl. “You got a lot.”

Feyre busied herself with setting out the snacks, avoiding Mor’s gaze. “I like to…know I did a good job.”

“I know,” Mor said. “There’s enough here to make everyone happy. Now come on, I know Cassian said he’d bring the projector and screen, but we can move some stuff around before then.”

The only reason Feyre scored on hosting this movie night was because of the studio apartment. Just big enough to prop up a big screen, lay out some rugs, and lounge in a pile like they were at a sleepover. Cassian was bringing the projector and screen, and everyone had said they would bring blankets and pillows, so all Feyre was really providing was the space and the snacks.

She only hoped it all went right. She liked these people that Mor had introduced her to. The youngest, Tarquin, was still three years older than her. At 22, almost 23, Feyre often felt naive and clueless.

And it wasn’t just her age. It was who she was and who they were.

Mor had her own company, started with money and the connections she had from her family. Others owned their own businesses or held high-power jobs, sat on boards of directors or managed massive inheritances.

And then there was Feyre and her studio apartment on the edge of the city. Fresh out of college and vowing never to get another roommate unless the alternative was being unhoused, it could take upwards of an hour to reach her new friends at their apartments, townhomes, the fancy restaurants they didn’t need reservations for, and the exotic coffee shops they always wanted to meet at.

Sometimes it felt like Feyre had fallen into a dream and couldn’t wake up. Sometimes it felt like a nightmare.

Slowly, guests trickled in and her studio was transformed into a giant slumber party. Feyre scrambled to make sure everyone was comfortable. She handed Azriel a pack of Cadbury chocolate buttons she got just for him because he didn’t like sharing his chocolate, then monitored the microwave as several bags of popcorn rotated through. When Amren arrived, she made sure the older woman had a wine glass in her hand, and she kept Cressida’s gluten-free cookies set aside until she showed up.

“Oh, sweetie, you didn’t have to do that,” Cressida beamed. “How nice! I brought my own snacks but…”

“Oh,” Feyre deflated. What, Cressida didn’t think she could be a good host?

“No, no, this looks so much better!” Cressida grabbed the box of cookies and sauntered to the growing pile of pillows on top of Feyre’s rug. At the far end of the room, Cassian and Mor were snapping at each other as they tried to get the projector set up.

She did a quick headcount. Everyone was present and accounted for. Well, those who were able to make it, anyway.

“Ready to start?” Feyre’s voice rose in an attempt to be heard over the din.

“Not yet!” Mor waved a hand, eyes glued to her phone. “Rhys will be here in ten minutes!”

Several emotions competed for space in Feyre’s head. A bit of shock, panic, joy, and dread.

Cressida perked up. “I thought he was out all week?”

“Just got back a few hours ago.” Mor waved a hand. “It was one of those fancy retreats where they talk and eat and drink more than they work.”

“Don’t you know, that’s called networking, Mor,” Cassian snickered.

“The point is,” Mor said. “Rhys will be here soon.”

Rhys would be here soon. Rhys was coming. To Feyre’s small little studio. The ten minutes rushed by much too quickly, and then he was there.

“It’s movie night, not a happy hour—”

“How did you get here so quickly?”

“Sit, sit— no, you idiot, take off your shoes first!”

“Where’s the remote—?”

“Rhys, your shoes are so shiny I can see my reflection.”

Feyre stood on the edge of the mess, watching as everyone greeted Rhysand. He welcomed their affection with an easy smile, obediently removing his shoes like Mor wanted and folding himself to sit down. He was out of place in his gray button up and slacks, made just slightly casual with rolled up sleeves and a few buttons undone.

“I dropped off my bags at home and came straight here,” Rhys explained.

“Mor, what favor did you trade to get him to come?” Azriel asked.

“No favor,” Rhys said. “No convincing needed. I’m happy to be here.”

Sure. Happy to be in Feyre’s small apartment, sitting on the floor, after days in one of the most luxurious resorts in the world, talking to people who made more money in a month than Feyre did in years.

“Ready!” Her voice was a little too loud, but she didn’t let that stop her from starting the movie, getting settled, then handing a bowl of popcorn to Rhys.

“Thank you, Feyre darling,” Rhys grinned. “And thank you for inviting us—”

“Shh!”

Feyre shared a grin with Rhys. She was captivated by him until he broke the staring contest. While Rhys watched the movie and threw a handful of popcorn into his mouth, Feyre watched out of the corner of her eye. God, even the way he chewed was attractive.

She would not be surprised if everyone was clued into her massive crush by now. It started out as annoying attraction— a man too pretty for his own good. Then Feyre actually talked with him, and she could feel that attraction grow into something more dangerous.

But she maintained control of her rational mind. It was fine to have a crush. Healthy and normal. She knew nothing would, could ever come out of it. Rhys was seven years her senior and out of her league.

A harmless crush, one that was embarrassing should anyone ever mention it. But Feyre would get over it one day.

One day, she would be able to sit next to him in the dark, watch a movie, and retain what was on screen. But when the movie was done and the lights flickered on, grumbles and stretches and plans for the next meet-up floating in the air, Feyre found she hadn’t really enjoyed the movie at all. She had just thought about Rhys.

Her friends gathered their things and helped clean up. She pushed them out of her house, insisting that she could handle it herself. It was late, they needed to get home, Rhys had just come back from a flight that day and needed to rest. The offers for help and cajoling flew back and forth for ten minutes as Feyre worked to empty her home.

Soon, Feyre thought she had gotten everyone on their way. But when the door closed and the sink was running in the kitchen, she realized she missed a person.

Rhys washed the dishes silently, without complaint.

“Oh— Rhys, you don’t have to…” Feyre scrambled over. “Really, it’s fine. Leave it.”

He smiled at her. “I’ll wash, you dry and put away.”

“You should get home,” Feyre insisted. “You must have had a long day.”

“I’m fine,” he shrugged. “Slept a bit on the plane. It’s nice to stand and be a little active.”

He wasn’t stopping, and Feyre couldn’t move him. So she dried the dishes and put them away as he washed.

When she was on the last of the bowls, he gently touched her lower back. “I’ll be out of your hair soon.” He brushed past her to her bathroom.

Feyre finished cleaning the kitchen. Tomorrow she’d do her chores, sweeping and mopping, dusting, there was a load of laundry to do…

“What’s this?”

Rhys’s voice blended into the sound of the city at night— sirens and people talking, cars rumbling and music drifting out of windows. She spun around, watching as he turned her easel to see her work in the light.

“Oh, that’s just…” Feyre wrung her hands, stepping closer, not knowing if it was to explain or to gently remove his hands and hide her painting once more. “Um. A small project.”

“Looks great.”

“Yeah, it’s almost done,” she shrugged. “Just uh, something for fun.”

It was more than that. Feyre didn’t know why she concealed the truth.

The painting was based on a family photo, a loose retelling of a depressing story. The photo was crisp and clean, showcasing lifeless smiles and leeched personality. Feyre, Elain, Nesta; three young girls molded into identical shapes for this occasion. Their mother, ice cold and beautiful, and their father, prideful.

Feyre did not remember the day they took that picture, standing in front of their new home before the housewarming party.

“Your family, right?” Rhys murmured. “Mor told me that your mother passed when you were young.”

“That’s the last picture we took all together before she died,” Feyre nodded at the canvas. “Well no— obviously that’s not the picture. I meant, the painting is based on the picture.”

“Based on, but not the same,” Rhys said softly, still staring at the canvas.

“Yeah.” Feyre wrapped her arms around herself, shielding something vital. “How could you tell?”

“I don’t think any parent would accept this as the finished product,” he chuckled. “You don't look very happy.”

“No.” Feyre smiled. “I remember really hating that dress.” But that’s only part of it.

Rhys hummed. “You look like you were a stubborn child.”

Feyre tilted her head back and forth, noncommittal. “I didn’t act the way my mother wanted me to act.”

“And your sisters?”

Elain looked like a doll. If they all looked slightly lifeless in the photograph, Elain was completely dead in the painting. Stripped of her own personhood as a child, she had to grow and come into her own. Nesta, on the other hand, looked mean. An outsider would think her cruel. Feyre knew that her oldest sister was just fierce, and it took time, maturity, and experience to learn how to channel her fire away from the undeserving.

“We were all…different people,” Feyre sighed. “I don’t know. I tried to capture how I felt during that time, who I thought everyone was. It seemed more honest. I look at that photo, and…I used to think I should feel more, you know? That’s the last picture I took with my mom because she didn’t want to take pictures when she was sick. But I couldn’t feel anything about it because it felt fake. So…I thought if I tried to paint it, show a little more honesty…I don’t know. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not,” Rhys finally took his gaze from the unfinished work, smiling at Feyre. “I think it’s pretty brave.”

She didn’t expect that. “Cool”, maybe, said in a way when someone didn’t quite know what word to use. “Interesting”, to show that it wasn’t his style but he could appreciate it.

But brave?

“Like I said, just a little project.” Feyre uncrossed her arms, walking to the front door. “I’ve kept you long enough.”

“Do you paint often?” Rhys asked, taking his sweet time in joining her.

“When I can,” she shrugged. “I am lucky to have a job where I get to flex creative muscle every day, but my thing was always painting.”

He hummed. “Do you do commissions?”

Feyre laughed. “It’s just a hobby, Rhys.”

“That’s not a no.”

“I’d paint for friends,” she said. “No payment necessary.”

“Good to know.” Rhys finally opened the door, casting one last look at the painting before sliding out of her apartment. “Goodnight, Feyre darling.”

“Good night.”  ~*~

It was the “Feyre darling” that started the crush.

Slipped out when Feyre was still new, still an outsider, she had first found it insulting. Infantilizing and rude, since they barely knew each other. Rhys figured out it annoyed her, and that only made him whip out the nickname more.

Then it stuck. Then Feyre paid attention. “Feyre darling” became less mocking and more affectionate.

A nice nickname, an inside joke between friends. Rhys would not be whispering it in her ear or saying it with tenderness.

Rhysand was turning 30 soon, and he had a full time job and promotions under his belt and property he owned. Feyre was 23 and in her first full time position and making spreadsheets to budget every month and hope to tuck away some money into a meager savings account. She had to ask HR how a 401k worked.

A harmless crush that would pass, that’s all it was. In the meantime, Feyre focused on being a good friend.

The next time everyone met was when Mor hosted one of her dinner parties— complete with a nice tablecloth (and a table large enough to fit them all), pretty plates, a separate salad fork and dinner fork, and wine pairings. Mor catered from exclusive restaurants, treating guests to a rotating variety of cuisine.

Feyre arrived early to help set up, rubbing her chilled nose as the elevator brought her up to Mor’s floor. The weather wasn’t cold yet, but it was turning nippy. The elevator ride up was long enough to get her mostly defrosted, and the warmth in Mor’s apartment finished off the job.

Large windows gave a magnificent view of the city. At night, staring out at the thousands of lights was mesmerizing, and during the day Feyre could spend an hour just observing all the life happening down below. Inside, Mor had furnished her apartment with warm colors and clean lines.

They chatted as they expanded Mor’s massive dinner table, adding in a piece in the middle and chairs to the ends.

“So,” Feyre started. “I have a question for you.”

“As long as it’s not about work.”

“It’s not,” Feyre said. “I need a picture of Rhys’s family.”

She hadn’t missed the way Rhys looked at her painting, or the way he asked if she did commissions. Rhys was intrigued by the idea of turning a photo into a nice painting, and his birthday was fast approaching.

While others might get him nice gifts, a new expensive watch or tickets to some high-culture show, Feyre had less to work with. She could spring for some nice oils and a new canvas though.

Mor set down her stack of dishes, giving Feyre her full attention. “Why?”

“When everyone was over for movie night, he saw this piece I was working on,” Feyre said, explaining the concept and Rhys’s interest. At the end, Mor loosened up a bit. “So, yeah, I think it would be a good birthday gift.”

“I think he would like it,” Mor said. “He would appreciate that you put so much time and effort into creating something. But…how much do you know about Rhys’s parents and sister?”

“Nothing,” she freely admitted. “Other than they’ve all passed.”

Mor nodded slowly. “Your personal project is focused on revealing…truths, I guess. Are you going to attempt the same with Rhys?”

“I’ll try,” she shrugged. “But it’s not personal, so it’s not the same.”

“Right,” Mor hummed. “Well. I’ll say this. Rhys’s parents did love each other, very much. But his father was always focused on legacy and security for the family, so much so that I think he missed a lot of what was right in front of him. They went through a lot of passionate ups and downs, but it seemed like things could have been settling when Rhys’s sister was born. I remember going to their house and feeling like something changed. But then…”

“They died,” Feyre completed the thought.

Mor nodded. “Rhys…obviously it still hurts, but he’s in a good place now.”

“Do you think he’d appreciate the portrait?” Feyre worried.

“I think so,” she shrugged. “Try and take his temperature today. If you think you can pull it off, I’ll send you a picture.”

They dropped the conversation to finish preparing. Feyre obediently dished out food into pretty platters, finishing up with putting together the salad when the guests started to arrive.

Around Feyre, conversations about planning exotic holiday vacations, the latest fluctuations of the stock market, gossip about the family everyone else knew, and insider knowledge about the passage of some labor bill shot back and forth.

It would be easier to be jealous of these people if they were anything but kind.

The first time Mor introduced Feyre to some of her friends— just Cassian and Amren— Feyre had almost run away. Amren had complained about her trip to Austria, and Cassian had bemoaned the black-tie event he had to attend and the tuxedo he would have to dust off.

She hadn’t expected a deep conversation to happen right there, middle of the day, lunch at a trendy restaurant. But somehow the topic had come up, and she learned that she and Cassian had more in common than she originally thought.

Obviously, Feyre had been wary about judging a book by its cover ever since then.

Plenty of people in this group were born with silver spoons in their mouth, that was true. But, blessedly, they were aware of it.

“Oh no, you don’t want that,” Helion found Feyre at the wet bar, looking through bottles of wine. “It has an expensive price tag, but it’s not worth it. Try this one.”

“Thanks.” Feyre waited as Helion poured the dark red into a glass, just a bit for her to taste. “Not bad.”

“Amren will tell you it has notes of cherry,” Helion shrugged. “It takes a real snob to detect that, I think.”

Said the man who owned a stable of horses upstate.

Feyre poured herself more wine, letting the warmth flood her senses and fill her with confidence. She had a goal for tonight. If she backed off now, it would be too easy to let it go.

She lingered near the drinks, hoping for the chance to spring her trap. Any moment, Mor would announce the start of dinner and they would have to take their seats.

Rhys wandered over, reaching for the jug of water, and Feyre stepped forward. “Hey, Rhys,”

“Feyre, how are you?” he smiled, pouring himself water and then facing her.

Step one, complete.

“Enjoying the cooler weather,” she said. “But I know that in a couple of months, I’ll be saying the exact opposite.”

“Not a fan of winter?” Rhys asked.

“Not a fan of the cold.” Inescapable, penetrating cold. Memories of little to no heat and numb toes. “My birthday is in the winter, so…it’s not all bad.”

“Right,” Rhys said. “December 21.”

“Yup.” She tried not to smile too broadly when she realized Rhys knew when her birthday was. “And…you’re November…?”

“Sh!” He hissed, but the exaggerated way he looked around told her it was mostly comical. “I don’t want to make a big deal out of my birthday.”

Feyre’s head tilted in confusion. “Mor is your cousin— how can you hide your birthday from her?”

“They all know when my birthday is,” Rhys said. “I just don’t want to remind them.”

“Scared of turning thirty?” Feyre teased.

“No, aging is a gift,” he said with unexpected sincerity. “Just…don’t like inconveniencing people.”

Something shuttered on his face, but Feyre couldn’t probe into it. She didn’t have the time. Later. She might get that chance to ask another time, who knows?

“Well,” she tried to be relaxed, but the way she gripped her wine glass probably was giving away her nerves. “I’d like to make you a gift. And before you say anything, it would not be an inconvenience! It would be something I want to do.”

“Oh, Feyre, you really don't—”

“I insist!” She plowed forward, though was mindful to keep her voice down. Rhys didn’t want people knowing, so she could respect that. “You asked if I do commissions— and when people ask that they are interested. So I’m going to paint you something.”

Rhys raised an eyebrow. “Do I get to know what it is?”

“I’d like it to be a surprise,” Feyre said truthfully. “But I also don’t know if you’ll like it.”

“I really don’t care what it is,” Rhys said without hesitation. “I’m sure I’ll appreciate whatever you make.”

Feyre bit her lip, trying to think of a way to phrase her question without giving it away. “Well…I don’t know. I asked Mor what she thought—”

“Then I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he said, looking away for a moment when someone called his name.

She panicked just a bit. “Rhys, I should just ask—”

“Feyre,” he interrupted gently. “Really. Don’t worry about it so much.”

“This is a painting for you,” Feyre pointed out. “I could misinterpret horribly…”

“If you need direction, you can ask Mor.” Done with the conversation, Rhys backed away. “But I’m interested in your vision, Feyre darling.”

Well. That was as definite an answer as she was likely to get. The next day, Mor sent over the photograph.

~*~

There was a strange balancing act in creating this kind of art.

The piece had to be revealing and poignant— there was a message there, and it needed to be expressed. But too obviously, to gaudy or in your face, and it could not be appreciated.

The depth needed to be in the detail. Feyre aimed to create something that was pleasant to look at upon a glance and beautiful to meditate on. She did ask Mor about Rhys’s family, just wanting to know enough to not offend.

The hand that Rhys’s father laid on his wife’s shoulder had a tighter grip, just a bit exaggerated from the photo. His little sister got a twinkle in her eye, a tilt in her head that screamed innocence and just a hint of something impish. Rhys’s stance changed, from perfectly upright and still to something more dynamic, feet positioned as if ready to keep moving. And his mother got some imperfections, flyaway hairs and an uneven posture as she leaned just a little bit closer to her daughter. Her smile grew, crinkling her eyes.

Feyre added movement, added some life that didn’t exist when everyone was trying to look their best for a fancy photo. It was as terrifying as it was exhilarating. There was a story happening.

The next time everyone crammed together, it was at Rhys's townhome for game night. Monopoly and Catan were banned, as they took much too long and created some extreme emotion, but Battleship, Cards Against Humanity, Clue, and Uno (with some crazy house rules) were some of the approved offerings. 

Feyre shrieked in laughter and playfully booed, sampling a few of the games with a rotating cast of opponents and participating as a spectator in lulls. When the pizza arrived, everyone broke to grab a slice.

“I can’t believe we won’t be able to do a Halloween party,” Cressida bemoaned. “When’s the next time everyone is going to be in town? What’s the next excuse to get together?”

“Thanksgiving?” Helion offered.

It was probably Rhys’s birthday, but Feyre kept her mouth shut. So did Mor, Cassian, and Azriel.

Cressida didn’t get that memo. “Huh, maybe…wait no! Rhys! Your birthday!”

He accepted the attention with a smile. “Yes?”

“Don’t do that.” She was close enough to playfully slap his shoulder. “It’s in just a few weeks! What are we doing?”

Rhys shrugged. “I don’t have any plans.”

“Oh no,” Cressida gasped like it was the worst thing in the world. “But you’re turning thirty!”

Helion laughed. “No need to remind the man, Cress.”

“You’re older than all of us, you shouldn’t be making fun of anyone’s age,” she shot back. “But really, Rhys. No plans?”

“Nah,” he shrugged.

Cressida huffed. “Is no one else bothered by this?”

Silenced greeted her. Feyre was giving her own present, and it was a private thing that she would most likely present to him when they were not in a group setting. She was sure that Rhys would probably do a quiet family thing at home with Mor, Cassian, and Azriel, maybe Amren too.

“Unbelievable,” she rolled her eyes. “I bet you all forgot.”

“I didn’t forget,” Azriel said. “I already have a gift in mind.”

“It’s a 30th birthday! You have to do something more fun than just a gift!” Cressida said.

Tarquin shrugged. “It’s a little late to plan now. I’m sure if Rhys had wanted something big, he would have said.”

“Please, it’s Rhys,” Cressida snapped. “And it’s not too late. I already have an idea and I can put it together.”

“Do I get to know?” Rhys asked. “It is my birthday, after all.”

“We’re spending a long weekend at the family beach house,” Cressida announced.

Ferye frowned. “Isn’t it a little cold for a beach vacation?”

“It’ll be fine,” Cressida waved a hand, already scrolling through her phone.

Mor cleared her throat. “The beach house is in Turks and Caicos.”

Oh.

“I’ll get the staff to prepare the house,” Cressida murmured. “We’ll have catering for a party, but for those of us staying at the house I’ll have to make sure the staff does grocery shopping…”

“Free beach vacation? I’m in.” Cassian said.

Cressida pointed at Cassian. “That’s the spirit! It’s Rhys’s birthday! It’s a milestone! Let’s make it fun! I’ll book a DJ and put together a guest list for one night, and that can be the larger party, but the rest of the time it’ll be just us. Mor, you still have that guest list from the summer picnic, right? They’ll all be able to fly out for a weekend.”

“This is too generous, Cress,” Rhys interjected with a polite smile.

“No way,” she put her hand on his arm. “Not for you.”

Something curdled in Feyre’s stomach. She looked away, but the sight that greeted her wasn’t much better. Amren and Varian were looking at his phone, seeming to be searching for flights. All the faces were of mild interest.

“It might be a lot, but it’ll be worth it.” Cressida turned back to her phone. “Right, I need food, I need to contact the staff, we’ll have to coordinate flights and rides…and I’ll need to go shopping. Mor, what was that name of the boutique you were talking about? The appointment-only one, I know it’s late notice but do you think they could fit me in?”

“Cress, it’s winter, they won’t have bikinis…”

Feyre sipped her cider, then rose to throw away her empty plate. The rest of them could talk about their fun plans. She would not be participating.

She didn’t have the money to fly out of the country for a long weekend, especially not with little more than a month's notice. Not to mention the vacation time. The only people who would be able to do such an insane thing were her insanely rich friends.

She knew Cressida wasn’t purposefully excluding her. Feyre was a newer friend, not even that close to her, and Cressida probably never had to make those accommodations.

Hell, Cressida probably didn’t even include Feyre in the invitation. It would be beyond generous to open her home to someone she didn’t really know that well.

Feyre tried to mollify herself as she darted to the bathroom. So she wasn’t participating in this fun. That was fine. She had her own way of celebrating Rhys’s birthday, and that was enough. And if she had to take an extra few minutes in the bathroom to get her emotions under control, well, that was just healthy and mature.

She meandered down the hall, hoping that the conversation had moved on and she could convince Azriel for a rematch at Battleship.

“...it’s really a lot, Cress,”

“You deserve it.”

It was rude to eavesdrop. Feyre should have just keep walking. But she didn’t move out of the hall, keeping to the shadows and out of sight from the bright kitchen.

Rhys’s laugh seemed a little forced.

“I mean it,” Cressida’s voice was so low Feyre almost didn’t catch it. “If you had it your way, you would stay at home for your birthday and return any gifts. This is the compromise.”

“Well, at least you are talking about it with me,” Rhys sighed. “I hate when people push their ideas on me.”

“Who would push themselves on you?”

“Happens more often than you’d think,” his voice was just a bit strained. “It just… reminds me of my dad railroading me, or pretending he was giving me options when he was really just trying to force me into accepting his decision. He didn’t understand that what was important to him wasn’t important to me”

“Well, the vacation is mandatory,” Cressida said. “The itinerary is on the negotiating table.”

“Thanks for the transparency,” Rhys answered. “I really didn’t want any surprises though…”

Feyre heard enough. She slipped into the living room and tried to forget the conversation.

Logically, she knew that Rhys was not talking about her and her gift. But she also realized that she might be doing exactly what Rhys just said he despised. She didn’t take his no for an answer when he said she didn’t have to do anything for his birthday. She took something she cared about— her art— and assumed Rhys would care. She even hedged on telling him what the painting was.

Oh God, the painting included his father. Mor said Rhys had a rocky relationship with him, but that was true disdain Feyre had heard…what had she done?

She was in a trance for the rest of the evening, going through the motions and forcing smiles. Blessedly, everyone was so consumed with party planning that Feyre flew under the radar.

“I’m going to head out,” Feye announced when she had enough. Cressida, in the interest of being transparent, asked who could help cover costs and started rattling off astronomical numbers. No one said it, but being able to cover the cost of the music or food or chip in for a fun excursion suddenly felt like the price of admission.

“I should get going too.” Just her luck, it was Cressida that spoke up.

Feyre kept her attention on her phone, wincing at the price of getting an Uber. Subway it was, then. She tugged on her coat and said her goodbyes, ready to be done with the night. Feyre hustled outside, hands in her pockets to keep them warm as she walked towards the nearest station.

“Feyre!”

She resisted grinding her teeth together and turned around, a pleasant expression plastered on her face. “What’s up?”

Cressida stalked closer. “Where are you going?”

“Um,” she looked around, as if that would provide clarity to the question. “Home?”

Cressida rolled her eyes. “You’re taking the subway.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely not.”

“What?” Feyre gaped.

“You’re not taking the subway alone at this time of night,” Cressida said. “I can’t believe Rhys would let you leave his home without offering a ride.”

Rhys knew better than to try and control Feyre. And he probably was busy planning his fancy birthday vacation.

“It’s fine,” she said. “I’ve done it before—”

“Come on,” the other woman turned away, expecting Feyre to follow. “I’ll drop you off.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I insist!” Cressida unlocked her car, opening the passenger door open like a chauffeur. “Get in.”

“You live in the opposite direction,” Feyre backed away. “It doesn’t make any sense—”

“You live so far, it’ll be faster for me to drop you off than to take the subway,” Cressida pointed out. “Just get into the car, Feyre, don’t be so stubborn.”

She hated taking the offered favor. But it would be faster and more comfortable to go with Cressida.

Feyre got into the car.

If Cressida thought it was awkward, she didn’t say anything. The low volume of her music filled the air, quiet enough to hold a conversation if they desired.

Ferye really didn’t want to talk. Cressida, though, obviously wanted the exact opposite. “Are you getting anything for Rhys?”

“Um,” she hesitated. Her gift suddenly seemed so silly. But the longer she was silent, the more suspicious it would seem. “I was going to paint something for him.”

“Oh, that’s cool.” Cressida said one thing, but her tone said something different.

Feyre sat up a little straighter, defensive. “What?”

“I don’t see Rhys as an art guy,” she shrugged, conveniently avoiding Feyre’s gaze and keeping her eyes on the road. “I mean, sure, he might kind of like it. But he’s not like Amren, right? He’s not going to gallery showings and stuff, he’d buy something to hang on his wall from Crate and Barrel.”

“Well…I’m glad I can give him something nice then.” Maybe. Her great idea seemed less and less ingenious by the minute, but Ferye could salvage something. Some sort of pretty, but meaningless piece to hang in a hall. She didn’t have any other ideas.

“Oh no, I don’t mean to discourage you!” Cressida said. “Really! I know you care about your work, and I can tell that you would put so much of yourself in it. And I’ve seen some of your stuff, you’re really good. I’m just one opinion.”

Feyre swallowed roughly. “But you don't think it’s a good idea.”

She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “I just don’t want to see you hurt when Rhys doesn’t react the way you might want him to. It’s Rhys, he’ll appreciate the gift of course. But it’s…ugh, how do I put this? Helion is arranging a private tour of an observatory because Rhys is a nerd obsessed with space. Mor is probably going to set aside a day for them to spend together and reminisce on childhood memories. And I want to give him a vacation because he always works so hard and literally never takes a moment for himself.”

“And my gift…” Feyre could barely speak. “Doesn’t matter as much.”

“It matters,” Cressida shot a glance at Ferye. “It does, because it matters to you. But don’t project that onto Rhys. Like I said, he’ll appreciate it, but I don’t want to see you get hurt because he doesn’t seem to care or like it as much as you might anticipate.”

Thankfully, they were only five minutes away from her apartment. Enough time for Feyre to fall silent in quiet contemplation, a late night a good excuse for the murmur of thanks and quick retreat when Cressida dropped her off.

As soon as she was out of the car, icy wind pierced her shields. Feyre’s throat tightened as she hustled into her building, pounding up the stairs. By the time she was through the door, she was well and truly humiliated.

Her phone chimed. Feyre automatically glanced at it and then wished she hadn’t.

Good appointment with orthopedic surgeon. Elain’s text read. Identified a problem, Dad will need more physical therapy, but they’re hopeful it’ll lessen the pain.

Nesta’s reply appeared. Send the bill, we’ll split it three ways. How many weeks of therapy?

Idk, at least 8 I think.

Feyre sagged, falling against the closed door. She and her sisters were getting by now, but their dad’s medical bills always put a strain on all three of them.

Definitely no vacations, or even trips to fun cafes, or going to see a new movie in her future. Not for a while. She took a deep breath, already thinking about her spreadsheets, then looked up.

The unfinished portrait taunted her from the corner.

She was such an idiot. Rhys might think her painting was cool, might have shown genuine interest— but that was because he was Rhys. He wouldn’t make her upset or be anything but kind, simply because Feyre was Mor’s friend.

But she wasn’t a part of his life, wasn't in the same circle. She had foolishly projected her own passions onto him, poured her soul into something that could never see the light of day again.

Grabbing a trash bag from under the sink, Feyre stalked towards the easel.

Pack it up. Get rid of it, and this entire night. She had miscalculated what to give Rhys, and quite honestly she had probably been miscalculating about her place here for a while.

She felt like a nice little pet, a charity case to be ogled by the rest of them until it was convenient to leave her behind. But that didn’t worry them, because they had been to her studio and they knew her too well, and what kind of broke 22-year-old would walk away from rich successful friends?

Feyre sniffed back tears, the product of a long week and too many bottles of cider at game night. She needed sleep. Rest, and in the morning she would be feeling less sorry for herself.

But first.

The painting stretched the plastic bag, sharp corners poking out. Feyre almost left it at her door, ready to be thrown out. But it was too obvious there, too in-her-face. She banished it under her bed instead. There, it could keep the monsters from her nightmares company and be forgotten under a layer of dust and regret.

[flying-elliska]

I came across another one of those "there is absolutely zero homophobia in this story about queer characters that's amazing !!! " posts (Or at least the op was intent on reading no homophobia at all in the text even when it was hinted at). And those types of post always give me such weird mixed feelings. I have seen a lot of them in the last few years.

I'm not discussing anyone's personal preferences - that is entirely up to them. And I also agree that I want more stories where queerness is not a big deal and people's problems come from other places. And queer characters can have the same amount of fun fluffy romance.

HOWEVER in the way ppl talk about queer stories (thinking predominantly abt book related spaces) these days it's often like any kind of obstacles or adversity makes it "bad representation" and honestly...that kind of worries me.

That's partly a matter of personal taste - a while back I went on a sapphic book reading binge and I found too many of them way too saccharine and boring and cutesy without depth.

But also - there is an element of cultural amnesia here that I can't help but link to the way some parts of online queer communities nowadays end up falling for conservative/queerphobic rhetoric often out of sheer ignorance (terfy bullshit, heteronormativity, assimilationism/wanting to be seen as normal at all costs/shaming queer people seen as too weird/gnc, sex negativity, gatekeeping, etc etc). It is still important for queer people who grow up in more progressive environments to know about the resorts of homophobia and heteronormativity. Because knowledge is power, and progress is never guaranteed.

Like it's amazing that more and more young people grow up without having to be worried about that stuff ! That's something the queer community has been fighting for for so long ! But still nowadays, a majority of queer people live in bigoted environments, and a majority of queer people alive have experienced homophobia and bigotry. And there is a subset of young, often very privileged in other ways, queer person generally living in ultra-liberal bubbles that I wish remembered this and was more mindful when they spoke. Because I have heard stuff that really made me angry - about how "tragic gay stories" were tired and annoying and overdone and less valuable. And like, personal taste, wanting more fluff, that's one thing. But calling stories that are often real people's past or even present worthless because they're kind of a bummer and not entertaining enough - well, that's deeply disrespectful, disturbing and circles all the way back to homophobic.

I was thinking about this the other day bc that mindset has influenced me in ways I don't like. I do often write homophobia into my stories and sometimes I feel kind of bad about it, wondering if it's like, perpetuating cliches or exploitative etc etc. But actually fuck that noise. Homophobia had a huge impact on me growing up. I grew up in a deeply homophobic environment - I was called a d*ke in disgust before I was old enough to know what it was, I first learned about queerness through images of characters that were all sinister, ridiculous, pathetic, or predatory ; bisexuality meanwhile was either invisible or supposedly fake or psychopathic ; I grew up surrounded by people making shitty jokes and casually using slurs, bullying people who didn't adhere well enough to gender roles (and a few times that was me, too), my bff in HS was all like "gay guys are ok but queer women are gross" - I soaked up that shit like a sponge and it's no wonder I didn't figure out my sexuality until my early twenties - I had repressed the hell out of that shit because it was so scary. Even though my experiences were not as direct as other people, it was still the ambient background to those very formative years. And still today - like, we regularly hear on the news about lgbt people being attacked, one of those attacks happened a few blocks from where I live ffs, and I supposedly live in one of the most gay friendly countries on Earth ! So I am well within my rights to explore that shit through fiction.

Do I blame people for wanting a break from that ? Hell no ! I do too sometimes. But I do NOT want to hear bullshit about how queer stories that are less than perfectly happy are somehow bad, regressive or less valuable.

I think personally what I truly want is more nuance. Sometimes I feel like we switched right from having mostly super tragic stories where queer characters were completely crushed by overwhelming oppression to a predominant mood that is very, like..."feel good stories only, homophobia is solved!!!!! If you still feel bad it's all in your head you're stuck in the past/annoying and we don't care about your trauma!!!!!" (hmmm big toxic positivity and online performativity vibes). I think the stories that have brought me the most, personally, are those where queer characters still experience some level of oppression but manage to fight the system/find some measure of joy and happiness regardless/crush their bigoted enemies while being very badass about it, all the while having epic romances and very full lives and also other complex problems.

I mean there is probably media that does this that I haven't found yet (pls send me recs if you have any). But it still feels too rare.

I don't only want fluffy escapism or idealism in fiction. I want to get strength and hope from characters who do manage to overcome less than ideal situations, I want to find recognition, I want to learn about other people's lives, and yes, sometimes, I want the catharsis and validation of tragedy.

And also ? I think you can still manage to address these things in stories and also have fluff and a happy ending. It's too often annoyingly one note, like characters who suffer too much are too broken to recover or hope/fluff is not believable in a world where bad things happen or you can't explore heavier topics in what is supposed to be a happier story like ! This feels like marketing segmenting bullshit to me. Life is beautiful and horrible all at once !!! The one doesn't exclude the other !!!!

[writingquestionsanswered]

I’ve started writing a book that was heavily inspired by a movie. It feels like no matter what I change, there’s still the same tropes and stuff from that movie I was inspired by. What can I do to make my story more original and distance my story from that movie?

Making a Story Different from Source Material

First, keep in mind that tropes are usually inherent in the subject matter. If your story's premise is even a little similar to the source movie, those tropes are going to be there whether you want them or not.

But, remember: tropes are fine... they're good, actually. What you want to avoid are cliches, which are tropes that have been used the exact same way so many times, everyone is sick of them. If you're worried that a trope in your source story has been overdone in that exact same way, find a way to do it a little differently.

Diversifying the Tropes in Your Story

While you can certainly eliminate some of the tropes your story shares with the source, and you can add tropes the source doesn't contain, you can also just find ways to use the tropes in different ways.

Let's take a look at The Vampire Diaries and the Twilight Saga, two very similar but very different stories. (note: for TVD I'm referring to the TV series specifically rather than the book series.) They both follow a small town high school girl who falls for the hot guy at school, finds out he's a vampire, learns there's a supernatural underworld in her town, and eventually becomes supernatural herself. Because both of these stories are set in small towns, feature high school characters, and contain vampires and werewolves, there are a lot of tropes that exist in both. What matters is that these tropes are used differently in both stories. Here are some examples:

Trope: "Big Bad Ensemble"

Twilight Saga - The Volturi, 3,000 year old "coven" of vampires who reside in a small Italian village, administering the rules and laws of vampire civilization and are seen as vampire royalty. Despite being very old, they are not the first vampires, they're just among the oldest and the ones who fought to be in charge.

The Vampire Diaries - The Originals, aka the Mikaelson Family, a thousand-year-old family of Scandinavian vampire siblings, created when their witch mother dabbled in dark magic in an attempt to make her children strong enough to fight werewolves. While they're also somewhat regarded as vampire royalty (all vampire lines descend from them, after all) they do not rule over the vampire world in any way, though they do have a lot of power and influence.

Trope: "But I Can't Be Pregnant"

Twilight - A human character becomes supernaturally pregnant with a vampire's baby, via sexual intercourse, despite the fact that no one knew it could happen. The resulting baby is of course also supernatural.

The Vampire Diaries - A vampire character becomes supernaturally pregnant with two human babies thanks to a magic transfer facilitated by witchcraft, though she and her friends had no idea such a thing was possible. The resulting babies were already supernatural (because their bio-mom was a witch) and did not take on any vampire characteristics due to the womb change.

Also, The Vampire Diaries - A werewolf character becomes supernaturally pregnant with a supernatural baby as the result of intercourse between a vampire/werewolf hybrid and a werewolf. The baby inherited the witch side from her paternal grandmother. Also, no one realized this was possible. The pregnancy results in a "tri-brid" baby, who is part wolf, part vampire, and part witch (from her paternal grandmother.)

Trope: "Daywalking Vampire"

Since both stories feature vampires who are also high school students, it's necessary for these characters to be able to walk around during the daytime. Both stories approached it differently.

Twilight - In the Twilight Saga, the vampires are only affected by direct sunlight. It doesn't hurt them, but it sparkles off their skin and makes it pretty clear they're not human. The author got around this by choosing a story location that experiences a lot of overcast, rainy days. Then, the vampires just did whatever they had to do to avoid direct sunlight.

The Vampire Diaries - In TVD, sunlight burns the skin of vampires and will ultimately kill them, so vampires either avoid sunlight or they have to wear "daylight rings," which are spelled by witches to protect the wearer from the negative effects of daylight.

Hopefully that gives you an idea of how easy it is to take existing tropes and make them just a little bit different. Doing that will go a long way in making your story stand out from its inspiration source.

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[kythed]

“teenage wasteland.” kuroo tetsurou x reader

4:08pm.

“yo,” kuroo says, opening the door quickly after you ring the bell, “you finally made it.” 

“what do you mean, finally?” you complain, kicking off your shoes and slipping inside. the dry heat of his family home’s living room assaults your bare face, a sharp contrast to the december frigidity outside. “you texted me like ten minutes ago.”

“felt like longer,” kuroo says with a crooked grin. “you want something to drink?” 

“water?”

“I kinda meant something stronger, but sure, water,” kuroo says, filling a glass at the kitchen sink. you furrow your brows.

“something stronger? I’m sorry, but last time I checked we were still underage,” you say, and kuroo laughs breathily — it’s almost a giggle, actually. for the first time since arriving, you notice an odd flush in his cheeks. “oh my god. are you drunk?”

“drunk?” kuroo gasps. “no, no. tipsy, yes. drunk, no.” 

“tetsurou,” you scold, reluctantly letting him pull you towards the hallway. “all those big, bad college boys can’t have been a very good influence on you.”

“I’ve had a stash of jack daniels hidden beneath my bed since sophomore year,” kuroo whispers conspiratorially. “those ‘big, bad college boys’ have nothing to do with it. speaking of which — you want some?” 

you shake your head vehemently and dig your heels into the carpet, realizing he’s trying to drag you into his bedroom. despite being kuroo tetsurou’s official best friend of a decade, you’ve never been inside his room before. you’ve never been inside any boy’s room before, actually — you’ve never been much of a rule breaker. 

(you suppose that’s why you and kuroo get along. you’re forever the straight-laced goody goody, and he’s forever the secretly bad, outwardly good honor roll kid.)

“I don’t drink,” you insist, and kuroo loops his arms around your neck. you stiffen. “and stop being so touchy. it’s freaking me out.”

“what?” kuroo says, feigning offense. “you don’t like my hugs?” 

“no!” you say, and he shoots you an exaggerated eye roll. “you’re being weird. I can probably count the number of times you’ve voluntarily hugged me on one hand.” 

kuroo ignores you, choosing to instead pick you up and toss you over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. 

“kuroo tetsurou, you’d better quit it before I call your mother!” you pound on his back, a little taken aback to feel his shoulder muscles rippling under your palms as he staunchly marches you into his room. “I do not want to enter your disgusting cave of a room, you teenage garbage troll!”

“getting real creative with the insults there,” kuroo laughs, setting you down and backing up against the door to block you from running out. “come onnnnn. I thought we could play a game of monopoly or something. listen to the radio. finish the bottle before my mom comes home and whips my hide.”

you sigh and perch your hands on your hips. “so that’s why you invited me over.”

“no, no,” kuroo protests, crouching to pull a clear bottle of amber colored liquid out from beneath his bed. “I also just vastly enjoy your company.”

“why not just throw it out?” you ask, gingerly sitting on the edge of the bed. 

kuroo’s room is a lot neater than you imagined it would be — navy bedspread tightly tucked in at the corners, vinyl floor completely clear save for a small rug. his desk is probably the messiest part of the entire room, holding an old, chunky desktop that’s covered in post-its with smudged, scribbled notes, ranging from “email prof. miyazawa about missing grade” to “buy mom flowers to apologize for broken mug.” 

there are a couple posters on the wall, too, one for the japanese national volleyball team, and one for some punk-looking band dressed in an overabundance of leather, ripped denim, and hair feathers. 

“this shit was expensive,” kuroo says, gesturing to the bottle before screwing the cap off and taking a long draught. your eyes widen as he drinks down a quarter of the remaining liquid, his adam’s apple bobbing with each swallow. “I can’t let it go to waste.”

“I think you’ve probably had enough of that,” you say, gently twisting it from his hands. kuroo smiles angelically before coming to tower over you. 

“if you’re not gonna drink it, I will,” he says, reaching out to grasp the bottle’s neck. you hold onto it stubbornly.

“you’re clearly wasted, tetsu,” you say. “just let me throw it away.” 

“I may have a small drinking problem,” kuroo says, “but I’m sober enough to know I’m not about to throw away the fifty bucks I spent on that. give it.” 

“no!” 

“yes.”

“nooooo!”

“yes!” 

kuroo tries to wrench the bottle from you, and you spend a solid thirty seconds wiggling in his grasp before finally pulling it away. in an impulsive attempt to keep kuroo from getting even drunker, you bring the rim of the bottle to your lips and chug the rest of the whiskey.

kuroo’s eyes widen, and he guffaws loudly. “that was a lot of alcohol just now.”

you nod, wincing at the acrid taste, unwilling to swallow — the liquid is still swishing in your cheeks. you move to go spit it out in kuroo’s sink, but he grabs your arm.

“do not spit that out,” he warns. “that’s over two hours’ worth of minimum wage salary. I don’t work twenty hours a week in the wendy’s drive-thru just for you to flush it down the drain.” 

“mmmm,” you protest, breathing through your nose. “hrghhhh mmm mm mhm.”

“I have no idea what you’re trying to say,” kuroo says, obviously trying to stifle his laughter. 

you gesture wildly to your face, and then to the empty bottle, and then back to your face. 

for a moment, kuroo wrinkles his nose, and then slowly smoothes out his expression. a small smile stretches across his lips, and he steps close to you. you’re acutely aware of your personal bubble being popped, as well of the fact that he smells strongly of old spice and mango body wash. 

“I’ll do it then.”

“mm?” you squeak in confusion when he takes your chin in one hand and guides your face close to his. you’re not sure if you’re smelling the alcohol on his breath or tasting it on our own tongue. you’ve never been this physically close to your best friend in your life, and you can firmly say you’re absolutely petrified. you shake your head vehemently as he slowly leans down, tilting his head. 

“calm down,” he says quietly, and in spite of yourself, you do. “I’m just taking a drink.” 

then he presses his mouth to yours, and you freeze. oh, shit. 

kuroo wedges his tongue between your lips, forcing them open, and then he sucks the whiskey from your mouth, one hand keeping your jaw open while the other snakes around your waist. your eyes widen just as his close, almost as if he’s enjoying the kiss. slowly, you close yours too, letting yourself melt into him as he keeps kissing you even after swallowing the liquid. 

it lasts for a good ten seconds before you reluctantly pull away, letting your hands rest on his shoulders. he’s smiling, evidently very pleased with himself. 

“what the hell was that?” you say breathlessly, searching his face. 

“I was thirsty,” kuroo says nonchalantly. “and a little drunk. and you’re very pretty, as far as best friends go.” 

you feel like you should be offended, yet you can’t quite bring yourself to be. you’re definitely flustered, though, and a little embarrassed. (okay, a lot embarrassed.)

“I think, um, I think I should go,” you say, breaking eye contact. kuroo raises a hand to stop you, but you brush him off, bounding out of the room to grab your bag and keys from the kitchen counter. “we can talk about this later, okay? you need to go take a nap or something.”

“no, hey, wait —”

but you’re already out the door and in the car, jamming the key into ignition. you just kissed your best friend. or did you? does that count as a kiss? or was that just kuroo being stupid? your mind spins with useless speculations on the drive home, and as you sprawl out on your bed for an hour afterwards. it’s not until later that evening that you check your phone, greeted by a handful of social media notifications… and a text from kuroo.

with shaking hands, you swipe it open, face immediately splitting into a grin.

kuroo: sorry about that

kuroo: ok, not really

kuroo: I’m not that sorry

kuroo: cuz you’re a good kisser

kuroo: a really good kisser

you: you too

you wait for a moment as the three little dots on kuroo’s side pop up.

kuroo: thanks

kuroo: I was still kind of stupid tho

kuroo: my b

you: you regret it?

your fingers shake in suspense as you await his answer, feeling all the world like a lovestruck fifteen year old. you’re a little disgusted to find yourself suddenly crushing on kuroo tetsurou of all people, but what can you say? maybe falling for your best friend is a little cliche. maybe it’s a little overdone. maybe the fact that you kissed him with a mouthful of whiskey belongs in a cheesy teen movie, but you can’t help but find yourself delighted that it happened. 

kuroo: nope. not at all.

kuroo: not at all.

[herewegobacktomoon]

mi dispiace, i have lots of question 🤧

3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 25, and 30 pleasseeee

Don't worry about it, I'm happy you asked ;)

3. I'm Italian

5. It's a little bit complicated, actually. Let's say I opened this account when I was 15 and it was one of the first time I went through some difficult things on my own, couldn't really talk about them with anyone since it was a lot and didn't want to burden them, so I opened this blog, with the idea of finally writing about it.

The name just came to me as I was thinking about something that gave me comfort, and I thought that if I could go to the moon and be away from everything, even for just one day, everything would be okay.

Basically, the moon is my clouds, I know it'll make sense to you.

6. Does overthinking count?😂

7. Yeah, I can play the piano and the guitar, and also started learning how to play the ukulele and the drums on my own, but very basic stuff on those ones😂

8. if by hobbies you mean stuff I really like doing, even when I'm clearly not good at it, a lot😂🙌🏼

Going to the gym is probably one of the most important rn, as well as soccer, but also going on walks is something I really enjoy.

Then there's art, music, cinema, and whatever makes me feel like I can express or understand myself a little bit better.

Also writing is pretty important to me, but it's more of a need than a hobby I guess.

9. I speak Italian, English, French and Spanish rn, but just because I attended a linguistic highschool😂🙌🏼

However, I'm currently working on Portuguese, cause I absolutely love it!

I'm also curious about every other language there is, even though I don't think I'll ever be able to learn all the ones I like😂

11. ahhh, hard question this one...

I have some but I'll try to stick to three.

Portrait of a lady on fire

La pazza gioia

Lazzaro Felice

(I'm suing you for this question, there's a whole list of movies currently angry at me :/ )

12. I'll be as cliche as possible with this one so...

The seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo

16. Iceland and Canada.

18. you're really giving me a hard time here, hope you appreciate the effort though :)

I've been questioning myself about it for the last year and still I don't have an answer, but what I know for sure, after this year, is that doing something that only revolves "around me" is something I can't bring myself to bear.

I want to do a job where I can give effective help to people, not only with words or thoughts, I don't know if that makes sense.

What I'd really like to be able to do is work with disabled adults who are often left alone in communities or with children, who mainly are in the same situation.

Doesn't matter what I do for them or with them, I just want to give them a chance to tell their stories to someone.

19. One of my dream is to be able to go on a roadtrip, like a coast to coast or something like that, just driving across endlessly changing landscapes.

I know it's not very environment friendly, so I'll have to work on that aspect, but I've always loved the concept.

21. I don't really have any specific preference, not about physical aspects at least.

The traits in someone's personality that attract me the most are probably kindness and self confidence (don't ask me why, but to me, they're one of the sexiest thing to exist🙌🏼).

But it's not only that, as what I think is the most important thing is feeling some sort of connection.

22. Disloyal people and meanness

25. I don't really know if by games you meant physical ones or like board games (?), Btw almost everything that can make me have a nice fun time.

30. Apart from the comments people make and that I overthink about? 😂

No, I'm kidding, I don't really have specific quotes I think about, they're usually from lyrics or films and they depend on the time, but my mantra these last years has usually been "it is what it is".

I told you, I'm not original :(

Btw, I'm sorry for these answers, I might have overdone it and I'm really sorry about it, I swear :)

Anyway, if there's something else you want to ask me, you know you're always welcomed ;)

[bronyinabottle]

G5 MOVIE THOUGHTS FOLLOWUP - THE ANCIENT EQUESTRIAN ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

SPOILER WARNING: THIS WILL GET INTO SPOILERS FOR THE G5 MOVIE EVEN BEFORE THE BREAK. IT HAS BEEN JUST OVER A WEEK SINCE THE MOVIE PREMIERED. BUT IF YOU STILL HAVEN'T SEEN IT, PLEASE SCROLL PAST THIS.

This is something of a follow-up to my thoughts on the movie. My thoughts on the movie were generally positive. Though much like the movie itself, the positive thoughts were on what it’s doing on it’s own merit as the start of a new generation of pony media. As someone who had followed Generation 4 from all the way in the middle of Season 1 to the ending of Season 9, the connection the G5 movie makes with the previous generation in the opening scenes are enough that it’s necessary to give a perspective from a G4 fan’s point of view. Again, I do want to say that G5 will be within it’s right to not have to answer so many plot things at once and try to stand on it’s own by exploring the characters and this new Equestria first.

That said, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the longer none of the questions G4 fans will have are answered. There is a huge elephant in the room with the unanswered questions from G4. And It is Hasbro’s fault in the first place for telling us it’s the same Equestria, There will be fans that are annoying about it from multiple angles, and there will probably be times where people who just want to enjoy G5 on it’s own just outright snap at anyone who wants their answers about what happened in between G4 and G5. Even if the person who asks the question is just genuinely curious and not being demanding there be answers. This is just the kind of thing that all fandoms that have timeskip sequels, especially ones where it overrides a happy ending where discussing with other friends can get dicey.

HAPPY ENDING OVERRIDES AND ALICORNS

Until we get an official answer from the show itself, we can only theorize with each other. Though theorizing about a happy ending override, regardless of how long it’s been and/or how sensible the theory is can start some heated discussions, Cause many were content with the happy ending of the original. While no realistic story ever has a happily ever after, a story within a fantasy land such as MLP’s can be an exception.

Let me give something of a comparison by bringing up another show. Avatar: The Last Airbender is perhaps my favorite show of all-time. And while it’s true I didn’t like the sequel series Korra as much as A:TLA. It wasn’t because of some happy ending override with at least half of the main cast from the previous series deceased. The Avatars themselves are just as human as the other characters in the world. Avatar’s still a fantasy world when all is said and done, but the way the world building is done still made it feel like it it was possible for the world to be in danger again by the time the next Avatar is grown up, most known Avatars had challenges they had to face. The Avatar series blends some form of realism but still manages to provide a fun fantasy world. It’s a case where it’s believable that the main legacy of Aang’s time as the Avatar aside from defeating the Fire Lord where he created Republic City would have it’s own fair share of problems that would be left to his successor to solve. Aang in turn was finishing the war that Roku failed to stop. So while I have my criticisms about Korra, none of those are related to the way the world is after the timeskip. It reasonably makes sense in the context of the Avatar universe.

In contrast, there isn’t much we know about the past of G4 and it’s a much more idealistic setting then in Avatar. Yes, ponies die with what I assume are human-esque lifespans for the exception of the Alicorns. But Friendship is Magic is a setting where the power of friendship is literal magic power that can save the day even when things look bleak. As a result it can get very sappy, but FiM is the kind of show you watch to put a smile on your face rather then go to for a multi-faceted plot. Most episodes of FiM are the kind of thing you see in a lot of other shows. But what brings most of it’s fans back even for the most overdone plots is the characters and their interactions. FiM’s lore is a lot less straight forward, and sometimes may feel not as consistent given there were so many different writers over the long span of time. That said, there is something about the series that sort of ties in heading into G5 and that’s G4’s history, and especially Alicorn lore. We don’t get a lot of either even back in G4, as the most we get is the founding of Equestria was through the Hearth’s Warming Eve story, and the knowledge that Alicorns like Celestia and Luna are at least older then 1000. Which is a huge gap compared to the Avatars that no matter how powerful, have similar mortality to our own. Throughout G4’s time, the debate about Alicorns have raged throughout the whole time even before things got really heated upon Twilight becoming an Alicorn in Magical Mystery Cure. Some went with Celestia and Luna being the only immortal Alicorns while Cadence and Twilight were somehow lesser Alicorns that aren’t immortal but maybe at least still a longer lifespan then their normal pony friends and family. Though as of Season 9, that may be turned on it’s head when in The Last Problem. Twilight eventually grows to Celestia-size as Celestia and Luna even retire to let Twilight succeed them. If Twilight is somehow a lesser Alicorn, why did she grow to Celestia’s size? Why did Celestia and Luna retire in the first place if they knew Twilight will not be as long lived as they are? Perhaps part of the reason G5 has as many questions as it does is because G4 itself created questions it never promised to answer.

That said, the implied length of Celestia and Luna’s rule still presents G5 with a problem that will be asked everywhere. Even if we go with the possibility that most of the Mane 6 have passed from old age, you still have to answer something about Twilight. If Twilight is also dead, how long did she live? Did she at least have an over-1000 year reign as Celestia did? Was perhaps Luster Dawn chosen to be her younger co-ruler if Luster herself ascended at some point? The kind of things that might actually force G5 into a corner when it comes to Alicorns despite the fact G4 never had to, especially now that Sunny may have just become one herself. This is once again, another of the traps Hasbro put the writing team through by having them put it in the same world. G5 thus not only adds questions about what happened in between the Generations, but also now has to inherit what remained unanswered in G4. That is a VERY tall task on a team that will likely just want to do their own little fun pony show. It’ll raise expectations too high, and there will be annoyed fans regardless how they spin it. Which could have all been avoided if they set it up that this was an entirely new world, or made G4 a fictional story (With all the references to it being mainly merchandise for a really meta look at things) in the G5 universe. You’d still have people complaining about it not being as good as G4 probably, but the approach they went with added more gasoline to the fire whenever G4 Vs. G5 debates happen in the MLP fandom. And inter-fandom generation fights are never fun, just ask the Pokemon and the Sonic fandoms how that turns out (Even though there’s no Generation number count for the Sonic franchise. You could say Gen 1 of Sonic was the classic era. Gen 2 was the Sonic Adventure Era. Gen 3 was the “Dark Age” Sonic 2006-Sonic Unleashed era. Gen 4 the Sonic Colors and Generations era. and Gen 5 the current Sonic Forces and Team Sonic Racing era. And then of course there’s also the different TV shows and comic books that also have their own fans that can be at each other’s throats).

There isn’t going to be an easy solution to something that will no doubt have fans on the edge on their seat even if they will be left to hang on that edge for a longtime before G5 starts to give some answers. I think I’ll at least bring up 3 things that will probably be part of the discussions of just what happened between G4 and G5

(More after the break)

1. AND THEN EVERYTHING CHANGED WHEN THE FIRE NATION AN UNKNOWN THREAT ATTACKED

With G4 being considered Ancient Equestria. It’s probably safe to assume this is at least 1,000 years after G4. And 1,000 or more is a really, really, long time. Where anything could of happened, including *GASP* a villain actually winning at some point (Or at least, did some lasting damage even if they were ultimately defeated). Though I think even with that possibility, there has to be a sense that the villain didn’t defeat the Mane 6 while the other members aside from Twilight were still alive. If Twilight was at some point defeated. Perhaps the villain struck when Twilight was most vulnerable. You could also have it that Twilight somehow sacrificed herself to defeat a large threat. She saved Equestria one last time, but at the cost of even her long-lasting alicorn life. With the populace left on their own to continue life without Twilight, but the loss of their longtime leader too much for Equestria. Thus a slow decline happened.

As for who the threat was it’ll probably be a while if we ever know. Perhaps the real Grogar showed up at some point and was truly a harrowing threat to deal with. Or something entirely new. Maybe it wasn’t even a villain, but a catastrophic natural disaster. Whatever it is, if this is the case. We’d have to deal with the sad thought of something being too much for even Twilight to handle

2. TWILIGHT BECAME DEPRESSED/JADED AFTER HER FRIENDS PASSED. POSSIBLY EVIL TOO?

This would basically be the cliche sadfic ending. Where after everyone of the Mane 6 has passed. Twilight just never felt the same afterward. Though I do feel like there is the slight counterpoint that maybe Twilight would still have Celestia and/or Luna (maybe, again we’ve never ever gotten full confirmation of how long Alicorns live. Just assured that it’s more then 1000 years) and she’d most certainly still have a full grown Spike and any of her friends descendants. Death is always a sad reality, but you have to wonder if Twilight would have prepared herself by the time that comes. Twilight would have not gone as far as she did without the rest of the Mane 6. But while I’m sure it would be a tearjerking moment, it’s not like Twilight wouldn’t have other friends she made throughout the generations. Celestia and Luna also must of gone through the same thing living for more then 1000 years, yet they seem pretty fine. So while the subject of “immortality blues” is prime for sadfic material in the fandom. It feels like there’d have to be more nuance then that, if this were the reason the time between G4 and G5 led into each other.

Supposedly, this theory is picking up some form of steam. To the point that a head canon is rolling around is that it was actually Twilight who sealed the magic away in the first place for one reason or another. Essentially making Twilight, in a huge plot twist, a villain in G5 or at the very least someone who took the magic with them into some form of Limbo very similar to Starswirl and the other founders during the Season 7 finale. I… personally don’t know how I’d feel about that. They’d have to be very careful with the execution of such a twist. And I’d want more nuance then simply Twilight getting sad about the deaths of her friends. At the very least, it’d likely eventually get to a point where this villainous incarnation of Twilight is reformed and probably becomes a recurring character from then on. But the writers will have to tread very carefully if this is the direction they take.

3. G5 IS AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT UNIVERSE/TIMELINE. JUST FOR THE MOST PART THE MAJOR EVENTS OF "ANCIENT EQUESTRIA" STILL HAPPENED

Perhaps this last one really gets into a more desperate side to deflect any possibility that the ending of G4 could of deteriorated into what the world becomes at the start of G5. I know there will be plenty that will be too frustrated with the lack of satisfactory answers that they annoy people in the comment sections, getting into situations where sometimes the only answer to those people will be others that just want to watch G5 as a fun show with a “cope”, “read a history book”, or “deal with it”. But honestly, there can be a case here. As I mentioned in my thoughts in the movie. There are visual details on characters and/or lore that while they may seem minor, to the point that even if they do ever answer important questions such as what caused magic to disappear and/or what happened to Alicorns like Twilight. That the staff may ignore completely because they think it’s too small of a detail to bother including. But the most nitpicky fan can and will latch on small excuses into why it can’t be the same.

Let’s begin with the one-sided Cutie Mark. Again, while it’s true that previous generations made this a tradition. And it was only on one side on the G4 toys as well, as the actual reason it was on both sides in the G4 show was because it was easier for the flash animators. That said, it’s still a big pony design inconsistency. Because regardless of it was only to make things easier, it became a staple because of how long G4 lasted. So it was still so weird to see early screenshot and artwork of G5 characters with grown ponies with no mark. When that wasn’t possible in G4, as it turned out it was because the one-sided cutie mark returned. But one side as opposed to both sides is still a significant difference. Similarly, the horns and wingtips being a different color then the coat may also be a significant difference. Of course I know it can be just waved off as art style difference, as the art direction is no longer based on what Faust wanted the ponies to look like. It’s still plausible enough for someone to discredit it as truly in continuity with G4. Cause even for those that are on the side of “More then 1000 years is a long time, anything could of happened” it’s a lot harder to argue against inconsistencies such as cutie marks only being on one side unless they switch gears to the meta explanation of “G4’s double sided cutie mark was not intentional, at least at first”. But from what most people saw in the G4 show, G4 ponies had marks on both sides. And the G5 ponies don’t. It’s again, quite nitpicky. But it’s enough to start a case that at the very least, the ancient past of G4 is not 100% the same G4 we saw in the show.

Speaking of not the same G4 we saw in the show, another possibility is that G5 actually came out of an alternate timeline. Where perhaps the last two seasons did not happen. If perhaps it’s a timeline where major events in the show either ended anywhere between the end of Season 4 or the end of Season 7, then it starts to feel a little more possible. (Supposedly, the tree of harmony in it’s Season 9 form that might counteract it. But then again it had none of the treehouse architecture and was all wood. Which ironically may lead into it leaning more that the G4 show isn’t the same continuity). If the events of the Friendship School nor everything else that leads to the ending we saw in The Last Problem. It’d be a lot more palatable because the pretty much implied world peace ending with non-ponies in the mix included is discounted. There’d still be questions even in this scenario, like did Celestia and Luna still retire in this timeline then. And regardless if they did or not, the show would still be burdened with the question of what happened to the Alicorns. But it’d at least solve the most pressing question with the peace of The Last Problem being squandered. Because perhaps in this timeline, the Mane 6 never went that far. Perhaps it would imply some sort of indirect failure in that case. But this is perhaps a scenario they had a similar foreign policy as Celestia did. Not really hostile to anyone, but not intervening even in ways that could be helpful. Heck, if we go far enough in saying that G5\s G4 (As confusing as that may sound) was different from what we saw in Friendship is Magic, what if there were differences even early on for one reason or another? With how vague the connection is, we only know that the Mane 6 were friends and Twilight still became a princess at some point. From there. potentially a lot of other things may have gone differently other then that.

Again, saying G5 is a completely different universe/timeline is probably always going to sound like a desperate way for people who cannot possibly believe the ending of G4 eventually led to the start of G5. And I’d understand why that’ll annoy people who just want to watch the G5 series on it’s own merits. But it really wouldn’t be entirely the fans to blame for that attitude. G4 lasted a whole decade, many got attached to the characters/world we saw that had about the happiest ending it could possibly be. It should naturally make people unhappy that in a few ways it’s stomping over a happy ending for this fantasy world that many watched to escape from the realities of the real world.

Even with the long time allotted of 1000+ years or more, that’s made complicated by the implied long lives of the Alicorns from G4. Only opening up that can of worms further by seemingly making Sunny an alicorn. There’s a debate on whether this form is permanent, but if it’s NOT permanent. That arguably adds yet another addition to the list of reasons it may fall out of continuity. The only time we had a temporary Alicorn transformation (outside of Animation errors, or dream sequences like Big Mac’s) was when Cozy was an Alicorn after receiving some of the magic from Grogar’s bell. But even in that case, Cozy’s wings were not more like a glowy hologram like Sunny’s wings seem to be. And even if it is permanently on Sunny now, the design for Alicorns is too different. Adding onto the one-sided cutie marks, and different colored wings and horns. So the G5 writers may actually be stuck in a lose/lose situation when it comes to Alicorns after the ending of the movie. I think whether Sunny is permanently an Alicorn or not, they may not elaborate enough about it. And it’ll be among the headaches in the comment section (Though may at least be a reprieve from the political discussions G5 are going to have on occasion I imagine.)

Hasbro chose to try to say this is the same Equestria, and a new show needs conflicts to solve. But from the perspective of some G4 fans… it forces a world they loved, to get torn down into arguably a more divided world then even the Hearth’s Warming tale. Which said tale seems to have been implied to be from before Princess Celestia and Luna were around (Based on the lore of the unicorns being the one to raise the sun and moon) and thus yes. Somehow, if everything that happened in G4 is canon to G5. Then the world peace in The Last Problem in just a thousand years or so become worse then even Celestia’s sole rule.

RESPONDING TO “READ A HISTORY BOOK”

I’ve mentioned before, you can try to point to World History to point why this is a realistic take. But again, we don’t have an ancient civilization from 1000 years ago that we look up to as the pinnacle of peace in the world (Like I said, the Golden age of Ancient Greece and/or Rome still had slavery and brutal wars). That has literally never happened. What was shown in the Last Problem very much looked like it was that for Equestria. I feel it’s a terrible interpretation of time, especially in regards to the context that the leaders of Equestria tend to live for at least more then 1000 years to imply things would just go backward like that.

CONCLUSION

The movie on it’s own merits is a good start for the generation, though at the same time. It’s going to have some hard questions that’ll often be no-win situations for the writers. They can choose to ignore the G4 questions, understandably trying to tiptoe around as many cans of worms as possible which would allow them to do whatever the heck they want with G5. Maybe even getting a few stragglers frustrated with no answers to just shrug and continue watching anyway if the show entertains them enough. Or they can certainly try to at least give some answers on the biggest questions (What happened to the magic, and/or what was the fate of G4’s alicorns) but risk having an answer that just adds even more questions.

The movie is a decent start for a new generation if you only view it as a pilot for a new series, but if you view it as a sequel to Friendship is Magic. There are certainly problematic issues with that currently. Maybe the special in Spring, or the eventual Series will cover some of this but it does leave fans waiting a while for answers that they’re not promised to get, or at least not as quickly as they’d like. Remember when I mentioned that I may view some of this similarly to how I was about Starlight Glimmer after her sudden redemption at the end of Season 5? With many questions I wanted to know about Starlight before I could really accept her as a recurring character? (And not really fully coming into terms with her until I expanded on her myself in a story for I Dream of Twilight Sparkle) This may be how I have to view the connection of G4 and G5.

They can go one of two routes: At least try to give as much of a clear explanation as possible. Even if it’s one that doesn’t exactly answer everything, at least giving a good try may help with those who have questions remaining in relation to G4. If instead however, they go the Season 6 Starlight route of just about ignoring all the questions fans have, it’ll make things frustrating for many. At least with Starlight, she wasn’t the major focus in every episode. That said, Season 6’s job was to endear us more to her reformed character. Now with G5’s setup, it may be running well into a corner where they must try to answer what happened in between G4 and G5 or else you end up making a lot of fans lukewarm or worse to your series. Starlight’s reformation and then lack of ability of Season 6 to explain more about Starlight to us was a divisive moment. And G5 involving G4 brings over the same kind of feeling but on a larger scale because now it’s in the very premise of the generation’s plot, it’s less avoidable compared to one character. Because even when it comes to episodes that will not further the plot and it’s just a fun friendly moment between the members of the mane 5, this movie is how they met and thus the not fully explained premise would always be looming over like a large shadow. It probably doesn’t help that they’re basically starting with a reformed Starlight-esque moment when it comes to introducing it’s premise AND on top of that something similar although certainly with at least a lot less backlash then with Alicorn Twilight since it came so soon. Though I do have to think there will be people who think this was way too soon to be ascending Sunny, since at least we got to see Twilight’s journey to Alicornhood (Even if you weren’t a fan of the episode she ascended in). Sunny arguably does earn her Alicornhood through implied years of working to unite the ponies. But it can still feel too soon when you had 2 1/2 seasons worth of episodes before Twilight did, while Sunny did so within one movie.

Someone’s ultimate thoughts on G5 might end up being what they are looking for in this new generation. If they’re looking for just about everything new. The movie provides plenty of that with new characters, new locations, and a more modernized world compared to G4 Equestria (Even if G4 Equestria had it’s own fair share of electronics it looked like, such as video game machines). If you’re in this for the G4 references. Aside from the very beginning of the movie, you’re kind of stuck doing a where’s waldo for most of the movie. And no guarantees you’ll get much more then that later. As I said in the trailer thoughts, the G4 stuff could very much be just Hasbro trying to bake it’s cake and eat it too. With a world that feels like it should be it’s own thing, but they didn’t want to commit entirely to that. So they shoehorn G4 in as the ancient past without giving a proper explanation to how point A (the end of G4) got to point B (the start of G5). It’s only been about a week since the movie premiered, but there is just so much to digest. And for those looking for answers to the G4 elephant in the room, may feel like they get nothing but metaphorical tummy aches for a long time.

I’ll end this off by having a message to both people who already feel like they’ll be fans of G5, as well as people like me who were fans of G4 and have concerns about where G5 may be doing to it’s legacy.

For the G5 fans, as I mentioned in the trailer thoughts. I still hope that it turns out ultimately good. I don’t know where things will go from here but the G5 movie taking in context that it’s basically a really long series premiere, had some genuinely enjoyable moments. At the same time, I hope anyone in the G5 fanbase can try to understand why G4 fans have the concerns that they do. I’ll repeat, G4 lasted a decade and was the absolute peak of MLP’s popularity. There will be a lot of people attached to that world, and understandably upset about the implication that it got torn down into how the world is at the start of G5. If they’re really annoying about it, I can understand why you couldn’t hold the urge to snap at them to “Get over it” just try not to snap at the ones who are just asking curiously. I’m personally not going to spam comment threads with “THIS DOESN’T FIT WITH G4!” or “HASBRO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS PLEASE”, but I would be lying if I were to say I’m not just as curious about what those type of fans want to know too.

And as for G4 fans like me, if G5 ever upsets you in some fashion. It’s ok to stop watching and just stay quiet whenever you find yourself in a conversation about G5 and only participate in G4 matters in the fandom. This is a natural evolution of a fandom’s lifecycle where eventually a direction a franchise is taken to a place some others don’t like. So you’re only left to mainly talk with those who prefer an older generation and/or incarnation. Just because G5 has started and even though Hasbro says it’s the same world as G4. You can still do G4 content by itself and ignore G5. If you still have the inclination to do stuff with G4, do it. Generation 5 is not stopping people from still drawing the G4 characters, or writing more stories about them, or even if you don’t feel you’re that creative. Support artists who are still drawing G4 ponies, and/or rewatch some of your favorite episodes of Friendship is Magic that give you a smile. MLP has lasted since the 80s, and while for the most part to Hasbro it’s to sell toys. Toys, and the shows surrounding them’s purpose is to make the people watching or playing with them smile. From the little girls in the 80s to the much more diverse both gender-wise and age-wise fandom that came out of G4. The cute ponies are supposed to make us happy, and it’s ok to get back into a comfort zone if perhaps a different part of Ponies don’t give you the same feeling or even upset you in some way. Also as a vice versa to my message to G5 fans, try as best you can not to provoke those enjoying G5. If the G5 movie and/or episodes makes them as happy as your favorite G4 episodes/movies you should let them be. Many of us had to deal with that crap just for daring liking a pony show at all early on in the fandom. Try not to add to the toxicity as best you can. G4 is not going to be forgotten, the fact Hasbro decided to try to make it in the same universe actually has the side effect of making sure of that. Cause maybe you have fans that enter the MLP franchise through G5 curious about what happened in the past. And thus, they can be led to watch the previous generation. New G5 fans could potentially also become new G4 fans and friends. In other words, friendship… is still magic!