#trying not to feel like everything is terrible when i know I'm just being melodramatic

[quietblissxx]

Today felt like a rough day

[optiwashere]

This seemed fun, so why not do this for my babies? Portraits taken from art in this post.

Some elaborations under the cut...

Stats

Ages are at the end of BG3. Shadowheart is at least late 40s in canon, but I always had her as 50 in my mind. She has her birthday in my fic canon during the post-Absolute Crisis rebuilding while Asheera's won't be for another few months.

Asheera is ~201cm tall, Shadowheart is ~170cm tall. Roughly 31cm height difference!

Ship Parameters

Shadowheart and Asheera both enjoy being the big spoon and little spoon, but Shadowheart prefers being nestled in Asheera's embrace. Doesn't mean for a bit that the roles aren't reversed now and again, though.

Shadowheart wears Asheera's clothes all the time. Constantly. They are, of course, comically oversized on her.

They both use pet names for one another, but Asheera fancies herself a bit of a romantic so she likes to come up with melodramatic ones ("my Heart") while Shadowheart prefers "love" and "my love." Shadowheart also calls Asheera "my Lady paladin" a lot in the fics, but IDK if you consider that a pet name or not?

Shadowheart is undoubtedly far, far, far more introverted than Asheera. In fact, Asheera is pretty extroverted in general. The extrovert/introvert ship dynamic is my catnip, how could you tell?

So, the affection one I took to mean what they prefer. Shadowheart likes quality time and affirmations while Asheera likes acts of service and quality time. However, if you imagined it as what they do then their placements would be flipped.

Shadowheart confesses love first. Affection and attraction, that's technically Asheera.

Neither of them really panic about bugs. Asheera has a bad habit of killing the little creatures though, and she has serious thoughts about her own oaths when she does it.

Horse riding... Listen, all I'm saying is Asheera riding a horse with Shadowheart behind her? Yeah. But, like, if we're literally talking about driving a car then Shadowheart can drive but if anyone else offers to drive then she's going to take the opportunity to sit in the passenger seat, curate the music, and fall asleep.

Shadowheart knows how to cook because she's an adult, but she's just terrible at it. I'm sorry, she is a horrible cook to me. Her taste buds are all fucked up from decades of sampling/testing poisons, venoms, and paralytics as a Sharran. Asheera's not much better, she just knows that if Shadowheart cooks it'll be a disaster for everyone.

Shadowheart prefers discretion and Asheera loves giving her wife big, showy kisses for all to see. They have an understanding.

Despite the jealousy levels, Asheera is prone to overprotectiveness. After everything that Shadowheart went through in her life, after everything that Asheera saw in her memories and in the events of BG3, there's no way she doesn't immediately come to Shadowheart's defense at pretty much any perceived slight. Shadowheart finds it very sweet, but unnecessary. She can defend herself just fine. Doesn't mean she hates it though.

Shadowheart has the age on Asheera by a margin, and she spent decades in a Sharran cloister. Calling them "relationships" is probably a bit much to be fair, though. This doesn't mean Asheera is some naïve virgin! She's actually more experienced with long-term relationships than Shadowheart.

Levels

They're both extremely horny, especially for one another, but Shadowheart wins out on this one by sheer excitement to try out anything and everything that she thinks Asheera would want to try. Asheera isn't a prude by any stretch of the imagination.

Shadowheart is awkward in that "sheltered in a cult commune" kinda way. She says the wildest shit sometimes and expects people to just move on from it. Someone who quotes erotica with their friend in public is going to cause others to feel awkward. Asheera on the other hand? She makes things awkward by either being way too serious about a situation or cracking bad jokes about it; there is no in-between, and nobody is sure what to expect.

Asheera doesn't get jealous. Shadowheart is jealous of things that aren't really related to their relationship. I don't think either of them gets jealous over that sorta thing. Shadowheart just has to manage her feelings about family given that Asheera has one that loves her and she was able to experience a childhood and such. That triggers jealousy which Asheera finds normal and reasonable and completely understandable. It's one of those aspects of Shadowheart's specific trauma that isn't really something you "get over" and Asheera, while finding it hurtful and hard to deal with sometimes, relies on her training and oaths as a paladin to manage that specific hurdle in their relationship.

[elialys]

20 questions for fic writers

I was tagged by @ceruleanphoenix7. I'm tagging: @melusine0811 @lastbluetardis and @oliviassunrise. No obligation to complete this of course, only if you want to! I'm terrible at tagging, so anyone can do this really 😅

(These answers are a bit skewed because it doesn't take into account the ~90 fics I posted on ffnet since 2004, and there are a couple fics on AO3 I've 'hidden' in private collections)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

61

2. What's your total A03 word count?

1,064,298 words

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Fringe (32)

Doctor Who (20)

Horizon Forbidden West (5)

The Newsreader (3)

The Last of Us (1)

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

On the Wings of the Ten, Aloy/Kotallo, HFW (1,510 kudos)

Chasing the Aurora, Ten/Rose/Tentoo, DW (1,410 kudos)

Calluses, Tentoo/Rose, DW (1,341 kudos)

Across the Void, Ten/Rose, DW (933 kudos)

A Leap of Faith, Ten/Rose, DW (826 kudos)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Always, to the best of my ability. Sometimes I respond literally 6 months to a year later, but I try my best to always do it. I love exchanging with my readers ❤️

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

This one is tricky because I really try to end all of my stories on a hopeful note, if not a happy one. I'm going to go with In Reverse (Peter/Olivia, Fringe), though, because it's undoubtedly the saddest story I have ever written in 20 years, if only for the stillbirth in it. And although it doesn't end on a tragic note, it's extremely bittersweet.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Maybe Calluses? (Tentoo/Rose, DW) I feel this has the most blatant "they are so in love and hopeful for the future" ending in everything I've posted on AO3 😅

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I have a few times through the years, people tearing down my writing style, accusing me of being too melodramatic (I wonder why 😂). Thankfully it's been very rare in two decades of fic writing. I did get a homophobic comment once because I wrote a minor female character having a wife.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do. I like to say the 'E' in my E rated stories stands for "Emotional Smut" 🤣 I'm strongly on the ace spectrum, so my smut is extremely vanilla, heavily focused on feelings, with just enough description to know what's going on. I write love making and that's about it 😅

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I don't, although I remember being 15 and writing a Harry Potter and Buffy crossover in one of my notebooks xD

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge, although I accidently discovered 'sequels' to some of my fics, with entire sections copied/pasted of the original stories in the new ones. Although I was credited for writing the 'prequel', it's very strange to see whole chunks of my writing mixed with someone else's without me knowing anything about it.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

A few times, including in Chinese and Russian! The strangest thing to me is when someone translates one of my stories in French, considering it's my native tongue, and back in the days when my English still sucked a lot, I spent many hours translating my own fics from French to English.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Once. It was an interesting experience!

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

Peter and Olivia. Of all the ships I've written for, I've written for them the most, and the longest. Writing them again this summer after a 6 year break was the most wonderful feeling 😭 I just feel like I know those two by heart, and writing their characters is just...comforting.

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have so many WIPs right now 😭 I don't think I'll *ever* NOT finish them, considering I finished Shivered Bones this year after a 7 year hiatus, as I knew I would eventually, so I want to believe I will finish those WIPs I really love. On top of my list of WIPs I absolutely want to finish someday: Chasing the Aurora, These Lines Etched in Sand, On the Wings of the Ten

16. What are your writing strengths?

Feelings? I've been told my writing is 'immersive', and that I'm good at putting my readers into the characters' headspace and making them feel what they're feeling. I love writing introspection and exploring characters' motivations and progression, and I know I'm pretty good at it! I can also write an 'imagery-heavy' kind of prose that people seem to enjoy.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Descriptions of actual places 😂 Like, give me an emotion to describe or an abstract concept, and I will write 2,000 words without dialogue. But tell me "now you have to describe their PHYSICAL SURROUNDINGS" and I will cry and have to be dragged by force to my keyboard.

I also find dialogue-heavy scenes to be the trickiest to write. Not the dialogue itself, that usually flows out fine, but everything around it. If it's just dialogue lines, it reads so fast and...flat. What do I write around the speech lines to control the pacing of it? How do I make this 'dynamic' even though the characters are, let's say, trapped in an elevator, having a heart-to-heart, or sitting around a table (not to mention the many 'let's talk about our feelings while lying together in bed' scenes I've written 😅). How do I convey body language and tone of voice without repeating myself 500 times? Tricky but also rewarding when I tackle it haha

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

If the character doesn't speak English in a fic written in English, absolutely? It's like watching a show/movie with characters in a non-english speaking country, yet everyone speaks English to each other in a thick accent, like, please don't 🥲

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I wrote my first fanfics at age 15, and it was all about Buffy and Spike 😅

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Asking me this is like asking me if I have a favorite child 😭

I think one I'm proudest of is The Horizon Hides in Vain (Ten/Rose, DW). I genuinely was in such a zone when I wrote it, and I think it's a nice example of my writing style, in terms of prose, characters and plot.

[adventures-in-moderating]

I really enjoyed the THIS IS IT arc and the optimistic nihilism it left the characters in, but I'm curious how we're meant to feel about Phonograph? I feel like he was a bit demonized for actually wanting things to be better. But I also understand that often in Don't Hug Me I'm Scared you can't take the presented narrative at face value, everything's buried under a few layers of social commentary so not sure where you stand or what you intended.

Oh god I wrote way too long an answer for this

Okay, so if I'm being frank about my intentions, Phonograph is meant to be a flawed but tragic character. I view him as entirely correct that the current way they teach is probably entirely unhelpful and bad for their students, he's correct that things need to change and things probably used to be a little better. But his flaw is that he's a little bit pompous. He has this self-importance about being the first teacher ever created, and he refuses to see the inherent flaws in the system that have always been there. He just can't believe that he might be wrong sometimes as well, and can't accept the reality that Rosalyn was disappointed with him and her other creations (while we're here, Rosalyn also isn't as terrible as everyone in the story thinks she was). Phonograph's style of teaching is also commentary on how some children's shows push this idea that "you can do ANYTHING you put your mind to!" when that just isn't applicable to everyone, as everyone has their own limitations for their own reasons. While not at all insidious, probably not a realistic expectation. But he's not supposed to be a bad person, he's just trying to have morals in a place that had a very different philosophy from him, and he's become frustrated and occasionally hostile.

The real issue though is that THIS IS IT is the result of me accidently building up a lot of lore that I felt I needed to deliver on, and is probably very flawed. It's probably way too mean, and if I ever feel like drawing all 100 pages, I will probably reword some dialogue. It's difficult to write satisfying character arcs for these awful talking objects. That's why I kind of wanted to start all over with the Clayhill stuff where the rules are off, basically. No more threats of deletion, everyone get along with each other. Web series canon is over, I can write whatever elaborate fanfiction I want and not worry about it getting invalidated later (I don't know why I worry about this). It's going to be a bit more positive and less melodramatic, and have more straight-forward character arcs, but I don't want to talk about that until I've released more.

[scrapyardboyfriends]

It all went downhill imo when Iain Macleod left. He wasn't even my favourite producer; Kate Oakes was, but the show's been going downhill since 2018 imo. I'm also not pleased at their recent abuse storylines, particularly the grooming storyline. Idk what it is, but it's like they need to do more research or just be more conscious. There have been grooming storylines in soaps like Hollyoaks and Eastenders and I found those storylines to be less problematic and more organised.

I don’t disagree with you. But Iain had a lot of faults as a producer and Kate had them too.

I feel like Kate was the best at general story pacing. I mean look at Aaron’s abuse story. That was only like four months, which felt like a better length compared to the Paul story which dragged on for a year even if part of that was due to covid. But Kate also had her flare for the dramatics with her Wild Thursday doubles that you’d often have to try and erase from your mind by the following week. I mean...the hitman, the lodge, the scrapyard rant? Haha. Sometimes it was a lot. She was also decent at the big event episodes and I feel like her character interaction levels were okay. She did have a habit of breaking up some big couples that felt like a mistake. Zak and Lisa never truly recovered from the Joanie debacle. And Paddy certainly never recovered after Tess.

Iain was great at the big event episodes for the most part. I mean he gave us ssw 2016. But his day to day stuff was often repetitive and he had terrible pacing problems with his stories. They would drag on forever. And the characters were very isolated in his years.

With the latest team...they just have a lot of issues. I still feel like three producers was not a good idea. I still think a singular vision is a better plan. Unless people really work well together. I think about the only good thing they did was fix some of Iain’s character isolation and making the village feel more villagy but that has been totally ruined by covid this past year. And obviously covid has affected their story pacing but it’s still not good otherwise.

I think the worst part is that they are just overall bad storytellers, particularly in their conclusions. Stories either fizzle out and disappear or they have very lackluster conclusions. And their big event episodes often just feel very forced or unexciting.

With the abuse stories that you mentioned, you’re right, they have been disappointing. I feel like this team has this flare for the melodramatic when it comes to some of these things that should be told in a slightly more straightforward manner and not be so soapy. The Maya story illustrates that problem very well. The big night out stuff was kind of entertaining but was any of it necessary? It just made it so she got away with the worst of it. And then they spent a lot of time focusing on David when they should have been focusing on Jacob. And I don’t feel like they ever truly got through to him in any kind of meaningful scenes. Just one day he was like “okay I guess it wasn’t good??” I don’t know. It was very weird. And then the whole dropping the baby on their doorstep and it being David’s was just truly bizarre because I still just do not see the point. Like I think they’ve done some interesting things with David and Leyla since then with how it all still affects them but that doesn’t mean the initial story ended well at all. Overall it was just a very muddy story and it did not need to be.

With the Paul stuff, it’s been a bit more straight forward which is good. It’s just dragged on too long and been very repetitive and the motivations are sometimes a bit questionable. I hope that this week with the funeral and hopefully Vinny coming out of his denial phase, that maybe they can have some definitive closure on everything for him as they move into perhaps a more recovery phase.

Anyway, as I’ve said, I think it’s definitely time for a new producer because this team has never seemed like they know what they’re doing and I think it’s time the show has some fresh ideas.

[shadyb00ts]

A Chromatica Review

So I never really use Tumblr, but when I do go on here, it’s pretty much to review something long-form. As you can tell from my profile picture here, and from my glowing review of ARTPOP from 7 years ago, I am and have always been a Gaga stan. Just read the melodramatic first paragraph of my ARTPOP review and you’ll get the gist of how much I idolize this woman. Well, idolized. Past tense.

That’s not to say I suddenly hate Gaga–I’m still going to follow her career and listen to whatever she puts out. There have just been several factors this past year that have changed my perspective on how I view her, this album being one of those factors. But I’ll get to those later. First I just need to lay out all my issues with this album.

Yes, this is going to be that type of review, so if you’re a fellow Gaga stan that isn’t able to criticize her work, this probably isn’t for you. Otherwise please read to the end if you can, because this is honestly about more than just the album.

Issue #1: The Mismatch Between Music & Aesthetic

When the cover of the album came out, I was so gagged. Like, just look at it! It’s striking, and Gaga has rarely ever disappointed me when it came to visuals. Actually, I can’t even think of any visual choices she made in previous eras that disappointed me. Even in the Joanne era, the pink cowboy hat became iconic and all of her aesthetic choices fit with the overall vibe of that album cycle.

So naturally, when she revealed to us the new visual direction she was taking for Chromatica, I assumed it would give us some insight into how the music would sound. The aesthetic of this era always gave me grungy cyberpunk and heavy machinery tease. When I look at the album cover for example, I can hear a song produced by SOPHIE in my head, the clink-clank queen herself. (There were rumors that Gaga was going to or did work with SOPHIE but that was never confirmed, unfortunately for us.)

For those unfamiliar with SOPHIE, here’s Ponyboy, which was most recently used in the ad campaign for Beyoncé’s Ivy Park clothing line.

That was the kind of production I was more or less expecting when taking the visuals into account; dark, metallic, basically similar to ARTPOP’s production (to be honest ARTPOP sonically fits better with the Chromatica aesthetic; think about it). 

But what did we get? Light, garden variety dance pop, a stark contrast to what the album cover and the promo images teased us with.

In the album, we get these orchestral interludes that are beautiful but don't really mesh that well with the actual tracks. The songs don't have any orchestral elements by themselves, so the interludes felt a bit misplaced to me. I wish they'd incorporated more of that into the individual songs, so that there could be an orchestral through-line to give more cohesion, like what Ariana did in her album positions by using strings. However I will say, the transition from Chromatica II into 911 remains unmatched.

I get that the album is supposed to sound happy, that it was her returning to her “dance pop roots” and singing about serious topics like mental health over happy-sounding beats, because it’s supposed to reflect her current mental state. I get all that. But if that was the case, I think she should’ve gone with a different visual direction to match. Personally I wish she went a different direction musically instead, but even if it was just the other way around and she changed the aesthetic of this era, my opinion of the album would probably improve slightly, cause at least there would be cohesion between the visuals and the sonics.

I look at that album cover, and promo images like the one below, and then I listen to songs like Fun Tonight or Plastic Doll for example, and there’s a noticeable dissonance there. 

You might be thinking “why are you so hard on her for this?” and I guess it’s because I’ve always held Gaga to a high standard when it comes to how she links those two elements. Think of every era she’s had in the past, and you remember how the visuals always just worked with their respective albums.

And that’s before I’ve even talked about the videos. Oh lord, the videos.

Issue #2: The Videos Are Lackluster (Except For 911)

It started with Stupid Love, the lead single. I had mixed feelings about that song in the beginning, but because I was so thirsty for new music from Gaga at the time, I played that song like hell when it leaked and it was on rotation for a good while. But when Gaga premiered the Stupid Love video, I’m not going to lie; I really didn’t like it.

The whole “shot entirely on iPhone” schtick really did the video a disservice. I’m sorry but it had to be said. If I imagined the video with a higher budget and more of a plotline as opposed to just being a dance video, I think it could’ve worked a lot better and been a decent introduction to not only Chromatica the album, but this fictional world/planet that she’s created. Which by the way, she didn’t really deliver in that regard either. 

The concept of Chromatica being a fictional world could have been expanded on further; she could’ve showcased all of the different factions (I know they were called “tribes” at first but that’s appropriative so I’ll call them factions) and perhaps had an overarching storyline about how these factions are at war, and it’s Gaga’s job as one of the “Kindness Punks”, as she calls it, to bring everyone together for a rave.

This is why I will always say it: Chromatica needed to be a visual album. Just imagine the storyline I mentioned just now being turned into a full-length feature, and now imagine the album’s orchestral intro playing as they’re essentially opening the gates to Chromatica and Gaga discovers this world for the first time, and then it goes into the first song Alice where she’s meeting all the factions and getting acclimated to her surroundings.

Honestly I could go on and on cause I have thought about this for SO LONG now and I’ll never shut up about it. It’s just such a missed opportunity cause the concept was just begging for a visual album. Anyway sorry for my tangent: back to the Stupid Love video.

The whole “shot on iPhone” gimmick really was unfortunate. Like she really ruined the quality of a music video because she wanted that Apple check??? Come on, Gaga, there could’ve been some other way to secure that check.

And then there was the Rain On Me video, which definitely have visuals that are a massive improvement from Stupid Love because it was professionally shot and cinematic. But even that was another purely dance video with not much in the way of storyline. Not that storyline is always required for music videos, but I think specifically when it comes to Chromatica, not having storylines in the M/Vs does a disservice to the overall concept.

I guess my issue with these two music videos, but mostly Stupid Love, is that Gaga isn't fully utilizing her COIN. Like she's successful enough to the point where she has budgets for these videos and can go all out, but doesn't. She has the capacity for extremely high production value, but up until 911, the last video she did that had that level of extraness was G.U.Y. I miss the days when her music videos were an event. I still remember where I was and what I was doing the exact moment the Telephone video came out. That's impact.

Taylor Swift I think is somebody who really knows how to blow her budget on a video. Look What You Made Me Do may have been a terrible song, but I always thought the video was sickening.

Anyway, I have no notes on 911. She's a masterpiece. If there was a music video category at the Oscars, I'd be campaigning for it right now.

Issue #3: Any Other Girly Can Do This

The thing I always loved the most about Gaga's music was that nobody was doing it like her. Everything she put out always felt like it was distinctly hers and hers alone, it's unmistakable. Even in Joanne, despite that album being a major departure from what she normally did.

I know Joanne is a very polarizing album, even for Little Monsters, but personally I've always loved it. Joanne was an album that I always knew she would make and I thought was essential to her career and body of work. Despite her straying away from pop for a more earthy, grass roots sound, it still sounded very much like her music. Even from the first track, Diamond Heart, her DNA is all over that.

It's difficult to explain what exactly I mean when I say there's a certain signature "Gaga-ness" or that she has a very specific DNA injected into her songs. If you've been a fan of hers for a long time or followed her career, you probably understand what I'm referring to. It's the way she laughs maniacally in the beginning of ARTPOP on Aura, how she says "I don't speak German but I can if you like, OW!" and proceeds to recite broken German on Scheiße, how she invented the phrase "disco stick", literally the ENTIRETY of The Fame Monster.

These examples probably give you the gist of what I'm trying to convey. Gaga is fucking weird. She has always been fucking weird and I love that so much about her. And her brand of weirdness was so specific that if any of the other pop girls tried to do what she did, it would have been cringey as hell. To me, the most disappointing thing of all with this album was that this weirdness that was so uniquely hers was missing.

It's there in brief moments, in tracks like Sour Candy, 911 and Babylon, but most of the album doesn't really sound like her music. It sounds like songs that she wrote for other people, like her old unreleased stuff. OG Little Monsters probably remember songs like Second Time Around and No Way. These were leaked unreleased songs that Gaga had written for other artists, and even though they were absolute bops, they didn't sound like her. They weren't supposed to.

A similar feeling I had was when her song The Cure came out a few years ago. I genuinely thought that was something she wrote for someone else, cause even though it was a solid pop song, it absolutely had zero Gaga-ness and any current pop girl could sing it. This pretty much encapsulates how I feel about the majority of Chromatica.

I was gonna say it sounded like songs that were written for Ally, her Star is Born character, but I think even those pop songs from the soundtrack sounded more Gaga than Chromatica does. 💀 I can easily imagine Hair Body Face being on The Fame.

Final Thoughts

It's funny that the last review I had posted on here before this was my review of Kingdom Hearts III. The Kingdom Hearts game series is something that's very near and dear to my heart, and I waited a wholeass decade for the third game to come out. And then it did, and I was so disappointed.

So you know what happened after that? What helped me deal with my disappointment of that game was my anticipation for Chromatica, or at the time it was still called LG6. I had no idea I would feel the same exact way about this album the way I do about KH3. Now when I think of both of these things, I'm mostly frustrated by all of the potential and the missed opportunities, but I also look at them with a certain fondness. I had fun playing KH3, and I also had fun listening to Chromatica, despite both of them disappointing me overall.

In the beginning of this review I said that there were certain factors that have stopped me from idealizing Gaga too much. Firstly it's because I'm much older now, and secondly it's due to the sheer state of the world this past year. The pandemic really precipitated the fall of celebrity culture, and all of that made me really examine how putting someone on such a high pedestal can be damaging in the long run.

Gaga is a human being and I haven't agreed with everything she's done, particularly how she handled the whole R. Kelly situation back in 2013. And also the simple fact that she's a white woman, we know how a lot of the time they can't help but show their asses and are bound to disappoint us in some way. I'm forever grateful for her artistry and how she saved my life when I was a suicidal little eighth grader, but I'm also going to hold her accountable for any of her mistakes, and I'd be ready to stop supporting her entirely if anything she does ever goes too far.

Now I stan artists for fun. It's not healthy to idolize them to the point of revering them. I mean, I like to make jokes like that about Beyoncé, like "no way on Beyoncé's green earth", etc. But even she is just a person that we shouldn't deify for real.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Chromatica being a lackluster album and era ended up being a good thing, because it helped me grow out of idolizing celebrities too intensely. Chromatica was pretty much the best disappointment I've ever listened to.

If you've read all the way to the end, thank you! Writing this was very therapeutic but also stressful; this is a second draft cause Tumblr fucked up my first post. 😭

Anyway, SAWAYAMA & Ungodly Hour are albums of the year. Argue with the wall.

[use-your-telescope]

OKAY I screamed in the replies about this when it first came out, BUT now that I FINALLY have a moment (damn life getting in the way of reading fics!), I need to give the full breakdown of this fantastic snippet you shared:

Pathetic, Loki thought. This yearning. It was beneath him. He’d truly thought it would be easier if he didn’t tell you goodbye. That if he just focused on the task, on his duties as a prince – as a god – that he’d be too preoccupied to let you slip into his mind. How wrong he’d been. He was desperate for a diversion. And Thor and his warriors were terribly distracting if nothing else. Loki feigned in their revelry most evenings, imbibing in spirits, mindless prattle, and whatever else they could get their hands on as they waited for signs of the impending Convergence.  And tonight, much to everyone’s delight, Volstagg had procured a particularly potent batch of Vanir honey wine.

This is... DAMN. So first of all, you know I'm a hoe for brooding angsty Loki, so when I read this the first time I squealed like a little girl. But this? This is a master class in immersive angst that isn't melodramatic (which is rare!!). The juxtaposition between feeling and behavior, the guarded nature and cynicism that creeps through, and even the choice of words and syntax lends so well to his voice and characterization.

The breezeway was dark and cold and empty – a stark contrast to the golden warmth of Loki’s chambers.  His feet instinctively lead him to the gardens. Frigga’s gardens. As if seeking out a familiar comfort after the dreaded visions that had seeped into his dreams.

I love the contrasting imagery and details here, and the subtext that comes from those details.

As Loki approached the courtyard in the center of the garden, he looked up to the stars and allowed a moment of serenity to overtake him. And in that moment, Loki thought of you. You were his tether to everything good. Everything that could be. He continued his stroll through the hedges, pausing every now and then to twirl a tendril of his seidr around the flora that surrounded him. What would you think of his mother’s garden? He was certain you’d be intrigued by at least some of the realm’s native plants. He could almost hear your quiet gasp, and the way you would softly say his name whenever you were curious about something. 

The balance of internal monologue/thought processes and action provides such great pacing - the ebb and flow between them are spot on. I also appreciate how the internal monologue isn't just "oh I miss reader" it shows little details about the reader that Loki has come to know, and gives us even more opportunity to be immersed in this world.

No. No. He couldn’t entertain such thoughts. Thoughts of hope. Damned hope. He was God of Mischief, after all. Chaos. He was reckless. And restless. Always searching for something. Something more… To prove himself worthy, perhaps? He – and everyone else – had assumed that it was power he craved. Power had always been the most straightforward answer. If he had power, if he maintained control, he would be satisfied. But he was Loki. Satisfaction was not in his nature.

YES. This is another moment of fantastic characterization and the use of contrasts - having this right after the imagery of the garden and the reader being the tether to everything good really makes this hit extra hard!

She grasped his chin with her hand and stared at him so intensely that he felt a burning heat creep across his cheeks. “You may be a trickster, but you cannot fool me. Something about you has changed, and I suspect– well, my suspicions do not matter. But I can sense your turmoil.” Loki slowly blinked, his silver tongue thick with the consequence of honey wine. “I– I’m not. Whatever do you…?” He sighed. It was useless to try to lie to the Allmother. Especially in his current state.

MAMA KNOWS, LOKI. I appreciate how Frigga tries to be subtle, knowing Loki isn't always forthcoming, and when he fails to fool her she comes right out and says it. And Loki knows that his mother sees right through him.

As he settled beside his mother, Loki stretched his long legs in front of him, rubbing his palms along his thighs. He closed his eyes and inhaled, resigning to the overwhelming need to be honest.  And then, he let go, breathing out your name as if it were a prayer.

"Breathing out your name as if it were a prayer" EXCUSE ME BESTIE THAT MAKES ME FEEL ALLLLLLLL SORTS OF FEELINGS

“She’s terribly intelligent. Clever, even. Outspoken. Tenacious.” A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He thought of how you’d been so determined to win his friendship. So quick to call out his apathy. And so damn stubborn. “Fiercely loyal, perhaps to a fault,” he continued as Frigga squeezed his hand. “And…” And nothing to me. Loki suddenly stood, furrowing his brow and running a hand through his still bedridden curls. “And I would be a fool to think her worthy of my affections.” He scoffed as the familiar numbness seeped into his heart once more. “She is of Midgard, after all. A mere mortal.” “Oh, my darling son.” Was that pity in Frigga’s voice? “Spare me your divine mercy, Mother,” Loki snapped, turning away from her in an attempt to hide the tears welling in his eyes. Fuck. He cursed the moonlight for highlighting his anguish and tried to ignore the dull ache in his chest. 

Oh my god, this passage. THIS PASSAGE. Once again, the way the dialogue is written is spot-on to how both Loki and Frigga would speak, and the balance of internal and external conflict is *chef's kiss* And the dramatic shift between thinking of the reader (who he obviously loves) and his self-loathing is executed flawlessly!!

Frigga stood, a look of sorrow marring her countenance before she delivered parting words that shattered Loki’s resolve. “All these years, after everything. I still find myself amazed at how well you are able to lie to yourself, Loki.”

WOW. Frigga's remark is -- there's a LOT to unpack there. Disappointment about him lying to himself, sadness about his unwillingness to accept the truth of the matter, and in some ways I imagine that she is also saying this in regards to the way Loki scorns himself and convinces himself that he is unworthy of love. As a writer, this is fucking awesome. As a reader, you just broke my heart and I'm handing you the pieces so you can break it again because it was that awesome.

He glanced at where Frigga had stood moments before, but she was gone, and Loki was alone again. Even the moon left him, retreating behind a cloud as the darkness engulfed him. He sank to his knees, his own chilling words echoing in his mind. This day, the next, a hundred years. It’s nothing. It’s a heartbeat. Loki resigned himself to loving you from a distance. It would be more than he could bear, to give himself to you completely. To know what it might feel like to have you love him back. Only to have you taken from him. He’d never be ready.

The way loneliness and the fear of being alone/losing the one he loves plays through this final section is so well executed - it starts at the forefront, but even as it retreats into the subtext you can still feel its undercurrent eating away at Loki. And again, the syntax and pacing of this section is fantastic.

So, @cheekyscamp, in case I hadn't made it clear: THIS IS FUCKING INCREDIBLE. I want to devour this fic, scream about its amazingness, and then devour it again, and that's after reading one snippet. Seriously, it's rare to find angst done SO WELL. I am so glad you shared this with us and cannot WAIT to read more!!!

Whatever Returns From Oblivion [Snippet #1]

It’s likely going to be a minute before I have another one-shot or series ready to post here on tumblr, so I’ve decided to share some snippets from my Loki longfic WIP in the meantime! It's a canon-divergent, friends-to-lovers slow burn told in two parts. Part One loosely follows the events of the MCU from the end of The Avengers through Infinity War.

Context: This snippet takes place about a year and a half after the Battle of New York. Without giving too much away, Loki spent several months on Earth after the attack, a reluctant ally to the Avengers. Here, we find him back home on Asgard, by Odin's order.

Word count: 1.2k

Tags/Warnings: Angst, Language

Author’s note: This is still a major work in progress, so feedback is appreciated + encouraged!

Time meant nothing to him. He’d lived for a thousand years and would live for thousands more. The fickleness and desperate obsession with the passing of time – the sickening preciousness of it all, of each moment – was something innately human, their mortality a constant arbiter of their days.

Yes. Time meant nothing. This time apart from you, it was inconsequential. He couldn’t allow it to mean anything. And yet, as the weeks turned into months, the passing of time gnawed away at something deep within him.

How did this happen? No matter how hard he tried to concentrate on anything else, Loki could not evade thoughts of you. 

He’d vowed that no one would ever have such a sacred hold on his mind ever again.

Pathetic, Loki thought. This yearning. It was beneath him.

He’d truly thought it would be easier if he didn’t tell you goodbye. That if he just focused on the task, on his duties as a prince – as a god – that he’d be too preoccupied to let you slip into his mind. How wrong he’d been.

He was desperate for a diversion. And Thor and his warriors were terribly distracting if nothing else. Loki feigned in their revelry most evenings, imbibing in spirits, mindless prattle, and whatever else they could get their hands on as they waited for signs of the impending Convergence. 

And tonight, much to everyone’s delight, Volstagg had procured a particularly potent batch of Vanir honey wine.

With a strangled gasp, Loki sat up in his bed, startled awake from another one of his damned nightmares. Norns, he still had on his armor and his boots. What was in that wine?

As his breathing steadied, he composed himself and made his way out of the palace. The breezeway was dark and cold and empty – a stark contrast to the golden warmth of Loki’s chambers. 

His feet instinctively lead him to the gardens. Frigga’s gardens. As if seeking out a familiar comfort after the dreaded visions that had seeped into his dreams.

Heavy boots crunched in the loose gravel as he absentmindedly ambled along the path. As Loki approached the courtyard in the center of the garden, he looked up to the stars and allowed a moment of serenity to overtake him. And in that moment, Loki thought of you. You were his tether to everything good. Everything that could be.

He continued his stroll through the hedges, pausing every now and then to twirl a tendril of his seidr around the flora that surrounded him. What would you think of his mother’s garden? He was certain you’d be intrigued by at least some of the realm’s native plants. He could almost hear your quiet gasp, and the way you would softly say his name whenever you were curious about something. 

No. No. He couldn’t entertain such thoughts. Thoughts of hope. Damned hope.

He was God of Mischief, after all. Chaos. He was reckless. And restless. Always searching for something. Something more…

To prove himself worthy, perhaps? He – and everyone else – had assumed that it was power he craved. Power had always been the most straightforward answer. If he had power, if he maintained control, he would be satisfied.

But he was Loki. Satisfaction was not in his nature.  

“Loki?”

He turned on his heel, a sly grin crossing his face. “Mother, apologies if I woke you…”

Frigga reached out a hand, her golden robe glimmering in the moonlight.

“Both of our minds have been too preoccupied to entertain sleep as of late,” she said, giving him a knowing look as she hooked her arm in his.

“So- so it seems.” He still felt drunk but did his best to keep his gaze focused ahead, his voice steady. Frigga only hummed in response.  

After a few minutes of silently navigating the garden paths, his mother spoke again.

“There is something on your mind, Loki. Or perhaps someone?” Loki’s heart leapt in his chest at the insinuation.

“Thor tells me you’ve grown fond of someone from Midgard?” Frigga continued. 

Thor. That halfwit. Of course, he had likely told their mother everything about you. Well, not everything.

“Ah. As you know, Thor is the one with affection for the mortals of that realm, not I.” He cast a wary glance at his mother. “It’s nothing, I assure you.”

“Loki…,” Frigga sighed, abruptly stopping in the middle of the walkway.

She grasped his chin with her hand and stared at him so intensely that he felt a burning heat creep across his cheeks. “You may be a trickster, but you cannot fool me. Something about you has changed, and I suspect– well, my suspicions do not matter. But I can sense your turmoil.”

Loki slowly blinked, his silver tongue thick with the consequence of honey wine. “I– I’m not. Whatever do you…?” He sighed. It was useless to try to lie to the Allmother. Especially in his current state.

“Can we sit?” he asked, guiding her to an arbored bench.

As he settled beside his mother, Loki stretched his long legs in front of him, rubbing his palms along his thighs. He closed his eyes and inhaled, resigning to the overwhelming need to be honest. 

And then, he let go, breathing out your name as if it were a prayer.

“She’s terribly intelligent. Clever, even. Outspoken. Tenacious.” 

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He thought of how you’d been so determined to win his friendship. So quick to call out his apathy. And so damn stubborn.

“Fiercely loyal, perhaps to a fault,” he continued as Frigga squeezed his hand. “And…”

And nothing to me. Loki suddenly stood, furrowing his brow and running a hand through his still bedridden curls. 

“And I would be a fool to think her worthy of my affections.” He scoffed as the familiar numbness seeped into his heart once more. “She is of Midgard, after all. A mere mortal.”

“Oh, my darling son.” Was that pity in Frigga’s voice?

“Spare me your divine mercy, Mother,” Loki snapped, turning away from her in an attempt to hide the tears welling in his eyes.

Fuck. He cursed the moonlight for highlighting his anguish and tried to ignore the dull ache in his chest. 

Frigga stood, a look of sorrow marring her countenance before she delivered parting words that shattered Loki’s resolve. “All these years, after everything. I still find myself amazed at how well you are able to lie to yourself, Loki.”

Suddenly, everything felt heavy. He glanced at where Frigga had stood moments before, but she was gone, and Loki was alone again. Even the moon left him, retreating behind a cloud as the darkness engulfed him. 

He sank to his knees, his own chilling words echoing in his mind. 

This day, the next, a hundred years. It’s nothing. It’s a heartbeat.

Loki resigned himself to loving you from a distance. It would be more than he could bear, to give himself to you completely. 

To know what it might feel like to have you love him back. Only to have you taken from him.

He’d never be ready.

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[suncatchr]

45

this ask is Very old but I just stumbled across this in my docs and it’s like. done. idk why I never posted it?

45. “What’s the damage?”

-

“I don’t believe this, you know.”

Cass puts his arm around my shoulder. “What, love?”

I gesture into my sister’s living room, where Percy is lying on the pale hardwood flying a model plane over his head. Beside him is my sister’s daughter, Angélique, staring at it in awe and trying to snatch it from his hand. Percy is older than her, two years, I think, and much bigger. She drives her hand into his stomach, trying to climb up higher, and he barely reacts.

“I never used to miss Aimee.” I lower my voice because I know she and her husband are lurking around here somewhere. That’s what she does, she lurks. She eavesdrops on my conversations and hates all my friends and mocks everything I do. I brought Heli home to meet her and my mother when we were younger, and she hated him. She kept taking advantage of his gullibility to mock and belittle him like she was a mean little child on the playground. She made him worry that if my family didn’t like him, then I wouldn’t anymore, either. She nearly ruined everything just to get a quick laugh. Irritation sends heat through me. “I hated her, Cass. She made my life a living hell, and yet?”

Percy squeals and rolls onto his side, laughing like mad as Angélique scrabbles to her feet and takes off in circles after him. Percy starts prancing and hopping to keep his steps ahead of hers, but he’s no match for her quick little strides. She pounces on him and tugs his shirt, making screaming sounds on the verge of tears as she tries to pull his plane-flying arm down. I nearly start forward; I hate when people play rough with him and she’s going to knock him down if they keep on this way. But Cass tugs me back.

“He’s okay.”

I lean against him. I was saying something, I try to put myself back on track. It’s not a huge deal anyway. “I… I’m still glad we ran into Aimee, you know? I’m so glad Percy has family nearby, I-”

If I start crying and Aimee comes out from wherever she’s lurking, I’m just going to crawl into a hole and die. I know for a fact she hasn’t matured any, I could see it in her smug face when she invited us over here. She only did it because we invited her over first. Cass accidentally mentioned that we live in an apartment, so she refused. Why don’t you all visit us at home, instead? There’ll be far more space for the children to play. Ugh.

“When I came back here and I couldn’t find her-” Tears sting my eyes because I’m already feeling it and now I’ve brought up the one winter I want nothing more than to forget. “I felt so abandoned, Cass, I had no family anymore, no matter how much I hated her, I- I wanted-”

Cass herds me a little down the hall, probably so that Percy won’t see me cry. He gives me an earnest look, puts a hand on my shoulder. I take his wrist so that I’m touching him, too.

“I wanted my family, Cass. And now I’m Percy’s family and I’m so scared that he won’t have me forever.” That was more than I meant to say, my throat tightens until tears spill down my face in streams. “So I'm… I’m happy that Aimee is around again. Percy has a cousin to play with, and an aunt and uncle to come by if he needs to get away from us, you know?”

Cass pulls his sleeve up to his wrist and wipes my face. “I know, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “I worry about all that just as much as you. That was why I invited Aimee over-”

“Before she interrupted you to tell us how rich she is,” I mutter. He snickers.

“Yeah. Yeah, I read her as a blowhard from the moment I met her.”

I can’t help laughing out loud at that, wiping the rest of my tears to make way for it. “Blowhard,” I repeat, “is a terrible word.”

“It’s the best word,” he corrects me. “But anyway, I knew… even if you didn’t like her much, you need family in your life.”

Hurt stings me. “I have family.” It’s hurt on his behalf, doesn’t he think I think he’s enough? He blinks and nods.

“Oh, I know. I know, baby, but… I don’t- Y'know? I just know you. You like to have people around, people you love. And you want that for Percy, too.”

“You do know me,” I murmur. He combs his hand through the edges of my hair. 

“I try.”

I wait a few seconds, breathing deep through my mingled emotions. There’s always something more I want to say to him but right now the threat of my sister is shutting me up before I can open my mouth. But Cass notices anyway.

“What is it?”

“I…” I glance up the stairs next to us to make sure Aimee isn’t lurking there. That used to be my spot, actually, Aimee preferred to hide behind doors. Ugh. “I wish we could have more kids, Cass. I wish Percy could have family that wasn’t Aimee. I want him to have people who have his back no matter what, people to spend time with that aren’t us.”

“Hey, whoa. Honey, listen-”

“I can’t, Cass, what we are has cost us so much! I can’t give us a family! I wish we had a normal life, this isn’t fair!”

I start crying again. I hate this. I hate my sister. I hate that she’s Percy’s aunt, she’s all he has if our lives go sideways, if I get my wish and Percy outlives us. I want him to have his own family. I want one that’s our own.

Cass hugs me, and I kind of want to squirm away because I feel like Aimee is here someplace. But I can’t let go of him, I start sobbing into his chest and this is such an uncomfortably familiar ritual that it proves my point. Our lives shouldn’t be this. I wish I could give my son the world and I lose it like this whenever I realise that I just can’t.

“Oh, darling, I know. I know.”

“I always imagined having a huge family,” I murmur into his shirt. “A house just like this and beautiful Sunday dinners. That was my dream, and I’ll never have it.”

“We don’t need it, love. We’re everything to Percy just as we are. He doesn’t know what he could have or should have. He knows us, and now he knows Angélique, and I can see that that’s enough for him right now.”

“But…” I don’t want to believe it, I just want Percy to have the life I always dreamed of, can’t Cass understand? People he loves and trusts and works with. I wanted so much more for him.

“Honey, you cannot give him everything. No one can have everything. Right now? All he sees is a little cousin to play with and a fancy new place to have dinner tonight. He’ll be alright. Any family is good family, baby. I should know. I’ve got the smallest family I could have, and it’s all I need.”

I understand, I guess. I sniffle hard and back away, offering him a nod so he knows I heard, that I do get it. He wipes my face for me again and kisses my forehead.

Then there’s a thud from the living room and all of three silent heartbeats before a howl.

As fucking expected Aimee comes flying out of the kitchen (the kitchen, how did I not see that one?) and blazes between us, skidding into her living room.

“What did your son do to my daughter?” she complains, hauling Angelique back into our field of view. It isn’t even her crying. Cass and I track back into the living room to see Percy sitting on the floor, holding his head back to wail loud enough for the whole hill to hear. He doesn’t look hurt. 

“Percy, hey. Calm down, little one,” Cass insists, settling himself at Percy’s side. I glance at Aimee, tending her daughter like Percy did anything to her. Angélique is watching Percy cry with a mystified expression on her face. 

“I should have been watching,” Aimee whines, stroking Angelique’s hair. “He’s scaring her, being so melodramatic.”

Cass looks up, alarmed. I shrug when he glances at me. That’s Aimee for you. I just hope Percy didn’t hear. I like to let him cry. I always feel better when I get to cry till I’m done.

Cass isn’t quite the same as me that way. “Percaki, look at me. Are you bleeding?”

Percy struggles to control his wailing, jaw quivering as he shakes his head.

“Are you gonna be okay?”

He gives a slow nod.

“Then let’s talk about this, okay? No more tears. Look, look at me.” Cass smudges the tears from Percy’s face and Percy sniffles. My poor baby. “You too, Angélique. Come on. What’s the damage?”

“She broke my plane,” Percy spits, clinging to Cass’s hand. Cass nods. 

“What about you?” he asks Angélique. She turns to him, then to her mother and back.

“I was just playing,” she mumbles. “I didn’t push him.”

“Yes, you did!” Percy wails. “Baba, she pushed me and I fell and broke it!” He erupts into tears again and my heart aches for him. My poor baby! He and his father built that together!

“Tell her to say sorry,” I hiss at my sister.

“She says she didn’t push him,” she grumbles back.

“Well, I believe both of them,” Cass snaps. Percy sniffles beside him. “Angélique, you didn’t mean to break anything, did you?”

She gives her head a rapid shake. “No.”

“See?” Cass tilts Percy’s face towards his and offers a smile. “I know it sucks, but Angélique didn’t mean it. Come get some water, and then you can come back and play with something else, okay? You and I can fix your plane when we get home.”

“Okay,” Percy mumbles.

“Is that okay with you, Angelique?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry, Percy.”

“It’s okay,” Percy responds thickly. I walk over to them as Cass helps Percy to his feet and guides him into the kitchen.

“Are you okay, my love?” I ask quietly. I don’t want to hear Aimee tell me he’s fine, he’s just being dramatic. Percy isn’t another me for her to bat around, he’s a little boy and he’s just plain upset.

“I brought it to show her and she broke it,” Percy whimpers.

“We’ll fix it, don’t worry.” Cass plucks a glass from the meticulously organised upper cabinet and fills it with tap water. “Or if we can’t, we’ll build a new one.”

Percy looks devastated, mouth hanging open in shock at the very prospect. “I want this one! We built this one already!”

“So it’s done. Isn’t it more fun to make new ones than have an old one lying around?”

Percy looks back into the living room, where Angélique is holding the two biggest pieces of Percy’s plane and getting to click them back together. 

“I want that one,” Percy mumbles. Cass huffs.

“Percy, listen. Angélique is younger than you, and sometimes younger kids make more mistakes than you because they don’t know any better. When accidents happen, we let it go, okay? You can’t make it un-happen, can you?”

“No.”

“But we can make a new one, can’t we?”

Percy kicks his feet and mumbles, “mm-hm.”

“Okay. So drink your water and go play, alright? Angélique looks bored, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah.” He hands back the full glass and takes off, dropping to his knees next to his cousin and asking a question that I don’t quite hear.

“Okay,” Cass says, lifting the glass to stare into it. “Kids,” he scoffs, placing it gently in the sink. 

“I love you.”

“What?” He responds ungracefully, before he smiles and rights himself. “I love you, too.”

“You’re like the answer to every problem.” I can’t believe him sometimes. 

“Well, I do my best,” he says shyly.

“And you do it well. Do I thank you enough?” I know how he’ll answer but I want to ask in case he ever says no.

He rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “You don’t need to thank me for-”

I stand on my tiptoes and kiss the corner of his lips. “I wanted to. You’re the best family I could have ever asked for.”

He bends down and bundles me into a hug so that I can lay my head on his shoulder. I feel warmth and security with him that I never felt until him. I love him so dearly. And I think Percy and I will get through anything so long as he’s with us.

[seolhe]

I was wondering,,, why do you say the dark wife is one of the worst books you've read? I read it a few years ago, and I dont remember anything about it tbh, so I'm curious

Oh boy, where do I start? I had a lot of problems with this novel, both as a Greek myth retelling and from a writing standpoint. Now, keep in mind that I read thisabout 2 years ago, so I might be forgetting some small details here and there, but I’ll try to explain the main reasons it bugged me so much. So buckle up, because this is gonna be a long one.

Characters: All the characters are two-dimensional and poorly developed. None of them have any amount of nuance or depth.Zeus is moustache twirling villain who is evil for the sake of being evil. Hades is as good as Zeus is evil, endlessly noble and selfless and devoted. I genuinely can’t remember a single defining trait of Persephone? She’s such abland and generic protagonist, nothing really stands out about her in my memory other than her obsessive pining over Hades and hatred of Zeus. A lot of this feels like it’s pulled straight from the shallow and occasionally downright inaccurate readings of Greek myths that have become so popular in recent years, especially on places like tumblr (Zeus as an evil rapist, Hades as a pure cinnamon roll, Persephone descending willingly into the Underworld, etc.).But there are also more confusing takes on these characters, like turning chaste virgin goddess Athena into a self-centered, promiscuous lesbian (not to say that being a lesbian or being promiscuous is bad, it’s just such a strange interpretation of Athena’s character that doesn’t make any sense)And don’t even get me started on poor Charis! Charis, Persephone’s first lover in the book, exists solely to be raped and killed by Zeus. She’s fridged to show us that Zeus is BAD and giving Persephone a reason to hate him. The author’s treatment of this character is lazy and offensive. I’m sure this is something that won’t bother all readers, but as someone with a deep love for the mythology, I found the portrayal of the Greek gods franklyinsulting. Plot:“Three thousand years ago, a god told a lie.”Here we run into a big problem with the narrative. We’re told from the very prologue that the story of Hades and Persephone we’re familiar with is a lie, a narrative created by Zeus, and this is Persephone’s attempt to set the record straight.These are the first lines of our story: “I am not my mother’s daughter. I have forfeited my inheritance, my birthright. I do not possess the privilege of truth. The stories told by fires, the myth of my kidnap and my rape, are all that remain of me. Forever I will be known as the girl who was stolen away to be the wife of Hades, lord of all the dead. Andnone of it is true, or is so fragmented that the truth is nothing more than ashadow, malformed. The stories are wrong. I am not who they say I am.I am Persephone, and my story must begin with the truth.Here it is, or as close as I can tell it.”Well, this doesn’t really make any sense when, at the end of the story, Zeus is defeated and thrown into Tartarus. Why does this narrative survive into modern day when Hades and Persephone won? Why is Persephone only able to tell her story now, after thousands of years without Zeus in power? Speaking of Zeus and lies, the justification for the whole “What, Hades is awoman?!” thing really doesn’t make any sense. We’re told that Zeus calls Hades “lord” of the dead as a joke, Hades even refers to it as a “slur” in the story. The reason given for this is that Hades is only attracted to women. Well, if that’s the case, why doesn’t that same logic apply to Athena, who’salso shown to be attracted only to women? Or to Persephone for that matter? Same-sex attraction, even between women, is never shown to be frowned upon in their society, so why would Zeus single out Hades for her attraction to women? And why do all the other gods apparently go along with that “joke” to the point that Persephone literally didn’t know Hades was a woman until she meets her in person? And why, again, did this idea of Hades being a man survive into modern day? The story is constructed so poorly on so many different levels. There are so many threads that are just dropped entirely. For example:- The story starts with Demeter confidently proclaiming that Persephone will become the queen of the gods, setting up this big rivalry between her and the daughters of Hera and Aphrodite. This plot never goes anywhere, in fact, I don’t think it’s ever brought up again after the first chapter, and Demeter basically spends the rest of the book cowering before Zeus. - There’s a significant plotline about Pallas having Persephone try to deliver a message to Athena, a plotline that is unceremoniously dropped without anyresolution. After all the build-up, there’s a throwaway line about Pallas giving the note to Persephone right before the big showdown with Zeus, and that’s the last we hear of it. We never see it delivered, we don’t get to see Athena’s reaction to it, we don’t know how this impacts Pallas, if at all. In fact, Pallas basically doesn’t show up at all after this point. Then there’s the main conflict of the story: Zeus wants Persephone, and as we’re told over and over and over, Zeus always gets what he wants (the author really beats this into our heads). We’re never really given any motivation for any of Zeus’ actions, so this conflict feels weak and contrived. It doesn’t help that we get so much build-up for what a terrible threat he is, and then Persephone defeats Zeus, the most powerful god, feared by all, in like… two pages? It’s such a weak and anticlimactic end to the story.

There was also some sort of convoluted plan concocted by Zeus to, idk, have the dead rise up and overthrow Hades? For some reason? Again, we never get any clear motivation from Zeus. As far as I can remember, we’re never told why he hates Hades so much, or why he wants to overthrow her. I don’t even remember if the author explained what Zeus was going to do with the Underworld without Hades there to rule. I’m sorry, I genuinely can’t even remember the details, but it was just reallybadly set up and, once again, easily solved in a few pages.And that’s really the main problem with the story, everything is so easily solved. Our good guys all get happily ever afters with no sacrifices and no consequences for anything, and there’s always a quick and easy solution to any threat or conflict. Mythology:So how does it hold up as a Hades and Persephone retelling?Well, not great, imho. A lot of classical elements are incorporated into this retelling, but they’re stripped of any meaning or importance to the plot. The pomegranate? It’s there at their wedding, but it never figures into the greater narrative.Demeter causing famine by bringing infertility to the fields? She does freeze the world in this story, threatening everlasting winter, but unlike in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, it’s not an act of agency on her part, refusing to submit to the will of Zeus and fighting to be reunited with her daughter. Nah. She’s just being manipulated by Zeus and it’s used as a cheap reason to tear our lovers apart.And somehow, I don’t even know why seeing as it doesn’t tie into Demeter freezing the earth or Persephone eating the seeds of the pomegranate, butPersephone is still forced to spend half the year on earth and half in theUnderworld.In the epilogue, we see her in modern day New York*, acting as psychopomp (for some reason???), happily guiding the souls to the afterlife, which we’re told is her duty for the half of the year she spends above ground. I’m just so confused as to what the author was even going for here. Where did this come from? It doesn’t originate in the original myths, but it’s also not explained (as far as I can remember) in the book.*This isn’t a problem with the book per se, and it’s 100% a matter oftaste, but I personally really dislike it when mythological figures appearin a modern setting, especially when the author has to put them in anAmerican setting rather than the geographical location of their origin, whetherthat’s Greece or Egypt or Scandinavia or what have you. Romance: Hades and Persephone are destined soulmates and instantly fall in love pretty much the moment they first set eyes on each other, which doesn’t allow for any growth or progression of their relationship. They’re instantly deeply and madly in love with each other and their feelings never change over the span of the story. They spend most of their time together staring lovingly into each others eyes and when they’re separated for literally 3 days Persephone basically spends her entire days languishing in despair.It’s ridiculously melodramatic and cheesy, which again, personal taste thing,I’m just really not into. Other writing issues: - The worldbuilding is pretty much non-existent. The story doesn’t feel grounded in any particular time period or cultural context, and you never get any sense of the setting, or how the world works and what this society is like.  - The pacing was really poor, either dragging or exploding into rushed action. - A lot of page time is spent on describing things that doesn’t really further the plot or has any thematic relevance. One example would be the garden of metal and precious stones Hades made for Persephone. It’s cool I guess? But what purpose does it serve? We also waste a lot of time which could be better used developing the characters or moving the plot forward on watching Persephone play with puppy Cerberus or petting Hades’ horses (see poor pacing). - There’s a lot of talk about Persephone having some sort of grand destiny, and that her actions have been prophesized. This is never properly explained and it only serves to weaken Persephone’s story arc, stripping her of agency by implying that she doesn’t really have a choice in the matter. Prophecy and destiny are story elements that have to be handled delicately and are easy to screw up, and they’re just dealt with so clumsily here.  - Also the writing was just��� not very good.I’m sure there are more things I could dig up and complain about, but I feel like this is probably too long and rambly already, so I’ll stop here.

Obligatory disclaimer:This is obviously just my personal opinion. There are a lot of people who love this book (going by Goodreads ratings, I am clearly in the minority) and I am genuinely happy for them! I also mean no disrespect to the author who seems like a genuinely lovely person. 

[tiergan-vashir]

this might be something weird to ask but I legitimately don't know what to do or where to turn with this. do you have any advice for how to not resent being the "last-resort" friend? meaning that people only willingly interact or talk with you when there's literally nobody else around? it hurts more than I can articulate and I'm honestly getting to the point where I don't know whether I can keep going, but when I try to mention it I'm called "melodramatic" or that I'm "trying to start drama"

Oph.

I’m really sorry about that, anon. Is this a persistent thing that’s happened across numerous multiple friend groups over a long, extended period of time or is this just a thing happening with one group of “friends”?

If it’s the former:  If you have the means and the resources, I would strongly recommend seeking out a therapist and speak with her about all of these feelings. I DO NOT mean this as some kind of snide diss. I have a therapist and she has literally changed my life. I am so much better, happier, and healthier than I ever was before.  So please know I bring this up with great love and empathy.

If there’s one thing I noticed about RP communities, is that a lot of the time, huge swaths of the community are secretly hurting and dealing with something. It doesn’t necessarily have to be something as serious as depression or some other major mental illness.  Sometimes it’s something as simple as always feeling alone or always feeling like the one left behind or unloved - both in and out of the game.  

When we’re hurting, sometimes we can’t always see everything as clearly as we would like. Sometimes the world is colored by the pain we carry, so much so it manifests as a horrible thought.  This thought takes up room, space, and becomes so tangible and terrible that it’s practically real, and then suddenly our minds work on overdrive trying to find evidence to prove that horrible thought is true.

It’s possible that you aren’t actually the “last-resort friend”, but that a part of your mind badly hurting is so convinced of it that it’s constantly looking for the signs, skewing your perception so that you notice all the times you seem like that “last-resort friend” more than you do anything else.  It festers like a rotten wound until it’s unbearable. The horrible thought becomes your world.

A good therapist can help you break the cycle, silence the terrible thought, help you see what’s really true.  And if you ARE the “last-resort friend” after all, a good therapist can help you figure out whether something else might be going on - whether it’s something you are doing (do you have unhealthy habits that are alienating people and might be making them uncomfortable?) or if it’s something you have to be vigilant for in the future (do you have a personality type that happens to attract folks that only want to be friends on a superficial level?)

If you don’t have the resources to find a therapist, or you’re terrified and not ready to find one yet (it’s a big step!), or you’re REALLY annoyed I brought up therapy to start with - then just know that if you are in a lot of emotional pain, sometimes it can skew your perception. It’s going to be difficult, but you’ll have to sit and try to objectively sort out whether it’s you, your friends, or something else that’s making things rocky - which is hard when you don’t have a support figure around to help sanity-check you.  If you have a different trusted friend uninvolved with all of this, maybe they can help?

If the latter, and you’ve only experienced it with this one particular friend group that you’ve made.  I would bail.  

I know, I know - very easy to say, very hard to do.  But you are a person of worth, anon. You deserve friends whose first impulse is not to call you melodramatic or tell you that you’re trying to start drama.  Especially as whether or not you’re being melodramatic, if my friend told me they felt this way, my first impulse would be horror and then sadness.  Clearly my friend is experiencing some pain and melancholy that’s not being addressed and I should treat them with some basic compassion. If I was your friend, I would want to ask questions and figure out if this is an issue I can help with. Is there something I’m doing wrong?  Are there reasonable ways I can help or change? Is this something that is within my means, power, and spoon-count to address and help mend - or is this is an issue that only a therapist could really help resolve?  The fact that your friends don’t appear to be doing this and are just brushing you off as drama-hungry is kinda weird to me.  

People are different and respond in different ways, so it may not be fair for me to judge others by my own personal metric. That said, I guess I’m old and cranky enough these days that I really only want to surround myself with folks who will show some empathy towards my pain if I express I’m hurting.  And it sounds like you are hurting. You deserve to spend your time with people who care.

The community is large and vast - so much bigger now with the rise of World Visit and how surprisingly well implemented it is.  There will be other friends.  Better and more empathetic ones.  You just have to be willing to cut the people from your life that are not worth your time/energy and search for the folks who are worthy of you instead.

Hope this helps in some way.

[rawresparza]

PROMPTS 2/2 46. “Hey, I know you’re hurting.. but, you’re not alone, okay?” 60. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s wrong, and don’t try lying to me.” 68. “I don’t need help! I just want the pain to stop!” 79. “I’ve been alone for so long..” i'm sorry! i know it's a lot but i couldn't choose so take your pick lol. i'm just really craving some angsty barba (barisi) and your writing is always so super amazing 😍💜 thanks already!!

Okay, so this has been sitting in my inbox for a hot minute just because I got a bunch of dupe requests but SOMEBODY watched Company again tonight so I got emo and ended up writing for 79: “I’ve been alone for so long.” It’s super melodramatic so my apologies, I also had a sangria and am an extreme lightweight SO 😂😂😩😩 Hope it came out okay!

–

It’s already half past noon. He’s supposed to be at the church already, the ceremony is supposed to start soon, but Rafael has been staring at the mirror in the bathroom of this hotel suite for the last twenty minutes wondering how he’d gotten himself into this situation in the first place.

He’s supposed to be getting married today. He can’t do it. He should probably let Sonny know.

But he hasn’t been able to move since the realization had hit him like a ton of bricks. Sonny’s probably called him at least fifteen times already, Rafael had heard his phone buzzing but hadn’t made an effort to look at it, and it comes as no surprise when finally, he hears the door to the suite open

“Rafael?”

Sonny’s voice sounds panicked. Shit. He’s been worried sick, Rafael just knows it.

“In here,” he calls, taking a deep breath before slowly turning to meet Sonny in the bedroom.

Sonny stops short as soon as he sees Rafael, an affectionate smile immediately replacing his look of concern. “God, look at you. You look incredible.”

So does Sonny. Rafael can’t bring himself to say it. He can’t bring himself to say much of anything yet and that’s what makes Sonny’s smile fade back into a frown.

“Are you okay? We need to go, I’ve got a car downstairs waiting for us. If we don’t leave now, we’ll be late.”

“I can’t.” Rafael feels like his throat is closing in on itself.

“Can’t what?” Sonny doesn’t get it yet, he has no reason to, Rafael had given him no warning.

“I can’t do this.”

“Whoa. Okay.” Sonny holds his hands up in front of him, like he’s handling a scared animal, and takes a cautious step forward. “What happened? An hour ago, you told me on the phone you couldn’t wait to see me, you said you were nervous but excited. How did we go from that to this?”

“Don’t you see, Sonny, don’t you see it? We’re opening the door, both of us.”

“What door, Rafael, you’re freaking me out, what the hell are you talking about? We have a hundred people waiting for us at that church, you understand that, right?”

Rafael laughs but it’s empty, frantic, a sound that escapes him despite his best efforts to stifle it because the alternative is to cry, sob. He can’t do this. He’s not ready for this, he doesn’t know why he’d agreed to this in the first place, god, what had he been thinking?

“A hundred people.” He shakes his head, scrubbing a hand over his freshly shaven cheek as he paces the expanse of the room. “How do we even know a hundred people, that seems like a ridiculous number, why would we have a wedding so big? Think of all the money we’re wasting on this and for what, so we— so we can share it with a bunch of people who probably only showed up for the dinner and cake?”

Sonny catches his arm the next time he passes, the creases at the corners of his eyes deepening with his frown, and Rafael hates himself because he can see the hurt. He can see the hurt and he knows he’s the cause of it and he’s never wanted to hurt Sonny, never, but he can’t let this happen. They can’t do this to themselves.

“Please,” Sonny says. Begs. “Please, just tell me what’s wrong, we can fix it. I can fix it, baby, but you have to talk to me.”

Rafael opens his mouth but no words leave it, even as he stares slack-jawed at an expectant Sonny whose grip is growing tighter and tighter on his arm with each passing second. There might be a bruise there later, Sonny will feel so guilty, what a terrible to start a honeymoon. What honeymoon? There isn’t going to be one, Rafael can’t let there be one because it always starts out this way for everyone, doesn’t it? Happy, joyful. It can so easily change.

“If we go through with this, it’ll be a mistake.”

It threatens to kill him right there on the spot, utterly destroy him, the way Sonny’s eyes well up with tears and his bottom lip starts to tremble. Sonny’s hand loosens on him then, it drops lifelessly back down to Sonny’s side, and Rafael can’t take it anymore. He breaks their gaze, averts his eyes cowardly down to their too shiny shoes against tacky red carpeting that’s probably supposed to look royal, and he chastises himself for letting it get this far.

Love is blind, so the saying goes. Love had blinded him. Love had brought him here, to a place he’d never thought he’d be. He’s going to lose this. Any minute now, he’s going to lose this, lose Sonny, and it’ll be well-deserved and life will go back to being as it should be. The scales will be balanced again.

“Is that really how you feel?” Rafael only hears scuffling as Sonny crosses his arms defensively over his chest. “You think marrying me would be a mistake?”

“You marrying me would be a mistake,” Rafael corrects. He hadn’t meant to say it. He hadn’t even realized that’s what he’d meant at all.

“Help me out here, Rafael. I’m trying really, really hard to understand where you’re coming from right now, okay, I’m trying really hard to keep my temper in check because you chose our wedding day to tell me you don’t want this so help me out. Do that for me, will you?”

“I don’t know how to do this!” Rafael bursts, his arms thrusting outwards, his hands waving aimlessly between them. “I don’t know how to let this be, I don’t know how I’m supposed to marry you and believe everything will be good for the rest of our lives! We’re supposed to promise each other the rest of our lives, Sonny, do you realize that?”

“Kind of realized that when I decided to propose, yeah,” Sonny counters, “and I thought you did when you, y’know, said yes.”

“But it’s just really hitting me what that means now,” Rafael says. “We’re making promises to each other we have no way of knowing we’ll be able to keep. I’ve been alone for so long, Sonny. Before you, I—” He ducks his head, squeezing his eyes shut.

Alex. Yelina. They’d both broken his heart and they hadn’t even been able to keep their own marriage intact.

“Look. I know it sounds backwards but marrying me will make it that much harder for you to leave me.”

“Leave you?” Sonny takes a few steps back, scoffing. “Are you serious right now? Are you hearing yourself? Why would you even say that?”

“Because that’s how my life goes, Sonny!” There are hot tears streaming down his face now but Rafael angrily wipes them away with the back of his hand. “I am the one nobody needs. I was trash to my father, I was nothing. My grandmother, she was the only one in my life who always accepted me, who always loved me no matter who I became, and the last time I saw her, she didn’t even want to speak to me because she was so angry. She died angry at me. I’m the one who gets left behind and I’ve spent my whole life trying to play catch up and if I marry you— if I marry you, I won’t be able to handle it when you leave. I let you get too close, and I’m so mad at myself for that, for loving you so much. When you leave, it’ll hurt worse than anything. I won’t recover. And I can’t put that weight on your shoulders, it’s not fair to you or me or anyone who’d have to deal with that fallout so let’s face it, we need to call this whole thing off.”

He practically collapses onto the edge of the bed, his breaths coming more shallowly, and he struggles to loosen his bowtie until Sonny’s hand closes over his to still it. He watches tears puddle over his thigh, over the tux he’s supposed to be getting married in today, and he refuses to look up until Sonny gets down on one knee and lifts his chin.

Rafael doesn’t know what he’d expected. Anger, yes. Hurt, absolutely. He certainly hadn’t expected compassion.  Understanding. Love. Maybe he should have. Sonny has always provided all those things to him. He’s quite sure he doesn’t deserve it.

“You can’t marry me, Sonny,” Rafael whispers, his voice cracking on Sonny’s name. “You can’t, you deserve—”

“I deserve to be with someone who makes me happy,” Sonny interrupts, tugging gently at Rafael’s tie. “I deserve to be with someone who loves me as much as I love them.”

Rafael feels a wave a guilt rush through him. He nods. Sonny does deserve all those things.

“I deserve someone who can make me smile after a long day. Someone who can make me laugh even when I’m feeling low. Someone who will listen to me, really listen to me, who won’t judge me or turn me away or treat me like an inconvenience.”

“Yes,” Rafael agrees, “yes, you do. Of course you do.”

Sonny lifts a brow, reaching up to cup Rafael’s cheek. “You know you’re already that person for me, don’t you? My person.”

Rafael blinks. “What?”

“I know sometimes you think you’re not cut out for this. For being part of an us. I know you think this kind of love wasn’t meant for you. But you are and it is, Rafael, you make my life better just by being it. Everybody who knows us sees it, they see how much we take care of each other. It’s okay to be scared of what the future will bring, but we can be scared together. We can work through it all together. If you don’t want to get married…” Sonny trails off for a moment, briefly dropping his head with a sigh before looking back up with renewed determination. “If you don’t want to get married because you really don’t want to get married, I’ll understand. It won’t make me walk away. You won’t get rid of me that easily. But if there’s any part of you that does, if there’s any part of you that believes we’ll make this work, then I’d really love for you to join me down at that church so I can put a ring on your finger.”

Rafael can’t do this.

No.

No, he can’t do this alone. He’s not alone. He hasn’t been for a long time now and that’s something that has been exceptionally difficult to accept as the truth. It’s not what he knows, it’s not what he’s used to, but Sonny has changed so much. The first time they’d kissed had started a new chapter of Rafael’s life. He looks into Sonny’s eyes now and sees nothing but love and trust reflected back at him, even after being bombarded with the kind of fear that might have made anyone else abandon ship.

Sonny keeps him safe, keeps his heart safe. Rafael has given himself over to this man over and over again and has never come away broken for it. Losing that would ruin him, it’s true, but when Sonny pulls him into a warm embrace, Rafael only knows peace.

“Okay.”

Sonny’s breath hitches. “Okay? We’re going to do this?” He pulls away just slightly, hope brightening his eyes. “You want to marry me?”

With a soft smile, Rafael leans forward to brush his lips against Sonny’s. He bumps their noses together, nodding. “I do.”

[spiderxwebout]

HOMESTUCK ASK MEME PART TWO

ACT FOUR PART TWO "i'm motivated by self-interest" "this is bullshit its an unfeeling monster who gives a fuck" "who gives a fuck?" "that just made me feel upset to think about" "drop some hard, peer-reviewed motherfuckin' science on his ass" "that actually sounds pretty good i guess" "i don't see how we're supposed to be friends if you recoil from my olive branch" "i just think it's still cumbersome and completely illogical" "why are you in cahoots now?" "it's for our candle light hate date" "fuck you" "i'm sure many highly justifiable punchings will happen" "it was because shut up" "imagine the worst day of my life just stood up and clinked a glass like it was going to give a speech" "please, just once, shut the hell up" "you can't overthink it" "stop being a tool" "what kind of civilization wouldn't invest in orange creamsicles?" "now i feel kinda bad" "no more coy bullshit antics" "you're really not all that terrible" "why am i so fucking awesome?" "that's the best fucking question anybody ever asked" "this is kind of perverse. what's wrong with you?" "this is always a terrible idea" "you're fucking welcome" "get off my dick" "welcome to the party, motherfuckers" "what else is new?" "think of something better" "why are you burning your wizard fanfiction?" "i can't keep track of what you like anymore" "this story sounds suspicious" "i'm out of the loop again" "the best thing about how i did that is how it in no way will ever come back to bite us in the ass ever" "ditch the body" "fuck you and goodbye" "you have sounding stupid down to a science" "we're all sort of like superman?" "you've assassinated my patience" "i could give myself a hernia trying to be as big a douche of that guy" "i'll help you instead" ACT FIVE ACT ONE "in case it wasn't clear, magic is real" "you're on your own now" "i wonder what i did in the future that i'm being punished for in advance" "maybe i'm like, the worst piece of trash and don't know it yet" "all i see is motherfucking miracles" "fuck you for me just hearing that" "you flip your shit about everything" "here is my shit, and yet it remains unflipped" "that sounds like melodramatic bullshit" "i don't know why most of our friends are such psychos" "i can't talk to her, she's spooky" "stop being so sensitive" "i hate you way more than i hate myself, and that's saying something" "the idiot gets a time out and shuts up for a second" "i'm such an idiot for not rewarding your bubbly personality and impeccable people skills with leadership" "i knew you were a cheater lowlife scumbag with no self esteem and were basically worthless on every level, but somehow i'm still disappointed in you" "how do you get out of your bed every morning knowing you're the worst thing a universe was ever responsible for?" "shocking development!" "you shouldn't be afraid of anything" "unlike you i have a fucking smidgen of maturity and self respect" "this is what i was made for" "this is the kind of thing sane people say" "whew, back in sane land" "don't pretend you didn't enjoy going around killing things" "why don't you just fuck off and go to hell?" "you're always the victim of something" "sometimes you think you suck when you really don't" "that's just some personal private emotional issue and i'm dealing with that" "i will have a fucking blast and you can't stop me" "i'm okay with a lot of things. even our inevitable failure" "that was so much more depressing than the thing i just said" "but you like to talk to me" "this is a fact, not a question" "why do you like to talk to me?" "i despise myself" "you seem so sad and angry all the time" "bye bye friendship!" "you were a fraud all along" "your bluff has been called" "you are the dumbest motherfucker on the planet, i swear"

[elizabethrobertajones]

I'm not saying you agree with that TLJ article since you tagged it 'mh', but I'm very worried but this latest trend 'Your opinion is wrong because of internalized ___'. Some movies just suck? Like, I hated Ghostbusters 2 because it was bad. I was perfectly okay with having four women as main characters, but that can't be your whole idea for a movie.

I do think that article is interesting, and trying to describe what is basically a wider cultural phenomenon. I’m sure on case by case basis you could rarely boil it down to just a few specific factors and “diagnose” someone except for really obvious lifelong character types who would be in the most obvious demographic. 

Star Wars *already* got a bunch of sexist and racist backlash before TFA, so it’s already in the bracket of movies which got thrown together as the collection of SJWs are ruining our childhood movies like Mad Max, Ghostbusters, etc, so it’s also definitely not like this is a wild stab in the dark that it has pre-existing tension, although in this case the reaction is still really split. But I can see why it’s easy to examine it this way and analyse where it might make people uncomfortable, and wonder to what degree people are prepared to let go of Leading White Man formula for mega blockbusters. 

Something like Wonder Woman, people know what they’re getting into when they see it in the sense that the franchise is completely built around there being a female character in the lead role. So that stands quite alone. And it’s not like there haven’t been action movies with female leads in the past either, but the re-casting in the case of Ghostbusters, or just development of interesting female characters who aren’t beholden to a cookie cutter template/romance arc within a supposedly male-dominated franchise (Furiosa, especially) and changing up old franchises to have more diverse cast (Star Wars) or just completely flip the “male is the default” idea like Ghostbusters and Oceans 8, are deliberately challenging and in some cases - the last 2 especially - are pretty much thumbing the nose to the idea of all-male casts being unremarkable and default. Whether the movies are *good* or not (I thought Ghostbusters was about on the level of, say, a Ghostbusters movie for quality and humour, so okay basically :P) they’re culturally significant at a time when it seems both bizarre and horrifically slow and backwards that we *still* don’t have *even just getting male and female representation right, never mind race and sexuality and disability representation* (I mean for that last point - in some ways these films are already going to be regressive by the time other progressive steps are made, for example Charlize Theron wearing a green screen glove to delete her arm, instead of just hiring an actress with half an arm which is the immediately less-expensive and fiddly route to get the aesthetic…)

But idk, it’s not even like Star Wars was either perfect or extremely progressive, it just managed *not* to have 2-3 white male leads + some other people in the background, and to allow the non white male people to have such a stake in the story they could mess up and make decisions that affected the fate of the galaxy - often negatively, as this is the ESB slot of the trilogy aka where everything is supposed to go in the toilet. There was a lot they could have done better and I’m still annoyed that Maz and Phasma both got pitifully tiny roles but were basically included despite the set up of the movie being extremely restrictive to much exploration and with probably the longest time limit they thought they could allow themselves and still sound like there were any tension in the chase… 

I think it’s definitely always worth exploring whether social issues are having an impact on the reception of a film, though, because it’s a way of addressing the issues in our society, which we *know* exist, and when a film is openly critical of our society, and then people are critical back at it, guessing there may be a nervous backlash from people it made uncomfortable for too-close-to-home reasons makes sense. The critique offered by Kylo Ren to edgy white masculinity is really interesting, and I think it’s probably not hard to imagine SOME people especially who fit the profile are reacting against him, or glorifying him anyway unironically while disliking large amounts of the rest of the movie. 

One of the points that article made as well was that other generic or bad films do much better with audience reaction - in fact some truly terrible films do really well as they’re marketed to a niche audience, and that audience gobbles them up and we get the inverse, of critically panned but audience ratings pretty high.

I mean, I’m assuming if you follow me you’re a Supernatural fan and so we’re all here to gobble up the melodramatic pretty boys :P

So, idk, I think in some ways the picking apart of the film and emphasising its flaws is happening in a strange social climate, where in some ways the discomfort about the film not catering with the most “easy” empathy of a white male main character & with flawed but interesting characters in the other roles particularly prone to being criticised in society for existing anyway and that the SW revival has already had one film threatened boycott over because of Finn being a black stormtrooper on his reveal, and I doubt that feeling has just magically gone away… There comes a point where I wonder how much is basically film review concern trolling when it comes to criticising his and Rose’s arc, or the film in general. 

And how much of the film’s real flaws, plotholes etc if they existed in an easier version of the film with all 4 Chrises in the major roles would take months or years to get properly dissected by the internet while it’s basically as soon as you go back online after the movie someone’s complaining about why Canto Bight even existed.

I mean my “Hm” was “this is interesting and I think it definitely could apply to the wider cultural reaction to the movies” while obviously on a personal level if people have certain standards for films (my dad hates basically *everything* so I don’t think his reaction to TFA was categorically racist or sexist, just that he would be inclined to think pretty much anything JJ Abrams makes is garbage and whoops I never should have naively made him watch the first episode of Fringe with me :P) then if any of these movies are things you can tell would have rubbed you up the wrong way anyway, e.g. you didn’t like the original Ghostbusters that much/have found it far cringey-er on adult rewatches etc then you are absolutely allowed to have a reaction to it on a personal level which is not a sign of the sickness of our society :P 

But I think even if you don’t like the new SW film, it’s worth putting aside your critiques of it for a moment to think about this article and the wider reaction - not to make you guilted into enjoying the film, but because it’s worth at least pondering the wider social issues the film’s already definitely caught up in since like, before TFA came out, so we can’t deny that there’s at least some portion of the audience, whether the loud but small group of assholes who utterly invisibly boycotted TFA, or the wider percentage of the population who’ll be consciously or unconsciously turned off by the cast and the power given to their characters in the story, and the possibly even wider percentage who may still struggle to empathise with female characters because Hollywood has so systematically underrepresented like, what can alternately be the literal largest demographic on the planet, and presented just plain old cis women as characters whose inner lives are valuable and decisions should be respected. 

I mean since I came out the movie I’ve been swinging back and forth on “should Holdo have just told Poe her plan or was the point that this man of a much lower station is getting all up in her business demanding to know and questioning her, and I assume that was intentional so I should agree with Holdo but would this have looked just as bad if a male admiral showed up doing the same thing and they accidentally undermine her by it being a bad decision in general, or is the point that if it had been a male admiral Poe would have shut up and not let an insurrection, but I mean it’s *Poe* and I love him and I totally understand and he was made out to be more sympathetic until *after* the twist so did they WANT us to be critical of Holdo or am I just falling into a trap of not giving female characters the same room to fuck up as male characters -” and that’s BEFORE I get onto the internet and read this debate for weeks, just my confusion about this arc and what it was saying and if it was meant to say one thing or the other or if it’s a bit of bad writing (but not something so bad it would ruin the film to the point of only 50% enthusiasm like Rotten Tomatoes is giving it - like, 93% or something :P) or if it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to by making my brain cogs go and making me feel I need to write like, a dozen female admiralty into things to allow Holdo a cultural sisterhood of good bad and ugly admirals to be her own person in instead of the only female admiral to ever stick in my head like this :P So idk. 

Hm. Basically. 

[tarysande]

I'm not sure if this all really makes sense, but I'm trying really hard to participate in nanowrimo this year, because I've been trying to write this story for forever. The problem is is that I always feel like everything I write is stupid and terrible. I've been made fun of my entire life for my little stories I come up with, and so I'm too self conscious to ever ask anyone for their opinion of my writing. I feel like the few I DO ask are just pandering to me. Do you have any advice?

First, it sounds like you need a hug. 

*hug*

Second, I can’t speak to your abilities personally, obviously, because I don’t know who you are, but I can guarantee you that every single writer in the world (or at least a significant number, both published and aspiring) has that voice of doubt in their head at least some of the time. I know I do. Writing is weird. It is simultaneously very personal and very public. It’s a weird mix of ego and terror (”Use your time to read my thing! Omg, maybe the thing is horrible!” Sound familiar?). Of course, it’s hard to put yourself out there. It sounds like you’ve had a particularly rough go, with people making fun of you and disparaging what you do.

Look, those people are jerks. I’m sorry to say it, but there are a lot of jerks out there. Who knows why they’re picking on you, but they are. Maybe they’re jealous because they can’t think up stories on their own. Maybe they’re sad and lashing out because they want other people to feel as sad as they do. Maybe they’re just the kind of jerks who pull wings off flies for fun. The thing is, those jerks? Their stuff is not about you, not really. People who pick on other people are doing it because of their own issues.

Unfortunately, there’s a bit of that in the way our own brains pick on us, too. When you feel like everything you write is stupid and terrible, I suspect there’s other stuff happening under the surface. 

For me, that voice comes out of things like: am I just being a showoff? Why do I think I’m so smart/clever/talented/funny? Look at how other people have already succeeded and I’m just a big lump who can’t put my money where my mouth is. Who do I think I am anyway? Everything is trite or overdone or melodramatic or recycled and why do I even bother?? Ugh, I’m so arrogant and demanding and and and and…

Most of that’s not really about writing. Not really. It’s about growing up an overachiever who got a lot of praise, but, as an adult, isn’t sure that praise was warranted or is afraid that praise was wasted and isn’t going to amount to anything. Weird psychological crap. Brains, man. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.

Look, you wrote some nice clean sentences up there. In the short span of a tumblr ask, you told me a little story. You did! And it made me feel feelings and want to engage with you. And that’s what writing is. Telling stories that engage you (first and foremost) and others. What I’m saying is that I am almost certain, based on one little tumblr ask, that your writing is most definitely not “stupid and terrible.”

(This got real long, whoops!)

Third, and this is a big piece of advice that’s really hard to take, I know: first drafts aren’t about other people. NaNoWriMo is about ugly, messy, blobby, half-formed, half-useless writing full of filler and hopefully some stuff you’ll be able to salvage when it comes time to write a less rushed, more cohesive draft. Trying to write something beautiful (or, frankly, even readable) during NaNo is step one in a recipe for disaster. Writing fast is great to get around the voice in your head (”I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF MY FINGERS HITTING THE KEYBOARD YOU JERRRRRRK!!!!”) but it’s not great for crafting stuff you want other eyeballs on.

This is the lonely part of writing. And, I think, the part that’s hardest for people used to fanfiction to really get. With fanfic, there’s instant feedback. I write, I post, I write again! (Hopefully with some acknowledgment from your readers in there somewhere.) Writing blobby, ugly, NaNo first drafts is pretty solitary. I mean, say you’re having a baby, right? Would you want people to judge the cuteness (or smartness or funniness) of your baby by looking at the fetus still growing? Of course not! Do you judge the scent or beauty of a flower by its hard little brown seed? Of course not!

NaNo is for planting seeds. Or growing fetuses, I guess. You gotta give that some time before you’re like LOOK AT THIS BABY/FLOWER I GREW. That ultrasound or sprout is just NOT gonna be as interesting for anyone who isn’t you right now.

(Sidebar: don’t get too hung up on NaNo. You’ll make yourself crazy. Numbers are good and progress is good but any words you write are words you didn’t have before. Good job!! Feel proud!!)

Okay, final thing: you need to dig at the root of why you think the people whose opinions you ask for are pandering to you. I mean, it’s unlikely that they are. This is the weird thing: a lot of times we assume people saying nice things are pandering, or exaggerating, or just trying to make us feel better because the voice in our head is saying YOU SUCK YOU’RE TERRIBLE but… they’re probably not. I mean, how often has someone said something just a teeny tiny bit like criticism and we remember it for a thousand years in exquisite detail? All the time, right? We never question mean things or critical things: we assume they must be true because those comments align with that crappy downer voice in our heads. 

Well. Guess what? It’s more likely that the crappy downer voice is a liar than ALL THE PEOPLE who’ve ever said a nice thing or offered a compliment. You know how I know this? Because that crappy downer voice is catastrophic. It’s black and white. It’s extremes. It’s THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH!!! on a sandwich board.

Thoughts worth listening to–real thoughts from real people, including the kinder version of your own self–aren’t extreme like that. They aren’t catastrophic.

So, here’s the deal. The next time you hear something, good or bad, about your writing, either from someone else or your own brain, stop. I mean it. Stop. Write it down.

You’re awfully arrogant for a showoffy failure.

Okay. All right.

Then think: Does this sound like something my best friend (or someone who loves you, real or imaginary) would say? Or does this sound like something the sandwich-board-THE END IS NIGH-guy would say?

If it doesn’t sound like your best friend, take a pen, cross it out, hard as you can, even if it rips the paper. Say, “F-you you horrible sandwich-board jerk!! YOU ARE THE WORST AND I DON’T WANT YOU AROUND HERE ANYMORE.”

Then, write something your best friend would say. Actually write it down. Force your hand to write kind words. Surround it with hearts and stars. Really think about it. Really read them. ADD MORE HEARTS. Your best friend would want you to.

And go back to your story because you are the only one who can tell it. The only person in the whole damn world who can tell it. 

It’s a big job, but someone’s got to do it, right?

Better be you.

Okay, wait, one more quick thing before I go. When you do work up the courage to show someone your writing, you can absolutely say, “Hey, I’d love to get your opinion but this is basically a newborn baby, so I can’t handle too much criticism right now. I just want to know if you think the story makes sense, or if it flows, or if the characters are working, etc etc etc.” Heck, you can even say, “I’m not ready for the bad news, doc, so please, just the good for right now.” That is totally okay. And if your potential reader says, “Oh man, I don’t know if I can edit myself right now, because I am just reallllly into constructive criticism!” you can say, “Okie dokie, maybe you can read a later draft.” That is fine too. Take care of yourself first.

Now. Deep breath. It’s okay. You’re okay. Fear and doubt and terror is all part of writing. Wanting to write, feeling like you have a story to tell? That’s half the battle. Asking for advice? Huge step. I believe in you. (You can write that on your piece of paper and surround it with hearts, if you want.)

[voguewoozi]

College au? I'll let your creativity run free from there ;D (also what the heck, I'm planning on my major/minor to be English too?)

College Freshmen Are Loud

Read it on ao3!  & send in a prompt!

Summary: The noise in Dan’s dorm hall is cutting into his sleep. Phil provides a solution

Word Count: 1.9k

Notes: thank u, ryanne. I love college aus :(( (we should talk majors)

Dan wakes up to the sound of a chair hitting a wall at 2:47 am, and he’s fine until he hears giggles that eventually grow louder. This is the fourth time this week that people on his floor have come back drunk, and honestly, it was annoying the first time. Now it’s cutting into his sleep and he has early morning classes that he wants to be conscious for. He breathes out exasperatedly and clenches his bed sheets for a second before rolling onto his side and covering his ears with his pillow.                It’s pretty effective, but he has to hold it in place and his arms start cramping after a minute and a half. He doesn’t sleep for the rest of the night.—“Are you alright? You look terrible,” is the first thing Dan hears when he enters his 7:40 lecture. If it were anyone but Phil, he’d say it put him in an even worse mood. He manages a smile, despite his brain feeling ten times slower than usual, and slumps down into the chair beside Phil.“Thanks. I got no sleep last night because the assholes on my floor think it’s funny to be extremely loud during all hours of the fucking night,” Dan says, sighing a bit melodramatically. He can’t help it. It sucks and there’s nothing he can do. He’s already tried moving, but there’s no empty singles, and he doesn’t want to even briefly entertain the thought of moving in with someone else. He gets it, he totally does. The idea of having a roommate is exciting for a lot of people; it’s just not for him. At all. He’s having a difficult enough time dealing with having people rooms away from him.“What do they do? Is it really that bad?” Phil asks. He’s smirking but Dan literally doesn’t have enough energy to roll his eyes.“I’m pretty sure one of them broke a window last night,” Phil laughs at that, and the sound makes him smile for the first time that morning. He kinda hates the effect Phil has on him, but he usually just elects to ignore it. There’s no chance Phil likes him. And he’s graduating this year. Surely the age difference would be weird. Does Phil even like guys?He’s broken out of his thoughts by a nudge to his side and he jumps slightly, remembering where he is.“You might wanna start taking notes,” Phil whispers, lines of words already covering his page. Dan can’t stop himself from blushing, but Phil’s attention is back on the professor.Dan sits there for an hour and fifteen minutes, sporadically taking notes and daydreaming before he finally gets to pack up his stuff. He’s thinking about grabbing something to eat before his next class, when a hand comes down on his shoulder.“Hey, if your hall is too loud again tonight, you’re always welcome to stay in my room. My roommate’s never around.” Dan is taken aback by Phil’s offer; for a second he thinks his sleep-deprived brain made it up. He’s silent and slack-jawed for a few seconds too long, and Phil’s face begins to look unsure.“You don’t have to or anything, I was just-”“No, I want to!” Dan says quickly, awkwardly grabbing Phil’s wrist in the process. They both look down and Dan lets go immediately, bringing his hand to the back of his own neck.“I mean, yeah, if I can’t sleep, right, I’ll do that,” he does a vague finger gun motion and hates himself.“Okay, so I’ll see you later, maybe?” Phil asks, and his smile is back but Dan’s heart is still beating a mile a minute.“Yeah, I’ll text you,” Dan sounds breathless and that’s because he is, he just hopes Phil doesn’t notice. He wouldn’t point it out if he did.“Cool,” it’s the last thing Phil says before he turns with a small wave and walks in the opposite direction Dan’s going. Dan feels like his skin is burning off, but he can’t stop smiling.—                He listens closely. It’s a little after 11, and for once he can’t hear anyone screaming, and he thinks that it’s probably because the world hates him. The cutest guy Dan’s ever seen in his life invites him to his room and for the first time since he moved in, these assholes are what? Asleep at a decent hour?                He rolls over in his bed, and closes his eyes for exactly six seconds before he makes his decision. He stands up and packs a set of clothes, and the books he needs for class tomorrow, and steps outside into the cold air.                For as much determination that he had on the walk to Phil’s dorm, when he’s actually outside his door, he hesitates. He brings his hand up to knock a few times, even thinking about going back to his room and just going to sleep because it’s getting late and he needs a few hours, at least.                He finally does it, three quick taps and his heart rate accelerates as he waits for it to open.                “Hey,” Phil says, calmly, stepping out of the doorway and gesturing for Dan to enter. Dan has only been in Phil’s room once for a minute, so he’s never had the opportunity to really look around. His eyes roam over the insignificant details, and he doesn’t realize Phil’s talking to him until he’s halfway through his sentence.                “-never around, like I said. So, that’s a plus, I guess,” Dan blinks, but when he doesn’t respond, Phil turns to face him.                “Uh, sorry, I wasn’t listening,” Dan says, stuttering and blushing. He should probably just lie down and try to forget any of this happening.                “It’s so quiet here,” he says instead, putting his backpack down and attempting to relax. He has nothing to worry about. Everything will be fine.                “This must be a completely new experience for you. How’s it feel?” Phil asks. It seems like it doesn’t matter what Phil does, Dan finds himself completely enamored, which is putting him at a slight disadvantage. He doesn’t think that’s really fair.                “It’s… weird. I think it’s almost too quiet.” Dan had gotten so used the ambient noise of talking and laughing that the quiet was a bit confounding.                “Well that won’t be a problem for long. I’ve been told that I talk in my sleep.” Dan’s eyes widen at the admission and Phil continues, “Not that I would know for sure. It’s not like I’m there when it happens.” Dan laughs, and he has to stop doing that, it wasn’t that funny. But Phil smiles, and Dan forgets his impulses all at once.                “Speaking of sleep, you probably want to do that now. That’s why you’re here.” Phil’s cheeks go pink for a change, and for a moment, Dan thinks it’s refreshing, but then he’s smiling. He can’t seem to catch a break.                “So… what are the…” Dan searches for an appropriate term, but the best he can come up with in under three seconds is “sleeping arrangements”. He hadn’t thought about the implications of the night before going over, and what did he think would happen? Phil only has one bed. Mathematically, only one thing works.                “Sleeping on the floor is no big deal to me, really. It’s fine,” Dan fills in quickly before Phil can get a word.                “What? No, I invited you over so you could finally get a good night’s sleep. I’m not gonna make you sleep on the floor,” Phil says, strongly, not leaving any room for argument.                “Well, it’s your room, so I can’t make you sleep on the floor,” Dan counters. As the last word falls off of his tongue, he understands what he said, what it could be construed to mean.                “Are you suggesting that we share the bed?” Despite his earlier embarrassment and uncertainty, Phil says this with a hint of a smirk on his lips. Dan wants to stop existing, but he also really wants to sleep in the same tiny twin-sized bed as Phil Lester. He’s almost certain that he’s never wanted anything more in his life.                “I mean… what I meant to say was, I wouldn’t have a problem with it seeing as we both just want to sleep, and you know, back support is an important thing. Can’t get that from the floor…” Dan feels more self-conscious with every passing second as Phil’s smug grin reaches more parts of his face. Like his eyes.                “Yeah, I agree. Should we go to sleep then?” Without waiting for a reply, Phil hops into his bed and pats the space next to him. It’s not a very big space, and that makes Dan simultaneously excited and terrified. How were they supposed to negotiate this? There weren’t very many comfortable positions they could find this way. After a moment of fidgeting limbs and rustling bed sheets, Phil’s arm comes to rest around Dan’s waist. His fingers trace a small pattern, and then he tenses.                “Is this okay? It’s the only comfortable place for my arm.” Dan smiles at the concern in Phil’s voice but his heart beat is erratic, and he’s worried Phil can feel it.                “Yeah, it’s fine,” Dan manages, nearly choking on the first syllable. He can’t believe this is actually happening.                “Goodnight, Dan.”                “Yeah, goodnight…”—                When Dan’s alarm goes off in the morning, he attempts to turn over but is stopped. His eyes shoot open and he remembers that he’s not in his room. Phil’s arm is still draped over him, slightly tighter now that he’s tried to move. He wonders how to go about this without it being too awkward, grabbing Phil’s hand and attempting to move him carefully so he doesn’t wake up. But then Phil’s hand squeezes and he breathes in, stretches and freezes. His grip loosens and his breathing stops for a moment.                Maybe he doesn’t know Dan is awake yet. He can play it off like he’s just waking up now. He’s a pretty good actor, he could pull it off.                “You’re gonna be late to class,” Phil says. His sleep-muddled voice startles Dan, and Phil definitely knows he’s awake now.                “Well, maybe I wouldn’t if you let go of me.” Dan has no idea what made him so bold all of a sudden, but he bites his tongue and holds his breath, waiting for a response.                “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Phil says, moving his arm back to his side. Dan feels relieved and disappointed all at once, but he sits up anyway. He’s about to get up to change and then leave when Phil grabs his hand again. He looks back at Phil and his messy hair and his perfect lips.                “You should come back when your class is over. We could get lunch or something.” Dan smiles softly and Phil’ thumb traces nervous circles onto the back of his hand.                “Yeah, sure, that’d be great,” Dan can’t stop his smile from growing and he probably looks stupid, but he doesn’t care.                “I’ll see you later then,” Phil says, bringing Dan’s hand to his lips for a brief second and then letting him go.                Dan never sleeps in his own bed again.

[finnyisanactualrayofsunshine]

But he DID burn them. Why did he had to kill them that painfully? He has a demon, couldn't he tell him to kill these Children without any pain? I still don't get why he burned them. Because he was traumatised at that moment? Well... that isn't a excuse for killing a bunch of children. And I'm not here to troll or anything, I'm totally serious.

I'm sorry I took so long to answer this. I intended to answer it earlier, but then I got caught up in seeing a lot of things that frankly disgusted me, blocking 30+ people, and having a complete breakdown due to stress and lack of sleep as well as a series of bad days due to personal issues with my own mental health. I'm not saying this for attention or sympathy (although to be fair I do try and get those things a lot). I'm just explaining that at that time I wasn't able to deal with answering this or getting more involved. The topic still really stresses me out so this will be the only ask I answer on the subject, but I am answering it. I'd also like to remind that this is entirely my interpretation and although I feel personally that it is the correct one, I'm not Yana and I can't say I have the final word on the subject. It's only my humble opinion and what I got out of it when I first read kuro and what I still get out of it now. My opinion hasn't changed, and it probably never will.So. As I said in the original salty post, there are multiple factors here, and I'm not saying that there is a wrong or right side to this. It's shades of grey. So I'll list what I got out of the scene, both good and bad, when I originally watched it having never interacted with the fandom or their opinions.So there's the basic matter of the PTSD attack. A lot of people bring this up as an excuse for his actions, which fine, is valid. He is a 13 year old, put in a horrifying situation, with an undeveloped brain that's probably barely functioning, having to make split second decisions. I don't think that really would cover it if he was still just going and killing some kids for shits and giggles though. It's still a bad thing to do right? So although I think he'd deserve some sympathy and understanding for that, that's not enough.LEADING to the second point which literally everyone forgets?? And was like a huge obvious plot point?? Which was discussed several times?? You fucks?? HE WASNT JUST BURNING THEM FOR KICKS OH MY GOD HOW THICK DO YOU HAVE TO BE TO INTERPRET IT THAT WAY JESUS CHRIST YOU DICKNUTS look. He looked at these kids and he saw that they would NEVER be able to have a life. He has terrible trauma himself and not to be melodramatic but it kind of ruined his life. THESE KIDS HAD IT WORSE AND HE KNOWS IT. Like, they were going to live a life of pain and suffering in the BEST case scenario. In the scenario that they have healthy rich supportive families. So what happens if their families don't support them the way they are now and drop them off at psychiatric hospitals which would DEFINITELY be abusive at that time?? What happens if they remain unresponsive to everyone and everything and their families die and they end up starving on the streets? All this included with what they're dealing with and carrying emotionally?? Ciel looked at them, saw that situation, and UNDERSTOOD that that is WORSE than death, and he only had a short amount of time to make that decision. He was a thirteen year old having a panic attack faced with the choice of whether to kill them without having any sort of consent from them (which would make it more of an assisted suicide, however they were not in a mental position to be making that choice for themselves) or leave them to what awaited them which in any situation was probably going to be worse than death. Was it the right decision? I don't know. I'm not saying it is. But saying he burned kids as if he did it for fun or to be a dick is the most basic one dimensional view of the story, and misses the entire point of the scene. It was an attempt at mercy. To add to that, there's literally the scene on the train where Ciel explains what I just said?? And then he goes to help the orphans that actually could still be saved?? He had literally no reason to do that, you absolute fucks. But y'all are determined to demonize him because you aren't thirsty for him, don't feel any sympathy for a trauma survivor, don't bother reading between the lines of the story, or want to fetishize his immorality (I don't mean that's everyone but a lot of people talk about him being evil in a weirdly sexual way, like calling him dirty, and it's VERY uncomfortable given the character and context.)However, I am in no way saying Ciel was in the right either. What he did was HELLA problematic. Of course it was. It wasn't evil, but it was problematic. You brought up the fire, couldn't he get Sebastian to kill them painlessly. That's absolutely right. Going with the above logic, fire is not the best way he could have gone about it. I think that has a lot to do with the first point, about the PTSD attack. Reminder, 13 year old kid, undeveloped brain, horrifying and traumatic circumstance. Unfortunately, he's not going to be thinking clearly. He's not able to. So yeah, it's bad that he went with the fire method, I absolutely agree. However, I can also understand. He wasn't able to coherently think the situation through, at best he could do was see the flame and come to that conclusion, as opposed to working through it and calmly asking Sebastian to quietly and painlessly kill them all. Once again though, I'm not saying that was in any way okay. I'm just explaining the reasoning, and that even the fire part was not with bad intent. Never the less, the action and choice was bad. There's also the matter of him playing god. Which is honestly one of the more problematic things about Ciel's character. I don't think Ciel is evil but he's definitely problematic with darker sides, and he has too much power through Sebastian and tends to play god. I think there's valid reasons why he chose to kill the kids. On the other hand, it wasn't his choice to make. Whatever way you look at it, he made a huge Fucking choice for a bunch of people with NO say in the situation, and yeah. That's...not good. I remember in like grade 10 we had a debate in civics about the death sentence and my arguement was "you can argue both sides, whether people deserve it or can be rehabilitated, whether it's more humane to kill someone or keep them in a concrete box their whole life...but what it comes down to is no human person should have the power to decide if someone lives or dies." And that's what this is too. Was he right or wrong? I don't know. I've thought about it a lot and honestly, I can't give you an answer for that. But it wasn't his choice to make. He should not have been deciding whether they were better off alive or dead, because it just. Wasn't. His. Choice. To. Make.So in conclusion. I'm in no way saying what he did was okay or good. But looking at it with the viewpoint of "uh he burned a kid, evil, blocked and reported." doesn't make any sense. It was a complicated situation with several sides you fucks. As my fave said when I brought this up, "are we even reading the same manga as them?"Also disclaimer, I've already been salty about this for too long on my blog, so this is the LAST thing I am saying on the subject. I would strongly prefer that people don't reblog or add comments, partly because this is just my opinion and official statement on a subject that bothers me and several of my close friends, and partly because for personal reasons to myself that frankly aren't the business of strangers on the Internet, I am TERRIFIED of people arguing with me or getting angry with me and I have been in a really bad place this week because of the previous drama so hey, show some sympathy to your neighbourhood Lau ho and let me live my life in peace, drama free. And on that note, if I ever do post things that are salty and likely to start drama, I want you all to understand the magnitude of how much that thing upsets me, that I'm risking people beefing me over it. Anyways thank you, and goodnight.