#which really lets you see a ton of the story in a more natural approach to the game

[strandedcrow]

thank you again for such a detailed answer! i knew the lore was complex but jesus just the answer for that was huge never mind the entire rest of the actual canon series. i'll probably look more into the lore now, im really really interested after your explanations of things, youre the best crow

omg i’m so excited to hear that :D honestly fnaf lore is super interesting to me bc it tends to work in a way that the smaller details tend to actually take Way more information to explain than the broader plot. which i feel like happens to a certain degree in most media, but with fnaf it’s true for almost Everything and to such a huge degree bc of how the lore is delivered through usually more subtle methods, to the point that you could probably play some games and walk away without having seen an ounce of story bc you didn’t know where to look for it. maybe i love it so much bc i love args and the way the story is told is vaguely arg-esque lol

and honestly, my favorite way to take in the lore is genuinely watching play throughs of the games and piecing it together from those. it takes longer than watching an analysis video, but it does let you explore the different threads of the story on ur own, which means you get to weave it together in the way you think the pieces fit together best

[thatstonedwriter]

⋆｡˚ 「More than Enough」⋆｡˚

◉ Sinopsis; comforting their s/o, who struggles with their self-worth

◉ feat; M&M, Fizzarolli, Striker

◉ A/n- kinda been in my feelings for a few days, but it's alright. Also haven't written for Striker in a hot minute so I'm deciding to give it a try

___˙•˚∘✮🌙ᯓ🪐˙•˚∘___

Moxxie and Millie also struggle with self-esteem and self-worth, so when you're feeling down, they have a good idea of what might be able to cheer you up.

Moxxie, ever the thespian, writes you a ton- and I mean a ton- of little notes, poems, and even songs- all declaring his unconditional, undying love for you and Millie. It's not generic love songs either- what Moxxie writes are the most heartfelt, sincere declarations of love you'll ever hear

Dude will also follow you around all day like a sidekick- actually. This guy takes the Hype Man position very seriously. Whenever you're talking, he stands to your side, hip jutted out and arms crossed. He's so sassy for no reason

Millie actually takes a more lowkey approach- don't get me wrong, she and Moxxie absolutely smother you with love- but Millie's lowkey nature helps balance out Moxxie's grand gestures.

Millie is pretty observant, so she's able to pick up on your subtle mood changes and habits fast. Wrapping your arms around your stomach? Millie beats you to it and has her arm around your waist. nervous fidgeting? Millie holds your hand, and gives you a reassuring smile.

Of course, they each have their own off days- sometimes y'all take a collective self-care day which is just code for you sitting on the couch, ordering food delivery and watching dumb shows; no matter the circumstance, Moxxie and Millie will always love and support you unconditionally.

┊┊┊✧ ⁺ ⁺ 　°

Fizzarolli knows exactly how it feels to think you're not living up to everyone's (or even your own) expectations. While Fizz knows there's no such thing as completely "getting rid of" these feelings, he will always do everything he can to reassure you.

Distractions are Fizz's specialty, so if you're feeling down, expect lots of jokes and random stories- its just his way of helping you get out of a negative mindset, even temporarily

Fizz is also the kind of partner to perform impromptu stand-up comedy acts when you're feeling down. Sit your ass on the couch with some snacks, because for the next thirty minutes, you're gonna watch Fizz attempt comedy while using a wooden spoon as a microphone.

It's funny to think Fizz knows a little bit of a bunch of different languages; wanna know what that results in? Him attempting to flirt with you in Italian or French but really just saying a bunch of random bullshit. It's the thought that counts, right?

Don't let the robotic limbs fool you- Fizz is very touchy-feely (unless you're uncomfortable with it). If you happen to be insecure about your physical apperance, Fizz is there to assure you, there's nothing to be insecure about. You're literally the most amazing being in his eyes

Fizzarolli knows how hard it can be to wrestle with your inner-critic, and that it takes a long time to unlearn the instinct of being self-critical. That's why he takes every moment he can to tell you everything you have to be proud of.

┊┊┊✧ ⁺ ⁺ 　°

Striker isn't one for self-doubt or insecurity. There's not much room for it in his life, so it's harder for him to empathize with what you're going through.

when Striker does take the time to understand what you're going through, he's still confused. He's more pragmatic, so when you list your insecurities, all he can think is how wrong you are

It's a bit harsh, but hey, so is he. Though, he does understand there's a lot about relationships he has yet to learn- like how to be a bit more sensitive when dealing with feelings of self-worth

at first, Striker's solution is to tell you "prove yourself wrong," but when he sees it's not the most.. effective solution, he opts to just listening, and doing his best to be a pillar of support.

Rather than rushing to fix things or immediately tell you you're wrong, Striker sits and will listen to you for hours. He won't offer unwarranted advice or try to invalidate your feelings- he just listens.

And at the end of the day, Striker knows what there is to love about you. He may not express it as openly, but Striker cares about you, and hates seeing you beat yourself up. He hopes one day, you can see yourself the way he does- perfect as you are.

___‎˙•˚∘✮ 🔭๋࣭ᯓ🌙˙•˚∘___

[oddygaul]

Piranesi

I write this post under the watchful Gaze of the Statue of the Gorilla in the Fifth Northern Hall. May his Strength and Resolution give me courage!

art by upongoblinhill - link to prints

I can’t remember the last time I finished a book this quickly. Piranesi’s biggest strength, I think, is in its writing and pacing. The world and setup are compelling enough on their own, don’t get me wrong, but it’s the transportative nature of the prose that refused to let me go.

It’s easy for me to imagine a version of this story written from another, more common angle: perhaps seeing the proceedings from Raphael’s point of view as she slowly unravels the mystery, or having us follow someone who has only recently entered and is still exploring the House, or even just following Piranesi’s journey from a detached perspective that treats his worldview more dispassionately. That we instead get a window right into the inner thoughts of someone who’s been inside the House for years is what makes this story tick. From little flourishes, like the capitalization and proper noun-ifying of seemingly insignificant details, to full-on religious practices, like Piranesi’s divining of the hidden messages that nearby birds give him via landing on different statues, we get insight into the House not only as it is, but the House as it is perceived. Because we get to see everything through the lens of Piranesi’s obsessive care and attention to detail, it becomes easier both to become immersed in the house as a fictional setting, and to start believing diegetically in the beneficence and grace he characterizes it with.

It also feels (as Clarke clearly intended since she references it multiple times) like getting a peek into the head of an outsider artist. The same day I started this book, I actually walked by a museum with an entire section dedicated to Henry Darger. I then immediately made the connection reading Piranesi’s categorical, dizzying knowledge of all the House’s statues and their (invented) inherent meanings - this incredibly niche, almost absurd knowledge, from an outsider perspective - to a body of work like Darger’s. I was stoked to see the idea of outsider art / academics brought up in Matthew’s notes later.

—

From a conceptual perspective, it was also very cool reading about a crackpot cult leader whose off-the-wall beliefs were actually right. I don’t spend a ton of time reading / listening to stories about cult leaders, serial killers, or conspiracy theorists (it bums me out), but one element of those stories that always fascinates are the ridiculous ideas they manage to convince their followers to believe. In those contexts, it’s bleak, because no matter how much they spark the imagination, I know they’re just snares and falsehoods used as means to an end - so it was satisfying to read the excerpts from Arne-Sayles’ theories, which surely sound like nonsense to everyone in-universe, from the perspective of someone that’s living proof that all of those ravings are unambiguously true.

And we only saw one of the dozens of worlds!

—

One of Piranesi’s most prominent themes is examining what aspects of our past selves we carry with us as we grow and mature. The story focuses clearly on this with Matthew Rose Sorenson’s / Piranesi’s huge personality changes, obviously, but there was a lot of nuance to it I liked. One of my favorite bits was how drastically different Piranesi’s temperament was compared to what we know of Matthew’s. It’s difficult to truly compare, of course, because most of what we learn of him is through unreliable narrators Ketterley and Arne-Sayles - how much does someone calling you arrogant really mean if they themselves are the height of arrogance? Still, by most accounts Matthew Rose Sorenson was haughty and self-important, while Piranesi approaches the world with kindness, understanding, and optimism.

Is this simply what Matthew’s mind would be if freed from all the baggage and minutiae brought about from a clout-chasing academic life, and getting a fresh start enabled him to become this more empathetic self? Is the House itself truly a font of knowledge and peace, whose benign influence, if allowed in, can soften even the most calcified personality? Was it just random chance that Piranesi developed the way he did after his mental break? All seem like equally viable possibilities. 

The things we see Piranesi carry on from his past life as Matthew are scattershot. There’s the obvious ones, like his love of journaling, or the scientific curiosity that drives him to chart out and record the things around him. A trait I found curious, though, was the strong belief in animism he seems to have developed in the House. We see from reading Matthew’s old journals that he’s done plenty of research into Arne-Sayles’ work, including his theories regarding the power of ancient man and their ability to communicate with the world around them. However, despite not believing in it at the time, the idea clearly stuck subconsciously and resurfaced, as Piranesi has a real gift for communing with the World of the House, from the tides to the birds. Who could say if these abilities are still possible in the regular world, but in the House, at least, it seems that this communication is possible, and Piranesi has become quite skilled in it.

Meanwhile, despite not being trapped in the House and ostensibly being able to retain his faculties, we watch the Other try again and again at his inane rituals, thinking of increasingly far-fetched adjustments to his experiments with no results to show for it. In this way, despite not ‘losing his mind’, as he says Sorenson and James Ritter have, he is stuck in his ways to the point of self-defeat - it is his lack of reinvention and self-growth that is his biggest weakness. Our protagonist, on the other hand, despite having seemingly lost everything from two separate lives by the end of the book, is able to make his way back to the ‘real’ world as something more than the sum of his parts. Rather than either extreme of falling back into routine or totally forgetting what used to be important to him, he’s able to forge the best parts of his past selves together into something new, and continue moving forward yet again.

The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.

[canmom]

there's a cat in your frustum! (on Viewfinder)

I never quite planned for indie game reviews to be a regular thing on this blog. But here we are... I've been playing a bunch of games lately and it turns out there's usually a bunch to say about 'em.

Most recently: Viewfinder! It's a puzzle game with a unique mechanic based on forced perspective tricks. You hold up a photo (or some other picture), and it replaces everything behind the photo with the scene depicted in the photo, slicing through whatever was already there. That's rather abstract to describe in words, so watch the trailer and you'll get it instantly...

In technical terms, the shape that is being replaced is something called a frustum - a shape very familiar to computer graphics programmers, since it's what a camera sees, relevant to techniques like frustum culling. So this is essentially a puzzle game where you can store view frustums in the near clip plane. If you aren't a graphics programmer, that description is probably more rather than less confusing.

The effect in Viewfinder is absolutely a technical marvel. Without any hitch or frame drops, it calculates boolean operations on everything your photo touches - even dynamic physics objects. When you slice through an object, it fills in the plane of intersection with a texture in a natural looking way. I never saw any of the glitchy stuff that can happen when calculating booleans. And while one thing I've learned since becoming a game dev is that mesh operations are much faster than I tended to assume, it's still incredibly impressive to see this kind of calculation done so quickly. I really want to find a GDC talk where they talk about how they did it.

As the game progresses, you get a camera which lets you take photos anywhere in the level. The number of photos you can take is a limited resource, but it is still a ton of freedom. So how does that translate into puzzles?

Well... unfortunately the puzzles in this game are on the whole a bit on the easy side. Most of the time, you're using the camera to do three operations: create a platform to cross a gap, rotate something to be upright, or duplicate an object such as a battery. Later levels introduce additional mechanics, such as propagating a sound around a level or dealing with objects that aren't affected by the camera. In general, though, it's of the Portal school of puzzle design: a tour of a mechanic, which subtly or overtly prods you towards the intended solution so it rarely takes long to solve, but that solution tends to have an 'oh that's cool' aspect to it.

There's nothing wrong with this approach, we all love Portal, and moreover some levels (the watermelon optional level for example) definitely require some clever playing with assumptions. It's a tricky line to walk: you don't want the solution to require you to find one obscure spot in the level to get the right photo. But I did find myself wishing for less obvious levels - the optional levels get closer but there aren't many of them. That is a minor complaint though: it's a charming little tour through a variety of iterations of perspective trick.

Besides the main camera-slicing trick, another device they like to play with is suddenly creating a piece of geometry with the camera's perspective projected onto it, so it is as if (e.g.) a stairway suddenly turns into a painting of a stairway on a wall. It's very charmingly done. The same goes for the levels where e.g. paintings and drawings are used instead of photos (renders) for the camera trick, playing with a variety of shader effects, or perspective-reframing tricks.

The story... ok, as usual, I'm going to spoil the shit out of this, you're warned!

So this game could easily have been a bunch of narrative-free levels to give you a chance to play with the mechanic, but there is a story structuring this game, which has you delving into a simulated environment built by a group of scientists in pursuit of a weather-controlling machine to save the world from Fantasy Climate Change.

I say Fantasy Climate Change because the main way it's represented - in the brief section where you duck out of the simulation to establish the frame story - is that the sky is red now. This is killing all the plants, to the point that the oxygen in the atmosphere is starting to decline. How exactly the large, populated city outside your window is being fed in such circumstances is unclear! Hydroponics or something.

Anyway, it's a story about the foolishness of seeking a simple one-and-done solution. The scientists - who you encounter through the familiar devices of audio logs, post-it notes and journal pages - believed they were on course to change the world. Gradually their efforts came to frustration. The leader is convinced that she must find a perfect solution which doesn't require complicated mass coordination; she has a falling out with the others, particularly the character who works on biochar. At the end, you are forced to destroy the simulation in order to escape it, but somehow you exit holding an actual physical plant. Don't think about it too hard.

What's frustrating about all this is like... it's clearly trying to be a story that's Saying Something. There are many aspects which are very solid. The vocal performances are generally quite good. The environment design works well to convey each character (even if the post-its can be a bit heavyhanded). There's a focus on small moments - it's a very chill and relaxed game tonally throughout. It's not something they half-assed.

But that doesn't stop it from being painfully didactic, and like... poorly connected to what the game is actually about. Like, the connection to central photo mechanic is this idea of nostalgia, of holding too tight to a past we should move on from, right. But that has approximately fuck all to do with building a machine to change the climate. You know from the outset that they failed because, well, if they succeeded, you wouldn't be in this mess would you? And in a way the game is too chill - it can't really sell you on the mounting frustration and anxiety of the scientists as their ambitions fail to pan out.

There is an attempt to connect the puzzle mechanic to the story, with Cait drawing parallels between your ingenious use of the camera (he praises you a whole lot for solving the puzzles) and the similar ingenuity shown by the scientists. Only... there is no structural parallel here. Even when the camera starts to become buggy, destroying the things it photographs, this becomes another puzzle solving tool. You never reach the kind of impasse which the story is about - it seems like a missed opportunity.

And the actual device the game revolves around - the camera and other perspective tricks - ends up being almost entirely peripheral to the game's story. To the scientists, the camera is a curiosity or even an annoyance, tangential to their main work. Which is funny because the game is very excited about the camera and wants to show you all its tricks.

In short, it's all a bit odd. It feels like an early draft, which could use some more baking to really sing. Not enough to really spoil what is otherwise a very good game with an exceptionally cool central mechanic, but it did leave me feeling a little nonplussed at the final scene.

I don't want to be too hard on it. Writing game stories is hard. The game I'm working on currently is not planned to have a story, but at one point we considered it - and I wrote something absolutely insane and overambitious, of course. But writing something which achieves a satisfying thematic resolution is no small feat. I appreciate that they made the effort at all. Instead... just want to think about why it didn't work for me in the hopes of coming up with something better when it is my turn for real.

[Next up on 'first person puzzlers which fuck around with 3D space' we have Manifold Garden.]

[ozziescribbler]

Can you tell me your opinion on the "dead mom" trope in Hotel Transylvania with Martha Dracula, and explain why "love at first sight" is a harmful trope?

I don't mind "dead mom" in writing all that much... Execution is what makes or breaks that trope. Hotel Transylvania, very much like Finding Nemo, at least has enough dignity to show how the widower dad's grief and trauma influences his approach to single parenting. Which is more than can be said about Disney princesses having dead mothers. Disney dead mom became a pattern to such a degree that Moana's mom allegedly got resurrected during late writing stages (it's quite obvious when you notice how small her role is compared to dad and grandma). Seems like unless widowed dad is a (co-)protagonist, there will be a lot less thought put into making his kid a half-orphan. So yeah, Martha Dracula/Lady Lubov being dead was never the problem.

The problem is Hotel Transylvania's entire philosophy around love, and how in the climax of the first movie Martha is used to legitimize the entire fucking "zing" idea. In one single scene, the script's ENTIRE PHILOSOPHY turns out to be "For a Zing only happens once in your life." The Dead Mom has spoketh and she can not possibly be wrong because moms who are dead are always good and right about everything and only their widowed husbands errr! See: Deceased Parents Are the Best, The Lost Lenore and Too Good for This Sinful Earth on TV Tropes.

It should really go without saying, but let's say it anyway. It's wrong. It's fucked up. It's amatonormative. This movie says that love at first sight is real and that you should blindly follow it because you won't get another chance at it. Imprinting is real and good and fuck you if you think otherwise, I guess. Because it's not like tons of people, in real life AND fiction, happily fall in love more than once or end up in toxic relationships just because there was initial attraction (dare I say, a zing), right? /s

And, as @wormwoodworms commented under my last post about HT, it's just a bad, lazy trope to play straight:

What's the point of love story if it says that true, undying love starts at eye contact? If the movie's central subplot is Jonathan/Mavis romance then WHY can't they just naturally grow attracted to each other? WHY their first impression ("Zing") is given so much significance over the scenes them getting to know one another?

Ironically, as I said before, it's a good thing this flashback to Dracula couple meet cute was left on cutting room floor:

It's sentimental for its own sake and adds nothing. This romance is sufficiently established in other scenes of the final movie. If they left that in, Mavis' dead mom would basically have better established romantic plotline than Mavis herself.

Also, as much as I appreciate third movie letting Dracula move the fuck on and retconning the "once in a lifetime" part for him, BY THE FIRST MOVIE'S LOGIC his second love is illegitimate and he should not marry Ericka. Fuck you, Drac, be lonely and miserable for the rest of your unlife because your one and only zing is dead!

[llycaons]

so there's a ton of weird sex stuff from that author I have no interest in, but asides from that there's a few lines where lwj talks about not 'deserving wwx' which is so silly I think…you can litigate what wwx thinks he' 'deserves' all day but lwj doesn't really think in terms of deserving imo.

honestly it's just not a perspective that either of them I think really put much weight on? they may ask are they allowed something, sure. is this something they can prioritize above their responsibilities? is this something they want? is this something they can ethically do? is this something they can defy the elders for? worth risking their siblings for? is this something they're willing to sacrifice for? is this something they're even willing to pursue? is this something they CAN pursue?

but 'deserve' is like….this is going to sound weird but it feels like a very individualistic and even selfish consideration. bc the contrary is I Deserve This and if you talk about not Deserving something it's like you considered whether you have a specific right to it. does anybody in the entire show care about deserving things? they care about protecting their loved ones, and visiting vengeance on their enemies, and taking blame for things going wrong, and punishing those they consider stepping out of line, and ostracizing the outcasts, and consolidating power. it just doesn't seem like a very useful way to approach characters within that setting. maybe nmj would say jgy deserves death, lol. but idk it always struck me as an odd element to introduce into the story bc of the implication

especially for lwj...his hangups as an adult (in cql) have much more to do with not acting like his father and balancing his responsibilities with something that he's wanted for a very long time. once those issues are sorted there's no reason he'd deny himself or doubt himself imo. he may have taken years to get to a place where he's comfortable expressing himself to wwx but once he's there, he really wouldn't worry about whether he, specifically deserves any of it. he'd just embrace it. i can see the novel version of lwj being a little disbelieving or in shock early on bc it was SO fast, but even then he's pretty confident as soon as it happen he just takes charge like okay...it was such a long-simmering thing in cql tho that I imagine their get-together was just very natural and smooth and expected

and hang on, when the characters in fics talk about 'ohhh I don't deserve this' it's NEVER actually about the shit they actually did to each other. I have never in my life read a fic where(novel) wwx was like 'having sex with lwj while he was drunk was really shitty and I know I already apologized but maybe I don't deserve this with him' or with (novel) lwj like 'forcibly kissing wwx while he was blindfolded was probably really bad and I SHOULD TELL HIM and maybe I don't deserve this relationship UNTIL I TELL HIM AND APOLOGIZE' like it's always for this vague 'ohhh I'm ~unworthy~' shit that they really don't exhibit in canon and that feels WAY more like the author projecting their own insecurities onto two genuinely very powerful and righteous and confident characters.

wwx has his own hangups and regrets but he genuinely had the moral high ground in the past and he knew it, he takes joy and safety when he can, he never seeks punishment for what happened in the past, he defends himself against people who slander him, and he has full confidence in his inventions and cultivation abilities. that's not someone with low self-worth, and that's not someone who will hang-wring over a relationship with an equal that's been building for years. don't forget lwj abandoned HIM back then, and he may not blame him for it but it's a little nonsensical to claim he doesn't feel he deserves someone as good as lwj when he himself knows how lwj let him down. if anything he'd be worried about his reputation sullying lwj's and his presence damaging lwj's standing in his sect, but that's not the same as "I, personally, Do Not Deserve This', he may doubt his place in CR but after the get together I really don't think he doubts his place with lwj on a personal level, and lwj certainly doesn't doubt his place with wwx despite arguably having more to regret. bc neither of them wallow in regret, right? they keep moving forward and they do what they can to rectify their mistakes. wwx teaches jl how to fight. and lwj supports wwx like he always should have

[anghraine]

I saw a post awhile back that was up in arms at the idea that fandom meta could be considered literary criticism in any sense, without giving much in the way of arguments for why that's wrong beyond "how dare!!! your silly shipping manifesto isn't literary blahblahblah."

It's obviously deeply akin to the gasp! horror! at comparisons of prestigious literature that re-purposes specific characters and events from other sources to fanfic. And the way in which the responses are mostly akin, IMO, is that in nearly all cases, they use vague scorn in the place of substantive argument. The argument is usually phrased along the lines of "how dare!!! your silly A/B/O slash fic isn't literature blahblahblah."

Both arguments (basically the same argument) rely on a) using very specific subtypes of meta/fic that the speaker obviously holds in contempt to stand in for the entirety of the broader genre (e.g., just going with AO3, ~146,000 of its over 10 million works are tagged with A/B/O, while less than half are m/m slash). The point isn't that the genres used are actually representative; rather, they're used to provoke disdain or disgust in place of some kind of coherent criteria for literary criticism/literature that could consistently distinguish fanworks from prestigious works or genres.

I actually agree that some commonly-cited works are not really fanfic (especially religious texts written by adherents of the religion in question), and if you've followed me for awhile, you probably know I have a lot of issues with a ton of popular fandom meta and fanon takes. At the same time, the idea of a hard line between (say) meta and literary criticism in terms of approach or quality just seems kind of absurd to me.

Let's be real, if you're in literary criticism, you know that some of it is really bad, and if you're in fandom, you've probably encountered very insightful meta at some points. There's a lack of quality control as with fanfic, sure, but that doesn't mean that meta is intrinsically inferior or fundamentally different from all forms of literary criticism, just that a higher proportion is likely to have problems that would often (though not always) be caught through peer review. At the same time, it allows people (including literary critics) to reach others without the problems of the journal system (inaccessibility/paywalls, glacial turn-around, etc).

So there are differences on the gatekeeping front, sure. And there are different conventions and certain theoretical approaches that tend to be treated as gospel more often in fandom than in some areas of lit-crit (fandom meta tends strongly towards anti-intentionalism, for instance). I'm not saying that formal literary criticism and fandom meta are customarily identical in style or perspective, but that they are fundamentally related. At the end of the day, they are sustained interpretations of stories, whether they're particularly good ones or not, and the distinction is more of a spectrum than a line anyway. I don't think fanwriters are wrong or mistakenly defensive in seeing a connection there when there so obviously is one.

Additionally, the argument-by-cultural-disdain (in addition to being just generally poor argumentation) is often extremely presentist. It's grounded in contemporary assumptions about the nature of literature, interpretation, and originality, for both meta and fanfic, that are wildly ahistorical when applied to things like early modern English drama. And people who use that argument tend to also be completely uncritical about the modernity of their assumptions, so there's that, too.

Usually, the argument seems to be "and don't mention Shakespeare, that's different" without any evidence or argument for why, beyond sometimes, again, falling back on vague contempt ("so you're saying fanfic is equivalent to Shakespeare now?"). Like, why should originality be a defining quality of literature for some things but not others? Deflecting onto the question of quality doesn't answer that.

(It especially doesn't when you consider that early modern "quality control" for works in English typically involved patronage from aristocrats or being one yourself, and the ability to navigate heavy state censorship—which I assume the "fanfic is not literature, somehow all early modern storytelling of any quality is tho" people are not advocating for.)

Now, I don't personally think Shakespeare et al. wrote fanfic, but for me, it's not a matter of quality but of the fandom context. Fanfic, in my view, intrinsically rises out of fandom, and though it can overlap (sometimes very heavily) with other kinds of derivative works in terms of tropes etc, it has to be part of a fandom's activity (not necessarily Western media fandom, but something recognizable as a fandom) to really "count" as fanfic. It also has to be intended as fiction, even if inspired by real life. Many of the usual examples don't satisfy those criteria for me, so I don't consider them fanfic.

These don't mean that fanfic can't ever qualify as literature, can't be analyzed in literary terms, whatever, but that a lot of other things don't qualify as fanfic. It's a stricter category. And that's my own definition—other people's may differ, though I think mine is pretty common (if often unspoke

[bug-the-chicken-nug]

So, I couldn't find much else on this post about like. How to actually go about alternatives beyond "just suck it up and do it"

So I'll try, as someone who will admit that they used Gen AI in the last few months, but also does write all of their public fics without it, has been writing fics on their own for years before it, and has now gone back to distancing themself from AI. First, elephant in the room: It *did* get less approachable to RP with real people, and it *is* really hard to be brave enough to do it. Having to rely so much on Discord nowadays really *does* feel like a big step backwards. I also feel it's reductive to blame this specific phenomenon on AI. To me, it feels like AI is just well-timed to capitalize on a decline that was in motion regardless. And realistically, your most approachable friends usually don't share *ALL* your interests. Sometimes an idea being weird or uncomfortable ISN'T just in your head, and not just anyone is suitable for it. It really is hard. Of course, hard things can be worth it, but we need to stop downplaying it and being so quick to discard compassion and ignore people's struggles. (and no, compassion doesn't have to mean you just enable them) Otherwise, they're not actually going to stop or really learn anything beyond "well, now i've made them all mad at me, so that's even more reason not to RP, I already ruined it for myself" Like. Anxiety *sucks* at grasping "people won't be mad forever". A lot of the time, it *feels* like "they all still hate you, they just decided to be polite about it" Personally, I still don't really RP, and I'm still afraid of it. But my general approach to hard things is to take a few deep breaths and just take the first step before I can talk myself out of it. Then let yourself feel the discomfort. Let yourself see that it's not going to harm you. Keep breathing. As for writing, I have plenty more experience there, but that's hard too. It's often slow, tedious, thankless, and I've gotten criticism that I would genuinely call traumatic. Again, I don't actually think AI is to blame for perceived reductions in fic engagement, either. People who don't want to read a fic were always going to find *something* to do besides read that fic. IMO, the only real option is to try to reduce your need for attention and approval, and keep in mind that people just naturally aren't in the mood to read fics 24/7. Do your best to calmly let self-doubting thoughts about it pass over you without feeding further into them or taking them as fact. I also feel like we don't really talk about how much harder it is to do things when you get past the age where you were able to confidently be bad. Devoting yourself to something that feels miserable and constantly makes you anxious and scared is extremely difficult. Start small. Aim for short, achievable things. Try to teach yourself that you're capable of *something*, and try to find people who are actually willing to be attentive and supportive. (Which is another thing that's way harder than people on this post keep claiming it is. A Ton of fandoms are tiny and/or mostly dead.) I would suggest starting with posting basic scenarios and ideas rather than actual stories. It gets notes and attention without all the commitment, especially if you keep at it, so then it's much easier to pick out people who'll be interested and supportive in the first place. As for private writing, it's once again the kind of thing that gets easier when you start. I myself often have to sit in the word document with no other distractions for upwards of 45 minutes before I finally feel like I'm able to make actual progress. "Just write a sentence or paragraph every day" flat out doesn't work on me, because I have to invest so much into getting the ball rolling for each session that I *can't* just "pop in" and do a little at a time. And don't be afraid to write out of order or write small snippet scenarios, either. I've lost loads of productivity to being irrationally uncomfortable with writing "out of order", or not writing a "proper" longform story.

[kimyoonmiauthor]

The Wild Garden that My Parents Missed

I thought I wrote this post, but I can't find it in the search, so I'll rewrite it as such, so forgive me if I did write it, but I promise to beef it up a bit this time.

tldr; If you have a lawn and don't live in a HOA area, plant clover or dig up your lawn and let wildflowers grow. It'll increase wildlife while saving the planet—less water usage, less pollution in terms of fertilizers, and lawn mowers running, and it'll up the production of your food garden.

That said, I'll probably write this more like Oddly Satisfying meets Shaggy dog story. i.e. the process is more important than the result and if you want oddly satisfying follow the process, not the result.

ND me, watched a TON of gardening videos. The top three videos I watched were one part of particularly cooking shows, nature shows, and then gardening shows. I read the Reader's Digest on Gardening through several times until I memorized whole sections of advice. I started at age of five and never really stopped. So when I talk gardening, I know figures, names, plant names, etc.

So, in one aspect of European philosophy of gardening I don't particularly love is the disciplining to try to get plants to do what you want in environments they aren't particularly designed for. I've always supposed it's the European idea that Humans are supposed to "rule" over nature" rather than work in tandem with it.

So for example, if you live in a Mediterranean environment, but are trying really, really hard to make it act like you're in a Temperate garden with all of the watering to boot. You need the green lawn, the apples, the avocados the high water plants. You take no time to examine what soil you have, what conditions you have, what fauna you have and simply work with it, improve it, but not try to change the entirety of your climate.

In this way, I think I'm more Asian in how I approach plants—and I do mean East and South Asian here.

So going back, my parents when I was very little had this garden and they were trying to teach me plants. In order to make them grow, you need to constantly weed everything or they will crowd out and be choked to death. I took this as gospel. This is what every European book said.

At the same time we went to this park almost every year which grew things like crown vetch, Queen Anne's Lace, buttercups, etc. The park literally used to be a dump, but over time they converted it to a wildlife sanctuary. I always asked every year why we didn't have those near us. I particularly loved Queen Anne's Lace.

My parents aren't really gardeners--they like the idea of plants, but not particularly the nurturing part and my mom would make increasing excuses on why she couldn't garden, so I ended up taking over most of the duties. I made a pink fairy rose bush bloom in January. I was really good at it. So over time they had be take over the side of the house with the garden which grew vegetables. No one else took care of it and it became my sole perogative though I never asked for it. (Note here that my parents were super neglectful of me and my sibling, so this is 100% on brand).

Over time I grew tomatoes, but could not grow carrots for the life of me--the soil was wrong, garlic chives, rhubarb, this purple bush I forgot to plant for an entire season that somehow still survived, so I planted it, and several herbs. The soil was very clay-like even when it was fertilized properly so my efforts to grow luffa failed. I was the one that insisted on trying to grow vegetables, but the soil fought me and the crops besides the tomatoes and chives were often poor. Even the marigold looked like it was halfway to dying. The Dahlias, Calendula and other flowers did well, but my heart was foolishly set on trying to eat what I grew.

In my senior year I wanted to experiment and started to neglect the garden a little. I had started seeing fairy gardens and I was kinda tired of fighting the clay-like soil myself. So I grew tomatoes, the chives (garlic and regular) resurfaced, the rhubarb came back and I planted some more herbs. I watered the garden, but this time, I let the garden go semi-fallow.

Over time, the "weeds" started to grow in. And then pink flowers I didn't recognize popped up. I thought it was pretty, so I let them grow. Then slowly blue bells started to grow, so I let them grow. I found out that Queen Anne's Lace was not that far from reach. Then buttercups grew. And then I started to see more butterflies in the garden and insects and after that the only thing I was pulling was the crab grass from the garden.

Now you might think to yourself, surely, sure your tomato plants suffered. Absolutely not. I got a record harvest that year. The more bees, insects and wasps that visited, meant more flowers were pollinated, which meant that more tomatoes grew.

The rhubarb also grew a record height that year and tried to choke out the other plants. And here I thought that the rhubarb would suffer. The wildflowers *benefited* the other plants and the only problem was that people who did not know their plants could not identify them.

Revelation for me as a person. So the adage that wild flowers will make other plants suffer was not correct at all.

The thyme grew better? And I was like, but it always dies. The other herbs actually did well as well under this.

And actually the amount of pests I got on the plants plummeted. What? That's not what they say should happen. The tomatoes didn't get aphids and when I sat out there, I would admire the butterflies fluttering sometimes until dusk going place to place and birds increased too, which I could see from the house's windows.

You'd think my parents would notice that amount of wild life, sit out there and be amazed. But nooo... They HATED it. They couldn't tell what plants were "useful" and couldn't identify anything, so after I left they ripped out everything except the rhubarb, even the chives that had been there for more than 10 years and then hired a gardener.

And when they did that, the amount of wildlife in the garden plummeted with it. The rhubarb only got big because I let it go fallow.

I often think about that and I think the Asian philosophy of gardening is better and more correct. It's a partnership. It's not about disciplining, but finding plants so they have order and are in their proper places and environments. We have to know our plants and have to know if what we are doing is going against that order which is why it's not working. We have to work with what we got, encourage the fauna as much as the flora to truly be good gardeners and also caretakers of the planet.

This is why I say that if you don't live in an HOA area, let your lawn be clover or wildflowers. I truly, truly think your garden will benefit from wildflowers. And years, and years later what I did to my garden is now a gardening trend. Let the wild flowers grow so that your garden can benefit from the insects. They will not be crowded out and your disciplining is only for your aesthetic enjoyment, nothing to do with the plants. As long as you understand that, you shouldn't be making other excuses to weed as heavily as you do. Also, sometimes a bare garden as the European tradition invites diseases, rather than wards them off. So keep that in mind when you grow. Order, not discipline.

[helliontherapscallion]

Headcanons for SBI Sibling!Parrot Hybrid!Reader

(A/N): ope, went a little overboard with this one (also it’s not proofread, so sorry about any mistakes)

You have wings on your back (the feather pattern depends on what parrot floats your boat)

If you’re a Scarlet Macaw, Blue-and-Yellow Macaw, or Chestnut-Fronted Macaw, then you have black lines on your cheeks and heavy black lines around your eyes (think Hawks from bnha but less pointy)

If you are a Hyacinth Macaw, you have yellow markings around your eyes and mouth

If you’re a cockatiel, you have a killer mohawk/hair that is always very pointy and orange circles on your cheeks (how cute!)

I have a feeling that your hair is incredibly soft

Very sensitive wings

I feel like your teeth would be sharp and your nails would normally be fast-growing, long, and sharp

You tilt your head like impossibly far when you’re confused or trying to hear something better

Like your ear would almost be touching your shoulder

The head movements are very jerky and kinda just happen on their own when you hear something so you would have a lot of neck pain : (

You’re allergic to chocolate : (

I feel like people would underestimate you greatly and think you’re nothing except the ditzy comedic relief

Parrots are actually very intelligent

It bums you out to hear people say things like that behind your back when they think you can’t hear, but you try to not let them get to you

You give the best cuddles and are very affectionate with the people you’re close to (you’re also very cautious of strangers)

You’re also very in tune with the emotions of the people around you

You see someone sad? Head nuzzles and wing hugs

You see someone angry? You deescalate the situation the best you can and make sure they’re ok afterwards

You can dilate and contract your pupils rapidly at will

You may or may not stare at people doing it until they notice you staring or until they get creeped out

You fuck hard with any type of seed, nut, or fruit

When you get excited, it’s literally so cute??

Like you do everything parrots do

Little happy pitter patters with your feet, flutter your wings, your pupils contract and dilate rapidly, you make a ton of mob sounds

You’re easily excitable, hyper, and happy most of the time

It makes everyone happy to see you so excited so they would often go out of their way to get you things that make you happy

“Hey (y/n) I have some extra melon seeds if you want em!”

*Pupils contract and dilate rapidly*

You are loud

Like very loud

And very talkative

Like everyone knows where you are at all times

If you’re quiet and they know you’re around, either something is very wrong or they’re about to get pranked

God forbid you start to scream, your scream is loud enough to deafen someone for a brief amount of time and would leave everyone’s ears ringing for days on end

The mere mention of yours and Tommy's names together in one sentence is enough to give Philza a headache (someone give this poor man a couple of advils and a long vacation)

You two are literal demons when you’re together

Very chaotic relationship

You both like to fuck with people by sneaking up behind them

You would make mob sounds and Tommy would jump them before you two made a break for it

You and Tommy almost got killed by Techno a few times, but in your opinion the look on his face was 100% worth it every time

I feel like you would cart him up and down from the towers he builds

He could relate to being stereotyped as the stupid loud one, so he recognizes right away when you’re sad about it and will try to cheer you up

His main go to is the jukebox

Oh my god if he plays his jukebox around you, you go full send with your dancing

*AGGRESSIVE HEADBANGING*

He would laugh at your awful dancing, but he would join you eventually

Cat and Mellohi go hard

Speaking of music, Wilbur uses you as a walking soundboard

He needs a sound sample? You better prepare for spending most of your day recreating the sound

He needs back up vocals? You spend most of your day listening to his voice and other singers so you could replicate it

You don’t want to disappoint him so you try extra hard to appease his picky music composition

You kinda stress yourself out over it sometimes

When he notices (which he will, he’s very perceptive), he immediately calls it a day and has some sibling bonding time

You both bond over liking to eat strange things

Amazon macaws like to lick clay deposits on riverbanks so you like to have some on you at all times to lick when you get stressed

Wilbur carries some in a bag in his pocket and you carry a bag of sand 

Whenever one of you notices the other has a rough day, you give each other your respective stuff

You have to be sneaky with it though, Philza always takes away nonedible stuff from his children if he sees them trying to eat it (he has good intentions tho)

It always looks like a drug deal 

With Techno, I feel like he would find you incredibly annoying at first with how loud you are

He would actually start to hate you when you started to sneak up behind him 

It got to the point to whenever he would hear your voice he would get irrationally mad and have to leave the house for a few hours

He, like everyone outside your family, would think you were useless and incredibly stupid

That was until he passed Tommy’s room one day and overheard you crying and telling Tommy about your insecurities

He would spend the next few days ignoring you bc he felt bad

He would spend those days contemplating on why he treated you like he did

Coming to the realization that you were likely trying to get closer to him and you were just being yourself, making him feel like the biggest piece of shit

He totally had no idea how to confront you about this, so naturally he went to Philza (that man was literally so happy that his children were gonna start to get along)

He would spend the day gathering golden melons because he found out that you’d never tried golden melons before from Philza

When he approached you one day with an apology and some golden melons, you were suspicious at first

He hated you, so why would he get you these things if he didn’t need anything from you?

Quickly finding that his apology is genuine and he felt incredibly bad for treating you like that over the years

You picked up on his guilt pretty quickly and made quick work to reassure him

He would take you on short trips and would soon find that you’re very useful in detecting mobs and deterring creepers with cat noises

He would never admit it, but he loves it when you would scare Tommy or Wilbur, thinking it’s hilarious 

You also found out that carrying a seven and a half foot tall piglin hybrid was incredibly difficult to do, especially when flying

You two managed to get only about ten feet above the ground before your wings gave out under the strain and you fell on him

“(Y/n) has earned the achievement ‘When Pigs Fly’” flashed on everyone’s comm tablets that day

That wasn’t fun trying to explain to Philza

Philza would be ecstatic to have someone to fly with that he didn’t have to carry

He would take you on flights when you had too much energy 

Sometimes racing each other and competing to do tricks midair (which sometimes you both rope your brothers into judging)

Late night flights when you need to get your mind off from something

Watching the sunrise together in silence for once

Bonding over being able to see ultraviolet light when everyone else couldn’t

You always give him the shiny things you come across and he gives you your favorite snacks

He always fusses over your wings, sometimes preening them for you

Helping each other through molts

Matches your excitement sometimes when you’re really happy

You feel bad whenever you hear stories of how difficult you were as a baby

He’s quick to reassure you that raising you was worth it and you turned out to be a great person

But he wouldn’t be lying when he said you were a difficult infant

Your terrible twos stage? His literal hell

Philza swears he can still hear ringing from whenever you would throw tantrums as a toddler, even years after you left your toddler age

He also still has some scars from when you went through your biting phase (teething was awful for you, his poor baby)

But he’s happy he was the one that raised you, he genuinely enjoys your presence

If you’re in a really affectionate mood he is more than willing to let you cuddle up to him while he reads a book or something

WING HUGS WING HUGS WING HUGS WIN-

When he’s had a long day and is stressed out, you immediately pick up on that and do everything in your power to make sure your brothers are quiet and behaved, try to find out what made him so stressed, and sometimes go out of your way to take care of it for him

You try to be the one taking care of him for once as much because he’s taken care of you so well throughout the years

He can tell if you’re overwhelmed or upset just with one glance at your ruffled feathers and your rapidly dilating and contracting pupils

Immediately pulling you out of the situation and letting you talk it out

Whenever he finds you sad about your insecurities, he points out every part of your personality that he loves

That’s before he hunts down the person that made you feel like this (he really lives up to his title of ‘The Angel of Death’)

Overall, you wouldn’t trade your family for the world

[daisywords]

On “realistic dialogue”

You may have heard of a book being praised for having “realistic dialogue.” But what does that really mean? When writing dialogue, should we be striving for realism at all costs, or are there other factors to consider?

First, let’s look at what makes dialogue realistic in the first place. Most dialogue is meant to mimic natural human conversation—or, in other words, the characters are supposed to be speaking without planning their every word ahead of time.

Real-life conversations usually fit into the category of “unplanned discourse,” which just means what you probably think it means. “Planned discourse,” on the other hand, includes things like news articles, essays, or instruction manuals. That isn’t to say that anything spoken is unplanned and anything written is planned, however. A speech might exhibit more features of planned discourse, and a text message might look pretty unplanned, for example.

Dialogue in fiction is an interesting phenomenon, because it’s usually planned discourse masquerading as unplanned discourse. If you’ve ever struggled with your dialogue sounding not like something your character would say, but rather like something you, the writer, would write, that’s why.

Features to include:

Let’s say you have a character who needs to tell another character about an interesting encounter. You might have something like this:

“When I was leaving the hotel, I was approached by a man in the lobby, who asked me if I had met Sarah yet. I thought he must have been mistaking me for someone else, so I told him he had the wrong person. But then he just slipped a piece of paper into my bag and walked out the door. After that, a woman came around the corner and asked if I was Sarah”

This sounds a little stiff. It might be perfect, for example, if a character is testifying in court and is choosing their words very carefully. They’ve probably thought about this little speech ahead of time. But what if we want to make it sound more like the character is relating this story to a friend in the car right after being picked up from the hotel? They might say something more like this:

“So I’m leaving the hotel, and this man comes up to me. He says something like ‘Did you meet Sarah yet?’ And I’m thinking he’s mistaking me for someone else. And I try to tell him that, but he just puts this piece of paper in my bag, and leaves. And then this other woman comes around the corner. And she asks me if I’m Sarah.”

So what’s the difference here? The first one you probably noticed is that the character tells the story in present tense instead of past tense. Why would they do this? It is something that happened in the past, but the truth is that a lot of English speakers don’t realize how often we slip into the present tense to talk about past events when we are speaking.

Another change is the use of deictic determiners instead of articles. “This man,” “this piece of paper,” instead of “a man,” “a piece of paper.” The sentences are also structurally simpler, and the connections between ideas are not as explicitly defined. Words like “because” are used less, in favor of letting the ideas stand as separate sentences, or the use of a simple “and.”

Unplanned discourse also uses less passive voice—it focuses on who’s doing something instead of what’s being done to something else. “I was approached by a man” is passive, while “this man comes up to me” is active, and thus the second phrase would be more likely to appear in unplanned discourse.

Features to leave out:

On the other hand, there can be such a thing as dialogue sounding too realistic. What?

Well as you may have noticed, people aren’t always the best at expressing themselves in a very concise way. People reword sentences, interrupt themselves, and stumble over their words. And we use a ton of filler words. Have you ever recorded a conversation and tried to transcribe some of it? If you haven’t, you might want to try it, just for fun!

If you do, you’ll see why you probably don’t want your dialogue to sound exactly like someone talking in real life. It would get pretty painful to read. Things that we ignore and filter out when we listen to someone in real life stick out on the page.

Let’s look at a real-life example from a conversation I recently transcribed for a project:

“I don't know, like they couldn't like—each newspaper had, like, different things. Like that time like, I don't know what, but he like couldn't move properly very well. Like he's just really slow, couldn't speak super well, all these things.”

How might we want to rewrite this to turn it into good dialogue? Here’s what I came up with:

“I don’t know. Each newspaper said something different, but basically, he couldn’t move very well. He was just really slow, couldn’t speak super well, those sorts of things.”

What’s the difference?

Well first, we took out the filler word “like.” We’re used to hearing this and other filler words in conversation, so much that we may not really notice them. But we can get sick of them really quickly when we see them in writing.

From the real example, you can clearly see that the speaker is starting her sentences without knowing how she’s going to finish them. This makes her much less concise. She’s abandoning sentences and starting new ones, making her speech less efficient.

In rewriting, I could have made this even more concise. We could have changed it to something like this:

“The newspapers didn’t agree on the details, but he had trouble moving and speaking.”

But to me, that sounds like a different character is speaking. I can’t imagine the original speaker really saying something that way—so it’s a balance.

In dialogue, we don’t generally want to sacrifice efficiency for realism. The best dialogue has both: it packs a lot of meaning into a few words, and it sounds like something a person might actually say. I guess that’s the bottom line: as a rule of thumb, use the more realistic features I’ve mentioned when they retain efficiency, and don’t use them when they don’t.

In conclusion

Most conversations will be pretty “unplanned.” Using more “planned” features can demonstrate that this is something the character is saying very deliberately or has thought about before. Some characters can use more “planned” features than other characters—what does this say about the character? Do they often think before they speak?

Remember: good dialogue doesn’t imitate real speech exactly—and that’s okay.

Some features of unplanned discourse are better to include in dialogue than others:

Give these a try:

Present tense

Active voice

Simplistic structure

This/that/these/those

Use sparingly:

Lack of concision, roundabout speaking

Filler words

[shkspr]

hi. on your post where you may or may not have ended on 'moffat is either your angel or your devil' did you have maybe an elaboration on that somewhere that i could possibly hear about. i'm very much a capaldi era stan and i've never tried to defend the matt smith era even though it had delightful moments sometimes so i wonder where that puts me. i'd love to hear your perspective on moffat as a person with your political perspective. -nicole

hi ok sorry i took so long to respond to this but i dont think you know how LOADED this question is for me but i am so happy to elaborate on that for you. first a few grains of salt to flavor your understanding of the whole situation: a. im unfairly biased against moffat bc im a davies stan and a tennant stan; b. i still very much enjoy and appreciate moffat era who for many reasons; and c. i hate moffat on a personal level far more than i could ever hate his work.

the thing is that its all always gonna be a bit mixed up bc i have to say a bunch of seemingly contradictory things in a row. for instance, a few moffat episodes are some of my absolute favorites of the rtd era, AND the show went way downhill when moffat took over, AND the really good episodes he wrote during the rtd era contained the seeds of his destruction.

like i made that post about the empty child/the doctor dances and it holds true for blink and thats about it bc the girl in the fireplace and silence in the library/forest of the dead are good but not nearly on the same level, and despite the fact that i like them at least nominally, they are also great examples of everything i hate about moffat and how he approached dw as a whole.

basically. doctor who is about people. there are many things about moffats tenure as showrunner that i think are a step up from rtd era who! actual gay people, for one! but i think that can likely be attributed mostly to an evolving Society as opposed to something inherent to him and his work, seeing as rtd is literally gay, and the existence of queer characters in moffats work doesnt mean the existence of good queer characters (ill give him bill but thats it!)

i have a few Primary Grievances with moffat and how he ran dw. all of them are things that got better with capaldi, but didnt go away. they are as follows:

moffat projects his own god complex onto the doctor

rtd era who had a doctor with a god complex. you cant ever be the doctor and not have a god complex. the problem with moffats era specifically is that the god complex was constant and unrepentant and was seen as a fundamental personality trait of the doctor rather than a demon he has to fight. he has the Momence where you feel bad for him, the Momence where he shows his humility or whatever and youre reminded that he doesnt want to be the lonely god, but those are just. moments. in a story where the doctor thinks hes the main character. rtd era doctor was aware that he wasnt the main character. he had to be an authority sometimes and he had to be the loner and he had to be sad about it, but he ultimately understood that he was expendable in a narrative sense.

this is how you get lines like “were the thin fat gay married anglican marines, why would we need names as well?” from the same show that gave you the gut punch moment at the end of midnight when they realize that nobody asked the hostess for her name. and on the one hand, thats a small sticking point, but on the other hand, its just one small example of the simple disregard that moffat has for humanity.

incidentally, this is a huge part of why sherlock sucked so bad: moffats main characters are special bc theyre so much bigger and better than all the normal people, and thats his downfall as a showrunner. he thinks that his audience wants fucking sheldon cooper when what they want is people.

like, ok. think of how many fantastic rtd era eps are based in the scenario “what if the doctor wasnt there? what if he was just out of commission for a bit?” and how those eps are the heart of the show!! bc theyre about people being people!! the thing is that all of the rtd era companions would have died for the doctor but he understood and the story understood that it wasnt about him.

this is like. nine sending rose home to save her life and sacrifice his own vs clara literally metaphysically entwining her existence w the doctor. ten also sending rose with her family to save her life vs river being raised from infancy to be obsessed w the doctor and then falling in love w him. martha leaving bc she values herself enough to make that decision vs amy being treated like a piece of meat.

and this is simultaneously a great callback to when i said that moffats episodes during the rtd era sometimes had the same problems as his show running (bc girl in the fireplace reeks of this), and a great segue into the next grievance.

moffat hates women

he hates women so fucking much. g-d, does steven moffat ever hate women. holy shit, he hates women. especially normal human women who prioritize their normal human lives on an equal or higher level than the doctor. moffat hated rose bc she wasnt special by his standards. the empty child/the doctor dances is the nicest he ever treated her, and she really didnt do much in those eps beyond a fuck ton of flirting.

girl in the fireplace is another shining example of this. youve got rose (who once again has another man to keep her busy, bc moffat doesnt think shes good enough for the doctor) sidelined for no reason only to be saved by the doctor at the last second or whatever. and then youve got reinette, who is pretty and powerful and special!

its just. moffat thinks that the doctor is as shallow and selfish as he is. thats why he thinks the doctor would stay in one place with reinette and not with rose. bc moffat is shallow and sees himself in the doctor and doesnt think he should have to settle for someone boring and normal.

not to mention rose met the doctor as an adult and chose to stay with him whereas reinette is. hm. introduced to the doctor as a child and grows up obsessed with him.

does that sound familiar? it should! bc it is also true of amy and river. and all of them are treated as viable romantic pairings. bc the only women who deserve the doctor are the ones whose entire existence revolves around him. which includes clara as well.

genuinely i think that at least on some level, not even necessarily consciously, that bill was a lesbian in part bc capaldi was too old to appeal to mainstream shippers. like twelve/clara is still a thing but not as universally appealing as eleven/clara but i am just spitballing. but i think they weighed the pros and cons of appealing to the woke crowd over the het shippers and found that gay companion was more profitable. anyway the point is to segue into the next point, which is that moffat hates permanent consequences.

moffat hates permanent consequences

steven moffat does not know how to kill a character. honestly it feels like hes doing it on purpose after a certain point, like he knows he has this habit and hes trying to riff on it to meme his own shit, but it doesnt work. it isnt funny and it isnt harmless, its bad writing.

the end of the doctor dances is so poignant and so meaningful and so fucking good bc its just this once! everybody lives, just this once! and then he does p much the same thing in forest of the dead - this one i could forgive, bc i do think that preserving those peoples consciousnesses did something for the doctor as a character, it wasnt completely meaningless. but everything after that kinda was.

rory died so many times its like. get a hobby lol. amy died at least once iirc but it was all a dream or something. clara died and was erased from the doctors memory. river was in prison and also died. bill? died. all of them sugarcoated or undone or ignored by the narrative to the point of having effectively no impact on the story. the point of a major character death is that its supposed to have a point. and you could argue that a piece of art could be making a point with a pointless death, ie. to put perspective on it and remind you that bad shit just happens, but with moffat the underlying message is always “i can do whatever i want, nothing is permanent or has lasting impact ever.”

basically, with moffat, tragedy exists to be undone. and this was a really brilliant, really wonderful thing in the doctor dances specifically bc it was the doctor clearly having seen his fair share of tragedy that couldnt be helped, now looking on his One Win with pride and delight bc he doesnt get wins like this! and then moffat proceeded to give him the same win over and over and over and over. nobody is ever dead. nobody is ever unable to be saved. and if they are, really truly dead and/or gone, then thats okay bc moffat has decided that [insert mitigating factor here]*

*the mitigating factor is usually some sort of computerized database of souls.

i can hear the moffat stans falling over themselves to remind me that amy and rory definitely died, and they did - after a long and happy life together, they died of old age. i dont consider that a character death any more than any other character choosing to permanently leave the tardis.

and its not just character deaths either, its like, everything. the destruction of gallifrey? never mind lol! character development? scrapped! the same episode four times? lets give it a fifth try and hope nobody notices. bc he doesnt know how to not make the doctor either an omnipotent savior or a self-pitying failure.

it is in nature of doctor who, i believe, for the doctor to win most of the time. like, it wouldnt be a very good show if he didnt win most of the time. but it also wouldnt be a very good show if he won all of the time. my point is that moffats doctor wins too often, and when he doesnt win, it feels empty and hollow rather than genuinely humbling, and you know hes not gonna grow from it pretty much at all.

so like. again, i like all of doctor who i enjoy all of it very much. i just think that steven moffat is a bad show runner and a decent writer at times. and it is frustrating. and im not here to convince or convert anyone im just living my truth. thank you for listening.

[drabbles-mc]

Babysitter

Angel Reyes x F!Reader

Request by Anon: If you're up for it, could you do -insert whoever you want- and the reader either talking about leaving their kid with Chucky or actually leaving their kid with Chucky. He is a sweet strange bird that we don't get enough of 🥰

Warnings: language, Angel being a protective dad, Chucky being the absolute best human on the planet

Word Count: 2.5k

A/N: I would take a bullet for Chucky with no hesitation. I love that man and I’m so glad he has found a family in Mayans. I love including him in my stories because he’s just??? The sweetest.

Join my group-chat here: (X)

Angel Reyes Taglist: @mayans-sauce @helli4nthus @angelreyesgirl @starrynite7114 @queenbeered @sincerelyasomebody @sadeyesgf @thesandbeneathmytoes @appropriate-writers-name @tomhardydallasstarsgirl @multiyfandomgirl40 @sillygoose6969 @beardburnsupersoldiers @louisianalady @gemini0410​ @paintballkid711​ @chibsytelford​ @yourwonkywriter​ @sesamepancakes​ @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead​ @plentyoffandoms​ @georgiaaintnopeach​ @twistnet​ @themoonandthewicked​ @garbinge​ @bucky-iss-bae​ @enjoy-the-destruction​ @withmyteeth​ @encounterthepast​ @lilacyennefer​ @everyhowlmarksthedead​ @rosieposie0624​ @mylittlelonelyappreciationtoo​ @mijop​ @xladymacbethx​ @blessedboo​ @holl2712​ @lakamaa12​ @luckyharley1903​ @masterlistforimagines​ @kkim120​ @toni9​ @shadow-of-wonder​ (If you want to be tagged in any of my writing let me know! xo)

“It would just be for a couple hours!” you sat on the bar stool next to Angel, “You’re telling me that she can’t stay here for a couple hours? She’s a baby, Angel. It’s not like she can get up and run off.”

“I’m not leaving her with these motherfuckers,” he shook his head.

Angel loved his brothers in the MC. He would take a bullet for any one of them. Which is why it was so surprising to you that he didn’t want to leave your daughter with them. He didn’t mind it when you brought her around the clubhouse, as long as one of the two of you always had eyes on her. He was fiercely protective of her, which was adorable, but it also made it difficult for the two of you to get any time for yourselves. She was six months old and it had been much longer than that since the two of you had some quality couple time.

“Angel, they know how to feed and change a baby. Coco has more kids than we do!”

“Then he can go watch those ones!” he was adamant, “I ain’t leavin’ her here.”

While the two of you were arguing, Chucky appeared from the back room with a few cases of beer. He saw the car seat sitting on the bar top and immediately set down the boxes to come and investigate. He’d met your daughter on a few occasions but there were always so many other people around.

He gently rocked the car seat with a smile, whispering things to her that neither you nor Angel could hear, but you heard her contagious giggles. You turned and looked to see who had her laughing like that, and you couldn’t hide your surprise when you saw the gentle, loving look in Chucky’s eyes as he let her reach and hold onto his prosthetic fingers.

Your heart melted at the way he was smiling at her and the words came tumbling out of your mouth, “You wanna hold her?”

He looked up at you, eyes as wide as his smile, “I would be honored.”

You laughed quietly as you stood up and carefully unhooked the straps that kept her safely in the seat. You lifted her up and out before passing her off to Chucky, who cradled her in his arms as if it was second nature to him. Chucky had always been a bit of a caretaker by nature but this was surprising even to you.

“Like you’ve done it a million times before,” you commented as you watched him bounce her gently on his hip.

“Maybe not a million, but close,” he didn’t take his eyes off the baby.

“Oh yea? You have kids?” you really never gave a lot of thought to what Chucky’s life was like when he wasn’t working at the scrapyard. You knew that he had quite a long history, but you never asked about the details of it.

He shook his head, “Haven’t had the good fortune of that yet. But I spent a lot of time with Jax Teller’s boys when they were babies.”

It was the first time that he had spoken to you about his life in Charming. He spared a momentary glance over at you as he said it before returning all of his attention to the baby on his hip. But even in that split second you could see the wistful look in his eyes. Sometimes you forgot about the fact that he uprooted his entire life to come to Santo Padre.

“Do you have plans tonight, Chucky?” you asked.

Both he and Angel whipped their heads to look at you, their expressions vastly different. Angel knew exactly where this line of questions was going and he wanted none of it. Chucky, on the other hand, had never looked more excited.

He shook his head, “Not a single plan in place, Y/N.”

You smiled, “You think you could watch our little pumpkin here for a couple hours while Angel and I get some Mommy and Daddy time?” you drummed your fingers on the bar, “It’d only be for a couple hours. Just to get some dinner and alone time.”

“It would be one of my life’s greatest pleasures,” everything he said always sounded so sincere.

You chuckled, nodding, “You’re a lifesaver.”

“Y/N,” Angel gently wrapped his hand around your arm, “Can I talk to you for a second?”

You nodded, “Sure, what’s up?”

He tugged you towards the opposite side of the clubhouse, getting the two of you out of earshot from Chucky, “What the fuck are you doing?”

“What?”

“You just wanna leave our baby girl here with Chucky?”

You shrugged, “Why not? He seems like a goddamn baby whisperer.”

“Yea but—”

“And you heard him—he’s been around kids a ton before. Look at him,” you nodded towards Chucky, who was pretending to do some sort of ballroom dance with your daughter, “There is not an ounce of uncertainty in that man’s body. You telling me that any of the guys are ever that confident while holding her?”

Angel sighed, not able to deny that you had a point. Your daughter could smell fear from a mile away, and she could definitely sense when her tíos were getting nervous whenever they held her. You found it amusing because you could literally see the panic set into the eyes of the very tough group of bikers once she started to sound like she was about to cry. They would instantly try to locate you and glad you down to make you put out the fire that they inadvertently started.

Despite all of that, your daughter seemed happy as a clam as she waltzed around the clubhouse with Chucky. You could tell by the expression on Angel’s face that he saw what you saw, he just didn’t want to admit it.

“C’mon, baby,” you smiled and nudged his shoulder, “They make a good pair.”

“Fine,” he grumbled, “Two and a half hours tops. We’ll skip dessert if we have to.”

You beamed, clapping your hands, “Oh this is going to be amazing.” You pressed a kiss to Angel’s cheek before bounding over to Chucky, unable to try and tone down the huge smile on your face, “You really meant it about tonight?”

He nodded, “Of course. Anything for you. For her,” he looked at your daughter with a smile.

“You’re a gem!” you immediately started formulating a timetable in your brain, thinking out loud, “Okay I gotta jet home real quick to take care of a few things. Plus I’ll pack a bag of essentials for her to have here with you. And I’ll shower and get ready for dinner. I should be able to get back here by…6ish? Would that be alright?”

“That would be perfect.”

Angel sat back, watching the two of you make plans together while Chucky held your daughter on his hip. Despite his initial urge to reject the idea, he had to admit that there wasn’t the same knot in his gut about the idea of Chucky babysitting as there had been about literally any of the other guys. Chucky’s brain operated on a different level from the rest of them for sure, but realistically he was probably the most responsible out of all of them. Which was a strange thought.

You waved Angel over so that you could have him walk out to the car with you and the baby. You watched as Chucky carefully got her situated back into her car set, buckling and tucking her under her blanket. You wrapped Chucky in a hug, promising him that you would be back by six.

Angel carried the car set and got it situated in the back seat before turning to you, a smile on his face, “Drive safe, alright?”

You raised your eyebrows, “Wow, no smart comments?”

He chuckled, pulling you into a hug, “I’ll keep ‘em to myself…for now.”

“A true gentleman,” you laughed into his chest for a moment before pulling back to kiss him, “I’ll be back in a couple hours, okay?”

He nodded, “Whatever you need. Text me when you get home. I love you.”

You gave him another quick peck on the lips, “I love you too.”

You had packed everything that you could possibly think of into the diaper bag that you were bringing to the clubhouse. You had clothes, toys, formula, blankets, pillows, and of course diapers. It was impressive how much you were able to jam into the bag. Your daughter was babbling happily in her car seat as she watched you get everything set for her stay with Chucky. It was the first time that she was going to be away from both you and Angel for more than a couple minutes, and you were much more nervous about it than you wanted to let on. Not that you didn’t trust Chucky, but it was tough to leave your baby, even if you wanted some one-on-one time with her father.

When you rolled into the clubhouse, Angel was standing outside with Chucky and a few of the guys. Taking a deep breath you threw the car in park and got out, slinging the diaper bag over your shoulder before opening the back door and getting the car seat out. All of the guys looked at you expectantly as you approached the front steps. You could tell that they all had a hard time wrapping their heads around the fact that you were really about to leave Chucky in charge of your first and only child.

“Didn’t know that this hand-off had turned into a group affair,” you chuckled as you gently set the car seat down on the deck so you could get the bag off your shoulder.

“We just didn’t think that Angel would ever let anyone watch her,” Bishop piped in with a laugh, “Had to see it for ourselves.”

You made small talk with the group of them for a couple minutes before politely hinting that you and Angel had places to be—that was the whole point of this anyway. You unclipped your daughter from her car seat and picked her up, giving her a hug and a kiss before handing her to Angel so that he could do the same.

“I’m sure things will be fine, but if anything happens or if you have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to call me or Angel,” you gave Chucky a hug, “Thank you again for doing this. If anyone has got this under control, it’s you.”

You could see the pride on Chucky’s face as he soaked up what you were saying. Angel had the baby perched on his hip as he spoke to Chucky, “Anything happens to her and I’ll gut you like a fish, got it?”

Chucky nodded, not flinching one bit, “I accept that.”

Angel gave a nod of approval before handing the baby over, giving her one more kiss before doing so. He rested a hand on Chucky’s shoulder, “Thank you for doing this, Chucky.”

You didn’t know if Chucky had even heard what Angel had said—he was already enthralled with your daughter. You chuckled and shook your head as you tugged Angel back towards the car. You could hear the guys as you walked away. Coco must’ve picked up the diaper bag because you heard him call after you to ask if you had filled the thing with rocks instead of diapers, because that’s the only way it could be that heavy.

“What’d you put in there, querida?” Angel asked with a laugh as he got into the car.

“Just the essentials.”

Dinner was quiet, and just what the two of you needed. And, much to your surprise, you didn’t spend the whole evening worrying about if things were going okay back at the clubhouse. You trusted that Chucky would call if he needed assistance. You doubted that he did, though. Angel didn’t seem too flustered over it either. He checked his phone a few times just to make sure that there weren’t any missed calls or texts, but other than that he let it lie.

When the two of you got back to the clubhouse, everything was quiet. It wasn’t nearly late enough for it to be so dead, but you didn’t hear music or ruckus of any kind coming from the clubhouse. It was almost eerie.

You and Angel walked into the clubhouse to see that a large space in the center of it had been cleared of any and all furniture. Chucky had laid out all of the blankets and pillows that you had sent and clearly had come up with some of his own, and made quite the expansive play area for your daughter in the middle of the floor. She was fast asleep now, tucked safely in her favorite blanket with stuffed animals surrounding her. Chucky was sitting cross-legged next to her, just watching her to make sure that she stayed happily in her little dream world.

The icing on the cake was all of Angel’s brothers sprawled out across the blankets as well, also fast asleep. You giggled quietly as you leaned into Angel’s side, both of you walking over attempting not to wake anyone up, but especially the baby.

“Looks like you’ve had things perfectly under control here,” you whispered as you sank down and sat next to Chucky.

“Smoothest sailor out at sea,” he said back quietly with a nod.

“The boys can stay here,” you gently nudged Chucky’s shoulder, “But this little lady needs to come home with me. I’ll come by for the blankets and pillows tomorrow.”

You carefully got your daughter situated in her car seat without waking her up. Your daughter was luckily a very heavy sleeper, which would serve her well growing up surrounded by motorcycles. She hardly even flinched as you buckled her in and draped the blanket back over her again.

You hugged Chucky tight as you thanked him again, and you could tell that he felt it with his whole body, “I really appreciate you doing this for us, Chucky. Would you mind if we called on you again down the road?”

“I wouldn’t mind at all,” he looked back and forth between you and Angel as the three of you stood on the steps to the clubhouse, “Thank you, Angel Reyes, Y/N, for trusting me.”

“You’ve earned it, man,” Angel said with a nod.

The smile that spread across Chucky’s face could’ve melted the coldest heart in the world. The three of you said one more round of goodbye’s to each other before you and Angel headed off to the car, your sleepy daughter now in tow.

Once she was situated and you and Angel had gotten buckled in, you turned over to him with a smile on your face. He shook his head, not even needing to look at you to know that you had a smug expression.

“Just fucking say it,” he said with a laugh.

“I told you so!” you said in a loud whisper as you playfully slapped his arm.

He chuckled, rolling his eyes as he threw the car into drive, “Yea, yea. You told me so.”

[usergreenpixel]

JACOBIN FICTION CONVENTION MEETING 28: THE GLASS-BLOWERS (1963)

1. The Introduction

Hi, Citizens! Welcome back to the Jacobin Fiction Convention!

So, today’s the day we review yet another media piece! Will it be a hidden gem? A shitty Thermidorian-sponsored pile of lies? One of those modern perceptions of Frev that paint the warmongering rats called Girondins as the innocent moderates again? Let’s find out!

(I swear, the Girondins may haunt me after this… but I don’t give a fuck!)

Anyway, I usually don’t trust authors who are anglophone. Not on the topic of Frev, at least, as our community has been burnt on that front far too many times.

However, what interested me about Daphne du Maurier’s novel is the fact that it’s based on the story of her ancestors, the titular glass-blowers from France, so she definitely had much more accurate material to work with than most authors do.

Also the foreword throws a ton of shade at The Scarlet Pimpernel (which is a pleasant bonus in my book) and promises readers a private story - the tale of one specific family - instead of same old, same old sensationalist Frev stuff usually shown in media. So, naturally, I was interested to see if this would be the one time an Anglophone book wouldn’t spout propaganda.

In order to find that out, let’s begin!

P. S. The book is available online in PDF and EPUB formats so it shouldn’t be hard to find the entire thing.

P. P. S. This review is dedicated to @fireortheflood and @edgysaintjust

2. The Summary

The summary comes from Goodreads:

“The world of the glass-blowers has its own traditions, it's own language - and its own rules. 'If you marry into glass' Pierre Labbe warns his daughter, 'you will say goodbye to everything familiar, and enter a closed world'. But crashing into this world comes the violence and terror of the French Revolution, against which the family struggles to survive.

Years later, Sophie Duval reveals to her long-lost nephew the tragic story of a family of master craftsmen in eighteenth-century France. Drawing on her own family's tale of tradition and sorrow, Daphne du Maurier weaves an unforgettable saga of beauty, war, and family.”

Okay, the summary is coming off as having a bit of propaganda, but genuine atrocities did happen during Frev too so let’s not jump to conclusions just yet and unpack this.

3. The Story

First of all, I loved the framing device of one family member (Sophie Duval) writing a letter to another (Louis-Mathurin Busson, her nephew) to help the latter uncover important truth.

I will get into why Sophie is doing that in the “Characters” section, but I like this “excuse” for telling us this story, as it really feels like the reader is let in on the secret along with the character of the nephew.

Also, I like the fact that the primary focus is on the Busson family and multiple prospectives within it, as this makes the reader more attached to everything that’s going on. Honestly, reminds me of “One Nation, One King”, a movie in which ordinary people are the main characters, not historical figures. Also this approach is refreshing!

The pacing is generally pretty good, and, while at first I felt like Sophie’s decision to start with the story of her parents was a bit unnecessary, it proved to be the opposite. See, that backstory actually sets up a lot of things that will happen later on and, again, make for a more personal story where the reader is actually invested in the lives of the characters, their trade (glass making), etc.

However, be warned that some time skips can be a bit confusing and the pace is not fast, which definitely isn’t for everyone. Also the story isn’t exactly linear - no big goals or high stakes to drive the narrative here, so it’s probably not a book for you if you prefer something more linear and goal-oriented with high stakes.

Finally, I love the touch of pointing out that certain events in the family happen right before/right after the important historical stuff. Only serves to make Frev more personal in the long run, which is nice!

And, while the narrative doesn’t idealize Frev, we’re meant to see it as a good thing, with Royalists and Girondins being the bad guys (yay) and here’s the excerpt that brought me joy specifically because it doesn’t sugarcoat Girondins (they don’t deserve it):

So yeah, when it comes to the story, I haven’t seen any major issues. Moving on.

4. The Characters

(Spoiler alert!)

To be honest, I found Sophie Duval a bit bland at first, but her character grew on me later on. She is initially against Frev and thinks it’s just radical fanaticism because she sees riots personally and fears for her family, but later becomes disillusioned by the old laws and embraces the Revolution.

Of course, with the Revolution come atrocities as well, so she doesn’t view it through rose-tinted glasses in hindsight, but she doesn’t really buy into most of the propaganda. There is a tidbit of Law of 22 Prarial where she thinks that this is going too far, but this is not an unreasonable fear, more like fear of the side effects of this law and not being able to know the full context anyway, since she lives in a more rural area, away from Paris.

In the end, Sophie just looks out for her family and her views change throughout the story. Very realistic, and I love it.

I also love her siblings, two of whom are revolutionaries, and I love the fact that one of the revolutionary siblings is female (her name is Edmé). See, revolutionary women should get more credit and representation, so I’m ecstatic that we got a republican action girl who participates in riots and even kills a Vendean rebel!

She isn’t afraid to take action. Love it!

Pierre, yet another one of Sophie’s siblings, is a secondary character but I love the fact that he does his best to help the poor as a lawyer and also actively tries to change things.

The only one out of the Busson siblings whom I hated is the oldest, Robert. Basically, since he was born when his parents were pretty wealthy (running a glass-house) and his mom was on good terms with the owner of the business (a marquise), Robert naturally visited the château of this marquise a lot as a child because that was his mother’s friend.

Unfortunately, this environment made him dream of high society and become too ambitious and irresponsible for his own good. He bankrupts himself multiple times and one bankruptcy results in the sale of the glass-house where his father was apprenticed, yet Robert doesn’t give a fuck.

He generally doesn’t give a fuck about anyone except himself or the consequences of his actions, to the point that he abandons his kids! Twice!

First time, he loses his first wife and does raise his son for a bit, then Frev comes and he sides with Duke of Orléans. Then he realizes that France isn’t going to be a monarchy and flees with émigrés to London, abandoning his son completely and dumping him onto Madame Busson like a sack of potatoes! Oh, and before leaving he remarries without telling anyone.

Second time, Robert completely deceives his second wife, pretending to be an impoverished aristocrat who was never married and never had kids, knowing she will believe it because she is a young and naïve orphan. Then they flee to London, have a bunch of kids (he never remembers his first son), Robert finds out that French émigrés aren’t welcome and he can’t make it big and be in high society like he hoped. So what does he do? Correct, he fakes his death and returns to France, abandoning his second family too!

Sorry for the rant, Citizens, it’s just that Robert made my blood boil. What a charming fucking guy… It’s really no wonder that, after his return, his first son wants nothing to do with him.

By the way, the nephew to whom Sophie is writing about her family is one of the children Robert had with his second wife, so he grew up believing the lies that his father was an aristocrat whose château was burned down by revolutionaries, so the reason for this letter is Sophie telling him the truth, as she rightfully believes that it’s her duty and that her nephew should know said truth.

I also liked Magdaleine Busson, Sophie’s mother. She is a caring, strict and wise woman who looked after ledgers and workers at the glass-house where her husband was managing things. She takes no bullshit from Robert at all and is absolutely furious the bastard left behind his son. Okay, actually she takes no bullshit from anyone, which is pretty cool.

As for historical figures, most of them are merely namedropped. Duke of Orléans makes a cameo, but others are mentioned in passing (like Marat, Robespierre and Napoleon). Also we have more obscure people being mentioned, like General Kléber or Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (if you know Dangerous Liasons, that should ring a bell). But that’s about it, and I’m okay with it because it’s not a story about them.

5. The Setting

Du Maurier really has a way of bringing the story to life with just the right amount of description and action balanced out. Love her approach to that.

6. The Writing

There is some outdated vocabulary used, but most of the time it’s really easy to understand for those who’re fluent in English and French words have just enough context clues for the audience to figure out what they mean.

The style also doesn’t dive into annoying habits like absurdly long descriptions, which is a big relief after that awful Madame Tussaud book.

Also it’s one of the few times I’ve seen where the first person point of view avoids the trap of the main character becoming the author’s surrogate in the universe or a self-insert.

7. The Conclusion

I’m pleasantly surprised to report that there’s very little (if any) lies here. All in all, this is an excellent read that takes a dive into family history of the author and the events unfolding before the eyes of the characters.

It has well-written characters, a compelling story to tell its audience, a first person POV done right and, for a change, a narrative that focuses on regular people.

I definitely recommend this novel (but trigger warning for child death, still births, death, blood, pregnancy and an ableist word towards the end). If you feel like reading a story offering lower stakes and more personal conflicts, then this is a novel for you.

But, with that out of the way, we must conclude today’s meeting. Stay tuned for future updates and reviews!

Love,

- Citizen Green Pixel

[viva-la-topknot]

Oh My Gosh The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder Is So Pretty

Spoiler Warning: This review talks about and shows the art, story, and other details of all three of the first episode of The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder.

This is a snippet of a longer review I made mostly for my own entertainment, but I wanna share me geeking out about the way the show looks here on my Tumblr.

The show is really nice to look at. Pretty color pallets, interesting textures, consistent background style, and the shading. Oh my gosh the cell shading.

The show has lots of little stylistic flairs that are just fun to look at. Like how the line art of the backgrounds [and sometimes the foregrounds] don’t match the color that fills them in, like they’re on to layers that are slightly offset, but that the outlines are the thing that determines where that thing is in space.

Check out this scene of Oscar in his car here to see what I mean about the cell shading.

So the yellow circle is where the light source is coming from. If we just look at the cell shading Highlights, the lighter part of the left side of Oscar’s face, the top of his left arm and hand, those are all lit up from the cell shading. But his torso doesn't have a highlight because it’s below the window of the car, where the car door would be blocking it, and his right arm doesn't because the rest of his body is covering it. I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever seen cells shading like this in a cartoon. The highlights also change color depending on the lighting, it’s awesome!

Let’s take an example from Family Guy for comparison. All three characters are lit consistently from the moonlight coming in through the window, but Quagmire shouldn’t have any highlights on him below the neck, because that’s where the window stops. He’s lit on his left arm, leg, and foot. They're all highlighted but he should only be lit from the neck up because everything below that would be shadowed by the wall under the window.

Or how bout this shot from Kipo: Age of Wondersbeasts where Kipo’s left leg is lit as if the guitar wouldn’t be blocking the light, and how the shading is consistent from just before this bird shows up and there’s a big, sunny hole in the wall to after the bird shows up, where the bird should be blocking most of the light the scene is lit from.

I’m making a big deal of pointing this out because I can’t remember if I’ve ever seen lighting like this in a cartoon. It’s fantastic. It shows a really deep understanding of how light works and how to light a scene, and Proud Family: Louder and Prouder has tons of little details like this.

There’s this spray paint texture that keeps showing up throughout the show. They use it for depth, for texture, and for visual flair.

Here’s some dry brushstroke type paint to make Penny’s bonnet have a fabric texture.

Here’s a more textured paint look used to make Maya’s jeans look distressed.

Here’s some more dry brush style to show the curl texture of the girls’ natural hair.

There’s a couple different ones here, with the texture used on the trees being consistent from tree to tree and a different one for the roofs.

Look at how amazing Michael’s hair looks! The spray paint texture at the roots of his locs gives his hair texture and depth, they even gave him a lighter version of his base brown on the sides of his head to give all his hair some texture.

And here on Penny’s coat, they’ve used something chunky and multi colored with a splatter texture [reminds me of Procreate’s Splatter brush if it had a baby with the Flicks brush, Splatter’s color mix and Flicks’ texture and shape] to make glitter.

They sometimes also use texture for hair and don’t use an outline, which I’m partly pointing out so that we can appreciate the mix of lineless and lined styles in this show, and mostly because I had to show you Baby Penny because she is the cutest thing I’ve seen all week.

I really like all these textures they’ve put into the art, it gives the show a look that feels, approachable? Familiar? To a digital artist like myself. I can see myself emulating some of these techniques in my own art.

The fun and consistent characters carry over from what I remember of the original show [I re-watched most of the first season before the reboot came out so my memory on this count might be inaccurate], as does the fun and absurd cartoon sitcom writing. I’m glad they went for a chill cover of the OG theme song because trying to do better than it would probably have been impossible. Both the baby’s updated character designs are super cute, as are the main teens. Most of them aren’t /that/ different, other than Michal and Zoe most of the teen’s updates are in proportion and simple outfit changes.

The show is just super pretty and I look forward to getting to look at more episodes of it.

- Topknot

[a-wild-rosette]

/dsmp /rp 

Hbomb’s biggest strength and weakness is that he’s genuinely a nice person. 

H is very community-oriented. He joined the server to make friends. He spent hours mining to build an Ancient Debris wall for everyone to take for free. He is, in general, one of the most peaceful person on the server, choosing to be neutral/away from most big war and conflicts. His most prominent love language seems to be gift-giving, evident in the ancient debris wall, the Christmas presents, and that he gave Niki most of his possessions when he went away. He is willing to spend time and effort in the people he cares about, and even the people who he isn’t that close to. His philosophy is truly “choose people”: he will fight for his friends, as he evident in him fighting alongside Eret and Puffy in the El Rapids conflict, and his support for Niki’s during doomsday. H chose his friends, chose their sides, despite most other things. 

This community, people-oriented part of Hbomb was also why his pre-doomsday stream was heartbreaking. The scene where he, one of the friendliest and nicest person one the server, said “I’m done putting effort in people” was one of the scene that showcased the hopelessness of that entire day. That scene, that switch from his usual cheerful, caring personality to this sad, despondent mood, really hit home that the Dream SMP, at that point, had no community nor hope.  For H, who chooses and fights for the people he cared about, could not fight for a country he was not a part of, could not fight for the community of L’Manberg (and of the server as a whole). He wasn’t part of that community, not to mention that the “community” was already broken. The Dream SMP was no longer the community H was looking to be a part of, and that was heartbreaking to both his character, and the viewers who watched his stream. 

This characteristic also made H’s decision to leave the DSMP territory bittersweet. H was not a violent person, he was just nice. He was hurt by other people, he was overlooked and forgotten. He was, in his own word, “bullied”. He had the rights to feel hurt and unappreciated, and he could very well leave a place that was unhealthy for him and find somewhere new. But by doing this, he also isolated himself from the only source, the only hope of community on the server as far as he knew. H couldn’t bring himself to fully did that. So he contacted Niki, the only active member who he still had a tie to, gave her all his things, and let her come with him when he found a new place. He wanted to start anew completely, but still could not fully leave everything behind. Niki was his one string connected to the Dream SMP’s lands, and he did not want to let that string go. He ventured into a place where no players had came, knowing he would not find player friends, so he tamed animals, calling them his friends and naming them after the people from the server. (He has a cat named Ant, a donkey named Clay(ton), and another cat named Toby). He protected the villagers with an almost desperation that spoke to his state of mind after seeing so much death and destruction. H might have wanted to leave,he wasn’t ready to let go. 

H hanging onto his sense of community, even when he was disappointed and hurt by the people of the DSMP, was one of the best thing about his character. He was not obliged to forgive the people who hurt him, and he didn’t. But he did heal, and after a while, he grew even closer to Niki, found new friends in Foolish, and even mended his relationship with Ponk. Hbomb was the evidence that we always gravitate toward each other, and that healing and community can be found with each other. Hbomb’s arc showed that you could leave an unhealthy place, and you would be sad for a while, but ultimately, healing is possible, community and bonding is possible. H is friendly and community-oriented, and that makes his story both heartbreaking and heartwarming. 

However, it is also his worst quality. H, with his “niceness”, doesn’t want to start conflict himself. He will help his friends in their fight, but he will not start his own. He is nice and community-oriented, which means he will act in a way that makes people happy and preserves peace.  He is the opposite of confrontational, and while being peaceful has it merits, it also means H avoids confronting people he disagrees with. This trait brings him into a pretty passive role in any conflicts on the Dream SMP, more following others than taking an active role in any conflict himself. In his personal interactions with other people, this passivity is shown especially with how he deals with Niki and Tommy. When Niki wanted to hurt Tommy as a way to lash out in grief and anger, her philosophy of “doing bad deeds against bad deeds” was directly opposite to H’s “doing good to get good in return”. He expressed his disagreement, but when Niki doesn’t listen, he doesn’t push any further. He knew she was wrong, but he did not want to call her out or confront her. H was too loyal to his friends, too nice to them, that he was willing to let harmful/unhealthy behaviors slide. 

H’s approach to Tommy, while he was not H’s friends, was also conflict avoidance. Tommy is not a perfect character, and his action and the way he talked to H clearly hurt him. H had reasons to be wary of Tommy, and that is valid. On the server, there are typically 2 ways people handle conflicts with Tommy. The first way, the approach Dream, Techno, and most other characters took, was to resort to violence and punishments. They fought Tommy, exiled him, and tried to control him as a way to “make him learn”. It almost never worked the way it intended to. The second way, the approach Sam and Puffy took, was to educate. They assumed a gentle, but firm role model in Tommy’s life, and it worked. Their approach showed that Tommy was capable of learning and changing. While completely opposite, both of these approaches had the common theme of proactive reactions, as they all took matter into their own hand and act. H, on the other hand, was passive, electing to stay silent and leave instead of confronting Tommy about Tommy’s behavior. And while it was completely valid to leave someone who hurt you, it also meant that the problem would not get resolved. The same thing can be said with his relationship with the people on the server as a whole, because while the server was quite a hostile place and everyone was not the most attentive friend/neighbor, H’s passivity was also partly responsible for him being overlooked. 

H knew this about himself. He knew that he was not confrontational or fighty. He called himself a coward during his pre-doomsday stream. Because of his nature to avoid conflict, and because his philosophy is truly “choose people” (and by extension choose his people’s side), he does not fight for a “greater” good, at least that will not be his ultimate goal. He does not fight for those who are not “his” people. That is why he didn’t see, during doomsday, why fighting Dream was necessary. That is why he didn’t see Dream’s tyranny and want to fight against it. He said he was willing to give in to Dream’s demands, because it was better than keep fighting him. Again, he was more willing to surrender than fight. 

From this, H’s appearance in the finale actually showed a (temporary) switch in the server’s connection. H’s change of heart, where he came for Tommy and Tubbo (even though he still did not forgive Tommy) was a pivotal moment that showed that there was still hope of people coming together. As fractioned as it was in the aftermath, as fractioned as it was when the fighting was done and Dream was in prison, for a while, the whole server had a purpose: Tommy and Tubbo, for their willingness to die for each other, for their hope even when all hopes seemed to be gone, had inspired another hope in the server that temporarily turned them into a community again. That, was what bring Hbomb to fight against Dream, to fight for Tommy and Tubbo. Hbomb’s joining the fight even when he had left the main area, was a contrast to him staying on the sideline during doomsday. It was the contrast between the presence and lack of community and shared purpose. 

TL,DR: Hbomb94 is a community-oriented character, and watching his lore showed us the contrast between having hope and connection and not having them. His community-oriented personality is also his best and worst characteristics because he is wholesome but also avoids conflict too much.