#writer's director's cut meme

[kitkatt0430]

⭐️star⭐️

The Broken Pedestal series is currently two stories long, but I have plans to continue it - here's hoping I get back to it this year. (So many in progress series, so little time.)

I had the first part of this as a WiP for the longest time before I finally cleaned it up and then wrote the second fic to follow it up. In the first part, Hartley successfully plants a virus in STAR Labs with his 'plan' from the show really being just a diversion so no one notices the virus until it's too late. There's never a confrontation at the dam and instead Hartley begins dumping stolen files online and running an anonymous blog where he explains what the files ultimately mean - that the accelerator was flawed from conception and Harrison Wells knew it. Meanwhile Cisco's conscience concerning the pipeline prison kicks in, spurring him to team up with Hartley. In the second part, Cisco and Hartley new team up is put to the test when Shawna shows up. Cisco has to persuade Barry that imprisoning her in the pipeline is the wrong track to take and everyone's commitment to being heroes is tested.

The first draft had Hartley smuggling the data out on drives, but when I was dusting it off I realized how impractical and unwieldy that would be for Hartley. He wouldn't get much data that way, it would take way too long, and then he'd have to carry the drives out with him? Nooo, that was definitely the wrong way to go. When I changed it up to him planting a virus, that was when the fic really took off and I was on such a roll that the second fic practically wrote itself when I finished the first.

I do know generally where the rest of this series is headed and there's only going to be a couple more fics in it. (They say while knocking on wood.) Cisco is going to reintroduce Hartley to Barry and Caitlin as their ally now - to some resistance - and Hartley's college age coworkers are going to make another appearance. Calling themselves Hartley's minions in front of Team Flash, much to his consternation and Cisco's amusement. Cisco and Hartley grow closer - it'll be endgame Hartmon, so settle in for a bit of a slow burn. They are going to come up with an answer for the Pipeline Prisoners - currently just Roy and... and... what's his name. Dude who turns into gas. (I could look him up on Arrow wiki but I've decided that's too much effort, sorry, it's a bit late here and I'm sleepy.) It's a plan that Team Flash does not like at all, however. Hartley won't agree to involving ARGUS - suicide squads anyone??? - and Cisco reluctantly sides with him there. But Hartley thinks the best answer is to reach out to Snart, which all of Team Flash is against.

But they can't just let the two rogues go without some kind of assurance that they won't immediately start killing people or otherwise causing massive amounts of physical harm. Putting Snart in charge of them would alleviate some of that problem... if Snart can be convinced to follow and enforce a no-killing code.

This whole section is what's giving me difficulty getting the next part out as the scenes do not want to be written at all. But once they get rid of the prisoners, the story can then focus on the reveal that Harrison Wells is Eobard Thawne. I'm kind of leaning towards Rogues and Team Flash vs Eobard in a fight, though we'll see where it goes. (I'm gonna write that team up vs Eobard eventually, whether it's this series or another.)

And of course, while Eobard is trying to keep the ruse up a bit longer, Hartley's blog will continue to cause him problems as the full scale of his shenanigans with the accelerator come to light.

[toomanygh0sts]

directors cut on the scu (shipley cinematic universe) please!

GOD you really went and asked for the director's cut on three fics (for now[??]) and I am going to try my best to remember my thought process, but I can't make any promises.

Like many (most?) of my fics, this whole thing started as a joke, quite literally "who would be the funniest person to catch Ted in a 'don't bully me I'll c*m' shirt"? and I became absolutely determined to write it. I knew it needed a proper lead-in to land the way I wanted it to, and in my head the only way that made sense would be if it were told from the perspective of Ms. Shipley. this noise is so loud (it's stressing me out) was the second fic I started writing after my 10+ year fic hiatus, and I used to love writing character studies and outside perspectives, so it honestly made sense in my head that this was a thing I was committed to trying out in a new fandom. I think I was still a bit overwhelmed by the sheer talent surrounding me in this one (still am), and part of me saw a character like Shipley, one we don't have much canon for, as a safe option--harder to fuck up characterization if they barely have any. IIRC I wrote the first ~1k words pretty quickly. I have some experience living below an eccentric neighbor (nearly) as obsessed with noise as Shipley, so I was able to draw on that experience, despite the two ending up pretty different. I made her a widow because despite her being listed in Ted's phone in S3 as "Mrs.", she's a "Ms." according to the subtitles and transcripts, and I thought "Ms." fit her better. A single woman made more sense. Some of the details I ripped from the headlines of my own life. I do remember getting a little stuck when I realized I had a backstory for Shipley, but hadn't yet introduced Ted. I landed on "Ted would be an interesting personality for anyone to meet, especially an older British woman" and followed that. As Ted's neighbor, she would have be privy to his getting acclimated in the UK from the get. And I still needed this to end on Ted's c*m shirt, so it made the most sense for it to transition into her perspective on a developing Ted/Rebecca relationship.

Oops this is getting (predictably) long, so I'm putting the rest under a cut.

I think it was around this time I became obsessed with another joke idea, of which you were central: "Ted accidentally asks Rebecca to put a baby in him," which became "Ted asks Rebecca to peg him, in the most roundabout way possible." This was good news because I had gotten stuck on how to introduce Rebecca into the Shipley character study and was ready for a break. can't take it back once it's been set in motion was born, and initially I didn't foresee Shipley making an appearance in it. I decided to split it into a multichap (still sort of regret this, think it works as a oneshot). At the time, it was the most explicit thing I had ever penned, and I was terrified. I wrote the first chapter and then skipped ahead and wrote a fair chunk of the smut bit to 'get it over with,' but then was absolutely confounded as to how to string the two together.

I knew I wanted the fic to focus on the established relationship (as I saw it) between Ted and Rebecca, the trust, the love, the fun, more than the actual, you know, pegging, so I let myself get wrapped up in the anticipation of being excited to try something new with a partner you're absolutely head-over-heels for. And while I knew in my heart the smut I had already written was alright decent good, I was still scared to post it, so I just kept adding backstory. I wanted to play with time shifts, so I tried that out (LOVED IT, SO FUN). The potential for hijinks was also high with a little delayed gratification, and that factored heavily. And mail mix-ups are always funny. Auto-complete addresses are convenient but also annoying if an account is frequently shared, and I thought it'd be believable for Ted's to be the last saved, and for Rebecca to be too excited (or distracted) to catch it. Once I realized that, Shipley was the natural person to accidentally open the package. And I wanted the reason she opened something not addressed to her to be petty as hell. Serving as the catalyst for the two (Ted and Rebecca) to discuss cohabitating wasn't initially in my plan, but it made a ton of sense within the framework I had come up with.

And despite writing out all of the backstory as a way to avoid first-time-smut scaries, it ended up giving me what I needed to (eventually) finish off the Shipley character piece.

But first! CAT fics were coming due, and I had signed up for "Deb dating/falling in love/getting engaged/coming back married from a trip abroad." Once again, a bit taken too far ('but what if Deb marries Shipley') resulted in a fic: lasciami solo un attimo (e non mi troverai mai). This one was written in a (literal) fever fugue state, there were a million jokes I wanted to include, and my outline consisted of a list of them. I had the established relationship from CTIBOIBSIM to go off of, and my own (still unpublished) Shipley lore, so the fic flowed pretty easily once I started writing (maybe this is a lie, maybe I screamed about it, but it really did not take that long, a few hours in total [broken up over a few days]).

Anyway, despite Shipley being central to that plot, I chose to focus more on Rebecca and Deborah's relationship, and how I could see it evolving post-canon, particularly once Rebecca was solidly in love. That fic is pretty dialogue-heavy, and I got SO lucky. Sometimes dialogue makes me want to rip my hair out, but I truly love writing Ted rambles, and figuring out how/where to include one in a fic he doesn't feature heavily in really gave me the juice I needed to finish it.

I still sat on the character study for a couple of months before finally adding the final touches and posting, and I don't think it would have seen the light of day had the other two fics not sprung into existence. In particular, choosing to have Deborah marry Shipley really made a lot of Shipley's character in the second half of the fic come to life--the waning libido, the (would never admit to) interest in Ted and Rebecca's experimental love life, etc etc.

Oof, as long as this is, I still feel like there's a ton I'm leaving out. The "research" I did, the editing process, some of my headspace while writing specific parts, the extreme cross-referencing between fics I did to make them work in the same universe, etc. But I'll leave it here.

[gerec]

⭐Star!⭐

Oh thanks for giving me a chance to talk about An End Comes to All Good Things!

I recently got a new comment on this story, which reminded me how much I enjoyed writing it and how proud I am of my writing here - imo it's one of my strongest works. I love writing / reading 'getting together' fics, but I also REALLY wanted to write a break up one that wasn't necessarily about the beach divorce, so I came up with the idea for this fic and it's turned into a personal favorite. It doesn't have as much as reach as some of my other fics (understandable given the subject matter of Charles and Erik breaking up, and Erik cheating on Charles) but I'm always hopeful more people will give it a chance :D

Anyway, I keep thinking about a time skip forward from the ending of this story, where Charles finally packs up and leaves and Erik moves on (and in) with Shaw. I'm not really interested in the obvious follow up plot points - i.e. With Erik, where we watch him slowly realize what a mistake it was to fall for Shaw and get involved with him regardless of his feelings for Charles, and then the inevitable fallout where Shaw kicks him out of the firm and he's left with nothing. And with Charles, where we watch him run away to another country and take a job at Oxford U so he doesn't have to ever deal with seeing/running into Erik, and just losing himself to alcohol and bad choices. What actually interests me the most is writing them slowly climbing their way out of rock bottom and coming to terms with their respective mistakes and shortcomings, and healing and moving forward. THEN bringing them together again and exploring what happens - have the ugly feelings from that fallout really gone away? What about the love they used to share? Can they ever learn to trust each other again? Are they better off apart, even if they learn to forgive each other? Maybe sometimes, things are irrevocably broken and can't be fixed no matter how hard you try...

Fanfic Writers: Director’s Cut

[elwenyere]

⭐ (imagine I am asking about your fav andor related scene you have written~)

Ahh, Serie, this is so wonderfully kind of you. <3 Thank you for giving me a chance to talk about the Andor fics.

Asks are from this director's cut meme.

I decided to narrow the field for myself by thinking about a scene that's a favorite of mine specifically because of how it relates to the show, and in that category one of my top choices would be the third scene in "Aller-Retour," where Melshi comes back from a mission that triggered a lot of Narkina-related trauma, and Cassian helps him shave.

In addition to being inspired by the Cassian-shaving-with-a-blade scene in Andor 1.4, about which I have extremely normal feelings, this moment in the fic was also a chance to explore the particular history that Melshi and Cassian share: both of incarceration and of resistance to it, since (as we see in Rogue One) Melshi eventually becomes one of the Rebels breaking folks out of labor camps.

One of the things I tried to capture in the narration is that Melshi is not really looking directly at what happened to him (he knows Cassian's going to get back soon, and he knows that Cassian's going to be upset by what happened to him, so he's trying to appear more put-together than he is). For that reason I waited until about halfway through the scene to introduce any details about the mission: it's not until Cassian points out the wounds and concealment is thus out of the picture that Melshi lets himself think about what caused the injuries. And it's not until the very end of the scene that he lets himself fall apart about it a bit - with someone who understands and makes space for him to be a mess.

Thank you so much for the ask, my dear!!! <3<3<3 I appreciate it so much.

[fuckyeahisawthat]

While this article does not answer my #1 burning question of how you dismount from a speeding sandworm, there are a lot of great pull quotes, including:

On Paul and Chani:

"...I wanted to make sure the audience will understand that Paul becomes a dark figure, that his choices are exactly what Chani was afraid of. He becomes the colonizers the Fremen were fighting against.... He betrayed her in many ways. But the big thing for Chani is that it’s not about love. It’s about the fact that he becomes the figure that will keep the Fremen in their mental jail. A leader that is not there to free the Fremen, but to control them."

On the duel between Paul and Feyd-Rautha:

"...we approached their fight at the end like some kind of symbolic union. The way their bodies get close to one another, there’s something animalistic, an intimacy, I was looking for."

On the infamous popcorn bucket:

"I’m at peace with the bucket."

Full article text under the cut, including Fremen sex lives, murder toddler adaptation choices, and the teeny tiniest of teasers for Dune Messiah:

Denis Villeneuve Answers All Your Questions About ‘Dune: Part Two’

He explains why Lady Jessica’s face is so heavily tattooed, whether Paul considers himself the Messiah and what he thinks of those Javier Bardem memes.

By Amy Nicholson

April 17, 2024

This weekend, “Dune: Part Two” muscles back into IMAX theaters with the verve of Timothée Chalamet rodeo-riding a giant sandworm. After nearly two months in theaters, the film is the current champion of this year’s box office race, with a total take of more than $680 million. (It’s also available to rent or buy on some streaming platforms.) The film’s success is thanks in part to audiences that have returned over and over to get lost in the rocky warrens and spiritual reckonings of the planet Arrakis. One admirer reports he’s seen the movie 25 times to date.

That there’s so much to explore in “Dune: Part Two” is a credit to its writer and director, Denis Villeneuve, who boldly reshaped Frank Herbert’s complex and cerebral 1965 novel “Dune.” Villeneuve split the book and its themes into two films: “Dune: Part One,” released in 2021, focused on the political struggles between two families, the Atreides and the Harkonnens. “Part Two” delves into religious fervor as the two surviving Atreides, young Paul (Chalamet) and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), ingratiate themselves with Arrakis’s Indigenous desert tribe, the Fremen, by allowing the locals to believe that Paul is their Messiah — a prophecy that, if it comes to pass, will mean the slaughter of billions of victims across the galaxy.

Villeneuve has yearned to tell this story since he was a teenager in Quebec. His devotion is palpable; every frame feels steeped in monkish contemplation. Yet, he’s also a visual dramatist who doesn’t want audiences to get tripped up by too much exposition. His scripts give only passing mention to core concepts like spice, a psychedelic dust that powers everything from space travel to Paul’s clairvoyant hallucinations.

Though Villeneuve doesn’t want to overexplain, he was willing to provide some answers in an interview via video where every question about the film — even silly questions! — was on the table.

Does Chalamet’s Paul Atreides actually believe he’s the Messiah? What’s the meaning of Jessica’s face tattoos? Villeneuve also got into the erotic lives of his desert dwellers and the extra narrative weight he threw behind Paul’s Fremen love interest, Chani, played by Zendaya. As Villeneuve said with a grin, “Chani is my secret weapon.”

Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.

The last time we spoke, you weren’t sure what to make of the sandworm-shaped “Dune” popcorn bucket. It went on to be so popular that it sold out in cities before opening day and is being resold online for around $175. What do you think of it now?

I thought that the bucket was an insane marketing idea. I laughed so much. It is so out there. I don’t know who designed it, but they’re a bit of a genius. I’m at peace with the bucket.

In this film, Javier Bardem’s character Stilgar is reduced to a guileless follower of Paul Atreides, who Stilgar believes is the new Messiah. His conversion is tragic. But also, Bardem’s awe-face has become a funny meme, and the second time I saw the movie, people laughed at almost every line he spoke. Did that reaction surprise you?

No. I am very happy when you say that he is a tragic figure. For me, he is the most tragic figure of all. The idea to bring humor to Stilgar was to make him lovable, to feel the humanity in that character. He’s not an austere figure, he has a big heart. But his beliefs, his faith, his reactions bring humor — and that is something I love about making a sci-fi film, because I can talk about that without offending people because it’s a fake religion. I designed all the prayers myself, so I know it’s fake. I find Stilgar very funny. And when people laugh, I’m happy because that was the intention.

Someone makes a dig that Stilgar has found a savior again. This is not even his first time?

All his life he has been raised with that dream. So I suggest that every time a guy comes from outside with a lot of charisma, he hopes he’s found him. Like in the Bible, we have tons of prophets before Jesus came.

The arc of “Dune: Part Two” is Paul accepting that he must become the Messiah — and get billions of people killed. Does he truly believe that he is the Messiah? Or does he just decide to let the Fremen believe that he is?

I don’t think he believes that he is the Messiah. I think he feels the burden of the heritage that the Bene Gesserit [the mystical sisterhood that Jessica belongs to] have laid among the Fremen, and he sees the potential to use that religious power to survive.

Paul is warned that no man can survive drinking the spiritual water of life. But as that’s part of the lore of a planet seeded with manipulative propaganda by his own mother, I have to ask: Have other men actually been drinking the water and dying? Have they been scared off from trying? Is the warning just a setup for a magic trick?

There are people that have tried it in the past and died. In Frank Herbert’s world, femininity is a power. I think Herbert was fascinated by motherhood, by the power of creation. I love this idea that the power is held by women. It’s something that was ahead of his time when he wrote it and I tried to put the focus on it.

You say so much with Jessica’s costuming. In the first film, her look is immaculate and baroque. This film begins with her in rags, but she finds another path to being dressed and treated like royalty. And she gets a lot of tattoos on her face. Why did she get so many more face tattoos than the outgoing reverend mother?

She’s trying to play on the symbolism that was put in the prophecy. She’s supposed to be the mother of the Messiah, so I wanted to bring the idea that she was like the pope of the reverend mothers on Arrakis. There’s some kind of madness in writing elements of the prophecies on her face. Frankly, I think when you drink the worm poison, it affects your sanity — and the same with Paul. I like the idea that we feel she’s going too far.

Jessica is already pregnant when the first movie ends, and she’s still pregnant at the end of this film. Which means you had to condense this massive story into less than nine months because her body is a time clock.

The idea was to compress the book so that Paul will feel the pressure to get the Fremens’ trust, to start gearing up — but not to succeed, not to have the time to create a real war. Time is against him.

Because in the book, this takes years. Long enough for Jessica to give birth to a very unnerving daughter, Alia. We glimpse Alia as an adult — she’s played by Anya Taylor-Joy — but you skipped over seeing her murder people as a toddler. Was it hard to decide no “murder toddler”?

I think pregnant women look tremendously powerful. To use that power was very exciting. And usually when you see a pregnant woman onscreen, she’s always giving birth. To avoid that moment, to stay in the state of being pregnant, I thought was very Frank Herbert-like. I was going away from the killer toddler, but I thought that was more fresh and original. Honestly, it’s one of the things that I’m proudest of in the adaptation.

Speaking of female power, let’s talk about Chani.

Chani is my secret weapon. Frank Herbert was sad to realize that people saw the book as a celebration of Paul Atreides. He wanted to do a cautionary tale against messianic figures, a warning against blending religion and politics. I wrote the second movie trying to be more faithful to Frank Herbert’s intentions than to the book. In the book, Chani is just a follower. I came up with the idea of her being reluctant. She gives us the critical distance and perspective on Paul’s journey. I wanted to make sure the audience will understand that Paul becomes a dark figure, that his choices are exactly what Chani was afraid of. He becomes the colonizers the Fremen were fighting against. And then the movie becomes the cautionary tale Frank Herbert was wishing for.

Paul makes a choice at the end that will go on to kill billions of people. That’s so large and theoretical that it’s hard to grasp. But you structure your climax so that in that moment of betrayal, he’s also betraying the love of his life — a betrayal we understand.

He betrayed her in many ways. But the big thing for Chani is that it’s not about love. It’s about the fact that he becomes the figure that will keep the Fremen in their mental jail. A leader that is not there to free the Fremen, but to control them. That’s the tragedy of all tragedies. Like the Michael Corleone of sci-fi, he becomes what he wanted to avoid. And he will try to find a way to save his soul in the third part.

But “Dune Messiah,” the book your third film is based on, picks up 12 years later with a reunited Paul and Chani. How far did you feel you could push her anger? Because at some point, she’s going to have to forgive him.

That anger is tremendous. I don’t want to reveal what I’m going to do with the third movie. I know exactly what to do. I’m writing it right now. But there’s a lot of firepower there and I’m very excited about that decision.

In the spirit of no dumb questions, Chani says that Paul sand-walks like a drunk lizard. Which means Arrakis has booze?

Actually, there is spice beer. In the book, there are Fremen parties, even some orgies involving spice. I didn’t bring that into the movies because it’s PG-13.

Body fluids have significance to the Fremen. Spitting is the giving of water, a sign of respect. But tears and vomit are a waste. So what is kissing?

As long as you don’t lose your humidity, you can kiss. It’s an exchange of fluids — an act of love, when you think about it. Fremens love to kiss.

What about the, um, other romantic fluids?

You cannot have sex outside, for sure. But they are very sexual. I suspect that all sexual intercourse happens in environments that are protected from losing moisture. When they are in their sietches [or caves] underground, those are sealed. You don’t need to wear stillsuits inside them. We can deduce from that there is no problem to have sex in a sietch.

By the way, who decided that Fremen was pronounced Freh-men and not Free-men?

All the pronunciations, I took them from recordings of Frank Herbert’s voice. Frank Herbert used “Freh-men,” which I love. It makes it less on-the-nose.

You kept two major characters out of the first movie and only introduced them now: the princess Irulan, played by Florence Pugh, and the Baron Harkonnen’s nephew Feyd-Rautha, played by Austin Butler. The princess is the first voice in the books, the first face onscreen in David Lynch’s “Dune” [1984]. What made you sure holding them back was the right move, despite three years of fans asking, “Hey, where are they?”

When people ask me what was the biggest challenge in making those movies, it’s writing them. In order to make this adaptation, we have to make big, bold decisions. One was that the first movie should be seen from Paul’s perspective. I wasn’t able to do that entirely because I had to go to the Harkonnens’ side to introduce them so that the story will be clear, but I tried to find an elegant simplicity in the story structure. And I wanted, frankly, to keep some firepower for the second movie.

Why is Feyd-Rautha’s gladiator scene in black and white? And what are the splats in the sky above the dome?

Frank Herbert explores the impact of ecosystems on cultures, on humans. How it influences the way we evolve — our biology, culture, technology, mythology, religion. The psychology of a tribe is linked with their environment. If you want to know things about the Fremen, you observe the desert. I wanted to have the same approach to the Harkonnens. They killed nature. It’s a plastic planet. One thing left was sunlight, but instead of a sun that reveals color, it kills colors. When you are outside, it’s all black and white. It gives us ideas about how these people perceive reality, politics, violence in a binary world — it brings the idea of fascism. It also gave me the opportunity to bring images that remind us in our memories of World War II and the Nazi regime. So it’s an idea that I had as I was writing. Then I had the idea to have strange fireworks in the sky that will look like Rorschach drawings. It’s a nightmarish celebration. The perception of a dome is not accurate. It’s just that the fireworks reach a certain altitude and then they explode. But it’s true that it looks like a liquid that falls from the sky.

Forgive me if I am not being fair to sadistic, psychopathic Feyd-Rautha. But all of the gladiators were supposed to be drugged for his happy birthday massacre. The one who secretly isn’t puts up a worthy battle. So I assumed that Feyd-Rautha isn’t that great of a fighter. But at the end, he’s the only warrior who is Paul’s equal?

It’s a show. You see that the Harkonnens are very cruel and their society is very paranoiac. His opponent is known in the books as one of the great fighters, Lieutenant Lanville. I tried to show that Feyd is excited to have a real opponent. He has a code of honor, he respects the effort, and he has fun with it. That’s the idea I tried to convey — he’s not a coward.

Audiences might remember that the Bene Gesserit wanted Jessica’s child to be a girl, that Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides was supposed to be female. And they specifically bred Feyd-Rautha to be a male. Were they hoping these youngsters would mate?

Yeah. They are trying to increase the potential of humanity by breeding the best specimen of each tribe or family. A baby between Feyd-Rautha and an Atreides daughter would have brought peace between Harkonnens and the Atreides, and created an über being.

Will you read any of the internet fan fiction spawned by the idea of Timothée and Austin hooking up?

[Laughs] But you know, we approached their fight at the end like some kind of symbolic union. The way their bodies get close to one another, there’s something animalistic, an intimacy, I was looking for.

I rewatched the first film again recently. It opens with a quote in another language: “Dreams are messages from the deep.” I love that quote. It feels like how a film resonates, too. But it wasn’t until I had subtitles on at home that I realized who said it. Of all the important characters and cultures to establish, you gave that major moment — the very beginning of your franchise — to an anonymous Sardaukar from the murderous imperial army that we’re cheering to see get killed. Why?

I love your question. The Sardaukar are the dark side of the Fremen. I thought it would be interesting to have a tiny bit of insight that they are not just tremendous warriors, but they have spirituality, philosophical thought. They have substance. Also, their sound was designed by Hans Zimmer. I absolutely loved how it feels like it’s coming from the deep, from the ancient world. Frank Herbert said beginnings are very delicate times. By starting with a Sardaukar priest, I was indicating to the fans that I was taking absolute freedom with this adaptation, that I was hijacking the book.

But you also deeply love the book. So when you make these bold changes, do you feel like asking Frank Herbert for forgiveness?

Yes. There’s so many darlings that you kill. An adaptation is an act of violence.

[boilyerheid]

one thing I haven’t seen being talked about in regards to the writers and actors strikes (solidarity forever) but that I really think is important, is the fact that the advertising industry and the film and television industry... are all the same thing. 

oh no not ADVERTS not EVIL CAPITALISM which I am NOT SUSCEPTIBLE TO fuck those people I would never do that 

etc

except people working on commercials - crew, cast, creatives - are treated SIGNIFICANTLY worse than those at the higher level of network drama, because adverts are ‘gross’ and simply don’t generate the same level of give a shit from the general public that shows do. you might hear if someone gets injured on the set of a warner bros film, but on a commercial? you wouldn’t give a fuck, you don’t know who they are. but we are the SAME INDUSTRY just paid significantly less. and yes, I write commercials and work within the whole spectrum of the film industry, that’s how I know.

advert writers move into shows. show writers write ads. actors and directors and producers and crew do both. and it’s all because WE need to get paid. taika fucking waititi directed amazon’s tentpole christmas commercial in 2022 and got paid a bomb - go and look it up. that lesbian daniel craig spot for belvedere people memed on? A COMMERCIAL. 

just because in your little brains ‘advertising’ is the quickest shortcut to ‘capitalism’ to ‘evil’, do not forget that 99.9% of ALL professional film crew, writers, production staff, and actors also work in ads to make ends meet. the current actor and writers’ strikes are fantastic and I hope they fucking WIN, but they’re just the start if you actually want the hellish landscape of filmmaking to change. 

we are also threatened by AI, we are also subject to insane lack of safety regulations on set, and we are not supported by the general public because there’s a perception that somehow Art and Ads are separate. I’m a trans creative and I spend most of my career fighting for my LIFE to keep making queer commercials just so some can slip through the net while bud light keep abandoning us. do you know how fast I’ll be cut and jobless if AI rises to a useable/acceptable tool like the unions are protesting against? it’ll be before any background actor is.

AND I had more to say - ad scholarships are a major path to queer people getting into the industry. uwu forced diversity yeah but what happens when that’s gone?? THIS IS HOW YOU GET US INTO ENTERTAINMENT.

support us all, or you don’t really support any of us.

[friendsim2]

just finished around 2/3 of volume 12, i love so much the entire dreamscape / real world mechanic and lore-wise, love the way purplebloods and their history is represented and currently romancing Lynera. i'm in love with this volume so far thank you all so much (and whoever had the idea of making TechniColor Heart an actual thing, i'd hug u)

That was me (game's director/lead writer here) - TechniColor Heart was actually in production for a few months. The April Fool's joke trailer was just a fake-out using footage from the actual game (within a game) - it's original inception goes back to the "we'll put sex in the game" meme we did on Twitter.

So I basically spent 3 months writing, coding, and doing UI design to put that in there. The assets are a combination of Friendsim 2 assets and backgrounds I did and sprites that Riotbreaker did for another game (it was cancelled in its original form and another studio may or may not be continuing it at some point, but without the original assets). I'm a big fan of committing to the bit - to the point where every one of the "hahaha wouldn't it be funny if we put this in the game?" jokes has not, in fact, been a joke.

Originally there was gonna be a shorter and less interesting dream sequence in that bit there that had a Tyzias/Tagora trial sequence (we actually had that sequence completely done with recorded dialogue) as well as some small walk-around segments using existing assets.

There were also a couple cut mini-games from Volume 12 - a sliding tile puzzle and a "light up the lights" type puzzle, neither of which was very fun - so those got replaced with Tetris and Fire Fling, respectively. (if you talk to Mallek about his GameDude console in the TechniColor Heart segment, you can actually play Gameboy versions of those games to practice them)

Overall, Volume 12 has probably been our most involved volume. One of the things I wanted to get right going into this game was how the purple bloods are portrayed, because there's a lot of baggage associated with how they're shown in canon, and I wanted to approach the whole thing thoughtfully and make it an impactful experience.

I cannot stress enough how important the contribution of the route's primary writer, Miranda Holliday, was to the experience of that route. They laid down the framework (and wrote most of the first half of the route) for a lot of the themes and how they tie into real-world issues of ethnicity, race, and culture. I picked up what they put down and then they went back over what I'd written in the second half to tighten up some of the language and provide feedback on the way the themes were developed.

Also, the route's sprite designer, Cole, was instrumental in fleshing out the character designs and giving them a unique character. Riotbreaker ended up doing the finished sprite sets off the original designs, and she did an awesome job of following Cole's reference designs.

Also, unique among the routes, we had the stark contrast between the dreamscape backgrounds (done by Dave Fowler) and the real-world backgrounds (done by Herk Lapaduza, who's done work on a couple other volumes both released and unreleased!). The dreamscape in particular was very much an exercise in "have fun with it!" to the artist, and the result was a delightfully surreal experience to contrast with the much more grounded style of the other backgrounds.

Lastly, our VAs for this route really helped sell their characters' unique personalities. Valentine was my choice to play Marvus from before we even started this game (there's an interesting story there - before FS2 was a thing I was going to do a fan dub of my Delightful Abattoir Hiveswap novel, so some of the voice cast comes from that!), and Miranda, Jason and Vyn did an amazing job with Akhnai, Barzum/Baizli, and Chahut.

[freeuselandonorris]

i would LOVE director’s commentary on ‘playboy in the grotto’. i think about birthday and anniversaries for the normals being tuesday nights for these freaks basically daily.

SCREAM this is such a fun one!

so, i think i have written about this before but one of my favourite landoscar headcanons is quite simply that lando is just kinda fucking gross. not in a deliberate way (like, he doesn't strike me as the type to tell super disgusting anecdotes or be especially into toilet humour?) but more that he just...kinda revels in dropping control every now and then? their lives are SO regimented, and lando is such a weird little gremlin. i like to imagine him just not showering for a few days sometimes, wearing scrotty joggers, licking up his own come after he jerks off and getting off on how dirty it feels. just normal gross boy stuff you know!!

and i think i have also written previously about this BUT within their dynamic specifically, it is such a gorgeous act of love to me that oscar would not necessarily agree with or get off on lando's grossness (although he's def not opposed to it, particularly) but that lando feels that free around him, and can voice these weird, slightly sordid desires? he fuckin LOVES that. he loves lando BECAUSE he is weird and gross and has an unhinged streak a mile wide, not in spite of it.

soooo while my headcanon for playboy in the grotto is that this is the first time they've tried more overtly edgeplay-style kinks like watersports, they are very comfortable in the filth and in trying out new stuff that lando's, like, seen a meme about or whatever. and it's just not really a thing for them, most of the time? they're not the kind of couple who would make a big production out of like.. Let's Spice Things Up In The Bedroom! it would just be lando pootling in to the living room in his joggers while oscar's trying to watch an episode of line of duty like "hey osc, i'm bored, i think i'm gonna buy one of these really big butt plugs" and oscar glancing at his screen and being like "oh cool okay, make sure you buy the decent lube this time though cos you know how it turned out last time you bought the cheap stuff".

and that, to me, is the HEIGHT of romance.

also: yeah, it's not a big deal for them, but also lando is HORRIFICALLY smug about what a not-big-deal it is, hence his sneering about poor vanilla georgie.

thank you for asking!!

fanfic writers: director's cut

[queenofsliferred]

001 - the askewniverse

001 | Send me a fandom and I will tell you my:

Favorite character: DANTE

Least Favorite character: TS Quint! Fuck you! even worse in the fucking director's cut, i swear lmfao

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): - Dante/Becky - Dante/Randal - Gil/Julie Dwyer - Dante/My OCs :) - Randal/Liv :)

Character I find most attractive: d-dante...

Character I would marry: DANTE

Character I would be best friends with: i like to imagine randal as my big brother figure but i think he'd roast me too hard and i'd cry lmfao. probably elias in all honesty.

A random thought: we need more non-randal fuckers in the fanfic community i wanna read oc/canon that isn't randal focused ;o;. it doesnt even have to be dante man i will take shannon hamilton x oc just SOMETHING A LIL DIFFERENT YKNOW WHAT I MEAN...

An unpopular opinion: why does so much of the clerks yaoi suck. you guys are writing my ships all cringe smh.

My canon OTP: Dante/Becky despite what clerks 3 said

Non-canon OTP: Dante/MEEEEEEEEEE

Most badass character:

Pairing I am not a fan of: Dante/Veronica?? she's too good for him idk gshdfghfgshfd

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): hi randal who was written more and more stupit each movie post-clerks animated!!!

Favourite friendship: Dante + Randal feels so... organic and shit man the stuff in clerks 2 makes me emotional. but not saying jay and silent bob feels wrong.

The Ask Meme In Question

[tenpintsof-sundrop]

21 & 25!

and also 30 - is there a comment or compliment you’ve ever received on a fic that you go back to/think about often?

fanfic writer ask game!!

21. Have you ever deleted an entire scene after spending hours laboring over it? If so, why?

I don't delete scenes. I never delete scenes.

If I have worked on something really hard, even if I know it's not going to work with the overall story, I always, always, always save it and put it into its own separate little doc and I will label it something like [FIC NAME] DELETED SCENE or [FIC NAME] ALTERNATE SCENE.

And I always advise other people to do the same, because if you have worked hard on writing a certain amount of words, don't just delete it. Even if it doesn't work with your story, save it in a separate doc and you could come back and turn it into a different short fic.

Because I do genuinely think of myself as a movie director? Especially when I am writing longer multi-chaptered stories, I think of it as: the characters are playing out their story, and it's just my job as a director to showcase the most important parts of their story at the right time with editing and to showcase their story in a certain light by emphasizing mood, and tone, and certain symbols.

One of the most devastating examples of deleted scenes for me was when I was working on Burn The Witch. I was overflowing with ideas for that fic, and I came up with multiple scenes that had to be cut from that fic because they didn't fit into the overall narrative (especially with the pacing of the second half, I didn't have a lot of places to put flashbacks like I wanted to) - but I saved those scenes with the idea that I could incorporate them into a sequel.

And to me, that sequel is like... my fucking white whale. It's something I always want to write but I don't think I ever will just on pure intimidation and anxiety.

But in general, if I am working on a oneshot (which is mostly what I write) - if I have spent time working on a scene, then that scene will make it into the final fic. And this is often why I talk about characters having 'a will' of their own, because I will start writing a scene thinking that it's short, or that it will go a certain way, and then it ends up being something totally different and it could change the overall tone of the fic SO MUCH and yeah - this is why sometimes a fic I intended to be 5k will end up being 20k. Because I don't delete scenes.

25. Have you ever upset yourself with your own writing?

Oh god yes, all the time.

Sometimes I write something that I know is going to upset me and I'm like 'okay, that was a predictable sadness due to the topic but I'm glad that I got upset while writing it because that just means the emotions in the fic come across as more real' and then other times I'm writing something that accidentally becomes so raw and I'm like 'oh ugh why am I crying when did this start'.

I think one of the best examples was when I was writing the ending of the first chapter of Dreaming Of You - I started crying and I was like 'oh, talking in detail about the fear of losing someone you love so closely is PAINFUL'. Especially because Gar reminds me a lot of someone I love really closely in my life and it just brought up a lot of really personal feelings for me that I did not expect.

But like, in general, I get upset often or cry often due to the emotions in my writing. But I think that it makes my writing a lot more raw and real and it makes my writing better (and it's because I am a hyper-empathetic person and way too in touch with my emotions lmao).

30 - is there a comment or compliment you’ve ever received on a fic that you go back to/think about often?

There isn't one specific comment? Sometimes when I am thinking about certain fics, I think about specific comments that I have gotten on those fics. Whenever I am reading fics that @star-mum and I have discussed, I always think about her memes in my head, and sometimes it leads to me reading the most serious fic and bursting into laughter because I will be thinking about some dumb meme she sent me ("Spencer is kidnapped" "JJ and Reader making out in the bathroom: this ain't about him!!")

I lot of intensely memorable comments that I have gotten on a fic that have really gotten me over 'the hump' of my writing career (aka a time when I almost quit writing altogether due to a severe depressive episode and severe onslaught of chronic illness symptoms) - were comments on Bring Me Your Pain, Love.

I was terrified to post that fic because I had never posted a fic with an autistic chronically ill character before, and although it is just me telling depictions of my life, I was afraid that the character was going to be ripped apart because most depictions of autistic characters are. But at the time, Abby was a character that literally kept me sane and writing the fic was such a meditative process for me and literally changed who I am as a person - helped me cope so much with my body as I became more disabled, and just - this fic changed my fucking life.

So I felt like sharing it with the (at the time) intimate and passionate Abby fandom was something I really wanted to do. (And this is also a huge reason why I am so fiercely protective of Abby as a character and I hate the idea of her character being screwed up by a live action adaptation, and yeah. Ugh.)

Anyway - when I shared the fic, I got a huge outpouring of support for it. People were telling me that if they were autistic and read it, they felt like the were finally reading fanfiction that accurately described their experiences, and non-autistic people told me that reading it opened up their eyes to what living with autism is actually like. I have had several comments on the fic saying that it helped people realize their sexuality fully, which is fucking wild to me.

One person commented that they discovered the poem I used through the fic, and they got the idea (because of my fic) to read that poem to someone on a first date like the characters do in the fic. And then they came back and commented months later that the person they read the poem to is now their girlfriend and they are thankful to my fic for giving them the courage to pursue their sapphic love. So I inadvertently helped make an IRL love connection with my fic???

(Also it's wild to me that so many people call it a 'sapphic love story' and that it's in so many 'sapphic' fanfiction collections when 1) I openly stated in the fic that the reader character is bi and 2) all of the metaphors and inspiration for the love connection that I was writing about at the time came from my relationships with men - so the 'purity' of the love I was writing about in the fic isn't even sapphic)

Anyway. Also someone said that my fic inspired them to get a tattoo of the poem - which, I did not write the actual poem used in the fic, I just borrowed it. But it's still wild to me that they felt the need to tell me that my fanfiction still inspired them to get a tattoo in some way. fucking wild

I will always mark this fic as a huge point in my life and as something so important to me. and the comments are just one of the reasons why

[two-reflections]

⭐?

This ask is in response to this fanfic writer's Director's Cut meme!

Let's talk about the first Warhammer 40k fanfic I wrote when returning to the fandom last year, Under the Aurora. Before that, I wrote a small mountain of fic for a Dark Heresy game that ended in 2017, but I hadn't written any other 40k fic.

Under the Aurora is my speculation on how the Emperor and Malcador met. In it, Malcador, who is on a campaign of revenge against the warlords who have destroyed the remnants of human history, chases a figure he calls the Golden Warlord though the polar night, meaning to assassinate him. The Golden Warlord is, of course, the Emperor. They speak and Emps gives Malcador a genuine chance to kill him with a piece of fulgurite. Malcador ends up tossing it away and embracing a path that would eventually lead to greater ruin than that which he sought to avenge. A tragic irony, imo.

I'm really not a Horus Heresy fan, but I find Malcador to be a very fun character. Ancient beside the primarchs, young beside the Emperor and most other perpetuals. Ridiculously powerful and logistically-minded, but still a man. He's just so neat.

I find the concept of perpetuals interesting and like that 40k doesn't seem to use them as the solution to everything even though they could absolutely disbalance the setting. I feel like some of the backlash to them lies in them seeming a bit, well, "superhero-ish" in a Universe that otherwise has a very different vibe. I can understand that criticism, but I also think they provide a very interesting theoretical rabbit hole to go down when considering perpetuals in contrast to psykers and blanks. Pretty much everything in 40k can be explained as warp chicanery, but what sort of warp chicanery leads to perpetuals? It was thinking about that that led me to the ideas the Emperor expresses to Malcador in my story.

However, I wrote this story last October, only a month before The End and The Death: Part 2 came out. I knew when I wrote my story that there was a chance it would quickly become obsolete. It didn't quite, but it absolutely could have. Some details are probably a bit off, though - I now think it's more likely that the Emperor met Malcador slightly before his pilgrimage to Molech, with Malcador's resources helping him to get there.

However, I don't think TEATD actually says this is the case, so I'm happy to leave my story as it is, with them meeting shortly after the Emperor has returned from Molech.

Aside from these quibbles, one thing I'm not sure I fully made clear in the story (partially because it's from Malcador's perspective) is that the Emperor's goal was never to take the Svalbard Seed Vault. It was to bait Malcador into trying to kill him so he could finally have his fated best bud/boyfriend by his side again.

Thanks for the ask! If this isn't the story you wanted to hear about or you'd like to hear about another, please feel free to request again!

[kitkatt0430]

⭐⭐

The Whistle Blower series began as a prompt response for Hartmon Fest 2019. The prompts were "Role Reversal" and "Working Together" and I took a somewhat liberal view of the role reversal prompt. When Hartley discovered the accelerator's flaws in canon, he was alone. No friends he could fall back on and no one who'd trust him if he spoke up. Assuming he tried to tell people anyway, Eobard no doubt made good on his threat to ruin Hartley's reputation. But at the same time, Cisco had close friendships with Cailin and Ronnie and the conditional safety that being Eobard's favorite afforded him.

So that was what I flipped. Caitlin and Ronnie got married earlier than canon, so they went on their honeymoon and left Cisco without his safety net. And while connecting Hartley to Tommy meant Hartley lost his best friend, it also meant that he had Team Arrow in his corner... and the conditional safety that being Eobard's favorite afforded him. Swapping their circumstances and then having Cisco be the one to find the flaws in the accelerator meant that, like Hartley in canon, Cisco didn't have a safety net. But, unlike Hartley, he did have an alternative authority figure within STAR Labs to appeal to. Hartley, of course.

It wound up becoming bigger than the original premise. Addressing Laural's budding alcoholism, Thea and Oliver's relationship with Walter, Iris' growing love of journalism...

From the start, I've been of the opinion that Barry should only be a minor character for this series. Eobard may be obsessed with Barry all he likes, but in the scheme of things for this story Barry is a supporting character for Iris. I considered having Eobard still have his speed through the negative speed force, which he was wary of using because it clouded his mind and made it hard to think. Ultimately I decided Eobard doesn't have his speed any which way, but this was one of the earlier stories where I wondered where the line was drawn regarding Eobard being cut off from the Speed Force after Nora's death.

I don't know if I want this series to be Hartmon or not. I couldn't decide when I first started writing it and now that I like Kamilla/Cisco and Hartley/Roderick (blank slate characters can be interesting, after all), it's even more of a puzzle. This is what I need to figure out before I write the next entry from one (or both) of their points of view. While the series will work either way, the direction it goes in could change dramatically in some ways depending on what I decide.

That said, Caitlin and Ronnie's positions within the story has already changed a lot. Originally they were going to stay at STAR Labs alongside Hartley to help gather evidence/sway coworkers to their side. But eventually I decided Caitlin would not be able to pull it off. She'd be too angry with Eobard to believably pretend everything was okay. And Ronnie wouldn't be able to stay if Caitlin left. That left Hartley on his own at STAR Labs. And while I'd initially intended for Eobard to realize Hartley had a hand in the article and kicking off Eobard contacting the League of Assassins (and getting Sara as his assassin leading to a dramatic showdown involving Laurel)... I decided this was a touch too much and retooled it. Eobard having a Hartley shaped blind spot was much more entertaining to me and while he can always be melodramatic about calling in the League of Shadows (and thus Sara) later, this made a good opening to bring in Ralph instead.

Ralph, of course, does not have a Hartley shaped blind spot. So that'll make things more difficult for Hartley moving forward.

[vvivacious101]

Rewatching RWRB ALREADY?!

I rewatched the film. And, I can say this for a fact that I liked it a whole lot more the second time around and I already liked it the first time around but watching it for the second time made me appreciate it a whole lot more!

This has never happened in my life, I have never rewatched a movie in a single day! So, RWRB is making my personal history as well.

I remember the director mentioning the fact that Nick or Taylor are in every scene of this movie and they really are! They really carried this film.

Under the cut are all my thoughts that I had while rewatching this movie for the second time. There are spoilers galore. So, you have been warned!

Also, if you make a drinking game out of every time I use the word 'good' you will be dead by the time you reach the end!

With all that out of the way, let's get into it!

"When the revolution happens it will be because of this wedding." Henry's first line in the movie is so underrated!

Cake-gate is AMAZING! I love the fact that Henry pushes Alex down while getting up! Poor guy deserves a little revenge. I had never heard the song ‘Bad Reputation’ before but I'm in love with it!!

Everyone who said Zahra is the BEST thing in this movie is right. I can't get over her railing Alex with a pillow.

“What if I set myself on fire?” Alex is the king of comebacks! “We'd ship the ashes to Heathrow.” But no one is getting one over Zahra.

Taylor as Alex is so good! I can't get over how perfect he is!! Also, I love how Henry is just upstaging Alex in the damage control portion of this movie. Like, Henry's revenge arc is not over yet!!

I feel bad for Alex, every time he tries to one-up someone he just ends up backing himself into the corner.

Okay, the CLOSET SCENE AKA ONE OF THE ONLY SCENES THAT I REMEMBER FROM THE BOOK IS EPIC!!!

The beginning of it with them flailing around is peak physical comedy and then Henry just casually admits to smelling Alex... it's too much and it's only starting.

I just love how Taylor fidgets in this scene, he is like trying to find space for himself so badly but when he turns to confront Henry that moment is so good!

“I need to get out of here.” Ugh, I feel for Henry.

Okay the threat neutralized bit is comedy gold. I hope it becomes a viral meme!

We need to talk about Oscar. There is something very weird about Alex's parents. I feel like the writers of the film were very conflicted about their relationship and instead of having them be together or be divorced, they just left them in limbo. We never see Ellen and Oscar interact in the film. In the one scene, they do appear together, Alex is in the middle and it feels weirdly symbolic like he is literally the thing keeping them together.

We need to talk about this coffee shop scene. We all hate Miguel. But seeing Taylor as Alex in this scene is everything. He comes across as so charismatic and gorgeous. Just look at him!

We have got to talk about how many strong female role models Alex has in his life – his mom, Amy, Zahra even, Nora.

Zahra literally puts on a lot of hats in Alex’s life. She is like his big sister, substitute mom and friend and she does all this while looking supremely put out with Alex. This one’s a multitasker.

This is what I actually want to do in parties!

Henry is so awkward, I love how squeaky he sounds when he first meets Alex at the New Year Eve's party, poor boy is so awkward. And, then when he gets left alone he just completely shuts down. Henry, I love you!

I love how Alex just pulls Henry onto the dance floor.

Henry isn’t even dancing he is just getting progressively more drunk and flustered.

Henry looks so devastated in this scene. I literally feel for him. But, I can’t get over the fact that the song playing in the background is 'Magic' originally sung by Selena Gomez for Wizards of Waverly Place the movie. I loved hearing it here even though they are using a remix in this instance.

Their first kiss is so GOOD! I have seen it umpteenth number of times thanks to the trailer but it hits me in the feels every time. Also, I love how panicked Henry is and how shocked Alex is after the kiss.

“More like the first 50 rows of a Gaga concert kinda gay” is absolutely sending me. Also, accurate AF.

Not Alex being completely distracted by the sight of Henry!

Amy and Alex's moments are so GOOD! I really love the casting for Amy!!

IMHO all of Amy and Alex’s scenes should become viral memes, they are all so good!!

This entire RED ROOM sequence is so epic with Alex trying to decide how he should be standing when Henry comes in, to the ending when Amy barges in and Henry starts looking at the books so intently and whatever the hell Alex is trying to do. Oh god!

Like Stonehenge!!! (IYKYK)

Poor maypoles. I really love this scene. There is a reason we got a teaser for it, their chemistry in this one is off the charts!!!

This kiss is my absolute favourite no wait isn't the bicep kiss my favourite but this one is up there. It's so good. The way he pushes Alex and kisses his smile and then stares at him. Ugh so so so good! This teaser might have come close to the trailer in how many times I watched it and you may remember that the trailer came way earlier.

Oh god, Henry is so goddamn happy and SMUG as he says, "Yeah, agreed". He literally goes through every emotion under the Sun in this movie.

Wait a minute! WAIT A MINUTE! I didn't realise this the first time around but as Henry stands in the doorway he seems to be taking a mental picture of Alex and HOTDAMN. Fodder for the spank bank apparently.

The cafe scene is so good. The banter, the eye contact, the flirting, the blushing!!!

"And I thought Alexander Gabriel Claremont-Diaz was a mouthful." "He is."

Oh God! So good!!

"Only momentarily", that scene is so angsty. When Henry flinches it is its own goddamn scene!

I really like the "I'm so not playing this cool right now" moment. His apprehension is so delicious. I'm sorry Alex but it is and when he just puts his head down on Henry's shoulder in defeat. So good!

Let's talk about the sex scene! It is better than I remembered. I really like the kiss they share after Henry tells him that most people are wrong about him. And the thing with the hands. Listen I read a post about it being an old Hollywood thing but man if this is an old Hollywood trick it was masterfully employed. I just loved their hands and how Alex's hand is going down to meet his (imitating penetration) and then how Henry's hand opens up (imitating release) followed by the withdrawal of Alex's hand. This is genius why did people stop doing this! Also, Nick's expressions in the penetration scene are so goddamn... WOW. I don't know how to describe them but holy shit that is some explicit stuff. But what I think I love the most regarding this scene is how intimate it feels like the camera almost feels like an intrusion on a very very private moment because the scene itself seems to depict an intimacy between these two characters that is beyond just sex.

Also, RIGID. IYKYK!

I have got to give it to Taylor he really held his own in this scene with Uma Thurman. Like WOW!

Okay, wait there is another scene with Alex and his parents which I completely blanked out but it still leaves me with the same sentiment regarding the state of his parent's marriage.

Say it with me! Happy Henry is my serotonin!

Zahra really lays into Alex and Henry. "Little Lord Fuckleroy!" WTH! Henry's expression at the end of it all is so good!

This scene between Alex and Ellen is so heartwarming. I think it might be their best scene together. I love how there is this implication that things aren't right as Ellen picks up the phone but then it's undercut by the fact that she is only ordering pizza. I love how Alex's uncertainty over his mother reacting negatively is undercut by her acceptance.

The moment on the lake is probably my favourite part of this movie because it highlights the fundamental difference in Alex and Henry's positions.

Henry's situation isn't time-dependent or a for-now problem it is a forever thing and Nick's expressions in this scene are heartbreaking. But, despite where it ends up going I really love their interactions as the scene starts. Alex and Henry are so happy and touchy-feely. I just love the intimacy of this moment even though it leads to heartbreak.

Also, Henry jumping into the lake to escape a love confession is a whole-ass mood.

So someone pointed out that the transition from Henry's bedroom to the V&A is a bit iffy and it is. It totally is. I also don't know if I get what point Henry is trying to make with the whole trading one prison for another thing but the ending still makes the whole rift come together. I really want to know how this is handled in the book because I need clarification on the minutiae of this scene and how it came to be.

We have seen Henry and Alex in the same bed atleast three times now and this third time is the best. I love how Alex is holding Henry's wrist and how Henry smiles his little smile.

Henry is really conflicted at this tarmac, isn't he? And, things are just going to get worse.

I really like Alex's speech and how it's intercut with scenes of Henry literally trying to make himself smaller followed by scenes between Alex and Heney that we haven't seen so far. I especially like the last scene in the woods. Did I mention happy Henry is my serotonin?!

I really love Zahra's expressions in this scene. Zahra and Alex have some of the best scenes. These two really play very well off of one another.

The scene when Alex calls Henry baby. I remember reading someone say that they wanted this thing to be a whole ass thing and it was. It was a thing. I love how they utilised this endearment to further this moment.

This piano scene is so beautiful. These two really love each other.

I really like how Alex picks up Henry's nervous habit of fiddling with his ring.

So, we are here on election night and I just love the scene in the hallway with Alex and Henry and that hug. It's so damn cute and wholesome.

I really like the ending of the movie. It's kind of a nice allusion to Henry and Alex having a home together.

I really also love the end credits with the actors' names because in the end you have Nick and Taylor and you can see them playing with their pinkies. This scene is actually in the movie it's only that when it appears in the movie you are distracted by everything happening with the King. But, it is positively the cutest thing ever.

Also, the end credit scene. "Do you think anyone noticed?" You betcha Alex we did!!

[gerec]

Director's cut for Legacy of Sin and in particular for the character of Jacob whom I personally adore. Then there are two other fics of yours that I'm particularly fond of: namely Trust Me (At Your Own Peril) and Wicked Vice, Secret Indulgence.

Okay you're going to get sick of me talking about my fics lol!

For Legacy of Sin:

Okay so while Shinobi is obsessed and Wanda is conflicted, Jacob is just a bad, bad, bad seed lol. I considered writing some redemptive qualities in him for about a hot minute and immediately decided against it. He's much more interesting as a true foil for Erik and Shinobi (and Wanda to a lesser extent) now that Shaw is gone, and he's going to cause a lot of trouble for the family in the coming days. I'm undecided at this point whether I want to kill him off and who would do the deed (maybe Erik for maximum angst, because he's forced to choose between Jacob or saving his other children).

For Trust Me (At Your Own Peril):

Imagine the bright and eager Charles in XMFC and even XMA but not knowing that underneath, he's actually a power hungry, megalomaniacal mutant supremacist who freely uses his powers to manipulate people and situations while putting on that wise 'Professor' facade for the world to see - that's the Charles in this fic. And Erik slowly falling for that image of Charles not realizing he's entirely under the man's spell without a shred of telepathic manipulation required. :D

For Wicked Vice, Secret Indulgence:

Just an excuse for dirtybadpornz LOL. I'm sure I'll eventually write that 'party' scene Stryker mentions in the first chapter for all his human allies and I'll put Erik through the absolute wringer :D But before then, I might introduce Victor Creed as another of Stryker's employees that he brings in to 'train' Erik on his stamina...

Thanks for your ask, darling!

Fanfic Writers: Director’s Cut

[corner-stories]

⭐️

Fanfic Writers: Director’s Cut

Reblog this if you want readers to come into your ask box and ask for the “director’s commentary” on a particular story, section of a story, or set of lines. Or, send in a ⭐star⭐  to have the author select a section they’ve been dying to talk about!

I fully believe that, in all my years of fic writing for fandom, this one lil 800 word Jeankasa one-shot called "Wishing For More" is my Magnum Opus.

This was in the era where the Marley arc was happening in the manga but SNK was on people's mind because S2 and S3 came out. While pics of Reiner looking depressed/hot and Zeke memes dominated most of the fandom, I was in that little subset of people wondering what tf the Island Devils were up to.

And remember, this was months before the reveal of the post-timeskip Scouts so I had no idea what anyone looked like or how the characters changed after 4 years.

I fell into the category of people who believed that Jean and Mikasa became some flavour of lovers at one point or another so that's where Wishing For More came from.

The entire plot is just Jean and Mikasa spending time together in a room at an inn and Mikasa observing the scars he sustained from the Retaking of Shiganshina. I liked the concept of writing characters with various scars back then and I like it now.

At the time I had this whole lil scenario where the Scouts were stationed at an inn for weeks and were just told to be on standby, so unless they were needed they were largely left to their own devices. It lead to me writing a lot about Jean and Mikasa either seeing each other a lot in the hallways of the inn or spending time together in their respective rooms.

All I could assume about Mikasa at that time was that she was wrangling with the mess of emotions that come with realizing your childhood BFFs will succumb to the Curse of Ymir in 8/13 years, as a result she's more on the quiet introspective side bc her thoughts are constantly plagued with what the meaning of life is if it can end so cruelly.

And this was definitely what started me on my "Mikasa deserves to be happy" agenda because post basement reveal I could already anticipate that her life would just get more distressing from that point on.

Is it a surprise that I was compelled to write her finding comfort in the arms of the hot funky horse man? Or write a scenario where she sees the collection of scars on his shoulders and back before gently running her fingers across them? Or have her slowly realize that unlike the resident Titan Shifters, Jean is a normal human who can't heal from traumatic injuries?

Anyways, thanks for the ask bc I've read too much JK hate on twitter and needed a palate cleanser. And also thanks to everyone who kudos'd and commented on the fic over the years. It means a lot to me, especially now since I'm starting to trolling comments on my fics. Y'all are the real MVPs.

[buffyfan145]

Got even more season 2 "Rings of Power" spoilers today from Fellowship of Fans and which actors were spotted filming recent battle scenes. This part of the filming has now wrapped too and sounds like they will be finished within the next 2 weeks, which is great news as that should mean they'll be done before a possible directors & actors strike as the unions here in the US (which from what I know almost all of them are a part of) could happen June 30th on top of the ongoing writers strike. Putting the rest behind a cut for those that don't want to know.

We already knew there's a 2 episode battle that'll happen in season 2 and likely in episodes 7 and 8/the season finale. This possibly also is the Sack of Eregion too as we've already had set photos of that set being destroyed. The main actors spotted were Robert/Elrond, Morfydd/Galadriel, Benjamin/Gil-Galad, Sam/Adar, and Selina Lo's new elf character. What's cool about this is Selina is also trained in martial arts so we might get elves knowing that too. Of course, it's likely a lot of the other main cast will be in these scenes too but that's all that's known so far. This could also tie into Galadriel getting captured, which was last week's big spoiler. Also, Gil-Galad speaks with the orcs at one point too, and there's already some funny memes about that too.