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spnfanficpond · 7 days

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April 2024 Angel Fish Awards

(Angel Fish design by @slytherkins!!)

Every month all of you fantastic writers work your asses off to post some truly incredible stories. Our Angel Fish Awards are the way for all of us, as a community of writers and readers, to lift each other up and give praise to those who have captured our attention and deserve a few kind words. (Click here to learn more about how to nominate a fic for an award!)

Nominated by @charliethealpaccaso

Contentment Is A Pearl Of Great Price by ravelqueen (AO3)

This fic captures everything that makes transformation scary but fascinating to read from start to finish. The mental change later on during the fic, Sam has to deal with as the new part of him takes over. It leaves you on the edge of your seat as we have no idea if he will ever be human again or if he will lose himself and his humanity forever. I wish more people would try their hands at more transformation fics, as there are many interesting topics to choose from when creating a fic like this one.

~*~*~

Nominated by @thoughtslikeaminefield

God Save The Queen, And Her Handmaids by darali_starscream (AO3)

I have attempted to think up a scenario in which Charlie Bradbury might sit on Dean Winchester's face to no avail. This isn't what you think, I promise—there is no universe in which I'd be OK with a true Charlie/Dean pairing, but this works and it works well. BJ riffs on the spectrum of attraction and sexuality here. The pairing in Charlie and her girlfriend who is bisexual x Dean, and it's a very satisfying little story.

Sleeping Arrangements by @jinkieswouldyoulookatthis

This is very cute and even sexy without being smutty.

~*~*~

Nominated by @zepskies

The Dangers of Hope by @dean-winchester-is-a-warrior

I had never read an "Endverse!Dean Winchester" series before, but this one completely blew me away -- from world-building to the overarching story to the romance itself. Beginning to end, it's beautifully written.

~*~*~

Nominated by @mrswhozeewhatsis

Living His Gray Flannel Life by @samanddean76

Warnings to start - As there is prostitution in this one, noncon must be mentioned. Also, this is a Wincest fic, so, you know, incest. That being said, this story is told from Jimmy's POV, so the Wincest of it all is less Wincesty. Which is right up my alley, man! This is the perfect amount of Wincest combined with outsider POV, where the outsider loves what he's seeing as much as we do. I can't say more for spoilery reasons, but know that there is delicious pining, sweet smutty smut, a fascinating monster, and fantastic side characters. I read it twice just because once wasn't enough!!

~*~*~

Nominated by @salt-n-burn-em-all

House Song by @accordingtothelore

Dean protects Sam from being killed by other Hunters and their dad. Starts Gen, does not stay that way. I just loved everything about it. Fabulous art in the last chapter.

~*~*~

Nominated by @spn-fanfic-reblog-writes

What happens in ApocalypseWorld… by masoena (AO3)

This is such an interesting aspect that I’ve never read for a/b/o. **SPOILERS** The moment Dean and Arthur step through the portal everything changes and the world heavily influences their biology. I loved how, of course, Ketch knew exactly what was happening, which really makes me wonder about wtf Ketch has been through. I really wanna know more about that dynamic change and I hope they really do write more. This is also one of the few stories I get to read a soft!Ketch. I love, love soft!Ketch. Gotta check them out.

Second Chances by @mayalaen

First, I am not a fan of incest. Second, I was really surprised how much I enjoyed this because it isn’t tagged. Finally, I love poly fics. It’s so hard to find a poly fic that isn’t just PWP/smut. I really enjoy how the premise is getting Sam to relax and teach him how to handle his health while managing school work in a healthy way. I really like how the relationship between Cas and Sam is setup, Dean gets introduced, and then all hell breaks loose in the different relationship dynamics. The thing is there isn’t an emphasis on their brotherhood and sex. This is NOT a wincest smut story. It’s a story about Sam learning how to be a healthy adult while finishing college and finds a place where he is wanted and feels like he belongs. I also absolutely love the dom/sub and domestic discipline aspects of Cas and Dean’s relationship. It’s really a background aspect until it isn’t. I highly recommend the read even if you aren’t a wincest or wincestiel fan. The plot is written and integrated so well with the character development for all three main characters. It really took me by surprise. I couldn’t put it down.

(Divider by @glygriffe)

THANK YOU ALL, KEEP UP THE AMAZING WORK, AND AS ALWAYS, HAPPY WRITING!

- From your Admins and Manta Rays, @manawhaat, @mrswhozeewhatsis, @mariekoukie6661, @thoughtslikeaminefield, and @heavenssexiestangel!

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13eyond13 · 2 months

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Hello, can I ask from this ask game :

https://www.tumblr.com/threecheersforinking/677824836625694720/anime-ask-game?source=share

For anime/manga : Death Note and Berserk.

Thanks 🌻

Hi! Sure thing:

DEATH NOTE:

Favorite Character: L was basically a "love at first sight" situation for me and the main reason I ever checked out the anime (I just really loved eccentric loner sad boys at the time and he just looked exactly up my alley at a glance, hahaha). And he has stayed extremely dear to me and my favourite cartoon guy ever basically since! I actually think Light is a bit more of a complicated/interesting character than L is to think about in-depth, and has become also kind of my favourite one in the series in a different way over time, but L is def the one that I was really obsessed with from the start.

Favorite Arc/Episode/Scene: I love everything up until the Yotsuba arc the most I think, I just find it so much fun in the beginning of the story when everything is so well-written and so exciting and tense and fast-paced. The university arc stuff MIGHT be the part that I just find the most fun and funny in the way that Death Note is known to be, with all the detailed little mind games and bitch moves and shocking reveals every other page, ahahah. I remember laughing out loud so many times during that section of the story just due to how ridiculous it gets and how often everyone is pulling the rug out from under each other nearly constantly.

And my favourite scene is probably the "first ever friend" scene in the manga. I WILL NEVER STOP THINKING ABOUT IT it's just so funny and mysterious and intriguing and layered to me

Character I Think is Underrated: Mikami is fairly underrated, but at the same time I myself am not the best at intuitively understanding him or creating content about him either...

Character I Think is Overrated: Matt (sorry I actually like him in the manga, but I just don't think he's that interesting really)

Favorite Ship/Pairing: Lawlight! I never needed much convincing about this.... I went straight from watching the anime to going "omg they should have kissed..."

Something I Love About the Show/Movie: The anime's audio elements are just so iconic and so good a lot of the time! It makes some of the manga scenes SO MUCH better just with stuff like the gregorian chanting while Light's writing the names. And no lie, it's really easy to follow as a story without even seeing what's happening onscreen, too. I used to listen to the English dub while drawing or doing my work sometimes and it felt almost exactly like an audio play.

BERSERK:

Favorite Character: Guts is by far my favourite! Which was a total surprise to me, because I thought he was going to be a pretty boring macho action hero cardboard cutout type guy going in. I got very attached to him while reading the manga after a few volumes, and now he's one of my all-time faves...

Favorite Arc/Episode/Scene: I'm going to be very basic and say The Golden Age, but IT'S JUST REALLY GOOD OKAY. It's better than good, it's the reason the series went from just "ok this is pretty interesting" to "OMG WTF THIS IS SO GOOD I'M SO INVESTED NOW"

And my favourite scene?? Hmm.... extremely hard question, but I feel like the sword fights between Guts and Griffith are definitely some of the peak moments. Their first one is iconic in so many ways, but the second one in the snow really got me in the feels and made my stomach drop and my heart beat a bit faster as well!

Character I Think is Underrated: I feel like Casca is just kinda hard to talk about with other fans. She's my second favourite character in the series, but I feel like it's just really difficult to discuss her without it just getting either depressing or into too sensitive territory or something? I love her dearly in the manga, but the fandom space here seems only much fun to talk about Guts and Griffith in for me

Character I Think is Overrated: I am not THAT well-versed in who is overrated or underrated in this fandom, but I feel like mostly almost all the characters aside from maybe Griffith and Guts are a bit underrated and under-explored in fan stuff that I've seen? That might be entirely on me and the fact that I'm mostly looking at griffguts stuff, though...

Favorite Ship/Pairing: griffguts drives so much of the angst and the drama and I think is basically canon to me at this point... I don't think it's hard to interpret Griffith as in love with Guts, but I also think Guts is in love with Griffith too in just a more furtive sort of way

Something I Love About the Show/Movie:

I only partially watched the 1997 anime so far, and the Guts theme song in it is so good! My god that's still such a good fitting song for him and his personality somehow. And I'd never actually heard it before I read the series either!

#ask #anon #p #berserk spoilers #berserk #death note #lawlight #griffguts

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floareadeaur · 2 months

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I'm the anon who asked for hcs with ferid in intimate moments. I also think that such labels as 'vanilla' or bdsm don't fit him, I don't think that he would care about this stuff, and neither do I. But I couldn't find any better words to describe what I wanted to say. I also didn't want to write a long essay about it lol. I am curious about vampires' nature and how their emotions work.

First of all, I thought that you are a reliable person that can actually see Ferid for who he is. I also knew from the beginning, when I started reading the manga, that Ferid, and many other characters, aren't how the fandom perceives them as. It is sad how so many characters in such amazing mangas and animes get so misunderstood by the whole fandom. I knew that Ferid had many 'secrets' and that everything he shows to the world is simply a facade. I knew that he had hidden motives and he may be an antihero. I understood that he was actually a lonely and generous soul, besides all his masks that he puts on to hide this vulnerability of his. I don't want to write an essay about him, so I'll just say that I agree with everything that you write about him.

Second of all, because I realized that there's finally another person that can really understand these characters in OnS, I decided that it is best to ask for your opinion on this matter, since it confused me. I thought for a long time that all vampires are asexual, but I saw how many vampires in ons break the stereotypes of vampires in their universe. So I've been wondering for a while if Ferid can also feel lust. I like your writings and your perspective about him. I can also feel that you genuinely love Ferid, even if he's fictional, because of how much of your soul you put in these analyses and stories. I guess that the Seraph of the End fandom perceives Ferid like how so many other people in the ons universe view him as. That's why so many characters in OnS are driven to do something for their love for someone, but Ferid may be the only character who REALLY was unloved, alone and misunderstood his entire life. I sometimes wish that Kagami would add a love interest for Ferid that could understand and love him, even if the manga is not about romantic love, rather about familial love.

But it's worse when you're a ferid kinnie and the fandom also thinks that you kin him for being 'creepy' and a clown with daddy issues. LIKE WTF IS WRONG WITH THIS FANDOM?? I am part of many fandoms but this fandom is the worst one that I have ever been in. If I were Kagami and I saw how this fandom is, I would honestly kms. So much effort is put into these writings of Kagami, only to be misunderstood and fetishized by the whole fandom.

Hello!

Honestly, I did not expect to receive such a message. Usually, the feedback here is non-existent. I can say that it is one of the most beautiful surprises of my existence on tumblr. Thank you!

I prefer this type of communication, where people who read this blog talk openly and honestly with me, saying exactly what they think, what they like about what I write, or what they love about this series. Or, last but not least, what frustrates them about fandom.

Maybe it is because that is how I feel a real human interaction here, or maybe I just love discussing everything in depth!

Do not worry about using those terms. I have a very long opinion about the origin of "BDSM", or the way today's society influences such labels. All I can say is that, as you pointed out, I do not see Ferid falling into such "mechanical" labels.

I do not see many characters being into these labels, honestly. But I guess it is easier to classify characters under such categories in a black-and-white fashion.

To touch more on the topic you opened in the previous question, about what Ferid would be like intimately, I deeply emphasize his need to live truly, authentically and freely, as who he really is.

That is why I think he manifests very naturally and organically from an erotic perspective and just loves passionately, as it is said. Showing his real personality, being vulnerable. Love for him must be genuine.

Perhaps many do not notice this. But this character has extraordinarily sharp and objectively correct discernment.

For Ferid, good is good, bad is bad. His understanding of the world and values is not distorted. That is precisely why he is so angry that his world, including his soul, is created from darkness, from a curse, a putrid origin. Because he realizes well what normality would be, something that does not exist in OnS. And he longs for this good and harmonious ideal.

That is why he is so frustrated and angry at those who should have given him genuine love: his parents, his older brother, Rígr. Remember how he tells Rígr, in their discussion in chapter 91, how he believes it is a father's duty to teach his son "the meaning of life". And beyond any irony, Ferid is right. It is the duty of the parents, the older brothers, the figures who have authority and responsibility over the little ones to genuinely love and care for them.

But Ferid was only objectified and used by all these people who played a fatal role in his existence, especially considering that he was a child, or at most a teenager when he interacted with them, meaning that he was an extremely impressionable being, an easily marked, vulnerable one.

And on the principle of his own universe, he tries to pay back all these people. Revenge is not something that makes him happy, given the ideal of a good universe that he would like, so he suffers.

But this tangibly demonstrates how Ferid knows what true love is, but has never met it. He tries to create it, going so far as to change the rotten origin of the universe that created his soul and holds him captive.

For me, this shows a special nobility of soul, a huge potential that Ferid has.

That is why I believe that if Ferid met genuine love, especially romantic, erotic love, he would give everything for it.

Of course, it is a situation he never encountered before, and he needs some time to get used to it.

That is why I described him in the previous answer as appearing "frozen" sometimes, stiff.

But if she truly loves him, Ferid opens up and resolutely offers a love of the same kind.

Ferid needs to be seen as human. A human person is not a label. How Ferid is not a label. A human person has a complexity of nuances, a paradox of experiences and feelings. Perhaps the hardest thing is seeing someone as human, not projecting your expectations onto them and just understanding that person.

In his love for his beloved woman, Ferid could be seen thus, humanly, in his complex reality with all the nuances. And he would see her that way too.

For the first time, he, who always truly reads people, would find something so harmonious in her being: the ability to be seen as himself through someone's eyes.

That is why I mentioned in several of my posts how Ferid would love to look into her eyes. Because her gaze would remind him of the sky, the place where he always looked for love and got no answer. But in that " sky " beyond her vivid, warm eyes, he now finds all he has sought all his life.

That is why I think that the way he would make love to her, how he would "be in bed" would be deeply derived from the way he loves her and how he feels loved by her.

I think it can be called "adoring" the way Ferid would make love to her. The way I portray every such scene with him in my mind is extremely organic, natural.

Their erotic intimacy would be a dive into the very lives of both.

It is precisely for this reason I see that Ferid has this tenderness and meticulous care for her. And at the same time that he leads her and is so dynamic.

Ferid simultaneously offers his sensitive fragility, his determined ability of leading to his woman. All in a lively, passionate form.

Thus I see that his every touch is so " consistent", " decided ".

It feels like a true dedication to her, how Ferid gives everything to their love, and I think this topic could be fleshed out more by me.

How the way Ferid touches his woman gives her safety and symbolizes how his true potential is given to a cause that makes Ferid truly happy. Why she loves him.

Why she loves Ferid Bathory, why she is melted in her intimacy with Ferid Bathory.

This subject is almost never touched upon in the writings of a fandom.

And that can lead us to what you were saying, why you love this character, why I love him.

I believe that the author of OnS has created vivid characters. Each character has a real human consistency. They are organically written, realistic for their contexts. That is why I think that each character can be admired, if we try to understand them as human beings in their universe.

I, at least, look at Kagami's works from a writer's point of view. I analyze literary, what were the intentions of the writer. Maybe that is why I also see these characters as living human entities in their fictional universe.

And I try to understand them like this. Before romanticizing, forming a romantic attachment, or a fantasy, I am focused on humanly understanding these characters and keeping their "living breath" further in what I write and analyze.

I think this is necessary in the understanding of some literary characters, especially when they are penciled in this way by the author.

Now, as I said, everyone understands everything as they can and as they want.

There was a time when I was so saddened by what you say, that the fandom does not understand any of the author's message. But I have realized that I had rather enjoy what I love than discuss what other people's opinions are.

Especially, Kagami said something that impressed me. He said how he never imagines "the voice of the fans" when he writes and that he is not interested in writing anything popular. He also said that he only writes from his heart, exactly what he feels and that he will always do only that, and how he strongly believes that if he does that, he will find his niche of readers.

There is a saying in my native language, "what comes from the heart touches the heart" and I think it is very appropriate for Kagami and OnS.

The author writes from the heart and his writings touch some hearts, as he touched mine, or yours.

This is nice and motivating enough for me so I can just enjoy this series that I love and ignore any unpleasant opinions of some strangers online.

At the end of the day, fandom does not define a series. As I said before, the canon material does not change. It is always there for those who want to read it, reread it, analyze it.

Thank you for answering me. It really means a lot. And yes, I can say "I love" Ferid, even if he is fictional. I love the humanity of the character and the way I can feel him "alive" in his universe. The way I can even discover myself, understanding him, and growing as a person, developing my soul and mind. This is what I do with Ferid, with this series, and I consider that the author has achieved his purpose as a writer with me!

In the end, you are right. It is ironic and sad how many in the fandom see Ferid just like most in his universe, but maybe that is the charm of this deep character.

Do not forget, he is named " unparalleled ".

Everyone in OnS does anything for the ones they love. But Ferid wants to change the very putrid origin of the world, the laws of the universe that created people out of hatred, just to have harmony, a real meaning, authentic love.

This universe has been corrupted since its creation, humanity is cursed and trapped as in Hell, and Ferid wants to solve this vicious circle, to break it.

I think this shows the nobility of this character, that he really is "one of a kind". And even though I wish he had someone to truly love him, I understand and appreciate the author's intent. The hidden nobility in Ferid's tragedy is something truly beautiful to me.

I would go into more detail about how Ferid would love his woman, how he would make love to her. But I feel like my essay is getting too long.

Please write me any questions you have. Just like that, just like now. I will gladly answer.

I think we can have some fascinating discussions!

Thank you so much for this heartfelt message!

Have a nice day to you and whoever finds this post!

#ferid bathory #owari no seraph #seraph of the end #ons #sote #ferid bathory x reader #ferid bathory imagines #ferid bathory analysis

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ichayalovesyou · 2 years

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TOS in Beloved Retrospect

A GREAT Show that is absolutely canon! But I’m Taking the Rose Colored Glasses Off

Listen, it’s no secret that I absolutely ADORE Star Trek: The Original Series. It’s easily in my tied top 3 with SNW and DS9.

But you know what?

I am so, incredibly SICK of people treating it like a sacred document whenever literally any show that’s set before it does almost any plot point that’s even tangentially related to it.

Let’s take off the holy pedestal for just, two seconds please I am BEGGING you.

Star Trek TOS is an episodic show from the 1960s and the showrunners (including Roddenberry!) had NO IDEA, at all, was going to spawn an absolutely massive, beautiful scifi universe that’s practically a genre unto itself.

Even when they made a second series they tried to get away from TOS with the century time jump! Some creators going so far as to want it to never have existed at all, at least briefly, like, uh, Gene Roddenberry.

I can safely say I and many others are VERY glad TOS never got decanonized, but some facts still remain.

As a result of time, The Original Series is very much limited by when it was made. Such as!

In it’s cultural attitudes to minorities and women, see: the POC and female characters not getting any major plot lines until after TOS.

Literally one of the first things that got disregarded by pretty much all other Star Treks that take place before and after is that women can’t become captains (like wtf was that about?? Oh wait, it was the 60s 🙄). It was literally like, the peak of sexism, and cloaking devices existing before the Romulans showed up that get decanonized the first chance they had (it’s literally been happening since Enterprise and people freak out about invisible ships, every time).

In the fact that because it was exclusively, extremely episodic, every episode was the first time anybody ever saw anything because they had to introduce it to the audience without confusing them and making them turn off the TV or change channels.

Do you know how many times I, a Zillenial who grew up with a mix of episodic/serialized shows, had to suspend my disbelief because if this show was any less episodic the main characters would’ve learned their lesson already from a previous episode or would still be processing the trauma of a previous episode? So many! Watsonian explanations galore!

It was TOS movies that changed the Klingon character design with no explanation. Every time there’s an evil double of Kirk or he gets possessed the crew reacts like it’s never happened to anybody before! Kirk convinces a computer to kill itself like eight times and every time it’s like “oh wow look how smart Kirk is getting a computer to commit die”. Kirk loses his brother, his sister-in-law AND his love interest within the span of two episodes and is totally fine afterward! And you know what? I’m ok with that because I have a brain cell and recognize the show was created before serialized television got even a bit popular!

Third of all technology! Listen I hate all that touchscreen chrome color pallete stuff too! I’m also not, never have been, and never will be a technobabble guy! I’m so happy that the Enterprise is still colorful and has buttons and stuff! But ultimately, TOS was a 1960s conception of 250 years of progress, and it came up a little, even VERY short at times (so do all the other Star Treks, you can’t predict progress with 100% accuracy).

So if the tech is better than say, not much more fancy than a submarine in space, I’m willing to give it a pass. Star Trek has been making up and then immediately forgetting/disregarding some completely world altering technobabble from a single episode or movie since the beginning! The tech is a means of storytelling, and it’s clearly not a limitation because people are always changing or ignoring it! It’s only pure vomitous rancid evil when “NuTrek” does it right?

If you take all three of those HUGE things into account, TOS has, by far, the most tissue paper thin delicate canon of all of Star Trek. Quite frankly I would MUCH rather enjoy exploring the 2200s without walking on incredibly fragile eggshells regarding technobabble details or certain alien encounters.

It’s not like Federation ships have cloaking devices in the 2260s or that the SNW crew is out here fighting off Romulan boarding parties or sipping Meridor with the ruler of the Gorn Hegemony. They’re toeing the line to explore familar concepts in a new format (like serialized short form TV) and like, that’s fine! For crying out loud the Ferengi popped up in an Enterprise episode and most people tend to regard that as funny without ripping their hair out!

Have there been some changes to canon I’m a bit lukewarm about (see, the Gorn being as xenomorph-adjacent and unsympathetic as they were in All Those Who Wander) sure, yes, absolutely! Do I think it obliterates the canon of TOS, in which the Gorn only show up in a single episode with very little and vague lore around them? No!

The Doylist explanation, even if it hurts, is that a lot of meta aspects of TOS are falling out of favor or otherwise obsolete. NOT the stories or the characters for certain, but other fundamental building blocks are frozen in the context they were created in. Trying to adhere to them would severely limit any writer trying to explore that era of Starfleet’s history. So the writers are going to adapt to the spirit if not the precise letter of TOS’s canon.

The Watsonian explanations are numerous, but my favorite interpretation (which you don’t have to like, but maybe it’ll help) is that TOS is still fundementally canon, but the elements that make it inconsistent with other treks or with modern expectations for representation and technology are the result of a “universal translator” sending the truth about our future being translated into a way 1960s audiences could understand. Which is ultimately, kind of what Roddenberry’s desires were in the first place, to show us a better future within the confines of what was then modern TV.

#Star Trek #star trek analysis #meta #Star Trek meta #tos meta #fandom meta #analysis #deep dive #star trek the original series #Star Trek tos #the original series #tos #Star Trek discovery #Star Trek strange new worlds #discovery #strange new worlds #Star Trek disco #snw #Star Trek snw

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monstersinthecosmos · 8 months

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I am sooo happy I sent that ask!! Your reply was everything I could have wished for and more. I didn’t know anything about the VC universe (I did see the movie adaptation as a kid, but all I could remember were the ~vibes), and now I might actually want to check out the books. I mean I can’t believe how much of it is canon LOL, traumatized kinky asexual vampires wtf? sign me up??? Which book(s) of the series would you recommend to me? :o

In the meantime, I will DEFINITELY be giving your VC fics a try, thank you so much for the pointers!!! I’m already weak just reading your reply, esp. that parallel of post-disaster Armand and Marius being kind of like an AU where Shiro *does* give up on Keith - that actually broke me. A lot of what I love about your fics is how you characterize Keith so realistically and in a way that’s meaningfully informed by his upbringing/subsequent abandonment issues and that’s a thrill to read because, well, it’s just good writing - but also because it makes so much sense, not just abstractly but in a very real and personal way. And while the ~relatability~ of it all makes for a super intense reading experience, it can also be weirdly and sometimes incredibly cathartic imo - which is one of the reasons why I think I keep revisiting your fics (sorry if tmi LOL 😭). But!! In the case of Sheith it more or less all works out in the end because, like you said, it’s such a wholesome ship and they love and prioritize each other so much that (as a reader) they’re kinda like a safe space, delectably complete with all the angst and hurt and fuckedupness of their circumstances/selves (you know, for flavor). However, thinking about a timeline where it does NOT all more or less work out, well that’s kinda super heartwrenching! But yummy? And I kinda can’t wait to get into it but I’m also genuinely scared for my heart LMAO. Anyway I’m sorry for rambling!!! With your permission I will definitely come back and scream about Sheith and vampires because I sorta already am lol.

Re: the teaser xmgdknfnrmsmgdk I can’t even gather enough brain cells to form coherent sentences, I’m just squealing and awaiting my resurrection I guess. Thank you sooo so so much! I got so excited I haven’t even been able to finish reading it 🫣😳😵😵😵

!!!!! Thank you again for such a thoughtful and delicious response! <3

Dgahskjdl g GOSH THANK YOU AGAIN

So this post got really long I’m so sorry asdghkads TLDR: I recommend all of them but I also don’t LMAO and you can skip around and won’t be confused but it will spoil stuff. This is a LOADED QUESTION.

It’s wild like I was thinking about the fic i could stop dreaming and also just in general AGAIN IF WE CAN TALK ABOUT COMMON SHEITH TROPES/FANON like I’ve read many S8 fix-its where Keith is drifting around and he’s just like so cold and broken and empty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And that’s how Armand feels to me! Even a fic like heart nailed open where Keith is just so fucking empty! Or SOURCE DECAY??????? Like I think there’s tons of Sheith AUs or S8 fics where Keith is like Depressed Guy Keith and !!!!!! God it fucks me up lol. Armand is kinda like if Depressed Guy Keith was also like a 500 year old fucking weirdo.

And like BECAUSE they’re vampires and they’re immortal they’re sort of always coming in and out of each other’s lives so like there’s always a hypothetical future where they can work it out. Like i could stop dreaming is about them working it out, right? And what it would take to heal that injury. And there’s a lot of stuff in canon where these characters commit absolute fucking atrocities to each other and still manage to work it out and I think it’s again just an exercise in empathy and asking if we can still deserve love when we’ve fucked up. The characters have CENTURIES to get over stuff (and some of them STILL DON’T LOL) but sometimes they do. Famously & without spoiling too much of IWTV, Armand does something pretty fucking atrocious to Louis and they still have a long relationship and still love each other very much!!!

But ON THE QUESTION OF WHICH BOOKS, jfc hold my beer

I think in Sheith you see people like almost universally dismiss S8; the only fics I ever see of it really are like just gratuitous whump or fix-its LOL which is valid. And VC has FIFTEEN FUCKING BOOKS and you could honestly ask ANY fan in VC which books “count” and which books are skippable and I think everyone has a different answer.

I also think you can read them out of order and there’s always a little bit of exposition to catch you up so you won’t be lost; the only downside is that you’ll get spoiled on the previous book. For example, if you jumped in and read Armand’s book first, it would make sense, but it would spoil what happened at the end of the book before it.

Also to get the movies & show out of the way because it’s faster than committing to fifteen books:

The 1994 movie is a pretty solid adaptation; you can tell they condensed some details for time or whatever but it’s pretty faithful. There’s also the show that came out last year which is …………….. not so faithful lol. The show also heavily focuses on Lestat & Louis which is the juggernaut ship of the fandom but they’re also like the missionary position of the fandom so who the fuck cares lol. (Loustat fans lurking in this extremely niche post I am so sorry, I'm kidding ilu LMAO it's just not my thing!) And tbh the show wrote Armand & Daniel’s characters SO POORLY it like absolutely killed any motivation I had to continue watching so as an Armand stan I can’t really recommend it but it’s kinda like silly and fun if you don’t take it too seriously. And tbh if this entire fact finding mission is to understand VC more, the show literally changes EVERYTHING; it changes the time period, it changes the lore, it changes the story, it changes the character ages, etc. Basically it just kept the names lol. It's a completely different canon so I think even show fics & book fics aren't compatible either.

There’s also a movie of Queen of the Damned from 2002 which is like SO BAD LMAO but also silly fun. It’s a really bad adaptation but I’d put it in between the movie and the show. Marius is in it and the characterization is really strange LMAO. Armand is an extra.

The thing about VC is that it’s very sort of like non-linear and nontraditional storytelling. Most of the books are narrated by Lestat but several of them are narrated by random other people, and a lot of times the same story is retold through other people’s POVs. Like you get the story about Marius & Armand in three different books and each version is a little different because everyone has a different perspective. And regarding reading out of order and having spoilers, I do think it often creates like a suspense vs surprise element because we circle back and revisit the same stories so many times; you might get a spoiler and read a book knowing that a certain thing is going to happen and there’s still the tension of waiting for it to happen haha. Like when I mentioned the cult raids Marius’s house—you learn about that in Book 2 so you read Armand’s book later going into detail about his life and you’re just SWEATING because you know it’s coming. AND THEN YOU READ ABOUT IT IN MARIUS'S BOOK AND YOU'RE JUST DEVASTATED ONCE MORE.

I will say that for me I always recommend just fucking read them lol. Just read all of them. LOL!! But they’re weird and like, you’re gonna hate some of them, but I don’t think you can take someone’s word for it on Tumblr, it must be experienced. But I do understand that it’s a lot of material to get through and so I can give a fair cheat guide I think.

Most fans agree that the first three books (“The Trilogy”!) are solid and worth reading. Those are Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and The Queen of the Damned. IWTV is like this gloomy gothic tome about Louis’s life that started this whole thing and was written as a conversation about grief because Anne Rice’s daughter had died. It absolutely reads like a book someone writes about their daughter dying and it’s REALLY beautiful but it’s also a bit dense at times. If you’re put off by the vibe IT GETS EASIER when Lestat shows up because he literally bursts into the series like Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way ready to like tell you how blonde he is and how he’s gonna fuck everyone’s lives up. The books are still very heavy on existential questions and angst and grief but the text gets a bit lighter and super absurd LOL.

The first three also establish the universe and lore, though, so I think it would give you a pretty solid foundation to understand that type of stuff.

After the trilogy the books just go off the rails like there’s a few about Lestat having stupid adventures and doing dumb shit, there’s a few that cross over with Anne Rice’s witch series (so add three more book so if you truly wanted to read all of them!), then Anne Rice went back to the church and stopped writing vampires so there’s a huge gap, and then she quit the church again and returned LMAO. There’s a final trilogy she wrote before she died that are like, not the heaviest reading and they’re just kinda like silly good times with lots of Easter eggs and fan service. I feel good about the final trilogy being how it ended, just really silly times about them trying to use iPhones and shit, completely wild.

As far as ARMAND CONTENT THOUGH.

Armand does feature heavily in the trilogy so that’s also a good Armand foundation. And it’s REALLY FUN because he shows up in IWTV as sort of a chill mentor to Louis, but then in TVL you get the story about how Lestat met him when he was still in the cult and he was a feral little monster!!! And I love the duality of how Lestat and Louis describe him!!! It’s framed as unreliable narration a lot of the time because like Lestat’s resentment & Louis’s respect for Armand absolutely color the way they describe him, but idk like 100 years go by in between the two meetings so you also see a lot of character growth and see how Armand is doing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! God. My heart.

Anne Rice also very often uses like texts inside texts so like, IWTV literally is an interview with a vampire where the bulk of the book is in quotes as dialogue LOL and then in other books you often meet a character who will talk for like 40 pages at a time to tell a story. So in TVL when Lestat meets Armand, Armand takes over for a chapter and tells the story of his life, and then later he meets Marius and Marius ALSO tells the story of his life.

QOTD is a modern story (modern in the 1980s when it was written haha) about how the whole vampire world has to deal with Lestat’s bullshit and they all come together for a common cause. This book features the little novelette about Armand & Daniel as one of the chapters!! It’s so good!! (The chapter is called The Devil's Minion and basically if you needed to understand Armand & Daniel you could just read that one chapter and that's basically it bc then it goes to shit!!! Not to spoil anything but also don't get your hopes up about like heaps and heaps of ship content because there isn't any lmfao fml)

It also features Marius and Armand reuniting with each other after 500 years!!!!!!!! HEARTBREAKING! It’s really good and very preposterous but the writing is so lush and takes itself so seriously you kinda forget that it’s preposterous.

Armand has a POV book later in the series, it’s called The Vampire Armand, it details his life as a human and some of his early years as a vampire with Marius. IT’S SORT OF LIKE A LONG EXTENDED VERSION OF HIS CHAPTER IN TVL.

I do want to say that regarding the BDSM and whatnot that I mentioned; this book is quite controversial because there’s not good BDSM etiquette LOL and like part of the genius of this book is that it can be read as abuse, even when Armand isn’t setting out to tell you the story of how he was abused. I have a lot of thoughts about this because Anne Rice was also an erotica writer and her erotica books were all noncon BDSM; I WROTE ABOUT IT HERE I DON’T WANT TO GET INTO IT NOW but I think depending how people go into this book they either see the kink & sex stuff as explicit abuse OR you can read it as like, fantasy from a porn writer. As a Sheith fan I’m going to assume you’re not that sensitive lol. (But also por que no los dos, that's the flavor baby!)

Personally I think you could read this book as a standalone and like, it’ll be a little whacky without context, but I think I’ve given you a lot of context. It’s basically about his sad sad life, the religious trauma, and all the freaky sex he had. (Also just so you’re not disappointed, the sex isn’t graphic haha but he’ll be like “And then I went to the brothel and they licked honey off my nipples and I came home and Marius sucked my dick in the bathtub” but not like crazy sex scenes.)

Marius also has a POV book called Blood & Gold and it’s my favorite in the series!! IT’S MARIUS’S LONG EXTENDED VERSION OF HIS TVL CHAPTER. I think it’s the one that handles IMMORTALITY the best; the other books often focus on a short period of time or a specific incident and don’t often span someone’s ENTIRE life. IWTV spans Louis’s entire life but he’s only like 200 years old. Marius is 2,000!!!! He’s from the Roman Empire!! So like it’s really exciting to me to read about his whole life and all the eras he lived through!!!!!!!!!!!!

In his book you also get a few chapters about his time with Armand and it breaks my heart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There’s also a third secret option which is the book Pandora which isn’t part of the main series; VC is like actually 13 books and 2 side books? LOL So Pandora is one of the side books. But she was the first vampire that Marius made and they were lovers for like 200 years. This book to me feels like Anne Rice had a lot of leftover historical research and wanted to park it somewhere so a lot of the text is her talking about history stuff but there’s really great Marius content here and Marius/Pandora is one of my fav ships.

A lot of the fandom are more into the original trilogy and the Lestat/Louis content but I’m all about Marius so I’m into the DARK TRIAD of The Vampire Armand/Blood & Gold/Pandora. This to me is the more interesting section of the series but it’s an unpopular opinion so don’t take my word for it.

Other than that I’d also say Memnoch the Devil is my absolute least favorite VC, I think it’s so weird and boring lol but there’s some absolutely incredible Armand stuff in it and the stuff Armand does in this will be spoiled immediately if you check out Pandora or TVA. All in all it’s like idk 10 fucking pages of Armand LOL so if you got an ebook you could probably word search him. BUT YKNOW WHAT? Again don’t take someone’s word for it from Tumblr because like I find this book very weird and boring because it’s the most religious and I was raised atheist; there are people who were raised religious and say this one is their favorite. So what the fuck do I know!

Marius & Armand & Daniel are all in the final trilogy as well if you make it that far. Daniel is sort of always shuffled to the side because Anne Rice didn't care about him so like every time Daniel shows up I like feast on the breadcrumbs LOL but I'm glad to get some context about how he's doing and what's going on with his life.

ANYWYA I’M NOT SURE IF THIS ANSWERS THE QUESTION OR MAKES IT MORE CONFUSING LOL but ! ?!

They’re very weird books, they’re also kinda outdated and racist, but very queer, beautiful prose, incredible characters. They were my first hyperfixation that I can never seem to shake even when I’ve done all the work to dismantle all the ways they’re problematic and imperfect, it’s just yknow sometimes something gets its claws in you LOL. And I go out and explore other fandoms and still always come back to Marius and Armand and Daniel lol. I say that to say I wouldn’t be offended if you didn’t like them LOL but don’t judge me if you give it a shot and you’re like “what the fuck is this”

I just think Armand is like the most incredible character of all time okay!

SORRY FOR THIS VERY LONG REPLY LOL love you, patience yields focus!

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yeoldemagicalgirl · 1 year

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The Sailor Moon Reboot Universe: A War Veteran's Memories

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

As someone who loves and appreciates art, I just. I can't with Crystal/Crystal Season 3/ Eternal/ Cosmos anymore. The Moonie community has been failed time and time again by Toei. From animation to animation change, the quality of SMC/III/E/C continues to be lackluster because Toei refuses to give the project the attention it deserves, and pay their animators. As Sailor Moon Cosmos draws ever nearer, (ye gods), I would love for you to partake in my little Sailor Moon Crystal Failures Recap Sampler Platter, as we share in the succulent delights of generic animation, terrible character designs, and empty animated eyes.

Sailor Moon Chrysler:

Ok, so in Crystal we see an attempt at Naoko Takeuchi’s manga artstyle. There are some difficulties here though. We all know the Crystal song and dance- Web series budget, overworked and underpaid Filipino animators, Toei being the worst, etc etc. But hot take? At least they tried *something* original.

I mean, this doesn’t look Amazing. The shading on the hair is bland, the face lacks the elasticity and expression of the manga, there is very little detail, ya know. But it’s something newish! With the proper budget, this style could look immaculate, and in some shots it do:

Gorgeous shot, detail, 15/10, no notes. For the majority of the show though? Mmmmm. 4/10? 3.5/10?

SMC: World War III:

Although Toes gave SMC3 the semblance of a budget and moved it to TV broadcast, they also changed the character designs to be. Well.

They look very Pretty Cure.

And look, I adore Pretty Cure, ok? I am consuming Hirogaru Sky content on my TL like a queen ant consuming food from worker ants. I am Just as invested in my son Cure Wing as all you other magical girl ne'er-do-wells. But the style of Pretty Cure does not suit the Sailor Moon manga style-some would say it is diametrically opposed to it in many ways.

Look at the gorgeous flowing hair, delicate linework, transparent effects.

Now, the criminal on trial:

Overly cutsiefied proportions and faces, thick, (by comparison), linework, far too much shine effect on the hair and eyes, zero amounts of ethereal beauty, and also Mercury’s AWOL eye.

UGHHHHH.

Considering how iconic Sailor Moon is, and how fucking POPULAR IT IS, JESUS ON THE CROSS TOEI WHAT IS THE MISCOMMUNICATION HERE?

And I know that discourse about the SMC animation is a bit, shall we say, expected, but I needed this little refresher to make my point.

Sailor Moon Cosmos/ Eternal is not an improvement, and just continued neglect on Toei’s part to get literally any part of this project right.

CosTernal:

Ok, so, when we first got the character designs for eternal in 2019, I was skeptical. The return of Kazuko Tadano, an excellent animator on the original 90’s Sailor Moon anime originally heartened me, and then:

They just look kind of??? Cheap?? None of their poses are particularly eye-catching, the proportions look Very strange (Mars’s legs are broken, wtf is Jupiter’s knee, Venus’s left arm is Way too short, Moon’s right foot is missing, etc), and the faces just look. A bit dead inside. Moon and Moon Jr are the only ones with *expressive* expressions; the other girls just have these flat smiles, with Jupiter/Mars having the same mouth, as do Venus/Mercury.

This was official art, after years of silence, from a renowned animator.

What the Fuck.

The style is still lacking that singular SM manga flair, and just looks like the 90’s designs with the actual heart of the characters removed. It was deeply frustrating to me as a long time Sailor Moon fan.

The animation in the actual movies wasn’t much better-nothing stand out, nothing even close to the lovely ethereal style of the manga.

One more time for the people in the back, bad proportions, zero detail, empty eyes, personality-less Senshi, can I get an Amen?

The Present:

Sailor Moon Cosmos parts 1 and 2 are scheduled to be in theaters this summer, and from the looks of the promotional images we’ve received so far, they don’t appear to be an improvement:

Another piece of official promotional material that’s off model, (what is happening with her head? Her hands????), and uninteresting. Sailor Moon, sitting on a roof, in front of Tokyo skyscrapers. Very hecking original and cool, very interesting, much creative. Its composition is off, but more importantly, it lacks the Rizz one would expect from an official Sailor Moon poster. Take a look at these from the 90’s anime:

Dynamic, interesting poses, great composition, stunning colors, consistent art quality. A tall order, huh?

The most recent poster we got is slightly, better but not much:

At least there is some pizazz, but the stale air remains. This looks like *generic movie poster here*, like

*characters posed in front of Bad Guy, looking Determined and Angry*.

Final Thoughts:

I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade; if you are genuinely earnest and excited for Sailor Moon Cosmos, I hope it blows your socks off bestie. If you loved the animation for or just the Sailor Moon Reboot Universe in general, that’s amazing! Please keep enjoying it, and let it make your life a little better.

Personally, though, I just can’t get over the disappointment. An amazing, universally beloved franchise with this much room for creativity only comes once in a while. Imagine if we had gotten a reimagining of the Sailor Moon story, a la PGSM, or Sera Myu? What if Toei had given the project CardCaptor Sakura: Clear Card levels of love and budget. Instead, we were given half-assed animation and designs, with little story to go with it, (that’s another post though).

If you were wondering why the new reboot was rubbing you the wrong way, or didn’t have the words to describe your nagging doubts, I hope this helped! If any Sailor Moon fan found this worthy and informative, I did what I meant to do. Sailor Moon Crystal/Season III/ Eternal/ Cosmos is nice in sentiment, but in practice Toei continues to lure fans with the promise of quality Sailor Moon animated content, only to provide next to nothing, and screw their animators over in the process!

However much of a blow-hard I sounded in my screed though, I am actually not too worried. The Sailor Moon fandom is uniquely creative and amazing- we continue to make our own art, animations and contributions to the lore- all without exploiting workers! Sailor Moon Crystal was a disappointing project, and Cosmos is a lackluster end, but I’ve got all the Moon content I need right here.

Sarada ba!

#sailor moon cosmos #sailor moon essay #bishoujo senshi sailor moon #sailor moon #sailor moon animation #sailor moon crystal #sailor moon eternal #sailor moon crystal season three #sailor moon manga

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nientedal · 1 year

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for the fic writers ask meme, i’m rather curious about 9 & 10; which of your fics did you find the easiest and hardest to write?

From this ask meme!

Which fic has been the hardest to write?

Each fic has its own challenges, but right now, it's probably a tie between Swansong and the Cold Fusion series. And for similar reasons! Both have complex plots - Swansong's is primarily emotional, with Megamind processing complex grief and a broken (and then new) mental link, and Roxanne processing having a roommate going through emotional turmoil, plus some mental stuff of her own...and then Metro Man's whole thing, and holy shit maybe there's still a chance, and mixing hope into the grief mix is just a fucking nightmare for everyone involved, and djf;aldjfa;ldjadflj;afjdj it's a mess. And because it's written in third person limited, rather than omniscient, there's only so much that I can tell readers directly. Which, in a story with so much happening internally, was...extremely frustrating, at times!

Cold Fusion's complexity is more events-based, but in that one I am having to balance the fact that there ARE external plotlines happening against the fact that...the primary focus of those fics is on the characters and their development. Also, for a LONG LONG TIME, I did not actually KNOW what the plot was, I was just sort of winging it, and now I DO know, and it's a lot bigger than I expected it to be? Which I think some people may not like. And on one hand, fuck 'em, I'm writing for me, but on the other hand, I do write fanfiction with my end goal being to share it with people, so my readers' enjoyment is absolutely a thing I have in mind, I'm not JUST writing for me. So, aaaaaaaaaaaa.

I am now also having to grapple with the fact that when I started writing Cold Fusion, many of my headcanons were different from what they are now. I was originally very set on it being canon-compliant, on ONLY working with things we knew from the source material and not doing my own worldbuilding more than was absolutely necessary. And then I fell into a depression hole for like 3 or 4 years and could barely force myself to write at all, and when I finally came blasting out of that hole on the Wellbutrin-fueled jet pack I titled Dive, the amount I cared about "canon compliant" had plummeted to pretty much zero. Writing Swansong helped with that, I think -- I had basically been writing nothing but Cold Fusion for AGES, and then Ramendobe slapped me in the face with that prompt, and I discovered that writing universe alterations was a lot of fun! And then Dive punted my desire to stay canon-compliant into the sun. So now, rewriting Cold Fusion as I post it to AO3, I am working with characters who are different from the way I now write them in other fics. I'm bringing some of my newer headcanons into that universe for shits and giggles, but still. It's an odd feeling.

Which fic has been the easiest to write?

Another tie! Because I cannot make decision.

By Chance, which I wrote because my buddy ElfKid dropped a prompt into my askbox when I was like, "holy shit the ADHD is BAD tonight and I wanna see if I can write a one-shot in one evening," I think...? aahahaha actually no I just went and looked it up, and I had tagged my 'weh ADHD sucks' post with #hey if anyone is reading this send me a writing prompt and let's see wtf happens when i can't motherfuckin think lmaoooo and...I basically sat down, put the best of black sabbath on loop, and waited to see what fell out of my hands. And it was that. (Here's the original tumblr edition.)

and everything emptying into white was originally just some tags I had put on an ask from another friend of mine about Megamind purring, and I couldn't stop thinking about them and that day at work just SUCKED ASS and so I copied and pasted them into an AO3 draft on my phone at work and churned that out over the course of my lunch break. And then added a bunch to it during the next couple days.

(and I gotta give an honorable mention to Dive. I basically churned that thing out in less than a week of HOLY SHIT I HAVEN'T WRITTEN ANYTHING IN YEARS AND MY BRAIN JUST WOKE UP AND REMEMBERED HOW TO ENJOY THINGS adrenaline, it was great. It wasn't as easy to write as the other two, simply because it wasn't as short & sweet, but it was easy and I owe that fic a lot. So.)

#askbasket #anonymous #nonny mouse #dal is a fanfic #megamind #actually now that i'm thinking about it i think kbjones ALSO sent me a prompt that night that i meant to follow up on #WHOOPS #time to scroll ye olde aske boxe #(fun fact: like 90% of my best work has come from prompts from other people)#(i don't write all the prompts i receive but you never know)

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sarah-dipitous · 1 year

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Hellsite Nostalgia Tour 2023 Day 39

Tall Tales

"Tall Tales"

Would I Survive the First Five Minutes??: Dude...perks of being asexual, whatever's about to happen to this guy would not happen to me. I cannot be so easily tempted. Also, the age gap/power dynamics between a college professor and what was presumed to be a student would have shut that down for me immediately. Like, yeah, did I have a small crush on one of my college professors? Sure, but I never would have DONE anything about it. And now that I'm in my 30s, late teens and early 20s are so SO young. It felt gross when one of my clients tried to insist that I date the intern we had at our branch for a month or two who was 21. Anyway, I also just wouldn't be as sleazy as that professor, saying all the correct things but still making those advances.

GABRIEL?? WAS THAT YOU?? (Though, I think this early in the series he goes by Loki.)

Where the hell are the boys staying that looks like this???

OMG HE WAS AN ETHICS AND MORALITY PROFESSOR?! Dude. You SHAME Chidi Anagonye!!!

God. College ghost stories are so fun. My university had a TON because it's in a small town surrounded by corn fields on all sides, what else is there to do?

Maybe wanna slow down there, Dean. Dean...you convinced this girl you're...an astronaut??? Anyway, I am disappointed.

The kind of face that says “I’m the only sober person in this room and I cannot believe you, my older brother, are suggesting we simultaneously hook up with this drunk college girl who literally almost threw up just now and her probably equally drunk sister. Where would we even do that? The motel room we share?? Wtf” A picture says a lot of words, okay?

Omg wait. This is just how they’re remembering it. I love this kind of story telling. I love unreliable narrators. OMG OMG OMG I forgot how absolutely uptight Dean makes Sam seem in his version. But also not caring about what Sam is actually saying, making him literally say "We don't have time for your blah blah blblah"

Wait. First ghosts and now and alien abduction story??? Like...It's a shame to know who Richard Speight Jr plays because it does spoil this a little bit. (Also, I'm pretty sure Dean encounters fairies at some point. This episode fucking rules)

God. What an episode. The alien. made. this. guy. slow. dance. with. them.

And this is the genesis of "too precious for this world" getting said here many many times a day for years.

I love their bickering. Like little kids.

Oh yes. The alligators in the sewers. Classic. Starting to believe the boys stumbled onto the campus of Night Vale Community College.

What. in the skeezy bachelor pad is this place?

Dean. DEAN. Please be better than falling for this. Okay good.

"Been On My Mind...": Who's to say? There was opportunity maybe?

#hellsite nostalgia tour 2023 #this is probably my favorite episode of spn i've watched this year so far #i know we're not even half way through february #but it's so good

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lluvia-otsana · 1 year

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2,13,20 (book ask)

I got an ask, time to overshare -w-

If you make it to the end, you get a cookie (or you can cheat and scroll to the end!)

2. Top 5 books of all time:

Harrow is def no.1 by far for me, as much as I loved and devoured GtN in one sitting. Both of those books I've reread a million times and hold such a grip on me I can recite so many lines word for word, I can repeatedly open the books just to revisit scenes, I'm so invested in what will happen next in the series, and somehow they're even better on reread. There is always a portion of my mind now possessed by this series lol.

Ugh I'm bad at top 5 tho. I love the Murderbot series too but there's so many novellas in that series that if I include them TLT and Murderbot could take all the top 5 slots. It's sci fi action packed but also the narration is just such fun snark a bit like GtN.

In the same vein of the above books with their dark humor and banter I really enjoyed Nevernight. Probably also cuz the sidekick was a magical sarcastic cat made of shadows. And horny bi girl rep.

Also love When Women Were Warriors - it's my cheesy wholesome romance go to series. It's enemies to friends to lovers ish but soft.. except the swords.

Since the question says of all time, I will include that when I was a little weird kid I was obsessed with the Silverwing series and reread those a million times. Including and *especially* the very strange Firewing book that took place in bat hell lol. One of the main characters gets burned to death in the beginning! Great books for kids.

13. Do you have a goodreads?

Yeah, I've mostly been using that one lately. Trying to combine books/manga/webcomics in one site even tho goodreads isn't always great for shelving manga/webcomics.

If you wanna snoop and spend a second harshly scrutinizing me I think the link is:

goodreads.com/lluvia_otsana

Haven't been using it to keep track of books read per year as much until recently cuz I usually read physical books* and wasn't updating times before.

(*I live close to a gigantic indie bookstore I love to support. A dangerous place to live.)

20. What are things you look for in a book?

I like authors with a crazy imaginative mind. I wanna be thrown into a really different universe and experience the passion they put into the details of their beloved story. Bonus points for funny world building footnotes and appendices - I don't care that it detracts from the plot. I don't care if I don't know wtf is going on and I need to think and squint for foreshadowing and to understand the truth of what the characters are feeling - I like biting thru the layers of thick plot and characterization tbh. I love humor interwoven into the series and want to care about a diverse cast of characters. Not cuz it's forced in there but especially if it's SFF if you're gonna write an entirely different world why not put that care into writing different perspectives rather than the default usually cishet and male ones. I care more about the characters' motives and feelings and actions feeling real than them being morally correct. I don't need romance in it I can read diverse relationships, platonic or hateful or whatever (more fun if it's still intense in some way) But truthfully I am a sucker for deep monog romance if it fits somewhere in there.

Here 🍪 („• ᴗ •„)

(And thx for the excuse to ramble at myself @ghostlament)

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xofficio · 2 years

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Introduction to X-Officio

This is planned to be a series of (hopefully) regularly updated review/notes posts of the various X-Men comic books, in chronological order, as I read through them from the beginning onwards. As a long-time X-Men fan (since the early 90s), now that I am an actual grownup with a grownup job and salary, I’ve been buying a lot of the X-Men and spinoff omnibuses (omnibi?) as they’ve released. I have been meaning to work my way through them, but I’ve only gotten around to reading one or two fully, I think. So I’m making it a project to work my way through the X-Men comics, both those new to me and those I’m rereading, in chronological order. Hence this tumblr blog!

(As for the name, I basically looked up Latin phrases beginning with “ex” so that I could make an “X-[ ]” pun...all the really appropriate ones were taken, so I ended up going with the admittedly second-tier ex officio, which means by right of office - essentially, holding a position ex officio means that you hold it by right of holding another position or office. It also works as a pun of sorts, maybe, if you squint, in that the folks in charge of the X-books have historically been called the X-Office.)

Obviously things will change as I go along, but the template that I’m using for these early posts is as follows:

Header: Book Title and Number, Title of Story (Cover Date) Example: The X-Men #1, “X-Men” (September 1963)

Synopsis: A synopsis of the story.

First Appearances: First appearances of people, places, items, etc. in the Marvel Universe.

They’re Back!: Reappearances of recurring characters, or regular characters returning after absences.

X-Powers: New information about characters’ mutant and/or other superpowers.

X-Lore: Character and lore details about the X-Men. (I may end up subdividing this in the future, as this is a really broad heading.)

Pre-Retcons: Information that has been retconned in newer stories since this story was released.

Professor X is a Jerk: As Kitty Pryde informed us decades ago...

Let us count the ways here.

The Swinging Sixties: The X-Men books have always very much been of their era, and it’s interesting looking at the ways the slang, pop-culture references, and values in the past differ from our own.

Real People: Who are real-life people whom we know also exist in the Marvel Universe?

The Fairer Sex: At least for the first chunk, it’s the 60s, and there’s one female X-Man. Needless to say, the book, and the era, do not treat her amazingly well. As we move further along, hopefully discussion of the weird way comics can treat women will peter off.

Horny Teens: Because if you put a bunch of pubescent, athletically built teens and young adults in close circumstances as the only ones who understand each other, what do you get? The School for Gifted Youngsters is basically like Olympic Village when it comes to hooking up.

Rich People: Rich people, amirite? The X-Books have a lot of them, and this will chronicle their rich-person shenanigans.

Well, It’s An (Artistic) Choice: The X-Men have had many legendary, outstanding artists (and Rob Liefeld), but occasionally the artist or colorist makes a choice that kind of makes you wonder what they were thinking, or if they were.

Head-Scratchers: Things that seem puzzling or make no sense, even in the context of people who can shoot laser beams from their eyes or eat a star. This can include things that are purposely incorrect/implausible for plot convenience, or things that are just “wtf?”

Other Comments: Any other things I have to say about a given issue.

I’ll also be including pictures from the stories on Marvel Unlimited that I can easily screenshot; others that haven’t already been digitized may have fewer visual aids (that said, I’m pretty sure the first decade or two of X-Men comics is 100% on MU, so I should be set for a good while).

#x-officio #x-men #comics #review

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inkykeiji · 2 years

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Hiya Clari I hope you are doing amazing 🥰

sorry for getting birthday months mixed up that is totally on me, embarrassed after I said I wouldn’t forget and I did so love that - I will not forget for future birthday well wishes

a Star Wars crochet kit sounds awesome like wtf i am totally going to keep my eye out on something like that - on the same note I did not realise you were a star wars fan !! I’ve been watching the obi-wan show on Disney plus and I would love to know your thoughts on it because personally I’ve been really enjoying it, I’m pretty sure it’s finished now but I haven’t seen the finale yet so I hope it’s good

I’ve recently bought some more classics because as a kid I didn’t not read enough classic books and now I am slacking, I bought pride and prejudice as well as Emma just to get some Austen on my shelf - currently I’m reading a book by Patrick Ness who is one of my absolute favourite authors, I read a lot of his books when I was younger and I feel like no matter what age I get to I will always love his writing <3

Been a bit crazy currently in my life since I’m moving into a new house for my next year at uni and I will not get over how stressful it is moving half my life across the country every few months but the house is nice so it’s worth it

Anyways how have you been? What have you been up to? Reading or watching anything good? I feel like I haven’t spoken to you in ages so I do apologise I didn’t realise how quickly the time was going - oH I also read your angsty touya-nii piece and omg that shit was so good I do love a bit of angst

Sorry I went off track - I do hope you’re doing well and taking care of yourself and enjoying some nice summer weather, I am not sure what the weather is like in Canada but currently in the Uk it’s pretty good <3

Sorry this has gotten pretty long so I’ll wrap it up now, sending all my love and hugs to you <333 -🍯

hi honey bb!! <33

AHAHA oh my gosh don’t even worry about it!! it’s totally fine <3

oh gosh it’s so adorable but i’m terrified to try and start it LMAO i’m so worried i’m going to be horrid at it!! and i know the only way to get better and improve obv is to practice and actually do it but aaaaaaaah (/▽＼) i am!!! star wars is actually like, the most important series/piece of media to me when it comes to comfort n stuff like that!! my sibling and i were super super into the prequels (and anakin/vader as a result) and we had so many star wars toys & video games that we played with constantly. so it’s just really important to me in a deeply personal way. star wars was there to comfort and distract us when things were going really bad at home, and that will always mean the world to me <3

omg!!!!! i just watched the finale last night and i LOVED IT!!! the series itself was more or less exactly what i expected it to be (which isn’t a bad thing!) and i really enjoyed it, especially since hayden + ewan and the prequel films were my introduction to the star wars world so like, again, they have a lot of sentimental meaning to me <3 so it was so lovely to see them return to the sw universe!!! vader is one of my all-time favourite villains/characters and has been the longest hyperfixation i’ve ever had in my entire life so just getting to see him again and knowing that hayden was (sometimes) behind the mask was such a treat!!! it was so, so, so deeply comforting i cannot even begin to put it into words <3 i love him a lot!!!

honestly, for the most part i hate what disney has done with star wars. i’ve said this before but after tros i left the theatre literally crying i was so upset. the mandalorian is incredible, but tbh ALL of that credit goes to the absolute genius of jon favreau. so aside from like, the mandalorian, the obi wan series, and rogue one, i try to stay away from the disney sw content just because i know it upsets me & i don’t want to subject myself to something that makes me sad! the best thing about fiction is that we can all have our own ‘personal’ canons, right? we get to decide what we include and exclude in those. so in clari land the sequel films simply Do Not Exist ahaha

omg so exciting!!!! i love austen’s work!!! ooh interesting! i’ve never read any of his work! but i hope you enjoy austen, you must tell me what you think after you finish reading some of her work!! <33

oh gosh that does sound extremely stressful >.< i’m sorry honeybun!! i moved a lot throughout my time at uni too but it was only across the city so i can’t even imagine the stress of across the country!! it’s good to hear that you like the house tho!! liking your living space is so important imo!!

i’ve been okay!! i’m currently reading something wicked this way comes, and still chipping away at wuthering heights, too!! hopefully tonight or tomorrow i’ll finally get around to watching the french dispatch, which i’m excited for!!! wes anderson is one of my all-time favourite directors and tbh it’s a disgrace that i still haven’t seen his most recent film aaah ._. please don’t apologize my friend, there’s no need for it!! life is busy!! i always appreciate a message from you, no matter how long it takes <3

oh thank you so much!!!! i’m so glad to hear you liked it!! <333 i had a ton of fun writing it, and i’m currently working on another small smutty touya-nii oneshot before dragging myself back to finish tag you’re it part two (my therapist is currently helping me overcome my perfectionism, slowly, which is what seems to be holding me back and giving me a ridiculous amount of anxiety surrounding tag you’re it. and it SUCKS because i absolutely love that story with all my heart, it is so special and personal to me and i so desperately want to share the rest of it with everyone :( but anyway i am working on it, slowly!). oooh we just had a heatwave over here, it’s finally passing!! i really want to go to our big amusement park (called canada’s wonderland!) soon!! <3

ah i love you so so much my sweet friend <3 please take care of yourself and remember to treat yourself with all of the love and kindness you treat me with, because you deserve it!! <333

#today i am really tired tbh #i've had a headache all day and idk why :((#but anyway!!! always so wonderful to hear from you!! <3 #enjoy your day + your weekend and as always pls stay safe and hydrated!! <33 #🍯 anon #clari gets mail #letters to clari

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quirkwizard · 2 years

Note

Hello dear quirkwizard, hope you have a wonderfull day, and I wanted to thank you for all your hard work! My question would be, can you give us a top 10 list of your personal WTF quirks in the MHA canon universe, based on weirdness (movies included, since some of them are canon imho)?

Just to clarify, I am using the word "weird" very loosely. I have a very high threshold for weirdness in my fiction, so I may not be as phased by what people consider odd in this series. I'm also just disqualifying "One For All" from this list, as that is a very obvious choice for the weirdest Quirk.

Cemedine/Comic: While the powers themselves aren't weird, they do have some very odd changes to the user's heads. Like one's a speech bubble and I don't know what the other guy is supposed to be.

Double: This one is only here because of how it can make fully independent and seemingly sentient constructs. Even if they are copies of the minds of real people, it's still kind of weird.

Rewind: Even if you ignore how distractingly powerful a Quirk like this is, the way it works with the horn is odd. I can't recall many Quirks that are Emitters yet still have a unique appendage like her horn.

Half-Cold Half-Hot: A pretty straightforward power, but certainly weird in relation to the rest of the series, having a power so broad and unique that it seems like two abilities.

Centipede: This man's arms, legs, and head are all giant centipedes. He can stretch them out and make them bite people. And his arm centipedes have hands at the end of them.

Sludge Form: Not only because the user is a horrific slime monster, but just the fact that they are stuck like that at all times. How does one live their life as a gelatinous semi-liquid?

Telescopic: Being able to tuck yourself into your own body is very odd, even in the realm of super powers. I mean look at her first appearance. Her neckline and waistline basically became one in the same.

Transform: While I could bring up how weird this Quirk can function, this Quirk is more odd in how it interacts with Toga. It made her crave blood to a dangerous degree, and we haven't seen anything close to this with other Quirks.

Meatball: I mean have you seen what he does to people? This guy is tearing parts of himself off to make into giant fingers in order to turn entire groups of students into clumps on the road. How is that not weird?

Dark Shadow: I mean, how could this not be at the top of the list? The way "Dark Shadow" acts and interacts with the world around it is so bizarre in this world and raises so many questions just by its existence.

#My Hero Academia #Quirks #Cemedine #Comic #Double #Rewind #Half Cold Half Hot #Centipede #Sludge Form #Telescopic #Transform #Meatball #Dark Shadow #MHA Meta

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felassan · 3 years

Text

Some DA trivia and dev commentary from Twitter

There’s a lot of different tweets, so I’m just pasting and linking to the source rather than screencapping them all or making several different posts or something. Post under cut for length.

User: Was dragon age 2 your favourite in the franchise?

David Gaider: DA2 was the project where my writing team was firing on all cylinders, and they wrote like the wind- because they had to! Second draft? Pfft. Plot reviews? Pfft. I was so proud of what we all accomplished in such a brief time. I didn't think it was possible. [source] DA2 is, however, also where the goal posts kept moving. Things kept getting cut, even while we worked. I had to write that dialogue where Orsino turned even if you sided with him, because his boss battle had been cut and there was no time to fix the plot. A real WTF moment. >:( [source]

Mike Rousseau: I remember bugging that! And then being told it wasn't a bug, and being so confused. Doing QA for DA2 was an experience. Trial by fire. [source]

DG: So I think it's safe to say DA2 is my favorite entry in the DA franchise and also the sort of thing I never want to live through ever again. Mixed feelings galore. [source]

User: (I personally blame whoever it was for ruining most romance arcs in other games for me; they don't live up to Fenris's romance storyline)

DG: I wrote Fenris, so uh - me, I guess? Or maybe his cinematic designer, who put in the puppy dog eyes. [source]

User: If DA2 had just been an expansion, do you think it would have been better received? There was a lot of great stuff in there, and I think my initial dislike of it was because of the zone reuse. If it hadn't needed to be a full game, would that issue not have arisen?

DG: Hard to say. It was either going to be an over-scoped expansion or an under-scoped sequel. If it had stayed an expansion, it might never have received the resources/push it DID get. [source]

User: I'd love to visit the universe where you had an extra year or so to work on it. You did a very good job as it stands, but it definitely had rough edges. Not just the writing team either. The whole game had hit and miss moments, that just a little more dev time could have fixed.

DG: On one hand, DA2 existed to fill a hole in the release schedule. More time was never in the cards. DA2 was originally planned as an expansion! On the other, if we had more time, would we have started doing that thing where we second guess/iterate ourselves into mediocrity? [shrug emoji] [source]

Jennifer Hepler: This is what I love about DA2. Personally, I greatly prefer something that's rough and raw and sincere to something that's had all the soul polished out of it. Extra time would have helped for art and levels, but it would have lost something too. [source]

DG: Right? I think we could have used some time for peer reviews (and fewer cuts), but I think the rawness of the writing lent a certain spark that we usually polished out. [source]

JH: Definitely. I think the structure (more character-driven) and the tightness of the timeframe let each individual writer's voice really come through. Polish can be very homogenizing. [source]

DG: I should add I'm not, by any means, against iteration. Some iteration is good and necessary. The problem that BioWare often had is that we never knew when to stop. Like a goldfish, we would fill the space given to us by constantly re-iterating on things that were "good enough". [source]

Patrick Weekes: I appreciate your incredibly diplomatic use of the past tense on "had". :D [source]

User: DA2 was my gateway into the series and I’m so happy it is. I love the game the way that it is. It’s one of my favorites of all time. But I am also aware of everything that was said here. If it were remastered, do you think it would change?

DG: I'd be surprised if it was ever remastered. If it was, do you really think they'd change things? Do remasters do that? No idea. [source]

User: Both sides got undercut as I recall. Didn't that whole sequence also end with the mage leader embracing blood magic? It was very much "a plague on both your houses" moment, at least for me.

DG: Yep. Orsino was supposed to have his own version of Meredith's end battle, which only happened if you sided with the templars. That got cut, but the team still wanted to use the model we'd made for him. So... that happened. [source]

DG: I would personally say that DA2 is a fantastic game hidden under a mountain of compromises, cut corners, and tight deadlines. If you can see past all that, you'll see a fantastic game. I don't doubt, however, that it's very difficult for most to do that. [source]

PW: I love DAI with all my selfish "I worked on this" heart, but DA2's follower arcs and relationships are probably my favorite in the series. [source]

User: As I've expressed many times, I love the game, especially it's writing and characters but, for me, the most impressive aspect of it, in consideration of it's lack of time for drafts and revisions, is the 2nd act with Arishok. What amazingly complex character and fantastic duel

User: Just played it again and I have to agree. Though he is bound by the harsher tenants of the Qun, he makes valid points about free marcher society. Though it is obvious that he and Hawke will come to blows eventually, the tension builds gradually and understandably

DG: Luke did such a fantastic job with the Arishok I found myself sometimes wishing the Qunari plot had just been THE plot. [source]

User: What do you think would have changed, story wise, if you had more time for DA2?

DG: I would have taken out that thing where Meredith gets the idol. It was forced on me because she needed to be "super-powered" with red lyrium for her final battle. Being "crazy", however, robbed her side of the mage/templar argument of any legitimacy. I hated hated hated that. [source]

User: I deeply lament that there wasn't/couldn't be some sort of DA2 equivalent of Throne of Bhaal's Ascension mod.

DG: I'd have done it, if DA2 had allowed for anything but the most rudimentary of modding. ;) [source]

User: I mean, and I think I understand where you were trying, but how much legitimacy did the Templars and her as top Templar have after they're keeping the mages locked up against their will in the old slave quarters? Feel free to not reply.

DG: I think it's the kind of discussion which requires nuance, and which discussions on the Internet are not prone to. [source]

User: Was a compromise that the quest lines don’t branch? It felt like it was supposed to be that way but then you end up in the same place later regardless of what you pick. Like I hoodwinked the templars so good to help the apostates escape but in Act II they were caught anyway.

DG: I remember us having a lot more branching in the initial planning yes. Most of this got trimmed out in the first or second wave of cuts, in an effort to not cut the plots altogether. [source]

DG: "If you could Zack Snyder DA2, what would you change?" Wow. I'm willing to bet Mark or Mike (or anyone else on the team) would give very different answers than me, but it's enough to give a sober man pause, because that was THE Project of Multiple Regrets. [source] I mean, it's the most hypothetical of hypotheticals. It's never gonna happen. I wouldn't be surprised if EA considered DA2 its embarrassing red-headed stepchild. We'd also need to ignore that in many ways DA2 was as good as it was bad BECAUSE of how it was made. But that aside? [source] First, either restore the progressive changes to Kirkwall we'd planned over the passing of in-game years or reduce the time between acts to months instead of years... which, in hindsight, probably should have been done as soon as the progressive stuff was cut. [source] I'm sure you're like "get rid of repeated levels!" ...but I don't care about that. All I wanted was for Kirkwall to feel like a bigger city. Way more crowded. More alive! Fewer blood mages. [source] I'd want to restore the plot where a mage Hawke came THIS close to becoming an abomination. An entire story spent trapped in one's own head while trapped on the edge of possession. Why? Because Hawke is the only mage who apparently never struggles with this. It was a hard cut. [source]

User: I would LOVE to hear more details about this! I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a short story?

DG: I don't even remember the details of the story, sorry. There was a fight, and you caught the bad guy and then realized none of it was real and woke up idk [source]

DG: I'd want to restore all those alternate lines we cut, meaning people forget they'd met you. Or that they knew you were a mage. Or, oh god, that maybe they'd romanced you in DAO. So much carnage. [source] I'd want to restore the Act 3 plots we cut only because they were worked on too late, but which would have made the buildup to the mage/templar clash less sudden. Though I don't remember what they were, now. Some never got beyond being index cards posted on the wall. [grimace emoji] [source] As I mentioned elsewhere, I'd want to restore Orsino's end battle so he wouldn't need to turn on you even if you sided with him. And I'd want an end fight with the templars that didn't require Meredith to have red lyrium and go full Tetsuo. [source] Heck, maybe an end decision where you sided with neither the mages nor the templars. Because it certainly ended up feeling like you could brand both sides as batshit pretty legitimately, no? That was never planned, tho. No idea how to make that feel like an actual path atm. [source] Maybe an option to go "umm, Anders... what are you DOING?" 👀 [source] And, of course, a Varric romance, because Mary took that "slimy car salesman" character we'd planned and did the impossible with him. I can feel Mary glaring at me for even suggesting this, tho. [source] Lastly, the original expanded opening to the game which allowed you to spend time with Bethany and Carver BEFORE the darkspawn attacked. And, um, that's about it off the top of my head. Zack Snyder, WHAT PANDORA'S BOX HAVE YOU OPENED. [source] Shit, I remembered two more things: 1) Restore the "Varric exaggerates the heck out of the story" at the beginning of every Act, until Cassandra calls him on it. Yes, that was a thing. 2) Make DA: Exodus. Yes, I am still bitter. [source] God damn it, I meant "Make DA: Exalted March". The DA2 expansion, NOT Exodus since that was DA2's original name and makes no sense. Because the expansion ended with Varric dying, and that will always be on my "things left undone" list. [source]

User: Whaaaat?

DG: Well, you know that scene in Wrath of Khan where Spock goes into the dilithium chamber because he's a Vulcan? Well, imagine that but with Varric and red lyrium and because he's a dwarf. ;) [source]

John Epler: I distinctly remember referencing the bit from MGS4 where you crawl through the microwave corridor in the split screen, while cinematic battle rages on the other half. [source]

DG: It would have been glorious, John. Glorious. [source]

JE: I don't think I've ever been so certain what a shot should look like as I did Hawke coming in and finding Varric in the broken throne, just like when he was telling Cassandra his story. [source]

DG: It would have come full circle! Auggghh, it still kills me. [source]

User: Lord, you folks are a little too good at this.

JE: The true secret behind videogame narrative is knowing how to make yourself seem a lot more clever than you actually are. [source] 'Oh, we TOTALLY planned that.' [source]

User: Ok, this thread [the DA2 regrets thread, which is the big chunks above] but Inquisition.

DG: My regrets about Inquisition are, more or less, the normal kind. Nothing so dramatic, I'm afraid. [source]

User: You can keep your Varric romance, I want a Flemeth romance goddamnit!

DG: I would allow for one flirt option, and then a recording of Kate Mulgrew laughing for three minutes straight. [source]

User: I had a hypothesis about the repetitive caves in DA2. They're repetitive because it's Varric telling the story and he didn't consider them important. They're like sets in a play. (Okay, I really suspect it was a time/money/resources thing but I like my fake explanation better.)

DG: Hang a lampshade on it, maybe? Cassandra: "But that's the exact cave you were in last time?" Varric: "Whatever. They all look the same, I'm not THAT kind of dwarf. Can we move on?" [source]

User: that makes sense, hypothetically to make Varric romanceable and keep his arc—that had to happen for the main plot—I imagine you would have to make double the content (or more)? which would've been a tall order given the time/budget constraints the game was under

DG: Right. When it comes to "romance arc" vs. "follower story arc", we generally only had time to do one or the other. Never both. Romancing Varric would have meant not getting the story of his that you did. [source]

Mary Kirby: The one exaggeration I really, REALLY wanted, that we never got to do was Varric narrating his own death scene with Hawke weeping over him, then cutting to Cassandra's pissed off glaring at him. [source]

DG: Haha! The one I wanted was Varric's plot where he takes on the baddies single-handedly, sliding across the floor like Jet Lee, action movie-style, until finally Cassandra gets irritated and he has to admit Hawke & the rest of the party showed up to help. [source]

MK: We did that one! (He didn't do any Jet Lee moves, though.) Jepler gave him letterboxing to get The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly showdown vibes while he shot a ton of mooks single-handed. [source]

DG: Wow. Shows how much I remember. [source]

JE: I found it! I remember seeing this sequence as my treat for doing a bunch of much more challenging work. It was fun to see how far I could push our limited library of animations. [link] [source]

DG: Heh awesome. I could have sworn it was cut, honestly. I think I was even in that meeting. [source]

User: no disrespect but that’s surprising and rich of Mary “Hard in Hightown” Kirby to think DA2 shouldn’t have had a Varric romance when she wrote an entire book of Varric’s self-insert character pining over his Hawke insert character… HIH is the reason we had VHawke Summer 2018

DG: I can't *really* speak for Mary, or how she feels about it now compared to back then. I only know how she felt about it back then, and I'm not sure it was as much the concept of the romance but that Varric's entire story would be bent to "romance arc" ...a very different thing. [source]

JH: I remember pushing to have the first DLC start with Hawke having an option to ask Varric, "Did you tell Cassandra about us?" and if you picked it, Varric would answer, "Of course not, baby. I told her you were sleeping with X..." and then proceed as if you had had a full romance. [source]

DG: I still wonder how that would have gone over. x) [source]

JE: Okay, one more DA2 thing. Putting together the cinematics for this scene was a blast. [link] [source]

MK: These lines are my greatest legacy. I want "Make sure the world knows I died... at Chateau Haine!" inscribed on my tombstone. [source]

JE: I was so glad no one said 'no' to the crane shot. [source]

MK: It needs that crane shot. It's the perfect icing on that cake made from solid cheese. [source]

DG: The designers were all "we need more combat" and I think we were all "I think you underestimate just HOW interesting we can make this dinner party". [source]

JE: And finally. I think @SherylChee wrote the one-liner. I think we had a collection of like, 20. [link] [source]

Sheryl Chee: Yeah! Something like that! I remember submitted a whole bunch and Frank said you only needed one. Wish I'd kept the other fifteen. [source]

JE: A random chooser where, each time through the scene, you get a different one-liner. [source]

JE: DA2 is the project I'm the proudest of. I also absolutely get that it didn't land for a lot of people. But I don't think it's inaccurate to say that, in a lot of ways, DA2 defined my career. [source] Everyone spent a year working at their maximum ability. I was a fresh cinematic designer and was given all of Varric's content, as well as the Act 1 Finale mission. It was a lot for someone who had been doing the Cinematics thing for literally 6 months. [source] There's some stuff in there I can't look at without wincing. And there's some stuff I'm genuinely proud of. Not to mention, it was my introduction to most of the writing team. Several of whom I'm still working with today! Albeit in a different capacity [source] Also, weirdly, one of my most enduring memories of Dragon Age 2 is how much Bad Company 2 we'd play at lunch. It was a LOT. [source] Every game I've worked on has a game I played attached to it. ME2 is Borderlands. DA2 is Bad Company 2. DAI is DayZ. I, hmm. There's a progression there. I don't know how I feel about it. [source]

User: Is DA4 going to be tarkov then?

JE: I've kind of churned out of Tarkov for now. Probably Hunt Showdown, at least right now. [source]

User: I think people also don't take nuance into consideration -- like I FULLY acknowledge the flaws in my favorite games and will openly criticize them, but that doesn't mean they're not my favorite games anymore??? You can like and thing and still be critical of it.

JE: A lot of my favourite shit is deeply flawed! I acknowledge it and I think it's interesting to dissect the flaws. [source]

User: I still wish Justice was an actual character in DA2 rather than a plot point.

DG: There was a moment during DAI where we *almost* put in you running into Justice with the Grey Wardens, and he's all "Kirkwall? I never went to Kirkwall" [source]

User: Does that imply that Justice was shoehorned in to DA2?

DG: Nah, it was an in-joke where we thought it'd be fun to suggest that "Justice" was simply some demon that tricked Anders in DA2. Wooo those tricky demons! We didn't do it, though. [source]

User: [about templars] except, I don't think it had very much legitimacy to begin with. keep in mind, we interact with other characters with the same argument. The one that comes to mind is Cullen, a sane templar in power. The templar's side of the argument is inherently flawed.

DG: I don't doubt that many people agree with you, and yet people can and do argue on behalf of the templars as well. My place isn't to pick a side, but to provide evidence that players can interpret for themselves [source]

User: Can you shed some light for us on how DA was able to do multiple same-sex romance options for different genders but the Mass Effect team treated them like the plague? What process existed for your team that just wasn't their for the other tentpole franchise?

DG: Different people making the decisions, almost different cultures. I don't know what it's like now, but for many years the Mass Effect team and the Dragon Age team were almost like two different studios working within the same building. [source]

User: It truly boggles the mind. Kudos for doing demonstrably better on consistent queer representation than the ME teams. Y'all never needed us to make petitions to try to get the studio's attention and ask them to do better by us. That's the fight we're once again embroiled in now.

DG: Honestly, I don't feel like tut-tutting the Mass Effect team. They did their part, and if they were a bit later to the show than the DA team they certainly did more than almost every other game out there -- and willingly. [source]

Updates begin here

User: So what was the reason for naming Dragon age 2 "Dragon age II" and not using a subtitle?

DG: As I recall, that was purely a publisher decision. I think they wanted to avoid the impression it was an expansion. [source]

User: Is there no chance of ever remaking DA2 under better circumstances? -Somehow remove the repetitiveness of gameplay by making changes and updating the tech and adding much more to the storyline. It could almost be a new very exciting game.

DG: I'd say there's zero chance of that. Let's keep our hopes up for the next DA title instead. [source]

User: I am a little confused here, help me out here please! How exactly was the cut boss battle with Orsino supposed to work out? How it would've kept him from turning against the player?

DG: It means that, if you sided with the templars, the entire boss bottle at the end would have been against Orsino and the mages. No fight against Meredith. The end decision would have been more divergent. [source]

User: I do remember that one of the reasons going around for that, was that resources were going to the transition to Frostbite. I'm still not fully sold on that having been a good choice. I felt that more time should have been given for that transition considering it was made for FPSs

DG: We didn't transition to Frostbite until DAI. Given our time frame for DA2, I don't think we *could* have transitioned to a new engine. [source]

User: Since your talking about the what could have been for DA2. Could you say what your script was for Anthem? Cause I remember reading that you wrote the plot on that game.

DG: I created a setting for Anthem and scripted out a plot - but, as I understand it, almost none of that ended up being used. So it's a bit pointless to talk about what I'd planned, as that'd be for some completely different type of game. [source]

User: [in reference to the exchange above where DG said “Being "crazy", however, robbed her side of the mage/templar argument of any legitimacy. I hated hated hated that.” re: Meredith] except, I don't think it had very much legitimacy to begin with. keep in mind, we interact with other characters with the same argument. The one that comes to mind is Cullen, a sane templar in power. The templar's side of the argument is inherently flawed.

If I missed a tweet, got the wrong source link or included a tweet twice, feel free to let me know and I’ll correct.

Edit / Update: Post update 22nd April

#dragon age #bioware #video games #fenris #the Fenaissance #long post #longpost #cassandra pentaghast #my lady paladin #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #mass effect

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wenellyb · 3 years

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Can I ask your opinion on the what if... series? I'm really hating the Captain Carter trailers. I feel like it's disrespectful to Sam's character who has only just taken up the mantle of Captain America and the shield. I get that this is an alternate timeline series but from the sounds of things they plan on launching these alternates into the main MCU via the multiverse. If rumours are true and Peggy appears in Doctor Strange 2, then that means Captain Carter will appear on the big screen as a supersoldier shield-weilding Cap before Sam appears. And that doesn't sit right with me. Not to mention the merchandise that's already everywhere. Feels like Sam's getting sidelined again before he's even had the chance to shine on his own. Anyway, I'd be interested to know your thoughts on it, if you've seen it. (Also, less related, the uniform being the British flag just reeks of WW2 British imperialism which is also just ugh. And I'm an Australian, our flag literally includes the British one! I just do not like any of this.)

Hi Anon!!! Thanks for the ask it's a very interesting question.

I haven't thought about it a lot because I have seen the trailers and I liked it, it looks like a very cool show and I llike Peggy Carter's character.

They have announced the What If... series since a long time ago and one of the scenario announced was indeed what if Peggy was "Captain America", so this isn't exactly a surprise.

I have seem some posts about the fact that there is much promotion and much more merchandise is done for Captain Cartet than for Captain America. And that are disappointed that Sam's character is sidelined and maybe it's too spon and I will changer my mind, but I personally don't feel that way for now.

I guess I would have more of a problem if:

-it weren't an animated series and there was a real show with Captain Carter. I didn't know about Peggy appearing in Doctor Strange 2, but I guess we'll have to wait and see what is the screntime, if she appears as Captain Carter or not. But for now, I personally don't see Captain Carter as a problem or as Sam's character being sidelined.

- if they brought back Chris Evans' Captain America on a different project, like those rumors said some ago. It would annoy me to no end if they used the excuse of the multiverse to bring back another version of Steve Rogers as Captain America, or as

Honestly, for me, there is a problem with Sam's character and how him being Captain America is handled, but it has nothing to do with the What if series. I think it's important to put the blame where it should be.

The problem isn't that there is more promotion or more merch available for the What If series or Captain Carter, because the show is about to air, so it's normal that it would get promoted, that's how it works.

To me, the problem is that we had a TV show with Sam as Captain America, and then... nothing???

The problem is that we had an announcement for a Cap 4 movie but with no realease date nothing? Not even a TBA date in 2024 or whatever? With all these MCU moves already lined up there should be at least an official announcement, even a vague date.

And I'm thinking maybe we'll get to Sam Wilson in other movies, before the Cap 4 movie, but it's not a certainty, and also what about the official dates for his own movie? Not even something like "confirmed" or "announced" with the Captain America logo.

That's what doesn't sit right with me, because for now it looks to me that Disney has no plan to follow up on Captain Sam Wilson... Just from the looks of it, I don't know what they will or will not do.

Am I the only one who remembers that we were supposed to have a Cyrborg solo movie in the DCEU? It was announced and it never happened? So that's what's really making worried regarding Captain America.

From where I'm standing, Disney wants the diversity points without putting in more work than necessary.

Another issue is that historically the fandom never stands up for the Black Superheroes and the Balck actors.

It happened woth Ray Fisher, it happened with John Boyega, and I think John's case it's even more disgustimg because the behavior of the fandom eventually led to his role beong reduced in the Saga...wtf. They preferred to run an incoherent story and make a mediocre movie rather than pay Fonn his due!

Just an example of what I mean when I say that the fandom doesn't support Black Actors: You see all what is happening with Scarlett Johansson right? The lawsuit etcetera.... I have seen dozens and dozens of posts supporting her and her lawsuit.... And this isn't coming from her fans... It's even coming from people who dislike her but understand the importance of what she's doing. I understand the importance of what she's doing... But I can't help and compare it to he support Ray Fisher had in the fandom, when he was calling out the abuse he received from Joss Whedon and from some Executives. Since the story with Scarlett started every 10th post on my dash is about it. And yes, it's still fresh, so it's normal people are talking about it. But when the whole story started with Ray Fisher, the reaction was just not the same.... People were amkong posts that wouldn't get more that a 100 notes, and for me it was easier supporting from Twitter because at least I could retweet Ray's tweets.... but let me tell you that he was bassically fight alone. ALONE.

I have seen so many posts saying.... "I hate Scarjo but..." "I can't stand Scarjo but..." So from where I'm sitting a problematic White actress will get more support than an unproblematic Black actor denouncing abuse. And just to be clear... I do think that the fandom should support Scarjo's lawsuit because Disney is never held accountable for the sh*t they do, I'm just making a comparison and saying they both deserved support but only one of them got it.

That's why I have absolutely no fate that the MCU fandom will stand up for Anthony Mackie or Sam Wilson if it's ever necessary seeing how they turned their back on Anthony Mackie the moment they thought he was against "Sambucky". They will turn their back on him and his character the minute a minor inconvience happen. And Disney/Marvel will love that because they will have a justification as to why they will not follow through with Sam Cap (His characyer is unpopular.... or whatever excuse they will find).

And about the interview thing, I guess I could understand if and only if they had a problem with some of the things he had said... But the fandom made it clear that they only cared about what they thought he said about Sambucky, not the rest, proving once again that the fandom is untrustworthy. Because they were ready to condemn hom for something as trivial as a fictional ship.

If push comes to shove, and for instance they brought back another Steve Rogers from another universe, I'm sure they would be quick to support THAT character instead of Sam.

To me the problem is Disney & Marvel Execs and also the fandom of course... Because the Execs go where the money is... If the fandom is hyping up anybody BUT Sam Wilson... the execs will do the same... because they will promote characters who are the most popular.

It's important to reward reprensation, and hype up movies and shows with reprensentation, but to me it is as important (if not more important) not to reward lack of representation.

That's why I have absolutely no intention to pay for a MCU movie other than Shang Chi, and Black Panther and also Cap 4 whenever it comes out! But other than that... I'm staying away from the movies with always the same group being represented.

TL:DR; in my opinion, there is indeed a problem but the problem isn't the What if series, far from it.

#what if #sam wilson #captain america #peggy carter #ray fisher #john boyega #anthony mackie #And the Marvels too #Forgot to add that!#Sorry for the typos

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buffintruder · 3 years

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thanks for tagging me @arofili for this writer ask meme!

how many works do you have on AO3?

73 (wtf when did that happen)

what’s your total AO3 word count?

531,796

how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

ao3 lists 50, but some of these overlap, like me tagging something both “les mis all media types” and “les mis victor hugo”. so probably around 36?

The top fandoms are Les Mis, Fullmetal Alchemist, Bartimaeus, and The Adventure Zone

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Reunion --the Untamed from Lan Sizhui’s pov

Angus McDonald and the Case of the Soul Stealer --taz fic sort of modern with magic au (also my first long fic and probably the fic with the most plot, i am very proud of it)

Wanting to Be Wanted -- fma fic, 5 times Greed didn’t realize he cared about people and 1 time he did

what if the real steel samurai fandom was the friends we made along the way -- ace attorney characters in the steel samurai fandom from an outside pov (i only started posting this a bit over 2 months ago, so i’m kind of impressed)

Better Than Nothing -- Magnus Chase, Alex Fierro has gender feelings and receives a gift (this fic is really the one where i have zero idea why it is as popular as it is)

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

yeah! I like it when authors respond to my comments, so I try to at least say “thanks!” If someone leaves a more detailed comment, it’s fun being able to respond to the things they say and talk about any sort of ‘behind the scenes’ writing things

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I’m honestly not sure? I think even my angstiest fics have at least somewhat hopeful endings. There’s probably 5 or so I could choose from, but most of them were written a long time ago, I’m going to say Sing Tomorrow’s Song because even though the ending isn’t too angsty compared to the rest of the fic, it is about Grantaire being seduced by the personification of Death as a semi-metaphor for him dealing with depression, so it’s not exactly cheery

do you write crossovers? if so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Yes! I love crossovers, though I don’t write them as much as I read them. Probably the weirdest two fandoms to crossover was Les Mis and the Beka Cooper series because me and my cowriter just sort of stuck France in the middle of the Tortall universe and didn’t question it

have you ever received hate on a fic?

A couple times, but the only one I remember was when someone didn’t like me writing Enjolras as a trans man

do you write smut? if so what kind?

Hah nope I’ll read it but as of right now I’m aroace enough that I’m barely comfortable with writing kissing

have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don’t believe so

have you ever had a fic translated?

One of my first fics was translated into Russian on ffn, Tricksters Running. (It’s sort of a weird character study on the Doctor from Doctor Who and Gabriel from Supernatural, and despite me writing it at the age of 14 it’s not terrible? younger me was better at poetic writing than current me)

have you ever co-written a fic before?

yeah, with @arofili !

what’s your all time favorite ship?

Uhhh this is hard. The ship that took up my brain for the longest time is Enjolras/Grantaire, and currently my favorite ship is Phoenix Wright/Edgeworth

what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Well there’s a Lucifer au of fma that i wrote like 70k words of and hyped up to all my friends but never started posting and honestly at this point I don’t think I ever will.

For things that I started posting, A Home Beyond the What Ifs about Eponine/Cosette in Japan. I do like it, and I have a couple scenes of the next chapter written out, but I also have no motivation to actually work on it

what are your writing strengths?

Honestly? No clue, but not plot. Dialogue maybe?

what are your writing weaknesses?

Probably plot. I can sometimes come up with one, but most of my fics are just a series of loosely interconnected interactions it feels like

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Generally I don’t with a few exceptions.

If the pov character doesn’t understand what is being said, I’ll sometimes write that bit of dialogue out in whatever other language it is in to sort of add to the experience (since I assume most readers would not be able to understand it either, and those who do will be delighted)

If the language is Japanese and characters mostly speak English, I also have the dialogue be in Japanese sometimes since that is the language I actually know well enough to be reasonably confident in writing it. I would not write a full conversation in Japanese or anything, but if they’re switching between two languages then I’ll write it out in the languages it’s supposed to be in (for other languages I would usually just say “xxx” they said in y language, or italicize it if they switch between two languages enough).

Lastly, if the fic is about language then I might also do that because that’s sort of the whole point of the fic (which mostly overlaps with at least one of the above, but I have a fic in my drafts where 2 sentences don’t fit the above exceptions, so i figured i’d include this)

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

Technically it was a Les Mis/Beka Cooper crossover. The first fic I posted that I wrote all by myself was a Supernatural/Doctor Who crossover. Which honestly sums up my interests as a 13-14yo pretty well I feel

what’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

...this is so hard

I’m going to say Truth, In the Eye of the Beholder (40k study on sharing a body from the pov of Ling Yao) because I genuinely had so much fun working on it, and I’m extremely proud of how it turned out. Definitely one if the fics I put more effort into than normal, and wrangling character arcs into place was hard, but I think it was worth the effort

I tag @micamicster @shadowy-dumbo-octopus @aromantic-enjolras @queerfandommiscellany, if you want to!

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