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itsclydebitches · 9 months

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Just finished Good Omens 2 and I'm honestly boggling at the Aziraphale hate because yes, his decision led to the angsty cliffhanger, but it makes SO much sense for his character. Not just in a "Religious brainwashing and sunk-cost fallacy" kinda way but also a "Aziraphale has no reason to believe this isn't the perfect solution" way. That scene among the nebula is crucial because it establishes that Crowley loved being an angel—reveled in his ability to create and allow his creations to grow kinda like plants—and the only problem was that someone else was calling the shots, someone who wouldn't listen to his criticism. Aziraphale has also spent 6,000+ years watching Crowley do good, all the while forced to deny the fact that he's "nice" lest embracing his original nature get him into trouble with hell. Now, Metatron comes along with an offer that fixes everything in one fell swoop. Crowley can be an angel again, be nice without censure, his ideas and criticisms will hold weight because he'll be answering to Aziraphale, and they'll be together.

It strikes me that Aziraphale isn't there when Crowley sees Gabriel's trial, ergo he likewise doesn't see the (non)acknowledgement that there's an institutional problem up in Heaven. There just happen to have been two archangels who called it quits. Same when Gabriel blurts that phrase out to Crowley. Aziraphale has always been more blind to the ways in which Heaven is "toxic" (for very understandable reasons) and this season he's continually sheltered from new evidence of its structural problems. The plot just preaches to the choir: Crowley. He likewise wouldn't see the conflict Gabriel and Beelzebub have caused as evidence of an underlying problem because that's a problem he and Crowley will no longer share. Why would they be worried about Heaven still being unable to accept partnerships between angels and demons when Crowley will no longer be a demon? And that's something he presumably wants based on Aziraphale's memories of him and the ongoing admission that he's lonely.

The way I see it, they got what they thought they wanted at the start of Season 2. Heaven and Hell are keeping an eye on them, but functionally they're left alone. Crowley can spend all the time he wants with Aziraphale and nothing comes of that except that they're both continually named traitors and the higher-ups grumble about it. If Gabriel had never shown up, things should have been perfect based on Crowley's "Let's just run away and have each other's company" standards. Better, even, considering that they get to be together on their beloved Earth, rather than being bored out in Alpha Centauri without any sushi, plants, books, or Bentleys. And yet... Crowley doesn't strike me as particularly happy. Because, you know, based on that kiss he wants to be with Aziraphale, not just literally be with him, but the point of this post is that his "Let's run away and be an 'us'" falls totally flat when he doesn't explain that specific desire to Aziraphale; the desire to change what an 'us' means. From Aziraphale's perspective they're already an 'us.' That was the entire point of "our side" in Season 1 and now they can continue to be 'us' up in Heaven. Plus, Aziraphale likely sees this as a sacrifice on his part. He will give up his bookshop, his Earthly indulgences, take on the responsibilities of leadership (which I don't think he actually wants for a variety of reasons), and spend the rest of eternity in a place where he's felt so small because he thinks that's what Crowley wants. Crowley was happy as an angel. Crowley wanted them to be together without risk of permanent discorporation. They were able to achieve that after not-Armageddon and he still wasn't happy... so surely those two things together will do the trick. Crowley never actually articulates how he wants their relationship to change and the kiss comes much too late, when he's already rejected what Aziraphale must see as a perfect, selfless solution he's secured for them. Even if Crowley wasn't always moving too fast for him, an overture of romance isn't going to go well after that.

Is this crushing and angsty and devastating as a hiatus? Damn straight, my heart it breaking. But it's a good setup. More importantly, it makes perfect sense for their characters, particularly when they're still talking past one another. Aziraphale is someone who has always moved more slowly as a matter of course, as an angel he has remained immersed in the rhetoric of Heaven, his main avenue of breaking free of that (Crowley) has a huge communication problem (to say nothing of his own denial. He only made headway with the help of Nina and Maggie, seconds before Aziraphale shows up), and Metatron (in a no doubt incredibly manipulative manner) has just offered Aziraphale a job that presumably makes him happy AND Crowley happy AND allows him to maintain the moral this-is-how-the-universe-works perspective he's had since he was literally created. Of course he's going to say yes to all that!! And sure, there are problems in Heaven, Aziraphale isn't completely blind, but he can fix them now that he's in charge. How? Well... he'll figure that out later! Kinda like how he's been making plans on the fly this entire season. That seems logical from his perspective, right? It's not like he's gotten a crash-course in the concept of the master's tools never being able to dismantle the master's house...

#Good Omens #Good Omens spoilers #Good Omens 2 #Good Omens 2 spoilers #GO2 #GO2 spoilers #mymetas #this is so rough and I'll probably write better metas later #but I just have FEELINGS RIGHT NOW OKAY

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celestemona · 1 month

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WHEN THEY’RE DADS

and how they deal with their children and domestic life. part ii.

pairing: dad & husband! cyno, kaveh, alhaitham x fem! reader

cw: original characters, slightly ooc to fit the plot, domesticity, fluff. pregnancy is mentioned to introductions but not too elaborated. not beta read. a bit longer than the previous ones.

kazuha’s part | part. i

reblogs and comments are appreciated ♡

Cyno

If there was something that the General Mahamatra valued beyond justice and absolute truth, it’d be the loyalty of those around him without asking for anything in return. Cyno could count on both hands the number of people he’d risk his life to or who’d have his back, and to be honest, there weren't many of them. Thus, the passing of the years only solidified this philosophy, confirming that trust wasn’t something to be given, but earned — it being the reason why he only kept a certain number of people close to him.

However, this belief had also shown Cyno that some priorities were greater than others, and ensuring your happiness and safety became the main one of them all. Especially when you were also the one carrying his babies.

Your pregnancy announcement was unexpected, but the change in your husband's personality wasn’t. As your belly grew, you could notice that Cyno became a little more clingy with you, enjoying being by your side or placing his warm hands on it to feel his children's kicks. Though, the mahamatra also couldn't help but be more overprotective or bossy towards you, traits that seemed to have intensified over the months.

Cyno liked to think that his overprotectiveness was justified since not only had he become a first-time father but of twins. His bossy acts weren’t for nothing either. It was just because your husband knew you and your impulsiveness very well, so the slightest thought of the risks that you could put yourself out there of your own free will stressed him out already.

And this last one you seemed to do on purpose to test him since you had put yourself in critical situations more times than he wished to count.

So, to ease his worries and keep an eye on you, the decision to temporarily settle in Vila Aaru was mutually agreed, providing Cyno with a momentary sense of peace knowing that his very pregnant wife would be surrounded by competent and trustworthy people. And then, his children could be born in a comfortable and safe environment.

The decision couldn't have been the best because a few months later and just a few minutes apart, Aryan and Isaar were born on a cold night.

The leader of the Matras still can remember that it was when he was returning to the village from a patrol when he was greeted first by your painful screams and then by the sight of your sweaty and tearful figure. Your husband didn't think twice before taking Candace's place behind your back to give you the support you needed, sharing his strength with you and whispering comforting words in your ear.

Internally, Cyno felt more than terrified for this new stage in his life despite all the previous months of mental preparation. But as he watched in amazement Aryan in his arms and Isaar in yours, the mahamatra concluded that there were no books or scrolls in the world that could describe the feelings that coursed through his veins at that moment. There wasn't enough knowledge that could teach him how to be a father, and even so, he knew he’d learn along the way to be the best he could.

The first few weeks of adaptation were exhausting for both of you. Cyno was on leave from his position, being at yours and his babies disposal and dealing with most of the household tasks, which relieved you a lot. But if he ever thought that nothing would overcome the hardness of his work at Akademiya, the sleepless nights with his newborn twins proved him wrong.

It wasn't something he complained about or refused to take on, though. He preferred you to rest as much as you could after spending the whole day with the children — it was more his lack of confidence in dealing with the little ones in your absence that tormented him.

As time went on, however, what he thought were difficult tasks became routine, so he could say with some confidence that he had adapted to fatherhood quite well. The bond between father and sons was also something that developed beautifully as the days went by, and some mornings, you’d be greeted with the sweet sight of the General Mahamatra sleeping on the armchair in the twins' room while holding both of them in his muscular arms.

Speaking of the twins, Aryan and Isaar couldn’t be as physically similar to Cyno more than they were already. The babies, just a few months old, have already demonstrated that they share the same personality with each other, which they also take after their father — the stoic and slightly indifferent expression frighteningly similar to Cyno. Aryan was a little more sullen, refusing to acknowledge others' attempts to make him smile while Isaar willingly raised his arms to familiar faces with the intention of getting something in return.

While you watched them in disbelief, your husband smiled proudly. It seems his children were already good judges of character.

Strange in its own way, but a home full of love. That would be the phrase to define your family. Although both you had divergent methods of raising your children, the twins still had complete freedom of decision about what they judged to be right or wrong. Cyno would never punish his sons for their choices; instead, he’d wisely correct them. Even though outwardly he shows rigidity and authority, Cyno is quite soft when it comes to his family so he can't stay mad at you for long.

It was honestly a strange sight for many, mainly his subordinates and the scholars who knew the man's unorthodox methods of discipline very well.

Even so, they couldn’t help but admit that fatherhood suited him well. Strangely, but still.

They only feared the possibility that in the future the boys would develop a sense of humor as horrible as their father.

Kaveh

If they asked Kaveh what his greatest achievements are, he’d readily answer that there are three of them, although two had the greatest highlights.

Even if the architect was proud of the effort and dedication that led him to give life to the Palace of Alcazarzaray, the importance of the project seemed to be irrelevant compared to the fact that he managed to win you heart. After all, maybe there was nothing so disputed between men and women all around of Teyvat but to capture the attention of the Gem of Liyue. And in a way as ironic and simple as it seemed to be, Kaveh was the only one to be able to accomplish such a feat.

As the younger sister of the Tianquan of the Qixing, it wasn’t surprising that you were also known for your intelligence, elegance and beauty, so it was expected of your people that you’d marry someone with all these qualities and wealth that could satisfy your desires.

However, they didn't know you as well as Ningguang and how Kaveh came to know you, and so, it was unexpected news that resonated for weeks when you announced your marriage.

At that time, so much uproar from the press and liyuean citizens had made Kaveh doubt himself because, well… did he even have all the means necessary to provide you with a comfortable life? He was slowly recovering from his debts and had barely started building his own house. Compared to you who literally lived in a mansion and ate from a golden platter he had nothing.

Nevertheless, you assured him that no gold or mora in the whole world could equal the love you had for him, only his reciprocal affection was what you were looking for.

And because your husband cares and loves you so deeply, Kaveh couldn't feel anything but thankfulness when you granted him with the greatest pride of his life. His daughter, Zahra.

The baby hadn't even been born and was already very adored by her father. During your pregnancy, Kaveh had been nothing but a passionate and devoted husband, helpful and attentive to both you and her. His passion for art led him to challenge himself and bring only the best when it comes to projecting Zahra's room, as well as designing the crib and its decorations. You couldn't help but watch with a smile on your face as he worked hard to provide only the best for his child.

When Zahra decided to come into the world, your husband's tearful, fascinated face only confirmed what you already knew: Kaveh would be an extraordinary father.

“I swear that I’ll protect you from all the cruelty of this world. And even if the day comes that I don't have the strength to do so, I’ll still keep you safe”, he promised as he placed a kiss on the baby's forehead.

You just smiled with equally teary eyes at the sweet scene.

Kaveh didn't know the meaning of the word tired when it came to his daughter. The blonde man loved having the baby in his arms, and when it came to her basic needs, he was a great help by proudly taking on the tasks. In fact, in the first weeks of Zahra's life, he had refused to let her sleep alone in her new room, and when you insisted on putting her in her crib, Kaveh would spend the entire night by her side. He’d never forgive himself if something happened to his little princess in his absence.

You could just roll your eyes.

As Zahra grew up, she became an increasingly beautiful girl and was much loved by her parents. Her naturally rosy cheeks and golden hair decorated with barrettes or bows made people compare her to a doll. The girl has a beauty and features similar to her father, though her sweet and laughing personality is her own traits. Kaveh feared that one day the evil of the world would take away the melodious sounds of her laughter, but there was a slight mischievous gleam in her golden eyes that betrayed that she was quite clever too.

In addition to her parents' unconditional love, Zahra also has a close relationship with her mother's sister, who has a weak spot for her niece, and with her paternal grandmother.

Shortly before marrying you, the older woman had tried to invest more in her son's life, now making sure of participating in dinners, commemorative dates or holidays.

For a long time Kaveh believed that he wasn’t worthy of such happiness. After his father's death and his mother's estrangement, the architect had a single objective: trying to survive one day at a time, fighting his own demons and relying on what little was left of his savings. He had never considered himself a man of honor, someone who was worthy of having his own family and a home to return to. In fact, he didn't consider himself a lucky man at all.

And yet, he couldn't feel as fortunate as he did because through all the paths he took and decisions he made, one of them led him to you and gave him the greatest achievements of his life.

Alhaitham

Hardly anyone would admit it out loud, but your presence in the halls of Akademiya was as fresh as a breath of spring air.

As the new Darshan teacher of Haravatat, your intelligence and passion for knowledge were characteristics that not only your students came to admire, but even the sages themselves gushed praise about, which eventually earned you a reputation that spread throughout the dendro nation. Furthermore, your beauty and charisma only complemented your charm, so there were many hearts that you had caught along the way — and consequently also have broken, as the slight bulge beneath your clothes and the golden ring shining on your left ring finger made it very clear who yours already belonged to.

To say that the beginning of your relationship with the Akademiya’s Scribe was even the subject of an academic thesis would be an understatement given that Alhaitham wasn’t someone who was known for his friendliness much less cordiality. In fact, his disinterested expression and acid humor worked precisely as a mechanism to purposefully keep people away from him, and even his friends weren’t immune to his unpleasant comments.

But even though the question remained, the students quickly learned that this attitude would never apply to you.

Like a moth drawn to the light, Alhaitham was equally drawn to you, they concluded. There was something about you that just your presence was enough to generate a small and not so noticeable change in Alhaitham's aura, even if to others he remained as rigid as he was. Besides, the progress of your pregnancy had also shown them that the scribe was as human as they were, he just had a less flashy way of showing his concern and care for his wife.

What the scholars and citizens of Sumeru saw, however, was just the tip of the iceberg compared to the affection you received from your husband when the doors to your home closed. Although Alhaitham hadn't shown his excitement as openly as you, the scribe was internally happy to begin a new stage of life by your side. And you could see this in the number of maternity books and notebooks with notes organized in his office, in the meals he had prepared meticulously thinking about nutritional values or in the care he took to suggest and choose a simple and meaningful name for your baby.

His actions were small and discreet, but enough to prove to you that he already loved the child as much as you did.

Hakim's arrival into the world also showed you the efforts your husband would make for his son. With a smile gracing his lips and slightly teary eyes, Alhaitham allowed himself to express himself a little more in the face of such a beautiful moment. It wasn't something that even you saw frequently and, therefore, you’d certainly make sure to eternalizing the picture forever in your memory.

“Thank you”, was the only thing he could say to you while looking at you with enormous tenderness.

Despite the overwhelming happiness that coursed within him, the scribe also couldn't help but feel a little empty at his grandmother's absence. Even though the longing was something he had managed for a long time now, it was in moments like these that the lady's absence came back. He was sure she’d love meeting you and her great-grandson, but wherever she was, he also knew she was taking care of his family in her own way.

Furthermore, looking at you and the child that slept so peacefully in his arms, Alhaitham knew that there was nothing to fear and that his son would grow up in a home filled with as much love as he was.

Therefore, fatherhood wasn't something that scared Alhaitham nor did it make him doubt his ability to take care of his son. If someone asked him what his biggest challenges were, he wouldn't be able to think of any because every day he was faced with something new and learned from it. Plus, Hakim was a sweet and quiet baby, a mix of both parents' personalities. Understanding his child's needs was as easy as if they were his own.

Still so small, Hakim would be surrounded by reading and multiple knowledge, often being found in the arms of one of his parents while you were working or simply reading for pleasure. You discovered that the baby liked to listen to you or Alhaitham reading aloud, so it wasn't strange to find you or your husband somewhere in the house reciting some academic article with the little one within reach.

When the boy was old enough to sit up, that’d be the time when you’d return to teaching at Akademiya, and even if your baby's presence during classes had already been discussed and authorized, Alhaitham wouldn’t hesitate to take over his care — whether taking him to his own office or to the Sanctuary of Surasthana where he would spend hours enjoying the attention of Lesser Lord Kusanali.

You could say that Alhaitham is a simplistic man. He recognizes his flaws and knows that he came with many of them, which is why he distances himself from so many people. But it was in the moments when he returned home, returning to you and your son who were waiting for him with great enthusiasm that the man thought that there was nothing as perfect as his own home.

you guys will have to forgive me again but i did not beta-read this part (clearly) nor i'll have the patience to do so because i'm currently traveling at my granny's home and it's so hot here that i couldn't even write this whole headcanon without stop everytime to take a breath of fresh air. therefore, i won't have the patience to look for mistakes now. i'll let it with you tho.

also, i remember i've said in the last part that if perhaps i start to write a genshin dad series i'd write only for the first four man i came up the idea to. however, i'm hypocrital and slut for the sumeru men too so i couldn't stop myself but draft their children biography.

i really hope you've like it so far because, for real, alhaitham's part was the hardest one and somehow i feel like this isn’t good enough to be posted. nevertheless, thank you for your reading :)

#genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin #genshin x reader #alhaitham #alhaitham x reader #kaveh #kaveh x reader #cyno #cyno x reader #genshin dads au

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whencartoonsruletheworld · 9 months

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"It’s no longer 1937… she’s not gonna be saved by the prince."

The absolute DISRESPECT for the FIRST ANIMATED MOVIE EVER MADE and its female character who was strong in her own way! The DISRESPECT for Snow White coming from people who plan to """update""" her story??? I'm FUMING. i am FURIOUS. This is the SAME shit I said about Girlboss Cinderella do you understand???

Snow White was an abused CHILD who was isolated within her castle and then suddenly thrown into the woods and she managed to survive using only her hope and kindness!!! She found a house and offered to work to earn her keep and she DID!!! Snow does not have to be a badass to be a strong female character. And more importantly, SHE DOES NOT NEED TO BE "BADASS" TO DESERVE HER HAPPY ENDING. Some of us in abusive situations CANNOT escape on our own. We CANNOT physically fight back and WE STILL DESERVE HAPPY ENDINGS.

Women don't have to be badasses in order to be strong female characters. So she needs to be saved-- so WHAT? Saying Snow White is an antifeminist character solely because she doesn't save herself is offensive to abuse survivors and to the original character who WAS a good character. You can criticize OTHER parts of the movie– the implication that men living without women will be useless and filthy the entire time, or we can discuss the Queen’s feud with Snow being fuelled by misogynist standards, etc.!! But just saying “she needs to be saved so it’s bad” LIKE. ARE YOU SERIOUS

Badass Snow White reboots are fine in moderation, but just like Girlboss Cinderella reboots, too many and it becomes clear what society is trying to say now- that if you're feminine and can't fight a battle, you don't deserve to be saved. Do you see why this is a bad message????? Some girls are badasses who can kill and fight as well as or better than the boys. Those girls have Mulan, Merida, Raya, Moana, Rapunzel, Elsa. They are good female characters. But you know what? So is Snow White. So is Cinderella.

I'm sure people are going to accuse me of being antifeminist for saying “oh she NEEDS to be saved by a man”– I’m NOT SAYING THAT. You could have her be saved by a woman. Be saved by the dwarves, her platonic friends. By the animals. You could write a badass Snow White reboot without being disrespectful to the original film or tale. Just fucking TODAY I read the Disney Mirrorverse Snow White book– it’s written for 13yos basically so not high art but even with them having to make her an adaptational badass, they managed to keep her personality PERFECTLY. She learns how to save herself in this book, but also remains HERSELF. And her previous inability to fight was NOT CRITICIZED by any character; her sudden badassery was a bonus for her, not an indication of her character!!!

YOU are the ones saying that if Snow White (and Cinderella) isn't saving herself, she doesn't deserve to be saved. But everyone deserves happiness and that includes those too weak to fight for it alone.

anyway that was a long feminist rant. this is also super disrespectful to the FIRST ANIMATED MOVIE EVER, the people who worked on it, Walt Disney himself, and everyone who enjoyed or was inspired by it. You absolute fucking dickheads.

also can't believe i have to say this but if y'all use this as an excuse to be racist towards anyone in the cast i will hunt you down and put shoelaces in your lungs

#snow white #snow white 2024 #snow white and the seven dwarfs #disney #disney reboots #mine

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lullabestie14 · 25 days

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Found this comment on Reddit. Couldn’t explain it better than this.

“It’s clear from Mist and Fury that the original ships were: Feysand, Nessian, Elucien, and Mor/Azriel. Like it’s so obvious the way she wrote Mor and Azriel; Mor even seems vaguely interested/torn about Az. Looking at interviews, SJM even talks about Elucien as a couple (eg where would they like to travel together, etc).

Flash forward to ACOWAR. For whatever reason (lack of chemistry with Az, wanting more diversity) SJM has Mor say that she prefers women. This time the Az-pining-for-Mor is more desperate/feels like a zero chance of being requited. SJM also introduces Az as a potential love interest for Elain because she loves throwing a wrench. Just because Elucien are mates doesn’t mean they’ll have it easy; SJM’s whole thing is angst. She had to throw in a love triangle to make it uncertain. This is the first couple where mate status is confirmed upon meeting.

But there’s a problem now. If Az and Mor are no longer endgame, who will they end up with? is it not suspicious that the two new characters introduced in SF (Gwyn and Emerie) just HAPPEN to be potentially be good partners for Az and Mor? Like it’s not a coincidence that Emerie looks at Mor and blushes, remarking how pretty she is. It’s not a coincidence that Az and Gwyn have so many interactions in the text. It’s not a coincidence that a “random side character” shows up in a bonus chapter.

When SJM created Gwyn and Emerie, it wasn’t just to give Nesta friends. These characters clearly didn’t exist when she wrote MAF. SJM wanted new characters that would solve her retcon of ending Az/Mor. She wanted to solve the Mor/Az retcon so bad that she created a NEW RETCON of Az going to Sangravah. Like why bother to add that detail if it’s not important.

Also: poor Lucien. His endgame heroine was supposed to be Nesta until SJM realized they would be terrible together and that Nessian had better chemistry. So she gives Elucien the mating bond. Like is she really going to fuck Lucien over TWICE? She loves him as a character and has put him through the wringer. Yes, I agree that SJM can change her mind and maybe is open to mate rejection, but Lucien has already switched love interests from Nesta to Elain! Who else is he going to switch to, considering that Jurian and Vassa are “at each other’s throats?”

Finally, please think about the number of books left. Ignoring novellas (which are probably gonna be fluffy ones like ACOFAS where nothing happens), there are two main books left. Two couples.

Option A:

• ⁠Gwynriel (Valkyrie growth, Illyrian rebellion, exploring Ramiel, Gwyn’s autumn heritage and maybe lightsinger?? powers)

• ⁠Elucien (Helion secret baby, defeating Koschei, freeing Vassa, fixing spring court)

Option B

• ⁠Elriel (mate rejection storyline, potentially some stuff above)

• ⁠?????

Literally WHO is the second book in this equation? Lucien and Vassa?? We barely know Vassa and there’s barely any connection to Night Court. And Lucien’s book is going to be depressing as fuck dealing with mate rejection; does anyone want to read two heavy books of rejection? Jurian and Vassa: again, we barely know them! At least with Tower of Dawn, Chaol had been a main character for a long time with POV. SJM will not do a full-length Emerie/Mor book as much as I would love for one. She’s very cognizant of criticism re: Mor bi rep in the past; she doesn’t want to open a can of worms and be accused of writing bad sapphic rep. If anything, I can see a fluffy Emerie/Mor novella with little angst (or them getting together in the background of other books).

So from a meta structural level, I don’t understand who the second couple will be if Elriel is endgame. Lucien/Vassa is the most plausible answer, but 1) we barely know Vassa, 2) she’s human and Lucien is immortal. So are we going to toss her into the Cauldron to make her immortal? Serious question, and 3) I don’t want TWO books about mate rejection, it’s depressing as hell. I can see one but not two.

But with Gwynriel and Elucien, you have enormous fan and audience interest in ALL FOUR CHARACTERS. They’re directly tied to Night Court and SJM so far has no intention of staying away from the core group.”

#acotar #elucien #gwynriel #sarah j maas #lucien vanserra #azriel #elain archeron #gwyneth berdara

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bluejay757 · 7 months

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Lets talk about Simon and Betty

spoilers for episode 8

So a lot of people are throwing around some strong accusations about their relationship, some I can see where they're coming from, and a lot are really reaching.

As for the ones that I think are reaching, a lot of people are saying that Simon and Betty were a professor/student dynamic, except they weren't. Simon wasn't teaching a class he was a guest lecturer, and Betty, having read his work was interested. She was excited to meet him because she liked his research. Simon was constantly mocked in his field, if you actually read the newspaper clippings from "I remember you" you'll see that even after he found the enchiridion, he was made fun of. People were literally laughing at him and throwing things at him while he was giving his lecture. Betty likely was mocked too, it makes sense she was so excited to meet him, because this was her chance to meet one of the few people that actually shared her interest. She did not yet have a crush on him at that point in time.

I think after she got to know Simon on a personal level her fascination of him changed, as she no longer viewed him as a "celebrity" (I use that term loosely for a lack of a better word, I can't imagine his books sold that many copies, what with him being a laughing stock and him being genuinely surprised that Betty had read his work), but rather a colleague and equal. She even said that after their trip together she had grown to admire him as a person, so it's not like she had any kind of feelings for him prior to that. Now that's not to say her feelings towards him were completely normal, but there definitely wasn't a power imbalance between them.

A lot of people are saying Simon was selfish for making her stay behind, but he didn't make her. She chose to stay behind. She could have still gone on that trip, and continued to write to him and talk to him on the phone, but she chose to stay with him and go on different adventures. You're forgetting that Simon and Betty went on expeditions together all the time, it's not like she gave up her career for him, that would be a whole different story, but she made the decision to continue working in her field alongside him.

Also Simon couldn't have gone on that trip if he did want to because he wasn't offered to go, who ever it was that gave Betty that opportunity, wasn't anticipating on her bringing a friend, he also didn't have anything with him but like his wallet and keys you can't seriously expect him to go to another country with no luggage, no plane ticket, no money, no nothing. A whole part of Fionna's character arc is realizing that life's not a fairy tale, she was expecting something out of a romance novel and got a story straight from reality. Realistically the two options were for Betty to stay or to leave Simon. And I don't think her giving up her trip to Australia was a sacrifice, because there were other trips and opportunities after that, she traded that one trip for an entire lifetime of them, (or at least it would have been if war didn't break out)

And if you're gonna call Betty impulsive, call her impulsive because she went on a trip around the world with a man she had never met, not because she walked through a creek barefoot lmfao.

I'm not saying that Simon and Betty were perfect but there are other reasons to criticize them.

As for the actual problems with there relationship, none of them are their fault. Betty going literally crazy trying to bring Simon back was because of Magic Man and Patience fucking with her brain, a human being cannot handle the amount of magic she was given and it drove her to insanity. And Simon now, with risking everything to bring her back, she's literally fused with a chaos god and is going to live for eternity in that state, did you ever think maybe he wants to get her out of that for her sake? That maybe he wants closure and to say goodbye? Since he never got that chance. No it's not healthy for Simon to drive himself as far as he did to bring her back, but Jesus fucking Christ can you blame him for not wanting his fiance to suffer for literal eternity? They don't need to break up, they need therapy. I don't think their relationship pre-mushroom war was unhealthy, and I don't think it ever would have been unhealthy without Betty becoming Magic Betty.

Their relationship flaws are more so their own individual flaws that have bled into their relationship as opposed to ones caused by the relationship itself, that's an important distinction you have to see.

#petrigrof #adventure time #fionna and cake #simon petrikov #betty grof

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thebibliosphere · 2 years

Text

I receive many wonderful and kind comments about Phangs in my inbox daily, but the ones that stick with me the most are always from fellow neurodivergent people, usually elated or crying because Phangs is the first book they've been able to read since their teens, sometimes even decades.

"I thought I'd lost the ability to read; I thought there was something wrong with me; I thought I was broken," over and over and over again.

I've talked about it before, but just in case you need to hear it: it's not just you; it's the publishing industry.

If you follow my Twitter, you may have seen the thread where I talked about what that was like, and how I was often handed the "problem" writers who struggled to conform to the industry standards. (The original thread is gone, but for context, it was about the lack of accessibility in publishing for people with ADHD) I didn't know it then because I wasn't yet diagnosed, but I understood the problems these writers were having because our brains functioned on the same wavelength.

I understood why they felt specific changes harmed the text, but I also understood that it was the cost of being published, and it was my job to help them with it. I went above and beyond to make it as painless for them as possible. All the while listening to my colleagues around the wine water cooler deride these writers as "pretentious" and "too thin-skinned for publishing."

I hated them. I still hate them, and I hate that the industry is the way it is because it's really not that difficult to accommodate.

Suppose an ADHD author tells you the changes you've made have made a sentence incomprehensible to them (and I cannot stress enough how distressing it is to have something you wrote be turned into something you cannot read). In that case, it's likely because you've removed certain critical elements for the sake of brevity. It might not look like vital elements to you, but for ND brains, longer sentences with additional qualifiers and descriptors can really help us latch onto the "rhythm" of a text, which can help us feel more immersed and hold our attention better*.

Filler words can help with this; it gives our brain time to process but also figure out which parts are essential and to hold onto. It's sort of like, uh, how people say "like" and "uh" a lot (😋). These act as both social cues that indicate that while we might be pausing in our speech, we are not done talking yet, but also help keep our brains jogging along via the act of vocal stimulation. (If I can find the study I read on this, I'll come back and post the link.)

Regarding "superfluous" adjectives and "weak" adverbs, they often function to provide emphasis and context we might otherwise miss. Sure, you can go overboard with them, and they can lose all meaning if you do, but the general writing advice that "adverbs NEVER be used" is not only lousy in general but also means those of us who struggle with social cues and emotional context can be left feeling out of the loop.

I can't tell you the number of times I've had to go back and verify that a character is experiencing an Emotion because it wasn't emphasized, or the author tried to make it into a gut punch by using "sharp, punchy" language (but all they use is "sharp, punchy" language!), and my brain glossed over it because, well, if it's not part of the greater sentence structure, it's irrelevant.

And this shit is my job! I'm being paid to notice these things! It's just not how my brain works naturally, and forcing it to do so long-term is not only exhausting but distressing. Why would I keep trying to read something that causes me exhaustion and makes me feel stupid because I'm struggling to understand it?

Now, obviously, there will be times when a text needs sprucing up. Everyone has their "comfort" style of writing, and while repetition can be soothing to read, it can also make the text hard to engage with. Same with run-on sentences. Sometimes you need those one-word gut punches. Or everyone's favorite, the italicized "oh."

The trick is finding a happy medium between the two that retains your personal voice and writing style. A good editor will work with you to make this possible. A bad one will hack everything to pieces and tell you, "that's just how it's meant to be."

I was lucky with my editors. Sometimes, I had to tell them that the proposed changes wouldn't work and were causing me distress because I couldn't read them. And I knew. I knew if I couldn't follow the sentence structure, a good chunk of my prospective readers wouldn't be able to either. They weren't doing anything wrong. They were doing their jobs and ensuring my book had as much mainstream readability appeal as possible. However, the problem is that "mainstream readability," as we've already established, isn't accessible to a large chunk of the population. So we found ways to work around it. We made it work.

As is evident in the messages I get in my inbox daily.

Every single day, someone else tells me their friend recommended Phangs to them, and they were skeptical because they haven't been able to read a published book in years. And every single day, someone new tells me they loved Phangs, but the biggest thing they loved about it, was that they were even able to read it at all.

So thank you for the greatest compliment you can give me. A lot of work went into ensuring Phangs would be accessible to as many people as possible.

Also, sorry the industry is like *gestures* this.

----

*This is a generality and not true for everyone. People are not monoliths. I am merely speaking from my personal experiences from the things I have observed in the industry as an editor, a writer, and a lifelong reader who also now struggles to read the current style favored by the mainstream industry.

#writing #publishing #adhd #long post #sorry to just keep ranting about adhd stuff atm #but it's all on my mind

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no-where-new-hero · 4 months

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omg I need your thoughts on the terminally o line author culture bc ngl it makes my eye TWITCH, there are authors I deliberately avoid even tho I've heard their stuff is good bc they're like that 🙈

HHHHH oh good lord, okay, from how I see it, there are two angles on this, both aggravating and sad: the official decree one and the spontaneous ecosystem one.

The officious one is that the nature of publishing nowadays demands an author have an online presence. You need Twitter/X. You need to let every potential reader know your book is coming out. You need engagement through reviews and pre-orders incentives (if you buy now you’ll get a special keychain!!) and word of mouth assurances from your peers that yes your book is as cool as you say it is. You need a newsletter with links (more buying! more voting on lists that are simply popularity contests!) and promises you’re still working on the next thing, don’t forget about me in the morass of everyone else doing the same thing. You need an Instagram and TikTok now to post pretty pictures and videos because one or two authors made it big off this kind of promotion and now everyone thinks it’s the ticket to the bestseller list (sadly, it seems to be working). You need an OnlyFans (a joke but I do recall a twt spat that was a joke/not joke about how rupi kaur will always be more beautiful than her critics and people who took issue with the conflation of beauty with talent). At the end of all this, you’re basically an influencer, a content creator creating content for the content you should be focusing on creating, the finished novel. And the novel itself seems to be disappearing behind the masks used to promote it (fanfic-style tropes, moodboards, playlists, memes) until I now no longer trust the book that I’ll pick up to have any resemblance to the enticements that brought me here. I’ve seen an author or two complain about the stress all this self-promotion generates, but it’s become such an entrenched part of the industry, I think people just accept it. And thus spend too much time online hoping that if they tweet just a little more, produce just one more reel, maybe that’ll be the difference between a sale and no sale.

The other side of this, distinct but obviously connected, is the ecosystem created by this panic of being perpetually visible coupled with the fact that so many of the new authors came of age during the rise of internet fandom culture. That opinionated community mindset that blurs the line between anonymity and friendship is the lens they bring to their own work. I mean, it makes sense I suppose—if you love yelling about characters and words, why wouldn’t you do that once you start to produce your own? This really came home to me hearing about that reviewbombgate “scandal” and how people involved were in reylo circles and that was used to provide receipts. You’re interacting with your readers and peers about your intimate work but they are also all strangers. They will not always give you the benefit of the doubt, and now—as opposed to the past when maybe the worst that could happen was a handful of bad reviews in newspapers—you will either be tagged in hate reviews, sub-tweeted, explicitly called out, demanded to atone for your sins. It’s no longer the morality of consumption but the morality of production. Of course, the easy answer is just log-off, touch some grass. But that can work only when you and everyone else are separated by anonymous accounts or when you have no platform to maintain. As an author trying to make your livelihood from this, suddenly it’s do or die. We’re in a strange moment of authorship bringing the Internet’s echo-chamber and claustrophobic into the real world (this is a lie: publishing now is no longer the real world. But it looks like it) and thus you can kind of no longer escape things.

Will the average reader who isn’t aware of all these machinations care about reviewbombgate? Would a reader browsing at Target think about the controversies around Lightlark? Very likely not. But the impression I’m getting more and more is that the average reader isn’t the one buying all the books. Or shall we say—a bestseller’s status relies on bookstore stock. Bookstore stock is only huge when they know a book will be a good investment. They’ll only know a book is a good investment if it and its author has street cred based on booktokkers, bookstagram, bloggers and reviewers (have you noticed how many books out these last maybe 1-3 years have these kinds of accounts thanked in the acknowledgments? Yeah), and THESE are also chronically online people who will Know. And decide the cast of fate.

Honestly, @batrachised, I see why you avoid these kinds of writers, though I wonder how long it’ll be before the disease becomes epidemic.

#i’m very doom and gloom about this if you couldn’t tell from my tone lmao #and of course it’s not a perfect formula; i read a decent debut this year by a writer trying to be very active on socials and idk how much #of a splash her book made because literary sff is a dying genre even with an ecological bent compared to the glut of romantasy #also this feels very timely because the goodreads choice awards were just announced and i am seething at seeing d*vine r*vals #get another accolade to its name #blake’s last braincell #blake talks shit #writing life

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physalian · 9 days

Text

What No One Tells You About Writing #5

Part 4

Part 3

Part 2

Shorter list this time, but longer points. I expect this one to be more divisive, but it is what it is, and this is what ‘no one tells you’ about writing, after all. This one’s all about feedback and how to take it, and give it.

1. Not everyone will like your book, no matter how good it is

I’ve said this before, granted, but sometimes you can have very arbitrary reasons for not liking an otherwise great story. For example: I refuse to watch Hamilton. Why? Because everyone I knew and their dog was trying to cram it down my throat when it came out and I still don’t really like musicals, and didn’t appreciate the bombardment of insisting I’ll like it simply because everyone else does. I’m sure it’s great! I’m just not watching it until I want to watch it.

It can be other reasons, too. I won’t read fanfic that’s written in first person, doesn’t matter how good it is. Someone might not watch a TV show because the primary cast is white or not-white. Someone might not watch a movie because an actor they despise is in it, even if the role is fantastic. Someone might not watch or read a story that’s too heavy on the romance, or not enough, or too explicit. I went looking for beta readers and came across one who wouldn’t touch a book where the romance came secondary in a sci-fi or fantasy novel. Kept on scrolling.

Someone can just think your side character is unfunny and doesn’t hear the same music as everyone else. Someone can just not like your writing style with either too much or not enough fluff, or too much personality in the main narrator. Or they have triggers that prevent them from enjoying it the way you intend.

How someone expresses that refusal is not your job to manage. You cannot force someone to like your work and pushing too hard will just make it worse. Some people just won’t like it, end of story.

2. Criticism takes a very long time to take well

Some people are just naturally better at taking constructive criticism, some have a thick skin, some just have a natural confidence that beats back whatever jabs the average reader or professional editor can give. If you’re like me, you might’ve physically struggled at first to actually read the feedback and insisted that your beta readers color-coded the positive from the negative.

It can be a very steep climb up the mountain until you reach a point where you know you’re good enough, and fully appreciate that it is actually “constructive” and anything that isn’t, isn’t worth your time.

The biggest hurdle I had to climb was this: A criticism of my work is not a criticism of me as a person.

Yes, my characters are built with pieces of my personality and worldview and dreams and ideals, but the people giving you feedback should be people who either already know you as a person and are just trying to help, or are people you pay to be unbiased and only focus on what’s on the page.

Some decisions, like a concerning moral of your story, is inadvertently a criticism of your own beliefs—like when I left feedback that anxiety can’t just be loved away and believing so is a flawed philosophy. I did that with intent to help, not because I thought the writer incompetent or that they wrote it in bad faith.

I’m sure it wasn’t a fun experience reading what I had to say, either. It’s not fun when I get told a character I love and lost sleep over getting right isn’t getting the same reception with my betas. But they’re all doing it (or at least they all should be doing it) from a place of just wanting to help, not to insult your writing ability. Even if your writing objectively sucks, you’re still doing a lot more just by putting words on paper than so many people who can’t bring themselves to even try.

As with all mediums subjects to critique, one need not be an author to still give valuable feedback. I’m not a screenwriter, but from an audience’s standpoint, I can tell you what I think works. Non-authors giving you pointers on the writing process? You can probably ignore that. Non-authors giving you pointers on how your character lands? Then, yeah, they might have an opinion worth considering.

3. Parsing out the “constructive” from the criticism isn’t easy

This goes for people giving it as well. Saying things like “this book sucks” is an obviously useless one. Saying “I didn’t like this story because it was confusing and uncompelling” is better. “I think this story was confusing and uncompelling because of X, and I have some suggestions here that I think can make it better.”

Now we’re talking.

Everyone’s writing style is different. Some writers like a lot of fluff and poetic prose to immerse you in the details and the setting, well beyond what you need to understand the scene or the plot. Their goal is to make this world come alive and help you picture the scene exactly the way they see it in their minds.

There’s writers who are very light on the sensory fluff and poetry, trying to give you the impression of what the scene should look and feel like and letting you fill in the missing pieces with your own vision.

Or there’s stories that take a long time to get anywhere, spending many pages on the small otherwise insignificant slice-of-life details as opposed to laser-precision on the plot, and those who trim off all the fat for a fast-paced rollercoaster.

None of these are inherently bad or wrong, but audiences do have their preferences.

The keyword in “constructive criticism” is “construct”. As in, your advice is useless if you can’t explain why you think an element needs work. “It’s just bad” isn’t helpful to anyone.

When trying to decide if feedback has merit, try to look at whatever the critic gives you and explain what they said to yourself in your own words. If you think changing the piece in question will enhance your story or better convey what you’re trying to say, it’s probably solid advice.

Sometimes you just have to throw the whole character out, or the whole scene, whole plot line and side quest. Figuring out what you can salvage just takes time, and practice.

4. Just when you think you’re done, there’s more

There’s a quote out there that may or may not belong to Da Vinci that goes “art is never finished, only abandoned.” Even when you think your book is as good as it can be, you can still sleep on it and second-guess yourself and wonder if something about it could have been done better or differently.

There is such a thing as too much editing.

But it also takes a long time to get there. Only 10-15% of writing is actually penning the story. The rest is editing, agonizing over editing, re-editing, and staring at the same few lines of dialogue that just aren't working to the point that you dream about your characters.

It can get demoralizing fast when you think you’ve fixed a scene, get the stamp of approval from one reader, only for the next one to come back with valid feedback neither of you considered before. So you fix it again. And then there’s another problem you didn’t consider. And then you’re juggling all these scene bits and moments you thought were perfect, only for it to keep collapsing.

It will get there. You will have a manuscript you’re proud of, even if it’s not the one you thought you were going to write. My newest book isn’t what I set out to write, but if I stuck to that original idea, I never would have let it become the work that it is.

5. “[Writing advice] is more like guidelines than actual rules.”

Personally, I think there’s very few universal, blanket pieces of writing advice that fit every book, no exceptions, no conditions, no questions asked. Aside from: Don’t sacrifice a clear story for what you think is cool, but horribly confusing.

For example, I’m American, but I like watching foreign films from time to time. The pacing and story structure of European films can break so many American rules it’s astonishing. Pacing? What pacing? It’s ~fancy~. It wants to hang on a shot of a random wall for fifteen seconds with no music and no point because it’s ~artsy~. Or there is no actual plot, or arc, it’s just following these characters around for 90 minutes while they do a thing. The entire movie is basically filler. Or the ending is deeply unsatisfying because the hoity-toity filmmaker believes in suffering for art or… something.

That doesn’t fly with mainstream American audiences. We live, breathe, and die on the Hero’s Journey and expect a three-act-structure with few novel exceptions.

That does not mean your totally unique or subversive plot structure is wrong. So much writing advice I’ve found is solid advice, sure, but it doesn’t often help me with the story I’m writing. I don’t write romance like the typical romance you’d expect (especially when it comes to monster allegories). There’s some character archetypes I just can’t write and refuse to include–like the sad, abusive, angsty, 8-pack abs love interest, or the comedic relief.

Beyond making sure your audience can actually understand what you’re trying to say, both because you want your message to be received, and you don’t want your readers to quit reading, there is an audience for everything, and exceptions to nearly every rule, even when it comes to writing foundations like grammar and syntax.

You don’t even have to put dialogue in quotes. (Be advised, though, that the more ~unique~ your story is, the more likely you are to only find success in a niche audience).

Lots of writing advice is useful. Lots of it is contradictory. Lots of it is outdated because audience expectations are changing constantly. There is a balance between what you *should* do as said by other writers, and what you think is right for your story, regardless of what anyone else says.

Just don’t make it confusing.

—

I just dropped my cover art and summary for my debut novel. Go check it out and let me know what you think!

#writing advice #writing resources #writing tips #writing tools #writing a book #writing #writeblr #editing #constructive criticism

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thelucyverse · 6 months

Text

Keep fandoms alive, comment on more fanfics!

The do‘s and don’ts of fic reviews

Because a friend told me she never knows what to write and then never comments, but wants to learn how to do better, I thought I’d compile a list, and maybe it will help someone else as well!

As always, this is unofficial and just from my personal experience writing and reading fic, and talking with other fic authors.

My posts on beta reading | ao3 bookmarks

What to comment

Honestly, authors love friendly comments, no matter how small. Here are some ideas for short comments you can write to pretty much any fic you enjoyed:

I loved it!

Great fic!

Thanks for writing this!

Thanks for sharing your fic with the fandom :)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ 10/10 perfection

So happy I found this!

Reading this made my day

I had fun reading this

You’re a great writer!

Love your writing style

<3<3<3

Amazing!

Kudos!

If you want to write something a bit longer, you can for example

Tell the author where you have been reading the fic or what you were doing while reading it

Tell the author what you should have been doing instead of reading fanfic (and that it was worth it to read the fic)

Copy a passage (or several) from the fic you particularly enjoyed

Did the author write a note at the end or beginning of the fic? Maybe even ask a question? Sometimes you can reply to author’s notes in your comment

How did the fic make you feel? Happy, made you cry, made you laugh, made you jealous of a character, or made you want to punch an antagonistic character’s nose in? Write it in the comment!

Is it your first fic in a fandom or with a ship? Your favorite fic in a fandom, or with a specific character? Did you read it in one go? Did you savour it slowly reading over days or weeks? Have you enjoyed every update of a multi-chapter? Do you wish you could read it again for the first time? Write anything you want to let the author know about your reading experience!

Is there a character you particularly enjoyed in that fic/chapter? Tell the author you think they wrote xy character really well!

You can always start or finish your comment with one of the suggestions from the short comments to make sure the author knows you liked it :)

If you really don’t know what to write, or are reading fic in a language not your own (though authors usually don’t mind you commenting in your native language) and aren’t comfortable commenting in either language, you can also leave emojis as comments, for example variations of:

for any fics:❤️💕💜💗💞💓💖💟🤩😍🥰

for humor fics: 😂😆🤣🤪💯

for shippy fics/getting together: 🎉💖🥳💋💘💏👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨💑👩‍❤️‍👩👨‍❤️‍👨🫶

for angst or hurt no comort: 🥹😭🤯😱🫣😢💔❣️❤️‍🩹🖤 maybe still include a ❤️heart in there so the author can be sure you still liked it!

for smut/pwp: ❤️‍🔥💯🫣😋🤩🥵😈🤯🫦

There are even some stickers you can comment by copying the html! A few tumblr posts with stickers to copy can be found here & here!

Don’ts

There isn’t much you can do wrong when writing comments on fic, but there are a few things you should keep in mind:

don’t criticize (unless negative critics/what they can do better has been specifically asked for by the author, and then stick to the kind of criticism asked for, and best try to include something positive too to soften the blow)

don’t demand more/ask for updates - you can tell the author you’d read it if they wrote more, but don’t put pressure on them, you don’t know what’s happening in their lives right now and for what reason new entries might have slowed down, and they don’t owe you regular or any updates!

don’t tell them what to write (unless the author is taking prompts, and in most cases the comment section is not the right place for prompts, check what the author specified)

Remember: Fan fiction are free, from fans for fans, so etiquette is a bit different than in the Amazon reviews of books you paid good money for! Fic authors don’t have to cater to you, just enjoy that there are fics shared with the fandom :) If you don’t like something, or don’t like a part of something, either close the tab or quietly ignore the issue and just enjoy the parts you do like.

And in general, to end this on a positive note:

Yes, you can comment on older fanfics!

Yes, comment on several fics in a row if you’re reading through fics by one author!

Yes, comment on as many chapters of the same fic as you like!

Yes, you can make art for the fic and tell the author about it!

Yes, absolutely tell the author if you’re still thinking about a fic hours/days/years… after reading it!

Yes, send authors asks on tumblr/other sites talking about how you love their fics, if they link these sites in the author’s notes! (But also comment on Ao3)

Yes, you can comment/review even if you don’t have an account (at least on Ao3 and ffnet)!

Yes, please let the author know if you’re reading a fic for a second time, even if you just write ‘re-read kudos!’

The best comments are also written directly on the site the fanfiction got posted on (so usually ao3/ffnet and not tumblr/discord), both because it makes the note count higher, and because then the comment won’t quickly get buried under unrelated messages or posts.

If you want to leave long comments about different parts of a fic or chapter, you can also make use of the floating Ao3 comment box! It allows you to type your comment while you're still reading, without having to leave the page!

Some more kinds of comments on another post

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archiveofrasa · 3 months

Text

i see a lot of criticism about the friendships between the babel characters and how we were told a lot of things about their positive dynamic, yet shown barely any of it (but are instead mostly presented with the negative aspects). i don’t know if other people clocked this but i feel like it was intentional

rf kuang was commenting on friendships made through trauma-bonding: they were doomed from the start

tldr; the characterisation is (one of) the subtly(ies) people were looking for in the colonial theme. they criticise the latter but i love the fact colonialism is more of an upfront theme because lord knows i am tired of it being subtle so people can ignore it

robin says from the very beginning after they formed their little friend group:

“why had they been so quick, so carelessly eager to trust one another? why had they refused to see the myriad of ways they could hurt each other? why had they not paused to interrogate their differences in birth, in raising, that meant they were not and could never be on the same side?”

the next small paragraph goes into a raft metaphor about how they saw themselves in each other and that’s why they stuck together. they shared one thing they could not ignore – their otherness. their friendship was purely built on the fact they were discriminated against and that they had to spent the next 4 years with each other. their first pleasant conversation is them discussing how they were treated at oxford. of course, the characters didn’t see this because they had never really befriended people their age before. this feeling of belonging felt like love to them (considering their upbringings, ramy’s i will discuss in a bit)

it makes perfect sense why robin would repeatedly imply that they loved and cared about each other. in his eyes, they did. what was it they had if not love? robin, who has ignored so many problems in the past before babel as he knew it would cause him issues, wouldn’t address their friendship dynamic or how strong the arguments and animosity were. he, an abused child, would rather have this than nothing at all

in actuality (demonstrated, i think, through the photograph they took at the end of chapter 9), they were together because of academia’s and discrimination’s forced proximity. robin feels specific emotions about them that feel strong to him because he’s never experienced it before, but that doesn’t mean they are strong enough to keep them together, which is why when they see the photo, they feel weird about it because why isn’t it portraying their dynamic ‘correctly’?

it’s true that perhaps to get robin’s perspective across, it would’ve been good to see the positive aspects more but i think that would’ve made it harder for us to see how weak their friendship was. people wanted more positive to show that they loved each other, which isn’t the point rf kuang is trying to make

rf kuang chooses to show the negative aspects more because they show where their friendship will end up. when letty did what she did, i didn’t see it as a plot twist, i saw it as an inevitability. this was going to happen. honestly, i feel this with most of the ‘plot twists’ of babel except the end of book iii (i really didn’t see that coming). it was easy for letty to do what she does in book iv because their friendship had such unstable foundations. when they no longer benefitted her, she turned her back on them

the only dynamic i feel was actually strong was robin and ramy. i’m not just saying this because i think they’re queer lol. they were close not just because they were both men of colour and had similar upbringings – they actually liked each other. they admired each other and adored each other’s personalities, they bounced off each other and knew what the other meant when they spoke. when they argued, it was over something that actually considered each other’s beliefs and goals and desires, not over their differences.

(unlike letty and ramy, letty and victoire and maybe even robin and victoire, though i think they lean more to ramy/robin than they do to letty/anyone lol. ramy and victoire have a dynamic that i personally feel like robin didn’t really see because ramy understood victoire in a way robin couldn’t. you kind of see it when robin is the one who letty complains about ramy/victoire to, but that’s it i think?)

speaking of ramy, linking it back to their perspectives of love, it makes a lot of sense why he caused the most disruption in the friend group. he’s the only one with an actual family that he stays in touch with. he knows what love feels like. so of course he’s the one that is strongly anti-empire, compared to robin and victoire who have been emotionally manipulated in their childhood by said empire, the one who argues with letty the most. he still feels what robin and victoire feel, of course, but to a lesser extent

honestly i don’t know how to end this analysis, i just think rf kuang is a genius lmao but i may add more onto this as i continue to reread the book we shall see

#the way my most recent posts are abt babel i'm so sorry #i have hyperfocused on this book so hard #and bc my friends are still reading it i can't spoil it for them #i know sappho might read this and if he does...🔫#babel r f kuang #babel an arcane history #babel or the necessity of violence #robin swift #ramiz rafi mirza #letitia price #victoire desgraves

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astrojulia · 8 months

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PAC - How to improve your sleep

Navigation: Masterlist✦Ask Rules✦Feedback Tips

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DISCLAIMER. These general free readings are made in good faith for entertainment purpose.

How to pick a pile

The pick a pile order is Pile 1 - Pile 2 - Pile 3. When you have different cards to choose from in pile 1,2,3… look at each of those cards. Wait until someone reminds you of a memory. Perhaps a character’s outfit resembles one of your own. It is this pile that has its message. What if they all remind me of something? Go for the one with the strongest memory, one might look like her earring but another might be the favorite candy you got from your grandma when you vacationed at her house. But what if none reminds me of something? Take a deep breath and wait a little longer, without charging yourself or creating worries. Relax, some will awaken some memory in you, I promise!

Pile 1 - Cinnamoroll

(King of Pentacles - Temperance - Six of Swords - The Lovers - Five of Swords)

Your nocturnal habits are the ones you love the most in your entire day. You naturally love to sleep and have recently added ways to improve your nighttime ritual, such as skincare, reading a book, meditating, and taking a nice shower… anyway. We can say that sleeping is even your hobby.

Are you feeling disconnected with your sleep because sleeping is something to be calm and natural? You can't force it (I'm not talking about drugs, okay), and the lack of control stresses you out a bit. You love to sleep, but you're the type of person who takes a long time to fall asleep and would like it to be faster, but unfortunately, it is not possible.

To improve your sleep, let's remove what's disturbing you on the way – which is the cell phone and electronic things... It's no use doing a ritual that, in the end, you'll spend 2 hours on a cell phone screen. The basics are useful for a reason...

"But you don’t understand…" Yes, I understand that you must be talking to your crush/boyfriend before bed, or you keep thinking about her for hours and creating scenarios in your head. Okay, do it with your eyes closed and in the dark; sleep is VERY necessary for our life as a whole. You need to know that the next day that person will still be there. You are responsible for the events in your life; do not allow other people or unexpected situations to influence your decisions.

Herbs you can use to help with your nightly ritual: Orange and Onion.

Pile 2 - Pompompurin

(Queen of Pentacles - Six of Cups - Seven of Swords - High Priestess - Seven of Wands)

Sleeping is something refreshing for you, but you can't do it 100% because this struggle is for parents of children (so yes… if you are not a parent, it will be difficult for you to identify, please choose another struggle). You're a person who benefits a lot from sleeping, who enjoys doing it, but you've been a light sleeper for a long time because you need to be constantly aware of your surroundings, checking if someone else is okay.

The reason for your difficulty sleeping is clear: children… You're either watching over them, or when you finally fall asleep, someone wakes you up to attend to something. This gradually undermines good sleep, and there isn't much to do about it.

What I can give you as tips now is to make a “tent/fort” for the children to sleep inside (I don't know how to write it, but that would be it). Also, take advantage of the naps that the children take during the day to get some rest yourself. Remember, “ah, but what about the house?" – Well, look, you're sleepy, and the mess will still be there when you wake up. Prioritize rest.

The feeling that may be undermining you is that with each decision, you ask yourself if you are being a good mother/father. You know… you will be criticized by everyone, by people outside, and even by your own children when they grow up. No one will understand your efforts, but you can, so you need to create more confidence in the whole process you are going through and stop second-guessing every decision you make. Energies need to be renewed, cycles close for others to begin, with vigor and vitality. Accept with gratitude the changes that the Universe proposes.

Herbs You Can Use to Help with Your Nightly Ritual: Fennel and Pomegranate.

Pile 3 - Pochacco

(Strength - Three of Swords - Two of Pentacles - Knight of Cups - Two of Wands)

Your sleep is complicated because your body wants to rest, but your mind is racing. You don't stop thinking; your reasoning is quick and very useful in everyday life, but not at bedtime. You are also a person who is more disconnected from your own body; you can be tired mentally but not physically, and vice versa, and this interferes with your bedtime. It seems that when you put some effort into creating a sleeping habit, it doesn't work.

We also can't erase the sentimental part that disturbs your sleep; all the feelings you had during the day are processed at night. Memories of the past cause tightness in the chest, a storm in the mind, thinking about what you could have done, crying, and creating new arguments in your mind. Often, you sleep because you are mentally exhausted.

What can really help you is to put all your plans that you think about at bedtime on a scale to know which ones are just delusions before going to sleep, and what can work out. Do a real planning of the things you can or cannot do to put everything into practice. You are a mental person, and you think a lot, but you are also a procrastinator. You will sleep much better knowing that you did all your responsibilities that day. You can do it!!

Now entering a more intimate part, many of the negative feelings that you have before bedtime are the feeling of rejection and exclusion, of people not accepting your feelings and your most intimate needs. That is why you feel that people do not accept who you really are. This most intimate part needs to be resolved, and it will be resolved when you leave things behind – all the past where you were rejected – and try once again with passion to live your life being yourself. Passion arrives to ward off fears and warm the heart with an extra dose of enthusiasm. The act of falling in love brings motivation and freshness to life, whether for someone, for yourself, or for something new that begins.

Herbs you can use to help with your nightly ritual: Snake plant and Mugwort.

(CC) AstroJulia Some Rights Reserved

#astrojulia #astrology #witchblr #astroblr #astro community #witch community #all about tarot #divination #tarot reading #free reading #tarot witch #tarot readers of tumblr #pick a card #pick a pile #tarot pick a card #pick a card reading

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angelofthepage · 2 months

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Thoughts on the "Updated" Bendy Employee Handbook

Before we go any further, let's make it very clear what kind of post this is: we're not here to hate on the book, and none of anything I'm about to say is said with ill intent. I am here for analysis, constructive criticism, and discussion. This post is a little more critical than what I would usually share, so viewer discretion is advised.

Today we're talking about the newly updated Bendy Employee Handbook, which just recently released as of this month at the time of this post. And I have a lot of questions about this entry, and really, game guides as a whole in our modern gaming world. This book appeared to advertise itself as a rerelease of the original handbook with additional content for Bendy and the Dark Revival, but upon comparing the two, I've noticed there's actually a number of changes they've made, some good, some bad, and some that I'm not sure what to make of. So come and join me under the cut, and if you have some thoughts of your own, feel free to comment or reblog and add to the discussion. Without further ado, here we go!

Part 1: The Baffling Amount of Cut Content

Our story begins where most stories do, the table of contents. So right off the bat, when comparing this book to the original, you'll notice something off.

No, your eyes do not deceive you, an entire section of the original book was cut, on top of making other sections shorter. And the weirdest part? Some of these things were exclusive to that original book, they didn't appear anywhere else in the Bendy franchise. So already we're off to a weird start. Some of these missing pages aren't so bad though. In some cases, they're just format changes to make the book flow a little better/take up less room. Sometimes they succeed in that, sometimes they end up feeling more cramped, it's pretty subjective whether or not this improved the book. But it certainly does cut down on pages. Case in point, the beginning of each chapter of BATIM.

Don't worry, Joey's letter hasn't been cut, but it has been moved to earlier in the book, so it's no longer in Chapter 1. This was a very odd change. Other things that are missing are character monologues, but it's inconsistent. Alice Angel's speech about the screaming well of voices and Joey's monologue right before the final boss were kept, but Sammy's "sheep sheep sheep" speech and Bertrum's audiolog right before his boss fight were inexplicably cut.

Here are a few cuts I found pretty significant.

These pages are all missing from the update. In the case of this newspaper article, what does that mean in regards to whether or not this is "canon" or "retconned"? Joey Drew, did you or did you not have plans to expand into a Bendy themed toothpaste? The people need to know! X''D But seriously, while some of this is inconsequential, some of it matters. The mascot costume in particular, that's the only sketch we get (that I'm assuming came from Bertrum or Joey regarding that part of the parks, no one is specifically credited for making it). It doesn't show up anywhere else in the series (to my knowledge). It's strange that it's just, gone now. The Bendyland spread is such an unfortunate loss, that's some of the closest we've ever gotten to seeing the map of the park. Yes you can see it in BATIM, but being able to get up close and personal with it without having to control Henry was really nice. It makes me wonder if they're trying to erase the past details so they can do more with Bendyland in the future, something that's different from the original vision. I don't think that's it, but it could be, though they'd also have to go back on The Illusion of Living too, given it’s discussed there with some really fun details.

Speaking of which, that's the weirdest piece of cut content: the missing section that ends the old book (that was reiterated in The Illusion of Living). It's Joey Drew's tips for making a cartoon. It's formatted differently and has no images in TIOL, but the basic information is still the same. What's not the same though, is the loss of the tutorial pages for drawing the toons. These are another thing that don’t show up anywhere else in the series, making them a much more permanent loss. And even though this section is cut, it’s still referenced on the back cover of the new book, which is a bit odd.

These were really cute and showed so much personality for not just the toons, but for Joey as he described them. Cutting this was genuinely disappointing for me. Same with the paperwork in Joey's apartment. Those were some of the highest quality images we had of what was on his desk and bulletin board, and I liked being able to see them clearer. The biggest loss of the cut content isn’t just the pages themselves, but the personality they gave to this book, and the Bendy world as a whole.

This was the very first Bendy book to be released, and therefore our first look into this world in this format. And while I don’t think it’s the greatest thing in the world in terms of being a game guide, I didn’t pick up the original for a game guide. I picked it up because I wanted to see if it provided more context for the world. And when it does that, it does a good job. The memos from characters we know, Joey’s financial records, the images from the desks of people like Joey and Bertrum, they give us insight into how things were going at the studio. Some of my favorite details from the original are Joey’s memo about how Susie was replaced by Allison, and the receipt for Joe’s Fine Dining. The fact that that memo was distributed to everyone but Susie enhanced what we already knew from BATIM, and it paints him as a much crueler character than we knew him to be. Not to mention the repeated use of “I have to say, I’m an instant fan”. Having Joey say those words makes the concept of him creating the cycle so much more interesting. Like did he script out every little action these characters take? Or is this something Susie picked up and recycled from him after potentially finding this memo in real life? Oh there are so many delicious possibilities. And the lunch date, oh my gosh. One, it started my quest to build the Joey Drew menu using all the things he eats in the books, because damn does he have good taste. And two, it was so cool to have a look into an interaction Susie told us about in that one tape. Like that was REALLY GOOD. Give me more like that! When you have other parts of the series back up things we’ve heard only one character say, it gives more credence to the idea that they actually happened that way, or gives us a clue that we need to check for character biases when they tell us their side of the story. And in a series where MOST characters are unreliable narrators, that is REALLY IMPORTANT for establishing timelines and figuring out what’s real versus what’s fabricated. That was my biggest hope for the update, for more flavortext and world building that expands on things we already know.

But um…the dark revival part of the book doesn’t do that.

Part 2: The Dark Revival’s Minimal Offerings

After an abrupt jump from Bendyland to BATDR, we get into the new stuff. The Bendy and the Dark Revival section of this book is alarmingly short and has very little substance. There is no new expansion of the worldbuilding or insight into these characters. I mean, the book describes Heidi as being a female lost one? So if you wanted a confirmation on her gender, there you go I guess? I guess that detail was never like, stated explicitly, but this is me stretching to find something new that it gives us. Actually, wait, it does give us one new thing, but I’m gonna be honest, it kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

The book refers to Allison having a “pet wolf” when we get her introduction in Chapter 1. It then later describes that Tom “likes being pet” when we get his introduction in Chapter 5. Which by the way, is the only image of Tom in this entire book, since his original render from the old version was cut. Now, I’ll be honest, I used to like that second detail, I thought it was cute that he doesn’t just tolerate Audrey, he actually LIKES being pet. Those are two different things, having some insights into Tom’s feelings and characterization would have been a breath of fresh air. But no, when I reread the book and saw that first detail, that made that really weird and uncomfortable actually. It would be one thing if in-universe, Tom called himself a pet, or Allison called him that with consent. Heck, if there was another character in-universe who wanted to purposely insult Allison and Tom by saying that, that would be fine too, then it’d be reiterating the narrative. But on its own? I take issue with taking Tom of all characters and calling him her pet. The Safehouse Boris never got treated that badly, hell, Buddy in the books never got dehumanized this badly when he became a Boris. But Tom, Tom gets to be the one that’s dehumanized? There is something that really rubs me the wrong way about that. Especially if he turns out to be Thomas Connor or has some connection to him. I can’t assume if he is or isn’t anymore given all the stuff BATDR pulled with Allison and Henry. But on the chance he IS Thomas Connor, do you have any idea how bad that looks, to have a character that, because of details written in Dreams Come to Life, many fans speculate to be a person of color, referring to him as Allison’s “pet”? And even if he ends up not being a person of color (I say as I groan about the inevitable discourse for the DCTL graphic novel that’s coming out), it’s still kind of awful to say that about anyone. Tom is a character that has repeatedly gotten the short end of the stick in this series. He’s relevant to BATDR for all of a couple of minutes, and he’s incredibly underutilized and lacking details or depth for most of the series. Thomas Connor, he gets a bit of depth as of The Lost Ones, that novel does great things for him. But Tom Wolf? Short end of the stick. And I’m sad to see that continue here.

The one positive thing I have to say about this section is that it’s really nice to have so many of the audiolog character transcripts here. Most of the notes and logs from BATDR are here with all their words typed out. The ones that in-game had a chiller styled font are transcribed a bit strangely, as now they’re written like the messages written on the walls in-game. But it’s not the worst. If anything, all of this gives me a great resource as a theorist. Having a record of all of these and what chapters they appear in makes my goal of constructing a timeline and cross checking information much easier.

Though from a graphic design standpoint, these pages frustrate me a little bit. They’re so cramped, and there’s several spots where the text isn’t centered properly within its text block. I get the sense on some parts, it’s because it’s placed so close to the spine of the book, so they don’t want any information getting cut off, but it still looks funky. And there are several spots where that explanation doesn’t really apply. There’s also some weird placement of fun facts. While I love that this book lets us in on some secrets, they’re not always placed in an area that makes sense? Like, there’s a note about how to get the Inkjets Concert, but the steps for how to get it are placed way after a point in the narrative where you’d be able to get it, and I’m kind of scratching my head as to why it was done that way. Is it to encourage a second playthrough? Or is it to not spoil the story? Why not split the information up? Or have a dedicated secrets page like they do with the achievements and theMeatly’s cutouts?

Though speaking of not spoiling things, this book is really odd about what it chooses to focus on. So, Henry’s model is in this book, right next to a passage about a “mysterious man” you can meet in the Cyclebreakers area. They showed his model but didn’t name him as Henry? I don’t quite get that choice. Also, despite the cyclebreakers being very important to this story, they aren’t really mentioned before this very brief section. However, Porter? The character shown for all of a few seconds? He’s got at least three images throughout this book. The balance feels off with what this book chooses to put emphasis on.

Also, this one really annoyed me: Allison. So for everyone who’s actually played BATIM, you would know that Allison Angel is never referred to as Allison within BATIM. We only know she’s called that because people dove into the game’s files and revealed her and Tom’s names upon the release of Chapter 4. And the book follows suit with this, it does not call her Allison in the original handbook whatsoever. HOWEVER, the BATDR section messes this up. When it introduces her, even though in-game she introduces herself as Alice, the book introduces her as Allison. But when we get to Chapter 5, the part where she’s actually named Allison by Audrey, it suddenly switches to calling her Nice Alice? It’s a weird choice and I don’t understand why this happened.

It leaves me wondering just how much the new author of this section and their editors know about the Bendy series before going into this project. What context were they given to write this thing? It makes the book feel unpolished to have so many mistakes in its formatting and information. I don’t know what the quality control team for this release looked like, but a part of me wonders how many editors this went through before making it to the final release. I don’t work in publishing to know what that looks like, but I’d genuinely love to learn more on this subject, it’s fascinating.

There’s also a very strong dissonance in the imagery. While I’m glad to see the renders from BATDR’s advertising so clearly and up close, the difference in their coloring looks strange when put next to the rest of Bendy’s usual color palette. It leaves me wondering what assets the book team was given for use in this release. There’s a lot I could say here about the importance of press kits and brand guidelines, especially in this day and age when so many fans are making just as high quality of content as the official releases of media. And that leads me to the most disappointing part of this book.

Part 3: Stolen Content

If you’re active in the Bendy fandom and know its many creative members, then you may already know what I’m about to dive into. MLSpence3D is an artist that enjoys 3D modeling, rigging, animating, and rendering. He can often be found engaging in all sorts of corners in the indie mascot horror community, such as playing a notable role in the production of SuperHorrorBro’s upcoming title, Glitched Out, as well as providing the renders used on the Bendy Wiki of the in-game characters. Spence has had his work mistaken for official renders before, and unfortunately, it’s not just fans making that mistake. The render of the Piper used in the BATIM portion of the original handbook is Spence’s, and it unfortunately hasn’t been removed in this update, nor has he been credited or asked for permission to have it used here. I’ll admit, his stuff looks so official that I’ve mistaken it as such too, and it speaks to a much needed conversation on assets, metadata, and protection for artists of all mediums.

Our fandom is not the only place where this happens. Back when FNAF: Help Wanted was in production, the cover art mistakenly used fan renders as a part of its photomanipulation. Developer Scott Cawthon was quick to apologize and make things right, removing the renders and replacing them with officially made FNAF models. Heck, we had something similar happen right here with Bendy back when the voice cast of BATDR started working with Streamily. The initial post that advertised their Streamily debut used renders from Spence and a few other artists that had to be tracked down, and they didn’t have the rights to use them, nor were they credited. It makes a lot of sense that this happens, when you don’t have sufficient resources and aren’t an active member of the fandom, if you’re a graphic designer trying to make a piece to advertise something, you’re going to need assets to make that. And if you’re not given sufficient assets by the people you’re designing for, you turn to other sources to get the job done. They may not know what on Google is official vs fan content. The fans are so skilled and passionate about what they do, and with the number of series that have fans steadily joining the official teams, it’s incredible what can result from being passionate. But it also makes for a much needed reminder to add metadata to your files so that they can be traced back as belonging to you. Watermark your stuff, clearly mark your work as fan content in the tags, captions, and descriptions, in an effort to protect yourself. Don’t use images you find online unless you have a very clear idea of where they came from, so you can direct people back to the source when they ask about it (or better yet, link the source in your description from the start). Give people another reason to pause and double check their work in the chain of command (they should be pausing to double check anyway, but let's be real, we don't live in a perfect world). In a world where credit and sources are more important than ever, remembering to give credit where it’s due from the start will save you all kinds of headaches in the future. Video game developers, especially those of you in the indie scene: please develop press kits to give to people your teams collaborate with. By giving them assets they can reliably use to advertise for you, you will save everyone a lot of hassle in the long run. And if this is still happening even with a press kit, it merits having some conversations to evaluate why and solve the problem. If there is no other takeaway anyone gets from this post, this is the big one I want to see some positive change on in the future.

Part 4: The Functionality as a Game Guide

This book works for your first time through BATDR, but not for any kind of sequential playthroughs. The way it directs you through the game uses the audiologs and notes as waypoints. Once you pick them up, they are removed from the environment, and so if you’re picking up the game after a long time away from it, you’re not gonna remember where those were, so it’s likely not going to be useful for navigating. It reminds me a lot of the way my parents talked about one of our old hometowns. We lived in Vermont for a little while, and there were two things about our area that we laughed about. One, never leave your car unlocked unless you want it filled with zucchini. Two, if you ask for directions, you’re not gonna have a clue unless you’re a local, because they word everything in a similar fashion to “you’re gonna drive past where the old barn used to be”. At least give me a landmark that still exists, or a map! The BATIM chapters aren’t much better, they sort of give you a layout map, but it’s not helpful. Especially in Chapter 3, the place where you arguably need a map the most, there is no kind of instruction for how to get through Alice’s fetch quests if you get lost.

In my mind, a game guide is something you turn to when you need help getting through a game. Now, mind you, I am not the target audience for a game guide. I don’t own game guides. There are a few in my household that my siblings own, for stuff like Super Mario Sunshine, and I guess technically my Pokedex for Pokemon Black and White 2 DOES double as a game guide. But like, we now live in the age of the internet. If you want to know how to get through something, there are a million articles and Let’s Plays that detail how to complete the base story, find secrets, and even suggest strategies for tackling difficult challenges. Some of these are designed to be informative, and some are more reactionary and built for entertainment, there’s lots of flavors to choose from!

And it makes me wonder, what does that mean for the medium of game guides as a whole? I think they still have their place. For one thing, different people benefit from different learning styles. Being able to read a guide may work better for someone than a video depending on their brain wiring. And for people who don’t have reliable or frankly any internet, or rely on a library for that, it’s nice to have a book so that you don’t have to wait to keep playing. I’ve never seen anyone get a game guide from a library, but I absolutely think it’s something a library could have. It’s also just really convenient to have all of that information available in one book, as opposed to having to search through multiple forums and sources and risk getting spoiled. And when they’re done well, sometimes they can have secrets not even the existing player base knew. Like I knew that there was this secret about a ghost train that appears if you set your system’s clock to 4:14, but I didn’t know if AM or PM mattered. Thanks to this book, now I know that it doesn’t matter, both work, which is really handy to know! But uh…most of the secrets that were revealed in this book were things I knew within the first month that BATDR came out. None of them were new to me as someone who’s plugged into the world of Bendy. There have been multiple videos detailing how to get these secrets, and how to play this game, by many different indie horror enthusiasts. It almost makes it feel like this book came out a bit too late, and it’s only released about a year or so after this game came out.

Which really begs the question, who was the target audience for this book? Was it for new fans who were struggling with these games? Was it for longtime fans who wanted a memento of the occasion and a record of all the stuff in these games? Was it for lore hunters hungry for new secrets and world building? Having read both versions of the employee handbook, I still can’t definitively say who the target audience is. That kind of frustrates me, that’s the first thing they taught us about back when I went to school for graphic design. It’s important to keep your audience in mind when designing something, that way it caters to their needs, appeals to them, and gets your message across effectively.

Part 5: Final Thoughts

I still can’t say for sure what I was supposed to get out of this.The parts of it that I found charming and appealing were not continued or built upon in this update. There is no new world building or lore. It doesn’t do an effective job as a game guide given its reliance on non-permanent elements of gameplay. It doesn’t give us tools to cross reference what we know from previous entries, nor does it expand upon details that lacked clarity within BATDR or BATIM. It removed some of its more charming content, and it still has stolen artwork from its previous iteration. By the time I got done reading this book, I was left feeling disappointed and kind of exhausted. No joke, I grabbed a friend, and we went through it all to compare it page by page to see what changed. It was something you could make a drinking game out of, not that I would recommend that.

I would struggle to recommend this book to any Bendy fan, unless you’re a completionist like me who wants to own every book as a physical copy. The original employee handbook was a far better read, and if you can find a copy secondhand or at your local library, you’re in for a small but tasty treat (quite literally if you decide to make the bacon soup recipe, which fun fact, originated in this book and was developed by the wife of Bookpast, one of the writers on this series!). The Dark Revival section feels tacked on and not as well thought out as the original book was. There is a very odd disconnect between the two. I’m genuinely confused as to why it was put in a rerelease of this book rather than making an entirely new book for Dark Revival. Dark Revival is a much longer and detailed game than Bendy and the Ink Machine. I would expect a book that describes how to play it and its world building to take up a lot more pages and go in depth on different details than this one did. So why was it done this way? Does this have to do with some sort of contract with Scholastic that we don’t know about? Was there a time constraint, or a page count that had to be met that they couldn’t meet with just BATDR? Did the people working on Bendy have too much on their plates to dedicate the time to a new book? What happened here? I wasn’t expecting to leave this book with more questions than answers, but here we are.

Overall, I don’t think it was worth what I paid for it, but it’s going to live on my shelf with the rest of my books. This will be handy for when I need to reference the audiologs and don’t want to look up a YouTube video to remember what was said. It’ll also be nice if I’m traveling. See, whenever I visit my grandparents, their wifi is pretty limited, so if I want to draw anything while I’m up there, I have to print out references or download images on my phone before I go so I can do that. Having some of the new renders in this book will be useful if I decide I want to draw Bendy stuff or theorize while on the road.

Now it's your turn. Tell me your thoughts on the Updated Edition of the Bendy Employee Handbook! Is this something you want to read? If you have read it, did you enjoy it? Were you left wanting more? If we ever get another book like this, what sort of things would you like to see? Let's talk about it. And remember, if you did enjoy it, that's not a bad thing, absolutely no judgement there. Just because it wasn't for me doesn't mean it's not going to be enjoyable for someone else. Every work of fiction has its audience. <3 Here's wishing you a wonderful rest of the day, and happy reading!

#bendy employee handbook spoilers #bendy employee handbook #bendy spoilers #batdr #bendy and the dark revival #batim #bendy and the ink machine #bendy books #bendy book spoilers

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genericpuff · 6 months

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The Mishandling of LO’s S3 Mi(n)season Hiatus - Part 3 2/2

ALRIGHT. THIS IS THE LAST PART. I MEAN IT THIS TIME.

I had completely forgotten how long the mi(n)season finale for S3 was, but I suppose it makes sense considering it was operating as the true cliffhanger before the 4 month break.

If you haven't read the first 3 parts of this episodic breakdown, please go check these ones out first:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3 1/2

Alright, let's get this show on the road!

CAUTION: THIS IS PART 2 OF THE THIRD PART OF A 3 + 1 PART SERIES IN WHICH I WILL BE SPOILING MUCH OF EPISODES 251-253. THIS EPISODE CONTAINS TOPICS SURROUNDING SEXUAL ASSAULT. THIS WILL BE A LONG POST. BRACE YOURSELF.

We've gotten delusional Leuce. We've gotten erasure of the SA. We've gotten a complete bastardization of the original myths that this story got its claim to fame on. The dread has set in, and all I want to do is get off Mr Bones' Wild Ride. But we have one more stretch of mind-numbing track to go, because the reveal of Persephone starting winter was not the end, oh no. The true cliffhanger of this episode - upon which the fans and critics alike have sat on for 4 months - proves that when we think Rachel has gotten crazy enough in this circus she calls a "retelling", she manages to prove that yes, she can make things even crazier, and no, you will not have a good time.

Ironically, despite that opening, I actually have a lot less to say about this last part of Episode 253 than I did about the first part. Obviously there's no feasible way to top "Persephone causes winter", but this episode does come rather close in its absurdity. Ultimately, if these essays have proven anything, it's just how much Rachel retcons things, to such an extent now that she seems to be retconning or outright forgetting information that she established just a handful of episodes prior. You'll see what I mean here as we go along in this.

As soon as it's hinted at that Persephone has started winter, we cut away to Apollo. Because, as per LO tradition, we can't spend longer than 10-15 panels on a single scene.

Already this seems like... really odd framing.

This is Apollo. A character who has been a villain since basically the beginning of the comic, when he sexually assaulted Persephone. This is not something that's up for debate. This is not something that can be refuted, as much as the comic may try to erase it or twist it into something else.

And yet, the vibe I get from this is, "Misled but good-deep-down character being taken advantage of by a sinister being." This isn't the type of framing we should be seeing around a character like Apollo.

I mentioned it ages ago in my post about the SA erasure that it really feels like Rachel is slyly trying to make Apollo empathetic, from giving us an entire episode in his perspective to adding extra panels into the books to making Persephone weirdly reminiscent of feelings for Apollo that she never had.

One thing I also touch on in that post is how Apollo is framed against Zeus. Zeus is also a villain character for much of the series, and even after he's "redeemed", the fanbase still considers him largely to be an antagonistic force. So to have Apollo be trying to take down Zeus comes across as very "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and I really don't like seeing that framing when it's regarding a rapist.

And this scene largely feels the same. It feels like Rachel's trying to sway the audience into believing Apollo is like Draco Malfoy - a misled boy who "didn't know any better" and was being manipulated by a greater evil. If you haven't guessed by now, that "greater evil" is Ouranos.

Why is it Ouranos? In my opinion (so take this with grains of salt) this is because they need to somehow "one up" Kronos and give Persephone and Hades a tangible force to fight against, to draw a clean line in the sand between "good" and "evil" so that we, the audience, will be forced to categorize Persephone and Hades as "good" and someone else as "evil".

But really, why Ouranos? We're told that he manipulated Gaia to use her powers in an attempt to create "hierarchy" (whatever the FUCK that means, I don't think Rachel really understands how societal hierarchies are created) but there's NOTHING to imply that he was tyrannical or "evil" in the same way that Kronos has been depicted. Rachel's basically submitting this whole plotline to "well it's in the prophecy" but there was NOTHING dictating that she had to try and write a "prophecy" storyline to begin with. So as a result, it feels very tacked on and it's hard to tell what the point is, it really just seems like Rachel watched too much Marvel one week and decided that Lore Olympus - a fantasy romance - needed a big bad.

And by extension it feels like Apollo is being used as a pawn in this dynamic. By making him subservient to an "evil" force, it means he can labelled as definitively "evil", and thus it gives Rachel a vehicle to have Apollo taken down - or even perhaps empathized with much like in the Draco Malfoy sense - without having to touch the SA plot that she set up and never resolved.

He was evil before, but he wasn't the kind of evil that Rachel could write around. Because she doesn't know how to write SA or give her female characters any sense of retribution or agency. We've seen that already with her robbing Demeter of winter and Persephone of her feelings regarding the SA. There was never going to be a chance in hell she was going to be able to write herself out of a plotline she's been procrastinating for 4+ years.

That said, this is just a vibe I get, so I'm not gonna speak on it much more. This is one of those "we're really not gonna know until the comic returns" situations.

Once again, Rachel's trying to make Apollo seem like a "master manipulator", but she's also trying to make him seem like he's the one being manipulated, but she's ALSO trying to write him as a big dumb idiot who literally can't grasp consent. Apollo has to be one of the most inconsistently written characters in the entire comic, and yes, that includes Persephone. Again, it just goes to show she hasn't been able to fully commit to the SA plotline because Apollo's motivations and intelligence levels change with each passing episode. Sometimes he's being nefarious and plotting to overthrow the King, other times he's literally asking a nymph if she'd be willing to cut her hair to look like Persephone. The comic can't choose and so we, the audience, can't tell why Apollo is even still here.

Again, this is SUCH bizarre framing. If we're to believe that Persephone has been "cursed" by no longer being able to create Spring, only Winter, then does that make Ouranos and Apollo the heroes here? Because Ouranos is right, if Persephone is causing winter, that's going to kill the mortals, which is the complete OPPOSITE of what she's trying to do. So what are we left with? A plotline where Apollo and Ouranos might actually have a point about how she rushed into a marriage with the King of the Underworld and sacrificed everything that gave her agency and power - both metaphorically and literally - in the process?

Again, this is why Rachel fundamentally misunderstands the original purpose of The Hymn to Demeter and how she's, by and large, made her retelling worse in an attempt to be "subversive". It puts the plot and character motivations in a place where it's hard to tell what the story is trying to say, I can understand if maybe Rachel's trying to write a conflict where Apollo uses this information to manipulate her, but it doesn't help that knowing EVERYTHING we know about the H x P relationship within the context of this comic, Ouranos has a point that Persephone's union with the King of the Dead is problematic. It might not be the same "problematic" that we're all thinking of, but it really just reinforces the criticisms of this relationship. Is the comic really asking us to say "fuck the human race, they're in love" ??? Because that's NOT what the point of the original myth was in the slightest and it's just a really weird place to put your audience in.

It's 4:45 AM right now as I'm typing this so my thoughts are a little scattered, but all this really feels like is an attempt on Rachel's part to create a new "big bad" for her to use as a distraction from the SA plot and to give Persephone a "flaw", but that "flaw" really only takes away the strength of another character.

Oh, and by the way? This whole "you need the fertility goddess" thing? THE COMIC HAS ALREADY TOLD US THIS WON'T WORK BECAUSE SHE HAS TO BE IN LOVE WITH APOLLO FOR HIM TO BE ABLE TO USE HER POWERS. SO RACHEL'S ALREADY WRITTEN HERSELF INTO A CORNER THAT SHE'LL EITHER HAVE TO SOLVE OR RETCON ENTIRELY. DO YOU SEE WHY THIS IS SO ABSURD???

This line is kind of jarring because we had the Kassandra prophecy at the beginning that talked about the herb, but the prophecy Ouranos is talking about is the one about the sons of kings overthrowing their fathers. I definitely forgot about that one for a hot second reading this, I didn't get how this sequence related to the poisonous plant thing because they're framed as completely separate prophecies. It's not like Kassandra said in her initial prophecy that this plant would be used to overthrow a King again, she just said that the plant still existed and Psyche figured it out on her own that Apollo was gonna use it on Zeus. IDK that's just something that bugged me (also again, why are they believing her prophecies when we literally just had it established an episode ago that no one believes her prophecies LMAO)

Because if it wasn't enough for LO to have one Evil Robot Jeff Bridges villain, it had to throw in another one for good measure. It's just a line of dads and grandpas going back centuries waiting for their turn in the ring with Persephone.

lmao I love this 'hint' at Apollo being the one to write the note from Hebe and leave the cupcake for Zeus. Like... duh? We already put that together as SOON as Psyche said gasp "Zeus!" and then it showed Zeus eating the cupcake while Psyche called him on the phone telling him Apollo was gonna try and harm him. This sequence of 'revealing what really happened' doesn't work here because we've already been told what happened.

Except we know he won't. There's no tension to this whatsoever.

That's Hebe by the way.

It's odd that Apollo is embracing this prophecy when he has a kid himself. He literally has a fully grown son in this comic. I guess Apollo forgot about that, just like Rachel.

And that's it. That's the midseason finale. Ouranos is the new twist villain and Apollo is... whatever the fuck Rachel plans on doing with him.

Now, this leads me to my original motivation to create this series of reviews. It spawned from a conversation we were having in the Discord, discussing what it must be like to be a free reader who hasn't paid for the FP episodes that are still behind a paywall. This is not standard for LO, it hasn't kept FP episodes behind paywalls in the past during long hiatuses like this. I can even prove this with screenshots from the Wayback Machine, during the last midseason hiatus:

(whoof, that rating has dropped. I know it doesn't seem like much but for a series with millions of readers, by law of averages it takes a LOT of poor ratings to pull that number down compared to a series that only has a few readers)

Point is, this is the first time Rachel/WT have done this. Now, I will make this perfectly clear, I don't think this was a decision that was purely on Rachel. WT controls much of the backend like paywall costs, release dates, etc. so I'm not gonna go pinning this on her.

However, I do think this is a completely bungled attempt at trying to get people to pay up. LO has been dropping in views steadily but surely since the midseason break for S2. It's not pulling in the peak numbers that it used to, while it does still pull in a lot more views and money than other series on the platform, it's nowhere near the juggernaut that it once was in terms of record-breaking numbers, and I think WT knows that. So this really comes across as a stunt to get readers to FP, assuming that people will HAVE to pay if they're left waiting for 4 months.

But here's the flaw in that logic - people are still going to have to wait 4 months anyways. Reading those 3 locked episodes, especially all at once, will still leave you in the same place as you were beforehand.

And it shows in the numbers that people aren't falling for the bait.

Again, 17k likes still isn't anything to sneeze at for a FP episode, but it's still just barely above the new average that LO has gained over the past two years. I remember a time when those like counts would be 30k+. And now, despite being on break 4 months with these episodes still locked behind a wall, it's barely able to scrap by its new average of roughly 14-15k, and that average is when episodes are actually updating.

Obviously like counts = / = viewcounts but when they fluctuate, we know that the views have to be as well by extension, at least to some extent, and that's still engagement that's dropped of in and of itself. And we can also see a rough look at how the views have dropped off through the comic's landing page. Now, it's hard to compare data because there was a time when WT actually didn't give follower/view counts on the landing page (this was also when the like count capped at 99k) but we can still see a downslide in growth very visibly in the view count, sub count, and most of all, the rating, which has been steadily dropping for years now.

August 2020:

May 2021:

November 2021:

March 2022 (don't get confused by the 995 million, this is where view count comes in):

September 2022:

March 2023:

Today (October 24th, 2023):

Again, there's no way to get a true clear picture of LO's stats beyond this surface level data, but it does show that LO is just not getting the rapid growth it used to. People are moving on from it. And while its view and sub count are steadily increasing (albeit slowly for a webtoon that gets as much marketing as it does) the average rating is going down. It's clear that the majority of LO's growth happened between 2018 and 2020, which would make sense as the series was still relatively new compared to how it's become old news today, and Webtoons experienced a boom in 2020 due to the COVID-19 lockdowns - a boom that they think still applies in the year 2023, judging by their attempts to import as many series onto the platform as possible and capitalize on an audience that just isn't there anymore.

All of this leads me to wonder - what's in it for free readers after all this? Because if you recall from where we started, the cliffhanger they started on was Hades - possessed by Kronos - attempting to strangle Persephone, a cliffhanger that was resolved within seconds for FastPass readers. If they don't FastPass after that, they'll be met with numerous reveals that don't even make sense for the plot as a whole (such as Leuce making up the text messages).

Again, I don't want to claim that this was a decision on Rachel's part, but it really seems like either she didn't plan this hiatus, or her inability to write naturally without the need for addictive-style formatting as a crutch made it so that the free readers would be given the worst midseason premiere ever.

And what are we, the FastPass readers, going to return to? There are still so many plot threads that have been left unresolved, multiple villains being setup, and as far as Webtoons and Rachel have revealed during NYCC, LO is supposed to end by the spring. That's 20-30 weeks TOPS, which isn't exactly a whole lot of wiggle room for a writer like Rachel who's chronically bad at pacing and getting to the point of the plots she's established.

I know there are so many readers right now anticipating the return of this comic, some of whom genuinely believe this comic is "better than ever" and others who are critical of it but hope that the comic will come back in a better state after the hiatus. But right now there's so much evidence to support the contrary - that LO is about to come back in as bad, if not worse, condition than it was in when it left.

And through all this, for a comic that's finally ending after 5 years, I have to ask - where is the hype? Why are Webtoons and Rachel keeping the finale of this comic behind closed doors? Where's the promotional art, the hinting at what's to come, the attempts to generate any semblance of excitement for the readers who are still left after clinging onto this ride for 5 years? Why were the fans themselves barred out of their own communities during the majority of the hiatus?

And that just leads me to an even more discouraging thought. This is not meant to accuse Rachel or make assumptions. It's simply a thought that I had while thinking about what the series could possibly pull upon its return, so please, take this with MOUNTAINS of salt. It's one thing I hadn't considered with the knowledge that LO will be returning with 3 episodes still behind a paywall, a 'buffer' in and of itself for Rachel to work off of.

Rachel only technically needs one episode ready for the release. Not three as she normally would if the episodes had been unlocked like in previous hiatuses. That's not including whatever buffer episodes she would need beyond the upload schedule, but she's proven to be chronically bad at maintaining a buffer as well since day one.

We haven't seen any promotional art. No hinting. No hyping beyond what's been seen for her "Rachel Smythe Presents" series.

With all that in mind, I have one question to leave this on:

Has Rachel even started working on Episode 254 yet?

#thank you for reading this very long essay series #it's 530 AM and i have to work at 2 PM #i've been listening to drakengard music on loop for 2 hours #these are troubling times #deadass i think the comic is gonna come back even worse than before #and i WILL be here to talk about it if and when it does #lore olympus critical #lo critical #anti lore olympus

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