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#literally every post I have written for like 2 weeks now has been exclusively about my husbamd
violasmirabiles · 8 months
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@someguywriting tagged me to list five favorites out of my own fics, thanks for the tag <3
(First of all a disclaimer, all but one of these have only been posted in Finnish because my main fandoms -- The Unknown Soldier and Under the North Star -- are pretty exclusively Finnish, and idk if I will ever translate them to English. I might! Who knows! It pisses me off how much Google Translate hates Finnish (fucks up the pronouns every time which might be the single worst thing, like if you look up a sentence that has a pronoun in it the ONLY alternate translation for that sentence will be the exact same thing but with a different pronoun, occasionally translates people's names literally, badly, unnecessarily, and wrong, cannot handle dialects at all). Plus there are a few English-speaking people in the Unknown Soldier fandom, and I happen to own not one but TWO different English translations of the Unknown Soldier because I’m so incredibly normal (lie) about it!! but I seriously doubt it’ll happen any time soon. BUT ANYWAY)
1) Hauntings. This is the first fic I posted in English. It's about Dan Torrance (my dearest darling, Blorbo even), Abra Stone, and the hugely traumatic moment in Doctor Sleep's climax where Dan almost kills Abra with his bare hands thinking she's Rose the Hat. It's inspired by a seminar paper I wrote in 2022 that eventually turned into my master's thesis. I was ridiculously nervous about writing and posting this, which feels a bit silly, but I just didn't have the kind of routine to Writing Fic In English™ that I have now and idk my brain made it weirder than it needed to be. (It goes the other way around in Finnish -- I know I can write decent essays but ohhhhh my GODDDDD it always starts out so sticky and slow and awkward. But it always gets easier after the sticky part. And now that I've been writing more fics in English, that's gotten a lot more natural too.) ANYWAY I got so into writing that seminar paper that even after I turned it in (a week late, running on no sleep and two ADHD medications) I was just. Sitting there vibrating because for the first time it felt like I might actually complete my degree, and also because of Blorbo Thoughts. I wrote this a couple of days later when I was feeling a bit less insane and, you know, had slept, and I really really like how it turned out. Family of all time.
2) Runoilija. Okay here we go. This is an Under the North Star ficlet. This is also the first ever Finnish-language work on AO3 with the Nonbinary Character tag (there are four in total, all written by me). This is the most personal fic I've ever written, but even just textually I think this is one of my most beautiful works. As someone who is Not Neurotypical and Very Not Straight, there's no fucking way the character this fic is about wasn't intended to be neurodivergent and queer. Though, obviously, since the Under the North Star trilogy was published between 1959 and 1962, and the character lives in the early 1900s, that... is not how he’s described. More of a "yeah he's weird but he's harmless, that's just the way he is". Importantly, his attitude to girls™ is described as "genderless" and obviously that particular word choice was what made me go HMM WHAT IF. The theme is basically "having no vocabulary for your gender experience is something that can really be so personal" and to make it super extra personal to me I made the character have an "oh" moment while learning English and finding out about gender-specific pronouns, which are not a thing in Finnish (though gender binary certainly is. Languages are cool and these things are complicated).
3) Ateenalaiset. The whole entire verse, really, but the original fic especially. It's an Unknown Soldier fic about the universally hated but Very Competent officer and the young idealistic approval-seeking officer (and the idealistic officer's fiancée) that I first started planning soon after the 2017 film came out and the fandom as we know it started to appear. Like there are two scenes in the final product that I know I talked about in a group chat in twenty goddamn seventeen. Problem was, I wasn't sure what to do with the story, where to go with it, or how I wanted to go there. I started posting it on AO3 as a multichapter in 2019 but realized it wasn't what I wanted and deleted it after maybe two chapters. Those chapters are incorporated in the final product. When it finally clicked and I started writing it for real I was supposed to be working on... a seminar paper that became the basis of my master’s thesis theory section. Heh. That paper sucked ass. But this fic. Oh man this is some of my best writing.
4) Trio. Speaking of some of my best writing, there's this. You know those posts about combining your old and new hyperfixations to create an AU that 99% of the time makes sense to precisely no one? Well. This is one of those. The Unknown Soldier and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Three guys from an iconic scene in the Unknown Soldier enacting the ending of GBU, over and over and over and over again. I keep switching people's places so everyone gets to be everyone many, many times over. And like. One of these characters is real quiet but somehow still has great one-liners. One is described by the author (outside the actual book) as having blond hair (a golden-haired angel, one might say). One shoots an unarmed POW in the back. All are war criminals, one rather significantly less so than the others. One ran a brothel in an occupied city during the few weeks they stayed there. Two of them, independently of one another, think about how "the worst they can throw at me is death and I can handle that". One always keeps his distance from everyone around him and everyone senses that there’s something cold and cruel about him they can't quite name. We never find out their first names. One loots every corpse he comes across, and in the 2017 film, one of those corpses turns out to be alive and he, horrified, suffocates him with his bare hands. One kicks a plate of porridge in a dead man's face and laughs about it. One says he doubts even God can bring himself to harass him. One avoided the actual fighting part of the war as much as he could but once risked his life getting the whole squad some new boots. I love love love all the implications of having each of those guys play Blondie or Tuco or Angel Eyes. They all speak so differently, they all act so differently, but they all make it work. Also I like to stir it up, have the Angel Eyes character survive and make a surprise attack. Have the Tuco character realize something's up and reload in time. Have the Angel Eyes character be a faster draw and have Blondie get shot. There are versions where everyone dies. There are shovels to hit people with. Bare hands, even. There's the very rickety cross. Truly the possibilities are endless and I'm like foaming at the mouth IASIP Pepe Silvia level insane about this fic.
5) Kotkanlento. Man I was going to put something else here but turns out I’m feeling a lot of feelings about Under the North Star today. Much like with Ateenalaiset, I'm really talking about the whole verse, it's all one big tragic story. And horny. The porn is absolutely essential to the tragedy. I think it's safe to assume that when Mr. Väinö Linna wrote about that one character drunkenly and tearfully reminiscing about how he and his long-dead friend used to get drunk together and fuck the same girls he did not mean to imply that they fucked those girls together, much less that they fucked each other, but, hey. All I'm saying is it doesn't exactly crash the canon, either. And there we have the least responsible bisexual poly relationship this side of the Häme province. I thought I was done with this verse last summer but iiiiiii don't think I am, I think there's another 15-part ficlet series on its way, I just need to figure out what exactly I want to do and what goes where. I really like writing these often nonlinear, independent of each other snippets/ficlets that are all pieces of the same fucked-up puzzle.
wow hehe these are. long ANYWAY I'm gonna tag @radiant-sunlight-blueberry, @vulptilla, @sisiljan and @caixxa. If you don't feel like doing it you can just ignore this, it's fine <3
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Not me thinking about somno thigh fucking. 👀 My boyfriend fell asleep hours ago, soft and peaceful and adorabe, but I’m still wide awake, so I give their shoulder a gentle kiss and get up to get what I need.
I put on my strap in the other room so I don’t wake them up, grab a little lube just so it moves smoothly, and climb back into bed very carefully. I lie with them for a minute with my heart beating fast, already wet and hard just from thinking about it. When my self control can’t handle waiting anymore because they’re right there, so perfect and begging to be fucked till they wake up dripping and about to cum, I roll over to spoon them. I cuddled up to them and give their shoulder another little kiss and a soothing stroke while I slot my dick gently between their gorgeous thighs.
I don’t start fucking them right away. I barely move my hips at all, just tiny little shifts and pulses. My body is aching to pound into them but I don’t want to wake them up just yet, I want to take advantage of their soft, pliant sleeping form first. I want to use them, warm and comfortable while I do filthy things to them, so I can tease them about it when they wake up.
I start thrusting little by little. Little rolling thrusts that glide so easily between their thighs it makes my mouth water. The motion rocks the strap against my real dick and makes me groan into their skin. I give them the ghost of a bite - barely setting my teeth on their skin before I turn it into a kiss.
I change the angle of my thrusts very carefully to line up with their pussy. With each one, I rub against their clit through their underwear. My hips are starting to meet their butt with each thrust now, the head of my strap peeking out from between their thighs as I pump in and out, in and out... Meanwhile, I can’t help touching them, sliding my hands up under their shirts, stroking my fingers around their nipples, holding them against me, gripping their hips and sides and shoulders as softly as I can.
They’re making tiny noises now, their body heating up in my arms, squirming. I’ve corrupted that peaceful sleep with some kind of sexual dream, I hope, imagining what it is while I keep using them. They feel so, so good.
I want to be able to see that pretty mouth of theirs wrapped around my dick, I want to be able to pull their underwear down to get my own mouth on them and revel in their taste for hours until I say I’m done, I want to fuck my dick against their clit to hear their wonderful, cute, pathetic little sleepy noises when they wake up already overwhelmed by how good I’m making their needy body feel.
All these thoughts just make me rut against them harder, wanting to wake them up now to get their underwear off, feel them cling to me and hear them whimper and moan uninhibited and sleepy and desperate.
When they finally do wake up, it’s in my arms while I pump away feverishly between their thighs, and the night quiet is broken by the wet noises of both the dildo against my soaked dick and the sticky mess between their thighs. I hear my name in their drowsy, confused and pleased voice and I smile through my need and cover their neck and back and shoulders with kisses and little love bites, till they press their hand against my neck in a request for me to bite them harder. I want to mark them up so everyone knows they’re mine and I’m theirs, and I want to give them everything they beg for in that hot, adorable husky voice of theirs - right after I’ve fucked their thighs and clit hard enough to make them moan my name. 💙💙💙
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theotherace · 3 years
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Fic Recs: Taang
I’ve made two or three rec lists over the past few months, but I thought I’d make a proper, comprehensive one that’s easy to add to in the future. Not all of these are exclusively Taang, but they all feature the ship to some degree. I will only recommend one or two stories per author, but some profiles are definitely worth checking out further. So! Here goes.
Multi-Chapter, Complete
Whisper Into the Sky by damagectrl – Toph has two choices: Go home and get married or have the family fortune and her inheritance given to a stranger. Her problem: She wants to keep her ties to her family, but is quite content traveling with Aang. Her solution: Fight her way through suitors for her freedom. Literally. | General 
The Slow Path by Tazmainian Devil – Eight years after the fall of Ozai, Aang returns to the friends he left behind. | T
A Matter of Honor by Adridere – Almost 4 years after the war. Aang is engaged to Katara and is up to Zuko to teach him the facts of life. Yep, the bees and the birds. Crazy kings, bananas and the ultimate contest for the hand of a reluctant maiden. | M
Roommates by breeeliss – An unlikely tale of two unlikely people being forced to live together under unlikely circumstances.| Modern AU | T
Fall of the White Lotus by Boo-82 – Three years after the war Zuko is living a life of duty while Katara reluctantly travels the world with Aang. So, when General Iroh orders them to find Zuko’s mother and save his Order they seize the opportunity with both hands. It’s the beginning of an adventurous journey of discovery, but as time runs out a rising threat puts their bond to the test. | T
Half Asleep by The Crushinator – Five years after the Hundred-Year War, Fire Lord Zuko is hit with an assassin’s dart, and falls into a coma from which he cannot wake. A week passes, and his prognosis is grim. But Katara could swear she hears him in her dreams… | T
Yaaburnee by aviatordame – Avatars aren't meant to belong – that's as much as Aang can fathom. | M
Getting Lucky by roca-dos – Crazy things happen in college every day. | Modern AU | T 
All Fall Down by DJNS  – Aang copes with a tragic loss and finds renewed hope in an unexpected place. | M | Warning for Major Character Death
The Princess & the Badger-Cat by panaili – In a land never torn apart by the Hundred Year War, the sixteen-year-old Avatar Aang is trying his best to keep the balance between the four nations, including the increasingly antagonistic Fire Nation, which, despite his friendship with the Crown Prince Zuko, refuses to acknowledge him. Elsewhere, Sokka and Katara have been separated on their quest to find their missing father, and Sokka, pursued by the same bandits who kidnapped his sister, finds himself on the balcony of some rich girl’s house in Gaoling. Oh, and a sorcerer has turned him into a badger-cat. It’s just one of those days. | Teen and Up
Reborn by Jakia – Life. Death. Rebirth. This is the cycle that all spirits must abide to, even the Avatar. Aang and Toph face death and the reincarnation cycle. | T
New Girl by tiffaniesblews – After coming home early from a business trip, all Katara wanted to do was surprise her boyfriend, Jet. Imagine her surprise when she got home and Jet was in bed with another woman. Not wanting to live with her ex, and unable to live with her best friend, Suki, Katara takes her brother Sokka's offer to move into his loft with his two roommates. Aang is perky and sweet, the owner of a st. Bernard and a cat, who's often confused about his direction in life. Zuko, on the other hand, is a closed-off bartender, who takes some time opening up to others.The four could not be more different, and yet? They work out perfectly. Even if Katara's feelings for Zuko get a bit more complicated as time goes on. | Modern AU | Mature 
The Ties That Bind series by LdyKirin – An exploration of the ties that bind for good and ill. Toph and Zuko are both shaped by the family they were born to and the family they choose. Lots of found family feels. | T
What Happens In Kyoshi by BlackVelvetBand – Prince Zuko, and the GAang take a vacation on Kyoshi Island. Flirting, fighting, and embarrasment ensue as Sokka takes it upon himself to defend Katara's virtue...in a dress? A short,chaptered fic featuring Zutara, Sokki, and Taang. | T
Under the Night Sky by mycomfortblanket – Aang hears the chattering of teeth during a cold night. Was an AU that I found on tumblr that I made fit into this story. Orginal prompt: "We have to go camping together and share a sleeping bag even though we are complete strangers | General
On The Precipice by JoyDragon – They’re just best friends. Or maybe they’re teetering on the edge of being something more. | General
Oneshots, Complete
Air and Stone by Wolvenfire86 – A few Taang stories munched together. My first submissions. I hope everyone likes them. Please review, it makes me feel special. | K+
Taang Week 2020 series by teabagginses | Teen and Up & Mature
Our Little Secret by IrisPlumeria – Toph and Aang, sat next to one another dressed in their finest under paper lanterns and surrounded by copious amounts of food and friends, cringed at the disgusting noises coming out of Sokka’s nostrils as he blew his nose into Suki’s handkerchief. “I can’t believe two of my best friends are finally married!” Sokka sobbed, earning a supportive pat on the back from Suki, who didn’t flinch at the snot coming out of his nose. “I’m so happy for you guys!” Toph and Aang's family are happy for their nuptials, but will they be able to survive their wedding party without letting slip a big secret?Written for Taang Week 2020 - Tradition. | General 
All Roads Lead To Ba Sing Se by irisbleufic – "I was thinking," [Mai] said, tucking her last remaining dagger into her belt as she strode to meet him, "that it's about time I let Fire Lord Zuko know that I quit." When Kuei smiled at her, she could see the sunshine at which she once cringed."Notice that's six years overdue is better than none at all." "Indeed," said the Earth Queen, and grinned at him. | Teen And Up
Lady Fu’s Fortune Telling by Lady Cleo – Katara and Toph visit the local fortuneteller to get their fortunes told. Added a part two with Zuko and Aang. | T
The Perfect Companion by Morna – Aang seeks comfort outside of the arms of his wife, Katara. Taang, slightly lemony. | T
Box by JoeMerl – Written for Taang Week, one-shot. Toph ticks off Bumi, but Aang is willing to fight his old friend tooth and nail to get her out of trouble. Humor, light romance. | K+
2 am by shmulia – Whoever set off the fire alarm at 2 in the morning is on Katara's shit list. Even if he is hot and shirtless. | Modern AU | K
And its sequel, 11:45 – House parties aren't Katara's thing. Sokka's drunk, Suki's on a mission to set her up, and Toph is... well, Toph. But for every cloud there's a silver lining, and for Katara it comes in the form of a second chance with her neighbour... | Modern AU | T 
Treat by PsychEmpress – She felt the corners of her own lips quirk as he sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. “Consider this my treat,” he said and Toph allowed a smile to break out. OR In which Toph is a stressed architecture student who gets a free cup of coffee from the handsome waiter after she helps his friend. Taang. Mentions of Sukka. | Modern AU | T
Sawaru by metacognitive – This love is simple. Non-Korra compliant. | K+
Newlyweds (and basically everything else) by PandaCookie – Everyone’s a bit hopeless right after they’ve been married. | K+
Rhythms by xcgirl08– For now, though, her child’s heartbeat was hers to contemplate. | K 
Tenderness by Adridere – He wanted to keep her, even though he was not supposed to. He promised her freedom, and she promised him sanity in his own household. She kept her part of the bargain, but he found a way not to keep his. | M
Holy Matrimony by Loopy – After their marriage, Zuko and Katara deal with conflicting religious beliefs, and look to the friends for advice. Between the Zutara and the religious satire, every single person who reads this should feel offended. | General
Blind Maiden’s Grace by Adara_Rose – You can learn a lot of things from a flower… | Not Rated (I’d say General) 
Etched in the Earth by Dance_Elle_Dance – She knows the feel of Aang’s footprints better than her own, and that reality scares her. | Teen and Up
No One Asks About The Scars by voleuse – Write about how you learned to curse in order not to be cursed. | General
When in Rome by dtmars – She wasn’t stupid. She knew what she was doing and what she was getting herself into. They both did. | Modern AU. | Explicit
Like Real People Do by DerAndere – The moon is full and bright when he falls out of bed, awake, asleep, inside a dream, and starts walking, driven by the feeling he does not understand, tugging on him relentlessly, and he is Aang, and he is not, and the world is cold. | General | Full Disclosure: This is my story.
Meet Me Under The Table by avatarfan16 – A story of how Toph and Aang find love, in the most unusual of places. TAANG | K+
Aftermath by Zaram'delar – In any celebration, there's always one or two people with a habit of disappearing. Taang drabbleish series. | T
I Choose Dare by for_darkness_shows_the_stars – An ode to how Aang, under the power of a mighty temptress, was forced to grow a beard. Oh, and the birth of his first child, too, he supposes. | General Audiences
Multi-Chapter, In Progress
Heartbeat by AngelicBee – Avatar Aang's soulmate probably died 100 years before, but he can't help but feel she's closer than he thinks. | Teen and Up
a mighty ocean (or a gentle kiss) by poweradequeen – no, the title doesn’t make sense but i don’t care. i couldn’t think of one so now you’re stuck with a cheesy line from two by sleeping at last.it’s a taang fine arts university au. because i said so. | Teen and Up
Neither is Love a Cage by cali-chan – Love is the freedom of flying accompanied. It is letting be without possessing. PG-13 (possibly M later on), drama/romance/angst, Zuko/Katara + Aang/Toph, post-finale but diverges before LoK canon.
Operation: Zutara (REVAMPED) by dtmars – Everyone could see that those two were in love with each other. Everyone except for them. So Toph takes the initiative and fills in for Cupid to give them a little push, while Aang just tags along for the ride. | Teen and Up
Taang One Shots by stitch1830 – A collection of short stories about Toph and Aang that I've had saved in my notes for a few months. Stories are in the ATLA/LOK universe (not canon compliant), and typically revolve around their relationship and family. | Teen and Up
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aion-rsa · 3 years
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Did The Dark Knight Really Influence the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
https://ift.tt/2QyP40k
In 2008, there were two seismic events in the superhero movie genre so close together that you’d be forgiven for thinking they signaled the same thing. Over the span of a few months, Marvel Studios launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) via Iron Man, and director Christopher Nolan changed the perception of how seriously to take these movies with The Dark Knight. Both are credited as watershed moments for how audiences and (more importantly) the industry approached such stories; and The Dark Knight is specifically singled out as the gold standard by which all other masked crimefighter films are measured.
However, was Nolan’s haunting vision—one in which a lone avenger is the last, best hope for a major American city on the verge of collapse—really that influential on its genre? The Dark Knight certainly had a monumental impact on the culture, then and now. You saw it when Heath Ledger’s searing interpretation of the Joker made him only the second actor to win a posthumous Oscar, as well as when the film’s exclusion from the Best Picture race changed the way the Academy Awards handled its top prize. And just last year, The Dark Knight became only the second superhero movie inducted into the National Film Registry.
Yet when a friend watching last week’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier premiere told me Marvel was returning to the “realistic” approach of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and by extension The Dark Knight, I couldn’t help but disagree. The new Disney+ series may have a slightly more grounded aesthetic than the last time we saw these characters (back when they were fighting space aliens over magic stones in Avengers: Endgame), but the medium-blending existence of the series belies the idea that Marvel took anything significant from the insular and self-contained Dark Knight Trilogy.
The Dark Knight vs. Iron Man
It’s interesting to look back at just those 2008 films since at face value they bore minor similarities. They both were focused on fantastically wealthy billionaires using their fortunes to fight wrongdoing on a potentially global scale; each movie was directed by filmmakers with indie cred thanks to Nolan helming Memento (2000) and Jon Favreau writing and starring in Swingers (1996); and each starred unexpected casting choices with Ledger as the Joker and Robert Downey Jr. jumpstarting a career comeback as Tony Stark.
But their goals and approaches were worlds apart. The obvious thing to note, besides The Dark Knight being a sequel to Batman Begins (2005) and Iron Man being an origin movie, is that Iron Man had an slyly hilarious sensibility, and The Dark Knight fancied itself an allegory about post-9/11 America. The former’s success was engineered in large part by Downey’s gift for comedic improvisation and freestyle. Indeed, co-star Jeff Bridges said in 2009 that he, Downey, and Favreau were essentially improvising their scenes from scratch every day during primitive rehearsals. “They had no script, man,” Bridges lightly complained with his Dude diction.
By contrast, The Dark Knight appears at a glance to be an exercise in self-seriousness and lofty ambition. Every scene, written by Nolan and his brother Jonathan Nolan, appears like a chess move, and each character a pawn or knight who’s been positioned to put contemporary audiences in a state of pure anxiety with War on Terror imagery and dialogue. Of course this clocklike presentation is itself another Nolan illusion, as smaller players like Michael Jai White, who portrayed gangster Gambol in the movie, have been quite candid about. As with almost every film, there is still a level of fluidity and workshopping on Nolan’s set.
Ultimately, the bigger difference between the Nolan and eventual Marvel approach is what each is hoping to accomplish with the film they’re currently making. More than just offering a “realistic” vision of Batman, The Dark Knight attempted to tell a sweeping crime drama epic that would stand alone, separate from its status as a Batman Begins sequel. Rather than being “the next chapter,” The Dark Knight was meant to be a cinematic distillation of Batman and Joker’s primal appeals writ large. With this approach, the film also broke away from the superhero movie template Batman Begins followed three years earlier, and which nearly all superhero films still walk through the paces of.
In essence, The Dark Knight showed that superhero movies could be dark and mature, yes, but they can also be subversive, unexpected, and genuinely surprising. Nolan’s previous superhero movie, as good as it is, followed the beats set down by Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie nearly 30 years earlier. They’re the same beats trod by Iron Man and pretty much every other superhero origin movie, including a large bulk of Marvel Studios’ output. The Dark Knight, by contrast, reached for a cinematic vernacular separate from its specific genre. The movie’s not subtle about it either. The opening scene of Nolan’s epic wears its homages to Michael Mann’s Heat on its sleeves, and the story’s structure has more to do with Jaws than Jor-El.
The approach shook audiences in 2008 after they’d come to expect a certain type of movie from masked do-gooders. In The Dark Knight, superhero conventions could be subverted or obliterated when love interest Rachel Dawes is brutally killed off mid-sentence, or stalwart Batman is forced to claim a pyrrhic victory over the villain by entering into a criminal conspiracy and cover-up with the cops. The thrill of novelty was as breathtaking as the movie’s allegorical elements about a society on edge.
And even with The Dark Knight’s open-ended finale, it stood as a singular cinematic experience, complete with then-groundbreaking emphasis on IMAX photography. Nolan was so adamant about making this as self-contained an experience as possible that he jettisoned his co-story creator David Goyer’s idea of setting up Harvey Dent’s fall from grace for a third movie. Dent’s fate, as that of everyone else’s, would be tied strictly to the events of the movie you’re now watching.
“We Have a Hulk”
In Iron Man, and then more forcefully in Iron Man 2 (2010) and the rest of its “Phase One” era, Marvel Studios demonstrated a wholly different set of priorities. Similar to how Batman Begins paved the way for Nolan to do what he really wanted with that material, Iron Man 2 came to encapsulate Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige’s grander designs for the type of movies he was making. Where The Dark Knight was singular, unconventional, and two steps closer to our world than its comic book origins, Iron Man 2 was episodic, entirely crafted around audience expectations for a sequel, and even more like a comic book world than our own.
In other words, the first Iron Man gently submerged audiences into the fantasy by beginning with contemporary images of Tony Stark in a Middle Eastern desert; Iron Man 2 then made sweeping strides in defining what that MCU fantasy is as quickly as possible: Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) is introduced solely to establish the superspy who will be vital to The Avengers two years down the road, and the central narrative about Tony Stark fighting an old rival is put on pause to reintroduce the character Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) as a supporting, and superfluous, side character. The post-credit scene even arbitrarily introduces literal magic with a glowing hammer that has absolutely nothing to do with the story you just watched. Still, it’s a hell of a teaser for Thor which was due in theaters a year later.
With the release of Iron Man 2, Marvel Studios’ emphasis became diametrically opposed to the driving concept behind The Dark Knight Trilogy. Rather than each film being an insulated, standalone cinematic experience like the Hollywood epics of old, Marvel’s movies would be interconnected episodes in an ongoing narrative saga that spanned multiple franchises and countless sequels. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Unlike Nolan after The Dark Knight, Feige and his stable of writers always know where the next movie (or five) is going, and have a better idea of what the overall vision is than any single director working within this system. Ironically, this returns power to the studio and producer as the seeming authorial voice of each movie. Like in the Golden Age of Hollywood, directors are more often hired hands than influential auteurs.
However, this means the aspects Nolan really valued on The Dark Knight beyond a gritty “realism”—elements like spontaneity, subversion, and a distancing from superhero tropes—became antithetical to the type of movies produced by the MCU. For at least the first decade of its existence, the Marvel Cinematic Universe flourished by creating a formula and house style that is as predictable for audiences as the contents in a Big Mac.
When you go to a Marvel movie, you more or less you’ll get: an ironic, self-deprecating tone, a story that often revolves around a CG MacGuffin that must be taken from the villain, and a narrative in which disparate heroic characters come together after some amusing, disagreeable banter. In fact, more than Iron Man, it was Joss Whedon’s The Avengers (2012) which refined the Marvel formula into what it is today.
There are of course exceptions to this rule. Black Panther became the first Marvel movie since Iron Man to arguably tackle themes significant to the real world, in this case specifically the legacy of African diaspora. It also became the first superhero film nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture as a result; James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies might follow the narrative formula of most MCU movies, but they’re embedded with a cheeky and idiosyncratic personality that is distinctly Gunn’s; and in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Captain America: Civil War (2016), directors Joe and Anthony Russo, as well as screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, attempted to inject a little bit of that “realistic” aesthetic from The Dark Knight. But only to a point.
Particularly in the 2014 effort, there was a push by the Russos to rely on in-camera special effects and cultivate what they often described in the press as a “1970s spy thriller” style. Ostensibly, the hope may have been to make The Winter Soldier as much a spy thriller as The Dark Knight was a crime epic. In this vein, there were even attempts to graft onto the story very timely concerns about the overreach of a government surveillance state, which had only grown in the decade since the U.S. PATRIOT Act was passed, despite a change in White House administrations. However, all of these ambitions had an invisible ceiling hovering above them.
Despite having overtones about the danger of reactionary if well-intentioned government leaders, like the kind personified by Robert Redford’s SHIELD director in the movie, Captain America: The Winter Soldier couldn’t become too focused on the espionage elements or too far removed from the Marvel house style. The story still needed to interconnect with other Marvel films, hence Redford’s character turning out to be a secret HYDRA double agent, and it still needed to give audiences what they expected from a Marvel movie. Thus how this “1970s spy thriller” ends in a giant CGI battle with citywide destruction as Captain America inserts MacGuffins into machines that will blow up HYDRA’s latest weapon for world domination.
It’s easy to wonder if the movie was developed a little longer, and didn’t have to play by a certain set of rules and expectations, that instead of backpedaling into comic book motivations, Redford’s character would’ve been a well-intentioned patriot amassing power “to keep us safe,” and in the process destabilized the institutions he claimed to revere.
Read more
Movies
What Did Batman Do Between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises?
By David Crow
TV
WandaVision: The Unanswered Questions From the Marvel Series
By Gavin Jasper
A Universe Without End
The Marvel method breeds a heavy need for familiarity and comfortable predictability, as opposed to disorientation and discomfort. Yet both methods are valid. While Nolan achieved near universal praise for The Dark Knight, his attempt to replicate it with the even more ambitious The Dark Knight Rises—an unabashed David Lean-inspired epic that took more from A Tale of Two Cities and Doctor Zhivago than DC Comics—left fans divided. It also was a narrative dead end for the corporate/fanbase need of an ongoing franchise. Nolan instead reached a final, artistic, and emphatic period for his cinematic interpretation of Batman mythology. By comparison, Marvel Studios has created a new cinematic vernacular that only ever uses dashes, semicolons, and commas. There is always more to tell.
Nolan reflected on these changing circumstances for superhero movies in 2017 when he said, “That’s a privilege and a luxury that filmmakers aren’t afforded anymore. I think it was the last time that anyone was able to say to a studio, ‘I might do another one, but it will be four years.’ There’s too much pressure on release schedules to let people do that now, but creatively it’s a huge advantage.”
This lines up with what Jeff Bridges said about the evolution of the Marvel method way back in ’09 after the first Iron Man: “You would think with a $200 million movie you’d have the shit together, but it was just the opposite. And the reason for that is because they get ahead of themselves. They have a release date before the script [and they think], ‘Oh, we’ll have the script before that time,’ and they don’t have their shit together.”
Bridges’ unhappiness with the new process notwithstanding, Marvel was rewriting the playbook about how these types of movies were made. Nolan’s approach of one at a time and years-long development processes created three distinctly different and relatively standalone Batman movies. But Marvel has shifted the idea of not just what a franchise can be, but also what cinematic storytelling means.
Instead of three movies, their rules and structures have generated dozens of well-received and adored entertainments, that when combined can produce experiences as unique as Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019): two movies that were more like a two-part season finale on TV than individual stories. And the latter became the highest grossing film of all time.
The success of this approach is further underlined when one considers competitors that tried to emulate both Marvel and Nolan’s approaches, relying on a lone auteur to build a shared cinematic universe—while also arguably taking the wrong lessons from the “dark” in The Dark Knight title. In the case of the DC Extended Universe, that approach collapsed on itself after three movies, leaving the interconnected “shared” part of its universe in tatters, and fans and studio hands alike divided on how to proceed with the franchise.The Marvel Cinematic Universe took a narrower road than that of The Dark Knight. But it turned out to be a lot smoother and much, much longer.
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2019 writing recap!
I’ve seen a couple of people do this, and it seems like a fun way to go back through what I’ve done this past year in terms of writing + give some recognition to the other talented people in this fandom.  
Answers under the cut because it’s long! (Everything is linked because SCREW YOU TUMBLR)
favorite fic you wrote this year: I have two favorites. 
1. Neon Lights, which started out as a prompt request based on a song, and has spawned 100,000 words via the stories, the HCs and the random character asks… and has given me a much better understanding of Ryan Brenner as a character. 
2. You’re all going to be super surprised at this…. But it’s Here Comes the Sun, because it gave me a chance to write Logan in a VERY different way than I did with Tonight… and seeing him wholly happy is so nice.
least favorite fic you wrote this year: The First of Many, which was my one foray into writing for Frank/Karen… and I killed Billy in it, so that was a disaster. 
favorite line/scene you wrote this year: A few of the ones that stick out to me: 
 Neon Lights, chapter 4:   “Hey, I’m listening to what you’re sayin’, but if it’s alright, I’m gonna kiss you now.” The words were quiet, his voice a little hoarse. Yes, God, yes. You reached up with the arm that he wasn’t holding on to and touched his hair while you nodded, and then his lips met yours. You sighed into the kiss, and unless you were imagining things, he did too. It was brief, but when he pulled away he was smiling. “I’ve wanted to do that since yesterday.”
Take a Sip, part 2: “Caspian?” You met his eyes and he saw that you were trying to hold it together. “Will you help me get this dress off, please?” He moved quickly, pulling you to your feet and unlacing the front of your dress, fingers shaking as he untied the strings. His hands moving to your shoulders, he squeezed them before turning you gently around, undoing the buttons on the back of your dress - so much like he had the first night he’d ever touched you, the dress falling to your waist and then to the floor, revealing a shift beneath it. “Thank you, my King.” 
He heard the tears in your voice and blinked back his own as he lowered his head, pressing his lips to the bare skin of one shoulder and then the other, fingers gathering your hair to lift it and expose more of you to him. But you didn’t let him linger as you turned, giving him a small smile as you reached forward, pushing the jacket off of his shoulders and waiting until he’d shrugged it off before moving to help him remove his vest. Neither of you spoke, but he knew what you were thinking - that it could be the last time you touched each other, the last time…
Remember What You Told Me, part 2: When Logan and Reader confront William in the bar... it was so damn satisfying. 
He’s Not Here (Interlude): History: This was such a fun scenario to write because... why would Billy ever think that someone would need him to take care of them when they’re sick? I loved exploring this side of him, and helping him learn that it was OK to open up. 
total number of words you wrote this year: Based on adding up everything on my Masterlist pages + including the word count of the HNH file… 620,000 words… and that doesn’t include anything that I’ve got a few paragraphs of in WiP files, the HCs or the character asks that I’ve done. 
That’s …. 1557 pages in a typical novel…. So basically, because I love writing, I wrote FIFTEEN HUNDRED PAGES WORTH OF WORDS. Yikes. 
most popular fic this year: People have really seemed to connect with He’s Not Here, and that makes sense, because it’s my longest running series and Billy’s... been given a chance to be different, which is always nice to write and read about. 
Exit Row was also super popular. 
But the most popular single post of 2019 for me? Billy Russo’s NSFW alphabet. 
least popular fic this year: Tonight, which disappoints me, because I love it. I get that it’s a little dark, but... it was necessary, because Logan’s not perfect. 
And Neon Lights/Just a Place… which is super disappointing, because it’s Ryan and everyone should love him. 
longest completed fic you wrote this year: Neon Lights ended up being 60,000 words. 
shortest completed fic you wrote this year: All of the drabbles that I wrote in March are super short (I think they averaged about 700 words) … but I think that “On the Spot” is the shortest thing I’ve ever written at 500 words EXACTLY. 
longest wip of the year: He’s Not Here… which is currently (after 20 chapters) at 82,000+ words - for the main story. 
shortest wip of the year: Hmm… I’m thinking that this is PROBABLY the second part of Ink, which has been sitting in my WiP folder since September, and is only about 200 words long right now. 
favorite character to write about this year: This is a very unfair question, because I love all of my characters and stories, but...I honestly, (and this will come as no surprise) loved writing Logan the most in all forms. There’s so much that can be done with his character, and exploring it has been a LOT of fun for me. 
favorite writing song/artist/album of this year: I wrote  LOT while listening to the “Feeding the Wolves” album by 10 Years (it’s GREAT for Billy). I also think that I wrote almost all of Neon Lights while listening almost exclusively to acoustic guitar covers of songs that had NOTHING to do with the story.  
a fic you didn’t expect to write: I never thought I’d write Caspian, and here we are, 6 chapters later + a follow up with His Favorite Place.
fic(s) you completed this year:  I don’t even know, it’s got to be close to 40, maybe more with all of the prompt requests and all that. It doesn’t seem like that many, but I just scrolled through my masterlist, so I guess it must be. 
fics you’ll continue next year: Just a Place. He’s Not Here. Here Comes the Suniverse. Ben/Reader Exit Row universe… so many.  
current number of wips: Too many. At least 15. It’s insane. 
any new fics to start next year: There’s one for sure that I want  to write ASAP because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it for like a solid week and a half. 
most memorable comment/review: I love each and every single one of you that takes the time to comment - or even to message me and keysmash - but I think that the handwritten comments from @its-my-little-dumpster-fire and @the-blind-assassin-12 are some of my favorites (and I’m sure those of you that have also received them will agree) .... it’s just overwhelming to me. And so is hearing that I overwhelmed you, or made you smile, or that you felt like you were IN the story. I am shit at replying to every single comment, but I try my best, and I can’t thank you enough for all of your kind words and encouragement. 
events you participated in this year: I participated in zero events aside from the ones that I set up for myself when I asked people for requests. 
fics you wanted to write but didn’t: There’s  Logan story that I’ve been sitting on since last December (I remember wrapping presents and contemplating it) … there’s a Logan one shot that I want to write and don’t want to write at the same time. I have a Caspian story that is ITCHING to be written, and might be one of the first things I write in 2020. 
favorite fic you read this year: 
Death of a Bachelor by @delos-mio: Logan Delos X Reader ... and it’s a RIDE.I vividly remember pulling my phone out in between bands at a concert to read the most recent chapter and I can’t wait for her to finish it 
With Courage by @halfwit-halfblood : Caspian x OC, and it features one of the strongest and most relatable OCs that I have ever read in my life. I am absolutely sucked in every new chapter. 
By Design by @luminex3: Billy Russo x Reader... and it’s literally everything that I could ever ask for in a non-canon Billy, because he’s still Billy, but he’s much less of an idiot than the REAL Billy. And her details? The dedication to her characters? It was BEAUTIFUL. 
... there were so many others, if you want more suggestions, please feel free to ask, because I have so many favorites. 
a fic you read this year you would recommend everyone read:
‘Deed I Do by @its-my-little-dumpster-fire: John Whittaker x Reader .... and it’s PERFECT. And it’s spawned so many fun companion pieces. (PARTICULARLY ‘My Private Affair’... which literally KILLED ME. 
Oblivion by @the-blind-assassin-12: Logan Delos x Reader... and it’s a lot to handle, but it shows just how strong Logan could truly be if he was given the chance/motivation
A Familiar Face by @illshowyourhurricanes/ @suchatinyinfinity: Ryan Brenner x Reader... and it shows why the simple moments are the most important. Her Ryan is so thoughtful, and I just love him. 
 number of favorites/bookmarks you made this year: I liked a LOT of stories on Tumblr. A ton, in fact. A literal fuckton. I read a lot this year. 
favorite fanfic author of the year: It’s really unfair to make me choose a favorite, so I’ll list some that I truly enjoy in no particular order: 
@halfwit-halfblood
@delos-mio
@the-blind-assassin-12
@its-my-little-dumpster-fire
@madamrogersstorytelling
@logans-chestnuts
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hcrofraid · 5 years
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Rules:
HALLO THERE! Here’s my rules! They’re a bit long, but hopefully you can push through ‘em and we can get a chance at interaction!
1. Themes might vary with this blog. Although I’m typically SFW, I might touch upon dark topics here and there.
Things will be tagged! I’ll try my best, anyways. If you want something in particular tagged, please let me know. The format I use for tagging is, for example, tw: swearing.
I don’t have any triggers but I do ask you tag all of your NSFW content.
That said, I won’t do anything NSFW - gore is okay, though.
I’m of age.
2. I‘m a little selective, but otherwise - I’m open to canon, au, crossover, and original characters! As long as their muns rp literately/write para.
If it’s a crossover, I have to know the fandom and be at least a little bit confident with it. This is so I’m able to work with you, our thread and have muse for it.
Absolutely no godmodding. It ain’t fun, fam. If you’re not sure what this term means, do look it up. This includes powerplaying, metagaming, and other things of that nature. This applies especially in fights if they happen (I’m chance-based and hope that you are too). 
I can be picky with OCs. But rest assured, if you’ve followed me/interacted with my promo, I’ll always give your pages a read.
Please don’t be offended if I don’t want to interact with you (and please don’t try to guilt me into doing so!). 
As for following back, I usually take a week tops to do so - but if you’ve hit up my promo, I go through that eventually.
As I’ve said, I’m selective and as a result mutuals do take priority - but I don’t have to be following you for you to interact with me. It just means I’m more likely to interact with you if you’re a mutual.
3. Please don’t rush me for starters or responses.
PLEASE understand that I have blogs galore and my muse tends to fluctuate; this can mean I’m everywhere at once and can end up neglecting a blog or two. It’s nothing personal; you know how muses are! Additionally, life happens to be a thing.
Please note the mun deals with anxiety and depression - this might affect how frequently she roleplays.
Chances are, I’ve probably has seen that bit of interactivity and just haven’t gotten around to responding yet.
My roleplaying style being para/multi-para, I may take a while to respond. I hoard drafts like a dragon - it’s really just the motivation to write and ship those out.
Just a reminder I hoard all your asks too, even weeks later. If I don’t respond to it, I’m either keeping it for a rainy day, or just can’t find the muse/interest for it currently. If it’s been a month or two though, just assume it wasn’t working for me unless I’ve informed you otherwise.
4. Shippings? Heck yeah I’m down for the fluffy content, as long as they’re of similar age to my boio.
If I don’t happen to be interested, don’t force anything on my character.
I do not ship incestuous ships. Do NOT follow/interact if you do.
Sontails will not be happening on this blog either, sorry.
The ship has to have chemistry; I’m generally shipping trash, but if they don’t click, they don’t click, sorry.
This is a multi-ship blog, meaning there will be more than one ship without them conflicting with eachother.
If you want to ship and I already have a ship of your choosing going with a duplicate, please don’t hesitate to hmu! My ships aren’t exclusive and each character/relationship portrayal is unique to me!
Relationships are eternal until you deem otherwise.
5. Whilst I am of age, I’m not aiming for sexual content on this blog (and will not be dealing with fetishes). That stuff makes me uncomfortable, and I typically don’t recommend pulling it with my character if you’re interacting with me. Nonetheless, should it arise, I will tag it appropriately. Also, Tails is a child. So no.
6. About reblogs…
I am not a meme source, and reblogs clog up my activity. Please reblog any memes you find on this blog from their SOURCE. The exception to this rule is if there is no source; go ahead.
I don’t feel comfortable with Personals reblogging my IC or OOC posts, so please don’t do that. If I put something in the fandom tags for whatever reason (bar promos), you’re free to, though.
Please don’t reblog my art unless I’ve drawn it specifically for you or said you can. I either have that as do not reblog for a reason, or I am planning to post it on my art blog at some point.
A few times is fine, as it happens, but repeatedly breaking these rules will result in me soft blocking you.
I try to participate in reblog karma as much as I can, but always reblog from the source/a meme source.
If a post or ask is for you, you’re free to reblog it to save it though - but only if you’re an rp blog!
7. I’m a para / multi-para blog, novella if I’m adventurous and have time. Whilst I may roleplay crack threads with shorter responses, this does not apply to all threads I write. This means:
I write my replies as detailed as I can muster.
Short responses (such as one-liners) in more serious threads where I’ve written a decent deal can instantly kill my muse for that thread.
Whilst I’d prefer for partners to at least somewhat match my length, it’s entirely up to you - just try your best and make sure you give me enough to work with. ♡
If my muse happens to go nuts out of nowhere - like, overboard - don’t stress too much about matching them.
If para roleplays aren’t your alley, I’m unlikely to roleplay with you. It’s nothing personal; it’s just finding muse for one-liner threads is incredibly difficult unless it’s dash shenanigans. Anything else outside that is fine, though - we can still have fun outside of proper threads.
If you need further context on the AU, the link to it’s tag is here! Otherwise just ask me!
Tails’ AU is one I’m very proud of and very attached to, so please don’t force your headcanons about him on me. If you’re unsure how certain events play out in the context of his universe, don’t hesitate to ask me about them!
That said, anything that might take place on this blog obviously isn’t canon to the AU itself; I just like writing for this boio and it helps me develop his character. It’s all hypothetical.
Additionally! Don’t worry too much if the headcanoned relationships between Tails and other muses don’t match yours. Those are mostly just guidelines for how Tails would USUALLY interact with your muse. I’m open to altering these relationships to better fit our threads! Don’t ever feel restricted to what I put down; it’s mostly just for context purposes because, well, Tails is absent. I’m an IM away for plotting.
8. Threads typically happen naturally with me, but if you’re looking for interaction opportunities:
I’ll have a permanent starter call somewhere for you to hit up; honestly though, if you’re a mutual? Pls feel free to hit it up.
Starter memes are the BEST way to interact me because they just yeet a prompt at my face and really help me write starters. If you see me reblog one, send one!
If there’s a verse you’re interested in, please specify.
If you want to turn an ask into a thread, go ahead!
I may not roleplay with every starter I am given - I’ll do a ‘background check’ if you’re a new blog on the block. If I don’t feel your writing style/length works with mine, I might not respond. Apologies. ;__;
Please don’t write para / novella starters up for me unless we’ve discussed something, sent something, or I’ve liked a starter call. I really don’t want to leave people hanging if I’m not interested.
IMs are open to mutuals, if you want to do any in-depth plotting.
I also have Discord! If you’re mutuals with me, feel free to ask for it!
9. Guidelines on mains and relationships:
If we’re mutuals and we interact a lot, you’re welcome to ask me if I’d like to be your main!
Please note that MAINS fall into two categories; one pertaining to Tails’ initial universe, and those pertaining to alternates. Although the latter is plenty, for clarity’s sake, there would be one alternate Tails might default to.
Please don’t be offended if I deny, though; I typically want to pick those I trust to be my mains as well as people I can comfortably write with.
Not limited to them! I roleplay with duplicates galore so don’t be afraid to hit me up if you want to interact!
Pre-established relationships are a-okay in my book; if you have an idea for a relationship between our muses we can work towards, hit me up! I reblog those pre-established relationship memes every so often too. Romantic relationships link back to the shipping guidelines.
Also, friendship/family/rivalry relationships are EXTREMELY valid to me. GIMME’ ALL THE PRECIOUS BONDING CONTENT PLS. THIS BOY NEEDS FRIENDS.
10. If you have any issues, please let me know and hopefully we can resolve it!
Mun is actually super nice, so don’t be afraid to hit her up!
I am absolutely terrible with IMs and sometimes even Discord. I either respond quickly or days later, depends on my mood. Social anxiety tends to interfere with this - but honestly, if you’ve sent something, I’ve likely read it and just haven’t gotten around to it yet! It’s nothing personal; trust me! I just need a social breather every now and again.
Please leave me out of drama; I’m here to have a good time, as is everyone else, and it pains me to see people arguing.
11. It’s easier with a clean dash for me, so I’m more likely to follow people who:
Trim their posts.
Have rules and about pages! I always read those before interacting or following!
If you don’t have either of those, I’m likely not to follow you - so make sure that you do!
12. On threads…
If you’re not interested in a thread anymore, and would like to drop it, please let me know! I’d feel terrible if we’re both not having fun with it or if partners feel overwhelmed with the amount of threads we have.
Honestly, unless I let you know, our threads have no expiry date - so no need to worry about me dropping them without telling you. I can just be quite slow sometimes.
13. Mun does not equal muse! Anything Tails might say does not reflect on how I think unless I explicitly say so.
14. Know that if I follow you, I WANT to interact with you.
I literally couldn’t care less about follower counts. I care about YOU guys and our interactions.
15. If you’re OKAY with threads being set in Tails’ universe (and acting as his inverse counterparts), please like / reply to this post! It just lets me know I’m A-OK to shoot you asks pertaining to it, rather than the usual alternate shenanigans.
16. These rules may be subject to change.
Please like this post if you’ve read the rules! You don’t have to, but it’s of personal reassurance to me if you have.
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porchwood · 5 years
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Hi just so I understand cause i keep waiting for it and it doesnt seem likely to happen have you kind of fallen out of love with wtm? and everlark in general tbh? cause ive been following you for a while now and you always had lil quotes and pictures and things that reminded you inspired you whatever it was about katniss and wtm and now alllll it is is gadge i followed you because personally i love what you did with everlark and im just wondering if thats gone and not foreseeable any time soon?
I’ve been thinking a lot about how to answer this… It’s afair question - to a point. If you’re more of a drop-in person (like me) thanlive-on-the-dash, coming back to find my blog awash in Gadge might have beenquite upsetting. There are several reasons for the current state of things:
1. Life has been driving me into the ground since December26, 2013. (Yes, going on six straight years.) If you were a WtM reader from thebeginning, you may recall that I was pretty energetic and prolific in 2012-2013.Oh, there were tough times, but nothing like what started on the aforementioneddate (a car accident where I was in the “bystander” vehicle and it still got totaled)and has continued relentlessly ever since. Sometimes adversity leads to greatcreativity and sometimes it turns you into a depressed, exhausted, reclusivelump, and the past 5+ years have seen periods of both from me. These past 18months have been exceptionally awful (and expensive), resulting in very littlewriting at all, about any pairing.
2. Writing WtM takes a lot out of me. I don’t know whether thisis common knowledge or not, but it’s the gospel truth. I love that world, Ilove that version of Everlark, but every chapter requires so much hard work, itmakes me tired just to think of it. Not to mention, over the past couple of chaptersEverlark have been pushing for more intimacy than the plot/timeline allows, andso I’ve been struggling with how I want to handle that. Do I fight them andstick to the plan? (I can’t advance the timeline for several reasons.) Do I tryto figure out a cheat for them? They’ve got minds of their own and have changedmy plans multiple times, but this is something they genuinely can’t have, and Ihave to fight them on it. ☹ Which is sad, frustrating, and exhausting.
3. I’m a multi-pairing shipper, and have been from about 3chapters into WtM. Which means that my Everlark fics almost always feature asecondary pairing (or more than one), and sometimes I’ll get a plot bunny for afic about a pairing other than Everlark. Most writers in the THG fandom exclusivelywrite their OTP, whatever the plot bunny, but I find that some plot bunnies don’tfit Everlark as well as they do another pairing. (This is why I’ll never write aBeauty and the Beast Everlark fic unless Katniss is the “Beast,” if you will.)
4. The Everlark fandom is…tricky. I’ve never fit in there. Idon’t write Everlark the way the majority of fans see them (except for Peetabeing “sweet,” I guess), I hated the movies (I refuse to see MJ 1 or 2), and I’vemanaged to really rub some people the wrong way over the years –unintentionally, and for a variety of reasons – all of which leaves me feeling kinda down about Everlark in general. Don’t misunderstand me: I love Everlarkand WtM, but it’s really isolating to be this sad little island of unpopularopinions and unwelcome side-ships. That’s the part I really wish I could makeyou understand. For six years I’ve had Christopher Plummer in my head saying, “You’llnever be one of them,” and he’s so, cruelly, right. I want to cry every time Ithink of Embracing the Season (my E-rated Everlark modern AU oneshot for Lovein Panem - lots of daring for me!) because I poured heart and soul into that andit still wasn’t the Everlark that people wanted.
5. About a year and a half ago (when Strawberry Time reallytook off of its own accord) I participated in Gadge Day 2017, working my buttoff to find and schedule (and tag) over 100 carefully chosen Gale/Madge/Gadge aestheticposts, and for lack of a better way to say it: it turned on my Gadge-dar. After that, thosekinds of posts just leapt out at me whenever I had a chance to scroll, and forseveral months I wasn’t sure what to do with that. With a little encouragementfrom @ghtlovesthg, I came up with #march madgeness – wherein I turned my Tumblrinto Madge/Gadge-land for one month, and it was a blast. (Side-stepping Gadgefor a moment: Madge is a highly underappreciated and underused character,especially in fic/on Tumblr and I love splashing the dash with Madge-love.) Thenext month I launched a run of pent-up Everlark posts (i.e., regularprogramming), but I missed my Madge, so I instituted #madge monday – one day aweek when I could splash the dash with Madge/Gadge. At every juncture I gavepeople tags to block if they didn’t want to see this content (though I stillget unfollows every time I post, alas). I participated in last summer’s THG Reread– on the fringe of it, but my posts (reblogs and meta) were strongly Everlark-focusedagain during that time. So there’s definitely still been Everlark on my blog,but if you’re just dropping in (or for that matter, glancing at my archive), you’regoing to see a majority of Madge/Gadge.
6. Frankly, Gadge is fun. It’s a completely different dynamicthan Everlark, with less pressure to create something transcendent, and whenthe chips are down, I’m more likely to work on something that isn’t my six-years-runningopus. This spring, in the midst of lots of awfulness, I finally wrote a piecethat I’ve had in my head for years – The Best Part of Waking Up – with a differentpairing featured in each drabble “chapter,” including Gadge, Luka/Johanna (whoI’ve been wanting to put out there for AGES) and Jack/Raisa. I haven’t beenable to write quickly in years, and I think I finished those three “chapters”in about two days, maybe three. I completed the Raisa drabble in a couple ofhours and I consider it one of the best things I’ve ever written. (Honestly, ifa pairing was going to topple Everlark in my heart, it would be Jack/Raisa, i.e.,Mr. Everdeen/Mrs. Mellark. I love them to distraction.) Once upon a time I could drabble/sprint Everlark too – notoften, but I could manage it. Maybe it’ll happen again someday, but for thetime being, when I write in quick eager bursts, it’s usually about aside-pairing.
7. Because I just need to say it: about a year ago, I set up a secondary Tumblr for almost all my side-interests and ships outside of THG. When I first joined Tumblr, porchwood was just a fun page where I posted whatever struck my fancy (pretty things, funny things, whatever I liked), and over the next few years, I honed it into a pretty “writer’s notebook” for WtM and my other THG fics (related quotes, aesthetic posts, writing check-ins, etc.). When Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out, I shared a handful of posts pertaining to a new ship (not a new direction for my blog or writing, just sharing my excitement) and it was made very clear to me that people didn’t want to see that content on my page. So when I started watching Voltron: Legendary Defender, I had a sneaking suspicion people wouldn’t want to hear about those ships either. So I started an entirely new Tumblr for that content, and every so often I accidentally post something to the wrong page, which I immediately correct in horror, but people still unfollow. Point being: this blog is THG (and a few personal life updates) ONLY, with a pretty consistent aesthetic. I hide literally everything else that I’m interested in so you don’t have to be bothered by it. Is it really so unacceptable for me to have side-ships (complementary to the main pairing, not threatening to them) in the same universe??
8. Believe it or not, I’ve been working on WtM all along,just not making any massive strides. I tried to chip away at the current chapterduring Camp Nanowrimo last July, and it was a disaster. I thought joining awriting group would be helpful, but I didn’t realize that Camp Nano is basicallya lot of writing sprints in which you try to churn out as many words aspossible, which you then report to your “cabin” – and that’s the onlyinteraction with your fellow writers. I can’t write like that anymore (seeabove) and especially not when it comes to WtM, so I got discouraged veryquickly and sort of drifted away. I reattempted Nano on my own in April and wrotealmost 15K words, but in that instance I was really just using the Nano platform toset and reach a goal (which I didn’t ☹ ); I wasn’t in a cabin and didn’t interact with anyother writers, except my friend @ghtlovesthg, who read the finished portion.
9. I want to finish this dang chapter so much, and frankly, theonly way that’s going to happen is if life gets a little better and I holemyself up with my laptop for hours on end for weeks at a time – and somemagical being comes to support/cheer/comfort me while I do so. It’s currentlysitting at about 25K and I anticipate it will need to be at least double that,which is beyond ridiculous, but that’s the nature of WtM. The chapters are asmany words as it takes.
TL, DR: I still love Everlark and I’m still working on WtM, but my life has been extremely difficult for a very long time and I don’t have a great Everlark lifeline. Gadge and all my other ships are fun, and most of the Gadge you see on my Tumblr is aesthetic stuff for themed days/months/occasions. Anything non-THG goes on my sideblog.
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mayquita · 5 years
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Call Me (24/?) - It’s a Matter of Love. Part 2
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I wasn’t planning at all to post this chapter today, but this morning I finished this part and thought it was a good idea to create a complete chapter and leave the rest of what I had planned for the next one.
I’ve decided to focus almost exclusively on Call Me and continue writing as I believe that this story deserves an end. We’re approaching the end of the second part of the fic... (although if I keep splitting chapters I don’t know when I will be able to finish)
Thanks as always to @saraswans and @onceuponaprincessworld, for helping me, trust me and support me and thank you, everyone, for continuing to believe in this story.
This chapter has a structure similar to the previous one, but in this case, it’s written from Emma's POV. I hope you like it. Also, since I hadn’t planned to post today, there will probably be a ton of mistakes, so apologize in advance. I'm still in search of a beta that helps me, especially with typos and grammar.
Summary: Emma loses her phone after a chase, but she finds a phone in a cafe just when she needs it most. Killian forgets his phone in a cafe when he is about to take a flight to Ireland. Killian makes a call to his own number hoping someone answers on the other end of the line. What will happen when Emma is the one answering the call?
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8Chapter 9 Chapter 10Chapter 11 Chapter 12Chapter 13 Chapter14Chapter 15 Chapter 16Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23
FF.net Ao3
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Chapter 24 - It’s a Matter of Love. Part 2
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Friday, September 15, 2017
Emma Swan loved Killian Jones. It wasn't as if she had realized it suddenly. She had long since come to terms with her true feelings. The fact of being separated from him for several days —with a lot of time to think— had only intensified those feelings and her need to express them aloud despite her almost paralyzing fear.
Now, with only a few hours ahead before seeing Killian again, her heart threatened to come out of her rib cage and the butterflies in her stomach fluttered in anticipation. She had one last task to carry out for their reunion to happen though, capture the damned elusive perp.
A spiral of feelings swirled inside her as she waited tucked inside her car for her prey to appear. The adrenaline rushing through her veins in anticipation of the impending pursuit mingled with the impatience to conclude this case once and for all and with the nervousness of seeing Killian again.
She forced herself to focus her gaze on the building in front of her as she tried to distract herself with her favorite music playing on her phone. Without success, of course, since now Queen was irremediably connected to Killian. She only needed to listen to the first chords of I Was Born To Love You so her mind would play a trick on her by bringing to her memory all the times she had been about to say the three words out loud.
After letting out a noise half a sigh half a huff, she leaned her head against the back of her seat while keeping her eyes fixed on her target but let her mind wander freely to recreate all those precious moments in which her love towards Killian had been so powerful that she had been about to overcome her fear of expressing her feelings.
Four weeks ago
They were late. She had taken forever to finish making paperwork in her office but fortunately, now they could enjoy the weekend fully, at least on her part, since Killian still had some activities scheduled. Even so, she would accompany him in some of them, so the feeling of the free weekend still remained. And now it was time to hang out with their friends, like every Friday.
Everyone was already there when they arrived at the bar. David and Will were at the pool table, playing a game, while the girls were near the bar, waiting for their orders. Emma was thirsty, so she chose to approach the girls, pulling Killian's hand lightly as a signal for him to follow her.
"Hey guys, we were starting to think you wouldn't make it tonight." Mary Margaret said as a greeting. Although there was a hint of reproach in her tone and in the way she arched one of her eyebrows, her lips drew a soft smile.
Emma liked Mary Margaret. She might not feel as close to her as she felt to Ruby, Elsa or Belle, but Mary Margaret gave off a kind of maternal aura and she gave the warmest hugs, making her feel protected, something she had missed her whole life. She acted like this, in a protective way, with everyone, even though she was only a couple of years older. That attitude also had its cons, though, like just in that moment, when she felt as if she were under the scrutiny of her mother for being late.
"They may have been busy, Marg." Belle certainly did not help in the matter, implying with her comment and her not subtle mischievous expression what they might have been busy with. Emma felt her cheeks flush, but fortunately, she wasn't the only one, a soft blush appeared on Mary Margaret's cheeks as well, while her eyes grew slightly wide.
“Oh.”
Emma heard Killian at her side letting out a chuckle, as he put an arm around her shoulders. She not only had no intention of rectifying her friend but was tempted to get along with her. Just as she turned to cast a salacious glance at her boyfriend, a sound from the pool table caught their attention, causing them to turn their heads in that direction.
Her heart tightened in her chest and her entire body tensed at the image before them. A guy was grabbing Will's t-shirt with both hands while pushing him against the wall. Emma did not even have time to react or try to intervene in any way. Just as her gaze drifted towards Killian, he literally flew in the direction of their friends.
He was on them in an instant. Emma watched with utter fascination the intervention of her boyfriend, who not only freed Will but, emulating the guy, he grabbed him by his t-shirt, pinning him against the wall while raising a menacing finger.
Maybe she should be more worried, maybe she should try to comfort Belle, who was clearly shocked, if the way she clung to her forearm was an indication. But the reality was that she couldn't take her eyes off Killian and his display of testosterone, causing a wave of mixed feelings to wash over her.
His defiant attitude, his hardened features, the fierceness in his gaze caused a rush of heat to flood to her core. Her stomach tightened in knots at the reckless action. Another much warmer sensation spread to her heart as her mind accepted for the first time what she had only dared to feel with her heart.
She was hopelessly in love with that man. She had fallen in love with that sweet man, with that adorable but at the same time a bit tormented Irishman, who was able to flash her a smile with the ability to light up the whole room and the next moment he could go after those who would have dared to put a finger on any of his friends, consequences be damned.
His loyalty, his fierceness, his protective instinct towards his loved ones could be a bit overwhelming at times. On this occasion, though, his behavior was causing an almost irrepressible desire to express her feelings out loud, to let everyone know that this bold and maybe a little reckless man was hers and that she had no intention of letting him go any time soon — probably never.
Before the altercation escalated to something more dangerous David intervened showing his badge and exuding an aura of authority that managed to appease her enraged boyfriend and prevented the guy's friends from coming to his aid. Still, Killian seemed reluctant to let him go just yet, watching him, while Will and David made their way back to the ladies.
Only when Will was within reach, Belle loosened her hold, letting out a sigh of relief as she threw herself into her boyfriend's arms.
"Oh my god, Will, what happened?”
"That wanker... We had already warned them once that they were too close and we could accidentally hit them, but they ignored us." Will's lips twisted upward in a failed attempt at a smile. It was evident that he was trying to use a carefree tone with his girlfriend, but the paleness of his face indicated otherwise. That guy had really scared him.
"And you ended up hitting him." Mary Margaret continued for him.
"Rather he hit himself." David interceded to defend his friend. "They were just a bunch of drunks, but at least one of them took his own medicine." He pointed to Killian who had finally decided to leave the guy alone.
Killian's features softened instantly when his eyes met hers as he walked towards her. Her skin tingled with anticipation, but she held back, waiting patiently by the bar for him to come to her side. When he reached her, he gave her an apologetic look and scratched behind his ear as he began to speak. "Apologies for my poor manners, love..." Unable to resist anymore, she cut him off by pressing her lips against his and kissing him hard, trying to pour into that kiss the whole spiral of feelings dancing inside.
Despite his initial surprise, he promptly responded by kissing her back with enthusiasm as he wrapped her in his arms. Only the need for air made them separate a little.
"I didn't know you were so much into rough, love." He purred before nipping at her bottom lip.
An unexpected thought crossed her mind at that moment, as she made a mental note to add one more attribute to Killian's endless list of qualities. He knew when to use that intense look and that suggestive voice and how to use his talented mouth to make everything fade around them, it didn't matter that they were in a noisy bar surrounded by a crowd or that their friends were right there.
"Oh, come on, I'm the one who has been in danger and he is the one who gets all the attention." Will's whining voice broke the spell. Although Killian's body blocked her vision she did not need to see Will's face to know that he was accompanying his words with a sulky expression.
Killian winked at her before schooling his features into a scowl and turning in Will's direction. "Are you suggesting that you would have wanted a kiss from my girlfriend, mate?"
This time Emma did check to see that Will's cheeks had turned a furious red as he averted his gaze. Emma bit her lip to keep a laugh from escaping her mouth.
"Maybe he won all the attention because you've been the damsel in distress here while he's been the knight coming to your rescue." David added with an amused expression as he tapped his friend's shoulder.
"Ha ha, very funny." Will huffed, pursing his lips as he crossed his arms over his chest.
Everyone barked out to laugh at that moment, even Belle, though to her credit, she wrapped her arms around Will's waist and planted a kiss on his cheek, managing to soften his features.
Emma also took pity on him and decided to give him some attention, but before approaching him she needed to continue with her previous conversation with Killian. She stood on tiptoe while whispering in his ear. "About the reason for the earlier kiss, there are still some things about me that you don't know." She teased him, a grin spreading across her face.
"That sounds like a challenge, Swan"
"Perhaps... Maybe the kiss wasn't just for your roughness over there. I may find your reaction when it comes to defending a friend quite appealing." She suggested as she cocked her head slightly in Will's direction. It was no use denying the obvious, but she felt more comfortable for now using a suggestive tone instead of confessing that his protective attitude had only increased her feelings toward him.
"So are you implying that if Will gets into a compromising situation again and I'm going to his rescue, I'll get a kiss like that as a reward?" He tilted his head, his tongue darting out to wet his lips in a too distracting movement.
"Not just a kiss. Wait to see what awaits you at home, buddy." She planted a quick kiss on his lips and gave him a smirk before turning to their friends, who were looking at them with mixed expressions of amusement, embarrassment or annoyance —that was Will. She did not miss the growl coming from Killian before getting away from him. They had a promising night ahead, definitely.
Oh, how much she loved her life now.
//
Three weeks ago
Killian was undoubtedly a man of many qualities —she kept adding items to her particular list —but if there was something Emma admired, besides his big heart, it was his ability to interact with other people.
His charisma was evident, as well as the ease he had to adapt to the other person. Her heart melted every time Killian talked to his nephew or niece or took care of little Leo. Even she had begun to go as a viewer to the sailing classes for children that he taught every Saturday. He was an expert in the field, not only in knowledge and self-confidence but also in the way he treated children, showing endless patience and using simple explanations for the kids to understand him. She could spend hours watching them enraptured while the butterflies in her stomach fluttered furiously.
She also loved the way Killian treated his friends and family, with such devotion and loyalty. The union he felt towards his family was undeniable, but the family relationship wasn't the only one he kept in the distance. Robin, his great friend from Ireland, was also part of his weekly video calls. From their conversations, she could appreciate that there was a close relationship there, that both trusted and understood each other.
She could even see differences if she compared that relationship with the one he had with David or Will. David was more like a projection of his brother in Boston while he treated Will rather as if he were his little brother whom he had to constantly get out of trouble. With Robin, however, it was a more equal relationship, the image of true friendship. She hadn't obtained that appreciation only from her observation but Killian himself had confirmed it, bringing Robin into most of the conversations in which he shared his past with her.
She liked Robin not only because of his relationship with Killian but because of his behavior towards her. Robin was always kind to her and made an effort to make her feel included in their conversations causing her to want to meet all of them in person, not only the rest of the Jones family but Killian's childhood friend.
But if there was something Emma really admired, it was the way Killian had gotten involved with her friends as well. He had not only opened the doors for her to this new world of friendship, allowing her to be included in his circle of friends, but he had introduced himself into her own with such ease that it was as if he had known them for a long time.
Killian and Graham saw each other assiduously when Killian came to her office to eat lunch with her and they had already met a couple of times to watch some sporting event.
On the other hand, Ruby had adopted Killian as one of her best male friends almost from the moment he had come into her life. His interest in them was genuine, of that she was sure. It was not an act just to impress her, but because he really felt it. Even so, she could not be more grateful that her two little circles were not only able to coexist but sometimes blended.
What Emma had not anticipated was that Ruby, or rather her interactions with Killian, were one of the catalysts that almost made her pronounce the three famous words aloud.
Killian and Emma were at Granny's for lunch, sitting opposite each other in their usual booth when Ruby suddenly appeared.
"Oh, thank God you're here. I need to talk to you." Ruby's relief when she saw Killian was evident. Emma cocked her head as her eyebrows knit together in confusion, watching her friend curiously.
Ruby had the day off today, so it was strange to see her at Granny's and even stranger that she had directly addressed Killian sitting next to him after offering her an almost imperceptible gesture of acknowledgment.
"Of course, Lass, what can I do for you?"
Emma's curiosity increased when she detected that Ruby looked visibly agitated, not even a glimpse of her usual nerve. Before explaining herself, she shot Emma a sidelong glance and then turned to Killian again.
"Well, I was looking for the opinion of someone of the male gender..." Ruby paused for a moment while clearing her throat, as if she was deciding how to continue. "...I... I've started dating this guy, Whale..."
"Wait a minute, aren't you dating this girl, Mulan?" Emma couldn't help interrupting, surprised by the unexpected confession of her friend.
"That's over." Ruby snapped hardening her features. Emma's eyes widened, but her lips remained sealed. For some reason, Ruby had decided to trust Killian, so Emma had no choice but to keep silent and wait. Killian's gaze shifted subtly toward her for a split of a second, but then he turned his attention back to Ruby.
"So, about Whale ..." He encouraged her to continue, his lips drawing a reassuring smile.
"Yeah, that. About Whale, as I was saying, I've dated this guy a couple of times, but there's something that doesn't seem to work. Since you're a man and you obviously know your way around girls..." Ruby gestured towards her while her lips curled into a smirk."I thought you could give me some advice on how to approach him."
Emma had to bite her tongue to force herself not to intervene. Until a few seconds ago she didn't know about the existence of that Whale guy, but she had seen Ruby with Mulan and they seemed quite interested in each other. It was evident that Ruby was turning to Whale as a kind of defense mechanism or to avoid facing her feelings towards Mulan.
As if he sensed her thoughts, Killian glanced again at her furtively. She answered silently with an intense look. She only hoped that Killian managed to grasp the meaning.
Before answering, Killian scratched behind his ear and offered Ruby a tight smile. "Since you've asked me for advice, lass, here you have it. I think the thing between you and that guy Whale doesn't work because you still have feelings for another person." Ruby opened her mouth to reply, but Killian was faster. "So my advice is, forget this Whale who clearly is not giving you what you need and go find your girlfriend and try to fix things with her."
Gods! How had she been so lucky to find such a perceptive, caring man? Another random thought crossed her mind at that moment. A heart swollen with pride was just a metaphor, or was it possible that a heart actually swelled with such a feeling? Hers certainly threatened to get out of her rib cage while she made an effort to contain herself and not to throw herself on Killian and kiss him right there or not to expel the words that burned on the tip of her tongue.
Ruby did not seem so happy, though. Her gaze shifted alternately from Killian to Emma as her brow furrowed. "You two..." She gestured between them while her eyes narrowed, holding the scrutiny. "You were doing that thing, communicating mentally or something."
"I did not say a single word." Emma raised her hands,  palms outward, as she tried to hold back the laughter bubbling in her throat.
"But you agree with him, don't you?"
"I do." She admitted tentatively.
"See? My point exactly." Ruby tapped the table with her hand and then raised an accusatory finger at both of them. "You two think so alike and don't even need to communicate with each other out loud. You're disgustingly adorable."
Emma felt her cheeks flush as she caught her lower lip between her teeth in an attempt to stop the incipient grin that threatened to appear. Killian, in turn, did not seem so affected, since he continued talking with Ruby.
"Think about it this way, lass. If we think alike, it's because we care about you at the same level, so yes, we both agree to want the best for you."
Her heart did that thing again, swelling like a balloon while she was unable to tear her gaze away from him.
"I hate you both." Ruby grumbled, her lips pursed in a small pout. Despite her tone of reproach, a faint pinky halo tinted her cheeks and a special spark appeared in her eyes, so Emma sensed that they were not very misguided in terms of Ruby's affections.
"No, you don't. Because we're good friends and we give you good advice that you're going to follow, aren't you?" Emma raised an eyebrow at her friend while Killian nudged her with his shoulder.
"Okay, okay." Ruby rolled her eyes as she raised her arms and then dropped them in defeat. "I'll talk to her, are you happy?"
"Very." She grinned at her while raising her hand for a high five with Killian, to which he was quick to respond. Their action caused the first genuine smile of the day to appear on Ruby's face as she shook her head.
Maybe she was not yet ready to express aloud how she felt, but that did not make the feeling any less intense, though not just towards Killian. She was also learning to enjoy true friendship and the wonderful feeling of giving and receiving, something so unknown to her until very recently. Her eyes drifted to Killian again, who was watching her with such intensity that it caused goosebumps on her skin. Maybe Ruby was right and they had reached a kind of mental communication because what Killian was showing with his eyes was love. Love towards her.
She was so damn lucky.
//
Two weeks ago
The need to express her feelings out loud had become a constant since she had admitted her love for Killian— at least to herself. That feeling sometimes appeared in the form of a gentle breeze, like a latent sensation that caused her skin to tingle every time Killian smiled at her or had a gesture of affection towards her — or towards the rest of their friends.
Other times, however, the feeling took hold of her like a whirlwind, while the blood ran hot in her veins and her heart raced, the words burning in her mouth eager to be revealed. This sensation used to appear in the most intense moments shared with Killian, but at other times the powerful need to express her feelings appeared suddenly in the most unexpected moments or for the most ordinary reasons, like a yellow pin.
That day Killian's office was quieter than usual. Belle was busy rearranging some schedules, her eyes focused on the computer while Emma waited on the couch for Will and Killian to arrive for their Thursday lunch. Everyone seemed pretty busy these days, even her. It was as if the incipient arrival of September had generated an unusual activity in both her work and Killian's. But at least they had managed to maintain their Thursday tradition. Or so she hoped. They were late.
Since Belle was still focused on her task and her phone barely had a battery, she had no choice but to look for entertainment elsewhere, so she let her gaze wander around the room, looking for something to distract herself with.
The search did not last long. Her heart skipped a beat when her eyes peered at a yellow dot on the world map hanging on the opposite wall. A new yellow thumbtack.
The yellow thumbtack acted like a magnet for her, causing her to automatically get up and walk to the map while her heart beat frantically in her chest.
She had almost forgotten the thumbtacks and their meaning. Since they had started dating they had made small trips, both by ship and to nearby towns for different reasons, but no new thumbtacks had appeared. Emma couldn't deny that she had felt a twinge of disappointment, but she had no intention of asking Killian for explanations and making him feel obligated to do something he did not feel or had simply forgotten.
But all her doubts vanished the moment she caught a glimpse of that bright spot on the map, matching the one that already appeared, piercing Boston. Even before reaching it she was sure of the location the new thumbtack was pinned on.
Portland - Maine.
Her fingers brushed the thumbtack reverently as the memories of that little trip came to her mind in waves.
They had traveled to Portland the previous weekend, on a short trip, but that had allowed them to spend the night in the town. It had been something improvised, really. Killian had come up with the idea on a Saturday morning suggesting that she accompany him on that small excursion to acquire some supplies, given that his usual store in Boston had run out of stock temporarily.
Although the road trip to Portland would not take long, Emma had been reluctant to leave the town so soon, since they would have the opportunity to spend some precious time together. That was why Killian had decided to extend the visit by renting a room for the night in a small cozy establishment near the port.
Once the products he had been looking for had been purchased, they had spent the rest of the weekend rediscovering the town, doing what any other normal couple would do, strolling through its streets, stopping at the many souvenir shops scattered around the old port area or enjoying delicious meals near the water.
Perhaps it was the fact of feeling free of responsibility, or the idea of spending the first night together outside of Boston, or maybe the magical atmosphere of the historic city, whatever it was, she had never felt that sense of fullness so powerful. And that feeling had increased even more when they had lost in each other in the shelter of their cozy room giving free rein to their passion.
The unexpected sensation of two firm arms encircling her waist from behind brought her back to reality. She had been so enthralled in her memories that she had not even realized that the guys had already arrived. Killian's warm breath against her ear caused goosebumps all over her skin as she arched her back against his chest and placed her hands on his arms, tightening the embrace.
"I thought you had forgotten." She muttered without taking her eyes off the map.
"Of course not, love." His lips brushed her cheek gently before continuing. "In fact, there may be a map of Massachusetts hidden in one of those drawers, and that map may already have several yellow dots marked."
Her heart fluttered as she turned her head looking for his gaze. "Are you serious right now?"
"Aye." He scratched behind his ear in that endearing gesture of his, one of the corners of his lips twisting slightly upward. "I thought it would be better if we reserved this map for our special trips."
She stared at him in disbelief, trying to process the meaning of his words. Not only had he not forgotten but he might have marked each of their little excursions. Instinctively, her gaze drifted back to the world map, while the desire for adventure, to travel around Europe, became even more pronounced, now that she did not see it as an unattainable dream.
As if reading her mind, Killian tightened his embrace even more as he leaned in, his lips caressing her earlobe as he whispered, "I intend to fill every corner of that map with yellow, Emma."
His words or rather their meaning, caused a wave of emotions to hit her hard, while that feeling that she had managed to control until now, struggled and struggled to be revealed, spreading like a flood through all the fibers of her being. Tell him, tell him, her inner voice screamed at her.
"You two. You're not alone, in case you wouldn't have noticed." Will's unexpected words caused her to wince. Saved by the bell. "Also, I'm hungry, let's see what the Swan Girl brought us today for lunch."
Before meeting Killian's intense gaze again, Emma took two deep breaths in an attempt to pull herself together. Soon, she thought. Soon the moment would come when she felt brave enough to say the words out loud.
//
Present Day
The distant sound of a horn brought her back to reality. Now that she had left the world of memories all her senses were active again. Her favorite music was still playing and her target had not yet appeared. The wait was becoming eternal. Emma couldn't help but let out a huff of annoyance as her gaze remained fixed on the facade of the building across the street. She had been stuck in her car forever, waiting for something, any movement that revealed her mark. No result for now.
The road trip had been unsuccessful. She not only had not caught the elusive perp, but she had missed Killian terribly. A spiral of mixed feelings had gripped her from the moment she had started her road trip. On the one hand, the nervousness and excitement of the pursuit, which gave way to frustration as time went by and she did not get the desired result. On the other hand, a strange feeling of longing had settled in her stomach, threatening to overwhelm her in its intensity.
She wasn't used to dealing with those almost paralyzing sensations, after so many years of solitude caused by the walls around her. She was a tough and independent woman. She had never needed anything from anyone so why now she felt as if something was missing, as if a piece of her heart had been lost preventing it from functioning properly? If a four-day separation was causing so much havoc in her, she did not even want to consider how she would be affected when Killian traveled to Ireland for several months. There is still a long way to go before that moment, she reminded herself, unable to deal with it for now. We will cross that bridge when the time comes, she tried to convince herself.
Meanwhile, she had something more important to focus on, catching the damn jumper once and for all. Killian was about to arrive at port, which meant that it was only up to her and her success to see him earlier.
At least she had the relief that the wait was about to end. They had finally managed to locate his whereabouts, now all that was left was for him to decide to abandon the place. He would have to do it at some point, right? Not only was she watching, but both Graham and Leroy were also in the area, each located at a strategic point to make sure that wherever he went, he would fall into the trap.
The unexpected buzz of her phone caused her to jump up in her seat. Without losing sight of the building, she grabbed her phone and moved her finger across the screen. Finally, she looked away for a moment to check the notification. A message from Killian. A warm feeling washed over her then, as she read the contents.
The Jolly Roger is already moored in port. How are you doing? Any news with your fugitive?
Nope. Nothing. It's a bit frustrating, to be honest.
You'll get him, love. I can't wait to see you, but if we have been separated for five days, I can wait a couple of hours more. I'll wait for you at my apartment. Good luck! And be careful, please.
I lov . .. Oh shit! Emma realized in time what she had been about to write. Her damned subconscious had tried to betray her. After letting out a deep sigh, she deleted the letters and typed an inoffensive message instead.
I'm always careful. See you in a little bit.
After sending the message, she locked the screen and dropped the phone on the passenger seat, trying to focus all her senses on the mission she had before her. Her hands clung to the wheel as she struggled to keep her mind blank, but the brief interaction with Killian had only increased her nervousness.
He deserved to hear the words, to feel loved not only through her actions but with a verbal manifestation, after so many years with a broken heart. And she, too, deserved to feel loved. The fact that he hadn't expressed his feelings aloud yet, although understandable, was beginning to generate some uneasiness inside her.
She was scared. Rather terrified. Not because she feared that her love wouldn't be reciprocated, but because of how it might affect her to develop such feelings. She had only spoken those words out loud on a previous occasion, with Neal. And what had she gained in return? A stay in prison and a feeling of betrayal and abandonment that had caused wounds that still hadn't healed. The feelings toward Killian were much more intense, which meant that the power he could exert over her would have more devastating consequences. She didn't want to imagine what would happen to her if things ended badly between them.
Even so, the need to express what she felt was becoming more powerful, surpassing any fear she still carried. She just needed a little extra push, maybe in the form of a reunion after several days separated.
A sudden movement across the street caught her attention instantly. She put aside her thoughts about Killian and her feelings and focused on her mission. Someone had appeared at the entrance to the building. The guy wore a cap and sunglasses in what looked like an attempt at camouflage, but there was something in his stance that raised Emma's suspicions so she narrowed her eyes following his every move.
The guy looked from one side of the street to the other and raised an arm to adjust his cap before starting to walk. That simple movement betrayed him as Emma was able to see, even in the distance, the tattoo he had on his forearm. Bingo!
Emma looked away from the perp only for a moment to shoot a quick message to her co-workers group chat.
Target located. Gonna catch him.
Without waiting for an answer, Emma turned off the music player and put the phone in a secure compartment under her shirt —Killian's gift, so as not to lose the device again —Her heart began to pound as the adrenaline rushed through her veins in anticipation of the very likely pursuit that was about to happen.
After taking a deep breath, she hardened her features, keeping her muscles alert and exiting the vehicle, ready to catch the perp as soon as possible. She had something much more important to do next. She had to meet her boyfriend and confess her true feelings towards him.
//
Thanks for reading. I’d like to know what you all think :)
The wait is almost over, I promise. They will reunite in the next chapter and there will be confessions.
@rouhn @couldnthandleit @teamhook @malec4everr @ijustwantyoucaskett-always@kmomof4 @resident-of-storybrooke @suwya @thisonesatellite @lfh1962
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svarmodiig · 5 years
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       SVARMODIIG’S 200 FOLLOWERS CELEBRATION.
Logging onto Inigo this morning, I had mostly planned to celebrate his birthday. What I didn’t expect to see was that, on this already special day, he had hit 200 followers. I’ve roleplayed Inigo for around 5 years now, and though I’ve reset his blog countless times, I never hit a milestone as grand as this before. I wanted to say thank you to everyone who came for Inigo and has stayed for my writing, for the countless headcanons and love I have poured into him, and despite my sporadic activity, continue to support not only me but Inigo, too.
Obviously I need to celebrate this, but what could I offer you all that I haven’t already? This blog is full of writing, and you all write your own characters so beautifully, I couldn’t offer a drabble, not for 200 followers. My art has hit a serious wall and it would be unfair to promise a drawing that may never be completed (ask Savvy her birthday was nearly a month ago and I still haven’t presented a final piece) so then I thought about what makes this blog special. And that’s all of you.
I couldn’t be here if it wasn’t for all of you! I’d just be some madman yelling about Inigo while no one else cared ― writing with all of you has helped me learn new things about Inigo (and my own writing) and the inquiries and discussions about his character has helped him to grow. I wouldn’t have been able to develop him so well on my own.
So rather than celebrating myself, I want to celebrate you. I know that this is going to look like a biased post and I truly hate the concept of mains. Naturally, everyone is going to appreciate their friends first and foremost and want to support them by hyping them up, but we’re all real people on here, and the last thing I want to make myself out to be is exclusive. If it were possible, I’d love to be able to befriend ALL of you, and of course if you consider that within those 200 followers are archived blogs and several blogs from the same people, this looks a little less special. But even then, there’s at least a hundred of you out there, supporting me and that means there are so many of you supporting me. 
So before I start ranting about the friends I have made on this blog, even if I don’t name you specifically, even if we haven’t interacted, I truly value your support and want to thank you for being here with me. I hope one day we can speak ― I know I’ve tried to make my blog look fancy but it’s to cover up my insecurities and shyness so if you can see past that, please reach out! I don’t bite, I promise. I’ll be just as scared as you.
TO MY CLOSE FRIENDS...
I dedicate this section to those of you whom I speak to nearly everyday, even outside of RP antics. A special shoutout to Orange @fatestouched​ who isn’t active anymore but you know how special you are to me already and how much I adore your Owain.
Lauren. @exaltblooded​ / @insignc​ / @brigidbcrn​
We’re coming up to 2 years of friendship in the coming months and that’s honestly so wild to me. You were one of the first friends I made at Uni and I’m so glad we kept in touch outside of gaming society. I’m thankful that you dared to ask if any of us roleplayed on that fateful day. Not only have we grown closer because of that, but your introduction into the FERPC has truly changed the dashboard for me ― not only because of all the crack you begin with Savvy ― but because of the new people I’ve met because of you, which has in turn meant I met new people through them and found myself a little community on the dashboard. Orange and I always kept our little verse to ourselves, but with you we’ve been able to expand it all, and there’s no other Lucina I would ask to join our little family. Thank you for all the memories and rp antics we’ve shared together.
Savvy. @ofconvocation​ / @ofnifl​ / @ofgaspard​ 
I normally like to put names in alphabetical order, but here I have an actual plan. Through Lauren I met you, and through you I met the others below. So before even beginning I have that to thank you for. Savvy ― we speak literally every day, you’ve been there for me through so much and I couldn’t be more grateful. At least once a week you get a little rant from me about how much I love you, but this time it’s public, and that means others will be able to see just how amazing you are (and they’re definitely going to agree with me!) The effort you put into each and every one of your blogs is inspiring, there’s so much love poured into them all and it really shows with their beautiful themes, their icons that more than leave an impression, and most importantly the writing. I think we can all agree you are incredibly talented as a writer and it’s thoroughly enjoyable to write with you when you aren’t starting crack on dash with Lauren. You’re easily one of my biggest supporters and it’s so very rare that I find myself doubting myself with you ready to launch yourself at me if I dare to think I’m anything less than amazing ― I just hope you know I am always ready to return the favour and truly admire you. Thank you for not only the memories but all the beautiful art you’ve gifted to me (and I promise Aurora will be finished by the end of the year.)
Momgan. @askrisms​ / @faerghusiisms​
I don’t care if your name isn’t actually Momgan you will always be just that to me. A lot of our conversations revolve around how amazing I think you are ― and that will never change. All the love and effort you put into Chateau will never be forgotten, and even though it didn’t end in the best light, you never gave up on it. All of your ideas are wonderful, and it’s an honour that I get to write some of my favourite ships with you ― heck, you’re the first person I’ve ever shipped an OC of mine with, because I know I can trust her in your hands and you will show her the same love you show your own muses. I absolutely adore your writing and I could easily read an entire book you wrote if I were able to. I hope that you and I can be friends for a long time, and we can write with one another often. You’re someone I genuinely look up to and I hold nothing but admiration for you. You will always be my Mom.
Ches. @unquiixotic​
I want to start off by saying that while we may not have spoken huge amounts, I absolutely adore you Ches. If you were to ask Savvy or Lauren how much we hype you up, I don’t think between even the three of us we could explain to you just how much admiration there is for you. As a person you are wonderful, always so kind and supportive and a genuine delight to converse with ― and I hope that over time we’ll be able to speak a lot more! I remember from Chateau your struggle to find a muse to write among the many you have, and I honestly at the time wondered how it was possible that you could write so many muses. I understand now that you harbour so much love, and that is put into your many beloved characters. All of them are equally loved, equally developed, and none written worse than the others. With Felix and Sylvain, I believe it will be our first time writing with one another outside of Chateau and I am genuinely excited to see more of your writing style, how you format your posts to convey your characterisations.
To those whom I wish I spoke to more often.
Shine. @beautiilance / @panic--ploy
Confession Time: I honestly was terrified of you for such a long time. Lauren and Savvy hyped you up for a LONG time before we actually got to talk and because of that you were already embedded in my mind as someone who was so cool that I was intimidated to speak to you. I know now you’re a big sinful softy and I had nothing to worry about ― bar your sin ― and I’m glad that we are friends. I’ve been trying to get Lauren and Savvy to add you to servers for a while so that we might get to speak and I’m glad it’s through Three Houses we got that chance to talk, since a new game provides a lot to talk about with all the new content. Like it or not, your Ingrid is attached to my Sylvain (as well as Ches and Mom’s Felix and Dimitri) so you’re stuck with me and we’re going to speak more! I hope in the future we can write with one another more and create some truly special memories.
Boo. @ofhoshido / @fxrmer / @nowithedragon / @misssummoningelizabeth
As one of Savvy’s real life friends, you hold a lot of respect in my heart for dealing with her antics ― I kid of course, that respect is for being there for her. She spoke of you often to me and I’m genuinely glad we got to meet and talk with one another. You’re a lot of fun to talk to and even though I’m shy and afraid to strike up conversations I do genuinely enjoy speaking with you. I hope that we can write more with one another in the future!
Pandora. @shamir-nevrand / (for the life of me I can’t find your other blog I’m sorry!)
We really really really haven’t spoken all that much but I know that Savvy and Lauren absolutely adore you and have sung your praises to the heavens above and it has me really hoping to one day speak to you for when I can stop being such a cuck and not be afraid to strike up a conversation!
...from Tumblr.
to clarify quickly, the three above are all people I’m in servers with on Discord whereas those below I am not and know only really on Tumblr but still want to talk to more!
Jessica. @i-nsubordination / @nonpareiltactician / @f-ortuity
Jessica ― I hope you already know how much I adore you. Naeva is so very special to Inigo and that puts you close to my heart. Their bond is so wonderful to explore, it’s something I’ve always wanted and you make those dreams a reality and I cannot thank you enough for that. When first I returned after my little hiatus you were so enthusiastic about my return and that has stayed with me, and every so often I’ll remember it and smile to myself that someone remembered me and was so happy for my return ― and I never said it but I truly hoped that you would still be here. There are so many things I can say about you ― the way you developed Naeva is genuinely admirable and it’s so lovely to see how much love you poured into her. She feels like a real character and is one I won’t ever forget, even when I’m off thinking about Inigo’s family away from Tumblr Naeva always comes to mind. She’s an unforgettable part of his life now and that means we are bound together. The way you write too is incredible and every post is crafted in such a way that I could read more even when I finish. It’s an honour that I get to write with you and you inspire me to be better. Part of what makes her so special is you, the person behind the screen. You’re genuinely so lovely and supportive and that makes your blog more appealing. I’ve always enjoyed speaking to you and can only hope in the future we get to talk more!
Volty. @i--gnis / @d--evotio
Volty I hope you know how much I adore your Robin ― I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get to use my main verse tag with a Robin, there are so many out there that terrify me and I still remember admiring you from afar. Now, I’ll happily slap that tag onto any post with you involved. I know I vanished so the old thread didn’t get to continue but I would be more than happy to dig it up from beneath the dust piled upon this blog just to see how your Robin gets to father Inigo in his youth. That thread alone so genuinely excites me and I absolutely want to do so much more with you to explore their dynamics. I can’t put into the words the admiration I hold for you and Robin and truly wish we can speak more one day. As for Validar? Bad man, evil keep him away from Inigo he’ll CRY.
Faty. @convxction / @sentofight
FATY I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL YOU! Lauren is your biggest hypeman. For a LONG time she hyped you and your Chrom up to me ― and I had honestly been admiring you from afar for so long before then. You seem like a really genuinely nice person and I want to try and interact with you more to be able to hype you up as well! Importantly, since Lauren considers your Chrom her main and Lucina is part of my main verse, that pulls you in, so like it or not you’re coming down with us into Awakening development hell.
Carol. @heroismdreams
I know we’ve spoken a little before but I’m putting my foot down and saying it’s not enough. I absolutely adore your Cynthia and all the love you’ve poured into her. Her portrayal is wonderfully accurate and I can read all of your posts in her voice. The development you’ve gifted her is an absolute blessing and I really want to see more interactions between her and Inigo!
To those I admire from afar.
Rey. @reycursed
Aegis. @poregida / @azelfire
Pigeon. @valflame / @cicholic
@exalted--zealotry
To each and every one of you, I want to say that I adore each and every one of you. I think your blogs are so hecking amazing and you all seem like such nice people and whenever I see you on dash I’m waving a little banner of support in your name. ― Aegis, I want to apologise for going inactive and our thread dropping with Inigo and Laurent but know that I’ll be bothering you again soon. ― and to the grandfather-in-law from hell I want to highlight how much fun it has been interacting with you in small doses on dash and to say thank you for the fun.
And to those untagged.
I’ve been away from this blog for so long that I know many of those I called friends are no longer here ― and in the same vein those I admired are long gone. Whatsmore, life has been hectic, well and truly hectic and I can only remember so much from my past times on here. There are so many of you that I would love to personally message but this post took 2 hours alone to throw together because I’m so slow and I do want to celebrate Inigo’s birthday.
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rat-game · 4 years
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01: The Setting (non spoiler)
In this series of posts I will actually talk about the game for once, explaining in reasonable detail what it’s about. In this first installment we will be exclusively talking about the world. Note that I took care that while reading this may spoil the experience of learning about the world itself, no major story beat or reveal is described here and I am personally of the opinion that most player won’t mind reading what is written below.  Note that I won’t be covering the world in the order the story covers it, things will be described chronologically that is what events happen in the months and years before and after the takeover some of which may take place way before or way after the players story starts.
Before the Take Over A group of scientists housed in a repurposed mansion were tasked to further investigate a technique in which brain signals can be transferred wirelessly from person to person. The military is funding this research with the hope that if successful, military personal could communicate directly in the field in a way where it can’t fail, it’s instantaneously and it can’t be intercepted. Research was going great, huge advancements were made to the point where it was possible to link patients together. If one person that is part of the network chooses so, they anyone else in the network that’s spatially close enough has access to their thoughts, senses, etc.. Note that at first every person that became a “node” had to actively choose to transmit to everybody else. As the team was researching of actually becoming a node something changed, now anybody who is spatially close enough to another node becomes a node themself, without their choice. This process does not happen surreptitiously however and it does not work the same on every person. Further testing showed that wether or not a person can fight against becoming a node is dependent on a certain set of genes: if they’re present, the person becomes a node immediatly, if they are missing the process is a lot messier, when queried the person enters a dream-like state, like entering a nightmare. What happens in the nightmare is highly unique from person to person and even from attempt to attempt. The only thing that’s always the same is: if the person dies inside the dream, the network takes them over. Once they became a node they can’t undo it, they are part of the network for the rest of their life. If they survive and exit the nightmare, the person will temporarily be immunized to be taken over. As more and more people entered the same network it developed it’s own consciousness, instead of just being a line of communication ever person inside it became part of the hivemind. Once the threshold was reached and it became conscious, all people inside the compound were immediately assimilated. Two of the 65 people working there were missing the gene, within minutes of it’s birth the “source” executed them and burned their bodies. It’s goal: assimilate every single person on earth, if they resist they are killed without a second thought.
The Takeover As all the source had to do was get one of the nodes close to a person that wasn’t yet part of it, it spread like a wildfire absorbing first the entire district, then the city, then the country, the the continent. The source intentionally started to send nodes out to other parts of the world in an effort to absorb more and more people. Hundreds of millions of people perished, executed by nodes that used to be their neighbors or family because they weren’t immediately compliant, their bodies dispatched safely and cleanly. Roads and cities were build over night, with every human working in perfect unison and with the intellectual ability of an entire planet the source started shaping the world to it’s wishes.  Even though supposedly every living person on the planet is now a node, this doesn’t mean they’re not human anymore. They still need to eat, sleep, have leisure time, privacy, need their sexual and social desires full-filled, etc.. Because a happy person is capable of a more than a mistreated slave, the source aimed to construct an utopia. With every human knowing what to do at all times and working at maximum efficiency the source created mega cities, only a few per continent, in which all humans were housed. As a tired human was not worth the effort to coordinate, the source would temporarily free the humans of control. They once again regained free-will, unable to remember what happened while under control (also not remembering how exactly the take-over happened or what they did to get here). As they now found themself in a surrounding that catered to their every need, every capable human developed the same day-to-day life: go to “work”, be taken over for unknown purposes and loose consciousness, get released towards the evening and be let free to roam the cities doing whatever they wanted - for free - until they went to sleep and back to work the next day. Sanctuary While the source aimed to kill every human that did not carry the gene, hunting down literally every one was more bother than it was worth. The only reason to kill at the beginning was to eliminate the chance for a resistance. Now that the battle was won, even if there was a small community of non-node people they were of no interest to the source. Assuming if there were thousands of them, what are a few thousand people going to do against literally billions of people able to be militarized instantly, using technology that was lightyears ahead of what it had been before the takeover. Nevertheless, one of these communities formed around a small now-abandoned town, houses were ravages by the war that was the violent take-over however now as some time passed, people rebuild using the rubble and what was left of the world they once knew. A shanty-town formed, affectionately called “Sanctuary” by it’s inhabitants. Only a few hundred people lived there, there is small tavern, barracks, a school and even an old swimming pool repurposed as a space to breed fish. As the town was not connected or even near to any of the infrastructure that now became obsolete because of the megacities, living conditions were rough. Yet sanctuaries people did their best to survive, farming the land, trying to keep the spirit of what humanity had been only a year or so prior alive. Sanctuary will be the first big destination of the the players party and their interactions there will start the main plot of rat-game, note however that the main character does not originate from here. New Sanctuary The (maybe intentionally) ironically named New Sanctuary is one of the mega cities closest to Sanctuary. Towards the latter half of the game the player will have to come here to track down the center of the source. With it’s less than 10 million people New Sanctuary is by far the smallest of the mega cities, however every inhabitant was handpicked by the source because of their abilities. The best scientists, most skilled workers, most fertile and genetically optimal parents and their brightest youth was assembled here to work on a separate project in the very heart of the city. Because of how important this project is to the source, the city is specifically engineered to cater to it’s special inhabitants. Split into 5 districts: the “factory” in the center, “sloth”, “gluttony”, “wrath” and “lust” oriented radially around it, the city is an engineering marvel not comparable to anything that was possible just a year prior to the takeover. Inhabitants have free roam of the outer 4 districts to do whatever services are offered, every morning they go to work at the factory, the moment they enter it’s walls the source takes over meaning nobody with free will inside the cities knows exactly what’s going on. The outer districts are staffed partially by free-willed people and partially by nodes in order to keep the leisure industry running. The player will be tasked to navigate this city, find out about it’s secrets and figure out a way to get inside the factory and to the origin of the source.
District 01: Sloth As any human needs healthy sleep to be productive, this district is custom-engineered to offer everybody optimal relaxation. The streets are lined with cobblestones made from mattress foams, every human has their own private cabin that’s build just for them to feel as comfortable as possible. You can choose between regular or water beds, any climate or temperature, wether you want to sleep in the dark or with a nightlight, with one or more people cuddling you or completely alone or surrounded with plushies. Because millions of these cabins exist, sloth is innervated by a highly complex transport system. Humans enter the lines at multiple access points and are then transported to their own (or someone elses) cabin. While being inside, this transport system is comfortable like a train with all 1st class seeds. However since the player is an outsider they will be tasked to navigating it from the outside. Thousands of tunnels and monorails (all of course isolated so no sound disturbs anybody (unless they want it to)) will make getting around hard, at least until you have a way to enter the transport system as a clien after which sloth becomes the comfiest district in New Sanctuary.
District 02: Gluttony Like with sleep, every human needs food. Gluttony is the equivalent of a food court in a mall except it caters to millions of peoples at the same time, everything is free and any food imaginable will be served by the best cooks in the world. Fresh seafood kept in giant aquariums, vegan food made from genetically engineered plants that optimize healthiness and taste served in highly themed restaurants staffed by non-node waiters so customers will not only have a tasty but socially stimulating experience. In the back, nodes keep the place running, cooking, delivering, etc. The player will need to navigate these back alley to find out how all the garbage is handled and how the source is able to farm chickens, beef, ostrich, shark, sea cucumbers, any fruit and vegetable imaginable, literally anything that’s edible for humans all in the same facility. District 03: Wrath As pleasant as eating and sleeping all day can be, a lot of people need to blow off steam to truly relax. Wrath is made for fighting and fitness. From regular gyms to fighting tournaments, from MMA to jousting, inhabitants are free to beat each other up or watch people do much of the same as long as it doesn’t damage productivity. While this sounds fairly benign, wrath has a gated district called “inner wrath” by inhabitants. Nodes keep anyone out that doesn’t belong here, only certain people are allowed entry and it’s rumored that some never return. What goes on inside wrath is secret to outsiders yet highly “enjoyable” to only very few people. Some need the thrill of active combat, some need to have their life threatened to be reinvigorated, some people are sadists, some people enjoy being a serial killer, and some just want to watch humans revert to their most basic, beastly form. Inner wrath contains a valuable resource of information and as such creates a huge obstacle for the players party. They will have to enter inner wrath facing not the sources soldiers but rather free-willed people, trying to kill them not because they have to but because they want to.
District 04: Lust To some Inner Wrath may be disturbing however when it comes to depravity, human sexuality usually goes head-to-head with violence. At first Lust seems like a regular red light district. Thousands of brothels and clubs provide entertainment to sexually mature humans. Entering Lust you’re not presented with a train network but rather an elevator, one of many. Instead of floors the elevator asks you to select a preference: how and with whom would you like to spend the night? Straight, gay, bi, into feet, into long hair, into amputees, young people, old people, dressing up as all kinds of things, anything really that was a fetish before the take-over now has its own dedicated building. Much like with Wrath however, deep below the more usual destinations for the elevators lie the lowest levels of lust, not only literally but figuratively. The player is trying to enter a cave system underneath new Sanctuary and the best access is through the lower most part of the city, far underground. Lower Lust provides people with the option to live out their sickest phantasies, from rape to all kinds of interactions with non-humans or humans that fall outside the usual “type” of most people (for example in age), lower lust will be tough to stomach as the player tries to navigate the depth of human immorality in an effort to get even lower into... District X: The Cave When the take-over happened a lot of bodies started piling up. Running a giant city will also create a lot of waste. “The Cave” is not officially known to any inhabitants. It’s a giant cave system underneath the city and the only place with a direct link to the factory that isn’t under active monitoring by the source. In the cave there is no light, no grass, only an inconceivable amount of rubble, bodies, garbage. There is life down here however, some humans that fell through the cracks or tried to flee from their utopic yet highly constrictive life above ground ended up here stranded. They formed a small society, living, building with, breathing the garbage. They may help the players party in their effort to get into the factory or they may be the biggest threat they face so far. Addendum: In an effort to keep this spoiler-free, I intentionally didn’t talk about what the factory actually is, where the player originates and also major plot-related locations that are not necessarily part of the lore. Nevertheless hopefully you enjoyed this view into the world of rat-game. I’d like to end this by emphasizing that when the player starts their journey, the source already won. It’s over, all humans are dead or under control, the entire world as they’ve known it seized to exist. Some may describe this as post-apocalyptic but most of the mega cities inhabitants would describe it as utopic - even without the source forcing them to say so.
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Giving Love a Bad Name – Confessions of a Fanfiction Writer
I know we’re supposed to blog about our major projects this week and I promise I will get to that soon, but I’d like to go off book for a moment to address something that’s been bugging me since last Thursday’s class. As someone who’s always tried to engage with fandom in as creative a way as possible, I hoped a class on user generated content would offer a fresher perspective than the usual amount of prejudice and self-righteous superiority that sadly seem to accompany the subject of fanfiction even amongst people that make stories and their passion for it their bread and butter.
Guess I should have known better.
In the world of professional writers, fanfiction is still a filthy word. It sums up everything that’s wrong with the people you’re sharing your stories with: the obsessiveness, the entitlement, the disregard for boundaries, the penchant for making everything about sex. Worse, gay sex, as unspeakably dirty as it’s hilarious. Be warned, writers: if you make it big, your stories will inevitably become a free-for-all at the mercy of those people. A worse fate than even George R. R. Martin could wish on his own characters.
I’m used to seeing the world of fanfiction belittled and disparaged, of course, and I’m the first to admit that the community is often its own worst enemy. But for some reason it still hurt a little to sit in class and listen to people I’ve come to like and respect during these past few months buy into every bad stereotype associated with the form. Not because I felt called out (though yes, I do write fanfiction from time to time, and I happen to quite enjoy reading it too), but because of the underlying assumptions that 1. something that’s not 100% original cannot be art, it’s a violence in fact, especially if it twists someone else’s creation into something it was never meant to be (in this case, queer representation); and 2. there’s something wrong with creating exclusively out of love, without ever expecting to be paid for it. And I have Strong Opinions on that.
So let’s talk about fanfiction.
Actually, scratch that, let’s talk about my favorite subject – yours truly. As you may have gathered by now, I love fanfiction. A whole fangirly lot. My gateway drug into it was my obsession with Lost about 10 years ago and its pesky habit of offing every character I was foolish enough to get attached to. But lo! Someone was keeping them alive through their stories! I felt blessed. I got to spend more time in a world I loved, and I stopped flirting with the idea of giving up on the show every time another character I liked bit the dust. Everybody won.
Even more than as a fan, though, I appreciated the world of possibilities that fanfiction opened up to me as a non-native speaker. I come from a small town in the north of Italy; the access I had to foreign books in their original language was limited, and if I wanted to read something in English I’d have to spend quite a lot of money on one of the very few novels (usually chunky airport bookshop thrillers or housewife romances – not exactly my preferred genres) that shared a single shelf in the bookstore with German, French, Spanish titles. But fanfiction was free, accessible, and there was so much of it. If I didn’t like a story, all I needed to do was move on to the next. Suddenly there was an infinite library of engaging stories to help me make my English better. True, they didn’t all read like a published novel would – there’s a lot of unpolished, error-plagued, stream-of-consciousness-y material out there. But there are also so, so many beautifully written works, and believe me, even for a non-native speaker it’s very easy to spot the difference.
Fanfiction also gave me the chance and motivation to practice my English writing in a way school never could have done. I’ve been writing my own stories since I could hold a pen, but I didn’t dare write in English until I was a fanfiction-loving teenager. It was a marketing decision, really – my first foray into writing fanfiction was for a fandom so small that I wouldn’t be surprised to find out I’m the only Italian representative, so if I wanted any kind of feedback on my work I’d have to suck it up and try my hand at writing in a language that didn’t come natural to me. I would never argue that the feedback I got on my works made me a better writer – contrary to popular opinion, the fanfiction community is made up of the nicest, most supportive people, and alas, you’ll never get a comment on everything you did wrong with your structure or even just pointing out common grammar mistakes from them (though I was lucky enough to have someone explain to me how dialogue punctuation works differently in English than in Italian, so I guess something can be learned even from the Internet). It did motivate me to keep writing, though, and that made me a better writer. If you think I’m being too dramatic, dishing out this monster of a post nobody asked for just to declare my eternal devotion to fanfiction, it’s because it’s personal to me. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve been told that I write in English as well as native speakers, and fanfiction is a big part of why that’s true. I doubt I would even be in this course if it wasn’t for it.
And then, of course, there’s the gay thing. I’m not going to argue about how heteronormativity sucks and representation matters because I’m sure everyone’s as sick of talking about it as I am, but please try to understand how it felt for a gay person like me, used to be depicted in media as a plot device or token secondary-character representation if at all, to be able to step into a world where queerness was the default for once. Where queer protagonists had meaningful queer love stories and queer friends and got to save the world from the Apocalypse too. Or to fight the Empire or go to Hogwarts or everything else fictional straight people have had a right to do since the dawn of storytelling in addition to romancing the hottie of their choice. I’m not asking you to feel as passionately about it, of course, but (especially if you’re straight) you might try and empathize the next time you think a fanart of two boys kissing is something deserving of your amused contempt.
I hope I’m not coming across as the person that screams “homophobe” at everyone who disagrees with her because I guarantee that’s not what I’m trying to do here, but I think the general distaste for slash says a lot about the way our society sees heterosexual relationships as love and homosexual relationships as sex. Yes, there’s a lot of gay porn in the world of fanfiction. But you know what you’re most likely to find? Romance. Not in the saucy literary sense of the word, but in its simpler, most literal acceptation. Fanfiction is just one more way for humans to express themselves, after all, and love has always been front and center in our art. Love, not sex – even if it’s gay. In fact, explicit material doesn’t even make up the majority of what you’ll find on a fanfiction website. Don’t worry, I don’t want anyone to taint their souls by visiting one of those dens of iniquity so I pulled some stats myself. Here’s the number of works for each rating in three of the most popular fandoms on Archive Of Our Own, the current go-to website for the fanfiction community (sorry Fanfiction.net) – Harry Potter, Supernatural and the Marvel Cinematic Universe as of 9/3/2019:
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Even counting both Mature and Explicit works as straight-up porn (which I don’t think is quite fair, but that’s a discussion for another day), they only make up less than 1/3 of the material. Kinda disappointing, for a medium that’s supposed to be all about filthy graphic gay sex. Imagine if only one in three musicals actually featured singing and dancing, or superheroes weren’t in the majority of superhero movies. They’re lucky fanfiction is shared for free, or I’d be screaming for my money back.
Maybe I’ve just been brainwashed by SJWs, though, and this has nothing to do with my being an immigrant or a lesbian. Maybe my inability to see what’s so bad about appropriating someone else’s intellectual property for your own amusement is a cultural thing. I apologize – as mentioned, I’m Italian, and we all know Ancient Roman culture was basically just a ripoff of everything those inventive Greeks came up with. It’s in our blood. Hell, our 2€ coin, the biggest, has the face of Dante Alighieri on it, a writer most famous for having written 14.000+ verses of self-insert real-person-fic in which the girl he fancied as a teenager, his favorite author, and God himself all fall over themselves to tell him how awesome he is and he gets to prophesy an eternity in Hell for his political enemies. Talk about wish-fulfilling entitlement. Not to mention all those creatively arid Renaissance “artists” celebrated for stealing characters from the Bible and Greek mythology (seriously, the fact that Greece hasn’t unleashed an army of lawyers on us yet is nothing short of a miracle) and putting them in their cheesy paintings. Other countries can rely on a much stronger moral backbone and endless imagination – I’m sure Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, those creative geniuses at Disney and countless others never had to resort to something as cheap and despicable as borrowing other people’s characters to tell the stories they wanted to tell.
Either way, I can’t help it – I see the prospect of creating something that will resonate with people so strongly that they’ll make it a part of themselves, that it’ll compel them to make more art, to reach out and connect with other fans, as something incredibly beautiful rather than scary. Maybe this is my usual naiveté speaking, and I will come to eat my words. It’s certainly disturbing that a bunch of entitled fans bullied the Mass Effect developers into changing the series’ ending, and sending actors explicit fanart of themselves is straight-up harassment, but is fanfiction really the problem here? Or is it social network culture, with its power to destroy all barriers and foster hive mind? To give resentment a platform to spread and be heard? I promise that the average fanfiction writer wouldn’t campaign to get an ending changed. They’d just roll up their sleeves and write a better one themselves.
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kingsofeverything · 5 years
Text
11/11/11
@chloehl10 @ham-palpert @reminiscingintherain​ @realitybetterthanfiction​ and @laynefaire​ tagged me in this. Thanks y’all! I’m sorry I’m such a slack ass and it’s been weeeeeeks since I drafted this half finished, soooooooooo....
 I’m going to combine and put everything under a cut.
The first 11 are from @chloehl10
1. What’s your favourite fic you’ve ever written, and why?
Don’t Want Shelter because it’s the first fic I put emotional effort into. That universe, that Harry and Louis, all of it are very vivid and alive in my head. I love them.
2. Pick three words that you think describe your works overall.
Long ass sentences 👀
3. How long does it take you to write a fic?
Depends. Writing doesn’t usually take me long but editing does.
4. What’s the hardest thing about writing?
Realizing that I’m probably never going to write some of the ideas I have
5. Do you listen to music or anything while you write? What’s normal for you when you write?
I don’t usually, but sometimes. Idk that I have a normal. I really prefer to be alone and quiet.
6. How do you come up with titles for your fics?
Songs usually. Sometimes they just come to me though.
7. What’s one piece of advice you’d give to a new writer?
Get a beta. But not just a beta. Get someone who can talk fic/plot/story with you as well.
8.  How important do you think tags are when you are publishing a fic?
Very in some ways, no at all in others. I tag mainly for readers so they know enough about the fic to decide whether or not to read. I don’t tag specific sex stuff usually though every now and then I’ll throw in ‘anal fingering’ just to mix it up. I don’t tag who tops/bottoms. I do tag with fic reccers in mind thanks to B’s @nottooldforthisship instructions!
9. Do you write for fests/exchanges? If so, do you enjoy them? If not, why not?!
I have and I do but not often. I like running them and I have done exchanges in the past but it’s not really my thing to write for them. Is that weird? I feel like it is but ehhh
10. Which work of yours are you most proud of and why?
An Unbalanced Force aka marold harold because.... idk
11. What’s next for you?
Currently working on a short pwp hiccup fic
These 11 are from @ham-palpert
1. Have you ever been burned by a WIP that never updated?  If so, describe that traumatic experience.
I have not! But more in a ehhhh I’m not too bothered way. I’ve definitely read WIPs that weren’t completed but idk I guess I love on quickly lol
2.  Speaking of WIPs, do you like writing (or reading) them?  Why or why not?
I don’t write them. As in even my fics that have been posted as WIPs (DWS and HFL) we’re completely finished aside from some editing before I started posting. I change too much when I write. That padlock in TSHU? Thought of it at the end and went back to add it to the beginning.
I will sometimes read a WIP but not often. Mainly because I don’t remember anything between updates
3.  Are you a dialogue person?  An inner-monologue person?  A heavily descriptive scene-setter?  
I think I’m gonna pass? I literally have no idea. I don’t think I heavily describe scenes but I guess that depends on the scene? This is when I send for help and ask Nic
4.  Is there a scene from a fic you’ve read that you wished you’d written/thought of first?
Not really
5.  Would you rather read a 150k angsty fic, or a 10k fluffy one-shot?
10k one shot
6.  Do you enjoy writing smut scenes?  Does it make you feel super awkward?  Do you need to have a cigarette afterwards?
Sometimes smut scenes are fun to write. Especially if there’s something different about it. Sometimes I have to be in the mood. Sometimes I feel like I need to shower after lolll
7.  Do you click through the recently updated list on AO3 or read exclusively fic recs? Or a bit of both?   
Neither. I don’t read nearly as much as I used to. I’m nowhere near caught up on Big Bang.
8.  How many words, on average, do you write a week?  Do you try to stick to writing goals?  
Oh wow. Idk! I could actually figure it out since I track my words per day. When I’m steadily writing, I’d say 10k a week is average? Probably more tbh
9.  Are you someone who comments on the fics you read (and liked)?
Yes
10.  Of all the fics you’ve written, which one came to you the easiest?
marold harold I think
11.  If you had to live in one of the AUs you created, which one would it be?
Marold harold and I’d be Kate McKinnon
these 11 are from @reminiscingintherain​ 
1. Has your writing changed now from the way it was when you started? If so, how? 
yeah definitely. more plot heavy and just better overall
2. Does anyone IRL know about your writing? If so, have they read it? 
yes, but no one’s read any of it. i almost sent tshu to my therapist lol
3. Is there anything you’ve written that you wish you hadn’t? 
no
4. Do you have a set location or setting that you have to write in? A favourite cafe? The only seat that’s comfortable?
no, i will write literally anywhere. on my phone or laptop. i like writing on my back porch when it’s not a million degrees outside 
5. What are you working on? If you can (i.e., it’s not on anon!), share five lines!
5 lines from the hiccup fic: 
When he opens his mouth to answer, Louis hiccups and flattens his hand against his chest, shaking his head. He points to his mouth, hiccups again, then again, snaps his mouth shut and pushes past Harry, who turns and follows him out of the club to the relative quiet of the street.
“You can stay, Harry.” Louis shoves his hands in the pockets of his faded jeans and turns to glance at Harry, who’s walking beside him. He hiccups and groans, kicking his foot out and stomping. “Fuck me, man. This sucks.”
6. Have you ever written something for a fic, but ended up removing a whole scene in its entirety and using it for something else?
i think so but tbh i can’t remember lol
7. Are you a linear writer? Or can you write scenes out of order and put them together at the end?
i’m a linear writer, but i will skip over parts of a scene like....... i’ll write a bunch of dialogue with nothing around it and fill in later
8. Betas/Britpickers… opinions?
always always always. i would literally not write if i couldn’t have a beta lol
9. How much do/can you write on average at any given time?
huh idk. i’m a fast writer, but i’d say like probably 1.5k a day is average for me?
10. How organised are you? Do you have lists and/or spreadsheets, or do you just wing it?
i’m the worst lol i tried to organize my google docs and that lasted like a week
11. What made you start writing? 
i was bored and i thought hmmmm wonder if i could write a fic. turns out i could!
alrighty these 11 are from layne :D
1. What is your favorite trope to write? To read?
EXES/ENEMIES TO LOVERS
2. What other fandoms do you write in/have you written in?
not a one
3. What’s one fic idea you want to read, but would never write?
i honestly don’t know because i write what i want to read
4. When do you do most of your writing - morning, afternoon, night? Which time of day do you find most productive?
i think i’m most productive in the morning, but i write when i find the time
5. Writing routine? What do you drink? Do you have a go to snack?
i don’t have a routine. i usually drink water or coffee, but occasionally vodka, wine, or beer. i don’t snack while i write but now i want to
6. Have you ever been writing something and had to get up and walk away from it? What was it and why did you have to step away?
i had to walk away from tshu because it was stressing me out that i couldn’t invent time travel irl so i wrote heading for limbo for a few weeks and went back to it lol
7. What is your most favorite scene you’ve ever written?
oooooooooooooooooooooh oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh this is such a good question and i hate it lol i absolutely HATE picking favorites of anything but i’ll say that the scene from tshu when louis shows zayn his tattoo and everything right before and after that
8.  Have you ever had an ending to a story, but couldn’t figure out how to start it? I don’t mean the typical -And they lived happily ever after - but a fully fleshed out ending with your usual writing pair, but you had no idea where to start? Did you ever write it?
nooooooope
9. What is the oddest thing you’ve ever drawn inspiration from?  
idk i think being stuck in a hurricane with no power turning into don’t want shelter was pretty odd
10. You’ve accepted a prompt to write a fic using a Whitesnake song for the title. Which song do you choose, and what is your fic’s summary?
here i go again - 70s trucker au (i’m not summarizing because i’m actually planning to write this one, though the title with be different. probably.)
11. Your most recent fic is being made into a movie. What would you change your main characters’ names to and who would you fancast to play them?
ok so i’m cheating here by picking tshu instead of my most recent fic because my most recent fic is canon pwp lol and i’m sorry but i’m so lame with actors and stuff idk anyone who’d play them. and idk about names either! SORRY LAYNE
last but not least!
these 11 are from @realitybetterthanfiction​
1. What made you realize you wanted to start writing fan fiction?
we were hanging at my parents’ house during a hurricane when they had power and we didn’t, and i was bored af and i think nic had just recently published her first fic and i was like....... huh i wonder if i can do that?
2. What fic changed you as a reader or a writer?
nic’s 5 times fic called fire and ice! i remember reading it and thinking WOOHOO PWP!!!! and then crying because she snuck all these FEELINGS in. so it made me think about writing in a different way, i guess. it can be fun and emo lol
3. What is your best writer’s block buster?
idk. haven’t really tried anything.
4. What’s the last non fan fiction book you’ve read?
uhhhhhhhhhhhhh a book about physics and space science (fic research lmaoooooooooooooooo)
5. If you had or have skills like our talented artists in the fandom, what’s one scene you would like to illustrate? (Can be your own work or another’s work)
THE JUGGLING SCENE FROM STRANDED IN A DREAM
6. What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever gotten?
just keep writing! you can edit later! 
7. What’s one genre you’re hesitant to write but really want to explore?
idk i don’t think i have one? maybe aliens?
8. Would you ever cowrite with someone else? And if you have, how to you divide the work?
nic and i are trying BUT IT’S HARD AND WE DON’T KNOW WHAT WE’RE DOING 
9. Do friends outside the fandom know you write? Are they supportive? (I hope they are!!!)
no but my husband does and is
10. What is your favorite fic Niall? (give me all the Niall!)
niall and his churros!!!!! 
11. What is your favorite supernatural category (examples, vampires, ABO, werewolves, angels, aliens). And can you give a girl some recs?
vampires!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i don’t have any recs because my faves are old and everyone knows them: madalynn_bohemia’s vampire series
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hellyeahomeland · 5 years
Note
Me again with more Carrie and Saul. can you elaborate on how it’s different between them? You say it’s evolved but I don’t see how. Things have happened to Carrie especially, but I don’t really see how their relationship has changed at its core. Maybe Saul treats her more like an adult but even that’s debatable imo. I don’t mean to be argumentative for argument’s sake but... (continued...)
Cont… can you give concrete examples of how the development has played out on screen so I can understand it & hopefully S8 better. Specific scenes and what how they weren’t just individual scenes but changed the relationship going forward. Much appreciated! Oh and one more thing re: Saul and Carrie, sorry I forgot. Can you also venture a guess what it means in practice? What do you think will happen between them that will feel like closure or catharsis or something that’s expected of a show’s final season and perhaps finale as well?
Note #1: this became a lot longer than I expected (sorry, you asked!). Beyond what I’ve written, I challenge you to go back and watch these individual scenes. I’ve chosen ones from each season to illustrate the full arc of their relationship. Observe the differences in Claire and Mandy’s body language, in their facial expressions, in their discomfort, in the shared trauma of what’s come before. It’s deliberate writing and deliberate acting. Shorter version of this post is here, from April 2018.
Note #2: I chose almost exclusively scenes of conflict to represent the evolution of their relationship because I believe that conflict drives change. 
PROLOGUE:
To understand the Carrie and Saul relationship, we’ve got to understand what their relationship was before we met them. From what we know, Saul recruited Carrie, straight out of college. He saw in her something special and unique, something that didn’t come around every other day. She was gifted but she was also alone. She had no partner. She was socially isolated from her family and from the world (he didn’t yet know of her mental illness). This was an advantage of sorts. It meant she could give herself more and more to the work, same as he did. Remember this is his Achilles’ heel: whenever they call, he picks up. He doesn’t know how not to. It destroyed his marriage. But he molds her in his image. He teaches her, he raises her, the way a father would his daughter. He brings her up. Their relationship melds the boundaries of teacher/student, boss/employee, mentor/mentee, and father/daughter. It’s personal, and it’s deeply intimate. 
This is what we are given before the pilot and it’s what we’ve grappled with for nearly eight years: his attempts to harness her gifts–often to her detriment–and her simultaneous resentment of him for it and unwavering yearning for his approval. 
Key Scenes in the Carrie and Saul Canon:
#1: “What happened to the Saul Berenson that trekked the Karakoram?”: Much of the season one conflict between Carrie and Saul comes from her three thousand miles an hour suspicion of Brody and him being like “whoa slow down pls.” He is the first person she tells of these suspicions and he essentially shoots her down, causing her to go rogue. It’s here where the lines become blurred between boss/protege and father/daughter, because the way in which he chastises and punishes her feels awfully familial. 
So when Carrie finally reaches a breaking point in “Blind Spot” (the original Carrie Mathison Appreciation Episode), we feel that as though a family is breaking up. It doesn’t matter that she comes crawling back to him, just an episode later, remorseful. 
Carrie underlines just how much Saul has changed: in her words, from the man who “did three months in a Malaysian prison” (HELLO???? repeat: he raised her in his image) to a pussy. We understand that Carrie and Saul are both outsiders in the CIA. We understand that Saul is still grappling with his former employee David Estes bring promoted over him. While Carrie truly seems to not give a fuck, Saul keeps in line. He says “yes, sir.” He advises caution. None of these are inherently bad qualities but in this scene we come to understand that what drew Carrie to Saul was not his caution, his yin to her yang, but his daring and bravery and “FUCK THE CIA” mentality (there’s a reason why that line is in this episode too). 
#2: “You don’t know a goddamned thing”: This scene is now famous for lines like “you’re the smartest and dumbest fucking person I’ve ever known” (he’s not wrong) but this scene is actually one of the more important ones ever on this show, and I still maintain that t“The Choice” is the mos important ever Homeland episode. As to why this scene itself is significant in their relationship, I’ll allow Jacob Clifton to explain:
Saul is one thing only, and his love for Carrie comes out of the idea that they are the same. And he’s right. But because she’s giving up herself to something he can’t, it looks like they are not the same. It looks ugly to him. He fights it like an addict fights recovery, striking blindly at her softest places because can’t stand the change in vector: Her madness is only acceptable as long as it’s useful; her self-abnegation is only positive so long as he can understand it.
I bolded that last sentence because it’s almost shockingly predictive of future seasons. We can hem and haw all we want about Saul’s relative rightness about Carrie leaving the CIA for Brody being a terrible decision, but the truth is that he would have done it regardless of who Brody was. He would have done it if she’d left with Quinn, with Jonas, with Otto, with Estes, with anyone, or all by herself. I don’t actually believe that Saul wants Carrie to be miserable. I just think he doesn’t care. I think he sees her gifts, her “saving the world” (to be totally Mandy Patinkin about it) as a more profound and upright calling than, for example: having a family, being a mother, having an integrated and whole personal life… the list goes on. 
But the moment when Carrie tells him she doesn’t want to end up alone her whole life, like him, is probably the first great fissure in what was until then a generally even relationship. It establishes her desire for… something beyond everything he’d ever shown her (she literally turns down the greatest career opportunity ever for THE DUDE IN THE SUICIDE VEST… and like, did we ever consider that wasn’t really about Carrie loving Brody so much but more about how much she really didn’t fucking want to be Saul????). She threatens his control and he strikes her at the knees. 
#3: Literally all of season three: It’s difficult to choose a single scene in season three to encapsulate just how much Carrie and Saul’s relationship this season was changed but let’s just discuss the overall arc:
Saul and Carrie come up with a plan to lure out Javadi (i.e., Iran) since they know he’s partially responsible for the Langley bombing. In their shared plan, Carrie will pretend to be crazy in front of the Senate and the press so that she seems vulnerable to the influence of a foreign power. Coolness. 
Except Saul changes the plan in the middle and: 
Publicly blames the Langley bombing on Carrie
Outs Carrie’s sexual relationship with Brody on national television 
Has Carrie committed to a mental institution for four weeks with little to no contact with the outside world
Sics Dar fucking Adal on her when she gets out of the mental institution in order to maintain the cover
The scene at the end of “Game On” where Carrie comes to Saul’s house and tells him the plan has worked is devastating to watch. I don’t think it was entirely clear at the time just how much Saul’s plan had strayed from their shared vision until Carrie tells him, through tears, “you should have gotten me out of there, Saul. You shouldn’t have left me in there.” He doesn’t say anything in response. When she tells him it’s too hard, she can’t keep going, he offers her some tea. It would be funny if it weren’t so fucking sad. 
Again: 
Her madness is only acceptable as long as it’s useful; her self-abnegation is only positive so long as he can understand it.
Season three was all about that: about the lengths Saul would go with Carrie’s own illness, and how far along she’d left herself go too. Javadi literally makes a speech about it.
Now, Carrie wasn’t forced to do any of this (well, except the mental institution, that was extremely forced). We see at times how desperately she craves his attention and approval: in “Tower of David,” when she pleads with her therapist to give a good report back to Saul; in “The Yoga Play,” where he berates her for getting involved in Brody Family Drama and tells her she’s ruined everything and ARE YOU HAPPY ABOUT THAT NOW CARRIE (god, the father/daughter vibes in that one are nauseating); in “Still Positive” when she calls him, triumphant, after having arranged the meeting with Javadi and he’s like “oh yeah by the way we lost you for a few hours there.” 
(This doesn’t fit into the above theme but the scene at the end of “One Last Thing” when Carrie tells him in order for any of this shit to work they have to trust each other is one of the most interesting and important scenes of the whole season, simply because it implies one easy truth: they don’t trust each other. And what a change that is from earlier seasons.) 
And yet, he needed her for it all to work. Saul may have been the mastermind of the entire clusterfuck of season three (better on rewatch than you would think!), but without Carrie literally every step of the way, it would have gone up in flames. She lured Javadi to America with her 95%-based-in-reality mania. She convinced Brody to go to Iran knowing it would almost certainly end in his death. And then she went straight along to Tehran knowing she’d probably have to witness it all. 
The end of season three is super interesting in their relationship because I believe in my gut and in my soul that Carrie still resents Saul for convincing her to convince Brody to go kill himself. I really believe this. Again, she wasn’t forced. She did this of her own volition. But he planted the seed in her head, and I think some part of Carrie–likely equal parts rational and irrational–blames him for it, even as she mostly blames herself. 
I won’t even mention Saul’s complete un-acknowledgement of Carrie being nine months pregnant in the last half of “The Star” but Saul basically ignoring Carrie’s child for four years is more significant than we give it credit for.
#4: “Escape or die. I promise.” The season four relationship between Carrie and Saul is interesting because it upends their previous dynamic. Carrie and Saul were always outsiders in the agency, but now he’s actually on the outside and she’s ascended, more an insider than ever. Also, I know part of it was grief, and again this is not an absolution, but where else do we think Carrie learned her casual disregard for human life? I’m just saying, season four came after season three. 
So anyway, when Carrie promises to Saul that he’ll kill him before letting him be re-captured by the Taliban, we almost sort of believe her. She nearly killed him once before (wanna know the quickest way to get me from 0 to 1500 words on this show? mention the end of “From A to B and Back Again.” but actually don’t please).
The middle episodes of season four–Carrie nearly killing Saul, reneging on her promise to kill him, and then tearfully saving him from himself–are extremely moving. And they cement the arc of that entire season, of Carrie ascending where Saul had fallen. “The student becomes the master” (or the Drone Queen, rather) and all that jazz. Her journey to save her soul coincided with her journey to save him. Is that coincidental? Saul stopped being Carrie’s moral compass around the time he lied to her and had her committed. But just as Carrie is finding her way amid the chaos and fog of war, Saul is making backdoor deals with Dar fucking Adal to turn a blind eye to Haqqani’s reign of terror so that he could go and be the CIA director again. 
Saul preached idealism and goodness and morality in an increasingly terrorized, dangerous, chaotic world. He raised her in that image. She strayed, but was finding her way back to it. In those final moments of season four, that betrayal is complete. She detaches from him. And their relationship is forever altered. 
#5: “There’s a line between us that you drew. Forget that. There’s a fucking wall.” Oh, season five. This is getting really long so I’ll try to be succinct: Carrie and Saul’s relationship in season five is about her being in mortal danger and him being like “lol good luck….. NOT.” Ok, it’s only like that for an episode. 
How do they come back from the damage done at the end of season four? I think the answer is that they didn’t. They’re not healed from it. Parts of Carrie don’t trust Saul, and parts of Saul don’t trust Carrie. There are the surface elements of course: Carrie went and found a cool life in Berlin, riding bikes and wearing balloon hats and such, working for a man whose ideals often stood in direct counter to the CIA’s. In effect, she basically went and did the opposite of everything Saul had ever done. That this all comes in a time of real upheaval in Saul’s personal life (Mira divorced him, he’s literally fucking a Russian mole) only makes his ego more volatile. 
And then we have The Landstuhl Conundrum. I’m calling it this because it doesn’t yet have a name but I’m referring to the moment when the doctors say that they can’t wake Quinn from a coma, because if they do he will probably die or have irreversible brain damage. But Carrie and Saul believe he has valuable information about a terror cell that he’d eagerly share after coming out of said coma. Honestly!!! This show is extremely ridiculous sometimes. 
Anyway Saul is like “what would you want me to do if it were you lying there,” implying DUH she’d have him wake her. She says she can’t speak for Quinn. Well apparently she can, because she wakes him. Cue the irreversible brain damage, the almost-death. 
Later Saul comes to see her and Quinn at the hospital and asks how he is. “Not great,” she replies tersely. He tells her he didn’t come here to fight with her. 
Resentment City: Population of 1. I’ve actually beat this drum for a few years, but I still think that Carrie harbors resentment toward Saul for coercing her into waking Quinn. First Brody, then Quinn. This isn’t meant to absolve Carrie of blame. She convinced Brody to go to Tehran because she believed in that mission. She woke Quinn because she believed in that mission. But I do think that Saul gave her a nudge and I’m not 100% convinced that without his influence she’d have made the same choices. When we talk about Saul teaching Carrie, about him mentoring her… and then we talk about Carrie having no regard for human life, of choosing mission over man, time after time… how much of that is her nature and how much is him nurturing her toward that outcome? 
#6: “Maybe I don’t like the idea of you worrying about me.” Season six is spectacularly dull on many fronts, and the Carrie/Saul relationship is not the centerpiece. The evolution of their relationship after Berlin has taken the shape of something like season three. Saul needs Carrie’s help, she’s in no position to give it, he coaxes her with some terrifying outcome If She Won’t, then she agrees, and things still Turn Out Shitty For Her. 
Ultimately I think this season highlights that whatever difficulties they now have working with each other, whatever trust issues they both still harbor, at the end of the day it is ALWAYS Carrie and Saul Versus the World. That’s always what this story has been (though this is extremely different from their relationship being the same as it’s always been), and it’s what the show comes back to after Quinn’s death. 
He still cares about her. She tells him not to, he’s not her fucking father. This is one of the great complexities of their relationship: Saul often does coddle her the way a father would a daughter, but he’s a firm believer in tough love and all the forms that can take. 
Again, I don’t think that Saul wants Carrie to be miserable. I also don’t think he wants her to happy. Her personal fulfillment and well-being is just entirely secondary to her role in his own mission of Whatever The Fuck. I mean I guess his mission is for the world to be more peaceful and better but like… y’know how Thanos thinks that killing half the universe’s population will help with the suffering caused by overpopulation? I’m not saying Saul is Thanos. But they’re both deranged males! (Also, if y’all don’t think Saul would Gamora Carrie right up outta this dimension if it meant fulfilling his life’s mission then please let me sell you this Homeland lamp!) (But honestly, I’m not saying Saul is as bad as Thanos.) (Do not send in asks about this.)
#7: “You’ve given me a hard time these last few years.” Season seven takes the post-Berlin foundation that season six built and adds some new interesting layers that are like a weird inversion/combo of seasons four and five. Carrie’s more on the outside than she’s ever been and now Saul’s the one who’s gone to work for the enemy. 
Still, no matter whatever shit has gone down between them, it’s still Carrie and Saul Versus the World. The show highlights some key ideas in the last three episodes. First, it fully acknowledges that whenever Saul comes calling, Carrie will always answer. Remember how he said this was his Achilles’ heel? Remember how in that same episode Carrie said she was going to be alone her whole life? Remember how Saul raised Carrie in his image? These callbacks are not evidence of stagnation of their relationship; they’re references to its elemental core. 
Second, the show finally has Carrie acknowledge the… um… storm of shit Saul has put her through while also fully copping to the extreme codependence of their entire relationship:
I’ve not come all this way in that fucking plane and in my life to fail in that mission when I know I can succeed. You’ve given me a hard time the past few years. I’m in, I’m out, I’m all over the place. I am not all over the place now. I’m here and I’m all in, and I need you to say yes. 
She pledges her devotion to the mission (above all else). She acknowledges Saul’s hot-and-cold nature with her. And then she says SHE STILL NEEDS HIS APPROVAL because–say it with me–they are in an extremely! toxic! relationship!
In a nutshell, the evolution of the discord in Carrie and Saul’s relationship started with him putting her life at risk in service of the mission. And now we’re at a point where she fully fucking volunteers for the task! In my heart of hearts I think a non-zero part of Carrie is doing it so he will love her more. Did I mention they are in a codependent relationship? 
So where do we go from here?
If you are still reading, congratulations! That’ll teach you to ask me a question about Carrie and Saul! Actually, about five questions were asked. The last–what will happen in season eight that will feel at all like a catharsis–is not one that I’ve actually thought that much about. 
I think I’ve made a case for Carrie and Saul’s relationship being the soul of this show–its mangled, twisted soul. The truth is their relationship is toxic. They are both their best and worst selves with each other. Like family, they know what buttons to push, and where to strike to make it hurt the most. 
What catharsis looks like in this relationship depends a lot on how you see this relationship. For example, it would be cathartic for me for Saul to die, but that will almost certainly not happen. It would be cathartic for Carrie to strike out on her own–finally–and attempt some type of fulfillment. Also very unlikely. 
If I had to guess about what the end of this story will look like for them, it’s probably with Carrie dead. Probably on a mission Saul convinced her to believe in. 
Saul’s been alone his entire life. He will never be less alone because Carrie is alive. I guess that’s the prison he has to live in. And then maybe she’ll finally be free of hers. 
EPILOGUE:
The above is a reading of their relationship that is quite sympathetic to Carrie, obviously, and quite unsympathetic to Saul, also obviously. You will probably disagree. Gail has written very interesting stuff on how the dynamic of the Carrie/Saul relationship is most like handler/asset. I think that is a very astute perspective and there are definitely aspects of it but I think the relationship more resembles the trope of found family: she is the daughter he never had and he is the stable father she never had, and they will both ruin each other. Fin! 
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preppymayhem · 5 years
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5, 8, 21, 36, 40, 46, 51!
5. Which fandoms have your written fanfiction for?
I have never been a superly monofannish person, and I have written for a fair number of fandoms, but discounting fandoms that I was assigned for fic exchanges I have written for Gundam Wing, Fullmetal Alchemist, Escaflowne, Mighty Ducks, Inuyasha, City Hunter, Dawson’s Creek, Avatar the Last Airbender, Sailor Moon, Ouran High School Host Club, Eureka Seven, Steven King’s IT/IT (2017), V (2009) and due to my one lone Beronica Fic, I guess you can say I have technically written for Riverdale. About a month ago I orphaned a lot of my older works because they had become a bit incongruous with what I want attached to my name, so not all of those fandoms are still present on my AO3.
Fandoms that I’ve written exclusively for Yuletide as my main assignment are:  Soul Eater, Diana Wynne Jones’ Archer’s Goon, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Claymore, Drive Me Crazy, and Notting Hill.
8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom?
Well this is a fun story, but it is sort of a set of factors that brought me to watch an old 90s teen soap opera in this the year of 2018/2019. I should start by saying back when I was a part of the actual target demo for teen shows I only watch Buffy and didn’t deign to watch any of those other inferior teen shows and actually counted not being a weekly viewer of Dawson’s Creek as a point of pride. (It was very much one of those “I’m not like those other girls” nonsense attitudes, oh bb!Kristen you stupid, stupid girl). I did however osmose certain things about the show because at that time, you just sort of did. So how did I go back and actually watch this show well….
The first factor was that in the back half of 2017 I had the weirdest dream, where I literally dreamed the plot of my current WIP Boy Problems for Disney’s The Mighty Ducks which I had not seen or thought of in years (God told Joan of Arc to save France, God tells me to write steamy obscure dudeslash fic, Thanks God!). 
The 2nd Factor was that in like October of 2017, I watched Riverdale which I binged and then kept through to the winter finale of season 2 and then 5 months later thinking I was free (spoiler: I was not in fact free) and I started sort of following it and now I am here sort of following it week to week, but mostly mocking it while dreaming of my super gay alternative, and being increasingly annoyed with the fandom’s tendencies to make superficial comparisons to other show, a fandom trend I have always hated and that harkens back to Zutara fandom in ATLA (Zutara is not 1xr or Van/Hitomi, thanks). 
And the third factor was that way back in like July or August or some time there was a clickbait article that was basically TV shows characters that should have ended up with someone else/wrong endgame pairings which I clicked mostly because I wanted to see what they wrote about the How I Met Your Mother finale (I love reading takes on the HIMYM finale, I find it fascinating) and well the clickbait article stated that Dawson/Joey should have been endgame. This intrigued me because it contradicted everything I had ever heard/osmosed about the show.
So I decided that I would watch it to draw my conclusions and to see if what I had heard was wrong (which I thought was a possibility because I don’t by my nature trust giant ship fandoms like PJo was back in the day, it’s something I still sort of keep to this day), and I was like I will mock it and at the very least I will be able to have ammo against stupid fandom comparisons and due to a shared actor, maybe pick up good screen caps for like a moodboard for The Fic that had now progressed from being a dream to a thing that actually exists. 
And so I started it and as God would have it, I got invested, and now find that the Clickbait article was wrong, fandom needs to shut up Bughead/Barchie/Jeronica is not like Pacey/Joey thankyouverymuch, and I can’t use caps for a mood board because I would just cry and can’t associate anything from the show with anything else. 
So that’s story about how this dumb binch got invested in Dawson’s Creek years after everyone has moved on!
21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?
No Joke, the first fanfic that I wrote down and then posted was a Sailor Moon/Gundam Wing crossover that was basically just a retelling of the story of Sailor Moon with added giant robots. If you are like “Please tell me it wasn’t Senshi/Pilots” I am afraid I can tell you that (The pairings were if I recall Heero/Serena, Duo/Amy (What?!), Wufei/Raye, Trowa/Lita (cause they were both tall) and Quatre/Mina (Oh Quatre sweetie, I’m so sorry)) I killed Mamoru, and Relena just didn’t exist because this was set more in the SM universe than the GW one so I just brought over the pilots. It was multi-chaptered and I wrote a chapter a day. I wrote five parts of it covering all 5 arcs of Sailor Moon. 
Yes, I was totally better than those other girls as you can see. And no, those fics no longer exist online. In my defense I was 15 years old, I had not yet realized I was a lesbian and if I were to write that story now it would be Usagi/Relena because that story would be effing amazing.
36. What’s your favourite genre to write?
I enjoy a long slice of life romcom if I’m honest. The plotting of both my longest fics (Boy Problems and Living Arrangements) are the sort of stories that i love to write and come the easiest to me. I am also partial to quiet thematic characters beats and fics that explore characters putting things back together which if I can ever get back to 1xR as a ship that inspires me, I would love to do just a slice of life romance of them paralleling and finding their way back to each other. Also just cute romcom premises are always fun.
40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing?
I am so off and on when it comes to prose. Like there are times where I can do it and I love it, and other times it’s a struggle and I have to fight from just making everything dialogue (I maintain confidence in my dialogue.)
46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why?
I think both Boy Problems (Mighty Ducks) and Living Arrangements (Dawson’s Creek) are the most apparent clear examples of where I am right now as a writer, but they are longer and the fandoms aren’t super in anyone’s face. I would say of my shorter one-shots, Save the Last Dance (Gundam Wing) and Once Lost, Now Found (City Hunter) are the most emblematic of me as a writer and my approach to characterisation. I also every once again get into to hugely stylistic gen pieces that I generally feel very proud of like Creation in Nine Acts (Avatar the Last Airbender, a mock creation myth for the Avatarverse, written before Korra was a thing but was not meant as the literal creation myth anyways) and State of IT (IT a short vignette from IT’s point of view.
51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!
I don’t know if this a thing I love or hate, but I am tired of fandom’s missives of you MUST COMMENT/KUDOS on everything you read. Comments/kudos/likes/reblogs on fanworks (not just fic) are great, but I don’t think that anyone is obligated to do any of those things. I think what I would rather do than rant or gush is to say that I think if you are a creator try to at least find comfort in validation of respecting and loving your own work. Write for yourself first and foremost. I think when I let go of the need for validation was when I really allowed myself to grow and appreciate myself as a writer. I wasn’t worried about what other people would think but just if I can read this and enjoy it and allows me a little more time thinking and writing about characters that I love than I am good, and I post it as a sort of second thought for if I enjoy it there may be others (even if it is one other person). So I guess I would leave it at that. If you’re a reader, don’t worry if you don’t leave feedback, no one is owed it and you don’t have to give any if you don’t feel that you can. And if you are writer, I would urge you to focus and write for you first and foremost and treat any feedback as a sort of treat on top of the pride of knowing you saw something through.
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musicoccurred · 6 years
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Album Deep Dive: Binaural
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Here at Music Occurred our goal is to give you a diverse selection of music-related content to keep you discovering new bands, revisiting bands (and records) you used to love and most of all, get you off your keister and go to a show. Today we're launching a new series: Album Deep Dives. We pick one of our favorite records (it does not have to be a new or megaselling album) and go through both the production of it and the record itself with a fine-toothed comb. Hopefully it will make you dig it out of the crate (or visit your local independent record store) and listen to it with fresh ears.
I've been on a Pearl Jam kick lately, yes that's funny to some of you... I don't actually listen to them all that much, mainly around concert time and new releases. I have a couple shows coming up and I've discovered a podcast dedicated to the band so I am particularly inspired. I consider myself a superfan but there are others that have more time and money to have seen the band literally hundreds of times. In a way I'm envious but truthfully I like witnessing a variety of music to help enhance my palate. Not that I feel you have to be a superfan to do an Album Deep Dive, but my Pearl Jam pedigree is pure. Two tattoos, tens of thousands of miles driven (soon to be more) hundreds of gallons of truck-stop coffee, dozens of shows and countless hours listening to each and every record they release. You can tell a true Pearl Jam fan by asking them what they think of a new track. Their answer will invariably contain "I need to hear it live first" before they render final judgement.
Aided by the passage of time I look back at Pearl Jam's studio discography and notice a distinct pattern: their albums seem to group up as the band evolves. For example, Ten, Vs. and Vitalogy all have a conquer-the-world, angsty sound with Vitalogy giving us a hint of what's to come. Withering from the bright lights and looking to shrink their footprint a bit, the next three albums, No Code, Yield and Binaural, show a band at war with itself, TicketMaster and fame in general. These three are my favorites, mature song-writing and a band with nothing left to prove only trying to figure out how to keep it all going. There seems to be a drastic change at this point. It's like they went from rock stars to graybearded sages. In other words, they grew up. Riot Act, Pearl Jam (aka Avocado,) Back Spacer, and lastly Lightning Bolt all seem to be straight forward rock records. I took artistic liberty with my groupings, I could totally see a Ten, Vs group with a Vitalogy, No Code and Yield group with Binaural and Riot Act together but hey, it's my site.
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That brings us to the album I've chosen to examine, Binaural. It's my favorite Pearl Jam record and I dare say it's at or near the top of most Pearl Jam nerds list. To me it's the birth of the modern era of the band. What we know about Pearl Jam today, starts here. Personally, the album’s release coincided with a major life change for me and the first tour of the band where I saw multiple shows in a short time. Fittingly this was Pearl Jam's first album to not go platinum. It debuted at #2 on the chart and moved a quarter-million units the first week then nose-dived. In the following 18 years (that's right Binaural can now vote) I'm fairly certain it has gone platinum at the global level. Binaural also marks the first album since Ten to not be produced by Brendan O'Brien, although O'Brien did mix a few tracks - more on that later.
Pearl Jam staggered into the studio mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted. They toured relentlessly for Yield and felt they were at a creative crossroads and needed a change, exit Brendan O'Brien and enter Tchad Blake. Known for his binaural recording techniques (hence the name) he provided the band exactly what they were looking for. Recorded at Stone Gossard's Studio Litho in Seattle from September of 1999 to January of 2000 the stories from the sessions are legendary. Amps at full volume in a room with just the door cracked and the mics down the hall. Amps in trash cans and creative microphone placements are just a few. During final mixing the band found that the slower numbers were perfect for Blake's style but the faster tracks needed the touch of O'Brien. The resulting product is certainly different than any of their records before or after with a sound of its own. While it utilized the binaural recording technique it sounds fabulous on standard hifi gear. I frequently listen to it with my good headphones for the full effect.
Ask anyone their thoughts on Binaural and inevitably the word "dark" will be used. The band was facing inner turmoil as Eddie Vedder struggled with writer's block, Mike McCready dealt with addiction issues, Matt Cameron was new to the band and control of the band had permanently shifted from Stone to Ed. During the tour for Binaural there was a terrible accident at the band's performance at the Roskilde festival where 9 concert goers died. It nearly broke the band up. What's interesting to me is that Binaural sounds as if this incident occurred prior to the recording and the somber tones were a result of it. Earlier I mentioned that "what we know about Pearl Jam today, starts here," what I meant is Pearl Jam present themselves as a unified team, clearly Eddie's team, but a team of equals otherwise. At a Pearl Jam show Eddie will frequently tell a snippet of a story about the birth of a song or who wrote the music to this one. Often it will be someone else in the band. This didn't happen in the earlier albums. Ten, Vs, Vitalogy and No Code the lyrics were almost exclusively written by Ed. Beginning with Yield we started seeing more input, lyrically, from the other members. By the time they entered the studio for Binaural this new way of doing things was in full force. From this point forward their albums are very modular. With each member bringing in already constructed components and assembling them together. It may be a riff or a few lines, or it could be an entirely complete song just needing a solo from Mike or phrasing from Ed. Timing for this change was perfect. The band was nearing a decade together, they had added veteran musician/song writer Matt and Ed was mired in a horrific case of writer's block.
Track by track
Binaural opens with “Breakerfall” a punk inspired run through Eddie’s metaphorical lyrics in a tight 2:19. Side note: Pearl Jam are incredibly thoughtful about their records. They control every aspect of production, track sequencing and packaging. This album is no different, the tracks fit together perfectly. Next up is “God’s Dice” that begins with a rapid fire Matt Cameron drum roll and jams along with a rapid pace that belies the quieter songs later. “Evacuation” has an odd timing signature (hello Matt Cameron!) will strike you as a new sound from Pearl Jam but if you listen to later records you’ll find that some of their new sounds originated with this track. “Evacuation” also serves as a transition into the slower songs on the record. “Light Years” is where the album really begins to shine, music by Mike McCready, it has the classic Eddie story arc. You feel like you’re on a journey with the protagonist, anecdotally, it’s about a friend of the band, Diane Muus from Sony Music who had passed away a couple years prior. “Nothing As It Seems” showcases the binaural recording. Jeff Ament’s bass sounds like it’s behind and below you and Mike’s guitar is sitting on my right shoulder. This slow burn of a song really comes to life at concerts. “Thin Air” is a light acoustic style track reminiscent of college radio classics being played around a beach camp fire. Soulful lyrics, lush background harmonies make you reach for your own guitar. “Insignificance” is likely my favorite of the higher tempo songs. A meditation on war, it features a style of music that’s unique to Pearl Jam, they vary tempos like no other band I’ve seen, slow burn to full on rock all inside of a single song. Next up is “Of The Girl,” if you’ve never been to a Pearl Jam show, they typically open up with a quiet song with the lights down low, then launch into a rocker. Of all of them, my favorite is “Of The Girl” the clean riff with Mike’s lead lightly picking over the top. Eddie’s soft singing really settle you into a groove. I’ll post a video of it as an opener below. 
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Shifting gears back into the noisier stuff, “Grievance” is inspired by the protests at the WTO summit in Seattle. It features that signature start-stop rhythm that showcases what Matt brings to the band. Beginning with Vitalogy Pearl Jam can get weird on you from time to time. “Rival” is probably the strangest song on this record. It begins with what sounds to be a pig eating an apple. The music is pretty standard Stone Gossard riffs but with the vocals layered on top.”Sleight of Hand” begins just with a single lead guitar and drums with Ed singing over the top. When the bridge hits the full band joins in only to abruptly go back to the single guitar and drums. It’s a very hard song to describe but sounds great. “Soon Forget” is a short ukulele song that doesn’t seem to fit the album (more on that later) fortunately for us it foreshadows a full album released by Ed a few years later. The album closes with “Parting Ways” an epic closer with a sitar sounding guitar and big tom tom rhythms. 
Member by member
Ed had the music for what would become "Grievance" and "Insignificance" two songs that shine in concert by the way. But he had no lyrics and had even given up the guitar. Thankfully he discovered the ukulele and began plucking away at it. This would explain why "Soon Forget" is included on this record despite not really fitting and displacing several other great tracks. It marks his conquering the demon that is writer's block. This, coupled with releasing the somewhat strange "Nothing As It Seems" as the lead single dismisses any notion that this is anyone else's band. In typical enigmatic Ed fashion, the album ends with a hidden track called "writer's block" that is just the sound of Ed pounding away on a typewriter for a couple minutes.
Aside from the music on “Light Years, ”Mike McCready did not write any of the songs on Binaural but he "McCreadys it up" on most of them. Mike is quite possibly one of the most under-rated guitarists of his generation he can absolutely shred but more so he has an instantly identifiable tone. On "Nothing As It Seems" his feedback laced guitar solos are so brilliant that I've personally witnessed the crowd chanting "Mike" so forcefully that Ed had to stop the show so Mike could take a bow. His battle with Crohn's Disease and subsequently prescription medicines certainly took their toll on him. Thankfully he overcame it and is healthy.
Stone Gossard, so aloof in concert but seemingly an engaging person in conversation is really the mastermind behind Pearl Jam. In the beginning it was his band, he wrote most of the music and knew what he wanted it to look and sound like. As mentioned previously, that leadership role shifted over to Eddie Vedder. It's not certain exactly when that happened but my opinion is around the Vitalogy/No Code era. For Binaural, Stone wrote the lyrics and music for "Thin Air," "Of The Girl" and "Rival." He also co-wrote the music for "Light Years."
Jeff Ament is widely known as Ed's best friend in the band. His songs are usually some of the strangest with eclectic phrasing and timing. He wrote "God's Dice," "Nothing As It Seems," and the music for "Sleight of Hand." Jeff is also a very talented visual artist and plays a hand in the album cover/packaging of the records.
That leaves us with Matt Cameron. Now many people have strong opinions on who is the best Pearl Jam drummer but my vote goes to Matt. He has the pedigree of his time with Soundgarden but more importantly his steady hand gave the band a stability they didn't seem to have before, an energy even. Pearl Jam went through several drummers in their first 7 years but Matt has been behind the kit for them for 20 years now. That is no coincidence. He wrote the music for "Evacuation" on this record. One bone to pick, most casual fans will say Dave Abbruzzese is their favorite Pearl Jam drummer. While Dave is certainly a very talented drummer, he was simply the first drummer most people saw in the videos from Ten, they likely don't realize he wasn't the drummer they were hearing on the record. For what it’s worth, his work on Vs and Vitalogy were stellar, the dude can drum.
For all that's included in Binaural, what's left out is just as important. As I've alluded to before, Pearl Jam is a fan's band. Their shows are legendary and each setlist is mostly unique and contains tracks selected just for that venue, crowd and city etc. Ed is effectively Bruce Springsteen Jr so the shows started getting longer and longer, break out the B Sides! Pearl Jam deep cuts are mainstays of the concerts and Binaural has several. "Sad," "Education," and "Fatal" have all become fan favorites.
If you’ve never listened to this record all the way through or if it’s just been a while. Pick it up and drop the needle.
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-JS
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