I doubt you guys want to read this long message,

Point is, I’m going to leave tumblr for longer, reasons under cut:

Reasons

1 - writing

Like I’ve said before, I like writing more then drawing, and I love you guys and all the art I make for you guys [love is pushing it for the art but let’s ignore for now]

But I asked someone for their opinion [if I should write more,ect, ect.] and they told me to do what I wanna, so I am, I’ll still draw but probably not as nearly as much, only for the characters sheets and art trade

I’m going to write a lot more, its better for my heath anyway [not sitting up for so long], the same format for anyone who doesn’t want to see my storys/the opposite, @weather-story for just writing, @facks-arts for just art, @facks-stories for text and art with context,

2 - heath

As you know, I’m built with fucking legos or something because my heath is so unstable and unreliable, so I have limited energy, I can’t spend much more of that energy making posts and drawing,

Hopefully this break can give me more of that energy back, I’ll also have more time to figure out what going on

3 - burn out?

I think I’m getting burn out, from something, so I might not have that much art, or even writings when I come back,

4 - mental health

As you guys know, my mental health is also built out of legos- its shit and every one knows it, especially because I lost someone I considered a best friend [starby is alright and alive, we just don’t talk anymore]

And especially it’s been bad because I found out something personal, I’ve just been a little rocky lately. So I don’t really feel like talking to people that much,

What can/will happen during the break?

-I’ll try and answer any dms I get, I still care about you guys so dm me if you need or want to talk

-Receive asks, the ask box will still be open, send asks while I’m gone, don’t, doesn’t matter

-answer in polls I’m tagged in, its just a poll

-make the weekly cotton posts

What won’t happen during the break:

-I won’t do picrew chains, 😔 as much as I love not being able to make myself I’ll do them after I come back

-answer asks, same with this^ I’ll do them when I get back,

-make posts [that isn’t weekly cotton]

-send asks [I’ll probably wrote them down if I have any

After break?

I’m going to write more, maybe I’ll repost some of the writings on this account but I doubt,

Basically go back to being normal but probably a lot more rants

Asks, picrew chains, and the character sheets will be done after I come back

Thats all from what I know, I’ll edit this if I need to, but this will be pinned until I get back

I’m trying to combine my replies into one ask. About my cat. He’s a black cat named Bagheera after the black panther in Jungle Book. He’s 4 and other than domestic short hair I don’t know what breed he is cause he’s from a shelter.

Here is his photo. Sometimes he gets fan mail on my blog.

I’m sorry I bombarded you with questions you can’t answer about the fic but I just love it so much.

Yours is the first fic I’ve read where after the reveal if you went back the protagonist’s take on what happened was completely misconstrued (on purpose and in a good way). I love that wild ride you’re taking us on. I hate it when characters have a life of their own. We create them but we don’t control them. Sigh.

Thanks for chatting with me (and indulging me). It’s like a celebrity talking to me but not like when Oscar Isaac talked to me cause that is a blur.

Can’t wait to read the rest and send you more messages. Happy writing!

OMG Bagheera IS SUCH A CUTIE!!!!! I adore him. look at his gorgeous eyes!!! (also that name is so clever and suits him so well i love it)

Do not apologise AT ALL for asking me questions I LOVE READING THEM! I only wish I could scream with you about the answers cause i'm terrible with spoilers!!! I cannot wait as the chapters unfold to actually be able to gush with you about the various things you've brought up TRUST ME!!!

I am a sucker for unreliable narrator trope and with this reader, it's not so much that she's unreliable on purpose, she just unfortunately has such a limited view of what is going on because she's human and she's been thrust into this very supernatural world.

First of all, love your fic! I'm addicted, it's so good!!! But I had a question so I could get my expectations for the ending/what's upcoming in order. I'm feeling for Kaz a lot, I guess you could say I'm "rooting" for him. Am I supposed to be? My read is that Kaz is trying to make the most of an awful situation to give himself some kind of control but that he really didn't want to help in Novokribirsk but did because of the Darkling's blackmail. He also doesn't seem to agree with any of the Darkling's plans, thinking them delusional or for power rather than what the Darkling says.

Kaz is such an unreliable narrator and you make a ton of jokes about how he did it to himself in some ways, so I'm not sure I'm reading it right.

I guess what I'm asking is if Kaz is genuinely becoming a worse person (not really in acts but as in caring less about hurting innocents/children) and going to stay on that trajectory all the way through or am I reading the extortion right and irrespective of his attraction to the Darkling, Kaz would never do these things willingly.

Sorry this may be confusing and maybe you don't want to answer which is fine but i really like your fic!

Omg you never have to apologize for asking questions about my fic, I love love love love talking about my fic because I am also obsessed with it. answer under the cut bc it's 10 paragraphs

Kaz is....very complicated........I call him an unreliable narrator a lot, but he's not unreliable in the way that "he's lying to the readers" and more in the way of "he's not capable of seeing the full picture/we are so limited in his head that we can only see things through his eyes and he will very confidently come to conclusions that are wrong/he hasn't slept a full night in weeks" so there's no "kaz is secretly also just as evil but not admitting it" twist coming or anything.

You SHOULD root for him and I hope that you do, I do!! I make a lot of jokes or comments about him doing it to himself which is true and also untrue, they are jokes and they are not. He made several wrong choices that led him to this point, he let his hubris get the better of him and didn't rely on the people who were there to help and support him when he should have, he went out of his depth, he pushed people away, he tried to play the game when he should have been burning all the cards. But at the same time, that revelation he has in the last chapter about how he was fucked from the start is ALSO true. He was always going to be in the Darkling's sights, he was always going to have these dilemmas, he was always going to be put in the impossible situations.

But also...so was Alina, and she chose differently. She fought. She made allies and confidently stood against him saying "no, this is wrong" and stuck to it all the way through. She was also more easily manipulated and didn't see through the Darkling at the start the way that Kaz did, but if she had I very much doubt her conclusion would be "I will agree to side with him because there's more in it for me" (something Kaz thought he wanted because he has this view of himself of being this cutthroat heartless monster willing to do anything to achieve his goal even though at his core that's not really who he is, but again, unreliable narrator, he thinks that he is. he will continue saying that he is. he will make decisions as though he is, but he will not feel good about them and he will be torn and he will not be happy).

Kaz is kind of becoming a worse person in that he is being desensitized to violence and he is going down this path of "I've already taken so many lives, maybe I am wrong that I'm not seeing the picture of eternity, maybe this is what it takes" but he's also not there yet. He still cares very deeply about people even though he doesn't want to admit it, he advocated to kill the King not because he wanted to rule but because he made a promise to Genya and he wanted to see it through because he is genuinely disgusted by the King's actions and abuse of power.

Every time he thinks about the way Inej views him and the person she thinks he could be and the way she hoped he would use his power, he feels absolutely terrible about it...because he also kind of wishes he could be that person for her. There was a sort of bitterness in his refusal to help people at the start, that "the world never helped me so why should I help them" and "time and time again you hear stories of saints being killed by the people they helped because no good deed goes unpunished" but that was still when the people involved could be reduced to faceless masses. Something about committing the actual act and seeing the people it was affecting and watching kids as they died was brutal and brought to the forefront that these are real people, real lives, just like he's a real person with a real life.

But of course, by then it was too late. Him being unable to find peace, unable to find rest, his inability to close his eyes without reliving the people that he killed, that's definitely me trying to demonstrate that he's not free of it because he does still genuinely care about people. He's fucked up over it. They committed the same crime, but he's fucked up about it and the Darkling isn't because he still cares about people as individuals in the way the Darkling never will because he still only cares about people as a concept (the greater good outweighs the individual lives I'm taking, even though the greater good is hypothetical future and the individual lives are crying in front of me..........)

I do think if the Darkling hadn't threatened Inej and Jesper Kaz would never have gone through with it. He would have backed down, he would have stood up to him, he would have fought. But now that he's done it and also (in his mind) lost Inej and Jesper he has to recontextualize it in his brain in order to cope with it. Objectively, he wouldn't have done it if he had no other choice and he does not want to be in this situation and he is a victim and he is suffering. In his mind, the way he processes and copes with what he's going through, he made a choice and threw his lot in with the Darkling and he wants power and he is working his plan and he doesn't feel remorse. Is it true? No. Is he going to keep saying it because being in this position is his reality? Yes.

But please root for him!! Kaz is going to have quite a few more morality defining choices left to make, and he might make the right ones and he might make the wrong ones but I personally believe in his inherent goodness and think his genuine care for the people around him can't be beat out of him so easily.

deep asks: 15, 17, 20 Love your writing btw <3 All the Homewell mwah

Thank you! <3<3<3

15. How do you think your writing has improved over time?

I was going to say it hasn’t, but that’s definitely a lie. Obviously my writing now is different than what I wrote at age 10 or 17 or even at 25. Things are complicated a bit by the fact that I’ve written in three different languages, and that obviously affects the quality and what I can do as well. But by and large, I just try to incorporate new things I’ve learned about writing into my own writing. The books I read also have an impact on my writing style and the techniques I experiment with. If an author does something interesting in terms of style, narrative or perspective, I might try to incorporate that. I think two of the bigger improvements were 1. realizing that not everything needs to be spelled out in detail and 2. starting to play around with unreliable narration.

One thing I’m currently working on is emotional build within each chapter and within the work as a whole. I’ve gotten better at individual chapters in this regard, though the improvement is not linear, but posting chapter installments as they are being written makes it very difficult to get right for the entire work. I don’t think I’ll actually be able to improve it much unless I start writing all of the fic first, then edit heavily, and then start posting chapter by chapter.

17. What’s the best engagement/interaction/feedback you’ve received from someone who’s read your work?

There are several ways to look at this. The first is easy. My brain consists of basically five instant gratification monkeys clamoring for instant gratification, so anything that gets me 5+ comments within the first two hours is automatically collectively the best interaction ever. This has happened occasionally with works where I did not expect it, and it’s great.

The second way to look at this is this: I am most definitely unequally attached to my different fics. For most of them, I kinda stop caring about comments after the first 2-3 days because my instant gratification monkeys tend to move on within 48 hours, BUT there are some works I irrationally love. And receiving a comment on one of those just gives me infinite joy, regardless of when it comes. I have works I wrote 6-7 years ago that if I got a comment on them today, even if it is a short comment like “omg I loved this!”, it would absolutely be the best interaction ever.

The third way to lock at this is depth of interaction. I love the kinds of deep, long comments that really engage with the story and actually get me thinking about it and sometimes let me come up with new ideas as a consequence. So any if these are definitely also the best interaction ever.

20 was already answered here.

Omg so I have been reading cloaked and it is literally so good I read through almost all of it in one sitting. I am absolutely obsessed with our two unreliable narrators and I’m really enjoying trying to put the pieces together as to how things most accurately played out. But you mentioned something in the notes for i believe chapter six and I can’t stop thinking abt it. How Mav only calles Iceman Ice whereas Ice calls him both Mavrick and Mav. I have been trying to figure it out on my own but I’m honestly drawing a bit of a blank. Also sorry for the bad grammar

hiii!!!!! thank you SO MUCH for this ask seriously I’m giving you a virtual hug and kisses for this (also that you read through it in one sitting oh my GOD. I am so sorry idk why the word count gets so crazy for each chapter every single time 💀)

also yes I can answer your question! it’s the other way round btw lmfjdkdj Mav reverses constantly between iceman and ice while ice calls mav solely mav. this is basically because when they both arrive at top gun Mav’s kinda determined to push ice away. so he calls him iceman to maintain that emotional distance in his head. it actually starts right after his breakup with ice, when the day he leaves the Apollo he straight up says this:

so there’s him already maintaining that emotional distance. callsigns and names and all that.

whereas for ice, it’s different. it gets revealed in this chapter but ice pretty much kinda fucks up and comes to the realisation that he loves mav way too late. so when he eventually tries to tell mav, both times, (through calls and in the bathroom in ch6)... it’s like, too little too late lmao. but the main point is ice loves him and is fully accepting of the fact that he loves him (after he resisted it for so long). so he’s okay with calling him Mav in his head because he doesn’t need that emotional distance. he never wanted it in the first place, it just took him way too long to realise it. poor lad

anyway from the latest chapter onwards we actually go back to Mav calling ice all the time. the confession on the beach is a pretty big step forward for him. going back to keeping any emotional distance afterwards would be too huge of a lie to maintain, even for mav lol

ally! i do not know how you do it but with every ducklings update you make me feel even more sorry for our fictional!matty - as i am unable to wrap that man in a blanket (him being fictional and all that) i must insist that fictional!george take up that responsibility as soon as possible bc the poor guy really needs it.

also i love what an unreliable narrator he is bc whilst its very sad to see how insecure he is about his relationships with everyone right now it is also very satisfying for me and my love of angst🫡 the way you portray his anxiety & how overwhelmed he is right now with like everything is so so good and i just hope he gets some fictional!george cuddles soon bc this man is really going thru it!!!

i was so excited to see this update lol & you must know that you are single-handedly responsible for making tuesday my fave day of the week. also!! i apologise for my absence in ur asks as real life & surgery recovery has been kicking my ass but ATKH is quickly becoming my fave fic ever and i’m so loving how fictional!matty and fictional!george are developing in that one. it’s so fun and refreshing to see fictional!george’s POV and how obsessed he is becoming with fictional!matty lol (also that backstory is SO sad and i can’t believe ur only planning to make it SADDER)

to make this ask even more obnoxiously long…..talk shop tuesday!!! i’ve actually been thinking about this one for a while lol and it’s about fictional!george’s family in the infection-verse — i’m lowkey obsessed with that dynamic, especially between him and his sisters, and was wondering if you ever thought about them post christmas fic and if they ever interacted again or actually bother to show up at one of his shows and try and make amends, or does he kick them off the guest lists and cut them off completely??? (idk if u can tell but i love that fic and ive been thinking about it a lot!!!!)

hope you’re doing well!!!

—💌💌💌

AHHH HELLO DEAR 💌 ANON!

Never apologize for having a real life! I hope that your surgery went well and that you are on the mend! I am sending you all the love and good healing vibes and am so happy to see you in my inbox again!

Thank you so much for your kind words about the new Ducklings chapter! Fictional!Matty is truly a disaster and a half and well... it will be a little bit longer until we get to the blanket wrapping part but it will happen eventually! He just needs to make it worse and make some bad decisions first.

I LOVE unreliable narrators omg Fictional!Matty in Ducklings is one of the worst ones (he is only rivaled by Fictional!George in ATKH lol) and I love that we sometimes get to visit someone else's prospective and they're just like... he... needs help lol (It's also fun because in ATKH we *only* see unreliable narrator Fictional!George... we have *no idea* what Fictional!Matty is really like - just how he looks through the Fictional!George lens!)

AHHH Speaking of All the King's Horses- thank you SO MUCH for reading and I'm so honored that it is becoming one of your favorites - it is truly *my* favorite at the moment to work on and I get so excited every time I open the google doc - Fictional!Matty in that universe has just been given the absolute shortest straw in life and has been through so much in his 27 years. I was *so excited* for the chapter before last and to reveal what actually happened the night of the The Accident. If any of my Fictional!Matties needs a hug it is ATKH Fictional!Matty lol Hopefully he gets one soon (and hopefully he enjoys it while it lasts!)

HELL YEAH TALK SHOP TUESDAY I love the entire concept of Talk Shop Tuesday SO MUCH, so thank you EXTRA MUCH for sending me an ask about it! I'm so happy to hear you're still enjoying Infection Verse Fictional!Matty and Fictional!George - while ATKH might be my favorite at the moment that universe is just, so special to me and I love them so much I don't know how I will ever leave them behind. Now to answer your questions:

I think that things will always be tense between Fictional!George and his middle sister Olivia - she's just *a lot* and doesn't know how to admit she is wrong / make the first step in making amends. However, she and her *much* younger boyfriend Henry eventually break up and Henry DOES reach out to Fictional!George and Fictional!Matty to apologize for his role in how unwelcome they felt that Christmas. He comes to their shows when they play in his city. Olivia does not. Amelia (the oldest sister) and her husband Jack, just continue to send Christmas cards as if nothing has changed and therefore, Fictional!George DOES leave them on the guest list. They eventually show up with Rose and Grace at a show. They're never *close* but they do have a relationship and see each other when they're in the same place (especially after Ava is born.)

Thank you SO MUCH for sending in this incredible ask omg I apologize for writing you a novel in response! I got extremely excited lol I hope that you continue to enjoy my fics and that you have THE BEST week and that your Tuesday is also wonderful!

❤️Ally

ho ho ho!

hello hi it is I!!! your secret santa !!!! i am indeed (as you can tell) very excited for this and i want to get to know you better! <3 so I see that you like reading: what was your fave read of 2022? 🤍

xoxo

HIII!!! It’s lovely to meet you!!! I hope you are having a good day <3 omg what clued you in? 😱 (jk) picking a favorite, even just for this year, is so hard so I’m going to give you three and tell you the reasons why.

The Secret History: I’m a fictional crime lover (true crime gives me anxiety) and not only is donna tartt an excellent author it was really interesting to me to see the other side of what I usually read because instead of solving a crime... well these characters committed one. Richard Papen is also the king of unreliable narrators. That guy never knows what’s going on.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue: I relate to the character Henry Strauss a lot. I don’t think I’ve ever related to a character as much as him and it was extra surprising since I usually don’t connect well with male characters! But addie is also so interesting and I love her. <3

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo/Daisy Jones and The Six (don’t make me choose between my children!): I just finished daisy jones but I’m still losing my mind over it!! The author is just so talented. I love books about fame. And the characters!!! I could write an essay about every character in both of these books, it’s very rare imo to see side characters so well developed.

Okay this was so long of a response but!! Tysm for reading it! Do you have any favorite books? (Also going forward: if I ever ask you a question that you think might reveal your identity you can just not answer it and I won’t be offended!!)

🤔🤔🤔

2021 for the ascendants 

aries ascendant: man, it’s like you’ve forgotten what you want for the past few years but you’ve been trying with all your might to run through a list of desires with the hope that eventually something will provide you with contentment. worry not, you will be met with situations that highlight your principles so that you are able to decipher what it is that brings you oneness. ask yourself if the company you keep is meeting expectations and if there are behaviors you’ve been allowing, but more importantly, ask yourself if you are leading by example and what you are leading with. this is a time for you to make sure that you are taking the proper initiative towards your own fulfillment, if you’re feeling a disconnect then maybe you should seek for an understanding of the objective; how can you expect others to meet expectations if you aren’t doing the same for yourself? why are you tolerating what you shouldn’t have to? it’s time to up your ambition and strive for resolution by making sure that you are setting yourself up for greatness. “if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything” 

taurus ascendant: life has been a slippery slope for the past couple of years, the way life can change in the blink of an eye and the way we can get carried away without intending to is something you’re awfully familiar with by now. you’ll feel like you’re getting somewhere, you figure things are on the up ya know, and then of course something totally stops you in your tracks and it makes you question yourself - which has only made your taurus ascendant self clam up harder buuuut you’ve been trying to process it. you will be met with situations that allow you to reap the benefit of your efforts. it is time for you to go after what you want, this is prime manifestation time so if you are desiring change to circumstances make sure you are working towards it and utilizing the power of affirmation. if you don’t have a job then i would strongly advise this as a time to obtain one or attempt to obtain one; if you do have a job/are in a career then expect there to be change that is ultimately positive for you even if it may not seem like it at the time. 

gemini ascendant: you guys have been on a mission of self-discovery through the numerous voids we utilize to dissolving other parts of ourselves, i’m getting very “cranes in the sky” by solange - “i tried to drink it away, i tried to put one in the air, i tried to dance it away, i tried to change it with my hair” (etc. read the rest of the lyrics if you’d like!) sometimes in us getting caught up in excessive behavior we’re able to understand that there’s a bigger issue at play and we’re acting from a place that is without authenticity. you will be met with situations that reveal the answers that you’ve been searching for and your perspective will begin to breakdown and reform. this year you should try to think before you speak, in fact, let your actions speak for themselves so that you don’t have to start running off at the mouth. absorb and filter through the information that you have so that you are leading with the facts; no more following unreliable curiosities, bouncing back & forth, and wallowing in careless behavior. 

cancer ascendant: for a while you’ve had to take a hard look at family, support systems, what you bring the to the table, and how you can find liberation for yourself in relation to these things. it’s been easier for you to fall into a pity party because you’ve had to deal with and be met with responsibility in a new way, a way that has showed you where you’re needing to grow up, and this can make you want to sink further into your shell with all your vices of comfort (those ‘security blankets’ can be so pesky). you will be met with situations that can soften out your old ways and in doing so provide you with a chance to have a legitimate regeneration. finding acceptance and embracing vulnerability at it’s most candid is how you will find your footing. this is a time to try to re-evaluate your patterns of behavior so that you can work on creating new, healthier habits for yourself so that you are able to lay down those roots of security that you long for. you have been receiving the tools you need and all you have to do is utilize them instead of trying to shield up and be overly defensive. 

leo ascendant: i feel like life for you has kind of felt like someone took you out of your home, drove you to a forest in the middle of nowhere and dropped you off with the bare necessities and said, “okay, now figure out your way back.” thankfully you are getting a groove back for yourself and taking on a new outlook of the hindrances in your life. you will be met with situations that make you reconsider the way you’ve been carrying yourself, what you’ve been allowing, and the situations that you have been placing yourself in. it’s time for you to be more selective and imagine what you want for your life, what is your ‘dream life’? - answer this question and start taking the steps to getting there, decide what isn’t aligning with this dream, what you need to pull back from, and what is worth the effort. if you have family or a support system then examine your relationship with them - are they holding you back or are they willing to work on things with you and vice versa because it could be you who is needing to be more deliberate with people. if your home (life) isn’t ideal then find a way of to move elsewhere or renovate your space by getting rid of what has no use in your life so that you can add or rearrange accordingly. 

virgo ascendant: ah, attachments and feeling withdrawn, dissatisfied, ineffective are issues that you have been dealing with but this year you will be tending to the source of this by learning how to keep momentum. though you have been putting in effort, it’s you working harder and not smarter because you’re working from a place of inadequacy instead of working from a place of ingenuity. along with working harder and putting in unnecessary effort is you nitpicking to the very last crumb when really this is you just, again, being dissatisfied with where you are in life. you will be met with situations that force you back down to earth and emphasize what it is that you have been evading or how you’ve been evading. this is a time to make the transitions that you’ve been yearning for, this is not a time for waiting things out, if you want something then you need to act on it. you’ve been in your head in a very unhelpful way, you’re like “nope, this won’t work for me because xyz, i can’t do that because of abc, this is too wrong, this isn’t lmnop enough, blah blah blah” and it’s been excuse after excuse. get out of your own way and revise!!! make the best with what you have!!!

libra ascendant: gosh, why has everything felt like it’s been crumbling away? things are supposed to come together, not fall apart, right? as of late your efforts have felt as though they’ve been in vain - other people aren’t taking to you, you’re not attracting what you want, and everything has felt unfair. this balance beam has been feeling anything but balanced! you will be met with situations that bring you back to the notion that what we attract is based around what we’re putting forth. have you ever pointed the finger at yourself? are there any issues that could be stemming for you? maybe it’s you who is needing to learn how to keep yourself in check. after all this crumbling away you should be able to start piecing together the leftover fragments to gather an understanding of what life has come to be. omg i just envisioned the mulan scene: “when will my reflection show who i am inside” - this is your mulan moment!!! negativity has clung and been projected from you in recent years and it’s on you to mend those behaviors and in doing so your paths will narrow down, the indecision will cease, and you’ll see where you can go, where you’d want to go.  

scorpio ascendant: feeling as though you’ve missed something is not something you’re that familiar with because you like to think you have awareness but unfortunately recognition has not been your strong suit as of late. you’ve reached that “who am i?” stage of rock-bottom and the “what in the hell am i even doing?” but what a year 2021 will be for you in terms of being able to end certain cycles, which is a pretty major thing for your ascendant. you will be met with situations that force you to gather your bearings and revise your demeanor, which can be a nerve-wracking thing for someone who doesn’t like to adhere to what they would consider the follies of others. it’s a time for openness so lessen your grip and consider the possibilities rather than feeding into your sensitivities and fixations. how can you transform if you’re too busy digging yourself in deeper? the way scorpio is able to bring together both boldness and vulnerability is what you should be striving for, the self-sabotaging is for the other birds - you’re a Phoenix! 

sagittarius ascendant: i extend my deepest condolences for the past couple of years but you’re starting to get a better idea about the part that you play in matters and what you’re needing to improve upon so that you can find a direction, or better direction, in your life. hopefully you have been paying heed to the areas in your life that have accumulated to the point of no return and are planning a big ol’ yard sale because it is time to bring back some decency. you will be met with situations that test your ability to make the right choices/decisions by infringing upon your lifestyle. this is a time to explore inwardly and address the emotions that you’ve kept tucked away, seeing as your decisions are too often dictated by these unturned emotions. you’ve done enough wandering by now, these upcoming days should be about you tying up loose ends and bettering the circumstances you currently have so that you don’t feel the need to flee. don’t let things go unexpressed this year because this baggage is what is hindering you and freeing yourself of this as much you possibly can would be in your best interest. 

capricorn ascendant: ah, those dark feelings of being misunderstood and having a chip on your shoulder because let’s be honest, you’ve been having an identity crisis and haven’t been the most reassuring person to have around. all i’m hearing is “it’s my life!” and envisioning a person who is refusing to be told what to do, we get it - you think you’re above cooperation. you will be met with situations that challenge the security within yourself and in your life through having to face your own inability to properly articulate yourself to others. it’s time for you to take on the mindset of a novice. everything you’ve established or think that you’ve established? yeah, leave it at the door. try your best to pretend that you know nothing and that the world is brand new because it’s your own preconceived notions that are clamming you up. other people won’t be receptive to you if you’re not being receptive to them. not everything is about standing on the mountain or being ready to die on a hill, you should be enjoying the process and experimenting and considering alternatives because that’s how you find what works. 

aquarius ascendant: so you guys have totally recoiled into yourselves to the point of being lost within, huh? i just know y’all have been going full weirdo and doing shit that probably even you can’t grasp because it’s been coming from such a subconscious place. once you’ve hit a low point it’s easy to become a bitter betty and partake in not the greatest of coping mechanisms because you’re feeling alienated from yourself. there is a reason for this though - you have unacknowledged feelings! have you had any regrets or lingering emotion towards people or towards situations? perhaps these are stifling your ability to feel present. you will be met with situations that turn you inside out by taking away the option of preparing yourself so that there’s no time to go robotic about it. this is a time for you to revel in activity, get out of your ~woe is me, nobody wants what i have to offer~ and start showcasing your abundance! give for the sake of giving, have fun with your generosity, try to tap into that aquarius energy of playful but well-intentioned nonchalance. 

pisces ascendant: well, you have been trying to work on your celestial flow and have dove deeper into your visions and idealisms for life but your moods have never been more easily swayed. these have not been the sort of tides that you have cared to ride because they don’t lead anywhere! they crash and dissolve, crash and dissolve, crash and dissolve - when will they carry you somewhere you’d like to go? your escapisms and illusions have been getting the better of you and floating is a pretty accurate way to describe where you’re at. you will be met with situations that question/alter your reality and reveal to you what you’ve been overlooking. i imagine it as your *record scratch* *freeze frame* “yup. that's me. so you're probably wondering how I got myself into this situation.” moment. it’s time for you to gently pull back and take note of what you’re investing your energy into and what this has been producing in return. your energy is best left being funneled into yourself this year so that you can thoroughly examine where you’ve been pigeonholing yourself; in you examining such you will be able to tap into your intuition in a way that you have not been able to before, it’ll be like unlocking a new level of your own consciousness. 

Omg, I just found your blog and I love all your stuff! I am tying to binge read everything, but there are just so many posts... Forgive me if I have an unoriginal idea. So: Kyle is being his grumpy self, much to the annoyance of Rider. No matter how much Rider tries to tolerate Kyle and be nice to him, he eventually hits a nerve and sets Rider off. The rest is up to you. Hopefully they make up...!

Thank you! And no, this is always good stuff😂😁

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Tension

You’ve about had it with Kyle’s attitude. He can have fun navigating through this den on his own.

You tried to be the bigger person. You wanted to improve yours and Kyle’s relationship considering how things were.

But man, that attitude of his was making things difficult.

The hunter has complained about everything. You didn’t understand if that was just his nature, or he was acting that way because you were here. Judging by Tsukino’s exasperated expression, you were guessing the latter. Ratha looked about ready to eat him as he sighed once more.

“Why are we here again?” He asked while folding his arms. You bit back a snarky remark. This has been around the fourth time he’s asked that.

“I’m looking for eggs.” You simply responded and you could hear a frustrated sigh at your vague answer.

“Why?” He asked in a more irritated manner.

“I need strong monsters for the Rite of Channeling.” You explained while pinching the bridge of your nose. You could feel a headache coming on.

“That’s weird.” He finally said after a few seconds. You couldn’t stop yourself from speaking as you slowly turned to face him.

“What’s weird?” You said in a terrifyingly slow tone. Even Ratha looked afraid. Kyle, however, was unfazed by your steely gaze. 

“Using monsters like that. It just doesn’t seem just.” He said with a small shrug.

“You’re one to talk about being just with monsters, hunter. You nearly killed my monstie!” All that pent up rage you’ve been holding in came out like raging tigrex.

“He was a danger to others!” Kyle growled back trying to make an excuse for his actions. Tsukino facepalmed as she watched you whip around and hop on Ratha’s back.

“You know what? I just can’t with you right now! Have fun getting out of here without me!” You hissed before urging Ratha to fly out of the den, even more pissed that you didn’t get your eggs.

A couple seconds of Kyle just standing there passed by. What just happened? 

“You didn’t realize your attitude?’ Tsukino asked like she could read his mind. He turned to give her a perplexed stare. 

“You were acting like a child that poor Y/N had to put up with.” His palico teased as Kyle blushed from her words. Then he turned to look back where you disappeared. Was he really acting so grumpy?

“We should probably apologize.” He grumbled while tensing his shoulders and marching forward.

“We?” Tsukino snorted before following: “You mean, you should probably apologize.”

All it took was a couple turns before he suddenly realized he had no clue where he was going. What made things even better was that Tsukino wasn’t paying attention on their way in, so she was unreliable at this point. A couple more twists and turns left Kyle at a wit’s end. He was about ready to yell for you in hopes that you would take pity, but a sudden glimmer caught his eye.

A couple steps forward brought him to an opening where a mountain of eggs sat.

“So, this is what they were after?” Kyle said more to himself as he went towards the nest.

“So, it would appear.” Tsukino responded as she followed, keeping her eyes and ears alert for any sign of danger. Kyle knelt beside the eggs and was awed by all the shapes and colors.

“Perhaps bring one back? As a peace offering.” His palico suggested and Kyle hated to admit that she was right. Finding one that was shinier than the rest of them, he scooped up the rather heavy egg and marched out. 

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” He grumbled after a few seconds of walking. Tsukino snorted again stating that he should be glad it’s a peaceful walk rather than how most of his egg quests go. Usually running for dear life from an angry rathian, and then ending up covered in slimy yolk.

He didn’t respond to her remark.

What felt like a millennium (and his arms being near dead), he finally found the light at the end of the tunnel. To his surprise, you were sitting there by a small fire with Ratha not far behind you. Upon hearing his steps (and heavy breathing), you looked up.

“Kyle?” You asked, confused by the sight. The hunter didn’t respond and just plopped the egg down by your feet.

“You’re still here?” Was what he said, and Tsukino was in the background praying to the moon above that you guys made up. 

“I wanted to make sure you got out alive.” You admitted quietly while standing up and rubbing your arm, looking anywhere but him. For once, he was touched by your concern. A couple seconds of awkward silence passed before Kyle cleared his throat.

“I found an egg.” He said while gesturing mildly to the egg by your feet. You giggled at his actions, and he got all flustered.

“For me?” You asked with a smirk while kneeling down to inspect it. Ratha came over to give it a sniff before looking rather pleased at the egg’s quality.

“Well, I’m not touching it.” Was the hunter’s moody response as he folded his arms and looked away. You rolled your eyes at his attitude but was grateful that he went through all the trouble to bring it to you. 

With a grin, you picked up the egg to do what you wanted to do from square one. Kyle decided to keep his mouth shut for once and watch this happen, even stubbornly asking if there was anything he could do to help.

While no apology was actually said, Tsukino considered this a win for her hunter.

Exit Strategy (S2, E10)

My time-stamped thoughts for this episode are below. As always I reference Malcolm’s mental health. A lot. So if that’s going to be a trigger for you, don’t keep reading.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

0:40 - Oh it’s Capshaw’s dream. Well. That’s upsetting. 

1:10 - .....she was performing surgery on herself?!!? WTF?

1:37 - The fact that Jessica broke into her adult child’s home to steal Martin memorabilia is hilarious to me. Also deeply upsetting. Because - dysfunctional. 

1:40 - “In my loft? Where I live?” hahahahahahaha sassy!Malcolm for the win! Also - there is something so so cute about the way Tom delivers this line. <3 It’s precious. 

1:46 - “I don’t always wake up screaming.” ....so historically we know this is true. Malcolm didn’t wake up screaming at the beginning of 1x15 when Eve was in his loft....but still... Malcolm’s mental health has been in tatters. I find it highly unlikely that he wouldn’t be waking up screaming. Especially since he was hallucinating last episode!!!!

1:55 - The Never. Ever. Room?!?!?! I’m shook. I’m amused. I’m horrified. I can’t believe that Jessica would let Malcolm keep that stuff in his loft. Why isn’t it locked up in a storage container or something? Jessica let Malcolm - the boy that Martin traumatized - sleep in the same building as all of Martin’s belongings?!?! Nah. Jessica is so overbearing .... I just don’t buy it. 

2:21 - “I am ignoring the Surgeon altogether.” Awww look at how proud Malcolm is to tell Jessica about his serial killer cleanse. He’s like, “I finally have news that will make Mom happy!!” <3 <3 Precious. 

2:36 - “He’s been calling. Non-stop.” annnnnnnd there’s are sad profiler. He’s putting on a good act for Jessica but he’s still clearly in a lot of emotional pain. 

3:15 - Really? The writers have Jessica riding the Brightwell train now? For real? I’m here for it but it feels kind of fast? Forced? Out of left field? I mean Jessica’s totally the type of mom who meddles in her kid’s love life (remember Eve?) but in the middle of the whole Ainsley-Endicott fiasco? Jessica should be more concerned about Malcolm’s mental state and less concerned with his relationship status. 

3:17 - Did Malcolm really just admit (sort of abstractly, but still) that he’s interested in Dani romantically? Doesn’t he realize that Jessica will try to interfere?!? He’s basically given her his blessing!!! 

3:25 - awwwww....the pic of baby!Malcolm and baby!Ainsley is so cute. <3

3:40 - UGH. I want to know more about that key and what it unlocks so badly!!!

3:46 - “Oh great. Detective Mom.” <3 I love it when he calls Jessica “Mom” instead of “Mother”. <3

4:36 - ......Mr.David and Martin have such an interesting dynamic. Martin listens to Mr. David without showing any signs of anger, resentment, or his usual psychopathic manipulation. Mr. David controls Martin much the way a parent controls their well-behaved child. I just find it so fascinating that Martin treats Mr. David with respect. That’s not Martin’s usual reaction when things don’t go his way.

5:00 - I’m so happy we keep getting more screen time with Hector. <3 This dude’s great. 

6:05 - soooo the fact that Jessica stabbed Daryl in the neck is probably going to inhibit Daryl’s ability to speak right? Making Daryl a useless source of information regarding the breakout?

6:24 - I love everything about this scene with Gil’s new car. I love that Malcolm’s “wow, the Coronet’s looking good.” is said with this little smile. As though Malcolm doesn’t really care about the car, but he knows mentioning it will make Gil happy. I love Gil’s rant about “No more Whitly’s around my car.” and Gil’s glare when JT asks about Tarmel’s around the car. I love Dani’s “boys and toys” line. UGh. It was just the little dose of found family that I craved. <3 BUT I do have one small complaint/concern. Gil. He said, “No more Whitly’s around my car.” Whitly’s. Why did he refer to Malcolm as a Whitly? 

6:54 - “Some major Japan-y vibes.”.....I’m sorry the word you’re looking for is “Japanese”?!?! Anyone else get super distracted by this line?!? 

7:56 - “Old people” HA. OMG. I love this so much. <3 <3

9:11 - As someone with severe social and general anxiety that has at times bordered on a form agoraphobia - Dani’s dismissive tone when she says “he’s afraid to leave the house.” hurts. Especially since it feels really out of character for Dani. She doesn’t usually dismiss people so quickly. Maybe there’s a story there? She had an agoraphobic family member? 

10:14 - “NYPD. Adjacent.” Why isn’t Malcolm a member of the NYPD yet? He trained with the FBI. He’s clearly capable of being employed as a detective for the NYPD. Is it because he doesn’t want to carry a gun? Is it because Gil doesn’t want Malcolm to carry a gun? Is it bureaucracy (probably)?

10:44 - Malcolm explaining why the antique pistol won’t fire is adorable. 

10:57 - This dude hasn’t left the house since March of 1997. Martin was arrested in 1998. Is this supposed to have some sort of double meaning? Like maybe Malcolm discovered that Martin was killing people in 1997 but the chloroform confused him for a while and he didn’t call the cops until 98′? Is this supposed to be a metaphor for the fact that Malcolm hasn’t been truly alive since 1997? He’s just been in survival mode - he hasn’t been living.

11:22 - “I’m not too good around people.” This dude is Malcolm. Malcolm lives in a state of constant fear and anxiety. Malcolm isn’t so good with relationships or casual human interactions. 

11:30 - It makes perfect sense to me that Dani is the detective that Malcolm brings in to talk to Gerald. Forget the Brightwell agenda. Gerald is a scared old man. JT and Gil are authoritative men (they’re teddy bears but they can also be scary). Dani is a woman. Women are typically seen as less of a threat. Though Dani could totally kick just about anyone’s ass. But it makes sense to me that a scared witness would feel more comfortable around the smaller female detective than the large male ones. 

12:03 - Ugh. I feel so bad for Gerald. The dude is clearly experiencing some sensory overload on top of his anxiety. :( 

12:15 - hahahaha the absolute best part of this little Brightwell moment is Gerald’s reaction. This old man just connected the dots and you can see it ALL over his face.  ....but also, it’s a really cute moment. <3

12:38 - “Too late if you ask me.” Is it just me or does Gerald seem protective of Rosalie here? Almost paternal? 

13:03 - “You still think like a grand master” Is this supposed to be an illusion to the way that Malcolm thinks about cases? He thinks like the killer in order to solve the case?

13:13 - WHY DOES MALCOLM KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT A CHESS LEGEND FROM THE 70s and 80s?!? Did baby!Malcolm have a chess phase? I want details.

13:22 - I love Gerald. He’s such a cute little old man. He’s scared but you can tell that he has a good heart and that he’s extremely smart. Look at how impressed he is with Malcolm. <3 He’s a lot like Malcolm. 

13:27 -”Memory was always my gift.” Memory is Gerald’s gift but it’s been Malcolm’s curse.

15:04 - Malcolm is so close to snapping. Look at this poor boy. He’s at the end of his rope. :( 

15:14 - “Looks like you got some sleep.” Awwww proud!Gil <3 

15:40 - “Agoraphobia often comes from trauma.” Yep. Malcolm identifies with Gerald. I wonder if Malcolm ever went through a period of agoraphobia? Maybe as a teen? 

15:48 - .....is this foreshadowing? When the truth about Endicott comes out is Malcolm going to be deemed an ‘unreliable witness’? Or maybe that’s how Ainsley is going to try and pin the murder on Malcolm?

15:58 - annnnnd we finally got a good shot of concerned!Gil. There’s no way that Gil isn’t reading between the lines here. He knows Malcolm identifies with Gerald and he knows Malcolm is having issues with his mental health, identity, and self-worth. SOMEONE CONFRONT HIM. WHERE IS THE MALCOLM INTERVENTION?!!?

16:20 - “Are you alright? Don’t answer that.”.....because Martin doesn’t actually care about Malcolm’s mental or physical health. Martin is a narcissist who has a story to tell. 

16:27 - “No. Me first.” I’m. So. Proud. Of. Malcolm. <3 <3 

16:56 - “That felt good.” :) Awwww... <3 I’m proud of Malcolm for this but Martin is totally going to hold it against him in later episodes. It’s going to fuel some sort of anger. Just wait for it. 

17:05 - Again. Mr. David acts like Martin’s dad. If Martin were 8 years old. 

17:40 - Chrisitan Brole is a treasure. His acting is incredible. Friar Pete is creepy, likeable, funny, and terrifying. Honestly. Give him an Emmy. 

20:00 - “*sigh* kid.” This breaks my heart. You can see Gil’s doubt and concern all over his face. He’s doubting Malcolm’s ability to make an accurate profile of Gerald because he knows how much Malcolm identifies and sympathizes with Gerald. He’s concerned about Malcolm because....I mean have you seen him lately? The boy is spiralling and it hurts to watch. But Gil is scared for Malcolm right now. Gil is now worried that the cases aren’t enough to distract Malcolm. That Malcolm can’t work on cases anymore. That Malcolm’s mental health has compromised his ability to work effectively. 

20:50 - “We’re friends. Partners” Listen to the longing in Malcolm’s voice when he says “partners”. He wants to be romantic partners with Dani - not just work partners. It’s obvious. This boy is an open book when it comes to how he feels about Dani. 

21:08 - “And she never will.” there is something about the way Tom delivers this line. How he sort of trips over the words. I can’t tell if it’s intentional or not but it works. It somehow makes it more raw and emotional. Malcolm wants so so badly to tell Dani how he feels but he’s convinced that he’s a monster. That she deserves someone more stable than him. Someone with less trauma. Malcolm is convinced that he’s not safe for anyone to love. Malcolm is convinced he’s going to snap and become Martin. 

21:17 - “Sounds lonely.” I love the way Malcolm immediately dismisses this as ‘tactical empathy’. Malcolm has accepted that he will be alone forever. He’s convinced himself he deserves it. I’m willing to bet that Malcolm rarely (if ever) actually feels lonely. Between coping mechanisms, hallucinations, and trauma - I doubt his mind is ever quiet enough for him to notice loneliness. 

21:27 - “You’ve spent your life mastering a game. I’ve spent mine mastering how people think.” .....ok but chess is basically about predicting your opponents moves and then Gerald graduated to people watching soooooo they’re really not that different. 

22:06 - I love this. I love how Malcolm turns on Gerald only for Gerald to emphatically explain how he lives through that window. Because - isn’t Malcolm the same? How many people have accused Malcolm of being a murderer when really he’s just a man who only feels alive when he’s solving murders and putting away killers?

22:50 - Rosalie helped Gerald much like Dani helps Malcolm. But Gerald couldn’t help Rosalie because he was trapped in his trauma. .....sooooo what’s going to happen to Dani? Or is this just supposed to be a reference to the fact that Dani can’t trust Malcolm because he’s keeping Endicott a secret and she knows something is up?

22:51 - ummmmm 60bpm??!?!? That’s a borderline athletic resting heart rate for a man in his 50s. There’s no way Martin’s in that great of shape. He’s trapped in his cell most of the day. 

24:28 - oooookkkkkayyyy so maybe Capshaw isn’t as smart as I thought she was. Martin is playing her like a fiddle. Although that dream sequence from the intro did make it seem like she was only interested in Martin because she craved medical power and respect. 

25:22 - Martin didn’t call Jessica his wife to screw with Capshaw. He genuinely still thinks of Jessica as his wife.....this is not good for the future. This tracks with the dreams Martin’s had throughout this season of going back home to his family. 

25:44 - Oh yeah. Jessica knows that woman is into Martin. 

26:41 - “Isn’t it obvious? It’s the key to my heart.” LMAO holy shit. 

26:56 - “I can tell when you’re lying.” “Not historically.”......Martin has a point. 

28:27 - This counts as my “someone confronts Malcolm about his mental health” bingo square for the episode right? 

28:35 - Look at Gil. He knows Malcolm is lying through his teeth and he’s so so tired of it. He looks so sad and annoyed. Gil loves Malcolm so much and he’s clearly concerned about Malcolm but I honestly think Gil just feels helpless right now. Malcolm is spiralling and Gil can’t help because Malcolm won’t open up. 

29:15 - “When she didn’t give up Clayton he killed her. Brave girl.”.....does this mean there’s going to be an attempt on someone’s life this season? Maybe Martin tries to kill Ainsley because she’s going to pin Endicott’s murder on Malcolm? Or Malcolm tries to kill Ainsley because she doesn’t give up Martin’s location? Or Ainsley/Martin try to kill Malcolm because he tries to come clean about everything?

29:26 - “If anyone can get through to this guy it’s you.” THANK YOU. Malcolm really needed that assurance. This dude is so full of negative emotions, self doubt, and pain. Every moment he feels supported, believed in, or loved is immensely treasured. 

30:26 - Oh Capshaw. You dumb dumb dumb woman. Look at Martin’s face. Capshaw has freed a monster. That’s Martin’s “I’m a raging serial killer” expression. 

30:29 - Holy shit. Look at how quickly Martin put the “I’m a harmless doctor” mask. In the span of about 1 second he went from killer to angel. Michael Sheen is incredible. 

31:04 - “You don’t have to be trapped in here.” It breaks my heart to hear Malcolm encourage Gerald to break free from his trauma when Malcolm is still a prisoner to his own. 

31:10 - “This is your next move” “No. It’s not”. THIS. This sums up anxiety disorders. Everyone tells you to ‘move on’ or ‘take a deep breath’. They all tell you that ‘everything will be fine’. They ask you ‘what’s the worst thing that could happen.” The problem: most people with anxiety disorders know the majority of their fears (or at least the severity of them) is irrational. Most people with anxiety disorders have tried therapy, drugs, coping mechanisms, breathing techniques, ect. Anxiety doesn’t go away because you want it to. Telling someone to move on - just makes it worse. Especially someone who has lived with severe anxiety so long that it feels like a crucial part of their personality. I’ve had a severe anxiety disorder for as long as I can remember - I don’t want to heal. I don’t know who I’d be without severe anxiety. I’m scared to find out. 

32:10 - “Family comes first”........soooo is Martin escaping to groom Ainsley for the family business (murder)? For Malcolm (to save him from Ainsley)? To protect Malcolm from a new Surgeon related skeleton (akin to Endicott)? WHY? 

32:33 - ahhhh Papa!Gil. I’ve missed you. 

33:25 - I have this headcannon that baby!Malcolm had pet rats at some point (he’d had snakes so I feel like rats would be in his wheelhouse). One day while Malcolm was at school the rats escaped from their cage and scared the crap out of Jessica. Jessica demands that the rats be removed from the home. That’s it. That’s the scene that plays in my head. 

33:39 -.....Jessica is wearing a ring on her left ring finger. Why? 

34:03 - “Jess it’s good to hear from you but -” They’re dating again now. Right? <3 

34:06 - “What?!” Fear and confusion. That’s the look on Gil’s face. We love to see it. 

 34:25 - “Martin is escaping.” Look at Gil’s face. He’s terrified. He’s staying calm and acting like he’s in control but this dude is terrified that the people he loves most in the world (Jessica and Malcolm) are in serious and immediate danger. 

34:50 - .....last I checked Malcolm was claustrophobic with specific closet-related trauma......

35:40 - “There’s only one play for a pawn.”.....does this mean Malcolm considers himself a pawn in Martin’s game? Disposable. Limited options. Replaceable. Of little worth? :( 

35:57 - “What would you know about it Judas.” Huh. Pete is pissed at Martin. Is it because Pete views Martin’s nasty relationship with Capshaw as a betrayal akin to Judas’ betrayal of Jesus?

36:36 - Jessica using her heels as a weapon is honestly such a mood. hahaha

36:54 - Poor Jessica. The moment she realizes that she’s trapped with a killer who not only hates Martin but also has an hallucinatory friend is haunting. This woman goes from terrified to petrified. But look at her poker face. She’s brave. She tries to talk her way out of it. She tries to think her way out of it. She’s like Malcolm.

37:42 - Jessica firmly telling Daryl not to take another step right before she stabs him in the neck with a high heel is everything. Listen to her terrified screaming. She can’t believe she just stabbed the man (even if it was self-defence). This woman did the impossible while scared to death. She is a badass. She’s my hero. I love her. 

38:12 - “All she had to do was tell me where my brother was. Except they were in love”.....does this mean Ainsley or Martin is going to try and kill Dani?

39:32 - “Don’t you think that’s what Rosalie would’ve wanted for you? This time make the right choice.” Wow. Malcolm is really metaphorically berating himself. What I heard was “Don’t you think Dani would want you to live without fear and guilt? This time - tell her your secret. Come clean. You’ll feel better.”

40:12 - ....so did Dani steal Gil’s keys or did he give them to her? Can we see how mad Gil is about this? Please? .....also the not-so-subtle “Dani is going to be a part of the Whitly family because she hurt Gil’s car” is not lost on me. I’m just more interested in Gil’s reaction to Dani hurting his baby. 

40:21 - “I see why you like her.” hahaha Gerald is all of us. Whether or not you ship Brightwell, you can’t deny that Dani is a badass and a good friend to Malcolm. That’s reason enough for Malcolm to like her - not necessarily in a romantic way. 

40:30 - Where the hell did Daryl go? If Jessica was trapped where did the man with a high heel in his neck go?!!?! 

40:33 - “It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re okay.” <3 <3 The whump whore in me is in love. Forget Gillica. I’ll listen to Gil comforting a traumatized member of the team or Jessica any time, any day. <3 

40:50 - I have so many questions about this escape. Are the guys sticking together? If not - do they know where the other guys plan to go/do? Where will they be getting the post-escape change of clothes (you know the ones that aren’t property of Claremont)? 

40:55 - I’ll be honest, I’m shocked. They’ve been teasing Martin’s escape all season but I really thought he wasn’t going to escape until the finale. Now I’m so excited for the finale. If it’s not a Martin-Ainsley-Malcolm showdown or a Gil-Martin showdown I’m going to be sad. 

41:13. - Martin and Gerald both just took their first breath of fresh air as ‘free’ men after 23-24 years. The symmetry of this episode’s two main plot lines is more obvious than usual. 

41:44 - Look at Gerald being Malcolm’s wingman. hahaha it’s so cute. He’s self-appointed himself as Malcolm’s grandpa and I’m here for it. 

41:51 - REALLY MALCOLM?!!? YOU CHOOSE TO LISTEN TO A VOICEMAIL FROM THE SURGEON NOW?!?! #MORON

42:29 - Martin’s entire message for Malcolm is haunting. Even now, he’s trying to manipulate Malcolm. “I’m not the man I used to be”. I’ll promise you right now - Martin will be killing at least one person in the next 3 episodes. He’s addicted to killing. End of story. 

“I’m doing this for you” ....Is Martin going after Ainsley? I’m genuinely concerned that Martin thinks Ainsley is going to try and kill Malcolm or pin the Endicott murder on Malcolm. I think Martin caught wind of it and is planning on ‘taking care of the problem’ (Ainsley). 

42:35 - Look at Dani. She’s terrified. For Malcolm. For Gil. For New York. For herself. She knows how bad this is and she’s scared. 

42:44 - “You fath-. The Surgeon.” THIS. Dani realized that Malcolm doesn’t need to be reminded that his father is a serial killer. Dani realized that family is more than blood. The Surgeon escaped. Malcolm is in danger. But Malcolm’s father didn’t escape. Malcolm’s father has been dead since 1997/1998 when Malcolm found out he was a serial killer. 

42:55 - Malcolm. :( Look at our baby. :( He’s done. Absolute horror and terror. He looks like he’s going into shock. I honestly thought (*cough* hoped *cough*) he was going to pass out. THIS is what’s going to remove Malcolm as a suspect for ‘aiding/knowing that Martin was planning on escaping’. Same with Jessica. Ainsley doesn’t have a terror driven alibi though. At least - not that we’ve seen. 

AHHHHHHHH this was such an intense episode. I can’t wait for Tuesday. <3

If Malcolm doesn’t have a full on mental breakdown soon I’m going to have a stress-induced breakdown for him. Seriously. 

 Thanks for hanging out. 

oh j0nryas know about balticon report, they just think he was being coy (asdjkahs same delusion with s/ns/ns), that he was rambling bc he was trying not to give spoilers. at this point he could go on live and say "no dumbasses there is no j0nrya, there won't be, there never was" (same w pedoships) and they will all be like "omg it is definitely happening in twow, look at how he's trying to divert our attentions, we are onto you george hehehe"

OK let’s review, again, chronologically, all the times that GRRM was being coy and trying to divert his readers’ attention regarding the ships you mentioned:

The “It could be very different things to each of those involved” Alternative: “Mind you!”

JUNE 24, 1999 THE HOUND AND SANSA

Moreta12: I understand, I’ve heard your opinion on that. In ACOK, it seems that the relationship between the Hound and Sansa had romantic undertones. Is that true?

GeoRR: Well, read the book and decide for yourself.

Moreta12: I’ve read the book and I’ve debated those particular scenes with a few others. Half say that it’s romantic and half say it’s platonic. I’ve taken the romantic stance.

GeoRR:  It could be very different things to each of those involved, mind you

Moreta12:Yes, but it seem like evidence points towards romantic undertones. Will the Hound appear later?

GeoRR: Yes, the Hound will be in STORM OF SWORDS. In fact, I just finished writing a big scene with him.

[Source]

The “Why are you asking me about Sansa’s sexuality?” Alternative 1: “Are you really asking me when your fave male adult character can fuck a girl, 15 years younger than him, without guilt?” Alternative 2: “Why are you so gross?”

OCTOBER 05, 1999 AGE OF SEXUAL RELATIONS IN WESTEROS

The nature of the relationship between Sandor and Sansa has been a hot topic on Revanshe's board. Sansa's youth has been one focus of the discussion. What is the general Westerosi view as to romantic or sexual relationships involving a girl of Sansa's age and level of physical maturity?

A boy is Westeros is considered to be a "man grown" at sixteen years. The same is true for girls. Sixteen is the age of legal majority, as twenty-one is for us. However, for girls, the first flowering is also very significant... and in older traditions, a girl who has flowered is a woman, fit for both wedding and bedding. A girl who has flowered, but not yet attained her sixteenth name day, is in a somewhat ambigious position: part child, part woman. A "maid," in other words. Fertile but innocent, beloved of the singers. In the "general Westerosi view," well, girls may well be wed before their first flowerings, for political reasons, but it would considered perverse to bed them. And such early weddings, even without sex, remain rare. Generally weddings are postponed until the bride has passed from girlhood to maidenhood. Maidens may be wedded and bedded... however, even there, many husbands will wait until the bride is fifteen or sixteen before sleeping with them. Very young mothers tend to have significantly higher rates of death in childbirth, which the maesters will have noted. As in the real Middle Ages, highborn girls tend to flower significantly earlier than those of lower birth. Probably a matter of nutrition. As a result, they also tend to marry earlier, and to bear children earlier. There are plenty of exceptions.

[Source]

The “Unreliable narrator - Part 1” Alternative: “The much more important lapse in memory that was promised”

JUNE 26, 2001 SF, TARGARYENS, VALYRIA, SANSA, MARTELLS, AND MORE

[GRRM is asked about Sansa misremembering the name of Joffrey’s sword.]

The Lion’s Paw / Lion’s Tooth business, on the other hand, is intentional. A small touch of the unreliable narrator. I was trying to establish that the memories of my viewpoint characters are not infallible. Sansa is simply remembering it wrong. A very minor thing (you are the only one to catch it to date), but it was meant to set the stage for a much more important lapse in memory. You will see, in A STORM OF SWORDS and later volumes, that Sansa remembers the Hound kissing her the night he came to her bedroom… but if you look at the scene, he never does. That will eventually mean something, but just now it’s a subtle touch, something most of the readers may not even pick up on.

[Source]

The “Unreliable narrator - Part 2” Alternative: “It doesn’t mean what you think it means”

OCTOBER 05, 2002 SANSA’S MEMORY

[Note: This mail has been edited for brevity.]

… this is an inconsistency with ASoS more than an outright error. In ASoS, Sansa thinks that the Hound kissed her before leaving her room and King’s Landing. In ACoK, no kiss is mentioned in the scene, though Sansa did think that he was about to do so.

Well, not every inconsistency is a mistake, actually. Some are quite intentional. File this one under “unreliable narrator” and feel free to ponder its meaning

[Source]

The “Unreliable narrator - Part 3” Alternative: “Better ask yourself about Sansa’s psychological state”

NOVEMBER 27, 2007 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS

Here’s a really particular question (which I realize means it probably won’t get asked in a general interview): In A Storm of Swords, there is a chapter early on where Sansa is thinking back to the scene at the end of A Clash of Kings when The Hound came into her room during the battle. She thinks in the chapter about how he kissed her, but in the scene in A Clash of Kings, this actually didn’t happen. Was that a typo or something? —Valdora

GRRM: It’s not a typo. It is something! [Laughs] ”Unreliable narrator” is the key phrase there. The second scene is from Sansa’s thoughts. And what does that reveal about her psychologically? I try to be subtle about these things.

[Source]

The “The answer is No” Alternative: NO!

APRIL 15, 2008 FUTURE MEETINGS, POVS, ARYA’S ROLE, EASTERN LANDS, AND ASSASSINS

[Will Sandor and Sansa meet?]

Why, the Hound is dead, and Sansa may be dead as well. There’s only Alayne Stone.

[Source]

The “He’s a lot more dangerous than he is romantic” Alternative: “BUT THERE IS SAM!”

AUG. 21ST, 2009 AS SER JORAH MORMONT… - NOT A BLOG

weltraummuell: The Hound Oh please don’t cast an old guy for the Hound, his scenes with Sansa are so romantic and erotic, I couldn’t bear if it’d feel creepy all of a sudden. Well, that’s me making demands. LOL

GRRM: Re: The Hound Old guy? No, but… the Hound is still a whole lot older than Sansa, and was never written as attractive… you know, those hideous burns and all that… he’s a lot more dangerous than he is romantic.  

kestrana: The Hound Yeah its a “girl always wants the bad boy” kind of thing although Sansa seems to pull something else out of him. It feels so wrong sometimes but I want to see them together again tee hee.

weltraummuell: The Hound Hehe, George, maybe you didn’t intend it, but he turned out to be a very erotic character to female readers. Especially since he’s mutilated and dangerous. Makes him unpredictable and vulnerable which is the most explosive aphrodisiac for a girl’s fantasy. ;)

weltraummuell: The Hound And I know from discussions on other board other women feel just the same about Sandor. He’s an absolute favourite with the ladies!

halfbloodmalfoy: The Hound LOL, you’re such a man. To many of us women, dangerous *is* attractive.

GRRM: The Hound But no one has any love for poor old Sam Tarly, kind and smart and decent and devoted…

[Source]

The “That’s interesting...” Alternative: “They are deeply troubled individuals, Harriet”

22 JUNE 2012 SWORD & LASER VIDEO PODCAST

GRRM: I am sometimes surprised by the reactions, of women in particular, to some of the villains. The number of women over the years who have written to me that their favorite characters are Jaime Lannister or Sandor Clegane [the Hound] or Theon Greyjoy… All of these are deeply troubled individuals with some very dark sides, who have done some very dark things. Nonetheless, they do draw this response, and quite heavily, I think, in the case of some of them, from my female readers in particular.

Veronica Belmont: I’m a big fan of the Hound, myself, actually.

Tom Merritt: Of Sandor? Really?

Veronica Belmont: Yeah, the Hound… Maybe it’s not because I feel any compassion towards them, I’m not really sure what the attraction is. Ah, I’m not going to call it attraction, actually. Let’s just say it’s a fascination, perhaps.

GRRM: [Chuckles] Well, I mean, fascination is one thing, but some of these letters indicate that there really is like a romantic attraction going on there. And I do know there’s all these people out there who are, as they call themselves, the “San/San” fans, who want to see Sandor and Sansa get together at the end. So that’s interesting, too.

Tom Merritt: The TV show has sort of played with that a little, and probably stoked those fires.

GRRM: Oh, sure. And I’ve played with it in the books. There’s something there, but it’s still interesting to see how many people have responded to it.

[Source]

The “I guess I don’t understand women” Alternative: “I'm shook”

JUNE 23, 2015 GRRM Q&A AT THE SCIENCE FICTION BOOKSTORE IN STOCKHOLM

Question: “Is there any fan reactions that you have been surprised by, like is there a character that’s more popular than you thought or have people been shocked by something you didn’t think we would be shocked at?”

GRRM: “I’m reasonably certain what people will be shocked by. I knew that the Red Wedding would provoke a big reaction and it did. I was pretty confident that, you know, throwing Bran out the window and then killing Ned in the first book would get reactions, and indeed they did. All of those worked exactly the way it did to the extent that things that have surprised me, they tend to be smaller things. I guess I… Maybe I should not have, I don’t know. How do I phrase this without getting myself in terrible trouble… I guess I don’t understand women, but I was definitely, you know, way back when, surprised by the number of women who reacted positively to characters like Theon and the Hound as dashing, romantic figures. The san/san kind of thing took me by surprise, I must admit, and even more so the women who, and there are some, who really like Theon. So that surprised me.”

[Source]

The “Comfort level of femininity” Alternative: “That's not a reference for romance”

MAY 29, 2016 BALTICON REPORT 

My con friend asked about the Jon/Arya relationship again and brought her (impressive) Game book that had all of her references marked out with little flags. She brought up the Ygritte connections to Arya that Jon saw in her. George did not directly answer yes or no if there would be anything romantic between the two.

George did say, despite what readers see as clues to a romantic relationship between Jon/Arya in the books themselves, he did not confirm this so easily but inferred that what Jon saw in Ygritte was a comfort level of femininity. <<<  She and I obviously discussed these comments after the meeting and this was the general feeling.

My con friend was referring to George explaining Jon’s perception: GRRM replied, “You know, I don’t think it’s a reference for that [for romance]. It’s a reference to a certain physical type, and  a certain indication of what Jon finds admirable. It’s like someone who reminds you of, you know… Other people might be put off by this, you know, hair that looks like small rodents have been living in there. It doesn’t put him off because he is used to that.”

The “I was making up shit.” Alternative: "I wish I can delete that"

MAY 29, 2016 BALTICON REPORT 

After the Coffee Talk just outside the room:

My Con Friend asked about Arya and Jon again. This time GRRM gave some very pointed replies:

GRRM finished (in the hallway now) by saying that he “wished some past things weren’t such strong foreshadowing,” and that he, “wished some new things had stronger foreshadowing then.”

Friend: Ok, if you foreshadowed something in the first book, like, really cleverly hidden, would you then follow through on that hint? For sure?..

GRRM: “Well, this goes with what I said before, the story changes and expands as I write. I wish I was able to go back and make revised drafts, but that’s not going to happen.”

Here is a transcript of the outline discussion and Jon/Arya portion of the coffee talk:

[question about Jon/Arya]

GRRM: “Alright, you’ve thought about this more than I have. I mean it’s simple, Jon is very fond of Arya. They were the two odd birds in the Stark family nest, here. They didn’t quite fit in with the others, they look like each other, they both had the brown hair, you know, as opposed to the auburn hair of Sansa and Bran and Rickon and Robb. So there was always that closeness between them. And, you know, Arya didn’t mind that Jon was a bastard, and Jon didn’t mind that Arya was a tomboy, so there is that closeness there.”

[question about Jon comparing his lover to his sister]

GRRM: “If he did it, uhm… I began writing these books in 1991, and, uhm, I worked on it in 91 and then I got a tv play, so I put it aside to really work on ‘Doorways’ tv pilot and did a tv show in 92-93. In 94 I returned to it [the books] and worked on it. You know, up till then, in my career as a writer, I’d always written the entire book before I opted for sale. That’s unusual. Most writers do chapters and an outline. They write a few chapters, they outline the rest of the book, give that to the publisher and the publisher says ‘oh okay, I’ll take that’.

“As some of you may have noticed, those who have been paying very, very carefully attention, I’m not good with deadlines. And, uh, and I’m not good with outlines, either. I always hated outlines. So with Fevre Dream and with Armageddon Rag and with Dying of the Light and all my novels, I wrote the entire book. I didn’t do chapters and outline. I sat down, I wrote a whole book, and I sent it to my agent and said ‘Look, here’s a whole book, and it’s finished’. That way I ran into no deadline, it was finished before it even went on the market. And it worked well for me. And my initial thought was to do this the same way, but what happened, you know, was in 1994, uhm, when I returned to it and I’m working on it and I’m very enthused about it and I say ‘I really wanna write these Game of Thrones books as the next part’. But I was still in Hollywood and I’d just lost all this groundwork on ‘Doorways’, I was still in… The studios and networks still wanna work with me, so I’m getting other offers, like ‘We want you to write this movie’, ‘we want you to do another tv pilot’. And, you know, I took a couple of them and was ‘Oh god, I gotta have to put the book away again’. Cause I have no deadline [for the book]. You know, when you think Hollywood, they will give you a deadline, you know, they say ‘here, son, write this movie, we want it in three months’.

“So, I said ‘look, if I wanna get back to being a novelist, I’m gonna have to sell this even though it’s not finished’. So I had my 200 pages of Game of Thrones at that point, but they wanted outline. I said ‘I don’t do outlines. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, I figure it out as I go. And that’s how I always did it.’ No, we had to have an outline. So I wrote two pages, a two-page thing about what I thought would happen. It’ll be a trilogy, it’ll be three books, Game of Thrones, the Dance with Dragons, and Winds of Winter. Those were the three window titles. And, uh, it’ll be three books and this’ll happen, and this’ll happen, and this’ll happen. And I was making up shit.

“And I had thought that those two pages were long forgotten, because, of course, the books did sell. They sold in the United States and in Great Britain, both. They sold for enough money that I didn’t have to take any more Hollywood games. So I was able to say ‘no’ around. I had a few less [?] to wind up in in 94 and 95. Once I had, I said ‘no, I don’t want any more movies or tv shows, I’m going to write these books now’. And I started writing the books. And in the process, I pretty much disregarded the outline. The characters took me off in entirely different directions. So, for 20 years I had forgotten that that two-page thing even existed. And then someone in my British publisher, HarperCollins, they got a new office building, uh, brand new offices, and new conference rooms, big conference rooms that they decorated with books and stuff like that. And they named the conference rooms after the writers, so one of the conference rooms [?], and they put up these plastic display cases, including the outline. The two-page outline, yes. [?], they didn’t ask my permission, they just put it up. And in that two-page outline, Jon and Arya become a romantic item.”

“You know, I don’t think it’s a reference for that [for romance]. It’s a reference to a certain physical type, and  a certain indication of what Jon finds admirable. It’s like someone who reminds you of, you know… Other people might be put off by this, you know, hair that looks like small rodents have been living in there. It doesn’t put him off because he is used to that.””

[someone says they have 5 minutes left]

“You know, I was pretty pissed that that outline got out there. It should not have happened. Outlines and letters like that are meant only for the eyes of the editor. They shouldn’t go on public display. And, uh, they also [?] my papers on [?], all my papers and correspondence. You know, I’ve been sending that stuff there for years, and it’d be, you know, available for future scholars or whatever, just like the papers of many other writers. Somehow, in the back of my head I was like ‘yeah, 20 years after I’m dead some scholar will go in and find them’. They’re going in right now!”   ”

[question if he is still going with the 1991 ending]

“Yes, I mean, I did partly joke when I said I don’t know where I was going. I know the broad strokes, and I’ve known the broad strokes since 1991. I know who’s going to be on the Iron Throne. I know who’s gonna win some of the battles, I know the major characters, who’s gonna die and how they’re gonna die, and who’s gonna get married and all that. The major characters. Of course along the way I made up a lot of minor characters, you know, I, uhm…Did I know in 1991 how Bronn, what was gonna happen to Bronn? No, I didn’t even know there’d be a guy named Bronn. I was inventing him along the way when I was writing, ‘Okay, he gets kidnapped. Let’s see, there are a couple sellswords there, their names are Fred and Bronn’.

“It was actually Bronn and Chiggen, and then one of them dies, I flipped a coin ‘okay, who dies? Chiggen dies, cause his name is stupid. Bronn is a better name, so I’ll keep Bronn’. And then Bronn became quite an interesting character and plenty of these characters take on minds of their own. They push to the front till you [?] speech and you think of a cool line and you give it to Bronn because he’s trying to talk, and now Bronn is somebody who says something cool. [?]. That’s how characters grow on you. “So a lot of the minor characters I’m still discovering along the way. But the mains-”

[question if he knows Arya’s and Jon’s fates]

“Tyrion, Arya, Jon, Sansa, you know, all of the Stark kids, and the major Lannisters, yeah.”

This report appears in the following sources:

fattest leech of ice and fire blog [Source 1]

asoiaf.westeros.org [Source 2]  

westeros.org [Source 3]

The “Unreliable narrator - Part 4” Alternative: “I think I had enough...”

DECEMBER 2016 ASKING GEORGE R.R. MARTIN ABOUT SAN/SAN

My question is regarding Sansa Stark. Her sexuality has evolved through every book and yet the memory that seems to stick the more with her in this regard is the night of the Blackwater. So I was wondering if you can expand on your view on what this is, since as before that night her interactions with Sandor Clegane weren't really physical.

The night of the Blackwater, yes. Ahhh... Well, I'm not going to give you a straight answer on that hahaha... Uhmmm, but I would say that ahhh... you know a television show and a book each has its own strengths and weaknesses; there a re tools that are available to me as a novelist, that are not available to people doing a television show. And of course there are tools available to them, that are not available to a novelist, I mean they can lay in a soundtrack, they can do special effects, they can do amazing things that I can't do, I just have words on paper. What can I do, well I can use things like the internal narrative, I can take you inside of territories... thoughts, which you can't do in a TV show... Ahhh... You just have the words they speak, you see them from outside because the camera is external, while prose is internal, and I have the device known as "unreliable narrator"... Ahhh... Which again, they don't have. So, think about those two aspects when you consider that night of the Blackwater. 

[Source]

Most of these questions make me think of Nabokov having to clarified, regarding Lolita, that he didn’t write a romance..........

So there’s that, everyone can draw their own conclusions.  God knows that in this fandom: “We look up at the same stars, and see such different things.”  

Thanks for your message.

From the meta asks: 4, 7, 10, 20, and 22?

hi chy!!!! sorry this took so long omg but i’m so happy i got it!! <3 <3 under the cut!

 7 & 10 answered here!

4. share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

oh yeah okay alright forcing me to be positive??? about myself??? here is my favorite exchange to have written for the entirety of ancient names

---

“Muzzle your beast, poor Jacob’s scared I’ll fucking kill him.”

Not how he wanted this. Not like this. Fuck fuck fuck. “Elliot—”

A half-cocked grin split across Jacob’s face. He leaned forward, almost within grabbing reach of Elliot. “Yeah? You think you could do it, little girl?”

---

anyway the unresolved sexual tension of wanting to kill one another is my favorite thing to write and that’s that on that

20. tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

answered this here and also here but! a fun thing that only ONE person has told me they recognize is in the first chapter of WH, there is a particular sequence/nightmare dream where there’s a phrase used: have you been having strange dreams? this is actually a reference to one of my favorite like cryptic/unsolved mysteries, where someone went around portland posting flyers with that exact saying on it and a phone number to a land line that asked you to leave a message detailing your dream. here’s an article about it!

i am a horror girl at heart--i love the creeps and the heebie-jeebies, spent a lot of my youth reading incredible creepypasta stories (have you been on r/nosleep? there are some REMARKABLE horror writers in there) and so i have like this fountain of useless knowledge regarding strange occurrences, creepy ARGs, and unsolved mysteries. i try to replicate that feeling of being deeply unsettled in a lot of my writing and ancient names/the subsequent stories are definitely not exceptions to this.

22. do you reread your old works? how do you feel about them?

NO AND BAD. i’m just kidding (sort of). i do re-read some of my old stuff if i need to make a specific reference, especially because a lot of the time in my writing i tend to make callbacks to specific things (the last chapter of WH having a HUGE one). i want to make sure i get the wording down correctly even though it’s technically inaccurate to do so, because human memory is so spotty and unreliable, but!!! i do sometimes go back to read things that i have written to get in a better headspace for writing something as well, but it does make me uncomfy. i think my beginning of ancient names is incredibly weak and i can see, almost physically in the word count and how i wrote, where my confidence in elliot as a character and where i was going with the story changed, and it makes me want to go back and rewrite the whole first half knowing what i know now. LOL

Hi! I know your super busy and probably won't have time to answer this but I'm a new fanfic writer and I wanted to ask for advice. I enjoy your works and writing and I am so desperately looking forward to when you update and you put me headfirst into the MDZS fandom and I just thought you would be a good person to ask. I would love to know more about your process and tips you have for writing dialogue, also if you can let me know what your pet peeves are about a fic. Thank you!

<33333333 Hiiii first of all sorry for dragging you down into the pit of MDZS misery with me it is a long way back to the surface 😅 but second of all omg of course I’ll try my best to be useful but tbh my writing process could clearly use some work since its so fleeting and unreliable rip also I’ll try to organize this into something that’s not just a total brain dump so uhh

1) Honestly I really think the key to getting better at writing is to just keep doing it, so if that’s your goal find ways to make that happen. I think any writer on here will tell you the first story they ever posted online/wrote was hot garbage, myself included. You get better the more you do it. I reblogged this post here that said something like ‘knowing an author on AO3 is like attending their thesis and clapping politely and knowing them on tumblr is watching them make sad noises and eat mayonnaise at 4am’ (it’s somewhere on my blog lol) and IT’S SO TRUE. AO3 quality is nuts, and even I get stuck in this mindset where I’m like ‘ooof my next chapter isn’t good enough/this story I’m writing isn’t good enough’ and then I get lost in this downward cycle of dwindling motivation. I try VERY hard not to write things for the sake of posting them, because then I focus too much on quality and not enough on the joy of writing, and also get way too caught up in whether people like it or not. I have probably 500 docs in my google docs and, like, how many stories up on Ao3?? A lot of these docs are just scenes or premises that struck my interest, less than >500 words sometimes, likely never to be finished - that doesn’t make them any less important to you or to your writing!! Fml this was way too long haha TLDR just keep writing; write for the sake of writing, because you like it, because you have an idea/plot/scene that won’t leave your head! 

Also, make a journal or word doc of related words. I also use thesaurus for this, but like your brain only has so much recall capability and yes if you read and write all the time it will expand a lot but at the end of the day you’re not a machine, you’re going to reach for one word a lot in a certain circumstance, so try to like make a word cloud of similar words to use in that circumstance? I like to do this by hand, because there’s a certain nuance to words I choose that is hard to get thesaurus.com to replicate. Here are some examples:

Repeated - reiterated, echoed, parroted, copied, quoted, imitated, chanted

^ I organize them by broad applicability to more niche uses. Like the first three words could probably be used interchangeably, but something like ‘chanted, imitated, or quoted’ would be based on the scenario. 

So this is just my head, right, but here’s another example that sort of shows how I group words/think of them:

Saw - Observed (passive, neutral), viewed (passive, neutral), perceived (passive, thoughtful), detected (passive, thoughtful), noticed/noted (passive), regarded (passive), inspected (intent), scrutinized (intent), considered (intent, thoughtful), acknowledged (intent, thoughtful), recognized (surprised, unexpected)

Ahh sorry this is probably getting confusing and wayy to into the minutiae but yeah this is sort of how I decide, after listing out my related verbs, which one is the best for the situation. 

2) So for writing dialogue - I’m a super visual person. When I write stories I see scenes in my head. Beyond just what they’re saying, what are they doing while they’re saying it? A lot of times cues from the surrounding scene are important too. Obviously what the characters are actually saying is important but so is everything else happening around them, is I guess what I’m saying? I think I mentioned this in my other ask, but using the word ‘said’ on its own can be powerful in its ambiguity. But I like to add an adjective when I use it unless I’m being vague on purpose. 

Also pacing!! Pacing is super important, in general, but especially in dialogue. Tbh I would say I’m really not that great at it, it’s a hard thing to get right and has a lot to do with your tone, and how the scene is supposed to feel. Like funny dialogue always has this whip-quick style, while more angsty scenes are more drawn out. 

3) Pet peeves, hmm. Aside from really, REALLY bad grammar mistakes/typos with intense frequency, those don’t really bother me. Like lmao glass houses I always end up with one wrong their/there or than/then somewhere. If I had to pick a pet peeve, it would probably be formatting. That’s just the designer in me, I guess. Especially spacing between paragraphs -  or rather, when there IS no spacing. I can’t even show you because tumblr doesn’t even let me do it, but basically in a word doc when you don’t double enter after a paragraph, just single enter. It makes paragraphs, dialogue, everything look like one GIANT block of text and sometimes when I see a story like that I hit the back button and can’t read it. To a MUCH lesser extent, when people put photos in their stories but don’t make them responsive. This I don’t really mind all that much, except when I scroll on my phone I’ll end up scrolling way left instead of down. It’s also an easy fix, just change the width field to 100% and it will be as wide as the screen the person is viewing on. 

(1/18) *peeks from behind the wall* I hope I am still welcomed here hahaha cricket anon is here! <3 I am very sorry for making you worry last time O.O, for sure no matter what happens to the story, I'm going to be right there to read it! Huehuehue, I literally was not lying when I mentioned that this story is bringing me lots of joy this year :3 Cricket anon is fine now! hahaha my last work place was really bad, kind of black-company-level-bad, and it really took a toll on my mental health…

Dear cricket nony, I already answered one of your non-anonymous asks privately because I was so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of email notifications I got from tumblr and Ao3 that I had to thank you right away, but I still want to do it publically because even after days I’m still overwhelmed that you took so much time to write me a whole essay. I’m still all soft and wobbly and squishy on the inside. Your notifications really made my day, week, probably month – so thanks so much again. It really means so much T___T

(2) so, I kind of took two months? break from social media and just literally try and figure out my life lol basically quarter-life crisis also happening, but yeah slowly getting better now! I hope you are doing fine as well, sending you lots of hugs and love ~^^~ Firstly though!! I wanted to say sorry too that it took a while for me to reply hahaha… BUT!! Let me tell you omg during my rest of 8 weeks, I have managed to re-read ALL. SEVEN. CHAPTERS!! So many things to share!!

I’m so sorry to hear that your last workplace took such a toll on your mental health and I really hope that you are going to get better. I cross all my fingers for you and send you good vibes only. Please don’t feel pressured to comment at all. I mean everyone loves receiving comments, but it shouldn’t feel like a chore. So if you feel like sharing your thoughts I’m always glad to read them, but if you don’t feel like sharing them, please don’t feel bad about it. <3

(3) However, since my comments were a grand total of 4,000 words lol, I inserted them in AO3 under "cricket anon" in every chapter! :3 You might get confused as you read them because I take notes as I read the chapter lol hahaha I hope my comments might bring some joy <3 Ahh! By the way! These anon messages are partly not anon since anon asks are limited to 10 per hour? I didn’t know that! :( But since I accidentally have revealed myself to you lol I think it should be okay!

I’ll also try to answer your comments on Ao3 in the upcoming days because (if I remember correctly) you had some questions and I hope I can answer some of them. ^^ But I’m impressed that you went through all the chapters again. We’ve reached 150k now, which is quite fascinating to me because there are still quite a few chapters left. I wonder how long the story will be in the end *hides* I didn’t know that either! I’ve been on tumblr for so long and yet this 10 ask limit is new information for me, but it makes sense in some way – if I think about spam accounts or people going around spreading hate or something.

(4) Also, I think I’m going to make my snorts reactions straight onto AO3 from now on, rather than spamming your ask box with 10+ anon messages hahaha but I’ll still come here to share you my overall reactions and analyzations huehuehue and also to possibly warn you about the length of the comment lol something I noticed, from chapter 1 to chapter 7, the comment got longer lol more things to discuss about, I guess!? But yeah!! Let me reply to your reply to my previous ask here!!

LMAO I admire your dedication. Do whatever is most comfortable to you, I will be happy either way ^^ I think it makes sense that someone can comment more on later chapters because the painted picture gets fuller and fuller with details, there is more information about the different characters, the storyline is more developed and so on… ^^

(5) Is the sad scene in chapter 6, you were referring to the conversation that Jong-Taem were having, and then Jong tried to diffuse it into another lighthearted banter, and Taem is just. tired. of. Jong avoiding the conversation? and despite all that, Taem still let Jong come into his room and cuddle to sleep? idk... I find that scene really heartbreaking :( or maybe it was another scene?

For me it was the shower scene tbh. I don’t know, but it always struck something inside of me (is it weird that I’m saying this although I’ve written it?) There is something very fragile about Jonghyun in that scene and Taemin does feel a little helpless and is so caught up in his own thoughts, in his own needs, what he wants (and doesn’t get from Jonghyun) and yeah – it always makes me go :( but yes, the follow up scene is sad as well because you sit there and think – you two are just so damn dumb, which is something most people, who read this story so far – seem to think constantly, because yeah, they are very dumb – each in their own way. ^^

(6) I think I mentioned in the AO3 comment somewhere that even I started to feel like Taem can just leave Jong because Jong is not trying to understand Taem, I mean, nothing to do with his mood swings or his claim that Taem will get bored of him, just that he isn't trying to see things from Taem's perspective whereas Taem is trying! so! hard! and he even tried to ignore the fact that Jong avoid the vital conversations for like the 10th time already :(

Feelings are a very difficult topic – and while chapters 1-9 are very focused on what Taemin does, thinks, wants, needs, wishes etc. the focus does shift a little over to Jonghyun starting from chapter 10. So the reader does get an inside of why Jonghyun might have acted the way he did. If his behavior makes sense is up to the reader (and Taemin as well) to decide – but I think it shines a little more light onto Jonghyun, who the reader doesn’t know much about – feeling wise –, although he’s one of the main characters of the story. ^^ It’s the onion layers that get peeled one by one. ^^

(7) Yeah, re-reading this definitely showed me muCH MORE parallelism in Jong-Key and Taem-Jong dynamics. Even with Taem's mood in a sense? Like how Jong used to be really upset when Key has a new friend, and then suddenly okay when they do sexy times. Before, I only noticed the puppy-love-ness parallel, but then there is more to it, like I said, Taem's mood affected by Jong a lot, just like Jong's by Key, and also the way Jong claims that Key doesn't understand his feelings,

(8) well, it applies to Jong not really wanting to understand Taem's feeling? by just brushing it off as Taem will get bored of him or Taem doesn't know what he is talking about. I mean as a reader, I am also not sure, if it’s either Jong doesn't care or he is scared to show himself or both or maybe there is another reason? Hahaha ^^;;

This is true and done on purpose. ^^ This knowledge doesn’t play a key (haha) part in the storyline, but it is there to show how blinded one can get by one’s own feelings. After adapting to his new life in a dorm Taemin sees through Jonghyun and Kibum’s relationship quite well, but later when it’s about his own relation to Jonghyun he’s completely blindsided and doesn’t see how unhealthy it is at first – him going back and back and back over and over again in the hope that Jonghyun’s behavior towards him might change.

(9) You mentioned that there will be more Jongtae drought, and honestly, I think they need it? I think some space for them to think about things and you know do other things and talk to other people about other things lol maybe it will clear up their heads hopefully? Ahh!! You said the beginning of chapter 5 is for your own sanity lol I totally understand ;), it was a very sweet scene, soft, and kind of endearing compared to what is coming in the next chapters TnT

It depends on how we describe the drought. The hard cut was done in chapter 8. I went in like a warrior and just cut all the strings, not showing any mercy. ^^” I don’t want to spoiler anything, but yeah – the hard drought will continue throughout chapter 9 – soft drought from chapter 10 …… till ….. *closes mouth* 6v6 

Working on chapter 8 made me write two lovey-dovey JongTae oneshots because I couldn’t stand seeing them fight in my own fanfic, in front of my salad. T_T so yeah, the beginning of chapter 5 was for my sanity. While writing chapter 8 I also realized again while I never really write angst, fights – anything dramatic really, because I’m a very chill person in real life, and I like my fanfics to be very chill as well – so writing this was completely out of my comfort zone. For others it’s writing smut for me it’s writing angst lmao. I usually want to wrap up all the characters in fluffy blankets and make them tea, and yet here I am – letting Taemin suffer for so many chapters. I’m a monster T_T

(10) Yeahhh, about the fact that we don't see Key so much since it is in Taemin's point of view, and also the fact that our (the audience)'s perception of Key is very much influenced by how Taem sees Key, right? I think I even mentioned somewhere in the comments, that in a way, a Rashomon effect is present as the readers read the story right, since they are all on accounts of Taem's witnessing, but then also maybe I am just reading too much into this lol

It would be the Rashomon effect if I wrote the same fic out of Jonghyun’s perspective and Minho’s as well for example. In this case Taemin is just a very unreliable narrator and we don’t (well I do :’D) but the reader doesn’t know what’s really going on, if everything Taemin is experiencing is true or if it should be taken with a grain of salt. Considering that everyone in the dorm, except for Taemin, gets along well with Kibum, we might want to believe that Kibum isn’t the bad guy Taemin wants to make him out to be. ^^

(11) Honestly, I could hear my English Lit teacher saying "maybe that is not the author's intention" hahaha xD Yes yes yes!! more chapters for Taem's development!! I am ready for it!! I mean the end of chapter 7 marked the sign of the broken vase, and paired with the JongTae drought, I am looking forward to the next part of the story!! Some character development at this point is perfect I think!! And also!! About the advices, I think I commented a few times on some of the chapters.

(12) I didn't notice that before! And after you pointed it out, I think I made some comments on Minho's, Key's, and Onew's advices to Taem and definitely, based on how the events unfolded, we could argue that the advice was bad - in a way though, I can't seem to tell (yet, maybe?) if the advice giver was genuinely trying to help or do they have ulterior motives? hmmm but either way, I like how you placed a lot of thoughts in the story, even on things such as advice.

(13) Because for sure, in reality, people tend to give bad advices, and act on bad advices. It is true that most fics tend to focus only on the good advice and then the story ends happily ever after. Real life is most definitely not like that :3 your "slice of life" tag is holding up to its name ;) Thank you so much for your hard work!! You added 10,000 words for chapter 7?? omg… huhuhu (insert a bowing LINE sticker)... yeah, for sure, the way the story unfolds in my head,

(14) probably is different to other readers, right? And for sure, very different to you, the author! There are probably a lot more instances, scenes, implications, interpretations? that we as readers are unaware of! Thank you so much for all your hard work TnT, as readers, having more context into the story does give much more clarity on the flow of the story and the feelings of the characters, etc. Thank you for all your hard work! (bow bow bow)

That was something @hwarang-number commented on as well while betaing the story. What if Minho has ulterior motives?!?!?!?!? In Minho’s case it does make sense to give out bad advice to lure in the innocent lamb haha but for example what would Jinki’s or Kibum’s ulterior motives be? Sometimes people want to give out good advice, but in the end it just turns out to be bad advice – unintentionally – humans are just humans after all – and none of us is all knowing, we all perceive things differently, and what might work for one person might not work for the other. I did add 10k to chapter 7 and 25k to chapter 8 – because chapter 8 felt like the most incomplete out of all the chapters in this story. 

I think I’ve mentioned it before but hwarang_number is super attentive while reading and figured most things out that I’ve implied – even smaller details which I thought might get lost in the chapters – which I’m still impressed by, but I also said before that everyone reads stories differently, and some aspects that might not be important to me as the author of the story might be important for the readers and the other way around. For the past chapters I just tried to fill in the gaps that might confuse readers unnecessarily. In the original draft of chapter 8 Taemin is doing the deeds with Minho far more spontaneously because he’s so frustrated with Jonghyun – it made sense like that as well – but I think his frustration got more depth through the added scenes. :)

(15) Ah!! By the way!! Please don't feel like you are forced to reply to all of my messages! Having you read them already makes me happy! I don't want to make it feel like an obligation to you because... well omg my comments like super loooooong hahaha ^^;; And yeah!! Take your time with the next chapter by the way!! I am rooting for the development of the story no matter how it will go :3 I will be waiting for the next update (though no pressure, just want to put it there haha)

Dear cricket nony, if you write me 50 message I will still try to answer all of them ㅎㅅㅎ I might just take a little longer. I hope you will like chapter 8 as well, despite the drought ^^

(16) Next time, this cricket anon will bring some more noise ~ I hope your real-life stuff works out well too :D Once again, thank you for answering all of my messages, and for writing this awesomely written fanfiction! While I wait for the next chapter, I think I'm going to re-read songs of siren hehehe :3 Please stay safe!

Please do! Song of Sirens is definitely a story I would have loved to treat like “Dorm Life” in a sense that it would have turned out better if I had worked on it longer, but I’m still a fan of the big brain energy I had running through my veins when I came up with the mythological aspect of the story…lmao So I hope you will enjoy re-reading it. ^^ Chapter 8 is longer than Song of Sirens (just as a side note haha)

(17) Ah!! I forgot to mention!! After I re-read it, my most favorite literary device that you used in this fanfiction (lol this commentary is beginning to sound like a Literature essay) is the Biblical Allusions? I am not sure if this was your intention, but the juxtapositions of Bible verses or reference to God, in Taemin’s thought reminds me heavily of Taemin’s songs, particularly Heaven? It be a sexy time song if you look at the lyrics, but the composition is that of a choir church song

(18) I find the contrast chilling, and maybe you were trying to invoke that feeling to the readers? Orrr maybe I am perhaps, indeed, reading too much into this hahaha ^^;; but really! I really enjoy reading your fanfictions and coming up with analyzations, it’s very fun, and the fact that I can discuss or ask you questions about it is just makes it even more fun – since in Literature classes we can’t actually ask the author of their true intentions right hahaha okay!! I am done :3 Thank you!! <3

It was my intention and still is, so I’m glad you picked up on that. ^^ I always wanted to write a fanfic in which Taemin’s religion plays a role – even if it’s just on the side – I always make some references to Dante’s circles of Hell (when Taemin is being dramatic again) or I also made a reference to Hieronymus Bosch’s painting The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things in chapter 8. (I’m a big fan of his work – that dude was wild – the way he painted blows my mind every time I look at one of his paintings). So yes, dramatic Taemin talking about religion and throwing around with biblical references is my brain being wild. ^^ 

I would say that ‘Dorm Life’ is not a really deep story, but I did put a lot of thought into it to not make it your regular smut/romance fanfic. I mean it took time, still does – but I’m glad when people, like you dear cricket nony, appreciate it. So thank you so much for your kind words and sending me all your thoughts and interpretations. <3 I hope you will have a lovely December – please stay healthy and please take good care of yourself. <3

More details from Dooku: Jedi Lost: - Dooku’s biological sister (Jenza) says she learned about the Jedi from a documentary about them on the HoloNet! - The planet of Serenno is probably named after the house that rules it and has been for ages.  While I think it sounds like the family uses mononyms, if he was going to have a full name, it would be Dooku Serenno. - “Legend has it” that the planet was once part of the Sith empire but Jenza’s great-great-great-great-something-grandfather led the charge against them.  When Dooku was like, “Whoa, I thought it’d be the Jedi who did that!” his sister says, “Like a Serennian would let someone else take the credit!”  “If you believe the stories--and my father does, passionately--grandaddy Serenno fended them off single-handedly.  And the other houses submitted to his authority.” So, dump an entire salt shaker on that, but it’s certainly interesting in terms of furthering the whole unreliable narrator aspect of this story and in giving us detail about House Serenno. - When Dooku sees an ancient dragon statue of mystical importance on Serenno, he halfway hears it in his head even before he reaches out.  When he touches it, there’s a huge quake all around them, but worse is that there’s a screaming roaring in his head--another instance of how being Force-sensitive can really kind of suck in this galaxy sometimes! - Count Gora is furious when he hears Dooku’s name, screaming in front of him (at Yoda, who just rescued Dooku and Jenza from the quake collapsing rubble on top of them) that he never wanted to see him, that “He’s not my son!”  An interesting turn of how biological families aren’t always so great in the GFFA. Later, we find out (via Yoda) that Count Gora immediately contacted the Jedi when he realized what Dooku was, but had left him outside the castle walls, no clothes, no shelter, nothing to identify him.  There were spine-wolves in that forest, Dooku later finds out from research, if he hadn’t been found, he could have been killed.  Yikes, some people REALLY hate Force-sensitives in this galaxy. When Dooku comes back for a funeral (and because he desperately needs to comfort Jenza), Gora stumbles over him and attacks him physically, calling him a “freak”.  (By this point, Dooku’s definitely losing perspective and objectivity because of his desperate need to stay connected to Jenza and the whole funeral affair ends in a GIANT CLUSTERFUCK.) - Man, Dooku is a real shit in this!  He’s so determined to prove himself, no matter that nobody’s asking this of him, that he’s furious when Sifo-Dyas points out that he’s not the one lifting the rocks up off them.  Some embarrassment about being wrong (because it’s Yoda rescuing them) is understandable, but he’s definitely crossing the line about how pissed he is that he was better than everyone else. He comes back around later, there’s a decent person still in there right now, especially when he’s joking around with Sifo-Dyas, but his first instinct always seems to be an arrogant rage.  They’re all out to get him, he’s better than all of them, that his reaction is “I could have been so much more!” when finding out that he was royalty instead of just a common person.  He works through it each time, so Yoda’s concerned, but it’s not like That Kid’s A Walking Minefield, because the whole point of what the Jedi teach is that it’s not a one-time-and-you’re-done mastering of yourself, it’s a lifelong process, and there will always be a back and forth on this. - Yoda says that he’s worried about Dooku, he senses a lot of confusion there, and that they need to focus on him, rather than Count Gora being a dick to everyone.  Later, he visits him in the infirmary and apologizes, saying he was wrong to take him to Serenno.  (Which makes one wonder why he did anyway, presumably, because he thought that the connection to his home culture was important?) - Dooku gets a parcel while at the temple, it’s just handed to him and nobody intercepts this or anything, which seems to imply that it’s fine. - It’s not really said if Jenza was “stolen” because he’s from the Serenno family or because he was a Jedi or even because he’s the Separatists’ leader, it could be any of them. - Man, if supplementary material wasn’t so obscure, Dooku/Sifo-Dyas would be a HUGE pairing, they are SUPER bantery and adorable. - Ky saying all the things Asajj said about his corpse are a lie, and that she cried over his death.  Dooku saying the Jedi just left them on Rattatak, they could have come for her at any time~, but they didn’t~, Ky’s voice telling her not to listen, that she knows that’s not true.  MY HEART IS BREAKING FOR ASAJJ ALL OVER AGAIN. - The holos on the walls of Dooku’s personal cabin on his airship remind Asajj of Rattatak and she’s surprised to find she still misses the dustball that was her home.  I AM HAVING SO MANY ASAJJ FEELINGS. - One of the holos also talks about the Lost Twenty, confirming that they were Jedi Masters who became disillusioned, Yoda says.  Interestingly, this knowledge isn’t really hidden, it’s available as soon as someone asks and Yoda says it’s a good question.  The scene is, of course, wrapped up in unreliable narration to a degree, because it’s a scene of Asajj watching a holo of Dooku telling his sister about his day, and already he’s been established as being kind of real snotty and arrogant, there’s a sense of snobbery and disillusionment himself towards his surroundings (the narration of the scene has a brief moment of showing giving up wealth for the life of a Jedi is a HDU sort of thing, those were my riches!), but I think it’s reasonably reliable to assume that the basic details are right. Someone asks what happened to them, did they fall to the dark side?  The other Master and Yoda say, no, not all of them, some of them became leaders, others taught.  But most just vanished. “Remember them, we must.  Honor them, we must.  Learn from our failure.”  “Our failure?”  “To keep them where they belong.  But, the past they are.  The future, you are.”  And it’s clear that, given that they’re allowed to leave and the examples we have in canon of Jedi leaving are treated warmly by the Jedi Order (until they go full Sith, obv.) and Age of Republic - Count Dooku shows us that they don’t keep tabs on them, that Yoda doesn’t mean they’re wrong to leave, but that the Jedi should honor the memory of them and keep working to understand those who begin to disagree, to work to make themselves a better place for all of their people.  That if those Jedi felt they had to leave their home and people, they should be remembered and not just dismissed as “Oh, they didn’t understand.”  But that they should work to make sure everyone feels like they belong. - THE EVIL BACKGROUND MUSIC EVERY TIME DOOKU OR SIFO-DYAS STARTS DOING SOMETHING SHADY IS HILARIOUS. - GOD, DOOKU, WHAT A DICK.  He’s so mad that Yoda’s just sitting in the garden and meditating and not talking to him and it’d be easy for the reader to go OMG WTF YODA, except then Dooku (who is relating this to his sister) is INCENSED because HOW DARE YODA TREAT HIM THIS WAY, HE’S THE BEST, MASTER SINUBE SAID IT HIMSELF, HE WAS THE BEST STUDENT HE HAD, HOW DARE YODA IGNORE HIM, IT’S AN INSULT!, and you realize, oh, shit, Yoda is doing something about this, not just that he’s stepping in when he senses Dooku’s confusion, but taking on an active role to try to help him, because Dooku is real full of himself and Yoda’s trying to help him address that underlying problem. But doing so through the way the Jedi teach and the way George Lucas believes is the best teaching method--by forcing the student to start thinking about what’s going on here.  Not to just “drill and kill” rote answers into Dooku, because that’s not going to work, but to guide him to critical thinking skills.  UGH, I LOVE THE LITTLE FROG MAN. - Whoa, there’s some really interesting connections to the political unrest in the galaxy that led up to the Clone Wars, about how the “brave new Frontier” of the Outer Rim isn’t telling you about the organized crime that’s on the rise out there, and it’s touching on SO MUCH of what’s covered in Star Wars: Propaganda and reminded me SO STRONGLY of this passage from the book:

     “With eyes toward expansion into the uncharted reaches of the Outer Rim, the traditions of the Core became passé. Opportunity beckoned from beyond the borders of the Mid Rim worlds. The congested planets of the interior were saturated with messages of promise lying outward, a reversal from long-held notions that Coruscant represented the icon of advancement. Republic wordsmiths and artists collaborated to create a sense of civic duty, of manifest destiny, and of deep obligation to spread the Republic banner from Rim to Rim.      “For the well-settled and wealthy elite of the galaxy’s most crowded centers, such notions were quaint but uninspiring. It was the citizens of the Inner Rim, those who had been crowded out of opportunity in the Core, who answered the call for new life in the frontier of the Outer Rim. The Core Worlders became more enamored with the fleeting distractions of fame and fashion, transitory fascinations with sophistication that left little room for messages of faith or tradition that the Jedi exemplified. The lack of representation in the galactic mindshare undoubtedly fixed their future, as dark forces were on the rise that would poison the public sentiment toward the Jedi in the decades to come.” (--Star Wars Propaganda by Pablo Hidalgo) As always, if you want to get an overview of how the politics of the galaxy shaped everything, from the Republic before the Clone Wars all the way to the First Order, that book is excellent and an amazing read.