Literally no one asked for this but this has been sitting and expanding in my brain since the start of the single dad au so. here.

Feel free to ask questions about it or because you can't read my terrible writing

the no spoiler rule in later ace attorney games is stupid because it never followed up on the gavin brothers, thalassa gramarye, locked beloved characters in the basement never to be seen again, etc etc etc but the missed potential that i havent been able to stop thinking about is that the phantom should have been callisto yew from investigations.

like. an assassin/spy from a foreign government? murdering the parent of a weird little girl and then framing said weird little girl for murder seven years later? who is a genius at disguising themselves as other people and worming their way into investigations?

like just change some stuff about the psychology profile of the phantom. like instead of having no readable emotion they force themselves to experience extreme emotions when putting on a front. like giggling uncontrollably. the way callisto yew does. idk it's not a very hard fix the opportunity was RIGHT there but they couldn't do that because theyre not allowed to acknowledge the investigations games existed ever.

2024 reads / storygraph

In The Roses of Pieria

dark fantasy romance

a woman takes a well-paying but suspicious sounding job as an archivist working for a mysterious estate owner, and finds herself translating numerous never-before-seen artifacts from her specialty field on an ancient civilisation

as she begins to translate romantic letters between two ancient figures and unravel more about them, her frustration over the knowledge being kept secret and confusion over what the letters reveal grows

but between that and her developing feelings for her employer’s assistant, she finds out that getting to close to these secrets is dangerous

lesbians, vampires, fey

this is intended to be, like, if a stranger on the street you were having a conversation with called you love.

think of any random person. I know this is dependent on context, but I don't want everyone to be hitting "else" just because if they're really nice they'd be okay with it. If any typical person you were chatting with called you "love", how would you react?

I love that we're getting focus on Chris Rodriguez early in the TV show, so that we have time to get invested in him before he a) betrays the camp and b) is driven so insane that only Dionysus can cure him. Knowing him beforehand will also make his relationship with Clarrisse, friendship and romance, feel more interesting.

What other cool, fun, not-heartbreaking characters will the show give more attention and depth? Silena Beauregarde? Charlie Beckendorf? Micheal Yew? Castor and Pollux? I can't wait!

wouldn't it be nice if the author of the fics finished them. the author is me.

Sorry but am I the only one that thought that episode…sucked? Like it was straight up bad. Horrible pacing, no wrap up of all the random characters and plot lines they’ve thrown around all season (the tuskegee airmen, Westgates spying, literally all the guys beside like the main 4). (Seriously it makes me so mad that the three redtails got all of 5 seconds of screen time, almost no lines. Literally what was the point of introducing them other than to pretend the show was iNcLuSiVe) Even at the end of BoB and the Pacific you get a much better idea of what happened to all the remaining guys. In this they’re like what happened to DeMarco or Hambone or Brady or (insert character here) we don’t know! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The concentration camp scene felt shoehorned in compared to how it was done in BoB. Unless that actually happened to Rosie (which i haven’t heard anything about) but it was just like.. ok? It all felt so rushed and emotionless to me. Maybe I’ve just fallen out of love with MoTA but it’s been downhill for me since episode 6 or so.

i already made a little (read: long) post-finale write-up here, where i talk about the use of the tuskegee airmen, l'sandra, and overall editing/pacing issues i felt the show had. but i don't agree with the notion that adding the redtails was in any way insincere or trying to halfass being "iNcLuSiVe", i just think they suffer from this show's obvious time constraints. and to summarize what i wrote in my linked post, there's a limit to what white writers/directors/producers can do when creating a story about black people. there are some stories i'd feel uncomfortable with them telling on their own, truth be told. dee rees wasn't the sole nonwhite director, but she Was the only black one. i think she did her job well given the limitations and i appreciate that they let her direct those episodes, rather than leaving it up to a team of white people trying their best to tell a black story.

the worst i can say about the finale is that it didn't feel like That strong of finale, tho i wouldn't go as far to say it "sucked" or call it "straight up bad". i liked it plenty, it's just the weakest of the hbo war finales imo.

as for the concentration camp scene, artistic license was taken with both shows. unlike what's seen in the BoB, easy company wasn't the first to arrive at kaufering, and there's 0 mention of the all-japanese american 552nd who helped them liberate it). similarly, rosie rosenthal did assist in liberating those camps, though it would've been after the events shown this episode. idk if he saw one in that up-close way seen in this episode, but he could've (i should research this when i have time). plus, it would've felt weird Not having him acknowledge them at all. "shoe-horned" is an odd term to use here imo, as both scenes more-or-less center a jewish character (BoB's liebgott and MotA's rosie). the former show has survivors the characters can help, the latter shows no one left to help. the former has all of easy company there, the latter has rosie there all alone. rosie's scene felt deeply personal in that way. at the end of the day, both scenes are communicating different things. that doesn't make one better than the other when they aren't trying to be identical. (disclaimer, i'm not jewish, so i'd be interesting hearing from the perspective of someone who wrt whether or not they felt it was "shoe-horned")

i can understand if you've disliked the show post-episode 6 (and episode 6 was a very strong episode i'm ngl). eps 7 and 8 were weaker in many ways, even to me, so i get it. everyone's entitled to their own opinion (i'd be a hypocrite saying otherwise). just understand that this blog is run by someone who overall enjoys this show despite its flaws! basically, i encourage you to take this energy and make your own posts.

Me pondering: kids are capable of going through and understanding complex problems and their feelings should be taken seriously when it counts.

Me practically: who are all these annoying fucking kids in the milgram fandom and why are they posting the worst takes and most irrelevant bullshit I've ever seen ever???

I think these are valid to coexist.

Of course im brain-fried after the weekend but instead of processing what happened im just wondering why does everyone suddenly own a water bottle, since when are water bottles even a thing, why didnt i get the memo, help 💀

If George never created Victarion, he would've been done with TWOW by now 😔

Bout to sit down to watch DW with the folks already internally cringing bc I saw it this morning and they are gonna haaate it

so I've been watching the KH Union Cross stuff (in order, thank goodness, this would be so confusing to piece together otherwise), and like, I knew enough about UX that the appearance of the foretellers at the end of KH3 wasn't confusing bc I knew who they all were, but getting the expanded, explained lore and I'm like okay, actually these weirdos in animal masks are pretty cool, glad to know they'll show up (presumably) in future games

also I'm glad that memorizing the Latin names for the seven deadly sins is finally paying off

Hello person I never talked to in my life I saw your tags and. Please infodump about the songs for headphones rather than speakers thing if you feel like it bc I really want to know

HI!! it has been a ridiculous amount of time since you sent this, so I am very sorry. however, disclaimer that I have no expertise in music, but I do have a basic knowledge of music theory and lots of exposure (which I'm sure sounds silly, but simply means that I have a trained ear, if not mind).

I have noticed that with music produced before common availability of more sophisticated in-ear listening devices such as IPods or smart phones paired with earbuds or headphones lacks a lot of subtle, atmospheric sounds that mark more contemporary music produced within the last 10-15 years. These atmospheric sounds are things as directly understood as a result of a more isolated listening experience such as bird chirping or rustling leaves or as subtle and musical in nature as a soft chanting refrain or droning tone. Both of these, while different in purpose and nature, serve to fill out the sound of the music where background noise would, allowing artists to fully control the sound experience in a way previously unavailable.

this change can also be considered with the more widespread availability and usage of digital music making; when you have access to a sound effect, you don't have to count on it being there or figure out how to make the instruments you do have make those noises. there have been arguments made for decades (literally since the invention of the synthesizer) as to where or not this counts as part of the artistry as a new facet of the medium to be experimented with and added or diminishes the ultimate purpose and goal of music production. when new phases of technology are created and shared, there is always a boom of exploration coincident with a boom of... laziness, for lack of a better word. those who aim to use this new technology as a crutch rather than a tool. then, as the tide turns on this new technology and all the magic is gone, there's a turn back towards acoustic sound, now with elements of the previous era infused. think heavier guitar of grunge and punk versus 50's rock and how that infusion occurred AFTER synth wave in the 1980's, where those sounds overlap and converge (and, for a more interesting dive into music's role in culture, what that shift signifies).

there's also the issue of volume and dynamics. listening to heavier music with earbuds tends to be kind of unpleasant because that's not how it's designed to be played! the point is that it is loud and disruptive to OTHERS so it is necessarily sort of difficult to enjoy beamed into your ears with the magic of technology. on the opposite end of the spectrum, bedroom pop gets a bad reputation for sucking, especially to play on aux because that's not how THAT genre is meant to be played. it's quiet and has lots of subtle elements that are really easily lost in background noise that genres like death metal are engineered to cover, meaning that elements which serve to unite and fill out more key elements of the song get lost and leave it feeling hollow. there's a philosophy difference there.

which brings me to hyperpop as a perfect example of this change (its an excellent example of a lot things happening in music, even if it's a bit passe now. to editorialize more than I already am, I think it's gonna be one of those things we point to 10 years down the line and see as a huge shift but that remains to be seen). hyperpop uses this technology to blend older approaches to music with more contemporary approaches to sound production, which creates something that feels simultaneously nostalgic and completely alien; it translates really REALLY poorly to speakers because it's that adaption of heavyfastloud to a more isolated listening environment and can't be taken out.

SO TO SUMMARIZE I have no real point I just think it's really neat to look at shifts in cultural understandings and uses of technology through music and I really like thinking about and discussing it! apologies if my tags made it sound like anything other than that. if you have any questions or opinions to add feel free!! I'd love to discuss this more :3

Fixing my dialog up

Blurgh

It feels really weird doing this xD but I guess talking about asking for help/feedback/generally venting about stuff (minor or otherwise) is always gonna feel weird? Is that what I'm doing right now? I have no idea. But anyway, writing it all out will hopefully help get it off my chest and I can try to move on to practical things. Mregh.

So I'm working on a series of oneshots about the first year of Kingsley's life (it was initially gonna be just the first six months before M9 Reunited but then I had some ideas that would only make sense after that, so here we are), and I've managed to get exactly one of them done so far. Which is good! I've got a second one in the works and a list of ideas for the others, buuuut I've managed to get myself stuck in the middle of the second one. Turns out it's hard to write Caduceus and Kingsley interactions when you have nothing to base them on XD and I guess that means I need a beta/somebody to bounce ideas off of. My regular beta (who is a wonderful person and one of my closest friends and who I love very much) is busy with real life stuff like work, so I don't want to bother them, and the people I want to ask to take a look at stuff and get ideas from are busy with their own fics and projects, and I don't want to bother them either. So here we are. I have anxiety up the wazzoo for a lot of things, including this, so it feels weird just putting a Tumblr post out there asking for help with something as silly as a fanfic...

And I'm always sort of afraid of writing Kingsley 'wrong', if that makes sense. Like, I know he's not Lucien or Molly, he's himself and there are echos of them in him, but with my whole belief that the memories of the previous purples are still there (just locked up until he's ready and comfortable enough as Kingsley to take them back and not get overwhelmed by them) and they sometimes leak out (the problem traveling with your past lives family is there's plenty of triggers there for stuff to slip through the cracks without context), and I worry that that makes it seem like I'm trying to turn him into Molly when I swear that's not what I'm thinking at all. So there's THAT layer to the anxiety as well.

So here I am with one one shot done, one about halfway done that I need a bit of a push with, and a list of ideas that I haven't started in on yet because I haven't gotten the second one done, and a lot of nerves about never getting anything done. Like, I'm not even gonna tag this because this is mostly just me trying to work out my anxiety about stuff (but uh if anyone is interested in helping or looking at some Kingsley stuff lemme know I guess), and I hope it helps. I've been having a lot of anxiety and nervousness about a lot of crap lately, and compared to other stuff, this is just such a minor bullshit thing to get wound up about.

God, anxiety SUCKS, y'all. It's the stupidest most irrational thing. Like 'ooh you wanted to do this as a fun lil side project to keep the creative juices going during downtime at work NOPE YOU'RE OBSESSED AND NERVOUS NOW ENJOY FEELING WEIRD WHENEVER YOU'RE AT YOUR LAPTOP FOR UNRELATED REASONS'.

🔥unpopular charles opinion

The thing is, it’s not an opinion, really. The question isn’t meant to be a complaint or a rebuttal or anything. I just genuinely don’t get it! The question goes something like this.

So Charles/Klinger seems to be the one actively disliked ship in the fandom, discounting the h*nn*hawk vs p*erc*ntyre gang war and that one rabidly anti-hawnk person (lol). Most nobody has any love for the ship, because it’s stupid and OOC, of course, but mostly because it’s egregiously obviously racist and gross, which is the critique that seems most common, and to be of most importance to people.

And to be clear, for the purposes of this post I am wholly agreeing with all that! It’s distasteful and immoral and people who are into it are insane, including me. I’m not arguing against this line of thinking, I just wanted to look at its inner logic. Because when I first heard people saying this, I thought, “Yeah, makes sense, Charles is truthfully a terrible person with abhorrent opinions. Nobody watching this already unfortunately bigotry-riddled show is obligated to try and look past that! It is Always valid to hate Charles’ guts.”

But it turns out most of the fandom (I assume it must be most, given how shockingly few people here have blocked me) actually don’t hate Charles, in general. It’s the specific ship, not the character, that’s distasteful. (Not to say any Charles ship is anything resembling popular, but like with most ships, that’s just a result of the general population’s Hawkeye BJ Laser Focus Gaze. I’ve never seen anybody actively dislike these ships when they’re brought up.) And the more I think about it, the more I wonder why, because well. to put it bluntly. It’s not like someone stops being racist when they’re not actively interacting with a nonwhite person.

You know what I mean? I feel like Charles’ bigotry would be a turn off for all of our generally morally sound protagonists, not just one who happens to be personally affected by it. But it only becomes an issue when it involves Klinger. I’ve heard people say that any Charles/Klinger ship fic would obviously have to go out of its way to address Charles’ racism, but I’ve read a few Charles/Hawkeye and Charles/Donna (and Charles / other strange and varied choices too, because of course I have) fics–really, REALLY good fics, that captured the characters very nicely and are very beautifully written–and I’ve yet to find one that discusses The Bigotry In The Room with any degree of seriousness.

(Pssst this is everyone’s chance to absolutely dunk on me by sending me fics that do this if there actually are a bunch and I’ve just never read them because I would in fact LOVE to read some fics with that topic regardless of ship!)

And to be clear, that’s fine with me! I truly do not care. When I read Charles running away to Maine or romancing Ms. Parker and I don’t see his love interests stop to ask “Hey, um, so any updates on the fact that you and your whole family are eugenicists?”, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest, because I just assume that Charles has already gone through the cult deprogramming step of his character development at some point prior to this, and either the love interest in question has already confirmed this off-page, or they are making the same assumption I am. After all, at least in Hawkeye’s case, the mere act of admitting romantic interest in a Democrat from the back of beyond would necessarily imply a shift in values, right?

(Admittedly, for all we canonically know Donna could be a fashy scumlord herself, so this reasoning doesn’t wholly apply there, but it obviously does to her fanon background/personality.) (Which is adorable, by the way. Everyone go check out the collective oeuvre of AO3 user onekisstotakewithme.)

So that’s all cool! It’s just that the same thing applies for me when it comes to Charles/Klinger. If anything, it applies even more, because you can have a fic where Charles’ whole family attend his and Donna’s 2nd wedding (Everyone go check out the collective oeuvre of AO3 user onekisstotakewithme!!!) but if Charles gets with Maxwell in any capacity, his father is at the very LEAST never going to speak to him again, ever. And personally I think that is SO fun and sexy, because Charles’ father is a white supremacist and I want him to die painfully forever and ever amen. <3

I got sidetracked a few times here and I just realized I never actually asked the question, which is, TL;DR: If it’s immoral–or at least gross and nonsensical–to ship Charles/Klinger, because Charles is bigoted, shouldn’t the same also apply to shipping Charles with many other characters too, given that they should logically also have a problem with his bigotry?

For what it’s worth, I have a bit of a theory about the answer to this, all to do with the incompetent way Charles’ bigotry (and other characters’ reactions to it) are portrayed in canon and the deeper Doylist factors that I think forced the showrunners into writing it like that, but I wanted to stay strictly on the topic of fandom attitudes for now, because it may be niche and silly, but I find it interesting. And I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on it!