#I put it under a read more tho bc the chapter itself is also pretty long

[shelobussy]

Ohmygod YES Susan Pevensie is awesome please talk to me about Susan i want to know everything you have to say

Literally THANK YOU for asking me this bc Susan Pevensie is a character I never get asked about and I have So Many Opinions.

I'm going to start by saying that Susan used to be my least favorite character in the series. This goes for the books and the movies. Some of it was for personal reasons--she reminds me of a couple of annoying ppl I know irl--but it was also bc I watched Prince Caspian which shoehorned her into a relationship with Caspian which I hated.

HOWEVER. I ended up rethinking this position after interacting with Susan fans and realizing that there are so many wonderful things to love about her!

(putting under the cut bc this got long)

Things Ash Loves About Susan Pevensie

Aight I'm not going to do a formal analysis yet on her, but instead rant about some of the unrelated things I adore about Susan Pevensie.

Susan the Archer

Look we all love archery here. I don't have anything more to say.

Okay, I actually do have more to say. I love the fact that Susan is a complete badass with the bow. You get the general impression that she's one of the royals in charge of public relations, traditions, foreign policy, etc. and yet she's the most competent archer in the series. One of the few things I liked about the movies is how they didn't downplay this. They actually let her be a badass and show off her skills.

Also the part where she kicks Trumpkin's ass was awesome.

Susan the Gentle

Susan being the most passive Pevensie was something I definitely underappreciated as a teenager. I think my non-ability to see past "I'm not like other girls" narrative and the combination of Susan being described as the most traditionally feminine woman in the Narnia series is what initially turned me off from her.

HOWEVER, now it's one of my favorite attributes! I love that Susan is a badass and the most beautiful woman in Narnia. She has hair down to her feet, every man and woman in the kingdom want to fuck her, and she's still a fucking badass who will not hesitate to kick your ass.

Susan the Sister

Most of my thoughts of Susan as an older sister mostly stem from my own personal headcanons, but she is an awesome sister to her siblings. She's Peter's voice of reason, Edmund's sass partner, and Lucy's big sister.

Susan the Mom-Friend

She is a literal mother-figure for Corin.

"[...] the most beautiful lady he had ever seen rose from her place and threw her arms round him and kissed him, saying: "Oh Corin, Corin, how could you? And thou and I such close friends ever since thy mother died. [...]"

-The Horse and His Boy, 33-34

Most everything I have to say about this ventures into headcanon territory, but I love the idea of Susan basically adopting Corin after his mom dies. The way she trusts Cor--who she thinks is Corin in this chapter--is really sweet and I wish we could've seen more of that relationship.

Susan the Flawed

Something I notice from the fandom is a lot of people who hate Susan tend to because of her flaws. On the other hand, most Susan stans like to wave away these flaws and blame C.S. Lewis for being misogynistic or Aslan for being a "cruel god" and ignore the fact that she is a deeply flawed person.

Susan gets something of a "reverse redemption arc" in The Chronicles of Narnia. This makes her not only a fascinating foil to Edmund--as both are analytical, logical people--but an interesting character by herself.

She starts out in TWW as very skeptical of Narnia and it's whole deal and also very condescending to Lucy throughout. She ultimately does admit that Lucy was right and does get on board with the whole prophecy at the same time Peter does, and ends the book being crowned "the Gentle Queen."

In The Horse and His Boy, she has a very interesting dynamic with Edmund and in even more interesting relationship with Rabadash. They don't even interact on-page with each other, but it's highly implied that she was interested in him when he was a guest in Narnia. His behavior obviously changed when she visited him in Tashbaan, but you have to wonder what their dynamic was like before for her to travel all the way to his home when relations between the countries were strained at best.

Prince Caspian is where the cracks start showing through. Susan has lived an entire life as an adult in Narnia, gets thrown back to England with her siblings, and is yet again in Narnia as a child. This book is what really emphasizes her one fatal flaw: convenience.

(Put a pin in that thought, I'll get back to it.)

Susan denies once again that Lucy saw something that the rest of them can't seen. She continues this narrative until every other sibling finally acknowledges Lucy in the right and only then does she apologize.

The last mention of Susan is in The Last Battle, where all of her flaws rise up against her in the worst way possible. I have a lot of controversial opinions on this that I'm going to address later, but I just want to say that Susan's reverse-redemption arc is something I actually like about her.

(There is also evidence that Susan does get a full redemption arc, just as Edmund and Eustace did, but C.S. Lewis was pretty much done with The Chronicles of Narnia at the point and instead encouraged fans to write their own version of how that went down.)

Okay, back to convenience being Susan's fatal flaw. So the one thing that comes up time and time again in the series is that Susan is very focused on material comforts. I believe it's implied that she's vain, and it's canonical that her own personal comfort spurs her to make decisions.

"[...] I really believed it was him — he, I mean — yesterday. When he warned us not to go down to the fir wood. And I really believed it was him tonight, when you woke us up. I mean, deep down inside. Or I could have, if I'd let myself. But I just wanted to get out of the woods and — and — oh, I don't know [...]"

Prince Caspian, 81

Prince Caspian has the strongest examples of Susan doing this, but certainly there's evidence elsewhere. There are a lot of fans who are distressed by this, claiming that Aslan and the others are too hard on her and shouldn't judge.

Honestly, I like that she's written with this flaw. Not only is it very relatable--(my own personal comfort and convenience is something I highly prioritize too)--but it humanizes a character who otherwise is ridiculously op and basically the Helen of Troy of the series. It may sound like I'm using this as an excuse to rant, but I really wouldn't have her any other way.

Susan As Portrayed by Anna Popplewell

Movie!Susan is a fucking delight.

She's sarcastic and badass and awesome and I could spend hours heaping praise on Anna's acting and her portrayal of Susan, but I can already tell that this post is going to be long so, I'll just stop here.

(10/10 want to be stabbed by her tho.)

Personal Headcanons

Let's talk about my fanon thoughts. I have many.

Susan is Aro

There's canonical evidence for this! Susan is a character who is heavily pursued by suitors everywhere, and even lets herself be courted by many of them, but chooses not to settle down. Even when she gets back to England and is described as only having interest in parties and material things, boys aren't mentioned.

I like to think that in The Horse in His Boy Susan was interested in Rabadash at first because he was a brilliant conversationalist. Nothing she says about him implies romantic interest, before and after she realizes the truth of his intentions.

Susan and Edmund Were Best Friends

This might be my love for The Horse and His Boy showing itself, but I think Susan and Edmund were thrown into circumstances where they interacted the most with each other.

Edmund is the ruler in charge of politics. Susan is the ruler in charge of Cair Paravel's public image. I imagine they spent time as ambassadors to other countries and planning royal functions.

They're also the most level-headed and logical out of their siblings, so they probably found a lot in common.

Susan Fancast

I literally just said I loved Anna's potrayal of Susan's (and I love what they gave us of older Susan too in LWW!), but I read the books in 2008 and my parents didn't let me see the movies bc I was like...nine years old and they thought it would be too scary.

So I had to headcanon my own interpretations.

Queen Susan the Gentle:

For some reason Merlin wasn't too scary for me to watch and I fell in love with Katie McGrath in like. Two episodes so. (On an unrelated note, I also fancast Bradley James as Peter at the time.)

Anyway, fanon Susan is basically Morgana Pendragon pre-evil arc. Sassy as hell, hot as fuck, and can kick your ass.

Unpopular Opinions

Yeah, feel free to skip this part if having controversial fandom opinions is a deal breaker for you.

The Problem With Susan Isn't Actually A Problem

I'm about to start so much discourse in the Narnia fandom, but C.S. Lewis's choices with her in The Last Battle weren't misogynistic. Bear in mind, I'm not saying that all of his writing choices in the series were A++ or excusing away certain racist/sexiest bits, but it's honestly baffling to me that people are so up in arms over Susan's exclusion in the final book.

So the part that everyone loses their shit over is as follows:

"My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "is no longer a friend of Narnia."

"Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says 'What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'"

"Oh Susan!" said Jill, "she's interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up."

"Grown-up, indeed," said the Lady Polly. "I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can."

The Last Battle, 83-84

There's a lot to unpack here and I first want to say that everyone's opinion on this part, no matter how different than mine, is valid. I'm going to be quoting some other ppl's opinions on here and by no means am I bashing them. I just want to address my feelings on the matter and the best way to do that is to cite the thoughts of ppl who have opposing ideas.

Here are some arguments on Tumblr I've heard regarding "The Problem of Susan":

"How about we talk about what might have happened if Narnia hadn't deserted Susan? [...] What if we didn't tell Susan she had to go grow up in her own world and then shame and punish her for doing just that? She was told to walk away and she went. She did not try to stay a child all her life, wishing for something she had been told she couldn't have again."

"Narnia is filled with metaphors (often not very subtle ones) that are supposed to teach us how to be, and the most glaring one for any young girl to absorb is that it's okay to be a girl like Lucy, unthreatening and cheerful and valiant and faithful, but to be a girl like Susan gets you punished - in fact, you aren't just punished, you're destroyed."

"why do we call it ‘the problem’ where’s the problem about a young woman dealing with her trauma and choosing her own path, actively making the choice to keep living and to stay and to carve a life out in England when her siblings couldn’t? what is the problem about susan forgetting to somehow cope with what she’s experienced? why is it ‘the problem of susan’ that she recontextualised her faith?"

And then there's JK Rowling who said this:

There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that.

It's weird how I'm still finding new ways to hate JKR in the year 2021. Again, there is absolutely zero implication that Susan had sex when she came back to England. ZERO. Did she actually read the books? IDK. If someone shares this opinion pls reply with actual canonical evidence.

Back on topic, I'm a firm believer of death of the author and interpreting art via your own experiences. Which is why I'm also going to share my own interpretation by saying y'all are wrong.

Susan Pevensie was not abandoned by Narnia. She was not barred from Narnia because she is traditionally feminine or because she "owned her sexuality" (another opinion I didn't have time to condense down for this post) or because she recontextualized her faith or even because she deserved to be punished.

I also fail to see how Susan recontexualized her faith, as the entire point of it all is that she has none. Bringing this back to Susan's fatal flaw (personal convenience/material comforts), her prioritizing herself over her own faith is the reason she is "no longer a friend of Narnia." Not...whatever fanon y'all are imposing on her character.

Susan is not being punished for liking lipstick and looking pretty. Susan's not even being punished. Y'all read Neil Gaiman's The Problem of Susan and forgot it wasn't canon.

There are many reasons Susan is not in Aslan's Country (one of them being that she's not actually dead yet), but the main one has to do with this:

"[...] But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 215-216

Yeah, okay that's why Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia. The implication when the Pevensies are told that they can no longer enter Narnia is that they are to find Aslan in other places. Susan doesn't do this, instead choosing to focus her life on material things. It isn't the lipstick, it's that she only wants the lipstick.

Susan Had Sex In The Books

Oh and not in the context y'all are thinking. (Again, there are no implications that Susan was barred from Narnia for having sex or that she had sex when she came back to England.)

So there's actual canonical evidence that Susan and Rabadash had a sexual relationship. Sort of.

"What think you? We have been in this city fully three weeks. Have you yet settled in your mind whether you will marry this dark-faced lover of yours, this Prince Rabadash, or no?"

-The Horse and His Boy, 35

Edmund calls Rabadash her lover. Not her suitor. I don't know if the word had a different meaning in 1954, but it feels like C.S. Lewis is saying that they're fucking. I'm not really happy with the idea of Susan sleeping with an abuser, but really proud of her for Getting Some as a woman born in a time period where having premarital sex was a big no-no.

This also invalidates the weird opinion going on that Susan was barred from Narnia because she had sex.

Suspian Is The Worst

I haven't really talked about Movie!Susan much, but as long as we're talking unpopular opinions, it's worth noting that I hate Suspian. Some of it is the "Susan is Aro" headcanon screaming inside of me, but it's also the fact that it's written poorly, does nothing interesting for either character and generally comes across as awkward.

I feel like they were trying to make Prince Caspian sexy and relevant to teens. It came across as super heteronormative and unnecessary.

It also gets really really weird bc the next movie then gives Caspian and Edmund mad chemistry and we're all just like........ok.

Final Thoughts

Susan may not be my favorite character in the series, but she's grown on me over the years. I have many issues with fanon interpretations of her--which definately fueled some of my disdain for her initally--and I don't identify as a Susan Apologist.

I do however adore Susan and have many headcanons for her not mentioned here. I love reading fanfic, writing fanfic and meta, and generally having conversations about her and would love to talk more about it.

I welcome criticism (CONSTRUCTIVE) and conversation on all of my opinions and observations. Please drop into my inbox. <3

#susan pevensie #the chronicles of narnia #the problem of susan #narnia #meta #narnia meta #susan meta #ash does fandom #ash does meta

[makiswirl]

Question for the q&a: Do you have any authors that have influenced your writing?

oh god DEFINITELY. there's some specific ones out there where i've looked at their writing and went "wow, i'm taking your writing style" but it's mostly published book authors? there are obvi some fma fic authors that've inspired me tho! putting this under a read more for yalls sanity

1. definitely stephen king! i mentioned it in the notes for chapter 14 of hölle but around that time i read the shining and i was in LOVE. there were specific things you could probably nitpick and go "wow that seems kind of new" at in that chapter and that would be because i pretty much.. looked at the writing in there and got Super Inspired.

when i was writing hölle it was my first Big Fic (patent pending) and i did NOT have a consistent writing style. like. at all. 90% of it was me improving my writing skills as i went and actually getting used to writing fics??? hence a lot of.. hiatus time and...... not very good scheduling or drafting.......... ...

so when i read the shining i went (!!!) BECAUSE I WAS FIXATING ON IT SUPER HARD like. watching the obscure MINI-SERIES hard. i still kind of am but i specifically noticed the way king seemed to exaggerate thoughts in a very specific way

and i RAN with that. this specifically shows in holes and i thought it worked pretty well for the genre

at the time??? also especially apt because i like. literally just reread the shining. like i finished the day i wrote holes chapter 3 and that's why it was more heavy theme-wise i think???? BUT EITHER WAY stephen king's writing (particularly in the shining) inspired me a hell of a lot!

2. john boyne! i reread the boy in the striped pajamas recently and. BOY i am so sad still. definitely wasn't as influential writing-wise but theres small influences here and there? specifically in the way i structure sentences i think & GOD how i love the ending of that book. like. it drives me to tears every time

whenever i reread the ending of the book i think of how STRONGLY it was written? like. the words were really impressing and strong and i kind of wanted to mimic that in my writing whenever the mood fit and i can really only think of the time being where i utilized that being the ending of holes? i don't really like the ending sentences of the fic itself but i remember thinking about skimming over the epilogue again when it came to writing the last bit

3. william shakespeare is super fucking funny to put on here but like. i'm currently taking pre-college classes and we reread romeo and juliet and some other sonnets that he wrote and ive like. never recovered since lmao

i can't state THAT much that i drew from him because i have brainfog from the entire past year but i remember the class heavily focused on refreshing us on poetry? like. we went over the old freshman year poets (edgar allen poe was also pretty "!!! urge to write !!! but wow hes kinda fucked up!!!!!!!!" tho specifically /w the raven and annabel lee when it came to me writing) and despite how incoherent that sentence sounds idk there was just SOMETHING abt that entire course that made me want to start writing a lot the professor was just super good i loved her come home 💔

4. OKAY SO FOR FMA FIC AUTHORS. i've read a LOT of fics (like ive been through the entire parental roy and edling tags consecutively) so it's.. very hard to keep track... ... there're a few that definitely stand out tho!

* alightintheshadows i remember specifically being like. one of the first fma fic authors i read from and their stuff is GREAT. someone please tell me if they have a tumblr because i want to gush about their content so bad it's so good but like. i think they're what got me INTO writing fma fics in the first place? especially horror/plot-heavy stuff like that? i first read the cult on ff.net and i would NOT shut up about it for like. a week. i got super excited when their fics came over to ao3 and im pretty sure you can still see them quite a bit in my rec bookmarks

* DEFINITELY @liathgray i love cece so much they're so nice and i'm glad i've gotten to talk to them it's unreal !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i think they're one of the authors who actually made me actually go "oh. wow the fandom is still alive!!!" when i was going thru ao3 after i watched both fmas last summer because i'm.. pretty sure giants in the forest was still going on iirc? that fic's definitely what dragged me into the hyperfixation and interacting /w the fandom super hard lol

also i just REALLY like blackwell springs????? can we talk about blackwell springs because blackwell springs is my SHIT.

like i get that these r all probably common picks for author inspos but i remember also being around for it when it first came out -> the end and i loved it sm and i got so excited EVERY time it updated. like i would liveblog it to my boyfriend or read it really fast half-asleep before driving to class and i'd shove it into his FACE. 90% sure that fic's what either struck me to write hölle or keep writing it (i can't remember when it originally came out???) but i really need to get on reading whatever series capra's part of even tho i don't particularly like crossover stuff bc i see it Everywhere and it looks so good

i think that's all??? there's definitely a lot of other authors that i've looked at and went "!!!" but my brain is.. so empty from dumping all of this.. hope this answers ur question tho!!!! ignore any typos i just feel very strongly ok but in like the best way possible ♥

#pip.txt #answering machine #holle #long post #like a REALLY long post #guess this half counts as book and fic recs in hindsight

[advernia]

around june of last year, i decided to revive my writing blog as one of the many potential stress-relief methods i could think of.... i didn’t think i’d be able to keep it active for long since work + family duties keep me preoccupied most of the time, but eyyy!!! so far i haven’t lost the motivation to keep going back to this blog, and i even managed to keep it afloat for half a year!!! amazing!!! (•̀o•́)ง

and now here we are halfway through 2020!!! it’s waaaay overdue but here’s a big T H A N K  Y O U  V E R Y  M U C H ! ! ! to everyone and anyone who dropped by this blog last year + all them likes, comments, reblogs...... please know that i’m still i n c r e d i b l y grateful for the support & interest in the content i’ve posted up!!!! tbh my activity’s still hella sporadic so it’s really amazing for me that i even gained new followers.... i’m very honored to have all of you stick around my blog despite my irregularity!!!!!!!! (༎ຶ ෴ ༎ຶ)

it’s also overdue, but i slowly managed and finally cleaned up the blog like i’ve been meaning to do + changed the blog name to match my ao3 handle for consistency!!! i make no promises to be super active... but i’m sure that i still want to continue writing & keep this blog alive!!!! 

again, thank you all for your time + reading my works!!!!!!  ∩( ´∀` )∩ work commentary on the rest of my works last year follows under the cut!

oct 1 // hero’s journey

a drabble on blanc + oliver about the alices... now that i think of it, calling the first alice first alice is kinda funny considering that alice is really her name... or is it? 

i do hope blanc’s route talks about her a bit, haha! i mean, i wish cybird remembers that they’ve been dropping the occasional background tidbits about her... like for example, her pocketwatch (that she gave to blanc eventually) having a magic crystal engraved into it.... her potentially leaving a fucking globe in the black army’s possession (like... wow... u fell with that thing????????)....

plus, i just find it interesting that she was remembered by cradle as a heck of a troublemaker lol! it also makes you wonder who among the main cast met her, blanc aside... though it’s not stated when exactly she fell into cradle, so maybe only blanc had the opportunity of meeting her...

so does blanc speak of her fondly bc she’s a woman, or is there something else??? has he been frequently visiting the land of reason pre-game??? has he found the first alice’s antique shop / met her again??? does he still try to figure out the reason why there’s a magic crystal engraved into the first alice’s pocketwatch????? hmmmmm......

on another note, it would be hilarious if cybird pulls a peter pan 2......... since we can’t pull off a mother-daughter relationship like wendy & jane’s, what if alice the second is somehow actually related to the first alice?? and while she’s completely different from her predecessor, blanc finds himself falling for alice the second........ just like he fell for the first alice? drama!

that’s just a random thought but kidding aside, i do hope blanc’s route is hella interesting bc i think he’s our mr. exposition for knowing more about cradle itself lol

oct 1 // fair (?) ladies & phony (?) enchanters

a result of going manic a few days after seeing harr’s trailer + route release.... ahaHAHA I’M STILL WILLING TO PLAY UR ROUTE IN JP HARR (if i actually had time to sit down and translate gET REKT)

i liked writing these drabbles and i think they’re cute but tbh they did nothing to ease my curiosity about harr’s route.... if anything else, it became even w o r s e  haha........................

if i think of blanc to have a cradle-centric route, i do hope harr’s route is magic tower-centric! naturally it will be since he’s got history there, but i hope a lot of my questions about the magic tower will be answered.....

will harr’s perspective of the magic tower be in the eyes of a test subject or a disciple???? he was scouted by the magic tower, but it wasn’t stated what he was doing exactly..... going by hints + loki’s & zero’s routes, it’s more of him being a disciple, so there’s bound to be guilt.......

hopefully alice’s characterization in his route is good + we get a fun group dynamic with loki!!! their potential.... the most(?) notorious criminal of cradle, a sought after test subject, and that one girl who nullifies all magic; a renegade trio lurking around the forbidden forest.... what an odd bunch!

oct 4 // god is a five minute hymn

a religious themed fic with lancelot & alice - tbh i don’t even know why religion was the first thing that came into mind when liz and i were talking about cultural differences, lol.

on that note though! i personally like thinking that if ever cradle had a semblance of a religion, it would be polytheistic & nature-centric, and not strictly practiced - the stratocracy of both territories i’d like to think makes it harder for religion to have a voice, much less have one that is practiced by the general population. the only thing general about it is that the religion centers or has magic crystals as an important factor... or something. yeah.

that aside, i think i specifically chose lancelot in this piece for the sole reason that his canonically stated lack of common sense, in my opinion, gives him the curiosity of a child sometimes - there’s no sense of malice or doubt, just the pure innocence of wanting to know something....... religion does that to kids, especially when introduced to it at first.

rereading the fic makes me think of the instances where when faced with dire or unsettling situations, people turn to faith as a life line.... well, i’m not sure if i had that subconsciously in mind when writing alice, but that does give a spin to it....

oct 6 // flow like the river nile

a spontaneous red army-centric fic! it certainly turned out better than i expected... i liked the formatting i used for this one!

if cybird can give us more about the pre-game suitors it would be great, tbh! and while the stuff about them in school is interesting, i’d like to see more about when they assumed their positions + combat scenes! the neutrals are special cases, but knowing more about their living conditions + daily lives is also a treat...

i was thinking of adding one last snippet about lancelot in the eyes of the reds, but i scrapped it out and switched it to alice & lancelot’s conversation about duty - it could’ve worked better if i stuck to using the what is your duty? question, but i scrapped it eventually too. ah well. it does look good enough as it is. 

oct 7 // seeking out phantoms

a mandatory(???) odd one out aka content that’s not ikerev, haha! i missed fe:a all of a sudden...

i never got around to writing properly for this fandom tho, what a shame - i’ve got some bits of pieces in my drafts that looked interesting and easy enough to pick up, and this was one of them.

robin investigating more of their plegian heritage could’ve been a good subplot tbh... i still wish there was something like a paralogue or dlc about it, bc honestly the valm arc goes a bit slow until you get to the future past revelations. ah well.

and gaius bc first husband for the win.... not like i actually had the guts to marry anyone else in my other save files lololol

nov 7 // push me off a bridge (to catch me as i fall)

my longest project of 2019, holy shit! i didn’t know i still had it in me to write something past 10k... i need more of that motivation + energy....

there’s nothing much to say about this since i blabbed about everything in the post-reading notes, but as much as i fought myself to get this done, i really enjoyed writing a long fic again! hopefully i can get myself to write another one this year...

nov 18 // beloved, beloved, let me be clear

18 sentences on zero & alice + macross frontier references! man, when i really got to the point about the earrings i was thinking of sheryl a lot....

kept it in sentences cause i didn’t have enough time to put up a decent ficlet! but i really wanted to get my screaming out of my system....... i used to do sentences + three word sentences challenges before, and doing one again was pretty fun!

but really.... zero’s route kept me happy for days???? their buildup + dynamic was something i was totally w e a k for, no joke..... thank gods the collection event was going on, bc i really made good use of my stocked chapter tickets lolol!

i was especially excited come the ball scene, and that cg..... a h a h a.... i need more of those pretty cgs where i can see alice’s face + costume change....... 

nov 20 // coloring inside the lines

jonah + alice + makeup!!!! tbh this was really fun, i enjoyed writing this one - if i remember, this was a fic that i managed to continuously work on the day i thought it up!

jonah may not be my best boy but tbh i find writing him very easy - i guess it’s because i’m very fond of characters like him!!! those uptight nobles who are as prideful as hell but can definitely live up to their name + are more capable than their bragging suggests... idk if there’s a general trope name for these doods, but i especially like analyzing their motivations + convictions!!!

i liked how i ended it, but i apparently i made an actual ending that’s now a snippet in my drafts - jonah & alice head to the ball, and somewhere along some bystanders’ flow of conversation someone drops a comment about jonah’s lips looking... quite more luscious than usual, lolol. so t h i r s t y. upon hearing this, alice can’t seem to stop smiling for some reason..... 

nov 27 // blue fields, verdant skies

a practice drabble set centric on a ray/alice development that i liked so much i made it into a series - plus, it’s black army content and honestly i need to write more of them! my red army bias is showing whoooooops

it’s a feudal + arranged marriage au, with the latter... being quite spontaneous. it’s those types of marriages where neither have even met - not even once - only to face each other come the wedding... so it’s a given that audiences from both parties are rather curious how this will turn out.

since i had the theme of fate in mind, ray was the automatic pick for the male lead. the rest of the black army is a given and for kicks, i added dean and dalim! i actually want to write about them + mousse, but since i’m still unsure on their characterizations i’ve been holding them off.... but i gave in anyway.....

alice is again named for word count convenience purposes since it’s in actual 100 words aka drabble form! i have planned scenes + an ending already in mind, but going there is pretty hard bc.... i still have to write the scenes in between + resist temptation to expand further on other scenes, haha....

initially i was planning to keep it updated here as well, but any more updates of this are on ao3 instead! the formatting looks better there instead of my blog tbh, and it also gives it a sort of muted tone to the story that works with me!

this is also the 31st fic in this blog, marking an end of the challenge liz bestowed to me lolol - since i brought this blog back to life around june, i was dared that by the end of the year, i should’ve posted more than 15 fics to add up to the initial 15 i had already posted before, thus the numbers on my fics back then.... now that i actually succeeded, i can stop counting lololol!!!! tho hopefully i can still be pretty active this year....

dec 22 // duck, duck, bullet

oliver & fenrir on guns... this probably wins as the most spontaneous idea i had on my head - tbh, i wasn’t even sure where i was going with it at first! but i’m sure i was suddenly thinking about that one detective conan movie.... then it became kid!oliver with a gun.....

i wonder if he tests the bullets at night, when he’s in adult form.... then again, kid!oliver with a gun still works.... say that because he’s a genius inventor, he made some models to serve as his shooting targets.... but another thought that amuses me more is.... blanc does the bullet testing for him!?

lololol i already thought about blanc being oliver’s live target, but i also find blanc with a gun very interesting.......... i mean, blanc certainly doesn’t look like he can fight, but who knows??? i mean, mousse is the former ace of hearts, but i still can’t imagine him fighting..... appearances can be deceiving....

the two aside, i wonder how fenrir even met oliver and got him working on his bullets........ was it through blanc or other connections???? how long have they been seller and buyer???? does anyone else commission anything from oliver?????? hmmmm.....

dec 23 // terms of surrender

i’ve been told by liz + luci + other friends that i needed to practice writing more.... cheesy fluff. i’m not sure if this sirius/alice piece counts, lol. in fact, i think it’s my definition of fluff i see here - and it translates to not exactly fluffy at all!

tho if you want me to be honest about it - when i write suitor/alice stuff, how alice was characterized in the suitor’s route is still my basis for how i’ll write her, and sirius’ alice................ haha......... i think she’s the alice that’s honestly easy to write but i choose to avoid.......... 

i don’t dislike the sirius/alice dynamic per se, tho. i do find it cute, especially if cybird stops emphasizing the issue of maturity in the relationship on alice’s side. i understand - i really do - that it’s a potential issue in the relationship, but...... that’s not the only problem you can possibly have as time passes, right?????

on another note, it’s funny that only sirius gets to be harped about the maturity due to age difference issue - setting aside blanc, who heavens know how old he is, lancelot’s 29 and since alice is presumed to be around ray + fenrir’s age, you could say that she’s 24 or even 23 to be safe.... so that makes a 5 / 6 years difference but it’s never brought up, lol. but i guess it’s because unlike lancelot, the black army’s been making sirius’ age a running gag....

anyway, this piece is pretty decent! i was thinking of something along the lines of mornings between a “married couple”.... there were two scenarios i had in mind, and i opted to write this one out first.... maybe i’ll have the second one posted up here another day.

dec 28 // a chain of black thrones

pre-game!sirius & ray and bc i was thinking a lot about the previous chosen, the former jack of spades!!! i wonder if the armies have a set age for retirement lolol... it would be awesome if there was still a chosen who’s already past his 50s or something, haha!

since sirius was constantly badgered to take on the role of king, i was also wondering about how long the black army was ‘king-less’... i mean, if the tension between both armies was really as great as they say, having no king puts the black army at a precarious position... i also thought that ‘nah, maybe there was a king or something but maybe the black army didn’t like him or something so they insisted that sirius take it instead’ but sirius’ 1st anniv. epilogue says otherwise - there really was a period that the black army had no king, wow. how the heck did they deal with that???? surely the red army saw this as a display of vulnerability....

can the black army’s chosen choose to leave their posts when they feel like it??? when they’re defeated by a challenger, what happens to them - a demotion, or do they serve under the ‘new’ chosen??? does the black army’s chosen change constantly because of their meritocracy + challenger system??? like, how do they deal with that, and do they announce their changes in chosen each council meeting??? each new question just snowballed my curiosity, whoops...

there were so many angles i thought of but i decided to settle for addressing the king-less state of the black army... through the eyes of a veteran who’s probably served many kings throughout his time of service as part of the black army’s chosen.

i gave this jack of spades character a name, actually - garret folner. maybe someday i’ll write him again, bc i actually enjoyed thinking about the present + past chosen interactions - maybe i’d think about that for the red army, but this time i find the black army’s side more interesting for this situation.

dec 29 // steadfast tin soldier

a zero/alice piece for zeroweek - i was about to post pt. 1 as a standalone, but then i just thought about how.... zero bought alice a gown.... but never got to dance with her at the day of the ball..... so i rushed to add pt. 2 haha!

with the addition of pt. 2 it looks cut short tho - i did think of putting a scene in between, but no good ideas came into mind bc i was too fascinated with the dancing scene... i swear at some point i will find myself writing a fic or a part of a fic that’s a dance scene for the rest of the ikerev suitors + alice....

this is the kind of fluff i live for, actually... i’m totally fine with the steamy content cybird throws during events + bonus stories, but if i were to be honest i say.... where’s my non-sexual intimacy????? the simple, wholesome stuff?????????????????

man, i feel hilarious for typing that out..... but well, i guess it’s a matter of different strokes for different folks, lol!

#rundown.txt #can i spam thank yous???? seriously idk what else to say ahhhh #this! blog! shall! live!!! if i do well enough updating will become a habit!!! #i need better habits than sleeping + working + spring cleaning lololol #aHA i was thinking of changing themes again bc aesTHETIC #there wasn't one that caught my eye tho... plus coding during work... get rekt #but i fooled around with pages instead and colors!!! blue's the color of the year

[butchedyke]

(for the char thing) stanley uris, mike hanlon, and patty blum

migz!!!! i’m sorry i abandoned this in favour of video games and capitalism i hope i can make it up to u uwu

this is mostly going off the movies but there’s occasional book and miniseries input- i’ve only read the first few chapters, a few wikia pages, and some character meta from the book and i’ve only seen the miniseries once vs the however many times ive watched the movies in the last 2 months so don’t expect consistency between canons

 (also i’m gonna put these under a cut because this post got really long)

stanley uris

How I feel about this character:

there is a reason i use the tag baby boy for stan (and also for miniseries eddie)!!!! he’s my favourite loser other than eddie and i want to like. hold him and make sure he’s happy and healthy and i think stephen king should treat his characters better.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

patty!!!!! their relationship in the book makes me so happy and anyone who’s ever spoken to me about stanpat knows that i am at all times thinking about how she calls his car sedanley.

that being said, i respect stenbrough, stanlon, and streddie but overall this is a stanpat household

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

stan with all the losers but especially richie! which isn’t very original since they are literally best friends but their dynamic!!! good!!!! i’ve not been able to stop thinking about that one scene from the miniseries where richie introduces stan as “this is stan the man uris, he’s a jew,” partially because it’s fucking funny because who says that richie what the fuck, but also because stan just instantly follows up by saying that richie has a high metabolism which makes him hyperactive, and maybe it’s because the miniseries is campy and a little bit shit but the delivery of those lines makes it seem like they do this a lot! they have these introductions ready to go! and i love the idea of them as a platonic package deal even if we don’t get to see much of that in the movies

My unpopular opinion about this character:

i don’t think i really have any? i tend to follow people who hold the same opinions as me tho so i have no idea what’s popular outside of that dshfk

i mean i do think fics that save eddie but not stan aren’t really fix-its and going off the amount of fics where stan’s still dead i guess that’s somehow an unpopular opinion? i know everyone’s focused on reddie rn but god like. stan is right there can we stop ignoring him pls

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

i mean the most blatantly obvious answer here is that i wish he didn’t die! he should’ve gotten to go on his holiday and rail/get railed by his wife and live to meet his friends as adults, catch up on the 27 years they didn’t get to be with each other. he should’ve gotten to have kids, once everything was over, and they should’ve been able to grow up with 5 extra uncles and an aunt bc u can’t tell me the rest of the losers wouldn’t be deeply embedded in their lives. i just wish stan had a chance to be completely, 100% happy without the underlying terror of his childhood.

on a smaller note i also wish we’d gotten to see more of his interest in birds in the movies bc like. he’s babie. and who knows! maybe would’ve helped stop the perception that his entire personality is just being a bitch that hates richie jshfd

mike hanlon

How I feel about this character:

part of the reason i wanted to read the book was for more mike content because i adore this lil farm boy and the movies. well. y’know. :). characters who just openly and whole-heartedly love their friends and go straight ride or die like 10 minutes after meeting them have my whole heart! he’s so smart and so kind and just wanted to protect his friends as best he could even though he dragged them into this whole mess bc he doesn’t want to lose them again!!!! mike deserves the whole world and if his way of getting that is by getting out of derry and getting to know that his friends remember and love him and each other then that’s all i want for him.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

i wasn’t overly set on any particular mike ship until i watched the miniseries and saw the homoerotic bike montage and now i’m fully on the hanbrough train. choo choo.

just like with stan i support stanlon but endgame hanbrough is just. it’s right there in the text. bill didn’t divorce audra for nothing in ch2.

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

this also kinda ties in with the last point, but jane @billdenbrough opened my eyes, in the middle of a very in-depth conversation about audra’s minion strap, to the world of best friends mike and audra who are both with bill which is both galaxy brained and an incredibly good concept which i think about a lot

also i think mike and ben could’ve had something Incredibly soft if mike wasn’t treated like a background character in the first film and a quest-giving npc in the second one :) :)

My unpopular opinion about this character:

i headcanon mike as gay, i have no textual evidence for this, i just think he’s neat. i think it’s a pretty popular opinion that the movies treated him poorly? and i also think that in ch2 he was just trying to protect his friends in a scenario that did not lend itself at all to protection. drugging bill and not telling the others about the full ritual might not have been the best thing to do, but he was in a goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation, and he was trying his best to save his friends no matter how impossible it may have been.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

i uh :) i don’t know if anyone’s figured out yet :) that i wish many things had happened with mike in canon :) :) the first film doesn’t give him much but the second film just infuriates me completely tbqh! he’s basically entirely there to push the narrative (his dialogue doesn’t even sound like dialogue! it sounds like prose explaining the plot and the next steps the characters have to take!), or to drug and lie to his friends. i wish they’d kept his backstory the same, that we’d actually gotten to see him find his token, that he’d gotten a token relevant to him as an individual rather than the group, that we’d gotten a flashback for him, that he was given more screentime and development across both films, like... i wish he’d been treated like the other losers and not a plot point.

i also wish we’d gotten to see him on his travels post-canon, seeing the other losers, and just generally actually getting to be happy- we see the start of it but god i just want to see him having a good time outside of derry.

patty blum

How I feel about this character:

if she were not stan’s wife she would be my wife. we don’t get to see much of her in the movie or miniseries and that is a fucking crime!!!! i’ve already mentioned sedanley but like. sedanley. i’ve read patty’s bit in the book and that’s all i need the other 1100 pages can get fucked, she’s just here to watch family feud and love stan which i can confidently say is a huge fucking mood

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

STAN. i guess i already talked about this before but i’ll keep going!!! my love for stanpat overwhelms my usual distaste towards straight relationships bc they’re so good!!!!! the fact that they’re really the only happy relationship to come out of the 27 year gap and they love each other so much and so like... wholesomely? but they still blow each other’s backs out on the reg and it’s what they deserve.

also i sometimes think about patty/audra as like. kind of a crack ship kind of a “i’m a lesbian and i’m desperate to see lesbians” ship. i haven’t thought about it in depth i just want to plant the seed

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

stan introducing patty to the losers and patty becoming an honorary loser is my weakness!!!! patty being comfortable enough to rib richie (and richieandeddie) with stan, but also vice versa going along with richie’s bits. patty and bev getting close because as much as st*phen k*ng and co push bev as One Of The Boys(tm) there’s just something in having another woman around that can be refreshing especially when they’re both bicons. patty and mike enthusiastically sharing holiday pictures and tales of their trips. patty noticing when eddie’s having a bad day, whether it’s anxiety or lingering trauma, and supporting him through it, regaling him with stories about stan and what essentially amount to dad jokes (sedanley!!!) and making sure he knows he’s loved and supported by all the losers. patty, the teacher, and ben, lunchtimes-in-the-library ben who never outgrew his love of reading, nerding out over shit that the others don’t really know about. bill telling patty all about what stan was like as a kid in that way only bill can, richie chiming in with crude comments sometimes but noticeably keeping quieter than usual, and patty returning the favour, telling them about the last 27 years, and not even richie makes a single joke when everyone tears up (because he’s tearing up the most). stan sitting there the whole time not even bothering to point out that he’s right there because it’s enough for him to see the romantic love of his life and the platonic loves of his life bonding, and yeah, maybe it was worth sticking around for.

My unpopular opinion about this character:

i don’t know if this is unpopular but patty pegs. that’s all.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

more patty. let me see my wife.

#eddiekissbrak #migz this has literally taken me hours i hope ur happy #i can't remember if the book specifies what patty teaches so i'm taking some liberties because i don't care what stephen king has to say #kinda went off the shits with patty there rip #i'm also like. not good with thoughts or with words so im sorry if this is underwhelming dgfhjsk

[whiparoundandcry]

Earbuds dump

someone wanted me to go through all the questions so //cracks knuckles

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

dunno what ‘this way’ specifically means, but I tried reenacting the way a lot of my fav fics have been, in way of word count per chapter, character interaction, plot balanced w/ the ship, ect

2: What scene did you first put down?

Maaan, it’s hard to remember what came first now. I have a doc thats like, 20 pages of just notes & me outlining the plot and world building. The first scene written on that doc is lloyd revealing his identity to the team, which actually happens about a year before the start of the story!

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

hmmmm, I’m a sucker for when the narration contradicts the dialogue- I just think it’s really funny, pfft. can’t think of any large scenes I do that in rn, but I also really like this bit, during the city hall meeting The woman sitting at the corner chair closest to the ninja shifted in her seat, and stared pointedly at Kai and Jay. Kai tried not to shift under her stare, but he could feel Jay stiffen next to him. “You two saved Satoshi the night King’s was attacked, right?” Kai’s mouth was immediately dry and his brain cut out. Her voice wasn’t loud, but compared to the silence before, she might as well have fired a gun. The question itself was straightforward enough, but Kai hesitated to answer - first, because Green ordered them not to speak, and second, he had no idea what she was talking about. I try to keep Kai a reliable narrator (aka I project a lot) and I feel like this part is funny for first-time readers, bc you get the feeling of “do I know who that is??? Did I forget?” then kai confirms it like “who tf”

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

Kai looked up from their hands to meet Jay’s eyes, all warmth and kindness. “I dunno. I’ve only know you for a month, but I still feel as close to you as I do any of them.”

ouch!!!! 

5: What part was hardest to write?

GOD ALL OF THE FIGHT SCENES,,, this fic was so ambitious oh my god. That’s part of why the final chapter is taking a lot longer than normal- big fight scene ;v; also the meeting with the mayor was difficult to write bc like, I dont know shit about how city government works. My search history for the time I was writing that scene looked like I was researching for an essay, christ. 

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

I’m finishing it :,3

7: Where did the title come from?

real honesty hours: I thre in the bit about Kai giving Jay his earbuds on impulse. I never planned for them to be a reoccurring symbolic plot device or for them to even exist but damn, here we are.

8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

My relationship with my brother def inspires how I write Kai & Nya. I say that I project onto kai a lot, but I project all of my ‘trans younger sibling’ energy onto Nya. ngl, most everything I’ve done in this fic was inspired by batman tho

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

Yeah, I have around 3 scrapped scenes. I’ll probably never release them, bc they were scrapped for a reason :,3

10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?

Kai & Jay are the most boring out of the four boys :, ) so I figure’d it’d be easiest to fit their charters into the plot I had in mind, I couldn’t think of any way to fit in the “zane’s a robot” or “cole literally died” plot into it without making the entire story about those things. If I was made out of time tho, you bet earbuds would be a polyninja story.

11: What do you like best about this fic?

I honestly just like that I’ve gotten as far as I have into it, and the perception that its gotten has been so incredible //sobs. Aside from that, my favorite parts about it are probably Kai & Nya/Lloyd’s relationship, and also that Nya is trans. I hadn’t seen any fics where she was trans before, and tbfh its my favorite headcanon. I’ll never write a cis nya in my life

12: What do you like least about this fic?

The relationship build up seems kinda... eh? I definitely should've put more into it, but at the same time I feel like I did as much as I could with it, just bc I’m so inexperienced with that stuff. I also with I could do a better job of conveying the vibe that I want this version of ninjago to give off (gritty, rough, gotham) but without being super edgy about it?  Also I’m really upset that Cole & Zane are getting shafted in Earbuds. I should’ve come up with more stuff to include them, but everything I came up with just felt forced, so they ended up just being background characters- which is was more than they deserve, bc they’re honestly my favorite boys on the team.

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

Well, there’s always the 8tracks playlist I made a while back (should transfer that onto spotify sometime) but theres a couple songs that I think fit the characters super well that aren’t on the list • “Fresh Eyes” is a super great Kai&Jay song QwQ “so suddenly I’m in love with a stranger / I can’t believe she’s mine / now all I see is you with fresh eyes” From Kai’s pov @ jay??? hell • “Better days” was a song rec sent in by my good bud hedley-ramsay anon, and it’s perfect for Kai’s POV, as he’s trying to stay optimistic about all the shit thats happening around him “Guess I didn't break it, but I bent it / I know I didn't say it, but I meant it / I shoulda had a little more heart and soul” • “Miss Atomic Bomb” is very very good for Lloyd & Harumi. tbh its a good song for them in canon too, but the dark city vibe it gives off fits so well with the Earbuds AU. “I was new in town, the boy with the eager eyes / I never was a quitter, oblivious to schoolgirls' lies” • “Be Still” is also a super great song for lloyd, in this au and just in general. “Be still / wild and young / long may your innocence reign” DONT CALL ME OUT I REALLY LIKE THE KILLERS

14. Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

not... really? its a fanfiction about legos, I dunno if there’s any lesson to be learned from it. Be gay & do crimes

15. What did you learn from writing this fic?

writing fanfic is super rewarding & fun!! It’s a pretty pig time sink sometimes, but damn if yall don’t make it worth it. 

thanks so much for your continued support everyone!!! The last chapter has 2 scenes to go and is currently over 10k words 💪

#earbuds #long post #woof

[cheswirls]

i have so many thoughts and its about 430 am so lets get started before they get scrambled.

i decided to read red potter and the middleground, but because i finished one so early in the morning, i had to hold off on the other for a bit, until this -past, i guess- evening. i had read for sure a chapter of the middleground previously, maybe two, but i’ve read too much now that the recollection isn’t coming to me like it came in small bursts through reading through chapter one again. i think it was another instance when i got extremely busy and had to put it down, maybe tac2 took over, dunno, but i got back to it now bc im still on the post-playthrough-of-white high and anything deep in unova is good and lu is fantastic so i knew this would be fantastic and is was right.

it’s a very dark read? unexpected, then again, its centered around a war, so also i shouldve expected it. the realization hit me around the third chapter, i think, when the nimbasa incident happened. very dark and very good. and emotional, i dunno how many times ive cried tonight but its been a night/twilight. the whole story basis with the center legend of unova and all the olden history is really good, its all really boosting my unova high like this is exactly what ive been needing to find, and all the characters it brings in despite the animeverse of it all -benga, n, touko!!- and the roles they play just really made it better, its kind of shallow but i like it even moreso because of the additions and though the story kept me highly entertained and drawn in there were a couple moments when i wished like oh man i hope the story has n in it bc n man jus n i need n content and then bam mentioned and now hes officially in it sort of i mean yeah he is. in the story. and this was early on like during the first few chapters so i had to hold out but it was worth it like, the story is interesting with the anime characters and i knew it was gonna be aniverse going into it and it was good and fine and still is good and fine. 

i dont remember when i started wishing for touko but man oh man it happened and i was like damn this could happen i wish she was kinda here bc i think i had begun to pick up on something and then later i really picked up on it which i will get to later and them bam another happy revelation and i am still like. touko. shes here. shes a part of the story. this is awesome.

anyway before this gets too long to massively too long, this is basically going to be a big analysis and happy-rant post, so if you have not read the middleground by the amazing @pkmncoordinators, you should do so here but then like leave this post until you do and then come back, that would be good. the rest is under a cut to save peoples dashes, sorry this is mega long already aha.

i played ghetsis’ battle theme through a chapter and it mustve been a shorter one bc it lasted me -30min- near the entire chapter. maybe the one beginning w the drayden and alder talk? or the dragonspiral tower one? or maybe theyre the same, its been a long night of binging this entire work. anyway. it set the mood for whatever chapter like i intentionally was like oh this theme is a little foreboding lets play it. and i had it down so low sometimes i could only hear the percussions to it, but it was still there, setting the tone.

otherwise, i found myself only keeping to n music. maybe there were a couple plays of unova e4, way in the very beginning of the first/second chapters, maybe, but for the most part, i kept with n’s songs. the bridge, some, the castle and battle theme, a lot. some renditions of such in b2w2 style. i tried to play through the music of n’s room in the castle, but i had to stop after a little into it, maybe ten minutes, because it was getting all these feelings out of me and i felt like if i played it all i would ‘tire it out’, so to speak, even though that hasnt happened w any of the tracks thus far, but i really want that to be a special one i  have on to draw inspiration from. later into the night/morning, whenever, i did decide to try out a remix of it via the b2w2 track of the same theme. the tune is in a slightly different pitch, but more than that, it gets distorted, almost corrupted, throughout and differentiates itself that way from the original, so i did end up playing through that no problem. i cant recall now if i ever played a theme back to back, i think i switched after the 30min was over, which, understandable, it’d been looping for half an hour. but i think i did play it again maybe once, which is fine. good.

but enough with music meta. its interesting, maybe thats where the draws of ‘where’s n?’ came from, but its not the focus.

oooh boy lets talk about various things that i will address here bc its 5am now and i need to not lose track. the n thing. um. the touko revelations. remember liberty, because the truth will set you free. the hero of truth. the opening chapter remarks. the possible sourgrapes. the viewpoints thing. there is probably more i will get to later in a different post but these are the current things for the morning.

first i wanna talk abt touko, hilda, whatever. small note so i dont appear brash, to ppl who dont really follow my content, i just dont really like the names hilda and hilbert. hilda is slowly growing on me, but missy always called the protag touko, and it really grew on me, and i live the name now, so thats what i always defer to her as. jus a preference thing.

so, i had no idea and i had every idea. oh my god. lu, you are so good at the foreshadowing stuff, serious. a master at it. i didnt pick up on the nimbasa trainer mention, or maybe i did but its been long ago now and i dont remember it. if she appeared before then i already dont remember the callback to it, oops. anyway. it was after that, for sure, if not before, that i did pick up on the brunette trainer and thought ‘damn if that was touko tho thatd be so rad’. really thinking it was in the electronic store in striaton, but that seems so far away from nimbasa like there mustve been something in between but i dont think so? so that. and then in the next, black city? abt the brunette trainer watching the tv, and i think i had the same thought except it was during ghetsis’ speech so between both moments brunette trainer was mentioned. i think i picked up on the repeated mentions of brunette trainer when she and iris locked eyes to see her also packing to leave the center. it was a thought more along the lines of ‘brunette trainers seem to be standing out to me more or are i guess being detailed more than other trainers’ than out of suspicion. i was picking up the repeated characteristic, but more of the notion that it was being named over and over, instead of anything real behind it. like, okay, there are a lot of brown haired trainers around, that works.

it was maybe in icirrus if that was the next thing, i tried to look and think i confirmed that was the next thing based on the recall conversation, so yes. in icirrus, my memory is really failing me sorry!!, somewhere, the first mention or maybe if that first mention was the brunette trainer across the hall in another room, my mind clicked. and it was like, oh, this brunette trainer might actually be all the same person. and i started to think again, wow, what if that person was touko bc i was really passionate abt it and i couldnt come up with who else bc i didnt have the focus i was still actively reading the store yknow? if was nothing about the being followed, i had to wait for the others to catch on and tell the reader before i got that aha. but i did! get! the touko part. it was when iris woke up from the comatose and all those scenes started playing out, maybe she mentioned not disturbing the others or cilan when they were talking, or georgia when she ran off, or something abt the trainer in another room, or a revelation dawned i guess somewhere in those scenes. and i was like oh my god that has to be touko god wow. im really losing my original train of thought i apologize. still recovering from sickness, and the whole long night thing. so something along that thought, but then it sorta got forgotten bc shit got real w virgil and the truth seekers being there, and i didnt recall again until she approached cilan during the counter sheidl -niiiiice throwback, by the way- training, and i was like !!!!!!!!!!!! that HAS to be touko and then she led him away and the whole scene played out and i remember scanning the page briefly, jus flicking my eyes over to see if i saw the namedrop and didnt, so i got entranced in the scene and then benga was like ‘hilda get the other three’ and TOUKO!!!!! WAS THERE OMG!!!! like confirmed, in the flesh, it was great its great what a great thing to add wow. and then the recall conversation happened and i began to pick up and was like wow they were being followed and didnt even remember the brunette trainer mentioned in nimbasa, barely remembered someone with a samurott led the charge to put out the fires, so that was a surprise. of course, that was such an intense scene, and i remember having a small breakdown around then bc burgundy said something about how she couldve been in one of those rooms and that chilled her and it sent me wild bc it was scary to think about, it really was chilling, this story really is dark che wow. 

so i was proud of myself for picking up on that, the touko thing, but i probably wouldve been in the dark completely had i read it and not recently played through white and mind being constantly on that region and those characters right now. 

that was super long. um. next thing is liberty bc i can remember it. the line is, im pretty sure, just remember liberty, because the truth will/can set you free. and its really only because im so into unova right now, but back at the first chapter today, my mind immediately picked up ‘oh liberty island’. except its not island, its liberty garden-island, thing, but still. the liberty just connected, and i had it, and so like when iris busted out like hey we’re not flying to nimbasa we’re going to liberty garden i was like yh guys cmon take a hint. but i really think it was probably creative and thought-provoking to others, a bit of a twister, to liek other readers like this isnt a callout on an easy riddle, jus a notion i picked up on easily. actually i remember the castelia thing confusing me, but there was also some disconnect because the liberty line want being used, it was just being mentioned that everyone seeking the seekers was heading to castelia, like the two were never paired i dont recall of. and it happened every time. i was like okay yes theyre at libery garden, then castelia was mentioned and i was like okay theyre at castelia. they never really crossed so they never crossed in my mind. it wasnt until the group landed in castelia i think that my mind connected, ah yes, liberty garden is off the coast of the city. i do wonder how plasma figured it out though. i think earlier speculation was on the touko-n relationship compromising the location, though im not sure how that would work in the first place, so it seems more likely someone jus picked up on the insinuation like i did, jus made the connection, tho i dunno who.

really quick hero of truth revelation thing. it took me a couple reads to grasp, like iris realized something cilan didnt but he went away and it took me, i had to read it over a few times because she realized something so therefore the readers have to realize as well, and then i made the connection that cilan was related to the hero of truth therefore making him the hero of truth. that couldve been phrased better unless cress and chili are somehow included which i think not, too many motifs, but the point comes across. i might not have made the connection had i not read earlier in the day about iris slipping cilan reshiram’s pokeball, something i stumbled upon before i started reading the entire thing oops so maybe that was a giveaway that helped me work through it, maybe i just connected based on the ancestor stuff, dunno. 

i still havent figured out whos writing the chapter intros and its getting to me!! i dunno if we’re supposed to know yet, at first i felt like cilan, and then a vague collection of others, maybe trip with the camera capture in black city, and then maybe touko at the end tho i feel like something was mentioned that was confidential and that she wouldn’t have known about. then again i suppose sharing stories and then recounting could come into play, in which case benga could also be writing them.. i dont’ feel like its someone currently irrelevant, tho. like, i don’t think it’s luke, or bianca, or someone kinda disconnected like that. its probably a spoiler for you to say whom, which okay, fair, but i hope someone signs off on the intros in the last chapter, or that theres something to pick up on to discover it ourselves, or maybe its not important, but i really gotta know eventually.

someone mentioned days ago about something like not being into wishfulshipping and then something about sourgrapes was mentioned, i really dont remember that well, but i started to pick up on it throughout, especially with all the camping scenes, and remembering you liked sourgrapes so much, and is it possible to confirm that thats a ship in this fic? or, has a possibility? i think i’m picking up on it, but it could be friendship, im not sure.

these next two are the last two for now i think. first, viewpoints, because this story delves into such a cast of characters and i think the same story told from the viewpoint of others would be so interesting, like told through the eyes of benga or touko, or even elesa possibly, and if you ever like wanna divulge in that or after you get done wouldnt mind someone taking a shot at it and working with for accuracy reasons, that would be pretty cool. and you have your first volunteer.

second and last is the n thing. i think a little is just meta, which i want to make a full post on later in time, so this may or may not tie in not sure. just, real brief, isn’t n such an interesting character? i really just, i dunno if i like him like i like others, but i really find his dynamic interesting. keeping it short, bc meta, the boy really grew up differently than a “normal” human. the proper socialization was there, sort of, because he can walk and speak and was educated like hes a math geniusa nd stuff, but he wasn’t socially educated. a lot of people dont realize the two are different, i didnt until i took an intro to sociology course this past fall semester. anyway tho. he really wasnt socially educated, and you can see that through all representations -cant speak for spe actually i havent read the arc yet- even in the anime, though far less likely than i would have liked, having rewatched the n arc a few days ago. the disconnect from people is there. n had tutors, but other than that he was in a room with his only company being pokemon formerly abused by people. that was it. not even normal pokemon, but those he had to gain the trust of first because they were misled by trainers. he doesn’t really know how to act with people. he talks fast, hes very blunt, he doesnt know the meaning of personal boundaries, et cetera. he was, practically, raised in a cult. led to believe only the cult’s beliefs. and its only through getting out of his room and around unova, at least in the game, that he begins to develop his own thouhgts and ideas and morals, that he begins to doubt what hes been preached his whole life. this is getting a bit like so im gonna cut, but i just, n is such an interesting character. the tie in. already, in the tv announcement, his voice is ethereal and i could picture it, could play the sound in my mind based off the anipoke and the gens voices, because both of those are genuinely how n sounds to me, i can see it perfectly it just works like there is no other voice for him. i could picture that when he spoke. and already, with the dreamy, far-off gaze, and it hardening, i can see his characterization is going to be so great in the middleground, and im so excited. i recently finished a fic where his characterization to me was absolutely perfect, and even as it evolved, that standard didnt diminish, because the evolution was so seamless and good that the changes to him felt right, felt realistic.

im realizing now this sounds like a do-good-or-there-will-be-consequences thing, which is not my intention. im just, i really wanted a story with n, one i knew would be good, and the middleground is it at the moment. and i know youll do a good job because i liked tac so much, which featured n, and already its the little things with middleground!n that are already so good, and this was really just me saying thank you and i cant wait, and so thank you and i cant wait for more. i cant wait to see more of n, no matter how small a role, or how big iunno, he plays, its already so good for such a complex character with such a grey background. morally grey, ethically grey, realistically grey, just grey. 

all in all, the middleground is amazing so far, i love it so so much, and once again, i cant wait for more. thank you for such an amazing piece thus far, lu. its past 6am now so its taken me a bit to get through this post, i hope the majority makes sense. and i cant wait to see what comes next with the story.

#the middleground #another long post about another long work wow who wouldve guessed